1.2.4 Distribution

1.3.1 Categorial features

To develop the system a little further, consider the intuitions that adjectives seem to have something in common with nouns, as they are typically used to modify nouns, as in crazy kid or thoughtful suggestion, but they also seem to have something in common with verbs, as they have certain distributional properties in common:

1.3.1 Categorial features

However, this cannot be put down to good fortune. After all, categorising elements in terms of these features has consequences concerning what other categories are related to or different from these elements. Note that the feature combination in (29) predicts that while prepositions differ from nouns in that they are [–N], they are similar to nouns in that they are [–V]. Similarly, prepositions differ from verbs in being [–V], but they share the [–N] feature with them. Thus prepositions are predicted to be similar to nouns and verbs, but in a different way to how adjectives are similar to these categories. Indeed, while prepositions do not have similar distribution patterns as verbs, as do adjectives, they share another property with verbs. Consider the following observations:

1.3.4.1 Verbs

We cannot properly address the issue of the distribution of word categories until we have introduced the organising principles of English sentences, to which we turn in the following chapter. However, the issue of the subcategorisation of verbs, which has a role in determining verb distribution patterns, can be discussed here. Recall from above that we pointed out that different verbs seem to be able to be followed by different things:

1.3.4.2 Nouns

Turning to the distribution of nouns, as with verbs a proper treatment of this will be possible later in this chapter, though we can once again talk about subcategories of noun. Nouns subcategorise in exactly the same way that verbs do, in terms of restrictions placed on the possible categories of their complements. Just as with verbs, the complement of the noun follows it. The similarity between noun complements and verb complements can best be seen by comparing the behaviour of nouns that have been derived from verbs with these verbs:

1.3.4.3 Adjectives

The alternative to viewing ‑ly as a derivational morpheme it to see it as an inflectional morpheme. These are morphemes like the ones we have been mainly concerned with so far. These apply to a lexical word to give back another form of the same word. So see, sees, saw, seen and seeing are all forms of the same word, not different words created from a single source as are depart, department, departmental, departmentalisation. Inflectional morphemes on the whole are a lot more productive than derivational morphemes (though we have seen a certain degree of irregularity and exceptions in most of the morphemes we have investigated) and this would seem to fit better the productive nature of ‑ly. However, in what sense can an adjective and its related adverb be considered different forms of the same word, especially if they belong to different categories? If ‑ly is an inflectional morpheme, it seems that we would have to consider adjectives and adverbs to be the same category. There is a certain amount of evidence in support of this view however. First, note that both adjectives and adverbs have similar distributions, if we consider their immediate environment:

1.3.5.1 Inflections

This distribution pattern would argue that modals occupy a different position to aspectuals. This position, note, is always in front of all other verbal elements.

1.3.5.3 Degree Adverbs

Besides distributional properties, degree adverbs also have other properties that unify them. For example, it is typical for a degree adverb to appear alongside a clausal element which follows the adjective being modified:

2.1.2 Phrases

Two questions arise immediately: do sentences contain any more phrases than those indicated in (9), and what can phrases contain? To be able to answer these questions, we must first look a little more closely at the properties of phrases in general. The first thing to note is that just as words have distributions in a sentence, so do phrases. This is obvious from the above example, as the phrases the postwoman and the doctor distribute in the same way that the nouns Prudence and Dennis do: wherever it is grammatical to have Prudence it will be grammatical to have the postwoman and where it is ungrammatical to have Prudence it will be ungrammatical to have the postwoman:

2.1.2 Phrases

It seems that in the position where we have pestered Dennis we can have the verb persisted. This is not surprising as the verb pestered is used transitively in (11a), with a nominal complement (Dennis) whereas persisted is used intransitively in (11b), without a complement. However, if intransitive verbs distribute the same as transitive verbs plus their complements, this means that transitive verbs and their complements form a phrase that has a distribution in the same way that a determiner with its nominal complement distributed like certain nouns. Thus a more accurate description of the sentence than (9) would be:

2.1.6 Labels

Although we have been labelling phrases with the symbol P, not all phrases are equivalent to each other. This is best seen in terms of the distributions of phrases. Take, for example the two phrases in (16) the postwoman and the doctor. These look very similar, both consisting of a determiner followed by a noun. They also have the same distribution patterns, as shown by the fact that wherever we can put one of them we will also be able to put the other:

2.1.6 Labels

As these phrases have the same distributions, we can assume that they are phrases of the same kind. However, not all phrases distribute in the same way. Consider the phrase on his birthday. This cannot go in the same places as those in (32):

2.1.6 Labels

For now, the main point is that there are different kinds of phrases and these have different positions within the structure of the sentence and hence different distributions. We might therefore represent the sentence in (31) more fully as:

2.3.1 Substitution

We developed this structure by noting certain distributional patterns, such as the subject the bull could be replaced by the pronoun it and the VP worried the china-shop owner could be replaced by the verb charged:

2.3.1 Substitution

As we claimed, the distribution of an element shows us that it has a certain status in the sentence and all elements which have the same distribution will have the same status. This is why we could use observations about distribution to demonstrate the structure of the sentence: the fact that the bull has the same distribution as it shows that the bull is a constituent, specifically a DP as, as argued above, pronouns are determiners. Furthermore, the fact that worried the china-shop owner has the same distribution as charged shows that the former is also a constituent, specifically a VP as charge is a verb. In other words, we can use distributional observations such as these to test the structure of any sentence: for any part of the sentence, if we find it distributes like some element that we know what its categorial status is, then we can assume that that part of the sentence has the same status as that element.

2.3.1 Substitution

This shows us that the string of words, under his mitre forms a constituent of the sentence, but the category of this constituent is not so easy to determine from the category of its replacement. We might suppose that there is a pronoun and therefore it replaces DPs, but this constituent is made up of a preposition (under) followed by a DP (his mitre) which does not distribute like a DP:

2.3.1 Substitution

85b) is ungrammatical if we take under his mitre to name what it is that is being hidden, equivalent to a gun in (78) (though it is grammatical with the interpretation that it names the place where the bishop was hiding! In this case it does not function as the object and hence is not distributing like one). We called this kind of constituent a prepositional phrase above and we will continue to assume this and therefore we can conclude that there is in fact a pronominal preposition phrase as this is what it seems to replace.

2.3.1 Substitution

In our discussion so far we have shown that whole DPs can be replaced by a pronoun and, indeed, that a PP can be replaced by the prepositional ‘pronoun’ there. But for VP we have used intransitive verb to demonstrate the distributional properties of the phrase. Is there a ‘pronoun’ for a VP? I may be that the words do so function as a kind of pronominal replacement for VPs, though its use is a little more restricted than other pronouns:

2.3.2 Movement

There are other aspects of distribution we might use to support a structural analysis of a clause. For example, the distribution of an element refers to the set of positions that that element may occupy. Sometimes we can identify a number of positions that an element might be able to occupy in related sentences:

2.3.2 Movement

Obviously, such movement processes determine aspects of the distribution of an element: an element which can be moved from one position to another must be able to occupy both positions. Turning this the other way round, something which moves has a certain distribution and we know that anything that has a distribution is a constituent.

2.3.2 Movement

Obviously, such movement processes determine aspects of the distribution of an element: an element which can be moved from one position to another must be able to occupy both positions. Turning this the other way round, something which moves has a certain distribution and we know that anything that has a distribution is a constituent.

2.3.3 Coordination

There are other phenomena besides distribution that can also be used to support structural analyses. One of these involves coordination. This is a device used in language to take two elements and put them together to form a single element. This coordinated element then acts like the two coordinated elements would have individually. For example, we can take two nouns, say Bill and Ben, and we can coordinate them into a single element Bill and Ben. This coordinated element behaves exactly like each of the nouns in that it can appear as subject, object, object of a preposition or topic in a sentence:

2.3.4 Single-word phrases

There is an important point we should make before finishing this chapter. We have claimed that elements which have the same distribution have the same categorial status. We have also seen cases where phrases can be replaced by a single word. This leads us to the conclusion that these words have the status of the phrases they replace. This might sound contradictory, but it is not. The fact is that phrases can consist of one or more words. Thus, while smile is a verb, it is also a VP in the following sentence:

3.1.2 Endocentricity

In other words, a preposition phrase which behaves as an adverbial phrase is an adverb phrase headed by the preposition. Clearly this is something that would not be allowed by the X-bar rules in (1). Evidence favours the X-bar perspective and there is no reason to believe that just because something functions adverbially it is categorially the same as an adverb. For example, even when PPs are used adverbially, they still have different distributions to AP:

3.1.5.1 Adjunction to X-bar

The bracketed elements in (32a) and (b) have the same distribution and hence we can conclude they have the same categorial status. As this phrase in (32b) contains only a noun, we conclude that it is an NP. In (32c) however, the phrase following the determiner contains only an adjective and is ungrammatical. This clearly has a different distribution to the other two phrases, indicating that the adjective in (32a) is not the head of this phrase.

3.2.2.1 D-structure and Theta Theory

Let us consider the nature of D- and S-structure a little more closely. An obvious question is why it is that some elements start off in one position and then move to another. To answer this question we have to ask about why elements occupy the positions they do at any level of description. This is a matter of distribution: there are grammatical principles which determine the range of possible positions of categories of certain types. X-bar principles obviously have a large role to play in this, determining head, complement, specifier and adjunction positions. But as both D- and S-structures conform to X-bar principles, this clearly is not what differentiates the two. Obviously there must be other grammatical principles holding at D-structure which are not applicable at S-structure and vice versa.

3.2.2.1 D-structure and Theta Theory

Where can a predicate assign its Θ-roles to? If there were no restrictions on this then arguments would not have distributions at D-structure as they could appear anywhere. We are assuming that this is not so and hence there must be conditions which determine where Θ-roles can be assigned. One fairly clear condition on Θ-role assignment that can be seen in (64) is that Θ-roles are not assigned over long distances. For an argument to receive a Θ-role from a predicate it must be close to it. We can see this from the fact that the following sentence has just one interpretation:

3.2.2.1 D-structure and Theta Theory

We have now reviewed three simple and basic principles which regulate the assignment of Θ-roles within a structure: the Locality Condition on Theta-role Assignment, the UTAH and the Theta Criterion. All of these apply to D-structures, restricting the distribution of arguments at this level of representation. Collectively, the principles which govern Θ-role assignment are often referred to as Theta Theory and this can be considered as a part of the grammar, similar to the principles of X-bar theory which regulate the general formation of structures. A final important contributor to the well-formedness conditions of D-structure is the lexicon which provides structures with categorial information and Theta theory with the Θ-roles to be assigned. We might represent this in the following way:

3.2.2.2 S-structure and Case Theory

So far we have looked at some of the principles governing the distribution of arguments at D-structure. In order to understand movement we must now consider some of the principles that apply at S-structure which determine the distribution of arguments at this level.

3.2.2.2 S-structure and Case Theory

While Theta theory accounts for the distribution of arguments at D-structure, it is the principles of Case theory that account for the distribution of DP arguments at S-structure.

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

The first consists of a determiner and a noun, which we have so far been describing as a head followed by its complement, in the usual English pattern. The second a pronoun, and we have claimed that pronouns are ‘intransitive’ determiners, i.e. determiners without an NP complement. The third consists of just a proper noun and the last just a plural count noun. These last two examples are puzzling: how can they be considered as DPs when they contain no determiner? Perhaps these are not DPs at all, but simply NPs. But if this is true, as all the examples in (1) have the same distribution, they must all be considered NPs. Thus, the pronoun should be categorised as a noun and the determiner in (1a) is not the head of the phrase, but some other element within the NP, perhaps an adjunct or a specifier (it is on the wrong side to be considered a complement).

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

In these cases, as in those above, the preposition does contribute something to the meaning of the phrase, though it is not clear that this should be seen as the most important aspect of the meaning of the whole phrase. Indeed London and tunnel seem to contribute just as important, if not more important information. However, it would not make sense to claim that the nouns are the heads of these phrases as they are clearly not NPs, not having the distribution of NPs:

4.2.2 The Specifier of the DP

This solves all the previous distribution problems, but places the pronominal possessor in a different structural position to all other possessors, which makes their similar interpretations difficult to account for. Moreover, (54) is not likely to be the correct analysis for semantic reasons. The reference of the possessor is obviously different to the reference of the whole DP: the pronoun refers to a person (i.e. you) whereas the DP refers to a mistake. But if the pronoun is the head of the DP, how could it have a reference that differed from the DP? It seems that there is no perfect solution to these problems from our present understanding of the internal organisation of the DP and we will therefore have to wait for further developments to make progress in this matter.

5.1 Event Structure and Aspect

While this is a very interesting and complex part of the description of the semantics of English verbal complexes, we will not have very much to say about it in this book, as we are mainly interested in syntax and in semantics only inasmuch as it has an effect on the syntactic organisation of an expression. For us, the main interest in grammatical aspect is to do with the appearance of the auxiliary verbs and their syntactic distributions and properties.

5.3.2 The nature of the aspectual morpheme

With these assumptions then we can successfully account for the distribution of the aspectual elements in the English clause. We will provide more detail of the upper part of the clause structure including the tense and clausal subject position in the next chapter.

5.4.2 PP modifiers

The other main modifier in the VP is the PP. This differs from the AP modifier in its distribution in that it always follows the verb. Thus a PP modifier has a far more restricted distribution than an adverbial one:

6.1 The structure of IP

These data not only suggest that there is a difference between finite and non-finite clauses, but also that the infinitive and the participles have a different status, perhaps indicating that while the infinitive has an IP status, the participles are really vPs. The main point is, however, that different clauses distribute differently and this correlates with which inflectional element they contain. All this adds up to the conclusion that the inflection does behave like a head in that it projects its properties to the whole construction and as we saw in chapter 2 it is heads that do this.

7.3.1 Basic positions within the CP

Apart from (18a) where the wh-element replaces the subject, all other instances of wh-questions involve the wh-element being in front of the subject. Given that the subject’s surface position is the specifier of the IP, this indicates that the wh-element sits in a position outside the IP. Above the IP is the CP, so we may assume that the wh-element is situated in the CP. As wh-elements are phrases, probably DPs, though some of them have underlying distributions similar to PPs and therefore are either PPs or perhaps DPs non-canonically realising the prepositional role, they must occupy a phrasal position in the CP and the most obvious choice would be the specifier of the CP:

7.3.2 Wh-movement

The main issue to be discussed is why wh-elements move to the specifier of the CP. We have seen that movement of DPs to the specifier of IP is motivated by the need to circumvent the actions of the Case filter. But this cannot be the motivation for wh-movements. This can be argued for from a number of perspectives. First note that wh-movement does not always involve DPs, unlike movements to spec IP. As the Case filter concerns only the distribution of DPs, it cannot be the motivation for all wh-movements and there must be another reason for why non-DP wh-elements, at least, undergo the process. Moreover, the Case filter cannot be the motivation for DP wh-elements moving to spec CP. This is because DP wh-elements move to spec CP from Case positions:

7.3.2 Wh-movement

There seem to be two interrelated motivations for wh-movement, one concerning the interpretation of the clause, and one concerning the interpretation of the wh-element itself. Let’s start with the clause. Obviously clauses are either interpreted as questions or not. Moreover, in embedded contexts the distribution of a clause will depend on its force as some verbs require an interrogative complement while others require a declarative one:

7.3.5 Subject questions

To conclude this section. It seems that the distribution of elements in an English sentence is partly due to structural conditions imposed by X-bar theory and the selectional requirements of certain heads, partly due to the morphological properties of certain heads and partly due to general ordering requirements affecting certain elements. Specifically we have seen the effects of the following conditions:

7.4.1 The position of the relative clause inside the NP

Having established the external distribution of the relative clause, let us move on to look at some of its internal properties.

7.5.1 Topicalisation

Conditional clauses also have a similar distribution and hence we might claim that they are CP and IP adjuncts:

7.5.3 Negative fronting

We can account for the distribution of the topic if we suggest that it adjoins to the highest phrase that it can. In main clauses the topic can adjoin to the CP and therefore as this is the highest phrase, this is where the topic will adjoin. In embedded contexts, something prevents the topic from adjoining so high up. Perhaps there has to be a relationship between the selecting verb and the head of its complement clause, i.e. the complementiser, that the presence of the topic interferes with. In this case then the topic will have to adjoin lower down: to iP, if present, and if not, to IP.

7.5.3 Negative fronting

With these structures in place we now have room for all fronted elements in English including wh-elements, topics, foci and fronted negatives and the inverted auxiliaries that accompany them. We have not accounted for why there is complementary distribution between elements that move to spec iP and wh-elements. This may be a semantic incompatibility rather than a matter of syntactic distribution, as suggested by the fact that this seems more of a universal restriction rather than something restricted to English. Alternatively, it may have something to do with the locality of movement in that if iP is present a wh-element is prevented from moving to spec CP. I will not attempt to sort these issues out here.

8.2.2 Control

Let us now turn to the other non-finite clause with an apparently missing subject, in which there is in fact a phonologically empty pronoun. There are a number of interesting points to be made about this element. The first is that although it is obviously a DP, it has a much more limited distribution than normal DPs. The other matters of interest concerning the empty pronoun PRO are the limitations on its referential properties, as it does not appear to behave like other pronouns in this respect. We will consider these points separately.

8.2.2 Control

However, this conclusion is problematic both conceptually and empirically. On conceptual grounds, it is odd to say the least that there should be a principle stating that all DPs must have Case and then to find out that there is one DP that not only does this not apply to, but exactly the opposite holds of it and it cannot have Case. The empirical issue is that the assumption does not account completely for the distribution of PRO as there are places which are not Case marked, and so could not support an overt DP, but in which PRO cannot appear either. One such place is the subject position of the non-finite complement clause of a raising verb or a passive verb:

8.2.2 Control

In general, the antecedent has to be structurally above the pronoun. Let us call a structurally superior antecedent a binder. The principles involved in determining the distribution of pronouns can be stated as follows:

8.3 The Gerund

As we see in (83) a possessor is allowed. Whatever the status of the possessive marker ‘’s’, possessors are elements which are confined to DP specifier position and hence the whole construction would appear to be a DP. This is further confirmed by the distribution facts concerning the construction. Note that the gerund in (83) serves as the complement of a preposition. In general prepositions take DP complements and they certainly do not take VP complements. Prepositions do not even easily take clausal complements: