Abstract
The paper discusses Hungarian infinitival complement clauses containing covert, dative and nominative subjects and argues that the similar patterns in these different types of infinitives are the result of scope and information structure considerations. Sentences with infinitives with overt nominative subjects, therefore, cannot be described either as simply following from Long Distance Agreement as proposed in Szabolcsi (Organizing grammar, 2005, Approaches to Hungarian 11: Papers from the 2007 New York conference, 2009a, NYU working papers in linguistics, 2009b) or as clear instances of backward control but rather as instances of control interacting with left peripheral processes. Following Bartos (KB 120 A titkos kötet. Nyelvészeti tanulmányok Bánréti Zoltán és Komlósy András tiszteletére. MTA Nyelvtudományi Intézet, 2006) but working on an extended set of data I propose a copy theory of movement based analysis where the emergence of the nominative subject within the infinitival clause can be argued to be the result of LF-driven spellout leading to the pronunciation of the lower copy when information structure considerations so require. Complementing the copy theory of movement with a mechanism for doubling a DP can also account for those cases when the subject is spelled out both in the matrix and the infinitival clause, and the existence of patterns when one and the same clause contains more than one realization of the same DP in potentially different forms and discourse functions is also rightly predicted.
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- 1.
The presence of the inflection on the infinitive is optional when it has an overt subject. The inflection triggers the pro-drop of neutral pronominals, as expected. When neither an overt subject nor a visible inflection is present, the sentence receives an arbitrary interpretation.
- 2.
A lot of these sentences need a context and sound unnatural without it. The situation very often improves if we add the framesetting modifier Szerintem ‘in my opinion’ to the beginning of the sentence.
- 3.
In Hungarian, focus does not lift binding violations (cf. Tancredi 1992):
Also, if the lexical DP is pronounced in the finite clause, the only-DP in the infinitival clause has to be a pronoun. The version with another lexical DP is ungrammatical (in other words, copy-control is unattested in Hungarian):
. - 4.
The optionality of the inflection on the infinitive is the result of the obligatory overtness of the subject due to focusing, see fn. 2 as well.
- 5.
Though the movement of is ‘also’-phrases to the left periphery is optional, and, as a result, these DPs could also be in a postverbal position in the matrix clause, Szabolcsi’s tests including the interpretation of the DPs suggest an infinitival position. For this reason we are going to treat only-DPs and also-DPs in a uniform fashion in these sentences.
- 6.
Dative case comes from the possessive environment in the matrix clause as indicated in the glosses.
- 7.
In attempting to show that this is indeed the case we can follow Kornfilt (2007) who defines finiteness for both nominal and verbal domains. In Hungarian, dative subjects surface both in possessive DPs and inflected infinitival clauses, the source always being agreement.
- 8.
The general observation concerning the peripheries of finite and infinitival clauses is that even constituents of the infinitival clause have a more natural position in the left periphery of their selecting clauses (i). We tend to find left peripheral elements in infinitival clauses when something (such as scope considerations) forces the appearance of a constituent there.
- 9.
For an extensive discussion of theta-driven movement see Boeckx et al. (2010).
- 10.
As Bartos (2006) notes, (16) and (17) potentially involve what could be identified as a case of improper movement: moving a constituent to an A-bar position first in the left periphery of the infinitival clause, then to an A-position in the matrix clause. However, as discussed in Bartos, improper movement was defined within Government and Binding Theory under assumptions completely different from the Minimalist approach Hornstein’s Movement Theory of Control is based on. It is far from obvious how the restrictions on movement carry over under the minimalist assumptions concerning movement (i.e. the copy theory of movement), if at all. Actually, as pointed out by Bartos as well, the ban on what is called improper movement could already be questioned on empirical grounds in the GB era. Brody (1993) claims that easy to please constructions actually involve this kind of movement.
- 11.
Such an analysis would also account for the ameliorating effect of frame setting modifiers (cf. footnote 3).
- 12.
I am grateful to one of my anonymous reviewers for drawing Livitz (2013) to my attention.
- 13.
Such a claim takes us back to the licensing conditions of lexical DPs in the infinitive discussed in the previous section concerning (16). Besides Barbosa’s (forthcoming) account of the restriction on postverbal position, the lack of lexical DPs can also be the result of the lack of a TopP in the left periphery of infinitival constructions in the languages where they are excluded.
- 14.
Importantly, having different theta-roles is not sufficient.
- 15.
Based on Reinhart (1983), which advocates the view that principle C is a pragmatic constraint that can be violated, one of the anonymous reviewers asks whether it is possible to have two full DPs in these sentences along the lines shown in (i). If it is the case, this would argue in favor of the movement approach. This is clearly impossible, but I assume that it is due to a number of independent interacting constraints.
I do not have an account of the (lack of the) data, but two observations may turn out to be a good starting point: (a) the Hungarian verb akar ‘want’ can take a finite or an infinitival complement; (b) when akar takes an infinitival complement, we are dealing with obligatory control with an obligatory de se interpretation. If such a construction can be grammatical at all, this excludes the infinitival version of want-sentences. Marginally it may be possible to have a finite version of (i). There certainly are native speakers for whom (iia) is grammatical, as opposed to (iib), which is never acceptable. (iia) can be accepted under highly restricted pragmatic conditions: the speaker actually has to be Peter himself. Such an utterence results in some kind of a distancing effect (something similar to what we find in the English sentence If nobody else does, I will send me a Valentine’s day card), which can be argued to be different from (though not necessarily incompatible with) the de se requirement of the infinitival version.
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Szécsényi, K. (2018). Control and the Left Periphery: The Scope and Information Structure Properties of Hungarian Infinitival Complements with Nominative, Dative, and Covert Subjects. In: Bartos, H., den Dikken, M., Bánréti, Z., Váradi, T. (eds) Boundaries Crossed, at the Interfaces of Morphosyntax, Phonology, Pragmatics and Semantics. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 94. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90710-9_18
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