Introduction to syntax

Transcription

1 LOT Summer School 2008 Introduction to syntax Utrecht, June 30 - July 4 Jan-Wouter Zwart University of Groningen c.j.w.zwart@rug.nl

2 2/55 LOT Summer School 2008 Introduction to syntax Day Two Syntactic phenomena as a function of Merge 1, structure and constituency July 1, 2008

3 3/55 RECAP! syntax = the total of operations establishing relations among members of the resource such that these relations are interpretable at the sound/meaning interfaces! unavoidable: a process of merger (Merge) combining elements from the resource! question: does what we know about syntax fall out from Merge?! the old question of explanatory adequacy» are the facts inevitable? (ideally, yes)

4 4/55 Areas to consider A. Structure and constituency 5-28 B. Hierarchical organization C. Dependency relations (agreement, case, pronoun interpretation) D. Locality How much falls out from the simple operation Merge? Cf. Epstein et al., 1998, The Derivational Approach to Syntactic Relations. Oxford University Press. (DASR)

5 5/55 A. Structure and constituency a) establishing structure 6-12 b) describing structure c) deriving structure 21-28

6 6/55 A. Structure and constituency Establishing structure (1) John kissed Mary (2) the new students of linguistics [ john [ kissed mary ] ] [ the [ new [ students [ of linguistics ] ] ] ]! constituency tests: each sequence between brackets [ ] must behave as a unit! 4 tests:» isolation» replacement» displacement (movement)» coordination

7 7/55 to show that [ kissed Mary ] in (1) is a constituent! isolation What did John do? Kiss Mary NB, past tense is apparently not part of the constituent! replacement John kissed Mary and Bill did too! displacement (John said he would kiss Mary and) kiss Mary he did! coordination John kissed Mary and left NB, John has scope over both VPs

8 8/55 to show that [ students of linguistics ] in (2) is a constituent! replacement John met the new ones! coordination the new students of linguistics and professors of philosophy met NB, new has scope over both NPs [ new students of linguistics ] is also a constituent! coordination the new students of linguistics and old professors of philosophy met NB, the has scope over both NPs

9 9/55 Structure based on the tests John the (tense) kissed Mary new students of linguistics! is it always binary branching?

10 10/55 Ternary branching? (3).. dat Jan Marie [een boek] gaf that John Mary a book gave! displacement een boek geven doet Jan Marie niet a book give does John Mary not Marie een boek gaf (4) John and Mary! isolation and Mary (cf. *John and) John and Mary

11 11/55 Are all languages configurational?! configurational: showing constituent structure! problems:» discontinuous constituents» free word order» polysynthesis (grammatical functions expressed by inflection on V)» (accidental) failure to apply certain constituency tests! additional tests often do reveal asymmetric structure» dependency subject to configurational relations (c-command) John loves himself (*Himself loves John) binding Noone did anything (*Anyone did nothing) polarity licensing

12 12/55 Conclusion! strong hypothesis: clauses are invariably structured like this! each terminal node may have a similar structure (recursion)

13 13/55 A. Structure and constituency Describing structure! constituents! sisters!! dominance!!» immediate dominance! c-command!!

14 14/55 Describing structure! constituents! sisters!! dominance!!» immediate dominance! c-command!! NB, the other nodes are also constituents, but trivially so

15 15/55 Describing structure! constituents! sisters!! dominance!!» immediate dominance! c-command!!

18 18/55 Describing structure! constituents! sisters!! dominance!!» immediate dominance! c-command!! = sisterhood + dominance

19 19/55 Labeling structure! XP! head (X 0 )! specifier (adjunct)! XP! complement!! X specifier! maximal projection (XP)!! complement! (intermediate projection) (X ) X 0» is all this structure always there? We return to this.

20 20/55 Be aware! a tree structure is just a notation: it is not real! what is real?» constituency» the relations among constituents! other notations are possible, and perhaps helpful» set theoretical notation (sets, ordered pairs)» mereological representation (part-whole relations)! minimalism: no rule should refer to properties of the notation

21 21/55 A. Structure and constituency Deriving structure! constituent! structure! sister! immediate dominance! dominance! c-command

22 22/55 Deriving structure! constituent» " is a constituent if " is the product of Merge! structure! sister! immediate dominance! dominance! c-command

23 23/55 Deriving structure! constituent! structure» a structure is the product of Merge applied to the output of Merge (i.e. a function of recursive Merge)! sister! immediate dominance! dominance! c-command

24 24/55 Deriving structure! constituent! structure! sister» " is a sister of $ if " and $ are merged! immediate dominance! dominance! c-command

25 25/55 Deriving structure! constituent! structure! sister! immediate dominance» " immediately dominates $ if " is the product of Merge involving $! dominance! c-command

26 26/55 Deriving structure! constituent! structure! sister! immediate dominance! dominance» " dominates $ if " is the product of Merge involving (a term of) $! c-command term = " is a term of $ if there is a stage * in a derivation ) such that $ is the output of * and " is the output of a stage in ) prior to *

27 27/55 Deriving structure! constituent! structure! sister! immediate dominance! dominance! c-command» " c-commands $ if " is merged with (an element dominating) $

28 28/55 Deriving binary branching! Merge requires minimally two elements! not excluded:» bizarre (unattested?) structures C Resource = {", $, ( } 1. Merge ", $ yielding A A B 2. Merge ",( yielding B 3. Merge (, A yielding C 4. etc " $ (! Extension Condition» always merge on top (hard to derive in a principled way; we return to this)

29 29/55 B. Hierarchical organization (1) John kissed Mary (2) Who kissed Mary? (3) Who did John kiss? GF: subject argument: agent GF: object argument: patient GF = grammatical function GF: subject/object argument: agent/patient function: interrogative operator! how do we know these functions exist?! how do they relate to structure?

30 30/55 B. Hierarchical organization a. arguments/grammatical functions: definitions b. arguments/grammatical functions: relation to structure c. operators Terminology argument/gf = A operator = A (A-bar)

31 31/55 B. Hierarchical organization Definitions: arguments! argument» an element required by the lexical specification of a verb» actually, a noun phrase (DP), i.e. an element that refers to an entity» an argument is said to carry a thematic role (h-role)! types of arguments (loosely defined)» internal argument: less responsible for the event referred to by V (thematic roles: patient, theme, experiencer)» external argument: more responsible for the event referred to by V (thematic roles: agent, causer)

32 32/55 Types of verbs based on presence of arguments TOKEN PRESENCE OF ARGUMENTS TYPE EXTERNAL INTERNAL kill U U transitive die - U intransitive: unaccusative dance U - intransitive: unergative give U UU happen to - UU ditransitive di-unaccusative

33 33/55 Digression: distinguishing the two types on intransitives Key reference: Levin & Rapaport-Hovav 1995, Unaccusativity, MIT Press.! tests: # unergatives take resultative complements (1) He worked his fingers to the bone *He died his children rich # unaccusatives form the perfect with be, unergatives with have (2) Hij is/*heeft gestorven vs. Hij heeft/*is gedanst (Dutch) he AUX die:part he AUX dance:part # participle of unaccusative can be used as an attributive adjective (3) De gestorven / *gedanste man The died/danced man (Dutch)

34 34/55 B. Hierarchical organization Definitions: grammatical functions! subject # hard to make the intuition ( foundation of the clause ) explicit # subject identification tests:» the subject vanishes in controlled infinitivals (1) a. John kissed Mary b. It is easy -- to kiss Mary» trigger of verb agreement» target of promotion in passive construction» leftmost argument in unmarked constituent order» unmarked element (case, dependency marking)

35 35/55! object # any argument that is not a subject! subject/object are arguments (noun phrases)

36 36/55 The need to distinguish arguments and grammatical functions EXT = subject John kissed Mary INT = subject Mary was kissed (by John) passive INT = object John kissed Mary EXT = object Bill saw John/him kiss Mary AcI (ECM) AcI: accusative cum infinitive ECM: exceptional casemarking

37 37/55 Argument positions vs. GF-positions! Hypothesis:» argument positions and GF-positions are (completely?) separate» there must be a process (movement) linking argument positions and GF-positions! Classical GB conditions GB = Government & Binding theory Chomsky 1981, Lectures on Government and Binding» Every GF has an argument role (theta criterion)» Every argument realizes a GF (Case Filter) # No longer considered as primitives in Minimalism

38 38/55 B. Hierarchical organization Arguments/GFs: relation to structure! key difference:» argument positions are a function of lexical information (of the verb)» GF-positions are not! structure: GFs T V arguments

39 39/55 Argument positions ~ merge! hypotheses:» x is an internal argument of y (y = V) iff x is merged with y» x is an external argument of y (y = V) if x is merged with a projection of y (to be revised)! consequence: unergative intransitives must have a covert internal argument V /dance conflation Hale & Keyser, 1993, On argument structure and the lexical expression of syntactic relations. In The view from Building 20, MIT Press.

40 40/55 Complication: ditransitives (1)... give Mary a book! decomposition: give = cause to have (2)... CAUSE Mary HAVE a book! if so, the external argument is an argument of CAUSE (= v or little v )! structure: EXT v INT V INT

41 41/55 The external argument! transitive verbs generally have an element of causation/agentivity! revision of hypothesis:» x is an external argument of y (y = v) if x is merged with a projection of y! x is an (external/internal) argument because it is merged in a particular position

42 42/55 What is outside VP/vP?! tense» verb-argument relations remain constant when Tense changes (1) John kisses/kissed Mary» constituency tests show VP is a constituent without Tense (2) Kiss Mary he did (*Kissed Mary he)» verb-argument structure can be used without Tense (3) John s kissing Mary was a mistake! the subject

43 43/55 Finiteness! arises when a subject is merged with a tensed event» no subject, no finite clause (to kiss/*kisses Mary)» no tense, no subject ((*John) to kiss Mary)! components: tense, agreement! realized as verbal inflection, determined by features of the subject De jongens kus-t-en Marie (Dutch) the boys 3PL kiss-past-3pl Mary

44 44/55 Subject ~ Merge! hypothesis:» x is the subject of a clause y if x is (a noun phrase) merged with the projection of T of y! structural subject position = specifier of TP subject TP T vp

45 45/55 Consequences! subject need not be adjacent to V (1) John probably kissed Mary (2)..dat Jan Marie kust (Dutch, embedded clause) that John Mary kisses! argument status feeds GF-status» VP-internal subject hypothesis: a subject is a raised argument

46 46/55 What about the object?! observation: objects may be nonadjacent to V as well: (1)..dat Jan Marie waarschijnlijk kust (Dutch, embedded clause) that John Mary probably kisses! two approaches: # split structure: special GF-positions for subjects and objects outside vp # squeezed structure: GF-position for objects is a specifier of vp» requires multiple specifiers

47 47/55 Objects: split structure subject AgrS T object AgrO vp! AgrS = subject agreement head AgrO = object agreement head T = tense head

48 48/55 Object agreement (1) Juma a-li-ki-soma ki-tabu (Swahili) Juma:1 AGRS1-PAST-AGRO7 7-book! Mirror effect» morphology: [ AgrS [ T [ AgrO [ V ]]]]» morpheme closest to stem corresponds to functional head closest to VP Key reference: M. Baker in Linguistic Inquiry 1985.

49 49/55 TP Objects: squeezed structure subject tense vp object vp EXT v VP

50 50/55 Conclusion! argument positions and GF-positions defined in terms of Merge» argument positions: merge with V/v» GF-positions: merge with T (subject)! argument roles feed GF-roles» we need a movement process raising arguments to GF-positions» call this A-movement! movement is up» argument role defined first, GF later in the derivation

51 51/55 Movement as a form of Merge! internal Merge» 1 element is the entire structure built so far (the Extension Condition)» 1 element is a term of the structure built so far! example: passive NB, was is taken to be in T was [ VP kissed Mary ] [ TP Mary was [ VP kissed Mary ] ]! what remains in the argument position is a copy or a trace of Mary

52 52/55 B. Hierarchical organization Operators! we now enter the A -domain (1) Who kissed Mary? (2) Who did John kiss?! paraphrase: (1) for which x x kissed Mary (2) for which x John kissed x! the operator position is clearly distinct from both argument positions and GF-positions

53 53/55 The operator position! specifier to C (= complementizer position) (1) ik denk [ CP dat [ TP Jan Marie gekust heeft ] ] (Dutch) I think that John Mary kissed has (2) ik vraag [ CP of [ TP Jan Marie gekust heeft ] ] I ask if John Mary kissed has (3) ik vraag [ CP wie of [ TP Jan Marie gekust heeft ] ] I ask who if John Mary kissed has! hypothesis:» an operator is merged with a projection of C

54 54/55 Stepwise movement to operator position! the operator also carries information regarding GF (1) Ich habe ihn gesehen (German) I:NOM have he:acc seen I saw him (2) Wen hast du gesehen? who:acc have:2sg you:nom seen Who did you see?! the operator must be interpreted lower than we see it (3) Who does everyone love? A loves a B loves b etc. cf. Everyone loves someone

55 55/55 Conclusion! hierarchy» OP => GF => TH (if you are an operator, you also have a grammatical function and a thematic role)» GF => TH» TH! elements acquire functions by merging in positions! additional functions are acquired by moving upwards! clause structure has domains: [ A -domain [ GF-domain [ argument domain ] ] ]