Talk:Exceptional case-marking

Too technical
I added a on the main page and a  here. Anyone reading the article will understand why... Jalwikip 14:59, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * RE: From the point of view of the lay reader, I agree it might be heavy going (btw I didn't write this article). However, any syntactician would say it contains the nitty-gritty of the ECM verbs (so there is nothing technical there).


 * I think we should either delete all the articles on syntax and linguistics in Wikipedia (coz they will be technical in any case; it's like if you study calculus you have to learn some basic stuff to understand more complicated issues) or have a specialized separate encyclopedias within Wikipedia. russky1802


 * Many articles on syntax and linguistics have a fine introduction, understandable by anyone with *some* form of higher education. This article however starts of directly with a sentense like "(...) verbs capable of granting accusative case to specifiers of infinitive inflection phrases without the aid of a visible complementizer". That is may be a good linguistic definition, but it is way too technical for general public. Also, the section on "ECM verbs in Minimalism" uses many highly specialized terms without referencing them or explaining them ("a covert movement of NP Mary to the matrix Spec-VP, where "Mary" gets [ACC]", "it takes place at LF, thus it is invisible to PF"). Jalwikip 14:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

The real reason for the technicality is that, like several syntax articles on wikipedia, it's written from the perspective of a blinkered GB-er/minimalist with no acknowlegement of any other formal approach to syntax, let alone of honest, empirically careful, informal descriptive linguistics. The modus operandi of narrowly Chomskian syntax is to invent some terms and then gradually hone in on theory-internal definitions for them after the fact, so the only kind of article you can write from such a perspective is a flurry of jargon.

The right solution is of course to have articles on the empirical phenomena (such as ACI constructions) and then have subsections describing various technical analyses. The ECM article should really just be about the GB-theory-internal analysis, linking to the more general ACI page (or even just being a subsection of it).

But alas I have no time for this. I cleaned up the article a wee bit and made it a little more balanced (not hard to do given where it started), but it's still not good. 69.253.236.38 (talk) 23:21, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Cleaning up this page a bit more may indeed be necessary for the average reader, but I would like to point out that from linguist's point of view, it is rather easy to understand. The difficulty with this sort of theory is that it needs quite a lot of explanation to understand the key words. Everything builds on previous things that need explaining. Is there a way to have this article link to a good start on Generative Grammar? For example, is there a way to say "you may first need knowledge found in an article before reading this article"?Jkdeadite (talk) 16:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * from linguist's point of view, it is rather easy to understand: only on the arrogant presupposition that "linguist" is coextensive with "Chomskyan generative grammarian".89.176.31.200 (talk) 13:01, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I am an amateur grammarian at best, who long ago studied Latin in high school, and am generally sympathetic to descriptive approaches to language. While editing the relatively accessible Infinitive article, I consulted this article wanting to understand why in many languages, when an infinitive has a subject, it is typically in the objective or the accusative case. My non-technical explanation of exceptional case marking was that in examples such as the whole infinitive clause's role as object of the main verb (or preposition) overpowers the pronoun's role as subject within the infinitive clause. Something like this level of precision and generality might be suitable for a lay-accessible introduction to this admittedly somewhat specialized topic.CharlesHBennett (talk) 14:13, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I want them to eat their dinner.
 * For him to arrive on time, he must leave immediately.

examples without copula
would the sentences without copulas imply the same phenomenon? for example the structure to believe/think sb. + adj. --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:46, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Wanted: ECM article reorganization and just plain language
Are hordes of readers crashing Wikipedia's gates to find out when ECM was coined as a linguistic term of art, who coined it, or how it relates to accusativus cum infinitivo constructions of Latin? Funny, I don't see any. Editing hints: I'll resist saying that an ECM is, fundamentally speaking, Chomsky's concise way of saying, "Here are some instances of syntax containing verbs that I can't quite explain using a traditional linguistic approach. They are cases marked by extraordinary circumstances. I'll call them extraordinary exceptional case-marking." --Kent Dominic·(talk) 10:27, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) The lead paragraph is full of trivia that belongs in a History section.
 * 2) The bolded elements in the first set of examples needs simpler explanations vis-à-vis causative verbs.
 * 3) The bolded elements of the initial two examples in the second set of examples are merely nominal clauses. (The third example in that set is an archaic construction and barely worth inclusion.)
 * 4) There's no mention that an ECM relates solely to English and, by contemporary linguistic standards, has been outmoded by terminology that is more easily translatable and inter-linguistically applicable.