Gramtica Inglesa I 2011/12 Handout 1 This Course aims to analyse the grammar of English from a theoretical-descriptive perspective.

It views English grammar from the point of view of Generative Theory, a school of linguistics and, more generally, a school of thought, inaugurated or founded by Noam Chomsky in the United States of America in the 1950s. More specifically, the goal of this Course is to describe and explain the formal properties of the four basic types of simple sentences in English. The methodology and the units of analysis employed are borrowed from GB theory (Government-Binding theory), the model of Generative Grammar that covers the decade of the 1980s (and also late 1970s and beginning of the 1990s). GB theory follows the Classical period of Generative Grammar, and it antecedes and feeds in a crucial way the third (and current) period or model, known as Minimalism or Minimalist Theory. That is, roughly speaking, it is possible to distinguish three big periods or models within Generative Grammar: the Classical period, the GB period, and Minimalism.

Let us have a look at various statements about language and grammar that generative linguists in general are expected to agree on.

The essence of human language is its unlimited combinatory potential. Language can be characterised as a combinatory system, and as such, it is made up of basic computational units that combine with one another in structural ways. Generative Theory or Generative Grammar has always highlighted the capacity of (precisely) the generative systems of syntax and semantics that construct or build up an infinite range of expressions from a limited set of elementary units.

Generative grammar has always put the emphasis on the fact that natural languages are formal objects (in the sense that they are systems that are structured and that work according to principles and rules) while at the same time being biological objects (since they are the product in the first place of genetic endowment).

For a generative linguist, the speaker of a language has inside his/her brain the grammar of that language, which the speaker has constructed, or constructs, by using (i) the devices in his/her own brain and (ii) the input that he/she receives from other speakers. what the linguist does is make that knowledge explicit, and try to formulate hypotheses that can explain the language faculty.

Nowadays, Cognitive Science, are prominent domains of research, at many University sites, and a big portion of the investigation within these domains is centred upon the study of the neural bases of syntactic structure building, that is, the operations by which the brain builds up complex structures from simpler pieces, all of which are associated at some specific time with meaning.

For a generative linguist, being a linguist means primarily doing research on the formal properties of language (whether it is language from a universal perspective, or otherwise case studies of specific languages), though it can also mean in a crucial way analysing the connections that exist between language and other disciplines such as philosophy (knowledge representation, logic), psychology (human cognition, perception, performance), language acquisition, computer science (computational theory, artificial intelligence), neuroscience (brain mechanisms for intelligent behaviour), Biolinguistics and, more generally,

Now, more specifically present Course!

about

the

Syntax is considered by Generative Theory to be the core component of grammar, or the same, the core component of language. Syntax does not work alone, and we should rather speak of the syntax-semantics interface, but the fact that must be highlighted is that the essence of the language faculty consists in the ability to put together or combine very simple units that form or make up more complex units (see the first and last statements above), and this is what syntax does!

Syntax could be defined as the linguistic or grammatical component that governs the combination of words into phrases, and of phrases into sentences (and/or clauses).

Let us recall from the second paragraph on p. 1 above that the purpose of the present Course (Gramtica Inglesa I) is to analyse the formal properties of the four basic types of simple sentences. These are declarative sentences, interrogatives, exclamatives, and imperative sentences. In order to do so, we must begin by describing or offering a characterisation of the elements underlined at the very bottom of the previous page! Such elements are actually core units of syntactic analysis.

words clauses

phrases

sentences and

Now, words and phrases must be put in connection in the first place with the notion or concept of category, specifically word-level categories on the one hand, and phrase-level categories on the other. In addition, phrase-level categories must be related to the notion or

concept of function. Let us see (1) below!

(1) Word-level Categories

Phrase-level categories

functions

N(oun) D(eterminer) V(erb) Aux(iliary) A(djective) P(reposition) Adv(erb) I(nflection) Neg(ation) C(omplementiser)

NounPhrase or NP DP VP AuxP AP PP AdvP IP NegP CP

subject predicate direct object indirect object subject complement (or attribute) object complement adjunct adverbial disjunct conjunct 4

Warnings

about the lists or taxonomies of elements in (1)! As the horizontal arrows indicate, there is an exact correspondence between word-level categories and phrase-level categories, but not so between categories and functions. Thus, in a trivial way, an NP can be subject, or direct object, or indirect object, as in The children bought Peter a gorgeous shirt. Also, the AdvP carefully is an adjunct in He opened the case carefully, but the AdvP perhaps is a disjunct (Perhaps, he opened the case). The list of categories could be made more exhaustive by adding an element such as Q(uantifier) (and, correspondingly, QP), which has been considered traditionally a kind of Determiner, but which has certain distributional properties, that is, properties relative to the position it can occupy, that distinguish it from other Determiners. Also, instead of just Aux/AuxP, it is possible to use more specific labels like Modal/Modal Phrase, Perfect/Perfect Phrase, etc. VERY IMPORTANTLY, though DP is made to correspond to D in (1), we will not make use of the phrasal category DP in the present Course, but only of the word-category Determiner. That is, a constituent like the children will be analysed as an NP introduced by a Determiner (the).
The reason for not introducing the so-called DP-hypothesis in Gramtica I but in Lingstica is simply the lack of time! The DPhypothesis came to be postulated at the end of the 1980s (Abney 1987), and has been endorsed ever since by the majority of generative linguists. Nevertheless, some generativists still use the notation NP. The reader is referred to castillo (2003: 3839) for illustrations of the functions listed in (1). 5

What is therefore relevant about (1) for the purposes of a Course like Gramtica I? In other words, what must we know about (1) in order to begin our study of the four main types of simple sentences? Let us start by considering Tables (2), (3), and (4) below.

(2) Definition of the concept of category:

The category of an element is the status an element has relative to its MEANING, FORM, and POTENTIAL OF DISTRIBUTION (with respect to other elements).
For instance, big is identified as an adjective, given that it denotes a property, it accepts the comparative suffix er (as in bigger), and it can typically occupy the position to the immediate left of a noun ( a big computer) or the position after the copula be (This computer is big), and it can be modified by such words as very, quite, or so (This computer is very/quite/so big).

(3) Types of categories:

a. As shown in (1) above, categories must be divided in the first place into WORD-LEVEL categories on the one hand, and PHRASE-LEVEL categories on the other. This division has
immediate consequences for the syntax, that is, for the actual combination of simpler units into complex units, which is a core property of human language (see pp. 12 of this Handout).

Word-level categories are, as the name indicates, single word items and, as such, they can be looked
up in a standard dictionary. Examples of word-level categories are: study, jump, Mary, the, his, honestly, sensible, book, not, may, May, very, By contrast, phrase-level categories or phrases are identified as just one word or as a set of words, the condition being that there must be a head or nucleus. A head or nucleus is the type of element that can have a FUNCTION in a sentence or clause, either on its own, or acompanied by modifiers.

As we can see, the concept of head or nucleus is the link or connection that exists between categories, specifically phrases, and functions.

(4) How can we define functions?

Functions, which are listed on the right-most column in (1), can be identified as THE ROLES PLAYED BY CONSTITUENTS IN A SENTENCE. More specifically, functions are realised by phrase-level categories (or just phrases).
As observed in (3) above, a phrase can consist of just one word, subject to the condition that it can be a head, that is, that it can play any given function or role in a sentence. Thus, Geoff is a word-level category, specifically a Noun, but it is also a phrase (an NP), since it can be subject, as in Geoff did not break his promise, or object, as in They are taking George to court. On the other hand, guy is the head of the NP that guy. In the sentence They are taking that guy to court, the object function corresponds to that guy.

Two further aspects to note about (1) are the following:

Apart from the division of categories into word-level categories and phrase-level categories, there is an important distinction to make that affects categories in general. This is the distinction between lexical categories on the one hand, and functional categories on the other. Lexical categories (whether words or phrases) have full lexical meaning, and are typically open-class elements, that is, elements that can be innovated in a language at any given time, whether they are created anew, or borrowed from another language. The categories in (1) that belong to the lexical type are: N (or also NP), V (VP), A (AP), and Adv (AdvP). As for P (PP), this is considered to be a hybrid element that shares properties of lexical categories and functional categories. Functional categories lack true meaning or lexical meaning, and are instead associated with so-called grammatical meaning. They typically belong to the closed-class portion
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of the lexicon of a language since it is extremely difficult for them to be borrowed from another language or to be created anew within one language. The categories in (1) that belong to the functional type are: D (or also DP), Aux (AuxP), I (IP), Neg (NegP), and C (CP).

As we will see later in the Handout, the relevance of the functional category Inflection (or IP) is paramount for sentence structure!
The second aspect that must be noted is of a completely different kind, and has to do with the use of terminology both in English and in Spanish. The English label or term phrase corresponds originally with Spanish sintagma, since frase has/had traditionally been used as synonymous with oracin (English sentence). However, due to the influence or impact of the literature written in English, the word phrase is translated into Spanish not only as sintagma, but also as frase. Thus, a VP is an SV (un Sintagma Verbal) or an FV (una Frase Verbal) in Spanish. Similarly, a PP corresponds with Spanish SP (Sintagma Preposicional) or FP (Frase There are two further and very decisive tasks to complete in the Preposicional).

analysis of phrase-level categories or phrases, that is, the internal organisation of phrases, and the other is the analysis of the core skeleton of a sentence, that is sentence understood in an abstract way,
present Handout! One is the actual

whether it is a declarative affirmative or negative, or an interrogative!

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Let us begin with analysis of phrases. What we can acknowledge thus far is that phrases can consist of one word (that is, a word-level category) or more, but that they must necessarily contain a head. What is the internal organisation of a phrase, e.g. of an NP like (5a) or one like (5b) below? (5) a. the student of Physics b. the student from UK

The methodology that we will implement in the present Course in order to analyse phrases (and also sentences) is

X-bar theory),

X-theory (or

which is a major proposal within the generative GB model. However, let us see first very briefly how phrases used to be represented in Generative Grammar before the advent of X-theory and then we will introduce the mechanics of X-theory.

Generative Grammar is famous for having proposed the use of treediagrams, or trees (because of their shape), or also phrasemarkers, as a neat way of representing the inner structure of phrases (hence the latter name!). Tree-diagrams, which look like real inverted trees, and are made up of branches and nodes (these, the extreme-ends of each branch), used to consist of two levels in the Classical period (from the 1950s 10

up to the middle of the 1970s): the head level and the

phrase or phrasal level.

Let us consider the abstract tree-diagram in (6) below. (6) XP X phrasal level ..

head level (also represented as X)

If we now analyse the NPs in (5) following (6), we will obtain the configurations in (7). (7) a. Det NP N PP P of NP N Physics b. Det NP N PP P from NP N UK

the student

the student

Such configurations were later referred to as flat structures, since the head of a phrase actually occupied the same level as that of the rest of complements or modifiers within the phrase. In the specific case at hand, the head student is at the same level as the determiner the, and also at the same level as the PP constituents of Physics and from UK, respectively.

Incidentally,

expressed Together with sister, the other two types of relations

being at the same level as is more technically by using the word sister.

applying in the tree are called mother and daughter. To give an example, student in (7a) is sister to the Determiner the and to the PP of Physics, and it is daughter to the NP node. Likewise, the NP node UK in (7b) is daughter of the PP node and sister of the P from.
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Generative syntacticians were agreed that it should be more

if the determiner of a head Noun could be shown to occupy a different level than the head Noun itself, since the determiner
appropriate and much more explanatory is a functional or grammatical category, whereas the head Noun is the core lexical element!

distinction between a complement proper and adjunct was completely lacking in the flatAlso, the structure configurations like the ones above. That is, the PP of Physics in (5a) must surely occupy a closer position with respect to the head Noun student than the PP from UK in (5b): whereas the PP in (5a) denotes what the student actually studies, which means that it is turned into a typical direct object if a sentence is concocted (he/she studies Physics), such is not the case at all with the PP element in (5b)! PP elements like from UK, with long hair, in the corner, with the umbrella, are never complements of a Noun like student, but instead are adjuncts, that is constituents that describe or denote some property of student, but one that is disconnected from the specific eventuality of studying.

All in all then, a device called X-theory was proposed (most prominently by a linguist called Jackendoff) at the end of the 1970s, and it happened to differ from (6) in that it featured a new level in between the head level and the phrasal level. This new intermediate level was the one that gave the name to the very theory or device. Let us have a look at (8) below!
(8) Specifier XP/X X X Complement

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Effectively, the head level in (8) is X (or also X), the phrasal or top-most level is XP (or also now X or X-double-bar), and the new intermediate level is X.

More on (8) below!

The head or nucleus X, WHICH IS THE ONLY ELEMENT THAT IS ALWAYS OBLIGATORY IN ANY GIVEN PHRASE, does not figure in the new configuration as the sister of such items as e.g. determiners (the, his, that, some,) or emphasisers (very, so, quite, straight,). These items can now be called SPECIFIERS (or SPEC for short) and they are SISTERS TO THE LEVEL X, and not to the head level X.

In the new X-configuration, the head X can only be sister to a COMPLEMENT. The PP of Physics in (5a) could actually be granted this position! That is, the head X is not sister any longer either to SPECIFIERS or to ADJUNCTS! In effect, as is clearly shown in (9) below, the latter type of constituent, that is, Adjuncts, now occupy precisely an adjoined position to X. This is accomplished by creating an identical node X on top of the original X node or site. That is, whenever an adjunct occurs within a phrase, then the device resorts to RECURSION or

REPETITION of the X-level itself!

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(9) Specifier

XP X X X Adjunct Complement

Adjuncts are always therefore sisters and daughters to X, whereas complements are daughters to X but, crucially, as observed above, they are sisters to the head!

It must be noted that the labels COMPLEMENT or ADJUNCT do not actually figure in the representation of the tree-diagram itself. These are names of functions, specifically functions of a more generalised type than those in (1) above! On trees are specified only names of categories word-level categories and phrase-level categories since functions are not primitives, but result from the position that the category itself occupies on the tree!
Nevertheless, it must be granted that the word Specifier is actually the name of a function. When drawing a phrase-marker or tree, it is possible to use either the notation Specifier or the very name of the category in question (for instance, Det, or Adv).

In (11) below are the X-tree-diagrams or phrase-markers that correspond to the phrases in (10). The reader is referred to Castillo (2003: 4960) for more

illustrations of tree-diagrams of VPs, NPs, APs, AdvPs, PPs where the X-format is implemented.
(10) a. cook the chicken in the tiny kitchen b. so jealous of Martha c. the teacher of French outside (11) a. VP V V V NP PP P P in Spec NP N

cook Spec N the N chicken

the AP N

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A N A kitchen tiny

b. Spec so

AP A A jealous PP P P of NP N N Martha

c. Det the

NP N N N teacher PP P P NP of N N French PP P P outside

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Now its time to tackle the second task advanced at the bottom of p. 9 above, namely

analysis of the core skeleton of a sentence. In other words, it is necessary to determine the status of a sentence according to the Xformat!

the

The category figuring in (1) as I(nflection) will prove crucial!

Before the advent of X-theory in the GB period of Generative Grammar, sentences used to be identified with the notation S. This way, a sequence like (12) would be made to correspond with the flatstructure configuration below. Note that, for ease of exposition,

the internal configuration of the NPs has been left unspecified.

(12) He took the second flight

S NP He VP V NP

sentence

In what sense could a configuration like (12) be improved? That is, why did it not actually fit in with the new X-format? Answer The use of S did not correspond with any phrasal category! And now, according to the new X-theory, trees were made up of such units as phrasal categories!

took the second flight

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So linguists had to figure out a way of replacing S by a phrasal category! In other words, they needed to identify some element as the head of the overall sentence! Since phrases were (or rather are) projections of heads, consisting specifically of three levels, it was necessary to find a category that could act as the head of the new phrase!

The idea was entertained that the category in question would have to be associated in some way to verbs, since verbs are actually elements that can make up a sentence on their own, that is, without the need of any other (overt or pronounced) constituent! As is well known, imperatives give evidence of this: Go!

And the next step was to acknowledge that Inflection, that is, verbal Inflection, actually played a major role in a basic distinction affecting sentences in very many languages! Effectively, a main clause in English (and actually crosslinguistically) must have a finite verb, that is, a verb carrying finite Inflection, whereas a subordinate clause can feature either a finite verb

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What we need to do right now is offer a characterisation of I(nflection) and also specify the distinction that exists between so-called sentences on the one hand and clauses on the other.

Inflection (or also Inflexion, and in

Spanish, Flexin or Inflexin) is any type of grammatical affix that is attached to a root. Thus, in a language like English, the suffix or ending er that is attached to adjectives to make the comparative form is identified as I(nflection), specifically adjectival I. Likewise, the plural ending s that appears on nouns is an instance of nominal I. SMALL-ER STUDENT-S Now, regarding between necessary to distinguish

verbs, it is

finite or tensed I(nflection) on the one hand, and non-finite or untensed I(nflection)
on the other hand.

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Finite I expresses agreement on the tense on the other. For its part, identified as person and number, [+present] or [-present] (which is [past]) for a language like English.

one hand, and agreement is and tense is the same as

Incidentally, note that English differs from Spanish with respect to tense since, apart from [present tense] and [past tense], Spanish marks [future] also as a tense: present COM-E / simple past COM-I or imperfect COM-A / future COM-ER. We cannot confuse tense (which is a grammatical or functional concept) with time (which is a semantic concept). In English, Inflection cannot be identified as future tense since there is no specific affix meaning [future], as is the case with Spanish COM-ER.

Let us thus identify finite I for the forms below: take-s 3rd pers. sing., +pres. walk- 1st or 2nd pers. sing., 1st, 2nd, or 3rd
pers. plur., +pres.

knock-ed 1st, 2nd, or 3rd pers. sing. or

plur., pres.

taught 1st, 2nd, or 3rd pers. sing. or plur.,

-pres. Note that taught can also be represented with

Note that the form walk- in the graphic immediately above happens to coincide in english with the bare form of the infinitive see next page below. Nevertheless, this is just a phonetic/phonological coincidence, which is due to English being a morphologically impoverished language ! The form that figures above is the one in e.g. I/you/we walk to University.

Similarly, the forms knocked or taught above cannot be confused with past participle forms, which are non-finite forms.
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By contrast with finite I, non-finite I does not express either agreement or tense. In English, there are specifically three instances of non-finite or untensed I: the infinitival particle to, which trivially occurs in the so-called toinfinitive note that to is a word proper, and not a suffix the ing ending or suffix, that is, the ending of the present participle the ed/en ending or suffix, that is, the ending of the past participle

The progressive auxiliary (be) is always followed by an ing form. The perfective auxiliary (have) and also the passive auxiliary (be) are always followed by an ed/en form.

There is one last instance of verbal I(nflection) in a language like English, which must actually be identified as the absence of I(nflection). It is the form that is referred to in traditional grammar as the bare infinitive, and it cannot be confused with the finite I(nflection) for all persons in the present except for 3rd pers. sing. (let us recall a case like

walk- in the previous page!).

The distribution of the bare infinitive in English main clauses is as follows:

the verb immediately after a modal, whether the

verb is an auxiliary or a lexical verb, will always show absence of Inflection She might pass the test / She might have passed the test

similarly, the verb after dummy do will also

always show absence of Inflection They do like white coffee 20

As regards the labels SENTENCE and/or CLAUSE, the one below is a characterisation that most grammars would arguably agree on!

Simple(x) sentence
The sentence that consists of just one clause, which means that there is only one lexical or main verb (V), though V can of course be preceded by Auxiliaries. Simple sentence is thus synonymous with 1 main clause. E.g. The Department rejected the proposal The Department has rejected the proposal

Complex sentence
The sentence that consists of 1 main clause, plus 1 or more subordinate clauses. A complex sentence contains therefore several lexical or main verbs (V), one for each clause that actually occurs, and in turn each of these verbs can take its own Auxiliaries. However, one of these verbs (V) will be the main verb of the overall structure, and the other verbs (V) will be subordinated to the former. E.g. They all liked the way [he behaved] the subordinate clause in brackets is a relative clause He would prefer [to spend the night in London] the subordinate clause in brackets is an object clause

Also, a compound sentence

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is made up of two or more simple(x) or complex sentences coordinated with each other. E.g. [John rang up his friends] and [they all went to the pub where she was singing] [You could finish your Ph.D. next month] or [you could apply for the scholarship]

As observed at the bottom of p. 17 above, a main clause must have a finite verb, whereas the verb of a subordinate clause can be finite or non-finite.

Effectively, the first verbal form of a main clause (whether it is V, as in The Department rejected or Aux, as in The Department has rejected) is obligatorily a finite verb.

By contrast, the verbal form of a subordinate clause can be finite, as in They all liked the way [he behaved], or non-finite, as in He would prefer [to spend the night in London].

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Finally, let us observe that the four basic types of simple(x) sentences are the following:

declarative sentences

affirmative negative

interrogative sentences

affirmative negative

exclamative sentences

(typically) affirmative

imperative sentences

affirmative negative

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