Interim conclusion

Table 5 summarizes the conclusions of the discussion in this section with regard to the properties of need-type modals in the languages under discussion. It shows that, in contrast with must-type modals, which behave uniformly as functional verbs; need-type verbs display mixed properties as lexical and as functional elements.

102 The varieties in question are those spoken in the regions close to the French border, although some speakers of other Central varieties and Western varieties have pointed out to me that they also admit this uses of behar.

103 However, as I argue in Chapter 6, it is not the case that everytime behar licenses non-thematic subjects it acts like a functional head; in some constructions, behar does exhibit the behavior of a functional modal (i.e. when it exhibits auxiliary switch it consistently acts like a raising predicate);

however, in other constructions (in which behar determines the auxiliary and case properties of the construction) it is rather a subject raising lexical verb. The reader is referred to Chapter 6, Section 6.2 where I provide substantial evidence for this claim.

104 See however the discussion in Fn. 60 where I suggest that need might actually be ambiguous between a raising and a control modal too.

136 Table 5: Mixed properties of need-type predicates¹⁰⁵

105 The symbol ‘-’ means that either this property cannot be tested in this language or that I have not data in relation with this property in this language.

106 Recall that even if behar exhibits morphological deficiency, this is attributed to its nominal status (Etxepare & Uribe-Etxebarria 2012, Berro 2015)

137 3.4. DIFFERENT VIEWS ABOUT THE CATEGORIAL STATUS OF MODAL

PREDICATES

In the literature on restructuring and clause structure, there have been two opposed views regarding the nature of verbs which exhibited a dual (functional restructuring vs. lexical non-restructuring) behaviour: one view argues that certain verbs can optionally enter the structure as functional or lexical heads, and the other defends that restructuring verbs are invariably merged into functional heads and can never head a lexical VP.

In early work (published in 2001, 2002a) but originally written and circulated in 1997 and 1998), Cinque argued that certain verbs admitted two possibilities: they could either be merged as lexical verbs or as functional heads.

[...] those verbs which happen to match semantically the content of a certain functional head admit of two distinct possibilities. They are either regular verbs, heading a VP (in which case they take a full-fledged sentential complement (CP) - cf. [11a], or 'functional' verbs, directly inserted in the head position of the corresponding functional projection (2006:12)

The two possibilities correlate with different underlying configurations: a restructuring monoclausal configuration for the functional variant, and a non-restructuring biclausal one for the lexical variant:

(65) Two distinct configurations of restructuring verbs (Cinque 2001, 2002a, 1998)

a. [CP...[FP...[FP...[VP Vrestr [CP...[FP...[FP...[VP V ]]]]]]]]

b. [CP...[FP... [FP Vrestr [FP...[VP V ]]]]

This is also the analysis proposed by Cardinaletti & Shlonsky (2004), who defend that modal verbs and aspectual verbs can either be merged into functional heads – in which case they admit restructuring phenomena like clitic climbing and auxiliary switch – or head a lexical VP – in which case they can occur with CP size complements involving clausal negation and no restructuring effects:

138 Like modal verbs, aspectual verbs can also be fully lexical verbs, as confirmed by their selecting a DP complement […] and a clause containing clausal negation […] (Cardinaletti & Shlonsky 2004: 70, fnº 28).

We have proposed that the apparent optionality of restructuring phenomenology is due to a choice between inserting verbs in V or in F (C&S 2004: 65, fnº 9).

Wurmbrand (1998) does not take modals or aspectual verbs to come in two variants¹⁰⁷; however, in the particular case of German brauchen she claims that this verb is ambiguous between a modal and a lexical verb.

I will assume that the verb [brauchen] need is ambiguous between a modal and a lexical verb. In the lack of a clear judgment […], however, I will leave aside here the intermediate status of [brauchen] need as a full verb. But I will conclude that the verb [brauchen] need does fit the correlation between bare infinitives and IPP in that, when it is used as a modal, it takes bare infinitives and shows the IPP effect (Wurmbrand 1998:244)

However, in posterior work, Cinque (2000b, 2006) makes the strong claim that the predicates whose meaning matches that of a functional head need to be necessarily merged in the position that correspond to this head in the hierarchy of functional projections. This means that, even in the cases were certain verbs exhibit lexical, non-restructuring properties, they will still be functional raising heads in a monoclausal construction.

This stronger assumption forces him to make some additional stipulations in order to account for the apparent lexical properties of some of the predicates classified as functional verbs and for their apparent optionality to undergo restructuring.

For instance, in the case of Italian volere ‘want’, which, like need-type predicates, can occur with DP complements and finite complements, Cinque argues that such complements are not in fact directly selected by the functional restructurinng

107 In earlier work (Wurmbrand 1998), she takes modals to be functional heads (merged at different points in the structure: epistemic modals occupy Infº and root modals a lower functional head (Modº)).

Posteriorly (Wurmbrand 2001, 2003) she acknowledges the existence of modals which can be merged as either quasi-functional verbs (under vº) or functional verbs (Modº), such as German ‘want’. In Wurmbrand (2015) follows Cardinaletti & Shlonsky (2004) in assuming that modal verbs in Italian are functional when they exhibit auxiliary switch, and lexical when they do not.

139 modal want. Cinque follows Den Dikken, Larson and Ludlow (1996) (on earlier proposals by McCawley (1979) and Ross (1976)) in assuming that these type of constructions where volere apparently selects for a DP complement or a finite complement are structurally more complex than they look and involve an abstract verbal complement, paraphrasable with HAVE (or OBTAIN), which is the one that takes the DP or finite clause as complements (see (66-67) below).

(66) Giannii vuole [VP tiHAVE[DP una bicicletta]]

G. wants a bicycle

(67) Giannii vuole [VP tiOBTAIN [CP che Maria resti ]]

G. wants that M. rests

This analysis allows him to maintain the strong thesis that the verbs that match the semantics of a head in the functional hierarchy are always inserted as a functional head in the clausal domain. As such, they always embed a VP headed by the lexical (main) verb (in this case null HAVE or OBTAIN) of the construction, which, by virtue of being lexical, can itself take complements like DPs and CPs¹⁰⁸.

Although Cinque does not treat predicates like need, Grano (2012) extends his proposal to account for the lexical properties of need-type predicates. As argued by this author, the presence of an abstract head HAVE not only explains the unexpected complementation of need-type (and want-type) verbs, but also the fact that the complement of need-type verbs can have an independent temporal interpretation and a partial control¹⁰⁹ interpretation.

108 In addition, Cinque (2000, 2006) argues that the subject orientation and the selectional restrictions of certain restructuring verbs like voler ‘want’ (also osare ‘dare, osare 'dare', sapere 'know how', and provare 'try') in Italian is a consequence of their semantics. “If verbs like ‘want’, just like volitional adverbs such as willingly, voluntarily, etc. (cf. *The house willingly belonged to Bill), or, for that matter, manner adverbs (cf. *The house hid the horizon carefully), must be predicated of a sentient being, the ungrammaticality of [e.g. *La casa gli voleva appartenere ‘The house wanted to belong to him’] follows without having to assume that they take an external argument of their own.”

109 Partial Control refers to the phenomenon whereby the controllee (i.e. PRO) denotes a plurality than includes the controller, but not exhaustively. The term is used in opposition to Exhaustive Control where the reference of the controllee includes only the controller.

140 As observed by Grano, the complements of need (and want) admit the presence of conflicting temporal adverbs which situate the time of the event at different time intervals relative to the speech time (68)¹¹⁰. However, functional verbs are not expected to admit complements with temporal modifiers that refer to a point in time distinct than that of the matrix clause. Grano explains that this is possible in the case of need due to the fact that it embeds null HAVE;that is to say, Grano assumes that it is the null (main) verb HAVE, rather than the modal, which selects for a complex complement contributing an independent temporal frame (hence, a TP).

(68) Temporal modification in want+DP constructions a. A week ago, Bill wanted your car yesterday.

b. A week ago, Bill needed your car yesterday.

c. A week ago, Bill promised Mary a bracelet yesterday.

The presence of null HAVE alsohelps him to explain why sentences like (76) involving the functional restructuring modal want admit a partial control interpretation. Grano (2012) argues that English want exhibits partial control properties¹¹¹, since it can occur with inherently collective predicates like gather or meet or with a predicate made collective via together.

(69) Partial control

a. (John told Mary that) he wanted to meet at 6.

b. (John told Mary that) he wanted to eat together at 6.

(Grano 2012:20;172)

110 See Wurmbrand’s discussion in Chapter 5, Section 5.4.1. as to the possibility that this type of non-agreeing or conflicting adverbs are licensed because of the sematics of the verbs, which per se contribute a future oriented reading, rather than from the presence of a syntactic Tense head.

111 Grano further argues that the above examples involve partial control (and not split control), since a plural anaphor like each other is disallowed:

(xxxii) *(John told Mary that) he wanted to see each other other at 6.

141 To put it simply, in the sentences in (69a-b) the functional modal want embes the null verb HAVE. This null verb HAVE itself takes a Partial Control infinitive as complement, as illustrated in the structures in (70a-b).

(70) a. Johni wanted [VP ti HAVE/OBTAIN [CP PROi gather at noon]]

b. Johni needed [VP ti HAVE/OBTAIN [CP PROi gather at noon]]

To sum up, there exist two main views regarding the status of those verbs that present a mixed or dual behaviour with respect to their ability to restructure and other functional/lexical properties. One point of view (Cinque 2001, 2002a; Cardinaletti &

Shlonsky 2004) simply assumes that these verbs come in two variants: a functional (hence, restructuirng) variant and a lexical non-restructuring one. By contrast, the advocates of the strictest view (Cinque 2000, 2004, 2006) argue that the verbs whose meaning matches that of a functional head must always be merged under their corresponding functional head. To accommodate this to the cases where certain verbs (e.g. the modals under discussion) present lexical, non-restructuring propeties, they must make some additional stipulations. For instance, Cinque (2006) attributes the absence of restructuirng effects (and the partial control properties) of the constructions involving modal volere ‘want’ to the presence of a null verbal head HAVE, and Grano (2012) adopts the same analysis for the case of need to (see the structure provided under (70))¹¹².

112 In addition, both Cinque (2000, 2006) and Grano (2012) must provide an additional explanation for the lack of subject-orientation of want and its Italian counterpart volere ‘want’ (see Fn. 51 and the cited works for the details). They do not make any assumption for need, however, which as shown before, is not subject oriented in English and is impersonal in Italian (Benincà & Poletto, 1996).

142 3.5. THE DUAL NATURE OF NEED-TYPE VERBS AS FUNCTIONAL