Chapter 8 - The Syntax of Non-Finite Clausespossibly differ from each other. To see how these subjects differ from each other,
consider the following facts:
(44) a Tim seems [ - to be tall]
b Robin wants [ - to be rich]
(45) a it seems [Tim is tall]
b *it wants [Robin is rich]
(46) a *Tim seems [Tina is tall]
b Robin wants [Rupert to be rich]
(47) a *[ - to be tall] is what Tim seems
b [ - to be rich] is what Robin wants
(48) a *it seemed to Larry [ - to look after himself]
b we persuaded Larry [ - to look after himself]
(49) a *Peter seemed [that [ - to be a pilot] would be exciting]
b Peter thinks [that [ - to be a pilot] would be exciting]
Consider the two sentences in (44). They both appear to have missing subjects and
in other ways they seem to be similar. However, even at this point we can see that the
two missing subjects are not entirely equivalent. In (44a), the missing subject is
referentially identical to the subject of the higher clause, Tim. This subject is not
semantically related to the verb of its own clause: Tim is not the one doing the
seeming. We have already seen that verbs like seem do not have a subject of their own
and often have pleonastic subjects, as we see in (45a). Thus the missing subject of the
non-finite clause and the overt subject of the higher clause share a single -role
assigned from the lower predicate tall. In other words, they represent a single
argument. This contrasts starkly with the situation in (44b), where the missing subject
and the overt subject of the higher clause bare completely different -roles: Robin is
the thematic subject of want and the missing subject is the thematic subject of rich.
The two subjects are coreferential, but they are independent elements in exactly the
same way that a pronoun and its referent are independent elements:
(50) Henry thinks [he is happy]
In this case, Henry is the one doing the thinking and he is the one who is happy. If the
pronoun refers to Henry then the interpretation is ultimately that Henry is happy (or at
least this is what he thinks). But if the pronoun refers to someone else, then the
interpretation is not that Henry is happy. However, the two elements are independent,
regardless of what their referential properties are. The same is true of the overt subject
and the missing subject in (44b). (45b) demonstrates that there really are two
independent arguments in this construction as the subject of the higher predicate cannot
be spelled out as a pleonastic element. In contrast, this is exactly what is possible in
(45a), demonstrating that there really is only one argument here. The same point is made
the other way round in (46). In this case we see that with a verb like seem, a different