The Syntax of the English Simple Sentence

The Syntax of the English Simple Sentence

II Applied Modern Languages

Course instructor: Daria Protopopescu

Contact: dariaprotopopescu@yahoo.com

Lecture 1

The Syntax of Simple Sentences - Introduction

Lexical and Functional Categories

Lexical categories = open classes of words that have descriptive content (Nouns, Adjectives/Adverbs, Prepositions, Verbs).

• They contain an infinite number of members, new ones can always be added to such classes.
• both categorial selection and semantic selection operate on lexical categories
• are assigned theta-roles (Nouns) or are theta-role assigners (Verbs, Prepositions)
• are assigned case (Nouns) or are case assigners (Verbs, Prepositions)
• can license an argument (Verbs) or can be licensed as an argument (Nouns) (= Nouns are always arguments of Verbs)

Functional categories = closed sets; no new members can be added

• Do not have descriptive content, they are semantically abstract. They serve to express certain morpho-syntactic features that are not expressed by the lexical category they combine with.
• They always select the same type of argument (they exhibit only categorial selection. E.g. Inflection always selects a Verb Phrase, Determiners always select a Noun.)
• They are the locus of grammatical information. Parametric variation affects only functional categories.
• Do not assign theta-roles (thematic roles).
• Determiners (definite and indefinite articles, demonstratives, the Genitive possessive marker ’s, cardinal numbers, possessives, pronouns) for Nouns, Degree words (-er, -est, more, most, than) for adjectives/adverbs; tense, aspect, agreement, inflection, mood, complementizers (that, whether, for-to) for verbs.

The Auxiliary

• auxiliaries are a functional category.
• auxiliaries are base-generated in a pre-verbal position, to the left of the verb.
• auxiliaries lack an event structure; do not assign a theta-role
• auxiliaries move (raise) to Inflection, while lexical verbs do not move in English, they remain inside the Verb Phrase
• Two classes of auxiliaries in English: lexical and modal auxiliaries:

• Lexical auxiliaries: (1) perfective aspect: HAVE-EN; (2) progressive aspect: BE-ING, (3) DO which supports the tense affix or negation in negative, interrogative but also emphatic contexts.
• Modal auxiliaries: all modal verbs (must, can, could, may, might, will, shall, would, should, dare)

• The NICE properties (Negation, Interrogation, Codas, Emphatic contexts)
• auxiliaries can be directly negated by NOT;

(e.g.) She does not sing. She doesn’t sing.

• they can invert with the Subject in question formation.

(e.g.) Did Mary wash the dishes? (SAI = Subject-Auxiliary-Inversion)

• auxiliaries occur in tag questions (Codas)

(e.g.) He didn’t mean it, did he?

• auxiliaries occur in emphatic contexts.

(e.g.) I DO believe that you are a fool. / He DID say he would be late so you should not be angry.

• Modal verbs are base-generated under Inflection together with Tense and Agreement, but they always precede other lexical auxiliaries.

(e.g.) He might have been reading a book.

• DO is devoid of any meaning. It appears as a Last Resort. It is a support for the negative or the Tense affix.

The formula of the English auxiliary

[Tense^(Modal)^(have-en)^(be-ing)]Inflection^bare lexical verb

(e.g.) He might have been reading a book.

T = -ed (past) - M = may - Perfective asp = Have  -en - Progressive asp = Be-ing - verb = read

                                                                                                     [pic 1][pic 2][pic 3][pic 4][pic 5][pic 6][pic 7][pic 8]

                might                                  have                been                        reading[pic 9]

The tense affix hops over the first auxiliary it encounters and attaches to it by means of an operation labeled Affix Hopping. All the auxiliaries that appear in between brackets in the formula are optional which means that only Tense is obligatory in the Inflection cluster.

Attention!!! Since this is a set formula which shows how auxiliaries correctly combine in English, other combinations, and therefore aberrant verb forms are rules out.

        (e.g.) *He may had been reading a book.

This example is grammatically incorrect because the first auxiliary that the tense affix encounters is may, have is the second, therefore the past tense affix –ed cannot attach to auxiliary have.

Argument Structure - Theta Theory

The intuitive idea of participants in an activity has been formalized in terms of the general notion of argument structure and of the notion of thematic structure.

Generally speaking, verbs have an argument structure, based on the structure of the event denoted by the verb. The structure of this event determines the structure and the meaning of the sentence. The argument structure of a verb determines which constituents of a sentence are obligatory. The obligatory constituents are called complements, while the non-obligatory ones are called adjuncts.