November 2007
To appear in Linguistic Inquiry.
Fact and Fiction in Icelandic Control*
Jonathan David Bobaljik and Idan Landau
Abstract
A rich literature on Icelandic syntax has established that infinitival complements ofobligatory control (OC) verbs constitute a case assignment domain independent from thematrix clause, and in this differ systematically from all types of A-movement, which
manifest case dependence/preservation. As Landau (2003) observed, these facts provide
significant counter-evidence to the Movement-Theory-of-Control (MTC) (Hornstein
1999 and subsequent work). Boeckx and Hornstein (2006b) (B&H) attempt to defend the
MTC in light of Icelandic data. We offer here a review of the relevant literature, andshow that B&H’s reply fails on a number of counts. We further argue that contrary totheir claims, PRO in Icelandic gets structural, not default (nominative) case, leaving
B&H with no account for the distinction between PRO and lexical subjects.
Keywords:

case transmission, case concord, control, raising, Icelandic, PRO

1 Introduction
The relevance of case in Icelandic for theories of control and raising was first noted inAndrews (1976, 1982) and Thráinsson (1979) and explored in depth in Andrews (1990)
and Sigurðsson (1989, 1991). As Landau (2003) has observed, these facts provide
significant counter-evidence to the Movement-Theory-of-Control (MTC), as presented inHornstein (1999, 2003) and Boeckx & Hornstein (2003, 2004, 2006b). The core fact isthis: infinitival complements of Obligatory Control (OC) verbs generally constitute an1independent case assignment domain from the matrix clause, and in this property, differ
systematically from all types of A-movement (passive, raising, ECM/Raising-to-Object).
This data provides some of the most compelling evidence for a null category as the
subject of OC infinitives that is distinct in kind from trace. This conclusion is one result
whose implications are recognized across frameworks (GB, LFG), but which is directly atodds with the core thesis of the MTC. Boeckx and Hornstein (2006a) (B&H) provide thefirst attempt to defend the MTC in light of Icelandic data. They contend that “theargument does not undermine the movement approach when the facts are considered intheir entirety” (p.591).
Despite this (repeated) claim to have considered “the facts … in their entirety”(B&H p.591, 604 cf. Boeckx & Hornstein 2004:448), B&H have been quite selective inthe facts they report, failing to acknowledge, let alone discuss, key facts, prominently
discussed in the literature that they cite (including examples of the type given in Landau(2003) to motivate the counter-argument). The oversights lead to a misleading
characterization of the established results in this area, and theoretical proposals that are atodds with the known facts.
In the service of permitting a fairer evaluation of future debates, we offer here acareful review of the relevant literature. Rather than advancing new data or theoretical
proposals in this paper, we restrict ourselves to a discussion of the empirical facts aspresented in the literature prior to 2003, and the conclusions to be drawn from them. We
compare these to the claims (factual and theoretical) in B&H and show that B&H’s
article fails to explain the classic raising/control contrast in case agreement patterns. In

2addition, the considerations that lead to this conclusion expose an important lacuna in the
MTC, namely, its failure to explain the fundamental fact of OC – that controlled subjects
are unpronounced.1
In section 2 we review the classic contrast in Icelandic between A-chains, in whichquirky case is preserved, and OC dependencies, in which it is not. We show that B&H’s
core theoretical proposal for OC (“case overwriting”) fails to capture this contrast, andgenerates false predictions elsewhere. In section 3 we address B&H’s claim that the NOM
case seen on embedded secondary predicates and floating quantifiers (SP/FQ) is amarked, default case. It is shown that all the available evidence points to the opposite
conclusions – embedded NOM is neither marked nor default, but rather standard structuralcase. Section 4 discusses the detrimental implications of this conclusion for the MTC;
essentially, lexical subjects are overgenerated in OC infinitives, a result unchanged evenwhen their case is inherited from the controller or is locally determined to be quirky. In
section 5 we show that inherent/quirky case can be transmitted to PRO, contra B&H’s
claims; this undermines their implied account of why embedded NOM is not marked
under an inherently case marked/quirky controller. Finally, the conclusion addresses
some broader issues of methodology and linguistic ontology underlying this debate.2
2. The central issue: case in control vs. A-movement
The primary challenge to the MTC from Icelandic case facts is that control issystematically unlike all forms of A-movement. For expository reasons, we consider
separately environments in which the embedded predicate is a quirky case assigner (§2.12.2) from those where it is not (§2.3). However, the point is the same—it is only in3control configurations that case-independence between the matrix and embedded
environments obtains.
2.1 Case preservation: The classic paradigms
As Andrews (1990) comments, one of “[t]he two most striking peculiarities of [quirky]
case-marked NPs [is] the phenomen[on] of case preservation…” (p.189). In GovernmentBinding (GB) terms, quirky case DPs behave for all manner of case-driven movements as
if they were moving for case. However, they systematically retain the quirky caseassociated with their θ-assigning predicate.3 We reproduce here Andrews 1990:189-190)
illustration of case preservation under passive (in (1)), ECM/Raising-to-Object (in (2)),
and passive of ECM in (3); all examples are paired with garden variety structural caseexamples.4(1)a.

Strákarnirvoru

the.boys.M.PL.NOM were

kitlaðir.
tickled.M.PL.NOM‘The boys were tickled.’b.

Strákunumvar

bjargað

the.boys.M.PL.DAT

wasrescued.DFLT‘The boys were rescued.’(2)a.

Ég telstrákanaIthe.boys.M.PL.ACC to.have been

believe(hafaverið)

kitlaða.
tickled.M.PL.ACC‘I believe the boys to have been tickled.’b.

Ég telstrákunumIthe.boys.M.PL.DAT to.have been

believe(hafa

4verið)

bjargað.
rescued.DFLT‘I believe the boys to have been rescued.’(3)a.

Strákarnirerutaldir(hafaverið) kitlaðir.

the.boys.M.PL.NOM are.PL believed.M.PL.NOM to.have beentickled.M.PL.NOM‘The boys are believed to have been tickled.’b.

Strákunum

er

talið

(hafa

verið) bjargað.

the.boys.M.PL.DAT is.SG believed.DFLT to.have been

rescued.DFLT‘The boys are believed to have been rescued.’
Andrews characterizes these examples quite succinctly: “[A]s the structurally casemarked NPs of the (a) examples shift between subject and object positions, their caseshifts between nominative and accusative, but the [quirky] case-marked NPs in the (b)examples remain dative” (p.190).5 Thus, the distribution of quirky case DPs precisely
tracks that of structural case DPs. As for the case value that surfaces on the moved DP,
however, it is always the “lowest” case value, i.e., the one determined by the θ-assigning
predicate. Indeed, it was this mismatch between distribution (like structural case) andform (case preservation), that constituted the landmark challenge to GB Case Theory, as
articulated in Zaenen, Maling and Thráinsson 1985).
Control is strikingly different (see Andrews 1976, Andrews 1982, Andrews 1990,
Thráinsson 1979, Sigurðsson 1989, Sigurðsson 1991; hereafter labeled collectively as
ATS). In control structures, the case of the controller is determined locally—the controller
DP bears the locally appropriate structural case. Case-preservation is ungrammatical, as
shown here.
(4)

a.

Honum

var

bjargað

af

5

fjallinu.

Him.DAT was rescued.DFLT ofthe.mountain‘He was rescued from the mountain.’b.

Hann /*Honum vonast til að verða bjargað
He.NOM/*DAT

hopes

to be

af

rescued.DFLT of‘He hopes to be rescued from the mountain.’fjallinu.
the.mountain(after Andrews 1990:198)

Under the standard analysis of control, the failure of case-preservation is the result of
there being two distinct nominal elements involved. In GB, these are the controller DP
and PRO, each with one case and one theta-role. This corresponds to ‘anaphoric control’in LFG, whereby the PRO subject of the embedded clause (SCOMP) is a distinct Fstructure object from the matrix controller (see Andrews 1990:197).
The failure of case preservation under (non-quirky) object control is arguably shownby examples such as (5), after B&H’s (7).6(5)(#) Jón
Jon.NOM

bað

hann

að

asked him.ACC toleiðastekki

be.bored noteinum.
alone.DAT‘Jon asked him not to be bored alone.’The challenge that these facts propose for the MTC should be obvious: if control isanalyzed as a species of A-movement, quirky case should be retained on the “moved” DP,just as it is in all types of A-movement dependencies (raising, ECM, passive).7 However,this is patently impossible. As Landau (2003) noted, the challenge lies not merely indescribing the control facts, but rather in describing them in a way consistent with theraising facts. Most specifically, the task is to explain why the mechanism that ensurescase independence in OC dependencies does not apply in raising chains, which uniformly

6display case preservation. As we show in the next section, B&H does not meet thischallenge.
2.2 Case cover-up: a non-answer
B&H addresses the failure of case-preservation effects in control constructions such as(4b) and (5). The derivation they propose for a control example in all relevant respects
identical to (4b) is given here (their (26)-(27), p. 599).
(6)a.

nominative NP … [quirky FQ/SP …]

b.

Jón

vonast til

Jon.NOM hopes[ aðleiðastekki einum ]tobe.borednotalone.DAT‘Jon hopes not to be bored alone.’(7)

NPi T˚

… t’i

V˚ …

[ Tinf …

V˚ [ti FQ ]]Step 1 embedded V˚ assigns a θ-role/quirky Case to NP and quirky Case to FQ
Step 2 matrix V˚ attracts NP and assigns a θ-role to it
Step 3 matrix T˚ assigns structural Case to NP, which moves to check EPP.
Note that under this analysis, the moved DP is assigned case twice, receiving quirky casein its base position and structural case in (what amounts to) its surface position. B&H’s
core proposal is that quirky case on a moving DP is obligatorily overwritten by astructural case assigned at the landing site (or in the higher clause). Thus, they state: “Asfor the Case value that surfaces on the moving element […], it is always the highest Casevalue” and thus, “Case is morphologically realized only once …, according to the context
in which the NP is pronounced” (pp. 600-601).
The reader will note that this position is flatly contradictory to the standard analysis

7

of quirky case, as discussed in section 2.1 above. Indeed, on that view, quirky case isdefined by its systematic resistance to overwriting. B&H do not mention the casepreservation effect. This is an unfortunate omission as it consequently remains unclear
how their theory would avoid falsely predicting case-overwriting whenever a quirky DP
undergoes movement, failing to account for the standard examples that motivate theconcept of quirky case.8
Within B&H’s framework, there are only two possible analyses of quirky DPs:either they bear a hidden structural case feature that must be checked or they do not.9 If
they do, the structural case feature is valued in the matrix clause, correctly predicting caseoverwriting in control, but crucially incorrectly predicting overwriting in all standard Amovement contexts (as discussed above). If, on the other hand, quirky DPs do not bear
any additional (structural) case feature – perhaps because structural case is a Last Resort
option – then their quirky case should be preserved through all derivational stages. This is
the correct result for A-movement, but not for control, where the lower quirky case neversurfaces on the controller. Could B&H then assume that quirky DPs bear an optional
structural case feature? No, because such optionality would allow case preservation incontrol and case overwriting in A-movement – two scenarios that never arise.
As far as we can determine, except by brute stipulation (i.e., presupposing theraising/control distinction to be explained), the MTC has no means of predicting thesystematic correlation of case preservation effects with raising (and other A-movement)
and their absence from control, precisely as Landau (2003:493) noted.
2.3 Case matching and independence: structural case8

When quirky case is not at issue, object control and ECM look similar, with ACC case on
the DP corresponding to the (understood) subject of the infinitival clause. However, as
noted by ATS (e.g., Thráinsson 1979:361), the two constructions differ markedly in thecase properties of elements in the infinitival clause that agree in number, gender and,crucially, case with their antecedents (secondary predicates, floating quantifiers,
participles and adjectival main predicates). The pair in (8) illustrates with an agreeing
secondary predicate (SP) einn ‘alone’.
(8)

a.

Jón

taldi

Bjarnaihafa

hlaupið einani/*einni.

Jon.NOM

believed

Bjarni.ACC to.have runalone.ACC/NOM‘Jon believed Bjarni to have run alone.’
b.

Ég

bað

hanni

(B&H p.601)

að

fara

einni/einaniþangað.

I.NOM asked him.ACC togoalone.NOM/alone.ACC there‘I asked him to go alone.’(Thráinsson 1979:301)

The agreement asymmetry is especially clear with predicate nouns and passive participles,
as in (9) (see also (13) below).
(9)

a.

Ég

tel

Maríu

hafa

verið *tekin/tekna

af lögreglunni

I.NOM believed Maria.ACC to.have been taken.F.SG.NOM/ACC by the.police‘I believed Maria to have been taken by the police.’
b.

Ég

bað

Maríu

að vera tekin/*tekna

I.NOM asked Maria.ACC to beaf lögreglunni

taken.F.SG..NOM/ACC by the.police‘I asked Maria to be taken by the police.’(Thráinsson 1979:362-363)

The question these examples raise for the MTC is why in (8b) and (9b), NOM is available

9(indeed obligatory in (9b)) in the lower clause, but impossible in the (a) examples. Notethat both the nominative and accusative forms of the participle show number, gender andcase agreement with Maria, and are not default forms, a fact that will be relevant insection 3.
2.4 Case dependence – the clausemate speculation
B&H address a contrast like (8), but fail to note the sharper contrast with participles andnouns. Their derivation of an ECM structure like (8a) is given as (10a) (their (35)), andshould be contrasted with object control in (10b) (their (37)):(10) a.

NPi v0 . . . V0 . . . [Tinf . . . V0 [ti FQ]]

ECM

Step 1: embedded V0 assigns a θ-role to NP
Step 2: matrix v0 assigns structural accusative Case to NP and FQ by multiple
Agree
Step 3: NP raises to matrix Spec,vP (to check EPP)b.

NPi v0 . . . t′i V0 . . . [Tinf . . . V0 [ti FQ]]

object control

Step 1: embedded V0 assigns a θ-role to NP
Step 2: matrix V0 attracts NP and assigns a θ-role to it
Step 3: matrix v0 assigns structural accusative Case to NP and FQ by multiple
Agree
The key difference is in Step 2 of (10b). Thus, they “speculate that the marked default[sic] nominative Case on the floating quantifier in [structures corresponding to (10b)] is adistance effect” (p.602). Where the two targets of multiple Agree are in the same clause at
the point of case assignment (as in (10a)), case sharing is strictly obligatory.

10

There are at least two significant problems with this approach. The first one isfactual. B&H assume, incorrectly, that ACC is always available on agreeing elements in
the infinitive, and that only the “marked” NOM in examples like (8b) is in need of
explanation. The truth of the matter is that NOM has a wider distribution than ACC, and isstrongly, perhaps exclusively, preferred in examples like (9b) (we return to the status of
the NOM in the next section).
The second problem is that even for agreeing adjectives, distance (at the point ofcase assignment) does not appear to be the relevant factor. In particular, Andrews (1982),
in discussing the obligatory agreement in ECM and raising configurations, provides
examples in which the ECM DP and the agreeing element are in different clauses, such as
(11).
(11)

Þeir telja

hana(vera) sagða

(vera) vinsæla/*vinsæl.

they believe her.ACC to.be said.ACC to.be popular.ACC/*NOM‘They believe her to be said to be popular.’(after Andrews 1982: 445)

On B&H’s assumptions, the v associated with ECM verbs such as segja ‘say’ has an EPP
feature (Step 3 of (10a)). If this feature is retained under passive (e.g., if passive vP is aphase; see Boeckx and Hornstein 2004:437), movement of the DP into the intermediate
clause will be forced prior to case assignment by the matrix v under multiple Agree. Suchlong-distance constructions should then pattern with control—but they do not. In fact,
whether or not intermediate movement is assumed, there are two elements in (11)agreeing in case with the ECM DP, namely the passive participle in the intermediate
clause and the predicate adjective in the lowest clause. Wherever B&H take that DP to be11

at the point of case assignment, it is a clausemate with one agreeing element and not theother. Hence, the clausemate condition does not appear to be the relevant determinant forcase agreement. NOM is licensed under object control but not under ECM, even when the
ECM-ed DP and the agreeing element are not clausemates. Once again, the MTC fails to
distinguish raising from control in well-known examples.

3. Nominative PRO: Structural or default case?
One aspect of the Icelandic control facts that has received especially prominent attention
since Sigurðsson 1991) is the nature of the NOM case that surfaces on (elements agreeingwith) PRO. As B&H recognize, if this NOM is structural, this will conclusively establishthat the controller and the controllee each bear one structural case and one theta-role, andundermine the MTC. B&H thus repeatedly stress that they treat the NOM in question as“default”, rather than structural case. We focus on this question here, noting not only that
B&H fail to provide evidence for their position, but also reviewing the compelling
evidence in the literature for the structural nature of this case.10
3.1 The “case” for default case
When the embedded predicate is not a quirky case assigner, PRO may take on NOM case(diagnosed by agreement on the SP). According to B&H, this option is marginal.
Example (12) is their (14), with their judgments.
(12)

Jón

bað

Jon.NOM asked

Bjarnaaðkoma

einan/??einn.

Bjarni.ACC to

comealone.ACC/alone.NOM‘Jon asked Bjarni to come alone.’12

B&H write: “... though nominative is marginally possible on the floating quantifier,accusative is strongly preferred. We take this to indicate that in such situations,nominative is really a marked default Case realization” (p. 595). Within their framework,
this is significant, since they make it clear that default case can be “factored out” of thepicture, being entirely distinct from structural case, which is unavailable to the embedded
subject: “...we take this nominative on the secondary predicate to be a default Case, as
there is no source for structural nominative in the embedded clause” (p. 596).
Once out of the picture, nominative PRO no longer bears on multiple caseassignment. Suppose the controller bears case α and the embedded SP case β. If either αor β is inherent/quirky, it simply reflects a θ-role, not abstract Case. If β=NOM, again it is
not abstract/structural Case, but default case. B&H conclude: “Since we have shown that
there is no evidence that multiple structural Cases are assigned to a chain, the argument
against a movement theory of control dissolves” (p. 598).
We note that the claim that NOM in Icelandic OC infinitives is a default case rests
entirely on the alleged markedness of NOM in (12). B&H do not offer any independent
support for this claim, which plays a key role in their analysis (see section 4). Indeed, thefirst quote above suggests that B&H simply equate markedness and “defaultness”.

3.2 The Icelandic facts
Neither the claim that embedded NOM in OC is a marked option, nor the claim that it isdefault case, finds support in the extensive literature on Icelandic. There is muchevidence against both claims, which we review below. We note in passing, though, that13

even if the assumption of markedness were granted, the link to the assumption ofdefaultness is at best unclear. Default values of morphological features are simply
unmarked values that are inserted in the absence of more specific spellout instructions.
To our knowledge, even within B&H’s approach, no markedness in judgment is attachedto such choices. It is thus unclear why nominative PRO in (12) should be any moremarked than, say, 3SG default agreement on the main predicate when no nominative DP
occurs (as in B&H’s example (3)).11
In any event, there is ample evidence that nominative PRO is not marked/marginalin Icelandic; in fact, it is often the preferred option, sometimes the only one. B&H haveapparently erred in this respect in using only the SP einn ‘alone’ as a case detector in theembedded infinitive. It is well established in the literature, however, that main predicates(MPs) and SPs display different agreement patterns. Importantly, predicate nominals andpassive participles qua MPs obviously falsify the “markedness” claim, while SPs are
simply uninformative as to the “defaultness” claim.
Regarding the markedness claim, Andrews (1976:176) already noted that “... apredicate adjective modifying a nominative zero subject can appear either in thenominative or in the case of the controller” (see also Andrews 1982:450). He was also
explicit about the preference: “Why is the nominative always possible, rather than someother case, such as the accusative?” (Andrews 1982:451). Indeed, although B&H (fn. 8)
cite Andrews (1982) as a precursor to their default NOM proposal, they fail to mention
that Andrews raised this idea to accommodate the predominance of NOM in OC
infinitives, not its marginality. Indeed, what seemed to Andrews to be a variable,

14

“squishy” phenomenon (which he ultimately relegated to “performance”), was casematching with the controller, not case mismatch.
More to the point, the preference for NOM over case transmission is especially clear
with two types of embedded MPs - predicate nominals and passive participles (seeThráinsson 1979:362, and Andrews 1982:27, citing Friðjónsson 1977). Sigurðsson
(2002:712) too observes that “as a matter of fact, case-copying down into the infinitive ismarked or questionable for many speakers and even out for some”. The following
examples are reported to allow only NOM in the infinitive (Thráinsson 1979:327,362).12(13) a.

Hann kenndi honumHeað vera góður skákmaður/*góðum skákmanni.

taught him.DAT to begood chessplayer.NOM/*DAT‘He taught him to be a good chessplayer.’b.

Ég bað
I

Maríu

að vera tekin/*tekna

asked Mary.ACC to beaf lögreglunni. (=(9b))

taken.F.SG.NOM/*ACC by the.police‘I asked Mary to be taken by the police.’
As previous scholars have observed, the phenomenon of case transmission in Icelandic
exhibits considerable inter-speaker variation (similarly in Russian, see Landau 2007b forextensive documentation). Nonetheless, the empirical picture is far from chaotic, andsolid generalizations can be and have been formulated. One such generalization is theavailability of NOM in all OC infinitives where quirky case is not assigned. Any analysisof the facts must account for this generalization; an analysis predicated on the false
premise that NOM is a marginal option in OC contexts is bound to be off the mark.
Although B&H are wrong in claiming that NOM is marked in OC infinitives, one

15

may still wonder whether they could be right in claiming that it is a default case. Afterall, as we have noted above, the two claims are independent. The answer is again no:
there is no reason to believe that the NOM on the null subject of infinitives—PRO, in ourview—is anything other than standard structural case.
Example (13b) above serves to illustrate the point. The embedded passive participle
tekin in this example obligatorily shows agreement (in number, gender and case) with the(null) subject of the infinitival. The default form tekið would be obligatory when thesubject does not have structural case. In making this argument, Sigurðsson 1991:335336) presents the following minimal pair.
(14) a.

Strákarnirvonast til að verða

the.boys.NOM hoped

to beaðstoðaðir/*aðstoðað.
aided.PL.NOM /*DFLT‘The boys hope to be aided.’b.

Strákarnirvonast til að

the.boys.NOM hoped

to

verða

hjálpað/*hjálpaðir/*hjálpuðum.

behelped.DFLT/*PL.NOM/*PL.DAT‘The boys hope to be helped.’
In both sentences, the controller in the matrix clause is NOM. The differences lie in theembedded infinitives. Where the infinitive predicate is a quirky case assigner (‘be helped’assigns DAT), the participle is obligatorily in the default, non-agreeing form (14b). Where
the infinitive is a predicate whose corresponding finite subject would be nominative, theagreeing, nominative participle is obligatory, and the default form is excluded (14a). As
regards MP agreement, then, NOM on PRO patterns with structural case (obligatory
agreement) and against quirky/inherent case (agreement impossible).

16

In fact, as Sigurðsson has repeatedly stressed, with respect to agreement on MPs,
the NOM on PRO behaves unlike the other known instances of default NOM in Icelandic,
namely, dislocated and vocative DPs. As (15) (from Sigurðsson 1991:338, paraphrase
added) shows, true default NOM DPs fail to trigger agreement, even on participles.
(15)

Strákurinn,

við

hann

var

the.boy.NOM with him.ACC wasekki dansað/*dansaður.
notdanced.DFLT/*SG.M.NOM‘The boy, nobody danced with him.’
The participial agreement facts are particularly relevant, since, as B&H note “[o]vert
morphological agreement on … passive participles (Case, number, gender) can only takeplace with elements bearing structural Case” (p.593, emphasis added –JDB/IL). Since
the passive participle in control complements obligatorily agrees with the null subject of
the infinitive as in (13b), it follows—on B&H’s own assumptions—that this NOM isstructural, not default case.
The point here is neither subtle, nor new. The facts are discussed in ATS, and thisargument against default NOM in control complements is presented in detail by
Sigurðsson 1991). Although they cite these works, B&H systematically neglect tomention the behavior of MPs (adjectives, nouns or past participles) in infinitives, andtheir characterization of Sigurðsson 1991) paper (on p.593) selectively mentions only his
examples of agreement with FQ/SP. A major theme in Sigurðsson (1991), however, as inlater work Sigurðsson (1992, 1996, 2002, 2003, 2004) is precisely this distinction: While
primary agreement (on MPs) is triggered only by structurally case-marked subjects,
secondary agreement (on SPs/FQs) is case-insensitive, applying also with inherent/quirky

17

case-marked arguments.
Omission of this distinction, in effect, renders almost all of B&H’s examples
irrelevant to the question of whether NOM on PRO is structural or default. The reason isthat their examples, as noted above, only use FQs/SPs as case-detectors, never MPs.
Since SPs/FQs agree with any type of antecedent, they cannot be used to choose between
the structural and the default analyses of the embedded NOM. Examples with embedded
MPs, however, such as (13a,b) and (14a), can; and the fact that they manifest fullagreement, in contrast to (14b) and (15), vindicates the standard structural NOM analysis
and refutes B&H’s default NOM proposal.13
We note here that precisely the same argument (for structural case on PRO), using
similar case concord paradigms, has been made for Russian (see Comrie 1974, Greenberg
1983, 1989, Neidle 1988, Franks 1998, Babby 1998, Babby and Franks 1998, Landau
2007a). Interestingly, Russian povides straightforward evidence that the case of PRO is
not default case: While the default case of DPs in Russian is NOM, the case on PRO is
DAT. Thus, a key idea in the MTC – that PRO may never bear a locally assigned

structural case – is consistently disconfirmed in languages that provide the appropriate
testing ground for it (see Landau 2007a for further data and discussion).

4 The lexicalization problem
Why is it so important for the MTC to banish multiple structural cases in OC chains?
Curiously, the question is not addressed in B&H’s recent writings. A close reading in theoriginal formulations of the MTC, however, reveals the tacit assumptions that are18

endangered once structural case is granted to PRO (or the controller’s trace). Theseassumptions are needed to guarantee that controlled subjects are unpronounced; in otherwords, they bear on the fundamental problem of control theory - how to derive the
distribution of PRO. In this section we show that the irreducible existence of multiple
cases in OC chains robs the MTC of its account of the null status of PRO. The result isthat the MTC licenses and overgenerates lexical subjects in OC infinitives. We consider
three environments where this happens: (i) PRO gets structural NOM, (ii) PRO gets quirkycase, (iii) PRO gets structural ACC (via transmission from the controller).
Hornstein (1999:82) explains the fact that the understood subject of control
infinitives is unpronounced as follows: “... the null phonetic status of PRO is explained inwhatever way we explain the null phonetic status of NP-trace. One natural assumption isthat Case is required for phonetic “visibility”. Both NP-trace and PRO will therefore failto meet the requirements for having phonetic content”. Hornstein (2003:fn.29) reiterates
this parallelism as the source of the nullness of PRO, deriving it, ultimately, from Nunes’(1995) theory of copy deletion. B&H express their continued reliance on Nunes as well(p. 600). In fact, Nunes’ theory is really a sophisticated expansion of the Case Theory. It
predicts that a single copy will be spelled out in an A-chain, and this copy will occur inthe case position (normally, the topmost copy).14
On these assumptions, the facts established in section 3 are lethal to the MTC, forthese facts show quite clearly that PRO bears structural case in Icelandic. Thus, in normal
circumstances, where no quirky case is involved, the OC chain is structurally casemarked twice – both at the tail (PRO) and at the head (the controller DP). It is therefore

19expected that the tail position should be able to host a phonetically visible DP. This DP
would get its θ-role and structural NOM downstairs, while the matrix DP would get its
own θ-role and case in the matrix clause.
(16) a.

b.

*Jónvonast til [hann/Eiríkur

að verða ráðinn ]Jon.NOM

hopes

to be

he/Eric.NOM

hired.M.SG.NOM‘Jon hopes for him(self)/Eric to be hired.’(Jónsson 1996,162)

Ég bað

fara einI

Maríu[ að (*hún/*Ásta)asked Maria.ACC

toshe/Asta.NOM goþangað]alone.F.SG.NOM there‘I asked Maria (for her/Asta) to go there alone.’ (after Thráinsson 1979:301)
Such sentences are ungrammatical in Icelandic or, for that matter, most languages thathave been investigated (see Szabolcsi 2007 for apparent examples of overt infinitival
subjects). Yet the MTC inevitably overgenerates them, particularly in Icelandic, given its
commitment to the role of case in copy pronunciation and given the empirical finding that
Icelandic PRO bears structural case. This is what we call the lexicalization problem: How
to block the lexicalization of PRO?
It is important to understand that although the MTC can accommodate a lexical
PRO (i.e., overt subject of an infinitve) as such, it cannot accommodate both a lexical
PRO and a lexical “controller”. Thus, the backward control construction has been taken
as evidence that the MTC is consistent with lexicalization of PRO (Polinsky and Potsdam
2002, 2003). However, the problem of double lexicalization, of both controller and PRO,arises with equal force under the movement analysis of backward control (see Landau
2007b for relevant comments). The question for the MTC boils down to this: Why must20

there be a single chain at all, as opposed to two independent chains? What rules out(16a,b)?15
It should be recognized how fundamental to the MTC the lexicalization problem is.
For any theory of control, the distribution of PRO is the core problem. From its inception,
the ostensibly elegant solution in terms of case and copy pronunciation has practically
been the flagship of the MTC. But the “elegant” solution, it now transpires, rests on afalse premise – that PRO is caseless. Robbed of that premise, the MTC can no longer
explain the fundamental fact of OC. The flagship has sunk.16
The lexicalization problem arises with equal force in the two other control
environments treated by B&H: quirky PRO and accusative PRO (via transmission).
Unsurprisingly, neither can be lexicalized.
(17) a.

Égvonast til

I.NOM hope

for

[ að

(*mér/*Jóni)

verða

hjálpað].

tome/Jon.DAT

behelped‘I hoped (for myself/Jon) to be helped.’b.

(after Zaenen et al 1985: 109)

Ég

bað

Maríu [ að (*hana/*Bjarna)

I

asked

Maria.ACC to her/Bjarni.ACC go there‘I asked Maria (for her/Bjarni) to go there.’fara þangað](after Thráinsson 1979:301)

Concerning (17a), the problem is that B&H apparently take quirky case to be sufficientfor the purposes of licensing a lexical DP.17 Having both case and a θ-role, then, the DP in
the lower clause in (17a) would have no intrinsic need to move further, and a second DP
could undergo external merge in the matrix clause, where it would certainly receive a θrole and structural case. If, on the other hand, quirky case does not suffice for licensing an

21

overt DP (as in classic GB), then the case-preservation problem reappears in the Amovement contexts, as discussed in section 2.1. There are only two choices here. Bothfail, for reasons that were well documented in the literature prior to B&H, and which
B&H fail to address.
Finally, (17b) is also overgenerated, given the mechanism of multiple Agree
invoked by B&H to derive object control (see (10b)). Instead of moving the embedded DP
to the matrix VP, one can externally merge a new DP to receive the matrix θ-role. BothDPs would check their case against the matrix light v (via multiple Agree). As far as we
can see, nothing in B&H’s system rules out this derivation.
To summarize, we have identified a fundamental problem for the MTC, arisingfrom the encounter of its case-based analysis of lexicalization with the facts of Icelandic.
In three distinct environments (nominative, quirky, and accusative PRO) the MTC
wrongly licenses lexical subjects in OC infinitives.18 One must conclude that the MTC
has no satisfactory account of the basic issue in control theory – how to derive the
distribution of PRO. Evidently, a viable theory of OC must dissociate the distribution of
PRO from case. Theories with this property exist (Sigurðsson 1991, Carnie and Harley
1997, Tallerman 1998, San-Martin 2004, Landau 2004, 2006), but they are all
fundamentally incompatible with MTC’s core assumptions.19

5 Case transmission
So far we have been concerned with cases where the controller bears structural (NOM or
ACC) case, and optionally transmits it to PRO. We have said nothing about the behavior

22

of controllers with inherent/quirky (I/Q-) case. There are three cases to consider: A
quirky controller occurs with a nominative PRO, or with a quirky PRO, which could
either be assigned case locally or by transmission. The first situation corresponds to
B&H’s “default NOM”, a notion we criticized in section 3. The second situation, in which
PRO receives a quirky case independent of the quirky case of the controller, is alsomentioned in B&H (e.g., their (9), (20)). As B&H identify I/Q-case with θ-role (theyoften use the expression “θ-role/quirky Case”), such cases for them reflect nothing morethan the simple fact that OC chains are assigned two θ-roles.
What about the last possibility, where the controller transmits its quirky case to
PRO? According to B&H – such cases do not exist. They claim that “Icelandic speakers...
strongly reject remote Quirky matching” (p. 597), this being predicted by the MTC, as“inherent (in our case, Quirky) Case cannot be assigned long-distance” (p. 602). They
further cite two examples (their (19)) where they report Q-case transmission to beungrammatical.
In contrast, though, all major studies of case transmission in Icelandic, starting withthe earliest, cite grammatical examples where an I/Q-case assigned locally to the matrix
controller is inherited in the infinitive (alternating with NOM). Such cases are found bothwith quirky subject controllers (18) and with dative object controllers (19), and theembedded case-bearing element may be either an adjectival MP or an SP (Andrews
1976:(31)-(33); Thráinsson 1979:299, (47); 301, (50); 363, (41); Andrews 1982:(38),(40); Sigurðsson 2002:(83), (84), (86); the following is a sample from these sources).
(18) a.

Mig

langar að faraí

kaupstaðinn

23

einn/einan.

I.ACC longto go

to town

alone.NOM/ACC‘I long to go to town alone.’
b.

Henni

fannst gaman að

her.DAT found funtoverða fyrst/fyrstri.
befirst.NOM/DAT‘She found it fun to be number one.’(19) a.

María leyfði
Mary

þeim

að

allowed them.DAT tovera óþægir/óþægum.
benaughty.NOM/DAT‘Mary allowed them to be naughty.’b.

Égskipaði

henni

að

fara

ein/einniþangað.

I

orderedher.DATtogoalone.NOM/DAT there‘I ordered her not to go there alone.’
While authors do note that many speakers prefer NOM in these contexts, no study (prior to
B&H) has indicated that I/Q-case transmission is ungrammatical in Icelandic. Similarfacts obtain in Ancient Greek and Latin (Andrews 1971, Quicoli 1982, Cecchetto &Oniga 2004). It is puzzling to us that B&H could have disregarded this mass of evidence.
Consider now the implications of I/Q-case transmission for the MTC. At the very least,
the phenomenon demonstrates that I/Q-case cannot be identical (equivalent, reducible,etc.) to a θ-role. Whereas the matrix I/Q-case can be transmitted to PRO, the matrix θrole cannot. Presumably, B&H prohibited long-distance assignment of I/Q-case since
long-distance assignment of θ-roles is unattested. However, facts such as (18)-(19) breakthis alleged causal link.20
A second, less apparent but more significant implication concerns the status of the24embedded NOM. Recall that when the controller gets structural ACC, case transmission, if
possible at all, alternates with embedded NOM (see (8b)). B&H take the latter to be amarked option (against all previous descriptions). Notably, under a quirky or inherently
case-marked controller, the embedded NOM is not marked, even on B&H’s own
description (see their (8), (19b), and (i) in fn. 6). Why this contrast? B&H do not offer
any explicit explanation, but we can extrapolate the following from their assumptions:
NOM is marked under an ACC controller precisely because ACC transmission is available

as a first option for valuing the case feature of the embedded FQ/SP (via multiple Agree);while NOM is unmarked under a quirky/inherent controller since it is the only option,transmission of quirky/inherent case being excluded.
Unfortunately for this reasoning, the latter assumption is false, as (18)-(19)demonstrate. Thus, case transmission does not distinguish structural from non-structuralcases. Therefore, on B&H’s assumptions, default NOM should be secondary to atransmitted DAT just as it is to a transmitted ACC. The fact that it “wins out” in the firstcase but not in the second case remains an unexplained asymmetry in the MTC.
At this point B&H could presumably concede that NOM on (non-quirky) PRO is not“marked”. These, we have argued, are indeed the true facts in Icelandic. The problem isthat acknowledging the facts would force B&H into recognizing that NOM is standardly
available to nonfinite subjects, just as it is to finite subjects. Herein lies the lexicalization
problem which haunts the MTC (see section 4.1).21
6. Conclusion
In one sense, the case agreement facts of Icelandic (and Russian) constitute just one

25

category of unanswered empirical challenge to the MTC. Many others, not discussed inthis reply, still persist (e.g., overgeneration in sideward movement, lack of account forpartial control, violations of Visser’s generalization; see Landau 2007a for extensive
discussion).
In another sense, though, the failures of the MTC discussed in this reply deserve a
dedicated critique. The basic contrast between raising and control in Icelandic – casepreservation in the former, case independence in the latter – has been understood, fromthe outset, as attesting to the fundamentally different nature of the two processes.
Andrews, Thráinsson and Sigurðsson — although working in different frameworks —clearly perceived and articulated this point. The argument has been a mainstay of the
discussion for 30 years now and is to be counted among the important results of the field.
We hope that by reviewing the literature and collecting together the relevant examples,
we have helped to clarify just why this evidence is so compelling.
To be sure, challenges to established results are welcome. As we havedemonstrated, though, B&H’s article does not provide a challenge to these conclusions,
inasmuch as they do not address the main empirical arguments for the existence of PRO.
They offer a “case overwriting” mechanism that appears to simply fail in raising (or any
other A-movement) contexts. Likewise, their discussion of NOM case in control
infinitives is inconsistent with the facts as reported in all previous studies of the topic.
This NOM exhibits the hallmark of standard structural case – it triggers full agreement on
MPs. Not only is it not marked (as B&H claim) – it is often the only option available.
B&H’s exclusive focus on the case marking of SPs/FQs, as opposed to MPs, is a crucial

26

oversight; it renders their data irrelevant to their “defaultness” claim.
The classic literature on Icelandic drew one firm conclusion from the fact that PRObears case: Case cannot distinguish the distribution of lexical DPs from that of PRO. The
same conclusion has been reached by scholars studying parallel phenomena in Russian.
As far as we can see, this conclusion is inescapable. It is a striking feature of the MTC,
that for all its radical rhetoric of breaking with unsubstantiated assumptions of the past, it
is intimately predicated on the GB-style Case Filter (reformulated as a theory of the PF
interface, but essentially non-distinct in predictions). Evidence that the subject of OC
infinitives is case marked like any other DP, therefore, is lethal to the MTC, as there is nolonger any reason why this subject could not be an overt DP, and hence uncontrolled.
B&H appear to acknowledge this when they state: “[s]ince we have shown that there isno evidence that multiple structural Cases are assigned to a chain, the argument against amovement theory of control dissolves” (p. 598). Such a claim clearly implies thatmultiple structural cases—which we have shown to exist—constitute a solid argument
against the MTC. Since the key offering of the MTC was a reduction of the condition that
PRO be silent to the fact that traces are (typically) unpronounced, the lexicalization
problem lies at the very heart of the MTC.
With reference to the Icelandic case facts, and their import for theories of control,
B&H note that “it pays to look before one leaps” (p.592). On this point, we fully concur.

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Boeckx, Cedric, and Norbert Hornstein. 2006b. The virtues of Control as movement.
Syntax 9:118-130.
Carnie, Andrew, and Harley, Heidi. 1997. PRO, the EPP and Nominative Case: Evidence
from Irish Infinitivals. UPenn Working papers in Linguistics 4, 71-86.
Comrie, Bernard. 1974. The Second Dative: A Transformational Approach. In Slavic
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Michigan University, Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic Publications.
Greenberg, Gerald R. 1983. Another Look at the Second Dative and Related Subjects.
Linguistic Analysis 11:167-218.
Greenberg, Gerald R. 1989. Dative Subjects and the Second Dative Within Slavic. Digest
for Philology and Linguistics 32, 45-57.
Hornstein, Norbert. 1999. Movement and control. Linguistic Inquiry 30:69-96.
Hornstein, Norbert. 2003. On control. In Minimalist Syntax, ed. by Randall Hendrick, 681. Oxford: Blackwell.
Jónsson, Jóhannes Gísli. 1996. Clausal architecture and case in Icelandic, Doctoral
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293-325. Dordrecht: Springer.
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McFadden, Thomas. 2007. Structural case, locality and cyclicity. Ms., Universität
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Academic Publishers.
Nunes, Jairo. 1995. The Copy Theory of Movement and Linearization of Chains in the
Minimalist Program. Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park.
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Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann. 2004. Icelandic Non-Nominative Subjects: Facts and
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Venkata Subbarao, 137-159. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Sigurðsson, Halldór Ármann. 2007. The Case of PRO. Ms., Lund University.
Szabolcsi, Anna. 2007. Hidden in plain sight: Overt subjects in infinitival control andraising complements Ms., NYU.
Tallerman, Maggie. 1998. The Uniform Case-licensing of Subjects in Welsh. The
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31

Zaenen, Annie, Maling, Joan, and Thráinsson, Höskuldur. 1985. Case and Grammatical
Functions: The Icelandic Passive. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 3:441483.
(Bobaljik)
Department of Linguistics
University of Connecticut
337 Mansfield Rd., U-1145
Storrs-Mansfield, CT 06269-1145
jonathan.bobaljik@uconn.edu(Landau)
Dept. of Foreign Literatures & Linguistics
Ben Gurion University
P. O. Box 653
Beer Sheva 84105
ISRAEL
idanl@bgu.ac.il*

For discussion of the material presented here, we thank Thórhallur Eythórsson,

Heidi Harley, Alec Marantz, Halldór Ármann Sigurðsson, Höskuldur Thráinsson andSusi Wurmbrand, as well as two reviewers. The second author was supported by the
Israeli Science Foundation (grant No. 27/05).
1

As we were writing this article, we learned of Sigurðsson (2007), an independent,

convergent reply to B&H. We thank Halldór Sigurðsson for making available to us a32

draft of his reply. We have not incorporated the new data in Sigurðsson (2007) as our
main argument is that B&H’s proposal cannot adequately deal with data that was alreadyavailable in the published literature.
2

The following abbreviations are used in this article: MTC (Movement Theory ofControl); OC (Obligatory Control); NOC (Non-Obligatory Control; ECM (Exceptional
Case Marking); NOM (nominative); ACC (accusative); DAT (dative); GEN (genitive);
MP (main predicate); SP (secondary predicate); FQ (floating quantifier).
3

While we are not aware of any questions regarding the status of the examples

reported here (except where specifically noted below), we do note that Sigurðsson
(1989:96, n.31) and Andrews (1990) report some variation in case preservation effects
with some other raising predicates. So far as we know, the claim that the judgments ofinterest systematically reflect an A-movement versus control distinction remains
unchallenged.
4

All examples are taken from the literature, as noted. A few examples have beenslightly modified from the source, for example, by substituting a DP of a different gender
so that case is shown unambiguously, or by explicitly presenting ungrammatical forms
that are implied, but not given in the sources. In the few cases we have made suchchanges, we have indicated the example as ‘after’ the source. We thank Höskuldur
Thráinsson for his patient help in checking all modifications.
5

That the quirky DPs are indeed subjects and objects is exceptionally well-established in an extensive literature beginning with Andrews 1976) and Thráinsson

33

1979); see especially Zaenen, Maling and Thráinsson 1985), and Sigurðsson (1989). The
arguments do not depend on correlating surface position and grammatical function.
6

B&H indicate such examples to be acceptable, while Thráinsson finds them to besemantically anomalous (we indicate this with #) on the grounds that object control verbs
select agentive complements, but quirky subjects are never agentive. The narrow point tobe made here is that, to the extent that speakers accept object control of quirk-caseassigning infinitives, they manifest obligatory case independence. In addition to adding
the “#”, we have modified B&H's example by using a controller DP that overtly
manifests the ACC/DAT distinction.
7

Nothing hinges on analyzing this class of dependencies as literal movement, as

opposed to Agree. There is evidence that Icelandic lacks the classic EPP (construed as
obligatory filling of Spec,TP; see Wurmbrand 2006), but the issues here do not
distinguish between quirky and structural DPs. Note that Landau (2000) analyzes OC asan Agree dependency, but crucially, one involving two distinct A-chains. A matrix v/T
forms an Agree relation both with the controller DP and PRO (or the infinitival C). Since
the controller DP is never part of the embedded infinitive, it is never c-commanded by theembedded predicate and cannot receive case from it. Thus, case preservation in OC is
ruled out on principled grounds in this theory.
8

B&H state (their fn. 3): “Landau also observes that in contrast to control, raisingdisallows situations where a single NP appears to receive two Cases. We return to thisdifference between raising and control in section 3.” In point of fact, they do not discuss
any of the raising examples presented by Landau 2003: 492, culled from the earlier

34

literature), nor any other examples which show the case-preservation effects discussed
above. The sole example of a raising versus control difference they discuss in theirsection 3 concerns a different point, namely the distribution of structural (nominative)
case in the infinitival. We return to these example types below.
9

As B&H do not address this point, we must cover both options. Note that B&H’s

derivations (29), p. 599 and (33), p. 600, and associated text, are suggestive of a Last
Resort view, whereby quirky case is sufficient to satisfy the Case Filter. This would be an
unsignaled, but important, departure from assumptions they make in work that they rely
on in B&H, notably, the Inverse Case Filter and the assumption that ECM verbs likebelieve obligatorily assign accusative (see Boeckx 2003:11, Boeckx and Hornstein
2004:436). Assuming that quirky case satisfies the Case Filter will create an even more
serious problem regarding the lexicalization of PRO, to which we return in section 4.
10

In order to avoid potential terminological confusion, we keep to the term

‘structural’ NOM for the NOM that is associated with the subject of a finite clause. B&H’s
key claim is that the NOM in infinitives (their ‘default’ NOM) is distinct from that NOM.
Our point is that this dichotomy is false: the two are not distinct by any criteria. A
separate question is whether ‘structural NOM’ is itself (always) a form of default or
unmarked case (as in Marantz 1991, McFadden 2007). This latter use of the term
‘default’ is not the one used by B&H, and not the one we dispute.
11

Embedded “default NOM” case is apparently not marked when the controller

bears inherent/quirky case (see B&H’s fn. 6 and (19b)). B&H do not offer any explicit

35

account of this contrast. In section 5 we return to this question and show that the mostnatural account available under B&H’s assumptions is empirically untenable.
12

Presumably, B&H would not expect DAT in (13a), given their claim that

“Icelandic speakers... strongly resist remote quirky Case matching” (p. 507). This claim,
however, is false; in section 5 we show that transmission of inherent/quirky DAT/ACC is
not generally ruled out. Its failure in (13a) is due to the relative inherent resistance ofpredicate nominals to case transmission, as evidenced by the parallel failure of ACC
transmission in (13b).
13

In fact, B&H do give two examples in which the embedded MP is an adjective(their (16), with an embedded small clause, and (i) in their fn.6). In both, the adjective isunambiguously in an agreeing, nominative form and not in the default form that would be
required under their analysis (B&H do not gloss agreement on the adjectives). The
agreement patterns in these examples provide further evidence that there is a structural
NOM DP in the infinitive, controlling agreement on the adjective, as noted in the source
literature.
14

Nunes assumes that: (i) Case must be checked locally (in a Spec-head relation);(ii) each copy in a chain carries its own uninterpretable Case feature; (iii) PF-deletion
only eliminates the “offending” Case features of the deleted copy. These assumptions
conspire to ensure that PF-deletion of low copies in an A-chain will always be more
economical than PF-deletion of the highest copy, since the latter’s Case is necessarily
checked off by the attracting head, whereas the former’s Case, if not PF-deleted, would

36

require an extra deletion operation in the syntax. Thus, high pronunciation is the default
option in A-chains.
15

Incidentally, we note that even if NOM in the infinitive is default case, it is notclear that B&H’s assumptions suffice to prevent PRO from being lexicalized with thatcase. B&H assume that default NOM is assigned directly to the embedded SP (theirderivations (33) and (36)) and not to the controller’s chain. The question is what prevents
it from being assigned to the embedded subject.
16

A reviewer suggests that Nunes’s theory would exclude double lexicalization due

to the LCA-based requirement that each chain be lexicalized exactly once. Our point hereis that recognizing structural NOM in the lower position in fact obviates the need for an
OC chain at all under B&H’s assumptions. The matrix and embedded DPs each have a θrole and structural case, so nothing excludes two chains and thus two lexicalized
positions, at best related by binding. Recall that the MTC purports to derive theobligatory coreference in OC from movement—the assumption that there is necessarily
only one DP (itself reduced to case requirements). Thus, once structural NOM isrecognized in the embedded clause (as it must be), the MTC loses both its account of thenullness of OC PRO and of its necessary anaphoricity, the two central problems forcontrol theory.
17

For example, the quirky DP in their (33) undergoes no feature checking with thefinite T, other than checking of an EPP feature.
18

We have no doubt that technical solutions can be devised. The issue is, andalways has been as regards the empirical problems facing the MTC, what insights are lost37

or gained by the introduction of such solutions. In the case at hand, it seems that the MTC
has missed a crucial insight: The null status of PRO is not a side effect of certain
parochial assumptions about Case, but rather a fundamental, crosslinguistically valid
property of OC.
19

B&H do seem to recognize the problem for a case-based account of PRO, as in a

separate paper they appear to retreat from their earlier position, invoking a notion of“maximal checking” in place of case (Boeckx and Hornstein 2006b:124). However, thisappears to be a notational variant of the GB notion of abstract Case. At any rate, B&H
themselves reveal how crucial to the MTC is denying PRO of structural case when theystate: “[s]ince we have shown that there is no evidence that multiple structural Cases are
assigned to a chain, the argument against a movement theory of control dissolves” (B&H
2006a:598). Thus, with respect to the Icelandic data in particular, the majority of the
discussion in B&H is about case—to the extent their account is translatable into
“maximal checking” the core problems remain.
20

A deeper puzzle for the MTC lurks underneath: Why can θ-roles not be assigned

long-distance? Given (i) MTC’s reduction of θ-assignment to feature-checking, and (ii)the operation Agree, which allows for long-distance feature-checking, it is no longer clear
what blocks this option. A language choosing this option would allow controller DPs toscopally reconstruct into the infinitive – so far an unattested phenomenon.
Notice that backward control (Polinsky & Potsdam 2002, 2003) is not an
instance of θ-checking under Agree (without Merge), but rather of θ-checking under
movement plus low copy pronunciation (so called LF-movement). Thus, as Polinsky &38

Potsdam show, the covert controller may bind matrix anaphors. Genuine long-distance θchecking, in contrast, should not endow an embedded DP with matrix scope (cf. thefrozen scope of the associate in there-constructions).
For all we know, natural languages always implement θ-assignment in strictly
local configurations. Standard semantic theories provide a principled explanation for thisdesign feature (argument saturation being accomplished via binary operations defined forsisters only – e.g., Function Application). Part of the obscurity surrounding thepredictions and consequences of multiple θ-roles per chain in the MTC derives from theabsence of an attendant compositional semantics.
21

Although it is not our purpose here to provide a full account of case transmission,

it is worth noting that such an account is readily available within non-movement
approaches to OC (see Landau 2007b for an analysis that extends to many otherlanguages beyond Icelandic).

39