Week 8a. Adjunction and head-movement

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CAS LX 522Syntax I

• Week 8a. Adjunction andhead-movement

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Our model of grammar

• Recall our model of grammar we select items from
  the lexicon, put them on the workbench, pick them
  up and Merge them until we have a single object,
  then pronounce and interpret the result.

pronounce
Lexicon
Merge
interpret
Workbench
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Adjoin

• In addition to Merge, there is another thing that
  we can do with two objects we pick up from the
  workbench.
• The new operation is Adjoin, and it will enable
  us finally to draw proper structures for
  sentences with adjectives, adverbs, and modifying
  PPs
• John quickly ate the scrumptious cake on the lawn.

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Adjoin

• The operations Merge and Adjoin are two different
  ways to combine two objects from the workbench.
• Merge takes two objects and creates a new object
  (with the label inherited from one of them).
• Adjoin attaches one object to the top of another
  one.

VP
VP
VP
AP
quickly
V
DP
V
DP
it
eat
it
eat
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Adjoin

• I generally indicate adjunction with a double
  branch to keep it clear what is adjoined and
  what is not.
• The concept here is that the VP node has been
  stretched out and the AP has been hooked into
  it.
• The AP occupies a strange position in the tree.
  It is not a sister, nor a daughter of VP. It is
  sort of in-between. Its not fully dominated by
  VP, its only dominated by part of VP.
• AP c-commands the VP, but the VP doesnt
  c-command the AP, though we wont dwell on that
  here. Merge establishes a mutual c-command
  relation between two objects, Adjoin establishes
  an asymmetrical c-command relation.

VP
VP
VP
AP
quickly
V
DP
V
DP
it
eat
it
eat
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Good, more terminology

• Adjoining an object to another results in a
  multi-segment node. So, there are two VP segments
  below, making up together the VP node.
• Often you will also see these called
  multi-segment categories, but well continue to
  call them segments and nodes.

IP
VP
I
VP
AP
quickly
V
DP
it
eat
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Good, more terminology

• X dominates Y in just the same conditions as
  before, except if X is a multi-segment node, all
  segments of X must dominate Y for X to dominate
  Y.
• X excludes Y if no segment of X dominates Y.
• AP is dominated by one segment of VP but not by
  the other. AP is not dominated by VP. AP is not
  excluded by VP.
• X c-commands Y iff
• (i) X excludes Y, and
• (ii) Any node thatdominates X alsodominates Y.
• AP c-commands VP.
• VP does not c-command AP.

IP
VP
I
VP
AP
quickly
V
DP
it
eat
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Adjunction

• The main intuitive idea adjuncts are loosely
  connected and general serve as modifiers.
• Adjuncts are generally optional (no q-roles in
  any q-grids).
• They seem to be able to attach either to the
  right or the left.
• They seem to attach to maximal projections.

IP
VP
I
VP
AP
quickly
V
DP
it
eat
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Adverbs

• Adverbs (at least many adverbs, well look at
  more later) generally are adjoined to the VP.
• Pat quickly ate the sandwich.
• Pat ate the sandwich quickly.

IP
IP
DP
DP
I?
I?
Pat
Pat
VP
VP
I
I
Past
Past
VP
AP
VP
AP
quickly
quickly
V
DP
V
DP
thesandwich
eat
thesandwich
eat
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Adjectives

• Similarly, adjectives seem to adjoin to the NP.
• the tasty sandwich.
• Pats tasty sandwich.

DP
DP
DP
D?
Pat
NP
D
D
NP
the
s
NP
AP
NP
AP
sandwich
tasty
sandwich
tasty
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Mysteries to live with

• (In English, anyway) adverbs can often appear on
  the right adjectives seem to be restricted to
  the left.
• Adjectives seem to have a fixed order
• The big red fluffy sock.
• The fluffy red big sock.
• Adverbs do too.
• Pat often happily eats a tasty sandwich.
• ?Pat happily often eats a tasty sandwich.

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PPs serve the same function

• PPs often serve to modify the event like adverbs,
  and are adjoined in the same way (on the right).
• Pat ate the sandwich on the hill in the rain.

IP
DP
I?
Pat
VP
I
Past
PP
VP
in the rain
PP
VP
on the hill
V
DP
the sandwich
eat
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PPs serve the same function

• PPs can also modify nouns, like adjectives (again
  on the right).
• Pat bought the book with the shiny cover.

DP
NP
D
the
PP
NP
with the shiny cover
book
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Motivation

• One difference between Merge and Adjoin is that
  Merge happens because it has to, Adjoin happens
  because it can.
• We can think of Merge as always happening to
  check some kind of complement or specifier
  features.
• Verb and object merge to satisfy a q-role (which
  we could cast as a complement feature)
• I merges with VP to check Inf (or maybe just
  V) complement feature.
• C merges with IP to check an I feature (how we
  can encode the fact that C takes IP)

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Complements vs. adjuncts

• PPs in particular seem to be freely reorderable
  when they are adjuncts.
• The book with a red cover by Radford from CUP
• The book with a red cover from CUP by Radford
• The book from CUP with a red cover by Radford
• The book from CUP by Radford with a red cover
• etc
• But consider book of poems.
• Here, of poems is a fundamental property of the
  book, its not optional. A book of poems is a
  different sort of thing than a book of cartoons.

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Complements vs. adjuncts

• And notice that of books cannot reorder with
  other PPs, it always has to be first.
• the book of poems by Radford with a red cover
• the book by Radford of poems with a red cover
• the book with a red cover of poems by Radford
• the book with a red cover by Radford of poems.
• You also cant have two of this kind of PP
• the book of poems of cartoons with a red cover
• So how might we handle this?

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Complements vs. adjuncts

• Easy Suppose that of poems is a complement. That
  puts it close to the noun (structurally, and thus
  semantically), and theres only one complement.

DP
NP
D
the
PP
NP
with a red cover
PP
NP
by Radford
N
PP
of poems
book
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One-replacement

• Pat bought the book of poems by Radford with the
  red cover, and Tracy bought
• the one with the blue coverthe (book of poems by
  Radford) with the blue cover
• the one by Chomsky with the blue coverthe (book
  of poems) by Chomsky with the blue cover
• the one of cartoons by Chomsky with the blue
  coverthe (book) of cartoons by Chomsky with the
  blue cover
• So, what can one replace?

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One-replacement

• So, one can stand in for any maximal NP.
• Notice that this gives us evidence for
• Of poems as a complement vs. with a red cover as
  an adjunct
• The structural reality of the segments.

DP
NP
D
the
PP
NP
with a red cover
PP
NP
by Radford
N
PP
of poems
book
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Another mystery to live with

• You can also say
• the linguistics book, the poetry book.
• And you cant say
• I want the linguistics book not the poetry one.
• Linguistics and poetry here are acting like the
  complements were. How might we think of these?
• Right. But how could we build that structure?
• Tricky. Well have to wait and ponder that a
  little while later.

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X-bar parameters

• Many (most? all?) languages of the world have
  something like a basic word order, an order in
  which words come in in neutral sentences.
• English SVO
• Akira ate an apple.
• Japanese SOV
• John wa ringo o tabeta.John top apple acc
  ateJohn ate an apple.

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X-bar parameters

• These two word orders work nicely with X-bar
  theory as it stands the difference can be stated
  in terms of a simple parameter which
  differentiates languages as to whether they are
  head-initial or head-final.

IP
IP
DP
DP
I?
I?
VP
I
Akira
VP
I
John
-ed
-ta
DP
V
DP
V
tabe
eat
an apple
ringo o
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X-bar parameters

• Notice that in English, both V and I are
  head-initial, and in Japanese, both V and I are
  head-final. In fact, languages tend to be
  consistent in their headedness
• Japanese has postpositions, C comes after IP in
  embedded clauses
• English has prepositions C comes before IP in
  embedded clauses

IP
IP
DP
DP
I?
I?
VP
I
Akira
VP
I
John
-ed
-ta
DP
V
DP
V
tabe
eat
an apple
ringo o
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X-bar parameters

• There are also languages in which the basic word
  order is VOS, although they are few in number.
• Malagasy VOS
• Nahita ny mpianatra ny vehivavay.saw the
  student the womanThe woman saw the student.
• See how we might generate an X-bar structure of
  this?

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X-bar parameters

• By changing the order of the specifier and the
  X?, we can get VOS order, and by changing the
  order of both (with respect to English) we can
  get OVS order.
• Malagasy VOS
• Nahita ny mpianatra ny vehivavay.saw the
  student the womanThe woman saw the student.
• Hixkaryana OVS
• Kana yanïmno bïryekomoFish caught boyThe boy
  caught a fish

IP
I?
DP
VP
I
ny vehivavay
PAST
DP
V
nahita
IP
ny mpia-natra
I?
DP
VP
I
bïrye-komo
PAST
V
DP
yanïmno
kana
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X-bar parameters

• So by changing the parameters of head-complement
  order and specifier-X? order we can generate the
  following basic word orders
• SVO (spec-initial, head-initial) (English)
• SOV (spec-initial, head-final) (Japanese)
• VOS (spec-final, head-initial) (Malagasy)
• OVS (spec-final, head-final) (Hixkaryana)
• And thats all

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The problem of VSO languages

• There are quite a number of languages, however,
  for which the basic word order is VSO. Irish,
  Welsh, and Arabic are among them.
• Try as we might, there is no way to set the X-bar
  parameters to get VSO orderwe have a specifier
  (the subject) between the verb and its complement.

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French

• French presents a similar problem consider the
  English sentence
• I often eat apples.
• The adverb often is an adjunct, attached at VP,
  as seen here.

IP
DP
I?
I
VP
I
PRES
VP
AP
often
DP
V
eat
apples
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French

• In French the sentence is
• Je mange souvent des pommes.I eat often
  of.the applesI often eat apples.
• The adverb souvent appears between the verb and
  its complement there is no place to put it in
  this tree.
• Moreover, it should be basically in the same
  place as in English, given the structural
  similarity and the sameness of meaning.

IP
DP
I?
I
VP
I
PRES
VP
AP
often
DP
V
eat
apples
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Movement

• Consider English yes-no questions
• To form a question from a statement like
• Bill should eat his peas.
• We prepose the modal should to the front of the
  sentence, before the subject.
• Should Bill eat his peas?
• Where is should in this sentence?

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Movement

• Should Bill eat his peas?
• There is one position in our sentence structures
  so far that is to the left of the subject, the
  one where the complementizer that goes (C)
• I said that Bill should eat his peas.
• This is not where we expect should to be, though.
  It is, after all, a modal, of category I. It is
  not a complementizer.
• Also notice that if we embed this question,
  should stays after the subject, and if is in C
• I wonder if Bill should eat his peas.

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Movement

• All of this suggests that the way to look at this
  is that we start with the sentence
• Bill should eat his peas
• as usual, and if were forming a yes-no
  question, we follow this up by moving should to
  the position of C. If we cant move it (in an
  embedded question, theres already something in
  C if), it stays put.

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Movement

• Given that things do seem to move around in the
  sentence (that is, they start where wed expect
  them to but we hear them somewhere else), this
  gives us a way we might save X-bar theory from
  Irish and French.
• Lets go back and look at French with this in
  mind

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French

• Jean mange souvent des pommes.Jean eats
  often of.the applesJean often eat apples.
• If we suppose that the French sentence starts out
  just like the English sentence, we have the
  underlying representation shown here.
• What needs to happen to get the correct surface
  word order?

IP
DP
I?
Jean
VP
I
PRES
VP
AP
souvent
PP
V
mange
despommes
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French

• Jean mange souvent des pommes.Jean eats
  often of.the applesJean often eat apples.
• Of coursethe V (mange) moves up to the I
  position.
• This always happens in French with a
  tensed/agreeing verb. This generally doesnt
  happen in English.
• Hence, the difference in adverb position
  (really, of course, its verb position)

IP
DP
I?
Jean
VP
VI
mangePRES
VP
AP
souvent
PP
V
mange
despommes
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What happens whenV moves to I?

• To show that V attaches to I, but that I remains
  primary, this is drawn in the tree structure like
  this.
• We say that V head-adjoins (adjoins,
  head-to-head) to I.
• The head formed this way is sometimes called a
  complex head, (its an I with a V adjoined to it).

IP
I?
DP
VP
I
VP
I
AP
Vi
mange
PRES
PP
V
ti
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What happens whenV moves to I?

• We should also consider what happens to the VP
  from which the V moved.
• This too is still a VP, it must still have a
  head.
• We notate the original location of the V by
  writing t (standing for trace left behind by
  the original V), and we co-index the V and trace
  to indicate their relationship.

IP
I?
DP
VP
I
VP
I
AP
Vi
mange
PRES
PP
V
ti
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What happens whenV moves to I?

• Since the VP is still a VP, it still gets a V
  category feature projected up from its head.
• So the trace is still a verb.
• In fact, theres no reason to suppose that any of
  the features of the original verb have been
  removed given that V is still there.
• We write it as t, but its content has not changed.

IP
I?
DP
VP
I
VP
I
AP
Vi
mange
PRES
PP
V
ti
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What happens whenV moves to I?

• What has changed is that the original verb is now
  related to a higher position in the tree, and for
  many purposes, the top copy in the tree is
  considered to be primary.
• What we have created by moving the verb is a
  chain of positions in the tree that the verb has
  occupied.

IP
I?
DP
VP
I
VP
I
AP
Vi
mange
PRES
PP
V
ti
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What happens whenV moves to I?

• When we think of moved elements in tree
  structures, we will often need to consider the
  chain of positions this is usually written
  like ( Vi , ti )
• referring to the two positions held by Vi and ti
  in the structure here.

IP
I?
DP
VP
I
VP
I
AP
Vi
mange
PRES
PP
V
ti
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What happens whenV moves to I?

• Using indices like that is kind of reminiscent of
  what we did when talking about Binding Theoryand
  its not a coincidence.
• A fundamental property of movement is that the
  moved element must bind (c-command, and be
  coindexed with) the trace in the original
  position Movement is only upwards.

IP
I?
DP
VP
I
VP
I
AP
Vi
mange
PRES
PP
V
ti
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What happens whenV moves to I?

• Great.
• So does Vi c-command ti?
• X c-commands Y iff
• (i) X excludes Y, and
• (ii) Any node thatdominates X alsodominates Y.

IP
I?
DP
VP
I
VP
I
AP
Vi
mange
PRES
PP
V
ti
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Auxiliaries

• English has two auxiliary (helping) verbs have
  and be, which cannot serve as the main verbs of a
  sentence but generally serve to indicate
  differences in verbal aspect (progressive, past
  perfect, ).
• The auxiliary verbs often appear in I. Radford
  has had us up until now drawing them as if they
  exemplify the category I.
• But really, these auxiliary verbs are verbs, they
  just have special properties. Among these
  properties they can move to I.

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Auxiliary verbs

• The reason we cant assume the auxiliaries have
  and be are objects of category I is simple
• I am not singing.
• I will not be singing.
• I will not have been singing.
• Rather, it looks like the topmost one moves to I,
  so long as nothing else is in I.

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A word on auxiliaries

• The underlying structure of a sentence with an
  auxiliary verb would be something like this,
  where the auxiliary verb heads a VP, and takes
  the main verbs VP as its complement.

IP
I?
DP
VP
I
-ed
VP
V
have
V

eaten
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A word on auxiliaries

• The underlying structure of a sentence with an
  auxiliary verb would be something like this,
  where the auxiliary verb heads a VP, and takes
  the main verbs VP as its complement.

IP
I?
DP
VP
I
I
VP
V
Vi
ti
have
PAST
V

eaten
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Why does V move to I?

• Notice that if there is something in I already,
  like a modal, then even an auxiliary verb doesnt
  move up to I.
• John might not be eating apples.
• And moreover, the verb has no tense inflection.
• This all suggests that the view that it is the
  affix in I which causes V to move to I. The verb
  is happy not to move, but will move when it can
  in order to help I out.
• The movement is a requirement on I, not on V.

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English yes-no questions

• Now, lets go back and think about English yes-no
  questions, which we took originally to be
  motivation that movement occurs.
• Bill will buy cheese.
• Will Bill buy cheese?
• Whats happening here? Well, we saw earlier that
  it is reasonable to think that the modal will,
  which starts out in I, moves to C in questions.
• Willi Bill ti buy cheese?

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English yes-no questions

• Why does this movement happen?
• By analogy with the motivation for V-to-I
  movement, we will take C to hold a special (this
  time silent, or perhaps prosodic) affix that must
  be joined up with I. This affix is the question
  morpheme, of category C, which we can write as
  ØQ.

CP
IP
IiC
willØQ
I?
DP
Bill
VP
I
ti
buy cheese
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ØQ

• Incidentally, lots of languages have an overt
  question morpheme, which adds plausibility to our
  assumption that English has a question morpheme
  in C that is just null.
• Akira ga hon o kaimasita ka? (Japanese)Akira top
  book acc bought QDid Akira buy the book?

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English yes-no questions

• Also notice that if there is an overt question
  morpheme there in English (which happens in
  embedded questions), there is no need to move I
  to C
• I asked if Bill will buy cheese.
• I asked (if) will Bill buy cheese.

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I to C

• In English, anything that would be in I moves to
  C. So, modals and auxiliaries all invert around
  the subject
• Will Bill buy cheese?
• Is Bill buying cheese?
• Has Bill bought cheese?
• But main verbs never raise to I in English.
  Consider then
• Did Bill buy cheese?

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I to C

• Did Bill buy cheese?
• Why is there a do there? Before, we only saw do
  in sentences with not, inserted because the tense
  affix couldnt reach the verb, blocked by not.
• What seems to be the case is that if I moves to C
  (that is, the past tense suffix -ed in this
  case), it also gets too far away from the verb
  (now Bill is between the suffix and the verb),
  and Do-insertion is required.

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?

• ? ?
• ?
• ? ?
• ? ?
• ?
• ?