The control dependency in grammar is conventionally distinguished into two classes: exhaustive (i→i) and non-exhaustive (i→i + (j)). Here, we show that, in languages like German and Italian, some speakers allow a new kind of “proxy control” which differs from both, such that, for a controller i, and a controllee j, j = proxy(i). The proxy function picks out a set of individuals that is discourse-pragmatically related to i. For such speakers, the German/Italian proxy control equivalent of the sentence: “Mariai asked Billj (for permission) [pro$_{proxy(i)}$ p r o x y ( i ) to leave work early]” would thus mean that Maria asked Bill for permission for some salient set of individuals related to herself to leave early. We examine the theoretical and empirical properties of this new control relation in detail, showing that it is irreducible to other, more familiar referential dependencies. Using standard empirical diagnostics, we then illustrate that proxy control can be instantiated both as a species of obligatory control (oc) and non-obligatory control (noc) in German and Italian and develop a syntactic and semantic model that derives each and details the factors conditioning the choice between the two. We also investigate the factors that condition different degrees of exhaustiveness (exhaustive vs. partial vs. proxy) in control, which then sheds light on why proxy control obtains in some languages, but not others and, within a language, is possible for some speakers but not others.

This article investigates the syntactic distribution of the German quantificational particle known as “invariant alles” (‘all’). The generalization that emerges is that, given a derivation, alles occurs in any position occupied by an Ā chain link of the “associate” of alles, that is, the phrase that alles “modifies.” The article concludes that alles forms a deep constituent with its associate and that therefore instances of nonadjacent alles are derived transformationally, specifically by some stranding procedure. Floating analyses and adverbial analyses of quantifier float are argued to be insufficient to explain the generalization. Three types of argument are presented in support: (a) the distribution of alles is a subset of its associate's; (b) alles blocks derivations when it occurs in a position in which its associate would also block the derivation; (c) alles is sensitive to the kind of movement that its associate undergoes, in that it can occur in tails of Ā movement but not in tails of A movement. Further implications are that wh movement proceeds successive‐cyclically through (presumably) vP in German, that tails of A and Ā movement can be distinguished by alles, and that object scrambling is necessarily A movement in German.

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