| Caroline Heycock |
Syntactic Theory |
Exam Guide |
1. New words get added to English all the time. Suppose that a native speaker of English heard the sentence "My brothers usually grafe at the weekend." Without even knowing the meaning of "grafe", the native speaker would automatically know that some of the following sentences are ungrammatical; others might or might not be ungrammatical.
a. They don't grafe during the week.
b. My sisters grafe not.
c. They haven't grafing for ages.
d. Grafe you here often?
e. They were planning to grafe a new tent.
f. I grafe usually tents.
First, state which of these sentences would definitely not be accepted by the native speaker and which might be. Second, explain the basis of these judgments, being sure to indicate which (if any) are due to language-independent principles, and which (if any) are due to facts about English syntax that do not hold in all other languages.
A: It has been argued that the relative clause in a noun phrase like "the people who you were speaking to" involves movement of the relative pronoun "who" that is very similar to the wh-movement that takes place in questions:
[NP the people [CP who(i) [IP you were talking to t(i)]]]
Besides these kind of relative clauses, English also allows relative clauses that do not have an overt relative pronoun at all, like "the people you were talking to".
Here are two possible hypotheses about this second type of relative clause:
(a) There is no overt relative pronoun at all, so there is no reason to think that any movement of anything is involved.
(b) English has a non-overt ("silent") counterpart of who/which (we may indicate it with "0") that behaves just like its overt counterparts, so that the correct analysis of "the people you were talking to" is
[NP the people [CP 0(i) [IP you were talking to t(i)]]]
How could you use what you know about Subjacency to argue for (b)? Be sure to include examples of specific sentences that you would want to test for grammaticality. (Note: if you are not a native speaker, you need not give judgments on the sentences that you think need to be considered).
B: To what extent are wh-movement (as found in English questions, for example) and raising/NP-movement similar? How successful is GB/Principles and Parameters theory in accounting for their similarities (if any) and differences (if any)?
3. Explain the concept of "subcategorisation", indicating in particular the extent to which it can or cannot be reduced to thematic role assignment.
4. It has been argued that despite the apparent similarity between (a) and (b), they actually have different structures:
a. They are likely to leave soon.
b. They are eager to leave soon.
What kind of data justify making a distinction between sentences with "likely" and sentences with "eager", and how can these data be explained? Finally, state briefly whether "hard" behaves like "likely" or "eager" or neither (you do not need to explain the behaviour of "hard", just justify your conclusion about classing it with either or neither of the other adjectives)
c. They are hard to ignore.
5. "Epithets" like "the idiot" or "the poor woman" seem to have anaphoric properties in that they can refer back to people mentioned in previous clauses, as illustrated in (a) and (b):
a. When my mother(i) came in, she(i)/the poor woman(i) was soaking.
b. Kay(i) arrived at the airport on time. But then it turned out that he/the idiot(i) had left his ticket at home.
When we consider their syntactic distribution and the constraints on what they can corefer with, however, do such epithets behave like full noun phrases ("R-expressions"), pronouns, or anaphors? (an index preceded by an asterisk indicates that the epithet cannot corefer with the noun phrase bearing that index).You should consider at least the following data:
c. Jo's(i) mother thinks that the idiot(i) has forgotten the keys.
d. [Jo's mother](i) is deceiving the poor woman(*i).
e. [Jo's mother](i) thinks that the poor woman(*i) is being deceived.
6. Discuss what is meant by "Case" within GB/Principles and Parameters Theory, and discuss what facts it has been invoked to explain.
7. Explain what is meant by "Universal Grammar", and discuss how the notion can be reconciled (or whether it cannot be) with the observable differences between languages.
| Caroline Heycock |
Syntactic Theory |
Exam Guide |
 |
30th April 1998 |