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In:Romance Linguistics 2013: Selected papers from the 43rd Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), New York, 17-19 April, 2013
Edited by Christina Tortora, Marcel den Dikken, Ignacio L. Montoya and Teresa O'Neill
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 9] 2016
► pp. 341–360

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Some notes on falloir, devoir, and the theory of control

 | The Pennsylvania State University
Published online: 3 February 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.9.18ree
This article sheds new light on the structure and meaning of sentences containing the French modal verbs devoir and falloir, as well as on the syntax and semantics of Control generally. Well-known and previously unnoticed empirical facts are examined that support the author’s novel contention that falloir and devoir are syntactically and semantically ambiguous. These data are also argued to offer indirect support for the analysis of Control clauses recently developed in Reed (2014: Ch. 6 and 7), according to which there is a theoretical primitive (pro) and it is associated with a “minimal” feature bundle consisting of just [−expletive] and [+N] syntactic features, with a separate, post-syntactic Theory of Control determining its understood phi-features.
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Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Authier, J.-Marc
2025. French clausal ellipsis: types and derivations. Probus 37:2 ► pp. 263 ff. DOI logo
Authier, J.-Marc
2025. Features of French clausal ellipsis. Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics 11:5 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Reed, Lisa A.
2019. Further Implications of French Devoir and Falloir for Theories of Control and Modality. In Contributions of Romance Languages to Current Linguistic Theory [Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 95], ► pp. 65 ff. DOI logo

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