2025/06/16 by Ana Lúcia Santos, Anabela Gonçalves
Arts and Humanities · Computer Science · Psychology · #Language, Metaphor, and Cognition #Natural Language Processing Techniques #Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0022226725000179
openalex publication_date 2025/06/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Abstract This paper discusses the syntactic behaviour of a small subset of object control verbs that have an implicative interpretation (e.g. obrigar ‘force’, impedir ‘prevent’) as well as the behaviour of superficially similar syntactic causatives in European Portuguese. By exploring different syntactic properties and giving special attention to inflected infinitives as complements to the two classes of verbs, we argue that implicative object control verbs are ambiguous between true control verbs (which are ditransitive) and syntactic causatives (which take a single, clausal, internal argument). To this extent, we present an argument defying Landau’s (2015) analysis of control under these verbs as predication. We also argue that the implicative interpretation of these verbs is not determined by the syntactic nature of their complement: This interpretation is maintained in both the causative and the control counterparts of the verb. By comparing implicative object control verbs and the understudied and superficially similar pôr a ‘put to / make’ and deixar a ‘put to / make’, and by highlighting the distribution and interpretation of inflected infinitives in their complements, we can argue that the latter are unambiguous syntactic causatives, which take as complement a small clause in which we internally observe control.