Linguistics 522

Linguistics 522

Final Package

  1. Final: Part I
  2. Final: Part II
  3. Chapter 14 notes
  4. German head movement (V2) review

    Everything
    has complements     		 

    Every category can have complements. For example:

      Adjectival complement
      Noun Complement

    Have and be are verbs that take special complements, VP complements:

      Complement of be
      Complement of have
      Complement of have (another)

Arguments distinguishing Control from Raising

Funny
Subjects

There is a class of subjects with very special distributions, which can occur with exceptional clause verbs. First we have special occurrences of it and there which are non-referential:

  1. There is a Santa Claus.
  2. Santa Claus exists.
  3. It was obvious that she was embarassed.
  4. That she was embarassed was obvious.
  5. It was raining/hailing/dark/wet/cold (out).[Weather it]
  6. It was blue (*out). [NOT weather it]
The it in (1) does not have an antecedent. The sentence is really a paraphrase of (2); we say the it functions as an expletive, satisfying a syntactic requirement of English that all finite clauses have overt subjects, even when that subject contributes nothing to the semantics. Something similar seems to be going on in (3), which has (4) as a paraphrase.

English also has a number of fixed or idiomatic expressions in which the subjects have a very unusual meaning.

  1. The cat is out of the bag. [ a secret is out.]
  2. The chips were down. [The crisis had arrived.]
  3. The shit hit the fan. [The consequences began to grow very complicated.]
  4. The chickens came home to roost. [Because of past actions which were unfair or evil, bad things began to happen.]

Having established the existence of these special subjects, we note their occurrence after expect

  1. Dummy it and there:
    • We expect it to be obvious that there is a hazard.
    • We expect it to rain tomorrow.
    • We expect there to be a school dance.
  2. Idiom chunks:
    • We expect all the chips to be down in the fourth quarter.
    • We expect the cat to be out of the bag by then.
    • We expect a few chickens to come home to roost in any close election.
    If nonreferential it and the chips were direct objects in these examples, as they would be in PRO analysis of this construction, we would expect these sentences all to be anomalous, because these peculiar ("funny") noun phrases do not occur as subjects of the constructions they are restricted to.

    NOte: Always be sure the downstairs clause actually REQUIRES a funny subject:

    1. BAD: It is anxious to go home. [It goes home: Not an expletive it.]
    2. GOOD: It is anxious to rain. [It rains: an expletive it.]
Passive
argument

The following two sentences are near synonyms:

  • We expect the doctor to examine Mary.
  • We expect Mary to be examined by the doctor.
If Mary and the doctor were direct objects, as they would be in a PRO analysis of this construction, we would expect these sentences to differ in truth conditions. Notice how, on the incorrect analysis, different NPs would be the direct object of expect:
  1. [V' expect [NP Mary ] [CP [Comp e] [TP [NP PRO ] [T to] [VP be examined by the doctor.] ]]
  2. [V' expect [NP the doctor ] [CP [Comp e] [TP [NP PRO ] [T to] [VP examine Mary.] ]]
On this analysis, Mary and the doctor would play a meaningful role (they would bear a theta role, in the language of Chapter 7) with respect to the expecting.
PRO versus
Raising

Consider:

  • John will force you to help me.
We analyze force as a verb taking an NP and a CP complement clause. Thus, force you to help me will include a PRO construction:
  • [V' force [NP you] [CP [comp e] [TP [NP PRO ] [T to] [VP help me]]]
We base this on the following evidence:
  1. Dummy its and there are unacceptable:
    • * We forced it to be obvious that there is a hazard.
    • * We forced it to rain tomorrow.
    • * We forced there to be a school dance.
  2. Idiom chunks are as well:
    • * We forced all the chips to be down in the fourth quarter.[idiomatic reading]
    • * We forced the cat to be out of the bag by then.[idiomatic reading]
    This is explained on the PRO analysis because NPs like nonreferential it and idiom chunks are be direct objects of the verb force, and therefore receiveaa theta role from force.
  3. The following two sentences are not synonyms:
    • We forced the doctor to examine Mary.
    • We forced Mary to be examined by the doctor.
    On the PRO analysis Mary and the doctor are direct objects:
    1. [V' force [NP Mary ] [CP [Comp e] [TP [NP PRO ] [T to] [VP be examined by the doctor.] ]]
    2. [V' force [NP the doctor ] [CP [Comp e] [TP [NP PRO ] [T to] [VP examine Mary.] ]]
    We would expect these sentences to differ in truth conditions, because Mary and the doctor play different meaningful roles with respect to being forced.

    Note: sometimes the passive test produces an ungrammatical result:

    1. Robert was eager to do the homework.
    2. * The homework was eager to be done by Robert.
Head Movement  

    peanut butter I
    peanut butter II
German  

Lecture on German Head Movement.

    The analysis
    Topic position used: . This film have the children seen.
    Subject is topic: The children have this film seen.
    Aux not present: movement: On this table sits he not.
    Aux present: No movement. On this table should he not sit.
    Embedded clause: no movement: ... that the children the film seen have.