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Intermediate Gen Syntax (8) (1)
Intermediate Gen Syntax (8) (1)
Michael Barrie
Sogang University
Foreword
1
Available at http://mikebarrie.com/teaching.html.
3
Acknowledgements
This textbook is a continual work in progress. Thanks are due to all prior students
who have helped shape the details contained herein. I am most grateful to speakers I
have worked with Thanks also to numerous colleagues with whom I have chatted, who
have helped shape my ideas, including Victor Pan, Martina Wiltschko, Elizabeth Cow-
per, Dongwoo Park, Eric Mathieu, Myungwan Park, Jong-Un Park, Duk-Ho An, Inkie
Chung, Mamoru Saito, Seunghun Lee, Yosuke Sato, Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine, Moon-
hyun Sung,
4
Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5
6 CONTENTS
Key concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Further reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Abbreviations 267
Index 274
Bibliography 277
Chapter 1
Language as an object of study can be traced back to Pān.ini in southern Asia, Aristotle in
Europe, and to the School of Mohism during the Warring States Period in China (Itkonen,
1991). From the Renaissance to the mid-nineteenth century, linguistics in Europe was
concerned largely with historical linguistics, sparked in part by Coeurdoux’s and Sir
William Jones’ discovery that Hindi and other languages of Northern India were related
to the languages of Europe (Clackson, 2007). When Europeans started to invade North
and South America during the Renaissance, their discovery of hundreds of Indigenous
languages sparked interest in the structure of human language, giving rise to an approach
to the study of language known as structuralism. This approach to language still informs
contemporary linguistic thinking to some degree, as evidenced by the fact that Leonard
Bloomfield’s 1933 text is still in print.
Modern generative linguistics started with Noam Chomsky with his 1955 dissertation
(which was not published until 1975) and its abridged version published in 1957. The
early development of modern generative linguistics was characterized by attempts to sim-
plify grammar from language specific rules to more universal rules.1 This approach cul-
minated in Government and Binding Theory (GB), which took hold in the early 1980s
(Chomsky, 1986a, 1981; Lasnik and Saito, 1992). The GB approach saw the creation
of modules of grammar, including X-Bar Theory, the Control Module, the Binding Mod-
ule, and so forth. GB Theory is characterized by an ever increasingly complex network of
1
The stages of early generative grammar include Standard Theory, Extended Standard Theory, and Revised
Extended Standard Theory. For a good pedagocial introduction to these earlier stages, see Cowper (1992).
For a more in depth discussion, see Newmeyer (2014). For a more acerbic discussion, see Harris (1995).
9
10 CHAPTER 1. FOUNDATIONS OF THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE
theoretical proposals. Part of the increase in complexity is due to the greater empirical
breadth of the field. Syntacticians were now immersed in a much wider cross-linguistic
base targeting languages in all four corners of the earth. The abstruse formalisms of GB
Theory were eventually abandoned in favour of the Minimalist approach covered here
(Chomsky, 1993).
The original goal of generative linguistics is to create a model of human language
(both spoken and signed) that accounts for all and only the grammatical sentences of a
language (Chomsky, 1955). More recently, it has been defined as, “a description of the
tacit knowledge of the speaker–hearer that underlies their actual production and percep-
tion (understanding) of speech” (Everaert et al., 2015). So, not only must we explain how
grammatical sentences are formed, we must also explain how ungrammatical sentences
are blocked. Chomsky (1986b) extended the domain of generative linguistics to include an
explanation of Plato’s problem, a term he coined based on the philosopher’s writings.
The gist of Plato’s problem is that children acquire language with rather limited expo-
sure, despite the surface intricacy and variety of human language. As such, generative
linguistics has concentrated on universals - those aspects of human language that are
invariant - and parameters - those aspects of human language that vary. The empirical
foundation of this textbook, then, includes the main syntactic phenomena of human lan-
guage and how these phenomena vary in languages around the world. We propose models
to account for these phenomena that account for the observed variation, but that block
ungrammatical forms or impossible languages. Furthermore, a proposed analysis must
meet the condition of explanatory adequacy, which states that there must be evidence
available to the child during acquisition to posit the model that the linguist proposes
(Chomsky, 1965). More recently, generative linguistics has been concerned with under-
standing language from a biologically plausible perspective (Chomsky, 2020; Chomsky
et al., 2019). This approach requires that any proposed universal mechanisms of human
language (see Universal Grammar below) have a plausible evolutionary underpinning–
a requirement that casts doubt on the abstruse mechanisms of older theories such as
Government and Binding Theory.
Let’s examine the following contrast in English and see how it can inform our under-
standing of grammar. The superscript numbers indicate coreference. Thus, in sentence
(1a), John and him both refer to the same person, namely John. The asterisk, *, in front of
the last two sentences means that they are ungrammatical. We will discuss this concept
in more detail in a bit, but for now, it just means that these sentences are unacceptable
to a native speaker of the language under study.2
2
The term native speaker should be used with caution. The so-called ideal speaker-hearer in Chomsky’s
(1965, p. 3)–a monolingual speaker who has lived their entire life in a homogeneous speech community is
1.1. THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE 11
Our task, then, is to formulate a model that accounts not only for the grammaticality
of the first two sentences, but also for the ungrammaticality for the latter two sentences.
Based on this limited set of data, we might propose the following two principles of
anaphora, the concept of referring back to a previously mentioned element. We say that
John is the antecedent of him in the first sentence. Likewise, Mary is the antecedent of
herself in the second sentence. The reader can verify that the first two sentences above
satisfy the principles below. Example (1c) violates (2a) and that example (1d) violates (2b).
We will now address the notion of grammaticality raised above. A sentence is said to
be grammatical if it does not violate any rules of grammar. We related this to acceptability
above. A sentence is acceptable if a native speaker agrees that it has the intended mean-
ing in a given context. Testing sentences for acceptability with a native speaker requires
training in fieldwork methodology, which is a topic we will not go into great detail here.
Note that a native speaker may reject a sentence for a variety of reasons. There may be
a better or more natural way to say it. The sentence may be acceptable only in a given
context, and the speaker has a different context in mind. The sentence may require a
specific kind of intonation which the tester did not replicate or, again, the speaker did
not have in mind.
A sentence that is unacceptable to a speaker is marked with an asterisk (*). Sometimes,
the unacceptability is felt weakly by a speaker, so it is marked with a question mark (?).
Sometimes, there is variation in acceptability. Some speakers find a sentence acceptable
and others don’t. This could be the result of variation in the grammar from one speaker
to the next. Such sentences are marked with a percentage sign (%). Finally, a sentence
may be semantically or pragmatically odd, in which case it is marked with a number sign
(#). Here are some examples.
in fact a rare exception around the world. Much research has also been conducted on L2 grammar (Braidi,
2020) and heritage languages (Polinsky, 2018), which specifically requires speakers of varying degrees of
proficiency in the language under study.
12 CHAPTER 1. FOUNDATIONS OF THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE
The sentence in (3a) is grammatical, so does not have a marking. The sentence in (3b)
violates basic word order rules of English. This is a syntactic violation, so this sentence
is marked with an asterisk. The sentence in (3c) is felt by most speakers to be mildly
unacceptable. Syntacticians may describe this kind of sentence as degraded and mark
it with a question mark. The sentence in (3d) is acceptable for some speakers, but not
for others. The percentage sign indicates this variation in acceptability. Finally, the last
two sentences are unacceptable, but not for syntactic reasons. The words are all inflected
properly and are in the right order. In (3e), there is a semantic problem. Only animate
nouns can be described as living or dead, and a toothbrush is inanimate. In (3f) there is
a contradiction. The first clause is felicitous only in a context where John ate the whole
apple. This contradicts the next clause, which asserts that he did not eat the entire apple.
Semantic and pragmatic problems are indicated with a number sign.
Optionality is indicated by brackets. The use of the asterisk with brackets is used to
indicate whether a form is obligatory or impossible within the given sentence. Here are
some examples.
use. We are using English, so we give an idiomatic translation into English. Here is a
straight-forward example from Portuguese (da Cunha and Cintra, 1985, 137).
Morphologically complex words are broken down into separate morphemes, which
are shown by dashes in the example and in the gloss. Here is an example with rather
straightforward morphology.
In some cases a word cannot be separated easily into separate morphemes, as is the
case for suppletion and fusional morphology. In this case a period is used to separate each
unit of meaning. Here are two examples from German. Observe in the first example the
root and the plural morpheme are easily distinguished and are separated by a hyphen.
In the second example, though, we cannot easily discern a separate plural morpheme.
(7) German
a. Auto, Auto-s
car, car-pl
‘car’ ‘cars’
b. Garten, Gärten
garden, garden.pl
‘garden’, ‘gardens’
Here is the Portuguese example repeated from above with the gloss indicated as per
the Leipzig Glossing Convention.
The following Korean example illustrates the same point.4 Observe that the verb molu-
n-ta has three identifiable morphemes. The first morpheme (molu) is a suppletive form
4
Note that in the traditional Yale system 부 (IPA [pu] ‘neg’) is transcribed as pu rather than as pwu since 브
(IPA [p1]) is not historically found in Korean. However, because of recent borrowings such as 브랜드 (‘brand’)
and 블로그 (‘blog’) 부 is romanized as pwu in this textbook. 블로그 then, is Romanized as pulloku.
14 CHAPTER 1. FOUNDATIONS OF THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE
All of the abbreviations used in the glosses are listed in the appendix. Grammatical
persons are indicated by numerals (1, 2, 3). Let’s consider the first word in the Blackfoot
example. The person prefix indicates first person (however, it does not indicate whether
the first person is the subject or the object). The form for want indicates that this is a
transitive construction (tr) and that the object is animate (anim). The agreement suffix
indicates that the subject is first person and the object is third person. Some of these
concepts may be unfamiliar for now. The important message is that the gloss must clearly
indicate the morphological breakdown of the example.
Our goal in linguistics is to understand natural human language, including how children
acquire language and how the brain processes language. Thus, we are interested in lan-
guage as a natural object. To understand this we need to examine how language is used
by people in everyday speech situations. Thus, we describe and analyze the way people
use language in everyday life.
1.2. PRESCRIPTIVISM AND DESCRIPTIVISM 15
Let’s consider a specific example of a prescriptive rule in more detail. The following
sentences all contain an instance of singular they.
All of these sentences were originally proscribed in English by most style manuals
because of the number agreement between the subject and the possessive pronoun mod-
ifying the object. Everyone, someone, and who are singular, and thus require singular
pronouns. Note, though, that as of 2022 a large number of style manuals in the English-
speaking world tolerate or even advocate singular they. Furthermore, singular they as
found in (12) has been attested since the 14th century and is found in the works of
Shakespeare and Austen among numerous other writers. Forms such as he or she are
usually no longer advised by the majority of style manual as they sound unnatural to
English speakers and exclude non-cisgender and non-binary people who use they or
another pronoun.5
Descriptivism is the approach that linguists take in the study of language. Linguists
do not prescribe how language is to be used (although they are sometimes asked to).
5
There is an extensive literature on singular they (Bodine, 1975; Bjorkman, 2017; Hwang, 2022; Konnelly
and Cowper, 2020; Lagunoff, 1997; Moulton et al., 2022; Conrod, 2019; Moulton et al., 2020).
16 CHAPTER 1. FOUNDATIONS OF THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE
Rather, they record, describe, and analyze the way language is actually used. This in-
cludes language in all its forms, including its dialects (the form of a language used in a
geographically determined area), sociolects (the form of a language used by a given socio-
economic class) and even idiolects (the particular form of a language used by a specific
person).
When a child is acquiring language they must figure out a general rule for this kind of
question formation. The difficulty comes when the child is confronted with the following
kind of sentence.
During language acquisition children produce many forms that differ from the adult
form of the language. English-speaking children produce forms such as eated (instead of
ate). Korean speaking children produce forms such as 안 밥 먹어 (an pap meke ‘not rice
eat’) instead of 밥 안 먹어 (pap an meke ‘rice not eat’). In these cases, the child has made
a guess at how to form the past tense of an English verb (add ‘-ed’) or at how to negate
a Korean verb (maintain uninterrupted object-verb order). Both of these are reasonable
guesses that turn out to be wrong in these situations. The question here is what kinds
1.3. EVIDENCE OF SYNTACTIC KNOWLEDGE 17
of guesses does the child make in formulating a rule of question formation. A child could
guess that the first auxiliary in (14) should be moved to the left of the subject resulting
in the following.
Eventually, the child would learn that the matrix auxiliary appears at the front of the
sentence, not the auxiliary that is first linearly.
It turns out that children never make errors of the kind in (15) (Legate and Yang, 2002).
That is, children never entertain a rule that makes use of linear order in the sentence.
Instead children know that language is hierarchically organized and eventually arrive at
the rule that picks out the matrix auxiliary. Despite the disagreement in the literature
as to how children arrive at this conclusion, the fact is that they do, and we as linguists
must model that knowledge.
There is considerably more evidence of tacit syntactic knowledge. In a famous ex-
periment by de Villiers (1995) it was shown that children as young as 3;6 possess tacit
knowledge about their language.6 The experiment involves telling a short story to young
children as follows.
(17) Once there was a boy who loved to climb trees in the forest. One afternoon he
slipped and fell to the ground. He picked himself up and went home. That evening
when he had a bath, he noticed a big bruise on his arm. He said to his father, “I
must have hurt myself when I fell this afternoon.” (de Villiers et al., 1990, 265)
The children are then asked either one of the following two questions.
Observe that the first sentence is ambiguous while the second sentence is not. Con-
sider the following possible answers.
Somehow English speakers know that (18a) is ambiguous but that (18b) is not. When
the children in the experiment were presented with the question in (18a) they either
answered, “when he was having a bath” or “when he was climbing a tree.” When they
were asked the question in (18b) they only responded with “when he was having a bath.”
Children as young as 3.5 somehow know that (18a) is ambiguous while (18b) is not. It is
exactly this kind of linguistic knowledge we are trying to model.
Recall that the goal of generative grammar is to create a model of language that captures
the full range of possible sentences in a language. First, note that we do not mean a ‘full
sentence’ as intended in traditional grammar. Consider the following short dialogue.
B - a book
B’s response is not a full sentence in the sense of traditional grammar as it lacks a verb
and a subject. In terms of descriptive grammar, however, B’s response is appropriate and
grammatical. A question, then, that we must answer is how B’s response is generated.
Note that B’s response means, “I bought a book.” It cannot mean, “I want to buy a book.”
or “There’s a book on the table.” or anything else that might have to do with the book. To
reiterate from above, the linguist is responsible for describing and analyzing spoken and
signed language. This includes sentences with elided material as in B’s response above.
A syntactic analysis begins with a descriptive generalization based on data gath-
ered by the linguist. A descriptive generalization is a statement that describes a pattern
for a variable of interest.7 Let’s illustrate with an example building on the data from En-
glish set at the beginning of this chapter. Say you have gathered the following Korean
data. Pay close attention to the reflexive pronoun caki (glossed as self). Our variable of
interest here is the distribution of caki. Again, the numbers indicate co-reference.
In these data, we see that the reflexive pronoun caki (self) can refer to a noun in the
same clause or in a different clause. Recall that this is unlike the reflexive pronouns in
English, which must refer to a noun in the same clause.
If we test this conclusion against further data, we see that we must revise our gener-
alization. Consider the following data.
The data above show that the reflexive pronoun must appear after its antecedent.
We will cover one more example. Consider the following Cayuga (cay) data.
Observe that the quantifier gwe:go˛h (‘all’) and the noun it modifies do not have to
appear together in Cayuga. A similar pattern is also found in English. When the quantifier
is separated from the noun it modifies we call it a floated quantifier .
(27) Certain quantifiers, such as all can appear separately from the noun they modify
and can appear anywhere in the sentence.
Consider, however, the following additional Cayuga example Barrie (2017, 3) and En-
glish examples.
In Cayuga the floated quantifier cannot appear to the right of the noun it modifies.8
Furthermore, in English the floated quantifier cannot appear to the left of the noun it
modifies. We must now modify our generalization from above.
(29) Certain quantifiers, such as all can appear separately from the noun they modify
and are called floated quantifiers. In Cayuga the floated quantifier must appear to
the left of the noun it modifies. In English, the floated quantifier must appear to
the right of the noun it modifies.
We will have more to say about floated quantifiers later, but this short forray suffices
to show that a generalization can be made more precise by considering a broader range
of data.
8
As we mentioned above, this generalization would have to be established with several examples, not with
just one. We show just one example here to illustrate the principles involved.
1.4. SYNTACTIC THEORIZING 21
Key concepts
• descriptivisim - the practice of describing actual language use without place value
judgements on the forms observed
• Poverty of Stimulus - the notion that children do not receive enough input to fully
determine the rules of grammar
• Universal Grammar - that part of human language that is invariant across the
species
Further Reading
• Chomsky (1957) and Chomsky (1965) - Two early works of Chomsky’s. His 1965
monograph is an accessible introduction to generative grammar
22 CHAPTER 1. FOUNDATIONS OF THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE
This section investigates what kind of information is attached to a word. Let’s initially say
that the word is stored in the mental lexicon with some sort of phonological matrix that
tells us what the pronunciation is and something that tells us what the word means. The
information stored with a lexical item in the mental lexicon is called its lexical entry.
Lexical items place various selectional restrictions on their arguments, which is also
thought to be stored in the mental lexicon. These restrictions are related to the kind of
role the arguments play in the event depicted by the predicate. These roles are called the-
matic relations (Fillmore, 1968) For instance, in the sentence John washed the dishes,
John is purposefully bringing about the action of washing the dishes, so he is an <agent>.
However, in the sentence, John cried in the basement, John did not purposefully bring
about the event of crying. Unless John is an actor in a play, we would normally under-
stand John to have experienced the event of crying, rather than bringing it about. Thus,
23
24 CHAPTER 2. REVIEW OF BASIC SYNTAX
Thematic relations:
<agent> - the initiator of an action
John ate an apple.
<theme> - the entity that moves or changes possession
Mary gave a book to John.
The book fell off the shelf.
<patient> - the entity that is physically affected by the event
John broke the mirror.
<experiencer> - the entity that perceives an event or has a psychological reaction
Pat enjoyed the opera.
<percept> - the entity that is perceived
Fred tasted the wine.
<location> - the place in which an event takes place
Fred ate some pickerel in Winnipeg.
<goal> - the place to which movement takes place
Gyumin flew from Busan to Nagoya
<recipient> - the individual to whom ownership is transferred
Pat sent the manuscript to Alex.
<source> - the place from which movement takes place or the individual who
provides the entity being transferred
Makiko flew from Tokyo to Seoul.
Fred bought a car from Alice.
<benefactive> - the individual for whose benefit an event is carried out
Pat washed the dishes for Alex.
Take care to note the following distinction. A predicate assigns particular theta-roles
(or θ-roles), to its arguments. Each θ-role will correspond to one or more thematic rela-
tions (Gruber, 1965; Fillmore, 1968). See Harley (2010) in particular for a good review.
For example, in the sentence John gave Mary a book, John carries the θ-role correspond-
ing to the role as a giver. This θ-role bears two thematic relations: the <agent> and the
<source>. We say that the θ-role for John contains two thematic relations: <agent> and
<source>.
Theta Criterion
i. Every argument bears one and only one θ-role.
ii. Every θ-role is assigned to one and only one argument.
2.1. THE LEXICON AND THETA RELATIONS 25
Here are the θ-roles for each of the arguments in these two sentences.
There are many instances in which the subject and object θ-roles can be switched for
<percept> and <experiencer>, but not for <agent> and <patient>. In (1b) the verb frighten
has a subject with a <percept> θ-role and an object with an <experiencer> θ-role. In (3b),
the θ-roles are reversed for the verb fear. However, there is no hypothetical verb thop as
in (3a) in which the subject is a <patient> and the object is an <agent>.
The way arguments are marked in the clause is often correlated with θ-roles. First, let’s
review the notions of internal argument (외재논항) and external argument (내재논항)
(Williams, 1980). The internal arguments are introduced by VP. The external argument
is introduced outside of VP (by vP). Note that in passives, the internal argument becomes
the grammatical subject. The following example illustrates these two properties.
>
b. sudZan-da SjaU dZa mu-la
˙ “ like cop-n.pst
apple
Sujan-dat
‘Sujan likes apples.’
Observe in the first example that the subject is an <agent> and bears ergative case.1
In the second example, the subject is an <experiencer> and bears dative case.
Finally, argument-taking lexical items have theta grids that state how θ-roles are
assigned (Williams, 1981). Theta grids form part of the lexical entry of the verb. Consider
the verb chop, which requires a direct object.
When theta grids were originally conceived, the external argument (often the subject
in active voice) was considered an argument of the verb. There is now good evidence that
the external argument is introduced by a distinct functional projection (Kratzer, 1996).2
Under this original conception, the theta-grid for the verb chop appears as follows. The
external argument is underlined and is indicated by 1. In this case, it is an agent. The
internal arguments are indicated by 2 and (in the case of ditransitives) 3.3 If there is no
external argument, then the first argument is indicated with the numeral 1 without an
underline.
CHOP 1 2
<agent> <patient>
CHOP 1
<patient>
The functional head v has its own theta grid, which indicates that the external argu-
ment is an <agent>.
We are now left with the following question. How do we account for the tendency for
verbs to consistently appear with either an <agent> or an <experiencer> θ-role for the
external argument. For instance, the external argument of chop is an <agent>, and the
external argument of like is an <experiencer>, as in the following examples.
There is more than one way to tackle this problem. Certainly, the θ-role of the external
argument associated with a given verb is the kind of information a language learner
or a lexicographer would want to encode. The approach we take here is that syntax is
responsible for putting words together in a sentence. It is not responsible for the choices
of which words and functional heads to use. The fact that chop conventionally appears
with a v that assigns an <agent> θ-role is simply something the syntax is not concerned
with. Other theories of syntax, however, may take a different approach. It is instructive to
note at this point that the ways words are used change over time. Consider the following
example.
This sentence is ambiguous between the <experiencer> reading for the subject and
the <agent> reading.4
Recall that severing the external argument from the verb allows us to simplify the
theta grids for alternating unaccusative verbs. Consider the following examples.
Before, we had to posit two different theta grids for open. Assuming that v assigns the
external θ-role, only one theta grid for open and similar verbs like break, shatter, boil,
and melt are needed. Here, then, are the two theta grids necessary for (9a).
Other θ-roles are assigned often by adpositions in many languages. If we change the
sentence above as follows to include a location we get the following.
IN 1
<location>
4
This is, of course, a more recent use of like, which has the approximate meaning ‘to click like’. Merriam
Webster’s online dictionary, for example, has the following definition: “to electronically register one’s approval
of (something, such as an online post or comment) for others to see (as by clicking on an icon designed for
that purpose)”
28 CHAPTER 2. REVIEW OF BASIC SYNTAX
To conclude, we have seen that verbs assign θ-roles to their internal arguments. The
external argument is assigned a θ-role by v. The external argument is usually either an
<agent> or an <experiencer>. There are pairs of verbs such as frighten/fear in which
the θ-roles can be reversed so that the object is the <experiencer>; however, the <agent>
θ-relation can never be assigned to an internal argument.
We will briefly review some constituency diagnostics. Note that constituency diagnostics
are often one-way entailments. That is, if a test string of words fails a constituency di-
agnostic it may be because it is not a constituent, but it may be because the diagnostic
being used does not apply to the constitent being tested. For example, ellipsis is a com-
mon constituency diagnostic. Some languages have VP ellipsis but some do not. A VP is a
constituent, but if the language you’re looking at doesn’t have VP ellipsis, then attempting
to elide the VP will result in ungrammaticality.
The first test we discuss is often called the replacement test. Many constituents can
be replaced by pro-forms. The notion that a constituent can be replaced by a pro-form is
called the pro-form Criterion (Miller, 1992). Here are some common English pro-forms.
He is reading it.
VPs in English can be replaced by the pro-form so, as in (13). Here, so replaces the
VP writing a tough exam.
2.2. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY 29
Pro-forms vary from one language to the next and must be worked out on a case-by-
case basis. The following example gives some Korean pro-forms.
Consider the traditional Korean VP pro-form 그렇다 (kulehta, ‘to do so’). Here is an ex-
ample. The VP pro-form replaces the italicized (or underlined) strings in the two sentences
below, showing that they are constituents.
French has a locative clitic, y (‘there’), which can replace a locative PP, as in the fol-
lowing example.
Constituency can also be diagnosed by the ability of a string of words to stand alone
in a single utterance. Here are some examples.
Only constituents of the same type can be coordinated. This test works well for virtu-
ally all types of constituents, unlike some of the other diagnostics, which only work well
for certain types of constituents. Consider the following examples.
In (18a) the two NPs are coordinated into one large NP, and in (18b) the two PPs are
likewise coordinated. (18c) show more evidence that a verb and an object together form
a constituent. The following data show that phrases of different categories cannot be
coordinated.
In the first example two NPs are coordinated, and in the second example two VPs
are coordinated. In the third example, however, an NP is coordinated with a VP, and the
sentence is ungrammatical. Likewise in the last example a VP is coordinated with an NP,
and again the sentence is ungrammatical.
The next test we explore is called clefting. A clefted sentence has the following form,
such that X is always a constituent. There are some examples to the side in which the
constituent in the X position is italicized. As can be seen from the examples, NPs and
PPs can be clefted in English.
Let’s use this test in the following two sentences to see if the underlined string of words
are constituents or not.
To execute this test, we put the underlined string of words in the X position in the
cleft. This gives us the following results, showing us that the underlined string of words
in the first sentence is a constituent, but not the underlined string of words in the second
sentence.
(22) a. It was the lamp in the living room that John likes.
b. * It was the cake in the oven that John put.
Now, let’s consider the following ambiguous sentence, with the two paraphrases given
below.
Let’s see what happens when we try to cleft the relevant parts of the sentence.
Here, we see that the range of possible meanings has changed. In (24a), we only get
the reading in (23a); however, in (24b), we only get the reading in (23b). Thus, in order to
get the reading in (23a), the string of words the child with binoculars is a constituent. To
get the reading in (23b), we see that this string does not form a constituent, otherwise
(24a) would still be ambiguous. (24b) shows us that the child is a constituent, of course.
Pseudoclefting is another reliable test for constituency. A pseudoclefted sentence has
the form in (25), where X is always a constituent. As you can see from the examples, NPs
and PPs can be clefted in English. A pseudocleft must select the appropriate wh-word
(question word – what for things, who for people, etc.). Not only can NPs and PPs be
pseudoclefted, but VPs can be pseudoclefted, too. When a VP is pseudoclefted some form
of the verb do is required.
Korean has a similar pseudocleft construction that diagnoses constituency (Kim, 1978,
140-141). It has the following structure, where X is a constituent.
(27) a. Billy broke the big window with a stone. (Consider only the meaning in which
Billy used the stone to break the window)
b. The big window was broken with a stone.
Topicalization also diagnoses constituency. Based on the example above we can also
say the following to show that the big window is a constituent.
(28) The big window Billy broke with a stone...the small one he broke with a stick.
2.2. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY 33
Many languages also have a dislocation operation called scrambling. In Korean and
many languages around the world, word order is rather free. When a phrase moves in the
sentence, as the object does in the example below, we say it has undergone scrambling.
Some languages also have VP fronting, showing that the VP is a constituent. Consider
the following example.
The following examples also show that the VP is a constituent in Korean as the string
phica-lul mek (‘eat pizza’) can be fronted.
This test shows that the string of the verb and the object (‘pizza eat’) is a constituent.
We give another example of VP fronting from German. Consider first the following
base pair of sentences. These data are similar to the Korean data above as they involve
scrambling of an object to the left of a subject.
German also has a process of VP-fronting similar to Korean. Consider the following
data.
Again, these data show that the verb and the object together dem Großvater helfen
(‘grandfather help’) form a VP constituent.
Finally, we discuss right node raising (Postal, 1974). Bresnan (1974) proposes that
right node raising is a reliable constituency diagnostic. Consider the following examples.
The italicized portion has undergone right node raising.
Using the Revised Extended Standard Theory at the time (before X-Bar Theory), these
structures were represented as follows. The constituent that adjoins to S is said to have
undergone right node raising.
(35)
S
S NPi
NP VP NP VP
Mary V ti Fred V ti
bought read
We set aside the BPS representation of right node raising, but see Citko (2017) for
recent discussion.
2.2. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY 35
We finish off this section with a refresher on the c-command relation (Reinhart, 1976),
which is defined as follows.
C-Command:
A node α c-commands a node β, iff every branching node that dominates α also
dominates β, and α does not dominate β.
To understand why the anaphor is grammatical in (36a) but not in (36b), consider
the trees for these sentences to see the c-command relations between the elements in
question. Note that we will consider the structure of possessives in more detail later, but
the structure below will suffice for now.
(37) a.
CP
C TP
TP
DP1 i
John T vP
ti vP
v VP
Vj v tj D
likes himself1
36 CHAPTER 2. REVIEW OF BASIC SYNTAX
b.
CP
C TP
DPi TP
DP T
DP1
vP
John D N ti vP
’s sister
v VP
Vj v tj D
likes himself1
Observe that in (37a) the antecedent John c-commands the anaphor; however, in
(37b), the antecedent does not c-command the anaphor. Although this notion is discussed
in detail in chapter 10, we will see the notions of c-command and anaphora in chapter 4.
Early in the GB era phrase structure was constrained by X-Bar Theory, which evolved
into Bare Phrase Structure (Chomsky, 1994). Recall the basic structure of X-Bar Theory.
Note that the terms specifier and complement are still in use.
(38)
XP
Spec X’
X Compl
In Bare Phrase Structure, phrases are built up by an operation called Merge, which
takes two syntactic objects and merges them together into a single syntactic object. In
the following example, α and β are merged together. This operation is called more specif-
ically set Merge, or often just Merge for short. We keep to the simplest mechanism and
assume that Merge always takes exactly two syntactic objects, α and β, giving rise to
an unordered nested set with a label, γ. Since Merge is defined as taking two syntactic
objects, branching is necessarily binary.
We need a way to determine the label, γ. The following algorithm has been proposed
to determine the label after merge. The original algorithm is found in Chomsky (2013,
2.2. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY 37
2015); however, the precise formulation is the subject of ongoing research (Cecchetto
and Donati, 2015; Citko, 2011; Hornstein and Nunes, 2008; Saito, 2016; Sato, 2010;
Sheehan, 2013).
For our purposes, a criterial feature is any grammatical feature in which an uninter-
pretable Probe is valued.5 Crucially, theta-role assignment is not an instance of criterial
feature checking. Consider the derivation of Mary ate the apple. The verb merges with
the object DP. When a head merges with a phrase, the label is the head. To remind our-
selves, first we present the actual BPS syntagmatic representation, (41a), followed by a
more reader-friendly version, (41b). Again, it is important to keep in mind that the reader-
friendly version is a notational variant of the BPS representation.
(41) a.
eat
eat the
the apple
b.
VP
V DP
eat
the apple
In example (42) the structure has been built up to vP, at which point two phrases are
merged together, DP and vP.6 The subject DP receives a theta role. No criterial feature is
5
Chomsky (2013) was more precise than this. For him, the term criterial feature is used in the sense
of Rizzi (2006). Once a goal has satisfied a criterial feature it cannot be moved. This is important for the
notion of subject. A subject raises to SpecTP to check ϕ-features, but can subsequently raise for focus,
question, or topic movement. Thus, it is not a criterial feature. We will ignore this complication here and
simply assume that when the subject raises to SpecTP it checks a criterial feature. See (Chomsky, 2015) for
further developments.
6
Recall that V undergoes head movement to v. We come back to head movement in the next chapter.
38 CHAPTER 2. REVIEW OF BASIC SYNTAX
checked, so this structure is left without a label. The symbol Ø represents the lack of a
label.
(42)
Ø
DP vP
Mary
v VP
V DP
ate
the apple
In (43) the subject DP raises, allowing Ø to be labelled as vP. The subject values the
ϕ-features on T, which we said above is a criterial feature. The feature forms the label;
however, for convenience, we notate it as the head that contains the unvalued feature.7
(43)
TP
DPi TP
Mary T vP
ϕ:3sg.f uϕ
ti vP
v
VP
th
ta
e
st
y
7
Chomsky (2015) proposes specifically that TP and DP share ϕ features, so the label is <ϕ,ϕ>. See Chomsky
(2015) for more details as well as Shim (2018) and Richards (2019) for refinements.
8
Note that in traditional grammar determiners are considered adjectives.
2.2. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY 39
The notion that adjuncts do not affect the syntactic status of their hosts is still typ-
ically assumed (Ernst, 2002; Chomsky, 2020). Adjuncts are assumed to undergo pair
Merge (in contrast to set Merge above). The precise mechanism of pair Merge is still under
debate. The label of the structure resulting from pair Merge is represented as an ordered
pair. Consider the following example in which the AdjP very dusty has been pair Merged
to the NP pictures of John.
(45)
<NP,NP>
AdjP NP
For review, the following structure shows how the complement, specifier, and adjunct
fit into an XP projection.
(46)
<XP,XP>
YP XP
adjunct ZP XP
specifier X WP
complement
Let’s look at a concrete example to see how phrase structure is built up. We will con-
struct the phrase structure for the VP cut the cake with a knife. Note that the structure
of noun phrases will be considered in detail later, so we represent them as triangles here.
Also, for now we will ignore the vP projection. First, the verb cut takes the object the cake
as a complement. Since a head, V, merges with a phrase, NP, the head projects and the
result is a VP.
(47)
VP
V DP
Next, the preposition with merges with the NP a knife. Again, a head merges with a
phrase, so the head projects.
40 CHAPTER 2. REVIEW OF BASIC SYNTAX
(48)
PP
P DP
with
a knife
Now, the VP and the PP undergo pair-merge. The resulting phrase has the label <VP,VP>.
Observe crucially that the complement is the sibling to the verb.
(49)
<VP,VP>
VP PP
V DP P DP
with
cut the cake a knife
Key Concepts
• thematic relation - The kind of role an argument plays with respect to its predicate.
<agent>, <patient>, <theme>, <recipient>, etc.
• internal argument - An argument of the verb that is introduced inside the VP.
• constituency - the notion that certain phrases that behave as a unit syntactically
should be represented as a unit by being exhaustively dominated by a single node
• set Merge - A structure building operation in which two syntactic objects are brought
together to form a new syntactic object.
2.2. PHRASE STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUENCY 41
Further Reading
• Carnie (2008) - This monograph discusses in detail advanced techniques and dis-
cussions of constituency diagnostics. It should be accessible after a full understand-
ing of this chapter and chapter 4.
• Chomsky (1970) - This paper is where Chomsky first proposes the X-Bar theory of
phrase structure, the precursor of Bare Phrase Structure.
• Chomsky (1994) - This paper is where Chomsky outlines Bare Phrase Structure.
• Speas (1990) - This volume discusses adjuncts in detail and draws a distinction
between adjuncts adjoined to XP (as done in this textbook) and adjuncts adjoined
to intermediate X-bar projections (as done in X-Bar Theory). This source should only
be tackled once the fundamentals covered in this book have been acquired.
• Baker (1988b) - Baker proposes that θ-roles are assigned on a universal hierarchy.
For instance, <theme> is assigned before <agent>. This captures the generalization
that there are many verbs with <agent> as subject and <theme> as object, but not
the other way around.
• Pesetsky (1982) - This dissertation discusses the role of c-selection (as distinct from
s-selection) in grammar. It focuses chiefly on Russian syntax, but makes universal
claims about grammar.
• Chomsky (2013) and Chomsky (2015) - These two papers discuss Labelling Theory
in more detail. Note that the version of Labelling Theory here largely aligns with
Chomsky (2013).
42 CHAPTER 2. REVIEW OF BASIC SYNTAX
Chapter 3
3.1 Features
Lexical items have properties that have morphosyntactic manifestations throughout the
sentence. Consider the following examples.
Observe that the form of the determiner and the form of the adjective change depend-
ing on the gender of the noun. The following Portuguese example illustrates agreement
in more detail.
43
44 CHAPTER 3. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
Consider also the following data from the Busan dialect of Korean (Barrie and Lee,
2017). Here, the form of the complementizer varies with respect to the type of clause
(polarity question or content question) and the type of predicate (verb or copula (연결동
사/BE동사)).
It is proposed that lexical items have features, which indicate its special properties
that give rise to the morpho-syntactic phenomena observed. Let’s take the French ex-
ample first. The noun pomme (‘apple’) has the gender feature [f] (feminine). That is, the
lexical entry for pomme includes the fact that it has this feature. Likewise, the noun
crayon (‘pencil’) has the gender feature [m] (masculine). There are two singular definite
determiners in French. They both have roughly the same meaning as English the; how-
ever, the form la appears with feminine nouns and the form le appears with masculine
nouns. Another way to say this is that the form of the determiner varies with the gender
of the noun it modifies. Also, the form of the adjective agrees with the gender of the noun
it predicates.
In early Minimalist frameworks (Chomsky, 1993, 1995), it was proposed that features
were either interpretable or uninterpretable. Uninterpretable features were either strong
or weak. The following notation is used to indicate these concepts.
3.1. FEATURES 45
Let’s see how features play a role in the syntactic derivation. Consider the following
Portuguese examples. Observe that the verb agrees with the subject in the following
data. Chomsky proposed that the person, number, and gender features of the noun (the
ϕ-features) are interpretable on nouns and uninterpretable on T. This feature system
was originally designed to capture the traditional notion that verbs agree with nouns.
Consider the following data.
The following tree illustrates these features. Note that this tree is illustrated without
any movement. We delay the discussion of movement until later. Nevertheless, observe
that the verb agrees with the subject.
(6)
CP
C TP
T vP
[uϕ:]
DP vP
o aluno
v VP
[iϕ:3sg]
V DP
leu
o livro
The uninterpretable feature, also called the Probe searches for a value in its c-command
domain. The syntactic object that contains a matching valued feature is called the Goal.
An agree relation is established between the two as follows.
46 CHAPTER 3. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
(7)
CP
C TP
T vP
[uϕ:3sg]
DP vP
o aluno
v VP
[iϕ:3sg]
V DP
leu
o livro
The model of grammar that we are exploring here was initiated by Chomsky in the 1990’s
and is known as the Minimalist Program (Chomsky, 1995). The basic tenets of this
approach to generative syntax are reminiscent of Occam’s Razor. The components of the
grammar consist of a Lexicon, which contains the lexical items of the language. This
includes both roots and functional heads. The lexical items encode all the idiosyncratic
information about the language.
The Lexicon, together with the principles and parameters interact to form the grammar
of the language. We do not wish to make our model of grammar any more complicated than
is necessary to explain the facts about human language. Clearly, some kind of Lexicon as
described is necessary. We also need some way to put the lexical items together to form
sentences. This is the topic of the current section.
The operation of Merge described in the previous chapter is known more specifically
as External Merge (Chomsky, 2004). In the operation Merge (α, β) one or both of the
arguments comes from the Lexicon.1 That is, one or both of the arguments is external
to the tree being constructed. Of course syntactic objects can move in the tree, which is
called Internal Merge.2 Chomsky (1995) originally conceived of Merge and Move as two
distinct operations; however, given that they have similar properties, Chomsky proposed
1
In some versions of Minimalism, there is a Numeration or Workspace which holds the lexical items to be
used in a given derivation (Chomsky, 1995, 2019). We leave this mechanism aside for the time being.
2
Note that External Merge can take place either as Set Merge or Pair Merge. Internal Merge is hypothesized
to take place only as Set Merge. Why this should be so is a matter of ongoing research.
3.2. INTERNAL MERGE (MOVE) 47
they be recast as a single operation, Merge. The names Internal Merge and External Merge
are merely descriptive terms of convenience.
Merge (be it internal or external) can target only the root node of the tree in the case
of phrasal movement. Recall the definition of Merge as follows.
One of the two arguments, α and β, is the root node. If the other argument comes
from the Lexicon, we refer to the operation as External Merge (for convenience). If the
other argument comes from the tree, we refer to the operation as Internal Merge (again,
for convenience). It is important to note that these two ways of performing Merge are a
single operation. Thus, we cannot make a rule that refers exclusively to either Internal
Merge or External Merge.3 The following example illustrates Internal Merge of WP to XP.
Assume for now that the label XP is projected.
(9) a.
XP
X YP
Y ZP
Z WP
b.
XP
WPi XP
X YP
Y ZP
Z ti
Recall that derivations are punctuated by phases (Chomsky, 2001). In chapter 8.5 of
Introduction to Generative Syntax the phase heads C and D were covered. Transitive and
unergative v is also a phase head.4 We will consider the vP phase later. For now, we will
concern ourselves with the CP phase. Each phase head triggers spell-out of the sister to
the phase head below it. Consider the following sample derivation, where H represents a
phase head.
3
This obviates the earlier “Merge over Move” principle from Chomsky (1995, 1998). See also Shima (2000),
Hornstein (2001), and Motut (2010) for additional discussion.
4
The set of phase heads is still under discussion. Legate (2003) proposes that all instances of v are phase
heads. It is also proposed that n is a phase head (Marantz, 2001; Marvin, 2003; Newell, 2008).
48 CHAPTER 3. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
Lexicon
Overt Movement
Spell-Out
y
og
M
C em
ol
ov
ov e
ph
er nt
or
t
M
PF LF
In the hypothetical example above XP raises to the specifier of H1 . Once the next higher
phase head, H2 merges in, the sister to H1 undergoes Spell-Out. We say that the specifier
to a phase head is an escape hatch as it allows material to move from one phase to the
next higher phase.
The phase-based conception of the derivation gives rise to a series of iterations of
Spell-Out, typically referred to as multiple Spell-Out (Uriagereka, 1999). Each instance
of Spell-Out is illustrated in Figure 7.1, often referred to as the T-model of syntax. Observe
importantly that movement that takes place before Spell-Out will be visible to both PF
and LF. Movement that happens in the covert portion of the grammar (LF movement or
Covert Movement) will not be visible to PF.
Feature strength was proposed to account for the difference between overt and covert
movement. Consider the following data. Recall that English has wh-movement and that
Mandarin is wh-in-situ.
This difference can be captured with feature strength.5 Assume that the interroga-
tive C head in English has a strong [uwh*] feature and that the interrogative C head in
Mandarin has a weak [uwh] feature, as shown in the following trees.6
(13)
CP CP
C TP C TP
[uwh*] [uwh]
DPi T’ DPi T’
Mary T vP T vP
Līsī
did
ti vP ti vP
v VP v VP
V DP V DP
eat chī-le
what shenme
[iwh] [iwh]
The strong [uwh*] feature in (13) triggers overt movement of the wh-phrase to SpecCP.
The astute reader will recall that the verb raises to v in English and that T raises to C in
many languages in questions; however, we cover head movement in the next section.
5
See Richards (1997) and Pesetsky (2000) for extensive discussions on feature strength and the variety of
wh-movement in languages around the world.
6
See Huang (1982) for persuasive arguments that a [wh] feature is necessary in languages like Mandarin,
even though wh-movement is never observed. See also Cheng (1997) for related discussion.
50 CHAPTER 3. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
(14)
CP
DPj CP
what C TP
[iwh] [uwh*]
DPi TP
Mary T vP
did
ti vP
v VP
V tj
eat
Huang (1982) proposes that wh-movement takes place covertly (at LF) in Mandarin. In
the framework of feature strength being discussed here, this is accomplished by assuming
a weak [uwh] feature on C in Mandarin. Under the system developed here, then, after
Spell-Out the wh-phrase in Mandarin raises to SpecCP.
Head movement involves movement of only a head (hence its name). We have previously
seen head movement used as an explanation for word order.7 For example, we know from
Larson (1988), Kratzer (1996), and Chomsky (1995) that V raises to v. When a head
moves, it can target only another head position, not the root node. Specifically, it targets
the head of the root. Consider an actual example in which the verb raises. Assume we
have reached the following stage in the derivation of the phrase see a dog. The verb see
raises from V to v leaving a trace as shown.
7
Head movement is traditionally used to explain the difference in word order in French and English, which
we review below (Pollock, 1989).
3.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND GRAMMAR 51
(15) a.
vP
v VP
V DP
see
D N
a dog
b.
vP
v VP
V v ti DP
seei
D N
a dog
Head movement is problematic for BPS.8 Recall that the operation Merge always re-
sults in the formation of a nested set, which is interpreted as a phrase. There is simply no
way to form a complex head using Merge. Nevertheless head movement has played and
continues to plays a significant role in generative syntax. A significant domain in which
head movement is important is in the syntax-morphology interface. Within a Distributed
Morphology framework (Halle and Marantz, 1993) the units of syntax are morphemes,
not words.9 The notion that syntax assembles morphemes rather than words goes back
to at least Pollock (1989), which we review below, and to Baker (1985, 1988a). Consider
the following example. The root is followed by a verbalizer (‘-ify’) and a tense/agreement
morpheme.
The morphology of the verb can be accounted for by head movement. In the following
tree the arguments are left out for clarity. Observe that as the verb raises it picks up the
verbal morphology en route. The order of the morphemes in the verb is the opposite of
the order of the functional heads in the extended verbal projection. Mark Baker refers to
this phenomenon as the Mirror Principle (Baker, 1985).
8
Head movement is problematic for generative syntax in general (Fanselow, 2003; Mahajan, 2003; Harley,
2004; Koopman and Szabolcsi, 2000; Chomsky, 2000; Kayne, 2003).
9
For a good pedagogical introduction to Distributed Morphology, see Punske (2023).
52 CHAPTER 3. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
(17)
CP
C TP
T vP
vi T ti VP
eró
Vj v
...tj ...
giust ifich
Thought Exercise 3.1: How do the following Finnish data illustrate the Mirror Prin-
ciple?
1 pudo-t-i-n
fall-caus-pst-1sg
‘I dropped/was dropping (something).’
2 liiku-t-i-mme
move-caus-pst-1pl
‘I moved/was moving (something).’
Below are the set theoretic and syntagmatic tree notations for example (15a) using
BPS. Recall that head movement is impossible to formulate under BPS, so an ad hoc
pairing is used.
(18) {v, { {D, {D, John} }, {v, {<v,seei >, {see, {ti , {a, {a, dog} } } } } } } }
(19)
v
D v
D John v see
Vi v ti a
see
a dog
3.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND GRAMMAR 53
Thought Exercise 3.2: Does head movement cause any problems for the labelling
algorithm? Recall that when two phrases merge and a label cannot be determined,
one phrase moves and the remaining phrase determines the label. Does this mean
that something that moves cannot determine the label? Does this have any effect on
head movement and labelling?
Recall from Introduction to Generative Syntax that the subject raises to SpecTP. Here,
for reference is the final structure using the easier to read structure we have been using
all along, rather than the strict BPS structure as in (19). The arrows are shown only for
clarity.
(20)
CP
C TP
DP TP
D N T vP
John will
ti vP
v VP
Vj v tj DP
see
D N
a dog
Let’s recall why the subject raises to SpecTP. Consider the following data.
The subjects of the first four sentences are expletives. An expletive is required when
no other subject is available. This property was originally formulated as a requirement
on the part of sentences to have subjects; however, it has been observed that other XPs
may have the property of requiring some element to appear in its Specifier. This property
is called the Extended Projection Principle (EPP) (Chomsky, 1982).
• If a head, X, has the EPP property, then the Specifier of XP must be filled.
We will look at other instances of XP movement in subsequent chapters. For the re-
mainder of this chapter we consider some other instances of head movement (although
we do come back to the issue of the EPP at the end of this chapter).
Chomsky (1995) does propose that EPP effects can be captured by the notion of feature
strength. Under this proposal EPP on T reduces to a strong D feature on T. Italian, for
example, has a weak D feature on T. Consider the following examples. Observe that in
English the subject must appear at the left edge of the sentence, assumedly in SpecTP.
Italian does not have this requirement.
c. Italian, Indo-European
Gli student-i sono arrivati.
the.m.pl student-m.pl are arrived
‘The students arrived.’
The strong [uD*] feature on T in English requires overt movement of the closest DP
to SpecTP. However, if we assume Italian has a weak [D] feature on T, then no DP has to
move to SpecTP overtly.
3.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND GRAMMAR 55
Thought Exercise 3.3: Can we tease apart the notions of EPP and feature strength?
A strong feature requires an XP with a matching feature to check it off. EPP requires
any XP to occupy a Spec position. Consider the following English and German data.
Do data such as these shed light on the question? Do we need both concepts?
German, Indo-European
Recall that a verb selects its direct object by merging with it. As a result, the verb is
typically adjacent to the direct object. In English, the verb and the object are obligatorily
adjacent, as shown in the following examples.
Consider, however, the following data from French and Irish (gle) in which the verb
and its direct object are not adjacent. Note that non-specific objects in French are often
introduced in a PP headed by de (‘of’).
When an auxiliary is present, we observe that French and English exhibit the same
word order. Note that adverbs of frequency adjoin to vP. Consider the following schematic
for the word order differences between English and French.
Observe that the verb appears to the left of the adverb in French only when there is no
auxiliary. To account for the difference between English and French word order, Pollock
(1989) proposed that in French the verb raises to T if no auxiliary is present. Consider
first the structure for (23a).
3.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND GRAMMAR 57
(26)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
John T <vP,vP>
AdvP vP
often ti vP
v VP
V v tj DP
eatsj
D N
anchovies
(27)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
Jean T <vP,vP>
vj T AdvP vP
Vk v
souvent ti vP
mange often
tj VP
eats
tk PP
des anchois
of.the anchovies
As mentioned, the verb does not raise to T if there is already an auxiliary in T. Consider
the structure for (25b).
58 CHAPTER 3. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
(28)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
Jean T <vP,vP>
a
has AdvP vP
souvent ti vP
often v VP
Vj v tj
PP
mangé
eaten des anchois
anchovies
Recall that T hosts tense and agreement features (TP = tense phrase) and that the V-v
complex hosts only the lexical verb and a light verb in some languages. In both English
and French, when an auxiliary is present under T, the auxiliary hosts the tense and
agreement morphology. Also, in French, the lexical verb raises to T and hosts the tense
and agreement morphology. There is a problem in English, though, when there is no
auxiliary. Consider again the following data.
In the first three examples, the word that hosts the tense and agreement morphology
appears under the T node. Consult the trees above to convince yourself of this. In the
last sentence, the verb eats hosts tense and agreement (the /-s/ morpheme), but does
not appear under T. A more accurate representation of the structure of T is shown in the
following example for the sentence John likes tuna.
3.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND GRAMMAR 59
(30)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
John T vP
-s
ti vP
v VP
Vj v tj DP
like
D N
tuna
Observe in the tree above that the inflectional affix and the verb appear on different
heads. It is suggested that English undergoes affix hopping or affix lowering due to
the need of the morpheme to attach to a word (Chomsky, 1957; Skinner, 2009). This is
a poorly understood aspect of grammar and is thought to take place after the syntactic
component of the grammar has built the tree, but see Harizanov and Gribanova (2019) for
a recent discussion. We will not worry about the derivation of English affixal morphology
here.
Recall that C is the locus of illocutionary force. Recall also that yes/no questions in
English are formed by subject-aux inversion. When no auxiliary is present, do-insertion
takes place.
Let’s consider the derivation of the second sentence. When T merges with vP, the
subject raises to SpecTP. Above we argued that this movement takes place either because
of the EPP property of T in English or because of a strong [uD*] feature on T.
60 CHAPTER 3. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
(32)
TP
DPi TP
Mary T vP
will
ti vP
v VP
Vj v tj DP
eat
D N
an apple
Now, the C head merges with TP. In yes/no questions, matrix C attracts the T head.
If there is nothing under T, then do-insertion takes place. (Note that T-to-C movement
does not always take place; however, we discuss the exceptions in Chapter 7. In a yes/no
question, the matrix T always raises to C.) This gives us the following structure.
(33)
CP
C TP
Tk C DPi TP
will
Mary tk vP
ti vP
v VP
Vj v tj DP
eat
D N
an apple
French does not have do-support. When there is no auxiliary the main verb raises to T,
so there is never need for a dummy auxiliary. Consider the following pair of sentences. In
(34b), the verb parlez (‘speak’) undergoes V-to-T movement, and then T-to-C movement.
Again, this happens only in formal settings in French.10 (The form in this example uses a
10
The issue subject-verb and subject-aux inversion in French is more complex than is suggested here. See
Roberts (1993) for details.
3.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND GRAMMAR 61
2nd person plural pronoun, which is also the polite form to address one person. Note also
that the hyphen is an orthographic convention of French and is not intended to show a
morphological break-down.)
(35)
CP
C TP
Tl C DPi TP
vk T vous tl vP
you
Vj v ti vP
parlez
tk VP
speak
tj DP
D N
français
French
We now return to the Irish facts introduced above. Consider the following data.
As (36a) shows, Irish has VSO order. If an auxiliary is present, though, the verb ap-
pears after the subject (36b). It appears as though the verb raises to C in Irish. Consider,
however, the embedded clause in (36c). There is an overt complementizer, nevertheless,
the verb still appears to the left of the subject. The VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis pro-
vides an answer for us. Assume that Irish has V-to-T raising (as in French) and that the
subject remains in SpecvP (McCloskey, 1996; Koopman and Sportiche, 1991). This gives
us the following structures for the three Irish sentences above.
(37) a.
CP
C TP
T vP
vj T DP vP
Vi v
Máire tj VP
phóg Mary
ti DP
kissed
D N
an lucharachán
the leprechaun
b.
CP
C TP
T vP
tá
is DP vP
Máire
v VP
Mary
Vi v V DP
ag-pógáili
ti D N
prog-kiss
an lucharachán
the leprechaun
3.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND GRAMMAR 63
c.
CP
C TP
T vP
vj T DP vP
Vi v
mé tj VP
duirt I
ti CP
said
C TP
gur
T vP
comp
vl T DP vP
Vk v
Máire tl VP
phóg Mary
tk DP
kissed
D N
an lucharachán
the leprechaun
Recall from our discussion on labelling that the external argument must vacate SpecvP
in order for the merger of DPEA and vP to have a label. The relevant portion is shown in
the following portion of the tree.
(38)
∅
DP vP
v
EA VP
verb
McCloskey (2011) has since re-analyzed Irish clausal structures. We will only cover
brief parts of his analysis here. Consider first responsive ellipsis in the following English
examples.
64 CHAPTER 3. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
The Irish data suggest that the verb raises out of the VP before VP ellipsis takes place.
It raises at least higher than the verb in English, which raises to v. Although we do
not investigate negation in detail, we cover a few points here. It has been proposed that
polarity (negative and affirmative) are encoded in a functional projection between CP and
TP, namely ΣP (Laka, 1994). McCloskey (2017) shows that in finite clauses the Σ head
is null and that negation is expressed on the C head by agreement. He also shows that
negation appears in Σ in non-finite clauses, thereby demonstrating that the Σ position
is necessary. We do not cover the relevant facts here to keep the discussion brief. We do
note that there is evidence for the subject raising out of vP in Irish, though. Consider the
following example.
Observe that the subject in the main clause appears to the left of the vP adjoined
adverb.
11
VP ellipsis is more accurately described as vP ellipsis; however, the term VP ellipsis was coined long
before the introduction of v. We will continue to use the traditional term VP ellipsis here.
3.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND GRAMMAR 65
Now, look back at the responsive ellipsis examples above and observe that the verb is
identical. This is a general property of responsive ellipsis in Irish. The following example
shows that the verb must be identical.
These facts fall into place if we assume that responsive ellipsis is the result of TP
ellipsis rather than VP ellipsis. The verb raises to Σ, and the TP is elided. The subject
is in SpecTP, so is deleted when TP ellipsis takes place. If deletion only occurs under
identity, then the verb in responsive ellipsis must be the same. Here, then, is the revised
tree for (36a).
(44)
CP
C ΣP
Σ TP
Ti Σ DPl TP
vj T Máire ti vP
Vk v tl vP
phóg
tj VP
kiss
tk DP
an lucharachán
the leprechaun
To recap, while the verb in English undergoes head movement only from V to v, in French
the verb raises further to T. This movement is traditionally referred to as V-to-T move-
ment (really, we should call it V-to-v-to-T movement, but the term was coined before the
introduction of v). The position of the tensed verb with respect to adverbs of frequency
is one way to distinguish between languages with V-to-T movement (such as French)
66 CHAPTER 3. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
and languages without it (such as English). There are two other common properties that
distinguish these kinds of languages. Recall that English has subject-aux inversion for
yes/no questions. If there is no auxiliary, then English has a phenomenon known as do-
support. In languages with V-to-T movement, do-support is not necessary if there is no
auxiliary. Instead the lexical verb inverts with the subject. As mentioned, this happens
only in formal varieties of French. In spoken French intonation alone is used to indicate
yes/no questions. Note that the hyphen in (46b) is a convention of French orthography
and is not intended to show morphological composition.
Let’s consider the structure for (46b). Observe that after the verb raises from V to v to
T, it then raises to C to give rise to a polarity question.
3.3. HEAD MOVEMENT AND GRAMMAR 67
(47)
CP
C TP
Tl C DPi TP
vk T elle tl vP
she
Vj v ti vP
écrit
tk VP
writes
PP VP
des lettres tj PP
of.the letters
P DP
à
to Jean
John
• lack of do-support
• lexical verb appears before adverbs of frequency (such as often, never, etc.)
in the absence of auxiliaries
The following chart summarizes the theoretical machinery we have developed so far to
account for the word order properties in English, French, and Irish. Note that although
we have argued that the subject raises to SpecTP in Irish, there are no expletives in the
language, so it is unclear whether the subject raises for reasons of EPP or some other
reason.
We are now left with a theoretical question that we will not answer here. The EPP
was postulated to account for the subject appearing in SpecTP in English. Under the
notion of feature strength, EPP on T was replaced by [uD*]. The strong [uD*] feature
(or its predecessor, the EPP) also accounted for the appearance of expletives in subject
position in English. It is possible to abandon the [uD*]/EPP if we assume that the external
argument raises because of the need to establish a label at the vP level.
(48) English
a. Some passengers arrived.
b. There arrived some passengers.
c. *Arrived some passengers.
In the next section we explore one more parameter that gives rise to word order dif-
ferences.
Recall the six logically possible word orders: SOV, SVO, etc. The following chart gives the
relative frequencies of these basic word orders for the world’s languages for those lan-
guages which have a dominant order (Dryer, 2011). Some languages lack a default word
order. Such languages are called discourse-configurational languages as word order
is determined by information structure rather than by grammatical relations (subject and
object) (Hale, 1983; ?).
3.4. PARAMETERIZATION AND WORD ORDER 69
In this section we will concentrate on SVO and SOV order. Object-initial languages
have received less attention in the generative literature (but see Barrie, 2013; Kalin,
2014). Let’s consider some examples of SOV languages.
There are several well known correlates of SOV and SVO word order (Greenberg, 1963),
which Dryer (1991) streamlined into differences between OV and VO order. We will review
70 CHAPTER 3. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
three commonly known correlates here and introduce some more subsequently. OV lan-
guages typically have postpositions, and VO languages typically have prepositions. Here
is a postposition in Japanese.
DP P
to
kuruma with
car
Some word order correlates have a one-way implication. Greenberg Universal 16 states
that SOV languages always have V-Aux order with inflected auxiliaries. However, SVO
languages have either V-Aux or Aux-V order. Note, though, that VSO languages always
have Aux-V order (Greenberg, 1963). Consider the following examples.12
Observe that both in Korean and in Tamang the auxiliary appears after the verb.
Consider now the following data.
In English, the tensed auxiliary uniformly appears before the verb. In German, how-
ever, the auxiliary can appear either before the verb or after it, depending on various
factors. Table 3.1 summarizes the correlates of SVO and SOV word order.
Let’s consider the account for SOV word order, which has been partially introduced in
previous chapters. Recall the general structure for XPs.
(59)
XP
Specifier XP
X Complement
(60)
XP
Specifier XP
Complement X
The following example illustrates the structure for a sentence in an SOV language.
3.4. PARAMETERIZATION AND WORD ORDER 73
(62)
CP
TP C
-ta
DPi TP
decl
Minswu-ka vP T
Minsoo-nom -ess
ti vP
pst
VP v
DP tj Vj v
mek
sakwa-lul eat
apple-acc
Under a strict version of the Headedness Parameter all phrases have one of the two
settings. In Korean all phrases are head-final, and in English all phrases are head-initial.
(63)
left-headed right-headed
English, French, Irish, Thai Korean, Turkish, Japanese, Dakota
XP XP
X ZP ZP X
We have seen that SVO and SOV languages have correlates as shown in the chart
above. English represents a typical SVO language, and Korean represents a typical SOV
language. Not all languages fit into one of these categories so neatly. Some languages
have mixed properties, and we refer to such languages as disharmonic. Consider the
following Mandarin data.
a. zài Shànghǎi
in Shanghai
‘in Shanghai’
74 CHAPTER 3. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
Mandarin has SVO word order and prepositions, but also has prenominal relative
clauses. Polarity questions are formed either by the V-not-V formula or with sentence-
final particles. For an insightful discussion on sentence-final particles and headedness
in Mandarin see Pan (2022), Pan and Paul (2016), and Erlewine (2017).
The strong version of the Headedness Parameter holds all phrases are either left-
headed or right-headed in a given language. A weaker version holds that some language
may have mixed headedness specifications. One language we will consider is German.
Given the diagnostics above German appears to be an SVO language. Consider the fol-
lowing data.
Observe that German has prepositions, postnominal relative clauses, and uses Subject-
Aux inversion to form yes/no questions. Recall, however, that German has either Aux-V or
V-Aux order depending on whether we are dealing with a matrix or an embedded clause.
Consider also the following additional German data.
3.4. PARAMETERIZATION AND WORD ORDER 75
Let’s consider the embedded clauses first. Observe that they closely follow SOV order
(as in Korean, for example). The word order in German seems to fall out naturally if we
assume a mixed word order (Bach, 1962; Travis, 1984). Let’s consider the structure for
the embedded clause in (66b).
(67)
CP
C TP
daß
DPi TP
Peter vP T
hat
ti vP
VP v
DP tj Vj v
gegessen
da Brot
(68)
CP
DPi CP
Bettina C TP
Tj C ti TP
hat
vP tj
ti vP
VP v
DP tk Vk v
gegessen
das Brot
There is one final property of word order in German we must discuss. When V takes
a DP complement, VP and vP are right-headed (as in Korean); however, when V takes
a CP complement they are left-headed (as in English). This assumption is necessary to
account for the word order in the data below.13
Observe that the matrix verb is to the left of the CP complement. For more details see
Travis (1984). We can now do the full tree for (66a).
(70)
13
The issues of headedness in German is far from uncontroversial. See Sheehan et al. (2017) for a discus-
sion largely along the lines presented here. See also Haider (2010) for a different approach.
3.4. PARAMETERIZATION AND WORD ORDER 77
CP
DPi CP
Bettina C TP
Tj C ti TP
vk T tj vP
Vl v ti vP
weiß
tk VP
tl CP
C TP
daß
DPm TP
Peter vP T
tm vP vn T
VP tn Vo v
ißt
DP to
das Brot
As a final example, consider now, the following data from Lakota Dida (dic), a Kru
language spoken in West Africa. These data are from the Vata dialect, which is the name
used in the original publication of these facts.
a. A la saka li
we have rice eat
‘We have eaten rice.’
b. A li saka
we eat rice
‘We eat rice.’
78 CHAPTER 3. THE ARCHITECTURE OF GRAMMAR
The Dida subgroup is a dialect continuum that includes Vata (dic) and other dialects.
It is spoken in Ivory Coast and is a member of the Eastern sub-branch of the Kru
branch of the Niger-Congo phylum (Sande, 2017).
Observe that the verb appears to the left of the object when there is no auxiliary
present, suggesting V-to-T movement. Note also that when the verb is not raised, its
complement, the direct object, appears to the left of the verb. Taking a cue from the
analysis for word order in German above, one possibility to account for word order in
Vata is to assume that the VP and vP are right headed, but that the TP is left-headed.
These data are also important because they show that the model for verb movement
(head movement, such as V-to-T and T-to-C), which has captured word order facts in more
familiar languages (English, French, German, and Irish) also shows promising results for
other languages around the world. If this account of word order is on the right track, we
can posit the following structures for Vata, based on Koopman (1984).
(72)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
a T vP
la
ti vP
VP v
DP tj Vj v
li
saka
3.4. PARAMETERIZATION AND WORD ORDER 79
(73)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
a T vP
vj T ti vP
Vk v VP tj
li
DP tk
saka
In this section we have seen that the Headedness Parameter can account for the dif-
ference between SVO languages such as English and SOV languages such as Korean. We
have also seen that there are languages with mixed headedness such as German and
Vata.
Key concepts
• generative grammar - a grammar that generates all and only the grammatical sen-
tences of a language
• parameter - A property of human language that can vary from one language to the
next.
Further reading
• Baker (2001) - This monograph contains a very accessible discussion on the current
status of parameters in syntactic theory.
• Chomsky (1994) - This is Chomsky’s original monograph that outlines Bare Phrase
Structure.
• Hyams (1986) - This is the original proposal for the Pro-drop parameter. The discus-
sion is rather technical in parts, so the reader may wish to acquire more background
in the study of L1 acquisition.
• Kayne (1994) - This monograph presents a restrictive theory of word order called
Antisymmetry. The reader is well advised to have a strong command of the concepts
in this textbook before tackling this monograph.
• Koopman (1984) - This book was one of the first in-depth studies on head movement
in a non-Indo-European language. It contains discussions on several Kru languages,
including Vata.
• Pollock (1989) - This is the original proposal that sought to derive the differences
between word order in French and English by head movement. It also includes a
discussion of infinitives, so the reader is advised to wait until chapter 9 has been
covered.
Chapter 4
In this chapter, we will refine our understanding for nominal and clausal structure.
4.1.1 Review of DP
Recall the DP theory of nominal structure (Abney, 1987; Szabolcsi, 1983; Stowell, 1981;
Bernstein, 2008). In short, the D head takes an NP as a complement.
(1)
DP
D NP
the cow
81
82 CHAPTER 4. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
As a refresher, let’s review some evidence in favour of this structure. Recall the notion
of “possessor as subject” as evidence for the DP Hypothesis.1 Here, we will consider some
ways in which the possessor acts as a subject. Consider the following data.
John is an agent in both the full sentence and the nominal phrase. Now consider the
following data.
In both the sentential and nominal forms, himself must refer to Matt LeBlanc and him
must refer to someone else. Note the use of the coreference numbers here. The asterisk
in front of the 2 indicates the coreference with anything other than 1 (where 1 = Matt
LeBlanc in these examples) is ungrammatical. The asterisk in front of the 1 indicates that
coreference with Matt LeBlanc is ungrammatical and that him must corefer to someone
else. Thus, the possessor of a nominal expression acts like the subject of a sentence with
respect to the behaviour of reflexives.
Preminger (2020), updating arguments made by Ritter (1991) presents the following
Hebrew data showing that some functional structure above NP is necessary.2 Observe
crucially that the noun is followed by the subject then by the object. Preminger refers to
this as NSO order (to parallel VSO order in the clausal domain).
The English data in (3) could be accommodated within a simple NP. This is actually
similar to the structure that was assumed in Jackendoff (1977). Consider the following
example.
1
For precursors of the ideas discussed here see Lees (1960) and Chomsky (1970).
2
For more information on Hebrew see page 162.
4.1. NOMINAL STRUCTURE 83
(5)
NP
NP N’
Matt LeBlanc’s N PP
portrayal
of himself
Considering the Hebrew data above, it is impossible to accommodate NSO order with
the structure in (5). As Preminger argues, another higher functional projection is neces-
sary to accommodate the word order of Hebrew. Anticipating the forthcoming discussion
let’s label this functional projection D. In Hebrew, then, the noun raises from N to D as
follows.
(6)
DP
D NP
Ni D DP N’
maxsor
ha-iriya ti PP
be-ovd-im
There is much more to the structure of derived nominals and nominals with external
arguments, but the structures above provide a start to understanding DP structure.
Moving on to the structure of possessives, consider the following paradigm. Observe
that the morphemes the and ’s (the possessive marker) are in complementary distribu-
tion. That is, only one can be present in the same DP. Let’s assume, for the moment, that
both the and ’s are D heads. If there is only one D head per DP, then only one of these
lexical items can be present in a given DP.
Before we continue, let’s take a brief digression on possessives. We note that the pos-
sessor can be quite complex. In the following example, the possessor is the man I saw
yesterday. This suggests that the possessive marker ’s is not an affix on the noun but
is rather a separate syntactic head that appears to the right of the possessor DP. Let’s
assume that the possessor appears in the specifier of DP.
84 CHAPTER 4. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
Compare the trees for John’s hat and the man I saw yesterday’s hat
(9) a.
DP
DP D’
John D N
’s hat
b.
DP
DP D’
Next, we review some cross-linguistic evidence for determiners acting like verbal in-
flection. Consider the following Central Alaska Yup’ik (esu) example. The subject of a
bivalent verb in Yup’ik appears with ergative Case (erg, see p. 171). In possessed nomi-
nals, the possessor also appears with ergative Case. Thus, possessors and subject have
something in common in Yup’ik. They both appear with the ergative case. Thus, we can
understand possessors to be the “subjects” of nouns.
a. angate-m kiputa-a-∅
man-erg bought-obj-sub
‘The man bought it.’
b. angute-m kuga
man-erg river
‘the man’s river’
Consider, too, the following example from Cree (cre). In Cree, roughly speaking, if both
the subject and the object of the sentence are 3rd person, then the direct object typically
appears with an obviative marker (obv, see p. 133). This marker is absent in a sentence
such as I saw Mary because there is only one 3rd person. Since possessors are subjects,
too, then a noun with a 3rd person possessor triggers obviative marking on the noun.
b. John o-tōtēm-a
John his-friend-obv
‘John’s friend.’
The status of the DP in languages such as Korean that lack determiners is contro-
versial (Bošković 2009; 2013; 2011).3 It has also been proposed that DP is universally
present, but may encode properties other than definiteness (Wiltschko, 2014). We will
not cover the issues here, but will simply assume for uniformity that DP is present, even
though some languages lack determiners.
Many languages of the world divide nouns up into various classes. In most Romance
and Germanic languages (except English), these classes are based on gender and include
feminine, masculine and sometimes neuter. In Algonquian languages such as Cree, these
classes are based on animacy, and include animate and inanimate as classes. Some
languages such as Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Thai have classifiers dividing nouns
up into several noun classes (classifier languages). Typically, classifier languages require
a classifier in order for the noun to be counted.
a. 사과 두 *(개)
sakwa twu kay
apple two cl
‘two apples’
3
For arguments that Korean has a DP projection, see Kang (2016); Park (2008); Park and Kim (2009);
Park (2020) for arguments that Korean lacks a DP projection, see Kim and Moon (2021). For related issues
in Japanese see Fukui (1995); Watanabe (2006).
86 CHAPTER 4. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
b. 책 세 *(권)
chayk sey kwen
book three cl
‘three books’
We consider Cantonese in detail here. Like virtually all Sinitic languages (including
Mandarin, Wu, Hakka, etc.), nouns must appear with a classifier in certain environments,
though the precise details differ among Sinitic languages.4 The various classifiers are
provided with several examples of nouns with which they appear.
The classifier zoeng1 is used for horizontal, flat surfaces, zi1 is used for long cylin-
drical objects, and lap1 is used for small objects. In all, there are about 40 classifiers
in Cantonese. Classifiers appear as the head of a classifier phrase (ClP). Example (14b)
shows the tree for the DP nī bǔn syū ‘this book’, where bǔn is the classifier for books,
magazines, newspapers and other printed matter. A typical structure assumed for the
classifier is as follows (?Cheng and Sybesma, 2012; Li, 1999), although we will consider
this in more detail later on.
D ClP
nī
Cl N
dem
bǔn syū
book
4
For example, the classifier is used to show possession in Cantonese, but not in Mandarin.
4.1. NOMINAL STRUCTURE 87
Languages typically have some way of marking number in the noun phrase (Corbett,
2000). The following examples give a small idea of the range in variation in number mark-
ing. English is typically described as having obligatory number marking on the noun if a
plural interpretation is intended. Observe in (15d) that even if another marker of plurality
is present (the numeral two) plural marking is still required on the noun.
c. te lhíxw swíleles
det three boy
‘the three boys’
d. te lhíxw swóleles
det three boy.pl
‘the three boys’
Finally, there are some languages like English where number marking is obligatory
for a plural interpretation. Consider the following examples.
a. one dog
b. two dog*(s)
To account for the properties of number marking, Ritter (1992, 1993) proposes that
NumP appears between DP and NP. Recall the facts from Hebrew above discussed by
Preminger. We review some of Ritter’s original data below.
(19)
DP
D NumP
Num NP
noun
Ritter presents data from Hebrew possessive constructions to argue for the presence
of NumP. The first construction is called the construct state. It is characterized by having
a bare subject genitive and noun-subject-object order.
b.
DP
D NP
Ni GEN DGEN DP NP
ahava -t
Dan ti DP
et iSt-o
The construct state genitive can be derived easily by head movement from N to D,
as shown in the tree above. Consider, however, the free genitive. Consider the following
example, with the assumed underlying structure.
b.
DP
D NP
ha
DP NP
Sel Dan N DP
ahava
et iSt-o
There is no space in (21b) for the noun to raise to. Ritter (1992; 1991) proposed an
additional funtional projection, a Number Phrase (NumP), that appears between DP and
NP. Here are the derivations she proposed for the construct state genitive and the free
state genitive, respectively.
90 CHAPTER 4. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
(22) a.
DP
D NumP
ha
Num NP
Ni Num DP NP
ahava
Sel Dan ti DP
et iSt-o
b.
DP
D NumP
ti DP
et iSt-o
As was common at the time Ritter assumed the Weak Lexicalist Hypothesis, whereby
inflectional morphology is syntactic and derivational morphology is added to the base
in the Lexicon. Shortly before Ritter’s proposal Pollock (1989) had argued for a split TP,
in which tense and agreement morphology is added syntactically by head movement.
Likewise, Ritter argued that number, which is inflectional in Hebrew, is also added by
head movement.5
Ritter (1992) also considered data from Haitian Creole in support of a number phrase.
She notes that Haitian Creole has a singular determiner and a plural determiner.
a. liv la
book the.sg
‘the book’
5
See Chapter 9 for more in depth discussion on the syntax-morphology interface.
4.1. NOMINAL STRUCTURE 91
b. liv yo
book the.pl
‘the books’
(24)
DP
NumP D
+def
NP Num
yo
liv
Lefebvre (1982) observes that la yo (in that order) is possible in some dialects of Haitian
Creole, suggesting head movement and right-adjunction.
(25)
DP
NumP D
NP ti D Numi
la yo
liv
Consider this proposal in light of the following Niuean data. In Niuean, the number
marker is a free-standing word (Massam, 2020). At the time Ritter proposed NumP, how-
ever, facts such as those in Niuean were not well known among generative linguists.
Semantically, the Num head is thought to be responsible for making the noun count-
able. Evidence in favour of this proposal is seen the following examples.
Compounds such as dog food and dog breath likely contain a bare NP dog. Note that
compounds like *dogs food and *teethbrush are ill-formed. The portion dog in a way only
refers to the notion of dog-ness, not to countable dogs. More specifically, Chierchia (1998)
and Borer (2005) propose that a bare NP has a mass interpretation.
Classifiers are traditionally described as necessary to make nouns countable, as the
following Mandarin Chinese examples show.
The observation that classifiers and plural marking are in complementary distribution
goes back to at least Greenberg (1977). Borer (2005, 94-95) proposes that classifiers and
plural markers are in complementary distribution because they fulfil the same function.
They serve to make the noun countable. She provides the following example to illustrate
the complementary distribution between classifiers and plural marking. Thus, languages
can choose between either NumP or ClP as an intermediate functional projection to make
nouns countable.6
Thought Exercise 4.1: How do we reconcile the proposal here that languages choose
between either NumP or ClP with the Korean facts for younger speakers, repeated
below?
1 학생들 네 명
haksayng-tul ney myeng
student-pl four cl
‘four students’
2 병원들 두 관
pyengwen-tul twu kwan
hospital-pl two cl
‘two hospitals’
We end this discussion with a brief note on where numerals appear. Let’s consider the
structure for the following Cantonese DP.
Numerals such as three, five, twenty-seven, six hundred and seventeen are phrasal,
but we will not go into details of the structure of numerals here.7 Here is the structure
for (30).
(31)
DP
D ClP
#P ClP
sām Cl NP
bǔn
shū
There is much more to say on the topic of numeral classifiers and plural marking, but
we leave the reader to consult the further reading section.
7
See Ionin and Matushansky (2018) for an in depth discussion on the syntactic structure of numerals.
94 CHAPTER 4. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
Pronouns typically pattern with D rather than with N. This conclusion is based on obser-
vations originally made by Postal (1969). First, we normally think of pronouns as being
in complementary distribution with a full DP as in the following English examples.
These facts can be replicated in several languages. The French pronoun, il, replaces
the entire DP, le professeur intelligent, and not a portion thereof. The ungrammatical
example, *le il, shows that il cannot replace just professeur intelligent, and the ungram-
matical example, *il intelligent, shows that il cannot replace just le professeur.
c. * nà tā
dem s/he
d. * nà ge tā
dem cl s/he
These facts lead us to conclude that pronouns are minimally D heads (Postal, 1969).
Note, though, that pronouns can be morphologically complex. Consider the following
examples. Plural pronouns in Mandarin appear with a -men suffix. Third person plural
pronouns in Portuguese appear with an -s suffix. In both cases, these are the usual
plural markers found in these languages.
This suggests that pronouns appear with both a D head and a Num head. Pronouns,
then, are phrasal rather than a single head Déchaine and Wiltschko (2002); Ghomeshi
and Massam (2020).
(36)
DP
D Num
wǒ men
b. 我 語言學家 [Cantonese]
ngo5-dei6 yu5.yin4-hok6-gaa1
1-pl language-study-nlzr
‘we linguists’
The pronouns we, wir and ngo5dei6 can all appear with a noun following them. Based
on these facts, we assume the following structure for pronouns. Two English examples
are shown.
96 CHAPTER 4. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
(38)
DP DP
D Num D NumP
we [pl] we
Num N
[pl] linguists
Thought Exercise 4.2: What problems do forms such as “we linguists” raise for
the structure of nominal phrases and pronouns discussed here? Consider also the
following Mandarin Chinese example (Victor Pan, pc).
1 wo-men laoshi-men
1.pl teacher-pl
‘we teachers’
(39)
TP
DP TP
T vP
Some of the evidence for separating tense and agreement from the verb (Stowell, 1981)
is found in VP ellipsis. Consider the following examples.
We have to be precise about what so refers to here. Only (41a) is a possible stand-alone
answer to (40b).
We see that the pro-form so replaces only the verb and its arguments. Note in partic-
ular that the verb is stripped of tense and agreement. Thus, the VP alone doesn’t contain
any tense or agreement morphology. That is, tense and agreement are encoded outside
the VP. The separation of tense and the VP is shown clearly in English progressives.
4.2. TENSE PHRASES–TP 97
Observe that tense is encoded on the auxiliary and not in the VP eating an apple. Note
also that in Mandarin certain tense/aspect particles are syntactically distinct from the
verb. Consider the following examples.
Consider also the following Niuean data. Observe again that the tense marker is dis-
tinct from the verb. In particular in the first example the tense marker and the verb are
separated by negation.
The TP layer can be decomposed into multiple functional categories. Consider the
following data as a preliminary example.
The current model we have to account for data of the kind above assumes that the
tensed auxiliary appears in T. Thus, with T-to-C movement, we can explain Subject-Aux
inversion.
Note that the progressive be+ING involves a tensed and agreeing auxiliary in (45a),
but not in (45c). Furthermore, the perfect have auxiliary can also appear below T.
Adger (2003) has developed the following functional hierarchy to account for the facts
in English.
(48)
TP
T PerfP
Perf ProgP
Prog vP
The highest auxiliary raises to T to host tense and agreement. A currently open ques-
tion concerning verbal and auxiliary morphology in language is why only the auxiliary
raises to T in English, while the lexical verb never does. Recall that in French if no auxil-
iary is present the main verb raises to T, following the argumentation in Pollock (1989).
(49)
TP
DP TP
D N T VP
John -ed
wash DP
D N
the dishes
Let’s take a closer look at the different aspects of modality. There are two components
that give rise to modality.
(54) a. John must be at home. His car is in his driveway, and his lights and TV are on.
b. modal base
In light of the evidence about John’s house it is necessarily the case that
John is at home.
modal force
In light of the rules on eating snack Fred is permitted to eat the cookies.
modal force
Languages vary in how modality is expressed. The Korean modal marker 못 (mos ‘not
able’) expresses deontic modality only. Consider also the following the k’a marker in the
following St’át’imcets data.
epistemic deontic
possibility may
necessity must
epistemic deontic
possibility
k’a ka
necessity
Observe that k’a expresses only epistemic modality, but is ambiguous between a ne-
cessity and a possibility reading. Consider also the following data, focusing on ka.
Observe that ka expresses only deontic modality, but, like k’a is ambiguous be-
tween a possibility reading and a necessity reading. Comparing the English facts with
the St’át’imcets, we see that the modals are not ambiguous in the same way. Table 4.1
shows how English modals are not marked for the contrast between epistemic and deontic
force. Table 4.2 shows how St’át’imcets modals are not marked for the contrast between
possibility and necessity.
In English, modals occupy the T node. Observe that modals participate in Subject-Aux
inversion in English.
We now consider a different kind of mood. A common classification for mood is in-
dicative, which indicates a factual proposition, and the subjunctive, which indicates
an unrealized or counterfactual proposition. The classification of mood is much more
complex than this simple two-way classification, but this will suffice for now (Palmer,
2001). In Modern English, the subjunctive is quite rare, but can still be observed in
speech. Here are some examples.
Consider now the following Romanian data. Observe that an indicative clause is in-
troduced by că and that a subjunctive clause is introduced by să. Note that in addition
to the subjunctive marker the verb also appears with subjunctive inflection.
Consider further the following data. Note that the object is doubled by a pronoun that
appears between the subjunctive marker and the verb in the first example.
These facts suggest that an additional MoodP appears between CP and TP as in (64).
Observe also in (62b) that when the subjunctive marker is absent the verb raises to Mood
(Dobrovie-Sorin, 1994; Rivero, 1994; Cornilescu, 2000).
(63)
CP
C MoodP
Mood TP
(64)
CP
C MoodP
DPi MoodP
Ion Mood TP
Tj Mood tj vP
vk T ti vP
Vl v tk VP
vrea
tl CP
C MoodP
ca
DPm MoodP
TP
Maria Mood TP
T vP sa
vn T tm vP
Vo v tn VP
mănânce
to DP
un măr
104 CHAPTER 4. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
Thought Exercise 4.3: Consider the following Bulgarian data (adapted from Rivero,
1994). What do these data say about verb movement? What issues do they raise for
head movement?
We will now review the CP projection. Consider the following examples with their Korean
equivalents.
The English and the Korean data above illustrate c-selection. The verbs think and
wonder, and their Korean counterparts, select a declarative and interrogative comple-
4.3. CP–THE COMPLEMENTIZER PHRASE 105
ment, respectively. The selectional restrictions, first discussed by Grimshaw (1979) fall
into place if we adopt the same line of reasoning as above. Namely, let’s propose that
the complementizer, C, projects to CP, following the Labelling Algorithm we discussed in
Chapter 3. Since C is a head it must project when it merges with TP.
(66)
CP
decl Cdecl TP
Remember the label is merely a copy of the head. It contains the same information.
Now, let’s consider this in light of the subcategorization frames of the verbs think and
wonder.
These facts fall into place now if we assume that CP is the highest functional projec-
tion. The verb, then, selects a CP with the appropriate feature. In the next example the
verb know selects a declarative CP as a complement. To save space we show an abbrevi-
ated structure.
(68)
CP
C TP
DP TP
D N T VP
John
V CP
knows
C TP
that
DP TP
D N T VP
Mary
V DP
ate
D N
an apple
106 CHAPTER 4. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
English Korean
declarative statements that 다(고)
interrogative questions if, whether 니, 는지, 냐(고), 까
imperative commands 라(고), 오
hortative suggestions Let’s 자, 다
Note that the matrix clause has a CP even though there is no overt complementizer.
We propose more specifically that the C head encodes whether the clause is a statement
or a question. This is the illocutionary force of the clause. It indicates how the speaker
intends the addressee to accept the proposition. Namely as a statement or as a question
or so forth. For simplicity, we will mention only four types of illocutionary force, shown
in Figure 4.3, and will analyze only two of them.
Here are some English and Korean examples.
All finite clauses have some kind of illocutionary force, so CP is always projected in
every finite clause.9 We finish off with an example of an embedded interrogative clause.
9
Recall that non-finite clauses sometimes do not have a CP. The issue of illocutionary force in non-finite
4.3. CP–THE COMPLEMENTIZER PHRASE 107
C TP
DP TP
D N T VP
Mary
V CP
wonders
C TP
if
DP TP
D N T VP
the boy
V DP
ate
D N
the apple
Although English is an SVO language, often we also observe other word orders. Consider
the following example.10
(71) (context: You’re going through your vacation photos and are describing where you
took which photo.) This picture I took in Seoul. This picture I took in Paris. This
picture I took in Buenos Aires.
Notice that the object is at the beginning of each sentence. We say that the phrase this
picture is a topic. Topics in English typically appear at the front of the clause. There are
various kinds of topics in language. In most cases the topic expresses what the sentence is
about or indicates given information in a sentence.11 In addition to encoding illocutionary
force, CP also encodes information structure, which indicates how the elements of the
sentence relate to the discourse. Such relationships include old and new information,
indicating what the sentence is about (as just mentioned), as well as emphasizing or
focusing elements of the sentence.
clauses will not be addressed here.
10
See page 68 for more information on word order.
11
See the introduction of Cruschina (2011) for a discussion of different kinds of topic and focus.
108 CHAPTER 4. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
Topics appear in the specifier of CP. Consider the tree for the sentence Beans I like.
The DP beans appears in the specifier of CP. We must remember that the DP beans is
the direct object of the verb like and still bears a <percept> θ-role. To record this fact
about the topicalized DP, we put a trace (represented by a “t”) in the position of the direct
object. Then, to remember that the DP in the complement of VP is related to the trace (t)
in object position, we co-index them with a subscript «i».
(72)
CP
DPi CP
D N C TP
beans
DPj TP
I T vP
tj vP
v VP
Vk v tk ti
like
Some languages mark topic and focus morphologically. Topics in Korean are typically
marked with 은/는. (-un/-nun). Note that the topic of the sentence and the subject of the
sentence are two different concepts. Consider the following examples.12
Example (73) is a baseline sentence showing subject and object marking. In (74a) the
first speaker brings Minsoo and Younghui into the conversation by asking a question
about them. In (74b) the second speaker refers back to Minsoo using topic marking. In
(75a) the speaker brings an apple and an orange into the conversation, again by asking
a question about them. In (75b) the second speaker refers back to the apple with topic
marking.13
Next, we discuss focus marking as it is another property encoded by C. In English,
focus marking is often indicated by stress (Chomsky and Halle, 1968; Jackendoff, 1972),
but movement is optionally available in most cases. We use capital letters to indicate
stress. Consider the following examples.
When negative-marked focused items move to the front of the sentence in English,
they trigger subject-auxiliary inversion. Consider the following examples.
Consider also the following Gungbe data. Gungbe has an obligatory focus particle
and focus movement to the left periphery. Unlike English, there is no prosodic correlate
of focus.
Thus, in English a focused phrase optionally raises to SpecCP and in Gungbe a focused
phrase obligatorily raises to SpecCP.
In this section we examine how topics and focused phrases behave in embedded clauses.
The model above predicts that the topic appears before the complementizer, since the
topic is in SpecCP. If we look at the following sentence, however, we see that the prediction
fails.
(80)
*VP
V CP
know
DP C’
this behaviour C TP
that
we will not tolerate
There is no way to place the topic in the specifier of CP and still have it appear to the
right of the complementizer. Consider also the following data.
On the basis of these observations, it has been proposed that the CP layer must be
more finely articulated. We call this articulated CP a split CP , following work by Rizzi
(1997, 2001). The structure Rizzi proposed for the CP is as follows.
The Force Phrase (ForceP) is location of illocutionary force (see Table 4.3). Recall also
that certain verbs select clauses with a specific illocutionary type. Thus, the illocutionary
force is predicted to be encoded on the highest head in the CP layer. Here are some
examples.
For always selects a non-finite TP. Romance languages also have Finiteness heads.
They are often the equivalents of common prepositions such as to or of.
The non-finite marker de selects an infinitive. [+Finite] Fin selects a tensed T. The
topic phrase, TopP, is optional and appears only when there is a topic in the sentence.
The topicalized XP appears in SpecTopP. The focus phrase, FocP, will be discussed in
a later chapter. Consider the following additional Italian data. Note that although the
English translation is finite, the Italian example contains an infinitive in the embedded
clause.
Comparing these data with that in example (81), we see that the fronted topic phrase
appears after the finite complementizer che but before the non-finite marker di (‘of’).
These facts can be easily handled by assuming a TopicP that appears between ForceP
and FinP. We are now ready to draw the tree for the following sentence.
Note that the CP is split into its components only if necessary. For convenience, we
simply use CP if only one syntactic object appears in the CP layer. This is merely a nota-
tional convenience to save space, however. It is assumed that the full split CP is always
present under the view Rizzi proposes.14 This is shown nicely in the following tree, where
the matrix CP does not need to be shown in its split form, but the embedded CP must be
split to show both the topic and the complementizer.
14
This view has evolved into a theory known as Cartography (Shlonsky, 2010; Cinque and Rizzi, 2008).
4.4. LIGHT VERB AND VP REFINED 113
(89)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
you T vP
ti vP
v VP
Vj v tj ForceP
know
Force TopP
that
TopP
DPi TopP
D N Top FinP
this behaviour
Fin TP
DPk TP
we T vP
will
tk vP
v <VP,VP>
Vl v VP AdvP
punish
tl ti severely
We begin by discussing ditransitive verbs such as give, which were challenging for syntac-
tic theory as there are two internal arguments rather than just one. In Revised Extended
Standard Theory until Government and Binding Theory it was simply assumed that the
114 CHAPTER 4. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
(91) a. VP
V NP NP
b. VP
PP NP V
NP P 책을 주다
영희 에게
Recall that Barss and Lasnik (1986) note various asymmetries between the first NP
and the second NP in English. Namely, the first NP appears to c-command the second
NP, but not vice versa. This observation is not captured in the tree in (91a) as both NPs
c-command each other.
In (93), the interpretation of their varies with every student, which contains the quan-
tifier every. A more formal representation of this relationship is as follows.
In this representation, the relationship between the quantifier and the variable is
spelled out more clearly. Consider, now, the following data.15
Observe that one of the objects is a quantified phrase (each X ) and the other object
contains a variable. Again, the quantifier in the first object successfully binds the variable
in the second object, but not vice versa. This observation can be explained if we assume
the first object c-commands the second object, but the second object does not c-command
the first object. In other words, the first object asymmetrically c-commands the second
object.
The next set of data we will look at makes use of negative polarity items (NPIs),
such as anyone, in the upcoming example. NPIs have the interesting property that they
must be c-commanded by negation or a yes/no question operator.
Observe that in the first two examples the NPIs anything and any are acceptable as
shown; however, in the last two examples they are not. Again, this leads us to conclude
that the first object asymmetrically c-commands the second object.
15
Larson’s original data set did not use singular they. However, many speakers use only they as a bound
variable, reserving he and she for definite descriptions.
116 CHAPTER 4. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
From these three sets of data we see that the first object must c-command the second
object, but not vice versa. The ternary branching structure fails to predict this asymmetry.
What we need is a structure in which the first object c-commands the second object, but
not vice-versa. Larson (1988) proposed a double VP projection, the higher of which is now
known as vP. First, the two objects appear in the VP as follows.
(98)
VP
DP VP
a book V PP
give
to Mary
(99)
vP
Subject vP
v VP
Vi v
DP VP
give
a book ti PP
to Mary
Now the first DP asymmetrically c-commands the second DP. However, the verb is
in the wrong spot. We will discuss the word order problem shortly. Larson’s proposal to
adopt a VP shell was subsequently amended according to a proposal by Kratzer (1996).
Kratzer, following Marantz (1984) suggested that the external argument is thematically
independent from the VP predicate and is introduced by a light verb.
4.4. LIGHT VERB AND VP REFINED 117
Thought Exercise 4.4: Abbott (1976) raised the following problematic data for right-
node-raising as a constituency diagnostic. Are her claims still valid in light of the vP
structure discussed here?
1 Smith loaned, and his widow later donated, a valuable collection of manuscripts
to the library.
2 I borrowed, and my sister stole, large sums of money from the Chase Manhattan
Bank.
In verbs such as eat and sneeze, the light verb is phonologically null; however, there
are some overt light verbs (called verbalizers) in English. Here are some examples.
Theories of grammar that place morphology and syntax in the same module decom-
pose these words and build them syntactically, as we will explore in Chapter 9. We show
an example here, but do not adopt this level of decomposition in this textbook. Note also
that such theories typically assume that lexical roots do not have a category. That is, they
are acategorial. They are not specified as V, N, or Adj. Rather, they are simply a bare
√
root and are labelled as .
√ √
v P v P
-ate
√ √
DP i
v ti DP
formula formula -ate
D N D N
a response a response
The traditional analysis of passives involves deletion of the vP projection. Consider the
following pair of examples.
Under a simple theory of clausal structure, these sentences have the following struc-
tures.
CP
C TP
DPi TP
Pat T vP
ti vP
External θ-role Accusative Case Assignment
v VP
atej tj DP
the apple
v is the locus of accusative Case assignment and external θ-role assignment. These
are the two properties that are lacking in passives. Hence, a simple analysis holds that
v is absent in passives, as in the following structure. We discuss passives in much more
detail later, however.
CP
C TP
DPi TP
The apple T VP
was
V ti
eaten
There are some problems with this analysis, however. First, observe from (101) that v
is also considered to be the locus of verbalizing morphology, as in the following examples.
Harley (2007) notes, however, that the verbalizing morphology remains in passives,
making this straightforward analysis problematic.
Harley (2013) adduces evidence from Hiaki (yaq, an Uto-Aztecan language spoken in
Mexico and the US) to argue for a further split as follows.
First she notes the existence of verbalizing morphology in Hiaki, akin to the English
facts in (105). A simple example follows.
(110)
vP
NP vP
v
Santos √
kari -te
Hiaki also has productive applicatives. Harley gives the following example.
Harley provides extensive evidence that the applied object (Jose) is c-commanded by
the external argument. This translates to the following partial structure.
(112)
vP
NP vP
Inepo ApplP v
NP ApplP
Jose-ta √P Appl
-ria
NP √
ela
pueta-ta
A problem arises when we consider applicatives with the verbalizing morphology above.
Consider the following example.
According to the structure we’ve built so far, we would expect the order root-appl-vlzr.
Harley shows that if VoiceP, rather than vP is responsible for introducing the external
argument the facts above fall into place.
(114)
VoiceP
NP VoiceP
NP ApplP
Maria-ta vP Appl
-ria
√ v
kari -te
4.4. LIGHT VERB AND VP REFINED 121
Finally, we look briefly at languages that exhibit overt, free-standing light verbs. Light
verbs typically appear in many constructions and carry very little meaning, if any. Con-
sider the following Mandarin predicates.
The form dǎ in Mandarin is often used a light verb. When it is used alone, it is a lexical
verb meaning ‘hit’, but in the constructions above, it is a light verb, v, which carries no
meaning and serves only to introduce an external argument.
Consider now the following set of Urdu (urd) data, which shows a similar phenomenon.
We observe here a small set of light verbs with a semantically bleached meaning
(shown in italics). Note that the main lexical verb provides the core meaning of the sen-
tence. The light verbs merely adjust the meaning slightly.
In Korean hata (하다) is the most common light verb. Other light verbs in Korean in-
clude doyta (되다) and sulepta (스럽다). In the following examples, the meanings of the
122 CHAPTER 4. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS OF PHRASE STRUCTURE
verbs are carried by the lexical roots. The light verb simply carries the inflectional mor-
phology.
Key Concepts
• Larsonian shell - a double VP projection that allows space for two internal argu-
ments to be projected
• tense phrase (TP) - A sentence is headed by a tense head (T), which relates the
subject to the predicate, and which is the locus of agreement. A T head projects to
a TP.
Further Reading
• Déchaine and Wiltschko (2002) - This article deals with the structure of pronouns
in great detail using data from a variety of languages. This paper should only be
tackled once this textbook has been covered in detail.
• Hale and Keyser (2002) - This monograph deals with several aspects of argument
structure – how the subject, direct object and indirect object are introduced into
the clause. It covers much empirical data from English and various Aboriginal lan-
guages from North America. Some of the technical discussion is best left until after
chapter 7; however, the empirical facts are quite interesting to read through and are
clearly laid out.
• Kaufmann (2007) - This paper describes some of the general properties of the mid-
dle voice and how it differs from other transitivity alternations. It brings in data
from the Niger-Congo language, Fula, spoken in West Africa.
• Larson (1988) - This is the original proposal to handle double object constructions.
This article will be accessible after the discussion on wh-movement and anaphora.
It also presents a more detailed analysis of double object constructions than the
one presented here.
• Pollock (1989) - This article proposes splitting TP into separate functional projec-
tions: one for tense and one for agreement. It is also one of the original discussions
on capturing the difference between English and French word order by using head
movement.
Case is responsible for keeping track of the grammatical roles of arguments in a clause.
From the Western tradition of grammar the notion of case has roots back to early Classical
studies, which look at Latin and Ancient Greek. In Asia, the earliest studies on case were
conducted on Sanskrit by Pān.ini. Recall that the subject typically has nominative case
and that the object has accusative case in languages with nominative-accusative case
alignment systems.
125
126 CHAPTER 5. CASE THEORY AND A-MOVEMENT
Although the precise details of case in Tagalog are a matter of debate, case in Taga-
log is indicated by pre-nominal particles rather than by suffixes. Consider the following
example.
There are numerous kinds of cases in languages around the world (Blake, 1994). We
are generally used to the subject appearing with nominative case and the direct object
appearing with accusative case as in the examples above. This simplistic description does
not work for many cases, however.
Before moving on with a discussion, we remind ourselves of the distinction between
Case and case. Recall that “case” with lower case ‘c’ refers to the morphological case
marker that is visible in many languages, such as in the Korean and Tagalog examples
above. When written with an upper case ‘C’, “Case” refers to the abstract licensing of
arguments in a clause. Thus, in the English sentence Pat ate an apple, the subject Pat
has nominative Case.
Consider the following sentences. Recall that only tensed T assigns nominative Case, as
shown by the subject of the verb eat in the following examples.
In example (4a), the verb is tensed. In particular, it is marked with past tense. Further-
more, the subject of this sentence appears with nominative Case, as we have discussed
above. In examples (4b) and (4c), however, we still understand her to be the logical subject
of the sentence – that is, her gets the external θ-role (the subject θ-role) from the Voi that
introduces the VP containing the verb eat. However, her is marked with accusative Case.
5.1. CASE AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF DPS 127
Notice further that the verb eat in the latter two sentences are infinitives. That is, they do
not bear tense. This correlation led to the conclusion that nominative Case and tense are
intimately intertwined such that tensed T is responsible for assigning nominative Case
(Chomsky, 1980a, 1981). If there is no logical subject in a tensed clause, then an ex-
pletive appears in SpecTP. Consider the following sentences, recalling the discussion of
expletives in the previous chapter.
Looking first at (5a), observe that there is no meaningful subject. There is no ‘it’ that
is doing the raining. In fact, in all these sentences the word it does not contribute any
meaning to the sentence – it does not refer to anything. Since the expletive does not refer
to anything, it does not get a θ-role – only actual participants in an event or state get a
θ-role. They are also sometimes referred to as pleonastic pronouns. Compare this to a
sentence such as It’s in the kitchen as a response to a question such as Where’s my book?
Here, it does refer to something, so it bears a θ-role.
Under the assumption that tensed T assigns nominative Case, there must be a nom-
inal of some type to be assigned this Case. That’s the job of the expletive – it does not
mean anything; it’s just there for T to assign nominative Case to (and to satisfy the EPP).
In traditional grammar it is assumed that certain verbs assign accusative case to the
direct object.
In such descriptions of traditional grammar you may see a verb like push labelled as
a “transitive verb” and a verb like cry labelled as an “intransitive verb”. While many verbs
have tendencies to be used one way or another, there is a great deal of flexibility in what
kind of object a verb can take. Consider the following examples. For similar examples and
more discussion, see Ramchand (2008, 14).
In both English and Korean the verb study is comfortable appearing with or without
an object.
Finally, there are many verbs that alternate between a transitive and intransitive use,
as we have seen above.
Consider the following Modern Hebrew (heb) data. Observe crucially, that in the tran-
sitive use the object is marked with accusative case and in the intransitive use it is not.
Under the assumption that the lexical verb assigns Case, we would have to assume there
are two verbs melt in English (and two verbs for each of break and lower in Hebrew).
d. ha-matos hinmix
aircraft lowered
‘The aircraft lowered.’
Taken together, these facts suggest that it is not the lexical verb itself, but rather by
something else. As we now know, it is the head Voi that assigns accusative Case.
b. He likes me.
Nevertheless, the distribution of nouns has the same properties across languages
with overt case morphology (such as Latin, Korean, and Russian) and languages with
impoverished case morphology (such as English, French, and Mandarin). A tensed T
assigns nominative Case. We have also said that Voi assigns accusative Case, but we will
come back to the role of Voi and accusative Case later on in this chapter and in chapter
7.
Consider the following tree for John ate an apple. Note how Case is assigned to each
of the arguments. Specifically, tensed T and Voi assign case at a distance. That is to say,
there is no need for the direct object to be adjacent to Voi or to be in the Specifier of
VoiP in order for Voi to assign accusative Case to it. More specifically, we can say that
the Case-assigning head looks down and assigns Case to the first DP that it finds. The
subject moves to the Specifier of TP; however, this is due to the EPP.
130 CHAPTER 5. CASE THEORY AND A-MOVEMENT
(12)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
D N T VoiP
John
ti VoiP
Voi vP
vk Voi tk VP
Vj v tj DP
ate
D N
an apple
Before continuing, we briefly discuss prepositions. Prepositions assign Case to their
complements. From the data below we see that pronouns appear with accusative case
morphology. This is not the same kind of accusative Case that is assigned by Voi. Here
it is important to keep morphological case distinct from Case. In most languages of the
type discussed here subjects in basic sentences are inflected with nominative case and
direct objects are inflected with accusative case. The case that appears on the object of
a preposition varies idiosyncratically from one language to the next. We will not worry
about the nature of the Case assigned by prepositions. It is important for us, however,
that prepositions do assign Case. We must also remember that in English, the object of
a preposition is inflected with accusative case.
5.2 Passivization
passive voice. Notice also that the adjunct by-phrase by Mary is optional. The hallmark
of the passive voice is that the object of the active sentence is the subject of the passive
sentence. Compare some more passive and active sentence pairs.
(15) a. John kicked the chair. → The chair was kicked (by John).
b. Susan bought the computer. → The computer was bought (by Susan).
c. The passengers boarded the airplane. → The airplane was boarded (by the
passengers).
Passive sentences in English contain the auxiliary be plus the past participle form
of the verb (which contains what is often called the passive morpheme -en). The passive
voice has two important properties. (i) The external argument is absent (or appears in an
optional by-phrase, and (ii) no accusative Case is assigned. The lack of accusative Case
assignment can be seen more easily with pronouns in English.
The distinction is clearer in Korean, which has overt Case marking. Observe the case
marking on ‘house’. Note crucially, that there is no accusative object in the passive sen-
tence.
b. 집이 나무로 만들어졌다.
Cip-i namwu-lo mandul-eci-ess-ta.
house-nom wood-instr make-pass-pst-decl
‘The house was made out of wood.’
Recall from the previous chapter that roles of the light verb have been split between
VoiP and vP. The v head is responsible for assigning verbal properties to the lexical root.
The Voi head is responsible for assigning accusative Case and introducing an external
argument. Here is the intermediate structure for The mango was eaten.
132 CHAPTER 5. CASE THEORY AND A-MOVEMENT
(18)
TP
T vP
was
v VP
Vi v ti DP
eaten
D nP
the
mango
Recall that finite T assigns nominative Case and, in English, has the EPP property.
The DP object needs Case; T needs to assign Case to a DP, so the object is assigned
nominative Case. Finally, the DP the mango raises to the Specifier of TP to satisfy the
EPP.
T assigns nominative case to
(19)
CP the thematic object, which be-
DPj TP
V assigns a θ-role to
the mango T vP
the thematic object.
was v VP
Vi v ti tj
eaten
Legate (2021) identifies the following three properties of canonical passives, all three
of which are found in the English passives above.
Legate observes that there are many languages with only a subset of these properties.
We will cover two examples here. First, in some Germanic languages passives are found
5.2. PASSIVIZATION 133
without the promotion of the theme argument (the internal argument). Observe in the
following examples that intransitive verbs have been passivized, thus there is no internal
argument to promote.
Algic is a large language family spoken across a large portion of North America.
The Algic family is subdivided into Algonquian (which comprises the majority of
the family) and two outlier languages, Wiyot and Yurok. Well known Algic lan-
guages include Cree, Ojibwe, Blackfoot, and Cheyenne, all of which belong to the
Algonquian subgroup. Several place names in North America are derived from
various Aglic languages including Massachussetts and Saskatchewan. Various
English words derived from Algonquian languages include moose, moccasin, and
chipmunk. Properties common to all Algongquian languages include an animacy-
based nominal classification system, complex polysynthetic morphology, obvia-
tion, and the person hierarchy (direct versus inverse) as discussed in the text.
See Will Oxford’s website for extensive materials on Algonquian languages.
134 CHAPTER 5. CASE THEORY AND A-MOVEMENT
5.3.1 SE in Romance
The morpheme se is found in virtually all varieties of Romance. We will deal with this
morpheme more fully in chapter 10, but for now, we will discuss the impersonal pas-
sives, which use the se morpheme. Although Romance languages have passives that are
structurally similar to those found in English, they are not as common as the impersonal
passives found with se. The following example shows an active sentence, passive sentence
and impersonal se passive in Portuguese. Note that the hyphen here is an orthographic
convention of Portuguese and is not intended to show a morphological break down.
c. As toranjas comeram-se.
the grapefruit.pl ate.3.pl-se
‘The grapefuits were eaten.’
Like the standard passive construction, the impersonal passive undergoes lacks an
external argument. Morphologically, the impersonal se passive is formed with the active
form of the main verb that agrees with the promoted argument and the presence of the
se morpheme. There is no passive morphology as in English passive. In Italian, the im-
personal se passive can appear with agent-oriented adverbs, but not with by-phrases.
This is illustrated in the following examples.
Consider, also the following Swahili examples. Passive voice is indicated morphologi-
cally with a -w suffix. As with the passive in English, the suppressed external argument
can appear in a by-phrase.
Often, there are differences between the morphological passive and the analytic pas-
sives, although these differ from one language to the next. Careful fieldwork must be un-
dertaken to accurately uncover the properties of passives and passive-like constructions
in different languages. We discuss one difference in Korean here. Consider the following
data.
5.4 Unaccusativity
Recall that unaccusatives and passives both lack an external argument. In simpler mod-
els, this common property was accounted for by assuming they both lack a vP projection.
As we saw for passives, this simple analysis failed to account for well known properties of
the passive and for the properties of the VP layer in other languages. To remind ourselves
here are the structures for an active and passive clause.
(29)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
D N T vP
John
ti vP
v tj
Vj v
sneezed
In this section, we will take a critical look at several monovalent verbs and see if they
do indeed form a homogeneous class, or whether they form two distinct classes. Consider
the set of monovalent verbs in (30). These verbs can usually appear with cognate objects,
an object that is lexically related to the verb.
d. 내가 잠을 잤다.
na-nun ca-m-ul ca-ss-ta.
I-top sleep-nlzr-acc sleep-pst-decl
‘I slept.’
e. 내가 춤을 췄다.
na-nun chwu-m-ul chw-ess-ta.
I-top dance-nlzr-acc dance-pst-decl
‘I danced.’
Now look at the set of monovalent verbs in (31). These verbs cannot appear with a
cognate object or a dummy reflexive.
Let’s turn now to Cantonese . Consider the following Cantonese verbs, which are in-
transitive in English.
a. fan3 gaau3
sleep sleep
‘to sleep’
b. sik6 je5
eat stuff
‘to eat’
c. waak6 waa2
draw drawing
‘to draw’
d. coeng3 go1
sing song
‘to sing’
Some languages, such as Cantonese, have a strict transitivity requirement. That is,
the verb must have a direct object, even if the direct object is semantically vacuous or
a cognate object. Observe in the examples above that the object either has the same
meaning as the verb or simply has no meaning. In contrast to the data above observe the
following examples, in which no cognate object is found.
(33) a. heoi3
go
‘to go’
138 CHAPTER 5. CASE THEORY AND A-MOVEMENT
b. lei6
arrive
‘to arrive’
Another difference found with monovalent verbs in English is their ability to appear
in an expletive construction (Levin, 1993). The set of monovalent verbs in (34) can appear
with the expletive there in (34), whereas the set of monovalent verbs in (35) cannot.
This clitic cannot refer to the subject, as the following examples show. Note that for
independent reasons, the numeral associated with ne must be post-verbal. This will be
clear below.
As expected, the subject of a monovalent verb cannot typically support the ne clitic,
as in (38).
5.4. UNACCUSATIVITY 139
a. léxudek’a
lé-xu-de-k’a
together-tooth-asp-grind
‘S/he is grinding his/her teeth together.’
b. lédek’a
lé-de-k’a
together-asp-grind
‘S/he is grinding it together.’
140 CHAPTER 5. CASE THEORY AND A-MOVEMENT
This process is normally restricted to direct objects, but there is a set of monovalent
verbs in which the subject can incorporate.
Observe, now, in the following data that the subject triggers agreement on the partici-
ple in the arrive-class of monovalent verbs. See also example (39a).
Finally, we will look at resultatives in English. Consider the following examples with
secondary predicates. These are called object and subject complements in traditional
grammar. There are two types of secondary predicates: resultatives (as mentioned above)
and depictives. The difference between these two is important for the discussion below.
A depictive describes the state of the subject or the object in the main clause. Consider
the following examples.
In the first sentence hot describes the state of the tea while John was drinking it. In
the second sentence tired describes Mary’s state while she walked home. Thus, in the
first example the depictive predicates the object, and in the second sentence the depictive
predicates the subject.
Resultatives, on the other hand, describe the state of the object as a result of the
event of the main clause. While depictives can modify either the subject or the object,
resultatives can only modify the object in English, a property first discussed by Simpson
(1983).1 Consider the following examples.
The first sentence means that the metal became flat as a result of Alice pounding
it. Here, the depictive flat predicates the object. In the second sentence, however, the
secondary predicate tired cannot be used to mean that Alice became tired as a result
of pounding the metal. It can only be used as a depictive, in which case it means that
Alice was tired while she pounded the metal. We say that resultatives have a direct object
restriction (Simpson, 1983).
In light of the difference between depictives and resultatives, consider the following
data.
As expected the resultatives in (46) cannot be used to predicate the subject. Note,
though, that with laugh and cry a dummy reflexive can be used, and the resultative
now has an object. We call these reflexives dummy reflexives because the verbs are oth-
erwise used only in intransitive constructions. The verb run, usually cannot take a form
of footwear as an object. However, if a resultative is added, then the object is accept-
able. In all cases, the resultative predicates the object–either the dummy reflexive or the
non-canonical object.
Consider, finally, the last set of data on this topic. Observe that the resultative refers to
the subject of these passive constructions. Since the subject is underlyingly the object,
it is not surprising that the resultative can refer to the subject here. The direct object
restriction, then, refers to the underlying object.
Observe that the resultative predicate is able to refer to the single argument of these
verbs. These sentences are not passive, so the data in (48) are surprising in light of the
direct object restriction.
We are now in a position to understand these two classes of verbs. The arrive-class
of verbs are called unaccusative for reasons to be made clear below. The other class of
verbs (including laugh, cry, etc.) are called unergative. The following chart summarizes
the findings in this section.
With regards to ne-cliticization and participle agreement in Italian and subject incor-
poration in Slavey, what we see is that the subject of the unaccusative verbs behaves like
an object. Note also that the subject of an unaccusative in many cases has a <theme>
θ-role, which usually appears on an internal argument. This leads us to the proposal that
unaccusative verbs lack an external argument. That is, the sentence John arrived has
the following structure.
5.4. UNACCUSATIVITY 143
unaccusative unergative
cognate objects in English and Korean impossible possible
cognate objects in Cantonese impossible obligatory
there expletives possible impossible
ne-cliticization in Italian possible impossible
participle agreement in Italian obligatory impossible
subject incorporation in Slavey possible impossible
dummy reflexives in English not found possible
(49)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
D N T vP
John
v VP
Vj v tj ti
arrived
(50)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
D N T VoiP
John
ti VoiP
Voi vP
v tj
Vj v
sneezed
(52)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
D N T VoiP
the child
ti VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vj v tj
DP
sneezed
a terrible sneeze
(53)
VP
V<theme>DP
arrived
D N
a traveller
Next, v merges with VP, then T merges with vP. T has the EPP property, so something
must appear in the specifier of TP. Furthermore, there is no Voi to assign accusative Case
to the internal argument, so it must receive nominative Case from T. In the cases we have
been discussing so far, the internal argument raises to SpecTP.
146 CHAPTER 5. CASE THEORY AND A-MOVEMENT
(54)
TP
NOM
DPi TP
D N TEPP vP
a traveller
v VP
Vj v tj ti
arrived
<them
e>
(55)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
D N TEPP vP
a traveller
v VP
Vj v tj ti
arrived
Alternatively, the expletive there can be merged into SpecTP to satisfy EPP on T. T still
assigns nominative Case to the internal argument.
(56)
CP
C TP
there TP
NOM
TEPP vP
v VP
Vj v tj DPi
arrived
D N
a traveller
5.4. UNACCUSATIVITY 147
Recall that we had to posit two lexical entries for break. Recall also that a large number
of verbs alternate in the same way (boil, shatter, melt, etc.). Many languages exhibit the
same alternation, but often with a morphological change. We saw examples of se-passives
in Romance in chapter 6. Here is another example from Italian.
Korean and Greek both show morphological changes on the verb that correlate with
the causative-inchoative alternation.
It would be rather unparsimonious to list all the alternating verbs in the Lexicon twice.
It would also miss the generalization that these verbs alternate in the same way. Instead
we have the following two lexical entries.
148 CHAPTER 5. CASE THEORY AND A-MOVEMENT
b. BREAK: V, DP<theme>
Thus, to derive the sentences in (57) the verb break selects the DP the vase. If no Voi
is merged with VP, then the thematic object becomes the grammatical subject as in (57b).
If Voi merges with VP, then an external argument will merge in the Specifier of VoiP. The
external argument becomes the grammatical subject as in (57a). Here are the structures
for the English sentences in (57) and the Korean sentences in (60).
(62) a.
CP
C TP
DPi TP
John T VoiP
ti VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vj v tj DP
broke
D N
the vase
b.
CP
C TP
DPi TP
D N T vP
the vase
v VP
Vj tj ti
broke
5.4. UNACCUSATIVITY 149
(63) a.
CP
TP C
-ta
DPi TP
Alice-ka VoiP T
-ess
ti VoiP
vP Voi
VP v
DP tj Vj v
yel
mwun-ul
b.
CP
TP C
-ta
DPi TP
mwun-i vP T
-ess
VP v
ti tj Vj v
yelli
• unaccusative
• passive
Key concepts
• case - the morphological marker that relates a noun to its grammatical function
150 CHAPTER 5. CASE THEORY AND A-MOVEMENT
• Case - an abstract licensing function that relates a noun to its grammatical function
• Case Filter - a principle that states that all nominal phrases (DPs) must bear Case
• nominative - the Case borne by the grammatical subject in many languages, in-
cluding English
• accusative - the Case borne by the direct object in many languages, including En-
glish
• active voice - the form of a sentence in which the thematic arguments correspond
to their grammatical counterparts
• passive voice - the form of a sentence in which the thematic object is the gram-
matical subject
• structural Case - Case that is assigned by a functional head (finite T and Voi)
• inherent Case - Case that is assigned directly by a particular lexical item (usually
a verb)
Further Reading
• Klaiman (1991) and Zúñiga and Kittilä (2019) - These two monographs discuss
cross-linguistic properties of grammatical voice.
5.4. UNACCUSATIVITY 151
• Wanner (2009) - This monograph provides an in depth look at the passive in En-
glish.
152 CHAPTER 5. CASE THEORY AND A-MOVEMENT
Chapter 6
• understand ergativity
The notions of subject and object are are not as straightforward as pedagogical gram-
mars and introductory textbooks suggest. Often, the subject is described as having the
following properties.
153
154 CHAPTER 6. LICENSING NOMINALS AND GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS
The object in turn is described as (i) being affected by the event, and (ii) having ac-
cusative case. In many cases this is true, as the following examples illustrate.
The simple picture painted above does not describe the empirical landscape of case
marking. Consider the following Icelandic data as discussed by Woolford (2006).
Observe that these sentences have only one argument. As such, it is expected that
they would bear nominative case, contrary to what is observed. This section considers a
number of situations in which the subject of the sentence has unexpected properties.
A quirky subject is a subject that bears something other than nominative case (Levin
and Simpson, 1981, inter alia).1 The examples in (4) illustrate typical examples of quirky
subjects. Quirky subjects have been described for a number of languages. Consider the
following Telegu examples. Observe that the subject appears with dative case.
1
We set aside ergative and absolutive case here.
6.1. SUBJECTS AND OBJECTS 155
So far, we have discussed structural Case, which is assigned according to the structural
position of the argument. We now turn to another situation. Consider the following Ger-
man data.
Example (6b) illustrates a canonical passive. The accusative direct object in the active
sentence appears with nominative Case in the passive sentence. In the active sentence
in (6c), however, the direct object appears with dative Case. Certain verbs in German
assign inherent Case (Chomsky, 1986b; Belletti, 1988), which remains invariant under
passivization. Thus, in the passive sentence in (6d), dative Case appears on the derived
subject, rather than nominative. It is typically assumed that verbs such as help in Ger-
man assign Case directly to the direct object (Woolford, 2006). Since the object is assigned
dative Case inherently by the verb, the absence of Voi in passives does not affect Case
assignment. It is an ongoing question, however, how nominative Case is handled. Recall
that according to the Case Filter, a DP is assigned Case once and only once (Chomsky,
1980b). One recent suggestion is that T attempts to assign nominative Case, but if it fails
156 CHAPTER 6. LICENSING NOMINALS AND GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS
to do so then it gives up, but failure to assign nominative Case does not result in un-
grammaticality (Preminger, 2014). Recall also the discussion on multiple Case checking
on page 157. One possibility is that arguments in lexical case can be assigned Case twice,
but only the lower Case is morphologically represented.
Recall that only tensed T assigns nominative Case. Consider the following data, concen-
trating only on the underlined clauses.
In (7a) the verb lost is inflected for past tense, so T assigns nominative Case to the
subject. In (7b), the verb lose is an infinitive. T is not tensed and so cannot assign nomi-
native Case to the subject. Instead, the subject is assigned Case from the preposition for.
Recall that the morphological realization of case assigned by prepositions in English is
accusative. If we look at (7c), we see that the sentence is unacceptable. The Theta Crite-
rion is not violated since John/him has a θ-role from Voi as the subject of the verb lose.
In this sentence, John/him lacks Case. It does not receive nominative Case, and there is
no preposition to assign Case to it. We posit the Case Filter , which states that DPs (and
pronominal Ds) must be assigned Case (Chomsky, 2000, 2001). Thus, sentence (7c) is
ungrammatical because it violates the Case Filter.
Consider, now, the following example.
Recall that seem-type verbs do not appear with a VoiP as there is no external argu-
ment. The subject of seem can be an expletive, which has no θ-role.
So, (8) does not violate the Theta Criterion. Observe, however, the subject John re-
ceives nominative Case in the lower clause, and in the higher clause. We propose, then,
that a DP can be assigned Case only once.
Case Filter : All DPs must be assigned Case once and only once.
Let’s consider the structure for (8) to see how it violates the Case Filter.
6.2. THE CASE FILTER 157
(10)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
John T VP
V CP
seems
C TP
that
ti TP
T vP
ti vP
v VP
V v tj DP
likej
D nP
chocolate
Here, the DP John receives nominative Case from the embedded finite T and raises
from the Specifier of VoiP to the specifier of the embedded TP, to satisfy EPP. In this
position, it is assigned nominative Case by the matrix finite T. Finally, the DP then raises
to the specifier of the matrix TP to satisfy EPP again. Thus, the Case Filter has been
violated. Every DP can be assigned Case once and only once, and the DP John has been
assigned Case twice.
We have seen above that Case assignment in English ensures that a DP receives Case
once and only once. This was captured in the proposed Case Filter as described above,
which prevents super-raising.
Not all languages have the same properties with respect to Case. We will see here that
in some languages Case be checked more than once; however, case is marked only once
on the DP. We call this multiple Case checking. In some languages, case can be marked
more than once on a DP, which we call case stacking. By way of introduction consider
158 CHAPTER 6. LICENSING NOMINALS AND GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS
the following example of multiple Case checking. For convenience each trace is indicated
with the Case value assigned in that position.
Consider the structure for (11a). Observe that kiket (‘who’) is the thematic object of
the lowest verb eljönnének (‘come’) and raises to SpecTP, where it is assigned nomina-
tive Case.3 It then raises to SpecCP, where it is assigned accusative Case from szeretnél
(‘you.would.like’). When keket (‘who’) raises to the matrix SpecCP it appears with ac-
cusative case marking. Kiss (1985) proposes that a DP that has undergone multiple case
checking surfaces with the most marked case.
(12)
2
Massam herself obtained these data from Kiss (1985).
3
It is not clear if this movement is actually necessary as Case can be assigned in situ. That is, if there is
no EPP property on T or strong [u ϕ ] on T, then movement to SpecTP is not necessary. The reader is urged to
consult the work of Katlin Kiss and others, such as Kiss (1994), for more details.
6.2. THE CASE FILTER 159
CP
DPi CP
kiket C TP
who pro l TP
T Voi/vP
Voi/v k T tl Voi/vP
Vj Voi/v tk VP
mondtad
tj CP
you.said
ti CP
C TP
hogy
that
TP
pro m TP
T Voi/vP
Voi/v o T tm Voi/vP
Vn Voi/v to VP
szeretnél
tn CP
AC
you.would.like
C
ti CP
C TP
ha
ti TP
if
T VP
NOM
Vp T tp ti
eljönnének
came.3pl
160 CHAPTER 6. LICENSING NOMINALS AND GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS
We turn now to case stacking. Recall that case stacking refers to the appearance of
more than one case marker on a nominal. It appears in a number of unrelated languages.
Consider the following (slightly amended) examples.4
(13) Korean, Koreanic (Cho, 2006, 143) and (Yoon, 1996, 110)
a. 영희에게가 돈이 많다.
Yenghuy-eykey-ka ton-i manh-ta.
Younghui-dat-nom money-nom be.plentiful-decl
‘Younghui has a lot of money.’
b. 나에게가 뱀이 무섭다.
na-eykey-ka paym-i mwusep-ta.
I-to-nom snakenom scary-decl
‘I’m afraid of snakes.’
Note that case stacking in Korean is optional, while it is obligatory in Lardil. In Korean,
case stacking is generally associated with focus marking (Lee and Nie, 2022). Specifically,
they propose that the outer case marking is associated with a focus interpretation. See
also Chen (2018) for an extensive, cross-linguistic discussion on multiple Case assign-
ment.
It is well known that not all languages manifest morphological case marking of any kind.
On the surface, Chinese languages are clear examples of languages without morpholog-
ical case, at least in traditional grammatical descriptions. Consider the following exam-
ples.
In the early days of Government and Binding Theory it was thought that Case-checking
was directional. Specifically, for Mandarin (and Chinese in general) the verb assigns ac-
cusative Case once to the right (Li, 1985, 1990).5 In fact, Mandarin has a restriction
that only one nominal can follow the verb in most circumstances. Consider the following
examples.
the following example. Note crucially that the PP wei ta does not appear in the position
of either the subject or the object.
Li also discusses the nominal marker de, adopting previous work that argues it assigns
Case. In Mandarin, nominals can take the following form.
(19) XP de NP
In (19), XP can be either an AdjP, NP (or DP, depending on one’s analysis of nominal
structure), or a clause. Crucially, it cannot be a PP. Consider the following data.
These facts fall out assuming Case is active in the grammar of Chinese. Whether Case
is univesally found in human language in general, and whether it’s found in Chinese in
particular is still a matter of ongoing research.
Bantu languages form a major sub-group of the Atlantic-Congo family, which is it-
self part of the disputed Niger-Congo super-family (Greenberg, 1955; Dimmendaal,
2008). Bantu languages are spoken across southern Africa. Nouns in Bantu lan-
guages belong to one of a large number of noun classes. In virtually all Bantu lan-
guages human noun are class one (singular) and class two (plural). The noun class
is indicated by a numeral attached to the noun in the gloss. For example, in (21a) the
noun for ‘girl’ appears with the numeral 1 in the gloss. Verbs generally agree with
the subject and (sometimes) the object. This agreement is indicated by sm and om in
the gloss.
6.2. THE CASE FILTER 163
Bantu languages in general do not display any obvious evidence of morphological case.
As such, it has been suggested that Bantu languages do not use Case in their grammar
(Diercks, 2012). Consider the following examples.
Observe that the nominal òmùwálà (‘girl’) does not show any morphological evidence
of grammatical function. The forms are the same for both subject and object. Recall that
for English, a nominal cannot appear in a non-Case position. Thus, the subject of an
infinitive requires a preposition, as in the following example (Diercks, 2012, 259).
Diercks presents the following showing that the same constraint does not hold in
Swahili.
Diercks uses data as above to argue that not all languages use Case to license nouns.
For additional discussion, see Carstens and Diercks (2013) and Van Der Wal (2015).
The Case Filter was proposed as a licensing mechanism for nominals in the sentence.
The idea is that a nominal phrase must somehow be licensed in order to appear in a
clause. There are instances where Case seems to be absent. Consider the following data.
Niuean is an ergative-absolutive language. In (24a), the subject appears with ergative
case and the object appears with absolutive case. Observe that the object in 24b has no
164 CHAPTER 6. LICENSING NOMINALS AND GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS
case (reduced morphology on the noun), and that the subject is marked with absolutive,
indicating reduced transitivity. Syntactically, only internal arguments undergo PNI. In
some cases the PNI object is strictly adjacent to the verb.
Massam (2001) identifies this construction as pseudo noun incorporation (PNI). PNI
has since been found in a number of languages around the world. Objects that undergo
PNI typically lack case marking (Dayal, 2011; Massam, 2001). The PNI nominal phrase
typically does not exhibit a full extended functional projection. That is, it is usually a NP
or a NumP instead of DP.
The discussion above has suggested that Case is an indispensable mechanism for
licensing nominals. Of course, whether Case is universally responsible for such licensing
is controversial, as we saw for Chinese and Bantu above. We examine how PNI fits into the
discussion on nominal licensing. Clearly the object in (24b) has no Case. Observe further
in both Niuean and in Sakha below that the pseudo incorporated noun is adjacent to the
verb.
Based on a proposal by Baker (2014), Levin (2015, 150) proposes the following con-
straint on lexical categories.
is not a full DP. Levin proposes that the noun’s adjacency with the verb makes it part of
the verb’s extended projection, i.e., part of the CP. See Levin for more details and empirical
illustrations beyond pseudo noun incorporation.
The three diagnostics for subjecthood introduced at the beginning of the chapter are
all problematic in some way. The first diagnostic imputes being the initiator of action.
Consider the following examples. It is difficult to impute any sense of initiation of action
in (27a) and (27d). In (27b) and (27c), there is an event, but the subjects are not the
agents of the events, but rather the cause of the event.
Case and agreement are problematic for various reasons. Some languages, such as
Mandarin Chinese and other Sinitic languages have neither agreement nor case. Recall
also the discussion on Bantu in Chapter 5, where it is proposed that at least some Bantu
languages do not have Case. Consider the following examples. Observe that there is no
overt case morphology nor agreement.
Next, consider the following Greek data. Note that Greek is an SVO language and that the
subject typically appears with nominative case and the object appears with accusative
case.
Consider, however, the following data. Observe that the argument that corresponds
to the subject in English (Peter ) bears dative case in Greek.
Given the Greek facts here and the data on quirky case above, it is clear that the crite-
ria in (1) cannot be used to define subjecthood. This section covers in depth discussions
of subjecthood in Greek and Tagalog.
We begin with Anagnostopoulou’s discussion on subjecthood in Greek. She notes first
that the more natural word order between the two examples above is the one in (30a),
suggesting Peter is the subject as Greek is an SVO language. (See Thought Exercise 6.1,
however.)
The next diagnostic she considers is clitic left-dislocation (CLLD). Consider first the
English example below.
(31) The old books we found in the attic, I gave them away to charity.
The topic, the old books we found in the attic, is coreferential with a pronoun inside the
clause. Accordingly many languages including Greek exhibit CLLD, in which a phrase is
moved to the left edge of the clause and is resumed by a pronominal clitic. Here are some
examples. In both examples, the left-dislocated phrase is resumed by a pronominal clitic
(shown in boldface).
Now, one possible analysis for the dative marked experiencer in (30a) is that it is not a
subject but rather a clitic left-dislocated phrase. With this in mind, consider the following
contrast. Observe in the first example below that CLLD is not possible inside the relative
clause. In (33b), however, the experiencer argument can appear with a clitic. Thus, the
sentence-initial experiencer cannot be explained as CLLD. However, if the experiencer is
simply the subject, then the appearance of the clitic is not mysterious.
The last diagnostic we cover for Greek concerns elided subjects. Consider first the
following English data. Observe that a null subject is possible in the second clause if it is
coreferential with the subject in the first clause. Observe that if either the pronoun in the
second clause is not the subject or the antecedent in the first clause is not the subject,
then a null pronoun is not possible.
Greek has a similar restriction. Consider the following data. Observe that the null
subject in (35a) can be coreferential with the subject in the previous clause, but not with
the object in the previous clause.
In this light, consider the following additional data. Observe that the null subject in
the second clause can only be referential with the dative-marked argument in the first
clause. Crucially, in (36b) it cannot be coreferential with the nominative argument. This
underscores the lack of correlation between case marking and grammatical function.
The results are summarized in Table 6.1. The dative experiencer and the nominative
agent are both preverbal. They both allow doubling by a clitic in the absence of CLLD. The
dative recipient only allows CLLD in the appropriate environment. Finally only the nomi-
native agent and the dative experiencer both allow ellipsis of the subject in a subsequent
clause.
We turn next to Tagalog and consider a battery of diagnostics for subjecthood. Before we
discuss Tagalog in detail, we need to become familiar with the Philippine Voice Alignment
6.3. DIAGNOSING SUBJECTHOOD 169
system.8 Tagalog, like many Austronesian languages, has a voice system that makes some
element in the clause prominent. Consider the following data.
Note that there is much disagreement on the labels of the case markers for Tagalog
and related Austronesian languages. This discussion follows Kroeger’s terminology for
convenience. What is generally agreed upon for Tagalog is that the ang-marked nominal
(labelled nom here) is taken to be the primary argument of the clause. This is reflected
in the verbal morphology. Observe that in (37a) the agent of the sentence (‘the man’)
appears with nominative case, and the verb has an infix that indicates that the subject is
marked nominative. The abbreviation av indicates that the external argument (the actor)
is marked with nominative case. In (37b) the theme (‘the fish’) is marked with nominative
case. Observe that the verb has a suffix (ov) that indicates that the theme (or object) is
marked with nominative case. The following examples illustrate the same point with the
location and the benefactee, respectively. In all four examples, observe that the marking
on the verb indicates which nominal appears with nominative case.
The question we ask now is the following. What is the “subject” of a sentence in Taga-
log? There are two logical choices: (i) the nominative-marked nominal, or (ii) the actor
(external argument). We will consider various diagnostics in turn.
The quantifier lahat (‘all’) generally appears with the nominal it modifies (Schachter,
1976). This quantifier can also float to a position immediately to the right of the verb.
When floated, it can refer only to the nominative-marked argument. Consider the follow-
ing examples.
Thus, quantifier float targets the nominative argument, regardless of its thematic re-
lation to the verb.
Next, consider the following facts about relative clauses. It is well known among many
Austronesian languages that only the nominative argument can be relativized, while in
English any argument can be relativized. Consider the English data first. Observe that
either the subject, direct object, or indirect object can be relativized.9
Turn now to the following Tagalog data. Observe that only the nominative argument
can be relativized. In (40a) observe that isda (‘fish’) has been relativized and that the verb
indicates that the thematic object bears nominative Case.
Consider next possessor raising (also called “possessor ascension”). The possessor of
an object can be topicalized and separated from the possessed noun. This phenomenon
is normally restricted to inalienable possessors. Here is an example.
9
Note that for most speakers the indirect object can be relativized only if it is the object of a preposition.
6.4. ERGATIVITY 171
Only the possessor of the nominative argument can be raised. Consider the following
example.
In this section, we have seen three lines of evidence that the nominative marked ar-
gument in Tagalog (the ang argument) functions as the subject regardless of its thematic
role.10 Specifically, we saw that quantifier float, relativization, and possessor raising all
affect only the nominative argument.
6.4 Ergativity
Not all languages exhibit a nominative and accusative Case pattern as described above.
Many of the world’s languages exhibit an ergative/absolutive Case agreement system.
In these languages, the subject of a transitive clause (the AGENT) is assigned ergative
Case, while the object of a transitive clause (the PATIENT) and the single argument of an
intransitive clause (the SUBJECT) are assigned absolutive Case. Thus, in the sentence
John chopped the tree, John is the AGENT and the tree is the PATIENT. In the sentence
John laughed, John is the SUBJECT. Figure 6.1 shows these two patterns of case align-
ment. In nominative accusative languages, the SUBJECT (S) and the AGENT (A) both
have nominative case, while the PATIENT (P) has accusative case. In ergative languages
the AGENT (A) has ergative case, while the SUBJECT (S) and the PATIENT (P) have abso-
lutive case.
10
See Kroeger (1993) for additional argumentation.
172 CHAPTER 6. LICENSING NOMINALS AND GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS
nominative-accusative ergative-absolutive
S S
NOM ABS
ACC ERG
A P A P
Nominative languages are more widely known simply because the world’s more com-
monly studied languages (as L2 languages) happen to be nominative. Ergative languages,
however, are found all over the world. Let’s begin with an illustration of nominative-
accusative alignment. Here is a Korean example that illustrates the nominative-accusative
Case system. Note the case markers.
Now, let’s look at an example in an ergative language. The following example is from
Dyirbal (dbl). Note that in Dyirbal there is no overt marker of absolutive Case. Ergative
Case is marked with a suffix, however. In (44a), mother is the SUBJECT and has abso-
lutive Case. In (44b), mother is the AGENT and has ergative Case; father is the PATIENT
and has absolutive Case.
Dyirbal (dbl) is a Pama–Nyungan language spoken in the Cairns rain forests on the
north east coast of Australia. It is a severely endangered language with only about
ten speakers left (Dixon, 1987).
In the first two situations above, the two different Case systems were illustrated by
differences in case marking on the nouns. Consider first the following examples from
Khanty, a nominative-accusative language. Note that the subject agreement is the same
for both the SUBJECT in (45a) and for the AGENT in (45b). (The vowel change is related to
phonological properties of Khanty and does not bear on the discussion here.) The object
agreement is shown in bold face.
Contrast the example above with an ergative-absolutive language, Abaza. Note that
gender is neutralized in the 3rd person absolutive, but is distinguished in the ergative.
That is, there are separate forms for he and she in the ergative only.
(46) Abaza, Northwest Caucasian (Dixon, 1994, 43), citing (Allen, 1956)
a. d-θád
3sg.abs-gone
‘S/he has gone.’
b. h-θád
1pl.abs-gone
‘We have gone.’
c. h-l-bád
1pl.abs-3sg.f.erg-saw
‘She saw us.’
d. d-h-bád
3sg.abs-1pl.erg-saw
‘We saw him/her.’
These data show a clear distinction between absolutive Case and ergative Case for the
3rd person. Thus, the subject of the intransitive in (46a) (the SUBJECT) and the object of
the transitive in (46d) (the PATIENT) both have the same form /d-/. This contrasts with
the subject of the transitive (the AGENT) in (46c), /l-/. As mentioned, the 3rd person
174 CHAPTER 6. LICENSING NOMINALS AND GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS
ergative marker distinguishes gender. Thus, (46c) can only mean ‘She saw us’. The form
for ‘He saw us’ has a different morpheme. The distinction for the 1st person plural is
less clear, since both forms are /h-/ in the absolutive and the ergative. However, the
data in (46c) and (46d) show that they occupy different positions, suggesting the need to
maintain the distinction.
Warning! Do not confuse the terms ‘AGENT’ and ‘PATIENT’ with the theta-
relations of the same name!
AGENT - subject of a transitive clause
<agent> - theta-relation indicating volitional action
In a nominative-accusative language like English, the SUBJECT and the AGENT have
many properties in common. They both appear with the same morphological case (nomi-
native) in opposition to the PATIENT (which bears accusative case). The SUBJECT and the
AGENT can also serve as the ‘same subject’ in conjunction constructions. In the following
examples, the missing argument in the second conjunct is ‘John’. In the first example,
the overt ‘John’ and the empty argument are both subjects – with nominative Case. In the
second example, the overt ‘John’ is the subject (nominative), and the empty argument is
an object – in an accusative Case position. Leaving the the argument empty is possible
only when both arguments are subjects – that is when they both have nominative Case.
In ergative languages, the SUBJECT and the PATIENT share similar properties. They
both appear with the same morphological case, absolutive, in opposition to the AGENT,
which appears with ergative case. We call this phenomenon morphological ergativity.
In some cases, the SUBJECT and the PATIENT can also serve as the ‘same argument’.
This phenomenon is called syntactic ergativity. Morphological ergativity is more com-
mon than syntactic ergativity. If a language is syntactically ergative, it is also morpho-
logically ergative; however, if a language is morphologically ergative, it is not necessarily
syntactically ergative. Dyirbal is an example of a language that is both morphologically
and syntactically ergative. Consider the following example.
Some ergative languages have passives as discussed in the previous chapter. Some
ergative languages have another kind of construction called an antipassive. Descrip-
tively, the passive transformation demotes the subject to an oblique case (that is, a by-
phrase) or omits it altogether, and promotes the thematic object to the grammatical sub-
ject position. An antipassive demotes the absolutive object of a transitive clause to an
oblique Case or omits it altogether, and shifts the ergative subject to the absolutive sub-
ject. Consider the following data.
The first sentence is transitive and has an ergative subject and absolutive object. The
second sentence is intransitive with an absolutive subject. The absolutive object has been
demoted to an oblique (dative) object, and is optional (just like the by-phrase in English).
Another illustration of the antipassive is offered by Inuktitut. Consider the following
data. In the first example, the agent is marked with ergative case, and the patient is
marked with absolutive case, as expected. This is reflected in the agreement on the verb.
In the second example, notice that the AGENT is now the SUBJECT of an intransitive
sentence, so is now absolutive. The PATIENT has been demoted to an oblique, marked by
mik.
Let’s consider a final example. Consider the following Squamish (squ) data. In the
first example, we see ergative and absolutive agreement on the verb rather than case
marking on the DPs. The second example contains detransitivizing morphology (detr),
which functions similarly to the passive. Here, the PATIENT retains its status as the
absolutive argument, but the AGENT has been demoted to an oblique.
Note that the examples above contain 3rd person subjects. Consider now the following
data, which contain 1st and 2nd person subjects.
b. yó:ys-tsel
work-1sg.nom
‘I work.’
c. máy-t-chexw
help-tr-2sg.nom
‘You help him.’
d. yó:ys-chexw
work-2sg.nom
‘You work.’
In contrast to the data in (52), the 1st and 2nd person subjects trigger subject agree-
ment in both transitive and intransitive verbs, suggesting nominative-accusative align-
ment. This is an instance of split ergativity, as 1st and 2nd persons trigger nominative-
accusative alignment, while 3rd person triggers ergative-absolutive alignment. In this
case, we call this a person-based split. There are other kinds of splits, which can be
found in the discussions in the references.
The analysis of ergative-absolutive languages has given rise to a huge output of re-
search (Bittner and Hale, 1996; Wiltschko, 2006; Johns, 1992; Legate, 2008; Polinsky,
2016; Coon, 2013; Baker and Bobaljik, 2017; Coon and Preminger, 2017; Marantz, 1984).
For a typological overview see Dixon (1994). For a survey of generative approaches to erga-
tivity see Aldridge (2008). The difficulty in analyzing ergativity resides in the fact that the
Case of the highest argument varies. Assuming the subject appears or receives Case from
T, in dyadic verbs, T must assign ergative Case, and in monadic verbs, T must assign ab-
solutive Case. This is nothing more than a stipulation of the facts, and such a proposal
has never been seriously entertained. Marantz (1984, 1991) proposed a novel and signif-
icantly different theory of Case assignment, which has gained much ground. Specifically,
the Dependent Theory of Case works as follows. Languages parametrically choose be-
tween how dependent Case is assigned. In nominative-accusative languages, dependent
Case is assigned to the lower argument. In ergative-absolutive languages, dependent Case
is assigned to the higher argument.
(b) If there are two DPs in a Case domain, the lower one receives
dependent Case: accusative
2 Ergative-Absolutive Languages:
(b) If there are two DPs in a Case domain, the higher one receives
dependent Case: ergative
Consider the following Lakota data, paying close attention to 1st person agreement. Note
that there is no agreement for 3rd person in any of these forms.
a. a-wá-’u
loc-1sg.ag-bring
‘I brought it.’
b. wa-ktékte
1sg.ag-kill
‘I’ll kill him.’
c. a-má-’u
loc-1sg.pat-bring
‘He brought me.’
d. ma-ktékte
1sg.pat-kill
‘He’ll kill me.’
Lakota (lkt) is a dialect of the Sioux language, a member of the Sioux fam-
ily, spoken in central North America. The other dialects are Dakota and Nakota.
Sioux is an SOV language with agglutinating morphology. See Buechel and Man-
hart (2002) for more details. Lakota figures prominently in the film Dances With
Wolves.
From the data above we can see that /wa-/ indexes the 1st person subject, and that
/ma-/ indexes the 1st person object. In the examples shown so far, the agreement mor-
pheme with the abbreviation ag (agent) references the subject and the agreement mor-
pheme with the abbreviation pat (patient) references the object. Consider, now, the fol-
lowing intransitive forms.
nominative-accusative
AG
S
PAT
AG PAT
A P
b. wa-hí
1sg.ag-come
‘I came.’
c. ma-kh úže
1sg.pat-sick
‘I’m sick.’
d. ma-xwá
1sg.pat-sleepy
‘I’m sleepy.’
Observe with the verbs jump and come subject agreement is indexed by the agent affix,
as expected. However, with be sick and be sleepy the subject is indexed by the patient
affix. This system of agreement is called split intransitivity or active-stative alignment.
This case alignment system is shown in Figure 6.2. The terms agent and patient are
used rather than the terms for Case introduced in the previous chapter. One reason for
this is that a precise mechanism for Case assignment in split intransitive languages is
a matter of ongoing research. As such, descriptive terms from the typological literature
are used (see for example Blake, 1994). As Mithun (1991) shows, monovalent verbs that
depict a more stative or less volitional eventuality tend to take patient agreement, while
monovalent verbs that depict a more active or more volitional eventuality tend to appear
with agent agreement.
Dixon (1979, 1994) distinguishes between split-S split intransitivity and fluid-S
split intransitivity. In split-S split intransitivity monovalent verbs are divided into two
classes as described. Each member of the two classes typically behaves consistently with
respect to agreement. That is, verbs that appear with agent agreement always take agent
agreement. Verbs that appear with patient agreement always take patient agreement.
Oneida is a split-S split intransitive language. Consider the following examples.11 Note
11
The symbol ‘v’ represents the sound [2]. The apostrophe represents a glottal stop. The colon represents
vowel length and can be a morpheme in Oneida.
180 CHAPTER 6. LICENSING NOMINALS AND GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS
that there is no agreement for neuter arguments in Oneida. That is, nothing agrees with
‘it’ in these examples.
In the transitive examples above, the active agreement prefix indexes the subject and
the patient agreement prefix indexes the object.
In fluid-S split intransitive languages, many monovalent verbs can appear with either
agent agreement or patient agreement. In such a case, there is a change in meaning. When
the verb appears with agent agreement, then the subject is generally more in control of
6.5. SPLIT INTRANSITIVITY 181
the event. When the verb appears with patient agreement, then the subject is generally
less in control of the event. Consider the following pair of examples from Northern Pomo.
The agreement (nominative versus accusative) correlates with the degree to which the
speaker is in control of the event.
Here is one final example from Tibetan. The voluntary form has agent marking on
the subject pronoun in addition to overt marking on the verb for voluntary action. The
second example lacks agent marking. Chang and Chang note that the second example
would be used if the speaker is referring to an event of going to Lhasa with their parents.
That is, the speaker is not in control of the event.
Key concepts
• absolutive - The case assigned to the subject of a monovalent verb or the object of
a bivalent verb in ergative-absolutive languages
182 CHAPTER 6. LICENSING NOMINALS AND GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS
Further reading
• Aldridge (2008) - This paper provides a brief discussion of recent generative ap-
proaches to ergativity
• Hale and Keyser (2002) - This monograph discusses the argument structure of
verbs and fleshes out the distinction between unaccusatives and unergatives in de-
tail. In particular, it deals with the problem noted at the end of this chapter. Some
of the discussion is rather advanced; however, this data rich book is strongly rec-
ommended.
• Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1994) - This monograph offers an in depth discussion
of the lexical properties of unaccusative verbs.
• McGregor (2009) - This paper provides a recent discussion on the typological im-
plications of ergativity.
• Perlmutter and Soames (1978) - This paper is the original proposal for the distinc-
tion between unaccusatives and unergatives.
Chapter 7
• understand and account for the differences between pied-piping and preposition
stranding
• understand the notion of Attract Closest and how it relates to multiple wh-questions
• understand the structure of relative clauses and have an appreciation for the diver-
sity of relative clauses
Recall that languages differ with respect to overt wh-movement. Consider the following
English and Mandarin sentences, paying attention to the position of the object.
Recall that the verb buy assigns at θ-role to the object DP an apple. We say that the
direct object is in its thematically related position.
183
184 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(2)
VP VP
V DP V DP
buy mǎi
an apple pínggǔo
Now consider the following sentences, in which the direct object is being questioned.
A wh-word (or wh-phrase such as which apple) appears at the left edge of the English
sentence, and there is now a gap in the position of the direct object. In the Mandarin
question, though, the question word remains in the same position as the object in the
declarative sentence. That is, it remains in its thematically related position.
Recall also that in many languages the wh-phrase appears at the left edge of the
clause where it takes scope. Here are some examples.
Onondaga has relatively free word order, so the direct object can appear anywhere
within the clause. If the direct object is questioned, however, the wh-phrase (nwade’)
must appear at the left edge of the clause.
Finally, consider the following Chamorro data. First, note that Chamorro is a verb-
initial language. Note that the case alignment system in Chamorro is rather complex, so
case markers are simply identified as case here.
Again, observe that the wh-phrases all appear at the left edge of the clause.
c. Hafa malago’-mu?
what wh.want-agr
‘What do you want?’
Recall that wh-movement targets SpecCP, a proposal going back to Chomsky (1977).
In languages like English, German, Onondaga, and Chamorro if C has a [+wh] feature
and has the EPP property, the closest wh-phrase raises to SpecCP. Consider the following
English example.
(8)
CP
C[+wh] TP
DPi TP
Alice T VoiP
did
ti VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vj v tj
DP
buy
what
(9)
CP
DPk CP
what thhiC[+wh] TP
Tj C DPi TP
did
Alice tj VoiP
ti VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vj v tj tk
buy
As with polarity questions, the auxiliary (or modal) in T raises to C. Note that, in
English, if the corresponding declarative form has no auxiliary a dummy do appears in
the interrogative form, as in the example above.
Consider, next, the following French data, paying attention to the difference between
standard French and colloquial French.1 Note that the use of the hyphen in the first
example is an orthographic convention of French. The verb and the pronoun are two
separate words.
a. Où achètes-tu du fromage?
where buy.2sg-you of the cheese
‘Where do you buy cheese?’ [Standard French]
b. Où tu achètes du fromage?
where you buy.2sg of the cheese
‘Where do you buy cheese?’ [Colloquial French]
c. Où que tu achètes du fromage?
where comp you buy.2sg of the cheese
‘Where do you buy cheese?’ [Colloquial French]
1
Note that there is a great deal of dialectal variation in varieties of spoken French around the world. The
data here are typical of some varieties heard in France and in Quebec. Note that these are also not the only
way to form questions in French. For more discussion on wh-movement in French, see Kayne (1975). See
Tailleur (2013) for the diverse range of wh-questions in various varieties of French. See also Poletto and
Pollock (2004) for discussions on wh-questions in Romance in general.
188 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
Recall that the lexical verb raises to T in French if there is no auxiliary. Following the
same line of reasoning above, we can conclude that in Standard French the verb raises
to C in questions. Thus, we can generalize and say that T raises to C in both English
and in Standard French. Note that in Colloquial French T does not raise to C; however,
a complementizer may appear. These facts suggest the following structures, with the
optional complementizer as shown.
CP
AdvPi CP
Où C TP
Tm C DP TP
n
Voil T tu tm VoiP
vk Voi tn VoiP
Vj v tl <vP,vP>
achètes
vP ti
tk VP
tj PP
du fromage
CP
AdvPi CP
Où C TP
(que)
DPn TP
tu T VoiP
Voil T tn VoiP
vk Voi tl <vP,vP>
Vj v vP ti
achètes
tk VP
tj PP
du fromage
The sentence in (13a) is a matrix question, which normally requires an answer. Exam-
ples (13b) and (13c) are both embedded questions (sometimes called indirect questions).
The sentence in (13b) is a statement that John knows the answer to the question, “What
did Mary buy?”. The sentence in (13c), however, is often used as a polite way to ask a
question. Thus, while syntactically and semantically (13c) is simply a statement about
what the speaker is wondering, it is pragmatically a question.2 Given that the following
tree is quite large, we use an abbreviated vP layer. Note that the full structure contains
VoiP > vP > VP
b.
CP
C TP
DPi TP
Mary T vP
ti vP
v VP
Vj v tj CP
wonders
DPk CP
what C TP
DPl TP
Susan T vP
tl vP
v VP
Vm v tm tk
bought
(15) Which book does Mary think that John said that Sally told us she would buy?
The original merged position of the wh-adverb, when, is either in the matrix clause or
the embedded clause giving rise to the two following possible meanings. The first meaning
7.1. REVIEW OF WH-MOVEMENT 191
is asking when John said what he did. The second meaning is asking when Peter was
fired according to John’s statement.
Consider the sentence Who bought what? This sentence contains two wh-phrases, so
it is referred to as a multiple wh-question. In English, such constructions often trigger
what’s called a pair-list reading as follows.
Note that with multiple wh-questions the higher of the two wh-phrases must raise.
Consider the following examples.
In both cases, the closer wh-phrase moves to the specifier of CP. Consider the deriva-
tion for these sentences before the wh-phrase moves to the specifier of CP. The closer of
the two wh-phrases is shown with a solid arrow and the other wh-phrase is shown with
a crossed out dashed arrow. The higher phrase raises to the specifier of CP.
192 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(19)
CP
CP
C TP
DPi TP
who T VoiP
ti VoiP
Voi vP
X v VP
V v tj
DPi
boughtj
what
If a head needs to attract something to its specifier (because of the EPP or some other
reason), it chooses the closest element with an appropriate feature. This notion of close-
ness is referred to as Attract Closest (Chomsky, 1995; Aoun and Li, 2003). As a final
note, consider labelling. When the wh-phrase raises to SpecCP two phrases are under-
going Merge. The two phrases share a criterial feature, [wh]. The C head has the unin-
terpretable feature, [uwh], so C determines the label. The root node is CP, then.
For the final part of our review, we consider long distance wh-movement in more de-
tail. Recall that wh-movement interacts with anaphor resolution. Consider the following
sentence.
This sentence appears to violate the principle of anaphor binding that states that
anaphors must be c-commanded by their antecedents. In its original merged position,
7.1. REVIEW OF WH-MOVEMENT 193
however, the antecedent, John, does c-command the anaphor, himself. Thus, let’s assume
that it is necessary for the antecedent to c-command the anaphor at some point during
the derivation (Lebeaux, 1991; Fox, 1999; Lebeaux, 2009).3 We will return to binding in
chapter 10, so we will wait until then to sharpen the exact formulation of anaphor binding.
In the meantime, however, we can use this fact about anaphor binding as a diagnostic for
movement. To refresh our memories, recall that the antecedent must locally c-command
the anaphor. The following examples show this. Observe that himself can refer only to
Bill and not to John.
(22) [Which picture of himself1/2 ]i does John1 think [CP that Bill2 likes ti ]?
Here, himself can refer to either John or Bill. As the wh-phrase moves successive-
cyclically to the specifier of the matrix CP, it can be locally c-commanded by John. We
propose that the wh-phrase moves successive cyclically through the specifier of every CP
on its way to the matrix SpecCP. Note that when the wh-phrase moves to the intermediate
CP the DP and the CP do not share a criterial feature. As such, a label cannot be formed
upon Merge.
(23)
∅
DP CP
which picture... C TP
that
Once the wh-phrase moves up to the matrix CP, only a trace remains, and the CP
provides the label. The proposed derivation for this sentence is in (24).
When the wh-phrase stops in the specifier of the intermediate CP, it is bound by John.
From this position, John c-commands the anaphor inside the wh-phrase. John and the
wh-phrase are also sufficiently close enough to license the anaphor. We assume that the
specifier of the CP is part of the superordinate clause.
When the wh-phrase is merged in its thematically related position, it is in the same
clause as Bill. The anaphor contained inside of it is also c-commanded by Bill, so the
3
Lebeaux (1991) and Fox (1999) originally proposed that the wh-phrase undergoes reconstruction at
LF. Whether the anaphor is licensed by reconstruction or derivationally, as discussed here, is a matter of on
going research that we will not discuss further here.
194 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
anaphor is licensed in this position. Again, because of the size of the tree a reduced vP
structure is shown.
(24)
CP
DPi CP
which picture C TP
of himself
Tj C DPk TP
does
John tj vP
tk vP
v VP
Vl v tl CP
think
ti CP
C TP
that
DPm TP
Bill T vP
tm vP
v VP
Vn v tn ti
likes
Notice that there are two copies of the wh-phrase wen (‘who.acc’) and wo (‘where’).
The lower copy is evidence that the wh-phrase moved through the specifier of the inter-
mediate CP. Unlike English, German has the option of spelling out the trace as a copy
of the moved element. Wh-copy constructions are found in other Germanic languages
(du Plessis, 1977; Sternefeld, 1991; Barbiers et al., 2009; Hiemstra, 1986), as well as
Romani (McDaniel, 1986) and Passamoquoddy (Bruening, 2006).
The following tree shows the derivation for the long-distance wh-question in German.
Note that VoiP and vP are combined into a single projection to save space. First, recall
that some phrases in German are right-headed. Observe that the wh-phrase leaves a
copy in the intermediate SpecCP rather than a trace as we saw for English above.
(26)
196 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
CP
DPi CP
wen C TP
Tj C DP TP
m
vk T du tj vP
Vl v tm vP
denkst
tk VP
tl CP
DPi CP
wen C TP
DPn TP
Peter vP T
hat
tn vP
VP v
ti to geseheno v
The next line of evidence comes from Irish. Irish complementizers agree with the illo-
cutionary force of their clauses. Of interest here are the complementizers go (declarative)
and aL (interrogative – the L indicates a phonological change on the following consonant.)
Consider the following examples. Note that the complementizers often fuse morphologi-
cally with tense morphology.
The first example contains a declarative complementizer (inflected for past tense),
which introduces the embedded clause. The second example contains an interrogative
complementizer as the sentence is a question. Whenever a wh-phrase appears in the
specifier of a CP in Irish, the interrogative complementizer, aL, appears in the C head
rather than the declarative complementizer, go. Consider, now, the following example of
long distance movement in Irish.
This example contains a wh-phrase cé (‘who’) that has undergone long distance move-
ment from the embedded clause. The matrix clause is interrogative and is accordingly
marked with an interrogative complementizer. The embedded clause, however, is declara-
tive. One would expect a declarative complementizer; however, we observe an interrogative
complementizer in this clause, too (shown in italics). This fact follows from the assump-
tion that wh-movement moves through the specifier of every intermediate CP. When the
wh-phrase moves through the specifier of the embedded CP, it triggers the appearance
of the interrogative complementizer in the embedded clause.
Consider the following structure for (28). Note that we have not considered passives
in Irish, so we’ll make a few assumptions about the overall structure. These assumptions
don’t affect the point made here–namely, that wh-movement proceeds successive cycli-
cally, that is through every intermediate SpecCP. As the dashed line shows, when the
wh-phrase moves through the intermediate SpecCP it triggers the interrogative form of
the complementizer (aL ) to appear on C. Again, to save space VoiP and vP are combined
into one projection.
(29)
198 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
CP
DPi CP
cé C TP
who aL
T <VP,VP>
comp.int
Vj T PP VP
dúradh
léithi tj CP
was.said
with her
ti CP
C TP
aL
T vP
comp.int
vk T ti vP
Vl v tk VP
cheannódh
tl DP
would.buy
é
it
The final line of evidence come from Kikuyu (kik). Kikuyu exhibits a phonological
phenomenon known as tonal downstep in which the relative pitches of the tones become
lower. Downstep is indicated by a raised exclamation mark. In a declarative sentence,
downstep occurs at the left edge of the verb and the right edge of a major constituent,
usually the clause. In an interrogative sentence no downstep occurs. Rather, there is
a slight phonological change in the vowel of the verbal complex (on the tense marker,
specifically).
Kikuyu also exhibits optional partial wh-movement, in which a wh-phrase moves only
as far as one of the intermediate CPs. Despite the fact that the wh-phrase only moves
as far as an embedded clause, it is not an embedded question, since the wh-phrase
is still interpreted in the matrix clause. Consider the following examples, paying close
attention to downstep and phonological changes in the verbal complex. Note that there
is no difference in meaning between these sentences.
In (31a) the wh-phrase has raised to the matrix SpecCP. In (31b) the wh-phrase has
raised only part way. This is known as partial wh-movement. The wh-phrase appears
in an intermediate SpecCP, but is still interpreted in the matrix clause. That is, it is
still interpreted as a main question. The fact that the wh-phrase can undergo partial
movement in (31b) suggests that it passes through the intermediate SpecCP in (31a). In
(31c) the wh-phrase remains in situ, as in Mandarin and Korean. As discussed above,
wh-movement to the matrix clause causes downstep (!) to vanish. Observe that in the
2nd and 3rd examples downstep is still present. Wh-movement also causes a phonological
change on the verb. Observe the difference in the tense suffix on the verb say between
200 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(31b) and (31c). When the wh-phrase moves to SpecCP2 it triggers this change on the
verb. Crucially now, observe in (31a) that this change is still observed, suggesting that
the wh-phrase has moved through the intermediate SpecCP.
This ends our discussion of successive-cyclicity. We have seen empirical arguments
from English, German, Irish, and Kikuyu in support of successive-cyclic wh-movement.
As noted in the references in this section, such evidence is found in a very wide number
of languages.
We have seen that for many languages wh-phrases raise to the specifier of CP. If
there is more than one wh-phrase, then only the highest one raises. The rest remain in
their base position. In this section we will look at some other patterns of wh-movement
found cross-linguistically. First, we will take a look at wh-in-situ languages, where no
wh-movement takes place. Then we will examine some languages with multiple wh-
movement.
Before moving to the next section, let’s consider how to express the semantic scopal
relations of wh-operators in informal prose. Consider the following examples. Note that
| is read “such that”.
For multiple wh-questions, both wh-operators are interpreted in SpecCP. They may be
interpreted in the same SpecCP or in different SpecCPs. Consider the following examples.
7.2 Wh-in-situ
In many languages the wh-phrase does not move to the specifier of CP. Rather, it remains
in its usual position, referred to as the in situ position. This phenomenon is often referred
to as wh-in-situ. Recall from the beginning of this chapter that Mandarin was such a
language. Consider the following additional data.4
Notice that in every case, the wh-phrase occupies the same position as a non-wh-
phrase. In other words, there is no overt wh-movement. As a typological fact, note that
SOV are typically wh-in situ and SVO languages (along with verb-initial languages) typi-
cally have wh-movement. Chinese languages and Thai are exceptions to this generaliza-
tion.
7.2. WH-IN-SITU 203
We now consider the analysis of wh-in-situ. Let’s start by considering the following two
English questions.
In both of these sentences the wh-phrase which book is the object of the verb read. In
the first sentence it is interpreted as a matrix question and raises to the matrix SpecCP.
In the second sentence it is interpreted as an embedded question and raises to the inter-
mediate SpecCP. In both cases it raises to the CP where it is interpreted.
Consider, now, the following Korean data.5
The wh-phrase mwues-ul (‘what’) is interpreted in the matrix CP in the first example
and in the lower CP in the second example. In the case of Korean, the verbal morphology
help us. The interrogative suffix (int) on the verb tells us that the wh-phrase is interpreted
in that clause.
Consider lastly the following Mandarin data.
The Mandarin example is ambiguous the same way the Korean example is. This time,
however, there is no verbal morphology to disambiguate the sentence. Our understanding
5
Korean speakers will note that these sentences have other meanings in addition to the ones given here.
The different meanings can be detected by changing the intonation of the sentence. For the purposes of this
discussion, please consider only the meanings given here. For some recent investigations, see Yun (2023),
Yun (2008), and Hwang (2011).
204 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
of wh-in-situ will depend partly on resolving this ambiguity. First, however, let’s consider
the syntax of wh-in-situ. Consider the structures for the following two examples. Note
that we have not investigated verb movement in Chinese nor the syntax of the perfective
marker (-le). We simply attach it as an affix to the verb.6
a.
CP
TP C[wh]
-ni
DPi TP
Yenghuy-ka VoiP T
-ess
ti VoiP
vP Voi
VP v
DP tj Vj v
mek
mwues-ul
6
For details, see Huang (1994), Soh (2014), and Yang (1995).
7.2. WH-IN-SITU 205
b.
CP
C[wh] TP
DPi TP
Mingmei T VoiP
ti VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vj v tj
DP
chi-le
shenme
We saw above that for English the C[wh] head has the EPP property. We propose, then,
that in wh-in-situ languages the C[wh] head lacks the EPP property. As such, the wh-
phrase remains in situ.
We have yet to explain how the different meanings of the wh-in-situ examples arise.
We need a way to represent meaning, the same way we have been representing structure
up until now. The idea that thought or meaning could be represented formally descends
from work on the philosophy of language (Frege, 1891; Russell, 1914). Logical Form
(LF) refers to the level of representation that encodes meaning (Montague, 1970; May,
1985). Chomsky (1995) postulated further a level of phonological form (PF), which is
responsible for converting the syntactic structure to a speech signal. PF and LF are the
two interfaces. LF interfaces with the meaning and thought centres of the brain. PF
interfaces with the speech and motor control centres of the brain. The model Chomsky
proposed is shown in Figure 7.1.
Let’s consider this model before getting back to the analysis of wh-in-situ. Lexical
items are drawn from the Lexicon and put together by Merge. At some point, the structure
reaches a point called Spell-Out, and the structure is transferred to LF (for interpretation)
and to PF (for externalization - that is to be given a set of motor commands for speech or
signing). After Spell-Out on the path to LF further movement operations can take place;
however, this will be covert movement as such movement will not be detectable by PF.
Movement prior to Spell-Out is detectable by PF, so we refer to it as overt movement. On
the path from Spell-Out to PF varoius morphological and phonological operations take
place, but these do not concern us here. Let’s take an abstract example. Assume the
206 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
Lexicon
Overt Movement
Spell-Out
y
og
M
C em
ol
ov
ov e
ph
er nt
or
t
M
PF LF
(50)
XP
X YP
Y ZP
ZQW
This structure undergoes Spell-Out and is transferred to the two interfaces, PF and
LF.
PF LF
XP XP
X YP X YP
(51)
Y ZP Y ZP
ZQW ZQW
PF converts this into a linear signal for speech or signing. Let’s say a covert movement
operation takes place, however, as shown. ZP raises to SpecXP; however, PF does not
know this covert movement has taken place.
7.2. WH-IN-SITU 207
PF LF
XYZQW XP
(52) ZPi XP
ZQW X YP
Y ti
The entire path from drawing lexical items from the Lexicon to the final stages of the
interfaces is called the derivation. The derivation includes overt movement, covert move-
ment, and the morphological and phonological operations at PF. As mentioned, however,
we will not be concerned with PF operations here.
Let’s consider the ambiguous Mandarin sentence. The wh-phrase nǎlǐ (‘where’) is in-
terpreted in the matrix SpecCP for a matrix question. For the embedded question it is
interpreted in the lower SpecCP. The wh-phrase must appear in one of these positions
at LF. Since the C[wh] head in Mandarin does not have the EPP property, the wh-phrase
does not move overtly. Thus, it must move covertly.
We are now ready to consider the full derivations for these two sentences. We repeat
the two examples here for convenience.
The matrix C head bears a [wh] feature but does not have the EPP property. Thus, the
wh-phrase remains in situ. The derivation thus far undergoes Spell-Out. PF receive this
structure and produced the linear order shown in (54a).
Meanwhile, at LF, the wh-phrase must be interpreted in the matrix SpecCP, so it
moves covertly to the matrix SpecCP. This is shown with a dashed line, a convention we
208 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
will use in the remainder of this text. Note that this covert movement is shown as taking
place in one fell swoop. Whether covert movement takes place successive-cyclically or not
is an advanced topic of research, which we will not consider here.
a.
Spell-Out Structure
CP
C[wh] TP
DPi TP
Mingmei T VoiP
ti VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vj v
DP VP
gàosù-le
Lisi tj CP
tell-prfv
C TP
DPk TP
Zhangsan T <vP,vP>
vP AdvP
v VP
nǎlǐ
Vl v tl tk where
qù
go
b.
7.3. MULTIPLE WH-MOVEMENT 209
LF Structure
CP
AdvPm CP
C[wh] TP
nǎlǐ
where TP
DPi
Mingmei T VoiP
ti VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vj v
DP VP
gàosù-le
Lisi tj CP
tell-prfv
C TP
DPk TP
Zhangsan T <vP,vP>
vP tm
v VP
Vl v tl tk
qù
go
Recall that if the specifier of CP is already filled with a wh-phrase, other wh-phrases
must remain in situ in English.
Some languages allow several wh-phrases to appear at the left edge of the clause.
210 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(58)
CP
DP
wh1 DP CP
wh2 C TP
Rudin (1988) identifies two types of multiple wh-fronting languages. In the first type,
when more than one wh-phrase moves to the specifier of CP, the order of the wh-phrases
reflects the c-command relations of their base positions. This restriction on movement
is referred to as superiority. We say that wh-movement respects superiority. Bulgarian
and Romanian are of this type. In the second type, superiority need not be obeyed. Serbo-
Croatian is of this type.7 For the remainder of this discussion we will consider only the
first type. Consider the following examples.
Consider, now, the structure for (59a). The auxiliary is a second position clitic, which
appears in C. Bulgarian has V-to-T movement. For simplicity, we assume the subject
remains in SpecvP.8 Observe that the c-command relations between the two wh-phrases
remains unchanged. That is, multiple wh-movement obeys superiority.
(60)
CP
DPi
kogo DPj CP
who
kakvo C TP
what e
T VoiP
is
Voik T DP VoiP
vl Voi Ivan tk vP
Vm v tl VP
pital
ti VP
asked
tm tj
To summarize this section, we have seen three types of languages with regard to wh-
movement. The languages mentioned in this section are included in Table 7.1.9 It is
important to note that in all cases, the wh-phrases start in their base positions. In the
case of arguments, they are merged into a θ-position, and in some languages the gram-
matical subject raises to SpecTP. By LF, all wh-phrases appear in SpecCP. The variation
observed here is how many wh-phrases move overtly. In Korean, for example, none of
the wh-phrases moves overtly. They all move covertly. In English, one of the wh-phrases
move overtly, the rest move covertly. In Bulgarian, all of the wh-phrases move overtly,
none move covertly.
8
The astute reader will notice that if the auxiliary raises to C from T, then it is impossible for the verb to
raise to T. There is evidence for a more articulated structure to the clause than is shown here (for example
Giorgi and Pianesi, 1997). The additional structure will provide enough room to account for the surface word
order in Bulgarian.
9
Although it was not discussed here, French has optional wh-in-situ in matrix clauses (Rowlett, 2007).
212 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
Type Examples
Wh-in-situ Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese,
Thai, Japanese, Tuvaluan
Single wh-movement English, (French), German, Onondaga,
Chamorro, Irish, Kikuyu
Multiple wh-movement Bulgarian, Romanian, Serbo-Croatian
Recall that a relative clause modifies the noun. It does so by creating a set to compare
to the set denoted by the noun which the relative clause modifies. Consider the following
example.
The relative clause refers to the set of things that Mary read. It is the relative pro-
noun that allows the CP to be interpreted as a set. The higher NP, then, represents the
intersection of these two sets–namely, the set of books that Mary read.
We can represent these two sets with a Venn diagram as in Figure (7.2). The set on the
left is NP1 , and the dots labelled ‘B’ represent members of this set. The set on the right
is CP, and the dots labelled ‘RC’ represent members of this set. The intersection of these
two sets is NP2 (NP1 ∩ CP = NP2 ). If NP1 is the set of books and CP is the set of things
which Mary read, then NP2 is the set of books which Mary read. If this set contains one
entity (as it does in Figure (7.2), then we can use the determiner the to head the entire
DP.
(62)
DP
D <NP,NP>
the
NP CP
Different languages have different strategies for forming relative clauses. Relative clauses
in English can also be formed with the complementizer that rather than with a relative
pronoun or can simply be bare, with no complementizer or relative pronoun. In these
situations, we assume that there is a phonologically null I (Op) that raises from the ex-
traction site to the specifier of the CP of the relative clause, just as we saw for the relative
7.4. RELATIVE CLAUSES 213
B
RC
B
B B B/RC RC RC
B
RC
B
NP1 CP
pronouns above (Chomsky, 1982, footnote 11). The operator does the same job as the
relative pronoun. It receives a θ-role in its base position and raises to SpecCP to allow the
CP to be interpreted as a set. Consider the following examples.
(64)
DP
D <NP,NP>
the
NP CP
N Op i CP
book
C TP
that
DPj TP
Mary T VoiP
tj VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vk v tk ti
read
We now discuss a few idiosyncracies of English relative clauses. Relative clauses intro-
duced by an overt relative pronoun can participate in pied piping or preposition stranding.
Bare and that-relative clauses must use preposition stranding. Here are some examples.
(66) a. I gave the book to the student who is studying in the library.
b. I gave the book to the student that is studying in the library.
c. * I gave the book to the student is studying in the library.
Note, however, that under certain (poorly understood) circumstances, some speakers
can use bare subject relatives. Here are some examples from film and television.
7.4. RELATIVE CLAUSES 215
(68) 영희가 읽은 책
Yenghuy-ka ilk-un chayk
Younghui-nom read-pst book
‘the book that Younghui read’
(69)
DP
<NP,NP> D
CP NP
Op i CP N
chayk
TP C
DPj TP
Yenghuy-ka VoiP T
-un
tj VoiP
vP Voi
VP v
ti tk Vk v
ilk
Recall that one of the correlates of SVO versus SOV word order is the placement of
relative clauses with respect to the head noun. Japanese, for example, is SOV and thus
exhibits pre-nominal relative clauses.
Recall also that Mandarin and Sinitic languages in general are disharmonic in that
they have SVO word order but also have prenominal relative clauses. Here is an example.
Note that in Mandarin the relative clause is introduced by de (的).
Languages differ in terms of what elements in the clause are available for relativization.
There is a hierarchy of types of elements that can be relativized called the accessibility
hierarchy (Comrie, 1989; Keenan and Comrie, 1977; Comrie and Keenan, 1979). All
languages, so far as is known, can relativize the first item on the list – the subject. Most
can relativize the second – the object. Of those, some can relativize the third – indirect
object. Of those, some can relativize the fourth, and so forth. Languages, in general,
start at the top of the list and move down. Thus, if a given language can relativize any
given element on the hierarchy, it can relativize anything higher in the hierarchy. There
are some exceptions to this generalization, however, so the accessibility hierarchy is not
a true universal, but rather a strong tendency (Joseph, 1983; Chung and Seiter, 1980;
Cinque, 1981). Here is the order of the hierarchy, with some English examples provided.10
As the data above show, English is quite flexible in terms of its ability to relativize
almost anything. Malagasy, on the other hand, can relativize only subjects. Observe in
the first example that Malagasy is a VOS language. The following two examples show that
a subject relative clause is possible but a direct object relative clause is not.
Until now, we have been looking at externally-headed relative clauses, where the rel-
ativized noun (shown in italics) is outside of the relative clause.
Some languages exhibit internally-headed relative clauses, where the head noun
appears inside the relative clause. Conceptually, we can think of this as shown in the
following example. The relative clause is enclosed in a square. Observe that the head noun
is located inside the internally-headed relative clause. Notice also that the externally-
headed relative clauses are adjoined to NP as explained above and that the internally-
headed relative clauses are the complement to D (Cole, 1987; Basilico, 1996; Hanink,
2020).
(80)
DP DP
D <NP,NP> D CP
NP CP C TP
N Op i CP ... head...
head
C TP
... ti ...
In the following examples the relative clause is enclosed in square brackets and the
head noun is italicized. As the structure in (80) shows, internally-headed relative clauses
are headed by a determiner. The determiner is boldfaced in the following examples.
Let’s consider first internally-headed relative clauses in Mooré (mos), which conve-
niently marks the head with the morpheme ninga. This will help us understand the
structure better.
Next, consider the following Lakota example (see p. 178 for more information on
Lakota). Note that both a demonstrative and a determiner introduce the relative clause.
(82) Lakota (Williamson, 1984; Ingham, 2003, 171) and (Ingham, 2003, 85)
(84) Which hat did John say Susan thought Mary should persuade Peter to buy?
This constraint states that extraction cannot take place from inside a complex DP.11 A
complex DP is one that contains an embedded clause or a definite determiner, but not
an indefinite determiner. Consider the following examples.
(85) a. * Whoi did you read [DP the book that Mary gave to ti ]?
b. Whoi did you see [DP a picture of ti ]?
c. * Whati did you make [DP the claim that Mary stole ti ]?
d. * Whoi did you see [DP the picture of ti ]?
e. Whati did you claim [CP that Mary stole ti ]?
As these data show, extraction from a complement clause (85e) or from an indefinite
DP (85b) is grammatical. Extraction from a relative clause inside a DP (85a), a clausal
complement to a noun (85c), or from a definite DP (85d) is ungrammatical.
This constraint states that extraction out of a subject is not possible (Huang, 1982). The
following data show several examples where extraction out of a subject is barred. The
first example again shows that extraction out of a DP object is fine.
The following two examples both show that extraction out of a subject (shown in square
brackets) leads to ungrammaticality.
Note, however, that if the subject is extraposed as in (88), then extraction is once again
acceptable.
In subsequent sections we will discuss some of the subject island violations and pro-
pose an analysis for them.
This constraint holds that extraction from a conjoined phrase is not permitted. Consider
the following examples.
(90) Which booki did [[Pat buy ti ] and [Alex read ti ]]?
Observe that the phrase which book has been extracted out of both conjuncts. Unlike
the other constraints we discuss here, we will not attempt to explain why this constraint
exists nor why ATB Movement is possible. We merely note this as a constraint on wh-
movement. It thus serves as a way to diagnose other kinds of movement that are similar
to wh-movement or to diagnose wh-movement in other languages.
In the first example the wh-phrase where occupies the embedded SpecCP. In the sec-
ond example, the object of buy attempts to undergo wh-movement to the matrix clause,
but is stopped by the intervening wh-phrase where.
In spoken English, many speakers often insert a resumptive pronoun to rescue island
violations (Ross, 1967). Consider the following examples. In each case the path between
the wh-phrase and the co-indexed resumptive pronoun crosses an island: a complex DP
island, a subject island, and a wh-island, respectively.
(93) a. Where are those files Op1 that I never remember where I put them1 ?
b. Which car1 did the police say the driver of it1 caused an accident?
c. Which patient1 do you wonder whether the doctor will release them1 ?
Observe that the same examples are ungrammatical without the resumptive pronoun.
(94) a. * Where are those files Op1 that I never remember where I put t1 ?
b. * Which car1 did the police say the driver of t1 caused an accident?
c. * Which patient1 do you wonder whether the doctor will release t1 ?
We can generalize these facts as shown here, where RP represents ‘resumptive pro-
noun’.
We will not consider the derivation of resumptive pronoun constructions here (Za-
enen et al., 1981; Sells, 1984). Resumptive pronouns in English are rather unstable,
and speakers’ intuitions on them are quite variable. As such, it has been argued that in
English they arise as a result of processing (McKee and McDaniel, 2001).
Note, however, that in some languages resumptive pronouns are not marginal but are
active and integral properties of the grammar. Consider the following data from Lebanese
Arabic. Local wh-movement in Lebanese Arabic leaves an optional resumptive pronoun
(-uu), which surfaces as a clitic.
The following data shows that resumptive pronouns are obligatory in relative clauses
in Palestinian Arabic. Observe the resumptive pronoun (-ha) attached to the verb.
This section has introduced several constraints on wh-movement. In the next section
we explain how to capture the constraints discussed above.
The previous sections provides a shortened list of all the constraints that Ross originally
discussed. Since Ross’ seminal discussion on the constraints of movement, linguists have
been trying to formulate a unified explanation for the various constraints. Since this is
still a matter of ongoing research, we will only consider the issues in brief detail and leave
some points unresolved. One influential proposal to capture island effects is to postulate
a set of phase heads, C, D. Once a phase head is reached, any element that wishes to
escape the phase must move the edge of the phase – the specifier of CP or DP (in the case
of head movement, [C] and D). Once movement is complete, the sister to the phase head
undergoes Spell-Out and is sent to PF and LF, respectively.
(98)
CP
XPi CP
C TP
DP TP
T ...ti
The CP at the top of the derivation continues to participate in further operations. For
instance, it can merge with another verb that takes a clausal complement and the XP
can continue to raise to the next CP. If there are no more operations and the derivation
224 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
is finished, then the remainder of the tree simply undergoes Spell-Out and is sent to PF
and LF. For now, we will consider only the C phase head.
Consider the derivation for Who do you think that Peter saw? First, the wh-phrase
moves to the embedded SpecCP–the edge of the lower C phase head. Then the lower TP is
Spelled-Out and is sent to PF and LF. Next, the wh-phrase moves to the matrix SpecCP–
the edge of the matrix C phase head. The matrix TP is then Spelled-Out and transferred
to PF and LF. With no more operations, the remainder of the tree is Spelled-Out.
(99)
CP
DPi CP
who C TP
Tj C DPk TP
do
you tj VoiP
tk VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vl v tl CP
think
ti CP
C TP
that
DPm TP
Peter T VoiP
tm VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vn v tn ti
saw
7.6. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 225
The C head merges with TP, and the wh-adjunct where raises to SpecCP.
Now, the sister to the C phase head, the TP, undergoes Spell-Out and is transferred
to PF and LF. The tranferred portion is shown in grey and is no longer accessible to the
derivation.
When the matrix CP is constructed, the [wh] feature on [C] cannot find a wh-phrase
to agree with. The only wh-phrase, what, is trapped in the lower phase. Note that the
matrix [C] cannot agree with where as this wh-phrase is interpreted in the lower phase.
(104) [CP C[wh] John does wonder [CP wherei [TP Mary bought what ti ] ]
Let’s consider now DP islands. This will require us to consider the D phase head. Recall
that extraction out of a definite DP is ungrammatical. Consider the following example.
Since D is a phase head, the sister to D undergoes Spell-Out and is transferred to the
interfaces. When wh-movement crosses several clauses, it travels through each SpecCP
on its way to it surface position. We say that the intermediate SpecCP positions act as
an escape hatch. One possibility is that SpecDP is not available as an escape hatch for
some reason.
226 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(106)
CP
XPi CP
...
C
v VP
V CP
escape hatch→ti CP
... ti ...
(107)
CP
C TP
...
Subj
v VP
V DP
no escape hatch→
D NP
... XP...
If SpecDP is not available to movement, then the DP island in (105) has an explanation.
Consider the structure for this sentence.
7.6. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 227
(108)
CP
C TP
Ti C DPj TP
did
John ti VoiP
tj VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vk v tk DP
see
D NP
the
N PP
picture
P DP
of
who
The wh-phrase who is trapped in the DP phase. We have hypothesized that SpecDP
cannot be used as an escape hatch, thus the wh-phrase cannot raise to SpecCP.
Not all DPs are islands, of course. Recall that extraction from an indefinite nominal is
grammatical in English. Consider the following example.
We could argue that indefinite DPs allow subextraction. That is, we would have to say
that SpecDP is an escape hatch in indefinite DPs only. One piece of evidence for this is
DP-internal wh-movement. Consider the following contrast.
The wh-phrase how big can move to the left edge of an indefinite DP only. This expla-
nation would work for the data considered so far, but we have one more island to account
228 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
for–namely subject islands. Recall that subjects are islands for extraction regardless of
the definiteness of the subject DP.
Another possible solution lies in the difference between definite and indefinite DPs
(Davies and Dubinsky, 2003). In particular, we will consider the identity of the indefinite
determiner a. Note that in many languages, the indefinite determiner is identical to the
number one. Historically, English a/an derived from the numeral one. In both German
and French the words for ‘one’ and ‘a’ are the same. In Uzbek, if the numeral one appears
with a classifier, then it has the cardinal reading (note the /r/→[t] assimilation). If the
numeral one appears without a classifier, then it has an indefinite reading.
Recall from earlier that Ritter (1991, 1992) propose a number phrase (NumP) between
DP and NP. We will run through one line of evidence that a and the do not occupy the
same spot in the tree (Epstein, 1999). Consider the following examples.
Epstein observes that the precedes two and such. She also observes that such pre-
cedes a. By transitivity, the determiner the and the article a cannot occupy the same
position. Given the observations above, we assume that the indefinite article a occupies
the Num head.
7.6. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 229
(114)
DP
D NumP
Num NP
... N...
Let’s propose, following Davies and Dubinsky (2003), that an indefinite nominal phrase
can be a bare NumP. The structure of (109), then, is as follows.
230 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(115)
CP
DPi CP
who C TP
Tj C DPk TP
did
John tj VoiP
tk VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vl v tl NumP
see
Num NP
a
N PP
picture
P ti
of
Since the object contains no DP there is no phase boundary between the verb and the
object. The DP who is free to move to SpecCP. After who moves to SpecCP, then the sister
to the C head undergoes Spell-Out.
We now come back to subject islands. Recall that in English The Specifier of TP must
be filled. Recall that we remained uncommitted as to whether this property arises because
of the EPP or because of a strong D feature on T. Chomsky (1995) has suggested that the
EPP property on T is due to a strong [uD*] feature on T that can be satisfied only by a
DP, in line with other strong and weak features. In other words, the subject must be a
DP, even if it is indefinite. Let’s consider again the following subject island violation.
The subject a picture of who, while indefinite, must be a full DP to satisfy EPP on T.
Consider the following structure.
7.6. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 231
(117)
CP
C TP
Num NP tj VoiP
a
N PP Voi vP
picture
P DP
v VP
of
Vk v tk DP
who
frighten
D NumP
the
Num N
children
Phase Heads
C - escape hatch available
D - no escape hatch available
We can now return to some evidence that relative clauses involve wh-movement of a
relative pronoun or an operator. Let’s start by looking at some relative clauses.
Ross (1967) noticed that wh-movement and relative clauses are both subject to the
same kinds of constraints. Consider the following data.
232 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
(119) wh-Islands
a. Mary knows when Susan ate the apple.
b. * Whati does Mary know [when Susan ate ti ]?
c. * the apple that Mary knows when Susan ate
The facts above led Ross to propose that both wh-questions and relative clauses have
the same kind of movement. Such a proposal simplifies the grammar. Semantic similar-
ities between wh-questions and relative clauses also suggest that they have the same
analysis. As mentioned above, though, this still leaves the Coordinate Structure Con-
straint unexplained.
We will now look at some interactions between wh-phrases and bound pronouns. A
bound pronoun is one that co-refers to a DP that c-commands it. We can define binding
more formally as follows.
1 A c-commands B, and
2 A and B are coreferential.
Pronouns can also be coreferential with a wh-expression. In this case, the pronouns
are referred to as bound variables, which we saw in chapter 4 in the discussion on
ditransitive constructions. See also page 15 for a discussion on singular they, which is
found in the following examples.
These sentences can be schematized as follows: Who is the ‘x’ such that x loves x’s
mother? and Who is the ‘x’ such that x loves x? If you think of x as a variable (as in algebra),
then we see why the pronouns here are called bound variables. A possible answer for the
first question is: John loves his mother, Mary loves her mother, and Susan loves her mother.
Now consider the following data.
(127)
CP
CP
DP1 i
who C TP
Tj C TP
DP1 k
do
they tj VoiP
tk VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vl v tl ti
love
7.6. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 235
(128)
CP
CP
DP1 i
who C TP
T C DPk TP
doesj
DP tj VoiP
DP1
their D N tk VoiP
mother
Voi vP
v VP
V v tl ti
lovel
The notions of SCO and WCO have been used to adduce support for LF movement of
wh-phrases in wh-in-situ languages (Huang, 1982).12 Consider the following Mandarin
data.
Consider the structure for the sentence above. For convenience, the morpheme de
has been analyzed as a right-headed [C] that introduces a relative clause.13
(130)
12
Although see Aoun and Li (1993) for an alternative proposal.
13
For more discussion on Mandarin de see Cheng and Sybesma (2014) and Rubin (2003).
236 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
CP
C TP
DPi TP
D <NP,NP> T VoiP
CP NP ti VoiP
Opi CP N Voi vP
ren
TP C v VP
de
tj TP Vl v tl
DP1
kandao
T VoiP shei
tj VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vk v tk
DP1
xihuan
ta
Observe that the wh-phrase shei (‘who’) is in-situ. Following Huang (1982) the wh-
phrase raises to SpecCP at LF. In the example here, the wh-phrase raises past a co-
referential pronoun and gives rise to a WCO violation, thereby giving additional evidence
for the LF raising analysis of in-situ wh-phrases.
7.6. PHASES AND CONSTRAINING WH-MOVEMENT 237
Key concepts
• phase head - The phase heads are [C] and D. The sister of a phase head undergoes
Spell-Out and is not longer accessible to the derivation.
Further Reading
• Chomsky and Lasnik (1977) - This paper lays the groundwork for our current
understanding of wh-movement.
• Davies and Dubinsky (2003) - This paper is the foundation for our understanding
of definite DP islands in this textbook.
• Huang (1982) - This dissertation is the original proposal for LF movement of wh-
in-situ.
• Rizzi (1990) - This is an in depth monograph dealing with constraints both on wh-
movement and other kinds of movement. Many of the issues discussed here still
form the foundation of current syntactic theory.
238 CHAPTER 7. WH-MOVEMENT AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
• Rudin (1988) - This article discusses the syntax of multiple wh-movement lan-
guages.
Chapter 8
• understand the difference between raising and control and be able to execute diag-
nostics to distinguish between them
8.1 Introduction
In the complex sentences examined so far there is no obligatory co-reference between the
matrix subject and the embedded subject. Consider the following examples. Recall that
for pro-drop languages the null argument is represented as pro.
239
240 CHAPTER 8. CONTROL AND RELATED PHENOMENA
Observe that both in English and in Korean that the embedded subject may be corefer-
ential with the matrix subject, but that it does not have to be. Consider, now, the following
English examples.
In both of these examples we understand the matrix subject also to be the thematic
or understood subject of the infinitive. In the first sentence Mary is the one making the
decision, and Mary is also the one who is entering the race. In the second sentence,
Fred is the subject of seem. Fred is also the one who likes chocolate. This chapter will
investigate situations in which the matrix and embedded subjects must be coreferential.
Recall that Case assignment in non-finite clauses differs from Case assignment in
finite clauses. The differences are morphologically visible. Observe that the subject of fix
bears nominative case in the finite clause, but accusative case in the non-finite clause.
Let’s consider some constituency tests to sharpen this idea further. Consider the fol-
lowing data.
(4) a. John decided to [eat some spaghetti] and [drink some wine].
b. Eat anchovies, John never would , even though Ashleigh tried to .
The first example shows that eat some spaghetti and drink some wine are constituents,
and in fact look like run-of-the-mill VoiP constituents. The second example confirms this.
This is an example of VoiP fronting, which strands the auxiliary at the end of the sentence.
In a non-finite clause, it strands the infinitival marker to. These facts fall into place under
the assumption that to is a tenseless T head. Thus, we have the following partial structure
so far. The subject position (specifier of VoiP) is left empty as it is the topic of the next
discussion.
8.2. DIAGNOSTICS FOR RAISING AND CONTROL 241
(5)
TP
T VoiP
to
Spec VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
V v ti
DP
eati
some spaghetti
We will now consider the structure of infinitivals in detail. If we examine the following
two pairs of sentences, we may initially suspect that (6a) and (6b) are structurally iso-
morphic, as are (7a) and (7b). That is, we suspect that each pair has the same structure
and that the only difference between them is the matrix verb in each case.
In the next section we will discuss various diagnostics that will show that pairs of
sentences in (6) and (7), respectively, have different structures.
One important similarity in each pair in (6) and (7) is that the understood subject of the
infinitive is the same. In (6a) and (6b), we understand John to be the one entering the race.
In (7a) and (7b), we understand Sally to be the one living in the small apartment. There
are, however, several structural differences between these two pairs of sentences. Let’s
examine these first, then try to derive the different properties structurally. The following
diagnostics are rooted in research in the early 1970s (Perlmutter, 1970, 1978).
242 CHAPTER 8. CONTROL AND RELATED PHENOMENA
Idioms are a useful diagnostic for many syntactic tests. It is important to note that idioms
must appear as a unit upon initial merge.1 So, although they may be separated by a
movement operation, they are still initially merged as a constituent to obtain an idiomatic
reading. For our purposes, we require an idiom with a subject - these are not too common,
but there are a few. Here are some examples we will use.
The idiom test must be executed with care. What we are trying to see is how the
understood subject is related to the infinitival clause, hence the need for idioms with
subjects. Here are the steps to formulating a test sentence.
1 Identify the DP that is coreferential with the subject of the infinitival clause.
Mary wants John to enter the race. (John is the one potentially entering the race.)
2 Identify the infinitival clause and the corresponding portion of an idiom. That is,
the VoiP without the subject.
Mary wants John to enter the race. All hell broke loose.
4 Replace the infinitival clause of the test sentence with the infinitival form of the
idiom.
5 Replace the understood subject of the embedded infinitival clause with the subject
of the idiom.
1
Why this is so is unclear and subject to ongoing research.
2
This idiom can be passivized: Tabs were kept of Pat’s behaviour.
8.2. DIAGNOSTICS FOR RAISING AND CONTROL 243
To interpret the results of the test we see if the idiomatic reading is retained. Consider
the following results. In (9), both the idiomatic and literal meanings are available. The
first sentence, for example, could mean that Mary wants some secret to become known.
In (10), however, the idiomatic meanings are not available. Here, we use the * to indicate
that the example is ungrammatical with the idiomatic interpretation.
In order for the idiomatic reading to hold, the idiom must be merged as a constituent.
This suggests that the cat is part of the embedded clause in (9a), but part of the matrix
clause in (10a). More specifically, we propose that the DP that appears immediately af-
ter the verb want is merged as the subject of the infinitive, while the DP that appears
immediately after the verb tell is merged in the matrix clause. This can be represented
schematically as follows.
Before moving on to the next test, let’s test the other pair of sentences in (6). In these
sentences, Sally is interpreted as the understood subject of the infinitive, so we replace
Sally with the subject of the idiom. Note that a verb like appear usually requires an
embedded state, so the infinitive has been changed to the perfect by the addition of have.
Making changes in the aspect of the embedded clause does not affect the interpretation
of the results. Consider the following data.
These results are similar to the ones above. Thus, the subject of appear originates
in the embedded infinitival clause to ensure that the idiom is merged as a constituent,
while the subject of decide is not. The following examples show the linear order of the
elements in the appear -clause and the decide-clause.
Recall that expletives do not receive a θ-role as they are non-referential. Consider, now,
the following contrast. With want, the embedded subject can be an expletive, while with
tell, it cannot.3
Notice that an expletive is available as a subject in the infinitival clauses in the sen-
tences in example (15), but not in (16), as long as the embedded predicate can appear
with an expletive subject. Thus, in the sentences in (15) it cannot be the case that the
subject of the infinitive receives a θ-role from want, or the expletive would not be able to
appear in this location. In (16), however, the fact that expletives are excluded from this
position can be explained if we assume that the subject of the infinitive obtains a θ-role
from the matrix verb tell. Thus, we propose the following θ-role assignment relations for
these two verbs.
3
Note that the expletive test must be executed with care. Consider the following examples.
...want DP to-infinitive
...told DP to-infinitive
This final test is based on the fact that active and passive sentences have the same set of
truth conditions. Thus, the two sentences Mary ate the orange and The orange was eaten
by Mary must either both be true or both be false. It is impossible that one is true while
the other is false. With this background in mind, let’s consider the following data.
(19) a. The doctor examined the patient. = The patient was examined by the doctor.
b. Mary wants the doctor to examine the patient. = Mary wants the patient to be
examined by the doctor.
c. Mary told the doctor to examine the patient. ≠ Mary told the patient to be
examined by the doctor.
Example (19a) is the base-line sentence that shows us that the active and passive
sentences are synonymous. Under want in (19b), the truth conditions do not change be-
tween the active and the passive versions; however, under tell in (19c), the two sentences
are not synonymous. This is also shown by the following data. The sentence in (20a) is
contradictory and the sentence in (20b) means that Mary wants a contradictory situation
to hold. The sentence in (20c), however, is perfectly logical.
(20) a. #The doctor examined the patient, but the patient wasn’t examined by the
doctor.
b. #Mary wants the doctor to examine the patient, but Mary doesn’t want the
patient to be examined by the doctor.
246 CHAPTER 8. CONTROL AND RELATED PHENOMENA
c. Mary told the doctor to examine the patient, but Mary didn’t tell the patient to
be examined by the doctor.
Again, we similar results for appear and decide. There is a slight difference in meaning
with appear ; however, this contrasts with the stark difference in meaning with decide.
(21) a. The doctor examined the patient. = The patient was examined by the doctor.
b. The doctor appears to have examined the patient. = The patient appears to
have been examined by the doctor.
c. The doctor decided to examine the patient. ≠ The patient decided to be
examined by the doctor.
We can make sense of these facts if the embedded subject under want is part of the
embedded clause, but the embedded subject under tell is part of the matrix clause. In
the next section, we will bring these facts together to understand the structure of non-
finite clauses. For reasons that will become clear shortly, verbs such as decide and tell
are called control predicates, and verbs such as want (as shown here) and appear are
called raising predicates.4
Control Raising
idiomatic readings not retained idiomatic meanings retained
expletives not permitted expletives permitted
meaning changes under passivization meaning does not change
under passivization
Before we attempt to derive the structural properties of these two kinds of predicates,
let’s review their thematic properties in more detail. Consider the following example.
In this example, examine assigns <theme> to the object the patient. Also, the Voi asso-
ciated with examine assigns <agent> to the subject the doctor. Want takes a proposition
as an argument, but does not assign a θ-role to the doctor. The Voi head associated with
want assigns an <experiencer> θ-role to the its subject, Mary. Now, let’s consider the
same sentence with tell.
4
Verbs such as want as discussed here are sometimes referred to as Exceptional Case Marking (ECM)
predicates. This is an older term from Government and Binding Theory; however, many people still use this
label to identify this class of verbs.
8.3. DERIVING THE STRUCTURE OF CONTROL AND RAISING 247
Again, examine assigns <theme> to the object the patient, and the Voi associated with
examine assigns <agent> to the subject the doctor. Tell assigns a <recipient> θ-role to
the doctor, and takes a proposition as an internal argument. It appears that the doctor
violates the Theta Criterion as it has been assigned two θ-roles (see page 24). How can
we account for the differences between these two predicates and the supposed violation
of the Theta Criterion in the second sentence? Let’s assume for raising predicates such
as want that the embedded subject is merged in the embedded clause (Postal, 1974;
Chomsky, 1981).
Here, the doctor receives a θ-role from the embedded Voi but not from the matrix verb.
This also allows for the possibility for an expletive subject. If there is no embedded Voi
(as with seem) or if the embedded predicate is a weather verb, then an expletive subject
is available. This is because the θ-role of the embedded subject depends entirely on the
embedded predicate. Note also that idiomatic readings are retained since the entire idiom
is merged as a constituent.
Additionally, the embedded clause can be passivized without affecting the core mean-
ing because both arguments in the embedded clause are θ-marked the same was in both
the active and passive sentences. We will show these effects in more detail shortly.
Conversely, we assume for control predicates such as tell that the argument in ques-
tion is merged in the matrix clause as an argument of the matrix verb. We posit that this
argument is coreferential with a phonologically empty subject, called PRO (Chomsky and
Lasnik, 1977; Chomsky, 1981). We call this type of construction a control construction
because the matrix object (in the case of the verb tell) or matrix subject (in the case of the
verb decide as we shall see shortly) controls the identity of PRO, the embedded subject.
Here, John receives a θ-role from the matrix predicate and the empty category PRO
receives a θ-role from the embedded verb. In this construction, there is no possibility
for an expletive subject, since this argument obligatorily receives a θ-role from the matrix
verb. Recall that expletives cannot bear a θ-role as they are not referential. Also, idiomatic
readings are not possible since the idiom cannot be merged as a constituent. Recall that
DPs that are part of an idiom cannot receive θ-roles since they are not referential. In the
248 CHAPTER 8. CONTROL AND RELATED PHENOMENA
idiom the cat’s out of the bag there is no actual cat, thus the DP the cat cannot receive a
θ-role. The lack of referentiality on pieces of idioms is shown by the following examples.
(27) a. The cat’s out of the bag ... #It’s meowing really loudly.
b. The shit hit the fan ... #We’d better clean it up.
c. John tried to keep tabs on Bill’s spending habits, (#but they kept falling off).
Thus, the sentences #John told the cat to be out of the bag is ungrammatical under
the idiomatic reading because the idiom chunk the cat bears a θ-role from the verb tell,
thereby conferring referentiality onto it. Thus, the only way we can understand this sen-
tence is if there’s a real cat.
Finally, passivization affects meaning, since the θ-roles are assigned differently. Con-
sider the following examples. In (28), tell assigns an <recipient> θ-role to the doctor and in
(29) the same verb assigns this θ-role to the patient. Since Mary is talking to two different
people in these situations, there is a change in the core meaning between the active and
the passive versions of these sentences. As well, Voi assigns an <agent> θ-role to PRO in
(28), while by assigns an <agent> θ-role to the doctor in (29). Finally, examine assigns a
<theme> θ-role to the patient in (28) and to PRO in (29).
If you compare the results in (28 - 29) to the results in (30), you will notice that the
θ-roles are assigned to different DPs in the two sentences in (28 - 29), while the θ-roles
are assigned to the same DPs in the sentences in (30). Thus the synonymy under want
and the lack of it under tell is accounted for.
We will now discuss Case assignment in these two types of constructions. First, recall
that nominative Case is assigned by finite T. The subject of an infinitive cannot be as-
signed Case from the embedded T head and so requires something else to assign Case to
8.3. DERIVING THE STRUCTURE OF CONTROL AND RAISING 249
it. In the following example, the matrix Voi head associated with the verb want, assigns
accusative Case to the embedded subject.
This type of case assignment was called Exceptional Case Marking (ECM), because
the subject in the embedded clause is assigned case by Voi in the matrix clause, see
footnote 4. Although the name ECM refers to a theoretical notion from Government and
Binding Theory, which has long since been abandoned, some people still use the it out of
habit. Under current Minimalist approaches, it is assumed to be a raising verb, although
we do not go into further details here.5
Let’s now consider the structure of control and raising constructions. Many control
verbs allow a wh-phrase in the embedded infinitival clause, while raising ECM verbs do
not. Consider the following data.
These examples suggest that control verbs select a full CP complement since they
require a SpecCP position to host the wh-phrase. The raising verbs cannot host a wh-
phrase, suggesting that a CP projection is absent in the infinitival clause.
The next line of evidence depends on distinguishing between two kinds of movement.
One kind of movement takes place to satisfy EPP. In English, we saw that the subject
DP moves to the specifier of TP – the subject position – to satisfy EPP. In passives, the
object moves to this position. This kind of movement happens in all clauses in English
and in many other languages. The specifier of TP is the canonical position for the subject,
one of the primary kinds of grammatical arguments of the clause. We call this movement
A-movement, where A stands for ‘argument’. A-movement is thought to be restricted to
the clause. That is, A-movement cannot raise a DP from one clause up to a higher clause.
Consider the following data. Observe that in (33c) the DP John moves from an A-position
to an A’-position, and then back to an A-position. This is called improper movement
(Chomsky, 1986a). Note that in the grammatical examples, the DP John remains within
the same CP.
This situation contrasts with wh-movement. Recall that a wh-phrase can move up
several clauses. Movement to a non-argument position (such SpecCP as with wh-movement)
is called A-Bar Movement.
(34) [CP Whati does John think [CP [ti ] that Alice said [CP [ti ] that Mary bought [ti ] ]]]?
Thought Exercise 8.1: How are the following Brazilian Portuguese data problem-
atic for the notion of improper movement? What kind of data do the following data
suggest? Note that Brazilian Portuguese can sometimes have a null subject.
Recall that the diagnostics above showed that the subject John originates in the em-
bedded infinitival clause. Since the subject raises to an A-position, the specifier of TP,
this is an example of A-movement. Recall the notion of phases from before. To move to
a higher clause a phrase must pass through a SpecCP escape hatch. As we just stated,
however, if the DP moves to an A-Bar position, it cannot then move back to an A-position.
8.3. DERIVING THE STRUCTURE OF CONTROL AND RAISING 251
Now we will turn our attention to the actual trees for these sentences. Let’s first look at
the structure of a raising construction. Note that John receives a θ-role from the embed-
ded Voi (dotted line) and is assigned Case by the matrix Voi (dashed line). Note further
that there is no CP projection in the infinitival clause, as discussed. The raising verb
selects a bare TP complement.
(36)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
Mary T VoiP
ti VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vj v tj TP
wants
DPk TP
John T VoiP
to
tk VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
winl v tl DP
the race
252 CHAPTER 8. CONTROL AND RELATED PHENOMENA
Turning now to control constructions, we see that the control verb takes a full CP as a
complement. The subject of the embedded clause is PRO, which receives a θ-role from the
embedded Voi. PRO requires an antecedent and is coreferential with the indirect object
of the matrix clause, John.
(37)
CP
C TP
DPi TP
Mary T VoiP
ti VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vj v VP
DP1
told
John tj CP
C TP
PRO1 k TP
T VoiP
to
tk VoiP
Voi vP
v VP
Vl v tl
DP
win
the race
Let’s now turn to the other constructions we discussed above. Consider the following
pair of sentences.
Recall that appear is not associated with an external θ-role. In the sentence It appears
that John likes spinach the expletive it does not refer to anything in the real world. Thus,
the θ-role of the subject of appear in (38a) comes from the embedded verb. Since the
subject position of appear is not a θ-position, we can expect to find expletives and idiom
chunks here, since these are both elements that cannot appear with θ-roles. The verb
decide on the other hand, is associated with an external θ-role, thus expletives and idiom
chunks are not available as the subject of decide.
The first sentence is an example of a raising construction because the DP John orig-
inates in the embedded clause and raises to the subject position of the matrix clause.
Going step-by-step, then, the DP John is first merged as the external argument in the
specifier of the lower VoiP, where it receives an external θ-role. This DP then moves to the
specifier of the embedded TP to satisfy EPP. It cannot receive Case here, however, since
non-finite T is not a Case assigner and there is no VoiP in the matrix clause to assign
Case. John must raise to the specifier of the matrix TP, where it is assigned nominative
Case. The tree for this sentence is shown below.
254 CHAPTER 8. CONTROL AND RELATED PHENOMENA
(39)
CP Finally, John raises to the
specifier of the matrix TP for
C TP
Case.
DPi TP
T VoiP
First, John is to
ti VoiP
merged in the spec-
ifier of the embed- Voi vP
ded VoiP where it
receives an external v VP
θ-role.
Vk v tk
DP
like
spinach
The second sentence is another example of control. The matrix subject is coreferential
with the embedded PRO. PRO receives a θ-role in the embedded clause, but bears no
Case. The matrix subject obtains a θ-role and Case in the matrix clause. The tree for this
sentence is shown in below.
(40)
8.3. DERIVING THE STRUCTURE OF CONTROL AND RAISING 255
Voi vP
Then, PRO raises to
v VP the specifier of the em-
bedded TP to satisfy
Vj v tj CP the EPP.
decided
C TP
PRO1 k TP
T VoiP
to
tk VoiP
So far we have proposed that verbs that take non-finite complements come in two
varieties: control and raising. We have also looked at examples where want is a raising
verb. Consider, however, the following data.
Note that the understood subject of the infinitive in the first sentence is John and
the understood subject of the infinitive in the second sentence is Mary. Let’s run our
diagnostics to see the results.
256 CHAPTER 8. CONTROL AND RELATED PHENOMENA
We conclude that want is a control verb in (41a) but a raising verb in (41b). Although
most verbs that take an infinitival complement are either one or the other, want and
expect pattern as both.6
Thought Exercise 8.2: Recall the Brazilian Portuguese data from the previous
thought exercise.
These two thought questions are derived from a more in depth exercise here.
In this section we discuss different sub-types of raising and control. Consider the follow-
ing examples.
Control is classified according the the grammatical role of the overt DP that identifies
PRO. Example (44a) is an example of object control because PRO is coreferential with
the indirect object of persuade. For ditransitive control constructions, this is by far the
most common type of control. Example (44b) shows subject control as PRO is corefer-
ential with the subject of decide. Since transitive control constructions have only one
DP argument they are all necessarily of this type. Example (44c) shows subject control
with a ditransitive control construction. We will not concern ourselves with the choice
of controller. For the most part, we will assume it is lexically determined by the verb
(persuade is an object control verb, promise is a subject control verb, and so forth). In
most cases, however, the controller is the closest c-commanding DP (Rosenbaum, 1967;
Larson, 1991), a point we return to below. Note also that there is inter-speaker variation
with some control verbs (Jeffrey et al., 2015; Rickman and Rudanko, 2023).
Arbitrary control refers to control in which the identity of PRO is vague. Consider
the following example. There is no specific person that PRO refers to. Arbitrary PRO can
often be replaced by one in similar constructions with no significant change in meaning.
(45) a. The sign says where PROarb to park. = The sign says where one should park.
b. It’s a good idea PROarb to park in the garage. = It’s a good idea if one parks in
the garage.
Finally, there are two types of raising verbs as mentioned above. Consider the following
examples.
Example (46a) contains a raising verb, more specifically ‘raising to subject’ because
the DP that moves raises to a subject position. Example (46b) contains a ‘raising to object’
verb; hence the cover term raising verb for these two types (Postal, 1974).) As mentioned
above, raising to object verbs are sometimes known by their older name, ECM. Review
the structures above for these two types of raising verbs.
So far, we haven’t said much about how the choice of controller is determined, other
than the subject/object distinction that seems to be partially lexically determined. Con-
sider the following sentences.
In (47a), we see that the controller must c-command PRO. In (47b), we see that the
controller must be sufficiently local – specifically, the controller must be in the clause
immediately above the clause that contains PRO. These properties of control are mediated
by a module of grammar known as Control Theory (Chomsky and Lasnik, 1977, et seq.).
This is also one of the most contentious areas of syntax. Some researchers have tried to
reduce control to either binding principles or to movement, based on c-command, but
there are problems with that approach (Hornstein, 1999; Landau, 2001; Lebeaux, 1984).
Consider the following example. In this sentence, Mary clearly does not c-command PRO.
This is just one example of the challenges that Control Theory has to face.
Aside from the types of control we have been discussing so far, there is another type
of control known as partial control (Wilkinson, 1971; Williams, 1980; Landau, 2000).
Partial control holds when the controller is a proper subset of the understood subject of
the infinitive. Before continuing we take a brief digression on collective predicates. Many
verbs must take a plural subject, at least when used in an intransitive sentence. Consider
the following examples.
Also, the adverb together, can appear only with plural subjects and not with singular
subjects.
Now consider the following pairs of control sentences and their non-control counter-
parts. These examples are based on those discussed by Landau (2000).
In the first pair of examples we observe typical subject control as we’ve seen all along.
The the following three pairs, however, we observe partial control. We represent this phe-
nomenon as follows, where PRO1+ means “Susan and others”.
A rough paraphrase of (54), then, is “Susan wants herself and the others to meet in
the lobby.” Not all control verbs are capable of expressing partial control. Consider the
following examples, where partial control is ungrammatical. The exact characterization
and analysis of partial control is a matter of ongoing research (Landau, 2001; Rodrigues,
2007; Pearson, 2016).
Finally, we illustrate split control (Landau, 2000). This is similar to partial control,
except the antecedent of PRO is split between two members in the sentence. This is rep-
resented by the superscript 1+2 on PRO, indicating that PRO refers to both antecedents
labelled 1 and 2.
8.4.2 Wanna-contraction
When want is used as a control verb, English allows the sequence want to to be un-
dergo contraction to wanna (Chomsky and Lasnik, 1977). This phenomenon is known
as wanna-contraction.
Wanna-contraction can take place across PRO, but not across a wh-trace. We will not
worry about the analysis of this difference, but we take it as evidence for the existence of
silent structure in language. Specifically, the PRO and wh-trace are both silent but give
rise to a difference in the availability of wanna-contraction.
Balkan languages include Romanian, Greek, Albanian, Bulgarian and other languages
and dialects. One defining property of Balkan languages is the lack of infinitives. Balkan
languages generally employ subjunctive verb forms where English uses infinitives for
control constructions (Landau, 2001, 2004; Alboiu, 2007; Polinsky and Potsdam, 2002).
The embedded clauses are often introduced by a subjunctive mood marker. Consider the
following examples.
Despite the facts these forms are finite, there are reasons to believe they instantiate
control. We will cover one piece of evidence here. For more discussion, see the Further
Readings section. Recall that one property of control is that the understood embedded
subject is coreferential with an argument in the matrix clause. To take the Romanian
example above, the person doing the trying and the person doing the singing must be
the same person, namely Victor. It is impossible for the matrix subject and the embedded
understood subject to be different.
This property is also shown by the difference between strict readings and sloppy
readings. Control is thought have only sloppy readings (Higginbotham, 1992). The fol-
lowing English examples illustrate these two properties.
In (62a) the second clause can mean either that Bill thinks John will win the race
(strict reading) or that Bill thinks Bill will win the race (sloppy reading). In the control
262 CHAPTER 8. CONTROL AND RELATED PHENOMENA
clause in (62b), however, the second clause can only mean that Bill wants Bill to win the
race. That is, only the sloppy reading is possible. With this in mind, consider the following
data.
The possibility of of a sloppy reading only in (63) indicates that we are likely dealing
with a control construction in Bulgarian. Much current research into control and raising
in Balkan languages is concerned with whether the embedded subject position contains
PRO, pro, or a DP-trace (Roussou, 2001; Terzi, 1992; Polinsky, 2013).
Recall that infinitives in English are devoid both of tense and agreement.
(65)
Portuguese has both inflected infinitives and bare, uninflected infinitives. The two
kinds of infinitives are largely in complementary distribution. In object complement clauses,
we find standard control constructions with uninflected infinitives. As in the English con-
trol constructions above, the controller is an argument of the matrix verb. The infinitive
cannot be inflected in this environment.
Inflected infinitives are found when the subject of the embedded proposition is not an
argument of the matrix clause. Thus, these inflected infinitival constructions correspond
roughly to the class of raising constructions. Here, inflected infinitives are obligatory, and
the uninflected form cannot be used.
Finally, inflected and uninflected infinitives can both be found in subject non-finite
constructions. Consider the following examples. Note that the subject of inflected infini-
tives takes nominative Case. An in depth study of these constructions would have to
account for the appearance of nominative subjects here and the lack of them in English.
Pires (2007) argues that inflected infinitives do not instantiate control based on the
lack of sloppy readings. Consider the following data.
Inflected infinitives are also found in the closely related Galician, but not in Spanish,
and in various southern Italian dialects (Ambar and Jiménez-Fernández, 2017). They
are also found in Old English and in Welsh, among other languages (Jansegers, Marlies,
2018).
A serial verb construction consists of a string of verbs without any (or with very little)
connective morphology. They have a common subject and usually share aspect and tense
features. They are common in the languages of West Africa, but are found in some Asian
languages as well as in some Oceanic languages. They were first identified in the Niger-
Congo language Twi (Stewart, 1963). Unlike control constructions in which each verb has
its own subject, serial verb constructions consist of a concatenated string of verbs which
predicate a single subject. Recall a typical control construction, in which the subject of
want and wash are John and PRO, respectively.
In a serial verb construction, all the verbs typically share one common subject. To
start, let’s look at an example from Thai.
(71) kháw rîip wîng khâam pay Thai, Kra-Dai (Smyth, 2002, 82)
he hurry run cross go
‘He hurriedly ran across.’
All the words in the example above (except the subject pronoun) can be used as inde-
pendent verbs. They are strung together here to give the meaning shown. In this example,
the events described by the verbs are interpreted simultaneously.
The following examples are from Degema, a Niger-Congo language spoken in Nigeria
(Kari, 2003). Here the events depicted by the verbs are interpreted sequentially. Thus,
serial verb constructions generally have two options in the internal organization of the
events. They can be interpreted either simultaneously or sequentially.
Serial verb constructions can be analyzed as a sequence of VPs. Consider the following
example.
The following structure accounts for the fact that there is a single subject for all the
lexical verbs. Note that we have not shown any verb movement in this tree. Whether the
verb moves and how high it moves would require an in depth investigation. For simplicity,
we use only a bipartite analysis of the VP layer, pending further research.
(74)
CP
C TP
TP
DP1 i
Kali T vP
ti vP
v VP
V VP
katem
V DP
splitem
wud
Key Concepts
• control - a non-finite clause in which the identity of the null subject is identified by
another overt DP, usually in a higher clause
266 CHAPTER 8. CONTROL AND RELATED PHENOMENA
Further Reading
• Boeckx et al. (2010) - This book summarizes the most current research on analyz-
ing control as movement - a novel theory of control
• Davies and Dubinsky (2004) - This volume is a definitive source for the history of
the analysis of raising and control. Much of the material in the earlier chapters of
this volume can be tackled once this chapter is mastered.
• Landau (2001) - This is a minimalist analysis of control that assumes that PRO
exists. The reader is cautioned that Landau presents a highly technical analysis. It
might be worthwhile to work through some more foundations of Minimalism before
attempting this work.
8.5. CONTROL IN OTHER LANGUAGES 267
• Perlmutter and Soames (1978) - This is the original source of many of the diag-
nostics between raising and control that are still used to this day.
• Haspelmath (2016) - This review paper discusses how the serial verb construction
varies across languages.
268 CHAPTER 8. CONTROL AND RELATED PHENOMENA
Abbreviations
269
270 CHAPTER 8. CONTROL AND RELATED PHENOMENA
Calligraphy of tree drawing
Syntactic trees convey a great deal of information to the reader; however, they can only do
so effectively if they are drawn clearly. Consider the examples below that contain several
common errors made by introductory students of syntax. The two branches dropping
down from a node should connect at the top, and the point where the two branches
connect should be centred underneath the dominating node. The bottom of each branch
should be centred above the daughter nodes. This is illustrated in the tree below.
VP
lines connect at a single point
V CP ,
In the following tree, the lines do not connect at a single point under the mother node.
This makes the tree difficult to read.
VP
lines do not connect
V CP /
The following tree is particularly difficult to read as it’s difficult to tell which is the
parent node and which are the offspring nodes.
VP
V CP /
Sibling nodes should ideally be written at the same level, V and CP in the first tree in
the section. The following tree also shows sibling nodes on the same level.
271
272
VP
V DP ,
D NP
Now consider the following two trees. Observe that the sibling nodes do not appear at
the same level.
VP
DP /
V D
NP
VP
V /
DP
NP
D
Often, very large trees do not fit easily on one page. Do not squish or bend the tree out
273
of shape to make it fit on one page. The following tree squishes the tree into the bottom
right corner of the page. This should be avoided.
vP
v VP /
V DP
N PP
NP
D
If there is empty space on the same page you can draw an arrow from the last node
at the bottom to the top of where the tree continues. In this case, you should repeat the
node label for clarity. In the following example, the DP node is at the bottom right hand
corner of the page, and there is no space left to continue. Repeat the DP label in an empty
spot on the page and connect the two nodes with an arrow. Then you can continue to
draw the rest of the tree. You should ideally only do this once per page and only if the
result is not cluttered and easy to read.
DP
D NP
N PP
vP
v VP
V DP
If the remainder of the tree cannot fit comfortably on the same page without affecting
clarity, then the tree should be continued on the next page. In this case, simply draw an
274
v VP
V DP
continued on next page
continued from previous page
DP
D NP
N PP
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275
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