REFLECTIONS ON SUBJECT AND OBJECT CONTROL

Abstract

A recurrent problem in linguistic theory has been trying to provide a principled basis for the distinction between subject control and object control verbs, where by 'subject control verb' is understood a main clause verb that requires coreference between its subject and the understood subject of a dependent infinitive (e.g. I tried to leave, I promised you to leave), and by ‘object control verb’ a main clause verb that requires coreference between its object and the understood subject of a dependent infinitive (e.g. I persuaded you to leave). A number of possible solutions are examined, in particular a purely formal principle (the Minimal Distance Principle) and a pragmatic principle rooted in Searle's theory of speech acts. It is concluded that any explanatory account of the subject/object control distinction must be grounded in the pragmatics of speech acts, although in at least some languages, including English, these pragmatic principles have become grammaticalized

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