Controlling overt subjects in Mandarin

Overt controlees have been observed in different languages, and previous proposals diverge on whether to analyze them as lexicalized PROs or not. In this study, we present new evidence from Mandarin for non-PRO overt controlees: We argue that although the construction of embedding overt subjects under control verbs is indeed obligatory control, the overt controlees should not be analyzed as lexicalized PROs. Based on the distribution and behavior of overt controlees, this study also demonstrates a structural difference between exhaustive control and partial control, offering independent evidence for recent theoretical proposals on the structure of control and Mandarin clause structure.