(Covered) modality and control change

Abstract

The paper deals with categorial relations between subject vs. object control and overt vs. covert modality signals. In particular, complex sentence structures with the verba dicendi tell and ask in the matrix and finite vs. non-finite (elided) embedding are analysed, the predicates of which refer to the subject or to the object of the matrix. It is shown that the change of subject and object control and vice versa depends directly on presence or absence of modal signals. The overt bouletic (volitional, controlling) modality does not change the control relations, whereas the overt deontic modality neutralises them making them context-sensitive, and the covert deontic modality inverts it. In the last case, the control change coincides with the elision operation in the embedded proposition making it an infinitive complement. The key role plays here a direct affinity of the rising semantics of deontic modality to diathesis.