When Infinitives are Not Under Control: The Growing Trees Hypothesis and the Developmental Advantage of Restructuring Verbs
Introduction Restructuring verbs are infinitive-taking predicates that, despite selecting infinitival complements, behave like simple clauses (Rizzi 1976; Rizzi 1982). This study investigates the role of restructuring in language acquisition, with the aim of contributing new insights into the syntax of infinitival structures and their developmental trajectory. The core debate around restructuring verbs has been framed by two primary syntactic perspectives (Wurmbrand 2001): Monoclausal Approaches: These assume that restructuring verbs and their infinitives form a single domain throughout the derivation process (e....