grammatical foundations

Suggested answer forExercise 1

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Suggested answer forExercise 1

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Exercise 2

Both tree structures are correct. The sentence can be regarded as an ambiguous sentence with two different meanings and two different structures. However, it is hard to capture the difference in meaning. The sentence with the DP in (2) means that ‘I know those students of Mathematics from London who are new’. The other sentence with the DP in (3) means that ‘I know those new students of Mathematics who are from London’. The structure can be tested by a substitution test. The N©node can be substituted for by one/ones.

(4)I know the new students of Mathematics from London and Peter knows the old ones.

(5)I know the new students of Mathematics from London and Peter knows the ones from Paris.

In sentence (4) one stands for students of Mathematics from London. Thus this string of words has to form one node in the structure. We can find an N©node in structure (2) which exhaustively dominates this string of words while we find no such node in structure ii. This means that the structure in (2) has to be correct.

In sentence (5) one stands for new students of Mathematics. Thus this string of words has to form one node in the structure as well. Now we can find an N©node in structure (3) which exhaustively dominates this string of words, but we do not find such a node in structure (2). Consequently both structures are correct.

Exercise 3

In sentence (1) the verb likes takes two DPs, one is the subject DP my colleagues, that contains the possessive pronoun my, which is analysed as DP. The object DP the idea that the researchers invented the most dangerous weapon ever been made contains the noun idea that has a sentential complement, a subordinate clause and is preceded by a determiner. The subordinate clause is lexically headed by the verb invent whose two arguments are the subject DP the researchers and the object DP the most dangerous weapon ever been made.

In sentence (2) the verb hate is a two-place predicate, that has two DP arguments, the subject some students who study linguistics whose lexical head is the noun student which is modified by a relative clause and the object DP parasitic gaps. The relative clause contains two DPs, the relative pronoun who and the object DP Linguistics of the lexical head study of the clause.

In sentence (3) there is the subject DP one very good reason for giving her a second chance, whose lexical head reason takes a non-finite sentential complement that contains two DPs, the indirect object pronoun her and the direct object DP a second chance. The verb is links the subject DP to the that clause, in which there are four DPs, the subject pronoun she, the object DP of the verb do, a very good job and two DPs in two adjunct PPs, two years and Paris.

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Exercise 4

D©

D NP

the N©

N

Physics

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Exercise 5

Exercise 5

In the Italian DP il mio libro the sequence determiner+possessive pronoun is grammatical. According to the text when there is a possessive pronoun in [Spec, DP], there is an unpronounced D head in D and that element is in complementary distribution with other types of determiners. One problem concerns the order of elements in the Italian example, as the element assumed to be sitting in specifier position follows the element assumed to occupy the head position. Secondly, it is difficult to maintain the idea that there is an unpronounced D head in complementary distribution with the definite determiner as there are languages where the two can cooccur and no ungrammaticality results.

Exercise 6

In the DP a few too many parking tickets there is a singular indefinite determiner head which clearly cannot be construed with the head of the NP. Thus, it must be assumed that the indefinite determiner is inside the AP. For example, it could be assumed that the indefinite article is the head of a DP occupying the specifier position of the AP but the AP itself should actually contain some nominal element itself. Alternatively, perhaps the structure is something like a few parking tickets too many parking tickets where the first instance of parking tickets is deleted. This is clearly wrong as there is no number agreement between the determiner and the deleted element, the situation is the same as with the whole phrase. However, this seems to concern more the structure of the AP itself than the DP.

In the DP many a pleasant day the first problem concerns number agreement, or rather the lack of it, between the specifier (many) and the head (day). The second problem is raised by the order of elements as [Spec, NP] seems to precede the D head, contrary to assumptions about the structure of DPs.

In the DP this very moment there is an adverb between the D head and the N head. The oddity of the example is reflected in that if this adverb is present it is not possible to modify the N head further, e.g. *this very beautiful moment/*this beautiful very moment (in the first example very is not construed with beautiful but with moment).

Exercise 7

What you have to notice first in example (1) is that this structure is ambiguous: with mistakes can refer to sentences or an analysis. This is an instance of structural ambiguity. With mistakes cannot be a complement in either of the interpretations, since it is not selected by either sentences or analysis. In both cases with mistakes functions as an adjunct, the ambiguity can be explained by the different positions where the adjunct appears within the tree. In one of the interpretations the Prepositional Phrase is the adjunct of analysis, in this case we have the meaning when the analysis itself contains the mistakes. In the other interpretation, when it is the sentences which contain the mistakes (with a potentially good analysis of the bad sentences), the Prepositional Phrase with mistakes is the adjunct of sentences.

The whole structure is a DP, since it is the determiner head that defines the definiteness of the nominal expression.

The two trees therefore will look as follows:

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