Backward Control

Control refers to an obligatory referential dependency between an argument of a verb and the subject of the verb’s clausal complement. In many languages, the direction of the control relation can only be forward, as it is the matrix argument that provides the referential identity of the silent embedded subject. A priori, however, there is no reason to rule out a backward control relation, where the matrix argument is silent and its identity depends on the overt embedded argument for its referent. In this article, we survey the evidence for backward control presented in the literature from four languages, Japanese (language isolate), Brazilian Portuguese (Romance), Tsez (Nakh-Daghestanian), and Malagasy (Austronesian), and discuss repercussions of the backward control data for the analyses of control developed based on forward control data. We also review and discuss four different analyses that have been proposed to account for backward control.