1 LIN 1310B Introduction to Linguistics Prof: Nikolay Slavkov TA: Qinghua Tang CLASS 16, March 6, 2007

2 Today Announcements and Reminders: -Continue reading chapter 5 (at least up to p. 161). -Assignment 2 is due Friday (March 9) before class. -Note about Assignment 2: Please do NOT use triangles for any phrases when you draw your trees. In order to get full points, draw the complete trees! Today’s Lecture: - Address questions about Assignment 2, if any. - Continue with Syntax

3 Assignment 2 Questions (1)The students in the park may have missed the train to Kingston. (2)The Bank of Canada is considering cuts in the interest rates. (3)The properties of verbs in isolation puzzled the class. (4)Susan knew that Mark could have placed the cookies in the kitchen. (5)Bill reported that a student asked whether the eclipse would occur. -In (1) and (4) consider tense as +pst. -In (2) use your knowledge of morphology to analyse interest rates as a compound. I.e. analyse interest rates as one word. Everything else should be analysed as separate words though! And remember, no triangles! -In (5), “eclipse would occur”: consider tense here –pst.

4 Review We have recently dealt with these phrases: VP, IP, CP. PhraseHead VP 1 V: main verb (e.g. walk, think, etc.) VP 2 V: auxiliary be or have IPI: tense (-/+pst); modal CP C: complementizer (that); or modal (after movement in yes/no questions)

5 Review Note that we use CP for two purposes: 1)to put complementizers (that, is, whether) under C 2)to put the moved modal in yes/no questions. NB! Remember that the movement in yes-no questions is called I-to-C movement. So therefore you have to move everything that is under I to its new position under C. NB! Also remember that complementizer that is different from determiner that. Consider the following: That guy went to the movies vs. I know that John is crazy. Determiner Complementizer

6 Derivation In syntax, the term derivation refers to the different steps (operations and processes) that apply to a sentence before it reaches its final form. Recall that there are different steps that apply before a sentence is ‘ready’. That is, merge combines words to create phrases, and then combines phrases with one another to create a sentence. We found out that merge is not always enough and sometimes move applies after merge (e.g. yes-no questions). The application of these operations is the derivation of the sentence. In other words, merge and move derive the final form of the sentence.

7 Deep Structure vs. Surface Structure It has been traditionally assumed that there are two levels of representation in syntax: deep structure and surface structure. Deep structure (D-structure) is the basic structure created by merge. Surface structure (S-structure) is the final form created after all operations (including move, if necessary) have applied and the sentence is ready to be pronounced. In other words, S-structure is the end of the derivation.

8 Deep Structure vs. Surface Structure Merge Deep Structure Move Surface Structure

9 Deep Structure vs. Surface Structure The Deep structure and Surface structure of a sentence can be the same if move does not need to apply. If move applies, then it changes the deep structure and therefore the surface structure is different (i.e. what is pronounced is not what is in deep structure).

10 __________________? Do Insertion So far we have discussed yes-no questions with modals and proposed that modals move out of I to go to C (i.e. inversion). That guy should go. Should that guy _____ go? How do we form a question if there is no modal, though? E.g. You know this guy. Do you know that guy

11 Do Insertion From our example on the previous slide, we can conclude that when there is no modal, the yes-no question is formed by inserting the auxiliary do. This makes inversion possible (i.e. makes it possible to turn a declarative into a question). Note that if we didn’t have do insertion, we wouldn’t be able to distinguish between statements and questions. E.g. They read books. => Do they ready books? If we didn’t have do insertion, we would need to rely only on intonation: E.g. They read books => They read books?

12 Do Insertion So, how do we analyse do insertion in yes-no questions? It would be preferable to propose an analysis consistent with the other yes-no questions that we’ve already analysed (i.e. the ones with modals). We can use the same structure (same tree) for yes- no questions with do as the structure that we use for yes-no questions with a modal. The only difference is that we insert do in the I category and then move it to C.

13 Do Insertion There are three steps in deriving the sentence: Do those birds sing? Step 1: Merge applies and creates the D-Structure for the sentence. Step 2: Do insertion applies: Insert interrogative do into an empty I position Step 3: Move applies (more specifically I-to-C movement): Move I to C

14 Do Insertion Derivation for: Do those birds sing? p. 151, 5.17 a.

15 Do Insertion Derivation for: Do those birds sing? p. 151, 5.17 b

16 Do Insertion Derivation for: Do those birds sing? p. 151, 5.17 c

17 Do Insertion Why do we insert do in I and then move it to C? Wouldn’t it be easier and simpler to insert it directly under C?  In inserting it under I, we have a uniform analysis for all yes-no questions. That is, we can say that all yes-no questions, whether they have a modal or not, involve I-to- C movement (inversion). Also, consider the following data: Those birds do sing. Those birds do not sing.  This constitutes evidence that do appears in the I position (without moving to C), so therefore, we are justified in assuming that the basic position for do is I, and that do may or may not be moved from there.

18 Wh-Movement Consider the following data: What did you buy? Which problems did you solve? When can you go there? => These are called wh-questions because they begin with words containing wh- (wh- words are what, who, where, when, which, how)

19 Wh-movement Consider the following data: 1.You bought cookies. 2.You bought something. 3.You bought what? 4.What did you buy?  Intuitively it seems that what stands for cookies in (1) or for something in (2).  It also seems that the wh- word originates after the verb, i.e. as its complement. So how do we derive the wh- question with the wh- word at the beginning? -Wh- movement: What did you buy__t___?

20 Wh-movement How to analyse wh- questions: 1.We first apply merge and draw a tree for the deep structure of the sentence (i.e. the structure before movement). 2.Then we apply the relevant movement(s): note that I-to-C movement (inversion) precedes Wh- movement. 3.Recall that the landing site for moved modals and do is the head C. 4.We will assume that the landing site for wh- movement is the Specifier of C. 5.Don’t forget the +Q and t notation

21 Wh-movement Derivation for: What did you buy? When you have a wh- question, it is useful to think of the equivalent statement first and replace the wh- word with another word: What did you buy? You bought what. You bought a car.  Now we know that our wh-word what is an NP (because a car is an NP). Let’s draw a tree for What did you buy? following the instructions on the previous slide.

22 Wh-movement Derivation for: What did you buy?

23 Wh-movement Derivation for: What did you buy?

24 Wh-movement Derivation for: What did you buy?

25 Wh- Movement: the role of the wh-word Consider the following data: In what position does the wh- originate? What did you buy? vs. What hit John? Who did you kiss? vs. Who ate the ice-cream? What did you buy ____? What ____hit John? Who did you kiss ____? Who _____ate the ice-cream? object subject complement of V specifier of I.

26 Wh- Movement: the role of the wh-word So we know that the wh- word can originate from the complement of the verb (object) or from the specifier of IP (subject) position (it can also originate in other positions but we do not discuss them here). So far in our trees, we’ve only dealt with a wh- word that is an object. Now let’s look at a tree where the wh- word is a subject (next slide). You’ll see that the tree is essentially the same, the only difference being the site from where the wh- word moves (Spec IP for subjects; compliment of VP for objects)

27 What hit Mary (what=something+subject) Who criticized Maxwell (who=someone=subject) p. 154, fig 5.21

28 More on the role of the wh- word Note that a wh- word can function as a noun, a determiner, a prepositional phrase, etc. Consider the following data: Who did you see (I saw John => who=John=noun) Which languages do you speak (I speak these languages => which=these=determiner) What did you play (I played something =>what=something=noun)

29 Movie on acquisition of wh- questions (time permitting) Download movie: What kinds of errors did children acquiring English as their first language (L1) make with wh- questions? What kinds of conclusions can we make with regards to syntactic theory based on these errors? I.e. do these errors seem to support syntactic theory or not? How so?