accusative Case

the case of DPs appearing after verbs, prepositions and visible subjects of infinitival clauses. In English it is visible only on certain pronouns, e.g. him/her.

clause

a structure containing a (visible or invisible) subject and a predicate.

complementiser

a constituent introducing a sentential complement. The complementisers in English are that, if ,and for. They occupy the head position of CP and have selectional restrictions on the force and finiteness of the clause. Feature composition: [+F, –N, –V]

declarative clause

a positive or negative statement mainly used to convey information.

[±F]

one of the three basic binary features on which all categories can be defined. With the help of these features we can explain why we have the categories that we do and also describe how these categories are related. With the help of the three binary features we can predict what kinds of categories are possible in human language, we can give an exclusive list of them. [±F] is a feature used to distinguish between functional and thematic categories. [–F] categories have thematic content and [+F] categories do not. The categories with [+F] feature are the following: inflections, complementisers, determiners and degree adverbs. Certain categories are unspecified for the [±F] feature, see underspecification.

finite clause

a clause containing a finite verb.

finiteness

whether a constituent (a clause or a verb) is understood as finite or non-finite.

force

the distinction between declarative and interrogative interpretation.

inflection

(a) a morpheme added to the end of words of a given category in sentence structure as required by the given structure, e.g. s in Peter like s his dog or er in Peter is clever er than Tony.

(b) the head of an Inflectional Phrase. It can be realised as a modal auxiliary or a zero agreement morpheme. Information about tense can be found in a separate vP directly under IP.

interrogative clause

a structure mainly used to ask for information, either in the form of a yes–no question or a wh-question.

lexical entry

a collection of the idiosyncratic properties of lexical items.

main clause

a clause that is not embedded in another clause. In the sentence I know that you are clever the main clause is I know selecting an embedded CP.

[±N]

one of the three basic binary features on which all categories can be defined. With the help of these features we can explain why we have the categories that we do and also describe how these categories are related. With the help of the three binary features we can predict what kinds of categories are possible in human language, we can give an exclusive list of them. Since we want to define verbs and nouns as polar opposites the abstract binary features [±N] and [±V] were introduced, though obviously they do not mean noun and verb and are used to define other categories besides nouns and verbs. A property linked to the [–N] feature is the ability to have a nominal complement. The categories with [+N] feature are the following: a. thematic: nouns, adjectives; b. functional: determiners, degree adverbs; unspecified for the [F] value: post-determiners, measure nouns.

nominative Case

the Case assigned to DPs in the subject position of finite clauses. The Case assigner is the finite Inflectional head.

non-finite clause

a clause in which no finite verb is present.

preposition

a syntactic unit preceding its complement, the most often a DP defining a special syntactic and/or semantic relationship between the complement and another constituent: cat in the bag/grapes of wrath/tea without sugar/a reduction of taxes. Feature composition: [–F, –N, –V].

prepositional complementiser

the complementiser for, introducing non-finite declarative clauses. Due to its prepositional origin it can assign accusative Case to visible subjects of infinitival clauses, e.g. in It is important for Jane/her to win the game. It is very easy to make a difference between for used as a preposition and for used as a complementiser: when for is followed only by a DP it is a preposition (I bought a bar of chocolate for my kids on Saturday.), when it is followed by a DP and a to-infinitive it is a prepositional complementiser introducing an IP. The DP appears in the specifier position of this IP as subjects in general do (It is advisable for you to prepare well for the syntax exam.).

pronoun

a DP that usually refers to another DP, but contains only the grammatical features (number, person, gender) of it (I, you, he, she, etc.). Its interpretation depends on linguistic factors or the situation. Within the DP pronouns occupy the D head position, as they cannot be modified by determiners even on very special readings (as opposed to grammaticality of the John I met yesterday)

tense

a syntactic category with the help of which we can locate an event or situation in time. In syntactic representation information about tense can be found within the vP appearing directly under the IP in the form of -s, -ed or the zero tense morpheme.

[±V]

one of the three basic binary features on which all categories can be defined. With the help of these features we can explain why we have the categories that we do and also describe how these categories are related. With the help of the three binary features we can predict what kinds of categories are possible in human language, we can give an exclusive list of them. Since we want to define verbs and nouns as polar opposites the abstract binary features [±N] and [±V] were introduced, though obviously they do not mean noun and verb and are used to define other categories besides nouns and verbs. The categories with [±V] feature are the following: a. thematic: verbs, prepositions; b. functional: inflections, degree adverbs, aspectual auxiliaries; unspecified for the [F] value: aspectual auxiliaries, post-determiners.

Basic English Syntax with Exercises

1.3.5.4 Complementisers

The final word category we will consider in this section is the complementiser. This category is used to introduce clauses of one type or another. For now, we can take a clause as a coherent part of an expression that contains an inflection, though this will be made more precise later in the book. Examples of complementisers are:

(179)aI know [that I am right]
bI was hoping [for you to phone]
cI wonder [if you would lend me the money]

The remaining set of categorial features that has not been assigned to a category is [+F, –N, –V], that is ‘functional prepositions’. One argument for treating complementisers as functional prepositions is the fact that at least one of them, for, has certain prepositional properties (it is sometimes called the prepositional complementiser). Note that prepositions take nominal complements that are always in the accusative Case, and never in the nominative:

(180)ato/with/for/by/etc. him
b*to/with/for/by/etc he

Although the complement of complementisers (the part of the expression that follows it) seems to be clausal rather than nominal, the nominal element that follows the complementiser for is always accusative and indeed seems to depend on the complementiser to its presence in that if the complementiser is absent, then so must the nominal be:

(181)a[for him to stay] would be unwise
b*[for he to stay] would be unwise
c[to stay] would be unwise
d*[him to stay] would be unwise

We will be examining these observations in more detail later on in the book, but for now we can take the observations as support for the categorisation of complementisers as types of preposition. Indeed, we may even take this as evidence that complementisers should be [–N] elements as it is this feature that is responsible for the accusative nature of the following nominal, as discussed above.

Another argument in favour of categorising complementisers as functional prepositions is that both prepositional elements and clauses introduced by a complementiser undergo a syntactic process known as post-posing, where they appear to be moved to the end of the main clause:

(182)alies [about Larry] were circulated  →
lies were circulated [about Larry]
ba book [that no one had read] was awarded first prise   →
a book was awarded first prise [that no one had read]

We saw above how inflectional elements determine the finiteness of the clause, with modal auxiliaries and tense appearing in finite clauses and the non-finite to appearing in non-finite clauses. Complementisers are also sensitive to finiteness. That and if always introduce finite clauses, while for always introduces non-finite clauses:

(183)athat he may speak*that him to speak
bif she is staying*if she to stay
cfor you to know*for you must know

A second property of complementisers concerns what might be termed the force of the clause that they introduce. This concerns the interpretation of the clause as either a statement or a question:

(184)aI said [that I have the money]
bI asked [if you are free at the weekend]

The complementisers that and for introduce declarative clauses, i.e. ones that make statements, while if introduces interrogative clauses, ones that ask questions. We can view this in terms of a set of non-categorial features which distinguish between the complementisers. These features are [±Wh] for the force of the clause and [±Fin] for the finiteness of the clause. The [+Wh] feature (pronounced ‘double u aitch’) indicates interrogative, based on the fact that interrogative pronouns such as who, what, where, etc. are written with an initial ‘wh’ and the [–Wh] feature indicates declarative. [+Fin] stands for finite and [–Fin] for non-finite. Thus, we have the following classification of complementisers:

(185)    Wh
    +
Fin + if that
  for

Obviously, there is one missing complementiser, the [+Wh, –Fin] one. We will put this apparent gap in the system to one side until we are in a better position to deal with it.

The lexical entries for complementisers can be given as follows:

(186)thatcategory:[+F, –N, –V]
subcat:[clausal]
features:[–Wh, +Fin]
forcategory:[+F, –N, –V]
subcat:[clausal]
features:[–Wh, –Fin]
ifcategory:[+F, –N, –V]
subcat:[clausal]
features:[+Wh, +Fin]