P HRASES & CLAUSES D AY 6, S EPT. 10, 2012 Introduction to Syntax ANTH 3590/7590 Harry Howard Tulane University

C OURSE MANAGEMENT 9/10/12 2 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

§2.2 Phrases 9/10/12 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane 3

P HRASES Phrases are formed by merging two words together Every major category projects a phrase. The category that projects the phrase is called the head of the phrase. They are represented with labelled tree diagrams or labelled brackets. Minor categories can project a phrase, too. Note how the infinitive that follows to looks like its noun complement. Principles of organization Headedness : every non-terminal node is a projection of a head. Binarity : every non-terminal node is binary branching. 9/10/12 4 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

B INARY BRANCHING 9/10/12 5 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane AXB XP A XB X? Say we come across a phrase consisting of ‘AXB’, with ‘X’ as its head. How can the phrase be represented?

§2.3 Clauses 9/10/12 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane 6

C LAUSES What is a clause? A subject and a predicate Something with a conjugated verb 9/10/12 7 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

F IRST TRY 9/10/12 8 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane PRNTVP[S[S ] S Clauses have a special projection just for them, called ‘S’ for ‘sentence’: What is wrong with this picture? No binary branching. No head.

SECOND TRY 9/10/12 9 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane PRNTVP T’T’ Clauses are a projection of Tense: T’ is called an intermediate projection, while TP is the maximal projection. [ TP [T’[T’ ]] TP

S UBJECTS English is strange in that it requires (tensed) clauses to have subjects. This is another way of saying that English is not a null subject language. A tensed clause in English needs a subject even if it has no meaning, such as in the following examples of expletive pronouns : It was raining. There has been an accident. How to state the requirement for a subject? English Tense auxiliaries appear to carry a feature (the EPP feature) which requires TP to have a subject. 9/10/12 10 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

L INEAR WORD ORDER The binarity principle creates so many nodes arranged in a hierarchical structure that linear order can be ‘read off’ of it. Linear order is redundant with hierarchical structure and so should be eliminated. Syntactic trees only contain hierarchical relationships, e.g. containment and constituent structure. 9/10/12 11 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

M ODIFIERS Usually are in intermediate projections. 20a) American intervention in Iraq 20b) quite independently of me 20c) straight to bed 20d) so dramatic an ending 9/10/12 12 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

S PEC The position at the beginning of a phrase is called the Spec(ifier) of the head or phrase. 9/10/12 13 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

E X 2.1 Go over sentences 1-8, p. 70 9/10/12 14 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane

NEXT TIME Testing structure, c-command, bare phrase structure, summary § , Ex 2.2 9/10/12 ANTH3590/7590, Harry Howard, Tulane 15