Indifferent and ambiguous predicates

So far, for clarity of exposition, only predicates which are either factive or non-factive have been examined. For this set of cases, the factive and non-factive complement paradigms are in complementary distribution. But there are numerous predicates which take complements of both types. This is analogous to the fact that there are not only verbs which take concrete objects and verbs which take abstract objects but also verbs which take either kind. For example, hit requires concrete objects (boy, table), clarify requires abstract objects (ideas, fact), and like occurs indifferently with both. Just so we find verbs which occur indifferently with factive and non-factive complements, e.g. anticipate, acknowledge, suspect, report, remember, emphasize, announce, admit, deduce. Such verbs have no specification in the lexicon as to whether their complements are factive. On a deeper level, their semantic representations include no specifications as to whether their complement sentences represent presuppositions by the speaker or not. Syntactically, these predicates participate in both complement paradigms.

It is striking evidence for our analysis that they provide minimal pairs for the subtle meaning difference between factive and non-factive complements. Compare, for example, the two sentences

They reported the enemy to have suffered a decisive defeat

They reported the enemy’s having suffered a decisive defeat.

The second implies that the report was true in the speaker’s opinion, while the first leaves open the possibility that the report was false. This is explained by our derivation of infinitives from non-factives and gerunds from factives. Similarly compare

I remembered him to be bald (so I was surprised to see him with long hair)

I remembered his being bald (so I brought along a wig and disguised him).

Contrast forget, which differs from remember in that it necessarily presupposes the truth of its object. Although it is logically just as possible to forget a false notion as it is to remember one, language seems to allow for expressing only the latter. We cannot say

*I forgot that he was bald, which was a good thing since it turned out later that he wasn’t after all

*I forgot him to be bald.

There is another kind of case. Just as different meanings may accompany subjects or objects differing by a feature like concreteness, as in

The boy struck₁ me

The idea struck₂ me

so verbs may occur with factive and non-factive complements in different meanings. Compare -

(a) I explained Adam’s refusing to come to the phone

(b) I explained that he was watching his favorite TV show.

In (a), the subordinate clause refers to a proposition regarded as a fact. Explain, in this case, means ‘give reasons for’. When the object is a that-clause, as in (b), it can be read as non-factive, with explain that S understood as meaning ‘say that 5 to explain X’. To account for the differences between (a) and (b), we might postulate two lexical entries for explain (not denying that they are related). In the entry appropriate to (a) there would be a presupposition that the subordinated proposition is true. This would require a factive complement (recall that the form of the complement has an associated interpretation) in the same way as the two verbs strike₁ and strike₂ would receive different kinds of subjects. The entry for (b) would have among its presuppositions that the speaker was not committing himself about the truth of the subordinated proposition, so that a factive complement would not fit. Thus, the meaning of the complement form is directly involved in explaining its occurrence with particular verbs.