Control in a cross-linguistic perspective: French-Norwegian

In this chapter, we examine control configurations in French gérondif clauses in which the referential properties of the implicit subject argument (PRO) have to be determined by contextual (linguistic and extra-linguistic) factors. We compare the control facts with parallel Norwegian translations. As a Germanic language, Norwegian does not have equivalent gérondif constructions, hence leaving it to the translator to resolve the control facts left unspecified in the French original. Traditionally, it is held that the implicit subject of the gérondif has to be the same as the subject of the matrix clause. It will be shown that this generalisation does not hold. In fact, PRO may have an explicit controller that is either a subject, an object or a prepositional complement of the matrix. The controller may also have an arbitrary reference. As a result, the resolution of PRO in the traditional sense will be regulated by control theory and discussed with respect to obligatory and non-obligatory control contrasts (OC vs. NOC) in generative settings. The data is taken from the Oslo Multilingual Corpus (OMC). This database enables us to compare parallel texts from Norwegian, English, German and French. We focus here primarily on Norwegian translations of French originals.