The syntax of Subject Control across an object: on the limitations of the silent PP hypothesis

Abstract

This brief paper constitutes a critical evaluation of the silent PP-hypothesis of Hornstein and Polinsky (2010), a key element in their accounting for the bleeding of the Minimal Link Condition in a movement-based account of Subject Control across an object. It appears that while their evidence for the presence of the silent PP in constructions with the verb promise in English is well motivated, such an assumption cannot be adopted for Polish, a language where the indirect object of subject control verbs and control shift verbs is not found within a PP and can even appear in a structural case (Accusative). Thus from the perspective of comparative studies the inadequacy of the silent PP-hypothesis is a considerable problem for the movement-based approach to control. Yet, as a brief survey of other current solutions to the MLC problem with promise shows, no alternative proposal is free from serious limitations of its own.