Null complementizers Sept. 21, 2012 – Day 11 Introduction to Syntax ANTH 3590/7590 Harry Howard Tulane University

C OURSE MANAGEMENT Check your quiz grades on Blackboard 9/21/12 2 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

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R EVIEW 9/21/12 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane 4

D IAGRAM THESE TWO SENTENCES She wants to take a picture of herself. Nobody said that they would have any fun. 9/21/12 5 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

§3.6 NULL C IN FINITE CLAUSES 9/21/12 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane 6

OVERVIEW The pattern, #42 a) We didn’t know [ if/whether he had resigned] b) We didn’t know [ that he had resigned] c) We didn’t know [he had resigned] Hypothesis: all embedded clauses have a complementizer. See tree on next slide. 9/21/12 7 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

9/21/12 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane 8 TP T’T’PR N we VP T would TP V know T’T’PRN he VPT had V resigned CP C if/whether that We would know [{if/whether/that/Ø} he had resigned]

NULL C IN FINITE CLAUSES More evidence We didn’t know [he had resigned] or [that he had been accused of corruption] 9/21/12 9 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

THE CONTRIBUTION OF COMPLEMENTIZERS What does a complementizer do? It marks the (illocutionary) force of a clause declarative interrogative 9/21/12 10 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

CASE What is (linguistic) case? a. I am tired. (nominative) b. Mary kissed him ~ Mary looked at him. (accusative) c. Mary kissed his cheek. (genitive) Case condition (#52) A pronoun or noun expression is assigned case by the closest case-assigning head which c-commands it. Hypothesis A finite C assigns nominative case to the subject. 9/21/12 11 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

§3.7 INFINITIVAL CLAUSES 9/21/12 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane 12

What structure do we postulate for: I will arrange [for him to see a specialist] 9/21/12 13 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane T’T’PRN him TP T’T’PR N I VP T will V arrange CP TPC for VPT to V see QP a specialist

A NULL C FOR FOR a. She wanted [him to apologize] b. She wanted [him to apologize] and [for her to receive the award] c. She wanted more than anything [for him to apologize] d. What she wanted was [for him to apologize] 9/21/12 14 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

CONTROL CLAUSES 9/21/12 15 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane T’T’PRN PRO TP T’T’PR N I VP T will V try CP TPCØCØ VPT to V see QP a specialist Hypothesis: control clauses have a null C. What structure do we postulate for: I will try [to see a specialist]

§3.8 DEFECTIVE CLAUSES 9/21/12 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane 16

ALTERNATIVE follow material from Ex 3.2 9/21/12 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane 17

AN ORDINARY INFINITIVAL? So what about They believe [her to be innocent] ? It looks like any other infinitival clause, but … a) I believe Mary to be innocent and for John to be guilty. b) I want Mary to be innocent and for John to be guilty. (cf. 55) c) What I believe is (for) Mary to be innocent. (cf. 69a) d) What I want is for Mary to be innocent. (cf. 58a) e) She is believed to be innocent. (70a) f) She is wanted to be innocent. 9/21/12 18 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane * * *

CONJECTURE The complement to believe and similar verbs is a TP, not a CP. Without a CP, there is no null C (ø) to assign case to the embedded subject. So the matrix verb ( believe ) must be able to assign case across the TP boundary to the embedded subject. This is an exception, which is why these are often called exceptional case-marking (ECM) verbs and clauses. Lacking a CP, they can also be called defective clauses. 9/21/12 19 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

ECM CLAUSE 9/21/12 20 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane T’T’PRN her TP T’T’PRN I VP T Af 1stSgPres V believe TP VPT to V be CP CøCø Adj innocent

PASSIVIZATION FROM AN ECM CLAUSE 9/21/12 21 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane T’T’ PRN she TP T’T’PRN she VP T is V believed TP VPT to V be CP CøCø Adj innocent

IMPENETRABILITY There is still one datum left unaccounted for, which is why the subject of CP cannot passivize. A complete answer presupposes an analysis of passivization, which we won’t see until §9. But let us first assume that the embedded CP is impenetrable from the matrix clause: The domain of a complementizer is impenetrable to a higher head c-commanding the complementizer. (almost #72) “in the domain of” means ‘c-commanded by’ A constituent in an impenetrable domain cannot enter into a syntactic relation outside of its domain. (HH) Now we look at the following slide for an illustration. 9/21/12 22 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

PASSIVIZATION FROM A CP 9/21/12 23 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane T’T’ PRN he TP T’T’PRN he VP T is V wanted CP TP CøCø VPT to V apologize CP CøCø

NEXT TIME Q3 Null determiners 9/21/12 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane 24