English Grammar II Syntax, Apuntes de Morfología y Sintaxis

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ENGLISH LANGUAGE: GRAMMAR II UNIT 2

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Unit 2

A-Movement

Topic 8

Prof. Amaya Mendikoetxea Room 204-VI Bis

ENGLISH LANGUAGE: GRAMMAR II UNIT 2

Unit 2 A-Movement Topics 7 & 8 deal with an operation in the grammar which we refer to as NP/DP- movement. The notion of Case and the properties of Case Theory are essential to understand the properties of NP/DP-movement and ‘displaced’ NP/DPs. This operation is discussed in relation to raising structures, passives and one- argument verbs. We can account for the structural properties of all these constructions by means of the rule of NP/DP-movement, without having to resort to individual rules, which provides explanatory power to our grammar Basic References : *Carnie: chapters 9 & 10 *Haegeman: chapter 6 *Haegeman & Guéron: chapter 2, sections 1.3., 2 & 3 For passives, see: Mendikoetxea (2017) ‘A generative analysis of English passive Constructions’: https://canal.uned.es/video/magic/ed8whuhldi8kgkwcs8cck8k4wgks88o Password: syntax

ENGLISH LANGUAGE: GRAMMAR II UNIT 2

ACTIVE PASSIVE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE: GRAMMAR II UNIT 2

(3) a. *It was killed the fly. b. *There was killed the fly. (4) It is widely believed that Fergus is a nerd (5) Properties of passivization

1. Verb morphology is affected.
2. The external θ-role is absorbed.
3. The Case feature of the V is absorbed.
4. The internal argument moves to a position where it is assigned Case.
5. NP-movement is obligatory to avoid a violation of the Case Filter.
6. NP-movement is possible because SPEC-IP is empty (-θ). (6) a. (3) Absorption of Case: (4) and (5) follow b. (2) Absorption of external Th-role: (6) follows (7) Burzio's generalization [from Haegeman: 321] i. A verb which lacks an external argument fails to assign ACCUSATIVE case. ii. A verb which fails to assign ACCUSATIVE case lacks an external argument. 1.2. Passive across clausal boundaries (8) a. They consider [ John to be incompetent] b. Johni is considered [ ti to be incompetent] (9) a. They found [ the prisoner guilty of charges] b. The prisoneri was found [ti guilty of charges] (10) a. Everybody believes [that Fergus is a spy] b. * Fergusi is believed [that ti is a spy] (11) a. They decided [for you to chair the meeting] b. * Youi were decided [for ti to chair the meeting] → Why is NP/DP-movement not allowed in (10)-(11) as opposed to (8)-(9)?

ENGLISH LANGUAGE: GRAMMAR II UNIT 2

2.3. Unaccusative verbs of existence and appearence (19) a. Three women arrived at the station. b. The taxi driver arrived three women at the station c. There arrived three women at the station Existential there d.! At the station arrived three women Locative inversion (20) a. * There telephoned three men. b. * There sang a group of students. (21) a. _There_ sank a boat. b. * There opened a door. (22) a. *There broke a window. b. There broke a war. (23) a. *There grew the boy. b. There grow tomatoes in my garden. → Unaccusative is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for there - sentence formation. Only unaccusative verbs of existence and appearance participate in this construction. (24) a. There arose an unfortunate misunderstanding. b. There came a cry of anguish from inside the house. c. There appeared a ghostly face at the window. d. There stands a statue in front of the house. (25) Expletive-antecedent chain THEREi…. [VP V NPi] [+Case] +θ (26) a. Someone is at the door. b. There is someone at the door. (27) a. Three new sailors came on board. b. There came on board three new sailors.