The semantics of restructuring: Verb meaning, variable binding, and clausal architecture

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter explores some semantic consequences of the functional restructuring approach to exhaustive control. Functional restructuring implies a raising syntax, but the semantic “control” effects of exhaustive control obtain because exhaustive control predicates contain as part of their meaning a variable that must be bound in the syntax: when the subject raises, it is in a position to obligatorily bind this variable, hence giving the predicate semantic access to the subject. Cinque’s cartographic approach to IP structure is used to articulate a novel generalization about whether a predicate restructures: only control predicates that correspond semantically to heads below Tense admit restructuring. This generalization follows automatically from the variable binding approach to exhaustive control, given the independently motivated constraint that the subject of a sentence can be interpreted no higher than [Spec,TP]: restructuring above Tense fails because it results in a variable that is too high to be bound.