Adjunct control in German, Norwegian, and English

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of adjunct control in German, Norwegian, and English, comprising adverbial infinitives, adverbial present and past participle constructions, as well as adverbial small clauses headed by the particle als in German, som in Norwegian, and as in English. We show that the height of the adjunction site (and thus, following scope-based adjunct theories, the underlying semantics of the adjuncts) determines the control possibilities. Based on a large set of data, we argue that event- and process-modifying adjuncts, i.e. adjuncts adjoined in the verbal domain (at the vP- or VP-level, respectively), display obligatory control (OC) properties, whereas sentence and speech act adverbials, which are adjoined at the TP- and CP-level, respectively, rather involve non-obligatory control (NOC). To capture these data theoretically, we propose a structural account that assumes that OC relations are syntactically licensed under upward Agree with PRO being the referentially defective probe that needs to be referentially identified in the course of the derivation by the controller, i.e. the goal. If the adjunct is adjoined in the verbal domain, such an Agree relation can be successfully established and OC is derived. If adjunction occurs in higher adjunction sites, i.e. outside of the verbal domain, feature valuation under Agree fails; as a last resort strategy, the control relation is then licensed on the basis of pragmatic factors, which yields NOC.

1 Introduction

In the control debates of the recent years (cf. Hornstein 1999; Landau 2000, 2013, 2015; among others), adjunct control has only played an ancillary role. There are at least three reasons for this. Firstly, adjunct control comprises a very heterogeneous set of examples, empirically speaking. Secondly, as Landau (2013, 2015, 2017) points out, adjunct control cannot be categorized in unison as obligatory or non-obligatory control (OC vs. NOC). Instead, the distinction between OC and NOC cuts through the set of examples involving adjunct control, an observation that adds to its heterogeneous character. Thirdly, NOC as such has typically played a minor part in theories of control.

The aim of this paper is two-fold. In the first part, we focus on the empirical situation and provide insight not only into English, but also German and Norwegian data involving adjunct control, something which is much needed since the available literature is to a large extent based on English data only. To this end, we investigate adjunct control into (i) various adverbial infinitives (cf. Faarlund et al. 1997; Landau 2013; Høyem 2015, 2018), (ii) adverbial present and past participle constructions (cf. Kortmann 1991; Fabricius-Hansen and Haug 2012; Brodahl 2016, 2018, 2020; Brodahl and Høyem 2018; Høyem and Brodahl 2019), and (iii) adverbial small clauses headed by the particle als in German, som in Norwegian, as in English (cf. Emonds 1985; Eide 1996; Flaate 2007; Eide and Flaate 2017). Apart from providing comparable data, we show that there is, after all, a common underlying pattern. We argue that it depends on the underlying syntactic structure whether we get OC with the subject or the object as controller, or NOC. To be precise, it depends on the height of the adjunction site (which, in turn, hinges on the semantics of the adjunct): it turns out that adjunction in the vP-domain results in obligatory subject control, adjunction in the VP-domain results in obligatory object control, and a higher adjunction site yields NOC (see also Høyem 2018; Høyem and Brodahl 2019).

In the second part of the paper, we focus on the theoretical side and show how the data can be captured in accordance with phase theory, drawing on ideas by Fischer (2018) and Fischer and Høyem (2021).

The paper is structured as follows: in Sect. 2, empirical evidence is presented—what kind of adverbials can we observe, where do they adjoin, and which type of control do they display? The control analysis advocated in this paper will be outlined in Sect. 3. First, some underlying technical issues concerning the analysis are discussed, before the theory is then tested on the different adjuncts and control possibilities from Sect. 2. Section 4 concludes the paper.

2 Empirical evidence

First, we concentrate on empirical evidence from German, Norwegian, and English, which includes adverbial infinitives, adverbial present and past participle constructions, as well as adverbial small clauses headed by the particle als in German, som in Norwegian, and as in English.¹ These adjuncts display a wide range of adverbial readings and appear in most adverbial positions. Although these three languages differ typologically, with English and Norwegian being SVO languages and German an SOV language, the ordering restrictions among these adverbial adjuncts adhere to the same syntactico-semantic adverbial hierarchy.

2.1 Background assumptions

In line with scope-based adjunct theories, like Frey and Pittner (1998, 1999), Pittner (1999), Haider (2000), Ernst (2002, 2014), we assume that adverbial adjuncts are located in different syntactic domains, which correlate with their semantic scope. According to the scope-based approach, adverbials modifying the speech act or proposition (i.e., speech act, frame, and sentence adverbials) are attached high in the clause, as CP- and TP-adjuncts, whereas event-modifying (causal, temporal, instrumental, etc.) and process-modifying (manner) adverbials are adjoined lower down in the tree structure, as vP- and VP-adjuncts, respectively.

(1) Ernst (2014, 115)
	CP	TP	vP	VP
Frey and Pittner (1999)	Frame	Proposition	Event	Process
Ernst (2002)	Speech-Act	Proposition	Event	Specified Event

Interestingly, adverbial small clauses headed by als/som/as, adverbial infinitives as well as adverbial present and past participle constructions all appear to adhere to this syntactico-semantic hierarchy (cf. Eide 1996; Flaate 2007; Høyem 2015, 2018; Brodahl 2016, 2018, 2020; Eide and Flaate 2017; Brodahl and Høyem 2018; Høyem and Brodahl 2019). These adjuncts are syntactically and semantically underspecified in the sense that they are not inherently temporal, causal or manner, for example, but are interpreted as such in these adjunct positions (see also Businger 2011 and Høyem 2019 for a similar conclusion regarding absolute small clauses headed by mit (‘with’)).² Regarding the interpretation of PRO in these adjuncts, we will show below that the low adverbial adjuncts typically display the OC properties described by Landau (2013) outlined in (2).

(2)	OC properties:
	a. The controller must be an argument of the adjunct’s matrix clause.
	b. Long-distance and arbitrary control are ruled out.3
	c. OC PRO only allows a sloppy reading under ellipsis.
	d. OC allows a non-human PRO.

This means that the control status of these adjuncts is affected by their syntactic position; that is, adjuncts in the c-command domain of T (= vP- and VP-adjuncts) generally display OC properties, and adjuncts adjoined above T (= TP- and CP-adjuncts) display NOC properties. Drawing on Frey and Pittner (1998, 1999) and Ernst (2014), we assume that (only) speech act, frame, and sentence adverbials have scope over T (anchoring the event/proposition temporally) and are thus attached to a projection of TP or CP. Event-modifying adjuncts, for instance temporal, causal, and instrumental adverbials, are adjoined to a projection of vP (semantically corresponding to the whole or parts of the event), whereas process-modifying adjuncts, like manner adverbials, are adjoined to the VP; see also the illustration in (3).

Regarding the different control possibilities in the OC domain, i.e. vP/VP-internally, there is syntactic evidence that subject-controlled adjuncts adjoin higher in the tree structure than object-controlled adjuncts. The first piece of syntactic evidence for different adjunction sites comes from pre- and post-verbal word ordering restrictions, in the literature known as mirror effects (cf. Barbiers 1995, 102–113; Åfarli 1997, 99; Pittner 1999, 304–310; see also Bowers 1993, 605–612). As illustrated in the German data in (4), subject-controlled adjuncts precede object-controlled adjuncts in preverbal position:

(4)	Pre-verbally: subject-controlled adjuncts > object-controlled adjuncts
	Eri	hat	[PROi	schon	als	junger	Student]	Noam Chomskyj	[PROj	als
	he	has		already	as	young	student.NOM	Noam Chomsky		as
	Linguisten]	bewundert.
	linguist.ACC	admired
	‘Already as a young student, he admired Noam Chomsky as a linguist.’

Post-verbally, we observe the opposite ordering with object-controlled adjuncts preceding subject-controlled adjuncts; see (5a) vs. (5b):

(5)	Post-verbally: object-controlled adjuncts > subject-controlled adjuncts
	a.	dass	die	Elterni	den	Sohnj	in	den	Kindergarten	brachten,
		that	the.NOM	parents	the.ACC	son	to	the	kinder.garden	brought
		[PROj	um	mit	anderen	Kindern	zu	spielen],
			in.order.to	with	other	children	to	play
		[PROi	um	mehr	Zeit	füreinander			zu	haben]
			in.order.to	more	time	for.each.other			to	have
		‘... that, in order to have more time for each other, the parents took their son to kindergarden to play with other children.’
	b.	*dass	die	Elterni	den	Sohnj	in	den	Kindergarten	brachten,
		that	the.NOM	parents	the.ACC	son	to	the	kinder.garden	brought
		[PROi	um	mehr	Zeit	füreinander	zu	haben],
			in.order.to	more	time	for.each.other	to	have
		[PROj	um	mit	anderen	Kindern	zu	spielen]
			in.order.to	with	other	children	to	play
										(Høyem 2018, 376)

We take this as evidence that object-controlled adjuncts are closer to the verb and therefore are adjoined lower than subject-controlled adjuncts, implying that subject-controlled adjuncts are vP-adjuncts, whereas accusative and dative object-controlled adjuncts are VP-adjuncts; cf. also Nissenbaum (2005)⁴ for the same observation in subject-controlled rationale clauses and object-controlled purpose clauses, see (6) and (7):

(6)	They brought Max along …
	a.	[ _ to talk to himself] [(in order) _ to amuse themselves].
	b.	*[(in order) _ to amuse themselves] [ _ to talk to himself].
			(Nissenbaum 2005, 4)

(7)	George put that gun on the table …
	a.	[for me to shoot him with _ ] [in order to prove I’m a coward].
	b.	*[in order to prove I’m a coward] [for me to shoot him with _ ].
			(Nissenbaum 2005, 4)

That subject-controlled adjuncts are structurally higher than object-controlled adjuncts is further corroborated by binding effects in the form of (lack of) Principle C effects in ditransitive structures.⁵

As far as the underlying structure for ditransitives involving a dative argument is concerned, we assume that the latter is introduced by Appl° (following Anagnostopoulou 1999; Pylkännen 2002; McFadden 2004, 2006; Høyem (2018); see also Sect. 3.3.1 below); this means that the dative argument is situated in a phrase between VP and vP.

Let us now look at the data in (8) and (10). These sentences involve adverbial small clauses headed by als. Example (8) involves control by the accusative object (ein Auto ‘a car’). In (8a), the scenario is as follows: the dative argument (Peter) is an R-expression which is co-indexed with the pronoun sein (‘his’) inside the adverbial. This constellation is unproblematic, since the dative argument is not c-commanded by anything inside the adjunct; so the sentence is expected to be grammatical (which it is). However, if we use a pronoun as dative argument (ihm ‘him’) and a co-indexed R-expression in the adverbial, the sentence becomes ungrammatical (see (8b)). This suggests that a Principle C effect arises, i.e. the dative argument c-commands into the adjunct, which is exactly what we expect if this adverbial is adjoined at the VP-layer (see tree (9)).

(8)

German

a.

…

dass

wir

Peteri

ein

Autoj

[PROj

als

Belohnung

für

seini

gutes

that

we

Peter.DAT

a

car.ACC

as

reward

for

his

good

Abschneiden]

schenken.

coming.off.well

give

‘... that we rewarded Peter with a car for his good results.’

b.

*…

dass

wir

ihmi

ein

Autoj

[PROj

als

Belohnung

für

Petersi

that

we

him.DAT

a

car.ACC

as

reward

for

Peter's

gutes

Abchneiden]

schenken.

good

coming.off.well

give

‘... that we rewarded Peter with a car for his good results.’

(9)⁶

Interestingly, we get a different result if we consider subject-controlled adjuncts. In (10), we also use the dative argument Peter/ihm (‘him’)) as a potential binder for the DP seine (‘his’)/ Peters (‘Peter’s’) inside the adverbial.⁷ In this case, however, no Principle C effect arises if the co-indexed R-expression occurs inside the adjunct, which suggests that the dative argument does not c-command the adjunct in the case of subject control.

(10)	German
	a.	…	dass	Mariaj	[PROj	als	zuständige	Sachbearbeiterin	für	seinei
			that	Mary		as	responsible	clerk.in.charge	for	his
		Gehaltsabrechnung]	Peteri	sofort	die	gewünschte	Auskunft
		payroll	Peter.DAT	immediately	the	requested	information.ACC
		gab.
		gave
		‘... that Mary, as the responsible clerk in charge for his payroll, gave Peter immediately the requested information.’
	b.	…	dass	Mariaj	[PROj	als	zuständige	Sachbearbeiterin	für	Petersi
			that	Mary		as	responsible	clerk.in.charge	for	Peter's
		Gehaltsabrechnung]	ihmi	sofort	die	gewünschte	Auskunft
		payroll	him.DAT	immedately	the	requested	information.ACC
		gab.
		gave
		‘... that Mary, as the responsible clerk in charge for his payroll, gave Peter immediately the requested information.’

As far as speech act adverbials are concerned, scope-based adjunct theories suggest that they are high adjuncts which occur in the CP-domain. As a result, we would not expect a Principle C effect to arise when the adjunct contains an R-expression which is co-referent with the subject of the matrix clause. As the example in (12) shows, this prediction is indeed borne out.

(12)	German
	[PROspeaker	Um	Peteri	gegenüber	fair	zu	sein],	eri	hatte	in	dieser
		in.order.to	Peter	towards	fair	to	be	he	had	in	this
	Situation	keine	andere	Wahl.
	situation	no	other	choice
	‘To be fair, Peter had no other choice in this situation.’

So the data in this section provide further evidence for the assumptions (i) that subject-controlled adjuncts occur higher in the structure than object-controlled adjuncts; i.e., we deal with vP- and VP-adjuncts, respectively, (ii) and that speech act adverbials are adjoined even higher in the structure, namely in the CP-domain.

2.2 OC in vP/VP-adjuncts

Now we will focus on adjuncts in the verbal domain in general and show that OC is attested in all kinds of adverbials adjoining at the vP/VP-layer, i.e. in event-modifying, event-internal, and process-modifying adjuncts, such as temporal, causal, (true) conditional, counterfactual, instrumental, and manner adverbials. To this end, we investigate adverbial infinitives (cf. Faarlund et al. 1997; Landau 2013; Høyem 2015, 2018), adverbial present and past participle constructions (cf. Kortmann 1991; Faarlund et al. 1997; Fabricius-Hansen and Haug et al. 2012; Brodahl 2016, 2018; Høyem and Brodahl 2019), and adverbial small clauses headed by the particle als/som/as (cf. Emonds 1985; Eide 1996; Flaate 2007).

As the following data show, PRO in these adjuncts displays all OC properties described by Landau (2013) and summarized in (2) above.

2.2.1 OC property no. 1

According to Landau’s first OC property, the controller must be an argument of the adjunct’s matrix clause (see (2a)). As illustrated below, subject control is attested in adverbial infinitives (see (13)), in adverbial present and past participle constructions (see (14)), and in adverbial small clauses headed by als/som/as (see (15)).

(13)

Adverbial infinitives

a.

German

Ein

Lichti

genügt

(mirj),

[PROi/*j/*k

um

das Zimmer

zu

erleuchten].8

a

light.NOM

suffices

(me.DAT)

in.order.to

the room

to

light.up

‘A single light is sufficient (for me) to light up the room.’

(Bech 1957 97; Haider 2015, 1)

b.

Norwegian

Hani […]

takket

for

maten

[ved

PROi/*j

å

bøye

seg

lett

og

kysse

he

thanked

for

the.food

by

to

bow

REFL

slightly

and

kiss

henne

på

hånden].

her

on

the.hand

‘He […] thanked for the meal by bowing slightly and kissing her hand.’

(Haug et al. 2012, 163)

c.

English

Maryi grew up [PROi/*j to be a famous actress].

(Landau 2013, 221)

d.

English

The cropsi are harvested [only PROi/*j to rot in the barns].

(Landau 2013, 235)

(14)	Present and past participle constructions
	a.	German
		[PROi/*j	Als	tauglich	eingestuft],	stellte	Nils i	zunächst	den
			as	fit	found.PRF.PTCP	handed.in	Nils	first	the.ACC
		Antrag	auf	Verweigerung	des	Dienstes	an	der	Waffe.
		application	for	exemption	the.GEN	service.GEN	by	the.DAT	weapon
		‘After having been found to be fit for service, Nils applied for exemption from military service.’
											(Høyem and Brodahl 2019, 99)
	b.	Norwegian
		[PROi/*j	Fylt	av	en	anelse]	løftet	jeg i	kruset	og	drakk.
			filled	by	a	hunch	lifted	I	the.mug	and	drank
		‘With a hunch, I lifted the mug and drank.’									(Helland and Pitz 2012, 94)
	c.	English
		Thanks, hei said [PROi/*j stammering].				(König 1995, 65)

(15)	Adverbial small clauses headed by ‘als’/‘som’/‘as’
	a.	German
		[PROi/*j	Schon	als	15-Jähriger]	kam	eri	1937	zur
			already	as	15-year.old.NOM	came	he	1937	to.the.DAT
		Schützengesellschaft.
		shooter.society.
		‘Already as a 15-year-old, he joined the shooting club in 1937.’								(Flaate 2007, 87)
	b.	Norwegian
		[PROi/*j	som	student]	fikk	Joni	alltid	rabatt	på	fly.
			as	student	obtained	Jon	always	discount	on	flights
		‘As a student, Jon always obtained a discount on flights.’								(Eide 1998, 53)
	c.	English
		[PROi/*j As a blonde], Maryi might look like Jane.								(Fabricius-Hansen and Haug 2012, 36)

lthough subject control is a very frequent control relation in these types of adjuncts, also (accusative or dative) objects in the adjunct’s matrix clause may function as an antecedent for OC PRO, shown in (16).

(16)

Object control

a.

German

Man

bezahlte

die

Studenteni,

[PROi/*j

um

Flyer

zu

verteilen].

one

paid

the

students.ACC

in.order.to

flyers

to

hand.out

‘The students were paid to hand out flyers.’

b.

German

Eine

Kerze

genügt

ihmi,

[PROi/*j

um

sich

zurechtzufinden].

a

candle

suffices

him.DAT

in.order.to

REFL

to.orientate.INF

‘A candle is sufficient for him to orientate himself.’

(Haider 2015, 1)

c.

Norwegian

Hun

brukte

sine

foreldrei

[PROi/*j

som

sannhetsvitner].

she

used

her

parents

as

truth.witnesses

‘She used her parents as witnesses.’

(Eide 1996, 84)

d.

Norwegian

Hun

sendte

sønneni

i

barnehagen

[PROi/*j

for

å

leke

med

andre

barn].

she

sent

the.son

to

the.kinder.garden

for

to

play

with

other

children

‘She sent her son to the kindergarden to play with other children.’

e.

English

[PROi/*j Having undergone the German academic education], the English university system impressed himi a great deal.

(Kortmann 1991, 8)

2.2.2 OC property no. 2

As outlined in (2b), the second OC property described by Landau states that OC PRO is never arbitrary or long-distance, which is exactly what we find in these adjuncts. In the German example (17a), the matrix clause does not contain a potential local controller for PRO; as a result, the sentence is ungrammatical, which shows that arbitrary control is not an option either. The same seems to be the case in the equivalent Norwegian and English examples in (17b, c). Here, PRO can have neither an arbitrary reading (as PRO_arb) nor a specific reading (as PRO_i), even though this would be required pragmatically.

(17)	a.	German
		*Der	Himmel	wurde	dunkler, [PRO*arb/*i	ohne	es	zu	bemerken].
		the	sky	became	darker	without	it	to	notice
	b.	Norwegian
		*Himmelen	ble	mørkere	[PRO*arb/*i	uten	å	merke	det.
		sky.DEF	became	darker		without	to	notice	it
	c.	English
		*The sky became darker [PRO*arb/*i without noticing (it)].

In German and Norwegian, one would have to use the finite counterpart of these adjuncts with a lexical subject (see (18a, b)); in English, a gerund with a lexical subject can be used to express the intended interpretation, as in (18c).

(18)	a.	German
		Der	Himmel	wurde	dunkler,	[ohne	dass	man	es	bemerkte].
		the	sky	became	darker	without	that	one	it	noticed
	b.	Norwegian
		Himmelen	ble	mørkere	[uten	at	man	la	merke	til	det].
		sky.DEF	became	darker	without	that	one	let	notice	to	it
	c.	English
		The sky became darker [without anyone noticing (it)].

As becomes evident considering the data in (19), the adjunct’s acceptability does not improve by providing a (larger) context with a suitable non-local controller for PRO.

(19)	a.	German
		Die	Jungeni	waren	seit	Stunden	im	Wald	unterwegs.
		the	boys	were	since	hours	in.the	wood	around
		*Der	Himmel	wurde	dunkler,	[PROi	ohne	es	zu	bemerken].
		the	sky	became	darker		without	it	to	notice
	b.	Norwegian
		Guttenei	hadde	vært	i	skogen	i	timevis.
		boys.DEF	had	been	in	wood.DEF	in	hours
		*Himmelen	ble	mørkere	[PROi		uten	å	merke	det].
		sky.DEF	became	darker			without	to	notice	it
	c.	English
		The boysi had been walking around in the woods for hours. *The sky became darker [PROi without noticing (it)].

To sum up, (17) and (19) show that the non-availability of a suitable controller in the matrix clause leads to ungrammaticality; resort to arbitrary control or control by an otherwise discourse-salient referent is excluded. Below, we add some more examples to illustrate explicitly that LD controllers in higher embedding clauses are also ruled out and that these observations are not restricted to adverbial infinitives headed by ohne/uten/without (see (17), (19)) but generally hold for adverbial infinitives (see (20a), (21a), (22a)), adverbial participle constructions (see (20b), (21b), (22b)), and small clause adjuncts headed by als/som/as (see (20c), (21c), (22c)).

(20)	German
	a.	Peteri	behauptete,	dass	siej	vorbeigingen, [PRO*i/*arb/j	ohne	etwas	zu	bemerken].
		Peter	claimed	that	they	by.passed	without	anything	to	notice
		‘Peter claimed that they had passed by without noticing anything.’									(Haider 2015, 4)
	b.	Peteri	erzählte,	dass	Nilsj,	[PRO*i/*arb/j	als	tauglich	eingestuft],9	zunächst
		Peter	told	that	Nils		as	fit	found.PRF.PTCP	first
		den	Antrag	auf	Verweigerung	des	Dienstes	an	der	Waffe	stellte.
		the.ACC	application	for	exemption	the.GEN	service.GEN	by	the	weapon	handed.in
		‘Peter told that Nils, after having been found to be fit for service, had applied for exemption from military service.’									(Høyem and Brodahl 2019, 115)
	c.	Johani	hat	mirj	erzählt,	dass	Peterk	[PRO*i/*j/*arb/k	als	Lehrer]	arbeitet.
		Johan	has	me.DAT	told	that	Peter		as	teacher	works
		‘Johan has told me that Peter works as a teacher.’

(21)

Norwegian

a.

Huni

fortalte

at

Fritjof j

hadde

vaska

golvet

[PRO*i/*arb/j

uten

å

bli

våt].

she

told

that

Fritjof

had

scrubbed

the.floor

without

to

become

wet.SG

‘She told that Fritjof had scrubbed the floor without getting wet.’

b.

[PROi/*j/*arb

Fylt

av

en

anelse]

løftet

jeg i

kruset

og

drakk.

filled

by

a

hunch

lifted

I

the.mug

and

drank

‘With a hunch, I lifted the mug and drank.’

(Helland and Pitz 2012, 94)

c.

Dei

fortalte

i

retten

at

hunj

brukte

sine

foreldre k

[PRO*i/*j/*arb/k

som

sannhetsvitner].

they

told

in

court

that

she

used

her

parents

as

truth.witnesses

‘They told in court that she had used her parents as witnesses.’

(Eide 1996, 84)

(22)	English
	a.	Peteri claimed that theyj had passed by [PRO*i/*arb/j without noticing anything].
	b.	Shei observed that, [PRO*i/*arb/j standing on a chair], Johnj could touch the ceiling. (Fabricius-Hansen and Haug 2012, 36)
	c.	Peteri claimed that, [PRO*i/*arb/j as a financial expert], Maryj should have noticed the mistake.

In fact, Norwegian examples like (21a) with a predicative adjective inside the adjunct offer another possibility to test whether LD control is possible or not: since the adjective must agree with the PRO subject in number, the ungrammaticality of sentence (23), in which the adjective bears plural morphology, clearly indicates that PRO cannot refer to the plural subject de (‘they’) in the embedding clause; instead, it must refer to the local, singular subject DP Fritjof.

(23)

*Dei

fortalte

at

Fritjofj

hadde

vaska

golvet

[PROi

uten

å

bli

våte].

they.PL

told

that

Fritjof.SG

had

scrubbed

the.floor

without

to

become

wet.PL

intended: ‘They told that Fritjof had scrubbed the floor without them getting wet.’

To conclude, the data in this section have revealed that only OC by a syntactically local controller (i.e., a controller in the adjunct’s matrix clause) is possible and that both long-distance and arbitrary control are ruled out.

2.2.3 OC property no. 3

Landau’s third OC property states that in VP-ellipsis, OC PRO can only get a sloppy reading, never a strict reading (see (2c)). As shown in the data below, this is the case in all three languages, here exemplified by adverbial infinitives, where a strict reading should be possible for pragmatic reasons, but only a sloppy reading seems to be available.

(23)

*Dei

fortalte

at

Fritjofj

hadde

vaska

golvet

[PROi

uten

å

bli

våte].

they.PL

told

that

Fritjof.SG

had

scrubbed

the.floor

without

to

become

wet.PL

intended: ‘They told that Fritjof had scrubbed the floor without them getting wet.’

In all these examples, we see that PRO can only be controlled by an antecedent located in the second conjunct and not by an antecedent in the first conjunct. If we compare this to equivalent finite adjuncts with a lexical subject (see (25)), we can observe that they allow both a sloppy and a strict reading.

In the following example, a strict reading should be available for pragmatic reasons (since this event could imply that the crew went down with the ship). However, in this case only a sloppy reading seems to be possible, with the rather strange interpretation that the crew sank after taking in large amounts of water.

To sum up, we can conclude that also the third OC property holds in adjunct control at the vP/VP-level.

2.2.4 OC property no. 4

According to the fourth OC property described by Landau (2013), the controller of OC PRO is not restricted to [+human], but can also be [-human] (see (2d)). This is clearly attested for adverbial infinitival, participial, and small clause adjuncts in German, Norwegian, and English; see (27)–(35) below.

(27)	German adverbial infinitives
	a.	Salati	erfrischt,	[PROi	ohne	zu	schwächen], […]
		salad	refreshes		without	to	weaken
		‘Salad is refreshing without being bad for you.’									(Høyem 2015, 175)
	b.	Man	gab	dem	Raumschiffi	genug	Brennstoff	mit,		[PROi	um
		one	gave	the	spacecraft.DAT	enough	fuel	with			in.order.to
		auch	noch	den	Merkur	erreichen	zu	können].
		also	still	the	Mercury	reach	to	can
		‘The spacecraft got enough fuel to be able to even reach Mercury.’									(Leys 1971, 34)

(28)	German adverbial participle constructions
	a.	Durch	ihre	milde	Schärfe	wirken	rote	Zwiebeln i	[PROi	fein
		through	their	mild	sharpness	seem	red	onions		thinly
		geschnitten	oder	gehobelt	auf	einem	Salat]	besonders	gut.
		cut.PAST.PTCP	or	sliced	on	a.DAT	salad	particularly	well
		‘Due to their mild flavour, red onions taste particularly well in a salad when thinly cut or sliced.’								(BRZ07/OKT.01655 Braunschweiger Zeitung, 20.10.2007)
	b.	Er	liest	den	Dialog i	[PROi	stark	pointiert],	eben	in
		he	reads	the	dialogue		strongly	emphasized	exactly	in
		Schauspielermanier.
		actor.way
		‘He is reading the dialogue in a strongly emphasized way, just like an actor.’								(Høyem and Brodahl 2019, 115)

(29)	German adverbial small clause headed by ‘als’
	Wir	verwenden	unser	altes	Elternhaus i	heutzutage	nur	noch
	we	use	our	old	parents.house	these.days	only	still
	[PROi	als	Ferienwohnung].
		as	holiday.cottage
	‘These days, we only use our parents’ old house as a holiday home.’

(30)	Norwegian adverbial infinitive
	Skipet i	sank	[PROi	etter	å	ha	tatt	inn	store	mengder	vann].
	the.ship	sank		after	to	have	let	in	large	amounts	water
	‘The ship sank after letting in large amounts of water.’										(Faarlund et al. 1997, 457)

(31)	Norwegian adverbial participle construction
	Denne	flasken i	ble	oppbevart [PROi	liggende].
	this	bottle	was	stored	lying
	‘This bottle was stored lying.’					(Haug et al. 2012, 147)

(32)	Norwegian adverbial small clause headed by 'som’
	Han	brukte	kniven i	[PROi	som	flaskeåpner].
	he	used	knife.DEF		as	bottle.opener
	‘He used the knife as a bottle opener.’

(33)	English adverbial infinitives
	a.	The noisei was loud enough [PROi to disturb the neighbors].	(Landau 2013, 236)
	b.	Granola snacki can raise your energy level [PROi without increasing your blood pressure].	(Landau 2013, 235)
	c.	[PROi After causing a lot of trouble], the dishwasheri finally broke down.	(Landau 2013, 226)

(34)	English adverbial participle construction
	[PROi Surrounded by trees], the cottagei comprises a charming living-dining-kitchen area opening onto a covered patio.

(35)	English adverbial small clause headed by ‘as’
	For your online purchases, you can use your mailing addressi [PROi as billing address].

The examples above do not only show that the local antecedent can be non-human; they also reveal that it need not be the subject, but can alternatively be an object in the adjunct’s matrix clause (see (27b), (28b), (29), (32), (35)).

To sum up, the tests in the preceding subsections have confirmed that adjunct control into various types of adjuncts adjoining in the verbal domain qualifies as OC.

2.3 NOC in TP/CP-adjuncts

Speech act and sentence adverbial adjuncts, on the other hand, appear to be NOC adjuncts, since (i) the controller can (see (36a)), but does not have to be an argument in the adjunct’s matrix clause; (ii) PRO can have an arbitrary reference or refer to the speaker; and (iii) PRO is always [+human],¹⁰ as shown in (36)–(38). This stands in contrast to Landau’s (2013) OC criteria summarized above in (2) and thus characterizes NOC. Speech act and sentence adverbial readings are found in adverbial infinitives and adverbial participle constructions headed by a present or past participle in all three languages, but, to our knowledge, not in adverbial small clauses headed by the particle als/as/som (cf. Emonds 1985; Eide 1996; Flaate 2007).

(36)

German

a.

adverbial infinitive

Eri

ist, [PROi

ohne

sich

dessen

bewusst

zu

sein],

der

beste

Spieler

auf

he

is

without

REFL

of.it

aware

to

be

the

best

player

on

dem

Feld.

the

field

‘He is the best player on the field without really being aware of it.’

b.

adverbial infinitive

Er

ist,

[PROspeaker

ohne

zu

übertreiben],

weit

und

breit

der

beste

he

is

without

to

exaggerate

widely

and

broadly

the

best

Billiard-Spieler.

billiard-player

‘He is, without exaggeration, the best billiard player ever.’

(Pittner 1999, 338)

c.

adverbial infinitive

[PROi=speaker

Um

ehrlich

zu

sein,]

ichi

habe

nie

viel

von

Kriminalromanen

for

honest

to

be

I

have

never

much

of

crime.novels

gehalten.

held

‘To be honest, I have always disliked crime novels.’

(Pittner 1999, 357)

d.

adverbial present participle construction

[PROarb

Von

Mainz

kommend]

empfiehlt

sich

die

Fahrt

mit

der

from

Mainz

coming.PRS.PTCP

recommends

REFL

the

journey

with

the

S-Bahnlinie 8

bis

Wiesbaden

Hauptbahnhof.

city-train.line 8

to

Wiesbaden

central.train.station

‘When coming from Mainz, it is advisable to take the city metro line 8 to Wiesbaden central station.’

(Brodahl 2016, 113)

e.

adverbial past participle construction

[PROarb

Politisch

betrachtet]

ist

er

eine

Katastrophe.

politically

considered.PRF.PTCP

is

he

a

disaster

‘Politically, he is a disaster.’

(37)

Norwegian

a.

adverbial past participle construction

[PROi=speaker

mellom

oss

sagt]

har

jegi

ikke

mye

å

tilby.

between

us

said

have

I

not

much

to

offer

‘Between ourselves, I do not have much to offer.’

b.

adverbial past participle construction

Du

har

[PROspeaker

ærleg

tala]

ikkje

mykje

å

tilby.

you

have

honestly

spoken

not

much

to

offer

‘To be honest, you do not have much to offer.’

(Faarlund, et al. 1997, 811)

c.

adverbial past participle construction

Han

var

[PROspeaker

kort

sagt]

for

dårleg.

he

was

briefly

said

too

bad

‘He was, to put it briefly, too bad.’

(Faarlund et al. 1997, 811)

d.

adverbial infinitive

[PROspeaker

For

å

si

det

som

det

er],

så

hadde

du

ikke

en

sjanse.

in.order

to

say

it

like

it

is

so

had

you

not

a

chance

‘To be honest, you never had a chance.’

(Faarlund et al. 1997, 812)

e.

adverbial past participle construction

[PROarb

Strengt

tatt]

har

han

ingen

formell

utdannelse.

strictly

taken

has

he

no

formal

education

‘Strictly speaking, he has no formal education.’

(38)	English
	a.	adverbial present participle construction
		[PROi=speaker Putting it mildly], Ii would not say that the holiday resort met our expectations.
	b.	adverbial present participle construction
		[PROspeaker Putting it mildly], the holiday resort didn’t quite meet our expectations.	(Kortmann 1991, 51)
	c.	adverbial present participle construction
		[After PROspeaker pitching the tents], darkness fell quickly.	(Landau 2013, 232)
	d.	adverbial present participle construction
		Potatoes are tastier [after PROarb boiling them].	(Landau 2013, 232)

To sum up, we have now reached the following conclusions: as the literature on scope-based adjunct theories has convincingly shown (see, among others, Frey and Pittner 1998, 1999; Pittner 1999; Haider 2000; Ernst 2002, 2014), the adjunction height of adverbials depends on their underlying semantics. Considering speech act and sentence adverbials, we can therefore, on the one hand, say that they are generally adjoined at the CP/TP-level; on the other hand, the data in this section have shown that control into these adverbials qualifies as NOC (which means that PRO’s interpretation hinges on pragmatic factors and can include arbitrary PRO or a discourse-salient referent like the speaker). Hence, we can generally conclude that control into adjuncts in the TP/CP-domain involves NOC.

By contrast, as outlined in the scope-based adjunct theories, event- and process-modifying adverbials are adjoined in the verbal domain, i.e. at the vP/VP-level. As shown by the data in Sect. 2.2, we argued that control into event-modifying adverbials typically involves subject control, whereas control into process-modifying adverbials involves object control, and standard OC diagnostics have shown that both instances of control qualify as OC. In fact, that subject control involves a higher adjunction site than object control has further been corroborated by the binding effects discussed in Sect. 2.1.

In the remainder of this paper, we will now turn to a potential technical implementation of these observations.

3 Theoretical Approach

To illustrate how our analysis works, we will restrict ourselves to data from German for reasons of space; however, we assume that the analysis can be applied to Norwegian and English in the same way.

As shown in the first part of the paper, various instances of adjunct control (i.e. those involving adjunction in the verbal domain) involve OC. In Sects. 3.1–3.3, we will concentrate on these instances of control before we then turn to non-obligatory adjunct control in Sect. 3.4, which has been shown to be involved in adjunction in the TP/CP-domain.

3.1 Licensing of OC under Agree

In line with Fischer (2018) and Fischer and Høyem (2021), we argue that OC is licensed under upward Agree and propose a phase-based theory of adjunct control; i.e. we adopt a local-derivational view according to which the accessible domain at a given point in the derivation is restricted by the Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC) (see (39)). As a result, syntactic licensing must occur locally within the respective accessible domain. We assume the following standard definitions:

(39)	Phase Impenetrability Condition (PIC)
	The domain of a head X of a phase XP is not accessible to operations outside XP; only X and its edge are accessible to such operations.
		(Chomsky 2000, 108)

(40)	CPs and vPs are phases.

Our basic assumptions are the following (see also Fischer 2018; Fischer and Høyem 2021): PRO is a referentially defective empty argument which must be referentially identified. This means that PRO’s interpretation is determined in the course of the syntactic derivation by an Agree relation with an accessible binder.

To encode this idea technically, we follow Wurmbrand (2017) and suggest that there is a distinction between formal uφ-features and semantic iφ-features. While formal uφ-features “feed (only) into PF and carry the values realized in morphology [...] semantic iφ-features [...] feed (only) into LF and carry the values interpreted in semantics” (Wurmbrand 2017, 32). We argue that the relevant feature on PRO that must be licensed in control relations is an unvalued semantic iφ-feature;¹¹ so the fact that this feature is unvalued in the beginning reflects PRO’s referential defectiveness. That is, PRO enters the derivation with the feature specification {D, iφ:_}, and to get licensed, PRO probes upwards to find a goal in the accessible domain that values its unvalued semantic iφ-feature.¹² PRO’s concrete interpretation can be determined once this feature has been valued under Agree; i.e. Agree syntactically links PRO to its controller (i.e., the goal), which means with respect to PRO’s interpretation that, whatever the interpretation of the controller is, this will be the interpretation of PRO.¹³

Formally, we adopt the following definitions, which combine assumptions by Wurmbrand (2011) (in terms of upward probing) and Pesetsky and Torrego (2007), Bošković (2009 et seq.), Wurmbrand (2011), among others, as far as the assumption is concerned that Agree is valuation-driven.

(41)	Agree
	a.	α agrees with γ iff
		(i) γ c-commands α,
		(ii) γ is the closest goal, and
		(iii) α and γ are both in the accessible domain (as defined in (39)).
	b.	If α agrees with γ, feature [F:_ ] on α is valued by feature [F: val] on γ.

In the subsequent sections, we will outline in detail how this basic mechanism can concretely be applied to the data we have discussed in the previous sections, i.e. how it can account for adjunct control in the languages under discussion.

3.2 Adjunction in the vP-domain

3.2.1 Basic observations

One of our insights from Sect. 2 was that adjunction in the vP-domain results in obligatory subject control. As an example, consider, again (42) (adapted from (20a)).

(42)	Siei	gingen	vorbei,	[CP PROi	ohne	etwas	zu	bemerken].
	they	passed	by		without	anything	to	notice
	‘They passed by without noticing anything.’							(Haider 2015, 4)

In tree (43), we illustrate the point in the derivation when the vP-phase of the matrix clause is built; it contains the vP-adjunct as well as the subject in its base position, Specv.

(43)¹⁴

Let us first have a closer look at the adjunct itself. Inside the adjunct, PRO is base-generated in Specv, where it is theta-marked. Bearing an unvalued semantic iφ-feature, it probes upwards to find a suitable goal, but without success. As a result, the derivation would be doomed to fail immediately if PRO did not move to the edge of the phase to remain accessible and thereby at least retain the possibility of having its feature valued in the next phase. In our example, this means that PRO moves successive-cyclically via SpecT to SpecC inside the adjunct (see tree (43)).¹⁵

This line of reasoning follows a number of proposals in the literature which suggest that the need to keep constituents accessible in order to enable feature checking later in the derivation triggers movement to the phase edge.¹⁶ This way an early crash of the derivation can be avoided in phase-based derivations.

However, the position in which PRO occurs in (43), i.e., SpecC inside the adjunct, is the highest position to which it can move since adjuncts are islands for extraction (see Huang 1982).¹⁷ At this point in the derivation, PRO (being at the edge of the CP-phase) is still accessible, whereas material below C inside the adjunct is not; however, as soon as the derivation proceeds and vP merges with T, all material inside the adjunct becomes inaccessible;¹⁸ this is illustrated in tree (44). So tree (43) illustrates the last point in the derivation when PRO is still accessible.

3.2.2 Obligatory subject control into adjuncts

Let us now derive the control relation in examples like (42), which involves obligatory subject control. Our starting point is the scenario in tree (43).

In order to account for binding effects in adjuncts, Reinhart (1976) has already proposed that the subject DP in (43) c-commands the adjunct in this configuration.¹⁹ In the following, we adopt Bruening’s (2014) simplified and generalized version of this c-command definition, which is cited in (45).²⁰

(45)	Node A c-commands node B iff the first branching node dominating A does not exclude B.
	(Bruening 2014, 356)

(46)	α excludes β iff no segment of α dominates β.
	(Chomsky 1986, 9)

If we apply these definitions to tree (43), we get the following results: the first branching node dominating the subject is vP; since a segment of vP dominates the vP-adjunct, the vP does not exclude the adjunct–following (45), the subject therefore c-commands the adjunct and thus PRO inside it.

To sum up, we are faced with the following situation: PRO has an unvalued semantic iφ-feature and is looking for a suitable goal; the subject DP (which has a valued semantic iφ-feature) c-commands PRO, is the closest potential goal, and PRO is still in the accessible domain (see tree (43)). As a result, Agree between PRO and the subject DP can be established (following definition (41)). This yields the desired result: PRO’s semantic iφ-feature can be valued by the subject DP, which means that we get obligatory subject control into the vP-adjunct. This is illustrated in tree (47).

Note in addition that, although accessibility is a precondition for both Agree and movement, this is not yet a sufficient condition for movement (in contrast to Agree; cf. (41a-iii)); hence, Agree into an adjunct can be possible while extraction out of it is illicit (see Fischer 2018 for a more detailed discussion). In short, this is the case because movement hinges on further restrictions (accessibility only being a necessary condition). Since we are only concerned with Agree relations and not with movement operations in this paper, we will not discuss any further what exactly blocks movement out of islands (i.e., which sufficient precondition is not fulfilled in these cases).²¹ At this point, we just want to highlight the fact that Agree and movement involve different sufficient conditions and that an Agree relation between the subject and PRO can successfully be established in (47).

3.3 Adjunction in the VP-domain

Let us now turn to adjunction in the VP-domain, which results in obligatory object control. To illustrate this once again, consider example (48) (repeated from (16b) and (16a), respectively).

(48)	a.	Eine	Kerze	genügt	ihmi,	[PROi	um	sich	zurechtzufinden].
		a	candle	suffices	him.DAT		in.order.to	REFL	to.orientate
		‘A candle is sufficient for him to orientate himself.’
	b.	Man	bezahlte	die Studenteni,	[PROi	um	Flyer	zu	verteilen].
		one	paid	the students.ACC		in.order.to	flyer	to	hand.out
		‘The students were paid to hand out flyers.’

3.3.1 Obligatory object control into adjuncts involving DP_DAT

First, we want to consider sentences in which the controlling object bears dative Case. As pointed out before, we follow Anagnostopoulou (1999), Pylkännen (2002), McFadden (2004, 2006), Høyem (2018), among others, and assume that Appl° introduces the dative argument; the underlying structure thus looks as indicated in tree (49).

Since VP is not a phase, PRO is still accessible when the object DP enters the derivation. The DP c-commands PRO, has a valued semantic iφ-feature, and is thus the closest goal for PRO. As a result, an Agree relation can be established, which yields the desired result: we get obligatory object control into the VP-adjunct (again, following definition (41)). This is illustrated in detail in tree (50).

3.3.2 Obligatory object control into adjuncts involving DP_ACC

If the controlling object bears accusative Case, the underlying scenario looks as indicated in tree (51).

Following the c-command definition in (45), the object DP c-commands PRO since VP, the first branching node dominating the object DP, does not exclude PRO since the latter is dominated by a VP segment.²² Again, PRO enters the derivation with an unvalued semantic iφ-feature whereas the object DP bears a valued semantic iφ-feature. Since the object DP c-commands PRO and both are accessible at this point in the derivation, an Agree relation can be established and valuation can take place; i.e. OC is derived (see (52)).

3.4 Adjunction in the TP- and CP-domain

3.4.1 On the syntactic difference between OC and NOC

Let us now turn to those cases that involve higher adjunction sites, i.e. adjunction in the TP/CP-domain. As shown in Sect. 2.3, these instances of control all involve NOC, so we concluded that the empirical picture is as follows: control into adjuncts at the vP/VP-level classifies as OC, whereas adjunct control outside the verbal domain classifies as NOC. How does this distinction come about? We assume that it is the question of how PRO is ultimately licensed which determines whether we end up with OC or NOC; i.e. the underlying syntactic structure is the same in the two control types.²³ If we do not get OC outside the verbal domain, this suggests that, at this point in the derivation, DPs do not qualify as potential goals for PRO anymore, which then implies that the valuation of PRO’s unvalued semantic iφ-feature under Agree fails. So we are left with the following two questions: (i) what happens to PRO if such an Agree relation cannot be established, and (ii) what is it that renders DPs in the TP/CP-domain useless for an Agree relation with PRO?

Concerning the first question, we follow Preminger (2014) in assuming that failed agreement does not necessarily lead to ungrammaticality; instead, we assume that the semantic interpretation we end up with if PRO’s semantic iφ-feature remains unvalued in narrow syntax is determined by pragmatic factors (like logophoricity; see also Landau 2015, among others). As a result, we either get arbitrary control or control by a salient entity in the discourse (like the speaker). We will illustrate this with concrete examples in Sect. 3.4.2.

As far as the second question is concerned, the following observation can be made: DPs that would be high enough in the syntactic structure to be able to c-command PRO in these high adjuncts all share the common property that they have already been Case-marked before they undergo movement to this position.²⁴ So we argue that it is this property which excludes them from being potential goals for PRO. By contrast, we have the following scenario in the case of OC: accusative objects license PRO inside the VP and subjects license PRO inside the vP, i.e. before the respective Case-marking heads even enter the derivation. In the case of dative objects, we have assumed that their base position is SpecAppl; so they can first license PRO inside the VP-adjunct and then receive Case from Appl°.²⁵

That Case and A-processes are somehow related is not a new idea and has been implemented in different ways in the literature, starting with Chomsky (1981). What has typically been in the center of discussion in the past is the question of how or whether Case-marking affects A-movement. The central correlation proposed in the 1980s was that DP-movement is driven by the need to satisfy the Case Filter. McGinnis (1998) suggested the principle of Case Identification, which implies that “[o]nce the Case feature has been checked and deleted, it cannot identify a phrase for pied-piping, so Move is blocked” (McGinnis 1998, 36). So here as well, Case checking renders a DP unsuitable for certain subsequent processes. With the advent of Agree, it was then commonly assumed that Case valuation and φ-feature valuation go hand in hand. This is most obvious in Chomsky (2000), where [uCase]-features are checked via Reverse Agree as a side effect of φ-Agree. But even in proposals which do not assume such a direct relation (like Pesetsky and Torrego 2007), the respective features typically appear jointly on the same constituents and establish Agree relations at the same point in the derivation.²⁶ The assumption that Case also influences other processes has culminated in the postulation of the Activity Condition (see Chomsky 2000, 2001), according to which “DPs whose case feature is valued become inactive and thereby unable to undergo subsequent A-processes” (Keine 2018, 2, based on Chomsky 2000, 123, 127; Chomsky 2001, 6). In the meantime, the Activity Condition as such has been critically reviewed at various places (see, for instance, Nevins 2004; Preminger 2014; Keine 2018), and in particular its role in constraining A-movement has been questioned. It may well be true that the Activity Condition as such does not hold; however, we still think that the central property that DPs outside the verbal domain share is that they enter this domain already Case-marked. Hence, we suggest that this is what excludes them from establishing an Agree relation with PRO, which would license OC. As a result, control into TP/CP-adjuncts can only involve NOC.²⁷

In the next subsection, we will show how our examples involving NOC are derived under these assumptions. In the trees below, we call DPs whose Case features have already been valued A-inactive and thus suggest that A-inactive DPs cannot license PRO syntactically, i.e., establish an OC relation via upward Agree.

3.4.2 Non-obligatory control into TP/CP-adjuncts

As we have seen in Sect. 2.3, NOC into TP-adjuncts can involve arbitrary PRO (PRO_arb) or control by a salient entity in the discourse, like the speaker; since CP-adjuncts involve speech act adverbials, they are typically speaker-oriented and thus only involve PRO_speaker. Consider again the examples in (53) (repeated from (36d)), (54a) (repeated from (36b)) and (54b) (repeated from (36c)).

(53)	TP-adjunct:28
	[PROarb	Von	Mainz	kommend]	empfiehlt	sich	die	Fahrt	mit	der
		from	Mainz	coming.PRS.PTCP	recommends	REFL	the	journey	with	the
	S-Bahnlinie 8	bis	Wiesbaden	Hauptbahnhof.
	city-train.line 8	to	Wiesbaden	central.train.station
	‘When coming from Mainz, it is advisable to take the city metro line 8 to Wiesbaden central station.’

(54)

a.

TP-adjunct:

Er

ist,

[PROspeaker

ohne

zu

übertreiben],

weit

und

breit

der

he

is

without

to

exaggerate

widely

and

broadly

the

beste

Billiard-Spieler.

best

billiard-player

‘He is, without exaggeration, the best billiard player ever.’

(Pittner 1999, 338)

b.

CP-adjunct:

[PROspeaker

Um

ehrlich

zu

sein,]

ich

habe

nie

viel

von

Kriminalromanen

for

honest

to

be

I

have

never

much

of

crime.novels

gehalten.

held

‘To be honest, I have always disliked crime novels.’

(Pittner 1999, 357)

Let us now see how control into TP-adjuncts is derived. When the TP is completed, the syntactic structure looks as indicated in tree (55). Independent of whether there is a DP in SpecT or not (which might not be the case in German, as pointed out in footnote 15), such a DP would already be Case-marked and thus be A-inactive when the adjunct including PRO is merged into the derivation. As a result, PRO cannot establish an Agree relation with a DP in SpecT.

Since TP is not a phase, PRO remains accessible when the derivation proceeds. However, all DPs that could enter the derivation in the CP-domain are also Case-marked DPs, which means that they could not establish an Agree relation with PRO either (see tree 56). As a result, PRO’s semantic iφ-feature remains unvalued in narrow syntax.²⁹

As outlined in the previous section (and in line with Preminger 2014), we do not assume that this results in ungrammaticality; instead, we suggest that this gives rise to a different licensing strategy based on pragmatic factors.³⁰ If there is no discourse-salient referent, we end up with a default interpretation. This is what happens in (53), which means that PRO is ultimately interpreted as PRO_arb (see tree (56)).

By contrast, in examples like (54), the attitude of some attitude holder (the speaker in this case) is reflected; i.e. we deal with attitudinal contexts. Generally speaking, the attitude holder corresponds to a salient entity in the discourse which could be the speaker (as in (54)) or a non-local antecedent (as, for instance, in long distance control). If the discourse provides such a salient referent, pragmatic licensing predicts that this is PRO’s interpretation. In examples like (54), PRO is therefore ultimately predicted to be interpreted as PRO_speaker.³¹

As outlined in footnote 30, we assume that this control relation is not syntactically licensed.³² However, following Speas (2004), Sigurðsson (2004, 2014), Sundaresan and Pearson (2014), Landau (2015), Fischer and Pitteroff (2016),³³ among others, logophoric anchoring as such might of course be encoded in syntax in the following way: in attitudinal contexts, a logophoric center is projected in the left periphery, which introduces the attitude holder also syntactically. Since PRO_speaker behaves like a logophor,³⁴ licensing of PRO_speaker then boils down to standard logophoric licensing: the attitude holder is the antecedent a logophor needs to be licensed (cf. Zribi-Hertz 1989).

Hence, the underlying tree structure for sentences like (54a) would look as indicated in (57). Note that we remain agnostic as to the precise labeling of the heads in the extended CP; in tree (57), we therefore simply use the labels C_α and C_γ (for instance, following Sato and Kishida 2009, C_γ could be called Point-of-View Projection (POVP)). Note, moreover, that the complete extended CP (CP_α plus CP_γ) forms the next phase.

Finally, we briefly turn to CP-adjunctions (as illustrated in examples like (54b)). In fact, the analysis does not really differ from the one outlined above for sentences like (54a) (involving a TP-adjunct). DPs in the CP-domain cannot function as a goal for PRO anymore since they are already A-inactive at this point in the derivation. Thus, PRO's semantic iφ-feature cannot be valued in narrow syntax and the pragmatic licensing strategy applies instead. Since CP-adjuncts involve speech act adverbials, they typically occur in attitudinal contexts; this means we have an attitude holder which ultimately determines the interpretation of PRO; see tree (58). In sentence (54b), we can thus conclude that it involves PRO_speaker.

4 Conclusion

4.1 Empirical situation

Considering data from German, Norwegian, and English, we have come to the conclusion that these three languages seem to behave alike with respect to adjunct control. In particular, we have made the following observation: although adjunct control comprises many different constructions and adverbials and the distinction between OC and NOC cuts through the set of examples, it all seems to boil down to the clear-cut distinction summarized in (59):

(59)	a.	Adjunction in the vP-domain results in obligatory subject control.
	b.	Adjunction in the VP-domain results in obligatory object control.
	c.	A higher adjunction site yields NOC.

Crucially, the adjunction site itself is determined independently by the underlying semantics of the respective adverbial adjuncts. As has been shown in the literature on scope-based adjunct theories (see, among others, Frey and Pittner 1998, 1999; Pittner 1999; Haider 2000; Ernst 2002, 2014), process-modifying adverbials adjoin to VPs, event-modifying adverbials adjoin to vPs, sentence adverbials adjoin to TPs, and speech act adverbials adjoin to CPs.

So apart from providing an empirical overview involving adverbials of all types from the three languages under discussion, the first part of this paper brings together these insights from the literature on adverbials and control theory and can thus link different types of control with different adjunction heights.

4.2 Theoretical implementation

To implement these findings technically, we have proposed a phase-based approach that works as follows: OC is licensed under upward Agree with PRO (the probe) looking for an accessible goal (ultimately the controller) to value its semantic iφ-feature (following Wurmbrand's 2017 terminology) and thereby establish a binding relation which referentially identifies PRO.

For vP-adjuncts, the subject DP turned out to be the closest available goal and is thus predicted to be the obligatory controller (see tree (47)); hence, observation (59a) is correctly derived. Similarly, in the case of VP-adjuncts, the object DP turned out to be the closest available goal; hence, obligatory object control is straightforwardly predicted (see tree (50) for dative objects and tree (52) for accusative objects) and observation (59b) is thus derived.

If the adverbial is adjoined outside the verbal domain, i.e. if we consider control into TP- or CP-adjuncts, we generally face the following situation: DPs occurring in these domains have already become A-inactive at this point in the derivation, which means that they cannot function as a goal for PRO anymore even if they have moved into the accessible domain. Hence, PRO's unvalued semantic iφ-feature remains unvalued in narrow syntax, which triggers a last resort licensing strategy based on pragmatic factors. As a result, the semantic interpretation of PRO is determined as follows: if there is a salient referent in the discourse (like the attitude holder, which is often the speaker itself), this will be PRO's interpretation (see tree (57) and (58)); otherwise, we ultimately end up with arbitrary PRO (see tree (56)). So, generally speaking, NOC occurs if the structural requirements for OC cannot be met (see also, among others, Fischer 2018; Mc Fadden and Sundaresan 2018). As this happens in the case of TP- and CP-adjunction, we correctly predict observation (59c).

Since we consider the different underlying adjunction sites to be the pivotal point, our analysis as such does not predict differences for the three languages under investigation; therefore, the lack of variation that we have observed when comparing German, Norwegian, and English adjunct control is, after all, expected.