Grammar I Lessons by Prof. Graciela Palacio (2012, Revised 2015)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
LESSON 1: What is Grammar?
LESSON 2: The Five Grammatical Units
LESSON 3: Words and Categories
LESSON 4: Morphology
LESSON 5: Arguments and Predicators
LESSON 6: Subjects and Complements
LESSON 7: States Vs Events
LESSON 8: Semantic or Thematic Roles
LESSON 9: Functional Categories
LESSON 10: Constituents
LESSON 11: Case
LESSON 12: Syntactic classification of Verbs - Mono Transitive Vs Bitransitive Verbs
LESSON 13: Syntactic classification of Verbs - Intransitive Verbs of Complete Predication
LESSON 14: Syntactic classification of Verbs - Intransitive Verbs of Incomplete Predication
LESSON 15: Syntactic classification of Verbs - Complex Transitive Verbs
LESSON 16: Syntactic classification of Verbs - Other Intransitive Verbs of Complete Predication
LESSON 17: Adverbial Adjuncts vs. Predicative Adjuncts
LESSON 18: Morphological Classification of Verbs
LESSON 19: Classification of sentences according to their syntactic type and discourse function
LESSON 20: Classification of Clauses
LESSON 21: Semantic and syntactic analysis of a passive sentence
LESSON 22: Model answer for a declarative sentence with a subordinate clause
LESSON 23: Interrogative Sentences
LESSON 24: Model Answer for a wh-question
LESSON 25: Wh-interrogative words
LESSON 26: Model answer for a yes/no question

LESSON 27: Empty categories
LESSON 28: Verbs and their complements (part I)
LESSON 29: Verbs and their complements (part II) (persuade/try)
LESSON 30: Verbs and their complements (part III) (believe/expect)
LESSON 31: Raising adjectives: sure, certain, likely, bound, unlikely, apt
LESSON 32: Raising verbs: seem, happen, turn out, appear
LESSON 33: The determiner phrase
LESSON 34: Functions of noun clauses
LESSON 35: Functions that noun clauses can have (chart)
LESSON 36: Types of noun clauses
LESSON 37: Defining relative clauses
LESSON 38: Adverbial clauses
LESSON 39: Non-defining relative clauses
LESSON 40: Reduced relative clauses: pedagogical perspective
LESSON 41: Non-finite relative clauses from a modern perspective
LESSON 42: Cleft and pseudo-cleft sentences
LESSON 43: Nominal relative clauses or free relative clauses
LESSON 44: Inflectional categories of the verb
LESSON 45: Multi-word verbs

Grammar I Graciela Palacio 1
LV/JVG 2012 (Revised 2015)
LESSON 1:
WHAT IS GRAMMAR?
Today we will look at a passage taken from a storybook for children called Mr. Funny, by
Roger Hargreaves. The passage reads as follows:
Mr. Funny lived in a teapot!

It had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room, and it suited Mr. Funny very
nicely.
One day, Mr. Funny was having lunch.
He wasn’t very hungry, so he only had a daisy sandwich and a glass of toast!
“Delicious,” he murmured to himself as he finished his funny lunch.
After lunch Mr. Funny decided to go for a drive in his car.
Mr. Funny’s car was a shoe!
Have you ever seen a car that looks like a shoe?
It looks very funny!
As he drove along, everybody who saw him laughed to see such a funny sight.
This passage is part of a longer text. Now what is a text? According to Quirk et al 2 (1985) a
text is:
1. a semantic unit and
2. a pragmatic unit
A text constitutes a semantic unit in the sense that it must be internally coherent (i.e. it must
make sense). If you look at the passage given above closely, you will see that there are words
that help to create some kind of internal unity. For example, the use of the word he to refer
back to Mr. Funny, the repetition of the word lunch, the use of the word funny, with its two
senses or meanings (‘Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar’), and even the use of tenses.
A text constitutes a pragmatic unit in the sense that it has to be coherent in actual use. This
paragraph is part of a story for children so it would be appropriate in a bedtime situation. A
sign with the word danger on it at the side of a road where there is some kind of danger
constitutes a text if it makes sense in the context where it has been placed.
According to Quirk et al (1985) ‘a text may be spoken (as are the vast majority) or it may be
in writing. It may be the product of a single speaker (as with an announcement on an airport
public-address system) or of several speakers engaged in conversation.’ And it may be long
or short (i.e. its length is irrelevant, it can even be made up of one word as in the example of
the road sign danger mentioned above).
Semantics is the discipline which deals with the study of meaning. When dealing with
meaning we might say, for example, that the word funny is ambiguous.
1
This lesson was partly modified thanks to comments made by Sergio Rodriguez Ramos.
2
et al. abbreviation for: et alii [Latin: and others]. It is used especially in writing, after a name or list of names:
Quirk wrote A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language together with three other writers. Their names
are listed in the references.
Page 1 of 2 /Lesson 1
Pragmatics is the discipline which deals with the study of language use. From a pragmatic
point of view, we might point out that this text would also be appropriate in a classroom
situation where the nature of texts is being discussed.
Now this is a grammar course, so the next question we need to address is how to define the
term grammar.
In a narrow sense, grammar is that part of linguistics which studies the internal structure of
words, i.e. morphology, and the way in which words combine to form sentences, i.e. syntax.
Therefore, in this course, we will concentrate on morphology and syntax.
Notice that in the text given above the expressions a daisy sandwich and a glass of toast are
semantically odd but still syntactically perfect, i.e. they are possible grammatical
combinations that the brain of a native speaker can produce. The author breaks semantic rules
to cause a certain effect.
The study of texts presupposes the grammar of the sentence, so it is logical to begin with the
study of the sentence. As was said above, a text is a semantic and a pragmatic unit, not a
grammatical unit. Which are the grammatical units, then?
Lesson 1 Activity 1: (To be handed in as Assignment 1)

Answer the following questions and hand them in:
1. What is a text according to Quirk et al. (1985)?

2. What is semantics?
3. What is pragmatics?
4. How can we define grammar in a narrow sense?
REFERENCES:
Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech, J. Svartvik (1985) A Comprehensive Grammar of the
English Language. Longman.
Hargreaves, R. (1990) Mr. Funny. Egmont World Limited.
Page 2 of 2 /Lesson 1
Grammar I Graciela Palacio
LESSON 2:
THE FIVE GRAMMATICAL UNITS
When we deal with syntax, we have to focus on grammatical units. Which are the
grammatical units? And how many grammatical units are there?
According to Halliday (1961), a British linguist, in English grammar there are five
grammatical units:
1. the sentence
2. the clause
3. the phrase
4. the word and
5. the morpheme
The sentence is the largest or "highest" unit. Its beginning is marked by the use of capital
letters and its end by a full stop. The morpheme is the smallest or "lowest" unit. Halliday
arranges all five units on a scale of rank, saying that units of higher rank are composed of or
made up of units of lower rank. The relation between the five units is, therefore, one of
composition or constituency.
The sentence is composed of one or more clauses, for example:
[(Mr. Funny lived in a teapot).]
is one sentence made up of one main, free or independent clause. In this case sentence and
clause coincide. A sentence may consist of a single clause. We will use square brackets to
mark the beginning and end of sentences, and round brackets to mark clauses within
sentences but this is just a convention.
However, if we consider the second sentence of the text:
[(It had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room) and (it suited Mr.
Funny very nicely).]
what we find is one sentence made up of two main, free or independent clauses. If we
dropped the word and, and wrote a full stop instead, each of the main clauses could stand on
its own, e.g.:
[It had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room.] [It suited Mr. Funny
very nicely.]
If we consider the sentences:
[“Delicious,” he murmured to himself <as he finished his funny lunch>.]
[Have you ever seen a car <that looks like a shoe>?]
Page 1 of 3/ Lesson 2
We will see that the units as he finished his funny lunch and that looks like a shoe cannot
stand on their own. We will also call them clauses but they are not main, free or independent
clauses. We will call them subordinate or dependent clauses. Subordinate clauses are not
free or independent as main clauses are.
TO SUM UP:
Clauses can be classified into a. Main, free or independent and b, Subordinate or dependent.
Main, free or independent

Clauses
Subordinate or dependent
Now let’s go back to the five grammatical units. We have said so far that according to
Halliday the sentence is made up of clauses. What is the clause made up of?
The clause is composed, or made up, of one or more phrases. For example the sentence:
[Mr. Funny lived in a teapot.]
is made up of two phrases, a noun phrase 1 Mr. Funny and a verb phrase lived in a teapot.
What is the phrase made up of? The phrase is composed of one or more words.
What is the word made up of? The word is composed of one or more morphemes. By
morpheme we understand a minimum unit of form and meaning.
Morphemes may be free or bound. A free morpheme is one that can stand on its own. There
may be cases where word and morpheme coincide. In the case of live we have one word and
one free morpheme. In the case of teapot we have one word made up of two free morphemes
tea and pot. A bound morpheme is one that cannot stand on its own. It may be an inflection
such as –ed in suited, or a word formation affix (prefix or suffix) such as -ly in nicely. If
they are inflectional, they help us define the type of word we have, i.e. they help us define
the category. If they are word formation affixes, they are called derivational and their
function is to create or derive new words.
TO SUM UP:
Morphemes can be classified into a. Free and b. Bound:
Free
Morphemes
Bound
Bound morphemes in turn can be a. Inflectional or b. derivational:
1
Traditional Grammar calls this a noun phrase. We will later refer to these phrases as determiner phrases.
This other label comes from the framework of Generative Grammar.
Free
Morphemes Inflectional
Bound
Derivational
What is the morpheme made up of? Nothing. The morpheme has no grammatical structure
precisely because it is the smallest unit. And the sentence, which is the largest, does not enter
into the structure of any unit. There is nothing above the sentence at the level of grammar. It
is the largest unit of syntactic description.
What we have done so far is called a "top to bottom" analysis. However, instead of saying
that a sentence can be broken down into smaller and smaller units we might also look at the
sentence the other way around, that is "from bottom to top", and say that the units can
combine to form increasingly larger units. One or more than one morpheme may constitute a
word, one or more than one word may form a phrase, one or more than one phrase may form
a clause, one or more than one clause may form a sentence.
Lesson 2 Activity 1:
Be ready to answer the following questions in class:
1. Which are the five grammatical units according to Halliday?
2. What is the relation between them?
3. What is a morpheme?
4. How can morphemes be classified?

The words and, or and but are called coordinating conjunctions and they link main clauses.
Look at the following sentences and state how many main clauses they are made up of. Use
square brackets to mark the beginning and end of each sentence, and round brackets to mark
main clauses. Use angle brackets, if there should be any subordinate clauses. Consider the
following example:
[(John plays basketball) but (Mary says <that he plays tennis>).] One sentence made up of
two main clauses and one subordinate clause within the second main clause.
1. I got up at seven this morning.

2. I got up at seven and I had breakfast.
3. I got up at seven and had breakfast.
4. Jane is at home but her husband isn’t.
5. Don’t make a move or I’ll shoot.
6. Ann was tired so she decided that she would have an early night.
REFERENCES:
Halliday, M. (1961) Categories of the theory of grammar. Word 17, 242-92. Reprinted as
Chapter 2 in M. A. K. Halliday (2002), On grammar, Volume 1 of The collected works of M:
A. K. Halliday edited by Jonathan J. Webster. London & New York: Continuum.
LESSON 3:
WORDS AND CATEGORIES
Words can be classified into different types or categories.
The following words are nouns: book, table, water, money, envy, etc.
The following words are verbs: read, drink, build, like, want, etc.
The following words are adjectives: tall, beautiful, tired, likely, sure, happy, aware, etc.
The following words are prepositions: on, in, out of, in front of, in spite of, etc.
The following words are adverbs: beautifully, happily, maybe, perhaps, etc.
But how can we know which is which? Two criteria 1 can be used to sort them out:
1. Morphological criteria and

2. Distributional criteria
What do we mean by morphological criteria? Morphology is that part of grammar that

deals with the structure of words, it describes what kind of inflections and word-formation
affixes (prefixes or suffixes) they can take. For example, when we say that (some) nouns in
English can take an -s that marks them as plural (book/ books, table/tables) but that adjectives
in English can’t (*beautifuls, *talls 2), we are providing morphological evidence to make a
distinction between nouns and adjectives in English.
What do we mean by distributional criteria? We look at the place in the sentence where
the word occurs. We look at the words with which it combines, horizontally. For example:
1. Nouns follow the words the and no (the book, the water, no books, no water).
Adjectives normally don’t (*the tall 3, *the likely, *no tall, *no beautiful).
2. Adjectives can follow the verb seem (She seems sad. It seems likely that …). Nouns,
adverbs and prepositions can’t (*It seems book. *She seems beautifully. *He seems
within.).
In this section we will consider some basic morphological and distributional criteria to
distinguish one type of word from another. The categories listed above, i.e. noun, verb,
adjective, preposition and adverb, are called lexical categories. They have descriptive or
semantic content and, with the exception of prepositions, they constitute open classes (i.e.
new ones can easily be created). They stand in opposition to another set of categories known
as functional categories. The different categories will be dealt with in greater detail as the
course goes on, once we have acquired the necessary background knowledge to distinguish
one group from the other.
LEXICAL CATEGORIES
1
Criterion (singular) = cf. in Spanish criterio; criteria (plural) = cf. in Spanish criterios.
2
The use of the asterisk is a convention to express that the element in question is not grammatical.
3
‘The rich’, ‘the poor’ are exceptions but what we mean is ‘the rich people’, ‘the poor people’. The word people
(a noun) is omitted and the phrase refers to a class. Cf. in Spanish ‘los ricos’, ‘los pobres’.
NOUNS
Morphological properties
One morphological property of some nouns (i.e. countable nouns) is that they inflect for
number. By this we mean that they have a plural form:
Singular Plural
a book two books
a friend two friends
a house two houses
Some nouns also inflect for gender:
Male Female
god goddess
lion lioness
heir heiress
Distributional Properties
Nouns can be preceded by the definite article the, by the word no and by possessive
adjectives such as my, your, his, her, our, your (plural), their:
the book
no water
my house
VERBS
Morphological properties
Haegeman and Guéron (1999) provide the following table with the inflections verbs can take:
Infinitive Present Tense Past Tense Present participle Past participle

3 person/ sing or Gerund
work work-s work-ed work-ing work-ed
wait wait-s wait-ed wait-ing wait-ed
show show-s show-ed show-ing show-n
meet meet-s met meet-ing met
go go-es went go-ing gone
Distributionally, the infinitival form of the verb can be preceded by will, should, can, must,
etc (which are called modal auxiliaries) and by the word to (e.g. to work, to wait):
It is important that you should study.

It is important for you to study.
ADJECTIVES
Morphological Properties
In English, adjectives do not inflect for number, gender or case. In Spanish, they inflect for
number and gender:
a tall boy un chico alto
*two talls boys dos chicos altos
a tall girl una chica alta
*two talls girls dos chicas altas
In English, adjectives inflect for the comparative and superlative degree or express the same
meaning by means of the degree words more/most:
Adjective Comparative Superlative

tall taller tallest
young younger youngest
important more important most important
attractive more attractive most attractive
Adjectives may occupy the blank space in the following contexts:
The ………. book

My ………. friend
He is…………
It seems…………..
In the first two cases (the new book/ my old friend) the adjective is modifying a noun. In the
other two cases (He is tired/ It seems likely that…) the adjective follows the verb be and the
verb seem.
PREPOSITIONS
Morphologically, they are invariant (i.e. they do not take inflections).
With respect to their distribution, they can be followed by the string the + noun, e.g.:
After the lesson

In the garden
ADVERBS
Some adverbs, such as carefully, are morphologically related to adjectives since they are
derived from the adjective by the addition of the suffix -ly. Some others, such as fast (e.g. He
drives fast), are identical in form to adjectives (e.g. a fast driver). The adverbs that are
identical in form with adjectives can inflect for the comparative and superlative degree:
He drives faster than I do.

Who drove the fastest of the three?
Adverbs can modify verbs (He drives fast), adjectives (He is very tall) or other adverbs (He
drives very fast). Very is called an adverb of degree.
TO SUM UP:
The lexical categories described so far are:
1. the noun (N)
2. the verb (V)
3. the adjective (A)
4. the preposition (P)
PHRASAL CATEGORIES
All the categories listed above can expand to form phrases. For example, when a verb such as
kill combines with a noun such as Bill, as in kill Bill, we say that we have a verb phrase
(VP). The verb kill functions as the head of the phrase and gives the phrase its name. When a
noun such as destruction combines with a prepositional phrase such as of the city, as in
destruction of the city, we speak of a noun phrase (NP). Again the word destruction
functions as the head of the phrase and gives the phrase its name 4. When an adjective such as
fond combines with a prepositional phrase such as of dogs, as in fond of dogs, we have an
adjectival phrase (AP), the head of which is the adjective fond. The phrase derives its name
from the head. When a preposition such as at combines with a noun such as home, as in at
home, we speak of a prepositional phrase (PP). The head of the prepositional phrase is the
preposition.
TO SUM UP:
The phrasal categories described so far are:
5. the noun phrase (NP): destruction of the city
6. the verb phrase (VP): kill Bill
7. the adjectival phrase (AP): fond of cats
8. the prepositional phrase (PP): at home
1) What do we mean by morphological criteria to sort words out?
2) What do we mean by distributional criteria to sort words out?
3) Which are the morphological properties that help us identify nouns?
4) Mention the distributional properties that help us identify nouns.
5) Mention a distributional property of verbs.
6) In what way do adjectives in English differ from adjectives in Spanish?
7) Mention the distributional properties that help us identify adjectives.
8) Mention a distributional property that would justify categorizing likely as an adjective.
9) What categories can adverbs modify?
10) Provide other examples of adverbs that are identical in form to adjectives.
Lesson 3 Activity 2: (to be discussed in class)

State the category of the words in italics. Mention what kind of criteria you have used to
decide what type of word they are:
1. This is a weekly magazine.
4
Notice that when destruction of the city combines with the, it becomes a determiner phrase, made up of a
determiner + a noun phrase.
2. That magazine is published weekly.
3. People there are very friendly.
4. I’m a coward.
5. It was a cowardly attack.

Describe the following words morphologically using the information from lesson 1 and 2:
boys, cleans, bigger, arrival, careful, postman, teacher, daydream, looked. 5
For example: boys is a noun. The word is made up of two morphemes: a free morpheme (boy)
and a bound inflectional morpheme (-s).
Notice that without a context we cannot tell whether the word daydream is a noun or a verb.
Can you state the category of the word taking into account the following contexts?
She stared out of the window, lost in a daydream. Here it is a ……………………………

He daydreamed about a car of his own. Here it is a ………………………………………

State the category of the words in italics. Mention what kind of criteria you have used to
decide what type of word they are. For example:
John seems sad. In this sentence the word sad is an adjective. It follows the verb seem. I
have used a distributional criterion.
1. John drives carefully.

2. He walked down the long corridor.
3. He longed for Pat to phone.
4. It seems likely that it will rain this evening.
REFERENCES:
Haegeman, L. & J. Guéron (1999) English Grammar: A Generative Perspective, Blackwell.
5
This assignment has been included to assess your basic understanding of the term
morpheme. Things, however, are not as simple as they seem. A deeper discussion of the
problem will be presented later.
LESSON 4
MORPHOLOGY
Morphology deals with the internal structure of words. Words are made up of morphemes but
they are not simple sequences of morphemes. They have internal structure and their internal
structure is rule-governed and hierarchical.
Derivational morphemes select the root that they can attach to. For example, -able is a bound
derivational morpheme which gets attached to verbs. So when –able selects the verb read we
get readable, whose structure can be represented by means of the following tree diagram:
The prefix un- with a negative meaning gets attached to adjectives (happy/unhappy). So if un-
selects readable, an adjective, we get unreadable, another adjective, whose structure can be
represented in the following way:
The word unsystematic is composed of three morphemes: un-, system, and –atic. The root is
system, a noun. Now system combines first with –atic, forming the adjective systematic. The
negative prefix un- combines with the adjective systematic to form another adjective with a
negative meaning.
The root system is closer to –atic than it is to un-, and un- is connected to the adjective
systematic, and not directly to system. *unsystem is not a word because there is no rule of
English that allows un- to be added to nouns. The tree diagram for unsystematic is as follows:
Page 1 of 4/Lesson 4 Morphology

There is in English another prefix un- which means “to reverse action”. While negative un-
attaches to adjectives, reversative un- attaches to verbs as in:
load/ unload the truck; button/ unbutton a shirt; zip /unzip a dress.
The tree in this case would be as follows:
The hierarchical organization of words is more clearly seen in the case of structurally
ambiguous words, i.e. words that have more than one meaning by virtue of having more than
one structure. Consider, for example, the word unlockable. Imagine you are inside a room and
you want some privacy. You would be unhappy to find that the door is unlockable – “not able
to be locked.” -able combines with lock, to form the adjective lockable (“able to be locked”).
Then the prefix un-, meaning “not,” combines with the derived adjective to form a new
adjective unlockable (“not able to be locked”). This meaning of the word unlockable would
correspond to the following tree diagram:

Now imagine you are inside a locked room trying to get out. You would be very relieved to
find that the door is unlockable – “able to be unlocked.” – from the inside. In this case, the
prefix un- combines with the verb lock to form a derived verb unlock. Then, the derived verb
combines with the suffix –able to form unlockable, “able to be unlocked.” This meaning
corresponds to the following structure:
Other words that follow this pattern would be unbuttonable and unzippable, among others.
Structure is important to determine meaning. The different meanings arise because of the
different structures. Hierarchical structure is an essential property of human language.
Inflectional vs Derivational Morphemes

Radford (1999: 168) makes us notice that, as they determine the category of a word,
derivational morphemes tend to appear before inflectional morphemes] For example, from the
verb paint we can derive the agentive noun painter, whose plural will be paint-er-s and not
*paint-s-er.
Morphemes vs Syllables
Jackendoff (1997) notes that while in morphology we work with the notion of morpheme, in
phonology we work with the notion of syllable. Syllables and morphemes are not in a one to
one correspondence. For example, from a morphological perspective the word organization is
derived from the word organ 1 (a free morpheme) through the addition of two bound
morphemes –iz(e) and –ation:
[ [ [organ] iz] ation]
1
organ: a fully differentiated structural and functional unit

However, from a phonological point of view, the word is made up of segments, five syllables
(or + ga + ni + za + tion) and two feet [or + ga + ni] [za + tion], a foot being a group of two or
more syllables in which one syllable has the major stress.
Syllables are not morphemes. While morphemes are lexical or syntactic entities, segments,
syllables and feet are phonological entities which cut across morpheme boundary.
SYNTAX
Syntax deals with the way elements combine to form more complex structures. In the same
way as words are not simple sequences of morphemes, sentences are not strings of words.
Sentences are also hierarchically structured. Carnie (2011: 6) clearly explains the difference
between simple addition and syntax. He claims that if you add up the values of a series of
numbers, it doesn’t matter what order they are added in:
7 + 8 + 15 + 2 = 2 + 15 + 8 + 7 = 8 + 7 + 2 + 15
But if you combine the following words yellow, singing, the, a, elephant, mouse, sniffed in
different ways you get different sentences which do not mean the same (e.g. A singing elephant
sniffed the yellow mouse, The yellow elephant sniffed a singing mouse, etc.). The structure of
sentences can be represented in different ways: by means of tree structures, by means of
bracketing or by means of boxes.
Lesson 4 Activity 1: (to be handed in as Assignment 4)

Draw the tree for the following words:
1. employers
2. employees
3. unhappiness
4. careful
5. unconventional
References:
Fromkin, V., Rodman, R. & Hyams, N. (2011) An Introduction to Language, Ninth Edition.
Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Chapter 1: The Words of Language.
Jackendoff, R. (1997) The Architecture of the Language Faculty. Cambridge, Massachusetts:
The MIT Press.
Radford, A., Atkinson, M., Britain, D. Clahsen, H., & Spencer, A. (2009) Linguistics: An
Introduction, second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

LESSON 5:
ARGUMENTS AND PREDICATORS
VERBS AND THEIR ARGUMENTS

Let us consider the following sentences:
1. John sneezed.
2. John killed Bill.
3. John gave Bill the book.
4. John told Bill the truth.
5. John put the book on the table.
Whenever we want to analyse a simple sentence, we must first identify the verb, the
conjugated verb. From a semantic point of view, the verb is the most important element of the
sentence because it determines the number of elements that go with it. Haegeman (1991)
compares the verb to the script of a play, in the sense that its meaning determines the number
of actors or participants that will be needed if we want to represent its meaning.
Suppose we want to represent the meaning of the verb sneeze. One actor/participant
would be enough to perform the action of sneezing (e.g. John sneezed).
In the case of the verb kill, we would need two actors/participants, one to perform the
action of killing and another actor who will be affected by the same action (e.g. John killed
Bill).
In the case of the verb give, we would need three participants, the person who
performs the action of giving, an object that will change hands and a receiver of the object
(e.g. John gave Bill the book or John gave the book to Bill).
The same would happen with verbs of communication (e.g. John told Bill the truth).
There will be a sender of a message, a receiver of the message and the message itself. Verbs
of giving and verbs of communication are alike in the sense that both require three entities.
Notice that we are using entity to refer to animate and inanimate things, i.e. people and
objects. In both cases there is an entity that goes from one participant to another.
Verbs like put also require three entities, somebody who performs the action, i.e. an
agent, an entity that will be placed somewhere and a place or location (e.g. John put the book
on the table). Verbs like put are, however, syntactically different from verbs of giving and
verbs of communication.
We will refer to the verb as the predicator of the sentence. The verb performs the
role of predicator. Predicator is a semantic label. When we say that the verb is the predicator
we are doing a semantic analysis of the sentence, we are paying attention to its meaning. The
nominals or elements that go with it will be referred to as arguments. Again argument is a
semantic label.
Verbs like sneeze, which need only one actor or argument, will be called one-
argument verbs or one-place verbs because there is only one place or position to be filled in.
Verbs like kill, which take two nominals or arguments, will be called two-argument verbs or
two-place verbs because there are two positions to be filled in, one before the verb and one
after the verb. Verbs like give, tell and put will be called three-argument verbs or three-
place verbs, since they take three arguments or nominals. Although give, tell and put are
similar because of the number of arguments that they take (i.e. they are all three-place verbs),
they are not alike in another sense which we will discuss presently.
If we specify the number of arguments that a verb combines with, what we are
describing is the argument structure of that verb. The argument structure of a verb specifies
the number of arguments that the verb takes. It is represented in the following way:
1. argument structure of sneeze: <1>

2. argument structure of kill: <1, 2>
3. argument structure of give: <1, 2, 3>
4. argument structure of tell: <1, 2, 3>
5. argument structure of put: <1, 2, 3>
TO SUM UP:
When confronted with a sentence such as 1. above (i.e. John sneezed), you will be expected
to:
1. look for the verb and underline it
2. think of the meaning of this verb and of the number of entities (people or objects)
that you would need to represent its meaning, and
3. state its argument structure.
The semantic analysis of the following sentences should look as follows:

1. John sneezed.
Semantic analysis:
Predicator: sneeze (one-place verb)
Arguments: John (only one)
Argument Structure of sneeze: <1>

Semantic analysis:
Predicator: kill (two-place verb)
Arguments: John, Bill (two arguments)
Argument Structure of kill: <1, 2>

Semantic analysis:
Predicator: give (three-place verb)
Arguments: John, Bill, the book (three)
Argument Structure of give: <1, 2, 3>

Semantic analysis:
Predicator: tell (three-place verb)
Arguments: John, Bill, the truth (three)
Argument Structure of tell: <1, 2, 3>

Semantic analysis:
Predicator: put (three-place verb)
Arguments: John, the book, on the table (three)
Argument Structure of put: <1, 2, 3>
Notice that when we isolate the predicator we use the bare form of the verb, i.e. the
verb without tense. One thing is the meaning of the verb, another thing is the tense. Notice
too that if a one-place verb, i.e. a verb that requires only one argument, appears with two
arguments (e.g. *John sneezed the handkerchief) the sentence is ungrammatical. The same
would happen if a two-place verb appears with only one argument (*John killed) or if a three-
place verb appears with only two arguments (*John put the book). The asterisk at the
beginning of the sentence is a convention to express that the sentence is not well-formed.
Verbs are not the only elements that can function as predicators. Adjectives, nouns
and prepositions can also function as predicators and they also take arguments. We will now
consider each category in detail.
TO SUM UP:
The elements that can function as predicators are:
1. verbs
2. adjectives
3. nouns
4. prepositions
ADJECTIVES AND THEIR ARGUMENTS

If we wanted to represent the meaning of the sentence John is tall, one actor would be
enough. We will refer to tall as a one-place adjective. The semantic analysis of a sentence
where the predicator is a one-place adjective should look as follows:
1. John is tall.
Semantic analysis:
Predicator: tall (one-place adjective)
Argument Structure of tall: <1>
But adjectives can also be two-place, i.e. they can also take two arguments. This is the
case of adjectives such as envious, fond, afraid, sure, aware, which are derived from or
related to two-place verbs. Consider the following sentences:
1. John envies Mary.

2. John is envious of Mary.
The verb envy is a two-place verb. The adjective envious, which is related to the verb envy,
inherits the same number of arguments. Notice that in the case of the adjective a preposition
has to be inserted before its second argument, in this case of. We find the same type of
relation between the verb like and the adjective fond (John likes Mary/ John is fond of Mary),
between the verb fear and the adjective afraid (John fears storms/ John is afraid of storms),
between the verb know and the adjective aware (John knows that Bill is a liar/ John is aware
that Bill is a liar). The semantic analysis of a sentence where the predicator is a two-place
adjective should look as follows:
1. John is fond of Mary.
Semantic analysis:
Predicator: fond (two-argument adjective or two-place adjective)
Arguments: John, Mary
Argument Structure of fond: <1, 2>
There are no three-place adjectives. Notice too that in the previous sentences (John is tall/
John is fond of Mary) the verb is be. The verb be, however, has no semantic content (i.e. no
meaning) so it does not count as the predicator of the sentence. It is the carrier of tense,
though. According to Haegeman and Guéron (1999) be is said to function as a copular verb:
it establishes a predicative relation between the predicate and its argument There are
languages such as Hebrew where the verb be is optional if the sentence is in the present. They
say something like John tall or John fond of Mary.
NOUNS AND THEIR ARGUMENTS

Nouns and noun phrases usually function as arguments. There is one exception,
though. In the following sentence:
John is a doctor.
the indefinite noun phrase a doctor functions as the predicator, i.e. it has a predicative
function. We are ‘predicating’ (i.e. saying) something about John, the fact that he is a doctor.
Sentences like this are called predicative sentences. The noun John, on the other hand, has a
referential function, in the sense that the noun is used to refer to an individual, John.
If we wanted to represent the meaning of the sentence John is a doctor, one actor would be
enough, as long as he had the necessary attributes that could help us identify him as a doctor.
The semantic analysis of the sentence should look as follows:
1. John is a doctor.
Semantic analysis:
Predicator: a doctor (one-argument noun phrase)
Arguments: John
Argument Structure of a doctor: <1 >
We will make a distinction between predicative sentences, such as the one provided above,
and identificational or equative sentences such as:
1. John is my brother.
2. Mr. Brown is the dean.
Notice that in these sentences the two phrases are definite noun phrases and that we can
reverse the order and still get a grammatical sentence:
1. My brother is John.
2. The dean is Mr. Brown.
This reversal of order is not possible when the indefinite noun phrase has a predicative
function:
3. *A doctor is John. (ungrammatical because a doctor has a predicative function)
In the presence of an equative sentence, we will say that the predicator is be, and that it
combines with two arguments. Equative sentences will be the only case in which we will
consider be as the predicator. Example:
Mr. Brown is the dean.

Semantic Analysis.
Predicator: be (equative sentence)
Arguments: Mr. Brown, the dean
Argument Structure of be: <1,2>
PREPOSITIONS AND THEIR ARGUMENTS

Prepositions also take arguments. Prepositions such as in, on are two-place prepositions in the
sense that they relate two arguments, e.g.:
John is in the room.

The book is on the table.
The semantic analysis of the sentence John is in the room should look as follows:
1. John is in the room.

Semantic analysis:
Predicator: in (two-place preposition)
Arguments: John, the room
Argument Structure of in: <1, 2>

Analyse the following sentences from a semantic point of view:
1. Laura told us a very strange story.
2. My mother keeps the sugar in the fridge.
3. The student’s knowledge of Latin was quite good.
4. The student was good at Latin.
5. Ann said that she was exhausted. (Here you will have to do two semantic analyses,
one for the predicator say and one for the predicator exhausted)

Analyse the following sentences from a semantic point of view
1. Laura placed the book on a shelf.
2. The boy ate the sandwich.
3. The child was very innocent. (= naïve)
4. The man was innocent of any crime. (= not guilty of any crime)
5. John is in London.
REFERENCES:
Haegeman, L. (1991) Introduction to Government and Binding Theory, Blackwell.
Hurford, J. & B. Heasley (1983) Semantics: a coursebook. CUP.
LESSON 6:
SUBJECTS AND COMPLEMENTS
There is a universal principle called the Extended Projection Principle (EPP), which
states that every verb must have a subject, explicit or implicit. Now if every verb must have a
subject, the subject does not help us to distinguish different types of verbs. What helps us to
distinguish different types of verb are the elements that follow the verb and which are
lexically required by it. Those elements we will call complements. Subject and complement
are syntactic notions.
VERB COMPLEMENTS
A verb such as sneeze, which takes only one argument, will have no complements. A
verb such as kill, which takes two arguments, will have one complement. Verbs such as give
and tell, which take three arguments, will have two complements. A verb such as put, which
takes three arguments, will also have two complements. Notice that the number of
complements that a verb takes is generally the number of arguments minus one.
Notice that in the case of the lexical category verb, complement can be defined in two ways:
1. the element that follows the predicator (in this case the verb) and which creates a
subcategory within the category, in the sense that it allows us to distinguish
different types of verb. In this sense the subject is never a complement. If every
verb must have a subject, the subject doesn’t help us to distinguish different types
of verb.
2. an element that is lexically required by the meaning of the verb.
We will later discuss another type of category, the functional categories, in which case the
complement is the element that follows the category but which is not an argument of that
category.
The complements that a verb takes are represented by means of a frame (cf. in Spanish: un
marco) which is called subcategorization frame (cf. in Spanish: marco de
subcategorización). The subcategorization frame includes information about:
1. the number of complements that a predicator takes and

2. the type of complements (i.e. the category of the complements) that a predicator
takes.
The subject is an argument but it is never a complement so it is never part of the

subcategorization frame (Haegeman 1994: 45). The following are examples of
subcategorization frames:
John sneezed.
Subcategorization frame of sneeze: V [ ]
The V that is outside the square brackets states the category of the predicator. Sneeze is a
verb. Within the brackets, the line indicates the position of the verb. Sneeze has no
complements so it not followed by anything.
John killed the bear.
Subcategorization frame of kill: V [ DP 1]
The verb kill has two arguments but only one complement, the determiner phrase (DP) the
bear.
John gave the boy the book./ John gave the book to the boy.
Subcategorization frame of give: V [ DP DP] or V [ DP PP]
The verb give has two frames. In both frames, give takes two complements but in the first
frame the two complements are determiner phrases (DP DP). In the second frame one of the
complements is a determiner phrase and the other complement is a prepositional phrase (DP
PP)
John put the book on the table.
Subcategorization frame of put: V [ DP PP]
The verb put takes two complements, a determiner phrase and a prepositional phrase. Put has
only one subcategorization frame.
The other lexical categories that we have discussed so far (adjectives, nouns and prepositions)
can also take complements. The complement to these other categories will still be defined as
an element that is lexically required by the meaning of the word. The complements to
adjectives, prepositions and nouns will also help us to create subcategories with the category.
ADJECTIVE COMPLEMENTS
John is tall.
Subcategorization frame of tall: A [ ]
The adjective tall takes only one argument and no complements.
John is fond of Mary.
Subcategorization frame of fond : A [ PP]
The adjective fond takes two arguments and only one complement, the prepositional phrase of
Mary (PP).
1
DP stands for determiner phrase, a phrase whose head is the determiner the. Determiners and determiner
phrases will be discussed presently when the functional categories are introduced.
PREPOSITIONAL COMPLEMENTS
John is in the kitchen.
Subcategorization frame of in: P [ DP]
The preposition in takes two arguments but only one complement, a determiner phrase (DP).
NOUN COMPLEMENTS
In the following sentence:
The enemy destroyed the city.
the verb destroy takes two arguments (the enemy and the city) and one complement (the city).
If the sentence is transformed into a phrase, it can become part of a larger sentence as in:
The enemy’s destruction of the city occurred at dawn.
The noun destruction inherits the arguments of the verb destroy, so that it will also have two
arguments (the enemy and the city) and one complement (the city). Notice that the main
predicator of the sentence is occurred. What we are doing is analysing the phrase the enemy’s
destruction of the city internally. The subcategorization frame of destruction would be as
follows:
Subcategorization frame of destruction: N [ PP]
ADJUNCTS
Consider the following sentences:
John killed Bill in Central Park yesterday.
The verb kill is a two-place verb, it takes two arguments (John and Bill) and one complement
(Bill). In Central Park and yesterday are not required by the meaning of kill. In Central Park
gives us the location of the whole event of killing and yesterday the time at which the event
occurred. It would also be possible to add to the previous sentence an adjunct of reason
(because he hated him).
These elements that modify the whole event are called adverbial adjuncts. The label
adjunct is a syntactic label. Adjuncts are in opposition to complements. Adjuncts will not
be part of subcategorization frames.
The following is a list of adverbial adjuncts. It is not an exhaustive list, though:
1. Adverbial adjunct of time: I haven’t seen John since Monday.

2. Adverbial adjunct of place: John killed Bill in Central Park.
3. Adverbial adjunct of manner or speed: She buttered the bread slowly.
4. Adverbial adjunct of reason or cause: She was late because she overslept.
5. Adverbial adjunct of company: She went to the cinema with her boyfriend.
6. Adverbial adjunct of purpose: The thief wore gloves so that he would leave no
fingerprints.
7. Adverbial adjunct of result: The thief wore gloves so that he left no fingerprints.
8. Adverbial adjunct of condition: If he comes, tell him that I’m out.
9. Adverbial adjunct of concession: The match was played in spite of the rain.
10. Adverbial adjunct of frequency: She reads the newspaper every day.
11. Adverbial adjunct of instrument 2: She cut the bread with a knife.
POSTMODIFIERS TO NOUNS
In the same way that we have to make a distinction between complements and adjuncts, we
will also have to make a distinction between complements to nouns and postmodifiers to
nouns. In the phrase:
a student of physics
of physics is a complement to the noun student because a student of physics is somebody who
studies physics. But in:
a student with long hair
with long hair is a postmodifier. A student with long hair is not somebody who studies long
hair, it is somebody who studies something and who happens to have long hair. Notice that
complements to nouns and postmodifiers to nouns may coexist as in:
a student of physics with long hair
If both appear the complement must come first because it has a closer relationship with the
noun.
Some authors use the label adnominal adjunct for postmodifiers to nouns. Again the
important thing is that postmodifiers to nouns or adnominal adjuncts are in opposition to
complements.
1. What does the Extended Projection Principle state?
2. How can we define a complement?
3. Why isn’t the subject a complement?
4. What kind of information does a subcategorization frame include?
5. What is an adjunct?

State the subcategorization frame of the following predicators:
1. Laura told the children a very strange story.
2. My mother keeps the sugar in the fridge.
3. The student’s knowledge of Latin was quite good.
2
It is debatable whether the instrument is really an adjunct or a complement.
4. The student was good at Latin.
5. The mobile cast a shadow on the wall.

Do the following sentences contain any adverbial adjuncts? If so, what type are they?
1. Lucy keeps the money in a box.
2. He did it because of her insistence.
3. She kissed her mother on the platform.
4. I have often told them to relax.
5. Although he is poor, he is happy.
6. He is poor but he is happy.
7. The match will be played in spite of the rain.
8. The match will be played although it is raining.

State the subcategorization frame of the following predicators:
1. Laura placed the book on a shelf.
2. The boy ate the sandwich.
3. The child was very innocent. (= naïve)
4. The man was innocent of any crime. (= not guilty of any crime)
5. John is at the office.
References:
Haegeman, L. (1994) Introduction to Government & Binding Theory, second edition.
Blackwell.
LESSON 7:
STATES VS EVENTS
A state is a situation that holds or exists, without change, for some time. States lack stages or
phases and they are durative. Examples of states are be happy, own a house, have green eyes,
etc. This information can be expressed by means of features, semantic features in this case,
e.g.:
Own a house: [- stages], [+ durative] 1
States can also be represented graphically by means of an unbroken line, e.g.:
Events, on the other hand, are dynamic situations. They happen, occur or take place at a
certain time and in a certain place. They don’t exist as concrete objects do. They involve
participants. Examples of events are a party, a demonstration, a meeting, a lesson, an invasion,
etc.
WHICH VERBS TEND TO DENOTE STATES?
1. The verb be:
The whale is a mammal. (permanent characteristic) (cf. Spanish: ser)

I am tired. (temporary state) (cf. in Spanish: estar)
2. Verbs of perception such as see, hear, smell, taste, feel when they refer to a situation which
involves no energy or will. Consider the following examples:
I can see somebody at the door.

From here, I can hear the noise of the traffic.
Can you smell something burning?
I can taste the garlic in this stew.
I feel sad.
3. Verbs that express emotions such as like, love, dislike, hate, loathe, detest, hope, want, etc.
These verbs are called modality verbs and they express what is technically called volition:
I like chocolate.
I want to go to the cinema.
4. Verbs that express knowledge or lack of knowledge such as know, believe, think, expect,
seem, find, etc. These verbs are another type of modality verbs and they express cognition:
1
Durative is a feature, the + or – sign placed before the feature is a value for that feature. The [+] value
indicates that the feature is present, the [–] value indicates that the feature is absent.
I believe that he is a liar.
Sue thinks that the film is excellent.
She seems happy.
She looks happy.
WHICH VERBS TEND TO DENOTE EVENTS?
1. Verbs which denote activities. Activities are situations such as walk in the park, work,
which are durative but which do not culminate 2, e.g.:
John is working.
Ann is playing in her room.
When these verbs combine with be + ing they express what is known as imperfective
aspect, i.e. they present a situation as on-going, in progress, without including the
culmination point.
2. Momentary verbs such as hiccough, hit, jump, kick, knock, nod, sneeze, tap wink, etc. These
are verbs that denote events that have little duration, that being the reason why they are
called ‘momentary’. When they are used in the imperfective aspect, they denote a series of
events, rather than a single event. Compare:
He nodded. (a single event)

He was nodding. (a series of events, a repeated movement)
He jumped clear of the car. (a single event)

He was jumping for joy. (a series of events, a repeated movement)
3. Transitional-event verbs such as die, arrive, leave, fall, land, stop, etc. These verbs
resemble momentary verbs in that they also denote events that have little duration. However,
when used in the imperfective aspect, they express that the entity is approaching a transition
into a new state (i.e. a change into a new state) rather than the transition itself.
The man was dying.

The helicopter was landing.
The bus is stopping.
4. Verbs of attention, which contrast with verbs of perception, such as look, listen, smell, taste,
and feel, e.g.:
I’m looking at some photos.

Listen to me.
Smell this perfume to see if you like it.
Taste this. (cf. probá)
Feel this material to see if it is soft enough for the baby.
2
A situation that culminates is said to be telic. A situation that does not culminate is called atelic. See lesson 43
(Inflectional Categories of the Verb).
We look at something because we want to, not simply because we have got eyes. We listen to
somebody or something again because we want to, not simply because we have got ears. All
these actions are done voluntarily.
5. Process verbs such as change, grow, get, turn, etc.
It is getting late.
The weather is changing for the better.
The little boy grew tired.
He turned traitor.
STANCE VERBS
Stance verbs (e.g. sit, stand, lie, live, stay and carry, hold, keep, wear) are very special verbs.
They can denote states or events.
They are interpreted as stative when they denote a position or location:
The books were lying on the table. (temporary position)

The town lies on the coast. (permanent position)
At the moment, I’m living with my parents. (temporary location)

My brother lives in London. (permanent location)
Notice that although they can combine with -ing (imperfective aspect), they are still interpreted
as stative verbs denoting a temporary position. However, when they combine with an adverbial
particle such as up, down, back (e.g. stand up, sit down, etc) they are recategorized as dynamic,
because they denote a change of state:
She sat up in bed.

Sit down.
She sat back and relaxed.
Note 1:
Notice that hope is a modality verb expressing volition, whereas expect is a modality verb
expressing cognition.
I can’t go out now. I am expecting a phone call. (I know that somebody will call)
I hope I can find a parking space. (I want to find a parking space but I do not know if
there will be one.)
Note 2:
Verbs of perception are complex. According to Smith (1991) they denote states if they refer to
a situation which involves no energy or will (see previous examples) but they can also denote
events when they refer to a change into a state of perception, e.g.:
I can see somebody at the door. (stative)

Suddenly, I saw John. (dynamic)
Note 3:
Sometimes a verb is [- durative] and cannot combine with the imperfective aspect but as long
as there is a change of state, the situation can be regarded as an event and it is therefore [+
dynamic], e.g.:
I’ve found the keys. (change of state: now I know where they are)
*I’m finding the keys.
TESTS TO TELL DYNAMIC VERBS FROM STATIVE VERBS:

1. Dynamic verbs can be combined with –ing to express what is technically called imperfective
aspect. Stative verbs cannot:
He is persuading her to come.

*He is believing that I came.
2. Dynamic verbs can be used in the imperative. Stative verbs cannot:
Persuade him to come.

Buy a TV.
*Believe that he came.
*Like grammar.
3. Dynamic verbs accept manner adverbials such as carefully, attentively, conscientiously,

painstakingly 3, etc. Stative verbs don’t:
He painstakingly persuaded me to come.

*He painstakingly believed that I came.
John carefully washed his car.

*John carefully knew Greek.
4. Dynamic verbs accept the negation of permission. Stative verbs don’t:
He may not go to the cinema. (may has to be unstressed, the stress falls on not)
*He may not believe that I came. (= he has no permission to believe…)
He may not believe that I came. (this is possible because if may is stressed it expresses
possibility: = It may be the case/ it is possible that he doesn’t believe that I came)
5. Dynamic verbs can be pronominalized by do so. Stative verbs cannot:
John persuaded me to come but Mary didn’t do so.

*John believed that I came but Mary didn’t do so.
6. Dynamic verbs can become the focus of pseudo-cleft sentences (i.e. emphatic sentences
which contain a -wh clause). Stative verbs cannot:
What he did was persuade me to come.
3
Painstaking: adj. [usually before noun] needing a lot of care, effort and attention to detail: The event had been
planned with painstaking attention to detail. Painstakingly: adv.
*What he did was believe that I came.
What you must do is learn Spanish.

*What you must do is know Spanish.
7. Dynamic verbs can be used as the complement of verbs such as persuade or commanded:
I persuaded Mary to wash her car.

*I persuaded Mary to know Greek.
This is a first characterization which will leave you with a lot of questions. What we will see
later is that what can really be characterized as stative or dynamic is the type of situation that
the sentence expresses. And very often this characterization does not depend on the verb alone
but on the verb and the elements that combine with it. The verb and the number of elements
that combine with it form what is called in semantics the proposition. If a verb is dynamic, we
will say that the sentence expresses a dynamic (or movement) proposition. If a verb is stative,
we will say that the sentence expresses a stative (or locative) proposition.
From now onwards, you will have to state in the semantic analysis if the proposition expressed
by the sentence is stative or dynamic. The semantic analysis of a sentence should look as
follows:
1. John sneezed.
Semantic analysis:
Predicator: sneeze (one-place verb)
Argument Structure of sneeze: <1>
Proposition: dynamic

Semantic analysis:
Predicator: kill (two-place verb)
Arguments: John, Bill (two arguments)
Argument Structure of kill: <1, 2>

Semantic analysis:
Arguments: John, Bill, the book (three)
Argument Structure of give: <1, 2, 3>

Semantic analysis:
Arguments: John, Bill, the truth (three)
Argument Structure of tell: <1, 2, 3>
Semantic analysis:
Predicator: put (three-place verb)
Arguments: John, the book, on the table (three)
Argument Structure of put: <1, 2, 3>
6. John is tall.
Semantic analysis:
Predicator: tall (one-place adjective)
Argument Structure of tall: <1>
Proposition: stative
7. John is fond of Mary.

Semantic analysis:
Predicator: fond (two-place adjective)
Arguments: John, Mary
Argument Structure of fond: <1, 2>
8. John is a doctor.
Semantic analysis:
Predicator: a doctor (one-argument predicative determiner phrase)
Arguments: John
Argument Structure of a doctor: <1 >
Now how can you justify your analysis? Here you have some help:
Possible justifications for stative propositions:
1. I know the truth.

The proposition is stative because know is a modality verb expressing cognition or
2. I love chocolate.
The propositon is stative because love is a modality verb expressing volition or
3. I am aware that he is dishonest.

The main proposition is stative because aware is a modality adjective expressing
cognition.
4. I am glad that you can come to my party.

The main proposition is stative because glad is a modality adjective expressing
volition.
5. The tiger in that cage is dangerous.
The proposition is stative because dangerous is an adjective denoting a property and
because the verb be is a typical stative verb.
6. From my bedroom, I can see a river and lovely park.

The proposition is stative because see is a very of perception.
Possible justifications for a dynamic or movement proposition:
1. The door opened.

The proposition is dynamic. Open denotes a change of position.
2. John opened the door.

The proposition is dynamic because there is a causative meaning in the sentence. It can
be paraphrased as John caused the door to change its position.
3. The snow melted.

The proposition is dynamic. Melt denotes a change of state. The snow went from one
state to another. There is movement.
4. The sun melted the snow.

The proposition is dynamic because there is a causative meaning in the sentence. It can
be paraphrased as The sun caused the snow to change its state.
5. The child is crying.

The proposition is dynamic because the sentence denotes an activity. The semantic
features are [+dynamic], [+durative], and the situation does not culminate. Besides cry
is a verb of emission. Verbs of emission require an input of energy.
6. He went to the supermarket.

The proposition is dynamic because go is a verb of directed motion. The subject is an
entity that traverses a path.
7. The baby is crawling.

The proposition is dynamic because the sentence denotes an activity. The semantic
features are [+dynamic], [+durative], and the situation does not culminate. Besides
crawl is a verb of manner of motion.
More complex examples:

1. Fish swim.
Although swim in isolation is a verb that would denote an activity, in this case the
proposition is stative because it has been combined with simple present. The sentence
denotes a property of fish.
2. I saw John yesterday.

Although see is a verb of perception, the proposition is dynamic because it has been
combined with simple past so the sentence denotes an event.
3. John knows the truth.
The proposition is stative. Know is a modality verb expressing cognition.
4. I knew John’s car immediately.

The proposition is dynamic. Know means “recognize” here and it denotes an event.
Notice the presence of the adverb immediately.
1. What is a state?
2. What is an event?
3. What’s the difference between a verb of perception and a verb of attention?
4. What is a momentary verb?
5. What is a transitional event verb?
6. What is a modality verb? How many modalities can we distinguish?
7. Mention at least three tests that help you distinguish a stative from a dynamic verb.
8. Some verbs such as find, which are [- durative], cannot be used in the imperfective
aspect. Is that an indication that the verb denotes a stative situation?

1. Can you taste the food to see if it has enough salt?
2. Jack ran a race.
3. Jack won the race.
4. Lucy is rude.
5. Lucy is being rude.

1. I’m learning Japanese.
2. I know Japanese.
3. I know Peter.
4. I met him at a party.
REFERENCES:
Nilsen, D & A. P. Nilsen (1975) Semantic Theory: A Linguistic Perspective. Rowley, Mass:
Newbury House.
Smith, C. (1991) The Parameter of Aspect. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Leech, G. (1971) Meaning and the English Verb (second edition). Longman.
LESSON 8:
SEMANTIC OR THEMATIC ROLES
The verb is the most important element in a sentence because it determines the number of
elements that go with it. Haegeman (1991) compares the verb to the script of a play, in the
sense that its meaning determines the number of actors or participants needed to represent its
meaning. In the same way as actors in a play are assigned roles, the verb also assigns roles to
its arguments. These roles are semantic roles. For example, in the sentence:
The man killed the bear.
the man is described as the agent (i.e. the entity that performs the action that causes the bear to
be dead) and the bear is the patient (i.e. the entity affected).
Technically speaking, these roles are called thematic roles or theta roles. Now linguists do
not agree with respect to the type and number of theta roles that should be recognised. We will
first consider the most common thematic roles that we find in the literature on the subject.
1) Agent:
The agent has to be an animate being. It is the causer of the happening denoted by the verb,
the doer of the action. An element of volition or causation is present. Notice that agents
combine with dynamic verbs, it is not possible to have a doer of an action if there is no
action:
Margaret is mowing the grass.

The gamekeeper wounded him.
Jack fell down on purpose. (on purpose: volitional adverbial).
Verbs of attention (look, listen, smell, taste, and feel) take agentive subjects, for example:
I'm looking at some photographs.

We listened carefully but heard nothing.
(You) Smell this and tell me what it is.
He tasted the soup to see if he had put enough salt in it.
She felt the material to see if it was soft enough for the baby.
2) External Causer:
The unwitting (= unintentional) cause of an event. It is generally inanimate, e.g.:
The avalanche destroyed several houses.

The electric shock killed him.
3) Experiencer:
The living entity that experiences something. Experiencer subjects occur with stative verbs
and adjectives. They contrast with agents and causers. We find experiencer subjects with:
a) verbs and adjectives that express emotions (modality verbs and modality adjectives
expressing volition), e.g.:
Modality verbs expressing volition:

Tom liked the play.
We respect the truth.
Everyone hates John.
Mary envies John’s talent.
Angie loves French films.
Modality adjectives expressing volition:

The workers are angry.
Tom is unhappy.
b) verbs and adjectives that express knowledge, belief or expectation (modality verbs and
modality adjectives expressing cognition)
Modality verbs expressing cognition:

He knows the truth.
Jane believed the story.
Modality adjectives expressing cognition:

I'm aware that he has done it.
Tom was sure that Mary had done it.
c) verbs of perception (see, hear, smell, taste, feel), which contrast with verbs of attention:
I can see somebody at the door.

Did you hear him go out?
Can you taste the garlic in this stew?
I could smell (that) he had been smoking.
I feel disappointed.
4) Patient:
The entity that exists before the action is performed and that is affected by it.
Norman smashed a window in his father's car.

I'm digging the ground.
I baked some potatoes.
The fish is frying.

The fish is being fried. (passive sentence)
5) Resultant:
The entity that does not exist before the action is performed but which is the result of that
action.
I'm digging a hole.

Baird invented television.
John has painted a new picture.
6) Theme:
a) the entity located somewhere:
The pencil was on the table.

The pencil was lying on the table.
b) The abstract entity that is metaphorically located in someone’s mind. An abstract entity
may be an idea, a thought or a belief:
John believes that Mary is clever.

Bill thinks that Lucy is pretty.
We will refer to this role as theme/proposition in the sense that the idea, belief, etc.,
expresses a proposition that can be said to be true or false, i.e. that can be assigned a truth
value. Notice that in this case the argument is not a determiner phrase but a noun clause,
something like a sentence but within another sentence. It is called a clausal argument.
c) the entity that undergoes motion. In this case, the verb must be dynamic, a verb of motion:
John went to the cinema.

Jack fell down. (accidentally)
The ball rolled down the hill.
John put the book on the table.

We rolled the ball down the hill.
d) the entity characterised, especially if there is an adjective after the verb be, e.g.:
The boy is clever.

That restaurant is expensive.
In this case, the subject can also be viewed as an entity located somewhere, an entity located
in a certain set, in the sentences above the set of clever people or the set of expensive things.
7) Instrument:
The entity (generally inanimate) which an agent uses to perform an action or instigate a
process. Notice that the preposition with appears in the paraphrase:
A stone broke his glasses. (Somebody broke his glasses with a stone)
A gun wounded him. (Somebody wounded him with a gun)
The computer has solved the problem. (Somebody has solved the problem with a
computer)
We employ a computer for our calculations. (We do our calculations with a computer)
He nodded his head. (He said "yes" with his head)
He shook his head. (He said "no" with his head)
8) Recipient or Goal
I gave Martha the money.
I gave the money to Martha.
I told Martha the truth.
Tom was given a radio. (notice that this sentence is in the passive voice)
The label goal can also be used as a synonym of destination with verbs such as go or take:
John took the children to the park.

John went to the station.
9) Beneficiary (or Intended Recipient):
She made Bill a cake. (She made a cake for Bill)

I cooked him some sausages. (I cooked some sausages for him)
In this case, the paraphrase is with the preposition for.
10) Locative:
The argument denotes a place or location. The sentence can sometimes be paraphrased by
means of the word there (existential there), e.g.:
Los Angeles is foggy. (There is fog in Los Angeles)

This jar contains coffee. (There is coffee in this jar)
My tent sleeps four people. (Four people can sleep in my tent)

Tom has my notes. (Where are my notes?)
She swam the river. (She swam across the river)

The horse jumped the fence. (The horse jumped over the fence)
He passed a cyclist. (He passed by a cyclist)
Notice that in the paraphrases given above there is always a prepositional phrase that
expresses location.
11) Source:
The entity from which something moves, typically introduced by the preposition from:
John returned from Paris.
12) Eventive:
The argument denotes an event. Event nouns (i.e. demonstration, arrival, lesson, party,
mass, rally, etc.) are related to dynamic verbs that also denote events. They are abstract
nouns.
The meeting was yesterday.

The match is tomorrow.
The Norman invasion was in 1066.
THETA GRIDS
We said before that the meaning of a verb determines the number of actors or participants that
will be needed if we want to represent its meaning. We also said that the verb assigns semantic
roles to its arguments and that technically speaking these roles are called thematic roles or
theta roles. The number and type of roles that a verb assigns to its arguments is represented by
means of a grid called theta-grid. The semantic analysis of a sentence will have to include
everything we have seen plus the theta grid. Let’s consider some examples:
The rioters smashed a shop window.

Semantic analysis:
Predicator: smash (two-place verb)
Arguments: the rioters, a shop window
Argument structure of smash: <1, 2>
Theta-grid of smash: <agent, patient>
Proposition: dynamic. The rioters caused the shop window to change its state.
Bill took the children to the zoo.

Semantic Analysis:
Predicator: take (three-place verb)
Arguments: Bill, the children, to the zoo
Argument structure of take: <1, 2, 3 >
Theta-grid of take: <agent, theme, goal>
Proposition: dynamic. The sentence can be paraphrased as Bill caused the children to be at the
zoo.
Note 1: we will write the theta-grid of the verb immediately after the argument structure
because there is a correlation between the number of arguments and the number of theta-roles
that the verb can assign. (cf. the theta-criterion discussed below)
NOUNS, ADJECTIVES AND PREPOSITIONS AS THETA-ROLE ASSIGNERS

Lexical verbs are not the only elements that assign theta-roles. Nouns, adjectives and
prepositions are also theta-role assigners. Consider the following example:
The enemy destroyed the city.
The verb destroy is a two-place verb. It takes two arguments (the enemy and the city) and only
one complement (the city). The verb destroy assigns a theta-role to each, the role of agent to
the enemy and the role of patient to the argument that functions as complement, i.e. the city. If
the sentence is nominalized and becomes part of a larger structure as in:
The enemy’s destruction of the city occurred at dawn.
the noun destruction will also assign two theta roles to its arguments the enemy and the city,
the same theta roles as the verb destroy.
Consider now the following pair of sentences:
I consider [that the book is expensive.]

I consider [the book expensive.]
The verb consider is a two-place verb, it has two arguments (I and that the book is expensive)
and it assigns a theta role to each, I being an experiencer and that the book is expensive a theme/
proposition. Within the second argument, which is a complement, the book gets the theta-role
of theme from expensive. The same happens in the second sentence, where there is no verb be.
Finally consider the following example:
The book is on the table.
Here the predicator is the preposition on. It takes two arguments (the book and the table). When
the preposition on combines with the determiner phrase the table it transforms an object, the
table, into a place or projected area. The book receives the role of theme from the prepositional
phrase on the table.
THE THETA-CRITERION
The number of theta roles that a predicate has to assign determines the number of arguments
that a predicate takes. The one-to-one relation between thematic roles and arguments is referred
to as the theta-criterion. The Theta-criterion states:
a. Each argument must be associated with one and only one theta-role.
b. Each theta role must be associated with one and only one argument.
IN WHAT WAY ARE THETA ROLES USEFUL?

Sometimes theta roles help us decide which the syntactic units of the sentence are. Take for
example the sentence I think Mary pretty. Think is a two-place verb which has two theta-roles
to assign, experiencer to its subject and theme/proposition to its complement, in the sense that
‘somebody thinks something’. It is not that I think Mary. We don’t think people. What we have
is an idea located in our mind. What I think is that Mary is pretty.
THE VERB ‘CONSIDER’

Let’s discuss the following sentences:
John considered the problem.

John considered the problem difficult.
In the two sentences consider is a two-place verb, which takes two arguments and one
complement. There are, however, two verbs consider. The difference lies:
a) first, in the type of complement that the verb takes. In the first sentence, the complement
is a determiner phrase (the problem), whereas in the second sentence the complement
is a small or verbless clause (the problem difficult), a small clause being a structure of
predication without a verb (i.e. difficult is predicated of the problem)
b) secondly, in the meaning. In the first sentence, consider is a dynamic verb which means
‘give attention to’ or ‘think about something in order to make a decision’. The two
theta-roles that it assigns are agent and theme. John is an agent because it is animate
and it performs the action voluntarily. In the second sentence, however, consider means
‘think’ or ‘have the opinion’. It is a stative verb and the theta roles that it assigns
are experiencer and theme/ proposition. The idea is the abstract object located in John’s
mind. The second theta role is assigned to the whole unit the problem difficult. It is not
that John thought the problem, John thought that the problem was difficult.
Rothstein (1995) notes that we can say John considers that problem difficult, even though he
has never considered the problem (itself) at all.
THETA-ROLE ASSIGNMENT
1. John kicked the bucket. (cf. Juan pateó el balde) (literal meaning)
2. John kicked the bucket. (cf. Juan estiró la pata) (idiom)
In the first sentence the verb kick assigns first a theta role to the bucket, the theta-role of affected
participant or patient. Then the two together, i.e. kick + the bucket, will assign a theta-role to
John, the role of agent.
In the second sentence kick the bucket means die so the theta-role that John receives from the
idiom is not agent but affected participant or theme (in the sense that it is an entity that
undergoes motion, it goes from the state of being alive to the state of being dead).
Consider these other examples:

3. John threw a party. (John is an agent)
4. John threw a fit. (John is an affected participant) (cf. Tuvo un ataque de nervios)
TO SUM UP:
The predicator first assigns a theta-role to the argument that follows it and then the two
elements together (i.e. compositionally) assign a theta role to the subject.

Do the semantic analysis of the following sentences:
1. The man made a fire.
2. John gave Peter a radio.
3. Peter was given a radio. (Passive sentence)
4. He gave the door a kick.
5. The demonstration was yesterday.
6. Tom was sure that Mary had stolen the money. (Here there are two predicators)

Account for the ungrammaticality of:
1. *John believed what I said but Mary didn’t do so.
2. *John carefully knew Greek.
3. *Yesterday it was my birthday.

Do the semantic analysis of the following sentences:
1. We loved the film.
2. We went to the theatre yesterday.
3. John was working at that time.
4. She knitted me a sweater.
REFERENCES:
Haegeman, L. (1991) Introduction to Government and Binding Theory, Blackwell.
Radford, A. (1997) Syntactic Theory and the structure of English: A minimalist approach.
CUP.
Rothstein, S. (1995) Small Clauses and Copular Constructions, in A. Cardinatelli and M. T.
Guasti (eds.) Syntax and Semantics, Volume 28, Small Clauses, 27-48, Academic Press.
LESSON 9:
FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES
In lesson 2 we said that a distinction could be made between two types of categories: lexical
categories and functional categories.
The lexical categories or content words are nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions and
adverbs. They have the following properties:
1. They have descriptive or semantic content. For example, when we use the verb kill
we get different pictures in the mind that could represent the meaning of kill. When
we use the word cat, we get a picture of the prototype of a cat. Radford (1997) says
that ‘one test to check whether words have descriptive content is to see whether they
have antonyms (i.e. opposites)’. He provides the following examples: loss/gain
(nouns), rise/fall (verbs), tall/short (adjectives), in/out (prepositions), early (as in He
arrived early/late) (adverbs). This test is tricky, though, because, as he says, if a word
has an antonym, it is a lexical category (or content word), but if it has no antonym,
you cannot be sure.
2. With the exception of prepositions, lexical categories constitute open classes (i.e. new
ones can be easily created).
3. Their complements are arguments.
4. They assign semantic roles (or theta-roles) to their arguments. For example, the verb
kill requires a patient (the one that suffers the action) and an agent (the one that does
the killing).
The functional categories are: determiners (such as the definite article the and the indefinite
article in its two variants a/an), pronouns (which for us will be type of determiner), auxiliary
verbs, the traditionally called subordinating conjunctions introducing finite or conjugated
clauses (e.g.: He said that he was happy. He asked if I was happy) and the word for
introducing a non-finite clause (e.g.: It is easy for me to do that). These three words are
nowadays referred to as complementisers. Negation is another functional category and
linguists do not agree as to the status of tense (i.e. for some, tense is functional, for some
others, it is not). In this course, however, we will treat it as a functional category. While some
functional categories coincide with words, there are others which are affixal in nature.
According to Giusti (1997), Abney (1987) states that functional categories have the following
properties:
1. They lack ‘descriptive content’.

2. They do not assign theta-roles.
3. They express grammatical features. For example, the definite article the can express
generic or specific reference (The rich are often asked for money (generic) vs. The fat
man over there is my boss (specific)).
4. They permit only one complement, which is in general not an argument. And they
always take the same category as complement.
5. They are generally stressless (e.g. articles), often clitics 1 or affixes, and sometimes
even phonologically null (i.e. silent, without phonological content), e.g. Ø Tigers are
dangerous animals. (cf. in Spanish Los tigres son animales peligrosos)
6. They constitute closed lexical classes (i.e. new ones are not easily created). This is the
case of complementisers (that, if, for), auxiliary verbs and determiners.
7. They are usually inseparable from their complement.
According to Giusti (1997), each of these properties constitutes a tendency, not a criterion, to
decide whether an element is lexical or functional.
TO SUM UP:
There are two types of categories:
1. lexical categories and
2. functional categories
The lexical categories are:

1. nouns
2. verbs
3. adjectives
4. prepositions
5. adverbs
The functional categories (for the time being) are:

1) determiners (the, a/an and pronouns)
2) complementisers (that, if, for)
3) negation
4) tense (often manifested by means of auxiliary verbs)
PHRASAL CATEGORIES
All the functional categories listed above can expand to form phrases. For example, when a
determiner such as the combines with a noun such as man, we have a determiner phrase (DP).
The determiner the functions as the head of the phrase and gives the phrase its name. The
noun functions as the complement of the determiner. The determiner the is a type of
determiner that has to be followed by a complement. Pronouns are considered to be a type of
determiner which occurs without a complement. Phrases such as we teachers or you students
in which a determiner/pronoun occurs followed by a noun complement are not the general
rule.
1
A clitic is a sort of parasite, an element that is dependent on another element to survive, for example n’t, which
is used to express negation.
The lexical categories constitute the semantic core of the sentence. The predicator
determines the number of arguments that must occur with it and assigns them a theta-role. Let
us see how this works in the case of a very simple sentence such as He will eat the sweet in
which the predicator is a verb. The verb eat merges with its DP complement the sweet and the
two elements form the intermediate constituent V’ (to be read as V-bar), the subject DP
comes along and merges with V’ to form the full VP he eat the sweet.
Once the semantic core of the sentence has been formed, the functional category tense (T)
comes along. Tense will merge with the VP to form the intermediate constituent T’. Because
tense always needs a subject, it will expand once more into TP (tense phrase). The subject
will move out of VP to occupy the position before the conjugated verb. TP constitutes the
first functional layer.
Then comes the complementiser (C), which will have the tense phrase as complement. Again
the complementiser will expand to form a complementiser phrase (CP), the second functional
layer. Complementisers express the illocutionary force of the sentence (i.e. they tell us
whether the sentence is declarative, interrogative or imperative). If no other position is
required the complementiser will project (= expand) only once (cf. see lesson on interrogative
sentences). In the sentence we are discussing the complementiser has no phonological
content, i.e. it is a null category or empty category. An empty category is a category that
has no phonological features but that does not mean that it does not have other features. In
fact the complementiser marks the clause as declarative and as finite (i.e. as a clause that will
have a finite verb).
We will say that every sentence is a complementiser phrase (CP). The complementiser which
is the head of the complementiser phrase has a tense phrase (TP) as complement. The tense
which is the head of the tense phrase has a lexical phrasal category as complement. The tree
that we have drawn is made up of a CP + a TP + a VP.
The most important thing is that sentences have a hierarchical structure, not a flat structure.
Their hierarchical structure is clearly represented by means of the tree diagrams.
The functional categories form extended projections of the lexical categories.
PHONOLOGICALLY NULL FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES
We said above that every sentence is a CP (complementiser phrase). Main clauses in English
are introduced by a null complementiser, e.g.:
Ø He said that he was coming.

Head (C) Complement to the complementiser (TP)
Subordinate clauses may be introduced by an overt or a covert (silent, null) complementiser:
He said <that he was coming>.

<Ø he was coming>.
Determiners can also be null:
The dog is mine. Specific reference

El perro es mio. Specific reference
Ø Dogs eat meat. Generic reference
Los perros comen carne. Generic reference
Ø Mary is tall. Unique reference (context dependent)
Ø María es alta. Unique reference (context dependent)
La María es alta. (dialectal) Unique reference (context dependent)
Los Fernández se fueron de vacaciones. Unique reference (context dependent)
We will be discussing other silent categories as the course proceeds. Silent categories are
called Empty Categories. They are empty of phonological content. But they still have
grammatical features.

Which are the lexical and the functional categories in the following sentences? Remember
that functional categories may be phonologically null (i.e. silent), in which case we represent
them as Ø.
1. The tiger in that cage must be dangerous.

2. Tigers are dangerous.
3. He said that he would come.
4. He said he would come.
5. The teacher asked me if I had been present the previous class.

State which are the lexical and the functional categories in the following sentence, for
example:
Ø: functional category, null complementiser introducing a main clause.

The: functional category, determiner, definite article.
Man: lexical category, noun.
Now go on….
1. The man did not say that he would help us.
REFERENCES.
Abney, S. (1987) The English noun phrase in its sentential aspect. PhD dissertation: MIT.
Giusti, G. (1997) The categorial status of determines, in L. Haegeman (ed.) The New
Comparative Syntax. Longman, 95-123.
Radford, A. (1997) Syntactic Theory and the structure of English: A minimalist approach.
CUP.
LESSON 10
CONSTITUENTS
A constituent is a syntactic unit. Consider the following sentence taken from Haegeman &
Guerón (1999):
Louise saw the girl with the binoculars.
The sentence is ambiguous, i.e. it has two interpretations. Either what Louise saw was ‘the
girl with the binoculars’ or Louise saw the girl and Louise used binoculars to that purpose.
This sentence illustrates a case of structural ambiguity. The two interpretations of the
sentence can be related to two different structures. In the first interpretation the string the girl
with the binoculars is one syntactic unit, i.e. one constituent:
Louise saw [the girl with the binoculars].
In the second interpretation the strings the girl and with the binoculars are two different
constituents:
Louise saw [the girl] [with the binoculars].
The following sentence illustrates another case of structural ambiguity:
John kept the car in the garage.
In one interpretation keep is a three-place verb, taking three arguments (John, the car, and in
the garage) and two complements (the car and in the garage). The translation of the sentence
would be Juan guardaba el auto en el garage. In this interpretation, the car is one constituent
and in the garage is another one:
John kept [the car] [in the garage].
In the other interpretation, the car in the garage forms one constituent (the car that is/was in
the garage). Suppose John had two cars. He sold one and he kept the other. If someone asks
which car he kept, he might get as an answer that John kept the one that is in the garage. The
translation of the sentence would be Se quedó con el auto que está en el garage.
John kept [the car in the garage].
CONSTITUENCY TESTS
The structure of sentences can be discovered by the following constituency tests:
1. Constituents can be replaced by one word, e.g.:
Louise met the girl with the binoculars.

her.
Page 1 of 5/Lesson 10
did.

She
2. Constituents can be questioned by one word, e.g.:
Who did Louise meet?

The girl with the binoculars.
3. If word order is altered, the elements that form a constituent move together, e.g.:
She said she would meet the girl with the binoculars and meet the girl with the
binoculars she did.
4. Constituents can be the highlighted elements in emphatic sentences, e.g.:
It was the girl with the binoculars that Louise met. (cleft sentence)
It was Louise that met the girl with the binoculars. (cleft sentence)
What Louise did was follow the girl with the binoculars. (pseudo-cleft)
THE SIMPLE SENTENCE

We are going to start now with the syntactic analysis of simple sentences. What is a simple
sentence?
Simple sentences have only one finite or conjugated verb. They are made up of only one
clause, a main clause (remember that sentence and clause may coincide). In Traditional
Grammar they can be divided into two major parts, a subject and a predicate, for e.g.:
Subject Predicate
Louise saw the girl with the binoculars.
The subject is often described as the constituent defining the topic of the sentence - that
which the sentence is about - whereas the predicate is that which is asserted about the
subject, that which is said about the subject.
Subject and predicate are functions. A function is a relation between two elements. We can
also say that the subject of the sentence is a Determiner Phrase (DP). But in that case, we
would be mentioning its category.
To clarify the distinction that exists between categories and functions you must think of
yourselves. You are made up of a set of characteristics or features, physical and
psychological (i.e. average height, slim, with wavy hair, calm, thoughtful, etc.). You have
been given a name so that it is easy to identify you. Your name is like a category label, i.e. an
abbreviation for a set of features.
In everyday life you perform different functions. With respect to your parents, you are their
son or daughter. With respect to your teachers, you are pupils. You can in turn be
somebody’s mother or father. You can be somebody’s girlfriend or boyfriend or somebody’s
patient.
When faced with a sentence, we will first try to identify its constituents, i.e. the syntactic
units that make it up and state what grammatical function they have (i.e. subject, predicate,
head, complement, adjunct, etc.). We will then have to state the grammatical category to
which each constituent belongs (i.e. state whether it is a determiner phrase, a verb phrase, an
adjectival phrase, etc.).
So far we have considered the functions of subject, predicate, complement and adjunct.
Head of a phrase is also a function.
Now how does the tree that we described in lesson 8 relate to all this? Let us consider the tree
again:
What the tree is telling us is that every sentence is a complementisers phrase (CP). The
complementisers (C), which marks the illocutionary force of the sentence, is the head of the
phrase, its complement being the tense phrase (TP). We can represent the same information
in a somewhat simplified manner as follows:
Syntactic Representation of the sentence as a CP:
Ø He will eat the sweet.

Head (Complementiser) Complement (Tense Phrase)
As was said above, head and complement are functions, complementisers and tense phrase
are categories.
Once we have represented the sentence as a CP, we can concentrate on the TP He will eat the
sweet.
Now if you look at the tree you will notice that this TP is made up of two elements, the D
(determiner) He and a T’ (T-bar) (will he eat the sweet). For pedagogical reasons, we will
ignore the movement of the subject he out of the VP.
We will analyse He as the subject and the rest (will eat the sweet) as the predicate. Subject
and Predicate are functions. The subject is a D and the predicate is a T’. D (determiner) and
T’ (T-bar) are categories.
Syntactic analysis of the TP:
Subject (D) Predicate (T’)

He will eat the sweet.
Now if you go back to the tree you will notice that the head of the TP is T (tense). The
position is occupied by the modal auxiliary will. Will is the element that carries the tense, the
finite element. Notice that in every sentence there can only be one finite element because
there is only one Tense head.
So if we now concentrate on the analysis of will eat the sweet, we can say that will functions
as the head of the TP, and that eat the sweet is its complement, a verb phrase (VP):

He will eat the sweet.
Head (T) Complement (VP)
Notice that will is the head of the TP, not the head of T’. What we have done is the syntactic
analysis of the TP, that’s why the subheading included above.
From now on for every sentence that we have to analyse we will first do the semantic
analysis, then the syntactic representation of the sentence as a CP, and then the syntactic
analysis of the TP.

What do the following sentences have in common?
1. The man put the book on the table.
2. The director set the film in New York.
3. The mobile cast a shadow on the wall. (cast= projected)
4. The woman flung a cake into the oven.

Divide the following sentences into subject and predicate and state the category of the
subject. In what way do the different subjects differ?
1. The boy is tall.

2. The boy that I like is tall.
3. The boy seldom returns the books.
4. The boy who took the dictionary seldom returns the books he borrows.

Compare the different elements that can occupy the head Tense in the following sentences:
1. He will like her.

2. He does like her.
3. He likes her.
Lesson 10 Activity 4 (to be handed in as Assignment 10)

Analyse the following sentence integrating the information that we have seen so far. Do the
semantic analysis of the main predicator, the syntactic representation of the sentence as a CP,
and the syntactic analysis of the TP.
1. The tiger in that cage must be dangerous.
REFERENCES:
Haegeman, L. & J. Guerón (1999) English Grammar: a generative perspective, Blackwell.
LESSON 11
CASE:
Consider the following sentence:
The woman killed the robber.
Kill is a two-place verb. It takes two arguments (the woman and the robber) and one
complement (the robber). The two arguments are determiner phrases. Within the framework
of Generative Grammar, all overt (i.e. explicit) determiner phrases must have case, abstract
case. But what is case? Abstract case is a universal property of determiner phrases. Case is a
property that has to do with the way the phrase is pronounced according to its distribution in
the sentence. In English, however, this becomes evident only if we replace the determiner
phrase by a pronoun. Consider the following examples:
The woman killed the robber.

She killed him.
The robber killed the woman.

He killed her.
In the first sentence, the first determiner phrase the woman and the pronoun she are said to be
in the nominative case 1. The second determiner phrase the robber and the pronoun him are
said to be in the accusative case 2.
In the second sentence, the order of the constituents has been reversed. Now the robber/he
appear in the nominative case, and the woman/her in the accusative case.
In the case of the determiner phrases the woman and the robber, case is not overtly marked so
the two determiner phrases seem to be the same, irrespective of the position that they have in
the sentence.
In the case of the pronouns, the pronunciation varies overtly (she vs. her and he vs. him).
There are languages where determiner phrases which are not pronouns also have an overt
manifestation of case.
A third case form found in English determiner phrases is the genitive case 3, e.g.:
The man’s wife killed the robber.

His wife killed the robber.
1
Also called subjective case.
2
Also called objective case.
3
Also called possessive case.
As the examples above illustrate, the distinction between nominative, accusative and genitive
cases is overt (i.e. explicit) in English in the pronoun system. Genitive case is also overt in
the case of determiner phrases which are not pronouns. It is overtly marked by means of –’s.
To sum up: As was said above, abstract case is a universal property of determiner phrases.
However, the overt realization of abstract case by means of morphological case varies cross-
linguistically (i.e. from language to language).
Determiner phrases have features:

1. person features:
first person (1 Per)
second person (2 Per)
third person (3 Per)
2. number features:
singular (Sg)
plural (Pl)
3. Gender features:
masculine (Masc)
feminine (Fem)
common (Com)
neuter (Neuter)
4. Case features:
nominative (Nom)
accusative (Acc)
genitive (Gen)
Features in the pronoun system:
Person/Number/Gender Nominative Accusative Genitive Genitive
1 Per, Sg. I me mine my

Common G:
2 Per, Sg. you you yours your
Common gender
3 Per, Sg. he him his his
Masculine
3 Per, Sg. she her hers her
Feminine
3 Per, Sg. it it its Its
Neutre G:
1 Per, Pl we us ours our
Common G
2 Per, Pl you you yours your
Common G
3 Per, Pl they them theirs their
Common G
Notice that in the case of the second person you nominative and accusative have the same
form. The same happens in the case of the third person singular it.
A determiner phrase is valued as nominative by a finite tense element. A determiner phrase

is valued as accusative by a transitive verb or by a preposition. A determiner phrase is
marked as genitive by the determiner which is the head of the DP where the possessive or
genitive occurs.

What is the case of the underlined DPs?
1. I think that he is innocent.
2. I think him innocent.
3. The woman believed that the man was innocent.
4. The woman believed the man innocent.
5. The woman believed him innocent.
6. Her sister raised her.
REFERENCES:
Haegeman, L. (1994) Introduction to Government and Binding Theory, 2nd ed. Blackwell.
LESSON 12
SYNTACTIC CLASSIFICATION OF VERBS:
MONO TRANSITIVE VS BITRANSITIVE VERBS
We will now turn to a very traditional syntactic characterization of verbs. We will start with
those verbs whose syntactic structure can be viewed as a more or less direct reflection of
predicate/argument structure, namely mono-transitive and bi-transitive verbs.
MONO-TRANSITIVE VERBS
The man killed the bear.
Verbs like kill take two determiner phrase arguments (The man and the bear in this case).
One argument functions as the complement to the verb and the other as the subject. These
verbs are called Mono-transitive 1 Verbs (MonoTV). In Traditional Grammar, the
determiner phrase argument that functions as complement is called Direct Object (DO).
Other examples of Mono TVs are see, cut, need, break, enjoy, etc. Consider the following
examples:
I saw John (yesterday).

Tom cut his finger (this morning).
I need a pen (because I have lost mine).
She broke a glass (to attract the waiter’s attention).
My mother (usually) enjoys parties (very much).
The DP complement that follows a mono-transitive verb is in the accusative case. For
example:
I saw him yesterday.

*I saw he yesterday.
I love them.
*I love they.
As was said in the previous lesson, case has to do with the way the DP is pronounced.
Unluckily, this is only evident if the complement is a pronoun, since English does not mark
accusative case overtly if the determiner phrase is not a pronoun. However, other languages
do. So even if we do not see it explicitly, we will still say that the complement of a transitive
verb is in the accusative case.
As can be seen in the sentences given above, the complement of a transitive verb may be
followed by adverbial adjuncts of time (yesterday, this morning), reason (because I have
lost mine), purpose (to attract the waiter’s attention), degree (very much), etc., but these are
1
The prefix mono means ‘one’. A monolingual dictionary, for example, is one using only one language.
optional in the sense that they are not required by the meaning of the verb and they can never
be placed between the verb and its complement (*I saw yesterday John). Usually in My
mother usually enjoys parties very much is an adverbial adjunct of frequency. Notice that it is
placed between the subject and the verb.
Transitive verbs can occur in the passive voice, in which case the determiner phrase
complement (the traditionally called direct object) moves to subject position leaving behind a
silent copy of itself, which used to be called a trace (cf. in Spanish: una huella), i.e. an
indication of its original place. We will call this movement Argument Movement. Consider
the following examples:
John was seen John at a disco last night.

The cake had been cut the cake.
A new assistant is needed a new assistant.
The window had been broken the window by some naughty boys.
Apparently the passive participle form of the verb loses the ability to value the complement
as having accusative case and the determiner phrase receives nominative case from the tense
element. It then moves to subject position.
Active sentence:
Complementiser Subject Tense Auxiliary for Lexical Complement

element the perfect verb
Ø Somebody Ø had 2 cut the cake
Passive Sentence:
Complementiser Subject Tense Perfect Passive Lexical Complement

aux aux verb
Ø The cake Ø had been cut the cake.
Argument-movement
What was the subject of the active sentence may appear at the end of a passive sentence
introduced by the preposition by, e.g.:
The window had been broken by some naughty boys.

The teacher is feared by all the students.
The by-phrase apparently functions as an adjunct. Semantically, it may be the agent (the
doer of the action) as in the first example, or an experiencer as in the second example.
INTERNAL VS. EXTERNAL ARGUMENTS

The argument that functions as complement to the transitive verb is called an internal
argument. It has a very close relationship with the verb and gets accusative case from it as
well as a thematic or semantic role. The argument that functions as the subject is called an
2
The auxiliary is initially have, a non-finite form, when it moves to tense it becomes finite (i.e. had in this
case). For pedagogical reasons it has been spelled out as had.
external argument. Its relationship with the lexical verb is less close. The distinction
between internal and external arguments will become clearer as we proceed.
BI-TRANSITIVE VERBS
John gave Bill the book.

John told Bill the truth.
Verbs of giving such as give, send, show, lend, hand, pass, grant, etc, and verbs of
communication such as tell, remind, warn, inform are three-place verbs. They take three
arguments and two complements. In traditional grammar these verbs are called Bi-transitive 3
verbs. Their complements are called Indirect Object and Direct Object.
With verbs of giving, the indirect object is like a place towards which the object moves. It is
the person who receives something, that something being the direct object. The person has
also been called the actual recipient, the target, goal or destination but these are semantic
labels.
With verbs of communication, we have a sender of a message (the subject), the message
itself (the direct object) and the receiver of the message (the indirect object). There is also
movement, metaphorical movement.
There is a syntactic test that helps us identify the indirect object and the direct object. Their
order can be reversed but then the indirect object will be introduced by the preposition to,
e.g.:
John gave Bill the book. (double object construction)

John gave the book to Bill.
John told Bill the truth. (double object construction)

John told the truth to Bill.
These two structures constitute what is known as the dative alternation, i.e. the same verb
alternates between two different structures. The first variant (John gave Bill the book/ John
told Bill the truth) is known as the double object construction.
We said before that these verbs have two subcategorization frames:
Give: V [ ------ DP DP] or [----- DP PP]
It is often possible to make either object the subject of a passive sentence. Of the two objects
one will move and the other is kept or retained in the predicate. The object that doesn’t move
is called Retained object. We can speak of a Retained Direct Object (RDO) or of a
Retained Indirect Object (RIO). For example:
We sent Jack a copy of the letter. (active sentence)

3
The prefix bi- means ‘two’. A bilingual person is a person who is able to speak two languages equally well; a
bilateral treaty is one affecting or involving two parties or countries. These verbs can also be called
ditransitive.
Jack was sent Jack a copy of the letter. (passive sentence/ a copy of the letter is the
retained direct object)
A copy of the letter was sent a copy of the letter to Jack. (passive sentence/ to Jack is
the retained indirect object)
INTERNAL VS. EXTERNAL ARGUMENTS

Bi-transitive verbs are said to have two internal arguments and one external argument. Notice
that a sentence such as:
John gave Bill the book.
can be paraphrased as:
John caused Bill to get the book.
The same happens with:
John told Mary the truth.

John caused Mary to know the truth.
Generative grammarians postulate that the meaning ‘cause’ is expressed by a silent verb
called light verb. But you will read more about this in Linguistics.
TO SUM UP:
Subject Verb
1. Mono TV + C/DO (Adjunct)
2. Bi TV + C/IO + C/DO (Adjunct)
3. Bi TV + C/DO + Preposition to +C/IO (Adjunct)
Examples which correspond to the patterns presented above:

1. The man painted a picture.
2. The man gave Mary the book.
3. The man gave the book to Mary.

1. Look for examples of other mono-transitive verbs.
2. Which are the two groups of bi-transitive verbs?
3. Provide more examples of causative verbs.

Analyse the following sentences fully. Follow the model answer given below:
1. I know your name.
2. He freed himself with a knife.
3. You should send him an e-mail.
MODEL ANSWER FOR THE ANALYSIS OF A SIMPLE DECLARATIVE SENTENCE:
The woman gave the children some sandwiches.
Steps to follow:
1. Look for coordinating conjunctions (and, or, but) linking main clauses. In this
particular case there are none. So you can expect only one main clause.
2. Underline all the verbs you find. This will allow you to decide if there are any other
subordinate clauses. In this particular case, the conjugated (or finite) verb is gave.
3. Do the semantic analysis of the main predicator. Provide some justification for saying
that the proposition is stative or dynamic.
Semantic Analysis of the predicator:

Arguments: the woman, the children, some sandwiches
Argument structure of give : <1, 2, 3>
Theta-grid: <agent, recipient or goal, theme>
Type of proposition: dynamic. Give is a causative verb.
Syntactic representation of the sentence as a CP:

The main clause is a CP (complementiser phrase) introduced by a null complementiser,
which is the head of the phrase. The null complementiser marks the clause as declarative and
it tells us that the clause will be finite.
Ø The woman gave the children some sandwiches.

H (Comp) C (TP)
We now forget about the complementiser and concentrate on the analysis of the TP:
Syntactic Analysis of the TP (Tense Phrase):
Subject (DP) Predicate (T’)

The woman Ø gave the children some sandwiches.
Syntactic analysis of the Predicate:
[Ø] gave the children some sandwiches.

H (T) C (VP)
Syntactic Analysis of the VP:
gave the children some sandwiches.

H (V) C/IO (DP) C/DO (DP)
Syntactic Analysis of the Determiner Phrase functioning as Subject:
The woman
H (D) C (N)
LESSON 13:
SYNTACTIC CLASSIFICATION OF VERBS
INTRANSITIVE VERBS OF COMPLETE PREDICATION
From a syntactic point of view, verbs can be classified into transitive or intransitive.
Transitive verbs were discussed in the previous lesson. When it comes to intransitive verbs.
two types can be distinguished:
a. Intransitive verbs of complete predication (also known as true intransitive verbs, or

unergative verbs and
b. Intransitive verbs of incomplete predication (or unaccusative verbs)
INTRANSITIVE VERBS OF COMPLETE PREDICATION
John sneezed.
Verbs like sneeze, which combine with only one argument, and which take no complements
are called intransitive verbs of complete predication. Their only argument functions as the
subject of the sentence:
Other examples of IVs of CP are walk, jump, work, shine, swim, fly, etc. Consider the
following examples:
He walked (for an hour).

He is jumping (on your bed).
He is working (hard).
The sun is shining.
Fish swim.
Birds fly.
As exemplified in the first three sentences, these verbs may be followed by adverbial
adjuncts of different types, such as adverbial adjuncts of duration (for an hour), of place (on
your bed), of manner (hard), etc but these are optional, in the sense that they are not required
by the meaning of the verb. Adjuncts modify or tell us something about the event as a whole.
These verbs cannot occur in the passive voice. Since they have no noun phrase
complement, there is nothing that can move to occupy the subject position (i.e. to become the
subject of the passive sentence).
These verbs are known in modern linguistics as unergative verbs.
Which verbs belong to this group? Look at the following classification, which takes into
account meaning:
1. Verbs of manner of motion (run, walk, crawl, etc)
2. Verbs of emission (glow, cry, stink, sweat, etc)
Let us discuss each of them separately:
1. Verbs of manner of motion: crawl, dance, gallop, hop, jog, jump, leap, limp, march, run,
skip, swim, trot, walk.
He is running.
He is walking.
He is swimming.
The baby is crawling.(cf. gateando)
The girl is dancing.
He is jogging.
She was limping 1. (cf. rengueando)
She was skipping 2. (cf. salticar)
He marched for an hour.
The horse galloped.
2. Verbs of emission:
2. a. Emission of light: flash, gleam, glitter, glow, shine, sparkle.
The light flashed.

Her eyes gleamed 3 (in the dark).
The embers still glowed 4 (in the hearth).
The sun is shining.
Her eyes sparkled.
2. b. Emission of sound: belch, burp, bark, cough, cry, chat, hum, laugh, ring, scream, sing,
sneeze, speak, talk, shout, sob, whistle, yell.
He belched 5 (loudly). (cf. eructar)

He burped 6. (cf. eructar)
He coughed. (cf. toser)
The baby was crying.
He laughed (loudly) (to cover his nervousness).
Julia screamed.
He sneezed.
He sobbed 7 uncontrollably.
1
Limp: to walk slowly and with difficulty because one leg is injured: She had twisted her ankle and was
limping.
2
Skip: to move forward lightly and quickly making a little jump with each step: She skipped happily along
beside me.
3
Gleam: to shine with a pale clear light.
4
Glow: (esp. of something hot or warm) to produce a dull steady light.
5
belch: v. to let air come up noisily from your stomach and out through your mouth (cf. in Spanish eructar) He
wiped his hand across his mouth and then belched loudly.
belch: noun He sat back and gave a loud belch. The baby let out a loud satisfied belch.
6
Burp verb AmE 1. to let out air from the stomach through the mouth, making a noise. If you burp a baby you
rub its back gently to help air to come out of its stomach.
7
Sob: to cry noisily, taking sudden, sharp breaths.
2. c. Emission of smell: reek, smell, stink. These verbs make up a closed set, i.e. there are
only three of them.
The onions reeked 8. (the onions are the emitters of the smell)
The drains smell.
Your feet stink.
2. d. Emission of substance: bleed, gush, leak, sweat, etc. 9
He bled.
The fountain gushed 10.
The tin was leaking.
He is sweating.
We will go back to the characteristics of unergative verbs soon.
THE PICTURE SO FAR:
Subject Verb
4. IVCP (Adjunct)
1. The man painted the wall (yesterday).

2. The man gave Mary the book (this morning).
3. The man gave the book to Mary (this morning).
4. The woman laughed (loudly).
Lesson 13 Activiy 1: (to be discussed in class)

Analyse the following sentences from a semantic and a syntactic point of view:
1. The baby can walk!
2. The roof was leaking.
3. She had twisted her ankle and was limping.
Lesson 13 Activiy 2: (to be handed in as Assignment 13)

1. Her eyes sparkled.
2. The kids were screaming.
3. The man belched loudly.
8
Reek: to smell very strongly of something unpleasant: His breath reeked of tobacco.
9
These verbs may occur in other structures, sometimes with the substance emitted as direct object)
10
Gush: to flow or send out quickly and in large amounts.
LESSON 14
INTRANSITIVE VERBS OF INCOMPLETE PREDICATION
In the previous lesson we said that two types of intransitive verbs can be distinguished:
a. Intransitive verbs of complete predication (or unergative verbs) and

b. Intransitive verbs of complete predication (or unaccusative verbs)
In the first group, syntactic structure can still be viewed as a more or less direct reflection of
predicate/argument structure. However, with the second group things are not so simple.
INTRANSITIVE VERBS OF INCOMPLETE PREDICATION:

There are two types of IVs of IP:
1. The first group is known as the group of Copular or linking verbs. These verbs can
be:
Stative verbs:
John is happy.
The bridge seems safe. (seem: modality verb expressing cognition)
You look tired. (look: cognitive modality + perception)
That perfume smells terrific.
The cake tastes delicious.
This material feels soft.
His voice sounded strange.
Dynamic or Process verbs:

She became a lawyer.
She grew tired.
John is getting angry.
These verbs are intransitive. We cannot use them in the passive voice. They are not
followed by a determiner phrase argument. They are called of incomplete predication because
they must be followed by an obligatory element, a complement.
If the complement is an adjectival phrase or a determiner phrase with a predicative function it

is called a Predicative Complement. For example:
Sugar is sweet.
This is a book.
John is tired.
If the complement is a prepositional phrase that expresses location, time or duration it is

called an Adverbial complement. For example:
John is in the garden. (locative)

The party was yesterday. (temporal)
The film lasted two hours. (durative)
2. The second group of IVs of IP is made up of four subgroups:
a. Verbs of directed motion such as come, go, arrive, leave, fall, rise, etc
b. Verbs of manner of motion when they combine with a directional phrase such as
Martha walked to the station.
c. Verbs of existence and appearance such as exist, appear, flourish, thrive, emerge
d. Verbs of spatial configuration in the simple position and assume position sense
such as sit, stand, lie, hang, lean, etc.
These are all intransitive verbs that cannot occur on their own. They must be followed by
something. They are two-place verbs but their two arguments are internal arguments. One
is a theme and the other a locative. They do not have agentive subjects.
These verbs are also known as unaccusative verbs.
Let us discuss each type in turn:
1. Verbs of directed motion: come, go, arrive, leave, fall, rise, etc.
Consider the following example:
John went to the cinema yesterday.
These verbs are intransitive because the argument that follows the verb is not a determiner
phrase but a prepositional phrase, and that prepositional phrase cannot become the subject of
the passive, e.g. *To the cinema was gone by John. They are of incomplete predication
because these verbs need a complement, they cannot occur on their own, e.g. *John went.
Which other verbs are like go?
Sue came here (yesterday).

Julia arrived in New York (last week).
The books had fallen onto the floor.
Verbs of directed motion (or of direction of motion) imply a change of location because
the entity that undergoes motion (i.e. the theme subject) ends up in a different place.
Come may occur without an expression of location in the syntax (e.g. John came yesterday)
but the expression of location (here, the place where the speaker is) is understood. Arrive is a
similar case. John has arrived is a grammatical sentence but the place is understood. For
practical purposes, if the expression of location is absent in the syntax but understood
conceptually, we will provide it, so that they can all be grouped together.
2. Verbs of manner of motion when they combine with a directional phrase:
Martha walked to the station.
Lucy danced into the room.
The people ran into the street.
When we say Martha walked to the station we are not just describing a manner of motion as
in She is walking. What we are saying is that she went to the station and that she walked
there. (cf. in Spanish Marta fue a la estación caminando). We will analyse to the station, into
the room, etc as (locative) adverbial complements. They are required to describe a type of
event that ends with the subject being at that place.
3. Verbs of existence and appearance: exist, appear, flourish, thrive, emerge, arise.
Life doesn’t exist on other planets.

Smoke appeared 1 in the horizon.
A ghostly face appeared at the window.
These plants flourish 2in a damp climate.
These animals rarely thrive 3 in captivity.
She finally emerged from her room at noon.
Several new industries arose 4 in the town.
The constituent that follows these verbs is also called a (locative) adverbial complement.
5.Verbs of spatial configuration in the simple position and assume position sense
a. Verbs of simple position: sit, stand, lie, hang, lean, etc. They may be considered a
subtype of verbs of existence because they describe the existence of an entity at a
particular location or at a particular time.
The man was lying on the floor.

The papers lay on the desk.
The statue stood in the corner.
The sun remained behind the clouds.
My brother lives in New York.
He lived in the 19th century.
a. Assume position sense:

He leaned against the cupboard.
Mary sat (down) and started reading.
These verbs are intransitive. They cannot be turned into the passive, e.g. *In New York is
lived by my brother. They also need a complement, they cannot occur on their own either,
e.g. *The statue stood. Because these complements can express a location (in New York) or a
temporal notion (in the 19th century) they are also called (locative) or (temporal) adverbial
complements. The verb live may occur on its own but to express a very specific meaning:
She lives is equivalent to She is alive.
TO SUM UP:
1
Appear: start to be seen.
2
Flourish: to develop or grow well. (cf. in Spanish: prosperar o crecer)
3
Thrive: to become and continue to be successful, strong, healthy. (cf. in Spanish: desarrollarse)
4
Arise: to begin to exist or develop.
Intransitive verbs of incomplete predication can be:
1. Linking verbs (stative or dynamic) followed by:
a. A Predicative Complement
b. An Adverbial Complement
2. Verbs of directed motion

Verbs of manner of motion + a directional locative
Verbs of existence and appearance
Verbs of spatial configuration in the simple position and asssume position sense
These four subgroups are followed by Adverbial Complements
THE PICTURE SO FAR:
Subject Verb
4. IVCP (Adjunct)
5. IVIP + C/Predicative C (Adjunct)
6. IVIP + C/Adverbial C (adjunct)

5. The boy was very nervous (that morning).
6. John went to the cinema (yesterday).
Lesson 14 Activity 1 (to be discussed in class)

Analyse the following sentences semantically and syntactically:
1. The man looked very tired.
2. I walk to the station every day.
3. The National Bank was robbed last week.

1. The sun remained behind the clouds.
2. The woman was very pretty.
3. My sister lives in the suburbs.
LESSON 15
COMPLEX TRANSITIVE VERBS
There are two groups of verbs that can be called complex transitive. The first group is made
up of verbs that take a Complement/ Direct Object and a Predicative Complement:
She called the dog Topsy.

The government set the prisoners free.
They appointed him manager.
The acid turned the litmus paper red.
The man flung the door open.
The first question is: do we have one constituent or two? The fact that we cannot say *She
called that the dog was Topsy leads us to hypothesize that the dog Topsy cannot be analysed
as one constituent. In this sense these sentences contrast with the ones that had a small clause
complement:
John thinks Mary pretty.

that Mary is pretty.
She called the dog Topsy.

*that the dog was Topsy.
These verbs are transitive. The sentences can be turned into the passive. The first complement
called direct object in traditional grammar can become the subject of the passive:
The dog was called the dog Topsy.

The prisoners were set the prisoners free.
He was appointed he manager.
The door was flung the door open.
Why is the second element called a Predicative Complement? To begin with they are
adjectival phrases or noun phrases which are predicating something, in this case about the
complement/ direct object.
In most cases they cannot be omitted. We cannot say *The government set the prisoners,
*The acid turned the paper, *The man flung the door. In the case of She called the dog Topsy
what we mean is ‘she gave the dog this name’ and not ‘she called the dog so that it would
come’. This verb call is a verb of calling or naming. Omission of Topsy would change the
meaning of the verb.
In the case of appoint the predicative complement can be omitted. They have appointed him
is a perfectly grammatical sentence. But omissibility is not a criterion for not calling it a
complement. We have defined complement as that element lexically required by a predicate
and if you appoint somebody, you appoint somebody to some position.
Semantically, all these predicative complements express some resulting attribute. The dog
has now a name, the prisoners are now free, he is the manager, the litmus paper is red, the
door is open.
The second group is made up of verbs that take a Complement/ Direct Object and an
Adverbial Complement:
You must put the toys in the box (immediately).

John keeps the car in the garage.
John took Bill to San Francisco.
John brought Bill to Argentina.
The police posted twenty men around the house.
Alice placed the books on the table.
The adverbial complements in all of the sentences given above express a location (in the box,
in the garage, to San Francisco, to Argentina, around the house, on the table). They are
called locative adverbial complements.
THE PICTURE SO FAR:

In the case of complex transitive verbs there are two options:
1. TV + C/DO + Predicative complement or

2. TV + C/DO + Adverbial complement
Subject Verb
3. Bi TV +C/DO + Preposition to +C/IO (Adjunct)
4. IVCP (Adjunct)
5. IVIP +C/Predicative C (Adjunct)
6. IVIP +C/Adverbial C (adjunct)
7. Complex TV + C/DO + C/Predicative C
8. Complex TV + C/DO + C/Adverbial C
Examples:
5. The boy was very nervous (that morning).
6. John went to the cinema (yesterday).
7. The governor set the prisoners free.
8. He put the book on the table.

Analyse the following sentences:
1. I slipped the key into the lock.
2. Take your hands out of your pockets.
3. The cat licked the saucer clean.
4. The man was seen at a disco last night.
5. She emerged from her room at noon.

1. The police posted twenty men around the house.
2. I must be told the truth.
3. A ghostly face appeared at the window.
LESSON 16
OTHER INTRANSITIVE VERBS OF COMPLETE PREDICATION
1. The little boy broke the window.

2. The window broke.
In sentence 1, break has been used as a two-place verb. In sentence 2, it has been used as a
one-place verb. Levin (1993) claims that in sentence 1 there are two subevents rather than
one. [The boy did something] is one subevent and that caused [the window to become
broken], the other subevent. The boy is really an agent of the first subevent (the boy did
something, whatever it was) and the window is the patient or affected participant of the
second subevent (the window became broken). The two subevents are related by means of the
predicate cause, which is not explicit. The first sentence is therefore called the causative
variant and the second, the inchoative variant, because it only expresses a change of state.
Syntactically speaking, break is a transitive verb of complete predication in sentence 1 and an
intransistive verb of complete predication in sentence 2.
Linguists do not agree on which sentence derives from which. Some like Hale & Keyser
(2002) will say that the second sentence is more basic and that transitive break is derived
from intransitive break by a process of transitivization, i.e. from the inchoative or change of
state reading we derive the transitive, causative reading. Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995)
will hypothesize just the opposite, the transitive sentence is more basic and the intransitive is
derived from the transitive by a process of detransitivization.
Whichever hypothesis is correct, what we have is the same verb occurring in two different
structures. Technically speaking, the pair of sentences is called an alternation. The same
verb alternates between two structures; it appears as a two-place verb and as a one-place verb.
In the first case, it has two arguments, a causer and an affected participant. In the second
case, the causer is left unspecified and the affected participant appears in subject position.
This alternation is called the causative/ inchoative alternation. We will discuss later some
other alternations. Sometimes these alternations are accompanied by changes of meaning.
While transitive break participates in this alternation, other transitive verbs such as cut do
not, e.g.:
The little boy broke the window. (causative variant)

The window broke. (inchoative variant)
Mary cut the cake.

*The cake cut.
Apparently, the verbs break and cut are not exactly the same semantically. Break is a pure
change of state verb. Cut is not a pure change of state verb because it also includes other
meanings such as contact and motion. A notion of contact is not inherent to the meaning of
break. Although the real-world event denoted by the verb break often involves contact, it
need not. We may drop a cup and break it without touching it. It is precisely because of this
that break can leave the agent unspecified. It does not express the manner in which the action
was carried out. It expresses or focalizes only the result, the change of state. This semantic
difference has a syntactic reflex: while break participates in the causative/ inchoative
alternation, cut does not.
To conclude:
1. Pure change of state verbs can occur as intransitive verbs of complete predication.
Examples:
The pot broke.

The window cracked when the stone hit it.
His trousers ripped 1 when he bent down. (cf. se rompieron)
The glass shattered 2.
Some power cables snapped 3 during the storm.
Notice that the Spanish translation of these sentences includes ‘se’ (El jarrón se rompió).
Within the verbs of change of state, we will also include a number of verbs that come from
adjectives, i.e. de-adjectival verbs. For example: tighten, darken, dry, widen, etc.
1. The rope is tight. (tight: adjective)

2. The rope became tight. (verb + adjective)
3. The rope tightened. (de-adjectival verb)
The following are examples of de-adjectival verbs:
Adjective Verb Adjective Verb

broad broaden long lengthen
cool cool loose loosen
dark darken narrow narrow
deep deepen red redden
large enlarge short shorten
frozen freeze soft soften
hard harden thick thicken
tight tighten wide widen
Many but not all de-adjectival verbs participate in the transitivity alternation, i.e. they have a
transitive and an intransitive variant. Notice the following contrasts:
The wind cleared the sky.

The sky cleared.
The waiter cleared the table.
1
Rip: to pull apart, to tear or be torn violently or quickly.
2
Shatter: (cause to) break suddenly into very small pieces.
3
Snap: (to cause sth which is thin and can be bent or stretched lightly) to break suddenly and quickly with a
cracking sound: You’ll snap that ruler if you bend it too far.
*The table cleared.
The mad scientist lengthened the days.

The days lengthened.
The dressmaker lengthened the skirt.

*The skirt lengthened.
2. Verbs of change of position such as open and close behave in a very similar way. They
also have a transitive alternant:
Somebody opened the door.

The door opened.
Somebody closed the door.

The door closed.
They are called verbs of change of position and not verbs of change of state because the door
does not really change its state after it is opened. What changes is its position. The result of
the event is not a new state but a new position. Notice that the Spanish translation also
includes se: La puerta se abrió/ La puerta se cerró.
To sum up:
Pure change of state verbs (including some de-adjectival verbs) and verbs of change of
position participate in the transitive/ inchoative alternation. When we have the inchoative
variant, the verb is intransitive of complete predication.
What appears in object position in the transitive variant appears in subject position in the
intransitive use. The movement within the TP could be represented as follows:
Subject Tense Lexical verb Complement

The window Ø broke the window.
Argument movement
These verbs are called unaccusative verbs. They differ from unergative verbs: verbs of
manner of motion (such as run, walk, crawl, etc), verbs of emission (such as glow, cry, stink,
sweat, etc), and activity verbs discussed earlier.
The so called ‘inherent’ unaccusative verbs such as come, go, arrive, etc do not participate
in the transitive alternation. In other words, they do not have a transitive alternant. But more
about inherent unaccusative verbs and other unaccusative verbs later.

Be ready to answer the following questions:
1. What is an alternation?
2. Provide examples of the causative/inchoative alternation.
3. What is a deadjectival verb? Provide examples.
1. Some power cables snapped during the storm.
2. The wind cleared the sky.
3. The sky cleared.
4. The sky is clear.
REFERENCES:
Hale, K. & Keyser, S. (2002) Prolegomenon to a Theory of Argument Structure. The MIT
Press.
Levin, B. (1993) English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation. The
University of Chicago Press. Chicago and London.
Levin, B. & Rappaport Hovav, M. (1995) Unaccusativity: At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics
Interface. The MIT Press.
LESSON 17
ADVERBIAL ADJUNCTS VS. PREDICATIVE ADJUNCTS
Adverbial adjuncts were discussed in lesson 5, where it says that they modify the event as a
whole. For example:
John killed Bill in Central Park. (Adverbial adjunct of place)

She buttered the bread slowly. (Adverbial adjunct of manner or speed)
Consider now the following sentence:
He died poor.
From a semantic point of view, die is a one-place verb, it takes one argument (he). It is not
part of the meaning of die that if you die you die poor. Poor predicates the state the person
was in when he died. The sentence can be paraphrased in the following way He was poor
when he died.
From a syntactic point of view, die is an intransitive verb of complete predication. Poor is an
adjunct, it is not required by the lexical meaning of die. However, it is an adjunct that
predicates something about the subject. We will call it predicative adjunct. This predicative
adjunct is subject-related, since poor predicates something about the subject of the sentence.
Other examples of predicative adjuncts which are subject related are:
He died a happy man. (He was a happy man when he died)

She married young. (She was young when she married)
They parted the best of friends. (They were the best of friends when they parted)
In the following sentences the predicative adjunct occurs with a transitive verb of complete
predication. Notice that we can have the same paraphrase:
She ate the meat naked. (She was naked when she ate the meat)
She left the school worried about the exam. (She was worried about the exam when
she left the school)
In this third group of sentences the predicative adjunct is object-related. It tells us

something about the complement/direct object. The predicative adjunct is not required by the
meaning of the verb. The complement/direct object is, and it receives a theta-role from the
verb.
She ate the meat raw. (The meat was raw when she ate it)
She drank her coffee strong. (The coffee was strong when she drank it)
She gave him the letter unopened. (The letter was unopened when she gave it to him)
To sum up:
Predicative adjuncts can be subject-related or object-related. They contrast with adverbial
adjuncts because they do not modify the event as a whole. They are called predicative
because they predicate something about the subject and the object respectively. They are
called adjuncts because they are not lexical requirements of the verb.
For the time being this is as far as we will get. The syntactic analysis of a sentence with a
predicative adjunct will be discussed after we have introduced some other notions that we
need first.

1. What is the difference between an adverbial adjunct and a predicative adjunct?
2. What kind of verbs do predicative adjuncts appear with? Discuss and provide
examples.

Analyse the following sentence semantically and syntactically:
1. The door opened and a fat woman came into the room.
2. John said that he was tired and that he would go to bed.

1. The door opened and a fat woman came into the room.
2. I have left the keys at home.
3. They told me that he was ill.
LESSON 18
MORPHOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION OF VERBS
In the previous lessons, we dealt with the syntactic classification of verbs. We said that verbs
can be classified from a syntactic point of view into:
1) Intransitive verbs of complete predication, e.g.: John laughed.

2) Intransitive verbs of incomplete predication, e.g.: John is at home.
3) Monotransitive verbs of complete predication, e.g.: John ate an apple.
4) Bitransitive verbs of complete predication, e.g.: John gave Mary a book.
5) Complex Transitive verbs 1, e.g.: John put the book on the table.
We call this a syntactic classification because it has to do with the elements that combine
with the verb horizontally to form the sentence.
From a morphological point of view, verbs can be classified into regular or irregular:
1) Regular verbs are those that form their past and past participle 2 by the addition of -ed,
e.g.: look, clean, open, etc. If we know the base form (i.e. the dictionary entry form) we can
predict all its other forms by rule.
2) Irregular verbs are those whose past and past participle form cannot be predicted by
general rule from the base, e.g.: break, broke, broken, etc.
From a morphological point of view, verbs can also be classified into finite or non-finite.
Finite means conjugated, non-finite means not conjugated:
1) Finite (i.e. conjugated):
The door is open. (simple present)

John came yesterday. (simple past)
2) Non-finite (i.e. not conjugated). The non-finite forms of the verb are:
(a) the infinitive, e.g.: To see her is to love her.

(b) the gerund, e.g.: I love riding.
(c) the present participle, e.g.: I was reading.
(d) the past participle, e.g.: I've broken my leg.
This is just a brief introduction to the subject. We will go back to these notions in greater
detail later.
LEXICAL VERBS VS. FUNCTIONAL VERBS (= AUXILIARY VERBS)

1. Lexical verbs have semantic content.
1
For some people Transitive Verbs of Incomplete Predication
2
Remember we have made a distinction between the passive participle and the perfect participle.
2. They assign theta-roles.
3. They take arguments.
1. Auxiliary verbs are functional categories

2. They constitute closed lexical classes, closed sets, i.e. they can be listed.
3. They express grammatical notions such as tense, aspect, voice, modality.
4. They do not have theta-grids and they do not assign semantic roles as lexical verbs do.
5. They do not take arguments.
6. They have what Huddleston (1976b: 333) refers to as the ‘NICE properties’: the N
stands for negation, the I for inversion, the C for code and the E for emphatic
affirmation:
1. Negation: they can be joined to the contracted form of not, e.g.: won´t, couldn´t, etc.
2. Inversion: they are placed before the subject in the following cases:
a) To form the interrogative, e.g.: Can he swim?
b) After a front position negative or semi-negative expression, e.g.: Hardly had we
started when it began to rain.
c) In tag questions, e.g.: He came yesterday, didn´t he?
3. Code: they can be used as ‘code verbs’, in short answers to questions, to avoid
repetition, e. g.: Did you find it? Yes, I did.
4. Emphatic affirmation: He did break it.
Which are the auxiliary verbs?

1. Do/does: auxiliaries to form the negative, interrogative and emphatic affirmative of the
simple present tense, e.g.:
I don’t like him. (auxiliary for the negative)

Do you like him? (auxiliary for the interrogative)
I do like him. (auxiliary for the emphatic affirmative)
I like him. (no auxiliary is used in a declarative affirmative sentence)
(cf. Do as an auxiliary verb must be distinguished from do as main verb (in Spanish, hacer).
According to Quirk et al (1985) do as main verb can act as a pro-predication (or pro-
predicator for us) referring to some unspecified action or actions:
A: I’m throwing these books away.

B: Why are you doing that?
2. Did: auxiliary to form the negative, interrogative and emphatic affirmative of the simple
past, e.g.:
I didn’t go to the cinema yesterday. (auxiliary for the negative)

Did you go to the cinema yesterday? (auxiliary for the interrogative)
I did go to the cinema yesterday. (auxiliary for the emphatic affirmative)
I went to the cinema yesterday. (no auxiliary is used in a declarative affirmative
sentence)
3. Have/has/had: auxiliaries for the perfect. The perfect is a form that expresses the notion
of anteriority. The action has or has not occurred before speech time, i.e. the moment when
the utterance is made. They are followed by a perfect participle, e.g.:
I have broken my leg.
Have you done your homework?
I haven’t been to London yet.
4. Be (+ ing): auxiliary for the imperfective aspect. There are two varieties of imperfective
aspect: progressive and resultative. The progressive helps us to focus on the intermediate
stages of a durative event or on the preliminary stages of a non-durative verb. In the first case
it denotes an action in progress. In the second case, the approach to a transition or change of
state. The resultative expresses a result, e.g.:
1. She is making a cake. (imperfective aspect: progressive)

2. The man was dying. (imperfective aspect: progressive)
3. The picture is hanging on the wall. (imperfective aspect: resultative)
5. Be/get 3 (+ en): auxiliaries for the passive voice.
He was given a new watch.

He got caught (by the police).
The passive auxiliaries are followed by a passive participle.
6. Can/could; may/might; will/would; shall/should; must; have to; ought to; needn't;
dare; be + to infinitive; the going to form: modal auxiliaries, which express volition or
cognition.
The lights are not on. He must be out. (deduction or confident conclusion: speaker’s
cognition)
You must see a doctor. (urgency: speaker’s volition)
That will be the postman. (a confident statement: speaker’s cognition)
He will drink whisky in spite of what the doctor told him. (volition on the part of the
grammatical subject he, annoyance on the part of the speaker)
THE VERB BE
The verb be may function as:
a) a main verb or
b) as an auxiliary verb
a) When it is main verb, it is always an intransitive verb of incomplete predication and it

is followed by a predicative complement or an adverbial complement, e.g.:
1. Ann is tall. (tall: predicative complement)

2. Ann is in the garden. (in the garden: adverbial complement)
3
Get as an auxiliary for the passive is used for things that are done suddenly, unexpectedly, or by
accident, e.g.: My brother got hit by a cricket ball. More and more people are getting attacked in the
underground these days.*Parliament got opened by the Queen last week.*Our house got built in
1827.
b) When it is an auxiliary verb, there are three possibilities:
1) It may be an auxiliary for the imperfective aspect (traditionally called: present or past
continuous), in which case it is followed by a present participle (an -ing form of the verb, a
non-finite or non-conjugated form of the verb), e.g.:
The children are playing.
2) It may be an auxiliary for the passive voice, in which case it is followed by a passive
participle (another non-finite or non-conjugated form of the verb which is conventionally
represented by means of -en), e.g.:
My watch was made in Japan.
3) It may be a modal auxiliary, expressing either (1) obligation, an arrangement that is the
result of a command or request made by a third person, an arrangement made as the result of
orders (e.g. He is to leave at eight o'clock this evening) or (2) plan or arrangement 4 (e.g. We
are to be married in June). In this case the verb be is followed by a full infinitive (i.e. an
infinitive preceded by to).
To sum up:
The verb be:

a) Main verb: IVIP + PC or Adv C.
b) Auxiliary verb:
1) be + ing: auxiliary for the imperfective aspect.
2) be + en: auxiliary for the passive voice.
3) be + to-infinitive: modal auxiliary.
In order to decide which type of auxiliary it is in a given sentence, you should always pay
attention to the form of the verb that follows be. Consider the following sentence which
contains two occurrences of the verb be:
The house was being redecorated at that moment.
The first occurrence of be (was) is followed by an -ing form (being, a present participle) so it
is an auxiliary for the progressive aspect. The second occurrence of be (being) is followed by
an -en form (redecorated, a passive participle) so the second be is an auxiliary for the passive
voice. Redecorated is the main verb.
Consider now the following sentences:
1) The house is being redecorated. (present time reference)

2) The house was being redecorated. (past time reference)
4
Sometimes the reference is not to planned arrangements, but to "destiny" - things which are hidden
in the future, "written in the stars", e.g.: When we said goodbye, I thought it was forever. But we were
to meet again, many years later, under very strange circumstances.
In every Tense phrase there is always only one finite element, the first one (is and was).
The finite element indicates whether the tense is past or non-past (or past or present). All the
other elements (being and redecorated in this case) are non-finite. Notice that their form
doesn't change. The fact that there can only be one finite element can be clearly seen in the
tree, the finite element being in the T (Tense) head.
Notice too that T (Tense), the head of the TP, has an Auxiliary Phrase as complement. The
head of this Auxiliary Phrase is the auxiliary for the perfect have. The head of the first
Auxiliary Phrase, the auxiliary have, in turn has a complement, the second Auxiliary Phrase
for the Imperfective Aspect. The head of the second auxiliary phrase been also has a
complement, the VP. What we have is a succession of heads and complements. How will this
be represented in the analysis?
As ususal, we start with the:
1. Syntactic Representation of the sentence as a CP:
Ø He must have been carrying a gun.

Head (Complementiser) Complement (Tense Phrase)
Remember that Head and Complement are functions, complementiser and tense phrase are
categories.
Once we have represented the sentence as a CP, we can concentrate on the TP He must have
been carrying a gun.
Now if you look at the tree you will notice that this TP is made up of two elements, the D
(determiner) He and a T’ (T-bar) (must have been he carrying a gun). For pedagogical
reasons, we will ignore the movement of the subject he out of the VP.
We will analyse He as the subject and the rest (must have been carrying a gun) as the
predicate. Subject and Predicate are functions. The subject is a D and the predicate is a T’ (T-
bar). D (determiner) and T’ (T-bar) are categories. The next step is:
2. Syntactic analysis of the TP:

He must have been carrying a gun.
Now if you go back to the tree you will notice that the head of the TP is T (tense). The
position is occupied by the modal auxiliary must. Must is the element that carries the tense,
the finite element. Notice that in every sentence there can only be one finite element
because there is only one Tense head.
So if we now concentrate on the analysis of must have been carrying a gun, we can say that
must functions as the head of the TP, and that have been carring a gun is the complement, an
Auxiliary phrase (Aux P):

He must have been carrying a gun.
Head (T) Complement (Aux P)
Notice that must is the head of the TP, not the head of T’. What we have done is the syntactic
analysis of the TP.
The next step is to analyse the Auxiliary Phrase have been carrying a gun. The head is the
Auxiliary for the Perfect have, the rest of the phrase is the complement.
have been carrying a gun.

Head (Aux for the Perfect) Complement (Aux P)
Then we analyse the second Auxiliary Phrase been carrying a gun. The head of this Aux P is
been and the complement the VP carrying a gun.
been carrying a gun.

Head (Aux for the Imperfective aspect) Complement (VP)
The next and final step is the analysis of the VP carrying a gun:
carrying a gun.
Head (V/ TVCP) Complement (DP)
Notice that the process is repetitive. This repetitive process is technically called recursion.
Recursion is a key feature of language.
MIDDLE VERBS
Middle verbs are transitive verbs that cannot be turned into the passive voice, e.g.:
John resembles his father.

He has a green car. (possession)
That dress fits (suits) you very well.
He lacks confidence.
The auditorium holds 5,000 people.
That dress becomes you.
Tom married Mary.
Notice that marry is a middle verb in the sense "enter into a marriage". Marry in the sense
"perform the marriage ceremony for" is not a middle verb, but a transitive verb occurring in
the passive:
Ron and Joan were married by Father Brown.
The verb have is a middle verb only when it expresses possession. It is not a middle verb in:
A good time was had by all.

What is there to be had? (= to be eaten)

Analyse the following sentences integrating the material discussed in this lesson:
1. He must have been being beaten.
2. The plane will have landed by then.
3. You are to knock before you enter.

1. You have ruined my dress!
2. The astronauts will be sleeping at 4.00 a.m.
3. The house is being painted at the moment.
REFERENCES:
Huddleston, R. D. (1976b) ‘Some theoretical issues in the description of the English verb’,
Lingua 40, 331-383.
Palmer, F. R. (1979) Modality and the English Modals, Longman.
LESSON 19
CLASSIFICATION OF SENTENCES ACCORDING TO THEIR SYNTACTIC TYPE
AND DISCOURSE FUNCTION
Sentences can be classified according to their:
1) Syntactic type
2) Discourse Function
1) According to their syntactic type:

Simple sentences may be divided into four major syntactic types:
1) Declaratives are sentences in which it is normal for the subject to be present and to
precede the verb:
Pauline gave Paul a digital watch for his birthday.
2) Interrogatives are sentences which are formally marked in one of two ways:
a) Yes-no interrogatives: an auxiliary is placed in front of the subject:
Did Pauline give Tom a digital watch for his birthday?
b) wh-interrogative: an interrogative wh-element is positioned initially and there is generally

subject-auxiliary inversion:
What did Pauline give Tom for his birthday?
3) Imperatives are sentences which normally have no overt or explicit grammatical subject,
and whose verb has the base form:
Give Tom a digital watch for his birthday.
4) Exclamatives are sentences which have an initial phrase introduced by what or how,
usually with subject verb order:
What a fine watch he received for his birthday!
2) According to their function:

Associated with the four types mentioned above are four major classes of discourse
functions:
1) Statements are primarily used to convey information. They can be affirmative or negative:
I went to the cinema yesterday. (syntactically: declarative)

Who knows? (syntactically: interrogative)
2) Questions are primarily used to seek information on a specific point:
Are you free for lunch today? (syntactically: yes/no interrogative)

You’re free for lunch today? (syntactically: declarative)
3) Directives are primarily used to instruct somebody to do something:
Pass me the salt, please. (syntactically: imperative)

Can you pass the salt, please? (syntactically: interrogative)
4) Exclamations are primarily used for expressing the extent to which the speaker is
impressed by something:
What a lovely day! (syntactically: exclamative)
Syntactic type and discourse function do not always match. Declarative sentences are
normally used to make statements but a sentence such as You’ve got the tickets? is
syntactically a declarative but from the point of view of its function a question, and a
rhetorical question (e.g.: Who knows? = "Nobody knows" or "I don't know") is syntactically
an interrogative but pragmatically a statement.
We can also make many more refined distinctions in the use of sentences. For example, It's
going to rain any minute now and I'm sorry about the delay are both statements, but the first
can be used to make a prediction and the second to make an apology; Make your bed at once
and Make yourself at home are both directives, but the first has the force of a command and
the second the force of an invitation.

1. How can sentences be classified according to their syntactic type?
2. How can sentences be classified according to their discourse function?

Provide an example of a sentence that contains:
1. An auxiliary for the progressive aspect
2. A modal auxiliary expressing cognition
3. Argument movement
4. An experiencer object
5. An experiencer subject
6. A complex transitive verb
7. An unergative verb
8. An unacussative verb
9. A predicative adjunct
10. A predicative complement
Underline only what you are exemplifying. For example, your answer to number one should
look as follows: Ann is dancing.
LESSON 20
CLASSIFICATION OF CLAUSES
A clause can be defined as a structure of predication. An entity is mentioned and something
is predicated about this entity. Clauses are classified into:
a) Main (principal, independent, free, primary, matrix) and

b) Subordinate (dependent, bound, secondary, embedded, included)
MAIN CLAUSES may be coordinated to each other. They make up structures of coordination:
[(I don't know) and (I couldn't care less.)]
SUBORDINATE CLAUSES are attached to a main clause and they are subdivided into:
1) Noun Clauses (or primary, or nominal clauses)

2) Defining Relative Clauses (or secondary, or adjectival)
3) Adverbial Clauses (or tertiary or adverb clauses)
4) Non-defining Relative Clauses
5) Free Relative Clauses or Nominal Relative Clauses
NOUN CLAUSES have nomimal functions. They function as complements and as subject, e.g.:
[(Tom believes <that Mary is innocent>)] (complement to the verb believe)

[(<That Mary is innocent> is true.)] (subject of the sentence)
DEFINING RELATIVE CLAUSES function as post-modifiers to nouns. They have adjectival

function, they are always found within determiner phrases, e.g.:
[(The man <who came here yesterday> is a lawyer.)]

[(That is the man <that I met at Mary’s party>.)]
ADVERBIAL CLAUSES function as adverbial adjuncts. They are modifiers of the event or
state as a whole. They have adverbial function, e.g.:
[(I was late <because I overslept>.)] (adverbial adjunct of reason)

[(<If you study>, you will pass the exam.)] (adverbial adjunct of condition)
NON-DEFINING RELATIVE CLAUSES and FREE RELATIVE CLAUSES will be discussed later.
CLASSIFICATION OF CLAUSES ACCORDING TO THE TYPE OF VERB

Clauses can also be classified according to the type of verb they have. We can speak of:
1) FINITE CLAUSES (they have a finite or conjugated verb)

2) NON-FINITE CLAUSES (they have a non-finite verb)
3) SMALL OR VERBLESS CLAUSES (they have no verb)
Consider the following three examples. They are all noun clauses because they function as
complements to the verb think, a two-place verb. The clauses differ, however, because of the
type of verb they have:
[(I think <that Mary is pretty>.)] (Finite Clause)

[(I think <Mary to be pretty>.)] (Non-finite Clause)
[(I think <Mary pretty>.)] (Small or Verbless Clause)
Notice that in the three cases we have a structure of predication. We are predicating
something about Mary, the fact that she is pretty.
The following are examples of defining relative clauses. They function as post-modifiers of
the noun man. They differ from one another in the type of verb they have:
[(The man <who was driving the lorry> was drunk.)] (Finite Clause)
[(The man <driving the lorry> was drunk.)] (Non-finite Clause)
The following are examples of adverbial clauses. The first two function as adverbial
adjuncts of condition, the first one is finite and the second one is verbless. The other two are
adverbial adjuncts of time, the first one is finite and the second one non-finite:
[(<If you are in doubt>, phone me.)] (Finite clause)

[(<If PRO 1 in doubt>, phone me.)] (Verbless clause)
[(<As I was driving along the main road>, I remembered I had to post a letter.)]
(Finite clause)
[(<PRO Driving along the main road>, I remembered I had to post a letter.)] (Non-
finite clause)
SYNTACTIC CLASSIFICATION OF CLAUSES

If we take into account their structure, sentences can be classified into:
1) Simple: simple sentences are those which have only one lexical verb. Simple sentences are
made up of only one main clause. Sentence and clause coincide, e.g.:
[(Rain falls.)]
[(The baby is crying.)]
[(The boy must have been being beaten.)]
2) Compound: compound sentences are those in which the constituent clauses are
grammatically co-ordinate, no one being dependent on the others, but all being, as it were,
added together in sequence. A compound sentence will be made up of at least two main
clauses. There may be more than two, of course, e.g.:
[(I saw him yesterday) and (I shall be seeing him again tomorrow.)]
1
Big PRO is an empty category, i.e. a silent category. It is the subject of non finite verbs and in some cases of
verbless clauses. We will discuss it presently.
3) Complex: complex sentences are like simple sentences in that they consist of only one
main clause, but unlike simple sentences, they have one or more subordinate clauses which
are grammatically dependent upon the main clause and which function as an element of the
sentence, e.g.:
[<Although I admire her reasoning>, I reject her conclusions.]

[<What he said> is not true.]
[The man <who came yesterday> is my uncle.]
4) Compound-complex: compound-complex sentences are made up of at least two main

clauses which, in turn, contain subordinate clauses, e.g.:
[(He came yesterday) and (<as you were not in>, he left this book for you.)]
We will use square brackets to mark the beginning and end of sentences, parentheses or
round brackets to mark main clauses and diamond brackets or angle brackets to mark
subordinate clauses.

1. What is a clause?
2. How can clauses be classified syntactically?
3. How can clauses be classified if we take into account the type of verb they have?
4. What functions do noun clauses have?
5. What function do relative clauses have?
6. What function do adverbial clauses have?
7. How can sentences be classified?
8. Provide an example of:
a) a noun clause
b) a relative clause
c) an adverbial clause
d) a compound sentence
e) a complex sentence
f) a compound complex sentence
g) a non-finite noun clause

What type of clauses do the following sentences contain?
1. Sue asked me if I had eaten her sandwich.
2. We will play the match if it doesn’t rain.
3. That is the sweater that I like.
4. I don’t know where he lives.
5. The house where he lives is very old.
6. I wonder who will look after the baby while we are out.
7. The woman who will look after the baby has just arrived.

What type of clauses do the following sentences contain?
1. I asked him why he had said that.
2. You should stay in bed until the doctor comes.
LESSON 21
SEMANTIC AND SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF A PASSIVE SENTENCE
When doing the semantic analysis of a passive sentence we will use the following
conventions. We will state the argument structure that the predicator would have in the
active but we will have to specify that the sentence is in the passive voice. In the semantic
analysis, the argument that has been demoted 1, i.e. the subject, will be in brackets. For
example:
The National Bank was robbed yesterday.

Semantic analysis:
Predicator: rob (two-place verb in the passive)
Arguments: (somebody), the National Bank
Argument Structure of rob: < (1), 2>
Once we have done the semantic analysis, we will also have to specify the movement
operations
Active Sentence:
Comp slot Subject Tense LV C/DO A.A. of T.

Ø (Sb) [Past] robbed the National Bank yesterday.
Passive Sentence:
Comp Subject Tense Aux Pass LV C/DO A.A. of T

slot Voice
Ø The National Bank [Past] was robbed the National Bank yesterday.
A movement
Notice that A-movement is the movement of an argument from an argument position (the
position of complement to a verb) to another argument position (the position of subject). We
will later contrast this movement with non-argument movement (Ᾱ-movement), which is
the movement of an argument or an adjunct to a non-argument position (for example, the
edge or periphery of the clause).
The argument that has moved leaves behind a silent copy of itself, which in previous
proposals was called a trace. (una huella)
Notice too that in the representation of the passive sentence there will be an extra lane for the
auxiliary verb be, which will not be present in the active sentence.
1
Demoted means that it has been given a less important status. It is the opposite of promoted.
We will do this type of analysis simply for pedagogical reasons. The hypothesis is that a
passive sentence is generated as a passive sentence, i.e. the native speaker does not think of
an active sentence first and then transforms it into the passive, he just builds the sentence in
his brain as a passive sentence.
Then we proceed as usual with the Syntactic Representation of the sentence as a CP and the
syntactic analysis of the TP.
SEVERAL INTERESTING THINGS ABOUT PASSIVE SENTENCES:
1. Sometimes the active and passive form of a sentence are paraphrases of each other, that is
to say, they express the same meaning, e.g.:
a. Picasso painted Guernica.

b. Guernica was painted by Picasso.
Both sentences describe the same situation in the world, so that if one is true, the other will
also be true. In other words, the conditions in the world for one sentence to be true are the
same as the conditions in the world for the other sentence to be true. Technically speaking,
they share the same truth-conditions (condiciones de verdad, o condiciones para que ambas
sean verdad).
In this case the choice of one sentence or the other will be determined by the linguistic
context. If we are talking about Picasso, for instance in a biography, we are likely to choose
sentence a: Picasso was born in…. He is widely known for…. He painted Guernica in…But if
we are talking about different pictures, we are more likely to choose sentence b.
Sentence b. may also be used if we want to place Picasso’s name at the end of the sentence so
that it stands out (so that it receives nuclear stress or end-focus). For example:
Who painted Guernica?

It was painted by Picasso.
2. Sometimes an active and a passive sentence do not have the same meaning. This
happens if there are modal auxiliaries and quantifiers in the sentence. For example:
a. Mary would not kiss John. (the one who refuses to kiss John is Mary)
b. John wouldn’t be kissed by Mary. (the one who refuses to be kissed by Mary is John)
c. Beavers build dams. (All beavers build dams) The sentence is true.
d. Dams are built by beavers. (the sentence is false, not all dams are built by beavers,
some of them are built by man) (the problem here is the silent universal quantifier all,
which precedes the word beavers)
e. Everybody in this room speaks (at least) two languages. (maybe they do not all speak
the same two)
f. Two languages are spoken by everybody in this room. (there are two languages that
everybody in this room speaks, they all speak the same two languages) (the
quantifiers are every and two)
3. If the complement of a verb is a clause, the verb may be used in the passive but without
movement. For example:
People believe that he left the country.

It is believed that he left the country.
The finite clause that he left the country is still the complement/DO of the verb
believe.
There is a second passive option for this sentence:
He is believed [ he to have left the country].
But notice that the clause (to have left the country) is non-finite (infinitival). We will discuss
these sentences presently. The movement of he out of the clause is another instance of
argument movement.
4. Notice that if the subject of an active sentence is a locative as in the following sentences:
The list includes some interesting items.

The paper requires more work.
Japan makes these cars.
we cannot use a by-phrase in the passive version. A prepositional phrase, which makes the
locative meaning explict, will be required instead:
Some interesting items are included in the list.

More work is required on this paper.
These cars are made in Japan.
These prepositional phrases seem to be complements, not adjuncts. At least in the third
sentence we cannot say these cars are made.
To sum up:
A passive sentence is a sentence where the agent or experiencer argument has not been
placed in initial position. The agent or experiencer subject may be omitted altogether:
The National Bank was robbed.
or it may appear introduced by the preposition by:
This picture was painted by Picasso. (by Picasso: agent)

The teacher was feared by all the students. (by all the students: experiencer) 2
Or it may appear in the form of a prepositional phrase, if it has a locative meaning in the
active.
2
A number of authors call the by-phrase an adjunct.
Analyse the following sentences semantically and syntactically. Include the representation of
the movement operations:
1. Those watches are made in Japan.

2. I must be told the truth.
Be careful because the verb tell is a bi-transitive verb so one of its objects will become the
subject of the passive sentence but the other will be retained in the predicate. We can speak of
a retained object in the passive. Notice too that in the active Somebody must tell me the
truth, the first person pronoun appears in the accusative case, whereas in the passive
sentence, after movement, the same pronoun appears in the nominative case (I)
Lesson 21 Exercise 1: (to be handed in as Assignment 21)

Analyse the following sentences fully. Include the representation of the movement
operations:
1. The question will be discussed at a meeting tomorrow.

2. I had been told to stay.
LESSON 22
MODEL ANSWER FOR A DECLARATIVE SENTENCE WITH A SUBORDINATE
CLAUSE
The man explained to us that the delay was inevitable.
Steps to follow:
1. Look for coordinating conjunctions (and, or, but) linking main clauses. In this
particular case there are none. So you can expect only one main clause.
2. Underline all the verbs. This will allow you to decide if there are any subordinate
clauses. In this particular case, the finite verbs are explain and was, so you can expect
one subordinate clause within the main clause.
3. Decide which is the main predicator and do the semantic analysis of that predicator.
Semantic Analysis of the main predicator:

Predicator: explain (three-place verb)
Arguments: the man, to us, that the delay was inevitable
Argument structure of explain: <1, 2, 3>
Theta-grid: <agent, recipient or goal, theme/proposition>
Type of proposition: dynamic (explain is a verb of communication, verbs of communication
are causative verbs, the man caused us to know sth)
Syntactic representation of the main clause as a CP

it tells us that the clause will be finite. Technically speaking, it has two features: [+
Declarative] and [+ Finite].
Ø The man explained to us that the delay was inevitable.

H (Comp) C (TP)
Syntactic Analysis of the Tense Phrase:

The man Ø explained to us that the delay was inevitable.
The man
H (D) C (N)
[Past] explained to us that the delay was inevitable

H (T) C (VP)
H (V) C/IO (PP) C/DO (CP) (Sub/F/ that NC)
BiTVCP
Syntactic Analysis of the Prepositional Phrase:
to us
H (P) C (D/ Pronoun)
Morphological Analysis of the elements in the main clause:

The man: determiner phrase, third person, singular, nominative case (non-overt)
The: determiner, definite article, functional category.
Man: common, countable, concrete noun. Variable Noun. Irregular plural. Mutation plural
(man-men), lexical category.
Explained: main verb, lexical verb. It is a regular verb. It becomes finite (past) when the tense
element gets attached to it. Explain is a lexical category and the bound inflectional morpheme
–ed is the manifestation of the functional category Tense.
To: simple preposition, lexical category.
Us: determiner, personal pronoun, first person plural, accusative case, common gender,
functional category.
Subordinate clause: that the delay was inevitable
Why is it a clause? Because it is a structure of predication. We are predicating something

about the delay, namely that it was inevitable.
Why is it a finite clause? Because it has a finite or conjugated verb. The verb be is in its
simple past form: was.
Why is it a subordinate clause? Because it cannot stand on its own. It is syntactically

dependent on the verb explain.
Why is it a noun clause? Because it has nominal function. It functions as the complement/
DO of the verb explain.
Semantic Analysis of the predicator of the subordinate clause:

Predicator: inevitable (one-place adjective)
Arguments: the delay
Argument Structure: <1 >
Theta-grid: <theme >
Type of proposition: stative
Syntactic representation of the subordinate clause as a CP
that the delay was inevitable.

H (Comp) C (TP)
The subordinate clause is a CP. The complementiser slot is filled in by an overt (i.e. explicit)
complementiser, the word that, which in traditional grammar is called subordinating
conjunction.
Syntactic Analysis of the TP:
the delay Ø was inevitable.
The delay
H (D) C (N)
[Past] was inevitable

H (T) C (VP)
H (V) IVIP C/ PRED C (A)
The verb be moves to Tense and becomes was.
Morphological analysis of the elements within the subordinate clause:

That: complementiser. It marks the illocutionary force of the clause as declarative. It
anticipates that the clause will be finite. Functional category.
The: determiner, definite article, functional category.
Delay: common, countable, abstract noun. It is countable because it can be pluralized, e.g.:
Commuters will have to face long delays on the roads today. It may also be used as an
uncountable noun, e.g.: Report it to the police without delay. Lexical category.
The sentence is a complex sentence, made up of a main clause and a finite subordinate
clause.
[ CP Ø The man explained to us [ CP that the delay was inevitable].]
Lesson 22 Exercise 1 (to be handed in as Assignment 22)

Analyse the following sentence using the model answer given above:
1. Tom believes that Mary stole the money.
LESSON 23
INTERROGATIVE SENTENCES
According to Quirk et al (1985) there are two types of interrogative sentences:
1) Yes-no interrogatives such as Are you reading a book? and

2) Wh-interrogatives such as What are you reading?
In the case of yes-no interrogatives what we see is that an auxiliary is placed before the
subject. And in the case of wh-interrogatives, an interrogative wh-element is positioned
initially and there is generally subject-auxiliary inversion.
But appearances are deceptive and again we will postulate the existence of silent elements.
We said in Lesson 8 that all declarative main clauses were CPs (complementiser phrases)
introduced by a null or empty complementiser that marks the illocutionary force of the
sentence as declarative.
Interrogative main clauses are also CPs but the complementiser position in an interrogative
main clause is filled in by a null affixal interrogative complementiser Ø, which marks the
clause as interrogative.
The complementiser of an interrogative sentence also differs from the complementiser of a

declarative in that it has a tense feature ([Tns]) and an edge feature ([EF]).
The tense feature attracts the tense element and the edge feature attracts a wh-element to the
edge of the clause. Both the tense feature and the edge feature of the complementiser cannot
be interpreted by the brain. They do not contribute to the meaning of the sentence (they
simply help to form the question), so they have to be deleted. They are deleted once the tense
and the wh-element move there. Consider the following tree:
Notice that in the case of interrogative sentences the complementiser projects twice, so that
there is another position before the head complementiser, a position which is technically
known as specifier of C.
The auxiliary first moves from the head position of the Auxiliary Phrase to tense. From
Tense, the auxiliary moves to Complementiser. Since this movement is from a head position,
(T) to another head position (C), this type of movement is called head-to-head movement.
The movement of the wh-word to the edge of the clause is called wh-movement or operator
movement because wh-words are called operators. Both the wh-word and the auxiliary leave
behind silent copies of themselves.
If we use boxes to represent the movement operations the result will be the following:
Spec of C Comp slot Subject Tense Aux P Lexical Verb C/DO

What are you are are reading what?
The arrow that goes from the Aux Phrase to Tense, and from Tense to the Complementiser
slot marks head-to-head movement. The arrows that goes from the Complement/DO
position to Spec of C marks wh-movement. This representation has been somewhat
simplified by omiting the movement of the subject out of the VP.
THE NOTION OF OPERATOR
The notion of operator comes from logic. An operator is an element that operates (i.e. that has
power, influence or scope) over other elements (i.e. variables) in the sentence. The universal
quantifiers (all and every), the existential quantifier (some), negation (expressed through
elements such as the negative adverb not, the negative determiner no), the modal auxiliaries
(may, must, etc.) are operators. In the case of wh-questions the wh-element is an operator.
As Radford (2004) explains a question such as Who is Ann dating? can be paraphrased as ‘of
which x (such that x is a person) is it true that Ann is dating x. In simpler terms ‘of all the Xs
that Ann could be dating (George, Fred, Tom, etc) please tell me who. The wh-element is the
operator the –o has the feature [+ human].
A question such as What is Ann reading? can be paraphrased as ‘Of which x (such that x is
an object) is it true that Ann is reading x? In less technical language, ‘of all the possible
things that Ann could be reading (a novel, a short story, the newspaper) please tell me which’.
In yes-no questions the operator is silent (an empty category). It is a silent whether, which
used to be pronounced at the time of Shakespeare (Radford 2009: 196):
Whether dost thou profess thyself a knave or a fool? (Lafeu, All’s Well That Ends
Well, IV.v)
In present-day English it is pronounced when the clause is subordinate (She asked me
whether I would help her). The tree for a yes-no question would be:
Again if we use boxes to represent the movement operations the result will be the following:
Spec of C Comp slot Subject Tense Aux P Lexical C/DO

verb
Whether are you are are reading a book?
Head-to-head movement
Again in this representation we are not including the movement of the subject out of the VP
for the sake of clarity.
Lesson 23 Activity 1: (Be ready to answer the following questions)

1. How many types of interrogative sentences are there?
2. In what way does the complementiser of a declarative sentence differ from the
complementiser of an interrogative sentence?
3. What is an operator?
4. What kind of operator does a yes-no question have?

1. Revision:
Provide an example of a sentence that contains:
1. an if noun clause
2. a conditional clause
3. a relative clause introduced by where
4. a subordinate interrogative clause introduced by where
5. a relative clause introduced by when
6. a subordinate interrogative clause introduced by when
7. an adverbial clause of concession
8. a prepositional phrase that expresses concession
9. a non-finite noun clause
10. a non-finite adverbial clause
11. a non-finite relative clause
12. a small clause
Underline the relevant element or constituent that you are exemplifying.
REFERENCES:
Radford, A. (2004) Minimalist Syntax: Exploring the structure of English. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Radford, A. (2009) Analysing English Sentences: A Minimalist Approach. Cambridge:
LESSON 24
MODEL ANSWER FOR A WH-QUESTION
Consider the analysis of the following example:
Which window did the children break?
1. Semantic Analysis:
Predicator: break (two-place verb)
Arguments: the children, which window
Argument structure: <1, 2>
Theta-grid: <agent, affected>
Type of proposition: dynamic (the sentence includes the meaning cause and the meaning
change of state. The sentence can be paraphrased as: the children did something so that they
caused the window to become broken)
Once you’ve done the semantic analysis, you’ll have to represent the movement operations:
2. Syntactic representation of the movement operations:
Pre comp slot Comp slot Subject Tense Verb Complement

Which window did the children did break which window?
There are two movement operations:

1. the movement of the auxiliary did to complementiser position, an instance of head-to-
head movement or of T to C movement
2. the movement of the DP which window to pre complementiser position, a position
which is technically called specifier of CP. This is an instance of operator or wh-
movement.
Now before analysing the question, move the elements back to the positions where they
were before the movement operations took place.
3. Syntactic representation of the question as a CP
Ø the children did break which window

H (Comp) C (TP)
[Tns]
[EF]
The direct question is a main clause. It is a CP (complementiser phrase). Remember that the
complementiser of an interrogative sentence differs from the complementiser of a declarative
in that it has a tense feature ([Tns]) and an edge feature ([EF]).
The tense feature attracts the tense element and the edge feature attracts a wh-element to the
edge of the clause. Both the tense feature and the edge feature of the complementiser cannot
be interpreted by the brain. They do not contribute to the meaning of the sentence (they
simply help to form the question), so they have to be deleted. They are deleted once the tense
and the wh-element move there.
The null complementiser is the head of the main clause. That is its function. The name of the
phrase derives from the name of its head. We will now concentrate on the analysis of the
complement to the complementiser, i.e. the tense phrase.
4. Syntactic Analysis of the TP (the children did break which window)

the children did break which window.
Analysis of the DP functioning as subject:
the children
H (D/Def. Art) C(N)
Analysis of the predicate:
did break which window

H (Tense) C (VP)
break which window

H (TVCP) C/DO (DP)
which window
H (wh-int det) C (N)
Morphological Analysis:
The children: determiner phrase, third person, plural, common gender, nominative case,
specific reference. We are talking about some specific children.
The: head determiner of the DP, definite article, functional category.
Children: common, concrete, countable noun, the plural of child. From the point of view of
number, child is a variable noun. It can be used with a singular verb (the child is…) or with a
plural verb (the children are…). It has an irregular plural: child/children.
Did: auxiliary to form the negative, interrogative and emphatic affirmative of the simple past.
In this case it has been used for the interrogative. It is finite and the tense is past.
Break: lexical verb, non-finite (a bare infinitive). It is an irregular verb (break, broke, broken).
Which: interrogative determiner. Interrogatives introduce wh-interrogative structures. It is an
operator.
Window: a common, concrete, countable noun. It is a variable noun. It has regular plural.
To sum up:
If you are analysing a declarative sentence you will have to do:
1. The semantic analysis of the main predicator
2. The syntactic representation of the sentence as a CP
3. The syntactic analysis of the TP
If you are analysing a wh - question, you will have to do:
1. The semantic analysis of the main predicator

2. The representation of the movement operations
3. The syntactic representation of the question as a CP
4. The syntactic analysis of the TP
You have one extra step (step 2).

Analyse the following questions. The hypothesis is that there is movement in both of them:
1. Who loves Juliet?
2. Who does Juliet love?

Analyse the following questions:
1. Who organized the party last year?
2. Who did he give the money to?
LESSON 25
WH-INTERROGATIVE WORDS
Wh-interrogative main clauses are introduced by interrogative words or wh-words. These

interrogative words will be:
1) interrogative determiners:
a. Who are you dating? (interrogative determiner without a complement,

traditionally called interrogative pronoun)
b. Which book do you want? (interrogative determiner with a complement,

traditionally called interrogative adjective)
2) interrogative adverbs
To decide whether an interrogative is a determiner or an adverb we have to identify the

function that the wh-element has in the question:
1) Interrogative Determiners without a complement (i.e. interrogative pronouns) have

nominal functions (subject, direct object, etc) and they appear on their own.
2) Interrogative Determiners with a complement head their own DP phrases.
3) Interrogative adverbs can function as adverbial adjuncts or as adverbial

complements
1) INTERROGATIVE DETERMINERS WITHOUT A COMPLEMENT (or interrogative pronouns)
The traditionally called interrogative pronouns are: who, whom, whose, what and which. As
was said above, they have nominal functions, i.e.: 1) subject, 2) direct object, 3) indirect
object, 4) complement to a preposition, 5) predicative complement (subject-related) 6)
predicative complement (object-related).
Examples of each will be presented below. The potential answers to the questions have been
included and analysed here because they help to identify the function the wh-word has.
1) Interrogative Pronoun as subject of the question:
S P
Direct question: Who opened my letter?
S P
Potential answer: John did.
Notice that when the wh-element is the subject, it is immediately followed by the finite or
conjugated verb, and there is no inversion of order (i.e. no auxiliary is required)
2) Interrogative Pronoun as direct object:
DQ 1: Who/Whom j did i you did i see who/whom j ?

C/DO
PA: I saw Ann.

C/DO
Whom is used in formal written and spoken English. In ordinary conversation, it is much
more common to use who.
3) Interrogative Pronoun as complement to a preposition:

a)
DQ: With whom j did i you did i go with whom j ?
AAC (PP)
PA: I went with Ann.

AAC (PP)
AAC stands for Adverbial Adjunct of company. It is a PP, i.e. a prepositional phrase. The
wh- interrogative pronoun whom functions as the complement to the preposition with.
with Whom
H (P) C/P (wh-interrogative pronoun)
In formal English, if we have a preposition at the beginning of the question, the preposition is
immediately followed by the objective form of the pronoun whom. But in ordinary spoken
English, it is more usual to leave the preposition at the end of the sentence. Whom then
normally changes to who, e.g.:
Who did you did go with who?
In this case, the prepositional phrase that functions as an adverbial adjunct of company is a
discontinuous unit. The preposition is left on its own (followed by the silent copy of the wh-
word). This is called preposition stranding.
b) The interrogative pronoun may function as the complement to the preposition to, this
preposition would be the head of a prepositional phrase functioning as indirect object:
DQ: Who j did i you did i give the book to who j ?

C/IO IO
PA: I gave it to Ann.

C/IO
1
As from now DQ will stand for Direct Question and PA for Potential Answer.
The preposition to is left on its own (again followed by a copy of the wh-word). This
is another instance of preposition stranding. Preposition stranding does not exist in
Spanish. It is a parametric difference between the two languages. (cf. ¿A quién le diste
el libro?/*¿Quién le diste el libro a? ¿Con quién fuiste al cine? / *¿Quién fuiste al cine
con?
4) Interrogative pronoun as predicative complement (subject related):
DQ: Whose j is i that book is i whose j ?

PC
PA: It is mine.
PC
Compare and contrast:
A: Who was Hamlet? (= Who played the part of Hamlet?)

B: My brother was. (Who is the subject, identifying a character in a play)
A: Who was Augustus?

B: Augustus was a Roman Emperor. (Who is the predicative complement, referring to
identity)
5) Interrogative pronoun as predicative complement (object related):
DQ: What j did i they did i make him what j ?

PC
PA: They made him president.

PC
2) INTERROGATIVE DETERMINERS WITH A COMPLEMENT:
Interrogative determiners followed by a complement were traditionally called interrogative

adjectives. We will not use this terminology here because we are making a distinction
between functional categories (determiners) and lexical categories (adjectives).
The interrogative determiners followed by a complement are: whose, what and which. They
are always followed by a noun complement. Consider the following question:
DQ: Which books j have i you have i lent him which books j ?
DO(DP) IO
PA: I have lent him those books

IO DO
The direct object is a determiner phrase (which books). Within the determiner phrase (DP)
which functions as the head and and books as its complement. Which is an interrogative
determiner (wh-interrogative adjective in traditional grammar).
which books
H (D) C (N)
The same happens in the following example:
DQ: Whose books j are i these are i whose books j ?

PC (DP)
PA: They are my books

PC (DP)
Here the predicative complement is a DP. The internal analysis of the DP is as follows:
whose books
H (D) C (N)
NOTE:
Who is a general interrogative determiner/pronoun for persons.
What is a general interrogative determiner/pronoun used mainly for things 2.
Which is used instead of who and what when the choice is restricted, for example:
A: Who do you want to speak to? (general inquiry)

B: I want to speak to Mr. Smith.
A: We have two Smiths here; which do you want? (restricted choice, which of the two)
or: Which Smith do you mean? (restricted choice)

or: Which of them do you want? We have two here. (restricted choice)
A: What will you have to drink? (general inquiry)
but: There's whisky, gin and sherry; which will you have? (restricted choice)
3) INTERROGATIVE ADVERBS:
The interrogative adverbs are: where, when, why and how. They have adverbial function.
Where means "in what place?" and it functions as an adverbial adjunct of place (e.g.:
Where are the children playing?) or as a locative adverbial complement (e.g.: Where do you
live?)
DQ: Where j are i they are i playing where j ?

AAP (Int Adv)
2
What (determiner) used for persons is possible but not common, e.g.: What men are you talking
about?
PA: They are playing in the garden.
AAP (PP)
DQ: Where j do i you do i live where j ?

Adv C (Int Adv)
PA: I live in London.

Adv C (PP)
When means "at what time?" and it functions as an adverbial adjunct of time (e.g.: When do
you play tennis?) or as a temporal adverbial complement (e.g.: When was the party?)
DQ: When j do i you do i play tennis when j ?

AAT (Int Adv)
PA: I play tennis at weekends.

AAT (PP)
DQ: When j was i the party was i when j ?

Adv C (Int Adv)
PA: It was yesterday.

Adv C (TN 3)
Why means "for what reason?" and it functions as an adverbial adjunct of reason. It is
usually answered by because, which is a subordinating conjunction called in traditional
grammar which introduces an adverbial clause of reason.
DQ: Why j was i Sam was i late why j ?

AAR (Int Adv)
PA: He was late because he overslept.

AAR (Adv Clause)
How? means "in what way?" and it sometimes functions as an adverbial adjunct of manner or
means:
DQ: How j did i you did i come how j ?

AAM (Int Adv)
3
TN: temporal noun.
PA: I came by bus.
AAM (PP)
How can also be used: a) with adjectives:
DQ: How tall j are i you are i how tall j ?

PC (AP)
PA: I am six feet tall.

PC (AP)
How tall is an adjectival phrase in which tall is the head (adjective) and how is a pre-modifier
(adverb of degree):
how tall
PM (Int Adv) H (A)
six feet tall

PM (NP) H (A)
b) With adverbs:
DQ: How fast j does i he does i drive how fast j ?

AAM/S 4(AdvP)
PA: He drives very fast.

AAM/S (Adv P)
How fast is an adverbial phrase in which fast is the head, an adverb, and how a pre-modifier,
an interrogative adverb:
how fast
PM (Int Adv) H (Adv)
very fast
PM (Adv of degree) H (A)
c) with the quantifiers much and many. These quantifiers were traditionally considered
adjectives because they appear before nouns. How functions as an adverb modifying an
adjective, e.g.:
DQ: How many books j did i you ti buy tj?

DO (QP)
4
AAM/S: Adverbial Adjunct of Manner or Speed.
PA: I bought three books.
DO (QP)
Some linguists consider how many books a quantifier phrase (QP) headed by the quantifier
many. According to this hypothesis, the phrase would have the following structure (Radford
2004: 215):
How much is followed by uncountable nouns (how much sugar, milk, etc), how many is
followed by countable nouns in the plural (how many pictures, books, etc).

Analyse the following questions:
1. Who smokes in this house?

2. Which sweater do you want?
3. Where do you keep the sugar?
4. Why did he say that?

1. Whose book did he use?
2. Where did he put the book?
LESSON 26
MODEL ANSWER FOR A YES/NO QUESTION
Can you tell me the news?
Semantic Analysis of the main predicator:

Arguments: you, me, the news
Argument structure: <1, 2, 3 >
Theta-grid: <agent, recipient, theme>
Type of proposition: dynamic. tell is a verb of communication.
Remember that in every yes-no question there is a null operator, a null wh-word, the null
counterpart of the word whether, which appears when we report a yes-no question:
Direct Question: whether Are you are coming?
Reported question She asked me whether Ø I was coming 1.
This null operator is inserted directly in specifier of C (or in the pre-comp slot). It does not
move to that position as all the other wh-words do.
So if you have to analyse a yes-no question you will still need two slots or lanes before the
subject, one for the auxiliary verb, which moves to complementiser position and one for the
null operator whether.
Syntactic representation of the movement operations:
Pre-comp slot Comp slot Subject Tense Lexical verb C/IO C/DO
Null operator Can you can tell me the news?
In yes-no questions there is only one movement:

1. the movement of the auxiliary to complementiser position, an instance of head-to-
head movement or of T to C movement
2. the null operator is inserted directly into pre complementiser position, a position
which is technically called specifier of C.
Now before analysing the question, move the elements back to the positions where they
were before the movement operations took place.
1
It is also possible to report the question with if (e.g. She asked me if I was coming) but if is a complementiser
so it would occupy the complementiser slot. Whether is a wh-word. Wh-words are always in Spec of C.
Syntactic representation of the question as a CP
Ø You can tell me the news.

H (Comp) C (TP)
[Tns] [EF]
The direct question is a main clause. It is a CP (complementiser phrase). Remember that the
complementiser of an interrogative sentence differs from the complementiser of a declarative
in that it has a tense feature ([Tns]) and an edge feature ([EF]).
The tense feature is deleted by the movement of the auxiliary from tense to complementiser
and the edge feature is deleted by the insertion of the silent wh-operator.
S (D) P(T’)
You can tell me the news.
can tell me the news.

H (T/Modal Aux) C (VP)
H (V) (BiTVCP) C/ IO (D/Prn) C/DO(DP)
Morphological Analysis of the elements in the main clause:

You: determiner, personal pronoun, second person singular or plural, common gender,
nominative case, deictic word (constant meaning but variable reference), functional category.
Can: Modal auxiliary, finite (present), functional category.
Tell: main verb, lexical verb (or lexical category), non-finite (bare infinitive), irregular.
Me: determiner, personal pronoun, first person singular, common gender, accusative case,
deictic word, functional category.
The news: determiner phrase.
The: determiner, definite article.
News: common, abstract, uncountable noun. From the point of view of number, news is a
special noun. It can only combine with a singular verb (the news is good) so it is a singular
invariable noun.

Translate the following linguistic expressions into English:
1. ¿Qué noticias hay hoy?
2. ¿Cuáles son las últimas noticias?
3. Las noticias son malas.
4. Una noticia
Comment on the following saying: No news is good news. (Consult a dictionary if
necessary)
What problem may a native speaker of Spanish have with the word news?

Analyse the following question:
1. Have the children done their homework?
LESSON 27
EMPTY CATEGORIES
We have already said that modern linguistics postulates the existence of empty categories,
i.e. silent elements which occupy a position in the sentence. The empty categories that we
mentioned were traces of auxiliary verbs and of wh-words. In this lesson we will take up the
subject again and discuss it in greater detail. The empty categories are:
1. Little pro
2. Big PRO and
3. Silent copies of elements that have moved or traces
4. The null operator
5. The null determiner
6. Null complementizers
1. LITTLE pro
According to the Extended Projection Principle every verb must have a subject, explicit or
implicit. This principle is universal. In English, if a verb is finite or conjugated, its subject
must be explicit. In languages such as Spanish or Italian, the subject of a finite verb is often
implicit or silent (cf. in Spanish, sujeto tácito). The hypothesis in modern linguistics is that in
languages like Spanish or Italian the subject position of finite verbs is filled in by a pronoun
that has no phonological content called little pro. Little pro has meaning, i.e. it receives a
theta role and it has person and number features, which agree with the person and number
features of the verb. Little pro does not exist in English.
I went to the cinema yesterday.

pro fui al cine ayer.
Little pro can be first person singular (pro fui al cine ayer), second person singular (pro fuiste
al cine ayer), third person singular (pro fue al cine ayer), third person plural (pro fueron al
cine ayer), etc.
The subject of an imperative sentence in English is not little pro. It may be:
1. a silent second person pronoun (a silent you, singular or plural), e.g.: Open the door,
please.
2. an explicit second person pronoun (always stressed), e.g.: You be quiet. These
commands frequently express strong irritation and cannot be combined with markers
of politeness such as please. An explicit subject can also be used to single out (by
pointing) two or more distinct addressees, e.g.: You come here, Jack and you go over
there, Mary.
3. a third person subject is also possible, e.g.: Somebody open this door. Everybody shut
their eyes.
2. BIG PRO
Non finite verbs or non-conjugated verbs (infinitives, gerunds and participles) often have
silent subjects. The silent subject of a non finite verb is called big PRO. Consider the
following sentences in English and in Spanish:
I want PRO to eat a sandwich.

pro quiero PRO comer un sandwich.
The verb want is a two-place verb (i.e. somebody wants something). It has two arguments
and one complement, its complement being to eat a sandwich. Its complement is a non-finite
noun clause, whose verb eat must have a subject of its own. The subject of eat is a silent
subject, an empty category, which is called big PRO
Big PRO may be:
1. The subject of an infinitive:
If PRO gets its person, number and gender features from the subject, it is subject-
controlled, e.g.:
I i want [ CP Ø PRO i to go to the cinema.]

I i tried [ CP Ø PRO i to open the door.]
Alex was eager [ CP Ø PRO to see Izzie.]
If PRO gets it features from the object, it is said to be object-controlled, e.g.:
I told her i [ CP Ø PRO i to leave the room.]

I persuaded her i [ CP Ø PRO i to buy a new P.C.]
In the following sentence:
It is important [ CP Ø PRO arb to study hard]

It is important [ CP Ø PRO arb not to overwork oneself]
PRO is said to have arbitrary reference since it denotes an arbitrary individual (it is
important for you, for me, for anybody).
In the following sentence PRO has a discourse controller since it gets its reference from the
situational context (it refers to the speaker)
It is vital [ CP Ø to prepare myself properly for the exam]
2. The subject of a present or past participle:
[ CP Ø PRO i driving along the main road], I i remembered I had to phone my sister.
(cf. As I was driving along the main road, I remembered I had to phone my sister)
3. The subject of a non-finite gerundial clause:
I i like [ CP Ø PRO i reading novels.]
4. For some authors, big PRO may also be the subject of a small or verbless clause
functioning as predicative adjunct. Consider the following example:
He i died [PRO i poor.]
The verb die projects one argument, he. It is a one-place verb. The adjective poor must also
project an argument, poor is a one-place adjective, it must be predicated of somebody. This
leads to the hypothesis that there is a big PRO, which together with poor forms a small or
verbless clause (PRO poor). This clause functions as a predicative adjunct. He and PRO are
co-indexed, i.e. PRO is subject controlled. The sentence can be paraphrased in the following
way:
He was poor when he died.
Notice that in the paraphrase each of the predicators has its own argument (i.e. the first he is
the argument of poor and the second he is the argument of die).
NOW, NOT ALL INFINITIVES TAKE A PRO SUBJECT. There are cases when an
infinitive can have an explicit subject in English, introduced by the overt complementizer for
or by a non-overt complementizer, e.g.:
1. It is easy for me to do that. (for: overt complementizer)

2. I want [ø you to go].
In some other cases the subject of the infinitive is a trace. But what is a trace?
3. TRACES
All languages are said to have what is called the displacement property. An element which
is interpreted in a certain position appears placed in a different position (i.e. it appears
displaced). In other words, in all languages we find instances of elements that have moved.
The elements that move are:
a) determiner phrases,
b) wh- phrases, which are determiner phrases too but introduced by a wh-word and
c) auxiliary verbs
The first type of movement is called argument movement, the second wh or operator
movement and the third head-to-head movement. When an element moves, it leaves behind
a copy of itself with no phonological content. That copy is called a trace (cf. in Spanish ‘una
huella’). Let us look at some examples:
In the case of passive sentences, a determiner phrase moves to occupy subject position.
Consider the following example:
Comp slot Subject Tense Lexical V. C/DO
Ø Somebody Ø robbed the National Bank.
Ø The National Bank was robbed the National Bank.
In the case of a yes-no question, the auxiliary moves and appears before the subject, e.g.:
Ø The children have seen Star Wars I.
Null Op Have the children have seen Star Wars I?
In the case of a wh-question, both the auxiliary and the wh-word move, the auxiliary to
compelmentiser position and the wh-word to the position of Specifier of C, e.g.:
You have bought what?

What have you have bought what?
It was stated above that the subject of an infinitive could be a trace. Consider the following
sentences:
It is likely [that John will come.]

*It is likely [ John to come.]
John is likely [ John to come.]
It seems [that John is happy in New York.]

*It seems [ John to be happy in New York.]
John seems [ John to be happy in New York.]
The adjective likely and the verb seem are called raising predicates. With raising predicates
(raising verbs and raising adjectives) the subject of the infinitive (i.e. the non-finite clause) is
a trace because in this type of structure, as in the case of the passive, there is determiner
phrase or argument movement. We will discuss raising predicates in detail later on. This
has been included here to avoid overgeneralization.
The subject of an infinitive may also be a trace in the following sentence:
He i is believed [he i to be a liar], which is the passive version of:
People believe [him to be a liar].
NULL OPERATORS
We have already discussed null operators in yes no questions. We will mention them again
when we discuss relative clauses.

1) What does the Extended Projection Principle state?
2) What is the relation between the Extended Projection Principle and the existence of
empty categories?
3) Which empty categories are discussed in this lesson?
4) Why are they called empty categories?
5) What is the displacement property?
6) What kind of movements are there?
7) What kinds of subject can an infinitive take? Provide an example of each.
8) Does little pro exist in English?

Mark the empty categories in the following sentences if they happen to contain any. State
what type of empty category they are:
1) I want a sandwich.
2) I want to go to the cinema.
3) Comió un sandwich.
4) Somebody must tell me the truth.
5) I must be told the truth.
6) What did you break?
7) Will you marry me?
8) The country was invaded in 1066.
LESSON 28
VERBS AND THEIR COMPLEMENTS (PART I)
WANT-TYPE VERBS:
Semantic Analysis:
Argument structure of want: two-place verb, it takes two arguments, <1, 2 >
Theta-grid: <experiencer, theme>
Type of proposition: stative (want is a modality verb expressing volition)
Syntactic Analysis:
Number of complements: one
The category of the complement varies according to the sentence in which the verb occurs.
Possible patterns for the verb want

1) I want a sandwich.
2) I want to eat a sandwich.
3) I want you to arrive on time.
4) I want for you to arrive on time.
5) I want this letter to be sent first class.
6) Mother wants you on the phone.
7) You are wanted on the phone.
Let us look at each of the sentences:
1. I want [ DP a sandwich].
Here want is followed by a Complement/DO, which is a determiner phrase (DP). This DP

contains a hidden verb (I want to eat a sandwich). The subcategorization frame would be the
following:
want: v [ DP]
2. I i want [ CP Ø PRO i to eat a sandwich].
Here want is also followed by a Complement/DO, but its complement is not a determiner
phrase but a Non-finite, Subordinate, Noun Clause (Infinitival) with a silent subject.
The hypothesis is that there is a null (i.e. silent) complementizer (Ø). The clause is therefore
a complementizer phrase (CP). The subcategorization frame would be the following:
want: v [ CP]
In this case want is a control verb. The silent subject of the subordinate clause, PRO, is
controlled by the grammatical subject of the sentence. This is a case of subject control. What
we mean by subject control is that PRO gets its reference from I. If I is a first person,
singular, common gender pronoun, then PRO is also a first person, singular, common gender
pronoun. In other words, they share the same features. They differ, however, in that I is in the
nominative case and PRO isn’t, because if it were in the nominative case it would be
pronounced in the same way (i.e. I). Some linguists say that PRO has null case, whatever that
may mean.
3. I want [ CP Ø you to arrive on time].
In sentence 3 want is also followed by a Complement/DO. The complement/DO is a Non-

finite, Subordinate, Noun Clause (Infinitival), a complementizer phrase, the head of
which is a null or silent complementizer. The subcategorization frame would be the same as
in the previous sentence:
want: v [ CP]
There is a difference though between sentence 2 and sentence 3. In sentence 3, the non-finite
clause has an explicit subject (you).
English is exceptional in this sense since in most languages infinitives cannot have explicit
subjects. In Spanish, for instance, we would be forced to use a finite clause (pro quiero que
(vos) llegues puntualmente).
When want has an explicit subject it is not a control verb. There is no silent subject, no PRO
to be controlled.
The theta-role of the subject of the non-finite, subordinate noun clause is not determined by
want. Want imposes no restrictions on it. Notice that it can be animate as in the example
(you) or inanimate (as in I want [Ø the train to arrive on time]). The subject of the non-finite
clause gets its theta-role from the verb of the non-finite clause (in this case arrive).
Want does not allow a passive in this case (*You i are wanted you i to arrive on time). Since
the clause is a CP, you cannot be extracted out of it.
4. I want [ CP for you to arrive on time].
In this sentence want is followed by a non-finite, subordinate noun clause (infinitival)

introduced by the explicit complementizer for. The clause has an explicit subject. The
subcategorization frame would be as follows:
want: v [ CP]
5. I want [ CP Ø this letter i to be sent this letter i first class].
Here want is followed by a non-finite, subordinate, noun clause (infinitival). There has
been internal passivization, i.e., passivization within the complement, e.g.:
I want [somebody to send this letter first class].

I want [this letter i to be sent this letter i first class].
The fact that the meaning remains the same is a robust test that the complement is a
constituent.
6. Mother wants [ SC/ PP you on the phone]/
Here want is followed by a small or verbless clause (SC). Small Clauses are also phrases. In
this case, we can analyse it as a prepositional phrase (PP), its head, i.e. the predicator, being
the preposition on, or as a Predication Phrase, in which case its head would be a silent
element, a predication head (Pr). The subcategorization frames would be as follows:
want: v [ PP] or
want: v [ Pr P]
When want is followed by a small clause, it is possible to use it in the passive. Notice that in
sentence 7, the subject of the small clause has been moved out of it to become the subject of
the sentence:
7. You i are wanted [ SC/PP you i on the phone].
The use of want in the passive is highly restricted but we can provide another example:
They want [ SC/PP you at the meeting tomorrow].
You are wanted [ SC/PP you at the meeting tomorrow]
Which other verbs are similar to want? Would prefer, would like, would love, would hate.
Examples:
I would like (for) him to stay here.

I would hate (for) you to emigrate.
I would prefer (for) you to do it.
Notice that the complementizer for is optional.

1. She has always wanted a large family.
2. I want him to do it now.
3. What do you want to do tomorrow?

1. I don’t want to do the homework.
LESSON 29
VERBS AND THEIR COMPLEMENTS (PART II) (PERSUADE/ TRY)
PERSUADE-TYPE VERBS:
Semantic Analysis:
Argument structure of persuade: three-place verb, three arguments, <1, 2, 3>
Theta-grid: <agent, goal, event>
Type of proposition: dynamic.
Syntactic Analysis:
Number of complements: two
The category of the complements may vary.
Possible patterns for the verb persuade

1) I persuaded him that he should buy a TV.
2) I persuaded him to buy a TV.
3) He was persuaded to buy a TV.
4) John persuaded the candidates to be interviewed by me.
1. I persuaded [ DP him] [ CP that he should buy a TV].
In sentence 1, persuade is followed by two complements. The first complement is a DP, the
second complement is a finite, subordinate, noun clause, a CP. In this subordinate clause
the verb buy has an explicit subject (he). Persuade imposes some conditions on its first
complement: it has got to be animate, you cannot persuade an inanimate object to do
something. Persuade assigns a theta role to him (goal or affected). The subcategorization
frame would be:
persuade: v [ DP CP]
2. I persuaded [ DP him i ] [ CP Ø PRO i to buy a TV].
In sentence 2, persuade is also followed by two complements. The first complement is a DP,
the second complement is a non-finite, subordinate noun clause (infinitival), a CP. In this
subordinate clause, the verb buy has a silent subject (PRO), whose reference is controlled by
the first complement him. This is called object control. Him is a separate constituent, it is not
the subject of the verb buy. As was stated above, persuade needs an animate complement to
which it assigns the theta role of goal or affected. The PRO subject of buy receives the theta
role of agent from buy. The subcategorization frame would be:
persuade: v [ DP CP]
3. He i was persuaded [ DP he i ] [ CP Ø PRO i to buy a TV].
In sentence 3, the first argument/complement DP of persuade has become the subject of a
passive sentence.
4. John persuaded [ DP the candidates i ] [ CP Ø PRO i to be interviewed PRO i by me].
In this case we have passivization within the complement clause, i.e. internal passivization.
The subcategorization frame is still the same.
persuade: v [ DP CP].
Which other verbs are similar to persuade? Tell, ask, order.
TRY-TYPE VEBS:
Semantic Analysis:
Argument structure of try: two-place verb, two arguments, <1, 2>
Theta-grid: <agent, event/theme>
Type of proposition: dynamic.
Syntactic Analysis:
The complement is a CP.
Possible pattern for the verb try

1) Peter tried to open the door.
Let us look at the sentence:
1. Peter i tried [ CP Ø PRO i to open the door].
Try is followed by a non-finite, subordinate, noun clause with a PRO subject. The PRO
subject is controlled by Peter. It is a case of subject-control. It is not possible for this non-
finite clause to have an explicit subject (*Peter tried Mary to open the door/ *Peter tried for
Mary to open the door). Try is called a subject-control verb. The subcategorization frame
would be as follows:
try: v [ CP]

1) He told me to open the door.
2) I was told to open the door.

1. He attempted an escape.
2. He will attempt to answer all the questions.
LESSON 30
VERBS AND THEIR COMPLEMENTS (PART III) (BELIEVE/EXPECT)
BELIEVE-TYPE VERBS:
Semantic Analysis:
Argument structure: two-place verb, two arguments, <1, 2>
Theta-grid: <experiencer, theme/proposition>
Type of proposition: stative (believe is a modality verb expressing cognition)
Syntactic Analysis:
Possible patterns for the verb believe

1) I believe that he is innocent.
2) I believe him to be innocent.
3) He is believed to be innocent.
4) I believe him innocent.
5) He is believed dead.
6) I believe in witches/in God/ in reincarnation.
7) I believe in my husband/ in the fundamental goodness of human nature/ in getting
plenty of exercise.
8) I believed everything (that) he told me.
9) Don’t believe what you read in the papers.
1. I believe [ CP that he is innocent].
Here believe is followed by a finite, subordinate, noun clause, a CP. The subcategorization
frame would be:
believe: v [ CP]
2. I believe [ TP him to be innocent].
Here believe is followed by a non-finite, subordinate, noun clause (infinitival). This non-
finite clause is defective: it is a TP (or an IP) not a CP. The non-finite verb (in this case an
infinitive) has its own explicit subject him, a pronoun in the objective or accusative case. In
this case believe is called an exceptional case marking verb, because it determines the
objective or accusative case of the pronoun. The subcategorization frame would be as
follows:
believe: v [ TP (or IP)]
3. He i is believed [ TP he i to be innocent].
This is a passive sentence. The passive participle believed is followed by a non-finite clause,
its complement. Notice that only the subject of the non-finite clause has moved to the
beginning of the sentence. This movement out of the complement is possible precisely
because the clause is a TP (a defective clause) and not a CP. The subject of the non-finite
clause is now a trace, the trace of the moved element. The moved element has become the
grammatical subject of the sentence. This movement operation is an instance of argument
movement. The subcategorization frame is the same as in the previous sentence:
believe: v [ TP (or IP)]
4. I believe [ AP him innocent].
Here believe is followed by a small clause. In the small clause the predicator is innocent, an
adjective. We will consider this constituent a Predication Phrase. The head of the Predication
Phrase is null.
believe: v [ Pr P]
5. He i is believed [he i dead].
This pattern is very formal and of very restricted occurrence. Notice, however, the following
instance of use:
All the crew are missing, believed dead.
6. I believe [ PP in witches/in God].
To believe in something is ‘to be certain that it exists’. Here the complement of believe is a
prepositional phrase (PP).
7. I believe in my husband/ in the fundamental goodness of human nature/ in getting

plenty of exercise.
To believe in someone/ something here means ‘to have confidence in that person or thing’, to
trust somebody/something, to feel sure of the value or truth of something’.
8. I believed [ DP everything (that) he told me].
Here believe is followed by a DP (everything he told me). The head of this DP is the
determiner/ pronoun everything, which is followed by a post modifier (a relative clause) (that
he told me)
9. Don’t believe [ CP what you read in the papers].
Here believe is followed by a free relative clause or nominal relative clause, i.e. that which
you read in the papers.
EXPECT-TYPE VERBS:
Semantic Analysis:
Argument structure: two-place verb, two arguments, <1, 2>
Theta-grid: <experiencer, theme>
Type of proposition: stative (expect is a modality verb, expressing cognition)
Syntactic Analysis:
Possible patterns for the verb expect:

1. I expect that he will go.
2. I expect him to go.
3. He is expected to go.
4. I expect that I will pass the test.
5. I expect to pass the test.
1. I expect [ CP that he will go].
In sentence 1, expect is followed by a finite, subordinate, noun clause, a CP. The

grammatical subject of the sentence ( I ) is different from the grammatical subject of the
subordinate clause (he) but both subjects are explicit. The subcategorization frame would be:
expect: v [ CP]
2. I expect [ TP him to go].
In sentence 2, expect is followed by a non finite, subordinate, noun clause (infinitival).

This clause is a TP, a defective clause. The clause has an explicit subject him, which is
different from the grammatical subject of the sentence, and which is in the objective or
accusative case. Expect is here an exceptional case marking verb. The subcategorization
frame would be:
expect: v [ TP (or IP)]
3. He i is expected [ TP he i to go].
This is the passive version of the previous sentence. Notice that the subject of the subordinate
clause (he) leaves its position to occupy the subject position of the main clause. This is an
instance of argument movement. He receives the theta role of theme from the verb go. The
subject of the subordinate clause is its trace. This is one of the cases in which the subject of
an infinitive is not PRO. The subcategorization frame is the same as in the previous sentence:
expect: v [ TP (or IP)]
4. I expect [ CP that I will pass the test].
Here expect is followed by a finite, subordinate, noun clause, a CP, but the subject of the
main clause ( I )and the subject of the subordinate clause ( I )coincide. The subcategorization
frame would be:
expect: v [ CP]
5. I i expect [ CP Ø PRO i to pass the test].
Here expect is followed by a non finite, subordinate, noun clause (infinitival) with a PRO
subject. In this case expect is a control verb. The clause is not a defective clause, it is a CP.
The silent subject of the non finite clause (PRO) is controlled by the subject. The
subcategorization frame would be:
expect: v [ CP]

1. I do believe you are right.
2. Do you expect me to believe you?
LESSON 31
RAISING ADJECTIVES: sure, certain, likely, bound, unlikely, apt.
We are sure [that Brazil will win the cup.]

It is sure [that Brazil will win the cup.]
*It is sure [ Brazil to win the cup.]
Brazil is sure [ Brazil to win the cup.]
We are certain [that John will help us.]

It is certain [that John will help us.]
*It is certain [ John to help us.]
John is certain [ John to help us.]
It is likely [that John will come.]

*It is likely [ John to come.]
John is likely [ John to come.]
It is bound [that there will be a strike.]

*It is bound [ there to be a strike.]
There is bound [ there to be a strike.]
MODEL ANSWER FOR A DECLARATIVE SENTENCE WITH THE ADJECTIVE

‘LIKELY’ WITHOUT ARGUMENT MOVEMENT (OR RAISING)
It is likely that John will come.
Semantic Analysis of the predicator of the main clause:

Main Predicator: likely (one-place adjective)
Argument: that John will come (clausal argument)
Argument structure of likely: <1>
Theta-grid: <theme/proposition>
Type of proposition: stative (likely is a modality adjective expressing cognition, the source of
modality is the speaker)
Syntactic representation of the main clause:

The main clause is a CP (Complementiser Phrase) introduced by a null complementiser,
as finite.
Ø It is likely that John will come.

H (Comp) C (TP)
G. Subject 1 Predicate (T’)

It is an expletive pronoun, a slot filler, because since English is a [–null subject] language, the
subject slot has to be filled in. It is not an argument, it has no theta-role (therefore, it has no
meaning). It is not referential. It is not an empty category because it has phonological content.
[Pre] is likely that John will come.

H(T) C (VP)
H (V) C (AP)
Syntactic analysis of the Adjectival Phrase likely that John will come:
likely that John will come (here).

H (A) C (CP) (Sub/F/ that NC)
Subordinate clause: that John will come

Predicator: come (two-place verb)
Arguments: John, (here)
Argument Structure: <1, (2) >
Theta-grid: <theme, locative >
Type of proposition: dynamic. Come is an unaccusative verb, a verb of directed motion.

The subordinate clause is a CP. The complementiser slot is filled in by an overt (i.e. explicit)
complementiser.
1
‘G. Subject’ stands for grammatical subject.
that John will come (here).
H (Comp) C (TP)

Ø John will come (here).
Ø John
H (D) C (Proper Noun)
will come (here)

H (T) C (VP)
H (IVIP) C/ ADV C (Adv.)
clause.
MODEL ANSWER FOR A DECLARATIVE SENTENCE WITH THE ADJECTIVE

‘LIKELY’ WITH ARGUMENT MOVEMENT (RAISING)
John is likely to come.

Main Predicator: likely (one-place adjective)
Argument: John to come (clausal argument)
Argument structure of likely: <1>
Type of proposition: stative (likely is a modality adjective expressing cognition, the source of
modality is the speaker.

as finite.
Ø John is likely to come.

H (Comp) C (TP)
Syntactic representation of the movement operations within TP:
G. S Tense Verb C to theV/Pred C (AP)

John [Pres] is likely [ TP John to come]
A-movement
Syntactic Analysis of the Adjectival Phrase:
likely [ TP John to come.]

H (A) C (Sub/Non F/ Noun C)
Notice that the complement to the adjective likely is a TP and not a CP. Its subject John will
move out of it to end up as the grammatical subject of the main clause. John, however, is not
an argument of likely, it is an argument of the verb of the subordinate clause and it gets its
theta-role from that verb (in this case come)
Subordinate clause: John to come

Predicator: come (two-place verb)
Arguments: John, (here)
Argument Structure: <1, (2) >
Theta-grid: <theme, locative>
Type of proposition: dynamic. Come is an unaccusative verb, a verb of directed motion.

Ø John to come (here).
Ø John
to come (here)
H (T) C (VP)
H (IVIP) C/ ADV C (Adv.)
The sentence is a complex sentence, made up of a main clause and a non-finite subordinate
clause.
The analysis of a sentence with bound will be the same as the analysis of a sentence with
likely.
Notice that likely and bound are one-place adjectives. We can have two possible sentences:
one without argument movement (without raising) and one with argument movement (with
raising):

John is likely to come.
certain and sure, on the other hand, are two-place adjectives, which can occur with an
omitted experiencer argument. With these adjectives we can have three possible sentences:
1. We are certain that John will come.

2. It is certain that John will come.
3. John is certain to come.
1. We are sure that John will come.

2. It is sure that John will come.
3. John is sure to come.
In sentence 1 certain and sure are two-place adjectives. In sentence 2, we will say that they
are still two-place adjectives but that they have occurred in the syntax with only one
complement since the experiencer argument is not explicit.
The important thing with respect to sentence 3 is to realize that what appears as the
grammatical subject of the sentence is really an argument of the subordinate or embedded
clause. It appears in initial position because it has moved.
Note also that probable has a similar meaning to likely but it is not a raising adjective. We
can say It is probable that John will come but we cannot say *John is probable to come. It is
wrong. This helps to clarify the issue that one thing is meaning and another quite different
thing is syntax.

1) It is likely that the tickets will be expensive.
2) Tickets are likely to be expensive.
LESSON 32
RAISING VERBS: seem, happen, turn out, appear.
It seems [that John is happy in New York.]

*It seems [ John to be happy in New York.]
John seems [ John to be happy in New York.]
It happened [that John was reading at that moment.]

*It happened [ John to be reading at that moment.]
John happened [ John to be reading at that moment.]
It happened [that there was a doctor at the stadium.]

*It happened [ there to be a doctor at the stadium.]
There happened [ there to be a doctor at the stadium.]
It turned out [that we were the only guests.]

*It turned out [ we to be the only guests.]
We turned out [ we to be the only guests.]
It appears [that the man is dead.]

*It appears [ the man to be dead.]
The man appears [ the man to be dead.]
MODEL ANSWER FOR A DECLARATIVE SENTENCE WITH THE VERB SEEM

WITHOUT RAISING
It seemed that John was asleep.
Main Predicator: seem (one-place verb)
Argument: that John was asleep (clausal argument)
Argument structure of seem: < 1 >
Theta-grid: < theme/proposition>
Type of proposition: stative (seem is a modality verb expressing cognition, the source of

as finite.
Ø It seemed that John was asleep.

H (C) C (TP)
G. Subject 1 Predicate (T’)

It Ø seemed that John was asleep.
It is an expletive pronoun, a slot filler. As English is a [– null subject] language, the subject
slot has to be filled in. It is not an argument, it has no theta-role (therefore, it has no
meaning). It is not referential but it is not an empty category because it has phonological
content.
Ø seemed that John was asleep.

H (T) C (VP)
seemed that John was asleep.

H (IVIP) C (CP)
Subordinate clause: that John was asleep

Predicator: asleep (one-place adjective)
Argument: John
1
‘G. Subject’ stands for grammatical subject.
Theta-grid: <theme > (the entity characterized)

The subordinate clause is a CP. The complementizer slot is filled in by an overt (i.e. explicit)
complementizer.
that John was asleep.

H (Comp) C (TP)

Ø John Ø was asleep.
Ø John
Ø was asleep.
H (T) C (VP)
was asleep.
H (IVIP) C/ Pred C (A)
clause.
MODEL ANSWER FOR A DECLARATIVE SENTENCE WITH THE VERB SEEM

WITH ARGUMENT MOVEMENT (RAISING)
It seemed [that John was asleep.]

*It seemed [ John to be asleep.]
John seemed [ John to be asleep.]
John seemed to be asleep.
Main Predicator: seem (one-place verb)
Argument: John to be asleep (clausal argument)
Argument structure of seem: <1>
Syntactic representation of the main clause as a CP:

as finite.
Ø John seemed to be asleep.

H (C) C (TP)
Syntactic representation of the movement operations within TP:
G. S Tense Verb C/V (TP)

John [Past] seemed John to be asleep.
A-movement
Notice that the complement to the verb seem is a TP and not a CP. Its subject John will move
out of it, to end up as the grammatical subject of the main clause. John, however, is not an
argument of seem, it is an argument of the predicator of the subordinate clause and it gets its
theta-role from that predicator (in this case asleep)
Subordinate clause: John to be asleep

Predicator: asleep (one-place adjective)
Argument: John
Theta-grid: <theme >

Ø John to be asleep.
Ø John
H (Det) C (Proper Noun)
to be asleep
H (Tense element) C (VP)
H (V) C/ Pred C (A)
The sentence is a complex sentence, made up of a main clause and a non-finite subordinate
clause.
The verb seem may appear with an extra argument as in It seemed to me that John was
asleep, in which case it might be considered a two-place verb. The semantic analysis would
be along the following lines:
Semantic Analysis
Main Predicator: seem (two-place verb)
Argument: to me, that John was asleep (clausal argument)
Argument structure of seem: < 1, 2 >
Theta-grid: < experiencer, theme/proposition>

1) It seems that he likes her.
2) He seems to like her.
LESSON 33
THE DETERMINER PHRASE
A striking fact about nouns is that they cannot in general appear on their own but must be
accompanied by a determiner. Consider:
1. *Assignment is not difficult.

2. *You should hand in assignment.
1. The assignment is not difficult.

That/this assignment is not difficult.
2. You should hand in the assignment.

You should hand in that/this assignment.
This is due to the fact that a common noun used by itself, i.e. without a determiner (e.g.
table), has no reference. It is a lexical category, it has semantic content, it creates an image in
our heads but it does not pick out an entity in the world. Common nouns used in isolation
stand for kinds of things. It is only when they combine with a definite article or a
demonstrative that they become referential phrases. The element that contributes with the
reference is the determiner.
Determiners are described by Haegeman (1994) as head-like, functional elements. The fact
that they belong to a closed class suggests that they are functional categories. The fact that
they are typically one-word elements is evidence that would lead us to assimilate them with
heads, since in a head position you can never have a phrase.
According to Masullo and Contreras, some determiners are said to have a selectional feature
[N]. This selectional feature [N] must be understood as a requirement for the determiner to be
followed by a noun. When a noun comes along and merges with the determiner this
requirement is fulfilled and the [N] feature disappears. The feature [N] does not contribute to
meaning (i.e. it is not interpretable) but it contributes to the formation of the phrase. Its
presence makes the determiner act as the triggering element that leads to the formation of the
phrase.
This, among other factors, led linguists to raise the status of determiners and to hypothesize
that when a determiner such as the merges with a noun, it forms a Determiner Phrase (DP).
The determiner functions as the head of the phrase, giving the phrase its name. The noun
functions as the complement of the determiner.
The translation for selectional feature is rasgo de subcategorización. The presence of this
feature allows us to make a distinction between those determiners that require a noun to
follow (i.e. those that require a complement) and those which do not and can occur on their
own as is the case with personal pronouns, which are a subtype of determiner.
WHICH ARE THE DETERMINERS?
1. The definite article the; a type of determiner that has to be followed by a complement.
2. Personal Pronouns, a type of determiner which occurs without a complement.
Phrases such as we teachers or you students, in which a determiner/pronoun occurs followed

by a noun complement are not the general rule but they still exist. The semantic relationship
between the pronoun and the noun complement in this case is one of apposition.
3. For pedagogical reasons, the four demonstratives this/these that/those will be analysed
as determiners, heading their own determiner phrases.
This analysis works for English, where the demonstratives and the definite article are in
complementary distribution. It is possible to say the dog or that dog but not *The that dog.
However, it is not very satisfactory from a universal perspective, since it does not help us to
account for the two positions of the demonstratives in Spanish: ese libro and el libro ese 1.
4. The indefinite article (a/an), cardinal numbers (one, two, three…) and quantifiers
such as some, any, no, every, other, another, many/much, more, most, enough, few, less,
1
(For further discussion, if you are interested in this topic, see Brugè, Laura (2002) ‘The Position of
Demonstratives in the Extended Nominal Projection’ in G. Cinque (ed.) Functional Structure in DP and IP: The
Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Volume 1, 15-53, OUP. This material, however, should best be tacked in
the subject Linguistics.)
several, all, both, each, may be considered determiners too. However, many linguists,
Heim and Kratzer (1998) being among them, point out that there are a number of
differences between determiners and quantifiers and they would rather have them head
their own projections, which would then be Quantifier Phrases (QP). Again for
pedagogical reasons, in this course both analyses will be accepted.
Quantifier Phrases (QP) such as many doors, all the doors, all of them, all of the kids,
one/two of the kids, two kids, some kids, no kids, etc are phrases whose head is a
quantifier followed by a Complement. The complement to the quantifier may be a noun,
as in many doors, a determiner phrase, as in all the doors, or a prepositional phrase, as in
all of the kids.
Consider the following trees:
NULL DETERMINERS
All the determiners that we have discussed so far are overt, i.e. they are pronounced. But
determiners can also be null or covert, i.e. silent. Null determines are Empty Categories.
They are empty of phonological content. But they still have grammatical features (such as [+
definite], [+ generic], etc). For example:
1. The dog is mine.

2. Ø Dogs eat meat.
3. Ø Water is a precious commodity.
4. I had an apple for breakfast.
5. I had Ø coffee for breakfast.
6. I had Ø sandwiches for lunch.
How does the use of determiners in English compare to their use in Spanish?
1. If the noun is countable, singular and definite, the determiner is pronounced in both
languages.
The dog is mine. (overt determiner)

El perro es mio. (overt determiner)
2. If the noun is plural and has generic reference, it is silent in English but overt in Spanish
Ø Dogs eat meat. (null determiner in English)
Los perros comen carne. (overt determiner in Spanish)
3. If the noun is uncountable and it occurs in complement position, the determiner is null in
English as well as in Spanish. This null determiner has existential meaning, (i.e. it is
semantically roughly comparable to some)
I had Ø coffee for breakfast. (Ø = some) (null determiner)

pro Tomé Ø café en el desayuno. (Ø = some) (null determiner)
4. If the noun is countable and plural and occurs in complement position it is null in both
languages. Again, this null determiner has existential meaning, (i.e. it is semantically
roughly comparable to some)
We bought Ø sandwiches for lunch. (Ø = some) (null determiner)

pro Compramos Ø sandwiches para el almuerzo. (Ø = some) (null determiner)
Some authors claim that in the case of proper nouns we can also postulate the existence of
null determiners.
Ø Mary is tall. (non-overt determiner)

Ø María es alta. (non-overt determiner)
La María es alta. (dialectal) (overt determiner)
Los Fernández se fueron de vacaciones. (overt determiner)
The Bronx is a borough of New York.. (overt determiner)
Ø Manhattan is a borough of New York too. (non-overt determiner)
TYPES OF COMPLEMENT THAT THE DETERMINER CAN TAKE
The determiner may have:

1. a single noun as complement (e.g. the man)
2. noun phrase as complement (e.g. the examination of the patient)
Let us consider each of these cases in turn:
1. The tree diagram representation for the first case would be the following:
We can represent the same relationship using boxes, although in this representation the
hierarchical nature of the phrase is lost:
the dog
Head (D) Complement (N)
2. The tree diagram for the second case would be:
Using boxes:
The examination of the patient

H (D) C (NP)
The noun phrase examination of the patient, in turn, has internal structure, examination is the
head and of the patient is its complement.
examination of the patient

H (N) C (PP)
Many generative linguists believe that there is a parallelism between the sentence, which for
them is a Complementizer Phrase (CP) and the Determiner Phrase (DP). From a semantic
perspective, the most important element in the sentence is the lexical verb because it
determines the number of arguments that will appear with it and assigns a theta role to them.
The verb and its arguments form the semantic core of the proposition, a Verb Phrase (VP).
The functional categories (Tense Phrase (TP) and Complementizer Phrase (CP)) form the
functional layers, which are further expansions or projections of the initial VP.
Similarly, the noun and its arguments, if it has any, form the semantic core of the determiner
phrase. The noun determines the number of arguments that will appear with it and assigns a
theta role to them. The functional projection of the NP is the DP, in the same way as TP and
CP are the functional expansions of VP.
ANALYSIS OF A DP IN WHICH THE NOUN IS PRE MODIFIED BY AN ADJECTIVE
It may be the case that the noun which functions as the complement to the determiner is in
turn modified by an adjective. The analysis of these phrases which include adjectives using
boxes will be the following:
The small table
H (D) C (NP)
The analysis of the NP functioning as complement will be:
small table
Pre Mod (A) H (N)
This analysis is theoretically inadequate. It has been adopted only for pedagogical reasons
and should be reconsidered in your Linguistics course.
ANALYSIS OF A DP IN WHICH THE NOUN IS POST MODIFIED EITHER BY A PREPOSITIONAL

PHRASE OR A RELATIVE CLAUSE
Consider now the sentences:

1. The man at the door is my cousin.
2. The man who is at the door is my cousin.
Both have a determiner phrase as subject. In sentence 1 The man at the door, in sentence 2
The man who is at the door.
In this case, at the door and who is at the door are not complements to the noun man but Post
Modifiers. To begin with, man is not an abstract deverbal event noun. It is a first order
nominal. Secondly, it is not part of the meaning of man that if you are a man you are at the
door. The semantic features of man are [+human], [+male] and [+adult]. at the door and who
is at the door are a Prepositional Phrase and a Defining Relative Clause respectively, and
they both help us to narrow down the scope of reference of the noun man, so that in a given
situation the listener would be able to identify the referent of the determiner phrase the man
at the door or the man who is at the door. For pedagogical reasons, the analysis that we will
adopt using boxes will be as follows:
The man at the door

H (D) C (NP)
The noun phrase man at the door, which functions as complement to the determiner, in turn
has the following structure:
man at the door

H (N) Post Mod (PP)
The man who is at the door is my cousin.
In this case, the post modifier is an adjectival clause, a subordinate, defining relative
clause. Again for pedagogical reasons, the analysis that we will adopt for determiner phrases
in which the noun is followed by a relative clause will be the following:
The man who is at the door

H (D) C (NP)
The analysis of the noun phrase that functions as complement to the determiner is the
following:
man who is at the door

H (N) Post Mod (CP/ Sub/Fin/ Adj C/Def Rel C)
THE PRE-NOMINAL POSSESSOR

In English the pre-nominal possessor is in complementary distribution with the article. We
can say:
the cat or
my cat but not
*The my cat
The same happens in Spanish. We can say:

el gato
mi gato but not
*el mi gato
However, there are languages in which this is not the case. One such language is Italian. In
Italian, it is possible to say:
La loro bellisima casa

The their beautiful house
‘their beautiful house’
Another such language is Hungarian. The same as in Italian, Hungarian possessors are pre-
nominal but they follow the determiner. But unlike Italian, they can be in the nominative
case, so that Hungarian has the near equivalent of the John’s two pictures.
According to Kayne (1994) it is possible to postulate that English has a phonetically

unrealized counterpart to the Hungarian D head (Dº) so that John’s two pictures has the
following structure:
Dº [John [’s [QP two pictures]
Simplifying Kayne’s proposal, we could arrive at the following representation for a phrase
such as John’s pictures
Ø John’s pictures
H (D) C (NP)
The whole phrase is a determiner phrase with a null determiner as head. The complement to
the determiner is a noun phrase in which pictures is the head and John’s is a DP (Ø John’s)
pre modifying picture.
John’s pictures
Pre Mod (N in the Genitive Case) Head (N)
THE ‘POST-GENITIVE’ OR DOUBLE GENITIVE
1. I have two pictures of Mary. (cf. In Spanish: Tengo dos cuadros de María (cuadros en
los que está María)
2. I have two pictures of Mary’s. (cf. In Spanish: Tengo dos cuadros de María (que
pertenecen a María o que María pintó)
In 1 I have two pictures of Mary, of Mary is a complement of picture.
1n 2 I have two pictures of Mary’s, of Mary’s is not a complement of picture, but a modifier.
In fact, of Mary’s can co-occur with a complement as in I have two pictures of John of
Mary’s.
The construction in sentence 2 is known as the ‘post-genitive’or ‘double genitive’. It is an of-

construction combined with a genitive, e.g.:
Some friends of Jim’s

Several pupils of his
That irritating habit of her father’s
A friend of mine (mine: determiner and personal pronoun in the genitive case)
A friend of ours
The independent genitive is not in this case elliptical (i.e. there’s no ellipsis of anything after
the genitive)
The post-genitive construction contrasts in terms of indefiniteness or unfamiliarity with the

normal genitive:
1. Jim’s friend presupposes definiteness (remember what we said in the previous section
about there being a null or silent determiner heading the construction: el amigo de
Jim)
2. Joseph Haydn’s pupil presupposes definiteness
3. A friend of Jim’s presupposes indefiniteness
4. A pupil of Joseph Haydn’s presupposes indefiniteness
The post-modifier must be definite and human
*an opera of a composer’s [ - definite] or [indefinite]

*a funnel of the ship’s [ - animate] or [inanimate]
An opera of Verdi’s [+ definite, + animate]
An opera of my friend’s [+ definite, + animate]
The phrase that comes first must be indefinite.
Note the following meanings in the following sentences:
A painting of my sister’s [‘done by my sister’ or ‘belonging to my sister’]
A painting of my sister [‘one representing my sister]
A painting by my sister [‘done by my sister’]
A painting of my sister by my brother [‘representing my sister and done by my brother’]
Compare also:
He’s a student of Jespersen. [‘one who studies Jespersen’s writings’] (In the paraphrase He
studies Jespersen, he has the theta role of agent and Jespersen the theta role of theme)
He was a student of Jespersen’s [‘one who studied under Jespersen’]
REFERENCES:
Haegeman, L. & Guéron, J. (1999) English Grammar: A Generative Perspective. Blackwell.
Haegeman, L. (1991/1994) Introduction to Government & Binding Theory, 2nd edition.
Blackwell.
Kayne, R.S. (1994) The Antisymmetry of Syntax. The MIT Press.
Radford, A. (2004) Minimalist Syntax: Exploring the Structure of English. Cambridge.
Lesson 33 Assignment 1: (to be discussed in class)

State whether the following prepositional phrases are complements or modifiers:
1. The director of the company
2. The expression of one’s feelings
3. The expression on her face
4. The withdrawal of the troops
5. The organization of the party
6. The killing of whales
7. The student of Physics
8. The student with long hair
9. The student of Physics with long hair.
Lesson 33 Assignment 2 (to be handed in as Assignment 33)

1. John’s knowledge of Greek
2. The train to London
3. The book on the table
4. The shooting of the animals
LESSON 34
FUNCTIONS OF NOUN CLAUSES
Noun clauses have nominal functions. They can function as:

1) Subject
2) Complement to a verb (traditionally called Direct Object)
3) Complement to a preposition
4) Predicative Complement
5) Complement to a noun
6) Complement to an adjective or adjective complement
1) SUBJECT:
a) that noun clauses:
That he is dead seems tolerably certain.
b) wh-interrogative noun clauses:
What she did is a mystery.

When he went there is not known.
Where he went is not known.
Why he went there is not known.
How many he bought is not known.
c) whether noun clauses:
Whether she liked the present was not clear to me.
d) if noun clauses: If cannot introduce a subject clause unless the clause is extraposed (placed
at the end):
*If she likes the present is not clear to me. (* = ungrammatical)

But:
It's not clear to me if she likes the present. (grammatical)
Note 1:
If the subject is too long or too heavy it can appear at the end of the sentence and the slot left
at the beginning of the sentence is filled in by the expletive pronoun it. This pronoun
functions as the grammatical subject of the sentence. We are thus left with a sentence that has
two subjects: a grammatical subject (it) and a real subject. This expletive pronoun is
sometimes called Anticipatory Subject it, Preparatory it or Pleonastic it.Examples:
That he will win is certain.

It is certain that he will win.
We will go back to this expletive subject after we have discussed the different types of
subordinate clause.
2) COMPLEMENT TO A VERB OR DIRECT OBJECT:
I believe that he is dead.

I think he is honest. (contact noun clause)
I can’t imagine what he said.

I don't know where he lives.
She asked me who the man was.
She asked me whether I had finished.

She wanted to know whether the flight had been delayed or whether it had been
cancelled.
d) if noun clauses:
He wanted to know if she was glad.

Ask him if he is going to come.
Note 2:
If we have a very long direct object followed by a predicative complement the direct object is
moved towards the end and the slot left after the verb is filled in by an expletive pronoun it.
In Traditional Grammar this pronoun was said to anticipate the real object of the sentence,
and it was called Anticipatory Object it. We will go back to the analysis of these sentences
later. Examples:
I find it strange that he should come this afternoon.

I consider it quite likely that he might come today.
3) COMPLEMENT TO A PREPOSITION:
You are right in that he is a liar.
I was consulted on who should get the prize.
I am interested in whether you'll do it or not 1.
1
Whether….or: what we really have here is the coordinating conjunction or linking two subordinate
clauses. To analyse these sentences we have to provide the missing elements (whether you will do it
or whether you will not do it)
d) if noun clauses: an if clause cannot be the complement of a preposition:
*It all depends on if they will support us.
4) PREDICATIVE COMPLEMENT:
The problem is that he never answers our letters.

The difficulty is that we have no time.
The problem is who can we get to replace her.
The mystery was whether he had come or not.
d) if noun clauses: If noun clauses cannot function as predicative complements:
*My main problem right now is if I should ask for another loan.
5) COMPLEMENT TO A NOUN: (semantically apposition)

The idea that he had killed the man horrified me.

The suggestion that we should work harder was good.
Notice that we are saying which the idea or the suggestion was. We can insert the verb be
between the noun and the clause, e.g.:
The idea was that he was going to kill the man.

The suggestion was that we should work harder.
The nouns that can take noun clauses as complements (semantically apposition) are:
affirmation Fact principle

assumption Feeling request
belief Hint rumour
claim Hope suggestion
decision Idea supposition
demand knowledge suspicion
desire News thought
dream Notion Threat
explanation Premise warning
expectation Proposal Wish
These nouns are abstract nouns, i.e. they do not denote tangible material objects. Most of
them are deverbal 2, i.e. they are derived from verbs, e.g.: suggestion comes from the verb
suggest, explanation from the verb explain, proposal from the verb propose, etc. If we
replace the deverbal noun by the verb from which it derives, the that clause becomes the
complement/ direct object to that verb, e.g.:
The suggestion (that we should stop) was good.
Somebody suggested that we should stop.

C/DO
The proposal (that he should be fired) was accepted.
Somebody proposed that he should be fired.

C/DO
My question, why didn't he tell her the truth, has not been answered.
The question whether he has stolen the money or not upsets me.
d) if noun clauses:the if clause cannot have this function:
*You have yet to answer my question, if I can count on your vote.
6) COMPLEMENT TO AN ADJECTIVE OR ADJECTIVE COMPLEMENT:

I am happy that you could come.

I am aware that he has done it.
I was sure that I had seen her.
The adjective and the clause make up a unit, an adjectival phrase, in which the adjective
functions as the head of the adjectival phrase and the clause as the adjective complement,
e.g.:
I am aware that he has done it.

PC (AP)
aware that he has done it.

H(A) AC (NC)
2
The prefix de means "coming from". A deverbal noun is a noun that comes from a verb, e.g. arrival
is derived from arrive. A denominal adjective is an adjective that comes from a noun, e.g. woollen is
derived from wool.
I was not certain whose house I was in.
I was not certain whether I had seen her or not.
d) if noun clauses:
I wasn’t sure if she would agree.
7) INDIRECT OBJECT:
Noun clauses cannot function as Indirect Object because indirect objects normally refer to
persons and as was said above these clauses are generally used to report statements, they refer
to events, facts and ideas and not to concrete objects.

1) That he is dead seems certain.
2) What she did is a mystery.
3) I don’t know which car he chose.
4) She asked me who the man was.
5) I was not certain whose house I was in.
6) The suggestion that we should work harder was good.
7) My question, why didn't he tell her the truth, has not been answered.

1) I don't know where he lives.
2) You are right in that he is a liar.
IES en Lenguas Vivas “J. R. Fernández” 2012 (Revised 2015)
LESSON 35 (only one page)

FUNCTIONS THAT NOUN CLAUSES CAN HAVE (CHART)
That Noun Clauses Wh interrogative Noun Whether Noun Clauses If Noun Clauses
clauses
1. Subject That he is dead seems certain. What she did is a mystery. Whether she liked the present *If she liked the present is not
was not clear. clear.
It’s not clear if she liked the
present.
2. Complement to a I believe that he is dead. I can’t imagine what he said. She asked me whether I had He wanted to know if she was
verb/ Direct finished. glad.
Object
3. Complement to a You are right in that he is a liar. She was curious about what I I am interested in whether *It all depends on if they will
preposition had said. you'll do it or not. support us.
4. Predicative The problem is that he never The problem is who can we The mystery was whether he *My main problem was if I
Complement answers our letters. get to replace her. had come or not. should ask for another loan.
5. Complement to an I am aware that he has done it. I was not certain whose house I was not certain whether I I wasn’t sure if she would
adjective I was in. had seen her or not. agree.
6. Complement to a The idea that he had killed the My question, why didn't he The question whether he has *you have yet to answer my
noun man horrified me. tell her the truth, has not been stolen the money or not question, if I can count on
answered. upsets me. your vote.
7. Indirect Object:
------- --------- --------- ----------
Lesson 35 Activity 1: (to be handed in as Assignment 35) Analyse the following sentence:
She asked me whether I had finished.
LESSON 36
TYPES OF NOUN CLAUSES
Noun clauses are one type of subordinate clause. They have nominal functions, i.e. functions
that approximate to those of noun phrases. They function as complements and as subject.
But before we discuss the different functions they can have, we will look at their internal
structure. There are five different types:
1. That Noun Clauses

2. Wh-interrogative Noun Clauses
3. Whether Noun clauses
4. If Noun Clauses (also called Yes-no Interrogative Noun Clauses)
5. Exclamative Clauses
THAT NOUN CLAUSES:

Characteristics:
1) In Traditional Grammar, they are said to be introduced by the subordinating conjunction
that, which has no other function than to introduce the clause. This is not the analysis that we
will adopt here but it has been included because this is the label that you will find in most
dictionaries and pedagogical grammar books.
In Generative Grammar, the subordinating conjunction that is called a complementiser and it

functions as the head of a complementiser phrase or CP. The complementiser that marks
the clause as declarative (i.e. it gives us its illocutionary force) and tells us that the clause
will be finite. The complement to the complementiser is something like a sentence. It is
called a Tense Phrase or Inflectional Phrase.
Notice that complementiser is not the same as complement. Complementiser is a category,

a functional category, a type of word. The complement to a complementiser is what follows
the complementiser. To avoid confusion we will adopt the label Comp for complementiser
and we will go on using the letter C to mark complements, e.g.:
[I know < CP that Harry is dishonest >.]
that Harry is dishonest

H (Comp) C/Comp (TP)
2) When the that-clause is direct object or complement to the main verb the complementiser
that is frequently omitted except in formal use, leaving a zero that-clause or a contact
clause, e.g.:
I know it's late. (Contact noun clause)

I'm sure Ted has paid. (Contact noun clause)
In these cases, we have a null complementiser, i.e. a complementiser which is silent, which
has no phonological content:
Ø Harry is dishonest
H (Comp) C/Comp (TP)
3) That noun clauses are generally used to report statements, they refer to facts and ideas and
never to concrete objects:
Direct speech: “I’m tired,” said Ann.

Indirect speech: Ann said (that) she was tired.
4) They are always finite clause.
WH-INTERROGATIVE CLAUSES:
Characteristics:
1) They are introduced by wh-interrogative pronouns, adjectives and adverbs, which can
never be omitted and which always have a function within the clause they introduce. As was
said before:
a) Interrogative pronouns have nominal functions

b) Interrogative adjectives have adjectival or determiner function and
c) Interrogative adverbs have adverbial functions.
2) They can be used to report wh-questions, e.g.:
Direct speech: She asked me, "Who will look after the baby?"
Indirect speech: She asked me who would look after the baby.
3) These subordinate clauses resemble wh-questions semantically in that they leave a gap of
unknown information, represented by the wh-element. Contrast the known information
expressed in the that clause with the unknown information in the wh-clause:
I know (that) Caroline will be there.

Do you know who will be there?
I'm sure (that) Ted has paid.

I'm not sure who has paid.
In all the following sentences, which have wh-interrogative clauses, a question is explicitly or
implicitly raised:
I'm not sure who will look after the baby.

It's obvious who will look after the baby.
I found out who will look after the baby.
It's irrelevant who will look after the baby.
I told you who will look after the baby.
4) There are also grammatical similarities to independent wh-questions:
a) The wh-element is placed first in its clause (i.e. there is wh-movement).
b) If the wh-element is the complement to a preposition the preposition can be stranded:
I asked them on what they based their predictions. <formal>

I asked them what they based their predictions on. (Preposition stranding)
c) The wh-elements have the same range of functions as the wh-elements in wh-questions. (cf.
see the analysis of wh-questions)
d) The subordinate clause usually does not have subject auxiliary inversion:
What is he doing? (Wh-movement and subject-auxiliary inversion)

I don’t know < what he is doing >. (Only wh-movement)
e) Although the subordinate clause usually does not have subject auxiliary inversion, such
inversion may occur, particularly:
i) When the clause functions as complement and the verb of the main clause is be,
e.g.:
The problem is who can we get to replace her.
ii) When the clause functions as appositive, e.g.:
Your original question, why did he not report it to the police earlier, has not yet
been answered.
5) There may be more than one wh-element in the clause:
I don't know who wants what.
6) These interrogative words are called operators. The notion of operator comes from logic.
An operator is an element that has power over a variable. A question such as “Who did you
meet?” is roughly equivalent to “of all the possible x’s that you could have met, please
narrow down the reference and tell me who it was”. A question such as “What did you buy?”
is roughly equivalent to “of all the possible x’s that you could have bought, please tell me
what you have actually bought”. The x is the variable. In the semantic representation of a
sentence (i.e. in the representation of its meaning) operators always appear at the beginning.
The wh-operators are operators that have phonological content (i.e. they are not silent). The
wh-element occupies a slot that precedes the slot of the complementiser that. According to
Radford (1997), in Belfast English (BE) it is possible for a wh-word to coexist with the
complementiser that so that sentences such as the following are grammatical:
[I wonder < CP which dish that they picked>.]
[They didn’t know < CP which model that we had discussed>.]
In Standard English (SE) that is no possible. If we have a wh-word or operator, the

complementiser is null. Compare the two varieties of English:
BE: I wonder which dish that they picked.
SE: I wonder which dish Ø they picked.
7) These clauses will also be CPs (i.e. complementiser phrases). In Belfast English their head
is the overt complementiser that and in Standard English, their head is the null
complementiser Ø.
8) In these clauses there will be wh-movement but no subject auxiliary inversion. You will
have to include in your analysis a separate representation of the movement operations.
WHETHER NOUN CLAUSES

Characteristics:
1. In Traditional Grammar, whether is called a subordinating conjunction, with no function
within the clause it introduces.
Modern approaches, however, tend to place whether together with the wh-words, not only
because of its spelling but also because of its syntactic behaviour. Whether is also considered
to be an overt operator and it occupies the slot that precedes the complementiser. It occurs
with a null complementiser. The difference between whether and other wh-words is that
whether seems to be inserted in its position directly (i.e. it is not there as a result of
movement).
Spec of CP Comp Slot Subject Tense Lexical V C/ DO

whether Ø I had finished the book
2) Whether clauses are used to report yes-no questions and alternative questions (i.e.
questions that present two or more alternatives).
a) Yes-no questions:
Direct speech: She asked me, "Have you finished?"

Indirect speech: She asked me whether I had finished.
b) Alternative questions 1:
Direct speech: Has the flight been delayed or cancelled?

Indirect speech: She wanted to know whether the flight had been delayed or whether it had
been cancelled.
The subordinator whether is repeated only if the second unit is a full clause, e.g.:
I can't find out whether the flight has been delayed or whether it has been cancelled.
1
If can also be used for an alternative question: She wanted to know if the flight had been delayed or if it had
been cancelled. I don´t care if they join us or not.
They didn't say whether it will rain or be sunny.
3) According to Radford (1997) in Early Modern English there were root yes- no questions
introduced by whether, as illustrated by the following Shakespearean example:
Whether dost thou profess thyself a knave or a fool? (Lafeu, All’s Well That Ends Well,
IV.v)
This would lead us to hypothesize that in Modern Standard English, all yes-no questions are
introduced by a covert or silent operator whether, which may become overt when the
question is reported.

whether Have you have finished the book?
IF NOUN CLAUSES:
Characteristics:
1) In Traditional Grammar, if noun clauses are said to be introduced by the subordinating
conjunction if, which has no other function than to introduce the clause. Again, we will adopt
a more modern perspective.
In Generative Grammar, the subordinating conjunction if, the same as the subordinating
conjunction that, is called a complementiser and it functions as the head of a
complementiser phrase or CP. The complementiser marks the illocutionary force of the
clause as interrogative and tells us that the clause will be finite. The complement to the
complementiser is something like a sentence. It is called a Tense Phrase or Inflectional
Phrase.
2) Unlike the complementiser that, which introduces that noun clauses, the complementiser if
can never be omitted.
3) These clauses are used to report yes-no questions, e.g.:
Direct speech: "Can you help me?"

Indirect speech: [I wonder < CP if you can help me>.]
4) We said above that questions are introduced by operators. There are operators which have
phonological content (e.g., whether and the wh-words) and operators which are null (i.e.
silent). Linguists hypothesize that if noun clauses, which are used to report yes-no questions,
are introduced by a null operator which occupies the slot before the complementiser and
which is the null counterpart of whether. Consider the following representation where Op
stands for operator:

Whether or if you can help me
null operator
The operator whether and the complementiser if are in complementary distribution. When
one occurs, the other doesn’t.
EXCLAMATIVE CLAUSES:
Subordinate exclamative clauses generally function as:
1) Extraposed Subject:
It's incredible how fast she can run. ["It's incredible that she can run so fast"]
2) Direct Object:
I remember what a good time I had at your party. ["I remember that I had such a
good time at your party"]
3) Complement to a Preposition:
I read an account of what an impression you had made. ["I read an account that you
had made an excellent (or a terrible) impression"]
In these exclamative clauses we have what as predeteminer in a noun phrase or how as a

modifier or intensifier of an adjective or an adverb. By predeterminer we mean the element
that precedes the indefinite article a, which is called a determiner. We will be discussing the
determiner system later. By intensifier we mean an adverb of degree. Remember that adverbs
can modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs.
The following sentence with predeterminer what is unambiguously exclamative:
They didn't know what a crime he had committed. ["...the terrible crime he had
committed." cf.: What a crime he had committed!]
The following two are interrogative:
They didn't know what crime he had committed. [cf. What crime had he
committed?]
They didn't know what the crime was. [cf. What was the crime?]
In the first clause what is an interrogative adjective (or central determiner) and in the second
it is an interrogative pronoun.
A subordinate clause may be ambiguous between exclamatory and interrogative

interpretations:
You can't imagine what difficulties I have with my children.
Exclamatory interpretation: You can't imagine the great difficulties I have with my children.
Interrogative interpretation: You can't imagine the kinds of difficulties I have with my
children.
I told her how late she was.
Exclamatory interpretation: I told her that she was very late.
Interrogative interpretation: I told her the extent to which she was late.
To sum up:
There are four complementisers:
1) that, which introduces that noun clauses

2) if, an interrogative complementiser, which introduces if noun clauses
3) Ø, an interrogative null complementiser (i.e. with no phonological content) and
4) For, which introduces non-finite clauses but which we haven’t discussed yet.
The operators we have discussed so far are:
1) wh-interrogative words,
2) whether
3) and the null operator.
Negation is also an operator, modal auxiliaries are also operators. However, we will not
discuss them in this course.
IF VS. WHETHER
If tends to be more frequent than whether in informal style for yes-no clauses. On the other
hand, if is more restricted syntactically than whether. For example:
1) It cannot introduce a subject clause unless the clause is extra posed (placed at the end):
Whether she likes the present is not clear to me.

*If she likes the present is not clear to me.
But:
It's not clear to me whether she likes the present. or

It's not clear to me if she likes the present.
2) If cannot introduce a non-finite clause (or to infinitive clause):
I don't know whether to see my doctor today.

* I don't know if to see my doctor today.
3) If cannot be followed directly by or not:
He didn't say whether or not he'll be staying here.

* He didn't say if or not he'll be staying here.
If or not is postposed then the sentence is grammatical:
He didn't say if he'll be staying here or not.
4) If clauses cannot appear as complement of a preposition:
She was curious about whether I was wearing one.
*She was curious about if I was wearing one
We will here present the arguments that have led linguists to group whether with the wh-
words and not with if.
1) The same as wh-interrogative words, whether can introduce finite and non-finite clauses.
The complementiser if can only introduce finite clause:
I didn’t know what Ø I should wear.

I didn’t know what Ø PRO to wear.
I didn’t know whether Ø I should go.

I didn’t know whether Ø PRO to go.
I didn’t know Ø if I should go.

*I didn’t know Ø if PRO to go.
2) The same as wh-interrogative clauses, whether noun clauses can function as the
complement to a preposition, whereas if noun clauses cannot.
She was curious about <what Ø I had said>.

She was curious about <whether Ø I was wearing one>.
*She was curious about <Op if I was wearing one>.
3) The same as wh-interrogative clauses, a whether clause can function as subject, whereas an
if noun clause cannot.
<What Ø he said> will remain a mystery.

<Whether Ø 007 was a double-agent> will remain a mystery.
<*Op if 007 was a double-agent> will remain a mystery.
Consider the following charts where the parallelism becomes evident:
I didn’t know what Ø I should wear.

I didn’t know what Ø PRO to wear.
I didn’t know whether Ø I should go.

I didn’t know whether Ø PRO to go.
I didn’t know Op if I should go.

*I didn’t know Op if PRO to go.
Lesson 36 Activity1: (to be discussed in class)
1) What type of function do noun clauses have?
2) How many types of noun clauses are there? List them and provide at least one
example of each.
3) What was that called in Traditional Grammar?
4) What is that called in Generative Grammar?
5) In what way do the two analyses differ?
6) Provide an example of a contact noun clause.
7) Provide an example of a wh- interrogative noun clause introduced by a wh-
interrogative pronoun.
interrogative determiner.
interrogative adverb.
10) What was whether called in Traditional Grammar?
11) With which elements is whether grouped in Generative Grammar?
12) How many complementisers are there? List them and provide examples.
13) What is an operator?
14) How many operators have we discussed so far?
15) Which is more restricted syntactically if or whether? Discuss.
16) Provide an example of an exclamative clause.
REFERENCES:
Radford, A. (1997) Syntactic theory and the structure of English, Cambridge.
LESSON 37
DEFINING RELATIVE CLAUSES:
Defining relative clauses are subordinate clauses. They have adjectival function. They are
adjectival clauses. They are always found within noun phrases. They function as
postmodifiers to the head noun of the phrase.
According to Radford (2004), they are called relative clauses because they contain a relative
or word that ‘relates’ (i.e. refers back) to an antecedent (i.e. a noun that precedes the clause).
So one way of checking that you are before a relative clause is to look for the antecedent.
Consider the following examples:
S (DP) P (T’)
The key <that you lost yesterday> Ø is under the cupboard.
S (DP) P (T’)
Ø Tom Ø has found the key <that you lost yesterday>.
C/DO (DP)
In the first example, the subject is a determiner phrase, which contains a noun phrase, which
in turn, contains the relative clause that you lost yesterday. In the second example, there is a
determiner phrase that functions as complement/direct object, and that determiner phrase
contains a noun phrase which also contains a relative clause. The analysis of the determiner
phrases would be as follows:
the key <that you lost yesterday>
H (D) C (NP)
H (N) Post Modifier (Sub C/ Finite/ AC/ Defining Relative

Clause)(CP/ wh clause)
AC stands for adjectival clause. All defining relative clauses are adjectival, the opposite is not
true, since there are some relative clauses in which the antecedent merges with the relative
and as a result of this the clause acquires a nominal function. These clauses are called
Nominal Relative Clauses or Free Relative Clauses. We will discuss them in detail later on.
All relative clauses are CPs, introduced by an overt or silent wh-element (who, which, where,
when, why) which is a relative and in every relative clause there is movement of the wh-
element to Specifier of complementiser.
In speech, relative clauses form part of the same intonation pattern as the noun they modify.
In spelling, they are not separated by commas.
From another perspective, they restrict (delimit or narrow down) the scope of reference of the
antecedent of the relative. They are said to be essential to the meaning of the sentence, not
because the sentence would be ungrammatical without the clause, but because without the
clause, the hearer would not be able to identify the referent of the antecedent (i.e. the person
or thing that the antecedent refers to)
The man whom you should consult is Wilson. (formal)
The man who you should consult is Wilson.
The man that you should consult is Wilson.
The man you should consult is Wilson.
The man to consult is Wilson. (Non-finite Relative Clause)
The relative clauses listed above all have the same structure, namely:
Precomp Comp S Aux / Tense LV C/DO

slot slot
whom that you should consult whom
The who that you should consult who is

man Wilson.
who that you should consult who
who that PRO to consult who
Wh- movement
They are all CPs. The complementiser that or its null counterpart (Ø or that) is the head of the
complementiser phrase. The rest of the clause is a TP (tense phrase) complement. There is
wh-movement of the relative operator. To analyse the clause, we will write it again without
the movement operation:
Representation of the relative clause as a CP
That You should consult who
H(C) C (TP)
Then we will do the syntactic analysis of the TP, as if it were a simple sentence. In the TP
given above the relative who (or its formal version whom) functions as the complement/DO of
the verb consult.
Relative clauses are introduced by relatives. Traditional Grammar makes a distinction
between relative pronouns, relative adjectives and relative adverbs, according to the function
that the relative has within the clause:
1) Relative pronouns have nominal functions, e.g.:
The man who came yesterday is my cousin. (who is the subject of the clause)
The windows which were broken by those naughty boys have now been repaired.
(again which is the subject of the passive clause)
2) Relative adjectives have adjectival or determiner function (i.e. they appear before
nouns), e.g.:
The boy whose father was arrested yesterday did not come to school today.
This is the girl whose father is a doctor.
3) Relative adverbs have adverbial functions.
He remembers the days when he was in the army.
This is the restaurant where I always have lunch.
The reason why he comes is obvious.
In Generative Grammar some of these distinctions are lost since pronouns are a subtype of
determiner. Relative pronouns are often called relative determiners (determiners which occur
without a complement) and relative adjectives are also called determiners (determiners
followed by a noun complement).
DEFINING RELATIVE DETERMINERS/PRONOUNS:
The defining relative determiners/pronouns are: who, whom, which. They have nominal
function within the relative clauses which they introduce. For example, in the following
sentence the relative who functions as the subject of the clause:
The boy who broke the window is not here today.
When the relative determiner/pronoun functions as subject it cannot be omitted. We cannot
have a clause without a subject. The subject is a requirement of the tense element.
When the relative determiner/pronoun functions as complement it can be overt or it can be
silent:
It’s hard to find people <who Ø you can trust who>
It’s hard to find people <who Ø you can trust who>
According to Radford (2004) one reason why the relative can be silent may be that its person,
number and gender features can be identified by its antecedent. Since who refers back to
people, we can identify it as a third-person, plural, animate pronoun, even if it is silent.
The following are examples of relative clauses introduced by the complementizer that:
The man (that) you want has just left.
The flowers (that) I cut this morning are still fresh.
The man (that) I gave the book to has died.
The man (that) you lent your dictionary to seldom returns the books (that) he borrows.
If the complementiser that is silent we speak of a contact relative clause.
FINITE VS. NON FINITE RELATIVE CLAUSES

There are finite relative clauses and there are non-finite relative clauses, e.g.:
Everyone needs someone [ to love]. (Non finite clause)
Everyone needs someone [whom he can love]. (Finite clause)
In non-finite (infinitival) relative clauses, the relative pronoun is always silent.
Everyone needs someone [ CP to love]
Everyone needs someone [ CP who Ø PRO to love who]
The relative pronoun who will move from complement position to Specifier of C position (pre
comp position) and obligatorily be given a null spellout.
There are non-finite/infinitival relative clauses introduced by the transitive complementiser

for, e.g.:
Find someone [for them to play with].
There must be a complement to the preposition with. That complement is the relative pronoun
who.
Find someone who for them to play with who.
whom Ø they can play with who.
Wh-movement
The relative pronoun moves to pre-complementiser position, i.e. to become the specifier of
the complementiser for, but there, it must be given a null spellout.
Find a pen [for me to write with]
I’ve got a place [for him to stay]
This is the time [for you to leave]
There is no reason [for her to cry]
If the relative is moved together with a preposition then it must be overtly spelled out, e.g.:
I need something [with which I can write]

*I need something [with I can write]
He is someone [on whom you can rely]
*He is someone [on you can rely]
But notice that the relative clauses given above are finite.
The following sentences are the different options:

I need something [which I can write with]
I need something [that I can write with]
I need something [I can write with]
I need something [with which I can write]
I need something [which that I can write with which]

I need something[ with which that I can write with which]
Other examples of non-finite relative clauses are:

The man driving the lorry was angry. (The man who was driving the lorry was angry)
Anyone wishing to leave early may do so. (Anyone who wishes to leave early may do so)
The goods ordered last month have not arrived. (The goods that were ordered last month
have not arrived)
Analyse the following sentence fully:
1. The office in which he works is very big.
2. The man driving the lorry was angry. (Be careful: the subject of driving is not PRO)

1. The man you want has just left.
2. That's the man whose daughter John loves.
REFERENCES:
Radford, A. (2004) Minimalist Syntax: Exploring the structure of English. Cambridge:
LV/JVG October 2007 (Revised 2015)
LESSON 38
ADVERBIAL CLAUSES
Adverbial clauses have adverbial function. Most of them function as adverbial adjuncts of
some kind (i.e. Adverbial Adjunct of time, manner, reason, etc). In Traditional Grammar
they are said to be introduced by subordinating conjunctions, which in most cases have no
function within the clause they introduce. In this course we will say that they are introduced
by complementisers. They will be considered CPs. Adverbial clauses can be finite, non-finite
or verbless.
FINITE ADVERBIAL CLAUSES

They are classified into at least nine types:
1) Adverbial Clauses of Time:
They are introduced by the following subordinating conjunctions: after, as, before, now,
once, since, till, until, when, while, as long as, as soon as, by the time, every time, so long as.
(J 369-373; N 100-101) 1
He remained a minor until he was 17 years old. (N-100)

He returned home after he had done the work. (N-100)
After he had lost his wife, he settled in France. (J-369)
Just as he was passing, she looked out of the window. (J-369)
He called at the house as the clock struck four. (N-100)
He got up before the sun had risen. (J-369)
He worked very hard before he succeeded. (N-100)
Now I come to think of it, I suppose you are right. (J-369)
You are safe enough once you are outside the gate. (J-369)
He has been very weak since he was taken ill. (N-100)
It seemed scarcely a week since he had been there last. (J-369)
Don't open the door till the train stops. (J-369)
When he comes, tell him to wait. (J-369)
Repairs done while you wait. (J-369)
You can hold the horse while I bring the saddle. (N-100)
He stayed in Paris as long as he had money. (J-369)
As soon as she saw him she shouted: "Alfred!".(J-369)
I will leave the room as soon as you open the door.(N-100)
By the time you get back, the document will be ready. (J-369)
Every time he appears her face brightens up. (J-369)
The sun will rise, while the world lasts. (N-100)
No one can harm us so long as we remain friends. (N-100)
2) Adverbial Clauses of Place:

They are introduced mainly by: where and wherever. (J-369; N-101). Where is specific and
wherever nonspecific. Where has been called a conjunctive adverb or adverbial conjunction
because it is both an adverb and a conjunction. Unlike other subordinating conjunctions, it
has a function within the clause that it introduces.
1
J 369-376: Jespersen Essentials of English Grammar, pages 369-373
N 100-101: Nesfield English Grammar. Past and Present, pages 100-101
Where the fire had been, we saw nothing but blackened ruins.
They went wherever they could find work.
Nick lay where the grass was thickest. (J-369)
We found flowers where we expected only weeds. (N-101)
Put that back where you found it.
3) Adverbial Clauses of Manner:

They are introduced by the subordinating conjunction: as (J-370; N-99,100)
Do it as I told you.
He has a right to spend his money as he pleases.
You may come just as you are, don't dress.
4) Adverbial Clauses of Purpose:

Introduced by the subordinating conjunctions: lest, that, for fear, in order that, so that. These
clauses are putative or hypothetical and they require a modal auxiliary.
She turned her head away lest he should see her tears. (J-370)
He walked with a cane, lest he should stumble. (
Place yourself there that I may see your face clearly. (J-370)
He raised his hand in order that the bus might stop. (J-370)
He took medicine, in order that he might recover. (N-98)
He took medicine, so that he might recover. (N-98)
Hornby, 238: may, might, should are often used. In colloquial style can and could are also
used.
I stepped aside so that she might (could) go in.

Let the dog loose so that it can (may) have a run.
We shall grow a hedge round the garden so that the neighbours may not overlook us.
We put up a fence so that the neighbours might (should) not overlook us.
Tie him up so that he can't escape.
Thirty copies of the book were bought so that each boy in the class should have one.
We hid it carefully so that no one should see it.
I did that in order that everyone should be satisfied.
5) Adverbial Clauses of Reason or Cause:

They are introduced by the subordinating conjunctions as, because, inasmuch as, since, so,
that, for. (J-370; N-100)
As the train does not come till 5:30, we have plenty of time.
He was angry because no one spoke to him. (J-370)
His impressions of Russia cannot be valuable, inasmuch as he does not speak the
language. (J-370)
Since you have nothing else to do, why not remain with me? (J-370)
She could hardly keep still, so delighted was she to be home again. (J-370)
Who am I that I should presume to offer advice to you?
6) Adverbial Clauses of Result:
They are introduced by the subordinating conjunctions so...that, such...that, so (that).
The burglar wore gloves, so that there were no fingerprints visible. (J-370)
We paid him immediately, so (that) he left contented.
I took no notice of him, so (that) he flew into a rage.
He spoke so well that he convinced everybody of his innocence.
He talked so much that he made himself hoarse.
He ran so fast that I couldn't catch him.
He was such a good runner that I couldn't catch him.
7) Adverbial Clauses of Condition:

Introduced by the subordinating conjunctions as if, if, in case, in so far as, provided (that), so
long as, suppose, supposing, unless. (J-371; N-98)
He gave a sudden start, as if he had been shot. (= as he would have done if he had
been shot)
If he comes back, what shall we do?
I will do this, if I am allowed.
I shall take the thermos, in case anybody wants some coffee.
In so far as the weather remains settled, we shall start tomorrow.
I agree to these terms, provided (that) you will sign your name.
I don't care, so long as (provided) the weather keeps settled.
Suppose (supposing) he comes back, what are we to do?
Don't come unless I call.
What can we do if it rains?
8) Adverbial Clauses of Concession:

Introduced by the subordinating conjunctions although, though, as, even if, however,
notwithstanding that.
Although (though) the hall was crowded, they managed to find seats.
Deep as (though) her sympathy was, she still had no words to offer.
Even if it isn't fine, we must start.
He was not refreshed, notwithstanding that he slept long.
He is an honest man, though he is poor.
However annoying his behaviour may be, we cannot get rid of him.
He will never succeed, however much he may try.
He was not contented, however rich he became.
Note:
When the conjunction however is subordinating, it must be attached to some adverb as much
or to some adjective as rich, and it is always placed at the beginning of the clause.
9) Adverbial Clauses of Comparison:

Introduced by the subordinating conjunctions as...as, more...than, less...than, like, as though.
(J-370; N-99)
Everything was left just as it was when the murder was discovered. (J)
The others felt exactly as he did. (J)
He spoke well, like he always does. (J)
The water was much deeper than we had expected. (J)
He spoke loud as if we were deaf. (J)
Maggie's heart thudded as though she had been running. (J)
Nesfield (99):
Comparison of equal degree:
a) the same quality compared:
He is as clever as I am.
He likes you as much as I do.
He likes you as much as me.
b) different qualities compared:
The sea is as deep as the mountains are high.

He is as good as he is wise.
Comparison of unequal degree:

a) the same quality compared:
He is more clever than I am.

He likes you more than I do.
He likes you more than me.
b) different qualities compared:
The sea is deeper than the mountains are high.

He is more wise than (he is) good.
NON-FINITE AND VERBLESS ADVERBIAL CLAUSES

An adverbial clause is said to be verbless if it lacks a verb. An adverbial clause is said to be
non-finite if there is a verb but that verb is not conjugated.
1) Verbless adverbial clauses:
If --- --- in doubt, phone me.

If you are in doubt, phone me.
Though -- -- well over sixty, he can walk a mile faster than I can.
Though he is well over sixty, he can walk a mile faster than I can.
He married her when -- --- a student at Harvard.

He married her when he was a student at Harvard.
In all the examples provided above the conjunction has been retained, but the subject and the
finite verb have been omitted.
2) Non-finite adverbial clauses:
He wrote his best novel, while -- --- working on a freighter.
He wrote his best novel, while he was working on a freighter.
Once -- --- published, the book caused a remarkable stir.

Once it was published, the book caused a remarkable stir.
She arrived early in order ---- --- -- to get a good seat.

She arrived early in order that she might get a good seat.
In all the examples provided above the conjunction has been retained, but the subject and the
finite auxiliary have been omitted.
Consider now the following examples where the conjunction has also been deleted:
1) Walking along the street, I met a friend.

1) As I was walking along the street, I met a friend.
2) Born and bred a country man, he was bewildered by London.

2) Since he had been born and bred a country man, he was bewildered by London.
3) She arrived early to get a good seat.

3) She arrived early in order that she might get a good seat.
In 1) the non-finite adverbial clause has a present participle. In 2) it has a past participle and
in 3) it has an infinitive. The three clauses have a silent PRO subject.
Consider now the following examples where the verb of the finite clause is one that is not
normally conjugated in the progressive aspect:
Turning to the left, you'll find the place you want.

If you turn to the left, you'll find the place you want.
Seeing that it was raining, George put on his mackintosh.

As he saw that it was raining, George put on his mackintosh.
The PRO subject of the non-finite clause has to be co-indexed with the grammatical subject
of the sentence (i.e. it must have the same reference).
PRO i Walking along the street, I i met a friend.
If it is not coindexed, the sentence is ungrammatical. The participle is then called a Loose
Participle, e.g.:
PRO i Walking up the stairs, my pen j fell out of my pocket.

PRO i reading the evening newspaper, a dog j started barking.
Absolute Construction
If the subject of the non-finite clause happens to be different from the grammatical subject of
the sentence but it is explicit, the sentence is grammatical. The non-finite clause is called an
absolute construction, e.g.:
Christmas Day being a holiday, the shops were all closed.
Weather permitting, the match will be played on Sunday.
There are also absolute constructions that are verbless clauses:
The man entered the room, dagger in hand. (= his dagger being in his hand)
The boy entered the room, his dog at his heels. (= his dog being at his heels)
In some cases the absolute construction is introduced by the preposition with/without, which
functions as a complementiser, e.g.:
With her husband away, she felt free to do whatever she wanted.
Without anyone noticing, I slipped out of the room.
These constructions function as adjuncts. They can be:
a. Adverbial adjuncts of time (expressing temporal simultaneity)
They stood in silence, their eyes fixed on the floor.
b. Adverbial adjuncts of reason:
With her husband away, she felt free to do whatever she wanted. (= because her
husband was away…)
Christmas Day being a holiday, the shops were all closed. (= As Christmas day was a
holiday,….)
c. Adverbial adjuncts of accompanying circumstances:
The man entered the room, dagger in hand. (= his dagger being in his hand)
The boy entered the room, his dog at his heels. (= his dog being at his heels)
She sang, with the window open.
d. Adverbial adjunct of condition:
Weather permitting, the match will be played on Sunday. (= If the weather …)
In some cases, the absolute construction can be paraphrased by a coordinate clause:
We explored the caves, Peter acting as guide. (= We explored the caves and Peter
acted as guide)
They are subordinate, nonfinite or verbless adverbial clauses.
We will analyse them as CPs, sometimes introduced by with/without, a prepositional

complementiser, or sometimes by a null complementiser. If the complementiser with/without
is overt, the DP subject of the Absolute Construction is in the Accusative Case, e.g.:
With him on our side, we will be fine.
If the complementiser is null, then the subject is in the Nominative Case:
She being right, we decided to do what she suggested.
If the clause is non-finite, you have to postulate a null tense element between the subject and
the VP. If it is verbless, postulate a null element too.
LESSON 39
NON-DEFINING RELATIVE CLAUSES
In the lesson on Defining Relative Clauses we said that they have the following
characteristics:
1. In speech, they form part of the same intonation pattern as the noun they modify.
2. In spelling, they are not separated by commas.
3. From another perspective, they restrict (delimit or narrow down) the scope of reference of
the antecedent of the relative. They are said to be essential to the meaning of the
sentence, not because the sentence would be ungrammatical without the clause, but
because without the clause, the hearer would not be able to identify who the
antecedent refers to.
4. From the point of view of function, we will analyse them as post-modifiers to the
antecedent, but they are restrictive modifiers, modifiers that help to narrow down the
scope of reference of the noun
Non-defining relative clauses are different. They have the following characteristics:
1. In speech, they have a separate intonation contour.

2. In spelling, they are separated by commas.
3. From the point of view of meaning, they are not essential for the identification of the
antecedent but they add to the meaning of the sentence.
4. We will say that they function as modifiers to the already defined antecedent, non-
restrictive modifiers. We are using the word modifier in opposition to complement. We
can also call them adjuncts.
5. Quirk et al (1985) discuss them under the heading of post-modification since they make a
distinction between restrictive and nonrestrictive modification, but then they go on to say
that the loose nonrestrictive relationship is often semantically indistinguishable from
coordination (with or without conjunction) or adverbial subordination, and they provide
the following paraphrases:
Then he met Barbara, who invited him to a party.

Then he met Barbara, and she invited him to a party.
Here is Ronald Walker, who(m) I mentioned the other day.

Here is Ronald Walker; I mentioned him the other day.
He got lost on Snowdon, which was enveloped in fog.

He got lost on Snowdon, when it was enveloped in fog.
He got lost on Snowdon, which he was exploring.

He got lost on Snowdon, while he was exploring it.
In the first two examples the clause seems to be semantically equivalent to a coordinate
clause. In the other two they seem to be semantically equivalent to adverbial adjuncts of
time, introduced by the subordinating conjunctions of time when and while.
Here we will adopt the following approach: the function of the non-defining will be
modifier (in opposition to complement) but we will distinguish different semantic relations:
1) If the clause can be reduced to a noun phrase in apposition, we will say that the semantic
relation is one of apposition, e.g.:
John Smith, who is the president of the company, will be at the meeting tomorrow.
John Smith, the president of the company, will be at the meeting tomorrow.
Notice that in the reduced clause the missing elements are the relative determiner/pronoun
who and the verb be.
2) In those cases in which the clause cannot be reduced to a noun phrase in apposition, we
will have to resort to paraphrase. If we can paraphrase the clause by means of an adverbial
clause of some kind, we will say that the clause is semantically equivalent to an adverbial
clause. The following sentence, for example,
John, who broke the window, will have to pay for it.
can be paraphrased by means of an adverbial clause of reason:
John will have to pay for the window because he broke it.
Notice that I'm not saying that the clause who broke the window is an adverbial clause, it is
semantically equivalent to an adverbial clause. Non-defining relative clauses are not very
common in speech but occur quite frequently in the written language. When we speak we
tend to use simple sentences but when we write we can choose where and how to place the
information that we want to convey. The information that in speech would most probably be
expressed by an adverbial clause may, in writing, appear in the form of a non-defining
relative clause.
Consider the two examples given above:
He got lost on Snowdon, which was enveloped in fog.
Paraphrase: He got lost on Snowdon, when it was enveloped in fog.
He got lost on Snowdon, which he was exploring.
Paraphrase: He got lost on Snowdon, while he was exploring it.
The non-defining relative clauses are semantically equivalent to adverbial clauses of time,
introduced by the subordinating conjunctions of time when and while.
3) The third possibility is for the clause to be semantically equivalent to a coordinate

clause. In this case we can paraphrase the clause by means of and, e.g.:
Then he met Barbara, who invited him to a party.
Paraphrase: Then he met Barbara, and she invited him to a party.
He has to work on Sundays, which he doesn't like.
Paraphrase: He has to work on Sundays and this he doesn't like.
The last example is an instance of a special type of non-defining relative clause called
Sentential Relative Clause, which are discussed in this same lesson. All sentential relative
clauses are semantically equivalent to coordinate clauses.
5) As was said above the non-defining relative clause is not very common in speech, but
occurs quite frequently in the written language. The reason is that in speech we tend to use
simple sentences, and the non-defining relative is a deliberate inclusion of unnecessary
decoration within the sentence. It is a mere parenthesis, a casual aside or reminder to the
listener or reader, sometimes it is marked off by means of dashes or placed in parentheses:
This boy, (who lives in the next street), broke a window in the school yesterday.
This window - which was broken by a boy yesterday - will have to be repaired.
Instead of a non-defining relative clause, separate or coordinate sentences are usually

preferred in spoken English. Compare:
My brother-in-law is a mining engineer. He's in Canada now.

My brother-in-law, who is a mining engineer, is in Canada now.
6) Non-defining relative clauses are introduced by non-defining relative pronouns,

adjectives or adverbs. As we said before, in Generative Grammar relative pronouns and
relative adjectives are considered determiners.
NON-DEFINING RELATIVE PRONOUNS:
The gardener's wife, who has been married for ten years, has just had her ninth baby.
Her father, who has been to Paris, has just returned.
Oxford University, which is one of the oldest in the world, has many different colleges.
My sister, whom you met yesterday, wants to speak to you.
Mary, to whom you lent your favourite books, wants to invite us to her birthday party.
Mr. Green, who gives me piano lessons, has been ill recently.
Mr. Green, whom you met at my home last month, is my music teacher.
Mr. Green, from whom I have piano lessons, is a good teacher.
Notice that:
1) The complementizer that is not used in non-defining relative clauses.

2) The objective form whom, rare in spoken English, is regularly used in non-defining
relative clauses.
3) In non-defining relative clauses the relative pronoun is not omitted. If the pronoun is
governed by a preposition, the preposition usually precedes (see examples above).
NON-DEFINING RELATIVE ADJECTIVES:
Mr Green, whose wife teaches singing, is himself a teacher of the piano.
The chief of police, whose work is very important, takes care of the public safety.
The king, whose life has been devoted to his country, deserves his popularity.
Beethoven, whose music you have just been listening to, was one of the world's finest
composers.
They stayed with me three weeks, during which time they drank all the wine I had. (= and
during this time)
NON-DEFINING RELATIVE ADVERBS:
Stratford-on-Avon, where Shakespeare was born, is visited by thousands of tourists.

Boxing Day, when Christmas boxes used to be given to servants, is the day following
Christmas Day.
He died in l666, when the Great fire of London destroyed a large part of the city.
SENTENTIAL NON-DEFINING RELATIVE CLAUSES:

Sentential relative clauses are non-defining relative clauses which do not have a single noun
or noun phrase as antecedent. They refer back to the predicate or predication of a clause
(examples 1, 2 and 3), or to a whole clause or sentence (examples 4 and 5), or even to a series
of sentences (example 6):
1) They say he plays truant, which he doesn't.

2) He walks for an hour each morning, which would bore me.
3) I was told not to go by train but by bus, which advice I followed.
4) Things then improved, which surprises me.
5) Colin married my sister and I married his brother, which makes Colin and me double in-
laws.
6) - which is how the Kangaroo came to have a pouch. [said at the end of a story]
These clauses are introduced by the relative pronoun which and by the relative adjective
which (example 3 above). Since they may be paraphrased by means of and this, and it they
are said to be semantically equivalent to coordinate clauses, e.g.:
He admires Mrs. Hewitt, which surprises me.

He admires Mrs. Hewitt, and this surprises me.
He studied hard in his youth, which contributed to his success in later life.
He studied hard in his youth, and this contributed to his success in later life.
Analyse the following sentences so that they can be discussed in class
1. He walked along the wall on his hands, which was a very difficult thing to do.
2. He passed his examinations with honours, which made his parents very proud of him.

1. He has to work on Sundays, which he does not like.
2. He bore a hole in my tooth, which was very unpleasant.
EXTRA LANGUAGE PRACTICE
SENTENTIAL NON-DEFINING RELATIVE CLAUSES
Exercises taken from: Fowler, W. S. (1974) First Certificate English. Book 3: Use of
English. Nelson.
Study the examples below and then change the sentences from one construction to the other.
She sent the letter to our old address, which was careless of her.
It was careless of her to send the letter to our old address.
1. She looked after the children while I was out, which was kind of her.
2. He gave me twenty pounds for my birthday, which was generous of him.
3. He speaks six languages, which is clever of him.
4. He said it was all my fault, which was unfair of him.
5. They’ve invited us for dinner, which is nice of them.
6. It is typical of him to want to have his own way all the time.
7. It was honest of you to admit your mistake.
8. It was stupid of him to throw it away.
9. It was silly of her to leave her car door unlocked.
10. It was good of him to forgive me.
Study the examples below and then change the sentences from one construction to the other.
They arrived too late for the wedding, which was a pity
It was a pity (that) they arrived too late for the wedding.
1. I just caught the last train, which was a piece of luck.

2. They survived the accident, which was a miracle.
3. I haven’t brought the papers with me, which is a nuisance.
4. It was a good thing they didn’t see you take the money.
5. It’s a shame he won’t be able to go with us.
Write a short paragraph including a sentential non-defining relative clause.
LESSON 40
REDUCED RELATIVE CLAUSES: PEDAGOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
A reduced relative clause is a clause where the relative and the finite verb/auxiliary are
silent, for example:
The man driving the lorry was drunk.
The man driving the lorry is related to the man who was driving the lorry. Within the relative
clause the relative who and in this case, the auxiliary for the imperfective/progressive aspect
have no phonological features (i.e. they are silent).
Another example:
The goods ordered last month have just arrived.
The goods ordered last month is related to the goods which were ordered last month. In this
case, the relative which and the auxiliary for the passive are silent.
The notion of reduced relative clause is useful from a pedagogical point of view. From a
theoretical point of view, we will speak of non-finite relative clauses.
Now students always confuse them with the so called “contact clauses”. What is a contact
clause?
A contact clause is a clause where the complementiser that is silent, i.e. has no phonological
features. In a contact clause there is only one element which is silent. It may be the
complementiser of a noun clause, as in:
I believe he is honest. (instead of I believe that he is honest)
Or the complementiser of a relative clause, as in:
The book I want is expensive. (instead of The book that I want is expensive)
To sum up: There are contact that noun clauses and contact relative clauses. But in both
cases there is only one element which is not pronounced. In what way do reduced relative
clauses (if they exist) differ from contact clauses? In a reduced relative clause there are
always several elements that are silent: the relative, the complementiser and the finite
verb/auxiliary.
Reduced relative clauses can be of two types:

1) Verbless (i.e. clauses that lack a verb)
2) Non-finite (i.e. clauses in which there is a verb, but that verb is not conjugated)
1) Verbless:
a) The post modifier to the noun is an adjective or adjectival phrase and at the same time a
verbless reduced relative clause:
The people who are present will know how to judge the case.
The people ----- ---- present will know how to judge the case.
All the seats that are available are at your disposal.

All the seats ----- ---- available are at your disposal.
He will give the craziest explanation that is conceivable.

He will give the craziest explanation ----- -- conceivable.
The articles which are too difficult to understand should be left for the end.
The articles ------ ------ too difficult to understand should be left for the end.
b) The post modifier to the noun is an adverb or adverbial phrase and at the same time a
verbless reduced relative clause:
The pupils that are here should hand in their papers today.
The pupils ----- ---- here should hand in their papers today.
The situation that arose immediately afterwards proved that he had been wrong.
The situation ------ ------ immediately afterwards proved that he had been wrong.
The reaction we have just now is one of general discontent.

The reaction ---- ----- just now is one of general discontent.
c) The post modifier to the noun is a prepositional phrase and at the same time a verbless
reduced relative clause:
The pupils who are at the back can't hear you.

The pupils ----- -----at the back can't hear you.
A man who is in love is a dead duck.

A man ---- --- in love is a dead duck.
d) The post modifier to the noun is a noun or noun phrase and at the same time a verbless
reduced relative clause:
A sweater which is that size is too big for him.

A sweater ------- --- that size is too big for him.
A hat which is that shape doesn't suit you.

A hat ------- --- that shape doesn't suit you.
Consider the following examples where we have temporal nouns:
At the meeting that is going to be held next Sunday we'll make a decision.
At the meeting ----- -- -------- -- --- ----- next Sunday we'll make a decision.
The situation we are living through today is no better than it was yesterday.
The situation --- ---- -------- ---------- today is no better than it was yesterday.
We expect the party that is to be held tonight to be a success.

We expect the party ------ -- -- --- ----- tonight to be a success.
2) Non-finite:
a) When the verb in the relative clause is in the progressive aspect we can reduce the clause.
The result is a non-finite present participial clause:
The man who was driving the lorry was drunk.

The man ----- ----- driving the lorry was drunk.
The woman who is holding a baby in her arms is waiting to see the doctor.
The woman ----- -- holding a baby in her arms is waiting to see the doctor.
The girl who was holding up an umbrella was afraid the rain might spoil her hat.
The girl ----- ----- holding up an umbrella was afraid the rain might spoil her hat.
Note: If the verb is one that is not normally conjugated in the progressive aspect, the relative
pronoun may be omitted and the finite verb replaced by a present participle:
Anyone who wishes to leave early may do so.

Anyone ----- wishing to leave early may do so.
Anyone who knows anything about the accident is asked to communicate with New
Scotland Yard.
Anyone ----- knowing anything about the accident is asked to communicate with
New Scotland Yard.
b) When the verb in the relative clause is in the passive we can also reduce the clause. We are
left with a past participial clause:
Have you seen the film that was described in this paper?
Have you seen the film ----- ----- described in this paper?
The speech that was made by the Prime Minister yesterday delighted his
supporters.
The speech ----- ----- made by the Prime Minister yesterday delighted his
supporters.
c) There is a third type of non-finite reduced relative clause. The result of the reduction in this
case is an infinitival phrase, e.g.:
The first man who arrived was Wilson.
The first man to arrive was Wilson.
The man that you should consult is Wilson.

The man to consult is Wilson.
This is the only way in which you can do it.

This is the only way to do it .

1. The goods ordered last month have just arrived.
2. The train which has arrived at platform 1 is from York.
3. The train arrived at platform 1 is from York.
4. The train recently arrived at platform 1 is from York. (Quirk et al. (1985: 1265)
5. She arrived the day on which I was ill.
6. She arrived the day that I was ill.
7. She arrived the day I was ill.

1. Have you seen the film described in this paper?
LESSON 41
NON-FINITE RELATIVE CLAUSES FROM A MODERN PERSPECTIVE
When confronted with a sentence such as The man driving the lorry was drunk, a generative
linguist will postulate a null wh operator and a null tense element within the relative clause:
Non-Finite Relative Clause
The man who was driving the lorry was drunk.
Who or Ø driving the lorry
Null OP (Null tense)
Null operators are empty categories, they have no phonological content. They should not be
confused with big PRO, another empty category. Not all non-finite forms of the verb
(infinitives, -ing forms) have a PRO subject, the subject of big PRO may be a null operator in
the case of non-finite relative clauses 1.
Let us compare the following two sentences, which do not have the same analysis:
1. The man to consult is Wilson.

2. The first man to arrive was Wilson.
Both contain a non-finite relative clause, but it is only in sentence 1 that to consult has a PRO
subject. Consider all the options for sentence 1:
1. The man whom we should consult is Wilson. (formal)

2. The man who we should consult is Wilson. (less formal)
3. The man that we should consult is Wilson.
4. The man we should consult is Wilson.
5. The man to consult is Wilson.
The slots which each word occupies can be clearly appreciated in the chart introduced in
lesson 36 on Defining Relative Clauses, repeated here for easy of exposition:
Precomp Comp S Aux / Tense LV C/DO
1
It could also be a trace in the case of raising predicates such as seem, likely, etc.
slot slot
whom that you should consult whom
The who that you should consult who is

man Wilson.
who that PRO to consult who
Wh or operator movement
Consider now the options for sentence 2:
1. The first man who arrived was Wilson.

2. The first man that arrived was Wilson.
3. The first man to arrive was Wilson.
In this sentence the subject of (to) arrive is not big PRO but a null operator that was base-
generated as the complement of arrive, an unaccusative verb. From complement position it
moves to Spec of T (subject position) and from there to Spec of C position, both in the finite
and in the non-finite clause. Consider the internal analysis of the relative clause:
Pre comp slot Comp slot Subject Tense LV complement

or Spec of C
who that who Ø arrived who
who that who Ø arrived who
who that who to arrive who
The subject of to arrive is not big PRO but the silent operator who, which moves twice.

1. I am sure that the man being questioned is guilty.

1. The man to help you is Wilson. (= who can help you)
2. The man for you to see is Wilson. (= whom you should see)
LESSON 42
CLEFT AND PSEUDO CLEFT SENTENCES
CLEFT SENTENCES
1) Most of the silk we see in Britain comes from silkworms, but wild silk moths in
countries like India and Japan also produce it.
The constituent from silkworms may be given more emphasis by placing it at the beginning of
the sentence and "surrounding" it by the words it is/ was ...that, as follows:
2) It is from silkworms that most of the silk we see in Britain comes.
(1) and (2) have a different outward appearance (or form), but their content (or meaning) is
more or less the same. The only difference in meaning between them is that in (2) the element
from silkworms is very emphatically contrasted with something else in the context (wild silk
moths, in the second coordinate clause): this contrast is more clearly marked in (2) than in
(1).
The operations of fronting a constituent like from silkworms and surrounding it by it is/
was...that are part of a process known as clefting. Sentences resulting from the clefting
process are called cleft sentences.
Cleft sentences are emphatic sentences. They are used to give thematic and focal prominence
to a particular element of a clause. They are particularly useful in <written> English, where
we cannot mark contrastive emphasis by intonation. As was said above, whenever a cleft
sentence is used, there is a contrast implied. The contrastive meaning of the topic can be seen
if we make clear the implied negative, e.g.:
A: Would you like to borrow this book?

B: No, it's the other book that I want to read.
[It's the other book, not that book, that I want to read]
A: Are you going to buy it?

B: Well...it's my wife that decides.
[It's my wife, not me, that decides]
Why are these sentences called cleft sentences? The verb cleave is a formal and literary word.
Its past tense can be cleaved, clove or cleft, and its past participle can be cleaved, cloven or
cleft. The verb means ‘to break, split or divide something into two separate parts’. You can
cleave a block of wood in two. We can speak of a man's head cloven in half or cloven open
with a sword. We can speak of wood that cleaves easily. If someone has a cleft palate, they
were born with a narrow opening along the roof of their mouth which makes it difficult for
them to speak properly. A cleft sentence is so called because it is split or divided into two
halves, each with its own verb.
From a single clause such as Sam wore his best suit to the dance last night it is possible to
derive four cleft sentences, each highlighting a particular element of the clause:
Subject as focus: It was Sam who wore his best suit to the dance last night.
Direct object as focus: It was his best suit that Sam wore to the dance last night.
Adverbial adjunct of time as focus: It was last night that Sam wore his best suit to the dance.
Adverbial adjunct of place as focus: It was to the dance that Sam wore his best suit.
Less common clause elements such as indirect object and predicative complement (object
related) can also act as the focal element of a cleft sentence:
Indirect object as focus: It's me he gave the book to.
Object related Predicative complement as focus: It's dark green we've painted the kitchen.
There are severe restrictions to highlight the subject related predicative complement,
especially if we have the verb be at the end of the second clause and if the predicative
complement is an adjectival phrase:
? It's a genius that he is. 1

? It's a lecturer that I am now.
? It's very tall you are.
But, without these restrictions, predicative complement can be acceptable:
It was a doctor that he eventually became.
The verb element does not occur at all as focus:
*It is wore that Sam his best suit to the dance last night.
*It is wear his best suit to the dance that Sam did last night.
What's the structure of a cleft sentence? Cleft sentences usually begin with the emphatic
pronoun it, an empty theme, an expletive pronoun, followed by some form of the verb be.
Then comes the element on which the focus falls and after the highlighted element, a clause.
Emphatic it + be + (...) as focus + clause.
Most grammar books say that the second clause in a cleft sentence is a defining relative
clause. There are structural similarities that would justify this analysis but, as we shall see
below, there are also considerable differences.
What are the similarities?
1
A question mark in front of a sentence means that native speakers are unsure about their
acceptability. These constructions should be avoided.
1) The pronoun who, and the complementizer that and "zero", which are used in relative
clauses, are also used in cleft sentences, e.g.:
It is you that/ who must suffer for it.

It was the doctor I was speaking to.
2) The pronoun who, which has a function in defining relative clauses, also has a function in
these clauses.
What are the differences?

1) Defining relative clauses restrict the scope of reference of the antecedent, which will never
be a proper noun. The clause in a cleft sentence does not have the same function and you may
find a proper noun as focus:
It is Chelsea (that) he lives in.
2) The wh-forms, which are common in defining relative clauses, are rare in cleft sentences in
comparison with that or zero. Although whose is allowed in cleft sentences (It's uncle Bill
whose address I lost), when and which are only marginally possible, and it is virtually
impossible to use whom or which preceded by a preposition. Thus:
It was the dog to which I gave the water.
can be read only as a sentence containing a post-modifying relative clause and not as a cleft
sentence. The following sentences are ungrammatical:
*It's a glass what he broke.

*It was because he was ill which we decided to return.
We can render them grammatical by replacing what and which by that:
It's a glass that he broke.

It was because he was ill that we decided to return.
3) A further difference between the post-modifying relative clause and the clause following
the focused element in cleft sentences is that the latter clause can follow not only a noun
phrase but also an adverb, an adverbial clause or a prepositional phrase:
It was then that the answer occurred to her.

It was here that Linda put the money.
It's because he oversleeps that he's always late.
It was in September that I first noticed it.
It was to Boston that they decided to take the patient.
It is not possible to produce a cleft sentence by putting just anything in the position for the
focus. For example:
*It was Jane gave that the book to Bill on Saturday.
Clefting cannot affect the string Jane gave, because this is not a constituent in the sentence.
Clefting is a useful way of discovering which words in a sentence form constituents (or go
together) and which words do not. Jane is a constituent, but Jane gave is not.
PSEUDO CLEFT SENTENCES

A process closely related to clefting is that of pseudo-clefting. The pseudo-cleft sentence is
another device to highlight an element in a sentence. What is a pseudo-cleft sentence? It is
essentially a subject - verb - complement sentence with a nominal relative clause or free
relative clause as subject or as complement, e.g.:
(1) What we need is more time.

(2) More time is what we need.
(1) is more common than (2) because we place the new information (or the focus) at the end.
The unemphatic sentence is:
(3) We need more time.
In the case of (1) and (2) we are highlighting the DO (more time).
The pseudo-cleft sentence, like the cleft sentence, usually implies a contrast:
We don't need more money - what we need is more time.
Pseudo-cleft sentences can focus on the predicative complement of a clause, whereas the cleft
sentence normally cannot:
Unemphatic sentence: He is a genius.
Pseudo-cleft sentence: What he is is a genius. (but not *It's a genius that he is.)
Pseudo-cleft sentences can also focus on the verb phrase or predication, by using the
substitute verb do:
Unemphatic sentence: He's spoilt the whole thing.
Pseudo-cleft sentences:
What he's done is spoil the whole thing. (bare infinitive) or
What he's done is to spoil the whole thing. (full infinitive)
When the verb in the wh-clause is in the progressive aspect the complement matches it with
an -ing participle:
What he's doing is spoiling the whole thing.

What I'm doing is teaching him a lesson.
Occasionally, such matching is extended to the verb in the perfective aspect, for e.g.:
What he's done is spoilt the whole thing. (past participle)
LESSON 43
NOMINAL RELATIVE CLAUSES or FREE RELATIVE CLAUSES
Quirk et al make a distinction between:
a) adnominal relative clauses and

b) nominal relative clauses or free relative clauses
Adnominal relative clauses are the ones that we have already discussed. As their name
indicates 1, they always appear within a determiner phrase, after the noun that functions as the
antecedent of the clause, restricting its scope of reference.
Nominal relative clauses, on the other hand, are those in which the wh-element (the relative)
is merged with the antecedent of the clause. As a result of this merging, the relative clause
becomes more self-contained, it loses its adjectival function and it acquires a nominal
function within the main clause, e.g.:
(1) I eat that which I like. <formal>
(2) I eat what I like.
Sentences (1) and (2) have approximately the same meaning. In (1) the direct object (that
which I like) is a determiner phrase the head of which is that. That is post-modified by an
adnominal relative clause (which I like). The antecedent of the clause is that, the head of the
determiner phrase. In (2) the antecedent (that) and the relative (which) have merged. We no
longer have a determiner phrase as direct object. We now have a clause, a nominal relative
clause, i.e. a relative clause that has acquired a nominal function (DO). These clauses have
also been called "independent" or "free" relative clauses.
Since these clauses are introduced by a wh-element they resemble wh-interrogative noun
clauses, which also have nominal functions. Consider the following sentences:
(1) John knew what Martha ate.

(2) John cooked what Martha ate.
Sentence (1) has a wh-interrogative noun clause functioning as direct object, whereas
sentence (2) has a nominal relative clause functioning as direct object. If we look at the two
clauses in isolation we will find no grounds to make a distinction between the two types.
Both of them seem to have the same internal structure. What are then the syntactic and
semantic reasons that allow us to make a distinction between the two types? We will first
characterize nominal relative clauses, then we will list their functions and finally we will
contrast them with wh-interrogative noun clauses.
Characteristics:
1
The prefix ad- means "near, next to"; adnominal therefore means "next to a noun".
1) In some respects nominal relative clauses are more like determiner phrases since they can
be concrete as well as abstract and they can refer even to persons. In fact, we can paraphrase
them by means of determiner phrases, e.g.:
Whoever did that should admit it frankly.

["The person who did that..."]
I took what they offered me.

[..."the things that they offered me"]
Macy's is where I buy my clothes.

[..."the place where I buy my clothes"]
I took what books she gave me.

[..."the books that she gave me"]
John cooked what Martha ate.

[..."that which Martha ate"]
2) They have the same range of functions as determiner phrases. They can even function as
indirect object and as an object-related predicative complement, functions which are not
available to the other three types of noun clauses.
Give whoever comes my new address.

Give any person who/that comes my new address.
I have made her what she is today.

I have made her that which she is today.
3) Like determiner phrases they may display number concord with the verb of the sentence.
Contrast for example:
Whatever book you see is yours to take.

Whatever books I have in the house are borrowed from the public library.
4) Like determiner phrases they require prepositions in adjectival complementation, e.g.:
He is aware of the books I write.

He is aware of what I write.
With wh-interrogative clauses the preposition is optional:
I'm not sure (about) what to do.
5) The wh-element may be a pronoun, a determiner (traditionally called relative adjective) or

an adverb:
She tasted what I bought. (what: pronoun)

She saw what food I bought. (what: adjective or determiner)
Here is where I bought the food. (where: adverb)
6) The wh-element may express a specific meaning (generally indicated by the absence of
the ever suffix) or a non-specific meaning (generally indicated by the presence of the ever
suffix).
Specific:
I took what was on the kitchen table. [..."that which was on the kitchen table]
May is when she takes her last examination. [..."the time when she takes..."]
Non-specific:
Whoever breaks this law deserves a fine. ["Anyone who breaks this law..."]
I'll send whatever is necessary. ["...anything that is necessary.]
The ones that express a specific meaning have been called Definite Free Relative Clauses.
The others have been called Indefinite Free Relative Clauses.
Functions:
1) Subject:
Whoever did that should admit it frankly.

What I want is a cup of hot cocoa.
What she did is wrong.
What she said is true.
What he is looking for is a wife.
What happened upset him.
What he saw upset him.
What she became in later life distressed her friends.
2) Direct Object:
I took what they offered me.

Do what you can for tomorrow.
I like what you like.
She took what she needed.
I'll show you what you can open the bottle with.
I took what books she gave me.
I eat what I like.
She tasted what I bought.
She saw what food I bought.
They gladly accepted what money people gave to them.
3) Indirect Object:
He gave whoever came to see him a winning smile.

He gave whoever asked for it a copy of his latest paper.
Give whoever comes my new address.
4) Predicative Complement: (subject related)
Macy's is where I buy my clothes.

Home is where your family is.
That is what she calls her sister.
Now is when I need you.
Here is where I bought the food.
That is why I don't go there any more.
5) Predicative Complement: (object related)
You can call me what you like.

I have made her what she is today.
6) Complement to a Preposition:
He is aware of what I write.

I am happy with what I am.
7) Apposition:
Give me your college address, i.e. where you live in term time.
I'll pay you the whole debt: what I originally borrowed and what I owe you in
interest.
Nominal relative clauses cannot function as adjective complement because they require a
preposition after the adjective, just like nouns.
Wh-interrogative noun clauses and nominal relative clauses differ syntactically in several
respects:
(1)
(a) An interrogative clause as subject must take a singular verb, e.g.:
How the book will sell

depends on the reviewer.
How the books will sell
Which book he wanted to buy

is unknown.
Which books he wanted to buy
(b) A nominal relative clause may take either a singular or a plural verb, depending on the
meaning of the wh-element, e.g.:
What money I have is yours. [The money that I have is yours]

What possessions I have are yours. [The possessions that I have are yours]
What were left behind were five empty bottles. [The things that were left behind
were five empty bottles]
(2)
(a) An interrogative clause allows a choice in the placement of the preposition in a wh-
element. (cf. just like direct questions), e.g.:
I asked them on what they based their predictions. <formal>

I asked them what they based their predictions on.
She asked me with whom I had been.

She asked me who I had been with.
(b) A nominal relative clause requires the wh-word to be placed first and the preposition to be
deferred, e.g.:
They ate what they paid for.

*They ate for what they paid. 2
Whoever they lend the money to must be trustworthy.

*To whoever they lend the money must be trustworthy.
(3)
(a) Indirect questions can be introduced by phrases built up around the full range of wh-
words, e.g.:
She asked me who would look after the baby.

She wanted to know for whom I was going to vote. <formal>
I don't know what she wants.
She asked me which I liked.
Which candidate will spend the most money is clear.
She wanted to know where I had been.
She asked me when they would be ready.
Jones told Smith why Williams had called off the programme.
How the prisoner escaped is a mystery.
John wondered how far the travellers would go.
Marsha knows how much money we collected.
Marsha knows how many encyclopedias John sold.
Who, whom and which are quite common in interrogative clauses.
(b) Nominal relative clauses with a specific interpretation are normally introduced by what,
where and when. Who in its specific meaning is only found in a clause functioning as
predicative complement, particularly after that's, e.g.:
You're not who I thought you were. [..."the person I thought you were."]
So that's who he's working for.
2
The following sentence, which has an adnominal relative clause is grammatical: They ate the things
for which they paid.
I'm who you're looking for.
Notice the ungrammaticality of:
*Fred wants to meet who Sally hired.

*George bought which car Sheila wanted to sell him.
Who, which and whom, in their non-specific meaning are restricted to co-occurrence with a
small semantic class of verbs: choose, like, please, want, wish.
She can marry who(ever) she pleases.

She can marry whom(ever) she pleases. <formal> [..."anyone that/ who/ whom/ she
pleases."]
You can take which(ever) you like. [..."any (that) you like."]
(4)
(a) No compound forms with ever are used in interrogative noun clauses.
(b) The compound forms with ever are used in nominal relative clauses, e.g.:
They asked me whatever I didn't know. ["They asked me those things that I didn't
know."] 3
(5)
(a) The determiner what in interrogative clauses does not have a paucal meaning, e.g.:
She asked me what books I wanted to read.
(b) The determiner what in nominal relative clauses has a paucal meaning, e.g.:
What friends she has are out of the country. ["The few friends she has are..."]
He collected what information he could find. [..."the little information he could
find."]
(6)
(a) A wh-interrogative clause can be reduced. It becomes a nonfinite clause, e.g.:
Jacob always knows what he should wear.

Jacob always knows what to wear.
Fido rarely knows when he should bark.

Fido rarely knows when to bark.
(b) A nominal relative clause can only be reduced if the clause functions as predicative
complement or as complement to a preposition, e.g.:
That's where to go for your next vacation. (PC)
3
The clause with whatever is unambiguously relative but the following sentence is ambiguous: They
asked me what I didn't know.
The book is on how to use a computer. (C/P)
Jacob always wears what he should wear.

*Jacob always wears what to wear.
(7)
(a) Wh-interrogative clauses can be anticipated by the expletive it, e.g.:
What Fred offered to her was unclear.

It was unclear what Fred offered to her.
(b) Nominal relative clauses cannot be anticipated by it.
What Fred offered to her went into the trash.

*It went into the trash what Fred offered to her.
Anticipatory subject it cannot anticipate a determiner phrase. Since the nominal relative
clause shares features with determiner phrases, it is only logical that it cannot be anticipated
by it. The last sentence is possible only with an "afterthought" interpretation, which requires a
distinctive intonation in spoken English and a special comma punctuation in written English:
It went into the trash, what Fred offered to her.
(8) Semantic differences:

(a) The interrogative clause contains a gap of unknown information, expressed by the wh-
element. In all the following sentences a question is explicitly or implicitly raised:
I don’t know
I can’t imagine
I’m not sure
I want to know
I wonder who he will vote for
I know
It’s obvious
I found out
It’s irrelevant
I told you
Notice that the main clause expresses some concern with the closing of that gap, with
supplying the missing information. The interpretation of a sentence with know + an indirect
question involves knowing an answer. Sentence (1) has an interpretation that can be
paraphrased as (2):
(1) John knows what Martha ate.

(2) John knows the answer to the question "What did Martha eat?"
(b) The nominal relative clause does not contain a gap in information, and therefore the main
clause is not concerned with the closing of that gap. The information may indeed be known to
both speaker and hearer, as in:
I took what was on the kitchen table.
Given a sentence with a nominal relative clause such as (3) it makes no sense to give it an
interpretation parallel to the one in (2) above:
(3) John cooked what Martha ate.

(4) John cooked the answer to the question "What did Martha eat?"
Instead the sentence is understood as involving the following two propositions:
a. Martha ate something x.

b. John cooked x.
(9)
(a) Interrogative clauses are used to report questions, they refer to events, facts, ideas,
propositions, but not to concrete objects. When you realize something you don't realize an
object but you grasp a state of affairs or an event.
(b) Nominal relative clauses can be concrete or abstract. Since only nominal relative clauses
can be concrete, when semantic restrictions indicate that the clause is a physical object the
clause is unambiguously relative, e.g.:
I sent them what they needed.
LESSON 44
INFLECTIONAL CATEGORIES OF THE VERB
Verbs inflect for:

1. Tense (past or non-past or past and present)
2. Aspect (perfective, imperfective, which in turn can be progressive or resultative)
3. Mood (indicative, imperative, and subjunctive 1
4. Voice (active or passive)
5. Person (first, second or third) and number (singular or plural)
TENSE AND TIME
Time is a universal concept, common to all mankind, independent of language. According to

Comrie (1985) time can be represented as a straight line, with the past represented
conventionally to the left and the future to the right, the present being a point of time in
constant motion:
______________________0_______________________
PAST NOW FUTURE
According to Smith (1991), time is a single unbounded dimension. Conceptually, it is

analogous to space. Just as an orientation point is needed to locate situations in space, so an
orientation point is needed to locate situations in time. In language the basic orientation point
is the time of utterance, which is always the Present. (capital letters refer to times, italics to
tenses)
Tense is a linguistic expression or grammatical category, one of the inflectional categories of

the verb. It refers to the form of the verb that expresses a time relation. Tenses vary in
different languages. They vary from language to language.
The notion of time is a complex problem in philosophy. And the categoty of tense is equally
an intricate problem in modern linguistics 2.
TENSE VS. ASPECT
According to Smith (1991: 135) tense locates a situation in time, whereas aspect specifies
‘the internal temporal structure of the situation’. To clarify what is meant by ‘the internal
temporal structure’ of a situation let us consider the following sentence:
Last year John built a house in five months.
1
Some grammarians speak of a fourth mood: interrogative.
2
Modern linguists consider tense as a functional category, the functional categories being:
complementizer, negation, tense, aspect, the passive morpheme, and determiner. Certain functional
categories appear as affixes attached to the verb but they are syntactic categories in their own right.
In it there are two temporal adverbials, the noun phrase last year and the prepositional
phrase in five months. The word temporal, which appears in the previous sentence to describe
both adverbials, has been used in a broad sense, because the type of information that they
convey is completely different. Last year tells us when the event of ‘John building a house’
took place. It locates the event in the past with respect to the moment of utterance, which is
always ‘now’. This temporal adverbial is related to the grammatical category of tense. In five
months, on the other hand, tells us how long the event of ‘John building a house’ took, from
the moment it started till it was finished. This temporal adverbial is aspectual, it gives us
information about the event’s duration in quantitative terms, and this is a characterization of
the event’s ‘internal temporal structure’.
Tense differs form aspect in the sense that tense is a deictic category, whereas aspect
is non-deictic. If somebody phones to talk to Mr. Brown and his secretary says ‘He cannot
answer the phone because he is interviewing somebody’, the tense of the subordinate clause
(i.e. because he is interviewing somebody) is present because the event of ‘Mr. Brown
interviewing somebody’ is taking place at the moment of speech. The grammatical aspect is
manifested by the auxiliary be and the presence of -ing as an affix of the main verb. If the
following day the same person phones again, Mr. Brown can apologize to him by saying
‘Sorry I couldn’t talk to you yesterday but I was interviewing somebody’. The tense has
changed and it is now past because the event of ‘Mr. Brown interviewing somebody’ is now
in the past relative to the moment of speech, but the aspect is still the same. Aspect is non-
deictic because it does not have to change if the situation of utterance changes.
EVENTUALITIES OR SITUATION TYPES
Language is used to describe both states that exist in the world and things that happen in it,
i.e. events. From now on we will be taking about linguistic states and linguistic events, i.e. the
representation through language of those ‘real world’ states and events. Some authors use the
term event in a very general way, as a cover term for both states and events. That use we will
deliberately avoid so as not to cause confusion. The cover terms that we will resort to are
eventuality, a term coined by Bach (1986), and situation type, the term used by Smith (1991).
Tenny and Pustejovsky (2000:4) point out that the first to write about different types of
eventualities was Aristotle in his Metaphysics. ‘These matters were [then] discussed in the
philosophical literature (Kenny (1963), Ryle (1949)) and from there they found their way into
the linguistic literature. Vendler’s (1967) highly influential paper marks the beginning of this
tradition in the lexical semantics literature’. It is precisely Vendler’s classification that Smith
(1991) goes back to and to which we will presently turn.
Smith (1991) provides the following abstract schema for eventualities or situation types:
…….I……………..F…….
In this general schema, I stands for an initial point, F for the final point. The dots in
between stand for phases or stages called internal stages. The dots before I (the initial point)
count as preliminary stages, and the dots following F (the final point) count as resultant
stages. The schema given above is a skeleton schema that does not represent any particular
type of eventuality or situation. It is just an abstract structure that indicates the full range of
possibilities which will be instantiated by the different situation types. We will see soon that:
a) there are different types of endpoints (natural vs. arbitrary)
b) the structure of internal stages may vary since they may be homogeneous or not
c) some events lack internal stages because they are instantaneous, i.e. they have no
duration, in which case I and F coincide, and
d) in the case of states there are no internal stages or phases but an undifferentiated
period. All these notions will be clarified as we proceed.
Smith (1991) resorts to three semantic features to classify eventualities or situation

types. These features are [+/- stative], [+/- telic] and [+/- durative]. The first feature to be
discussed is the feature [+/- stative] since it marks the most important distinction, i.e. the
subdivision to which I have referred above into states and events. Now what are the defining
characteristics of states and events?
A situation is [+ stative] if it lacks dynamism. States have no internal structure, no

change occurs during the period over which they last, i.e. if I own a house for a year there is
no point during that year during which I do not own a house. They have duration (of at least a
moment!). States hold or last. They obtain or exist. The following types of situations are
examples of states: [know the answer], [be in the kitchen], [own a house]. Smith’s (1991)
abstract schema for a state is as follows:
(I) -------------- (F)
The I stands for the initial point, the F for the final point. But as can be seen in the schema,
the initial point and the final point are in brackets because they do not form part of the state.
States, in fact, have no endpoints. Let me illustrate by means of an example: if I work all day
and I grow tired the event of ‘working all day’ that makes me tired is not part of the state of
‘being tired’. If I then sleep for several hours and I get out of the state of ‘being tired’, I am in
a new state, but the sleeping was never part of the previous state of ‘being tired’.
A situation is [- stative] if it involves agency, activity and change. [- stative ] is

therefore a feature of all events. Events are dynamic situations, they involve an input of
energy. Examples of events are: [laugh], [build a house], [win a race], [sneeze]. As we will
see presently, these events receive different names according to whether they have or lack
duration and according to whether they have a natural or arbitrary final point. These
characteristics are expressed in terms of the remaining two features [+/- durative], [+/- telic].
A situation is [+ telic] if it has a natural final point, when the final point is reached
there is a change of state or outcome and the event is complete. The word telic comes from
the Greek word telos, which means culmination. They are events that culminate. Examples of
telic events are:[eat an apple], [build a house], [walk to school], [win a race], [reach the top].
A situation is [- telic] if it has an arbitrary final point, it can stop at any time. Examples of
atelic events are [walk in the park], [run], [laugh], [swim in the river].
With respect to the third feature, a situation is [- durative] if it is perceived as being

instantaneous. For example [win a race], [reach the top], [cough] are the type of events that
are perceived as having no duration. Examples of situations that are [+ durative] are [eat an
apple], [build a house], [walk in the park], [walk to school].
If we use features we can say that states are [+ stative] and [+ durative]. The feature
[+/- telic] does not apply to states since we said above that the final point is not part of the
state itself. When it comes to events, Vendler (1967) makes a distinction between activities,
accomplishments and achievements. To this classification Smith (1991) adds a fifth
eventuality/ situation type, that of semelfactives.
Activities are [- stative], [+ durative], and [- telic]. An activity such as [walk in the
park] takes time, it is made up of homogeneous, successive stages or phases and it is atelic,
i.e. it has an arbitrary final point, I can walk and stop at any time and then go on walking.
Activities terminate or stop, but they do not finish. There is no outcome. The representation
of an activity is:
I…………….F arb
Accomplishment 3s are [- stative], [+ durative], and [+ telic]. They are made up of

successive stages which are not homogeneous. [walk to school] is not the same type of
situation as [walk to the park] because in the case of [walk to school] with every step or stage
I am closer to my final destination. They have a natural final point with a change of state or
outcome. If I walk to school I must end up at school, if not I haven’t walked to school. Other
examples of accomplishments are: [build a house], [eat an apple]. The accomplishment
schema is as follows:
I………………F nat
Semelfactives are [- stative], [- durative], in the sense that they are instantaneous or
momentary (the initial point coincides with the final point) and [- telic]. Examples of
semelfactives are [sneeze] [cough] [tap].The semelfactive schema is as follows:
I
F
Semelfactive situation types are made up of the verbs that Leech (1971) calls ‘momentary’,
i.e. hiccough, hit, jump, kick, knock, nod, tap. ‘These verbs refer to happenings so momentary
that it is difficult to think of them as having duration’.
Achievements 4 are [- stative], [- durative], i.e. instantaneous, and [+ telic], e.g.: [reach
the top], [win a race], [break a glass], [leave], [recognize somebody]. They consist of a single
stage, which involves a change of state. If somebody wins a race he becomes the winner.
They may have preliminary stages and they may have resultant stages. Their representation is
as follows:
……..…I (R)……
F
Achievement situation types are made up of verbs that Leech’s (1971) calls ‘transitional
event verbs’ (arrive, die, fall, land, leave, lose).
The following table sums up what has been said so far about eventualities or situation types:
3
The translation for the word accomplishment is ‘realización’.
4
The translation for the word achievement is ‘logro’.
Situation Types Example Static Durative Telic Schema
States [be tired] [+] [+] (I) ------- (F)
Activity [laugh] [-] [+] [-] I……….F arb
Accomplishment [build a house] [-] [+] [+] I………F nat
Semelfactive [cough] [-] [-] [-] I

F
Achievement [win a race] [-] [-] [+] ...I
F
It is important to point out that situation types are indicated by a composite (or combination)
of verb, arguments (including the subject, and adverbials, thus [walk in the park] or [swim in
the river] are activities, whereas [walk to school] or [swim to the shore] are accomplishments,
[eat an apple] is an accomplishment but [eat apples] is an activity. I will discuss other
examples of this type latter.
The situation types discussed above are considered by Smith (1991) as basic-level
categorizations. She will also distinguish more complex types called derived situation types
and shifted situation types.
Derived situation types

Derived situation types are more complex than basic-level situation types. Smith
considers generic and habituals as derived situation types in the sense that although the basic
constellation may be of any type they have the value of a stative. Examples:
Tigers eat meat. (generic)

My cat eats meat. (habitual)
The derived situation types are: generic and habituals, multiple-event sentences (e.g. He was
coughing all night and the construction called the perfect. Generic and habituals have the
status of statives since they refer to a pattern of events or states and not to a single event.
Multiple-event sentences are considered activities and the perfect is considered a stative.
They have complex internal structures. They are called derived because they derive
from other situation types. Each derived situation type has an internal structure which
consists of basic-level situations.
Shifted situation types

Shifted situation types contain the so called aspectual verbs such as begin, start, go
on, continue, finish, etc.
VIEWPOINT
Smith (1991) advocates a view of aspect in which she distinguishes two independent
aspectual components, or tiers as it were, situation type and viewpoint. The previous section
was a discussion of situation types. We now turn to viewpoint. The forms that specify each
aspectual component, i.e. the situation type and the viewpoint, coexist in every sentence.
To understand the notion of viewpoint one must think of it as if it were a camera lens, which
focuses or makes ‘visible’ either the whole or part of a situation. Smith distinguishes three
basic viewpoints: the perfective viewpoint, the imperfective viewpoint and the neutral.
The perfective viewpoint presents the temporal schema of a situation type in its entirety. It
presents the situation as a single whole. It spans the entire temporal schema, providing a full
view of it. The event is presented as closed. Its span includes both endpoints of the event, the
initial point and the final point. Since Smith is trying to provide a universal account of aspect,
she provides the following general temporal schema for the perfective:
I F
////////////////////
The following sentences differ in situation type but are similar in viewpoint since they are all
perfective:
John walked in the park. (activity)

They built a house. (accomplishment)
He coughed. (semelfactive)
He won the race. (achievement)
The events are presented as terminated in the case of activities and semelfactives and as
finished or complete in the case of accomplishments and achievements. Notice that I haven’t
included states. The general schema given above represents the unmarked perfective
viewpoint and as such it does not apply to stative situations because endpoints do not appear
in their temporal schema. It does not apply either to the construction that Smith calls ‘the
perfect’. Stative situation types and the construction that she calls the perfect will be treated
by her as marked (or parametrized) perfectives.
The imperfective viewpoint spans only part of the event, providing a partial view of it. It
focuses on the internal stages of the situation type, including neither the initial point nor the
final point of the event. This type of imperfective viewpoint is called progressive. In
opposition to the perfective, the imperfective/progressive presents situations as open. The
general temporal schema for the imperfective/progressive is the following:
I…////////////////…F
The following sentences differ in situation type but are similar in viewpoint since they are
both imperfective/progressive:
John was walking in the park when….(activity)

They were building a house when…(accomplishment)
The general schema given above represents the unmarked imperfective/progressive viewpoint
and as such it does not apply to achievements and to semelfactives because they are
instantaneous events that do not have internal stages. Achievements may be used in the
imperfective/progressive (e.g. He was winning the race. I was leaving the building). This is
considered by Smith a marked use of the imperfective progressive, since the use of this
viewpoint focuses the preliminary stages. Nothing is asserted with respect to whether he won
the race or not Another type of marked imperfective is the imperfective resultant (e.g. The
picture is hanging on the wall). Here the imperfective focuses the resultant stages of a
previous event and the sentence has the value of a state).
The neutral viewpoint is a kind of default viewpoint for aspectually vague sentences, i.e.
sentences that can have two interpretations. The neutral viewpoint makes visible the initial
point and at least one internal stage of the situation. The general schema for the neutral is:
I.
There is no neutral viewpoint in English. I will anyway provide an example from French for
two reasons: first, I want to present the complete proposal; secondly, I find the contrast with
English enlightening.
Jean chantera quand Marie entrera dans le bureau.

Jean will sing Fut when Marie will enter Fut the office.
In the context of a when-clause the Futur of the main clause has two interpretations. One
interpretation is ‘Jean will start singing at the time of Marie’s entrance’. The other
interpretation is ‘Jean will already be singing at the time of Marie’s entrance’. The first
interpretation is closed because it expresses inception. The second interpretation is open. In
English there are no aspectually vague sentences so the main clause would not be aspectually
vague. We have to resort to two different translations: the use of the verb start or the simple
future for the closed reading and the use of the progressive for the open reading.
Jean will start singing/ will sing when Marie enters the office.
Jean will be singing when Marie enters the office.
To sum up, in the unmarked cases the perfective viewpoint includes both endpoints of a
situation, the imperfective neither the initial point nor the final point and the neutral makes
visible the initial point and at least one internal stage of the situation.
MOOD AND MODALITY

Grammarians make a distinction between mood and modality. Mood is a grammatical term, a
grammatical category, it is one of the inflectional categories of the verb, it is language
specific. Modality, on the other hand, is a semantic term, a universal notion, and it can be
expressed not only through the choice of a particular mood but also lexically. The relation
between mood and modality is thus like that between tense and time.
Modality can be defined as the attitude of the speaker and/or the subject of the sentence with
respect to the event.
For the time being, we will distinguish two types of modality: cognitive (or intellectual)
modality and volitive (or emotional) modality. Cognition has to do with what we know or do
not know, with what we expect or do not expect. Volition has to do with emotions and
feelings, with what we like or do not like, with what we want or do not want, e.g.:
I go to a party and I meet a very nice-looking boy. He asks for my telephone number and says
that he will phone me on Monday at around 10 p.m. On Monday at 9.55 p.m. I ask my sister
please not to use the phone. "I'm expecting a phone call" I say. Expect expresses cognition on
my part (the speaker's part in this case). The paraphrase would be "I know/think that the boy I
like will phone". My sister asks me about the boy. I tell her I really like him. "I hope he
phones", I add. Hope expresses volitive modality, again on the speaker's part. It has to do
with emotions. Notice that these two verbs which express two different notions translate into
Spanish as espero (Espero una llamada. vs. Espero que llame.)
As it was stated above, modality can be manifested or expressed:
(1) grammatically, i.e. through the choice of a particular mood (remember that mood is one
of the inflectional categories of the verb) or
(2) lexically, i.e. through the use of different lexical items (i.e. modal auxiliaries, modality
verbs, modality adjectives, modality adverbs, modality nouns and modality prepositional
phrases).
(1) Grammatical manifestation of modality:
1) The indicative mood, which is used to make statements of fact, expresses cognition, e.g.:
John came yesterday.
2) The interrogative mood (usually called interrogative "form") is a manifestation of

cognition combined with volition since the underlying semantic structure contains the verb
know and the verb like, e.g.:
Did John come yesterday?

[I'd like to know whether John came yesterday.]
I ask because I want (volition) to know (cognition) something.
3) The subjunctive mood expresses cognition when it is hypothetical or unreal in meaning,

e.g.:
If I were rich, I would buy you anything you wanted.

I wish the journey were over.
But it can also express volition, e.g.:
God save the Queen! ["May God save the Queen."]
The subjunctive expresses here the speaker's wish.
4) The imperative mood expresses volition, e.g.:
Come tomorrow, please. ["I want you to come tomorrow."]
(2) Lexical manifestations of modality:
1) Through the use of modal auxiliaries:
Cognition: Meanings: possibility, probability, necessity, predictability.
He may come tomorrow. (factual possibility)

[It is possible that he comes tomorrow.]
He must be in his study. The lights are on. (logical necessity) ("Given the evidence,
there can be no other conclusion".)
By now he will be eating dinner. (predictability, the speaker makes a "forecast about
the present" concerning an event not directly observable.)
Volition: Meanings: willingness, intention, promise, obligation, permission, prohibition,

determination, insistence.
I will go to the dance, and no one shall stop me. (insistence, strong volition)
Who will lend me a cigarette? I will. (willingness, weak volition)
You shall obey my orders. (insistence, strong volition on the part of the speaker)
2) Through the use of modality verbs:
Cognition: know, think, believe, doubt, agree, expect, forget, remember, look like, seems, etc.
Volition: want, like, hate, love, hope, feel like, please, offer, bless, curse, etc.
3) Through the use of modality adjectives:
Cognition: sure, certain, clear, possible, probable, necessary, dubious, bound, etc.
Volition: eager, happy, willing, afraid, glad, sad, sorry, fond, good, evil, awful, friendly,
precious, beautiful, etc.
4) Through the use of modality adverbs:
Cognition: perhaps, possibly, probably, certainly, clearly, obviously, necessarily, apparently,

etc.
Volition: fortunately, happily, luckily, willingly, eagerly, anxiously, etc.
5) Through the use of modality nouns:
Cognition: certainty, knowledge, possibility, probability, likelihood, etc.
Volition: love, hatred, sadness, fear, rubbish, determination, willingness, etc.
6) Through the use of prepositional phrases that express modality:
Cognition: in all certainty, to my surprise, by chance, etc.

Volition: to my horror, to my regret, in anger, in despair, etc.
REFERENCES:
Bach, E. (1986) ‘The Algebra of Events’. Linguistics and Philosophy, 9.1. 5-16.
Comrie, B. (1985) Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Leech, G. (1971) Meaning and the English Verb. Longman.
Smith, C. (1991) The Parameter of Aspect. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Tenny, C. and Pustejovsky, J. (eds) (2000) Events as Grammatical Objects. CSLI
Publications
Vendler, Z. (1967) Linguistics and Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
LESSON 45
MULTI-WORD VERBS
The main category of multi-word verbs consists of such combinations as drink up, dispose of,
and get away with, which we will study under the headings of Phrasal Verb, Prepositional
Verb and Phrasal-Prepositional Verb respectively.
PHRASAL VERBS
Phrasal verbs are made up of a verb + an adverbial particle. There are two types:
(1) Type I or intransitive phrasal verbs and

(2) Type II or transitive phrasal verbs
(1) Type I or intransitive phrasal verbs:
The plane has just touched down.

He is playing around.
I hope you'll get by.
How are you getting on?
The plane has now taken off.
Did he catch on? [= "understand"]
The prisoner finally broke down.
She turned up unexpectedly.
When will they give in? [= "surrender"]
The tank blew up. [= "explode"]
One of my papers has gone astray.
The news made him reel back.
The two girls have fallen out. [= "quarrelled"]
The particle usually cannot be separated from its lexical verb, e.g.:
*She turned right up at last.

*The news made him reel distractedly back.
(2) Type II or transitive phrasal verbs:
We will set up a new unit.

Shall I put away the dishes?
Find out if they are coming.
She's bringing up two children.
Someone turned on the light.
They have called off the strike.
He can't live down his past.
I can't make out what he means.
We pressed home 1 our advantage.
She looked up her friends.
I've handed in my registration.
They may have blown up the bridge.
Candidates should give in all papers before 12.30. [= “hand in”]
Some combinations, such as give in or blow up, can be either intransitive or transitive. In
some cases, e.g.: give in, there is a substantial difference in meaning:
When will they give in? [= “surrender”]

Candidates should give in all papers before 12.30. [= “hand in”]
and in others, e.g.: blow up, there is not. The transitive phrasal verb includes the meaning
causative and has an agentive subject, the causer or instigator of the action:
The tank blew up. [= “explode”]

They may have blown up the bridge. [They may have caused the bridge to blow up.]
With most transitive phrasal verbs the particle can either precede or follow the
complement/direct object when the complement/direct object is a determiner phrase:
They switched on the light.

They switched the light on.
They called up the dean.

They called the dean up.
She took off her jacket.

She took her jacket off.
When the complement is a personal pronoun, however, the particle must always follow the
complement:
They switched it on.

* They switched on it.
They called him up.

*They called up him.
She took it off.

*She took off it.
The particle tends to precede the complement if the latter is long (end-weight principle) or if
the intention is that it should receive end-focus, e.g.:
1
Press home an/one's advantage: use well, exploit, an opportunity or advantage (cf. Spanish:
aprovecharse (todo lo posible) de una situación (ventajosa)), e.g.: She was rather more
concerned with her appearance than with the strong-room key, so he pressed home his
advantage and took the key.
Sam gave away his last chance to make his reputation as an actor.
The adverb particle is normally stressed:
She switched on the light.

The light was switched on.
PREPOSITIONAL VERBS
A prepositional verb consists of a lexical verb followed by a preposition with which it is
semantically and/or syntactically associated. The preposition, as is to be expected, is
followed by its complement:
Look at these pictures.

I don't care for Jane's parties.
We must go into the problem.
Can you cope with the work?
I approve of their action.
Our representative will call on you in the course of the next week.
There are two possible analyses for a sentence with a prepositional verb. If we take the
following example:
Our representative called on Mr. Brown yesterday.
we can say that call is an intransitive verb followed by a complement of some kind. The noun
phrase Mr. Brown is the complement of the preposition on and not the direct object of call
on, e.g.:
S
IV C (PP) AAT (TN)
Why should this be so? First, there are good reasons for arguing that there is a phrase
boundary between the verb and the preposition:
(a) The preposition can be separated from the verb. The whole prepositional phrase may be
fronted, for example in questions and in relative clauses:
On whom did he call?

The man on whom he called was Mr. Brown.
(b) An adverb can be inserted between the verb and the preposition:
He called unexpectedly on Mr. Brown.
(c) The prepositional phrase can be isolated in other constructions; e.g. (optionally) in
responses, in coordinate constructions, or in comparative constructions:
A: On whom did he call? or Who(m) did he call on?

B: (On) Mr. Brown.
Did he call on Mr. Brown or (on) Mr. Blake?
He called on Mr. Brown.
He calls on Mr. Brown more often than on Mr. Blake.
The other alternative analysis is to consider the verb and the preposition as a unit and the
determiner phrase as the complement/direct object:
S
T Prep V C/ DO (NP) AAT (TN)
This analysis highlights the resemblance between He called on Mr. Brown and He visited Mr.
Brown. The verb and the preposition form a "semantic unit", a "natural predicate", because
they can be paraphrased by a single verb. Another criterion favouring the SVO analysis is
that the prepositional complement can be turned into the subject of a passive sentence:
Mr. Brown was called on yesterday.
This construction, which leaves the preposition stranded or deferred in its post-verbal
position, will be called the prepositional passive, e.g.:
Nothing was agreed on by the committee.

The information was asked for by the Dean.
He can be depended on for sound advice.
John was shouted at by his mother.
He must be talked to by someone.
The word preposition comes from Latin (praepositio) and means "put before". A preposition
must always precede its complement so there is no possibility of placing it after the
determiner phrase:
She called on Mr. Brown.

*She called Mr. Brown on.
She came by a fortune.

*She came a fortune by.
The stress normally occurs on the lexical verb:
He called on Mr. Brown.

Mr. Brown was called on.
Transitive Phrasal Verbs vs Prepositional Verbs

The question here is how to distinguish two superficially like constructions, that of a
prepositional verb like call on in He called on Mr. Brown, and that of a Type II or transitive
phrasal verb such as call up in He called up the dean. The differences are both syntactic and
phonological:
1) The adverbial particle of a phrasal verb can stand either before or after the determiner
phrase following the verb, but the preposition of the prepositional verb must precede the
determiner phrase:
Prepositional Verb Phrasal Verb

He called on Mr. Brown. They called up the dean.
*He called Mr. Brown on. They called the dean up.
2) When the determiner phrase following the verb is a personal pronoun, the pronoun
precedes the adverbial particle in the case of a phrasal verb, but follows the preposition in the
case of a prepositional verb:

They called on him. They called him up.
*They called him on. *They called up him.
3) An adverb (functioning as adjunct) can often be inserted between verb and preposition in
the case of prepositional verbs, but not in the case of phrasal verbs:

They called angrily on Mr. Brown. *They called angrily up the dean.
4) The particle of a phrasal verb cannot precede a relative pronoun at the beginning of a
relative clause:

the man on whom they called *the man up whom they called
5) Similarly, the particle of a phrasal verb cannot precede the interrogative word at the
beginning of a wh-question:

On which man did they call? *Up which man did they call?
6) The adverbial particle of a phrasal verb is normally stressed, and in final position normally
bears the nuclear tone, whereas the preposition of a prepositional verb is normally unstressed
and has the "tail" of the nuclear tone which falls on the lexical verb:

Which man did they CALL on? Which man did they call UP?
PHRASAL PREPOSITIONAL VERBS

Phrasal-prepositional verbs are made up of a verb + an adverbial particle + a preposition:
We are all looking forward to your party on Saturday.

He had to put up with a lot of teasing at school.
Why don't you look in on Mrs. Johnson on your way back?
He thinks he can get away with everything.
A common sign of idiomatic status here is the existence of a one-word paraphrase:
put up with: "tolerate"
look in on: "visit"
The prepositional passive with such verbs is not too common, and is liable to sound
cumbersome. Examples such as the following, however, are normal and acceptable:
These tantrums could not be put up with any longer. ("tolerated")

The death penalty has been recently done away with. ("abolished")
Such problems must be squarely faced up to. ("confronted")
They were looked down on by their neighbours. ("despised")

Grammar I Lessons by Prof. Graciela Palacio (2012, Revised 2015)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LESSON 1: What is Grammar?

LESSON 2: The Five Grammatical Units

LESSON 3: Words and Categories

LESSON 5: Arguments and Predicators

LESSON 6: Subjects and Complements

LESSON 7: States Vs Events

LESSON 8: Semantic or Thematic Roles

LESSON 9: Functional Categories

LESSON 10: Constituents

LESSON 11: Case

LESSON 12: Syntactic classification of Verbs - Mono Transitive Vs Bitransitive Verbs

LESSON 13: Syntactic classification of Verbs - Intransitive Verbs of Complete Predication

LESSON 14: Syntactic classification of Verbs - Intransitive Verbs of Incomplete Predication

LESSON 15: Syntactic classification of Verbs - Complex Transitive Verbs

LESSON 17: Adverbial Adjuncts vs. Predicative Adjuncts

LESSON 18: Morphological Classification of Verbs

LESSON 20: Classification of Clauses

LESSON 21: Semantic and syntactic analysis of a passive sentence

LESSON 23: Interrogative Sentences

LESSON 24: Model Answer for a wh-question

LESSON 25: Wh-interrogative words

LESSON 26: Model answer for a yes/no question

LESSON 28: Verbs and their complements (part I)

LESSON 29: Verbs and their complements (part II) (persuade/try)

LESSON 30: Verbs and their complements (part III) (believe/expect)

LESSON 32: Raising verbs: seem, happen, turn out, appear

LESSON 33: The determiner phrase

LESSON 34: Functions of noun clauses

LESSON 35: Functions that noun clauses can have (chart)

LESSON 36: Types of noun clauses

LESSON 37: Defining relative clauses

LESSON 38: Adverbial clauses

LESSON 39: Non-defining relative clauses

LESSON 40: Reduced relative clauses: pedagogical perspective

LESSON 41: Non-finite relative clauses from a modern perspective

LESSON 42: Cleft and pseudo-cleft sentences

LESSON 43: Nominal relative clauses or free relative clauses

LESSON 44: Inflectional categories of the verb

LESSON 45: Multi-word verbs

Mr. Funny lived in a teapot!

Lesson 1 Activity 1: (To be handed in as Assignment 1)

1. What is a text according to Quirk et al. (1985)?

The sentence is composed of one or more clauses, for example:

[(Mr. Funny lived in a teapot).]

However, if we consider the second sentence of the text:

If we consider the sentences:

[“Delicious,” he murmured to himself <as he finished his funny lunch>.]

[Have you ever seen a car <that looks like a shoe>?]

Main, free or independent

[Mr. Funny lived in a teapot.]

Bound morphemes in turn can be a. Inflectional or b. derivational:

Lesson 2 Activity 2: (To be handed in as Assignment 2)

1. I got up at seven this morning.

Words can be classified into different types or categories.

1. Morphological criteria and

What do we mean by morphological criteria? Morphology is that part of grammar that

Some nouns also inflect for gender:

Infinitive Present Tense Past Tense Present participle Past participle

It is important that you should study.

Adjective Comparative Superlative

The ………. book

After the lesson