Subject raising

Definition
Subject raising is the movement of the subject of a sentential complement to the subject position of the matrix clause.

Example
In (i) John, the subject of to have won has moved to the subject position of seems.

(i) Johniseems [ tito have won ]

Subject Raising is triggered by Subject Raising verbs (e.g. to seem), which have as a characteristic property that they do not assign an external theta-role, and select a sentential complement with a case-less subject position. Subject Raising also occurs with passivized ECM verbs, as in (ii).

(ii) Johniis considered [ tito have won ]

Links

 * Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics