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<p><span style="white-space: nowrap;">Dear PLing-members,</span><br /><br />We would like to invite you to the final talk within the Theoretical Linguistics Colloquium in this semester.<br /><br /><span style="white-space: nowrap;">Speaker: Shannon Bryant (Rutgers)</span><br /><span style="white-space: nowrap;">
Date & time: Tuesday, 23 June, 16h</span><br /><span style="white-space: nowrap;">Location: Sensengasse 3a, 1090 Vienna, Seminarraum 2</span><br /><br /><span style="white-space: nowrap;">The title and the abstract can be found below.</span><br /><br /><span style="white-space: nowrap;">We are looking forward to seeing many of you there!</span><br /><br /><span style="white-space: nowrap;">Valerie Wurm & Iva Kovač</span><br /><span style="white-space: nowrap;">The TLC organizers</span><br /><span style="white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/totlvienna/upcoming" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">https://sites.google.com/view/totlvienna/upcoming</a></span></p>
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<p><strong>Thematic roles in binding and control</strong></p>
<p>Binding and control have long been at the heart of syntactic theory. However, it has long been known that simple syntactic approaches fall short of capturing the full range of relevant phenomena. This talk will consider two problem cases found in English. The first is binding within locative prepositional phrases, as in (1), where both a reflexive and personal pronoun can covary with the sentence subject. The second is so-called control shift, illustrated in (2a), where the implicit subject of passive complement clause takes a different controller than the one that is usually required (cf. 2b).<br /><br />(1) Michele_i set a glass next to her_i / herself_i.<br /><br />(2a) Michele_i persuaded her mother [PRO_i to be allowed to stay up late].<br />(2b) Michele_i persuaded Bob_k [PRO_k,*i to stay up late].<br /><br />I will make the case that, far from falling at the fringes of linguistic theory, these phenomena are central to understanding the nature of binding and control. Based on experimental evidence, I argue that both PP-internal binding and control shift favor theories that appeal to thematic roles. More specifically, I suggest that English pronoun choice depends on the identification of distinct thematic roles within a single event description, while control relations depend on the matching of thematic roles in matrix and embedded event descriptions. Insofar as thematic roles are part of the interface between syntax and semantics, binding and control must be understood at this interface, too.</p>
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