Exploring the edges of Obligatory Control

• Applicant: Dmitrii Ganenkov, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 424782389

The project deals with obligatory control constructions in Aqusha, a Dargwa language of the Nakh-Daghestanian family, with a focus on cross-linguistically rare and theoretically ill-understood patterns. The overarching question asked in this project is: What are the necessary and sufficient syntactic properties of infinitival complements that allow obligatory control to be established? The project will investigate phenomena that lie on the edge of obligatory control with the goal of determining “breaking points” where we can no longer speak of obligatory control, but instead deal with no control on one end of the spectrum and with restructuring on the other side of that spectrum. Three phenomena are the specific subject of this study: (i) unusual behavior of causative infinitival complements under desiderative subject control verbs, where the causative complement is understood as non-controlled and lacking causative semantics; (ii) the requirement that the infinitival complement of an object control verb host causative marking, again without causative semantics, and (iii) backward obligatory control and similar constructions. The project aims at an in-depth description of the empirical picture as well as at developing a theoretical analysis of the phenomena.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants