The Syntax of Root Clauses

Anca Sevcenco pitar_mosh@yahoo.co.uk

What will we study?

We know for sure that we can say (1) and (2) below. (1) There is an interesting show on TV right now. (2) There darted a little boy into the room Then why cant we equally well say (3)? (3) *There swam a man in the lake. We use quite frequently pairs of sentences like (4) / (5). (4) Jim gave the report to his boss. (5) Jim gave his boss the report.

What will we study?

We may therefore believe that other verbs referring to giving allow us to use them in configurations like (4) and (5). Our guess is not borne out by grammar, though. (6) Jim transferred the money to his client. (7) *Jim transferred his client the money. We know that transitive verbs can be passivized: (8) Fred hid all the beer in the house. All the beer in the house was hidden.

What will we study?

Then how come that intransitive verbs can be passivized as well? (9) The bed was slept in. And, wait a minute, actually not all intransitive verbs have passive counterparts, after all. Why is that? (10) *The store was walked to. I want to write an essay in English. What do I do to avoid coming up with iffy sentences like the one in (11)?

What will we study?

(11) Two cars were reported stolen by the Groverton police yesterday. On second thought, maybe I want to rephrase and use something like: (12) The Groverton police declared that two cars were reported stolen yesterday. In order to sort out issues like those presented in (1) (12) above by studying the syntax of root clauses.

What is syntax about?

Let us start with a little story M. Jourdain: Well, upon my soul! I have been speaking prose unawares for more than forty years! Ah, I am greatly obliged to you for having taught me that. So, I would like to write a note to her, saying Beautiful Countess, your lovely eyes make me die of love. Only I would like it to be said in a gallant manner, with a fine turn of phrase. Philosophy Master: Tell her that the fire of her eyes reduce your heart to ashes, that day and night you suffer for her the agonies of -

What is syntax about?

M. Jourdain: No, no, no. I dont want any of that. I just want what I said: Beautiful Countess, your lovely eyes make me die of love. Philosophy Master: But you must spin it out a little. M. Jourdain: No, I tell you, all I want put it in the letter are those very words, but with a fashionable twist to them, a posh sort of arrangement. Please tell me, for the sake of argument, the various ways they could be put. Philosophy Master: They can be put firstly as you have spoken them: Beautiful Countess, your lovely eyes

What is syntax about?

make me die of love. Or else: Your lovely eyes make me, beautiful Countess, die of love. Or else: Of love, beautiful Countess, your eyes make me die. Or else: Die of love, Countess beautifull, your lovely eyes make me. Or else: Me your lovely eyes, Countess beautiful, of love make die. M. Jourdain: And of all those ways of saying it, which is the best? Philosophy Master: The one you said: Beautiful Countess, your lovely eyes make me die of love.

What is syntax about?

M. Jourdain: Why, I did it right at my first attempt! And yet I have never studied! I thank you with all my heart and trust you will come back tomorrow morning (Molire) Syntax = the mechanism that enables humans to put words in proper arrangements so as to express thoughts. From all the possible ways in which to arrange these

What is syntax about?

Syntax = the mechanism that enables humans to put words in proper arrangements so as to express thoughts. From all the possible ways in which to arrange the ten words in the sentence Beautiful Countess, your lovely eyes make me die of love only very few of them would turn out to be grammatically acceptable. Syntax helps us single out this very limited number of ways.

What is a root clause?

Simple sentence/root clause = a sentence based on one predicate: (1) Jourdain dies of love. Compound sentence = a complex sentence based on coordination: (2) Jourdain dies of love and suffers day and night. Complex sentence = a complex sentence based on subordination: (3) Jourdain claims that he is dying of love.

What is in a root clause?

Root clauses must start off with a verb, but they will also include: nouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions. (4) The camera-case was carelessly left open and empty on the pedestal of one of the carved columns of the temple last Wednesday evening. (5) But because of some accident, some blip or slippage in the normal process of transmigration, I am cursed with consciousness. (D. Lodge, Thinks )

Nouns The notional definition

Nouns have been defined function of several criteria: The Notional Criterion: nouns are words that refer to people, animals, things places. (6) Jim, dog, aeroplane, teacher, chair Q: The notional criterion sees nouns as a list. Is a list definition good enough? A: No, because a simple list definition does not tells us what it is that a list includes certain items but not others.

Nouns The morphological definition

The Morphological Criterion: nouns are those words that (i) can be affixed; (ii) bear plural markers; (iii) bear case markers. (7) alliance, defiance, reliance bachelorhood, fatherhood, childhood abolition, demarcation, indication darkness, kindness, wildness lectureship, tutorship, studentship Affix: prefix, suffix

Nouns The morphological definition

actor actors door doors lamp lamps (9) man mans pub pubs sister sisters Q: Is the morphological definition good enough? A: No, not all nouns are affixed, some nouns have irregular plural forms and others bear no case marking. (8)

Nouns The distributional definition

Distribution: the syntactic contexts in which an item occurs. The Distributional Criterion: nouns are those words that can be preceded by (i) determiners such as the, a, this/these, that/those, which, whose, many and (ii) adjectives such as nice, difficult, strong, etc. (10) the/a camera which neighbour (11) difficult problem / strong box

Noun Phrase (NP)

It is quite rarely that nouns occur on their own in a sentence, i.e. as bare singulars: (12) I hate rabbit. He lacks courage. It is usually the case that nouns are accompanied by determiners, quantifiers, adjectives. (13) the boy the blue-eyed boy the blue-eyed boy in my class

Noun Phrase (NP)

In (13) the central element is the noun boy: The determiner tells us that a certain individual belongs to the class of boys. The adjective/prepositional group tells us that a certain boy has two properties, i.e. he is blue-eyed and belongs to my class. This nominal central elements is called a Head. Noun Phrase = strings of words built around a noun head.

Adjective Phrase (AP)

The Morphological Criterion gives us a few clues about adjectives. First, there are typical adjectival affixes: (14) beautiful, constructive, careless unsavory, irreparable Second, adjectives are gradable, i.e. they co-occur with words such as very, extremely (15) very helpful, extremely nasty

Adjective Phrase (AP)

Third, adjectives occur with comparative and superlative endings (16) great greater greatest full fuller fullest Objection 1: not all adjectives are gradable. Those that refer to nationality and those that denote materials are surely not gradable. (17) *a very Romanian remark *a very golden ring

Adjective Phrase (AP)

Objection 2: not all adjectives form their comparative and superlative by means of er, -est (18) good better best bad worse worst The Distributional Criterion tells us that adjectives may occupy two types of positions, the attributive and the predicative position.

Adjective Phrase (AP)

(19) red dragon, mischievous boy Attributive (20) The dragon was red. Predicative This fabric feels soft. The music sounds great. Adjective Phrase = string of words built around an adjective head (21) happy extremely happy / so happy

Adjective Phrase
Q: What do we have in (22), an NP or an AP? (22) the happy actor A: We have an NP because the central element is the noun. Q: But what about the adjective, is it just an adjective or an AP? A: Its an AP, we can fit in a word such as extremely (23) [the [extremely happy] actor]

Adverbial Phrase (AdvP)

The Morphological Criterion tells us some things about adverbs as well. First, they occur with typical suffixes such as ly, wards, -ways, -wise (24) merrily, extremely homewards, sideways, clockwise Second, adverbs occur with comparative and superlative endings (25) fast faster - fastest

Adverbial Phrase (AdvP)

Objection 1: not only adverbs take the ly ending, adjectives may have it too (26) friendly boy, lively girl, woolly rhinocerous Objection 2: not all adverbs are formed with the abovementioned suffixes: hard, often, always, etc. The Distributional Criterion tells us that adverbs modify (i) adjectives, (ii) verbs, (iii) other adverbs.

Adverbial Phrase (AdvP)

(27) He went out of the house surreptitiously. John was extremely happy about the arrangement. They work very hard. Adverbial phrase = string of words built around an adverbial head

Prepositional phrase (PP)

Prepositions do not have morphological endings, case markers or degrees of comparison. Prepositions combine with NPs (28) [on [the way]] [through [the looking glass]] The NP that go with prepositions are Prepositional Objects.

Prepositional Phrase (PP)

Prepositions denote a relationship between an entity (a Figure) and a certain location (a Ground). This relationship may be metaphorical as well.

(29) The wine glass is in the sink. Jane is in trouble. Prepositional phrase = a string of words built around a preposition head

What have we learned about the organization of phrases?

We have seen that phrases are built around a central element, a head. This generalization has come to be known as the Endocentricity Principle. (30) The Endocentricity Principle: Every phrase, XP, has a head X. Every head X projects to a maximal projection, XP.

Again, what is in a root clause?

We have seen that a root clause contains a verb phrase VP as well as other types of phrases, such as NP, AP, AdvP and PP. But how are these phrases organized?

The phrases within a root clause are organized as constituents. Constituents are sequences of words characterized by internal cohesion. Constituent Immediate constituent

Again, what is in a root clause?

(31) The camera-case was carelessly left open
and empty on the pedestal of one of the carved columns of the temple last Wednesday evening. Q: What are the constituents in (31)? A: the camera-case, was, left open and empty, carelessly, on the pedestal, of one, of the carved columns, of the temple, last Wednesday evening

Again, what is in a root clause?

(32) But because of some accident, some blip or
slippage in the normal process of transmigration, I am cursed with consciousness. Q: What are the constituents in (32)? A: because of some accident, some blip, slippage, in the normal process, of transmigration, I, am, cursed with consciousness

Constituency Tests
Coordination: only constituents may coordinate. (33) [The detective] has made no progress so far. [The detectives partner] may be on a lead. [The detective and the detectives partner] are making progress with the investigation. (34) The guest went quickly [in the house]. Guests keep coming [out of the house]. Guests keep going [in the house and out of the house].

Constituency Tests
Substitution by anaphoric elements applies only to constituents. (i) substitution by pro-NP forms (35) [The play] was very well reviewed. Many people appreciate it. I like [those funny people who play board games]. I really like them.

Constituency Tests
(ii) substitution by one (36) He gave her [a can of beer] and he kept one for himself also. Ben likes the Italian [student of English], but not the Spanish one. Marco is a certainly clever [Italian [student of English]], but Paolo is an absolutely brilliant one.

Constituency Tests
(iii) Do so substitution (37) Jane sent Fred a postcard and Philip did so too. (send Fred a postcard) (38) Sean drank the beers thirstily and Fred did so lazily. (drink the beers)

Constituency Tests
Movement: only constituents may be moved (39) They have sold [that wreck of a car]. [That wreck of a car] has been sold. (40) Nobody liked the books about NY that she got. [The books about NY that she got], nobody liked. (41) He says that he will eat 100 hot-dogs and [eat 100 hot-dogs] he will. (42) Six women appeared [with yellow hats].

Constituency tests
Deletion: only constituents may be deleted (43) I dont care if you dont want [to go to that concert], you will __. A: Can you give me a pen? B: Sure I can __.

Constituency Tests
Cleft and Pseudo-cleft sentences Cleft (44) Fred eat the beans yesterday. (45) It was Fred who ate the beans yesterday. It was the beans that Fred ate yesterday. It was yesterday that Fred ate the beans.

Constituency Tests
Pseudo-cleft (46) What Fred ate yesterday was the beans. What Fred did yesterday was eat the beans. What Fred did was eat the beans yesterday.

Conclusions
The words that are used in sentences are organized in phrases and constituents Phrases are hierarchically structured sequences. They are centered around a head (the Endocentricity Principle).

Constituents are sequences of words characterized by internal cohesion.

Bibliography
Aarts, B. 2001. English Syntax and Argumentation, Macmillan (available in pdf format) Avram, L. 2003. English Syntax. The Structure of Root Clauses, Oscar Print