| dc.description.abstract | In this dissertation, I present an account of the control of free adjuncts that relies on
incremental processing. While many free adjuncts are controlled by the subject of the
matrix clause (1a), this is not always the case. Some seem to be controlled by non-subject
elements within the matrix clause (1b), others are apparently controlled by the discourse
topic (1c), and still others involve the perceiver of the matrix clause in logophoric control
(1d). These control patterns have raised the ire of many grammatical prescriptivists, who
often label such constructions as ‘danglers’.
(1) a. Turning the corner on his motorcycle, he saw a church.
b. Turning the corner on his motorcycle, his grip began to slip.
c. While under development, they put all other projects on hold.
d. Turning the corner on my motorcycle, a church came into view.
There have been several explanations of these patterns. Many researchers see free
adjuncts as obligatorily controlled by the subject (1a) except where this is not possible, in
which case logophoric control arises (1b,d). But such approaches cannot account for (1c),
in which the controller is inanimate and thus incapable of perceiving anything. Other
researchers regard non-subject control as the result of either an attempt to establish
semantic coherence between two apparently unrelated clauses or an exhaustive search
for alternative controllers based on a complex set of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic
clues. These approaches predict processing difficulty whenever a mismatch occurs, but
most language users process sentences like (1b-d) fairly easily.
My central claim is that the patterns found in adjunct control arise because the establishment of control continues throughout the process of understanding a given sentence.
The language user, on encountering a free adjunct, guesses at a suitable controller. Disruption occurs when another potential controller arrives that is at least as adequate as
the current guess. I support this claim through analysis of an extensive collection of
attested examples, taking care to cover the relevant syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and
processing facts. I also emphasise how important it is for theoretical and descriptive
studies to make specific predictions that could in principle be vindicated or falsified by
future work in historical syntax or experimental psycholinguistics. | en |
