Reviewing Minimalist Theories of Control and a Brief Look at Romanian Control

"Reviewing Minimalist Theories of Control and a Brief Look at Romanian Control. The phenomenon of control is a long-discussed topic within the enterprise of generative grammar. Multiple theories were composed and dismissed along with the advancement of the module, and with the development of the Minimalist program, more recent theories on control came to surface. The present article provides a review of two minimalist theories of control: the Movement Theory of Control and the Agree Model of Obligatory Control. A synopsis of one applied model of the MTC on Romanian data is also part of the paper, as is a brief commentary on the structure of Romanian control, namely an exploration of the tension between subjunctive and infinitive control complements. Keywords: control theories, minimalist program, Romanian control, Agree Model of Control, Movement Theory of Control "

Diachronic change and feature instability

This chapter focuses on diachronic changes of obligatory control (OC) constructions in Romanian. We argue that the setting for the OC parameter has remained constant since the 16th century, but that the values of the features associated with the C/T/Agr system show systematic change. Specifically, Romanian OC follows the Balkan paradigm (i.e., truncated/FinP clause) which is under tension to accommodate the Romance morphology with Force features that it employs. This pressure results in a continuous cycle, from syncretic to split and, again, to remerged C. This process affects Fin, the only C head available to Romanian OC, alongside constant flux of the T/Agr specifications (i.e., inflected versus uninflected). These findings support the Borer-Chomsky Conjecture (BCC) that sees variation as being restricted to formal features of functional heads (Baker 2008), namely, [+/- Agr] of C/T, while aligning with Biberauer and Walkden’s (2015) observation that diachronic syntax has shifted from the “macro” to the “micro” level.

Proxy control

The control dependency in grammar is conventionally distinguished into two classes: exhaustive (i→i) and non-exhaustive (i→i + (j)). Here, we show that, in languages like German and Italian, some speakers allow a new kind of “proxy control” which differs from both, such that, for a controller i, and a controllee j, j = proxy(i). The proxy function picks out a set of individuals that is discourse-pragmatically related to i. For such speakers, the German/Italian proxy control equivalent of the sentence: “Mariai asked Billj (for permission) [pro$_{proxy(i)}$ p r o x y ( i ) to leave work early]” would thus mean that Maria asked Bill for permission for some salient set of individuals related to herself to leave early. We examine the theoretical and empirical properties of this new control relation in detail, showing that it is irreducible to other, more familiar referential dependencies. Using standard empirical diagnostics, we then illustrate that proxy control can be instantiated both as a species of obligatory control (oc) and non-obligatory control (noc) in German and Italian and develop a syntactic and semantic model that derives each and details the factors conditioning the choice between the two. We also investigate the factors that condition different degrees of exhaustiveness (exhaustive vs. partial vs. proxy) in control, which then sheds light on why proxy control obtains in some languages, but not others and, within a language, is possible for some speakers but not others.

BACKGROUND CONCENTRATION OF HEAVY METALS (LEAD, CADMIUM, ZINC, COPPER, NICKEL, ARSENIC, MERCURY) IN SURFACE SOILS OF UDMURTIA CONTROLLED AT ENGINEERING-ECOLOGICAL RESEARCHES

Materials of engineering-ecological researches on various economic objects in Udmurtia are processed and systematized. Average (background) concentration of the heavy metals which are subject to obligatory control at engineering-ecological researches (lead, cadmium, zinc, copper, nickel, arsenic, mercury) for the main associations of soils and most wide-distributed kinds of soils are defined. It is revealed that with decreasing the soil’s podzol content and increasing the soil’s clay content, concentrations of heavy metals naturally raise. In general, similar soils are characterized by similar concentrations of heavy metals and similar ratios of concentration. It is established that excesses of hygienic standards on such elements as nickel, arsenic and to a lesser extent zinc, copper and cadmium, are not only something exclusive in Udmurtia, but also spreading more and more widely, especially in soils of light structure. The received average concentration can be accepted as background one at the subsequent engineering-ecological researches in the region.

Not all obligatory control is movement

This squib presents two challenges for the analysis of promise-type verbs within the Movement Theory of Control. We show that the objects of these verbs in Russian are not prepositional and are incorrectly predicted to be legitimate controllers. We also argue against analysing oblique control as movement.

Oblique control in Russian

This paper seeks to investigate some properties of oblique control in Russian. It is demonstrated that oblique control is a subtype of obligatory control, but has some peculiar properties of its own, distinguishing it from object control: Floating quantifiers in oblique control structures necessarily surface in dative case, and the controller DP cannot take narrow scope limited to the embedded clause only.

Nonobligatory Control with Communication Verbs: New Evidence and Implications

When occurring without their goal argument, communication verbs induce two types of control: obligatory control (OC) by the implicit goal, or nonobligatory control (NOC) by a salient antecedent. Arguments are presented to demonstrate that the two are genuinely distinct, and furthermore, that the NOC option is not reducible to embedded imperatives. The two types of control implicate the same grammatical representations, the single difference being the choice of the context of evaluation for PRO (fixed as the reported context in OC, free in NOC). Finally, evidence is presented (from VP-ellipsis) that reference to deictic antecedents in NOC is not direct but mediated via grammatically present entities (SPEAKER and ADDRESSEE functions).

Technical support in seed production of agricultural plants

Now days automatization of agriculture is perspective and actively developing branch of researches. On this moment there are many international researches which offers ready made solutions for automatic control of sowing agricultures crops. However Most part of sowing are made on a mechanization devices with obligatory control of high qualified service employees in Russia. In this case, it was proposed to automatization of the process of sowing seeds.