LING 101 • Lecture outline
M Oct 19
Today’s topic:
• Movement rules, cont.
Background reading:
• CL Ch 5, §3.3, “Do Insertion” (review)
• CL Ch 5, §3.4, “Wh movement”
• CL Ch 5, §4, “UG and parametric variation”
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1. Where we were last time
• Why is this sentence grammatical?
(1) What might the puppy devour?
- Is there an NP complement in the VP as required
by devour?
- Why is the auxiliary might on the left side of the
subject NP?
- What is the position of what?
• An approach that addresses all these factors: the
syntactic transformation known as Move
2
1. Picking up from last time
• Inversion rule — a movement rule for English (and
some, but not all, other languages):
When the matrix C is +Q, the element in the I
position must move to C.
• About movement rules
- A movement operation does not change any
other part of the structure of the sentence
- A moved element leaves a trace (t) in its original
position
- A moved element retains its original category
label (under the one it moves into)
3
2. Questions with no auxiliary
• What happens when we form a question from a
sentence where there is no auxiliary in I?
• Make a yes-no question from the following
sentence:
(2) Her brother likes cats.
• What does our model predict so far for a sentence
like this? (Draw it and consider)
- What is in I?
4
2. Questions with no auxiliary
• Do Insertion rule for English (certain other
languages have something similar):
Insert do into an empty I position.
- Mandatory in matrix sentence if +Q
(except for subject-Wh questions [CL, p 182]; we won’t
consider this exceptional structure further)
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2. Questions with no auxiliary
To think about:
• Can Do Insertion apply in a sentence that is
not +Q? (the reading doesn’t consider this)
• What happens to the tense morphology when
Do Insertion takes place?
→ This is evidence for the ±Pst feature in I
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3. Wh questions
• Wh question is the technical term in linguistics for
questions containing a question word such as what,
who, where, when, which, how
- Wh questions are sometimes also called
information questions
• Returning to the problem raised at the beginning of
the lecture:
(1) What might the puppy devour?
- How can we use the idea of movement to
explain why this sentence is grammatical?
7
3. Wh questions
(1) What might the puppy devour?
• The deep structure of the sentence:
The puppy might devour what
• Inversion has applied; what else?
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3. Wh questions
(1) What might the puppy devour?
• The deep structure of the sentence:
The puppy might devour what
• Inversion has applied; what else?
• Wh Movement rule for English (again, applies in
certain other languages also):
Move a Wh phrase to the specifier position under
CP.
- A Wh phrase is a (minimal) phrase containing a
Wh word
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3. Wh questions
• Now we can draw a tree for our sentence
- Remember: Movement rules do not change the
structure of the rest of the sentence
- Remember: a moved element leaves a trace
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3. Wh questions
• The deep structure, before movement:
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3. Wh questions
• The surface structure, after movement:
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3. Wh questions
• How do the Inversion and Wh Movement rules
apply when there is an embedded sentence?
(3) The coach can report that the team will win
(→ Make a yes-no question)
(4) The chef knows that the assistant made which cake
(→ Make a Wh question)
- Which auxiliary undergoes Inversion?
- Which CP specifier does the Wh phrase move to?
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4. Verb syntax in French
• In the following English sentences, what is the
position of always in the tree?
(5) Paul must always work.
(6) Paul always works.
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4. Verb syntax in French
• What is different about this French sentence?
(7) Paul travaille toujours.
Paul works always ‘Paul always works.’
- What do you think is the position of toujours in
the tree?
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4. Verb syntax in French
• What is different about this French sentence?
(7) Paul travaille toujours.
Paul works always ‘Paul always works.’
• Now consider:
(8) Paul doit toujours travailler.
Paul must always work
• How can we explain the difference between the
French sentence in (7) on the one hand, versus (8)
and the English sentences in (5) and (6) on the
other?
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4. Verb syntax in French
• Verb Raising rule
Move V to I (if I is empty)
• French also has the Inversion Rule as one way of
forming questions
(9) Doit Paul t toujours travailler?
- What prediction might we now make about
French questions with no auxiliary?
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4. Verb syntax in French
• Yes-no questions in French:
(10) Tu vois le livre.
you see the book
(11) Vois(-)tu t le livre?
see you t the book ‘Do you see the book?’
• Does the Verb Raising rule occur in English?
- Yes, under certain conditions!
- See CL, pp 185-187, for examples and discussion
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