QR Out of Control∗

Patrick D. ElliottUniversity College Londonp.elliott@ucl.ac.uk

Gary ThomsNewcastle University

gary.thoms@gmail.com

March 31, 2015WCCFL 33, SFU, Vancouver

1 Introduction

• The focus of our talk today: the grammar of Quantifier Raising (QR).

• Starting roughly with May (1977), there has been a long line of work attempting toreduce restrictions on quantifier scope to restrictions on syntactic movement. The idea:quantifiers take scope via covert movement (QR). Restrictions on quantifier scope boildown to restrictions on movement.1

• QR means that scope ambiguity = structural ambiguity, allowing us to maintain anotion of transparent LF (in the sense of von Stechow 1996).

(1) Some girl likes every boy.

a. LF 1: Some girli every boyj ti likes tj. ∃ > ∀b. LF 2: Every boyj some girli ti likes tj. ∀ > ∃

• It also explains why (at least some) islands for syntactic movement are scope islands(Rodman 1976).

(2) a. A doctor will examine the possibility that we give every new patient atranquilizer. *∀ > ∃(cf. *Which patients will a doctor examine the possibility that we give t atranquilizer?)

b. A doctor should worry if we sedate every new patient. *∀ > ∃(cf. *Which patients should a doctor worry if we sedate t?)

(examples from Reinhart 1997)

∗Thanks to Klaus Abels, Hans van de Koot, Yasu Sudo, Rob Truswell, all of our English informants(too many to list here), and anonymous WCCFL reviewers for useful feedback.

1There are of course non-movement analyses of quantifier scope. A couple of prominent examples areCooper Storage (Cooper 1983), and quantifier scope in the framework of Glue Semantics (Asudeh andCrouch 2001). We do not have the time here to embark on a detailed comparison between QR vs. non-QRapproaches, but we note that these latter approaches face difficulties in accounting for scope-rigidity.

1

• QR seems to be even more constrained than typical cases of A’-movement, such aswh-movement, e.g., it typically cannot move out of a finite clause, it cannot re-orderinternal arguments in the English Double Object Construction, etc.

• There have been numerous proposals attempting to derive these restrictions by con-straining QR in the syntax. Some representative examples:

– QR as A-movement (Kitahara 1994, Hornstein 1995, Beghelli and Stowell 1997).

– QR subject to Superiority (Bruening 2001).

– QR as scrambling (Johnson 2000).

– QR subject to a kind of Relativized Minimality (Neeleman and van de Koot 2009).

– QR as Object Shift (Drummond 2013).

• Exisiting proposals have been successful in deriving some of the restrictions on QR,but a unified account still seems out of reach.

• In this paper, we start out by looking at restrictions on scope out of infinitival clausesas a window into the grammar of QR. We argue for a general constraint on QR: a DPmay not QR over an overt DP, and show how this constraint can be invoked to explainmany of the restrictions which have been observed in the literature.

• A roadmap for the talk:

– §2: restrictions on QR out of infinitives.

– §3: The Intervention Constraint on QR.

– §4 Some further refinements and predictions of the constraint.

– §5: The Reconstruction Requirement on inverse scope.

– §6 Conclusion and directions for future research.

2 Restrictions on QR from infinitives

• On the basis of examples such as (3a), it is often argued (Johnson 2000, Moulton 2008,Wurmbrand 2013) that DPs can QR out of control infinitivals.

(3) a. A different girli wants [PROi to dance with each boy]. ∀ > ∃b. Johni wants [PROi to marry each woman]. ∀ > want

• (3a) requires the embedded universal to QR to a position above the matrix subject (orat least above a trace of the matrix subject – more on this later), whereas (3b) requiresthe embedded universal to QR to a position above the intensional embedding verb.

• Control complements within control complements are also transparent.

(4) A different girli wanted [PROi to try [PROi to dance with each boy]]. ∀ > ∃

• This is striking in view of the well-known fact that QR out of a finite clausal complementis typically impossible (though see Farkas and Giannakidou 1996, Kennedy 1997, andKayne 1998 for classes of exceptions).

2

(5) a. A different teacher believed [CP that Mary was tutoring each strugglingstudent]. *∀ > ∃(cf. Which student did the teacher believe that Mary was tutoring t?)

• So what restricts QR with some clausal complements but not others? Why is it re-stricted at all?

• Our starting point: not all infinitives are alike with respect to allowing QR.

2.1 Transparent Infinitives

• Transitive object control: infinitival complementation with predicates like persuade,ask. These do not block scope inversion, either where an embedded object2 scopes overthe matrix subject or object (the controller):34

(6) a. Mary has persuaded at least one studenti [PROi to read each book on thereading list] ∃ > ∀, ∀ > ∃

b. A different student persuaded Maryi [PROi to read each book on the read-ing list] ∃ > ∀, ∀ > ∃

• Raising infinitives: it’s often said that raising infinitives are opaque for QR, giventhe lack of inverse scope in examples like (7) (Fox 1999). The availability of inversescope in (8) is typically attributed to scope reconstruction of the subject down theA-chain.

(7) Johni seems to a different teacher [ti to be likely [ti to solve each of theseproblems]]. ∃ > ∀, *∀ > ∃

(8) Someonei seems to the teacher [ti to be likely [ti to solve every one of theseproblems]]. ∃ > ∀, ∀ > ∃

• But embedded object DPs can scope over matrix material:

(9) Maryi can appear ti to be dating each of her male friends.

2 Throughout we typically consider cases where objects embedded within infinitives scope out of thoseinfinitives over other arguments, such as matrix subjects, as cases that demonstrate the upper bounds ofQR from those environments. However it should be emphasised that the same results hold if we test QRover adjuncts in all cases that we have tested; that is, there’s nothing special about embedded objectsand wide-scope-taking (cf. Hornstein 1995, Kennedy 1997).

3 We corroborated these judgements with ten native English speakers, although one of our informantsrejected inverse scope in an example structurally parallel to (6b). We’re not sure as of yet what to makeof this inter-speaker variation.

4 Truswell (2013) (building on Neeleman and Truswell 2006) claims that scope inversion with objectcontrol is more restricted than this. His data:

(i) Someone persuaded Maryi [PROi to read every book on the reading list] ∃ > ∀, *∀ > ∃

We agree that inverse scope is degraded with every, but we have also found that few speakers object to(6b). We’re interested in the upper-boundedness of QR, rather than giving a full account of the differentscopal properties of different quantifiers, so in what follows we focus upon examples with each as thewide-scoping quantificational determiner, since it seems to be the most “mobile” of the determiners thattakes scope via QR (Beghelli and Stowell 1997, Aguero Bautista 2001).

3

a. It can appear that Mary is dating all her male friends. (can appear > ∀)b. Each of Mary’s male friends is s.t. it can appear that she is dating him.

(∀ > can appear)

• So it looks like a DP can in principle QR out of a raising infinitive. This renders theabsence of inverse scope in examples like (7) mysterious! We come back to this in §2.2.

• Note that scope over the embedding predicate can’t be explained via reconstruction.This is also possible with control verbs, for instance with intensional verbs like promise:

(10) Maryi promised [PROi to respond to each of her admirers].promise> ∀, ∀ > promise

• ECM infinitives: Wurmbrand (2013) claims that so-called ECM infinitives with verbslike expect are transparent for QR.

(11) Someone expects Sue to marry each boy. ∃ > ∀, %∀ > ∃

• The embedded object can also scope over the ECM subject:

(12) Sue expects a different boy to dance with each girl. ∃ > ∀, ∀ > ∃

• We should note that the results of our informal questionnaire study indicated that themajority of speakers actually find inverse scope degraded in some infinitives that aredescribed as “ECM” in the literature, but we agree with the judgments reported byWurmbrand here.

2.2 Opaque Infinitives

• Puzzle: other infinitives which are only slightly different seem to be opaque for QR.

• Infinitives with for-complementizer and overt subjects (sometimes describedas ECM): Johnson (2000) notes that want with overt for is opaque for QR:

(13) A different student wanted for you to read every book. ∗∀ > ∃(Johnson 2000, p. 11)

• As mentioned above, for some speakers, though far from all, the same holds when C isnull:

(14) A different student wants his best friend to read each book. %/*∀ > ∃

• Transitive subject control: for those speakers who allow it at all,5 subject controlinfinitives with embedding verbs like promise are much more opaque than the object

5 As we allude to here, some speakers find subject control over an indirect object highly degraded.

(i) %Johni promised Mary [PROi to leave].

This inter-speaker variation doesn’t seem to boil down to dialect, SES, gender, or age (Robyn Orfitelli,p.c., based on an informal study of ∼1000 speakers). This variation remains, to our knowledge, un-explained, although many theories of control do predict transitive subject control to be marked (e.g.,

4

control cases (Truswell 2013). For almost all speakers, embedded objects cannot scopeover the matrix object.

(15) Maryi promised someone [PROi to read every book on the reading list]∃ > ∀, *∀ > ∃

• For most, though not all (cf. Truswell 2013), the embedded object cannot scope overthe matrix subject.

(16) A different studenti promised Mary [PROi to read every book on the readinglist] ∃ > ∀, %/*∀ > ∃

• Raising infinitives with experiencers: recall the examples taken to show thatraising infinites are opaque for QR – they all involved PP experiencers:

(7) John seems to a different teacher to be likely to solve every one of these problems.∃ > ∀, *∀ > ∃

• Note that experiencers also seem to preclude wide scope readings for embedded quan-tifiers with respect to the embedding predicate:

(17) a. Mary can appear to her mother to be dating each of her male friends.*∀ > can appear

(cf. Mary can appear to be dating each of her male friends, ∀ > can appear)

• The effect of the experiencer is not clearly detectable when we consider inverse scopewith embedded object and matrix subject:

(8) Someonei seems to the teacher ti to be likely ti to solve every one of theseproblems. ∃ > ∀, ∀ > ∃

• Inverse scope can be obtained here without QR of the object out of the infinitive, byfirst reconstructing the matrix subject to the foot of the A-chain, and the QRing theembedded DP to a position higher than the base position of the matrix subject (insidethe infinitive).6

Rosenbaum’s 1970 Minimal Distance Principle). The judgements reported in this section have beencorroborated with speakers who find examples such as (i) fully acceptable.).

6 Note that the embedding verb seem also takes scope. If reconstruction into the raising clause isnecessary for object>subject scope, we make the following predictions:

(i) a. seem > every > someb. *every > seem > somec. *every > some > seem

Considering the two readings predicted to be unavailable, (ib) would involve reconstructing the matrixsubject into the raising clause, and QRing the embedded DP out of the raising clause. (ic) would involvesimply QRing the embedded DP out of the raising clause to a position above the matrix subject. Inboth cases, QR out of the raising clause is predicted to be problematic. We do not have the time hereto attempt to test these predictions thoroughly.

5

(18) [TP someonei [VP seems [TP every battlej [TP tix to have [VP died in tj]]]]]

• Truswell on control: Truswell claims that control infinitives are always opaque forQR; inverse scope requires reconstruction down the control chain, just as has beenclaimed for raising infinitives.7

• On this view, the controller and PRO form a (non-movement) chain, and the controllermay take scope at either the foot or the head of the chain.

• As discussed, a DP embedded in a control infinitival can scope over non-controllermaterial in the matrix clause.

(19) Johni remembered [PROi to close each window]. ∀ > remember

• (19) has a reading which can be paraphrased as follows: for each window x, Johnremembered to close x. Likewise, an embedded DP can apparently take scope oversentential negation:

(20) Janei didn’t manage [PROi to solve each problem on the exam]. ∀ > not

• Additionally, An embedded DP can take scope over a matrix adverbial:

(21) Janei tried twice [PROi to pass each exam that year]. ∀ > twice

• Truswell’s account is too restrictive; it fails to allow an embedded DP to scope out of acontrol clause at all. We take the data above to indicate that a DP may, in principle,QR out of a control clause, contra Truswell.

3 The Intervention Generalization

• Consider again QR out of a control infinitive vs. QR out of a for-infinitive.

(22) a. A different personi wants [PROi to cheat each customer]. ∀ > ∃b. A different personi wants for [DP the local conman] [PROi to cheat each

customer]. *∀ > ∃

• A perspicuous difference between (22a) and (22b) is the presence of an intervening DPin (22b) but not (22a)8. It looks like an alternative way of describing the data is thatan embedded DP may only take scope over a matrix DP if there is no interveningDP between the matrix and embedded DPs.

• In generalization form:

7An obvious way to implement this idea would be in terms of the Movement Theory of Control(Hornstein 1999), but Truswell rejects this for independent reasons. Instead, Truswell proposes thatmovement and reconstruction should be dissociated; reconstruction is possible between two positionswhich stand in a ‘grammatical dependency’ in the sense of Koster (1987), Neeleman and Van de Koot(2002).

8We remain agnostic as to whether or not PRO is in fact present in the syntax.

6

(23) The Intervention Generalization (to be refined): [...DP1...[...α...[...DP2...]]](*DP2 > DP1, where α is an overt DP )

• We can redescribe this with the following constraint on QR, conceived of as a covertmovement operation where the higher copy of the QRd DP is deleted:

(24) The Intervention Constraint on QR (to be refined): *[...DP2...[...DP1...[...DP2...]]](where DP2 undergoes QR and DP1 is an overt DP)

• For this talk we focus on motivating the constraint and put deriving it to one side forthe most part... but come see our poster at GLOW!

• Intervention effects have been observed in various corners of grammar in the literaturein the last 20 years (Beck 1996, Pesetsky 2000, Chomsky 2000, Cable 2007, Boskovic2011 Hartman 2012, Bruening 2014a, Kotek 2014), so if the constraints on QR areto be characterised as intervention effects, we make further predictions about exactlywhat will intervene for QR.

• In a recent discussion of intervention in tough movement constructions, Bruening(2014a) critically reassesses many so-called “defective intervention” that have previ-ously been analysed in terms of “activity” and case-assignment and argues that somesuch intervention effects may be more general, with arguments and adjuncts interveningalike.

• If this is right for QR, we make a prediction: adjuncts will intervene for QR, justlike arguments do. This prediction is borne out: matrix adjuncts block inverse scopein control constructions.9

(25) a. A different professori offered PRO to supervise each student. ∀ > ∃b. A different professori offered at [DP the meeting] [PROi to supervise each

student] *∀ > ∃

• Note that the effect disappears if the adjunct is in some non-intervening adjoinedposition:

(26) a. At [DP the meeting], a different professori offered PRO to supervise eachstudent. ∀ > ∃

b. A different professori offered [PROi to supervise each student] at [DP themeeting] ∀ > ∃

• But it also reappears if the adjunct shows up in the embedded clause in an interveningposition:

(27) a. A different professori wanted PRO to try PRO to meet each student.∀ > ∃

b. A different professori wanted PRO to try at [DP some point] PRO to meeteach student. *∀ > ∃

9 We follow Pesetsky (1996) a.o., in assuming that DPs c-command out of containing PPs (which canbe conceived of as case layers of DP, though see Bruening 2014b for a reassessment of the relevant facts).

7

• This adjunct intervention effect is general to the other scope inversion configurations,at least when we can sure of where the adjunct is located.10

• At this point it’s worth noting that the ability of adjuncts to count as interveners forQR undermines one possible argument for Truswell’s reconstruction account, namelyso-called trapping effects.

(28) Someonei struggled with [DP himselfi] [PROi to turn down each reward].*∀ > ∃

• Principle A bleeds scope reconstruction (Fox 1999), and therefore Truswell accuratelypredicts that (28) lacks an inverse scope reading.

• This line of argumentation fails to take into account the intervention effect we see withadjuncts more generally, and in fact if we minimally alter (28) such that Principle Ais no longer relevant, the inverse scope reading is still unavailable.

(29) Someonei struggled with [DP the headmaster] [PROi to turn down each reward].*∀ > ∃

• What about A/A′-traces? We have already seen that A-traces cannot count as inter-veners, since reconstruction can feed inverse scope with raising infinites. We will alsoneed to invoke QR over an A-trace to derive inverse scope between subject and objecteven in a simple transitive sentence (see §5).

• A′-traces on the other hand we think do seem to count as interveners (and, if our syntaxis cyclic, the constraint needs to be stated representationally). We put this issue toone side for now.

4 Refinements and Predictions

• In addition to the basic cases discussed already, the constraint in (24) derives a wholehost of scope freezing effects, including those introduced earlier.

• We come back to infinitives shortly, but after a detour on some simpler cases first.

10 One possible reaction: the matrix adjunct triggers rightward movement of the control infinitival;it’s the status of the control infinitival as a moved element that is problematic.

Note however that both overt extraction and scope reconstruction (as diagnosed by the narrow-scopereading of how many; see Cinque 1990, Cresti 1995) are possible with these apparently extraposedcomplements:

(i) How many essays did John offer to proofread.

a. For what n, there are n-many essays x s.t. John offered to proofread x. (wide-scope reading)b. For what n, John offered to proofread n-many essays. (narrow-scope reading)

(ii) How many essays did John offer at the meeting to proofread.

a. For what n, there are n-many essays x s.t. John offered at the meeting to proofread x.(wide-scope reading)

b. For what n, John offered at the meeting to proofread n-many essays. (narrow-scope reading)

8

4.1 Scope Freezing in the English Verb Phrase

• It is well known that the Double Object Construction (DOC) in English exhibits ascope freezing effect, unlike the prepositional dative construction (Larson 1998).

(30) a. John gave a different student each book. IO>DO, *DO>IOb. John gave a different book to each student. DO>IO, IO>DO

• This effect follows from (24) if we adopt a particular approach to the syntax of theEnglish VP, specifically the one in Janke and Neeleman (2012).

• Janke and Neeleman (2012) argue that the structure of the English VP is more flexiblethan is often assumed. In the DOC, it is claimed that a descending structure (i.e.,a Larsonian VP shell; see Larson 1988, Janke and Neeleman 2012) is the only oneavailable, as in (31a). An ascending structure, as in (31b) is ruled out. This is dueto an independently motivated Case Adjacency constraint, which requires both IOand DO to be adjacent to the verb (or its trace).11

(31) a. Descending VP, IO>DO, *DO>IOTP

DP

John

vP

v

v V

gave

VP

DP

a different student

V’

V DP

every book

11 The precise formulation of Case Adjacency adopted by Janke and Neeleman (2012) is given below.

(i) Case Adjacency

a. A case-marked DP cannot be preceded by any XP in its case domain.b. The case domain of a DP consists of the DP itself and any constituents linearly intervening

between the DP and the head licensing its case.

9

b. *Ascending VPTP

DP

John

T’

T VP

V’

V

gave

DP

a different student

DP

every book

• In the descending structure (31a), inverse scope necessarily involves movement of thedirect object every book over the overt indirect object DP a different student. Sincewould involve QR crossing an overt DP, we correctly predict frozen scope.

• This predicts that the direct object in a DOC will always be unable to scope overthe subject, since the indirect object will always intervene. This seems to be correct,although for reasons that are obscure to us these judgments are sometimes less clearthan with DO>IO scope inversion.12

(32) a. A (different) teacher gave [DP the best student] every book. *∀ > ∃b. At least two judges awarded [DP the winner of the competition] every

medal. *∀ > at least two

• Not all ditransitives are alike wrt scope though. Janke and Neeleman (2012) pre-dict that the prepositional dative construction is ambiguous between an ascendingstructure, as in (33a), and a descending structure, as in (33a), since case adjacency issatisfied in both.

12See also Appendix A for some interesting effects of changing the IO to a pronoun.

10

(33) a. Ascending VP, IO>DO, (*DO>IO)TP

DP

John

T’

T VP

V’

V

gave

DP

a different book

PP

to every student

b. Descending VP, DO>IO, (*IO>DO)TP

DP

John

vP

v

v V

gave

VP

DP

every book

V’

V PP

to a different student

• Under the ascending structure (33a), DO>IO scope reflects surface c-command. IO>DOscope reflects surface c-command under the descending structure (33b). The greaterflexibility in scope in the prepositional dative construction thus reflects the availabilityof both descending and ascending structures. QR is not needed to invert scope, and sothe intervention constraint is not relevant.

• This also predicts that prepositional datives should differ from DOCs wrt the effectwhere the second DP in the VP can scope over the subject. This is again correct. Bothinternal arguments can in fact scope over the subject.

(34) a. A (different) teacher gave [DP books] to every student. ∀ > ∃b. At least two judges awarded every medal to [DP the winner of the compe-

tition]. ∀ > at leasttwo

11

4.2 Transitive control revisited

• Our key claim: the structural ambiguity which we just invoked to account for thedifference between DOCs and prepositional datives is the same one which accounts forthe difference between subject and object control.

• Recall that transitive subject control infinitives were scope frozen: embedded DPscould not QR out over either the matrix object (for all speakers) or the matrix subject(for the vast majority of speakers).

• Intriguingly, Larson (1991) reports that transitive subject control with promise sharesvarious properties in common with DOCs, where the control infinitive corresponds tothe DO and the controller corresponds to IO. A quick summary of the properties inquestion:

– promise has a DOC counterpart, e.g. John promised Mary a sports car

– the IO resists extraction for some speakers, like DOCs, whereas the IP can be ex-tracted, again like DO of DOCs.

(35) a. ??Who do you think John promised to leave?b. ??Who do you think John {gave/promised} a sports car?

(36) a. What did John promise Mary? (ans: to leave by five o’clock)b. What did John {gave/promised} Mary? (ans: a sports car)

– DO/IP are obligatory, IOs are more optional.

(37) a. John promised to leave.b. ??John promised Mary.

• Thus we may conclude that the IP complement of promise is a direct object, and henceit must be first-merged as the lowest complement transitive control structures, just likewith DOCs. If this is so, it is stuck with a descending structure, where the matrixobject asymmetrically c-commands the IP, and as a result the matrix object alwaysintervenes for QR of any DP from within the IP.

(38) TP

DP

John

vP

v

v V

promised

VP

DP

a different student

V’

V IP

to read each book

12

• This leads us to expect frozen scope, deriving the right result.

• Larson contrasts subject control promise with object control persuade, where the latterdiffers quite systematically wrt these properties and instead patterns quite stronglywith the prepositional dative construction, where the control infinitive correspondsto the indirect object and the controller corresponds to the direct object. A quicksummary:

– persuade has no DOC counterpart, e.g. *John persuaded Mary a conclusion

– the IO cannot be extracted, like prepositional datives, whereas the IP cannot beextracted, again like DO of DOCs.

(39) *What do you think John persuaded Mary? (*to leave by five)

(40) Who do you think John persuaded to leave?

– IO/IP are optional, DOs is obligatory and fine on its own.

(41) a. *John persuaded to leave.b. John finally persuaded Mary.

• So transitive object control is more like a prepositional dative construction in thisregard. We thus propose that it is also subject to the structural ambiguity that isavailable with prepositional datives, allowing both ascending and descending structures.

• With the ascending structure, the matrix object does not c-command the IP, so it isnot an intervener for QR and hence we get the right result that the object control IPis transparent for QR over the matrix subject and object:

(42) TP

DP

John

T’

T VP

V’

V

persuaded

DP

a different person

IP

to read each book

• For inverse scope, the embedded object must QR to some matrix position, where itwill c-command at least the matrix object. Crucially, it is not subject to (24), sinceits base position is not c-commanded by the object.

13

• Question: why do promise and persuade differ in having DOC/dative frames? Wedon’t have an answer, nor do Janke and Neeleman give us such a solution, but it isprob related to the weirdness of subject control.

4.3 Raising and for-infinitives

• We saw for-infinitives already: scope-freezing in these cases follows straightforwardly.The presence of the overt complementizer for ensures that the potential intervener youis unambiguously within the embedded IP.

(43) A different student wanted for you to read every book. ∗∀ > ∃(Johnson 2000)

• The only plausible analysis is that it is an ECM-marked subject, and therefore it c-commands the embedded object and all other stuff inside the IP. Hence (24) rules outQRing the embedded object. (we come back to scope inversion of embedded subjectand object shortly)

• Raising: we correctly predict the absence of inverse scope between embedded DPsand experiencers, since the experiencer c-commands into the raising infinitive and solong QR out of the infinitive is restricted by (24).

(44) #This soldier seems [PP to someone] to be likely to die in every battle.

• This only follows if raising infinitives only work in a descending structure. This iscorrect: seem pattern with promise in various ways, setting it aside as a DOC-likedescening structure

– seem has a DOC-like counterpart, e.g. John seemed nice to me

– the IO resists extraction for most speakers, like DOCs (the IP cannot be questionedbecause it contsins a trace of A-raising).

(45) ??To whom do you think John seemed to be drunk?

– DO/IP are obligatory, IOs are more optional.

(46) a. John seemed to leave.b. *John seemed to Mary.

14

(47) TP

DP1

this soldier

vP

v

v V

seems

VP

PP

to someone

V’

V IP

to be likely to die in every battle

• (24) predicts frozen scope here, the right result.

4.4 Apparent ECM/raising-to-object infinitives

• ECM again: (24) predicts that an embedded DP should not be able to take scopeover the matrix subject, as this would involve QR over the ECMed subject. As wehave observed, this appears to be correct for some speakers:

(48) A different teacher wanted [DP John] to read [every book]x×

before tomorrow.

• A DP embedded in an ECM clause can take scope over the ECMed subject. We comeback to how to account for this at the end of §5.

(49) John wanted a different student to read every book.∀ > ∃

• However things are not so straightforward: many speakers report to us that these so-called ECM cases with want are OK with objects scoping over matrix subjects, eventhough pretty much all speakers we asked agreed with Johnson’s judgments on thecases with overt for.

• It’s even worse with “true” ECM verbs like believe, which as Wurmbrand 2013 notesare transparent for QR:

(11) Someone expects Sue to marry each boy. ∃ > ∀, %∀ > ∃

• The standard analysis for these is that the embedded subject undergoes raising-to-object, and so this landing site for the ECM subject Sue absolutely must c-commandinto the embedded clause.

15

• Classic evidence for RTO: the derived object can be passivized, unlike “ECM” subjectsin want-complements.

(50) a. Sue was expected to marry every boy.b. *Sue was wanted to marry every boy.

• If Sue undergoes RTO, it surely must c-command into the IP and thus intervene,incorrectly predicting intervention for QR from within the IP.

• But is this analysis forced? While the passivized version of the ECM infinitive requiressuch an analysis, the regular version need not require such an analysis.

• Turning once more to our DOC/prepositional dative comparisons, ECM infinitives aremuch more like a prepositional dative/object control than a DOC/subject control, withthe embedded subject looking more like the direct object of the matrix clause and theIP like an indirect object.

– ECMs have no DOC counterpart, e.g. *John believed/expected Mary a fool,

– the IO/infinitive cannot be extracted, like prepositional datives and persuade, whereasthe IP cannot be extracted, again like DO of DOCs.

(51) *What do you think John believed/expected Mary? (*to be a fool)

(52) Who do you think John believed/expected to be? (a fool)

– IO/IP are optional, DOs is obligatory and fine on its own.

(53) a. *John believed to be peaceful.b. John believed Mary.

– The IP and the direct object definitely cannot be reordered.

(54) a. *John persuaded to leave Mary.b. *John believed/expected to be a genius Mary.

• Our proposal: ECM believe can get a descending or an an ascending structure, and onthe ascending structure there is no RTO but rather transitive object control. This isthe analysis that we require for the infinitive to be transparent for QR.

16

(55) TP

DP

Someone

T’

T VP

V’

V

believed

DP

Sue

IP

PRO to marry each man

• Prediction: if the IP is transparent, the matrix object should behave like it’s a con-troller rather than a raised argument. So it should not reconstruct (for scope or idiomreconstruction), or work as an expletive. Some suggestive evidence: when the matrixobject is an idiom chunk, inverse scope is degraded.

(56) a. At least one person expected advantage to have been taken of each taxloophole. *∀ > ∃

b. A different investigator expected advantage to have been taken of eachtax loophole. *∀ > ∃

(57) a. At least one person expected Murdoch to use each tax loophole. ?∀ > ∃b. A different investigator expected Murdoch to use each tax loophole.

?∀ > ∃

5 The Reconstruction Requirement

• Recall our formulation of the Intervention constraint:

(24) The Intervention Constraint on QR: *[...DP2...[...DP1...[...DP2...]]](where DP2 undergoes QR and DP1 is an overt DP)

• It may seem like (57) immediately runs into issues when we try to derive even the mostbasic cases of inverse scope. Consider the inverse scope reading in a simple transitivesentence, where the object scopes over the subject:

(58) Some girl kissed every boy. ∀ > ∃

• According to the standard QR theory of quantifier scope (May 1977), (58) should beassigned the (simplified) LF in (59):

17

(59) TP

DPi

every boy

TP

DP

some girl

T’

T VP

V

kissed

ti

• If we assume a more sophisticated syntax however, there is an alternative route to theinverse scope reading, as illustrated by (60).

(60) TP

DPi

some girl

T’

T vP

DPj

every boy

vP

ti v’

v VP

V

kissed

tj

• According to current syntactic orthodoxy, the subject of a finite clause undergoesEPP-driven A-movement from a specifier in the verbal projection (represented here asspec vP for the sake of perspicuity), to the matrix subject position, spec TP. Giventhat A-movement allows reconstruction for scope, inverse scope may be derived byfirst QRing the object DP to a position above the trace of the subject DP, and thenreconstructing the subject to its trace position. Note that this second LF does notviolate the intervention constraint on QR, since QR takes place over an A-trace.

• According to fairly standard assumptions, (59) and (60) should both be possible deriva-tions for the inverse scope reading of (58). Many authors however have argued that(60) is the only derivation available for scope inversion of the subject and object (seee.g. Hornstein 1995, Johnson and Tomioka 1998, Fox 2000, Nevins and Anand 2003,Bobaljik and Wurmbrand 2012, Thoms 2013).

• One argument from Johnson and Tomioka (1998). First, some student is a PPI, whereastwo students isn’t.

(61) a. I have not met some student. *not > ∃, ∃ > not

18

b. I have not met two students. not > two, two > not

• The PPI status of some student precludes reconstruction below negation. The contrastbetween (62a) and (62b) shows that reconstruction is a necessary requirement for in-verse scope; if the object could QR to adjoin to Spec,TP for inverse scope, this wouldbe unexpected.

(62) a. Some student or other hasn’t answered many of the questions on the exam.*many > ∃

b. Two students haven’t answered many of the questions on the exam.many > two

• QR can invert the scope of negation and objects, so it’s not any interaction betweennegation and QR of the object that’s to blame here (see Johnson and Tomioka 1998for details of argument).

• QRing objects can scope really quite high in the clause, as they can scope over modals(Johnson 2000 a.o.); if objects can QR this high, it’s somewhat mysterious that theycan’t just go that little bit further to scope over the subject in situ.

(63) I can believe every one of Will’s claims. ∀ > can, can > ∀,

(64) You should read every book. ∀ > should, should > ∀

• Finally, we know that it’s not the case that TP is somehow a barrier for QR independentof the presence of a subject, since we know that QR from infinitives is possible in manycases. Simply put, it’s not clear what else the Reconstruction Requirement could followfrom, given these other properties of QR.

• If we conceive of the Intervention Generalization as a constraint on QR, then theReconstruction Requirement for inverse scope is in fact exactly what we predict. Thisis a good result, as the Reconstruction Requirement has remained a mystery in theliterature for some time (though see Johnson and Tomioka 1998 for some speculations).

• Note that this also allows us to account for scope of an embedded DP over an ECM-edsubject, which all of our informants found to be readily available. If ECM involvesraising to object, then the embedded DP need only QR to a position above the traceof the ECM-ed subject. The ECM-ed subject reconstructs in order to derive inversescope.

(65) Mary wants [a different student]i [[Every book]j ti to read tj]. ∀ > ∃

5.1 Cross-Linguistic Speculations

• The proposal advanced here has the advantage of making the QR grammar of En-glish look much more similar to that of ‘scope-rigid’ languages, such as German (seeSauerland 2001 for arguments that QR is indeed available in German).

• As is well known, a subject and object in a simple transitive sentence may only takesurface scope in German (Pafel 2006), as illustrated in (66) (from Sauerland 2001, p. 2).

19

(66) OttoOtto

hathas

esit

uberrascht,surprised,

dassthat

mindestensat-least

einone

Studentstudent

jedesevery

Buchbook

amat

lesenreading

war.was.

“It surprised Otto that at least one student was reading every book.”

• We follow Sauerland (2001) in speculating that this difference between English and Ger-man may ultimately boil down the the necessity of EPP-driven movement to specTPin English, but not German, as is independently proposed by Muller (2002) and Wurm-brand (2003).

• In English, obj>subj scope is derived via QR of the object over the trace of the subject,followed by reconstruction of the subject. In German however, this option isn’t avail-able. To derive obj>scope, the object must QR over the position where the subject ispronounced, and this is disallowed by the Intervention Constraint.

• If we follow this line of thought, it may be possible to derive puzzling cross-linguisticvariation in QR from independently motivated syntactic differences. If inverse scopeis always parasitic on reconstruction down an A-chain, then in languages where A-movement is more limited than in English, inverse scope should be more limited too.

6 Conclusion

• To sum up, we have proposed the following constraint on QR:

(24) The Intervention Constraint on QR: *[...DP2...[...DP1...[...DP2...]]](where DP2 undergoes QR and DP1 is an overt DP)

• We have used (66) to derive the following results:

– Frozen scope in the DOC.

– Flexible scope in prepositional datives and transitive object control.

– Restrictions on QR from infinitives.

– The Reconstruction Requirement on inverse scope.

• One thing that still remains elusive: the inability of QR to cross a finite-clause bound-ary. This doesn’t follow from our account.13

• We haven’t had time here to give a principled explanation for why exactly the inter-vention constraint should hold (come see our poster at GLOW!), but here we give aninformal sketch of our analysis:

13 One possibility that we have been toying with is to say that it’s not really overt DPs that interveneper se, but rather case-marked DPs (which correctly includes A’-traces and excludes A-traces). If wefollow Pesetsky and Torrego (2004) and Pesetsky and Torrego (2007) in analyzing case as a valued,uninterpretable Tense feature on the case-marked DP, then we might want to say that what blocksQR is just this feature on the D head. If follow Pesetsky and Torrego (2007) in assuming that thecomplementizer that also comes with an uninterpretable tense feature, it may be possible to also derivethe fact that QR cannot typically proceed out of a finite clause.

20

– We adopt Single Output Syntax (Bobaljik 1995), and follow Boskovic (2007) inassuming that feature-driven movement involves an uninterpretable feature on themoving element. QR is special in that it is not feature driven, but rather takes placefor interpretive reasons (here we follow Reinhart 1997, Fox 2000 a.o.). The finalingredient is to assume that linearization fixes ordering relations between phonolog-ical features on XPs, and occurs ASAP (i.e., once all uninterpretable features arechecked).

– One consequence of our system is that a DP will be linearized before any non-feature-driven movement can take place (since linearization takes place ASAP), deriving thefact that QR is covert. The natural way to analyze QR in such a system is asmovement of semantic features alone.

– Our account of the intervention constraint is that the operation that forms movementdependencies is parasitic on the presence of uninterpretable formal features. SinceQR isn’t feature driven, the computational system associates the QRed DP with theclosest case-marked DP it c-commands (Aoun and Li’s Minimal Match Condition),which leads to a crash unless the featural content of the two DPs matches. This‘unselective chain formation’ operation crucially cannot skip DPs.

• To finish-up, there are still a lot of unanswered questions (e.g., why so much inter-speaker variation?), and some major gaps (e.g., opacity of finite clauses), but we hopeto have subsumed a reasonably large part of the empirical picture under a single, rathersimple constraint on QR (it cannot cross an overt DP). We leave the theory behindthis constraint, and also a more detailed comparison with competing accounts for afuture occasion.

References

Adger, David. 2013. A syntax of substance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Aguero Bautista, Calixto. 2001. Cyclicity and the scope of wh-phrases. Ph.D. thesis, Mas-

sachusetts Institute of Technology.Asudeh, Ash and Crouch, Richard. 2001. Glue semantics for HPSG. Technology 3:5.Baltin, Mark. 1987. Do antecedent-contained deletions exist? Linguistic Inquiry 18:579–596.Beck, Sigrid. 1996. Quantified structures as barriers for LF movement. Natural Language Se-

mantics 4:1–56.Beghelli, Filippo and Stowell, Tim. 1997. Distributivity and negation: The syntax of each and

every. In Ways of scope taking , 71–107, Springer.Bobaljik, Jonathan and Wurmbrand, Susi. 2012. Word order and scope: Transparent interfaces

and the 3/4 signature. Linguistic Inquiry 43:371–421.Bobaljik, Jonathan David. 1995. The syntax of verbal inflection. Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts

Institute of Technology.Boskovic, Zeljko. 2007. On the locality and motivation of move and agree: An even more minimal

theory. Linguistic Inquiry 38:589–644.Boskovic, Zeljko. 2011. Rescue by PF deletion, traces as (non)interveners and the that-trace

effect. Linguistic Inquiry 42:1–44.Bruening, Benjamin. 2001. QR obeys superiority: Frozen scope and ACD. Linguistic inquiry

32:233–273.Bruening, Benjamin. 2014a. Defects of defective intervention. Linguistic Inquiry 45:707–719.Bruening, Benjamin. 2014b. Precede-and-command revisited. Language 90:342–388.

21

Cable, Seth. 2007. The grammar of Q, as revealed by the wh-questions of Tlingit. Ph.D. thesis,MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Charlow, Simon. 2010. Can DP be a scope island? In Thomas Icard and Reinhard Muskens,eds., ESSLLI 2008 and ESSLLI 2009 Student Sessions. Selected Papers, volume 6211, 1–12,Lecture Notes In Computer Science.

Chomsky, Noam. 2000. Minimalist inquiries: The framework. In Roger Martin, David Michaels,and Juan Uriagereka, eds., Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of HowardLasnik , 89–156, MIT Press.

Cinque, Guglielmo. 1990. Types of A′-dependencies. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.Cooper, Robin. 1983. Quantification and syntactic theory .Cresti, Diana. 1995. Extraction and reconstruction. Natural Language Semantics 3:79–122.Drummond, Alex. 2013. Quantifier scope in single output syntax. Ms., McGill University .Farkas, Donka F and Giannakidou, Anastasia. 1996. How clause-bounded is the scope of uni-

versals? In Proceedings of SALT , volume 6, 35–52.Fox, Danny. 1999. Reconstruction, binding theory, and the interpretation of chains. Linguistic

Inquiry 30:157–196.Fox, Danny. 2000. Economy and semantic interpretation. 35, MIT Press.Hartman, Jeremy Fine. 2012. Varieties of clausal complementation. Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts

Institute of Technology.Hornstein, Norbert. 1995. Logical form: From GB to minimalism. Blackwell Oxford.Hornstein, Norbert. 1999. Movement and control. Linguistic inquiry 30:69–96.Janke, Vikki and Neeleman, Ad. 2012. Ascending and descending vps in english. Linguistic

inquiry 43:151–190.Johnson, Kyle. 2000. How far will quantifiers go? In David Michaels and Juan Uriagereka, eds.,

Step by Step, 187–210, MIT Press.Johnson, Kyle and Tomioka, Satoshi. 1998. Lowering and mid-size clauses. In Graham Katz,

Shin-Sook Kim, and Winhart Haike, eds., Proceedings of the 1997 Tubingen workshop on re-construction, 185–206, Tubingen, Germany: Sprachteoretische Grundlagen fur die ComputerLinguistik.

Kayne, Richard S. 1998. Overt vs. covert movements. Syntax 1:128–191.Kennedy, Christopher. 1997. Antecedent-contained deletion and the syntax of quantification.

Linguistic Inquiry 662–688.Kitahara, Hisatsugu. 1994. Raising quantifiers without quantifier raising. Ms., Harvard Univer-

sity, Cambridge, Mass. .Koster, Jan. 1987. Domains and dynasties: the radical autonomy of syntax , volume 30. Walter

de Gruyter.Kotek, Hadas. 2014. Composing questions. Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

Cambridge, MA.Larson, Richard K. 1985. Quantifying into NP, manuscript, MIT.Larson, Richard K. 1988. On the double object construction. Linguistic inquiry 335–391.Larson, Richard K. 1991. Promise and the theory of control. Linguistic Inquiry 103–139.Larson, Richard K. 1998. Events and modification in nominals. In Proceedings of SALT , vol-

ume 8, 145–168.May, Robert. 1985. Logical Form: Its Structure and Derivation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.May, Robert Carlen. 1977. The grammar of quantification. Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts Institute

of Technology.McGinnis, Martha. 1998. Locality in a-movement. Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of

Technology.Moulton, Keir. 2008. Scope relations and infinitival complements. Ms., University of Massachus-

setts, Amherst. .Muller, Gereon. 2002. Harmonic alignment and the hierarchy of pronouns in german. Pronouns-

22

Grammar and Representation. John Benjamins 205–232.Neeleman, Ad and Truswell, Robert. 2006. Reconstruction and control .Neeleman, Ad and Van de Koot, Hans. 2002. The configurational matrix. Linguistic Inquiry

33:529–574.Neeleman, Ad and van de Koot, Hans. 2009. Scope inversion. UCL Working Papers in Linguis-

tics, UCL .Nevins, Andrew and Anand, Pranav. 2003. Some agreement matters. In Proceedings of WCCFL,

volume 22, 370–383.Nunes, Jairo. 2004. Linearization of chains and sideward movement . Cambridge, MA: MIT

Press.Pafel, Jurgen. 2006. Quantifier scope in German, volume 84. John Benjamins Publishing.Pesetsky, David. 1996. Zero syntax: Experiencers and cascades. 27, MIT press.Pesetsky, David. 2000. Phrasal movement and its kin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.Pesetsky, David and Torrego, Esther. 2004. Tense, case, and the nature of syntactic categories.Pesetsky, David and Torrego, Esther. 2007. The syntax of valuation and the interpretability of

features.Reinhart, Tanya. 1997. Quantifier scope: How labor is divided between qr and choice functions.

Linguistics and philosophy 20:335–397.Roberts, Ian. 2010. Agreement and head movement: clitics, incorporation and defective goals.

Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.Rodman, Robert. 1976. Scope phenomena,movement transformations, and relative clauses.

Montague grammar 165–176.Rosenbaum, Peter. 1970. A principle governing deletion in English sentential complementation.

In Roderick A. Jacobs and Peter S. Rosenbaum, eds., Readings in English transformationalgrammar , 20–29, Waltham, MA: Ginn.

Sauerland, Uli. 2001. On quantifier raising in german. Ms., University of Tubingen .Sauerland, Uli. 2005. DP is not a scope island. Linguistic Inquiry 36:303–314.Thoms, Gary. 2013. Anti-reconstruction, anti-agreement and the dynamics of a-movement, pa-

per presented at GLOW 36.Truswell, Robert. 2013. Reconstruction, control, and movement. In Syntax and its Limits, 44–

65.von Stechow, Arnim. 1996. Against lf pied-piping. Natural Language Semantics 4:57–110.Wurmbrand, Susi. 2003. Agree: The other vp-internal subject hypothesis. University of Penn-

sylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 8:18.Wurmbrand, Susi. 2013. Qr and selection: Covert evidence for phasehood. In Stefan Keine and

Shayne Sloggett, eds., Proceedings of the North Eastern Linguistics Society Annual Meeting42 , 277–290, Amherst: University of Massachusetts, GLSA.

A The Pronoun Amelioration Effect

• Bruening (2001), in arguing that scope freezing in the English DOC does not indicatean inability to raise, claims that the DO in a DOC can take scope over the subject,giving the following examples:

(67) a. A (different) teacher gave me every book. every > ab. At least two judges awarded me every medal. every > at least two

(Bruening 2001, p. 243)

• The availability of inverse scope in (67a) and (67b) is unexpected, given the presence

23

of an IO intervener: the fact that the IO is scopeless shouldn’t make any difference,according to our account.

• Note however that Bruening’s examples both involve a pronominal intervener: ‘me’.It has been observed in the literature that dative pronominal clitics often give riseto amelioration effects with both defective intervention and intervention with tough-movement.

(68) CeThis

problemeproblem

m’estme-is

difficiledifficult

aA

comprendre.understand.

“This problem is difficult for me to understand.” (French, Hartman 2012,p. 90)

(69) JeanJ.

luihim

sembleseems

avoirto-have

duof

talent.talent.

“Jean seems to him to have talent.” (French, McGinnis 1998, p. 149)

• In fact, if we replace the pronominal IO in Bruening’s examples with a full DP, ourinformants judge that inverse scope is no longer available:

(70) a. A (different) teacher gave [DP the best student] every book. *∀ > ∃b. At least two judges awarded [DP the winner of the competition] every

medal.*∀ > at least two

• Almost all of our key cases with intervention above involved full DP interveners. Withmany of them, making the intervener a pronoun ameliorates intervention (for somespeakers at least; we have not checked this data as widely as the key data pointsabove).

(71) A different student promised me to read each book. ∀ > ∃

(72) A different student wants me to read each book. ∀ > ∃

(73) A different student promised me to read each book. ∀ > ∃

• Note however that using pronouns does not ameliorate all intervention effects. John-son’s for -infinitive example involves a pronominal ECM subject, and yet the interven-tion effect is attested

(74) A different student wanted for you to read every book. ∗∀ > ∃ (Johnson2000)

(75) A different spy seems to him to be busy at each workstation. *∀ > ∃ >seems

• The generalisation seems to be that argumental pronouns that are adjacent to the verbneed not intervene for QR.

24

• We suggest that the amelioration effect comes about because these pronouns incor-porate into the verb via head movement.

• Specifically, we favour an implementation where incorporated pronouns are effectivelyagreement morphemes on the verb (Roberts 2010; such an approach is also compatiblewith a non-movement approach to head movement like Adger 2013). On such ananalysis, we may say that incorporation removes the intervening DP as a candidate forMinimal Match, since it forms a distinct grammatical word with the verb (cf. Nunes2004 on similar effects with multiple spellout).

• This account predicts that the pronoun effect will be removed if the intervening pronounis unreduced (stressed), conjoined, or modified. This seems to be correct:

(76) A different student promised HIM to read each book. *∀ > ∃

(77) A different student promised me and him to read each book. *∀ > ∃

(78) A different student promised us all to read each book. ?*∀ > ∃

• Important: this requires reanalysing all our cases of pronominal amelioration in ECMconstructions, since on a true ECM analysis the intervening arguments would notbe analysable as agreement markers on the matrix verb (they would be embeddedsubjects). We posit that all those cases actually involve transitive object control,rather than ECM.

B Inverse linking

• We did not touch upon one other classic case of inverse scope which is attributed toQR: inverse linking within nominals (May 1985, Larson 1985).

(79) John tried a piece of every pie. ∀ > ∃

• If inverse scope is derived by QR here, these may seem to present a challenge to ouranalysis: we cannot appeal to reconstruction or to a descending structure or other suchstructural ambiguities.

• Whether they do present a problem depends on the details of the analysis: the con-taining DP technically doesn’t c-command the contained DP, although if interventionby a D head rather than the full DP is what’s important then it’s hard to see howfiddling with the details of where PPs are merged will help.

• However it is known that the analysis where the contained DP QRs out of the containingDP has its problems. Larson (1985) notes that the contained DP cannot scope over ahigher DP independent of the container:

(80) Two people tried a piece every pie. *∀ > 2 > ∃

• Elsewhere Charlow (2010) notes that DPs really do seem to be scope islands by otherdiagnostics (refuting arguments from Sauerland 2005). This opacity is expected by the

25

intervention account, although it leaves us wanting for an analysis of the core inverselinking cases.

• Our proposal is that inverse linking is derived by movement, but not by covert move-ment; rather, the PP containing the DP is extraposed overtly and string-vacuouslyto a high adjoined position within the containing DP, where it may take scope over thehigher D.14

(81) DP

D′

Da

NP

Npiece

ti

PP

of every pie

• This is similar to May’s (1985) account, where the embedded quantifier adjoins tothe embedding NP to get the inverse linking reading, but with the difference that themovement is overt.

• This account predicts that the availability of inverse linking interpretations will trackthe availability of extraposition within DP (cf. Baltin 1987 on ACD). Our argumentscome from restrictions on inverse linking interpretations which do not follow from asimple QR account.

• Argument #1: when there is more than one PP in a DP, inverse scope is not possiblewith the innermost PP.

(82) I bought a picture of every president.

(83) a. I bought a painting of every president by Warhol. *∀ > ∃, ∃ > ∀b. I bought a painting of the president by every artist. ∀ > ∃, ∃ > ∀

(84) I interviewed at least one speaker of each dialect.

(85) a. #I interviewed at least one speaker of each dialect from a working classbackground. *∀ >at least one, #at least one> ∀

b. I interviewed at least one speaker of the local dialect from each classbackground. ∀ >at least one, #at least one> ∀

• Inverse linking would require quite long, non-string-vacuous extraposition here, andsuch extraposition is not possible.

• Argument #2: when the embedded DP is more embedded than a simple PP-object,inverse linking is impossible.

(86) I photocopied a chapter of my book about every language *∀ > ∃, ∃ > ∀14We represent of -PPs as complements to N, putting to one side arguments to the contrary in Adger

(2013); whether the PPs are complements or specifiers of some higher head within the DP makes nodifference here.

26

• If covert movement was completely free of islands (as in May’s analysis) this would notbe expected, but it is expected since extraposition from possessive phrases is bad.

(87) *I photocopied a chapter of my book last week about that language.

27