/ instituut voor de Nederlandse taal / Taalportaal
bibliography glossary about
  • Dutch
  • Frisian
  • Saterfrisian
  • Afrikaans
Show all
    5.2.2.3.Extraposition and verb clustering
    quickinfo

    The discussion of te-infinitivals in the previous sections was simplified in that it abstracted away from one important issue that would have complicated the exposition considerably. The fact is that Section 5.2.2.1 restricts its attention to obligatory control constructions such as (541a), in which the te-infinitival is in extraposed position as a whole, that is, placed in a position following the verbs in clause-final position. Obligatory control constructions such as (541b), in which the te-infinitivals are discontinuous with the result that the verbs of the matrix and the embedded infinitival clause cluster together, are not discussed. For the reader's convenience, we have italicized the infinitival clauses and underlined the verbs in these examples.

    541
    a. dat Jan ontkent het huis te kopen.
    extraposition
      that  Jan denies the house  to buy
      'that Jan denies buying the house.'
    b. dat Jan het huis eindelijk durft te kopen.
    verb clustering
      that  Jan the house  finally  dares  to buy
      'that Jan finally dares to buy the house.'

    Although the difference between extraposition and verb clustering has been on the research agenda since Bech (1955) and Evers (1975), it is still giving rise to numerous questions and difficulties (both of a descriptive and of a more theoretical nature). This section will focus on the fact that the difference between extraposition and verb clustering is often seen as a difference in transparency of the infinitival clause. Since verb clustering is normally derived by movement of some element from within the infinitival clause to some position in the matrix clause (head movement or adjunction of the te-infinitive to the higher matrix verb in Evers' original proposal, though Chapter 7 will show that alternative proposals involving XP-movement are also available), extraposition can be forced by assuming that infinitival clauses in examples such as (541a) are opaque, that is, they are islands for locally restricted syntactic dependencies like head- and XP-movement. However, this conclusion is at odds with the fact established in Section 5.2.2.1 that examples such as (541a) involve obligatory control, which is likewise a locally restricted syntactic dependency; if te-infinitivals in extraposed position are islands for movement, we wrongly predict that they are also islands for obligatory control. This section should therefore investigate whether it is actually true that extraposed te-infinitivals are islands for movement, and our conclusion will be that they are not. Given the complexity of the topic involved, we will begin the discussion by giving a bird's eye view of the following discussion and by summarizing the main conclusions.

    readmore
    [+]  I.  A brief outline of the discussion and its conclusions

    Subsection II starts by briefly repeating one of the main findings from our discussion of ( om +) te-infinitivals in Sections 5.2.1 and 5.2.2, which we will adopt as our point of departure: while constructions with om + te-infinitival argument clauses such as (542a) are non-obligatory control constructions categorically, constructions with te-infinitival argument clauses like (542b&c) involve either obligatory control or subject raising, depending on whether or not the verb selecting the infinitival clause also selects an external argument.

    542
    a. Jani probeerde [CP (om) PROi dat boek te lezen].
    non-obligatory control
      Jan  tried  comp  that book  to read
      'Jan tried to read that book.'
    b. Jani beweert [TP PROi dat boek te lezen].
    obligatory control
      Jan  claims  that book  to read
      'Jan claims to be reading that book.'
    c. Jani blijkt [TPti dat boek te lezen].
    subject raising
      Jan  turns.out  that book  to read
      'Jan turns out to be reading that book.'

    Examples like (542a&b) can be distinguished by means of impersonal passivization of the matrix clause, which is possible in the case of non-obligatory control but excluded in the case of obligatory control. Examples like (542b&c) can be distinguished by means of pronominalization, which also affects the nominative subject of the entire construction if we are dealing with subject raising, but not if we are dealing with control; cf. the examples in (543).

    543
    a. Jan beweert dat
      Jan claims  that
    a' * Dat beweert.
      that  claims
    b. Dat blijkt.
      that  turns.out
    b'. * Jan blijkt dat.
      Jan turns.out  that

          Section III discusses the distinction between extraposition and verb-clustering infinitives like (541a&b). The generalization given above suggests that there are two main syntactic types of infinitival complement clauses: om + te-infinitivals, which are CPs and constitute islands for locally restricted syntactic dependencies like obligatory control and subject raising, and te-infinitivals, which are TPs and are transparent for such dependencies. The examples in (541) have further shown that there are reasons for subdividing the set of te-infinitivals into two subclasses; one type behaving like om + te-infinitivals in that they are in extraposed position and do not trigger the IPP-effect in perfect-tense constructions, and a second type that rather behaves like bare infinitivals in that they require verb clustering and do exhibit the IPP-effect. In more traditional terms, we may conclude from this that the former type is opaque for the movements that derive verb clustering, whereas the latter type is transparent for such movements. For convenience, we have again italicized the infinitival clauses and underlined the verbs in our examples in (544).

    544
    a. dat Jan heeft ontkend/*ontkennen het huis te kopen.
    opaque
      that  Jan has  denied/deny  the house  to buy
      'that Jan has denied buying the house.'
    b. dat Jan eindelijk het huis heeft durven/*gedurfd te kopen.
    transparent
      that  Jan at.last  the house  has  dare/dared  to buy
      'that Jan finally has dared to buy the house.'

    If we also include the distinction between control and subject raising constructions discussed in Section 5.2.2.1 and 5.2.2.2, we arrive at the somewhat unexpected classification in Table (545), in which the split pattern and the IPP-effect are taken as diagnostics for transparency. The problem with this classification is that it does not account for the fact established earlier that control te-infinitivals always involve obligatory control and are therefore expected to be part of the set of transparent infinitival clauses.

    545
    Transparency of infinitival clauses (version 1)
      split pattern ipp-effect
    opaque
    		om + te-infinitivals — —
      control te-infinitivals (type A) — —
    transparent control te-infinitivals (type B) + +
      subject raising te-infinitivals + +
      bare infinitivals + +

    It has long been assumed that the distinction between transparent (= verb clustering) and opaque (= extraposition) infinitival clauses is exhaustive, subsection IV will show, however, that there seems to exist a third option: many (but not all) obligatory control constructions involve what we will call semi-transparent te-infinitivals. The label "semi-transparent" is chosen in order to express that such infinitivals seem to constitute a hybrid category in that they do not exhibit the IPP-effect but nevertheless do allow splitting; example (546a) illustrates this for the verb beweren'to claim'.

    546
    a. dat Jan <%het huis> heeft beweerd <het huis> te kopen.
    semi-transparent
      that  Jan     the house  has  claimed  to buy
      'that Jan has claimed to buy the house.'
    b. % dat Jan werd beweerd het huis te kopen.
      that  Jan  was  claimed  the house  to buy
      'that Jan was claimed to buy the house.'

    Observe that a percentage sign has been added to (546a) to indicate that speakers tend to vary in their judgments on the split version; this observation is important since we will see in Subsection VII that it may provide us with a better understanding of the still unexplained fact noted in Section 5.2.2.2, sub III, that passive subject raising constructions such as (546b) are also considered marked by many speakers.
          The discovery of the third type of semi-transparent te-infinitivals implies that we are not concerned with two but with three subcategories: opaque, transparent and semi-transparent, respectively. This leads to the revised table in (547), which, however, still does not solve the problem of having to postulate a set of opaque te-infinitivals despite the fact that these clearly involve obligatory control.

    547
    Transparency of infinitival clauses (version 2)
      split pattern ipp-effect
    opaque om + te-infinitivals — —
      control te-infinitivals (type A) — —
    semi-transparent control te-infinitivals (type B) + —
    transparent control te-infinitivals (type C) + +
      subject raising te-infinitivals + +
      bare infinitivals + +

    Subsection V continues by investigating the split patterns we find with transparent and semi-transparent te-infinitivals—we will show that these differ in a number of respects, from which we conclude that these patterns are not of the same type. In fact, the split patterns we see with semi-transparent te-infinitivals seem to have more in common with extraposed/opaque te-infinitivals. This raises the question as to whether it is really justified to distinguish semi-transparent from opaque te-infinitivals. This issue will be the topic of Subsection VI, where we argue that there is no reason to postulate opaque te-infinitivals: semi-transparent te-infinitivals are arguably derived from the alleged opaque ones by means of optional leftward movement of one or more constituents of the te-infinitival into a position preceding the verbs in clause-final position; this is indicated by the analyses of the two versions of (546a) in (548). In short, the alleged opaque te-infinitivals simply arise when the optional movement does not take place.

    548
    a. dat Jan heeft beweerd [TP PRO het huis te kopen].
    b. dat Jan het huisi heeft beweerd [TP PRO ti te kopen].

    We can draw the provisional conclusion from this that we can maintain that the transparency of infinitival clauses is closely related to the independently motivated categorial distinction between CP, TP and VP. It entails that we should replace Table (547) by the simpler one in (549), which is consistent with our earlier conclusion that te-infinitivals are in principle transparent for locally restricted syntactic dependencies; they only differ in that their biclausal structure is still reflected by their ability to be in extraposed position, subsection VII will provide independent evidence in support of the movement analysis in (548) on the basis of a comparison of the examples in (546a&b).

    549
    Transparency of infinitival clauses (final version)
      split pattern ipp-effect
    opaque (cp) om + te-infinitivals excluded —
    semi-transparent (tp) control te-infinitivals (type A) optional —
    transparent(tp or vp) control te-infinitivals (type B) obligatory +
      subject raising te-infinitivals obligatory +
      bare infinitivals obligatory +

    The hypothesis in (549) that te-infinitivals are never opaque may seem at odds with the fact that some of them resist the split pattern, subsection VIII addresses this problem and shows that this follows from the independently established fact that (semi-)transparency is not an absolute property of clauses but only arises if a number of additional syntactic conditions are met: for example, they must be internal arguments of the matrix verb and surface as direct objects. This leaves us with one question, which will be briefly addressed in Subsection IX: in what way are control te-infinitivals of type A and type B different? The answer to this question will be somewhat sketchy and certainly needs further elaboration by future research.
          Subsection X will conclude our discussion by pointing out a more general complication for all research on complement clauses, namely, that verbs do not seem to be very particular in the choice of their clausal complement: some verbs may combine with finite or infinitival clauses, om + te-infinitival or te-infinitivals, transparent or semi-transparent te-infinitivals, etc. We will discuss the available options for a small sample of verbs.

    [+]  II.  Islandhood: the categorial status of om + te- and te-infinitivals

    The discussion of (om +) te-infinitivals in Sections 5.2.1 and 5.2.2 ultimately led to the four hypotheses in (550), in which the notion of syntactic dependency refers to locally restricted phenomena including NP-movement (such as subject raising), binding of anaphors (such as the simplex reflexive zich), and obligatory control; cf. Section 5.2.2.1, sub IV. Together, these hypotheses express that such dependencies can be established across the boundary of a te-infinitival but not across the boundary of an om + te-infinitival.

    550
    a. Hypothesis I: om + te-infinitivals are CPs.
    b. Hypothesis II: te-infinitivals are TPs.
    c. Hypothesis III: CPs constitute islands for syntactic dependencies.
    d. Hypothesis IV: TPs do not constitute islands for syntactic dependencies.

    Although the proper formulation of the restrictions on obligatory control are still under debate, we have assumed that they are as given in (551); failure to meet any of the clauses in (551) is sufficient to conclude that we are dealing with non-obligatory control; we refer the reader to Section 5.2.1.3, sub III, for detailed discussion.

    551
    Obligatory control requires the antecedent of PRO to:
    a. be overtly realized in the sentence containing PRO;
    b. be local (a co-argument of the infinitival clause containing PRO);
    c. be a c-commanding nominal argument (subject or object);
    d. be unique (cannot be "split").

    Infinitival clauses in subject raising constructions do not have implied PRO-subjects but involve movement of their subject into the subject position of the matrix clause, where it is realized as a nominative noun phrase. The choice between obligatory control and subject raising seems to depend on the thematic properties of the matrix verb. Transitive verbs like beweren'to claim' in (552a) are only compatible with a control analysis, as subject raising is excluded because the regular subject position of the matrix verb is already occupied by the external argument of this verb. Unaccusative verbs like blijken'to turn out', on the other hand, allow subject raising because the landing site of subject raising is free; PRO is excluded given that there is no suitable controller available for it and the resulting construction would thus violate restriction (551a) on obligatory control.

    552
    a. Jani beweerde [TP PROi dat boek te lezen].
    obligatory control
      Jan  claimed  that book  to read
      'Jan claimed to be reading that book.'
    b. Jani bleek [TPti dat boek te lezen].
    subject raising
      Jan  turned.out   that book  to read
      'Jan turned out to be reading that book.'

    The hypotheses in (550) correctly predict that obligatory control and subject raising constructions cannot be om + te-infinitivals, as is clear from as is clear from the impossibility of adding the complementizer om to the examples in (552). Conversely, they predict that om + te-infinitivals cannot be used in obligatory control or subject raising constructions. That om + te-infinitivals do not involve obligatory control is clear from the acceptability contrast between the impersonal passive constructions in (553): example (553a) is allowed because the PRO-subject of the om + te-infinitival is not obligatorily controlled and, consequently, restriction (551a) is irrelevant; example (553b), on the other hand, is excluded because the PRO-subject of te-infinitival is obligatorily controlled but cannot find an overt antecedent, which results in a violation of (551a). That the contrast is indeed due to control is supported by the fact that obligatory subject control verbs like beweren can normally be passivized in non-control contexts: cf. Dat werd vaak beweerd'That was often claimed'.

    553
    a. Er werd geprobeerd [CP (om) PROarb dat boek te lezen].
      there  was  tried comp  that book  to read
      'It was tried to read that book.'
    b. * Er werd beweerd [TP PROarb dat boek te lezen].
      there  was  claimed  that book  to read

    That om + te- and te-infinitivals differ in that only the latter can be used in subject raising constructions is illustrated in (554); example (554a) is excluded because the CP-boundary turns the infinitival clause into an island for movement, and thus blocks subject raising of the noun phrase Jan; example (554b), on the other hand, is acceptable because the TP-boundary is not an island for movement and therefore allows subject raising.

    554
    a. * Jani werd geprobeerd [CP (om) ti dat boek te lezen].
      Jan  was  tried comp  that book  to read
    b. % Jani werd beweerd [TPti dat boek te lezen].
      Jan  was  claimed  that book  to read
      'Jan was claimed to read that book.'

    Observe that the four hypotheses in (550) do not yet explain why speakers give varying judgments on an example such as (554b); a possible explanation of this will be given in Subsection VII.

    [+]  III.  Transparent versus opaque te-infinitivals

    The discussion of (om +) te-infinitivals in Sections 5.2.2.1 was simplified in that it abstracted away from a number of issues. For example, the discussion of control constructions was strictly confined to cases with infinitival clauses in extraposed position, that is, examples in which the full infinitival clause follows the matrix verb in clause-final position. Such constructions are characterized by the fact that they do not allow the infinitivus-pro-participio (IPP) effect in the perfect tense—the matrix verb must be realized as a past participle. This is shown in (555a) for a non-obligatory control construction in which the verb proberen'to try' selects an om + te-infinitival, and in (555b) for an obligatory control construction in which the verb beweren'to claim' selects a te-infinitival; we italicize the infinitival clause and do not indicate the implied PRO-subject for ease of representation.

    555
    a. Jan heeft geprobeerd/*proberen (om) dat boek te kopen.
    extrap. + no IPP
      Jan has  tried/try  comp  that book  to buy
      'Jan has tried to buy that book.'
    b. Jan heeft beweerd/*beweren dat boek te kopen.
    extraposition + no IPP
      Jan has  claimed/claim  that book  to buy
      'Jan has claimed to buy that book.'

    Section 5.2.2.2 has shown that subject raising constructions normally do not allow extraposition, but require that the infinitival clause be split by the matrix verb in clause-final position—they exhibit verb clustering. Furthermore, subject raising constructions normally exhibit the IPP-effect for those speakers that allow subject raising constructions in the perfect tense (which not all speakers do).

    556
    a. dat Jan dat boek lijkt te kopen.
    clause splitting
      that  Jan  that book  appears  to buy
      'that Jan appears to buy that book.'
    b. dat Jan dat boek heeft %lijken/*geleken te kopen.
    IPP
      that  Jan that book  has    appear/appeared  to buy
      'that Jan has appeared to buy that book.'

    Observe that the qualification "normally" in the two sentences preceding (556) is needed because Section 5.2.2.2 has shown that the formal register does allow subject raising constructions with te-infinitivals in extraposed position; such constructions do not exhibit the IPP-effect either. We will return to this issue in Subsection VII.
          The differences between examples like (555b) and (556) show that from a syntactic point of view it is not sufficient to distinguish between (om +) te- and te-infinitivals, but that the latter can be divided into at least the two subtypes in (557).

    557
    Types of te-infinitivals
    a. Opaque: no clause splitting and no IPP
    b. Transparent: clause splitting and IPP

    This may seem a nice result given that (557) enables us to describe the data discussed so far by means of the two independently motivated binary parameters in Table (558): the distinction between CP and TP can be motivated by the distribution of the complementizer om, and the distinction between transparent and opaque infinitivals by the behavior of te-infinitivals with respect to clause splitting and IPP. The empty cell may follow from the general claim from the earlier theoretical literature that CP-boundaries block the movements required for deriving the split pattern.

    558
    Subdivision of (om +) te-infinitival clauses (to be rejected):
      transparent opaque
    CP (om + te-infinitival) — non-obligatory control
    TP (te-infinitival) subject raising obligatory control

    Unfortunately, however, the hypothesis in Table (558) that obligatory control holds in opaque te-infinitivals only is evidently incorrect. Consider the examples in (559) with the verb durven'to dare'. The (a)-example shows that durven requires clause splitting; the object of the te-infinitival te vertellen must precede the finite verb durft'dares' in clause-final position. The (b)-example shows that durven also triggers the IPP-effect; Evers (1975) and Den Besten & Edmondson (1983) both claim that perfect-tense constructions do not allow the past participle gedurfd, and a Google search (2/6/2013) on the string [ heeft gedurfd te] indeed resulted in relatively few examples. The (c)-example is added to show that we are indeed dealing with a control structure: pronominalization of the te-infinitival does not affect the nominative subject of the construction as a whole, which therefore cannot originate as part of the infinitival clause but must originate as a separate argument of the matrix verb durven. Consequently, the external argument of the verb vertellen'to tell' must be realized as PRO.

    559
    a. dat Jan <de waarheid> niet durft <*?de waarheid> te vertellen.
      that  Jan   the truth  not  dares  to tell
      'that Jan doesnʼt dare to tell the truth.'
    b. dat Jan de waarheid niet heeft durven/*gedurfd te vertellen.
      that  Jan the truth  not  has  dare/dared  to tell
      'that Jan hasnʼt dared to tell the truth.'
    c. Jan durft dat niet. / *Dat durft niet.
      Jan dares  that  not   that  dares  not

    The examples in (559) thus show that the situation depicted in Table (558) is incorrect in that there are also transparent te-infinitivals involving obligatory control. We therefore get the more complex situation depicted in Table (545), repeated here as (560), in which the split pattern and the IPP-effect are taken as diagnostics for transparency. The problem with this classification is that it does not account for the earlier established fact that control te-infinitivals always involve obligatory control, and are therefore expected to be part of the set of transparent infinitival clauses.

    560
    Transparency of infinitival clauses (version 1)
      split pattern ipp-effect
    opaque om + te-infinitivals — —
      control te-infinitivals (type A) — —
    transparent control te-infinitivals (type B) + +
      subject raising te-infinitivals + +
      bare infinitivals + +

    The following subsections will try to solve this paradox, but before we get to this, it is important to stress that the conclusion that te-infinitivals in extraposed position involve obligatory control is in full agreement with the four hypotheses in (550). The fact that control constructions with verbs like durven in (559) involve clause splitting and IPP shows that they are TPs, which, in turn, predicts that we are dealing with obligatory control constructions. That this prediction is correct seems supported by the fact that (559a) does not have a passive counterpart; a Google search (2/7/2013) on the (passive strings) [< gedurfd> werd <gedurfd> te] resulted in just a handful of potential cases with intransitive infinitives. In fact, there is reason to dismiss these as irrelevant given that the search strings [< gedurfd> werd <gedurfd> * te] resulted in a small number of cases with an extraposed infinitival clause preceded by the complementizer om; this makes it plausible that the passive cases with intransitive infinitives involve om + te-infinitivals with a phonetically empty complementizer. We therefore provisionally conclude that, as predicted, control constructions of the type in (559a) cannot be passivized.

    [+]  IV.  Semi-transparent te-infinitivals: a mixed type

    Subsection III has shown that obligatory control te-infinitivals are traditionally divided into two categories: opaque and transparent infinitivals. Opaque infinitival clauses are in extraposed position, that is, follow the verbs in clause-final position, whereas transparent infinitival clauses participate in verb clustering, that is, they are split by the verbs in clause-final position. This is illustrated again by the primeless examples in (561), in which we have italicized the infinitival clause and underlined the relevant verbs; the primed examples illustrate the concomitant (lack of) IPP in the corresponding perfect-tense constructions.

    561
    a. dat Jan ontkent dat boek te lezen.
    no clause splitting
      that  Jan denies  that book  to read
      'that Jan denies reading that book.'
    a'. dat Jan heeft ontkend/*ontkennen dat boek te lezen.
    no IPP
      that  Jan has  denied/deny  that book  to read
      'that Jan has denied reading that book.'
    b. dat Jan dat boek niet durft te lezen.
    clause splitting
      that Jan that book  not  dares  to read
      'that Jan doesnʼt dare to read that book.'
    b'. dat Jan datboek niet heeft durven/*gedurfd te lezen.
    IPP
      that Jan that book  not  has  dare/dared  to read
      'that Jan hasnʼt dared to read that book.'

    It has long been assumed that the choice between extraposition and verb clustering is absolute, albeit that a large set of verbs seems to allow both options; see Bech (1955), Evers (1975), and much subsequent work. The primeless examples in (562) show that beweren'to claim' is such a verb: it seems compatible both with extraposition and verb clustering. Later research has shown, however, that (561b) and (562b) cannot be treated on a par, given that the corresponding primed examples show that durven exhibits the IPP-effect in the perfect tense, whereas beweren does not; see Den Besten et al. (1988), Den Besten & Rutten (1989), Rutten (1991), Broekhuis et al. (1995), and references given there—for convenience, we will from now on refer to this collection of works as the Den Besten research group, as much of it was either initiated or supervised by Hans den Besten.

    562
    a. dat Jan beweert dat boek te lezen.
    no clause splitting
      that  Jan claims  that book  to read
      'that Jan claims to read that book.'
    a'. dat Jan heeft beweerd/*beweren dat boek te lezen.
    no IPP
      that  Jan has  claimed/claim  that book  to read
      'that Jan has claimed to have read that book.'
    b. dat Jan dat boek beweert te lezen.
    clause splitting
      that  Jan that book  claims  to read
      'that Jan claims to read that book.'
    b'. dat Jan dat boek heeft beweerd/*beweren te lezen.
    no IPP
      that  Jan that book  has  claimed/claim  to read
      'that Jan has claimed to have read that book.'

          This array of facts led to the conclusion that besides the transparent and opaque te-infinitivals a third type of semi-transparent te-infinitivals must be recognized. The postulation of a more hybrid set of te-infinitivals requires the classification of infinitival clauses given in (560) to be revised as in (563). However, it still does not solve the problem that we have to postulate a set of opaque te-infinitivals despite the fact that these clearly involve obligatory control.

    563
    Transparency of infinitival clauses (version 2)
      split pattern ipp-effect
    opaque om + te-infinitivals — —
      control te-infinitivals (type A) — —
    semi-transparent control te-infinitivals (type B) + —
    transparent control te-infinitivals (type C) + +
      subject raising te-infinitivals + +
      bare infinitivals + +
    [+]  V.  Clause splitting of (semi-)transparent te-infinitivals

    Subsection IV has shown that according to the traditionally assumed diagnostics of clause splitting and IPP, there are three types of te-infinitivals: opaque, semi-transparent and transparent. It should be pointed out, however, that it not the case that verbs always select one specific type of te-infinitival. The examples in (564), for instance, suggest that the verb proberen'to try' is compatible with all three types.

    564
    a. dat Jan dat boek heeft proberen te lezen.
    transparent
      that  Jan that book  has  try  to read
      'that Jan has tried to read that book.'
    b. dat Jan dat boek heeft geprobeerd te lezen.
    semi-transparent
      that  Jan   that book  has  tried  to read
    c. dat Jan heeft geprobeerd dat boek te lezen.
    opaque
      that  Jan   has  tried  that book  to read

    At this point we want to make two brief remarks. The first is that it has not been established in the literature so far that the three variants differ in meaning or information-structural properties (but see Subsection IX); the translation given in (564a) seems adequate for all cases. The second is that the preceding subsections analyzed (564c) as an om + te-infinitival given that it seems to allow the addition of the complementizer om; whether this is indeed an option is not directly relevant for the discussion in this subsection, but we return to this issue in Subsection VII.
          At first sight, the examples in (564a&b) seem similar in that clause splitting leads to verb clustering. This similarity may just be apparent, however, given that the infinitival clauses are small in size; they contain just one phonetically realized constituent apart from the te-infinitive, the direct object het boek'the book', and clause splitting therefore inevitably leads to "clustering", that is, adjacency of the verbs. In order to see whether clause splitting leads to verb clustering in the technical sense of an impermeable series of verbs, we should consider te-infinitivals that are larger in size; (565) shows the result of this for infinitival clauses headed by the ditransitive verb geven. The two (a)-examples show that in the case of transparent te-infinitivals, splitting of the te-infinitival inexorably leads to verb clustering: placing the direct object een kus'a kiss' in between the verbs is impossible. The two (b)-examples, which may both be considered slightly marked by some Dutch speakers, show that in the case of semi-transparent te-infinitivals the verbs may group together, but that it is also possible to interrupt the sequence of verbs by placing the direct object left-adjacent to the te-infinitive. The acceptability contrast between the two primed examples thus suggests that transparent and semi-transparent te-infinitivals differ in that only the former involve verb clustering in the technical sense given above.

    565
    a. dat Jan het meisje een kus heeft proberen te geven.
      that  Jan the girl  a kiss  has  try  to give
      'that Jan has tried to kiss the girl.'
    a'. * dat Jan het meisjeheeftprobereneen kus te geven.
    b. dat Jan het meisje een kus geprobeerd heeft te geven.
      that  Jan the girl  a kiss  tried has  to give
      'that Jan has tried to kiss the girl.'
    b'. dat Jan het meisjegeprobeerdheefteen kus te geven.

    The same is demonstrated by the examples in (566), in which the te-infinitivals contain the phrasal expression in ontvangst nemen'to take delivery', in which the PP in ontvangst probably functions as a complementive. The (a)-examples show that this PP must precede the matrix verb proberen in the case of transparent te-infinitivals, while the (b)-examples show that it can be interposed between the verbs in the case of semi-transparent te-infinitivals; the marked status of (566b) in fact shows that placement of the complementive PP in front of the verbs in clause-final position is actually dispreferred in the latter case.

    566
    a. dat Jan dat boek in ontvangst heeft proberen te nemen.
      that  Jan  that book  in acceptance  has  try  to take
      'that Jan has tried to take delivery of the book.'
    a'. * dat Jan dat boekheeftproberenin ontvangst te nemen.
    b. ? dat Jan dat boek in ontvangst geprobeerd heeft te nemen.
      that  Jan that book  in acceptance  tried  has  to take
      'that Jan has tried to take delivery of the book.'
    b'. dat Jan dat boekgeprobeerdheeftin ontvangst te nemen.

    The contrast between the primed examples in (565) and (566) shows that clause splitting of transparent and semi-transparent te-infinitivals cannot be considered the result of the same operation. Given that clause splitting of transparent te-infinitivals invariably leads to verb clusters in the technical sense, the Den Besten research group concluded that in this case clause splitting is the result of a head movement operation traditionally called verb raising. Since clause splitting of semi-transparent te-infinitivals does not necessarily lead to verb clustering, the group concluded that we are dealing with some sort of extraposition.

    [+]  VI.  Semi-transparent and opaque te-infinitivals are similar

    The Den Besten research group argued that semi-transparent te-infinitivals are just like the opaque ones in that they are in extraposed position, that is, in the position following the clause-final verbs. Semi-infinitival constructions are special, however, in that at least one of the constituents of the te-infinitival is extracted from it and moved into a position preceding the clause-final verbs. The structures in (567) show that on this analysis the only difference between the semi-transparent and opaque te-infinitivals in (564b&c) is whether or not the object dat boek'that book' has been extracted from the extraposed clause and placed into a position preceding the matrix verb geprobeerd.

    567
    a. dat Jan dat boeki heeft geprobeerd [PRO ti te lezen].
    semi-transparent
      that  Jan   that book  has  tried  to read
    b. dat Jan heeft geprobeerd [PRO dat boek te lezen].
    opaque
      that  Jan   has  tried  that book  to read

    It is crucial to note that extraction of the direct object is not obligatory in the case of semi-transparent te-infinitivals, as is clear from the fact illustrated in (565) that verb clustering is not obligatory if the te-infinitive is ditransitive; the analyses of the relevant examples are given in (568a&b). This suggests that the "opaque" te-infinitival in (568c) is essentially the same as the semi-transparent ones, apart from the fact that both objects remain inside the te-infinitival.

    568
    a. dat Jan het meisjei een kusj geprobeerd heeft [PRO titj te geven].
      that  Jan the girl  a kiss  tried has  to give
    b. dat Jan het meisjei geprobeerd heeft [PRO ti een kus te geven].
      that  Jan the girl  tried has  a kiss  to give
    c. dat Jan geprobeerd heeft [PRO het meisje een kus te geven].
      that  Jan tried has  the girl a kiss  to give

    The same holds for other cases in which the te-infinitival contains a larger number of constituents, as in (566), the analyses of which are given in (569a&b). This suggests again that the "opaque" te-infinitival in (568c) is essentially the same as the semi-transparent ones, apart from the fact that the direct object also remains within the te-infinitival.

    569
    a. ? dat Jan dat boeki in ontvangstj heeft geprobeerd [PRO titj te nemen].
      that  Jan that book  in acceptance  has  tried  to take
    b. dat Jan dat boeki heeft geprobeerd [PRO ti in ontvangst te nemen].
      that  Jan that book  has  tried  in acceptance  to take
    c. dat Jan heeft geprobeerd [PRO het boek in ontvangst te nemen].
      that  Jan has  tried  the book  in acceptance  to take

    The Den Besten research group suggests that the fact that (569a) is often evaluated as marked compared to (569b&c) can be used to support the movement analysis, given that movement of complementives like in ontvangst is normally only possible if it targets the sentence-initial position, that is, if it undergoes wh-movement or topicalization; see the discussion of (574) for an alternative suggestion.
          The analysis of the Den Besten research group therefore suggests that the distinction between opaque and semi-transparent te-infinitivals can be dismissed in favor of the claim that the alleged opacity of te-infinitivals in extraposed position simply follows from the optionality of the movement that derives the split pattern. This is actually expected on the basis of the hypotheses I-IV, repeated here as (570), as these explicitly state that there are no opaque te-infinitivals; only om + te-infinitivals are of that type.

    570
    a. Hypothesis I: om + te-infinitivals are CPs.
    b. Hypothesis II: te-infinitivals are TPs.
    c. Hypothesis III: CPs constitute islands for syntactic dependencies.
    d. Hypothesis IV: TPs do not constitute islands for syntactic dependencies.

    Later, we will look at some potential counterexamples to the claim that there are no opaque te-infinitivals in Subsection VIII, but for the moment we simply adopt it as an idealization. This makes it possible to replace Table (563) by the simpler one in (571), in which we have also indicated whether the split pattern arises as a result of leftward movement of one or more constituents of the te-infinitival or as a result of whatever operation is responsible for verb clustering.

    571
    Transparency of infinitival clauses (final version)
      split pattern ipp-effect
    opaque (cp) om + te-infinitivals — —
    semi-transparent (tp) control te-infinitivals (type A) leftward movement —
    transparent(tp or vp) control te-infinitivals (type B) verb cluster +
      subject raising te-infinitivals verb cluster +
      bare infinitivals verb cluster +

    The analysis of the Den Besten research group discussed above crucially claims that te-infinitivals are transparent for movement. Since this movement is not possible from om + te-infinitivals, it seems reasonable to conclude that the movement involved is of a locally restricted type (although the discussion below will show that it differs from A-movement of the kind we find in passive and subject raising constructions in that it can also affect non-nominal phrases). This means that we can now also account for the fact that te- and om + te-infinitivals differ in their control properties; the former allow but the latter block the locally restricted syntactic dependency of obligatory control.
          The term semi-transparent te-infinitival can clearly be justified by pointing out that such infinitival clauses are transparent for certain locally restricted dependencies, like obligatory control and the movements that derive the split pattern, but not for others, such as the movements that derive verb clustering in the technical sense given earlier. It should be noted, however, that the Den Besten research group also noted that extraction from te-infinitivals in extraposed position is often considered marked by some speakers and that the acceptability judgments on the resulting surface forms depend on various factors. Many speakers consider present perfect-tense examples such as (572b) marked compared to simple present examples such as (572a), which we indicated by the percentage sign—note in passing that the placement of the participle before or after the finite verb in clause-final position does not seem to affect the acceptability of (572b). Example (572c) is added to show that this acceptability contrast cannot be explained by assuming that besluiten'to decide' selects a transparent te-infinitival as its complement, given that this would wrongly predict that substituting an infinitive for the participle in (572b) gives rise to a fully acceptable result.

    572
    a. dat Jan dat huis besluit te kopen.
      that  Jan that house  decides  to buy
      'that Jan decides to buy that house.'
    b. % dat Jan dat huis <besloten> heeft <besloten> te kopen.
      that  Jan that house    decided  has  to buy
      'that Jan has decided to buy that house.'
    c. * dat Jan dat huis heeft besluiten te kopen.
      that  Jan that house  has  decide  to buy

    The relative markedness of (572b) shows that the term semi-transparent te-infinitival is also quite apt because boundaries of such clauses seem less easy to cross than those of transparent te-infinitivals. More evidence in favor of this conclusion is provided by the fact that the acceptability judgments also depend on the nature of the element that is moved. Examples (573a&b) show again that it is easily possible for most speakers to extract nominal objects from te-infinitivals in extraposed position; while the primeless (b)-example illustrates that extraction of the indirect object is independent of extraction of the direct object, the primed (b)-examples show that (as usual) the direct object cannot be moved across the indirect object. Example (573c) shows that extraction of PP-complements is also possible. The examples in (573) are, of course, also acceptable if the objects occur after the verb besloot'decided', which we have indicated by means of angled brackets.

    573
    a. dat Jan <dat huis> besloot <dat huis> te kopen.
    direct object
      that  Jan that house  decided  to buy
      'that Jan decided to buy that house.'
    b. dat Jan <Marie> besloot <Marie> dat boek te geven.
    indirect object
      that  Jan   Marie  decided  that book  to give
      'that Jan decided to give Marie that book.'
    b'. dat Jan Marie <dat boek> besloot <dat boek> te geven.
      that  Jan Marie    that book  decided  to give
      'that Jan decided to give Marie that book.'
    b''. dat Jan <*dat boek> besloot Marie <dat boek> te geven.
      that  Jan      that book  decided  Marie to give
      'that Jan decided to give Marie that book.'
    c. dat Jan <op vader> besloot <op vader> te wachten.
    prepositional object
      that  Jan   for father  decided  to wait
      'that Jan decided to wait for father.'

    Examples like (574a&b) with an extracted complementive or a particle, on the other hand, are often considered marked, and examples such as (574c) with an adverbial phrase even seem to be excluded for many speakers. The primed examples show that the markedness of the split patterns is even more conspicuous in the corresponding perfect-tense examples. All cases become acceptable by placing the complementive, particle or adverbial phrase to the immediate left of the te-infinitive.

    574
    a. ? dat Jan het hek donkerblauw besloot te schilderen.
    complementive
      that  Jan the gate  dark.blue  decided  to paint
      'that Jan decided to paint the gate dark blue.'
    a'. ?? dat Jan het hek donkerblauw besloten heeft te schilderen.
      that  Jan the gate  dark.blue  decided  has  to paint
    b. ? dat Jan Marie op besloot te bellen.
    particle
      that  Jan Marie up  decided  to call
      'that Jan decided to call Marie up.'
    b'. ?? dat Jan Marie op besloten heeft te bellen.
      that  Jan Marie up  decided  has  to call
      'that Jan has decided to call Marie up.'
    c. ?? dat Jan dat boek nauwkeurig besloot te lezen.
    adverbial phrase
      that  Jan that book  meticulously  decided  to read
      'that Jan decided to read that book meticulously.'
    c'. *? dat Jan dat boek nauwkeurig besloten heeft te lezen.
      that  Jan that book  meticulously  decided  has  to read
      'that Jan decided to read that book meticulously.'

    The contrast between complements and non-complements in the examples in (573) and (574) is familiar from other "island" contexts, and again justifies the conclusion that te-infinitivals in extraposed position are not fully transparent for movement. However, given that om + te-infinitivals block the proposed movements entirely, we conclude that te-infinitivals are not completely opaque either. Consequently, the term semi-transparency seems the most suitable one for describing the factual situation.

    [+]  VII.  Support for the movement analysis: subject raising

    Subsection VI has shown that extraction from semi-transparent (that is, extraposed) te-infinitivals often leads to a slightly marked result. This subsection shows that this not only holds for control constructions, which have been the focus of our attention so far, but also for subject raising constructions. Section 5.2.2.2, sub II, has shown that subject raising constructions are normally transparent in the sense that they involve verb clustering and IPP (for those speakers that allow subject raising in perfect-tense constructions). This is illustrated again in (575).

    575
    a. dat Jan de boeken naar Utrecht schijnt te sturen.
      that  Jan  the books  to Utrecht  seems  to send
      'that Jan seems to send the books to Utrecht.'
    b. dat Jan de boeken naar Utrecht heeft %schijnen/*geschenen te sturen.
      that  Jan the books  to Utrecht  has    seem/seemed  to send
      'that Jan has seemed to send the books to Utrecht.'

    In the formal register, however, subject raising constructions often do not have the format of the normally used construction in that extraposition of te-infinitivals is quite common. We illustrate this in (576a) by means of the verb blijken, which seems to occur relatively frequently with extraposed infinitival copular clauses; (576b) shows that such subject raising constructions do not exhibit the IPP-effect. Of course, the fact that these constructions do not occur in informal speech may be a reason to simply put them aside, but it is nevertheless useful to note that they are not unexpected given the claim that semi-transparent te-infinitivals are transparent for movement.

    576
    a. dat deze conclusiei blijkt [TPti juist te zijn].
      that  this conclusion  turns.out  correct  to be
      'that this conclusion turns out to be correct.'
    b. dat deze conclusiei is gebleken [TPti juist te zijn].
      that  this conclusion  is turned.out  correct  to be
      'that this conclusion has turned out to be correct.'

    The claim that te-infinitivals in extraposed position are transparent for subject raising also accounts for the existence of the passive subject raising construction discussed in Section 5.2.2.2, sub III; we repeat the core data in (577). Example (577b) first shows that the PRO-subject of the infinitival complement of beweren must satisfy restriction (551a) on obligatory control; impersonal passivization is excluded given that PRO must have an overtly realized controller. Example (577c) shows, however, that passivization is possible if the subject of the infinitival clause is raised to the subject position of the matrix clause where it is assigned nominative case. The important thing to note is that the markedness of the resulting structure fits in nicely with the observation from Subsection VI that extraction from extraposed te-infinitivals widely leads to a marked result—judgments on examples such as (577c) seem to come close to those on the perfect-tense constructions in (572b).

    577
    a. dat Jani beweert [TP PROi dat boek te lezen].
      that  Jan  claims  that book  to read
      'that Jan claims to be reading that book.'
    b. * dat er wordt beweerd [TP PRO? dat boek te lezen].
      that  there  is   claimed  that book  to read
    c. % Jani wordt beweerd [TPti dat boek te lezen].
      Jan  is  claimed  that book  to read
      'Jan is claimed to be reading that book.'

    The analysis suggested for the subject raising constructions above seems in line with the analysis suggested by the Den Besten research group for semi-transparent control constructions discussed in the previous subsections. Unfortunately, however, there is a complication which needs to be dealt with. Consider the set of examples in (578); the question marks indicate that it is not a priori clear whether we are dealing with a CP or a TP.

    578
    a. dat Jani probeert [? PROi dat boek te lezen].
      that  Jan  tries  that book  to read
      'that Jan is trying to read that book.'
    b. dat er wordt geprobeerd [? PRO? dat boek te lezen].
      that  there  is   tried  that book to read
      'that it is tried to read that book.'
    c. * Jani wordt geprobeerd [?ti dat boek te lezen].
      Jan  is  tried  that book  to read

    In our earlier discussion, we accounted for the paradigm by claiming that the complement of proberen is an om + te-infinitival with an empty complementizer. If so, impersonal passivization of the matrix clause, as in (578b), is predicted to be possible given that PRO is not obligatorily controlled and can therefore be controlled by the implicit agent of the matrix verb. The subject raising construction in (578c), on the other hand, is predicted to be impossible given that om + te-infinitivals block extraction.

    579
    a. dat er wordt geprobeerd [CP Ø [TP PROarb dat boek te lezen]].
      that  there  is   tried  comp  that book  to read
      'that it is tried to read that book.'
    b. * Jani wordt geprobeerd [CP Ø [TPti dat boek te lezen]].
      Jan  is  tried  comp  that book  to read

    We have seen, however, that proberen may also occur with a semi-transparent te-infinitival. This predicts that PRO is obligatorily controlled, as a result of which impersonal passivization is excluded because PRO cannot be controlled by the implicit agent of the matrix verb, subject raising, on the other hand, is wrongly predicted to be possible given that te-infinitivals do allow extraction.

    580
    a. * dat er wordt geprobeerd [TP PROarb dat boek te lezen].
      that  there  is   tried  that book  to read
    b. $ Jani wordt geprobeerd [TPti dat boek te lezen].
      Jan  is  tried  that book  to read
      'Jan is tried to read that book.'

    Of course, it may be the case that proberen can select either a CP or a TP, which would predict that both (579a) and (580b) are grammatical. This raises the question as to why only the former is acceptable. It is clear that this cannot be due to syntax proper as the two structures can be generated without any problem; for this reason we did not mark the unacceptability of (580b) by an asterisk, but by a dollar sign. Consequently, we have to assume that we are dealing with some kind of syntactic blocking; speakers simply do not opt for a marked structure when an unmarked structure is available. We leave the question as to whether this line of reasoning is tenable to future research. If not, it is clear that the pattern in (578), which is typical of verbs selecting either an om + te- or a te-infinitival, constitutes a problem for the attempt to extend the line of inquiry initiated by the Den Besten research group to the patterns discussed in this subsection.

    [+]  VIII.  Additional restrictions on transparency of argument clauses

    The previous subsections only discussed direct object clauses, and this is not without reason given that the syntactic function of te-infinitivals seems to have an effect on their transparency for movement. Evers (1975:39ff) and Den Besten et al. (1988), for example, have noted that te-infinitivals functioning as subject, nominal part of a PP-complement, or logical subject of a particle (that is, a complementive) resist clause splitting categorically; cf. the primeless examples in (581). The corresponding perfect-tense constructions in the primed examples furthermore show that constructions with such argument clauses do not exhibit the IPP-effect.

    581
    a. dat het hem <*het boek> berouwt <het boek> gekocht te hebben.
    subject
      that  it  him  the book  regrets  bought  to have
      'that he regrets it that he has bought the book.'
    a'. Het heeft hem berouwd/*berouwen het boek gekocht te hebben.
      it  has  him  regretted/regret  the book  bought  to have
      'He has regretted it that he has bought the book.'
    b. dat Jan ertoe <*het boek> neigt <het boek> te kopen.
    prepositional object
      that  Jan to.it  the book  inclines  to buy
      'that Jan is inclined to buy the book.'
    b'. Jan is ertoe geneigd/*neigen het boek te kopen.
      Jan is  to.it  inclined/incline  the book  to buy
      'Jan has been inclined to buy the book.'
    c. dat Peter Marie <??dat boek> opdraagt <dat boek> te kopen.
    subject
      that  Peter Marie      that book  prt.-ordered   to buy
      'that Peter orders Marie to buy that book.'
    c'. Peter heeft Marie opgedragen/*opdragen dat boek te kopen.
      Peter has  Marie prt.-ordered/prt.-order  that book  to buy
      'Peter has ordered Marie to buy that book.'

    It seems ill-advised, however, to take the examples in (581) as counterexamples to our classification in Table (571). In order to show this, we will compare the examples in (581) with similar examples involving wh-movement, but first observe that wh-extraction is possible from the direct object clauses in (582).

    582
    a. Welk boeki dacht Peter [CP dat Marie ti wou kopen]?
      which book  thought  Peter  that  Marie  wanted  buy
      'Which book did Peter think that Mary wanted to buy?'
    b. Welk boeki beloofde Peter [CP dat hij ti zou kopen]?
      which book  promised  Peter  that  he  would  buy
      'Which book did Peter promise that he would buy?'

    This shows that finite direct object clauses are transparent for wh-movement (despite being opaque for other types of movement); see Section 11.3.1. The examples in (583) indicate, however, that not all finite argument clauses allow this type of extraction. Observe that we used the same type of verbs as in (581) in order to keep the examples parallel, to the extent that this is possible.

    583
    a. Het spijt hem [CP dat hij het boek gekocht heeft].
    subject
      it  regrets him  that  he  the book  bought  has
      'He regrets it that he has bought the book.'
    a'. * Welk boeki spijt het hem [CP dat hij ti gekocht heeft]?
      which book  regrets  it   him  that  he  bought  has
    b. Jan verlangt ernaar [CP dat hij het boek kan kopen].
    prep. object
      Jan longs  for.it  that  he  the book  is.able  buy
      'Jan longs to be able to buy the book.'
    b'. * Welk boeki verlangt Jan ernaar [CP dat hij ti kan kopen]?
      which book  longs  Jan for.it  that  he  is.able  buy
    c. Jan heeft toegezegd [CP dat hij het boek voor Marie koopt].
    subject
      Jan has  prt.-promised  that  he  the book  for Marie  buys
      'Jan has promised to buy the book for Marie.'
    c'. ?? Welk boeki heeft Jan toegezegd [CP dat hij ti voor Marie koopt]?
      which book  has  Jan prt.-promised  that  he  for Marie  buys

    The fact that we find the same effects in (581) and (583) for different types of movement suggests that "transparency of a phrase of type P for movement type M" is not an absolute property of P; there may be other factors involved. From this it follows, for example, that being a te-infinitival is a necessary but not a sufficient property for exhibiting clause splitting. The opacity of the clause types in (581) and (583) is a well-known fact from the formal linguistic literature, and it is often assumed that transparency of some phrase P requires the additional conditions in (584a&b) to be satisfied.

    584
    Transparency of a phrase P requires:
    a. that P is an internal argument of the matrix verb and;
    b. that P is realized as a direct object.

    Let us now consider how (584) accounts for the opacity of the embedded clauses in (581) and (583). The (a)-examples, in which the clauses function as the subject of a nom-dat verb, perhaps satisfy clause (584a) but they clearly violate clause (584b). Observe that we used the modifier perhaps in the previous sentence because the examples contain the anticipatory pronoun het'it', which may function as the true syntactic argument of the verb, the extraposed "subject" clause merely being a right-dislocated adjunct that provides further information as a kind of afterthought. That this may be the correct way of looking at these examples is suggested by the fact that direct object clauses also become opaque if they are introduced by an anticipatory pronoun. The examples in (585) illustrate this for clause splitting and wh-movement from a clausal complement of the verb beweren'to claim'. Although the use of the anticipatory pronoun het is marked in the sense that it is restricted to specific (e.g., factive) contexts, it is clear that insertion of the pronoun has a dramatically negative effect on the acceptability of clause splitting and wh-extraction. Note that alternative placements of the anticipatory pronoun (e.g., in a position following the moved phrase dat boek) does not improve clause splitting in (585a).

    585
    a. dat Jan het <*dat boek> beweerde <dat boek> te willen kopen.
      that Jan  it      that book  claimed  to want  buy
      'that Jan claimed he wanted to buy that book.'
    b. Welk boeki beweerde Jan (*het) [dat hij ti wilde kopen]?
      which book  claimed  Jan     it   that  he  wanted  buy
      'Which book did Jan claim he wanted to buy?'

    In (586) we show essentially the same for the verb proberen, but since this verb does not take finite complement clauses, we illustrate the restriction on wh-movement by means of extraction from an infinitival clause.

    586
    a. dat Jan het <*dat boek> heeft geprobeerd <dat boek> te kopen.
      that  Jan it     that book  has  tried  to buy
      'that Jan has tried to buy that book.'
    b. Welk boeki probeerde Jan (*het) [PRO ti te kopen]?
      which book  tried  Jan      it  to buy
      'Which book did Jan try to buy?'

          The embedded clauses in the (b)-examples in (581) and (583) clearly violate both clauses in (584) and in addition they involve the anticipatory pronouns erop/ertoe; as expected, both clause splitting and wh-movement are impossible. The embedded clauses in the (c)-examples in (581) and (583) do seem to satisfy clause (584b) but they are not internal arguments of the matrix verbs because they are introduced as logical subjects of the particles; both clause splitting and wh-movement indeed give rise to a degraded result, although many speakers report that they consider the deviance less severe than in the (a)- and (b)-examples.
          To conclude this discussion, we want to have another look at the formulation of the additional restrictions on the transparency of argument clauses, especially clause (584b), which claims that the argument clause not only has to be an internal argument of the verb but also function as a direct object. It is easy to check the validity of this claim by means of passivization of obligatory object control constructions. The examples in (587) first show that such constructions can be passivized due to the fact that passivization does not affect the control relation because PRO has an overt controller in both constructions, the indirect object Marie/haar.

    587
    a. dat Jan Marie/haari verzocht [PROi het boek te kopen].
      that  Jan Marie/her  requested  the book  to buy
      'that Jan requested Marie/her to buy the book.'
    b. dat Marie/haari werd verzocht [PROi het boek te kopen].
      that  Marie/her  was  requested  the book  to buy
      'that Marie/she was requested to buy the book.'

    Example (588a) further shows that obligatory object control constructions allow clause splitting: that we are dealing with a semi-transparent construction is clear from the fact that the perfect-tense construction does not exhibit the IPP-effect. Observe that speakers generally tend to evaluate clause-splitting as less acceptable with double object verbs.

    588
    a. (?) dat Jan Marie/haar het boek verzocht te kopen.
      that  Jan Marie/her  the book  requested  to buy
      'that Jan asked Marie/her to buy the book.'
    b. (?) dat Jan Marie/haar het boek heeft verzocht/*verzoeken te kopen.
      that  Jan Marie/her  the book  has  requested/request  to buy
      'that Jan has asked Marie/her to buy the book.'

    The crucial question is whether clause splitting is possible in the corresponding passive construction in (589a). Broekhuis et al. (1995:113) claimed that passive constructions of this type are grammatical, and it is certainly true that they are much better than examples such as (581a). Regardless of whether (589a) is grammatical or whether we should assign it some intermediate status, we have to answer the question as to what causes the observed difference in acceptability between the two examples. The most conspicuous difference is that whereas (581a) is introduced by the anticipatory pronoun het'it', (589a) is not—in fact, example (589b) shows that adding an anticipatory pronoun to (589a) also makes clause splitting impossible.

    589
    a. dat Marie/haar <??het boek> werd verzocht <het boek> te kopen.
      that  Marie/her     the book  was requested  to buy
      'that Marie/she was requested to buy the book.'
    b. dat het Marie/haar <*het boek> werd verzocht <het boek> te kopen.
      that  it  Marie/her     the book  was requested  to buy
      'that it was requested of Marie/her to buy the book.'

    This suggests that the difference in acceptability between (581a) and (589a) is a reflection of a so-called argument/adjunct asymmetry; adjunct clauses are invariably islands for syntactic dependencies whereas argument clauses are not. This, in turn, suggests that we can simplify (584) for te-infinitivals as in (590) by dropping the clause concerning syntactic function (and probably the same holds for other clause types as well), where "argument" clauses introduced by an anticipatory pronoun are now considered to be a special type of adjunct clauses.

    590
    Te-infinitival clauses that are internal arguments of a verb are (semi-)transparent.

    It is important to note that we do not want (590) to mean that there are no additional restrictions on the (semi-)transparency of te-infinitivals; for example, it may be necessary for the infinitival clauses to be located in their base position in order to avoid the so-called freezing effect. We leave the identification of such additional restrictions to future research.

    [+]  IX.  On the distinction between transparent and semi-transparent te-infinitivals

    The discussion in Subsection VIII has made it clear that the difference between non-transparent and semi-transparent te-infinitivals not only reflects the categorial distinction between CP and TP, but also depends on properties of the wider syntactic context in which these clauses are used, such as their syntactic function or the presence of an anticipatory pronominal element. We are thus left with the distinction between semi-transparent and transparent te-infinitivals, which we referred to as Type A and B in Table (571). If we wish to maintain our earlier conclusion that these are of the same category, TP, we have to raise the question in what respect they are different. Bennis & Hoekstra (1989c:141ff.) put forward the more general claim that infinitival clauses allowing verb raising (in traditional terms) differ from extraposed infinitival clauses in that the temporal interpretation of the former, but not the latter, is dependent on the temporal interpretation of the matrix clause. Applied more specifically to te-infinitivals of type A & B, this implies that the former, but not the latter, constitute an independent temporal domain. That something like this is indeed the case is shown by the examples in (591a&b), adapted from Pardoen (1986), which show that independent temporal modification of te-infinitivals is only possible if the infinitival clause is in extraposed position. Whether independent temporal modification is also possible with split te-infinitivals is not discussed in the literature and is also difficult to establish with certainty given that examples such as (591a') are clearly marked compared to (591a).

    591
    a. Ik heb gisteren geprobeerd die jongen (vandaag) te ontmoeten.
    type A
      I have  yesterday  tried  that boy   today  to meet
      'I tried yesterday to meet that boy today.'
    a'. ? Ik heb die jongen gisteren geprobeerd (vandaag) te ontmoeten.
    type A
      I have  that boy  yesterday  tried   today  to meet
      'I tried yesterday to meet that boy today.'
    b. Ik heb die jongen gisteren (*vandaag) proberen te ontmoeten.
    type B
      I have  that boy  yesterday     today  try  to meet

    Given that the marked status of (591a') may be due to the fact that splitting the non-verbal constituents of the infinitival clause always gives rise to a somewhat marked result, we may perhaps assume (591a') to be grammatical. If so, we have to conclude that split te-infinitivals can receive an independent temporal interpretation, just like their non-split counterparts.
          We provide a second set of examples with the verb weigeren'to refuse' in (592), which give rise to more or less the same acceptability judgments. Note in passing that some speakers may also feel less comfortable with example (592b) if the adverbial phrase morgen is omitted; a Google search on the search string [ heeft weigeren/geweigerd te] reveals that such examples with IPP are much less frequent than examples in which weigeren has its past participle form. However, the fact that a similar minimal pair is independently given by Haeseryn et al. (1997:1037) suggests that such examples are acceptable for many speakers.

    592
    a. Marie had gisteren geweigerd die jongen (morgen) te helpen.
    type A
      Marie had yesterday  refused  that boy  tomorrow  to help
      'Mary had refused yesterday to help that boy tomorrow.'
    a'. Marie had die jongen gisteren geweigerd (?morgen) te helpen.
    type A
      Marie had  that boy  yesterday  refused tomorrow  to help
    b. Marie had die jongen gisteren (*morgen) weigeren te helpen.
    type B
      Marie had that boy  yesterday  tomorrow  refuse  to help

    We should keep in mind, however, that our acceptability evaluation of the primed examples in (591) and (592) is not very sharp and that our provisional claim with respect to their grammaticality must therefore be treated with caution; it is clearly imperative to investigate the similarities and differences between the transparent and semi-transparent te-infinitivals in more detail before drawing any firm conclusions about their syntactic status and/or semantic interpretation.

    [+]  X.  Selection restrictions on infinitival clauses imposed by the matrix verb

    The previous subsections have shown that we have to distinguish between the three types of (om +) te-infinitivals in Table (571), repeated here as (593). This table leaves out semi-transparent infinitivals in subject raising constructions as these seem restricted to the formal register (as the relics of earlier stages of the language).

    593
    Transparency of infinitival clauses (final version)
      split pattern ipp-effect
    opaque (cp) om + te-infinitivals — —
    semi-transparent (tp) control te-infinitivals (type A) leftward movement —
    transparent(tp or vp) control te-infinitivals (type B) verb cluster +
      subject raising te-infinitivals verb cluster +
      bare infinitivals verb cluster +

    Concerning the opposition between extraposition and verb clustering, it seems that the opaque and semi-transparent infinitival clauses must be opposed to the transparent ones in that they must be in extraposed position. The availability of the IPP-effect can be used as a diagnostic; the IPP-effect is both necessary and sufficient to conclude that we are dealing with verb clustering—it is never found in extraposition constructions. The presence of the complementizer om can be used to distinguish between opaque and (semi-)transparent infinitivals: the presence of om is sufficient but not necessary to conclude that we are dealing with opaque infinitival clauses. Finally, recall from Subsection VIII that semi-transparent te-infinitivals only allow the split pattern if they satisfy a number of additional conditions: for example, they minimally should be internal arguments of the matrix verb. The same condition in fact holds for verb clustering.
          Many verbs are compatible with more than one type of infinitival clause. A good example is the verb proberen'to try', which also featured prominently in the previous subsections. The examples in (594) show that this verb is compatible with opaque, semi-transparent as well as transparent te-infinitivals.

    594
    a. dat Jan heeft geprobeerd (om) dat boek te lezen.
    opaque
      that  Jan   has  tried  comp  that book  to read
      'that Jan has tried to read that book.'
    b. dat Jan dat boek heeft geprobeerd te lezen.
    semi-transparent
      that  Jan   that book  has  tried  to read
    c. dat Jan dat boek heeft proberen te lezen.
    transparent
      that  Jan that book  has  try  to read

    The fact that these three examples are virtually equivalent (leaving aside the differences discussed in Subsection IX) raises the question as to why the examples in (594) can occur side by side in the current language. One answer might be that this is due to diachronic development of the language, to the extent that there is a tendency of making infinitival complements smaller in size, perhaps as a concomitant effect of a tendency of matrix verbs to lose their independent status as main verbs. This has been argued quite explicitly for the modal (subject raising) verbs blijken'to turn out', lijken'to appear' and schijnen'to seem', which can still take extraposed (hence semi-transparent) clauses in the formal register, but not in colloquial speech; see Haegeman (2006) and Vliegen (2010) for discussion. The same line of thinking might also be supported by the fact that some semi-aspectual verbs, such as zitten'to sit' in (595), seem to take te-infinitivals in the simple present/past tense but (preferably) bare infinitivals in the perfect tense; see Section 6.3.1 for more discussion. The infinitival clauses in (595) have been italicized and the number sign # indicates that using te in (595b) is not impossible but restricted to specific contexts; the relevant point here is the contrast between the two examples if te is omitted.

    595
    a. dat Jan een boek zit (*te) lezen.
      that  Jan a book  sits     to read
      'that Jan is reading a book.'
    b. dat Jan een boek heeft zitten #(te) lezen.
      that  Jan a book  has  sit     to read
      'that Jan has been reading a book.'

    The diachronic development suggested above seems quite plausible for "semi-lexical" verbs like modal blijken, lijken and schijnen as well as aspectual zitten, but we will leave it open here whether it can also be successfully applied to lexical verbs like proberen'to try'.
          We conclude this section by providing the selection restrictions of the sample of verbs in Table 2. The data set has been garnered from Evers (1975), Den Besten et al. (1988), Den Besten & Rutten (1989), Rutten (1991), Van Haaften (1991), Broekhuis et al. (1995), Ter Beek (2008), and Zwart (2011). A number of things must be said beforehand about the information in this table. First, the classifications provided in the works mentioned above were developed at different stages in the development of the theory and/or for different purposes and, consequently, cannot always be straightforwardly transposed to Table 2. Second, it seems that there is substantial inter-speaker variation: it may therefore be the case that some Dutch readers find that they allow fewer, or more, options than indicated in the table. In this context, we should also point out that in some cases we did not rigidly follow the judgments given in the publications mentioned above because the authors sometimes provided contradictory judgments or sharpened their views over time (the latter holds especially for the views expressed in the various publications by the Den Besten research group). We had to supplement the data occasionally by means of introspection or information provided by Google searches. Third, we restrict ourselves to (di-)transitive verbs with object clauses, given that we have seen that semi-transparent te-infinitivals do not normally exhibit the split pattern if they have the syntactic function of subject, correspond to complements of prepositional objects, or function as logical subjects of complementives (including verbal particles, which–as we have seen–give rise to an intermediate status). We also exclude verbs that obligatorily introduce their object clause by means of the anticipatory pronoun het'it', but we do include subject raising verbs. Fourth, speakers often prefer one of the options indicated; we did not indicate this since the literature does not provide any reliable information about this. Finally, we do not include bare infinitives in our inventory as these are always transparent; we refer the reader to Section 5.2.3 for discussion.
          Table 2 shows that it is possible to group the verbs in several classes according to whether they select opaque, semi-transparent and/or transparent te-infinitivals, but it is not clear whether it is also possible to find a semantic correlate of this formal classification. Classes I and II have in common that the verbs are able to select both opaque and semi-transparent infinitivals. It does not seem possible to distinguish the two classes semantically as they both include control verbs of various types and they both include implicative verbs (which assert or deny the proposition expressed by the te-infinitival) and irrealis verbs (which leave open whether the proposition expressed by the te-infinitival is/will become true). Note in passing that it is hard to classify vergeten'to forget', given that the past participle and infinitive of this verb are homophonous.

    Table 2: Selection restrictions imposed by (di-)transitive verbs on infinitival object clauses
      Verb translation opaque semi-transparent transparent
    I beginnen ‘to start’ + + +
      durven ‘to dare’ + + +
      helpen ‘to help’ + + +
      hopen ‘to hope’ + + +
      leren ‘to learn/teach’ + + +
      pogen ‘to try’ + + +
      proberen ‘to try’ + + +
      trachten ‘to try’ + + +
      wagen ‘to dare’ + + +
      weigeren ‘to refuse’ + + +
      wensen ‘to wish’ + + +
    II adviseren ‘to advise’ + + —
      begeren ‘to desire’ + + —
      beloven [+agens] ‘to promise’ + + —
      beogen ‘to aim at’ + + —
      besluiten ‘to decide’ + + —
      bevelen ‘to order’ + + —
      dreigen [+agens] ‘to threaten’ + + —
      dwingen ‘to force’ + + —
      eisen ‘to demand’ + + —
      gebieden ‘to command’ + + —
      verbieden ‘to forbid’ + + —
      vergeten ‘to forget’ + + ?
      vermijden ‘to avoid’ + + —
      verlangen ‘to desire’ + + —
      verleren ‘to forget how to’ + + —
      verplichten ‘to oblige’ + + —
      verzoeken ‘to request’ + + —
      verwachten ‘to expect’ + + —
      verzuimen ‘to fail’ + + —
      vragen ‘to ask/request’ + + —
      vrezen ‘to fear’ + + —
    III antwoorden ‘to answer’ — + (no split) —
      beweren ‘to claim’ — + —
      denken ‘to think’ — + —/+
      fluisteren ‘to whisper’ — + (no split) —
      garanderen ‘to guarantee’ — + —
      geloven ‘to believe’ — + —
      menen ‘to suppose’ — + +
      schreeuwen ‘to yell’ — + (no split) —
      schrijven ‘to write’ — + (no split) —
      verklaren ‘to state’ — + —
      vertellen ‘to tell’ — + —
      verwijten ‘to blame’ — + —
      verzekeren ‘to guarantee’ — + —
      zeggen ‘to say’ — + —
    IV beloven [-agens] ‘to promise’ — — +
      blijken ‘to turn out’ — — +
      dreigen [-agens] ‘to threaten’ — — +
      lijken ‘to seem’ — — +
      schijnen ‘to appear’ — — +
    V behoren/horen ‘ought ‘to’ — — +
      dienen ‘to have to’ — — +
      (niet) hoeven ‘need not’ — — +
      plegen ‘to be used to’ — — +
      weten ‘to know how’ — — +

    Class III consists of verbs selecting semi-transparent te-infinitivals only and are often propositional in nature. If these verbs imply a specific mode of expression, like fluisteren'to whisper', they do not allow the split pattern; this shows again that there may be additional restrictions on the transparency of te-infinitivals. Note further that the verb denken allows a transparent complement only when it is used with the same meaning as menen'to suppose'. Verbs that only select transparent te-infinitivals fall into two groups, given here as IV and V. Class IV consists of subject raising verbs, which are all modal in nature. The members of Class V are obligatory control verbs, but likewise seem to express some sort of modal meaning.

    References:
    • Bech, Gunnar1955Studien über das deutsche Verbum infinitum, part 1CopenhagenEjnar Munksgard
    • Bech, Gunnar1955Studien über das deutsche Verbum infinitum, part 1CopenhagenEjnar Munksgard
    • Bennis, Hans & Hoekstra, Teun1989Generatieve grammaticaDordrechtForis Publications
    • Besten, Hans den & Jerold E. Edmondson1983The verbal complex in continental West GermanicAbraham, Werner (ed.)On the formal syntax of Westgermania. Papers from the "3rd Groninger Grammar Talks", January 1981Amsterdam/Philadelphia155-216
    • Besten, Hans den & Rutten, Jean1989On verb raising and free word order in DutchJaspers, Dany, Klooster, Wim, Putseys, Yvan & Seuren, Pieter (eds.)Sentential complementation and the lexiconDordrecht/ProvidenceForis Publications41-56
    • Besten, Hans den & Rutten, Jean1989On verb raising and free word order in DutchJaspers, Dany, Klooster, Wim, Putseys, Yvan & Seuren, Pieter (eds.)Sentential complementation and the lexiconDordrecht/ProvidenceForis Publications41-56
    • Besten, Hans den, Rutten, Jean, Veenstra, Tonjes & Veld, Joop1988Verb raising, Extraposition and de derde constructie
    • Besten, Hans den, Rutten, Jean, Veenstra, Tonjes & Veld, Joop1988Verb raising, Extraposition and de derde constructie
    • Besten, Hans den, Rutten, Jean, Veenstra, Tonjes & Veld, Joop1988Verb raising, Extraposition and de derde constructie
    • Broekhuis, Hans, Besten, Hans den, Hoekstra, Kees & Rutten, Jean1995Infinitival complementation: on remnant extrapositionThe Linguistic Review1293-122
    • Broekhuis, Hans, Besten, Hans den, Hoekstra, Kees & Rutten, Jean1995Infinitival complementation: on remnant extrapositionThe Linguistic Review1293-122
    • Broekhuis, Hans, Besten, Hans den, Hoekstra, Kees & Rutten, Jean1995Infinitival complementation: on remnant extrapositionThe Linguistic Review1293-122
    • Evers, Arnold1975The transformational cycle in Dutch and GermanUniversity of UtrechtThesis
    • Evers, Arnold1975The transformational cycle in Dutch and GermanUniversity of UtrechtThesis
    • Evers, Arnold1975The transformational cycle in Dutch and GermanUniversity of UtrechtThesis
    • Evers, Arnold1975The transformational cycle in Dutch and GermanUniversity of UtrechtThesis
    • Evers, Arnold1975The transformational cycle in Dutch and GermanUniversity of UtrechtThesis
    • Haaften, Ton van1991De interpretatie van verzwegen subjectenFree University AmsterdamThesis
    • Haegeman, Liliane2006Clitic Climbing and the dual status of <i>sembrare</i>Linguistic Inquiry37484-501
    • Haeseryn, Walter, Romijn, Kirsten, Geerts, Guido, Rooij, Jaap de & Toorn, Maarten C. van den1997Algemene Nederlandse spraakkunstGroningenNijhoff
    • Pardoen, Justine1986Werkwoordclustering in the voltooide tijdVoortgang849-76
    • Rutten, Jean-Baptist1991Infinitival complements and auxiliariesAmsterdamUniversity of AmsterdamThesis
    • Rutten, Jean-Baptist1991Infinitival complements and auxiliariesAmsterdamUniversity of AmsterdamThesis
    • Ter Beek, Janneke2008Restructuring and infinitival complementsUniversity of GroningenThesis
    • Vliegen, Maurice2010Lexikalische Evidentialität: das niederländische <i>blijken</i>. Ein evidenter Fall der GrammatikalisierungCate, Abraham ten, Rapp, Reinhard, Strässler, Jurg, Vliegen, Maurice & Weber, Heinrich (eds.)Grammatik Praxis GeschichteTübingenNarr209-216
    • Zwart, Jan-Wouter2011The syntax of DutchCambridgeCambridge University Press
    About this article
    Author(s): Hans Broekhuis, Norbert Corver
    Category: Dutch Syntax
    Keywords: ArgumentComplementizerControlExtrapositionImpersonal Passive PronominalizationInfinitival ComplementizerInfinitival ClauseInternal ArgumentOpaque Infinitival ClausePassiveRemnant Verb ClusterSemi-transparent Infinitival ClauseSubject RaisingTense PhraseVerb ClusterComplementizer Phrase
    Version: 1.0, January 2016
    Version history:
    version editor(s) date remarks
    1.0 Hans Broekhuis, Norbert Corver January 2016
    report errorprintcite
    Jump to:
    X