THEORY: object raising

> "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...> writes:
> > Henrik wrote:
> > > So in my original post, I a) wanted to point out that Qthen|gai has
> > > no means of doing this (yet), b) was searching for an example of
> > > object raising.
> >
> > Not sure if this helps you, but in English such a verb would be
> > "believe". One standard test showing this is so is active-passive
> > synonymy:
> >
> > Sargon believed Lugalzaggesi to have ruled many peoples.
> > = Sargon believed many peoples to have been ruled by Lugalzaggesi.
>
> I don't think this is object raising, it's subject-to-object raising,
> too, since in your first sentence, you applied that very raising operation
> and in the second, a passive construction to the same original sentence,
> namely
Maybe I didn't understand the question then.  You asked for "object raising",
and in all the standard syntactic literature, the construction I gave is
called object raising.  The terms refer to the position *to* which an NP
is moved (or has a dependency, or whatever), not from which it is moved,
because in the generative tradition grammatical relations are derived rather
than primitive.

I suppose if by object raising you mean underlying objects raising to
some other position, passives and unaccusative verbs are normally analyzed
this way.  Another possibility under some analyses would be tough movement:

   a. Constantinople is difficult to sack.
   b. It is difficult to sack Constantinople.

where in (a) the NP "Constantinople" in some respects appears to act
like an underlying object moved to subject position.  (Though note there
also doesn't seem to be a consensus on how to treat tough-movement
constructions, so this is perhaps not the best example.)

ObScure:  in Meskwaki, tough-movement constructions also apply to
subjects.  Thus, the equivalent of "The Meskwaki are difficult to like
the French" would be licit.  (In point of fact, the Meskwaki have never
forgiven the French for trying to exterminate them three centuries ago.)

BTW, I'm off to see an exhibit of Precolumbian and East Asian art at
the Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth tomorrow, and I won't be back until
Sunday.   I will probably not be responding to any email until then.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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