In linguistics, raising constructions involve the movement of an argument from an embedded or subordinate clause to a matrix or main clause. A raising predicate/verb appears with a syntactic argument that is not its semantic argument but rather the semantic argument of an embedded predicate. In other words, the sentence is expressing something about a phrase taken as a whole. For example, in they seem to be trying, "to be trying" (the predicand of trying) is the subject of seem. English has raising constructions, unlike some other languages.[citation needed]
The term raising has its origins in the transformational analysis of such constructions; the constituent in question is seen as being "raised" from its initial deep structure position, as the subject of the embedded predicate, to its surface structure position in the matrix predicate/verb.[1] Raising predicates/verbs are related to control predicates, although there are important differences between the two predicate/verb types.
- ^ Early seminal accounts of raising were produced by Rosenbaum (1967) and Postal (1974). See further Grinder and Elgin (1973:141ff.), Bach (1974:120ff., 146ff.), Emonds (1976:75ff.), Borsley (1996:126-144), Carnie (2007:285ff.).