The aim of this article is to present a unified explanation of the problematic properties of control construction (split control and partial control) within the framework of the Movement Theory of Control (Hornstein 1999) and Free Merge in Chomsky (2013, 2015). After discussing the peculiar properties of the two control phenomena, I argue that their properties can be straightforwardly accounted for from the hypothesis of Free Merge. Specifically, this paper claims that two different syntactic derivations are involved in split control and partial control, respectively: in the case of the former, two DPs form a set, and in the latter, a DP and a null operator undergo Merge, forming a set. This paper shows that the unique properties of the two control phenomena can be given a natural explanation in our analysis.
1. Introduction
2. Movement Theory of Control
3. Split Control and Partial Control
4. Proposal: Deriving Split Control and Partial Control from Free Merge
5. Conclusion
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