Rare -class adjectives in the tough -construction

Abstract

I examine the behavior of rare and other frequency adjectives in the tough -construction (TC). Due to the effects of a heretofore overlooked semantic selectional restriction, such adjectives have not generally been recognized as grammatical in the TC. I show here that they do occur grammatically in this construction when the relevant selectional restriction is satisfied. Specifically, as it does in non-TC sentences, rare in the TC requires that its subject be kind-denoting, a requirement not imposed on the embedded-clause gap position whose reference the TC matrix subject controls. In this, TCs with rare exemplify a previously unattested selectional and thematic asymmetry in the construction. On their face, the facts appear to argue strongly in favor of treating the rare -TC matrix subject as a thematic argument of the TC matrix predicate, an intriguing and challenging prospect given the fact that such an analysis has been roundly (though not universally) rejected for canonical TCs. Instead, I take the prima facie counterintuitive position that the rare -TC matrix subject is not a thematic argument of the TC matrix predicate; I argue that rare -TCs are thematically and syntactically identical to canonical TCs in this respect. I propose that the kind-denotation requirement for rare -TC matrix subjects is imposed indirectly, through the interaction of a selectional restriction on the infinitival argument of rare and the Agree calculus (Chomsky 2000, 2001) that identifies the TC matrix subject with the embedded gap position whose reference it controls (Rezac 2004, 2006). Beyond its contribution to our theoretical understanding of the perennially thorny TC, the present study constitutes, to the best of my knowledge, the first detailed empirical investigation of the behavior of adjectives like rare in the TC.

Taking time with thetough-construction

“…Many examples of forbidden as a tough -predicate can be found in a Google search 46 In fact, this is probably evidence that certain tough -predicates select for subjects , rather than nonfinite clauses, just like what is illustrated in Fleisher (2015). That is, forbidden imposes selectional restrictions on what can be a tough -subject, not whether it can combine with a nonfinite clause.…”

“…Independent evidence for selection is also observed in Fleisher’s (2015) rare -class predicates (although Fleisher does not interpret it as such, adopting an analysis based on Rezac 2006). Fleisher’s core observation is that rare -predicates only permit kind-denoting subjects, rather than type-denoting subjects, even when used as tough -predicates.…”

Agreement and reconstruction correlate in Swedish

“…The base-generation analyses have in common that the subject of the TC is merged in a non-theta position, matrix Spec,TP (e.g. Chomsky 1977;Browning 1989;Heycock 1994;Rezac 2006;Engdahl 2012;Fleisher 2015;Keine and Poole 2016). Via a alyzed as a complex adjective (see also Chomsky 1981), making movement from the object position into the matrix subject position unproblematic.…”

“…few > difficult, *difficult > few (Postal 1974: 224) As indicated, the sentence in (2) has the reading that few girls x are such that it would be difficult for John to talk to x, but lacks the meaning on which it is difficult for him to talk to a small group of girls. The reconstruction data in (2) seems straightforward enough: the absence of a narrow scope reading of the subject can be taken as support for analyses that take the matrix subject to be base-generated in the surface position (see among others Chomsky 1977;Browning 1989;Rezac 2006;Fleisher 2013Fleisher , 2015Keine and Poole 2016), and, conversely, to be problematic for analyses that assume movement into the subject position (see among others Rosenbaum 1967;Postal 1971;Brody 1993;Hornstein 2001;Hicks 2009;Hartman 2011a,b). Swedish is particularly interesting in this context because different types of TC behave in different ways with regard to scope reconstruction.…”

Another Crack at the Tough Nut: A New Approach to Tough and Other Object-Gap Constructions

“…Rare predicates are one of two classes of object-gap constructions identified by Nicholas Fleisher (Fleisher 2015;Fleisher 2011).…”