Matching and raising compared

This paper argues that English clausal comparatives are generated by means of two different syntactic derivations. Comparative deletion structures are given a ‘raising analysis’ in which the correlate moves into its structural case position and then moves out of the comparative clause to the matrix head position. In comparative subdeletion structures, the correlate and the head are base-generated separately. The analysis invokes remnant movement within the comparative clause to account for certain A-bar properties of comparatives attested by new parasitic gap evidence. Finally, it is shown that raising analyses are less stipulative concerning the semantic properties of comparatives than ‘matching’ proposals.