1.

On constituency:
 Wrong view: sentences as one word after another (linear order).
 Sentences have an internal structure. Words form groups of groups and so
on.
 Those groups are the constituents.
 Yes/No questions: moving the auxiliary verb to the beginning of the
phrase? That produces ungrammatically phrases. So it cannot be the way.
 Example:
I. The boy that is [AUX] holding the plate can see the girl.
II. *Is [AUX] the boy that holding the plate can see the girl?
 What you do in Yes/No questions is to move the first AUX verbs after a
certain groups or words and move it to the beginning of the phrase.
 Therefore: the way Yes/No questions are formed depends on the
structure of the sentence, and not just on the (linear) sequence of words.
 Rules of syntax are sensitive to the structure of sentences (groups of words:
constituents).
 Constituents can contain constituents (Subset in a Set):
o [The boy who is holding [the plate].]
o [[[Tall] [boys]] [[hold] [the plates]].]
o [The girl] [read [the book].]:
 [The girl read]… cannot be a constituent.

2. Constituent Recursion
 Recursion: constituents can be different types and constituents can contain
constituents of the same type.
 Recursion allows as to potentially make infinite number of sentences with
a finite number of words and ways of combining them.
 Example:
I. [John regrets that [Mary was not invited.]]
II. [John regrets that [Mary thinks that [John was not invited.]]]
 Recursion in smaller phrases:
o [the dog [in [the car]]]

3. Substituting Constituents
 What determines if a group of words is a constituent or not?
 2 ways for Diagnostics for constituent structure:
I. Substitution/Replacement the constituent by a single word.
II. Movement/Displacement: can that group of words be moved so
the whole meaning of the sentence remains the same?
1) Substitution/Replacement
 The distinguish word in a phrase is the head.
 If the head is omitted, the phrase turns ungrammatical.
o Noun Phrases:
 The noun is the head. Why? Is the word that is least likely
to be omitted.
 The head usually shares the same category as the phrase.
 [The little rabbit] stopped for [a moment].
 [I]’d like to think that [they] value [honesty].
 Singular/Plural: the number of the head determines the
number of the whole phrase (e.g., the verb). Solving
Ambiguity:
o [Visiting relatives] can be boring. (are boring)
o [Visiting relatives] can be boring. (is boring)
 Gender: gender of the head determines the gender of the
phrase (e.g., the adjective).
 In noun phrases the noun phrase can be replaced by a
pronoun:
o John saw [the boy who fed [the cats.]]
o John saw [him.]
o I saw [the boy who fed [them]].
o Prepositional Phrases:
 In English (but not in every language) prepositions precede
the phrase it combines with.
 Locative prepositional phrases can be replaced by ‘there’,
‘here’…
 Temporal prepositional phrases can be replaced by ‘then’.

o Adjective Phrases:
 That would be [lovely.]
 This article seems [fairly recent.]
 Replacement by ‘so’.
 Adjective phrase:
a. Predicative: after verb. ‘So’ can only be replaced
in predicative position.
b. Attributive: in the noun phrase.
o Verb Phrase:
 To [insult your mother] is disgraceful.
 Jenny will [attend the conference.]
 Laura [painted a portrait of the dog.]
 Can often be replaced by the form ‘do so’:
a. To [insult your mother] is disgraceful.
b. To [do so] is disgraceful.
4. The X-bar Schema

 The head X combines with a phrase (complement –his sister-) and

forms a constituent X’.
 The resulting phrase (X’) combines with another phrase (specifier
–his sister-) and the result is a XP.
 A noun phrase, on the contrary, can also be seen as a projection of
the determiner resulting in a DP.
 Problems:
o In some cases the X-bar Schema gives us too much
structure: the complement or the specifier might be
optional.
o Sometimes can happen that the structure given by the X-
bar Schema is not enough.