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

[Martha McGinnis]

>Hmm...  Carson snipped the last few lines of my message:

Humble apologies to Martha--I did not mean to dodge the issue.

>>(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.
>
>If the interpretive contrast with 'not' is genuine (it seems so to

I completely agree with the judgments.


>me), then an analysis that involves raising of finite 'be'/'have' in
>(1a) and (2a) means that once again we have (only) auxiliaries
>raising past Neg.

Sorry, I was vague/unclear/equivocal/downright deceptive. When I suggested
that finite 'be' raises, I didn't mean it raises over negation. Rather I meant
that it raises from the position where it is inserted to a yet higher
position.  I want to maintain that nothing ever head-raises across
(sentential) negation in English. This was actually not directly addressing
the remaining problem, which for me is how to make sure we don't *insert* 'be'
above Neg in the (c) sentences, but we do insert it above Neg in the (a)
sentences. The idea (which was in my head but clearly not in my email--sorry!)
is that what blocks inserting 'be' high in the (c) configuration is that the
modal has already eaten up the position where we would have inserted 'be'.

On standard assumptions we could just call this position Tense itself, which
will be either generated with a modal in it (c) or will have 'be' inserted into
it (a). That much can be said without head raising finite 'be' at all. What's
trickier (and the hidden reason why I actually want finite 'be' to hop up one
after it's inserted) is how to unify the triggers for 'be'-insertion in (a)
and (b) without also generating spurious low 'be', e.g.

(2) d. *She does probably/not be preparing her lectures.

(Which, for any nonnative speakers out there, is impossible even if we try to
make "does" emphatic.)

The rest I leave as an exercise to readers (one they are not allowed to
publish until I do so! :-)