adjunct

a constituent not selected by a head.

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:

Affix Lowering

the downward movement of the bound inflectional morpheme s, ed or the zero inflectional morpheme onto the verbal head. This is the only movement type where we move a constituent down. Assuming downward movement to take place is necessary in the traditional framework because it is assumed that lexical verbs in English cannot leave the VP and this way we can also account for the order of sentence medial adverbs relative to the verb: She often invites her friends.

agreement

a syntactic process whereby certain constituents must share certain features, e.g. subjects must agree with the inflection on the verb in person and number.

aspectual auxiliary verb

those dummy auxiliary verbs that participate in forming the progressive (different forms of be as in They are waiting.) or the perfective aspect (different forms of have as in I have read this book.). They are not generated in the head position of IPs (as opposed to modal auxiliaries) but in vP, and can undergo upward movement to the head position of IP. Feature composition: [–N, +V]

aspectual morpheme

the morphemes -ing and -en responsible for the progressive and perfective aspectual meanings, respectively.

base form

the (at least apparently) uninflected form of the verb. it can be finite (like in I like chocolate where a zero form of the inflection indicates SG1 agreement) or non-finite (like in I may invite Jamie where a verb form also called the bare infinitive is used, no inflection whatsoever is present on the verb, the inflectional head position is occupied by the modal auxiliary may).

bound morpheme

a morpheme that has to attach to another morpheme, it cannot stand on its own, e.g. ed, ment, un . See also free morpheme

clause

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

complementary distribution

two constituents are in complementary distribution if one of them never appears in any of the environments where the other appears. If two constituents are in complementary distribution it indicates that they compete for the same structural position. E.g. we cannot have both an inflectional ending and a modal auxiliary in the same clause as these two occupy the head position within an IP, thus the ungrammaticality of *She can dances.

embedded clause

a clause that is part of a larger constituent (I know [that you like him], the man [that you like].

free morpheme

a morpheme that can stand on its own, e.g. flower, walk. See also bound morpheme

irregular

cannot be described with the help of a rule, exceptional.

language

a system that enables people who speak it to produce and understand linguistic expressions.

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

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.

morpheme

the smallest meaningful unit. Words can be made up of one or more morphemes. See also bound morpheme, free morpheme.

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.

number

a contrast between singular and plural as in a shirt/several shirts. The English regular plural marker is s.

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.

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.

to-infinitive

an infinitive appearing with to, a non-finite verb-form.

verb phrase (VP)

a phrase headed by a verb. It is in the VP together with the vp(s) that the basic argument structure of the clause is formed, thus, theta-role assignment takes place here. The specifier position of the VP is occupied by the constituent bearing the theme/patient theta role. In passive structures this constituent has to move from the specifier position of the verb to the specifier position of IP in order to get Case. A VP can have different types of complements such as a DP, CP, IP, PP.

vP (pronounced: little vP)

a phrase headed by a light verb taking a VP complement hosting agent or experiencer arguments in its specifier position. For a list of elements that can appear in vp see light verb.

VP adverb

an adverb which modifies the meaning of the verb, e.g. always, already, never.

VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis

the hypothesis according to which subjects are not base-generated in the specifier position of IP but move there from within the vP or VP where they are selected and theta-marked by the verb (see also canonical subject position). The movement of the DP is case-motivated.

word category

a set of expressions that share certain linguistic features, a grouping of words that cluster together, e.g. noun, verb. See also functional category, thematic category.

zero inflectional morpheme

as the morphology of the English language is rather impoverished very often we have no visible markers of person and number agreement on the verb (the exception being the third person singular s morpheme in the present tense). In the other cases the inflection is assumed to be present in an invisible form. The zero inflectional morpheme is one without phonological realisation but it has syntactic functions to fulfil in the structure.

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Basic English Syntax with Exercises

6.2.3 Tense and Agreement

From what has been said so far, we would expect that when there is no aspectual morpheme to be supported and no negation, there will be no need to insert an auxiliary as the main verb can move to support the inflection. Indeed this seems to be true as there is no inserted auxiliary in such cases and the tense morpheme appears on the verb:

(34)he arrive-ed

There is a problem however with the assumption that it is the verb that undergoes the movement in this case. This can be seen clearly when there is a VP adjunct. In the previous chapter, we argued that VP adverbs are adjoined to a v/VP higher than the position to which the verb moves. However, in the absence of any aspectual morphemes, it seems that the inflection appears on the verb inside the v/VP:

(35)he [vP quickly [vP count-ed his fingers]]

Thus, under these conditions it does not seem that the verb moves to the inflection, but rather that the inflection moves to the verb:

(36)

This analysis suggests that elements can move around in a structure quite freely and in particular both upward and downward movements are possible. But all the movements we have seen so far have been in an upward direction, including all the verb movements and the movement of the subject out of its original VP-internal position. It is possible that this might just be a bias of the small number of movement processes we happen to have reviewed so far. But it turns out, once one starts to investigate movements on a greater scale that the vast majority of them have an upward orientation, which might lead us to the conclusion that perhaps it is our analysis of the small number of apparent cases of downward movements that is at fault. One reason to believe that downward movements are not possible is that it is ungrammatical for certain things to move downwards, which is difficult to explain if such movements are allowable. For example, the verb always moves to the light verb positions and light verbs never move to the verb:

(37)a he hit1 the ball t1
    
b *he t1 the ball hit1

If downward movements are a possible grammatical process, we have no explanation for why (37b) is ungrammatical in English and can only resort to stipulation that English verbs move upwards in this case. For such reasons, during the 1990s the idea of downward movement was abandoned and all seemingly downward movements were reanalysed as involving upward movements instead.

A further problem with the analysis in (36) is the explanation of why the verb cannot move to the I position. We have seen that verbs are perfectly capable of moving, so why this is not possible to the inflection position is quite mysterious. Some, who accepted the ‘I-lowering’ (affix lowering) analysis, have suggested that the verb cannot escape the VP because of its Θ-assigning properties, pointing to the fact that aspectual auxiliaries and copular be, which do not assign Θ-roles, can appear in I (Pollock 1989).

But from our perspective, these elements appear in I by being inserted there and do not undergo movement at all and so there may be other reasons for the fact that they behave differently to main verbs. It is also not entirely clear why the verb can move within the vP, sometimes through as many as three light verb positions and not have any trouble with its Θ-assigning properties. Something rather stipulative and ultimately circular has to be claimed to try to account for this fact. For example, we might assume that the inflection has some property, which light verbs lack, that means that if a thematic verb moves to I it cannot assign its Θ-roles. Often it is claimed that the inflection is ‘too weak’ to support the verb’s Θ-assigning requirements. But the weakness of an element only correlates with the ability of the verb to move to that element, which is the very reason for proposing the notion in the first place!

Before trying to solve these puzzles, one more mystery should be introduced. Our assumptions have been that auxiliaries are inserted into a structure to support bound morphemes when the verb is unable for one reason or another to do so. Obviously a free morpheme does not need supporting either by the verb or an auxiliary. This would predict that when the inflection appears as a free morpheme, i.e. a tense or the infinitival marker, there will be no need for an inserted auxiliary to accompany an aspectual morpheme. But this prediction seems to be false:

(38)ahe will have gone
bshe might be worrying
cfor you to be seen here would be disastrous

The obvious question is what are these auxiliaries supporting? Note that any element that appears after a free inflectional element is always in its base form. Thus, either the auxiliaries are supporting nothing, which throws doubt on their treatment as inserted empty elements, or they are supporting a null morpheme. The latter assumption allows us to maintain our approach but it raises the subsequent question of what this morpheme is.

The facts concerning this morpheme are that it is only present when there is a free inflectional element and the morpheme always follows the inflection.

(39)ahe will leave-Ø
bthey must have-Ø left
cwe might be-Ø leaving
dto be-Ø seen

When there is a bound inflectional element, i.e. a tense morpheme, the null morpheme is not present:

(40)a*we did have-Ø gonewe had gone
b*they did be-Ø goingthey were going
c*I did leave-ØI left

(40c) is of course grammatical, but only with special stress on did and used to assert something that has previously been denied. Thus, it does not mean the same thing as I left and in fact cannot be used to mean this.

These observations show that this zero morpheme is in complementary distribution with tense and thus the straightforward conclusion is that it IS tense. But how can this be if tense is an inflectional element and the zero morpheme is not in complementary distribution with modal auxiliaries, which are also inflectional elements? What the data show is that it is not modals that tense is in complementary distribution with, but the zero tense morpheme that accompanies the modal and hence the conclusion is that if modals are of the category ‘inflection’, then tense is not of this category. Given that tense is situated in front of the VP, we can assume that it is a head that selects a verbal complement and given that it follows the inflectional elements (i.e. modals) it must project a verbal phrase. In other words, tense is yet another light verb:

(41)

This analysis raises the question of what category ‘inflection’ is if it excludes the tense morpheme, and specifically what occupies this position when there is no modal? To answer this, consider the properties of modal auxiliaries. It is a traditional idea that they are not actually in complementary distribution with tense, as in some sense they display a kind of tense inflection:

(42)maymight
cancould
shallshould
willwould
(must)

Virtually all modals come in pairs, which might be claimed to represent a distinction between past and present. The use of these forms supports this view:

(43)aI think I am going
bI thought I was going
c*I thought I am going
 
(44)aI think I can go
bI thought I could go
c*I thought I can go

Although I am very much simplifying things here, we can see in (43) that there is some requirement that embedded clauses have a matching tense specification to the main clause and hence the ungrammaticality when the main clause is in the past tense and the embedded clause is in the present. (44) demonstrates something very similar happens with certain modals and hence that modals seem to be specified for tense (or at least they are not themselves in complementary distribution with a tense specification wherever in the clause that specification is made). However, what modals are in complementary distribution with is agreement: modals do not have forms that are dependent on the properties of the subject:

(45)ahe/she/I/you/we/etc. may/will/would/can/etc.
b*he/she wills/cans/woulds/etc.

Perhaps, then, what ‘inflection’ is, is agreement and this is expressed either as a morpheme dependent on properties of the subject, or a modal. Of course in English the visible tense and agreement morphemes are expressed as a single form, s. But in many languages tense and agreement are expressed as separate morphemes, as they are in Hungarian:

(46)elmen-t-emI left
elmen-t-élyou left
elmen-t-Øhe/she left
elmen-t-ünkwe left
elmen-t-etekyou (lot) left
elmen-t-ekthey left

In this paradigm, the past tense is represented uniformly as an independent morpheme t and the agreement morphemes differ depending on the person and number of the subject.

The inflectional head has a very important role in determining the nature of the following tense head. As we have seen, modals determine that tense will appear as a null morpheme, but note that its content, i.e. past or present, can be recovered from the modal itself, which inflects for tense. When the inflectional element is a null agreement morpheme, the form of the tense will be partly determined by the agreement morpheme and partly by the tense itself. So if the tense is past then it will be realised as ed (or one of its irregular forms) no matter what the agreement is. But if the tense is present, it will be realised as s when the agreement is third person and singular and as a zero morpheme when the agreement is something else:

(47)a[IP - can [vP - Ø …]]
b[IP - Ø3.s. [vP - -s/-ed …]]
c[IP - Ø~3.s. [vP - Ø/-ed …]]

We have not yet mentioned the infinitival marker to. What is its status? Is it a non-finite agreement morpheme, similar to a modal, or is it a non-finite tense morpheme that is accompanied by null agreement? For now I will assume that it is a tense element and demonstrate later that this seems to be correct.

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