Syntax
LING 315
The subject and the Inflection Phrase.
1 The little vP. Review.
• X-bar template:
XP
YP X’
X0 ZP
• two verbal layers: big VP and little vP, each in conformity with the X-bar template:
vP
NP v’
v0 VP
NP V’
V0 PP
• big V0 moves to little v0
• we assumed a one to one mapping between various arguments and specific positions in
the vP (U.T.A.H.)
– sister to big V0 : the Goal
– Spec of big V0 : the Theme
– Spec of little v0 : the External argument (Agent or Experiencer)
• The role of the little v is that of licensing the External argument of the verb. Hence,
all and only verbs that have an External argument will project a little vP (i.e. all verbs
except unaccusatives will project a vP layer)
(1) • Children ask many questions. (transitive verb)
• vP
NP v’
Children
v0 VP
v0 V0
NP V’
ask
many questions V0
ask
• Babies crawl. (unergative verb)
• vP
NP v’
Babies v0 VP
v0 V0 V’
crawl V0
crawl
• The house collapsed. (unaccusative verb)
• VP
NP V’
the house V0
collapse
2
2 The Subject
(2) Children often ask many questions.
vP
AdvP vP
often
NP v’
children
v0 VP
ask NP V’
many questions V0
ask
(3) Babies sometimes crawl. vP
AdvP vP
sometimes NP v’
babies v0 VP
crawl V’
V0
crawl
(4) The house suddenly collapsed. VP
AdvP VP
suddenly NP V’
the house V0
collapse
3
(5) Babies sometimes crawl.
vP
AdvP vP
sometimes NP v’
babies v0 VP
crawl V’
V0
crawl
4
How do we get the right word order? (i.e. Subject-Adverb vs. Adverb-Subject
• we will assume that the subject of all verbs raises out of the vP/VP to a higher position
(for the time being we will name this higher projection XP)
• we will also assume that movement is ‘uniform’, i.e. phrases can only move to a
phrasal position, while heads can only move to a head position. Given that the object
of unaccusatives is a phrase, it can only move to a phrasal position.
• only Specifier positions can be targets for phrasal movement, since the complement
positions are always selected/ subcategorized (and thus are always filled)
(6) The house suddenly collapsed.
XP
NP X’
the house
X0 VP
AdvP VP
suddenly NP V’
the house V0
collapse
5
(7) Children often ask many questions.
XP
NP X’
children
X0 vP
AdvP vP
often
NP v’
children
v0 VP
ask NP V’
many questions V0
ask
(8) Babies sometimes crawl.
XP
NP X’
Babies
X0 vP
AdvP vP
sometimes NP v’
babies v0 VP
crawl V’
V0
crawl
6
3 The Inflection Phrase (IP)
We will assume that the projection to which the subject raises is an IP (Inflection Phrase)
the category S from Phrase Structure Grammars will thus be replaced with IP. Notice that
this has the advantage of eliminating an anomalous phrase (S), which did not have a head.
(9) S
NP vP
If sentences are regular X-bar categories, they should be maximal projections that contain
a head, as in (2):
(10) IP
NP I’
I0 vP
Remarks:
• INFLECTION covers features like [Tense] and [Agreement (phi)] (person, gender, num-
ber features).
(11) Mary finished/finishes her assignment.
• in some languages I0 is expressed as an affix on the verb (as in English), while in others
it is expressed as an independent word.
In Mauritian Creole, for example, Tense distinctions are marked by the use of particles
placed before the verb and after the subject:
(12) mo ti mahze
I past eat
‘I ate’
Likewise, Sranan, an English based creole spoken in Surinam, also has a simple past
tense marker ben:
(13) mi ben waka
I past walk
‘I walked’
in both cases (whether Infl is expressed by an affix or by an independent word), we
will assume that I0 is the head of the sentence
7
(14) IP
NP I’
The customer
I0 vP
-ed
-s order the drinks before the meal
mo
mi
• Infl shows up in all the sentences (finite or non-finite):
(15) (a) She tried [to leave]
(b) We wanted [to eat cake]
(16) (a) *She tried [to left]
(b) *We wanted [to ate cake]
8
Does it make sense to assume that Infl is the head of a sentence?
• INFL links the subject and the vP predicate of the sentence
• INFL has tight relations with the vP:
– a vP (e.g. ‘live in London for ten years’) cannot be used in an independent
sentence unless it is inflected
(17) a. *He live in London for ten years.
b. He lived in London for ten years.
the vP denotes a ‘generic’ event. It is Infl that actualizes that event and anchors
it in time.
– INFL has tight relations with the Subject:
in finite clauses, there is agreement between INFL and the subject
(18)(a) He is here
(b) I am here
In languages with rich verbal Inflection, INFL may “stand for” the missing
subject.
(19) Ajungem peste două zile
arrive.Pres.1.pl after two days
‘We arrive in two days’
Functional Categories vs Lexical Categories
• one intuitive way to think about functional categories is that they build a syntactic
skeleton above lexical categories which serves to hold together the various syntactic
relations that take place in the phrase.
• the semantics of functional categories is quite different from the theta-related semantics
of items which bear the category features V, N, A and P. (functional categories never
assign theta roles)
• functional categories are closed classes (a finite and low number of members) whereas
lexical categories are open classes (potentially infinite number of members)
