Séminaire de Recherche en Linguistique

Experience-driven readings and the grammar of control

Denis Delfitto (with Gaetano Fiorin)

This talk proposes a reconceptualization of obligatory control that places experiencerhood and perspectival anchoring at the center of the grammar of control, extending de se interpretations to crucial cases of implicit de se(IEM: immunity to error through misidentification). Departing from PRO-based accounts (e.g. Landau’s Two-Tiered Theory of Control) and from unification approaches based on movement  (Hornstein 1999) or Form-Copy (Chomsky 2023/2024; Manzini 2025), the proposal treats control as an interface repair phenomenon arising from the interaction between θ-theory, event composition, and logophoric interpretation, exploring some potential  consequences of Charnavel’s (2019) theory of exempt anaphors for the theory of logophoric control. 

The starting point is the observation that control constructions such as John wants to leave involve a potential interpretive failure: the embedded predicate leave lexically encodes an external θ-role that must be syntactically discharged to ensure convergence at the syntax–semantics interface. In the absence of an overt embedded subject, we propose that the grammar associates this external θ-role with the center of interpretation introduced by the experiencer argument of the matrix clause. Rather than directly positing null pronominal subjects or silent copies of full DPs, the proposal argues that logophoric control involves the local introduction of a silent logophoric argumentOP_LOG (in the sense of Charnavel 2019), which fills the external argument position of the embedded predicate.

Essentially, we thus argue that the same OP_LOG introduced, in the case of exempt anaphora, to repair a condition A violation, is also introduced to repair a θ-criterion violation. In control environments, OP_LOG discharges the embedded external θ-role by re-interpreting it as an experiencer argument, crucially anchored to the attitude holder of the matrix clause and yielding either ‘weak’ de se or ‘strong’ de se (that is, IEM effects), based on the scope assigned to OP_LOG in the syntactic representation. In this way, the grammar licenses an experiencer-centered argument that satisfies θ-theory locally in the embedded clause, while leaving the theta-role lexically encoded by the embedded predicate syntactically uncommitted and consequently available for pragmatic enrichment.

This division of labor yields two immediate consequences. First, obligatory de se interpretations follow directly from experiencer anchoring, with a substantial simplification relative to TTC-style argument identification. Second, partial control is derived without additional machinery: OP_LOG fixes the experiential center of the embedded event while leaving the embedded theta-role free to feed pragmatic enrichment, yielding associative interpretations and resolving long-standing puzzles such the contrast between *He kissed and He wanted to kiss.

Time permitting, we will also offer some general insights about a unitary theory of control, including predicative control (in Laudau’s sense). By treating logophoricity as a general grammatical resource for experiencer-role licensing and θ-role repair, the present proposal eliminates PRO, Form-Copy, and movement from the theory of control, while unifying the treatment of all distinct de se readings found in control structures with the treatment of partial control. More generally, the talk argues that perspective and experience play a foundational role in argument structure, extending the logic of logophoric licensing beyond Binding Theory to the domain of control.