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Introduction to Configurational Syntax Chapter 4 : Chapter 4. 4 The Sentence, Auxiliary Verbs, and Recursion 4.1 Introduction In this chapter the sentence and the verb (predicate) phrase whose head is an auxiliary verb are formally introduced. These two categories do not appear to follow the universal expansion of XP proposed in Chapter 2. In the Principles and Parameters framework of syntax the structure of the sentence can be shown to fol- low the universal expansion of XP. However, the analysis of the sentence given the category CP1 is considered too complex to be covered here. The analyses given here follow the earlier standard views on the structure of the sentence. 4.2 The Sentence At first glance, note that the sentence contains a NP and a VP: (297)a. The moon orbits around the earth. b. [NP the moon ] [VP orbits around the earth ]. We can state the expansion of S (sentence) as: (298) The Expansion of S [1] S ˘ NP VP. The structure for (297 is: (299) [S [NP The moon ] [VP orbits around the earth]] Up to this point we have claimed that all constituents contain a head and a complement. If this is the case then what is the head of S? In advanced work it can be shown to be either tense in some points of view, or the verb in other points of view. In some sense both points of view or correct; however, it is too complex a matter to attempt to explain this here. We will adopt the above expansion, which is traditional and found in most texts, and note that the verb is the unexplained head of the sentence. The noun phrase in (298) is considered to be the subject of the sentence. It is not a complement as defined in Chapter 2. Defining the subject is not a simple 1. CP stands for Complementizer Phrase. CP is used in some elementary textbooks now, includ- ing Dobrovolsky and O’Grady (1990). December 1996 87 File: New.Chap 4 Introduction to Configurational Syntax Section 4.3: The Auxiliary Verb and the Verb Phrase task. Initially, we will assume the definition that the subject is the NP immediately dominated by S:2 (300) Subject of S The noun phrase that is immediately dominated by the node S is the subject of the sentence. In Chapter 7 we return to the topic of the subject. 4.3 The Auxiliary Verb and the Verb Phrase Traditional in generative grammar is the claim that the sentence contains a subject NP, an auxiliary verb, and a VP. Other proposals include a subject NP and a predicate phrase. In this section we will argue for a predicate phrase, though the argumentation for a predicate phrase is not a strong as for the phrasal categories introduced in Chapter 2. The auxiliary verb is a verbal category that has some syntactic properties that distinguish it from the main verb; i.e., verbs which are not auxiliary verbs. One property is that the auxiliary may precede the subject NP in questions: (301) a. John can read linguistics books. b. Can John read linguistics books? (302) a. Mary might buy a new fur coat. b. Might Mary buy a new fur coat? The main verb cannot occur to the left of the subject NP: (303) a. John reads linguistics books. b. *Reads John linguistics books? c. Does John read linguistics books? (304) a. Mary bought a new fur coat. b. *Bought Mary a new fur coat? c. Did Mary buy a new fur coat? 2. It should be mentioned that not everyone agrees with this definition. In Relational Grammar the subject and other grammatical relations are assumed to be given relations and cannot be defined. December 1996 88 File: New.Chap 4 Introduction to Configurational Syntax Chapter 4 : Examples (303c) and (304c) are the grammatical forms for normal questions. The auxiliary verb do is used in the grammatical forms to form questions. We will not take up this process of incorporating do in questions in this text.3 What is the structure of a sentence with an auxiliary? Consider the following sentence: (305) John will go. As in the example of the verb, there are three possibilities: (306) a. [ [ John will go ]. b. [ John will ] go. c. John [ will go ]. When asked about this, most people intuitively reject (306b). More people tend to favour (306c) over (306a). Although some linguists tend to favour (306c),4 more lin- guists have in the past favoured (306a): (307) [ [ John ] [ will ] [ go ]] NP Aux VP Although the auxiliary can occur before the subject in questions, this does not prove that the auxiliary does not form a constituent with the verb. Only if both occurred in pre-subject position would repositioning be evidence for the constituent. This does not occur: (308) a. *Will go John? b. *Go will John? Technically, (308b) would not be evidence if it were acceptable since the order of the subject NP and the verb has been changed. There is no form that can replace will go, which would thus provide evidence that will go forms a constituent. However, omissibility might provide some evidence, though such evidence is weak: (309) a. Who will go? John. b. Who bought a fur coat? Mary. Of course, the verb phrase alone can also be omitted: 3. This process can be found in many intermediate and some introductory texts on syntax. 4. O’Grady and Dobrovolsky (1990) is one such text. December 1996 89 File: New.Chap 4 Introduction to Configurational Syntax Section 4.3: The Auxiliary Verb and the Verb Phrase (310) a. John will. b. Mary did. But the auxiliary verb alone cannot be omitted: (311) a. *John go. b. *Mary buy a fur coat. It is possible to claim that the auxiliary verb can be omitted only if the following verb phrase is omitted. Conjunction may provide some evidence for (306c): (312) a. John should go and must go. b. I must go there and should stay for dinner. These examples provide some further evidence that the auxiliary and the VP form a constituent: (313) John [ should go ] and [ must go ]. Alternatively, it is possible to analyze (313) as two conjoined Ss, where the subject of the second S is omitted—[NP e ]]: (314) [ John should go ] and [ e must go ]. Though neither bit of evidence is strong, there is no evidence to support the ternary analysis.5 Modal auxiliary verbs include will, shall, can, may, and must. These verbs are introduced below. Nevertheless, there is some additional syntactic evidence that weakly sup- ports the hypothesis that Aux and VP form an intermediate constituent): 5. The use of null categories should be avoided whenever possible. December 1996 90 File: New.Chap 4 Introduction to Configurational Syntax Chapter 4 : (315) a. Mary is singing. b. Mary is singing a song. c. Mary is dying. d. *Mary is dying a song. e. *Mary is devouring. f. Mary is devouring her lunch. g. #Mary is devouring a song. There is a dependency relation between the auxiliary verb and what follows it. There is no dependency relation between the auxiliary verb and the subject. For example, no modal auxiliary can follow a modal auxiliary, though a non-modal auxiliary can: (316) a. Mary must go. b. Mary must have gone. c. *Mary must can go. d. *Mary can must go. We give evidence in §3.3 that the second auxiliary verb occurs in VP. More important note that the auxiliary verbs modifies the verb following it, b ut it has no direct affect on the meaning of the subject. This fact provides the best evidence that configuaration (306c) is the optimal configuration: (317)a. Mary [ must go]. b. Mary [ must have gone]. Note that some linguists (O’Grady and Dobrovolsky (1987), for example) con- sider the modal auxiliaries to be a node ‘M’. Although it is true that these verbs are modal, they are technically auxiliary verbs given the definition of the auxiliary verb in English that we have proposed above. We consider modal verbs to be a subclass of auxiliary verbs. The auxiliary verb is a verb with special properties. Let us suppose that the auxiliary verb is the head of the unnamed constituent in (317). The constituent must also be a verb phrase. The complement of the constituent is a VP, whose head is a main verb in the following expansion: (318 ) a. S ˘ NP VP. b. VP ˘ V VP. December 1996 91 File: New.Chap 4 Introduction to Configurational Syntax Section 4.3: The Auxiliary Verb and the Verb Phrase Note that the auxiliary verb doe not occur in all sentences. The VP takes either a NP or a VP as its complement. Rule (318) assumes that VP always occurs whether or not there is an auxiliary verb. Otherwise there would be three rules, (66), (318a), and (318b),6 as shown in (319): (319 ) a. S ˘ NP VP. b. VP ˘ V VP. c. VP ˘ V NP. This results in unnecessary redundancy. The subject NP and the VP are each gen- erated by two rules. In (318) The NP and VP are each generated once. One of the criteria of descriptive adequacy is to eliminate as much redundancy as possible. This can be accomplished by combining the rules expanding VP: (320 ) a. S ˘ NP VP. b. VP ˘ V {VP, NP}. The P-marker for (305) is the following: (321) S NP VP NVVP V John will go There is a restriction on the expansion of VP. Note that if VP is expanded as V + VP, the first V must be an auxiliary verb.
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