Syntax II Seminar 4 Recap: Roots, inflection, and head-movement Dr. James Griffiths james.griffiths@uni-konstanz.de
he English verbal domain - Modified from the Carnie (2013) excerpt: (1) he soup could have be + en be + ing eat + en past perfect progressive passive Is there a straightforward way to include this in our syntactic theory?
he English verbal domain (1) he soup could have be + en be + ing eat + en past perfect progressive passive could > have perf > be prog > be pass > main verb Important observation: Ordering of functional heads
P Spec P Legend can perf have - modal verb - auxiliary verbs - main (lexical) verb prog be pass be main... eat functional verbal projections he verbal domain
A features Functional verbal projections contribute to the tense, aspect and voice (A) of an utterance. his can be encoded in a lexeme s entry as value for a av attribute. e.g. have (perfect) be (progressive) Cat Cat Sel Sel av Perf av Prog
Lexemes and roots Lexemes are theoretical abstractions: bundles of syntactic features Lexemes often come with a morphological root e.g. can Cat Sel av Root, {, CP} Pres can
Lexemes and roots he av value of a lexeme can affect its morphological realisation. In other words, a lexeme may inflect for tense, aspect or voice. We can encode this into a lexeme s entry as a Infl value. Sometimes an Infl value affects morphological realisation, sometimes it doesn t. his is (unfortunately) unpredictable. e.g. can could Cat Cat Sel, {, CP} Sel, {, CP} av Pres av Pst Root can Root can Infl Pres Infl Pst
Lexemes and roots (2) Inflectional realisation For every av value that is introduced in a syntactic derivation, there must be a corresponding Infl value. In the case of category lexemes (e.g. modals), (1) is trivially satisfied: e.g. can could Cat Cat Sel, {, CP} Sel, {, CP} av Pres av Pst Root can Root can Infl Pres Infl Pst
Lexemes and roots Lexemes of category (e.g. auxiliary have and be) don t allow this: he Infl value of these verbs cannot be the same as the av value e.g. have (perfect) be (progressive) Cat Cat Sel Sel av Perf av Prog Root have Root be Infl Perf Infl Prog How does the av value of these verbs become a Infl value? Answer: syntactic assignment through sisterhood
Example #1: no assignment required (3) Mary could kiss John. (but she can t any more) 1 P NB: the main verb doesn t receive a value for Infl. But this is okay! Mary could = Root can av Pst Infl Pst t 1 Only requirement is that all av values are also Infl values. his is satisfied. kiss = Root kiss Infl John
Example #2: assignment (4) Mary could have eaten the cake. Root have av Perf Infl t 1 Root eat Infl the cake
Example #2: assignment (4) Mary could have eaten the cake. Root have av Perf Infl t 1 eaten = Root eat Infl Perf the cake
Example #2: assignment (4) Mary could have eaten the cake. P 1 Mary could = Root can av Pst Infl Pst have = Root have av Perf Infl t 1 eaten = Root eat Infl Perf the cake
Rootless s So far, we ve examined lexemes of category that have roots, e.g. modal verbs (can, could, will, would) We saw that such lexemes realise their own av value, by replicating the av value as an Infl value. If a lexeme doesn t have a root, it cannot be inflected. So it won t have an Infl value. What happens in this case? Answer: syntactic assignment through sisterhood
(5) John had eaten chocolate (past perfect) Root have av Perf Infl John Root eat Infl chocolate
(5) John had eaten chocolate (past perfect) Root av PS Root have av Perf Infl John eaten = Root eat Infl PERF chocolate
(5) John had eaten chocolate (past perfect) Root av PS had = Root have av Perf Infl PS John eaten = Root eat Infl PERF chocolate
(5) John had eaten chocolate (past perfect) P John Root av PS had = Root have av Perf Infl PS t 1 eaten = Root eat Infl PERF chocolate
(6) Cake could have been being eaten (past perfect progressive passive) P 1 cake could = Root can av PS Infl PS have = Root have av Perf Infl been = Root be av Infl Prog PERF being = Root be av Pass Infl PROG eaten = t 1 Root eat Infl PASS
Points to remember av values are assigned as Infl values under sisterhood whenever: the lexeme with a av value is category the lexeme with a av value is rootless (such lexemes have no Infl attribute to be valued) Lexemes that typically inflect have a Infl attribute. hese are: model verbs auxiliary verbs main verbs hese lexemes don t need a Infl value, however. When they have no Infl value, they are pronounced in a morphology bare form.
ypes of movement hree types of movement: A-movement: Movement of a phrase (XP) to a Specifier position where Case and/or Θ-roles are typically assigned A -movement: Movement of a phrase (XP) to a Specifier position where Case and/or Θ-roles are never assigned Head-movement: Movement of a head (X) to a higher head position
A-movement Case is often assigned to s in SpecP herefore, movement to SpecP is A-movement Examples of A-movement: (7) John 1 will t 1 eat Sauerkraut. (8) John 1 will t 1 seem t 1 to t 1 eat Sauerkraut. (raising) (9) Sauerkraut 1 was eaten t 1 (by Sue) (passive)
A -movement (to be revisited next week!) Neither Case nor Θ-roles are assigned in SpecCP herefore, movement to SpecCP is A -movement Examples of A -movement: (10) Who 1 will John kiss t 1? (wh-questions) (11) [ he boy who 1 John kissed t 1 ] is now sick. (relative clauses) (12) She has always wanted to kiss John, so [ kiss John] 1 she will t 1 (topicalisation)
Head-movement Adverbs such as often modify events herefore, such adverbs adjoin to (which denotes an event)
(13) I often eat apples. P 1 I [av Pres] AdvP often t 1 [Infl PRES] eat apples
(14) * I eat often apples. P 1 I [av Pres] t 1 Wrong place for the adverb! [Infl PRES] eat AdvP often apples Often modifies an event, not an individual
Problem: cross-linguistic variation (15) a. I often eat apples. b. * I eat often apples. (16) a. * Je souvent mange des pommes. (French) I often eat of.the apples b. Je mange souvent des pommes. he grammatical adverb-verb order is the exact opposite of English!
(16) b. Je mange souvent des pommes. P 1 Je [av Pres] t 1 Wrong place for the adverb! Often modifies an event, not an individual [Infl PRES] mange AdvP souvent des pommes
(15) * Je souvent mange des pommes. P 1 Je [av Pres] AdvP souvent Good-looking tree, but wrong word-order for French! t 1 [Infl PRES] mange des pommes Solution: the main verb () undergoes head-movement to
(16) b. Je mange souvent des pommes. Head-movement involves: (i) head-adjunction to form a treelet AdvP souvent Je [Infl ] mange des pommes
(16) b. Je mange souvent des pommes. Head-movement involves: (i) head-adjunction to form a treelet AdvP 1 [Infl ] mange [av Pres] souvent Je t 1 des pommes
(16) b. Je mange souvent des pommes. Head-movement involves: (i) head-adjunction to form a treelet 1 [Infl PRES] mange [av Pres] AdvP souvent Je t 1 des pommes
(16) b. Je mange souvent des pommes. Head-movement involves: (i) head-adjunction to form a treelet (ii) Merging into the main tree 1 [Infl PRES] mange [av Pres] AdvP souvent Je t 1 des pommes
(16) b. Je mange souvent des pommes. P 2 Je Head-movement involves: (i) head-adjunction to form a treelet (ii) Merging into the main tree 1 [Infl PRES] mange [av Pres] AdvP souvent t 2 t 1 des pommes
Evidence for adjunction-style head-movement: Chechewa Mtsikana a-na-gw-ets-a kuti mtsuko the.girl 3sg-PS-fall-cause-F that waterpot he girl knocked over that waterpot. (Baker 1988)
Cross-linguistic variation in movement to (15) a. I often eat apples. b. * I eat 1 often t 1 apples. (16) a. * Je souvent mange des pommes. (French) b. Je mange 1 souvent t 1 des pommes. Main (lexical) verbs cannot move to in English Main (lexical) verbs can move to in French (and must in (16)) Like the EPP condition, there s no deep explanation for this difference. It s simply a source of variation between the languages. Question: does this division also apply to functional verbs?
Cross-linguistic variation in movement to Starting with French (17) Je n ai pas mangé de pommes. I have not eaten of.the apples I have not eaten the apples the n ai form of ai (which is optional in spoken French) is specific to negative environments. If n ai is ai with a [Infl NEG] value, then ai must start lower than pas (to have its Infl value assigned by Neg) and then move to
(17) Je n ai pas mangé de pommes. P 2 Je NegP 1 [Infl {PRES, NEG}] n ai [av Pres] Neg [av Neg] pas t 1 t 2 [Infl PERF] mangé des pommes
Cross-linguistic variation in movement to If we assume that NegP is also selected by in English, then functional verbs (modals and auxiliaries) can move to in English:
(18) I have not eaten the apples P 2 I NegP FYI: the Infl feature NEG does not change the morphology of verbs in English 1 [Infl {PRES, NEG}] have [av Pres] Neg [av Neg] not t 1 t 2 [Infl PERF] eaten the apples
Cross-linguistic variation in movement to Conclusion (19) erb movement parameter All verbs are capable of moving to (e.g. French), or Only functional verbs are capable of moving to (e.g. English).
A consequence for English: do-support Recall that: Rootless s must assign their av values as Infl values under sisterhood Only verbal heads (modals, auxiliaries, main verbs) with roots are capable of receiving an Infl value because only these categories have an Infl attribute to fill Main (lexical) verbs cannot move to his causes a problem when negation is present...
(20) * John not eat chocolate. P John Root av Pst NegP not = Neg Root not av Neg Problem he av value Pst needs to be assigned as an Infl value. But Neg doesn t have an Infl attribute to receive it! t 1 eat = Root eat Infl NEG chocolate
(21) John did not eat chocolate. John did = P Root do av Pst Infl PS not = Neg Root not av Neg NegP Solution Last-resort insertion of do into. As a root, do can have an Infl value. t 1 eat = Root eat Infl NEG chocolate