Andrew Radford - Linguistics An Introduction [Second Edition]

the auxiliary ultimately being silent), forming the C0 will anybody

will say nothing. C also attracts a copy of the negative pronoun

nobody to become its specifier (with the original copy of nobody

ultimately being silent), so deriving the CP shown below (with

arrows indicating movements which take place in the course of the

derivation):

(ii)

CP

D

C'

Nothing

C

TP

will

D

T'

anybody

T

VP

will

V

D

say

nothing

The polarity item anybody is licensed by the preceding negative

pronoun nothing.

Movement

309

2.

In one variety of Belfast English described by Alison Henry, we find

complement clause questions such as those italicised below:

(a) I don’t know which exams that he has failed

(b) I don’t know which exams has he failed

(c) *I don’t know which exams that has he failed

(d) I don’t know which exams he has failed

(e) They didn’t know if he had failed the exam

(f) *They didn’t know if that he had failed the exam

(g) *They didn’t know if had he failed the exam

(h) They didn’t know had he failed the exam

By contrast, in standard varieties of English only sentences like

(d) and (e) are grammatical. Discuss the syntax of the italicised complement clauses, drawing a separate tree diagram to represent the structure

of each of them. Try to pinpoint key differences between Belfast

English and Standard English.

Hints -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Assume that the relevant interrogative clauses are CPs whose head C

position is filled by an overt or covert complementiser or preposed

auxiliary, and whose specifier position is filled by an overt or covert

interrogative operator expression.

Model answer for (2a) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sentence (a) is derived as follows. The wh-determiner which is merged with the noun exams to form the DP which exams. This DP is then

merged with the verb failed to form the VP failed which exams. This

VP is in turn merged with the T-auxiliary has to form the T0 has failed

which exams. The resulting T0 is merged with the D-pronoun he to

form the TP he has failed which exams. This in turn is merged with

the complementiser that to form the C-bar that he has failed which

exams. A copy of the wh-phrase which exams is then moved to

become the specifier of C, so forming the CP shown below (with

the arrow showing movement of the wh-phrase to spec-CP):

(i)

CP

DP

C'

which exams

C

TP

that

D

T'

he

T

VP

has

V

DP

failed

which exams

310

senten ces

As (i) shows, only the moved copy of the wh-phrase which exams is overtly pronounced, the original copy being silent. An interesting

property of complement clause wh-questions in Belfast English is

that they can be introduced by the overt complementiser that, whereas

complement clause wh-questions in many other varieties of English

can only be introduced by a null complementiser. The structure (i) is consistent with the claim made in the main text that a clause is

interpreted as a question only if it has an interrogative specifier.

22

Syntactic variation

Up to this point, our discussion of syntax has focused largely on a variety of English which we will call Contemporary Standard English (CSE). But since we find numerous dimensions of variation in language (e.g. variation from one style to another, from one regional or social variety to another, from one period in the history of a language to another, and from one language to another), an important question to ask is what range of syntactic variation we find in the grammars of different languages or language varieties. Of course, having answered this question, further issues arise. For instance, if we are considering what are regarded as varieties of the same language, we might be concerned with understanding the social and contextual factors which determine when speakers use one variety or another. This is the sort of concern which our discussion of variation in parts I and II focused on, but here we shall adopt the less ambitious goal of seeing how our syntactic framework can come to terms with a small sample of within- and across-language variation.

Inversion in varieties of English

The most obvious manifestation of structural variation in syntax lies

in word-order differences. If we suppose that the theory of Universal Grammar incorporated into the language faculty provides human beings with a genetically transmitted template for syntactic structure (so that clauses are universally CP+TP+VP structures, and nominal expressions are universally DPs), we should expect to find that word-order differences are attributable to differences in the movement operations which apply within a given type of structure. In the previous

section, we have met one manifestation of auxiliary inversion in CSE questions.

Looking at this movement in other varieties of English, we shall see that on the one hand, some such varieties allow auxiliary inversion in contexts where CSE

doesn’t, and conversely others don’t allow inversion in contexts where CSE does.

Let’s begin by looking at the following type of inversion structure (the examples are from the research of Peter Sells and his colleagues) found in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) but not in CSE:

(366) a.

Can’t nobody beat ‘em

b.

Didn’t nobody see it

c.

Ain’t no white cop gonna put his hands on me

311

312

senten ces

Why should we find inversion in negative structures like these in AAVE, but not CSE? A clue to the answer to this question may lie in a further difference between the two varieties illustrated by the CSE sentence (367a) and its AAVE counterpart (367b): (367) a.

I said nothing (CSE)

b.

I didn’t say nothin’ (AAVE)

In the CSE structure, the sentence is negated by the single negative expression nothing; but in the AAVE structure, the sentence is negated by two negative

expressions – didn’t and nothin’. For obvious reasons, therefore, AAVE is popularly said to use double negation (or, in the jargon used by linguists, negative concord).

If we look at what’s going on in AAVE more carefully, we’ll see that the essence of negative concord in this variety seems to be a constraint (i.e. structural restriction) to the effect that negative expressions like no/nothin’/nobody in AAVE must be preceded by a negative auxiliary such as can’t/don’t/didn’t, etc.

This constraint obviously doesn’t operate in CSE, since CSE doesn’t use double negatives. In the light of this difference between the two varieties, consider what distinguishes the CSE sentence (368) from its AAVE counterpart (366a):

(368)

Nobody can beat them

One important difference between the two is that CSE uses the positive auxiliary can, whereas AAVE uses its negative counterpart can’t, this being attributable to the fact that AAVE has negative concord, but CSE does not. But a further

difference is that the auxiliary can’t undergoes inversion in the AAVE structure

(366a), whereas can does not in the CSE structure (368). More specifically, can’t in (366a) moves from T to C in the manner shown in (369):

(369)

CP

C

TP

Can’t