iLuiad tw: 3432086 IIHILIMMAAIAN Borrower: HLS Lending String: HLS 1/27/2010 11:08:33 AM Patron: Faculty: Gennaro Chierchia Journal Title: Contemporary linguisties :an introduction /edited by William O'Grady and Michael Dobrovolsky. Volume: Issue: Month/Year: 1997Pages: 181-244 Article Author: 5 Call #; WID WIDLC P121--a.C5854 1997bx Location: HLS Scan&Deliver Shipping Address: Harvard University - Widener Library interlibrary Loan Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 Fax: Ariel: Odyssey: 206.107.43.109 MaxCost: Article Title: Chapter 5 Imprint: Via Scan and Deliver Service TICE: TH ITEM MAY 8E PROTECTED mene : BY COPYRIGHT LAW (TITLE TLL 1726 CNET ee THIS IS NOT AN INVOICE! ' ) 00 NOT SEND PAYMENT NON-IFM LIBRARIES WILL RECEIVE AN INVOICE UNDER SEPARATE COVER FOR THIS TRANSACTION FROM HARVARD UNIVERSITY ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE IN 4-6 WEEKS Interli PLEASE DO NOT SEND PAYMENT u RECEIVE AN INVOICE! suT © 3 8 8 3 $ z= 3 s a =five SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE William O'Grady the game isto say something new with old words ~ Rap WaLbo Ewensow, Journals (1849) One of the main themes ofthis book is that language use involves an intricate sys tem of largely subconscious grammatical knowledge, Nowhere is this more obvious than in the study of how words are combined to form sentences. In this chapter we will consider the system of rules and categories that underlies sentence formation in ‘human language. This component of the grammar is called syntax. Like the other linguistic systems considered in this book, the syntactic compo- nent of the grammar is both creative and systematic. As noted in Chapter 1, speak- ers of a language are able to combine words in novel ways, forming sentences that they have neither heard nor seen before. However, not just any combination of words will give a well-formed sentence. English speakers recognize that the pattern in 1) is not permissible even though the same words can be combined in a different way to form the acceptable structure in 2), v “House painted student a the. 2) A student painted the house. We say that an utterance is grammatical if speakers judge it to be a possible sen- tence of their language. Thus, example 2) is a grammatical sentence of English, but I)is not. ‘This chapter will focus on the ‘architecture’ of grammatical sentences, with an emphasis on the manner in which words are combined to form various types of structures. Section 1 introduces some of the most common categories of words found in language as well as some simple rules that govern the organization of these164 11 CHAPTER FIVE categories into larger structural units. Subsequent sections describe other aspects of sentence structure, using examples and phenomena drawn from English and other languages. Contemporary Hnguistic eseach has yet to reach a consensus about precisely how sentence structure should be analyzed and a variety of quite different possiil: ities are currently being explored. This chapter will introduce a simple version of transformational syntax, currently the most popular and best known approach to syntactic analysis. Although many linguists disageee with various features of this approach, it Is very widely used in linguistics and other disciplines concerned with language (especially cognitive science) For this reason, itis the usual po ture for introductions to the study of sentence structure. Section 6 pro} iscussion of some alternatives to transformational analysis. CATEGORIES AND STRUCTURE A fundam tal fact about words in all human languages is that they can be grouped together into a relatively small number of classes, called syntactic categories. ‘This classification refects a variety of factors, including the type of meaning that words expres, the type of affixes that they take, and the type of structures in which they can occur. WORD-LEVEL CATEGORIES ‘Table 5.1 provides examples of the word-level categories that are most central to the study of syntax. Table $.1 Syntactic categories Lexical categories Examples Noun (N) Harry, boy, wheat, policy, moisture, bravery Verb (V) arrive, discuss, melt, hear, remain, dislike Adjective (A) ood, tall, old, intelligent, beautiful, fond Preposition (P) 10, in, on, near, a, by Adverb (Adv) silently, slowly, quietly, quickly, now Non-lexical categories Examples Determiner (Det) the, a, this, these Degree word (Deg) 100, 50, very, more, quite Qualifier (Qual) always, perhaps, often, never, almost Auxiliary (Aux) will, can, may, must, should, could Conjunction (Con) and, of, but The four most studied syntactic categories are noun (N), verb (V), adjective (A), and preposition (P). These elements, which are often called Yexical categories, play a very important rolein sentence formation, as we will soon see. A fifth and lessSYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 165 studied lexical category consists of adverbs (Adv), most of which are derived from adjectives Languages may also contain nonlexical or functional categories, including determiners (Det), auxiliary verbs (Aux), conjunctions (Con), and degree words (Deg). Such elements generally have meanings that are harder to define and paraphrase than those of lexical categories. For example, the meaning of the noun hill is easier to describe than the meaning of a determiner such as the or an auxiliary such as would. ‘A potential source of confusion in the area of word classification stems ftom the fact that some items can belong to more than one category. 3) comb used as a noun: ‘The woman found a comb. comb used as a verb: The boy should comb his hait. » near used as a preposition: ‘The child stood near the fence. near used as a verb: ‘The runners neared the finish lin. near used as an adjective: ‘The end is nearer than you might think. How, then, can we determine a word's category? Meaning One criterion involves meaning. Nouns, for instance, typically name entities such as, Individuals (Harry, Sue) and objects (book, desk). Verbs, on the other hand, charac- teristically designate actions (run, jump), sensations (feel, hurt), and states (be, remain). Consistent with these tendencies, comb in 3) refers to an object when used as a noun but to an action when used as a verb. The meanings associated with nouns and verbs can be elaborated in various ways. ‘The typical function of an adjective, for instance, Is to designate a property or attribute of the entities denoted by nouns. Thus, when we say That tall building, we ate attributing the property ‘tal’ to the building designated by the noun. In a parallel way, adverbs typically denote properties and attributes of the actions, sensations, and states designated by verbs. In the following sentences, for example, the adverb quickly indicates the manner of Janet's leaving and the adverb early spec- ifies its time. 5) Janet left quickly. Janet left early. Unfortunately, a word's category membership does not always bear such a straightforward relationship to its meaning. For example, there are ‘abstract’ nouns166 CHAPTER FIVE such as difficulty, truth, and likelihood, which do not name entities in the strict sense. Moreover, even though words that name actions tend to be verbs, some action- naming words can also be used as nouns (pusl and shove are nouns in give someone 4 push/shove), Matters are further complicated by the fact that in some cases, words with very similar meanings belong to different categories. For instance, the words like and fond are very similar in meaning (as in Mice like/are fond of cheese), yet like is a verb and fond an adjective, As we will see later (Section 4.1), this problem becomes even more acute when we consider the fact that languages can differ in terms of how they categorize words with particular types of meanings. Inflection Most linguists believe that meaning is only one of several criteria that enter into determining a word's category. A second criterion, compatibility with various types Of inflection (see Chapter 4, Section 5), is summarized in Table 5.2. Table $.2 Lexical categories and their inflectional affixes Category Inflectional affix Examples plural -5 books, chairs, doctors possessive John’s, (the) man’s v past tense -el hunted, watched, judged. progressive “ing hunting, watching, judging ry comparative er taller, faster, smarter superlative est tallest, fastest, smartest Although helpful, inflection does not always provide the information needed to determine a word’s category. In English, for example, not all adjectives can take the comparative and supetiative affixes (*intelligentr, “beautifulest) and some nouns do ‘Rot normally take the plural suffix (moisture, bravery, knowledge) Distribution A third and often more reliable criterion for determining a word's category involves the type of elements (espectally functional categories) with which It can co-occur (its distribution), For example, nouns can typically appear with a determiner, verbs with an auxiliary, and adjectives with a degree word. Table §.3 Distributional properties of Ns, Vs, and As Category Distributional property Examples Noun occurrence with a determiner a car, the wheat Ver occurrence with an auxiliary may go, will stay Adjective occurrence with a degree word _very rich, too big, Put another way, a distributional property of nouns is that they can appear with a determiner but not an auxiliary, a distributional property of verbs is that they can appear with an auxiliary but not a determiner, and so forth.1.2 SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 167 6 verb with a determiner: “the destroy noun with an auxiliary: will destruction Together with information about a word’s meaning and its inflectional capabilities, these distributional facts help identify its syntactic category. PHRASE STRUCTURE Sentences are not formed vy simply stringing words together like beads on a neck- lace, Rather, sentences have a hierarchical design in which words ate grouped together into successively larger structural units. This section will focus on the nature of the syntactic units built around Ns, Vs, As, and Ps. Such units are called phrases. Heads Phrases are built around a ‘skeleton’ consisting of two levels, as depicted below. (The symbol P in the top level stands for ‘phrase’.) NP vp AP PP se Phrase level N v A P © Word level Figure 5.1 ‘The organization of phrase structure Each level of phrase structure can be thought of as a sort of ‘hook’ (like a hook on a pole) to which elements of different types can be attached. The lowest level is reserved for the word around which the phrase is built—an N in the case of NPs, a V in the case of VPs, and so on. This element is called the head of the phrase. As the following examples showy itis possible to have a phrase in which only the head position is filled. (The material in parentheses provides a context in Which these one-word phrases might occur; it is not part of the phrases themselves.) NP vp {he likes) books (all animals) eat y t (she is) certain (be went) in Figure §.2 Phrases in which only the head position is filled168 CHAPTER FIVE Although phrases can consist of just one word, they often contain other elements as well. For example: 7 a. [yp the books . [yp never eat] Lp quite certain) d. [yp almost in} In addition to a head (the underlined element), each of these phrases includes a sec- ‘ond word that has a special semantic and syntactic role. Such words (determiners such as the and a, qualifiers such as never and often, and degree words such as quite or almost) are said to function as specifiers. Specifiers Semantically, specifiers help to make more precise the meaning of the head. Hence, the determiner (Det) the in 6) indicates that the speaker has in mind specific books, the qualifier (Qual) never in 6b) indicates a nonoccurting event, and the degree words (Deg) quite and almost in 6c, d) indicate the extent to which a particular prop- erty or relation is manifested. Syntactically, specifiers typically mark a phrase boundary. In English, specifiers ‘occur at the left boundary (the beginning) of their respective phrases. In a tree dia- ‘gram, they are attached to the top level of phrase structure, to the left of the head. ‘Together, these two elements form the phrase structures depicted in the following tree diagrams. Det N Qual t Deg j ds coe Figure $.3 Phrases consisting of a head and a specifier ‘As we will see in Section 4, some languages (Thai, for example) place specifiers at the right boundary (the end) of phrases. ‘The syntactic category of the specifier differs depending on the category of the head. As the examples in Figure 5.3 help show, determiners serve as the specifiers of Ns while qualifiers typically function as the specifiers of Vs and degree words as the specifiers of As and (some) Ps. Question 3 at the end of the chapter provides practice in identifying specifiers and heads.SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 169 Table $.4 Some specifiers Category ‘Typical fnction Examples Determiner (Det) specifier of N the, a, ths, those, no Qualifier (Qual) specifier of ¥ never, perhaps, often, always Degree word (Deg) specifier of A or P very, quite, more, almost Complements Consider now some examples of slightly more complex phrases. 8) 1 (yp the books about the war] {yp never eat a hamburger] [ap Quite certain about Mary] d. {yp almost in the house) In addition to a specifier and the underlined head, the phrases in 8) also contain a complement. These elements, which are themselves phrases, provide information about entities and locations whose existence is implied by the meaning of the head. For example, the meaning of eat implies an object that is eaten, the meaning of in implies a location, and so on. » A vegetarian would never eat {a hamburger) tT OT head complement naming the thing eaten 10) in [the house} v tT head complement naming a location Ina tree diagram, complements are attached to the right of the head in English (but to the left in many other languages—see Section 4). Figure $.4 illustrates the structure of a phrase consisting of a specifier, a head, and a complement, (The NP serving as complement of a V is often called a direct object.) vp. Qual Y= Det oN never eat = a_-hamburger Figure 5.4 AVP consisting of a head, a specifier, and a complement170 CHAPTER FIVE ‘As noted above, complements are themselves phrases. Thus, the complement of the V eat is an NP that itself consists of a determiner (a) and a head (hamburger). This phrase then combines with the verb and its specifier to form a still larger struc- tural unit. NPs, APs, and Ps can have a parallel internal structure, as the following exam- ples illustrate. (In order to save space, we do not depict the internal structure of the complement phrases in these examples.) : xp > ap — oD be Be CL aa | | =™ the books Seutthewer = quite certain Spout Many : ve _—— |~=-. Deg P Ne | boZ~N almost. in. fhefiowe Figure $.5 Other phrases consisting of a head, a specifier, and a complement Question 4 at the end of this chapter provides practice in identifying complements. The rules How does the grammar ensure that specifiers, heads, and complements occupy the appropriate positions in phrase structure? The arrangement of the elements that make up a phrase is expressed by a special type of grammatical mechanism called a phrase structure rule. The following phrase structure rules stipulate the position of specifiers, heads, and complements in the various types of phrases that we have con- sidered so far. (The artow can be read as ‘consists of’ or ‘branches into’. The three dots in each rule indicate that other complement options are availabl options will be discussed in Section 2.) 1m NP > @ey N(R)... VP > (Qual) V (NP)... AP > (Deg) A (PP) PP > (Deg) P (NP) The first of these rules states that an NP can consist of a determiner, an N head, and a PP complement (as in Figure 5.Sa); the second rule captures the fact that a VP can be composed of a qualifier, a V, and an NP complement (as in Figure 5.4); and so on. As the parentheses in our rules indicate, both specifiers and complements are optional. Thus, a phrase may consist of a specifier, a head, and a complement; a head and a complement; a specifier and a head; or just a head.SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE wm a b Phrase consisting of a specifier, Phrase consisting of a head and ahead, and a complement a complement ye aN AN yal NP i Ne never drink the water on os Toot c a Phrase consisting of a specifier Phrase consisting of just a head and ahead Np vp Det the man (The girl) arrived. Figure 5.6 Some phrase types. Only the head is present in all patterns. Generalizing the rules By now, you will have noticed that there are very obvious structural similarities among the various phrase types exemplified in Figures 5.4 to 5.6. In particular, the specifier precedes the head while the complement follows. These similarities can be summarized with the help of a template, or bluej which X stands for N, V, A, orP. Specifier X _— Complement Head Figure 5.7 The phrase structure template Instead of having four separate phrase structure rules for the placement of specifiers, heads, and complements, we now can formulate the single general rule in 12). 12) ‘The XP Rule: XP — (Specifier) X (Complement) Because the symbol X stands for N, V, A, or P, this rule is an abbreviation for the four separate phrase structure rules given in 11) above. The rule in 12) is more abstract than the four more specific rules that were ini- tially proposed since it makes use of the special symbol X. However, it is also more economical and is able to capture the structural properties shared by the four differ-172 1.3 CHAPTER FIVE cent phrase types. For these reasons, rules formulated in terms of the X notation are widely used in contemporary syntactic analysis. SENTENCES “The largest unit of syntactic analysis is the sentence (S). Traditionally, sentences are taken to be the product of the rule in 13), which combines an NP (often called the subject) with a VP to yield structures such as the one in Figure 5.8. 13) fee Seer i = a @ Y fo Ne ae ee Figure §.8 The structure of § (traditional view) ‘This analysis assumes that Sis special in not having an internal structure like other phrases (with a head, a complement, and a specifier). However, many linguists now believe that S has the structure depicted in Figure 5.9. ‘S (eInflP) NP VP. ; A scientist discovered the answer Figure 5.9 The structure of S (popular contemporary view) According to this idea, sentences have as their head an abstract category dubbed ‘Inf’, short for ‘inflection’, which indicates the sentence’s tense.! Because Infl, like all heads, is obligatory, this automatically accounts for the fact that all sentences of English have tense (eg, they are either past or nonpast). The rest of sentence struc- ture follows from the fact that Infl takes a VP category as its complement and an NP (the subject) as its specifier. A further advantage of this analysis is that it gives sen-SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 173 tences the same internal structure as other phrases and makes them consistent with the XP rule outlined earlier. There is therefore no need for the special $ rule in 13). Sometimes an actual word can appear in the Infl position. As the next example shows, auxiliary verbs can appear in the head position of sentences and are thus treated as an instance of the infl category. (Given the long-established meaning of the term inflection in morphology, the use of the label ‘Inf’ by syntacticians to include free forms such as will and can is unfortunate. However, we will follow this usage here in accordance with the current widespread practice.) S(einnip) x | | Neale eee A scientist will discover the answer Det Figure §.10 An with an auxiliary in the Infl position A further justification for treating auxiliaries as a type of Infl is that many words of this type are inherently associated with a particular tense. For example, will, can, and may are necessarily nonpast, as shown by the unacceptability of patterns such as *He will/can/may work yesterday. By placing them in the Infl position, we therefore indicate that the sentence is nonpast, (In such cases, it is somewhat redundant to also have a tense label, and we will therefore not include it in our tree structures, when an auxiliary is present.) For the remainder of this chapter, we will adopt the view that sentences have Infl as their head and that this element may be realized as either a tense label (past or nonpast) of an auxiliary.? We will continue to use $ in this chapter; however, the reader should understand S as an abbreviation for InflP. ‘The appendix at the end of the chapter outlines a procedure that should help you assign sentences an appropriate tree structure. Question 5 provides an opportunity to practice this procedure. A look ahead ‘Thus far in this chapter, we have been concentrating on phrases that consist of spec- ifiers, heads, and complements. However, human language contains other types of syntactic patterns as well. For example, some phrases—called coordinate struc- tures—are formed by joining two (or more) elements of the same type with the help of a conjunction such as and or or. 14) coordinate structures: @. [yp 4 pencil] and [yp a notebook] b, [y hamburgers] or [y hotdogs}174 1.4 CHAPTER FIVE Still another type of pattern includes a modifier, an optional element that describes a property of the head. The most common types of modifiers in English are adjectives (which modify noun heads) and adverbs (which modify verb heads). 15) 4. adjective modifying an N heac a good book b, adverb modifying a V head: He slept soundly. We can form sentences containing coordinate structures and modifiers by mak- ing relatively small and simple adjustments to our system of phrase structure rules. ‘These adjustments are discussed in Sections §.1 and 5.2, which can be read now or later at the discretion of the course instructor. We postpone discussion of these mat- ters in favor of some topics in syntactic analysis that go beyond the simple modifi- cation of phrase structure rules TESTS FOR PHRASE STRUCTURE ‘The words that make up a sentence form intermediate structural units called phrases. How do linguists determine which words should be grouped together into phrases? The existence of the syntactic units, or constituents, that make up tree structures can be independently verified with the help of special tests. Although we cannot consider all of these tests here, itis possible to give some examples. The substitution test Evidence that NPs and VPs are syntactic units comes from the fact that they can often be replaced by an element such as they, it, or do so. This is illustrated in 16), where they replaces the NP the citizens and do so replaces the VP wear ties. (This is called a substitution test.) 16) 4a, [ypThe citizens} rebelled after they discovered the truth, (they = the citizens) , The students will [yp wear ties] if the teachers will do so (do 50 = wear ties) ‘The substitution test also confirms that a PP such as at the corner is a unit since it can be replaced by a single word in sentences such as 17). 17) They stopped [yp at the corner] and we stopped there too. (there = at the comer) The movement test A second indication that at the comer forms a constituent is that it can be moved as, a single unit to a different position within the sentence. (This is called a movementLs SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 175 test.) In 18), for instance, atthe comer can be moved from a position after the verb to the beginning of the sentence. 18) They stopped [yp at the comer] — [pp At the corner}, they stopped. The coordination test Finally, we can conclude that a group of words forms a constituent if it can be joined. to another group of words by a conjunction such as and, or, or but. (This is labelled the coordination test since patterns built around a conjunction are called coor dinate stuctures; see Section 5.1 below.) Thus, we know that the VP often sweep the floor in 19) is a constituent because it can be joined to another unit by and or but. 19) ‘The children [yp often sweep the floor} but [yp never make the bed] X' CATEGORIES (ADVANCED) ‘Thus far, we have been assuming that the architecture of phrase structure complies with the blueprint in Figure 5.11, identical to Figure 5.7 above XP Specifier X_— Complement Head Figure §.11 The phrase structure template In fact, however, this is somewhat of a simplification since there is reason to believe that complements and heads may actually be attached to a level of phrase structure ‘midway between the word level and the phrase level, as depicted in Figure 5.12. The intermediate tevel of structure is represented by the symbol X' (pronounced ‘X-bar’) xP Specifie. X Complement Head Figure §.12 The phrase stucture template (revised) According to this viewpoint, then, all phrases have the trislevel structure shown, below, in which the head and its complement form an X-level constituent and the specifier is attached at the higher XP level. (The following example illustrates the internal structure of an S, a VP, and an NP.) ‘The existence of X' categories can be verified with the help of the same sort of syntactic tests discussed in the previous section. Consider, for example, the V' edie cate the public in Figure 5.13. As the following sentence shows, this unit can be176 CHAPTER FIVE replaced by do so and should therefore be a constituent according to the substitution test. jnflP) ing! oN m In ame Ne ‘That documentary aboutsharks will perhaps educate the public Figure 5.13 Phrase structure with the intermediate X’ level 20) ‘That documentary about sharks will perhaps (y educate the public}, but media reports never do so. (do s0 = educate the public) Now consider the N' documentary about sharks in Figure 5.13. As the next sentence shows, this unit can be replaced by the element one. 2n ‘That {y; documentary about sharks] is more informative than the previous one. (one = documentary about sharks) ‘The fact that one can replace documentary about sharks in this manner contitms that itis a syntactic unit, consistent with the structure in Figure 5.13. In order to accommodate these new three-level structures, it is necessary to replace our original XP rule by the two phrase structure rules in 22). 22) «a, XP ~ (Specifier) x" b. X! +X (Complement) ‘The first of these rules stipulates that XP categories such as NP and VP consist of an ‘optional specifier (a determiner, a qualifier, and so forth) and an X’, The second rule then states that an X° (be it an N', a V;, or whatever) consists of a head, X, and any complements. Taken together, these two rules form the three-level structure illus- trated in Figure $.13, as desired. Because three-level structures take up a considerable amount of space and can be tedious to draw, it is common practice to eliminate the intermediate level of phrase structure unless it is absolutely essential to the point being discussed. Since none of the phenomena that we will be considering in this chapter requires an intermediate level of phrase structure, we will not make further use of it here. In order to do more advanced syntactic analysis, though, you will need to be familiar with the X' level.—_—_— ScusRssEsesees 24 SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 7 COMPLEMENT OPTIONS ‘The simple rules outlined in Sections 1.2 and 1.3 can form a very wide variety of phrases and sentences. Much of this variety stems from the fact that human lan- ‘guage allows many different complement options. Information about the complements permitted by a particular word is included Sn ts entry in a speaker’ lexicon, ot mental dictionary. Thus, the lexicon for English includes an entry for devour that indicates its syntactic category (V), its phonologi cal representation, its meaning, and the fact that it must take an NP complement (as in She devoured the donut). 23) devour: category: V phonological representation: /davawr/ ‘meaning: EAT HUNGRILY, . compleme P The term subcategorization is used to refer to information about a word's com- plement options Subcategorization information interacts with the phrase structure rules to ensure that lexical items appear in the appropriate types of tree structures. Thus, because devour belongs to the subcategory of verbs that require an NP complement, itis per- mitted in the tree structure depicted in Figure 5.14a (where there is an NP comple- the tree structure in Figure 5.14b. a b aN NP Inf VP a aie Det N Past y The boy devoured the sandwich “The boy devoured Figure 5.14 Subcategorization determines the type of syntactic structure in which devour can occur ‘Thanks to subcategorization information, heads occur only in tree structures where they have compatible complement phrases. COMPLEMENT OPTIONS FOR VERBS Table 5.5 illustrates some of the more common complement options for verbs in English. The subsctipted prepositions indicate the subtype of PP complement, where this is relevant. Loc stands for any preposition expressing a location (such as near, on, underv8 CHAPTER FIVE Table $.5 Some examples of verb complements Complement option Sample heads Example ° vanish, arve, die __‘The child vanished _ NP devour, cut, prove The professor proved {yp the theorem ap be, become ‘The man became Lap very angry PP ash, talk, refer The dog dashed (op t0 the door NP NP spare hand, give We handed (yp the man] (up 2 map NP PP, hand, give, send He gave [yp @ diploma} [op tothe student) NP PPh buy, cook, reserve ‘We bought [yp @ haf] lop for Andy). NP Pipe put, place, stand He put [yp the muffler lop on the car. PP PPsout talk, speak Ualked [pp t0 a doctor lee about Sue} INP Poy PPh open, fix ‘We opened [yp the door} lop for Andy) lop witha crowbar According to this table, the verbs in the first line (vanish, arrive, and die) can occur without any complement, those in the second line occur with an NP complement, and so on. A word can belong to more than one subcategory. The verb eat, for example, can occur either with or without an NP complement and therefore belongs to both of the first two subcategories in our table. 24) After getting home, they ate (the sandwiches), However, not all verbs exhibit this flexibility. Although devour is similar in meaning to eat, it requires an explicitly stated complement NP and therefore belongs only to the second subcategory in our table. 25) 4, devour without a complement: “After getting home, they devoured. 'b, devour with a compleme: After getting home, they devoured the sandwiches. As the examples in Table 5.5 also show, some heads can take more than one com- plement. The verb put is a case in point, since it requires both an NP complement and a PP complement.2.2 SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 179 26) put with an NP complement and a PP complement: ‘The librarian put [yp the book] {yp on the shelf} 27) ut without an NP complement: “The librarian put [yp on the shelf 28) put without a PP complement: “The librarian put [yp the book} ‘The VP put the book on the shelf has the structure depicted in Figure 5.15, in which the VP consists of the head put and its two complements—the NP the book and the PP on the shelf. put the book Gn the shelf Figure $.15 A verb with two complements ‘We can therefore revise ur earlier XP rule as follows, using an asterisk after the com- plement to indicate that one or more of these elements is permitted. 29) The XP Rule (revised): XP ~ (Specifier) X (Complement*) This rule also captures the simple but important fact that complements (however many there are) follow the head in English. COMPLEMENT OPTIONS FOR OTHER CATEGORIES Various complement options are also available for Ns, As, and Ps. The following tables provide examples of various possibilities. Table 5.6 Some examples of noun complements Complement option Sample heads Example ° car, boy, electricity the car PP ap memory, failure, death the memory Ipp of@ friend] PP PP presentation, the presentation [yp of a medal] ‘description, donation lop tothe winner PP yin PPanoot argument, discussion, _an argument [p with Stella] conversation Ipp about politics}180 2.3 CHAPTER FIVE Table 5.7 Some examples of adjective complements Complement option Sample heads Example ° tall, green, smart very tall PP yout curious, glad, angry curious [yp about China} PP, apparent, obvious, obvious [op t0 the student] PP fond, ful, tited fond [pp of chocolate] Table 5.8 Some examples of preposition complements Complement option Sample heads Example ° nea, away, down (Ghe got) down — NP in, on, by, near in Uy the house) Pp down, up, out own fn nto the cellar Here again, subcategorization ensures that particular heads can appear in tree struc- tures only if there is an appropriate type of complement, Thus, the adjective curious (Table 5.7) can occur with an ‘about PP’, but the adjective fond cannot. a \P b AP AN, | i i | TI Figure $.16 Subcategorization permits curious, but not fond, to take an ‘about-PP’ as complement COMPLEMENT CLAUSES In addition to the complement options considered to this point, languages allow sentence-like constructions to function as complements. A simple example of this from English is given in 30). 30) {The psychic knows [that/whethenif the contestant will win}. ‘The smaller bracketed phrase in 30) is called a complement clause while the lager phrase in which itis embedded is called the matrix clause Words such as that, if, and whether are known as complementizers (Cs). They take an $ complement, forming the CP (complementizer phrase) structure depicted in Figure 5.17.TUR! ™ SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE x we ve fea | whether if ina Figure 5.17 ‘The structure of CP Aithough Cs are nontexical categories, they fit into structure parallel to those found swith lexical categories. Thus, the head (C) and its complement (5) together make up gn XP category (namely, CP). In Section 3.4, we will see that there is even a type of tlement that can occur in the specifier position under CP. When a CP occurs in a sentence such as 30), in which it serves as complement of the verb know, the entire sentence has the structure in Figure 5.18. We. q Ne 3 na | m\ ; Det N__ Nonpast y a inf { te py news Lea a at the conteant ail win if Figure 5.18 The structure of a senten, Ce With edded CP ith an emb* Of course, not all verbs can take a Cy of some of the verbs that are cotton ® complement: Table 5.9 provides examples ‘There 1s no limit on the number of “und with a complement ofthis Pe tence, as Figure 5.19 helps to show, Ty mbedded clauses that can occur in a sen- each CP complement can contain a vej’,Sttucture #5 made possible by the fact that the fist clause contains the vet thin? {bat itelf permis a complement CP. Hence say, whose complement clause Contains Pose complement Clause contains the verty port, and 80 0D.182 CHAPTER FIVE Table 5.9 Some verbs permitting CP complements Sample heads Complement(s) cp believe, know, They believe [cp that Mary lef. think, remember NP.cP persuade, tell, ‘They told fyp Erie] Lo hat Mary convince, promise ad left Pr,, cP concede, admit They admitted {pp to Ere] [ep that Mary had left. zr | co 6 \ ra 1 f " ax Past i | ae nolan ah ! woman Ab That Sue reported that Figure 5.19 The structure of a sentence with more than one embedded CP Other categories with CP complements (Advanced) As the examples in Figure $.20 show, a CP may serve as a complement to an N, an A, ora Pin addition to a V. Complement of N Complement of A aN f ee, proof that Mary will Teave certain that Mary will eave ‘Complement of P (alk) about whether Mary will leave Figure .20 _N, A, and P with a CP complement3.1 SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 183 Table 5.10 gives examples of some other adjectives, nouns, and prepositions that can take CP complements. Table 5.10 _ Some As, Ns, and Ps permitting CP complements tems Example with P complement Aajectves afraid, certain, aware, confident They ate afraid {gp that Mary left. Nouns claim, belief, fact, knowledge, proof They lack proof [cp that Mary lf. Prepositions over ‘They argued over [cp whether Mary had left. Although structures of this sort are common in English and other languages, we will restrict our attention in the remainder of this chapter to embedded clauses that are complements of Vs. TRANSFORMATIONS Even though the phrase structure rule we have been using interacts with the set of complement options permitted by individual heads to form a very wide range of pat- tems, there are syntactic phenomena that this system cannot describe in an entirely factory way. This section considers two such phenomena and discusses the changes that must be made in order to accommodate them, INVERSION IN YES-NO QUESTIONS To begin, let us consider the English yes-no questions exemplified in 31). (These structures are called yes-no questions because the expected response is usually ‘yes! or ‘no’,) 31) a, Will the girl leave? b. Can the cat climb this tree? ‘These sentences have an auxiliary verb before the subject, in contrast to the more usual position illustrated in 32). 32) 4a, The girl will leave. b, The cat can climb this tree. Our XP rule places the auxiliary in the approptiate position in 32), but not in 31). How does the word order found in 31) come about?184 CHAPTER FIVE The question structures that we are considering are built in two steps. In the first step, the usual XP rule is used to form a structure in which the auxiliary occupies its, normal position between the subject and the VP. ne vp /\ | De Nin Vv the girl will leave Figure $.21 Will occurring in the head position between the subject (its specifier) and the VP (its complement) ‘The second step in the formation of question structures requires a transforma- tion, a special type of rule that can move an element from one position to another. In the case we ate considering, a transformation known as Inversion moves the auxiliary from the Infl position to a position in front of the subject. For now, we can formulate this transformation as follows. 33) Inversion: Move Infl in front of the subject NP, Inversion applies to the structure depicted in Figure $.21, yielding the sentence in 34) with the auxiliary verb in front of the subject NP—the position appropriate for a question structure. (The arrow shows the movement brought about by Inversion. For now, we will not try to draw a tree diagram for sentences that have undergone a transformation.) 3H) Will the gitl _ leave? ‘The transformational analysis has at least two advantages. First, we do not have to say that there are two types of auxiliary verbs in English: those that occur at the beginning of the sentence and those that occur in the usual Infl position between the subject and the VP. Rather, we can say that all auxiliaries occur under Inf, con- sistent with the analysis proposed in Section 1.2. Those sentences that have an aux- iliary verb in front of the subject simply undergo an ‘extra’ process—the Inversion transformation that moves an auxiliary from its original position in order to signal a question. Second, the transformational analysis automatically captures the fact—known to all speakers of English—that the sentence Will the ir! leave is the question structure corresponding to The gir will leave. According to the analysis presented here, both sentences have exactly the same basic structure. They differ only in that Inversion has applied to move the auxiliary in the question structure.3.2 SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 185 DEEP STRUCTURE AND SURFACE STRUCTURE ‘The preceding examples show that at least some sentences must be analyzed with the help of two distinct types of mechanisms—the XP rule, which determines the internal structure of phrasal categories, and transformations, which can modify these tree structures by moving an element from one position to another. If we think about this in terms of a sentence’s architecture, the transformational analysis is, claiming that there are two levels of syntactic structure. The first, called deep struc- ture (or D-structure), is formed by the XP rule in accordance with the head’s sub- categorization properties. As we will see in the chapter on semantics, deep structure plays a special role in the interpretation of sentences. The second level of syntactic structure corresponds to the final syntactic form of the sentence. Called surface structure (or S-structure), it results from applying whatever transformations are appropriate for the sentence in question. The deep structure for the question Will the irl leave? is given in Figure 5.22. Np ve Det N inf y Ltd the girl will leave Figure 5.22 The deep structure for the question Will the sir leave? ‘The surface structure for the question pattern is then formed by applying the Inversion transformation, yielding 35). 35) Will the girl _ leave? ‘The following diagram depicts the organization of the syntactic component of the grammar as it has just been outlined. ‘The XP Rule L DEEP STRUCTURE — < (Subcategorization restricts choice of complements) L ‘Transformations 4 SURFACE STRUCTURE Figure 5.23 The syntactic component of the grammar [As this diagram shows, the grammar makes use of different syntactic mechanisms. Some of these mechanisms are responsible for the architecture of phrases (the XP186 3.3 CHAPTER FIVE rule), others for the determination of a head’s possible complements (subcategoriza- tion), and still others for the movement of categories within syntactic structure (transformations). Wu MoveMENT Consider now the set of question constructions exemplified in 36). These sentences are called wh questions because of the presence of a question word beginning with wh. 36) a, Which car should the man fix? b, What can the child sit on? Do the deep structures associated with 36a) and 36b) resemble the surface form of these sentences or are they quite different? Within the system of syntactic analysis we are using, the sentences in 36) have the deep structures illustrated in Figure $.24. (We treat the wh words who and what as nouns and which as a determiner.) a b vi . | / A on fof S the man should fix which car Figure 5.24 The deep structures for two wh questions According to these deep structures, which car occurs as complement of the verb fix in Figure 5.24a while what appears as complement of the preposition on in Figure 5.24. This captures an important fact about the meanings of these sentences since ‘which car asks about the thing that was fixed in the first case while what asks about the location where the child can sit in the second case. A second argument in favor of this analysis involves subcategorization. Consider in this regard the following sentences. 37) 4a, *The man should fix. b. *The child can sit on.3.4 SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 187 Notice that these sentences are somehow incomplete without an NP after fix and on. However, there is no such problem with the wh questions in 36), which suggests that the wh phrases must be fulfilling the complement function in these sentences. The deep structures in Figure 5.24 express this fact by treating the wh phrase as comple- ‘ment of the verb in the first pattern and complement of the preposition in the second, In order to convert these deep structures into the corresponding surface struc- tures, we need a transformation that will move the wh phrase from its position in deep structure to a position at the beginning of the sentence. The transformation in question, called Wh Movement, can be formulated as follows. 38) Wh Movement: Move the wh phrase to the beginning of the sentence By applying Wh Movement and Inversion to the deep structure in Figure 5.24a, we can form the desired question structure. 39) Which car should the man _ fix _ T_Inversion Wh Movement Application of the same two transformations to the deep structure in Figure $.24b yields the wh question in 40). 40) What can the child __sit on {L— | A MORE DETAILED LOOK AT TRANSFORMATIONS (ADVANCED) Up until now, our discussion of transformations has left unsettled an important issue. Reconsider in this regard the simple yes-no question exemplified in 41). 41) Will the girl __ leave? In what position does the auxiliary verb ‘land’ when it is moved by Inversion in front of the subject? If we assume that sentences such as 47) are simple $s, no posi- tion is available to the left of the subject, which is the specifier (and hence the first element in the S) according to our analysis. Another look at Inversion This problem can be solved if we assume that all $s occur within larger CPs, as depicted in Figure 5.25.188 CHAPTER FIVE oN G 3 NP ve pe N ina v the girl will leave Figure §.25 An Sinside aCP “shell” By adopting this structure, we take the position that all Ss occur within a CP, whether they are embedded or not. It may help to think of the CP category as a ‘shell’ that forms an outer layer of structure around an S. When embedded within a larger sentence, the CP can contain an overt complementizer such as that or whether. Eisewhere, the C position in the CP shell is present but is simply left empty. Itis into this empty position that the auxiliary is moved in yes-no questions. Thus, the Inversion transformation can be reformulated as follows. 2) Inversion (revised): Move Infl to C. According to this proposal, the sentence Wit! the gir leave? is formed by applying the Inversion transformation to the deep structure in Figure 5.25 above to give the sur- face structure in Figure 5.26. Inf Det N ina Vv will the gil ¢ leave Figure 5.26 Movement of an auxiliary from Infl to C A transformation can do no more than change an element's position. It does not change the categories of any words and it cannot eliminate any part of the structural configuration created by the phrase structure rules. Thus, will retains its Infl label even though it is moved into the C position, and the position that it formerly occu- pied remains in the tree structure. Marked by the symbol ¢ (for ‘empty’) and called a trace, the empty position records the fact that the moved element comes from the hhead position within S.SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 189 Why do we move the auxiliary to the C position rather than some other part of sentence structure? The answer lies in the embedded CPs in sentences such as the following. 43) ‘a, The coach wonders [cp if the git! should stay) b. A fan asked [cp whether the team will win}. The underlined elements in these CPs are complementizers and therefore occur in the C position. Assuming that there can be only one element in each position in a tree structure, there should be no room for the moved auxiliary under the C label in the embedded CPs in 43). We therefore predict that Inversion should not be able to apply in these cases. The ungrammaticality of the sentences in 44) shows that this is correct. 44) Inversion in embedded CPs that include complementizers a The coach wonders [cp eshould the gel stay) ill the team __ win]. b. *A fan asked [cp whether: Interestingly, the acceptability of Inversion in embedded CPs improves quite dra- matically when there is no complementizer (and the C position is therefore open to receive the moved auxiliary). 45) Inversion in embedded CPs that do not have complementizers: a, The coach wondered [cp should the girl _ stay]. B. A fan asked [cp will the team _ win} Although many speakers prefer not to apply Inversion in embedded clauses at all (especially in formal speech), even they find the sentences in 45) to be much more natural than those in 44). This is just what we would expect if Inversion must move the auxiliary to an empty C position, as required by our analysis, “To summatize before continuing, we have Introduced two changes into the sys- tem of syntactic analysis used until now. First, we assume that all $s occur inside CPs. Second, we assume that the Inversion transformation moves the auxiliary from its position within § to an empty C position in front of the subject NP. This not only fives the correct word order for question structures, it helps explain why Inverston sounds so unnatural when the C position is already filled by another element, 2s in 44), Do Insertion As we have just seen, Infl category, and the auxiliary verb 1 formation of yes-no questions in English involves moving the that it contains, to the C position. How, then,190 CHAPTER FIVE do we form the questions corresponding to sentences such as those in 46), which contain no auxiliary? 46) 4. The students liked the movie, b. Those birds sing. Since Infl in these sentences contains only an abstract (.¢., invisible) tense marker, there is nothing for the Inversion transformation to move. English circumvents this, problem by adding the special auxiliary verb do. 47) 4. Did the students like the movie? 'b. Do those birds sing? As these examples show, do is inserted into sentences that do not already have an auxiliary verb, thereby making Inversion possible. We can capture this fact by for- ‘mulating an insertion rule, an operation that adds an element to a tree structure. 38) Do Insertion: Insert interrogative do into an empty Infl position. ‘The sentence in 46b) can now be analyzed in the following manner. 4 Deep structure After Do Insertion we " vi KX pet N Nonpast Vv ae Nona those birds sing those birds do sing © After Inversion i p@ ON Intl Poy oy tt Do those birds sing Figure 5.27 aseptence formed with the help of Do InsertionSYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 191 [As these tree structures show, the sentence Do those birds sing? is bullt in three steps. In the initial step, the usual XP rule gives the deep structure in Figure 5.27a, which contains no auxiliary verb in the Infl position. The transformation of Do Insertion then inserts the special interrogative auxiliary do into this position. At this point, Inversion applies, moving interrogative do to the C position and giving the desired surface structure, Another look at Wh Movement Now reconsider the wl question pattern in 49). 49) Which car should the man L_h— _| We have already seen that the transformation of Wh Movement moves the wh phrase to the beginning of the sentence, in front of even the fronted Aux, but we have not attempted to determine its precise place in the tree structure. Given that the moved auxiliary is located in the C position (see above), it seems reasonable to conclude that the fronted wh phrase is in the specifier position of CP (this being the only position to the left of the C). Certainly, we know that this posi- tion is available to receive the moved wh phrase: because there is no class of words that serves as specifier of C, this position will always be empty in deep structure prior to the application of Wh Movement, We therefore reformulate the Wh Movement transformation as follows. 50) Wh Movement (revised) Move a wh phrase to the specifier position under CP, ‘The sentence Which car should the man fix? can now be analyzed in steps, the first of which involves formation of the deep structure depicted in Figure 5.28, Consistent with our earlier assumption, the $ here occurs within a CP shell. We NP NP which car Figure 5.28 Deep steucture for Which car should the man fix?192 CHAPTER FIVE Wh Movement and Inversion then apply to this deep structure, yielding the surface structure in Figure 5.29. Which car should the mane fi Figure §.29 Surface structure for Which car should the man fix? Inf moves to the C Position and the wh phrase moves to the specifier position under CP. Like other transformations, Wh Movement cannot eliminate any part of the struc- tural configuration formed by the phrase structure rules. The position occupied by the wh phrase in deep structure is therefore not lost. Rather, it remains as a trace (an empty category), indicating that the moved element corresponds to the comple- ‘ment of the verb fix. In the examples considered so far, the wh word originates as complement of a verb or preposition. In sentences such as the following, however, the wh word is the subject. 7) Who criticized Maxwell? oe c 3 VP NP NP Inf Ne Past y y N Who e criticized Maxwell tL_I Figure §.30 Movement of a subject wh word. Since there is nothing for the wh word to move over in such cases, there is no visible change in word order.3.5 SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 193 In this sentence, the wh word asks about the person who does the criticizing (the subject), not about the person who was criticized (the direct object). In such patterns the wh word originates in the subject position and subsequently moves to the spec- ifier position within CP even though the actual order of the words in the sentence does not change as a result of this movement. CONSTRAINTS ON TRANSFORMATIONS (ADVANCED) ‘Transformations like Wh Movement and Inversion are examples of movement rules they move elements from one position within the sentence to another. Such rules are commonly referred to as instructions to ‘Move a’, where ‘alpha’ is a cover term for any element that can be shifted from one location to another. ‘Movement is not unconstrained. In fact, much of the research undertaken in the field of syntax in recent years has been devoted to determining constraints on move- ment. It has been shown that only certain categories are targeted by movement rules, that only certain positions can serve as ‘landing sites’ for moved elements, and that there are limits on how far elements can be moved. For example, Inversion can move an auxiliary from the Infl position only to the nearest C position. $2) 4, movement of an auxiliary to the nearest C position: [ep lp Harry should knov [cp that the bottle could explodel}}. (Deep structure] [cp Should {ip Harry _ knoW [ep that the bottle could explode]}}? (Surface structure] b, movement of an auxiliary to a more distant C position: Ip lp Harry should know [ep that the bottle could explode] [Deep structure] “Ley Could {jp Harry should know [cp that the bottle _ explode]]}? (Surface structure} There are also certain contexts in which transformations are unable to operate: As 4 preliminary illustration of this, consider the following two paits of sentences. $3) a. movement of a wh word from inside a complement phrase: Carl should see [a picture of Dracula}. [Deep structure] Who should Carl see {a picture of __]? [Surface structure] b. movement of a wit word from inside a subject phrase: [A picture of Dracula} could frighten John. [Deep structure] *Who could (a picture of __| frighten John? [Surface structure] In the first example, the wh word is extracted from a complement phrase and the result is acceptable, In 53b), in contrast, the wi word is extracted from the subject NP, The ungrammaticality of the resulting sentence suggests that itis not possible to move an element out of a subject phrase. We can express this fact by formulating the following constraint on transformations.194 CHAPTER FIVE Sa) The Subject Constraint: No element may be removed from a subject phrase. A constituent (stich as the subject) that does not permit extraction of a component partis called an island. Subject NPs are not the only type of island found in English. As the following examples show, it is also not possible to remove a wh word from a coordinate struc- ture. (The coordinate structure is placed in brackets; as Section 5.1 will demonstrate, ‘a coordinate structure is one in which a word such as and or or joins together cate- gorles of the same type.) $5) 4a, The author might write [a story or a poem). b, *What might the author write [a story or _I? 56) 4a, Sue will talk (to Tom and to Mary}, b. *Who will Sue talk {to Tom and to_1? ee We can account for these facts by formulating the following constraint. 57) ‘The Coordinate Structure Constraint: No element may be removed from a coordinate structure, ‘There are many different types of islands in language, and a good deal of current research focuses on how they should be described, what properties they have in common, and how they differ from language to language. However, since most of {his work fs too complex to discuss in an introductory textbook, we ean do no more than mention this important phenomenon here. 4 UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR AND PARAMETRIC VARIATION ee Thus far, our discussion has focused on English. There are many other syntactic phe nomena in this language that are worthy of consideration, and we will examine some of them in Section 5, First, though, itis important to extend the scope of our analysis to other languages, The syntactic devices presented in earlier sections of this chapter are not found only in English, Indeed, recent work suggests that all languages share a small set of syntactic categories and that these categories can be combined to form phrases whose internal structure includes heads, complements, and specifiers, Moreover, it appears that transformational operations are subject to highly similar constraints in41 SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 195 all languages. (For example, the prohibition against extraction from coordinate structures discussed in Section 3.5 holds cross-linguistically, so that sentences like 55) and $6) in the previous section are not found in any language.) The system of categories, mechanisms, and constraints shared by all human languages is called Universal Grammar (UG, for short. The fact that certain syntactic properties are universal does not mean that lan- guages must be alike in all respects. Universal Grammar leaves room for variation, allowing individual languages to differ with respect to certain parameters. (You can think of a parameter as the set of options that UG permits for a particular phe- nomenon.) in this section, we will consider a few examples of parametric variation, beginning with the inventory of syntactic categories. Some additional instances of cross-linguistic differences in syntax are considered in Section 2.3 of Chapter 9. VARIATION IN SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES Of the syntactic categories considered in this chapter, only nouns and verbs are found in ail human languages. The adjective category, while very common, is not universal In many languages (such as Hausa, Korean, Telugu, Hua, and Bema), there are no true adjectives and no direct translation for English sentences such as $8). $8) The cat is hungry. Instead, the concept ‘hungry’ Is expressed with the help of a noun in structures such, as 59a) or a verb in structures such as 598). 59) 4. The cat has hunger. b. The cat hungers. Some examples of this phenomenon in Korean follow. (Nom = nominative, the sub- ject marker) 60) use of a noun where English uses an adjective: a. Kuchayki cay issta. that book-Nom interest exist “That book is interesting.” b. Ku papi mas issta that food-Nom taste exist “That food is tasty. 61) use of a verb where English uses an adjective: a. Ku papi maypta. that food-Nom be-spicy " "That food is spicy.’196 4.2 CHAPTER FIVE b.Cipi kita, house-Nom bes “The house is big’ Despite their English translation, the words maypta ‘spicy’ and khuta ‘big’ in the lat- ter two examples are a type of verb in Korean, taking tense markers and other types of inflectional endings used for verbs in that language. Still other languages seem to lack the P category. Where English has a preposition, the Mayan language Jacaltec, for example, either uses no morpheme at all (see 624)) or employs a noun (such as s-wi' ‘head! for ‘on’, as in 62b)). 62) a. Xto naj conob. went he town “He went to town.’ b. Aj naj s-wi" wite, Ishe head hill ‘He is on the hill’ ‘There are even languages that lack both As and Ps. For example, the Nootkan lan- {guages of Vancouver Island and northwest Washington State apparently have only two lexical categories—N and V. The following table summarizes some of the v in human language. jon in lexical categories found Table $.11 Parametric variation in lexical categories Language Categories used Nootkan NV Jacaltec NVA Korean NWP English As you can see, the N and V categories are apparently universal, with languages dif- fering from each other in terms of whether they use A and P. VARIATION IN PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES Even where languages have the same categories, the precise rules for sentence for- mation may differ. But this variation is not random. For instance, there are signifi- cant patterns that recur in language after language in terms of the position of heads within their phrases, To account for these patterns, we can posit a Head Parameter that offers three options—head-initial, head-medial, and head-final. In Japanese, for example, heads consistently occur in the final position within their phrase. Thus, the noun comes at the end of the NP, the verb at the end of the VP, and so on.SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 197 Because Ps occur at the end of the PP, they are called postpositions rather than prepositions. (Nom = nominative, the subject marker; CP is omitted to save space) | “The student retumed from school.’ Figure 5.31 Japanese phrase structure: the head is always final. ‘These word order differences reflect the positioning of heads with respect to the other elements in their phrases, not the presence of an entirely new type of syntac- tic system. We can account for these facts by formulating the following phrase struc- ture rule for Japanese. 63) XP — (Specifier) (Complement*) X [As this rule indicates, the head uniformly follows its specifier and complement(s) in Japanese. In English, on the other hand, the head follows its specifier but precedes any complements (the head-medial option). Matters are not always so simple, however. In Thai, for example, heads precede oth specifiers and complements (the head-initial option) within phrases other than . Thus, Ns appear at the beginning of NPs, Ps at the beginning of PPs, Vs at the beginning of VPs, and so on. (Tones have been omitted here.) ve fof ot | YR6 Ta np oni: khong Phim = 7a:n nangsi: ni sung mak picture this of Phim read book this tall very “this picture of Phim’ “read this book’ “very tall’ Figure §,32 ‘Thai phrase structure: the head is initial in phrases other than 5. Within S, however, the specifier (the subject NP) comes first, just as it does in English.198 4.3 CHAPTER FIVE 5 Phim ca klap-—cark_rongrian Phim — will return from school Figure 5.33 ‘Thai sentence structure: the specifier (subject) precedes the head. ‘Thus, Thai uses one version of the XP rule for § and another version for phrases smaller than S. 64) XP rule used in Thai for Ss: XP — (Specifier) X (Complement ler than S: XP rule used in Thai for phrases sm: XP ~> X (Specifier) (Complement) ‘The important thing to recognize here is that despite the differences just noted, English, Japanese, and That all have phrases and these phrases include a head in addition to optional specifiers and complements. Beneath the obvious word order differences there is a more fundamental similarity in the categories and rule types needed to build syntactic structure, VARIATION IN THE USE OF TRANSFORMATIONS Languages often differ from each other in the kinds of rules they use to form a par- ticular sentence type. To illustrate this point we will consider three phenomena, two involving question patterns and one involving statements. Yes-no questions Jn Tamil (a language of India), yes-no questions are signalled by the presence of the morpheme -a: at the end of the sentence, rather than by an Inversion transforma- tion. (The diacritic indicates a dental point of articulation; [isa retroflex liquid.) 65) a, Muttu palam pari, Muttu fruit picked “Muttu picked the fruit’SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 199 b, Muttu palam paritta:n-a: Muttu fruit picked -Ques “Did Muttu pick the fruit?” ‘The morpheme -a: is treated as a type of complementerizer whose sentence-final position follows from the fact that Tamil is a head-final language. As depicted in Figure 5.34, corresponding to sentence 65b), the V comes at the end of the VP, Infl at the end of S, and C (containing the question morpheme) at the end of CP. ve nfl Ne NPV past, ZN ‘Maggi alam paria:n Mutu fruit picked Ques, Figure §.34 A question structure in Tamil Examples like this show that languages can use very different means to express the same type of meaning. Whereas English can use a movement transformation (aversion) to form yessno questions, the corresponding sentence type in Tamil i formed by the phrase structure component of the grammar Wh questions Just as some languages form yes-no questions without the help of the Inversion trans- formation, so some languages do not make use of Wh Movement in the formation of wh questions. Languages of this type include Japanese, Korean, Tamil, Chinese, and Thai. The following example is from Thai. 66) Khun ?a:n Zaray? you read what “What did you read?" Notice that, unlike English, Thai does not front the question word in wh questions. ‘Verb Raising Consider now the contrast between the following two English sentences. 6) a. Paul always works. b. *Paul works always.200 CHAPTER FIVE ‘This difference is expected since the preverbal qualifier always functions as specifier of the verb and therefore should precede it, as in 67a). Surprisingly, however, even though specifiers generally precede the head in French, qualifiers such as towours ‘always’ must follow the verb in that language. 68) 4a. *Paul toujours travaille. Paul always works b, Paul travaille toujours. (= English 67b) Paul works always :nglish 67a) Why should this be? One possibility that is currently being considered is that French has the Verb Raising transformation outlined in 69). 69) ‘Verb Raising: Move V to Infl Verb Raising is obligatory in French, applying to the deep structure in Figure 5.354 to give the surface structure in $.35b. a Deep structure b Surface structure 7 : ror of oY TS Figure §.35 Verb Raising in French By moving the verb to the Infl position in French, the Verb Raising transformation accounts for its occurrence to the left of its specifier in that language One piece of independent evidence for this proposal comes from the operation of the Inversion transformation in French. As we have already seen (Section 3.4, this transformation moves Infl to the C position. Now, in English only auxiliary verbs occur under Infl, which explains why only they can undergo Inversion. 70) 4. Inversion of an auxiliary verb in English: Will you __ know the answer? ». Inversion of a nonauxiliary verb in Englis! *Know you __ the answer?SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 201 However, in French, nonauxiliary verbs can also occur under Infl, thanks to the oper- ation of the Verb Raising transformation. This predicts that Inversion should be able to apply to these Vs in French as well as to auxiliaries. This is correct. Like English, French can form a question by moving an auxiliary leftward, as 71) illustrates. 7) Inversion of an auxiliary: As-tu __essayé? Have you tried? However, unlike English, French also allows Inversion of nonauxiliary Vs. 72) Inversion of a nonauxiliary verb: Voi le livre? tI seeyou the book ‘Do you see the book?” Figure 5.36 depicts the interaction between Verb Raising and Inversion needed to form this sentence. (We treat the pronoun tu ‘yout as a type of NP.) aN “> NP ve vy oN int VY NP fot to tt Vois tu € lelivre Inversion V-Raising Figure §.36 The interaction of Verb Raising and Inversion in French Although English does not use the Verb Raising transformation in general, there is reason to believe that it applies to the ‘copula’ verb be as a special case. As shown, by the following example, be sounds more natural when it occurs to the left of a qualifier such as always, which occurs in the specifier position within VP. 73) a, be to the left of the specifier: Jane is always on time, ', be to the right of the specifier: ?*Jane always is on time, ‘This suggests that be can be moved leftward to the Infl position by the Verb Raising transformation.202 5.1 CHAPTER FIVE ve ai a i i Jane is always. Ontime Figure §.37 Raising of copula be in English As expected, be is also able to undergo subsequent movement to the C position (Inversion) in yes-no questions, yielding sentences such as 74) 4) Is Jane ¢ always ¢ on time? SOME EXTENSIONS (ADVANCED) Now that we have considered the basic rule systems used by the syntactic compo- nent of the grammar in human language, it's possible to broaden our treatment of English syntax by briefly examining a number of additional structural patterns. We focus in this section on three such patterns—coordinate structures, modifier con- structions, and relative clauses. CoorpinatTion stern is formed by grouping together two or more categories Acommon syntactic if vane help of a conjunction such as and or or. This phenome- of the same type with the hel ‘non is known as coordination. 75) Coordination of NPs: {xp the man} and [xp child) 76) coordination of VPs: [ypgo to the library} and lve 77) coordination of Ps: [pp down the stairs} and [or 78) coordination of APs: lye quite beautiful] and [yr read a book] cout the door] very expensive]SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 203 79) coordination of Ss: {The woman entered the building] and {, the man waited in the car} Coordination exhibits four important properties. First, there is no limit on the number of coordinated categories that can appear prior to the conjunction. Thus, the grammar can form structures such as 80), in which the subject NP contains four smaller NPs prior to the underlined conjunction and one after it 80) [yp A woman, a boy, a cat, a dog, and a hamster] got into the car. Second, a category at any level (a head or an entire XP) can be coordinated. The preceding examples illustrate coordination of XPs; following are examples involving word:-level categories 2) coordination of N: ‘The [y book] and [y, magazine] coordination of P: {pup] and [, down] the stairs coordination of V: (yrepalr] and fy paint] the deck. Third, coordinated categories must be of the same type. Thus, the coordinated categories are both NPs in 75), VPs in 76), and so on, As 82) shows, coordination of different category types generally gives a quite unnatural result, 82) coordination of an NP and a PP: *She read [yp the book} and [pp in the library] coordination of an NP and an Al *He left {yp the house] and [,p very angry] Finally, the category type of the coordinate phrase Is identical to the category type of the elements being conjoined. Hence, if VPs are coordinated, the coordinate struc- ture is a VP; if NPs are coordinated, the coordinate structure is an NP; and so on. a b ye NP w ve ne NP /™ Yp a Det Con Det read abook or — walk the dog this man and that child Figure $.38 Some coordinate structures204 5.2 CHAPTER FIVE How does the grammar form coordinate structures? One possibility is that there is a separate rule for each coordinate structure. For N and NP categories, for exam- ple, the following two rules could be formulated. (The * symbol indicates that one ‘or more categories of that type can occur to the left of the conjunction, as in exam- ple 80); Con = conjunction.) 83) a, NP > NP* Con NP b, N> N*ConN A set of parallel rules for verbal categories could also be formulated. 84) a. VP > VP* Con VP b. V> V*ConV Similar rules can be devised for other categories (S, AP, PP, and so on) as well, but you can probably see that the result will be a rather long list of new rules. Fortunately, we can avoid these complications by using the 'X notation’ to for- mulate a single gencral statement that can take the place of the more specific rules exemplified above, 85) ‘The Coordination Rule: x" — XM Con Xm ‘The symbol X° in this rule stands for ‘a category at any structural level’, indicating that either an X or an XP can be coordinated. As before, the asterisk (*) indicates that one or more categories can occur to the left of the conjunction. Thus, we can form not only structures such as @ woman and a boy, in which just two elements are coordi- nated, but also structures such as a woman, a boy, a cat, a dog, and a hamster, in which a much larger number of items undergoes coordination, By adding just one more rule to the grammar, then, we can form a very broad range of coordinate structures. Mopiriers ‘Thus far, our treatment of phrase structure has ignored modifiers, a class of ele- ‘ments that encode optionally expressible properties of heads. Although all lexical categories can have modifiers, we will focus here on the types of categories that can modify Ns and Vs. Adjective phrases (APs) make up the single most commonly used class of modi- fiers in English. As the following examples show, APs serve as modifiers of Ns. (This is not the only function of APs: they can also be used as complements of verbs such as become and seem, as in He became/seemed (very angry]; see Table S.S.) 86) APs serving as modifiers of N: A very tall man walked into the room. She made exceptional progress.SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 205, ‘The most common modifiers of Vs are adverb phrases (AdvPs) and PPs that describe manner or time. 87) AdvPs serving as modifiers of V: describing manner: Ellen proceeded carefully. Ellen carefully proceeded. describing time: We arrived early. 88) PPs serving as modifiers of V: describing manner: Ellen proceeded with care, describing time: He stayed for three days. As these examples show, English modifiers vary in terms of their position with respect to the head. Thus, APs precede the N while PPs follow the verb. Many AdvPs can occur either before or after the verb that they modify, as the first examples in 87) illustrate, Table 5.12 _ Modifier position in English ‘Modifier Position AP. precedes the head pp follows the head Adve precedes or follows the head A rule for modifiers How do modifiers fit into phrase structure? For the purposes of this introduction to syntax, we will attach modifiers at the XP level of phrase structure, as depicted in Figure 5.39, a b NP ve “1 ca nee Figure 5.39 Phrases containing modifiers In order to account for the placement of modifiers, we must expand our original XP rule so that it allows the various options shown in 89). 89) ‘The Expanded XP Rule: XP — (Spec) (Mod) X (Complement*) (Mod)206 oo CHAPTER FIVE This rule allows a modifier to occur either before the head (as in Figure 5.39a) or after it (see Figure 5.39), Where there is a complement, a modifier that follows the head will normally follow the complement as well. This is illustrated in Figure 5.40. vi NP ‘Ady Y Det Deg Adv Let ot accept the news very calmly Figure 540A phrase in which both the complement and the modifier follow the head. In such cases, the modifier follows the complement. In this example, the XP rule gives a phrase consisting of a head (the verb accept), a complement (the NP the news), and a modifier (the AdvP very calmily)—in that order. RELATIVE CLAUSES (ADVANCED) Consider now the structure exemplified in 90). 90) 4a, Sue may know the man [whom Bob criticized _ J. b. Harry visited the village (which Sue walked to] The bracketed phrases in 90) are relative clauses, CP-sized modifiers that provide information about the preceding N head. In sentence 90a), for example, the rela- tive clause helps identify the man by indicating that he is the person criticized by Bob. Like other modifiers, relative clauses occur within the same phrase as the head that they modify. Thus, the relative clause in 90a) should be part of the NP headed by the N man, This can be verified with the help of the substitution test illustrated in 91), which shows that the sequence the man whom Bob criticized is a syntactic unit since it can be replaced by the pronoun him, 91) Sue may know [yp the man (him = the man whom Bob cr whom Bob criticized __}] and I know him too. ized) Wh movement again Relative clause structures resemble embedded wh questions in two respects. Fist, they begin with a wh word such as who or which, Second, there is an empty position within the sentence from which the wh phrase has apparently been moved. In sen- tences 90a) and 902), for instance, the NP positions following the transitive verb crit icize and the preposition to are unfilled in surface structure. ‘The first step in the formation of the relative clause in 90a) involves the deep structure in Figure 5.41.SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 207 aN Inf v Sue may know the man Bob criticized whom ye /* ( ‘ | Figure 5,41 The deep structure for a relative clause Here, the wh word whom occurs as complement of the verb criticize since it corre- sponds to the person who is criticized. (The relative clause itself is in the usual posi- tion for a posthead modifier; see the preceding section.) ‘The next step involves the application of the W Movement rule (as outlined in Section 3.4) to give the structure in Figure 5.42. ce 7 - iY se aly ede) oom we Oh) ctu Figure $42 The surface structure for a relative clause: the wh phrase has moved to the specifier position within CP.208 6.1 CHAPTER FIVE Notice that no new transformations are required to form relative clause structures such as these. Rather, relative clauses can be formed with the help of the same Wh ‘Movement transformation that is independently required for wh questions. In the preceding example, the wh word originates in the direct object position. But a similar analysis is applicable to other types of relative clause structures, includ- ing the one in 92), in which the wh word originates in the subject position. 92) Sue may know the man who criticized Bob. Here who corresponds to the person who does the criticizing, not the person who gets criticized, as in the previous example. The deep structure for this sentence there- fore corresponds to 93), in which the wh word appears in the subject position. 93) ‘Sue may know the man [cp [; who criticized Bob]} Like other wi words, who subsequently moves to the specifier position within CP even though the actual order of the words in the sentence does not change as a result of this movement, 94) Sue may know the man [op Who (s—_cxtcized Bob}}, OTHER TYPES OF SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS ‘Thus far in this chapter, we have focused our attention on the analysis of sentence structure employed by practitioners of transformational syntax. As mentioned at the ‘outset, however, this is not the only type of syntactic analysis used in contemporary linguistics. In this section, we will briefly consider two other types of syntactic analysis, one focusing on grammatical relations such as subject and direct object, and the other focusing on the way in which syntactic structure is used to commu- nicate information. In order to illustrate how these analyses work, we will make use of a sentence type that has played a very important role in the development of syn- tactic theory over the last several decades. PASSIVE STRUCTURES Consider the pair of sentences in 95), which are virtually identical in meaning despite obvious structural differences. 95) 4, The thieves took the painting. . The painting was taken by the thieves.6.2 SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 209 In order to describe the differences and similarities between these two sentences, it is necessary to distinguish between the agent (the doer of the action designated by the verb) and the theme (the entity directly affected by that action). (These notions are discussed in more detail in Chapter 7.) 96) a, active senten The thieves took the painting. agent theme b, passive sentence: ‘The painting was taken (by the thieves). theme ‘agent ‘The a) sentence is called active because the agent is the subject of the sentence while the b) sentence is called passive in recognition of the fact that the theme is the subject. There are many other such pairs in English. 97) a, The dog chased the truck. D. The truck was chased by the dog, 98) 4. The teacher praised Ginette. ', Ginette was praised by the teacher. 99) 4 The child broke the dishes 5, The dishes were broken by the child. The transformational analysis of passive sentences cannot be adequately dis- ccussed until we have considered some issues in the study of semantics (see Section 2.3 of Chapter 7). However, it is possible to consider two other perspectives on the analysis of this important syntactic pattern. RELATIONAL ANALYSIS ‘The key point of relational analysis is that at least some syntactic phenomena are best described in terms of grammatical relations such as subject and direct object rather than morphological patterns or the order of words. This can be seen by exam- ining how the passive structure is formed in different languages. In terms of morphology and word order, the English passive has two distinctive properties. First, a passive sentence contains some form of the auxiliary be (was, i, and so on) together with a verb in the so-called ‘past participle form’, which is nor- mally marked by the suffix -ed or -en (hence was taken, was chased, and so on). Second, the relative order of the agent and theme in passive sentences is the reverse of that found in active sentences. Thus, whereas the theme precedes the agent in passive sentences, the opposite order is found in active sentences, as sentence 97) above demonstrated.210 CHAPTER FIVE Table $.13 Properties of the English passive Morphology Word onder Some form of Aux be the theme comes before the agent Past participle form of the V ‘The general tendency in human language is to mark passivization both by a change in the relative order of the agent and the theme and by a modification to the form of the verb. The following example from Sre (a Mon-Khmer language spoken in Vietnam) provides another illustration of this. 100) 4, active sentence: Cal pa? mpon. ‘wind open door "The wind opened the door.” . passive senten Mpon go-pa? ma cal. door Pass-open by wind “The door was opened by the wind.” However, it seems that passivization is not always signalled in this way. In Tzotzil (a ‘Mayan language of Mexico), for instance, the relative order of the agent and the theme is the same in active and passive constructions. (cmpl = completed action) 101) 4, active sentence: La sndkan ti vinike ti xpétule. theme agent ‘mpl seat the man the Peter ‘Peter seated the man.’ b. passive sentenc Indkanat ti vinike yuzun ti xpétule. theme agent ‘was-seated the man by the Peter “The man was seated by Peter’ Here the passive is signalled by a change in the form of the verb and the appearance of the preposition yuun ‘by’ before the agent, but there is no change in the relative order of the agent and theme. Mandarin Chinese employs yet another option. 102) 4. active sentence: Zhu laoshi —piyue-le —_wode kaoshi, agent theme Zhu professor mark cmpl_my test “Professor Zhu marked my test.”SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE au D, passive sentence: Wode kaoshi bei Zhu laoshi _piyue-le. theme agent my test by Zhu professor mark cmpl. ‘My test was marked by Professor Zu.’ Here, the passive is marked by a change in word order and by the appearance of the preposition bei ‘by’ before the agent, but the verb has exactly the same form in both patterns. What do the passive sentences of English, Tzotzil, Chinese, and other languages have in common? According to proponents of relational analysis, the crucial facts involve a correspondence between the grammatical relations found in a passive sen- tence and those in its active counterpart. took the painting. subject direct object subject oblique b. passive sentence: The painting was taken (by the thieves). Notice that the direct object in the active 103a) (the painting) is the subject in the passive 103b) while the subject in 103a) (the thieves) occurs inside a PP in 103b). (An ‘NP that occurs with a preposition is said to be oblique.) It Is now possible to think of passive sentences as the product of the following two changes to the corresponding active pattern, Table $.14 Properties of passive structures Adtive pattern Passive patter Subject > oblique irect object > subject Since the criteria used to identify subjects and direct objects differ from language to Tanguage, these changes are compatible with a variety of different structural effects In English, where the direct object appears after the verb and the subject before it, a change in an NP's grammatical relation will also involve a change in its linear position. Thus a theme NP that serves as subject (as in the passive) rather than direct object (as in the active) will appear in front of the verb rather than after it 104) 4. active sentence: ‘The thieves took the painting. theme serving as direct object212 6.3 CHAPTER FIVE b. passive sentence: The painting was taken (by the thieves). theme serving as subject In other languages, changes in grammatical relations may be marked by something other than a change in word order. In the Tzotzil passive, for example, addition of, the preposition yu/un is enough to indicate that the agent is no longer the subject. Despite these differences, however, passive structures in both English and Tzotzil have in common the pair of relational changes stated in Table 5.14. Many other syntactic phenomena can be analyzed in terms of processes that affect subjects and direct objects. As our study of passivization illustrates, these con- cepts are especially useful when comparing syntactic phenomena in languages with different word order and/or morphological patterns. We will see some additional examples of this in Section 2.3 of Chapter 9. FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS Syntactic analysis can also focus on the way in which different syntactic structures are used to communicate information. Such analyses are often called functional since they seek to understand syntactic phenomena in terms of their communica- tive function. The contrast between active and passive sentences is especially instructive in this regard. Although both sentence types have the same basic meaning, they differ from each other in the way in which they present the situa- tion that they describe. Put another way, they differ from each other in the way in which they ‘package’ the information to be communicated. Two differences can be noted here. t, passive sentences tend to de-emphasize the role of the agent in the situa- tion being described, In fact, the vast majority of passive sentences do not men- tion the agent at all. Hence, we can say simply The painting was taken or The dishes were broken, without attributing responsibility for these events to any particular person. Second, passive sentences foreground the theme by making it the subject of the sentence. Asa result, the situation is presented from the perspective of that individ- ual, (As we will see in Chapter 7, the subject usually introduces the entity that the rest of the sentence is about.) Consider in this regard the following passage. 105) ‘MacGregor is a pretty lucky guy. Last night, he went out, got drunk, and started rolling around in the street. Before too long, he was hit by a car. But he wasn’t even injured. In fact, he got up and walked home. The italicized passive sentence in this passage sounds completely natural since it brings to the foreground the pronoun he, which refers to the person (MacGregor) from whose perspective the entire series of events is being described. In contrast, the passive is not nearly so natural in the following context.SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 23 106) MacGregor is a pretty lucky guy. Last night, he went out, got drunk, and started rolling around in the street. Before too long, *a car was hit by him. But his hand wasn’t even injured Here the passive sentence seems quite out of place. This is because it foregrounds the car even though the rest of the passage is clearly about MacGregor. This in turn cre- ates a discontinuity in the flow of information, making the passage quite unnatural. Tn sum, the functional analysis of the passive pattem focuses on the way in which it packages information compared to active sentences. The key claim is that the function of this structure is to de-emphasize the agent (often deleting it entirely) and to draw attention to the theme NP. By analyzing syntactic structures functionally, it is often possible to gain insights into why human language has the particular syn- tactic patterns that it does and how these patterns contribute to the larger task of ‘communication. SUMMING UP In this chapter we have been concerned with some of the fundamental devices involved in the analysis of sentence formation. As we have seen, these devices seem to be of different types: there are phrase structure rules (perhaps reducible to a single XP rule) that determine the architecture of a sentence’s deep structure, sub- categorization information that ensures a match between heads and the com- plements with which they appear in syntactic structure, and transformations that can modify deep structure in various ways to produce a surface structure. ‘Taken together, these devices make up an important part of our overall linguistic competence in that they provide the means to combine words into sentences in end lessly novel ways. Although the precise rules for sentence formation differ from language to lan- guage, Universal Grammar provides all languages with the same general types of devices (syntactic categories, phrase structure rules, and transformations). Many of the differences among languages can be traced to the existence of a small set of parameters, each of which makes available a variety of alternatives. KEY TERMS active (sentence) complementizers adjective conjunctions adverbs constituents agent coordinate structure constraint auxiliary verbs coordinate structures ‘complement coordination complement clause Coordination Rule24 CHAPTER FIVE coordination test D-structure deep structure degree words determiners direct object distribution do insertion functional analysis functional categories ‘grammatical (sentence) head insertion rule version island lexical categories ‘matrix clause modifier movement text nonlexical categories noun oblique NP parameters passive (sentence) phrase structure rules phrases NoTES postpositions preposition relational analysis, relative clauses Stule Sstructure sentence specifiers subcategorization subject subject constraint substitution test surface structure syntactic categories syntax theme trace ‘transformation transformational syntax Universal Grammar verb Verb Raising. Wh Movement wh questions X'mule XP rule ' It is commonly assumed that the Infl node also contains information about subject-verb agreement, which—like tense—is often realized as verbal inflection (see Chapter 4, Section 6.4). Thus, the tree in Figure 5.9 would actually took like this, with the features under the Agr(eement) label matching those on the subject. NP Det oN Past ai scientist oe the aneSYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE ais Mechanisms not considered here ensure that the tense and agreement features under Infl are realized appropriately on the verb. In order to keep this introduc- tion to syntax at a relatively simple level, we will not discuss agreement further in this chapter. 2 In this analysis, only the so-called ‘modal’ auxiliaries mentioned here count as. instances of Infl. Have and be (traditionally called ‘aspectual’ auxiliaries) are treated as special verbs that take a VP as their complement. For example: 8 NP We. we Det Inf roe oP yy The students should be completing the assignment Ne Here, should (an instance of Infl) takes as its complement the VP headed by be, which in turn takes the VP completing the assignment as its complement. Source ‘Transformational syntax is the most popular of the half dozen major syntactic the- ries used in contemporary linguistics. Traditionally, itis the theory taught in intro- ductory linguistics courses, both because it is so widely used and because many of the other approaches that exist today have developed in response to it. The particu- lar system outlined here involves a variety of simplifications to make it appropriate for presentation in an introductory course. ‘The treatment of auxiliary verbs involves a simplified version of the system pro- posed in Barriers by N. Chomsky (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986); see the book by Radford (cited below) for a more detailed introduction. The system of subcatego- rization employed here is loosely based on the one outlined in Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar by G, Gazdar, E. Klein, G. Pullum, and 1. Sag (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), which describes a nontransformational approach to syntax. The theory of transformations presented here is essentially the one employed throughout the 1980s by researchers working within transformational grammar. ‘The status of adjectives in Universal Grammar is discussed by R. M. W. Dixon in Where Have All the Adjectives Gone? (The Hague: Mouton, 1982), The data on Jacaltec (ection 4.1) are from The Jacaltec Language by C. Day (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1973). The claim that the Nootkan languages have only two lexical categories is based on the discussion in “Noun and Verb in Nootkan” by W. Jacobsen, Jr. in The Victoria Conference on Northwestern Languages (Heritage Record No. 4. Vancouver: British Columbia Provincial Museum, 1979), pp. 83-155. A simi- lar system is described for the now extinct Yana by E. Sapir in Language (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1921).216 CHAPTER FIVE ‘The discussion of the relational analysis of passive sentences is intended to be neutral between Lexical Functional Grammar as outlined in The Mental Repre- sentation of Grammatical Relations, edited by Joan Bresnan (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982) and Relational Grammar as described in “Toward a Universal Charac- terization of Passivization” by D. Perlmutter and P. Postal in Studies in Relational Grammar I, edited by D, Perlmutter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983); the Chinese and Tzotzil examples cited in Section 6.2 were taken from this paper. The Sre example is from “Passive in the World’s Languages” by E. Keenan in the first vol- ume of the series edited by T. Shopen and recommended below. The functional analysis of passives draws on the discussion in Functional Syntax by Susumu Kuno (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987) and Functional Syntax and Universal Grammar by W. Foley and R. Van Valin (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986). The questions for this chapter were prepared by Joyce Hildebrand. RECOMMENDED READING Blake, Barry. 1990, Relational Grammar, New York: Routledge. Borsley, Robert. 1991. Syntactic Theory: A Unifiett Approach. London: Edward Arnold. Givén, Talmy. 1984. Syntax: A Functional Typolagical Approach. Vol. 1. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Haegeman, Liliane. 1994. Introduction to Government and Binding Theory. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Radford, Andrew. 1988. Transformational Grammar: A First Course. New York ‘Cambridge University Press. Shopen, Timothy, ed, 1985. Language Typology and Syntactic Description. Vols. 1-3. ‘New York: Cambridge University Press. APPENDIX: HOW TO BUILD TREE STRUCTURES Although it is relatively easy to check a tree structure to see if it complies with the XP rule, itis somewhat harder to build a tree structure from scratch when trying to analyze a new phrase or sentence. In such cases, you will probably find it easiest to proceed in steps, working from the bottom up and from right to left. As an illustra- tion, let us first consider the phrase near the door. ‘The first step involves assigning each word to the appropriate lexical category, as depicted in Figure 5.43. Po oDet oN near the door Figure 5.43 The first step: determining the word-level categoriesSYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 217 Then, working from right to left, the XP levels are added above each N, V, A, or P. ‘Thus, we first add an NP label above the N door. There is clearly no complement here, but there is a specifier (the determiner the), which can be attached at the NP level in accordance with the XP rule. near the door Figure $.44 Building the NP Next, we carry out the same procedure for the P near, adding the required PP level. fT Figure 5.45 Adding the PP level above the P head location entailed by the meaning of near). This element is therefore attached at the PP level in accordance with the XP rule, giving the complete structure depicted in Figure 5.46, PI NP Po oDet near the — door Figure 5.46 The complete PP A sentential example Consider now how we proceed in the case of a complete sentence such as The apple aight hit the man. Assignment of each word to the appropriate lexical category gives the structure depicted in Figure 5.47.218 CHAPTER FIVE Det N Infl V Det N {ti | ‘The apple might hit the man Figure 5.47 The categories for each word in the sentence ‘Working from right to left, itis easy to see that the noun man heads an NP that con- tains a specifier but no complement. Np Det Vv pet ina foteot tot ot ' ‘The apple might hit the man Figure $.48 The structure of the rightmost NP Next, we focus on the V hit, adding the required VP level and attaching the com- plement NP the man, ve Ne aN Det N Inf Vv De WN fot ty The apple might hit the man Figure 5.49 Adding the VP level above the V head As an instance of Infl, the auxiliary might is the head of S, with the VP to the right serving as its complement and the NP to the left functioning as its specifier. This yields the complete sentence illustrated in Figure 5.50. NP we. Det I The apple might hit the man \ Infl Figure 5.50 The complete sentence The entire sentence is then embedded in a CP ‘shell’, giving the tree in Figure 5.51SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 219 ce 1 ee The apple might hit the man Figure §.51 ‘The sentence embedded in a CP shell ‘Transformations Recognizing that a transformation has applied is relatively simple: if a sentence con- tains an auxiliary verb to the left of the subject, then Inversion has applied; if it begins with a wh word, then Wh Movement has applied. In the sentence What should the farmers plant?, both of these transformations have applied. In order to determine the deep structure, we must ‘return’ the auxiliary verb to its position under Infl and we must determine the position from which the wit word has been moved, Since the wh word in the sentence What should the farmers plant? asks about the complement of the verb (the thing that is planted), we place what in the verbal complement position in deep structure. This gives the deep structure depicted in Figure 5.52. a é ie oN | ye yy of inl Y) ‘The farmers should plant what Figure 5.52. ‘The deep structure for the sentence What should the farmers plant? ‘The auxiliary should then moves to the C position (Inversion) and what to the spec- ifier position under CP (Wh Movement), yielding the complete surface structure depicted in Figure 5.53.20 CHAPTER FIVE (ATS a ma of what ae te ae Figure $.53 The surface structure QUESTIONS 1, Place an asterisk next to any of the sentences that are ungrammatical for you. Can you figure out what makes these sentences ungrammatical? a) The instructor told the students to study. ) The instructor suggested the students to study. ©) The customer asked for a cold beer. 4) The customer requested for a cold beer. ©) He gave the Red Cross some blood, ) He donated the Red Cross some blood. 8) The pilot landed the jet. 1) The jet landed, 4) A journalist wrote the article. {) The article wrote. fy Jerome is bored of his job, }) Jerome is tired of his job. 2 Indicate the category of each word in the following sentences. (It may help to refer back to Sections 1 and 2.) a) That glass suddenly broke. ) A jogger ran toward the end of the lane. ©) These dead trees might block the road. 4) The detective hurriedly looked through the records. ©) The peaches appear quite ripe. 4), Jeremy will play the trumpet and the drums in the orchestra. 3. Each of the following phrases consists of a specifier and a head. Draw the appro- priate tree structure for each example. a) the z00 ) this house ) always try 8) very competent ©) so witty hy quite cheap 4) perhaps pass 4) never surrender €) less bleak i) those booksSYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 22 4. The following phrases include a head, a complement, and (in some cases) a specifier. Draw the appropriate tree structure for each example. For now, there is no need to depict the internal structure of complements. (See the tree dia grams in Figure 5.5 in the chapter) a) into the house ) fixed the telephone ©) full of mistakes 4) more towards the window ©) a film about pollution 4) always study this material 8) perhaps earn the money hh) that argument with Owen 4). the success of the program 5. After carefully reading the first two sections of the appendix, draw phrase struc- ture trees for each of the following sentences. a) Those guests should leave. b) Maria never ate a brownie. ©) That shelf will fal ) The glass broke. ©) The student lost the debate f) The manager may offer a raise. g) The judge often sentences shoplifter. h) The teacher often organized a discussion, 1) A psychic will speak to this group. i) Marianne could become quite fond of Larry. 6. Apply the substitution test to determine which of the bracketed sequences in the following sentences form constituents. Rewrite each sentence, replacing the ‘words in brackets with one word. Is the bracketed sequence a constituent? a) [The tragedy] upset the entire family. b) They hid [in the cave]. ©) The [computer was very] expensive. 4) [The town square and the civic building] will be rebuilt. ©) Jane left town]. 7. Apply the movement test to determine which of the bracketed sequences in the following sentences form constituents. Rewrite each sentence so that the brack- eted sequence has been moved. Is the sequence a constituent? a) We ate our lunch [near the river bank}. b) Steve looked {up the number] in the book. ©) The [island has been] flooded. 4) ove [peanut butter and bacon sandwiches), but not salad, ©) The environmental [movement is gaining momentum} 1) The goslings {swam across] the lake. 8, Lexical categories are divided into subcategories on the basis of their comple- ments. For each of the following words, two potential complement options are given, For each of the words:222 CHAPTER FIVE 10. an 1) Determine which one of the two options better matches the subcategoriza- tion requirements of the verb, noun, or adjective. 4) Justify your choice by creating a sentence using that complement option. Vers Options Verb Options a) expire @ or NPNP ©) dean NP PPjo, or NP NP b) destroy NPor® ) mumble NP or NP NP ©) observe NP OF PPig PPstoge 8) throw or NP PPige @) discuss NP or @ hy paint NP PP yp OF NP PProy Nown Options a) debate PPag PP OF PP yey PPapoue b) hammer © OF PP yay PPro G} success PP og PP, OF PPag ) transfer PP itn PPaout OF PPog PPho ©) sickness © or PPyap, PPapoue Adjective Options a) strong For PPro, b) sick NP or PP ay ©) bored PP iy OF Pog 4) knowledgeable PP, Or PP,seye ©) small PP eg oF O .. i). The following sentences all contain embedded clauses that function as com- plements of a verb. Draw a tree structure for each sentence. a) The reporter said that an accident injured a woman, b) The fishermen think that the company polluted the bay. ©) Bill reported that a student asked whether the eclipse would occur. fi) The following sentences all contain embedded clauses that function as com- plements of an adjective, a preposition, or a noun. Draw a tree structure for each sentence. 4) The police appeared happy that the criminal would surrender. ©) That officer was sure that Gerry often speeds down the highway. 4) Ray wondered about whether the exam would cover that section. 8) The jury will never believe the claim that the driver totalled the Porsche. ‘The formation of the following sentences involves the Inversion transforma- tion. Draw tree diagrams to show the deep structure and the surface structure for each sentence. (Hint: see the appendix.) a) Will the boss hire Hilary? b) Can the dog fetch the frisbee? ©) Should the student report the incident? d) Must the musician play that piece of music? €) Should that player leave the team? The following sentences involve the rules of Wh Movement and Inversion. Draw tree diagrams to show the deep structure and the surface structure for each of these sentences.12. 13, 14. 15, SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 23 a) Who should the director call? b) Who should call the director? ©) What can Joanne eat? @) Who will those immigrants live with? ©) What might Terry bake for the party? ) What can Anne bring to the gathering? The following data are from Igbo, a tone language spoker a) Nwaanyi aha b) aida woman that house this “that woman’ ‘this house’ i) What is the relative order of the determiner and noun in Igbo? ii) Draw the phrase structure trees for the two Igbo phrases, The following data are from Malagasy, spoken on the island of Madagascar. a) Entin’ kafe Dan. b) Mankany amin’ ny restauranta Dan, brings coffee Dan goes tothe restaurant Dan "Dan brings coffee.’ "Dan goes to the restaurant.” i) Based on this data, what is the XP rule for Malagasy? ii) Draw the tree structure for each of the Malagasy sentences. Consider the following Selayarese data a) Latallet doe? injo i-Baso. took — money the Baso ‘Baso took the money. b) Nra?bai_sapon injo. collapsed house the “The house collapsed.’ ©) Lataroi doe? injo ri lamari_ injo t-Baso. put — money the in cupboard the Baso “Baso put the money in the cupboard.’ i) Write the XP nule required to form these sentences. ii) How does it differ from the English rule? The following data are from Korean, You may ignore the nominative (subject) and accusative (direct object) markers for the purposes of this question. a) Terry-ka ku yeca-lul coahanta. ‘Terry-Nom that girl-Ac kes “Terry likes that girl.” b) 1 noin —hakkyo ey kassta. this man-Nom school to went ‘This man went to school.’ ©) Sue-kachinkwu eykey chayk-ul ilkessta, Sue-Nom friend to book-Ac read. ‘Sue read the book to a friend.” i) Based on this data, what is the XP rule for Korean? ii) Draw the tree structure for each of the Korean sentences,224 CHAPTER FIVE 16. The following data illustrate the formation of yes-no questions in German. a) Das Kind wird die Schwester lehren. the child will the sister teach “The child will teach the sister” b) Wird das Kind die Schwester lehren? will the child the sister teach ‘Will the child teach the sister?” ©) Der Mann liebt die Frau. “The man loves the woman.’ Liebt der Mann die Frau? loves the man the woman “Does the man love the woman?” @) Assuming that German makes use of the same Inversion transformation as English (Le., ‘Move Infl to the C position’), do the above data tell us whether German employs the Verb Raising transformation? Be sure to Include the tree structures for b) and d) in your answer. 17. The following sentences all contain conjoined categories. Draw a tree structure for each of the sentences. a) The cyclist drank a gallon of water and a liter of Coke. b) The aigplane wil! land at the airport and taxi to the terminal. ©) The dog went down the stairs and out the door. 4) Crusoe landed on an island and ate a goat. ©) Jill should recycle that book and magazine. 1) Hilary thinks that spring will come and that gardens will flourish, £8) Mary is fond of dogs but tired of the fleas. 18. The following sentences contain modifiers of vatious types. For each sentence, first identify the modifiers), then draw the tre structures. a) A large iguana suddenly appeared. b) The principal made an important announcement after the class. ©) An unusual event occurred before the game. @) The very hazardous waste seeped into the ground quickly. ©) Ahuge moon hung in the black sky. ) Timothy drew an enormous map during the afternoon. 19, Each of the following sentences contains a relative clause. Draw the deep struc ture and the surface structure trees for each of these sentences. a) The animals which Sam saw came from Kenya, ) Kyle likes the girl whom June befriended. ©) The woman whom Clyde lives with recycles plastic. @) Helen recited the poem which Wordsworth wrote. €) The canoe which Crusoe built was too heavy. 20. In the following sentences, indicate above each NP whether it is subject, direct object, or oblique, and indicate below each NP whether It is agent or theme. a) Marie purchased a present. ) The class was conducted by an expert. ©) Those books were read by young children.SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 225 d) An expert conducted the class. ©) A present was purchased by Marie. FOR THE STUDENT LINGUIST BACKWARDS Sometimes poetry frustrates me because of all the seemingly nonsensical sen- tence bits I get after my brain automatically inserts a dramatic pause at the end of each line. Because I’m stuck, waiting for my eyes to get to the next line, as 1 try to figure out what's so incredibly significant about a line consisting of “Eskimo” or “his amber eyes” or “detritus” and nothing else. But I really like Lesléa Newman's work because the line divisions actually seem meaningful and because she seems to be having so much fun arranging these sentence bits. Tiff and Tiff and I sit ‘Tompkins Square Park reading poetry under a sky full of clapping pigeons. He calls them flying rats but I think the pink and green circles around their necks like greasy oil puddles are beautiful Tiff says all my poems sound better backwards. Backwards all my poems sound better Tiff says. Beautiful like greasy oil puddles around their necks are the pink and green circles but I think he calls them flying rats. Full of clapping pigeons under a sky reading poetry in Tompkins Square Park Tiff and 1 sit26 CHAPTER FIVE a If you read the poem as if it were prose, I think the first half sounds pretty bland and the second half is just plain loopy: ‘Tiff and I sit in Tompkins Square Park reading poetry under a sky full of clap- ping pigeons, He calls them flying rats but I think the pink and green ci cles around their necks like greasy oil puddles are beautiful. Tiff says all my poems sound better backwards. Backwards all my poems sound better Tif says. Beautiful like greasy oil pud- dles around their necks are the pink and green circles but I think he calls them flying rats. Full of clapping pigeons under a sky reading poetry in ‘Tompkins Square Park Tiff and I sit. In fact, I can't read the second half in prose format without imagining fly- ing poems that have greasy pink and green circles around their necks, a sky that is reading poetry, and two people who've spent the afternoon eating live pigeons. ‘What is it about the change from prose to poetry that makes this string of ‘words interesting and meaningful? (We've got to drudge through some syntax here, but trust me, it's relatively painless and worth it) Assume that the first half of the poem has three untransformed sentences, and the second half has sentences that have undergone transformations. Also notice that one word— are—gets switched into a different line in the second stanza. It shouldn’t be too hard to draw tree structures for the sentences in the first stanza if you do it line- by-line (Le, first draw the tree for “Tif and I sit,” then for “in Tompkins Square Park," etc., and then hook them together). ‘The sentences in the second stanza will be harder to draw trees for, but if you do the first stanza line by line, those parts will be the same, except for ‘where the word are is switched, So all you really need to do is figure out which parts of the trees got moved, and in which order. Actually, that's not even too | hard to do, since only constituents can be moved. J sql’ Probably figured ut by now why this poem i in the syntax chp ter: it does a good job of showing off what constituents are and of showing how the same words, even the same phrases, can have a different meaning ‘when they're moved. However, this poem does more than show off consti- tuents. I also like the rhythm of the poem—the way some of the lines seem to invite me to pause after them, and other lines lead me quickly on to the next line, Take a look at the subcategorizations of the last word of each line. Some of them lead you to expect a complement and others don’t. Try reading the poem again and see if the subcategorization frames make a difference in how ‘much emphasis you put on each line. Finally, look at some other poetry that you love or hate and see what sort of match there is between grouping in lines or stanzas and grouping into con- stituents, Look at some different types of writing and their phrase structures;SYNTAX: THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 227 since punctuation is sadly limited in how well it can show pauses or emphasis or any sort of complex tone, the actual structure of the sentence can be crucial if the sentence is to be read with the right emphasis. And look in particular at some of your own writing and at how transformations of sentences could make a difference in their clarity. All of this theory might actually improve your writing, “Newman, Lesléa (1991) “Tiff and 1” in Sweet Dark Places HerBooks: Santa Cruz, CA,