Basic English Syntax with Exercises

embedded clause

1.3.5.1 Inflections

Finally, finite clauses can stand as the main sentence, in which other embedded sentences can appear. A non-finite clause is always an embedded clause:

1.3.5.1 Inflections

Finally, finite clauses can stand as the main sentence, in which other embedded sentences can appear. A non-finite clause is always an embedded clause:

2.1.1 The building blocks of sentences

Indeed, there would be no point in adding limitations to the grammar to make it fit with these other limitations. For example, suppose we determined that sentences with more than 9 other sentences embedded in them go beyond the human mental capacity to process (it is clear that it would be virtually impossible to come up with a definite number which was applicable to all humans on all occasions – when I get up in the morning, for example, my capacity to process sentences seems to be limited to one! – but for the sake of the argument let us assume this number). Let us pretend, nonetheless, that the grammar is limited to producing only 9 or less embedded sentences. This would be an extra complication to the grammatical system as it adds a limitation to it. Yet the situation would be exactly the same if we did not add the limitation: humans would still be able to process sentences with 9 or fewer embedded sentences, because of their mental restrictions, no matter what the grammar was capable of defining as grammatical. So the extra complication to the grammar would achieve nothing and we would be better off not adding it and keeping things simpler. Moreover, why would we want to make the grammar explain facts that had nothing to do with it: it would be like trying to get the laws of gravity to explain why red balls fall to the ground at the same speed as blue ones do.

2.1.1 The building blocks of sentences

Indeed, there would be no point in adding limitations to the grammar to make it fit with these other limitations. For example, suppose we determined that sentences with more than 9 other sentences embedded in them go beyond the human mental capacity to process (it is clear that it would be virtually impossible to come up with a definite number which was applicable to all humans on all occasions – when I get up in the morning, for example, my capacity to process sentences seems to be limited to one! – but for the sake of the argument let us assume this number). Let us pretend, nonetheless, that the grammar is limited to producing only 9 or less embedded sentences. This would be an extra complication to the grammatical system as it adds a limitation to it. Yet the situation would be exactly the same if we did not add the limitation: humans would still be able to process sentences with 9 or fewer embedded sentences, because of their mental restrictions, no matter what the grammar was capable of defining as grammatical. So the extra complication to the grammar would achieve nothing and we would be better off not adding it and keeping things simpler. Moreover, why would we want to make the grammar explain facts that had nothing to do with it: it would be like trying to get the laws of gravity to explain why red balls fall to the ground at the same speed as blue ones do.

2.1.5 Structural terminology

Admittedly, it is harder to see the structure of a sentence when represented with brackets than with a tree, as it takes some working out which open brackets go along with which close bracket. However, bracketings are a lot more convenient to use, especially if we only want to concentrate on certain aspects of a structure. So, for example, above we represented an embedded sentence using brackets:

3.2.2.2 S-structure and Case Theory

In (84a) the clause is finite as tense is marked on the auxiliary verb. The subject he is in the nominative form, not the accusative him. However, the object of the verb help, her, is in the accusative not the nominative she. In (84b), while the main clause is finite and has a nominative subject, I, the embedded clause is non-finite. This clause has an accusative subject him. The object of the preposition in this clause is also accusative, us.

6.1 The structure of IP

In the previous chapter, we analysed the morphemes in (5b) and (c) as light verbs heading a vP and so the status of the embedded ‘clauses’ in these examples is unclear at the moment: they may be clauses (i.e. IPs) or they may be simple vPs. We will not attempt to deal with this issue here, returning to it in a later chapter. But there are some similarities between these clauses and the infinitival clause in (5a) which are useful to consider. Traditionally, those clauses containing a finite inflection are called finite clauses and those containing a non-finite inflection are non-finite clauses. Thus the relationship between the inflection and the clauses has been long acknowledged. I suspect that the relative semantic unimportance of inflections and the lack of recognition of their syntactic importance have contributed to the fact that traditional grammars have failed to recognise them as heads.

6.1 The structure of IP

It is important to realise that there are differences between clauses headed by finite inflections and those headed by non-finite inflections to see that inflections really do have a contribution to make to the clause. To start, clauses headed by a finite inflection can be main clauses and do not have to be embedded, though they may be:

6.1 The structure of IP

In contrast, clauses headed by non-finite inflections are always embedded:

6.2.3 Tense and Agreement

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:

6.3 Movement to Spec IP

The word order within the embedded clause shows that the subject does not get Case in its original position and that like any other subject, it has to move to get Case in the subject position of the IP. Considering where a light verb can assign Case to, i.e. the specifier of its own VP complement, and where it cannot assign Case to, i.e. the specifier of a VP inside another clause, it is obvious that there is some locality restriction on Case assignment in addition to the directional one. We are not yet in a position to be able to determine the exact nature of this locality condition and so for now we will just assume that a light verb can only Case mark elements within its own clause.

7.1 The structure of CP

The embedded clause in (10a) is interrogative as it can act as the complement of the verb wonder and this subcategorises for interrogative complements. The clause in (10b) is declarative as it can act as the complement of the verb think which subcategorises for declarative clauses. But the only difference between the two clauses lies with the complementisers. The IP in both cases is identical. This would suggest that the interrogative/declarative nature of the clause is fixed by the complementiser and not by anything inside the IP. In other words, it is the complementiser that provides the force of the sentence. As it is heads that provide the properties of the structures they head, this demonstrates that complementisers do have a head-like status within the clause.

7.2 The Clause as CP

What is the status of the clause when there is no complementiser? One possibility is that when there is no complementiser there is no CP and hence a clause without a complementiser has the status of an IP. For embedded clauses this is a problematic conclusion as it means that the verbs which select for such clauses must be able to take IP or CP complements. In other words, they subcategorise for a complement with the features [+F, –N]. But if this is so, we would predict that there should be verbs that select for only CP complements, i.e. complements with [+F, –N, –V] features, and those that select for only IP complements, with [+F, –N, +V] features.

7.3.2 Wh-movement

In the examples in (28) the force of the embedded clauses is obviously determined by the complementiser, as would be expected. However, in the following, it seems that the force of the clause is determined by the wh-element in specifier positions:

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

This all seems fairly straightforward. Unfortunately things are a little more complex and it appears that we do not always get inversion in question clauses. One place where we find that inversion doesn’t happen is in embedded questions:

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

Note, however, these two sentences have very different meanings. In the first case the embedded question reports on the ‘content’ of the question that was asked. The question might not have been framed in these exact words, or even in English! In contrast, in the second case the embedded clause reports on the words that were actually used. Thus in the second case, the embedded clause actually echoes a previous sentence that has been uttered. When it was uttered, obviously this sentence was not an embedded clause but a main one, and hence it is not surprising that it follows the pattern of a main clause. Therefore, (49b) isn’t really an example of an embedded clause with inversion but it involves something that is a main clause, seemingly being used in an embedded context. The conclusion is that in real embedded clauses we don’t get inversion.

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

But this is a puzzle. Why do we not get inversion in an embedded interrogative? If the account of why we get inversion in main clauses is as we have so far suggested, then we must conclude that the question complementiser either does not need binding in an embedded clause, or that it is bound by some other element. For example, we might assume that the question complementiser in an embedded clause is not the same complementiser that appears in the main clause. We know that we do not get the kinds of overt complementisers that introduce embedded clauses in main clauses:

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

However, we have also claimed that main clauses are CPs and so have complementisers introducing them. Therefore there seems to be a distinction between main clause and embedded clause complementisers. If this is so, then we might claim that the main clause interrogative complementiser differs from the embedded interrogative clause complementiser in that the former is a bound morpheme while the latter is not:

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

A second proposal claims that the difference between main and embedded clauses is that while complementisers are allowed in embedded clauses they are not in main clauses. Thus, a main clause interrogative actually lacks an interrogative in the C position, which is therefore underlyingly empty. An embedded clause on the other hand differs in two ways from a main clause: complementisers are allowed in embedded clauses and the clause itself is selected as a complement by some predicate. We have seen how a predicate imposes selectional restrictions on its clausal complements and those predicates which take an interrogative complement will demand that the CP be marked as interrogative. The way to mark a clause as interrogative is to give it an interrogative head and this can either be overt, i.e. if or covert, i.e. Q:

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

While this analysis seems less ad hoc than the assumption of different interrogative complementisers in main and embedded clauses, there are still a number of questions left unanswered. For example, how are we to analyse yes–no questions under the assumption that complementisers are not allowed in main clause complementiser positions? What triggers the inversion in this case if there is no wh-element to agree with? The answer might be that there is a wh-like element in yes–no questions. Although we do not get inversion type yes–no questions in embedded clauses, for obvious reasons, it is still possible to have an embedded yes–no question. These are typically expressed by the element whether:

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

If we were to put the content of this embedded clause into a main clause it would be should I bring some wine, i.e. a yes–no question. Thus, (54) contains an embedded yes–no question. The wh-element whether is quite strange. In many ways it looks like a complementiser, being a word that appears at the front of an interrogative clause, rather like if. However, there are a number of reasons to believe that whether is not a complementiser. For one thing, it can introduce both finite and non-finite clauses:

7.3.4 The interaction between wh-movement and inversion

A final issue we might mention in connection with this analysis concerns the embedded clauses. If embedded questions can have complementisers as well as wh-elements in their specifier positions, why do we never get them together?:

7.4 Relative Clauses

There is another construction in English which looks like an embedded interrogative clause, but which is very different in interpretation. This clause acts as the modifier of the noun inside the DP:

7.5.1 Topicalisation

Thus it seems that there are two topic positions in the clause, one adjoined to the CP and one adjoined to the IP. The choice of the two is not free however as it is only in main clauses that the topic can adjoin to the CP and only in embedded clauses that the topic can adjoin to IP:

7.5.1 Topicalisation

Thus, the relevant structures for topicalisation in main and embedded clauses is as follows:

7.5.2 Focus fronting

115) might be used in response to someone asking ‘who would trust women?’, with the meaning that it’s men who are untrustworthy, not women. However, this complementary distribution between foci and wh-elements should not lead us to assume that the focus sits in the specifier of the CP. We can see this from the fact that in embedded clauses the focus, like the topic, follows the complementiser:

7.5.3 Negative fronting

The difference however, between the fronted focus and the fronted negative is that the latter induces inversion to ‘i’, while the former does not. Referring back to the difference between wh-movement that triggers inversion and wh-movement that does not, we proposed that inversion is triggered when there is no head to agree with. In embedded interrogatives the complementiser position could be filled and hence there will be no inversion. If we project these ideas on to the current situation, we conclude that with focus the i head is filled by some abstract element but with negative fronting the head position is unfilled. We know that the negative head is a verbal element of the category ‘v’ and so it cannot be generated directly in i. The only way for the negative head to get to i is for it to move and yet we know that the negative is not able to move to I to support the inflection in English, as it is in Finnish. Thus, there is no way for the negative head to get to i and hence when a negative element moves to the specifier of iP it will induce inversion to provide a head for it.

8.1.1 Clauses without CP

One difference between the finite embedded clause and the non-finite one is that the former has a nominative subject and the latter an accusative one. We saw in chapter 5 how the finite inflection is responsible for assigning nominative Case to its specifier. A relevant question is where the accusative Case of the non-finite subject comes from: does the non-finite inflection assign accusative Case? The answer would appear to be no because not all infinitival clauses can have an accusative subject, and if the non-finite inflection were able to assign accusative Case, we would expect an accusative subject to be a permanent possibility, just like the nominative subject is always possible in a finite clause:

8.2.1 Raising

A first issue to decide on is whether the embedded clause has the status of a CP or an IP. We saw in the previous section that some verbs select for IP non-finite complement clauses while others do not. The question we need to answer, then, is whether verbs like seem are exceptional verbs or not. There is reason to believe that these verbs are exceptional, as they never take a non-finite complement with a for complementiser:

8.2.1 Raising

It is important to realise that, as the verb has no subject of its own, there will be no light verb to assign a Θ-role to the subject. As we know, it is the light verb which is responsible for assigning Case and hence as there is no light verb, there will be no Case assigned. The subject of the embedded clause also cannot receive Case from inside this clause as the inflection is non-finite and non-finite I does not assign Case. Thus, we can conclude that, despite the exceptional status of the embedded clause, its subject will not be assigned Case and if it remains in this position it will violate the Case Filter. Raising this subject to the next clause satisfies the Case Filter as it can get Case from the finite I of this clause:

8.2.1 Raising

Next, consider the restrictions on the movement shown in (52b) and (c). The subject of the embedded clause cannot undergo raising if it is in a finite clause, or in an object position. In both of these cases, the DP is sitting in a Case position, therefore regardless of any other restriction, there would be little point in it moving to the specifier of the higher clause as once it has satisfied the Case Filter, it does not need to do so again. We might assume a kind of laziness to the system (some call it ‘economy’) such that if something doesn’t need to happen, it will not happen. If the clause is finite and hence the subject gets nominative from the finite inflection, then the higher subject position will be unfilled. It is under these circumstances that the EPP will force the insertion of a pleonastic subject: