Re: Raising and Equi-verbs: a birds eye overview

Ray:
[...]
> I've followed the terms up in Crystal as well. I just want to see if got
> things straight. If I haven't, I would appreciate correction from the
> professional linguists on this list.
You have things straight.

[...]
> By referring to 'surface structure' in his definition, Trask is by
> implicitly relating 'raising verbs' to transformational grammar theory;
> Crystal is more explicit and says of 'raising': "A type of rule recognized
> in some models of transformational grammar".
>
> Both Trask and Crystal quite explicitly relate 'control verbs' to
> Government Binding theory of grammar which both state to be derived from
> transformational grammar theories.
>
> Therefore, it seems to me, the validity of these terms must be dependent
> upon the validity of the transformational grammar theory and, in
> particular, on the validity of GB theory.
A sensible notion, but in fact the terms are used as general descriptive
labels by all stripes of formal grammar. The groundwork for the formal
study of syntax was laid in the 1960s by people working in TG, so
their terminology has stuck around, even though their analyses often
haven't. 'Raising' and 'Equi' date from the 60s. 'Control' dates
from (I hazard) the late 70s.

> The distinction between control-verbs and raising-verbs does not, in any
> case, seem to me to be so clear cut as one or two have suggested. I have
> shown that _both_ types of verb (if, for the sake of argument, we accept
> the distinction) often map to the same accusative-and-infinitive
> construction in Latin. I think, however, I would find it difficult to
> convince all Latin scholars that there is a distinction between 'raised
> accusative-and-infinitives' and 'controlled accusative-and-infinitives' -
> and, indeed, I am far from persuaded that there is any such useful
> distinction.
The distinction is very clear-cut, but as I have pointed out in
earlier messages, it is a semantic distinction. In English, and
perhaps in Latin, the evidence for a purely syntactic distinction
between them is scanty at best, but if you hold, as most syntactic
theory holds, that it is syntax that builds up the semantic
structure of the sentence (particularly with regard to matching
predicates to their arguments, i.e. the syntagmatic dimension
of semantics), then the distinction is perforce syntactic.

--And.

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