Verbal Complement Clauses: A Minimalist Study of Perception Constructions (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Verbal complement clauses: A minimalist study of perception constructions by Claudia Felser Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach Verbal complement clauses: A minimalist study of perception constructions. By Claudia Felser. (Linguistik actuell/linguistics today 25.) Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1999. Pp. xiv, 278. Perception verbs and sentences have been often studied from a philosophical perspective and a logical point of view by authors such as Jaako Hintikka, Fred Dretske, and Jon Barwise. The study of the syntactic properties of this class of constructions has proven more elusive despite the fact that they have been the focus of attention in transformational grammar since the standard model. Nevertheless, recent developments in generative syntax in general, and in the minimalist program in particular, such as the VPinternal subject hypothesis and the expansion of the category system with the postulation of new functional [End Page 639] projections, have allowed for a new outlook on these constructions. There are two main types of perception complements. When the verb selects a bare infinitive (without a subject) or a participial complement, it induces a direct perception interpretation. When the perception verb is followed by a finite clause or a full infinitive, the associated interpretation is of indirect perception, in Fred Dretske’s terminology (Seeing and knowing, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967). Direct perception constructions require direct physical perception of the perceived event whereas indirect perception constructions normally describe the conclusion that the speaker has arrived at on the basis of what he perceived. Claudia Felser focuses on the first class of constructions and proposes a minimalist analysis which integrates syntactic and semantic concerns. She studies the general conditions under which verbal complements are licensed and provides an explanation for their limited distribution. In the first chapter of the book, F introduces the key concepts of the syntactic framework she adopts. In Ch. 2, she overviews the syntactic and semantic properties of nonfinite perception complements in English, especially with respect to the relationship between bare infinitives and participial complements. The third chapter addresses previous analyses of verbal small clauses. The author presents an alternative in which direct perception complements are treated as maximal projections of the functional head aspect. Bare infinitive and participial complements differ only with respect to the value of the aspectual feature [+/− progressive] located in aspect. Ch. 4 presents the main hypothesis of the book, what F calls the ‘event control hypothesis’. According to this hypothesis, verbs that express direct sensory perception behave as a specific type of control predicate. What distinguishes these verbs from subject or object control verbs, such as promise and persuade, is that the control relation is established between two event arguments. F claims that the syntactic and semantic properties of this construction follow from the interaction between the lexical properties of perception verbs and minimalist principles. For example, perception verbs semantically select an individual or a proposition. In their stage-level use, perception verbs select events, whereas in their individual-level use they select propositional complements. This avoids the need to invoke a separate mechanism of c-selection. In the final chapter, the author examines the crosslinguistic validity of her analysis. She concludes that there are two groups of languages. In the first group, which includes English, German, Dutch, and French, direct perception complements are realized as aspectual phrases. In the second group, comprised by Southern Romance languages, such as Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, these complements are realized as projections of a temporal head. Several properties are shown to follow from this contrast, which corresponds to the fact that in the languages belonging to the second group the infinitival suffix is actually a tense inflection projecting a tense phrase. To conclude, this book is an important contribution to the study of the properties of perception verbs at the syntax/semantics interface. The ideas presented by F, in a careful, elegant, and detailed manner, will probably be also influential in the current theoretical debate concerning the comprehensive theory of the syntax of tense and aspect, and its cross-linguistic repercussions. Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach Ohio State University Copyright © 2001 Linguistic Society of America