S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr.

Ennassiri

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

Department of English Studies

Morphology and Syntax

Semester: Five (Fall)

Course duration: 15 weeks
Course teacher: Prof. Dr. Mohamed Khalil Ennassiri
Office number: 19

Course description
This course is intended to be an introduction to Morphology and
Syntax. It provides a sufficient background in these two disciplines in
order to allow students specializing in linguistics to pursue more
advanced courses in Semester 6.

Course objectives
The course aims to:

 Introduce undergraduate students to the field of linguistics;

 Help them have a sound foundation in morphology and syntax;
 Equip them with knowledge and skills for the analysis of
linguistic data;
 Prepare them for advanced linguistics courses (offered in S6)
and for further research in linguistics.

Selected texts
1) Ennassiri, M.K. (2021). Morphology and Syntax (Updated Manual).
(Mandatory)
2) Haspelmath, M. (2002). Understanding Morphology. London: Arnold.
(Recommended)
3) Radford, A. et al. (1999). Linguistics: An introduction. Cambridge: CUP.
(Recommended)

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

Course content:

PART I. MORPHOLOGY

 Preliminary remarks
o The notion of word
o Words as linguistic units divisible into yet smaller
(meaningful) units

 The concept of morpheme

o Kinds of morpheme
o Bound morphemes
 Free morphemes
 Affixes
 Free Roots
 Bound Roots
 Clitics

 Allomorphy
o Phonologically conditioned allomorphs
o Morphologically conditioned allomorphs
o Lexically conditioned allomorphs

 English inflectional morphology

 English derivational morphology

o Affixes that change the category of words
o Affixes that change the meaning of words

 Processes of word formation

o Derivation
o Compounding
o Clipping
o Acronymy
o Blending
o Coining (aka nvention)
o Back-formation
o Antonomasia
o Conversion (aka zero-derivation)
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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

o Suppletion

 Types of words
o Simple words
o Compound words
o Complex words

 Representing the internal structure of words

PART II. SYNTAX

 Preliminaries
o Defining the term “sentence”
o Syntactic knowledge
o Grammaticality vs. acceptability

 Constituents and categories

 Pictorial representation of sentence structure

o Full representation of sentence structure
o Partial representation of sentence structure

 Basic terms and relations in phrase structure

o Dominance
o Precedence

 Kinship relations
o Defining structural motherhood relation
o Defining structural sisterhood relation
o Defining structural daughterhood relation

 Phrase structure rules

o The sentence rule
o The noun phrase
o The verb phrase

 The Lexicon
o Categorial information

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

o Subactegorization information
o Selectional constraints

 Displacement operations
o Affix Hopping
o Auxiliary inversion in yes/no questions
o Wh-movement
o NP Movement
 Passivisation
 Topicalisation
 Extraposition
 Heavy NP Shift

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

1. Defining morphology

Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the internal structure of

words and the rules by which words are formed. Morphology comes from
the Greek Morph = form and ology = study (i.e. the study of forms). Its most
important unit is the morpheme.
A morpheme may be defined as the minimal/ smallest unit of language that
has meaning, i.e. any part of a word that cannot be broken down further into
smaller meaningful parts. 1 The word ‘tables’, for example, can be broken
down into two meaningful parts: ‘table’ and the plural suffix ‘-s’. Neither of
these can be broken down into smaller parts that have a meaning. Therefore,
‘table’ and ‘-s’ are both morphemes. Of course, the word table can be further
divided into its constituent sounds /t/, /eɪ/ and /l/. But none of these has a
meaning in isolation.

1.1. Free & Bound morphemes: Morphemes are of two kinds, free and
bound.2

1
In this sense, a morpheme is a semantic atom: it has no meaningful subparts (cf.
Hilda Koopman et al. An Introduction to Syntactic Analysis and Theory).
2
Morphemes are normally represented by one syllable. However, morphemes may
be less than a syllable, e.g. cars.
One morpheme boy (1 syllable), desire, lady, water (2 syllables),
crocodile (3 syllables)
Two morphemes boy + ish, desire + able
Three morphemes boy + ish + ness, desire + able + ity
Four morphemes gentle + man + li + ness
un + desire + able + ity
More than four un + gentle + man + li + ness
anti + dis + establish + ment + ari + an + ism

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

o A free morpheme is a morpheme that can stand alone as an

independent word, i.e. a word in its own right, e.g. table, come,
and, etc. There are two types of free morphemes, however:

a) Lexical/ content morphemes: these are morphemes that have

semantic content (i.e. meaning) and refer to things, qualities,
states or actions. In English, these morphemes take the forms of
nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs; for example, John, cat,
leave, listen, clever, slim, fast, often. Lexical morphemes
constitute the larger class of morphemes, and form the open
class of words, i.e. a class to which other words may be added.

b) Functional/grammatical morphemes: these are free

morphemes which have little or no meaning of their own, but
which show grammatical relationship in and between
sentences. In English, these morphemes take the forms of
prepositions, conjunctions, articles, demonstratives, auxiliary
verbs, pronouns; for example, at, but, the, that, could, whom, you.
Function words form a closed class of words, i.e. a class to which
it’s almost impossible to add other words.

o On the other hand, a bound morpheme is a morpheme that

cannot stand alone as an independent word, but must be attached
to another morpheme/word to have a distinct meaning, e.g. -ing
in boring, -ly in tacitly, -er in singer, and re- in reappear. These
are called affixes.

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

1.2. Roots and affixes3: Affixes, such as plural ‘-s’, are always bound;
roots are sometimes bound.4 For example, -ept in inept, -kemt in
unkempt, -ceive in receive & conceive, -sent in consent, dissent, &
assent or -tain in contain & obtain are morphemes that can occur
only when attached to other morphemes. Affixes may be divided
into several categories, depending on their position with reference
to the stem.

The table below shows the classification of affixes in English:

Affix Example Description

Prefix unhappy Appears at the front of a stem

Suffix Talked Appears at the end of a stem

Infix5 men, geese Appears within a stem

3
The root is the smallest morphological form associated with a lexeme; it is that part
of the word left when all the affixes are removed, e.g. knowingly, brainlessness,
insufferable, etc. A stem, on the other hand, is that part of a word to which
grammatical/inflectional affixes are added. Thus, the root of the word “printer “is
“print”, but the stem of the plural form is “printer”, which itself consists of a root and
a derivational suffix.
4
Even words may be bound in English. The bold-type forms in the following
examples are all bound words (aka clitics): it’s, we’ve, they’ll, etc.
5
Infixes in English are mostly replacements, not additions. However, it is possible to
see a kind of infixes in certain expressions in English used in casual or aggravating
circumstances by emotionally aroused English speakers, e.g. halle-bloody-lujah;
abso-goddam-lutely.

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

Circumfix amorphous One portion appears at the front

of a stem, and the other at its
end.

Consider a word like unhappiness. This word has three parts: un- carries
a negative meaning while - ness expresses a state or quality.

Practice A: Isolate the morphemes in the following words (by writing them
with dashes at the morpheme boundaries), and say whether they are
bound or free. For examples: cat-s, re-view, power-point.
1. houseboat house-boat
2. playback play-back
3. transplant trans-plant
4. joyous joy-ous
5. poisonous poison-ous
6. uniform uni-form
7. generative generate-ive
8. coolness cool-ness
9. microwave micro-wave
10. codify code-ify
11. sees see-s
12. activate act-ive-ate
13. carelessness care-less-ness
14. undressed un-dress-ed
15. unacceptable un-accept-able

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

1.3. Allomorphs: A morpheme may display allomorphy; i.e. may have

variant phonetic forms, called allomorphs.

Take the morpheme 'plural.' Note that it can be attached to a

number of lexical morphemes to produce structures like 'CAT +
plural,' 'BUS + plural,' 'SHEEP + plural,' and 'MAN + plural.' In
each of these examples, the actual forms of the morphs that
result from the morpheme 'plural' are different. Yet they are all
allomorphs of the one morpheme. So, in addition to /s/ and
/əz/, another allomorph of 'plural' in English seems to be a zero-
morph because the plural form of SHEEP is actually 'SHEEP +
∅.' When we look at 'MAN + plural,' we have a vowel change in
the word (…) as the morph that produces the 'irregular' plural
form MEN.
(cf. George Yule, THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE, 4th ed. Cambridge
University Press, 2010).

1.4. Types of allomorphy

1. 4.1. Phonologically Conditioned Allomorphy

The plural morpheme in English, usually written as '-s', has three
allomorphs (s, z, ɪz) that are phonologically conditioned (i.e. the
choice is determined by the preceding sound.

 -s is realized as [s] after /p, t, k, f, θ/.

 -s is realized as [ɪz] after /s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ/.

 -s is realized as [z] after vowels and other voiced consonants.

Practice B: For the following nouns, indicate in each case what the allomorph
of the plural morpheme is, e.g. boat: boats, suffix -s/; goose: geese, vowel
change /u:/ to /i:/
1. apple
2. apricot
3. peach
4. lathe

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

5. college
6. sheep
7. deer
8. aircraft
9. foot
10. mouse
11. woman
12. tooth
13. ox
14. child
15. calf

Similarly, the regular English past- tense ending - ed also has allomorphs,
viz. [t], [d] and [ɪd].
 -ed is realized as [t] after / p, k, f, θ, s, ʃ, tʃ /.
 -ed is realized as [ɪd] after /t, d/.
 -ed is realized as [d] after a voiced sound other than /d/.
Such predictable changes in the realization of a morpheme are called
morpho-phonological alternations.
Another example: The negative prefix in- has the following allomorphs:
 /ɪm/ → before bilabial sounds, e.g. impossible,
immortal, imbalance, etc.
 /ɪl/ → before /l/, e.g. illogic, illegal, illicit, etc.
 /ɪr/ → before /r/, e.g. irregular, irresponsible,
irrelevant, etc.
 /ɪg/ → before /g/(not very productive!), e.g. ignoble.
 /ɪn/ → elsewhere, e.g. inadequate, independent,
incompetent, incomplete, intolerable, etc.

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

Practice C: For the following verbs, write the respective allomorph of

the past –ed morpheme.

1. crushed / / 9. turned / / 17. played / /

2. heaped / / 10. hissed / / 18. hated / /
3. kicked / / 11. ploughed / / 19. poured / /
4. pitted / / 12. climbed / / 20. needed / /
5. bagged / / 13. branded / /
6. killed / / 14. hanged / /
7. stabbed / / 15. flinched / /
8. breathed / / 16. wanted / /

1.4.2. Morphologically Conditioned Allomorphy

Here the choice of the allomorphs is systematically determined
by the morphemes added to them. To illustrate, consider the
following examples:
consume, consumer, consumable → the allomorph –
sume comes before the morpheme s –er and –able.
consumption, consumptive → the allomorph –sumpt
comes before the morphemes –ion and –ive.
receive, receiver, receivable → the allomorph –ceive is
used before the morpheme –er and –able.
reception, receptive → the allomorph –cept is used
before the morphemes –ion and –ive.
1.4.3. Lexically Conditioned Allomorphy
Here, the choice of the allomorph is unpredictable, thus
memorized on a word-by-word basis. Consider in this respect the
following plural words:

cats, dogs, pens, letters, rooms

sheep (plural of: sheep), oxen (plural of: ox)

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

The plural in sheep and oxen is lexically conditioned because it is

determined by the individual words and cannot be predicted from
general principles of English phonology or morphology.
Adding ‘-s’ to ‘sheep’ and ‘ox’ will result in incorrect plural forms:
*sheeps, *oxes. Likewise, adding ‘-en’ to ‘cat’, ‘dog’, ‘fox’ will result
in incorrect plural forms: *caten, *dogen, *foxen!6

2. Inflectional and derivational morphemes7

Inflectional morphemes serve as grammatical markers that indicate tense,

number, possession, or comparison. They don’t change the syntactic
category or the meaning of the word to which they are attached. The English
inflectional morphemes (suffixes) are listed with examples in the following
table:8

Word class to which Inflectional category Regular affix used to express

inflection applies category

Nouns Number -s, -es: desk/ desks,

bush/bushes
Possessive -'s, -': the bird's wing, Mr.
Jones' car

6
In the same vein, one has to learn that in English care, dare and fare form the past
by adding /d/ whereas bear, tear and wear change the root vowel from /eə/ to /ɔ:/ in
the past tense (bore, tore, wore).

7
Consult the following site for more information:
https://faculty.unlv.edu/nagelhout/ENG411Bs12C/mod1concept1.html

8
English has only the inflectional affixes listed in the table given blow, and all the
inflectional affixes in English are suffixes (none are prefixes, unlike the situation with
derivational affixes, which include both suffixes and prefixes).

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

3rd person singular -s, -es: it snows, he talks, she

present finishes
Verbs
past tense -ed: He painted it in 1965.
perfect aspect -ed/ -en: He has already talked
to his boss. He’s eaten all the
food.
Progressive aspect -ing: It’s raining. (present
participle)
Adjectives Comparative -er: strong/ stronger

Superlative -est: high/highest

Derivational morphemes on the other hand are affixes which are used to
create new words from existing ones. In many cases, a derivational affix
changes the syntactic category of the word to which it is attached, e. g. teach
(V) → teacher (N); nation (N)→national (A), friend (N)→befriend (V),
etc.9

2.1. Suffixes that change the category of words10

V to N

9
We have a list of derivational morphemes in our mental dictionary as well as the
rules that determine how these morphemes are added to a root.

10
For more information, consult the following site:
https://studfiles.net/preview/5809158/page:17/

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

N to V & A to V

A to N

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

N to A

V to A

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

A to Adv & N to Adv

2.2. Affixes that change the meaning of words

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3. Word formation

Word formation refers to the process of forming new words from other
existing words. English gets new words by means of different word
formation processes.11

1. Derivation is a process whereby new words are formed by combining

derivational affixes with existing words, e.g. drinkable & disinfect.
2. Compounding is the joining of two or more words into a single
word, e.g. downpour (1 word), long-haired (hyphenated word) and
high school (2 words). It is easy to see that in English, compounds
are sometimes written with spaces or hyphens between the
elements, and sometimes there are no spaces or hyphens. Sometimes
the meanings of the compounds are idiomatic (not predicted in
regular ways by the meanings of their parts), and sometimes they are
compositional (meanings determined in the usual way by their
parts).
3. Clipping is a process whereby a word is shortened by cutting off one
part of it. There are different types of clipping:
a. Fore-clipping: e.g. phone (from telephone); plane (from
aeroplane); van (from caravan).

11
There are two basic morphological types of language structure: analytic vs.
synthetic.
 (purely) analytic languages have only free morphemes. In these
languages, sentences are sequences of single-morpheme words.
 Synthetic languages make use of both free and bound morphemes. In
general, polymorphemic words consist of a stem onto which various
affixes are added.

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

b. Back-clipping: e.g. bro (from brother); bike (from bicycle);

info (from information).
c. Middle-clipping: e.g. flu (from influenza).
4. Acronymy is a process whereby a word is formed from the initial
letters of the words that make up a name, e.g. FIFA, NATO, UNESCO,
BBC, RAM, etc.
5. Blending is the fusion of two words into one, usually the first part of
one word with the last part of another, e.g. brunch (from breakfast &
lunch), telex (from teleprinter & exchange), brash (from bold & rash),
Oxbridge (from Oxford & Cambridge), etc.
6. Invention/ coining means creating/ inventing/ coining new words,
e.g. Kodak, Nylon, etc.
7. Back-formation refers to the process of creating a new word by
removing affixes. Back-formations are shortened words created from
longer words; therefore, they may be viewed as a sub-type of
clippings, e.g. ablute from ablution; acculturate from acculturation;
automate from automation; babysit from babysitter; brainwash from
brainwashing; burgle from burglar, etc. Back-formation is the reverse
of the customary method of word-formation whereby we begin with
a verb like hear and, by adding the morpheme –er, form the noun
hearer.
8. Antonomasia is the formation of a word from the name of a person or
place, e.g. Watt → James Watt; sandwich → Earl of Sandwich.
9. Conversion (or zero-derivation) is a process whereby a word of one
syntactic category is converted to a new word belonging to a different
category: e.g. to attack/ an attack (Verb to Noun); dirty/ to dirty
(Adjective to Verb). In some cases it is difficult to tell which is the
original category.

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

10. Suppletion: The replacement of a form that is missing from an

inflectional paradigm by one with a different root, e.g. went (exists alongside
go, goes, going, gone). Went is semantically related to go in exactly the
same way as, for example, walked is related to walk. But there is no
apparent morphological or phonetic relationship between the two words.

4. Types of words

Words may be simple, complex or compound.

 Simple word: a word that consists of a single morpheme, i.e. a

word that cannot be analyzed into smaller meaningful parts, e.g.
'book', 'three', 'air', 'the'.
 Complex word: a word that consists of a root plus one or more
affixes (e.g. ‘books’, 'wanted', 'endlessly').
 Compound word: a word that is formed from two or more simple
or complex words (e.g. housewife, red-hot, table cloth).

Some compound words in English12

lifetime elsewhere upside Grandmother

cannot baseball fireworks Passport

Together become became Sunflower

crosswalk basketball sweetmeat Superstructure

12
For a more complete list of compound words in English, consult the following
site:
http://www.learningdifferences.com/Main%20Page/Topics/Compound%20Word%
20Lists/Compound_Word_%20Lists_complete.htm

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

moonlight football railroad Rattlesnake

Anybody weatherman throwback Skateboard

Meantime earthquake everything Herein

sometimes also backward Schoolhouse

butterflies upstream nowhere Bypass

Fireflies because somewhere Spearmint

something another somewhat Airport

Anyone today himself Grasshopper

Inside themselves playthings Footprints

Therefore uplift supergiant Homemade

Without backbone scapegoat Peppermint

Practice D: The words in Column II have been created from the

corresponding word or words in Column I. Indicate the word-
formation process responsible for the creation of each word in Column
II.

COLUMN I COLUMN II

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. typographical error typo
2. automation automate
3. telephone phone
4. telephone, marketing telemarketing
5. disk jockey DJ
6. perambulator pram
7. enthusiasm enthuse
8. smoke, fog smog
9. acquired immune deficiency syndrome AIDS

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

10. veterinarian vet

11. very important person VIP
12. recapitulate recap
13. television televise
14. advertisement ad/advert
15. editor edit
16. handkerchief hanky
17. shrimp, hamburger shrimpburger
18. lip-reading lip-read
19. mass production mass-produce
20. type-writer type-write

5. Constituent structure of morphemes

The constituent morphemes of a word can be organized into a
hierarchical structure by means of tree diagrams. When the suffix –ion is
added to a verb, it invariably results in the derivation of a noun, e.g.
construction. Therefore, -ion is specified as N, and the word construction
has the structure shown in (1) below:13
(1) N

V N

construct -ion

13
Linguists traditionally draw trees like this, upside-down, with all branching going
out in the downward direction. Each point that is labelled with a word or a category
is called a node. An equivalent way of representing the information given in this tree
is by means of a labelled bracket notation: [N [V construct]-ion]

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

Similarly, when the suffix –ish is added to a noun, it invariably results in

the derivation of an adjective, e.g. childish. Therefore, -ish is specified as
A, and the word childish has the structure shown in (2):
(2) A

N A

child -ish

When the suffix –ise is added to a noun, it invariably results in the

derivation of a verb, e.g. colonise. Accordingly, -ise is specified as V, and
the word colonise has the following structure:

(3) V

N V

colony -ise

In all these examples, the category of the derived complex is the same as
the category of the suffix. In other words, the category of the suffix
determines that of the derived word. This is also true for words with
more than one suffix, e.g. the adverb childishly. The latter has the
structure shown in (4):

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

(4) ADV

A ADV

N A

child -ish -ly

Notice that in all the threes drawn above, the category of the word is
determined by the category of the right hand suffix. Thus, in (1) the word
construction is an N by virtue of the fact that the right hand suffix is a
nominalizing suffix. Similarly, in (2) the word childish is an A because the
right hand suffix is an adjectivizing suffix. This property is referred to as
the Right Hand Head Rule (Williams, 1981).14 It may be concluded, then,
that suffixes are like words in that they belong to particular categories.
Thus -er is a noun, meaning something like "who Xes". And -able is an A
(meaning something like "which can be V-ed", and –ness is an N (the fact
of being A), etc. 15

Consider now the diagrams of the following compound words.

14
We call the element that determines the category of the word the head.
Definition: The head of a constituent is the element that determines the properties
of this constituent.
This is true of syntax, too, as we will see in Part II.
15
In general, prefixes do not change the category of the stem that they attach to.
Some, however, do. For example: be- in behead (v); en- in entitle (v), enable (V); a-
in ashore (Adv), afloat (Adv).

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

(5) (a) N (b) V

A N N V

Black bird baby sit

The above trees show that in compound words, too, the rightmost
element of a compound is the head of the compound. Thus, the language
learner does not have to learn for each new compound what category it
has. Rather, this is determined by the basic property of the morphology
expressed above.

Notice in passing that the rightmost element not only determines the
category of the compound, but other properties as well. For example, the
right hand element determines whether the compound is singular or
plural in English:
 towel racks, sail boats (plural)
 parts supplier, salesman (singular)

Practice E: Draw the tree representation of the word structure for each
of the following words.

1. musical
2. establishment
3. modernisation
4. poisonous
5. uncontrollable
6. outlandishly

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

Further reading and exercises

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syjbhT45J14
(Morphology/Video!)
 https://fr.slideshare.net/josephestroga/morphology-49956775
(Morphology/slide share)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT_A-7usieI (word
structure/Video!)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJZiQfzRft4 (trees for
words/Video!)
 http://www.learningdifferences.com/Main%20Page/Topics/Compo
und%20Word%20Lists/Compound_Word_%20Lists_complete.htm
(compound words in English)

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Defining syntax16

Syntax specifies how words can be combined to form sentences and

assigns an appropriate syntactic structure to all the sentences concerned.
Different languages impose specific restrictions on the order of words in
sentences.

 English, French: Subject Verb Object (SVO)

o John ate an apple.

o Pierre a mangé une pomme.

 Japanese, Korean: (SOV)

o Watshi ga hako o akemasu. (Japanese)

I box open

“I open the box.”

 Irish, Arabic: (VSO)

o Ɂishtara: Zaydun kita:ban

 Malagasy: (VOS)

o Nahita ny mpianatra ny vehivavay.

saw the student the woman

“The woman saw the student.”

 German: (OVS)
o Dieses Buch kaufte Karl gestern
this book bought Karl yesterday

16
“Syntax is the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are
constructed in particular languages.” Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures.

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1.1. What is a sentence?

Sentences are the unit of analysis in syntax. But what is a
sentence? We can simplistically define a sentence as being a
string/ sequence of words. But not all strings of words form
sentences. Consider the following examples:

(a) John frightened Paul.

(b) Paul frightened John.

(c) *Frightened John Paul.17

It follows then that the meaning of a sentence depends on the

meaning of the words of which it is composed and on the
arrangement/ order of these words within the sentence. Sentence (c)
is syntactically deviant/ill-formed (i.e. unsyntactic) because it doesn’t
conform to the syntactic rules of English. Consider now the following
examples:

(d) Darkness frightens Jane.

(e) !Jane frightens darkness.

Sentence (e) is grammatical, i.e. it is syntactically well-formed, but it

is not acceptable. This shows that grammaticality does not depend on
whether or not the sentence is meaningful or true.

17
An asterisk (*) indicates that a sentence is syntactically ill-formed, i.e.
ungrammatical.

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1.2. Syntactic knowledge

 Syntactic knowledge tells us which sentences are

grammatical and which are not.
 It accounts for structural ambiguity, i.e. ambiguity due to
syntactic structure. An ambiguous sentence is a sentence that
has two meanings. Some sentences are ambiguous when they
contain an ambiguous word. This is a case of lexical ambiguity.
By contrast, some sentences are ambiguous without
containing any ambiguous words. This is a case of structural
ambiguity. For example (1) and (2):

(1) Old men and women.

(2) Jane hit the thief with the stick.

The NP in (1) may have 2 different interpretations, viz.:

(a) [old men] and women (here women are of different ages!)
(b) old [men & women] (but here, women are also old)

Similarly, (2) has two different interpretations, namely (c) and

(d):

(a) Jane used the stick to hit the thief.

(b) Jane hit the thief who was holding the stick.

 It also accounts for our ability to determine that two

sentences are paraphrases:

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(3) I can’t understand why he will behave in this way.

(4) It’s not at all clear why he insists on behaving like this.

(5) The lady cooked the fish.

(6) The fish was cooked by the lady.

 It accounts for our ability to recognize grammatical relations

in a sentence.
(7) John is easy to please. (John is the object)
(8) John is eager to please. (John is the subject)

2. Constituents & categories

a. It has been mentioned above that a sentence is not just a linear

string, i.e. not merely a sequence of words placed one after
another. Rather, a sentence is structured into successively larger
groups/blocks of words called constituents. Consider the
following example:

(9) This man will buy that car.

The first thing to do in analysing this sentence is to look for its

constituents. We feel that the words this and man go together (i.e.
form a constituent), that and car go together, and that buy, that
and car also go together. This intuition may be represented as
follows:

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(10)

This man will buy that car

Each of these constituents belongs to a lexical category, i.e. a word

class such as: N, V, A, P, ADV, etc.18

 Lexical categories form heads of phrases, and the category of the

head determines the category of the phrase. For example, NP, VP,
AP, PP, ADVP, etc.
 A phrase is a word or group of words that function as a unit and
can make up larger grammatical units. A phrasal constituent has
a central core word (its head); other words in the phrase modify
the meaning of the head.

2.1. Representing sentence structure

 A good way of putting more information into our analysis would

be to put labels on the elements that emerge each time a sentence
is segmented. Thus the phrase structure associated with the

18

WORDS COME IN CATEGORIES

category Modifier Example
V Adv [V stop]→ stop suddenly (a way of stopping)
N A(djective) [N stop]→ sudden stop (a type of stop)
P Intensifier [P in] the middle→ right in the middle
A Degree [A sad]→ very sad, too sad
Adv Degree [Adv sadly]→very sadly, too sadly, more sadly

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above sentence is given below, where the points joined by

segments are called nodes:

(11) S

NP AUX VP

will

Det N V NP

this man buy

Det N

that car

This tree diagram is a visual representation of the structure of

the sentence “This man will buy that car”. The tree diagram
reveals the following:

a) The linear order of the words, i.e. which one comes first,
second, third, etc.);
b) How these words are grouped into constituents/ structural
units;
c) The syntactic category of each constituent.

Sentence structures may also be represented in terms of labelled

brackets:

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(12) [S [NP [Det This][N man] ] [Aux will] [VP [V buy] [NP [Det that] [N car ]]]]

In (12), each word is enclosed in a pair of square brackets, and the left-
hand member of each pair of brackets is given an appropriate subscript
category label to indicate what category the word belongs to. The two
diagrams contain the same information as each other, but labelled
brackets are more difficult to read.

2.2. Partial representation of sentence structure

The structure of sentences may be partially represented if we are

not interested in the internal structure of its constituents. For
example, the sentence “This man will buy that car” may have the
following partial representations:

(13) S

NP AUX VP

will

This man buy that car

(14) [S [NP this man] [Aux will] [VP buy that car]]

3. Basic terms and relations

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3.1 Types of nodes: We have seen above that syntactic structures

are represented by means of tree diagrams; the latter consist of a
set of points (called nodes) that are connected by branches. A
distinction is made between three types of nodes:

a) Root nodes: nodes that don’t have any mother node on

top of them. In any given sentence there’s only one root
node.
b) Non-terminal nodes/also called branching nodes:
nodes with branches underneath them. They are labelled
with syntactic categories.
c) Terminal nodes/ also called non-branching nodes:
nodes that have no daughters and dominate actual words.

The tree diagram given in (11) reproduced in (15) below illustrates this:

(15) S Root node

NP1 AUX VP Non-terminal nodes

Det1 N1 will V NP2

this man buy

Det2 N2

Terminal nodes that car

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3.2. Hierarchical relations

Hierarchical relations between categories in a tree diagram are expressed in

terms of the relation of dominance and precedence. Dominance is a vertical
relationship, whereas precedence is a linear relationship.

o Mere or general dominance: A node X “merely” dominates a

node Y if X occurs higher in the tree diagram than Y. In (15)
S dominates NP1 (and all the nodes contained in NP1, i.e. Det1
and N1), AUX, and VP (and all the nodes contained in VP, i.e.
V, NP2, Det2, and N2).
o Immediate dominance: X is said to “immediately dominate”
Y if no other nodes come between X and Y, i.e. if X occurs right
above Y. In (15), S immediately dominates only NP1, AUX, and
VP. NP1 immediately dominates Det1 and N1. VP immediately
dominates only V and NP2.
o Mere or general precedence: A node X precedes a node Y if
X occurs to the left of Y in a tree diagram. So in tree (15) NP1
precedes AUX and VP (and all the nodes contained in VP)
because it occurs to their left.
o Immediate precedence: A node X immediately precedes a
node Y if it is immediately to the left of Y. In tree (15) NP1
immediately precedes AUX and AUX immediately precedes
VP, but NP1 does not immediately precede VP. AUX also
immediately precedes V.
o Exhaustive domination: A node M exhaustively dominates
the set {B, C, …, D} if M immediately dominates all members of
the set {B, C, …, D} and nothing else. So, a constituent is a set

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of nodes exhaustively dominated by a single node. In tree

(15), S does not exhaustively dominate NP1 and VP. It
exhaustively dominates NP1, AUX, and VP.
o Kinship relations: (15) was referred to above as a tree
diagram. As with family tree diagrams, we use terms such as
mother, daughter and sister to refer to relations between
categories in a tree diagram. A node M is the mother of a node
D, if and only if M immediately dominates D. In the same
situation we say D is a daughter of M. That is, a node D is the
daughter of a node M if and only if M immediately dominates
D. Two nodes that have the same mother are sisters. In tree
(15), NP1 is the mother of Det1 and N1; and Det1 and N1 are the
daughters of NP1. VP is NOT the mother of Det2 and N2 because
it does not immediately dominate them. In fact, VP is what you
might call the grandmother of Det2 and N2 (i.e. the mother of
their mother!)

Note that dominance and precedence are mutually exclusive. A node X

cannot both dominate and precede another node Y. Essentially what
this terminology does is break phrasehood down into two parts,
dominance and precedence. Thus, a phrase is series of elements
(words or phrases), dominated by a single node, which come in a fixed
order.

Another structural relation is c-command, which will be of

fundamental importance in Semester 6 Advanced Syntax course.

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4. Phrase Structure Rules

Phrase structure rules (or PS-rules, for short) are syntactic rules that
determine what goes into a phrase (i.e. constituents) and how these
constituents are ordered. A phrase structure rule contains a symbol on
the left side of an arrow that indicates the upper or mother node in the
tree structure, and one or more symbols on the right side of the arrow
that indicate the lower or daughter nodes in the tree structure.

4.1. The sentence rule

The division of a sentence into three constituents is a part of its

structure, and knowing this is a part of our knowledge of English. This
claim can be represented as (16) below, where the arrow may be read
as “can be rewritten as/can consist of”:

(16) S → NP AUX VP (read: S consists of NP followed by AUX and VP)

The category Aux consists of the following elements:

(17) AUX→ Tense (Modal) (have+en) (be+ing/en)

(18) Tense →+/- past

In English, the tense is lowered onto the main verb via a

morphological operation called Affix Hopping. This operation
may be characterised informally as (19)19:

19
While the notion of movement is a metaphorically one—no one would wish to
claim that there are inflectional morphemes which actually move about inside our

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(19) Affix Hopping

An unattached tense affix is lowered onto the closest verbal

element in the tree diagram.

Affix Hopping is a transformation used in English grammar to produce

complicated arrangements of auxiliary verbs and endings, as in I would
have been eating, from a straightforward underlying structure.

Verbs in English have five possible forms, for example see, sees, seeing,
saw, seen. The -s and -ing forms are always formed regularly by adding
those suffixes to the plain form. That leaves three principal parts, see, saw,
seen. The second part is simple past tense, and the third part is used in
two compounds: the perfect tense “I have seen” and the passive voice “I
am seen”.

But regardless of the complications of the actual form, in structural terms

every verb has a plain present form, a simple past form, a present
participle, and a past participle; and we may regard these as the verb
stem plus an abstract grammatical element, (cf. Part I: Morphology). (cf.
https://everything2.com/title/affix+hopping)

This is illustrated in the following examples:

 John loves linguistics.20

brain—nonetheless, there is good sound evidence provided by recent brain imaging

studies (fMRI, ERP) which do suggest that inflectional morphology is characterized
by a movement analogy of a neurological nature, as is particularly addressed by the
Dual Mechanism Model showing that the stem and affix are decomposed with lexical
stems residing in the Temporal Lobe (TL) regions of the brain and the functional
affixes residing in the Frontal Lobe (FL).

20
Then a morphophonemic rule operates on the output of this
transformational rule and assigns to –s or –ed its proper allomorph. (See the
allomorphy section in Part I of this manual).

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NP AUX VP

-s V NP

John love linguistics

 Mary watched soap operas.

NP AUX VP

-ed V NP

Mary watch soap operas

 He is explaining the lesson.

NP AUX VP

pres be -ing V NP

He explain the lesson

4.2. The noun phrase (NP)

Consider the following sentences:

(1) [Children] like sweets. → N in isolation

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(2) [The children] like sweets. → N preceded by a

Det(erminer)
(3) [The clever children] like sweets. → N preceded by a Det
and an AP
(4) [Children from rich families] are spoiled. → N followed by
a PP
(5) [Children who like sweets] are thin. → N followed by an S
(6) [They] are spoiled. → Pronoun

The NP can thus be rewritten as follows:

a) NP → N
b) NP → (Det) N
c) NP → (Det) (AP) N
d) NP → N (PP)
e) NP → N (S)
f) NP → Pronoun

It is possible to collapse the rules given above into one single rule,
viz. (20):

(20) The NP Rule

NP → a. Pronoun
b. (Det) (AP) N (PP) (S)

4.3. The verb phrase (VP)

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Let us now consider what counts as a grammatical VP in English.

For the sake of exposition, consider the following sentences:

(20) He [smiled]. VP → V

(21) He [bought a book]. VP → V (NP)

(22) He [lived in London]. VP → V (PP)

(23) He [gave Mary a present] VP → V (NP) (NP)

(24) He [put the book on the shelf] VP → V (NP) (PP)

(25) He [said he had a nice trip]. VP → V (S)

This means that a VP may contain V optionally followed by a

choice of an NP, PP, or S. The rules given in (20)-(25) may be
collapsed into one single rule, viz. (26):

(26) The VP Rule

NP

VP → V (NP)( PP )
S

4.4. The prepositional phrase (PP)

Examples of PPs:
(27) a. in [NP the south] PP→ P NP
b. from [PP under the rug] PP→P PP
c. before [S John came] PP→ P S

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Prepositions may take as complement DPs, PPs, or an entire

clause, as in the last example. The rules given in (a), (b), and (c) above can
be collapsed into the following single rule:

NP

(28) PP → P PP

5. The Lexicon

It was mentioned above that words are the ultimate constituents of a

sentence. Words belong to different syntactic categories, such as N, V, P,
A, ADV, etc., and the syntactic category to which a word belongs
determines its distribution, that is the context in which it may occur. This
amounts to saying that words of category X are not interchangeable for
those of category Y. Try to replace the verb dismiss in (29a) by the noun
dismissal. Is the resulting sentence ok?

(29) a. I will dismiss the trouble maker.

b. *I will dismissal the trouble maker.

Any native speaker of English knows that (29b) is not good as an English
sentence. Why not? Let us now replace the verb dismiss by another verb,
e.g. go. This gives us (30).

(30) *I will go the trouble maker.

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Is (30) any better? Why not? go belongs to a subcategory of verbs, called

intransitive verbs, which cannot be followed by a complement. So to
insert a certain verb under the node V in a verb phrase depends on
whether this verb may occur under that node. Instead of dismiss any of
the following verbs may be used: chase, fire, criticize, blame, arrest, watch,
as they are all transitive verbs. Can we choose give or offer instead of
dismiss?

5.1. Lexical information

Speakers of English (whether native or non-native) know the

complement structure of different types of verbs. For example, they know
that go occurs in a VP in which there is no following NP complement, that
dismiss must occur in a VP followed by an object NP21, that give must occur
in a VP in which there are two NP complements, or alternatively an NP
and a PP, that congratulate must take an NP + on phrase and that treat
must take an NP + AdvP. This is part of their lexical knowledge. This

21
Some verbs require object clauses. To illustrate, consider the following examples,
where each clause is introduced by a different complementizer:

a. We believe [that we can change things].

b. They arranged [for their children to be happy].
c. She wondered [whether/if she had made the right decision].

The lexical entries for the underlined verbs in (Ia-c) may be given as (IIa-c) below:

a. believe: V, [ --- CP[that] ]

b. arrange: V, [ --- CP[for] ]
c. wonder: V, [ --- CP[whether/if] ]

NB. For more information on clausal complementation, refer to S6 Advanced

Syntax Course.

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lexical knowledge may be encoded in the following lexical entries of those

verbs, where the square brackets delimit the phrase and the environment
dash indicates the position of the lexical head. Required complements are
simply listed, whereas optional complements are enclosed in
parentheses.

(31) a. go: V, [----]

b. dismiss: V, [---- NP]

c. give: V, [---- NP- NP] or [---- NP- PP] (cf. John gave [NP Mary] [NP a
ring]. Or John gave [NP a ring] [PP to Mary])

d. congratulate: V, [---- NP-PP[on] ] (cf. He congratulated [NP me]

[PP on my promotion].)

e. treat: V, [---- NP-AdvP] (cf. He treats [NP the workers] [AdvP

badly].)

f. talk: V, [ ---- (PP[to]) (PP[about]) ] (cf. She talks too much. Mary
talked to John about their wedding ceremony.)

The frames in (31) above identify subcategories of verbs and are thus
called subcategorization frames. The information contained in them is
called subcategorization information. We say that a verb
subcategorizes for or selects its complement(s). Which complements
are selected by a particular verb is an arbitrary property of that verb.22

Consider now the following examples:

(32) a. John made Mary angry.

22
The syntactic information given about particular verbs in the lexicon will include a
specification of what types of complement they can or must take, but will not
mention adjuncts.

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b. He drove her mad.

c. He considers her a trouble maker.

d. He called her an idiot.

e. They elected him president.

In (32a-e), the italicised verbs are followed by an NP object and a

complement that relates this object. 23 In (32a-b), the complements
belong to the category AP; in (32c-e), they belong to the category NP.
More examples of complex-transitive verbs are given below:24

 H e painted the door black.

 The judge declared the man guilty.
 She found her husband’s behaviour deplorable.
 They named their daughter Hilary.

5.2. Selectional restrictions

Selectional restrictions refer to semantic

restrictions/constraints that a word imposes on the environment
in which it occurs. For example, the verb eat requires its subject
to be an animate entity and its object to be something concrete.
The verb frighten may occur with [+abstract] or [-abstract]
subjects. However, its object must necessarily carry the feature

23
These complements are referred to as objective complements to distinguish them
from subjective complements found in copulative structures such as the following:
(i) John is angry.
(ii) John is an idiot.
In (i) and (ii), the underlined expressions relate to the subject (John). Therefore, they
are referred to in grammar books as subjective complements.
24
For more information on complex-transitive constructions, refer to the following
site: https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-complex-transitive-verbs-1689888

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[+animate]. A violation of the selectional restrictions of a word

results in anomaly. This is illustrated by the following examples:

(33) a. Sincerity may frighten the boy.

b. The man ate an apple.

(34) a. !The boy may frighten sincerity.25

b. !The syntactician ate a theory.

Both (33a-b) and (34a-b) are syntactic by virtue of the fact that
they all observe the syntactic rules of English, but only (33a-b) are
interpretable. The relevant selectional restrictions for the verbs
frighten and eat are thus formulated as in (35), where the dash
represents the position of the verb:26

(35) a. frighten: ([+/- abstract] Aux ------ [+ animate])

b. eat: ([+animate] Aux ------ [-abstract])

Consider now the following examples:

(36) !Passion kicked the boy. (wrong subject)27

(37) !The boy kicked passion. (wrong object)

25
Anomalous sentences are marked with an exclamation mark (!).
26
Cf. Chomsky (1965:107).
27
It may be argued that like subcategorization properties of verbs given above,
inherent properties of nouns are also specified in the lexicon. For example:
 Sincerity: N, [+abstract]
 Boy: N, [+animate]

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Both sentences are anomalous because the verb kick requires an

animate subject and a non-abstract object. After all, you can’t
really kick something abstract, can you? Hence, once again, these
sentences violate the selectional restrictions associated with the
verb kick. These restrictions are indicated in (36) below:

(38) kick, ([+animate] Aux ----- [-abstract])

Practice: Write the selectional constraints for the underlined expressions.

1. The astronomer married the sun.

2. The tree is pregnant again.
3. The rooster laid an egg.
4. The goat flew north.
5. Intruders anger my bird.

6. Displacement/Movement Operations

In addition to describing the internal structure of sentences,

syntax also looks at the relations between sentences. For example, we can
transform a declarative sentence in English into a simple question by
moving the auxiliary verb to the beginning of the sentence. The syntactic
theory we are looking at here has the following format, dubbed the T-
model:

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(39) The Generative approach

Base Component: Phrase Structure Rules + Lexicon

D-structure

Transformational Rules

S- Structure

Phonological Form (PF) Logical Form (LF)

(Sound) (meaning)

6.1. Auxiliary inversion in yes/no questions

Consider the following sentences:

(40) The old lady can run fast.

(41) Can the old lady run fast?

If we maintain that these two sentences are related in some

fashion, then we can try to account for this relation. We could
propose a movement rule, or transformation, to account for the
relation. The proposed rule is called auxiliary inversion. This ruIe
moves the modal auxiliary can out of its original post-subject
position into pre-subject position. At this juncture, we will assume
that can attaches to S. Thus, (41) would have the following
structure:

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(42) S

Cani NP AUX VP

ti

Det AP N V ADVP

the old lady run fast

The moved word leaves behind in the position it used to occupy a trace
of itself.28

6.2. Wh-Movement

Consider now the following examples:

(43) She will dry the cutlery.

(44) What will she dry?

The transformation responsible for the movement of the wh-

phrase to the sentence-initial position is called wh-movement.
Two questions are in order: (1) what is the initial position of the
wh-phrase what i.e. its extraction site? And (2) what position
does the wh-phrase move to (i.e. what is its landing site)? The

28
A different analysis will be provided in S6/Advanced Syntax.

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verb dry is transitive and thus has the following subcategorisation

frame:

(45) dry: V, [--- NP]

Let us now identify the position where the moved wh-place is

placed. Moved wh-phrases occur to the left of the subject. We will
assume that they are placed under Comp. (44) will then have the
following structure:

(46) S’

Comp S

Whati willk NP Aux VP

she tk V NP

dry ti

Here, too, the relation between the movement/ extraction site

and the landing site of wh-movement is characterised as the
relation of trace binding. Through trace binding, the information
regarding the grammatical function of a wh-phrase in Comp is

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preserved in the derived structure. Wh-movement may be

defined informally as follows:

(47) Wh-Movement

Move wh-phrase to Comp

6.3. NP-movement

6.3.1 Passivisation

Consider the following passive sentence:

(48) The fox was killed.

We have said earlier that the lexical properties of lexical items

must be projected onto all syntactic levels. This does not seem to
be the case in (48) because the verb kill is not followed by an NP.
However, (48) is grammatical.

(49) kill: V, [--- NP]

We can account for the apparent violation by positing that the DS

of (48) is the one given in (50), where the verb kill is indeed
followed by an NP:

(50) (a). e was killed the fox.

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(b) S

NP Aux VP

e was

V NP

killed the fox

Then, NP-movement applies and repositions the fox in the empty

subject position of the sentence. The structure resulting from
this movement operation is given in (51):

51) S

NP Aux VP

was

the foxi V NP

killed ti

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We can now define NP-movement informally as follows:

(52) NP-Movement

Move NP to an NP subject position.

We’ll see in S6 Advanced Syntax the motivation for moving the NP the fox
from its original (Deep structure) position to the empty subject position.
For now, we’ll assume that this movement operation is required by some
principle of grammar in order to construct grammatical sentences in
English.

6.3.2. Topicalization
Consider now the following examples, where the initial NP is
moved to its S-structure position:

(53) a. This article, I will read ------.

b. Weirdos, I don’t like ------.
c. My team, I’m proud of ------.

(53a-c) are instances of topicalization constructions, i.e. constructions

where an element has been moved to the front of a sentence (to a topic
position).29 In (53a) and (53b), a direct object NP has been moved; in
(53c), however, a prepositional object has been moved. In all the
examples given above, the position marked by ______ denotes the D-

29
The topic has been regarded as ‘old’ information and what follows, usually termed
the comment, as ‘new’ information.

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

structure position of the topicalized element prior to movement. In this

introductory course, we will assume that topicalized elements are
adjoined to the root sentence that contains them. Adjunction operations
(like topicalization) are said to stretch out the category to which elements
attach. This is illustrated in (54) below, where this article is still
dominated by S:30

(54) S

NP S

This articlei NP AUX VP

T M

I [-past] will V NP

read ti

30
Examples such as (i) below are instances of Left Dislocation, where the initial NP is
assumed to be base-generated in the position in which it appears in the S-structure,
i.e. it’s not the result of movement:
(i) John, I don’t like him.

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The same mechanism applies in embedded clauses. Consider in this

respect the following example, where topicalization occurs within the
clausal complement:31

(55) [S I know [S’ that [S this problem I can solve …]]]

The syntactic structure of (55) is given in (56) below:

31
The following sentences also exhibit topicalisation from embedded clauses:

a. John I am sure ---- will be angry when he finds out about it.
b. This book, I thought you told me that you don't like ----.
c. John said he would pay the bill soon, and pay the bill, I am sure he never will ----.

In (a) an embedded subject has been topicalised. In (b) an embedded object has been
topicalised. And in (e) a VP is fronted as the topic of the sentence.

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

(56) S

NP AUX VP

I [-past] V S’

know Comp S

that

NP S

this problemi
I can solve ti

Besides moving an NP, as in (53a-c) above, topicalization can move any

phrase:

(57) a. Into the valley, I will not go ----- . (PP topic)

b. Intelligent, he is not -----. (AP topic)

c. I said that Fred would go home, and go home he will -----. (VP topic)

6.3.3. Extraposition & Heavy NP Shift

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

Extraposition and Heavy NP shift are also adjunction movements

(right-adjoining to VP).
Extraposition is a transformation whereby THAT-clauses, WH-
nominal clauses and TO-infinitive clauses that act as subjects are
moved/extraposed to the end of the sentence and replaced
by dummy it in the initial position.32

Examples

(58) a. That the banks are closed on Saturday is a nuisance. →It’s

a nuisance that the banks are closed on Saturday.
b. What they’re doing is horrifying. →It’s horrifying what they’re
doing.
c. To interfere would be unwise. →It would be unwise to interfere.

The derivation of say (58a) is thus given in (59) below, where the
sentential subject (assumed to be an S’) is right-adjoined to VP:

(59)

32
This follows from a structural requirement that the subject position should be
filled by certain elements. For more information on this, refer to S6 Advanced Syntax
Course.

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 S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

S S

S’ AUX VP NP AUX VP

[-past] V NP It [-past] VP S’
That the banks
are closed on is Det N V NP
Saturday
that the banks
a nuisance
Det N are closed on
is Saturday

a nuisance

On the other hand, Heavy NP Shift is the displacement of a so-called long

or heavy NP to the clause-final position, as in (60) below, where t is the
trace of the shifted NP:33

(60) a. They sent [NP that book that only got good reviews in the New
York Times] to Mary.

b. They sent t to Mary [NP that book that only got good reviews in
the New York Times].

33
Adnominal clauses (e.g. relative clauses and noun complement clauses) may also
be shifted in this way, as in (I) and (II) below:

(I) A book t appeared [which was written by Chomsky].

(II) Rumours t are circulating [that the company will shut down].

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

(61) a. She returned [NP all the books that she had borrowed] to the
library.

b. She returned t to the library [NP all the books that she had
borrowed].

The S-structure associated with (61b) is given in (62) below:

(62) S

NP AUX VP

She [+past] VP NP

V NP PP all the books that she had borrowed

returned t to the library

Further reading and exercises

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDk6onXUiYg
(Domination/Video!)
 https://everything2.com/title/affix+hopping (Affix Hopping)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-wXQurPVXI (Introduction to
Syntax/ Video!)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v2BYta1PFM (Introduction to
English Syntax/ Video!)

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S5_A Course in Morphology & Syntax_Prof. Dr. Ennassiri

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw62E9v9DnU
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJLaYBczwow (more
advanced/Video!)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIDkCqPCWJM (Structural
relations/ Video!)

REFERENCES

Chomsky, N. (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. (1981) Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
Ennassiri, M. K. (2014a) The Syntax of Complement Clauses in Arabic.
Tétouan: Imprimerie Al Khalij Al Arabi.
Ennassiri, M. K. (2014b) Issues in Arabic Syntax. Tétouan: Imprimerie
Al Khalij Al Arabi.
Ennassiri, M. K. (2015) Principles and Parameters Theory: Towards a
contrastive syntax of English and Arabic. Tétouan: Imprimerie Al-
Khalij Al-Arabi.
Fromkin, V., R. Rodman & N. Hyams (2007) An Introduction to Language.
Boston: Thomson.
Haegeman, L. (1994) Introduction to Government and Binding Theory. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Huddleston, R. (1989) Introduction to the grammar of English. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
McGregor, W. (2009) Linguistics: An Introduction. London: Continuum
International Publishing Group.
O’Grady, W. et al. (1997) Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. London:
Longman.
Radford, A. (1997) Syntactic Theory and the Structure of English: A Minimalist
Approach. Cambridge: CUP.
Yule, G. (2006) The Study of Language. Cambridge: CUP.

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