Copy control and partial raising at syntax-semantics-discourse interfaces

Abstract

This paper centres on two complement-control phenomena, namely copy control and partial raising using novel data from Mandarin Chinese. For copy control, conclusions are drawn regarding the overt controllee, including its licensing condition and how it differs from resumptive and intrusive pronouns in the cross-linguistic literature. Copy control helps to draw the dividing line between functional-control vs anaphoric-control equi verbs in Mandarin Chinese. This highlights a key insight that formal control mechanisms need to be determined empirically on the basis of the grammatical properties of individual matrix verbs in individual languages. Regarding partial raising, the paper shows that Mandarin Chinese allows partial raising where the matrix verb subcategorises for an athematic obj. This challenges the existing view that partial raising is an impossible construct. Formal solutions are explored by integrating LFG with Glue Semantics and Partial Compositional Discourse Representation Theory to explicitly model the syntax-semantics-discourse interfaces.