On Raising : A Reananysis of S-Deletion

Abstract

The paper discusses a number of problems in connection with Chomsky's S-deletion approach to the analysis of 'exceptional Case-marking' verbs such as believe, and proposes a new approach to the effect that English contains a ø complementizer that can govern and assign Case, unlike Kayne's(1981) ø complementizer, and that a verb may subcategorize a non-argument as its complements, contradicting Chomsky's claim, "Complements of X are always θ-positions." The new approach is proved to meet requirements of the principles in the GB theory: theθ-criterion, the Case Filter, the Projection Principle and the Binding theory.

0. In this paper, I will argue that English constructions acounted for by means of S-deletion mechanism are not an exceptional phenomenon which calls for a special treatment in syntax. In particular, I will demonstrate that constructions involving the so-called 'exceptional Case-marking' verbs like believe may be accounted for in a principled way by assuming that they require a particular type of infinitival complement clause, just as 'ordinary' verbs such as want and try require their respective type of infinitival complement clause as in (1) and (2):