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Control, Pro, and the Projection Principle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Peter W. Culicover  and
Wendy Wilkins
Peter W. Culicover
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
Wendy Wilkins
Affiliation:
University of Washington
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Abstract

This paper presents a theory of control (predication), in terms of thematic relations, which makes no use of the element PRO in the syntax. Important consequences of the theory are that the θ-Criterion must be relativized to particular local domains, and the Projection Principle cannot be maintained. A number of syntactic arguments against PRO are summarized, and the arguments of Koster & May 1982 in favor of PRO are addressed. It is concluded that, given a thematic relation-based account of predication, the Projection Principle in its current form is not a useful postulate in the theory of grammar.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 120 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 by Linguistic Society of America

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Footnotes

*

This work was funded in part by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Sloan Foundation. We gratefully acknowledge their support. We would like to thank Joe Emonds, Ann Farmer, Eloise Jelinek, Chisato Kitagawa, Fritz Newmeyer, Richard Oehrle, and Geoffrey Pullum for their very helpful comments. The authors' names appear in alphabetical order.

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