abstract Case

being Case-marked is assumed to be a universal property of overt nominal expressions. Whenever there is no visible marking, we assume there to be invisible Case on the given nominal expression.

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.

adjunction

a type of movement where a new position is formed as a result of the movement creating an adjunction structure, like the (simplified) movement of the PP in the following tree structure representation where the S node is doubled:

arguments

the participants minimally involved in an action defined by the predicate. The complements and the subject, the latter also called an external argument.

Case avoidance principle

Clauses avoid Case positions.

Case Filter

every overt DP must be assigned abstract Case.

Case position

a position where (nominative or accusative) Case can be assigned.

clause

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

complement

an argument which follows the verb, or, more generally, a phrase selected by a head.

declarative clause

a positive or negative statement mainly used to convey information.

D(eep)-structure

the structure before movement takes place, a representation of thematic relations.

determiner phrase (DP)

a phrase headed by a central determiner or the possessive ’s morpheme. The complement of a DP is an NP, the specifier the DP the possessive ending attaches to.

event structure

verbs can express simple or complex events. Event structure describes what sub-events an event expressed by a certain verb is made up of. This has an effect on the syntactic organisation of elements within the VP. There is supposed to be an isomorphism between event structure and the structure of the VP: a VP breaks up into sub-vPs/VPs in a one-to-one correspondence with the sub-events.

finite clause

a clause containing a finite verb.

grammar

(a) a (finite) set of rules which tell us how to recognise the infinite number of expressions that constitute the language that we speak. (b) a linguistic hypothesis about these rules.

interrogative clause

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

light verb

a verb occupying the head of a vP used in combination with another element, typically a noun or verb, where the light verb’s contribution to the meaning of the whole construction is less than that of a fully thematic main verb, e.g. to take a shower=to shower. Certain verbs expressing aspectual (be, have) or modal (let) meaning also belong here. According to the proposals in the present book the following constituents can appear within the vP in a visible or abstract form (see also vP-shells):

– agentive arguments in the specifier positions

– experiencer arguments in the specifier position

– goal arguments in the double-object construction as specifiers

– the passive -en morpheme in the head of vP

– the aspectual morphemes -en and -ing in the head of vP

– the tense morpheme in the head of vP

movement

S-structure constituents do not always appear in the position where they are base-generated in D-structure, they often move from their base positions to other structural positions. There can be various reasons motivating movement, see wh-movement and DP-movement.

non-finite clause

a clause in which no finite verb is present.

object

a DP complement immediately following the verb. It can move to the subject position in passive sentences. See also direct object, indirect object.

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].

preposition phrase (PP)

a phrase headed by a preposition. It usually takes a DP complement but certain types of CPs can also appear in the complement position of PPs. PPs themselves can be complements of different constituents such as verbs, nouns and adjectives.

specifier position

a position defined by X-bar Theory. The specifier is sister to X', daughter of XP. It is a phrasal position, the nature of the phrase depends on what it is the specifier of. E.g. the specifier of IP is the subject, the specifier of DP is the possessor in possessive structures.

subject position

the position where subjects appear in the tree. The base position of the subject depends on its theta role. Agents and experiencers are generated in Spec,vP. Theme subjects appear in Spec,VP. These positions are not Case positions, so the subjects move to the canonical subject position, Spec, IP.

theme

one of the thematic roles where the argument is not affected by the action described by the verb e.g. in Peter saw John nothing directly happens to John as a result of being seen. In terms of the UTAH the theme theta-role is assigned to the specifier position of the VP.

there-construction: see existential there-construction.

theta role

the semantic role of the participants as required by the predicate. E.g. verbs define what kind of semantic relationship is to be established between the verb itself and the arguments of the verb, and arguments are selected accordingly. The verb kick calls for an agent subject, so its subject position cannot be occupied by e.g. my CD-player.

topicalisation

a process which moves an element interpreted as a topic to the front of the sentence.

transitive verb

a verb with a nominal complement, e.g. read, buy. The agentive subject occupies the specifier position of vP, the theme object occupies the specifier position of VP.

Uniform Theta-role Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH)

a Θ-role is assigned in the same structural position in all structures in which it is present.

verb

a word used to describe an event or situation that can appear in one of the five verb forms. Feature composition: [–N, +V, –F].

Basic English Syntax with Exercises

5.2.8 Verbs with clausal complements

A class of verbs which are often traditionally lumped together with transitive verbs are verbs which have clausal complements:

(139)aTheo thinks [Sally is smart]
bWanda wants [Larry to leave]
cBob believes [Tim to be tall]
dHarry hopes [for Fiona to fall in love with him]
eTony tried [to look innocent]
fAlbert asked [why Wendy went]

As can be seen from the limited data in (139), there are a wide range of possibilities for clausal complements. Some verbs take finite clause complements (139a), while others take non-finite complements of various kinds (139b–e). Some complements are declarative (139a–e) while others are interrogative (139f). The possibilities are determined by the verb, as we would expect.

An obvious question to ask is where the clausal complement sits with respect to the verb. There are a number of possibilities. In some ways the clausal complement is rather like an object, which is what leads traditional grammars to conclude that these verbs are transitives. For instance, many of these verbs can appear with an object, sometimes with a similar meaning to the clausal complement:

(140)aSam said somethingSam said [that Tim is tall]
bAlbert asked the timeAlbert asked [what the time was]

Moreover, some of these verbs can undergo passivisation, and as we have seen, in English, only the transitive verbs can passivise:

(141)ait was believed [that Tim is tall]
bChris was considered [to be clever]

This might lead us to the conclusion that they should be treated like objects and be placed in the specifier of the VP, with the verb moving to a light verb position to precede it:

(142)

There are however, a number of problems facing this analysis. First, when a verb takes both a DP and a clausal complement, invariably the DP precedes the clause:

(143)aI asked [him] [where to get off]
bI told [him] [that I would write a letter]
cI persuaded [him] [that the moon was made of cheese]
dI promised [him] [to be good]

In each case of the above, if the DP followed the clause it would be ungrammatical. Moreover, if there is a PP complement and a clause, the PP tends to precede the clause:

(144)ait seems [to me] [that the gudgeon pin is broken]
bI shouted [at him] [to get out of the bath]
bwe demand [of you] [that you tell the truth]

If we consider the thematic roles assigned to these arguments, typically the DP arguments receive a goal Θ-role: the one to whom the event described by the verb is directed. The clause has a theme Θ-role. We saw with dative/double object verbs, the goal argument sits in the complement position of the thematic verb, but may move in order to get Case. If this is what is going on here, then the structure should be:

(145)

In this, the verb moves from light verb to light verb and the DP moves to the specifier of the first light verb to get Case from the higher one. A similar structure would have to be supposed for the PP arguments. However, this structure does not seem to reflect the event structure of such verbs, which seem to consist of just two events:

(146)e = e1 → e2: e1 = they did something
  e2 = I was asked to pay

A second problem is why the PP argument would undergo the same movement as the DP as PPs do not need Case and do not normally undergo this kind of movement. Hence it appears that there is not much to recommend this analysis.

If we want to maintain the UTAH we cannot just assume that the arguments start off in different positions, however. So we want to keep the basic structure of the VP as it is in (145). We need to simplify the light verb structure, getting rid of one of these to match with the event structure and finally we need to find a way of getting the PP in front of the clause that does not assume that it undergoes a similar movement to DPs. The structure is as follows:

(147)

One way to get the PP in front of the clause without moving the PP would be to move the clause backwards, perhaps to adjoin to the VP or v':

(148)

Do we have any evidence that clauses can undergo the supposed movement and any motivation for it to take place in this instance? Actually, there is some evidence that certain clauses can undergo a backward movement:

(149)athe announcement [that the prime minister had resigned] was broadcast on the radio
bthe announcement was broadcast on the radio [that the prime minister had resigned]

In this example, the bracketed clause is the complement of the noun announcement and hence is part of the DP subject, as is clearly the case in (149a). In (149b) this clause not only does not appear to be part of the subject, but it is right over the other side of the clause from the subject. It seems therefore that the clause moves towards the back of the clause and therefore that backward movement of clauses is a possibility.

But why would the clause have to move backwards in a structure like (148)? Note that the clause occupies a position to which Case is assigned: the light verb assigns accusative Case to the specifier of the VP. There is an old idea, dating back to Stowell (1981), that clauses avoid Case positions. While it might seem that clauses occupy similar positions to DPs, there are a number of reasons to think that this is not so. For example, we do not get clauses in the complement position of prepositions, a position to which Case is assigned:

(150)ashe spoke about [her theory]
b*she spoke about [that brontosaurs are thin at both ends and fat in the middle]

Moreover, while it might look as though clauses can occupy subject positions (to which Case is assigned), there are observations which indicate that sentence subjects are not in the same position as DP subjects:

(151)adid [Ursula] upset you?
b*did [that Ursula got drunk] upset you
 
(152)athis theory, [I] just can’t accept
b*this theory, [that the space probe found no pizzerias on Mars] disproves

The data demonstrate that certain things which are possible when there is a DP subject, are not possible with a clausal ‘subject’. For instance, the auxiliary can move to the front of the clause to form a question in (151a), but not in (151b) where there is a clausal subject. In (152a) we can see that an object can be moved to the front of the clause in what are called topicalisation structures, but not when the subject is clausal (152b). These observations might suggest that the clausal subjects are in a position which prevents the relevant movements and that DP subjects sit in a different position which does not interfere with them. Obviously the DP subjects sit in Case positions, as required by the Case filter and therefore our conclusion is that clausal subjects do not sit in the Case position that the DP subject sits in. All this might be accounted for if we assume that clauses avoid Case positions and this would warrant the clause moving out of its D-structure position in (147) into a position that is Caseless. We therefore assume the following principle:

(153)the Case avoidance principle
clauses avoid Case positions