The dual nature of restructuring verbs and infinitival complementation

Abstract A recurrent issue about restructuring verbs has been whether they obligatorily merge in a monoclausal configuration with their non-finite complements. A traditional hypothesis is that they can be ambiguous, legitimating both monoclausal and biclausal structures. In more recent times, the alternative view that they can only enter monoclausal structures has gained increasing support in the literature. No broad consensus has yet been reached on which of these two mutually incompatible positions is the correct one. Another open question is whether all restructuring verbs are alike in this respect, since differences might potentially be identified among the various subclasses of predicates. These are all long-standing points of contention, especially in Romance linguistics, and answering them has major consequences also for a general theory of non-finite complementation. The main conclusion attained in this work, grounded chiefly in Italian evidence, is that both empirical and theoretical considerations point to abandoning a generalized monoclausal approach to restructuring and its corollaries, namely the concept of pseudocontrol and the dyadic conceptualization of raising (-to-subject) that it brings along. An argument will be made for a strict separation between strategies of infinitival complementation, necessarily operating with biclausal structures, and restructured configurations, which are always and only monoclausal. The underlying mechanism of the latter should thus be conceptualized as distinct from both raising and control. Such results are purported to be of interest to scholars of all theoretical persuasion, be they more formalist- or more functionalist-oriented.