Andrew Radford - Linguistics An Introduction [Second Edition]

Just as noun and pronoun expressions need to be in an appropriate case form in particular structures, so too non-finite verbs need to be in an appropriate form – as the following contrasts illustrate:

(277) a.

He is taking/*taken/*take French

b.

He has taken/*taking/*take French

c.

He will take/*taking/*taken French

If we use the auxiliary is here, the italicised verb must be in the -ing form; if we use the auxiliary has, the italicised verb must be in the -n form; if we use the auxiliary will, the italicised verb must be in the bare (uninflected) form take. In order to try and understand what is going on here, let’s take a look at the structure of the grammatical sentences in (277), which is as shown in

(278) below:

Sentence structure

267

(278)

TP

T'

VP

PRN T V

N

a.

He is taking French

b.

He has taken

French

c.

He will take

French

The reason why different types of auxiliary are followed by different types of verb form is that auxiliaries have selectional properties which determine the kind of complement they select (i.e. ‘take’). For example, the progressive auxiliary BE

selects a complement headed by a verb in the progressive participle -ing form: this selectional requirement is met in (278a) by virtue of the fact that the progressive auxiliary is has as its complement the verb phrase taking French, and the head word of its VP complement is the progressive participle taking. Likewise, the perfect auxiliary has selects a complement headed by a verb in the perfect

participle -n form, and this requirement is met in (278b) by its complement being a verb phrase (taken French) whose head verb is the perfect participle taken. Similarly, a modal auxiliary like will selects a complement headed by a verb in the infinitive form, and this requirement is met in (278c) because the complement of will is the VP take French, and the head of this VP is the infinitival V take.

What our discussion above implies is that sentence formation not only involves merger operations, but also a series of other operations involving agreement, case-marking and selection. It may be that at a more abstract level, case-marking and selection can be seen as involving a form of agreement. For example, since

nominative case is assigned to the subject of a finite T constituent, and since a finite T agrees in person and number with its subject, another way of handling nominative case assignment is to posit that nominative case is assigned to an expression which agrees with a finite T (so making nominative case assignment an agreement-based operation); and since languages like Hungarian show overt

possessor agreement (between a possessor and a possessum/possessed object), it might be possible to say that genitive case assignment also involves a form of agreement (visible in Hungarian, but invisible in English). And following an idea suggested by David Adger, we could take selection to involve a form of agreement. We would then say that the verb taking in (278a) agrees in progressive aspect with the progressive auxiliary is, that taken in (278b) agrees in perfect aspect with the perfect auxiliary has, and that the verb take in (278c) agrees in modality with the modal auxiliary will, so that take is a modal form of the verb (under Adger’s analysis). If so, we can say that there are two core operations

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senten ces

involved in sentence formation: merger and agreement (It should be noted,

however, that we shall introduce a third core operation of movement in section

21.) (exercise 2).

Exercises

1.

Analyse the following sentences, showing how their structure is built

up in a pairwise fashion by successive merger operations. Show how

the co-ordination test can be used to provide evidence in support of the

structures you posit.

(a) He has bought a house

(b) You should apologise to the teacher

(c) They are claiming immunity from prosecution

(d) John must feel sorry she is leaving

(e) He won’t admit he has made a mistake

(f) People are saying he has made allegations of corruption

(g) He is hoping to find she will collaborate with him

(h) Parliament has decided to approve the plan to cut taxes

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

Assume that the sentences are derived by first merging the last two

words in the sentence to form a larger category, then merging the

category thereby formed with the third-from-last word to form an even

larger category, then merging this even larger category with the fourth-

from-last word, and so on. (It should be noted, however, that while this

procedure will work for the sentences in this exercise, it requires

modification to handle more complicated sentences.) In addition,

assume that won’t is a single word which belongs to the same category

as will. Finally, assume that not just auxiliaries and verbs, but also

determiners, nouns, prepositions and adjectives can merge with a

following complement to form a determiner phrase (DP), noun

phrase (NP), prepositional phrase (PP) or adjectival phrase (AP) (so

that, e.g., when the D the merges with the N budget, it forms the DP the

budget).

Model answer for (1a) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The D/determiner a merges with the N/noun house to form the DP/

determiner phrase a house. The V/verb bought merges with the DP a

house to form the VP/verb phrase bought a house. The T-auxiliary has

merges with this VP to form the T0 constituent (i.e. incomplete present

tense auxiliary expression) has bought a house. This T0 in turn merges

Sentence structure

269

with the pronoun he to form the TP (tensed auxiliary phrase) He has

bought a house, which has the structure in (i):

(i)

TP

PRN

T'

He

T

VP

has

V

DP

bought

D

N

a

house

We can use co-ordination data from sentences such as those in (ii) to test the above structure:

(ii) a. He has bought a house and a car

b. He has bought a house and rented a car

c. He has bought a house and is renting a car

The fact that it is possible to co-ordinate the DP a house with another

DP like a car in (iia), the VP bought a house with the VP rented a car in (iib), and the T0 has bought a house with the T0 is renting a car in (iic) suggests that (i) is indeed the structure of sentence (1a).

2.

Comment on the form of each of the words in the sentences below,

explaining the nature of the error involved where any item is in the

wrong form.

(a) He is helping us

(b) *He am helping us

(c) *Him is helping us

(d) *He is help us

(e) I have seen them

(f) *I has seen them

(g) *I have see them

(h) *I have seen they

(i) She could help me

(j) *Her could help me

(k) *She could helped me

(l) *She could help my

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

Given the assumptions in the main text, (2a) has the following structure:

270

senten ces

(i)

TP

PRN

T'

He

T

VP

is

V

PRN

helping

us

T contains a present tense progressive aspect auxiliary BE, which is

marked as third person singular via specifier-head agreement with its

third person singular subject he, and so surfaces in the third person