English

Morphosyntax
Syllabi for the Lectures
Examples and Exercises

Ludmila Veselovská
1st and 2nd editions 2006, 2009. Revised 2017.

Reviews
Jeffrey Parrott, PhD; Dagmar Machová, PhD.

Language consultant
Prof. Joseph Emonds, PhD.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................. 1

2 PARTS OF SPEECH/WORD CATEGORIES (REVISION) ....................................... 3

2.1 The Nature of grammatical Categories.................................................................................... 3
2.2 General principles of classification ......................................................................................... 4
2.3 Semantic-Notional Criteria for establishing a Category.......................................................... 4
2.4 Morphological Criteria for establishing an item's Category (very reliable) ............................ 5
2.4.1 Derivational Morphology and the Right-Hand Head Rule ................................................. 5
2.4.2 Inflectional Morphology: Categorial Features ................................................................... 6
2.4.3 Grammaticalization as a source of Morphology ................................................................. 6
2.4.4 Types of Features ................................................................................................................ 8
2.5 Syntactic Criteria for Establishing a Category ...................................................................... 11
2.6 Heads, Phrases and Pro-forms ............................................................................................... 11
2.7 Categorial Proto-typicality .................................................................................................... 14
2.8 Some functional categories or “minor” parts of speech ........................................................ 15

3 SEMANTICS AND MORPHOLOGY OF ENGLISH NOUNS ................................. 18

3.1 Countability and Number ...................................................................................................... 19
3.1.1 Countability ....................................................................................................................... 19
3.1.2 Number .............................................................................................................................. 20
3.2 Animacy and Gender ............................................................................................................. 21
3.2.1 Animacy ............................................................................................................................. 22
3.2.2 Gender ............................................................................................................................... 22
3.3 Determiners: Reference and Quantification .......................................................................... 25
3.3.1 Classification of Determiners with respect to Distribution ............................................... 26
3.3.2 Pronouns and Articles ....................................................................................................... 27
3.3.3 Types of Reference............................................................................................................. 28
3.4 Inflectional Morphology of Nouns (Summary) ..................................................................... 29

4 SYNTACTIC PROPERTIES OF NOUNS AND NOUN PHRASES ......................... 32

4.1 Internal Structure of Noun Phrases........................................................................................ 32
4.1.1 N-premodifiers (See also Section 3.3) ............................................................................... 33
4.1.2 Determined and Quantified NP ......................................................................................... 34
4.1.3 Recursive pre-modifiers of “N” ........................................................................................ 35
4.1.4 Recursive N postmodifiers ................................................................................................. 35
 4.2 Distribution and Sentence Functions of Noun Phrases ......................................................... 37
4.3 Case Inflection and Sentence Functions ................................................................................ 37
4.3.1 The Repertory and Realizations of Morphological Case .................................................. 37
4.3.2 The Source and Function of (abstract) Case ..................................................................... 38

5 PRONOUNS .................................................................................................................... 44
5.1 Personal Pronouns ................................................................................................................. 44
5.1.1 Interpretation of Personal Pronouns................................................................................ 44
5.1.2 Functions and Forms of Personal Pronouns ..................................................................... 45
5.1.3 Demonstrative Determiners, Pronouns and Adverbs ........................................................ 46
5.2 Restricted (Post-)Modification of Pronominals..................................................................... 46
5.3 Relative Pronouns.................................................................................................................. 48
5.3.1 THE FORM OF RELATIVE PRONOUNS ........................................................................ 48
5.3.2 Omitting the Relative Pronoun .......................................................................................... 49
5.4 Interrogative Pronouns .......................................................................................................... 49
5.4.1 The form of the Interrogative Pronouns ............................................................................ 49
5.4.2 The position of the WH-Pronouns ..................................................................................... 50
5.4.3 Interpretation of Interrogative Pronouns .......................................................................... 51
5.4.4 Comparing English and Czech WH-questions .................................................................. 51

6 ANAPHORS (REFLEXIVES AND RECIPROCALS) ............................................... 55

6.1 Deixis, Reference and Co-Reference..................................................................................... 55
6.1.1 Anaphors, Pronominals and Referential expressions....................................................... 55
6.1.2 Co-reference (Antecedents and Indices)............................................................................ 56
6.1.3 The linear position of an antecedent (especially with pragmatic anaphors) .................... 56
6.2 The Form and Interpretation of English Bound Anaphors .................................................... 57
6.2.1 Antecedents of anaphors.................................................................................................... 57
6.2.2 Local Binding of Anaphors - The Binding Theory ............................................................ 58
6.2.3 Reciprocals ........................................................................................................................ 58
6.3 The Distribution/ Use of Reflexive/ Reciprocal Pronouns .................................................... 59
6.3.1 Some distinctions between Czech and English .................................................................. 59

7 THE MODIFIER CATEGORIES A (ADJECTIVES) AND ADVERBS .................. 62

7.1 Semantic characteristics of Adjectives/ Adverbs. ................................................................. 62
7.2 Adjectival/Adverbial Morphology ........................................................................................ 63
7.2.1 Derivational Morphology for the category “A”............................................................... 63
7.2.2 Inflectional morphology of A ............................................................................................. 63
7.2.3 Grading ............................................................................................................................. 63
7.2.4 The inflectional nature of the Adj→Adv morpheme ʻly .................................................... 64
7.3 Internal Phrase Structure of AP ............................................................................................. 65
7.3.1 Pre-modification of A ........................................................................................................ 65
7.3.2 Post-modification of A ....................................................................................................... 66
7.3.3 Both pre- and post-modifiers of the category “A” ............................................................ 67
 7.3.4 Classification of Adverbs................................................................................................... 67

8 SYNTAX OF APS ........................................................................................................... 69

8.1 Syntax (distribution, functions) of Adjective Phrases ........................................................... 69
8.1.1 Adjective Pre-/Post-modifiers of a Noun ........................................................................... 70
8.1.2 Predicate Function of Adjective Phrases .......................................................................... 72
8.1.3 Subject/Object Adjective Phrase Complements (Secondary Predicate, ‘doplněk’) .......... 73
8.1.4 Central vs. Peripheral Adjectives ...................................................................................... 75
8.2 Adverbial Positions of APs and PPs .................................................................................. 79
8.2.1 Adverbials as Modifiers ..................................................................................................... 79
8.2.2 Adverbials as Adjuncts ...................................................................................................... 80
8.2.3 General Distribution of AP Adjuncts/Adverbials .............................................................. 81
8.2.4 Negative, partial negative, and positive adverbs .............................................................. 82
8.3 Adverbials as PPs (Adverbial Prepositions and Particles) .................................................... 83
8.3.1 Degree Words: Grading Adverbs ...................................................................................... 83
8.3.2 Verb-modifying Particles................................................................................................... 83

9 SEMANTICS AND MORPHOLOGY OF VERBS ..................................................... 85

9.1 Semantic Specification and Classifications ........................................................................... 85
9.2 Verbal Paradigm (Inflectional Morphology on Verbs) ......................................................... 86
9.2.1 Contexts for bare infintives ............................................................................................... 87
9.3 Tense ..................................................................................................................................... 88
9.4 Aspect .................................................................................................................................... 89
9.5 Combinations of Aspect & Tense.......................................................................................... 90
9.6 Mood, Sentence Modality ..................................................................................................... 91
9.7 Voice (Active or Passive) ...................................................................................................... 92
9.8 Subject-Verb Agreement ....................................................................................................... 92

10 SYNTAX OF VERBS: VERBAL PHRASE ............................................................ 97

10.1 Verb Phrase internal structure ............................................................................................... 97
10.1.1 Complement Selection (c-selection) = Subcategorization................................................. 98
10.1.2 Verbs selecting verbs ....................................................................................................... 100
10.2 Typical sentence functions of a Verb .................................................................................. 101

11 LEXICAL VERBS, AUXILIARIES AND MODALS ........................................... 103

11.1 Semantic Specifications of Verbs ........................................................................................ 104
11.2 Two Semantic Classes of Modality among the Modals ...................................................... 104
11.3 Phonetic Reductions of Auxiliaries and Modals ................................................................. 105
11.4 Morphological Properties pf Auxiliaries and Modals ......................................................... 106
11.5 Syntax of Auxiliaries, Modals and Verbs: the OPERATOR Position................................. 108
11.5.1 Question formation: Modal/*Verb - Subject - ... ............................................................. 108
11.5.2 Do-Support ...................................................................................................................... 108
 11.5.3 Negation (Position of not/-n’t) ........................................................................................ 109
11.5.4 Question Tags, Short Answers, Questions of Surprise .................................................... 109
11.5.5 Morphological vs. syntactic model of the predicate ........................................................ 110
11.5.6 N.I.C.E. properties........................................................................................................... 110
11.5.7 Comparing NOT and NEVER .......................................................................................... 114
11.6 Comparing VP and NP Projections ..................................................................................... 115

12 THE ENGLISH VERBS DO, BE AND HAVE ....................................................... 116

12.1 Specificity of be................................................................................................................... 116
12.1.1 The position of "be" in the English analytic Predicate ................................................... 117
12.2 Specificity of have ............................................................................................................... 118

13 RELATED LITERATURE ...................................................................................... 125

13.1 A - Practical Manuals .......................................................................................................... 125
13.2 B - Theoretical Manuals ...................................................................................................... 125
13.3 C - Further related/cited literature ....................................................................................... 126

14 INDEX ........................................................................................................................ 127

1 INTRODUCTION

Working with this text

This text has been written to assist students of English in their work in the course of English Syntax in
the B.A. programme of English philology. It assumes a solid knowledge of English grammar,
especially of the formal taxonomy of morphemes, morphological properties of English parts of speech,
and the typology of the language. These topics are listed and covered in the preceding (B.A.) part of
the course in English Grammar: English Morphology. Some data and phenomena discussed in that
volume are repeated here and analysed from a more specific perspective.
This text, however, is in no way intended to replace any textbook specified in a course
description, nor does the material presented cover all of what students need to read for their exams.
Instead, it provides syllabi for the lectures with many schemata and examples commented on and
discussed in the course. Without careful attention to the general presentations in the lectures, some
of them may be difficult to understand. The students are strongly encouraged to make their own notes
and remarks during the lectures and seminars; enough space is given between the paragraphs and in
the margins to make possible such additions. Some students may still have problems with English
terminology and with structuring of their study—this text should also provide them with the main
terms used. The sections basically follow a pattern that can be used in preparing for English grammar
exams, though not all topics are covered to the same extent and some require more individual reading.

Apart from syllabi, the following text also contains a number of exercises. The function of the
exercises is twofold. First, they introduce some new aspects or problems of the proposed analyses not
mentioned in detail during the lectures. Second, they allow students to test their understanding of the
topics under discussion. In some cases, however, there is no generally agreed solution to a problem,
and the exercise provides more data for discussion of alternatives rather than presenting a simple
minded summary of memorized knowledge.

The Topics and Background Philosophy

The course concentrates in detail on the characteristics of the main lexical categories (and also
the Pronouns) in English. Special attention is given to the forms and functions of Nouns, Adjectives,
Prepositions and Verbs, including Auxiliaries and Modals. In this part many syntactic terms are
introduced in as much as they are relevant for the categorial characteristics. Because the assumed
readers are Czechs and many of them intend to translate or interpret in their future careers, English
grammar is often compared with its Czech formal and/or pragmatic equivalents. Some other languages
are also occasionally mentioned, to provide a more universal background for the topics under
discussion.

The volume is divided into sections which can be covered in some 10-13 two-hour classes (in
the existing system in a semester). Each main part of a chapter contains an introductory Revision
Section testing the assumed preliminary knowledge and a final Revision Section which summarizes
the basic topics covered in the course.

The text concentrates on topics which the author finds most important, most interesting and
sometimes neglected in other study materials. To complement these individual choices, at the
beginning of most sections there are some bibliographical references to the literature which are

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recommended as study material for the course. The students are expected to go through at least some
of these materials. A student who does no serious supplementary reading will almost certainly not do
well in their final marks.

The author of the following text believes that linguistics, above all its grammar, is an
autonomous science. In fact, the daily unconscious use of one’s native grammar is thought by
leading researchers to underlie all human science and calculation. Therefore the analyses here
assume that human language is a system which can be studied applying scientific methods with the
result of acquiring some descriptively adequate and as explanatory as possible generalized hypotheses.
Empirical data and argumentation are thus strongly preferred to the memorizing of any listed
classifications, and no a priori analysis or theory is taken for granted or as definitive. Nonetheless, the
presentation and hypotheses here (such as in the choices of categories) are based on traditional
functional and structuralist grammar, which the students have used during their pre-university
education, and only moderately influenced by current syntactic theoretical proposals.

Recent functional and generative approaches typically present themselves as returning to the
empirical concerns of traditional grammar and at the moment provide a wide range of plausible
frameworks. The grammatical analyses introduced in this course assume the need for empirical and
scientific understanding of human language and although it concentrates on formal grammar, it
assumes interactions with other disciplines such as a theory of communication, literary study,
psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc.
The author hopes that discussing and trying to understand basic grammar in a more universal
and open-minded way turns out to be useful for all students of English language, who can then go on
in their studies in whichever field or framework suits their fancy. However, this script is not a
textbook in a specific linguistic theory. If some students want to pursue their linguistic studies in the
future, they have to find their field and acquire more specialized knowledge in a more systematic
framework.

And at the end I would like to thank my colleagues Joseph Emonds and Jeffrey Parrott and the
reviewers for their comments, revisions of the text, adding many usefull examples, and all their help
which made the text more suitable for seminar work.

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 2 PARTS OF SPEECH/WORD CATEGORIES (REVISION)

Huddleston & Pullum (2002) pp. 22; Greenbaum & Quirk (1990) pp. 188-203.

2.1 The Nature of grammatical Categories

From the beginning of the theoretical study of language in ancient Greece, words were grouped into
several categories according to various combinatorial properties. The label for a part of speech
expresses a number of properties shared by groups of words of the same category. I.e. some specific
conceptual field, possible morphological forms and/or structural relations and usage in a clause can be
derived from the categorial status of a given word.

(1) CRITERIA (properties) FOR ESTABLISHING PARTS OF SPEECH

I. SEMANTIC or “notional” - based on general meanings of words and/or their functions

in a larger group of words.
But note: in many cases, the “pure semantics of a word” is of no help in determining a
category: courage vs. brave; fact vs. happen; live vs. alive, cross vs. across.

II. FORMAL PROPERTIES (criteria)

a. MORPHOLOGICAL - based on the word-internal structure;
each main category has some typical morphology:
i. derivational morpheme(s)/affixes
ii. inflectional morpheme(s)/endings, functional words
b. SYNTACTIC - i. co-occurrence restrictions (inside the phrasal projection)
ii. distribution (function) in larger well-formed sentences
.
c. PHONETIC - minor, complementary criteria mentioning e.g. a particular stress pattern or
some specific phonemes, e.g. English transport (N) vs. transport (V).

In other languages phonetics can play a bigger role in determining categories. Classical Greek Nouns
had stress on different syllables, while its Verbs and Adjectives had a fixed rule for penult or final
stress. In Igbo (Nigeria), Verbs begin with consonants and Nouns begin with vowels.

As the table above shows, there are several criteria to apply when assigning a category.
Ideally, all the criteria applied to one lexical item agree, but often they need not. In this

!!! situation some criteria are taken as more important, depending on which grammatical
definitions are used and particular characteristics of the language being analysed. Exact
definitions of word categories may therefore vary in different theoretical frameworks.

In traditional grammar, notional and morphological criteria prevailed over the syntactic. Czech
traditional grammar uses the following word categories: Nouns, Adjectives, Pronouns, Numerals,

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Verbs, Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions, Particles and Interjections, and for English the
categories of Articles (more generally Determiners) and Modals could be added.

The notion of a word category is closely related to the notion of ‘word’ and this definition may differ
in different languages as well. The usual criteria for inflecting words (word categories) are
morphological, while with non-inflecting word categories (e.g. in English), syntactic criteria are more
frequent. In this text we are going to stress always the formal (esp. syntactic) criteria.

(2) General classification of parts of speech

a. ‘MAJOR’ or ‘LEXICAL’ CATEGORIES or ‘OPEN CLASS’:

N (Nouns), A (Adjectives, certain classes of Adverbs), V (Verbs), P (Prepositions in a broad sense).
Only these have an unlimited number of items and productively form new items.

b. ‘MINOR’ (FUNCTIONAL, GRAMMATICAL) CATEGORIES or ‘CLOSED CLASS’:

Some Prepositions, Pronouns, Auxiliaries, Complementizers, some Conjunctions, certain Adverbial
Particles, Quantifiers-Numerals, etc.

The existence of the major lexical categories appears universal, but the importance and roles of their
members may differ substantially. Sometimes lexical categories are classified by shared grammatical
features; e.g. Nouns and Adjectives may share a general feature “+N”.

The number and character of minor or functional categories may differ across languages. Each
closed category has a limited number of items (a closed or fixed list), rarely more than 20.

2.2 General principles of classification

Labels used in grammar for classifications (e.g. parts of speech or sentence functions) do not denote
any real entities - they are theoretical constructs!

The classification must reflect some theoretical claim about similarity between the members of the
class. Saying that XX is "a noun" or "an attribute" we are claiming that XX has the properties and
behaviour which a theory assigns to a concept of "noun" or "attribute". If the label does not correlate
with any properties/ characteristics/ behaviour, it is not of any use.

(3) "Taxonomy is to be valued if it provides a convenient and revealing

conceptual organization of the entities in its realm... in our case something
in terms of which grammatical and semantic generalizations can be easily formulated"
!!!
Fillmore (1977:68).

2.3 Semantic-Notional Criteria for establishing a Category

Even though the following semantic properties don’t decide many cases, they reflect fundamental
aspects of categories. They are always present as a background concept but often too vague and
imprecise to use, for example why should courage be a Noun and brave an Adjective (or Verb)?

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(4) Prototypical correlations of syntactic categories (see Croft 1991, p. 55, 65, 79)
Noun Adjective Verb
Unmarked
Material objects Properties Actions
semantic class
Stativity state state process, activity

Persistence persistent persistent transitory

Valency 0, sometimes 1 1, sometimes 2 1 to 4

Gradability non-gradable gradable non-gradable

Pragmatic function reference modification predication

2.4 Morphological Criteria for establishing an item's Category (very reliable)

(5) a. derivational affixes...................create a new word, usually of a different category

b. inflectional endings..................create a new form within a paradigm of the same word

2.4.1 Derivational Morphology and the Right-Hand Head Rule

Derivational morphemes derive a new word, often in a different part of speech (category), e.g. the
Verb ‘write’ + derivational morpheme ‘-er’ = action Noun ‘writer’; ‘write’ + derivational morpheme
‘-able’ = passive Adjective ‘writable’

The presence of the derivational morpheme (in the relevant position) is almost always a clear and
sufficient argument in favour of some category. However, not all words have derivational
morphemes, and in languages where conversion and morpheme homonymy is frequent (e.g. English) a
derivational morpheme can mislead. For example, British English ‘fiver’, based on a numeral, is a five
pound note, and drug slang includes e.g. a ‘downer’. Here, -er isn’t added to V.

(6) Right-hand Head Rule - a head of a (complex) word in English, the element that provides
the category for the whole word, is almost always the rightmost element.

a. nation-al =A
nation-al-ise = not an A, but a V
nation-al-is-ation = not an A or a V, but an N
b. moving: -ing = N: Divorce and moving are difficult. He avoided any more moving.
-ing = A: Her poetry was very moving. /The ending seemed so moving.
-ing = V: He was/began/kept moving his office. I’ll be moving soon.

The Right-hand Head Rule applies to all regular and productive English compounds. It applies
invariably in derivational morphology.

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2.4.2 Inflectional Morphology: Categorial Features

Inflectional morphemes alter a word/part of speech (category) within its own paradigm, e.g. the
Czech forms muž and on and the English forms child and they have Case/Number paradigms:

(7) a. muž, muže, muži, mužem muži, mužích, mužů, mužům

b. on, něho, jemu/ mu, jeho/ ho, o něm, s ním
c. child, child's, children, children’s
d. they, their, theirs, them

Inflectional morphemes, i.e. the presence of some features and productive paradigms for these
features (e.g. plural/Case of Nouns) are specific to and typical of each part of speech.

(8) Nominal paradigm = nominal declension: features of Number, Case, Diminutive, etc.
a. Czech plural N : pán - pán+ovéPL, žena - žen+yPL, město - měst+aPL
English plural N : boy - boy+sPL, focus - foc+iPL

b. Czech diminutive : dome+ček, obří+ček, husi+čka, pyramide+čka

(9) Verbal paradigm = verbal conjugation: features of Tense, Aspect, Person, Negation.
a. Czech Tense/Aspect : píš-u, píše+š, píše, píše+me... jsem psal, jsi psal...
byl bych býval napsal, byl bys býval napsal...

b. English Tense/Aspect : help, help+ed, help+ing/ go, went, go+ing, go+ne

c. Czech clausal negation : dělám - ne+dělám, chodím - ne+chodím

Although categorial features are largely universal (e.g. Nouns tend to have a Number but not a Tense
feature), the (richness of) inflectional paradigms can differ a lot across languages. Japanese nouns
have case and politeness inflections, but they do not have number. Japanese verbs inflect for tense,
negative, causative, passive, politeness and other notions, but not for person or number.

Recall that the most traditionally discussed inflections are bound morphemes (endings), but they can
be also free (functional words)!

(10) a. free morpheme inflections: more clever to read will read, bude čís-t
b. bound inflections: nice-er čís-t French future: lir-a

2.4.3 Grammaticalization as a source of Morphology

(11) Process of grammaticalization is a language specific process. During this process some
lexical feature becomes a grammatical feature. The grammatical (=conceptual/notional)
features (="meaning") which a language has grammaticalized are encoded in inflection..

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 !!!
(12) Process of grammaticalization

LEXICAL morpheme → GRAMMATICAL free, often compounding morpheme →

(DERIVATIONAL morpheme) → INFLECTIONAL morpheme

Grammaticalization of a lexical semantic feature is a diachronic process (through time).

A semantic feature which becomes grammaticalized (in a given language) is:

(13) a. simplified in meaning (appears only as a choice between a limited number of options),
b. regular (has a canonical representation with a limited number of exceptions),
c. often productive (always possible in suitable contexts; can be used with new words).

(14) a. Free grammar: a tiny/small/little apple; free of care/debt/tears

b. Lexical compounds: female/woman/she pilot; care-free, debt-free, tear-free
c. Derivation:
lion-ess, actr-ess, host-ess, laundr-ess,*doctor-ess, *author-ess, *bakr-ess;
care-ful, sorrow-ful, tear-ful, respect-ful, hope-ful, *anger-ful, *despair-ful

d. Productive inflection: jablí-čko, mamut-ek, pekař-ka, ajťač-ka,

past tenses of verbs and plural of nouns in both languages; etc.

Lexical morphemes (independent words) like tiny/small/little or female/woman/she can diachronically

lose their full semantic (lexical) richness and become simplified to grammatical formatives, in the
extreme case becoming a regular/predictable/productive bound morpheme. E.g. we see that English
full becomes a suffix ʻful, losing some meaning.

Grammatical morphemes are nonetheless still semantic in that they are related to aspects of reality
which can also be expressed lexically. They represent some simplified version of it.

(15) Real vs. grammaticalized notions, e.g. number 6, number three hundred and seven

a. Integers (an infinite scale): 1/2/3/.../789/.../8,723... ∞

b. Grammaticalized Number: one vs. many, several, few, lots of, bunch of
c. Inflection for number: book vs. book-s (-s can mean any of these)

(16) Real vs. grammaticalized notion of Time = Tense

a. Time, an infinite line: E.g. Future time: tomorrow, two days from now, next year…
b. Tense, Grammaticalized: established points (with respect to the speech act)

(17) a. He stops. PRESENT: -s means including the time of the speech act.
b. He stopped. PAST: -ed means preceding the speech act.
c. He will (have) come. FUTURE: will means following the speech act.

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(18) Repetition (in English) a. Lexical: again (and again), once more, etc.
b. Derivational: re-open, re-tell, re-establish
c. Inflectional : "be +V -ing": he is jumping

Languages can differ as to which categories use which grammaticalized features (i.e., have specific
kinds of inflectional morphology). Compare these English and Czech examples with respect to
grammaticalization of Gender.

(19) a. [+Fem] Velk-á císař-ovna seděl-a na trůně ustaran-á.

great-Fem emperess-Fem sat-Fem on throne worried-Fem
b. The Great Empr-ess [Fem] was sitting on the throne worried.
c. [+Masc] Velk-ý císař seděl na trůně ustaran-ý.
great-Masc emperor-Masc sat-Masc on throne worried-Masc
d. The Great Emper-or [Masc] was sitting on the throne worried.

2.4.4 Types of Features

Inflectional morphology on a lexical item reflects features of the following three types:

(20) PRIMARY a. inherent: part of the lexical entry

SECONDARY
b. optional:
c.
depends on the choice of the speaker
configurational:‘kongruenční’,‘agreement’, case !!!
Here are several examples of these three types of features:

(21) Anna [Fem/*Masc] is an actress [Fem/*Masc].

 Anna/-ess/-ka always have an inherent, lexical Feminine Gender feature.

(22) Julie buys/bought [Past]/will buy [Fut] a book [Sing]/many books [Plur].
 the choice of value for Tense in buys/bought /will buy depends on the speaker = it is optional
 the choice of Number in book/books depends on the speaker = it is an optional feature.

(23) a. Hillary introduces/*introduce her friends to Bill.

b. They introduce/*introduces their friends to Peter.
 the Agreement feature on the Predicate introduce(s) depends not on the Verb itself (it is not
inherent), but on some other (related) element - on the characteristics of the Subject. Speakers
cannot choose the form of the Verb, once they have chosen the Subject = it is a configurational
(secondary, agreement) feature.

(24) Jiřina poslala Petrovi velk-ou knih-u.

Georgina-NOM sent PeterDAT big-Fem.S.ACC book-Fem.S.ACC
Georgina sent Peter a big book.

 Gender [feminine]: inherent feature (the lexical item kniha is formally feminine)
 Number [singular]: optional feature (the speaker was able to choose plural: knihy)
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 Case [accusative]: configurational (the Czech Verb poslat requires accusative Case and no
other for its direct Object).
 Adjective agreement: velk-ou [Fem, Sg, Acc]: All features on the Adjective are secondary, i.e.
configurational; they reflect properties of the superordinate element (knihu) and show that the
Adjective is its (pre-) modifier.

(25) The presence of categorial features and a resulting inflectional morphology

is the strongest and most reliable signal of categorial status. !!!
Every specific part of speech has its own intrinsic grammatical features and those features are
usually unique and appear ONLY with the relevant part of speech. For example, a grammatical feature
of Tense is typical for Verbs only, Gender for Nouns, and Grading for Adjectives. Other categories
can at most reflect/mirror the grammatical category of another part of speech, i.e. Verbs or Adjectives
can mirror Gender/ Number, but it is not their intrinsic category.

In a language with rich inflectional morphology (e.g. Czech), each major class lexical item can have
some typical inflectional endings (i.e. some bound morphemes), which identify the part of speech
rather clearly. However, in a language with poor inflectional morphology (e.g. English), the
inflectional morphemes may be not bound but free morphemes. Moreover, a morphological signal is
frequently simply absent, so that co-occurring elements in the syntax must decide the category.

(26) a. stop - stops

zastáv-ka, dvě zastáv-ky

!!!
b. zastav-it, zastav-il vs.
c. to stop, he stop-s vs. the stop, two stop-s

(27) List of English bound inflectional morphemes

...... Category Morpheme Example Meaning/Function type

1. N -s book-s Number [plural] optional

2. N 's Mary's Case [Germanic genitive] configurational
3. Pronoun -s/-r hi-s/ou-r Case [Possessive] configurational

4. V -s (he) read-s Agreement [3sgPres] configurational

5. V -ed wash-ed Tense [Past] optional
6. V -en/ ed writt-en Part of Aspect [Perfect] optional
7. V -ing read-ing Part of Aspect [Progressive] optional

8. A -er strong-er Grading [Comparative] optional

9. A -est strong-est Grading [Superlative] optional
10. A -ly strong-ly Modification other than of N configurational

9
(28) EXERCISE ================================================
The inflectional morphemes ʻen, ʻer and -ing have derivational counterparts. What is the
meaning/function of those derivational morphemes? Give examples of their use.
-en .............................................................................................................................................
-er .............................................................................................................................................
-ing ...........................................................................................................................................

(29) EXERCISE ================================================

Discuss what the underlined morphology in the examples below signals.

a. Jan a Marie jd-ou do kina. d. John’s wa-s in the garden, but hers wasn’t.
b. Zelen-ou si neber. e. There a-re/we-re you-r two boys there.
c. Petra js-em viděl-a já. f. The man who-m I gave it to.

(30) EXERCISE ================================================

Give examples of 3 derivational morphemes that change each word category. One of each type is done
for you.
Nouns: (i) govern+MENT, V + ment = N
ii. ............................................................. iii. .................................................................

Verbs: i. modern+IZE, A + ize = V

ii. ............................................................. iii. .................................................................

Adjectives: i. water + Y, N + y = Adj

ii. ............................................................. iii. .................................................................

Others: i. down/ east + WARD, P/ N + ward = Place Adverb

ii. ............................................................. iii. .................................................................

Some hints: ordinal numerals? Nicknames?Family names?

(31) EXERCISE ================================================

i. Give the pronunciation of the morphemes –s and –ed. What are the their variants? Which
feature makes the variants distinct?
ii. When does one get [-t] amd [-s], amd when [-d] and [-z]? What is 'assimilation in voicing'?
iii. Under which conditions does the pronunciation involve [-i-]?
iv. Try to state the rule in some general way?
I. II. III. IV.
a. books a. cat's a. he laughs a. he stopped
b. jobs b. dog's b. he reads b. he arrived
c. trees c. Joe’s c. he tries c. he stayed
d. masses d. James's d. he fusses d. he trusted
e. hedges e. Butch's e. he amuses e. he traded

10
(32) EXERCISE ================================================
In the following examples circle all the morphemes which show the feature of Number.
Explain the distinctions between Czech and English.

a. The other young girls came back from Prague very tired.
b. Ty druhé mladé dívky se vrátily z Prahy velmi unavené.

(33) EXERCISE ================================================

Which kind of morphemes are the ʻS/-ER/-ING/-ED morphemes in the following examples? Consider
what category the word in the context is. Justify your choices.

a. Adam'-s brother wait-s at every corner.

b. John is a bit quick-er than Louise but she also is a very thoughtful read-er.
c. i. Bill was shoot-ing the rabbits.
ii. The shoot-ing of the rabbits went on and on.
iii. Those shoot-ing sounds surprised me.

d. i. The staff was soon retir-ed (by the management).

ii. My father is happily retir-ed (*by the management).

2.5 Syntactic Criteria for Establishing a Category

Syntactic criteria for establishing the category of an item are based on its distribution, i.e. co-
occurrence restrictions. Each part of speech appears not freely but in typical environments.

(34) Syntax = distribution / co-occurence

There are typical elements which are subordinate to it (lower in a structural hierarchy) and typical
elements which are superordinate to it (higher in a hierarchy). For example, with Nouns: subordinate
elements (what depends on N?) are Articles, Numerals, Adjectives, etc., while superordinate elements
(what does the N(P) depend on?) are Verbs, Prepositions, etc.

(35) a. N: book, friend, water, courage, fact, trip

b. NP: [NP that new book], [NP a friend of mine], [NP some water to drink]
c. [ _ NP]: to publish [NP that new book], to see [NP a friend of mine]
d. P, [ _ NP]: about [NP the new book], with [NP some water to drink]

2.6 Heads, Phrases and Pro-forms

Heads
Every lexical category (N, A, V, P) can be a head of a more complex structure = a phrase.
The main function of each category is to be a head of its own phrase (- to project into a phrase).

11
(36) Phrases can contain:

pre-modifier(s) HEAD post-modifier(s)

that big brother of mine

right out the door
usually saw a movie

Phrases. The forms of pre-/post-modification are typical for a specific heads/parts of speech. Various
types of modifiers can be more/less obligatory in a given type of a phrase.

(37) a. N: boy [NP this little boy of mine ]

b. A: small [AP much smaller than Theo ]
c. V: read [VP to never read an article ]
d. P: up [PP right up the hill ]

The form of pre-modification (often termed a “specifier”) and of post-modification (these categories
of the “complements”) may be very typical for a specific head/part of speech. In fact, some, like
articles with count nouns or nouns after many prepositions, can be obligatory.

(38) Phrasal projection of a category X: Heads, Specifiers and Complements

XP

SPEC(X) X'
!!!
X0 X-complement

specifier head complement phrase

When a phrase is a bare head or contains only a specifier and a head, we call it “simple.”
When a phrase contains both a head and a complement phrase, we call it “complex”. We will see later
that simple and complex phrases of the same category type often have different distributions.

(39) Complement: a right hand sister of the head – the closest (post)-modifier
Specifier: pre-modifier, sometimes called an adjunct

(40) a. X=N: boy [NP that little boy of hers] *[NP little boy of hers]
b. X=A: small [AP much smaller than Theo] *[AP much smaller than]
c. X=V: find [VP to never find the article] *[VP to never find]
d. X=P: toward [PP right toward a door] *[PP right toward]

12
Sentence functions (sentence members) that are Specifiers or Complements, like ‘Subject’, ‘Object’,
‘Attribute’ and ‘Predicate’ are phrases, although they can be ‘bare’ phrases (i.e. they can be only one
word) or in other cases whole clauses (sentences inside sentences).

(41) a. We saw rabbits / [NP that little rabbit of mine]. Object is NP

b. This boy was small / [AP much smaller than Adam]. Predicate is AP
c. I hate hurrying / [VP to always work so late ]. Object is VP
d. Few campers went down / [PP right down the slope]. Adverbial is PP
e. This is a big / [AP extremely big] step. Attribute is AP

2.6.1.1 Pro-forms.

The main or major parts of speech N, V, A, P (actually their phrases NP, VP, AP, PP) typically have
PROFORMS: grammatical words which can in many contexts replace them.

The kind of proform used for such substitution is in itself a signal of the kind of phrase. Pronouns
replace NPs, Adverbials like there/then replace PPs, do so replaces VP, such replaces AP.

(42) The ambitious boy was already running in the city's only park at 8 o’clock.
a. NP [NP He ] was already running in the city's only park at 8 o’clock.
b. VP She wonders if [that ambitious boy would] [VP do so].
c. PP That ambitious boy was running [PP there] at 8 o’clock.
d. NP That ambitious boy was running in [NP its] only park at 8 o’clock.
e. PP That ambitious boy was already running [PP then] in the city's only park.
f. AP [AP Such] a boy was running in the city's only park at 8 o’clock.

(43) [NP He] is [VP doing so] [PP there] [PP now].
The Substitution Test, when grammatical, is a reliable test for a specific category.

2.6.1.2 Substitution

The main sentence function of each part of speech/lexical category is to head its phrase (to “project”
into a phrase). In a sentence, a phrase can appear as (i) a bare head, or (ii) with modifiers. We call both
“phrases”, and say that sentences consist of phrases, not of words.

(44) She him

Mary saw Peter
My older sister Mary your husband Peter, who drove a red car.

Substitution test: the elements appearing in the same structural position/configuration/function

are likely to be of the same nature (=category, complexity):

(45) > She ʻ Mary - My older sister Mary - are all NPs (and subjects)
> him - Pete - your husband Peter who drove the car - are all NPs (and objects)

13
2.7 Categorial Proto-typicality

Ideally words belonging to the same part of speech have some characteristic (general) type of
meaning, the same (predictable) forms and the same syntactic distributions/functions/pragmatics.

Grammatical categories have ‘best case’ members and members that systematically depart from the
‘best case’. An optimal grammatical description not only brings out morpho-syntactic properties that
are typical, but also the degree of categorial deviation from the ‘best case’. To ‘know' the
characteristics of a specific part of speech means to know to which extent the members of the category
are ‘the same’ (what they have in common), and to what extent they can differ from the best case
(what are the frequent deviations).

(46) a. book/books; flaw/flaws but sheep/ *sheeps; courage/ *courages

b. lift/lifted; cough/coughed but go/ *goed; beware/ *bewared
c. more/very/how important but *more/ *very /*how infinite

(47) “Fuzzy”Categories. The boundaries between categories may sometimes seem indistinct.
The reason for the ‘fuzziness’ of categories lies in the multiple criteria for each category (see
(1) on page 3).‘Category’ is defined separately in each linguistic component; so the results of the
multiple definitions can conflict and seem contradictory.
We usually can choose only one category for a word in a given sentence, but our choice
depends on what we focus on (recall that categories are abstract collections of features and properties).
Fuzziness, more likely than being a phenomenon in itself, usually signals a wrong or incomplete
analysis. Consider the following examples (many more could be made).

i. Meaning is adaptable and there is no morphology:

(48) a. ...stop... - meaning?? V? N? A?
b. The nearest stop is... N, *V, *A
c. The stop lights are broken. A, *N, *V
d. He should stop soon. V, *N, *A

ii. Meaning is adaptable and morphology is ambiguous:

(49) a. ...reading... - meaning of ʻing?? V? N? A?
b. Reading about that is sad. ?V, ?N
c. This reading is easy. N, *V, *A
d. He was reading a book. V, *N, *A
e. Take those reading glasses. A, *N, *V

iii. Meaning is adaptable, morphology signals X and distribution (syntax) signals Y:

(50) Should we sit there or nearer the boss?
-er suggests near is an A; coordination with here and the verb go suggest it is a P.

(51) That’s a must see movie.

must suggests see is a verb; the syntax suggests must see is an A.
(52) Safer would be better than faster.
ʻer suggests that safer, faster are As; syntax suggests that they are N.

14
2.8 Some functional categories or “minor” parts of speech

Greenbaum & Quirk (1990) pp. 188-203; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik (2004) pp. 393-398;
Dušková (1994) pp. 136-140, 273-306; Svoboda and Opělová-Károlyová (1989) pp. 138-162; Crystal
(1987) pp. 91-93.

Non-lexical parts of speech (“functional” or “closed” categories) are “minor” in that they have a
limited, basically fixed number of members. But they are central in the functioning of grammar.

Functional categories are short lists of specific words. They can be (ii) grouped together with some
major category that they share properties with, or (ii) kept separate because of a special property.

(53) a. Pronouns = related to Nouns, Adjectives?

b. Numerals = related to Nouns, Adjectives?
c. Conjunctions = related to Prepositions?

In English and Czech, these categories influence morphology, but don’t exhibit it themselves.
But these categories are central to grammatical systems, i.e. syntactic distribution.

(54) Numerals, and Quantifiers with Numeral Distribution

a. I saw those three hundred (and) thirty-three silver fire-brigade vehicles.

b. The fifth hotel we pass twice or three times a day.
c. The purpose of those plants is threefold. First, they take up space; second….
d. Many of them are ugly but a few are not so bad.
e. They drank barrels of beer. Mike drank a lot of wine, too.

(55) Prepositions, Conjunctions, Adverbs (of time and location):

Are these perhaps the same category? (why (not)?)

Recall section 2.2 (General principles of classification)

a. I didn’t do anything after the dinner/ after the party ended/ afterwards.
b. Samuel hasn’t done anything since he got up/ since the scandal.
c. I arranged for a vacation and for her to get a free trip. For she really deserved it.

(56) EXERCISE ================================================

Translate and use in a short sentence each of the following Prepositions/Conjunctions:

at, for, since, out, after, alongside, towards, within, (un)till, owing to, in spite of, besides, beyond, by
means of, according to, with respect to, as opposed to, (al)though, as if, provided that, supposing for
the moment that, lest, unless, whereas.

15
(57) EXERCISE ================================================
A class of words with very similar properties of meaning and syntax (e.g. possible pre-modifiers) are
called:

i. Prepositions when they precede NPs,

ii. Conjunctions when they precede Clauses,
iii. Adverbs of Location when they stand alone.

But Verbs are called Verbs, no matter what follows them. So we also use the notion “transitivity”
referring to verbs with objects to account for the different distinctions among Prepositions/
Conjunctions/Adverbs. Explain in these terms how to treat the conjunctions in (55).

(58) EXERCISE ================================================

Use the ambiguous?/fuzzy? expressions below in at least two ways in contexts which clearly
disambiguate their category as N, V, A or P. Think of other English words which are 'fuzzy' in a
similar way.

a. use ........................................................................................................................................
b. love.......................................................................................................................................
c. top ........................................................................................................................................
d. after ......................................................................................................................................
e. back ......................................................................................................................................
f. book ......................................................................................................................................
g. open.......................................................................................................................................

(59) EXERCISE ================================================

In the following examples find the elements which are subordinate /superordinate to the underlined
heads. Which categories are these elements?

a. Joe saw my younger brother.

b. She fell in love with that brother of mine last year.
c. Hillary always falls in love with quite young boys.
d. My brother is really much younger than her.
e. She is on very good terms with his mother.

(60) EXERCISE ================================================

The underlined words are in fact bare phrases (i.e. phrases which contain only a head).
Replace them (in the text) by complex phrases which contain:

i. the head and some pre-modifier(s),

ii. the head and some post-modifier(s),
iii. the head and both pre-modifier and post-modifier.

a. [NP Mary ] went to [NP school], and Bill [VP went], too.

16
b. [AP Younger] pupils always go to the [AP closest] shop.
c. And [PP then] we went [PP there], too.

(61) EXERCISE ================================================

Make trees for some of the phrases you created in the preceding exercise.

(62) EXERCISE ================================================

i. What types of phrases are the underlined parts of sentences? Which are their heads?
ii. Replace the underlined parts of the sentence by one word (and/or its pro-form).

a. My older brother in this school will help you.

b. In the afternoon Mike will make supper in the kitchen.
c. Not everybody can read a novel in one day.

(63) EXERCISE ================================================

Learn how to read the following expressions:

a. 3,876 + 12.75 = 3888.75,

b. 6 x 7 = 42,
c. 72 : 9 = 8,
d. 32, 53,617, √9,
e. ½, ¼, ¾, 23/15.
f. Meow, cock-a-doodle-doo, woof-woof, shilly-shally, tick-tock, lovey-dovey, oops, bow-wow.
17
3 SEMANTICS AND MORPHOLOGY OF ENGLISH NOUNS

Greenbaum & Quirk (1990) pp. 70-107; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik (2004) pp. 241-332;
Dušková (1994) pp. 35-100; Svoboda & Opělová-Károlyová (1989) pp. 50-83; Leech & Svartvik
(1975).
Revise Section 2.1 above, especially topics mentioned in (1) on page 3.
A traditional Semantic/Notional definition: 'Nouns denote persons, places, animals and
objects/things...' But how then are absence, anger, courage, fact, help, idea, and mistake nouns, i.e.
things?

Properties of reality don’t make things ‘nouns’, but the other way around: We think of concepts as
‘things’ because there is a noun for the concept. So, notional definitions are actually useless for
defining parts of speech. However, there is a relation between reality and parts of speech:

If a culture recognizes something as a material object, the language will have a noun to refer to it.

See also (4) on page 4. Semantic class: Material object

Pragmatic function: Reference

(1) Some semantic divisions among Ns. These are formally represented as ‘features’; see below:

I. Common a. countable concrete vs. abstract: book, song/ argument, event

b. non-countable concrete (can take ʻs): bread, gas, powder, water, wine
vs. abstract: time, evidence, research, courage
II. Proper (only concrete): Henry, Olomouc, Egypt, Arabs, the Netherlands

(2) It’s important to understand the ±Count and ±Concrete is a four-way classification. Note that
non-countable nouns that are concrete can have a plural form that means ‘kinds of’.

The above divisions are based on semantic properties, but at the same time each group has some
formal characteristics (e.g. lack of Article, use with numbers). Clearer semantic divisions can be found
in e.g. dictionaries or a thesaurus, but have no use in grammar.

(3) Formal characteristics of Nouns (NP/DP). Morphology always leads into syntax.

a) MORPHOLOGY
i) Derivational morphology (nominal affixes): see section 1.3.1
!!!
ii) Inflectional morphology: reflecting ‘nominal features’ (Phi features, φ
features):
- Countability, Number: [±COUNT], [±PLUR],
- Animacy, Gender: [±ANIM], [±FEM],
- Determination, Case: [±DEFINITE], [±NOMINATIVE], [±GENITIVE],

b) SYNTAX i) Noun morphology relates to structure within the Noun Phrase

ii) and to the functions/distribution of Noun Phrases in sentences

18
3.1 Countability and Number

A two level feature structure:

(4) [±COUNTABLE]

[+] [-]
PLURAL

[+] [-]
poem-S poem water/ justice/ music / oxygen/ courage
childr-EN child (*-s, but see (2) on page 21)

3.1.1 Countability

Countability is an inherent feature of the noun category (i.e., it is a property of a given lexical item;
the speaker cannot change it without changing the lexical entry.) Prototypical people/animals/material
objects (=Ns) are countable (can appear in smaller or larger Number).

In reality apart from individual discrete/countable items we also distinguish continuum phenomena
(scalar, i.e. measurable but not countable) with mass nouns. Only countable Nouns can be counted,
i.e. they have Number. Mass nouns can only be measured.

(5) a. boy, tree, poem, conclusion, event

b. water, justice, music, oxygen, courage
c. two boy-s, a million tree-s, ten events
d. a pint of water, much music, no courage

Many English abstract nouns have uses as both mass and count nouns (as ±COUNT): ability,
argument, effect, interest, etc. This hold even for some concrete nouns: carpet, egg (yolk), life.
In English Countability is an important formal feature that affects the choice of Articles and
(some) Quantifiers. Compare these characteristics with the formal realization (visibility) of
Countability in Czech:

(6) a. Modifying count nouns b. Modifying mass nouns

MANY/ FEW/SEVERAL (trees) *MANY/ *FEW/ *SEVERAL (courages)

*MUCH/ *LITTLE (tree) MUCH/LITTLE (courage)
ALL/ EACH/ EVERY (sheep) ALL/ *EACH/ *EVERY (cattle)
THE /A (sheep, tree) THE/ *A (cattle, courage)
A NUMBER OF (sheep, trees) A GREAT DEAL OF (cattle, courage)

19
3.1.2 Number

Grammaticalization of Number:

a. Quantity: semantic notion of whether a noun can be counted, or represents a mass.

b. Countability/Number: grammaticalized feature related to quantity (certain Determiners, plural
morphemes, Numerals). Features of [±COUNT], [±PLUR]

SINGULAR VS. DUAL VS. PLURAL NUMBER

(7) Dual: a lexical property of a few Determiners, which are incompatible (or not) with duals.
a. both ( vs. all), either (vs. any), neither (vs. none)... ?each other (vs. one another)
After my accident, each/ *every arm hurt. Both/ *all of them had many bruises.
b. A pair of scissors/binoculars/trousers IS/ *ARE here.
c. vezmi si *dvě /dvoje nůžky, koupil si? pět kalhot /patery kalhoty

Plural variations on the plural morpheme ʻ(e)s:

(8) Blocking Effect: irregular inflections block or compete with regular interpretations.
children, foci, clothes, pence, people vs. *childs, *focuses, cloths, pennies, persons

(9) Zero plurals:

a. some nouns for living things: sheep, deer, shrimp, fish, folk, offspring, sperm
b. nationalities ending in sibilants: Chinese, Portuguese, Viennese, French, Polish, Swiss, Dutch
c. measure phrases: two dozen(*s) eggs, a five-meter(*s)-(long) rope

The pronunciation of the plural /s/ depends on the pronunciation (not the spelling) of the final sound
of the Noun. Its relevant features are [± Voice] and [± Sibilant].

a. [-iz] Insert a reduced vowel (or ‘schwa’) after sibilants (= Czech soft consonants).
b. [-s] Assimilate to [- Voice] after all voiceless consonants: [p], [t], [k], [f], [th].
c. [-z] Elsewhere, after all vowels and voiced consonants, assimilate to [+ Voice].

(10) One universal rule of pronunciation:

Regressive assimilation in Voicing + inserted vowel [i] to allow pronunciation.

(11) Spelling only: a. boys, families, volumes, radios, tomatoes, videos

Irregular pronunciations: b. pence, dice, houses, leaves, loaves, baths,…

(12) Collective Nouns. Semantically plural, but grammatically singular:

a. police, audience, senate, clergy, army (can be grammatical plural in Brit. English)
b. china, linen, pottery, cutlery, jewellery, silverware, furniture, clothing

20
Group denoting (collective) nouns: committee, band, team etc., allow both singular and plural
agreement - the latter especially in British English (see Sauerland & Elbourne 2002:294 for the
’British English mereological plurality’).

(13) a. Group entity (singular agreement)

The band, which gets top billing...

b. Collective plural sum (plural agreement)

The comittee, who are sitting at a large table...

c. Distributive plural sum (plural agreement)

The comittee, who get 20,000$ per annum each...

Interpretation is related to a specific predicate (collective and distributive):

(14) [John and Mary] metCOLLECTIVE at the bar and had a beer (each)DISTRIBUTIVE.

(15) Singularia Tantum. These are collective singulars but have plural morphology. They
include some converted Adjectives, certain games and sciences, a few proper names, and
idioms.

Notice that the agreement is in singular though the N itself has a plural morpheme.

(16) During their stay here, local news, billiards/checkers/the bad logistics/recent linguistics/the
West Indies/the Docklands IS/ *ARE frequently discussed.

Notice that the Number need not be visible on the nouns itself, but we often see it in agreement with
demonstratives and with a predicate such as the copula:

(17) THIS news IS..., THAT new linguistics WAS...

(18) Pluralia Tantum

Clothes, instruments, diseases, applied science, some converted Adjectives, idiosyncratic items.
Notice that the agreement is in plural.

pyjamas /chimes/measles/acoustics/lyrics/
THESE/ *THIS homeless/pins and needles/surroundings ARE/ *IS awful.

3.2 Animacy and Gender

The grammatical features [Animate] and [Gender] are related to how we live and classify things in a
specific culture.

21
3.2.1 Animacy

Animacy is an inherent feature: lexical items are ± Animate because of their meaning/form.
In biology and culture, the concept of ‘Animacy/Life’ is a scalar concept. Grammatical features,
however, are defined in a black-and-white manner: [± Animate].
Animals that humans relate to (loves, hates, cares for), who are ‘in’ human society, are ANIMATE.

(19) Semantic scale of Animacy (Universal)

arbitrary (language specific) break

HUMAN - DOMESTIC ANIMALS mammals-birds-plantsʻ inorganic ‘things’

Animate Pronouns - Proper names

High in Animacy Low in Animacy

This borderline is a language/culture specific option.

Czech and English grammar treat as [+Animate] only [+Human] items and domestic animals.

In English, only [+ANIMATE] nouns further express Gender, with HE vs. SHE. Any use with
inanimates (boats, rivers, motorcycles, etc.) is a purely optional metaphor in English.

(20) Some lexical entries inherently contain or relate to the feature of Animacy: common and
proper nouns for humans, compound pronouns, relative and interrogative Pronouns.

a. people, relative, friend, rival, boss, mayor, doctor, janitor, soldier, nurse, judge.
b. Linda, Samuel, Joseph, Josephine, Mr. Smith, Your Highness (3rd person), Mother, Sis
c. some/any/no/every + body/one vs. some /any/ no/ every + thing/place
d. interrogatives who vs. what vs. whose; relatives who vs. which

Counter to many grammar books, English pre-nominal possessives need not be animate,
but they must be +CONCRETE:

(21) a boy's leg, that rat’s head, that table's leg, a building’s foundation, the lamp’s usual place
*a party platform’s leg, *a trip’s leg;, *a law’s foundation, *the pain’s usual place

3.2.2 Gender

The grammatical feature Gender is related to the semantic notion of sexual dichotomy for many living
creatures (above all humans). Gender is an inherent feature; lexical items have it either because of
their meaning (semantic Gender) or in languages like Czech and Latin, because of their form
(grammatical Gender). Recall the process of grammaticalization:

22
(22) lexical morpheme → grammatical free morpheme → bound morpheme

(simplification, regularity, productivity)

(23) Levels of formal GRAMMATICALIZATION of Gender in English:

a. Special lexical entry: man vs. woman vs. child

b. Compounds (free morphemes): boy student/he goat vs. girl student she goat
male nurse vs. woman doctor

c. Derivation (bound morpheme): steward, lion vs. steward-ess, lion-ess

wait-er, tig-er vs. wait-ress, tiger-ress
widow-er vs. widow
Conclusion:
In English, Gender remains mainly a semantic concept realized through lexical means (nouns,
pronouns). English expresses Gender above all a) lexically; b) by compounds (two morphemes, one
of which is a simplified standard). Less frequently, it uses some non-productive morphology.

(24) Levels of Grammaticalization of Gender in Czech. Compare with English:

a. Special lexical entry: muž vs. žena vs. dítě (děcko)

stroj vs. květina vs. město

b. Compounds (free morphemes): ??žena kosmonaut (translation from Russian)

c. Derivation (bound morphemes): přítel-kyně, sportov-kyně (from Greek guna)

doktor-ka, uklízeč-ka, manžel-ka

c. Inflection (agreement): T-a kniha ležel-a na stole otevřen-á na str. 4.

(25) Grammaticalization steps of Czech Gender:

i. Semantic Gender. Gender of [+Human] nouns assigned according to the sex of the reference.
ii. Formal Gender. Most [-Human] inanimate nouns take Gender based on their final segment.
iii. Derivation. There are productive [Fem] Gender suffixes –ka, -kyně, etc.
iv. Inflection. Gender appears as a grammatically obligatory configurational (agreement) feature
in pronominal, adjectival and verbal paradigms. This never happens in English.

(26) a. pán, muž, // hrad, stroj, les .... non-vocalic final segment
b. žena, růže... vocalic final segment
c. město, moře vocalic final segment
d. But: předseda, soudce, noc, radost need special treatment.

Czech formal gender is based on the similarity of the final segments with those in [+ANIMATE]
nouns. Formal neutralisation of semantic Gender (rather rare) can be lexical or morphological:

(27) ta dívka vs. to děvče;

German diminutives are neuter: das Mädchen ‘the girl’
23
(28) Comparing Gender in English and Czech

English: Only semantic Gender with [+ANIMATE], Neuter for [-ANIMATE]

Czech, German: semantic Gender with [+ANIMATE] and Formal Gender with [-ANIMATE]
Both English and Czech have a two-level structure for the features of Animacy/Gender:

(29) a. English b. Czech

[±ANIMATE] [±ANIMATE]

[+] [-] [+] [-]

±Semantic Semantic Formal
GENDER GENDER GENDER

[-] [+] Ø [-] [+] [Ø ] [-] [+] [Ø]

Adam Emma table pán/muž žen-a dí-tě hrad/stroj knih-a moř-e

he she it ten ta to ten ta to

(30) “Personification”
Gender metaphors with inanimate English nouns . Mostly in poetic or figurative language).
There can be influence from folk thinking, mythology, and sometimes Romance languages.

(31) a. Sun, death, Big Ben, Old Man River, Jupiter,....... HE

b. Moon, Earth, justice, Venus, machines that are ‘personal’,......... SHE

(32) a. Personification:
ANIMATE = HUMAN-like = subject to AFFECT animals (pets), boats, countries

b. Stylistics: +GENDER = +FEMININE = small/nice/lovable/positive

= +MASCULINE = big/dangerous/negative

(33) So, ‘Why do hurricanes have girls' names, because actually they are bad things?’

BUT: consider the scheme above and the theory of markedness:

If [+MASC] is [–GENDER] , than personification , i.e. [+ANIM] is best expressed by using

[+ FEM], which is [+GENDER].

(34) EXERCISE ================================================

Fill in the missing feminine (and neuter) forms. Which one is generic?
a. ram vs. ....................... vs. .........................
b. bull vs. ....................... vs. .........................

24
c. horse vs. ....................... vs. .........................
d. deer vs. ....................... vs. .........................
e. duck vs. ......................... vs. .........................
f. goose vs. ......................... vs. ………………..

g. sportsman vs. ............................ l. man servant vs. ............................

h. master vs. ............................ m. gentleman vs. ............................
i. laundryman vs. ............................. n. gal vs. ............................
j. aunt vs. ............................. o. tom-cat vs. ............................
k. heir vs. ............................ p. doctor vs. ............................

(35) EXERCISE ================================================

Fill in the demonstrative THIS/THESE and the form of the Verb BE.
a. ........ contents ................ not nice. e. ......... watch ...............very old.
b. ......... deer ................. both nervous. f. …….. mice…………. not so tasty.
c. ......... young folk ................. charming. g. ……. rice……………. very tasty.
d. ......... earnings ................. hang too low. h. …….. hose ………….. torn.

(36) EXERCISE ================================================

Fill in the/a and the correct form of MANY /MUCH or LITTLE /FEW:
a. I have .......................... time and not ........................... money.
b. I don't have ..................................... information or ………………..news.
c. This matter is of ..................................... interest to ...................................... people.
d. We have ...................................... evidence for these .....................................facts.

(37) EXERCISE ================================================

Give plural form(s), stylistic connotations, and pronunciations of the following expressions:
a. antenna (2)........................................ g. museum ...............................................
b. mouse, louse (2)................................ h. brother (2)............................................
c. one...................................................... i. half, wife..............................................
d. tooth, goose........................................... j. roof (2).................................................
e. focus, locus........................................... k. curriculum............................................
f. basis, analysis........................................ l. spoof, gulf .............................................

3.3 Determiners: Reference and Quantification

Determiners are a nominal grammatical requirement of English Nouns: Common Nouns (if regular)
that are Countable must have an overt Determiner. In Czech such determiners are only optional; no
requirement is grammaticalized as it is in English.

(38)
a. I saw a/the/some boy/nice concert/big ship. a.' Viděl jsem nějakého/toho chlapce.
b. *I saw boy/nice concert/big ship. b.' Viděla jsem chlapce.

25
3.3.1 Classification of Determiners with respect to Distribution

Determiners occupy the left periphery (edge) of an NP, and they are followed by (short) adjectival
modifiers and then the head N. One NP can have up to three Determiners (one in each slot).

(39) a. all the many handsome BOYS ...

b. both those two beautiful BOOKS ...

pre-determiner / central determiner / post-determiner + Adj. modifiers + NOUN

Functions: determination field modification field

(40) I. Central Determiners: a. articles (a (an)/the/Ø)

obligatory, unique b. demonstratives (this/these; that/those)
(usually only one possible) c. possessive NPs and pronouns including whose
d. what/which
e. some Quantifiers: some/any/no
f. every/each/either/neither
g. Ø, but Ø is excluded with singular count nouns.

(41) II. Pre-determiners: a. Universal Quantifiers: all / both/ half

(precede a-c in I. above or stand alone) b. fractions: double/ twice/ three times/ one third

(42) III. Post-determiners: a. cardinal Numeral Quantifeirs (three, fifty, ...)

b. some Quantifiers (many/ few/ several/ a lot/
little...)
c. such can follow Quantifiers but precedes a(n).

Ordinal Numerals (third, seventeenth, hundredth, ...) are formed from cardinal Numerals with the
productive suffix ʻth. The ordinal numerals behave similarly to adjectives.

How many independent numeral (i.e. Q) morphemes are there? only 17:

(43) zero, one, two, three, …, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, -teen, twenty, thirty, -ty.
Others: hundred, thousand, billion, etc. seem to be nouns.

What now are the categories or ‘parts of speech’ of the various ‘determiners’?

(44) Pre-determiner position and QU

In contrast, the main pre-determiners are ‘universal quantifiers’ (all, both) and can be labelled QU.

(45) Central determiners and DET

Besides including several quantifiers and the wh-words, the symbol DET combines two parts of
speech from traditional grammar (in the list in Section 1.1), namely ARTICLES and PRONOUNS.

26
The main reason that formal grammar today groups all these items together is that in general the
central DET cannot co-occur in a single DP (Jackendoff 1977: Ch. 5).

(46) *his those, *whose each, *the some, *any her, *no either, *which every, *every my.

(47) Post-determiner position and Numerals

A few English ‘Quantifiers’ (many, few, little, much, several) are also in this position. They appear in
place of numerals, and like numerals they can follow the Determiners. From Section 2.1.1, recall that
Count nouns occur with many, few, several, while mass nouns occur with little and much.

Post-determiners answer the question, ‘how many’ by specifying ‘some but not all.’ Therefore, such
quantifiers are often called ‘existential’ and labelled as Q or QE. So this script will often use ‘Q’ or
‘QE’ as a category name for items in the English post-determiner (Numeral) position.

3.3.2 Pronouns and Articles

An Article is a central determiner that is unstressed and can occur only if an NP contains a lexical
Noun (or Numeral).
A Pronoun is a determiner that must or may occur when an NP contains no lexical Noun.

(48) a. [NP the boy] / [NP he Ø], [NP this Ø]

b. Watch the boy! *Watch the! Watch him! Watch this!

We can thus unite the two parts of speech Articles and Pronouns into a single category DET, saying
that they have different co-occurrence relations (= distribution) with respect to N. An article always
needs an N, but pronouns can be independent of Nouns, i.e. they can occur in an NP without them.

Pronouns. Here we give only a few examples of Pronouns (in bold) without lexical Nouns in the same
NPs. There are many subtypes of Pronouns. Their properties are studied in detail in Ch. 4.

(49) a. [ Who else ] would buy [ anything so cheap] at a store like [ that ]?
b. [ Each of the three ] [ who ] John asked out turned [ him ] down.
c. [ Everyone here ] [ who ] owns a car considers [ themselves ] satisfied with[ their own ].

Such Noun Phrases as these have no overt noun in the head N position. In these situations, we say that
the DET, namely the pronoun, is the head of the phrase.

Articles. i. They are the most frequent obligatory determiner with count nouns (part of NP);
ii. They cannot (contrary to demonstrative Pronouns) replace the NP.

(50) a. We have the (small) book/a (small) book/ *(small) book.

b. Máme tu knihu/nějakou knihu/knihu.

(51) a. Give me that/one. Compare:

b. *Give me the/a(n). Dej mi tamto/to/jedno.

Recall the variation and rules of pronunciation for articles: before vowels, the often rhymes with me.
27
(52) a. a book vs. an orange This is an I think nice book.
b. the book vs. the orange This is the I think best solution.

A stressed the rhyming with me also means the one: Mr. Wilson is the boss here. It’s the movie to see.

(53) Articles are historically grammaticalized features of Number & Reference.

a. one > a > twice a week, one at a time, in a word

b. that > the > for the moment, nothing of the sort

For this reason, the indefinite article an does not occur with (uncountable) mass nouns.

3.3.3 Types of Reference

(54) (I) SPECIFIC: a. indefinite (II) GENERIC

b. definite

Specific Reference: Indefinite vs. Definite, or ±DEF

(55) A. Definite Reference = +DEF: The addressee is assumed to know the reference of the Noun.

a. shared understood reference (extralinguistic context)

b. anaphoric co-reference (with a linguistic antecedent)
i. post-nominal of-phrase
c. with certain
DEFINITE ARTICLE modifications, definite ii. restrictive relative clause
articles are in practice iii. attributive clause with some nouns
obligatory
iv. unique pre-/post-modification
d. proper nouns (have inherent definite reference)
ZERO ARTICLE
e. certain abstract nouns of time and place

The following examples match the boxes in the above table:

(56) a. The sun is too bright. Mind the step! Where are the scissors? The boss is coming.
Do you know the assignment for Morpho-Syntax? Which way is the toilet?

b. I bought a book. She thought the book and a scarf would be a nice present.
He thought of a plan. But I thought the/ *a plan should be changed.

c. i. the Head of the Department; the Chief of operations

ii. the book that I bought yesterday; the man I love
iii. the fact that he didn't come; the reason Mary was late; the time we first met
28
 iv. the right man, the only exception, the /*a best Czech poet, all the windows here,
the/ *a number seven, the poet Robert Burns

d. I want to visit China soon. I saw Chairman Novak. Saturn has many rings.

e. Will winter be over soon? At plays I like intermission the best.

How long does school last this year? Class will be cancelled today.

B. Indefinite Reference = -DEF (to any one of a class of items)

(57) a. She carried a/the small suitcase. She carried small suitcases.

b. My sister would like to meet a/??the Czech who speaks German.

c. There might be a (*the) space in the middle of the room.

Are there any/*those Germans present?
There is a/*the dictator running that country.

As in (50c), after the expletive expression there is/are, a noun phrase is obligatorily indefinite.

Generic Reference: neutralization of Number

(58) Cats are better than dogs. = “Cat is better than dog”.
Nearly the same: A cat is better than a dog = The cat is better than the dog.

(59) EXERCISE ================================================

Fill in the Articles Ø/ a/ the in the following examples:

a. Lincoln was ....... best president of ........ United States.

b. He lives in ......... city of New York.
c. ...... most famous member of ..... Hague Court is John Smith.
d. ....... Sahara Desert is ....... integral part of ......... Africa.
e. ........ Canary Islands are as beautiful as ........ Crete.
f. I don't like ...... Hyde Park but I am fond of .......... Westminster Abbey.
g. I saw .......... latest film about .......... Titanic in ......... mid-July.
h. He received…….. expensive book from my mother.

3.4 Inflectional Morphology of Nouns (Summary)

The following table shows possibly universal features which appear with the category of Nouns. All
of these features can be expressed in both English and Czech in some way (e.g. using some Adjective),
but not all are grammaticalized (= obligatory and regular).

29
Some are grammaticalized in both languages (e.g. Number), some are more grammaticalized in
English (e.g. Reference), some more in Czech (i.g. Gender). Some features are grammaticalized only
in languages other than English or Czech (e.g. grammaticalized Shape).

(60) A List of grammatical categories related to the category of Noun (universal)

category example bound/ free In grammar? lexical/ optional/
morpheme? YES/ NO configurational
Number Eng. book-s bound suffix YES optional
Cz. muž-i bound fused suffix YES optional
Count Eng. many books both, DET and -s YES lexical feature
Cz. několik psů free and -ů YES lexical feature
Gender Eng. boy-student Compounding; YES for lexical feature
tigr-ess suffixes infrequent +ANIM
Cz. doktor-ka suffixes frequent YES lexical and
řika-l-a configurational
Animate Eng. who free morpheme YES inherent
Cz. kdo free morpheme YES inherent
Definite Eng. the book free DET morpheme YES optional
Cz. ta kniha demonstrative NO lexical feature
Case Eng. him free morphemes YES configurational
Cz. pan-a bound morpheme YES configurational
Size Eng. John-ie suffix NO optional
Cz. Jení-ček suffix YES optional
Shape Eng. round table lexical morpheme NO lexical feature
Cz. kulatý stůl lexical morpheme NO lexical feature

(61) EXERCISE =================================================

Give plurals of these Compounds, and underline any heads of the compounds.
a. forget-me-not ....................... b. take-off................................
c. grown up……............………. d. manservant..........................
e. coat-of-arms......................... f. lady-singer……........………
g. son in law .... ........................ h.. hanger-on............................
i. tom-tom……………............….

(62) EXERCISE ================================================

Translate the following expressions:
a. custom / customs ............................................... vs. ............................................
b. pain / pains ............................................... vs. .........................................
c. picture / pictures ............................................... vs. ...........................................
d. spirit / spirits ............................................... vs. ...........................................
e. spectacle / spectacles ............................................... vs. ...........................................

30
(63) EXERCISE ================================================
Explain the reasons for the ungrammaticality of:

a. * I didn’t buy a one book today.

b. *We bought expensive book on art.
c. *This books were too expensive.
d. *We need a fresh air. .
e. *I like that your brother.
f. *Do you know reason Jim was late?
g. *We went to Netherlands once long ago.
h. *There might be these books on the table.
i. * I saw students of French yesterday
j. *Wanda never met the Pope John XXIII.

(64) EXERCISE ================================================

Fill in the table for English as suggested in the first line. Some morphemes will be DET.

Feature name Varieties Morphemes with marked value Examples

Number singular, plural plural, -s /-en/ Ø books/ oxen / Chinese/ those
Count
Gender
Size
Reference

(65) EXERCISE ================================================

Discuss the difference between lexical and grammatical features. Which nominal feature does Czech
grammaticalize more than English? And which feature does English grammaticalize more?

a. Number: lexical vs. grammaticalized

b. Gender: lexical vs. grammaticalized
c. Reference: lexical vs. grammaticalized

(66) EXERCISE ================================================

Consider the criteria for stating the level of Grammaticalization, and provide relevant examples to
support your claims. Give first English and then Czech examples of Nouns expressed with lexical
morphemes and contrast them with grammaticalized forms. Underline the relevant morphemes. You
will need more space.

31
4 SYNTACTIC PROPERTIES OF NOUNS AND NOUN PHRASES

Greenbaum & Quirk (1990) pp. 363-393; Svoboda (2004) pp. 18-23; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech &
Svartvik (2004) pp. 1235-1352

Syntactic properties concern above all distribution, i.e. how lexical items co-occur with other
categories, that is, their ‘context’ (what they combine with, in which order, in which hierarchy).

I. Elements subordinate to N (these modify N and combine with N in complex NPs). The
grammatical relation of these elements to the head N is called ‘Attribute(s)’.

(1) Noun Phrase (NP) = a nice BOOK of stories NP = N + what depends on the Noun

II. Elements superordinate to a (complex) NP. What does the NP depend on?

(2) Peter sent [NP a nice BOOK of stories] to Ann already.

(3) Considering FUNCTION of N and NP:

a. The main grammatical function of a Noun (N) is to be a head of a Noun Phrase.

b. The grammatical function of a Noun Phrase (NP) is to be a sentence member: e.g. Subject,
Object..

4.1 Internal Structure of Noun Phrases

(4) Phrasal projection of a category N

NP !!!
modification SPEC(N) N' complementation
of the N of the N

N0 PP = N-complement

a very intelligent student of linguistics

Complex nominal phrase (‘XP’ = Prepositional Phrase, Adjective Phrase, Verb Phrase)

32
(5) all the three [very tall] white city towers of Mordor [with black spires]

(QU) - D/POSS - (QE) -[ A - A - N/A - N ] - [of - NP] - XP or Clause

Elements pre-modifying (preceding) a Noun Elements post-modifying a Noun

4.1.1 N-premodifiers (See also Section 3.3)

(6) a. Central Determiners are obligatory and unique. See (39) on page 26.
b. English Possessives are not Adjectives, but full NPs.
c. Adjectives (and APs) are recursive i.e. they can follow each other.
d. ‘Secondary Adjectives’ are often formed from another part of speech (in N+N compounds).

The above four properties are illustrated in the following examples (a) – (d).

(7) a. a/ the/ my/ which/ a friend’s book

*I bought expensive book.
*the my book/ *the John’s book
b. [NP my little brother John]'s book cost a lot.
[NP A friend of my mother]’s wife came to visit us.
c. some big hairy stupid irritating dog
a quite expensive, long-lasting, more fashionable fur coat
d. govern-ment funds/ arriv-als hall/ A new ladies room/ the off season, a think tank

With the exception of recursive Adjectives (whose semantically determined order is not always strict),
there is a strictly fixed order among the pre-modifiers of N.

Consider (discuss!) the following examples - what do they show?

(8) a. the big green monster a.' ta velká bílá kniha

b. *big the green monster b.' * velká bílá ta kniha
c. ? the green big monster c.' ? ta bílá velká kniha

d. some old French book d.' nějaká stará francouzská kniha

e. ?? some French old book e.' ?? nějaká francouzská stará kniha

f. John’s three cars f.’ Johnova tři auta

g. *three John’s cars g.’ tři Johnova auta

What causes the distinct word order restrictions between distinct kinds of N-premodifiers? There is/are
other special head projection(s) above NP: Determiners (D/Det) and Quantifiers (Q, Num). Recall
section 3.3.1 about the Determination field in English!

33
4.1.2 Determined and Quantified NP

A head selects (subcategorizes for) a specific complement. So D/Q selects NP:

(9) a. D, [_NP] [DP any [NP really good friend of mine]]

b. Q, [_NP] [QP three [NP faithful boy-friends of mine]]

a. DP b. QP

D0 NP Q0 NP

AP NP AP N0

AP A0 N0 PP N0 N0
any really good friend of mine three faithful boy-friends

Adjectival pre-modifiers (APs) are “recursive”: i.e. the structure can be repeated again and again
with no syntactic restriction (= the number of Adjectives is limited by parsing complexity only).
But: We do not speak about coordination here! (“postupně se rozvíjející” vs. “mnohonásobný”)

(10) a. Any three [AP really good] [AP very intelligent][ AP most faithful] boy-friends of mine.
b. Any three [ AP good and intelligent] friends of [ NP John and Mary]

Because English articles are obligatory, and each NP must be determined, we often label English noun
phrase DP (i.e. Determiner Phrase).

(11) Determined α Quantified NP

QP

Q0 DP a field of recursive
all N pre-modifiers

D0 NP
those

AP NP

very tall AP NP

snow white
AP N0

strikingly beautiful
N0 N0
city towers
34
4.1.3 Recursive pre-modifiers of “N”

Recall the properties of modifiers preceding the Noun.

(12) a. Determiners including possessives: this/some/every/my/the girl’s friend

b. Both in D position and Q positions: all your three friends/ half those rooms
c. Adjectives and their modifiers: any [very/ more interesting] story
d. Secondary Adj (formed from Ns/ As): government funds/ town hall/ tall story
e. other modifiers based on P, etc. sideways motion, outer limit, inside man

4.1.4 Recursive N postmodifiers

(13)
a. complex adjectival phrases a student [AP more intelligent than Einstein]
b. of-phrase (unique, adjacent) that brother [PP of mine ] from Brooklyn
c. other PPs (can be multiple) the student of history [PP with long hair] [PP from Zlin]
the letter for John from Bill about football
d. participle (V-ing), V-infinitive some student [VP reading math], a candidate [VP to watch]
e. clauses (e.g. relative clauses) a book [RC which you gave me], the place [RC you live]
f. others travels abroad, the way home, a guy down and out

The order of N post-modifiers:

is correlated with their scopes (in the same way as the order of A pre-modifiers) with the exception of
the of-phrase, which must be adjacent to N.

The post-nominal of-phrase in NPs in the scheme (4) and (5) is unique, i.e. it is not recursive (the
second of-P/GEN is * if interpreted as modifying the N (it must modify only the preceding
modifier!!!).

(14) a. *the description of the city of Mary; d. *obrázek domečku Honzíka

b. *the pleasures of cigars of my father, e. *nákup cigaret mého tatínka
c. the idea of the story of the writer f. *popularita povídek Hemingwaye

(15) Except for the of-phrase, and the corresponding Czech genitive NP, which both must be
adjacent, PP ordering is free:

a. a student of math with long hair d. student chemie s aktovkou na zádech

* a student with long hair of math *student s aktovkou na zádech chemie

b. a book of love stories with no cover e. kniha pohádek v barevném obalu

*a book with no cover of love stories *kniha v barevném obalu pohádek

c. the letter for John from Bill f. dopis od Petra pro Janu
the letter from Bill for John dopis pro Janu od Petra

35
(16) Recursive N post-modifiers

My book [of stories] [with colored pictures] [in a green cover] [which John gave me]

DP (Determined NP)

NP
Det
My
NP clause
which John
gave me
NP PP
in a green cover

NP PP
with colored pictures

N0 of-PP
book of stories a field of recursive
post-modifiers

(17) Determined and pre- and post-modified complex NP

the pretty smart nineteen-zear-old student of geometry whoJohn loves

DP (Determined NP)

Det NP
the

NP clause
who John loves

AP NP
pretty smart

AP NP
nineteen-year-old

N0 of-PP
student of geometry

36
4.2 Distribution and Sentence Functions of Noun Phrases

The distribution of NPs (and their sentence functions) is very diverse. An NP of any complexity can be
(almost) any sentence member. Some positions are more typical than others.
The sentence functions illustrated below are syntagmatic relations, i.e. the sentence function is a
relation between two members of a syntactic couple. An exception is a Subject or Object
‘Complement’, which is a ternary relation (there are three related constituents).
No constituent can be a sentence member by itself, i.e. without being in a grammatical relation.

(18) a. Subject [NP Those three students of yours] arrived soon.

b. V-Object I saw [NP those three students of yours] nearby.
c. P-Object He spoke about [NP those three students of yours] to me.
d. Adverbial John arrived [NP the last week of the month / today].
e. Attribute I stayed in [NP those three students of yours] s house.
f. Nominal Predicate John, Ann and Sue are [NP three students of yours].
g. Possessive Attribute [NP those three students]’ books
h. (Object) Complement We appointed him [NP interim chairman of the group].

In the above, ‘(those) three students’ can be any sentence member, depending on the grammatical
relation that it stands in with some other constituent.

4.3 Case Inflection and Sentence Functions

(19) ABSTRACT AND MORPHOLOGICAL CASE:

a) Abstract Case: Case on a Noun is a configurational feature. It reflects a syntactic relation of the NP
with some superordinate element. We can use the term “Case” to label the relation itself (abstract
Case, see below) or to label the morphological realization (signal) of the relation on the Noun:
inflectional endings (morphological Case, see below).

b)Morphological Case: While the syntactic relations may be language universal, the morphological
realizations are language specific: some languages express the Cases using many various (inflectional)
endings, some have only few of morphological Cases, or none at all, i.e. every language has an
abstract Case (a relation between constituents) but only some languages realize this abstract case also
morphologically.

4.3.1 The Repertory and Realizations of Morphological Case

There are 7 Cases (=morphological forms of N) in Czech in both singular and plural.
The linguistic names for these cases are: nominative, genitive/partitive, dative, accusative, vocative,
locative, instrumental.

English has only2/3 Cases: a. 3/4 forms with Pronouns: I - me - my/mine

b. 2 with Noun Phrases: John - John's

37
(20) CASE TAXONOMY: Classification of Cases in English.
The phrasal genitive is sometimes called the “Germanic” or “Saxon” genitive. !!!
with Noun Phrases with Pronouns

Peter
1. COMMON Case 1. SUBJECT Case I, he, who
mother

2. GENITIVE Case Peter’s 2. OBJECT Case

me, him, who
POSSESSIVE Case mother’s of the Object of a Verb or Preposition

3. GENITIVE/ POSSESSIVE Case

my/mine, his, whose
(i) prenominal, (ii) independent

Possessive pronouns can have an extra final ʻn or ʻs if they are final in an NP: her own, hers.

(21) Explain the errors referring to Case

a. *Him saw Mary. *Our bought a book.

b. *Adam saw she. *John looked for my a long time.
c. *I house is near here. *Mary likes them son.
d. *The mayor’s of Boston son *Whose else friend is coming?

4.3.2 The Source and Function of (abstract) Case

Cases reflect sentence functions (= syntactic relations). That is, we find given cases in subsets of Noun
Phrases which are in certain grammatical relations. That is, nominative case is found on a subset of
subject NPs; (unmarked) genitive case is found on subset of NPs that are attributes, etc.

When linguists talk about abstract Case, they refer to abstract relations in sentences between a Noun
(NP) and a superordinate Case Assigner in a grammatical relation with that NP.
When they talk about morphological Case, they mean specific (morphological) forms of a Noun,
Pronoun or Determiner, i.e. usually suffixes on words with some abstract case in certain contexts.

Morphological Cases on Nouns are configurational features, and their number and distribution vary
across languages. The variety of Abstract Cases, however, is universal, because all languages basically
express similar relations. That is, a given relation (=abstract Case) can be signalled morphologically
(with an inflectional Case ending), or in a more abstract way, via e.g. word order.

(22) Case
a. číst [NP dlouhou knih-u] /*čist kniha /*číst knihou
b. bez [NP našeho dom-u] /*bez dům /* bez domem
Case Assigner Case-Marked NP

38
In (22), the Verb číst and Preposition bez are Case assigners. They are superordinate (higher in
hierarchical structure) to the NPs dlouhou knihu/našeho domu, and they assign them Case. Czech
morphological Case shows that and how the two (Case assigner and Case-marked NP) are related.

The function of Case: Determining Semantic Roles (interpreting sentence members).

4.3.2.1 Semantic Roles

The verb sledovat ‘watch’ can combine with David and Mary in two ways.

(23) a. David watched Mary. DavidNOM sledoval MariiACC.

MariiACC sledoval DavidNOM.

b. Mary watched David. MarieNOM sledovala DavidaACC,

DavidaACC sledovala MarieNOM.

Interpretation of some constituents can be guessed from meaning (e.g. yesterday is probably the time),
but some depend on structure (either Mary or David could be watched as well as watching).

There are two main "semantic roles" (relations) with the Verb ‘watch’.

(24) a. Agent: the person performing/ doing the action, and

b. Patient: the person or thing that is affected by the action.

Realization of semantic roles (Thematic roles, Theta Roles, Θ roles) depends on a Verb’s form and
the structure (subject, objects, PPs) around it. To ‘know’ a language means to know how the language
expresses/realises/encodes distinct ‘relational meanings’, e.g. the semantic roles.

The semantic roles of a given Verb are realized as specific sentence members. In turn, sentence
members are signalled by specific formal devices, e.g. Cases or by other means, e.g. word-order. In
Czech morphological Case prevails; in English word order is primary.

Thus, nominative/ subject case signals a subject, and the subject relation is used to determine an agent.
(when the verb is active). Similarly, accusative/object case signals the direct object relation, which
encodes roles like patient.

THE ROLE (FUNCTION) OF THE CASE

= to signal sentence function which expresses semantic roles !!!
(25) Canonical Formal Realization of the main Semantic Roles:

coding of roles parsing of structures

i. Semantic Role (e.g. Agent, Patient...) is encoded in a

ii. Sentence Function (e.g. Subject, Object...) which is signalled with some
iii. formal device. (e.g. Case or Word Order)

39
In the diagram below, the Verb send combines with several NPs (Peter, a parcel, John, afternoon).
Each of the NPs is related to the Verb (= interpreted) in a distinct way. The constituents related to the
verb are the PARTICIPANTS of the verbal event, i.e. the ARGUMENTS of the verb.

(26) Participants of the event = Arguments of the verb = Semantic/Thematic Roles

verbal event,
action complementary conditions
(manner/ place/ time)
1st participant 2nd participant 3rd participant
(A1:AGENT) (A2:PATIENT) (A3: RECIPIENT / BENEFICIARY / GOAL)

a. Peter/He sent a big parcel/ one to John/ to him in the afternoon

b. Petr/On poslal velký balík Janovi v poledne

SUBJ:NOM OBJ:ACC 2.OBJ:DAT PP

BUT: Realization of semantic roles (Thematic roles, Theta Roles, Θ roles) correlates with sentence
functions and crucially depends on other factors, too, for example the kind of verbal voice (active vs.
passive): not every Subject is an Agent and not every Agent becomes a Subject...

(27) a. SheSUBJ saw himV-OBJ.

b. HeSUBJ was seen by herP-OBJ.
c. HimV-OBJ sheSUBJ saw, but not meV-OBJ.

!!!
d. TheySUBJ sent booksV-OBJ directly to meP-OBJ.
e. TheySUBJ / BooksCOMMON were sent directly to meP-OBJ.
f. HeSUBJ was sent the bookVCOMMON directly by herP-OBJ.

4.3.2.2 Abstract Case: Case Assigners

(28) Case signals a relationship of a Noun to a Case assigner.

Case assigner assigns a (specific) Case to a Noun (Phrase), for example:

Case assigner N CASE bez Petr-a GEN proti Petr-ovi DAT napsal dopis ACC

(29) What (which part of speech) can be a Case assigner? Are they the same in all languages?
What assigns Case in Czech??

a. Já-NOM jsem spal. Finite Verb assigns NOM to its Subject.

b. Chci poslat knihu-ACC. Verb assigns ACC to its Object
Pomáhal Petrovi-DAT DAT
Šel cestou-INSTR INSTR
40
c. přes les/ něho-ACC Preposition assigns ACC to its Object.
do školy-GEN GEN
proti zdi-DAT DAT
d. Vidím přítele své sestry-GEN. Noun assigns GEN to its Attribute.
e. Viděl osm obrazů / jich-GEN. Numeral assigns GEN to its Complement.
f. Je věrný své ženě-DAT Adjective assigns DATIVE to its Object.

= Case assigners in Czech: TENSE, V, P, N, Q, A (includes all major parts of speech)

(30) a. He-SUBJ was sleeping a lot. Finite Verb assigns SUBJ Case to its Subject
b. to see us-OBJ Verb assigns OBJ Case to its Object
c. about her-OBJ Preposition assigns OBJ Case to its Object
d. your-GEN new book Noun assigns GEN Case to NP in DET

= Case assigners in English: TENSE, V, P, N (or Q)

4.3.2.3 Genitive in English

(31) The two "genitives" in English

a. the pre-nominal genitive = -'s:

b. the post-nominal prepositional genitive = of-NP’s:

The Germanic genitive marker ‘s is a kind of “phrasal clitic”, as the examples show: it is not an
inflectional morphology added to Noun, but a phrasal morpheme added to the whole NP.

(32) a. Adam's / my friend’s; the can’s lid; a novel’s sales

b. any friends of that boy’s / of mine; the man I saw yesterday's reputation

Which (kinds of) NPs can appear with the genitive morpheme? In current English, any NP whose head
N can be construed as +CONCRETE, plus a few other types:

(33) a. Concrete Nouns: George Washington's statue, the horse's tail, the central government's
decision, Modern China's development, the country’s best university, a great novel's
structure
b. Temporal Nouns: this year's sales, today’s news, a month’s salary, life’s end, a day’s time
c. Some idioms: for heaven's sake, their money's worth, at death’s door, in harm’s way
d. Genitives of owned places: to Bill's, from my aunt's, breakfast at Tiffany's, near St. Paul's

4.3.2.4 Comparing the Possessive in Czech and in English

Commenting the following examples (and creating some relevant examples yourself, when needed),
compare the English and Czech counterparts of POSSESSIVES with respect to their:

i. position (pre- or post-N) iii. Number & Animacy

ii. complexity (N or NP or PP) iv. category (A or N/NP)

41
(34)
a. * the Jim's book a.' ta Janova kniha
b. a book of (our) Jim b.' ?? kniha Jana /kniha vašeho Jana
c. the table's leg/paint c.' * stolova noha/barva
d. a pupil's / the pupils' book d.' žákova /* žác? kniha
e. your mother's / father's / child's room e.' (* tvo)j matčin/ otcův/ dítět? pokoj

(35) EXERCISE =================================================

How can a NOUN / NOUN PHRASE modify another Noun (e.g. plan, room)? Evaluate the
acceptability of the following examples. Then compare the category, complexity and position of the
underlined modifiers in English and Czech. Give more examples if necessary to make your points.

a. the two tall city towers a.' the two the large city tall towers
b. the two towers of city b.' the two towers of the large city
c. chudák ženská c.' město věže

(36) EXERCISE ================================================

How many N paradigms of Czech Nouns /English Pronouns actually have 7/3 distinct Case forms?
How many distinguish between NOM-ACC? Which paradigms are richest/poorest?

(37) EXERCISE ================================================

Mark sentence members in the following sentences and give the names of the grammatical relations
which form them. Indicate how case plays a role in signalling these relations.

(i) Tvoje sestra pozorovala včera ptáky na plotě.

(ii) We younger students got his books of stories sent to us.

(38) EXERCISE ================================================

Complex compounds containing chains of N/A/Adv: Discuss the interpretations of various different
bracketings for the following. Make trees for them. Translate the examples into Czech.

a. the Yorkshire wool industry wage dispute d. English history teacher

b. a starving children relief fund e. an initial user friendly design
c. an hour-long telephone call f. a nuclear energy specialist

(39) EXERCISE ===============================================

State which i. semantic roles each underlined NP has with respect to its Predicate,
ii. what their syntactic functions are (=which sentence member they are),
iii. which constituents they are (NP/ Pronoun, PP,VP, Clause).

a. She loves him. b. Phoebe was given many presents for her marriage.
c. To read that book would kill me. d. Paul threw the rusty gun into the ditch.
e. Ann was considered the best choice. f. Mary introduced Joe to Peter's sister Vilma.
42
(40) EXERCISE ================================================
(i) What are the sentence functions (grammatical relations) of the underlined NPs?
(ii) What does the NP depend on (what are the binary grammatical relations)?

a. She saw a man at noon. (i)........................................ (ii)......................................

b. Run over the hill now. (i)........................................ (ii)......................................
c. Are new pupils' books here? (i)........................................ (ii).......................................
d. Is that boy big enough? (i)........................................ (ii)......................................
e. He must be a teacher. (i)........................................ (ii)......................................
f. They elected him President. (i)........................................ (ii)......................................

(41) EXERCISE ================================================

In the following phrases: which elements are higher (superordinate) and which elements are lower
(subordinate)? How do we decide about this? Are the signals of hierarchy the same in Czech and in
English? Make your own examples to test your claim.

a. to see Mary / *Mary to see - vidět Evu / *vidět Eva / Evu vidět
b. this book /*these book /*book this - tato kniha /*touto kniha / ? kniha tato
c. about him / *about he / *him about - o něm / *o ním / *něm o
d. she arrives / *she arrive / *her arrives - ona přijela /*ní přijela / přijela ona

(42) EXERCISE ================================================

Make short sentences using a Pronoun she/ona and a Noun Jane/Jana in the functions of:

a. Subject ...........................................................................................................................
b. Nominal Predicate................................................................................................................
c. Object ...........................................................................................................................
d. Indirect Object .................................................................................................................

(43) EXERCISE ================================================

Are the underlined elements heads N or phrases (NP)? Or both? Can you support your claim?
Can you substitute pronouns for them? What does this imply?

a. Your sister in law arrived later than Hillary.

b. I always met undergraduate students in front of the undergraduate student house.
c. Those two guys introduced girlfriends to all their school-mates.
d. Those tall city towers had been rebuilt before Buckingham Palace was reconstructed.

43
5 PRONOUNS

Greenbaum & Quirk, pp. 108-128; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik (2004) pp. 333-398, 817-
822; Dušková (1994) pp.101-135; Svoboda and Opělová-Károlyová (1989) pp.84-112

(1) Classification of English Pronouns, adapted from Greenbaum & Quirk (1990).
a) personal I/ me, we/ us, you, she/ her,...
1. CENTRAL b) reflexive myself, ourselves...
(+DEF) c) possessive i) determinative my, your, his, her, its, our...
ii) independent mine, yours, his, hers, ?its, ours...
2. DEMONSTRATIVE (+DEF) this/ these, that/ those
3. RECIPROCAL (+DEF) each other, one another
4. RELATIVE the wh-series, that, Ø
5. INTERROGATIVE the wh-series and how, why
a) positive i) universal all/ both, each/ every
6. INDEFINITE ii) assertive, or some, one, half, several, enough,
(-DEF) existential (an)other
iii) non-assertive any, either
b) negative no, none, neither

Among possessives, ‘independent’ means it is the final item in an NP, while ‘determinative’ means
something in NP follows the possessive:

(2) All yours are pretty, vs. You should have your own.

5.1 Personal Pronouns

are discourse participants’ proforms. They replace DPs (not nouns!).

5.1.1 Interpretation of Personal Pronouns

(3) a. To call oneself "James Bond" is appropriate only if one is James Bond.
b. To call oneself "I" is always correct, no matter whether one is James Bond or not.

In (4) a. is true no matter who says it, but only when James Bond actually did so.
b. is true only if the person, who pronounces it, did so.

(4) a. James Bond was flying to Hawaii.

b. I was flying to Hawaii.

Contrary to referential Nouns, Pronouns do not have independent reference. Their semantic
interpretation can be defined only in the terms of discourse, i.e. according to the conditions and
circumstances of the specific speech act.
44
(5) Discourse bound interpretation of personal Pronouns. They are always Definite.
a. I (=1sg) = the speaker (= the person who performs the speech act)
b. you (=2sg) = the hearer (= the intended addressee of the speech act)
c. (s)he (=3sg,m/f) = the ‘other’ (human non-participant of the discourse)
d. it (=3sg) = non-human, non-participant
e. we (=1pl) = a set of people one of which is the speaker. The hearer
can be a member (inclusive we) or not (exclusive we).
f. you (=2pl) = a set of people including the hearer, not the speaker
g. they (=3pl) = the ‘others’ (non-participants of the discourse)

Personal Pronouns are named for the role that grammatical person plays among them. Consider the
characteristics of Number [plural] with Personal Pronouns.

(6) a. books/boys [plural] = book+book +book... / boy+boy+boy

b. we [1 plural] ≠ speaker + speaker + speaker....
c. you [2 plural] =/≠ hearer + hearer + hearer...
d. they [plural] = the other + the other + the other

(7) Stylistic/Pragmatic usage of we:

a. As we can see in Chapter 3... , As we just showed... (Inclusive/authorial/editorial WE)

b. Today, we are much more concerned ... (rhetorical WE)
c. How are we feeling today? (= substitute for you)
d. We are really in a bad mood today... (= substitute for 3rd person)

(8) Referential vs. expletive Pronouns, it and there: Expletives have no reference.

a. I want this book. She wants it as well, but it’s mine. (Referring it)
b. It is raining, and I expect it to rain tomorrow, too. (Weather it)
c. It is not true that he did the work. (Expletive it and its linked clause)
d. There is a young man in the middle of the room. (Expletive there and associate NP)

5.1.2 Functions and Forms of Personal Pronouns

Case: English personal pronouns have four possibly morphologically distinct Case forms. See 4.3.
(9) Case: a. SUBJECT (I, you, he, she, it, we, they)
b. GENITIVE (my/mine. your/yours, her/hers, their/theirs...)
c. OBJECT (me, you, him, her, it, us, them)

(10) a. Possessive Articles This is my book.

b. Independent/predicative The book is mine. That brother of mine is here.
c. Object of a Verb I saw him /*he frequently.
d. Object of a Preposition I went there with him/*he last week.

Subject Case in English is more marked and less used than the nominative is in Czech.
Consider the Case on the English Pronouns below. Compare with the Czech translations.

45
(11) a. Who did it? - Me. It was me. d. Ann and him/?he often go abroad.
b. It was she/her that Adam criticised. e. Nobody but her/?she does it well.
c. We/Us students have many expenses. f. We got home before them/*they.

In current English, subject pronouns are obligatory only as uncoordinated subjects of immediately
following, overt predicates. Otherwise spoken English prefers the object case.

5.1.3 Demonstrative Determiners, Pronouns and Adverbs

Notice the similarity and the distinction between Definite Articles and Demonstrative Determiners.
Their distribution in English is close to identical.

(12) a. (all) the/ this (*such) book (half) the/ these books
b. the// those (few/ three) books the/ those (*Mary’s/ *some/ *no/ *all) books
c. There were some boys / several boys/ *those boys/ *the boys having a good time.

Demonstratives can have either linguistic (NP) antecedents in discourse, or “ostensive” (pointed out)
antecedents (but definite articles do not allow ostensive antecedents). Demonstrative modifiers and
pronouns are parallel in meaning, distribution and category (Det). The difference is whether they
precede an overt N (these towns, that time) or not.

There is a curious restriction on singular demonstrative pronouns, however. They can only refer to
situations, not to individual objects:

(13) a. He likes this coffee but not that tea. *This is strong enough, but that is too weak.
b. He likes these coffees but not those teas. These are strong, but those are too weak.

Both Demonstrative Determiners and Adverbs have the feature [±PROXIMATE], as seen in the pairs
this vs. that; here vs. there, and now vs. then (here = in this place; then = at that time, etc.).

(14) a. I am reading this book here and now, not that one.
b. Give me this now and then give me that.
c. This one here is better than that one there.

5.2 Restricted (Post-)Modification of Pronominals

There are more distinctions between Ns/NPs and pronominals. Keep in mind that since Pronouns are
by definition in the D position, they cannot be pre-modified by any other Determiner position items
such as Articles:

(15) *an it, *the you, *some them, *this I, *which her, etc.

Unlike Nouns, Pronouns cannot be freely modified; they cannot be heads of phrases like Nouns in (4)-
(5) on page 32. There are some exceptions however, among others, relative clauses in (a)-(c) below.

(16) a. He/she who hesitates is lost.

46
 b. Those/ we/ you/ *they who work hard deserve some reward.
cf. *What stands over there is a church.
c. Our class has someone who loves art, but do any that love art survive?
d. She likes hardly any, nothing at all, almost anybody.
e. We all......, Them each....., You both....
f. emphatic reflexives: you yourself, they themselves
g. Silly me! we doctors, us visitors (me in N position; we/us in D position)
h. we from London, you there, you in the raincoat, we of the modern age

Partly because of (15a-d), relative clauses seem to have a structure [NP NP – S ], so these modified
pronouns replace the whole “inner NPs”. The PPs in (15h) may be structured like relative clauses.

A class of Compound Indefinite Pronouns are composed of

(17) any/some no/every + body/one/thing/ where/place.

Like other pronouns, they are in D position, but can never occur with overt lexical items in N position.

However, compound indefinite pronouns can precede even short Adjectives and are then in the
expected order D-A: anybody tall, someone hungry, nothing red, everywhere near, etc.
So these compound indefinite pronouns do not invariably replace whole NPs. But otherwise,
pronouns replace whole nominal structures.

(18) [The smart girl] with [the two foreign friends] was awarded [the first prize].
SHE THEM IT

(19) a. The younger brother bought a new car.

b. *The younger he bought * a new it.
c. He bought it.

Personal Pronouns replace whole Noun Phrases (not Nouns).

5.2.1.1 English “one”

The morpheme one has some complex properties in this regard. It has three syntactic uses, and only in
the first is one truly a pronoun. The third use is more accurately a “pro-N”.

(20) Animate Generic one (pro-DP) a. One / they would assume that...
b. She makes one / my brother feel well.

(21) Numeric one (pro-QE) a. I met one other boy / two other boys.
b. One / many of the boys arrived at five.

(22) Substitute one (pro-NP) a. I'd like another steak /one other big one.
b. Those red cars / red ones I like most.
c. My younger one bought a new one.

Since Pronouns replace whole NPs, they therefore can express nominal functions. See section 4.2.

47
5.3 Relative Pronouns

These Pronouns introduce a relative clause: I gave a boy who I met last week some free tickets.

(23) a. Czech wh-Pronouns: kdo, co, jaký, který, čí, jenž.

b. English wh-Pronouns: who, whom, whose, which, when, where. What about: that, Ø?

Most relative clauses immediately follow the NP that they modify. That NP, the boy in the example
above, is the antecedent of the relative pronoun. The relative pronoun agrees with its antecedent.

5.3.1 THE FORM OF RELATIVE PRONOUNS

Relative wh-Pronouns show (agree with) the morphological features of Nouns and Adjectives.
The agreement is built with two elements:

a. Gender (Animacy)/Number features depend on the modified head Noun (in the main clause).
b. Its Case depends on the sentence function of the Pronoun inside the relative clause.

(24) a. Znám ženu [Fem, Sg, ACC], která /*kterou (= ta žena NOM) nosí na hlavě šátek.
a. singular
b. feminine
c. NOM

b. I know a woman [Human, ACC] , whoNOM /*whomACC (=the woman NOM) wears scarves.
a. animate/human
b. NOM

In higher style, the WH relative Pronouns (only) can be preceded by Prepositions or other material:

(25) a. The boys with whom/ which/ *that I go out

b. I can see our professor, the name of whom I have forgotten
c. Here is the answer, the importance of which you did not realize in time.

Case with Relative Pronouns:

Animate Relative Pronouns show pronominal Case morphology, i.e. Subject/ Possessive/ Object:

(26) a. he - his - him; who - whose ʻ whom

b. He is a guy whose home town means a lot to him.

c. Those who(m) we love hurt us the most.
d. Those who(*m) love us hurt us the most.

48
The Object Case of the relative Pronoun is more likely to appear overtly in English if the Pronoun is
adjacent to its Case assigner (Verb/Preposition), and much less likely if the Case assigner is
dissociated/stranded from the Pronoun:

(27) a. I know the man who/ ??whom you met yesterday.

b. I know the man who/ ??whom everyone says they like.
c. Let’s not rely on your cousin, to find whom/ *who might be difficult.
d. I know the man with whom/ ??who you were talking.
e. I know the man who/ *whom you were talking with.
Preposition stranding
the Case assigning

Preposition is separated from the Case-marked Pronoun.

5.3.2 Omitting the Relative Pronoun

The invariant subordinator that can replace any English Relative Pronouns which occur with no other
fronted material such as a Preposition. Then even that can be deleted unless it immediately precedes
the V.

The grammarian Otto Jespersen argued some 80 years ago that that and Ø are not relative pronouns,
which explains why they have no ANIMATE feature and why they are not objects of P.

(28) a. I know the man whom/ that/ --- you invited for dinner.
b. Can you get me the book which/that is lying on the table?
c. *Can you get me the book --- used to be lying on the table?
d. Show me the man at whom she was looking.
e. *Show me the man at that/ --- she was looking.
f. Show me the man (that) she was looking at.
g. Buildings whose entrance one can’t find are frustrating.
h. *Buildings (that) entrance one can’t find are frustrating.

5.4 Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative Pronouns are items that introduce WH-questions, i.e. questions which ask to identify
some sentence constituent. As with any Pronoun, their form depends on the constituent they replace.

The repertory and forms of the relative pronouns are like relative Pronouns plus how (many/Adjective)
and why. We saw above that that or Ø are not pronouns, so they are not used to introduce
interrogatives.

5.4.1 The form of the Interrogative Pronouns

Consider which constituents (parts of speech, phrases, sentence members) can be questioned and what
is the right morphological form of the WH-Pronoun.

49
(29) He/Her younger brother met her/my sister very briefly twice yesterday by their school.

a. Who met her twice yesterday by their school?

b. Whom/Who did he meet twice yesterday by their school?
c. When did he meet her by their school?
d. Where did he meet her twice yesterday?
e. By which school did he meet her yesterday? - By their school.
f. By whose school did he meet her yesterday? -By their school.
g. How many times/How often did he meet her yesterday by their school?
h. How did he meet her yesterday by their school?
i. Why did he meet her yesterday by their school?

As with relatives, the Case marking of the interrogative WH-Pronouns depends on their sentence
function, i.e. on the function of the sentence member they are asking about. In Modern English, overt
Case marking is most likely if the Pronoun is adjacent to the Case assigner, as in (27) above.

(30) a. I am waiting for hi-m. The P for is a Case assigner.

b. Who(?m) are you waiting for? Pronoun separated from the Case assigner (for)
c. For who-m are you waiting? Pronoun is adjacent to the Case assigner (for).
d. ?For who are you waiting?

(31) a. She saw hi-m. The V saw is a Case assigner.

b. Who(-m) did she meet? Pronoun is separate from the Case assigner (meet).
c. In order to meet who-m did she go to the square? Pronoun is adjacent to meet.
d. ?In order to meet who did she go to the square?

(32) The context where the English Case is not ‘as expected’:
a) NOM Pers. pronouns in coordination (after only etc.) - You and me arrived.
b) NOM Pers. pronouns after copula - It is him.
c) OBJ WH pronouns when separated from the Case assigner - see above

5.4.2 The position of the WH-Pronouns

The Interrogative Pronoun in a WH-question is moved from its position as a sentence member; it is
fronted in the clause. Notice that the size of the fronted interrogative constituent (the material
containing the WH element and preceding an inverted Auxiliary) can be far bigger that one word.
The WH element is a phrase (it replaces the whole sentence member we are asking about).

(33) He bought [OBJECT NP the three books] [ADVERBIAL PP in the new shop on the square].

a. [OBJECT NP What else] did he buy in the new shop?

b. [OBJECT NP How many books] did he buy in the new shop?
c. [ADV PP Where] did he buy the three books?
d. [ADV PP In which shop on the square] did he buy the three books?

50
5.4.3 Interpretation of Interrogative Pronouns

Since interrogative pronouns ask for a reference, they have no antecedents.

These pronouns, like articles, can be indefinite (who, what) or definite (which).Which asks the
addressee to choose a member of a set already specified in the discourse.

(34) a. Who is your favourite conductor? What is your favourite type of music?
b. Which is your favourite conductor/type of music?
c. What's the name of this tune? *Which is the nature of music?
d. What /Which conductor do you like best?
e. What /Which newspaper do you read?
f. Which (of these) do you prefer? *What of these do you prefer?

5.4.4 Comparing English and Czech WH-questions

There are some obvious distinctions between Wh-Questions in English and in Czech. They concern:
i. questioning a part of NP (Czech); separation (division) of NP is impossible in English,
ii. multiple WH-questions (more WH can be fronted in Czech),
iii. long distance WH-questions (natural in English, rare in Czech).

(35) a. Jaké auto si koupil Petr? a.’ Which car did Peter buy?
b. Jaké si Petr koupil auto? b.’ *Which did Peter buy (a) car?

(36) a. Whose jacket is this? - This is Peter's jacket.

b. Whose is this jacket? - This jacket is Peter's.

5.4.4.1 Multiple Wh-Questions

If there are two WH-Pronouns (in so called Multiple Wh-questions), only the hierarchically higher
NP is fronted in Standard English. The other(s) remain in the position of the sentence member they
represent, i.e. they remain ‘in situ’. The order of 3 and more WH-pronouns are free.

(37) [SUBJECT NP Emily] bought [OBJECT NP several books] [ADVERBIAL PP in the new shop].
a. Who bought what where? *What did who buy where?
b. What did Emily buy where? *Where did Emily buy what?
c. Who bought what on the square? *What did who buy on the square?
d. What did Mary buy why? *Why did Mary buy what?

(38) a. Komu kdy co Maruška koupila?

b. Kam kdy kdo šel?

In English, the interrogative phrase can appear outside the clause of which it is a sentence member
(often initial in the main clause). Consider the sentence functions of the WH-Pronouns in instances of
the Long-distance Wh-Movement.

51
5.4.4.2 Long-distance WH-Movement:

(39)
a. When do you think that Emily arrived?
b. Who did Emily tell you (that) Bill met at the railway station?
c. Which jacket did John persuade Emily (that) she should take on the trip?
d. Who did Emily say (that) Bill thought would arrive late?
e. Where did Mary tell you she plans to bury her husband?

While long distance WH-questions are common in English (see (39) above), in Czech this kind of
WH-question is 'non-standard' or unacceptable, and their frequency is highest with Adverbials.

(40)
a. ?Kdo si myslíš, že Marušce pomohl?
b. ??O kom si myslíš, že Marušce pomohl.
c. ??Který kabát se Petr ptal Marie, že si Jan vzal na výlet?
d. Kam si myslíš, že Petr řekl, že to Jana dala.

(41) EXERCISE ================================================

Explain the (discourse related) interpretation of the underlined words.
a. Do you think that they saw us?
b. I heard that he praised a local man. Could he be praising himself?
c. He thinks that this book is more interesting than those old ones.
d. ?! I am there just now.

(42) EXERCISE ================================================

Which category (part of speech) is one in the following sentences? Replace it with another member of
the same category.

a. I do not want this one, but you can buy me one from that counter.
b. One wouldn’t want to eat too many of these, because they can make one ill.
c. She has one or two foreign boyfriends and one local guy too.

(43) EXERCISE ================================================

Translate the following (find Czech equivalents of one). How do we call these kinds of ‘one’?

a. One boy arrived at five. .................................................................................

b. I'd like another one. .................................................................................
c. Those blue ones I like most. .................................................................................
d. Public speaking gives one confidence. ………......................................................................

52
(44) EXERCISE ===============================================
Fill in all correct interrogative form(s) and explain which is the standard vs.less frequent morphology
of the interrogative Pronoun for each of the sentences:

a. ..........................do you imagine likes her the most? - Hugo.

b. For .................................. are you working? - For Hugo.
c. ......................... is she working for? - For Hugo.
d. Do you know anyone ......................... she could work for? - Hugo.
e. ………………..father is she now working for? - Hugo’s.

(45) EXERCISE ===============================================

Match the questions and the answers:

a. What is her husband? e. He is Paul Jones.

b. Which is her husband? f. He is a tall handsome guy.
c. Who is her husband? g. He is the man on the right.
d. How is her husband? h. He is a film director.

(46) EXERCISE ===============================================

Give examples of English Pronouns which signal or do not signal Animacy/Gender.

ANIMATE INANIMATE
Gender marked no Gender indicated
personal
possessive
reflexive, emphatic
reciprocal
relative
interrogative
compound indefinite

(47) EXERCISE ================================================

Compare forms of WH-questions asking for an Object with those asking for a Subject. Make examples
for (i) a direct WH-question, (ii) an indirect WH-question, and (iii) an echo WH-question.

Example: "Hillary will meet with Peter tomorrow."

Asking for an Object of P (=’Peter’): Asking for the Subject (='Hillary'):

i. .................................................................. ......................................................................
ii. .................................................................. ........................................................................
iii. ................................................................. ........................................................................

53
(48) EXERCISE ===============================================
Make WH-questions related to the following sentence which match the proposed answers. Underline
the phrases containing the WH-Pronouns and discuss their form/size.
Yesterday, my younger sister passed both difficult tests at school by serious study.

a. .................................................................................................? - My younger sister.

b. .................................................................................................? - Both difficult tests.
c. .................................................................................................? - Yesterday.
d. .................................................................................................? - My younger one.
e. .................................................................................................? - Two.
f. ..................................................................................................? - By serious study.
g. ..................................................................................................? - Pass both the tests.

(49) EXERCISE ================================================

Translate the following examples to English and explain the distinction between the languages with
respect to multiple WH-questions.

i. How many WH- elements can be fronted in a Czech clause and how many in English?
ii. What is the order of constituents in English/Czech?

a. Kdo komu pomáhal s úlohou? ........................................................................................

b. Co kdo viděl? ..............................................................................
c. Komu kdo co u vás daroval pod stromeček?.................................................................................
d. Kdy komu co dala? ...............................................................................
e. Kdo kdy co komu dal zadarmo? .........................................................................................

(50) EXERCISE ================================================

Discuss the following examples of Long-distance WH-Movement.

i. Which sentence member is the fronted WH-member? What is its phrasal type?
ii. Translate the sentences to Czech and discuss the distinction(s).

a. When do you think Monica arrived?

b. Who do you think did it?
c. Who did Julian say that Monica saw?
d. How many long novels did Julian say that Monica claimed she had read?
e. Who did Julian say that Monica reported that Joseph had spoken with?

54
6 ANAPHORS (REFLEXIVES AND RECIPROCALS)

Huddleston and Pullum (2002) pp. 425-428; Huddleston and Pullum (2005) pp. 100-110; Quirk,
Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik, (2004) pp. 335-392; Dušková (1994) pp.101-135.

6.1 Deixis, Reference and Co-Reference

Nominal expressions (Noun Phrases, NPs) refer to something/somebody.

Some of them have independent reference (= Referential Expressions);
others require co-referrential antecedents in the (non)linguistic context.

Deixis: a general term denoting reference depending on (linguistic or non-linguistic) context. Deictic
expressions are e.g.: pronouns, demonstratives, adverbial proforms, but they can be also nouns and
verbs.

(1) Deixis concerns the ways in which languages encode or grammaticalize feature of the
context of utterance (Levinson, 2005:50, Handbook of Pragmatics)

(2) I ll return tomorrow.

Division w.r.t. which context and the position of the antecedent:
(3) a. Endophora i) Anaphora (antecedent precedes)
ii) Cataphora (antecedent follows)

b. Exophora: non-linguistic antecedent

6.1.1 Anaphors, Pronominals and Referential expressions

REFERENCE
[i] to the conceptual world surrounding the utterance or a CONTEXT OF POINTING.
[ii] reference to discourse antecedents - similar to [i].
[iii] to an antecedent in some syntactically definable, local LINGUISTIC CONTEXT.

(4) "James Bond" ( =a CONCEPT OF REALITY))

Everybody loves JAMES BOND, … even HE seems to love HIMSELF .

[i] R-expression [ii] pronominal [iii] syntactic

anaphor
55
Nominal elements can be divided according to their reference into three groups.
Consider a story which has three named characters including Poirot, Miss Marple and Mr. Watson.

(5) R-expressions:

a. Hercule Poirot invited Miss Marple.

b. Miss Marple met a handsome detective.
c. One man drove another man to the club.

Pronominals: antecedents in the same discourse, “Discourse or Pragmatic anaphors”

a. First, he invited her for dinner. She/*Herself accepted.

b. Then, she invited him for tea.
c. And he drove him to the club soon after. (he ≠himself)

Syntactic Anaphors: “Bound anaphors”

a. Hercule Poirot invited himself./*Himself invited Poirot.

b. They invited each other/*himself.
c. *Hercule Poirot wanted Miss Marple to invite himself.

6.1.2 Co-reference (Antecedents and Indices)

Formal marking of co-reference: identical indices/subscripts (variables) are used to show co-
referential expressions (these are marked with the same index).

(6) a. Everybody hates Becketti, hei even hated himselfi/ *himi / *Becketti.
b. ?Everybody hates Beckett, even Beckett hated Beckett.
c Hei was looking at himselfi/ *j in the mirror.
d. Hei saw him*i/ j at the last second.
e. Patrickj described Patriciam to himselfj / herselfm.
f. [Pat and Patty]j,m were looking at each otherj,m/ themselvesj,m/ *herselfm.

6.1.3 The linear position of an antecedent (especially with pragmatic anaphors)

A pragmatic/discourse anaphor which precedes its antecedent is sometimes called a cataphor.

(7) a. pragmatic anaphor Johni came late, because hei had missed the train.
b. pragmatic cataphor Before hei joined the Navy, Geraldi made peace with his family.

Restriction on cataphoras and bound anaphors: an antecedent cannot be lower in a tree than either
of them (less prominent). Discourse anaphors escape this: After she met Johnk, hek asked her out.

56
6.2 The Form and Interpretation of English Bound Anaphors

English Reflexive Pronouns, complex: Personal Pronoun in OBJECT Case + SELF/SELVES. Czech
Reflexive Pronouns is simple: contain only SE/SI, but not the personal Pronouns.

(8) a. He/she/they saw himself/herself/themselves.

b. On/Ona/oni viděli sebe/se viděli.

Reflexive Pronouns are syntactic anaphors. They need local antecedents.

(9)
a. Hei introduced him*i. vs. b. Hei introduced himselfi.
Oni představil ho*i.(not co-referential) vs. Oni představil se(be)i. (co-referential)
///////

In the (b) examples, He is the antecedent of himself, but it cannot be the antecedent of him in (a). In
(b) himself is a pronoun bound to He, but in (a) him is not bound to He, i.e. him is a free pronoun.

6.2.1 Antecedents of anaphors

(10) Distinguish:
a. unmarked reading vs. contrastive reading (= it can be so and so)
b. obligatory reading vs. impossible reading (= it must be so and so)

(11) John has arrived with a friend.

a. Did you like him? him can be John. (Construct 2 contexts for this.)
b. John introduced him. him must NOT be John.
c. John introduced himself. himself must be John.

(12) Bill passed by John. But he didn't see him. He was looking at himself (in the mirror).
Bohuš minul Jendu. Neviděl ho. Díval se na sebe (do výlohy).

a. Billi passed by Johnj. / Bohuši minul Jenduj.

b. But hei/ j/ x didn't see himi/ j/ x. i. Neviděl ho (=Bohuš Jeníka)
ii. On ho neviděl (=Jeník Bohuše)

If (b) follows (a), the most salient (pragmatically probable) reading is that he in (b) is co-referential
with Bill in (a). With marked stress it can, however, also be John, and if other sentences in the
preceding discourse suggest it, He can be anybody else as well (type B). In any case, whoever is he in
(b), it is not the same person as him in (b). That is, he and him in (b) cannot be co-referential. This
restriction is called “disjoint reference.”

c. Hek was looking at himselfk/*x . Onk se díval na sebek.

57
The reference of He is vague, as in (c). As for himself, however, there is no vagueness; it must be the
same person as the preceding Subject/Agent He. He and himself in (c) above are co-referential =
himself (reflexive) is a linguistic bound anaphor.

6.2.2 Local Binding of Anaphors - The Binding Theory

Look at diagram on page 55, and consider where in a structure we find the antecedent of an anaphor.
(In which domain does the antecedent appear? How far away is the antecedent?)

The Clause-Bound Nature of Syntactic Anaphors

(13) a. Miss Marple believes that Poirot invited himself.

b. *Poirot believes that Miss Marple invited himself.
c. *Poirot believes that himself is the best detective.

(14) The BINDING THEORY, from Chomsky (1981, chapter 3):

!!!
Principle A: Syntactic anaphors (reflexives/reciprocals) must be bound (have an
hierarchically higher antecedent) in the same clause, often in the position of
Subject/Agent.
Principle B: Pronominals (pragmatic anaphors) have an antecedent in the context (linguistic
or extra-linguistic) but NOT in the same clause.
In their own clausal domain they are free.

Principle C: R-expressions have no formal/structural antecedent, they are always free.

In many languages including Czech, syntactic anaphors can only be bound by the subject noun
phrase, but in others including English, direct object noun phrases can bind anaphors as well. To see
this, translate into Czech: Poirot described Miss Marple to herself (good in English).

6.2.3 Reciprocals

Reciprocals are also syntactic bound anaphors, i.e. Subject to BT (Principle A in (14)). Unlike
reflexives, they moreover require an antecedent that is plural (the action is reciprocal).

(15) a. The two friends saw each other.

b. Both of us saw one another.

(16) a. John and Mary introduced them. ......... ≠ John, ≠ Mary

b. John and Mary introduced themselves/ each other/ one another.

58
(17) a. Představili se (= představili každý sám sebe). No reciprocal pronoun in Czech.
b. Představili se (= představili se(be) navzájem).

6.3 The Distribution/ Use of Reflexive/ Reciprocal Pronouns

(18) An argument of a transitive Verb/Preposition (replacing an NP):

a. * John blamed/ described. These verbs require an Object.

b. John blamed/ described the girl / her / himself.

c. * They think too much about. The preposition requires an Object.

d. They think too much about that girl / us / each other.

(19) As part of a complex Verb:

reflexive Verbs (obligatory object) and semi-reflexive Verbs (optional object):

a. * She always prides. a'. Behave now!

b. She always prides herself on X. b'. Behave yourself now!
c. * She always prides him on X. c'. *Behave him now!

(20) Some obligatorily reflexive verbs:

absent, gorge, make at home, perjure: The guest gorged herself/*her children/*Ø on the cake. She
always makes herself/*her husband/*Ø at home here.

(21) As Emphatic Pronouns. These double another NP, but have no separate semantic role.
a. The President himself apologized to us. The President apologized to us himself.
b. Sám prezident se nám omluvil.
c. Myself, I wouldn't take any notice.
d. (Já) sám bych si ani nevšiml...

Like other reflexives, emphatic pronouns obey Principle A:

(22) a. The mayor ran her campaign herself.

b. *Bill praised the woman himself who ran her own campaign.

(23) Jan to dělal sám.

a. John did it himself. (= personally)
b. John did it alone. (= without another person)

6.3.1 Some distinctions between Czech and English

The Binding Theory is universal - it applies in English as in Czech. There may be some minor
language specific distinctions based on distinct classification of the lexical entries.

E.g. Czech reflexives are simple (se/si), English reflexives are complex (my+self, your+self.,
them+selves.. they agree with the antecedent).
59
The following examples show distinctions in the domain of binding.

(24) ‘Long distance’ anaphors with possessives and infinitives (V+VINF)

a. The professor P spoke about Chomsky C and heP/C made the student S reread his C/P/S article.
b. Profesor P mlouvil o Chomském C a nutil (onP) studenta S číst svůj *C/P/S článek.

c. JohnJ saw PeterP kissing his J/P wife.

d. JanJ viděl PetraP líbat svou / jeho J/P ženu.

Compared with some languages (e.g. Czech) Objects in English are not strictly subject oriented
(objects can bind anaphors as well):

(25) a. JohnJ described Mary M to himselfJ /herselfM.

b. JohnJ and MaryM described BillB and AnnA to each other J+M / B+A.

c. Jan popsal Marušku jenom sobě J/*M.

d. Jan popsal Marušku svému J/*M kamarádovi.

e. JanJ a MarieM si J+M / *B+A představili BillaB a AnnuA .

f. JanJ a MarieM představili BillaB a AnnuA sobě navzájem J+M / B+A.

(26) EXERCISE ================================================

Explain (define and demonstrate):
a. deixis
b. antecedent
c. anaphor
d. cataphor
e. exophore
f. co-referrence
g. disjoined referrence

(27) EXERCISE ================================================

Mark the co-reference. Fill in the missing indexes for the Pronoun and its antecedent.

a. Tobiask saw him .

b. When BillB and JessicaJ arrived, TimT and MonicaM kissed each other .
c. MartinM sent BillB his picture / a picture of himself .
d. Monica was speaking to Mary , while looking at herselfi in the mirror.
e. Johni promised Peterk to shave himself .
f. Johni made Peterk shave himself .

60
(28) EXERCISE ================================================
Fill in correct/possible forms of a bound anaphoric Pronoun. Fill in correct indices.

a. He was looking in the mirror at .......................

b. He saw Emma looking at ............................. in the mirror.
c. After their argument with James Bond , the other spies shot .............................
d. Freeing ......................................with a sharp knife, Vincent lurched towards the door.
e. They asked Julie to invite ....................................
f. Even the King ............................ must dress ..................................
g. They promised Martha to wash......................................every morning.
h. They ordered Martha to wash.......................................every morning.

(29) EXERCISE ================================================

Given the semantic frame = semantic roles = valency of the Verb help (Agent, Patient), explain which
element expresses which role. Fill in the indices.

a. The tenants themselves helped them/ one another .

b. The tenants had to help themselves (themselves) .
c. The landlord himself had to help the tenants help each other (themselves) .

(30) EXERCISE ================================================

Translate into Czech. Compare the meanings (using linguistic terminology, i.e. The Binding Theory
terminology).

a. They killed John.

b. They killed them.
c. They killed themselves / each other.
d. They spoke with each other /themselves.

(31) EXERCISE ================================================

Do English imperatives and Czech clauses with ‘null subjects’ simply lack subject NPs (i.e. they are
“bare VPs”), or do they have structural NP subjects that are unpronounced? Argue from data in both
languages that show how Principle A of the Binding Theory resolves this question.

a. Don’t praise yourself/ *you / your family/ them/ *themselves too openly.
b. Watch yourself/ *you / your child/ her/ *herself when she goes down the steps.
c. Sleduj sebe/ *tebe/ tvé dítě/ ji, když schází ze schodů.

(32) EXERCISE ================================================

Explain how Principle A explains differences like the following:

a. Mary persuaded John to cook for himself/ *him/ her/ *herself regularly.
b. Mary promised John to cook for *himself/ him/ *her/ herself regularly.

61
7 THE MODIFIER CATEGORIES A (ADJECTIVES) AND ADVERBS

Greenbaum & Quirk (1990) pp. 129-157; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik (2004) pp. 399-474;
Dušková (1994) pp. 141-164; Svoboda and Opělová-Károlyová (1989) pp.113-134; Leech & Svartvik
(1975) pp.189-203.

If we systematically include the grammatical (close) class categories into their lexical (open) class
counterparts (recall that they have the same characteristics and functions), we can use the categorial
system with 4 main groups only.

(1) Main parts of speech (categorial groups of lexical entries):

N: Nouns -- include also many of Pronouns

!!!
A: Modifiers -- include most of Adjectives, Adverbs and some Pronouns and Quantifiers
V: Verbs -- include also Auxiliaries and Modals which are positionally distinct from Vs
P: Prepositions -- both lexical and functional

This chapter demonstrates a far reaching similarity between Adjectives and Adverbs ending in -ly, and
argues in favour of a single label "A" for both of them, interpreted as "Modifier." It also discusses
some closed classes of Adverbs (ADV) which are not in the category A.

7.1 Semantic characteristics of Adjectives/ Adverbs.

Semantic types of Adjectives (static or stative property attributed to nouns)

An adjective is a word/phrase which enlarges the meaning and narrows the reference of a Noun.
There are many possible groupings, e.g.
(2)
a. value (good, cheap, important) g. dimension (big, long, huge)
b. similarity (different, similar, other) h. position (high, outer, distant)
c. age (old, new, young, ancient) i. colour (red, dark, black)
d. quantification (whole, numerous, third) j. qualification (true, possible, plausible)
e. physical property (hard, wet, open) k. human quality (happy, clever, sick)
f. speed (fast, quick, rapid) l. nationality (English, Slavic, Asian)

Semantic types of Adverbs

An adverb is a word/phrase which enlarges the meaning and narrows the sense of a Verb or some
other part of speech. The traditional category Adverb usually covers classes of items that are actually
in more than one part of speech. Again, there are many possible semantic groupings:

(3)
a. focusing (also, even, too, just, only) e. frequency (never, always, often, rarely)
b. degree (very, well, how, as, really) f. modal (perhaps, actually, obviously)
c. aspectual (still, yet, already, almost) g. temporal (soon, late, long, suddenly)
d. connective (however, thus, so, consequently) h. manner (quickly, easily, well, clumsily)

62
(4) General characteristics: As MODIFIERS, Adj/Adv modify some other word/constituent.

Attributes: a. his quick run b. certain doubts

jeho rychlý běh určité obavy

Adverbs for V: c. He runs quickly. d. He certainly doubts it.

běhá rychle určitě o tom pochybuje

Adverbs for A: e. He got suddenly ill. f. their surprisingly stable marriage

Adverbs for P: g. Roll directly into a tree. h. plant it nearly off the property

7.2 Adjectival/Adverbial Morphology

Derivational suffixes and inflectional endings of the category A...

7.2.1 Derivational Morphology for the category “A”

(5) a. Lexical A stems: new, clever, big, early, fast, soon

b. Derivation V→Adj: agreee-able, amus-ing, construct-ive
c. Derivation N→Adj: friend-ly, grass-y, styl-ish, right-ous, sorrow-ful , nation-al
d. Derivation Adj→Adj: green-ish, lat-ish
e. Derivation Num→Adj: six-th, hundred-th, twenty-eth
f. Derivation Adj→Asv bad-ly, easi-ly

7.2.2 Inflectional morphology of A

(6) Features of ADJ/ADV:

i. INHERENT Ø (positive degree?): intelligent, messy, fast, early, slow, often, soon
ii. OPTIONAL : Grading features: comparative and superlative
ʻer, -est : more intelligent, more messy, messier, faster, earliest, slow, oftener, sooner

iii. CONFIGURATIONAL -ly (adverbial): obligatory if A modifies any category but N:

intelligently, messily, slowly. Purely adverbial A (often, soon) and some other A (fast, early,
long) don’t take –ly.

7.2.3 Grading

Standard Adjectives and also most Adjectives inflected to be adverbial are gradable.

(7) a. synthetic (bound morphemes): -er, (the) A –est: nice, nicer, the nicest
b. analytic (periphrastic): using more, (the) most
i. important, more important, (the) most important
ii. ... in a more interesting way, in the most interesting way

63
 c. irregular i. good/ well, better, the best
ii. bad/badly, worse, the worst

Notice that inflection is the same for all the members of category A: both adjectives and adverbs.

(8) Non-gradable As (non scalar)

a. finite/ dead, *more finite/ *more dead, *the most finite/ dead
b. last, *laster, *the lastest; open, *opener (physical sense), etc.

(9) Usage: synthetic grading –er/-est vs. analytic grading

a) Synthetic grading is allowed for Adjectives (A) at most one “trochaic” foot long.
b) Analytic grading is allowed for any adjectives of two or more syllables.

That is, monosyllables and adjectives with stressless second syllables can have analytic grading or
take ʻer, -est: stupider, messier, friendlier, commonest, laziest, shallower, yellowest, simpler.
But there are many exceptions among less common words. Even some monosyllables require
analytic grading: chic, dank, deft, dour, gauche, lithe, loathe, prim, suave, swell, taut, vast, wan.

7.2.4 The inflectional nature of the Adj→Adv morpheme –ly

Notice that the -ly is derivational suffix for category A. including Adjectives.

(10) friend-ly advice, ear-ly riser, love-ly picture, ug-ly remark

The morpheme ʻly can be also used to create the subcategory Adverb from a subcategory Adjectives
(both of them are of the category A), e.g. nice→nicely. Is this always the way to analyse X + ly?
Analyse the morphological structure of the words below concentrating on the character of the
morpheme -ly. (To distinguish between Adj and Adv you can use the word in prenominal and post-
verbal positions), for example:

(11) a. sadly a sad(*ly) song, to sing sadly -ly: Adj→Adverbial

b. slowlya slow(*ly) dance, to dance slow(ly ) -ly: Adj→Adverbial

c.. worldly a worldly speech, *to speak wordly -ly: N→Adj

d. daily a daily/ day newspaper , to read daily both processes
e. ugly an ugly quarrel, *to quarrel ugly neither process

There is a very solid (morphological) argument that -ly ADJ→ADV is not derivational but
inflectional:

ARGUMENTs: (I) Double Inflection Ban

(II) Ordering of morphemes

(I) English words have at most one overt frequent inflectional suffix.

64
(12) a. *PAST+3s *trieds, *slepts
b. *PL+POSS The Jones’s/ the mice’s location (-‘s pronounced),
the bones’/ the rats’ location (-‘s silent)

(13) *ʻly+ grading suffixes iff ʻly “derives ADV”

a. *slowlier, *messilier, *quickliest (“derived Adjs”? : slow-ly, messi-ly, quick-ly)

b. friendlier, deadliest, earlier, lowliest (derived Adjs : friendly, deadly)

The following contrasting examples prove that the constraint is not phonetic!

(14) a. friendly → friendlier BUT a.' worldly → ?worldlier

b. early → earlier b.' nearly → *nearlier
c. lovely → lovelier c.' madly → *madlier
d. ugly → uglier d.' clearly → *clearlier

(II) The derivation of ly+ness combination shows the same contrast (inflection must follow the
derivation, therefore inflectional ʻly cannot appear in front of derivational ʻness):

(15) a. friendly → friendliness BUT b.' hardly →*hardliness

b. early → earliness c.' nearl y →*nearliness /
*nearlihood
c. lively → liveliness d.' clearly → *clearliness
d. ugly → ugliness a.' quickly →*quickliness

Conclusion: Though traditional grammars say that A+ly is an Adverbial derivational suffix, we can
argue below that with adverbs it behaves more like inflection. The examples (13)-(15) below prove
that -ly with adverbs is to be better analysed as an inflectional morphology within the category “A”.

7.3 Internal Phrase Structure of AP

Consider the pre-/post-modification of the A head interesting:

(very/ as/ 3 times more) interesting (to us) (Ø/ as/ than the others were)

(16) Grading ADV/ Measure Phrase - A - PP / Clause / VPinfinitive

elements pre-modifying A elements post-modifying A

7.3.1 Pre-modification of A

Comparatives & level of quality

(17) Grading Adverbs: Degree words or adverbial + A (A can be an Adjective or an Adverbial A)

Bound and free inflection on the category of ADJ/ADV:
65
(18) a. more/ less/ the most/ the least important a.' more/ less/ the most easily
b. very/ rather/ too/ so/ as nice/ important b.' very /rather/ too/ so/ as easily
c. fairly/ surprisingly nice/ important c.' fairly/ surprisingly easily

(19) Measure Phrases

a. a [AP ten-meter long] bridge a.' to look ten meter-s long
b. a [AP five-year old] boy b.' to be five year-s old
c. a [AP five-meter-seventy-centimeter high] wall c.' to be five feet three inches tall

In pre-nominal attribute position, measure phrases lack the plural -s, as in a-c. They are incompatible
with most but not all grading adverbs: three times as/ more *so /*too expensive.

7.3.2 Post-modification of A

Complements of A or of a Grading Adverb

i. A + Prepositional Phrase:

(20) a. a man [AP (very) proud of his son ]

b. some books [AP (quite) interesting to us ]
c. a woman [AP (extremely) faithful/ loyal to her family ]
d. many heroes [AP (entirely) ready for a fight with aliens ]

(21) Idiomatic combinations:

good at, afraid of, ready for, keen on, worried about/over, bad at, annoyed at/with, successful in,
interested in, interesting to, conscious of, convinced of, based on, dependent on, important to,
subject to, compatible with, disappointed with

ii. A + that-clause:

(22) a. I'm sure (that) you can come.

b. Men proud that they were born rich are rare.
c. He seems glad / surprised / amazed / certain / confident / proud/ sad/ alarmed/ annoyed
/ astonished / disappointed / pleased / shocked (that) you can come.

(23) With some As, that-clauses are associates of expletive subjects:

It is appropriate / good / important /odd that he should be late.

alarming / embarrassing / fitting / irritating

iii. A + to-infinitive VP:

(24) a. He was ready / splendid / proud to help his neighbors.

b. The neighbours were happy / slow / eager to react to the suggestion.
c. They were careful / wrong / clever / cruel / kind / rude / silly not to follow us.

66
7.3.3 Both pre- and post-modifiers of the category “A”

(25) Adjectives and “Adverbs”

a. He is as proud as/*than he seems.

a.' she runs as quickly as/*than he does.
b. He is bigg-er than/*as his father.
b.' he runs quick-er than/*as his brother.
c. He is not as/so dangerous as ...
c.' she does not tun as/?so quickly as ...
d. He is far from dangerous.
d.' She speaks German far from well.
e. the bigg-er they are, the more stupid...
e.' the high-er it flies, the less fuel…
f. It is too heavy to fly far.
f.' She swims too fast to be defeated.

(26) Discontinuous dependencies

a. He is a much bigger idiot than me.

b. John is not as easy a target as Jim.

(27) A- Phrase : the same phrasal structure for adjectives and adverbs

AP

SPEC(AP) A'

A0 A-complement

a. He is extremely proud [PP of their achievements]

b. It is much more interesting [PP than anything else] AP: Adjective Phrase

c. to go thirty-meters further [PP to the finish line]

d. to work much harder [PP than anybody else] AP: Adverb Phrase

7.3.4 Classification of Adverbs

It is very important to not confuse “adverb” (a small, closed class part of speech) and “adverbial” (a
rather widespread grammatical function). Adverbs usually have an adverbial function, but many
phrases with adverbial functions are not adverbs. Some traditional so called “adverbs” are neither
67
ADV nor A. Thus, distributional properties of particles such as out, down, off, back, away, together
show they are in the category P. The derivational suffix ʻward(s) can then create adverbial P of this
type: up-wards, back-wards, home-wards, east-ward, etc.
Closed class of ADVERBS (a part of speech, neither A nor P): temporal, grading, focusing, etc.

(28)
A) Adverbs of time:
already, yet, still, ever, never, again, once, twice, always, now, then,…

B) Grading Adverbs: modify the category A

very, quite, rather, somewhat, so, more, less, most, least, as, too, how, real, damn,...

C) Focusing Adverbs: modify phrases/clauses/maximal projections

only, also, even, …as well, …too

The real test for whether a traditional “adverb” is an A or an ADV depends on its pre-modification.
The above three classes don’t accept any kind of adjectival pre-modification.

(29) EXERCISE ================================================

Discuss the examples referring to the restriction on the number of English inflectional morphemes:
a. a boy → two boy-s, → a boy-’s book,
→ two boy-s’ books , → *two boys-’s books

b. that James → those James-e-s, → James-’s book (??James’ book)

c. men’s room, children’s room, *boys’s room (where boys’s has two syllables)

(30) EXERCISE ================================================

Make two Adverbial Adjective Phrases according to each description.

a. ‘bare AP’ [AP A ] briefly................... soon.................................

b. ‘AP with premodified A’, [AP ___A] .............................. ........................................
c. ‘AP with postmodified A’ [AP A __ ] ............................. .......................................
d. ‘AP with both pre- and post-modified A’ ............................... .........................................

(31) EXERCISE ================================================

Look in the dictionary and find three derivational morphemes which create a simple ADJ and/or an
Adverbial ADJ. Give examples for each and indicate which type allows that morpheme.

Example: –able, V→Adj, forms both Simple ADJECTIVES and Adverbial ADJECTIVES:
rely-able/ably, (un-)think-able/ ably, advis-able/ably
................................................................................................................................................................
68
8 SYNTAX OF APS

Greenbaum & Quirk (1990) pp. 129-157; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik (2004) pp. 399-474;
Dušková (1994) pp. 141-164; Svoboda and Opělová-Károlyová (1989) pp.113-134; Leech & Svartvik
(1975) pp.189-203.

8.1 Syntax (distribution, functions) of Adjective Phrases

(1) Adjectival phrase

AP

SPEC(AP) A'

A0 A-complement

a. He is extremely proud [PP of their achievements].

b. It is thirty-meters further [PP to the finish line].
c. It is much more interesting [PP than anything else].

(2) Distribution/Functions of Adjective Phrases in Sentences

There are 3 main grammatical functions of APs, all related to a nominal category. !!!
i. ADJECTIVAL PRE-/POST-MODIFIERS (AP-N and N-AP) → Attributes
ii. ADJECTIVAL PREDICATE (copula V +AP) → Predicate Nominals
iii. ADJECTIVAL COMPLEMENTS → Subject/Object Complements

Notice that every AdjP is related to some Noun - check which Noun it is in the examples below:

(3) a. I saw a very intelligent girl much more beautiful than Mary.
b. Mary is very intelligent. Mary is more beautiful than Eve.
c. Mary came back from the hairdresser´s more beautiful than ever.

69
8.1.1 Adjective Pre-/Post-modifiers of a Noun

The most standard function of Adjectives is to modify the meaning of some Noun – they are Noun
modifiers. Under different conditions they appear both in front of and after a head N.

(4) NP = (QU) - DET/ POSS - (QE) - AP - AP (N/A) - N -PP - AP

The position of the AdjP with respect to the head Noun depends on:

(5) a. the lexical characteristics of the Adj,

b. and especially, the complexity of the AP.
!!!
8.1.1.1 Pre-modifying Adjectives

In the following examples notice that Adjective modifiers are phrases (APs), because they can be
enlarged. See adjectival phrase in terms of the scheme (16) on page 65.

(6) a. Mary is a very SCARED child

b. How LOYAL a woman did she turn out to be?
c. I have some extremely EAGER co-workers.
d. Elisabeth jumped over a two-metre WIDE ditch. (metre can’t be plural here)
e. Elisabeth jumped over the DEEP AND DANGEROUS ditch.

Premodifying APs are syntactically "simpler"; they can be either bare (most often) or premodified
themselves (e.g. by very/ extremely/ how/ two-meter (grading adverbials and measure phrases)).

However, they cannot have their own post-modifying PPs or clauses:

(7) a. __of monsters,

b. __to her husband,
c. __of his achievements,
d. __that we arrived,
e. __to please the boss.

(8) a. *Mary is a SCARED of monsters child.

b. *Did she turn out to be a LOYAL to her husband woman?
c. *I have some EAGER to please the boss co-workers.

8.1.1.2 Post-modifying Adjectives

These result from: a. lexical or idiosyncratic properties of some A,

b. complex APs (=with their own post-modification).

70
(9) Idiosyncratic As i. syntax proper, president elect ,wine glasses galore
ii. the few students present/absent/available
iii. the passengers aboard, any wood afloat, a child asleep
iv. French: court martial, notary public, fee simple, battle royal

(10) French: i. une princesse royale ii. ce devoir simple

a princess royal the duty simple
'a royal princess' 'that simple duty'

The examples above are exceptions. They are not a part of modern English grammar system.

However, all English Adjectives must appear in post-nominal position if they are ‘complex’.
Compare (6)-(8) with (11)-(12). Be able to discuss the ‘complexity’ of the post-modifying adjectival
phrase in terms of (16) on page 65.

(11) a. *Mary is a child SCARED.

b. *She turned out to be a woman very LOYAL.
c. *I know an employee extremely EAGER.
d. Elisabeth jumped over a ditch two-metres WIDE. (metres has plural form)
e. ?Elisabeth jumped over a ditch DEEP AND DANGEROUS. (ok in narratives)

With English Adjective Phrases, post-modified APs must themselves be post-modifiers:

(12) a. Mary is a child SCARED of monsters.

b. She turned out to be a woman LOYAL to her husband.
c. David met a man very FOND of English literature.
d. I know some employees extremely EAGER to please the boos.
e. I saw a girl as BEAUTIFUL as Mary / more BEAUTIFUL than Mary.

(13) Pre- and Post-modifying Adjectival Phrases

NP

AP NP

very old NP AP
N0
pear tree
much taller than the others

How can we describe the kinds of APs?

How can we define "bare", "premodified" and "postmodified" AP?

71
(14) The structure of pre-/post-nominal APs:

NP

AP N'

SPEC(AP) A' N0 AP

A0 *A-compl. SPEC(A) A'

A0 A-compl

a. more BEAUTIFUL (*than Mary ) GIRL

b. GIRL much more beautiful than Mary

8.1.2 Predicate Function of Adjective Phrases

(15) His brother John IS/ SEEMS/ BECAME/ LOOKS [AP very handsome ]

SUBJECT - copula/ linking verbs - AP/ NP

The status of a constituent as Predicate Adjective AP or Predicate Nominal NP is bound up with

theoretical frameworks: How do we define Copula? What can be a Complement? What is the
difference between Complement and Object, etc? These questions are far from trivial.

Consider (i) Case on the verbal complement, (ii) selection of Adj or Adv form, (iii) the meaning.
Compare English and Czech w.r.t. the criteria.

(16) a. Petry je učitely. a.' Petery is a teachery

b. Petry viděl učitele*y b.' Petery saw a teacher*y
c. Chlapec je student(em)NOM-INSTR. c.' The boy is a student.
d. Chlapec viděl studentaACC d.' The boy saw a student.
e. Jenda pracoval spolehlivě/rychleADV. e.' John worked reliably/quicklyADV.
f. Jenda je spolehlivýADJ.NOM f.' John is reliable/quickADJ.

72
8.1.2.1 What is Copula?

(17) A copula: a. has two arguments referring to the same entity (it expresses identity),
b. does not assign Object or Accusative Case (to Nouns) and can’t be passive,
c. can be followed by an A or an N, which agree with the Subject.

How many Verbs have these properties of a copula?

 In Czech: a version of být 'be', partially also stát se 'become'; only 1 or 2.

 In English; there are many copulas or semi-copulas: be, seem, appear, stay, remain, act, verbs
of change (become, get, grow, turn), verbs of perception (look, feel, taste, smell, sound).

(18) a. Emma is/ seems/ is acting silly / very silly / unbelievably silly.
b. Samuel became/ got/ grew foolishly proud of his few achievements.
c. Helen felt/ looked/ stayed twice as mad at her mother as Piers did .

8.1.3 Subject/Object Adjective Phrase Complements (Secondary Predicate, ‘doplněk’)

Syntactic relations are typically binary (e.g. V +Object, N + attribute). Complements (in the sense of
doplněk), however, enter into a ternary relation. They are a special type of selected complement XP
(= NP, AP, PP. VP) which has a grammatical function of further specifying a subject or object NP.

Many traditional frameworks use ‘Complement’ for only these Secondary Predicate XPs.)
To distinguish them from ‘complement’ (= lexically selected complementation), this text will use the
longer terms Subject Complement and Object Complement only for these secondary predicates.

(19) Binary relations (sentence functions)

a. VP = [VP V + NP OBJECT] to write a letter / to Peter
b. [VP V + ADVERBIAL PPs] to dash home/ back/ into the office
c. [S NP SUBJECT + VP PREDICATE] that somebody must finish the task
d. PP = [PP P + NP OBJECT] to rush outside the house
e. [NP AP ATTRIBUTE + N] find very tasty food

(20) Binary vs. Ternary relations

a. A Predicate AP/NP is related to both a subject and a "copula"/ linking Verb (ternary relation).
b. An adverbial AP is a modifier of a "lexical Verb" as an Adverbial (binary relation).
c. An AP or NP is related to a "lexical verb" and at the same time to some preceding NP. (Subject
or Object). These are Subject or Object Complements (ternary relations).

a. [The girl] +is/ looks + [ as happy as before]. = NP + Copula + Adjectival Predicate

b. The girl [smiled] + [ as happily as before]. = V + Adverbial (of Manner)
c. [The girl] [returned to work] [as happy as before]. = NP+ VP + Subject Complement

(21) Object Complement a. John [painted] [the door] [light green].

Subject Complement b. Ann [returned to work] [as happy as before].
Predicate Nominals and Adjectives c. Ann [remained/became [a teacher/very sad]].

73
(22) Binary vs. ternary relation

a. John painted the door light green. V + Obj (painted → the door)
V +Obj + AP: an Object Complement inside VP
(painted→ light green, the door → light green)

b. Ann returned home as happy as ever. Subj + VP + AP: a Subject Complement outside VP
(Ann→ as happy as ever, return→ as happy as ever)

c. Ann was/ remained very sad. Subj + V + AP: an Adjectival Predicate inside VP
(Ann → very sad, was/ remained → very sad)

If is/remain is a Copula or Linking Verb→ very sad is a selected part of the Predicate.
If return is a Lexical Verb → as happy as ever is a (Subject) Complement and an Adjunct.

BUT: The distinction between 'copula' and 'lexical Verb' varies across languages, so many Czech
Adverbials are analysed as Adjective Complements in English. Several English Verbs are called
“linking verbs" (semi-copulas) if they are followed by a co-referential AP complement.

(23) English Copulas and Semi-copulas (linking verbs)

a. Peter is/seems old. copulas (Is seem a copula?)

b. Peter became/grew/got old. change of state Linking Verbs (Predicates)
c. The food tastes/looks good/ *well. Verbs of sense perception

(24) a. To je těžk-é/dobr-é. copula + Predicate Nominal

b. Pracuje těžc-e/dobř-e/piln-ě. V + Adverbial
c. He works hard/ well/ diligent-ly. V + Adverbial
d. Jídlo chutná/ voní *dobré / dobře. = (b/c) = V + Adverbial

Two ways to solve the problem with “copula(s)” in English:

i) - to have more than one copula, i.e. to introduce a label “semi-copula” and call that way many
verbs, all of which are followed by ADJ.

ii) – to have no copula – to take all “copulas” for “Verbs”. With no copula there is no “nominal
predicate with a copula” . The NP after “be” etc. is called “subject complement” (‘doplněk’).

74
8.1.4 Central vs. Peripheral Adjectives

(Proto-)Typical Adjectives:

(25) a. - are attributive: can (pre-)modify Nouns,

b - can follow "linking verbs" such as seem/ remain/ look, and
c - are gradable (e.g. combine with very and more...than).
!!!
(25) a. A (very) big boy...
b. The boy looked/ was/ became very angry.
c. He seems/ looks/ remains very big / bigger than me.

Not all Adjectives are prototypical. There is a ‘gradient’ between CORE vs. PERIPHERAL members
of the ADJ class. (See categorial proto-typicality in section 2.7.)

8.1.4.1 Secondary and “Quotation” Adjectives

(26) a. those tall city towers b. the new government project

c. another top model d. an inside story
e. the stuck-in-the-mud approach f. I am a do-it-yourself type.

“Secondary Adjectives” were studied by V. Mathesius and O. Jespersen. They can also be Nouns,
Prepositions or Adverbs which function as Attributes. Any inflectional morphology is frozen, and they
lack modification: ladies room, best man, down time, insider trading.

(27) a. * those tall cities towers ........................................ cannot take plural (N morphology)
b. * citi-er towers, *more government project .......... cannot take Adj morphology
c. * some expensive [our new government] project ...cannot form a full NP
d. * some expensive [very government] project ..........cannot form a full AP

There are several arguments for their partly adjectival nature (signals of "adjectivization"):

(28) Coordination

a. She is quite vulgar and commonplace.

b. Private and government funds will be invested.

Assuming that only the same categories can be coordinated, vulgar and commonplace are the same
category; this suggests that perhaps government here is also some kind of adjective.

(29) Position between Adjectives (A - N/A - A)

He is reading the new evening radical paper.

Assuming (?) a fixed position (or field) for Adjectives in front of a Noun, the position of evening
before an Adjective seems to suggest an adjectival property.

75
(30) Modifying the Noun substitute one (‘A - one’)

Electric engines are cheaper than steam ones.

Assuming 'one' necessarily follows Adjectives, this suggests that steam is here an Adjective.

(31) Grading
a. too - A That’s a much too London point of view
b. A - most the topmost picture, the uppermost/ bottommost position
c. A - est the choicest fruits

'too/most/-est' are Grading elements and only the A category can be graded. Then the expressions
like London/top/bottom/ etc. must be some sort of peripheral A.

However, these tests don’t always give clear results:

(32) a. *This evening political newspaper bothers me.
b. ?Electric radiators are more expensive than steam ones.
c. *That’s the Londonest expression I know.
d. ?Evening and local newspapers are losing customers.

(33) EXERCISE ================================================

Fill in the blanks for complex APs (inside the complex NP):

D/Poss AP N AP
Adverbial A ADV A PP or Clause
an extremely nice MAN more thoughtful than others I know
BOOK
PLAN
ARGUMENT

(34) EXERCISE ================================================

Translate the following example in English to Czech and discuss the position of adjectives in a Czech
NP. Give some more examples demonstrating your proposed generalization.

a. I know [NP several [AP very proud] STUDENTS ]]

b. I know [NP several STUDENTS [AP very proud [PP of their achievements]]]
c. * I know [NP several [AP very proud [PP of their achievements]] STUDENTS]

a. .............................................................................................................................................
b. .............................................................................................................................................
c. .............................................................................................................................................

76
(35) EXERCISE ================================================
How can you explain the order of elements in the following Czech examples? What is characteristic
for these APs which appear after the nouns even though they are "simple"?

a. tlustá kniha / ?? kniha tlustá

b. skokan zelený, kysličník uhličitý

(36) EXERCISE ================================================

Make an AP headed by A =‘clever’ according to the description. See (16) on page 65.
a. ‘bare AP’ [AP A] .....[AP clever]......
b. ‘AP with premodified A’, [AP --- A] ……..............................................................
c. ‘AP with postmodified A’ [AP A ---] .......................................................................
d. ‘AP with both pre- and post-modified A’ .......................................................................

(37) EXERCISE ================================================

Fill your APs from (36) into the proposed contexts. Discuss the acceptability of the resulting
structures using the generalisation about English pre-/post-nominal distribution of AP Attributes.

i. AP Predicate
a. Josephine is clever. c. ...........................................................
b. ......................................................... d. ...........................................................
ii. Pre-modifying AP
a. It was a clever proposal. c. ...........................................................
b. ......................................................... d. ...........................................................
iii. Post-modifying AP
a. * She is a girl clever. c. ...........................................................
b. ......................................................... d. ...........................................................
iv. Predicate AP
a. Josephine appeared clever. c. ...........................................................
b. ......................................................... d. ...........................................................

(38) EXERCISE ================================================

Give the category of the underlined elements. Discuss the distinction among a/ b/ c and among d/ e/ f.
Find more Adjective/Adverbial couples with similar properties. Make a generalisation. Try to explain
the relations referring to the blocking effect (this isn’t easy!).

a. The child has a high temperature. d. Elisabeth likes hard work.

b. Airplanes can fly really high/*highly. e. He likes to work hard/*hardly.
c. Marcel is highly experienced. f. Mary hardly ever works hard.

77
(39) EXERCISE =================================================
The following A-E are properties typical of Adjectives. In light of the data in (i-vi), as well as your
own, fill in the table below with +/- and discuss the level of proto-typicality of these ‘Adjectives.’

A. ADJECTIVE occurs after the linking Verbs /copulas ‘seem, appear, feel, remain, etc,
B. ADJECTIVE occurs between an Article and the Noun (Attribute),
C. ADJECTIVE can be (pre-)modified by ‘very / so / too / rather / somewhat’,…
D. ADJECTIVE can be graded by ʻer/-est or more/ most, less/ least,
E. ADJECTIVE can function as an Adverbial by use of ʻly.

i. a. A (very) hungry child... ii. a. Such (*very) infinite patience

b. Children hungry deserve help.… b. * We can’t expect patience infinite.
c. Adam seems (so) hungry. c. The teacher’s patience seems (*so) infinite.
d. He is less hungry than me. d. *His patience is more infinite than yours.

iii. a. *(Somewhat) afraid people... iv. a. an (*rather) utter fool

b. People so afraid should stay home. b. *Foots so utter are hard to tolerate.
c. People seem (rather) afraid. c. * Bob’s foolishness seems (rather) utter.
d. He is more afraid than me. d. * Bob’s carelessness is more utter than hers.

v. a. *that (so) asleep baby vi. a. *The (very) abroad life style.
b. The patient seems (so) asleep. b. *This life style seems (very) abroad.
c. Don’t disturb patients asleep. c. Life abroad suited me fine.
d. *He was more asleep than me. d. *Korea is more abroad than Slovakia.

A B C D E Category?
hungry
infinite
afraid
utter
asleep
abroad

(40) EXERCISE =================================================

In the examples, put brackets around 14 APs. Then indicate if they are Attributes, Subject
Complements, Object Complements, Adverbials, or Adjectival Predicates. Give reasons for your
choices. You can use the diagnostic that the pro-form do so can replace VPs expressing Activity.

a. We came into the kitchen quite hungry.

b. We looked and found the fridge full of leftovers completely unappealing.
c. Those who got angry about it fast had soon left.
d. But those more patient didn’t remain hungry very long.
e. True, the end of work found anyone still hungry a bit restless.
f. But a quite copious meal awaited anyone willing to pay a little extra.

78
8.2 Adverbial Positions of APs and PPs

Greenbaum & Quirk (1990) pp. 158-187

As seen in Ch. 6, the inflectional and derivational morphology and selection of complement types are
next to identical for Adjectives A and “adverbials” A + -ly. The sentence functions of both are broadly
speaking modifiers: Adjectives modify Nouns, and Adverbs are those modifiers that standardly
combine with everything else, and sometimes even combine with nominal categories.

8.2.1 Adverbials as Modifiers

Typically, Adverbial modification concerns Manner, Place, Time, Frequency, etc. That is, adverbials
modify a verbal action i.e. Adverbials are typically related to Verbs.

(41) He runs quickly/ away/ there /daily/ now.

But consider also other parts of speech modified by various Adverbials (notice their positions).

(42) A: A(djectives) a. We are very/ so/ too/ rather/ somewhat late.

b. He seems more/ less clever than her.
c. I met the three most/ least clever girls in London.
d. a tall very/ more/ strikingly handsome guy
A(dverbs) e. He runs very/ so/ too/ rather quickly.
f. She will do it probably slowly but certainly well.
g. The airplane can fly very/ less/ extremely far.

(43) P: Preposition a. He ran right up/down the hill.

b. He put them directly into the boxes.
c. They were sitting just outside the hut.

(44) S: Full clauses a. Well, can’t you do it?

b. Naturally, he arrived late.
c. I can help you perhaps.
d. The election actually didn’t take place.

(45) N: Nouns a. The road upwards is to the left soon.

b. His travel abroad lasted more than a year.
c. The movements sideways were most unpleasant.

(46) D: Pronouns a. hardly anybody

(marginal) b. precisely that
c. almost nothing

The SCOPE of modifiers: Adverbial constituents modify some constituent (some lexical category or
some phrase or even a clause). We say that they "take scope over" that constituent.

79
(47) The SCOPE of an Adverbial (= the constituent the Adverbial modifies) can be:
a. the verbal action, typically at the left/right edge of VP (except they can precede stressed XP),
b. the polarity/tense/modality of the Operator position (positive/negative/probability),
c. the whole sentence (especially if the adverb is set off by a comma),
d. other constituents: AP, NP etc., as in (2)-(6).

8.2.2 Adverbials as Adjuncts

(48) Complement/Object vs. Adjunct/Adverbial distinction:

A) Complements (±Objects) are obligatory or optional constituents selected by a Verb (or some
other head). Complements in this sense, even PPs, are not Adverbials.

Notice that here, Complement does not mean 'doplněk' but is closer to the notion of Object, because it
is a (“subcategorized”) element lexically selected by a Verb.

B) Adjuncts (±Adverbials) enlarge the VP (=V + Complements); they are less closely related to
the Verb and are always optional. They are Adverbials that give the Manner, Place or Time of
the Verb Phrase action. One can WH- question them: when?/where?/how?

C) Disjuncts are a kind of Adjunct quite external to the action in a Verb Phrase: because…, if…,
due to…, in case…, so as to… They are very often subordinate clauses.

(49) a. He quickly dashes to school every morning. *He quickly dashes every morning.
Those girls often put effort into their work. *Those girls often put effort.

b. She does yoga (around there) (on Sundays).

Susan takes walks (barefoot) (without socks).

c. Probably he walks to school.

*He walks probably to school.
She takes the bus so as to save money.
*She so as to save money takes the bus.
They take a bus to town, if it is raining.
* They take a bus if it is raining to town.

Consider some positions of adverbials:

(50) a. Mathew speaks English frequently /fluently/*certainly/*frankly at home.

b. Mathew will speak frequently / fluently/*certainly/ frankly in English.
c. Mathew will frequently/ fluently/ certainly/*frankly speak English.
d. Frequently/*Fluently/ Certainly /Frankly, Mathew speaks English at home.

Not all adverbial positions are equal! The distributions depend on interpretations and complexity.

80
8.2.3 General Distribution of AP Adjuncts/Adverbials

"I" (Initial) "M" (Pre-verbal/ Middle) "E/F" (End/Final) position

Adverbial - Subj - Adverbial - V - Complements - Adverbial (possibly several)

sentential … sentential/ manner … … … … verbal (manner, place, time)

(51) Actually my Dad foolishly runs races too quickly at the start.

a. Sentential Adverbials: usually precede the Verb, or if longer are at the very beginning.
(Certainly)Mary can (certainly) write the talk (*certainly) for John (*certainly).

b. Temporal Adverbs: rather free, especially those of frequency (any Adv. position).
(Quite often) Sam (quite often) runs (quite often) to the post office (quite often).

c. Manner Adverbs: must be inside the Verb Phrase (M or E/F position).

He (*quickly) should (quickly) fold up (*quickly) his shirts (quickly).

Recall, Adverbials don’t separate a Verb and its object NP (except for heavy NP objects).

8.2.3.1 Quirk´s Positions of verbal, temporal and sentential adverbials

(52) a. I = Initial
b. M = Middle/Pre-verbal (Adverbials can’t separate an English Verb from its Objects.)
c. E/F= at the End/ Final (Unless clausal, Adverbials can both precede and follow PPs.)

(53) I-position. This position is for Disjuncts, adverbials that optionally precede commas.
Temporal, Locational, and Sentential Adverbials can fill this pre-subject position.

(54) M-position: Post-subject, pre-verbal position, before or after an auxiliary

 the position of the -n't/not morpheme is following the first Modal/Auxiliary.

 short –ly Adverbials and temporal Adverbs. Adverbials of category PP, even short, don’t
occur in the M position (without pauses/ commas).

(55) a. She had (never/ merely/ usually/ still) sent a letter (*never/ *merely/ *usually/ *still).
b. She had (*before/ *off/ *by then/ *home) driven the car (off/ before/ by then/ home).

(56) E/F-position: Post-object position, among PPs but preferably final.

The final position, after all object NPs and any selected idiomatic combinations, is the natural position
for all adjuncts, including PPs and APs. Some short Adverbs (already, yet, again, then, now…) can
also be in the E/F position. These are also Adjuncts .

81
8.2.4 Negative, partial negative, and positive adverbs

Compare the adverbs often, never and rarely w.r.t. their positive/negative meanings and scope
properties. Notice that positive/negative polarity of the sentence is signalled by the presence of not.

(57) Signals of a negative polarity:

a.
b.
c.
positive vs. negative question tag,
pronouns (some is positive polarity, while any is negative),
negative inversion after adverbial fronting.
!!!
Consider the tests applied on English time adverbials often, never, and rarely.

(58) a. He often/ sometimes says something stupid, doesn't he? /*does he?
b. He often/ sometimes says something stupid/*anything stupid.
c. *Often/ Sometimes stupid does he say something.

Conclusion: often/ sometimes are positive expressions/adverbials.

(59) a. He never says anything stupid, does he? / *doesn't he?

b. He never says anything stupid/??something stupid.
c. Never does he say anything stupid.

Conclusion: never is a negative adverbial.

(60) a. He rarely/hardly ever says anything stupid, does he? /*doesn't he?
b. He rarely/hardly ever says anything stupid/??something stupid.
c. Rarely/Hardly ever does he say anything stupid.

Conclusion: rarely usually behaves exactly like never, i.e. it is a partially negative adverbial. We say
“partially” because even though its syntax is negative, the meaning is only partially negative. The
meanings of hardly, rarely, seldom, barely are ±positive but formally the words are negative. They
(can) negate the clause syntactically in the same way as never does.

In Czech, there are no tag questions and NEG polarity is signalled by the form of ně/ni- prefix (with
the required reading) and ne- on finite verb. Polarity can also be checked also by a NPI ani

(61) a. Marie nikdy nepomáhá ani jednomu kamarádovi.

b. Marie často pomáhá (*ani) jednomu kamarádovi.

c. Marie stěží kdy -[a] * nepomáhá ani jednomu kamarádovi

-[b] pomáhá (*ani) jednomu kamarádovi.

In Czech the interpretation of stěží, zřídka, málokdy is the same as in English but, contrary to English,
these adverbs do not trigger negative polarity.

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8.3 Adverbials as PPs (Adverbial Prepositions and Particles)

The traditional class of adverbs is a mixture of distinct elements. As shown in Section 6.2, most of
them (especially those of form A + -ly) have the same category as Adjectives.

On the other hand, many other items also known as “adverbs” or “particles” share properties with
Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases (PPs). Because of their distributions and their possible
modifiers, their syntactic category is in fact Preposition, not “adverb”.

(62) a. The pupils put the boxes down (the stairs)/ inside (the closet)/ away/ (right) back.
b. Where she left it was (right) near the door/ (right) outside / (right) nearby.
c. Jim dashed (right) into the street/ in/ up/ off/ away/ back.
d. Did you ever meet him since/ before (he grew up/ his marriage)?

These adverbial particles can even be coordinated with PPs (Coordination connects like categories):

(63) a. John ran away.

John ran up the hill.
John ran up the hill and away.

b. Jessica arrived there / home/ in a village / at the cinema.

c. They will be arriving there or at the cinema.

Besides As and Ps with adverbial functions, also other small classes of modifiers are traditionally
called adverbs, which is accurate for their adverbial sentence functions. But they also need a
grammatical category (a part of speech like N or P), not only a grammatical function (like Subject or
Adverbial). E.g. the grading adverbs or particles.

8.3.1 Degree Words: Grading Adverbs

Adverbs that modify A or P (more, less, most, least, so, too, how, as, quite, rather, right, etc.) can be
called DEG (degree words), a term that is fairly widely used. But we can try to keep tradition, and
call them ADVA, meaning adverbs that modify an A.

(64) a. more interesting

b. rather tired

8.3.2 Verb-modifying Particles

Small classes of Adverbial words that modify V are often labelled PRT (Particles), or (when one
wants to be consistent with tradition) ADVV.

(65) a. Temporal Particles ADVV: already, yet, still, ever, never, once, twice, etc.
b. Modal Particles ADVM: perhaps, maybe, however, moreover, well, of course, etc.
c. Focus Particles: only, even, also (ADVF; these can modify any phrase XP.)

83
Traditional grammar often resorts to the term ‘particle’ when it has proposed no analysis for leftover
‘little words.’ But actually various PRT/ ADV (the same in this course) do have properties in English.
For example, most ADVF are at the left edge of a phrase.

(66) That boss awarded [NP even/ only the youngest employees of his ].

(67) EXERCISE ================================================

Discuss the kind and function of the underlined modifiers. Describe the type and scope of the
underlined elements. These many variations are difficult, so think them through!
a. Jitka určitě odpověděla. b. Jan odpověděl určitě.
c. Jude will always help Mary. d. Sure he will do the job well.
e. Emily grew nicer with age. f. Well, Emily is simply too nice.
g. I do not like the green door. h. This door seems really green.
i. Emily painted the door green j. Emily can run most quickly.
k. Emily can certainly answer. l. Emily can confidently answer rather well.

(68) EXERCISE ================================================

Which part of speech do the underline elements modify?
a. Emma speaks well/ quickly. b. Marion already sounds very lazy.
c. George ran right up the hill. d. Velma can work unbelievably patiently.
e. We saw only/ even your wife in the bar. f. Robert ran down into the cellar.

(69) EXERCISE ================================================

Replace each of the Adverbials by more complex constituents. Which kinds of phrases should they be?
Which semantic concepts in section 6.1.1 does each one express?
a. He runs quickly. b. He goes away/ there on Sundays.
c. He runs daily/ now. d. He goes home very/ the most often.
e. She already/ still went home. f. She only/ even goes out on Monday.

(70) EXERCISE ================================================

Compare the English adverb hardly and the Czech adverb stěží.
i. Consider their interpretation.
ii. Consider the formal signals of negation (in both English and in Czech).

(71) EXERCISE ================================================

State and justify the categories of the underlined elements. Try to give as many as possible
i. semantic/ notional criteria,
ii. morphological criteria (derivational and inflectional morphemes either present or possible),
iii. syntactic criteria (for every AP discuss its grammatical function).

a. I have a as big a dog as you. b. She is the least pretty child I know.
c. She made his daughter prettier. d. He looks pretty silly.
e. Susan seldom works hard. f. She never works as long as I do.
g. They do know where to take off. h. Mary put it up and behind the box.

84
9 SEMANTICS AND MORPHOLOGY OF VERBS

Greenbaum & Quirk (1990) pp. 24-69; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik (2004) pp.93-240;
Dušková (1994) pp. 165-272; Svoboda and Opělová-Károlyová (1989) pp. 7-50; Leech (1971), Leech
& Svartvik (1975); Svoboda (2004) pp. 24-36.

9.1 Semantic Specification and Classifications

Verbs express activity = event.

(1) VALENCY: a Verb and its arguments correspond to a verbal action and its participants.

verbal event/
action/ relation adverbial phrases
(Manner/ Place/ Time)
1st participant/ role 2nd participant/ role 3rd participant/role
(Agent) (Patient) (Recipient/ Beneficiary/ Goal)

(2) a. Peter/He sent a parcel/ it to John/ to him in the afternoon.

b. Petr/On poslal balík Janovi v poledne.

‘Semantic Transitivity, Thematic roles, Valency’: a Verb expresses a relation with participants/
arguments. Classifications are based on semantic distinctions (which have formal consequences).

(3) Number of arguments: Many partly semantic divisions have been studied:
a. Transitive Verbs: Agent ← VERB → Patient/ Theme
b. Passive Verbs: Patient/ Theme ← VERB → (Agent)
c. Intransitive Verbs: Agent/ Theme ← VERB

(4) a. The farmers built a new barn. The farmers rolled the rocks away.
b. A new barn was built (by the farmers). The rocks were rolled away.
c. Marilyn often swims long distances. The rocks rolled away.

(5) Intransitive copulas/ linking verbs, see (15), p. 72: Theme ← VERB → (Predicate)
a. Zach is a lawyer. / Zach is clever.
b. Zach seems/ appears silly.
c. Zach became/ grew/ got older.

(6) Intransitive Verbs: Agent/ Theme ← VERB

i. Ergative Vs (turn, break, close) a. The boat turned back. (atelic)
Verbs expressing a subject’s “energy” b. Some windows broke.
c. Ann ran back. / Someone coughed.

85
 Causative transitive usages of these V: d. The enemy turned the boat back.
e. The boat was turned back by the enemy.

ii. Unaccusatives (come, go, return, fall, die) f. Many people came back/ died in the winter.
Vs of movement and change of state g. More trees fell yesterday.
h. The cold weather returned.

iii. Inchoative/ temporal aspect Vs - start (to read), go on/ keep/ finish (reading)

(7) Transitive Verbs: Agent ← VERB → Patient/ Theme

a. Vs of sense perception (Theme) - see (him run), hear (us coming), feel (it rain)

b. ‘Verba dicendi’ (indirect speech) - say, tell, cry, think, whisper, order
(These can be “performatives”.) - I hereby order you all to leave. I’m telling you to go.

c. Causative Vs - make (John leave), force (them to work), help (her finish)

d. Transitive Reflexive Vs - perjure oneself, absent oneself, pride yourself (on)

(8) Verbal complexes

a. “Phrasal” Verbs (V + particle) - take off, look up, put away, think through, buy off
b. Verb-nominal complexes - have fun/ a shower/ time, make money/ love/ fun (of)
- take the trouble, take time, take a nap, take a look

9.2 Verbal Paradigm (Inflectional Morphology on Verbs)

(9) Morphological verbal forms: 3 (e.g. read) – 8 (e.g. be)

Huddleston &
Quirk et al. Biber et al.
alomorfs Pullum examples
1985, 96 2007, 57
2002, 74
regular irregular be
Ø base form base form plain help/ raise keep/drive be
3rd sg. pres.
-s -s form 3sg present helps/raises keeps/drives is
indicative
-ing gerund-
-ing -ing participle helping/raising keeping/driving being
participle participle
-ed/t was/
or vowel past form past tense preterite helped/raised kept/ drove
were
change
-ed/-t/-en -ed
or vowel past participle past participle helped/raised kept/driven been
participle
change

(10) Simple (Synthetic) vs. Periphrastic (Analytic) Forms

a. Simple: He kisses... / He kissed... /She drives… / She drove…/ It keeps on…/ It kept on…
b. Periphrastic: He could have been being kissed/ kept out/ driven near his home.
86
(11) Non-finite Forms. Finite means: agrees with a subject NP; see (10).

a. (to) drive / (to) have driven present/ past (bare or to) infinitive
b. kissing / having kissed present/ past participles (or gerund)
c. kept / driven/ kissed passive and past participles are always the same

(12) To make any non-finite form past, use have with the past participle.

a. He must/ should go home now. → He must/ should have gone home yesterday.
b. Kissing good bye, John left. → Having kissed good bye, John left.

(13) Verbal Features (ii. through iv. are expressed in “Finiteness”)

i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
Aspect (see discussion below)................................
Tense (Past)..........................................................
Mood (Modals)...................................................
Voice (Passive)…………………………………..
Nominal features (Person, Gender, Number) …...
optional (Eng) /intrinsic (Cz)
optional
optional
optional
secondary, i.e. via agreement
!!!
9.2.1 Contexts for bare infintives

Bare infinitive is the most economical plain (bare) verbal form. It appears in the following contexts:

(14) a. Modals
b. lexical Verbs
c. idioms and special constructions

(15) List of bare-INF contexts

List of verbal elements example

can, could, may, might, shall, The sun will (*to) rise soon.
WITHOUT DO-SUPPORT

Central Modals
should, (wi)‘ll, (woul)‘d, must Quido must (*to) sleep.

He daren’t/ needn’t/ oughtn’t

non-lexical

Marginal Modals
dareNPI, needNPI, oughtNPI? (*to) come late.
only when NPI !
He ought (to) come late.*

(Ha)’d better/ best You’d better/ best (*to) go.

Modal
(Woul)’d rather/ sooner/as soon I’ d rather/ sooner/as soon as
Idioms
as (*to) do it.

87
 The weather can’t but (*to) get
can(no)’t (help) but better.
David can’t help but (*to) laugh.

‘marginal Emma didn’t dare (to) come

lexical V +

Dare, need, ought

Modal’1
VINF

late.

Imperative ‘go’ go Go (*to) get me some money!

I saw/ watched/ heard him (to)

go.
see, watch, feel, notice,
lexical V + NP + VINF

V of sensory John noticed/ observed Mary

(over)hear, observe,
perception (±) (to) leave.
know (BrE), find (BrE),
We know/found her (to) be
smart.

I have/let my car (*to) clean.

have, let, make, bid, help, I made/bid him (*to) leave.
Causatives (±)
force, oblige, persuade Let’s (*to) go!
I helped him (to) leave.

Compounds gonna, gotta, hafta, usta, oughta,

It’s gonna/ suposta (*to) rain.
??

incorporated ‘to’ supposta, wanna

9.3 Tense

Time and Tense: Tense refers to the main grammatical ways of referring to pragmatic/semantic
notions of Time. Real Time is an open and infinite phenomenon. Language uses a simplified
(=grammaticalized) version of Time = Tense, which is related to the moment of the speech act.

(16) a. Past = before the speech act

b. Present = includes "now" (i.e. the moment of the speech act)
c. Future = after the speech act (as yet unrealised)

Tense is an optional verbal feature, i.e. a standard Verb can take any of the Tenses depending on the
intended meaning. Sometimes we say, +PRES = -PAST, -FUT e.g. This plant blooms in spring.

(17) Morphology of Tense

[+PAST] [+PRES] [+FUT]

Hugo help-ed us. >>> Hugo help-s us. >>> Hugo will help us.
Recall the rules for pronunciation : regressive assimilation in voicing (to a preceding segment).

1
These lexical entries appear systematically in two forms: as a regular lexical verb (followed usually by a to-
infinitive - He dares to come, doesn’t he?) and as a modal (with no inflection and followed by a bare infinitive -
He daren’t come, dare he?). As modals, they are NPI (negative polarity items) only. The so called "marginal
modal" is in fact a lexical verb (requires a do-support) followed by a bare infinitive.
88
(18) Absolute Tense (with finite verbs)

a. past Hugo complain-ed. >>> Did Hugo complain?

b. present Hugo complain-s . >>> Does Hugo complain?
c. future Hugo will complain. >>> Will Hugo complain?

(19) Relative Tense (with infinitives and participles)

a. Waving good bye, Hugo drove/is driving off in his car.

b. Having waved good bye, Hugo drove/ is driving off in his car.
c. Hugo should have waved good bye yesterday, before driving off in his car.
d. Hugo should wave good bye as he drives off in his car.

(20) Interpretation of the Relative Tense

a. ‘the same’ (as the related finite form) to wave - wav-ing

b. ‘preceding’ (the related finite form) to have wav-ed - having wav-ed

9.4 Aspect

Aspect is added to the main Tense system, providing additional conditions for the action. In English,
Aspect is related more to the duration of the action.

(21) a. Progressive Aspect: continuous/repeated, etc.

b. Perfective Aspect: reference to another Tense/time of completion, telicity, etc.

(22) ASPECT a. PROGRESSIVE BE V-ing

b. PERFECTIVE HAVE V-en

a.
b.
+PROG circumfix: Hugo
+PERF circumfix: Hugo
is explain-ing/ choos-ing
has explain-ed/ chos-en
the right answer.
the right answer.
!!!
In Czech, Perfective Aspect is related more to the (in)completeness of the action.
In English, Aspect is an optional verbal feature. The Verb can occur with no Aspect (in “simple”
Tenses), or it can have one Aspect or two Aspects. Example:

(23) TENSE = [PRES] a. [-PROG/ -PERF] Hugo helps us.

b. [+PROG] (bold underline) Hugo is help-ing us.
c. [+PERF] (bold only) Hugo has help-ed us.
d. [+PROG] [+PERF] Hugo has been help-ing us.

Revise the pragmatics of the aspectual forms – their usages in specific contexts.

89
9.5 Combinations of Aspect & Tense

In English, 12 grammatical temporal concepts are expressed by a combination of the 3 Tenses and
the 2 Aspects.

1 of 3 Tenses + 0-2 Aspects (4 choices) = 12 verbal forms

Using 12 forms, English can express a wide variety of meanings. For a proper analysis it is necessary
to distinguish between the form (which Tense+Aspect morphemes are present) and the
interpretation. Interpretation of specific forms is influenced by which morphemes are used but also
by other factors, e.g. marked and unmarked usages in a given language. Each form must be considered
as part of the system, i.e. as contrastive with the other existing forms.

(24) Temporal framing related to specific discourse (communication model)

Tense = vertical lines Progressive = wavy lines Perfective = arrows
(For the non-Progressive Perfect, ignore the wavy lines.)

PAST PRESENT FUTURE

(25) a. I am leaving (now / tomorrow / every day / *yesterday).

!!!
b. I believed that she would do it as soon as I (*have) asked her.

(26) English 12 verbal forms (Tense + Aspect Combinations):

Simple Forms Progressives

(1) He [-ed] finish-ed (7) He was finish-ing

(2) He [-s] finish-es (8) He is finish-ing

(3) He will finish ( 9) He will be finish-ing

(4) He ha-d finish-ed (10) He ha-d be-en finish-ing

(5) He ha-s finish-ed (11) He ha-s be-en finish-ing Perfectives

(6) He will have finish-ed (12) He will have be-en finish-ing

90
9.6 Mood, Sentence Modality

The category of Mood refers to the framing of the speech act (sentence) w.r.t. its intended
communicative function.

(27) A. communicative function B. standard formal realization

a. statement (informs about facts) : → indicative Mood (declarat..sent.)

b. question (asking about information): → interrogative Mood
c. order (influencing the hearer): → imperative Mood
d. wish (expressing a wish): → optative Mood

In many languages, moods are expressed in verbal morphology, e.g. Czech has an imperative mood.

But in English the main sentence modality is not a part of verbal morphology. There are no special
verbal inflections signalling sentence modality that is encoded syntactically (either by bound
morphemes or in periphrasis). Compare the following English and Czech examples:

(28) a. Indicative He can read.

b. Interrogative Can he read? no morphology but distribution
c. 2nd sg/pl Imperative Read! no morphology but distribution
d. Optative mood May he read soon! no morphology but distribution

(29) a. Indicative Čte knihu.

b. Interrogative Čte knuhu? no morphology but intonation
c. 2nd sg/pl Imperative Čt-i! Čt-ěte imperative morphemes

(30) Periphrastic imperative, 1st and 2nd persons:

a. Let's go. a.' Jděme.

b. Let me help you. b.' ??
c. Let him do it. c.' Ať to udělá on.
d. Let it be. d.' ?? Nech to být. Ať to je jak chce.

Consider the status of the LET morpheme in the following examples.

(31) a. Let‘s not have the same opinion.

b. Don’t let’s trick the teachers. <esp. BrE>
c. Let’s don’s use soap anymore. <esp. AmE>
d. Let’s you and me create a new order.
e. Let’s us create new order.

The category of Mood can also refer to the concept of probability of the action. This feature
is optional and it does have a morphological representation in English using a modal.

(32) a. simple conditional (past, present)

b. perfect conditional (past, present)

91
(33) Conditional MOOD:
WOULD bare V-infinitive

a. Hugo would write (= present infinitive)

b. Hugo would have written (= past/perfect infinitive)

Conditional clauses. A realis main clause is in the indicative mood; an irrealis main clause uses the
conditional mood. Like many languages (e.g. Romance), English conditionals (would) use a
combination of the future (will) and the Past.

(34) a. Bernard will come tomorrow, if you ask him within the next hour.
b. Bernard would come tomorrow, if you ask(ed) him within the next hour.
c. Bernard would have stayed here, if you had asked him politely.

9.7 Voice (Active or Passive)

The category of Voice is related to the distribution of the semantic roles among verbal arguments
(sentence members). See (26) and (27) on page 40 and (3) and (4) on page 85.
English Voice is an optional feature of the V. Verbs can take active or passive morphology.

(35) a. Active Marketa saw/ introduced Milan.

!!!
b. Passive Milan was seen/ introduced by Marketa.

(36) ACTIVE vs. PASSIVE BE V - EN

a. The book was (being) writt-en (by a friend)

b. The letter is being writt-en (by a friend)
c. The messagewill have been writt-en (by a friend)

9.8 Subject-Verb Agreement

Although for Czech speakers the agreement represents the main signal of finitness, notice that in
English it is not so. Verbal morphology related to the characteristics of the Subject NP in English is
not very rich. In Czech the complex verbal morphology allows dropping the Subject (a “pro-drop
language”).

(37) a. Naše malá Jana/ Ona šl-a domů.

a.' Our little Jane/ She walk-s home.

b. Ve skutečnosti, šl-a domů každý den.

b.' *In fact, walk-s home every day.

92
Some languages can express subjects with either free or bound morphemes (or both). Using bound
grammatical (inflectional) morphemes to replace free ones as in (37b) is called Alternative
Realization.

Here are more examples:

(38) a. more beautiful → a.' nic-er (more = -er)

b. to read, you read → b.' čís-t, (ty) čte-š (to = -t, you/ ty = -š)
c. the father of John → c.’ John’s father (of = -‘s)

Still, a language is pro-drop because of the whole complex system of characteristics, not only by its
morphology. Not every type of overt agreement morphology allows dropping the Subject. German has
four present tense inflections, yet one cannot drop the subject; see (39). Nor can French drop pronoun
subjects, although its close grammatical neighbour Spanish is pro-drop like Czech.

(39) a. I am talking now. vs. *Am talking now.

b. Du gehst oft nach Paris! vs. *Gehst oft nach Paris! ‘You go often to Paris!’

The English verbal agreement morpheme is therefore a purely formal configurational feature.
Find out in the Table in (26) on page 90 the precise position of the morpheme of English Subject-Verb
agreement -s. (Which part of the complex verbal form carries it?)

(AGR = secondary inflectional Nominal features reflect the Subject)

(40) a. He /she/ it call-s rather often.

b. He/ she/ it do-es indeed call (*s) rather often.
c. Do-es he/ she/ it call(*s) very often?

(41) What is -s? It is 3rd singular present. a. 3rd Person, BUT - they call(*s)
It is ‘a fused morpheme’ of 1-3 Ø features. b. Sg. Number, BUT - I read(*s)
c. Tense, BUT - he wa-s vs. he kept(*s)

Semantic vs. formal agreement. Think about the following examples of (dis)agreement:

(42) a. His only success was his short stories.

b. His short stories were his only success.
c. What we need most is/are sufficient funds.
d. Two years is/*are a long time to wait.
e. Bread and olive oil is/*are a nice breakfast.
f. A large number of students are/*is granted scholarships.
g. Every year, a group of excellent students is/are granted scholarships.
h. Either he or you are/*is mistaken.
i. Either you or he is/*are mistaken.
j. For a birthday, flowers or a book is/*are a good present.
k. For a birthday, a book or flowers *is/are good presents.
l. The police is/are looking for the criminal.

93
(43) EXERCISE ================================================
Is a semantically based division of lexical (content) Verbs (Movement, Perception, Causative, etc.)
relevant for their form (morphology and/or syntax)?

a. Verbs of movement (e.g. move, go, travel) ………………………………………....….....….

b. Verbs of perception (e.g. see, feel, watch) …………………………………....………..…….
c. Causative Verbs (e.g. make, force, persuade) ……………………………………........…….

(44) EXERCISE ================================================

In the following table fill in the Czech 1st person sg of ‘stavět‘ (stavět dům) / ‘zastavit‘ (zastavit auto).
Recalling that linguistic signs are symbols, i.e. arbitrary, pay attention to morphological form and
interpretation - are they the same?

PAST Tense PRESENT Tense FUTURE Tense

1. 2. 3.
no ASPECT
(nedokonavé)
4. 5. 6.
+ PERF Aspect
(dokonavé)

In Czech we refer to temporal frame (i.e. to Time) by a combination of 3 Tenses and 0-1 Aspect (one
form is missing). How can we best state an interpretative rule for Present Tense with Perfect Aspect?

(45) EXERCISE ================================================

Fill in all finite verbal forms of the English Verb drive:
a. Mark with distinct colours the Tense morphemes, and consider their position,
b. Mark with distinct colours the Progressive Aspect circumfix, and consider their position,
c. Mark with distinct colours the Perfect Aspect circumfix, and consider their position.

PAST Tense PRESENT Tense FUTURE Tense

1. 2. 3.
‘simple’
= no ASPECT
4. 5. 6.
+ PROG
Aspect
7. 8. 9.
+ PERF
Aspect
10. 11. 12.
+ PROG Aspect
+ PERF Aspect

94
(46) EXERCISE ================================================
Give the feature range and existing inflectional morphemes of present-day English.

a) Tense ....................................................................................................................................
b) Aspect ....................................................................................................................................
c) Voice ....................................................................................................................................

(47) EXERCISE ================================================

a. Say briefly what the most common/general interpretation of the feature [+PERF] in English is.
(What meaning do all perfect Tenses have in common?)

b. Say briefly what the most common/general interpretation of the feature [+PROG] in English is.
(What meaning do all progressive Tenses have in common?)

(48) EXERCISE ================================================

How is the morphological feature combination [+PERF][+PRES] interpreted in English and how in
Czech? Find several appropriate examples in both languages.
...................................................................................................................................................................
..................................................................................................................................................................

(49) EXERCISE ================================================

Give the feature characteristics with respect to [Tense, Aspect etc.] of the underlined verbal forms.

a. Samuel looks at Jane often. .................................................................................

b. Samuel is looking at Jane. .................................................................................
c. Samuel was being looked for by Jane. …..…......................................................................
d. Samuel will look for Jane. .................................................................................
e. Samuel has got a new book. .................................................................................
f. Samuel has been reading a book. .................................................................................
g. Samuel was introduced first. .................................................................................
h. Samuel had been having cold showers. .................................................................................
i. Samuel had been stopped. .................................................................................
j. Samuel will have finished it. .................................................................................
k. Samuel should have been taken there. ………………………………………………..…………

(50) EXERCISE ================================================

Write these forms of the English Verb ‘sing’, and underline the inflectional morphemes.

a. [+PAST] [+PERF] [-PROG] ...............................................................................

b. [+PRES] [+PERF] [-PROG] ...............................................................................

95
c. [+PAST] [-PERF] [-PROG] .................................................................................
d. [+PAST] [+PERF] [+PROG] .................................................................................
e. [+FUT] [+PERF] [-PROG] .................................................................................
f. [+FUT] [+PERF] [+PROG] .................................................................................
g. [+PAST] [-PERF] [+PROG] .................................................................................
h. [+PRES] [-PERF] [+PROG] .................................................................................
i. [+FUT] [-PERF] [+PROG] .................................................................................
j. [+PRES] [+PERF] [+PROG] . ................................................................................

(51) EXERCISE ================================================

Write the forms of the English Verb ‘take’ as in the list above, with the additional feature [+/-
PASSIVE]. Underline the inflectional morphemes.

a. ............................................................... f. ................................................................
b. ............................................................... g. ................................................................
c. ............................................................... h. ................................................................
d. ............................................................... i. .................................................................
e. ............................................................... j. ................................................................

(52) EXERCISE ================================================

Compare and explain the Tenses in the examples below. List the elements in the main clause which
influence the Tense in the subordinate clause. Define exactly the conditions under which Tense Shift
applies in English. Give examples, and mention exceptions.

a. Marie bude pracovat, hned jak budeš pracovat ty.

b. Hillary will start work as soon as you start work.
c. Jana myslela, že tam nejsi.
d.

e.
f.
Jane thought that you were not there.

Jan řekl, že to udělá, když mu budeš pomáhat.

George said that he would do it if you helped him.
!!!
(53) EXERCISE =============================================
Give simple/ practical/ precise/ working rules for the usage of simple past vs. present perfect in
English (mention co-occurrence with various Adverbials of time).

a. *Caroline wrote a letter by now. b. Caroline has written a letter by now.

c. Peter was born in 1985. d. *Peter has been born in 1985.
e. Mary never saw such a book. f. Mary has never seen such a book.

g. Berlin has been visited by John Kennedy and Roman Jakobson.

h. * John Kennedy and Roman Jakobson have visited Berlin.
i. * My tooth has been bothering me before my visit to the dentist this morning.

96
10 SYNTAX OF VERBS: VERBAL PHRASE

Greenbaum & Quirk (1990) pp. 335-362

The taxonomy (classification) of English verbal elements is based on:

(1) a. the internal form of a VP (Verb Phrase): c-selection (= subcategorization)

b. the distribution and sentence function of VP: lexical/non-lexical, "operator” position.

10.1 Verb Phrase internal structure

(2) VP: ADV - V - (NP) NP / AP / PP / VPinf / Clause

The English Verb does not have many pre-modifiers: those are usually short (one-word) Adverbs.
The number of obligatory selected complement phrases ranges, from 0 to 2 but a given clause can
have more if optional phrases are also taken into account.

To form a VP (Verb Phrase), a Verb (head) combines (on the right) with a range of constituents: NPs,
PPs, APs, semi-clause VPs and finite clauses. When the combination (i) is obligatory or (ii) is
idiomatic or (iii) the verb assigns a semantic role, we say that the Verbs lexically select (subcategorize
for) the NPs, PPs, APs, VPs and clauses.

(3) Phrasal projection of the category V: VP

VP

SPEC(V) V'

V0 V-complement (PP)

often look at Mary

(4) Some obligatory verbal complementations. See verbal valency in (3) on page 85.

a. The neighbour will find the girl. e. The neighbour can swim.
b. I handed the book to Benjamin . f. I handed Benjamin the book.
c. Let’s glance into the cinema. g. They got/ seemed so tired.
d. Who would call him a hero? h. Bush Junior was elected President.

97
(5) Some optional modification of the Verb.

a. He often reads books aloud in the kitchen.

b. Last year Henry visited his grandparents twice in Prague and once in Berlin.
c. To invite Mary to the cinema was not a good idea.
d. For Peter to introduce his sister to Bill was painful.

10.1.1 Complement Selection (c-selection) = Subcategorization

The main formal classification of Verbs is based on the specification of the obligatory
complementation of the Verb (i.e. the number and characteristics of its complements).

Subcategorization: the category which is selected by the head (usually a Verb)

(6) a. transitive Verbs ..... require complementation of NP

b. intransitive Verbs ..... do not have NP complementation

(7) a. *to find → this Verb is transitive.

b. to find a book → this Verb selects NP.
c. *to find into the hall → this Verb does not select PP.

(8) find V, [ __NP] "find is a Verb which selects a Noun Phrase".

(9) Kinds of lexical Verbs w.r.t. their obligatory complementation (their c-selection, or
subacetegorization)
:
A. intransitive: no complementation
B. (mono)transitive: one obligatory complement
C. ditransitive: two obligatory complements
D. complex transitive: two obligatory complements - the second one is a Complement2,
which is also sometimes called a “secondary predicate”.

There are transitive verbs whose objects can be missing or understood with special readings: clean,
cook, help, read, write, wash, etc. Jane cleans/ reads/ writes, washes on Sunday morning. These can
be described as optionally selecting Noun Phrases, using the symbol [__(NP)].

(10) The complementation of a Verb is best stated in terms of both the function and the category
(part of speech) of selected phrasal constituent(s): Object/NP, Adverbial/PP, etc.

2
the English term "Complement": has three meanings:
(i) generally (outside of linguistics) it means a kind of complementation of something.
In linguistics: (ii) with capital C: = secondary predicate = Subject Complement, Object Complement),
Czech „doplněk“, (iii) complement (with small "c") is an obligatory complementation of a Verb
(structural object). In Czech „komplement“ (strukturní předmět).
98
(11) Verb Classification (based on subcaterization)

Examples sentence functions subcategorization label/ roles

1 The tramp laughed. Subj - V V, [__] intransitive verbs
monotransitive
2 Mary found a diary. Subj ʻ V – Odirect V, [__NP]
verbs
The tramp leaned toward
3 Subjʻ V – Adverb of Place V, [__PP] verbs of movement
the girl.
Bill started to read/ Subj ʻ V – complement temporal aspect
4 V, [__VP/ NP]
reading/ a new life. (=Secondary Pred.) verbs
copula/ linking
5 He got/ seemed tired. S ʻ V – Pred./ Complement V, [__AP]
verbs
He told a girl an
6 Sub ʻ V – Oindirect – Odirect V, [__(NP) NP] ditransitive verbs
interesting story.
<Patient,
He bought two drinks for
7 Sub ʻ V – Odirect – Oindirect V, [__NP (PP)] Beneficiary>
her.
John put a book on the <Patent,
8 S ʻ V – Odir. – complement V, [__NP PP]
shelf / outside. Location>
9 I called him a fool. S ʻ V – Odir. – Complement V, [__NP NP] secondary predicate
10 He saw Bill run off. S ʻ V – Odir. – complement V, [__NP VP] perception verbs
This music makes her V, [__NP
11 S ʻ V – Odir. – Complement causative verbs
sad/ drive funny. AP/VP]

(12) Recursive V complementation: obligatory (subcategorized) + optional APs

(notice that VP does not contain a clausal Subject: the "external" argument)

VP

SPEC(V) VP
AP
often
VP clause
after he arrived

VP PP
in the shower

VP AP
very loud

V0 DP
sing songs by Johnny Cash

Consider the format of the right hand post-modification: DP, AP, PP, clause (see the table (11) above
for subcategorization).

99
10.1.2 Verbs selecting verbs

Many Verbs can select (besides NP complements) also other Verbs (VPs). This is typical not only for
Auxiliaries/Modals but also for many other Verbs. A selected VP has the form of an infinitive (bare or
with to) or an ʻing form. These non-finite structures are often called semi-clauses.

(13) a. I am reading the book.

b. We must read that book.
c. I have read the book.
d. She has/ is to read another book this week.
e. She makes/ has/ lets us read the same book twice.
f. I saw/ heard the students exchange insults/exchanging insults.
g. I reluctantly started/ finished/ kept/ resumed reading a huge book.
h. He started/ began/ continued/*kept/*resumed/*finished to sing folk songs.
i. She wanted/ expected (everyone here) to read a different book.
j. They love/ hate/ prefer/ hesitate/ try to read those best-selling books.
k. My mother loved/ hated anyone to read best-sellers /reading best-sellers.
l. They love/ hate/ prefer/ avoid reading those books.
m. We decided/ arranged/ hoped to read a different book.
n. We promised Anne to read that book soon.
o. He convinced/ persuaded/ ordered Anne to read it instead of me.
p. He arranged/ preferred/ waited for Anne to read it first.

(14) Subcategorization of "start" for semi-clause complements:

start, V, [ __ VP] or more completely: start, V, [ __ NP / VPto-inf / VP -ing]

VP

SPEC(V) 1VP
AP
often
1V0 2VP
start

VP PP
in the shower

VP AP
very loud

2V0 DP
singing/to sing songs by Johnny Cash

100
10.2 Typical sentence functions of a Verb

(15) a. Finite Verb = Predicate; see above in (26) on page 93.

b. Non-finite Verb =-ing form
Gerund VPs (V-ing) have the same sentence functions as NPs in the same positions.
c. Non-finite Verb = infinitive, bare or with to. If they replace NPs, they have the same
sentence functions. If they do not, then they are sentence Complements.

Both types of semi-clauses (ʻing and to-infinitives) can thus appear in almost any sentence function.
Try to specify the sentence functions of each bold semi-clause in the examples:

(16) a. To read so many books to Adam every day must be tiring.

To read (such books) is to learn (facts about life quickly).

b. I like to read/reading books at night.

I promised to read the book immediately.

c. This is not a letter to read quickly/ to a child.

A meal to eat in the office was hard to find nearby.

d. Reading (books every day) is easier than writing (poems every day).
Saying good bye to Bill, she left.
Hillary went to the pub, having finished her work.
We asked (her) when to read to Adam.
We talked to Adam about studying harder for the exams.

(17) EXERCISE ================================================

Write down subcategorizations for semi-clauses for 10 of the bold verbs in (12b-n).

(18) EXERCISE ================================================

Write down examples of complex VPs containing both premodification and postmodification. Make the
verbal heads both i. finite and ii. infinitival with to.

a. VP = Adv+V+ OBJECT(S) i. ....................................................................................

ii. ...................................................................................

b. = Adv+V+ADVERBIAL i. ……….......................................................................
ii. ………......................................................................

c. = V+NP+COMPLEMENT i. ..................................................................................
ii. ………......................................................................

101
(19) EXERCISE ================================================
Underline the phrase headed by the bold verbal forms and say which sentence members they are.

a. I want to start to write my homework as soon as possible.

b. Miriam ordered her children to wash themselves before she arrived home.
c. John appears to know already all the stuff we were asked to read by next Monday.
d. For me to introduce Jonathan to Barbara is rather difficult.
e. Quido wanted to be introduced to Nataša by Mary, who can speak Russian well.
f. It is high time for us to start to prepare our luggage.
g. I assume that John is a teacher because I saw him correct some papers at school.
h. Who asked you to present the data collected by John?
i. Little Barbara is so easy to please ʻ anything makes her laugh.
j. She intended to promise to Bill whatever he wanted.
k. Some birds were heard to sing but we did not get to see any.
l. The parcel was given to Mary who promised to deliver it to John soon.
m. As soon as she grew a bit older Jane stopped smoking cigars.
n. I´d rather go help my mother to cook the dinner and you´d better help us, too.
o. To be or not to be is an eternal question.

(20) EXERCISE ================================================

Write down example sentences with complex VPs, e.g. transitive Vs in the form of gerunds (the -ing
forms) or bare infinitives in the functions of:
a. Subject .............................................................................................................
b. Predicate .............................................................................................................
c. Direct Object .............................................................................................................
d. Object of a Preposition ........................................................................................................

(21) EXERCISE ================================================

Which form of a Verb follows (is selected by) a ‘Modal’?
A bare infinitive or to-infinitive?
Consider the following sentences and find similar examples to demonstrate your claim.
Discuss the distinction between must and have.in terms of meaning and form.

a. I must go now. a.' *I have go now.

b. *I must to go now. b.' I have to go now.
c. I must have gone too early. c.' *I had go too early.
d. *I must to have gone too early. d.' I had to go too early.
e. *I don’t want to must live forever. e.' I don’t want to have to live for ever.

102
11 LEXICAL VERBS, AUXILIARIES AND MODALS

Greenbaum & Quirk (1990) pp. 4-46; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik (2004) pp. 93-172; Leech
(1971), Dušková (1994) pp. 165-272

The taxonomy (classification) of Verbs can be based on many criteria. The choice depends on the
reason for the classification.
(1) a) classification based on meaning
b) classification based on the presence/type of morphology
c) classification based on historical origin
d) classification based on behaviour in a clause ... and others

Various authors use various taxonomies (labels) see (2) and (3) below.
All taxonomies are OK, in which each sub-group has special formal characteristics which can be
contrasted. However, not all authors justify their taxonomy explicitly.

(2) An example of classification used in Quirk (1985):

a. Auxiliaries be, have, do

b. Central Modals can, will, may, shall, must; could, would, might, should
c. Marginal Modals dare, need (both negative polarity), ought to
d. Modal Idioms had better, would rather, have got to.
e. Semi-Auxiliaries have to, be about to, be going to, be to (obligation, future)

The classification above is quite traditional. However, it is a mixture of various criteria – the labels
often do not reflect the empirical properties and are used only because of a tradition. Each label is
defined separately, which is not desirable. Therefore we are not going to use the above taxonomy in
syntax.

The taxonomy used in grammar is to be based on grammatical (=formal, morphosyntactic)

characteristics. Such a classification is not derived/related to/compatible with classifications based
only on assumed meanings! Morphosyntactic, very general taxonomy (classification) as in (3) is
based on the way a given verbal element functions in a clause - i.e. how it participates in the structure
of a particular clausal pattern.

(3) Taxonomy of verbs (verbal elements).

Quirk et
Huddleston & Pullum
morphosyntactic classification al. (1985,
(2002, 74)
136)
lexical VERB eat, like, take... Lexical lexical full
non-
(i) AUXILIARY do, be, have Auxiliary primary
modal
grammatical must, can/could,
modal
(ii) MODAL will/would, modal,
auxiliary
may/might,shall/should

103
Comparing (2) and in (3) we can see that the taxonomy (classification) of verbs can be completely
distinct when distinct criteria are considered. Thus a verbal element can be labeled as "modal" when it
meaning is considered as in (2), but as "lexical" when its formal properties are as in (3).

You are free to use any existing taxonomy. BUT -

Whenever you use some terminology (taxonomy),
be ready to explain the criteria it is based on, i.e. to define your terms. !!!
(4) John did not have to go home.
In the example (4) the have has a "modal" meaning but formally it is a lexical verb.
Be sure you always say which criteria you use, when you provide some terminological classification.
Also: Some of the non-lexical Verbs in (2) have their lexical counterparts. Compare the paradigm of
the Modals need/ dare in (5a/b/c/d below) with the lexical Verbs need/ dare illustrated in (5e/f/g/h).

(5) “Marginal” Modals of negative polarity

a. She need /dare not (*to) see a doctor. e. She does not need /dare to see one.
b. Needn’t she (*to) see a doctor? f. Doesn’t she need/ dare to see one?
c. Dare she (not) see a doctor? g. Does she (not) dare to see one?
d. *She now needs/ dares see a doctor. h. She now needs/ dares to see one.

11.1 Semantic Specifications of Verbs

Full meaning vs. grammatical (auxiliary) meaning? (How do we measure meaning?) .... too vague

I. MOD/AUX can’t “stand alone.” and require a V complement (see 10.1.2).

But many lexical verbs cannot stand alone either, e.g. find.
(6) a. *Emma found. / Emma found a job.
b. Emma is (not) finding / has (not) found a job.

II. AUX has no semantic role frame. Cf. (3) on page 85. But Modals may have one.
(7) Emma has to / ought to / must find a job. (WHO/ WHAT makes her?)

Assuming that the main property of Modals and Auxiliaries is their lack of lexical meaning, then
Auxiliaries are part of full verbal paradigms, while Modals express modality.

11.2 Two Semantic Classes of Modality among the Modals

Modals can express the obligation (duty) or level of certainty.

(8) a. I must go to school Deontic modality (still Verbal)

= I have a duty/ am obliged to go to school.
b. It must be 5 o'clock Epistemic modality (a kind of Adverbial)
= It is certain that it is 5 o'clock.

104
There is not much formal distinction between the deontic and epistemic Modals in the Present Tense
(but compare the influence of Aspect/Negation with may). However, the distinction is clear in Past
Tense. In the past the more ‘verbal’ element is marked for Tense: the Modal (periphrastic) with
deontics, the infinitive with epistemics.

(9) He must be at home. (= present tense : ambiguous!)

With past deontic meaning, When must is epistemic,

must is ‘verbal’ and it should
expressed the Past Tense.
However, must does not have past.
form and therefore it is replaced by
another verb: a lexical verb have
followed by to-infinitive
it has ‘adverbial’ characteristics
and it does not carry the Tense feature
Tense is assigned to the infinitive
of the Main Verb by means of
the perfect infinitive, in this case have been.

(10) a. He had to be at home yesterday. = deontic modality

b. He must have been at home yesterday. = epistemic modality

(11) a. He had to go to school. (= It was his duty to go...)

b. He must have gone to school. (= He certainly went...)
c. ??It had to be 5o'clock. (=?The time of someone’s duty was 5 o'clock.)
d. It must have been 5o'clock. (=It certainly was 5 o'clock.)
Read the relevant parts in Leech (1971).

11.3 Phonetic Reductions of Auxiliaries and Modals

(12) Auxiliary a. he is warm > he's warm > he isn't

b. I have/ had gone > I've/ I'd gone > I haven't/ hadn't gone

(13) Modal a. I can/ will eat > *I'n/ I’ll eat > I can't/ I won’t
b. he must eat > *he'st eat > he mustn't

(14) Lexical Verb a. I read/ I kill time > *I'd/ *I’ll time > *I readn’t/ *I killn’t
b. I have/ had to go > *I’ve/ I’d to go > *I haven’t/ *hadn’t to go

The above examples show a growing level of standard phonetic reduction which appears

(15) a. in declarative sentences between the Subject and the first verbal element,
b. in negative contexts with the bound form of the particle not = -n't.

The Auxiliaries have and be show reduction in both cases, the Modals have only some reductions, and
lexical Verbs do not reduce (in standard speech).

105
11.4 Morphological Properties pf Auxiliaries and Modals

(16) Auxiliary

a. He is / was / will be reading... SUBSTITUTION: be is

b. He has / had / will have written... suppletive but has a full
c. I want to be reading.../ I want to have written... verbal paradigm as in 9.2.
d. (While) Being examined, Elisabeth broke into tears.
e. The doctor seems to have examined her carelessly.
f. Having been examined, Elisabeth left.

(17) Modal a. *William is can-ing/ must-ing/ will-ing .... (visit his parents).
b. *William has can-ed/ must-ed / will-ed ... (visit his parents).
c. I want * to can/ * to must/ * to shall... (visit my parents).

(18) Tense (could?/ would?/*might/*should)

a. Constantine stopped at anything.

b. Constantine can/ could march to new conquests. (Past Conditional?)
c. Did Constantine stop at anything?
d. Constantine will / would march to new conquests. (Past Conditional?)

(19) Aspect - Auxiliaries have them, but Modals don’t.

a. Constantine is marching again. b. *Constantine is canning march again.

c. Constantine has marched again. d. *Constantine has canned march again.

(20) Voice Neither auxiliaries nor modals can be passivized.

a. Better novels were/got written/*canned/*musted by new authors.

b. *A new apartment was had (found) by the neighbour.
c. *A resident of Prague was been by my uncle.

(21) Subject-Verb Agreement (secondary Nominal features)

a. William hopes to read a lot.

b. *William cans/ wills read more than you.
c. William is reading more each year
d. *William has read more than all of us.

With respect to morphology, the Auxiliaries group together with the lexical Verbs, because both have
full verbal paradigms including infinitival forms.

Central Modals and Marginal Modals are unique, because they lack verbal morphology.

106
(22) EXERCISE ================================================
Underline the words in the Predicates which express the main ‘meaning’ of the verbal complex.
a. Mathew is looking at/ for Jane. d. Mathew will make trouble, I am sure.
b Mathew has got a book with him. e. Mathew has been reading a new book.
c. Mathew has had to go home. f. Mathew is having a shower now.

(23) EXERCISE ================================================

Find out from Table (26) on page 90 in which part of the complex verbal form the Subject-Verb
agreement -s is realized. Compare Auxiliary, Modal and Lexical Verbs.

(24) EXERCISE ================================================

Check which classes of items in the Table (2)on page 103
i) have morphology typical for Modals, i.e. which of them lack -s, -ed, -ing
ii) are followed by bare infinitives and which are followed by a to-infinitive? If an item allows both,
what else correlates with the choice?

(25) EXERCISE ================================================

Consider the thematic/semantic roles of the Predicates. Does the number and characteristics of the
participants related to the Verb change with the presence of an Auxiliary or Modal? How?

a. Hilary thanked all the guests. Hilary is thanking all the guests.
b. Finally Hillary's mother said yes and Hillary could to go to the cinema.
c. On any weekend, Hillary may go to the cinema.
d. Hillary was able to climb the mountain.
e. Hillary must sing a song. Hillary has to sing a song. Hillary must have sung a song.

(26) EXERCISE ================================================

Translate the sentence 'Musí sedět ve třídě.' with (a) deontic and (b) epistemic meanings. Then put
both sentences into the past.

a. ............................................................. → [+PAST].....................................................................
b. ............................................................. → [+PAST].....................................................................

(27) EXERCISE ================================================

Paraphrase to express the meaning of the modal(-like) element. Translate into Czech.
a. We were able to finish before noon. We could have finished before noon.
b. He had to help her with her work. He must have helped her work.
c. You should have told me that yesterday. I then need not have worried.
d. For all we ought to have thought but have not thought, for all we ought to have said but have
not said, for all we ought to have done but have not done I pray thy God for forgiveness.

107
11.5 Syntax of Auxiliaries, Modals and Verbs: the OPERATOR Position

Consider the word orders in the following sentences. (V = Lexical Verb)

(28) a. Marcel reads American novels. = S -V-O

b. Does Marcel read American novels? = S -V-O
c. Marcel does not read American novels. = S -V-O

Simply referring only to the ’Verb’ is not enough to describe (the word order of) main clause
structures in English. The Predicate is often analytic. We must divide the Predicate (‘Verb’) into
several elements making up complex verbal forms/complex Predicates.
How many and which elements are involved?

11.5.1 Question formation: Modal/*Verb - Subject - ...

(29) INVERSION: WHAT inverts?

a. Marcel can read. → Can Marcel read?
b. Marcel is reading. → Is Marcel reading?
c. Marcel reads. → *Reads Marcel?
d. Marcel (DOES) read. → Does Marcel read? Marcel does read.

Assuming the (d) example is showing the hidden structure of an English clause with no Aux/Mod, we
can propose the following scheme. Notice the importance of the first phonetically present Mod/Aux,
which is distinct from VLEX. This first element (and not the Verb) inverts with the Subject.

(30) Question Inversion: the first Aux/Mod moves in front of the SUBJECT.

Inverted
Marcel can
will
might
read

semantically empty
!!!
Position is (…-ing) nonemphatic do
‘do’ provides DO-support

SUBJECT Mod/Aux VERB

In English, the V position is to be divided into a ‘Mod/Aux + VLEX’ complex. We provisionally call
the first of these the ‘Ω position’.

11.5.2 Do-Support

= the use of auxiliary DO in the position of operator (Ω).

108
In declarative positive non-emphatic structures, the initial Aux do is not pronounced; it is phonetically
empty. It is, however, visible in interrogative, negative or emphatic structures, where it provides the
“DO-support.”
The auxiliary is called ‘supportive do, dummy do, empty do, operator‘.

The phenomena - proves the existence of a separate position of finitness (Tense, OPERATOR) in
English. It is labelled as „do-support, do-periphrasis, do-insertion“.
The diagnostics which allows us to state whether the verbal element is in the position of a lexical
Verbor in the position of the Operator are called the N.I.C.E. properties.

11.5.3 Negation (Position of not/-n’t)

Clausal Negation: inserting the particle NOT. What is the position of not?

(31) a. Marcel can NOT be reading. b. ?Marcel can be NOT reading.

c. *Marcel can be reading NOT. d. *Marcel NOT reads.
e. *Marcel reads NOT. f. Marcel does NOT read.

The negative particle not appears in front of some Verbs but after others. Assuming the structure
proposed in (30) on page 108, we can propose the following uniform scheme. Notice the importance
of the first phonetically present Mod/Aux, distinct from VLEX. This element precedes the particle not
(or its bound form -n't ).

(32) Negative particle (+negative/ short Adverbs) follows the initial Aux/Mod : Ω

Marcel can NOT - - - read

will never semantically empty
might just non-emphatic do is pronounced
is (-ing) still to provide the DO-support
‘do’ for the particle not.

SUBJECT Ω NEG - - - VERB

11.5.4 Question Tags, Short Answers, Questions of Surprise

The role of the Ω ‘operator’ (the first Mod/Aux) is again crucial. DO-support reappears.

(33) a. John can see us, can't he? - Yes, he can. - Can he?
b. John has been reading, hasn't he? - Yes, he has. - Has he?
c. *John reads them, reads he not? - *Yes, he reads. - *Reads he?
d. John reads them, doesn't he? - Yes, he does. - Does he?

Conclusion: With respect to their distribution/syntax, MOD/AUXs form a special group within the
category of VERBS and their characteristics can be stated as in (39) on page 110.

109
11.5.5 Morphological vs. syntactic model of the predicate

The morphological (word) template of an English Predicate consists of up to 5 elements.

(34) The 5-slot (Morphological) Predicate model (Quirk, 1985):

Modal Perfect Progressive Passive Lexical

John will/ can have been being introduced.

(35) EXERCISE ================================================

Recall the format of verbal inflection morphemes.
Discuss the exact position of both elements of each circumfix in the template above.

For syntactic analysis, however, i.e. when discussing the word order of English clauses and the
distinct functions that individual verbal elements take in it, a 2-slot Predicate is sufficient as well as
more elegant. The first slot is the ‘operator’ Ω (= the ‘first’ Modal MOD/AUX, preceding clausal
NEGATION); the other slots are any following Aux/Vs.

(36) The 2-slot Syntactic Predicate model based on N.I.C.E. properties (see just below).

Ω V(s) = one or more AUXs / Vs

John will/can have been being introduced.

(37) Classification of verbal elements based on their distribution in a clause (= syntax)

!!!
Taxonomy (classification) is based on the way a given verbal element behaves in a clause (How does
it participate in the structure of a particular clausal pattern?). Let’s consider the distinctions.

(38) a) MODALS (Mod): Modals always appear in the Ω position.

b)
c)
AUXILIARIES (Aux): appear either in Ω or in some following V position.
Lexical VERBS (V): never appear in the Ω position

The above allows us to define Central Modals in English in a more precise way.
!!!
11.5.6 N.I.C.E. properties

(39) The specific properties of 'the first modal/auxiliary' position (here called Ω):
Huddleston & Pullum (2002): Acronym, NICE or NICCEE

a) Negation → Ω precedes not, -n’t, lexical V does not.

b) Interrogation → Ω inverts in questions, lexical V does not.

110
|c) Coda → Ω is used in short reactive structures (question tags, questions
of surprise), lexical V is not used in such structures.

i. John must speak English, mustn't he? - Must he?

ii. John speaks English, speaksn't he? - *Speaks he?

c’) Contraction → Ω appers in contracted forms, lexical V does not

e) Emphasis → Ω is used to emphasize polarity with so/either), lexical V is not.

i. A: John cannot speak English. - B: Not true, John can so speak English.
A: John can speak English. - B: Not true, John can't either speak English.
ii. A: John speaks English. - B: *Not true, John speaks so English.

e’) Ellipsis → Ω is used in VP ellipsis, lexical V is not.

i. John can use English - and so can/ should/ do I. ʻ but/ so Mary needn't.
John could use English - before Mary could / did. - if Mary did.
ii. John used English - *and so used I. ʻ *long before Mary used.

Terminology: The element located in the position of Ω may be a verbal element, but it is never a
lexical Verb. Therefore the position is often given a label distinct from "verb" - the most frequent are
"Operator", "Modal/Auxiliary", "Tense" (T) of I.

(40) clause = TP

NP TP or T’
A1: Agent

Ω: Aux/Mod/Tense= T0 NegP

Neg VP

V0 NP
A2: Patient
Our daughter did/ may (not) meet your son

The N.I.C.E. properties distinguish the lexical Verb from the grammatical operator - which can be
either Modal or Auxiliary. To distinguish Modal from Auxiliary other criteria are needed.

(41) Central and Marginal Modals in English always appear in Ω. That is:
a) They lack verbal morphology,
b) are unique in a clause,
c) and precede Aux and V.
111
(42) EXERCISE ================================================
Testing the proposed verbal structure TP: Notice the following pattern, referring to (30) on page 108
and (32) on page 109. Negative questions should i) have inversion, and ii) contain the particle not (or
-n't ). Discuss in more detail exactly which element inverts with a Subject, reflecting on the categorial
status of not and -n't.

a. Marcel will often/ not be reading. d. Will Marcel often be reading?

b. *Will be Marcel often reading? e. *Will often/ mot Marcel be reading?
c. *Will be reading often Marcel? f. Won’t Marcel often be reading?

The above issues are clarified by the possible morpho-phonetic contraction of not:
a. David won't be reading. f. *Will not David be reading?
b. Won't David be reading? g. Will David not be reading?
c. David doesn't read. h. David does not read.
d. Doesn't David read? i. *Does not David read?
e. David will not be reading. j. Does David not read?

(43) EXERCISE ================================================

Explain the ungrammaticality of the following sentences, referring to the rule for Subject-Verb
agreement in English. (Giving a possible correct form is NOT an explanation!)

a. *A lot of guests arrives today. e. *Bill wills read a journal.

b. *Their type arrive pretty often. f. *Knows John about the situation?
c. *Mary or John are reading the book. g. *Do John knows about the situation?
d. *Bill will reads a journal. h. *Do John know about the situation?

(44) EXERCISE ================================================

Referring to the rules for question formation and for making clause negation in English, explain the
ungrammaticality of the following examples.

a. *Can be John running? b. *Will not John come soon?

c. *John not reads much. d. *John reads never novels.
e. Does he understand? -*Not (so). f. *John don't reads good books.
g. *Can Mary haven’t read that book? h. *Needs Bill do anything about this?
i. *Dare John to notify the police? j. *Does John will know about it soon?
k. *William need to go to school. l. *Needn’t they to go to school?
m. *Needs he not to go to school? n. *Harry dares now go to the cinema.
o. *Don’t they dare go to the cinema? p. *Does he not dare see his friend?

(45) EXERCISE ================================================

Fill in the following table: making the distinction between a verbal projection (VP) and a full
predicate (TP). Which verbal element is located in the position of V (Verb) and which is in the position
of operator (Ω)? Decide according to the N.I.C.E. properties of the element (its position w.r.t.
negation and its ability to invert).

112
a. Susan will not help water the garden. e. Some teenagers have read not a single book.
b. All my friends arrived on time. f. Your must get more sensible.
c. John had arrived already. g. You have got to get more sensible.
d. Not one person’s asked for my help.

TP (= clause)

NP (Subject) TP ..................................................... PREDICATE

Ω:T NegP

NEG VP ...............VERB PHRASE

V XP

Subject Ω/T (Neg) Verb V-complementation

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

g.

(46) EXERCISE ================================================

Look to the three main grammar manuals and find the terminology which is used by Quirk et al,
Huddleston and Pullum, Biber et al for the terms used in the above section.

Huddleston and Quirk et al Biber et al

Pullum
Lexical Verbs:

Modals

113
 Auxiliaries

other

other

other

11.5.7 Comparing NOT and NEVER

Compare the particle not with the negative Adverb(ial) never.

Discuss their properties suggested by the questions below.
Use the examples below (and create more of your own) to demonstrate the phenomena.

(47) i. Is their position the same?

ii. Do they both require DO-support ?
iii. Where do they appear in (negative) questions?
iv.
v.
vi.
vii.
Can both of them contract?
Under which conditions can they appear in front of the Subject?
Can they be used alone in isolated answers?
Which kind of verbal inflections can(not) appear after them?
!!!
(48) a. Livia will not be (*not) reading. a.' Livia will never be (not/*never) reading.
b. *Livia not reads much. b.' Livia never reads much.
c. Livia does not read at all. c.' *Livia does never read at all.
d. Will Livia not read to you? d.' Will Livia never read to you?
e. Won't Livia read to you? e.' *Will never Livia read to you?
f. *Not will he help her. f.' Never will he help her.
g. Will you help us? -*Not. g' Will you help us? - Never.
h. *Livia not does read these days. h.' Livia never does read these days.

(49) EXERCISE ================================================

Answer the questions in (47) based on the above examples. You can make more examples if needed.

i. .......................................................................................................................................................
ii. .......................................................................................................................................................
iii. .......................................................................................................................................................
iv. .......................................................................................................................................................
v. .......................................................................................................................................................
vi. .......................................................................................................................................................
vii. .......................................................................................................................................................

114
11.6 Comparing VP and NP Projections

Compare the VP projection na stránce 111 with NP projections as in the scheme (9) on page 34
(Chapter 4.1.2): Both lexical head categories V and N have a “functional” category head above their
phrase. With NP we labeled it D: Determiner. How are we to label the functional position (Ω position)
above V? Currently, it is common to label it for Tense/Modality, abbreviated to T.

(50) a. Complex Nominal projection – category of Determiner: D, [__NP]

(Another possible intermediate head is e.g. Quantification = Q.)

b. Complex Verbal projection – category of Tense/Modality: T, [__VP]

(Another possible intermediate head is e.g. Negation = Q.)

(51) a. DP/NP: See scheme (9) on page 34.

b. TP/VP: [TP Our John [TP will [NegP not [VP paint your Mary]]]]

(52) Lexical heads (N, V...) vs. functional heads (D, T...)

a. NP>DP b. VP>TP

DP TP

D0 NP T0 VP

AP NP AP VP0

AP A0 N0 PP V0 NP0

John s really nice book of stories (I) will often read novels

(53) EXERCISE ================================================

Discuss the distinctions between the DP/NP and TP/VP. Consider:

(i) the form of the premodifiers (a category, its morphology)

(ii) the form of the complement (a category, its morphology)
(iii) the obligatoriness of the modification
(iv) etc.

115
12 THE ENGLISH VERBS DO, BE AND HAVE

Greenbaum & Quirk (1990) pp. 24-69; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartvik (2004) pp.93-240;
Dušková (1994) pp. 174-180; Svoboda and Opělová-Károlyová (1989) pp. 7-50;Leech (1971)

Every English Auxiliary and Modal is rather idiosyncratic (= specific, ‘sui generis,’ with some
unpredictable property or properties). Recall the following:

(1) Classification of the verbal elements:

a) Modals: Central and Marginal Modals always appear in the Ω position.

b) Auxiliaries: appear either in Ω or in some following V position.
c) Lexical Verbs: never appear in the Ω position.

The following examples illustrate that apart from the Auxiliary "do", there also exists in English a
lexical Verb "do". Considering all the distinction(s) among Aux/Mod/Lexical Verbs discussed in the
above sections, the two kinds of "do" are distinct lexical items, each of which behaves regularly with
respect to its characteristics.

(2) Lexical do Auxiliary do

a. Emma did her homework. a.' Emma did read the novel.
b. Did he do his homework? b.' *Did he do read the novel?
c. *Did he his homework? c.' Did he read the novel?
d. He wants to do his homework. d.' *He wants to do read the novel.
e. Don’t do your homework again. e.' *Don’t do read the novel again.
f. *She didn’t her homework yet. f.' She didn’t read the novel yet.
g. *Do not your homework here! g.' Do not read the novel here!

12.1 Specificity of be

The English Verb be can be analysed as several different elements, depending on its complementation.

(3) Kinds of be

a. He is reading some novel, isn't he? be (+ing) = progressive Aux

b. It is written in English, isn't it? be (+en) = passive Aux
c. Peter is a teacher/ silly, isn't he? be (+NP/AdjP) = copula
d. Mary is at home, isn't she? be (+PP/AdvP) = location
e. There is a man in the garden, isn't there? there construction = existential be
f. I am to read this article by next week. be (+ to-infinitive) = semi-auxiliary

116
12.1.1 The position of "be" in the English analytic Predicate

In terms of the 2-slot Predicate model – see (36)on page 110 - notice the special properties of the
English Verb "be" as illustrated below. Consider all formal distinction(s) among Aux/Mod/Lexical
Verbs discussed in earlier sections.

(4) a. Is he at home?
b. *Does he be at home? be inverts like an Aux/Mod.
c. He is not reading any books.
d. *He does not be reading any books. be precedes NEG like an Aux/Mod.
e. We arranged for it to be translated.
f. I want to be a teacher. be can be non-finite like Lexical Vs.
g. There are men here. There is a man here. be has inflection like an Aux.
h. He can/ will (not) be (*not) at home. be can appear after Mod/Aux.
i. Don't be silly! be co-occurs with Aux do.

As schematically illustrated in (30) on page 108 and (32) on page 109, a standard Predicate in an
English sentence has (at least) two syntactic positions: Ω (an ‘operator’, the first Mod/Aux) and a
second V position for (Aux and Lexical) Verbs. The Verb be is special, because its forms can occupy
both positions.

Schematic structure for all uses of the Verb be (within the analytic Predicate)

(5) a.. Emma IS not at home/ reading any books/ a teacher….

b. Emma cannot BE at home/ reading any books/ a teacher…..

(6) Emma IS not Ø at home.

can BE

SUBJECT Ω=Mod/Aux Neg VERB

Analytic Predicate

Note: It seems that one use of be, Modal be, occurs only in the Ω position:

(7) a. *We may be to read that article next week.

b. *I wouldn’t want to be to report to the office.

The Verb be itself occupies (in some abstract sense) the position of the lexical Verb, i.e. be is NOT
followed by another (bare) V. In a sentence, however, unlike any other V, any be can also appear in
the position of the Ω when this position would otherwise be empty.

Another way to say this: In finite (non-imperative) clauses with be, there is no do-support. Rather, a
finite form of be itself occurs in the Ω position.

117
12.2 Specificity of have

Using the 2-slot Predicate model on page 110, compare the examples of the Verb have below with the
structure of be in 4 above.

(8) Archaic stative have .... a structure identical with be.

a. I (can) have a good book here. I want to have more good books.
b. Have you a good book here?
c. I haven't any good book here.
The examples above suggest that the archaic usage of the normal stative (possessive) Verb have is
structurally similar to the Verb be, i.e.:

A. Like be, archaic have is NOT followed by another V.

B. Like be, archaic have is able to move to the position of the AUX/MOD (in front of negation)
whenever possible/needed.

Languages, however, have a tendency to get rid of irregularity and Modern English does not freely use
the archaic form of have illustrated above. Look below at the alternative strategies applied in Modern
British and American English.

The following examples (9) show that British English has made stative (possessive) have into a non-
lexical Auxiliary. The position of the lexical Verb in this expression is represented by got.

(9) Stative/possessive have in Modern British English

The examples show its similarities with the standard perfective Aux have.

a. I (*will) have got new books. a.' I (will) have received new books.
b. Have you got a new book? b.' Have you received a new book?
c. *Do you have got a good book? c.' *Do you have received a good book?
d. I haven't got any books. d.' I haven't received any books.
e. *I don't have got any books. e.' *I don't have received any books.
f. You’ve got new ones, haven’t you? f.' You’ve received them, haven’t you?

The following examples (10) show that in contrast to the British usage, American English treats stative
(possessive) have as a lexical Verb.

(10) Stative/possessive have in Modern American English

The examples show its similarities with the standard lexical Verb receive.

a. Do you have new books? a.' Do you receive new books?

b. Yes, I (do) have new books. b.' Yes, I (do) receive new books.
c. No, I don't have any books. c.' No, I don't receive any books.
d. You (do) have some, don’t you? d.' You do receive some, don’t you?

118
(11) Schematic picture of the stative/possessive Verb have
Compare the structure below with structure of be

.
Archaic: HAS not Ø

British: Emma HAS not got any toys.

American: (does) not HAVE

SUBJECT Ω =Mod/Aux Neg VERB

Apart from stative/possessive have, English also uses other kinds of have. In these other usages,
British and American are the same. The following examples show that have can be Aux, Mod, and a
Lexical Verb as well.

(12) Perfective have: She may have written a letter.

a. Have you written a letter? a.' *Do you have written a letter?
b. I haven't written a letter. b.' *I don't have written a letter.
c. You have written one, haven’t you? c.' *You have written one, didn’t you?
d. For Jane to have written a letter would surprise me.

(13) Obligation have: I may have to go there immediately.

a. *Have you to go there? a.' Do you have to go there?

b. *I haven't to go there now. b.' I don't have to go there now.
c. *You have to go now, haven’t you? c.' You have to go now, don’t you?
d. For Jane to have to go now would surprise me.

(14) Dynamic have: i. You (can) have a look around.

ii. They (can) have good times later.
iii. I (could) have lunch with Joe.

a. *Had you a look around? a.' Did you have a look around?
b. * I haven't a look around often. b.' I don't have a look around often.
c. * Had they some good times later? c.' Did they have some good times later?
d. * I haven't good times lately. d.' I don't have good times lately.
e. * Have you lunch with Joe today? e.’ Did you have lunch with Joe today?
f. * I hadn't lunch with Joe. f.' I didn't have lunch with Joe.
g. * She often has lunch, hasn’t she? g’ She often has lunch, doesn’t she?

119
(15) Other uses of have:

a. John has a shower every day. Experiencer have

b. John has Bill carry his suitcase. Causative have
c. John had his car repaired. Causative Passive have
d. She had better get a new car. Semi-Auxiliary had

(16) EXERCISE ================================================

Assuming the 2-slot predicate model on page 110 and considering the position of negation (and the
ability to invert in questions), when does the Verb be occupy the position of Aux/Mod and when the
position of a Verb?
a. Julie is not at home. b. Emma cannot be at home.
c. Please do be ready to go at five! d. Don't be late again!
e. Aren’t they ready yet? f. To be or not to be, that is the question.

(17) EXERCISE ================================================

Write down the precise subcategorization of the verbs have in the following examples. (Try to make a
question tag first, to see the N.I.C.E. properties.)

a. He has two friends in Prague.

b. He had a lot of fun with Jill.
c. He had written several letters by then.
d. He had to go home.
e. He has got several books.

(18) EXERCISE ================================================

Consider the examples of the be of Obligation below which test:
i. the form of its negation and question formation,
ii. the ability to appear in every Tense/Aspect,
iii. the ability to appear as infinitive.
Compare these results with those for the other kinds of be given in (3) on page 116.

a. I am (not) to leave before six o'clock. a.' He is (not) to leave before six o'clock.
b. I was (n't/not) to leave before six. b.' They were (n't/not) to leave before six.
c. To be to leave before six a.m. is irritating. c.' Were they (not) to leave before six?
d. *He will be to leave before six o'clock. d.' *They had been to leave before six o'clock.

(19) EXERCISE ============================================

Do exercise (18) for the idiom have (to) and also the other kinds of have in (15).

120
(20) EXERCISE ================================================
Explain the ungrammaticality of the following sentences in terms of the syntactic distinctions among
the LEX-AUX-MOD Verbs.

a. *Had you a quick look at this book?

b. *Have you to write a letter to Julie again?
c. *Do you have written a letter to Wilma?
d. *I’m surprised that John had not a good time in London.
e. *For him to haven’t written yet worries me.

(21) EXERCISE ================================================

Discuss the properties of the following dynamic usages of have. Give more examples.

I. Agentive: Tourists (can) have a look around the museum before they leave.

a. *Have you often a look around it?

a.' Do you often have a look around it?
b. *I haven't always a look around it.
b.' I don't always have a look around it.

c. .........................................................................................................................................
c. .........................................................................................................................................

II. Causative: You (can) have somebody help you with the homework.

a. *Had you anybody help you?

a.' Did you have anybody help you?
b. *They haven't anybody help them.
b.' They don't have anybody help them.

c. .........................................................................................................................................
c. .........................................................................................................................................

III. Causative Passive: They (should) have their house repainted every year.

a. * …, haven’t they? *Have they really?

a.' …, shouldn’t they?/ …, don’t they? Should they really?/ Do they really?
b. *I haven't ever mine repainted.
b.' I didn't/ won’t ever have mine repainted.

c. .........................................................................................................................................
c .........................................................................................................................................

121
(22) EXERCISE ================================================
Add a question tag and then write down the constituents to the table following the scheme. Notice: (i)
the same meaning can have a distinct structure, and (ii) morphology can help to disambiguate the
structure. The first two are done for you.

a. John has a book, doesn’t he?

b. John has got a book, hasn’t he?
c. John must leave immediately.......................................................
d. John had to leave immediately.....................................................
e. John has got to leave immediately...............................................
f. John dared to leave immediately..................................................
g. John dare not leave immediately..................................................
h. John needs to leave immediately..................................................
i. John need not leave immediately..................................................
j. John had a lot of fun with his dog.................................................
k. John had breakfast with Mary.....................................................

TP (= clause)

NP (Subject) TP ..................................................... PREDICATE

Ω:T NegP

NEG VP ...............VERB PHRASE

V XP

Subject Ω/T (Neg) Verb V-complementation

a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
j.
k.

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(23) EXERCISE ================================================
Assuming the 5-slot predicate model (see page 110), make English sentences putting the correct form
of be into the bold framed slot (try to fill the other positions with some element too, if possible). Are all
positions available for be?

Which of the verbs “be” illustrated in (3) on page 116 is in which position?
How would the same exercise look assuming the 2-slot predicate model?

Mod Perf Prog Pass Verb

a. Adam

b. Adam

c. Adam

d. Adam

e. Adam

(24) EXERCISE ================================================

To describe the English word order, the simple model S – V – O is often used, which employs a single
symbol V for the whole Predicate. In this section we have been using a 2-slot model on page 110
for the analytic English Predicates and only mentioned in passing the 5-slot Predicate (on page 110)
for the complex verbal forms of English.

A. What is the distinction between the two models? Make a schematic picture of both, label the
components and give examples.

5-slot model (morphological template)

2-slot model (more adequate for syntax)

B. How would you define (= describe) the element labelled here Ω in the 5-slot model?

........................................................................................................................................................

123
(25) EXERCISE ================================================
In the following examples underline the full Predicates and describe their structures. Which
model seems to you descriptively most adequate? What are your reasons?

a. This house must already have been being built for years.
b. The picture could not be seen because of the shadow.
c. Your money is being spent just now.
d. Will you not help your brother?
*Will not you help your brother?

(26) EXERCISE ================================================

For each of the two models of English predicates try to answer the following questions.

i. How many elements can appear in each slot?

ii. Is the order of the units obligatory? Try to give relevant data (give examples)!
iii. Are all/ some of the members of the form(s) in a given slot obligatory?
iv. What is the position of negation (NOT) in each scheme?
v. Which element (slot?) inverts in questions?
vi. In which element (slot?) does the 3sg morpheme ʻs appear in the Present Tense?

(27) EXERCISE ================================================

Consider also the following examples in which ‘gottә’ is replacing ‘have to = must’.
(The written form is unlikely to appear since these forms are more or less colloquial only.) Is ‘gottә’ in
the V position or the Ω ‘operator’ position? Why?

a. You [gottә] go, don't you?

b. You don't [gottә] go, do you?
c. He's [gottә] go.
d. Has he [gottә] go?
e. You [gottә] get the book soon, don't you?
f. *You [gottә]not come back soon.

124
13 RELATED LITERATURE

A. The list A below gives practical manuals of English grammar which can help students not fully
familiar with the practical usage of the structures discussed. A working knowledge of some of these
manuals is assumed for the course.

B. The list B provides bibliography for the more theoretical manuals covering the topics in more
detail. They provide some discussion of the phenomena, provide much more data and demonstrate
alternative terminologies and analyses.

C. The list C provides bibliography for the cited works and some additional literature related to the
topics discussed in the course.

13.1 A - Practical Manuals

Alexander, L.G. (1993) Longman Advanced Grammar. Reference and Practice. Longman.
Hewings, Martin (2005): Advanced Grammar in Use (2nd edition) with answers and CD ROM. CUP.
Jones, Leo (1991) Cambridge Advanced English. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan (1975) A Communicative Grammar of English. Longman, London.
Murphy, Raymond (2004) English Grammar in Use With Answers and CD ROM : A Self-Study
Reference and Practice Book for Intermediate Students of English. 3rd edition. CUP.
Svoboda, Aleš & Opělová-Károlyová, Mária (1998) A Brief Survey of the English Morphology.
Filozofická fakulta Ostravské Univerzity, Ostrava.

13.2 B - Theoretical Manuals

Aarts, Bas (1997) English Syntax and argumentation. Palgrave Macmillan.

Aarts, Bas (2011) Oxford Modern English Grammar. OUP.
Baker, C. L. (1995) English Syntax. The MIT Press, Cambridge Mass.
Biber et al. (1999) Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Longman, London.
Biber et al. (1999) Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Longman, London.
Dušková, Libuše (1994) Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny. Academia Praha, Prague.

Huddleston, Rodney and Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2002) The Cambridge Grammar of the English
Language. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Huddleston, Rodney and Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2005): A Students Introduction to English
Grammar. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Leech, Geoffrey (1971) Meaning and the English Verb. 3rd edition. Longman, London 2004.
Quirk, R., and Greenbaum, S. (1991) A Student´s Grammar of the English language. Longman1991.

125
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. (2004) A Comprehensive Grammar of the English
Language. Longman, London.

13.3 C - Further related/cited literature

Akmajian, A., Demers, R.A., Farmer, A.K. & Harnish, R.M. (1990) Linguistics: An Introduction to
Language and Communication. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Chomsky, Noam (1981) Lectures on Government and Binding. Foris, Dordrecht.
Comrie, Bernard (1989) Language Universals and Linguistic Typology. Blackwell, London.
Croft, William (1991) Syntactic Categories and Grammatical Relations. Chikago: University of
Chikago Press.
Crystal, David (1987) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
Demers, Richard A. & Farmer, Ann K. (1991) A Linguistics Workbook. The MIT Press, Cambridge,
Mass.
Fillmore, Charles (1977): 'The Case for Case Reopened.' In P. Cole and J. Saddock (ed.) Syntax and
Semantics 8:1977. (59-82)
Finegan, Edward & Besnier, Niko (1990) 'Structured Meaning in Words.' In: Language: Its Structure
and Use. HBJ.
Fromkin, Victoria & Rodman, Robert (1990) 'Morphology: The Words of Language.' In: An
Introduction to Language. HBJ.
Katamba, Francis (1993) Morphology. The Macmillan Press Ltd.
Matthews, P.H. (1974) Morphology. Cambridge University Press.
Spenser, Andrew (1991) Morphological Theory. Blackwell, Oxford UK & Cambridge USA.
Veselovská, Ludmila (2013) Possessives and their Equivalents in English and Czech. In the KAA
library.
Veselovská, Ludmila (1998) ‘Possessive Movement in the Czech Nominal Phrase. Journal of Slavic
Linguistics 6/2: Bloomington, Indiana. Pp. 255-300.

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14 INDEX

Active, 92 common, 38
Adjectival phrase, 12, 32, 67, 69 dative, 37
Adjective, 49, 79 English, 37
Adjectives function of Casedative, 39
genitive, 37
Secondary, 75
instrumental, 37
Secondary Adjectives, 33
locative, 37
Adjunct, 80
nominative, 37
Adverb, 83
object, 38, 73
grading, 83
partitive, 37
manner, 81
possessive, 38
negative, 82
subject, 38
partial negative, 82
vocative, 37
Adverbial, 79, 80 Case assigner, 41
Adverbl adjacency, 50
temporal, 81 cataphor, 56
agent, 39 categorial deviation, 14
Agent, 85 categories
agreement, 48, 93 closed-class, 4
Alienability, 30 grammatical, 4
Anaphor lexical, 4
binding, 58 major, 4
pragmatic, 56 minor, 4
syntactic, 58 non-lexical, 15
Animacy, 21 open class, 4
+Animate, 22 parts of speech, 3
+Human, 22 prototypical correlations, 5
Semantic Scale of Animacy, 22 Causative, 86
antecedent, 55, 56, 57 Central Modal, 111
AP, 71, 72, Adjectival Phrase, Adjectival Central Modals, 103
Phrase certainty, 104
modifiers, 69 circumfix, 89
predicate, 69 classification, 4
argument, 85 Coda, 111
arguments, 85 communicative
Article, 27, 28, 46 function, 91
Aspect, 87, 89, 90, 106 complement, 1, 12, 32, 34, 67, 69
perfective, 89 Complement, 12, 73, 80
progressive, 89 Object, 69
Auxiliary, 103, 104, 105, 110 Subject, 69
Beneficiary, 85 Complex nominal phrase, 32
binary, 73 Complex Nominal projection, 115
Binding Theory, 58 complex Noun phrase, 36
Case, 37, 45, 50 Complex Verbal projection, 115
accusative, 37 Compounds, 23
assigner, 38 conditional, 91
Case assigner, 49 Conditional clauses, 92

127
configurational verbal, 87
feature, 9, 64 Feature
conjugation, 6 derived, 63
Conjunction, 15 intrinsic, 63
Conjunctions, 15 optional, 63
Contraction, 111 features, 4, 6, 8, 9, 14, 20, 22, 24, 28, 29, 31,
copula, 85 48, 63, 87, 93, 106
intransitive, 85 agreement, 8
semi-copula, 74 categorial features, 9
Copula, 72, 74, 78 configurational, 8, 9, 64
grammaticalized, 8
countable, 18, 19
inherent, 8
declension, 6
optional, 8
Definiteness, 30 Phi features, 18
Demonstrative, 46 primary, 8
deontic, 105, 107 secondary, 8
deontic modality, 105 Finite, 87
derivational, 5 fronting, 82
Determiner, 25, 33, 34, 115 function
Central Determiner, 26 sentence function of NP, 37
post-determiner, 26 functions
pre-determiner, 26 sentence functions, 99
Determiners, 35 fuzzy, 16
discontinuous dependency, 67 fuzzy categories, 14
discourse, 45 Gender, 22, 30
participants of discourse, 45 formal, 24
Disjunct, 80 semantic, 23
do Generic
Auxiliary, 116 definite, 28
empty, 109 reference, 28
lexical, 116 specific, 28
Do-support, 117 Goal, 85
Do-Support, 108 Grading, 9, 63, 65, 66, 68, 76, 83
DO-support, 108, 109, 114 analytic, 63
DP, 34, 36, 115 Non-gradable, 64
Ellipsis, 111 periphrastic, 63
emphasis, 47 synthetic, 63
Emphasis, 111 Grading ADV, 65
emphatic, 109 Grading Adverbs, 65
epistemic, 105, 107 grammaticalised
epistemic modality, 105 feature, 8
Ergative, 85 grammaticalization, 7, 8, 22, 23
event Grammaticalization, 7, 23, 29, 31
of Gender, 23
verbal event, 85
feature have
agentive), 121
[±PROXIMATE], 46
causative, 120
configurational, 23, 93
causative), 121
inherent, 19
dynamic, 119
optional, 89
perfective, 119
secondary, 93
stative (archaic), 118
128
 stative (lexical), 118 optative, 91
stative (ModE), 118 realis, 92
stative (possessive), 118 morphological template, 123
stative (US), 118 Morphology, 1
head Negation, 109, 110, 115
functional, 115 NegP, 113, 122
lexical, 115 NICE, 110
idiosyncratic, 71 Nominal projection, 111
Imperative. viz Mood non-countable, 18
Indicative. viz Mood non-finite, 87
infinitive, 100 non-finite structures. viz infinitive
bare, 92
Noun
bare-infinitive, 92
count, 19
past, 92
mass, 19
present, 92
NP, 34, 36
to-infinitive, 101
Number, 30
inflectional, 5
dual, 20
morphology, 9
plural, 20
inherent
zero plural, 20
feature, 8
Numeral, 15
Interrogation, 110
obligation, 104
Interrogative. viz Mood
of-phrase, 35
Interrogative Pronouns
one
WH pronoun, 49
numeric, 47
intransitive verbs, 99 Relative, 47
inversion, 82, 108 Substitute, 47
irrealis, 92 one’, 76
Lexical Verb, 105 operator, 108
Linking Verb, 74 optional
linking verbs, 75, 85 feature, 8
Long-distance WH-Movement, 52 order, 91
Marginal Modals, 103, 104 paradigm, 5, 6, 104, 106
mass Nouns, 28 participant, 85
Measure Phrase, 65 Particle
Measure Phrases, 66 focus, 83
Modal, 104, 105, 110 modal, 83
Central Modals, 103 temporal, 83
Marginal Modals, 103 particles, 83
Modal idioms, 103 parts of speech
Semi-Auxiliaries, 103 categories, 3
Modal Idioms, 103 Passive, 92
modality, 91 patient, 39
deontic, 104 Patient, 85
epistemic, 104 periphrastic
Modality, 91, 104, 115 imperative, 91
monotransitive verbs, 99 Periphrastic, 86
Mood, 87 Personification, 24
imperative, 91 Phrasal projection, 32
indicative, 91
Pluralia Tantum, 21
interrogative, 91
129
polarity, 80 realis, 92
negative, 82 Recipient, 85
positive, 82 reciprocals, 58
Possessive, 33 Reciprocals, 58
postmodifiers recursive, 33, 35, 36, 99
N-postmodifiers, 35 Reference, 18, 28, 29
pragmatic, 45 reflexives, 58
pragmatic anaphor. viz anaphor R-expression, 55
predicate, 123 R-expressions, 58
Predicate, 73, 117, 123 Righ-hand Head Rule, 5
Nominal, 73 Romance languages, 24
secondary, 73
scope, 35, 80
Predicate model, 110
Secondary Adjective, 33
Preposition, 79, 83
Secondary Adjectives, 75
Prepositions, 15
Secondary Predicates, 73
pro-drop language, 92
Semantic Roles, 39
Pro-forms, 13 Agent, 39
projection Patient, 39
phrasal, 12 Semi-Auxiliaries, 103
pronominals, 46 semi-clauses, 100
Pronoun, 15, 27 semi-copulas, 74
assertive, 44
Shape, 30
Compound Indefinite Pronouns, 47
Singularia Tantum, 21
demonstraive, 44
demonstrative, 44
Size, 30
determinative, 44 specifier, 12
emphatic, 59 Specifier, 12
indefinite, 44 speech act, 45, 91
independent, 44 statement, 91
interrogative, 44, 49, 51 stative, 62
negative, 44 subcategorization, 98, 99
personal, 44 Subject-Verb Agreement, 106
positive, 44
subordinate, 32
possessive, 44
substitution, 106
realtive, 48
reciprocal, 44
Substitution test, 13
reflexive, 44, 57 Substitution Test, 13
relative, 44 superordinate, 32
relative pronoun deletion, 49 suppletive, 106
universal, 44 syntactic anaphor. viz anaphor
WH relative Pronouns, 48 Taxonomy, 4
Pronouns, 44 template
Proper Nouns, 18 morphological, 110
prototypicality Tense, 87, 88, 90, 105, 106
categorial, 14, 75 absolute, 89
QP, 34, 115 future, 88
Quantifiers, 26 past, 88
question, 91 present, 88
Question formation, 108 relative, 89
question tags, 111 Thematic roles, 85

130
Theta Roles, 39, 40 phrasal, 1, 3, 4, 9, 73, 74, 78, 79, 85, 86, 92, 94,
Θ roles, 39, 40 97, 98, 100, 104, 105, 106, 107, 109, 116
to-infinitive, 66 reflexive, 59
TP, 113, 122 secondary predicate, 99
Unaccusatives, 86 sopula, 99
temporal aspect, 99
valency, 85, 97
transitive, 85, 98
Valency’, 85
Verbal phrase, 97
Verb
Voice, 92, 106
Aux/Mod/Lexical, 117
Aux/Mod/Lexical, 116
VP, 113, 122, viz Verbal phrase
Aux/Mod/Lexical, 121 WH element, 50
causative, 99 WH Pronoun, 51
dicendi, 86 WH-Movement, 52
ditransitive, 99 WH-question, 50
intransitive, 85, 98 WH-questions, 49, 52
lexical, 74, 98, 110 wish-clauses, 91
of movement, 99 Ω, 110, 111, 113, 116, 117, 122
perception, 99
Ω ‘operator’, 109
Ω position, 108, 110

131