A Case Restriction on Control: Implications for Movement

Abstract

The proper analysis of control has been an active topic of research. Recent proposals by Hornstein (1999, 2001) and Boeckx and Hornstein (2004) advocate treating control as involving raising into theta-positions, eliminating the need for a special control module. This paper introduces a restriction which distinguishes control environments from raising environments: the covert subject in a control construction in Hindi-Urdu cannot have dative case while the covert subject in a raising construction may. This Case Restriction is shown to hold in a wide variety of unrelated languages, but is not universal. In particular, languages with both forward and backward control systematically lack the Case Restriction. Various theories of control are examined with respect to how well they can represent the Case Restriction. The paper concludes that there is no non-stipulatory way to represent the Case Restriction in Hindi-Urdu if control and raising are treated alike.

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