Reanalysis and Intervention in English ‘Tough’ Constructions

Abstract

This paper investigates one of the issues most intensively studied for the last decade: intervention in English ‘tough’ constructions. Hartman (2012) observes that an adjunct PP between a ‘tough’ adjective and the following infinitive clause serves as a defective intervenor for the Agree relation between the matrix subject and the null operator in the clause at hand. Showing that an adverbial DP also functions as such an intervenor, Bruening (2014) (and more recently Salzmann (2023)) attributes the offending intervention to the improper licensing of the null operator in the extraposed infinitive clause. On the other hand, Kleine and Poole (2017) and Gluckman (2022) take a semantic approach, arguing that the intervention in question results from type mismatch or improper chain indexing when an adjunct or adverbial PP/DP intervenes. Departing from these studies, this paper argues that the recasting of Chomsky’s (1981) reanalysis combining a ‘tough’ adjective with the following infinitive verb to yield a complex adjective amalgam gives a right handle in accounting for the intervention at issue. Simply, an intervening adjunct or adverbial PP/DP inhibits the formation of a complex adjective amalgam required owing to the absence of functional layers in the ‘tough’ infinitive clause. © 2023 KASELL All rights reserved.