Structure of ENglish

LG207
The Structure of English
Andrew Spencer
Room: 4.334
email: spena
privatewww.essex.ac.uk/∼spena
2
Version 2.1 Typeset using LATEX in 11/14pt Palatino,

bibliography style ‘Apa-like’
Contents
I The simple clause 9
1 Basics of morphosyntax 11
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.2 Lexical vs functional categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3 Content words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3.1 Nouns, verbs, adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.3.2 Homonymy between classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.3.3 Prepositions, adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.4 Function words and functional categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.4.1 Conjunctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.4.2 Determiners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.4.3 Pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.5 Lexemes and word forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.6 Functional categories and features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2 Inflection 19
2.1 Noun inflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1.1 Plurals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1.2 Count vs. mass nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1.3 Possessor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.4 Nominal function words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.1.5 Possessive pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1.6 Reflexives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.1.7 Demonstratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.2 Verb inflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.2.1 Analytic vs. synthetic forms: the tense/aspect system . . 23
2.2.2 Participles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.2.3 -ing form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3
4 CONTENTS
2.3 Adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3.1 Comparative and superlative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.3.2 Comparative and superlative - inflection or derivation? . 26
3 Words 29
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.2 Compounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.3 Clitics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.4 Types of word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4 Dictionaries 35
4.1 Introduction - What is a dictionary? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.2 Describing words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.2.1 Lexical entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.2.2 The dictionary entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.2.3 Polysemy/homonymy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.3 Types of dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.4 Dictionary entries and English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5 Simple clause structure 43

5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.2 Phrase structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.3 Phrase structure of main phrase types in English . . . . . . . . . 47
5.4 Coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.5 Phrase structure ambiguities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
6 Grammatical functions 53
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
6.2 Subjects and complements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
6.3 Modification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
6.3.1 Modification of nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
6.3.2 Modification of verbs and sentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
6.3.3 Modification of other categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
6.4 Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.5 Basic parsing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
7 Argument structure alternations 65

7.1 Semantic role structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
CONTENTS 5
7.2 Passive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
7.3 Middle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
7.4 Object Omission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
7.5 Double Object constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
7.6 Locatum-location alternations - spray∼load . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
7.7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
8 Prepositions and particles 73

8.1 Prepositions and prepositional phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
8.2 Prepositional verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
9 Auxiliary verbs: properties and types 83

9.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
9.2 Constructions realized by auxiliaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
9.2.1 Passive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
9.2.2 Aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
9.2.3 Mood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
9.2.4 Infinitive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
9.3 The syntax of auxiliaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
9.3.1 Combinations of auxiliaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
9.4 Auxiliary-specific syntactic behaviour (NICE properties) . . . . . 86
9.4.1 Emphasis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
9.4.2 Negation (polarity) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
9.4.3 Inversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
9.4.4 ‘Code’ (or ‘Context’) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
9.5 Summary: auxiliary verbs vs. lexical verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
9.6 Defective forms and unusual forms: modal auxiliaries . . . . . . 91
9.7 Auxiliaries and the Verb Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
10 Tense, Aspect, Mood, Voice 95

10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
10.2 Passive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
10.3 Verbal aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
10.4 Tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
10.5 Nominalized forms of verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
10.6 Modal auxiliaries and their functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
10.6.1 Types of modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
6 CONTENTS
10.6.2 Modality and negation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

10.6.3 Mood and tense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
10.6.4 Non-auxiliary modal expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
10.6.5 Future time reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
II The complex clause and texts 111
11 Subordinate clauses I 113

11.1 Types of subordinate clause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
11.2 Clauses as elements of a clause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
11.3 Types of clausal complement and adjunct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
11.4 Extraposed clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
11.5 Clauses as adjuncts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
11.6 Conditional clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
11.7 Types of clausal complements selected by verbs and other words 119
11.8 Comparative clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
12 Subordinate clauses II 123

12.1 Sentential complements with missing subjects . . . . . . . . . . . 123
12.1.1 Basic patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
12.1.2 Control of the subject gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
12.1.3 Seem-type vs. try-type verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
12.1.4 Persuade-type verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
12.1.5 Expect-type verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
12.2 Missing subjects in adjunct clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
12.3 Missing subjects with arbitrary reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
12.4 Clauses with missing objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
13 Wh-clauses and topicalized clauses 135

13.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
13.2 Wh-questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
13.2.1 Basic structure of wh-questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
13.2.2 Wh-gaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
13.3 The Topic Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
13.4 Long-distance dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
13.5 Embedded questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
CONTENTS 7
14 Relative clauses and their kin 143

14.1 The structure of relative clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
14.2 Appositive and restrictive relative clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
14.3 Headless NPs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
14.3.1 The fused head construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
14.3.2 Fused head relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
14.4 Cleft and pseudo-cleft constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
14.5 Participial phrases as postmodifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
14.6 Gaps of various kinds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
15 Nominals - structure and functions 153

15.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
15.2 NP structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
15.3 Adjective phrase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
16 Text organization and cohesion 167

16.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
16.2 Cohesion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
16.2.1 Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
16.2.2 Ellipsis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
16.2.3 Substitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
16.2.4 Lexical cohesion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
16.2.5 Conjunction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
16.3 Cohesion vs. coherence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
16.4 Topic-focus organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
16.5 Focus vs. new information - presuppositions . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
16.6 Information structure and cohesion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
17 Conversation 179
17.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
17.2 Conversational (discourse) particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
17.3 Sentence accent in discourse structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
17.3.1 Rhythm and Intonation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
17.3.2 De-accenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
17.4 Focus, accent and information structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
17.5 Tone units in English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
17.6 Intonation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
8 CONTENTS
17.7 The structure of talk (Conversation Analysis) . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

17.7.1 Turn-taking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
17.7.2 Adjacency pairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Part I
The simple clause
9
Chapter 1
Basics of morphosyntax
1.1 Introduction
In this introductory chapter we review the most basic aspects of grammar. By

‘morphosyntax’ we mean syntax and those aspects of morphology that are
related to syntax or which interact with syntax. We’ll look at all of these topics
in much greater detail in future chapters.
1.2 Lexical vs functional categories
We distinguish lexical (content) words and function words. Lexical and func-
tion words are grouped into categories (‘parts of speech’) depending on their
distribution in phrases.
‘Lexical’ means ‘to do with words’ (as opposed to phrases, sentences, etc).
‘Category’ means words are grouped together into classes because they have
similar linguistic properties and hence behave in similar ways in sentences.
We can define lexical categories in terms of
• the typical meanings they have (semantics)
• the forms the words take (inflectional morphology)
• where they occur in sentences (syntactic distribution)
1.3 Content words
Types of words [See also Leech et al. (2006: Chapter Four)]

Our first group will consist of words that denote clearly identifiable con-
cepts (things, properties, events, etc). Categories of lexical (content) words are
nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Most prepositions are treated as lexical
words, though some clearly behave as function words, either invariably (e.g.
11
12 1. BASICS OF MORPHOSYNTAX
of ) or in certain contexts/functions (e.g. to) .

Lexical words are those which can denote a specific concept. These are often
called content words. They are the sort of words you would expect to have a
dictionary definition.
1.3.1 Nouns, verbs, adjectives
Basic meanings
noun: = (physical, concrete) thing: girl, tree, house
adjective: = (physical) property, quality: cold, young; tall, clean, blue
verb: = event: sleep, walk, write, eat
Forms of words - inflections
Noun
• typically has singular/plural forms: boy/boys; house/houses
• typically has special possessive form: the boy’s name/the boys’ names, the
children’s parents
(but notice also the girl in the corner’s parents)
Adjective
• may have comparative/superlative forms: cold, colder, coldest
• many adjectives don’t have these forms, specifically those with more than
two syllables: *intelligenter/*intelligentest
Verb
A regular verb has three forms with a special ending (suffix) and one base
form:
Present tense she sleeps, walks, . . .
Past tense she slept, walked, ate . . .
-ing participle she is sleeping
base form (no endings) they sleep, to sleep, she may sleep
Perfect participle she has slept/eaten the apple
Passive participle the apple was eaten
Distribution of words
Noun
A noun typically co-occurs with:
1.3. CONTENT WORDS 13
• Determiners
– definite/indefinite articles -the girl, a boy

– demonstratives -those houses
– numerals, quantifiers -five knives, every tree
• Adjectives: a tall girl, the sharp knife
• Various other phrases: the girl in the picture, the knife which Bill has sharpened,
...
Adjective
An adjective co-occurs with:
• Modifiers - very tall, too cold, quite blue,
• Various other phrases - colder than ice
Verb
A verb co-occurs with:
• Auxiliary verbs (see later) - may have been sleeping
• Adverbs - ran quickly/yesterday/around the park/. . .
1.3.2 Homonymy between classes
In English things are complicated by the fact that many words can belong to
more than one class:
Noun ⇒ Verb: paper ∼ to paper (the wall)

Verb ⇒ Noun: to walk ∼ to go for a walk
to have a nice walk; to go on frequent walks
Noun ⇒ Adjective: (eat an) orange ∼ an orange dress
Adjective ⇒ Noun: the good, the bad and the ugly
eat/vote for the greens/Greens
Adjective ⇒ Verb: she warmed the milk
they dried the dishes
(Verb ⇒ Adjective: not so common)
1.3.3 Prepositions, adverbs
A preposition (very nearly) always comes before a noun phrase and serves to
relate the meaning of that noun phrase to some other element, e.g. (The money
is) in the box.
An adverb is free-standing.
Typical meanings for prepositions: place relating one thing to another
The box is) under the table
(The vase standing) on the table . . .
The prepositions in, on, under are associated with clear spatial meanings.
This isn’t always the case: in a way, on purpose, under these circumstances.
The easiest way to understand what kinds of meanings prepositions express
is to see typical examples (note that many place prepositions also double as
time prepositions: on the table, on Tuesday).
place:: in, on, off, at, under, over, within, inside, outside, to, towards, from,
around, by, between, against, . . .
time:: after, before, to, till/until, from, within, by, during, throughout, . . .
others:: of, for, about, with, without, despite, . . .
Function word use:

by (with passive), e.g. was eaten by Tom) vs. by the riverbank
to (with oblique complements - see later) e.g. give a bone to Fido
These are prepositions which have effectively lost their meaning and serve to
express some kind of grammatical relationship.
(Note: the infinitive to is the same as the spatial preposition to historically,
though it has rather different properties in Modern English).
One preposition is more like a function word (see below) in that it never be-
haves like a content word and never has a meaning as such: of
a picture of Harriet
the hunting of the Snark
two pints of milk
Adverbs: typically modify verbs (in the same way that adjectives modify
nouns)
Cf a quick runner ⇒ (Harriet) runs quickly

a deliberate insult ⇒ insulted Dick deliberately
Some adverbs modify adjectives, prepositions or other adverbs:
• extremely bright (adjective)
• partially under (preposition)
• surprisingly soon (adverb)

1.4. FUNCTION WORDS AND FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES 15
1.4 Function words and functional categories
In this section we look at function words such as conjunctions, determiners,

pronouns, auxiliary verbs. This group of words generally subserves a func-
tion within the organization of the phrase or sentence as a whole, rather than
denoting some easily identifiable concept. Often the meaning as such is very
hard or impossible to pin down. Such words don’t normally have dictionary
entries/definitions of the usual sort.
1.4.1 Conjunctions
Conjunctions: join two phrases or sentences

and
Jack and Jill [N and N]
black and blue [A and A]
run and jump [V and V]
eats vegetables and drinks water [conjoining two phrases]
Jack fell down and Jill came tumbling after [conjoining two sentences]
or: cf ‘and’ but with a different meaning

but:
Jack is tall but Jill is short
Jack is tall but Jill isn’t impressed
<Question: can ‘but’ conjoin single words?>
Subordinating conjunctions: allow us to put one sentence inside another.
Jack assumed <something>
Jill had brought the pale ⇒
Jack assumed [that Jill had brought the pale]
Jack asked <something> ⇒
Jack asked [whether Jill had brought the pale]
1.4.2 Determiners
Determiners: These are function words which help determine the kind of
thing a noun refers to.
• Definite/indefinite article: the/a

In the plural a corresponds to some or to nothing:
We bought an apple ∼ we bought apples/some apples
• Demonstratives: this/that have distinct singular/plural forms agreeing

with the noun head they modify:
this sheep/cow ∼ these sheep/cows
that sheep/cows ∼ those sheep/cows
• Numerals: self-explanatory
• Quantifiers: Like numerals except that they don’t refer to a precise num-
ber:
every/each girl, all children (under five), all the children, many people, most cats,
few dogs, a few dogs, little water, a little water, less food, more wine
• Interrogative determiners: ask a question - which book? whose book?
1.4.3 Pronouns
The main types of pronoun are
• person pronouns: I, you, we, they, . . .
• possessive pronouns: my, your, . . .
• reflexive pronouns: myself, themselves, . . .
• interrogative pronouns: who, which, what, whose
For other pronouns, see the next chapter.
1.5 Lexemes and word forms
Given the notion of inflection we can distinguish two more senses of ‘word’.
Consider the verb swim:
(1) a. They swim

b. She swims
c. She swam
d. She is swimming
e. She has swum
f. The English Channel has been swum many times
The forms {swim, swims, swam, swimming, swum} are inflected word forms of
the lexeme swim. The lexeme itself combines information about its word class,
inflections, and meaning:
1.6. FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES AND FEATURES 17
FORM: /swIm, swam, sw2m/

CLASS: Verb (transitive or intransitive)
MEANING: ‘to propel oneself through a liquid medium’ (or something)
Some word forms are ambiguous.
(2) a. sheep: sg sheep, pl sheep

b. put: put, puts, putting, put, put
We can give two (or more) distinct morphosyntactic descriptions to the form
/sheep/, /put/. Thus, we have one word form but two (or more) morphosyn-
tactic words (sometimes called grammatical words).
Summary:
We must distinguish the following ways of describing ‘words’
• Lexeme (= entry in a dictionary) e.g. cat

• Word form of a lexeme e.g. cats, /kats/
• Morphosyntactic word = word form + grammatical description {/kats/,
pl of CAT}
• Lexical (content) word vs function word (here ‘word’ means ‘lexeme’)
1.6 Functional categories and features
Functional categories are expressed as syntactic features, e.g. the definiteness

property of English noun phrases, symbolized by the feature definite:
the cat [definite: +] a cat [definite: −]
Here is a list of the main functional categories needed for English:
Grammatical relations
subject (or Nominative Case)
object (or Accusative/Objective Case)
adjunct (or adverbial)
possessor
modifier (e.g. attributive adjective)
Nominal features
definite
number
Pronominal features
person:
number:
gender:
Adjectival features
comparative:
superlative:
Verbal features
tense: {past, present, future}
aspect: {simple, perfect, progressive}
voice: {active, passive}
mood: {indicative, imperative, interrogative}
modality: {various modal auxiliary verbs}
polarity: {positive, negative}
Agreement
SubjAgr: {3sg}
Some of these categories correspond to inflections:
Number:{singular, plural}
Tense:{Past, NonPast}
SubjAgr:{Person:3, Number:Sg}
Other functional categories are expressed in four main ways:
1. word order, e.g. for grammatical relations:

‘Tom saw Harriet’ ⇒ SUBJECT [Tom], OBJECT [Harriet])
2. function words e.g.

[definite: +] ⇒ the,
object pronoun [number:sg, person:3, gender:fem] ⇒ her
3. combination of function word and specially inflected word form, e.g.

passive ‘Harriet was seen by Tom’:
[voice:passive] ⇒ appropriate form of auxiliary verb be +
[VerbForm:past-participle] of lexical verb
4. inflections, e.g. [number:plural] ⇒ [Number:plural] cats
Where functional categories are expressed by (2, 3) we say that we have an

analytic (or periphrastic) construction. Where they are expressed by (4), i.e.
solely by inflections, we call it a synthetic construction.1
1 You might have noticed that that I’ve distinguished here between those features that govern
syntactic structures, written as [syntactic feature: value] and those features that tell us how to
form an inflected word, written as [Morphological feature:value]. But quite often we’ll ignore
that distinction.
Chapter 2
Inflection
2.1 Noun inflection
2.1.1 Plurals
Work out the different ways of forming an irregular plural.
Some words only have a plural form: scissors, trousers, shears, glasses/spectacles
(shades)
Usually these are single artefacts with paired parts.
The technical name for such words is: plurale tantum noun (plural: pluralia
tantum).
There are also nouns which only occur in the singular, though most of these
are mass/uncountable nouns (see next section).
One or two nouns have the form of singular nouns but are plural: police
(1) The police are/*is investigating the break-in
A few nouns have irregular plurals that are the same as the singular form:
sheep, deer.
2.1.2 Count vs. mass nouns
We customarily distinguish two types of noun on the basis of semantics: count

and mass. Count nouns denote individuated objects, while mass nouns denote
stuff, substances or aggregates that can’t be individuated. This distinction cuts
across the other distinctions such as proper/common or abstract/concrete. Ex-
amples:
Count: chair, idea, difficulty, chocolate
Mass: milk, justice, difficulty, chocolate
19
20 2. INFLECTION
Only count nouns can take a plural form. However, many nouns seem to be
in both categories:
(2) a. Your proposal faces several difficulties

b. Harriet ate several chocolates
(3) a. The level of difficulty of the exercise was too high
b. Harriet’s fingers were covered in chocolate
This is common behaviour for other nouns, where a count or mass interpreta-
tion is forced on a mass/count noun - a process often known as coercion.
(4) You’ve got egg on your tie [count ∼ mass]

(5) She ordered a milk and two coffees [mass ∼ count]
2.1.3 Possessor
We can express possession analytically (by means of the preposition of) or

synthetically by means of the phrasal affix ’s. A peculiarity of the phrasal affix
is that it can’t cooccur with a plural suffix.
(6) a. my friend’s book

b. my friends’ book [*my friend-s-’s book]
c. one of my friends
d. one of my friends’ book [=the book of one of my friends]
In other words a sequence of -s-s is simplified to a single -s. This phe-

nomenon, where two adjacent homophonous affixes or clitics, usually with
different ‘meaning’, are simplified to just one token, is quite common cross-
linguistically. The technical term for this is haplology.
2.1.4 Nominal function words
Pronouns: have special forms for SUBJ/OBJ, often referred to as Nomina-

tive/Accusative case forms. The designation is a little misleading, since the
subject form is only used for certain subjects, namely, when the pronoun is
the sole exponent of the SUBJ feature/function. Everywhere we find the object
form. Compare:
(7) a. Tom went for a walk

b. Tom and I went for a walk [literary English only]
c. Tom and me went for a walk [normal colloquial English]
d. *I and Tom went for a walk
2.1. NOUN INFLECTION 21
e. Me and Tom went for a walk
NB. Prescriptive grammarians usually try to ‘ban’ examples such as (7b, c) in

favour of the artificial construction type (7b). However, this is simply due to
ignorance of the facts of English and of the principles of linguistics.
(8) Who’s going for a walk?

Me
*I
I am
*Me am (is)
(9) It’s me/*I
The object form me is used with prepositions:
(10) between you and me
The expression between you and I is becoming current. It started out as a

straightforward grammatical error (an example of hypercorrection), originally
from speakers with limited command of written English who were called upon
to speak in public. Now it’s entering the language as a high register variant
of between you and me. However, I haven’t heard anyone saying ‘between I and
NP’ (e.g. There’s nothing between I and my secretary).
Personal pronouns – summary
Subject form Non-subject form

Sg Pl Sg Pl
1 I we me us
2 (thou) you thee you
3 he, she, it they him, her, it them
Interrogative pronouns: who? what?
2.1.5 Possessive pronouns
Note that there’s an adjectival and a pronominal use:
(11) a. This is my book

b. This (book) is (one of) mine
22 2. INFLECTION
My book is on the table ⇒ Mine is on the table
Possessive forms – summary

Possessive adjectives:- Used as pronouns:-
my our mine ours

your yours
his/her/its their his/hers/its theirs
whose
BT voicemail message:
You were called today at 9.00. The caller didn’t leave their number
Also: Someone called earlier but they didn’t say who they were
<Why is the plural form (they/their) used here?>
Other types of pronoun:
-one pronouns: anyone, someone, everyone
-body pronouns: anybody, somebody, everybody
<Is there any difference between these?>
-self pronouns: see below
(This parallels demonstratives v. inf.)
2.1.6 Reflexives
These are formed by suffixing -self/selves to a possessive adjective (1st/2nd

person) or to the object pronoun (3rd person):
my-self, thy-self, our-selves, your-selves
himself, herself, itself, oneself, themselves
Work out what the basic rule is for using reflexive pronouns.
2.1.7 Demonstratives
The only modifiers which have special plural agreement form are this/these,
that/those (see also Chapter 6).
Can be used as either a modifier or as the head of the nominal phrase (like
possessives):
(12) I want that (book)

I bought these (flowers)
2.2. VERB INFLECTION 23
2.2 Verb inflection
2.2.1 Analytic vs. synthetic forms: the tense/aspect system
Tense
There is a long standing controversy over the number of tenses in English.

Traditional grammars often distinguish present, past, and future tenses:
(13) Harriet runs, ran, will run
On the other hand, verbs only have two tense inflections. In fact, the so-called
future tense is really just one use of a pair of modal auxiliary verbs (will/shall
and not a tense in any recognizable sense.
The term ‘past tense’ is slightly misleading since the past tense verb forms
are often used in contexts with have nothing to do with past time reference.
For instance later we will see conditional clauses such as:
(14) If we left now we’d catch the train with plenty of time to spare
Here the form left has, if anything, future time reference.

Similarly, we will later see the phenomenon of ‘backshifting’ or ‘sequence of
tenses’:
(15) I thought you were arriving tomorrow
To emphasise the mismatch between form and past time reference linguists
often use a more neutral term as a substitute for ‘past tense’: preterite. In that
case we say that English verbs distinguish present and preterite forms.
Aspect
These are all expressed analytically, i.e. by means of a phrase which combines
the lexical verb with an auxiliary verb:
HAVE + -en Perfect
BE + -ing Progressive
We will discuss these in detail in Chapter 10.
Agreement
In verbs other than be, agreement is only found with the 3sg present tense
forms (but even then not for modal auxiliaries). The verb be retains an earlier
pattern, supernumerary agreement in present and preterite forms:
24 2. INFLECTION
Present Preterite
1sg am 1/3sg was
2nd; pl are 2sg; pl were
2sg (art)
3sg is
2.2.2 Participles
We use the term syncretism in morphology to refer to a situation in which a

single word form for a given class of lexemes has two distinct grammatical
meanings. There are two syncretisms in the verb system:
Preterite/Past participle syncretism: e.g. Tom killed the rat; Tom has killed the
rat; The rat was killed by Tom
Passive/Perfect participle syncretism, e.g. Harriet has eaten the apple; The apple
was eaten by Harriet
These two syncretisms are rather different from each other. The first is found
with all regular verbs and some, but not all, irregulars:
(16) base form preterite past participle

walk walked walked
bring brought brought
keep kept kept
send sent sent
cut cut cut
BUT with most irregular verbs we find different forms for the preterite and
past participle.
(17) base form preterite past participle

write wrote written
take took taken
ring rang rung
run ran run
The perfect/past participle syncretism is completely exceptionless.
(18) a. Tom has bought a book

b. The book was bought by Tom
(19) a. Dick has rung the bell
b. The bell was rung by Dick
(20) a. Harriet had taken the message
b. The message had been taken by Harriet
2.2. VERB INFLECTION 25
(21) a. Everyone had had a good time

b. A good time was had by all
Past participle as adjective. The past participle can be used in the manner of
an adjective, even though it retains the basic meaning of the verb (this is to
be distinguished from those adjectives which derived historically from past
participles, but which are now proper adjectives, and not verb forms at all,
such as I’m very surprised you should think that
Participles are much more common as post-modifiers than as pre-modifiers:
(22) a. ?? the rung bell

b. the bell rung by the church warden
If the participle itself is modified, to form a kind of compound adjective, we

get better results:
(23) the recently-rung bell, freshly-mown hay, a seldom bought book, an

oft-cited remark
However, a participle can’t have any genuine syntactic complements or ad-

juncts.
(24) a. the book given to Harriet (by Tom)

b. * *the given to Harriet (by Tom) book
c. the messages taken yesterday
d. * the yesterday taken messages
e. * the taken yesterday messages
What patterns are there in the inflection of irregular (strong) verbs? How
representative are the following verbs: keep, send, make, teach, cut, hold,
take, speak, write, run, sing?
2.2.3 -ing form
This is often known as the present participle (though this is misleading in

several respects). CGEL: 1220 refer to it as a gerund-participle. I shall refer to
it as the ing-form of the verb when talking about its use or form in general,
and as the present participle or gerund in more specific cases.
It has three main uses:
• Formation of Progressive aspect (with auxiliary BE) Harriet is reading a

book
26 2. INFLECTION
• Formation of Gerund/Verbal Noun: Reading a good book is Harriet’s favourite

passtime
• Formation of Participle The girl reading a book is Harriet
These uses are all dealt with in greater detail in Chapter 10.
2.3 Adjectives
2.3.1 Comparative and superlative
Formed by adding -er/est to monosyllabic adjectives or adjectives ending in an

unstressed syllable of a certain type (oversimplifying the facts somewhat):
long - longer - longest
green - greener - greenest
happy - happier - happiest
noble - nobler - noblest
common - commoner - commonest
narrow - narrower - narrowest
Some suppletive cases:
good - better - best
many/much - more - most
little - less - least
bad - worse - worst
BUT:
*frequenter/est; *pueriler/est; *curiouser/est
2.3.2 Comparative and superlative - inflection or derivation?
The semantics of the comparative and superlative is rather complex. E.g. longer
means ‘long to a greater extent than some reference point’
(25) I thought the play was longer

The St. Matthew Passion is longer than the B Minor Mass
The average British soundbite is longer than the average American
soundbite
The superlative means ‘longer than any other’.

The question arises whether these are to be regarded as inflected forms or
derived forms. This means asking whether longer, longest are forms of the lex-
eme long or whether they’re separate lexemes in their own right. From the
2.3. ADJECTIVES 27
semantic point of view one might wish to say that they’re different lexemes
because of the significant meaning change. It’s not obvious that we want to
say that this meaning (roughly MORE and MOST) is actually grammaticalized
and hence is represented as a grammatical feature. Moreover, the compar-
ative/superlative forms have different complementation properties, because
they take a than-phrase, whereas the positive form doesn’t permit this.
28 2. INFLECTION
Chapter 3
Words
3.1 Introduction
In this chapter we examine the different sense we have to assign to the term
‘word’.
We know that ‘word’ can refer to the notion ‘lexeme’, ‘word form’ or ‘gram-
matical/morphosyntactic word’.
The term ‘word’ also denotes the objects that get distributed by rules of
syntax, that is, phrases and sentences consist of words. In Cats chase mice there
are three words, but what about The cat’s sleeping - how many words does that
consist of?
3.2 Compounds
Compounds are words which consist of more than one lexeme. Examples are:
(1) a. houseboat, boathouse, penknife, bread knife, coffee table, . . . ,

b. blackbird, hotspot, lowlife, . . .
c. ice cold, rock hard, sky high
d. icy cold, dark blue,
Typically in English they have a head, the rightmost element. The head de-
fines the morphosyntactic category and also the meaning of the word. Thus,
the words in (1) are all respectively (a, b) nouns, and (c, d) adjectives. More-
over, a houseboat is a (kind of) boat while a boathouse is a (kind of) house.
Typically we assign constituent structures to compounds.
29
30 3. WORDS
(2) a. N b. N
N N N N
house boat boat house
It is possible to form compounds out of compounds. For instance, we can

have from coffee table we have coffee table book, coffee table book cover, coffee table
book cover design, coffee table book cover design fashion, etc, as illustrated in (3):
(3) N
N N
N N cover
N N book
coffee table
There is no logical (i.e. linguistic) limit to the lengths of such compounds.

This possibility of allowing a process to feed itself ad infinitum is called recur-
sion and we say that compounding in English is recursive. This is an important
property which makes compounding resemble some sort of syntactic process.
Not all compounds are headed. Although the word lazybones clearly consists
of lazy and bones, neither word is the head of the compound. An unheaded
compound of this sort is called exocentric and there are several subtypes. One
type is represented by examples such as Austria-Hungary, parent-teacher (asso-
ciation), mother-daughter (relationship) and with adjectives blue-green. Here the
compound is just two lexemes combined with equal status and so we can call
them coordinate compounds. Where we have a semantically transparent com-
pound we can again say that the compound is made up of two fully-fledged
lexemes.
One interesting type of compound which is very characteristic of English
(though not necessarily other languages) is illustrated by train driver, floor
cleaner, rat catcher, . . . . These denote people or things that drive trains, clean
floors, catch rats etc. What’s interesting here is that the head of the compound
is derived from a verb (drive, clean, catch) and the non-head part of the com-
pound serves as the direct object of that verb. That is, a train driver is one
who drives trains (a driver of trains) etc. Such compounds are called synthetic
compounds. Other types include horse riding (ride horses), slum clearance, crisis
management etc.
Other types of exocentric compounds include pick-pocket, cut-throat, etc. Anal-
yse their structure and explain why they’re different from mother-daughter, or
from train driver.
3.3. CLITICS 31
Finally, there are examples such as (give someone a good) send-off, (offend some-
one with a cruel) put-down etc. These aren’t really compounds but are rather
nominalizations of particle verbs. (See later for particle verbs.)
3.3 Clitics
Clitics are functional elements (realize functional features/categories) which

don’t have their own stress or accent and for this reason cannot be phono-
logically independent (i.e. they can’t appear as free independent words). For
this reason, clitics are sometimes referred to as bound words. Because they
invariably realize functional features they are similar to inflectional affixes and
for that reason it’s appropriate to consider them here. A number of function
words in English can appear either as clitics or as fully fledged (accented)
words. It is their intermediate status between fully-fledged words and affixes
which makes the behaviour of clitics especially complex and interesting.
Clitics are obliged to ‘lean’ on a host word (the word clitic itself comes from
the Ancient Greek word meaning ‘lean’), to which they are attached phono-
logically. The fact that they are bound elements makes them similar to affixes.
Like affixes they can appear either before their host or after it. Unlike affixes
true clitics can attach to hosts belonging to any part of speech.
(4) Affix Clitic

prefix proclitic
suffix enclitic
The kind of clitic we are mainly concerned with is one which surfaces in the
same place in the linear syntactic string of words that the full form word would
appear in. Such clitics are called simple clitics. An example would be the re-
duced form of the pronoun them /@m/ as in ‘I haven’t finished’em yet’. This
has exactly the same distribution as the full form of the pronoun but it’s phono-
logically attached to the previous word.
English auxiliary clitics
In (5) we see examples of English auxiliaries (we’ll look at auxiliaries in much

more detail in Chapter 9):
(5) a. it is b. it’s
a. could have b. could’ve
a. she shall/will b. she’ll
a. we had/would b. we’d
The full forms are found (in ordinary spoken English) when the auxiliary is
stressed, to emphasise the polarity of the sentence: We HAD locked the door
32 3. WORDS
(after all). The reduced forms are cliticized to the word to the immediate left.
The clitic appears in the same syntactic position as the full form auxiliary,
which means that in principle it can attach to a word of any category. In (6) we
see this ‘promiscuity’ exemplified by its attachment to a noun (6a), a pronoun
(6b), an adverb (6c), and a preposition (6d).
(6) a. Tom’s a linguist

b. A friend of mine’s a linguist
c. The girl we met yesterday’s a linguist
d. The man you were talking to’s a linguist
Similar examples can be constructed for other clitics (see also Chapter 9 on
auxiliaries).
3.4 Types of word
Consider again the question of how many words there are in a phrase such as
The cat’s sleeping.
The full form of the sentence is shown in (7).
(7) Determiner Noun Auxiliary Verb
The cat is sleeping
But the form with the clitic auxiliary is a paraphrase of this and the auxiliary
clitic fulfils the same function as the full form of the auxiliary. This means that
the syntactic structure of The cat’s sleeping is that shown in (8).
(8) Determiner Noun Auxiliary Verb
The cat’s sleeping
Clearly, the form cat’s is a single syllable phonologically, even though it corre-
sponds to two words syntactically. We say that cat’s is a single phonological
word but two syntactic words. It’s a feature of clitics that they generally repre-
sent an independent word in syntax but form a single phonological word with
their host.
Now consider a sentence containing a compound noun such as (9), with
simplified syntactic representation (10).
(9) The catfood is on the kitchen table

3.4. TYPES OF WORD 33
(10) Det N1 V P Det N2
N1a N1b N2a N2b
The cat food is on the kitchen table
The top line of (10) is intended to show the level of syntactic terminals (syn-
tactic words). There we see that there are two syntactic nouns, N1 and N2 .
However, these are compounds, consisting of two nouns themselves. That
structure isn’t, however, visible to the syntax, which treats catfood and kitchen
table as single nouns.
Now, each of the members of the compound can be thought of as a phono-
logical word in its own right. Each word bears some degree of stress, in par-
ticular. On the other hand, the determiners and the verb is are unstressed, and
effectively behave as clitics, attaching to the following stressed word as host.
This is illustrated in (11), in which the phonological words are indicated by ω
(ω . . . ).
(11) (ω The cát)(ω fóod) (ω is ón) (ω the kítchen) (ω táble)
We can now illustrate the various categories for the two sentences The cat’s
sleeping and The catfood is on the kitchen table. We will analyse the examples in
terms of the following categories:
(12) Categories of word types

1. lexeme
2. word form
3. grammatical/morphosyntactic word (i.e. word form + grammati-
cal description)
4. syntactic word
5. compound word
6. clitic
7. phonological word
(13) The cat’s sleeping
lexeme:: {the, cat, be, sleep }

word form:: {the, cat, ’s, sleeping}
morphosyntactic word:: {<the, –>, <cat, sg>, <’s, 3sg,pres>, <sleeping,
prespt}
syntactic word:: {{the}, {cat}, {’s}, {sleeping}}
compound word:: {—}
34 3. WORDS
clitic:: {’s}
phonological word:: {{D@kats}, {sli:pIN}}
(The notation <the, –> indicates that this lexeme, the definite article, has no
inflected forms.)
(14) The catfood is on the kitchen table

lexeme:: {the, cat, food, be, on, kitchen, table}
word form:: {the, cat, food, is, on, kitchen, table}
morphosyntactic word:: {<the,->, <cat, –>, <food, sg>, <’s, 3sg,pres>,
<on, –>, <kitchen, –>, <table, sg>}
syntactic word:: {{the}, {catfood}, {is}, {on}, {the}, {kitchen ta-
ble}}
compound word:: {{catfood}, {kitchen table}}
clitic:: {—}
phonological word:: {{D@kat}, {fu:d}, {Iz6n}, {D@kIÙIn}, {teIbl} }
"
As we can see, for each of the two sentences, the list of entries for each category
is different from the list of entries in the other categories. This illustrates the
fact that we are dealing with different notions of wordhood.
Chapter 4
Dictionaries
4.1 Introduction - What is a dictionary?
A dictionary is a list of words, in the sense of a list of lexemes. In this chapter

we ask ‘What is the structure of a dictionary?’, that is, what information does
a dictionary contain and in what format? In effect, we’re asking ‘What is the
structure of a dictionary entry?’, that is, what information about individual
lexemes is recorded typically in a dictionary. We’ll first draw a distinction
between the minimal information required by a linguistic description of a word
in the grammar of a language and the kinds of information typically found in
good dictionaries.
4.2 Describing words
4.2.1 Lexical entry
The linguistic description of a word is the lexical entry for a lexeme. This com-
bines all those pieces of information about a lexeme that are not predictable
from more general principles, such as the rules of morphology of the language.
A typical lexical entry would be that for cat shown in (1).
 
(1) FORM /kat/ 


SYNTAX Noun 


SEMANTICS ‘furry quadruped that miaows’
For other types of word we may need to include more information. For
instance, for words with irregular morphology we have to record the irregu-
larities under the heading of ‘FORM’, as in (2).
35
36 4. DICTIONARIES
 
(2) FORM /Si:p/ 
 

 Number:plural /Si:p/
SYNTAX 
 Noun 

SEMANTICS ‘Ovis aries’
Other details of grammatical usage may also need to be included. For instance,
the verb like can be followed by a clause of the form to do or doing, while enjoy
can only be followed by a clause of the form doing:
(3) Harriet likes . . .

a. . . . playing chess
b. . . . to play chess
(4) Harriet enjoys . . .
a. . . . playing chess
b. . . . *to play chess
Neither verb can be followed by a that-clause (though in languages without in-

finitives or the equivalent of -ing form verbs this is the only way of expressing
such a proposition):
(5) *Harriet likes/enjoys that she plays chess
This information is idiosyncratic and can’t be predicted from more general

principles, so it has to be included in the lexical entry.
(6) Partial lexical entry for the verb like

 
FORM
 /laIk/ 

SYNTAX Verb 
 

 infinitive clause 

-ing clause
 
 
SEMANTICS ‘enjoy’
 
(7) Partial lexical entry for the verb enjoy

 
FORM /EnÃOI/ 
 


 -ing clause
 
SEMANTICS ‘like’
The extra syntactic information provided in representations (6, 7) serves to

define two distinct subtypes or subcategories of verb. A much more general
example of this process of subcategorization is seen when we distinguish tran-
sitive from intransitive verbs. A transitive verb is one which can be followed by
4.2. DESCRIBING WORDS 37
a direct object. In earlier versions of generative grammar this was represented

by indicating that the verb was followed by a noun phrase (since direct objects
are noun phrases in English). Thus, the difference between the transitive verb
hit and the intransitive verb sleep could be represented as in (8):
 
(8) a. FORM hIt 
 
 

 NP 

SEMANTICS . . . 
 
b. FORM sli:p 
 
 
 
 
SEMANTICS . . . 
However, a more direct way of indicating what kinds of complements a verb

takes is to label the grammatical functions associated with that verb. In (9) I’ve
indicated (redundantly) that each verb takes a subject argument (this is true of
nearly all verbs in English, of course) and also that hit takes a direct object:
 
(9) a. FORM
 hIt 

SYNTAX VerbhSUBJ, OBJi 
 
 
b. FORM
 sli:p 

SYNTAX VerbhSUBJi 
 
4.2.2 The dictionary entry
A dictionary entry will typically take the lexical entry for a lexeme and pro-
vide additional information relating to the lexeme’s use, its history or other
properties which are not part of the lexical entry proper.
There are other types of information that are generally recorded in a good
dictionary. Some of this information is particularly important from the point
of view of language learning.
First, a dictionary will often tell us what kinds of idiomatic combinations
a word might be used in (though this information is presented separately in
specialist dictionaries of idioms or phraseological dictionaries).
Second, a dictionary will often provide the typical sorts of expressions that
a word is found in, i.e. its collocations. This is particularly important in dic-
tionaries specifically aimed at learners, because learning words through fre-
quent collocations is a very good way of remembering vocabulary and in any
38 4. DICTIONARIES
case, using standard collocations makes ones speech sound more natural and
native-like.
Third, a good dictionary should provide information about the connotations
associated with a word. These can be extremely varied and difficult to char-
acterize. Many of them boil down to information about the register of the
word:
(10) Register-related information:

• formality - highly formal, formal/written, neutral, colloquial/spoken,
slang, vulgar, taboo
• usage - archaic, technical, jocular, pejorative, . . .
Finally, a dictionary will often give information about the historical origins
of a word, i.e. its etymology.
Project: Take several different kinds of dictionary (monolingual aimed
at native speakers, e.g. Concise OED, monolingual aimed at advanced
learners, multilingual, e.g. Collins-Robert French/English) and note the
sets of descriptors used for different word types. How much agree-
ment/overlap is there between dictionaries of comparable size? Do dic-
tionaries produced by the same publishers adopt the same set of de-
scriptors for each type of dictionary?
4.2.3 Polysemy/homonymy
Two words (lexemes) are homonyms (also called homophones) if they have the
same form but entirely different meanings. If they are also spelled the same
way they are homographs, too.
The simplest type of homophony/homonymy is illustrated by a verb such
as draw. This means (i) to make a pictorial image (e.g. with a pencil) or (ii)
to pull, extract, attract. The verb is irregular in exactly the same way in both
meanings: {draw, drew, drawn}.
A slightly more complex example is illustrated by the verb ring. This has
two sets of meanings. The first, which we can call ring1, is to do with making
or causing to make a ringing sound (ring a bell, the bell rings). The second,
which we can call ring2, is to do with making a ring around something (The
teacher rings mistakes in red ink) or fitting a ring onto something. However, the
homophony only applies to certain forms of the verb because ring2 is regular,
while ring1 is irregular {ring, rang, rung}.
For ring1 we can discern a number of distinct uses.
(11) Meanings of ring1 (from the Shorter OED)

i. The bell rang
4.2. DESCRIBING WORDS 39
ii. The hall rang with the laughter of the children

iii. The final chord rang (in our ears/throughout the concert hall)
iv. The sounds rang through the woods
v. They rang the bell
vi. My ears are ringing
vii. To ring someone on the phone
These meanings seem to be related to each other (at least at some intuitive
level), though it’s not entirely obvious what the link is. They are not, however,
related to the meanings of ring2.
(12) Meanings of ring2

i. The researcher ringed the pigeons
ii. The teacher ringed the spelling errors in red
iii. Trees ring the village green
iv. The police ringed the demonstrators
The Shorter OED treats ring1, ring2 as two distinct lexical entries. This
means that ring1, ring2 are homonyms. However, it treats the separate mean-
ings listed in (11, 12) as variant meanings of a single entry, i.e. as polysemous
readings of the two lexemes. In addition, there is a further dictionary entry,
the noun ring. The Shorter OED explains that ring2 is derived from the noun
ring.
For the noun ring there are also various polysemous meanings:
(13) Some of the meanings of the noun ring

i. Circular band (e.g. wedding ring)
ii. A circular piece or part of an object (e.g. rings under the eyes)
iii. People or things arranged in a circle (e.g. a ring of stones)
iv. Math: A set of elements which is a group addition and closed unde
multiplication, with the property that multiplication is distributive
over addition and associative
v. Enclosed space for a performance, fight etc. (e.g. bullring, circus
ring, boxing ring)
vi. A combination of people drawn together due to a shared interest
or goal and often acting unscrupulously or illicitly (e.g. a drugs
ring)
Historically (i.e. etymologically) we might be able to explain why ring has

the various readings in (13), but it’s not obvious why meanings such as (13iv)
40 4. DICTIONARIES
or (13vi) are considered variants of a single basic meaning in modern English.

(Note also that a boxing ring is always square nowadays.)
Exercise/discussion point: Different dictionaries have different policies
on how to represent polysemy/homonymy. In particular, some dic-
tionaries aimed at advanced L2 English learners don’t distinguish be-
tween true homonymy and polysemous entries whose meanings are
only distantly related. Check through some of the standard one-
volume advanced learners dictionaries to see how they treat poly-
semy/homonymy.
4.3 Types of dictionary
So far we’ve seen how a standard monolingual dictionary is structured. How-

ever, there are many other types of dictionary, both of the traditional paper
type and more recent electronic types.
• monolingual dictionary meant to represent a complete listing of all the
words in the language
• multilingual dictionary providing translation equivalents of words in dif-
ferent languages (e.g. English ⇔ French bilingual dictionary)
• pronouncing dictionary, giving just the pronunciation of word forms.
• dictionary of idioms and phraseological expressions
• dictionary of foreign words, technical words, new words, slang, other
specialist vocabulary
• reverse dictionary (arranged alphabetically from the right edge of the
word instead of the left edge)
• thesaurus (arranged on semantic/conceptual principles rather than al-
phabetically)
• word frequency dictionary
• dictionary of roots/affixes (for morphologically complex languages)
Multilingual dictionaries have a rather different function from monolingual
dictionaries in that their primary goal is to provide translation equivalents of
expressions in more than language. The notions ‘translation’ and ‘equivalent’
here are controversial: how can we tell when two expressions in different lan-
guages mean the same thing? Part of the problem is that broadly equivalent
words in one language will often have different connotations or even presup-
positions in another language. A striking example of this is the Japanese word
for ‘water’. The basic translation is usually given as mizu, but there is also
a word yu (usually prefixed with o-: oyu) which denotes specifically hot wa-
ter. There are occasions when we can use mizu to refer to water which might
turn out to be hot, but usually the assumption is that mizu means cold water
(otherwise we’d have used the word o-yu).
4.4. DICTIONARY ENTRIES AND ENGLISH 41
Another problem is seen when a language makes distinctions lacking in an-

other language. English has a distinction between jam and marmalade which
lacking in most languages. On the other hand Russian has a plethora of words
denoting different types of soured milk, none of which have any real equiva-
lent in English.
4.4 Dictionary entries and English
Problematical aspects of lexical structure in English

There are various ways in which English words pose difficulties for linguistic
analysis and for language learners alike. Some of the more common ones are
listed in (14).
(14) • Noun ∼ verb

• Prepositional verbs
• Particle verbs
Under the heading ’Noun∼Verb’ are included two sorts of difficulty. First, a
very large number of nouns can be used as verbs without any change in their
form. In morphology this is called ‘conversion’. In general, we can readily see
a relationship between the noun meaning and the verb meaning, but we can’t
actually predict what that relationship will be. For instance, the various mean-
ings of ring2 are clearly related to one or other of the meanings of ring2, but
we can’t predict which noun meanings will give rise to a verb, nor can we pre-
dict precisely what that verb will mean. To see this, consider the noun circle.
This has almost the same meaning as the noun ring and it gives rise to verbs
with various meanings. In some cases, the verb is more or less synonymous
with a corresponding meaning for ring2: The teacher ringed/circled the spelling
errors. In other cases, however, this is not true: Vultures circled/*ringed overhead;
The police ringed/*circled the demonstrators (though you can say The police encircled
the demonstrators).
We’ll look in detail at prepositional verbs and particle verbs in Chapter 8.
Project: Check a variety of dictionaries aimed at native speakers and

at advanced learners to determine the way they relate verb∼noun pairs
like ring. Do they list all the noun meanings separately and then list the
verb meanings or do they list related noun/verb meanings under one
entry? Which of the noun/verb pair is considered primary, if any?
42 4. DICTIONARIES
Chapter 5
Simple clause structure
5.1 Introduction
This chapter revises basic notions and develops them further. We look at the
structure of phrases within sentences (phrase structure, constituent structure,
or c-structure) . An important aspect of this is the linear order of words, the fact
that we say the black cat rather than *cat black the. However, phrase/sentence
structure is much more than just linearizing individual words. A phrase such
as incredibly fascinating can itself be part of a larger phrase (e.g. an incredibly
fascinating lecture), so phrase structure is hierarchical. We then look at the
grammatical functions of subject, object, and so on (GF structure).
Simple vs. complex sentences
We begin by looking at simple sentence structures, i.e. those based around a

single verbal predicate.
Later we’ll look at complex sentences, which consist of clauses embedded
within clauses, that is subordinate clauses. The basic structure of subordi-
nate clauses is the same as that of the basic simple clause. We’ll occasionally
illustrate clause structure from subordinate clauses.
Some examples of subordinate clause types (to be dealt with in more detail
in Part II).
Complement clauses to verbs:
(1) Tom said that Harriet speaks French

(2) Dick asked whether Tom had arrived
(3) Harriet told Dick to phone Tom
Adverbial clauses:
(4) Harriet left the party when Dick arrived
43
44 5. SIMPLE CLAUSE STRUCTURE
(5) When Dick arrived, Harriet left the party

(6) Harriet printed off the file in order to check it
(7) In order to check the file, Harriet printed it off
Relative clauses
(8) This is the house that Jack built
Declarative/interrogative/imperative clause types
The basic clause type is the declarative clause whose main function is to ex-
press a statement.
The interrogative clause type takes two forms, corresponding to yes-no and
wh-questions.
(9) a. Has Harriet met Tom?

b. Who did Harriet meet?
Imperative clauses issue commands or requests.
(10) Read this book!
5.2 Phrase structure
For a general overview of c-structure see Tallerman (2011: Ch 5)

Here we summarize the structure of the main types of phrase, based around
the main lexical categories: noun, adjective/adverb, preposition, verb.
Constituents
Noun Phrases:
These are built around a lexical head which is a noun. (There are interesting
exceptions we’ll look at later)
cats
black cats
the big black cats
the cats in the alley
the black cats that live behind our house

5.2. PHRASE STRUCTURE 45
Verb Phrases:
fight
fight each other
often used to fight each other at night
have been fighting each other all night behind the dustbins
Each of these phrases behaves as a single unit in certain respects. We can see
this by comparing a somewhat elaborated sentence with a much simpler one.
The two examples in (11, 12) have essentially the same structure: S = NP VP
(11) Cats fight

(12) The black cats that live behind our house fight each other all night
behind the dustbins
We can illustrate this using a simple tree diagram:
(13) a. S
NP VP
Cats fight
b. S
NP VP
The black cats fight each other all night

that live behind our house behind the dustbins
NP, VP are the immediate constituents of the sentence S (or constituents for
short).
See below for examples of adjective phrases and prepositional phrases.
Constituents of constituents:
To see how a phrase can itself contain one or more phrases we’ll build up some
simple examples.
(14) a. very hungry

b. two cats
c. [two [very hungry] cats]
Here are tree diagrams to represent these structures:
(15) a. AP b. NP c. NP
Degree A Num N
two cats NumP AP N

very hungry
two Deg A cats
very hungry
You’ll often see an alternative representation of phrase structure with brackets.

Sometimes the brackets are labelled with the name of the constituent, as in (17):
(16) [The black cats that live behind our house] [fight each other all night
behind the dustbins]
(17) [NP [NumP two] [AP very hungry] [N cats]]
Constituency tests
[Tallerman 2011, Ch 5 for some further examples]

Constituency tests identify those strings which behave as a unit in some way.
1) Semantic coherence:
A constituent tends to have a meaning built up out of its parts: e.g. very
hungry but not two very (what could that mean?).
2) Replacement by pro-forms:
Constituents can often be replaced by single words which can stand for
them, ‘pro-forms’. Pronouns are the prototypical pro-forms. This stand in for
entire noun phrases:
( )
Two very fat cats
(18) fought each other
They
You can often replace Adjective Phrases with such:

( )
very fat
(19) Two cats
such
Prepositional phrases expressing place or time can be replaced by words such

as here/there, now/then:
(20) a. The children put their toys into this box before bedtime
5.3. PHRASE STRUCTURE OF MAIN PHRASE TYPES IN ENGLISH 47
b. They put them there then
3) (Echo)-question test:
You can often question a constituent (but you need to use an echo question
usually; see Tallerman):
(21) a. I kicked [two very fat cats] out of my garden

b. You kicked what out of your garden?!
4) Focus test:
You can often focus a constituent by means of a cleft or pseudo-cleft.1
(22) a. It was [two very fat cats] that I kicked out of my garden [it-cleft]
b. What I kicked out of my garden was [two very fat cats] [pseudo-
cleft]
5) Various other tests involving permutations in element order

Passive voice construction:
(23) [Two very fat cats] got kicked out of the garden (by me)
See also Tallerman’s test with -’s.
Exercise1: use constituency tests to distinguish the phrase

structures of the following sentences:
(24) a. Tom ran up a large hill
b. Tom ran up a large bill
5.3 Phrase structure of main phrase types in English
Here are some basic templates showing typical, fairly complex constructions.
Remember that only the head is obligatory in these phrases.
Noun phrases
We’ll look at NP structure in much more detail in a separate chapter. For the
present note that the basic shape of the noun phrase is (25):
(25) Determiner (article) - Numeral - Adjective Phrases - NOUN - Preposi-

tional Phrase
1 See Chapter ?? for discussion of these constructions.
(26) Det Num AP AP N PP
Deg A
The two very big black cats in the garden
Adjective Phrase
The adjective can be modified by a preposed degree modifier or by a postposed

PP or comparative phrase. This gives rise to two basic shapes:
(27) a. Degree modifier - ADJ - Prepositional Phrase

b. Degree modifier - ADJ - Comparative clause/phrase
(28) a. very proud of his children

b. slight soft to the touch
c. rather too large for our living room
(29) a. much longer than we thought they were
b. far bigger than your cats
Prepositional Phrase
The basic type consists of just Preposition + Noun Phrase, though the prepo-
sition can often be modified by a word such as right, just, . . . :
(30) a. right into the middle

b. just before midnight
Verb Phrase
There are a great many ways in which we can add complements to a verb, and
the overall patterns are made even more complex when we consider adjuncts.
The basic shapes are: VERB - NP - NP - PP, . . . , AdvP, . . . , . A small sample
of the possibilities is shown in (31). Notice that these are all simple clauses -
we’re ignoring complex sentences, with clausal complements to the verb.
(31) a. V + NP: eat the sandwich

b. V + NP + NP: give Fido a bone
c. V + PP: play in the garden
d. V+ NP + PP: put the toys into the box
give a bone to Fido
e. V + PP + AdvP: play in the garden very noisily
f. V + AdvP + PP: play very noisily in the garden
5.4. COORDINATION 49
Excursus: Alternative analyses
Another popular way of analysing phrases (e.g. (Radford et al., 2009: Part 3))
takes a functional element as the head. For noun phrases this is the determiner
element D, for verb phrases it is I (essentially an auxiliary verb). For adjective
phrases this is presumably Deg. (It isn’t clear what the head of a prepositional
phrase would be, other than a preposition).
This mode of analysis has certain theoretical advantages but it isn’t very
helpful for describing more complex phrase types. Also, it isn’t obvious how to
use it to describe languages which lack the appropriate functional categories,
such as determiners or auxiliary verbs.
5.4 Coordination
We can coordinate any string of words or phrases (usually of the same cate-
gory).
(32) Conjoined NPs:: [Tom] and [Jerry], [the cat] and [the mouse]
Conjoined APs:: [old] and [young], [too small] and [very ex-
pensive]
Conjoined VPs:: [runs] and [jumps], [eats grass] and [lives in

a burrow]
Conjoined PPs:: [down the road] and [across the park]
Conjoined sentences:: [Tom studied Linguistics at Poppleton Uni-

versity] and [Harriet read Mathematics at the
University of Ambridge]
Other coordinating conjunctions: but, or. We also find correlative conjunc-

tions, in which the first as well as the last conjunct gets marked by a conjunc-
tion: both . . . and . . . , (n)either . . . (n)or . . . .
The coordinate expression can consist of more than one element, as in lists:
Tom, Dick, . . . , and Harriet
smokes, drinks, swears, dresses badly, gambles, has bad breath, but otherwise is the
ideal dinner guest
Coordinated sentences can be written (and pronounced) as one large coor-
dinated sentence. They often correspond to two sentences:
Harriet checked her emails and then she went out for a drink.
(cf Harriet checked emails. Then she went out for a drink.)
Dick has poor interpersonal skills. And, he’s very unpunctual.
5.5 Phrase structure ambiguities
The constituent structure of a phrase or sentence is its c-structure (for short).

One string of words can sometimes correspond to more than one c-structure,
in which case we get a c-structure ambiguity. Some examples:
(33) Compound nouns:
student film club =

[student [film club]]
[[student film] club]
Provide paraphrases for the different readings of the com-

pound. Explain how the two structures shown reflect the two
readings. [Cf Tallerman’s example of black cab drivers]
Coordinate phrases can lead to ambiguous structures (bracketings).
(34) Coordinated phrases:
old men and women =

old [men and women]
[old men] and [women]
[Coordination can also be used to make a test for constituency. How?]

Ambiguous attachments:
A Preposition Phrase can be part of
a Noun Phrase: a man for all seasons, a cup of tea, the girl with the flaxen hair,
or
a Verb Phrase: live in a burrow, read for two hours, leave before dawn
This can lead to ambiguities.
(35) They observed the man with binoculars

= observed with binoculars or the man with binoculars?
5.5. PHRASE STRUCTURE AMBIGUITIES 51
Exercise: Try out the tests to show that both the c-structures in (36) are
possible:
(36) a. S
NP VP
They
V NP PP
observed the man with binoculars

b. S
NP VP
They
V NP
observed
the N PP
man with binoculars
Exercise: Explain the ambiguity of the following headline

found in a newpaper: Truant girl missed school for sex
Chapter 6
Grammatical functions
6.1 Introduction
In discussing the semantic structure of words I introduced the notions of sub-

ject and predicate, without detailed explanation of what the terms refer to.
Historically these were originally logical notions, but they are also linguistic
ones. Different languages have different ways of distinguishing between sub-
jects and predicates. For the present we take it that (a) all sentences consist
of subject + predicate (at least) and (b) that we can always identify which is
which. Neither of these assumptions is necessarily true but they will work
for straightforward cases. Subjects and predicates always form constituents.
The predicate of a sentence is (almost always) a Verb Phrase while the subject
is (almost always) the Noun Phrase immediately preceding the predicate. As
long as we can do a basic analysis of the sentence we can usually identify those
two constituents.
6.2 Subjects and complements
Sentences consist of more than subjects and predicates. The predicate itself
generally be split up into components with express grammatical functions.
These functions are often intimately connected with the expression meaning
but they are grammatical, syntactic notions and not semantic ones (this will
become clearer in the next sections).
The other main grammatical function within the predicate is that of object.
Some verbs express a relationship just between a subject and a predicate, e.g.
Dogs bark, but other verbs express a relationship between a subject and some
other entity expressed by a noun phrase. That noun phrase has the grammati-
cal function of object (OBJ). Here are some examples:
(1) Tibbles ate the fish
53
54 6. GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS
(2) Harriet read the newspaper

(3) Tom opened the door
(4) Dick pondered the puzzle
Some verbs can take two objects:
(5) Harriet gave Fido a bone

OBJ1 OBJ2
(6) Tom baked Harriet a cake
OBJ1 OBJ2
(7) Tom called Dick an idiot
OBJ1 OBJ2
(8) They elected Harriet president
OBJ1 OBJ2
A verb which takes no objects is intransitive.

A verb which takes an object is transitive.
(If we need to we can distinguish verbs taking one object as monotransitive
from verbs taking two objects as ditransitive). In traditional grammar OBJ1 is
sometimes called the indirect object and OBJ2 the direct object. However, this
terminology is rather misleading for a variety of reasons. (For one thing, the
‘indirect’ object behaves more like a real object than the ‘direct’ object does.)
We’ll therefore stick to the more neutral terms ‘OBJ1, OBJ2’.
Whether a verb is transitive or intransitive depends in part on the basic
meaning of the verb and in part on idiosyncratic grammatical properties of
the verb. Roughly speaking, one-place predicates correspond to intransitive
verbs, two-place predicates correspond to monotransitive verbs and three-
place predicates correspond to ditransitive verbs. But there can occur mis-
matches between semantic (predicate-argument) structure and grammatical
function structure. A well-known example of this is given by the triple <eat ∼
dine ∼ devour>:
(9) a. Tibbles devoured the salmon

b. * Tibbles devoured
c. * Tibbles devoured on salmon
(10) a. * Tibbles dined the salmon
b. Tibbles dined
c. Tibbles dined on salmon
(11) a. Tibbles ate the salmon
b. Tibbles ate
c. * Tibbles ate on salmon
6.2. SUBJECTS AND COMPLEMENTS 55
These three verbs have roughly the same meaning but different grammatical
function properties. Thus, devour is obligatorily transitive, while dine is obliga-
torily intransitive (though it can take a phrase such as on salmon). Eat is differ-
ent again, in that it is basically transitive (11a), but the object can be omitted,
(11b). It’s not obvious how we could derived these different properties from
meaning differences between the three verbs so they are generally treated as
purely grammatical differences in the types of objects which the verb takes (or
doesn’t take).
The subjects and objects a verb takes are an intrinsic part of the structure
of the verb and these are (usually) obligatory components of clauses contain-
ing those verbs (though there are various ways in which grammars can allow
subjects or objects to be omitted, or at least appear to be omitted).
The next grammatical function is almost always optional, in that it signals a
circumstance (time, place, manner, reason, etc.) which is not a central compo-
nent of the meaning of the individual verb in the way that subjects and objects
are. This function is that of adjunct (or adverbial). An adjunct can be thought
of as an optional modifier of the verb or clause.
(12) Tibbles ate the fish from his favourite bowl

(13) Harriet read the newspaper in the garden
(14) Tom opened the door very quietly
(15) Dick pondered the puzzle for several days
Adjuncts are often expressed by an adverb Phrase or a preposition phrase.

Finally, there is one set of grammatical functions which look like adjuncts
at first but which are a central part of the meaning of the verb and which are
generally obligatory:
(16) a. The children put their toys in(to) the box

b. * The children put their toys
(17) a. Harriet gave a bone to Fido
b. * Harriet gave a bone
(18) a. Harriet lives in Glasgow
b. * Harriet lives [ungrammatical with the meaning of (18a)]
These are the main types of case. In addition, there are rarer types such as (19,
20):
(19) a. The children behaved badly

b. * The children behaved [OK in some dialects meaning ‘behaved
well’]
(20) a. They worded the letter carefully
b. * They worded the letter
An adjunct-like phrase which is a central component of the verb phrase is

called an oblique complement (or just ‘oblique’ for short).
In many cases it is very unclear whether a given phrase is best regarded as
an oblique or an adjunct, which indicates that linguistic theory is not making
the right distinction here. Nonetheless, for a fair number of cases it does
seem to be a useful distinction. We can therefore make use of it where we
can and where the distinction seems very fuzzy we can allow ourselves either
description. The distinction is not a central one for sentence analysis so it is
not going to be the case that we will get into any kind of analytical trouble as
a result of making the ‘wrong’ choice. (Indeterminacies of this sort often arise
in linguistics, especially where we are dealing with more traditional notions
and distinctions.)
We often refer to the subject, object(s) and oblique(s) of a verb its arguments.
The arguments other than the subject are often called the complements of
the verb.
Subcategorizing verbs
The category of verbs can be subdivided into various subcategories on the

basis of the types of complement they take. In other words we can say that
the set of complements taken by a verb subcategorize that verb. We can thus
identify various complementation types or subcategorization types of verbs.
The tradition division into transitive and intransitive is just part of this story.
A slightly more elaborated list is given in (21):
(21) ∅ [no complement - intransitive, dine]

OBJ [(mono)transitive, devour]
(OBJ) [(mono)transitive, but with object omissible, eat]
OBJ1 OBJ2 [(di)transitive]
OBL [live in NP]
OBJ OBL [put NP somewhere, give NP to NP]
We will see later that this list can be extended once we look at more complex
sentence types. In particular, there are a great many verbs that take entire
clauses as complements.
One special type of predicate is that formed using verbs such as be, seem,
become as in (22–24):
(22) a. Tom is a linguist

b. Harriet is happy
c. Dick is in the garden
6.2. SUBJECTS AND COMPLEMENTS 57
(23) Harriet seems happy

(24) a. Dick became a doctor
b. Dick became dispirited
A verb such as these is traditionally called a copular verb (or copula). Cop-
ular verbs link the subject to a noun phrase, adjective phrase or prepositional
phrase which then conveys the main content of the predication. This is the
predicative grammatical function of noun, adjective or prepositional phrases.
Subject/Object Complement as grammatical functions
The complements of the copular verbs in (22–24) express a predication of the

subject of the clause. Thus, (22b) predicates happiness of the subject, Har-
riet. Such complements are sometimes called subject complements for clarity.
However, there are other constructions in which a constituent predicates some
property of the direct object of the main verb. This situation is illustrated in
(25).
(25) a. We consider Dick unreliable

b. We regard Harriet as trustworthy
c. We look upon Tom as a father-figure
d. We found Harriet’s sister charming
In (25) the properties of being unreliable, trustworthy, a father-figure and

charming are predicated of the objects of consider, regard, find and of the prepo-
sition upon in the prepositional verb look upon. Such complements are often
called object complements.1
When we wish to label these complements specifically we’ll use the abbre-
viations S-COMP and O-COMP.
(26) We consider Dick unreliable

SUBJ VERB (DIR) OBJ O-COMP
Complements to other categories
We see how verbs take complements of various kinds. Other lexical categories
can take complements too. Prepositions almost always take a single comple-
ment: on the table, over the house. This is often called the object of the preposi-
tion, by analogy with the object of a verb. Some prepositions take a conjoined
complement, because of their meaning: between London and New York. Some
prepositions can be used intransitively, that is, without their complement. Such
1 You’ll sometimes see other terms used for subject/object complement.
prepositions are not really intransitive, rather, they are similar to verbs such as
eat which imply an object, but whose object can be left implicit.
(27) a. We can walk over the bridge or under <the bridge>

b. The doctor isn’t in
Nouns and adjectives can also have complements. In (28) we see nouns with
a complement expressed as a preposition phrase.
(28) a. the size of the box

b. a message to our friends
c. the name of the rose
Complements to adjectives are shown in (29).
(29) a. proud of her daughter

b. happy with the outcome
c. surprised at the response
The subject grammatical function for prepositions and adjectives is implicitly

whatever noun phrase the preposition or adjective is predicated of. Thus, if
we say that Harriet is happy with the outcome, then the NP Harriet effectively
functions as the subject of happy (though it can only do so via the copular verb
construction). Similarly, if the table is the object of the preposition under in
under the table, then the subject will be whatever it is that is under the table
(e.g. the box).
Parsing a sentence into grammatical functions
Given these basic types of grammatical function we can ascribe to any given
sentence a grammatical function structure (GF-structure) together with labels
showing which phrases express which functions.
(30) a. The children put their toys in the box before suppertime
b. NP V NP PP PP
The children put their toys in the box before bedtime
SUBJ VERB OBJ1 OBL ADJ
In (30b) we’ve just recorded the grammatical functions associated with the
verb. We’ve seen, however, that we can say that prepositions (and other parts
of speech) can take complements. Thus, the two prepositions in, before have a
complementation structure. We can illustrate this in (31).
6.3. MODIFICATION 59
(31) NP V NP PP PP
P NP P NP
The children put their toys in the box before bedtime
OBJ-in OBJ-before
SUBJ VERB OBJ1 OBL ADJ
Similarly, we can represent the complement of a predicatively used adjective:
(32) Harriet is proud of her daughter
OBJ-of
COMP-proud
SUBJ VBcop S-COMP
6.3 Modification
The final GF to discuss is one which relates to the internal structure of separate
phrases (noun phrase, adjective/adverb phrase, prepositional phrase) as well
as the whole clause. All the main types of word can be modified in various
ways, but we can also modify whole phrases and clauses.
6.3.1 Modification of nouns
We usually distinguish noun modifiers from determiners (and quantifiers)

such as the, a, some, this/that, . . . , all, few, three, . . . because the determin-
ers/quantifiers have slightly different syntactic properties. This will be dis-
cussed in more detail in Chapter 15.
We know that adjectives can be used to modify nouns: the big, fat cat. This
means that we need a separate category of modifier (MOD). Adjectives which
are used as modifiers (as opposed to being used as predicates as in (22b, 23,
24b) are called attributive adjectives. Most adjectives have both uses. How-
ever, it is not just attributive adjectives that can be used as modifiers. We also
know that a prepositional phrase can have this function: the cat on the mat (as
opposed to the cat on the sofa).
We’ve seen examples of a head noun modified by an attributive modifier,
such as an adjective phrase (very hungry cat)
We’ll look at attributive modifiers and also at possessor expressions such as
the name of the rose, Harriet’s book in more detail in chapter 15. We’ll also see
the way that an entire subordinate clause (relative clause) can modify a noun
in Chapter 14.
6.3.2 Modification of verbs and sentences
Adverbials of various sorts answer questions such as when? where? how? why?
to what extent?
Many adverbs are related to adjectives. An adverb such as quickly is essen-
tially a form of the adjective quick used to modify a non-noun.
VP-oriented adverbials
(33) Manner:
a. Tom ran quickly
b. Harriet drew the picture carefully
c. Dick gave Fido a bone unwillingly
(34) a. Tom ran at great speed
b. Harriet drew the picture with care
c. Dick gave Fido a bone without any enthusiasm
(35) Place:
Harriet read the book in the garden
(36) Time:
a. They left late/at 10.00 pm/shortly afterwards/last week
b. Do you come here often
c. They visit her every day
d. She arrived four days ago
(37) Others:
a. They went for a walk despite the rain
b. They went home on account of the rain
<For other types see CGEL: 576>
Clause-oriented adverbials
Many adverbials don’t modify the way, time, place etc. an event occurs but
modify the meaning of the whole clause, often modifying its role or force in
the discourse (examples from CGEL: 576):
(38) a. Politically, the country is always turbulent

b. This is necessarily rather rare
c. Fortunately, this did not happen
d. Frankly, I’m just not interested
e. Moreover, he didn’t even apologise
6.3. MODIFICATION 61
Cf.
(39) a. In terms of politics, the country is always turbulent

b. It is necessary that this is rather rare
c. This did not happen, which was fortunate
d. Frankly speaking, I’m just not interested
e. What is more, he didn’t even apologise
Many of these adverbs are polysemous between VP- and clause-oriented uses:
(40) He was acting politically rather than ethically [cf. (38a)]

(41) a. He was acting the role of Hamlet rather strangely (= in a strange
manner)
b. Strangely, he was acting the role of Ophelia (= it was strange that)
(42) a. Frankly, she’s not speaking to you (= I’m being frank in telling you
this)
b. She’s not speaking to you frankly (= she’s holding back on you)
6.3.3 Modification of other categories
Although the most important types of modification are modification of nouns

and modification of verbs/clauses, other parts of speech can be modified too,
i.e. adjectives, adverbs and prepositions.
Modifiers of adjectives indicate the degree to which an adjective is true:
(43) a. very, too, rather, slightly, . . . hot

b. much hotter (than we expected)
We can also have complex modifiers of the form slightly too hot, a little hotter,
...
In more complex cases we can even find modifiers of modifers:
(44) [very considerably] hotter (than yesterday)

MOD
MOD
Adverbs can be modified in much the same way as adjectives:
(45) a. very, too, rather, fairly, . . . enthusiastically

b. much more enthusiastically (than we expected)
Notice that the comparative and superlative words more, most are effectively
adjective/adverb modifiers.
Modification of prepositions is possible, usually when the preposition has a
spatial meaning:
(46) a. inside the box ⇒ [right inside] the box

b. down the hole ⇒ [half-way] down the hole
c. off the table ⇒ [almost off] the table
d. under the asking price ⇒ [just under] the asking price
By combining different types of modification structure we can get fairly com-

plex phrases.
(47) the [slightly dilapidated] house [[just over] the hill]

MOD MOD
MOD MOD
MOD
6.4 Agreement
Agreement is a very marginal phenomenon in English. There are three types.

Pronominal agreement: 3rd person singular pronouns distinguish masculine,
feminine, neuter forms and when a pronoun is coreferential with an animate
NP it has to agree for semantic gender. This means that if the NP denotes a
male entity we use he and for a female entity we use she. This is a very weak
form of agreement, and some linguists wouldn’t even refer to it as agreement.
Similarly, we could say that personal pronouns agree in number. This is
obvious with the 3pl pronoun they, but you might also want to say that it’s
found in expressions such as we, the people or you students. This is stretching
the definition of ‘agreement’ somewhat though.
Demonstrative determiner number agreement: The demonstratives this, that
have plural forms these, those.
Subject-predicate agreement: A 3sg subject is cross-referenced on a verb in the
non-past form by the -s suffix (except in the case of modal auxiliary verbs).
The main complications with subject-predicate agreement are the following:
In British English we often get semantic plural agreement with a singular
noun that denotes a group. In US English, formal singular agreement is pre-
ferred, and this is always possible in UK English.
(48) a. The committee have decided that . . . [semantic agreement - plural]

b. The committee has decided that . . . [formal agreement - singular]
6.5. BASIC PARSING 63
The word police looks like a singular noun but it always takes plural agree-
ments.
Sentences which introduce the existence of an indefinite noun phrase and
which begin with there pose interesting problems of agreement. The noun
phrase after the verb has most of the properties of the subject:
(49) There is a cat in the garden
However, we’ll see later that in many ways it’s better to treat there as the subject.
When the NP is plural we get two possibilities:
(50) a. There are (some) cats in the garden [formal]

b. There’s (some) cats in the garden [informal, colloquial]
The version with ‘wrong’ singular agreement is more informal, but increas-
ingly accepted in ordinary speech.
6.5 Basic parsing
We are now in a position to provide a basic c-structure and gf-structure parsing

(= grammatical analysis) of simpler sentence types. We can exemplify the
technique with a simple example:
(51) The big fat cat sat on the cosy mat behind the sofa
In order to figure out the c-structure it is helpful to know the overall gf-
structure, but in order to figure out the GF-structure we sometimes need to
know the c-structure. Parsing therefore in practice is a joint operation. How-
ever, the first step is always the same: We begin by labelling the categories of
all the individual words:
(52) Det A A N V P Det A N P Det N

The big fat cat sat on the cosy mat behind the sofa
The verb is the head of the predicate (VP). The subject is generally the NP
immediately preceding the V (the big fat cat). This gives us (53):
(53) Det A A N V P Det A N P Det N

SUBJECT PREDICATE
Within the predicate verb phrase the verb sat is followed by two preposi-
tional phrases. We can interpret the second of these, behind the sofa, in one of
two ways. On one reading the PP modifies the verb and tells us where the
cat is sitting (54). Thus, together with on the mat, it serves as an OBLIQUE
(notice that we can also say The cat sat behind the sofa). On the other reading,
the PP behind the sofa tells us where the mat is and hence must be taken as a
postmodifier to the noun mat, and hence must be a constituent of the noun
phrase headed by mat. That means that there is just a single PP OBL function
(55).
(54) NP V PP PP
SUBJ VB OBL OBL
(55) NP V PP
SUBJ VB OBL
The adjective phrases big and fat (each consisting of one word!) modify cat.
On the reading illustrated in (55) the PP behind the sofa also has the MODIFIER
function. That reading is illustrated in (56).
(56) Basic parsing

Det A A N ...
The big fat cat. . .
MOD MOD
SUBJ
V P Det A N P Det N
sat on the cosy mat behind the sofa
MOD | MOD |
VB | OBL |
| PREDICATE |
Analyses such as these represent what I shall call the basic parsing of a
simple sentence. We can enrich such a parsing in various ways. In many
analyses we would wish to provide a more detailed description of the phrase
structure (constituent structure or c-structure) of the clause.
Finally, for completeness, we can add an indication of semantic roles for
each of the grammatical functions (SUBJ, OBL) in the sentence. In simplified
form this can be seen in (57):
(57) NP V PP PP
SUBJ VB OBL OBL
Theme Location Location
Chapter 7
Argument structure alternations
[Tallerman chapter 7 for a typological perspective on argument structure al-

ternations, including Passive and Double Object (called ‘applicative’ in her
discussion)]
7.1 Semantic role structure
In school grammars (in the days when grammar was taught at school) the
grammatical functions used to be defined in semantic terms, roughly:
(1) SUBJECT The doer of the action

OBJECT(2) The undergoer of the action
OBJECT(1) The recipient of the action
There are various reasons why this won’t do and in fact we will see that we
need a further level of analysis, semantic role structure or sr-structure, and
that this level is distinct from both c-structure (that is, phrase structure) and
gf-structure.
Consider the following examples:
(2) a. Tom killed the rat

b. Tom saw the rat
c. Tom fears rats
d. Tom received a letter
e. The crystal emits light
f. Trees surrounded the house
g. This key opens your door
h. The rat was killed by Tom
65
66 7. ARGUMENT STRUCTURE ALTERNATIONS
In (2) the SUBJ function is realized by Tom (2a–2d), then the crystal, trees, this
key in (2e–2g) and in (2h) the rat. In examples (2a, 2e, 2g) we can imagine a
paraphrase which would make the subject the ‘doer’ of an action.
(3) a. What Tom did was kill the rat

b. What the crystal does is emit light
c. What this key does is open your door
However, for the other examples such a paraphrase is odd or utterly bizzare.
(4) a. ? What Tom did was see the rat

b. ?? What Tom does is fear rats
c. ?? What Tom did was receive a letter
d. ?? What the trees do is surround the house
e. i. ?? What the rat did was be killed by Tom
ii. What the rat did was get killed by Tom
The construction with ‘do’ implies that the subject is some sort of (conscious)
agent in bringing about the action, or an instrument that can be used by an
agent, but this is not compatible with the meanings of verbs such as see, fear
or receive. (We’ll discuss the interesting examples in (4e) in the next section).
This shows that the semantic role of the subject can be quite varied and is not
limited to that which we can call Agent. Indeed, in (2h) the Agent is expressed
but with an ADJUNCT function (see below).
You will often see labels attached to the semantic roles expressed by the
subjects in (2a–2h). The conventional names are:
(5) Tom killed the rat Agent

(6) Tom killed the rat Patient
(7) a. Tom saw the rat Experiencer
b. Tom fears rats
(8) Tom received a letter Recipient, (Benefactive, Goal)
(9) The crystal emits light Source
(10) Trees surrounded the house Location
(11) This key opens your door Instrument
Several of these roles are more common with OBJ, OBL or ADJUNCT func-
tions. Some examples:
(12) Experiencer:
Rats frighten Tom
7.1. SEMANTIC ROLE STRUCTURE 67
(13) Recipient/Benefactive:
a. Tom baked Harriet a cake
b. Tom baked a cake for Harriet
(14) (Spatial) Goal:
Tom went to London
(15) Source:
a. The light comes from the crystal
b. Tom arrived from London
(16) Location:
The house is in the forest
(17) Instrument: We opened your door with my key
There are further cases where it is not at all clear how to label the semantic
role of a noun phrase. These occur particularly often with predicative NPs:
(18) Tom is a linguist/happy/in the garden
Given that the garden probably bears the role location, what are the roles of
Tom and a linguist in (18)? A general role for such cases is that of theme.
(People often use the term ‘theme’ as a synonym for ‘patient’ though it’s more
useful to separate them.) The theme role can then be employed to describe the
semantics of such noun phrases as rats in (31), (the) light in (2e/9) or the house
in (2f/10, 16).
These semantic roles can be broadly divided into three groups, those which
are broadly speaking ‘active’ or ‘agentive’ and those which are broadly speak-
ing ‘passive’ or ‘patientive’ and those which are neutral. Where a transitive
verb has two arguments with two distinct roles the one with the more ‘agent-
like’ meaning will tend to be the subject and the one with the more ‘patient-
like’ meaning will tend to be the object. You will sometimes see these described
as the ‘Proto-Agent’ role (P-A) and the ‘Proto-Patient’(P-P) role. I shall use
other more-or-less synonymous terms: actor (A) and undergoer (U). A more
sophisticated version of school grammar definitions of subject and object will
then be that the subject has the Proto-Agent role and the object has the Proto-
Patient role. (Interestingly, even this rather vague characterization encounters
difficulties with more or less synonymous pairs like (2h) and (12)).
The division into actor/undergoer vs. more fine grained distinctions (agent,
theme, experiencer etc.) allows us to capture the fact that a NP can sometimes
appear to have two roles simultaneously. For instance, in (19) the subject NP
Harriet is the source, but she’s also acting voluntarily and intentionally as a
agent.
(19) Harriet sent the parcel to Tom

We can capture this by saying that Harriet is the actor and secondarily also the
source. This explains why (19) is synonymous both with (20a) and (20b).
(20) a. The parcel was sent to Tom by Harriet

b. The parcel was sent to Tom from Harriet
The dual characterisation of Harriet as agent and source also explains why (21)
is a possible paraphrase of (19).
(21) Tom received the parcel from Harriet
7.2 Passive
In the previous section I said that the SUBJ function is associated with Proto-
Agent roles while the OBJ function is associated with Proto-Patient roles. But
in that case, how come we have a patient SUBJ, the rat, in (2h) when Tom
realizes the agent role?
There are two points here. First, example (2h) has the following gf- and
semantic role structure:
(22) The rat was killed by Tom

SUBJ VERB ADJUNCT
theme agent
There is no OBJ function in (22), showing that the verb is (in some sense)
intransitive.
The other point is that was killed is not the basic form of the verb kill. Rather
it is in a derived form, the passive (or more accurately, the passive voice). The
passive voice is to be contrasted with the normal form of the verb, the active
voice. We can picture the active∼passive alternation as a process in which
the OBJ of the active clause is promoted to the position of SUBJ in the passive
clause. The old SUBJ is then demoted to the position of an optional ADJUNCT.
Notice that we don’t need to mention the agent Tom in (2h): that constituent is
optional.
(23) The rat was killed
Thus, to understand examples such as (2h) we need to start with the basic
active form of the verb, illustrated in (2). That sentence is a prime example of
the generalization about Proto-roles and gf-structure.
The passive is constructed out of a special morphological form of the verb,
the passive participle, introduced in Chapter 2. For regular verbs this ends in
-ed and is identical to the past tense. For other verbs there may be a special
7.3. MIDDLE 69
form (e.g. write ∼ written, sing ∼ sung). In addition, the construction requires
an auxiliary verb ‘be’ (auxiliaries are discussed in more detail in Chapter 9).
The passive is essentially a device for altering the argument structure of the
verb without altering the meaning. Thus, the situations described by (2, 2h)
are essentially identical. The main difference is in Topic-Comment or Informa-
tion Structure: (2) tells us something about what Tom did, while (2h) tells us
something about what happened to the rat. In addition, (23), which is essen-
tially a variant of (2h), allows us to be non-committal about the identity of the
agent.
There is another form of the passive, which uses a different auxiliary verb,
get (this construction is often called the ‘get-passive’):
(24) The rat got killed
This form of the passive has very subtle modal nuances distinguishing it from
the ordinary ‘be-passive’. One of the nuances which is sometimes discernible
is that the ‘get-passive’ tends to ascribe some degree of volitionality, respon-
sibility or even agency to the subject. Thus, one way of understanding (24)
(though not the only one) is that the rat (deliberately?) behaved recklessly and
brought about its own end, as is unambiguously the case in the variant (25):
(25) The rat got itself killed
These types of example illustrate how subtle is the relationship between gram-
matical structure and semantic interpretation, providing yet more justification
for setting up a separate level of semantic structure to describe these subtleties.
7.3 Middle
Another way in which argument structure can be altered, with a significant

change in semantic interpretation, is shown in (26):
(26) a. This book reads easily

b. Your car steers really badly
c. The toy assembles in minutes
These examples are all intransitive, yet they are based on what seem to be
transitive verbs:
(27) a. One can read this book easily

b. One can steer this car only with difficulty
c. One can assemble the toy in minutes
This alternation is reminiscent of the Passive in that the SUBJ of (24) is demoted
and the OBJ is promoted to SUBJ. However, this construction doesn’t require
a special participle form and it doesn’t require an auxiliary. Moreover, it isn’t
possible to express the agent.
(28) a. * This book reads easily by undergraduates

b. * Your car steers really badly even by a racing driver
c. * The toy assembles in minutes by any child
This construction is known as the Middle (Voice). Its function is to take a verb
which normally expresses an event (of reading, steering, assembling) and to
use it to express a property of the derived subject along the lines ‘one can
VERB NP (easily, with difficulty,. . . )’.
7.4 Object Omission
Both the Passive and Middle have the effect of creating an intransitive verb
out of a transitive one. It may seem as though this is true of the alternation
illustrated in (11a, 11b) in Chapter 6 and repeated here as (29):
(29) a. Tibbles ate the salmon

b. Tibbles ate
This is a good example of where traditional terminology is not sufficient to

describe the facts of the language. What we have here is a transitive verb used
as though it were intransitive. Notice that in (29b) we know that the event
is semantically transitive in the sense that we know that Tibbles must have
eaten something, she didn’t just go through idle chewing motions. Moreover,
we also know that what she ate was something we would normally regard as
proper food. If Tibbles ate my old socks we wouldn’t use (29b) to describe this
event - Tibbles has to eat ordinary (cat) food if the object is omitted.
As we saw in discussion of examples (9–11) not all transitive verbs permit
the omission of the object. When they do they always presuppose that the
understood object is a canonical (i.e. standard, normal, prototypical) type of
object for that verb. Thus, (30) can be used only in very specific circumstances.
(30) Harriet read
It can be used when no reading matter has been mentioned in the earlier
context in which case it will mean ‘some book or other’ or ‘the newspaper’
(Harriet sat in her office all afternoon and read). Alternatively, we can use
Object Omission verbs when the object can be recovered from the context, but
even here the object has to be a canonical object for that verb:
7.5. DOUBLE OBJECT CONSTRUCTIONS 71
(31) a. The baby grabbed the spoonful of stewed apple and ate
b. ?? The baby picked up a handful of earthworms and ate
The precise semantic conditions on object omissibility aren’t very well under-
stood, nor is it clear why some verbs allow and others don’t.
7.5 Double Object constructions
The final argument structure alternation we will look at is illustrated in (32–

34):
(32) a. Harriet gave a book to Tom ⇒

b. Harriet gave Tom a book
(33) a. Tom baked a cake for Harriet ⇒
b. Tom baked Harriet a cake
(34) a. Dick told the secret to Tom ⇒
b. Dick told Tom the secret
As you can easily verify, the alternation consists in taking a verb which has one
OBJ and one OBL and turning the OBL into what appears to be another OBJ.
We thus end up with the double object verbs mentioned earlier this chapter.
This alternation is therefore called the Double Object alternation (though for
historical reasons it is also often referred to as the Dative Shift alternation).
In fact, the label ‘Double Object’ is misleading, because in most respects the
second ‘object’ doesn’t behave like an object at all.
There are other ways in which a verb can appear to have two objects. In (35)
we see a construction with a small number of verbs of judgement:
(35) They considered/found her a reliable colleague
These can be paraphrased as They considered/found her to be a reliable colleague

or even They considered/found that she was a reliable colleague. This is because
the constructions in (35) effectively have a hidden predication She is a reliable
colleague. The second NP is not a true object but it is a complement to the verb,
and it’s predicated of her, the real direct object. For this reason, the second
NP is often called an Object Complement (in the sense of being a Complement
with a relation to the real Object).
The construction seen in (35) is closely related to another complementation
type, in which the verb takes an object and an adjective phrase or PP which
denotes some property which is predicated of the object:
(36) a. They considered her very reliable

b. We thought the joke in very bad taste

c. She rates her staff very highly
7.6 Locatum-location alternations - spray∼load
Consider the examples in (37):
(37) a. They loaded the hay onto the wagon

b. They loaded the wagon with hay
(38) a. We sprayed paint onto the wall
b. We sprayed the wall with paint
These examples differ very subtly in meaning. In (37b, 38b) there’s a strong
implication that the wagon or the wall were completely filled or painted over,
while in (37a, 38a) there is no such assumption.
Not all verbs with meanings similar to spray, load permit this alternation:
(39) a. They poured the water into the jug

b. * They poured the jug with water
(40) a. * We filled water into the jug
b. We filled the jug with water
The reasons for these differences are rather complex and require a detailed
analysis of the semantics of these verbs which would take us too far afield.
7.7 Conclusions
Additional argument structure alternations can be found in other languages,

and by no means all languages have the Passive, Middle or Double Object
alternations. Passive is common in the world’s languages including other Eu-
ropean languages, but the Middle alternation is much rarer, and where it ex-
ists it may have somewhat different properties and uses from the English (in
Romance languages, several Germanic languages and the Slav languages the
Middle tends to be expressed by something derived from a reflexive construc-
tion meaning ‘do X to oneself’). The Double Object construction is quite rare
in European languages, and it is a common mistake among English learners
of, say, French to try to say things like ‘I gave Fido a bone’, which are gibberish
when translated literally into the Romance languages.
Chapter 8
Prepositions and particles
8.1 Prepositions and prepositional phrases
Prepositions are single words which take a syntactic argument (complement

NP) and express a relation between that NP and some other entity. For instance
on (the table) denotes a relation between a thing (say, a book) and the surface of
the table (as in The book is on the table).
Prepositions can sometimes be combined: from under, to within. In effect this
means that a prepositional phrase (e.g. under the table) is functioning as the
object of another preposition (e.g. from).
Prepositions denote a wide variety of relationships, some of them rather
abstract: for, about, despite, . . . . The most basic prepositions denote spatial
relations. These spatial relations are defined in terms of three parameters:
location, motion towards, motion from.
location towards from
on onto off (of)

in into out of
at to(wards) away from
Table 8.1: Spatial prepositions
Complements to P
The basic type consists of just preposition + noun phrase, though the preposi-
tion can often be modified by a word such as right, just, . . . (see Chapter 6):
(1) a. right into the middle

b. just before midnight
73
74 8. PREPOSITIONS AND PARTICLES
Prepositions can be followed by other phrase types, however (CGEL:599).
(2) a. The magician emerged [from behind the curtain] PP

b. I didn’t know about it [until recently] AdvP
c. The took me [for dead] AdjP
d. We can’t agree [on whether we should call in the police] Clause
In (2d) we see a preposition on followed by an entire subordinate clause whether

we should call the police. We’ll discuss subordinate clauses in much more detail
in later chapters. For the present, it’s sufficient to know that a preposition
can take a clause/sentence as its complement. An important type of clausal
complement to P is illustrated in (3).
(3) a. after you promised to help

b. since we arrived back home
c. until you pass your driving test
d. before he gets into any more trouble
These words are all temporal prepositions that can also take clauses as com-
plements (cf. after dinner, since Tuesday, until noon, before breakfast). In
some books these are analysed as complementizers (like that), though CGEL
has good reasons for rejecting that analysis.
This means that the term ‘preposition’ is wider in its scope than in some
descriptions. In fact, some prepositions don’t even take NP complements (usu-
ally):
(4) a. Although tired (she got finished the work)

b. Although in a terrible hurry
c. Although she was tired/in a terrible hurry
The word although takes AdjP, PP and clausal complements, but not nor-
mally NP complements. When it does take NP the NP is interpreted as part of
a predicate (5), as it is in (4).
(5) Although a doctor, he was unwilling to offer medical advice
Cf. Although he was a doctor
Intransitive prepositions
Traditional grammar is rather confused about examples such as (6, 7):
(6) a. They tried to pull it out of the box

8.1. PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES 75
b. They tried to pull it out

(7) a. I saw her last week but I haven’t seen her since that meeting
b. I saw her last week but I haven’t seen her since
Since a preposition is supposed to be followed by a NP it looks as though

in, since in (6b, 7b) can’t be genuine prepositions. For this reason traditional
grammar sometimes treats them as adverbs. However, since all other parts of
speech can be used without a complement (i.e. intransitively) and since the two
occurrences of in, since in (6) and (7) respectively seem to be the same word, it
makes sense to say that prepositions can be intransitive, too (see discussion in
CGEL: 612f).
“Compound prepositions”
Prepositions are generally single words but there are many expressions that
look like prepositions that are multiword expressions, out of, away from, in
front of. Other expressions look like compound/complex/composite preposi-
tions of this sort but they are probably better treated as types of noun phrase
(CGEL:617-623), what CGEL calls prepositional idioms.
(8) at variance with, by means of, for lack of, in front of, on top of, under
the auspices of, with a view to,
There are two types of prepositional idiom. On type retains some of the nom-
inal properties of the noun head. For instance, the noun means in by means of
can be modified just like another noun, as can effect in with effect from:
(9) by which means? by similar means, by unfair means, . . .

with immediate effect
However, it should be noted that the possibilities are not very broad.
The second type is what CGEL refers to as the ‘fossilized’ prepositional
idiom (p. 619), illustrated by in front of :
(10) in front of
*in which front? (in front of what?)
*in the immediate front of the house (immediately in front of the house/to
the immediate rear of the house)
It is the fossilized preposition constructions that tend to be misanalysed as

composite prepositions. However, although that way of looking at them might
sometimes be helpful to non-native speakers learning English ultimately it’s
an unsustainable analysis. CGEL:619 provides the following argument for not
treating in front of as a single composite preposition. In the phrase in front of
the house it’s clear that of forms a phrase with house, not with in front. We can
see this when we use the prepositional complex intransitively (ie. without the
object house): She stood in front of the house ∼ She stood in front (*She stood in front
of ).
There are several properties of nouns that can be used to test
whether the noun component of a fossilized prepositional ex-
pression is still a noun. These include
i. singular/plural number
ii. modification by adjectives
iii. determiner alternations (the, a, sm, . . . )
iv. POSS-S alternation (the girl’s name∼the name of the girl)
v. coordination with another N
Apply these tests to the prepositional idiom by dint of (as in by

dint of hard work). Check your answers against the analysis in
CGEL.
Prepositions vs. verbal particles
English is notorious for its phrasal verbs, in which a single verbal lexeme is
expressed by two separate words, one of which is often homophonous with a
preposition. Sometimes the overall meaning is a compositional function of the
meaning of the verb and particle (11), but more often than not the combination
is partially (12) or completely (13) idiomatic.
(11) a. pull the planks apart

b. carry the books out
(12) a. eat the sandwich up
b. slow the car down/up
c. print the file off
(13) a. make a story up
b. take the lecturer off (= imitiate)
c. carry the project out
The particle has the unusual property that it can intervene between the verb
and its direct object, as seen in (11–13). Compare (14–16):
(14) a. pull apart the planks

b. carry out the books
8.2. PREPOSITIONAL VERBS 77
(15) a. eat up the sandwich

b. slow down/up the car
c. print off the file
(16) a. make up a story
b. take off the lecturer (= imitiate)
c. carry out the project
Many of the particles are homophonous with prepositions and may even
retain prepositional meaning. Which prepositions can serve as particles isn’t
easy to predict. For instance, we don’t see:
(17) *push sthg towards/into
Other particles are related to other parts of speech. Some seem to be adverbs
and may retain the meaning of those adverbs.
(18) a. Particles as prepositions

put sthg down/in
pull sthg up/through
b. Particles as adverbs
tear sthg apart/away
push sthg together
take out, . . .
carry sthg upstairs/downstairs/inside/outside/across/forwards/back(wards)/
c. Phrase fragments as particles:
smash sthg to pieces/bits/smithereens/. . .
There is one further type of particle which differs from the others in that it
can’t appear after the direct object, but instead appears in the position of an
ordinary preposition. An example is to look áafter (NP). Notice that in this verb,
it’s the preposition/particle that is usually stressed, not the verb:
(19) a. We háve to léave after our párents [V + PP]

b. They séem to táke after their párents [prepositional V]
c. They háve to look áfter their párents [particle V]
8.2 Prepositional verbs
Many verbs or verb meanings are associated permanently a specific preposi-

tion. Compare the ordinary verb + prepositional phrase constructions in (20)
with the examples in (21):
(20) V + PP combinations
watch TV in the living room
walk in the park
(21) Prepositional verbs

rely on NP
wait for NP
talk about NP
grapple with P
take after NP
...
In addition to prepositional verbs we can identify ‘prepositional adjectives’,

that is, adjectives which are associated with specific prepositions:
(22) Prepositional adjectives

aware/afraid/fond/. . . of NP
considerate towards NP
happy for NP
unhappy about NP
Prepositional verbs with particles
Some verbs have both a particle and a selected specific preposition: put up with
Apply the tests below to demonstrate that up is a particle and
with is a selected preposition.
Distinguishing prepositional verbs from particle verbs
We can distinguish the three types with five tests.

The prepositional verbs can be quite variable in their behaviour with respect
to these tests. Some V+Prep combinations are ‘tighter’ than others, which
means that some prepositional verb constructions behave a little like particle
verbs. For instance, talk about behaves almost like an ordinary verb + PP, while
look after behaves in some ways like a particle verb.
1. PP fronting
True PPs can be put to the beginning of the clause:
(23) V+PP
In the living room we watched TV
This is also (usually) true of prepositional verbs but it’s not found with particle
verbs:
(24) a. Prepositional verb

For their second child they had to wait another ten years
About such intimate topics they’re very reluctant to talk
(BUT: *After their parents adopted children rarely take)
b. Particle verb
*Up the answer they looked in an encyclopedia
*After their sick child they looked for several years
2. Pied piping
This refers to the property that a preposition can be associated with a wh-word
at the beginning of a clause rather than being left ‘stranded’ at the end of the
clause:1
(25) V+PP with and without pied-piping:

a. the room which we watched TV in [preposition ‘stranded’]
b. the room in which we watched TV [with pied-piping]
Pied-piping is possible with prepositional verbs, but completely excluded

with particle verbs:

The man on whom we were relying
The problem with which they were grappling
The parent after whom she takes most is her father
b. Particle verb
*the answer up which they looked
*The children after whom they’d been looking
3. Wh-fronting
A related construction is that in which we have a wh-phrase at the beginning
of the clause associated with a preposition. A true preposition allows this (at
least in the written or more formal language).
(27) V+PP
In which room did you watch TV?
Again, prepositional verbs allow this but not particle verbs.

On whom do you rely most?
With which problem are they grappling
After which parent does she take most?
1 The term comes from the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlyn, who was followed by the
children of the village.
b. Particle verb
*Up which answer did they look?
*After which children were they looking?
4. XP interpolation
A prepositional phrase used as an adjunct can be easily separated from a verb’s
direct object.
(29) V+PP
We watched TV quietly in the living room
Genuine particle verbs do not allow interpolation, though look after does allow
it:
(30) Particle verb

*They looked immediately up the answer
OK They look mainly after orphaned children
Most prepositional verbs do allow interpolation:

They rely mainly on dictionaries
They were grappling manfully with the problem
She takes to some extent after her father
They waited a little while for their friends
5. Passive
The complement of a true prepositional phrase cannot be the target of the
passive alternation:
(31) V+PP
*The living room was watched TV in
*The park was played in by the children
(Some) Prepositional verbs and particle verbs (usually) do allow the passive.
However, there are various factors that make the passive difficult, so not all
verbs work well in this construction:

This method is widely relied on
The lost child is being looked for in the amusement arcade
The problem is being widely talked about
BUT:
??An answer is being waited for
b. Particle verb
The answer was looked up
The children were (well) looked after
Results:
V+PP PrepV PartV
PP fronting Y X X
Pied-piping Y Y X
wh-fronting Y Y X
XP in terpolation Y Y X
Passive N (Y) Y
Table 8.2: Prepositional verbs and particle verbs compared
In sum, we can think of a prepositional verb as a V+PP construction in

which the preposition is specified lexically by the verb and has to be adjacent
to the governing verb. In many cases the V+P connection is sufficient to permit
passivization of the P complement.
The prepositional verbs illustrated so far have been intransitive, but in prin-
ciple we can have transitive verbs which select a preposition.
(33) a. regard NP as AP:

They regard her as efficient
b. V NP as NP
They treated her as a child
c. congratulate NP on NP
We congratulated her on her promotion
Sometimes such verbs may undergo alternations similar to the spray-load type:
(34) a. blame the accident on the weather

b. blame the weather for the accident
Chapter 9
Auxiliary verbs: properties and

types
9.1 Overview
We begin with a reminder of the main role played by auxiliary verbs (from
Chapter 2).
Auxiliary verbs are used for signalling grammatical categories of mood, aspect,
and voice, as well as negation.
Mood/modality is expressed by specific words such as can, might, should, . . . .

These are discussed in more detail in Chapter 10.
Aspect refers to the progressive and perfect constructions is writing, has written
and so on. These are discussed in more detail in Chapter 10.
Auxiliary verbs differ from lexical verbs in a number of ways, specifically their
syntax (cf NICE properties below).
9.2 Constructions realized by auxiliaries
9.2.1 Passive
[For more on the syntax of passives see Chapter ?? and Chapter 10]
Formation: BE + V-ed
(1) a. (the song) was sung (by Tom)

b. (the song) is usually sung by Tom
83
84 9. AUXILIARY VERBS: PROPERTIES AND TYPES
We’ve seen that the passive construction is also possible with get as the auxil-
iary, with a somewhat different modal meaning.
(2) a. Tom was caught by the police [neutral]

b. Tom got caught by the police [through his own fault?]
c. cf Tom got himself caught by the police
9.2.2 Aspect
There are two marked aspects, progressive and perfect. Both can occur in past
or non-past tenses .
Progressive. Denotes on-going activity (as opposed to completed or timeless
activity).
Formation: BE + V-ing
(3) is/was singing a song
Perfect. This aspect denotes event which occurred prior to time of utterance
but which has relevance for present. We’ll look at this in more detail in the
next chapter.
Formation: HAVE + V-ed
(4) has/had sung a song
9.2.3 Mood
The modals express various grammaticalized types of meaning, as discussed

below in Chapter 10. They combine with the base form of the next verb (lexical
or auxiliary).
may/might




shall/should






(5) can/could leave/have left/be leaving




will/would





must


9.2.4 Infinitive
[NB. This is not usually presented as a type of auxiliary formation in tradi-

tional grammars.]
CGEL/SIEG distinguish two types of infinitive (or infinitival), one consist-
ing of just the uninflected bare verb form (the ‘bare infinitive’) and the other
formed with the infinitive marker to combined with the base form. The to
9.3. THE SYNTAX OF AUXILIARIES 85
marker is a separate word and can be separated from the base form of the verb
by, for instance, adverbs.
(6) to be, to sing, to have been singing, to boldly go
When we need to label the to marker we will call in infinitive marker or

inf mrkr for short. Very often it isn’t particular important to label the infinitive
marker, however. In that case it’s acceptable to treat it as just part of the verb,
so that to sing would be labelled as just ‘verb’.
9.3 The syntax of auxiliaries
9.3.1 Combinations of auxiliaries
We can combine auxiliaries (including the infinitival to) in various ways, but
with restrictions. For instance, the two aspects combine, but only in the order
progressive + perfect:
(7) a. Tom has/had been washing the dishes

b. * Tom is having washed the dishes
The perfect auxiliary have selects the -en participle form of the next verb,
whether lexical or auxiliary:
(8) HAVE+-en
BE+-ing
SING
has been singing
We can combined aspect and passive voice. Either of the two aspectual
auxiliaries can precede the passive auxiliary (though the combination of both
aspects and passive sounds rather strained).
(9) a. is being sung, is getting arrested

b. has been sung, has got arrested
c. ?? has been being painted
Modals precede aspectual/voice auxiliaries:
(10) a. will have been sung

b. may be being repainted
c. should be working
d. might have left
Since modals invariably precede aspectual auxiliaries it isn’t surprising that

they lack -en and -ing forms:
(11) a. * Harriet has willed sing (vs. Harriet will have sung)
b. * Tom is maying read (vs. Tom may be reading)
Finite auxiliaries and infinitives

Modals don’t combine with to-infinitives at all. (SIEG treats the bare form
of the verb as a kind of infinitive, the bare infinitival, so for those authors the
modals can be said to combine with a specific form of the infinitive. It doesn’t
matter which of the two ways we describe this situation.)
Perfect and progressive aspect forms, and passive voice forms can all appear
in the infinitive.
(12) a. to have sung the aria

b. to be singing the aria
c. (for the aria) to be sung
d. (for the aria) to have been sung
9.4 Auxiliary-specific syntactic behaviour (NICE proper-

ties)
Auxiliaries are the elements which realize the following meanings or gram-
matical relationships:
• Negation
• Interrogatives (Inversion)
• Code
• Emphasis
Lexical verbs do not exhibit the NICE properties. Despite the acronym it’s
easier to understand the system if we start with Emphasis.
Since we’re only talking about finite clauses here, the NICE properties don’t
apply to the infinitival auxiliary element to.
9.4.1 Emphasis
We can accent the polarity of a statement without emphasising any other word
or phrase. This is most readily seen when we answer a question with ‘yes/no’:
(13) Is Tom singing?

Yes, he IS singing
No, he ISN’T singing
9.4. AUXILIARY-SPECIFIC SYNTACTIC BEHAVIOUR (NICE PROPERTIES) 87
(14) Will Tom sing?

Yes, he WILL sing
No, he WON’T sing
(15) Has Tom been singing?
Yes, he HAS been singing
No, he HASN’T been singing
When the aspect/voice/. . . form isn’t expressed by means of any auxiliary

verb we need to make use of a meaning ‘dummy’ auxiliary whose only func-
tion is to serve as a finite verb form that can be accented. If we were to simply
emphasise the verb this would (often) imply a contrast between that lexical
verb and some other lexical verb, e.g.
(16) Tom SANG (he didn’t play the piano)
(17) Did Tom sing?

Yes, he DID sing
No, he DIDN’T sing
It’s helpful to think of the emphasised form of a simple clause as the basic
form, from which all other construction types can be derived.
9.4.2 Negation (polarity)
Polarity is a property with two basic values: affirmative (‘yes’) and negative
(‘no’).
The ‘free form’ stressable not occurs after leftmost auxiliary, or it occurs as
an inflectional affix on the leftmost auxiliary in the clause. The latter construc-
tion is the only one found in spoken English unless we want to emphasis the
negation.
(18) Tom will NOT sing

Tom won’t sing
In combinations:
(19) Tom will NOT have been singing

Tom won’t have been singing
The -n’t formative behaves morphologically like an inflection, because it

causes stem allomorphy in some of the auxiliaries to which it attaches.
(20) will ⇒ won’t

shall ⇒ shan’t
am ⇒ aren’t
can /kan/ ⇒ can’t /kA:nt/
must /m2st/ ⇒ /m2snt/
do /du:/ ⇒ don’t /doUnt/
Where no other auxiliary is found in the basic construction we use ‘do’:
(21) Tom doesn’t/didn’t sing
Lexical verbs can’t be negated directly (without the intervention of an auxil-

iary):
(22) a. *Tom sings not; *Tom singsn’t

b. *Tom sang not; *Tom sangn’t
9.4.3 Inversion
English has a construction in which the subject of the finite clause swaps places
with the leftmost auxiliary verb. This is mainly (though not exclusively) found
in the formation of questions:
(23) Harriet has left ⇒ Has Harriet left?

(24) Harriet will have been reading a book ⇒ Will Harriet have been reading
a book?
(25) The song had been sung by Harriet ⇒ Had the song been sung by
Harriet
As usual, in the absence of any other auxiliary we use the dummy aux.:
(26) Harriet writes poetry ⇒ Does Harriet write poetry?
The auxiliary that is inverted can also be negated:
(27) a. Hasn’t Harriet left?

b. Won’t Harriet have been reading a book?
c. Hadn’t the song been sung by Harriet
d. Doesn’t Harriet write poetry?
Again, lexical verbs don’t show this behaviour (hence, the need for the
dummy aux.):
(28) a. * Writes Harriet poetry?

b. * Left Tom early?
9.4. AUXILIARY-SPECIFIC SYNTACTIC BEHAVIOUR (NICE PROPERTIES) 89
9.4.4 ‘Code’ (or ‘Context’)
Where a construction would normally involve repetition of the same auxiliary

or group of auxiliaries we can often miss out all but the first. Since this only
happens when the other auxiliaries are given in the same context we can refer
to this as ‘Context’ for the purpose of our acronym (the traditional term, ‘code’,
is somewhat opaque).
(29) Tom will have been reading a book and so will have been reading Har-
riet
(30) Will Harriet have been reading that book?
Yes, she will (have (been (reading that book)))
A peculiar English construction in which auxiliaries appear on their own

is the tag question. This is a parenthetical construction at the end of clause
signalling various modal nuances depending on intonation. It may be the
same polarity as the main clause or the opposite. It is formed by repeating
leftmost (i.e. finite) auxiliary together with a postposed pronominal subject:
(31) a. Tom has already left, hasn’t he

b. Tom hasn’t left yet, has he
c. Tom can speak Russian, can’t he
d. Tom can’t leave hospital yet, can he
The opposite polarity invites confirmation of supposition. Falling intonation

signals a greater degree of confidence than rising intonation.
The same polarity as in the main clause indicates certainty + nuances of
rhetorical question:
(32) They’re leaving early, are they (we’ll see about that!)
Cf:
(33) They’re leaving early, aren’t they (I think those were the arrangements)
As usual, a clause without an auxiliary in it has to call upon the services of the
dummy auxiliary:
(34) a. Tom sang that aria, didn’t he?

b. Dick sang Tom’s aria, did he
Again, this behaviour isn’t seen with lexical verbs, especially the tag ques-
tion construction:
(35) a. * Tom sang that aria, sangn’t he?

b. * Dick sang Tom’s aria, sang he?
9.5 Summary: auxiliary verbs vs. lexical verbs
Auxiliary verbs differ from ‘true’ lexical verbs in a number of important re-
spects. In each case we can link the differences to the fact that an auxiliary
verb is a verb which has changed its function over time from being a meaning-
ful lexical item to expressing a grammatical property or category of some sort.
This historical process of change is known as grammaticalization.
The first and most obvious distinction between auxiliaries and lexical verbs
is that auxiliaries don’t have an obvious meaning. This is particularly clear in
the case of the dummy auxiliary do. The aspectual/voice auxiliaries can only
express these categories in conjunction with a special form of the lexical verb
(a participle form).
The modal auxiliaries retain a certain semantic force, expressing notions of
obligation, necessity, desire, intention, and so on. In many cases there exists a
lexical verb expressing the same kind of meaning:
(36) a. Harriet will leave tomorrow

b. Harriet intends to leave tomorrow
(37) a. Tom must write a letter
b. Tom is obliged to write a letter
(38) a. Dick can speak Spanish
b. Dick has the ability to speak Spanish
and so on. The reason we regard the modal words will, must, can, should,
may etc as special is because of their form and their syntax.
The modal auxiliaries lack forms which other verbs (including other aux-
iliaries) have, notably participle forms. There is no -ing/en participle and no
(genuine) past tense for the modals: *canning, *musted, etc. The 3sg form
is unique in that it doesn’t take the -s suffix: Harriet can/*cans speak Russian.
We’ve seen above that several modals, along with some other auxiliaries, have
special negative forms can’t, won’t, shan’t etc.
Most significantly, the modals share the same unusual syntax as the other
auxiliaries, notably the NICE properties. They also enter into the special com-
binations with other auxiliaries that we’ve seen above.
However, grammaticalization isn’t always an all-or-nothing phenomenon
and in fact is an on-going process. For this reason we will sometimes find
words which have some of the properties of the ‘standard’ auxiliaries but not
all. First, this relates to the infinitival marker to. This is historically derived
from the preposition to rather than from a verb like the other auxiliaries and
for that reason it doesn’t have special negative forms (not to, to not but there’s
no form ton’t). In addition, the inversion property isn’t found because the
function subserved by inversion doesn’t apply to non-finite clauses. Similarly,
9.6. DEFECTIVE FORMS AND UNUSUAL FORMS: MODAL AUXILIARIES 91
an infinitival clause can’t be used as a main clause and so there’s no possibility

of stressing the to auxiliary to emphasise polarity. Similarly, tag questions are
only found in main clauses and so we don’t get tags based on the infinitival
auxiliary. However, the to element can be stranded in elliptical contexts, just
like a real auxiliary: Harriet wants to go to the theatre but Tom doesn’t want to.
In between the standard auxiliaries and lexical verbs we find another in-
teresting group of words, which have some of the morphological properties
of auxiliaries but take the infinitive form rather than a base/participle form.
For this reason they look syntactically like verbs which take VP complements
(see later), though in many respect they are closer to auxiliaries. Compare the
forms in (39):
(39) ought (to) need(n’t) (doesn’t) dare

be to
have to (hafta /haft@/) ought to (oughta /O:t@/) (be) supposed to
(sposta /spoUst@/ )
have got to (gotta /g6t@/)
used to (usta /ju:st@/)
be going to (gonna /g2n@/)
want to (wanna /w6n@/)
9.6 Defective forms and unusual forms: modal auxil-

iaries
Modal auxiliaries lack -ing forms and past/perfect participles:
(40) a. * Tom is musting open the door with his credit card
cf Tom is having to open the door with his credit card
b. * The door is musted open
cf The door is needed open; the door must be opened
c. * Tom has musted open the door with his credit card
cf Tom has had to open the door with his credit card
As we’ve seen, modals lack a special 3sg form, the default form being used
instead.
(41) a. Tom can(*s) speak Russian

b. Harriet should(*s) leave early
Although there’s a base form for all auxiliaries, there’s no to-infinitive:
(42) a. *To must leave early is annoying

b. *To can play the organ is very satisfying

c. *Tom expected to will be fired
Expressions like ‘to be able to, to have to, to be obliged to, to be about to are often
used to fill in the lacunae in the analytic paradigms with auxiliaries.
9.7 Auxiliaries and the Verb Group
The main, lexical verb of a clause expresses the main idea of that clause (usu-
ally), and the auxiliary verbs express a variety of grammatical or functional
meanings and relations (i.e. the TAMV meanings/relations). The lexical verb
and the auxiliaries therefore enter into a single functional complex and effec-
tively behave as a single element at clause structure, like the Subject NP or an
Adjunct phrase. We can therefore refer to the lexical verb and the auxiliary
satellites around it as a single (functional) element, the Verb Group. A simple
example of this is shown in (43).
(43) The cat has been sitting on the mat
S VbGp A
However, at phrase structure this Verb Group can be split by adverbs and
even adjunct phrases of various kinds. These can appear at the very beginning
of the Verb Group, or possibly after any of the auxiliaries that make up the
Verb Group (depending on subtle factors to do with meaning and emphasis).
For instance, the adverb apparently can appear immediately before or after the
Verb Group, or after on of the auxiliaries (as well as at the beginning or end of
the clause).
(44) a. The cat apparently has been sitting on the mat

b. The cat has been sitting, apparently, on the mat
c. The cat has apparently been sitting on the mat
d. The cat has been apparently sitting on the mat
e. Apparently, the cat has been sitting on the mat
f. The cat has been sitting on the mat, apparently
Notice that in (44f), where the adverb is in absolute clause-final position, the
adverb is separated from the rest of the clause intonationally (indicated in
writing by the comma).
Other adverbs are more selective. Where an adverb refers to the overall truth
or likelihood of a clause it tends to have greatest freedom of placement. Thus,
the adverb apparently in (44) is equivalent to something like It is apparently
the case that . . . . Where an adverb modifies the lexical verb specifically, as with
9.7. AUXILIARIES AND THE VERB GROUP 93
adverbs of manner such as quietly, it tends to go as close to that verb as possible

when inside the Verb Group. Thus, quietly sounds bad at the verb beginning
of the Verb Group.
(45) a. * The cat quietly has been sitting on the mat

b. The cat has been sitting quietly on the mat
c. The cat has quietly been sitting on the mat
d. The cat has been quietly sitting on the mat
e. Quietly, the cat has been sitting on the mat
f. The cat has been sitting on the mat quietly
Notice that in (45f) the adverb isn’t separated intonationally in the way that
apparently is in (44f).
Sometimes the semantic contribution of an adverb will change depending
on the position in which it’s placed, especially in negative clauses.
(46) a. The cat obviously has been sitting on the mat

b. ?? The cat has been sitting obviously on the mat
c. The cat has obviously been sitting on the mat
d. The cat has been obviously sitting on the mat
e. Obviously, the cat has been sitting on the mat
f. The cat has been sitting on the mat, obviously
Because it comes immediately after the lexical verb it’s difficult to interpret
obviously in (46b) as modifying the meaning of the whole clause rather than
having some kind of manner meaning (The cat was sitting on the mat in an
obvious manner).
(47) a. The cat obviously hasn’t been sitting on the mat

b. The cat hasn’t obviously been sitting on the mat
In (47a) we’re saying that it’s obvious that the event hasn’t taken place (It’s
obvious that the cat hasn’t been on the mat), whereas in (47b) we’re denying that
it’s obvious that it has taken place (It’s not obvious that the cat has been on the
mat).
The adverbials that intervene inside the Verb Group have their own clause
level functions as adjuncts, and so in a complete analysis it would be neces-
sary to indicate their presence as in (48).
(48) The cat has apparently been sitting on the mat
S VbGp A VbGp A
Chapter 10
Tense, Aspect, Mood, Voice
10.1 Introduction
In the previous chapter we looked the forms of the constructions expressed

by auxiliaries. Here we look at the meanings expressed by those constructions
and the way they are used.
10.2 Passive
The subject of the active form can be expressed optionally by means of a by-
phrase (‘long-passive’) or the by-phrase can be omitted (‘short’ passive’).
The short form allows us to defocus the active subject.
(1) (Someone or something) killed the rat ⇒ The rat was killed
In this way we don’t have to mention who, if anyone, was responsible for the
killing. (It might be a person, or a cat, or it might be a natural event like
lightening or a flood). The passive form also tends to put accent/emphasis
on the predicate, emphasing the fact that killing took place, and putting less
emphasis on the fact that it was done to the rat.
The construction BE + passive participle is very close to the predicate adjec-
tive construction.
(2) a. The rat was killed

b. The rat was dead
Verbs typically denote events, things that happen at some point in time. The
passive form of a verb can denote an event. For instance, we would normally
interpret (2a) to mean that at some point in time a killing event took place.
This is particularly true if we mention the agency by which the rat died, as
95
96 10. TENSE, ASPECT, MOOD, VOICE
in The rat was killed by Tom/the cat/lightening. However, the short passive can
often denote a state rather than an event. For instance, a sentence such as (3)
is ambiguous between two slightly different readings, (4a) and (4b).
(3) The chicken was frozen
This sentence is ambiguous, in almost the same way that
(4) a. The chicken was frozen by the butcher [passive]

(cf. The butcher froze the chicken)
b. The chicken was pretty frozen [adjective]
in the drafty henhouse
* by the butcher
Another example can be seen in (5):
(5) The vase was broken
This could mean either that someone or something had earlier broken the vase
(the eventive reading) or it could be telling us what condition the vase was in
(the stative reading). Adjectives denote states, for instance, the state of being
tall (a permanent state) or the state of being tired (a temporary state).
This process can go further, so that some adjectives have the form of a pas-
sive participle but are usually used as adjectives:
(6) amazed, beleaguered, . . . , worried
10.3 Verbal aspect
In this subsection I recapitulate the aspectual auxiliary construction and then

we look in more detail at the meaning and use of the auxiliaries.
There are two marked aspects, progressive and perfect (and an unmarked
‘simple’ aspect, which is neither). Both can occur in past or nonpast tense.
Progressive. The progressive aspect denotes on-going activity (as opposed to
completed or timeless activity).
Formation: BE + V-ing
(7) is/was singing a song
The progressive aspect isn’t found with verbs which denote States (as opposed
to ‘dynamic’ events which evolve through time such as Activities, Processes
and so on)
10.3. VERBAL ASPECT 97
(8) a. * Tom is knowing the answer to these questions

b. * Tom is being tall nowadays
c. * This parcel is weighing 5 kg
d. * This book is costing £10
You can sometimes ‘coerce’ a special reading:
(9) a. Tom is being stupid again

b. Harriet is being half a cow in this year’s pantomime
Perfect. The perfect aspect denotes event which occurred prior to time of
utterance but which has relevance for present (current relevance).
Formation: HAVE + V-ed
(10) has/had sung a song
The perfect is often strengthened semantically by already (not yet).

In some languages aspectual categories such as progressive and perfect are
expressed by special forms of the lexical verb (i.e. morphologically), but in
English we have to use the auxiliary + participle construction. In other words,
English only has a periphrastic aspectual system (and likewise only has a pe-
riphrastic marked voice form, the passive).
The meaning of aspect can be better appreciated by using three time points:
S - speech time (time of utterance), E - event time (time when event took place),
R - reference time:
(11) Tom has washed the dishes:
E R/S (=present)
Reference time = Speech time = present:

Tom washed the dishes at E and they are currently clean (or even wet).
(12) (When Harriet got home) Tom had washed the dishes:
E R S
Tom washed the dishes at E and they were clean at the Reference time, R
(Harriet’s arrival).
The meaning/use of the perfect is rather subtle and context-dependent. In
some cases there’s virtually no difference between simple past and present
perfect:
(13) a. I washed the dishes (so we can start cooking at once)

b. I’ve washed the dishes . . .
If a specific time is mentioned then only the simple past is possible:
(14) a. I washed the dishes five minutes ago (so we can start cooking at
once)
b. ?? I’ve washed the dishes five minutes ago . . .
On the other hand in British English it’s much less natural to use already/yet
with a simple past:
(15) a. I’ve washed the dishes already

b. ?? I washed the dishes already
c. I haven’t washed the dishes yet
d. I didn’t wash the dishes yet
‘Current relevance’ depends on how we interpret ‘current’. A famous example:
(16) a. Princeton has been visited by Einstein

b. ?? Einstein has visited Princeton
Example (16b) sounds odd because it seems to tell us something currently

relevant about someone who has been dead for some time. However, (16a) is
much more natural because it tells us something currently relevant about an
existing institution.
Combined aspects.
The only grammatical order is Progressive + Perfect:
(17) a. Tom has/had been washing the dishes

b. * Tom is having washed the dishes
i.e.
Perf Prog Verb
HAVE -ed
BE -ing
SING
Combining tenses/aspects with passive:
(18) was being written

has been written
?? was been being written
In addition to the progressive and perfect aspects it makes sense to distin-

guish a past habitual tense/aspect:
10.4. TENSE 99
(19) Tom used to play the flute
This can just about cooccur with the progressive:
(20) Tom used to be making a nuisance of himself all the time
The habitual doesn’t readily cooccur with modals:
(21) *Tom may/could/would/can. . . used to
This should be distinguished from BE USED to V-ing:
(22) Tom is used to getting up late
This might be thought of as a kind of customary aspect. This occurs in other

tense/aspect forms:
 



 was 



(23) Tom had been used to getting up late
 


 

 *is being 
 

Whether we treat customary and past habitual constructions as grammatical

aspects depends on the extent to which we think they’ve been grammatical-
ized.
For combinations with modals, see § 10.6
10.4 Tense
There are two tenses, preterite (past) and present (non-preterite, non-past).
There is no future tense.
It is sometimes difficult to distinguish tense from aspect.
The present tense form has a variety of meanings/functions. First, we
should distinguish between occurrences/happenings (sometimes called ‘dy-
namic events’) and states. For instance, in (24) the verb is in the present tense
because it denotes an event that is happening right now.
(24) I promise to pay you back tomorrow [occurrence/happening]
This reference to the time of utterance is actually not the usual meaning of
the present tense, however (which distinguishes English from a great many
languages). The present tense frequently refers to a state.
(25) Penguins live in the Antarctic

(26) France is hexagonal
(27) One plus one equals ten
Other examples of the present tense being used to denote dynamic (non-state)
events are seen in (28).
(28) Penguins eat fish [habitual event]

(29) Federer serves to Nadal [sports commentary]
(30) We add some flour to the hot oil and make a paste [live demonstration]
(31) We begin by looking at the English past tense [virtual demonstration
(written text)]
Preterite forms generally denote an event which occurred before the time of
utterance. There is no other implication, usually, though with verbs denoting
a completed action the preterite/past tense usually implies that the action is
over and done with: Harriet ate the apple.
English (sometimes) exhibits the phenomenon of sequence of tenses or ‘back-
shifting’. In this construction we have a main clause verb with a meaning such
as ‘say’, taking a subordinate clause. When the main clause verb is in the past
tense, the subordinate clause verb is put in the past too, whatever the meaning:
(32) Tom thinks that . . .

a. Dick left yesterday
b. Dick leaves every morning at 8.00
c. Dick will leave tomorrow
(33) Tom thought that . . .
a. Dick left yesterday
b. Dick left every morning at 8.00
c. Dick left tomorrow
Note in particular that in (33c) ‘tomorrow’ can refer to the day after the day
when the speaker utters the sentence, i.e. it can have genuinely future reference
despite the fact that ‘left’ is in the past tense (Cf. Oh, she’s gone already! But I
thought she was leaving tomorrow).
10.5 Nominalized forms of verbs
Strictly speaking the nominalization of a verb ought to come under the heading
of ‘Derivation’, but in English (as in many languages) productive nominaliza-
tion is actually closer to inflection. It makes sense, therefore, to think of the
nominalized form of a verb, just as we can think of the passive form or the
preterite form.
10.5. NOMINALIZED FORMS OF VERBS 101
The gerund/verbal noun is a nominalized form of the verb, which, however,

still keeps its argument structure (SUBJ, OBJ complements).
The term ‘gerund’ is often used just for the adverbial use:
(34) Walking home one night, I bumped into an old friend

With students taking more Linguistics courses, we’ll need more
books for the library
Very often it’s interchangeable with the infinitive.

( )
Taking candy
(35) from a baby (isn’t always that easy)
To take
The gerund/verbal noun functions as a clausal SUBJ (see above) or as a com-

plement to the verb or to a preposition:
(36) Tom remembered/tried/advised closing the door quietly

the trick of closing the door quietly
after/instead of/by/despite closing the door quietly
Nominal properties of verbal noun

In one usage the SUBJ function can be realized by a possessive phrase.
(37) Tom’s/your buying that book for Harriet (was surprising)
(This is sometimes referred to as the Poss-Acc verbal noun)

In another related usage the OBJ function is realized as an of-phrase. Often
the VN is modified by the definite article.
(38) The playing of loud music late at night (is forbidden)
In this usage the VN is modified by adjectives, not by adverbs.
(39) the continual (*continually) playing of loud music
Verbal properties
When the OBJ is realized in the manner of the OBJ of a verb, the Gerund/VN
is modified by adverbs (like a verb) not by adjectives.
(40) Continually (*continual) playing loud music (is forbidden)
No definite article is possible in this construction (though a possessor is possi-

ble).
(41) a. Tom’s (continually) playing loud music

b. * the (continually) playing loud music
The perfect aspect has a verbal noun form derived from the -ing form of the
auxiliary have.
(42) a. having said that, . . . .

b. Tom having left we started discussing Harriet’s new book
c. Tom’s having left early we had to postpone the rest of the discussion
d. Tom remembered having closed the door
Summary of uses of the -ing (gerund/participial) form (CGEL:1220).
(43) Gerund use

a. [Inviting the twins] was a bad mistake
b. We’re thinking of [giving them one more chance]
c. She found [talking to Pat] surprisingly stressful
(44) Participial use
a. Those [living alone] are most at risk
b. [Not having read his book], I can’t comment
c. She is [mowing the lawn]
d. We saw him [leaving the post office]
e. I caught them [reading my mail]
10.6 Modal auxiliaries and their functions
10.6.1 Types of modality
Modal words express concepts of obligation, necessity, possibility, permission

and so on. It’s not possible to find a general covering definition for all of them,
because it’s a relatively arbitrary matter which meanings get grammaticalized
in which languages. For instance, in German the notion of desire is grammati-
calized in the auxiliary system, but not in English. One important property of
many modals is to modify the speaker’s attitude to the truth of a proposition or
the degree to which a situation is actualized. In other words, instead of saying
simply that P true or that X happened, the speaker says that P is probably, pos-
sibly true, probably not true, might be true under certain circumstances and so
on, or they say that it’s definitely the case that X happened, or it’s possibly the
case, or it’s unlikely to be the case. In some cases the modal indicates that the
speaker believes something by virtue of figuring it out from indirect evidence.
Such meanings often involve prediction, surmise, deduction, presupposition.
The traditional name for this set of usages is epistemic meaning (from the term
10.6. MODAL AUXILIARIES AND THEIR FUNCTIONS 103
meaning ‘to do with knowledge’). Another important use is to express notions

of permission and obligation, called deontic meaning. Another set of modals
have the meaning of physical ability, often called dynamic meaning. Other
terms are often used, however. Some authors distinguish epistemic meanings
from all the others, root meanings. Berry (107) calls these extrinsic meaning (=
epistemic) vs. intrinsic meaning (= root/deontic).
The problem of the meaning of modals is difficult because (a) the collection
of meanings that have been grammaticalized as auxiliary verbs is essentially
arbitrary, (b) the modals tend to be multiply polysemous, that is, each of them
tends to express a wide variety of meanings in essentially unpredictable ways,
and (c) the meanings of some of the modals shade into each other, so it’s im-
possible in some contexts even to describe the ‘real’ meaning of the particular
modal, (d) modals, whether auxiliaries or other types of expression, tend to be
used as part of politeness constructions, obscuring their original meaning.
Modal auxiliaries tend to be ambiguous between a more concrete meaning
and a more abstract meaning. Compare:
(45) a. Tom can lift this table [physical ability, dynamic]

b. Tom can take this table [permission, deontic]
(46) a. Harriet must leave by 8.00 [obligation, deontic]
b. Harriet must have already left [deduction, epistemic]
In (45a, 46a) we see the basic meanings of can = is (physically) able to, must = is
obliged (morally or by circumstances) to. In (45b, 46b) however we see meanings
which involve a higher degree of abstraction, can = permission (is ‘morally’
able to) and must = speaker inference, the speaker infers that Harriet has left
(say, from the fact that her coat isn’t on the coathanger).
We can easily construct genuinely ambiguous examples:
(47) [Piano teacher to pupil] Can you place a C# major scale?

a. . . . please
b. Have you learnt that yet? [Intellectual ability]
c. Has your broken wrist healed sufficiently yet? [Physical ability]
d. Are you allowed to do that in the Beginners’ Competition? [Per-
mission]
10.6.2 Modality and negation
A very interesting aspect of the use of modals relates to the interaction between
modal meanings and negation. This is not as transparent as it might be (and
root epistemic
can ability possibility
permission
may permission possibility
will willingness prediction
intention
insistence
shall intention prediction
insistence
(obligation)
could past ability possibility (hypothetical)
past permission
might permission possibility
would (past) willingness past prediction
(past) insistence probability
volition with preference characteristic past activity
should obligation logical necessity
real conditions
must obligation logical necessity
<ought to> obligation logical necessity
<have to> obligation
Table 10.1: List of principal meanings of modals

usage in English differs from that in some other languages, for instance). As
a preliminary, CGEL:175 makes a useful distinction in the types of meanings
expressed by modals, in terms of strength, kind, degree.
• Strong - necessity, obligation
• Weak - possibility
We can then relate strength and negation (CGEL:176).
The relation between possibility and necessity
(48) He must leave before the end of the lecture

It is necessary that he leave before the end of the lecture
(49) He mustn’t leave before the end of the lecture

It is necessary that he doesn’t leave before the end of the lecture
i.e. mustn’t = MUST [NOT [LEAVE]]
(50) He can leave before the end of the lecture

It is possible/permitted that he leave before the end of the lecture
(51) He can’t leave before the end of the lecture

It is not possible/permitted that he leave before the end of the lec-
ture
i.e. can’t = NOT [CAN [LEAVE ]]
Notice that can’t doesn’t mean CAN [NOT [LEAVE]] (despite the order of can
and n’t). One way to express the logical order can [NOT [. . . ]] is to use a
non-modal construction.
(52) He is permitted not to leave before the end of the lecture
However, we can separate not from can and pronounce them as two distinct
words, preferably with stress on not (i.e. distinct from the stress pattern on
can’t, cannot).
(53) He can nót leave before the end of the lecture
Note the following contrast:
(54) a. A person can nót go to church regularly and still be a Christian

b. A person can’t/cannot go to church regularly and still be a Chris-
tian
Example (54a) is a liberal, non-dogmatic claim about (modern) Christianity.

Example (54b) is absurd (unless you’re a member of some fanatical anti-clerical
sect).
In a formula such as NOT [CAN [LEAVE]] and its corresponding semantic

interpretation we say that the modal auxiliary can is in the scope of negation.
Colloquially we also say that negation scopes over the modal. In a formula
such as MUST [NOT [LEAVE]] and its corresponding semantic interpretation
we say that negation is in the scope of the modal, or that the modal scopes
over negation.
Because negation has different scope with different modals it means that we
have to be careful when defining the negative form of a given expression. In
one sense (49) is the negation of (46a) but in another sense it isn’t, and the
negative correspondent of (46a) is (55).
(55) He doesn’t have to leave . . .
This has the scope NOT [MUST [LEAVE]].

(Note that have to isn’t a true modal auxiliary because it isn’t an auxiliary
verb, but it has the same kind of meaning and function as a modal auxiliary,
so it’s a non-auxiliary modal expression.)
Excursus: Different languages treat modal predicates in different ways. For
instance, German müssen means the same as English must.
(56) Du muss antworten

you must reply
‘You must reply’
But when negated müssen behaves more like English can.
(57) Du muss nicht antworten

you must not reply
‘You don’t have to reply’ ,‘You mustn’t reply’
In some languages the corresponding negative modal may be ambiguous be-

tween the English and the German interpretations (e.g. Russian).
[See also Berry 42-45]
Exercise: work out the scope relationships between negation

and the other modals.
10.6.3 Mood and tense
Modal auxiliaries show only a rather residual tense opposition. We can think
of could as the past tense/preterite of can in some cases.
(58) a. I can remember her name now

b. I could remember her name yesterday
(59) a. We can go to the USA without having to get a visa

b. We could go to the USA without having to get a visa ( a few years
ago)
But this won’t always give the right results.
(60) a. Dick will finish the work tomorrow

b. Dick is going to finish the work tomorrow
(61) a. Dick would finish the work tomorrow
b. Dick was going to finish the work tomorrow
Example (61b) is simply the future prediction expressed in (60a) projected back
into the past. But (61a) means something rather different than (60a) in the past;
it has a conditional meaning completely lacking in (61b). Other modals lack
any obvious past tense (preterite) form.
However, could/would/should do behave like past tense forms in one con-
struction, backshifting. How do auxiliaries behave? In (63) we see the progres-
sive/perfect auxiliaries and also can/will/shall have past tense forms when the
main verb is past tense, suggesting that could/would/should in those examples
are formally speaking past tenses of can/will/shall in (62).
(62) Tom thinks that . . .

a. Dick has already left
b. Dick is leaving tomorrow
c. Dick can leave later
d. Dick will leave later
e. I shall leave later
(63) Tom thought that . . .

a. Dick had already left
b. Dick was leaving tomorrow
c. Dick could leave later
d. Dick would leave later
e. I should leave later
(I find the ‘past tense’ should in (63e) rather old-fashioned).
10.6.4 Non-auxiliary modal expressions
We can express modal meanings in a variety of ways that don’t involve the
standard modal auxiliaries.
(64) Non-auxiliary expression of modal meanings:

• have to
• ought to
• BE to
(65) You have to leave now [= must]

You ought to leave now [= should]
She is to leave at 6.00 [prearranged schedule or obligation]
You are to submit the assignment by 4.00 [obligation]
10.6.5 Future time reference
Pedagogic grammars (and some academic articles) sometimes refer to the ‘fu-
ture tense’ in English. But does English have a future tense?
Clearly, there’s no morphological future tense form.
In terms of meaning the will/shall auxiliaries for the most part express the
same property that is expressed by a future tense in other languages:
(66) a. Dick will arrive later

b. I shall give you the book tomorrow
Given that auxiliaries can be used to (partially) express the two aspects, why
shouldn’t we say that will/shall express a future tense (even though we nor-
mally reserve the term ‘tense’ for a category that is expressed morphologi-
cally)? This is certainly a possible analysis, in which case we would be saying
that English has a periphrastic future tense.
However, there really isn’t any very good reason for treating the will/shall
constructions as a tense as such (cf. CGEL:208–210). Instead, the future time
reference can be thought of as just a very general and non-concrete type of
modal meaning. (It’s interesting to note that historically the auxiliary devel-
oped from a verb meaning ‘want’).
There are a good many other ways of referring to future time. We can use
the present form of verb (in simple or progressive aspect):
(67) Harriet arrives/is arriving tomorrow
Equally, we can use a variety of periphrastic expressions, particularly be+infinitive,

be going to, be about to.
(68) a. We are to get to the airport by 9.00

b. They are going to decided tomorrow
c. They are about to leave very soon
Each of these has slightly different modal and temporal nuances. For instance,
the simple present tends to be interpreted as expressing some prearranged
scheduled event (The bus leaves at 9.00 tomorrow morning). On the other hand,
some of the constructions, notably about to, tend to imply immediate future
compared with the other constructions (and, indeed, about to tends not to be
used with an explicit temporal adverbial because it’s understood that the ac-
tion will take place soon).
(69) a. The sun will explode in about 4 billion years’ time

b. The sun is going to explode in about 4 billion years’ time
c. ?? The sun explodes in about 4 billion years’ time
d. ?? The sun is exploding in about 4 billion years’ time
e. ?? The sun is about to explode in about 4 billion years’ time
Part II
The complex clause and texts
111
Chapter 11
Subordinate clauses I
11.1 Types of subordinate clause
In this chapter we look mainly at clauses used as arguments to verbs (subjects

and complements) and clauses used as adjuncts (adverbial clauses), including
conditional clauses, which raise special descriptive questions.
Additional background/preliminary reading for this chapter in Berry 2011,
58-62, 135-138:
• Subordinate clauses 58-62

– Nominal clauses
– Adverbial clauses
– Appositive clauses (with discussion of complements to N),
– Complement clauses
• ‘Incomplete’ clauses i.e. non-finite 61-2
• Verbless clauses 62
• Reported speech and backshift 135-8
11.2 Clauses as elements of a clause
Many verbs relate an individual to a proposition, e.g. verbs of saying, believ-

ing, hoping, desiring, etc. Such propositions are generally expressed by some
form of a sentence, traditionally called subordinate clauses. Since these are
essentially sentences inside larger sentences they are often called embedded
clauses/sentences. There are two main types, finite and non-finite, depend-
ing on which kind of verb form heads the clause and these two types have
different syntactic properties.
113
114 11. SUBORDINATE CLAUSES I
Clauses can appear in the SUBJ or OBJ function or as adjuncts (adverbial

clauses). Some examples are:
(1) That the earth is flat became obvious to us all

SUBJ VERB COMPLEMENT
(2) Dick believes that the earth is flat
SUBJ VERB CLAUSAL COMPLEMENT
(3) We won’t sail to America because the earth is flat
ADVERBIAL CLAUSE
Clausal complements can correspond to propositions as above, or to questions:
(4) They asked whether the earth was flat

(5) They don’t know when to leave
They can also express content that would correspond to a request/command

in the imperative:
(6) Go away!
(
to go away
a. Harriet told Dick
that he should/must/ought to go away
b. Harriet asked Dick to leave
(See below on ‘reported/indirect speech’)

The most important of these types of subordinate clause are the comple-
ments to verbs and the adjuncts. (We’ll see other important types later: relative
clauses).
[The structure of indirect questions such as (4, 5) is dealt with in the next
chapter.]
Note on terminology: we’re talking here about clauses/sentences that are
used as clause elements/grammatical relations. Thus, we have clauses/sentences
that are used as subjects, complements or adjuncts. For the first two types we
often use the terms
• clausal/sentential subject
• clausal/sentential complement
(sometimes you might see ‘clausal/sentential object’ though that’s slightly mis-
leading)
For adverbial/adjunct uses we say adverbial clause (the traditional term).
(We could have said clausal/sentential adverbial/adjunct but we tend not to.)
11.3 Types of clausal complement and adjunct
Here are some examples of complement clauses:

11.4. EXTRAPOSED CLAUSES 115
(7) a. Tom remembered that he had closed the door [finite]

b. Tom remembered to close the door [non-finite - infinitival]
c. Tom remembered closing the door [non-finite - ing-clause]
The finite clause in (7a) is introduced by the function word that, which is often
called a complementizer (‘COMP’, ‘C’). We will see several different sorts of
complementizer. In some types of subordinate clause a complementizer of
some kind is obligatory, while in others, for instance, in the non-finite clauses
seen in (1b, c), a complementizer is impossible (though we’ll see a variant on
(7b) in which another type of complementizer is obligatory).
The traditional term for ‘complementizer’ is ‘subordinating conjunction’
though this is not a very accurate term, since these complementizers tend to
have different properties from other conjunctions, i.e. coordinating conjunc-
tions, and because other elements can be complementizers without serving as
‘conjunctions’ in any obvious sense. I shall use the simpler term ‘subordinator’
for these elements.
The non-finite clauses typically lack an overt subject. ‘Overt’ means a word
or phrase that’s actually pronounced rather than ‘covert’, a phrase that the
linguist imagines is there. However, it’s usually obvious what the subject cor-
responds to. Traditionally, we refer to the ‘understood subject’ of the clause.
We’ll examine this notion later under the heading of ‘subject gap’ when we
come to look at the internal structure of subordinate clauses in more detail.
11.4 Extraposed clauses
For reasons mainly to do with emphasis it is often stylistically unnatural for

a SUBJ to be a clause. We then find that the SUBJ clause appears in final
position and the SUBJ position is occupied by a meaningless ‘dummy’ element
or expletive, it.
(8) a. That the earth is flat became obvious to us all

b. It became obvious to us all that the earth is flat
(9) a. To close this door is difficult
b. It is difficult to close this door
Extraposition of an ing-clause is much rarer. We do, admittedly, get examples

such as (’refdifficult)
(10) It’s difficult, closing this door
but this is an example of a different construction with different intonation and

different syntax (as indicated by the extra comma). Example (10) is comparable
to (11).
(11) It’s difficult, this chapter (cf. This chapter is difficult)
In (11) it’s clear that the word it is referential (it refers to this chapter) and not
an dummy/expletive. However, the boundary between the two constructions
can sometimes be difficult to discern.
Note that some predicates only permit the extraposed form, e.g. seem, be
likely.
)
It seems
(12) a. that the earth is flat
It is likely
(
seems
b. *That the earth is flat
is likely
11.5 Clauses as adjuncts
In (3) we’ve seen a finite adjunct clause (adverbial clause of reason). Other
examples include:
(13) They left when it started raining [temporal/time]

(14) They left early so that they wouldn’t have to rush [purpose]
(15) They took an umbrella even though it wasn’t raining [concession]
(16) They will take an umbrella if it rains [conditional]
These are traditional descriptive labels, though they aren’t always particu-
larly useful. Some types of adjunct clause don’t have widely accepted names
anyway. The conditional clause is particularly important in English so we’ll
discuss it separately.
There are also subordinators that can or must take infinitival or ing-clauses.
(17) They left early (in order) to beat the rush hour
(18) They stopped for ten minutes (in order) for the engine to cool down
(19) They beat the rush hour by leaving early
(20) They criticized us for leaving early
(21) Despite (our) leaving early we arrived late
Many adjunct subordinate clauses can be introduced by subordinators which

double as prepositions or sometimes adverbs:
(22) subordinator preposition

after we left the cinema after the film/lunch/midday
after leaving the cinema
before we went to work before work/lunch/midday
before going to work
11.6. CONDITIONAL CLAUSES 117
But this isn’t true of all subordinators:
(23) subordinator preposition

while we watched the film during the film
while watching the film <*while the film>
[For discussion of the interpretation of subjects in non-finite adjunct clauses

see Chapter 12, § 12.3.]
11.6 Conditional clauses
<Some of these examples are from Quirk et al 1972; others from CGEL>
Real conditions
Non-past
(24) If you water this plant regularly, it produces beautiful red flowers
(25) a. If you water this plant regularly, it will produce beautiful red flow-
ers
b. If you have watered this plant regularly, it will produce beautiful
red flowers
Past
(26) If it rained we used to take/took the bus to school

(27) If it rained we would take the bus to school
(28) If it had rained we wore/would wear our wellingtons
‘Unreal, hypothetical’ conditions
(29) a. If you had watered this plant regularly, it would produce beautiful
red flowers
b. If you had watered this plant regularly, it would have produced
beautiful red flowers
which imply ‘but you didn’t’.

‘Intermediate’ type
(30) I you watered this plant regularly, it would produce beautiful red flow-
ers
(31) I you were to water this plant regularly, it would produce beautiful red
flowers
Conditionals and concessives
(32) I wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man on Earth
CGEL 738ff distinguish open and remote conditionals.
(33) If he tells her she’ll be furious

If he told her she’d be furious
The difference is that the remote conditional “. . . entertains the condition as

being satisfied in a world which is potentially different from the actual world.”
(CGEL 728)
Very often this means that the remote conditional is postulating a hypothet-
ical world which the speaker presupposes does not actually exist. Hence, such
conditionals are often called hypotheticals or unreal conditions. But this is an
oversimplification (CGEL749).
(34) I don’t know whether he broke it or not, but I doubt it; if he had done
he would probably have told her about it.
Here, the whole point is that the speaker doesn’t know whether the possible
world they are postulating is unreal or is the actual world.
For learners of English conditionals often pose serious problems simply be-
cause of interference from grammars which express such constructions in dif-
ferent ways. Thus, in many languages there’s a conditional or subjunctive
mood and both clauses have to be in that mood. For this reason, even very
advance learners often say things like:
(35) *I you would water this plant regularly, it would produce beautiful red
flowers
(36) *I you would have watered this plant regularly, it would have produced
beautiful red flowers
Unless
This is effectively the negative form of if.
(37) We will go for a picnic if it doesn’t rain/unless it rains
but not usually in remote conditions:
(38) If you hadn’t watered this plant regularly it would have died ,
Unless you watered this plant regularly it would have died
11.7. TYPES OF CLAUSAL COMPLEMENTS SELECTED BY VERBS AND OTHER WORDS119
11.7 Types of clausal complements selected by verbs and

other words
Most but not all examples of clausal complements so far have been comple-
ments to verbs such as say, claim, believe, expect, . . . . Such verbs are often used
for reported speech (indirect speech) as opposed to direct speech. Reported
speech refers to a clause type which reports what could have been said di-
rectly. Simple examples are:
(39) a. Harriet: “Tom is writing a letter”

b. Harriet says that Tom is writing a letter
(40) a. Dick: “When is Harriet going to work?”
b. Dick asked when Harriet was going to work
(41) a. Tom (to Harriet): “Explain this diagram to me”
b. Tom asked Harriet to explain the diagram to him
However, many verbs that take complements don’t correspond to verbs of

direct speech:
(42) Tom surmised/assumed/believed/imagined/. . . that Harriet had left.
There are very many verbs that take such sentential/clausal complements.
However, a number of nouns and adjectives also take finite and non-finite
clausal complements.
Nouns:
(43) a. the claim that the earth is flat

b. an attempt to leave early
c. a plan for leaving early
(44) a. proud that they had finished the assignment
b. proud to have finished the assignment
c. proud at finishing the assignment
d. proud of finishing the assignment
e. easy (for us) to solve
f. late finishing the assignment
With verbs, nouns and adjectives we sometimes find that different types of
complement have different meanings.
(45) Tom remembered that he had closed the door

In (1) we have the recollection of an abstract event - note that for (1) to be
true it doesn’t necessarily have to be the case that Tom remembers the actually
event of closing the door, cf:
(46) Tom remembered that he had been born on a Monday
With the gerundive, we tend to interpret the complement clause to denote a

concrete event which is the object of Tom’s recollection:
(47) Tom remembered closing the door
cf
(48) !!Tom remembered being born on a Monday
With the infinitive the construction means ‘didn’t forget to carry out intended
act’:
(49) Tom obviously remembered to close the door (though he has no recol-
lection of having done so)
However, in other cases it may be arbitrary which type of complement a verb

takes. Consider:
(
to write letters to the editor
(50) Harriet ceased
writing letters to the editor
(
*to write letters to the editor
(51) Harriet stopped
writing letters to the editor
( )
likely
(52) This balloon is to burst
*probable




 a. you leave the office
(53) Please turn off the lights when  b. leaving the office



 c.

*to leave the office




 a. *you leave the office
(54) Please turn off the lights on  b. leaving the office



 c.

*to leave the office
11.8 Comparative clauses
Comparative words such as more and the comparative form of an adjective can
often take a subordinate clause complement introduced by the complementizer
than.
(55) Tom likes reading novels more than Dick likes reading plays
11.8. COMPARATIVE CLAUSES 121
(56) a. Tom likes reading novels more than Dick likes reading them
b. Tom likes reading novels more than Dick does
c. Tom likes reading novels more than Dick
Notice that we usually elide the repeated part of the VP in the first clause (as
in (56b, c)).
With adjectives the typical construction treats than as a preposition whose
complement is the thing contrasted.
(57) The tree is taller than the church tower
However, than can often introduce a clause (usually elliptical, as in the exam-
ples above).
(58) The tree is taller than the church tower was (before it got demolished)
(59) The TV is wider than the cupboard is tall (slightly artificial example)
Occasionally, ellipsis can give rise to ambiguities:
(60) Harriet likes chocolate more than Tom
Provide an analysis of the two readings of (60) to explain why

the sentence is ambiguous.
Chapter 12
Subordinate clauses II
12.1 Sentential complements with missing subjects
12.1.1 Basic patterns
Here we look at a variety of complement clauses which have non-finite verbs in

them. These often lack an overt subject phrase. However, it’s often clear what
the subject would be if it were there, and traditional grammar often speaks
of the understood subject in such clauses. Recall that there are two types of
non-finite clause.
• Infinitival clause - ‘to VERB’
• ing-clause - ‘VERB-ing’
(1) a. Tom remembered [ to close the door]

b. Tom remembered [ closing the door]
(2) a. Harriet likes [ to read poetry]
b. Harriet likes [ reading poetry]
(3) a. Dick started [ writing a letter]
b. Dick started [ to write a letter]
In (1) the two types of clause have slightly different meanings: (1a) means
essentially ‘didn’t forget’ while (1b) means ‘had a recollection of a past event’.
In other cases it’s difficult or impossible to discern any semantic difference
between the two types of clause, for instance, (2, 3).
Many verbs take only one of the two types of non-finite clause.
(4) a. * Harriet enjoys [ to read poetry]

b. Harriet enjoys [ reading poetry]
(5) a. Dick pretended [ to read a book
b. * Dick pretended [ reading a book
123
124 12. SUBORDINATE CLAUSES II
It’s often difficult to discern any good semantic reason for the complementa-
tion pattern shown by any particular verb. For instance, why do cease and
like take both types of non-finite complement while stop and enjoy take only
the ing-clause?
We will see that there are several types of infinitival complement, depending
on the main (matrix) verb. The principal patterns are those seen in (??).
(6) a. Tom tried to lift the boulder

b. Dick began to explain
c. Harriet seemed to believe the story
Huddleston and Pullum (2002: Ch14, §2.1, 2005: Ch13, §4]) refer to the con-
structions with infinitival complements to verbs like try, begin, seem as cate-
native constructions. This term comes from the Latin word catena ‘chain’, and
alludes to the fact that we can have chains of infinitival complements. Actu-
ally, there’s nothing special about this since it’s just an instance of recursion.
Recursion refers to the process of embedding a construction inside a larger
construction, which in turn can be embedded inside a larger construction, and
so on, like a never-ending series of Russian dolls. What’s special about the
catenative construction is that the infinitival verb phrases can be joined to each
other without needing a subject of their own:
(7) They appear to want to try to appear to be beginning to try to stop . . .
(It doesn’t matter that such sentences get completely uninterpretable – the
point is that they obey the rules of English grammar.)
Although these verbs are used mainly with a gap for a subject, it’s often
possible to express an overt subject as well. In case the verb is in the ing form
the subject is expressed directly. In case the verb is in the infinitive form the
subject is introduced by the subordinator for:
(8) For Tom to close the door would be difficult

(9) Tom closing the door would be surprising
With ing-clauses the SUBJ function can also be expressed by a ‘Saxon genitive’:
(10) a. Tom’s closing the door surprised us

b. We were surprised at Tom’s closing the door
c. We regretted Tom’s closing the door
Otherwise the SUBJ of an ing-complement can be expressed by an ordinary

NP, just as in a finite clause:.
(11) We remembered Tom closing the door

12.1. SENTENTIAL COMPLEMENTS WITH MISSING SUBJECTS 125
We’ll return briefly to the case of overt subjects with infinitival clauses later.
For the present we’ll mainly be considering the situation when there is no overt
subject.
Make a list of verbs which take non-finite clausal complements.
Which take just the infinitival complement and which take just
the ing-complement? Which can take both types of comple-
ment? Of those which take both the infinitival and the ing-
complement, which show some kind of meaning difference be-
tween the two types of complement? (Be careful to consider
just examples in which the clause really is a complement to the
verb and not an adjunct. You can usually identify an adjunct
clause because it’s usually possible to place it at the beginning
of the sentence, and in the case of infinitivals, you can usually
replace to with in order to: Tom left to catch a train ∼ Tom left in
order to catch a train.)
12.1.2 Control of the subject gap
As should be clear from the examples given so far the subordinate clause has a
missing subject. However, the identity of that subject is identical to the subject
of the main clause. We say that the subject of the main clause controls the
subject gap in the subordinate, complement clause.
We usually indicate control using subscripts.
(12) a. Tomi wanted [ i to leave early]

b. Dicki hoped [ i to meet Harriet]
c. Harrieti managed [ i to leave early]
I’ve indicated the gap by means of a line: . However, you’ll often see the
gap indicated in other ways. In certain respects the gap is sometimes thought
to be a little like a pronoun (cf Dick hoped [to meet Harriet]∼Dick hoped [that he
would meet Harriet]) and a conventional representation is PRO: Dick hoped [PRO
to meet Harriet].
12.1.3 Seem-type vs. try-type verbs
We begin by looking at verbs which take just a non-finite complement clause

and no other complements (such as a direct object object noun phrase). I shall
call these verbs intransitive verbs, because they don’t take a genuine direct
object. There are several types of such verbs in English, and some of these
have typologically rather unusual syntax. Since these verbs are rather frequent
and express important meanings it’s important for us to understand how they
work, even though they are not as numerous as the more standard types of
verb.
There are two broad classes, illustrated by (13), (14).
(13) Harriet seemed [S to be calm]

SUBJi VERB [ SUBJi VERB COMPLEMENT]
(14) Harriet tried [S to be calm

The difference between the two is essentially to do with the meanings of the
subjects. In (14) Harriet is (actively) making an attempt to bring about some
situation, and that situation is one in which she, Harriet, is calm. Another
way of thinking of this is that Harriet and the empty SUBJ function have two
distinct semantic roles, a ‘trier’ role (roughly an Agent) and a ‘being calm’ role
(roughly a Theme).
(15) Harriet tried to be calm

SUBJi VERB [SUBJi VERB COMPLEMENT]
Agent Theme
In fact, the SUBJ function of try is always associated with an agent, while
the missing subject of the complement clause can be associated with a distinc
semantic role, as seen in (16).
(16) a. Harriet tried [ to catch the fish] gap = agent

b. Harriet tried [ to like Dick] gap = experiencer
By contrast the verb seem imposes no semantic role on its subject at all. That
role is inherited from the subject gap in the complement clause.
(17) Harriet seems [ to have caught a fish] Harriet/gap = agent

(18) Harriet seems [ to like Dick] Harriet/gap = experiencer
(19) Harriet seems [ to have received some mail] Harriet/gap = recipient
(20) This key seems [ to open your door] this key/gap = instrument
If we consider the syntactic behaviour of constructions headed by seem it’s

not surprising that seem fails to assign a role of its own to its subjet. A sentence
such as (13) is roughly synonymous with (21), in which we can see that there
is only one semantic role distributed across the two subjects:
(21) a. It seemed that Harriet was calm

b. It seemed that Harriet was calm

SUBJ VERB [SUBJ VERB COMPLEMENT]
—– THEME
Here, we can see that the semantic role of the subject of seem has to be what-
ever role is assigned to the subject of the subordinate clause by its verb. Cru-
cially, the verb try doesn’t permit a paraphrase along the lines of (21).
(22) *It tried that Harriet was calm
We often say that a verb such as seem has a non-thematic subject (from the
term ‘thematic role’, a synonym of ‘semantic role’).
Verbs such as try behave in a more or less normal fashion in that they have
their own subject to which they assign a specific semantic role. Verbs such as
seem are unusual – they effectively inherit their subject from the complement
clause. It is as though the subject starts out life as the subject of the comple-
ment and then ‘raises’ to the higher position of subject of seem. The ‘raising’
metaphor has a long history in modern linguistics and it’s a useful way of pic-
turing the behaviour of seem-type verbs. For this reason we often refer to such
verbs as raising verbs.1
12.1.4 Persuade-type verbs
Compare (23a–23c):
(23) a. Harriet persuaded Dick that he should arrive early

b. Harriet persuaded Dick to arrive early
c. Harriet persuaded Dick
Sentences (23a, 23b) mean the same thing, and each entails (23c). The analysis
of (23a) presents no problem: Dick is the object of persuade and there is an
additional clausal complement whose subject happens to be identical to Dick.
It doesn’t have to be this way, since the subject of the complement clause could
be different.
(24) Harriet persuaded Dick that Tom should arrive early
However, (23b) is slightly different because here there is no (overt) subject in

the clausal complement: [ to arrive early]. Moreover, we can’t add a subject:
1 More accurately, we refer to them as raising-to-subject verbs because the subject of the
complement clause is related to the subject of the main clause. We will see that there are other
verbs in which the subject of the complement clause is related to the object of the main clauses,
and those verbs are usually referred to as raising-to-object verbs.
(25) * Harriet persuaded Dick Tom to arrive early
Clearly, the complement clause has a missing subject. Moreover, that missing
subject in (23b) has to be identified with Dick, in that it’s Dick that is supposed
to arrive early, not anyone else. In particular (23b) doesn’t mean the same as
(26).
(26) Harrieti persuaded Dick that shei would arrive early
Using the notational conventions adopted above we can represent (23b) as (27):
(27) Harriet persuaded Dicki [ i to arrive early]
In cases such as (23b/27) we can see, then, that it is the main clause OBJ NP
Dick that controls the empty subject in the complement clause.
We’ve effectively conflated two types of representation in cases such as (27),
the actual string of words and the labels for the various grammatical functions.
Obviously, it isn’t the case that the string of words in (23b) contains a gap (or
the word PRO or whatever) in a literal sense. We can separate these out,
however, by means of the notational conventions of our basic parsing:
(28) Harriet persuaded Dick to arrive early

SUBJ VERB OBJi [SUBJi VERB ADJUNCT]
12.1.5 Expect-type verbs
There are two variants on the pattern shown in (23b/27). The first is exempli-
fied by the verb expect.
(29) Harriet expected that Dick would be late

(30) Harriet expected Dick to be late
Clearly, (29, 30) mean the same and express a relationship of expectation be-
tween Harriet and the eventuality denoted by ‘Dick will be late’. In (29) this
leads to a simple syntactic structure in which that Dick would be late is a clausal
(sentential) complement to the verb.
Originally, this prompted some linguists to adopt the structure shown in
(31) for (30), in which Dick is the subject of the subordinate clause and expect
doesn’t take a direct object:
(31) Harriet expected [S Dick to be late]

SUBJ VERB [SUBJi VERB COMPLEMENT]
One reason for adopting such an analysis is the fact that we can’t say that (30)
entails (32) in the way that (23b) entails (23c):
(32) Harriet expected Dick
If we were to analyse (30) as in (31) we wouldn’t have any empty subjects and
therefore there’d be no control.
Nonetheless, it turns out that in certain ways the NP Dick in (30) does, after
all behave in some ways like the object of expect. For instance, we can put
sentence (30) into the passive voice, in which case Dick behaves like the direct
object of expect and becomes the subject of the passive alternant.
(33) Dick was expected to be late (by Harriet)
Moreover, when a pronoun occupies the position of Dick in (30) that pronoun
is in the object form not the subject form.
(34) Harriet expected him/*he to arrive late
Furthermore, we can’t use the subordinator for to introduce an infinitival com-

plement to expect, as might be the case if Dick, him really were the subject of
the infinitival clause.
(35) *Harriet expected for him/Dick to arrive late
Therefore, an alternative way of looking at this construction is to say that Dick

is after all the object of expect, albeit an object of a special kind.
(36) Harriet expected Dick [S to be late]

SUBJ VERB OBJi [ SUBJi VERB COMPLEMENT]
The reason that Dick is a special kind of object is that Dick doesn’t have the
usual semantic properties you’d expect of an object. In particular, Dick isn’t the
semantic object of Harriet’s expectation in (30). In this respect it contrasts with
the object Dick in (23b), which is the semantic object of Harriet’s persuasion
(this is what the contrast between (23) and (32) shows). In other words, we
can say that in (23b) Dick is the object of persuade both semantically and
syntactically, while in (30) Dick is the object of expect only in the syntax, not
semantically. This mismatch between semantics and syntax is not especially
uncommon in English.
In (37) we see yet another variation on the theme of the missing subject.
(37) Harriet expected to be late
This is equivalent in meaning to (38), where she refers to Harriet, or to (39).
(38) Harriet expected that she would be late

(39) Harriet expected herself to be late
The kind of analysis we want for (37) would seem to be that given in (40):
(40) Harriet expected [S to be late]

In the intransitive use of expect, the distinct semantic properties of the main
clause and subordinate clause subjects are if anything even more clear than in
the case of seem. Since expecting something isn’t an action as such, but rather
a mental state, let’s assume that the semantic role of its subject is experiencer.
We can now ask what semantic roles are assigned to the subject gap in the
complement clause to expect. It turns out that, as with try, the complement
clause subject can have any semantic role.
(41) a. Harriet expected to catch a fish gap = agent

b. Harriet expected to receive a present gap = recipient
c. Harriet expected to be given a present gap = recipient
d. Harriet expected to be kissed gap = patient
e. Harriet expected to like the film/to be bored gap = experiencer
Adjectives like seem
There are a number of common adjectives which behave rather like seem when
used as predicates. Consider the following examples.
( )
certain
(42) a. Harriet is to catch a fish/like the film/receive a present/. . .
likely
( )
anxious
b. Harriet is to catch a fish/like the film/receive a present/. . .
eager
Summary and implications
There are two sorts of verbs which take non-finite complements with missing
subjects. The first sort, illustrated by try, assigns its own semantic role to
its subject, and this can be different from the semantic role of the missing
subject of the complement clause. The second sort, exemplified by seem, fails
to assign any semantic role at all to its subject, which inherits the semantic role
assigned by the complement clause verb. The verb expect behaves like try in
this regard.
The properties of verbs such as seem or adjectives such as certain, anxious
are not widespread in the English lexicon. Most verbs that take non-finite
complements belong to the try, expect class. Such verbs are also found widely
in other languages, so that it is often easy to translate literally from English
into such languages and vice versa. However, many languages lack seem-type
12.2. MISSING SUBJECTS IN ADJUNCT CLAUSES 131
verbs altogether. Indeed, it’s impossible to translate verbatim sentences such as

Harriet seems/is likely to win the race into most of the better-known languages of
Europe (including the Romance languages, German, Slavic languages, Greek).
Predicates such as these therefore pose very specific problems for language
learners (though this isn’t always clearly appreciated in language courses). The
predicates themselves are high frequency items. Moreover, it’s essentially an
arbitrary which control predicates are like seem and can take a subject without
a semantic role, and which predicates with similar meaning and semantics are
unable to take such a subject. Thus, beside (42) we see examples such as (43)
which don’t permit non-thematic subjects.
 



 probable 



(43) *Harriet is  possible to catch a fish/like the film/receive a present/. . .
 

 

 definite 
 

12.2 Missing subjects in adjunct clauses
We often find that an adjunct clause is headed by a non-finite verb. In these

clauses, too, the subject is generally missing or understood. In many cases it’s
identical to some other noun phrase in the sentence. Here are some examples.
(44) [After i leaving the cinema] wei caught a bus home
(45) [Despite i leaving in good time], wei arrived late for the concert
(46) Tomi went into his study [(in order) i to check his email]
(47) [By i watering this plant regularly] youi can get it to flower
(48) [For i stealing Harriet’s sandwich] Dicki got ten years hard labour
(49) Harrieti got disillusioned, [ i working for Scrooge & Co.]
Here we have a situation akin to control. When there is no overt subordinating

word, such as after, despite, while, and so on, it’s sometimes not entirely clear
which noun phrase controls the gap. This can give rise to ambiguity, which
occasionally gives humorous results (the stuff of childish jokes).
(50) Walking through the zoo we noticed a large crocodile

(Who or what was walking through the zoo?)
(51) Lurking motionless in the middle of the river we saw a large crocodile
(Presumably it’s the crocodile that’s lurking)
(52) Driving our four-by-four along the Limpopo river, we saw a large crocodile
12.3 Missing subjects with arbitrary reference
Missing subjects appear in other contexts, in which they don’t have a controller
elsewhere in the sentence. Consider the examples in (53):
(53) a. Running ten miles is tiring

b. It’s tiring to run ten miles
Here we have a missing subject in the clauses running/to run ten miles (who is
running?) but no controller. In cases such as this it seems that the missing
subject is always interpreted as ‘people in general’, i.e. as some unidentified or
generic human. An empty element with the interpretation of ‘generic person’
is often referred to as having the ‘arbitrary’ interpretation (meaning ‘arbitrary
person’) or ‘arb’ for short. This is then often used as a label or subscript for
the grammatical function which has this interpretation, as in (54):
(54) a. [S running ten miles] is tiring

SUBJarb PREDICATE]
b. It is tiring [S to run ten miles]
SUBJ PREDICATE SUBJarb PREDICATE
Typically, a non-finite clause with an arbitrary subject will be itself be the

subject of its predicate, as in (54), though occasionally we find the arbitrary
gap in other types of clause (see (59, 60)). Here are more examples:
(55) [ arb Smoking] can damage your health

(56) [ arb Complaining to the authorities] won’t help
(57) arb To err is human, arb to forgive, divine [Alexander Pope]
(58) arb To be frank, nobody knows the answer to that question
(59) Some people disapprove of [ arb giving money to beggars]
(60) Nothing can compare to [ arb studying linguistics]
12.4 Clauses with missing objects
Tough-constructions: Eager/easy to please
Although missing subjects are by far the most common and important type
of systematically absent grammatical function/clause element, there are also
constructions in which it is the direct object which is missing. One class of
such cases has become famous in the linguistics literature. It’s a construction
which is of wider interest, however, because it’s characteristic of English, but
is frequently absent in other languages. It’s thus another special construction
which confronts any L2 learner of English.
12.4. CLAUSES WITH MISSING OBJECTS 133
Consider examples (61, 62):
(61) Tom is eager to please

(62) Tom is easy to please
In example (61), the predicate is (be) eager which means essentially the same as
wants:
(63) Tom wants to please

Tom wants [ to please]
SUBJi VERB SUBJi VERB
In (63) please is used intransitively. There is no syntactically expressed object,

in much that same way that there is no object to the verb eat in John wants to
eat. In fact we could easily add a direct object to please, just as we could specify
an object for eat, as in (64):
(64) Tom is eager to please people/his boss/Harriet/. . .

Tom is eager [ to please people]
SUBJi VERB SUBJi VERB OBJ
The interesting construction is that shown in (62). Although it seems to have

exactly the same syntactic structure as (61) it is actually very different. The
first thing we should note is that Tom is effectively the object of please, as we
can see from the paraphrase in (65):
(65) It is easy to please Tom
The second thing to note is that the subject of please in (62) is effectively arbi-
trary, with the meaning of ‘people in general’. We can see this by considering
the near paraphrases in (66).
(66) a. Tom is easy for people to please

b. It is easy for people to please Tom
A further difference between (62, 61) is evident when we compare (64) with the
counterpart construction based on the predicate easy. Whereas it’s perfectly
possible for us to specify an object for please in (64) this is completely excluded
for (62).
(67) *Tom is easy to please people/his boss/Harriet/. . .
This is not surprising: the object function of please in (62) has been taken over
by the subject Tom in (62). We can illustrate the grammatical relationships by
means of the diagrammatic representation in (68).
(68) Tom is easy [ to please ]

SUBJi VERB SUBJarb VERB OBJi
The difference between the minimal pair in (61, 62) is a locus classicus in
modern theoretical linguistics (the distinction was noted for the first time by
Chomsky (1965), though the analysis he gave there for it was rather different
from the analyses that would be proposed now, including the one above). The
construction is often known by the informal name of tough-construction, be-
cause the predicate tough exhibits the same structure: This problem is tough to
solve. It is rather restricted in scope because it is basically found with pred-
icates which mean ‘easy/difficult’ and a few others (such as pleasant, nice,
good and their antonyms: Her voice is nice/unpleasant to listen to).
The tough-construction is of great interest precisely because it shows how
systematic analysis brings out considerable differences in syntactic which are
not reflected at all in the surface arrangement of words. This shows that syntax
is much more complex than just putting words in the right order.
Implications
While it’s generally easy to find the translation equivalent of eager examples
it’s often impossible to translate ‘tough-constructions’ literally into other lan-
guages. Moreover, theconstruction is limited to a small number of predicates,
mainly expressing meanings of ease or difficulty in doing something.
Chapter 13
Wh-clauses and topicalized

clauses
13.1 Introduction
In this chapter we look at two constructions which have very different func-
tions but which share certain features. Wh-questions obviously involve wh-
words, but they also involve a particular kind of gap, corresponding to the
wh-phrase itself. A topicalized sentence is one in which a phrase is displaced
from its normal place in the clause, leaving behind another type of gap. In
the next chapter we’ll see another construction which involves wh-words and
a gap, the relative clause.
13.2 Wh-questions
13.2.1 Basic structure of wh-questions
We’ve seen that a simple (yes/no) question requires inversion of subject and
first auxiliary. This is also a component of the syntax of special questions, i.e.
those formed using question words such as who, what, why, when, . . . , how.
In addition to polarity or ‘yes-no’ questions, we can question specific con-
stituents using special function words, most beginning wh-, the so-called ‘wh-
words’. Structurally speaking, the simplest type of wh-question is the echo-
question, illustrated in (1–3) (the punctuation indicates a high rising intonation
on the question word):
(1) a. Dick has broken our Ming vase

b. Dick has broken what?!
(2) a. Dick was seen speaking with Harriet
b. Dick was seen speaking with who?!
135
136 13. WH-CLAUSES AND TOPICALIZED CLAUSES
(3) a. Dick is fixing Harriet’s bicycle

b. Who is fixing Harriet’s bicycle?!
However, a neutral version of a wh-question requires the wh-word to appear

at the beginning of the sentence (possibly preceded by an adverbial, as in (4d)):
(4) a. What has Dick broken?

b. Who was Dick seen speaking with?
c. Who is fixing Harriet’s bicycle?
d. After the meeting, who was given a retirement gift?
Wh-words can denote adverbial concepts such as cause/reason, place, time,

manner:
(5) a. Why has Tom left?

b. Where was Dick living?
c. When will Harriet arrive?
d. How could Dick have broken that vase?
Naturally, do is used as a dummy:
(6) a. Who did Tom speak to?

b. Why did Harriet leave?
A wh-word can be part of a phrase:
(7) a. Which/what film have they been to see?

b. Whose car did they steal?
c. With who(m) did Harriet leave?
d. On which page did you find the misprint?
e. For how many people is Harriet catering?
There are two ways in which the wh-word figures in a wh-phrase. In (7a, b)
we see which and whose used as modifiers of the head noun film, car (with what
being a stylistic variant of which). In example (7c) we see a wh-word which
serves as the complement of a preposition. In (7d, e) we see both types, where
the wh-phrase modifies a noun which itself heads a noun phrase complement
to a preposition.
13.2.2 Wh-gaps
We’ve already seen that non-finite clauses often have a missing subject. Now
we turn to gaps which can occur in any part of the sentence.
13.2. WH-QUESTIONS 137
If we consider the cases with who/what in the position of subjects and objects
we see that the fronted wh-phrase is associated with a gap in the syntactic
structure:
(8) a. Who did Dick see ?

b. * Who did Dick see Tom?
(9) a. Who did Harriet give the book?
b. * Who did Harriet give Tom the book?
Recall that the lexical representation of a verb includes a list of the comple-
ments that it can or must take (its subcategorization information or subcatego-
rization frame). The verb see is transitive, and so is subcategorized to take an
object:
(10) see <SUBJ, OBJ>
Therefore, when we analyse the structure of a sentence such as (11) we expect

to find an OBJ associated with the verb. However, what we actually find is that
the normal syntactic position for an object is missing and the OBJ function is
identified with the wh-word/phrase at the beginning of the clause.
(11) Who did Dick see?

Who did Dick see ?
WHi SUBJ VERB OBJi
I’ll label the grammatical role of the wh-word as simply ‘WH’ because it
doesn’t have a grammatical role of its own. Instead, it’s associated with a
gap elsewhere in the sentence and it inherits the grammatical role of that gap.
In other words, the wh-phrase is associated with the grammatical role it would
have had if it had been left in situ.
Examples (12a, b) illustrate further types of wh-gap.
(12) a. On which page did you find the misprint

WHi SUBJ VERB OBJ ADJT(loc)i
b. For how many people is Harriet catering ?
WHi SUBJ VERB ADJTi
In these examples we see that the wh-word together with the whole phrase
which contains that wh-word appears in clause initial position. However, in
many cases, we can ‘strand’ the preposition of a prepositional wh-phrase in its
‘original’ position (preposition stranding).
(13) a. Which page did you find the misprint on

WHi SUBJ VERB OBJ ADJTi
b. How many people is Harriet catering for

WHi SUBJ VERB ADJTi
Where the preposition is taken along with the wh-word (i.e. where it is not
stranded) we sometimes say that it has undergone Pied Piping and say the
preposition has been pied-piped.1
13.3 The Topic Construction
Although word order is relatively fixed in English we can alter it in various

ways for purposes of emphasis. One common alternation is found when an
object or some other complement phrase appears at the beginning of the sen-
tence instead of in its canonical position.
(14) A book of that sort, I would never read
Quite often such topicalized phrases come in contrastive pairs.
(15) The suitcase we can put in the boot, but the hold-all we’ll have to put
on the back seat
To my grandmother we gave a photo album and to my grandfather we
gave a packet of pipe tobacco
There’s a clear intuition with such sentences that the topicalized phrase a book
of that sort, the suitcase, to my grandmother and so on is ‘really’ the object or
oblique complement of read, put, gave. This suggests an analysis in which the
topicalized phrase corresponds to a gap in the position of the object/oblique.
(16) A book of that sort, I would never read
Topicalization and wh-constructions
The topic construction is very similar in many respects to the wh-construction,

with the wh-phrase playing the role of the topic (some theories of syntax treat
them as the result of the same process). This is reflected explicitly in the
analyses in (17a, b):
(17) a. What book did you read

WHi SUBJ VERB OBJi
1 The fanciful terminology comes from the fairy tale about the Pied Piper of Hamlyn. The
term illustrates in an intriguing way how language can become ‘illogical’: it’s not the pipe or the
piping that was ‘pied’, but the piper (or rat-catcher) himself. English is full of such mismatches
between form and function. For instance, an electrical engineer isn’t actually electrical . . . .
13.4. LONG-DISTANCE DEPENDENCIES 139
b. That book I read

TOPICi SUBJ VERB OBJi
An important similarity is that the gap cannot be filled by a lexical (content)

word or phrase.
(18) *That book I read War and Peace

TOPICi SUBJ VERB OBJi
There is one interesting way in which topicalized sentences and wh-constructions

differ, however. In the topic construction it is possible to have a pronoun, iden-
tified with the topic, where the gap would otherwise be, but this is impossible
with wh-questions.
(19) a. That book I read it last week

TOPICi SUBJ VERB OBJi ADJUNCT
b. *What book did you read it last week
WHi SUBJ VERB OBJi ADJUNCT
This means that there are actually two topicalization constructions. The one
illustrated in (19a) is often called Left Dislocation. Conversely, we might find
Right Dislocation, as in (20).
(20) I read it last week, that book

SUBJ VERB OBJi ADJUNCT TOPICi
(Interestingly, there are languages in which structures such as (19b) are nor-
mal, and in which it would be ungrammatical to leave out the pronoun. See
also the discussion of resumptive pronouns in relative clauses in Chapter 14.)
13.4 Long-distance dependencies
One very important respect in which the Topic Construction and wh-questions
are similar is that the TOPIC/wh-phrase can be separated from its ‘gap’ by an
arbitrary number of clause boundaries:
(21) a. This sandwich, no one would ever eat

b. This sandwich, no one would try to eat
c. This sandwich, no one would even dream of trying to eat
d. This sandwich, no one has claimed that Harriet would even dream
of forcing Dick to try to eat
(22) a. Which sandwich did Dick eat?
b. Which sandwich did Dick try to eat?
c. Which sandwich do you think Dick tried to eat?

d. Which sandwich do you think Harriet expected Dick to try to eat?
It is through examples like (21a–22d) that these constructions earn the name
‘long-distance dependencies’. In English such long-distance effects are usually
only possible with non-finite clauses, what CGEL/SIEG call ‘catenative con-
structions’. In such cases the image of a ‘chain’ is particularly appropriate,
because the wh-phrase can be thought of as lying at the end of that chain.
It is possible to have more than one wh-word in a single sentence. When
this happens only one can appear in initial position, the rest have to remain ‘in
situ.2
(23) a. Who ate what where?

b. What did who eat when?
c. When did who say what about who(m)?
Cf:
(24) a. * Who, what, where ate?

b. * When, what who ate?
c. * When did who what about whom say?
(Languages differ with respect to this so that examples similar to (24a–24c) are
grammatical in languages such as, say, Bulgarian).
13.5 Embedded questions
We’ve seen examples of subordinate clauses functioning as complements to

verbs such as say, think, wish, claim and so on. Other sets of verbs which
take such complements include verbs such as ask, inquire, wonder on the one
hand, and persuade, tell, order, and so on on the other hand. The first set of
verbs report situations in which someone has asked a question, either literally
(ask, inquire) or more figuratively (wonder, ponder). Subordinate clauses
of this type are traditionally called indirect questions (as opposed to ordinary
questions which are called direct questions). Similarly, the declarative mood
subordinate clauses found with verbs of saying and so on are often referred to
as indirect statements.
The subordinate clauses that function as complements to verbs of saying,
thinking, wishing and so on correspond to the declarative types of sentence
in the indicative mood, as in (25), while complements of verbs of requesting,
ordering and so on correspond to imperative clause types (26):
2 This phrase is Latin for ‘in place’.
13.5. EMBEDDED QUESTIONS 141
(25) Harriet claimed that Tom had left

(26) Harriet told Tom to leave
We’ve looked in some detail at the kinds of construction illustrated in (26) in

Chapter 12. The subordinate clause type that we will examine in this section
is that illustrated by examples such as (27):
(27) a. Harriet asked whether Tom had left

b. Harriet inquired who had left
c. Harriet wondered where Tom had gone
These are indirect ways of asking the questions shown as direct questions in
(28).
(28) a. Harriet: “Has Tom left?”

b. Harriet: “Who (has) left?”
c. Harriet: “Where has Tom gone (I wonder)?”
Verbs of knowing can take either indirect statements or indirect questions (in
which case we treat the subordinate clause as the answer to an imagined ques-
tion).
(29) a. Harriet knows whether Tom has left

b. Harriet was well aware who had left
c. Harriet figured out where Tom had gone
The wh-words which introduce the indirect questions are the same as those
found in direct wh-questions. To introduce an indirect yes-no question we
use the words if, whether. These are largely interchangeable in contemporary
English. However, whether tends to occur in the construction whether . . . or not
more often than if, and if has to be separated from or not.
(30) a. Harriet can’t figure out whether Tom has left or not
b. Harriet doesn’t know whether or not Tom has left
(31) a. Harriet can’t figure out if Tom has left or not
b. * Harriet doesn’t know if or not Tom has left
Although embedded questions are structurally very similar to main clause

questions there is a major difference between them (in standard dialects) in
that there is no subject-auxiliary inversion in subordinate questions:
(32) a. Harriet knows where Tom has gone

b. * Harriet knows where has Tom gone
(33) a. * Where Tom has gone?
b. Where has Tom gone?
Chapter 14
Relative clauses and their kin
14.1 The structure of relative clauses
A salient aspect of the structure of NPs is the way that the head noun of the
NP can be modified by various elements. A very important type of modifier is
the relative clause. This is an embedded sentence whose function is to modify
the head noun. Some examples are shown here:
(1) a. the house [that Jack built]

b. the guy [who Harriet is talking to]
c. the pen [with which I wrote this letter]
d. the problem [that we want to talk about with you]
e. the girl [you met yesterday]
f. the important thing [for us to remember]
g. a book [to read on the train]
In each of the NPs in (1) there is a clause modifying the head noun (un-
derlined). We can tell that it’s a clause because it’s headed by a verb, whether
finite (1a, b, c, d, e) or non-finite (infinitival) (1f, g). The structure of the relative
clause is somewhat complex, but we now have most of the machinery needed
to describe these constructions.
The relative clause is built up in two ways, using either the all purpose
complementizer that or using an appropriate wh-word.
(2) a. The house that Jack built

b. The house which Jack built
Notice that the verb built in (2) is transitive and should therefore be followed
by a direct object. However, this is impossible.
(3) a. * The house that Jack built this mansion
143
144 14. RELATIVE CLAUSES AND THEIR KIN
b. * The house which Jack built a cottage
Again, we see the familiar pattern of a construction in which there appears

to be a gap where a grammatical function or adverbial should be whose place
seems to be occupied by the clause-initial relativizing word or phrase.
(4) a. The house thati Jack built i
b. The house whichi Jack built i
The relativizing conjunction occupies the same position as the complemen-

tizer to an embedded question. Again, we can get whole phrases occupying
the position of the relativizer, just as in questions.
(5) a. Jack built a gazebo in front of the house

b. The house [in front of whichi Jack built a gazebo i]
c. The house [whichi Jack built a gazebo in front of i]
There is another type of construction similar to a relative clause, found in

legalistic or philosophical writings, illustrated in (6):
(6) The house [such that Jack built it]
This is of wider interest because in this type of clause there is no gap. The
position where we would expect to find a gap is occupied by an appropriate
pronoun.
(7) a. A man such that he builds houses

b. A man who builds houses
(8) a. A man such that Jack built a house for him
b. A man who Jack built a house for
Such a pronoun, which takes the place of a gap, is called a resumptive pro-
noun. In some languages (Welsh, Arabic, colloquial Czech, and many others)
relative clauses don’t have any gaps and instead use the resumptive pronoun
strategy. In English ordinary relative clauses don’t usually have a resumptive
pronoun, but in very complicated examples we may find just such a pronoun
creeping in.
(9) the house that Jack had to promise the Council that he wouldn’t build
it using asbestos in the roof
or for a real live example:

14.2. APPOSITIVE AND RESTRICTIVE RELATIVE CLAUSES 145
(10) What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading
it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and
you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. [J. D.
Salinger, writer (1919-2010 )]
Some relative clauses have two gaps, e.g. (12).
(11) a. This is a useful book

b. We should read this book
c. People in general should read this book
(12) This is the most useful book [ to read ]
Explain the exactly how the two gaps come about in (12).
14.2 Appositive and restrictive relative clauses
Relative clauses are used with two slightly different functions, illustrated in
(13):
(13) a. Teenagers who spend all their time text-messaging have larger-
than-average thumbs
b. Teenagers, who spend all their time text-messaging, have larger-
than-average thumbs
In (13a) we’re talking about a subset of all teenagers, namely, those that txt
msg a great deal, while in (13b) we’re talking about all teenagers and adding
the additional (explanatory) information that all teenagers spend all their time
text messaging. In example (13a) we’re restricting the referent of the whole NP
by means of the relative clause. This is the usual function of a relative clause
(and in some languages the only function). Cf the man who we met yesterday -
this tells us about not just any old man but a specific man. We can paraphrase
(13a) as in (14).
(14) Of all teenagers, those who spend all their time text-messaging have
larger-than-average thumbs
Relative clauses of this sort are called restrictive relatives.

However, (13b) corresponds to the paraphrase in (15).
(15) Teenagers have larger-than-average thumbs and teenagers spend all

their time text-messaging
Relative clauses of this type merely provide additional information about the
noun they modify. They are rather like appelations such as Mr. Bun, the Baker
or the Prime Minister, David Cameron. The second expression in examples like
these is said to stand in apposition to the first expression. The relative clause
exemplified in (13b) is of this kind and is therefore often called an apposi-
tional relative clause. (Other terms are also used, such as descriptive relative
clause).
14.3 Headless NPs
14.3.1 The fused head construction
Noun phrases are supposed to be headed by a noun, but occasionally we find

that the head noun position is empty, or perhaps occupied by the wrong type
of word (a function word).
(16) a. Which apples do you want?

b. I’ll take those
c. I’ll take those apples
(17) a. The first answer is correct but the second is wrong
b. The first answer is correct but the second answer is wrong
In (16) we see a determiner those in the N head position and in (17) we see a
modifier second in head position.
(18) a. Which apples do you want?

b. I’ll take [Det those] cf
c. I’ll take [[NP [Det those] apples]
(19) a. The first answer is correct but the [Adj second] is wrong cf
b. The first answer is correct but the [[NP [Adj second] answer] is wrong
This kind of construction is called the fused head construction in CGEL (410f).
In other reference works on syntax you’ll often see these constructions referred
to as headless phrases or null head phrases.
Other examples of fused heads:
(20) [Few of her friends] expected her to turn up

(21) We made numerous suggestions but [few] were taken up
Example (20) has the explicit form of a partitive NP, while (21) is implicitly a
partitive NP (cf [few of them] were taken up).
Representing headless/fused head constructions. If we take those in (16b) to be a
headless phrase we could represent it in one of two ways.
14.3. HEADLESS NPS 147
(22) a. NP b. NP
Det N Det
those ∅ those
You’ll often see one or other of the two representations in (22) in books and
articles on the syntax of such constructions. However, in many ways its more
intuitive to adopt the fused head notion proposed in CGEL:412, under which
we can represent the word as being simultaneously a Det and N.
(23) NP
Det N
those
The tree diagram in (23) wouldn’t be licit in many theoretical models, but it’s
a very useful descriptive device for representing the fact that the determiner
has dual functions.
14.3.2 Fused head relatives
These are NPs with relative clauses but no lexical head noun. Some examples:
(24) [What she was reading] was ‘Mansfield Park’

(25) [Whoever thinks that] must be crazy
(26) Put it back [where you found it]
(27) I don’t like/approve of [what you’re doing]
See if you can see the difference in structure between (28) and (29):
(28) [When you fix the car] remember to check the oil
(29) [When you fix the car] is your business
NB differences such as:
(30) a. I shall ask [who I want] [fused head relative]

b. I shall ask her [who she wants] [embedded question]
cf
(31) a. I shall ask [whoever I want] headless relative

b. * I shall ask her [whoever she wants] embedded question
<These are often lumped together with other types of subordinate clause and
called ‘nominal’ or ‘noun clauses’ in ELT literature (cf. Berry p.59) though this
is misleading terminology.>
The fused head type of relative pronoun often corresponds to an ordinary
relative clause modifying a personal pronoun in a more formal register.
(32) a. [Whoever said that] was mistaken [neutral style]

b. [He who said that] was mistaken [formal style]
These are comparable to relative clauses modifying pronouns such as the one
or very general nouns such as person.
(33) [The one/person who said that] was mistaken
14.4 Cleft and pseudo-cleft constructions
We often use relative clauses for purposes of focussing a particular phrase.

The result is a sentence which looks as though it’s been split into two, and for
this reason the grammarian Jespersen gave them the name cleft construction.
There are two types. In the first, the whole sentence is introduced by the
dummy subject pronoun it which is then followed by the copular verb and the
noun which is to be put in focus. This is the ordinary cleft sentence or it-cleft:
It BE XP REL CLAUSE.
(34) it-clefts
a. The Knave of Hearts stole the tarts
b. It was the Knave of Hearts who stole the tarts
c. It was the tarts that the Knave of Hearts stole
The other type of cleft construction is the pseudo-cleft. This is formed by

means of a fused head relative which identifies and describes the noun phrase
that is to be put in focus. This relative clause is then linked to the focussed
noun phrase by the copular verb: FUSED REL BE XP. An alternative construc-
tion is also found with the order of constituents reversed: XP BE FUSED REL.
(35) wh-cleft or pseudo-cleft

a. [What the Knave of Hearts stole] was [the tarts]
b. [The Knave of Hearts] is [who stole the tarts]
A pseudo-cleft of the form (35a) is almost always introduced by what. It’s

synonymous with a construction such as (35d).
(35) c. [The thing that/which the Knave of Hearts stole] was [the tarts]
14.5. PARTICIPIAL PHRASES AS POSTMODIFIERS 149
Clefts can focus many different types of phrase:
(36) a. It was the tarts that the Knave of Hearts stole

[direct object NP]
b. It was yesterday that the Knave of Hearts stole the tarts
[time adverb]
c. It was with great cunning that the Knave of Hearts stole the tarts
[manner adverbial PP]
d. It was to Jack that Jill gave the bucket
[indirect object/oblique complement PP]
Some phrases can’t be (easily) clefted. For instance, we can’t normally focus
sentential complements to verbs using a cleft construction.
(37) a. * It was to leave/leaving early that Dick tried

b. * It was that the Earth is flat that Harriet persuaded Dick
14.5 Participial phrases as postmodifiers
There is another way in which a verb phrase can serve as the attributive
modifier of a noun in a noun phrase. Recall that there are two participle
forms for a typical verb, the ing-form (gerund-participle in the terminology of
CGEL/SIEG) and the past participle (perfect/passive participle). Both of these
can head phrases which come after a noun (or pronoun) and modify it.
(38) Gerund-participle as postmodifier

a. The girl [quietly writing letters in beautiful calligraphy with a quill
pen] (is Harriet)
b. The car [taking the woman to the hospital] (broke down)
c. The one [talking loudest] . . .
d. Anyone [requiring assistance during the exam] . . .
(39) Past participle as postmodifier
a. The letter [written yesterday by Harriet with a quill pen] . . .
b. Those [mistakenly sent final demands recently by the electricity
company] . . .
c. Anyone [found talking during the exam] . . .
14.6 Gaps of various kinds
In the past four chapters we’ve seen a variety of gaps. Here is a brief summary:
(40) Types of gap

• Subject gaps in non-finite clauses: Harriet wants [GAP to leave]
• Wh-gaps: Who did Harriet meet GAP?
• Gaps in topicalized constructions: Tom, Harriet didn’t meet GAP
• Relative clause gaps: the man [(who/that) Harriet met GAP]
It can be quite hard at times keeping track of all these different types of gap.
One of the factors that makes it particularly difficult, and which can pose
problems for all kinds of language users and learners, is the fact that we can
easily have more than one gap in a given clause, each with different functions.
In some cases the different types of gap are easy to distinguish. For instance,
consider a sentence which has an infinitival clause with missing subject and
inside that clause a noun modified by a relative clause. The two gaps are
usually fairly easy to spot. Consider a simple case in point. Take the complex
sentence in (41) and expand the direct object the book in the embedded clause
with a relative clause.
(41) a. Harriet gave Tom a book
b. Tom tried [ to read the book]
c. Tom tried [ to read the book [which Harriet gave him ]]
However, when the relative clause is itself in the form of an infinitival, it may
have a subject gap in addition to the relative clause gap.
(42) a. Here’s a new problem to solve
b. Here’s a new problemi [ GAP to solve i]
Here there’s a subject gap with arbitrary reference and a direct object relative
clause gap. In (43) we see an unusual case in which the infinitival subject gap
is also the relative clause gap.
(43) a. This is the war to end all wars
b. This is the wari [ GAPi to end all wars]

14.6. GAPS OF VARIOUS KINDS 151
Identify all the gaps in the following examples:
i. The person to talk to about this is Dick
ii. Here’s another important date to put in your diary
iii. There’s someone to see you about your dog
iv. I’ve found several mistakes to correct
v. Another thing to be aware of is this
vi. What did they think was going to happen?
vii. Who did they persuade to wash the dishes?
viii. Who is Harriet hoping to be able to persuade to organize

the party?
Chapter 15
Nominals - structure and

functions
15.1 Introduction
In this chapter we look in more detail at the the nominal phrase, including
adjective phrases. We’ll fill out various details of structure and at the same time
look in more detail at the meanings expressed by function words associated
with nouns and noun phrases, and especially at the function of determiners.
15.2 NP structure
Overview
In Chapter 5 example (25) we saw the basic structure for the phrase the two very
big black cats in the garden. Here is the structure for a slightly more elaborated
version of that phrase, showing one way of representing how all the parts
(constituents) fit together. This is by no means the only way such phrases
can be analysed. Different theoretical models provide rather different ways
of representing even relatively simple structures such as these. In particular,
some theoretical models will take the determiner the to be the head of the entire
phrase, thereby making the phrase into a Determiner Phrase or DP. Under such
an analysis the head of the whole phrase is a function word, while the lexical
head, that is, the most important content (lexical) word serves as a kind of
complement to that function word. However, the diagrams for DPs tend to
get rather complex and by no means all descriptions adopt the DP analysis,
so we’ll keep things relatively simple and assume that the head of the whole
phrase is a noun.
The head of the noun phrase is the noun which (almost always!) determines
the basic meaning of the phrase (I say ‘almost always’ because of the existence
153
154 15. NOMINALS - STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS
of pseudo-partitive constructions discussed below). That noun can be qual-

ified by a determiner (Det), such as an article, a demonstrative adjective or
a possessor phrase. It can also be qualified by a string of attributive adjec-
tives (prenominally) or a string of postnominal modifiers, including participial
phrases, prepositional phrases or relative clauses. The head noun can also be
followed by a complement phrase, which could be a prepositional phrase or
an entire clause. Before the attributive adjectives there is a position for quanti-
fier expressions (Quant) of various sorts such as numerals, or other quantifiers
such as many, most, few, . . . . Some of these co-occur the other two cats, as we see
in the example (2). Finally, there is a small number of predterminers (Predet),
expressions which can come before the determiner, the commonest being all,
both.
The basic shape for the NP is therefore:
(1) Predet - Det - Quant - Adj Phrases - NOUN - {Complement, Modifier}
A simple example is shown in (2).
(2) NP
PreDet Det QP AP AP N PP
Q Num Deg A A
Both the other two very big black cats in the garden
Nouns can often take complements of their own, especially if they are derived
from verbs. We’ll see examples later in the chapter.
In Chapter 14 we saw how relative clauses serve as modifiers of N.
A noun can be modified by any number of pronominal APs and postnominal
PPs. However, the functional categories of Quantifier and Determiner can
only appear once in a NP. Similar, only a single (restrictive) relative clause
and a single complement clause are permitted for a given noun. To indicate
‘indefinite number of phrases of this type’ we use the * notation, so that AP*,
PP* means ‘any number of APs, PPs’. The general NP schema can now be
written as (3):
(3) Det QP AP* N AP* {S-complement, S-rel.cls, PP*}
The postnominal AP will normally be a participle phrase.

15.2. NP STRUCTURE 155
Determiners
The class of determiners includes the articles, demonstratives, possessive pro-

nouns and other possessor expressions.
(4) Articles
Count Mass
Singular Plural
the cat the cats the wine
a cat cats, sm cats wine, sm wine
The form ‘sm’ represents unstressed ‘some’ (/sm/). As we can see from the
"
table in (4) a mass term like wine takes the same set of articles as the plural
form of a count noun.
The function of the articles
The semantics of the articles can get extremely complex. The definite article
basically indicates definiteness. The indefinite article a indicates that the noun
referent is countable and singular. The form sm functioning as a plural form
of a) indicates that the noun referent is countable and plural.
‘Definiteness’ in the context of the definite article means essentially one of
two things. Either it means that an individual or set of individuals can be
identified from the context, or it means that there is an individual/set of in-
dividuals which is unique. Most often the definite article means both these
things. To illustrate the uniqueness property consider an example in which a
person, say, Harriet, owns three cats. Because we know that Harriet is a cat-
owner, the set of cats can be identified from the context and so it makes sense
to say Harriet came home and fed the cats. However, in that case it would be odd
to say Harriet came home and fed the cat because we know there are three and so
the cat doesn’t uniquely identify any one of them.
Now consider the contextual property. The simplest way of seeing the role of
context and expressions with the definite article is to see what happens when
we introduce participants into a discourse and then discuss them.
(5) There were three children in the room, a girl and two boys. The girl
was slightly older than the boys.
Often, however, the context is given to us by our knowledge of the world

or by our knowledge of the immediate situation. For instance, if we are in
a cafe drinking coffee someone can say ‘Pass me the sugar’ without fear of
being misunderstood because we can all see the sugar. Similarly, we have
expectations about the nature of the world. For instance, if we know that
someone has just moved into a new house we can report the event in various
ways, referring to the standard parts of the house using the definite article,
even if we are mentioning those things for the first time:
(6) We’ve just visited Harriet in her new house. The kitchen is very large
and the bedrooms have great views of the river. But the chimney needs
repairing and the garden is rather small.
However, an example such as (7) is strange because we don’t normally asso-

ciate houses with dungeons or funnels:
(7) We’ve just visited Harriet in her new house. The kitchen is very large
and the bedrooms have great views of the river. But the funnel needs
repairing and the dungeon is rather small.
One of the reasons why the definite article is one of the trickiest aspects
of English grammar for learners is that there are many situations in which
our contextual knowledge overrides the strict interpretation of uniqueness or
identifiability. For instance, in (6) we can use the definite article for the phrase
the river even if our audience doesn’t actually know that there’s a river near
Harriet’s house, because then the hearer will ‘reverse engineer’ the semantics
of the definite article). and conclude that there is (exactly one) such river.
Similarly, suppose some goes into a room with five windows, and finds that
it is stuffy. They can ask someone to open the window even without specifying
which one (it doesn’t matter which). This is presumably because we normally
only ventilate a room by opening just one of the windows, not all of them.
Similarly, if one of five windows is open and the speaker asks ‘Why is it cold
in here?’ a possible answer would be ‘Because someone’s left the window
open’.
Another common use for the definite article is with generic expressions.
These don’t refer to any specific or uniquely identifiable individual but rather
to a kind, type or species.
(8) The blue whale is the largest extant mammal

The average student spends 6 hours 39 minutes per day in the library
Some vs. any
I introduced some as a kind of indefinite determiner. It often functions as

the plural counterpart of the indefinite article, though in many cases we have
no article at all (sometimes linguists say that there is a null, i.e. nonexistent,
determiner here).
(9) Lying on the table were (some) pieces of paper

The determiner function of some has to be distinguished from its stressed coun-
terpart, /s2m/, which means something like ‘a part of a mass or group (but by
implication not all)’.
(10) Some lecturers are more entertaining than others
The determiner some is usually replaced by any in the context of a question or

a negative clause.
(11) I’ve bought some bread/apples

a. Have you bought any bread/apples?
b. I didn’t buy any bread/apples
Again, we get a different reading when we put stress on any, because then
the word becomes a kind of quantifier with a meaning roughly ‘an arbitrarily
chosen individual or set’.
(12) You can buy any bread/apples (it doesn’t matter, the choice is yours)
However, we often use some or a null determiner with plurals and mass terms
even in questions and negative clauses, usually with a meaning which differs
in very subtle ways from the corresponding expression with any.
(13) a. Have you bought some bread/apples (like I asked you to)?
b. I didn’t buy some bread/apples - that’s what I forgot!
In (13) there’s some presupposition or assumption that you’ve bought the

bread/apples, whereas in (11) the speaker is just stating a fact.
Demonstratives
The demonstrative adjectives/determiners are the only ones which agree in

number with the head lexical noun.
this/these, that/those
Possessive pronouns
my, thy, his/her/its, our, your, their

Possessive pronouns can be used as independent nouns:
mine, thine, his/hers/its, ours, yours, theirs
These classes of determiner all occupy the same slot in the noun phrase:
 



 the 



(14) this cat
 


 

 my 
 

Because these determiners are in paradigmatic relation to each other it isn’t

possible to combine them with each other. Here are some examples of impos-
sible combinations:
(15) a. *the my cat, *my a cat

b. *the this cat, *that the cat
c. *this my cat [archaic only], *my that cat
Notice that this means that possessor expressions are effectively a kind of de-
terminer.
However, there are other determiner-like elements that come before or after
the true determiners. These elements co-occur with determiners, i.e. they
form syntagmatic relations with determiners. These are the predeterminers
and postdeterminers.
Predeterminers and postdeterminers
Predeterminers:
A small number of words with quantificational meaning can come before the
determiners.
(16) all/both/half
multiplicatives: double/three times/two thirds the effort
other fractions don’t occur here when they have a partitive meaning with count
nouns: *two thirds the students vs. two thirds of the students.
Postdeterminers/Quantifiers (QP)
Numerals and other quantifiers can follow immediately after the determiners.
(17) the/these/my three cats

my many fans
her every wish [marginal]
These quantifiers always come before any attributive adjectives: the three black
cats; *the black three cats.
These elements are sometimes treated as a separate category entirely (Quan-
tifier Phrase, QP). Sometimes they are just called ’postdeterminers’
The postdeterminer quantifiers include expressions such as a few/a good many/little.
(18) the little help they did offer was useless

a few people offered to help

a good many people
Note the difference in meaning between a few (= a small number) and few (=not
a large number, not many, fewer than we would want).
These quantifiers are often used in partitive constructions with of, however.
(19) a few of the people

many of the students
little of your answer
less of the criticism
The predeterminers can also be used in this partitive construction (see below).
(20) all of the time

half of the students
both of my brothers
Possessive constructions
There are two main ways of expressing a ‘possessive’ construction, with the
so-called ‘Saxon genitive’ and with the preposition of.
(21) a. the book’s cover

b. the cover of the book
In most cases one or the other construction will sound better depending on
the precise meaning relation between the components, emphasis, the structure
of the NP as a whole and various other factors. In general, an inanimate
possessor tends to take the of -construction while animate/human possessors
take the POSS-S construction.
(22) a. Tom’s book

b. ?? the book of Tom
a. the page of a book
b. ?? a book’s page
Recursion in PossPs
A possessor phrase is a kind of noun phrase, which itself can take a possessor.
This leads to recursive structures.
(23) a. the name of the brother of the neighbour of the . . . of the director of
the school
b. my neighbour’s friend’s sister’s . . . neighbour’s house
POSS-S (‘Saxon genitive’)
In the ‘Saxon genitive’ or ‘POSS-S’ construction the /z/ suffix attaches to the
right edge of a noun phrase and turns head of that phrase into a ‘possessor’.1
Tom’s
 


 


a man called Tom’s


 




 


(24) the girl who used to know Tom’s house
 


 


the guy in the blue jacket’s


 



 

the guy you were talking to’s

 

Only one -s suffix is allowed even where the sense predicts combination of
plural and possessive:
(25) a. one of the men’s houses but

b. one of the lecturer’s/(*lecturers’s) houses
A phrase so affixed occupies the Det slot in the NP:
(26) the girl in the corner’s three favourite Italian renaissance painters
‘NP of NP’ construction - partitives and pseudo-partitives
Although possessors are in paradigmatic opposition to (and hence in comple-

mentary distribution with) other determiners there do exist ways of combining
them.
(27) *the my cat ∼ the cat of mine

*my a cat ∼ a cat of mine, one of my cats
*this my cat ∼ this/that cat of mine
*my that cat
Cf also:
(28) that cat of Tom’s/my brother’s

a cat of Tom’s/my brother’s
this/that cat of Tom’s/my brother’s)
Expressions such as *the this cat, *that the cat are ungrammatical because demon-
stratives are inherently definite and so the would only add the component
‘definite’ redundantly. However, in some languages demonstratives and/or
possessives must be accompanied by an ‘agreeing’ definite article (e.g. Greek,
Italian, . . . ).
Partitives. These are constructions that express a part of some quantity.
1I put ‘square quotes’ around the term ‘possessor’ because possession as normally under-
stood is only one of the many meanings conveyed by this construction.
(29) a pound of that new Norwegian cheese

a number of the very interesting questions raised yesterday
a pint of your finest and most aromatic ale
The construction can co-occur with quantifiers:
(30) all/some/each/none/few/many/most/several/any/hardly any/three/millions

of the answers
An important variant on this structure is the pseudo-partitive.
(31) a pound of cheese

a pint of milk
a cup of tea
a bag of sugar
a block of wood
a number of problems
Differences between partitives and pseudo-partitives.

A cup of tea basically refers a quantity of tea rather than a kind of cup, even
though syntactically speaking cup would appear to be the head of the phrase.
In other words it is the of -phrase in a pseudo-partitive that behaves like the
semantic head of the phrase.2
Complements to noun
Nouns can take PPs as well as finite and infinitival clauses which correspond
semantically to complements to related verbs:
(32) a story about cavemen

a report on the accident
a donation to the orphanage
a recipe for osso bucco
(33) the claim [S that Dick left early]

(cf She claimed [S that Dick left early])
(34) his attempt [S to swim across the lake]
(cf He attempted [S to swim across the lake])
(35) the idea [S that we would say such a thing] (is absurd)
2 Thisis why I earlier said that the syntactic head noun almost always represents the semantic
head of the phrase.
( )
to earn
(36) a good opportunity [S some money]
for earning
However, we don’t seem to find bare V-ing non-finite complements to nouns.
(37) a. Tom recollected locking the door

b. * Tom’s recollection locking the door
The V-ing form seems to be too close to being a noun, so we get such comple-
ments introduced by a preposition:
(38) a. Tom’s recollection of locking the door

b. Dick’s attempt at impressing Harriet
c. Harriet’s recipe for making osso bucco
d. Tom’s habit of laughing at his own jokes
etc
Expletives
In syntax, this term doesn’t refer to taboo vocabulary, but to ‘meaningless’

elements which have a purely functional role. Compare (39–43):
(39) (I’ve served dinner.) It’s on the table

(40) It’s raining
(41) a. It’s obvious that Dick will be late

b. It’s easy to learn Spanish
(42) a. There (next to the pool) stood a majestic oak

b. There we found an old cave
(43) a. There are fairies at the bottom of our garden

b. There’s a fly in my soup
c. There’s some flies in my soup
d. There floated across the sky a thin, wispy cloud
In (39) it has a concrete referent (namely, the dinner). Out of context we assume
the speaker has some specific (inanimate) object in mind.
In (42) there is a locative adverb meaning ‘in/at that place’ (e.g. ‘next to
the pool’). Notice that in (there1a) the adverb there seems to have the SUBJ
function (cf: Down the hill puffed the little train, Out of the hat jumped a rabbit etc.)
However, in (40) it has no referent, and this is even more clear in the case
of (41) (just try asking the questions What’s raining?, or What’s obvious that Dick
15.3. ADJECTIVE PHRASE 163
will be late?). What is the function of it in these examples? It’s simply there
to fill the position of the SUBJ, which would otherwise remain empty (as in
many languages). In English the SUBJ position (in a main clause) has to be
filled by some pronounced (overt) element, so in constructions which lack a
proper subject we add a meaningless element.
An element of this kind that has no referent and is only placed there to meet
syntactic requirements is called an expletive. It’s the pronominal equivalent of
the dummy auxiliary do. In (42, 43) we see that there can be used in the same
fashion. Note that there in these examples does NOT mean ‘in that place’. We
can easily see that by comparing (44) with (45):
(44) ?? There we found an old tree here

(45) There was an old tree here
Example (44) is odd because it seems that the tree has to be in two places
at once. Example (45) is perfectly fine, because there is meaningless and hence
can’t clash in meaning with here.
In the literary language we distinguish between there is and there are. The
verb therefore agrees with the NP which comes after the copular verb, as in
(43c) there’s is becoming an invariable marker of this kind of construction (in
the present tense, at least), and hence doesn’t undergo agreement.
15.3 Adjective phrase
Gradable adjectives can be premodified by a degree expression such as very,

partly, totally, somewhat, . . . . Adjectives can also take a postpositional comple-
ment, either in the form of a prepositional phrase (46) or in the form of a
comparative phrase (47).
(46) a. very proud of his children

b. less interested in money
c. keen on classical music
(47) a. far bigger than your cats

b. much longer than we thought they were
Adjectives can also take finite, (48), and infinitival complements, (49):
(48) a. proud that her children had succeeded

b. certain that they would succeed
c. curious why they are taking so long
(49) a. proud to be here

b. certain to win the next race

c. curious to know why they’re taking so long
An -ing verb form complement is usually only possible as part of a PP, when
the V-ing form is treated as a kind of noun:
(50) a. keen on going home early

b. confident about winning the next race
A final point to make about adjectives is that they only show their full range
of complements when they are used predicatively (that is as predicates, and
hence as complements to a verb such as be, seem, become etc.). When used as
attributes (i.e. before the head N of a NP) they cannot take any complements
at all:
(51) a. * a proud of her children mother

b. * the certain to succeed candidate
c. * a shorter than two weeks holiday
However, these expanded phrases are possible if they are postposed to the
right of the head noun:
(52) a. a mother proud of her children

b. the candidate certain to succeed
c. a holiday shorter than two weeks
The restriction therefore seems to be not on whether an attributive adjective

can have a complement but on whether a pre-nominal adjective can have a
complement.
The postnominal modifier phrases are closer in some ways to predicate ad-
jective phrases (see below).
Adjective phrases typically modify in pronominal position (attributive ad-
jective).
(53) a. [NP [AP very black] cats]

b. the singing detective, a dripping tap, a running commentary, a bro-
ken promise, the afore-mentioned article, . . .
Any number of APs are possible within the NP:
(54) a tall, dark, handsome, intelligent, . . . , financially independent, home-

owning, non-smoking, . . . , stranger
Certain types of AP have to appear postnominally:

15.3. ADJECTIVE PHRASE 165
(55) a. I have yet to meet [a [AP more stupid] man]

b. [The girl [reading ‘Mansfield Park’]] is Harriet
(56) a. I have yet to meet [a man [AP more stupid than Dick]]
b. * I have yet to meet a more stupid than Dick man]
(57) *The reading ‘Mansfield Park’ girl is Harriet
Adjectives modified the indefinite pronouns somebody, anything, . . . have to

follow the pronoun: anything cheaper will do/*cheaper anything.
PPs can also modify postnominally:
(58) the girl in the corner, with a red sweater, next to Harriet, . . .
Some adjectives are defective in that they can only be used as attributive
(prenominal) modifiers (Huddleston and Pullum, 2002: 553-559):
(59) a. a mere boy ∼ *the boy is mere

b. an utter fool ∼ *the fool is utter
c. the late President ∼ *the President is late [not in the meaning of
‘recently deceased’]
Conversely, some adjectives are used only as predicates:
(60) a. the house was ablaze ∼ *the ablaze house [and many other adjec-
tives beginning in a-]
b. the child was ill ∼ *an ill child [OK - a sick child]
c. several students were present ∼ *the present students
Sometimes an adjective that cannot be used attributively in prenominal posi-

tion can be used in postnominal position. Compare (61) with (60c).3
(61) Several of the students present at the meeting voted against the pro-
posal
3 Note that present has another meaning, roughly ‘current’, which can be used attributively
The present students are less satisfied than last year’s.
Chapter 16
Text organization and cohesion
16.1 Introduction
This chapter deals with the way that texts are organized. ‘Text’ forour purposes
means ‘two or more sentences, linked to each other and uttered as part of a
single communication’. A text can therefore be something as simple as a pair
of greetings as in (1) or a complete paragraph or this entire booklet or the
complete works of Shakespeare . . . .
(1) Tom: Hi!

Harriet: Hi!
To begin with we’ll distinguish two related notions cohesion and coherence.
Coherence refers to the logical organization of a discourse. A coherent text
is one which is organized in such a way that it makes good logical sense, how-
ever it might be expressed. Usually, we guarantee that our texts are coherent
by the use of cohesive devices, to ensure that the parts of the text (e.g. individ-
ual sentences) are linked to each other in a logical fashion. For instance, using
pronouns to refer back to previously mentioned noun phrases is a cohesive de-
vice. Using conjunctions and expressions such as moreover, on the other hand, . . .
and many others also helps the hearer keep track of the logical organization.
16.2 Cohesion
There are five main linguistic devices that we can identify which serve to
achieve cohesion between sentences/utterances.
• Reference
• Ellipsis
• Substitution
• Lexical cohesion
• Conjunction
167
168 16. TEXT ORGANIZATION AND COHESION
The most obvious way to achieve cohesion is to repeat words exactly. How-
ever, this is only normally used for emphasis or to avoid ambiguity, or where
we haven’t established what the topic of the discourse is.
(2) Jack and Jill went up the hill. Jack fell down.
<We wouldn’t normally say ‘He fell down’ here because the previous sentence
isn’t specifically ‘about’ Jack as such>
(3) Today’s lecture is about Noam Chomsky. Chomsky has been described
as ‘America’s leading dissident’
Here we repeat the proper name for emphasis (we could easily have said ‘He
has been described as . . . ’)
(4) Cohesion has to be carefully distinguished from coherence. It (i.e. co-

hesion) is more of a linguistic matter.
16.2.1 Reference
By ‘Reference’ we mean mainly the way that pronouns are used to track partic-
ipants in discourse. Pronouns typically refer to some entity (or sometimes to a
situation) already mentioned in the discourse. This is backwards reference or
anaphora.
(5) A mani walked into the room. Hei sat down
We see the same thing with demonstrative pronouns this, that:
(6) a. Goldilocks tried the second bowl of porridge. That was too cold.
b. She tried the third bowl of porridge. This was just the right tem-
perature.
A pronoun can sometimes anticipate its referent, a situation known as cat-

aphora (cataphora):
(7) This is what we saw: a big, black cat

(8) Before he sat down, the man re-arranged the chairs
Another example of a cohesive device that may come under this heading in
certain cases is the use of definite descriptions, specfically those introduced by
the definite article the. The definite article is used to pick out a single, unique
object or group of objects that is relevant or salient AND which we assume the
hearer can identify.
16.2. COHESION 169
(9) John and Mary have two children, Jack and Jill. The girl is the elder of
the two.
Here ‘the girl’ is taken to refer to Jill.
(10) (In a room with five windows, exactly one of which is open):
It’s drafty in here - could you close the window?
(11) The University has introduced new IT equipment in the cafés. The
students figured out how it worked almost at once, but the teachers are
still struggling to learn how to use it.
Here ‘the students’ refers to ‘one unique identifiable group consisting of all the
students (at Essex)’ and ‘the teachers’ refers to ‘one unique identifiable group
consisting of all the teachers (at Essex)’.
In these examples the definite phrase with the refers back to some en-
tity/entities that have been mentioned already. But we can sometimes ‘reverse
engineer’ the utterance and figure out that the speaker must have been refer-
ring to some unique, identifiable referent:
(12) John and Mary have two children. The girl is the elder of the two.
Here we just assume that exactly one of the children is a girl, otherwise the
discourse wouldn’t make sense It would be incoherent because the cohesion
device of using the definite article would have been wrongly used. Other
examples:
(13) Harriet was late for work this morning and she left home without feed-
ing the cat.
What cat? How many does she have? How do we know?
16.2.2 Ellipsis
We frequently omit words and phrases that have already been mentioned or
which are otherwise obvious.
(14) a. -What are you eating?

b. -<I am eating> A sandwich
Notice that we still have to observe certain grammatical niceties, e.g. we still
need an indefinite article on the singular noun:
(15) a. -What are you eating?

b. -*Sandwich
(16) a. Harriet has arrived already, but Tom hasn’t <arrived yet>
b. Harriet has been correcting her assignment, and Dick might have
<been correcting his/her assignment>, too
c. Harriet has been correcting her assignment, and Dick might have
been <correcting his/her assignment>, too
There are grammatical restrictions on what can be omitted. For instance,

if we include the verb in the previous example we have to include its direct
object, too.
(17) *Harriet has been correcting her assignment, and Dick might have been
correcting <his/her assignment>, too
Similarly, an infinitival verb phrase can be elided under identity with a previ-
ously mentioned verb phrase, but the infinitive marker to has to be retained.
(18) a. Harriet wants to go to the local arthouse cinema to see ‘Casablanca’

but Tom doesn’t want to <go to the local arthouse cinema to see
‘Casablanca’>
b. * Harriet wants to go to the local arthouse cinema to see ‘Casablanca’
but Tom doesn’t want
Without the right context elliptical expressions can be hard to process. What
does the following mean?
(19) -Mary thought Chomsky
16.2.3 Substitution
We frequently substitute indefinite NPs and VPs with special expressions which
behave very much like pronouns. These are:-
• one - indefinite NP
• do so - VP
(20) Tom would like a sandwich but Harriet doesn’t want one
We can’t omit one here:
(21) *Tom would like a sandwich but Harriet doesn’t want
Similarly with nouns modified by adjectives:
(22) Tom drives a red car and Harriet drives a green *(one)
16.2. COHESION 171
<The symbol *(. . . ) means ‘it’s ungrammatical if you miss out . . . ’>
The equivalent substitution for verbs and verb phrases is ‘do so’:
(23) a. Harriet is happy to walk to work but Dick refuses to <walk to work>
Ellipsis
b. Harriet is happy to walk to work but Dick refuses to do so Substi-
tution
A common error with second language learners of English is to replace ‘do so’
with ‘do it’:
(24) ??Harriet is happy to walk to work but Dick refuses to do it
We only use ‘do it’ for specific, identifiable events/actions, not general ones
like walking to work:
(25) We want Dick to move his motorbike from the driveway but he refuses
to do it.
(We can also say ‘do so’ here).
16.2.4 Lexical cohesion
We can make a text cohesive by using words that are related to each other
in meaning. The usual way in which we describe such meaning relations is in
terms of (i) semantic fields and (ii) sense relations especially hyponymy/hypernymy,
meronymy. Hyponyms are subordinate terms while hypernyms are superor-
dinate terms, as in
(26) labrador hyponym/subordinate term to:

dog hypernym/superordinate term to labrador; subordinate term to:
animal superordinate term to dog (and labrador)
Words are grouped into networks of related meanings. For the purposes of
cohesion we have subordinate/superordinate terms:
• Furniture: chair, table, wardrobe, . . .
• Meronyms refer to parts of a whole:
– chair - legs, back, seat;

– person’s body - feet, legs, arms, head, eyes, . . . ;
– bird - head, beak, feet, wings
16.2.5 Conjunction
We can explicitly mark the logical (cohesive) relations between one sentence/utterance
and another by means of linkers or conjunctions. These include words such
as and, moreover, furthermore, but, nevertheless, however, yet, . . . . We can identify,
broadly speaking, four logical and linguistic relationships that are typically
expressed or realized by conjunctions.
Addition:: and, also, too, furthermore, moreover, what’s more
Contrast:: but, however, yet, nevertheless, still, even so, on

the other hand, notwithstanding
Temporal sequence:: then, after that
Logical/causal consequence:: (and) so, therefore, hence, as a result/consequence,

consequently, thus
The conjunction and often has implications of temporal sequence rather than
just addition.
(27) a. She went to University and discovered the wonders of theoretical

linguistics
b. She discovered the wonders of theoretical linguistics and went to
University
16.3 Cohesion vs. coherence
Although the notions of cohesion and coherence are clearly related they are not
identical. We can see this because we can construct texts that make good use of
cohesive devices but which still aren’t coherent (at least not in any reasonable
context of utterance). Similarly, we can construct texts that are coherent (given
some appropriate and reasonable context) in the absence of cohesive devices.
Cohesion without coherence:
I’m going to try a new recipe using olives. These are an important export for
many Mediterranean countries such as Greece. That country is often regarded as
the birthplace of democracy. As Churchill observed, that may not be ideal form of
government, but all the others are much worse. ‘Churchill’ is also the name of an
insurance company.
Exercise: identify all the cohesive devices in this passage.
Coherence without (very much) cohesion:
Mr. Blair declared that Saddam Hussein was able to deploy weapons of mass de-
struction at 45 minutes’ notice. In the past 50 years the United States has invaded the
16.3. COHESION VS. COHERENCE 173
following countries: Grenada , Panama, and Haiti. From 1995-2000 Dick Cheney was
CEO of the Halliburton Corporation. Draw your own conclusions.
<Adapted from an actual conversation(!)>
Explanation (the context is discussion of the build up to the US invasion of
Iraq in 2003).
(1) Mr. Blair declared that Saddam Hussein was able to deploy weapons of
mass destruction at 45 minutes’ notice.
(2) In the past 50 years the United States has invaded the following countries:
Grenada , Panama, and Haiti.
(3) From 1995-2000 Dick Cheney was CEO of the Halliburton Corporation.
(4) Draw your own conclusions.
From (2): these countries are all extremely small and have virtually no armed
forces (Panama is banned by its constitution from having a standing army).
From (1) we conclude that the US only invades countries that are almost en-
tirely defenceless. If (1) is true it follows from (2) that the US would never
invade Iraq. But the US did invade Iraq therefore (1) must be false. Addi-
tionally, Dick Cheney was Vice-President to George W. Bush from 2000-2008.
The Halliburton Corp. was given very substantial US government contracts
to rebuild Iraqi infrastructure after the invasion (using Iraqi petrodollars). (4)
The implications are that (i) Blair lied, that the US invaded Iraq knowing it had
no effective (conventional) means of defence and that Cheney encouraged the
invasion knowing it would profit a company he was closely connected with
(e.g. as a major private shareholder).
None of this text makes any sense, of course, unless you have access to all
of the relevant contextual information.
We’ve seen how the context of utterance is important for determining the
meaning of deictic words such as personal pronouns. Another instance is
illustrated by the following mini-dialogue which took place between the author
(A) and a colleague (D):
(28) D: Hmph! If I’d known it was going to be fish I’d have put in my
contact lenses.
A: You don’t like kippers, then.
In (28) A has clearly interpreted D’s utterance in exactly the manner intended
by D, because the context provided ample clues. Actually, A then continued
‘Do you realize how incomprehensible your last statement would sound out
of context?’ I have yet to find anyone who can provide the correct context for
D’s utterance without a lot of hints.1
1 Oh, alright then, here’s the background: A and D were at a conference. A was finishing
breakfast, and there was only a short time before the first talk. D had just arrived, somewhat
late, wearing his spectacles, only to discover that the food being served was something he didn’t
like.
One reaction to a sequence like (28) is that it is incoherent. A’s response

does not seem to fit D’s utterance. We feel that the utterances that make up
a discourse should be coherent, though it’s rather difficult to define exactly
what we mean by that. In (29) we can see another (more famous) example
(originally from Sacks, here adapted from Levinson 1983: 293):
(29) Mrs. Smith: I have a fourteen year old son.

Mr. Jones: Well, that’s alright.
Mrs. Smith: I also have a dog.
Mr. Jones: Oh, I’m sorry.
This discourse seems hopelessly incoherent until we learn that Mrs. Smith is
trying to rent a flat and Mr. Jones is the landlord.
16.4 Topic-focus organization
Context is essential for understanding how a text is coherent, and can often be
important for understanding how a text is cohesive.
There’s another sense in which context is important for computing the con-
tribution of cohesive devices, namely in the articulation of utterances into topic
and focus and into given (old) information and new information.
Consider the mini-dialogue in (30):
(30) Joan: Who has written two books on linguistics?

Tracy: MARY has written two books on linguistics
The capital letters on MARY indicate that this word is pronounced with more
emphasis: it’s slightly louder and relatively longer than the other words and
it starts at high pitch and falls rapidly to low pitch (see Chapter 17). Actually,
the rest of Tracy’s utterance in (30) is completely redundant and could easily
be omitted completely. Now consider (31), a slight variant on (30) in which
Tracy emphasises a different word:
(31) Joan: Who has written two new books on linguistics?

Tracy: Mary has written TWO books on linguistics
The dialogue in (31) sounds very odd, as though Tracy had misheard or mis-
understood what Joan said.
The reason for the oddness of Tracy’s utterance in (31) is intuitively clear:
Tracy and Joan both know that the conversation is about two books on lin-
guistics and Joan wants to know the author. But Tracy’s reply in (31) makes it
sound as though Joan needs to know the precise number of books on linguis-
tics that Mary has written. On the other hand, Tracy’s utterance in (31) would
be a perfectly fine answer to (32):
16.4. TOPIC-FOCUS ORGANIZATION 175
(32) Joan: How many books on linguistics has Mary written?
Phenomena of this sort are often studied under the heading of information
structure. We say that Tracy’s utterance in (30) is articulated into two com-
ponents, MARY, which is new information and the rest of the sentence which
is old information or given information. We can make this more explicit by
‘translating’ (30) into the representation in (33):
(33) Given: x has written two books on linguistics, x = ?

Given: x has written two books on linguistics x = MARY
In (33) we use a variable ‘x’ to represent unknown information, and Tracy’s re-
ply has to provide a value for that unknown. Clearly, the ‘given’ component in
Tracy’s utterance is the part that can be safely omitted. Similarly, the question
in (32) can be represented as in (34):
(34) Given: Mary has written x number of books on linguistics, x = ?
We can now see what goes wrong with (31). The answer provided by Tracy
is attempting to fill in a value for the wrong variable. (Check that you under-
stand exactly how this works by translating the ill-formed dialogue in (31) and
comparing it with a possible dialogue based on (32)).
We’ve illustrated given/old and new information using the traditional de-
vice question-answer pairs, sometimes called the ‘commutation test’ for given/new
information. However, the question part can remain implicit or presupposed.
Consider (35):
(35) Hey, I’ve just heard that Mary has written ANOTHER book on linguis-
tics.
An utterance of (35), in which the word ‘another’ bears the main emphasis, is
only felicitous if the speaker thinks the addressee already knows that Mary has
written at least one book on linguistics. For this reason, the ‘given’ portions of
the representations in (33, 34) are often known as the presupposition (though
this term has a number of other, slightly different, uses, as we will see later).
By varying the position of emphasis in a sentence such as (35) we can vary
the articulation into given/new information. In principle, any of the content
words of a sentence can be emphasised in this way and turned into new infor-
mation. However, we can emphasise more than just individual words. Con-
sider the mini-dialogue in (36):
(36) Joan: What topic has Mary written a new book on?
Tracy: (Mary has written a new book on) LINGUISTICS
The structure of (36) is essentially the same as that of (30) or (35), except that
this time x = linguistics. But now consider (37):
(37) Joan: What has Mary written?

Tracy: (Mary has written) a new book on LINGUISTICS
Here the new information is the whole phrase a new book on linguistics. The
placement of emphasis in Tracy’s utterance in (37) is exactly the same as in
Tracy’s utterance in (36) but the scope of the new information is the whole
phrase, not just a single word. In fact, the scope can extend even further than
this. In (38) the whole utterance can be interpreted as new information:
(38) Hey, guess what! Mary has written a book on LINGUISTICS.
Closely related to the notion of given information is the notion of topic. Broadly
speaking the topic of a sentence(or utterance of a sentence) is what the sentence
is about. In English identity of the topic tends to be implicit, though we can
sometimes explicitly announce a topic, as in (39):
(39) As for Mary, she’s written a book on linguistics
We can divide a sentence such as (39) into two parts, the topic, Mary, and what
we say about Mary, the comment:
(40) Topic: Mary

Comment: has written a book on linguistics
The division represented in (40) is known as the topic-comment articulation.
16.5 Focus vs. new information - presuppositions
From the examples we’ve seen so far it looks rather as though the topic of
a sentence is the same as the old or given information while the comment
conveys new information. In fact, matters are more complex than this, and
one of the important current research questions in this area of linguistics is
pinning down precisely what a language conveys when it codes a word or
phrase as topic or comment, or what exactly constitutes old/new information.
To give a flavour of some of the complexities, consider sentences (41a, b):
(41) a. Sue called Mary a linguist and then she INSULTED her.
b. Sue called Mary a linguist and then SHE insulted HER.
In (41b) the two pronouns she and her are accented, which implies that they
must be new information. On the other hand, they are also pronouns, which
implies that they are old information. What is new information here is actually
the identity of the people to whom the pronouns refer. Presuppositions
Consider the examples in (42):
16.6. INFORMATION STRUCTURE AND COHESION 177
(42) a. Tom stopped reading the book

b. Tom was reading the book earlier
c. Tom wasn’t reading the book earlier
If sentence (42a) is true then (42b) must also be true. But the opposite of (42b),
namely (42c) must also be true if (42a) is true. If it were the case that Tom
hadn’t been reading a book then it would be very odd to say (42a).
What if Tom wasn’t reading anything earlier? Would Tom stopped reading the
book be false? That seems odd - rather, we would say that Tom stopped reading
the book was just inappropriate. So, in order for us to be able to decide whether
a sentence like (42a) is true or false we need to make the prior assumption that
(42b) is true, otherwise, (42a) will be inappropriate.
The proposition expressed by (42b) which expresses this prior assumption is
called a presupposition of (42a). A presupposition of a sentence remains true
even if that sentence is negated. That is, if we say Tom didn’t stop reading the
book, that still presupposes that Tom was reading the book earlier.
It is not just words which bear presuppositions. Function words and even
entire constructions may do so too.
Example (43) would be odd (infelicitous, inappropriate, . . . ) if Harriet owned
more than one cat (though we couldn’t really say that (43) was false as such).
(43) Harriet fed the cat
Likewise, (44) would be infelicitous if Harriet didn’t actually feed (any of) the
cats, even if she had several cats and one of them was a ginger tom.
(44) One of the cats that Harriet fed was a ginger tom
This is because the expression one of the cats that Harriet fed in (44) presupposes
that Harriet fed at least two cats. This presupposition remains even if we
negate the original sentence: One of the cats that Harriet fed wasn’t a ginger tom.
This type of presupposition is independent of information structure and
instead is dependent on the meaning of individual words and constructions.
Nonetheless, in each case the presupposition is a proposition which must be
assumed to be true in order for a given utterance to be felicitous.
16.6 Information structure and cohesion
There is an important relationship between the way new information is struc-

tured and the articulation of topic-comment on the one hand and some of
the cohesive devices discussed at the beginning of the chapter. The devices
of reference, substitution and ellipsis all target old information and serve to
emphasize the distinction between old information and focussed, new infor-
mation. The limiting case of this is ellipsis, in which the old information is
simply not mentioned.
Extra reading: for a summary of topic-focus organization (‘information pack-
aging’) see Huddleston and Pullum (2005: Ch15)
Chapter 17
Conversation
17.1 Introduction
Most of what we have learnt so far is true of written and spoken language
equally.1 However, there are various ways in which spoken language differs
from written language, some obvious, some not so obvious. The most obvious
difference is that spoken language has phonological properties (largely) lack-
ing in written language. In particular, we can express a good deal by means of
intonation, accent, rhythm and speed of speaking. Another difference is that
spoken language generally involves two or more speakers interacting with
each other (‘talk-in-interaction’). One branch of linguistics that studies the
way conversations are structured is Conversation Analysis (CA). An impor-
tant aspect of CA is the way that speakers/hearers negotiate who is to speak
when.
In this chapter we’ll look at the organization of intonation and accent and
how it can express various meanings and functions, including the topic-focus
(information structure) organization mentioned briefly in the previous chapter.
We’ll conclude with a brief summary of the structure of typical conversations.
A slightly less obvious difference between speaking a writing concerns typi-
cally modes of expression: spoken language tends to use simpler clause struc-
ture than written language, and some vocabulary is basically part of spoken
and not written language while other vocabulary is basically written rather
than spoken. However, the boundaries are difficult to draw, and neither writ-
ten nor spoken language is a single homogeneous type (or genre). The lan-
guage of a church sermon may well be essentially that of the written genre,
1 The terms ‘spoken’ and ‘written’ are somewhat opaque nowadays because a great many
texts are the result of electronic media in which you can mimic conversation but in the form of
a written/typed text. Thus, with instant messaging and similar technologies we can see all the
properties of spoken conversation, except that it happens to be written down (and therefore the
intonational characteristics have to be fudged, e.g. by using capital letters, emoticons, and far
too many exclamation marks!!!)
179
180 17. CONVERSATION
while the language of an advertising poster may well be entirely colloquial.

I won’t discuss the genre aspects of language in any great detail (it’s pretty
obvious anyway), except to mention briefly one class of words and phrases
which are typical of spoken language and which play a very important role
in the organization of conversation (often these are expressions which have
important cohesive functions). These are words which are especially difficult
for L2 English language learners because their meanings/functions are so ab-
stract and difficult to pin down and because they’re often not translatable into
a learner’s L1. These are the conversational or discourse particles and I shall
begin with them.
17.2 Conversational (discourse) particles
Probably all languages have conversational particles which guide the hearer in
interpreting utterances. One such particle in English is after all (ignore the fact
that this looks like two particles - it’s common for such particles to have the
form of a short phrase). What does this particle mean in example (1)?
(1) Natasha can do the Russian interpreting. After all, she’s from Moscow.
A speaker would normally only use after all in a sentence such as (1) if they
believed that the hearer already knew the content of the proposition which
after all introduces. This is clearly seen in (2):
(2) We MUST go out somewhere nice tonight, after all it IS your birthday
It’s hardly likely that the speaker would use (2) to inform the hearer that it
was her birthday (or even to remind her of this fact).
But why should anyone tell the hearer something they already obviously
know? In particular, how can such an utterance ever be relevant to the hearer?
The answer is that after all serves to tell the hearer that the speaker believes
that this (shared) fact provides crucial evidence to back up what the speaker
has just claimed. The fact that the proposition which is introduced by after
all is presented as unequivocal shared knowledge therefore makes it difficult
for the hearer to disagree. As a result, even an apparently wholly redundant
utterance can be relevant.
There are probably about a hundred or so conversational particles in com-
mon use in English. Most of them are ignored in language teaching curricula
even though they are a vital part of spoken English. Their meaning is ex-
tremely difficult to pin down and the only real way to learn their use is by
seeing numerous examples of them in the right context. (This is how corre-
sponding conversational particles are taught in the German as a Foreign Lan-
guage pedagogic tradition, for instance.) Another construction which fulfils
17.3. SENTENCE ACCENT IN DISCOURSE STRUCTURE 181
the same role as conversational particles is the tag question (haven’t they, won’t
she, aren’t you, isn’t it etc.).
Here is a list of some of the more common particles:
actually after all alright (all right)
but kind of like
now oh so
sort of then though
you know you see well
17.3 Sentence accent in discourse structure
17.3.1 Rhythm and Intonation
Useful reading Kreidler 2004 ch 9, Spencer 1996 ch. 8
Rhythm
Different words in an utterance receive different degrees of prominence, even

in languages with no word stress. We can usually identify the position of
phrasal accent = the most accented word (in English, the word whose primary
stressed syllable is more prominent than the primary stressed syllable of any
other word in the utterance.)
Foot structure similar to foot structure of word stress trees, but different in
various ways.
Intonation
Overall pitch contour of utterance falls/rises depending on grammatical struc-

ture, pragmatic context, emotional content of utterance (even in tone lan-
guages!).
17.3.2 De-accenting
Most function words are naturally unaccented, e.g.

• determiners (the, a, . . . )
• auxiliaries (be, have, do, modals, infinitival to)
• pronouns
This means that they often sound identical to unstressed parts of words. This
is seen in (3), where we see three different sentences which are pronounced
in more or less the same way even though two of them contain unstressed
function words:
(3) a. màrkĕt ă fáilure

b. màrk ı̆t ă fáilure
c. màrkĕtĕr fáilure
However, most function words can be accented for marked focus:
(4) a. It’s the Kate Middleton

b. They have been reading the booklet
c. She didn’t just eat a biscuit - she ate the whole packet
Full lexical words have to be deaccented if they have low information content
(‘old information’), e.g. anaphorically used nouns:
(5) They chased the mugger down the street, but they didn’t manage to
cátch the chàp/blìghter/bàstard/. . .
Also:
(6) I always promise my friends that I’ll send them lots of letters but I often
don’t find the tíme to wrìte much
(‘write much’ ≃ ‘write (lots of) letters’)

Prepositions (especially monosyllabic ones) tend to get deaccented.
(7) a. /car ı̆n a / traffic / jam/

b. /car / ínner / tube
c. * /car ı̆nner /tube
Cf. single words such as márı̆nĕr, Kítchĕnĕr, pátı̆nă, . . .
17.4 Focus, accent and information structure
Position of phrasal accent depends on various factors including pragmatics,

especially information structure, as discussed in the previous chapter.
(Kreidler 147):
(8) a. Harriet wrote a letter to Tom

b. Harriet wrote a letter to Tom
c. Harriet wrote a letter to Tom
d. Harriet wrote a letter to Tom
Commutation test:
17.4. FOCUS, ACCENT AND INFORMATION STRUCTURE 183
(9) Who did Harriet write the letter to?

Felicitous answer: 1a. *1b, *1c, *1d
(10) What did Harriet write to Tom?
Felicitous answer: 1b. *1a, *1c, *1d
Accented elements supply new information, hence can be the focus of a wh-
question.
In the absence of special context, phrasal accent tends to fall on the last
lexical word of the utterance, 1a. NB: this could also answer questions 4.:
(11) a. What did Harriet do?

b. What happened (next)?
Examples 1 b-d can’t be answers to 4a, b.

Examples 1b-d = marked focus/accent
Some neutral utterance types have initial accent, generally where the verb is
low in information value:
(12) What’s happened?

The kettle’s (just) boiled
The baby’s (just) woken up
The cat’s (just) come in
Contrast
Focussing is often used to make a contrast:
(13) They live in Rome, not Naples

She answered three questions, instead of two
Even unstressed syllables (!) can be accented in order to contrast two words
(‘metalinguistic contrast’):
(14) She’s the employer, not the employee

He was demoted, not promoted
Focussing particles
Some particles select the focussed word:
(15) a. Harriet only wrote a letter to Tom = only to Tom

b. Harriet only wrote a letter to Tom = only a letter
c. Harriet only wrote a letter to Tom = only wrote
d. Harriet only wrote a letter to Tom = only Harriet

(16) a. Harriet wrote a letter to Tom, too = also to Tom
b. Harriet wrote a letter to Tom, too = also a letter
c. Harriet wrote a letter to Tom, too = also wrote
d. Harriet wrote a letter to Tom, too = also Harriet
17.5 Tone units in English
Identifying tone units

(17) Peter spent the weekend with his stamp collection.
Faster (allegro) and slower (lento) speech styles:
(18) a. Peter / spent the / weekend / with his / stamp col/lection

b. Peter spent the / weekend with his / stamp collection
Tone units in English are usually treated as having the strong accent first
(e.g. trochaic feet). Apparent cases of initial weak syllables are often analysed
as involving a ‘silent beat’ (cf. musical upbeat/anacrusis). This can be notated
using the symbol , as in:
ˆ
(19) In a /moment I’ll / tell you a / story

ˆ
Tone units can cut across words, e.g.:
(20) Peter re/sponded re/markably / quickly
Stress timing
(21) a. Speed / kills
b. Speeding / kills
c. Speeding can / kill
d. Speed / kills you
e. Speeding can / kill someone
Two tone units in each sentence, each takes roughly the same time to deliver
(given a constant speaking rate). Number of syllables is less important than
number of accents. Hence, English is stress-timed language.
This is not true of languages such as Japanese, Polish etc., where number of
syllables remains constant irrespective of stresses: syllable-timed language.
17.6. INTONATION 185
17.6 Intonation
Useful background Kreidler 2004 ch. 10

Intonational contours are crucially defined in terms of pitch movement on
the main accent of the tone unit. Other pitch movements elsewhere are also
possible and have pragmatic or discourse functions, but the main intonational
patterns are defined with respect to the accented syllable (this is generally true,
not just for English).
Divide a tone unit into three subparts:
Head: = syllables before the accent
Nucleus: = accented syllable
Tail: = syllables after Nucleus
Halliday’s five tone analysis

Assume three levels of pitch: high (H), mid (M), low (L). (Accented syllable
notated in bold.)
Tune 1, high fall, HL, symbol `
(22) She /made one/`yesterday/
yes
She made one
terday
Tune 2, high rise, LH, symbol ´
(23) She /made one/´yesterday/?
terday
She made one
yes
Tune 3, low rise, LM, symbol

´
(24) She /made one/ yesterday/. . . (and the day before)
´
She made one

terday
yes
Tune 4, fall-rise, HLM, symbol ˇ

(25) She /made one/ˇyesterday/ (but not today)
yes
She made one
terday
Tune 5, rise-fall, MHL, symbol ˆ
(26) She /made one/ ˆyesterday/! (Just imagine!)
ter
She made one yes
day
The tone extends for the whole of the tail, e.g. where the first syllable of the
tone unit is the Nucleus:
Tune 1, high fall
(27) `Harriet wrote a letter to Tom
Harr
iet wrote a letter to Tom
Tune 2, high rise:
(28) ´Harriet wrote a letter to Tom??
m
To
to
letter
wrote a
Harriet
Tune 3, low rise:
(29) Harriet wrote a letter to Tom (and Sue did)

´
et wrote a letter to Tom

Harri
Tune 4, fall-rise:
(30) ˇHarriet wrote a letter to Tom (though Sue didn’t)

17.7. THE STRUCTURE OF TALK (CONVERSATION ANALYSIS) 187
Harr
m
iet wrote a letter to To
Tune 5, rise-fall:
(31) ˆHarriet wrote a letter to Tom(!)
i
Harr
et wrote a letter to Tom
17.7 The structure of talk (Conversation Analysis)
17.7.1 Turn-taking
So far our discussions have involved only very short stretches of speech and
in general we’ve been able to make our points using constructed examples.
However, there is another aspect to the act of talking which isn’t covered by
the perspective we gain from pragmatics. When we listen to a group of people
in conversation we generally find that the talk is organized in a rather effi-
cient fashion. And yet conversation usually involves at least two people who
may each want to speak, and who don’t necessarily want to listen. How then
does people negotiate who is to ‘have the floor’ and when that privilege can
be ceded to another participant in the conversation? In other words, how is
turn-taking organized? It turns out that there is a host of more or less subtle
linguistic signals that we use for this purpose. In addition, talkers often need
to convey their attitude to the conversation without explicitly discussing it. For
instance, there may be topics which a talker doesn’t want to discuss in detail,
or alternatively there may be topics which the hearer wishes to know more
about. Languages have a variety of means to allow talkers to give each other
information of this kind. The study of these various devices is Conversation
Analysis (CA). CA originated in the work of social psychologists and sociolo-
gists and for a long time was poorly integrated into the kinds of mainstream
linguistics we have been discussing in this book. Even studies of pragmatics
tended to ignore CA. However, recently specialist in a variety of areas of lin-
guistics, including phonetics, pragmatics and language disorders have been
looking in detail at the way talk is managed (or mismanaged).
The prototypical, and in some sense simplest, kinds of interchange are paired
utterances, such as pairs consisting of question-answer or offer-acceptance, but
including more or less formulaic pairs such as or greeting-greeting. Such pairs
are called adjacency pairs. The key fact about such pairs is that the first ut-
terance virtually demands a response. In other kinds of talk, however, it may
not always be so obvious who should talk and for how long. To manage the
progress of talk we need to manage who takes a turn at talking a various

stages, in other words, we need to understand the mechanics of turn-taking.
Talkers don’t take up their turn at random places. Rather, there are transi-
tion relevant places (TRP, Levinson 1983: 297), that is, places where a second
person can take up the talk. One obvious TRP is when there is a noticeable
silence, but this is not the only type. Whenever such a place occurs in the talk
the current speaker has the option of selecting the next talker. If the speaker
doesn’t make a specific selection, then anyone can take over. If no one takes
over the speaker has the option of continuing him/herself.
One of the implications of this is that silence can be very informative. In the
sequence shown in (32) speaker A offers an invitation to B, who doesn’t reply
at once (the numbers in brackets, (0.3), (0.1), mean a pause in seconds):
(32) 1A Would you like to meet now,

(0.3)
2A [or late-
3B [Well, not just now. (0.1) Maybe in about ten minutes?
A’s question invites an immediate response, which isn’t forthcoming. In other

words B fails to take his/her turn. Therefore, A tries again with a modified
version of the original invitation. The square brackets before 2A and 3B indi-
cate that A and B start talking simultaneously. This means that before B has
had chance to hear A’s alternative offer s/he makes explicit the implication of
the silence after A’ first turn.
A second feature of the interaction in (32) is B’s use of the conversational
particle well in 3B. Words such as this have been studied in some detail by
pragmaticians and conversation analysts. In some cases their function is to
indicate to the hearer how to process the utterance. In other cases, however, a
particle may be used to indicate the speaker’s attitude to the some aspect of
the conversation. A particle that has been studied in some detail is oh. This
particle has a number of uses, and its precise function depends on a variety of
factors, especially intonation. However, when pronounced with a high falling
intonation it generally indicates that the speaker acknowledges receipt of a
piece of news. In (33), for instance, Sally is effectively acknowledging that she
didn’t know before about Mary’s new job:
(33) Tom: Mary’s got a new job.

Sally: Oh!
On the other hand in (34) Emma uses a different conversational particle, that’s
right, and thereby is effectively signalling that she knew this all along, and
hence implying that she didn’t need to be told. In CA this implication is
known as a claim to epistemic priority (roughly, ‘I got there first, actually’):
17.7. THE STRUCTURE OF TALK (CONVERSATION ANALYSIS) 189
(34) Tom: Mary’s got a new job.

Sally: That’s right!
By using conversational particles such as that’s right (rather than oh) speakers
can try to manipulate their position in the conversation and make it less easy
for others to disagree with them.
17.7.2 Adjacency pairs
Two women preparing to watch a film of themselves
1 Zoe Mum?
2 Lyn hello (pause)
3 Lyn I’m here (pause)
4 Zoe okay- (pause)
5 Lyn ((coughs/clears throat)) (pause)
6 Zoe hello
7 Lyn hi
8 Zoe where’s the cigarettes (shorter pause)
9 Lyn in the kitchen (long pause)
10 Zoe the camera’s on
11 Lyn yes (slight pause)
12 Zoe are you talking to it while you WORK?
13 Lyn no (slight pause) [heh heh-
14 Zoe [what you DOING then
15 Lyn hahh hahh hahh (pause)
16 Zoe what’s the point (slight pause)
17 Zoe oh god (slight pause) look what I’m wearing
...
31 Zoe ↑oh ↑god (.) look what ↑I’m wearing
33 Lyn eh hah hah [HAh
34 Zoe [hah
35 Lyn you look like (slight pause) ↑Fa:gin
37 Zoe eh HAh HAh h[ah
38 Lyn [hah hah
40 Zoe w’ maybe I am.
41 Lyn y’ just need th’ little gloves, with th’ ↑fingers out.
44 Zoe v’ funny
Shortened forms: w’ = well, y’ = you, v’ = very, th’ = the

Aligned brackets indicate overlapping talk:
... [ ...
... [ ...
...
Bibliography
Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. The MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA.
Huddleston, R. and Pullum, G. K. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English

Language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Huddleston, R. and Pullum, G. K. (2005). A Student’s Introduction to English

Grammar. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Leech, G., Deuchar, M., and Hoogenraad, R. (2006). English Grammar for Today.
A New Introduction. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Radford, A., Atkinson, M., Britain, D., Clahsen, H., and Spencer, A. (2009).
Linguistics: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2nd
edition. First edition published 1999.
Tallerman, M. (2011). Understanding Syntax. Hodder Education, London, 3rd

edition.
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LG207

The Structure of English

Version 2.1 Typeset using LATEX in 11/14pt Palatino,

I The simple clause 9

5 Simple clause structure 43

7 Argument structure alternations 65

8 Prepositions and particles 73

9 Auxiliary verbs: properties and types 83

10 Tense, Aspect, Mood, Voice 95

10.6.2 Modality and negation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

II The complex clause and texts 111

11 Subordinate clauses I 113

12 Subordinate clauses II 123

13 Wh-clauses and topicalized clauses 135

14 Relative clauses and their kin 143

15 Nominals - structure and functions 153

16 Text organization and cohesion 167

17.7 The structure of talk (Conversation Analysis) . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

The simple clause

In this introductory chapter we review the most basic aspects of grammar. By

1.2 Lexical vs functional categories

1.3 Content words

Types of words [See also Leech et al. (2006: Chapter Four)]

of ) or in certain contexts/functions (e.g. to) .

1.3.1 Nouns, verbs, adjectives

noun: = (physical, concrete) thing: girl, tree, house

adjective: = (physical) property, quality: cold, young; tall, clean, blue

verb: = event: sleep, walk, write, eat

Forms of words - inflections

• typically has singular/plural forms: boy/boys; house/houses

• may have comparative/superlative forms: cold, colder, coldest

– definite/indefinite articles -the girl, a boy

• Adjectives: a tall girl, the sharp knife

• Modifiers - very tall, too cold, quite blue,

• Various other phrases - colder than ice

• Auxiliary verbs (see later) - may have been sleeping

• Adverbs - ran quickly/yesterday/around the park/. . .

1.3.2 Homonymy between classes

Noun ⇒ Verb: paper ∼ to paper (the wall)

1.3.3 Prepositions, adverbs

others:: of, for, about, with, without, despite, . . .

Function word use:

Cf a quick runner ⇒ (Harriet) runs quickly

Some adverbs modify adjectives, prepositions or other adverbs:

• extremely bright (adjective)

• partially under (preposition)

• surprisingly soon (adverb)

1.4 Function words and functional categories

In this section we look at function words such as conjunctions, determiners,

Conjunctions: join two phrases or sentences

or: cf ‘and’ but with a different meaning

• Definite/indefinite article: the/a

• Demonstratives: this/that have distinct singular/plural forms agreeing

• Interrogative determiners: ask a question - which book? whose book?

The main types of pronoun are

• person pronouns: I, you, we, they, . . .

• possessive pronouns: my, your, . . .

• reflexive pronouns: myself, themselves, . . .

• interrogative pronouns: who, which, what, whose

For other pronouns, see the next chapter.

1.5 Lexemes and word forms

(1) a. They swim

FORM: /swIm, swam, sw2m/

Some word forms are ambiguous.