Department of English,

Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences,

Mohamed V University,
Rabat.

Semester 5
Course: Syntax
Group: Linguistics
Prof. November 24, 2020.

Lecture 3: Arguments for clausal categories +further arguments

for the hierarchical nature of (English) syntactic
structure

Hello, dear students.

In today's lecture, we shall present some linguistic

arguments supporting the existence of our third and
last types of syntactic categories, namely the so-called
clausal categories (or simply clauses). Then we shall
present further arguments supporting the main claim
defended in this Syntax course, namely that sentences
in English (and other human languages) have a
HIERARCHICAL syntactic structure that can be
represented via tree diagrams/representations.

I. Arguments for the exisence of clausal categories.

I.1. Definition and classification of clauses

Clausal categories are syntactic constituents like

the ones put between brackets in the following
sentences:
 1) a. [I think [that John is happy]]

b. [The man [whom I saw yesterday] is my

friend].

c. [I am doubtful [whether he has understood].

Clauses have the following major properties

distinguishing them from phrases (e.g NP, VP, ..):

a. A clause, unlike a phrase, expresses a complete

thought or idea, that is it has propositional
content and has illocutionary force (i.e may be
used to ask a question (interrogative clauses),
to offer information (declarative clauses) or to
give an order (imperative clauses).

b. A clause, unlike a phrase, has a tense

specification, i.e. may be tensed (or finite) or
untensed (non-finite). Thus, while we have
finite clauses, we don't have finite phrases (e.g
finite NP).

c. A clause, unlike a phrase, may contain a

subordinating conjunction or what is called a
complementizer in Generative Syntax (e.g.
'that', 'whether', 'for',...).

As you saw in Grammar 3, clauses may be classified

into different types, on the basis of their (grammatical
or discourse) function or on the basis of their phonetic
form. Thus, clauses may be nominal, adjectival or
adverbial (See your Grammar 3 course notes). They
may be interrogative, declarative or imperative. They
may be finite or non-finite. Or they may be wh-clauses,
that clauses, verbless clauses, etc. Clauses also include
relative clauses. Caluses, as you also saw in Grammar
3, may be divided depending on their position in the
 sentence. Thus, we can have main clauses, that is
clauses that do not function in a higher clause or
phrase, as is the case with all simple sentences, all of
which consist of a main clause, which is also called
root clause or independent clause. Or we can have
subordinate clauses (also called embedded or
dependant clauses), that is clause that occur inside a
phrase (having phrase internal fuctions, e.g. direct
object, complement of preposition, etc)) or inside
another clause (having a clause internal function, e.g a
subject or disjunct, as in sentence (2a,b) below:

2) a. [That the earth is round] is well-known.

b. [To be frank with you], you should not leave

early.

I.2. Arguments for the existence of clausal categories.

As already mentioned, clausal categories are well-known

constituents of sentence structure. In a forthcoming lecture, we
shall deal in detail with their syntactic structure, as viewed by
the Principles and Principles framework. In the present lecture,
however, next to our definition and review of the traditional
classifications of clauses, we shall present few arguments
supporting the existence of this (universal) syntactic category.
The first argument has to do with coordination. Thus,
clauses, like phrases, may be coordinated with one or more
similar clauses, as in the following examples (the conjoined
clauses are put between brackets):

3) a. I think [that you are well-behaved] and [that you

deserve my full support]

b. John is the person [who works hard] and [who likes

great achievements]
 Since only full constituents may undergo coordination in
human language, we conclude that clauses are also full
constituents since they can undergo this syntactic operation.
The second argument concerns the constituency test of
movement. Again, like phrase, full clauses may undergo
movement as well, as in the following example:

3) The man has just arrived [whom nobody

likes].

In this example, the the relative clause (between brackets)

has clearly moved from a position inside the complex Subject NP
"The man whom nobody likes" to the sentence final position.
This movement operation is referred to as clausal extraposition,
a common operation in English.

For these and other arguments supporting the existence of

clausal categories, please read the relevant chapters in your
Syntax coursebooks.

II. Further arguments for the hierarchical structure of

sentences.

The claim we have been defending so far is that the

syntactic structure of sentences in English (and other
human languages) is hierarchical in nature. The arguments
we have presented so far to support this claim have
concerned only the so-called constituency tests, that is
linguistic tests of various types that confirm the existence of
different types of phrasal and clausal constituents that are
hierarchically related. Omong these tests, we have dealt
with coordination, movement, proforms, etc. For more
constituency tests (e.g. the deletion test, the clefting test,
etc.), please read the relevant chapters in your Syntax
course books. And if you have any question(s), please ask
me either in class or via google classroom.
 Today, we shall present further arguments for the
hierarchical nature of syntactic structure. More specifically,
we shall deal with four arguments, namely the argument
based on the distribution of adverbial expressions in
English, the argument based on the phenomenon of subject-
Aux inversion (or what we shall call later T-to-C
movement), the argument based on semantic role
assignment and the argument based on the phenomenon of
structural ambiguity.

II.1. The distribution of adverbial expressions

The distribution of adverbial expressions in English clearly

supports the hierarchical nature of sentences in this
language. Thus, it is well-known that the so-called VP
adverbials (that is adverbials that modify the VP, e.g
manner adverbials such as 'completely') should occur only
in syntactic positions where it can serve as a constituent of
the VP, as in (1) below (the full VP is put between brackets),
otherwise the sentences will be ungrammatical, as in (2),
whereas the so-called S-adverbials (that is adverbials
modifying the clause, e.g 'certainly'), should occur only in
syntactic positions where it can be treated as constituents
of of the clausal category S (or possibly S-bar), as in (3),
otherwise the sentences will be ungrammatical, as in (4)
below:

1) a. John can [completely rely on my support].

b. John can [rely completely on my support].
c. John can [rely on my support completely].

2) a. *John completely can rely on my support.

b. *John can rely on completely my support.
c. *John can rely on my completely support.

3) a. Certainly John can rely on my support.

b. John certainly can rely on my support.
c. John can certainly rely on my support.
 c. John can rely on my support, certainly.

4) a. *John can rely certainly on my support.

b. * John can rely on certainly my support.
c. *John can rely on my cerainly support.

It should be clear therefore that the distribution of

adverbials in English clearly show that the syntactic structure of
sentences is hierarchical in nature. Otherwise, if the syntactic
structure of sentences were flat, that is non-hierarchical (with all
constituents being positioned at the same flat level), we would
expect all adverbs to have a similar distribution and therefore all
sentences with adverbials to be all grammatical.
Before moving to the next argument, please note that more
details about the argument involving adverbials in Radford's
book Transformational Grammar (chapter 2).

I.2. Subject auxiliary inversion

Another important syntactic argument supporting the claim

that the syntactic structure of sentences is hierarchical in nature
has to do the grammatical operation traditionally refered to by
traditional English grammarians as Subject-Auxiliary inversion,
an operation which takes place especially in main yes/no
questions, as in the following examples (this argument was
originally prsented in Chomky (1988), Language and Problems of
Knowledge: The Managua Lectures):

5) a. Is John working hard ?

b. Is that student who is very tall working very hard ?

What is worth observing here is that when we have more

than one auxiliary in the sentence that we want to transform into
a yes/no question, like the one in (5b) above, it is not the left-
most auxiliary (i.e. the first auxiliary in the sentence) which
should be fronted to the sentence-initial position (i.e to undergo
subject-aux inversion), but rather it is the highest auxiliary that
should undergo this operation, as is the case in (5b) above. If the
rule of Subject-aux inversion (or T-to-C movement ) were not
formulated in hierarchical terms (i.e. making reference only to
linear order, with language having a non-hierarchical structure),
we would get ungrammatical yes/no questions like the following:

6) *Is that student who very tall is working very hard ?

I.3. Semantic role assignment

A further piece of evidence supporting the hierarchical

nature of sentence structure concerns the phenomenon of
semantic role assignment, i.e assignment especially to Noun
Phrases specific semantic roles (also called thmatic roles) such as
'agent', 'patient', 'experiencer'. For example, in the follwing
sentence, the subject NP "John" is assigned the semmantic role
'agent', while the object NP is assigned the semantic role
'Patient' (or theme):

7) John pushed Mary.

As observed by Chomsky (1986), the object NP is assigned its

semantic role (patient/theme in sentence (7) above) by the
full/lexical verb for which it serves as a complement and which is
therefore syntactically represented as a structural sister of this
verb, whereas the subject NP is assigned its semantic role (Agent
in the same sentence above) not by the verb alone, but by the
whole VP, which is the structural sister of the subject. Evidence
for this kind of semantic role assignment asymmetry comes from
sentences like the following (Chomsky 1986):

8) a. John broke the window.

b. John broke his leg.

In both sentences (8a,b), the object NP is assigned the same

semantic role by the verb, namely "patient/theme". By contrast,
 the subject NP is not assigned the same semantic role in both
sentences. In sentence (8a), it is assigned the semantic role
"Agent", while in sentence (8b), it is assigned the semantic role
"patient/theme", since John is now the victim of the act of
breaking his leg. To account for this Chomsky assumes that
while the semantic role of the direct object is assigned by the
verb alone, the semantic role of the subject is assigned
compositionally by the full verb (that is by the V-object
combination). Clearly, therefore, in order to account for this
asymmetry of semantic role assignement, the structure of
sentences must be hierarchical, as shown in (9) below:

9) a. [S John [VP broke the window]]

b. [S John [VP broke his arm]]

In these sentences, the subject is represented in in syntactic

position that is structurally higher than the object, with the latter
being represented as a structural sister of the verb (inside the
VP) and the latter being represented as a structural sister of the
full VP (inside the clausal category S). Since semantic role
assignment takes place strictly under syntactic/structural
sisterhood (i.e. involving or sister nodes/constituents,
immediately dominated by the same node/constituent), the
prediction is that the object is assigned its semantic role by the
verb (its syntactic sister), whereas the subject is assigned its
semantic role by the full VP (it structural sister). All this clearly
indicates that the syntactic structure of sentences in English (and
other languages) is hierarchical.

II.4. Structural ambiguity

Our last, and equally interesting argument confirming the

hierarchical nature of sentence syntactic structure, concerns the
universal phenomenon of structural/syntactic ambiguity, involving
sentences that allow more than one meaning, as in the following
example:

10) Mary hit the man with an umbrella.

Sentences like this one are syntactically/structurally ambiguous, since
they allow two semantic interpretations. We call them syntactically or
structurally ambiguis since their (semantic) ambiguity) is of
syntactic/structural nature, being the result of the fact that the same
senntence has more than one syntactic structure or representation.
Thus, our sentence in (10) above has the following two possible
syntactic representations:

11) a. [S Mary [VP hit [NP the man [PP with red shoes]]]]
b. [SMary [VP hit [NPthe man] [PP with red shoes]]]]

Notice that in (11a) above the prepositional phrase "with red shoes" is
syntactically represented as a constituent of NP, hence it is interpreted
as modifying the noun (giving us the first interpretation, i.e "Mary hit
the man who was wearing red shoes"), whereas in (11b) the same
prepositional phrase is syntactically represented as a constituent of
the VP, hence functioning as a VP adverbial/adjunct (thus giving us
the second interpretaion, i.e. "Mary hit the man by using red shoes". It
should be clear therefore that structural/syntactic ambiguity in
human language is direct result of the hierarchical nature of syntactic
structure. If sentences had a flat (i.e. non-hierarchical) structure, we
would not be able to account for this structural/syntactic ambiguity
in a principled manner.

Our next lecture will deal with the internal syntactic structure of
phrasal categories (and later clausal categories), as viewed by X-bar
Theory, developed with the generative framework (as an alternative
to the old (and inadequate) approach of Phrase Structure Grammar
(first version of Generative Grammar). Therefore, you should read and
summarize chapters of your course books that are relevant to the
topics covered so far as well as those that are relevant to X-bar theory.
For all your questions, you can ask them either in-class or via this
Google Class. Best of luck.

Prof. Elhassan Souali