SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC FACTORS IN CONTROL 173In the case of Passivization, undergoer control is the important notion
in RRG, rather than object control. In example (7b) above, Mary remains
the controller of the complement clause when the sentence is passivized.
Mary, the undergoer, is controller regardless of its position in the main
core.
For speech act verbs, or "verbs of saying", whether or not a verb has
undergoer control depends upon the semantics of the verb, whether or not
it can be construed as a kind of "verbal causative". Following Searle, direc
tives are characterized as
attempts...by the speaker to get the hearer to do something. They may be
very modest "attempts", as when I invite you to do it, or they may be very
fierce attempts, as when I insist that you do it. (Searle 1975:255)
The speaker or actor tries to get the hearer/undergoer to perform an action
by means of an utterance. The causing event in this instance is verbal rather
than an action.
(8) a. John invited Mary to have a beer.
b. John ordered Mary to have a beer.
John told Mary to have a beer.
These sentences illustrate undergoer control with directive speech act
verbs. John is trying to get Mary to have a beer by using various verbal
commands or invitations. These are, in effect, verbal causatives: the
speaker tries to get the hearer to do something by his/her utterance.
Speech act verbs which do not have causative implications have actor
control; these include commissives and interrogatives. Commissives are
defined by Searle as
...those illocutionary acts whose point is to commit the speaker... to some
future course of action. (Searle 1975:356)
Thus, the meaning of a commissive speech-act verb demands actor control.
The actor commits him/herself, in the matrix core, to a course of action,
outlined in the following clause, as illustrated in the following sentence.
(9) Mary promised John to leave early.
Mary is committing herself, by a promise, to leave early.
The RRG analysis also accounts for verbs such as ask which exhibit
both subject and object control.
(10) a. John asked Bill to sing something.
b. John asked Bill what to sing.