Factivity and the Theory of Barriers

Abstract

The clausal complements of factive predicates are known to behave differently from those of non-factive predicates with respect to some linguistic phenomena. First, extraction out of non-factive complements is freer than that out of factive complements, as the following English and French sentences from Adams(l985) show: (1) a. whoi do you believe 〔ti loves Mary〕 b. whoi do you regret 〔ti loves Mary〕 (2) a. quii crois-tu 〔qui 〔ti a fait ce bruit〕〕 who do-you-believe that made that noise b. quii regrettes-tu 〔qui 〔ti chatie les enfants〕〕 who do-you-regret that punished the children. It is possible to extract the subject out of non-factive complements, whereas it is impossible out of factive complements.