Visser's Generalization: The Syntax of Control and the Passive

This squib presents an argument for an agreement-based model of control (Borer 1989, Landau 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008), drawn from a crosslinguistic generalization about control in passives. Specifically, I show that obligatory control by the thematic subject of a passive is sensitive to a purely syntactic restriction: it is only possible if T does not agree with an overt DP. This restriction follows from the logic of an agreement-based approach, if implicit arguments participate in Agree relations (Landau 2010, Legate 2010). This generalization subsumes and derives an old observation about control, Visser's Generalization (Jenkins 1972, Bresnan 1982).

1 Revising Visser's Generalization

Our point of departure is the observation, termed Visser's Generalization (VG) by Bresnan (1982),¹ that control by an implicit subject is disallowed in the passive of English ditransitive control verbs. Such verbs divide into two classes. Verbs like promise and offer prefer control by the thematic subject, but allow object control if a modal is present in the infinitival clause (1a-b).

1. 1.

   1. a. Calvin promised/offered Hobbes to make him a tuna sandwich.

   2. b. His parents promised/offered Calvin to be allowed to stay up late.

Verbs like ask and persuade show the opposite pattern: they allow control by the thematic subject (2a),² but prefer object control (2b).

1. 2.

   1. a. Calvin asked/persuaded his parents to be allowed to stay up late.

   2. b. Hobbes asked/persuaded Calvin to make him a tuna sandwich.

When passivized, however, neither type of verb allows control by the thematic subject (3a-b), while the availability of control by the thematic object is unaffected (3c-d) (Jenkins 1972, Bresnan 1982, Ladusaw and Dowty 1988).

1. 3.

   1. a. *Hobbes was promised/offered (by Calvin_i) PRO_i to make him a tuna sandwich.

   2. b. *His dad was asked/persuaded (by Calvin_i) PRO_i to be allowed to stay up late.

   3. c. Calvin_i was promised/offered PRO_i to be allowed to stay up late.

   4. d. Calvini was asked/persuaded PRO_i to make Hobbes a tuna sandwich.

That the ungrammaticality of (3a-b) is really due to the impossibility of control by the implicit subject is further illustrated by the fact that the counterparts of (3a-b) without control, given in (4a-b), are fully acceptable.

1. 4.

   1. a. Hobbes was promised by Calvin_i that he_i would prepare him a tuna sandwich.

   2. b. Calvin was persuaded by Hobbes_i that he_i was a math genius.

This effect seems to hold outside of English also. In Norwegian and Swedish, for instance, subject control is ungrammatical in the passive of ditransitive love/lova 'promise' (5a-b), although these verbs otherwise passivize freely.

1. 5.

   1. a. Norwegian
      *Jeg ble lovet   å gi   meg   gaver.
      I was promised C give.INF me.ACC gifts
      '(Lit.) I was promised to give me gifts.'

   2. b. Swedish
      *Jag var lovad   att ge   mig   presenter.
      I   was promised C give.INF me.ACC gifts
      '(Lit.) I was promised to give me gifts.'

This much is covered by the traditional formulation of VG, which dealt with such data by saying that the implicit subjects of passives can never control (Jenkins 1972, Bresnan 1982).³

I will show, however, that the VG effect is limited to passives in which agreement obtains between T and an overt DP. In personal passives, passives in which a DP is promoted to nominative and comes to agree with T, VG indeed restricts control. But in impersonal passives, passives without a nominative DP and with invariant 3rd person singular agreement on the verb, no VG effects are found.⁴ In Dutch and German, for example, transitive subject control verbs form impersonal passives, and these permit control by the implicit subject (6a-b).⁵

1. 6.

   1. a. Dutch
      Er werd geprobeerd om eekhoorns te vangen.
      there was tried   INF.C squirrels to catch.INF
      '(Lit.) There was tried to catch squirrels.'

   2. b. German
      Es wurde versucht, Eichhörnchen zu fangen.
      it   was   tried   squirrels   to catch.INF
      '(Lit.) It was tried to catch squirrels.'

The same facts obtain in Norwegian, so that (5a) is...