Linguist Forum
Specializations => Morphosyntax => Topic started by: mallu on May 25, 2014, 11:30:37 AM
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See the following sentence from a book (name I dont remember)
1) 'For you to receive the best treatment possible is important'
The sentence has the same meaning of the following sentence,I think
'It is important for you to receive the best possible '
My question is if the deivation of the first sentence involves a sort of raising,ie. can it be taken as a case where a CP instead of DP moving to the subject position?
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Can you explain a bit more?
Looks like:
X is important.
Where X is a clause (CP), "For you to receive ...."
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Is the CP that appears before the auxiliary moved up from a lower level?
What is the status of the C.P in the first sentence? Subject?
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Is the CP that appears before the auxiliary moved up from a lower level?
No, I don't think so. Where would it be moving from? There is no lower position.
Raising as a technical term only refers to NPs as far as I know. For example:
John seems to be happy <= seems John to be happy.
Movement (in general) can occur for CPs as well, but only if there is some lower place from which they originated.
What is the status of the C.P in the first sentence? Subject?
Yes, it's the subject of "is important".
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But see
It is important for------.
Doesn't that sentence show that the predicate does not require a subject
semantically.That means in the L.F the subject position is void . Doesnt that show the subject position is filled in the PF by some sort of movement?
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Doesn't that sentence show that the predicate does not require a subject
semantically.That means in the L.F the subject position is void . Doesnt that show the subject position is filled in the PF by some sort of movement?
Ah. Now I understand more.
No, I think that's a kind of rightward displacement for phonological (length) reasons.
You can find more information about this topic under the term "extraposition".
(Note: what you said isn't a bad idea; it seems to work in a way, but I don't think it's the best analysis, because I don't think the "it..." form is the default one. I think it's the opposite.)