Syntax

John Goldsmith
August 26, 2013

Syntax

It has long been recognized by linguists that the construction of

a sentence is more than stringing a set of words together: there is
a structure to it, one which is not usually indicated in the written
form of the language but which is there for us to analyze. 1 Starting 1
Thanks to Jason Merchant for com-
ments on an earlier version.
in the 1940s, American linguists used ambiguous sentences —
strings of words with two obviously different analyses—to drive
this point home. Here are some examples of that; headlines are
particularly good sources of funny ambiguous sentences: 2 2
thanks to the morphology book by
Mark Aronoff and Kirsten Fudeman.
British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands.
Miners Refuse to Work after Death.
Eye Drops Off Shelf.
Local High School Dropouts Cut In Half.
Reagan Wins on Budget, But More Lies Ahead.
Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim.
Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant.
Kids Make Nutrious Snacks.

We will develop a method that will generate two analyses for

these sentences, like the two below for the first example above:
(1)(a)
S
(2)(b)
S
NP
NP VP
adj VP
noun verb NP PP
British noun verb PP
British Left N prep NP
Left Waffles prep NP
Waffles on noun
on noun
Falkland Islands
Falkland Islands
 s y n t a x 2

Phrase structure rules (PSR)

he goal of syntax is to understand how we put words together to

create well-formed, and meaningful, sentences. It is clear right
from the start that we are looking at sequences of words: words
occur one after another, in sequence. What are the principles gov-
erning the relative order of words in sentences? Until the middle
of the 20th century, thinking about this problem divided into two
methods: in the first, individual words would be identified in the
sentence by the role they played in a sentence. For example, in the
sentence: Lee sent a birthday present to Kim, Lee is the subject, present
is the direct object, and sent is the verb. In the second approach, the
sentence would be broken up into smaller and smaller pieces.
In the mid 1950s, this second analytic approach was stood on its
head, and linguists began to write synthetic rules that generated
pieces of sentences. These pieces could be as simple as a word, or
it could be very complex. These rules were formulated—first by
Noam Chomsky— in a way that was inspired by mathematical
logic. For example,
(3) S → NP VP
is a rule that says that an S[entence] can be expanded as an NP
(a Noun Phrase) followed by a Verb Phrase. And we will have to
immediately write some other rules to provide an answer to what
those things are. We will expand VP in this way:
(4) VP → verb NP
and we will expand NP in this way:
(5) NP → det adj noun
We will distinguish between lexical categories, such as noun,
adj[ective], and det[erminer], and phrasal categories, such as S, NP, or
VP (sentence, noun phrase, and verb phrase). Lexical categories are
the most specific things that our syntax will delve into, at least at
the beginning; and our phrase structure rules
We begin with an initial symbol (for now, S), which is expanded
by means of phrase-structure rules, until the bottom categories
of the tree that is created consists entirely of lexical categories;
these lexical categories then are filled out with lexical items of the
appropriate category (nouns, adjectives, and so on).
We will use lower case letters to specify lexical categories: this is
not standard notation, but it is convenient.
We could write successive expansions in this way:

expansion the operative rule

S
NP VP S → NP VP
det adj noun VP NP → det adj noun
det adj noun verb NP VP → verb NP
det adj noun verb det adj noun NP → det adj noun
 s y n t a x 3

but it is much more common to draw this as a tree:

S

NP VP

det adj noun verb NP

det adj noun

And this tree represents many millions of sentences, two of
which are drawn here:
S

NP VP

det adj noun verb NP

the last delivery brought det adj noun

(6) a wonderful package

NP VP

det adj noun verb NP

my favorite recipe includes det adj noun

a strange ingredient
Big Idea: the motivation for positing the rule NP → det adj noun
is that this sequence appears several times in the description of the
English sentence, and we can make the overall description more
compact if we posit this entity, the ‘NP’.
The more times we are able to simplify our overall description
by re-using a phrasal (non-lexical) category like NP, the better we
believe our analysis is motivated. So, for example, there is another
VP-expansion that is motivated by examples like send a big present
to the new teacher. Instead of accounting for this with a new VP-
expansion rules

(7) VP → NP prep det adj noun,

we write instead:
 s y n t a x 4

(8) VP → NP PP

(9) PP → prep NP,

where prep is a lexical category of prepositions that includes such

words as to, f or and with, and ‘PP’ marks a prepositional phrase.
Thus the tree structure is not:

(10)
S

NP VP

det adj noun verb NP prep det adj noun

det adj noun

but rather:

(11)
S

NP VP

det adj noun verb NP PP

det adj noun prep NP

det adj noun

Alternative expansions of phrasal categories

We have just noted that there are two possible expansions for VP:
Perhaps the first reference to this is
(i) verb + NP and (ii) verb + NP + PP. In general, phrasal categories
in Pittman 1948: if we do not view a
do have a lot of different, but related, ways of being expanded, and sentence as being hierarchically broken
this fact is a central part of the motivation for talking about phrasal into parts, “one is almost compelled
to regard every morpheme in an
categories in the first place. Let us explore this. utterance as pertinent to the descrip-
Now, there is an implicit independence assumption made when tion of every other morpheme. But
a good analysis in terms of immedi-
we posit a category such as NP or VP: no matter where that node
ate constituents usually reduces the
is generated by phrase-structure rules, any of its expansions may total possible environmental factors
appear in that position. There is a lot that is right about that as- of a given morpheme or sequence of
morphemes to one: in other words, it
sumption; but it is by no means the whole story, and to be perfectly states that the only pertinent environ-
blunt about it, it is far from true: it is, indeed, false. False but help- ment of a given immediate constituent
is its concomitant (the other immediate
ful.
constituent).” (p. 287)
For example, let us consider several possible expansions for NP
in English:
 s y n t a x 5

(12)
(i) NP → noun Bananas are a good source of potassium.
(ii) NP → det noun My doctor told me to exercise more.
(iii) NP → adj noun Easy melodies make for good songs.
(iv) NP → det adj noun The old ways are the best ways.
(v) NP → det noun PP The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

By positing these five different, but related, rules that expand NP,
we are saying that any NP, any place in a sentence, can have any
of those five structures. To repeat: that is not entirely true, but it
is a good first step to take in approximating the way words are
‘distributed’ in English and in other languages.
It is often the case that we can simplify our analysis of a phrasal
category by saying that a part of its expansion is optional. Instead
of saying that we have both rules (i) and (ii) above, we say that det
is optional, and the notation for that is a set of parentheses around
the optional category:

(13) NP → (det) noun.

Looking at all of the expansions given in (12xx), we would nat-

urally be led to the conclusion that a better form of the NP rule
would be this:

(14) NP → (det) (adj) noun (PP)

(Discuss the consequences: more expansions predicted now.)

Ambiguous sentences

In analyzing ambiguous sentences, most of the time we assign

two different syntactic structures, one with each of the intended
interpretations, as we did with sentences (1a) and (1b), and in most
of these cases, there are two or more words which are assigned
different lexical categories in the two cases. In the sentence we
considered, “Left” was a noun in the intended sense—perhaps a
noun derived from a verb, but in any event, it referred to a political
party, or a coalition of parties. In the unintended sense, “Left”
was the main verb of the sentence, the past tense of the verb leave.
Our analysis, then, predicts that if we change the word “Left” into
some other word, some word that is not both a verb and a noun,
the sentence should become unambiguous and not funny at all.
That is true: there is no humor in British Right Waffles on Falkland
Islands, or in British Leave Waffles on Falkland Islands. The humor of
the ambiguity arises out of the totally unexpected collision between
two different syntactic structures, themselves the result of simple
phrase-structure rules motivated by an enormous number of simple
rules.
By the way: not all ambiguities are like that; one of the most
over-used ambiguous sentences, I saw the man with the telescope,
is ambiguous in a strictly structural way. Is it the man with the
 We do not always know when an
ambiguous sentence is syntactically
ambiguous. Is they are married ambigu-
ous? If not, where does the humor
come from in They’re married, but not6to
s y n t a x

each other.? How about Kids make nutri-

cious snacks? That is ambiguous, but it
may not be syntactically ambiguous.
telescope that I claim to have seen, or am I just talking about some And what about My father always beat
me. . . at chess, at least.?
man and the fact that I looked at him through the telescope? These
two senses correspond to two different syntactic structures:

NP VP

pronoun verb NP

I saw det PP

the noun prep NP

man with det noun

(15)(a) the telescope

S

NP VP

pronoun verb NP PP

I saw det prep NP

the noun with det noun

(b) man the telescope

Let’s consider another ambiguous sentence:

 s y n t a x 7

NP VP

noun verb NP

squad helps noun

noun noun

noun noun victim

dog bite
S

NP VP

noun verb S

squad helps NP VP

noun verb NP

dog bite noun

victim
The second structure arises unambiguously if we put in some
words that allow no other analysis — for example, if the sentence
had been squad helps dog find master.

Constituents

Any string of words that is generated by a single phrasal node in

a given sentence is called a constituent. To analyze a sentence is
to assign a tree structure to it, and by doing so, to analyze a set of
constituents in the sentence. A good part of syntactic analysis is
finding the right constituency structure for a sentence (we some-
times say, the right tree structure).
The most direct way to apply tests for constituency is to use
the independence assumption that I mentioned earlier: if a string
of words is a constituent – an NP, let’s say – then it ought to be
possible to use that string of words in other sentences that seems
 s y n t a x 8

structurally rather different. If a string of words if a direct object

NP (the price of tea in Japan in the sentence we compute the price of
tea in Japan), then it ought to be possible to put the same string of
words in places where we are already pretty sure that NPs can
appear, such as in subject position of a simple sentence, or as the
object of a preposition:

(16) The price of tea in Japan drives economic conditions there.

(17) I don’t know much about the price of tea in Japan.

or other constuctions, such as the pseudo-cleft:

(18) What they study is the price of tea in Japan.

or the cleft (formed with it):

(19) It was the price of tea in Japan that was the most important
factor, not the temperature in Seattle.

What does this test suggest about the constituency of The con-
gregation sent the family flowers? Is the family flowers a constituent?
The fact that the following strings of words are not good sentences
suggests strongly that it is not a constituent. We will look shortly at the difference
between John turned over the book and
John jumped over the puddle. Can you
(20)(a) *What they sent was the family flowers.
tell if over the book or over the puddle is a
(b) *It was the family flowers that they sent. constituent?

More examples

A simple example illustrating constituent structure ambiguity:

Fireproof clothing factory burns to ground.
S

NP VP

AP noun burns to ground

adj noun noun

(21) (i) fireproof clothing factory

 s y n t a x 9

NP VP

noun burns to ground

noun noun

adj noun factory

(ii) fireproof clothing

This headline is funny because there are two interpretations of

fireproof clothing factory, and the more natural one (more natural if
we only consider that phrase) is contradicted by the larger context,
the sentence. The more natural interpretation is that it concerns a
clothing factory that is fireproof: fireproof then modifies (adds addi-
tional information to) clothing factory; clothing factory is a constituent
in which clothing modifies factory, and together, clothing factory
refers to the same kind of thing that the word factory does.
In short, when we analyze a noun phrase (roughly, a referring
expression), one of the words within it expresses the type of thing
that is referred to (here, factory). Typically, if any or all of the mod-
ifying material is be removed, the larger sense is vaguer but still
roughly the same: factory burns to ground. Factory is said to be the
head of the phrase Fireproof clothing factory: it is the element whose
removal would most change the meaning of the phrase. The non-
head element of a constituent is often called the modifier, or satellite.
We know which structure is which in fireproof clothing factory be-
cause a non-head (or satellite) of a constituent C is not semantically
modified by an element outside of that constituent. Structure (i) can
be used to indicate a fireproof factory because factory is the head; that
structure cannot be used to express a situation in which fireproof
semantically modifies clothing.
English is relatively unusual in how poorly it marks nouns and
verbs as distinct from a morphological point of view, and this can
lead to multiple syntactic analyses. Time flies is famously ambigu-
ous.
 s y n t a x 10

NP VP

S noun verb NP

NP VP teacher strikes AP noun

noun verb NP adj kids

(22) teacher strikes idle kids idle

The interest of the headline: GRANDMOTHER OF EIGHT

MAKES HOLE IN ONE relies on a structural difference: is [hole
in one] a single item, or does it form two “sister constituents” in the
verb phrase, as in she put it in the bag (or “...puts beans in nose”) ?

NP VP

grandmother of eight verb NP

makes noun

(23) hole in one

S

NP VP

grandmother of eight verb NP PP

puts noun prep NP

beans in noun

nose
 s y n t a x 11

NP Aux VP

noun may verb NP

(a) hitchhikers be adj noun

(24) escaping convicts

S

NP Aux VP

noun may be verb NP

(b) hitchhikers escaping noun

convicts

Another nice way to sensitize oneself to syntactic structure is to

look at garden-path sentences, like

1. Fat people eat accumulates.

2. The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississippi.

3. The girl told the story cried.

4. The horse raced past the barn fell.

5. I know the words to that song about the queen don’t rhyme.

NP VP

NP S V

noun NP VP accumulates

fat noun verb

(25) people eat

 s y n t a x 12

Infinitives and embedded clauses

We generally use the term clause a bit more generally than the term
sentence. We often find that what could be a free-standing sentence
is part of—or, as we say, is embedded in —a larger clause. Consider:
(26)
S

NP VP

the point of the story verb S

was that no good deed goes unpunished

No good deed goes unpunished can appear as a free standing sen-

tence, and it appears in (x) as an embedded clause. Sometimes an
embedded clause has largely the structure of a free-standing clause,
though some parts of it are affected by the sentence in which it is
embedded, as in this example:
(27)
S

NP VP

the commission adverb verb S

strenuously denied that any wrongdoing had been found

Any wrongdoing had been found cannot form a free-standing sentence:

the possibility of the any in the embedded clause is the result of the
negative sense that is implicit in the verb denied.
Thus embedded clauses may look different from main clauses.
Sometimes the verb takes on a special form, as in the next sentence,
or in a French sentence where the embedded clause has a verb in
the subjunctive.
S

NP VP

it verb AP S

is adj that they be brought up on charges

(28) crucial
 s y n t a x 13

NP VP

il verb AP S

est adj qu’ils soient mis en examen

(29) essentiel

In many languages, the form of the embedded clause is consider-

ably reduced when the subject of the embedded clause refers to the
same person or think as the subject of the higher clause—we say,
when the subject of the upper and the lower clauses co-refer, as in:

NP VP

she adverb verb VP

never wanted to verb NP

(30) become a vampire

The embedded clause in that sentence could have a different

subject, though it is a point of some controversy as to whether that
sort of sentence – She never wanted her baby to become a vampire, for
example — has the structure in (a) or in (b):
S

NP VP

she adverb verb S

never wanted NP VP

her baby to verb NP

(31) become a vampire

 s y n t a x 14

NP VP

she adverb verb NP VP

never wanted her baby to verb NP

(32) become a vampire

So: although there is controversy regarding the precise details of

the analysis, let’s agree to represent verb phrases with an infinitive
as VP (verb phrases) immediately dominated by S:

NP VP

he verb S

tried VP

to verb NP

(33) become a fireman

Auxiliary verbs

One of the most impressive and influential of the early generative

analyses of English was Chomsky’s analysis of the English auxil-
iary. Let’s consider a range of possible auxiliary verb combinations.
There is one thing that separates this data from the kind of data
we have considered up to now. In the earlier examples, the choice
of words that we made was essentially irrelevant; we included
words by selecting nouns where the phrase structure rules gener-
ated “noun”, and likewise for the other categories. But here – each
word or morpheme acts differently and uniquely. Why would we
expectd phrase-structure rules to work here? Either we will have
actual words in our phrase-structure rules, or we will have to create
categories that contain only a single item. The two pretty much boil
down to the same thing.
 s y n t a x 15

You walk.
John walk -s.
John walk-ed.
John may walk.
John may have walk-ed.
John has walk-ed.
John is walk-ing.
John may be walk-ing.
John may have be-en walk-ing.
Sentences with -ed: John may have walk-ed.
John has walk-ed.
John walk-ed.
Sentences with -ing: John is walk-ing.
John may be walk-ing.
John may have be-en walk-ing.
Sentences with 3rd p. sg -s: John walk -s.
John is walk-ing.
John has walk-ed.
Sentences with -do: You do walk.
John does walk.
*John does walk-s.
*John does may have walk-ed.
*John does has/have walk-ed.
*John does is/be walk-ing.
*John does may be walk-ing.
*John does may walk.
*John do may have be-en walk-ing.
Do you walk?
Does John walk?
May John walk?
May John have walk-ed?
Has John walk-ed?
Is John walk-ing?
May John be walk-ing?
May John have be-en walk-ing?
*You not walk.
You do not walk.
*John not walk -s.
John does not walk.
John may not walk.
John may not have walk-ed.
John has not walk-ed.
John is not walk-ing.
John may not be walk-ing.
John may not have be-en walk-ing.
 s y n t a x 16

You were amaze-d.

John was amaze-d.
John may be amaze-d.
John may have be-en amaze-d.
John has be-en amaze-d.
John is be-ing amaze-d.
John may be be-ing amaze-d.
John may have be-en be-ing amaze-d.
You were not amaze-d.
John was not amaze-d.
John may not be amaze-d.
John may not have be-en amaze-d.
John has not be-en amaze-d.
John is not be-ing amaze-d.
John may not be be-ing amaze-d.
John may not have be-en be-ing amaze-d.
Table 1: English auxiliary

Let’s try to extract some basic generalizations concerning this

data:
• No sentence with two words from the group called modal verbs: 3
Well. Most of us know that this isn’t
may, can, will, would, may, should, shall is grammatical; but one really true. There are a lot of speakers
word from this group can co-occur with the other auxiliary of American English in the South who
say I might could give you a hand: might
verbs, such as have, be.3 could, and for many, might could and
• When auxiliaries appear, their left to right order is summarized even may can. This analysis is very
hard to modify to include those.
by a table:
Modal verb have (perfective) be (progressive) be (passive) verb
• The auxiliary verb do does not appear when there is any other
auxiliary present: any of the auxiliaries we are exploring. It only
appears when there are no others.
• However, the auxiliary do can appear along with the possessive
have and the real (not dummy) verb do: We do not have enough
money to do that. Anyway, we do not do things like that.
• If the negative not is present, it appears after the left-most (i.e.,
the first) of all of these auxiliaries. And if we count the auxiliary
do as belonging to this group (and we do!), then when there is a
not, there must be an auxiliary.

Chomsky and Syntactic Structure: the basics

Chomsky’s account in Syntactic Structures (1957) was along the lines
of what I have put in Figures 1 and 2 (I have made some changes
that I think no one would disagree with, with hindsight).
Chomsky’s example was more like the Figure 4. He alluded to
morphophonemic rules that would include will + S → will, will +
past → would.
 s y n t a x 17

S → NP Aux VP Figure 1: English auxiliary (after

Aux → Tense( Modal )( have + en)(be + ing)(be + en) Chomsky 1957)
verb → hit, take, walk, read, etc.
modal → will, can, may, shall, must
Tense → S / NPsing —
Tense → ∅ / NPe′
Tense → past
Affix hopping:
 
past   
Modal 

 
 S   verb 

 
 
 
   
∅ : 1 − 2 → 2 − 1#
   have 

 -en 
 
 

be

 
  
-ing
 

Chomsky suggests an abbreviation of A f for the disjunction

 

 past  
 S 

 

 
∅ .
 



 -en 



-ing
 
Replace + by # except in the context v–Af.
Insert # initially and finally.

Figure 2: Tree generated by rules in

S Figure 1

NP Aux VP

John Tense modal have -en be -ing V NP

S may drink noun

beer

Figure 3: After affix-hopping

S

NP Aux VP

John modal have be+en verb NP

may+S drink+ing noun

beer
 s y n t a x 18

the + man + Aux + VP

the + man + Aux + verb + NP
the + man + Aux + verb + the + book
the + man + Tense + have + en + be+ing + read + the + book
the + man +S + have + en + be+ing + read + the + book
the + man + have + S # +be + en # + read + ing # + the + book
the # man # have + S # +be + en # # read + ing # # the # book
the man has been reading the book.

Chomsky’s negation transformation

NP - Tense - X → NP - Tense + not + X

they -∅ + can + come they -∅ + can + not + come

they -∅ + have -en + come they -∅ + have + not -en + come
they -∅ + be-ing + come they ∅ + be + not -ing + come
John - S - come John - S + not - come
Affix hopping applies a f ter the negation-insertion transforma-
tion, and cannot apply, because the not, like a grain of sand in the
gears, prevents the rule from finding the context it is looking for.
Chomsky adds a later rule (known to all later on as do-Support),
which applies after all of the rules mentioned above:
(34) Do-support: # Af → #do + Af
Shortly after this (p. 65), Chomsky proposes a transformational
rule that introduces a morpheme called A whose realization is as
emphasis on the word that precedes it. In this case, the appearance
of a form of do when there is emphasis (“John does arrive”) is ac-
counted for by the linear placement of A that is (i) in the same spot
as the not, and (ii) equally able to block the hopping of the S-affix;
which failure to hopping leads to an S which triggers Do-support.
Imagine a derivation containing the step: John # S+A # arrive, and
you have it.
See Figure 4 for a slightly different constituency structure.

Constituents -2
Peacock was born to hustle, bustle,
NP Verb PP; NP Verb NP PP jostle, and command, but he had as
well a clear-eyed sense of who in the
Our first look at some of the details of English syntax involved the English mathematical establishment
could be counted on, who counted in,
auxiliary verbs. A very different kind of syntactic distribution is and who counted out. David Berlinsky,
found when we look at what f ollows the verb in English. There One, Two Three. p. 93.
are, to be sure, many intransitive verbs in English, as in (xx), where “How many people work at your
company?”
nothing follows the verb. There are also many in which a noun “About half...”
phrase follows the verb – we call these transitive sentences, as in
(xx) – as well as many which are followed simply by a prepositional
phrase (xx).
 s y n t a x 19

Figure 4: It’s a lot cleaner to the eye if

S we add some constituency

NP Aux

John Tense modal perf prog VP

may have -en be -ing verb NP

s drink noun

beer
Aux → Tense( Modal )( have + en)(be + ing)(be + en)
per f → have + en
prog → be + ing
passive → be + en

(35) 1.(a) The baby is sleeping.

(b) Whenever it rains, it pours.
(c) Man plans, and God laughs.
2.(a) I love salmon, but Jessie can’t eat it.
(b) The contractor has finished the kitchen.
(c) The House finally passed the president’s legislation.
3.(a) All rivers run to the sea.
(b) She spoke to every expert she could find.
(c) Dr. King dreamt of a world in which all men are brothers.
(d) Do not speak to the driver while the vehicle is in motion.

And finally, there are many sentences in which the verb is fol-
lowed by a noun phrase and a prepositional phrase (see (37)).

(36) She put her name on the door.

(37) I translated the text into French.

In class we discussed some of the basic heuristics for getting

information about constituency, such as:

1. We can look at constructions which select a single constituent in

a given position (subject of a sentence; focus of (it)-cleft, focus
of pseudo-cleft)), and see what string of words can show up in
those positions;

2. if we can replace a string of words by it and retain the syntactic

construction, this suggests the string is an NP;
 s y n t a x 20

3. if we can coordinate two strings with and, this suggests that each
is a constituent, and that together they form a constituent.

The syntactic patterns NP Verb PP and NP Verb NP PP are very

common patterns in English and other languages. Let’s take a look
at several patterns of this general sort:

He climbed over the wall

(a) What did he climb over?
(b) Over what did he climb?
(maybe)
(38) (c) Over the wall climbed the
S
monkeys.
(d) Over the wall the monkeys
NP VP climbed. (maybe)
(e) The wall was climbed over.
(maybe)
He verb PP
(f) This wall has never been
climbed over.
climbed prep NP (g) He climbed over it.
(h) He climbed over the wall and
the hedges.
over the wall (i) He climbed over the wall and
through the thick brush on the
ground.
The (b) example—if it is grammatical—is evidence that over and
its following object VP forms a constituent; in the metaphor of
syntactic movement, a preposition would only move with its object.
(c) (which is, I think, unquestionably grammatical) makes the same
point, but in the context of a different construction. (e) is a passive,
in which the object of over has been passivized; this suggests a tight
syntactic relationship between over and the preceding verb climb,
and if (e) is not great, (f) is, and it makes the same point regarding
grammar. 4 4
The point is often made in relation to
the contrast between This bed has been
slept in and This bed has been slept under,
She put her name on the door where the first is much better than the
second.
(39)
S
(a) What did she put on the door?
(b) Where did she put her name?
NP VP (c) What did she put her name
on?
(d) On the door, she put her
She verb NP PP
name.
(e) On the door, she put her
put her name prep NP name; on her desk, she put her
new title.

on the door
 s y n t a x 21

Movement:
S

PP S

prep NP NP VP

on the door she verb NP

put her name

Expansion:
S

S NP VP

NP VP She verb NP PP

She verb NP PP put it prep NP

put her name there on the door

Conjunction:
S

NP VP

She verb NP PP

put her name PP PP

prep NP prep NP

on the door and over the windows S

They turned out/off the light NP VP

Now, let’s consider the sentence They turned out the light, which is
also of the form NP V P NP. Does this have the same structure? –
They verb PP
that is, is it:
The first sign that this is not the same structure is that this struc-
ture is unavailable when we have it rather than the light (remember, turned prep NP
this was fine with he climbed over it):

(40) 1. *They turned out/off it. out the light

Figure 5: Wrong analysis!
 s y n t a x 22

2. They turned it out/off.

It is odd that the light cannot be simply replaced by it in They

turned out the light, especially since apparently similar sentences are
fine. Is this phenomenon general, fairly general, or just marginal?
How can we check? Are there words other than out that participate
in this oddity?
This is known as a verb particle construction, or as a phrasal verb.

to turn on something
(41) The lion turned on his trainer, and it was several minutes
before he could be removed from the cage.

(42) (Not: ...turned his trainer on...)

(43) The detective turn on her radio, and it was several minutes
before she could tear herself away from what she was hearing.

(44) (just as fine...The detective turned her radio on... )

Questions: Do we wish to assign different structures to these

sentences, and if so, how? What do you notice about the stress or
prominence of the word on in the two sentences?

They turned over the blanket.

Is this right?

NP VP

They verb PP

turned prep NP

(45) over the blanket

We can still say:

(46) What did they turn over?

but not:

(47) *Over what did they turn?

or

(48) *It was over the blanket that they turned.

 s y n t a x 23

So there is no evidence of pied-piping, of the preposition ‘moving’

along with the following NP. So Over the blanket does not behave
like a constituent. And we can say:

(49) They turned the blanket over.

What is the right structure for that sentence?

S S

NP VP NP VP

They verb PP They verb NP PP

turned NP prep turned the blanket prep NP

the blanket over over ?

What do we find if the object is a pronoun?

5 5
These facts might remind us of the
similar ungrammaticality of *They gave
(50) • They turned it/him over. Mary it, alongside of the fine They gave
Mary some.
• *They turned over it.

They rolled it over/they rolled over it.

(51)(a) They jumped over the box.
S

NP VP

They verb PP

jumped prep NP

over the box

(b) They jumped over the box, not the blanket.
 s y n t a x 24

NP VP

They verb PP

jumped prep NP

over NP NP

the box, not the blanket

(c) They jumped over the box, not over the blanket.
S

NP VP

They verb PP

jumped PP PP

prep NP prep NP

over the box, not over the blanket

(d) They turned over the box.
(e) They turned over the box, not the blanket.
(f) **They turned over the box, not over the blanket.

They threw the garbage out the window.

S

NP VP

They verb NP PP

threw the garbage prep NP

out the window

 s y n t a x 25

NP VP

They V PP PP

talked prep NP prep NP

with the doctor about the prognosis

S

NP VP

He V PP

looks prep NP

like his father

(52)(a) They jumped over the box.

(b) They turned over the box.
(c) They jumped over the box, not over the the shoes.
(d) **They turned over the box, not over the shoes.
(e) They turned over the box, not the shoes.
 s y n t a x 26

put the book on the table

put it under the tree
put it over the sink

put the coat on.

put the coat on the monkey
put it on.
put on the coat.
put on *it.
put on shorts.
put *on the monkey the coat.
put the decision off.
put it off.
put off the decision.
put off *it.
take the coat off.
take the coat off the monkey.
take it off.
take it off the monkey.
take off the coat.
take *off the monkey the coat.
drink the water.
drink the water (all) up
drink up the water
drink *all up the water
drink it up.
drink up *it.
drink the water out of the bottle
?* drink the water up out of the bottle.
What’s the generalization? The direct object and the particle
can permute—appear in either order—only if the particle is not
part of a larger Prepositional Phrase. It cannot have a preceding
determiner, and it certainly cannot have a complement (like the
monkey).
Let’s find some examples with o f f , up, out. Can we find any
with a f ter? to? f rom?

Some analyses
Thanks to Bas Aarts, “Verb-preposition constructions and small
clauses in English” Journal of Linguistics 25(2): 277-290, 1989.

(53) A-verbs I switched the light off. (The lights are now off.)

(54) B-verbs I looked the information up. (The information is not

now up, whatever that might mean.)

(55) A-verbs:

1. He propped the hood of the car up; with the hood up he then
drove off.
 s y n t a x 27

2. Sally pushed the lever on the amplifier down; with the lever
down her CD-player was pre-programmed.
3. Jim turned the radio off; with the radio off he could finally
relax.

(56) B-verbs:

1. *He brought the kids up by himself; with the kids up he could

go on holiday.
2. *My teacher always puts his pupils down; with his pupils
down he feels superior.
3. *Jim sold the car off to a friend (now a former friend); with the
car off he could buy the boat he had dreamed of.

(57) In comparatives, A-verbs are pretty good:

(58) A-verbs:

1. The oven off is less dangerous than the oven on.

2. The oven off is as dangerous as the oven on.
3. The ovens off is at least as dangerous as the ovens on. (What
does this show?)

(59) B-verbs:

1. *He brought his kids up more than he brought them down.

2. *The kids up is very desirable.
3. *His pupils down is terrible (a terrible sight to behold).

(60) Conjunction: what does this show?

1. He switched the lights on and the TV off.

2. Compare: I gave Vincent a book and Caroline a newspaper.

(61) Stowell 1981:

S

NP VP

I V’

V off

switched-the light
 s y n t a x 28

becomes
S

Radford 1988:
S NP VP

NP VP I V
(62)

I V NP PP V’? NP

switched the light off V P the light

switched off
(63) 1. I cut the branch
right off.
What do these show?
2. *I cut right off the
That o f f is a phrase, not
branch.
a single word – in the
3. I switched the radio case where it is to the
completely off. right of the direct object
4. *I switched NP?
completely off the
radio.

(64) Kayne 1984:

from which is derived:
S
S

NP VP
NP VP

I V’
I V SmallClause

V SmallClause NP
switched NP Prt

switched Prt the light

the light off

off
(65) Aarts’s analysis of A-verbs, B-verbs:
 s y n t a x 29

VP

A-verbs VP NPi
VP

V SmallClause
V SmallClause

NP
NP VP

ei VP
VP
B-verbs
VP
VP NPi

V NP PP
V NP PP

Some of the basic phenomena of interest to syntactians

Word-order interacts with logical scope of operators

For example, in English: Liberman 1975

• i. With no job, John would be happy. If he had no job (= if he were

unemployed), John would be happy.

• ii. With no job would John be happy. There is no job such that it
would make John happy (if it were given to him).

Basic word order: SVO and its permutations

Joseph Greenberg in 1966 drew attention to the fact that the order
of constituents in sentences was not uniformly distributed among
all the logical possibilities. Focusing on subject (S), object (O), and
verb (V), studies (such as Ruhlen 1975) have found distributions
along these lines: www.hku.hk/linguist
SOV SVO VSO VOS OVS OSV
Pullum 1981
52% 36% 10% 2% 0% 0.2%
VOS: Malagasy, Seediq (Austronesian)
OSV: Kabardian (Northwest Caucasian
OVS: Apalai, Hixkaryana (Carib)

English: SVO
Subject-Verb-Object S=sentence, NP = Noun Phrase, VP =
Verb Phrase
The police arrested E. Howard Hunt.
 s y n t a x 30

NP VP S

She verb NP NP VP

saw noun The police verb NP

them arrested E Howard Hunt

Japanese: SOV
Japanese is a strictly verb-final language, with massive pro-drop
and topic-marking (-wa). This combination is of great interest to
many linguists.

Tanaka-san wa ringo -o tabemasu

Mr. Tanaka TOPIC apple DO eat
Mr. Tanaka eats the apple.

The preceding sentence would be a reasonable answer to the

question: What does Tanaka-san eat? To answer, Who eats the
apple?, you might say:

ringo -wa Tanaka-san ga tabemasu

apple TOPIC Mr. Tanaka SUBJ eat
Mr. Tanaka eats the apple.

Consider:6 6
from nihongo.anthonet.com

Tanaka-san ga kono ie ni sunde imasu.

Mr. Tanaka SUBJ this house in living is.
Mr. Tanaka is staying in this house.

Tanaka-san wa sensei desu.

Tanaka TOPIC teacher is.
Tanaka is a teacher.

sunde ← sum+te.

German: mixed SVO, SOV

First approximation: In main clauses, the finite verb appears in sec-
ond position, and a major syntactic constituent precedes it. A sep-
arable prefix does not appear in second position, even it is lexically
associated with the verb that is in second position. When a series
of verbs occurs in a single clause, the logically highest one is that
which appears in second position. None of this occurs in embedded
clauses – or rather, in sentences with overt complementizers.
 s y n t a x 31

Wir singen Lieder.

Er zieht seinen Mantel an.
Er hat seinen Mantel an-ge-zogen.
Er muss seinen Mantel an-ziehen.
. . . weil wir Lieder singen.
. . . weil er seinen Mantel an-zieht.
. . . weil er seinen Mantel an-ge-zogen hat.
. . . weil er seinen Mantel an-ziehen muss.
Sie gibt seinem Freund einen Apfel.
Sie hat seinem Freund einen Apfel ge-geben.
Sie hat ihm einen Apfel ge-geben.
Sie hat es ihm ge-geben.
. . . weil sie es ihm ge-geben hat.
Sie muss es ihm ge-geben haben.
. . . weil sie es ihm ge-geben haben muss.
Er tut es.
Er hat es ge-tan.
Er muss es tun.
Er hat es tun müssen.
. . . weil er es hat tun müssen.
Ich habe Casablanca (nicht) ge-sehen.
Casablanca habe ich (nicht) ge-sehen.
Nie hat er Casablanca ge-sehen!
Er hat mit dem Karl ge-sprochen.
Mit dem Karl hat er ge-sprochen.
Was singen sie?
Wer singt Lieder?
Was hat sie ge-gessen?
Wen hat sie ge-sehen?
Mit wem hat sie ge-sprochen?
S S

NP VP NP VP

Er V NP Der junge Mann V NP

heisst Rolf heisst Rolf

S

NP VP

Der junge Mann, der nicht mal weiss, wo er sein Auto geparkt hat V NP

heisst Rolf
[ex from www.dartmouth.edu/ german]
 s y n t a x 32

Roughly: The old man comes today home.

S

NP VP S

Der alte Mann V heute nach Hause NP kommt VP

kommt Der alte Mann heute nach Hause

S

NP ist VP

Der alte Mann heute nach Hause ge - kommen

Der alte Mann ist gestern angekommen. (66)
Der alte Mann will heute nach Hause kommen. (67)
Heute kommt der alte Mann nach Hause. (68)
Ich weiss nicht, wann er heute ankommt. (69) ex from german.about.com
There are a large number of phenomena that have been analyzed
in terms of syntactic movement. Movement is, of course, a metaphor,
but we use it to suggest a phenomenon whereby we have a good
linguistic reason to analyze a word (or a constituent) as appearing
in a position different from where it is on the surface.
Connection between constituent structure and movement: When
we discover two closely related sentence patterns, we usually find
that the difference can be expressed as a difference in the location
of a small number (ideally, just one) constituent. For example:
S

PP S S

In France NP VP NP VP PP

very few people drink NP Very few people drink NP in France

drip coffee drip coffee

S

PP S S

with no job NP Aux VP PP Aux NP VP

John would be happy with no job would John be happy

 s y n t a x 33

With no job would John be happy.

The clearest examples of this are the cases of question formation
and, in many languages, relative clause formation.

Question formation

In English, a question word (or wh-word, or whord) appears sentence-

initially in direction questions, even if it corresponds (in terms of
the predicate of which it is an argument) to a NP in a different po-
sition. We will call the position in which wh-words are found the
complementizer (or Comp) of a sentence. COMP’ is read "COMP-bar",
and is a shorthand for speaking of a larger consitutent for which
COMP is an obligatory member (even if it does not seem that the
COMP really is obligatory here!. I leave the obligatory matter of subject-
COMP’ auxiliary inversion unstated here: but
you should read the tree as if it had
applied. The last example surfaces as
Who did you meet?
COMP’ COMP’ COMP S

COMP S COMP S whoi NP VP

null NP VP whoi NP VP you met NP

It rained ei called? ei ?
In formal English, a preposition may metaphorically move along This is called Pied-Piping
with a wh-word, even if the preposition is part of an idiom along
with the verb; while this is restricted to formal English, it is the
normal and everyday case for many languages, include Romance
languages; see the French example immediately below.
COMP’

COMP S

To which countryi NP AUX VP

I should travel PP

ei ? To which country should I travel?

 s y n t a x 34

COMP’

COMP S

NP NP AUX VP

Which countryi I should travel PP

to NP

ei ? Which country should I travel to?

COMP’

COMP S

PP NP VP

Avec quels chercheurs vous travaillez PP

ei ? Here too I abstract away from in-

version: cf. Avec quels chercheurs
With which researchers do you work?
travaillez-vous?
This wh-movement involved in question-formation can apply
over several clauses, in many languages (including English).
S

NP AUX VP

His parole officer V NP S

told him NP Aux VP

he should V PP

talk P NP

to Custer
 s y n t a x 35

COMP’

COMP S

NP NP AUX VP

whoi his parole officer V NP S

tell him NP Aux VP

he should V PP

talk P NP

to ei
In French, we see the verb of the main clause impose the sub-
junctive mood on the verb of the embedded clause, and the object
of the lower clause appears sentence initially.
COMP’

COMP S

NP NP AUX VP

qui vous V COMP’

voulez COMP S VP

que NP V NP PP

je tienne e au courant?
Who do you want me to keep [e] informed? Qui voulez-vous je tienne [subj.] au
courant?

Relative clauses

In English, a relative clause follows the head noun, and has a gap in
the sentence corresponding to the position in which the head would
have appeared in the relative clause:
 which 
 
the fruit that she had picked.

 ∅  
 s y n t a x 36

In relativizing from subject position, an empty COMP is not

allowed:  

 which  
 who 
 
We purchased some fruit was not ripe, unfortunately.

 that  
 
∅
 
The words which and who are wh-words (who is for people, which
for non-humans), and are analyzed as involving movement: pied-
piping is permitted in this cases, but that is a complementizer, and
there is no overt
 movement when it is present:

 with whom 

 with which 
 
the people she had consulted were enthusiastic.
 with that 

 

with∅
 
Relativization over a long syntactic distance is possible, just as
with wh-questions:

The so-called magic bullet was the bullet [ that [ the Warren Com-
mission argued [ Oswald had used [e] to shoot both Kennedy and
Connally. ] ]

Question formation brings a wh-word to sentence-initial (COMP)

position, but it can be a position at the beginning of a subordinate
clause:

It was never determined what the former CIA employees were actu-
ally looking for [e] at the Watergate.
*What was it never determined the former CIA employees were
actuallly looking for [e] at the Watergate?

Whose is both a relative pronoun and a wh-word, but it is specifi-

cally for humans as a wh-word, but not as a relative pronoun:

The cari whosei door was smashed in the accident had to be junked
afterwards.
Whosei doori was smashed in the accident? OK: Mary/mine; *Mary’s
car’s/that car’s.