Introduction to English Linguistics Kohn, Watts, Winkler SS05 Structure-VLS02

Introduction to English Linguistics Syntactic Structure: Words, Phrases, Clauses and Movements Introduction: Update: Last time, we discussed different approaches to grammar – the traditional, the formal and the cognitive approach. We also considered the socalled T-Model of grammar. Today, we investigate the notion of syntactic structure within the minimalist framework. First I will first investigate the lexicon and argue that word classes exist. Then I will concentrate on the question how words are combined together to form phrases and sentences. I will show that phrases and sentences are built up by a series of merger operations, each of which combines a pair of constituents together to form a larger constituent. I will show how the resulting structure, mostly clauses, can be represented in terms of a tree diagram, and we look at ways of testing the structure of phrases and sentences. Let’s investigate the minimalist model of grammar.

Model of Grammar in The Minimalist Program Introduction to English Linguistics Model of Grammar in The Minimalist Program [Chomsky 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002] Lexicon Syntax syntactic structure PF component semantic component The starting point of all computational processes (that is „all syntactic processes“) in The Minimalist Program is the lexicon. The assumption is that in order to form a sentence individual words are taken from the lexicon (something like a dictionary in the mind). The individual words carry morphological, semantic and syntactic information which is used in the classification process. Once the selected words are classified, a small set of operations combine words together to form phrases and sentences in the computational system of human language CHL, or simply in the Syntax thereby forming a syntactic structure. This syntactic structure serves as input into two other components of the grammar. One is the PF component, so called because it maps the syntactic structure into Phonetic Form providing a phonetic spellout for each word, telling us how it is pronounced. These representations are finally handed over to the speech system. The other is the LF “logical form” or semantic component which maps or converts the syntactic structure into a corresponding semantic representation (I.e. into a representation of linguistic aspects of meaning.) This representation is finally handed over to the thought systems. PF representation semantic representation ≈ ≈ SPEECH SYSTEMS THOUGHT SYSTEMS

... Introduction to English Linguistics Environment (cf. Fodor 1983) Auditory Visual Sensory other ... Transducers Input Systems vertical faculties or „instincts“ Language Vision Audition Motor Processes Central Processes: Memory, Attention, Judgement, Thought, Beliefs, Fixation of Belief, Plans of Action At the end of last time, a student wanted to know whether the grammatical model (also often called T-model) we just saw has anything to do with the language faculty you read about in Radfords book. The answer is: “yes”. And here is a more detailed sketch of how. I use material from the groundbreaking work by the psychologist and linguist Jerry Fodor and his work on The Modularity of Mind (1983) and by the philosopher Jay Garfield, both leading figures in the cognitive sciences. (Garfield published Modularity in Knowledge Representation and Natural Language Understanding in 1988.) Let me concentrate on Fodor’s view:The assumption is that there are basically two different types of mental faculties: the horizontal faculty which hosts the central cognitive processes like memory, imagination, attention, sensibility, perception, and so forth. And the so-called vertical faculties, various inbuilt modular systems which feed the horizontal faculty. And one of these vertical faculties, is the language faculty. There are various characteristic features of a vertical faculty: informational incapsulation, robustness, domain specificity, automaticity or speed: let’s just take the last characteristic feature – automaticity and speed. The claim is that language comprehension and production is automatic. For ex., you cannot decide not to hear and understand your native language. Other vertical faculties are vision, audition, motor processes, and each faculty is characterized by the fact that some processes are very fast, and seem to occur automatically: in the faculty of vision, it’s e.g. facial recognition, and recognition of geometric figures; in the faculty of audition, it’s e.g. melody recognition, and in the faculty of motor processes, it’s reflexes, motor development and proprioreception (position info). The idea is that there our sensory system functions as transducers for perceiving information provided by the environment. Since the vertical faculties are domain specific, only so-called interpretable information is filtered out by the faculty. Concentrating on the internal architecture of the language faculty, linguists have come up with the model I showed you on the last slight. They hope that this model will assist us in modelling the native speaker’s knowledge of language. horizontal faculty or „intellect“

Introduction to English Linguistics Structure of this Lecture Syntactic evidence for word classes 1. the notion of syntactic structure 2. merger operations So here is the structure of today’s lecture: I start out with the claim from last time: There is syntactic evidence that word classes exist. (see course notes from last time). Then we’ll concentrate on the notion of syntactic structure: I will be looking at how words are combined together to form phrases and sentences. I will show that phrases and sentences are built up by a series of merger operations, each of which combines a pair of constituents together to form a larger constituent. I will show how the resulting structure can be represented in terms of a tree diagram, and we look at ways of testing the structure of phrases and sentences. In earlier frameworks it was a huge problem to understand and teach the treebuilding operations. They seemed arbitrary. Now, when you watch closely today, you see that the treebuilding part is trivial. What remains tricky, are the details of the classification process. 3. tree diagrams 4. movements (continue next time)

Introduction to English Linguistics Syntactic evidence for assigning words to categories: Q: What element can occur in the position of the dash? They have no --- car / conscience / ideas [NOUNS]

Introduction to English Linguistics They have no *went [verb] *for [preposition] *older [adjective] *readily [adverb] Def. Noun: the class of nouns is defined as the set of words which can terminate a sentence in the position marked --- in They have no ---.

Introduction to English Linguistics Claim: Different categories of words have different distributions. They occupy a different range of positions within phrases or sentences. Q: What element can occur in the position of the dash? They can --- stay / leave / hide / die / cry [VERB]

Introduction to English Linguistics Def. Verb: only a verb (in its infinitive/ base form) can occur in the position marked --- in the above sentence to form a complete (non-elliptical) sentence Other categories are ungrammatical: They can --- *gorgeous [adjective] *happily [adverb] *down [preposition] *door [noun]

Introduction to English Linguistics Def. Adjective: the only category of word which can occur in the position marked --- in the following sentence: They are very --- tall /pretty /kind /nice [ADJECTIVE] *slowly [adverb] *child [noun] *astonish [verb] *outside [preposition] Q: What element can occur in the position of the dash?

Introduction to English Linguistics Def. Preposition: they alone can be in-tensified by right in the sense of ‘completely’, or by straight in the sense of ‘directly’: Go right He went right He walked straight He fell straight up the ladder. inside. into a wall. down. By contrast, other categories cannot be intensified by right/straight (in Standard English): cf.    *He right/straight despaired [right/straight+verb] *She is right/straight pretty [right/straight+adjective] *She looked at him right/straight strangely [right/straight+adverb] *They are right/straight fools [right/straight+noun] [PREPOSITION]

Introduction to English Linguistics How would you classify better ? He is better at French than you. ADJ He is more fluent/*more fluently at French… He speaks French better than you. ADV He speaks French more fluently/*more fluent … The technique which we just used to find out that better in the first sentence is an Adjective and in second an adverb is called a heuristic syntactic test, and more precisely a Substitution test. Substitution Test!

Introduction to English Linguistics The Substitution Test: Def.: The substitution test is a technique to determine the category which a given expression belongs to. An expression belongs to a given type of category if it can be substituted (i.e. replaced) in the phrase or sentence in which it occurs by another expression which clearly belongs to the category in question.

Introduction to English Linguistics Summary: We determined five major categories of English: N, V, P, A, Adv. In determining the syntactic category of a given lexical item, morphological clues must be used in conjunction with syntactic tests, like the substitution test.

Introduction to English Linguistics What else do we need? They have an idea. Determiners (D) They have this idea. They have two ideas. They have no idea. Quantifiers (Q) The lists here are not exhaustive. There is one determiner missing which is used quite frequently in English? What other Quantifiers do you know? Can anyone describe the difference between a determiner and a quantifier in his or her own words? Why do I call one a Proform? Couldn‘t we just say its a numeral? What is the difference between „they have two ideas“ and they have two“? Let me see what we have until now: Are the five categories N, V, P, A, Adv enough to classify all the words used in English sentences? What else do we need? They have many ideas. Proform They have one.

Introduction to English Linguistics What else do we need? "Our enemies are innovative and re-sourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." G. W. Bush —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004 Pronouns: personal pronouns usually occur instead of a noun, but there are exceptions. possessive pronouns occur prenominally Pronouns (PRN): establish reference relations in discourse; Proforms: e.g. so; ellipsis;

Introduction to English Linguistics What can pronouns do? Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone! cf. Leave them / those kids alone! Pronouns (PRN): traditionally,classified as N; Minimalism: Personal pronouns are classi-fied as functors, like determiners. They do not have descriptive content. They simply encode sets of person, number, gender and case properties. „Them“ in „Teachers leave them kids alone!“ 3rd Person Plural pronoun with – Accusative case!

Introduction to English Linguistics Lexical vs. functional categories: Lexical categories (open class): have idiosyncratic descriptive content: N, V, P, A, Adv; Functional categories (closed class): serve primarily to carry information about the gramma-tical properties of expressions; e.g. information about number, gender, person, case. Determiners (D), Quantifiers (Q), Pronouns (PRN); Do you know the difference between lexical and functional categories? Let me tell you the story about Grammar in elementary school. The distinguish Wer-Wörter from Tun-Wörter and Wie-Wörter. And then they have so-called „Restwörter“. I have briefly talked about determiners and pronouns. I still have to say something about Auxiliaries, about the infinitival to, and about complementizers. Auxiliaries (AUX), Infinitival to (T), Complementizers (C);

Introduction to English Linguistics What are Auxiliaries in English? Def. AUXILIARIES have the function of marking grammatical properties associated with the relevant verb like tense, aspect, voice, mood or modality (i) perfective auxiliary: have (ii) imperfective/ progressive auxiliary: be (iii) tense (periphrastic) auxiliary: do (iv) modal auxiliaries: can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, must Are the five categories N, V, P, A, Adv enough to classify all the words used in English sentences? What else do we need? Auxiliaries: Aspect Auxiliaries (a, b): He has/had [gone] (perfect) She is/was [staying at home] (progressive) (passive) Voice Auxiliary: They are/were [taken away for questioning] Tense Auxiliary: He really does/did [say a lot] Modal Auxiliary: You can/could [help us] They may/might [come back] He will/would [get upset] I shall/should [return] You must [finish your assignment] You ought [to apologise] What is the difference between auxiliaries vs. verbs?

Introduction to English Linguistics Auxiliaries have so-called NICE properties N egation: Aux are directly negated. Max didn‘t/couldn‘t see the car. vs. *saw not the car I nversion: Aux are directly inverted. Did/could Max see the car? vs. *saw Max the car? C ode: Aux can delete everything to its right; Bill saw the car but Max didn‘t? vs. *but Max saw not? Coda: Auxiliaries can delete everything to the right; that is they can license VP-Ellipsis. Emphasis: I do like cheese! TAGS: Aux and Modals occur in tags, lexical verbs do not) a. You don't like her, do you? b. You can't answer this question, can't you? Lexical verbs: c. *You like her, like you? E mphasis: Aux can be used for emphasis:  Max DID see the car. vs. Max SAW the car. Plus TAGS

Introduction to English Linguistics Infinitive Particle to: Def. To: so called because the only comple-ment it will allow is one containing a V in the infinitive form. Jane wants to [go home]. Similarities between inf-To and Aux: It‘s vital that John should show an interest. It‘s vital for John to show an interest. Both allow ellipsis: John knows he should do the linguistics worksheet but he doesn‘t want to. John doesn‘t want to do his linguistics worksheet but he should. Inf-To and Aux seem to occur in the same position in the sentence and require a V in its infinitive form.

Introduction to English Linguistics Ellipsis Test: Claim: Only inflectional or tensed elements (T) license VP-ellipsis. John doesn‘t want to do his linguistics homework, but he should [-------------]. John knows he should do his linguistics homework, but he doesn‘t want to [----------]. The major claim is that all finite auxiliaries mark (present/past) Tense and the infinitival to does, too. However, to has abstract (or invisible) tense properties. See the contrast:  (51)(a) We believe [the President may have been lying] (b) We believe [the President to have been lying]  In (51a), the bracketed complement clause has a present tense interpretation (paraphraseable as ‘We believe it is possible that the president has been lying’): this is because it contains the present-tense auxiliary may. However, the bracketed infinitive complement clause in (51b) can also have a present-tense interpretation, paraphraseable as ‘We believe the President has been lying.’ Why should this be? A plausible answer is that infinitival to carries Tense in much the same way as an auxiliary like may does. In a sentence like (51b), to is most likely to be assigned a present tense interpretation. However, in a sentence such as (52) below:  (52) The Feds believed [the junkies to have already stashed the hash in the trash-can by the time they were caught]  infinitival to seems to have a past tense interpretation, so that (52) is paraphraseable as ‘The Federal Agents believe the junkies had already stashed the hash in the trash-can by the time they were caught’. What this suggests is that to has abstract (i.e. invisible) tense properties. Add a real example with to: One of my favorite lines from literature is, "I would prefer not." The words are spoken by a character in Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scriven -- A Story of Wall Street." Auxiliaries and infinitival to are Ts.

Introduction to English Linguistics Attested Example: Republicans believe in an America run by the right people, their people, in a world in which we act unilaterally when we can [-----------], and cooperate when we have to [-----------]. (W. Clinton 26-07-04).

Introduction to English Linguistics Complementizers (C): Def.: a C is a word which is used to introduce complement clauses; e.g. that, if, for; I think [that you may be right]  finite clause I wonder [if you can help me]  finite clause - finite C: that (declarative), if (interrogative); Finite Complementizers: are inherently finite, so they can only be used to introduce a finite clause, e.g. that, if; Infinite complementizer: (for) The complementizer for introduces an irrealis clause (i.e. a clause denoting an ‘unreal’ or hypothetical event which hasn’t yet happened and may never happen). I want [for you to receive the best training]. - infinite C: for (hypothetical, or irrealis)

Introduction to English Linguistics Labelled Bracketing: List of abbreviations: Lexical categories: N, V, A, P, Adv Functional categories: D, T, C, PRN, Q Are the five categories N, V, P, A, Adv enough to classify all the words used in English sentences? What else do we need?

Introduction to English Linguistics You don't seem to be too many of the shareholders may now vote against your revised takeover bid . worried about the possibility that [PRN ] [T ] [V ] [T ] [V ] [Adv ] [A ] [P ] [D ] [N ] [C ] [Q ] [P ] [D ] [N ] [T ] [Adv ] [V ] [P ] [PRN ] [A ] [N ] The crucial question now: How can these words be further combined? A question you should be able to answer is: How many sentences do you see here? We‘ll talk about the formation of phrases and sentences next time. There is only one question left for today: Is there a systematic and intuitively plausible way in which we could think about the lexical and the functional categories? There is a theory which is based on features. [N ]

Feature Matrix of lexical elements Introduction to English Linguistics Feature Matrix of lexical elements     +V -V +N A N -N V P V: undo, untie, unfold A: unafraid, unfriendly N: *unfear, *unfriend P: *uninside, *unby   The basic assumption of feature theory is that the 4 lexical elements V, N, A and P can be characterized by a set of binary features, namely plus-minus V, and plus-minus N. For example, English verbs and adjectives share the morphological property that they alone permit direct un- prefixation: That is, the feature-based analysis enables us to capture the fact that many grammatical properties are cross-categorial, in the sense that they extend across more than one category. We see that Verbs and adjectives form a supercategory as well as nouns and adjectives. Question: But, how can the difference between the lexical and the functional categories be be captured in a feature-based theory of syntax?

Feature matrix of lexical and functional elements Introduction to English Linguistics Feature matrix of lexical and functional elements +F D PRN AUX C/T -F +V -V A N +N V P -N The basic claim is, that each lexical element has at least one functional element associated with it. We use again the binary feature plus-minus Functional, abbreviated here as F. All the lexical categories are minus F. All the functional categories are [+F]. Lexical categories Functional categories N= [+N, -V, -F] PRN = [+N, -V,+F] A = [+N, +V, -F] D/DET = [+N, +V, +F] V= [-N, +V, - F] AUX = [-N, +V, +F] P= [-N, -V, -F] C/T = [-N, -V, +F]

Feature Matrix of lexical elements Introduction to English Linguistics Feature Matrix of lexical elements   Generalization: Each functional category seems to be closely related to a corresponding lexical category: auxiliaries to verbs, pronouns to nouns, determiners to adjectives, and the complementizer for and the infinitive particle to to the corresponding prepositions. Generalization: Each functional category seems to be closely related to a corresponding lexical category: auxiliaries to verbs, pronouns to nouns, determiners to adjectives, and the complementizer for and the infinitive particle to to the corresponding prepositions. Conclusion: - From this categorisation follows that nouns are lexical nominals whereas pronouns are functional nominals and so on. - We conclude this discussion by saying that the grammatical properties of words must be characterised in terms of sets of grammatical features. - Definition: grammatical category: set of elements which have the same value(s) for a given set of grammatical features. Definition: grammatical category: a set of elements which have the same value(s) for a given set of grammatical features.  

Introduction to English Linguistics Midway Conclusion: Claim: word classes exist. 1. Syntactic Evidence substitution test distributional evidence feature matrix Today, I investigated the claim that word classes exist. There were two major pieces of evidence: First morphological evidence and second syntactic evidence. The last transparency lists the assignments.

Introduction to English Linguistics The Notion of Syntactic Structure: 1. phrases and constituents 2. merger operations 3. tree diagrams So here is the structure of today’s lecture: I start out with the claim from last time: There is syntactic evidence that word classes exist. (see course notes from last time). Then we’ll concentrate on the notion of syntactic structure: I will be looking at how words are combined together to form phrases and sentences. I will show that phrases and sentences are built up by a series of merger operations, each of which combines a pair of constituents together to form a larger constituent. I will show how the resulting structure can be represented in terms of a tree diagram, and we look at ways of testing the structure of phrases and sentences. In earlier frameworks it was a huge problem to understand and teach the treebuilding operations. They seemed arbitrary. Now, when you watch closely today, you see that the treebuilding part is trivial. What remains tricky, are the details of the classification process. 4. movements (next time)

Introduction to English Linguistics Phrases: SPEAKER A: What are you trying to do? SPEAKER B: Help you. Merger (or merging operation): Phrases:Consider the following dialogue. A: asks a question, B. provides the answer. Note it is a fragmentary answer, not a complete sentence, but a fragment. The hypothesis is: Fragments used as answers to questions constitute phrases. On the basis of the assumption that this hypothesis is true, “help you” is a phrase. Def.: The term phrase is used to denote an expression larger than a word – often used for maximal projections. Def.: Constituents: A constituent is a structural unit – an expression which is one of the components out of which a phrase or a sentence is built. Q: Now, how do we form phrases? The simplest way of forming a phrase is by merging (a technical term meaning ‘combining’) two words together: for example, by merging the word help with the word you, we form the phrase help you. The resulting phrase help you seems to have verb-like rather than noun-like properties, as we see from the fact that it can occupy the same range of positions as the simple verb help, and hence e.g. occur after the infinitive particle to: cf. An operation by which two constituents are combined together to form a single larger constituent.

Introduction to English Linguistics The notion Head:The head of a phrase is the key word which determines the properties of the phrase. The head of the VP help you is help. We are trying to help you We are trying to help By contrast, the phrase help you cannot occupy the kind of position occupied by a pronoun such as you, as we see in the next example. Using the appropriate technical terminology, we can say that the verb help is the head of the phrase help you, and hence that help you is a verb phrase: and in the same way as we abbreviate category labels like verb to V, so too we can abbreviate the category label verb phrase to VP. The result of merging help and you in help you has verb-like rather than noun-like properties.

Introduction to English Linguistics Labelled Bracketing [VP ] [V help] [PRN you ] Labelled Tree Diagramm VP help V you PRN An alternative (equivalent) way of representing the structure of phrases like help you is via a labelled tree diagram: The tree diagram is a bit like a family tree diagram – albeit for a small family.   What the tree diagram in tells us is that the overall phrase help you is a verb phrase (VP), and that its two constituents are the verb (V) help and the pronoun (PRN) you. The verb help is the head of the overall phrase (and so is the key word which determines the grammatical and semantic properties of the phrase help you);

Introduction to English Linguistics Technical term: Projection A projection is a constituent containing a head word. Technical term: Complement This is a term used to denote a specific grammatical function. A complement is an expression which is directly merged with (and hence is the sister of) a head word, thereby projecting the head into a larger structure of essentially the same kind. The PRN you is the complement of the V help. Introducing another technical term at this point, we can say that conversely, the VP help you is a projection of the verb help – i.e. it is a larger expression formed by merging the head verb help with another constituent of an appropriate kind.  In this case, the constituent which is merged with the verb help is the pronoun you, which has the grammatical function of being the complement (or direct object) of the verb help. The head of a projection/phrase determines grammatical properties of its complement: in this case, since help is a transitive verb, it requires a complement with accusative case (e.g. a pronoun like me/us/him/them).

Introduction to English Linguistics GOAL: a theory of Universal Grammar uncover general structural principles governing the formation of phrases and sentences Merger Hypothesis: All phrases are formed in essentially the same way as the phrase in the example help you namely by a binary (i.e. pairwise) merger operation which combines two constituents together to form a larger constituent. GOAL: Since our goal in developing a theory of Universal Grammar is to uncover general structural principles governing the formation of phrases and sentences, we use the Merge-Hypothesis: In our example, the resulting phrase help you is formed by merging two words. However, not all phrases contain only two words – as we see if we look at the structure of the phrase produced by speaker b in the following example; here, we have a three word phrase.

Introduction to English Linguistics Phrases SPEAKER A: What was your intention? SPEAKER B: To help you. What kind of phrase is to help you? They ought [ to help you ] TP *They ought [ help you ] VP What is the representation of to help you? They should [ help you ] VP *They should [ to help you ] TP

Introduction to English Linguistics Tree Diagram: to help you TP to T VP help V you PRN

Introduction to English Linguistics SPEAKER A: What are you doing? SPEAKER B: Trying to help you. VP trying V help V you PRN VP to T TP

Introduction to English Linguistics Headedness Principle: Every syntactic structure is a projection of a head word. Binarity Principle: Every syntactic structure is binary-branching. Having considered how phrases are formed, let‘s now turn to look at how clauses and sentences are formed. Next slide:

Introduction to English Linguistics Clauses: Major Question: How are clauses and sentences formed? SPEAKER A: What are you doing? SPEAKER B: We are trying to help you. Tree-Structure of a sentence in the 1960s: S-Analysis

Introduction to English Linguistics We PRN are T help V you PRN VP to T TP trying S-Analysis violates the: Violation of the Headedness Principle: The sentence S We are trying to help you does not have a head of any kind. Violation of the Binarity Principle: Likewise: The S-Analysis also violates the binarity Principle. The S-node has three daughters, and thus is ternary branching. Headedness Principle Binarity Principle

Introduction to English Linguistics Tense Phrase/TP TP We PRN T’ are T help V you PRN VP to T TP trying A: What are you doing? Consider the dialogue: B‘s first answer „are trying to help you“ is obviously not a possible answer in English. Q: What would be a correct answer? A: We/I/They are trying to help you. So, what we are witnessing here is a solid fact of the English language: To form a sentence, we do need a subject. Although, the auxiliary are is the head of the overall sentence, we need the subject. To represent this fact in our structure, we can say that the auxiliare are forms an intermediate projection, T‘, together with its sister constituent VP. And to form a maximal projection, a complete TP, the subject must be there. B1: *Are trying to help you. B2: We are trying to help you.

Extended Projection Principle/EPP Introduction to English Linguistics Extended Projection Principle/EPP A finite tense constituent T must be extended into a TP projection containing a subject. EPP-Feature Requirement: Tense auxiliaries like are carry an EPP-feature which requires them to have an extended projection TP which has a subject. The EPP-Feature Requirement is syntactic and not semantic in nature. The subject pronouns it/there have no semantic content (in particular, no referential properties) of their own. We can see that from the fact that neither subject can be questioned by the corresponding what/where word: *What was alleged that he lied under oath? *Where has been no trouble? It was alleged that he lied under oath. There has been no trouble.

Introduction to English Linguistics Generalization: All heads can have more than one kind of projection. [N’ [PP in Vietnam ] ] [NP American ] [N intervention] caused considerable controversy She arrived at the solution [AP quite [A’ [A independently ] [PP of me ] ] ] A further example is an extended DP-Projection, as in: Nobody expected the film to have [DP so dramatic [D’ [D an ] [N ending ] ] ] He has gone [PP straight [P’ [P to ] [N bed ] ] ]

Introduction to English Linguistics TP He PRN T’ has T VP gone V PP straight ADV P’ to P bed N With which element would you start the tree? With the lowest head. Here P. Then you apply merger by building up the structure step by step. Note, most of your analysis must happen before you draw the tree. You ask yourself: What is it: A sentence, a fragment – that is phrase? What kind of sentence? What is the lowest head? What is its complement? What about straight? What about go? What about has? What about he? He has gone straight to bed

Clauses containing complementisers Introduction to English Linguistics Clauses containing complementisers SPEAKER A: What are you saying? SPEAKER B: That we are trying to help you. S´/S-bar Analysis: (Bresnan 1970) *S´ C that S A question which we have not so far asked about the structure of clauses concerns what role is played by complementisers like that, for and if, e.g. in speaker B’s reply in the example: Q: Where does the C that fit into the structure of the sentence? Joan Bresnan suggested 35 years ago that a complementizer like that merges with an S constituent as in the structure here. The S-Bar Analysis violates two principles: The Headedness Principle The Binarity Principle The analysis which does not violate these principles is the so-called CP-Analysis. we PRN are T trying to help you VP

Introduction to English Linguistics CP Complementizer Phrase/ CP-Analysis That C TP help V you PRN VP to T trying are T’ we

Introduction to English Linguistics SYNTACTIC RELATIONS: phrase markers A node terminal nodes B E nonterminal nodes containment relations C D F G mother H daughter I sister Definitions: Tree diagrams are phrase markers, P-markers. The tree consists of nodes (that is, each point in the tree that carries a category label represents a constituent of the sentence. Therefore there are as many constituents in a P-marker as there are category labels. Terminal nodes: nodes at the bottom of the tree: C, D, F, H, I; The other nodes are nonterminal:B, A, E, G; Hereditary Trees with only female relations: Mothers: G, E, A, B; G is the mother, and conversely H & I are the daughters. Daughters: C, D, B, E, F, G, H, I Sisters: C & D B& E, F& G, H & J; Containment Relation: „everything below a node“ A particular important syntactic relation is that of c-command: Definition of c(onstituent)-command: A constituent X c-commands its sister constituent Y and any constituent Z which is contained within Y.

Introduction to English Linguistics Anaphors: - reflexives *Himself must feel proud of you *She must feel proud of himself He must feel proud of himself Structural binding restriction of anaphors by their antecedents: *Supporters of the president may blame himself The president may blame himself C-command condition on binding: Anaphors comprise reflexives (i.e. self/selves forms) and reciprocals like each other and one another. An anaphor must be bound by an appropriate antecedent elsewhere in the same phrase or sentence. Binding is a technical term and means „An Anaphor must be c-commanded by an appropriate antecedent“ An anaphor (reflexive and reciprocal) must be c-commanded by an appropriate antecedent.

Introduction to English Linguistics The president may blame himself TP DP T’ The D president N may T VP blame V PRN himself The anaphor himself can be c-commanded by the DP the president.

Introduction to English Linguistics *Supporters of the president may blame himself TP VP blame V may T PRN himself T´ NP Supporters N PP of P DP the D president N

Introduction to English Linguistics Binding Principles Principle A: an anaphor must be bound within its local domain Principle B: a (non-anaphoric) pronominal (expression) must be free within its local domain Principle C: an R-expression (i.e. referring noun expression) must be free within the overall structure containing it The relation c-command plays an important role in accounting for the use of reflexive and reciprocal anaphors. The same can be argued to be true of two other types of expression, namely non-anaphoric pronominals like he/him/her/it/them etc. and referential noun expressions like John or the president. Chomsky (1981) and much subsequent work saw the development of a Theory of Binding which incorporated the three binding principles outlined informally below: Notes: Although there is controversy about how best to define the notion of local domain in relation to binding, for present purposes assume that this corresponds to the notion of TP, and that the three binding principles in (1) thus amount to the following: .

Introduction to English Linguistics Analysis of the following minimal pair: a. The rumors about Fred have upset him b. *The rumors about Fred have upset himself TP DP T´ The D NP have T VP rumors N PP upset V PRN him Case 1: Him is a pronominal (i.e. a non-anaphoric pronoun), and hence subject to Principle B of Binding Theory. This specifies that a pronominal like him cannot refer to any expression c-commanding it within the closest TP containing it; Him can refer to Fred in (i), since although him and Fred are contained within the same TP, Fred does not c-command him (the only constituent which Fred c-commands being the preposition about) so that principle B is satisfied if him refers to Fred (or if indeed him refers to some other person not mentioned in the sentence). Case2: Himself is an Anaphor and must be bound by an appropriate antecedent. Fred would be an appropriate antecedent, but it does not c-command himself. about P Fred N *himself

Introduction to English Linguistics Bare Phrase Structure T will I PRN V survive T´ will T I PRN TP V survive I will survive

Introduction to English Linguistics Assignments Read Radford (2004), Chapter 6. Do the following exercises of Chapter 2 in Radford (2004). Ex. 2.1: Analyze (1a, b, e, f; 2a, b, f; 3a, g); Ex. 2.2: Analyze (2, 3, 8); Ex. 3.1: Analyze (1-3); Ex. 3.2: Analyze (1-3); 3. Reread „Course Notes“ Additional Assignments: Q: Is there an infix in English? Exercise: Radford 2.2 Sentence (1) – test yourself Sentence (2);

Introduction to English Linguistics He has become fond of Mary TP He PRN T’ has T VP become V AP fond A PP Merging the preposition of with the noun Mary which serves as its complement derives the PP (prepositional phrase) in (i) below: Notes: Merging the adjective fond with the resulting PP (which is the complement of fond) forms the AP (adjectival phrase) fond of Mary in (ii) below: Notes: Merging the verb become with the AP fond of Mary which serves as the complement of become forms the VP/verb phrase in (iii) below: Notes: Merging the tense auxiliary (T constituent) has with its VP complement become fond of Mary forms the intermediate T-bar projection (iv) below: Notes: Merging the T-bar in (iv) with the pronoun he which serves as its subject will derive the TP: Notes: The subject he occupies the specifier position within TP and so can be said to be in spec-TP. of P Mary N

Introduction to English Linguistics Evidence for this analysis: - comes from coordination data: - proforms - preposing The structure of teachers can be represented by a technique which is called labelled bracketing.

Introduction to English Linguistics (a) He has become fond [of Mary] and [of her sister] (b) He has become [fond of Mary] and [proud of her achievements] (c) He has [become fond of Mary] and [grown used to her mother] (d) He [has become fond of Mary] and [is hoping to marry her] Notes: The fact that each of the italicised strings can be co-ordinated with another similar (bold-printed) string is consistent with the claim made in (v) that of Mary is a PP, fond of Mary is an AP, become fond of Mary is a VP and has become fond of Mary is a T-bar. Coordination test: Only constituents of the same type can be coordinated

Introduction to English Linguistics Proform Test Additional evidence in support of this analysis comes from the use of the proforms so/which in: (a) He is apparently fond of Mary, though nobody expected him to become so (b) If he has become fond of Mary (which he has), why doesn’t he ask her out? So is a predicative proform and an AP like fond of Mary is a predicate. The fact that fond of Mary is the antecedent of so in (a) is consistent with the claim that fond of Mary is an AP; Which in “which he has” replaces a VP: Therefore, the fact that become fond of Mary is the antecedent of which in (b) is consistent with the claim that become fond of Mary is a VP.

Introduction to English Linguistics Preposing Test Mary, he (certainly) has become fond of ??Of Mary, he (certainly) has become fond Fond of Mary, he (certainly) has become Become fond of Mary, he (certainly) has If we look at the question of which expressions in the sentence can and cannot be preposed in order to highlight them, we find the following picture (? indicates questionable grammaticality): Preposing Test: Preposing the smallest possible maximal projection containing the focused material. Mary: maximal N Of Mary: ?not the smallest maximal project Fond of Mary: AP Become fon of Mary: VP Has become fond of Mary: *Not a maximal projection! TP!! *Has become fond of Mary, he certainly

Introduction to English Linguistics A: An anaphor (like himself) must be bound by (i.e. must refer to) a c-commanding constituent within the closest TP containing it B: A pronominal (like him) must not be bound by (i.e. must not refer to) any c-commanding constituent within the closest TP containing it C: An R-expression (i.e. a referring noun expression like John/the president) must not be coreferential to (i.e. must not refer to the same entity as) any c-commanding expression within the overall tree structure containing it

Introduction to English Linguistics Analysis of the following minimal pair: a. The rumors about Fred have upset him b. *The rumors about Fred have upset himself TP DP T´ The D NP have T VP rumors N PP upset V PRN him Case 1: Him is a pronominal (i.e. a non-anaphoric pronoun), and hence subject to Principle B of Binding Theory. This specifies that a pronominal like him cannot refer to any expression c-commanding it within the closest TP containing it; Him can refer to Fred in (i), since although him and Fred are contained within the same TP, Fred does not c-command him (the only constituent which Fred c-commands being the preposition about) so that principle B is satisfied if him refers to Fred (or if indeed him refers to some other person not mentioned in the sentence). Case2: Himself is an Anaphor and must be bound by an appropriate antecedent. Fred would be an appropriate antecedent, but it does not c-command himself. about P Fred N *himself

Introduction to English Linguistics Analysis of the following minimal pair: a. You mustn't talk to anyone. b. *You mustn't talk to someone. TP PRN You T´ mustn´t T VP talk V VP   Notes: The notion of c-command has traditionally been assumed to play an important part in accounting for the syntax of so-called polarity expressions, like someone vs. anyone. Negative polarity expressions like anyone must be c-commanded by a negative, an interrogative or conditional expression. The question now is: Why is the a-example grammatical and the b-example ungrammatical? The T node containing the negative auxiliary mustn’t here c-commands the PRN node containing the polarity item anyone because the sister of [T mustn’t] is [VP talk to anyone], and anyone is contained within this VP, since the PRN node is one of the grandchildren of the VP node. If you prefer to use the alternative train metaphor suggested in §3.7 (under which X c-commands Y if you can get from X to Y on a train by going one stop north, then taking a southbound train on a different line and travelling as many stops south as you choose), you can say that [T mustn’t] c-commands [PRN anyone] because if you travel one stop north from the T station you arrive at the T-bar station, and if you then change trains at the T-bar station you can get a southbound train on a different line which will take you to the PRN station containing anyone (at the end of the line) via the VP and PP stations. Since the polarity item anyone is c-commanded by the negative auxiliary mustn’t, the c-command condition on the use of polarity items is satisfied, and sentence 1 is therefore grammatical to P PRN anyone

Introduction to English Linguistics Testing structure: Constituent Tests - coordination test - substitution test - preposing test - sentence fragment test

Introduction to English Linguistics TP DP T’ The D chairman N has T VP resigned V PP from P DP Q: What is the structure of: The chairman has resigned from the board. the D board N

Introduction to English Linguistics Coordination Test: [fond of cats] and [afraid of dogs] [slowly] but [surely] [to go] or [to stay] A: What does he do to keep fit? B: Run up the hill and up the mountain A: What did he do to clarify matters? Coordination in English is restricted. Constraint: Only constituents of the same type can be co-ordinated   A constraint (i.e. principle imposing restrictions on certain types of grammatical operation) such as the one above is assumed in much work in traditional grammar. B: *Ring up Sara and up Jane Constraint: Only constituents of the same type can be coordinated.

Introduction to English Linguistics Coordination Test The chairman has resigned from [the board] and [the company] The chairman has resigned [from the board] and [from the company] The chairman has [resigned from the board] and [gone abroad] The chairman [has resigned from the board] and [is living in Utopia] *The [chairman has resigned from the board] and [company has replaced him] [The chairman has resigned from the board] and [the company has replaced him]

Introduction to English Linguistics Substitution Test Tests whether a given string of words can be replaced by a single proform. The chairman has resigned from the board, and he is now working for a rival company. The press say that the chairman has resigned from the board, and so he has.

Introduction to English Linguistics Preposing Test: tests whether a given expression is a maximal projection. The press said that the chairman would resign from the board, and resigned from the board he has. I will certainly try to give up smoking Give up smoking I will certainly try to *To give up smoking, I will certainly try Constraint: The smallest possible maximal projection is moved which contains the highlighted material.

Introduction to English Linguistics Further restrictions on Preposing: Nobody had expected that the FBA would assassinate the king of Ruritania * King of Ruritania, nobody had expected that the FBA would assassinate the The king of Ruritania, nobody had expected that the FBA would assassinate Functional Head Constraint/FHC Skip this slide! The complement of a certain type of functional head F (such as a determiner) cannot be moved on its own (without also moving F).

Introduction to English Linguistics Surrender, I never will Surrender, he resolutely refused to Q: What is surrender? Definition of Maximal Projection: A maximal projection of a head H is the largest expression headed by H.