This paper centres on two phenomena – Aspect under Control (also known as “Aspectual Lowering”) and Inner Topicalisation, which have been analysed as “restructuring” phenomena in Minimalist studies (Grano, 2015; N. Huang, 2018). The paper first focuses on the empirical properties revealed by linguistic diagnostics. The empirical observations suggest that, for Aspect under Control, there is clausal restructuring at the phrase-structure level but no restructuring at the functional level. That means, an Aspect-under-Control construction is mono-clausal in the phrase structure but bi-clausal in the functional structure. These observations are best explained in a theoretical framework where clausehood embodies a multi-level construct. Empirical observations suggest inner-topic constructions are bi-clausal at both phrase-structural and functional levels. Therefore, Inner Topicalisation should not be analysed as a restructuring phenomenon. LFG analyses are provided and computationally instantiated on XLE to capture the complex interaction between control, complementation, Aspectual under Control, and Inner Topicalisation.
Chit Fung Lam (Wed,) studied this question.