Syntax

John Goldsmith November 25, 2011 Contents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

8.1 8.2

Syntax

1 2 3

Phrase structure rules (PSR) Ambiguous sentences Constituents More examples Auxiliary verbs 6 7

Alternative expansions of phrasal categories 4

Innitives and embedded clauses 13

11

Chomsky and Syntactic Structure: the basics Chomskys negation transformation 17

15

9
9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9

Constituents -2

17
17

NP Verb PP; NP Verb NP PP He climbed over the wall She put her name on the door They turned out/off the light to turn on something 21 They turned over the blanket. 19

19 20

21 22 23

They rolled it over/they rolled over it. They threw the garbage out the window. Some analyses 25

10
10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5

Some of the basic phenomena of interest to syntactians

Word-order interacts with logical scope of operators Basic word order: SVO and its permutations English: SVO Japanese: SOV 28 29 29 28 28

28

German: mixed SVO, SOV

11 12

Question formation Relative clauses 34

31

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Syntax

It has long been recognized by linguists that the construction of a sentence is more than stringing a set of words together: there is a structure to it, one which is not usually indicated in the written form of the language but which is there for us to analyze.1 Starting in the 1940s, American linguists used ambiguous sentences strings of words with two obviously different analysesto drive this point home. Here are some examples of that; headlines are particularly good sources of funny ambiguous sentences:2 British Left Wafes on Falkland Islands. Miners Refuse to Work after Death. Eye Drops Off Shelf. Local High School Dropouts Cut In Half. Reagan Wins on Budget, But More Lies Ahead. Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim. Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant. Kids Make Nutrious Snacks.

Thanks to Jason Merchant for comments on an earlier version.

1

thanks to the morphology book by Mark Aronoff and Kirsten Fudeman.

2

We will develop a method that will generate two analyses for these sentences, like the two below for the rst example above: S S

NP

VP

NP

VP

adj

noun

verb

PP

noun

verb

NP

PP

British

Left

Wafes prep

NP

British

Left

prep

NP

on

noun

Wafes

on

noun

Falkland Islands

Falkland Islands

Phrase structure rules (PSR)

And this tree represents many millions of sentences, two of which are drawn here:

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NP

VP

det

adj

noun

verb

NP

the

last

delivery brought det

adj

noun

(1)

wonderful package

Big Idea: the motivation for positing the rule NP det adj noun is that this sequence appears several times in the description of the English sentence, and we can make the overall description more compact if we posit this entity, the NP. The more times we are able to simplify our overall description by re-using a phrasal (non-lexical) category like NP, the better we believe our analysis is motivated. So, for example, there is another VP-expansion that is motivated by examples like send a big present to the new teacher. Instead of accounting for this with a new VPexpansion rules (2) VP NP prep det adj noun, we write instead: (3) VP NP PP (4) PP prep NP, where prep is a lexical category of prepositions that includes such words as to, f or and with, and PP marks a prepositional phrase. Thus the tree structure is not: (5) S

NP

VP

det

adj

noun verb

NP

prep

det

adj

noun

det but rather: (6)

adj

noun

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NP

VP

det

adj

noun verb

NP

PP

det

adj

noun prep

NP

det

adj

noun

Alternative expansions of phrasal categories

Perhaps the rst reference to this is in Pittman 1948: if we do not view a sentence as being hierarchically broken into parts, one is almost compelled to regard every morpheme in an utterance as pertinent to the description of every other morpheme. But a good analysis in terms of immediate constituents usually reduces the total possible environmental factors of a given morpheme or sequence of morphemes to one: in other words, it states that the only pertinent environment of a given immediate constituent is its concomitant (the other immediate constituent). (p. 287)

We have just noted that there are two possible expansions for VP: (i) verb + NP and (ii) verb + NP + PP. In general, phrasal categories do have a lot of different, but related, ways of being expanded, and this fact is a central part of the motivation for talking about phrasal categories in the rst place. Let us explore this. Now, there is an implicit independence assumption made when we posit a category such as NP or VP: no matter where that node is generated by phrase-structure rules, any of its expansions may appear in that position. There is a lot that is right about that assumption; but it is by no means the whole story, and to be perfectly blunt about it, it is far from true: it is, indeed, false. False but helpful. For example, let us consider several possible expansions for NP in English: (7) (i) (ii) (iii) (iv) (v) NP NP NP NP NP

noun det noun adj noun det adj noun det noun PP

Bananas are a good source of potassium. My doctor told me to exercise more. Easy melodies make for good songs. The old ways are the best ways. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

By positing these ve different, but related, rules that expand NP, we are saying that any NP, any place in a sentence, can have any of those ve structures. To repeat: that is not entirely true, but it is a good rst step to take in approximating the way words are distributed in English and in other languages. It is often the case that we can simplify our analysis of a phrasal category by saying that a part of its expansion is optional. Instead of saying that we have both rules (i) and (ii) above, we say that det is optional, and the notation for that is a set of parentheses around the optional category: (8) NP (det) noun. Looking at all of the expansions given in (12xx), we would naturally be led to the conclusion that a better form of the NP rule

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would be this: (9) NP (det) (adj) noun (PP) (Discuss the consequences: more expansions predicted now.)

Ambiguous sentences

In analyzing ambiguous sentences, most of the time we assign two different syntactic structures, one with each of the intended interpretations, as we did with sentences (1a) and (1b), and in most of these cases, there are two or more words which are assigned different lexical categories in the two cases. In the sentence we considered, Left was a noun in the intended senseperhaps a noun derived from a verb, but in any event, it referred to a political party, or a coalition of parties. In the unintended sense, Left was the main verb of the sentence, the past tense of the verb leave. Our analysis, then, predicts that if we change the word Left into some other word, some word that is not both a verb and a noun, the sentence should become unambiguous and not funny at all. That is true: there is no humor in British Right Wafes on Falkland Islands, or in British Leave Wafes on Falkland Islands. The humor of the ambiguity arises out of the totally unexpected collision between two different syntactic structures, themselves the result of simple phrase-structure rules motivated by an enormous number of simple rules. By the way: not all ambiguities are like that; one of the most over-used ambiguous sentences, I saw the man with the telescope, is ambiguous in a strictly structural way. Is it the man with the telescope that I claim to have seen, or am I just talking about some man and the fact that I looked at him through the telescope? These two senses correspond to two different syntactic structures: S

We do not always know when an ambiguous sentence is syntactically ambiguous. Is they are married ambiguous? If not, where does the humor come from in Theyre married, but not to each other.? How about Kids make nutricious snacks? That is ambiguous, but it may not be syntactically ambiguous. And what about My father always beat me. . . at chess, at least.?

NP

VP

pronoun verb

NP

saw

det

PP

the

noun prep

NP

man

with

det

noun

(10)(a)

the

telescope

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NP

VP

pronoun verb

NP

PP

saw

det

prep

NP

the

noun

with

det

noun

(b)

man

the

telescope

Lets consider another ambiguous sentence: S

NP

VP

noun

verb

NP

squad helps

noun

noun

noun

noun

noun victim

dog S

bite

NP

VP

noun

verb

squad helps

NP

VP

noun verb

NP

dog

bite

noun

victim The second structure arises unambiguously if we put in some

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words that allow no other analysis for example, if the sentence had been squad helps dog nd master.

Constituents

Any string of words that is generated by a single phrasal node in a given sentence is called a constituent. To analyze a sentence is to assign a tree structure to it, and by doing so, to analyze a set of constituents in the sentence. A good part of syntactic analysis is nding the right constituency structure for a sentence (we sometimes say, the right tree structure). The most direct way to apply tests for constituency is to use the independence assumption that I mentioned earlier: if a string of words is a constituent an NP, lets say then it ought to be possible to use that string of words in other sentences that seems structurally rather different. If a string of words if a direct object NP (the price of tea in Japan in the sentence we compute the price of tea in Japan), then it ought to be possible to put the same string of words in places where we are already pretty sure that NPs can appear, such as in subject position of a simple sentence, or as the object of a preposition: (11) The price of tea in Japan drives economic conditions there. (12) I dont know much about the price of tea in Japan. or other constuctions, such as the pseudo-cleft: (13) What they study is the price of tea in Japan. or the cleft (formed with it): (14) It was the price of tea in Japan that was the most important factor, not the temperature in Seattle. What does this test suggest about the constituency of The congregation sent the family owers? Is the family owers a constituent? The fact that the following strings of words are not good sentences suggests strongly that it is not a constituent. (15)(a) *What they sent was the family owers. (b) *It was the family owers that they sent.

We will look shortly at the difference between John turned over the book and John jumped over the puddle. Can you tell if over the book or over the puddle is a constituent?

More examples

A simple example illustrating constituent structure ambiguity: Fireproof clothing factory burns to ground.

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NP

VP

AP

noun

burns to ground

adj

noun

noun

(16) (i) reproof clothing factory S

NP

VP

noun

burns to ground

noun

noun

adj

noun

factory

(ii) reproof clothing

This headline is funny because there are two interpretations of reproof clothing factory, and the more natural one (more natural if we only consider that phrase) is contradicted by the larger context, the sentence. The more natural interpretation is that it concerns a clothing factory that is reproof: reproof then modies (adds additional information to) clothing factory; clothing factory is a constituent in which clothing modies factory, and together, clothing factory refers to the same kind of thing that the word factory does. In short, when we analyze a noun phrase (roughly, a referring expression), one of the words within it expresses the type of thing that is referred to (here, factory). Typically, if any or all of the modifying material is be removed, the larger sense is vaguer but still roughly the same: factory burns to ground. Factory is said to be the head of the phrase Fireproof clothing factory: it is the element whose removal would most change the meaning of the phrase. The nonhead element of a constituent is often called the modier, or satellite. We know which structure is which in reproof clothing factory because a non-head (or satellite) of a constituent C is not semantically modied by an element outside of that constituent. Structure (i) can be used to indicate a reproof factory because factory is the head; that structure cannot be used to express a situation in which reproof semantically modies clothing.

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English is relatively unusual in how poorly it marks nouns and verbs as distinct from a morphological point of view, and this can lead to multiple syntactic analyses. Time ies is famously ambiguous. S

NP

VP

noun

verb

NP

NP

VP

teacher strikes

AP

noun

noun

verb

NP

adj

kids

(17) teacher strikes

idle

kids

idle

The interest of the headline: GRANDMOTHER OF EIGHT MAKES HOLE IN ONE relies on a structural difference: is [hole in one] a single item, or does it form two sister constituents in the verb phrase, as in she put it in the bag (or ...puts beans in nose) ? S

NP

VP

grandmother of eight

verb

NP

makes

noun

(18) S

hole in one

NP

VP

grandmother of eight

verb

NP

PP

puts

noun

prep

NP

beans

in

noun

nose

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10

NP

Aux

VP

noun

may verb

NP

(a) hitchhikers

be

adj

noun

(19) S

escaping convicts

NP

Aux

VP

noun

may

be

verb

NP

(b) hitchhikers

escaping

noun

convicts Another nice way to sensitize oneself to syntactic structure is to look at garden-path sentences, like 1. Fat people eat accumulates. 2. The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississippi. 3. The girl told the story cried. 4. The horse raced past the barn fell. 5. I know the words to that song about the queen dont rhyme. S

NP

VP

NP

noun

NP

VP

accumulates

fat

noun

verb

(20)

people

eat

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11

Innitives and embedded clauses

We generally use the term clause a bit more generally than the term sentence. We often nd that what could be a free-standing sentence is part ofor, as we say, is embedded in a larger clause. Consider: (21) S

NP

VP

the point of the story verb

was

that no good deed goes unpunished

No good deed goes unpunished can appear as a free standing sentence, and it appears in (x) as an embedded clause. Sometimes an embedded clause has largely the structure of a free-standing clause, though some parts of it are affected by the sentence in which it is embedded, as in this example: (22) S

NP

VP

the commission

adverb

verb

strenuously denied that any wrongdoing had been found Any wrongdoing had been found cannot form a free-standing sentence: the possibility of the any in the embedded clause is the result of the negative sense that is implicit in the verb denied. Thus embedded clauses may look different from main clauses. Sometimes the verb takes on a special form, as in the next sentence, or in a French sentence where the embedded clause has a verb in the subjunctive. S

NP

VP

it

verb

AP

is

adj

that they be brought up on charges

(23)

crucial

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12

NP

VP

il

verb

AP

est

adj

quils soient mis en examen

(24)

essentiel

In many languages, the form of the embedded clause is considerably reduced when the subject of the embedded clause refers to the same person or think as the subject of the higher clausewe say, when the subject of the upper and the lower clauses co-refer, as in: S

NP

VP

she adverb

verb

VP

never

wanted to

verb

NP

(25)

become a vampire

The embedded clause in that sentence could have a different subject, though it is a point of some controversy as to whether that sort of sentence She never wanted her baby to become a vampire, for example has the structure in (a) or in (b): S

NP

VP

she adverb

verb

never

wanted

NP

VP

her baby to

verb

NP

(26)

become a vampire

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13

NP

VP

she adverb

verb

NP

VP

never

wanted her baby to

verb

NP

(27)

become a vampire

So: although there is controversy regarding the precise details of the analysis, lets agree to represent verb phrases with an innitive as VP (verb phrases) immediately dominated by S: S

NP

VP

he

verb

tried

VP

to

verb

NP

(28)

become a reman

Auxiliary verbs

One of the most impressive and inuential of the early generative analyses of English was Chomskys analysis of the English auxiliary. Lets consider a range of possible auxiliary verb combinations. There is one thing that separates this data from the kind of data we have considered up to now. In the earlier examples, the choice of words that we made was essentially irrelevant; we included words by selecting nouns where the phrase structure rules generated noun, and likewise for the other categories. But here each word or morpheme acts differently and uniquely. Why would we expectd phrase-structure rules to work here? Either we will have actual words in our phrase-structure rules, or we will have to create categories that contain only a single item. The two pretty much boil down to the same thing.

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14

Sentences with -ed: John

You John John John John John John John John may John John John John John John John do John *John *John *John *John *John *John *John you John John John John John John John *You You *John John John John John John John John

may may

have has is be be-en walk-ed.

may may have

have has is

walk. walk -s. walk-ed. walk. walk-ed. walk-ed. walk-ing. walk-ing. walk-ing. walk-ed. walk-ed.

Sentences with -ing: John may may

have

walk-ing. be be-en is

Sentences with 3rd p. sg -s:

has walk. does does does may does does does may does may do may

walk-ing. walk-ing. walk -s. walk-ing. walk-ed. walk. walk-s. walk-ed. walk-ed. walk-ing. walk-ing. walk. walk-ing. walk? walk? walk? walk-ed? walk-ed? walk-ing? walk-ing? walk-ing? walk. walk. walk -s. walk. walk. walk-ed. walk-ed. walk-ing. walk-ing. walk-ing.

Sentences with -do: You

have has/have is/be be have be-en

Do Does May May Has Is May May

have

have not do not does may not may not not not have has not

be be-en

may not may not

have

is not be be-en

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15

You John John John John John John John You John John John John John John John

may may

have has is be be-en

may may

have

were was be be-en be-en be-ing be-ing be-ing were not was not be be-en amaze-d. be-ing be-ing be-ing

amaze-d. amaze-d. amaze-d. amaze-d. amaze-d. amaze-d. amaze-d. amaze-d. amaze-d. amaze-d. amaze-d. amaze-d. amaze-d. amaze-d. amaze-d.

may not may not

have has not

may not may not

have

be-en is not be be-en

Table 1: English auxiliary

Lets try to extract some basic generalizations concerning this data: No sentence with two words from the group called modal verbs: may, can, will, would, may, should, shall is grammatical; but one word from this group can co-occur with the other auxiliary verbs, such as have, be.3 When auxiliaries appear, their left to right order is summarized by a table: Modal verb have (perfective) be (progressive) be (passive)
Well. Most of us know that this isnt really true. There are a lot of speakers of American English in the South who say I might could give you a hand: might could, and for many, might could and even may can. This analysis is very hard to modify to include those.
3

verb

The auxiliary verb do does not appear when there is any other auxiliary present: any of the auxiliaries we are exploring. It only appears when there are no others. However, the auxiliary do can appear along with the possessive have and the real (not dummy) verb do: We do not have enough money to do that. Anyway, we do not do things like that. If the negative not is present, it appears after the left-most (i.e., the rst) of all of these auxiliaries. And if we count the auxiliary do as belonging to this group (and we do!), then when there is a not, there must be an auxiliary.

8.1

Chomsky and Syntactic Structure: the basics

Chomskys account in Syntactic Structures (1957) was along the lines of what I have put in Figures 1 and 2 (I have made some changes that I think no one would disagree with, with hindsight). Chomskys example was more like the Figure 4. He alluded to morphophonemic rules that would include will + S will, will + past would.

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16

S NP Aux VP Aux Tense( Modal )(have + en)(be + ing)(be + en) verb hit, take, walk, read, etc. modal will, can, may, shall, must Tense S / NPsing Tense / NPe Tense past Afx hopping: past S Modal verb : 1 2 2 1# -en have be -ing Chomsky suggests an abbreviation of A f for the disjunction past S . -en -ing Replace + by # except in the context vAf. Insert # initially and nally.

Figure 1: English auxiliary (after Chomsky 1957)

Figure 2: Tree generated by rules in Figure 1

NP

Aux

VP

John

Tense

modal

have

-en

be

-ing

NP

may

drink

noun

beer
Figure 3: After afx-hopping

NP

Aux

VP

John

modal

have

be+en

verb

NP

may+S

drink+ing

noun

beer

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17

the the the the the the the the

+ man + man + man + man + man + man # man man

+ Aux + Aux + Aux + Tense +S

+ have + en + be+ing + have + en + be+ing + have + S # +be + en # # have + S # +be + en # has been

+ VP + verb + verb + read + read + read + ing # # read + ing # reading

+ NP + the + the + the + the # the the

+ book + book + book + book # book book.

8.2

Chomskys negation transformation

NP - Tense - X NP - Tense + not + X they - + can + come they - + have -en + come they - + be-ing + come John - S - come they - + can + not + come they - + have + not -en + come they + be + not -ing + come John - S + not - come

Afx hopping applies a f ter the negation-insertion transformation, and cannot apply, because the not, like a grain of sand in the gears, prevents the rule from nding the context it is looking for. Chomsky adds a later rule (known to all later on as do-Support), which applies after all of the rules mentioned above: (29) Do-support: # Af #do + Af Shortly after this (p. 65), Chomsky proposes a transformational rule that introduces a morpheme called A whose realization is as emphasis on the word that precedes it. In this case, the appearance of a form of do when there is emphasis (John does arrive) is accounted for by the linear placement of A that is (i) in the same spot as the not, and (ii) equally able to block the hopping of the S-afx; which failure to hopping leads to an S which triggers Do-support. Imagine a derivation containing the step: John # S+A # arrive, and you have it. See Figure 4 for a slightly different constituency structure.

9
9.1

Constituents -2
NP Verb PP; NP Verb NP PP
Peacock was born to hustle, bustle, jostle, and command, but he had as well a clear-eyed sense of who in the English mathematical establishment could be counted on, who counted in, and who counted out. David Berlinsky, One, Two Three. p. 93.

Our rst look at some of the details of English syntax involved the auxiliary verbs. A very different kind of syntactic distribution is found when we look at what f ollows the verb in English. There are, to be sure, many intransitive verbs in English, as in (xx), where nothing follows the verb. There are also many in which a noun phrase follows the verb we call these transitive sentences, as in (xx) as well as many which are followed simply by a prepositional phrase (xx).

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18

Figure 4: Its a lot cleaner to the eye if we add some constituency

NP

Aux

John

Tense

modal

perf

prog

VP

may

have

-en

be

-ing

verb

NP

drink

noun

beer Aux Tense( Modal )(have + en)(be + ing)(be + en) per f have + en prog be + ing passive be + en

(30) 1.(a) The baby is sleeping. (b) Whenever it rains, it pours. (c) Man plans, and God laughs. 2.(a) I love salmon, but Jessie cant eat it. (b) The contractor has nished the kitchen. (c) The House nally passed the presidents legislation. 3.(a) All rivers run to the sea. (b) She spoke to every expert she could nd. (c) Dr. King dreamt of a world in which all men are brothers. (d) Do not speak to the driver while the vehicle is in motion. And nally, there are many sentences in which the verb is followed by a noun phrase and a prepositional phrase (see (32)). (31) She put her name on the door. (32) I translated the text into French. In class we discussed some of the basic heuristics for getting information about constituency, such as: 1. We can look at constructions which select a single constituent in a given position (subject of a sentence; focus of (it)-cleft, focus of pseudo-cleft)), and see what string of words can show up in those positions; 2. if we can replace a string of words by it and retain the syntactic construction, this suggests the string is an NP;

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19

3. if we can coordinate two strings with and, this suggests that each is a constituent, and that together they form a constituent. The syntactic patterns NP Verb PP and NP Verb NP PP are very common patterns in English and other languages. Lets take a look at several patterns of this general sort:

9.2

He climbed over the wall

(a) What did he climb over? (b) Over what did he climb? (maybe) (33) (c) Over the wall climbed the S monkeys. (d) Over the wall the monkeys climbed. (maybe) NP VP (e) The wall was climbed over. (maybe) He verb PP (f) This wall has never been climbed over. (g) He climbed over it. climbed prep NP (h) He climbed over the wall and the hedges. over the wall (i) He climbed over the wall and through the thick brush on the ground. The (b) exampleif it is grammaticalis evidence that over and its following object VP forms a constituent; in the metaphor of syntactic movement, a preposition would only move with its object. (c) (which is, I think, unquestionably grammatical) makes the same point, but in the context of a different construction. (e) is a passive, in which the object of over has been passivized; this suggests a tight syntactic relationship between over and the preceding verb climb, and if (e) is not great, (f) is, and it makes the same point regarding grammar. 4

9.3
(34)

She put her name on the door

S

The point is often made in relation to the contrast between This bed has been slept in and This bed has been slept under, where the rst is much better than the second.
4

NP

VP

She verb

NP

PP

put

her name prep

NP

(a) What did she put on the door? (b) Where did she put her name? (c) What did she put her name on? (d) On the door, she put her name. (e) On the door, she put her name; on her desk, she put her new title.

on

the door

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20

Movement:

PP

prep

NP

NP

VP

on

the door she verb

NP

put Expansion:

her name S

NP VP

VP

NP

She verb PP

NP

PP

She verb

NP

put

it

prep

NP

put

her name there S

on

the door

Conjunction:

NP

VP

She verb

NP

PP

put

her name

PP

PP

prep

NP

prep

NP

on

the door and

over

the windows

9.4

They turned out/off the light

NP

VP

Now, lets consider the sentence They turned out the light, which is also of the form NP V P NP. Does this have the same structure? that is, is it: The rst sign that this is not the same structure is that this structure is unavailable when we have it rather than the light (remember, this was ne with he climbed over it): (35) 1. *They turned out/off it.

They

verb

PP

turned

prep

NP

out Figure 5: Wrong analysis!

the light

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21

2. They turned it out/off. It is odd that the light cannot be simply replaced by it in They turned out the light, especially since apparently similar sentences are ne. Is this phenomenon general, fairly general, or just marginal? How can we check? Are there words other than out that participate in this oddity? This is known as a verb particle construction, or as a phrasal verb.

9.5

to turn on something

(36) The lion turned on his trainer, and it was several minutes before he could be removed from the cage. (37) (Not: ...turned his trainer on...) (38) The detective turn on her radio, and it was several minutes before she could tear herself away from what she was hearing. (39) (just as ne...The detective turned her radio on... ) Questions: Do we wish to assign different structures to these sentences, and if so, how? What do you notice about the stress or prominence of the word on in the two sentences?

9.6

They turned over the blanket.

Is this right? S

NP

VP

They

verb

PP

turned prep

NP

(40) We can still say:

over

the blanket

(41) What did they turn over? but not: (42) *Over what did they turn? or (43) *It was over the blanket that they turned.

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22

So there is no evidence of pied-piping, of the preposition moving along with the following NP. So Over the blanket does not behave like a constituent. And we can say: (44) They turned the blanket over. What is the right structure for that sentence? S

NP

VP

NP

VP

They

verb

PP

They

verb

NP

PP

turned

NP

prep

turned the blanket prep

NP

the blanket

over

over

What do we nd if the object is a pronoun?

5 These facts might remind us of the similar ungrammaticality of *They gave Mary it, alongside of the ne They gave Mary some.
5

(45) They turned it/him over. *They turned over it.

9.7

They rolled it over/they rolled over it.

(46)(a) They jumped over the box. S

NP

VP

They

verb

PP

jumped prep

NP

over

the box

(b) They jumped over the box, not the blanket.

syntax

23

NP

VP

They

verb

PP

jumped prep

NP

over

NP

NP

the box,

not the blanket

(c) They jumped over the box, not over the blanket. S

NP

VP

They

verb

PP

jumped

PP

PP

prep

NP

prep

NP

over

the box, not

over

the blanket

(d) They turned over the box. (e) They turned over the box, not the blanket. (f) **They turned over the box, not over the blanket.

9.8

They threw the garbage out the window.

S

NP

VP

They

verb

NP

PP

threw the garbage prep

NP

out

the window

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24

NP

VP

They

PP

PP

talked prep

NP

prep

NP

with S

the doctor about the prognosis

NP

VP

He

PP

looks prep

NP

like

his father

(47)(a) They jumped over the box. (b) They turned over the box. (c) They jumped over the box, not over the the shoes. (d) **They turned over the box, not over the shoes. (e) They turned over the box, not the shoes.

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25

put put put

the book it it

on the table under the tree over the sink

put the coat on. put the coat on the monkey put it on. put on put on it. put shorts. put *on the monkey put the decision off. put it off. put off put off take the coat off. take the coat off the monkey. take it off. take it off the monkey. take off take *off the monkey drink the water. drink the water (all) up drink up drink *all up drink it up. *drink up drink the water out of the bottle ?* drink the water up Lets nd some examples with o f f , up, out. with a f ter? to? f rom?

the coat.

the coat.

the decision. *it.

the coat. the coat.

the water the water it. out of the bottle. Can we nd any

9.9

Some analyses

Thanks to Bas Aarts, Verb-preposition constructions and small clauses in English Journal of Linguistics 25(2): 277-290, 1989. (48) A-verbs I switched the light off. (The lights are now off.) (49) B-verbs I looked the information up. (The information is not now up, whatever that might mean.) (50) A-verbs: 1. He propped the hood of the car up; with the hood up he then drove off. 2. Sally pushed the lever on the amplier down; with the lever down her CD-player was pre-programmed. 3. Jim turned the radio off; with the radio off he could nally relax.

syntax

26

(51) B-verbs: 1. *He brought the kids up by himself; with the kids up he could go on holiday. 2. *My teacher always puts his pupils down; with his pupils down he feels superior. 3. *Jim sold the car off to a friend (now a former friend); with the car off he could buy the boat he had dreamed of. (52) In comparatives, A-verbs are pretty good: (53) A-verbs: 1. The oven off is less dangerous than the oven on. 2. The oven off is as dangerous as the oven on. 3. The ovens off is at least as dangerous as the ovens on. (What does this show?) (54) B-verbs: 1. *He brought his kids up more than he brought them down. 2. *The kids up is very desirable. 3. *His pupils down is terrible (a terrible sight to behold). (55) Conjunction: what does this show? 1. He switched the lights on and the TV off. 2. Compare: I gave Vincent a book and Caroline a newspaper. (56) Stowell 1981: S

NP

VP

off

switched-the light

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27

becomes Radford 1988: S

NP

VP

NP (57) I V

VP

NP

PP

V?

NP

switched the light

off

the light

switched (58) 1. I cut the branch right off. 2. *I cut right off the branch. 3. I switched the radio completely off. 4. *I switched completely off the radio.

off

What do these show? That o f f is a phrase, not a single word in the case where it is to the right of the direct object NP?

(59) Kayne 1984: from which is derived: S S NP NP VP I I V SmallClause V switched NP Prt switched the light off off (60) Aartss analysis of A-verbs, B-verbs: Prt the light SmallClause NP V VP

syntax

28

VP A-verbs VP

VP

NPi

V SmallClause

V SmallClause

NP

VP ei

NP

VP VP

B-verbs VP VP V NP PP V NP PP NPi

10
10.1

Some of the basic phenomena of interest to syntactians

Word-order interacts with logical scope of operators
Liberman 1975

For example, in English: i. With no job, John would be happy. If he had no job (= if he were unemployed), John would be happy. ii. With no job would John be happy. There is no job such that it would make John happy (if it were given to him).

10.2

Basic word order: SVO and its permutations

Joseph Greenberg in 1966 drew attention to the fact that the order of constituents in sentences was not uniformly distributed among all the logical possibilities. Focusing on subject (S), object (O), and verb (V), studies (such as Ruhlen 1975) have found distributions along these lines: SOV SVO VSO VOS OVS OSV 52% 36% 10% 2% 0% 0.2% VOS: Malagasy, Seediq (Austronesian) OSV: Kabardian (Northwest Caucasian OVS: Apalai, Hixkaryana (Carib)

www.hku.hk/linguist Pullum 1981

10.3

English: SVO
S=sentence, NP = Noun Phrase, VP = Verb Phrase

Subject-Verb-Object The police arrested E. Howard Hunt.

syntax

29

NP

VP

She verb

NP

NP

VP

saw

noun The police

verb

NP

them

arrested E Howard Hunt

10.4 Japanese: SOV

Japanese is a strictly verb-nal language, with massive pro-drop and topic-marking (-wa). This combination is of great interest to many linguists. Tanaka-san wa ringo -o tabemasu Mr. Tanaka TOPIC apple DO eat Mr. Tanaka eats the apple. The preceding sentence would be a reasonable answer to the question: What does Tanaka-san eat? To answer, Who eats the apple?, you might say: ringo -wa Tanaka-san ga tabemasu apple TOPIC Mr. Tanaka SUBJ eat Mr. Tanaka eats the apple. Consider:6 Tanaka-san ga kono ie ni sunde imasu. Mr. Tanaka SUBJ this house in living is. Mr. Tanaka is staying in this house. Tanaka-san wa sensei desu. Tanaka TOPIC teacher is. Tanaka is a teacher. sunde sum+te.
6

from nihongo.anthonet.com

10.5

German: mixed SVO, SOV

First approximation: In main clauses, the nite verb appears in second position, and a major syntactic constituent precedes it. A separable prex does not appear in second position, even it is lexically associated with the verb that is in second position. When a series of verbs occurs in a single clause, the logically highest one is that which appears in second position. None of this occurs in embedded clauses or rather, in sentences with overt complementizers.

syntax

30

NP

VP

NP

VP

Er

NP Der junge Mann

NP

heisst

Rolf

heisst

Rolf

NP

VP

Der junge Mann, der nicht mal weiss, wo er sein Auto geparkt hat

NP

heisst [ex from www.dartmouth.edu/ german] Roughly: The old man comes today home. S

Rolf

NP

VP

Der alte Mann

heute nach Hause

NP

kommt

VP

kommt S

Der alte Mann

heute nach Hause

NP

ist

VP

Der alte Mann

heute nach Hause ge - kommen

Der alte Mann ist gestern angekommen. (61) Der alte Mann will heute nach Hause kommen. (62) Heute kommt der alte Mann nach Hause. (63) Ich weiss nicht, wann er heute ankommt. (64) There are a large number of phenomena that have been analyzed in terms of syntactic movement. Movement is, of course, a metaphor, but we use it to suggest a phenomenon whereby we have a good linguistic reason to analyze a word (or a constituent) as appearing in a position different from where it is on the surface. Connection between constituent structure and movement: When we discover two closely related sentence patterns, we usually nd that the difference can be expressed as a difference in the location of a small number (ideally, just one) constituent. For example:

ex from german.about.com

syntax

31

PP

In France

NP

VP

NP

VP

PP

very few people drink

NP

Very few people drink

NP

in France

drip coffee S

drip coffee

PP

with no job

NP

Aux

VP

PP

Aux

NP

VP

John

would be happy with no job would

John be happy

With no job would John be happy. The clearest examples of this are the cases of question formation and, in many languages, relative clause formation.

11

Question formation

In English, a question word (or wh-word, or whord) appears sentenceinitially in direction questions, even if it corresponds (in terms of the predicate of which it is an argument) to a NP in a different position. We will call the position in which wh-words are found the complementizer (or Comp) of a sentence. COMP is read "COMP-bar", and is a shorthand for speaking of a larger consitutent for which COMP is an obligatory member (even if it does not seem that the COMP really is obligatory here!. COMP

COMP

COMP

COMP

I leave the obligatory matter of subjectauxiliary inversion unstated here: but you should read the tree as if it had applied. The last example surfaces as Who did you meet?

COMP

COMP

whoi

NP

VP

null

NP

VP

whoi

NP

VP

you met

NP

ei called? rained It In formal English, a preposition may metaphorically move along with a wh-word, even if the preposition is part of an idiom along with the verb; while this is restricted to formal English, it is the

ei ?
This is called Pied-Piping

syntax

32

normal and everyday case for many languages, include Romance languages; see the French example immediately below. COMP

COMP

To which countryi

NP

AUX

VP

should travel

PP

COMP

ei ?

To which country should I travel?

COMP

NP

NP

AUX

VP

Which countryi

should travel

PP

to

NP

COMP

ei ?

Which country should I travel to?

COMP

PP

NP

VP

Avec quels chercheurs vous travaillez PP

ei ? With which researchers do you work? This wh-movement involved in question-formation can apply over several clauses, in many languages (including English).

Here too I abstract away from inversion: cf. Avec quels chercheurs travaillez-vous?

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33

NP

AUX

VP

His parole ofcer

NP

told

him NP

Aux

VP

he

should

PP

talk

NP

COMP

to

Custer

COMP

NP

NP

AUX

VP

whoi

his parole ofcer

NP

tell

him NP

Aux

VP

he

should

PP

talk

NP

to In French, we see the verb of the main clause impose the subjunctive mood on the verb of the embedded clause, and the object of the lower clause appears sentence initially.

ei

syntax

34

COMP

COMP

NP

NP

AUX

VP

qui

vous

COMP

voulez COMP

VP

que

NP

NP

PP

je Who do you want me to keep [e] informed?

tienne

au courant?
Qui voulez-vous je tienne [subj.] au courant?

12

Relative clauses

In English, a relative clause follows the head noun, and has a gap in the sentence corresponding to the position in which the head would have appeared in the relative clause: which she had picked. the fruit that In relativizing from subject position, an empty COMP is not allowed: which who was not ripe, unfortunately. We purchased some fruit that The words which and who are wh-words (who is for people, which for non-humans), and are analyzed as involving movement: piedpiping is permitted in this cases, but that is a complementizer, and there is no overt movement when it is present: with whom with which the people she had consulted were enthusiastic. with that with Relativization over a long syntactic distance is possible, just as with wh-questions:
The so-called magic bullet was the bullet [ that [ the Warren Commission argued [ Oswald had used [e] to shoot both Kennedy and Connally. ] ]

Question formation brings a wh-word to sentence-initial (COMP) position, but it can be a position at the beginning of a subordinate clause:

syntax

35

It was never determined what the former CIA employees were actually looking for [e] at the Watergate. *What was it never determined the former CIA employees were actuallly looking for [e] at the Watergate?

Whose is both a relative pronoun and a wh-word, but it is specically for humans as a wh-word, but not as a relative pronoun:
The cari whosei door was smashed in the accident had to be junked afterwards. Whosei doori was smashed in the accident? OK: Mary/mine; *Marys cars/that cars.