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Like subject verbs and causal clauses in English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Janet Dean Fodor
Janet Dean Fodor
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
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Extract

Perlmutter claimed (Perlmutter, 1968) that the like subject constraint in English is a deep structure constraint. Apart from being a contribution to a theory of filtering devices in natural languages, this claim is of interest because it is based on the assignment of abstract deep structures containing causal clauses which do not appear in surface structure. For example, Perlmutter proposed deriving the sentence:

(1) ( = (7)) I tried to be arrested.

from the deep structures:

rather than from the more conservative:

(3) ( = (9)) I tried [Pro arrest I]

Like other proposed abstract deep structures, (2) brings out the meaning of the sentence; it predicts paraphrase relations between (1) and the sentences:

Perlmutter presented independent evidence for this analysis, but he also used it to explain away what would otherwise have been counterexample to the claim that the like subject constraint holds over deep structures (the ‘deep subject hypothesis’).

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 1974 , pp. 95 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1974

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References

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