Basic English Grammar with Exercises - MEK

Theoretical Aspects of Movement(105) a it seems [Fiona favours dancing]b Fiona seems [to favour dancing]Given the near synonymy of these two sentences and the fact that the subject of seemin (105b) does not appear to be semantically related to this verb (Fiona is not the onewho ‘seems’) we might assume that the latter is formed by a movement of the lowerclause subject into the higher clause subject position:(106) a [e] seems [Fiona to favour dancing]b Fiona 1 seems [t 1 to favour dancing]This movement is known as raising as the subject of the lower clause raises to thesubject of a higher clause.Raising can apparently happen out of a number of clauses:(107) a it seems [it is believed [it is unlikely [that Stan will steal diamonds]]]b [e] seems [to be believed [to be unlikely [Stan to steal diamonds]]]c Stan 1 seems [to be believed [to be unlikely [ t 1 to steal diamonds]]]Thus, at first sight it would seem that movement is unrestricted in terms of how far anelement can be moved. But on closer inspection this might not be an accuratedescription of what is going on here. For example, note that in (107b) and (c) all theclauses that the subject is raised out of are non-finite and none of them seem to havesubjects.Suppose we try to move out of a finite clause instead:(108) a *Stan 1 seems [it is unlikely [t 1 to steal diamonds]]b it seems [Stan 1 is unlikely [t 1 to steal diamonds]]As we can see, a subject can be raised out of a non-finite clause into the subjectposition of a finite clause, but it cannot be raised out of a finite clause. Note that thefinite clause in (108a) has a subject of its own: it. It is a fact about English finiteclauses that they must have subjects and hence the sentence would be ungrammatical ifthe subject were missing for independent reasons. So this case differs from thegrammatical movement in (107c) in two ways: the moved subject is moved out of afinite clause and it is moved out of a clause with a subject.To control for these variables, let us consider a case where the movement is out ofa non-finite clause with a subject:(109) a it is unusual [for Eric to hope [Stan will steal diamonds]]]b *Stan 1 is unusual [for Eric to hope [t 1 to steal diamonds]]]Again the result is ungrammatical, demonstrating that movement over a subject isitself enough to cause an ungrammaticality. But why would moving over a subject be aproblem? If long distance movements are possible, it is hard to understand why thepresence or absence of a subject should make any difference at all. However, if wesuppose that long distance movements are not possible, though an element can move along way via a series of short movements, we can come to an understanding of theseobservations. Consider the grammatical case of (107). As each subject position is119