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ENGLISH SYNTAX

Unit 5 Head movement

Adger (2003) Chapter 5, section 5.4

Merge, Adjoin, and …Move?
• We arrive at structures for sentences by…

• Taking some lexical items (Numeration)

• Combining any two of them (Merge)

• Uninterpretable features = instructions for Merge
• Merge checks uninterpretable features
• All uninterpretable features must be checked (Full Interpretation)

• Attaching one to another (Adjoin)

• Adjoin does not check features

• Move stuff around.

• Why? Does it check features?
Move
• Two basic kinds of movement.

• Head-movement: a head moves up to join with another

head.

• Examples: V moves to v, {Perf/Prog/M} moves to T

• XP-movement: a maximal projection (an XP) moves up to

a Specifier of a higher XP.

• Example: The subject moving to SpecTP.

 Forced movement
• Like Merge, Move occurs to “solve a problem.”
• Main problem of our system: unchecked uninterpretable features.
• So, Move must check uninterpretable features.

• Two ways to check features: under sisterhood

(Merge); at a distance (Agree).
• The [uN] feature of P, checked by Merging P and an NP (Merge)
• The [uInfl:] feature of v, valued by the [T] feature of T (Agree)

• What kind of problem could Move solve?

• Features that cannot be checked by Merge or Agree.
Agree (I)
• Agree requires:
• An uninterpretable feature
• A matching interpretable feature
• C-command between the two

• And results in:

• Valuing of unvalued features
• Checking of uninterpretable features
Agree (II)
• Matching:
• Identical features match. [N] matches [uN].
• Some features match several things. [uT:] can match
[T:value], as well as the category features [Perf], [Prog],
[M].

• Valuing/Checking:
• An unvalued feature is always uninterpretable.
• Valuing a feature will check it.
• A privative feature is checked when it matches.
 What happens when V moves to v?
• When V moves to v we assume that V head-
adjoins (adjoins, head-to-head) to v.

• This is the same sort of structure that Adjoin

creates between maximal projections.
• In the structure, the v head is replaced by the v v'
head with V adjoined.
v
• Adjunction does not change projection levels
(v is still a minimal projection, still the head of
vP). But it is a complex head (it’s a v with a V V v VP
adjoined to it). eat [uV*, …]
<V> NP
• Head movement is copy + adjoin.
 What motivates movement of V to v?
• Interpretability is a property of features
(interpretable vs. uninterpretable).
• Assumption: Strength is another
property of features.
v'
• Strength triggers movement.

• Strength is represented with an asterisk

v
after the relevant feature: [uF*].
V v VP
• Strong features have to be checked eat [uV*, …]
locally (not just via Agree). <V> NP
• Strong features trigger movement.

• v has a [uV*] feature, which triggers

movement of V to v.
 Movement as copy + adjoin
• When there is movement, we have two identical
copies of a lexical item. Then why don’t we get
Pat Pat ate ate lunch?

• We need both copies (the higher one to check v'

the feature, the lower one to head the original
projection of V). But on the other hand, the verb
was picked from the lexicon just once. v

• A-P interface: Only the highest copy is V v VP

pronounced. eat [uV*, …]
<V> NP
Movement of the subject
• Why we do we do head movement?
• V moves to v because v has a [uV*] feature.

• The subject: from SpecvP to SpecTP. Why?

• T has a [uN*] feature (always).
• Moving the subject (making a copy and Merging it with
T) puts the N feature of the subject close enough to T
for the [uN*] feature to be checked.

• As for why you don’t satisfy the [uV*] feature of v the same way,
by moving VP into SpecvP, we could speculate, but there’s no
particularly satisfying answer. We’ll set that aside.
 Auxiliaries moving to T (I)
• One last case:
• I do not eat green eggs and ham.
• I have not eaten green eggs and ham.
• I have not been eating green eggs and ham.
• I would not have been eating green eggs and ham.

• Notice:
• There is a set of things that move to T: auxiliaries: have, be,
modals.
• Main verbs do not move to T.
• Only the top auxiliary moves to T.
 Auxiliaries moving to T (II)
• Auxiliaries must be differentiated from main verbs.
• So,
• Auxiliaries have a [uT:] feature, valued by the next thing up.
• The topmost auxiliary has its [uT:] feature valued by T.
• The topmost auxiliary is the only auxiliary that moves to T.
• An auxiliary whose [uT:] feature is valued by T will move to T.

• Strong features drive movement.

• If a head is an auxiliary and its [uT:] feature is valued by T, then

this feature is valued as strong, so that the auxiliary must move to
T to be checked.
• T[tense:pres] … be[Aux, uT:]
• T[tense:pres] … be[Aux, uT:pres*]
• T[tense:pres]+be[Aux, uT:pres*] … < be >
French vs. English (I)
• English: adverbs cannot come between the verb and
the object.
*Pat eats often apples vs. Pat often eats apples.

• French: adverbs can come between the verb and the

object.
Jean mange souvent des pommes.
Jean eats often of.the apples
‘Jean often eats apples.’
vs.
*Jean souvent mange des pommes.

• If we suppose that the basic structures are the same,

why might that be?
French vs. English (II)
• Similarly, in English only auxiliaries show up
before negation…
• John does not love Mary.
• John has not eaten apples.

• But all verbs show up before negation in French:

• Jean (n’)aime pas Marie.
Jean (ne) loves not Marie
‘Jean doesn’t love Marie.’
• Jean (n’)a pas mangé des pommes.
Jean (ne)has not eaten of.the apples
‘Jean didn’t eat apples.’
 V raises to T in French

• Both V and auxiliaries

raise to T in French.

• Only auxiliaries raise to

T in English. T values T values
[uT:] on [uT:] on v
• This is a parametric Aux
difference between English Strong Weak
English and French. French Strong Strong