Ian Roberts

 Generate well-formed structural descriptions  “create” trees/labelled bracketings  More (X’) or less (PS-rules) abstract  Can create infinite structures

Movement rules:  Don’t create structures but manipulate them  Technically, they map phrase markers into other phrase markers  Informally, constituents “move” from one place in the structure to another

 Head-movement, as in English subject-auxiliary inversion in questions: John can leave.  Can John t leave?  CP  |  C’  ru  C TP  Can ru  NP T’  John ru  T VP  t |  V  win

 as in the English passive: The policeman arrested the student  The student was arrested t TP ru NP T’ ru D NT VP The studentwas ru V NP arrested t

 The most important and interesting type of movement for various reasons.  Moves (almost) any XP to the beginning of the sentence to form, in the simplest case, a question.

(1) Which man will John see t ?-- object NP (2) Who should John talk to t ? – indirect object NP (“preposition stranding”) (3) To whom can John talk t ? – indirect object PP (“pied-piping”) (4) How angry is Alex t ?-- AP (5) What does John believe t ? – CP  TP and VP do not undergo WH- movement

“Echo-questions” show where the wh-phrase originates: Bill bought WHAT?! You talked to WHO?!

CP ru NP C’ ru DN C TP Which man will ru NP T’ | ru N T VP John t ru V NP see t

I wonder.. (1) which man John will see t ?-- object NP (2) who John talk should to t ? – indirect object NP (“preposition stranding”) (3) to whom John can talk t ? – indirect object PP (“pied-piping”) (4) how angry Alex is t ?-- AP (5) what John believes t ? – CP  Just like direct questions except no subject-aux inversion.  C must be empty here (no that/if/whether)

 Who t saw John?  “vacuous movement”: CP ru NP C’ | ru N C TP Who ru NP T’ t ru T VP ru V NP saw John

 I wonder who t saw John ?  *I wonder who did t t see John ?  *I wonder who that/if t saw John ?  *I wonder that/if who saw John ? C must always be empty in indirect subject questions like all other indirect questions.  Movement to SpecC’ always, accompanied by a zero [+wh] C.

(1) Which man did you say (that) John will see t ?-- object NP (2) Who did you say (that) John will talk to t ? – indirect object NP (“preposition stranding”) (3) To whom did you say (that) John will talk t ? – indirect object PP (“pied-piping”) (4) How angry did you say (that) Alex is t ?-- AP (5) What did you say (that) John believes t ? – CP

 Who did you say [ that Mary believes [ that John saw t ]] ?  Who did you say [ that Mary believes [ that Fred knows [ that John saw t ]]] ?  Who did you say [ that Mary believes [ that Fred knows [ that I asserted [ that John saw t ]]] ? .. and so on.

 The unbounded nature of WH-islands poses a problem for PS-rules/X’theory because  PS-rules/X’-theory are local: they define little bits of the tree at a time, e.g. VP  V CP How does VP “know” it’s part of a wh- dependency as in:  Who did you say [ that Mary [ VP believes [ CP that John saw t ]] ?

 Either we complicate the PS-rules/X’-theory hugely (this can be and has been done) or we have two relatively simple rule types:  PS-rules/X’-theory build structure (create phrase markers)  Movement/transformational rules manipulate structure (map phrase markers into other phrase markers)

 WH-movement: Move a WH-phrase to the specifier of a [+wh] C.  “NP-movement”: move the object to the subject position (passive)  Head-movement: move T to C (subject-aux inversion) (The last two can be generalised; WH- movement is already in quite a general form here).

 Although WH-movement is unbounded, it doesn’t apply just anywhere, but is subject to stringent locality conditions, cf.: (1) my guitar, John’s cat – possessor NP in Spec of higher NP: NP1 ru NP2 N’1 | | N’2 N1 | cat N2guitar John’s my  And similarly for whose cat

 If you want to know whose cat you’re talking about: (1) Whose cat did you feed t ? – object NP (2) *Whose did you feed [ NP t cat ] ? – can’t apply WH-movement directly to the possessor, but must “pied-pipe” the whole object.

 The Left Branch Constraint (LBC): WH-movement can’t apply to a left-branch, or to part of a left branch.  So, whose can’t move on its own. Cf also: How angry is Alex t ? -- AP-movement *How is Alex [ AP t angry ] ? – no movement just of Spec of AP.

Sometimes a pronoun appears where a gap could be: John, I like (him). John, I like {him/t}. Pronouns don’t obey island constraints: *Whose did you say that you like [ NP t cat ]? Whose cat did you say that you like t ? ?Who did you say that you like his cat ? Marginally (in English) a resumptive can link to a WH, but only in an island.

 The LBC is one of several constraints on WH- movement called “island constraints” (islands are things that are difficult move off). In general, WH-movement:  Leaves a gap  Is unbounded  Obeys the LBC (and other island constraints)

 Recall the constituency test clefting: John wrote the book  It was John that wrote the book.

 It leaves a gap *It was John that he wrote the letter.  It can be unbounded It was John that Mary said that Bill thinks t wrote the letter.  It obeys LBC: *It was John’s that I saw [ NP t cat ].

 We need movement rules alongside PS- rules/X’-theory  Three types of movement  WH-movement involves unbounded dependency  WH-movement leaves a gap, obeys LBC  Clefting is a type of WH-movement (albeit a bit hidden)