Talk:Raising (syntax)

Moved from article
Moved from article:


 * John seems [t to work hard]


 * The verb seem cannot assign the agent role; thus a non-expletive NP won't receive any theta-role which would violate the Theta Criterion (all arguments must be assigned a theta-role). So we have to suppose that the non-expletive NP raised from the Spec-IP position in the embedded clause, where it received the agent-role from the verb.

—RuakhTALK 03:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with my explanation? Russky1802 04:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * This is an encyclopedia entry. This means that you need to explain what you're talking about. (On Wikipedia the need to explain things is slightly lessened by the ease of linking to related articles — you can linkify terms like theta role — but you still need to accommodate your average reader, who does not already understand these things.) A number of your terms require explanation, and some (such as "NP" and "Spec-IP") simply should not be used. Additionally, this is one single entry; insofar as it discusses multiple concepts, some sort of transition is necessary to relate these concepts to each other. (Also, your "explanation" is kind of begging the question, in that it simultaneously assumes that John has an agent role but that seems can't assign the agent role. These are both true statements, but their truth is justified by recognizing seems as a raising verb, not the other way around. Note that your "explanation" wouldn't explain a sentence like "John seems to be angry", where John has a theme role, unless you want to argue that seems can't assign the theme role, either?) —RuakhTALK 04:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your first suggestion. However, I can't agree with the second one that the raising verb "seem" assigns the agent role to an external argument. Please compare the following sentences:

John fell. (unaccusative)

John is reading a book. (transitive)

John jumped over the fence (unergative)

BUT:

* John seems.

* John seems a book.

* John seemed over the fence.

The asterisk * means that the sentence is ungrammatical. So the verb "seem" cannot take an NP-object (like to read), it cannot occur with the subject only (like to fall) and it doesn't take a PP-object, either (like to jump). THAT IS WHY linguists claim that the verb "seem" cannot assign the agent-role. However, if you can give me sentences of the following pattern

X seems. X seems Y. where X and Y are noun phrases all linguists (including me) will change our point of view.

Now your sentence, John seems to be angry. Its structure is as follows:

John seems [t to be angry], where t stands for the NP-trace, the original position of "John" (btw, adjectives as well as nouns do assign theta-roles, cf. John's criticism of the theory or We found John critical of the theory). Please remember that all overt non-expletive NPs must receive a theta-role. The reason why "John" moves in your example is because the tenseless I-head (the particle "to") cannot assign a case, so the Case Filter would be violated. Thus "John" moves to the Spec-IP in the matrix clause where it receives the Nominative case from the [-Pst] I-head.

I'm saying the things that are accepted by the majority of linguists working or who worked in the GB theory framework.

Good luck! Russky1802 06:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I can't agree with the second one that the raising verb "seem" assigns the agent role to an external argument.


 * What? I said no such thing!


 * Also, the GB theory framework is by no means universally accepted. (This doesn't mean you can't use it in the article, but you have to say that you're doing so.)


 * —RuakhTALK 06:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

quote your "explanation" is kind of begging the question, in that it simultaneously assumes that John has an agent role but that seems can't assign the agent role. These are both true statements, but their truth is justified by recognizing seems as a raising verb, not the other way around. unquote

We assume that "John" receives an agent role because of its position, Spec-IP. It's UTAH, proposed by Mark Baker. We assume that the verb "seem" cannot assign a theta-role to the external argument because of the reasons I mentioned in my previous message. Do you see how it works now? Russky1802 07:10, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

some clarification about object-raising
while expect is object-raising: in "She expected him to do that," him is syntactically the direct object of expected, but semantically the subject of to do, and the sentence could be rewritten as, "She expected that he would do that."

I believe you misinterpreted things in your explanation. It is a wide-known fact that the verb "expect" can be either an ECM verb which takes an IP-complement (She expected him to do that) or a subject-control verb (She expected to win the contest: She expected that he would do that) which, in its turn, takes a CP-complement.

However, there is NO subect-to-object raising in "She expected him to do that". Its structure would be as follows: She expected [IP him to do that]

You may find a brief and a very good explanation in Ouhalla, J. (1999). Introducing Transformational Grammar (pp. 166-168 and pp. 197-199). I'm sorry but I have no time explaining the nitty-gritty of syntactic theory for every sentence.Russky1802 18:08, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Is there any empirical difference between saying that something is an ECM verb and saying that it is a subject-to-object raising verb? I always thought that the invention of ECM was the result of being painted into a corner by other assumptions about the distribution of expletives and case assignment. Other linguistic frameworks that do not make these assumptions can analyze expect as an object raising verb without any difficulty. And for the purposes of this article, unless it becomes a much more detailed and high-level discussion of formal linguistics, it seems to me that saying (descriptively, pre-theoretically) that there are four types of verbs — subject/object × raising/control — is sensible. On the other hand, the statements about object-to-object-raising are highly dubious… CapnPrep 19:24, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

ECM verbs
If we assume that there is a subject-to-object raising (NP "him" raises from Spec-IP in the embedded clause to the complement of VP in the matrix clause) it would make NO sense to postulate the existence of ECM verbs. NP "him" would simply get the accusative case from the verb "expect" and there won't be anything "exceptional" about case marking. If we adopt the subject-to-object raising in such constructions we don't need to have ECM verbs at all. Russky1802 19:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * That was exactly my point. CapnPrep 21:04, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

ECM verbs_2
However, the biggest problem for your analysis would be the following: where exactly does it raise? The embedded clause is in the complement position of VP. There would simply be no empty node for the raised subject. V' /   \ V   XP    /  \ NP  I' So NP moves where? Russky1802 20:01, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep in mind that although everyone uses the term "raising", not everyone actually assumes a raising transformation, and the idea of "empty node" doesn't mean much in a lot of frameworks. Similarly, hypotheses/assumptions/principles like the EPP, theta criterion, case filter, UTAH, etc. etc. may not exist in the same form, or at all, in other frameworks, so it is not appropriate to make use of them in the introductory part of this article (i.e., the entire article, at the moment). Eventually it might make sense to have a section about the transformational analysis of raising, with a discussion of ECM and why object raising doesn't exist in this particular model, with its particular assumptions. CapnPrep 21:04, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Raising of non-subjects
I moved this paragraph out of the article: "Further, it is possible for the raised argument to be an object even in the more-embedded clause; for example, consider 'He is easy to please,' where he is syntactically the subject of is (easy) but semantically the object of to please. To allow for such verbs, a more general terminology is used, one that specifies both the syntactic argument type (relative to the raising verb) and the semantic argument type (relative to the verb argument). In this terminology, seem is subject-subject-raising, expect is object-subject-raising (at least in sentences like 'She expected him to do that'), and is (easy) is subject-object-raising. Object-object-raising verbs also exist, as in a sentence like 'I consider him easy to please,' where him is syntactically the object of consider (easy), but semantically the object of to please, and the sentence could be rewritten as, 'I consider it easy to please him.'" English only allows raising (and control) of embedded subjects. The easy example given here as an example of object-to-subject raising is problematic for two reasons: (i) It cannot involve raising, since easy assigns a semantic role to its subject, and (ii) tough-movement (in English) is a non-local dependency, unlike raising (He is easy to want to try to […] please). Also, easy is not a verb, but that's a problem with the current name of the article.

There are (apparently) languages that have raising and control of embedded non-subjects. If these are mentioned in the article (if someone has references), I think we should use the less confusing terms "object-to-subject" and "object-to-object" raising. CapnPrep 10:52, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

object-subject raising
Though I didn't write this article and the passage that you removed, I think there is some point in it. Compare:

Doll was hard [PRO to see t]

What problems does that analysis have? Russky1802 22:05, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't understand what you mean by "compare": this sentence is structurally identical to the original example, so it has the same problems I mentioned above. First, the subject of hard apparently must be referential (unlike the subject of seem or the object of expect). E.g. if one accepts that make it to the church on time contains an expletive object, then the ungrammaticality of *Iti was hard to make –i to the church on time suggests that the object is not simply raised to subject position. Second, the supposed raised object is not necessarily the object of the infinitival complement of the adjective; it can be arbitrarily deeply embedded inside this complement (Dolli was hard to persuade John to tell Mary to get Bill to see –i). CapnPrep 23:52, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

First, the subject of hard apparently must be referential.

Not really. What about such sentences like:
 * It was hard to do it.
 * It is hard to say.

I see nothing referential in expletive subject "it".
 * Your examples do not involve tough-movement/"object raising"! (This is clear in the first example, since do is followed by its DO. The second example is ambiguous, but there is no analysis where the initial DO of say is non-referential it.) So they don't tell us anything about the properties of hard in the other construction. CapnPrep 09:34, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

In your example we have the idiomatic "make it" which is different from "make something": I couldn't make it on time. (non-referential it) BUT: I made a copy of the report. I made it. (referential it)Russky1802 04:46, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Of course make can take a referential DO in other uses. But again, this is irrelevant to the analysis of my example, where the DO is non-referential, and cannot be "raised". CapnPrep 09:34, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Second, the supposed raised object is not necessarily the object of the infinitival complement of the adjective; it can be arbitrarily deeply embedded inside this complement (Dolli was hard to persuade John to tell Mary to get Bill to see –i)

I see lots of things violated in this sentence. The most obvious and simple is that the NP-trace is not bound in its GC, which would violate Principle A. Then the ECP is violated because government is blocked by a kazillion barriers.Russky1802 04:54, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I should have said: my coindexing only indicates coreference (and my "–" is not a trace, it only indicates the canonical position of the unrealized DO of see). I am not suggesting that Doll moves from the end of the sentence to the beginning; I am not suggesting that anything moves at all. I don't know what the transformational analysis of this example would be, but the point is that it must involve something more than raising. CapnPrep 09:34, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

1. Your examples do not involve tough-movement/"object raising"!

Of course they are not. I tried to question your claim that s-selectional features of the adjective "hard" require a [+HUMAN] subject (external argument).

2. do is followed by its DO.

Which framework is it in? Who proposed that? What do you mean by DO? I don't recall such an analysis. it doesn't look like GB or Minimalism.

3. The whole thing about this tough-movement is that it is so un-Chomskian, I mean language-specific (at least, so far). Whta about other languages? Examples from French, German, Latin, Russian, Chuvash, Ancient Greek are welcome.

Russky1802 18:14, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

make it
1. Sorry, I just realized what you mean by DO (direct object). As for the idiomatic "make it" it can't be extracted because the verb and "it" are one constituent (you're welcome to prove the opposite). How can you move the immovable and extract the unextractable? So your example is totally irrelevant for this discussion.

2. I think you are mixing things from traditional grammar with the nothion of object and TG-based grammars where we have complements. In traditional grammar that long sentence would have the Complex Object. There were not any complements in that framework. However, some people stick to some mishmash of classical grammar and GB. It's like wearing a tuxedo at McDonald's. Russky1802 17:47, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Tough movement
Removed from article (sorry): Tough movement (GB interpretation)


 * There has been much debate about such sentences as:


 * John is easy to please.


 * It is easy to please John.


 * While in the second example the analysis is rather obvious we cannot say the same about the first one. At first it seems the structure is as follows:


 * Johni is easy [CP PRO to please ti]


 * However, such an analysis would pose many problems. The chain  would be doubly case-marked, NP John would get [NOM] and the trace would get [ACC]. This would violate the condition on chains (Chomsky 1986), according to which there must be a unique case-marked position and unique theta-position in a well-formed chain. To avoid further problems with case assignment we have to suppose that the trace is not case-marked. It would mean that the trace is [-anaphor, -pronominal]; to put in simply, it is a wh-trace, which is subject to the Bijection Principle (it must be A'-bound by an operator). Thus we have to postulate the existence of an non-overt (null) operator in Spec-CP in the embedded clause. The structure of the sentence would be as follows:


 * Johni is easy [CP Opi PRO to please ti]


 * (for detailed discussion see Haegeman 1994, Chapter 8.4 Non-overt antecedents of wh-movement, pp. 463-473)

As far as I know, there has never been a serious proposal for treating tough-movement as an instance of raising. So it doesn't deserve a whole section in this article, and especially not a section that will be incomprehensible to a large majority of readers. I have added a couple of sentences about this kind of structure, including your reference, but without displaying all the theory-specific technical details. CapnPrep 12:43, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

ok. i don't mind. :) Russky1802 17:38, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Raising: a form of argument control?
I have a problem with the first sentence: In linguistics, raising is a form of argument control... For me, raising and control are clearly separate, if similar. What do you think? -- UKoch (talk) 15:10, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Examples of raising as movement
The intro to the article says "raising constructions involve the movement of an argument from an embedded or subordinate clause to a matrix or main clause". I was looking for an example that showed where the arguments were moving from. After some head scratching I put in those alternate phrasings of the existing examples which I think show the difference between raised and non-raised constructions. Did you revert those because my additions were incorrect, or did you think they were confusing or unnecessary or something? The article as it is now doesn't really explain what movement is happening. Thanks! -- Beland (talk) 14:39, 7 July 2017 (UTC)


 * @Beland, I removed your examples because I thought they help deliver an inaccurate impression about raising structures. At the same, I acknowledge that the start of the article states directly that raising involves movement. The second paragraph of the introduction is, however, more neutral, stating that the "raising" analysis, i.e. the movement analysis, is associated with transformational grammar of the 1970s. I think the article and examples are better if they do not deliver an account of such structures that narrowly adopts one particular school of thought or view of grammar. In other words, some theories of grammar get by with movement, and others without it. --Tjo3ya (talk) 12:56, 9 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Given the two different theories you've laid out, it would be nice to see examples of each. Certainly movement in a deep -> surface transformation is what I learned about in linguistics class in the 1990s at MIT, so that sort of theory is worth discussing, presumably in addition to any alternatives.  The article doesn't really explain what "raising" without movement would be.  Is there some reliable source you could point to that I could read and fix the article based on it? -- Beland (talk) 01:14, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Ungrammatical sentences
The following sentences in the article seem to me to be ungrammatical: b. Sam believed it that someone knew the answer. - Raising-to-object predicate believe occurs with it-extraposition. b. That proves it that Susan is a jackass. - Raising-to-object predicate prove occurs with it-extraposition.

If others agree, these should be excised. Cl ea n Co py talk 00:10, 16 July 2017 (UTC)


 * A quick search in the British National Corpus turned up the following examples:


 * ...I could not believe it that (laughing) these fingers were not going but I'm told that...
 * ...I wanted so much to believe it that I felt that way...


 * Please check for yourself. The BNC is here.--Tjo3ya (talk) 08:05, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

It must be dialectical variation, because they seem totally ungrammatical to me, too.(I'm from Texas.)2600:1700:8C10:8770:0:0:0:33 (talk) 23:41, 14 February 2020 (UTC) Actually, on second thought, after reading more examples from the British National Corpus, as well as the sentences in this article, I realize that I would say sentences like this. I would just never write them. I would interpret it as I said it as one complete sentence (e.g., "I could not believe it") followed by an after thought that I would have otherwise replaced "it" with (e.g. "that these fingers were not going"). If I were to write it, I would probably write something like "I could not believe it — that these fingers were not going [away] — but I'm told that that's quite usual."2600:1700:8C10:8770:0:0:0:33 (talk) 23:54, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Article name - too general?
Since there exists an article about the phonemenon of raising in phonetics/phonology, Raising (phonetics), I think the name of this article should be changed to "Raising (syntax)". "Linguistics" is perhaps too general as only syntactic raising is addressed here, and sound change is a subject of linguistic study too. What are your thoughts? --Lyl27 (talk) 21:10, 4 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Agreed, Article titles should be properly disambiguated, and this one's is not quite there. Kuulopuhe (talk) 17:44, 14 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Agreed, there might be another article dealing with non-syntax use of 'raising' in Linguistics. Sgleason818 (talk) 19:59, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 19 February 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) –  00:03, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Raising (linguistics) → Raising (syntax) – The existence of Raising (sound change) makes the current name too ambiguous. Kuulopuhe (talk) 23:44, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:26, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. The current, ambiguous title should be redirected to the disambiguation page Raising and tagged with Template:R from incomplete disambiguation. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 14:29, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Support (STRONGLY) per nom. The two topics are both linguistic, and it's a bit of an WP:ASTONISH moment to be greeted with the syntax Raising page if you expect the phonetic Raising page, lol. There's no primary topic for this partial/incomplete disambiguation, so it should absolutely be moved. Paintspot Infez (talk) 00:43, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Diving into copyediting, deep end first
Please help me with... I'd like to copyedit the article Raising_(linguistics) and encountered examples, set off with notes, such as:


 * a. Fred seems happy.
 * b. *Seems Fred happy? - Raising-to-subject verb seem cannot take part in subject-auxiliary inversion.
 * c. ??Fred seems not happy. - Raising-to-subject verb seem can hardly license negation.

Question 1: Do I assume the reader knows the meaning of the linguistic punctuation *(ungrammatical), ? (not preferred) and ?? (REALLY not preferred)?

Question 2: Please confirm the correct format for the clarification notes after the example – En dash? Spacing?


 * c. ??Fred seems not happy. – Raising-to-subject verb seem can hardly license negation.

Question 3: Should each group of examples (a-b-c) be separated from the other groups by a blank line?

Thanks! Susan Gleason (talk) 19:34, 12 February 2024 (UTC)


 * Maybe you could use Template:Tooltip for the punctuation? Admittedly, I don't recall how it is on other articles or otherwise a consensus to be followed for this. Kuulopuhe (talk) 11:14, 13 February 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm rereading the rules and think I've fulfilled the request. Thank you Kuulopuhe !