Basic English Syntax with Exercises

subcategory

1.2.4 Distribution

What (22) indicates is that the positions we are considering here are both verb positions, and hence a noun cannot occupy them. Yet some verbs can occupy one of these positions and other verbs can occupy the other. This suggests that there are different types of verb, what we might call subcategories of the category verb. If this is right, we would expect that the set of possible verbal positions would be divided up between the different verbal subcategories so that the positions in which one can appear in are those in which the others cannot. In other words, different subcategories will have complementary distributions. This indeed seems to be true, as (20) and (21) indicate.

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:

1.3.4.1 Verbs

There is no traditional term specifically for predicates with sentential complements, but generative grammar has not felt the need to invent one as the subcategorisation frame serves to distinguish between the different subcategories of verbs.

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:

1.3.4.2 Nouns

For some reason then, it seems that the whole class of nouns fails to have nominal complements and thus they differ from verbs in this way (we will see later on in this book there is an explanation for this observation). However, other than this, nouns can take any other kind of complement and as such we can propose that they subcategorise in the same way as verbs do, by the inclusion of a subcategorisation frame in their lexical entries.

4.2.1 Determiners and Complements

We have already seen two subcategories of determiner: those which take NP complements and those which take no complement. There are also determiners which take optional NP complements:

5.2 Verb Types

Obviously, the Verb Phrase revolves around the head verb, the head being the central element of any phrase. Not only does the head project its categorial properties to the phrase, but also by restrictive selection it determines the categorial nature of its complements. Thematic heads also impose restrictions on arguments by assigning Θ-roles to them. The arguments of a thematic head, such as a verb, will appear either in complement or specifier positions according to the principles of Θ-role assignment detailed in chapter 2. It follows therefore that the lexical properties of individual verbs will play a large role in determining the structure of particular VPs. We will organise this central section of this chapter by focussing on different subcategories of verbs, starting with those that have the simplest lexical specifications.

5.2.4 Transitive verbs

It is time we turned our attention to those verbs that traditional grammars seem to consider more central: transitive and intransitive verbs. What we have said so far has far reaching repercussions for the analysis of these verbal subcategories. We will start discussing these with respect to the transitives.