🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <markrose.712863793@spssig>, markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
> All of the examples of this construction presented so far seem to have
> something in common semantically: "Pron VP" can be paraphrased 
> "You expect Pron to VP?"
> 
>      What, me worry?  
>      What, you expect me to worry?
> 
>      Him {learn Russian | break the habits of a lifetime}?
>      You expect him to {learn Russian | break the habits of a lifetime}?

Are you suggesting that "You expect ... to" has been deleted?  I guess
not, in view of the following; but then why bother?
 
> Can anyone find examples where the construction has a different meaning?
> Better yet, is there any idiom for which the construction might be an
> ellipsis or, dare I say it, a transformation?

I don't know of any examples and am reluctant to posit elipsis.  As for
transformations: if anything, it's the *lack* of *expected* transforma-
tions that distinguishes the construction.

[stuff omitted]

> It also seems that the construction can only occur in the main clause:
> 
>      *Me worry is impossible.
>      *I can't see him learn Russian.
>      but cf.: I can't see him learning Russian.

The sequence, of course, occurs quite frequently; the question is whether
the following contain the same construction or something different.

	I saw him go into the house.
	I made him learn Russian.
	I let them stay home.

I suspect the complement of_see_, _make_, and _let_ is this construction.
Note that these sentences do not passivize: the first two do so awkwardly,
but only if _to_ is inserted, the last not at all.  Passivization would
be expected if the objective pronoun even remotely resembled a direct
object of the matrix verb.

	He was seen ??to / *0 go into the house.
	He was made ?to / *0 learn Russian.
	*They were let (to) stay home.

--Leo Connolly