Transcript Class 16 Notes - Université d`Ottawa

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CLASS 16, March 6, 2007
LIN 1310B
Introduction to Linguistics
Prof: Nikolay Slavkov
TA: Qinghua Tang
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Today
• Announcements and Reminders:
-Continue reading chapter 5 (at least up to p. 161).
-Assignment 2 is due Friday (March 9) before class.
-Note about Assignment 2: Please do NOT use triangles for
any phrases when you draw your trees. In order to get full
points, draw the complete trees!
• Today’s Lecture:
- Address questions about Assignment 2, if any.
- Continue with Syntax
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Assignment 2 Questions
(1) The students in the park may have missed the train to
Kingston.
(2) The Bank of Canada is considering cuts in the interest
rates.
(3) The properties of verbs in isolation puzzled the class.
(4) Susan knew that Mark could have placed the cookies in
the kitchen.
(5) Bill reported that a student asked whether the eclipse
would occur.
-In (1) and (4) consider tense as +pst.
-In (2) use your knowledge of morphology to analyse interest
rates as a compound. I.e. analyse interest rates as one
word. Everything else should be analysed as separate
words though! And remember, no triangles!
-In (5), “eclipse would occur”: consider tense here –pst.
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Review
We have recently dealt with these phrases: VP, IP, CP.
Phrase
Head
VP1
V: main verb (e.g. walk, think, etc.)
VP2
V: auxiliary be or have
IP
I: tense (-/+pst); modal
CP
C: complementizer (that); or modal
(after movement in yes/no questions)
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Review
• Note that we use CP for two purposes:
1) to put complementizers (that, is, whether) under C
2) to put the moved modal in yes/no questions.
NB! Remember that the movement in yes-no questions is
called I-to-C movement. So therefore you have to move
everything that is under I to its new position under C.
NB! Also remember that complementizer that is different from
determiner that. Consider the following:
That guy went to the movies vs. I know that John is crazy.
Determiner
Complementizer
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Derivation
• In syntax, the term derivation refers to the different steps
(operations and processes) that apply to a sentence before
it reaches its final form.
• Recall that there are different steps that apply before a
sentence is ‘ready’. That is, merge combines words to
create phrases, and then combines phrases with one
another to create a sentence.
• We found out that merge is not always enough and
sometimes move applies after merge (e.g. yes-no
questions).
• The application of these operations is the derivation of the
sentence. In other words, merge and move derive the final
form of the sentence.
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Deep Structure vs. Surface Structure
• It has been traditionally assumed that there are two
levels of representation in syntax: deep structure
and surface structure.
• Deep structure (D-structure) is the basic
structure created by merge.
• Surface structure (S-structure) is the final form
created after all operations (including move, if
necessary) have applied and the sentence is ready
to be pronounced. In other words, S-structure is
the end of the derivation.
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Deep Structure vs. Surface Structure
Merge
Deep Structure
Move
Surface Structure
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Deep Structure vs. Surface Structure
• The Deep structure and Surface structure of
a sentence can be the same if move does not
need to apply.
• If move applies, then it changes the deep
structure and therefore the surface structure
is different (i.e. what is pronounced is not
what is in deep structure).
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Do Insertion
• So far we have discussed yes-no questions with
modals and proposed that modals move out of I to
go to C (i.e. inversion).
That guy should go.
Should that guy _____ go?
• How do we form a question if there is no modal,
though? E.g. You know this guy.
Do you know that guy
__________________?
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Do Insertion
• From our example on the previous slide, we can
conclude that when there is no modal, the yes-no
question is formed by inserting the auxiliary do. This
makes inversion possible (i.e. makes it possible to turn
a declarative into a question).
• Note that if we didn’t have do insertion, we wouldn’t
be able to distinguish between statements and
questions.
E.g. They read books. => Do they ready books?
• If we didn’t have do insertion, we would need to rely
only on intonation:
E.g. They read books => They read books?
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Do Insertion
• So, how do we analyse do insertion in yes-no
questions?
• It would be preferable to propose an analysis
consistent with the other yes-no questions that
we’ve already analysed (i.e. the ones with
modals).
• We can use the same structure (same tree) for yesno questions with do as the structure that we use
for yes-no questions with a modal. The only
difference is that we insert do in the I category and
then move it to C.
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Do Insertion
There are three steps in deriving the sentence:
Do those birds sing?
Step 1: Merge applies and creates the D-Structure for the
sentence.
Step 2: Do insertion applies:
Insert interrogative do into an empty I position
Step 3: Move applies (more specifically I-to-C movement):
Move I to C
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Do Insertion
Derivation for: Do those birds sing?
p. 151, 5.17 a.
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Do Insertion
Derivation for: Do those birds sing?
• p. 151, 5.17 b
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Do Insertion
Derivation for: Do those birds sing?
• p. 151, 5.17 c
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Do Insertion
• Why do we insert do in I and then move it to C? Wouldn’t
it be easier and simpler to insert it directly under C?
 In inserting it under I, we have a uniform analysis for all
yes-no questions. That is, we can say that all yes-no
questions, whether they have a modal or not, involve I-toC movement (inversion).
Also, consider the following data:
Those birds do sing.
Those birds do not sing.
 This constitutes evidence that do appears in the I position
(without moving to C), so therefore, we are justified in
assuming that the basic position for do is I, and that do
may or may not be moved from there.
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Wh-Movement
• Consider the following data:
What did you buy?
Which problems did you solve?
When can you go there?
=> These are called wh-questions because
they begin with words containing wh- (whwords are what, who, where, when, which,
how)
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Wh-movement
•
1.
2.
3.
4.

Consider the following data:
You bought cookies.
You bought something.
You bought what?
What did you buy?
Intuitively it seems that what stands for cookies in (1) or for something
in (2).
 It also seems that the wh- word originates after the verb, i.e. as its
complement. So how do we derive the wh- question with the whword at the beginning?
-Wh- movement:
What did you buy__t___?
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Wh-movement
• How to analyse wh- questions:
1. We first apply merge and draw a tree for the deep
structure of the sentence (i.e. the structure before
movement).
2. Then we apply the relevant movement(s): note
that I-to-C movement (inversion) precedes Whmovement.
3. Recall that the landing site for moved modals
and do is the head C.
4. We will assume that the landing site for whmovement is the Specifier of C.
5. Don’t forget the +Q and t notation
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Wh-movement
Derivation for: What did you buy?
• When you have a wh- question, it is useful to
think of the equivalent statement first and replace
the wh- word with another word:
What did you buy?
You bought what.
You bought a car.
Now we know that our wh-word what is an NP
(because a car is an NP).
Let’s draw a tree for What did you buy? following
the instructions on the previous slide.
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Wh-movement
Derivation for: What did you buy?
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Wh-movement
Derivation for: What did you buy?
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Wh-movement
Derivation for: What did you buy?
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Wh- Movement:
the role of the wh-word
Consider the following data: In what position does the whoriginate?
What did you buy? vs. What hit John?
Who did you kiss? vs. Who ate the ice-cream?
What did you buy ____? What ____hit John?
Who did you kiss ____? Who _____ate the ice-cream?
object
subject
complement of V
specifier of I
.
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Wh- Movement:
the role of the wh-word
• So we know that the wh- word can originate from the
complement of the verb (object) or from the specifier of IP
(subject) position (it can also originate in other positions
but we do not discuss them here).
• So far in our trees, we’ve only dealt with a wh- word that
is an object. Now let’s look at a tree where the wh- word
is a subject (next slide). You’ll see that the tree is
essentially the same, the only difference being the site
from where the wh- word moves (Spec IP for subjects;
compliment of VP for objects)
What hit Mary (what=something+subject)
Who criticized Maxwell (who=someone=subject)
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• p. 154, fig 5.21
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More on the role of the wh- word
Note that a wh- word can function as a noun, a
determiner, a prepositional phrase, etc.
Consider the following data:
Who did you see (I saw John => who=John=noun)
Which languages do you speak (I speak these
languages => which=these=determiner)
What did you play (I played something
=>what=something=noun)
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Movie on acquisition of whquestions (time permitting)
Download movie:
http://www.courseweb.uottawa.ca/LIN1310BH2007/MedialWHquestions.mov
• What kinds of errors did children acquiring English as
their first language (L1) make with wh- questions?
• What kinds of conclusions can we make with regards
to syntactic theory based on these errors? I.e. do these
errors seem to support syntactic theory or not? How
so?