Question

In 'John seems to have left', the subject John has undergone:

• A. Subject-to-Subject lowering
• B. Object-to-Subject raising
• C. Subject-to-Subject raising
• D. Object-to-Object lowering

Hint:

In linguistic transformations, raising refers to moving a subject or object to a higher syntactic position, typically from an embedded clause to the main clause.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

In the sentence "John seems to have left," the subject "John" is raised from an object position in the embedded clause "to have left" to the subject position in the main clause. This is an example of Subject-to-Subject raising, where the subject of the embedded clause (John) becomes the subject of the main clause. Option (A) Subject-to-Subject lowering would imply a shift in the opposite direction, which doesn't occur here.
Option (B) Object-to-Subject raising refers to when the object becomes the subject of the main clause, but this is not the case in this sentence.
Option (D) Object-to-Object lowering is not relevant in this case since no object is involved in the movement here. \[ \boxed{\text{Correct answer: (C).}} \]