Check Questions
1 Discuss rewrite rules: use the terms ‘category variables’, ‘head’, ‘complement’, ‘specifier’, ‘adjunct’, ‘recursion’, ‘category neutral’.
2 Exemplify adjunction (i) to a head, (ii) to a bar-level projection, (iii) to a maximal projection, and state the corresponding rewrite rule.
3 Explain the notion ‘projection’ and the way heads project their properties using expressions like ‘zero-level projection’, ‘bar-level constituent’, ‘maximal projection’.
4 What is the difference between endocentric versus exocentric phrases?
5 Which of the following properties of heads and/or phrases are predictable?
| a | endocentricity |
| b | category |
| c | argument structure |
| d | subcategorisation frame |
| e | pronunciation |
| f | meaning |
6 Explain the difference between restrictions imposed by a head on complements and those imposed on specifiers.
7 Discuss implications of the rule Move α and the Structure Preservation Principle.
8 What levels of structural description are assumed and how are they linked? How can D-Structure be characterised?
9 Discuss theta role assignment and the locality constraint imposed on it.
10 Show the distribution of nominative versus accusative case in English.
11 What bearing does the observation that clauses must have subjects have on the movement types passive and raising?
