LINGUIST List 4.214

Wed 24 Mar 1993

Qs: R-deletion, made to leave

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1. , history of r-deletion
2. , query: made to leave

I once read something that I believe was a 1930s New York City schools
document instructing teachers that [r]-deletion was correct, or at least that
[r]-pronunciation (_C or _#) was "unnecessary." Does anyone have an idea
where such an instruction might have appeared? I'd be grateful for a cite or
any suggestions as to where to look.

Jeff Kaplan
Linguistics
San Diego State University

A student in my syntax class asked about the following contrast in grammatical-
ity:

I made John leave.
*I made John to leave.

*?John was made leave.
John was made to leave.

I was made to appear foolish by not knowing what is responsible for the
contrast. If the complement of *make* is a small clause, then why is the
passive ungrammatical, given examples like *He was considered foolish*?
If the complement in the passive is an infinitival IP, then why is this
structure unavailable in the active?

Respond to me personally, and I'll summarize.

Aaron Broadwell
Univ. of Oklahoma
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