Agreeing to control

This talk is dedicated to two complementation configurations involving matrix passive and control by an implicit passive agent: long passive (Wurmbrand 2001, 2014) and long-distance scrambling in Germanic (Den Besten & Rutten 1989, Rutten 1991, Wurmbrand 2002). Based on the cross linguistic distribution of long passive, as well as experimental evidence from Dutch (Kovač & Schoenmakers 2022), I show that the (un-)availability of long passive is the result of an interplay of several factors, among them the featural make-up of the matrix passive implicit agent and the class of the matrix verb. In the second part of the talk, I turn to long-distance scrambling in Dutch and German and the different effects of scrambled accusative and dative DPs on the availability of implicit control. Taken together, the restrictions in long passive and long-distance scrambling provide support for the view that agreement is a crucial component of implicit control (van Urk 2013, Wurmbrand 2021).