--- title: "Reconsidering Raising and Experiencers in English (2006)" description: "Frank (2002) proposed a flat, three-branch auxiliary tree for this. 6 references, cited by 1 paper here." authors: ["Dennis Ryan Storoshenko"] year: 2006 venue: "Proceedings of the Eighth International Workshop on Tree Adjoining Grammar and Related Formalisms" source: "https://aclanthology.org/W06-1524/" licence: "CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/storoshenko-2006-reconsidering-raising-experiencers-english/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/storoshenko-2006-reconsidering-raising-experiencers-english/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2006](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2006/page/2/) / Reconsidering Raising and Experiencers in English # Reconsidering Raising and Experiencers in English **Authors:** [Dennis Ryan Storoshenko](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/dennis-ryan-storoshenko/) · **Year:** 2006 · **Venue:** [Proceedings of the Eighth International Workshop on Tree Adjoining Grammar and Related Formalisms](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/international-workshop-on-tree-adjoining-grammar-and-related-formalisms/) ([International Workshop on Tree Adjoining Grammar and Related Formalisms 2006](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/international-workshop-on-tree-adjoining-grammar-and-related-formalisms/2006/)) · **Publisher:** [Association for Computational Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/association-for-computational-linguistics/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/W06-1524/) · [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/W06-1524.pdf) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W60938840) **Citations:** 2 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) · 1 in our library, of the 149,439 papers whose bibliographies we read ## Summary The paper looks at how Tree Adjoining Grammar (TAG) should handle the raising verb *seem* when it carries an experiencer phrase such as *to me*. That phrase can sit right after *seem* (medial) or at the end of the clause (final). Frank (2002) proposed a flat, three-branch auxiliary tree for this. Storoshenko asks two questions: whether the experiencer is a true argument of *seem*, and whether a flat tree can explain how it behaves. He first shows that the experiencer is an argument in both positions: - Simple VP-adjunction cannot derive the medial word order. - Extraction tests show the final position is not an island. He then applies Larson-style c-command diagnostics. The medial experiencer c-commands the embedded object; the final one does not. A flat structure cannot explain this difference. He therefore proposes a VP-shell analysis, borrowed from work on ditransitives. There are two lexically separate *seem* trees, and the verb moves up within its own elementary tree. Apparent word-order asymmetries with small clauses and finite complements are explained by phonological weight and ambiguity. This matters because it brings raising in TAG into line with modern ditransitive syntax, and it opens extra adjunction sites inside the *seem* tree. ## Key points - Data: hand-built English minimal pairs judged by native speakers. Examples include *John seems to me to like coffee* versus *John seems to like coffee to me*. There is no corpus or treebank. - Argument tests for the final experiencer: relativisation, stripping, and a resumptive-pronoun repair of a complex-NP violation. All three show it can be extracted. - c-command tests: NPI licensing, bound-variable readings, and Superiority. They succeed with the medial experiencer and fail with the final one. - Proposal: two unrelated *seem* trees, each fixing the experiencer's position. This follows Harley (2002) rather than Larson's (1988) derivational link. A lower VP holds the experiencer and the T′ foot node, and *seem* raises to an upper VP that has no agent. - The lower VP also gives a landing site for manner and temporal adjuncts that modify *seem*, possibly even when there is no experiencer. For instance, the paper's example inserts a duration clause about how long the speakers had known John between past-tense *seemed* and its complement *to like coffee*. ## Interesting ideas - Decide whether a phrase is an argument or an adjunct with structural probes, such as extraction, NPI licensing and binding, rather than by intuition; this gives a reproducible criterion where labels are disputed. - With raising, the surface subject gets its semantic role only from the embedded predicate, while *seem* adds an experiencer who holds the impression. - A to-PP can mark a perspective holder even without *seem*, as in *John likes coffee to me*. This creates real attachment ambiguity in finite-clause cases. - Position choice can be driven by heaviness: speakers place the experiencer medially or finally depending on how heavy each competing constituent is. - Treat word-order variants as two separate lexical entries rather than one entry plus a transformation, which keeps each structure simple and local. ## For Mova How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests: - **I1** (frames): Use the same probes to justify treating the to-PP of *seem/appear* as the Experiencer of the raising verb, not as a role of the embedded verb such as *like*. - **I2** (world): *John seems to me to like coffee* should store "John likes coffee" as a belief held by the experiencer, not as a fact about the world. - **I3** (tree): Add a repair or conversion rule that flags a clause-final *to*-PP after a *seem* complement as possibly attaching to either verb, and keep both parses for downstream disambiguation. - **I4** (back): When generating raising sentences with experiencers, compare constituent lengths and put the heavier one last, so the output sounds natural. - **I5** (frames): Store two frame templates for *seem* (medial and final experiencer) that map to the same roles, so frame matching never needs movement rules. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* ## Institutions - [Simon Fraser University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/simon-fraser-university/) — University, Burnaby, Canada · 17 works · 4,413 citations 📚 Shelves (5): [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 16,039 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 15,891 works · [💭 Psychology](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/psychology/) · 1,552 works · [💭 Experimental and Cognitive Psychology](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/psychology/experimental-and-cognitive-psychology/) · 870 works · [💭 Developmental and Educational Psychology](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/psychology/developmental-and-educational-psychology/) · 499 works 🧭 Topics (1): [English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/english/) · 2,263 works ## Cite Cite as: Dennis Ryan Storoshenko. 2006. Reconsidering Raising and Experiencers in English. Proceedings of the Eighth International Workshop on Tree Adjoining Grammar and Related Formalisms. The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @inproceedings{storoshenko2006reconsidering, title = {{Reconsidering Raising and Experiencers in English}}, author = {Dennis Ryan Storoshenko}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Eighth International Workshop on Tree Adjoining Grammar and Related Formalisms}, year = {2006}, url = {https://aclanthology.org/W06-1524/} } ``` - [← previous Pragmatic information extraction from subject ellipsis in informal English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/nariyama-2006-pragmatic-information-extraction-subject-ellipsis/) - [next → Translating metaphors into Afrikaans in a source language-oriented translation of the Hebrew Bible](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/merwe-2006-translating-metaphors-afrikaans-source-language/) - [↑ back to papers of 2006](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2006/page/2/) ## References 6 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. Robert Frank. 2002. Phrase Structure Composition and Syntactic Dependencies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. [↗](https://doi.org/10.1162/coli.2002.28.4.583b) 2. Heidi Harley. 2002. Possession and the double object construction. Linguistic Variation Yearbook, 2:29– 68. [↗](https://doi.org/10.1075/livy.2.04har) 3. Ray Jackendoff. 1990. On Larson’s treatment of the double object construction. Linguistic Inquiry, 21(3):427–465. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Ray+Jackendoff%2E+1990%2E+On+Larson%E2%80%99s+treatment+of+the+double+object+construction%2E+Linguistic+Inquiry%2C+21%283%29%3A427%E2%80%93465%2E) 4. Anthony Kroch and Aravind Joshi. 1985. The linguistic relevance of Tree Adjoining Grammar. Technical Report MS-CS-85-16, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Pennsylvania. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Anthony+Kroch+and+Aravind+Joshi%2E+1985%2E+The+linguistic+relevance+of+Tree+Adjoining+Grammar%2E+Technical+Report+MS%2DCS%2D85%2D16%2C+Department+of+Computer+and+Information+Sciences%2C+University+of+Pennsylvania%2E) 5. Richard Larson. 1988. On the double object construction. Linguistic Inquiry, 19(3):335–391. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Richard+Larson%2E+1988%2E+On+the+double+object+construction%2E+Linguistic+Inquiry%2C+19%283%29%3A335%E2%80%93391%2E) 6. Dennis Ryan Storoshenko. 2006. Seems like a double object. In Proceedings of the 22 NorthWest Linguistics Conference.  [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Dennis+Ryan+Storoshenko%2E+2006%2E+Seems+like+a+double+object%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+22+NorthWest+Linguistics+Conference%2E+%01) *Updated 1 November 2026*