Basic English Syntax with Exercises

phonologically empty

3.1.2 Endocentricity

However, such expressions have a special status and there is more to them than appears at the surface. The sentence in (13) is an imperative construction in which there appears to be no subject. However it is fairly clear that there is a definite subject understood in this sentence: you! An imperative cannot be interpreted as a command given to some third person and must be interpreted as directed towards the addressee. The question is then, what is the status of the subject of such sentences: are they only ‘understood’, present at some semantic level or are they merely ‘unpronounced’ though present at the grammatical level?

3.1.2 Endocentricity

There is reason to believe that language makes much use of unpronounced elements that are nonetheless present grammatically and we will see many examples of such things in the following pages. One argument to support the assumption of an unpronounced subject in (13) comes from observations concerning the behaviour of reflexive pronouns such as himself. Unlike other pronouns, reflexives must refer to something else in the same sentence:

3.1.2 Endocentricity

As we see from (15), a by phrase containing a reflexive is interpreted to mean ‘unaccompanied’. In (15a), the reflexive refers to Pete and so it means that he was unaccompanied in eating the pie. In contrast, in (15b) the reflexive refers to the pie and so it means that the pie was unaccompanied (by ice cream for example) when Pete ate it. (16a) is grammatical even though there is no apparent antecedent for the reflexive. It is not surprising that the reflexive should be yourself however, as, as we have said, the understood subject of an imperative is you. Yet we cannot simply say that the antecedent ‘being understood’ is enough to satisfy the requirements of the reflexive as (16c) is ungrammatical. In this case the object is absent, though it is clearly understood that something was eaten in (16b). But this understanding is not enough to license the use of the reflexive in this case. So we conclude that the missing subject in (16a) is different from the missing object in (16c) and in particular that the missing subject has a more definite presence than the missing object. This would be so if the missing subject were present as an unpronounced grammatical entity while the missing object is absent grammatically and present only at the semantic level. In conclusion then, while imperatives might look like VP clauses which lack subjects, they are in fact full clauses with unpronounced subjects.

3.2.3 Traces

We can get some understanding of this situation if we make the following assumption: when an element moves, it leaves behind a copy of itself in the extraction site. This copy is called a trace and is envisaged to be identical to the moved element in terms of its grammatical and semantic properties. Thus the category of the trace, its role in the thematic structure of the sentence and its referential properties are the same as the moved element. The main way in which the trace differs from the moved element is that the trace has no phonological content and hence is unpronounced. We have already considered the possibility of phonologically empty but grammatically active elements when we discussed imperatives at the beginning of this chapter. A trace is another such element.

3.2.3 Traces

We can get some understanding of this situation if we make the following assumption: when an element moves, it leaves behind a copy of itself in the extraction site. This copy is called a trace and is envisaged to be identical to the moved element in terms of its grammatical and semantic properties. Thus the category of the trace, its role in the thematic structure of the sentence and its referential properties are the same as the moved element. The main way in which the trace differs from the moved element is that the trace has no phonological content and hence is unpronounced. We have already considered the possibility of phonologically empty but grammatically active elements when we discussed imperatives at the beginning of this chapter. A trace is another such element.

4.1 Why the Noun is not the Head of the DP

There is a way to solve the problem, either way, which involves a slightly more abstract analysis. Suppose the phrases in question do have heads, but they are unpronounced. The idea of an unpronounced, phonologically ‘empty’ element has been made use of several times already in this book. For example as the understood subject of an imperative or as the trace left behind by a movement. So the idea is not without precedence. Making use of this idea, we have two opposing analyses:

4.2.2 The Specifier of the DP

There are a number of possible solutions we might suppose. One is to assume that the possessive determiner is present with pronoun possessors, but remains unpronounced. This is supported by the fact that, as with all other possessors, no other determiner can appear with a pronoun possessor:

4.2.2 The Specifier of the DP

If nothing is in the determiner position, these observations would be hard to account for. We then have to assume that for some reason when the possessor is a pronoun, the possessive determiner is unpronounced and when it is a non-pronoun it gets pronounced as ‘’s’. As far as I know there is no explanation as to why this should be and so it remains as a descriptive statement at present.

4.2.2 The Specifier of the DP

An alternative would be to claim that the possessive determiner is always unpronounced and hence that the ‘’s’ morpheme is not a realisation of this determiner at all. Instead it is a marker of possession, which pronouns do not need as they have a genitive form to demonstrate their status as possessors. The problem with this is that it is tantamount to claiming that the ‘’s’ morpheme really is a Case morpheme after all, despite it not behaving like one.

4.3 Multiple Determiners

The only difference between pre-determiners and other determiners is that when they appear in front of a DP the pre-determiner has an optional of whereas this is obligatory with other types of determiner. The fact that we can have a post-determiner in this position is interesting. We have stated that these come in specifier of NP, but where is the NP in (67c) that the post-determiner is in the specifier of? If there is an NP in this structure the head of which cannot be seen, it seems that we are forced to assume that this head is an unpronounced empty category and therefore the structure must be something like the following:

7.1 The structure of CP

One possible analysis, which we will argue in favour of a little later, is that when there is no overt complementiser, there is an phonologically empty complementiser. This possibility then raises the question of what is being coordinated in (2b): is it just the IP, as we claimed, or an IP with an empty complementiser?:

7.2 The Clause as CP

But while there are many verbs which take clausal complements both with or without a complementiser, it is doubtful whether the other predicted verb types exist. It seems that we have to accept a generalisation that if a verb selects for a declarative finite IP complement, it also selects for a declarative finite CP complement. It is not easy to think how we can explain this generalisation when stated in this way. There is another possible view, however. This sees all these complements as being CPs, but sometimes the complementiser is filled with an overt that and sometimes it is filled by an unpronounced complementiser:

8.2 Raising and Control

The answer to all these problems is that the non-finite clauses in question do not lack subjects at all, they simply do not have pronounced subjects. One argument in favour of this assumption is that in different non-finite clauses there may be different types of unpronounced subjects. The argument is that one absent subject ought to be exactly the same as another absent subject and only if they are present could they possibly differ from each other. To see how these subjects differ from each other, consider the following facts:

8.2 Raising and Control

Summarising, the dependent type of missing subject shares a Θ-role with its antecedent and is fairly restricted in its referential properties, always being below its antecedent which is a subject in the immediately higher clause. The independent missing subject has its own theta role and demonstrates far more flexible referential properties. Its antecedent can be a subject or object, higher or lower, close by or more distant, given the right circumstances. If the missing subjects in both cases were the result of an absence rather than a presence of something unpronounced, it would be rather difficult to account for these differences. If there really is something in these positions, then the evidence suggests that there they come in different types which have different properties.

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.