English Syntax Week 11 Verb movement Aspectual Auxiliaries

English Syntax Week 11. Verb movement: Aspectual Auxiliaries

X-bar parameters • Many (most? ) 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 & Korean: SOV – – John wa ringo o tabeta. 존 은 사과를 먹었다. John top apple acc ate ‘John ate an apple. ’

X-bar parameters • These two word orders work nicely IP IP with X-bar theory as it stands; the NP NP I I difference can be Akira I VP I John은 VP stated in terms of a -ed -었 simple parameter V V which differentiates languages as to NP NP V V whether they are 먹다 eat an apple 사과를 head-initial or headfinal.

X-bar parameters • Notice that in English, IP both V and I are headinitial, and in Korean, NP I both V and I are headfinal. In fact, languages Akira I VP -ed tend to be consistent in V their headedness: V eat IP NP I John은 VP V NP NP an apple 사과를 I -었 V 먹다

Auxiliary be – John was (not) happy. • The verb be starts out (abstractly) as shown here, the head of the NP VP. N IP I I [-present] N John VP V V be Adj. P Adj happy

Auxiliary be • • – John was (not) happy. The verb be starts out (abstractly) as IP shown here, the head of the VP. The verb then moves (before we NP I pronounce it) up to I. But not if there is a modal in I N V+I VP be+[-present] – John might (not) be happy. N V This is sort of similar to (but backwards from) the idea of how [past]John V Adj. P -ed “hops” down from T to V to form — past tense verbs. Adj happy

Auxiliary have • The same can be said of have. • In general have is a “helping verb”; when it is an auxiliary is not the only verb in the sentence. The other verb is in its own VP, in the complement of have’s VP. – John might (not) have written. • For the moment, we’ll treat the participle written as if it were a simple verb (not worrying about where the -en came from); we’ll come to that later. IP NP N I V+I have+[-present] N John VP V V — VP V V written

Movement Lexicon X-bar Theory DS Movement SS Think about the motivation of Movement.

Why does V move to I? • English has two special verbs which do move to I, the auxiliary verbs have and be in English. – – – – Bill is sloppily eating apples. Bill is not eating apples. *Bill sloppily is eating apples. *Bill not is eating apples. *Bill did not be eating apples. Bill has not eaten the apples. *Bill not has eaten the apples.

• • • Why does V move to I? Notice that if there is something in I already, like a modal, then the verb doesn’t 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. There are requirements on I, not on V.

A word on auxiliaries • English has two (aspectual) auxiliary (“helping”) verbs have and be, which are not the main verbs of a sentence but generally serve to indicate differences in verbal aspect (progressive, past perfect, …). • These auxiliary verbs are verbs, but they have special properties. Among these properties: they move to I, and they have no theta-roles to assign.

A word on auxiliaries • The DS of a sentence with an auxiliary verb would be something like this, where the auxiliary verb heads a VP, and takes the main verb’s VP as its complement. • Notice that we are treating the past participle eaten as just a special kind of verb. This is good enough for present purposes. IP NP DS I I VP [-present] V V have VP V V eaten …

A word on auxiliaries • See (79)-(81) of 9. 6 IP NP SS I Vi+I VP have+[-present] V ti VP V V eaten …

(81) This artist will have been painting portraits. IP NP I This artist I VP [+T/+P] [+Agr] V VP will have V VP been V NP painting two portraits

• My brother will not bake a cake. IP NP I My brother I VP [+T/+P] [+Agr] not V will V NP bake a cake

Draw the trees for the following sentences. (1) This student has been writing two essays. (2) The student has not broken the mirror. (3) This student must have written two essays. (4) This student must be writing two essays. (5) This student is not writing two essays. (6) This student will not have written it. (7) This student will have not written it.

Movement in Interrogative Sentences • 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?

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 where we expect should to be. 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.

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 we’re forming a yes-no question, we follow this up by moving should to the position of C. If we can’t move it (in an embedded question, there’s already something in C: if ), it stays put.

English yes-no questions • Now, let’s 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? • What’s 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?

English yes-no questions • Why does this movement happen? SS • By analogy with the motivation for CP V-to-I movement, we will take C to hold a special (this time silent, C or perhaps prosodic) affix that IP must be joined up with I. This affix Ii+C will+Ø+Q is the “question” morpheme, of NP I category C, which we can write as Bill Ø+Q. ti VP buy cheese

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.

Ø+Q • 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? – Akira top book acc bought Q – ‘Did Akira buy the book? ’ (Japanese)

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?

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 couldn’t “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.