6. Tests for Determining Syntactic Constituenthood

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6. Tests for determining syntactic constituenthood

6.1. Substitution The most basic test for syntactic constituenthood 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, that's evidence that the word and the string are constituents of the same category.

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

(2) a. The little boy from next door fed the→ * He from next door fed her cat without a tail. without a tail. b. These black cats detest those green→ * These they detest those them. peas.

(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→ * Put it over there that's by the door. door. c. Put it over on the table that's by the→ * Put it there that's by the door. 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 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.

6.2. 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 to invoke a special discourse context, especially in the case of noun phrases. In the examples that follow, "___" indicates the ordinary position that a constituent has moved from, and appropriate discourse material (enclosed in parentheses) may be added to make the examples more felicitous. (8) a. I fed the cats. → The cats, I fed ___. (The dogs, I didn't.) b. I fed the cats with long,→ The cats with long, fluffy tails, I fed ___. fluffy tails. (The other cats, I didn't.)

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

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

As shown in (10), moving strings that aren't constituents yields ungrammatical results.

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

6.3. Questions and short answers

Another diagnostic for whether a string is a constituent is whether the string can function as a short answer to a question. The question itself also functions as a diagnostic test, since we can think of it as being derived by substitution of a question word for a string, with subsequent movement of the question word.2 (11) illustrates this pair of tests for a variety of constituent types.

(11) a. Noun phrase: What do you see? The cats. Cats with long, fluffy tails. The cats with long, fluffy tails. b. Prepositional How did the cat stroll With a confident air. phrase: across the porch? c. " Where did Ali Baba go? On a long journey. To New York. d. Adjective phrase: How did Ali Baba Wiser than before. return? 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 ___ → * With a. confident air? c. * How did Ali Baba return from his travels ___ → * Wiser than. before? d. * How did they arrive at the concert hall ___ had → * More quickly than expected? 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, triggering 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.

6.4. It clefts

The final constituent test that we'll consider is based on a special sentence type known as it clefts. We begin by noting that ordinary sentences can often be divided into two parts: a part that contains background information that is presupposed, the ground, and a part that is intended to be particularly informative, the focus. In spoken language, this focus-ground partition (also known as its information structure) is generally conveyed by intonation.3 In written language, where intonation is difficult to represent, it is still possible to indicate a sentence's information structure by fitting the focus and the ground into a syntactic frame consisting of it, a form of the copula to be, and the subordinating conjunction that. In the examples in (15), the frame is in black, the ground is in blue, and the focus is in red. Notice that a single sentence can be partitioned into focus and ground in more than one way, giving rise to more than one it cleft.

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

If a string can appear as the focus of an it cleft, then it is a constituent. Some examples for various constituent types other than noun phrase are given in (16).

(16) a. Prepositional The cat strolled across→ It was with a confident air phrase the porch with a that the cat strolled across confident air. the porch ___. b. Adjective phrase Ali Baba returned from→ It was wiser than before his travels wiser than that Ali Baba returned before. from his travels ___. c. Adverb phrase They arrived at the→ It was more quickly than concert hall more they had expected that they quickly than they had arrived at the concert hall expected. ___.

Because of their discourse function, 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). (17) a. Ordinary cats detest the smell→ * It is the smell of that ordinary cats of citrus fruits. detest ___ citrus fruits. b. The cat strolled across the→ * It was with a confident that the cat porch with a confident air. strolled across the porch ___ air. c. Ali Baba returned from his→ * It was wiser than that Ali Baba travels wiser than before. returned from his travels ___ before. d. They arrived at the concert hall→ * It was quickly than they had more quickly than they had expected that they arrived at the expected. concert hall more ___.