grammatical foundations

Glossary

headless relative: a relative clause that does not appear to be a modifier inside a nominal phrase as it appears without a noun, however it can be argued to function as such, like in I spoke to [whoever I met].

Head Movement Constraint (HMC): a head must move to the next head position. head of a chain: the position an element moves to, its final landing site.

heavy DP-shift: when the DP is particularly long and complicated, it may undergo

extraposition: You can post today [all the letters you have written in the past five days]./*You can post today them.

HMC: see Head Movement Constraint.

idiosyncratic: not predictable. The idiosyncratic properties of e.g. words are those that are specific to that word, such as its phonological form, meaning andsubcategorisation frame. These properties cannot be described with the help of rules, so they must be encoded in the lexicon.

I-language: the language which is internal to the mind; a finite system that linguists try to model with grammars.

immediate constituent: the immediate constituent of a node is the node that is lower than the given constituent and is connected to it by a singlebranch. It is the constituent directly below the node it is the immediate constituent of.

imperative: a structure used to express a request or command. An imperative sentence usually has no visible subject: Eat your breakfast, please.

implicit argument: an argument that is not present in the syntactic structure but understood. In the sentence I am eating the transitive verb eating has no visible object, still, the sentence means that something is eaten.

indefinite determiner: a determiner like a or some turning a nominal expression into an indefinite DP.

indirect object: one of the objects of e.g. the verb give in the double object construction assigned the theta-role of beneficiary.

infinitive: a non-finite, uninflected verb form either with or without to.

inflection: (a) a morpheme added to the end of words of a given category in sentence structure as required by the given structure, e.g. -s in Peter like-s his dog or -er in Peter is clever-er than Tony.

(b) the head of an Inflectional Phrase. It can be realised as a modal auxiliary or a zero agreement morpheme. Information about tense can be found in a separate vP directly under IP.

inflectional comparison: the comparative and superlative forms of the adjective are expressed with the help of the inflectional endings -er and -est. E.g. hungrier/hungriest. See also periphrastic comparison.

inflectional morpheme: it does not change the category of the lexical element to which it is added, it provides another form of the word, e.g. the past inflectional morpheme -ed. The meaning of the original word does not change. Syntactic process.

inflectional phrase (IP): in traditional grammars the IP is a phrase headed by aninflectional element which can be a modal auxiliary (e.g. may, should, will), infinitival to or the bound morphemes expressing tense (-ed, -s) the latter undergoing Affix Lowering to form a unit with the verb. In the

441

Glossary

present approach, however, it has been argued that the head position of the IP contains only the modal auxiliaries and the (in English) invisible agreement morpheme, information about Tense can be found in an independent vP hosting infinitival to, and the bound morphemes -ed and -s also appear here. The specifier position of an IP is occupied by the subject (see canonical subject position), the complement of an I is usually a VP or vP (but see small clauses for an exception). IPs are complements of CPs or ECM verbs.

intermediate projection: the X-bar level projection connecting the zero-level (or word-level) projection X and the maximal (or phrase-level) projection XP.

interrogative clause: a structure mainly used to ask for information, either in the form of a yes–no question or a wh-question.

intransitive verb: a verb without a nominal complement (the object), e.g. ski. Its subject is either an agent or an experiencer, i.e. one of the theta-roles assigned to the specifier of a vP. Occasionally intransitive verbs appear with a cognate object.

IP: see Inflectional Phrase.

irregular: cannot be described with the help of a rule, exceptional. isomorphism: a one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets.

I-to-C movement: the generative equivalent of the descriptive notion of subject– auxiliary inversion attested in questions like ‘Can you swim?’, where the auxiliary is assumed to move from the head position of IP to the head position of CP.

landing site: the position elements move to.

language: a system that enables people who speak it to produce and understand linguistic expressions.

lexical ambiguity: the source of ambiguity is a lexical constituent which is associated with more than one meaning in the lexicon, e.g. bank, hot.

lexical aspect or aktionsart: aspect internal to the meaning of the verb, e.g. some verbs describe events with an endpoint (eat), as opposed to others without a natural endpoint (sit).

lexical entry: a collection of the idiosyncratic properties of lexical items.

lexical verb: a verb with lexical content as opposed to one having grammatical function in the structure.

lexicon: a mental dictionary where we store information about all the words we use focusing on the idiosyncratic properties such as pronunciation, meaning, etc.

light verb: a verb occupying the head of a vP used in combination with another element, typically a noun or verb, where the light verb’s contribution to the meaning of the whole construction is less than that of a fully thematic main verb, e.g. to take a shower=to shower. Certain verbs expressing aspectual (be, have) or modal (let) meaning also belong here. According to the proposals in the present book the following constituents can appear within the vP in a visible or abstract form (see also vP-shells):

442

Glossary

–agentive arguments in the specifier positions

–experiencer arguments in the specifier position

–goal arguments in the double-object construction as specifiers

–the passive -en morpheme in the head of vP

–the aspectual morphemes -en and -ing in the head of vP

–the tense morpheme in the head of vP

linguistics: the scientific study of language.

Locality Restrictions on Movement: a head cannot move over the top of another head, a subject cannot move over the top of another subject – aconstituent cannot move over the top of a like constituent. See also Relativized Minimality.

Locality Restriction on Theta-role Assignment: a predicate assigns its -roles to either its complement or its specifier.

locative inversion: a structure where a PP locative argument apparently sits insubject position while the DP theme sits behind the verb, as in In the corner sat a shadowy figure.

main clause: a clause that is not embedded in another clause. In the sentence I know that you are clever the main clause is I know selecting an embeddedCP.

mass noun: a noun that does not show number distinction, e.g. tea/a cup of tea. See also partitive construction.

matrix clause: very often used as a synonym for main clause. However, in the case of multiple embeddings there is a difference between the two. In the sentence I know that she thinks she is hopeless the main clause is I know, which also functions as the matrix clause for the first embedding that she thinks she is hopeless. The matrix clause for she is hopeless is the clause selecting it that she thinks, but it is not a main clause.

maximal projection: the phrase-level projection, XP, where X is a categorial variable.

measure noun: a non-thematic, non-functional noun indicating quantity, e.g. loaf in a loaf of bread.

missing subject: in terms of the EPP every clause must have a subject, so clauses cannot have a missing subject. In certain structures it seems to be the case, however, it can be argued that these clauses only have a missing visible subject, there is an abstract element occupying the subject position in these clauses as well, either in the form of a trace or PRO.

modal auxiliary verb: an auxiliary verb expressing modal meanings like necessity, possibility, permission, e.g. may, should, can, will, etc.. They are alwaysfinite so they occupy the head position of IP and take vP or VP complements.

module: GB is made up of different but interacting components called modules, e.g. Theta Theory, X-bar Theory, Case Theory. The interaction of these modules generates the grammatical structures of language.

morpheme: the smallest meaningful unit. Words can be made up of one or more morphemes. See also bound morpheme, free morpheme.

443

Glossary

morphological case: there is a morphologically visible indication of Case on the nominal expression ( DP). In English case is not visible on lexical DPs, only in the pronoun system with several examples of case syncretism (he/him, she/her, but it, you)

morphology: the study of words and how words are structured. mother: a node directly above another node.

Move : move anything anywhere. Further restrictions on movement come from factors independent from the formulation of the movement rule.

movement: S-structure constituents do not always appear in the position where they are base-generated in D-structure, they often move from theirbase positions to other structural positions. There can be various reasons motivating movement, see wh-movement and DP-movement.

multiple light verb: the internal structure of the VP and the structure of the event expressed by the verb are isomorphic. If the event structure of thepredicate is complex we have multiple light verbs in the structure. Light verbs can also express tense and aspect

multiple wh-question: a single question that asks for more than one piece of information hence contains more than one wh-element, e.g. Who did you say said what?

[±N]: one of the three basic binary features on which all categories can be defined. With the help of these features we can explain why we have the categories that we do and also describe how these categories are related. With the help of the three binary features we can predict what kinds of categories are possible in human language, we can give an exclusive list of them. Since we want to define verbs and nouns as polar opposites the abstract binary features [±N] and [±V] were introduced, though obviously they do not mean noun and verb and are used to define other categories besides nouns and verbs. A property linked to the [–N] feature is the ability to have a nominal complement. The categories with [+N] feature are the following: a. thematic: nouns, adjectives; b. functional:determiners, degree adverbs; unspecified for the [F] value: postdeterminers, measure nouns.

negative fronting: a movement type where a negative element is placed at the beginning of the clause as in Never have I met such a talented musician!

node: a symbol defining syntactic units ( heads, intermediate constituents,phrases) connected by branches in a tree structure representation.

nominative Case: the Case assigned to DPs in the subject position of finite clauses. The Case assigner is the finite Inflectional head.

non-defining relative clause: see non-restrictive relative clause. non-finite clause: a clause in which no finite verb is present.

non-finite verb form: a verb form without independent tense interpretation. In the sentences I want to walk and I wanted to walk the embedded clause to walk is non-finite, its tense interpretation depends on the matrix clauses.

non-referential: without reference. In the sentence There are 24 students in the group the expletive there is non-referential as opposed to there in She was standing there.

444

Glossary

non-restrictive relative clause: this clause-type is used to add extra information rather than to restrict the application of the noun. They only have the wh- relative form (as opposed to restrictive relatives): Yesterday I met your father, who is a very intelligent man.

noun: a word that names people, places or things that can have a plural form. Feature composition: [+N, –V, –F]

noun phrase (NP): a phrase headed by a noun. Noun heads can take PP or CP complements, DP complements are excluded since nouns are not Case assigners. The specifier position of an NP is occupied by what are generally called post-determiners. NPs are complements of DPs.

NP: see Noun Phrase. NP-movement: see DP-movement.

Null Case: the Case assigned to PRO in the subject position of non-finite clauses.

number: a contrast between singular and plural as in a shirt/several shirts. The English regular plural marker is -s.

object: a DP complement immediately following the verb. It can move to thesubject position in passive sentences. See also direct object, indirect object.

object control: PRO can be coreferent either with the subject or the object of the preceding clause depending on the main verb. The verb tell is an objectcontrol verb, in the sentence I told him [PRO to go] PRO is coreferent with the object.

object position: the specifier position of VP.

of-insertion: a rescue strategy to avoid a Case Filter violation. APs and NPs are unable to assign Case to their complements, so their semantic DPargument is realised as a PP and the preposition of is inserted: to be envious of Mary (compare with to envy Mary)

one-place predicate: a predicate with one argument, e.g. walk.

operator: constituents affecting the interpretation of the sentence indicating a process that is needed to work out the meaning of the sentence that contains them; quantifiers and wh-elements.

overt: visible, having phonological realisation

participle: a non-finite verb form, can be past or present: Singing (present participle) always out of tune, I got on the nerves of my music teacher./I have never met most of the people invited (past participle) to the wedding.

partitive Case: Case that can be born only by indefinites, available in the postverbal position in there-constructions.

partitive construction: if we want to count mass nouns we can do so by inserting an appropriate term expressing some unit of the given mass noun which will result in a partitive construction: two bars of chocolate, a glass of milk.

passive structure: a verb with the -en ending often (but not always) preceded by an inflected form of be. Passive verbs do not have a vP-projection similar to vPs in active structures. The vP in passives is headed by the passive -en morpheme which does not assign theta role to the subject and for this reason it is unable to case-mark its nominal complement (see Burzio’s

445

Glossary

Generalisation), so the DP has to move from its base-position to aCase-position.

passive voice: the subject of the passive sentence is interpreted as the object of the verb.

patient: one of the thematic or theta-roles where the argument is affected by the action described by the verb, e.g. in Peter stroked the cat the cat is directly affected by this activity.

perfect aspect: an action is viewed as being completed, e.g. in I have written my homework.

periphrastic comparison of adjectives: the comparative and superlative forms of theadjective are expressed with the degree adverbs more and most. E.g. more indignant/most indignant

phonologically empty: not having phonological, visible realisation, but still present, syntactically active in an abstract, unpronounced form, e.g. PRO is a phonologically empty category, similarly to traces.

phonology: the study of the sound patterns of language. phrasal category: a category of phrases as opposed to words. phrasal verb: see verb–particle construction.

phrase: a group of words that can undergo syntactic operations (e.g. movement) as a unit.

pied-piping: one of the strategies of wh-movement when the wh-element is part of a PP. The wh-element does not move alone, it takes the preposition along with it: [With who]i did you go to the cinema ti yesterday? See also preposition stranding.

pleonastic subject: see expletive subject.

plural noun: a noun denoting more than one entity, e.g. three teddy bears. Count nouns can be used either in the singular or the plural form.

positive form of adjectives: the base form of the adjective appearing in structures expressing comparison to the same degree, like in He is as tall as I am.

post-determiner: traditionally it is a determiner following a central determiner but within the framework of Government and Binding Theory it can be claimed that it is actually an AP that acts to quantify over a noun, and occupies the specifier position of NPs, e.g. many, few.

PP: see Preposition Phrase.

pragmatics: a branch of linguistics concerned with the meaning of sentences as they are uttered in a given context. E.g. the sentence It©s very hot in here can be understood as a request to open a window.

pre-determiner: traditionally pre-determiners are those determiners that appear in front of central determiners within a nominal expression. These are three in number: all, both and half. In the present approach, however, they are analysed similarly to central determiners, they also occupy the head position of DP to account for why they can also be followed by a PP beginning with of as in all the girls/all of the girls.

446

Glossary

predicate: the part of the clause excluding the subject giving information about the subject: Mary [is clever/likes chocolate/is waiting for Jamie/was in bed/is a university student].

prefix: a bound morpheme added to the beginning of a word, e.g. un- in unimportant.

preposing: the movement of PPs, VPs, negative expressions to the beginning of the sentence: Under no circumstances would I read another novel by him. preposition: a syntactic unit preceding its complement, the most often a DP defining a special syntactic and/or semantic relationship between the complement and another constituent: cat in the bag/grapes of wrath/tea

without sugar/a reduction of taxes. Feature composition: [–F, –N, –V]. preposition phrase (PP): a phrase headed by a preposition. It usually takes a

DP complement but certain types of CPs can also appear in the complement position of PPs. PPs themselves can be complements of different constituents such as verbs, nouns and adjectives.

prepositional complementiser: the complementiser for, introducing non-finitedeclarative clauses. Due to its prepositional origin it can assignaccusative Case to visible subjects of infinitival clauses, e.g. in It is important for Jane/her to win the game. It is very easy to make a difference between for used as a preposition and for used as a complementiser: when for is followed only by a DP it is a preposition (I bought a bar of chocolate for my kids on Saturday.), when it is followed by a DP and a to- infinitive it is a prepositional complementiser introducing an IP. The DP appears in the specifier position of this IP as subjects in general do (It is advisable for you to prepare well for the syntax exam.).

prepositional object: the complement DP of a preposition. prepositional verb: a verb with a prepositional complement, e.g. look at sg

preposition stranding: one of the strategies of wh-movement when the wh- element is part of a PP. The wh-element moves alone and leaves thepreposition behind: Whoi did you laugh at ti? See also pied-piping. Preposition stranding can also be found in passive structures when a verb taking a PP complement is passivised, in this case preposition stranding is obligatory: The new student was talked about.

PRO: the phonologically empty DP appearing in the subject position ofnon-finite clauses. It bears Null Case and takes the theta-role assigned by the non-finite verb to its subject.

productive morpheme: a morpheme that can be attached regularly to any appropriate stem. The formation of the past tense with the -ed ending is a productive process, a new verb that enters the English language will be formed with this morpheme, thus, the -ed ending to express past tense is a productive morpheme.

progressive aspect: the event is viewed as being in progress, e.g. I was having a bath when my sister arrived. Having a bath was an activity in progress when the other past activity happened.

Projection Principle: lexical information is syntactically represented.

447

Glossary

pronominal: those DPs that cannot have a binder within the binding domain. See also anaphor.

pronoun: a DP that usually refers to another DP, but contains only the grammatical features ( number, person, gender) of it (I, you, he, she, etc.). Its interpretation depends on linguistic factors or the situation. Within the DP pronouns occupy the D head position, as they cannot be modified bydeterminers even on very special readings (as opposed to grammaticality of the John I met yesterday)

proper noun: a name, e.g. John, Wendy Smith, the Beatles. Within the DP it appears as an NP (as opposed to pronouns)

quantificational operator: an operator that is interpreted like quantificationalpronouns like every, all, some, e.g. wh-elements in questions. See also anaphoric operator.

quantifier: a determiner that expresses a definite or indefinite amount or number of the nominal expression it modifies, e.g. all, both, some, many, four.

quasi-argument: the subject of weather-verbs (it in It©s raining) and potentially there in existential there-constructions.

raising: a process whereby the subject of an embedded infinitival clause moves to the subject position of the verb selecting the clause. In such structures the selecting verb is a oneargument verb selecting a clause (like seem). If the clause is non-finite, the subject of the embedded clause is not assigned Case within the clause, but since the subject position of the selecting verb is empty it can move there to be case-marked.

raising adjective: an adjective inducing raising, e.g. likely in Peter is likely to win.

raising verb: a verb inducing raising, e.g. seem, appear.

recoverable: a constituent is recoverable if it can be identified even if it has undergone deletion. Recoverability is a condition on syntactic processes.

recursive rule: a rule where the definition refers to what is being defined, e.g. theadjunct rule. The same symbol appears on the left and on the right of therewrite rule, so the rule can be applied indefinitely. The application of such a rule is optional for this reason.

referential: something that refers to something. Lexical DPs are referential, e.g.anaphors are not, they gain reference by coindexation with a referential element.

reflexive pronoun: a DP without independent reference, e.g. himself. Reflexives always need an antecedent.

regular: can be described with the help of a rule, e.g. the regular plural form of nominal expressions is formed by adding the plural morpheme -s.

relative clause: relative clauses are adjoined to NPs, they give information about the nominal expression. See restrictive and non-restrictive relative clause.

Relativized Minimality: a rule expressing the locality conditions on movement, see also Locality Restrictions on Movement.

448

Glossary

restrictive relative clause: a clause which modifies a noun by restricting its application to one of a number of possibilities. Restrictive relatives come in three forms: that-relative, wh-relative and zero relative.

rewrite rule: a phrase structure rule defining what the immediate constituents of e.g. a phrase are. On the left of the rule we find the phrase-type being defined followed by an arrow. On the right side of the arrow we can find the immediate constituents of the given phrase, which may be further rewritten. Bracketed constituents indicate optionality, the presence of a comma means that the order of the constituents is not restricted to the order found in the rule. See also adjunct rule, specifier rule, complement rule.

R-expression: referential expression, a nominal with independent reference, e.g.

Peter as opposed to he or himself.

semantics: the study of meaning. It covers both lexical meaning and the meaning of sentences with special emphasis on their truth conditions (under what circumstances a sentence is true/false).

sentence medial adverb: an adverb modifying the meaning of a verb appearing in a position adjoined to the VP. In traditional approaches it is used as a diagnostic test to decide whether a constituent moved upwards or downwards. If the sentence medial adverb precedes the inflected verb theinflectional head lowered onto the verbal head, e.g. in She ti always enjoy-edi going to parties. If the sentence contains an inflected aspectual auxiliary this constituent precedes the sentence medial adverb indicating that the verbal head moved up to the inflectional head position: She is (bei

+s) always ti singing./She has (havei+s) always ti enjoyed going to parties. sentential adverb: an adverb which modifies the meaning of the sentence, e.g.

fortunately.

singular noun: a noun denoting one entity, e.g. a teddy bear. Count nouns can be singular or plural.

sister nodes: two nodes that have the same mother.

small clause: a clause where a subject– predicate relationship is established but noinflectional element is present. The predicate can be expressed by an

AP (I consider [her reliable]), a DP (I consider [her the best student]), or a PP (I want [these news in press]). Small clauses are often called verbless clauses but it is misleading since small clauses can containVPs in certain cases like in I saw [him run away]. Such clauses are analysed as IPs where the zero agreement morpheme can be found as in several languages we find agreement markers on the subject and the predicate in these structures.

specificity: a nominal expression is specific if the speaker knows the identity of its reference. The sentence I am looking for a pen is ambiguous between a specific and a non-specific interpretation: the pen may be a certain pen the speaker has in mind or any pen may do.

specifier position: a position defined by X-bar Theory. The specifier is sister to X©, daughter of XP. It is a phrasal position, the nature of the phrase depends on what it is the specifier of. E.g. the specifier of IP is the subject, the specifier of DP is the possessor in possessive structures.

449

Glossary

specifier rule: one of the three rules of X-bar Theory of the following form: XP YP X©

where the specifier is the phrase-sized constituent preceding theintermediate projection. The order of YP and X©is fixed.

structural ambiguity: the source of ambiguity is not lexical. The different interpretations can be explained by assigning different structural representations to the ambiguous expression, e.g. in the DP an analysis of sentences with mistakes the PP with mistakes can be interpreted either as referring to the analysis or sentences. The structural difference between the representations will be the placement of the adjunct PP: in the former meaning the PP is the adjunct of the DP analysis, in the latter case it is the adjunct of the DP sentences.

Structure Preservation Principle: no movement can alter the basic X-bar nature of structure, structures are projected from the lexicon at all levels.

subcategorisation frame: that part of the lexical entry that states the categorial status of the complement.

subcategory: a category under a main category, e.g. the category of intransitive verbs is a subcategory of the verbal category.

subject: the argument that precedes the VP in the sentence. Also called theexternal argument since it occupies the specifier position of IP, thecanonical subject position.

subject control: PRO can be coreferent either with the subject or the object of the preceding clause depending on the main verb. The verb promise is a subject-control verb, in the sentence I promise [PRO not to destroy my brother©s castle again] PRO is coreferent with the subject.

subject movement: the movement of the subject from its base position (Spec,vP or Spec,VP) to a Case position (Spec,IP).

subject position: the position where subjects appear in the tree. The base position of the subject depends on its theta role. Agents and experiencers are generated in Spec,vP. Theme subjects appear in Spec,VP. These positions are not Case positions, so the subjects move to the canonical subject position, Spec, IP.

subject–auxiliary inversion: a descriptive cover term for the reverse order of the subject and the auxiliary in questions like Can you dance?, see also I-to-C movement.

substitution: a) one of the constituency tests to define whether a certainconstituent is the same type as another. If a constituent can be substituted by another one it is assumed to be of the same type. E.g. lexical nominal expressions can be substituted by pronoun forms, so they are both assumed to be DPs: The girl I met yesterday/She will visit her family tomorrow.

b) a type of movement where a constituent is moved into an empty position already existing prior to movement, see also adjunction.

suffix: a bound morpheme added to the end of the word, e.g. -ful in mouthful.

450