Seminar 4 (a)

Copula BE and copula-like verbs

(appear, seem, arise, happen, turn out etc)
I. Describe the sytnactic and semantic features of the verb BE as a copula. Does BE
assign a thematic position to its external argument? If not, which predicate assigns a
thematic role to that argument, which is raised in the subject position (Spec IP)?
II. What is the copula-BE analysis? Account for the interpretation of the complement
of BE in the following sentences:
a.
Everybody is anxious about this news.
b.
Mary is at school now.
III. What is the base-generated position of the subject NP in a copular sentence?
Explain your reasons.
IV. Why are BE and the copula-like verbs (e.g. appear, seem, happen) considered
raising verbs, i.e verbs that do not have an external argument or which do not assign
an external theta-role? What is the syntactic difference between these verbs and other
ergative verbs, like go (e.g. there goes the bell/the bell goes)?
V. Derive the following sentences. Specify their predicates:
1. Mary is our new president.
2. What is already clear is this big mess.
3. The solution of any conflict is peace.
4. Stephen was the prize winner.
VI. Identify the subject and the predicate constituents of each clause in the sentences
below:
a. Jane seemed so unhappy when she heard the news that she was of the opinion to
leave town at once.
b. There appeared to be many more problems than expected, so the boss was adamant
in his decision.
c. What is your final remark?
d. Who would say that this is not true?
e. Whoever happens to be there will surely break the news to everyone else.
f. Where might John be at this hour?
g. I wonder where everybody might be at this hour.
VII. Apply THERE-insertion whenever possible. Account for the inadmissibility of
this rule in examples 7 and 8:
1. A little boy appeared from behind the huge desk.
2. Some poor families existed/lived in that district.
3. A rebellion burst forth against the king.
4. A violent commotion began.
5. A field of corn lay behind the forest.
6. The 1914-1918 war followed.
7. The new problem of the status of workers arose again.
8. The same film has been on at this cinema for three weeks.
9. A rainbow will occur after the rain.
VIII. How does Agreement apply in sentences with expletive THERE ?
e.g. There were birds chirping on the roof.
Draw the derivational tree of this sentence. What is the nature of BE in this sentence?

Seminar 4-b
Copula-like verbs (link verbs)

I.

Give examples of sentences where the following verbs are link verbs
(V+predicative phrase): go (pale, insane, mad, crazy, silent, stone-deaf,
hungry, contrary to ones nature, unwarned, bad, smelly, dirty, sour, out of
ones mind, in fear of , bald, old, grey, rotten.), come (untrue, true, of
age, square with sb., untied, to be stronger, stronger every day, undone,
expensive, to a stand-still, to pieces, loose, unstitched, unsewn, become
(extinct, ill, ones friend, more and more at peace; get (old, scarce(r), cold,
hot, to be fond of sb.; run (dry, out of sugar, short, to seed, high, low);
grow (better and better, chill, old, into a beautiful lady, out of habit, big,
tall); turn (yellow, red, black, scoundrel, politician, Catholic, 30 years of
age, a good fellow, of a deadly colour, to ice, to rain; fall (flat, ill, lame,
silent, vacant, out of favour with the Queen, a prey to, to blows; remain,
rest, continue, stay, keep (hungry, silent, a prisoner, rest assured (certain,
content, satisfied, secure); keep (silent, close to), stay rich, (asleep),
continue (obstinate, poor);
II.
Look, sound, ring, loom: look ill, look ones age, look as black as a
funeral, sound harsh, ring true (to ones ear), feel bound to accept, feel
attracted by sb., feel in a false position, feel confident (Assured, certain),
feel compelled, feel a queen/a king, old, loom menacing in the distance;
III.
Seem, appear, make, hold, wear, pass: wear thin, make a good speaker,
pass current for a while, pass for a beauty, hold aloof, gold true, hold mute,
hold close.
IV.
Identify the type of predicative in the following copular sentences:
Somebody has been at my jewel-box again. I am at loose ends tonight. He is now at
the top of the social ladder. He is after no good. He was fool enough to marry her.
This student has always been excellent, dont you think so? Yes, he is an excellent
student. He is even better than his word. He was dead broke. This actor is a slow
study. This seems to be a tall order. He seems to be easy meat. The island was the
haunt of the pirates. I couldnt believe whether the fellow was he/him or not. This is
Johns wife. Red hats are the thing today. He was not blunderer enough to betray his
thoughts. The soldiers were all at ease when the captain came in. The team was
already hard at it when the inspector arrived. The merchandise is aboard.
V.
A. Read the following sentences with equative predicates. Try to apply
subject predicate inversion and check the acceptability of these
sentences, when extracting a constituent either from the Subject or from
the Predicative Constituent. Generalize on the main constraint for subject
predicate inversion in Equi-copular sentences. .
E.g. Mike is the new president of the association/The new president of the
association is Mike.
1 The colour of the wall is the reason why I hate this room.
2. Clinton was the US President 6 years ago.
3. Their main preoccupation was getting ready for the party.

Seminar 5
(Unaccusatives: diagnostics, syntactic derivation and distribution)
I. What are the syntactic characteristics of unaccusatives in English? Do these
characteristics hold crosslinguistically? What is the Italian case? Derive the following
sentence and explain how case and theta-role features are assigned to the logical
subject of the predication. What kind of argument is this subject in relation to the
unaccusative verb that selects it?
II. What kind of verbs admit the auxiliary ESSERE in forming a compound perfective
tense? (e.g. is gone) in Romanian? What makes this operation possible and how are
the agreement features checked ? Consider the Romanian sentences below and apply
the Split-Inflection Hypothesis in their derivation (I=AGR/T).
a. Sosesc (toti) musafirii.
b. Sunt sositi (toti) musafirii.
c. Au sosit (toti) musafirii.
III. Why cannot the Unaccusative verbs assign Case to their subjects? Give examples
of unaccusatives in English and describe their basic semantic feature.
IV. Give the argument structure of the following verbs: remain, sit, lie (on the ground)
and make up sentences of your own, by using there-insertion.
V. What are the syntactic and semantic features of unergatives? Give examples of
your own.
VI. Derive the following sentences and identify their arguments:
a.
They walked slowly along the sea coast.
b.
The Marathon man ran on his track for more than 4 hours.
VII. What syntactic rule applies in the following sentences and what does it show?
a. From behind the curtain appeared the young actress and everybody acclaimed her.
b. Downstairs are a lot of people waiting for the president to come.
VIII. Consider the following sentences including the verb seem and see whether there
is any difference in meaning:
a.
It seems that John is hungry.
b.
John seems as if he is hungry.
c.
John seems like he is hungry.
d.
*John seems that he is hungry.
Account for the ungrammaticality of sentence d. by resorting to the Raising analysis
of seem.
IX. What makes the following sentences ill-formed? Describe the properties of expletive
THERE and its subject function and specify its context of occurrence.
a. *There walked John in front of the house.
b. *There the children play in the schoolyard every week.
c. *There occurred the mistakes that Mary made last week.
d. * There will be Michael Jackson at the party tonight.
X. Translate into English, then identify those predicates that lack CAUSATION in your
English version. Are they unaccusative verbs or not?
Circula multe zvonuri privind oprirea centralei nucleare, dar nici unul nu cred sa fie adevarat.
Oricum, situatia nu mai poate continua in acest fel, toate reactoarele sunt demodate si nu mai
functioneaza conform cu standardele Agentiei Internationale de Energie Atomica. Sa
incercam sa aflam adevarul despre concentratia de azot din produsele de carne ca sa
intelegem de ce a fost oprita productia pe acest an. Copilul inainta cativa pasi si se opri brusc,
chiar in fata aparatului. Creionul ii cazu din mana, dar el nu observa.