Martha McGinnis: "light" verbs in English (reply to Carson Schutze)

[Martha McGinnis]

>Almost the entire literature on this topic follows the line that these verbs
>can "raise across" negation in some way that other verbs cannot, a view
>that seems to me to raise more questions than it answers.
>
>There is an alternative, under which one can maintain that the Head Movement
>Constraint (or whatever underlies it) actually blocks all head movement
>across Neg in English, and what's special about 'be' and 'have' is that
>they can be inserted/generated above Neg.

Doesn't this alternative raise just as many questions as the
verb-raising account?  Rather than asking why 'have' and 'be', but
not other verbs, can raise past Neg, we'd have to ask why 'have' and
'be', but not other verbs, can be inserted above Neg.  And if these
verbs can be inserted 'high', we're at a loss to explain why the (c)
examples in (1) and (2) are out.

(1) a.	She has probably prepared her lectures.
     b.	She will probably have prepared her lectures.
     c.?*She will have probably prepared her lectures.

(2) a.	She is probably preparing her lectures.
     b.	She will probably be preparing her lectures.
     c.?*She will be probably preparing her lectures.

A similar contrast arises if you replace "probably" with "not", which
allows a sentential negation reading for the (a) and (b) examples,
but not for the (c) examples, which get a VP-negation reading.

Cheers,
Martha