The Syntax of Natural Language: an Online Introduction Using the Trees Program

The syntax of natural language: An online introduction using the Trees program

Beatrice Santorini Anthony Kroch

Citation: Santorini, Beatrice, and Anthony Kroch. 2000. The syntax of natural language: An online introduction using the Trees program. http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/syntax-textbook.

Last modified: 4 February 2004. Table of contents, detailed (short version)

Titlepage

1 Foundational issues

Prescriptive versus descriptive grammar Rule formation in language acquisition Rule-based word formation Question formation Structure dependence Intuitions about words belonging together Structural ambiguity Universal Grammar Formal universals Recursion Parameters Generative grammar Elementary trees and substitution Grammaticality Grammar versus language Notes Exercises and problems Supplementary material Expletive elements in English Modals and auxiliary verbs in English

2 Constituent structure

Tests for constituenthood Substitution Movement Questions and sentence fragments It cleft focus Some caveats Mismatches between syntax and prosody Phrasal versus lexical constituents Verb phrases Representing constituenthood Notes Exercises and problems Supplementary material Node relations Verbs

3 Some basic linguistic relations

Argumenthood Semantic valency Transitivity Modification Predication Expletive it Aristotelian versus Fregean predicates Expletive there Some special cases Notes Exercises and problems Supplementary material Grammatical relations Reference and related notions Thematic roles Verbs

4 Introducing the X' schema of phrase structure

The X' schema for elementary trees Transitive elementary trees The X' schema in general Intransitive elementary trees Deriving simple sentences Deriving complex sentences The adjunct relation Modification is different The need for an adjunction operation A typology of syntactic dependents More on the distinction between complements and adjuncts Notes Exercises and problems Supplementary material Modals and auxiliary verbs in English Reference and related notions Thematic roles

5 Extending the X' schema

Noun phrases Parallels and differences between noun phrases and sentences Noun phrases as DPs More on determiners Modification and related issues Adjective phrases Prepositional phrases Crosslinguistic variation in headedness Notes Exercises and problems Supplementary material Nouns

6 The verb movement parameter

Verb raising: V movement to I The French future tense The order of adverbs and verbs in French Tense lowering: I movement to V The order of adverbs and verbs in English Do support in English Cues for the acquisition of verb raising Verb raising and related issues in the history of English The loss of verb raising A change in the status of not The emergence of do support The emergence of modals Remnants of verb raising in modern English Notes Exercises and problems Supplementary material Modals and auxiliary verbs in English Node relations

7 VP shells

Double-object sentences The structure of ordinary causative sentences Parallels between causative sentences and double-object sentences Abstract verb movement Double-complement sentences Give and send Put Persuade The causative alternation Manner of motion verbs Get Further issues Locality constraints on idioms Small clauses revisited Notes Exercises and problems Supplementary material Thematic roles

8 Case theory

A first look at case The basic purpose of case Case government Synthetic versus analytic case marking Case features Case licensing Spec-head licensing Head-spec licensing Head-comp licensing Nonstructural conditions on case licensing The dative-accusative distinction Case agreement (coming eventually...) Notes Exercises and problems Supplementary material Grammatical relations

9 Nonfinite clausal complements

Selectional restrictions Subject control Evidence for two clauses Deriving subject control sentences Raising A detour Nonthematic subject positions Deriving raising sentences Tend and occur Promise Object control More nonthematic subjects Subject idiom chunks Weather it Summary Notes Exercises and problems

10 Passive

Characteristics of the passive A movement analysis Object idiom chunks Analysis The passive and nonfinite complementation Structural versus inherent case Exercises and problems

11 Wh- movement: Ross's island constraints

Evidence for a movement analysis of questions Complementation Why a silent complementizer? Case checking Direct wh- questions The island constraints The apparent unboundedness of wh- movement A typology of islands Other instances of wh- movement Wh- relative clauses That relative clauses Doubly marked relative clauses Zero relative clauses Topicalization Notes Exercises and problems

12 Wh- movement: Subjacency and the ECP

Subjacency Two possible derivations for long-distance wh- movement IP as a barrier to wh- movement DP as a barrier to wh- movement The coordinate structure constraint revisited The Empty Category Principle (ECP) Antecedent government Lexical government Further issues and refinements Is subjacency an independent principle? Movement out of ECM complements Movement out of DP Exercises and problems Supplementary material Node relations

13 The verb-second (V2) phenomenon

V2 in German The linear position of the finite verb The structural position of the finite verb Movement to C as adjunction Verb movement to C in declaratives V2 in the history of English V2 in Middle English A remnant of V2 in modern English Notes Exercises and problems

14 Binding theory: Syntactic constraints on the interpretation of noun phrases

Coreference and coindexing Hellan 1988 The co-argument condition The predication condition The tensed IP condition Strict vs. non-strict co-arguments Extending Hellan's binding theory to English The co-argument condition The predication condition The tensed IP condition Chomsky 1981 Principle A Principle B Principle C Notes Exercises and problems (to be added)

Glossary

List of supplementary material Expletive elements in English Grammatical relations Modals and auxiliary verbs in English Node relations Questions Reference and related notions Thematic roles Verbs

References

General literature and reference works Technical literature and sources Other textbooks 1 Foundational issues

Prescriptive versus descriptive grammar Rule formation in language acquisition A thought experiment Rule-based word formation Question formation More evidence for syntactic structure Intuitions about words belonging together Structural ambiguity Universal Grammar Formal universals Recursion Parameters Generative grammar Elementary trees and substitution Grammaticality Grammar versus language Notes Exercises and problems Supplementary material Expletive elements in English Modals and auxiliary verbs in English

This book is an introduction to generative grammar from a Chomskyan perspective. By the time you finish this chapter, you will have a clearer understanding of what we mean by this sentence, and by the time you finish the entire book, your understanding of it should be clearer and deeper still. But for now, you have probably gained the impression that this book is about grammar of some sort. And right there, we have a problem. The problem is that there is an everyday sense of the term 'grammar' and a quite different sense in which the term is used in linguistics.

Prescriptive versus descriptive grammar

In the everyday sense, 'grammar' refers to a collection of rules concerning what counts as socially acceptable and unacceptable language use. Some of these rules, like the ones in (1), make reference to particular words and apply to both spoken and written language.

(1) a. Don't use ain't. b. Don't use seen as the past tense of see (as in I seen him at the party last night).

But mainly, the rules in question concern the proper composition of sentences in written language, and you probably recall being taught rules like those in (2) at school.

(2) a. Don't start a sentence with a conjunction. b. Don't use contractions. c. Don't use sentence fragments. d. Don't end a sentence with a linking verb. e. Don't use dangling participles. f. Don't end a sentence with a preposition. g. Don't use an object pronoun for a subject pronoun in a conjoined noun phrase. h. Don't use a plural pronoun to refer back to a singular noun like everyone, no-one, someone, and the like. i. Don't split infinitives. j. Use whom, not who, as the object of a verb or preposition.

Someone who composes sentences in accordance with rules like those in (2) is said to have good grammar, whereas someone said to have bad grammar doesn't apply the rules when they ought to be applied,1 producing sentences like (3).

(3) a. Over there is the guy who I went to the party with. violates (2f), (2j) b. Bill and me went to the store. violates (2g)

Now if rules like those in (2) were the only ones that were used to form English sentences, then people who didn't follow them should produce rampantly variable and confusing sentences, leading in extreme cases to a complete breakdown of communication. However, even people who routinely produce sentences like those in (3) do not produce the likes of (4).

(4) a. Over there is guy the who I went to party the with. b. Over there is the who I went to the party with guy. c. Bill and me the store to went.

The sentences in (3) may be instances of bad grammar in the everyday sense, but they are still English sentences. By contrast, we don't need to rely on school rules to tell us that the examples in (4) are not English sentences - even though they contain exactly the same English words as the sentences in in (3).

Since native speakers of English do not produce a variable mishmash of words of the sort in (4), there must be some other sort of rules according to which sentences are composed. We can determine what some of them are by taking a closer look at the sequences in (4). What exactly is it that makes them into word salad? In (4a), the article the is in the wrong order with respect to guy and party, the nouns that it belongs with. In (4b), the relative clause (who I went to the party with) is in the wrong order with respect to the noun that it modifies (guy). In (4c), the preposition to is in the wrong order with respect to its object (the store). In other words, the sentences in (4) do not follow the rules in (5).

(5) a. Articles precede the nouns they belong with. b. Relative clauses follow the noun that they modify. c. Prepositions precede their objects.

(There's a fourth rule that's not followed in (4), which you are asked to formulate in the Exercises.)

Rules like those in (5) have a quite different intention from those in (2). The rules in (2) are normative or prescriptive, whereas those in (5) are descriptive. Rules of prescriptive grammar have the same status as rules of etiquette (like table manners or dress codes) or the laws of society, which divide the entire spectrum of possible human behavior into socially acceptable or legal behavior, on the one hand, and socially unacceptable or illegal behavior, on the other. Rules of prescriptive grammar make statements about how people ought to use language. In contrast, rules of descriptive grammar have the status of scientific observations, and they are intended as insightful generalizations about the way that human language is used in fact, rather than about how it ought to be used. Descriptive rules are more general and more basic than prescriptive rules in the sense that all sentences of a language are formed in accordance with them, not just the subset of sentences that count as correct or socially acceptable. A useful way to think about prescriptive rules is as filtering out some (relatively minute) portion of the entire output of the descriptive rules of a language. In syntax, as in linguistics more generally, we adopt a resolutely descriptive perspective concerning language. In particular, when linguists say that a sentence is grammatical, we don't mean that it is correct from a prescriptive point of view, but that it conforms to descriptive rules like those in (5). In order to indicate that a sequence is ungrammatical (in the descriptive sense), we prefix it with an asterisk. Grammatical sentences are usually not specially marked, but they can be prefixed with 'ok' for clarity. These conventions are illustrated in (6) and (7).

(6) a. * Over there is guy the who I went to party the with. (= (4a)) b. * Over there is the who I went to the party with guy. (= (4b)) (7) a. ok Over there is the guy who I went to the party with. (= (3a)) b. ok Over there is the guy with whom I went to the party.

Prescriptive grammar is based on the view that there is a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things. When there is more than one way of saying something, prescriptive grammar is often concerned with declaring one (and only one) of the variants to be correct, and the favored variant is usually justified as being better (whether more logical, more euphonious, or more desirable on some other grounds) than the deprecated variant. In the same situation of linguistic variability, the basic aim of descriptive grammar is simply to document the variants without passing judgment on them. For instance, consider the variable subject-verb agreement pattern in (8). In (8a), the singular verb is (contracted to 's) agrees in number with the preverbal expletive subject there (in red), whereas in (8b), the plural verb are agrees with the postverbal logical subject some boxes (in blue). The color of the verb indicates which of the two subjects it agrees with.

(8) a. There 's some boxes left on the porch. b. There are some boxes left on the porch.

The prescriptive and descriptive rules concerning this pattern are given in (9). The differences between the two rules are emphasized by underlining.

(9) In a sentence containing both the singular expletive subject there and a plural logical subject ... a. Prescriptive ... the verb should agree in number with the logical subject. rule: b. Descriptive ... the verb can agree in number with either the expletive subject or with the rule: logical subject.

To take another example, let's consider the prescriptive rule that says, "Don't end a sentence with a preposition."2 A prescriptivist might argue that keeping the preposition (in italics) together with its object (in boldface), as in (10a), makes sentences easier to understand, than does separating the two, as in (10b).

(10) a. With which friend did you go to the party? b. Which friend did you go to the party with?

But by that token, (11a), where the verb and its object are kept together, ought to be preferable over (11b), where they are separated. In fact, however, (11a) is completely ungrammatical.

(11) a. * Adopt which cat did your friend? b. ok Which cat did your friend adopt?

It is important to understand that there is no conceptual or semantic reason that prepositions can be separated from their objects in English, but that verbs can't. From a descriptive perspective, the grammaticality contrast between (10a) and (11a) is simply a matter of fact, irreducible to more basic considerations given our present state of knowledge. (12) highlights the difference between the relevant prescriptive and descriptive rules.

(12) When the object of a preposition appears in a position that isn't its ordinary one (as in a question), ... a. Prescriptive ... it should be preceded by the preposition. rule: b. Descriptive ... it can either be preceded by the preposition, or it may stand alone, with the rule: preposition remaining in its ordinary position.

The contrasting attitude of prescriptive and descriptive grammar towards linguistic variation has a quasi- paradoxical consequence: namely, that prescriptive rules are never descriptive rules. The reason for this has to do with the way that social systems (not just language) work. If everyone in a community consistently behaves in a way that is socially acceptable in some respect, then there is no need for explicit prescriptive rules to ensure the behavior in question. It is only when behavior that is perceived as socially unacceptable becomes common that prescriptive rules come to be formulated to check the unacceptable behavior. For example, if every customer entering a store invariably wears both a shirt and shoes, there is no need for the store owner to put up the sign that says "No shirt, no shoes, no service." Conversely, it is precisely at illegal dump sites that "No dumping" signs are posted. In an analogous way, in the domain of language use, rules of prescriptive grammar are only ever formulated in situations where linguistic variation is common. But because they are prescriptive, they cannot treat all of the occurring variants as equal, with the result that they can't ever be descriptive.

Rule formation in language acquisition

In addition to differing in intention, prescriptive and descriptive rules of grammar differ in another respect as well: namely, in how they come to be part of a speaker's knowledge. Prescriptive rules are taught at school, and because they are taught explicitly, people tend to be conscious of them, even if they don't actually follow them. By contrast, we follow the rules of descriptive grammar consistently3 and effortlessly, yet without learning them at school. In fact, children have essentially mastered these rules on their own by first grade. Ordinarily, we are completely unconscious of the descriptive rules of language. If we do become conscious of them, it tends to be in connection with learning a foreign language whose descriptive grammar differs from that of our first language. In order to emphasize the difference between the unconscious way that we learn a native language (or several) in early childhood and the conscious way that we learn a foreign language later on in life, the first process is often called language acquisition rather than language learning.

As you consider the descriptive rules in (5), you might not find it all that surprising that a child raised in an English-speaking community would acquire the rule, say, that articles precede nouns. After all, you might say, all the child ever hears are articles and nouns in that order.4 So why would it ever occur to an English-speaking child to put the article and the noun in the other order? Isn't it just common sense that children learn their native language by imitating older speakers around them?

Well, yes and no. It is true that children learn some aspects of their native language by imitation and memorization. Children in English-speaking communities learn English words, children in Navajo- speaking communities learn Navajo words, children in Swahili-speaking communities learn Swahili words, and so on. But language acquisition isn't purely a process of memorization. In fact, given current human life spans, it couldn't possibly be!

A thought experiment

To see this, let's consider a toy fragment of English that contains three-word sentences consisting of a noun, a transitive verb, and another noun. The toy fragment contains sentences like (13) that are sensible given the real world as well as sentences like (14) that aren't, but that might be useful in fairy tale or science fiction contexts.

(13) a. Cats detest peas. (14) a. Peas detest cats. ("The secret life of peas") b. Children eat b. Tomatoes eat children. ("The attack of the genetically tomatoes. modified tomatoes") c. Cheetahs chase c. Gazelles chase cheetahs. ("Gazelle's revenge") gazelles.

Again for the sake of argument, let's assume a (small) vocabulary of 1,000 nouns and 100 verbs. This gives us a list of 1,000 x 100 x 1,000 (= 100 million) three-word sentences of the type in (13) and (14). Numbers of this magnitude are difficult to put in human perspective, so let's estimate how long it would take a child to learn all the sentences on the list. Again, for the sake of argument, let's assume that children can memorize sentences very quickly, at a rate of one sentence a second. The entire list of three-word sentences could then be memorized in 100 million seconds, which comes to 3.17 years. This may not sound like such a long time, but once we start adding vocabulary items, the number of sentences and the time that would have to be spent memorizing them quickly mushrooms. For instance, adding only 10 adjectives to the child's vocabulary would cause the number of five-word sentences of the form in (15) to grow to 10 billion (100 million x 10 x 10).

(15) a. Black cats detest green peas. b. Happy children eat ripe tomatoes. c. Hungry cheetahs chase fleet gazelles.

Even at the very quick rate of one sentence per second that we're assuming, the list of all such five-word sentences would take a bit over 317 years to learn. Clearly, this is an absurd consequence. For instance, how could our memorious child ever come to know, as we plainly do, that the sentence in (16) is ungrammatical? If grammatical knowledge were based purely on rote memorization, the only way to determine this would be to compare (16) to all of the 10 billion five-word sentences and to find that it matches none of them, which would take additional centuries beyond the time required to memorize the sentences.

(16) * Cats black detest peas green.

And even after all that time, our fictitious language learner still wouldn't have the faintest clue of why (16) is ungrammatical!

In addition to this thought experiment with its comically absurd consequences, there is another reason to think that language acquisition isn't entirely based on rote memorization---namely, that children use what they hear of language as raw material to construct linguistic rules. How do we know this? We know because children sometimes produce rule-based forms that they have never heard before.

Rule-based word formation

One of the earliest demonstrations that children acquire linguistic rules, rather than simply imitating the forms of adult language, was the well-known wug experiment (Berko 1958). In it, the psycholinguist Jean Berko used invented words to examine (among other things) how children between the ages of 4 and 7 form plurals in English. She showed the children cards with simple line drawings of objects and animals and elicited plurals from them by reading them accompanying texts like the one in (17).

(17) This is a wug. Now there is another one. There are two of them. There are two ___. More than 75% of the children pluralized the invented words cra, lun, tor, and wug in exactly the same way that adults did in a control group: they added the sound -z to the word (Berko 1958:159-162).5 Since none of the children had encountered the invented words before the experiment, their response clearly indicates that they had acquired a plural rule and were using it to produce the novel forms.

In the wug experiment, both the children being studied and the adults in the control group produced novel rule-based forms. Children are also observed to produce novel rule-based forms like comed or goed instead of existing irregular adult forms, like came for went. This process is known as overregularization. Some further instances are given in (18) (Marcus et al. 1992:148-149, based on Brown 1973).

(18) a. beated, blowed, catched, cutted, doed, drawed, drived, falled, feeled, growed, holded, maked, sleeped, standed, sticked, taked, teached, throwed, waked, winned (Adam, between the ages of 2 and 5) b. drinked, seed, weared (Eve, between the ages of 1 1/2 and 2)

Overregularizations don't amount to a large fraction of the forms that children produce overall (less than 5% in the case of past tense forms, according to Marcus et al. 1992:35), but they clearly show that even the acquisition of words doesn't boil down to rote memorization.

Question formation

In addition to morphological rules (which concern the structure of words), children also acquire syntactic rules (which concern the structure of sentences). Some of these rules are of particular interest because children form them on their own. At the same time, however, these novel rules don't differ in arbitrary ways from the adult rules that the children acquire eventually. Rather, the children's rules share certain abstract properties with the adult rules, even when they differ from them.

To see this, let's consider how young children form yes-no questions (as the name implies, yes-no questions are ones to which the expected answer is either 'yes' or 'no'). Some 3- to 5-year-olds form such questions from declarative sentences by copying the auxiliary element to the beginning of the sentence, as in (19) (Crain and Nakayama 1987:536). (We use the term 'auxiliary element' as a convenient way of referring to be, can and other similar elements which invert with the subject in (adult) English questions. See Modals and auxiliary verbs in English for more details.)

(19) a. The girl is tall. ---> Is the girl is tall? b. The red pig can stand on the house. ---> Can the red pig can stand on the house?

In the course of language acquisition, the questions in (19) give way to those in (20), where we can think of the auxiliary element as having been moved rather than copied.

(20) a. Is the girl ___ tall? b. Can the red pig ___ stand on the house?

But now notice a striking indeterminacy, first pointed out by Chomsky 1971:26-27. When children produce questions like those in (20), there is no way of telling whether they are using the adult rule for question formation in (21a) or the logically possible alternative rule in (21b).

(21) a. Adult question To form a question from a declarative sentence containing an auxiliary formation rule: element, find the subject of the sentence, and invert the subject and the auxiliary. b. Logically To form a question from a declarative sentence containing an auxiliary possible element, find the first auxiliary element, and move it to the beginning of the alternative: sentence.

Don't confuse 'subject' with 'simple subject.'

Subjects, in contrast to simple subjects, are possible responses to questions like Who is tall? and Who can stand on the house? So the subjects in (20) are the noun phrases the girl and the red pig. If the subject consists of a single word or of a clause, then the simple subject is identical to the subject; otherwise, the simple subject of a sentence is obtained by stripping the subject of any modifiers (yielding girl and pig as the simple subjects of (20)).

The notion of subject is basic to syntactic theory, but we will have no further use for the notion of simple subject.

Both rules in (21) give the same result for simple sentences, which are likely to form most of the data that young children attend to. Both rules also require children to identify auxiliary elements. However, the adult rule additionally requires children to identify the subject of the sentence by grouping together sequences of words such as the girl or the red pig into a single abstract structural unit. Because of this grouping requirement, the adult rule is called structure-dependent. By contrast, the rule in (21b) is not structure-dependent, since it requires the child only to classify words according to their syntactic category, but not to group them into structural units. The rule in (21b) is simpler in the sense that it relies on fewer cognitive operations as well as computationally less complex ones, and children might reasonably be expected to experiment with it in the course of acquiring question formation. Nevertheless, Chomsky 1971 predicted that children would use only structure-dependent rules in the course of acquisition.

As we mentioned, both rules give the same result for simple sentences. So how could we possibly tell which of the two rules a child was actually using? Well, forming yes-no questions is not restricted to simple sentences. So although we can't tell which rule a child is using in the case of simple sentences, the rules in (21) give different results for complex sentences like (22), where the entire sentence contains a relative clause. For the question at hand, what is relevant is that the entire sentence contains the auxiliary is, and that, in addition, there is a relative clause (who was holding the plate), which contains a second auxiliary was.

(22) The boy who was holding the plate is crying.

A child applying the structure-dependent question formation rule to (22) would first identify the subject of the entire sentence (the boy who was holding the plate) and then invert the entire subject---including the relative clause and the auxiliary contained within it (was)---with the auxiliary of the entire sentence (is). On the other hand, a child applying the structure-independent rule would identify the first auxiliary (was) and move it to the beginning of the sentence. In this case, the two rules have very different results, as shown in (23).

(23) a. Structure- [ The boy who was holding the --- Is [the boy who was holding the dependent rule: plate ] is crying. > plate] ___ crying? b. Structure- The boy who was holding the --- Was the boy who ___ holding the independent rule: plate is crying. > plate is crying?

Recall that Chomsky predicted that children would not use structure-independent rules, even though they are simpler than structure-dependent ones. This prediction was tested in an experiment with 3- to 5-year- old children by Crain and Nakayama 1987. In the experiment, the experimenter had the children pose yes-no questions to a doll (Jabba the Hut from Star Wars). For instance, the experimenter would say to each child Ask Jabba if the boy who was holding the plate is crying. This task elicited various responses. Some children produced the adult question in (23a), whereas others produced the copy question in (24a) or the restart question in (24b).

(24) a. Is [the boy who was holding the plate] is crying? b. Is [the boy who was holding the plate], is he crying?

Notice that although neither of the questions in (24) uses the adult rule in (21a), the rules that the children used to produce them are structure-dependent in the same way that the adult rule is. This is because children who produced (24a) or (24b) must have identified the subject of the sentence, just like the children who produced (23a). What is also noteworthy is that out of the 155 questions that the children produced, none were of the structure-independent type in (23b). Moreover, no child produced the structure-independent counterpart of (24a), shown in (25), which results from copying (rather than moving) the first auxiliary element in the sentence.

(25) Was the boy who was holding the plate is crying?

In other words, regardless of whether a child succeeded in producing the adult question in (23a), every child in the experiment treated the sequence the boy who was holding the plate as a unit, thus confirming Chomsky's prediction.

Syntactic structure

We have seen that young children are capable of forming and applying both morphological and syntactic rules. Moreover, as we have seen in connection with question formation, children do not all immediately adopt the rules that adults use. Nevertheless, the syntactic rules that children postulate in the course of acquisition are a subset of the logically possible rules that they might experiment with in principle. In particular, children's syntactic rules are constrained, as we have just seen, by structure dependence. Another way of putting this is that the objects that syntactic rules operate on (declarative sentences in the case of the question formation rule) are not just simple strings of words, but rather groups of words that belong together, so-called constituents.

Intuitions about words belonging together

Evidence for syntactic constituent structure, often simply called syntactic structure, isn't restricted to data from child language acquisition. Further evidence comes from the intuitions that adults (and even children) have that certain words in a sentence belong together, whereas others do not. For instance, in a sentence like (26), we have the strong intuition that the first the belongs with dog, but not with did, even though the is adjacent to both.

(26) Did the dog chase the cat?

Similarly, the second the in (26) belongs with cat and not with chase. But a word doesn't always belong with the following word. For instance, in (27), the first the belongs with dog, just as in (26), but dog doesn't in turn belongs with the second the.

(27) Did the dog the children like chase the cat?

Words that belong together can sometimes be replaced by placeholder elements such as pronouns. This is illustrated in (28).

The term 'pronoun' is misleading since it suggests that pronouns substitute for nouns regardless of syntactic context. In fact, what pronouns substitute for is entire noun phrases (as will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 2). A less confusing term for them would be 'pro-noun phrase,' but we'll continue to use the traditional term.

(28) a. Did the dog chase the cat? ---> Did she chase him? b. Did the dog the children like chase the cat? ---> Did the dog they like chase him?

It's important to recognize that pronouns don't simply replace strings of words regardless of context. Just because a string like the dog is a constituent in (28a) doesn't mean that it's always a constituent. We can see this by replacing the dog by a pronoun in (28b), which leads to the ungrammatical result in (29).

(29) Did the dog the children like chase the cat? ---> * Did she the children like chase the cat?

The ungrammaticality in (29) tells us that the and dog belong together less closely in (28b) than in (28a). What the pronoun replacement evidence tells us is that the and dog combine directly in (28a), whereas in (28b), dog combines first with the relative clause, and the combines with the result of this combination, not with dog directly.

In some sentences, we have the intuition that words belong together even when they are not adjacent. For instance, see and who in (30a) belong together in much the same way as see and Bill do in (30b).

(30) a. Who will they see? b. They will see Bill.

Finally, we can observe that there are various sorts of ways that words can belong together. For instance, in a phrase like the big dog, big belongs with dog, and we have the intuition that big modifies dog. On the other hand, the relation between saw and Bill in (30b) isn't one of modification. Rather, we have the intuition that Bill is a participant in a seeing event.

In the course of this book, we will introduce more precise ways of expressing and representing intuitions like the ones just discussed. For the moment, however, what is important is that we have strong intuitions that words belong together in ways that go beyond adjacency.

Structural ambiguity

Another, particularly striking piece of evidence for the existence of syntactic structure is the phenomenon of structural ambiguity. The classified advertisement in (31) is a humorous illustration.

(31) Wanted: Man to take care of cow that does not smoke or drink.

World knowledge tells us that the intent of the advertiser is to hire a clean-living man to take care of a cow. But because of the way the advertisement is formulated, it also has an unintentionally comical interpretation---namely, that the advertiser has a cow that does not smoke or drink and that a man is wanted to take care of this clean-living cow. The intended and unintended interpretations describe sharply different situations; that is why we say that (31) is ambiguous, and not merely that it is vague. Moreover, the ambiguity of the sentence can't be pinned on a particular word, as it can be in the ambiguous sentences in (32).

(32) a. As far as I'm concerned, any gender is a drag. (Patti Smith) b. Our bikinis are exciting. They are simply the tops.

Examples like (32) are called instances of lexical ambiguity, because their ambiguity comes from their containing a lexeme (= vocabulary item) with two distinct meanings. In (31), on the other hand, the words themselves have the same meanings in each of the two interpretations, and the ambiguity comes from the possibility of grouping the words in distinct ways. In the intended interpretation, the relative clause that does not smoke or drink modifies man; in the unintended interpretation, it modifies cow.

To avoid any confusion, we should emphasize that we are here considering structural ambiguity from a purely descriptive perspective, focusing on what it tells us about the design features of human language and disregarding the practical aim of effective communication. As writers of advertisements ourselves, of course, we would be careful not to use (31), but to disambiguate it by means of an appropriate paraphrase. For the ordinary interpretation of (31), where the relative clause modifies man, we would place the relative clause next to the intended modifiee, as in (33a). The comical interpretation of (31), on the other hand, cannot be expressed unambiguously by moving the relative clause. If it were the desired interpretation, we would have to resort to a more drastic reformulation, such as (33b).

(33) a. Wanted: Man that does not smoke or drink to take care of cow. b. Wanted: Man to take care of nonsmoking, nondrinking cow.

Universal Grammar

Formal universals

The structure dependence of linguistic rules is a general principle of the human language faculty (the part of the mind/brain that is devoted to language), often also referred to as Universal Grammar, especially when considered in abstraction from any particular language. There are two sources of evidence for this. First, as we have seen, the syntactic rules that children form in the course of acquiring their first language, even when they are not the rules that adults use, are structure-dependent. Second, even though structure-independent rules are logically possible and computationally tractable, no known human language actually has rules that disregard syntactic structure. For instance, no known human language has either of the computationally very simple question formation rules in (34).

(34) a. To form a question, switch the order of the first and second The girl is -- Girl the is words in the corresponding declarative sentence. tall. -> tall? The blond -- Blond the girl is tall. -> girl is tall? b. To form a question, reverse the order of the words in the The girl is -- Tall is girl corresponding declarative sentence. tall. -> the? The blond -- Tall is girl girl is tall. -> blond the?

The structure dependence of linguistic rules is what is known as a formal universal of human language- --a principle shared by all human languages that is independent of the meanings of words. Formal universals are distinguished from substantive universals, which concern the substance, or meaning, of linguistic elements. An example of a substantive universal is the fact that all languages have indexical elements such as I, here, and now. These words have the special property that their meanings are predictable in the sense that they denote the speaker, the speaker's location, and the time of speaking, but that what they refer to varies depending on who the speaker is.

Recursion

Human language exhibits another formal universal: the property of recursion. A simple illustration of this property is the fact that it is possible for one sentence to contain another. For instance, the simple sentence in (35a) forms part of the complex sentence in (35b), and the resulting sentence can form part of a still more complex sentence. Recursive embedding is illustrated in (35) up to a level of five embeddings.

(35) a. She won. b. The Times reported that [she won]. c. John told me that [the Times reported that [she won]]. d. I remember distinctly that [John told me that [the Times reported that [she won]]]. e. They don't believe that [I remember distinctly that [John told me that [the Times reported that [she won]]]]. f. I suspect that [they don't believe that [I remember distinctly that [John told me that [the Times reported that [she won]]]]].

Parameters

Formal universals like the structure dependence of linguistic rules and recursion are of particular interest to linguistics in the Chomskyan tradition. This is not to deny, however, that individual languages also differ from one another, and not just in the sense that their vocabularies differ. This means that Universal Grammar is not completely fixed, but allows some variation. The ways in which the grammars of languages can differ are called parameters.

One simple parameter concerns the order of verbs and their objects. In principle, two orders are possible: verb-object (VO) or object-verb (OV), and different human languages use either one or the other. As illustrated in (36) and (37), English and French are languages of the verb-object (VO) type, whereas Hindi, Japanese, and Korean are languages of the object-verb (OV) type.

(36) a. English Peter read the book. b. French Pierre lisait le livre. Pierre was.reading the book 'Pierre was reading the book.' (37) a. Hindi Peter-ne kitaab parh-ii. b. Japanese Peter-ga hon-o yon-da. c. Korean Peter-ka chayk-ul il-ess-ta. Peter book read 'Peter read the book.'

Another parameter of Universal Grammar concerns the possibility, mentioned earlier, of separating a preposition from its object, or preposition stranding. (The idea behind the metaphor is that the movement of the object of the preposition away from its ordinary position leaves the preposition stranded high and dry.) The alternative to preposition stranding goes by the name of pied piping, by analogy to the Pied Piper of Hameln, who took revenge on the citizens of Hameln for mistreating him by luring the town's children away with him.6 In pied piping of the syntactic sort, the object of the preposition moves away from its usual position, just as in preposition stranding, but it lures the preposition along with it. An example of each parametric option is given in (38).

(38) a. Preposition stranding: ok Which house does your friend live in? b. Pied piping: ok In which house does your friend live?

Just as in English, preposition stranding and pied piping are both grammatical in Swedish. In fact, in Swedish, preposition stranding counts as prescriptively correct, and it is pied piping that is frowned upon, on the grounds that it sounds stiff and artificial.

(39) a. Swedish ok Vilket hus bor din kompis i? which house lives your friend in 'Which house does your friend live in?' b. ok I vilket hus bor din kompis?

On the other hand, preposition stranding is completely ungrammatical in French and Italian. Speakers of these languages reject examples like (40) as word salad, and accept only pied-piping examples, as in (41).

(40) a. French * Quelle maison est-ce que ton ami habite dans? which house is it that your friend lives in Intended meaning: 'Which house does your friend live in?' b. Italian * Quale casa abita il tuo amico in? which house lives the your friend in Intended meaning: 'Which house does your friend live in?' (41) a. French ok Dans quelle maison est-ce que ton ami habite? b. Italian ok In quale casa abita il tuo amico?

Generative grammar

At the beginning of this chapter, we said that this book was an introduction to generative grammar from a Chomskyan perspective. Until now, we have clarified our use of the term 'grammar,' and we have indicated that a Chomskyan perspective on grammar is concerned with the formal principles that all languages share as well as with the parameters that distinguish them. Let's now turn to the notion of a generative grammar.

(42) A generative grammar is an algorithm for specifying, or generating, all and only the grammatical sentences in a language.

What's an algorithm? It's simply any explicit, step-by-step procedure for accomplishing a task. Computer programs are the algorithms par excellence. More ordinary examples of algorithms include a recipe for sushi, a knitting pattern, the instructions for assembling an Ikea bookcase, or the steps on the back of your bank statement for balancing your checkbook.

An important point to keep in mind is that it is often difficult to construct an algorithm for even a seemingly trivial procedure. A quick way to gain an appreciation of this is to describe how to tie a bow. Like language, tying a bow is a skill that we've mastered around school age, and that we perform more or less unconsciously thereafter, but describing (not demonstrating) how to do it is anything but easy. In an analogous way, constructing a generative grammar of English is a completely different task than speaking the language, and much more difficult (or at least difficult in a different way)!

Just like a cooking recipe, a generative grammar needs to specify the ingredients and procedures that are necessary for generating grammatical sentences. We won't introduce all of these in this first chapter, but in the remainder of the section, we'll introduce enough ingredients and procedures to give a flavor of what's to come.

Elementary trees and substitution

The raw ingredients that sentences consist of are vocabulary items. These belong to various syntactic categories, like noun, adjective, transitive verb, preposition, and so forth. Depending on their syntactic category, vocabulary items combine with one another to form constituents, which in turn belong to syntactic categories of their own. For instance, determiners (a category that includes the articles a and the and the demonstratives this, that, these and those) can combine with nouns to form noun phrases, but they can't combine with other syntactic categories like adverbs, verbs, or prepositions.

(43) a. ok a house (44) a. * a slowly b. ok the cats b. * the went c. ok those books c. * those of

It's possible to represent the information contained in a constituent by using labeled bracketings. Each vocabulary item is enclosed in brackets that are labeled with the appropriate syntactic category. The constituent that results from combining vocabulary items is in turn enclosed in brackets that are labeled with the constituent's syntactic category. The labeled bracketings for the constituents in (43) are given in (45).

(45) a. [NounPhr [Deta ] [Noun house ] ] b. [NounPhr [Detthe ] [Noun cats ] ] c. [NounPhr [Detthose ] [Noun books ] ]

Noun phrases can in turn combine with other syntactic categories, such as prepositions or transitive verbs. Prepositions combine with a single noun phrase to form prepositional phrases. A transitive verb combines with one noun phrase to form a verb phrase, which in turn combines with a second noun phrase to form a complete sentence.

(46) a. [PrepPhr [Prep on ] [NounPhr [Detthe ] [Noun table ] ] ] b. [VerbPhr [TrVerb drafted ] [NounPhr [Deta ] [Noun letter ] ] ] c. [Sentence [NounPhr [Detthe ] [Noun secretary ] ] [VerbPhr [TrVerb drafted ] [NounPhr [Deta ] [Noun letter ] ] ] ]

Again, however, noun phrases don't combine with any and all syntactic categories. For instance, noun phrases can't combine with adverbs or determiners.

(47) a. * slowly the letter b. * the this letter

As constituent structure grows more complex, labeled bracketings very quickly grow difficult for humans to process. Because of this, it's often more convenient to use an alternative mode of representing constituent structure called tree diagrams, or trees for short. Trees convey exactly the same information as labeled bracketings, but the information is presented differently. Instead of enclosing an element in brackets that are labeled with a syntactic category, the category is placed immediately above the element and connected to it with a line or branch. The labeled bracketings that we have seen so far translate into the trees in (48) and (49).7

(48) a. b. c.

(49) a. b. c.

Trees like those in (48) and (49) resemble dishes that are ready to serve; they don't provide a record of exactly how they were brought into being. We can provide such a record, however, by representing vocabulary items themselves in the form of trees that include combinatorial information. For example, prepositions and transitive verbs can be represented as trees with empty slots for noun phrases to fit into, as shown in (50).

(50) a. b.

We'll refer to trees for vocabulary items like those in (50) as elementary trees. The purpose of elementary trees is to represent the combinatorial possibilities of a vocabulary item, and so they ordinarily contain unfilled nodes. Such nodes are called substitution nodes, and they are filled by a substitution operation, defined in (51).

(51) a. b. c.

Tree No. 1 has a The root (= topmost) node in Tree The root node of Tree substitution node of No. 2 has the same syntactic No. 2 is identified with some syntactic category as the substitution node in the substitution node in category. Tree No. 1. Tree No. 1.

Elementary trees don't necessarily contain substitution nodes, though; ones that invariably play the role of Tree No. 2 in the substitution operation don't. The elementary tree for the noun in (52b) is an example.

Notice that there are two conceivable ways to arrive at trees for noun phrases like those cats, depending on whether it is the noun that is taken as the substitution node, as in (52), or the determiner, as in (53). At this point, there is no reason to prefer one way over the other, but in Chapter 5, we will argue for a variant of (52).

(52) a. b.

(53) a. b. In summary, a generative grammar as we've constructed it so far consists of a set of elementary trees, which represent the vocabulary items in a language and the range of their combinatorial possibilities, and a substitution operation, by means of which the elementary trees combine into larger constituents and ultimately into grammatical sentences. In Chapter 4, we will introduce two further formal operations. The first, adjunction, will enable the grammar to generate sentences containing modifiers, such as adjectives or relative clauses modifying nouns (the big dog, the dog that the children like). The second, movement, will enable the grammar to represent the similarities as well as the differences between declarative sentences (They will see Bill) and questions corresponding to them (Will they see Bill?, Who(m) will they see?).

Grammaticality

The aim of a generative grammar is to generate all and only the grammatical sentences of a language. The notion of grammaticality is therefore basic to syntactic theory, and so it is important to distinguish it from notions with which it is easily confused.

First of all, 'grammatical' needs to be distinguished from 'makes sense.' The sentences in (54) 'make sense' in the sense that they are easily interpreted by speakers of English. Nevertheless, as indicated by the asterisks, they are not grammatical.8

(54) a. * Is our children learning? b. * Me wants fabric. c. * To where are we be taking thou, sir? d. * The introduction explained that "the Genoese people, besides of hard worker, are good eater too, and even 'gourmand,' of that honest gourmandise which will not drive a man to hell but which is, after all, one of the few pleasures that mankind can enjoy in this often sorrowful world."

Conversely, there are English sentences that are grammatical, but that don't 'make sense.' The 'fairy tale' or 'science fiction' sentences in (14) are of this type. Two further examples are given in (55). Since such sentences are grammatical, they aren't preceded by an asterisk. However, if necessary, a prefixed pound sign is used to indicate their meaning-related anomaly.

(55) a. # Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. (Chomsky cf. Revolutionary new ideas appear 1965:149) infrequently. b. # I plan to travel there last year. cf. I plan to travel there next year.

Second, 'grammatical' must be distinguished from 'easily processable by human beings.' This is because it turns out that certain well-motivated simple grammatical operations can be applied in ways that result in sentences that are virtually impossible for human beings to process. For instance, it is possible in English to modify a noun with a relative clause, and sentences containing nouns modified in this way, like those in (56), are ordinarily perfectly acceptable and easily understood. (Here and in the following examples, the relative clauses are bracketed and the modified noun is underlined.)

(56) a. The mouse [that the cat chased] escaped. b. The cat [that the dog scared] jumped out the window.

But now notice what happens when we modify the noun within the relative clause in (56a) with a relative clause of its own.

(57) The mouse [that the cat [that the dog scared] chased] escaped. Even though (57) differs from (56a) by only four additional words and one additional level of embedding, the result is virtually uninterpretable without pencil and paper. The reason is not that relative clause modification can't apply more than once, since the variant of (56a) in (58), which contains exactly the same words and is exactly as long, is perfectly fine.

(58) The mouse escaped [that the cat chased ] [that the dog scared].

The reason that (57) is virtually uninterpretable is also not that it contains recursive structure (the relative clause that modifies mouse contains the relative clause that modifies cat). After all, the structures in (35) are recursive, but they don't have the gibberish character of (57).

Be sure to let the last two sentences sink in.

Instead, the unacceptability of (57) has to do with limitations on human short-term memory (Chomsky and Miller 1963:286, Miller and Chomsky 1963:471). Specifically, notice that in the acceptable (58), the subject of the main clause the mouse doesn't have to "wait" (that is, be kept active in short-term memory) for its verb escaped since the verb is immediately adjacent to the subject. The same is true for the subjects and verbs of each of the relative clauses (the cat and chased, and the dog and scared). In (57), on the other hand, the mouse must be kept active in memory, waiting for its verb escaped, for the length of the entire sentence. What is even worse, however, is that the period during which the mouse is waiting for its verb escaped overlaps the period during which the cat must be kept active, waiting for its verb chased. What makes (57) so difficult, then, is not the mere fact of recursion, but that two relations of exactly the same sort (the subject-verb relation) must be kept active in memory at the same time. In none of the other relative clause sentences is such double activation necessary. For instance, in (56a), the mouse must be kept active for the length of the relative clause, but the subject of the relative clause (the cat) needn't be kept active since it immediately precedes its verb chased.

Structures with the double-activation pattern just described are often referred to as center- embedding structures, and they are said to contain nested dependencies.

A final point to bear in mind is that any sentence of a language is an expression (specifically, a sequence of words) that is paired with a particular interpretation. Grammaticality is always determined with respect to such pairings of form and meaning. This means that a particular sequence can be grammatical under one interpretation, but not under another. For instance, (59) is ungrammatical under an subject- object-verb (SOV) interpretation (that is, when the sentence is interpreted as Sue hired Tom).

(59) Sue Tom hired.

(59) is grammatical, however, under an object-subject-verb (OSV) interpretation (that is, when it is interpreted as Tom hired Sue; cf. Sue, Tom hired; Tim, he insulted). On this interpretation, Sue receives a special intonation that marks contrast, which would ordinarily be indicated in writing by setting off Sue from the rest of the sentence by a comma. In other words, the grammaticality of (59) depends on whether its interpretation is analogous to (60a) or (60b).

(60) a. ok Her, he hired. (The other job candidates, he didn't even call back.) b. * She him hired.

Grammar versus language

We conclude this chapter by considering the relationship between the two concepts of grammar and language. The notion of language seems straightforward because we are used to thinking and speaking of "the English language," "the French language," "the Chinese language," and so forth. But these terms are actually much vaguer than they seem at first glance because they cover a plethora of varieties, including ones that differ enough to be mutually unintelligible. For instance, Ethnologue distinguishes 32 dialects of English in the British Isles alone. In addition, distinct dialects of English are spoken in former British colonies, including Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, India, and many African, Asian, and Caribbean nations, and many of these dialects have subdialects of their own. Similarly, Ethnologue distinguishes 13 dialects of French, not counting colonial varieties. Chinese is divided into 13 major dialects as well, which in turn encompass 50 subdialects, many of them mutually unintelligible. Moreover, we use terms like "the English language" to refer to historical varieties that differ as profoundly as present-day English does from Old English, which is about as intelligible to a speaker of modern English as German (in other words, not very).

Although the most salient differences between dialects are often phonological (that is, speakers of different dialects often have different accents), dialects of a so-called single language can differ syntactically as well. For instance, in standard French, as in the Romance languages more generally, adjectives ordinarily follow the noun that they modify. But that order is reversed in Walloon, a French dialect spoken in Belgium. The two parametric options are illustrated in (61) (Bernstein 1993:25-26).

(61) a. Standard French un chapeau noir a hat black b. Walloon on neûr tchapê a black hat 'a black hat'

Another example of the same sort, though considerably more cathected for speakers of English, concerns multiple negation in sentences like (62a).

(62) a. The kids didn't eat nothing. b. The kids didn't eat anything.

In present-day standard English, didn't and nothing each contribute their negative force to the sentence, and the overall force of (62a) isn't negative; rather, the sentence means that the kids ate something. In many nonstandard varieties of English, however, (62a) conveys exactly the same meaning as standard English (62b); that is, the sentence as a whole has negative force. In these dialects, we can think of the negation in nothing as agreeing with (and reinforcing) the negation in didn't rather than cancelling it; hence the term negative concord for this phenomenon ('concord' is a variant term for 'agreement'). Negative concord is routinely characterized as "illogical" by prescriptivists,9 and it is one of the most heavily stigmatized features in present-day English.10 However, it was productive in earlier forms of English, and it is attested in renowned masters of the language such as Chaucer and Shakespeare. Moreover, negative concord is part of the standard forms of languages like French, Italian, Spanish, and modern Greek. From a descriptive and generative point of view, negative concord is simply a parametric option just like any other, and negative concord is no more illogical than the noun-adjective order in (61a).

In both of the examples just discussed, we have dialects of the "same language" (English and French, respectively) differing with respect to a parameter. The converse is also possible: two "different languages" that are parametrically (all but) indistinguishable. For example, the same linguistic variety spoken on the Dutch-German border may count as a dialect of Dutch or German depending on which side of the political border it is spoken. An analogous situation holds of many other border dialects. According to Max Weinreich, "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy." A striking (and sad) confirmation of this aphorism concerns the recent terminological history of Serbo-Croatian. When Yugoslavia was a federal state under Tito, this variety was considered a single language with a number of regional dialects. The breakup of Yugoslavia into several smaller states has brought with it attempts to introduce a distinction between Serbian and Croatian as two separate "languages." As the previous discussion has shown, the notion of "language" is based more on sociopolitical considerations than on strictly linguistic ones. By contrast, the term "grammar" refers to a particular set of parametric options that a speaker acquires. For this reason, the distinction between language and grammar that we have been drawing has been referred to as the distinction between E-language and I- language (mnemomic for 'external' and 'internal' language) (Chomsky 1986).

As we have seen, the same language label can be associated with more than one grammar (as in the case of English with and without negative concord), and a single grammar can be associated with more than one language label (as in the case of border dialects). It is important to distinguish the concept of shared grammar from mutual intelligibility. To a large extent, standard English and many of its nonstandard varieties are mutually intelligible even where their grammars differ. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible for two or more varieties that are mutually unintelligible to share a single grammar. For instance, in the Indian village of Kupwar (Gumperz and Wilson 1971), the three languages Marathi, Urdu, and Kannada, each spoken by a different ethnic group, have been in contact for about four hundred years, and most of the men in the village are bi- or trilingual. Like the standard varieties of these language, their Kupwar varieties have distinct vocabularies, thus rendering them mutually unintelligible, but in Kupwar, the considerable grammatical differences that exists among the languages as spoken in other parts of India have been virtually eliminated. The difference between standard French and Walloon with respect to prenominal adjectives is a less drastic instance of this same convergence phenomenon. Here, too, the adjective-noun order in Walloon is due to language contact, in this case between French and Flemish, the other language spoken in Belgium; in Flemish, as in the Germanic languages more generally, adjectives precede the nouns that they modify.

Finally, it is worth noting that it is perfectly possible for a single speaker to acquire more than one grammar. This is most strikingly evident in balanced bilinguals. Speakers can also acquire more than one grammar in situations of syntactic change. For instance, late Old English and Middle English went from being object-verb (OV) languages to being verb-object (VO) languages, and individual speakers during the transition period acquired and used both parametric options. Finally, speakers can acquire more than one grammar in situations of stable variation between parametrically distinct varieties of a single "language." For instance, English speakers whose first dialect is a negative concord dialect might acquire the standard non-negative concord dialect in the course of their schooling.

Notes

1. It's also possible to overzealously apply rules like those in (2), even in cases where they shouldn't be applied, a phenomenon known as hypercorrection. Two common instances are illustrated in (i).

Hypercorrect example Explanation (i) a. Over there is the guy whom I think took her to the party. Should be: the guy who I think took her to the party; (the relative pronoun who is the subject of the relative clause, not the object; cf. the guy { who, *whom } took her to the party) b. This is strictly between you and I. Should be: between you and me (the second pronoun is part of the object of the preposition between, not part of a subject)

2. The prescriptive rule is actually better stated as "Don't separate a preposition from its object," since the traditional formulation invites exchanges like (i). (i) A: Who are you going to the party with? B: Didn't they teach you never to end a sentence with a preposition? A: Sorry, let me rephrase that. Who are you going to the party with, Mr. Know-it-all?

3. As William Labov has often pointed out, everyday speech (apart from false starts and other self- editing phenomena) hardly ever violates the rules of descriptive grammar.

4. Actually, that's an oversimplification. Not all the articles and nouns an English-speaking child hears appear in the article-noun order. To see why, carefully consider the underlined sentence in this footnote.

5. When children didn't respond this way, they either repeated the original invented word, or they didn't respond at all. It's not clear what to make of these responses. Either response might indicate that the children were stumped by the experimental task. Alternatively, however, repetition might have been intended as an irregular plural (cf. deer and sheep), and silence might indicate that the children thought that some of the invented words were phonologically strange, as some of them (for instance, cra) indeed are.

6. The terms 'preposition stranding' and 'pied piping' were both invented by John Robert Ross, a syntactician with a penchant for metaphorical terminology. Ross's groundbreaking syntactic work is discussed in Chapter 10.

7. Online corpora that are annotated with syntactic structure, such as the Penn Treebank, the Penn- Helsinki Corpus of Middle English, and others like them, tend to use labeled bracketing because the resulting files consist entirely of ASCII characters and are easy to search. They can also be massaged in more or less drastic ways by using computer languages like PERL. The readability of such corpora for humans can be improved by suitable formatting of the labeled bracketing itself or by translating bracketed structures into tree diagrams.

8. (54a) is from a speech by George W. Bush in Florence, SC on January 11, 2000 (http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushisms2000.htm). (54b) was the subject line of an email message in response to an offer of free fabric; the author was humorously attempting to imitate the language of a child greedy for goodies. (54c) is from "Pardon my French" (Calvin Trillin. 1990. Enough's enough (and other rules of life). 169). (54d) is from "Connoisseurs and patriots" (Joseph Wechsberg. 1948. Blue trout and black truffles: The peregrinations of an epicure. 127).

9. Two important references concerning negative concord and the supposed illogicality of negative concord and of nonstandard English more generally are Labov 1972a, 1972b.

Those who argue that negative concord is illogical often liken the rules of grammar to those of formal logic or arithmetic, where one negation operator or subtraction operation cancels out another; that is, (NOT (NOT A)) is identical to A, and (-(-5)) = +5. But grammar is not identical to logic. If it were, then prescriptivists (by their own logic!) would have to distinguish between sentences containing even and odd numbers of negative expressions. In fact, however, sentences with triple negation, like (i.a), count as prescriptively incorrect on a par with sentences with double negation, like (i.b).

(i) a. They never told nobody nothing. b. They never told nobody.

10. Because of the social stigma associated with it, it is essentially impossible to study negative concord in present-day English. This is because even for those speakers of negative concord varieties who don't productively control standard English as a second dialect, the influence of prescriptive grammar is so pervasive that it renders their judgments about negative concord sentences uninterpretable. In other words, when such speakers reject a sentence, we don't know whether they are rejecting it for grammatical or for social reasons. Exercises and problems

Exercise 1.1

The sentences in (4) violate several descriptive rules of English, three of which are given in (5). As mentioned in the text, there is a fourth descriptive rule that is violated in (4). Formulate it (you should be able to do this in one sentence).

Exercise 1.2

(1)-(4) illustrate the facts of subject-verb agreement in the nonstandard variety of English spoken in Belfast, Ireland (data from Henry 1995, chapter 2). Formulate a description of the data that is both clear and brief.

In order to avoid conflating morphological form with semantic content, you may find it helpful to refer to "is" and "are" as "Form A" and "Form B", rather than as "singular" and "plural".

(1) a. ok The girl is late. (2) a. * The girl are late. b. ok She is late. b. * She are late. c. ok Is { the girl, she } late? c. * Are { the girl, she } late? (3) a. ok The girls are late. (4) a. ok The girls is late. b. ok They are late. b. * They is late. c. ok Are { the girls, they } late? c. * Is { the girls, they } late?

Exercise 1.3

Which of the newspaper headlines in (1) are lexically ambiguous, which are structurally ambiguous, and which are a mixture of both types of ambiguity? Explain.

(1) a. Beating Witness Provides Names b. Child teaching expert to speak c. Drunk gets nine months in violin case d. Enraged cow injures farmer with ax e. Prostitutes appeal to Pope f. Teacher Strikes Idle Kids g. Teller Stuns Man with Stolen Check

Exercise 1.4

In the text, we showed that sentences are recursive categories. In other words, one instance of the syntactic category 'sentence' can contain another instance of the same category. Provide evidence that noun phrases and prepositional phrases are recursive categories as well.

Be careful to give examples that are recursive, and not just ones in which the syntactic category in question occurs more than once. For instance, (1) does not provide the evidence required in this exercise, because the second prepositional phrase is not contained in the first. This is clearly shown by the fact that the order of the prepositional phrases can be switched.

(1) The cat jumped [PP onto the table ] [PP without the slightest hesitation ].

Exercise 1.5

Which, if any, of the sentences in (1)-(4) are ungrammatical? Which, if any, are semantically or otherwise anomalous? Briefly explain.

(1) a. They decided to go tomorrow yesterday. b. They decided to go yesterday tomorrow. (2) a. They decided yesterday to go tomorrow. b. They decided tomorrow to go yesterday. (3) a. Yesterday, they decided to go tomorrow. b. Tomorrow, they decided to go yesterday. (4) They decided to go yesterday yesterday. (5) How long didn't Tom wait?

Exercise 1.6

A. Consider the first stanza of Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky. The poem doesn't 'make sense' in any conventional way, yet for the most part (apart from the novel lexical items) the sentences are grammatical. But there's at least one that isn't. Find the sentence(s) in question, and explain your answer.

(1) 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

B. The grammars of Early Modern English (1500-1710) and present-day English differ enough for certain Early Modern English sentences to be ungrammatical today. Find three such sentences from the King James Bible (1611), and briefly describe the source of the ungrammaticality as best as you can.

Problem 1.1

Are syntactic structure and recursion equally basic properties of human language? Explain in a few sentences. 2 Constituent structure

At first glance, a sentence simply consists of a string of words arranged in a single dimension---that of linear order. However, in Chapter 1, we presented some initial evidence for a second syntactic dimension that is less obvious (though no less real!) than linear order---the dimension of constituent structure. Whether a particular string of words is a constituent isn't always self-evident, and so a number of diagnostic tests for constituenthood have been developed. In this chapter, we review these tests, and then discuss in more detail how constituent structure is represented in tree diagrams of the sort introduced in Chapter 1.

Tests for constituenthood

Substitution

The most basic constituenthood test is the substitution test. The reasoning behind the test is simple. A constituent is any syntactic unit, regardless of length or syntactic category. A single word is the smallest possible constituent belonging to a particular syntactic category. So if a single word can substitute for a string of several words, then that's evidence that the single word and the string are both constituents of the same category.

We mentioned in Chapter 1 that pronouns can substitute for noun phrases. Some further examples are given in (1).

(1) a. The little boy fed the cat. ---> He fed her. b. Black cats detest green peas. ---> They detest them.

As we already said in Chapter 1, it's important to understand that a particular string of words can be a noun phrase in one syntactic context, but not in another. For instance, the substitution test tells us that the underlined strings are noun phrases in (1), but not in (2).

(2) a. The little boy from next door fed the cat without a --- * He from next door fed her without a tail. > tail. b. These black cats detest those green peas. --- * These they detest those them. > Rather, in these sentences, it is the longer underlined strings in (3) that are noun phrases.

(3) a. The little boy from next door fed the cat without a tail. ---> He fed her. b. These black cats detest those green peas. ---> They detest them.

Pronouns are not the only placeholder elements, or pro-forms. For instance, adverbs such as here or there can substitute for constituents that refer to locations or directions. As in the case of noun phrases, whether a particular string is a constituent depends on its syntactic context.

(4) a. Put it on the table. ---> Put it there. b. Put it over on the table. ---> Put it over there. c. Put it over on the table. ---> Put it there. (5) a. Put it on the table that's by the door. ---> * Put it there that's by the door. b. Put it over on the table that's by the door. ---> * Put it over there that's by the door. c. Put it over on the table that's by the door. ---> * Put it there that's by the door.

The word so can substitute for adjective phrases (here, the most natural-sounding results are obtained in contexts of comparison). As usual, the same string sometimes is a constituent and sometimes isn't.

(6) a. I am very happy, ...... and Linda is so, too. b. I am very fond of Lukas, ...... and Linda is so, too. c. I am very fond of my nephew, ... * ... and Linda is so of her niece.

Finally, pronouns and sometimes the word so can substitute for subordinate clauses introduced by that, as illustrated in (7).

(7) a. I { know, suspect } that they're invited. ---> I { know, suspect } it. b. I { imagine, think } that they're invited. ---> I { imagine, think } so.

Movement

Substitution by pro-forms is not the only diagnostic for whether a string is a constituent. If it is possible to move a particular string from its ordinary position to another position---typically, the beginning of the sentence---that, too, is evidence that the string is a constituent. In order to make the result of movement completely acceptable, it's sometimes necessary to use a special intonation or discourse context, especially in the case of noun phrases. In the grammatical instances of movement in (8), appropriate discourse material is included in parentheses. "___" indicates the ordinary position that a constituent has moved from.

(8) a. I fed the cats. --- The cats, I fed ___. (The dogs, I didn't.) > b. I fed the cats with long, fluffy --- The cats with long, fluffy tails, I fed ___. (The other cats, I tails. > didn't.)

Movement of constituents other than noun phrases is illustrated in (9).

(9) a. Prepositional The cat strolled across the porch with -- With a confident air, the cat strolled phrase: a confident air. - across the porch ___. > b. Adjective Ali Baba returned from his travels -- Wiser than before, Ali Baba returned phrase: wiser than before. - from his travels ___. > c. Adverb They arrived at the concert hall more -- More quickly than they had expected, phrase: quickly than they had expected. - they arrived at the concert hall ___. >

(10) shows the ungrammatical results of moving strings that aren't constituents.

-- (10) a. I fed the cats with long, fluffy tails. -> * The cats, I fed ___ with long, fluffy tails.1 b. The cat strolled across the porch with a -- * With a, the cat strolled across the porch ___ confident air. -> confident air. c. Ali Baba returned from his travels wiser -- * Wiser than, Ali Baba returned from his than before. -> travels ___ before. d. They arrived at the concert hall more -- * More quickly than they, they arrived at the quickly than they had expected. -> concert hall ___ had expected.

Questions and sentence fragments

Another way to tell whether a string is a constituent is to see whether it can function as a sentence fragment in response to a question. The question itself also functions as a diagnostic test, since we can think of question formation as involving the substitution of a question word for a string and the subsequent movement of the question word. (11) illustrates this pair of tests for a variety of constituent types.

(11) a. Noun phrase: What do you like? The cats. Cats with long, fluffy tails. The cats with long, fluffy tails. b. Prepositional How did the cat stroll across the With a confident air. phrase: porch? c. Where did Ali Baba go? On a long journey. To New York. d. Adjective phrase: How did Ali Baba return? Wiser than before. Fairly jeg-lagged. e. Adverb phrase: How did they do? Not badly. Surprisingly well. Much better than they had expected.

Once again, attempting to question nonconstituents is ungrammatical.

(12) a. * What did you feed ___ long, fluffy tails? ---> * The cats with. b. * How did the cat stroll across the porch ___ confident air? ---> * With a. c. * How did Ali Baba return from his travels ___ before? ---> * Wiser than. d. * How did they arrive at the concert hall ___ had expected? ---> * More quickly than they.

Notice, incidentally, that so substitution for adjective phrases and subordinate clauses has a variant that is reminiscent of questions. In addition to just substituting for the string of interest, as illustrated earlier, so can move to the beginning of the sentence, which then undergoes subject-aux inversion---the same process that turns declarative sentences into yes-no questions. This variant of so substitution is illustrated in (13) and (14). (13) a. I am very happy, ...... and so is Linda. b. I am very fond of Lukas, ...... and so is Linda. c. I am very fond of my nephew, ... * ... and so is Linda of her niece. (14) I { imagine, think } that they're invited, ...... and so do they.

It cleft focus

The final constituent test that we'll consider is based on a special type of sentences known as it clefts. It clefts are derived from ordinary declarative sentences as follows. We can often divide an ordinary sentence into two parts: a part that contains background information that is presupposed and a part that is particularly informative, the focus. In an it cleft, the background information and the focus are indicated unambiguously by the way that they fit into a syntactic frame consisting of it, a form of the copula to be, and the element that. In the examples in (15), the frame is in black, the background information is in blue, and the focus is in red. Notice that one and the same sentence can be divided up into background and focus in more than one way, giving rise to more than one it cleft.

(15) a. Ordinary cats detest the smell of citrus --- It is ordinary cats that detest the smell of citrus fruits. > fruits. b. Ordinary cats detest the smell of citrus --- It is the smell of citrus fruits that ordinary cats fruits. > detest.

If a string can appear as the focus of an it cleft, then it is a constituent. Some examples for various constituent types are given in (16). It is important to realize that it clefts don't always sound entirely natural out of the blue. Nevertheless, it clefts where the focus is a constituent, as in (16), contrast sharply with the word salad that results from attempting to focus a string that isn't a constituent, as in (17).

(16) a. Prepositional The cat strolled across the porch -- It was with a confident air that the cat phrase with a confident air. - strolled across the porch ___. > b. Adjective Ali Baba returned from his travels -- It was wiser than before that Ali Baba phrase wiser than before. - returned from his travels ___. > c. Adverb They arrived at the concert hall -- It was more quickly than they had phrase more quickly than they had - expected that they arrived at the concert expected. > hall ___. (17) a. Ordinary cats detest the smell of citrus -- * It is the smell of that ordinary cats detest ___ fruits. - citrus fruits. > b. The cat strolled across the porch with a -- * It was with a confident that the cat strolled across confident air. - the porch ___ air. > c. Ali Baba returned from his travels wiser -- * It was wiser than that Ali Baba returned from his than before. - travels ___ before. > d. They arrived at the concert hall more -- * It was quickly than they had expected that they quickly than they had expected. - arrived at the concert hall more ___. >

Some caveats Mismatches between syntax and prosody

We mentioned earlier that it is not always self-evident whether a particular string of words is a constituent. For instance, in reading a sentence like (18) out loud, we can observe an intonation break between cat and that (indicated by the slash).

(18) This is the cat / that chased the rat.

Because the intonation break is clearly audible, it is extremely tempting to equate the sentence's abstract syntactic structure with its relatively concrete prosodic structure. Specifically, because the cat does not belong to the same prosodic unit as the relative clause that chased the rat, it is tempting to treat the cat as a syntactic constituent.

As it turns out, however, there are two pieces of evidence against doing so. First, substituting a pronoun for the string the cat is ungrammatical (in the context of (18), though not in principle).

(19) a. This is the cat that chased the rat. ---> * This is it that chased the rat. b. This is the cat. ---> ok This is it.

Second, the string cat that chased the rat is shown to be a constituent by the grammaticality of substituting the pro-form one. (One substitution is discussed in more detail in Chapter 5.)

(20) This is the cat that chased the rat. ---> ok This is the one.

The facts in (19a) and (20) converge to tell us that the word cat first combines with the relative clause, and that it is the resulting constituent that the combines with, rather than with cat on its own. It is worth noting that the syntactic structure just described is congruent with the way that the meaning of the entire noun phrase the cat that chased the rat is successively composed from smaller expressions. In a simple semantics, the term cat refers to the set of all cats. Combining cat with the relative clause yields cat that chased the rat, which refers to a subset of all cats---namely, those with the property of having chased the rat. Finally, combining cat that chased the rat with the definite article the refers to some unique individual within the rat-chasing subset of cats (exactly which individual this is depends on the discourse context).

As a first approximation, syntactic structure represents the way that the meaning of an expression is composed. This is already evident from the correspondence between noun phrases and individuals, between adjective phrases and properties, between prepositional phrases and locations, directions, and so forth, between verb phrases and events and states, and so on. Although prosodic structure and syntactic/semantic structure are not completely independent of one another, it is important to realize that there can be considerable mismatches between them. Because of this, it is important not to confuse or equate the two types of structure by relying on prosodic criteria such as intonation breaks when determining syntactic constituenthood.

Phrasal versus lexical constituents

A second caveat when applying syntactic constituenthood tests is that single words don't necessarily function on a par with multiword constituents, even though, being indivisible units, they are constituents by definition. In (21), for instance, cats doesn't pass the constituenthood tests reviewed in the last section, whereas in (22), it does.

(21) a. The cats are hungry. ---> * The they are hungry. b. Tabby cats are quite common. ---> * Tabby they are quite common. c. Cats without tails are relatively rare. ---> * They without tails are relatively rare. d. Those cats that have no tails are Manx cats. ---> * Those they that have no tails are Manx cats. (22) Cats are not social animals. ---> They are not social animals.

The reason for the grammaticality contrast in (21) and (22) is that there is a systematic difference between the syntactic contexts in these examples. In (21), cats is accompanied either by a determiner or a modifier of some sort, indicated by italics. In such contexts, cats combines with these other words to form a noun phrase, but it isn't a noun phrase in its own right. In (22), on the other hand, cats is unmodified (a so-called bare noun) and functions as a simple noun and as a noun phrase at the same time. In other words, there are two levels of constituenthood: the lexical level, where single words are constituents by definition, and the phrasal level, where single words don't necessarily behave like multiword constituents.

The constituenthood tests reviewed in the last section turn out to be diagnostic for constituenthood at the phrasal level only. (23) illustrates the ungrammatical sentences that result from attempting to move, question, and focus lexical rather than phrasal constituents. Italics indicate any words that belong to the same phrasal constituent as the underlined item.

(23) a. Attempt I fed the cats. -- * Cats, I fed the ___. to move: - > b. The cat strolled across the porch with -- * With, the cat strolled across the porch ___ a confident air. - a confident air. > c. Ali Baba returned from his travels -- * Wiser, Ali Baba returned from his wiser than before. - travels ___ than before. > d. They arrived at the concert hall more -- * Quickly, they arrived at the concert hall quickly than they had expected. - more ___ than they had expected. > (24) a. Attempt * What did you feed the ___? -- * Cats. to - question: > b. * How did the cat stroll across the -- * With. porch ___ a confident air? - > c. * How did Ali Baba return from his -- * Wiser. travels ___ than before? - > d. * How did they arrive at the concert -- * Quickly. hall more ___ than they had - expected? > (25) a. Attempt Ordinary cats detest the smell of -- * It is smell that ordinary cats detest to focus: citrus fruits. - the ___ of citrus fruits. > b. The cat strolled across the porch with -- * It was with that the cat strolled across the a confident air. - porch ___ a confident air. > c. Ali Baba returned from his travels -- * It was wiser that Ali Baba returned from wiser than before. - his travels ___ than before. > d. They arrived at the concert hall more -- * It was quickly that they arrived at the quickly than they had expected. - concert hall more ___ than they had > expected.

(26), on the other hand, illustrates the grammatical results of moving, questioning, and focusing phrasal constituents that happen to consist of a single word. (Notice the absence of italicized material in this case.)

(26) a. Movement: I like cats. --- ok Cats, I like ___. > b. Ali Baba returned from his --- ok Wiser, Ali Baba returned from his travels wiser. > travels ___. c. They arrived at the concert --- ok Quickly, they arrived at the concert hall quickly. > hall ___. (27) a. Question/sentence ok What do you like ___? --- ok Cats. fragment: > b. ok How did Ali Baba return from --- ok Wiser. his travels ___? > c. ok How did they arrive at the --- ok Quickly. concert hall ___? > (28) a. It cleft focus: Ordinary cats detest citrus. --- ok It is citrus that ordinary cats detest. > b. Ali Baba returned from his --- ok It was wiser that Ali Baba returned travels wiser. > from his travels ___. c. They arrived at the concert --- ok It was quickly that they arrived at hall quickly. > the concert hall ___.

Verb phrases

There is one category of constituent that we haven't discussed so far---verb phrases. Testing for the constituenthood of verb phrases differs from the case of other syntactic categories in two respects.

First, the pro-forms for verb phrases aren't simple vocabulary items, but are complex: do so for substitution and do what for questions. (Notice that it's only what, rather than the entire pro-form do what, that moves to the beginning of a question.)2

(29) a. Substitution: She will write a book. --- ok She will do so. > b. The two boys could order tuna salad --- ok The two boys could do sandwiches. > so. (30) a. Question/sentence What will she do? --- ok Write a book. fragment: > b. What could the two boys do? --- ok Order tuna salad > sandwiches.

Second and more importantly, verbs and the verb phrases that contain them come in two varieties, finite and nonfinite (see Verbs for discussion). Now, two of the constituenthood tests---substitution and the question/sentence fragment test---yield grammatical results regardless of a verb phrase's finiteness, as shown in (31) and (32).

(31) a. Substitution, nonfinite verb She will write a --- ok She will do so. phrase: book. > b. finite verb phrase: She wrote a book. --- ok She did so. > (32) a. Question/sentence nonfinite verb What will she do? --- ok Write a book. fragment, phrase: > b. finite verb phrase: What did she do? --- ok Wrote a book. >

The results from the other two tests are more complex. Movement of nonfinite verb phrases is grammatical,3 but movement of finite ones is not.

(33) a. Movement, nonfinite verb (She said that) she will write --- ok (and) write a book, she phrase: a book, > will ___. b. though she may write a book --- ok write a book though she > may ___ (34) a. finite verb (She said that) she wrote a --- * (and) wrote a book, phrase: book, > she ___. b. though she wrote a book --- * wrote a book though > she ___

In it clefts, nonfinite verb phrases are marginally acceptable in focus, whereas finite verb phrases are again clearly ruled out.

(35) a. It cleft nonfinite verb She will write a --- ? It is write a book that she focus, phrase: book. > will ___. b. finite verb phrase: She wrote a book. --- * It is wrote a book that she ___. >

To summarize: we have good evidence that nonfinite verb phrases are constituents. In the case of finite verb phrases, we have evidence for constituenthood from two of the four constituenthood tests. Given this slightly complex state of affairs, we will proceed as follows. We will make the simplifying assumption that the ungrammaticality of moving or focusing finite verb phrases has nothing to do with their constituenthood, but that it is due to some other reason, yet to be determined. Having made this assumption, we are then free to treat finite verb phrases as constituents on a par with their nonfinite counterparts even though the syntactic behavior of the two types of verb phrases is not identical in all respects.

Chances are that you are a bit leery of the simplifying assumption just described. If so, think about it as comparable to taking out a loan. True, taking out a loan is risky, and taking out loans in an uncontrolled or irresponsible way can lead to financial disaster. Nevertheless, the credit market is a necessary and productive part of any modern economy. In a similar way, making simplifying assumptions in science can help us to make progress where otherwise we would be stumped by the complexity of the phenomena that we are investigating. Of course, we have to be careful about what simplifying assumptions we make. Otherwise, we end up fooling ourselves into believing that we are making progress, when in fact we are working on such a distorted model of reality that our work is worthless.

Apart from this wrinkle concerning finiteness, verb phrases behave just as we have come to expect from other constituent types. The tests yield grammatical results only for complete verb phrases, not for substrings of them.

(36) a. Substitution: She will write a book. --- * She will do so a book. > b. Movement: (She said that) she will write a --- * ... and write, she will ___ a book, ... > book. c. though she may write a book --- * write though she may ___ a > book d. Question/sentence * What will she do a book? --- * Write. fragment: > e. It cleft focus: She will write a book. --- * It is write that she will ___ a > book.

And once again, particular strings can be phrasal constituents in certain syntactic contexts, but not in others. For instance, although write isn't a verb phrase when it combines with a direct object, it is a verb phrase on its own, as is evident from comparing the examples in (37) to their counterparts in (36).

(37) a. Substitution: She will write. --- ok She will do so. > b. Movement: (She said that) she will write, --- ok ... and write, she will ___. ... > c. though she may write --- ok write though she may ___ > d. Question/sentence * What will she do? --- ok Write. fragment: > e. It cleft focus: She will write. --- ? It is write that she > will ___.

Representing constituenthood

In Chapter 1, we introduced tree diagrams as a convenient way of representing constituent structure. For a mathematician working in the field of graph theory, the formal properties of tree diagrams are interesting in their own right, but for a syntactician, the interest of trees lies in the fact that they are representations, or models, of constituent structure. In other words, the graphic structure of a tree on the page is intended as a statement about the way that a speaker groups together syntactic elements in his or her mind. In any good model, we want the properties of the model to correspond straightforwardly to the properties of the domain of inquiry. Such a close correspondence allows us to state observations and generalizations about the domain of inquiry without undue complication. Moreover, if we're lucky, we might even be able to use our understanding of the model's formal properties as a sort of conceptual lever to generate hypotheses and to discover generalizations concerning the domain of inquiry that would otherwise go unnoticed.

In light of these considerations, let's consider the sentence in (38), focusing particularly on the constituenthood of the underlined string.

(38) The secretary drafted the letter.

According to the two tests that apply to finite verb phrases, the string drafted the letter is a constituent.

(39) a. Substitution: The secretary drafted the letter. ---> The secretary did so. b. Question/sentence fragment: What did the secretary do? ---> Drafted the letter.

Having established this fact, let's now consider two alternative representations of the sentence. We've already encountered (40a) in Chapter 1. (40b) is an alternative, 'flatter' tree. (40) a. b.

At first glance, the flatter tree might seem preferable on the grounds that it is simpler in the sense of containing fewer nodes. But let's focus on the question of which tree is a better representation of the sentence. Another way of putting this question is to ask whether either of the trees in (40) has some graphic property that corresponds to the results of the constituenthood tests in (39). In (40a), the answer is 'yes,' since there is a single node (the one labeled VerbPhr) that exhaustively dominates the string drafted the letter (see the section on exhaustive dominance in Node relations for a definition). The tree in (40b), on the other hand, lacks such a node and has no other graphic property that corresponds to the string's constituenthood. Clearly, then, (40a) is a better representation of the sentence, because it follows the natural convention in (41).

(41) Syntactic constituents are represented graphically as nodes in a tree.

We will conclude this discussion of the model character of syntactic representations by emphasizing that models are just that---models, and not the actual domain of inquiry itself. The purpose of any model is to help us understand some part of reality that is too complex to understand in all of its detail, at least all at once. This means that models are partial in two respects. First, models often leave out many properties of a phenomenon that aren't relevant from a particular point of view. This fact is often stated in the form of the maxim "Don't mistake the map for the territory." For instance, a mountaineer's map might show topographical information in great detail, but completely ignore political boundaries, whereas a diplomat's map might do the reverse. Analogously, in linguistics, syntactic models leave out many important properties of language, such as real-world plausibility, pragmatic felicity, the location of intonation breaks, and so on. These are the focus of other subdisciplines of linguistics.

A second way that models are partial is that they are subject to revision as our understanding of a particular domain improves and deepens. This is simply another way of saying that scientific progress is possible. Although we will not recapitulate all of the revisions that have been made in syntactic theory, we will encounter some of them in the further course of the book.

Notes

1. As we mentioned in Chapter 1, the grammaticality of a sentence depends on its interpretation. Specifically, (i) (= (10a)) is ungrammatical under the ordinary interpretation where the prepositional phrase with long, fluffy tails modifies cats.

(i) The cats, I fed with long, fluffy tails.

But (i) also has an outlandish interpretation that can be paraphrased as I fed long, fluffy tails to the cats. Under this interpretation, (i) is grammatical. In other words, in the pre-movement version of (i) given in (ii), the string the cats is a constituent in the outlandish interpretation, though not in the ordinary one.

(ii) I fed the cats with long, fluffy tails.

Conversely, the string the cats with long, fluffy tails is a constituent in the ordinary interpretation of (ii), but not in the outlandish one. This is evident from the fact that (iii) has only the ordinary interpretation.

(iii) The cats with long, fluffy tails, I fed. (The other cats, I didn't.)

2. For completeness, we should mention that do so substitution and the question test for verb phrases are subject to a semantic restriction. Specifically, do so and do what cannot substitute for verb phrases with so-called stative verbs like know or want.

(i) a. They know her parents; they want the cookies. ---> * They do so. b. What do they do? ---> * Know her parents; want the cookies.

As their name implies, stative verbs refer to states (rather than to activities or accomplishments), and a reasonably reliable diagnostic for them is their inability to appear in the progressive construction.

(ii) a. Stative verb * They are knowing her parents; they are wanting the cookies. b. Nonstative verb ok They are meeting her parents; they are eating the cookies.

Since do is the prototypical activity verb, it is not surprising that expressions containing it, like do so and do what, are unable to be interpreted as substituting for verb phrases containing stative verbs.

3. Movement of nonfinite verb phrases in out-of-the-blue contexts, as in (i), is not very felicitous.

(i) Write a book, she will ___.

But it is clearly grammatical given appropriate discourse contexts or in certain syntactic constructions, as the examples in the text show.

Exercises and problems

Exercise 2.1

Using the constituenthood tests reviewed in this chapter, determine whether the underlined strings in the following sentences are (phrasal) constituents.

Keep your answer succinct, but be sure to include the evidence on which it is based. Evidence includes both grammatical and ungrammatical sentences.

(1) a. I put the car in the garage. b. I put the car in the garage. c. I put the car in the garage. (2) a. I know the guy with the fedora. b. I know the guy with the fedora. (3) a. They threw in the towel. b. They threw the towel in the closet.

Exercise 2.2

How well does each of the trees in (1) and (2) represent the syntactic structure of the sentence it is intended to represent? Your discussion should be concise, but detailed enough to answer the following questions:

Are any strings represented as constituents that shouldn't be? Are any strings not represented as constituents that should be? Are any of the trees misleading in other respects? (Pay particular attention to the (a) trees.) (1) a. b.

(2) a. b.

Exercise 2.3

In addition to it clefts, English has wh- clefts, so called because they are introduced by question words, almost all of which begin with wh- in English (the exception is how, which counts as an honorary wh- word). Wh- clefts begin with an indirect question, and end with the focus of the cleft, which, just as with it clefts, is a (phrasal) constituent. The two parts of a wh- cleft are connected by a form of the copula. In the examples in (1), the indirect question is in blue, the copula is in black, and the focus is in red.

(1) a. Noun phrase: What she ate was an apple. b. Prepositional phrase: Where we'll meet is in Houston Hall. c. Adjective phrase: What they are is surprisingly arrogant.

Is it possible to use the wh- cleft construction as evidence that verb phrases are constituents? Do finite and nonfinite verb phrases differ with respect to wh- clefting? Explain, giving examples.

Exercise 2.4

Is the do of do so substitution the main verb or the homonymous auxiliary? Answer with reference to the three properties in (41) in Modals and auxiliary verbs in English. Problem 2.1

The substitution test introduced in Chapter 1 and discussed in further detail in this chapter and the substitution operation introduced in Chapter 1 are not identical, but they are related. In a brief paragraph, explain how.

Problem 2.2

Is (1) lexically or structurally ambiguous? Explain, giving the results of any constituenthood tests that you use and discussing their limitations, if any.

(1) They decided on the boat. 3 Some basic linguistic relations

In Chapters 1 and 2, we presented various pieces of evidence for the existence of syntactic structure in human language. The facts presented there raise a basic question---what is the basis of syntactic structure? In this chapter, we introduce three fundamental linguistic relationships that underlie syntactic structure. Two of these relationships, argumenthood and modification, are at bottom semantic relationships (although the expression of argumenthood is more constrained in natural language than purely semantic considerations would dictate), whereas the third, predication, is purely syntactic.

Argumenthood

Semantic valency

The most obvious factor that determines how vocabulary items combine has to do with their meaning, a point most conveniently illustrated with verbs. From the point of view of a very simple formal semantics, the verb laugh denotes the set of laughing entities, as illustrated in (1).

(1) laugh = { Beatrice, Chris, Eva, Gary, Lukas, Tina, ... }

Laugh can combine with a single argument, which denotes an entity. Intuitively, we can think of arguments as the central participants in a situation. Combining laugh with an argument (say, Lukas) has a syntactic effect and a corresponding semantic effect. The syntactic effect is to yield the sentence in (2a). The corresonponding semantic effect is to select the entity denoted by the argument and to yield the proposition that the selected entity belongs to the set of laughing entities, as expressed in (2b). (For simplicity, we disregard the past tense morpheme -ed, which has the further effect of anchoring the proposition in the past.)

(2) a. Lukas laughed. b. The entity 'Lukas' is-a-member-of the set 'laugh'.

In addition to denoting sets, verbs can also denote relations between sets. Let's say, for instance, that (3a) is a set of hosts and (3b) is a set of guests.

(3) a. host = { Andy, Bill, Chris } b. guest = { Dave, Elmer, Fred, Gideon, Harrison }

Then the verb invite denotes the relation between these two sets, which can be represented as the set of ordered pairs in (4).

(4) invite = { , , , , , , , , , , , , , , }

Combining invite with a theme argument (say, Dave) has the syntactic effect of yielding the phrase in (5a). The corresponding semantic effect is to select a subset of the ordered pairs in (4), given in (5b), and to yield the proposition in (5c). (Once again, we disregard the past tense morpheme for simplicity.)

(5) a. invited Dave b. invite1 = { , , } c. The ordered pair in the set 'invite1' are-members-of the set 'invite'.

Further combining invite with an agent argument (say, Chris), as in the sentence in (6), has the semantic effect of yielding the further subset in (6b), with the property in (6c).

(6) a. Chris invited Dave. b. invite2 = { } c. 1 The ordered pair is-a-member-of the set 'invite1' (and, by logical transitivity, is- a-member-of the original set 'invite')

Verbs like laugh and invite are instances of one-place and two-place predicates, respectively. The term predicate here refers to a vocabulary item, with a focus on its capacity to combine with one or more arguments. The number of arguments that a predicate requires is its semantic valency.

The relations denoted by predicates can involve more than two arguments. An example of a three-place predicate is give, which denotes the relation among a set of givers, a set of gifts, and a set of recipients. Even more complex relations are possible. For instance, rent is a five-place predicate denoting a relation among landlords or other sorts of owners, tenants, rental property, amounts of money, and lengths of time (lease terms).

Transitivity

In principle, a predicate's valency might completely determine the syntactic structure that it appears in. The ungrammaticality of the sentences in (7) would directly fall out from such a system.

(7) a. * Lukas laughed the train. (one-place predicate; superfluous argument) b. * Andy invited. (two-place predicate; missing theme argument)

The actual situation, however, is more complex. For instance, eat denotes a relation between eaters and food. It is therefore a two-place predicate, like invite. However, unlike invite, eat has both a transitive and an intransitive use, as illustrated in (8).

(8) a. Transitive: The children have eaten their supper. b. Intransitive: The children have eaten. Notice that the semantic properties of eat remain constant in (8). In other words, (8a) and (8b) are both interpreted as involving the ingestion of food, even though there is no explicit mention of food in (8b).

In view of the mismatch between the semantic and syntactic properties of eat in sentences like (8b), it is useful to distinguish between semantic and syntactic arguments. As mentioned earlier, we can think of semantic arguments as central participants in a situation. Syntactic arguments, on the other hand, are constituents that appear in particular syntactic positions (see Chapter 4 for further discussion). Semantic arguments are typically expressed as syntactic arguments, but the correspondence between the two is not perfect, as (8b) shows.

The term transitivity refers to the number of arguments that a verb combines with in syntactic structure, and we can divide verbs into three subcategories as in (9).

We are using the term 'transitivity' in a slightly unorthodox way. Traditionally, the term refers to the number of a verb's objects, which is one less than the number of its arguments. Thus, as the terms imply, an intransitive takes no objects, and a ditransitive takes two.

(9) Transitivity Number of syntactic arguments

Intransitive 1 Transitive 2 Ditransitive 3

Because of mismatches as in (8), it turns out to be quite rare for verbs to belong to just one syntactic subcategory. (10) shows some two-place verbs besides eat that can be used either transitively or intransitively. The slashes separate the arguments from the predicate and each other.

Basically transitive Intransitive (10) a. He / interrupted / the meeting. He / interrupted. b. Amy / knits / sweaters. Amy / knits. c. They / are reading / a book. They / are reading.

Conversely, certain one-place verbs can be used not only intransitively, but transitively as well, as illustrated in (11). Notice that the verb and its object in the transitive examples are etymologically related, or cognate. For this reason, the transitive use of one-place verbs as in (11) is known as the cognate object construction.

Basically intransitive Transitive (11) a. Dennis / died. Dennis / died / a peaceful death. b. Lukas / laughed. Lukas / laughed / an infectious laugh. c. Mona Lisa / was smiling. Mona Lisa / was smiling / a mysterious smile.

Further, it is possible to use some basically three-place verbs not just ditransitively, but transitively and even intransitively.

Basically ditransitive Transitive Intransitive (12) a. We / teach / college students / syntax. We / teach / college students. We / teach. We / teach / syntax. b. He / told / me / the whole story. He / told / me. He / better not tell. He / told / the whole story.

Finally, it is possible to use basically two-place verbs ditransitively.

Basically transitive Ditransitive (13) a. I / baked / a delicious cake. I / baked / my friends / a delicious cake. b. The lions / killed / a gazelle. The lions / killed / themselves / a gazelle. c. She / sang / a lullaby. She / sang / her baby / a lullaby.

Modification

Events are associated with more or less central participants and properties. The central participants are the semantic arguments just discussed. Properties of a situation typically taken to be less central, such as manner, time (point in time, duration, frequency), place (location, origin, destination), reason (cause, purpose), and so on, can be expressed by modifiers.

Arguments and modifiers both introduce restrictions on the denotation of a predicate, and the relationships of argumenthood and modification do not differ semantically in this respect. For instance, the situations denoted by invite Dave are a subset of those denoted by invite, just as the situations denoted by laugh uproariously are a subset of those denoted by laugh.

Modifiers of verb phrases are typically adverbial phrases or prepositional phrases, but noun phrases can serve as modifiers as well (you will be asked to illustrate this latter fact in the Exercises). In the following examples, the modifier is in italics, and the verb phrase that it modifies is underlined.

(14) a. Manner: He read the letter carefully. b. Point in time: They discussed the proposal in the afternoon. c. Duration: You should keep your tax records for several years. d. Frequency: I read the Times quite often. e. Location: We met in my office. f. Origin: We set out from Bangalore. g. Destination: We arrived in Benares. h. Cause: He threw it away out of spite. i. Purpose: I sent the message to warn everyone.

Because of their semantically peripheral character, modifiers are syntactically optional. The converse is emphatically not true, however. Not all syntactically optional constituents are modifiers; recall from (8b) that semantic arguments aren't always expressed.

Verbs are not the only category that can be modified. For instance, nouns are often modified by adjective phrases, prepositional phrases, or relative clauses.2

(15) a. a very important period b. a period of great import c. the car that just turned the corner

Moreover, adjective phrases and prepositional phrases, the quintessential modifier phrases, can themselves be modified. (16) a. very proud of her progress b. surprisingly good to eat (17) a. almost in the dark b. right behind the shed

Predication

The two linguistic relations discussed so far---argumenthood and modification---are basically semantic notions that are optionally expressed in the syntax. In this section, we introduce a third relation, predication, which differs from argumenthood and modification in being an irreducibly syntactic relation. By this, we mean that predication is not always semantically motivated.

Expletive it

In (18a), the italicized that clause functions as the sole syntactic argument of the adjective evident, on a par with the noun phrase in (18b). (For simplicity, we disregard the copula as semantically vacuous.)

(18) a. That they are corrupt is evident. b. Their corruption is evident.

An indication of the semantic equivalence of the two phrases is the fact that they can both be elicited by the same question.

(19) a. What is evident? b. That they are corrupt. Their corruption.

In addition to (18a), a synonymous variant, (20), is available in which the that clause appears at the end of the entire sentence and the original position of the that clause is occupied by the expletive pronoun it.

(20) It is evident that they are corrupt.

The term 'expletive' means that the pronoun does not refer to a discourse entity in the ordinary way that pronouns do. Ordinary referential it has some referent, whereas expletive it doesn't. As a result, the question-answer sequence in (21) is possible, whereas the one in (22) is not.

(21) a. What bit the zebu? b. (pointing to a tsetse fly) It did. (22) a. * What is evident that they are corrupt? b. * It is.

Given that the that clause satisfies the semantic requirement of evident for an argument in both (18a) and (20), the presence of the expletive pronoun in (20) is striking. From a semantic point of view, it is unnecessary, and one might therefore expect it to be optional. But this is not the case, as the ungrammaticality of (23) shows.

(23) * Is evident that they are corrupt.

The ungrammaticality of (23) leads us to conclude that there exists a purely syntactic well-formedness condition requiring all clauses to have a subject. Earlier, we saw that it is possible for arguments to be semantically necessary and yet not to be expressed in the syntax. Expletive subjects represent roughly the converse of this situation, being cases where an expression that is not motivated by semantic considerations is nevertheless obligatory in the syntax.

Aristotelian versus Fregean predicates

We will refer to the requirement just mentioned as the subject requirement. According to it, every clause consists of a subject and a predicate (independently of semantic requirements). Here, the term 'predicate' has a different sense than in our earlier discussion concerning argumenthood; it simply refers to what remains of a clause when its subject is removed.

Remember not to confuse 'subject' with 'simple subject.'

For clarity, we can use the term 'Aristotelian predicate' for this sense, since the observation that all sentences consist of a subject and a predicate goes back to Aristotle (384-322 BCE). Predication is the relation between a subject and an Aristotelian predicate. So (24a) and (24b) are two alternative ways of stating the subject requirement.

(24) a. Every clause has a subject. b. Every clause is an instance of predication.

The sense of 'predicate' that we used earlier, in which the term refers to a single vocabulary item, is much more recent and can be attributed to one of the founders of modern logic, the mathematician and philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848-1925). Accordingly, we can use the term 'Fregean predicate' for this sense. What Frege made explicit is that Aristotle's division of a clause into subject and predicate is simply the first of a potential series of such bifurcations. Just as it is possible to peel off, as it were, the subject of a clause, leaving the Aristotelian predicate, it is possible to further peel off any arguments (and modifiers) contained within the Aristotelian predicate, yielding in the final instance a single vocabulary item, the Fregean predicate.

Fruitful as Frege's analytic insight is, we should not let it obscure the key difference between subjects and other constituents of a clause: namely, that constituents contained within an Aristotelian predicate must be licensed by semantic considerations (in other words, these constituents are present because of semantic considerations), whereas the subject, which is external to the Aristotelian predicate and combines with it, is required independently of semantic considerations.

In the following examples, the Aristotelian predicate of the largest clause is in italics, and the Fregean predicate is underlined. As the increasingly complex sentences show, Aristotelian predicates are recursive categories. Fregean predicates, on the other hand, not being phrases, are not.

(25) a. The tabby cat enjoys catnip immensely. b. They have found that the tabby cat enjoys catnip immensely. c. My downstairs neighbor suspects that they have found that the tabby cat enjoys catnip immensely.

Expletive there

In English, further evidence for the purely syntactic character of the subject requirement comes from the expletive there construction. (26) illustrates an ordinary sentence and its counterpart with expletive there.

(26) a. Several vexing questions remain. b. There remain several vexing questions.

Expletive there differs from ordinary there in much the same way as expletive it differs from referential it. Ordinary there substitutes for phrases with a locative or directional meaning. Accordingly, the phrases right here and over there render (27a) and (27b) contradictory and redundant, respectively.

(27) a. # There comes the train right here. b. There comes the train over there.

Expletive there, on the other hand, has no such locative meaning, and so both sentences in (28) are completely acceptable and unexceptional.

(28) a. There is a clean shirt right here. b. There is a clean shirt over there.

A related difference is that expletive there, unlike ordinary there, is incompatible with stress.

Just as expletive it occupies the position that would otherwise be occupied by a clausal subject, expletive there occupies the position that would otherwise be occupied by a noun phrase subject. And just as in the case of expletive it, omitting expletive there results in ungrammaticality.

(29) * Remain several vexing questions.

It should be pointed out that not every English sentence has an expletive there counterpart. Rather, expletive there is subject to a licensing condition (a necessary condition for its occurrence) that can be stated roughly as in (30).

(30) Expletive there must be the subject of a verb of existence or coming into existence.

In the following examples, the licensing (Fregean) predicate is highlighted in green.

(31) a. After their military defeat, there arose among the Plains tribes a powerful spiritual movement. b. There is a problem. c. There began a reign of terror. d. In the end, there emerged a new caudillo. e. There ensued a period of unrest and lawlessness. f. There exists an antidote. g. There follows a section on the care of gerbils. h. There has occurred an unfortunate incident. i. There remains a single course of action.

Predicates that aren't verbs of (coming into) existence don't license expletive there. This is the reason that the following examples are ungrammatical; the non-licensing (Fregean) predicates are highlighted in red.

(32) a. * There came more than sixty dignitaries. b. * There continued the same problem. c. * There rang the mail carrier. d. * There sang an impressive choir from Russia. e. * There walked a poodle into the room. Some special cases

Nonfinite clauses. The instances of predication provided so far have all been finite clauses like those in (33).

(33) a. He laughed uproariously. b. It will seem that they won the game. c. There is a problem.

Nonfinite clauses like those in (34) are also instances of predication; the clauses at issue are set off by brackets.

(34) a. We expected [ him to laugh uproariously ]. b. We expected [ it to seem that they won the game ]. c. We expected [ there to be a problem ].

At first glance, it might seem preferable to treat the italicized noun phrases in (34) as objects of expected, rather than as subjects of the embedded nonfinite clause the way we have done. However, such an approach faces at least two difficulties. First, the relation between the italicized and the underlined constituents in the nonfinite embedded clauses in (34) is intuitively analogous to the relation between the undoubted subjects and predicates of the finite embedded clauses in (35).

(35) a. We expected that [ he would laugh uproariously ]. b. We expected that [ it would seem that they won the game ]. c. We expected that [ there would be a problem ].

Second, in (34a), the thematic relation of agent that the noun phrase him bears to the phrase to laugh uproariously is the same as that between the subject he and its predicate laughed uproariously in (35a). If him were the object of expected rather than the subject of the nonfinite clause, we would be forced to admit the otherwise unprecedented pairing of the thematic role of agent with the grammatical relation of object.

Small clauses. Because of the parallel between the nonfinite and finite embedded clauses in (34) and (35), it makes sense to treat to in to infinitive clauses as the nonfinite counterpart of a modal like would. There also exist instances of predication without any overt element at all that corresponds to a modal. Such instances of predication are called small clauses (the idea behind the name is that the absence of a modal element makes them smaller than an ordinary clause). (36)-(39) provide some examples of small clauses; the captions indicate the syntactic category of the small clause's predicate.

(36) a. Adjective phrase We consider [ the proposed solution completely inadequate ] . b. They proved [ the theory false ] . (37) a. Noun phrase They called [ the actor a traitor ] . b. I consider [ Mark Judy's closest collaborator ]. (38) a. Prepositional phrase They made [ him into a star ] . b. I want [ everyone off the boat ] . (39) a. Verb phrase (bare verb) God let [ there be light ] . b. Verb phrase (gerund) I hear [ the cat scratching at the door ] .

Small clauses are typically arguments of verbs, but they can also be arguments of (certain) prepositions. This is illustrated in (40) for with. (40) a. Adjective phrase: With the weather much less turbulent, flights were able resume for the first time in days. b. Noun phrase: With his wife an airline industry lobbyist, the senator's support for the bailout was hardly surprising. c. Prepositional phrase: With all of their three kids in college, their budget is pretty tight. d. Verb phrase (gerund): With the parade passing right outside her living-room window, Jenny could hardly have had a better view of it.

Imperatives. Although imperative sentences like (41) appear to lack a subject, there is reason to believe that they contain a second-person subject comparable to the pronoun you except that it is silent (the "you understood" of traditional grammar).

(41) Come over here.

For one thing, (41) has the variant in (42) in which the subject is explicitly expressed.

(42) You come over here.

Another reason to assume that all imperatives contain a syntactically active, even if silent, subject is that the grammaticality pattern in (43), where the subject is overt, has an exact counterpart in (44).

(43) a. You shave { yourself, yourselves. } b. * You shave you. c. * You shave themselves. (44) a. Shave { yourself, yourselves. } b. * Shave you. c. * Shave themselves.

Notes

1. A logically transitive relationship is one that has the following property:

If the relationship holds between A and B, and also holds between B and C, then the relationship necessarily holds between A and C.

For instance, the sibling and ancestor relations are logically transitive, as is the subset relation invoked in (6b), but the parent relation is not.

2. The alert reader will notice that in the examples we give, it is verb phrases, adjective phrases, and prepositional phrases that are modified, but nouns (rather than noun phrases). You will be able to explain this apparent asymmetry after reading Chapter 5.

Exercises

Exercise 3.1

A. Imagine a language Hsilgne that is exactly like English except that transitive predicates combine first with the agent, and then with the theme. Does (1) mean the same thing in Hsilgne as it does in English? Explain, using the discussion in connection with (3)-(6) in the text as a guide. (1) Chris invited Dave.

B. As the thought experiment in (A) shows, it is not logically necessary for transitive predicates to combine first with the theme and then with the agent, as they do in English. What is the evidence that the combinatorial order in English is in fact first theme, then agent? In other words, how do we know that we speak English and not Hsilgne? (It shouldn't take you longer than three or four sentences to answer this question.)

Exercise 3.2

A. In your own words, what is the difference between the terms 'modify' and 'refer'? Feel free to use illustrative examples.

B. In traditional grammar, the term 'modifier', which refers to any expression that adds information about some other expression, is often used interchangeably with the term 'adjective'. By contrast, it is customary in linguistics to distinguish between the two terms and to define adjectives not with reference to their function, but on the basis of morphosyntactic criteria. For instance, many adjectives can appear in a comparative (better, more acceptable) or superlative (best, most acceptable) form. Moreover, in many languages (though not in English), adjectives are inflected for case, number, and gender to agree with nouns that they modify or that they are predicated of. Assuming the linguistic rather than the traditional definition of 'adjective', give an example of an adjective (or adjective phrase) that is not a modifier, and give an example of a modifier that is not an adjective.

C. In your own words, what is the difference between 'modify' and 'predicate'? Feel free to use illustrative examples.

Exercise 3.3

For each of the various instances of the modification relation illustrated in (1a-h) (= (14b-i) in the text), try to provide a sentence (possibly using another verb) in which modification is expressed by a noun phrase, rather than by a prepositional or adverbial phrase. (This is not necessarily possible in every case.) (2) gives an example.

(1) a. Point in time: They discussed the proposal in the afternoon. b. Duration: She kept their books for five years. c. Frequency: I read the Times quite often. d. Location: We met the students in my office. e. Origin: We set out from Bangalore. f. Destination: We arrived in Benares. g. Cause: He threw it away out of spite. h. Purpose: I sent the message to warn everyone. (2) Illustration for manner: They solved the problem another way.

Exercise 3.4

A. Based on the discussion in this chapter of how expletive there is licensed, explain for each of the following grammaticality judgments whether it is expected or not. The brackets indicate the boundaries of to infinitive clauses or small clauses and are added for clarity.

(1) a. ok Feynman suspected [ there to be a problem with the O-ring ] . b. * Feynman suspected [ there a problem with the O-ring ] . c. ok There was suspected [ to be a problem with the O-ring ] . d. * There was suspected [ a problem with the O-ring ] .

B. Is the following argument valid?

The contrast in (2) shows that expletive there cannot be an object; hence, it cannot be an object in (3), but must rather be the subject of the to infinitive clause.

(2) a. ok There is a fly in the soup. b. * I dislike there in the soup. (3) ok I don't want there to be a fly in the soup.

Exercise 3.5

A. Discuss the syntactic difference(s) between the two sentences in (1), focusing on the concepts introduced in this chapter. (Source: http://www.meredith.edu/grammar/modifier.htm)

(1) a. Winston considered the judges careful. b. Winston considered the judges carefully.

B. According to the source of the sentences in (1), consider is a linking verb in (1a). This view is nonsense, but what might have led the author of the website to reach it?

Exercise 3.6

Using the concepts introduced in this chapter and the supplementary readings, explain why the following instances of linguistic humor are funny.

(1) a. Greeks Fine Hookers b. Lawmen from Mexico Barbecue Guests c. Lawyers Give Poor Free Legal Advice d. Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms (2) Q. What did the Zen master say to the guy at the hot dog stand? A. Make me one with everything. (3) It used to be that if someone spilled coffee in their lap, they simply called themselves clumsy. Today, too many people are calling themselves an attorney. (http://www.mlaw.org/wwl, accessed 30 Jan 03) (4) The comedian Dick Gregory tells of walking up to a lunch counter in Mississippi during the days of racial segregation. The waitress said to him, "We don't serve colored people." "That's fine," he replied, "I don't eat colored people. I'd like a piece of chicken." (Steven Pinker. 1994. The language instinct. How the mind creates language. New York: Morrow. 115.)

Problem 3.1

A. Nonfinite clauses like (1) are prima facie counterexamples to the subject requirement.

(1) I promised [ to come on time ]. Provide as much conclusive evidence as you can for the existence of a silent subject in the nonfinite clause.

B. The availability of (2) in vernacular usage might tempt one to conclude that expletive it is optional, and that the subject requirement is not absolute.

(2) Seems like they're finally getting somewhere.

Does (2) really show that expletive subjects are optional? Explain.

Problem 3.2

B. The there sentences in (2) are acceptable in modern English (though quite formal in style). Discuss.

(2) a. At the end of the intermission, there sounded a silvery bell. b. Then the curtain rose, and there waltzed onto the stage an exquisitely, but strangely dressed apparition. 4 Introducing the X' schema of phrase structure

The X' schema for elementary trees Transitive elementary trees The X' schema Intransitive elementary trees Deriving simple sentences Deriving complex sentences The adjunct relation Modification is different The need for an adjunction operation A typology of syntactic dependents More on the distinction between complements and adjuncts Notes Exercises and problems Supplementary material Modals and auxiliary verbs in English Reference and related notions Thematic roles

As was mentioned in Chapter 1, we can represent the individual vocabulary items of a language as small pieces of syntactic structure, or elementary trees. The idea is to generate phrases and sentences by composing these elementary trees and possibly manipulating them in well-defined ways.

In this view, vocabulary items are comparable to the atoms of physical matter. Atoms do not combine into molecules just because they happen to be next to each other; rather, their combinatorial possibilities are governed by their internal structure (for instance, the number of electrons on an atom's outermost shell and the relative number of protons and electrons).

Accordingly, in the first part of this chapter, we consider the internal structure of elementary trees. As in the last chapter, we begin by focusing on how verbs combine with their arguments to form larger phrases. For the time being, we will treat noun phrases and prepositional phrases as unanalyzed units, leaving a detailed discussion of their internal structure until Chapter 5. We then generalize the approach developed for verbs and their arguments to the point where we can build simple sentences as well as complex sentences containing subordinate clauses. In order to derive sentences, we will find it necessary to introduce a formal operation called movement, which allows us to represent the fact that constituents can have more than one function in a sentence.

In the second part of the chapter, we turn to the representation of modification. As we will show, it is conceptually undesirable to combine modifiers with elementary trees by the substitution operation introduced in Chapter 1. Accordingly, we introduce a third and final formal operation (besides substitution and movement) called adjunction. As we will see, it is not only modifiers that are integrated into syntactic structure by adjunction, but certain semantic arguments as well.

The X' schema for elementary trees

Transitive elementary trees

We begin our investigation of the internal structure of elementary trees by considering how a transitive verb like ate combines with its two arguments in a sentence like (1).

(1) The children ate the pizza.

From the possibility of pronoun substitution, as in (2), we know that the two arguments are constituents (specifically, noun phrases).

(2) They ate it. In principle, the verb could combine with its two noun phrase arguments in either order, or with both at once. The three possibilities are represented by the schematic structures in (3) (we address the question of which syntactic category to assign to the nodes labeled by question marks in a moment).

(3) a. b. c.

However, as we already know from the discussion in Chapter 2, only the representation in (3a) is consistent with the do so substitution facts in (4).

(4) The children ate the pizza; the children did so.

In other words, transitive verbs combine first with their object, with the resulting constituent in turn combining with the subject.

What is the syntactic category of the constituents that result from these two combinations? In principle, the result of combining a verb with a noun phrase might be a phrase with either verbal or nominal properties. But clearly, a phrase like ate the pizza doesn't have the distribution of a noun phrase. For instance, it can't function as the object of a preposition (even a semantically bleached one like of) Nor does it pattern like a noun phrase in other respects. For instance, as we have just seen, the appropriate pro-form for it is not a pronoun, but a form of do so, just as would be the case if the predicate of the sentence were an intransitive verb. In other words, for the purposes of do so substitution, the combination of a verb and its object is equivalent to an intransitive verb (say, intransitive eat); cf. (4) with (5).

(5) The children ate; the children did so.

However, it won't do to simply assign the syntactic category V to the verb-object combination, on a par with the verb that it contains, since that would leave unexplained the contrast between (4) and (6) with respect to do so substitution (again, recall the discussion in Chapter 2).

(6) The children ate the pizza; *the children did so the pizza.

Notice furthermore that the syntactic category of the verb-object constituent is distinct from the syntactic category of the constituent that includes the subject. This is evident from the contrast in (7), which would be unexpected if both constituents belonged to the same syntactic category.

(7) a. We saw the children eat the pizza. b. * We saw eat the pizza.

In order to represent the facts in (4)-(7), the following notation has been developed. Verbs are said to project three bar levels, conventionally numbered from zero to two. The lowest bar level, V0, is a syntactic category for vocabulary items; it is often indicated simply by V without a superscript. The next bar level is V' (read as 'V-bar'),1 the syntactic category of a transitive verb and its object. The highest bar level is V" (read as 'V-double-bar'), which is the result of combining a V' with a subject. Note that for a transitive verb, each bar level corresponds to the number of arguments with which the verb has combined.

Somewhat confusingly, the verb's second projection, V", is more often than not labeled VP. In early work in generative grammar, the label VP was intended to be a mnemonic abbreviation for the verb phrase of traditional gramar and did indeed correspond to that category. In current phrase structure theory, however, the label that corresponds to the traditional verb phrase is V', whereas VP includes a verb's subject, which the traditional verb phrase does not. The idea is that the highest bar level projected by a verb contains all of its arguments. For clarity, we will avoid using the term 'verb phrase', but if we do use it, we mean the traditional verb phrase that excludes the subject (V', not VP). When we mean the projection that contains all of the verb's arguments, we will always say 'VP'. The fully labeled structure for (1), with the standard labels for the three verbal projections, is given in (8).

(8)

From (8), we can derive the elementary tree for ate in (9) by 'un-substituting' the two arguments.

(9)

The X' schema in general

As we show later on in this chapter and in Chapter 5, the basic form of the elementary tree in (8) can be extended to other syntactic categories. In other words, (8) is an instantiation of a general phrase structure template, shown in (10) and known as the X' schema (read: X-bar schema) of phrase structure; X, Y, and Z are variables over syntactic categories.

(10)

A number of standard terms are in use in connection with the X' schema. X (= X0) is the lexical projection of the vocabulary item that it dominates, X' the intermediate projection, and XP (= X") the maximal projection (sometimes also called phrasal projection). The correspondence between projections and the bar levels introduced earlier is summarized in (11).

The terms 'intermediate' and 'phrasal' are somewhat misleading, since they both suggest that the syntactic status of intermediate projections is somehow intermediate between lexical and phrasal constituents. This is not the case. Intermediate projections are full-fledged phrases, and 'intermediate' simply refers to the position of the projection in the tree structure.

(11) Label Projection Bar level

X (= X0) Lexical 0 X' Intermediate 1 XP (= X") Maximal, phrasal 2

X is known as the head of the structure in (10) (the term is sometimes also used to refer to the vocabulary item dominated by the lexical projection). The three projections of the head form what we will call the spine of the elementary tree. Following traditional terminology, the sister of the head---YP in (10)---is called its complement. As we discuss in the next subsection, elementary trees need not include a complement position.

Note the spelling of complement with e (not i). The idea is that complements complete the meaning of the head. The sister of the intermediate projection---ZP in (10)---is called the specifier. Each elementary tree has at most one specifier, and elementary trees can lack a specifier altogether, as we will see later on in this chapter. The specifier and complement positions of a head are its (syntactic) argument positions. In other words, an elementary tree consists of a spine and up to two argument positions.

The terms 'specifier,' 'complement,' and 'argument' can be used to refer to the constituents that substitute into the positions just described, but they can also refer to the structural positions themselves. (This is analogous to the way we can use a nontechnical term like 'box' to refer either to the contents of a container or to the container itself.) If it is necessary to avoid confusion between the two senses, we can distinguish between 'specifier position' and 'specifier constituent' (and analogously for 'complement' and 'argument').

An important question that arises in connection with the X' schema in (10) is how to represent predicates with more than two semantic arguments (say, rent or give). The most obvious approach is to allow elementary trees with more than two complements. Plausible as this approach may seem, however, it is now widely assumed that syntactic structure is at most binary-branching (in other words, binary-branchingness is assumed to be a formal universal). If a predicate has more than two semantic arguments, there are two ways in which the additional arguments can be integrated into syntactic structure. In some cases (as with rent), the supernumerary arguments are integrated into syntactic structure by adjunction, an operation distinct from substitution that we introduce later in this chapter. This case involves a syntax-semantics mismatch, since a semantic argument ends up occupying a position that is not a syntactic argument position. In other cases (as with give), the apparently atomic predicate is decomposed semantically and syntactically into more than one head, thus yielding a total of more than two argument positions. This second case is discussed in detail in Chapter 7.

Intransitive elementary trees

So far, we have discussed the internal structure of the elementary trees required for transitive verbs (and transitive categories more generally). In this section, we address the internal structure of the elementary trees required for intransitive verbs---for instance, intransitive eat. The two structures in (12) come to mind as possibilities.

(12) a. b.

The trees differ in the presence of an intermediate projection, and (12b) might at first glance seem preferable because it is simpler (in the sense of containing fewer nodes). Nevertheless, we will prefer (12a) on the grounds that adopting it results in a simplification of the grammar as a whole---that is, a simplification not just of the elementary trees themselves, but also of rules and definitions stated over them. For instance, adopting (12a) allows us to summarize the facts concerning do so substitution illustrated in (4)-(6) by means of the succinct generalization in (13).

(13) Do so substitutes for instances of V'.

Given (12b), the corresponding generalization in (14), being a disjunctive statement (a statement that contains or) is more cumbersome.

(14) Do so substitutes for instances of V' or of V without a complement.

A second, similar reason to prefer (12a) is that it permits the succinct definition of the notion of specifier in (15a) rather than the disjunctive statement in (15b).

(15) a. Specifiers are sisters of intermediate projections. b. Specifiers are sisters of intermediate projections or of lexical projections without a complement.

In concluding this section, we will make explicit a point that is implicit in the preceding discussion. Obligatorily transitive and obligatorily intransitive verbs project (= are associated in the lexicon with) a single elementary tree of the right shape. Verbs that can be used either transitively or intransitively, such as eat, project two elementary trees. More generally, we will allow a vocabulary item of any syntactic category to project one or more elementary trees, as required by its combinatorial properties.

Deriving simple sentences

We are almost at the point of being able to construct representations of complete sentences, but before we can, we need to address the syntactic representation of tense. The following discussion relies on the notion of do support and on the status of modals and auxiliary do as members of the syntactic category I(nflection); see Modals and auxiliary verbs in English for more details.

In a sentence like (16), the verb waited contains the bound morpheme -ed, which expresses past tense.

(16) He waited.

If tense morphemes were invariably expressed on the verb in this way, then complete structures for full sentences could be derived by substituting appropriate structures into the argument positions of the verb's elementary tree. However, this is not a general solution, because tense is not always expressed as a bound morpheme on the verb. For instance, in (17), the future tense counterpart of (16), the future tense is expressed by a free morpheme---the modal will.

(17) He will wait.

Even more strikingly, the past tense in English, though ordinarily expressed as a bound morpheme on the verb, must be expressed by a free morpheme in do support contexts, as shown in (18).

(18) a. Emphasis: He did wait. b. Negation: He didn't wait. c. Question: Did he wait?

The morphologically variable expression of tense as a free or bound morpheme raises two related syntactic questions. First, what is the representation of sentences like (17) and (18a), where tense is expressed as a free morpheme? (We postpone discussion of negated sentences and questions until later chapters.) Second, and more generally, how can we represent all sentences in a syntactically uniform way, regardless of how tense is expressed morphologically? The reason that we want a syntactically uniform representation is that from a semantic point of view, both past and future are semantically parallel functions, taking situations (denoted by VPs) as input and returning as output situations that are located in time, either before or after the time of speaking.2

We begin by answering the first question in several steps. First, it is clear that (17) and (18a) share a common predicate-argument structure. That is, both of these sentences denote a situation in which someone is waiting, with the sentences differing only as to which point in time the situation holds. We can capture this commonality by taking the elementary tree for the verb wait in (19a) and substituting an argument constituent in the specifier position, yielding (19b).

(19) a. b.

Second, in line with the general approach to syntactic structure that we have been developing, modals and auxiliaries, like all vocabulary items, project elementary trees. For instance, the elementary trees for will and auxiliary did are shown in (20).

(20) a. b. Next, we substitute the structure in (19b) into each of the elementary trees in (20), yielding (21).

(21) a. b.

The structures in (21) neatly reflect the semantic relation between tense and situations. The element in I corresponds to the tense function, the complement of I (VP) corresponds to the function's input (the situation), and the maximal projection of I (IP) corresponds to the function's output (the situation located in time). There is a problem, however: the I element and the subject of the sentence are in the wrong order in (21). This problem can be solved by introducing a movement operation that transforms the structures in (21) into those in (22).

(22) a. b.

A few remarks are in order about this operation. Movement is best understood as a convenient way of representing mismatches between various aspects of a sentence or its constituents. Specifically, in the case at hand, he satisfies two distinct functions. First, it is a semantic argument of the verb wait. Second, it is the subject of the entire sentence, which is headed by I. It is important to recognize that these two functions are distinct. This is clearly shown by the existence of passive sentences. For instance, in the active sentence in (23a), it is the agent argument that functions as the subject, whereas in its passive counterpart in (23b), it is the theme argument.

(23) a. Susie drafted the letter. Agent Theme Subject Object b. The letter was drafted (by Susie). Theme Agent Subject Prepositional phrase

In order to clearly express a phrase's multiple functions, we do not simply move the phrase from one position to another. Instead, movement leaves a trace in the phrase's original position, and the two positions share an index. In the syntactic literature, indices for movement are represented by the same alphabetical subscripts as referential indices. For clarity, we diverge from this practice and use the natural numbers as referential indices, and the lowercase letters i, j, k, and so on, as movement indices. A constituent and its traces of movement (possibly none, in the absence of movement) are called a chain. The elements of a chain are its links. Higher links in a chain are often referred to as the antecedents of lower ones. Finally, the highest and lowest links in a chain are sometimes referred to as the chain's head and tail, respectively.

Don't confuse this sense of the term 'head' with the sense introduced earlier in connection with X' structures. The head of an X' structure is the structure's lexical projection (or sometimes the vocabulary item dominated by it). The head of a movement chain is the highest constituent in a chain; the constituent's X' status is irrelevant). Which sense is meant is generally clear from the context.

Is the head of the movement chains in (22) a head in the X' sense? No. The reason is that it is possible to replace it by what is clearly a phrase, say, by the student in the red sweater. It is possible, however, for the head of a chain to be a head in the X' sense, as we will see in Chapter 6 in connection with verb movement. We are now in a position to answer the second question posed earlier---namely, how can sentences be represented in a syntactically uniform way regardless of the morphological expression of tense? A simple answer to this question is possible if we assume that English has tense elements that are structurally analogous to auxiliary do, but not pronounced, as shown in (24); we will use square brackets as a convention to indicate such silent elements.

(24) a. b.

Elementary trees as in (24) make it possible to derive structures for sentences in which tense is expressed as a bound morpheme on the verb along the same lines as for sentences containing a modal or auxiliary do. In (25), we illustrate the derivation of He waited.

(25) a. b. c. d.

Select Substitute predicate-argument Substitute Move subject from elementary tree structure in (25b) into elementary argument Spec(VP) to Spec(IP) for verb tree for tense

Deriving complex sentences

This section is devoted to the derivation of sentences that contain complement clauses. Some examples are given in (26); the complement clauses, which are also called clausal complements, are in italics.

(26) a. We will ask if she left. b. They believe that he came.

Although sentences with complement clauses can become quite long and complex (recall the instances of recursion in Chapter 1), deriving structures for them proceeds straightforwardly along the lines already laid out. If and that are both complementizers, so called because they have the effect of turning potentially independent sentences into the complements of a matrix verb, and they project the elementary trees in (27).

(27) a. b.

Given elementary trees like (27), we can derive the italicized complement clause in (26a) as in (28).

(28) a. b.

Elementary tree for complement Substitute argument clause verb c. d. e.

Substitute (28b) in elementary Move subject in Substitute (28d) in elementary tree tree for tense (24b) complement clause for complementizer (27a)

The structure in (28e) in turn allows us to derive the entire matrix clause, as in (29).

(29) a. b.

Substitute arguments, including clausal complement Elementary tree for matrix clause verb (28e)

c. d.

Substitute (29b) in elementary tree for modal Move subject in matrix clause (20a)

Given the representation in (29d), we can now formally characterize recursive structures as in (30).

(30) a. A structure is recursive iff it contains at least one recursive node. b. A node is recursive iff it dominates a node distinct from it, but with the same label.

The recursive nodes in (29d) are the upper IP, I', VP, and V' nodes (and no others). Note that a recursive node need not be the root node of a tree, and that it can be any projection (XP, X', or X). The lower IP, I', VP, and V' nodes are not recursive nodes, since they don't dominate another instance of the same category.

For a node to be recursive, it is not enough that the tree contains a second instance of the category somewhere. The first node has to dominate the second one. For instance, none of the NounPhr nodes in (29d) is recursive.

The adjunct relation

Modification is different

The elementary trees introduced in the first part of this chapter allow us to represent two of the three basic linguistic relations discussed in Chapter 3: namely, argumenthood and predication. As we have seen, semantic arguments of a verb can be expressed as syntactic arguments, substituting into one of the two argument positions in the verb's elementary tree: either the complement position or the specifier position. VPs and IPs can be treated as arguments (specifically, as complements) of I and C, respectively. And finally, although predication is not reducible to argumenthood (recall from Chapter 3 that expletive subjects are required independently of a verb's semantic requirements), it does not require a structural relationship uniquely associated with it, since subjects occupy specifier positions regardless of whether they are semantic arguments or not. An important remaining question is how to represent the modification relation using the X' schema developed so far.

In principle, modification might resemble predication in not requiring a structural relation of its own. As it turns out, however, neither the head-complement relation nor the head-specifier relation adequately represents the relation between a head and its modifier. Recall that when a verb combines with a complement, the category of the resulting constituent (V') is distinct from that of the verb (V) (recall the contrast between (4) and (6)), and that when the verb and the complement in turn combine with the specifier, the category of the resulting constituent (VP) is distinct yet again (see (7)). By contrast, modifying a verb-complement combination like ate the pizza in (31) does not change the syntactic category of the resulting constituent, which remains V' (the modifier is in italics).

(31) a. The children ate the pizza. b. The children ate the pizza with gusto.

This is evident from the do so substitution facts in (32), where either the unmodified or the modified verb- complement combination can be replaced by a form of do so.

(32) a. The children ate the pizza with gusto; the children did so with gusto. b. The children ate the pizza with gusto; the children did so.

The same pattern holds for intransitive verbs that combine with a modifier.

(33) a. The children ate with gusto; the children did so with gusto. b. The children ate with gusto; the children did so.

The do so substitution facts just discussed motivate the syntactic structure for (31) that is given in (34) (for simplicity, we focus on the internal structure of the VP, omitting the projection of the silent past tense element and subject movement).

(34)

The structural relation of the modifier with gusto to the spine of the V projection is known as the adjunct relation, and the modifier itself is said to be an adjunct. Modifiers are always represented as adjuncts in syntactic structure. As a result, 'modifier' and 'adjunct' tend to be used somewhat interchangeably. In this book, however, we will distinguish between the two terms as follows. We will use 'modifier' to refer to a phrase's semantic function of qualifying or restricting the constituent being modified. For instance, as we mentioned in Chapter 3, a verb like laugh denotes the set of entities that laugh. Combining the verb with a modifier like uproariously yields the expression laugh uproariously, which denotes a subset of the set denoted by laugh. By contrast, we will use the term 'adjunct' to refer to a purely structural relation. As we will see later on, it is possible for semantic arguments to be represented as syntactic adjuncts. This does not change the semantic argument into a modifier, however!

The need for an adjunction operation

The structure in (34) raises the question of what elementary tree for transitive ate is involved in its derivation. 'Un- substituting' both arguments and the modifier, as we did earlier with just arguments, yields the structure in (35).

(35)

Is the structure in (35) a satisfactory elementary tree? Clearly, allowing it means that our grammar now contains two elementary trees for transitive ate. At first glance, this doesn't seem serious, since we already allow distinct elementary trees for transitive and intransitive ate.

(36) a. b.

But (35) differs in one important respect from the structures in (36): it is a recursive structure. This has a conceptually very undesirable consequence: namely, that if we decided to derive structures like (34) by means of elementary trees like those in (35), there would be no principled way to avoid an unbounded number of such elementary trees. For instance, the derivations of the sentences in (36), with their increasing number of modifiers, would each require a distinct elementary tree for drink.

(36) a. We would drink lemonade. b. We would drink lemonade in summer. c. We would drink lemonade in summer on the porch. d. We would drink lemonade in summer on the porch with friends.

In order to avoid such a proliferation of elementary trees, we will require them to be non-recursive structures. This has the consequence that adjuncts cannot be integrated into larger syntactic structures by substitution, and accordingly, we introduce a further tree operation called adjunction. For clarity, the operation of interest to us is sometimes called Chomsky-adjunction, to distinguish it from Joshi-adjunction, a different formal operation that plays a central role in Tree-Adjoining Grammar (Joshi, Levy, and Takahashi 1975).

For the moment, we will be using the adjunction operation to integrate modifiers into syntactic structures. As we will see in Chapter 6, the adjunction operation is also used for other purposes. Whatever its linguistic purpose, however, it is always the same formal (= graph-theoretical) operation: namely, a two-step process that targets a particular node. When the purpose of adjunction is to integrate a modifier, as it is here, the target of adjunction is an intermediate projection, indicated in red in (37a). The first step in carrying out adjunction is to make a clone of the target of adjunction that immediately dominates the original node, as in (37b). The second step is to attach the tree for the modifier as a daughter of the newly created clone, as in (37c). (37) a. b. c.

Select target of adjunction Clone target of adjunction Attach modifier as daughter of clone

Deriving the rest of the structure for the entire sentence proceeds as outlined earlier, as shown in (38).

(38) a. b. c.

Substitute (38a) in elementary tree Substitute arguments Move subject for tense

For expository reasons, we have chosen to derive the sentence with adjunction preceding substitution and movement. However, the order of adjunction with respect to the other operations is irrelevant.

In concluding this section, we raise a general point concerning intermediate projections and adjunction to them. Given that words (or syntactic atoms of some sort) combine with one another to form phrases, any theory of syntax must assume heads and projections. However, distinguishing between two types of phrases (intermediate projections vs. maximal projections) seems uneconomical, and attempts have therefore been made to eliminate the need for intermediate projections, along with the possibility of adjunction to them. For instance, given our current assumptions, sentences like (39) force us to allow adjunction to X'.

(39) a. [IP They [I' never [I' will agree to that. ] ] ] b. God let [VP there [V' suddenly [V' be light. ] ] ]

However, if the IP and the small clause VP in such sentences were 'split up' into two separate projections, it would be possible to eliminate the intermediate projections and to adjoin the modifiers to maximal projections instead. This is illustrated in (40), where IP has been split into Agr(eement)P and T(ense)P, and Pred(ication)P has been added to the small clause VP. We plan to discuss such structures in detail in a later chapter (to be written).

(40) a. [AgrP They [TP never [TP will agree to that. ] ] ] b. God let [PredP there [VP suddenly [VP be light. ] ] ]

A related question is whether, even in a system with intermediate projections such as we continue to assume for the moment, adjunction can indiscriminately target either intermediate or maximal projections. We remain agnostic on this issue, but since we know from (39) that adjunction must be able to target intermediate projections under our current assumptions, we will consistently represent it as doing so for expository simplicity.

A typology of syntactic dependents

Each of the three types of syntactic dependents that we have been discussing---complements, specifiers, and adjuncts---stands in a unique structural relation to the head and to the spine of the head's projection. Complements and adjuncts are both daughters of intermediate projections, but they differ in that complements are sisters of heads, whereas adjuncts are sisters of the next higher projection level. As sisters of intermediate projections, adjuncts resemble specifiers. But again, the two relations are distinct because adjuncts are daughters of intermediate projections, whereas specifiers are daughters of maximal projections. These structural relations and distinctions are summarized in (41). For convenience, we also include the formal operations that fill or create the positions in question. (41) Relation to head Sister of ... Daughter of ... Formal operation

Complement Head Intermediate projection Substitution Adjunct Intermediate projection Intermediate projection Adjunction Specifier Intermediate projection Maximal projection Substitution

More on the distinction between complements and adjuncts

Given the table in (41), it is easy to tell whether a constituent is represented in a particular tree structure as a complement or as an adjunct. However, it is not always self-evident whether a phrase is a complement or an adjunct as a matter of linguistic fact.

Remember that tree structures are models of linguistic facts. Just because it is possible to build a tree that represents a certain phrase as a complement of a certain head doesn't mean that the phrase actually is a complement. In other words, trees can "lie".

The most reliable way to determine the relation of a particular phrase to a verb is to use do so substitution. If a phrase need not be included as part of the sequence being replaced by do so, then it is an adjunct. If it must be included, then it is a complement. Using this test, we find that phrases specifying cause or rationale, time, location, or manner are generally adjuncts, even if they are bare noun phrases. Some examples, including the results of do so substitution, are given in (42); the adjuncts are in italics.

(42) a. Rationale They waited for no good reason, but we did so for a very good one. b. Duration They waited (for) a day, but we did so (for) a month. c. Location They waited in the parking lot, but we did so across the street. d. Manner They waited patiently, but we did so impatiently.

In the examples we have seen in this book so far, semantic arguments are expressed in a syntactic tree as syntactic arguments (or not at all), and modifiers are expressed as adjuncts. It is possible, however, for semantic arguments to be expressed in the syntax as adjuncts (this is the mismatch case mentioned earlier in connection with binary- branchingness). For example, as we mentioned in Chapter 3, rent, from a semantic point of view, is a five-place predicate taking five arguments that denote landlords, tenants, rental properties, amounts of money, and lengths of time (lease terms). Some of these semantic arguments are expressed as syntactic arguments. For instance, in (43), the phrase denoting the rental property is a complement, as is evident from the results of do so substitution.

(43) a. Dennis rented the apartment to Lois. b. * ... and David did so the studio to Rob.

On the other hand, do so substitution shows that the phrase denoting the lease term is an adjunct, even though lease terms are semantic arguments of rent on a par with rental properties.

(44) a. Dennis rented Lois the apartment for two months. b. ok ... and David did so for a whole year.

A final word should be said about the correlation between a syntactic dependent's obligatory or optional character and its status as a complement or adjunct. It is tempting to assume the biconditional relationship in (45).

(45) a. If a syntactic dependent is obligatory, then it is a complement. TRUE b. If a syntactic dependent is a complement, then it is obligatory. FALSE

But as the annotation indicates, the biconditional in (45) is not valid. It is true that obligatory syntactic dependents are complements. For instance, the contrast in (46) is evidence that the noun phrase following devour is a complement, a conclusion that is borne out by do so substitution in (47). (46) Every time I see him, ... a. * ... he's devouring. b. ... he's devouring a six-inch steak. (47) a. He devoured a hamburger and french fries, and I did so, too. b. * He devoured a hamburger and french fries, and I did so six samosas.

But not all complements are obligatory. The grammaticality of (48a) shows that the phrase French fries is optional, but the ungrammaticality of (48c) shows that it is nevertheless a complement.

(48) a. He ate, and I did so, too. b. He ate French fries, and I did so, too. c. * He ate French fries, and I did so three samosas.

Although (45b) is false, (45a) does have the consequence in (49) (derived by the well-known modus tollens rule of classical logic).

(49) If a syntactic dependent is not a complement, it is not obligatory.

The two valid generalizations in (45a) and (49) can be summarized succinctly as in (50).

(50) a. Obligatory syntactic dependents are complements. b. Adjuncts are optional.

Notes

1. Why is V' read as V-bar when it contains not a bar, but a prime symbol? The reason is that when the idea of bar levels was introduced in the 1970s, the various levels were distinguished by horizontal bars over a syntactic category. The lowest level had no bars, the first level one, and the second two. But back in the days of typewriters, such overbars were cumbersome to type (you typed the symbol, --* rolled up the platen a bit, backspaced, typed an overbar *--, repeated from --* to *-- for each overbar, and then rolled the platen down again the right amount). Overbars are also expensive to typeset, and even today, they aren't part of the standard character sets for HTML documents such as this one. Therefore, it was and continues to be convenient to substitute prime symbols for overbars. However, linguists have failed to update their terminology (terminological inertia), and so the old term 'bar' is still with us.

2. The semantics of tense we are assuming here is oversimplified, but sufficient for our purposes.

3. The representations in (21) look like appropriate representations for the questions Will he wait? and Did he wait? However, as we will see in Chapter 10, there is reason to postulate an additional layer of structure in the representations of questions.

Exercises and problems

Exercise 4.1

What is the X' status of Fregean and of Aristotelian predicates?

Exercise 4.2

The trees in (1) fail to correctly account for certain grammaticality judgments. What are the judgments? (1) a. b.

Exercise 4.3

A. Are the italicized phrases in (1) syntactic arguments or adjuncts? Explain. Your discussion needn't be extensive, but you must include the syntactic evidence (do so substitution facts) on which you base your conclusions.

(1) a. They waited for us. b. This program costs twenty dollars. c. We drove to Denver. d. We worded the letter carefully. e. They are behaving very inconsiderately. f. This volcano might erupt any minute.

B. Using the grammar tool in x bar 1, build structures for the sentences in (1). Needless to say, the structures you build should be consistent with the evidence you gave in A.

Exercise 4.4

A. Using the grammar tool in x bar 1, build structures for the sentences in (1).

(1) a. They demolished the house. b. Mona Lisa called the other neighbor. c. Mona Lisa called the other day. d. You will recall that her smile amazed everyone. e. Most people doubt that Mona Lisa lives in Kansas. f. My friend wondered if Mona Lisa would come to his party.

B. Indicate all recursive nodes in the structures that you build for (1). You can do this by using the grammar tool's highlighting feature (see the "Instructions" menu).

Exercise 4.5

A. (1) is structurally ambiguous. Paraphrase the two relevant interpretations. (Don't be concerned with the vagueness of they.)

(1) They claimed that they paid on the 15th.

B. Using the grammar tool in x bar 1, build a structure for each of the interpretations, indicating which structure goes with which interpretation.

C. Indicate all recursive nodes in the structures that you build for (1). You can do this by using the grammar tool's highlighting feature (see the "Instructions" menu).

Exercise 4.6

Make up a sentence that contains two adjuncts. Show that the adjuncts are adjuncts rather than syntactic arguments. Then build the structure for the sentence using the grammar tool in x bar 1. Finally, switch the linear order of the adjuncts, and build the structure for the resulting word order variant of your original sentence. Problem 4.1

A. Is it possible for an adjunct to immediately precede a complement? Explain, taking into account both VO and OV languages. (You may find it helpful to use the grammar tool in spines 1.)

B. Is it possible for two adjuncts to be sisters? Explain.

Problem 4.2

Imagine a variant of X' theory that distinguishes heads from phrases (= maximal projections), but does not have the concept of intermediate projection. Such a theory is attractive because the notion of intermediate projection is not terribly natural (an intermediate projection is a phrase, after all, just like a maximal projection). However, a theory with two bar levels does run up against a conceptual problem. What is the problem, and how can it be resolved?

Hint: Redo (41) using two bar levels. 5 Extending the X' schema

In Chapter 4, we introduced the X' schema of phrase structure, according to which lexical items project an elementary tree consisting of a spine of projections along with potential argument positions. In this chapter, we extend the X' schema to syntactic categories other than V, I, or C, including N(oun) (see Nouns for some basic information), D(eterminer), Adj(ective), and P(reposition). The final section of the chapter illustrates crosslinguistic variation with regard to the order of heads and complements.

Noun phrases

Parallels and differences between noun phrases and sentences

The X' schema of phrase structure that we introduced in Chapter 4 is a specific expression of a more general idea--- namely, the idea that lexical items of different syntactic categories exhibit significant cross-categorial parallels. In the history of generative grammar, this idea was motivated primarily by the cross-categorial parallels between noun phrases and sentences (Chomsky 1970). In what follows, we review these parallels, as well as some differences between the two categories.

Argument structure. Early in the history of generative grammar (Lees 1960), it was observed that sentences like (1a) and noun phrases like (1b) share several important properties.

(1) a. The army destroyed the city. b. the army's destruction of the city

The semantically central element of the sentence in (1a) is the verb destroyed, and its semantic arguments, the agent the army and the theme the city, are both expressed as syntactic arguments of the sentence. In a parallel way, the semantically central element in the noun phrase in (1b) is the nominal counterpart of destroy, the noun destruction. Like the verb, the noun is associated with an agent argument and a theme argument that are both overtly expressed- --in this case, as the possessive expression the army's and the prepositional phrase of the city.

The correspondence in (1) is supported by that between the passive sentence in (2a) and its passive-like noun phrase counterpart in (2b).

(2) a. The city was destroyed (by the army). b. the city's destruction (by the army)

In both of these examples, the argument preceding the head is now the theme the city('s), and the agent argument is expressed by an optional by phrase.

Modification. In both sentences and noun phrases, the semantically central element---the verb or the noun---can be modified in similar ways, as illustrated in (3) and (4).

(3) a. Prepositional phrase She gives money to the organization on a regular basis. b. Adverb She regularly gives money to the organization. (4) a. Prepositional phrase her gifts of money to the organization on a regular basis b. Adjective her regular gifts of money to the organization

Some cross-categorial differences. Sentences and noun phrases also exhibit certain differences. First, arguments and modifiers are not always expressed in exactly the same way across sentences and noun phrases. For instance, the agent argument is expressed as an ordinary noun phrase in a sentence like (1a), but as a possessive noun phrase in a noun phrase like (1b). In a sentence, the theme argument is expressed as a noun phrase, but in a noun phrase, it must be part of a prepositional phrase, usually an of phrase. Finally, although verbs and nouns can both be modified by prepositional phrases, verbs are modified by adverbs, whereas nouns are modified by adjectives. In connection with this difference, notice that adverbs can precede or follow the verb they modify, whereas adjectives are ordinarily restricted to prenominal position.

(5) a. Adverb The kids regularly donate their old toys. b. The kids donate their old toys regularly. (6) a. Adjective the kids' regular donation of their old toys b. * the kids' donation of their old toys regular

A second and even more fundamental difference between sentences and noun phrases concerns the subject requirement. As we saw in Chapter 3, all sentences require a syntactic subject, even when it corresponds to no semantic argument, as is evident from the contrast between (7) and (8).

(7) a. It appears that the manuscript has been found. b. There exists a solution. (8) a. * Appears that the manuscript has been found. b. * Exists a solution.

By contrast, noun phrases never require a subject. For instance, the agent argument of a noun can be expressed, but it needn't be, as shown in (9).1

(9) a. the committee's criticism of the proposal b. the criticism of the proposal

What is even more striking is that sentences with expletive subjects have no noun phrase counterparts. As (10) shows, the very expletive expressions that are obligatory in (7) are ungrammatical in noun phrases.2

(10) a. * { it, its } appearance that the manuscript has been found b. * { there, there's } existence of a solution

In summary, noun phrases resemble sentences in that their semantic core categories---nouns and verbs, respectively---have semantic arguments that can be expressed as syntactic arguments in partly similar ways. Nouns and verbs can also be modified in largely similar fashion. In the remainder of this part of the chapter, our focus will be on how to represent these parallel aspects of noun phrases and sentences. As we have seen, however, the two categories also differ fundamentally with respect to the subject requirement.

Noun phrases as DPs

A striking fact about nouns is that they cannot in general function as arguments on their own, but must be accompanied by a determiner.

(11) a. * Assignment is not difficult. b. * You should hand in assignment. (12) a. { The, this, that } assignment is not difficult. b. You should hand in { the, this, that } assignment. We conclude from this that noun phrases are the result of composing two projections, one headed by the noun and the other by the determiner, as shown in (13).

(13) a. b. c.

Given the structure in (13c), the traditional term 'noun phrase' is a misnomer since noun phrases are maximal projections of D rather than of N. Because the term 'noun phrase' is firmly established in usage, we continue to use it as an informal synonym for 'DP'. However, in order to avoid confusion, we will use the term 'NP' only to refer to the subconstituent of a noun phrase that is the complement of a determiner. We will never use it to refer to an entire noun phrase (that is, a DP).

In the simplest case, the elementary tree for a noun consists of just a spine, as in (13b). But like verbs, nouns can have both complements and specifiers. For instance, depending on which of the noun phrases in (14) it appears in, criticism is associated with one of the elementary trees in (15).

(14) a. They refuted the criticism. b. They refuted the criticism of the proposal. c. They refuted the committee's criticism. d. They refuted the committee's criticism of the proposal.

(15) a. b. c. d.

In (14a), the phrase the criticism is derived in exactly the same way as the assignment in (13)---by substituting the NP in (15a) as the complement of the determiner. In (15b), the noun phrase containing criticism is derived as in (16). For simplicity, we disregard the internal structure of the PP for the moment.

(16) a. b. c.

Elementary tree for N Substitute theme Substitute (16b) in elementary tree for (15b) argument D

In (14c), an agent argument substitutes into the specifier position of the elementary tree for the noun, the resulting NP then substitutes into the complement position of the possessive head 's, and the argument in Spec(NP) moves to Spec(DP) in a manner analogous to subject movement in sentences.3

(17) a. b. c.

Elementary tree for N Elementary tree for Substitute agent argument (15c) possessive 's d. e.

Move specifier from Spec(NP) to Substitute (17b) in (17c) Spec(DP)

Finally, deriving (14d) involves substituting both the agent and theme arguments in the elementary tree in (15d). The remainder of the derivation is identical to that of (14c), as shown in (18).

(18) a. b. c.

Elementary tree for Elementary tree for N (15d) Substitute arguments possessive 's (17c)

d. e.

Substitute (18b) in elementary Move specifier from Spec(NP) tree for D to Spec(DP)

In (19), we repeat the tree for the noun phrase in (18e) side by side with the tree for the corresponding sentence. (In order to underline the topological parallel between the two trees, we have omitted the internal structure of the theme DP in (19b).) As is evident, apart from the labels for the syntactic categories, the two-layered structure for noun phrases (NP, DP) presented here is analogous to the two-layered structure for simple sentences from Chapter 4 (VP, IP).

(19) a. b.

In view of the structural parallel in (19), it is convenient to generalize the notion of subject to include both Spec(IP) and Spec(DP). Accordingly, we will use the term 'subject movement' to subsume both movement from Spec(VP) to Spec(IP) and movement from Spec(NP) to Spec(DP).

The structural parallel between the two trees in (19) is further supported by the following semantic parallel. In a formal semantics that is simple but sufficient for our purposes, an NP constituent denotes a set of individuals. For instance, the NP dominating woman denotes the set of all women, and the NP dominating president of the United States denotes the set of all presidents of the United States---past, present, and future. Combining an NP with a determiner like this or those has the syntactic effect of yielding a DP and the semantic effect of picking out a particular individual (or individuals, in the case of a plural noun) from the set denoted by the NP. Which particular individuals are actually picked out depends not just on the meaning of the NP and the determiner, but also on the particular discourse context in which the DP is used. This is what allows a noun phrase like the cat to refer to different cats in different discourse contexts. In a similar way, we can think of VPs as denoting situations. For instance, a VP like these cats jump onto the dresser denotes the set of all situations in which the individuals denoted by these cats jump onto the piece of furniture denoted by the dresser. Combining a VP with a tense morpheme in I then picks out one of these situations, at least under some theories of tense. For instance, the tensed IP These cats jumped onto the dresser picks out one of the situations that occurred before the time of speaking (how the silent past tense morpheme combines with the verb to yield jumped is discussed in detail in Chapter 6). Once again, the particular situation picked out depends in part on the discourse context, so that the same sentence can be used to refer to more than one situation.

In concluding this section, we draw attention to the fact that in the noun phrases that we have considered so far, any constituents in Spec(DP) have expressed arguments of the noun and have hence undergone subject movement. However, subjects of noun phrases don't necessarily originate in the NP projection. In a noun phrase like the student's program, for instance, it makes sense to treat the student as an argument of the possessive morpheme rather than of the noun. Accordingly, we give the noun phrase the structure in (20), where N doesn't project a specifier and the subject of the noun phrase is substituted directly into Spec(DP). (For simplicity, we omit the internal structure of the specifier.)

(20)

More on determiners

Subcategories of determiners. Like verbs and nouns, determiners have different degrees of transitivity. For instance, the definite article the and the indefinite article a(n) are obligatorily transitive, whereas the demonstratives this and that are optionally so.

(21) a. I'll buy { the, a } book. b. * I'll buy { the, a. } (22) a. I'll buy { this, that } book. b. I'll buy { this, that. }

Certain ordinary pronouns pattern just like demonstratives, as shown in (23), and so we will treat them, too, as optionally transitive determiners.

(23) a. we Americans, you fool(s) b. we, you

Finally, ordinary pronouns can also behave like obligatorily intransitive determiners, as shown in (24).

(24) a. I, he, she, it, they b. * I idiot, he fool, she linguist, it piece of junk, they traitors

In this connection, recall the warning in Chapter 1 that the term 'pronoun' is potentially misleading. It suggests that pronouns are a subclass of nouns. If that were so, then pronouns should combine with articles and demonstratives in the same way that other nouns do. In fact, however, pronouns behave exactly like complete noun phrases in this regard, as shown in (25). The facts in (25) thus provide strong evidence for the analysis of pronouns as determiners just presented.

(25) a. Noun the people, this woman, that addressee b. Noun phrase (= DP) * the these people, this the woman, that the addressee c. Pronoun (= pro-DP) * the they, this she, that you

Elementary trees for the various types of determiners that we have just discussed are given in (26).

(26) a. b. c. d. e. f.

Silent determiners. As shown in (27), plural indefinite count nouns and indefinite mass nouns are apparently not accompanied by an article, in contrast to their singular and definite counterparts.

(27) a. ___ cars, ___ apples; ___ rice b. a car, an apple; the rice

However, we assume for conceptual reasons that the examples in (27a) contain a silent article that is semantically roughly comparable to the unstressed some in I would like some apples and some rice. We assume that the silent article has a singular and a plural form, as shown in (28). The singular form combines with mass nouns, and the plural form with plural count nouns.

(28) a. b.

Our reasons for assuming the existence of silent determiners are as follows. First, this assumption allows us to minimize the difference between English and a language like Spanish, where the indefinite article has singular and plural forms that are both overt. The resulting correspondence between English and Spanish determiners is shown in (29); the plural indefinite articles are in boldface. For simplicity, we give only the masculine forms of the Spanish determiners.

(29) English Spanish Sg Pl Sg Pl

Demonstrative this these este estos that those ese esos Definite article the the el los Indefinite article a(n) [indef pl] un unos

Second, assuming the silent determiner allows us to maintain that all noun phrases are DPs. Sentences like (30) can then all be derived using the single elementary tree for brought in (31).

(30) a. Some butlers brought some tea. b. Some butlers brought tea. c. Butlers brought some tea. d. Butlers brought tea. (31)

We show the complete structure for the apparently articleless butlers and tea in (32), but in (33) we simplify the structure for the noun phrases in order to make it easier to focus on the structural similarity across all four sentences.

(32) a. b.

(33) a. b.

c. d.

In principle, we could take an alternative tack. If it were our goal to assign the least possible amount of structure (that is, the structures with the fewest nodes) to each sentence in (30), we would reject the silent determiner in (28) and we would represent butlers and tea using the trees in (34) rather than those in (32).

(34) a. b.

The alternative structures for (30d) are given in (35). (35a) is simply (33d), but with the internal structure of both DPs fully shown.

(35) a. b.

Clearly, the tree in (35b) is simpler than its counterpart in (35a) in the sense of containing fewer nodes. However, this simplicity comes at the price of a veritable explosion in the number of elementary trees in the grammar, since every argument position that can be filled by a noun phrase would need to be associated with two elementary trees (one with a DP substitution node, and one with an NP substitution node). For instance, instead of the single elementary tree for brought in (36a), we would need the three additional trees in (36b-d). (36) a. b. c. d.

More generally, obligatorily intransitive verbs would require two elementary trees rather than one, obligatorily transitive verbs--the case just illustrated---would require four (2 x 2) rather than one, and optionally transitive verbs would require six (4 + 2) rather than two (1 + 1). This result seems unappealing on computational grounds. Moreover, the whole idea of simplifying the representations of individual sentences is inconsistent with the Chomskyan paradigm of language. Why? From a Chomskyan perspective, what syntactic theory attempts to model and understand is grammar in the sense of the mental capacity to generate sentences, not the set of phrases and sentences that is the output of the grammar. A reasonable working hypothesis is that the best model for this capacity is the simplest possible grammar. From a Chomskyan perspective, striving to simplify the representations of sentences at the expense of complicating the grammar itself is missing the whole point of constructing grammars in the first place!

Modification and related issues

N' as target of adjunction. As we noted in our introductory review of the parallels between noun phrases and sentences, nouns and verbs can be modified in similar ways. In (37), for instance, the same prepositional phrase in the hospital modifies the noun stay and the morphologically related verb stayed.

(37) a. Mike's stay in the hospital b. Mike stayed in the hospital.

Extending the approach to representing modification introduced in Chapter 4, we can derive the structure for the noun phrase in (37a) as in (38). (For simplicity, we omit the internal structure of the proper noun in the specifier.)

(38) a. b. c.

Elementary tree for Substitute (38b) in elementary tree for Substitute argument N possessive 's

d. e. f.

Select N' as target of Move subject Adjoin PP at target of adjunction in (38e) adjunction

Apart from the category labels, the resulting structure in (38f), repeated for convenience as (39a), is analogous to the structure for the corresponding sentence in (39b). (39) a. b.

Leftward adjunction. So far, we have discussed modifiers that follow the head, whose representation involves rightward adjunction. Structures for examples like (40), where the modifier precedes the head it modifies, can be derived by leftward adjunction, with the results in (41).

(40) a. Kelly's nervous grimace b. Kelly nervously grimaced.

(41) a. b.

One substitution. As discussed in Chapter 4, do so substitution allows us to distinguish between complements and adjuncts in the verbal system. A similar diagnostic is available in the nominal system---one substitution, which is illustrated in (42).

(42) a. this book on the floor and that one b. this book on the floor and that one on the table

In the most natural interpretation of (42a), one is interpreted as book on the floor. In (42b), on the other hand, one is interpreted as simply book. We can represent these facts by assuming that the first conjunct in both cases has the structure in (43).

(43)

According to (43), the noun book has no complement, and the PP on the floor is an adjunct. The pro-form one substitutes for instances of N', just as do so substitutes for instances of V'. One substitutes for the higher N' in (42a), and for the lower N' in (42b).

As in the case of V', adjunction to N' can apply more than once, yielding multiply recursive structures like (44).

(44) The complement-adjunct distinction in the nominal system. Given the semantic parallel between the sentence in (45a) and the noun phrase in (45b), it is reasonable to treat the of phrase in (45b) as a complement of the noun author.

(45) a. This man authors murder mysteries. b. this author of murder mysteries

That is, the elementary tree for author needed to derive (45b) is as in (46a), and the structure for the entire noun phrase is (46b).

(46) a. b.

Since one is analogous to do so in substituting for intermediate rather than for lexical projections, we expect the contrast between (47) and (48), and this accurately reflects the judgment of many speakers.

(47) a. This man authors murder mysteries, and that woman does so, too. b. this author of murder mysteries and that one (48) a. * This man authors murder mysteries, and that woman does so nature guides. b. * this author of murder mysteries and that one of nature guides

Some speakers, however, accept (48b), or at least do not completely reject it. How can we make sense of this variation among speakers' judgments? Recall that complements of nouns, unlike those of verbs, are always expressed as prepositional phrases. This means that the evidence whether a particular phrase is a complement or an adjunct is murkier in the case of nouns than in the case of verbs, both for children acquiring the language and for adult speakers. A further, probably related, complication is that even nouns that are morphologically derived from obligatorily transitive verbs are themselves optionally intransitive (for instance, compare consume, destroyer, employ with consumer, destroyer, employer). Moreover, the intransitive use of these nouns might be more frequent than their transitive use. As a result, the mental grammar of some speakers might include only the intransitive elementary tree in (49a), and not the transitive elementary tree in (46a). Such speakers would have no way of deriving the structure in (46b), but they would be able to derive the alternative structure in (49b) by adjoining the of phrase, rather than by substituting it.

(49) a. b.

For such speakers, author in (48b) would be an N', rather than an N, and so they would accept (48b) rather than rejecting it as ungrammatical.

Notice furthermore that the intransitive elementary tree in (49a) is available even for speakers whose mental grammar includes the transitive elementary tree in (46a), since all speakers of English accept (50).

(50) this author and that one If some of these speakers allow the of phrase to adjoin into the intransitive elementary tree in addition to substituting into the transitive one, then they, too, would judge (48b) to be acceptable (at least marginally so).

Restrictions on one substitution. A cautionary note is in order about one substitution. Although one can substitute in principle for all instances of N', it is subject to several restrictions, which are important to keep in mind when using one substitution as a diagnostic for syntactic structure. The first, which makes some sense given its meaning, is that one can substitute only for count nouns, as illustrated in (51).

(51) a. I have swum in this { ocean, pool, river, } and you have swum in that one. b. * I have swum in this water, and you have swum in that one.

A second and more mysterious restriction is that one cannot immediately follow the indefinite article, a cardinal number, a possessive noun phrase, or, for many speakers, the plural demonstratives these and those. This restriction is very superficial, since an intervening word renders the ungrammatical (a) examples in (52)-(55) grammatical.4

(52) a. Indefinite article * I bought a book, and you bought a one, too. b. I bought a blue book, and you bought a red one. (53) a. Cardinal number * I bought { two , ten } books, and you bought { two, ten } ones, too. b. I bought { two, ten } blue books, and you bought { two, ten } red ones. (54) a. Possessive * I like { Mary's, her } book, and you like { John's, his } one. b. I like { Mary's, her } blue shirt, and you like { Mary's, her } red one. (55) a. Plural demonstrative * I like these books, and you like those ones. b. I like these blue books, and you like those red ones.

Structural ambiguity. Having introduced N' as a possible target of modification, we are now in a position to associate structurally ambiguous sentences like (56) with two distinct syntactic representations.

(56) They ate the pizza in the living room.

(56) has two interpretations, which can be paraphrased as in (57).

(57) a. Verbal modifier It was in the living room that they ate the pizza (though the pizza may have interpretation started out elsewhere). b. Nominal modifier It was the pizza in the living room that they ate (though perhaps they took it and interpretation ate it elsewhere).

On the verbal modifier interpretation in (57a), the prepositional phrase in the living room modifies the verb ate, and (56) has the structure in (58a). On the nominal modifier interpretation in (57b), the prepositional phrase modifies the noun pizza, and the sentence has the structure in (58b).

(58) a. b.

Verbal modifier Nominal modifier High attachment Low attachment

The structures in (58) are consistent with the results of relevant constituenthood tests. For instance, substituting the ordinary pronoun it for the pizza and substituting did so for ate the pizza yields (59a) and (59b), respectively.

(59) a. They ate it in the living room. b. They did so in the living room.

In both sentences, the prepositional phrase is unambiguously interpreted as a verbal modifier, as expected given that the pizza and ate the pizza are represented as constituents in (58a), but not in (58b).

Conversely, in the question-answer pair in (61), the prepositional phrase is unambiguously associated with a nominal modifier interpretation. Again, this is expected, since the pizza in the living room is represented as a constituent in (58b), but not in (58a).

(61) a. What did they eat? The pizza in the living room.

Adjective phrases

In this section, we discuss the structure of adjective phrases, beginning with examples like those in (62) and (63), where the prepositional phrase following the adjective is optional.

(62) a. They are proud. b. They are proud of their grandson. (63) a. They are happy. b. They are happy with their car.

Recall from Chapter 2 that the pro-form so substitutes for adjective phrases. More specifically, examples like those in (64) and (65) allow us to conclude that the of phrase is a complement of proud in (64), but that the with phrase is an adjunct of happy in (65).

(64) a. They are proud, and we are so, too. b. They are proud of their grandson, and we are so, too. c. * They are proud of their grandson, and we are so of him, too. (65) a. They are happy, and we are so, too. b. They are happy with their car, and we are so, too. c. They are happy with their car, and we are so with our bikes.

We can represent these facts by associating the two adjectives with the elementary trees in (66) and by stating that so substitutes for instances of A'.

(66) a. b. c.

Most adjectives in English, like the two just discussed, are optionally or obligatorily intransitive, but fond is obligatorily transitive, at least for many speakers.5 The contrast in (67) is evidence for the complement status of the of phrase (recall from Chapter 4 that obligatory syntactic dependents are complements), and that status is confirmed by the results of so substitution.

(67) a. * They are fond. b. They are fond of their grandson. (68) a. They are fond of their grandson, and we are so, too. b. * They are fond of their grandson, and we are so of him, too.

In view of the facts in (67) and (68), fond is associated with the single elementary tree in (69). (69)

Prepositional phrases

The syntactic category P corresponds closely to the traditional part of speech of preposition, but is not identical to it. We address two differences between the syntactic category and the traditional part of speech in the next two subsections.

Following standard usage in the syntax literature, we sometimes use the term 'preposition' to refer to the syntactic category P in contexts where the difference is either clear or immaterial.

Transitivity

The etymology of the term 'preposition' (< Latin prae 'before' and positio 'position') implies that all prepositions should precede a complement, and English does in fact have a number of obligatorily transitive prepositions, some of which are illustrated in (70). The asterisk outside the parenthesized material is a conventional way of indicating that the parenthesized material is obligatory.

(70) a. They drove from *(Boston). b. He's the inventor of *(that gizmo). c. She dove into *(the water). d. They jumped onto *(the bandwagon).

But X' theory leads us to expect that there should also be intransitive Ps, and as the examples in (71) show, this expectation is fulfilled.

(71) a. I've never seen him before (this meeting). b. Are you for (the proposal) or against (it)? c. The bird flew { in, out } (the window). d. It's time to get { off, on } (the train). e. They jumped over (the ditch). f. We've been fast friends ever since (that time). g. She came to (her senses). h. Have you looked underneath (the sombrero)?

In traditional grammar, Ps that are used intransitively are known as adverbs or particles, rather than as prepositions, but this terminology goes against the spirit of X' theory, which seeks to maximize the parallels among categories. From our point of view, there is as little reason for the syntactic category of a lexical item to depend on its transitivity in the case of a P like since as in the case of a V like eat. In both cases, the intransitive variant has a semantic argument that is not expressed in the syntax, but is supplied in the course of interpretation, based on the discourse context.

The elementary trees for of and over are shown in (72), and the full structures for the PPs headed by them in (70) and (71) are shown in (73). Note the identity of (72c) and (73c).

(72) a. b. c. (73) a. b. c.

Clausal complements

As we saw in Chapter 4, verbs can take either noun phrase or clausal complements. (74) gives a further example.

(74) a. He reported the monkey's dislike of camphor. b. He reported that the monkey dislikes camphor.

The examples of transitive prepositions discussed so far have all had noun phrase complements, but given the parallel between verbs and prepositions concerning transitivity, we might expect Ps to allow clausal complements as well. Once again, this expectation is borne out, as shown in (75).

(75) a. Noun phrase complement: { after, before, since } the war b. Clausal complement: { after, before, since } the war ended

In traditional grammar, Ps that take clausal complements are classified as subordinating conjunctions (along with if and that), but as in the case of intransitive Ps, we again reject the traditional approach. First, it is conceptually uneconomical. Specifically, it redundantly expresses the difference between (75a) and (75b) in terms of the syntactic category of the heads (preposition vs. subordinating conjunction) and again in terms of the syntactic category of the complement (noun phrase vs. clause). Second, the items in (75) share roughly the same semantic content, regardless of the categorial status of their complement. In contrast, if and that are relatively contentless and give the impression of functioning purely as 'grammatical glue.' In the approach that we are advocating, the contentful and contentless subordinating conjunctions belong to different syntactic categories (P and C, respectively).

We have not yet said what syntactic category clausal complements of prepositions belong to. At first glance, examples like (75b) suggest that the answer to this question is IP. The elementary tree for after in (75b) would then be as in (76), and the elementary trees for before and since would be analogous.

(76)

There is good reason to believe, however, that clausal complements (specifically, finite clausal complements) of P are CPs rather than IPs. As illustrated in (77a), the clausal complement of after and prepositions like it would be headed by a silent counterpart of the complementizer that, resulting in (77b) as the structure for after the war ended (for simplicity, the internal structure of IP is omitted).

(77) a. b.

There are a number of empirical arguments for preferring the elementary tree in (77a) over the one in (76). First, at least one preposition in English allows---indeed, requires---CP complements headed by an overt complementizer, as shown in (78).

(78) They differ in *(that) they hold sharply opposing views on educational reform. A second reason for preferring (77a) over (76) is that even though sentences like (79), with an overt complementizer, are ungrammatical in modern English, such examples occurred freely in Middle English. Some examples are given in (80). '+g' and '+t' stand for the special Middle English characters yogh (corresponding to g and y) and thorn (corresponding to the two phonetic values of th in thorn and this).

(79) * { after, before, since } that the war ended (80) a. And after +tat +tis bataile was done, +te Britons assemblede ham, and went +tens 'and after this battle was over, the Britons assembled (themselves) and went away' (PPCME2, CMBRUT3,100.3011-3013) b. +Git bifore that Dauith cam to Jerusalem, a new debate roos bitwixe the men of Israel and the men of Juda 'Yet before David came to Jerusalem, a new debate rose between the men of Israel and the men of Juda' (PPCME2, CMPURVEY,I,11.415) c. Now, sith that i have toold yow of which folk ye sholde been conseilled, now wol I teche yow which conseil ye oghte to eschewe. 'Now, since I have told you what kind of people you should be advised by, now I will teach you which advice you ought to eschew' (PPCME2, CMCTMELI,223.C1.247)

Finally, analyzing clausal complements of prepositions as CPs allows us to treat prepositions in English in the same way as prepositions in other languages such as French, where it is clear that the clausal complements are CP complements.6

(81) a. { après, depuis, pendant } la danse after since during the dance '{ after, since, during } the dance' b. { après, depuis } que Jean a dansé; pendant que Jean dansait after since that Jean has danced while that Jean was.dancing '{ after, since } Jean danced; while Jean danced' c. * { après, depuis } Jean a dansé; pendant Jean dansait

In addition to these three empirical arguments, there are also important conceptual reasons to analyze finite clausal complements of prepositions as CPs rather than IPs. An IP analysis would force us to complicate the theory of case checking that we present in Chapter 8 as well as the theory of wh- movement that we present in Chapters 11 and 12.

Crosslinguistic variation in headedness

As illustrated in (82)-(88), heads in English precede their complements, and English is therefore said to be a head- initial language. The headedness of a language (or of a category or lexical item) always refers to the order of heads and complements. In other words, headedness is determined with respect to the intermediate projection of elementary trees, not with respect to the maximal projection. For instance, English determiners can be medial in their maximal projection (the possessive morpheme 's must be preceded by a DP in Spec(DP)), and English verbs and modals must be medial in their maximal projections, but they all count as head-initial because they are the leftmost elements in the intermediate projections of their elementary trees.

(82) a. V They [V' pursued [DP their objective. ] ] b. She [V' submitted [DP her application. ] ] (83) a. I They [I' should [VP pursue their objective. ] ] b. She [I' could [VP submit her application. ] ] (84) a. C They agreed [C' that [IP they should pursue their objective. ] ] b. She wondered [C' if [I' she could submit her application. ] ] (85) a. N the [N' pursuit [PP of their objective ] ] b. the [N' submission [ PP of her application ] ] c. Lisa's [N' pride [PP in her work ] ] D' NP b. [D' the [NP submission of her application ] ] c. Lisa [D' 's [NP pride in her work ] ] (87) a. A She is [A' proud [PP of her work. ] ] b. He is [A' fond [PP of his children. ] ] (88) a. P [P' over [DP the next five years ] ] b. [P' with [DP great fanfare ] ]

But universal grammar by no means prescribes head-initial phrase structure. Rather, many languages exhibit consistently head-final phrase structure; two such languages are Japanese and Korean. The examples in (89)-(93) are from Korean. In order to avoid using 'head-final preposition,' which is an etymological contradiction in terms, linguists have coined the term postposition for vocabulary items like hamkkey 'with' in (93). The term adposition is a cover term for prepositions and postpositions (that is, for Ps regardless of headedness). Examples for I and D are missing because Korean has neither overt modals of the English sort nor overt articles; the abbreviations in the glosses are explained in the notes,7 but are not crucial for present purposes.

(89) a. V kutul-un [V' [DP mokcek-ul ] chukwuha-yess-ta. ] they-Top objective-Acc pursue-Past-Decl 'They pursued their objective.' b. ku-nun [V' [DP ciwonse-lul ] ceychwulha-yess-ta. ] 3.ps.sg-Top application-Acc submit-Past-Decl 'He submitted his application.' (90) a. C [C' [IP kutul-un mokcek-ul chukwuhayya ha-n ] tako ] tonguyha-yess-ta. they-Top objective-Acc pursue must-Pres that agree-Past-Decl 'They agreed that they should pursue their objective.' b. [C' [IP ku-nun ciwonse-lul ceychwulhayto toy ] nunci ] kwungkumha-yess-ta. 3.ps.sg-Top application-Acc submit be-able if wonder-Past-Decl 'He wondered if he could submit his application.' (91) a. N kutul-uy [N' [DP mocek-uy ] chukwu ] they-Gen objective-Gen pursuit 'their pursuit of their objective' b. ku-uy [N' [DP ciwonse-uy ] ceychwul ] 3.ps.sg-Gen application-Gen submission 'his submission of his application' c. Lisa-uy [N' [PP il-ey tayhan ] capwusim ] Lisa-Gen work-in regarding pride 'Lisa's pride in her work' (92) a. A [A' [DP il-i ] calangsule-un ] saram work-Nom proud-Mod man 'a man proud of his work' b. [A [DP aitul-i ] coh-un ] saram children-Nom fond-Mod man 'a man fond of his children' (93) a. P [P' [DP taum o nyen ] tongan ] next five years over 'over the next five years' b. [P' [DP tay phanphalay-wa ] hamkkey ] big fanfare-with with 'with big fanfare'

Languages tend to be harmonic with respect to headedness; that is, they tend to be consistently head-initial or head-final. However, in certain languages, some syntactic categories project head-initial trees and others project head-final ones. Such mixed phrase structure is found, for instance, in Dutch and German. The examples in (94)- (99) are from German; the reason that they are all subordinate clauses is that main clauses in German (and Dutch) involve a complication that obscures the position of finite verbs (see Chapter 13). As the examples show, V and A are head-final in German, whereas C, N, D, and P are head-initial. I is missing from the examples because German lacks modals of the English type, so that there is no conclusive evidence for the position of I. (94) a. V dass sie [V' [DP ihr Ziel ] verfolgten ] that they their objective pursued 'that they pursued their objective' b. ob sie [V' [DP ihre Bewerbung ] einreichte ] if she her application submitted 'if she submitted her application' (95) a. A [A' [DP seinen Prinzipien ] treu ] his principles-Dat loyal 'loyal to this principles' b. [A' [PP auf seine Kinder ] stolz ] on his children proud 'proud of his children' (96) a. C [C' dass [IP sie ihr Ziel verfolgten ] ] that they their objective pursued 'that they pursued their objective' b. [C' ob [IP sie ihre Bewerbung einreichte ] ] if she her application submitted 'if she submitted her application' (97) a. N die [N' Verfolgung [DP ihres Ziels ] ] the pursuit their-Gen objective-Gen 'the pursuit of their objective' b. diese [N' Treue [PP zu seinen Prinzipien ] ] this loyalty to his principles 'this loyalty to his principles' (98) a. D [D' die [NP Verfolgung ihres Ziels ] ] the pursuit their-Gen objective-Gen 'the pursuit of their objective' b. [D' diese [NP Treue zu seinen Prinzipien ] ] this loyalty to his principles 'this loyalty to his principles' (99) a. P [P' über [DP die nächsten fünf Jahre ] ] over the next five years 'over the next five years' b. [P' mit [DP großem Trara ] ] with great fanfare 'with great fanfare'

To complicate matters yet further, German allows postpositions, as in (100).

(100) [P' [DP den Fluss ] entlang ] the river along 'along the river'

And finally, to really liven things up, certain adpositions in Dutch and German can either precede or follow their complements. This is illustrated in (101) and (102), again for German; the (a) and (b) examples share the same meaning.

(101) a. [P' wegen [DP des Wetters ] ] because.of the weather 'because of the weather' b. [P' [DP des Wetters ] wegen ] (102) a. [P' gegenüber [DP der Kirche ] ] across.from the church 'across from the church' b. [P' [DP der Kirche ] gegenüber ] Dutch, too, allows such variation between head-initial and head-final adpositions, and in that language, it is even accompanied by a systematic meaning difference. Specifically, when adpositions with variable headedness are postpositions, their meaning is always directional, but when they are prepositions, their meaning is generally locative. This is illustrated in (103) and (104) (Kroch 1994).

(103) a. Ik fiets in de straat. I bike in the street 'I ride my bike in the street.' (locative) b. Ik fiets de straat in. I bike the street in 'I ride my bike into the street.' (directional) (104) a. Ik klim in de boom. I climb in the tree 'I climb in the tree.' (locative) 'I climb into the tree.' (directional) b. Ik klim de boom in. I climb the tree in 'I climb into the tree.' (only directional)

In case the German and Dutch examples just discussed sound exotic, it is worth noting that English sports two postpositions of its own, as illustrated in (105).8

(105) a. They searched the whole world over. b. They work the whole week through.

In conclusion, we note that it is not uncommon for languages to undergo phrase structure change. For instance, the phrase structure of Old English (ca. 800-ca. 1100 C.E.) is reminiscent of that of modern German and Dutch; in particular, verbs were head-final for most of the Old English period. (The three languages are closely related historically, so the syntactic similarity is not surprising.) The first instances of verb-initial phrase structure appeared in late Old English. Early Middle English was characterized by rampantly variable headedness in the verb phrase (Kroch and Taylor 2001), but by ca. 1350, the change from head-final to head-initial verb phrases was essentially complete in all dialects of Middle English. Since Chaucer lived from 1342 to 1400, his language is already modern in this respect, though his syntax differs quite strikingly from that of the modern language in other ways, as we will discuss in later chapters. In the modern language, only isolated relics of the old verb-final phrase structure survive, like the saying Indictments do not a conviction make.9

Notes

1. It is not just the expression of agent arguments that is freer in noun phrases than in clauses. As the contrast between (i) and (ii) shows, the same is true of theme arguments.

(i) a. The mills employed thousands; their practices damaged the environment. b. * The mills employed; their practices damaged. (ii) a. an employer of thousands; the damage to the environment b. an employer; the damage

2. Notice also the related contrast in (i); the construction in (i.a) is discussed in Chapter 9.

(i) a. The manuscript appears to have been found. b. * the manuscript's appearance to have been found

3. For expository convenience, we show the possessive morpheme 's in D. In possessive pronouns, however, 's is absent, showing that it is necessary to posit an abstract possessive morpheme in English. This abstract morpheme combines with pronouns (or with their grammatical features), and the possessive pronouns themselves represent the spellout of that combination. For instance, the grammatical features 1st person plural (we) combines with the silent possessive morpheme to yield our. The abstract possessive pronoun just introduced makes available an alternative analysis for the possessive form of ordinary noun phrases than the one in (17). Under this alternative analysis of a noun phrase like the committee's criticism, Spec(DP) contains the committee, just as in (17), but D contains a abstract possessive morpheme just like our criticism. The committee's then represent the spellout of the noun phrase in Spec(DP) and the abstract possessive morpheme. An empirical argument in favor of the analysis with the abstract morpheme is that it is consistent with the substitutability of possessive pronouns for possessive ordinary phrases (the committee's criticism, its criticism), which is unexpected given the structure in (17).

4. More evidence for the extremely idiosyncratic constraint against (52a) comes from the acceptability of (i) (at least in formal registers).

(i) not a one, such a one

5. Strictly speaking, this statement is true only of fond in predicative position, not in prenominal position.

(i) a. Predicative: * Their parents are fond. b. Prenominal: ok their fond parents

6. In (81), some French speakers prefer or require the subjunctive form of the auxiliary (ait) rather than the indicative form (a). For present purposes, this variation, which is comparable to that found in English between If I was a rich man and If I were a rich man, is irrelevant.

7. The proper synchronic analysis of ago is not clear; conceivably, the proper analysis is as a postposition. Diachronically, ago is derived from the participle (a)gone, and phrases like three years ago are absolute small clauses (that is, small clauses that aren't complements of some head).

8. Acc = accusative (case of direct object), Gen = genitive (possessive case), Decl = declarative clause, Mod = modifier, Pres = present tense, ps = person, sg = singular, Top = topic of sentence.

9. Cf. the parallel token in (i).

(i) There had appeared to him something rather fine in his policy of refusing to identify himself in any way with Sedleigh, a touch of the stone-walls-do-not-a-prison-make sort of thing. (P.G. Wodehouse. 1974. The world of Psmith. London: Barrie & Jenkins. 114.)

10. Many thanks to Amy Forsyth for example (1) in Exercise 5.8.

Exercises and problems

Be sure to use the grammar tools for this chapter, not the versions of them from the previous chapter.

Exercise 5.1

In terms of the concepts introduced in this and the preceding chapter, what is the difference between standard and nonstandard them?

(1) This is definitely one of them jobs, man, if you're one of them worriers … (Overheard at a lunch truck on the southwest corner of 34th Street and Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, 31 August 1999)

Exercise 5.2

Formally, the structures in (1) are consistent with X' theory. Empirically, however, they are unsatisfactory representations because they are inconsistent with certain linguistic judgments. What are the judgments in question? In your answer, you should feel free to substitute other determiners for the and singular for plural nouns.

(1) a. b.

Exercise 5.3

This exercise assumes that you are familiar with the distinction between noun complement clauses and that relative clauses. If you're not, please refer to the information at the end of the exercise.

A. Subordinate clauses of the type illustrated in (1) are traditionally called noun complement clauses.

(1) a. The idea that Columbus was the first European to discover America is incorrect. b. The fact that they are wrong is lost on them.

Are such clauses syntactic arguments of the noun in boldface, or are they adjuncts? In other words, given the way that the term 'complement' is used in X' theory, is the term 'noun complement clause' for these clauses a misnomer, or not? Explain, giving the linguistic facts that you base your decision on.

B. Are relative clauses, illustrated in (2), arguments or adjuncts of the noun they modify? Explain.

(2) a. The idea that Columbus was working with was incorrect. b. The fact that they have discovered is important.

Here are two diagnostics for distinguishing noun complement clauses and that relative clauses. First, stripping away the complementizer that leaves a complete sentence in the case of a noun complement clause, but something incomplete in the case of a relative clause (it feels like there is a gap, as indicated by the underlining).

(i) a. Columbus was the first European to discover America. b. They are wrong. (ii) a. * Columbus was working with ___. b. * They have discovered ___.

Second, the complementizer that can generally be replaced by a wh- word in a relative clause, but not in a noun complement clause.

(iii) a. * The idea which Columbus was the first European to discover America is incorrect. b. * The fact which they are wrong is lost on them. (iv) a. The idea which Columbus was working with was incorrect. b. The fact which they have discovered is important.

Exercise 5.4 A. Using the grammar tool in x bar 2, build trees for the (a) examples in (1)-(3). You don't have to show structures for the examples after (a); they're there to provide guidance concerning the intended interpretation and structure for the (a) examples.

(1) a. the monster's mother's lair b. the monster c. the monster's mother (2) a. the hero of the poem's name b. the hero c. the hero of the poem (3) a. the mother of the monster's dislike of the poem's hero b. the monster c. the mother of the monster d. the poem e. the poem's hero

B. Using the same grammar tool, build structures for the noun phrases in (4).

(4) a. yesterday's lecture b. this week's unseasonably high temperatures

Exercise 5.5

A. Can you think of obligatorily transitive adjectives other than fond?

B. Can you think of plausible candidates for obligatorily intransitive prepositions?

Exercise 5.6

A. What is the syntactic difference between the prepositions in (1a) and (1b)? You should be able to answer in a sentence or two.

The exercise calls for a syntactic difference, so don't give a semantic difference as your answer.

(1) a. at, despite, during, of b. along, besides, between, by, plus, under

B. Does with belong with the prepositions in (1a) or in (1b)? Explain. (For fun, you might ask a few of your friends whether they agree with you. Make sure to pick native speakers of English.)

Exercise 5.7

As first mentioned in Chapter 1, human language is characterized by structural ambiguity. For instance, the noun phrase in (1) has two distinct interpretations, which can be paraphrased as in (2).

(1) the houses on the corner with a sign (2) a. the houses on the corner that have a sign b. the houses on the corner that has a sign

A. Using the grammar tool in x bar 2, build two distinct structures for the noun phrase in (1), and indicate which structure goes with which interpretation in (2).

B. Give paraphrases for the two interpretations available for (3), and use the grammar tool to build the structures corresponding to them, indicating which structure(s) goes with which interpretation.

One of the interpretations of (3) is associated with a single structure, but it turns out that there are two trees that are equally adequate to represent the other interpretation.

(3) I enthusiastically recommend this candidate with no qualifications.

Exercise 5.8

A. The sentences in (1) and (2) are many-ways ambiguous (don't assume that they have the same number of interpretations).10 Find as many interpretations as you can, clearly describing the relevant situations you have in mind (see (3) and (4) for model descriptions). Using the grammar tool in x bar 2, build trees for each interpretation you find, clearly indicating which tree is associated with which interpretation.

(1) The officer poked the man in the car with the gun. (2) The trainer tapped the seal with the ball on its nose.

B. Many-ways ambiguous though (1) is, it cannot be used to describe the situation in (3). Why not?

(3) There is a car, and outside the car are a man with a gun and an officer. The officer pokes the man (with something or other).

C. Many-ways ambiguous though (2) is, it cannot be used to describe the situation in (4). Why not?

(4) There is a seal balancing on its nose, and the trainer taps the seal with a ball.

Exercise 5.9

As noted at the end of this chapter, English has undergone a phrase structure change in the course of its history. In early Old English, V and I were both consistently head-final. Over the course of Old English, I became head-initial. In other words, in addition to old structures in which I followed VP, new ones became available in which I preceded VP. By the beginning of Middle English (approx. 1100), I had become exclusively head-initial, but V continued to be variably head-final or head-initial. Finally, by late Middle English (approx. 1450), V became consistently head-initial.

Given this historical sketch, use the grammar tool in spines 2 to build trees for all of the phrase structure variants of (1) that were possible during the course of the history of English. (For the non-modern stages, simply use modern vocabulary items, but arranged according to the relevant parameter settings.

(1) a. Beowulf will slay Grendel. b. The hero will slay the monster. c. The hero of the poem will slay the monster's mother.

Exercise 5.10

A. What is the syntactic category of hiring in (1a) and (1b)? Explain.

(1) a. Kim's impulsive hiring of incompetents is damaging the company. b. Kim's impulsively hiring incompetents is damaging the company.

B. Using the grammar tool in x bar 2, build structures for the underlined gerund phrases in (1). (You don't have to build the structure for the entire sentence.)

Problem 5.1 If a given string is structurally ambiguous (that is, it has more than possible structural representation), is it necessarily associated with more than one meaning? Explain, giving examples.

Hint: Think carefully about Exercise 5.7, B.

Problem 5.2

For all speakers of English, the sentence in (1) can have either of the interpretations in (2).

(1) Jane has a big black dog, and Jean has a small one. (2) a. Jane has a big black dog, and Jean has a small dog. b. Jane has a big black dog, and Jean has a small black dog.

On the other hand, (3) means only (4a) for most speakers of English. However, some speakers are able to interpret (3) as (4b) (Radford 1988) (such variable judgments among different speakers are conventionally indicated by a percent sign).

(3) Jane has a big black dog, and Jean has a brown one. (4) a. Jane has a big black dog, and Jean has a brown dog. b. % Jane has a big black dog, and Jean has a big brown dog.

A. Which of the interpretations of (1) and (3) is problematic? Explain.

B. Can you think of a way of resolving the problem you laid out in your answer to (A)?

Problem 5.3

Discuss the relative merits of the structures in (1), which are intended to represent the second conjunct in (2).

(1) a. b. c.

(2) the book on the table, and that on the shelf 6 The verb movement parameter

As we saw in Chapter 4, tense in English can be expressed in one of two ways.1 The future tense is expressed by will, which precedes the verb and is a free morpheme; that is, it can be separated from the verb and stand alone.

(1) a. We will never watch that show. b. (Will you watch that show?) We will. c. * We watch will that show.

The past tense, on the other hand, is expressed by a bound morpheme, ordinarily the suffix -ed, which combines with the verb to form a morphologically complex word.

(2) a. * We -ed never watch that show. b. * (Did you watch that show?) We -ed. c. We watch-ed that show.

This dual expression of tense is typical of the Germanic language family, to which English belongs. In all of these languages, the future is expressed analytically (as two separate words), whereas the past is mostly2 expressed synthetically (as a single morphologically complex word).

The syntactic structure for sentences presented in Chapter 4, according to which they are projections of I, provides a structural locus for the free tense morpheme and is therefore straightforwardly compatible with the analytic expression of tense. On the strength of the analogous semantic contribution of free and bound tense morphemes to the meaning of English sentences, we extended the IP analysis to the synthetic past tense. This extension receives further support from the fact that in languages like French, the future tense is synthetic, yet semantically equivalent to its analytic English counterpart. Representing all sentences uniformly as IPs does, however, raise the question of how tense in I and the verb in V merge to form a complex word when tense is expressed synthetically. In this chapter, we present two ways in which this merger can come about: either V moves to I (verb raising) or I moves to V (tense lowering). Both types of merger are instances of a more general process of head movement, by which one syntactic head adjoins to another, forming a complex head that subsumes both simple ones. Given theoretical assumptions that are beyond the scope of this introductory textbook, it is possible to recast tense lowering in a way that assimilates it to verb raising. The idea is that the verb moves up the tree in both cases, but that this upward movement is visible only in some cases (verb raising) and invisible in others (tense lowering). Anticipating this reformulation, we refer to the choice between verb raising and tense lowering as the verb movement parameter.

In addition to presenting the basic facts of verb raising and tense lowering, we discuss a closely related and important topic in the grammar of English: the do support that is found in sentences negated with not (cf. He doesn't like okra with *He not likes okra). We then review crosslinguistic evidence that verb raising is linked (in ways that are still not fully understood) to the overt expression of subject-verb agreement, and we discuss the process by which the loss of agreement morphology in a language can result over time in the loss of verb raising. The chapter concludes with a case study of the verb movement parameter and related issues in the history of English. As we will see, the diachronic interplay of the principles of Universal Grammar with several contingent language-particular developments has resulted in the intricate web of facts related to the verb movement parameter that characterizes modern standard English.

Verb raising: V movement to I

The French future tense

As we mentioned, the merger of tense and the verb when tense is expressed synthetically can take place in two directions: either the verb moves up to the tense morpheme, or the tense morpheme moves down to the verb. We begin with the verb raising case. In this connection, it is informative to consider the future tense in French, which is formed by attaching suffixes to a verb's infinitive.

(3) Future tense of Present tense of chanter 'to sing' avoir 'to have'

je chanter-ai 'I will sing' j'ai 'I have' tu chanter-as 'you.sg will sing' tu as 'you.sg have' il, elle chanter-a 'he, she will sing' il, elle a 'he, she has' nous chanter-ons 'we will sing' nous avons 'we have' vous chanter-ez 'you.pl will sing' vous avez 'you.pl have' ils, elles chanter-ont 'they will sing' ils, elles ont 'they have'

As is evident from (3), the future tense affixes are nearly identical to the present tense forms of the verb avoir 'to have', the only difference being that the affixes are truncated in the first and second person plural by comparison to the full two-syllable forms of avoir. This correspondence suggests that the future tense in French developed via a semantic shift from 'they have to V' to 'they will V'.3 In addition, and more immediately relevant for the present discussion, the originally free forms of avoir were reanalyzed as bound morphemes.4 The analytic roots of the synthetic French future tense thus indicate that the two ways of expressing tense are not just semantically parallel, but that they are also not as unrelated morphologically as they seem to be at first glance. In particular, what the French case suggests is that bound tense morphemes can project syntactic structure on a par with free tense morphemes. The elementary trees for the future tense suffixes in (3) are then as in (4).

(4) a. b. c. d. e. f.

Given these elementary trees, sentences like (5) can be derived as follows.

(5) Nous chanter-ons une chanson. we sing fut a song 'We will sing a song.'

We begin with the elementary tree for the verb chanter in (6a) and substitute it as the complement of the elementary tree for the future tense marker to yield the structure in (6b). (6) a. b.

Substitute (6a) in elementary tree Elementary tree for chanter of future tense suffix (4d)

The synthetic future tense form can then be created by moving the verb and adjoining it to the left of the tense morpheme. This is shown in the step-by-step derivation in (7).

(7) a. b. c.

Select target of adjunction Clone target of adjunction Attach V as left daughter of higher clone

The remaining steps of the derivation are identical to the ones that would be required to derive the corresponding English sentence We will sing a song. These steps (substitution of the subject and object arguments and subject movement) are shown in (8).

(8) a. b.

Substitute arguments Move subject

Our use of adjunction in building morphologically complex words differs in certain respects from our earlier use of it, as summarized in (9). In particular, our present use of adjunction is combined with movement, a fact that is highlighted by the term 'head movement.' Nevertheless, adjunction consists of the same formal operation in both cases: selecting a target of adjunction, cloning it, and attaching a suitable constituent as a daughter of the higher clone.

(9) Use of adjunction for ... Modification Head movement

Adjunction structure represents Semantic relation Morphological relation (between modifier and modifiee) (between stem and affix) Target of adjunction Intermediate projection Head Adjoined constituent Maximal projection Head Movement involved? No Yes

The order of verbs and adverbs in French

The facts of French presented so far are actually consistent not only with an analysis according to which V raises to I, but also with one in which I lowers to V. However, there is evidence in favor of the verb raising analysis that is based on the order of verbs and adverbs (Emonds 1978). As illustrated in (10)-(12), there are certain adverbs in French (in italics) that must ordinarily precede the main verb of a sentence (in boldface), rather than follow it.

(10) a. Elle va à peine travailler trois heures. she goes hardly work three hours 'She is going to hardly work three hours.' b. Mon ami va complètement perdre la tête. my friend goes completely lose the head 'My friend is going to completely lose his head.' c. Je vais presque oublier mon nom. I go almost forget my name 'I'm going to almost forget my name.' (11) a. * Elle va travailler à peine trois heures. b. * Mon ami va perdre complètement la tête. c. * Je vais oublier presque mon nom. (12) a. * Elle va travailler trois heures à peine. b. * Mon ami va perdre la tête complètement. c. * Je vais oublier mon nom presque.

Be sure to focus on the French grammaticality judgments, especially in (12). Adverbs don't necessarily behave syntactically like their translation equivalents, as highlighted by the grammaticality contrast in (i). (i) a. * perdre la tête complètement b. ok lose one's head completely

These word order facts reflect the fact that the adverbs in question must adjoin to the left of V', as shown schematically in (13), rather than to the right.

(13)

In reading the following discussion, bear in mind that our focus is not on the distribution of adverbs per se. In particular, we are not claiming that all, or even most, adverbs left-adjoin to V' in French; in fact, there are many that right-adjoin. Rather, the idea is that we will use the particular subset of adverbs that left-adjoin to V' as a diagnostic tool to determine the position of finite verbs in French.

Participles behave analogously to infinitives, as shown in (14)-(16).

(14) a. Elle avait à peine travaillé trois heures. she had hardly worked three hours 'She had hardly worked three hours.' b. Mon ami a complètement perdu la tête. my friend has completely lost the head 'My friend completely lost his head.' c. J'avais presque oublié mon nom. I had almost forgotten my name 'I had almost forgotten my name.' (15) a. * Elle avait travaillé à peine trois heures. b. * Mon ami a perdu complètement la tête. c. * J'avais oublié presque mon nom. (16) a. * Elle avait travaillé trois heures à peine. b. * Mon ami a perdu la tête complètement. c. * J'avais oublié mon nom presque.

Moreover, the negative marker pas behaves like an adverb in French.5

(17) a. Nous allons (ne) pas écouter la radio. we go NE not listen the radio 'We are going not to listen to the radio.' b. * Nous allons (ne) écouter pas la radio. c. * Nous allons (ne) écouter la radio pas. (18) a. Nous (n') avons pas écouté la radio. we NE have not listened the radio 'We haven't listened to the radio.' b. * Nous (n') avons écouté pas la radio. c. * Nous (n') avons écouté la radio pas.

However, when the the main verb of the sentence is finite, the adverb-verb order that is obligatory with infinitives and participles is ungrammatical.

(19) a. * Elle à peine travaillera trois heures. she hardly work.fut three hours 'She will hardly work three hours.' b. * Mon ami complètement perdra la tête. my friend completely lose.fut the head 'My friend will completely lose his head.' c. * Je presque oublierai mon nom. I almost forget.fut my name 'I will almost forget my name.' d. * Nous (ne) pas écouterons la radio. we NE not listen.fut the radio 'We won't listen to the radio.'

Instead, the adverb must follow the verb, although it still cannot follow the entire V'.

(20) a. Elle travaillera à peine trois heures. b. Mon ami perdra complètement la tête. c. J'oublierai presque mon nom. d. Nous (n') écouterons pas la radio. (21) a. * Elle travaillera trois heures à peine. b. * Mon ami perdra la tête complètement. c. * J'oublierai mon nom presque. d. * Nous (n') écouterons la radio pas.

We can make sense of these facts if we continue to assume that the adverbs under discussion adjoin to the left of V' regardless of the finiteness of the verb that they modify. This gives the correct adverb-verb order for infinitives and participles, and it also immediately explains the ungrammaticality of (21). The contrast between (19) and (20) follows straightforwardly as well if finite verbs move to I to merge with the tense morpheme, as shown in (22).

(22) a. b. Under an analysis according to which I lowers to V, it is difficult to see how the contrast between (10) and (11) on the one hand and that between (19) and (20) on the other could be handled in a principled way. It is these contrasts that lead us to conclude that V raises to I in French, rather than that I lowers to V.

As (23) and (24) show, the adverb facts for other simple tenses in French are parallel to those for the future tense.

(23) a. Elle travaillait à peine trois heures. she work.imperf hardly three hours 'She used to hardly work three hours.' b. Mon ami perd complètement la tête. my friend lose.pres completely the head 'My friend completely loses his head.' c. J' oublie presque mon nom. I forget.pres almost my name 'I am almost forgetting my name.' d. Nous (n') écoutions pas la radio. we NE listen.imperf not the radio 'We weren't listening to the radio.' (24) a. * Elle à peine travaillait trois heures. b. * Mon ami complètement perd la tête. c. * Je presque oublie mon nom. d. * Nous (ne) pas écoutions la radio.

On the strength of this evidence, we extend the verb raising analysis to these other tenses as well.

Tense lowering: I movement to V

The order of verbs and adverbs in English

Let's now turn to English and investigate simple-tense verbs, using exactly the same diagnostic that we did in French---namely, the position of adverbs. As in French, certain adverbs in English obligatorily precede nonfinite verbs.

(25) a. They will { always, never } apply. b. They have { always, never } applied. c. They are { always, never } applying. (26) a. * They will apply { always, never. } b. * They have applied { always, never. } c. * They are applying { always, never. }

But unlike French, these adverbs precede the main verb of a sentence even when the verb is finite.

(27) a. They { always, never } applied. b. * They applied { always, never. }

The ungrammaticality of (27b) means that the verb raising analysis that is successful for French cannot be extended to English. But recall the second option that we mentioned earlier: that tense and the verb might merge in the other direction, by means of I lowering onto V. The simplest way of implementing this idea would be to have -ed project an elementary tree, as in (28a). The past tense marker would then take a VP complement, as shown in (28b), and rightward adjunction of the tense marker to the verb would result in the structure in (28c). (28) a. b. c.

Elementary tree for bound Substitute VP in Lower tense morpheme from I to morpheme (28a) V Unsatisfactory analysis

But although such an analysis would allow us to derive regular past tense verbs, it doesn't extend to irregular past tense forms like brought, sang, taught, and so on. In order to derive both regular and irregular past tense forms in a uniform way, we will therefore assume a silent past tense morpheme as in Chapter 4. It is this silent morpheme that lowers onto the verb. A question that remains open is the exact form of the verb that merges with tense. On the one hand, V might dominate a form that is already inflected for past tense, as in (29a). On the other hand, V might dominate the bare form of the verb, as in (29b).

(29) a. b.

The idea is that structures like (29b) are passed on to a morphological component of the grammar, which contains rules for how to spell out the terminal nodes of syntactic structures. According to these rules, the past tense morpheme in English is ordinarily spelled out as -ed. With irregular verbs, however, it is the entire combination of verb and tense that is spelled out in more or less idiosyncratic fashion. Thus, the regular watch + [past] is spelled out as watched, whereas the irregular sing + [past] is spelled out as sang. Although the choice between the two approaches in (29) is not completely straightforward, we prefer the second approach for the following reason. According to the first approach, the morphological component of the grammar generates verb forms bearing certain properties, or features, including tense. These verb forms then project elementary trees in the syntax that combine with other elementary trees, possibly yielding ungrammatical structures. For instance, a present tense I might take a VP complement headed by a past tense form. In order to rule out structures with such feature mismatches, it would be necessary to institute a special checking procedure, either as part of tense lowering itself or as a sort of quality control on the structures resulting from it. The second approach avoids the need for such a procedure. The idea is that terminal nodes dominated by V contain no tense features of their own, thus eliminating the possibility of feature mismatches in the syntax. When the syntactic structures are passed on to the morphological component, the tense-verb combinations are simply spelled out appropriately according to the morphological rules of the language.

Note, incidentally, that a morphological component is necessary not just in tense-lowering languages like English, but in verb-raising languages like French as well. As discussed in the previous section, the future tense in French is formed for regular verbs by combining the future tense morpheme with a verb's infinitive. In the case of irregular verbs, however, what combines with the tense morpheme is not the infinitive, but a special stem. For instance, the future tense of être 'to be' is formed with the stem ser-, yielding the future tense forms je ser-ai 'I will be', tu ser-as 'you will be', and so on. The approach in (29b) can be extended to this case straightforwardly. The idea is that in a syntactic structure like (30), the morphological rules of French spell out the terminal nodes être + -ai as serai rather than as *êtrai.

(30) Do support in English

In this section, we turn to an apparently idiosyncratic and quirky consequence of the fact that English has tense lowering---namely, the do support that is necessary in sentences negated with not. In order to clearly show the conditions under which do support takes place, we will contrast sentences containing not with ones containing other negative elements, such as never, which don't require do support.

In vernacular English, never often functions as simple sentence negation, without its literal meaning of not ever.

(31) a. Did you get a chance to talk to Tom at the party? b. i. Nope, I never did. ii. Nope, I didn't.

But despite their functional equivalence in contexts like (31), the negative elements not and never exhibit a striking syntactic difference: not obligatorily triggers do support, whereas never doesn't. (All forms of do in this section are to be read without emphatic stress.)

(32) a. * He not applied. b. He { did not, didn't } apply. (33) a. He never applied. b. * He did never apply.

In order to explain this puzzling fact, we will develop an analysis of do support that relies on two main ideas: first, that never and not are integrated into the structure of English sentences in different ways, and second, that Universal Grammar allows tense lowering (and head movement more generally) only under certain structural conditions.6

A syntactic difference between never and not. As shown in (34), never is intransitive and hence a maximal projection in its own right, whereas not is transitive and hence a head, rather than a complete phrase.

(34) a. b.

There are several pieces of evidence for this distinction. The first comes from negative inversion, a construction reminiscent of the so am I construction discussed in Chapter 2 in connection with the constituenthood of adjective phrases. (35a) shows an ordinary negative sentence, and (35b) shows its negative inversion counterpart, in which the negative constituent (in boldface) has moved to the beginning of the sentence, and the subject (underlined) has inverted with the auxiliary (in italics).

(35) a. They would appreciate no present more than another novel by Wodehouse. b. No present would they appreciate more than another novel by Wodehouse.

We discuss the structure of sentences with inversion in Chapter 13.

An important property of this construction is that the material preceding the auxiliary must be a maximal projection. Thus, in contrast to the DP no present in (35b), the head of the DP, the negative determiner no, cannot undergo negative inversion on its own.

(36) * No would they appreciate present more than another novel by Wodehouse.

Bearing in mind this fact about negative inversion, consider the canonical and negative inversion sentences in (37). (37) a. They will never tolerate this mess. b. Never will they tolerate this mess.

(38) illustrates the beginning of the derivation of (37a). (38a) is the structure for the positive sentence corresponding to (37a) (where irrelevant, we omit the internal structure of maximal projections). Adjoining never as a verbal modifier then yields (38b).

(38) a. b.

As noted earlier, we discuss the structure for sentences with inversion in Chapter 13, but what is important for now is that never in the canonical variant is a maximal projection, and hence a candidate for negative inversion.

Now consider the not variant of (37a) in (39).

(39) They will not tolerate this mess.

Making the reasonable assumption that I can take either NegP or VP complements, we can give (39) the structure in (40).

(40)

Given this structure, not on its own is not a maximal projection, and so not, like no but unlike never, should not be able to undergo negative inversion. As (41) shows, this expectation is confirmed.

(41) * Not will they tolerate this mess.

A second piece of evidence for the status of not (and its variant n't) as a head comes from the fact that it optionally raises and adjoins to I, forming a complex head that can exhibit morphological irregularities. For instance, shall-n't and will-n't are spelled out as shan't and won't, respectively. Such irregularities are typical of what is possible when two heads combine. Although the direction of movement is different, we have seen comparable examples in connection with irregular past tense forms in English, where the combination of two heads like sing and [past] is spelled out as sang. Other well-known examples of the same phenomenon include the idiosyncratic spell-outs for preposition-determiner combinations like those in (42).

(42) a. French de + le > du; de + les > des; à + le > au; à + les > aux of the.m.sg of the.pl to the.m.sg to the.pl b. German an + dem > am; in + dem > im; zu + dem > zum; zu + der > zur to the.m.dat.sg in the.m.dat.sg to the.m.dat.sg to the.f.dat.sg c. Italian con + il > col; in + il > nel; su + il > sul with the.m.sg in the.m.sg on the.m.dat.sg

A constraint on tense lowering. We turn now to the second piece of our solution to the puzzle presented by the contrast between (32) and (33), repeated here as (43) and (44).

(43) a. * He not applied. b. He { did not, didn't } apply. (44) a. He never applied. b. * He did never apply.

The idea is that tense lowering (though not verb raising) is subject to the locality condition in (45).

(45) a. When a head A lowers onto a head B, A and B must be in a local relation in the sense that no projection of a head distinct from A and B intervenes on the path of branches that connects A and B. b. An element C, C distinct from A and B, intervenes between two elements A and B iff A (or some projection of A) dominates C and C (or some projection of C) dominates B.

It is important to understand that intervention is defined not in terms of linear precedence, but in terms of the structural relation 'dominate.' This means that the place to look for whether the locality condition in (45) is satisfied or violated is not the string of terminal nodes beginning with A and ending with B, but the path of branches that connects A with B in the tree.

The structure for (44a) is given in (46). In this structure, tense lowering is consistent with the locality condition in (45), since adjoining never at V' results in the adverb being too low in the tree to intervene between I and V. (In other words, AdvP isn't on the green path from I to V.)

(46)

In the structure in (47a), on the other hand, tense lowering violates the locality condition because the red projections of Neg intervene on the path between I and V, indicated in green. As a result, only the do support variant of (47a) is grammatical, which is shown in (47b). Although the intermediate and the maximal projections of Neg intervene between I and V in (47b) as well, forms of do, being free morphemes, don't need to lower onto the verb. Since the locality constraint is a constraint on tense lowering, not a constraint on syntactic trees in general, (45) is irrelevant and hence not violated in (47b).

(47) a. b.

Cues for the acquisition of verb raising

In this section, +d and +t stand for the Icelandic characters eth and thorn, which represent the voiced and voiceless 'th' sounds in this, eth and thin, thorn, respectively. Our discussion so far has treated movement from V to I and from I to V as two symmetrical parametric options provided by Universal Grammar. However, the languages in which the two options have been studied in greatest detail---the Germanic and Romance languages---suggest that they are ranked and that it is the V-to-I option that is preferred, all other things being equal.7

Of course, we need to take into account that in this case, as in life generally, all other things aren't equal. Among the Germanic and Romance languages, we can distinguish two groups, which have to do with the expression of subject agreement on finite verbs.8 All of these languages resemble English in distinguishing three grammatical persons and two grammatical numbers (singular and plural). In principle, therefore, a language might have six (= 3 x 2) distinct agreement morphemes, one for each person-number combination. In languages like Italian and Spanish, this is exactly what we find, and French makes up to four distinctions. In Germanic, no language makes six distinctions, but Icelandic makes up to five and Yiddish makes four. The agreement paradigms for these rich agreement languages are illustrated in (48). Square brackets enclose material that is silent.

We focus on the number of distinctions that are made in speech, because that is what children hear. They only learn to read and write later on, once language acquisition is virtually complete.

(48) Verb paradigms in rich agreement languages

Italian Spanish French Icelandic Yiddish 'I speak' 'I speak' 'I will speak' 'I say' 'I say'

1 sg parl-o habl-o parler-ai seg-i zog 2 sg parl-i habl-as parler-a[s] seg-ir zog-st 3 sg parl-a habl-a parler-a seg-ir zog-t 1 pl parl-iamo habl-amos parler-on[s] segj-um zog-n 2 pl parl-ate habl-áis parler-e[z] seg-i+d zog-t 3 pl parl-ano habl-an parler-on[t] segj-a zog-n

By contrast, the mainland Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish) exhibit no agreement morphology at all, even with a verb like 'be', which in English preserves agreement distinctions that are not expressed elsewhere in the language. For ordinary verbs, English expresses only one distinction in the present tense and none at all in the past tense. (49) gives some paradigms for these poor agreement languages.

(49) Verb paradigms in poor agreement languages

Danish Swedish English 'I throw' 'I am' 'I throw' 'I am' 'I throw' 'I am'

1 sg kaster er kaster är throw am 2 sg " " " " " are 3 sg " " " " throw-s is 1 pl " " " " throw are 2 pl " " " " " " 3 pl " " " " " "

In rich agreement languages, tense merges with the verb in the same way as we have already seen for French; that is, the verb (in boldface) raises to I and hence precedes adverbs and negation (in italics). This is illustrated for Icelandic and Yiddish in (50) and (51). The examples are in the form of subordinate clauses because main clauses in Germanic introduce a complication---briefly mentioned for Dutch and German in Chapter 5 and discussed in detail in Chapter 13---that eclipses verb movement to I.

(50) a. Icelandic a+d Jón keypti { ekki, aldrei, raunverulega } bókina that Jón bought not never actually book.def 'that Jón { didn't buy, never bought, actually bought } the book' b. Yiddish az zey redn ( nit, avade, mistome } mame-loshn that they speak not certainly probably mother-tongue 'that they { don't, certainly, probably } speak Yiddish' (51) a. * a+d Jón { ekki, aldrei, raunverulega } keypti bókina b. * az zey { nit, avade, mistome } redn mame-loshn

In poor agreement languages, on the other hand, tense merges with the verb by lowering onto it, just as in English (in those contexts that don't require do support); in this case, the finite verb follows adverbs and negation. (52) and (53) illustrate this for Danish and Swedish.

(52) a. Danish at Peter { ikke, ofte } drikker kaffe om morgenen that Peter not often drinks coffee in morning.def 'that Peter { doesn't drink, often drinks } coffee in the morning' b. Swedish att Ulf { inte, faktiskt } köpte boken that Ulf not actually bought book.def 'that Ulf { didn't buy, actually bought } the book' (53) a. * at Peter drikker { ikke, ofte } kaffe om morgenen b. * att Ulf köpte { inte, faktiskt } boken

We note in passing that the syntax of sentences containing negation is simpler in mainland Scandinavian than it is in English. Negation patterns like other adverbs, and mainland Scandinavian has no do support. This is consistent with the status of sentence negation in Scandinavian as a maximal projection, as evidenced by its ability to participate in negative inversion.9

(54) a. Swedish Inte vet jag var hon bor. not know I where she lives 'I don't know where she lives.' b. Icelandic Ekki veit ég hver hun byr. not know I where she lives

We know of no rich agreement languages in which I lowers to V. Related to this is the fact that languages that lose rich agreement also tend to lose verb movement to I over time. Although we do not know why this correlation between richness of agreement and verb raising should hold, it suggests that children acquiring a language prefer the parametric option of verb raising over the tense lowering alternative, but only if they are able to detect sufficient cues for it in the sentences that they hear. In Germanic and Romance, the cues for the verb raising option are twofold: on the one hand, richness of agreement, and on the other, the word order that results from verb raising (finite verb > adverb). If the language being acquired has rich agreement, then the cues for the verb raising option are extremely robust. This is because virtually every sentence that the child hears contains the agreement cue, which is further reinforced by the word order cue in those sentences that contain adverbs. Under these conditions, children acquire the verb raising option without difficulty. On the other hand, given a language with poor agreement and without cues from word order, the idea is that children are simply unable to acquire the verb raising option.

What happens in a language in which agreement is being lost? In such a language, agreement first becomes variable (that is, some sentences contain agreement, whereas other do not) and then is lost entirely. Thus, the cues from rich agreement become less frequent over time, and children acquiring the language become increasingly dependent on the word order cue. But since not every sentence contains adverbs of the relevant sort, the cues for the verb raising option in a language that is losing rich agreement are nowhere near as robust as in a language with stable rich agreement. This means that although it is possible in principle for children to acquire the verb raising option, at least some children might acquire the tense lowering option instead (all other things being equal). Such children would no longer produce sentences in which the finite verb precedes the adverb. Instead, they would produce adverb-verb orders, which are errors from the point of view of the verb raising grammar, but the only option that the tense lowering grammar generates. Thus, the relative frequency of the word order cue would decrease yet further, in turn decreasing the chance of other children acquiring the verb raising option. Such a feedback mechanism would predict an overall tendency over time for the verb raising option to disappear from the language. During a period of transition, the old parametric option might continue to be used alongside the new one---for instance, in formal usage. But for speakers who have acquired the tense lowering option in early childhood, the verb raising option would never be as natural as tense lowering, and so the new parametric option would tend to supplant the old one even in formal usage.

It is possible to track these developments in some detail in the history of the Scandinavian languages. In Swedish, agreement begins to be lost in the 1400s, and the earliest examples of tense lowering are from the late part of that century. During a transition period from 1500 to 1700, both verb raising and tense lowering are attested, sometimes even in the same text (as in the (b) examples in (55) and (56)).

(55) a. Verb raising at Gudz ord kan ey vara j honom that God's word can not be in him 'that God's word cannot be in him' b. när thet är ey stenoghth when it is not stony 'when it is not stony' (56) a. Tense lowering om den dristigheten än skulle wara onågigtt uptagen if that boldness yet would be amiss taken 'if that boldness would yet be taken amiss' b. wm annar sywkdom ey krenker nokon if another illness not afflict someone 'if someone isn't afflicted with another illness'

Finally, after 1700, the verb raising option in Swedish dies out completely.

The geographically more isolated Faroese seems to be at the very tail end of the same change. Agreement has weakened in Faroese, and speakers do not ordinarily produce verb raising sentences. However, when asked to give grammaticality judgments, many speakers accept both word orders in (57), characterizing the verb raising variant in (57b) as archaic.

(57) a. Tense lowering (vernacular) Hann spur, hvi tad ikki eru fleiri tilikar samkomur. he asks why there not are more such gatherings 'He asks why there aren't more such gatherings.' b. Verb raising (archaic) Hann spur, hvi tad eru ikki fleiri tilikar samkomur.

Interestingly, there is at least one dialect of Swedish, the dialect of Älvdalen, that has retained agreement (the paradigm for kasta 'throw' is: 1, 2, 3 sg kast-ar, 1 pl kast-um, 2 pl kast-er, 3 pl kast-a). In this dialect, as we might expect, verb raising is the only option, and tense lowering, unlike in standard Swedish, is ungrammatical.

(58) a. um du for int gar ita ia firi brado if you get not done this before breakfast 'if you don't get this done before breakfast' b. fast die uar int ieme if they were not home 'if they weren't home' c. ba fo dye at uir uildum int fy om just because that we would not follow him 'just because we wouldn't follow him'

Verb raising and related issues in the history of English

In this section, as in the previous one, +d and +t stand for the characters eth and thorn, which were borrowed from Scandinavian and used in Old and Middle English to represent the voiced and voiceless 'th' sounds in this, eth and thin, thorn, respectively. +g stands for the Middle English character yogh, which represents 'g' or 'y'.

This section gives a brief review of the history of the verb movement parameter in English.10 As we will see, this part of the grammar of modern English is the culmination of one of the most complicated chapters in the entire history of the language, and it reflects several distinct but interlocking developments, which include:

the loss of agreement and verb raising, a change in the status of not from a phrase like never to a head, the emergence of do support, the emergence of a distinct class of modals, and the retention of verb raising in the case of two lexical items (have and be).

The loss of verb raising

In Middle English, the period of the language that lasted from about 1150 to 1500, verbs exhibited roughly as much person-number agreement as in modern French, as illustrated in (59). Silent letters are enclosed in square brackets.

(59) Verb tense paradigms in two dialects of Middle English and two tenses of French

Southern Midlands French 'I sing' French 'I will sing' 1 sg sing-e sing-e chant-[e] chanter-ai 2 sg sing-est sing-est chant-[es] chanter-a[s] 3 sg sing-e+t sing-e+t chant-[e] chanter-a 1 pl " sing-en chant-on[s] chanter-on[s] 2 pl " " chant-e[z] chanter-e[z] 3 pl " " chant-[ent] chanter-on[t]

Given its richness of agreement, we would expect Middle English to exhibit verb raising, and so it did. As the examples in (60)-(62) show, the finite verb moved to I across both adverbs and negation, just as it does in French, Icelandic, and Yiddish.

(60) a. always he weneth alwey that he may do thyng that he may nat do. (CMCTMELI,222.C1.193) 'he always thinks that he can do things that he can't do' b. for +te Britons destroiede alwai +te cristen peple +tat seynt Austyne hade baptisede (CMBRUT3,98.2954) 'for the Britons always killed the Christians that St. Austin had baptized' c. +te +gong man resortyd alwey to +te preste (CMKEMPE,57.1270) 'the young man always resorted to the priest' (61) a. never for God ... +geue+t neuer two tymes to-geder (CMCLOUD,20.115) 'for God ... never gives two times together' b. and y ne11 sei+g neuer +te ry+gtful for-saken (CMEARLPS,44.1879) 'and I have never seen (lit. saw never) the righteous forsaken' c. and Engist ... ne knew neuer bifore +tat Lande. (CMBRUT3,55.1621-1622) 'and Engist ... never knew that land before.' d. he thought he sawe never so grete a knyght (CMMALORY,180.2433) 'he thought he had never seen so great a knight' e. for +tey synneden neuere. (CMWYCSER,234.204) 'for they never sinned.' (62) a. not This emperour Claudius was so obliuiows +tat, sone aftir he had killid his wyf, he asked why sche cam not to soper. (CMCAPCHR,49.535) 'This emperor Claudius was so oblivious that, soon after he had killed his wife, he asked why she didn't come to supper.' b. He mad eke a precept +tat no Jew into Jerusalem schuld entre, but Cristen men he forbade not +te entre. (CMCAPCHR,52.605-606) 'He also made a law that no Jew should enter into Jerusalem, but he did not forbid Christians from entering (lit. the entry).' c. Ich ne hidde nou+gt +ty mercy (CMEARLPS,49.2106) 'I did not hide thy mercy' d. Bott I sawe noght synne. (CMJULNOR,60.289) 'But I did not see sin.' e. but he wythdrowe not hir temptacyon (CMKEMPE,16.321) 'but he did not withdraw her temptation' f. but Balyn dyed not tyl the mydnyghte after. (CMMALORY,69.2360) 'but Balyn didn't die till the midnight after.'

In the course of Middle English, several syntactic developments took place that culminated in the complex grammar of modern English with respect to the verb movement parameter. First, by 1500, the beginning of Early Modern English, the agreement system of Middle English was simplified, and as we would expect given what we know of the history of Scandinavian, verb raising was lost as well. For instance, between 1475 and 1525, the frequency of verb raising dropped from roughly 65% to 10%. In the case of adverbs, the loss of verb raising simply led to the modern word order adverb > finite verb, as is evident from the translations for ((60) and (61). But the effects of the loss of verb raising in the case of negation were quite a bit more complicated and involved two further changes: a change in the status of not and the emergence of do support. We discuss these changes in turn.

A change in the status of not

Negative inversion. There is good evidence that in early Middle English not was an ordinary adverb on a par with never and French pas. Like never and negative phrases throughout the history of English, it could undergo negative inversion.

(63) a. & nohht ne stannt itt stille (CMORM,I,125.1080) and not NE stood it still 'and it didn't stand still' b. Acc nohht ne mihht itt oppnenn hemm +Te +gate off heoffness blisse (CMORM,I,142.1172) and not NE might it open them the gate of heaven's bliss 'and it could not open the gate of heaven's bliss for them'

In the absence of further developments, we would therefore expect the loss of verb raising in ordinary sentences to result in a word order change from verb > not to not > verb, as happened in mainland Scandinavian. However, in contrast to negation in Scandinavian, not in the course of Middle English went from being an ordinary adverb to being a head (recall the discussion of its status as a head in connection with our discussion of do support). As a result, the modern English counterparts of (63) are ungrammatical (cf. (41)).

(64) a. * Not did it stand still. b. * Not could it open the gates of heaven's bliss for them.

Adjunction to I'. There is a further piece of evidence that not changed from a phrase to a head in the course of Middle English. In early Middle English, not could adjoin not just to V', but also to I'.

(65) a. +da +tinges +de hie naht ne scolden +giuen. (CMVICES1,139.1728) the things that they not NE should give 'the things that they shouldn't give' b. +Tatt Jesuss nohht ne wollde Ben borenn nowwhar i +te land (CMORM,I,122.1053) that Jesus not NE wanted be born nowhere in the land 'that Jesus did not want to be born anywhere in the land'

In this respect, not resembled never and other adverbs, which have preserved this ability to this day, as shown in (66).12 (66) a. Middle English he swore +tat Saxones neuer shulde haue pees ne reste (CMBRUT3,69.2090) 'he swore that the Saxons never should have peace or rest' b. Modern English He { always, never } will admit his shortcomings.

However, in contrast to the other adverbs, not lost the ability to adjoin to I' in the course of Middle English, with the result that the counterparts of (65) are ungrammatical in Modern English.

(67) a. * the things that he not should give b. * that Jesus not would be born anywhere in the land

The emergence of do support

The reanalysis of not from an ordinary adverb to a head was essentially complete by 1400,13 and shortly thereafter, the first examples of the contracted form n't are attested, as we might expect. Agreement began to weaken around this time. What consequences did this have for children acquiring sentences containing not in early Middle English? On the one hand, the rich agreement cues for verb raising were weakening, but on the other hand, tense lowering was impossible in sentences containing not given that not was a head. In other words, in the absence of any other developments, the loss of verb raising in sentences containing not would have resulted in a situation in which children were acquiring a grammar that did not generate ordinary negative sentences!

One can imagine a number of different resolutions to such an impasse, each of them representing a particular possible accident of history. For instance, the negative head not might have been dropped from the language, and the adverb never might have taken over its function. What actually happened in the history of English, however, was something that depended on an unrelated development in the language that had taken place in the 1200s: the development of the verb do into an auxiliary element.

Like many languages, Middle English had a construction involving a causative verb and a lower verb, in which the lower verb's agent could be left unexpressed.14 We first illustrate this construction, which has since been lost from English, for French and German in (68). The causative verb is in boldface, and the lower verb is in italics.

(68) a. French Edouard a fait assembler une grande armée. Edward has made assemble a great army 'Edward had a great army assembled.' (lit. 'Edward had (someone) assemble a great army.') b. German Eduard ließ ein großes Heer versammeln. Edward let a great army assemble 'Edward had a great army assembled.'

In Middle English, two different causative verbs were used in this construction depending on the dialect. The East Midlands dialect use do, as illustrated in (69), whereas the West Midlands dialect used make. In other words, the West Midlands equivalent of (69a) would have been (using modern spelling) Edward made assemble a great host.

(69) a. Middle English (East Edwarde dede assemble a grete hoste (CMBRUT3,112.3380_ID) Midlands) 'Edward had a great army assembled' b. This Constantin ded clepe a gret councel at Constantinople (CMCAPCHR,81.1484) 'This Constantine had a great council called at Constantinople' (lit. 'This Constantine had (someone) call a great council at Constantinople') c. He ded make fer+tingis and halfpenies, whech were not used before (CMCAPCHR,128.2962) 'He had farthings and halfpennies made, which weren't used before' (lit. 'He had (someone) make farthings and halfpennies')

Now in many discourse contexts, causative sentences like He had a great army assembled are used more or less interchangeably with simple sentences like He assembled a great army. As a result, in situations of dialect contact, it was possible for West Midlands speakers (those with causative make) to misinterpret sentences with causative do from the East Midlands dialect as just another way of saying a simple sentence. Based on this misinterpretation, they might then themselves have begun to use do, but as an auxiliary verb bleached of its causative content rather than as a causative verb (for which they would have continued to use their own make). Since the border between the East and West Midlands dialects runs diagonally through England, the chances of dialect contact and of the reinterpretation and adoption of do as an auxiliary verb were good. In any event, it is West Midlands speakers who first used do as an auxiliary verb. Once the auxiliary use was established, it could then have spread to other dialects, especially in big cities like London, where people came from many different dialect backgrounds and where dialect distinctions were leveled as a result.

What is important from a syntactic point of view is that auxiliary do occurred rarely before 1400. However, when agreement weakened and verb raising began to be lost, auxiliary do was increasingly pressed into service since it allowed negative sentences to be generated by the verb lowering grammar.

The emergence of modals

Auxiliary do must either have entered the language as a modal (that is, a member of the syntactic category I), or have been reanalyzed as one very early on, since if it had been a V, it would have had to combine with tense and thus would have run afoul of exactly the locality constraint that it actually helped to circumvent. In any event, auxiliary do was one of a growing number of modals in Middle English that developed out of an earlier class of auxiliary verbs. Historically, these so-called premodals belonged to a special class of verbs with morphological peculiarities, and some of them were already syntactically special from the very beginning of Middle English. For instance, the forerunners of must and shall never occur as nonfinite forms in Middle English. Children acquiring these two premodals would therefore have had no evidence that they moved from V to I as opposed to belonging to the category I, and so they might already have been modals in early Middle English.

Consider now the effect of the loss of verb raising on the status of any premodals that were still members of the syntactic category V. In particular, consider a structure like (70) (we assume that the premodals, just like modals, took VP complements).

(70)

In the outgoing verb raising grammar, the finite modal can combine with tense even in the presence of negation because verb raising is not subject to the locality constraint on tense lowering. For examples like (71), this yields a schematic derivation as in (72).

(71) sho wil noht do it (CMBENRUL,31.1035) 'she will not do it'

(72) a. b. c.

The reason that we represent the verb as raising first to Neg and then I, rather than as skipping Neg and raising directly to I, is because Middle English allows questions like (73), where the negated verb inverts as a constituent with the subject.

(73) Wil noht sho do it?

In the incoming tense lowering grammar, structures containing not are ordinarily rescued by do support. But in contrast to sentences containing ordinary verbs, do support in a structure like (72) might plausibly have been ruled out on the grounds that auxiliary do inherited a constraint from causative do that is given in (74).

(74) The complement of a causative construction cannot be headed by an auxiliary element (a premodal, modal, or auxiliary verb like have or be).

Notice that the constraint on causative verbs in (74) is not specific to Middle English; its effects in modern English and German are illustrated in (75) and (76). The causative verb is in italics, and auxiliary elements are in boldface.

(75) a. No auxiliary The coach had the players run. b. Auxiliary * The coach had the players be running. c. * The coach had the players have run. (76) a. No auxiliary Der Trainer lie§ die Spieler laufen. the coach had the players run. 'The coach had the players run.' b. Auxiliary * Der Trainer lie§ die Spieler am Laufen sein. the coach had the players at.the running be 'The coach had the players be running.' c. * Der Trainer lie§ die Spieler gelaufen sein. the coach had the players run.part be 'The coach had the players have (lit. be) run.' d. * Der Trainer lie§ die Spieler laufen { können, wollen. } the coach had the players run be.able want 'The coach had the players { be able, want } to run.'

Again, various ways out of this impasse are conceivable. For instance, the constraint in (74) might have been relaxed for auxiliary do. What actually happened, however, was that any remaining premodals were reanalyzed as modals along the lines of must, shall, and auxiliary do. The schematic structure for (72) after the reanalysis is shown in (77).

(77)

After this reanalysis, sentences like (78), with nonfinite forms of premodals like cunnen and mowen, both meaning 'be able to', ceased to be possible in English (at least in the standard language).

(78) a. he schuld cun best rede +te booke (CMKEMPE,4.52) 'He should be able to read the book best.' b. I shal not conne wel goo thyder (CMREYNAR,14.261) 'I won't be able to go there easily.' c. and hij shul nou+gt mow stonde (CMEARLPS,19.764) 'and he shall not be able to stand' d. Noo man shall mow resyst thy power in all thy lyfe. (CMFITZJA,A3R.28) 'No man shall be able to resist your power in all your life.'

Remnants of verb raising in modern English

Despite the overall loss of verb raising in the history of English, verb raising is still possible with two verbs in English, have and be. These two verbs, which did not belong to the premodals, have functioned as both auxiliary verbs and main verbs throughout the history of the language. The two uses are illustrated for modern English in (79) and (80); auxiliaries are in boldface and main verbs are underlined. For more detailed discussion of the morphological and syntactic properties of have and be, see Modals and auxiliary verbs in English.

(79) a. Auxiliary verb Perfect I have read that chapter. b. Progressive I am reading that chapter. c. Passive That material is treated in the next chapter. (80) a. Main verb: I have that book. b. This chapter is difficult.

We begin by considering these verbs as auxiliaries in structures like (81) (we assume for simplicity that the elementary trees for auxiliary verbs don't have specifiers, but the assumption isn't crucial in what follows).

(81)

As just discussed in connection with modals, tense lowering is impossible in a structure like (81) because not intervenes between tense and the verb, nor can the structure be rescued by auxiliary do given the constraint suggested in (74). This is exactly the situation in which the premodals were reanalyzed as instances of I. In the case of the premodals, this reanalysis was possible because hardly any of them ever occurred as nonfinite forms. But an analogous reanalysis in the case of auxiliary verbs was precluded because nonfinite auxiliary have and be occurred very often in Middle English. Some examples are given in (82) and (83); again, the auxiliary verbs are in boldface and the main verbs are underlined. In addition, the element in I (modal or premodal), which guarantees the nonfiniteness of the auxiliary verb, is in italics.

(82) a. y shulde haue axede of here no more (CMBRUT3,19.563) 'I should have asked no more of her' b. and after he wolde haue conquerede al Scotland and Walys (CMBRUT3,23.687) 'and afterwards he would have conquered all Scotland and Wales' c. And Gutlagh wolde haue went into his countree (CMBRUT3,25.729) 'And Gutlagh would have gone into his country' (83) a. Bot euensang sal be saide wid foure salmes (CMBENRUL,18.626) 'But evensong shall be said with four psalms' b. the wordes of the phisiciens sholde been understonden in this wise (CMCTMELI,226.C2.365) 'the words of the physicians should be understood in this way' c. A sone, Josias bi name, schal be born to the hous of Dauith (CMPURVEY,I,13.518) 'A sone, Josias by name, shall be born to the house of David'

Again, of course, various ways of resolving this impasse are conceivable. For instance, the constraint preventing do from occurring with auxiliary elements might have been relaxed. However, what actually happened in the history of English is that children acquired the verb raising option with precisely these two lexical items. As a result, the order of auxiliary have and be with respect to negation in modern English parallels that in French.

English French (84) a. Verb raising We have not read the book. Nous (ne) avons pas lu le livre. we NE have not read the book b. We are not invited. Nous (ne) sommes pas invités. we NE are not invited (85) a. No verb raising * We (do) not have read the book. * Nous (ne) pas avons lu le livre. b. * We (do) not be invited. * Nous (ne) pas sommes invités.

(86) schematically illustrates the derivation of the English examples. (86a) is identical to (81), and as in the analogous structure for modals in (70), the verb raises to I via Neg.

(86) a. b. c.

Let us now turn to the main verb uses of have and be. We begin with have. Because of the homonymy of main verb have and auxiliary have, main verb have for a time behaved syntactically like auxiliary have, raising from V to I and otherwise exhibiting the syntactic behavior of a modal, as illustrated in (87).

(87) a. Negation without do support He hasn't any money; you haven't any wool. b. Question formation without do support Has he any money; have you any wool?

In present-day usage, however, the pattern in (87) has become archaic in American English and is on the wane even in British English. It has been replaced by the pattern in (88), where main verb have exhibits the syntax of an ordinary verb, not that of a modal.15, 16

(88) a. Negation with do support He doesn't have any money; you don't have any wool. b. Question formation with do support Does he have any money; do you have any wool?

Finally, we consider main verb be, which exhibits richer agreement than any other verb in English. Strikingly, it is also the only main verb in English that continues to raise to I.

(89) a. No do support This chapter isn't difficult. b. Is this chapter difficult? (90) a. Do support * This chapter doesn't be difficult. b. * Does this chapter be difficult?

Notes

1. In what follows, we focus on the past tense since the present tense is not overtly marked at all in English. The -s of the third person singular expresses subject agreement rather than present tense (Kayne 1989).

2. Yiddish and the southern German dialects from which it developed are exceptions in this regard. In these languages, the synthetic simple past has been completely replaced by the analytic present perfect (Middle High German ich machte 'I made' > Yiddish ikh hob gemakht, literally 'I have made').

3. A very similar shift occurred in English from 'they have to V' to 'they must V'. Such semantic shifts, with concomitant changes in morphological status (see Note 4), are very common across languages.

4. Such reanalysis might be the source of much, if not all, inflectional morphology. In many cases, especially in languages that are not written, the sources of the inflections would be obscured by further linguistic changes, primarily phonological reduction. Consider, for instance, the development of the future tense in Tok Pisin, an English-based contact language that originated in the 1800s and that has become the national language of Papua New Guinea. In current Tok Pisin, particularly among speakers who learn it as a first language, the future marker is the bound morpheme b-. We are fortunate to have written records of Tok Pisin from the late 1800s, and so we happen to know that this morpheme is the reflex of the adverbial phrase by and by, which the earliest speakers of Tok Pisin frequently used to indicate future tense. Without these records, a derivation of b- from by and by would be speculation at best.

5. Historically, the negative marker in French was ne, and pas, literally 'step', was an intensifier without negative force of its own. Modern English has comparable intensifiers, as in I don't want to do it { one bit, at all. } In the course of the history of French, ne, being phonologically weak, was often elided in speech, and pas was reanalyzed as carrying negative force. In modern French, ne is characteristic of the formal language, and in some spoken varieties, such as Montreal French, ne hardly ever occurs. In the present discussion, we disregard ne, treating it as an optional, semantically meaningless particle.

6. Do support raises some of the thorniest problems in English syntax, and no completely satisfactory analysis of it exists as yet. So although our analysis is adequate to explain the contrast between (32) and (33), it does not address many other puzzling facts that have been discovered in connection with do support.

7. The discussion in this section is based on data and ideas in Barnes 1992, Falk 1993, Holmberg and Platzack 1995, Platzack 1988, Roberts 1993, and Vikner 1995.

8. In what follows, we do not consider verb-final languages like German or Dutch. Evidence for verb movement to I in these languages would have to come from adverbs that right-adjoin to V', with the finite verb then moving rightward across the adverb. However, for reasons that are not yet understood, right-adjunction to V' does not seem to possible in verb-final languages.

9. For some reason, negation cannot participate in negative inversion in Danish, perhaps because it cannot bear prosodic stress.

10. The discussion in this section is based on data and ideas in Frisch 1997, Kroch 1989, Roberts 1993, Rohrbacher 1993, and the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English (Kroch and Taylor 2000).

11. Early Middle English had a negative particle ne, etymologically cognate with French ne and syntactically comparable to it. See Note 5. The Middle English particle was lost between 1200 and 1400.

12. The possibility of adjoining adverbs to I' complicates the assignment of structures to sentences with adverb- verb word order once verb raising begins to be lost. This is because they could be instances of the old verb raising grammar, with the adverb adjoined at I', or instances of the new verb lowering grammar, with the adverb adjoined at either I' or V'. In any particular sentence, it isn't possible to tell which is the right structure. But in a corpus of sentences, it is possible to correct for the complication introduced by the possibility of adjunction to I', because the frequency of adjunction to I' has remained stable from Early Middle English until today (about 15% with never). This means that frequencies of adverb-verb order appreciably over 15% in a corpus can reliably be attributed to the verb lowering grammar.

13. Not continued to be available as an adverb with a low frequency into the 1600s. The evidence for this is the existence, though rare, of negative sentences in Early Modern English of the modern mainland Scandinavian type, with not preceding a finite verb, as in (i).

(i) a. they deafe mens' eares, but not edify. b. he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him. c. Safe on this ground we not fear today to tempt your laughter by our rustic play.

These sentences are linguistic hybrids in the sense that they contain the adverbial not characteristic of early Middle English, but instantiate the tense lowering parameter characteristic of modern English. As the use of adverbial not finally dies out completely in the 1600s, so do sentences of the type in (i).

14. A construction related to the agentless causative construction discussed in the text that was retained a bit longer in the history of English is that in (i).

(i) a. They heard say that the English had won the battle of Agincourt. 'They heard someone say that ..., they heard it said that ...' b. They heard tell of the wages of sin. 'They heard someone tell ...'

The construction in (i.a) survives in the nominalized form hearsay.

15. The syntactic divergence between auxiliary and main verb have is exactly comparable to that between auxiliary and main verb do.

16. The replacement of (87) by (88) is complicated by the existence in both American and British English of the have got pattern illustrated in (i), where have serves as an auxiliary verb rather than as the main verb. Sutherland 2000 studies the competition among all three variants (have with and without do support and have got) in both dialects of English. (i) a. He hasn't got any money; you haven't got any wool. b. Has he got any money; have you got any wool?

Exercises and problems

Exercise 6.1

Using the grammar tool in verb movement, build structures for the sentences in (1).

Hyphens indicate morpheme boundaries.

The material in parentheses in the translations is given for clarity. Don't include it in the trees you build.

Assume that always and never have adjoined in the same direction throughout the history of English.

A note on spelling: u and v were used interchangeably in Middle English.

(1) a. they synn-eden neuer they sinned never 'They never sinned.' b. the Britons destroi-eden alwey the cristen peple the Britons destroyed always the Christian people 'the Britons always killed the Christians (that St. Austin had baptized)' c. the yong man resort-yd alwey to the preste the young man resorted always to the priest 'the young man always resorted to the priest' d. he wen-eth alwey that he may do thyng he thinks always that he can do things 'He always thinks that he can do things (that he can't do). e. God geu-eth neuer two tymes to-geder God gives never two times together 'God (the giver of time) never gives two times together (but each one after the other).'

Exercise 6.2

So-called mandative verbs, such as require and suggest (but not say or think), take subjunctive complement clauses.

(1) a. I will require that he { come, *comes, *came. } b. I required that he { come, *comes, *came. }

The structure for the grammatical alternative in (1a) is given in (2). (2)

Is the subjunctive element that heads these complement clauses a silent tense element or a silent modal (corresponding roughly to should)? Explain. Take into account the facts in (1) and (3), the results of negating the complement clauses in (1) and (3), and any other facts that you find relevant.

(3) a. I will say that he { *drive, drives, drove } a Mazda. b. I said that he { *drive, drives, drove } a Mazda.

Exercise 6.3

A. Using the grammar tool in verb movement, according to which not is a head that takes any syntactic category as its complement, build two structures for (1) that are both consistent with the locality condition on tense lowering discussed in this chapter.

(1) She not only wrote the letter (but she sent it).

B. Now build a structure for (2).

(2) She didn't only write the letter (but she sent it). (no stress on did)

Be sure your structures for (1) and (2) differ topologically (have a different shape apart from the terminal nodes) since otherwise the contrast in (3) is mysterious.

(3) a. * She not wrote the letter. b. She didn't write the letter. (no stress on did)

Exercise 6.4

African American English (AAE) distinguishes two instances of be: so-called habitual be, the focus of this exercise, and ordinary be. Both types of be can be used as main verbs or auxiliaries. We pose the exercise after describing the semantic and morphological differences between the two types of be. The data are based on Green 1998.

Habitual be has no counterpart in standard English. It is used to describe situations that are generally true, as illustrated in (1).

(1) a. Main verb The coffee be nasty at that joint. 'The coffee is always/usually bad at that place.' b. Auxiliary The baby be sleeping when they call. 'The baby is always/usually sleeping/asleep when they call.'

Ordinary be resembles standard English be in its use. Unlike be in standard English, ordinary be can be silent in the present tense in AAE, as indicated by the parentheses in (2). In this respect, AAE resembles languages like Hebrew and Russian. Habitual be cannot be silent. We mention these facts for completeness only. For the purposes of the exercise, disregard the silent option.

(2) a. Main verb This coffee (is) nasty. 'This coffee is bad.' (as a one-time occurrence) b. Auxiliary The baby (is) sleeping. 'The baby is sleeping.' (now)

The two types of be also differ morphologically, as shown in (3).

(3) Ordinary be Habitual be

I am be you is " he/she/it " " we " " y'all " " they " "

Given the facts in (1)-(3) and the further fact in (4), take a stab at what the emphatic, negated, and interrogative versions of (1) are. Assume that the grammars of AAE and standard English are identical unless you are forced to assume the contrary by the facts in (1)-(4).

(4) Assume that AAE, unlike standard English, doesn't have person agreement in the present. In other words, AAE has I, he played; I, he play; I, he did; I, he do.

Exercise 6.5

A. Explain the grammaticality contrast in (2). If necessary, invent a new syntactic category for so to belong to.

For the purposes of this exercise, assume the judgments given, even if they are not your own.

(1) X (challenging Y): You're lying; you didn't go to the movies. (2) a. Y (retorting): I did so go to the movies. b. Y (retorting): * I so went to the movies.

B. Does the so in (2) have the same syntactic properties as the so in (3)? Explain briefly.

(3) So did I.

C. Assume a dialect of English where the judgments in (2) are reversed. Do (A) and (B) for this dialect.

Problem 6.1

In the analysis presented in the text, adverbs like presque 'almost' obligatorily left-adjoin to V', and the order finite verb-adverb is derived by moving the finite verb leftward across the adverb. An alternative analysis is conceivable, which dispenses with verb movement, and according to which adverbs like presque can either left-adjoin or right- adjoin to verbal projections. Can this analysis be worked out so that it handles all the French adverb facts discussed in the text? If so, assess the merits of the alternative analysis relative to those of the analysis presented in the text. Problem 6.2

Certain English dialects, including dialects in the South of the United States, allow the so-called double modal construction illustrated in (1).

(1) a. I might can come to your party b. I might could come to your party

Propose a syntactic analysis of this construction. 7 VP shells

In Chapter 4, we briefly mentioned the binary-branching hypothesis - the idea that syntactic nodes have at most two daughters. At first glance, this hypothesis seems incompatible with the existence of double-object sentences in natural language, illustrated for English in (1).

(1) Travis will give Betsey the receipts.

In such sentences, the verb appears to be associated with three semantic arguments (agent, recipient, theme), and it looks like the recipient (Betsey) and the theme (the receipts) both need to be represented as complements of the verb.1 In this chapter, we present a proposal for how to make double-object sentences consistent with the binary-branching hypothesis. The proposal hinges on the fact that ditransitive verbs like give can be semantically decomposed into a causative part and a remainder whose meaning differs according to the verb in question. Some examples are shown in (2).

(2) feed = cause to eat give " get lend " get (temporarily) show " see teach " learn

The decomposability of the verbs in (2) suggests deriving sentences like (1) from schematic structures like (3), where the uppercase predicates CAUSE and GET indicate abstract verbal heads.

(3) The structure in (3) accommodates the same three arguments as the original sentence in (1), but since there are now two heads, neither of them needs to be associated with more than one complement - exactly as required by the binary-branching hypothesis. Because one VP is embedded directly under another, structures like (3) are known as VP shells.2

In order to motivate the VP shell treatment of double-object sentences, we begin by discussing ordinary causative sentences (ordinary in the sense that the causative verb is overt). After showing that causative verbs take a VP small clause complement, we present some striking parallels between causative sentences and double-object sentences in Japanese.

Strictly speaking, according to the VP shell analysis, there are neither ditransitive verbs nor double-object sentences. However, these terms are so well established that we will continue to use them for expository convenience. We will use the term 'ditransitive verb' to refer to verbs that are associated with three semantic arguments, and the term 'double-object sentence' to refer to sentences containing a ditransitive verb and two DPs bearing the thematic roles of recipient and theme.

We then turn to the details of the structure in (3); in particular, we propose that the lower verbal head adjoins to the higher one, yielding a complex verb that is spelled out depending on the content of the lower head. This extends an idea already introduced in Chapter 6, where we said that the combination of sing and past is spelled out as sang. In a similar way, we are saying here that, for instance, the combination of CAUSE and GET is spelled out as a form of give.

Having presented the core components of the VP shell analysis, we extend it to cover several other important cases in English. We first consider the variant of (1) given in (4), where the order of the recipient and theme arguments is reversed and the recipient argument is expressed by a PP rather than a DP.

(4) Travis will give the receipts to Betsey.

We will refer to DP-PP sentences like (4) as double-complement sentences. Again, we use this term strictly for expository convenience, and not in order to imply a ternary-branching structure.

We then discuss the ditransitive verbs put and persuade as well as verbs that participate in the causative alternation illustrated in (5).

(5) a. The ball dropped. b. The children dropped the ball.

The final section of the chapter addresses two issues related to VP shells. The first issue arises in connection with a proposed constraint on idioms according to which they must be constituents. At first glance, idioms like give someone the creeps and throw someone to the wolves violate this constraint because they appear to be discontinuous. However, just as the VP shell analysis allows us to maintain the binary-branching hypothesis in the face of double-object and double-complement structures like (1) and (4), so, too, does it allow us to maintain the structural constraint on idioms in the face of apparently discontinuous idioms. The second issue concerns small clauses. Having motivated the VP shell analysis with reference to causative small clauses, we conclude the chapter with a discussion of the structure of small clauses more generally.

Double-object sentences The structure of ordinary causative sentences

We begin our exploration of VP shells by considering ordinary causative sentences like the one in (6), where the semantic notion of CAUSE is overtly expressed by the verb let.

(6) God let there be light.

Recall from Chapter 3 that expletive there must be licensed as the subject of a verb of existence (be in (6)). It follows from this that the sequence there be light forms a small clause, a minimal instance of predication (minimal because unlike an ordinary clause, it doesn't contain any overt I element). It is this small clause that serves as the complement of let, as shown in (7).

(7) a. b.

The treatment of there be light as a constituent is motivated not only in syntactic terms (with reference to the licensing requirement on expletive there), but also by the intuition that let takes two semantic arguments, an agent (expressed by the matrix subject) and a situation (expressed by the small clause).

A related piece of evidence that causatives like let takes small clause complements comes from sentences like (8).

(8) John let it slip that the president's schedule had changed.

The it in (8) is the expletive it discussed in Chapter 3, which is associated with that clauses. Like expletive there, expletive it must be a subject, and therefore the sequence it slip that ... must be a small clause.

Parallels between causative sentences and double-object sentences

In certain languages, causative sentences and double-object sentences exhibit unusual parallels. One such language is Japanese, where the case-marking of arguments is strikingly similar in both sentence types. Case is discussed in more detail in the next chapter, but all that is important for present purposes is that different case particles in Japanese preferentially mark certain grammatical relations. Specifically, subjects are generally marked with the case particle -ga, as distinct from direct objects, which are marked with the particle -o.3

(9) a. Taroo-ga hasit-ta koto nom run past that '(the fact) that Taroo ran' b. Taroo-ga ringo-o tabe- ta koto nom apple acc eat past that '(the fact) that Taroo ate an apple'

Embedding a sentence under a causative verb has the following effects on case marking. When the complement sentence is intransitive, the matrix subject is marked with -ga, as usual, but the subject of the complement clause is marked with -o, as shown in (10). (This is analogous to what happens in English in They ran and We made them run.)

As the hyphens indicate, the causative verb -(s)ase is a bound morpheme. We return to this fact shortly.

(10) Hanako-ga Taroo-o hasir-ase- ta koto nom acc run caus past that '(the fact) that Hanako made Taroo run'

Given (10), one might expect embedding a transitive sentence under a causative to lead to the case- marking pattern in (11). The object of the lower clause is expected to be marked with -o because it is an object (as in (9b)), and the subject of the lower clause is expected to be marked with -o, too, by analogy to (10). (Again, this would be analogous to what happens in English in They chased him and We made them chase him.)

(11) * Hanako-ga Taroo-o ringo-o tabe-sase-ta koto nom acc apple acc eat caus past that Intended meaning: '(the fact) that Hanako made Taroo eat an apple'

As it turns out, however, the case-marking pattern in (11) is ungrammatical, violating what is known in the Japanese syntax literature as the double -o constraint, which prohibits the occurrence of more than one -o-marked noun phrase per sentence. Rather, when a transitive sentence is embedded under a causative verb, the subject of the lower clause must be marked with a distinct case marker -ni.

(12) ok Hanako-ga Taroo-ni ringo-o tabe-sase-ta koto nom dat apple acc eat caus past that '(the fact) that Hanako made Taroo eat an apple'

What is of interest to us now is that the -ga -ni -o case-marking pattern in (12) recurs in double-object sentences, as shown in (13a). We underline the parallel by paraphrasing (13a) with the ordinary causative construction in (13b).

(13) a. Hanako-ga Taroo-ni hon- o mise- ta koto nom dat book acc show past that '(the fact) that Hanako showed Taroo a book' b. Hanako-ga Taroo-ni hon- o mi- sase- ta koto nom dat book acc see caus past that '(the fact) that Hanako made Taroo see the book'

The identical case-marking pattern is exactly what the VP shell proposal leads us to expect, since the relevant structures, given in (14), are analogous. (Bear in mind that the combination of the abstract morphemes MIRU 'see' and -(S)ASE in (14a) is spelled out as a form of miseru 'show'.)

For expository clarity, the structures presented in this chapter generally omit the projections of I and C that would be involved in a complete derivation of the sentences under discussion.

(14) a. b. Abstract verb movement

The Japanese causative exhibits a further property that is important for the VP shell analysis. Unlike the English verb let, Japanese -(s)ase is a bound morpheme. As they stand, therefore, the VP shells in (14) are not yet grammatical. The missing step is for the verb of the lower VP to adjoin to the causative morpheme. This V-to-V movement is motivated by the same considerations as the V-to-I movement discussed for French in Chapter 6; in both cases, a verb moves up the tree in order to "support" a bound morpheme. The result for (14b) is shown in (15).

(15)

In view of the semantic and case-marking parallels between causative and double-object sentences, it makes sense to extend the overt verb movement in (15) to the double-object case. In other words, we will assume that verb movement applies to (14a), just as it does to (14b), yielding (16) as the final VP shell for (13a).

(16)

Finally, we assume that the VP shells for English double-object verbs are analogous to the ones that we have just motivated for Japanese. (17) shows the VP shell structures, before and after verb movement, that we are assuming for the English counterpart of (13a). From a structural point of view, the only difference between the Japanese structures and their English counterparts is the direction in which V takes phrasal complements.

(17) a. b.

Why do we continue to left-adjoin SEE to CAUSE in English? The reason is that we are treating CAUSE by analogy to a suffix like -ify (cf. magn-ify, not *ify-magn).

(18) gives the VP shell for our original English double-object sentence in (1), both before and after abstract verb movement, and (19) gives the structure for the entire sentence.

(18) a. b.

(19)

Double-complement sentences

Give and send

Many double-object sentences have a double-complement counterpart in which the order of the recipient (red) and theme (blue) arguments is reversed and the recipient is expressed as a PP rather than a DP.

(20) a. Travis gave Betsey the receipts. b. Travis gave the receipts to Betsey.

At first glance, double-complement sentences seem to be completely synonymous with their double- object counterparts and to stand in a one-to-one correspondence with them. Indeed, early on in generative grammar, it was held that any double-complement sentence could be transformed into a double-object sentence by an operation that was known as Dative Shift (recall that the recipient argument is marked by a dative particle in Japanese). Certain subtle semantic restrictions on the two sentence types have been observed, however, that have led this view to be abandoned (Green 1974, Oehrle 1976, Jackendoff 1990). For instance, recipients in double-object sentences, but not in double-complement sentences, are constrained to be animate.4

Double-object sentence Double-complement sentence (21) a. Travis sent Betsey the receipts. (22) a. Travis sent the receipts to Betsey. b. * Travis sent the post office box the b. Travis sent the receipts to the post office receipts. box.

This effect is so strong that noun phrases that can be interpreted as inanimate in a double-complement sentence are forced in the corresponding double-object sentence into an animate interpretation, if that is possible. For instance, Philadelphia might be interpreted metonymically as the people at the Philadelphia office.

(23) a. Travis sent Philadelphia the receipts. (only metonymy reading) b. Travis sent the receipts to Philadelphia. (ambiguous between metonymy and location reading)

What the facts in (21)-(23) suggest is that ascribing exactly the same thematic role (that of recipient) to the first DP in a double-object sentence and to the PP in a double-complement sentence is not quite correct. Rather, the PP in a double-complement sentence desigates a path along which the theme moves. Accordingly, we will represent double-complement sentences using VP shells in which CAUSE takes a small clause complement headed by GO. GO selects as its complement a directional PP, designating the theme's path. The endpoint of the path can be expressed by either a recipient (as in (22a)) or a location (as in (22b)). We give the structures that we are assuming shortly.

This move of carefully distinguishing between recipients and locations is supported by the parallel between (21)-(23) on the one hand and the corresponding simple 'get' and 'go' sentences in (24) and (25) on the other.

Parallel to double-object Parallel to double-complement sentence sentence (24) a. Betsey got the receipts. (25) a. The receipts went to Betsey. b. * The post office box got the b. The receipts went to the post office box. receipts. c. Philadelphia got the receipts. c. The receipts went to Philadelphia. (ambiguous (only metonymy reading) between metonymy and location reading)

Let us now spell out in detail how the pattern of judgments in (21)-(25) can be made to follow from distinguishing between recipients and locations. For convenience, we introduce the notion of argument array, by which we simply mean an unordered list of semantic arguments that are associated with a (possibly abstract) Fregean predicate. As we already saw in Chapter 4 in connection with optionally transitive verbs like eat, predicates can be associated with more than one argument array. (26) gives argument arrays for eat as well as for the abstract predicates GET and GO that are of interest here.

(26) a. eat { agent, theme }; { agent } b. GET5 { recipient, theme } c. GO { recipient, theme }; { location, theme }

As we know from Chapter 4, semantic arguments are mapped onto (= associated with) positions in syntactic structures. As it turns out, this mapping is not one-to-one. For instance, in the case of GET, the argument array { recipient, theme } is mapped onto the structure in (27a). In the case of GO, the same array is mapped onto the structure in (27b).

(27) a. b.

Given the two structures in (27), the acceptability of (24a) and (25a) follows straightforwardly. So does the acceptability of (21a) and (22a), which simply reflect the embedding of the structures in (27) under CAUSE.

As we have just seen, a single argument array can be mapped onto more than one syntactic structure. Conversely, a single syntactic structure can be associated with more than one argument array. In particular, the location argument in a { location, theme } argument array can occupy the same structural position as the recipient argument in (27b), as shown for GO in (28).

(28)

It is this structure that underlies (25b) and its causative counterpart in (21b), and the location interpretations of (25c) and (23b).

As it turns out, there is no mapping between the { location, theme } argument array and the structure in (29).6

(29)

This is the reason for the unacceptability of (24b) and its causative variant (21b) and for the unavailability of a location reading in (24c) and (23a). (For completeness, we must also assume a semantic constraint that prevents locations from serving as recipients.)

At this point in our discussion, let us return to the animacy constraint stated earlier (in connection with (21) and (22)), according to which the recipient in a double-object sentence must be animate. More generally, the constraint would lead us to expect that any recipient of GET must be animate. As (30) shows, however, the constraint is not actually correct.

(30) a. Tina gave the cabinet a fancy handle. b. The cabinet got a fancy handle.

Having distinguished between recipients and locations allows us to give the description of the facts in (31).

(31) The first object in a double-object sentence must be a recipient and cannot be a location.

In the double-complement examples presented so far, the path complement is headed by a transitive P. Of course, as we would expect given X' theory, the projection of an intransitive P can serve as a path complement as well (in traditional grammar, what we here call intransitive Ps would be called adverbs).

(32) Travis sent the receipts { here, there } .

Notice that the pro-PPs here and there must refer to locations. As expected, the double-object counterpart of (32) in (33) is unacceptable.7 The contrast between (32) and (33) is exactly analogous to the contrast between (22b) and (21b).

(33) * Travis sent { here, there } the receipts.

From what we have said so far, it is clear that not every double-complement sentence has a double- object counterpart (double-complement sentences with location arguments don't). However, since both recipients and locations can designate the endpoint of a path, it might still be the case that every double- object sentence has a double-complement counterpart. But this turns out not to be true either, because the path argument in a double-complement structure imposes a semantic requirement of its own on the theme: namely, that the theme undergo a transfer from one end of the path to the other. Themes in double-object sentences, on the other hand, aren't necessarily subject to this path-related requirement. This explains how there can be double-object sentences like (34), whose double-complement counterparts are awkward at best.

Double-object sentence Double-complement sentence (34) a. The scandal gave the reporter an idea. (35) a. * The scandal gave an idea to the reporter. b. Bright lights give Amy a migraine b. * Bright lights give a migraine headache to headache. Amy.

In English, the experiencer of an idea or a headache is treated as a recipient, and since it is perfectly possible for ideas or migraine headaches to be the result of certain causes, the double-object sentences in (34) are acceptable. The reason that the double-complement sentences are unacceptable is that the idea and the headache are taken to arise in somebody's head spontaneously, not to travel to the head along some path. Once again, as expected, the simple 'get' and 'go' sentences in (36) and (37) are parallel to (34) and (35).

Parallel to double-object sentence Parallel to double-complement sentence (36) a. The reporter got an idea. (37) a. * An idea went to the reporter. b. Amy got a migraine headache. b. * A migraine headache went to Amy.

Notice that even contagious diseases don't undergo a transfer strictly speaking. In other words, they don't move, but they spread or are shared (occupying their original location in addition to the new location). This explains the contrast between (38) and (39).

(38) a. Jerry gave Amy his cold. b. Amy got a cold. (39) a. * Jerry gave his cold to Amy. b. * A cold went to Amy.

In concluding this section, we should point out that we have implicitly focused on the similarities between send and give. Not surprisingly, of course, the two verbs do not behave completely identically. In particular, the argument array associated with send can contain either a recipient or a location, whereas that associated with give must contain a recipient argument, not a location argument. Another difference between give and send is that send, by virtue of its irreducible meaning, imposes a path requirement on the theme even in a double-object sentence. This explains the contrast between (38a) and (40).

(40) * Jerry sent Amy his cold.

Put

Another double-complement verb is put, which, like send, is associated with the argument array { agent, location, theme }. Put differs from send, however, in that its lower VP shell is headed by BE, which selects a purely locative complement (rather than the directional complement selected by GO). (41)

Unlike give or send, put is not associated with the argument array { agent, recipient, theme }. Put therefore appears in double-complement sentences, but not in double-object sentences, as shown in (42).8

(42) a. Amy put the books { on the shelf, there }. b. * Amy put { the shelf, there } the books.

Persuade

In the examples of VP shells that we have considered so far, the lowest complement has been VP (causatives), DP (double-object verbs), or PP (double-complement verbs). In persuade, we have a case of a VP shell in which the lowest complement is a clause, which can be either finite or nonfinite, as illustrated in (43).

(43) a. Finite: We persuaded him that he should do it. b. Nonfinite: We persuaded him to do it.

(44) gives the VP shell for the finite case.

(44)

We defer discussion of the nonfinite case until Chapter 9, which is devoted to discussing nonfinite complement clauses.

The causative alternation

Manner of motion verbs

This section extends the VP shell approach to the so-called causative alternation, illustrated in (45).

(45) a. The ball dropped. ~ The children dropped the ball. b. The ball rolled down the hill. ~ The children rolled the ball down the hill. c. The boat sank. ~ The explosion sank the boat.

In the intransitive variant on the left, the verbs drop, roll, and sink designate a manner of motion, and the subject expresses a theme argument. In the transitive variant on the right, the subject is an agent (or more generally, a cause) initiating the motion, and the theme argument surfaces postverbally. These facts follow straightforwardly if we assume that the structure for the transitive variant contains the intransitive variant embedded under CAUSE, as shown in (46) and (47). For clarity, we show the shell structures both before and after any instances of movement that apply. (46)

(47) a. b.

Notice that in the predicates under discussion, the simple and the causative variant are both spelled out using the same phonological form. For instance, both DROP in (46) and DROP + CAUSE in (47b) are spelled out as 'drop'. Any verb for which this is true (not necessarily a manner of motion verb) is said to participate in the causative alternation. Conversely, a verb like give and get are not said to participate in the causative alternation, even though give is semantically a causative of get.

Get

Although give and get are not causative alternants in the sense just defined, get itself participates in the causative alternation. In other words, the combination GET + CAUSE can be spelled out not only as give, but also as get, as illustrated in (48).9

(48) a. Betsey got the receipts. b. Travis got Betsey the receipts.

The argument structure for GET in (48a) is already familiar from (27a) and is repeated here as (49a). Embedding (49a) under CAUSE results in (49b). For simplicity, we show only pre-movement structures in what follows.

(49) a.

As we know from our earlier discussion, the { recipient, theme } argument array can also be mapped onto a DP-PP structure. In the case of give and send, this alternative structure contains the abstract head GO. (50a) shows that GET can head the same structure as GO, and (50b) shows that this GET, too, participates in the causative alternation. The necessary structures are given in (51).

(50) a. The receipts got to Betsey. b. Travis got the receipts to Betsey. (51) a.

For simplicity, in our earlier discussion of give and send, we associated GET with the single argument array { recipient, theme }. In fact, like GO, GET is also associated with the argument array { location, theme }. Again, as in the case of GO, this second argument array maps onto a structure that is identical to (51a), except that the lowest complement is a location rather than a recipient. The resulting structure and its causative alternation counterpart are shown in (52).

(52) a. b.

The sentences in (53) illustrate this argument array.

(53) a. The receipts got to the post office box. b. Travis got the receipts to the post office box.

Sentences with causative get pattern as expected with respect to the distinction between recipients and locations, as illustrated in (54).

(54) a. * Travis got { the post office box, here } the receipts. (cf. (21b), (33)) b. Travis got Philadelphia the receipts. (only metonymy reading) (cf. (23a)) c. Travis got the receipts to Philadelphia. (ambiguous between metonymy and location reading) (cf. (23b)) d. Tina got the cabinet a fancy handle. (cf. (30a))

Moreover, just as in the case of GO, the theme in a DP-PP structure headed by GET must undergo transfer.

(55) a. ?* An idea got to the reporter. (cf. (37a)) b. * A { migraine headache, cold } got to Amy. (cf. (37b))

Further issues Locality constraints on idioms

It has been traditional in generative grammar to (attempt to) impose a locality constraint on idioms along the lines of (56) (locality constraints are so called because they make reference to relatively small, or local, domains).

(56) All parts of an idiomatic expression must together form a constituent.

The motivation for (56) is the desire to impose a structural restriction on what can count as an idiom in natural language, thereby preventing arbitrary combinations of words and phrases from having idiomatic readings. For instance, (56) prohibits idioms like the made-up example in (57), because blue and hop don't by themselves form a constituent.

(57) a. The blue lunch at Bitar's hops. Intended meaning: 'The lunch at Bitar's is unusually large.' b. They've bred a strain of blue drosophila that hops. Intended meaning: 'They've bred a strain of drosophila that is unusually large.' c. The great apes all have blue brains that hop. Intended meaning: 'The great apes all have unusually large brains.'

In many cases, the constraint in (56) is trivially satisfied. For instance, red tape 'bureaucratic difficulties' is an NP, the Big Apple 'New York City' is a DP, and kick the bucket 'die' or let the chips fall where they may 'disregard the consequences of one's actions' are VPs. There are even idioms that consist of entire clauses, like The shit hit the fan. Crucially, however, there shouldn't be any idioms consisting of discontinuous chunks. At first glance, therefore, idioms like those in (58) seem to pose a problem for the locality constraint in (56).

(58) a. give someone the creeps 'make someone uneasy' b. throw someone to the wolves 'sacrifice someone'

However, just as the VP shell analysis allows us to preserve the binary-branching hypothesis in the face of prima facie counterevidence, it also allows us to preserve the locality constraint on idioms in the face of idioms like (58). This is because the VP shell analysis allows us to say that what is idiomatic in (58) are the underlined VPs in (59).

(59) a. CAUSE someone GET the creeps b. CAUSE someone GO to the wolves

Strong evidence for the decomposition in (59) is the existence of the related idioms in (60).

(60) a. get the creeps b. go to the wolves

In addition, since heads form constituents with their complements but not with their specifiers, potential idioms such as those in (61) are predicted not to be possible.

(61) a. the { creeps, wolves } GET someone b. the { creeps, wolves } GO to someone

This elegantly explains the unacceptability of sentences like (62) and (63) (on their intended idiomatic interpretation). (62) a. * The creeps got me. b. * The wolves went to Felix. (63) a. * Oscar threw the wolves Felix. (= CAUSE the wolves GET Felix) b. * Crazy people give the creeps to me. (= CAUSE the creeps GO to me)

Small clauses revisited

We motivated the assumption of VP shells with reference to causative small clauses like (6), repeated in (64).

(64) God let [ there be light ] .

As we know from Chapter 3, small clauses can also contain predicates headed by syntactic categories other than V. (65) gives some examples.

(65) a. AP They proved [ the solution completely inadequate ] . b. DP They consider [ her a friend ]. c. PP They made [ him into a star ] .

Stowell 1983 proposed that all small clauses have a uniform structure, illustrated for (65b) in (66).

(66)

According to this analysis, the small clause (Aristotelian) predicate (underlined in the examples above) is an intermediate projection. The entire small clause (in brackets) is the predicate's maximal projection, and the subject (in italics) is the maximal projection's specifier and the predicate's sister. Stowell's analysis is attractive because it treats small clauses as structurally analogous to ordinary clauses. The only difference between the two clause types concerns whether the clause contains a projection of I. Nevertheless, the analysis cannot be maintained for DP small clauses because it fails to accommodate the minimal variant of (65b) in (67).

(67) They consider [ her Tanya's friend ].

Here, the DP predicate contains a possessor, which under Stowell's analysis would compete with the small clause subject for Spec(DP) (Heycock 1991).

In order to maintain binary branching, the structure for examples like (67) must include an additional head, which we take to be a silent counterpart of the copula be. We give the structure for (67) in (68a), and our revised structure for (66) in (68b). Notice that both structures preserve the property of treating small clauses and ordinary clauses as structurally parallel. (68) a. b.

Based on the parallel acceptability of the DP small clauses in (69) and the AP and PP small clauses in (70) and (71), we propose to extend the structure in (68) with silent BE to the remaining small clauses in (65).

(69) a. DP They consider [ Dean the Democratic Party's best hope ] . b. With [ Dean the Democratic Party's best hope ] , ... (70) a. AP They consider [ the unemployment figures ominously high ] . b. With [ the unemployment figures ominously high ] , ... (71) a. PP They consider [ the patient out of danger ] . b. With [ the patient out of danger ] , ...

BE is not the only predicate that can head small clauses. (72) illustrates small clauses that are headed by as, and (73) gives the structure for (72c).

(72) a. They regard [ Dean as the Democratic Party's best hope ] . b. They regard [ the unemployment figures as ominously high ] . c. They regard [ the patient as out of danger ] .

(73)

An apparent problem for the analysis just proposed is the fact that let can take VP small clause complements headed by ordinary verbs, including ordinary be, but not ones headed by silent BE.

(74) a. We let [ Martha be Lukas's buddy ] . b. * We let [ Martha Lukas's buddy ] .

Conversely, with doesn't allow small clauses headed by ordinary verbs, but does allow ones headed by silent BE.

(75) a. * With [ Martha be Lukas's buddy ] , ... b. With [ Martha Lukas's buddy ] , ...

This problem is less serious than it appears, however, since heads are able to subcategorize not only for the syntactic category of their complements, but to specify that category's head as well. We know this because of examples like (76), where a head selects not just a PP complement, but a PP complement headed by a particular preposition.

(76) a. faith { in, *at, *on, *to } your ability b. rely { on, *at, *in, *to } someone Notes

1. In traditional grammar, the recipient and theme are taken to be the verb's indirect and direct object, respectively.

2. The idea underlying the VP shell analysis goes back to Chomsky 1955 and was taken up in Larson 1988, 1990 (see also Jackendoff 1990). The treatment in this chapter is indebted to that in Harley 2002, though not identical to it in all details.

3. In addition to marking the grammatical relations like subject or direct object, Japanese also marks discourse functions such as topic. In Japanese main clauses, topic -wa marking overrides subject -ga marking. Because of this, it is customary to illustrate -ga marking using subordinate clauses, as we do in what follows.

4. This statement is not quite correct. A more adequate version is given in (31).

5. The astute reader will observe that GET, like GO, is also associated with the argument array { location, theme }. We return to this fact later on in the chapter.

6. We are taking the relatively weak position that what is unavailable is the mapping between the argument array { location, theme } and the structure in (29). A more interesting claim would be that it is the structure in (29) itself that is ruled out by some principle of Universal Grammar. The choice between the two is beyond the scope of our discussion.

7. The alternation in (i) - specifically, the well-formedness of (i.b) - is only an apparent exception to the statement in the text.

(i) a. Amy sent the mail { back, off } . b. Amy sent { back, off } the mail.

Back and off are so-called particles, which can behave like ordinary PPs, as in (i.a), but also more like bound affixes, as in (i.b). A detailed analysis of the syntax of particles is beyond the scope of this discussion, but evidence for their differing syntactic status in (i) comes from contrasts as in (ii).

(ii) a. Amy sent the mail right { back, off } . (cf. right to the CEO) b. * Amy sent right { back, off } the mail.

8. Again, alternations as in (i) are only apparent exceptions to the statement in the text and reflect the status of on and back as particles; see fn. 7.

(i) a. Amy put her sweater (right) { on, back } . b. Amy put (*right) { on, back } her sweater .

9. We are being a bit sloppy here. The GET + CAUSE combination that gets spelled out as give isn't actually completely identical to the one that gets spelled out as get. In other words, there are slightly different heads GET-1 and GET-2, with give being the spellout of GET-1 + CAUSE, and get the spellout of GET-2 + CAUSE. A good indication that the lower heads differ slightly is the fact that give and get don't have exactly the same distribution (cf. Jerry { gave, *got } Amy a cold).

Exercises and problems Exercise 7.1

Find five double-object or double-complement verbs not mentioned in the chapter and suggest a semantic decomposition for them.

Exercise 7.2

Make up one short sentence for each of the double-complement verbs give, send, put, and persuade, and use the grammar tool in vp shells to give complete structures for them.

Exercise 7.3

A. Using the grammar tool in vp shell spines, propose structures for each of the following euphemisms. Assume that German and Latin are head-final.

die kill (1) a. German um-kommen (lit. around-come) um-bringen (lit. around-bring) b. Latin per-ire (lit. through-go) per-dere (lit. through-place) c. Latin inter-ire (lit. between-go) inter-facere (lit. between-make)

Exercise 7.4

Assume the judgments given, even if they aren't your own.

A. As succinctly and clearly as you can, explain the contrast in (1).

(1) a. Travis { sent, got } the receipts to the post office box. b. * Travis gave the receipts to the post office box.

B. As succinctly and clearly as you can, explain the contrast between (2) and (3).

(2) Jerry got Amy a present. (3) a. * Jerry got Amy a cold. b. * The scandal got the reporter an idea. c. * Bright lights get Amy a migraine headache.

C. As succinctly and clearly as you can, explain the pattern of judgments in (4) and (5).

(4) a. The couch got a shove. b. The movers gave the couch a shove. c. * The movers got the couch a shove. (5) a. * A shove got to the couch. b. * The movers gave a shove to the couch. c. * The movers got a shove to the couch.

D. As succinctly and clearly as you can, explain the contrast in (6). (6) a. Crazy people give me the creeps. b. * Crazy people get me the creeps.

E. As succinctly and clearly as you can, explain the pattern of judgments in (7) and (8).

(7) a. The surgeon gave the patient the finger. (ambiguous between literal and idiomatic reading) b. The surgeon gave the finger to the patient. (unambiguously literal) (8) a. The surgeon got the patient the finger. (unambiguously literal) b. The surgeon got the finger to the patient. (unambiguously literal)

Exercise 7.5

Explain the contrast between (1) and (2).

(1) God let there be light. (2) a. * They consider there light. b. * With there light, we can start trekking.

Exercise 7.6

A. Make up two examples of small clauses. You don't need to build structures for them.

B. Using the grammar tool in vp shells, build structures for (1).

(1) a. They kept the president's arrival a secret. b. They kept the president's arrival very secret.

Exercise 7.7

For each of the trees that you draw for this exercise, include a paraphrase for the interpretation that the tree represents.

A. Using the grammar tool in vp shells, build structures for each interpretation of the following structurally ambiguous headlines.

For simplicity, treat compound nouns (e.g. Brazil nut, orange juice as simple nouns without internal structure.

(1) a. Lawyers Give Poor Free Legal Advice b. Young makes Zanzibar stop c. Complaints About NBA Referees Growing Ugly

B. Using the grammar tool in vp shells, propose structures for the intended interpretation of (2) and for a structurally possible (but let us hope unintended!) cannibalistic interpretation.

(2) "I want to make you my favorite sandwich." (Holly Hughes. 2003. Best food writing 2003. New York: Marlowe. 167.) C. Using the grammar tool in vp shells, propose structures for the two interpretations of the punchline in (3). (3) Q. What did the Zen master say to the guy at the hot dog stand? A. Make me one with everything.

Exercise 7.8

A. Off the top of your head, propose an elementary tree for ago. Does the elementary tree differ from other elementary trees of the same syntactic category?

You won't necessarily be able to build the tree you want with the grammar tool for this chapter.

B. Now look up ago and its etymology in the Oxford English Dictionary. Using the grammar tool in vp shells, build the elementary tree for ago that is consistent with the etymology that you find.

C. This part of the exercise is not closely related to the material covered in this chapter, but you will need the results to complete (D). Is the syntactic category of the quantifier many D or (say) Adj? Give the evidence on which you base your answer.

Hint: Reread the discussion of two tymes to-geder in the solution to Exercise 6.1.

Don't give an answer based on the meaning of many. The meaning won't decide this question for you, since some quantifiers, like no or some, are determiners, and others, like few or two, are not.

D. On the basis of your results from (B) and (C), use the grammar tool in vp shells to give the structure for the sentence in (1).

(1) Mark's family lived there many years ago.

Problem 7.1

There seem to be no ditransitive nouns, adjectives or prepositions. Is this an accident?

Problem 7.2

For some speakers, the second clause in (1) contradicts the first. For others, (1) is semantically coherent.

(1) They sent a rocket to Uranus, but it never arrived.

An apparently unrelated fact is that, for some speakers, (2a) entails that the students learned syntax, whereas (2b) doesn't have that entailment. For other speakers, the sentences in (2) are synonymous.

(2) a. The instructor taught the students syntax. b. The instructor taught syntax to the students.

Can you suggest a (single) explanation for these two facts? 8 Case theory

This chapter is devoted to a discussion of case, a morphosyntactic property of noun phrases. We begin by illustrating the basic purpose of case, which is to identify a noun phrase's function or grammatical relation in the sentence (for instance, whether a noun phrase is a subject or object). We also show that particular lexical items can impose morphological case requirements on noun phrases, a phenomenon known as case government. We then turn to how case is expressed across languages, focusing on various Indo-European languages (the language family to which English belongs). Universal Grammar allows case, just like tense, to be expressed either synthetically (as suffixes on nouns) or analytically (by means of prepositions or other syntactic heads that take an entire noun phrase as their argument). As we will see, English allows both ways of expressing case (just as it allows both ways of expressing tense in watch-ed and will watch). It is possible to describe both expressions of case in a unitary way by treating case as a feature on a noun phrase that is checked by a head. As we will show, case checking is subject to structural as well as nonstructural licensing conditions.

A first look at case

The basic purpose of case

In order to understand the purpose of case in human language, it is useful to consider languages in which constituent order is not as fixed as it is in English. In German, for instance, unlike English, the subject of an ordinary declarative clause needn't precede the verb, as shown in (1) and (2) (we discuss the structure of German sentences in more detail in a later chapter; for now, only the variable constituent order is of interest). In the examples, boldface indicates the subject, and italics indicates the object.

(1) a. German Der Mann sieht den Hund. the man sees the dog 'The man sees the dog.' b. Den Hund sieht der Mann. the dog sees the man same as (1a), not the same as (2a) (2) a. Der Hund sieht den Mann. the dog sees the man 'The dog sees the man.' b. Den Mann sieht der Hund. the man sees the dog same as (2a), not the same as (1a)

Since German speakers can't reliably identify subjects and objects in terms of their order with respect to the verb, how is it possible for them to keep track of which constituent expresses which grammatical relation? The answer is that grammatical relations are encoded in German in terms of morphological case marking. In particular, the subjects of finite clauses in German appear in a particular form called the nominative case, whereas objects generally appear in the accusative. (3) gives a morphological analysis of the noun phrases in (1) and (2).

(3) a. der Mann, der Hund the.nom man the.nom dog b. den Mann, den Hund the.acc man the.acc dog Notice that in (3), the distinction between nominative and accusative case is marked once: on the head of the noun phrase (the determiner).

In certain exceptional cases in German, case distinctions are marked on the noun phrases redundantly: on the determiner as well on the noun. This is illustrated in (4). '0' indicates a zero nominative suffix; -(en) is the optional accusative suffix.

(4) a. Nominative der Bär- 0, der Student-0 the.nom bear-nom, the.nom student nom b. Accusative den Bär-(en), den Student-(en) the.acc bear acc the.acc student acc

The redundant case marking in (4) is a historical relic from an earlier stage of German where this pattern was more extensive. In certain languages, redundant case marking on the determiner and the noun is the norm. This is illustrated for modern Greek in (5).

(5) a. Modern Greek O andr-as vlepi to skil-o. the.nom man nom sees the.acc dog acc 'The man sees the dog.' b. O skil-os vlepi ton andr-a. the.nom dog nom sees the.acc man acc 'The dog sees the man.'

Finally, in languages without articles, case can be marked solely on the noun. This is illustrated for Latin in (6).

(6) a. Latin Av- us can-em videt. grandfather nom dog acc sees 'The grandfather sees the dog.' b. Can-is av- um videt. dog nom grandfather acc sees 'The dog sees the grandfather.'

To summarize the discussion in this section: noun phrases can be case-marked either on the determiner, or on the noun, or redundantly on both. But regardless of the particular pattern, case marking has the same basic purpose: it visibly expresses a noun phrase's function in a sentence.

Case government

In many languages, a noun phrase's particular morphological case depends not only on its function in the entire sentence, but also on which particular lexical item that it stands in relation to. For instance, in German, the object in a sentence appears in the dative or the accusative,1 depending on the verb, as illustrated in (7) and (8).

(7) a. Dative ok { dem Hund, der Frau } helfen the.dat dog the.dat woman help 'to help the { dog, woman }' b. Accusative * { den Hund, die Frau } helfen the.acc dog the.acc woman help (8) a. Accusative ok { den Hund, die Frau } unterstützen the.acc dog the.acc woman support 'to support the { dog, woman }' b. Dative * { dem Hund, der Frau } unterstützen the.dat dog the.dat woman support

In traditional grammar, the verb is said to govern the case of the object. For instance, helfen 'help' governs the dative, unterstützen 'support' governs the accusative, and so on. An attractive hypothesis is that the morphological case that a verb governs correlates with the verb's meaning, the idea being that variation in case government as illustrated in (7) and (8) correlates with (possibly subtle) differences in the semantics of helfen 'help' and unterstützen 'support'. One idea that comes to mind, for instance, is that unterstützen 'support' is a simple transitive verb, whereas helfen reflects the spellout of a VP shell CAUSE someone GET help. Although we will not work out this idea in full in this chapter, we present some related considerations concerning dative and accusative case-marking in VP shells later on in the chapter.

Case government in Latin is illustrated in (9). As in German, each particular verb governs the case of its object, but in Latin, the choice of case ranges over dative, accusative, and ablative.

(9) a. Dative { femin-ae, *femin-am, *femin-a } { sub- venire, suc- currere } woman dat acc abl under-come under-run 'to help the woman' b. Accusative { femin-am, *femin-ae, *femin-a } ad-iuvare woman acc dat abl to-support 'to support the woman' c. Ablative { femin-a, *femin-ae, *femin-am } frui woman abl dat acc enjoy 'to enjoy the company of the woman'

In both German and Latin, prepositions resemble verbs in governing the case of their complement. In German, prepositions govern the accusative, the dative, or (rarely) the genitive; in Latin, they govern the ablative or the accusative.

(10) a. German durch die Tür, bei der Kirche, während des Krieges through the.acc door by the.dat church during the.gen war 'through the door, by/near the church, during the war' b. Latin de sapienti-a, ad rip- am about wisdom abl to shore acc 'about wisdom, to the shore'

Finally, in both German and Latin, certain prepositions can govern more than one case. In such cases, the accusative marks direction, and the other case (dative in German, ablative in Latin) marks location.

(11) a. German in { die, *der } Bibliothek schicken; in { der, *die } Bibliothek arbeiten in the.acc the dat library send in the.dat the.acc library work 'to send into the library, to work in the library' Latin in { bibliothec-am, *bibliothec-a } mittere; in { bibliothec-a, *bibliothec-am } laborare in library acc abl send in library abl acc work 'to send into the library, to work in the library'

Synthetic versus analytic case marking

In the languages that we have been discussing so far, case is expressed synthetically, by means of morphologically complex words. But Universal Grammar also allows noun phrases to be marked for case analytically. The case marker is then not an affix, but a relatively independent syntactic head. We illustrate these two options of expressing case in connection with a brief overview of case in the Indo-European language family, to which English belongs.

Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the reconstructed ancestor of the Indo-European language family (which includes English) which was spoken thousands of years ago, had eight cases, which were expressed synthetically. The nominative marked the subject of finite clauses, the accusative and dative (and perhaps other cases) marked objects (depending on the verb, as just discussed), and the genitive indicated possession. The PIE ablative indicated the source of movement (as in I drove from Chicago), the locative was used for locations (as in I used to live in Chicago), and the instrumental marked instruments or means (as in He cut it with his pocketknife). Finally, the vocative was used to address persons (as in Hey, Tom, come on over here).

The original PIE case system is essentially preserved in Sanskrit, although the distinction between the ablative and the genitive is somewhat obscured because ablative and genitive forms were often homophonous in Sanskrit. Such homophony among two or more case forms is called case syncretism. Among living languages, the PIE system is best preserved in the Baltic languages (Latvian and Lithuanian) and such Slavic languages as Ukrainian and Czech. In these languages, the genitive and the ablative have merged completely, leaving seven cases. In other words, in the history of these languages, case syncretism affected all forms of the genitive and the ablative, not just some of them, and so children learning the language no longer had any evidence anywhere in the language for distinguishing between the two cases. Several other Slavic languages, including Russian, have in addition almost completely lost the vocative, leaving only six cases. In Latin, the PIE ablative, instrumental, and locative merged into a single case, called the ablative, which serves all three functions, leaving six cases. In Ancient Greek, the ablative, instrumental, and locative were lost, leaving five cases. Finally, Germanic languages like German and Old English retained only the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, leaving four cases. The developments just sketched for Indo-European are summarized in (12), where "R" and "---" indicate retention and loss, respectively.

Baltic, PIE, Other Ancient German, some Latin Sanskrit Slavic Greek Old English Slavic

Nominative R R R R R R

Dative R R R R R R

Accusative R R R R R R (12) Genitive R merged as merged as R R R Ablative R genitive genitive ------merged as Locative R R R ------ablative Instrumental R R R ------Vocative R R --- R R ---

(13) shows the complete case paradigms for the Latin nouns avus 'grandfather' and femina 'woman'. These two nouns are each representative of two distinct declensions, or word classes. Latin had a total of five such word classes, each of which was characterized by unique endings for combinations of case and number. For instance, in the declensions to which avus and femina belong, dative singular is marked by the suffixes -o and -ae, respectively. In the remaining three declensions, the same combination happens to be marked by the same suffix -i. Distinguishing three remaining declensions, rather than collapsing them into one, is motivated by other distinctions in the paradigms. For more details, take a look at Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar, available through the Perseus project.

(13) a- declension o- declension Latin 'woman' 'grandfather' Sg Pl Sg Pl

Nominative femin-a femin-ae av-us av-i Genitive femin-ae femin-arum av-i av-orum Dative femin-ae femin-is av-o av-is Accusative femin-am femin-as av-um av-os Vocative femin-a femin-ae av-e av-i Ablative femin-a femin-is av-o av-is

As (13) shows, Latin exhibited some case syncretism. For instance, the genitive and the dative singular are homophonous for femina 'woman', the dative and ablative singular are homophonous for avus 'grandfather', and the dative and the ablative plural are homophonous for both nouns.

In the descendants of Latin, the Romance languages, case continues to be expressed synthetically on pronouns. For instance, the distinction between dative and accusative pronouns is illustrated for French in (14). (Note that unstressed pronouns in French are clitics; unlike full noun phrases, they precede the verb they are construed with.)

(14) a. Je veux leur parler. I want 3.pl.dat talk 'I want to talk to them.' b. Je veux les voir. I want 3.pl.acc see 'I want to see them.'

With full noun phrases, however, the same distinction is expressed analytically by the presence or absence of the case marker à.

(15) a. Je veux parler à vos voisins. I want talk your neighbors 'I want to talk to your neighbors' b. Je veux voir vos voisins. I want see your neighbors 'I want to see your neighbors.'

The case marker à is etymologically related to the spatial preposition à 'to', but is distinct from it. This is demonstrated by the fact that the pro-form for phrases in which à is a spatial preposition is not leur (or lui in the singular), as in (14a), but y, just as it is for other spatial prepositions like dans 'in' or sur 'on'.

(16) a. Nous avons envoyé le vin à Toulouse; mon ami habite à Paris. we have sent the wine to Toulouse my friend lives in Paris 'We sent the wine to Toulouse; my friend lives in Paris.' b. Nous y avons envoyé le vin; mon ami y habite. we there have sent the wine my friend there lives 'We sent the wine there; my friend lives there.' (17) a. Le cadeau se trouve dans mon sac; nous avons mis le cadeau sur la table. the present refl finds in my bag we have put the present on the table 'The present is (literally, finds itself) in the bag; we put the present on the table.' b. Le cadeau s' y trouve; nous y avons mis le cadeau. the present refl there finds we there have put the present 'The present is there; we put the present there.'

As mentioned earlier, Old English had four cases, which are illustrated in (18) for three declensions. As is evident, case syncretism is more extensive in Old English than in Latin.

In case you're wondering: Latin is the ancestor of French, but not of Old English; click here for one recent hypothesis for how Latin and Old English are related.

Masculine Feminine Neuter (18) Old English 'fox' 'learning' 'animal' Sg Pl Sg Pl Sg Pl

Nominative fox fox-as lar lar-a deor deor2 Genitive fox-es fox-a lar-e lar-a deor-es deor-a Dative fox-e fox-um lar-e lar-um deor-e deor-um Accusative fox fox-as lar-e lar-a deor deor

In the course of Middle English (1150-1500), the old genitive case suffixes were lost, and their function was taken over by a syntactic head---the possessive determiner 's (in the plural, the possessive is spelled out as a silent determiner that is orthographically represented as an apostrophe). The old synthetic genitive case is illustrated in (19). As in the previous chapter, +t stands for the Middle English character thorn, which represented the voiceless 'th' sound in thin and thorn.

(19) +te king-es suster of France (CMPETERB,59.593) the king-gen sister of France 'the king of France's sister'

Although the change itself is not yet fully understood, it is clear that the modern possessive marker is no longer a synthetic case suffix on a noun (king), but rather analytically case-marks an entire DP (the king of France). This is clear from the fact that it follows postnominal material like the prepositional phrase of France in the translation of (19). The difference between the old synthetic genitive suffix and the analytical possessive determiner that replaced it emerges even more sharply from the contrast in (20), where the possessive determiner obligatorily follows an element that is not even a noun. For clarity, the noun phrase that is case-marked by the possessive determiner is underlined in (20b); the entire sequence in (20b) from the to cat is of course also a noun phrase.

(20) a. * the guy's that I used to go out with cat b. the guy that I used to go out with 's cat

We ordinarily think of the possessive form of singular noun phrases as containing 's. Under the analysis just given, however, the nominative, possessive, and objective case of a full noun phrase are all homophonous in Modern English, and the determiner 's in the king's is a case marker on a par with the preposition of in of the king.

Although the possessive is marked analytically on full noun phrases, it continues to be spelled out synthetically on pronouns (recall the similar analytic/synthetic split between full noun phrases and pronouns in French). Much as the combination of a verb like sing and a silent past tense morpheme is spelled out as sang, a pronoun like we (or more precisely, the feature combination first person plural) and a silent possessive morpheme is spelled out as our.

Beginning in late Old English (ca. 1000 C.E.), the distinction between the dative and the accusative weakened, and the distinction was lost completely in the course of Middle English (1150-1500). In what follows, we will refer to the case that resulted from the merger as the objective. The distinction between nominative and objective case continues to be expressed synthetically in modern English on most ordinary pronouns, as illustrated in (21). (21) Nominative Objective

1 sg I me 2 sg, pl you you 3 sg m, f, n he, she, it him, her, it 1 pl we us 3 pl they them

As the table shows, with the two pronouns you and it, the distinction between the nominative and the objective has been lost, and this is also true for full noun phrases. Finally, it is worth noting that despite the efforts of prescriptive grammarians to keep a distinction alive between nominative who and objective whom, the two forms have merged as who. James Thurber has a diabolically witty essay on the topic.

Case features

In this section, we introduce some concepts and syntactic conditions that enable us to derive the distribution of the various case forms of noun phrases in English and other languages. We begin by introducing the notion of case feature.

Consider the contrast between (22) and (23).

(22) a. ok They will help her. b. ok She will help them. (23) a. * Them will help she. b. * Her will help they.

Why are the sentences in (23) ungrammatical? The answer is that noun phrases in English are subject to the requirements in (24).

(24) a. Subjects of finite clauses appear in the nominative. b. Objects appear in the objective.

As is evident, both of the subjects in (23) are objective forms, and both of the objects are nominative forms. Each of the sentences in (23) therefore contradicts the requirements in (24) in two ways.

Now compare the examples in (22) and (23) with those in (25).

(25) a. You will help her. b. She will help you.

As we saw in (21), they and she exhibit distinct forms for the nominative and objective, whereas you doesn't. But because case syncretism between the nominative and the objective is not complete in English (in other words, because most of the pronouns have distinct forms for the two cases), we will treat you as a nominative form in (25a), equivalent to they and she, but as an objective form in (25b), equivalent to them and her. For the same reason, we treat the noun phrase my big brother as a nominative form in (26a) and as an objective form in (26b).

(26) a. My big brother will help her. b. She will help my big brother.

In order to disambiguate instances of case syncretism like you and my big brother, it is useful to associate each noun phrase in a language with a case feature. Each case feature in turn has a value that is selected from among all the various case forms in that language (regardless of whether the case forms are expressed synthetically or analytically). In English, for instance, a case feature can assume the value "nominative", "possessive," or "objective". In Russian, a case feature has a choice among six values (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, instrumental). If we need to represent a noun phrase's case feature, we can do so by means of labels as in (27) and (28).

(27) a. [DP-nom They ] will help [DP-obj her. ] b. [DP-nom You ] will help [DP-obj her. ] c. [DP-nom My big brother ] will help [DP-obj her. ] (28) a. [DP-nom She ] will help [DP-obj them. ] b. [DP-nom She ] will help [DP-obj you. ] c. [DP-nom She ] will help [DP-obj my big brother. ]

Case licensing

Earlier, we said that the purpose of case is to encode a noun phrase's function in the sentence. In order to make the notion of function more precise, we can think of each noun phrase in a sentence as being licensed by (= linked to) some syntactic head. A common way of putting this is to say that the case feature on a noun phrase needs to be checked against a corresponding case feature on the case-licensing head. In English, case-licensers must be either verbs or prepositions, but there are languages that allow adjectives and nouns to be case-licensers as well. If the case features on the two participants in a checking relationship don't match up (say, one is nominative and the other is accusative) or if they don't stand in a one-to-one relationship (say, the case feature on a head ends up checking case features on more than one noun phrase), then the sentence is ungrammatical. On the other hand, if every case feature in a sentence stands in a proper relationship with a matching partner, then all is well with the sentence as far as case theory is concerned. A question that immediately comes to a syntactician's mind is whether case checking is subject to structural constraints. If so, we are of course interested in providing as general a formulation of those constraints as possible.

There is reason to believe that there is more than one type of case checking. We can distinguish between case licensing, which holds between a noun phrase and a head external to the noun phrase (say, a verb or preposition), and case agreement, which holds within a noun phrase (say, between a determiner and a noun). In the current version of this book, we will discuss only case licensing. In this section, we motivate various conditions (primarily structural, but also nonstructural) on the relationship between the two participants in a case-licensing relation. In the first half of the section, we present three structural configurations in which case licensing is possible: the specifier-head configuration, the head-specifier configuration, and the head-complement configuration. Beginning in the 1990's, attempts have been made to simplify the theory of case licensing by identifying a single case-licensing configuration. For instance, it has been proposed that complements of verbs are not directly licensed in the head-complement configuration, but that the complement moves to the specifier of a silent head, and that case is uniformly licensed in the specifier-head configuration. Our own discussion will remain somewhat agnostic on this point. However, we will show that all three of the configurations mentioned above are almost identical from a topological point of view. In the second half of the section, we discuss three further nonstructural conditions on case licensing: biuniqueness, exocentricity, and matching.

Spec-head licensing

In what follows, it's important to distinguish carefully between finite clauses on the one hand and finite verbs on the other. In English, finite clauses are clauses that can stand on their own. The clauses in (i)-(iii) are finite; the ones in (iv) are not.

(i) a. Finite clause Finite tense + finite verb I [pres] do that; he [pres] does that; I [past] did that; he [past] did that. (ii) a. " Finite tense + finite auxiliary + nonfinite verb I [pres] am doing that; he [pres] is (present participle) doing that; I [past] was doing that; he [past] was doing that. b. " Finite tense + finite auxiliary + nonfinite verb (past I [pres] have done that; he [pres] has participle) done that; I [past] had done that; he [past] had done that. (iii) Modal + nonfinite verb (infinitive) I will do that; he will do that. (iv) Nonfinite Nonfinite verb, no finite auxiliary or modal to do that; to be doing that; to have clause done that

Finite verbs are ones that aren't participles or infinitives (see Verbs for details). A finite clause always contains some finite Infl element, either a finite tense morpheme (i, ii) or a modal (iii). A finite tense morpheme in turn is always associated with a finite verb (i) or a finite auxiliary (ii). A modal, on the other hand, is always associated with an infinitive.

From this it follows that if a clause contains a finite verb or a finite auxiliary, the clause itself is finite. But if a clause contains a nonfinite verb, it needn't itself be nonfinite. If it contains a modal, it is finite (iii); only if it doesn't is it nonfinite (iv).

We begin by considering how case is licensed on the subjects of sentences. Since subjects of sentences start out life as specifiers of verbs, one's first impulse might be to propose that nominative case is checked by V. Although we will end up rejecting this approach, let us pursue it for the moment in order to show why it is unsatisfactory. The proposal is that what checks the nominative case of He (or more precisely, its trace in Spec(VP)) is the finite verb understands in (29a) and the bare (nonfinite) form understand in (29b). This putative checking relationship (which we are assuming for the sake of argument, but will reject) is indicated by the red boxes. (We further assume that DPs whose case feature is checked are free to move on to other positions in the sentence.)

(29) a. b.

Finite clause, finite verb form Finite clause, nonfinite verb form

Now if verbs were able to check nominative case, regardless of whether they are finite or nonfinite, we would expect the nonfinite verb in the lower IP in (30) to be able to check nominative case on the lower he, on a par with the nonfinite verb in (29b).3

(30) *

Intended meaning: He claims that he understands Hegel.

However, (30) is completely ungrammatical. We therefore reject the idea that nominative case is checked by V, concluding instead that it is checked by finite I. The contrast between (29) and (30) then follows directly since I is finite in (29) ([pres], does), but not in (30) (to).

Notice, by the way, that the ungrammaticality of (30) isn't due to semantic anomaly, since the intended meaning is both expressible and semantically well-formed, as indicated by the gloss to (30). Neither is the ungrammaticality of (30) due to the split infinitive, since (31) is as ungrammatical as (30).

(31) *

One might attempt to rescue the idea that nominative case is checked by finite V by replacing (32a) with (32b).

(32) a. Nominative case is checked by finite I. b. Nominative case is licensed by finite V where possible (that is, in clauses that contain a finite V), and by finite I otherwise.

Although there is no empirical argument against (32b), we reject it because it violates conceptual economy. Our reasoning is as follows. A finite V in a clause implies a finite I (in the form of a silent tense morpheme). The converse is not true, however. Although a finite I in a clause is consistent with a finite V, as just stated, it is also consistent with a nonfinite V (the finite I might be a modal). Clauses with finite I thus form a proper superset of clauses with finite V. This means that (32a) and (32b) are empirically equivalent. However, the statement in (32b) is unnecessarily more cumbersome and therefore less preferable.

The upshot of the discussion so far is that the head that checks nominative case in English is finite I, and that the licensing configuration for checking nominative case in English is the specifier-head configuration. This is shown in (33) (which supersedes (29)).4 The term 'specifier' is generally abbreviated to 'spec' (read as 'speck').

(33) a. b.

Nominative case is not the only case to be licensed in the spec-head configuration in English. So is possessive case. Here, the case-checking head is the possessive determiner ('s or its silent plural variant), as discussed earlier.

In possessive constructions like (i), there are two noun phrases: a lower one (the possessor) and a higher one (the entire noun phrase that contains both the possessor and the thing possessed).

(i) (ii)

It is important to keep in mind that each of the two noun phrases has a case feature of its own that needs to be checked. The lower DP has a possessive case feature. The higher DP generally has a nominative or an objective case feature, but it might itself bear a possessive case feature if it is part of an even larger possessive construction, as it is in (ii).

(34) illustrates the spec-head configuration in its general form. The nodes that bear the case features that need to be checked are the head X and its specifier YP. The path between the two nodes is indicated in red; we return to some properties of this path in connection with the two remaining case-licensing configurations that we discuss (head-spec, head-complement).

(34)

Head-spec licensing

A second configuration that licenses case checking is head-spec licensing, which we motivate on the basis of sentences like (35a).

(35) a. He expected her to dislike him. b. He expected that she would dislike him.

In both sentences, what is expected is a state of affairs (= a proposition). Given this semantic parallel, it is reasonable to suppose that expect in (35a) takes a single complement (the entire italicized sequence her to dislike him), rather than a sequence of two complements (the DP her and some constituent dominating to dislike him). Assuming for simplicity that expect takes an IP (rather than a CP) complement in (35a) gives us the structure in (36). Notice that we treat to as the nonfinite structural counterpart of finite would.

(36)

An additional reason for treating the noun phrase following expect as the subject of a complement clause rather than as an object in the matrix clause concerns sentences containing expletive there. Recall from Chapter 3 that expletive there is licensed as the subject of a clause containing a verb of (coming into) existence. If we treat the DP immediately following expect as a subject, the parallel between (37a) and (37b) is expected and straightforward (as is the parallel between (37) and (35)).

(37) a. He expected [IP there to be a fly in his soup ] . b. He expected that [IP there would be a fly in his soup ] .

On the other hand, if we were to treat the postverbal DP as an object, we would have to complicate our statement of how expletive there is licensed. Moreover, even if we succeeded in formulating a descriptively adequate licensing condition, we would still forfeit the structural parallel between (37a) and (37b).

Having motivated the structure in (35), let's now return to our main concern: how objective case is licensed on the embedded subjects in (35a) and (37a). Consider the schemas in (38).

(38) a. b.

Spec-head licensing Head-spec licensing

Notice that the head-spec configuration in (38b) is the mirror image of the spec-head configuration in (38a), already familiar from (34), in the following sense. In both cases, the case-licensing configuration can be characterized as in (39).

(39) A case-licensing configuration is defined as follows: a. a head X b. the nonterminal node closest to X (i.e., the intermediate projection X') c. a node closest to X' that is distinct from X d. the specifier of the node in (c)

The difference between spec-head and head-spec licensing simply concerns the direction that the path takes in (39c) (imagine placing a mirror along the X-X' axis in (38a), and you'd get (38b), and vice versa). Spec-head licensing chooses the mother of the head's intermediate projection; head-spec licensing chooses the daughter.

Given (39), we can say that objective case is checked on the complement subject in an ECM construction by the matrix verb in the head-spec configuration.

It is standard to refer to the construction in (35a) and (37a) as the Exceptional Case-Marking (ECM) construction. Given the analysis that we have just presented, the term is a bit of a misnomer. If the construction is indeed exceptional, it is not for structural reasons, but because of the crosslinguistic rarity of heads that take IP complements and are also able to check objective case. Because the term is prevalent in the literature, we will continue to use 'ECM construction' to refer to the construction in question and 'ECM verb' to refer to any verb with the two properties just mentioned (takes IP complement, able to check objective case).

ECM constructions are not the only ones where case is checked in a head-spec configuration. The same configuration is also relevant for the constructions discussed in Chapter 7, VP shells and small clauses. In a language like English, which does not distinguish between a dative and an accusative case, but has only a single objective case, case checking proceeds along exactly the same lines as described above. In (40a) (= (3) of Chapter 7), for instance, the head of the higher VP checks objective case on the specifier of the lower VP. In (40b) (= (7a) of Chapter 7), let checks objective case on the small clause subject there.

(40) a. b.

In languages with a dative-accusative distinction, case checking in VP shells and small clauses is a bit more involved than in English, and we therefore defer discussion of these constructions in these languages until the end of the chapter.

In concluding our discussion of the head-spec configuration, let us briefly return to nominative case checking in English. In the previous section, we argued that nominative case is licensed in Spec(IP) by the spec-head configuration. If this is so, then subject movement in English can be derived from considerations of case checking. In other words, the subject must move from Spec(VP) to Spec(IP) because nominative case can't be checked in its original position. However, the availability of head-spec licensing opens up the alternative that nominative case is checked in the head-spec configuration. The case- checking head continues to be finite I, for the reasons discussed earlier. If this possibility is correct, then subject movement in English must be derived from considerations other than case theory, such as predication. Given the word order facts of English, it is very difficult to determine which of the two possibilities just outlined is correct. Currently, many generative syntacticians take the (somewhat odd) position that nominative case is checked in the spec-head configuration, but that subject movement is motivated by considerations of predication.

Head-comp licensing

A third and final case licensing configuration arises in connection with simple transitive sentences like (41).

(41) a. He expected her.

Here, objective case on her is checked by the verb expected in the head-complement configuration, schematically indicated in its general form in (42).

(42)

Notice that the head-complement configuration is a subconfiguration of the head-spec configuration just discussed. This means that a general structural constraint on case licensing, subsuming all three configurations discussed so far, can be formulated as in (43).

(43) Structural licensing condition: The nodes bearing the case features in a case-checking relationship as well as the nodes on the path connecting them must be members of a licensing configuration of the form in (39).

The head in a case-licensing relationship always corresponds to the node specified in (39a). The noun phrase corresponds to either (39c) (head-comp licensing) or (39d) (spec-head licensing, head-spec licensing).

Nonstructural conditions

In what follows, we further illustrate the structural licensing condition on case checking in (43), introducing three additional, nonstructural conditions on case-licensing: biuniqueness, exocentricity, and matching.

First, consider (44), where we treat their as the spellout of they and possessive 's.

(44) a. He expected their approval.

In (44), objective case on the higher boxed DP is checked by the verb expected, being licensed by the head-comp relation between them. Possessive case on the lower DP is checked by the possessive morpheme 's, being licensed by the spec-head relation between them. So far, so good.

However, a question that arises in connection with the structure in (44) is what rules out (45) (with the same intended meaning as (44)), where the objective case feature on expected checks the objective case feature on them in the head-spec licensing configuration.

(45) * He expected them approval.

The answer is as follows. Assume the case-checking relationship between expected and the lower boxed DP them. This leaves the higher DP with a case feature that must be checked. In principle, expected might check the case feature on the higher DP in the head-complement configuration, but then a single case feature (the one on expected) would then be checking more than one case feature in the rest of the sentence. Conversely, any case feature on the silent determiner would not get to participate in case-checking. Because (45) is ungrammatical, we conclude that case-checking is subject to a condition as in (46).

(46) Biuniqueness condition: Case features on heads and noun phrases stand in a one-to-one relationship.

Is there any head other than expected that the higher DP in (45) could enter into a case-licensing relationship with? The only head that is close enough is the higher DP's own head, the silent determiner. In particular, just as the head-spec configuration is the mirror image of the spec-head configuration, so the relation between the higher DP and its head would correspond to the mirror image of the head-complement relationship.5 However, assuming a case-licensing relationship between a phrase and its own head is not sensible given that the purpose of case is to signal the relationship between a noun phrase and the rest of the sentence. In other words, we will impose a further condition on case licensing along the lines of (47).

(47) Exocentricity condition: Case licensing is a relationship between a head and an 'outside' noun phrase (that is, a noun phrase distinct from any projections of the case-checking head).

For completeness, let us note that (45) is impossible even if we were to assume that the silent D bears no case feature. This is because D heads that do not bear case features (like a or the in English) don't license specifiers. In other words, there are no elementary trees of the form in (48), which would be needed to derive the higher DP in (45b).

(48)

An important joint consequence of the biuniqueness and exocentricity conditions is given in (49).

(49) Minimality condition on case licensing When a case-checking head has the possibility in principle of entering into a case-licensing relation with either of two noun phrases, it is the minimal configuration (the one involving the shorter path) that is the grammatical one.

The third and final nonstructural condition on case licensing is one already mentioned informally at the very beginning of our discussion of case licensing. For ease of reference, we now give it a name.

(50) Matching condition: A case feature on a head and the corresponding case feature on a noun phrase must match in value.

In the remainder of this section, we illustrate the interplay of the various conditions that we have proposed, both structural and nonstructural, with reference to the German examples in (51). The verb kennen 'know' governs the accusative, and the preposition mit 'with' governs the dative. (Unbelievable as it may seem, German speakers, including children learning the language, really do pay attention to the tiny difference between dem and den, and have been doing so for centuries!)

(51) a. den Mann mit dem Hut kennen the.acc man with the.dat hat know 'to know the man with the hat' b. * dem Mann mit den Hut kennen the.dat man with the.acc hat know c. * den Mann mit den Hut kennen the.acc man with the.acc hat know d. * dem Mann mit dem Hut kennen the.dat man with the.dat hat know

The schematic structure for all four verb phrases is given in (52) (recall from Chapter 4 that verbs are head-final in German, whereas (most) prepositions are head-initial).

(52)

In (51a), kennen checks accusative case with the higher DP, and mit checks dative case with the lower DP, each in the head- comp licensing configuration. In other words, each head checks the case feature of the DP closest to it.

(51b) is ruled out because it violates the matching condition in (50). Specifically, even though kennen and the higher DP would stand in a legitimate licensing configuration (head-comp), the accusative case feature of kennen doesn't match the dative case feature on the higher DP. Moreover, the accusative case feature of kennen is unable to check the matching accusative case feature on the lower DP, because the verb and the lower DP are too far apart (a checking relationship between these two nodes would violate the structural licensing condition in (43)). Analogous considerations hold for mit and its potential checking relationships with the lower and higher DPs, respectively.

(51c) is ruled out as follows. Case checking on the higher DP is unproblematic; accusative case is checked by kennen in the head-comp configuration. However, case cannot be checked on the lower DP. Checking accusative case with mit in the head- comp configuration would violate the matching condition (dative and accusative don't match), and checking accusative case on the lower DP with kennen would violate both the structural licensing condition and the biuniqueness condition on case checking. (51d) is ruled out for analogous reasons.

The dative-accusative distinction

In this section, as promised, we return to the issue of case checking in languages that, unlike English, distinguish dative and accusative case.

(53) gives a double-complement sentence in German.6

(53) dass ich den Roman an den Jungen schicke that I.nom the.acc novel to the.acc boy send 'that I am sending the novel to the boy'

(54) gives the structure for (53); for completeness, we give the structures both before and after GO moves to CAUSE.

(54) a. b.

From (53), we conclude that CAUSE checks accusative case, and we would therefore expect the recipient in the double-object counterpart of (53) to appear in the accusative case as well. But (55) shows that the recipient must instead appear in the dative case.

(55) a. dass ich dem Jungen den Roman schicke that I.nom the.dat boy the.acc novel send 'that I am sending the boy the novel' b. * dass ich den Jungen den Roman schicke that I.nom the.acc boy the.acc novel send

The structure for (55) is shown in (56); once again, we give both pre- and post-movement structures.

(56) a. b.

The ungrammaticality of (55b) is reminiscent of the double o constraint of Japanese mentioned in Chapter 7; recall the contrast in (57).

(57) Hanako-ga Taroo-ni ringo-o tabe-sase-ta koto nom dat apple acc eat caus past that 'that Hanako made Taroo eat an apple' * Hanako-ga Taroo-o ringo-o tabe-sase-ta koto nom acc apple acc eat caus past that

However, the situation in the two languages is not completely identical; indeed, the case marking facts for the German counterpart of (57) are exactly the reverse of those in Japanese.

(58) a. dass der Stefan den Manfred einen Apfel essen ließ that the.nom the.acc an.acc apple eat made 'that Stefan made Manfred eat an apple' b. * dass der Stefan dem Manfred einen Apfel essen ließ that the.nom the.dat an.acc apple eat made

The challenge facing us is how to make sense of three separate and apparently contradictory case-marking facts:

1. the alternation between accusative and dative case-marking on the lower specifier in (53) and (55), 2. the parallel constraint on double accusative marking in (55) and (57), and 3. the contrasting case-marking pattern between (57) and (58).

So far, we have been assuming that when a head and a noun phrase occur in some case-licensing configuration, this state of affairs both licenses the noun phrase's occurrence in its particular syntactic position (spec or comp position) and determines the particular case that appears on the noun phrase (nominative, accusative, etc.). Let us now weaken this latter assumption somewhat. In particular, we will allow the case that appears on a noun phrase to be only partially determined by the case features of the head that licenses its position in the structure; the case can also reflect further details of the structure, including the case features of other heads. In (53) and (54), case licensing proceeds as before. GO takes a PP complement and has no case feature. Not surprisingly, therefore, when GO adjoins to CAUSE, there is no effect on the accusative feature of CAUSE, which we will assume gets shared by the V node formed by adjunction (the V that dominates both GO and CAUSE in (54b)). In (55) and (56), on the other hand, GET has an accusative feature of its own. What we propose is that once GET adjoins to CAUSE, the presence of the case feature on GET is able to change the value of the case feature on CAUSE from accusative to dative. This dative feature then percolates up to the V node formed by adjunction (the V dominating both GET and CAUSE in (56b)). Because small clauses are structurally analogous to VP shells, moving the lower verb tabe- 'eat' to the higher causative -sase- in the Japanese causative has the same effect, changing the accusative case feature on -sase- to dative. This still leaves us with the case-marking contrast between (57) and (58). What could it be due to? Recall that in the previous chapter, we motivated verb movement in the Japanese causative on the grounds that the causative morpheme -sase- is a bound morpheme. The German verb lassen 'let', on the other hand, is not a bound morpheme and there is no reason to assume that the lower verb moves to it. We can therefore derive the contrast between (57) and (58) by permitting case features to be changed in the way that we have just proposed only in connection with the movement of a case-checking head. This is schematically illustrated in (59) (headedness irrelevant).

(59) a. b.

No verb movement Verb movement Double accusative case marking Dative-accusative case marking

Case agreement

(coming eventually...)

Notes

1. A very small number of German verbs governs a third case, the genitive. We don't discuss these verbs here, because they are felt to be archaic.

2. Note how the -s-less plural of deer, which is exceptional in modern English, goes back to Old English, where it was simply the ordinary plural form for the declension to which deor 'animal' belonged.

3. The structure in (30) is analogous to that of its grammatical counterpart, He claims to understand Hegel. Details of the structure (for instance, the presence of the CP) are motivated in the next chapter. 4. The spec-head configuration is also frequently, though somewhat misleadingly, referred to as spec-head agreement. The reason for this is that subjects and verbs of sentences, which are in the spec-head configuration in the VP, agree in number (the man runs/*run; the men run/*runs). The reason that the term is misleading is that agreement relations don't necessarily imply a spec-head configuration. For instance, determiners agree in number with the head of their NP complement (that woman/*women; those women/*woman), but the D and the N aren't in a spec-head configuration.

5. The relation between the silent determiner and the higher boxed DP in (44) is a mirror image of the head-comp relation in the following sense. The path between the silent determiner and its NP complement involves a first segment from D to D' and a downward turn at D' to give the second segment from D' to NP. Now imagine taking an upward turn at D'. The resulting second path segment ends at the higher boxed DP.

6. We use subordinate clauses because German main clauses involve a complication, already mentioned in Chapter 3, that is irrelevant here.

7. Such verb movement is ruled out with verbs of perception.

(i) * J'ai vu manger les enfants (les pommes). I have seen eat the children the apples 'I saw the children eat (the apples).'

Exercises and problems

Exercise 8.1

According to the analysis in the text, why are the sentences in (1) ungrammatical?

(1) a. * He claims to he understand Hegel. b. * He claims he to understand Hegel.

Exercise 8.2

A. Using the grammar tool in ***, build a ternary-branching structure for (1) (= (37a)) along the lines that was mentioned, but rejected, in the text.

(1) He expected there to be a fly in his soup.

B. Given the ternary-branching structure, how would the licensing condition on expletive there have to be reformulated?

Exercise 8.3

In the chapter, we stated that nouns and adjectives aren't case-licensers in English. Provide evidence for that statement. One piece of evidence for each category is sufficient.

Exercise 8.4

A. Using the grammar tool in case theory, build structures for the sentences in (1).

For the purposes of this exercise, disregard tense lowering.

Originally only a preposition, for in modern English is also a complementizer. Assume that the complementizer retains the case-licensing ability of the preposition.

(1) a. I waited for her. b. I waited for there to be a sale. c. It would be convenient for the parents for daycare to be available. d. It would be convenient for daycare to be available for the children. e. I suspect the class to be difficult.

B. How is case checked on each of the DPs in (1)? Your answer should include which case is checked, by what head, and in what configuration. Feel free to collapse the description of similar cases (!) of case checking. Exercise 8.5

As (1) illustrates, there are no ECM adjectives or nouns in English. Is this a statistical accident, or is there a deeper reason?

(1) a. * I was expectant there to be a problem. b. * the expectation there to be a problem

Exercise 8.6

A. Using the grammar tool in Welsh case checking, build structures for the Welsh sentences in (1) (data from Borsley and Roberts 1996:19, 31).

(1) a. Gwelai Emrys ddraig. see.conditional Emrys.nom dragon.obj 'Emrys would see a dragon.' b. Disgwyliodd Emrys i Megan fynd i Fangor. expected Emrys.nom to Megan.obj go.infinitive to Bangor.obj 'Emrys expected Megan to go to Bangor.'

B. How is case checked on each of the noun phrases in (1)? (As in English, nominative case cannot be checked in nonfinite clauses in Welsh.) Your answer should include which case is checked, by which head, and in which licensing configuration.

C. Proto-Indo-European (the ancestor of Welsh) is reconstructed as having had rich agreement, and so it presumably had verb raising. The Celtic languages, which are descendants of Proto-Indo-European and to which Welsh belongs, have lost agreement, yet they still exhibit verb raising. Why didn't the loss of agreement lead to the loss of verb raising in Celtic as it did in Mainland Scandinavian?

Exercise 8.7

Which, if either, of the statements in (1) is true? Explain.

(1) a. If a noun phrase bears nominative case, then it is a subject. b. If a noun phrase is a subject, then it bears nominative case.

Problem 8.1

On the one hand, German appears to have a double accusative constraint ((55b) is ungrammatical). On the other hand, it appears not to ((58a) is grammatical). Can you resolve the paradox?

Problem 8.2

A. Use the grammar tool in case theory to build structures for the gerunds in (1) and (2). You can reuse structures for (1a,b) if you have already built them in connection with Exercise 5.8. On the basis of the structures you build, explain how case is checked on the subjects of the gerunds (the noun phrases in boldface). Your answer should include which case is checked, by what head, and in what configuration.

(1b) and (2a) are not identical.

(1) a. I disapprove of Kim's impulsive hiring of incompetents. b. I disapprove of Kim's impulsively hiring incompetents. (2) a. I disapprove of Kim impulsively hiring incompetents. b. I'm concerned about there not being time. c. I watched them running down the street.

B. Why are the sentences in (3) ungrammatical? Build trees if necessary, but where possible you can explain your answer with reference to trees that you have built for (A).

(3) a. * I disapprove of Kim's impulsive hiring incompetents. b. * I disapprove of Kim impulsive hiring of incompetents. C. Some speakers accept the gerunds in (4), though not the one in (5). Explain how case is checked on the subject of the gerunds in (4), providing the usual details, and also explain what rules out (5).

(4) a. Kim impulsively hiring incompetents is unfortunate. b. There not being time is unfortunate. c. Them running down the street is unfortunate. (5) * Kim impulsive hiring of incompetents is unfortunate.

D. Can the analysis that you propose in (C) be extended to cover the facts in both (B) and (C)? Why or why not?

Problem 8.3

In the text, we list several conditions on case checking: the structural licensing condition (43), the biuniqueness condition (46), the exocentricity condition (47), and the matching condition (50). Is it possible to eliminate at least one of these? For example, is it possible to derive the biuniqueness condition from the structural licensing condition and the exocentricity condition? 9 Nonfinite clausal complements

This new, improved version of Chapter 9 discusses object control. The old version (without a discussion of object control) is available here.

So far in this book, we have come across three types of clausal complements: finite clausal complements, ECM complements, and small clauses. (By 'clausal complement,' we mean any complement that contains a subject and a predicate.) We briefly review the three types in (1)-(3); the complement clause is bracketed, and any Infl element in it is in boldface.

The verb forms in (1b,c) are nonfinite, but the head of the complement clauses is a finite morpheme (a finite tense morpheme in (1b) and a modal in (1c)). As a result, the entire complement clause is finite. Click the links if you are unsure about how to determine the finiteness of a verb or of a clause.

(1) a. We heard [ that the children [past] danced ] . b. We heard [ that the children [pres] are dancing ] . c. We heard [ that the children can dance ] .

Like finite complement clauses, the ECM complements in (2) contain an Infl element---namely, to---but it is nonfinite.

(2) a. We expected [ the children to dance ] . b. We expected [ the children to be dancing ] .

Finally, small clauses as in (3) contain no Infl element at all.

(3) a. We saw [ the children dance ] . b. We saw [ the children dancing ] .

Despite their diversity with respect to how and whether Infl is realized, the complement clause types illustrated in (1)-(3) all have one property in common: namely, the presence of an overt subject (here, the children). But English also permits nonfinite complement clauses in which a subject is not overtly expressed (although one is understood). For instance, dance, the verb in the apparently subjectless complement clauses in (4), has an understood agent.

(4) a. Subject control: The children agreed [ to dance ] . b. Raising: The children seemed [ to dance ] .

More particularly, this agent is interpreted as being identical to the referent of the matrix subject the children. Yet unlike (2), where the matrix clause and the complement clause each have their own subject (we, the children), the sentences in (4) contain only a single overt subject, the one in the matrix clause. In this chapter, we argue that the nonfinite complements in (4) contain a structural subject position that is filled by a silent element, and we argue further that the silent element in question is not the same in the two examples. Rather, we distinguish between subject control, as in (4a), and raising (sometimes called subject-to-subject raising), as in (4b). In a subject control sentence like (4a), the complement subject position is filled by a silent pronominal element PRO, which is coreferential with the referent of the matrix subject. In other words, we give (4a) the structure in (5a); note the parallel with (5b), where the complement of agree is finite and where the complement subject position is not PRO, but an ordinary personal pronoun (the indices on the children PRO, and they are intended to represent coreference).

(5) a. [The children]1 agreed [ PRO1 to dance ] . b. [The children]1 agreed [ that they1 would dance ] .

The idea behind the term 'subject control' is that the matrix subject fixes, or controls, the reference of PRO. Notice that the parallel between PRO and overt pronouns in (5) is not complete. Specifically, PRO in (5a) must be coreferential with the matrix subject, whereas the pronoun they in (5b) can but needn't be, as succinctly summarized in (i).

(i) a. The children1 agreed [ PRO1,*2 to dance ] . b. The children1 agreed [ that they1,2 would dance ] .

For this reason, only sentences with nonfinite complements can count as instances of subject control.

Raising sentences differ from subject control sentences in that their matrix subject position starts out empty and the complement subject moves up to fill it. Their derivation is schematically illustrated in (6).

(6) a. Before raising: _____ seemed [ the children to dance ] . b. After raising: [The children]i seemed [ ti to dance ] .

The assumption that the matrix subject position starts out empty is supported by the fact that when seem takes a finite counterpart, this same position is filled by expletive it.

(7) Itexpl seemed [ that the children danced ] .

Again, for a sentence to count as an instance of raising, the complement clause must be nonfinite, as in (6), since it is only then that the complement subject raises into the matrix clause. (7) contains the same matrix predicate as (6), but the complement subject never moves out of its clause. The chapter also addresses so-called object control. The difference between subject and object control is illustrated by the contrast between (4a), repeated as (8a), and (8b). In both sentences, the understood agent of the complement verb dance is the discourse entity referred to by the phrase the children. But in (8a), that phrase---the controller---is the matrix subject, whereas in (8b), it appears to be the matrix object.

(8) a. The children agreed to dance. b. We persuaded the children to dance.

The treatment of object control that we present relies on the VP shells introduced in Chapter 7. Specifically, we decompose object control predicates into CAUSE and an appropriate subject control predicate, roughly along the lines of (9).

(9) We [past] CAUSE [ the children agree [ to dance ] ] .

Notice that the children is not actually an object in (9), but rather the subject of the small clause complement of CAUSE. However, as is customary in the literature, we will continue to use the term 'object control' as a purely descriptive label for sentences like (8b).

A note on terminology. We will refer to the class of (Fregean) predicates to which agree belongs as subject control predicates. Similarly, we refer to the class of predicates like seem as raising predicates, and to the class of predicates like persuade as object control predicates.

The term 'raising predicate' is potentially confusing. It is not the verb itself that undergoes movement. Rather, as schematically indicated in (6) and as we will see in more detail below, it is the complement subject that raises into the matrix clause. A better term for the class of predicates in question would be 'raising triggers.' But we continue to use the term 'raising predicate' because it is standard in the literature.

A leading role in the analysis of nonfinite complementation is played by expletive there. The final section of the chapter shows that expletive there belongs to a larger class of nonthematic subjects.

Selectional restrictions

Before addressing the topics of main concern to us in this chapter, we need to introduce the concept of selectional restrictions. Selectional restrictions are conditions that a (Fregean) predicate imposes on one or more of its arguments, depending on its meaning. For instance, drink imposes a selectional restriction on its theme argument to the effect that the theme argument must refer to a liquid (or an amount of liquid).

(10) a. Amy drank the { lemonade, #sandwich } . b. Lukas drank a whole { quart, #piece } .

Elapse selects a subject that refers to an explicitly quantified amount of time.

(11) { Two hours, #the shift, #two liters, #Larry } elapsed without further incident.

The felicitous use of the verb murder requires (among other conditions) that both the agent and the theme arguments refer to humans. By contrast, kill imposes weaker selectional restrictions, requiring only that the agent and theme arguments refer to living beings. (12) a. The { paramilitary, #bomb, #avalanche } murdered { her husband, #the olive tree, #her house }. b. The { paramilitary, bomb, avalanche } killed { her husband, the olive tree, #her house }.

Two points are important to keep in mind concerning selectional restrictions. First, notice that we are using pound signs, rather than asterisks, in (10)-(12); in other words, we are treating the ill-formedness of sentences that violate selectional restrictions as semantic/pragmatic deviance, not as ungrammaticality. This approach is consistent with the fact that selectional restrictions can be deliberately flouted for special effect. For example, the ordinary (literal) meaning of lap up is 'to eagerly drink up (used especially of animals)'. Based on this meaning, we would expect it to select a nonhuman animate agent and a liquid theme. But although both restrictions are violated in (13), the sentence does not come across as deviant.

(13) The little girl lapped up her teacher's praise.

Rather, the violation of the selectional restrictions signals to the hearer that the sentence is intended to be taken not literally, but figuratively (here, as an instance of metaphor). (14) summarizes the kind of reasoning that a hearer of (13) would go through; the reasoning process itself is ordinarily not explicit, but subconscious and lightning-quick.

(14) The little girl lapped up her teacher's praise?? Whoa there, that's complete nonsense!

It's only nonhuman animals that lap up things. And then, whatever they're lapping up has to be liquid, not something abstract like praise.

But the speaker seems to know English and be compos mentis, so what could they have possibly meant by what they said?

I guess what they must have meant is that the attitude of the little girl towards her teacher's praise resembles the eagerness with which a thirsty animal laps up some welcome liquid.

In distinguishing figurative from literal uses of language, don't let yourself be confused by the fact that in the vernacular, the adverb literally is routinely used to qualify figurative statements. So we often hear people say things like My boss literally hit the roof. In other words, literally has come to mean figuratively!

Don't, by the way, conclude from examples like (13) that selectional restrictions are in force only intermittently (in force when language is used literally, but not in force when language is used figuratively). Rather, it is precisely the fact that selectional restrictions are always in force that prompts a hearer of (13) to go through a reasoning process like (14) and to come up with an interpretation in which the selectional restrictions are met in the metaphorical interpretation.

A second point to keep in mind concerning selectional restrictions is that the criteria for set membership that the restrictions are based on are not always crystal clear. In other words, sets like liquid things, animate beings, potential murderers, or potential murder victims, and so on, are somewhat fuzzy around the edges. Speakers might disagree, for instance, about whether the sentences in (15) are deviant; the disagreement would concern whether the selectional restrictions on murder might, on the basis of recent advances in the understanding of animal intelligence, be relaxed to include members of species other than Homo sapiens.

(15) a. The { chimpanzee, dolphin } murdered the explorer. b. The explorer murdered { the chimpanzee, dolphin } .

Fortunately, for our purposes in this chapter, locating the exact boundary between cases that meet selectional restrictions and ones that violate them will not be necessary. The important thing is that selectional restrictions exist, and that there are sentences in which they are clearly met and ones in which they are clearly violated.

Subject control

Evidence for two clauses

Having introduced selectional restrictions, we now use them to show that subject control sentences contain two separate clauses, each with their own subject. We begin by showing that in finite complement counterparts of subject control sentences, which incontrovertibly contain two clauses, like (16), both the matrix and the complement verbs impose separate selectional restrictions on their respective subjects. (For simplicity, we omit referential indices in what follows; unless otherwise noted, the intended interpretation is always the one where the complement subject is coreferential with the matrix subject.)

(16) The children agreed that they would dance.

We then show that subject control sentences like (17) pattern just like their finite complement counterparts with respect to the selectional restrictions imposed by the two verbs.

(17) The children agreed to dance.

We begin with (18) and (19), where agree takes a finite complement clause. In (18), we have taken care to satisfy the selectional requirements of the complement clause (wet selects some physical object as its argument, and get imposes no further selectional restrictions of its own). We can therefore be sure that the acceptability contrast in (18) is due to the selectional restriction imposed by the matrix verb agree, which selects human subjects.

(18) a. The children agreed [ that they would get wet ] . b. # The { horses, trees, rocks } agreed [ that they would get wet ] .

Conversely, in (19), we have taken care to satisfy the selectional restriction imposed by agree. Here, the acceptability contrast is due to the selectional restrictions imposed by the various complement verbs.

(19) a. The children agreed [ that they would speak Twi ] . b. # The children agreed [ that they would { elapse, evaporate } ] .

If subject control sentences contain two clauses, as we are proposing, each with their own subjects, they ought to behave analogously to (18) and (19), and this is in fact exactly what we find in (20) and (21).

(20) a. The children agreed [ PRO to get wet ] . b. # The { horses, trees, rocks } agreed [ PRO to get wet ] . (21) a. The children agreed [ PRO to speak Twi ] . b. # The children agreed [ PRO to { elapse, evaporate } ] .

One last thing. Not all subject control predicates allow a finite complement paraphrase.

(22) a. The children tried [ PRO to learn Twi ] . b. * The children tried [ that they learned Twi ] . But even for subject control predicates like those in (22), we assume a biclausal structure with a PRO subject for the lower clause. This is because, just as in (20) and (21), the subject control verb and the lower verb impose separate selectional restrictions on their respective subjects. We ask you to provide the relevant evidence in Exercise 9.1A.

If you have been paying close attention to the examples, you may have noticed that agree seems to have two slightly different meanings, depending on whether it takes a finite or a nonfinite complement. When it takes a finite complement, the finite complement expresses a proposition, and agree means something like 'assent to.' In this case, the subject of the complement clause need not be coreferential with the matrix subject.

(23) The students agreed [ that the problem was difficult ] .

We also have the semantic intuition that someone besides the agreer shares the belief in the proposition; in other words, agree takes an optional semantic argument, expressible in the syntax by a with phrase. So, for instance, if Sam were the last person on Earth, we might describe him as believing that there were no other people, but it would be odd to describe him as agreeing that there were no other people.1 On the other hand, when agree takes a nonfinite complement, it means something like 'commit oneself to a course of action.' Here, part of the irreducible meaning of agree seems to be that the agreer and the agent of the predicate of the lower complement must be identical. As a result, a sentence like (24) is ungrammatical (or perhaps only semantically deviant).

(24) * The students agreed [ the problem to be difficult ] .

Here, too, there is a sense of an optional argument---an entity to whom the agreer has an obligation to. Now, so far, we have phrased things as if the semantic differences that we have described are associated with agree itself. However, a more attractive hypothesis is that agree has exactly the same meaning in both cases, and that the differences in meaning come about as a result of the different semantic properties of the complement that agree is combining with. Under this approach, agree would denote a commitment between a rational being and the kind of thing that the CP complement refers to, in the presence of another rational being. In the finite complement case, the CP expresses a proposition. A natural way to interpret commitment between a rational being and a proposition is as intellectual assent to the proposition, and a natural scenario is that the co-present rational being shares the belief in the proposition. We have seen that nonfinite IPs can express propositions (I expect there to be problem is synonymous for our purposes with I expect that there is a problem), but let us assume that nonfinite CPs (for some reason) cannot refer to propositions, but only to events or actions.

It is tempting to say that nonfinite complements of subject control predicates are VPs (rather than CPs). But that would leave the presence of to unexplained. Moreover, there are subject control predicates that take indirect questions, as illustrated in (i).

(i) They decided whether to buy the house.

A natural way to interpret commitment between a rational being and an action is as a commitment to seeing to it that the action is carried out, and a natural scenario is that the co-present rational being is someone to whom the agreer has an obligation. A crucial question that we will have to leave unresolved here is why the matrix subject controls the subject of the lower predicate in this case. In other words, what accounts for the oddness of (25a) despite its near-synonymy with (25b)?

(25) a. # At the meeting, the higher-ups boss agreed for someone to do the job. b. At the meeting, the higher-ups agreed to delegate the job to someone Deriving subject control sentences

After this excursion into semantic aspects of control, let us now consider the syntactic representation of subject control sentences, which is straightforwardly analogous to the representation of their finite complement counterparts. The elementary tree for agree is the same for both cases and is given in (26).

(26)

Substituting a finite CP complement headed by that at the CP substitution node would yield structures for sentences like (16). Substituting a nonfinite CP complement headed by a silent complementizer yields structures for subject control sentences like (17). In what follows, we illustrate the derivation of (17) in detail.

(27) a. b. c.

Substitute (27b) as Substitute PRO in specifier Substitute (27a) as complement complement of silent position of lower verb of to and subject movement C

Substituting the structure in (27c) as the complement of the control verb yields (28a), which in turn becomes the complement of the matrix I element, yielding (28b).

(28) a. b.

Substitute (27c) as complement of control Substitute (28a) as complement of matrix verb I

Finally, moving the matrix subject yields (29a). The structurally analogous tree for the finite complement counterpart of (29a) (= (16)) in shown for comparison in (29b). (29) a. b.

In concluding our discussion of subject control, we must point out that we will leave an important question about PRO unresolved: namely, how its case feature (if any) is licensed. There is evidence from languages like German and Icelandic that PRO is able to bear the same case features that overt subjects do. Nevertheless, PRO and overt noun phrases are in complementary distribution;2 in other words, the positions that PRO can appear in are ones from which overt noun phrases are barred, and vice versa. It has therefore been proposed that PRO does not bear a case feature at all (or that PRO bears a case feature unique to it---so-called null case---which is checked by nonfinite I in the spec-head configuration). Although this approach does not address the crosslinguistic facts and leaves it mysterious why the case properties of PRO and overt noun phrases should differ, it does have the advantage of straightforwardly capturing the distributional difference between PRO and overt noun phrases.

Raising

A detour

Let us turn now to raising sentences like (4b), repeated here as (30).

(30) The children seemed [ to dance ] .

At first glance, it seems as if we could simply treat such sentences on a par with subject control sentences. But that would leave use without an explanation for the contrast in (31)---in particular, for the grammaticality of (31b).

(31) a. * There agreed to be a problem. b. ok There seemed to be a problem.

The analysis in the previous section does correctly rule out (31a), to which we assign the structure indicated schematically in (32).

(32) * There agreed [ PRO to be a problem ] .

Given the structure in (32), the sentence is ruled out for two reasons. First, expletive there is not licensed because it does not occupy the specifier position of a verb of (coming into) existence (this is the reason that we mark (31a) as ungrammatical rather than as just semantically deviant).

It is true that the sentence contains the there licenser be, but there never substitutes into its specifier position. The predicate whose specifier position there does substitute into, namely agree, is not a there licenser (*There agreed some students).

Second, expletive there fails to satisfy the selectional restriction of agree, which, as we saw earlier, selects human subjects. So (32) is a fine representation because it correctly rules out (31a) as ungrammatical. But by the same token, if we give (31b) the analogous structure in (33), we incorrectly expect (31b) to be as ungrammatical as (31a).

(33) Incorrect structure: There seemed [ PRO to be a problem ] .

The reason, once again, is that there is not licensed in the representation in (33). The fact that seem is not a there licenser is demonstrated in (34) (recall Exercise 3.4).

(34) * There seemed a problem.

Be careful not to confuse the class of raising verbs with the class of there licensers. Raising verbs like seem don't themselves license there, as we see in (34).

Nonthematic subject positions

At this point, notice that the representations in (32) and (33) are both ruled out because there isn't licensed in the matrix clause. However, only in (32) are the selectional restrictions of the matrix verb violated. It turns out that a crucial difference between agree and seem is that seem imposes no selectional restrictions. We can see this by replacing agree in (20) with seem; the acceptability contrast between (20a) and (20b) disappears in (35). (By contrast, replacing agree with seem in (21) has no effect on the contrast. After reading this section to the end, you will be able to explain this fact, and you are asked to do so in Exercise 9.1B.)

(35) a. ok The children seemed to get wet. b. ok The { horses, trees, rocks } seemed to get wet.

Another noteworthy property of seem is that its specifier position is not (and, in fact, must not be) associated with any thematic role. It is true that seem takes an argument: what for lack of a better term we will call the proposition argument.3 However, this argument cannot be expressed in the specifier position, as we can see in the finite complement counterparts of raising sentences.4

(36) a. It seemed that the problem was hard. b. * That the problem was hard seemed.

To summarize: the subject position of seem is semantically defective in the sense that it is associated neither with selectional restrictions nor with a thematic role. We will refer to such a subject position as nonthematic.

Deriving raising sentences

Of course, despite being superfluous from a semantic point of view, nonthematic subject positions are nevertheless syntactically obligatory (recall the subject requirement introduced in Chapter 3). This makes possible the following analysis of the grammaticality of (31b) and, more generally, of all subject raising sentences. We begin by deriving the complement clause. Note how the eventual matrix subject there is licensed as a specifier of main verb be in (37a). We assume that the subject moves from Spec(VP) to Spec(IP) in (37c) in order to provide the complement clause with a subject in accordance with the subject requirement.

In the case of a nonexpletive matrix subject, as in The children seemed to dance, the children would substitute into the specifier of dance, thereby becoming associated with that verb's agent role.

(37) a. b.

Substitute eventual matrix subject as Substitute (37a) as complement of to and specifier of lower verb subject movement

We now substitute (37b) into the elementary tree for seemed in (38a).

(38) a. b.

Before proceeding with the derivation, a few words about the elementary trees in (38) are in order. First, note that both elementary trees in (38) contain a specifier position. Though semantically unnecessary, as discussed above, this position is motivated by the syntactic obligatoriness of expletive it in small clauses.

(39) a. They made [ it seem that there was a problem. ] b. * They made [ seem that there was a problem. ]

Second, the syntactic category of the clausal complement is IP in (38a), whereas it is CP in (38b), which we would use if we wanted to derive the finite complement counterpart of (31b) (It seemed that there was a problem). The reason that raising predicates, in contrast to control predicates, require different elementary trees depending on the finiteness of their complement has to do with certain structural conditions that must be satisfied by traces of movement (but not by PRO). We simply mention the existence of these conditions here; their exact character and their motivation go beyond the scope of this textbook.

Substituting the clause in (37c) as the complement of the elementary tree for raising seem in (38a) yields (40a), which in turn becomes the complement of the matrix I element, yielding (40b).

(40) a. b. Substitute (37c) as complement of raising Substitute (40a) as complement of matrix verb I

At this point in the derivation, the option arises in principle of substituting expletive it in the matrix Spec(VP) and moving it to the matrix Spec(IP). In fact, this is what we would do if the complement of seem were finite. In the case of a nonfinite complement, however, this step yields the hopelessly ungrammatical (41).

(41) * It seemed there to be a problem.

Why is (41) ungrammatical? The reason is that there bears a nominative case feature that cannot be checked in the lower clause. (How we know that the case feature is nominative is left to you to determine in Exercise 9.1C.) The case feature can't be checked in the lower Spec(IP) (its position in (41)) because nonfinite I is unable to check case at all. The case feature also can't be check in the lower Spec(VP) (its position before subject movement in the complement clause) because V doesn't check case in the spec- head configuration.

In principle, seemed could check objective case on there in the head-spec configuration just as expect and other ECM verbs do. However, the ungrammaticality of (41) shows that raising verbs are in fact unable to do so. Why they should differ from ECM verbs in this way is obviously something that needs to be explained. It has been proposed that there is a correlation between a verb's ability to assign a thematic role to its specifier and its ability to check objective case. This correlation, known as Burzio's generalization, is discussed further in Chapter 10.

Since the complement subject's case feature cannot be checked within its own IP, it is forced to move via the matrix Spec(VP) to the matrix Spec(IP), as shown in (42a). In this final position, nominative case is checked by the finite I of the matrix clause in the spec-head configuration. For comparison, the structure of the finite complement counterpart is shown in (42b); here, each of the two subjects checks nominative case with its own finite I.

(42) a. b.

It is the movement of the subject from the complement clause to the matrix clause in (42a) that is known as raising. Raising, like ordinary subject movement, targets the subject. In both cases, an element that is licensed in a lower specifier position moves to a higher specifier position. In the case of expletive there, the licensing is by an appropriate verb; in the case of nonexpletive subjects, a natural assumption is that they need to be licensed as arguments of the lower verb. In both cases of movement, any licensing relations are maintained by the trace of movement. And finally, in both cases, the lower position is not a case-checking position, whereas the higher one is. The one difference between raising and ordinary subject movement is that in the case of raising, the subject moves out of the IP in which it originates.

Tend and occur

As was the case with subject control verbs, certain raising verbs are able to take finite complements in addition to nonfinite ones, whereas others are restricted to nonfinite complements. Seem, as we have seen, belongs to the first type. Tend, as shown in (44), belongs to the second type.

(43) a. ok There seem to be huge traffic jams during rush hour. b. ok It seems that there are huge traffic jams during rush hour. (44) a. ok There tend to be huge traffic jams during rush hour. b. * It tends that there are huge traffic jams during rush hour.

Despite the contrast between the (b) examples, seem and tend are both raising verbs; what is crucial is that the (a) examples, in which the subject of the complement clause moves out of its clause, are both grammatical.

There are also verbs with the converse pattern of tend.

(45) a. It occurred to me that there is a solution. b. * There occurred to me to be a solution.

Such verbs have a nonthematic subject position, just like seem and tend. However, they are not considered raising verbs, since their complement subjects cannot move out of the clause they originate in, as was mentioned in the introduction.

Promise

Promise has the noteworthy property of behaving either as a subject control predicate or as a raising predicate. As a subject control predicate, promise means something like 'vow' and selects rational agents as subjects. This promise can take either finite or nonfinite complements.

(46) a. The { children, #horses } promised [ to eat their oatmeal ] . b. The { children, #horses } promised [ that they would eat their oatmeal ] .

On this interpretation, the matrix clause can contain manner adjuncts that modify promise (notice how promise can be replaced by vow in this examples).

(47) a. The children softly promised [ to eat their oatmeal ] . b. The children obediently promised [ to eat their oatmeal ] .

The grammaticality of (47a) is particularly important, since the only licenser for softly is promise (*the children were soft); in (47b), it could be argued that obediently is licensed as a property of the children (ok-the children were obedient).

But promise can also have a 'weaker' meaning; on this interpretation, a sentence like (48a) can be paraphrased as (48b).

(48) a. This filly promises to win the race. b. All available evidence indicated that this filly will win the race.

On this interpretation, modifying the matrix predicate by a manner adverb as in (47) is as deviant in the original promise sentence as in the paraphrase.

(49) a. # This filly { softly, obediently } promises to win the race. b. # All available evidence { softly, obediently } indicates that this filly will win the race.

Notice, moreover, that in the alternative paraphrase in (50), the presence of expletive there in matrix subject position indicates that the position is nonthematic.

(50) There is every indication that this filly will win the race.

The nonthematic character of the matrix subject position for this interpretation of promise is borne out by the grammaticality of (51).

(51) There promises to be a new version by spring.

From these facts, we conclude that the proper representation for a sentence like (51) must be the raising structure schematically indicated in (52).

(52) Therei promises [ ti to be a new version by spring ] .

Promise sentences with nonthematic subjects, on the other hand, are ambiguous between a raising analysis and a subject control analysis (as long as they contain no disambiguating adverbs). Which reading is prominent depends, as always, on the discourse context. In a sentence like (46a), the prominent interpretation, and the only one considered so far, is the subject control interpretation represented in (53).

(53) The { children, #horses } promised [ PRO to eat their oatmeal ] .

However, (46a) also has the raising interpretation represented in (54a), which can be paraphrased as in (54b).

(54) a. [ The { children, horses } ]i promised [ ti to eat their oatmeal ] . b. There was every indication that the { children, horses } would eat their oatmeal.

Notice that under this interpretation, the contrast between children and horses that is due to the selectional restrictions imposed by subject control promise disappears.

There is at least one other verb in English that clearly has the same property as promise---namely, threaten. You are asked to provide evidence for this assertion in Exercise 9.1D.

Object control

In this section, we present an analysis of object control predicates like persuade. The analysis is extremely simple. According to it, object control predicates are VP shell structures in which a subject control predicate is embedded under a causative predicate (Larson 1988). Recall from Chapter 7 that we already have a VP shell analysis of persuade when it takes finite complements, as in (55).

(55) We persuaded the children that they should dance. The requisite VP shell structure is shown in (56).

(56)

In extending the analysis of the finite complement case to the object control case, we will make a slight revision and replace BELIEVE by COMMIT. This is because BELIEVE is a predicate that can combine with propositions but not with actions, whereas COMMIT is general enough to combine with either propositions or actions, along the lines discussed earlier in connection with agree. We are not claiming, incidentally, that COMMIT is exactly identical with agree. The two predicates differ in that COMMIT does not take an optional argument referring to a co-present rational being. In other words, we can persuade someone that the moon is made of green cheese without necessarily sharing that belief ourselves, and we can persuade someone to do the dishes without their incurring an obligation to us to do so. Given this slight change, we are now in a position to derive (57).

(57) We persuaded the children to dance.

The derivation of the nonfinite clause to dance is exactly the same as in the case of a subject control sentence; (58a) is identical to (27c). (58a) substitutes as the complement of COMMIT, and substituting the children in the specifier position of COMMIT yields (58b).

(58) a. b. c.

Substitute (58a) as complement Reuse (27c) Substitute specifier in (58b) of abstract subject control verb

Notice how the apparent matrix object the children is not actually an object, but rather a subject of a small clause complement; in a moment, its objective case feature will be checked by CAUSE in the spec-head configuration. (58c) substitutes as the complement of CAUSE, yielding (59a), and then substituting the matrix subject we in the specifier position of CAUSE and abstract verb movement yields (59b). (59) a. b.

Substitute (58c) as complement of Substitute specifier in (59a) and abstract verb CAUSE movement

Finally, the VP in (59b) substitutes into the elementary tree for the matrix I, and the matrix subject undergoes subject movement. For simplicity, we omit these last steps of the derivation.

The analysis just presented is straightforwardly consistent with the contrast between ECM and object control illustrated in (60).

(60) a. We expected there to be a problem. b. # We persuaded there to be a problem.

The structures for the two sentences are shown in (61).

(61) a. b.

In (61a), expletive there is licensed by originating as the specifier of main verb be in the complement clause. (61b), on the other hand, is ruled out for exactly the same reasons as (32), repeated here as (62).

(62) # There agreed [ PRO to be a problem ] .

First, expletive there is not licensed, since neither COMMIT nor agree are verbs of existence. Second, COMMIT, like agree, selects rational beings as subjects, and expletive there fails to satisfy this selectional restriction.

More nonthematic subjects

In distinguishing among the various verb classes discussed in this chapter, we have relied heavily on the distribution of expletive there (or, to put it another way, on the grammaticality or ungrammaticality of sentences containing expletive there). As it turns out, expletive there is not the only nonthematic subject (= subject that is not associated with a thematic role). In this final section of the chapter, we present two further instances of nonthematic subjects: so-called subject idiom chunks and weather it.

Subject idiom chunks

In Chapter 7, we introduced a constraint according to which idioms must form a constituent, and we mentioned the existence of clausal idioms like The shit hit the fan. Subject idiom chunks are simply the subjects of such clausal idioms. Some further examples of clausal idioms are given in (63); the subject idiom chunks are italicized.

(63) a. The cat is out of the bag. b. The fur will fly. c. The jig is up. d. The pot is calling the kettle black.

Subject idiom chunks share two important properties with expletive there. First, just as expletive there must be licensed by a verb of existence, the subjects in (63) have whatever idiomatic force they have only in connection with the rest of the idiom, but not otherwise.

The relation between subject idiom chunks and their predicates is actually even stronger than the relationship between expletive there and its licensers, since predicate idiom chunks also have no independent idiomatic meaning of their own, whereas verbs of existence can occur independently of existential there.

For instance, neither cat in (63a) nor pot in (63d) have a metaphorical sense of secret or hypocrite, respectively, in other syntactic contexts. So sentences as in (64) have only literal interpretations.

(64) a. The cat is safe with her. (can't mean: 'The secret is safe with her.') b. # Fortunately, the pot retracted that piece of duplicitous slander. (can't mean: 'The hypocrite retracted that piece of duplicitous slander.')

Second, presumably because they are not interpreted literally, subject idiom chunks don't seem to be associated with any thematic role, and so they can occupy the nonthematic subject position of raising predicates. As a result of these two properties, contrasts as in (65) are expected.

(65) a. # The cat agreed [ PRO to be out of the bag ] . b. [The cat]i seems [ ti to be out of the bag ] .

(65a) is ruled out both on a literal and an idiomatic reading. Agree selects rational beings as subjects and is therefore incompatible with the cat either as a literal or as an idiomatic (nonthematic) subject. In addition, the cat isn't licensed as an idiom chunk in the representation in (65a) because it doesn't form a constituent with the rest of the idiom. By contrast, both readings, and in particular the idiomatic one, are possible in (65b). This is expected, since the matrix subject originates in the complement clause, forming a constituent with the remainder of the idiom.

Note that examples like (66) do not invalidate the diagnostic value of subject idiom chunks in distinguishing between subject control and raising predicates.

(66) The cat wanted [ PRO to be out of the bag ] . (only literal interpretation) Here, want imposes less strict selectional restrictions on its subject. Since the subject needn't be rational (only have a reasonably well-developed nervous system), the sentence is grammatical, unlike (65a). However, unlike in (65b), the matrix subject position isn't nonthematic and the matrix subject doesn't move out of the lower clause, so the sentence has only a literal interpretation.

Weather it

The third type of nonthematic subject is weather it, the subject of verbs of precipitation.

(67) ok It is { hailing, pouring, raining, sleeting, snowing. }

As with subject idiom chunks and their predicates, the licensing relationship between weather it and their predicates is mutual: not only is weather it licensed by weather verbs, but the weather verbs are in turn themselves licensed by weather it, as shown in (68).

(68) * The { air, atmosphere, environment, precipitation, sky, weather } is { hailing, pouring, raining, sleeting, snowing. }

Given the nonthematic character of weather it, contrasts as in (69) are expected.

(70) a. # It decided to rain at night. b. It tends to rain at night.

Unexpectedly, given what we have said so far, sentences like (71) are not that unacceptable.

(71) ? It's trying to rain; it finally managed to rain.

What is going on here? A simple explanation is that the selectional restrictions of try and manage are being violated at a literal level (recall the discussion of the little girl lapping up her teacher's praise), prompting the hearer to conceptualize the weather as an animate being.

Summary

We have seen that expletive there is licensed as the subject of verbs of (coming into) existence. Subject idiom chunks and their predicates stand in a mutual licensing relationship, as does weather it with weather predicates. Because of their special licensing requirements, none of these subjects is licensed as the subject of a subject control predicate (or as the apparent object of an object control predicate). Nor can a control predicate's selectional restrictions not be met by a nonthematic subject. By contrast, raising predicates neither interfere with the licensing of nonthematic subjects (which takes place in a lower clause) nor do they impose selectional restrictions that the nonthematic subjects cannot meet. It is precisely because of their semantic defectiveness that they are able to act as grammatical catalysts, allowing licensing relations that are normally confined to the same clause to extend across clause boundaries.

As we have seen, the special properties of nonthematic subjects make them useful diagnostics to distinguish subject control from raising predicates (and, mutatis mutandis, ECM from object control predicates). The relevant judgments are summarized in (72); for convenience, we also include the judgments for manner adverbs discussed in connection with promise.

Subject control Raising (72) Expletive there * ok Subject idiom chunk # (or only literal) ok (both idiomatic and literal) Weather it # (or metaphorical) ok Manner adverbs ok *

Notes

1. For simplicity, we are disregarding the fact that one and the same person can be of two minds! In other words, the optional argument seems to be a state of mind rather than the experiencer of that state of mind.

2. The statement in the text is an oversimplification. In fact, there is a bit of overlap in the distribution of PRO and overt noun phrases---for instance, the subject position of gerunds.

(i) a. [ PRO going out with him ] would bother me. b. [ { Kim's, Kim } going out with him ] would bother me.

3. For simplicity, we focus on the proposition argument of seem and disregard the optional experiencer (It seems to me that you've solved the problem). Including the latter in our considerations would not affect our conclusions.

4. Even clearer evidence that the specifier position at issue is the Spec(VP) associated with seem (and not, say, some higher specifier position, such as Spec(IP)) comes from small clauses like (i).

(i) a. They made [ it seem [ that the problem was hard ] ] . b. * They made [ [ that the problem was hard ] seem ] .

Exercises and problems

Exercise 9.1

A. As mentioned in the text, certain subject control predicates, like try, cannot take finite complements. Provide evidence that in subject control sentences containing these predicates, both the matrix predicate and the complement predicate impose their own selectional restrictions, thus motivating a biclausal analysis even for such sentences.

B. Explain the acceptability contrast in (1).

(1) a. The children seemed to learn Twi. b. # The children seemed to { elapse, evaporate }.

C. What is the evidence that the case feature on there in (2) is nominative?

(2) There seemed to be a problem.

D. Show that threaten is both a subject control verb and a raising verb.

Exercise 9.2

A. The premises of the following argument are correct, and the conclusion itself may be correct, but the argument is invalid. Where is the fallacy? (1) is grammatical; (2) is ungrammatical. Therefore, manage must be a subject control predicate, not a raising predicate.

(1) She managed to solve the problem. (2) * There managed to solve the problem.

B. Using the sample answers in (2) and (3) as a model, determine whether the verbs in (4) are subject control predicates, raising predicates, or neither. For the purposes of this exercise, use only active verb forms.

Evidence: Conclusion: (2) ok There chanced to be an opening. Chance is a raising verb. (3) a. ok It slipped out that there was a problem. Slip out is like occur. It has a nonthematic subject b. * There slipped out to be a problem. position (3a), but can't take nonfinite complements (3b), so it isn't a raising verb. (4) a. * It resolved that they would better in Resolve is a subject control verb. the future. b. * There resolved to do better in the future.

(5) agree, aspire, attempt, be, beg, cease, choose, claim, come, commence, continue, dare, demand, deserve, desire, determine, elect, end up, endeavor, expect, fail, forget, happen, have, hope, intend, look, mean, need, neglect, plan, pledge, prefer, presume, pretend, proceed, prove, purport, remember, request, start, strive, swear, tend, train, try, volunteer, vow, wish, yearn

C. Subject control and raising predicates can be of other syntactic categories than V. The predicates in (6) are adjectives, those in (7) are participles and it's not always completely clear whether they are adjectives or verbs, and about in (8) is a preposition. As in (B), determine which class each of these predicates belong to, giving the evidence on which your decision is based.

(6) afraid, anxious, apt, certain, content, eager, ecstatic, evident, fortunate, glad, happy, hesitant, liable, likely, lucky, necessary, possible, ready, reluctant, sorry, sure, unlikely (7) bound, delighted, destined, determined, embarrassed, excited, fated, going, inclined, itching, jonesing, prepared, scared, (all) set, supposed, thrilled (8) about

D. Using (9)-(11) as a model, determine whether the verbs in (12) are ECM verbs or object control verbs. Once again, use only active verb forms. For the purpose of this exercise, do not worry about how you would semantically decompose any object control verbs that you find.

Evidence: Conclusion: (9) ok I assumed there to be a problem. Assume is an ECM verb. (10) a. ok I convinced John to take the job. Convince is an object control verb. b. * I convinced there to be a problem. (11) a. ok I noticed that the problem was difficult. Notice doesn't allow nonfinite complements; therefore b. * I noticed the problem to be difficult. it is neither an ECM verb nor an object control verb.

(12) acknowledge, advise, allow, anticipate, ask, beg, blackmail, challenge, command, consider, convince, corral, dare, deem, determine, discover, encourage, enjoin, expect, fear, find, forbid, get, help, instruct, invite, know, order, perceive, permit, predict, pressure, prompt, prove, provoke, remind, report, request, require, tell, tempt, urge, warn

Exercise 9.3

For this exercise, find verbs that have not been discussed in the book.

Be sure to provide the evidence (grammatical or ungrammatical sentences) on the basis of which you decide that a particular verb belongs to a particular class. Not much in the way of discussion is required beyond that.

A. As was mentioned in this chapter, raising verbs are logically distinct from there licensers. There are, however, some verbs that belong to both classes (this is comparable to a single person belonging to two distinct clubs). Can you think of any?

B. As we mentioned in this chapter, there are raising verbs that cannot take finite complements. Can you think of other verbs besides tend with this property?

C. Expect is an ECM verb. Which other class(es) of verbs discussed in this chapter does it belong to?

Exercise 9.4

A. Using the guidelines from Exercise 9.2, determine which class the matrix predicates in (1) belong to.

(1) a. They appear to be lunatics. b. They hope to get the job. c. They reminded him to solve the problem. d. They aren't anxious to move. e. They are likely to get the job. f. They are about to graduate.

B. Using the grammar tool in nonfinite complementation, build structures for the sentences in (1). Provide suitable decompositions for any object control predicates.

Exercise 9.5

Explain why the following sentences are ungrammatical. The intended meaning in all cases is It seems that they like caviar (or the semantically equivalent They seem to like caviar). If convenient, you can use the grammar tool in nonfinite complementation to build structures for the sentences.

(1) a. * There seems that they like caviar. b. * They1 seem that they1 like caviar. c. * Theyi seem that ti like caviar. d. * Caviari seems that they like ti.

Problem 9.1

Based on the analysis of object control verbs in this chapter, explain the contrast between (1) and (2).

(1) I persuaded them to come. (2) a. * I was persuasive them to come. b. * I was persuasive of them to come.

Problem 9.2

Some of the predicates discussed in this chapter take either a finite or a nonfinite clausal complement; others take only a nonfinite complement. Finally, some predicates that in principle might take a nonfinite complement don't.

(1) a. The children agreed that they would dance; the children agreed to dance. b. It appears that the bear is hibernating; the bear appears to be hibernating. (2) a. The children tried to dance; *the children tried that they would dance. b. The bear tends to hibernate in winter; *it tends that the bear hibernates in winter. (3) It is evident that there is a problem; *there is evident to be a problem.

The analysis presented in the chapter is not detailed enough to account for these facts. Suggest how the analysis could be appropriately extended or revised. 10 Passive

Characteristics of the passive A movement analysis of the passive Object idiom chunks Analysis The passive and nonfinite complementation Structural versus inherent case Exercises and problems

In this chapter, we first present some general characteristics of the passive and then a movement analysis of it. Although superficially the passive does not resemble subject raising, the analysis of it that we present views the two constructions as analogous in certain respects. Moreover, as we will show, subject raising turns out to be analogous not just to the passive of simple clauses, but also to the passive of complex clauses containing ECM verbs. All three phenomena (subject raising, passive of simple clauses, passive of ECM verbs) turn out to obey a correlation called Burzio's generalization, according to which verbs that lack an agent argument also lack the ability to check case on their complement. In a final section, we show that there are two types of case, structural and inherent, and that Burzio's generalization holds only for structural case.

Characteristics of the passive

In English, as in most other languages, active sentences like (1a) have passive counterparts like (1b).

(1) a. Active Nancy approved them. Thematic roles Agent Theme Grammatical relations Subject Direct object b. Passive They were approved (by Nancy). Thematic roles Theme Agent Grammatical relations Subject Object of preposition

Passivization has a number of effects. First and foremost, the agent argument, which is expressed as the subject of the active sentence, is demoted in the passive to an optional by phrase. Second, the theme argument is promoted from object to subject. In other words, the agent and theme arguments are linked to different grammatical relations in the passive than in the active. Third, a past participle in the passive, unlike one in the active, can't check objective case.

(2) a. Active Nancy has approved them. b. Passive * Itexpl was approved them. Intended meaning: 'They were approved.'

In English, the passive is expressed analytically by a combination of the past participle and a form of the auxiliary verb be. Other languages allow the passive to be expressed synthetically, as illustrated in (3) for Korean and in (4) for Latin.

(3) a. Active Chulswu-ka kyehoyk-ul helak- ha- yessta. Chulswu nom plans acc approve active past Agent Theme Subject Direct object 'Chulswu approved the plans.' b. Passive Kyehoyk-i (chulswu-eyuyhaye) helak- toy- essta. plans nom Chulswu by approve passive past Theme Agent Subject Object of postposition 'The plans were approved (by Chulswu).' (4) a. Active Puer-0 claud-it port-am. boy nom close 3.sg.pres door acc Agent Theme Subject Direct object 'The boy is closing the door.' b. Passive Port-a claud-it- ur (a puer-o). door nom close 3.sg.pres passive by boy abl Theme Agent Subject Object of preposition 'The door is being closed (by the boy).'

In these languages, it is the bound morphemes -toy- and -ur that result in the effects of passivization mentioned above. As in English, the grammatical relations of the agent and theme arguments differ in the active and the passive. Also, as in English, the passive participle cannot check the case that active verb forms can.

(5) a. * Kyehoyk-ul (chulswu-eyuyhaye) helak- toy- essta. plans acc Chulswu by approve passive past Intended meaning: 'The plans were approved (by Chulswu).' b. * Claud-it- ur port-am (a puer-o). close 3.sg.pres passive door acc by boy abl Intended meaning: 'The door is being closed by the boy.'

Returning to English, the properties of the passive participle suggest that it is not a verb, but rather a deverbal adjective (that is, an adjective that is morphologically derived from a verb). Ordinary adjectives in English can't check case, so this immediately accounts for the inability of the passive participle to do so in (2b). The idea that passive participles are adjectives seems to run into difficulties, though, in connection with aspectual semantics. Aspect is a complex linguistic category having to do with the kinds of situations that verbs and verb phrases can denote, but for present purposes, we need to distinguish only two such situations: events and states. In English, a convenient diagnostic is that events, but not states, can appear in the progressive.

(6) a. Eventive Non-progressive The police arrested many demonstrators. b. Progressive The police are arresting many demonstrators. (7) a. Stative Non-progressive He knows the address. b. Progressive * He is knowing the address.

Passive participles can be used to denote events, as in the passive counterparts of (6) that are given in (8), whereas adjectives in English are generally stative, as shown in (9).

(8) a. Eventive Non-progressive Many demonstrators were arrested (by the police). b. Progressive Many demonstrators were being arrested (by the police). (9) a. Stative Non-progressive She is tall; scholarships are available. b. Progressive * She is being tall; scholarships are being available.

The aspectual contrast between (8) and (9) therefore seems to raise a difficulty for the idea that participles are adjectives. However, though rare, it is possible for adjectives in English to be eventive. This is shown by (10a), which is synonymous with (10b); note that early and late are adjectives in (10a) and adverbs in (10b). (10) a. They were { early, late. } b. They arrived { early, late. }

As expected, eventive adjectives like early and late can also appear in connection with the progressive; cf. the acceptability of both (11a) and (11b).

(11) a. They are being { early, late } (again). b. They are arriving { early, late } (again).

Given the existence of eventive adjectives, then, the eventive aspectual semantics of the passive participles in (8) turns out to be unproblematic.

In addition to the eventive aspectual semantics just discussed, passive participles can also have stative aspectual semantics, as illustrated by the aspectual contrast in (12).

(12) Aspect Example Discourse context

a. Event The door is locked (by the The janitor locks the door at exactly 5 p.m. without janitor). fail. b. State The door is locked. It's now 5:15 p.m.

As one would expect, stative participles cannot occur in the progressive.

(13) Aspect Example Discourse context

a. Event The door is being The janitor always locks the door at exactly 5 p.m. without fail, locked. and it's now exactly 5 p.m. b. State * The door is being It's now 5:15 p.m. locked.

Finally, passive participles can go so far as to lose their verbal properties completely. They can then appear in the comparative and superlative like ordinary gradable adjectives, and they can form un- adjectives, as shown in (14).

(14) a. She's more { committed, educated, enlightened, interested, satisfied } than he is. b. They're the most { committed, educated, enlightened, interested, satisfied } people I know c. uncommitted, uneducated, unenlightened, uninterested, unsatisfied

A movement analysis of the passive

Object idiom chunks

In addition to the subject idiom chunks discussed in Chapter 9, English also has object idiom chunks. As their name implies, these are licensed as the objects of particular verbs. Some examples are given in (15) (Radford 1988:422). The object idiom chunks are in italics, and the licensing verbs are in green. (15) a. Let's take advantage of the situation. b. They are making some headway on a solution. c. They will { give, pay } heed to her proposal. d. The Prime Minister paid homage to the dead. e. She took note of what I said. f. The government keeps tabs on his operations.

The restriction of object idiom chunks to the complement position of the licensing verb is thrown into striking relief by the contrast between nearly synonymous expressions such as attention and heed, or progress and headway (Radford 1988:423). The variants with the ordinary expressions (attention, progress) are fine, but those with the idiom chunks (heed, headway) are not since they are not licensed by the verbs in red.

(16) a. He's always trying to attract my { attention, *heed. } b. He's a child who requires a lot of { attention, *heed. } (17) a. Please be prepared to report some { progress, *headway } by Monday. b. We appreciate your { progress, *headway } in solving the problem.

Given their licensing requirements, it isn't surprising that object idiom chunks are generally ungrammatical in subject position.

(18) a. { Attention, *heed } facilitates learning. b. More { attention, *heed } to maintenance would soon pay off in lower repair bills. c. { Progress, *headway } is often slower than one expects.

Object idiom chunks are, however, able to occur in subject position under one condition---in passive sentences where the passive participle is that of the licensing verb. This is illustrated by the contrast between (19) and (20) (Radford 1988:423).

(19) a. Little advantage was taken of the situation. b. Some headway is being made on a solution. c. Little heed was paid to her proposal. d. Due homage was paid to the dead. e. Little note was taken of what I said. f. Close tabs were kept on his operations. (20) a. * My heed was attracted immediately. b. * Your close heed is required. c. * A bit of headway was reported at the meeting. d. * Our headway in solving the problem wasn't sufficiently appreciated.

Analysis

We now turn to an analysis of the passive that takes into consideration the facts that we have just presented. We begin by recalling the key assumption of the analysis of subject raising in Chapter 9, namely that special subjects invariably originate as specifiers of their licensing predicates. A straightforward consequence of this assumption is that when special subjects function as the subjects of a higher clause, they must have moved there from their original position. We can think of this process of subject raising as extending the relation between a special subject and its licenser without giving up the locality of the licensing relationship, which is preserved by the lowest trace in the movement chain. As we have just seen, object idiom chunks in active sentences are locally licensed as well, namely as the complements of a licensing verb, and this local relationship is extended in passive sentences. In other words, although the licensing relationship differs in both cases (spec-predicate for subject raising, head- comp for passive), the passive is analogous to subject raising in that both constructions exhibit the extension of an otherwise very strict local licensing relationship. Because of this fundamental similarity, it makes sense to treat the passive as a further instance of movement.

Our movement analysis of the passive is based on the premise that theme arguments originate in the same structural position in both the active and the passive. This means that the elementary trees for active and passive participles both contain a complement position. However, the elementary trees for the two categories also differ in several ways. First, as discussed earlier, passive participles are adjectives. Second, in the active, the agent argument is obligatorily linked to (= expressed in) Spec(VP), whereas in the passive, it is optionally linked to an adjunct by phrase. We will represent this by omitting Spec(VP) in the elementary tree for the passive participle. Finally, passive participles in English cannot check objective case; recall the ungrammaticality of (2b). The elementary trees we propose for active and passive participles are thus as shown in (21).

(21) a. b.

Active: [ + obj ] Passive: [ - obj ]

It is worth noticing the following correlation. Active verbs, including active participles, link their agent argument to the specifier position and are able to check objective case, whereas passive participles have neither property. This correlation between the linking of a head's agent argument to its specifier position and the head's ability to check objective case is known as Burzio's generalization (Burzio 1986).

In what follows, we illustrate the derivation of a passive sentence like (22).

(22) The proposal was adopted.

First, we substitute the theme argument the proposal in the elementary tree in (21b). This yields (23a). We then substitute (23a) as the complement of the passive auxiliary verb was, as in (23b). For simplicity, we will assume that auxiliary verbs, like raising verbs and passive participles, lack a specifier position. The resulting structure then substitutes as the complement of I, as in (23c).

(23) a. b. c.

Substitute theme Substitute (23a) as complement of Substitute (23b) as argument in (21b) passive auxiliary complement of I

Because of the inability of the passive participle to check objective case, the theme argument's case feature cannot be checked in the complement position in a structure like (23b). Since every case feature must be checked, the theme argument must move to the closest position in which case can be checked. This position is Spec(IP), where it is possible for nominative case on the theme argument to be checked by finite I. The resulting final structure is shown in (24). (For simplicity, the tree in (24) doesn't show the verb movement of was from V to I.)

(24)

According to the analysis just presented, the passive is analogous to subject raising in the following way. In both cases, a noun phrase (the subject of the complement clause with subject raising, the object with passive) originates in a position in which case can't be checked. This forces the relevant noun phrase (complement subject, object) to move to the closest position where case can be checked. Of course, subject raising and the passive aren't identical in every respect. There are two important differences between the two instances of movement. First, the path from the head of the chain to its tail contains a clause boundary (IP) in the case of subject raising, but not in the case of the passive.

Recall that the term head has two completely different meanings that shouldn't be confused. The head of an X' structure is the syntactic category that immediately dominates a word or morpheme and projects an intermediate and a maximal projection. The head of a movement chain is simply the highest element in the chain.

(25) a. b.

Subject raising Passive

Second, as noted earlier, the grammatical relation of the moved noun phrase changes in the passive from object to subject. In subject raising, on the other hand, the grammatical relation of the moved noun phrase doesn't change; it starts out as a subject and ends up as one.

The passive and nonfinite complementation

In this section, we focus on the passive of ECM verbs like expect, which were introduced in connection with head-spec licensing in Chapter 8. Consider the sentences in (26).

(26) a. Your folks expect you to call. b. You are expected to call.

The elementary tree for expect in (26a) is given in (27a). In accordance with the previous discussion, the elementary tree for the passive participle expected is as in (27b). The difference between the two trees is analogous to that between the trees in (21); the only difference is the syntactic category of the complement (DP in the case of ordinary verbs, IP in the case of ECM verbs). Note that the elementary tree in (27b) is missing a specifier position; in accordance with Burzio's generalization, it also lacks the ability to check objective case.

(27) a. b.

Active: [ + obj ] Passive: [ - obj ]

In what follows, we illustrate the derivation of (26b). The derivation of the complement clause is shown in (28); we assume that the complement subject moves from Spec(VP) to Spec(IP) to provide the complement clause with a subject (recall the subject requirement discussed in Chapter 3).

(28) a. b. c.

Structure of Substitute (28a) as complement of Move subject of complement VP nonfinite I complement clause

The subsequent steps of the derivation involving the matrix clause are as shown in (29).

(29) a. b. c.

Substitute (29a) as Substitute (29b) as Substitute (28c) as complement of complement of passive complement of passive participle of ECM verb auxiliary matrix I

In (29c), the subject of the complement clause cannot check case with the participle of the ECM verb in the head-spec configuration because the participle, being passive, lacks the ability to check case. Therefore, the complement subject must move to the nearest position where case can be checked. This is the matrix Spec(IP), where nominative case is checked. The resulting structure is shown in (30). (30)

Consider now the chain headed by you in (30). The chain consists of three links, which occupy the matrix Spec(IP), the complement Spec(IP), and the complement Spec(VP). Recall from Chapter 9 that subject raising also results in chains whose links consist of these three positions. In this respect, then, the passive of ECM verbs is analogous to subject raising, as is evident from comparing the schematic structures in (31). The only difference is that the structure of ECM passives is slightly more complex because of the passive auxiliary in the matrix clause.

(31) a. b.

ECM passive chain Raising chain

The reason that the chains in (31) are analogous is that the passive participle of the ECM verb and the subject raising verb both obey Burzio's generalization. In other words, as shown in (32), both heads fail to project a specifier position, and they are both unable to check case.

(32) a. b.

[ - obj ] [ - obj ]

Although Burzio's generalization itself remains to be explained, it does allow us to understand the ungrammaticality of all three sentences in (33) as stemming from a single source. In all three sentences, the head (highlighted in italics), fails to be associated with an agent and hence fails to project Spec(VP),1 yet contrary to Burzio's generalization case would have to be checked on the underlined noun phrases, in either the head-spec configuration, as in (33a,b) or the head-comp configuration, as in (33c).

(33) a. * Itexpl seems [ him to have a problem. ] b. * Itexpl is expected [ him to have a problem. ] c. * Itexpl was approved them.

Structural versus inherent case

In languages with morphologically richer case systems than English, there is evidence for a distinction between two types of case: structural, on the one hand, and inherent, on the other.

For instance, the following German examples show that the active participle unterstützt 'supported' checks accusative case, but that the homonymous passive participle cannot. Instead, in the passive, nominative case on the theme argument is checked by finite I (a silent [pres] element), as in English. (The following examples are all given in the form of subordinate clauses in order to abstract away from an irrelevant word order effect in German main clauses that we discuss in Chapter 13.)

(34) Active: dass wir dies-en Kandidat-en unterstützt haben that we this acc candidate acc supported have 'that we have supported this candidate' (35) a. Passive: dass dies-er Kandidat- 0 unterstützt wurde that this nom candidate nom supported was 'that this candidate was supported' b. * dass dies-en Kandidat- en unterstützt wurde that this acc candidate acc supported was

In contrast to verbs that check the accusative, however, verbs that check the dative continue to check that case even in the passive. This is shown in (36) and (37).

(36) Active: dass wir dies-em Kandidat- en geholfen haben that we this dat candidate dat helped have 'that we helped this candidate' (37) a. Passive: * dass dies-er Kandidat- 0 geholfen wurde that this nom candidate nom helped was Intended meaning: 'that this candidate was helped' b. ok dass dies-em Kandidat -en geholfen wurde that this dat candidate dat helped was

The accusative and the dative are both checked in the head-comp configuration by the verbs unterstützen and helfen, respectively, but they differ in that the accusative alternates with the nominative, whereas the dative doesn't. What we mean by 'alternate' is simply that an accusative object in the active corresponds to a nominative subject in the passive, whereas a dative object in the active remains dative in the passive. The alternating cases (nominative, accusative) are referred to as structural cases, whereas the nonalternating case (dative) is referred to as an inherent case.

The distinction between structural and inherent case has consequences for the proper formulation of Burzio's generalization. In view of the facts just presented, it holds only for verbs that check structural case.

An important question that arises in connection with (37b) is what element checks the nominative case feature of the finite I. It is generally assumed that German has a silent expletive element, corresponding to English expletive it or there, that checks nominative case in Spec(IP). The structure of (37b) is then as in (38). (For simplicity, we don't show the movement of the passive auxiliary---in this case, wurde---to the past tense I.) (38)

It is worth noting that the silent expletive bears a number feature with the default value 'singular'. Evidence for this comes from the number agreement pattern in (39): the overt plural subject in (39a) agrees with a plural verb form, whereas the silent expletive in (39b) agrees with the corresponding singular verb form.

(39) a. dass die Kandidaten unterstützt { wurden, *wurde } that the candidates.nom supported were was 'that the candidates were supported' b. dass den Kandidaten geholfen { wurde, *wurden } that the candidates.dat helped was were 'that the candidates were helped' literally: 'that it { was, *were } helped the candidates'

Notes

1. We are assuming that expletive it in (33) would substitute into Spec(IP).

Exercises and problems

Exercise 10.1

A. Using the all purpose grammar tool, build structures for the sentences in (1).

(1) a. The puppeteers might be arrested. b. The puppeteers were arrested.

B. In addition to the passive auxiliary be, English has a second passive auxiliary---get---which is illustrated in (2).

(2) a. The puppeteers might get arrested. b. The puppeteers got arrested.

There is a purely syntactic difference betweeen the two passive auxiliaries be and get. What is it?

The answer is purely syntactic.

Exercise 10.2

A. Using the all purpose grammar tool, build structures for the sentences in (1).

(1) a. Standard English The car needs to be washed. b. Pittsburgh English The car needs washed.

B. Based on the evidence in (1), compare the syntactic properties of Standard English versus Pittsburgh English need. Be explicit but brief.

Exercise 10.3

A. Using the all purpose grammar tool, build structures for the sentences in (1) and (2).

(1) a. We expect them to make headway. b. We expect headway to be made. c. Headway is expected to be made. (2) a. The media expect the guerillas to free the journalist. b. The media expect the journalist to be freed by the guerillas. c. The journalist is expected to be freed by the guerillas.

B. One of the sentences in (2) is structurally ambiguous. Briefly explain which one it is.

Don't just identify the ambiguous sentence.

Exercise 10.4

A. Using the all purpose grammar tool, build structures for the sentences in (1).

(1) a. They proved there to be an error in the calculation. b. There proved to be an error in the calculation.

B. Which case is checked on the underlined noun phrases? How do you know?

C. In which licensing configuration(s) is case checked on the underlined noun phrases?

D. The syntactic properties of prove differ in (1a) and (1b). Briefly explain how.

Exercise 10.5

A. The sentences in (1) are ungrammatical in standard English. Why?

(1) a. * The path from I to V is intervened by an illicit node. b. * In the next sentence, the original subject has been substituted by a pronoun.

B. Omitting the by phrase in the sentences in (1) yields the grammaticality contrast in (2). Why?

(2) a. * The path from I to V is intervened. b. ok In the next sentence, the original subject has been substituted.

Problem 10.1

Radford 1997:365 reports the passive constructions in (1), in which try and attempt have different syntactic properties than they do in ordinary usage. Describe the differences, addressing the following issues:

Are the verbs/participles raising or control predicates? Does the verb/participle's elementary tree contain a specifier position? Does the verb/participle check case?

(1) a. The word has tried to be defined in terms of a phonetic matrix. b. Dialects are often attempted to be suppressed. c. Some journalists have been attempted to be attacked. 11 Wh- movement: Ross's island constraints

In this chapter, we introduce a type of movement that differs from the ones discussed so far (subject movement, subject raising, passive). First, it affects not just DPs, but maximal projections of many syntactic categories. Second, the landing site for the moved constituent is outside of IP. Because this type of movement is involved in the derivation of wh- questions, it is known as wh- movement.

This chapter is devoted to motivating wh- movement and presenting a basic range of empirical phenomena associated with it. In particular, we review an influential set of structural conditions under which wh- movement is ungrammatical, the so-called island constraints of Ross 1967. Having established that wh- movement is subject to the island constraints in questions (see Questions for some basic information about questions), we then use the constraints as a diagnostic that certain further constructions in English, including relative clauses and so-called topicalization, are derived by wh- movement as well.

Evidence for a movement analysis of questions

Complementation

As the presence of the complementizer if in the indirect question in (1) shows, the verb wonder takes a CP complement.

(1) They wonder if the lions will devour the wildebeest.

The elementary trees for wonder and if are given in (2a,b), and the entire tree for (1) is given in (2c). (2) a. b. c.

Now consider the indirect question in (3), which begins with a wh- phrase (a maximal projection) rather than with a complementizer (a head).

(3) They wonder which wildebeest the lions will devour.

Let's adopt the null hypothesis that wonder is associated with the same elementary tree in (3) as in (1)— namely, with (2a). Since (3) contains no overt complementizer, the CP tree that substitutes into the complement node of the elementary tree for wonder must then be the projection of a silent complementizer. For reasons to be given shortly, we take this complementizer to be a silent counterpart of that. In deriving the tree for (3), a further difficulty remains concerning the wh- phrase which wildebeest. On the one hand, the wh- phrase must be the object of devour, just as in (1), because devour is obligatorily transitive. But on the other hand, the wh- phrase precedes the subject of the subordinate clause rather than following the verb. As usual when we are confronted with a mismatch of this sort, we invoke movement in order to allow a single phrase to simultaneously play several roles in a sentence. Specifically, we will have the wh- phrase originate as the sister of the verb whose object it is and then move to Spec(CP). This allows us to accommodate the word order in (3), while maintaining that devour is a transitive verb regardless of what clause type (declarative or interrogative) it happens to occur in. The resulting structure for (3) is shown in (4).

(4)

The argument just presented is based on the obligatorily transitive character of devour, but it can be extended straightforwardly to other syntactic relations. For instance, we have chosen to represent the modification relation structurally by having the modifier adjoin at the intermediate projection of the modifiee. Accordingly, the adverb phrase unbelievably quickly adjoins at V' in (5a) since it modifies the verb devour. The corresponding wh- phrase how quickly modifies devour in (5b), so it needs to adjoin to V' as well, but it precedes the subject. Again, the mismatch between the position where the phrase is interpreted and where it is pronounced can be resolved by movement of the modifier, as shown in (6).

(5) a. The lions will devour the wildebeest unbelievably quickly. b. They wonder how quickly the lions will devour the wildebeest. (6)

Why a silent complementizer?

Let's turn now to the question of why we treat the complementizer in (4) and in (6) as as a silent counterpart of that. There are several reasons. First, Middle English (1150–1500) routinely allowed (though it did not require) overt that as the syntactic head of indirect wh- questions. The examples in (7) are from the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English. (7e) shows that that alternated with its silent counterpart even for individual authors.

(7) a. First the behoueth to knowe why that suche a solitary lyf was ordeyned. (cmaelr4.m4, 13) 'First, it behooves thee to know why such a solitary life was ordained.' b. … he wiste wel hymself what that he wolde answere … (cmctmeli.m3, 75) 'he himself knew well what he would answer' c. for ye han ful ofte assayed … how wel that I kan hyde and hele thynges (cmctmeli.m3, 149) 'for you have very often determined how well I can hide and conceal things' d. I wolde fayn knowe how that ye understonde thilke wordes (cmctmeli.m3, 408) 'I would like to know how you understand these words' e. And forther over, it is necessarie to understonde whennes that synnes spryngen, and how they encreessen (cmctpars.m3, 352) 'And moreover, it is necessary to understand where sins come from, and how they increase' f. Now shal ye understonde in what manere that synne wexeth or encreesseth in man. (cmctpars.m3, 390) 'Now you shall understand in what manner sin grows or increases in man.' g. The fifthe circumstaunce is how manye tymes that he hath synned … and how ofte that he hath falle. (cmctpars.m3, 1503) 'The fifth circumstance is how many times he has sinned … and how often he has fallen.' h. lettyng hym wytte in what plytte that they stode yn (cmgregor.m4, 343) 'letting him know what plight they were in' i. I pray you telle me what knyght that ye be (cmmalory.m4, 4655) 'Please tell me what knight you are'

Second, the variety of English spoken at present in Belfast resembles Middle English in this respect (Henry 1995:107).

(8) a. I wonder which dish that they picked. b. They didn't know which model that we had discussed.

Third, wh- phrases followed by that continue to be attested in the unplanned usage of speakers of modern standard English, as shown in (9) (for further examples, see Radford 1988:500).

(9) a. That tells you how many days that the car will be in the shop. (Kroch 1989:95, fn. 4, (i)) b. Immediately, I saw which one that you wanted me to read. (Beatrice Santorini, in conversation, September 1998) c. I realized how interesting that it was. (Clara Orsitti, 25 January 1999, in an interview with Vicky Barker, World Update, National Public Radio) d. I've got to go through them and see what order that we'll discuss them in. (Beatrice Santorini, in conversation, November 1999) e. Most of my colleagues were amazed how quickly that I recovered. (Advertisement for Temple University Hospital, WRTI, 24 November 1999) f. It could be that that is why that they were understood. (high-low-high intonation on why) (Joanna Labov, doctoral dissertation defense, 4 May 2000) g. These recounts will determine how much of a pick-up that we will have," said Democratic National Committee Chairman Joe Andrew." (http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/08/house.races/) h. to find out what kind of a house that she was looking for (Amy Forsyth, in conversation, 23 Sep 2004)

Finally, sequences of wh- phrase + overt complementizer in indirect questions occur in languages other than English. The complementizer in question is generally the counterpart of that, but the counterpart of if is attested as well.

(10) Bavarian (Bayer 1983-4:212, (8a-d)) a. I woass ned wer dass des toa hod. I know not who that that done has 'I don't know who did that.' b. ... wos dass ma toa soin. what that we do should '... what we should do.' c. ... wann dass da Xaver kumt when that the comes '... when Xaver is coming.' d. ... wiavui dass a kriagt. how much that he gets '... how much he gets.' (11) Dutch (den Besten 1989:23, (21b)) ... welk boek (of) hij wil lezen which book if he wants read '... which book he wants to read'

Case checking

A further argument for wh- movement, similar to the one based on complementation, can be constructed on the basis of case theory. Consider the contrast in (12), which reflects the fact that finite I checks nominative, not objective case (the relevant I is the one in the complement clause).

(12) a. She thinks he will come. b. * She thinks him will come.

Now consider the contrast in (13), where the nominative form who is grammatical in standard English, but the objective form whom is not.

(13) a. I wonder who she thinks will come. b. * I wonder whom she thinks will come.

How is case checked on the nominative form who in (13a)? We would like to maintain the generalization that nominative case is checked in a spec-head configuration with finite I. But case on who cannot be checked by the I closest to it, the present tense morpheme of the thinks clause. First of all, this would leave nominative case on she unchecked. Moreover, if wh- phrases move to Spec(CP), as we have been assuming, then who is not in a spec-head configuration with the I of the thinks clause. Again, the solution to this case-checking puzzle is to invoke movement. Given the structure for (13a) in (14), nominative case on who can be checked by will before who moves to the Spec(CP) of the thinks clause.

(14) I wonder [CP whoi [IP she thinks [CP [IP ti will come ] ] ] ] .

The reason that (13b) is ungrammatical is that objective case cannot be checked in the subject position of the thinks clause. Under a movement analysis, then, the contrast in (13) is parallel to that in (12)---a simple and intuitively appealing result.

The facts just discussed illustrate an important difference between wh- movement on the one hand and subject raising and passive on the other. In instances of subject raising and passive, the noun phrase undergoing movement originates in a non-case-checking position and moves to a subject position, motivated either by considerations of case-checking or by the subject requirement. By contrast, a noun phrase undergoing wh- movement moves from a case-checking position to Spec(CP), a non-case- checking position.

A related difference concerns the categorial status of constituents undergoing wh- movement. Constituents undergoing subject movement or passive are noun phrases, but ones undergoing wh- movement can be maximal projections of other categories, as illustrated in (16).

(16) a. I wonder [AdjP how experienced ] they should be. b. I wonder [AdvP how quickly ] the lions will devour the wildebeest. c. I wonder [PP under which shell ] he hid the pea.

Direct wh- questions

We have argued that wh- phrases move to Spec(CP) in indirect questions. For reasons of uniformity, we assume that direct questions like those in (17) are derived by wh- movement as well.

(17) a. [AdjP How experienced ] should they be? b. [AdvP How quickly ] will the lions devour the wildebeest? c. [PP Under which shell ] did he hide the pea? d. [DP Which wildebeest ] will the lions devour?

As is evident from comparing the direct questions in (17) with their indirect question counterparts in (16) and in (3), movement to Spec(CP) in direct questions is accompanied by a second instance of movement. In particular, whatever occupies I moves to C, with the additional proviso that if I is occupied by a silent tense morpheme, as it is in (16c), it is replaced by the corresponding form of do, as in (17c). We postpone more detailed discussion of this head movement to C to Chapter 13 For the moment, we will simply assume that direct questions are projections of a silent morpheme that occupies C and that expresses interrogative force, represented in what follows by [?]. The structure that we assume for direct questions is illustrated for (17d) in (18). Note that just as in the case of verb movement from V to I discussed in Chapter 6, head movement to C involves both movement and adjunction.

(18)

The island constraints

Apparent unboundedness of wh- movement

Given that wh- phrases in direct and indirect questions occupy the position they do as a result of movement, the question arises of how far a wh- phrase can move from the position where it is interpreted. Examples like (19) suggest that the distance is in principle (that is, apart from performance considerations such as limitations on memory) unlimited, or unbounded. Examples like (19b–e), where a wh- phrase moves out of the CP in which it originates, are called long-distance wh- movement.

(19) a. [CP Whati was he reading ti ] ? b. [CP Whati did he say

[CP that he was reading ti ] ] ?

c. [CP Whati does she believe

[CP that he said

[CP that he was reading ti ] ] ] ?

d. [CP Whati are they claiming

[CP that she believes

[CP that he said

[CP that he was reading ti ] ] ] ] ?

e. [CP Whati do you think

[CP that they are claiming

[CP that she believes CP

[CP that he was reading ti ] ] ] ] ] ?

A typology of islands

But Ross 1967 made the important discovery that contrary to what the pattern in (19) suggests, wh- movement is not in fact unbounded. For instance, although wh- movement out of that clause complements to verbs is grammatical, as shown in (19b–e), wh- movement out of that clause complements to nouns is not, as shown in (20) and (21). In the next few examples, the heads associated with the complement clauses are underlined.

Noun complement: (20) a. He made the claim [ that he has met Subcomandante Marcos ] . b. * [ Who ]i did he make the claim [ that he has met ti ] ? (21) a. He mentioned the fact [ that he had run into Julia Roberts ] . b. * [ Which celebrity ]i did he mention the fact [ that he had run into ti ] ?

Particularly striking is the contrast between (20b) and (21b) on the one hand and the essentially synonymous examples in (22) on the other.

(22) a. [ Who ]i did he claim [ that he has met ti ] ? b. [ Which celebrity ]i did he mention [ that he had run into ti ] ?

Ross introduced the term island to refer to constructions that do not allow a wh- phrase to 'escape' from them (the idea behind the metaphor is that the wh- phrase is marooned on the island). Besides complement clauses to nouns, Ross identified several other types of islands: indirect questions, relative clauses (often subsumed together with noun complement clauses under the rubric of complex noun phrases, but more insightfully kept distinct), sentential subjects, so-called left branches (= specifiers) of noun phrases, and coordinate structures. We illustrate each of these types of island in turn.

(23) illustrates the island character of indirect questions.

Be sure to interpret How in (23b) as modifying the complement verb solve, as indicated by the trace, not the matrix verb forgotten. In other words, a possible answer to (23b) is by Fourier analysis, but not by succumbing to Alzheimer's.

Wh- complement: (23) a. They have forgotten [ which problem they should solve by Fourier analysis ] . b. * Howi have they forgotten [ which problem they should solve ti ] ?

In (23b), it is important to carefully distinguish the movement of which problem in the subordinate clause from that of how in the matrix clause. The movement of which problem creates an island, but is itself licit. What is ungrammatical is the further movement of how from its original position modifying solve to a position ``off island.'' In other words, wh- movement is grammatical within the confines of an island, but not beyond its boundaries.1

(24) and (25) illustrate the island character of relative clauses and sentential subjects. Relative clause: (24) a. They met someone [ { who, that } knows Julia Roberts ] . b. * [ Which celebrity ]i did they meet someone [ { who, that } knows ti ] ? Sentential subject: (25) a. [ That he has met Subcomandante Marcos ] is extremely unlikely. b. * Whoi is [ that he has met ti ] extremely unlikely?

Finally, (26) and (27) illustrate the island character of left branches of noun phrases and coordinate structures. The ungrammaticality of the questions is particularly striking because they are so much shorter and structurally simpler than the grammatical questions in (19b-e).

Left branch of noun phrase: (26) a. She bought [ Jonathan's ] book . b. * [ Whose ]i did she buy [ ti ] book ? Coordinate structure: (27) a. They ordered [ tiramisu and espresso ] . b. * [ Which dessert ]i did they order [ ti and espresso ] ? c. * [ Which beverage ]i did they order [ tiramisu and ti ] ?

Other instances of wh- movement

We turn now to some further constructions in English that are derived by wh- movement. These include various types of relative clauses as well as so-called topicalization.

Wh- relative clauses

As (28) and (29) show, there is a striking parallel in English between questions and wh- relative clauses: both are introduced by wh- phrases.

(28) a. Who moved in next door? (29) a. the people who moved in next door b. Who(m) did you see? b. the people who(m) you saw c. Where did you see them? c. the place where you met them d. Which do you prefer? d. the movie which you prefer e. Whose parents did you meet? e. the girl whose parents you met

This parallel suggests a wh- movement analysis for relative clauses, and this idea is reinforced by the fact that wh- relative clauses exhibit the entire range of island effects, as illustrated in (30).2

(30) a. Noun complement: * the revolutionary whoi I don't believe the claim [ that he has met ti ] b. Wh- complement: * the method [ by which ]i they have forgotten [ which problem they should solve ti ] c. Relative clause: * the revolutionary whoi I dislike the journalist [ who interviewed ti for CNN ] d. Sentential subject: * the addiction whichi [ { that he admitted, admitting } ti ] nearly destroyed his career e. Left branch of noun * the girl whosei you met [ ti parents ] phrase: f. Coordinate structure: * the dessert whichi you ordered [ { coffee and ti, ti and coffee } ]

The facts just reviewed follow straightforwardly if we assume that wh- relative clauses are CPs. The wh- relative pronoun moves to Spec(CP), and the syntactic head of the clause is a silent complementizer, just as in an indirect question. The structure of the relative clause in (29b) is given in (31a), and adjoining the relative clause so that it modifies the noun people yields the structure in (31b).

(31) a. b.

That relative clauses

In addition to wh- relative clauses, English also has that relative clauses, as illustrated in (32).

(32) a. the people that moved in next door b. the people that you saw c. the place that you met them d. the movie that you prefer

Structurally, that relative clauses are completely parallel to wh- relative clauses. But in contrast to wh- relative clauses, it is the complementizer that is overt in that relative clauses, and the wh- element that is silent. The structures corresponding to those in (31) are given in (33).

(33) a. b.

It is worth noting that there are speakers for whom that has developed from a complementizer into a relative pronoun. The evidence for this is that such speakers produce a possessive form of that that is analogous to whose, as illustrated in (34a) and in the naturally occurring (34b). (34) a. % the girl that's parents you met (is going to be your roommate) b. % "... we want them to bring a product to market that's time had not yet come," said Ray Farhung, a Southern California Edison official. (Bill Vlasic, "Cool Contest", The Detroit News, p. 1D, January 10, 1993; from a Linguist List posting by John Lawler)

Doubly marked relative clauses

Given the discussion so far, we would expect to find relative clauses with an overt wh- element in Spec(CP) combined with an overt complementizer, as in (35).

(35) the people who(m) that you saw

Such doubly marked relative clauses are judged to be unacceptable in modern standard English. However, just like doubly marked indirect questions, they are attested in Middle English and in vernacular varieties of other languages, as shown in (36) (from the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English) and (37).

(36) a. thy freend which that thou has lorn (cmctmeli.m3, 31) 'your friend that you have lost' b. the conseil which that was yeven to yow by the men of lawe and the wise folk (cmctmeli.m3, 373) 'the counsel that was given to you by the men of law and the wise folk' c. the seconde condicion which that the same Tullius addeth in this matiere (cmctmeli.m3, 430) 'the second condition that the same Tullius adds in this matter' d. for hire olde freendes which that were trewe and wyse (cmctmeli.m3, 434) 'for her old friends who were loyal and wise' e. the fire of angre and of wratthe, which that he sholde quenche (cmctpars.m3, 859) 'the fire of anger and wrath, which he should quench' f. a squyer, whyche that was a grete captayne (cmgregor.m4, 1333) 'a squire, who was a great captain'

Bavarian (Bayer 1983-4:213, (10a,b)) (37) a. der Hund der wo gestern d' Katz bissn hod the dog who that yesterday the cat bitten has 'the dog that bit the cat yesterday' b. die Frau dera wo da Xaver a Bussl g'gem hod the woman who.dat that the a kiss given has 'the woman that Xaver gave a kiss'

What these facts suggest is that doubly marked wh- movement constructions (both relative clauses and indirect questions) are grammatical (= well-formed from a purely structural point of view). However, the status of these constructions as complement clauses is marked both by the movement of the wh- phrase and by the presence of the complementizer, and it may be that a stylistic constraint against redundant marking has developed that keeps these constructions from occurring in the modern literary varieties of English and other languages.

Zero relative clauses

Given the availability of silent wh- elements and silent complementizers in English, we would expect to find relative clauses that are not introduced by any overt element at all. Such so-called zero relative clauses (also known as contact relative clauses) are indeed possible in English, as shown in (38).

(38) a. the people ___ you saw b. the place ___ you met them c. the movie ___ you prefer

Given the grammaticality of (38), the status of the zero relative variants of subject relative clauses like (29a) and (32a) is puzzling. In general, these are unacceptable, as shown in (39c).

(39) a. the people who moved in next door (are from Illinois) b. the people that moved in next door (are from Illinois) c. * the people ___ moved in next door (are from Illinois)

However, structurally analogous examples do occur in English, as illustrated in (40).

(40) a. Everybody ___ lives in the mountains has an accent all to theirself. (Christian and Wolfram 1976, front matter) b. Three times a day some nurse ___ looks like Pancho Villa shoots sheep cum into my belly. (Hiaasen 1995: 248-249)

(41) and (42) give further examples from Belfast English (Henry 1995:125) and American English, classified by linguistic environment.

Existential there clause: (41) a. There's a shortcut ___ takes you to the shops. It cleft: b. It was John ___ told us about it. Copular construction: c. John is the person ___ could help you with that. Introduction of discourse d. I met a man ___ can speak five languages. entity in object position: Existential there clause: (42) a. "Thanks for the hurricane, there's a hundred fifty thousand houses in Dade County ___ need new roofs," he began. (Hiaasen 1995:110-111) It cleft: b. 'Tis grace ___ hath brought me safe thus far (Amazing Grace) Copular construction: c. You're the second guy this month ___ wants to take out trade in this bizarre fashion. (Wagner 1986:119) d. He's the one ___ inspected the damn things. (Hiaasen 1995:5) Introduction of discourse e. how come we have … a pink-haired punk granddaughter ___ got entity in object position: the manners of a terrorist? … Wears somethin' ___ makes the garage door flap up? (Wagner 1986:81)

The proper analysis of such examples is not clear and goes beyond the scope of this textbook. On the one hand, it has been argued that zero subject relative clauses are grammatical, but avoided for parsing reasons, especially when they modify a noun that is itself part of a subject, as in (40) (Bever and Langendoen 1971, especially Section 5; see also Doherty 1993). On the other hand, Henry 1995 argues against a wh- movement analysis of zero relative clauses.

Topicalization A further instance of a construction involving wh- movement is so-called topicalization.

The sentences in (43) are in so-called canonical order; that is, the subject (in boldface) occupies clause- initial position.

(43) a. They should solve the more difficult problem for next class. b. They don't believe that he has met Subcomandante Marcos. c. We heartily detest Julia's parents. d. A single lion can devour a little wildebeest like that in under an hour. e. I recognize this kind of situation from my previous job.

By contrast, in (44), a nonsubject (in italics) precedes the subject (again in boldface).

(44) a. For next class, they should solve the more difficult problem. b. Subcomandante Marcos, they don't believe that he has met. c. Julia's parents, we heartily detest. d. A little wildebeest like that, a single lion can devour in under an hour. e. This kind of situation, I recognize from my previous job.

Clause-initial nonsubjects are often discourse topics, and the movement illustrated in (44) has therefore come to be known as topicalization. We use the term because it is standard in the literature, but hasten to point out that it is not entirely felicitous, since clause-initial nonsubjects are by no means always topics (in the sense of being previously mentioned discourse entities). Often, for instance, they are scene-setting expressions, as in (45a,b), or they may serve a contrastive function, as in (45c).

(45) a. On the way home, he ran into Murgatroyd. b. In Brazil, such situations are not common. c. Under other conditions, I would agree to your request.

In an influential article, Chomsky 1977 argued that topicalization should be analyzed on a par with wh- movement on the grounds that topicalization obeys the island constraints, as illustrated in (46).

(46) a. Wh- complement: * [ For next class, ]i they have forgotten [ which problem they should solve ti ] . b. Noun complement: * [ Subcomandante Marcos, ]i they don't believe the claim [ that he has met ti ] . c. Relative clause: * [ Subcomandante Marcos, ]i I dislike the journalist [ who interviewed ti for CNN ] d. Sentential subject: * [ His addiction to gambling, ]i [ { that he admitted, admitting } ti ] nearly destroyed his career. e. Left branch of noun * [ Julia's, ]i we heartily detest [ ti parents ] . phrase: f. Coordinate structure: * [ Tiramisu, ]i two people ordered [ { coffee and ti, ti and coffee } ] .

Following Chomsky's usage, the term wh- movement is often used to refer to any instance of movement to Spec(CP), regardless of whether the moved constituent is a wh- phrase. More recently, the less confusing term operator movement has gained currency as a general term for movement to Spec(CP), subsuming wh- movement (in its original sense) and topicalization. The structure for (45c) under (an updated version of) the analysis in Chomsky 1977 is given in (47); note that the CP is headed by an empty head entitled, for convenience, [top].3

(47)

Notes

1. In more precise structural terms (discussed in more detail in Chapter 12), an island is a constituent dominated by some node. In (23), the node in question is the CP dominating the indirect question, but for generality, let's refer to the relevant node as the island node. Wh- movement is grammatical as long as the moved phrase (the head of the movement chain) remains dominated by the island node, but becomes ungrammatical once that is no longer the case.

2. In (30c), be careful to distinguish the two instances of wh- movement: the lower one within the interviewed clause, which is grammatical and creates the relative clause island, and the higher one within the dislike clause, which is one that causes the ungrammaticality.

3. According to a competing analysis, topicalization is also derived by movement, but the moved constituent adjoins to IP rather than substituting into Spec(CP). This alternative structure for (45c) under this analysis is then as in (i).

(i)

Exercises and problems

Exercise 11.1

Treat your as the spellout of you and a silent possessive morpheme.

A. Using the all purpose grammar tool, build structures for both of the direct questions in (1).

(1) a. Pied piping In which house does your friend live? b. Preposition stranding Which house does your friend live in? B. Using the all purpose grammar tool, build structures for the sentences in (2), which contain indirect questions (delimited by square brackets) that correspond to the direct questions in (1).

(2) a. Pied piping I forget [ in which house your friend lives. ] b. Preposition stranding I forget [ which house your friend lives in. ]

Exercise 11.2

A. Using the all purpose grammar tool, build structures for the noun phrases in (1).

(1) a. Pied piping the house [ in which your friend lives ] b. Preposition stranding the house [ which your friend lives in ]

B. Using the same grammar tool as in (A), build structures for the noun phrases in (2)-(5).

To save trees in more than one sense of the word, feel free to build a single structure for several structurally parallel examples. Be sure to indicate clearly which sentences each structure is intended to represent, and how the variants differ.

Build structures for all examples, including the ungrammatical ones.

Treat whose as the conventional orthographic representation of who + 's.

In (3), the position of silent elements is indicated by underlining. In all other examples, silent elements may be present without being explicitly indicated.

(2) a. Wh- relative clause ok the guy [ who they met ] b. That relative clause ok the guy [ that they met ] c. Zero relative clause ok the guy [ they met ] (3) a. Wh- relative clause ok the guy [ whose parents ___ they met ] b. That relative clause * the guy [ ___'s parents that they met ] Intended meaning: (3a) c. Zero relative clause * the guy [ ___'s parents ___ they met ] Intended meaning: (3a) (4) a. That relative clause, pied piping * the house [ in that your friend lives ] Intended meaning: (1a) b. That relative clause, preposition stranding ok the house [ that your friend lives in ] (5) a. Zero relative clause, pied piping * the house [ in your friend lives ] Intended meaning: (1a) b. Zero relative clause, preposition stranding ok the house [ your friend lives in ]

C. Formulate a single structural generalization that accounts for the ungrammaticality of (3b,c), (4a), and (5a).

The generalization in (C) is independent of the island constraints; you'll have to make one up on your own.

If you use the notion of 'pied piping' in your generalization (you don't need to), be sure to give a precise definition of it. Exercise 11.3

According to analysis of relative clauses proposed in this chapter, that relative clauses like the italicized sequence in (1) have the structure in (2a). However, since the wh- phrase is silent, an alternative analysis of (1) is possible in principle, according to which the wh- phrase remains in its original position, as shown in (2b). Provide empirical (= data-based) evidence that the movement analysis in (2a) is preferable. For the purposes of this exercise, ignore coordinate structures.

(1) the people that you saw

(2) a. b.

Movement No movement

Exercise 11.4

A. Using the all purpose grammar tool, build structures for the sentences in (1).

Don't build structures for the parenthesized sentences; they are only provided for context.

Assume a wh- movement analysis of topicalization presented in the text, not the IP adjuction analysis mentioned in Note 3.

(1) a. In Brazil, he has seen such orchids (but never anywhere else). b. The exam, she should finish immediately. (The assignment, she can hand in later.) c. Under those circumstances, she will agree.

Exercise 11.5

A. Paraphrase the ambiguous telegraphese question in (1a) (Pinker 1994:119). Indicate clearly which paraphrase expresses the reporter's intended interpretation and which expresses the wickedly clever twist that Cary Grant gave the question. Your paraphrase doesn't have to be in telegraphese.

(1) a. Reporter's telegram: How old Cary Grant? b. Grant's reply: Old Cary Grant fine. B. The sentence in (2) (from an Internet movie database) is structurally ambiguous. Explain, using paraphrase or other means.

(2) In "What Women Want," Mel Gibson plays a man who develops the ability to understand what women are thinking after a freak accident.

C. Using the all purpose grammar tool, build structures for each of the interpretations in (A) and (B), indicating clearly which structure goes with which interpretation.

Make up silent lexical items as needed in (A).

To save time and space in (B), free free to build chunks and indicate how they go together.

Exercise 11.6

A. In addition to the finite indirect questions in (1), English also has nonfinite ones, as illustrated in (2). Using the all purpose grammar tool, build structures for all of the nonfinite indirect questions in (2), including the ungrammatical (2c).

(1) a. They know [ who they should invite. ] b. They know [ which topic they should talk about. ] c. They know [ who should speak. ] (2) a. They know [ who to invite. ] b. They know [ which topic to talk about. ] c. * They know [ who to speak. ] Intended meaning: (1c)

B. Why is (2c) ungrammatical?

Exercise 11.7

Using the all purpose grammar tool, build the structure for the noun phrase containing the nonstandard relative clause in (1).

(1) a product that's time has come

Problem 11.1

Can you think of evidence bearing on whether topicalization should be treated as substitution in Spec(CP) or adjunction to IP (see Note 3)? 12 Wh- movement: Subjacency and the ECP

The motivation for formulating constraints on wh- movement has always been to identify as wide- reaching and general principles of the human language faculty as possible. Thus, in the early 1960s, even before Ross's discovery of the island constraints, Chomsky proposed the so-called A-over-A constraint. According to this constraint, wh- movement is ungrammatical out of recursive structures in which one instance of a category immediately dominates another, as indicated in (1).

A-over-A constraint: (1) * XPi ... [A ... [A ... ti ... ] ... ]

Given then-current assumptions concerning phrase structure (X' theory hadn't yet been introduced), the A-over-A constraint is illustrated by the contrast in (2).

(2) a. [PP Up [PP to what age ] ]i can one learn a foreign language without an accent ti ? b. * [PP To what age ]i can one learn a foreign language without an accent [PP up ti ] ?

Against the backdrop of what was known about wh- movement in the early 1960s, the island constraints discussed in Chapter 11 constituted significant empirical progress. They represent an important first approximation to whatever the constraints on wh- movement actually turn out to be, and their discovery is legitimately hailed as a milestone in the history of syntactic theory. But from a theoretical perspective, the island constraints simply form a list of stipulations, and they sharply raise the question of whether it is possible to reduce them to fewer, deeper structural principles (optimally, just a single such principle). In this chapter, we discuss two influential proposals with this aim: the subjacency condition and the Empty Category Principle (ECP). As we will see, the reduction of the constraints on wh- movement to more general principles has proven a considerable challenge to syntactic theory, and one that persists to the present day. In particular, no satisfactory overarching framework has yet been found that subsumes the entire range of island constraints. The island constraints themselves therefore remain as an empirical benchmark against which to measure any theoretical proposal concerning constraints on wh- movement.

Subjacency

In this section, we present the subjacency condition, an ambitious attempt by Chomsky 1973 to subsume the island constraints under a single structural principle. Two possible derivations for long-distance wh- movement

When we consider examples of long-distance wh- movement like those in (3), two possible derivations come to mind.

(3) What did he say that he was reading?

On the one hand, the wh- phrase might move from the position in which it is interpreted, however deeply embedded that is, to the sentence-initial Spec(CP) position in one fell swoop, yielding a wh- movement chain with two links, as in (4). On the other hand, wh- movement might take place in more than one step. The first step takes the moved constituent from its original position to the nearest Spec(CP), and each subsequent step takes it to the next higher Spec(CP). This derivation of (3), which involves two steps and yields a wh- movement chain with three links, in shown in (5).

(4) (5)

The derivation in (5) is known as a cyclic derivation (the idea being that each successively higher clause (= CP) forms a separate cycle in the derivation of the entire sentence), and the derivation in (4) is accordingly known as noncyclic. Notice that the noncyclic and cyclic derivations in (4) and (5) differ in the presence of an intermediate trace, which is highlighted by a box in (5).

IP as a barrier to wh- movement

On the basis of grammatical instances of long-distance wh- movement like (6a-d) (cf. (19c-e)) of Chapter 11, it is impossible to decide which of the two alternatives just presented is correct, or even whether a choice must be made between them.

Parentheses indicate intermediate traces that are posited in a cyclic, but not in a noncyclic, derivation.

(6) a. What-i did he say [ (t-i) that he was reading t-i ? ] b. What-i does she believe [ (t-i) that he said [ (t-i) that he was reading t-i ? ] ] c. What-i are they claiming [ (t-i) that she believes [ (t-i) that he said [ (t-i) that he was reading t-i ? ] ] ] d. What do you think [ (t-i) that they are claiming [ (t-i) that she believes [ (t-i) that he said [ (t-i) that he was reading? ] ] ] ] However, the existence of syntactic islands forces us to choose the cyclic alternative. For instance, consider the ungrammatical question in (7a) (= (23b) of Chapter 11 and its cyclic derivation in (7b).

Remember to interpret how in (7a) as modifying solve, not forgotten, as indicated by the lowest trace.

(7) a. * Howi have they forgotten [ which problem they should solve ti ] ?

If wh- movement were able to occur in one fell swoop, then there would be nothing to stop long-distance wh- movement in (7a), and the question should be grammatical, contrary to fact. But the ungrammaticality of the question can be made to follow from the assumption that wh- movement is cyclic. Specifically, let's assume that wh- movement is subject to the condition in (8), and that IPs form barriers to movement, as indicated by the boxes in (7b).

Subjacency condition: (8) In a chain formed by movement, the path connecting two neighboring links must not contain more than one barrier (in other words, on the path between A and B, there is at most one barrier C such that A c-commands C and C dominates B).

The condition in (8) has the consequence that a wh- constituent can move out of an IP that dominates it just in case an empty local Spec(CP) is available or can be generated as an intermediate landing site. By local Spec(CP), we mean the specifier of a CP whose head is a sister of the IP in question. In the absence of such a landing site, as in (7b), wh- movement is correctly ruled out as ungrammatical.

Notice that the ungrammaticality of (7a) depends on the indirect question containing two wh- phrases: how and which problem. The representation in (7b) assumes that which problem moves before how does (note the order of the indices), thereby preventing the complement Spec(CP) from serving as an escape hatch for how. It is also necessary to rule out an alternative derivation, according to which the constituent that moves first is how. In this case, the complement Spec(CP) is empty, and how can move through it up to the matrix Spec(CP), as shown in (9). Notice that only one IP barrier (indicated in green) intervenes between any pairs of links in the movement chain, so that this part of the derivation does not violate the subjacency condition in (8).

(9) a. [IP they have forgotten [CP howi [IP they should solve which problem ti ] b. [CP howi have [IP they forgotten [CP ti [IP they should solve which problem ti ] But now the intermediate trace of how blocks the movement of which problem into the lower Spec(CP). As the contrast in (10) shows, this movement is necessary for the complement clause to be interpreted properly as an indirect question. As a result, the derivation begun in (9) fails, and (7a) continues to be ruled out as desired.

(10) a. ok They have forgotten which problem they should solve. b. * They have forgotten they should solve which problem.

DP as a barrier to wh- movement

If the only barriers in English were IPs, then wh- movement out of noun complements and left branch structures like those in (11) (= (20b) and (26b) of Chapter 11) would be expected to be grammatical, contrary to fact. The structures are given in (11); the green IP nodes are intended to indicate that the derivation is consistent with subjacency under the (incorrect) assumption that the only barriers are IPs.

(11) a. * Whoi did [IP he make [DP the claim [CP ti that [IP he has met ti ] ] ] ] ? b. * Whosei did [IP she buy [DP ti book ] ] ?

However, the ungrammaticality of (11) can be derived straightforwardly if the set of barriers in English includes not only IPs, but also DPs. This is illustrated in (12), where red indicates barriers that cause subjacency to be violated. As before, green indicates barriers that are consistent with subjacency.

In determining whether subjacency is violated, we can consider the relevant movement chains in either top-down or bottom-up fashion. Here and in what follows, we have chosen bottom- up. This choice has the consequence that the barriers that cause subjacency to be violated in (12) are IPs, not DPs. This doesn't mean, though, that DPs aren't barriers! If they weren't, we'd be back to the representation in (11).

(12) a. * Whoi did [IP he make [DP the claim [CP ti that [IP he has met ti ] ] ] ] ? b. * Whosei did [IP she buy [DP ti book ] ] ?

Given the theoretical character of the subjacency condition, it should come as no surprise that it has an empirical consequence that goes beyond the range of facts that it was intended to explain. Specifically, it leads one to expect any movement out of a noun phrase, not just movement of a left branch, to be ungrammatical. (13b) gives an example that behaves as expected.

(13) a. He dropped a book about information theory. b. * Whati did [IP he drop [DP a book about ti ] ] ?

Notice, by the way, that the unacceptability of (13b) cannot be attributed to preposition stranding, since the pied piping counterpart of (13b) remains unacceptable, as expected given the structure in (14).

(14) * [ About what ]i did [IP he drop [DP a book ti ] ] ?

As we will see later on in our discussion of the ECP, the predictions made by subjacency in connection with movement out of DPs, while correct in the case of (13b) and (14), are too strict. In other words, subjacency (as it stands, with all instances of IP and DP as barriers) incorrectly rules out grammatical instances of wh- movement. The coordinate structure constraint revisited

In the previous section, you may have noticed the omission of a potential piece of evidence for the barrierhood of DP---namely, violations of the coordinate structure constraint like those in (15) (= (27b,c) of Chapter 11).

(15) a. * [ Which dessert ]i did they order [ ti and espresso ] ? b. * [ Which beverage ]i did they order [ tiramisu and ti ] ?

Although the internal structure of coordinate phrases is not well understood, it is clear that a coordinate noun phrase like tiramisu and espresso is a recursive structure consisting of a DP that dominates two further DPs, as in (16).

(16) [DP [DP tiramisu ] and [DP espresso] ]

Given this structure, the ungrammaticality of the examples in (16) follows from subjacency, as shown in (17).

(17) a. * [ Which dessert ]i did [IP they order [DP ti and espresso ] ] ? b. * [ Which beverage ]i did [IP they order [DP tiramisu and ti ] ] ?

However, not all examples that violate the coordinate structure constraint also violate subjacency. For instance, in (18) and (19), where syntactic categories other than DP are coordinated, only a single IP barrier intervenes between the moved phrase in Spec(CP) and its trace.

Take care to read the (b) examples without an intonation break before the conjunction.

(18) a. [PP [PP On which day ] and [PP in which year ] ]i were [IP you born [PP ti ] ] ? b. * [PP On which day ]i were [IP you born [PP [PP ti ] and [PP in which year ] ] ] ? c. * [PP In which year ]i were [IP you born [PP [PP on which day ] and [PP ti ] ] ] ? (19) He said he would get out the vote and win the election, and ... a. [VP [VP get out the vote ] and [VP win the election ] ]i, [IP he did [VP ti ] ] . b. * [VP get out the vote ]i, [IP he did [VP [VP ti ] and [VP win the election ] ] ] . c. * [VP win the election ]i, [IP he did [VP [VP get out the vote ] and [VP ti ] ] ] .

A further example of this sort is shown in (20b).

(20) a. They have [VP [VP peeled the cucumbers ] and [VP chopped up the onions ] ] . b. * [ Which vegetables ]i have [IP they [VP [VP peeled ti ] and [VP chopped the onions ] ] ] ?

As (21) shows, (20b) violates a parallelism constraint known as the across-the-board (ATB) constraint, according to which movement of a constituent out of a coordinate structure must affect all co-conjuncts simultaneously.

(21) [ Which vegetables ]i have [IP they [VP [VP peeled ti ] and [VP chopped ti ] ] ] ?

The exceptional behavior of coordinate structures with regard to subjacency (expected to be grammatical, yet in fact not so) and the additional special restriction imposed upon them (the ATB constraint just mentioned) strongly suggest that the coordinate structure constraint is sui generis, and that it should not be grouped together with the other island constraints. Accordingly, most proposals to reduce the island constraints to more general principles make no attempt to include the coordinate structure constraint, and we, too, will make no further mention of it.

The Empty Category Principle (ECP)

The island constraints and the subjacency condition that subsumes them correctly account for much, but not all, of the spectrum of relevant facts concerning wh- movement. For instance, Ross himself observed that it is more acceptable to move complements out of indirect questions than it is to move adjuncts. Subjects (also non-complements) behave like adjuncts, giving the pattern in (22).

(22) a. ? [ Which problem ] ]i have they forgotten howj they should solve ti tj? b. * Howi have they forgotten [ which problem ]j they should solve tj ti? c. * [ Which problem ]i have they forgotten [ how ]j ti should be solved ti tj?

In order to account for the contrast between complements and non-complements with respect to long- distance wh- movement, it has been proposed that traces of movement must satisfy a condition distinct from subjacency, the so-called Empty Category Principle (ECP). Early formulations of the ECP (Aoun, Hornstein, and Sportiche 1982, Huang 1982, Lasnik and Saito 1984) were disjunctive; that is, they consisted of two mutually exclusive conditions. In the course of the 1980s, attempts were made to reformulate the ECP in conjunctive terms; that is, as two conditions that traces of movement must satisfy simultaneously. In our view, these attempts have not been successful, because they continue to impose different conditions on the movement of complements and of non-complements. That is, even if the ECP itself is no longer formulated in a disjunctive way, the disjunction it contained is not resolved, but simply appears elsewhere in the proposals in question. For instance, Rizzi 1990 distinguishes two ways of establishing a legitimate antecedent-trace relation, one for complements, and one for non-complements. We will therefore continue to maintain a disjunctive version of the ECP, specifically (23).

Empty Category Principle (ECP): (23) a. A trace of movement must be properly governed. b. A trace of movement is properly governed iff i. it is antecedent-governed, or ii. it is lexically governed.

Antecedent government

We discuss the two conditions on traces in turn. The notion of antecedent government is defined in (24) (see Node relations for a definition of binding).

Antecedent government: (24) A antecedent-governs B iff i. A binds B, and ii. at most one barrier intervenes on the path between A and B.

As is evident, clause (ii) of the definition of antecedent government recapitulates the subjacency condition, and it is easy to see that the antecedent government clause of the ECP therefore enforces cyclic movement. This of course derives the ungrammaticality of (22b,c), but leaves the relative acceptability of (22a) unexplained. However, as we will see directly, (22a), though violating the antecedent government condition of the ECP, satisfies the alternative lexical government condition.

Lexical government

The notion of lexical government to be presented in what follows relies on the concept of lexical government domain (which is based on the concept of g(overnment)-projection proposed in Kayne 1984). The term 'governor of XP' in (25a) refers to the head that stands in a head-comp configuration with XP.1

The term 'govern' is used here in a slightly different sense than it was in Chapter 8. There, 'govern' referred to a morphological requirement imposed by a head on a noun phrase expressing one of the head's arguments. Here, the term 'govern' makes no reference to morphology, but refers instead to a purely structural relation, the head-comp relation.

Lexical government domain: (25) YP is a lexical government domain for XP iff YP is the maximal projection of i. the governor of XP, or ii. the governor of a lexical government domain for XP.

As is evident, the definition in (25) is recursive. We begin by considering the nonrecursive case in (i), which is very simple. Consider the configuration in (26), where we take the DP complement of the preposition as XP and the PP as YP.

(26)

In (26), the governor of the DP is the preposition, and so the PP (the preposition's maximal projection) is a lexical government domain for the DP.

Now consider the more complex structure in (27), where we continue to take the DP complement of the preposition as XP, but it is now VP that is the YP.

(27)

Is VP a lexical government domain for the lower DP? (25.i) is not met, since the head of VP, V, does not govern the DP in question. But V does govern PP, which we determined to be a lexical government domain for DP in (26). Therefore, VP is a lexical government domain for DP in (27) by (25.ii).

Given (26) and (27), it is now easy to see that any lexical government domain can be extended simply by substituting it as a complement of a higher head; that head's maximal projection is then in turn a lexical government domain. Thus, all the structures in (28) are lexical government domains for the lowest complement DP. (28) a. b.

c. d. e.

Lexical government itself can then be defined as in (29).

Lexical government: (29) A lexically governs B iff i. A is a proper governor of B, ii. there is an antecedent C that binds B, and iii. C is contained in (= dominated by) a lexical government domain for B.

The notion of 'proper governor' in (29.i) is introduced in light of crosslinguistic contrasts like that between (30) and (31).

(30) a. English Whoi did you talk with ti ? b. Swedish Vem har du talat med ti ? who have you talked with (31) a. French * Qui as- tu parlé avec ti ? who have you talked with b. German * Wem hast du mit ti gesprochen? who have you with talked

The idea is that only a proper subset of governors (= heads) is 'strong' enough to license a trace by lexical government. Exactly which heads belong to the set of proper governors can vary by language. For instance, prepositions are proper governors in English and Swedish, but not in French or German. As a result, the traces in (30) are lexically governed, whereas those in (31) are not, despite the analogous configurations in both cases. It should be emphasized that proper government figures only in the definition of lexical government itself, not in the definition of the concept of lexical government domain. So although the French preposition à 'to' cannot itself license a trace, it can license the extension of a lexical government domain. This is shown by the contrast in (32) (Kayne 1984:167). As in (30) and (31), green and red indicate heads that are and are not proper governors, respectively. (32) a. * Qu'i est-ce qu' elle tient à ti ? what is it that she holds to 'What is she keen on?' b. ok Qu'i est-ce qu' elle tient à faire ti ? what is it that she holds to do 'What is she keen on doing?'

At first glance, the notions of lexical government and lexical government domain might seem to permit any complement to undergo wh- movement. But the definition is more restrictive than that. Consider, for instance, the contrast between the (b) examples in (33) and (34), where the constituent undergoing wh- movement is the complement of admit in both cases.

(33) a. It can be difficult to admit one's weaknesses. b. What can it be difficult to admit? (34) a. To admit one's weaknesses can be difficult. b. * What can to admit be difficult?

The structure of (33b) is given in (35); the successive lexical government domains for the DP dominating the trace are indicated by boxes.

(35)

Since the maximal lexical government domain for the trace, the matrix CP, contains the trace's antecedent (what), (33b) satisfies the lexical government clause of the ECP, and its grammaticality is expected. Notice, incidentally, that lexical government is satisfied regardless of the presence of an intermediate trace in the lower Spec(CP). That is, even if the trace were not antecedent-governed, (33b) would satisfy the disjunctive version of the ECP assumed here.

By contrast, the lexical government domain for the wh- trace in the structure for (34b), given in (36), extends only as far as the complement IP. (36)

The reason that it extends no further is that the subject clause (the lower IP) is not governed (in other words, it is not a complement). Since the infinitival subject clause does not dominate the trace's antecedent (what), the trace of wh- movement, though governed by admit, is not lexically governed. Moreover, two IPs intervene on the path between the trace and its antecedent, and so the trace is not antecedent-governed either. (34b) is therefore correctly predicted to be ungrammatical.

When there is an indepedent reason for the complement clause to be a CP (when it is an indirect question, for instance), wh- movement within the bounds of the complement clause is possible, as shown in (37).

(37) a. Which of one's weaknesses to admit can be a tricky question.

We leave it open here why the complement clause in (36) is an IP rather than a CP.

Further issues and refinements

Is subjacency an independent principle?

Recall the facts that motivated the proposal of the ECP---namely, the contrast in (22), repeated here in annotated form as (38).

(38) a. ? [ Which problem ] ]i have [IP they forgotten [CP howj [IP they should solve ti tj ] ] ] ? b. * Howi have [IP they forgotten [CP [ which problem ]j [IP they should solve tj ti ] ] ] ? c. * [ Which problem ]i have [IP they forgotten [CP howj [IP ti should be solved ti tj ] ] ] ?

Given the role that the notion of barrier plays in both antecedent government and subjacency, it would be desirable to eliminate subjacency as a separate condition by subsuming it under the antecedent government clause of the ECP. Is this feasible? In light of (38a), the answer must unfortunately be 'no.' The matrix CP in (38a) is a lexical government domain for the trace (cf. the configuration in (28e)), and in the absence of subjacency, (38a) should therefore be completely acceptable. The degree to which it is not, then, provides evidence in favor of maintaining subjacency as a separate constraint on wh- movement. The acceptability contrast between (38a) and (38b,c) could then be attributed to the violation of only one principle in the former case, but of two in the latter.

Movement out of ECM complements Given their status as sisters of intermediate projections rather than of heads, subjects are not in a position to be lexically governed. In order to satisfy the ECP, subject traces must therefore be antecedent- governed. This is possible in cases of local movement (that is, movement to a local Spec(CP)), but not in cases of true (= noncyclic) long-distance movement, as shown by the contrast in (39).

(39) a. [ Which problem ]i should [IP ti be solved ti ] ? b. * [ Which problem ]i have [IP they forgotten [CP howj [IP ti should be solved ti tj ] ] ] ?

However, if (39b) violates both clauses of the ECP, this raises the question of how subjects of ECM complements are able to satisfy the ECP (or for that matter, subjacency), given that two barriers intervene between the antecedent and its trace in both (39b) and (40).

(40) [ Which candidate ]i do [IP you expect [IP ti to get the job ] ] ?

A standard proposal is to include the head-spec configuration as an instance of proper government, along with the head-comp configuration (Kayne 1984). This would allow the trace in (40) to satisfy the lexical government clause of the ECP. But this proposal neither explains why such examples are completely acceptable (suggesting that they satisfy both the ECP and subjacency), nor why it is possible to move not just subjects out of ECM complements, but adjuncts as well, as in (41).

(41) Howi were [IP you expecting [IP them to solve the problem ti] ] ?

An alternative that immediately comes to mind is simply that nonfinite IPs do not count as barriers, but this proposal fails to account for the contrast in (42), which essentially parallels that in (38).

(42) a. ? [ Which problem ]i have [IP they forgotten [CP howj [IP to solve ti tj ] ] ] ? b. * Howi have [IP they forgotten [CP [ which problem ]j [IP to solve tj ti ] ] ] ?

However, a minor revision to the proposal that nonfinite IPs aren't barriers makes it empirically adequate (though we know of no independent motivation for the revision). We will say that IPs that are governed by V do not count as barriers. This has the result that the traces in the sentences in (40) and (41) satisfy the antecedent government clause of the ECP as well as subjacency. (43) shows our revised assumptions about these sentences; IPs that are not barriers are highlighted in blue.

(43) a. [ Which candidate ]i do [IP you expect [IP ti to get the job ] ] ? b. Howi were [IP you expecting [IP them to solve the problem ti] ] ?

Movement out of DP

As mentioned earlier, subjacency goes beyond the original island constraints in ruling out any movement out of DP. However, in many cases, examples of such movement are completely unexceptionable. This is puzzling given the representations in (44).

(44) a. Whati did [IP you { read, write } [DP a book about ti ] ] ? b. Whoi did [IP you take [DP a picture of ti ] ] ? c. [ { Which, how many } states ]i do [IP you know [DP the capitals of ti ] ] ?

(45) gives some further, naturally-occurring examples (the struck-out which in (45a) is included for clarity; it is silent in the original). (45) a. When I was a little boy, he teased me about a temporary but intense devotion I had to Gene Autry, the singing cowboy--a devotion whichi [IP I would make [DP some lame attempt [CP ti [IP to justify ti ... ] ] ] ] (Calvin Trillin. 1996. Messages from my father. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux. 43-44) b. arcane technical wisdom [ of which ]i [IP he has scarcely [DP a glimmering of [DP an understanding ti ] ] ] (Jeremy Campbell. 1982. Grammatical man. Information, entropy, language, and life. Simon and Schuster. 260-261)

The most acceptable examples of this type involve movement out of DPs without a possessor, so it might be proposed that a further refinement of the notion of barrier is in order. In particular, let us assume that branching DPs are barriers, whereas nonbranching ones are not. Then the examples in (44) and (45) all satisfy subjacency, as indicated by the revised representations in (46) and (47), whereas an example like (48) would continue to violate it.

(46) a. Whati did [IP you { read, write } [DP a book about ti ] ] ? b. Whoi did [IP you take [DP a picture of ti ] ] ? c. [ { Which, how many } states ]i do [IP you know [DP the capitals of ti ] ] ? (47) a. a devotion whichi [IP I would make [DP some lame attempt [CP ti [IP to justify ti ... ] ] ] ] (Calvin Trillin. 1996. Messages from my father. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux. 43- 44) b. arcane technical wisdom [ of which ]i [IP he has scarcely [DP a glimmering of [DP an understanding ti ] ] ] (Jeremy Campbell. 1982. Grammatical man. Information, entropy, language, and life. Simon and Schuster. 260-261) (48) ? [ Which building ]i are [IP they protesting [DP the city's demolition of ti ] ] ?

Finally, given the contrast between (38a) and (38b,c), we would expect movement out of DP that violates both subjacency and the ECP to be strongly unacceptable. Movement out of left branches satisfies this expectation.

(49) * [ Whose ]i are [IP they protesting [DP ti demolition of the building ] ] ?

An important remaining puzzle is why some instances of movement out of nonbranching DPs are perfectly acceptable, whereas others (even ones that satisfy the ECP) are not. In our view, an explanation for the successive decrease in acceptability of examples like (50) should be sought not in syntactic, but in pragmatic factors. We indicate this explicitly by using the pound sign, the sign for pragmatic infelicity.

(50) a. What did he { read, write } a book about? b. # What did he sell a book about? c. ## What did he drop a book about? (cf. ok---What did he drop a hint about?)

We begin our attempt to explain the pattern in (50) by noting that any question is associated with a so- called existential presupposition. The presupposition expresses the backdrop of knowledge against which the question is raised, and the question itself solicits information that is missing in the questioner's knowledge store. For instance, the question in (51a) is associated with the presupposition in (51b).

(51) a. { What, what book } is he reading? b. There is { something, some book } that he is reading.

Now consider the existential presuppositions in (52), which range from ordinary to implausible.

(52) a. There is a topic such that he { read, wrote } a book about that topic. b. # There is a topic such that he sold a book about that topic. c. ## There is a topic such that he dropped a book about that topic. (cf. ok---There is a topic such that he dropped a hint about that topic.)

If we make the plausible assumption that, all other things being equal, the acceptability of a question matches the plausibility of the presupposition with which it is associated, then questions that are perfectly well-formed from a grammatical point of view might nevertheless be judged as unacceptable if they are associated with a highly implausible presupposition. This, then, would account for the range of acceptability in the questions in (50), despite their structural parallelism.

Notes

1. The structural notion of government (to be distinguished from the morphological notion of case government is defined as in (i).

(i) A governs (= is the governor of) B iff a. A is a head, b. B is a maximal projection, and c. A and B are sisters (= mutually c-command each other).

Exercises and problems

Exercise 12.1

At first glance, the structure in (1a) seems preferable to that in (1b) because it is simpler in the sense of postulating fewer nodes. It is standardly argued, however, that the structure in (1b) with a silent complementizer is preferable. What is the motivation for the argument?

(1) a. He thinks [IP they have read War and Peace. ] b. He thinks [CP [C that ] [IP they have read War and Peace. ] ]

Exercise 12.2

English has two sorts of though clauses: ordinary ones that do not involve movement, as in (1), and ones that do, as in (2). The construction in (2) is often referred to as the though preposing construction.

The term though preposing is potentially confusing. What is preposed is not though itself, but rather some constituent in the though clause. In other words, though preposing is XP preposing that is licensed by though.

(1) a. Ordinary (non-movement) Though the problem is difficult, (they will solve it.) b. Though the students believe the problem is difficult, ... (2) a. Though preposing (movement) Difficult though the problem is, ... b. Difficult though the students believe the problem is, ...

A. Using the grammar tool in movement principles, build structures for the though preposing clauses in (2). Make sure that the structure that you build for (2b) is in accordance with subjacency. Here and in the remainder of this exercise, there is no need to build structures for the parenthesized material.

B. Using the same grammar tool as in (A), build structures for the though clauses in (3). You'll have to make up something in (3c).

(3) a. Difficult though I wonder why the problem is, (I don't know for sure.) b. Difficult though the students enjoy problems which are, (they can't always solve them.) c. Invincible though the barbarians gave the impression of being, (their empire lasted scarcely two generations.)

C. Which, if any, of the though clauses in (3) violate subjacency? Are the predictions of the theory consistent with your own acceptability judgments?

Exercise 12.3

A. Corresponding to the declarative clauses in (1), we have the direct questions in (2).

(1) a. They would prefer for her to teach the course. (2) a. Which course would they prefer for her to teach? b. * Which teacher would they prefer for to teach the course?

A. Using the grammar tool in movement principles, build structures for both of the questions in (2).

B. Can the judgments in (2) be derived from the principles introduced in this chapter? Your explanation should be succinct, but specific. For instance, if a question violates subjacency or the antecedent government clause of the ECP, indicate which barrier causes the subjacency violation. If a question violates the lexical government clause of the ECP, indicate which clause in the definition of lexical government is violated.

C. Is the specifier position in the elementary tree that the grammar tool postulates for the complementizer for necessary?

Exercise 12.4

A. Consider the sentences in (1). Does the for phrase adjoin at N' or at V'? Explain, providing evidence from pronoun substitution and do so substitution.

(1) a. They baked a cake for Marie. b. Who did they bake a cake for?

B. Using the grammar tool in movement principles, build a structure for the question in (1b) that is consistent with your answer to (A).

C. Is the acceptability of (1b) consistent with the principles introduced in this chapter? Explain.

Exercise 12.5 A. Is the prepositional phrase in (1) is a complement or an adjunct of review? Explain.

(1) this review of the book

B. Using the grammar tool in movement principles, build trees for the following questions.

The grammar tool provides a choice of two elementary trees for review. Use the one that is consistent with your answer to (A).

(1) a. Which book did you see a review of in the Times? b. Which book did you expect to see a review of in the Times? c. Which book did a review of appear in the Times? d. Which book did you expect a review of to appear in the Times?

C. Record your judgments concerning the questions (use "ok," "?," and "*" as your options).

D. For each of the questions, briefly explain whether it obeys subjacency and the ECP. Assume, as in Further issues and refinements, that neither nonfinite IPs governed by V nor nonbranching DPs are barriers. How do the predictions of the model of wh- movement developed in this chapter mesh with your judgments from (B)? 13 The verb-second (V2) phenomenon

V2 in German

The linear position of the finite verb

As mentioned in Chapter 5, V in German is head-final, but C is head-initial. These facts are illustrated in (1).

As was mentioned in Chapter 5, it has been a matter of debate in the literature whether I is head-initial or head-final in German. In what follows, we will assume that German, being a rich agreement language, has verb movement to I, with the consequence that I is head-final.

(1) a. [C ob ] mein Freund dem Mann gestern das Buch [V gegeben ] [I hat ] whether my friend the.dat man yesterday the.acc book given has 'whether my friend gave the man the book yesterday' b. * [C ob ] mein Freund [I hat ] dem Mann gestern das Buch [V gegeben ] c. * [C ob ] mein Freund [I hat ] [V gegeben ] dem Mann gestern das Buch

A very striking fact about German is that whereas finite verbs are final in subordinate clauses, this is not true in main clauses. This is clear from the position of the finite verb in a direct question like (2).

(2) a. Hat mein Freund dem Mann gestern das Buch gegeben? has my friend the.dat man yesterday the.acc book given 'Did my friend give the man the book yesterday?' b. * Mein Freund dem Mann gestern das Buch gegeben hat?

The structural position of the finite verb

The contrast between (1a) and (2a) in the position of the finite verb immediately raises the question of what structural position the finite verb in (2a) occupies. Two pieces of evidence strongly suggest that the position is C.

Asyndetic conditional clauses. The first piece of evidence comes from the existence in German of two types of conditional clauses. In addition to conditional clauses introduced by the overt complementizer wenn 'if', German also allows asyndetic conditional clauses. These are marked not by the presence of an overt complementizer, but by the position of the finite verb. Both types of conditional clauses are illustrated in (3).1

wenn mein Freund dem Mann gestern das Buch gegeben hätte if my friend the.dat man yesterday the.acc book given had.conditional 'if my friend had given the man the book yesterday' b. hätte mein Freund dem Mann gestern das Buch gegeben had.conditional my friend the.dat man yesterday the.acc book given 'had my friend given the man the book yesterday'

The finite verb in (3b) occupies exactly the same clause-initial position as the complementizer in (3a), suggesting that the verb has moved to C. The complementizer and the finite verb in (3) can be seen, then, as competing for the same syntactic slot. If this is so, then conditional clauses with both a complementizer and a clause-initial verb should be ungrammatical. This in indeed the case, as shown in (4).

(4) * { hätte wenn, wenn hätte } mein Freund dem Mann gestern das Buch gegeben

Position of object pronouns. The second piece of evidence for verb movement to C comes from the position of object pronouns. In addition to the variability that German exhibits in the position of finite verbs, it allows a fair bit of word order freedom, and object pronouns regularly occur between complementizers and the subject, as shown in (5).

(5) wenn ihm mein Freund gestern das Buch gegeben hätte if him.dat my friend yesterday the.acc book given had 'if my friend had given him the book yesterday'

As expected if asyndetic conditional clauses like (3) involve verb movement to C, object pronouns can immediately follow the finite verb, as shown in (6), just as they immediately follow the complementizer in (5).

(6) hätte ihm mein Freund gestern das Buch gegeben had him.dat my friend yesterday the.acc book given 'if my friend had given him the book yesterday'

The idea that non-clause-final finite verbs in German move to C is further corroborated by the distribution of object pronouns in direct questions. As in English (recall Chapter 11), direct yes-no questions in German require movement to C, and direct wh-questions require the additional movement of a wh-phrase to Spec(CP). This is shown in (7) and (8); here and in what follows, constituents in Spec(CP) are in boldface, and the verb in C is in italics.

(7) Hati mein Freund dem Mann gestern das Buch gegeben ti? has my friend the.dat man yesterday the.acc book given 'Did my friend give the man the book yesterday?' (8) a. Wasi hatj mein Freund dem Mann gestern ti gegeben tj? what.acc has my friend the.dat man yesterday given 'What did my friend give the man yesterday?' b. Wanni hatj mein Freund dem Mann ti das Buch gegeben tj? when has my friend the.dat man the.acc book given 'When did my friend give the man the book?' c. Wemi hatj mein Freund ti gestern das Buch gegeben tj? who.dat has my friend yesterday the.acc book given 'Who did my friend give the book to yesterday?' d. Weri hatj dem Mann ti gestern das Buch gegeben tj? who.nom has the.dat man yesterday the.acc book given 'Who gave the man the book yesterday?'

Again, as expected, object pronouns can immediately follow the finite verb, as shown in (9) and (10).

(9) Hati ihm mein Freund gestern das Buch gegeben ti? has him.dat my friend yesterday the.acc book given 'Did my friend give him the book yesterday?' (10) a. Wasi hatj ihm mein Freund gestern ti gegeben tj? what.acc has him.dat my friend yesterday given 'What did my friend give him yesterday?' b. Wanni hatj ihm mein Freund ti das Buch gegeben tj? when has him.dat my friend the.acc book given 'When did my friend give him the book?'

Movement to C as adjunction

In German as in English, Spec(CP) is a substitution node; that is, it has no content until filled by movement. But in both languages, the CP itself is the projection of a morpheme in C which, though silent, contains information concerning what might be called the sentence's mood or force (what we mean by this is whether the sentence is declarative, interrogative, imperative, conditional, and so on). Like verb movement to I, verb movement to C therefore must be adjunction. The structures before and after verb movement to C (via I) in German are shown schematically in (11).

(11) a. b.

Verb movement to C in declaratives

Like English (recall the discussion of topicalization in Chapter 11), German allows ordinary (= non-wh) phrases to move to Spec(CP). In contrast to English, however, topicalization in German is always accompanied by verb movement to C. As a result, declarative clauses like those in (12) are structurally parallel to their wh-question counterparts in (8).

(12) a. Das Buchi hatj mein Freund dem Mann gestern ti gegeben tj. the.acc book has my friend the.dat man yesterday given 'My friend gave the man the book yesterday.' b. Gesterni hatj mein Freund dem Mann ti das Buch gegeben tj. c. Dem Manni hatj mein Freund ti gestern das Buch gegeben tj. d. Mein Freundi hatj ti dem Mann gestern das Buch gegeben tj.

As expected, unstressed pronouns can immediately follow the finite verb in declarative main clauses, just as in the corresponding wh-questions.

(13) a. Das Buchi hatj ihm mein Freund gestern ti gegeben tj. the.acc book has him.dat my friend yesterday given 'My friend gave him the book yesterday.' b. Gesterni hatj ihm mein Freund ti das Buch gegeben tj.

It is worth noting that German allows Spec(CP) to be filled not only by movement, but also by direct substitution of the morpheme es 'it'. This yields sentences as in (14).

(14) Es hati mein Freund dem Mann gestern das Buch gegeben ti. it has my friend the.dat man yesterday the.acc book given 'My friend gave the man the book yesterday.'

Thus, in addition to the subject requirement that it shares with English, German has an additional topic requirement. In both cases, the requirement is purely syntactic. In other words, if the requirement is not satisfied by a semantically contentful element, it must be satisfied by an expletive element (it or there in connection with the English subject requirement, and es 'it' in the case of the German topic requirement).

The analysis of German clause structure that we have just presented has two striking consequences. First, ordinary declarative clauses differ structurally from wh-questions in English, but not in German. In English, ordinary declarative clauses are IPs and wh-questions are CPs, whereas in German, both clause types are CPs. In other words, even though the German sentence in (15) and its English translation in (16) exhibit the same superficial word order, they do not share the same structure, as indicated by the bracketing.

(15) [CP Dein Freundi [C wirdj ] ti anrufen tj. ] your friend will call 'Your friend will call.'

(16) [IP Your friend [I will ] call. ]

A second consequence of the analysis is that the finite verb in a German main clause is always its second constituent. It cannot appear in third position because there is no structural slot to the left of Spec(CP) for a constituent to occupy. This is illustrated by the grammaticality contrast between (17) and (18).

(17) a. [CP Dein Freundi [C wirdj ] ti morgen anrufen tj. ] your friend will tomorrow call 'Your friend will call tomorrow.' b. [CP Morgeni [C wirdj ] dein Freund ti anrufen tj. ] 'Tomorrow, your friend will call.' (18) a. * Morgeni [CP dein Freundj [C wirdk ] ti tj anrufen tk. ] b. * Dein Freundi [CP morgenj [C wirdk ] ti tj anrufen tk. ]

Contrasts as in (17) and (18) are subsumed under the label of verb-second (V2) phenomenon, and German (and other languages that resemble it with regard to these contrasts) are referred to as V2 languages.

It is important to understand that the term V2 refers to a structural requirement, not to the default word order of a language. So even though English verbs and modals ordinarily occupy second position in their clause, English is not a V2 language in the sense just described. The reason is that an English verb or auxiliary can occupy second position, but doesn't necessarily. For instance, if the clause-initial constituent is not the subject, the verb or auxiliary in English occupies third position (with some exceptions to be discussed directly). This is illustrated in (19). Note particularly the grammaticality contrasts between (19b) and (17b) and between (19c) and (18a).

(19) a. Your friend will call. b. * Tomorrow will your friend call. c. Tomorrow, your friend will call. V2 in the history of English

Ordinary declarative clauses are V2 in almost all the Germanic languages, which include the North Germanic (= Scandinavian) languages and the West Germanic languages (Dutch, English, Frisian, German, and Yiddish). The sole exception to this generalization is modern English, though not earlier stages of the language. In this section, we briefly discuss the history of V2 in English.

There is good reason to believe that V2 in Old and Middle English was a more complex phenomenon than in any of the other V2 languages. In particular, there is evidence that Old English (700–1150) exhibited not just one, but two types of V2. The first type was derived by verb movement to C, as just discussed for German, and it characterized direct questions, imperatives, certain clauses with negative force, and clauses introduced by certain adverbs. These clause types turn out to be exactly the ones in which modern English has preserved verb movement to C, as we will see later on in the chapter. The second type of V2, which was obligatory in ordinary declarative clauses, was structurally distinct (it involved verb movement to a head lower than C), and it was also superficially less transparent (sentences containing unstressed pronouns were apparently able to violate the V2 requirement). The analysis of this second type of V2 is beyond the scope of an introductory textbook; for discussion, the reader is referred to Pintzuk 1991, 1993. It is this second type of V2 that was lost in the history of English.2

In Middle English (1150–1500), evidence has recently been found of two syntactic dialects with respect to V2 (Kroch and Taylor 1997), characteristic of the south and north of England. The southern dialect basically maintained the Old English distinction between two types of V2: one for ordinary declarative clauses and one for special clause types like questions and so on. In the northern dialect, on the other hand, which was influenced by Scandinavian, all V2 clauses were uniformly derived by verb movement to C. In other words, the two dialects differed in whether V2 in ordinary declarative clauses involved verb movement to C. As just noted, the complexity of the Old English V2 pattern and its direct continuation in southern Middle English made it less transparent than the V-to-C type, and it has been proposed that speakers of the northern dialect misanalyzed southern V2 declaratives as non-V2 (Kroch, Taylor, and Ringe 2000). The desire to accommodate to the supposedly non-V2 southern pattern would then have led the northern speakers to produce clauses that were truly non-V2 (that is, non-V2 for both dialects). This development in turn might have brought about the loss of V2 in ordinary declarative clauses that is attested during the Middle English period and that resulted in the non-V2 character of ordinary declarative clauses in modern English.

In what follows, we give some examples of V2 clauses in Middle English and modern English. The examples from both time periods illustrate the transparent type of V2 discussed in the first part of this chapter, which involved verb movement to C, rather than the opaque type that was additionally possible in Old English and southern Middle English.

V2 in Middle English

Middle English encompasses the period from about 1150-1500. In contrast to Old English, Middle English, especially its later stages, is reasonably comprehensible to speakers of the modern language, and it seems like the 'same' language as modern English (whereas Old English feels at least as foreign as German).

(20) gives some examples of V2 declarative clauses from The travels of Sir John Mandeville, a bestselling travel book from the 1300s; the examples are taken from Mossé 1968, a convenient compendium of Middle English texts. (The constituent in Spec(CP) is in boldface, and the finite verb is in italics; the numbers after the examples indicate the page number in Mossé.)

+t stands for the special Middle English character 'thorn', which corresponds to modern voiceless th (as in thorn). +g stands for a character called 'yogh', which has no exact counterpart in the modern language; it was pronounced /y/.

Notice the doubly marked indirect question in (20b).

(20) a. +tanne wolde he make hem to drynken of a certeyn drynk. (279) 'Then he would make them drink of a certain drink.' b. After that +git scholde he putten hem in a fayrere paradys where +tat +tei scholde see God. (279) 'Yet after that he would put them in a more beautiful paradise where they would see God.' c. +tan wolde he schewe hem his entent. (279) 'Then he would show them his intent.' d. +tere scholde +tei dwellen with the most fairest damyselles +tat myghte be, and pley with hem everemore. (279) 'There they would dwell with the fairest damsels that there might be and play with them for ever more.'

(21) gives some further examples from the Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. 1340-ca. 1400). Again, the first number after each example refers to the page in Mossé; the second number refers to the verse.

(21) a. Wel koude he rede a lessoun or a storie. (303, 709) 'He could read a lesson or a story well.' b. This tresor hath Fortune unto us yeven. (307, 779) 'This treasure, Fortune has given us.' c. Thy profit wol I telle thee anon. (308, 809) 'I will tell you right away what's in it for you.' d. Thanne shal al this gold departed be, my deere frend, bitwixen me and thee. (309, 831-832) 'Then all this gold will be divided up, my dear friend, between me and you.' e. Thanne may we bothe oure lustes all fulfille. (309, 833) 'Then both of us can fulfill all our desires.' f. Into the blisse of hevene shul ye gon. (311, 912). 'You will enter the bliss of heaven.'

Vestiges of V2 in modern English

Modern English is no longer a full-fledged V2 language in the sense that it exhibits the V2 phenomenon in ordinary declarative clauses. However, in syntactic contexts in which the verb moved to C in Old English, C is still required to dominate a modal or form of do support in the modern language. For instance, as we mentioned in Chapter 11, a modal or form of do moves to C in direct questions. We see a further example of vestigial V2 in the construction in (23), introduced in Chapter 5 as a test for the constituenthood of adjective phrases.

(23) They are proud of their grandson, and so are we.

The verbal syntax of imperatives in modern English is too complex to discuss in an introductory textbook. However, it is clear that the auxiliary moves to C in negative imperatives, as is evident from the obligatory inversion of the subject and auxiliary do in (24).

(24) a. Don't you dare! b. * You don't dare! (ungrammatical as an imperative)

Finally, sentences that begin with a non-subject negative phrase, as in (25), require a modal or form of do in second rather than third position, as shown by the contrast between the (i) and (ii) examples.

(25) a. i. Never in my life have I seen such a mess. ii. * Never in my life, I have seen such a mess. b. i. Under no circumstances will I agree. ii. * Under no circumstances, I will agree. c. i. Not a single ally has he encountered in all that time. ii. * Not a single ally, he has encountered in all that time.

V2 in modern English is also triggered by only-phrases, as illustrated in (26).

(26) a. i. Only in Brazil have I seen such orchids. ii. * Only in Brazil, I have seen such orchids. b. i. Only a single ally has he encountered in all that time. ii. * Only a single ally, he has encountered in all that time. c. i. Only under exceptional circumstances will I agree. ii. * Only under exceptional circumstances, I will agree.

Clearly, this is related to the fact that only sentences can be paraphrased as illustrated for (26a) in (27).

(27) Nowhere but in Brazil have I seen such orchids.

It is worth noting that some speakers tend to avoid using the (i) examples in (25) and (26) in favor of the ordinary subject-initial word order in (28) and (29).

(28) a. I have never in my life seen such a mess. b. I will agree under no circumstances. c. He has encountered not a single ally in all that time. (29) a. I have seen such orchids only in Brazil. b. He has encountered only a single ally in all that time. c. I will agree only under exceptional circumstances.

If this tendency were to become more pronounced over time, the (i) examples in (25) and (26) would eventually die out in usage. In the absence of positive evidence that clause-initial negative phrases license V2, children learning English would then presumably acquire a grammar that generates the currently ungrammatical (ii) examples.

Notes

1. As the translation of (3b) shows, English, too, allows asyndetic conditional clauses.

1. In addition to the remnants of the transparent German/Scandinavian/northern type of V2 that are discussed in the remainder of the section, modern English continues to retain vestiges of the complex southern V2 pattern in sentences such as (i).

(i) a. There comes/goes the bus. (V2 with full noun phrase subject) b. There it comes/goes. (non-V2 with pronominal subject)

Exercises and problems

Exercise 13.1

Using the all purpose grammar tool, build structures for the sentences in (1) and (2).

(1) a. I will call if I am not busy. b. If I am not busy, I will call. (2) a. I will call should I not be busy. b. Should I not be busy, I will call.

Exercise 13.2

A. Using the German V2 grammar tool, build a structure for the German clause in (1).

(1) Mein Onkel hat bei seinen Nachbarn dreimal aus der Schweiz angerufen. my uncle has at his neighbors three.times from the Switzerland called 'My uncle called his neighbors three times from Switzerland.'

B. Given what you know about Universal Grammar and the grammar of German, are the sentences in (2) expected to be grammatical? Explain.

(2) a. Angerufen hat mein Onkel aus der Schweiz dreimal. b. Aus der Schweiz hat mein Onkel dreimal angerufen. c. Dreimal aus der Schweiz hat mein Onkel bei seinen Nachbarn angerufen.

Exercise 13.3

A. Using the all purpose grammar tool, build structures for any three of the modern English V2 clauses in (1).

(1) a. i. Never in John's life has he seen such a mess. ii. Only in Brazil has he seen such orchids. b. i. Under no circumstances will she agree. ii. Only under those circumstances will she agree. c. i. Not a single ally have they encountered. ii. Only a single ally have they encountered.

Exercise 13.4

Using the grammar tool in Middle English verb movement, build structures for each of the following sentences from Chaucer in (1). Assume that Chaucer instantiates the same V2 pattern as German (that is, the northern Middle English V2 pattern described in earlier).

(1) a. A vernycle hadde he sowed upon his cappe. (Mossé 1968:303, 685) 'He had sewn a vernicle on his cap.' b. Wel koude he rede a storie. (Mossé 1968:303, 709) 'He could read a story well.' c. This tresor hath Fortune unto us yeven. (Mossé 1968:307, 779) 'Fortune has given this treasure to us.'

Exercise 13.5

A. Based on the data in (1) and (2), how do why questions differ from how come questions in Standard English? (For convenience, treat how come as a complex word.)

(1) a. ok Why are they making such a fuss? b. * Why they are making such a fuss? (2) a. * How come are they making such a fuss? b. ok How come they are making such a fuss?

B. Based on the data in (3), how would you characterize the difference between direct questions in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and in Standard English?

(3) a. Why you didn't tell me that? (overheard at the Salvation Army store, 22nd and Market, September 26, 1998) b. What you bought tickets for? (overheard at 30th Street Station, November 26, 1998) c. Where you was at? (overheard at Rittenhouse Square, July 20, 2001) d. Where you went? (overheard at the corner of Chestnut and 36th Street, August 13, 2001) e. What I told you? (Willie Perdomo. From where a nickel cost a dime. Real News. April 2002. 28.)

C. How does the verbal syntax of the archaicizing advertisement for B. Altman in (4) differ from your own verbal syntax, and how doesn't it?

The two instances of be are an archaic verb form called the subjunctive. In the modern language, the subjunctive has largely been replaced by the indicative (in this case, is).

(4) What care I how chic it be if it not be the best for me? (Kim Johnson Gross and Jeff Stone. 1998. Women's wardrobe. Chic simple. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.) 14 Binding theory: Syntactic constraints on the interpretation of noun phrases

This chapter is devoted to binding theory, the part of syntactic theory that is concerned with how the interpretation of noun phrases is constrained by syntactic considerations. For the purposes of binding theory, it is useful to distinguish several types of noun phrases: full noun phrases (the question, the student that asked the question, and so on), ordinary pronouns (I, you, they, and so on), reflexive pronouns (myself, yourself, themselves, and so on) and the reciprocal pronoun each other.

We discuss two alternative approaches to binding theory. The first approach, due to Hellan 1988, was proposed on the basis of Norwegian, a language with a unusually rich set of pronouns. We first discuss the Norwegian facts and then extend Hellan's analysis to English. The second approach, due to Chomsky 1981, was proposed on the basis of English and does not cover the full range of Norwegian facts. However, it includes an important condition on the distribution of ordinary noun phrases that is missing from Hellan's binding theory.

Coreference and coindexing

The primary function of a noun phrase like Bill Clinton, my two cats, the king of France, Santa Claus, or colorless green ideas is to refer---that is, to stand for a particular discourse entity, its referent. As the examples show, referents can be entities in the actual world, entities in some possible world, or even entities that could not possibly exist in principle. One of the characteristic features of human language is the absence, in general, of a one-to-one relation between noun phrases and referents. On the one hand, it is possible to use different noun phrases to refer to the same referent. The classic example is the fact that the expressions the morning star and the evening star both have the same referent---the planet Venus. On the other hand, the same noun phrase can have different referents. For instance, my apartment, used either by the same person at different points in time or by different persons at the same point in time, can refer to lodgings of vastly different size and attractiveness in completely different locations. Similarly, Lois's checking account balance can refer to widely differing dollar amounts.

In general, then, determining the intended referent of an expression requires recourse to a particular discourse context (who is speaking when, to whom, and so on). But there are certain expressions whose interpretation is particularly context- dependent---namely, pronouns. For instance, it is perfectly felicitous to introduce a new topic in a conversation with a friend using (1a) (provided that the speaker and the friend have in common a single acquaintance by the name of Vanessa). But replacing the proper noun Vanessa with a pronoun, as in (1b), in the same context (that is, as a new topic of conversation) is decidedly odd.

(1) a. I ran into Vanessa the other day. b. I ran into her the other day.

On the other hand, if Vanessa has already been mentioned in the discourse, then (1b) is perfectly felicitous, as illustrated in the mini-discourse in (2).

(2) A: Have you seen Vanessa recently? B: Yup. I ran into her the other day. Pronouns, then, in contrast to ordinary noun phrases, are referentially dependent on some antecedent in the discourse. The term 'antecedent' is potentially misleading. Since it is derived etymologically from Latin ante-cedens 'one who walks before', it suggests that antecedents are required to precede a referentially dependent expression. However, precedence is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for antecedenthood. For instance, a sentence like Zelda's brother likes herself is ungrammatical even though Zelda precedes herself.. A less misleading term might be 'referential anchor,' but we continue to use the 'antecedent' because it is the standard term in the literature.

It is possible for a sentence to contain more than one possible antecedent for a pronoun. For instance, in (3), he can refer to either Tim or Tom.

(3) Tim told Tom that he needed some time off.

In any particular discourse context, of course, one interpretation may well be favored over the other, given what is known about Tim, Tom, their respective work loads, and so on. In case the antecedent for he must be explicitly specified in an unambiguous way, this can be achieved as in (4).

(4) a. Tim told Tom that he, Tim, needed some time off. b. Tim told Tom that he, Tom, needed some time off.

When (3) has the interpretation in (4a), he and Tim are said to corefer. On the alternative interpretation in (4b), it is he and Tom that corefer.

It is convenient to introduce a notation to represent coreference relations. Let us begin by asssociating any noun phrase with a referential index. In the syntactic literature, it is standard to use the letters of the alphabet, beginning with i (for 'index'), both as referential indices and to indicate movement. For clarity, however, we will use the natural numbers as referential indices. We now introduce the following convention. In order to indicate an interpretation where two expressions refer to the same discourse entity (in other words, where they corefer), we assign the same index to both expressions, or coindex them. On the other hand, in order to indicate an interpretation in which two expressions refer to distinct discourse entities (that is, where they do not corefer), we assign distinct indices to each of the two expressions. Such expressions are said to be contraindexed. In neither case are the specific indices important---only whether the indices are the same or not. For instance, both indexings in (5) represent the interpretation in (4a), and both indexings in (6) represent the interpretation in (4b).

(5) a. Tim1 told Tom2 that he1 needed some time off. b. Tim1097 told Tom18 that he1097 needed some time off. (6) a. Tim1 told Tom2 that he2 needed some time off. b. Tim380 told Tom7 that he7 needed some time off.

(7) gives a further grammatical indexing for the string in (3). Of course, in any particular discourse, this indexing is pragmatically felicitous only if a discourse entity with the index 3 (say, Tim's brother Mike) has already been mentioned.

(7) Tim1 told Tom2 that he3 needed some time off.

Reference and indexing must be carefully distinguished. Reference relations are actual linguistic relations that we have intuitions about. For instance, we have the intuition that Tim and him can corefer in (8a), but not in (8b).

(8) a. Tim thinks that everyone admires him. b. Tim admires him.

By contrast, indices are a notational device intended to represent arbitrary reference relations; the indices themselves have no independent linguistic or psychological status. It is perfectly possible to assign referential indices to noun phrases so as to represent interpretations of a sentence that are possible in principle, but ungrammatical in fact. Two such ungrammatical indexings are illustrated in (9).

(9) a. * Tim1 admires him1. b. * He1 admires Tim1.

The proposition (= state of affairs) that both (9a) and (9b) are trying to express is not inherently semantically anomalous. It can be expressed perfectly well by the grammatical sentence in (10). (10) Tim1 admires himself1.

Notice furthermore that what makes the sequences in (9) ungrammatical is the index assignment. The same sequences of words as in (9) are grammatical sentences when associated with the indices in (11).

(11) a. ok Tim1 admires him2. b. ok He1 admires Tim2.

In other words, the grammaticality of a sentence is always determined with reference to a particular intended interpretation.1

Representations like those in (9) and (11) are generally abbreviated as in (12). The descending numerical order of the indices on the object noun phrases is intended to unambiguously indicate the scope of the asterisk.

(12) a. ok Tim1 admires him2,*1. b. ok He1 admires Tim2,*1.

Why can't we use sentences like (9a) or (9b) to express the proposition that is expressed grammatically in (10)? This is exactly the type of question that is addressed in the rest of this chapter.

Hellan 1988

The co-argument condition

English makes a distinction between reflexive pronouns ending in -self (myself, yourself, and so on) and the corresponding ordinary pronouns (I, you, and so on). Norwegian, too, distinguishes between pronouns with forms containing selv 'self' and ones without. As (13) and (14) show, selv is in complementary distribution with zero (that is, where a form with selv can occur, a form without selv cannot, and vice versa).

In what follows, we restrict our attention to reflexive pronouns with local or long-distance antecedents (that is, with an antecedent in the same clause as the reflexive pronoun or in a higher clause, respectively). Many languages also have inherently reflexive pronouns, which are special in that they don't function as an argument of their predicate, even though they occupy a syntactic argument position. Inherently reflexive pronouns are rare in English (to behave oneself, to perjure oneself), but much more common in other languages.

(13) a. Jon1 beundrer seg selv1. admires SEG self b. * Jon1 beundrer seg1. 'Jon1 admires himself1.' (14) a. * Jon1 bad oss beundre seg selv1. asked us admire SEG self b. Jon1 bad oss beundre seg1. 'Jon1 asked us to admire him1.'

In an effort to understand what determines the complementary distribution, let us consider the derivation of the sentences. Both sentences require the elementary tree in (15) for the verb beundre(r) 'admire(s)'.

(15)

Observe now that in the derivation of (13a), seg selv and Jon both substitute into the elementary tree for beundrer. In the derivation of (14a), on the other hand, the subject position of the elementary tree for beundre is filled by PRO, which is referentially dependent on the matrix object oss 'us', whereas Jon substitutes into the elementary tree for the matrix predicate bad 'asked'. The structures resulting from substitution in the two cases are shown in (16a) and (16b). (16) a.

b. i. ii.

Given this derivational difference, we can define a notion of co-argument as in (17a) and propose the condition governing the distribution of selv in (17b).

(17) a. Definition of co-argument (to be revised): A and B are co-arguments iff they substitute into the argument positions (specifier or complement) of the same elementary tree. b. Co-argument condition (to be revised): Selv and its antecedent (more precisely, the minimal DP nodes dominating them) must be co-arguments.

One type of syntax/semantics mismatch. While adequate for (13) and (14), the definition of co-argument in (17a) does not extend to examples like (18) and (19).

(18) a. Jon1 snakket om seg selv1. talked about SEG self b. * Jon1 snakket om seg1. 'Jon1 talked about himself1.'

(19) a. * Jon1 bad oss snakke om seg selv1. asked us talk about SEG self b. Jon1 bad oss snakke om seg. 'Jon1 asked us talk about himself1.'

As is evident, the distribution of selv in (18) and (19) is parallel to that in (13) and (14). However, given the definition in (17a), the condition in (17b) fails to extend to (19a) because the DPs dominating seg selv and its antecedent do not substitute into the same elementary tree. Rather, seg selv substitutes into the elementary tree for om 'about', whereas its antecedent Jon substitutes into that for snakket 'talked'.

One way of addressing this problem is to introduce a semantically-based notion of argument, based on the idea that situations can be conceptually decomposed into events (activities, states, qualities, and so on), on the one hand, and different types of participants in such events (agents, experiencers, beneficiaries, goals, etc.), on the other. In general, the participants in an event denoted by a lexical item correspond to the substitution nodes in the elementary tree associated with that lexical item. Indeed, this correspondence is so general that substitution nodes are often equated with participants in a situation, with both being referred to as arguments. However, locutions like snakker om DP 'talk about DP' provide evidence that syntactic arguments (constituents of the elementary tree projected by a lexical item) must be distinguished from semantic arguments (participants in the event denoted by the lexical item). In such cases, there is a mismatch between the syntax and the semantics. Specifically, the DP, being a complement of the preposition, stands in no local syntactic relation with the verb. Nevertheless, it is a semantic participant in the 'talking about' activity. For the purposes of binding, the prepositional complement's status as a semantic argument is sufficient to license selv. Based on the facts presented so far, it is therefore possible to revise (17b) to read as in (20b).

(20) a. Semantic co-argument: A and B are semantic co-arguments iff they denote co-participants in the same situation. b. Co-argument condition (to be revised): Selv and its antecedent must be semantic co-arguments.

It should be noted that the status of a particular phrase as a semantic argument is not always easy to determine, and that there is some individual variation regarding the relevant judgments. This is reminiscent of the situation that we encountered in connection with the distinction between syntactic arguments and adjuncts discussed in Chapter 3.

Another type of syntax/semantics mismatch. As we have just seen, a noun phrase can be a semantic argument of a head denoting an event without being one of its syntactic arguments. Also possible is the converse state of affairs, in which a noun phrase counts as a syntactic argument of a head without being its semantic argument. We illustrate this second type of syntax/semantics mismatch with reference to perception verb complements. Consider (21).

(21) Jon1 så seg selv1 sitte i stolen. saw SEG self sit in chair.def 'Jon1 saw himself1 sit in the chair.'

As the tree for (21) in (22) shows, the matrix verb så 'saw' takes as its complement a VP small clause, so Jon and seg selv are not co-arguments in the sense of either (17a) or (20a).2

(22)

In fact, seg selv is not a semantic argument of så at all, since the complement subject position can be occupied by expletive det, the Norwegian counterpart of expletive there.

(23) Vi så det sitte ett spøkelse i stolen. we saw there sit a ghost in chair.def 'We saw a ghost sit in the chair.'

The facts discussed so far motivate extending the concept of syntactic co-argument as in (24).

(24) Syntactic argument: A and B are syntactic co-arguments iff they are locally head-licensed by the same head C.

The notion of local head-licensing was introduced earlier (though not by that name) in connection with case checking. There, we distinguished three configurations in which case checking was licensed: spec-head, head-spec, and head- complement. These structural notions are also relevant for binding theory. In (16), Jon and seg selv are co-arguments because they stand in the spec-head and head-complement relation, respectively, with beundrer 'admires'. In (23), (the trace of) Jon and seg selv are co-arguments because they stand in the spec-head and head-spec relation, respectively, with så.

Our final revision of the condition on selv is given in (25).

(25) Co-argument condition (final version): Selv and its antecedent must be semantic or syntactic co-arguments.

Note that the statement of the condition is not yet ideal. The fact that (25) contains a disjunction suggests that we do not have a complete understanding of the notion of co-argument.

The predication condition

In addition to the distinction between elements with and without selv, Norwegian distinguishes between the two third person singular forms seg and ham. Like seg, ham occurs on its own as well as before selv. As (26) and (27) show, seg and ham are in complementary distribution.

Note that the noun phrases in (26) and (27) are all semantic arguments. Therefore, since the co-argument condition in (25) is satisfied, the contrast in (26) and (27) must be due to independent conditions governing the distribution of seg and ham.

(26) Jon1 snakket om { seg / *ham } selv1. talked about SEG HAM self 'Jon1 talked about himself1.' (27) a. Vi snakket med Jon1 om { ham / *seg } selv1. we talked with about HAM SEG self 'We talked with Jon1 about himself1.' b. Vi fortalte Jon1 om { ham / *seg } selv1. we told about HAM SEG self 'We told Jon1 about himself1.'

The difference between the two cases is that the (potential) antecedent is a subject in (26), but not in (27). Further evidence that the antecedent of seg must be a subject comes from (28), which shows that what is crucial is the antecedent's status as a subject of predication.

(28) Vi gjorde Jon1 glad i { seg / *ham } selv1. we made fond of SEG HAM self 'We made Jon1 fond of himself1.'

The facts in (26)-(28) are accounted for by the condition in (29).

(29) Predication condition: The antecedent of seg must be a subject of predication, whereas the antecedent of ham must not be.

The co-argument condition in (25) and the predication condition in (29) are independent of one another. This has the result that the domain in which the referentially dependent elements under discussion can appear can be partitioned without overlap as in (30).3

(30) Antecedent co-argument? Antecedent subject of predication? Yes No Yes seg selv seg No ham selv ham

The tensed IP condition

The contrast in (31) shows that seg is subject to a final condition, given in (32).

(31) a. Jon1 bad oss forsøke å få deg til å snakke pent om seg1. asked us try to get you towards to talk nicely about SEG 'Jon1 asked us to try to get you to talk nicely about him1.' b. * Jon1 var ikke klar over at vi hadde snakket om seg1. was not aware over that we had talked about SEG 'Jon1 was not aware that we had talked about him1.' (32) The minimal tensed IP dominating seg must also dominate its antecedent.

Strict vs. non-strict co-arguments

As we saw earlier, selv is subject to the co-argument condition in (25), repeated in (33).

(33) Co-argument condition: Selv and its antecedent must be semantic or syntactic co-arguments.

The contrast in (34) might at first glance be taken to indicate that the reciprocal pronoun hverandre 'each other' is not subject to such a condition.

(34) a. * Jon1 traff noen venner av seg selv1. met some friends of SEG self 'Jon1 met some friends of his1.' b. [ Jon og Marit ]1 traff noen venner av hverandre1. and met some friends of each other '[ Jon and Marit ]1 met some friends of each other's1.'

Nevertheless, as (35) shows, the distribution of hverandre is not completely unconstrained. (35) ?* [ Jon og Marit ]1 leste mine bøker om hverandre1. and read my books about each other Intended meaning: 'Jon read my book about Marit, and Marit read my book about Jon.'

It is possible to account for the contrast between (34b) and (35) by introducing a distinction between strict and non-strict co-arguments. Strict arguments are defined as in (17) or (20), but non-strict co-arguments are more loosely related. Consider the two configurations in (36).

(36) a. b.

In (36a), we will say that the absence of a specifier in BP allows B to extend its argument-taking domain up to the first maximal projection that is 'closed off' by a specifier (in this case, AP). In such a domain, which we will call a projection chain of B, the arguments of the heads in the projection chain count as co-arguments in a non-strict sense. In (36b), on the other hand, the presence of Spec(BP) prevents the formation of such a projection chain.

The similarities and differences in the distribution of selv and hverandre can now be succinctly stated as in (37).

(37) a. Selv and its antecedent must be strict co-arguments. b. Hverandre and its antecedent must be co-arguments (possibly non-strict ones).

We illustrate the application of the condition in (37b) to (34b) and (35) with reference to the structures in (38).

(38) a. b.

(38a) is a (recursive) instantiation of the projection chain configuration in (36a). None of the maximal projections in the object DP is closed off by a specifier, and the projection chain of the preposition that governs hverandre therefore extends to VP. As a result, (the trace of) Jon og Marit is a non-strict co-argument of hverandre and can serve as its antecedent. (38b) turns out to be an instantiation of the projection chain configuration as well. But here, the projection chain of the P containing hverandre extends only to the object DP, which is closed off by mine. The ungrammaticality of the sentence can then be derived from the feature mismatch (number and person) between hverandre and its potential antecedent mine.

Extending Hellan's binding theory to English

As discussed earlier, Norwegian distinguishes between two third person pronouns: seg and ham, which can both stand alone or be combined with the morpheme selv, yielding four referentially dependent forms (seg, seg selv, ham, and ham selv). English lacks the distinction between seg and ham and has only two referentially dependent forms (exemplified in what follows by him and himself). The question that guides the discussion in this section is how these forms divide up the syntactic territory covered by the four forms of Norwegian.

The co-argument condition

Since English -self is cognate with Norwegian selv, it is reasonable to assume that English reflexive pronouns are subject to a condition analogous to the co-argument condition in (25). Such a condition is given in (39a). The companion condition on ordinary pronouns in (39b) makes explicit the complementary distribution between the two types of pronouns.

(39) a. Reflexive pronouns and their antecedents must be (semantic or syntactic) co-arguments. b. Ordinary pronouns and their antecedents must not be co-arguments.

The conditions in (39) are borne out by the data in (40) and (41).

(40) a. John1 admires { himself1 / *him1 }. b. John1 talked about { himself1 / *him1 }. c. We made John1 fond of { himself1 / *him1 }. (41) a. John1 asked us to admire { him1 / *himself1 }. b. John1 asked us to talk about { him1 / *himself1 }. c. John1 made us fond of { him1 / *himself1 }.

In (37a), we proposed that the antecedents of Norwegian selv must be strict co-arguments, and so we are led to wonder whether this is true of English reflexive pronouns as well. Evidence bearing on this question comes from examples like (42), which has the structure in (43).

(42) John1 bought some books about himself1.

(43)

Himself, a semantic argument of books, has no strict co-arguments (the PP dominating it has no specifier). But for precisely this reason, (43) is an instance of a projection chain. In particular, given that the entire object DP contains no specifiers, the projection chain of about, the head governing himself, extends to VP, making himself and (the trace of) John non-strict co-arguments. Since (42) is grammatical, we conclude that the antecedent of himself need only be a non-strict co-argument. In this respect, then, himself differs from Norweian seg selv and resembles hverandre 'each other.'

As expected, if the projection chain of about is closed off by a specifier of the object DP, then it is that DP that must contain an antecedent that agrees with himself in the relevant grammatical features (number and gender). This is shown by the contrast in (44).

(44) a. Mary bought John1's book about himself1. b. * John1 bought Mary's book about himself1.

Finally, the contrast between (42) and (45) on the one hand and (44) and (46) on the other confirms that reflexive and ordinary pronouns are in complementary distribution.

(45) * John1 bought some books about him1. (46) a. * Mary bought John1's book about him1. b. John1 bought Mary's book about him1.

The predication condition

A further question that arises in comparing the English pronouns with their Norwegian counterparts is whether himself covers the syntactic territory of seg selv alone or of both of the selv forms (seg selv and ham selv). (41) and (46) show that the antecedent of him, unlike that of ham, can be a subject of predication, and (44a) suggests that the antecedent of himself needn't be (we say 'suggests' rather than 'shows' because the status of prenominal genitives with respect to predication is a bit murky). This evidence is consistent with the view that himself corresponds to both of the selv forms, and that English reflexive and ordinary pronouns are not subject to a predication condition analogous to the one in (29). This view is clearly confirmed by the facts in (47), where the antecedent of himself is not a subject of predication.

(47) a. We talked with John1 about { himself1 / *him1 }. b. We told John1 about { himself1 / *him1 }.

The tensed IP condition

Since the tensed IP condition governs the distribution of seg versus ham and English does not distinguish between these two elements, we would expect the tensed IP condition to be irrelevant in English. This conclusion is confirmed by the parallelism between (48a) and (48b).

(48) a. John1 asked us to try to get you to talk nicely about { him1 / *himself1 }. b. John1 was not aware that we had talked about { him1 / *himself1 }.

In summary, then, English himself corresponds closely to the two selv forms of Norwegian, seg selv and ham selv. The correspondence is not perfect, however, because the antecedent of English himself, unlike that of the selv forms, needn't be a strict co-argument.

Chomsky 1981

We have presented an approach to binding theory that was developed in order to account for the particularly rich data from Norwegian. In this section, we compare this approach with the standard binding theory of Chomsky 1981, which was developed on the basis of morphologically simpler data of English. Chomsky's binding theory contains three conditions (or principles, as they are more commonly referred to), which govern the distribution of reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, ordinary pronouns, and full noun phrases, respectively. We present each of these principles in turn.

Principle A

Consider the English binding facts in (49).

(49) a. [ Zelda ]1 helped [ herself ]1. b. [ Zelda's sister ]1 helped [ herself ]1. c. * [ Zelda's ]1 sister helped [ herself ]1.

In Hellan's binding theory, (49a) is grammatical because herself and its antecedent Zelda are syntactic co-arguments. The same is true of herself and Zelda's sister in (49b), and so it is grammatical as well. In (49c), on the other hand, the intended antecedent Zelda is not a co-argument of herself, and so the sentence is ungrammatical under the intended interpretation.

Chomsky 1981 derives the grammaticality pattern in (49) on the basis not of co-argumenthood, but on the basis of the structural relation of c-command, defined as in (50).

(50) A c-commands B iff (= if and only if) a. neither A nor B dominates the other, and b. the first branching node that dominates A also dominates B.

The structures for the sentences in (49) are shown in (51). In all three of the structures, the intended antecedent of the anaphor herself and the anaphor itself are boxed in red. The first branching node dominating the intended antecedent is boxed in black. Notice now that the black-boxed nodes dominates that anaphor in (51a,b), but not in (51c). In other words, the anaphor is c-commanded by the intended antecedent in (51a,b), but not in (51c).

(51) a. b. c. Intended antecedent c- yes yes no commands anaphor? These configurational relations suggest the condition in (52).

(52) Principle A (to be revised): An anaphor must be c-commanded by a coindexed antecedent.

The term anaphor in Chomsky's usage refers to reflexive and reciprocal pronouns. This usage is potentially confusing because in general linguistic usage, anaphora refers to referential dependence regardless of morphological form. In other words, ordinary pronouns and even full noun phrases can count as anaphors in this wide sense. Here, we will use the restricted sense of the term, in keeping with Chomsky's usage.

(52) is generally expressed more succinctly as in (53a), where the notion of 'binding' is defined as in (53b)

(53) a. An anaphor must be bound. b. A binds B iff i. A c-commands B, and ii. A and B are coindexed.

As it turns out, (53a) is a necessary but not sufficient condition on anaphors in English, since it fails to account for data involving complex clauses like (54).

(54) John1 thinks that Mary2 will help { herself2 / *himself1 }.

The grammaticality of the variant with herself is unproblematic (herself is bound by Mary ). But given (53a), the ungrammaticality of the variant with himself is surprising, because himself is bound by John.

In Hellan's version of the binding theory, John is ruled out as an antecedent of himself by the co-argument condition in (39a). In Chomsky's version, a similar effect is achieved by introducing the notion of governing category, a locality domain within which an anaphor must be bound. Since the definition of governing category is fairly complex, we will work our way up to it in several steps, motivating each complication of the definition in turn.

(55) Principle A (final version): An anaphor must be bound within its governing category. (56) Governing category (to be revised): The governing category for an expression is the lowest IP that contains that expression.

(55) correctly describes the contrast in (54), but is unable to account for contrasts as in (44), repeated as (57).

(57) a. Mary bought John1's book about himself1. b. * John1 bought Mary's book about himself1.

In both sentences, the lowest IP that contains himself (the only IP in the sentence) also contains John, in accordance with the definition of governing category in (56). The ungrammaticality of (57b) is therefore unexpected.

A first step in accounting for such contrasts lies in making reference to DPs in addition to IPs in the definition of governing category, as in (58).

(58) Governing category (to be revised): The governing category for an expression is the lowest IP or DP that contains that expression.

But now (58) overshoots the mark by incorrectly ruling out sentences like (42), repeated as (59).

(59) John1 bought some books about himself1. A further refinement of the definition of governing category yields (60).

(60) Governing category (to be revised): The governing category for an expression is the lowest IP or DP that contains that expression, and a specifier.

The reference to a specifier in (60) is the formal counterpart to the distinction between strict and non-strict co-arguments in Hellan's approach to the binding theory. There is a difference, however, in what the two approaches regard as the unmarked domain within which an anaphor must be bound. In Hellan's approach, the availability of non-strict co-argument antecedents extends a binding domain that would otherwise be smaller. By contrast, in Chomsky's approach, the addition of clause (ii) in (60) restricts a binding domain that would otherwise be larger.

There remains one final revision to make to the definition of governing category. The revision is motivated by sentences like (61a), which have the structure in (61b).

(61) a. Joan1 believes herself1 to be indispensable.

Let's consider in detail why (61) poses a difficulty for the definition in (60). As is evident from (61b), the lowest IP or DP that contains the anaphor and a specifier is the complement IP (indicated by the box). (The anaphor and the specifier turn out to be the same node, but nothing in (60) rules this out.) But since the complement IP contains no antecedent for the anaphor, (61a) is incorrectly predicted to be ungrammatical.

In order to accommodate sentences like (61a), the governing category must be extended in just the right way to allow matrix subjects to act as antecedents in sentences like (61a), but not in ones like (54). This is achieved by the formulation in (62).

(62) Governing category (final version): The governing category for an expression is the lowest IP or DP that contains (i) that expression, (ii) a specifier, and (iii) the expression's case-licensing head.

Note that the addition of clause (iii) in (62) has the same effect as Hellan's extension of the notion of syntactic argument in (24) (recall the discussion of the second type of syntax/semantics mismatch discussed earlier in connection with the distribution of Norwegian selv).

Principle B

We turn now to the distribution of pronouns.

As noted earlier, reflexive and reciprocal pronouns are combined in the Chomskyan tradition under the rubric of anaphors. This leaves the unqualified term 'pronoun' to refer to ordinary personal pronouns (I, you, he, and so on). Unless otherwise noted, we follow this usage in what follows.

Replacing the anaphors in (49) by pronouns yields the sentences in (63).

(63) a. * [ Zelda ]1 helped [ her ]1. b. * [ Zelda's sister ]1 helped [ her ]1. c. [ Zelda's ]1 sister helped [ her ]1.

The resulting grammaticality pattern, which is the converse of that in (49), suggests the condition in (64). (64) Principle B (to be revised): A pronoun must be free (= not bound by an antecedent).

As in the case of our first formulation of Principle A, the formulation of Principle B in (64) is not ye quite inadequate. This time, however, the condition errs on the side of caution, incorrectly ruling out grammatical sentences like (65).

(65) John1 thinks Mary will help him1.

Since John c-commands him (along with everything else in the sentence), (64) incorrectly leads us to expect (65) to be ungrammatical.

The fact that the antecedent and the pronoun are in different clauses in (65) suggests reformulating (64) to incorporate the concept of governing category, as in (66).

(66) Principle B (final version): A pronoun must be free in its governing category.

As is evident, both Hellan's and Chomsky's approaches to the binding theory agree that anaphors and pronouns are in complementary distribution.

Principle C

Consider the sentences in (67).

(67) a. * She1 treats Mary1 well. b. * She1 claims that they treat Mary1 well. c. * She1 claims that we know that they treat Mary1 well.

In Hellan's approach to the binding theory, (67a) is ruled out by the condition in (39b), according to which an ordinary pronoun and its antecedent cannot be co-arguments. It is not, however, ruled out by Principle B, the counterpart to (39b) in Chomsky's binding theory, since the pronoun is free. In order to rule out sentences like (67a), Chomsky's binding theory therefore contains a third principle that governs the distribution of full noun phrases (referred to in Chomsky's usage as r(eferential)-expressions).

(68) Principle C: R-expressions must be free.

Principle C is reminiscent of Principle B, but differs from it in that the anti-binding requirement is not relativized to a binding domain. The absolute character of the anti-binding requirement in Principle C is borne out by the ungrammaticality of (67b,c).

The ungrammaticality of the sentences in (67b,c) means that an anti-binding condition on full noun phrases also needs to be incorporated into Hellan's approach to binding theory. This is because the co-argument condition in (39b), which ruled out (67a), fails to apply to (67b,c). They must therefore be ruled out by separate means. The necessity for an independent anti-binding condition on full noun phrases is underscored by sentences like (69).

(69) * We made herself1 treat Mary1 well.

In Chomsky's binding theory, (69) is ruled out by both Principles A and C. But in Hellan's version of the binding theory, (69) satisfies the co-argument condition in (39a), the equivalent of Principle A, because Mary and herself are syntactic co- arguments (treat locally head-licenses Mary). It is therefore only with reference to an anti-binding condition on full noun phrases that (69) can be ruled out as required.

In traditional grammar, the examples in (67) and (69) would all be classified as instances of cataphora, instances of referential dependence in which the antecedent follows the referentially dependent element. It is worth pointing out explicitly that not all instances of cataphora are ungrammatical. Examples like (70), where the referentially dependent element precedes, but does not c-command the antecedent, are grammatical, as expected under Principle C.

(70) If he1 calls, tell John1 I'll be back in an hour. The term 'anaphora' is generally used to subsume both cataphora and what might be called strict anaphora, where the antecedent precedes the referentially dependent element. According to the metaphor underlying the terms, discourse flows along like a stream, with temporally earlier elements located upstream from later ones. The antecedent is then upstream of the referentially dependent element in strict anaphora (< Greek ana 'up, against the current'), but downstream in cataphora (< Greek kata 'down, with the current').

A final point needs to be made about Principle C. We pointed out earlier that Principle C is an absolute requirement in the sense that it makes no reference to binding domains. It is absolute in a further sense as well: it makes no reference to whether the binder is a referentially dependent element. Thus, Principle C rules out (71) on a par with (67a).

(71) Mary1 treats Mary1 well.

It has been argued, however, that under certain discourse conditions, sentences structurally parallel to (71) are in fact acceptable, as illustrated in (72a). Two further acceptable violations of Principle C from unedited usage are given in (72b,c).

(72) a. Nobody likes Oscar. Even Oscar1 doesn't like Oscar1. b. Phil1 said that if he2 came by, Phil1 would show him2 around. ([email protected] to [email protected]) c. Luke1 thinks that everyone has as much integrity as Luke1 has. (overheard at the White Dog Cafe, Philadelphia, PA, 17 Feb 01)

However, equivalent sentences in which the full noun phrase is bound by a referentially dependent element are degraded.

(73) a. * Nobody likes Oscar. Even he1 doesn't like Oscar1. b. * He1 said that if { he2 / Sean2 } came by, Phil1 would show him2 around. c. * He1 thinks that everyone has as much integrity as Luke1 has.

Although judgments regarding contrasts of the type illustrated by (72) and (73) can be delicate, it seems reasonable to weaken Principle C to include reference to the status of the binder. This is done in (74).

(74) Weakened version of Principle C: Full noun phrases must not be bound by a referentially dependent element.

Notes

1. The same point arises in other connections as well. For instance, the question in (i) is grammatical on the interpretation in (ii.a), but not on that in (ii.b).

(i) How have they forgotten which problem they should solve? (ii) a. Howi have they forgotten ti which problem they should solve? (By succumbing to Alzheimer's.) b. * Howi have they forgotten which problem they should solve ti? (By using Fourier analysis.)

2. The Trees program doesn't support the special character å, so we substitute the conventional Scandinavian orthographic variant aa in the trees.

3. Certain difficult cases are set aside; for further discussion, see Hellan 1988, Chapter 3. Expletive elements in English

Referential it versus expletive it

Ordinary referential it has some referent. As a result, it can be replaced by a more complex description of that referent, and it can function (though marginally) as a sentence fragment answer to a question. Referential it can also (marginally) receive stress.

(1) a. It bit the zebu. b. The tsetse fly bit the zebu. (2) a. What bit the zebu? b. ? (pointing) It.

Expletive it doesn't refer, so it can't be replaced, as shown in (3), and even the question (4a) that the sentence fragment (4b) attempts to answer is ungrammatical. In contrast to referential it, expletive it can never receive stress.

(3) a. It seems that the manuscript has been found. b. * The fact seems that the manuscript has been found. (4) a. * What seems that the manuscript has been found? b. * It.

Adverbial there versus expletive there

Ordinary adverbial there has a locative meaning, so that the adjuncts (right) here and (over) there render (5a) and (5b) contradictory and redundant, respectively. It is possible to stress ordinary there.

(5) a. # There comes the train (right) here. b. There comes the train (over) there.

Expletive there, on the other hand, has no such locative meaning, and so both sentences in (6) are completely acceptable. In contrast to ordinary there, expletive there can never receive stress.

(6) a. There is a clean shirt (right) here. b. There is a clean shirt (over) there. Grammatical relations

Grammatical relations must be carefully distinguished from thematic roles. In what follows, we illustrate three grammatical relations: subject, first object, and second object. The apparent contradiction between the existence of second objects and the binary-branching hypothesis is discussed in Chapter 7.

Subjects are ordinarily the only argument to precede the predicate in English. As the examples in (1) illustrate, a great variety of thematic roles can be expressed as subjects.

Be careful not to confuse the grammatical relation of subject with the thematic role of agent. The existence of passive sentences is a clear indication that the two notions are not synonymous (cf. (1a) with (4a)).

(1) a. Agent: The lions devoured the wildebeest. b. Instrument: This key opens the door to the main office. c. Cause: Hurricane-force winds demolished much of the town. d. Experiencer: The rhesus monkey had never seen snow before. e. Recipient: The workers were given a raise. f. Goal: The summit wasn't attained until years later. g. Path: An unpaved road led up to the shanty. h. Theme: The wildebeest was devoured by the lions. i. " The ball rolled down the hill.

First objects are the noun phrase argument that typically follows a transitive verb. Again, a wide variety of thematic roles can be expressed as first objects.

(2) a. Instrument: You should use this key for the door to the main office. b. Experiencer: The children's drawings pleased their parents no end. c. Recipient: They gave the workers a raise. d. Goal: We reached our hotel after a subway ride of less than ten minutes. e. Path: We drove the scenic route. f. Measure: The performance lasted two hours. g. Theme: The lions devoured the wildebeest. h. " We rolled the ball down the hill.

As the name implies, second objects only occur with ditransitive verbs. Unlike the other grammatical relations, second objects are thematically very restricted---namely, to themes, as illustrated in (3).

(3) Theme: They gave the workers a raise.

Nevertheless, there is no one-to-one correspondence between the thematic role of theme and the grammatical relation of second object. This is because, although second objects must be themes, themes don't need to be expressed as second objects. They can also be mapped onto subjects (as in (1h,i)) or first objects (as in (2g,h)).

Finally, it should be noted that most thematic roles are not restricted to being expressed as bare noun phrases, but can also be expressed as prepositional phrases.

(4) a. Agent: The wildebeest was devoured by the lions. b. Instrument: The door to the main office can be unlocked with this key. c. Cause: Much of the town was demolished by hurricane-force winds. d. Experiencer: Snakes are feared by many people. e. Goal: I'd like to send this package to France. f. Path: Lucky raced across the lawn to the edge of the forest. Modals and auxiliary verbs in English

Modals Auxiliary do Auxiliary have Be (auxiliary and main verb) Summary Notes

Modals

Historically, the modals of English, which are listed in (1), derive from a special class of verbs in Germanic (the ancestor of English and the other Germanic languages).

(1) can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would

Modals have always differed from ordinary verbs in Germanic, and in the course of the history of English, they have diverged from verbs even further, to the point where they now belong to a syntactic category of their own. Because many modals have meanings that are often expressed across languages by verbal inflections, this syntactic category is called I(nflection).

In what follows, we review the ways that modals differ from verbs in English, both morphologically (what forms they exhibit) and syntactically (how they combine in sentences).

Range of forms

Modals and verbs differ in the range of forms that they exhibit. English verbs appear in a number of distinct forms (see Verbs), whereas modals have a single, invariant form. For instance, modals never end in -s, even in sentences with third person singular subjects.

(2) a. * She { can-s, may-s } play the piano. b. She { can, may } play the piano.

Modals also lack productive past tense uses. It is true that forms like could, might, should, and would originated in Germanic as past tense forms of can, may, shall, and will. But today, only could can serve as the past tense of can, and that only in certain contexts.1

Example Potential paraphrase

(3) a. Nowadays, you can get one for a dollar. = ... it is possible to get one ... b. Back then, you could get one for a nickel. = ... it was possible to get one ... (4) a. We can go there tomorrow. = It is possible for us to go there ... b. We could go there tomorrow. =/= It was possible for us to go there ... (5) a. You may ask the boss. = You are allowed to ask the boss. b. You might ask the boss. =/= You were allowed to ask the boss. (6) a. Shall I pick up some bread? = Is it a good idea for me to pick up some bread? b. Should I pick up some bread? =/= Was it a good idea for me to pick up some bread? Finally, modals lack present and past participles; the missing forms must be paraphrased.

(7) a. * { Cann-ing, may-ing } play the piano pleases her greatly. b. { Being able, being allowed } to play the piano pleases her greatly. (8) a. * She has { cann-ed, may-ed } play the piano. b. She has { been able, been allowed } to play the piano.

Nonfinite contexts

A second difference between modals and verbs is that modals can't occur in nonfinite contexts (for instance, in to infinitive clauses or after another modals), whereas verbs can. Once again, the missing forms must be paraphrased.

(9) a. In to infinitive clause, modal * She wants to can speak Spanish. b. paraphrase of modal She wants to be able to speak Spanish. c. verb She wants to speak Spanish. (10) a. After (another) modal, modal * She must can speak Spanish. b. paraphrase of modal She must be able to speak Spanish. c. verb She must speak Spanish.

Do support contexts

The inability of modals to appear in nonfinite contexts gives rise to three further differences between verbs and modals, all of which concern an important phenomenon in the grammar of English called do support.

Emphasis. In the simplest case, do support occurs in affirmative sentences that contain a verb (without a modal) and whose truth is being emphasized. It involves using the verb's bare form and adding a form of auxiliary do with the appropriate tense (either present or past tense) to the sentence. This form of do then receives emphatic stress, as indicated by underlining in (11).

(11) a. Unemphatic (without do support) He dances; she sang. b. Emphatic (with do support) He does dance; she did sing.

By contrast, emphasizing the truth of a sentence that contains a modal is achieved by simply stressing the modal. Do support with modals is ungrammatical.

(12) a. Emphasis without do support He can dance; she will sing. b. Emphasis with do support * He does can dance; she does will sing.

Negation. Do support with verbs is obligatory not only in emphatic contexts, but in two further syntactic contexts: negation and question formation. In both of these cases, the form of do that is added to the affirmative or declarative sentence doesn't necessarily receive emphatic stress (though it can).

In English, sentences containing modals are negated by simply adding not (or its contracted form n't) after the modal. Do support is ungrammatical.

(13) a. Negation without do support He { may, must, should, will, would } not dance. b. Negation with do support * He does not { may, must, should, will, would } dance. Sentences without modals, on the other hand, require do support. As in the case of emphasis, the verb appears in its bare form, and an appropriately tensed form of the auxiliary verb do is added to the sentence. In addition, negation follows the do form.

(14) a. Negation with do support He { does, did } not dance. b. Negation without do support * He { dances, danced } not.

Question formation. The final difference between modals and verbs concerns question formation. If a declarative sentence contains a modal, the corresponding question is formed by placing the modal before the subject, and do support is ungrammatical.

(15) a. Question without do support { Can, may, must, should, will, would } he dance? b. Question with do support * Does he { can, may, must, should, will, would } dance?

Again, however, in a sentence without a modal, question formation requires do support. That is, it is an appropriately tensed form of do, rather than the verb itself, that precedes the subject.

(16) a. Question with do support { Does, Did } he dance? b. Question without do support * { Dances, Danced } he?

Auxiliary do

This section summarizes the properties of auxiliary do, introduced in the previous section in connection with do support. Auxiliary do belongs to the same syntactic category as the modals---namely, I(nflection), because it shares their properties with one exception (in contrast to modals, it has an -s form).

The goal of our earlier discussion was to establish the special status of modals, and we used the facts of do support as a criterion for distinguishing modals from verbs. In this section, some of the same facts are considered, but with a different focus. Rather than focusing on the properties of modals, we focus on the morphological and syntactic properties of auxiliary do itself.

Like all English auxiliaries (the others are be and have), auxiliary do is homonymous with an ordinary verb---in this case, main verb do. The examples that follow explicitly contrast main verb do with auxiliary do.

Range of forms

As just mentioned, the only difference between auxiliary do and the modals is that it has an -s form. In this respect, it patterns with ordinary verbs, including main verb do.

(17) a. Modal I can dance the polka. b. He can dance the polka.

(18) a. Auxiliary do I do dance the polka; I do not dance the polka; do you dance the polka? b. He do-es dance the polka; he do-es not dance the polka; do-es he dance the polka? (19) a. Main verb do I do the dishes. b. He do-es the dishes. (20) a. Other verb I dance the polka. b. He dance-s the polka.

Nonfinite contexts

In all other respects apart from the availabilty of an -s form, auxiliary do behaves like a modal rather than like an ordinary verb. For instance, it is ungrammatical as a to infinitive, after modals, or as a gerund. Notice the clear contrast between the judgments for auxiliary do in (22) and main verb do in (23).

(21) a. Modal, in to infinitive * They want to can dance the polka. b. after (another) * They will can dance the polka. modal c. gerund * Their canning dance the polka while blindfolded is unusual. (22) a. Auxiliary in to infinitive * They claim to do dance the polka. do, Intended meaning: They claim that they do dance the polka. b. after modal * They will do dance the polka. Intended meaning: It will be the case they do dance the polka. c. gerund * Their doing dance the polka while blindfolded was unwise. Intended meaning: That they did dance the polka while blindfolded was unwise.

(23) a. Main verb in to infinitive They want to do the dishes. do, b. after modal They will do the dishes. c. gerund Their doing the dishes was considerate. (24) a. Other verb, in to infinitive They want to dance the polka. b. after modal They will dance the polka. c. gerund Their dancing the polka while blindfolded is unwise.

Do support contexts

Auxiliary do also behaves like a modal in do support contexts. Double instances of auxiliary do are ruled out, just like double modals are (see (10a)). Once again, auxiliary do (26) and main verb do (27) differ sharply.

(25) a. Modal, after emphatic * He does can dance the polka. do b. negative * He doesn't can dance the polka. c. question * Does he can dance the polka? (26) a. Auxiliary do, after emphatic * He does do dance the polka. do Intended meaning: It is the case that he does dance the polka. b. negative * He doesn't do dance the polka. Intended meaning: It isn't the case that he does dance the polka. c. question * Doesn't he do dance the polka? Intended meaning: Isn't it the case that he does dance the polka?

(27) a. Main verb after emphatic He does do the dishes. do, do b. negative He doesn't do the dishes. c. question Does he do the dishes? (28) a. Other verb, after emphatic He does dance the polka. do b. negative He doesn't dance the polka. c. question Does he dance the polka?

Auxiliary have

Let's now turn to auxiliary have, which combines with past participles (-en forms) to form the perfect forms of verbs. As we will see, auxiliary have shares all the morphological properties of its main verb counterpart. In addition, unlike auxiliary do, it can appear in nonfinite contexts. As a result, auxiliary have is categorized as a V, rather than as an I. However, with respect to do support, auxiliary have differs from its main verb counterpart and patterns together with the modals and auxiliary do. The complex behavior of auxiliary have can be captured by saying that it moves from V to I in the derivation of a sentence (see Chapter 6 for more detailed discussion).

(29) and (30) show that auxiliary have, like auxiliary do (cf. (18)), behaves morphologically like its main verb counterpart in having an -s form.

(29) a. Auxiliary have I have adopted two cats. b. She ha-s adopted two cats. (30) a. Main verb have I have two cats. b. She ha-s two cats.

Auxiliary have differs from auxiliary do (cf. (22)) and resembles main verb have in appearing in nonfinite contexts.

(31) a. Auxiliary have, to infinitive They claim to have adopted two cats. b. after modal They must have adopted two cats. c. gerund I do not regret having adopted two cats. (32) a. Main verb have, to infinitive They claim to have two cats. b. after modal They must have two cats. c. gerund I do not regret having two cats.

On the other hand, just like auxiliary do (cf. (26)) and in contrast to main verb have, auxiliary have is ruled out in do support contexts.

(33) a. Auxiliary have, after emphatic do * He does have adopted two cats. b. negative * He doesn't have adopted two cats. c. question * Does he have adopted two cats? (34) a. Main verb have, after emphatic do He does have two cats. b. negative He doesn't have two cats. c. question Does he have two cats?

In summary, then, auxiliary have behaves like a V with respect to its morphology and its occurrence in nonfinite contexts, but like an I with respect to do support. It is this conjunction of properties that the verb raising analysis in Chapter 6 is intended to capture. Be (auxiliary and main verb)

Finally, the examples in (35)-(40) illustrate the behavior of auxiliary be, which is used to form the progressive (is coming, was dancing) and the passive (is abandoned, was sold) in English. Auxiliary be behaves just like auxiliary have. In particular, it has an -s form (irregular though that form is), and it can appear in nonfinite contexts, but it is excluded from do support contexts. As a result, auxiliary be can be treated just like auxiliary have: as belonging to the syntactic category V, but moving from V to I in the course of a derivation.

Notice that main verb be differs from main verb have and main verb do in behaving exactly like auxiliary be. In other words, main verb be is the only main verb in modern English that moves from V to I.

(35) a. Auxiliary non-third I am learning Spanish; I am invited to the ceremony. be, person b. third person She i-s learning Spanish; she i-s invited to the ceremony. (36) a. Main verb non-third I am happy. be, person b. third person She i-s happy. (37) a. Auxiliary to infinitive They claim to be learning Spanish; they claim to be invited to the be, ceremony. b. after modal They must be learning Spanish; they must be invited to the ceremony. c. gerund2 I don't regret being invited to the ceremony. (38) a. Main verb to infinitive They claim to be happy. be, b. after modal They must be happy. (39) a. Auxiliary after emphatic * She does be learning Spanish; she does be invited to the be, do ceremony. b. negative * She doesn't be learning Spanish; she doesn't be invited to the ceremony. c. question * Does she be learning Spanish? Does she be invited to the ceremony? (40) a. Main verb after emphatic * She does be happy. be, do b. negative * She doesn't be happy. c. question * Does she be happy?

Summary

The table in (41) provides a synopsis of the morphological and syntactic properties of the items discussed here, arranged from most to least verb-like. As is evident from the table, the syntactic category of an item depends on whether it is the verb-like or the modal-like properties that preponderate.

(41) Main verba Beb and auxiliary have Auxiliary do Modal

Syntactic category V V I I Has -s form yes yes yes no Occurs in nonfinite contexts yes yes no no Occurs with do support yes no no no

a Excludes main verb be. b Includes both main verb and auxiliary be.

Notes

1. More precisely, we must distinguish between form (morphology) and meaning (reference). Ordinarily, forms with past-tense morphology are used to refer to an event or state prior to the time of speaking. However, it is possible in English to use past-tense forms to refer to events or state contemporaneous with a reported time of speaking; this is the so-called sequence-of-tense phenomenon in reported speech, illustrated in (i).

(i) a. Direct speech: She said, "They make too much noise." b. Reported speech: She said that they made too much noise.

As is evident from (ii) and (iii), can, may, shall, and will continue to maintain a productive morphological relationship with could, might, should, and would, respectively, in sequence-of-tense contexts.

(ii) a. Direct speech: She said, "That may be so." b. He told us, "You won't last long." (iii) a. Reported speech: She said that might be so. b. He told us that we wouldn't last long.

Nevertheless, in keeping with the point made in the body of the text, the morphological relationship between the modals in (ii) and their counterparts in (iii) is purely formal, lacking the referential underpinning evident in (iv).

(iv) a. They make too much noise. b. They made too much noise.

We thank Aaron Dinkin for drawing our attention to the sequence-of-tense phenomenon.

2. For reasons not well understood, gerunds of progressive forms, as in (i), are unacceptable.

(i) * I like be-ing learn-ing Spanish. Node relations

Basic terms and relations Dominance Precedence Derived terms and relations Kinship terminology Branching Exhaustive dominance C-command Binding

Basic terms and relations

Dominance

It is convenient to represent syntactic structure by means of graphic structures called trees; these consist of a set of nodes that are connected by branches. Sometimes a distinction is made between two types of nodes: terminal nodes, which are labeled with vocabulary items, and nonterminal nodes, which are labeled with syntactic categories. In a very simple tree like (1), the only terminal node is labeled Zelda, and the two nonterminals are labeled N and NP.

(1)

The nodes in a tree like (1), where no node has more than one branch emanating from it, are related to one another by a single relation, the dominance relation. Dominance is a theoretical primitive; in other words, it is an irreducibly basic notion, comparable to a concept like point in geometry. Dominance is represented graphically in terms of top-to-bottom order. That is, if a node A dominates a node B, A appears above B in the tree. In (1), for instance, NP dominates N and Zelda, and N dominates Zelda. The node that dominates all other nodes in a tree, and is itself dominated by none, is called the root node.

Dominance is a transitive relation (in the logical sense of the term, not the grammatical one). This means that if A dominates B, and if B dominates C, then it is necessarily the case that A dominates C.

Does a node A dominate itself? If the answer to this question is defined to be yes, then the dominance relation is reflexive (again, in the logical sense of the term, not the grammatical one); if not, then it is irreflexive. In principle, it is possible to build a coherent formal system based on either answer. From the point of view of syntactic theory, it is preferable to define dominance as reflexive because it simplifies the definitions of linguistically relevant, derived relations such as c-command and binding.

An important subcase of dominance is immediate dominance. This is the case where the two nodes in question are connected by a single branch without any intervening nodes. More formally, immediate dominance is defined as in (2).

(2) A immediately dominates B iff (= if and only if) a. A dominates B, and b. there is no node C, distinct from A and B, such that A dominates C and C dominates B.

Unlike dominance, immediate dominance is not a transitive relation. This is apparent from as simple a structure as (1), where NP immediately dominates N, and N immediately dominates Zelda, but NP does not immediately dominate Zelda.

Precedence

In general, trees are more complex than the one in (1), and they contain nodes that have more than one branch emanating from them, as is the case in (3).

(3)

In such trees, two nodes can (and in fact must) be related either by dominance or by a second primitive relation, precedence. Precedence is represented graphically in terms of left-to-right order. Dominance and precedence are mutually exclusive. That is, if A dominates B, A cannot precede B, and conversely, if A precedes B, A cannot dominate B. Like dominance, precedence is a transitive relation, and just as with dominance, there is a nontransitive subcase called immediate precedence. The definition of immediate precedence is analogous to that of immediate dominance; the term dominates in (2) is simply replaced by precedes. The difference between precedence, which is transitive, and immediate precedence, which isn't, can be illustrated in connection with (3). The first instance of Noun (the one that immediately dominates secretary) both precedes and immediately precedes TrVerb, and TrVerb in turn both precedes and immediately precedes the second instance of NounPhr (the one that dominates the letter). The first instance of Noun precedes the second instance of NounPhr, but not immediately.

Derived terms and relations

Kinship terminology

Certain relations among nodes are often expressed by using kinship terms. If A dominates B, then A is the ancestor of B, and B is the descendant of A. If A immediately dominates B, then A is the parent of B, and B is the child of A. If A immediately dominates B and C, then B and C are siblings. Often, the female kinship terms mother, daughter, and sister are used for the corresponding sex-neutral ones. In (3), Sentence is the ancestor of every other node in the tree. Secretary is the child of the first Noun. The first NounPhr and VerbPhr are sisters, and so are TrVerb and the second NounPhr, but drafted and the second instance of the are not (they don't have the same mother). Notice, incidentally, that syntactic trees are single-mother families. Nodes with more than one parent are not allowed in syntax, at least not ordinarily.

Branching

Depending on the number of daughters, nodes are classified as either nonbranching (one daughter) or branching (more than one daughter). A more detailed system of terminology distinguishes nodes that are unary-branching (one daughter), binary-branching (two daughters), and ternary-branching (three daughters). Nodes with more than three daughters are very rarely used in theoretical syntax. Indeed, according to an influential hypothesis (Kayne 1984), Universal Grammar allows at most binary- branching nodes. That is, according to this hypothesis, binary-branchingness is a formal universal of human language.

Exhaustive dominance Some node A exhaustively dominates two or more nodes B, C, ... iff (= if and only if) A dominates all and only B, C, ... For instance, A dominates the string B C in (4a-c), but exhaustively dominates it only in (4a). A doesn't exhaustively dominate B C in (4b,c), because it runs afoul of the only condition (it dominates too much material). A also fails to exhaustively dominate B C in (4d), because it runs afoul of the all condition (it dominates too little material).

(4) a. b. c. d.

As is evident, dominance is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for exhaustive dominance.

C-command

A derived relation that is central to syntactic theory is c-command,1 which is defined as follows.

(5) A c-commands B iff (= if and only if) a. neither A nor B dominates the other, and b. the lowest branching node that dominates A also dominates B.

Notice that the notion of c-command is defined in terms of dominance and makes no mention of precedence. It is tempting to assume that c-command logically implies precedence, or vice versa, but it is a temptation to be firmly resisted.2

Notice further that c-command is not necessarily a symmetric relation. In other words, a node A can c- command a node B without B c-commanding A. For instance, in (3), VerbPhr c-commands secretary (because the first branching node dominating VerbPhr, namely Sentence, dominates secretary), but not vice versa (because the first branching node that dominates secretary, namely the first instance of NounPhr, doesn't dominate VerbPhr).

Although c-command isn't a necessarily symmetric relation, it is possible for two nodes to c-command each other. This is the case when the two nodes are sisters. Syntactic sisterhood is also known as mutual c-command or symmetric c-command.

Binding

An important derived relation that is defined in terms of c-command is the notion of binding.

(6) A binds B iff a. A c-commands B, and b. A and B are coindexed.

The coindexing referred to in (6b) can arise either through coreference or through movement. These two cases are illustrated in (7).

(7) a. Lukas1 can comb himself1. (coreference) b. Whoi did you see ti? (movement)

If A binds B, B is bound by A (not bounded !). If A does not bind B, B is said to be free. B is free in C if there is no A that binds B, with both A and B dominated by C. Notes

1. The odd name c-command is short for 'constituent-command' and reflects the fact that the c-command relation is a generalization of an earlier command relation (Langacker 1969:167), defined as in (i).

(i) A commands B iff i. neither A nor B dominates the other, and ii. the S(entence) node that most immediately dominates A also dominates B. 2. Recently, an axiom, the so-called Linear Correspondence Axiom, has been proposed, according to which c-command relations be expressed as precedence relations (Kayne 1994). Contrary to what is sometimes believed, this proposal underscores the logical independence of c-command from precedence, rather than eliminating it. For if precedence were logically derivable from c-command, there would be no need for an axiom postulating a correspondence between them. Questions

Yes-no questions and wh- questions Direct and indirect questions

Yes-no and wh- questions

Questions can be divided into yes-no questions (also known as polar questions) and wh- questions (also known as constituent questions), according to the expected answer. As the name implies, the answer to a yes-no question is either 'yes' or 'no.' The answer to a wh- question is expressed by a constituent that corresponds to the wh- phrase in the question. Wh- phrases are so called because they generally begin with wh- in English (who, what, which, where, when, why). How counts as a wh- expression by virtue of its meaning, even though it doesn't begin with wh-. The term wh- phrase is standardly used even for languages other than English.

The distinction betwen yes-no questions and wh- questions is illustrated in (1) and (2).

(1) Yes-no question Has he called? { Yes, no. } (2) a. Wh- question Who just came in? The boy from next door. b. Who(m) did you invite? All my friends. c. When did she call? After dinner. d. Why did he do that? Out of ignorance. e. How did you fix it? With the right tool.

Direct and indirect questions

Another distinction that can be drawn is between direct questions and indirect questions. Direct questions are main clauses, whereas indirect questions are part of a larger matrix sentence. Direct questions are generally used to elicit information. They are associated with characteristic intonation contours, which are represented in standard orthography by a question mark. Indirect question are generally used to report about direct questions and are not associated with a special intonation.

The questions in (1) and (2) are all direct questions. The indirect questions corresponding to them are given in (3) and (4). Here and in what follows, indirect questions are enclosed in square brackets.

(3) Indirect yes-no question I can't remember [ { whether, if } he has called. (4) a. Indirect wh- question I can't remember [ who just came in. ] b. I can't remember [ who(m) you invited. ] c. I can't remember [ when she called. ] d. I can't remember [ why he did that. ] e. I can't remember [ how you fixed it. ]

(5) gives examples of various syntactic contexts in which indirect questions occur.

(5) a. Complement of adjective I'm not sure [ whether they are coming. ] b. Complement of preposition The question of [ whether they are coming ] remains unresolved. c. Complement of verb She asked [ whether they are coming. ] d. Subject [ Whether they are coming ] remains up in the air. Finally, indirect questions can be finite or nonfinite, as shown in (6) and (7). Notice that if, in contrast to whether, requires finite complements.

(6) a. Indirect yes-no finite They can't remember [ { whether, if } they should turn off the question, lights. ] b. nonfinite They can't remember [ whether to turn off the lights. ] (7) a. Indirect wh- question, finite They can't remember [ what they should pay attention to. ] b. nonfinite They can't remember [ what to pay attention to. ] Reference and related notions

Reference Coreference Coindexing Grammatical and ungrammatical index assignments

Reference

The preeminent function of a noun phrase like Bill Clinton, my two cats, the king of France, Santa Claus, or colorless green ideas is to refer---that is, to stand for a particular discourse entity, its referent. As the examples show, referents can be entities in the actual world, entities in some possible world, or even entities that could not possibly exist in principle. One of the characteristic features of human language is the absence, in general, of a one-to-one relation between noun phrases and referents. On the one hand, it is possible to use different noun phrases to refer to the same referent. The classic example for this is the fact that the expressions the morning star and the evening star both have the same referent, the planet Venus (which is not a star at all!). Conversely, the same noun phrase can have different referents. For instance, my apartment, used either by the same person at different points in time or by different persons at the same point in time, can refer to lodgings of vastly different size and attractiveness in completely different locations. Similarly, my checking account balance can refer to widely differing and varying dollar amounts.

In general, then, determining the intended referent of an expression requires recourse to a particular discourse context (who is speaking when, to whom, and so on). The interpretation of certain expressions, however, is particularly context-dependent. The expressions in question are pronouns. For instance, it is perfectly natural to introduce a new topic in a conversation with a friend using (1a) (provided that the speaker and the friend have in common a single acquaintance by the name of Vanessa). But replacing the proper noun Vanessa with a pronoun, as in (1b), in the same context is decidedly odd.

(1) a. I ran into Vanessa the other day. b. I ran into her the other day.

On the other hand, if Vanessa has already been mentioned in the discourse, then (1b) is perfectly felicitous, as illustrated in the mini-discourse in (2).

(2) A: Have you seen Vanessa recently? B: I ran into her the other day.

Pronouns, then, in contrast to most other noun phrases, are referentially dependent on some antecedent in the discourse.

The term 'antecedent' is potentially misleading. Since it is derived etymologically from Latin ante-cedens 'one who walks before', an antecedent might reasonably be expected to be required to precede a referentially dependent expression. It is important to realize that, contrary to this expectation, precedence is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for antecedenthood. In a sentence like (3), for instance, Zelda does not precede she, yet is nevertheless able to serve as the pronoun's antecedent.

(3) If she calls, tell Zelda that the package arrived.

On the other hand, Zelda precedes her in both examples in (4), but is unable to serve as the antecedent of her in (4b) (the intended meaning of (4b) is 'Zelda likes herself'). (4) a. Zelda is convinced that nobody likes her. b. Zelda likes her.

A less misleading term for the notion of antecedent might be 'referential anchor,' but we continue to use the term 'antecedent' because it is a standard term.

Coreference

A discourse will often contain more than one possible antecedent for a pronoun. For instance, in (5), he can refer to either Tim or Tom.

(5) Tim told Tom that he needed some time off.

(6) a. Tim told Tom that he, Tim, needed some time off. b. Tim told Tom that he, Tom, needed some time off.

When (5) is given the interpretation in (6a), he and Tim are said to corefer. On the alternative interpretation in (6b), it is he and Tom that corefer.

Coindexing

It is convenient to introduce a general notational device to represent relations of coreference. Let us begin by asssociating any noun phrase with a referential index. In the literature, it is standard to use the letters of the alphabet as indices, beginning with i (for 'index'). But as we will use i, j, k, ... as indices with another function in later chapters, we adopt the convention throughout the book of using the natural numbers as referential indices. We now introduce the following convention. In order to indicate an interpretation in which two expressions refer to the same discourse entity (in which they corefer, in other words), we assign the same index to both expressions. The two expressions are then said to be coindexed. On the other hand, in order to indicate an interpretation in which two expressions refer to distinct discourse entities (that is, in which they do not corefer), we assign distinct indices to each of the two expressions. Such expressions are said to be contraindexed. In neither case are the specific indices important---only whether the indices are the same or not. That is, both indexings in (7) represent the interpretation in (6a), and both indexings in (8) represent the interpretation in (6b).

(7) a. Tim1 told Tom2 that he1 needed some time off. b. Tim1097 told Tom18 that he1097 needed some time off. (8) a. Tim1 told Tom2 that he2 needed some time off. b. Tim380 told Tom7 that he7 needed some time off.

(9) gives a further possible indexing for the sentence in (5). Of course, in any particular discourse, this indexing is felicitous only if a discourse entity with the index 3 (say, Tim's brother Mike) has already been mentioned.

(9) Tim1 told Tom2 that he3 needed some time off.

Grammatical and ungrammatical index assignments Take good care to distinguish between reference and indexing. Reference relations are actual linguistic relations that we have intuitions about. For instance, we have the intuition that Tim and him can corefer in (10a), but not in (10b).

(10) a. Tim thinks that everyone admires him. b. Tim admires him.

The assignment of indices, on the other hand, is a notational device that is intended to represent arbitrary reference relations; the indices themselves have no independent linguistic or psychological status. As a result, it is perfectly possible to assign referential indices to noun phrases so as to represent interpretations of a sentence that are possible in principle, but impossible in fact. Two such ungrammatical indexings are illustrated in (11).

(11) a. * Tim1 admires him1. b. * He1 admires Tim1.

Notice that the proposition that both (11a) and (11b) are trying to express is not inherently semantically anomalous. It can be expressed perfectly grammatically as in (12).

(12) Tim1 admires himself1.

Notice furthermore that what makes these sequences ungrammatical is the index assignment. The same sequences of words as in (11) are grammatical sentences when associated with the indices in (13).

(13) a. ok Tim1 admires him2. b. ok He1 admires Tim2.

In other words, the grammaticality of a sequence is always determined with reference to a particular intended interpretation.

Representations like those in (11) and (13) are generally abbreviated as in (14). The descending numerical order of the indices on the object noun phrases is intended to make clear the scope of the asterisk.

(14) a. ok Tim1 admires him2,*1. b. ok He1 admires Tim2,*1.

Why can't sentences like (11a) or (11b) express the proposition that is expressed grammatically in (12)? Such questions are what binding theory seeks to answer, the topic of Chapter 13. Thematic roles

It is often convenient to identify arguments of (Fregean) predicates in terms of the following thematic roles, which are illustrated below.

agent instrument cause experiencer recipient path location measure theme

Agents are arguments that bring about a state of affairs. The line between agents, on the one hand, and instruments or causes, on the other, can be fuzzy, but agents are (or are perceived to be) conscious or sentient, in a way that instruments or causes aren't. Some examples are given in (1)-(3).

(1) a. Agent: The lions devoured the wildebeest. b. The boys caught some fish. c. My mother wrote me a letter. (2) a. Instrument: This key opens the door to the main office. b. They must have used indelible ink. (3) a. Cause: Hurricane-force winds demolished much of the town. b. An epidemic killed off all of the tomatoes. c. An economic downturn put thousands of workers out of work.

Experiencers are arguments that undergo a sensory, cognitive, or emotional experience.

(4) a. Experiencer: The rhesus monkey had never seen snow before. b. Many people fear snakes. c. Their resourcefulness struck her as admirable.

Recipients are arguments that receive something (whether good or bad) in a situation.

(5) a. Recipient: They gave the workers a raise. b. He spared me his usual sob story. c. I paid my landlord the rent.

Recipients can be the endpoints of paths.

(6) a. Path: I'd like to send this package to my sister. (my sister = recipient) b. Lucky raced across the lawn to the edge of the forest. c. We drove the scenic route.

Locations are simply places; like recipients, they can serve as endpoints of paths. (Chapter 7 contains some discussion concerning the difference between recipients and locations). (7) a. Location: We put the book on the shelf. b. I'd like to send this package to France. (to + France = path) c. Lucky raced across the lawn to the edge of the forest. (to + the edge of the forest = path)

Measure or amount arguments express extension along some dimension (length, duration, cost, and so on).

(8) a. Measure: They rowed for three days. b. The book costs ten dollars.

Finally, the thematic role of theme is something of a catch-all. According to one definition, 'theme' refers to an argument undergoing motion of some sort, including motion in a metaphorical sense, such as a change of state. As is usual in the syntactic literature, we will also use the term for arguments that are most 'affected' in a situation or for the content of an experience.

(9) a. Theme: The lions devoured the wildebeest. b. This key opens the door to the main office. c. Hurricane-force winds demolished much of the town. d. They gave the workers a raise. e. I'd like to send this package to France. f. Many people fear snakes. Verbs

Verb forms Finiteness

Verb forms

Verbs in English can take the various forms listed in (1).

(1) Name of Description Examples form (alternate name)

Bare Default form in present tense sentences. They play together. I see. Also appears in various nonfinite contexts, such as in to I want to play. infinitive clauses, They would like to see you. after modals, They may play. We will see. and in connection with do support. They don't play lacrosse. Do you see?

-ing Combines with auxiliary be to express various aspectual The cat is playing with (present nuances. the yarn. participle) I was seeing her until she left town. Also occurs on its own as the gerund. Playing with yarn is dangerous for cats. We always enjoy seeing you.

-s Special form used in the present tense to mark agreement Lukas plays with sand with a third person singular subject. for hours. The cat sees a mouse.

-ed Expresses past tense. The cat played with the (past tense) yarn. We saw a deer.

-en Combines with auxiliary be to form passives. Baseball is played all (past over the world. participle) She was last seen off Mozambique. Combines with auxiliary have to form perfect forms. They have never played lacrosse. I have seen it many times.

For all verbs, the -ing form is predictable from the bare form, being derived from it by the affixation of - ing (play-ing, see-ing, hav-ing, be-ing). The -s form is similarly predictable for most verbs, with major (be, is) or minor (have, has) exceptions. Finally, the past tense and past participle forms are predictable from the bare form in some cases, but not in others. With regular verbs, the past tense and past participle forms are homonyms and are formed by affixing -ed to the bare form. Why bother distinguishing between the two forms? The reason is that they are distinct for irregular verbs such as go, see, sing, or write (past tense went, saw, sang, wrote versus past participle gone, seen, sung, written).

A verb's bare form, past tense form, and past participle (in other words, exactly the forms that aren't predictable in general) are known as its principal parts.

Finiteness

The verb forms just discussed are classified into two categories: finite and nonfinite. The basic difference between the two categories is that finite verbs can function on their own as the core of an independent sentence, whereas nonfinite verbs must combine with a modal or an auxiliary (see Modals and auxiliary verbs in English for more information).

A verb's -s form and its past tense form are always finite, and the two participles (the -ing and -en forms) are always nonfinite.

(2) a. Finite verb: ok She gives both of them a back rub. b. ok She gave both of them a back rub. (3) a. Nonfinite verb: ok She is giving both of them a back rub. b. ok She has given both of them a back rub.

To complicate matters a bit, the bare form can be either finite or nonfinite, as illustrated in (4) and (5).

(4) Finite verb: ok We give both of them a back rub. (5) a. Nonfinite verb: ok We will give both of them a back rub. b. ok We promised to give both of them a back rub.

How can we tell whether a bare form is finite or not? Notice what happens when we replace the subjects in (2) by a third-person singular subject. The bare form of the verb is ungrammatical and needs to be replaced by the -s form.

(6) a. * She give both of them a back rub. b. ok She gives both of them a back rub.

This fact provides us with a test for whether a bare verb form is finite or not. We simply replace the subject of the sentence by a third-person singular subject. If the bare verb must be replaced by the verb's -s form, then the bare verb is a finite verb; if not, then it is nonfinite. This test is illustrated in (7); the verb form under consideration is underlined.

Change in form? Finite? (7) a. I file those reports. ---> He files those reports. yes yes b. I promise to file those reports. ---> He promises to file those reports. yes yes c. I promise to file those reports. ---> He promises to file those reports. no no d. I might file those reports. ---> He might file those reports. no no

(8) summarizes the correlation between a verb's forms and their finiteness.

(8) Verb form Example Finite?

Default present tense play-s, see-s yes Past tense play-ed, saw yes Present participle play-ing, see-ing no Past participle play-ed, se-en no Bare play, see depends Glossary of terms, abbreviations, and symbols

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

* asterisk indicates a sentence's syntactic ill-formedness (ungrammaticality)

(1) * The had pipsqueak the nerve confront me to.

Enclosing material that is preceded by an asterisk with parentheses indicates that including the material in parentheses is ungrammatical. Thus, (2) abbreviates the examples in (3).

(2) a. The (*those) cats like treats. b. My cats like(*s) treats. (3) a. i. The cats like treats. ii. * The those cats like treats. b. i. My cats like treats. ii. * My cats likes treats.

On the other hand, prefixing an asterisk to material that is enclosed in parentheses indicates that the parenthesized material is obligatory. Thus, (4) abbreviates the examples in (5).

(4) a. i. They consumed *(dinner). b. My cat like*(s) treats. (5) a. i. * They consumed. ii. They consumed dinner. b. i. * My cat like treats. ii. My cat likes treats.

{ } curly brackets Curly brackets enclose alternatives. For instance, (1) abbreviates the two examples in (2).

(1) They do { not, so } like your brother. (2) a. They do not like your brother. b. They do so like your brother.

Curly brackets may be combined with parentheses. ( ) parentheses Parentheses enclose optional elements. For instance, (1) abbreviates the two examples in (2).

(1) They do (not) like your brother. (2) a. They do like your brother. b. They do not like your brother.

Parentheses may be combined with curly brackets. For instance, (3) abbreviates the examples in (4). (3) They do ( { not, so } ) like your brother. (4) a. They do like your brother. b. They do not like your brother. b. They do so like your brother.

% percent A percent sign indicates that an example is accepted as grammatical by some speakers, but rejected by others.

(1) a. % This book was given me by my husband. (ok British; * American) b. % We use a gas stove anymore; anymore, we use a gas stove. (chiefly Midwest, but found throughout United States except New England; earliest recorded examples from Northern Ireland)

# pound sign indicates a sentence's semantic or pragmatic ill-formedness

(1) # Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. abl ablative case acc accusative case adposition Any P, regardless of whether it is head-initial or head-final. See Chapter 4 for examples. See also postposition. algorithm An explicit, step-by-step procedure for solving a problem.

Examples: instructions for installing a water filter or for filing your income taxes; a pesto recipe; a knitting pattern. argument From the point of view of formal logic, an argument is an input to a predicate (in the formal logic sense). From the point of view of syntax, specifically X' theory, an argument is a linguistic expression occupying the specifier or complement position of a head. Because a predicate can have more semantic arguments than the X' schema provides, semantic arguments are not necessarily expressed as syntactic arguments. For discussion, see Chapter 3, especially More on the distinction between complements and adjuncts. Conversely, not all syntactic arguments are semantic arguments; see Expletive elements in English for examples. argument array A list of semantic arguments associated with a predicate. As we use the term in this book, the list is unordered. The semantic arguments in the array are mapped onto (= associated with) positions in syntactic structure. As discussed in more detail in Chapter 7, it is possible for the same argument array to be associated with more than one structure. Conversely, the same structure can be associated with more than one argument array. auxiliary do bound A morpheme that cannot stand alone, but must form part of a larger word, like plural morpheme -s, un-, or -ness. In contrast, free morphemes, like cat or happy, can stand alone. A trailing hyphen indicates that a bound morpheme is a prefix; a leading hyphen indicates a suffix. Burzio's A correlation according to which verbs without a specifier position are unable to generalization assign structural case. For more discussion, see Chapter 8. clause A constituent that contains a subject, possibly silent (in boldface), and a predicate (in italics). Clauses can be subdivided into ordinary clauses and small clauses. Ordinary clauses can be further subdivided into finite clauses, which can stand alone, and nonfinite clauses, which can't. All ordinary clauses contain an Infl element (underlined)---a modal, auxiliary, silent tense morpheme, or the nonfinite marker to. Small clauses differ from ordinary clauses in lacking an Infl element.

(1) a. Finite clause Our friends must be in Cancun by now. b. Bill has never seen a raccoon. c. They are our friends. d. Bill [past] arrived. (2) a. Nonfinite clause (John seems) ___ to be having problems. b. (I expect) ___ to know tomorrow. c. (I expect) them to know tomorrow. d. (We consider) them to be our friends. (3) a. Small clause (They made) us do it. b. (We consider) them our friends. compound tense A tense that is expressed analytically, for instance, the English present progressive she is singing or the French passé composé elle a chanté 'she sang, she has sung'. Compound tenses contrast with simple tenses, which are formed synthetically, like the English simple past she sang or the French imparfait elle chantait 'she used to sing, she was singing'.

Compound tenses in one language can correspond functionally to simple tenses in another language, and vice versa. For instance, the English compound present progressive corresponds to a French simple present, whereas the English simple past often corresponds to a French passé composé. constituent A unit of grammatical structure. Evidence for certain constituents comes from constituenthood tests. In tree structure, constituents are represented as nodes. control verb A subclass of the verbs that take to infinitive complements, superficially similar to raising verbs. In contrast to the subject of a raising verb, however, the subject of a control verb starts out in the same clause as the control verb itself, undergoing subject movement, but not raising. Accordingly, the subject of the control verb's nonfinite complement is not a trace of the matrix subject, but rather a separate silent pronoun PRO, which is coindexed with the matrix subject. For more discussion, see Chapter 7. count noun dat dative case demotion See grammatical relation. determiner A syntactic category that includes the definite article the, the indefinite article a and its variant an, the demonstratives this and that, and ordinary and reflexive pronouns. English also has a silent determiner, marked by ___ in (1) below, which resembles some in that it can be used with both mass nouns and plural count nouns (see Nouns for more information on count nouns and mass nouns).

(1) a. I see ___ rice on the table. b. I heard ___ lions out in the bush last night. direct question empirical Concerning or pertaining to data. In the context of this course, the relevant data have to do with the grammatical status or the interpretation of phrases and sentences). When you are asked to give an empirical argument, your argument must be based on judgments concerning phrases or sentences, not on purely conceptual considerations like simplicity, economy, theory-internal consistency, and so on. expletive (from Latin explere 'to fill out') A syntactic argument that isn't a semantic argument. See Expletive elements in English for more discussion. f feminine gender finite Finite verbs are verbs that are inflected for tense and person-number agreement. Finite clauses are clauses that can stand alone. formative A general term for an abstract meaning unit. Like morphemes, formatives can be pronounced or silent, but they needn't be minimal meaning units. free morpheme A morpheme that can stand alone, like cat or happy. In contrast, bound morphemes, like plural -s, un-, or -ness) are part of a larger word. full noun phrase Any noun phrase that is not an ordinary pronoun or a reflexive pronoun.

Examples: John, the boy next door, the dog that ate the homework, a lame excuse, the problem with them, and Annabelle's confidence in herself.

As the last two examples show, a full noun phrase can contain an ordinary or reflexive pronoun; it just can't entirely consist of one. fut future tense gen genitive case gender A set of mutually exclusive word classes for nouns and pronouns. In many languages, the genders of pronouns correspond to the biological sexes, but the gender assignment for nouns is typically more arbitrary. This is illustrated in (1) for German, a language with three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter.

(1) a. die Wache, das Mädchen the.fem sentinel the.neut girl 'the sentinel (male or female), the girl' b. der Hund, die Katze the.masc dog the.fem cat 'the dog (male or female), the cat (male or female)' b. der Tisch, die Tasse, das Fenster the.masc table the.fem cup the.neut window 'the table, the cup, the window

English doesn't have gender as a grammatical category, since the so-called genders of pronouns like he and she simply correspond to the sex of the person being referred to. government Traditionally used to refer to the requirement of certain verbs and prepositions for their complements to appear in a particular case form. In generative grammar, the sense of the term has been extended to refer to the structural relation between a head and its complement. grammatical The grammatical relations in a sentence are listed in (1); for more information on relation these terms, click here.

(1) Subject > Direct object > Indirect object > Object of preposition <---- promotion ------demotion ---->

Various syntactic operations can change the grammatical relation of a noun phrase. Depending on whether a noun phrase moves "up" or "down" the hierarchy in (1), the noun phrase is said to be promoted or demoted. For instance, the passive in English demotes the subject of an active sentence to the object of the preposition by. In addition, it promotes the the object to subject. head The term head has three different meanings in syntactic theory.

First, in the theory of phrase structure, the term refers to the syntactic and semantic core of a phrase. In X' theory, the particular theory of phrase structure developed in this book, a head projects an intermediate and maximal projection, along with optional arguments.

Second, the head of a movement chain is simply the highest element in the chain. In the case of verb movement, the head in the chain sense happens to be a head in the X' sense. But when a maximal projection moves, the head of the chain is a maximal projection.

Third, the term head can refer to the noun that is modified by a relative clause. Given our analysis of relative clauses as involving wh- movement, and hence a chain (see Chapter 9), this usage is potentially especially confusing. In the relative clauses in (i), the head of the relative clause in this third sense is italicized, whereas the head of the chain formed by movement of the relative clause is underlined.

(i) a. the book [CP [DP which ]i I am reading ti ] b. the author [CP [DP whose book ]i I like ti best ] homograph One of two or more linguistic forms that are spelled alike, but different in function or meaning or in pronunciation.

Example: bank 'river bank' and bank 'financial institution' (different meaning) read (infinitive) and read (participle) (different pronunciation) homonym Can refer to either homograph or homophone. homophone One of two or more linguistic forms that are pronounced alike, but distinct in function or meaning or in spelling.

Examples: bank 'river bank' and bank 'financial institution' (same spelling, different meaning) reed and read (infinitive); red and read (participle) (related meaning, different spelling) hypercorrection The psychological process of constructing a nonstandard linguistic form by analogy to a standard form. Also the resulting form itself.

Example: They feel badly, by false analogy to They drive badly. The standard form is They feel bad. In They drive badly, badly modifies the verb drive, whereas in They feel bad, bad is a predicative adjective (it predicates a particular property of the subject of the sentence; in other words, it attributes the property to the subject).

They feel badly is standard English only if it is the verb feel that is being modified; that is, if the sentence could be paraphrased as They have a bad sense of touch. imperf imperfect indirect question infin infinitive intransitive Traditionally used of verbs that take no object. We use the term in a more general sense to refer to any syntactic category that takes no complement. For instance, the italicized heads are transitive in the (a) examples, but intransitive in their (b) counterparts.

(1) verb a. We have eaten the pizza. b. We have eaten. (2) preposition a. They crawled underneath the table. b. They crawled underneath. (3) determiner a. I like that radio. b. I like that. irr irrealis mood, often expressed morphologically by subjunctive forms of the verb lexical ambiguity The association of a single word with more than one lexeme. lexeme See word. linking verb Also known as copular verb. One of a class of verbs including the copula be, as well as appear, feel, look, seem, smell, sound, taste, become, get, grow, prove, and turn, when used as in (1).

(1) a. They { are, appear, became, look, seem, grew, proved } competent. b. It { feels, looks, smells, sounds, tastes } fine. c. He { became, got, grew } old. d. It turned rancid. m masculine gender mass noun matrix A structure that contains another structure. Typically used in the collocation 'matrix clause' of a CP or IP that contains another CP or IP. morpheme A minimal meaning-bearing element.

Words are not necessarily the smallest meaning-bearing elements in a language. For instance, cats is a single word, but consists of two morphemes, cat and the plural morpheme -s. Unhappiness consists of the three morphemes un-, happy, and -ness.

Morphemes can be free or bound. Free morphemes (like cat and happy) can stand alone, whereas bound morphemes (like -s, un-, and -ness) cannot. A trailing hyphen indicates that a bound morpheme is a prefix; a leading hyphen indicates a suffix. n neuter gender. Neither masculine nor feminine. nom nominative case nominal Of or relating to a noun or its projections (N, N', NP); more generally, of or relating to a noun phrase (DP).

OED Oxford English Dictionary ordinary Synonymous with personal pronoun. The following table lists the English ordinary pronoun pronouns.

Possessive Absolute Prenominal Person Number Nominative Oblique (That book (That's ___ is ___; ___ is book). red.) 1 I me my mine 2 you you your yours sg him, 3 he, she, it his, her, its his, hers, its her, it 1 we us our ours 2 pl you you your yours 3 they them their theirs pl plural postposition A head-final P. Coined in order to avoid the expression 'head-final preposition', which offends the etymologically aware as a contradiction in terms. See Chapter 4 for examples. See also adposition. predicate The term 'predicate' in linguistics has two distinct (though related) senses, what we will call the subject-predicate sense and the predicate-argument sense.

The subject-predicate sense derives from traditional logic, where propositions are divided into two parts, the subject and the predicate, and the predicate is what is affirmed (or denied) of the subject.

In the history of formal logic, this original sense was generalized to include relations missing more than a single argument. In the resulting predicate-argument sense, in linguistics, the term 'predicate' refers to a head that expresses a logical relation. Typically, predicates in this sense are verbs, but other types of heads can function as predicates in this sense as well. The two senses are illustrated in (1) and (2). The predicate is underlined; notice that the two senses can pick out the same expression, as in the (b) examples.

(1) a. Subject-predicate sense: Bill gives money to charity. b. Bill swims. (2) a. Predicate-argument sense: Bill gives money to charity. b. Bill swims. c. Sheila's criticism of the plan pres Present tense. pro-form It is convenient to group together pronouns and expressions like do so and one as pro-forms (< Latin pro 'instead of').

Note that the traditional term 'pronoun' is misleading, since pronouns substitute for entire noun phrases, not just for nouns (the fact that Latin has no articles may explain the traditional term). A more accurate term for pronouns would therefore be pro–noun phrases; however, we continue to use the traditional term, at least where there is no danger of confusion. promotion See grammatical relation. proposition An expression in language of something that is either true or false. Also, the actual state of affairs so expressed.

The same proposition can be expressed by different linguistic forms. Conversely, the same linguistic form can express different propositions.

Examples: Same meaning, different form: Aliens have abducted Eleanor. Eleanor has been abducted by aliens. Same form, different meaning: We last saw Eleanor an hour ago (spoken on December 11, 2000 at 3 p.m. vs. on January 14, 2002 at 5 a.m.). ps person

Most languages have three grammatical persons: first for speaker (or group including speaker), second for addressee, and third for other. Some languages distinguish between two kinds of first person plural: inclusive (including addressee) and exclusive (excluding addressee). raising The movement of a subject from an embedded clause to a matrix clause. raising verb A subclass of the verbs that takes to infinitive complements, superficially similar to control verbs. Raising verbs lack a specifier position and fail to assign case, in accordance with Burzio's Generalization. In contrast to the subjects of a control verb, the subject of a raising verb starts out as the subject of that verb's nonfinite complement clause and becomes the matrix subject by subject raising---hence, the name of the verbs class. For more discussion, see Chapter 7. recursive In a recursive structure, one instance of a syntactic category contains, or dominates, another instance of the same category. The syntactic category in question is called a recursive category.

The relation between the two instances of the same category may be immediate dominance (the parent-child relation), but needn't be (a simple ancestor-descendant relation is sufficient). refl reflexive reflexive The English reflexive pronouns are easy to identify because they all contain a form pronoun of the morpheme self, as laid out in the following table.

1 ps 2 ps 3 ps himself sg myself yourself herself itself pl ourselves yourselves themselves sg singular simple tense A tense that is expressed synthetically, for instance, the English simple past she sang or the French imparfait elle chantait 'she used to sing, she was singing'. Simple tenses contrast with compound tenses, which are formed analytically, like the English present progressive she is singing or the French passé composé elle a chanté 'she sang, she has sung'.

Simple tenses in one language can correspond functionally to compound tenses in another language, and vice versa. For instance, the English simple past often corresponds to a French passé compos´, whereas the English compound present progressive corresponds to a French simple present. subcategorization Lexical items are said to be subcategorized according to the syntactic properties of their complement. For instance, verbs can be subcategorized according to whether their elementary tree has a complement or not, according to the syntactic category of the complement (CP, DP, IP, PP, and so on), according to other syntactic properties of the complement, (for instance, finiteness, case, and so on). subject subject The movement of a subject within a single clause (as opposed to raising. Usually, movement the term refers to the movement of a subject from Spec(VP) to Spec(IP). But the term can be used more generally to include movement from Spec(NP) to Spec(DP). subject raising See raising. subject-aux The process that forms a yes-no question from the corresponding declarative inversion sentence. In declarative sentences containing a modal, an auxiliary, or main verb be, subject-aux inversion consists in switching the order of the subject and that element (highlighted by italics below).

(1) a. Modal He should apply to both --- Should he apply to both schools. -> schools? b. Auxiliary The guy she met last --- Is the guy she met last be night is coming along. -> night coming along? c. Auxiliary They do have to clean --- Do they have to clean do their room. -> their room? d. Auxiliary The mail has come. --- Has the mail come? have -> e. Main They are superbly --- Are they superbly verb be qualified. -> qualified? In all other declarative sentences, subject-aux inversion is accompanied by do support.

(2) a. The little girl -- The little girl next -- Does the little girl next door goes to -- door does go to -- next door go to Powel. > Powel. > Powel? b. He met with Bill. -- He did meet with -- Did he meet with -- Bill. -- Bill? > > tense A linguistic category associated with temporal reference (what is the relation of the time of the event under discussion to the time of speaking?) as well as with aspect (is the speaker's focus on the event's inception, completion, duration, repetition, general truth, and so on?). transitive Traditionally used of verbs that take a single object. We use the term in a more general sense to refer to any syntactic category that takes a single complement. See also intransitive. verb wh- question word The term 'word' has at least three distinct meanings.

1. An orthographic word is a particular sequence of written characters. Bank in the sense of 'river bank' and 'financial institution' are the same orthographic word, as are read as an infinitive (to read a book), as a past tense form (I read the book) and as a past participle (I have read the book). See also homograph, homophone. 2. A word form is a linguistic form of a particular grammatical type. For instance, cut can be an infinitive (to cut), a present tense form (Whenever I stuff envelopes, I cut myself), a past tense form (Yesterday, I cut myself), or a past participle (I have cut myself again). In this case, four distinct word forms are associated with a single orthographic word. 3. A lexeme is an abstract meaning unit that can subsume several different word forms. For instance, the lexeme be subsumes the eight word forms am, are, be, been, being, is, was, and were. The lexeme cut subsumes the three word forms cut, cuts, and cutting. In lexical ambiguity, the same orthographic word is associated with more than one lexeme, as in the case of bank 'river bank' and bank 'financial institution'. yes-no question References

General literature and reference works Technical literature and sources Other textbooks

General literature and reference works

Campbell, Jeremy. 1982. Grammatical man: Information, entropy, language, and life. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Crystal, David. 1996, second edition. Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Darling, Charles. Guide to grammar and writing

Greenbaum, Sidney, and Randolph Quirk. 1990. A student's grammar of the English language. London: Longman.

Van Pelt doesn't have this condensed version of Quirk et al. 1985, but does have two earlier versions: Quirk, Randolph, and Sidney Greenbaum. 1975. A university grammar of English. Longman. PE1112 .Q5 1975. Quirk, Randolph, and Sidney Greenbaum. 1973. A concise grammar of contemporary English. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. PE1112 .Q5 1973.

Pinker, Steven. 1994. The language instinct: How the mind creates language. New York: Morrow.

Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman. Van Pelt Reference, PE1106 .C65 1985.

Technical literature and sources

Aoun, Joseph, Norbert Hornstein, and Dominique Sportiche. 1982. Some aspects of wide scope quantification. Journal of Linguistic Research 1:69-95.

Barnes, Michael. 1992. Faroese syntax - achievements, goals and problems. In J. Louis-Jensen and J.H. Poulsen, eds., The Nordic languages and modern linguistics 7, 17-27. Tórshavn.

Bayer, Josef. 1983-4. Comp in Bavarian syntax. The Linguistic Review 3:209-274.

Berko, Jean. 1958. The child's learning of English morphology. Word 14:150-177.

Bernstein, Judy. 1993. Topics in the syntax of nominal structure across Romance. Ph.D. dissertation, City University of New York. Besten, Hans den. 1989. Studies in West Germanic syntax. Ph.D. thesis, Catholic University of Brabant. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

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Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chomsky, Noam. 1970. Remarks on nominalization. In Roderick Jacobs and Peter Rosenbaum, eds., Readings in English transformational grammar, 184-221. Waltham, MA: Blaisdell.

Chomsky, Noam. 1971. Problems of knowledge and freedom. New York: Pantheon.

Chomsky, Noam. 1973. Conditions on transformations. In Stephen Anderson and Paul Kiparsky, eds., A Festschrift for Morris Halle, **-** New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Chomsky, Noam. 1977. On wh-movement. In Peter Culicover, Thomas Wasow, and Adrian Akmajian, eds., Formal syntax, 71-132. New York: Academic.

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Jackendoff, Ray. 1990. On Larson's treatment of the double object construction. Linguistic Inquiry 21, 427- 456.

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Kroch, Anthony. 1994. Morphosyntactic variation. In K. Beals, ed., Proceedings of the 30th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, vol. 2, 180-201. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

Kroch, Anthony, and Ann Taylor. 1997. Verb movement in Old and Middle English: Dialect variation and language contact. In Ans van Kemenade and Nigel Vincent, eds., Parameters of morphosyntactic change, 297-325. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kroch, Anthony, and Ann Taylor. 2000. The Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, second edition.

Kroch, Anthony, and Ann Taylor. 2001. Verb-object order in early Middle English. In Anthony Warner et al., eds., Diachronic syntax: Models and mechanisms, **-**. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Larson, Richard. 1988. On the double object construction. Linguistic Inquiry 19, 335-391.

Larson, Richard. 1990. Double objects revisited: reply to Jackendoff. Linguistic Inquiry 21, 589-632.

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Miller, George A., and Noam Chomsky. 1963. Finitary models of language users. In R. Duncan Luce, Robert R. Bush, and Eugene Galanter, eds., Handbook of mathematical psychology, vol. 2, 419-491. New York: Wiley.

Oehrle, Richard. 1976. The grammatical status of the English dative alternation. Doctoral dissertation, M.I.T.

Pintzuk, Susan. 1991. Phrase structures in competition: Variation and change in Old English word order. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.

Pintzuk, Susan. 1993. The distribution and syntax of Old English adverbs. Groninger Arbeiten zur germanistischen Linguistik 36:152-167.

Platzack, Christer. 1988. The emergence of a word order difference in Scandinavian subordinate clauses. McGill Working Papers in Linguistics: Special Issue on Comparative Germanic Syntax, 215-238.

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Roberts, Ian. 1993. Verbs and diachronic syntax. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Rohrbacher, Bernhard. 1993. The Germanic languages and the full paradigm: A theory of V to I raising. Doctoral disseration, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

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Sutherland, Flora. 2000. Do we have or have got? Have/have got alternation in British and American English. Masters' thesis, University of Edinburgh.

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Other textbooks Borsley, Robert. 1999, second edition. Syntactic theory: A unified approach. London and New York: Arnold.

Cook, Vivian James, and Mark Newson. 1996, second edition. Chomsky's Universal Grammar: An introduction. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Recommended. The chapter on Minimalism is especially useful, and there is ample discussion of language acquisition issues.

Cowper, Elizabeth. 1992. A concise introduction to syntactic theory: The Government-Binding approach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Recommended.

Culicover, Peter. 1997. Principles and Parameters: An introduction to syntactic theory. (Oxford books in linguistics.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Haegeman, Liliane. 1994, second edition. Introduction to Government & Binding theory. Cambridge: Blackwell.

Napoli, Donna Jo. 1993. Syntax: Theory and problems. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Radford, Andrew. 1988. Transformational syntax: A first course. (Cambridge textbooks in linguistics.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Recommended as an introduction to syntactic argumentation. The style can be grating.

Radford, Andrew. 1997. Syntactic theory and the structure of English: A minimalist approach. (Cambridge textbooks in linguistics.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.