An Introduction to

English Syntax

Jim Miller

Edinburgh University Press

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Edinburgh Textbooks on the English Language

General Editor
Heinz Giegerich, Professor of English Linguistics (University of Edinburgh)

Editorial Board
Laurie Bauer (University of Wellington)
Derek Britton (University of Edinburgh)
Olga Fischer (University of Amsterdam)
Norman Macleod (University of Edinburgh)
Donka Minkova (UCLA)
Katie Wales (University of Leeds)
Anthony Warner (University of York)

    

An Introduction to English Syntax
Jim Miller
An Introduction to English Phonology
April McMahon
An Introduction to English Morphology
Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy
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An Introduction to
English Syntax

Jim Miller

Edinburgh University Press

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© Jim Miller, 2002

Edinburgh University Press Ltd

22 George Square, Edinburgh

Typeset in Janson
by Norman Tilley Graphics and
printed and bound in Great Britain
by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin

A CIP Record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 7486 1254 8 (hardback)

ISBN 0 7486 1253 X (paperback)

The right of Jim Miller

to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents

Acknowledgements ix
To colleagues x
To readers xii

1 Heads and modifiers 1

1.1 Heads and modifiers 1
1.2 Heads, modifiers and meaning 3
1.3 Complements and adjuncts 4
1.4 Clauses 5
1.5 Dictionary entries and collocations 7
1.6 Verbs, complements and the order of phrases 8
Summary 9
Exercises 9

2 Constituent structure 11
2.1 Heads, modifiers and arrangements of words 11
2.2 Tests for phrases 13
2.3 Phrases: words and slots 17
2.4 Coordination 18
2.5 Concluding comments 19
Summary 21
Exercises 21

3 Constructions 23
3.1 Introduction 23
3.2 Different constructions and different meanings 23
3.3 Types of construction 27
3.4 Relationships between constructions 29
3.5 Copula constructions 30
Summary 32
Exercises 32
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vi AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

4 Word classes 34
4.1 What are word classes? 34
4.2 Criteria for word classes 36
Summary 45
Exercises 45

5 The lexicon 47
5.1 Syntax and lexical items 47
5.2 Individual verbs, complements and adjuncts 49
5.3 Classes of verbs and subcategorisation restrictions 51
5.4 Selectional restrictions 52
5.5 Classes of nouns 53
5.6 Subcategorisation, selection and constructions 55
5.7 Fixed phrases 56
Summary 57
Exercises 57

6 Clauses I 60
6.1 Clauses and sentences 60
6.2 Main and subordinate clauses 62
6.3 Subordinate clauses 63
6.4 Complementisers and subordinating conjunctions 66
6.5 Recognising clauses 67
6.6 Final comment 69
Summary 69
Exercises 70

7 Clauses II 72
7.1 Main and subordinate clauses 72
7.2 Clause and sentence 73
7.3 More properties of subordinate clauses 77
7.4 Finite and non-finite clauses 81
Summary 85
Exercises 85

8 Grammatical functions 88
8.1 Introduction 88
8.2 Subject 88
8.3 Direct object 93
8.4 Oblique object and indirect object 95
Summary 98
Exercises 99
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CONTENTS vii

9 Syntactic linkage 101

9.1 Introduction 101
9.2 Agreement 101
9.3 Government 103
9.4 Number and person linkage 106
9.5 Syntactic linkage in English 107
9.6 Number in English 109
9.7 Gender in English 109
Summary 110
Exercises 111

10 Heads and modifiers revisited 113

10.1 For and against verb phrases 113
10.2 Verb, core, nucleus and periphery 115
10.3 What is the head of a noun phrase? 116

11 Roles 119
11.1 Roles, grammar and meaning 119
11.2 Criteria for roles 120
11.3 Roles and role-players 125
11.4 Problems with Patients: planting roses 128
Summary 131
Exercises 131

12 Grammar and semantics: case, gender, mood 133

12.1 Introduction 133
12.2 Case 133
12.3 Gender 135
12.4 Mood 136
Summary 141
Exercises 142

13 Grammar and semantics: aspect, tense, voice 143

13.1 Aspect 143
13.2 Tense in English 148
13.3 The English Perfect 149
13.4 Voice 151
13.5 Conclusion 156
Summary 157
Exercises 157
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viii AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

Appendix 1 160
Appendix 2 162
Appendix 3 167
Discussion of the exercises 169
Further reading 185
Index 188
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Acknowledgements

Anthony Warner read the first draft of this book and offered many valu-
able comments which have helped me to improve both the organisation
of the contents and the explanation of particular points. Jenny Fuchs,
although busy with her studies on the second year of the Honours
MA in English Language at the University of Edinburgh, gave both a
student’s reaction and comments worthy of professional linguists.
Derek Britton spent a considerable time devising Old English
examples. Karin Søde-Woodhead drew my attention to a number of
inadequacies. Will Lamb reassured me that the text was at the right level
and on the right lines for an introduction to syntax. Over the past ten
years, a number of classes have acted as guinea pigs for Chapters 6 and
7 on clauses and for Chapters 12 and 13 on grammar and semantics.
I thank all the above and declare that I alone am responsible for any
imperfections in the book.

ix
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To colleagues

This book is an introduction to syntax for students embarking on

English Language courses. It might also prove useful to students taking
the English Language A-level or its equivalent and to students taking
university courses in Linguistics. The book does not even sketch
the major syntactic constructions of English. Most of the examples are
indeed from English, but the book deals with the general concepts
necessary for analysing syntax (whether of English or of some other
language).
Many students in the UK and elsewhere take courses in English
Language and in Linguistics in their first and/or second years but then
specialise in another subject. The content of this book reflects the view
that such students should be taught concepts and methods that find an
application in other university disciplines or outside university. This
criterion excludes detailed discussion of constituent structure, tree
diagrams and formal models of syntax, because these find no application
outside the classroom except in computational linguistics. But even
in that field, the central topics include basic clause analysis, discourse
organisation, tense, aspect and modality. The concepts of head and
modifier, and of subcategorisation and valency, find some application,
say in the teaching of foreign languages. Also useful and applicable is
knowledge of different types of clause and their function in sentences,
word classes, case, transitivity and gender.
The topics mentioned in the preceding paragraph are traditional but
have been greatly developed over the past thirty years; new perspectives,
new data and new insights are available. More importantly, they all find
applications in teaching, in speech pathology, in university courses on
discourse analysis and stylistics, in courses on psycholinguistics and in
cognitive science, and in the preparation of commercial and technical
documents and in writing in general.
The above explains why the book has only one short chapter on
constituent structure. (But Appendix 1 gives diagrams showing depen-
x
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TO COLLEAGUES xi

dency analyses of various clauses, Appendix 2 provides constituent-

structure diagrams of the traditional sort and Appendix 3 diagrams the
relationships among various constructions.) Students who use this book
and continue with English Language or Linguistics will learn in detail
about constituent analysis and formal models of syntax in their second
or later years. I hope that readers of this book will find it interesting (in
places, at least), clear, and useful after their studies are finished.
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To readers

We study syntax because it enables human beings to compose complex

messages. Suppose a disgruntled worker utters the single word idiot! He
or she might have muttered stupid, unfeeling, ignorant idiot, with four words
combined into a phrase. The speaker might even have said That stupid,
unfeeling, ignorant idiot is the new manager!, in which the phrase the new
manager and the phrase that stupid, unfeeling, ignorant idiot are combined
into a clause by means of is. (For a discussion of phrases and clauses, see
Chapters 1, 2, 6 and 7.)
Syntax has to do with how words are put together to build phrases,
with how phrases are put together to build clauses or bigger phrases,
and with how clauses are put together to build sentences. In small and
familiar situations, humans could communicate using single words and
many gestures, particularly when dealing with other members of the
same social grouping (nuclear family, extended family, clan and so on).
But complex messages for complex situations or complex ideas require
more than just single words; every human language has devices with
which its speakers can construct phrases and clauses.
We habitually talk of human languages and their speakers; we ask
questions such as ‘How many speakers are there of Chinese/Arabic/
Spanish?’ Nobody ever asks how many writers such-and-such a language
has, but the distinction between speaking and writing is crucial and
affects the study of syntax. It is therefore surprising that we cannot draw
a major distinction between spoken and written language. Instead, the
major distinction is between language for which very little planning time
is available and language for which much more planning time is avail-
able. Much spoken language is indeed produced with little planning
time, but some kinds are planned or semi-planned. A current-affairs
report on radio is written but spoken aloud, while lectures in universities
have at least an outline script in the form of ‘headlines’ projected onto
a screen but require some improvisation. Many types of writing involve
planning, such as essays, research papers and books, but other types of
xii
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TO READERS xiii

written text are typically produced quickly, such as personal letters and
e-mail messages to friends or close colleagues.
Many kinds of spoken language, not just the spontaneous speech of
domestic conversation or discussions in pubs, have a syntax that is very
different from the syntax of formal writing. It is essential to understand
that the differences exist not because spoken language is a degradation
of written language but because any written language, whether English
or Chinese, results from centuries of development and elaboration by
a small number of users – clerics, administrators, lawyers and literary
people. The process involves the development of complex syntactic con-
structions and complex vocabulary. In spite of the huge prestige enjoyed
by written language in any literate society, spoken language is primary
in several major respects. There are, or were until recently, societies with
a spoken language but no written language, but no societies with only a
written language; children usually learn to speak long before they learn
to read and write; and the vast majority of human beings use speech far
more often than writing.
The syntax of spontaneous spoken language has been ‘designed’ or
‘developed’ to suit the conditions of speech – little planning time, the
possibility of transmitting information by loudness, pitch and general
voice quality, and support from hand gestures, facial expressions and
so on (what is known as ‘non-verbal communication’). For a particular
language, the syntax of spontaneous speech overlaps with the syntax of
formal writing; there is a common core of constructions. For instance,
The instructions are useless could be spoken or written. However, many
constructions occur in speech but not in writing, and vice versa. She
doesn’t say much – knows a lot though is typical of speech, but typical of
writing is Although she does not say much, she knows a lot.
The special syntax of spontaneous spoken language is not produced
just by speakers with the minimum of formal education. One of the most
detailed investigations of spoken syntax was carried out in Russia in the
late 1960s and early 1970s. The speakers recorded on tape in all sorts
of informal situations were doctors, lawyers and academics, but their
speech turned out to be very different in syntax from written Russian.
Moreover, their syntax had general properties which have turned up in
bodies of spontaneous spoken English, French and German.
This book deals with concepts suitable for the analysis of all types
of language, from spontaneous unplanned conversation to planned
and edited formal writing. The one exception is the unit that we call
‘sentence’. Attempts to apply this unit to spontaneous speech have not
been successful; speakers disagree, sometimes spectacularly, on where
sentences begin and end in recordings of spontaneous speech in their
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xiv AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

native language. The sentence appears to be a unit developed for formal

writing. It is also appropriate for the analysis of planned speech where
the syntax is that of writing.
People learn the syntax and vocabulary of formal writing from books
and in school in a process that lasts into the early twenties for university
graduates and can continue much longer. In general, the more exposure
speakers have to formal schooling, the more easily and frequently
they use in speech the syntax and vocabulary that are typical of formal
writing. Individuals have choices, however; a highly educated individual
may choose to keep to simple language in speech and writing, and in-
dividuals with a minimum of formal education but a large exposure to
books may use very complex language in all situations.
The concept of a language is not straightforward. People think of
themselves as, say, speakers of French or speakers of English, but they
can be thought of as possessing a core of grammar and vocabulary and a
greater or lesser number of other genres, possibly with special syntactic
constructions but certainly with special vocabulary and fixed combi-
nations of words; the language of literary criticism is different from
the language of football reports. The syntactic concepts presented in this
book apply to all types of English (or French or Chinese), and many of
them apply to all languages.
Many differences among speakers come from the distinction between
a standard variety and non-standard varieties. The standard variety of a
given language is typically the one spoken by the group of people who
possess military, political and economic power. In France, this was the
group inhabiting the Île de France with Paris at its centre. In England
(and later in Great Britain and the United Kingdom), it was the group
inhabiting London and the surrounding area. (That last sentence simpli-
fies a very complex historical process.)
Non-standard varieties tend to be spoken only, while standard
varieties are spoken and written. Only standard varieties are used in
education, in broadcasting, in government documents and in spoken
communications from government; non-standard varieties are used at
home, in many shops, among certain groups of workers and so on. There
never has been a clear dividing line with all activities on one side of the
line conducted in a standard variety and all activities on the other side
being conducted in non-standard varieties. Many accounts of standard
language convey a black-and-white picture, but it is false for spoken
language; there are many shades of linguistic grey. Two important points
have to be made with respect to standard and non-standard varieties (of
English, say). Non-standard varieties have their own regular syntactic
patterns, different in many respects from the patterns of the standard
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TO READERS xv

variety but nonetheless regular. The syntactic concepts introduced in

the rest of this book are just as applicable to non-standard varieties as to
the standard.
Syntax is neutral with respect to ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ English,
French and so on. Analysts of English aim to cover as much data as poss-
ible. They collect samples of current speech and writing and note that
examples such as (1) are typical of speech but also occur in writing while
examples such as (2) occur mainly in formal writing. That is, they
analyse and describe all the data they come across.
(1) Which club did you hit the winning putt with?
(2) With which club did you hit the winning putt?
Other observers of English assume it is their duty to recommend that
only (2) be used in writing and preferably also in speaking. They do not
just describe; they prescribe certain constructions and they proscribe
others. They are likely to disparage (1) as ‘sloppy’ if not downright
‘incorrect’. Careful analysts observe that these judges of usage are like
the courtiers advising King Canute to stop the flow of the tide by issuing
a command. Like the ebb and flow of the tide, usages of language and
changes of usage cannot be controlled by the commands of writer or
teacher, and objective analysts must include all the constructions of a
given language.
The preceding comments are quite compatible with the view that
speakers and writers can produce syntax that is confusing and even
wrong. Sentences may be too long or organised with complex phrases
right at the beginning, which makes them difficult to interpret. A writer,
say someone learning English as a second language, who produces I hope
being admitted to Edinburgh University has either not completed the sen-
tence or has used an incorrect construction, that is, one that is unaccept-
able to many or even most normal adult speakers and writers of standard
English. I hope to be admitted … is what he or she should have used.
We said earlier in this introduction that humans need syntax in order
to compose complex messages. Messages convey meaning, but elemen-
tary syntax books typically begin by stating forcibly one central import-
ant point: you cannot analyse syntax coherently and consistently by
appealing in the first place to the meaning of words, phrases, clauses and
sentences. Here, too, we waste no time but in Chapters 1–3 plunge into
a discussion of the concepts required for an analysis of syntax that is not
based on meaning.
That said, it would be wrong to deny all parallels between syntax and
meaning. For example, the organisation of syntax is not entirely arbi-
trary. We will see in Chapter 2 that phrases consist of a central word
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xvi AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

called a head and other words which are said to modify the head. Heads
and modifiers occur in regular patterns. In neutral clauses of English (see
Chapter 3 on constructions), adjectives precede their head noun – scary
ideas – and relative clauses follow their head noun – the letter that she wrote.
Some languages, such as Turkish, are more regular than English, and
both adjectives and relative clauses precede their head noun. Objects
of different kinds (direct, indirect – see Chapter 10 on grammatical
functions) follow the verb in neutral clauses.
There are regular patterns of syntax for making statements, asking
different types of question and giving commands (see Chapter 3 on
constructions). Words in English fall into a number of word classes –
nouns, verbs, adjectives and so on. Over the past forty years, textbooks
have regularly expressed doubt about the different word classes being
connected with differences in meaning. While there is not a perfect
match, the system of word classes is now seen to rest on a solid core of
differences in meaning; these have to do with the kinds of things denoted
by nouns, verbs and so on, and also with what speakers do with them.
(See the discussion in Chapter 4 on word classes.)
Finally, there are strong correlations between differences in syntax
and differences in meaning in one central area of English (and other
languages) – the distinctions between past and present tense, between
progressive and simple verbs (was writing vs wrote) and between singular
and plural in nouns, between the Perfect and the Simple Past (has written
vs wrote), between different moods and modalities. (Ignore these tech-
nical terms just now – they are explained in Chapter 13.) As psycho-
linguists have pointed out, human beings find arbitrary codes difficult
to learn and use (random sequences of numbers, say). But similarities in
syntax do tie in with similarities in meaning. Children are no better than
adults at handling arbitrary codes; if there were no connection between
grammar and meaning, they would find it difficult, if not impossible, to
acquire their native language.
Language is at the centre of human societies; it plays a crucial part in
the organisation of social activities, from government through the work-
place to the home. These complex tasks require complex language, and
that requires syntax.
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1 Heads and modifiers

1.1 Heads and modifiers

Our discussion of syntax begins with two central ideas. The first is that
certain relationships hold between words whereby one word, the head,
controls the other words, the modifiers. A given head may have more
than one modifier, and may have no modifier. The second idea is that
words are grouped into phrases and that groupings typically bring
together heads and their modifiers. In the large dog, the word dog is the
head, and the and large are its modifiers. In barked loudly, the word barked
is the head and loudly the modifier. (Criteria for recognising heads and
modifiers will be given below.)
A phrase, then, is a group of interrelated words. As we will see in
Chapter 2, groups of interrelated words can be moved around inside
clauses as a single unit; here, we concentrate on the fact that in such
groups we recognise various links among the words, between heads and
their modifiers. This relationship of modification is fundamental in
syntax. It will play an important role in the account of different types of
clause (Chapter 6) and is crucial to discussions of word order in differ-
ent languages.
How are we to understand the statement ‘one word, the head, controls
the other words, the modifiers’? Consider the sentences in (1)–(2),
which also introduce the use of the asterisk – ‘*’ – to mark unacceptable
examples.
(1) a. Ethel was sitting at her desk.
b. *The Ethel was sitting at her desk.
(2) a. *Accountant was sitting at her desk.
b. The accountant was sitting at her desk.
c. Accountants audit our finances every year.
Example (1a) is a grammatical sentence of English, but (1b) is not gram-
matical (at least as an example of standard English). Ethel is a type
of noun that typically excludes words such as the and a. (Nouns are
1
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2 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

described in Chapter 4 on word classes. Here, we will use nouns that

accord with their traditional definition as words that denote people,
places and things.) Accountant is a different type of noun; if it is singular,
as in (2a), it requires a word such as the or a. In (2c), accountants consists
of accountant plus the plural suffix -s and denotes more than one account-
ant. It does not require the. Plural nouns, of course, exclude a or an but
allow words such as some or more, as shown in (3).
(3) a. *I would like an accountants to sort out my tax return.
b. Some accountants were quietly counting in the back office.
c. Would more accountants make any difference to my tax bill?
Another type of noun, which includes words such as salt, sand and
water, can occur without any word such as the, a or some, as in (4a, b), and
can occur in the plural but only with a large change in meaning. Example
(4c) can only mean that different types of salt were spread.
(4) a. The gritter spread salt.
b. The gritter spread the salt.
c. The gritter spread salts.
Note too that a plural noun such as gritters allows either less or fewer, as
in (5d) and (5c), whereas salt requires less and excludes fewer, as in (5a)
and (5b).
(5) a. This gritter spread less salt than that one.
b. *This gritter spread fewer salt than that one.
c. There are fewer gritters on the motorway this winter.
d. There are less gritters on the motorway this winter.
The central property of the above examples is that Ethel, accountant, salt
and gritter permit or exclude the plural suffix and permit or exclude
words such as the, a, some, less and fewer – note that Ethel excludes the, a,
some, less and fewer; salt in (4a) excludes a and fewer; gritters excludes a;
accountant allows both the and a, and so on.
We have looked at phrases with nouns as the controlling word, but
other types of word exercise similar control. Many adjectives such as sad
or big allow words such as very to modify them – very sad, very big – but
exclude words such as more – sadder is fine but more sad is at the very least
unusual. Other adjectives, such as wooden, exclude very and more – *very
wooden, *more wooden. That is, wooden excludes very and more in its literal
meaning, but note that very is acceptable when wooden has a metaphori-
cal meaning, as in The policeman had a very wooden expression.
Even a preposition can be the controlling word in a group. Prep-
ositions link nouns to nouns (books about antiques), adjectives to nouns (rich
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HEADS AND MODIFIERS 3

in minerals) and verbs to nouns (aimed at the target). Most prepositions

must be followed by a group of words containing a noun, or by a noun
on its own, as in (They sat) round the table, (Claude painted) with this paint-
brush, (I’ve bought a present) for the children. A small number of prepositions
allow another preposition between them and the noun: In behind the wood-
pile (was a hedgehog), (An owl swooped on the rabbit) from up in the beech tree. In
allows behind and from allows up. That is, the preposition controls what-
ever word or phrase follows it. Another aspect of this control can be seen
from the fact that in standard English prepositions can be followed by
pronouns, but they exclude I, he, she, we and they and require me, him, her,
us and them: *I’ve bought a present for she, I’ve bought a present for her.

1.2 Heads, modifiers and meaning

The distinction between heads and modifiers has been put in terms
of one word, the head, that controls the other words in a phrase, the
modifiers. If we think of language as a way of conveying information –
which is what every speaker does with language some of the time – we
can consider the head as conveying a central piece of information and
the modifiers as conveying extra information. Thus in the phrase expen-
sive books the head word books indicates the very large set of things that
count as books, while expensive indicates that the speaker is drawing
attention not to the whole set but to the subset of books that are expen-
sive. In the longer phrase the expensive books, the word the signals that the
speaker is referring to a set of books which have already been mentioned
or are otherwise obvious in a particular context.
The same narrowing-down of meaning applies to phrases containing
verbs. Note first that different verbs have different powers of control.
Some verbs, as in (6a), exclude a direct object (to use the traditional
terminology and anticipating Chapter 8), other verbs require a direct
object, as in (6b), and a third set of verbs allows a direct object but does
not require one, as in (6c).
(6) a. *The White Rabbit vanished his watch / The White Rabbit
vanished.
b. Dogs chase cats / *Dogs chase.
c. Flora cooks / Flora cooks gourmet meals.
Consider the examples drove and drove a Volvo. Drove indicates driving
in general; drove a Volvo narrows down the activity to driving a particular
make of car. Consider further the phrase on the plate. The first word, on,
signals a relationship between some entity, say a piece of toast or a knife,
and the surface of something; the plate tells us what that something is, that
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4 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

is, it narrows down the meaning ‘being on’ to ‘being on a particular plate’.
Finally in this brief set of examples, we return to the point made
earlier in passing that heads may have several modifiers. This is most
easily illustrated with verbs; the phrase bought a present for Jeanie in Jenners
last Tuesday contains four modifiers of bought – a present, for Jeanie, in
Jenners and last Tuesday. A present signals what was bought and narrows
down the activity from just buying to buying a present as opposed,
say, to buying the weekly groceries. For Jeanie narrows the meaning
down further – not just ‘buy a present’ but ‘buy a present for Jeanie’,
and similarly for the phrases in Jenners and last Tuesday.

1.3 Complements and adjuncts

The last example, bought a present for Jeanie in Jenners last Tuesday, brings
us to the second major distinction in this chapter. Modifiers fall into two
classes – obligatory modifiers, known as complements, and optional
modifiers, known as adjuncts. The distinction was first developed for the
phrases that modify verbs, and indeed applies most easily to the modi-
fiers of verbs; we will focus on verbs, but the distinction is also applied to
the modifiers of nouns. Before discussing the division of modifiers into
complements and adjuncts, we must take the example at the beginning
of this paragraph and convert it to a complete clause, say My mother
bought a present for Jeanie in Jenners last Tuesday. We saw from (6a–c) that
the verb controls whether a direct object is excluded, required or merely
allowed. (The term ‘direct object’ is discussed in Chapter 8.)
From these examples, we might conclude that the verb controls only
the phrases that follow it; but the verb can be seen as controlling every
other phrase in the clause. (My) mother in the revised example above is
the subject of the verb. As will be demonstrated in Chapter 8, the subject
of a clause plays an important role; nonetheless, in a given clause the
verb controls the subject noun too. Bought requires a human subject noun;
that is, it does in everyday language but behaves differently in the
language of fairy stories, which narrate events that are unconstrained
by the biological and physical laws of this world. A verb such as 
requires a subject noun denoting a liquid; if in a given clause it has a
subject noun denoting some other kind of entity,  imposes an in-
terpretation of that entity as a liquid. (Of course, some entities can be
either liquids or solids; molten steel flows, solid steel does not.) Thus
people talk of a crowd flowing along a road, of traffic flowing smoothly
or of ideas flowing freely. Such talk offers a view of the crowd moving
along a road held in by the buildings on either side and propelled by
a mysterious motive force, just as a river moves along in a mysterious
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HEADS AND MODIFIERS 5

fashion held in by its banks. What we are considering is the distinction

between literal language and figurative or metaphorical language. The
distinction will not be explored here, but it is important to be aware that
many of the constraints which linguists discuss apply to literal language
but dissolve in figurative language.
Returning to the clause My mother bought a present for Jeanie in Jenners
last Tuesday, we will say that the verb bought controls all the other phrases
in the clause and is the head of the clause. It requires a human noun to
its left, here mother ; it requires a noun to its right that denotes something
concrete (although we talk figuratively of buying ideas in the sense of
agreeing with them). It allows, but does not require, time expressions
such as last Tuesday and place expressions such as in Jenners. Such ex-
pressions convey information about the time when some event happened
and about the place where it happened. With verbs, such time and place
expressions are always optional and are held to be adjuncts. The major
exception is , which has its own syntactic patterns. Phrases that are
obligatory are called complements. (The term ‘complement’ derives
from a Latin verb ‘to fill’; the idea conveyed by ‘complement’ is that a
complement expression fills out the verb (or noun and so on), filling
it out or completing it with respect to syntax but also with respect to
meaning. The term ‘adjunct’ derives from the Latin verb ‘join’ or ‘add’
and simply means ‘something adjoined’, tacked on and not part of the
essential structure of clauses.) All verbs in English declarative clauses
require a noun to their left; even where the buyers are known, they must
be mentioned by means of a noun. Verbs such as  also require a noun
to their right. Without one, the clause in which they occur is incomplete
and the message conveyed by the clause is incomplete for speakers of
English.

1.4 Clauses
The technical term ‘clause’ has slipped into the discussion without being
explained. Suppose we want to describe different paperweights. To dis-
tinguish them, we talk of their shape, height, weight and colour and the
material from which they are made. Shape, height and so on are the basic
units we use to describe the paperweights, but we might need other units
that enable us to talk about height (inches, centimetres), weight (ounces
and grammes) and colour (blue, green). In order to talk about syntax
coherently, we need units for our analysis. One unit is the phrase, which
enables us to describe the relationship between other units, namely
heads and modifiers, as in the accountant, very unhappy and in behind the sofa.
Another unit is the clause, which enables us to talk coherently about
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6 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

the relationships between verbs and different types of phrase. An ideal

clause contains a phrase referring to an action or state, a phrase or
phrases referring to the people and things involved in the action or state,
and possibly phrases referring to place and time. My mother bought a
present is a clause. The phrase my mother refers to the buyer, bought refers
to the action and a present refers to what was bought. We can add the
phrase for Jeanie, which refers to the person benefiting from the action.
Finally, we can tack on, or leave out, the place phrase in Jenners and the
time phrase last Tuesday.
The clause is a unit which as a minimum consists of a verb and its
complements but which may consist of a verb, its complements and its
adjuncts. The clause is a useful unit because it gives us a framework
for discussing the relationship between, for example, bought and the
other phrases. We will see later that it also gives a framework for talking
coherently about constituent structure (Chapter 2), syntactic linkage
(Chapter 9) and statements, questions and commands (Chapter 6).
Note that in the last paragraph but one, one of the phrases that turned
out to be adjuncts contains a preposition, in, while the other one consists
of an adjective, last, and a noun, Tuesday. (Nouns and prepositions and
the general concept of word classes will be discussed in Chapter 4.) The
example of the excursion to Jenners conveniently illustrates the lack of
a reliable correlation between the type of a given phrase (does it have a
preposition, noun or adjective as its head?) and the phrase’s function as
complement or adjunct. Consider (7).
(7) The cat shot into the kitchen on Sunday morning carrying a dead
mouse.
As in the Jenners example, the time expression on Sunday morning signals
the time when the event happened. Like the phrase carrying a dead mouse,
it is optional. Consider now the phrase into the kitchen and its relationship
to shot. This phrase is obligatory with this particular verb. *The cat shot is
not acceptable, whereas The cat shot off or The cat shot into the kitchen are
correct. That is, the phrase into the kitchen is obligatory and therefore a
complement of shot. It expresses direction, where the cat moved to, and
directional phrases in general are complements. We must note, however,
that directional phrases are not always obligatory. Consider (8).
(8) The cat pranced into the kitchen carrying a dead mouse.
If the phrases into the kitchen and carrying a dead mouse are excised, what
is left is still an acceptable sentence, The cat pranced. Nonetheless, the
directional phrase into the kitchen is treated as a complement. The reason
is that the occurrence of directional phrases is closely bound up with the
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HEADS AND MODIFIERS 7

meaning of verbs; verbs expressing movement allow or require them.

Verbs that do not express movement exclude them, as in *The cat lies onto
the rug in front of the fire vs The cat lies on the rug in front of the fire. In contrast,
phrases expressing the place where something happened occur with all
sorts of verbs, whether or not they express movement.
At this point, we anticipate Chapter 5, ‘The lexicon’, and describe the
state of affairs in terms of what goes into the dictionary entries of verbs;
if it has to be stated in the dictionary whether a given verb or subset of
verbs excludes (or requires) a particular type of phrase, that phrase is a
complement. The dictionary entry for lie must state that it excludes
directional phrases, whereas the entry for shoot (at least in the meaning it
has in (7)) must state that shoot requires a directional phrase. The diction-
ary entry for prance will state that the verb allows a directional phrase but
does not require one.

1.5 Dictionary entries and collocations

An important point implicit in the preceding paragraph is that the status
of phrases as complement or adjunct varies from verb to verb. This point
is worth emphasising here because it is part of the larger question of the
relationship between grammar and dictionary that will be discussed in
Chapter 5. It also introduces a third property of complements. English
possesses (as do other languages) combinations of verb and object in
which the actual lexical items that can occur are severely limited. In
English (at least in the UK) you can toast bread, toast marshmallows or even
toast your toes. You do not grill bread, in spite of the fact that the processes
of toasting and grilling are similar (if you choose not to use the toaster).
Similarly, we talk of braising meat (but not usually other items of food).
Other areas than cooking offer examples of particular verbs typically
combining with particular nouns; people lay tables, chop or split logs
and kindling (even in these days of almost ubiquitous central heating),
make beds and vire money or funds (if you are a civil servant or univer-
sity administrator).
These regular fixed combinations of verbs and nouns are called collo-
cations, and they involve heads and complements. Fixed combinations of
verb and adjective are also found – prove useless, prove necessary – and a
good number of verbs require particular prepositions. Blame someone for
something and blame something on someone are set expressions in which only
the prepositions for or on can occur; this is information that must be
stated in the dictionary entry for blame. It must be made clear that these
collocations are not proposed as a criterion for recognising comple-
ments. The central criteria are whether or not a particular phrase is
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8 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

obligatory with a particular verb, as with shot and into the kitchen in (7),
or whether a particular type of phrase has to be mentioned in the
dictionary entry for a particular verb. The collocational facts constitute
interesting extra information but, and this is the difficulty, are not con-
fined to verbs and their complement nouns; they apply to adjectives and
nouns – heavy smoker, heavy drinker, staple diet, staple crop, staple industry –
and to combinations of adjective and another word, for example, brand
new, wide awake, rock solid, frozen hard. On the main criterion for comple-
ments, being obligatory, brand, wide, rock and hard are not complements
of new, awake, solid and frozen, which is why collocations are not a test for
complement status but merely an additional set of interesting facts.

1.6 Verbs, complements and the order of phrases

This chapter finishes with one more technical term and one last fact
about heads and complements. The relationships between heads and
modifiers are called dependencies or dependency relations. In this chap-
ter, heads have been described as controlling modifiers; modifiers are
said to depend on, or to be dependent on, their heads. Heads and their
modifiers typically cluster together to form a phrase, certainly in formal
written language. In accordance with a long tradition in Europe, verbs
are treated here as the head, not just of phrases, but of whole clauses.
(This idea is discussed further in Chapter 9.) In clauses, the verb and its
complements tend to occur close together, with the adjuncts pushed
towards the outside of the clause, as shown by the examples in (9).
(Remember that the subject noun is regarded as a complement, since it
is obligatory.)
(9) a. Maisie drove her car from Morningside to Leith on Wednesday.
b. On Wednesday Maisie drove her car from Morningside to Leith.
c. Maisie drove her car on Wednesday from Morningside to Leith.
In (9a), the object her car is next to the verb, followed by the direc-
tional phrases from Morningside and to Leith. As discussed above, objects
and directional phrases are complements. The time-when phrase on
Wednesday is at the end of the clause in (9a) and at the beginning of
the clause in (9b). In (9b), it is closer to drove, but this is not important.
What is important is the fact that the adjunct does not come between the
head and any of the complements. This does happen in (9c), where on
Wednesday separates the complement her car from the other complement
to Leith. Example (9c) is at the least awkward – although there might be
contexts in which that order of phrases would be appropriate.
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HEADS AND MODIFIERS 9

Summary
Every phrase contains a head and possibly, but not necessarily, one or
more modifiers. Each clause has a head, the verb. There are two types of
modifiers, namely complements and adjuncts. Adjuncts are optional;
complements are typically obligatory and are always mentioned in the
lexical entries for verbs (or nouns or prepositions). Many collocation
restrictions apply to heads and complements (but also to phrases other
than complements). Heads and complements are typically adjacent;
where a head has two or more complements, adjuncts typically come
before or after the sequence of head and complements.

Exercises
1. Consider the modifiers of the verbs in the following sentences. (For
the purposes of this exercise, exclude the grammatical subjects.) Which
of the modifiers are obligatory and which are optional? Which of the
modifiers are complements and which are adjuncts?
1.Sir Thomas agreed with Edmund.
2.Mr Elton delivered a charade to Emma for a friend.
3.She thrust the documents into her briefcase.
4.Raskolnikov killed the old woman with an axe.
5.Mr D’Arcy met the Gardiners at Pemberley in the summer.
6.Frank sent a piano to Jane Fairfax.
7.The porter placed the letter on the secretary’s desk.
8.Harriet imagined that Mr Elton would propose to her.
9.The picnic was held at Box Hill in the summer.
[Treat was held as a single verb.]
10. He executed great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes.
11. We were expecting the worst that day in 1968.
12. The report details the proposals for the chief executive.

2. Pick out four examples of heads and modifiers in each of the follow-
ing sentences (which are from William Dalrymple’s book From the Holy
Mountain (Flamingo, 1998). You will notice that modifiers may them-
selves contain heads. Thus in the phrase sitting at her desk the head sitting
is modified by at her desk. The phrase at her desk has as its head the word
at, which has as its modifier the phrase her desk. The head of the latter
phrase is desk, which has her as its modifier.
1. I ate breakfast in a vast Viennese ballroom with a sprung wooden
floor and dadoes dripping with recently reapplied gilt.
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10 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

2. The lift is a giant baroque birdcage, entered through a rainforest of

potted palms.
3. On the wall nearby, newly dusted, is a framed diploma from the
1932 Ideal Homes Exhibition, signed by the mayor of East Ham.
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2 Constituent structure

2.1 Heads, modifiers and arrangements of words

In Chapter 1, we discussed the relations between heads and modifiers
and at the end of the chapter labelled these relations ‘dependencies’.
Dependencies are central to syntax. To make sense of a clause or sen-
tence in written language or of a series of clauses in spontaneous speech,
we have to pick out each head and the words that modify it. This task
is made easier by the organisation of words into phrases and clauses.
Speakers and writers produce words and phrases one after the other.
(It does not matter whether the writer sets out words from left to right,
as in English texts, or right to left, as in Arabic texts.) Heads and modi-
fiers tend to occur next to each other. For instance, in English, nouns
can be modified by various types of words and phrases – adjectives,
prepositional phrases and relative clauses, not to mention words such as
a, the, this and some. Examples are given in (1).
(1) a. the house
b. the splendid house
c. the house on the hilltop
d. the house which they built out of reinforced concrete
In (1a), house is modified by the definite article the; in (1b) it is modified
by the definite article and by the adjective splendid. The definite article,
the indefinite article a and demonstratives such as this and that precede
their head noun, but certain modifiers follow their head noun. Examples
are the prepositional phrase on the hilltop in (1c) and the relative clause
which they built out of reinforced concrete in (1d).
In noun phrases in some other languages, the order of head and
modifiers follows a stricter pattern, with all modifiers either preceding
or following the head. In French, for example, most adjectives and all
prepositional phrases and relative clauses follow the noun, although the
definite and indefinite articles precede it. This is demonstrated in (2).
11
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12 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

(2) a. la maison
the house
b. la maison splendide
the house splendid ‘the splendid house’
c. la maison sur la colline
the house on the hill ‘the house on the hill’
d. la maison qu’ ils ont construite en béton armé
the house which they have built of concrete reinforced
‘the house which they built of reinforced concrete’
The adjective splendide, the prepositional phrase sur la colline and the rela-
tive clause qu’ils ont construite en béton armé all follow the head noun. At
this point, we come up against one of the interesting (or annoying) facts
of French and indeed of all human languages: most patterns have excep-
tions. In French, a small number of adjectives precede their head noun,
as in une jolie ville (a pretty town) and un jeune étudiant (a young student),
but the large majority of adjectives follow their head noun.
Returning to English, we see that in certain declarative clauses the
modifiers of prepositions follow their head preposition. Example (3a)
shows the typical pattern, with the preposition into followed by the
kitchen; (3b) shows an impossible example, with into at the beginning of
the clause and the kitchen at the end; and (3c) shows the correct structure.
(3) a. Jeeves shimmered into the room.
b. *Into Jeeves shimmered the room.
c. Into the room shimmered Jeeves.
In some other English clauses, the noun-phrase modifier of a preposition
can be separated from its head preposition. Example (4a) is the typical
way of questioning room in (3a). In it, which room is at the front of the
clause, and into is ‘stranded’ at the end of the clause. Example (4b) is also
acceptable but is mainly used in formal writing.
(4) a. Which room did Jeeves shimmer into?
b. Into which room did Jeeves shimmer?
We can note in passing that similar stranding is found in clauses intro-
duced by which or who. In formal writing, a preposition plus which/who
turns up at the front of the clause, as in the room into which Jeeves shimmered.
In informal writing and in informal speech, the preposition is left behind
at the end of the clause, as in the room which Jeeves shimmered into.
Verbs can be modified by a number of items, as we have seen in
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CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE 13

Chapter 1. Example (5) shows the order of modifiers in a neutral clause,

that is, a clause in which no particular word or phrase is emphasised.
(5) Barbara handed the results to Alan on Tuesday.
Barbara, the subject noun phrase, precedes the verb, but the other modi-
fiers follow it – the noun phrase (direct object) the results, the prep-
ositional phrase (oblique object) to Alan and the prepositional phrase
(adverb of time) on Tuesday. (The concepts ‘subject’, ‘direct object’ and
‘oblique object’ are discussed in Chapter 8.) Typically, the subject and
the direct object are immediately next to the verb, the subject preceding
it, the direct object following it. In (5), the subject Barbara and the direct
object the results are next to the verb. In other languages, the verbs and
modifiers are arranged in patterns that put all the modifiers either before
or after the verb. In written Turkish, for instance, the order in neutral
clauses is that the verb comes last, preceded by all the modifiers.

2.2 Tests for phrases

The arrangement of words into phrases and phrases into clauses may
seem self-evident from the above discussion, particularly if you are a
native speaker of English or a non-native speaker who knows English
well. In fact, it is not always clear how the words in a given phrase are
arranged or how the phrases are arranged in a given clause. Fortunately,
tests have been developed to help analysts.

2.2.1 Transposition
Many sequences of words can be moved together into different slots in a
clause; this is evidence that the words form a phrase. Let us go back to
(3a), Jeeves shimmered into the room. We can think of (3a) as being converted
to (3c) by the words into the room being moved, or transposed, to the front
of the clause. This transposition indicates that the three separate words
combine into a larger block, a phrase. Transposition also applies to
phrases without prepositions. The words the results in (5) can be moved
to the front of the clause to give The results Barbara handed to Alan on
Tuesday, a clause that is appropriate if the speaker or writer continues,
for example, The actual scripts she kept until Friday.
The above examples of transposition have to do with a sequence of
words being moved from one position in a clause to another position
without any other changes in the clause. (Remember the comment from
Chapter 1 that the clause is a unit of analysis within which we can talk
coherently about the order of phrases and the fact that phrases can
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14 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

occupy different positions.) Transposition is one of the tests that reveal

whether a given sequence of words make up a phrase or are just words
that happen to come one after the other. If you know English well, you
may be tempted to think that such a test is unnecessary; but two facts
speak against this temptation. One is that in spite of the vast amount of
research on English syntax in the twentieth century we still come across
examples whose structure is not obvious. The second fact is that many
linguists work not just on languages other than English but on languages
which have been little studied or not studied at all. In these circum-
stances, tests such as transposition are essential.
The test of transposition is also applied in a slightly different fashion.
Consider the active clause in (6a) and the passive clause in (6b).
(6) a. The pupils in this maths class gave cakes to Margaret every
Friday.
b. Cakes were given to Margaret every Friday by the pupils in this
maths class.
The phrase the pupils in this maths class is at the beginning of the clause in
(6a) and refers to the people doing the giving. The same sequence is at
the end of the clause in (6b) and is the complement of the preposition
by. In contrast with (3a) and (3b), the differences between (6a) and (6b)
consist of more than just a group of words being moved from one
position to another. Example (6a) contains gave, while (6b) contains
the words were and given. Example (6b) also contains the prepositional
phrase by the pupils in this maths class, whereas (6a) has no prepositional
phrase. When we use ‘transposition’ with respect to examples such as
(6a) and (6b), we are talking about sequences of words that turn up in a
particular order in one position in one construction and about the same
sequences of words turning up in the same order in another construc-
tion. The sequence the pupils in this maths class occurs in the different con-
structions in (6a) and (6b). (Constructions are discussed in Chapter 3.)
The test of transposition applies to other sequences of words, as
shown by (7).
(7) a. This parcel is very heavy.
b. This very heavy parcel was delivered yesterday.
c. Very heavy, this parcel!
d. What this parcel is is very heavy.
In (7a), the sequence of words/the phrase very heavy is the complement
of is ; in (7b) it is the modifier of parcel. It turns up at the beginning of the
spoken construction in (7c). In (7d) it is also the complement of is, but
in a special emphatic construction. Very can be replaced by words such
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CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE 15

as astonishingly, and the sequence can be made longer – astonishingly and

frighteningly heavy – but can still be transposed, as shown in This parcel is
astonishingly and frighteningly heavy, this astonishingly and frighteningly heavy
parcel was delivered yesterday, What this parcel is is astonishingly and frighten-
ingly heavy.
Examples (3a) and (3c) show that a sequence of words introduced
by a preposition – into the room – can be transposed. Another example is
given in (8).
(8) a. We felled the laburnum with this chainsaw.
b. With this chainsaw we felled the laburnum.

2.2.2 Substitution
The essential idea behind this test is that a single word can substitute
for a number of words hanging together as a phrase. This is demon-
strated in (9).
(9) a. Barbara handed the intriguing results of the latest examination to Alan
on Tuesday.
b. Barbara handed them to Alan on Tuesday.
Them in (9b) substitutes for the intriguing results of the latest examination in
(9a). Similarly, in (6a) and (6b) David can be substituted for the pupils in
this maths class: David baked cakes for Margaret every Friday and Cakes were
baked for Margaret every Friday by David.
The test of substitution applies to sequences of words with adjectives,
such as those in (7); This parcel is very heavy, This parcel is astonishingly and
frighteningly heavy or simply This parcel is heavy. The single adjective heavy
substitutes for the sequences very heavy and astonishingly and frighteningly
heavy but another type of substitution is possible, using the specialised
substitution word so. Consider the dialogue in (10). (Here capital letters
represent different speakers.)
(10) A. This large parcel is very heavy.
B. No it’s not.
C. It is so.
The test of so-substitution exemplified in (10) is straightforward in that
the sequence very heavy is removed and so is dropped into the empty slot.
Another type of so-substitution is rather indirect. Consider (11).
(11) This large parcel is very heavy and so is this small packet.
There is no doubt that so ‘stands for’ very heavy. The reason for calling
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16 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

this substitution ‘indirect’ is that so has not simply been dropped into the
slot occupied by very heavy but has been moved to the front of the clause.
Nonetheless, so-substitution is a good indication that sequences such as
very heavy form a larger unit.
Substitution can be applied to sequences introduced by prepositions,
as in (12) and (13).
(12) a. Vera is crocheting in the lounge.
b. Vera is crocheting there.
(13) a. Grandma is coming to Mr Chalky’s school tomorrow.
b. Grandma is coming here tomorrow.
There in (12b) substitutes for in the lounge in (12a), and here in (13b) sub-
stitutes for to Mr Chalky’s school in (13a). Examples in which a single
preposition substitutes for a whole sequence are difficult to find. This is
mainly because prepositions typically require a complement, but also
because in standard written English there is a contrast between in for
location and into for movement, and for many speakers there is a contrast
between out of for movement and out for location, as in (14).
(14) a. The cat was sleeping in the kitchen.
b. The cat trotted into the kitchen.
c. The mouse jumped out of the cheese-box.
d. The mouse was out the cheese-box.
In informal spoken English, and certainly in non-standard varieties of
English, in and out express both location and movement, and (14b, c) can
be expressed as (15a, b).
(15) a. The cat trotted in the kitchen.
b. The mouse jumped out the cheese-box.
These examples can be shortened to those in (16).
(16) a. The cat trotted in.
b. The mouse jumped out.
In these examples, in and out can be treated as single words substituting
for the longer phrases in the kitchen and out the cheese-box. However, for
the large majority of prepositions, the substitution of a preposition
for preposition plus noun phrase does not work, whether in writing or
informal speech, in standard or non-standard English.
Finally in this section, let us note that all the above examples show a
sequence of words being replaced by one word. The converse is that a
single word can be replaced by a sequence of words: Cheese is good can be
changed to That French cheese with the blue veins is good. The latter example
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CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE 17

is occasionally described in terms of cheese being expanded to that French

cheese with the blue veins, but it is treated here as a type of substitution.

2.2.3 Ellipsis
Consider the examples in (17).
(17) a. The terrier attacked the burglar. The terrier savaged the
burglar’s ankles.
b. The terrier attacked the burglar and the terrier savaged the
burglar’s ankles.
c. The terrier attacked the burglar and [ ] savaged the burglar’s
ankles.
Example (17a) contains two separate clauses. In (17b), the clauses are
conjoined by and; this gives a single sentence consisting of two clauses,
each beginning with the terrier. (See Chapter 6 for a discussion of clauses
and sentences.) Example (17c) is produced by deleting the second occur-
rence of the terrier. The square brackets in (17c) mark the site of the miss-
ing words, which are said to have been ellipted. Example (17c) is an
example of ellipsis. The important point about this type of ellipsis is that
it applies only to complete phrases. Sentences such as *The fierce terrier
attacked the burglar and terrier savaged the burglar’s ankles are incorrect,
because terrier must be preceded by the. Example (17b) is peculiar
because speakers and writers of English do not repeat phrases in this
manner but either ellipt the second occurrence of the phrase as in (17c)
or use a substitute such as he, she or it. The burglar occurs twice, once as
the phrase at the beginning of (17b) and again in the bigger phrase the
burglar’s ankles. In the latter phrase the burglar, or rather the burglar plus the
possessive suffix ’s, is replaced by his: The terrier attacked the burglar and she
savaged his ankles.

2.3 Phrases: words and slots

At this point in the discussion, we need to comment on the concept of
phrase. In everyday usage, the term ‘phrase’ is applied only to sequences
of more than one word. This is easily demonstrated with (5), reproduced
below as (18a) and (18b).
(18) a. Barbara handed the results to Alan on Tuesday.
b. Barbara handed them to Alan on Tuesday.
Examples (18a) and (18b) both contain the phrases (in the everyday
sense) to Alan and on Tuesday. In contrast, Barbara in (18a) and them in
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18 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

(18b) do not constitute everyday phrases because they each consist of

just one word. In syntactic analysis, a distinction between ‘phrase’ and
‘word’ is observed, but it does not match the everyday distinction since
both Barbara and them are treated as phrases. What is meant by ‘phrase’ is
a slot in which one or more words can occur, or indeed in which other
phrases can occur. In (18b) the phrase them consists of only one word,
but the term ‘phrase’ is used because what is being said is ‘Here is a slot
in which it is possible for more than one word to occur’. The fact that
there is only one word in the slot in this particular example is just an
accident; them can be replaced by a longer sequence, say the results of the
maths examination sat just before Christmas.
In both (18a) and (18b), the first phrase consists of a single word,
Barbara, but this too is an accident of these examples. Barbara could be
replaced by Margaret’s hard-working colleague. Likewise, the phrase to Alan
contains a noun phrase, Alan – just one word, but it could be replaced by
her colleague who was collating the examination marks. And in the phrase on
Tuesday, a longer sequence could be substituted for Tuesday, such as the
day he forgot his coat and got absolutely drenched.
The above discussion brings to our attention a universal and crucial
ambiguity. Terms such as ‘noun’ and ‘verb’ will be discussed in Chapter
4, and in this chapter we have used terms such as ‘noun phrase’ and
‘prepositional phrase’. These terms are applied to words; we talk of look-
ing for such-and-such a noun in the dictionary. They are applied to
sequences of words; many dictionaries contain fixed sequences such as
a rolling stone. They are also applied, and this is where the ambiguity lies,
to the slots in clauses in which particular words or phrases occur. This
brings us back to the point made above that when Barbara is labelled
a noun phrase the label captures the fact that this single word occupies a
slot that could be occupied by a sequence of words, a phrase.
2.4 Coordination
Words of the same type can be coordinated, that is, joined by special
words such as and and or. Phrases of the same type can be coordinated,
and clauses of the same type. In this section, we focus on words and
phrases. In the clause John and his energetic wife landscaped the garden twice
last year, John is a phrase consisting of a single word and his energetic wife
is a phrase consisting of three words. In spite of the disparity in length,
the two phrases are coordinated – John and his energetic wife. In the noun
phrase the bright and incredibly sharp air over Doubtful Sound, the one-word
adjective phrase bright is coordinated with the two-word adjective phrase
incredibly sharp. The fact of the coordination is one of the reasons for
recognising bright as a phrase.
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CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE 19

2.5 Concluding comments

We finish the discussion in this chapter with five general comments. The
first is simply that the tests of transposition and substitution apply inside
clauses, although they are often said to apply inside sentences. This is
one reason why the clause is a useful unit for our analysis; it enables us
to handle the fact that sequences of words occur in different positions
and to apply the tests to sequences whose status is not clear. Ellipsis too
applies inside a clause, but its operation takes two or more clauses into
account, since it deletes phrases that are repeated from one clause to the
following one.
The second comment concerns the different types of phrase. The
labels ‘noun phrase’, ‘prepositional phrase’ and ‘adjective phrase’ are
in general use. A phrase with a noun as its head is a noun phrase, for
example, her colleague who was collecting the exam scripts; a phrase with
a preposition as its head is a prepositional phrase, for example to Alan; a
phrase with an adjective as its head is an adjective phrase, for example
exceedingly sorry about the mistake. Sequences such as quickly and unbeliev-
ably quickly constitute adverbial phrases, that is, phrases in which the
adverb – here, quickly – is the head. The question of verb phrases will be
discussed in Chapter 10.
The third comment concerns the fact that phrases can contain other
phrases. The phrase to her colleague in the extended version of (18a)
discussed in Section 2.3 is a prepositional phrase; inside it is the noun
phrase her colleague. The phrase to Alan, discussed just above, is also a
prepositional phrase containing a noun phrase, which happens to consist
of one word, Alan. The phrase the rather intriguing results of the examination
is a noun phrase. Its head is results, a noun which is modified by the, by
rather intriguing and by of the examination. Rather intriguing is an adjective
phrase whose head is the adjective intriguing. This adjective is modified
by rather. There are two more phrases inside the large noun phrase. One
is the prepositional phrase of the examination, with the preposition of as its
head. The other is inside the prepositional phrase and is the noun phrase
the examination. This example, the rather intriguing results of the examination,
is instructive; it shows how a phrase may have more than one phrase
inside it – rather intriguing, of the examination, and the examination are all
inside the noun phrase the rather intriguing results of the examination; it
shows how a phrase can contain a phrase of the same type – the noun
phrase the examination is inside the larger noun phrase the rather intriguing
results of the examination.
Phrases can also contain clauses, as in the example in the paragraph
following (4) the room which Jeeves shimmered into. This is a noun phrase
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20 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

with room as its head. Room is modified by the relative clause which Jeeves
shimmered into. In the idea that David Hume might wear a toga the head noun
idea is modified by the noun complement clause that David Hume might
wear a toga. (For a discussion of relative clauses and noun complement
clauses, see Chapter 6.)
These examples demonstrate an extremely important property of
language, namely the ability of phrases and clauses to be indefinitely
extended. Probably all English-speaking children at some point in their
primary-school education discover that you can take a main clause such
as I know and add to it the complement clause that he knows and then add
the complement clause that I know, to yield I know that he knows that I know
and so on. Not every child can produce such examples with the same
skill, and comprehension usually fades after three or four complement
clauses have been added.
The fourth comment has to do with the title of this chapter,
‘Constituent Structure’. We have talked of words constituting phrases,
and we can also talk of phrases constituting clauses. As we will see in
Chapter 6, we can also talk of clauses constituting sentences. Another
way of putting these ideas is to say, for example, that words are
the constituents, or constituent parts, of phrases, that phrases are the
constituents of bigger phrases or of clauses and that clauses are the
constituents of sentences. The arrangements of words into phrases,
phrases into clauses and clauses into sentences is known as constituent
structure.
The final comment is that very little of the arrangement of words
into phrases, phrases into bigger phrases, phrases into clauses and so on
is signalled in either speech or writing. In many types of written text,
writers signal how they organise clauses into sentences: they may signal
boundaries between clauses by means of commas or semi-colons, and
individual words are typically kept apart by a space. But there are no
conventions of punctuation that point to the intricate structure of a
complex noun phrase such as the very intriguing results of the examinations.
In speech, especially spontaneous conversation, practically nothing is
signalled. In the reading-aloud of written texts, the reader may pause
between sentences, but typically does not do so between clauses and
certainly not between individual words; speakers very seldom utter
words one at a time and with a gap between each one. Even when care-
fully reading a text aloud, speakers may pause at the end of sentences,
clauses or phrases but not after every word. Of course, we do leave a
space between words when we write, but the spaces in written texts do
not correspond to spaces in speech. If you listen to someone speaking
a language you do not know, whether German, Finnish or Turkish, you
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CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE 21

will have no idea where words begin and end; if you pick up a text
written in one of these languages, you will see the gaps between the
words and will immediately be able to ask about the meaning of par-
ticular words.
Equally, in spontaneous speech, speakers typically do not pause
between clauses. When they do pause, they are just as likely to do so in
the middle of clauses, in the middle of phrases or even in the middle of
words, depending on rapidity of speech, emotional state, whether the
speaker has just run up a flight of stairs or has been sitting quietly in an
armchair, and so on. All these properties of speech point to the arrange-
ment of words into phrases, phrases into clauses and so on as something
abstract. Linguists put the arrangements, the structure, into their analy-
sis of particular clauses, but ordinary native speakers of a given language
carry knowledge of the arrangements in their heads. Faced with a line
of words on the page or a sequence of sounds produced by a speaker,
readers and hearers invest the sequence with structure; they ‘read’ into
it the words, the organisation of words into phrases and so on.

Summary
Heads and their modifiers are typically grouped together inside clauses.
Different languages have different orders of head and modifiers. There
are three tests for whether a sequence of words forms a phrase: transpo-
sition, substitution and ellipsis. In syntax, the term ‘phrase’ is applied to
single words and to sequences of words. This reflects the view that a
single noun such as sand occupies a slot in which a phrase could occur.
An example of a slot is ___ is needed; into it can go, for example, sand, as
in Sand is needed, or special sand for the lawn, as in Special sand for the lawn is
needed. Phrases can be extended indefinitely, different types of phrase
have different types of head, phrases occur in clauses, but clauses can
also occur inside phrases.

Exercises
1. The following sentences exemplify the criteria of transposition,
substitution, coordination and ellipsis applied to one type of phrase.
What type of phrase is it and which criteria apply to which examples?
1. I put the letter into the top drawer of the bureau.
2. I put the letter there.
3. Where I put the letter was into the top drawer of the bureau.
4. Into the top drawer of the bureau I put the letter.
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22 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

5. It was into the top drawer of the bureau that I put the letter.
6. I put the letter either there or into the top drawer of the bureau.
7. I put into the top drawer of the bureau the letter, my wallet and an
old watch.
2. Analyse the following examples into phrases. Label each phrase, for
example as noun phrase, adverbial phrase and so on, as appropriate. If in
doubt about whether words that are next to each other in an example
constitute a phrase, apply the tests as demonstrated in Exercise 1 above.
For example, in (1) they can be substituted for the pedestrians offended by the
dangerously selfish action of the driver ; him can be replaced by the selfish
driver ; into the harbour can be replace by off, and so on. The sequence
into the harbour occurs in the different construction Into the harbour they
threatened to throw him. That is, the tests of substitution and transposition
indicate that into the harbour is a phrase, a single constituent.
1. The pedestrians offended by the dangerously selfish action of the
driver threatened to throw him into the harbour.
2. To throw him into the harbour was illegal but an understandable
reaction by the visitors on the quayside.
3. Brazil’s tropical forests are amazingly rich in fauna and flora.
4. The person sitting at the window is my wife.
5. Sitting at the window my wife noticed that our neighbour’s dog was
outside.
6. Susan always drinks black coffee.
7. Susan always drinks her coffee black.
8. In his usual carefree fashion John ran up an enormous bill.
9. In his exuberance John ran up an enormous hill.
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3 Constructions

3.1 Introduction
We have looked at heads and modifiers and at the organisation of smaller
units into bigger units, words into phrases and phrases into bigger
phrases. We now move on to look at constructions, the relatively general
patterns that recur in a given language. Since words, phrases, clauses and
sentences are all built out of smaller units according to particular
patterns, the concept of construction is relevant to all areas of grammar.
For instance, many, though clearly not all, words are built out of smaller
bits; field consists of one stem. Fielded, as in fielded the ball, and fielder, as in
cricket, are built from the stem plus a suffix, field + -ed and field + -er.
Further patterns consist of more than one suffix, as in educational, built
out of educate + -ion + -al, or a prefix and a stem, as in overlook.
Phrases, as we saw in Chapter 2 on constituent structure, are given a
special interpretation in linguistics and may consist of just one word; she
and John are noun phrases. Many phrases consist of more than one word;
for example our new colleague’s car, the car of our new colleague and a car of our
new colleague’s. These three constructions are not equivalent in meaning;
for instance, the last one is used only in situations in which the new
colleague referred to has more than one car. A different choice of words
brings out differences in meaning; the book of the month is the normal
phrase while the month’s book is unacceptable; the idea of leaving (is ridicu-
lous) is acceptable while Leaving’s idea is ridiculous is bizarre unless Leaving
is somebody’s name.

3.2 Different constructions and different meanings

We focus here on constructions in clauses. Two ideas are central to
our discussion. The first is that we can recognise basic clauses and more
complex clauses and can work out the relationships between them. That
is, constructions are not isolated structures but fit into a general network.
23
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24 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

The second idea is that different constructions exist, or have been

created by the speakers and writers of given languages, to enable
speakers and writers to signal what they are doing with a particular
utterance. This connection between different constructions and differ-
ent acts performed by speakers and writers is also central in the dis-
cussion of meaning and word classes/parts of speech in Chapter 4. We
first examine a number of different constructions in English and then
consider the question of the relationships among them.
Consider the examples in (1).
(1) a. The wealthy young man bought that piano for his secret fiancée.
b. Did the wealthy young man buy that piano for his secret fiancée?
Example (1a) and (1b) are clearly related. They are related semantically
in that they both have to do with a situation in which one person, a
wealthy young man, bought something, a piano, for another person, his
secret fiancée. Both examples place that situation at some point in past
time, and both present the event as completed. The young man com-
pleted the purchase of the piano, whereas was buying that piano would
have left it open whether the purchase was completed or not. The
semantic relationship is indicated by three properties of the examples.
They share the major lexical items, wealthy, young, man, buy, piano, secret
and fiancée; in both examples, wealthy and young modify man and secret
modifies fiancée; and buy has as its complements the wealthy young man,
referring to the buyer, that piano, referring to the thing bought, and his
secret fiancée, referring to the recipient of the piano. Note that although
(1a) contains bought and (1b) contains buy these are both forms of one and
same lexical item.
Both examples share past tense, which is marked on bought in (1a) and
on did in (1b). The two examples differ in that (1b) has did at the begin-
ning of the clause while (1a) does not. The presence or absence of did is
immaterial for the semantics as discussed so far because it has no effect
on the type of event – buying, on the participants involved in the event,
on whether the event is presented as completed or on the time of the
event. The presence or absence of did at the front of the clause signals
a difference in the speaker’s or writer’s attitude to the event; (1a) is used
in order to assert or declare that the event took place, while (1b) is used
in order to ask if the event did take place. (We ignore the various nuances
of meaning that can be signalled in spoken language by changes in inton-
ation and stress and that might signalled in writing by the use of italics
or bold or underlining.)
Example (1a) is an instance of a declarative construction (reflecting
the idea that the speaker or writer declares something to be the case);
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CONSTRUCTIONS 25

(1b) is an example of an interrogative construction, used by speakers who

wish to ask whether the event took place, that is, speakers who wish to
interrogate the person or persons they are addressing (their addressees).
Other interrogative constructions are used when speakers know that a
particular type of event took place but not the identity of one or more
participants. Consider the examples in (2).
(2) a. Who bought that piano for his secret fiancée?
b. What did the wealthy young man buy for his secret fiancée?
c. Who did the wealthy young man buy that piano for?
Examples (2a–c) are not directly related in meaning to (1a–b), for
the simple reason that (1a–b) specify all the participants in the buying
event – the wealthy young man, the piano and the secret fiancée. In
(2a–c), one of the participants is unknown. It makes more sense to
consider (2a) as related in meaning to Someone bought a piano for his secret
fiancée and (2b) as related in meaning to The wealthy young man bought some-
thing for his secret fiancée. (Note that Someone bought that piano for his secret
fiancée has the same general syntactic structure as (1a), namely a noun
phrase – the wealthy young man in (1a), then the verb and then a prep-
ositional phrase for his secret fiancée.) The syntactic changes are slightly
more complex. Where the identity of the buyer is requested, as in
(2a), the noun phrase someone is replaced by who. Where the identity of
another participant is requested, someone is replaced by who and something
is replaced by what. Who and what move to the front of the clause, and did
is inserted into the clause just following who or what.
Returning to (1a), we see that other constructions are related to it
(more accurately, to the construction exemplified in it). Consider (3).
(3) The wealthy young man bought his secret fiancée that piano.
What has changed is that the preposition for is missing and that piano
has swapped places with his secret fiancée. Example (3) might be used
when the fiancée has already been mentioned and the piano is being
introduced into the conversation; (1a) is more likely to be used when the
piano has already been mentioned and it is the fiancée who is being
brought into the narrative. The semantic difference between these two
constructions is minimal; the distinction has to do with which partici-
pant has already been mentioned and with which is being mentioned
for the first time. The syntactic structure of (3) is the subject noun phrase
the wealthy young man, followed by the verb bought, followed by the noun
phrase his secret fiancée and finally the noun phrase that piano.
We can usefully note that (3) adds another factor to our view of
language. We stated at the beginning of this chapter that different
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26 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

constructions have been developed by the speakers of languages to allow

them to distinguish clearly between the different things they do with
language – making assertions, asking questions and so on. Example (3)
drives home a very important point; although it is convenient in text-
books such as this to take sentences and clauses one at a time, in real
speech and writing they are accompanied by many other clauses and
sentences. The choice of the construction in (3) is determined by what
precedes it in a given conversation or letter, say. In fact, to make the
example more realistic, we should change it to He bought her that piano;
one of the enduring habits of speakers is that they introduce a partici-
pant into a narrative by means of a full noun phrase containing a noun
and possibly an article and adjective and so on, but thereafter refer to
that participant by means of a pronoun. We might have a text as in (4).
(4) You were asking about the piano you saw. Frank Churchill was a
wealthy young man who came to stay in Hartfield. His secret fiancée
was living in Hartfield with Mrs and Miss Bates. He bought her that
piano.
The fact that sentences are typically combined to create longer texts is
why many manuals of languages include a selection of different texts in
addition to the details of the morphology and syntax of a given language.
Utterance (1a) is an example of a declarative clause. It is also an
example of an active clause, which contrasts with the corresponding
passive clause in (5).
(5) That piano was bought for his secret fiancée by the wealthy young
man.
Why call this a ‘passive’ clause? The term ‘passive’ comes historically
from the Latin verb patior (I suffer), or more exactly from its past parti-
ciple, as in passus sum (having-suffered I-am, that is, ‘I have suffered’).
This label was chosen for clauses in English and other languages which
take as their starting point the participant on whom an action is carried
out, that is, who suffers the action. In contrast, active clauses take as their
starting point the participant who carries out an action, who is active in
a given situation.
Notice two properties of passive clauses. First, the noun phrase refer-
ring to the passive participant, that piano in (5), is at the front of the clause
and is in a special relationship with the verb (agreement in person and
number, discussed in Chapters 8 and 10). Second, although (5) does have
a noun phrase, the wealthy young man, referring to the buyer, it can be
omitted, as in That piano was bought for his secret fiancée. The construction
in (5) is called the ‘long passive’ because it contains an agent noun
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CONSTRUCTIONS 27

phrase; but approximately 95 per cent of passive clauses in spoken and

written texts do not have a phrase referring to the do-er or agent.
Without its agent phrase, as in the above example That piano was bought
for his secret fiancée, this construction is known as the ‘short passive’.
The final construction we look at is that of (6).
(6) (I don’t like the plum brandy) – the port I just love
The clause in brackets provides a plausible context for the second clause.
The speaker contrasts the two types of alcoholic drink, producing a
normal neutral clause to pass judgement on the plum brandy and driving
home the contrast by putting the direct object the port at the front of the
second clause. Not only does the second clause have an unusual con-
struction, which in itself makes the message conspicuous, but the port
immediately follows the plum brandy; the positioning of the two phrases
right next to each other also highlights the contrast. As far as the syn-
tactic structure is concerned, I just love the port is a neutral main clause
and the only change to the structure is that the phrase the port moves to
the beginning of the clause.
In the discussion of (3) above, we observed that, although we analyse
clauses and sentences individually for convenience, in real language they
do not occur in isolation but as part of longer texts. Constructions too
can be and are analysed in isolation because it is convenient to focus on
one structure at a time; however, in a given language, constructions exist
not in isolation but as part of a system of structures. We finish this chap-
ter by addressing the question ‘What is meant by “system”?’ and we do
so on the basis of the six structures discussed above. To facilitate the
discussion, the six structures are exemplified in (7) and (8) by means of
simpler sentences.

3.3 Types of construction

The different constructions are labelled, and the labelling reflects the
connections among them. The constructions can be represented in the
form of a hierarchy, as in Figure 3.1 in Appendix 3. A major split is
between constructions, such as (11a–c) below, that have the verb 
(traditionally called the copula or link verb) and constructions that have
an ‘ordinary’ verb. Both copula and non-copula constructions can be
declarative, that is, they can have the structure used for making state-
ments, and interrogative, that is, they can have the structure used for
asking questions.
Interrogative constructions split into two types. YES–NO interroga-
tives are used for asking questions such as Did he phone?, to which the
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28 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

answer is yes or no. WH interrogatives are used for asking questions

about participants in a situation: Who phoned?, When did he phone?, What did
he say?, Where was he when he phoned?
Declarative constructions can be both active, as in (7a), and passive, as
in (7c). Interrogative constructions can be active, as in (8a), or passive, as
in (8c). In declarative constructions, the verb can be followed by a noun
phrase and a prepositional phrase, as in bought the piano for Jane in (7a),
or by two noun phrases, as in bought Jane the piano in (7b). The former
construction is here labelled OBLIQUE OBJECT and the latter is
labelled DOUBLE OBJECT. Interrogative constructions can be
OBLIQUE OBJECT, as in Did Frank buy the piano for Jane? in (8a), or
DOUBLE OBJECT, as in Did Frank buy Jane the piano? in (8b). In turn, the
DOUBLE OBJECT construction can be active or passive – Frank bought
Jane the piano in (7b) and Jane was bought that piano by Frank; the
OBLIQUE OBJECT construction too can be active or passive – Frank
bought the piano for Jane (7a) and The piano was bought for Jane by Frank (7c).
(7) a. Frank bought the piano for Jane.
[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, ACTIVE, OBLIQUE
OBJECT]
b. Frank bought Jane the piano.
[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, ACTIVE, DOUBLE
OBJECT]
c. The piano was bought for Jane by Frank.
[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, PASSIVE, OBLIQUE
OBJECT]
d. The piano Frank bought for Jane.
[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, ACTIVE, OBLIQUE
OBJECT, TOPIC]
(8) a. Did Frank buy the piano for Jane?
[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, ACTIVE,
OBLIQUE OBJECT]
b. Did Frank buy Jane the piano?
[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, ACTIVE,
DOUBLE OBJECT]
c. Was the piano bought for Jane by Frank?
[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, PASSIVE, OBLIQUE
OBJECT, YES–NO]
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CONSTRUCTIONS 29

3.4 Relationships between constructions

Two central ideas lie behind the use of the word ‘system’. One is
that each of the above constructions shares certain properties with some
of the other constructions; the other is that it is possible to specify the
relationships between the constructions. The above constructions fall
into two major classes, the DECLARATIVE constructions in (7) and the
INTERROGATIVE constructions in (8). It is generally accepted that
the DECLARATIVE ACTIVE construction in (7a) is basic. It is the
most frequent type of construction in English, because speakers most
often make assertions, indeed assertions about agents, and it allows the
widest range of modifications – for example, Frank had been buying the
piano for Jane is perfectly acceptable, and even The piano had been being
bought by Frank, though awkward, can be used in texts instead of the
unmodified passive, although the texts do not run as smoothly. Examples
of the basic construction allow the widest range of adverbs and are
semantically basic; the interpretations of Did Frank deceive Emma? and
Frank didn’t deceive Emma both involve an understanding of Frank deceived
Emma, to which is added an understanding of what is signalled by the
interrogative syntax and of what is signalled by the negative didn’t.
The basic construction in (7a) is related to the other constructions in
(7b–c) and also to the interrogative constructions in (8). We can think of
the relationships among the constructions as paths that lead from the
basic construction to the others. Do we lay out paths from the basic
construction to every other one, say from the construction in (7a) to the
constructions in (7b), (8a) and (8c)? The answer is ‘no’. Instead, we lay
out paths from the basic DECLARATIVE construction to the other
DECLARATIVE constructions, and then we will put down paths
from each of the DECLARATIVE constructions to the corresponding
INTERROGATIVE one. Thus a path goes from (7a) to the [DOUBLE
OBJECT] construction in (7b) and another path goes from (7b) to
the [DOUBLE OBJECT] INTERROGATIVE construction in (8b).
Another path goes from the construction in (7a) to the [NON-
COPULA, DECLARATIVE, PASSIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT] con-
struction in (7c). From (7c), a path goes to the [NON-COPULA,
INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, PASSIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT] con-
struction in (8c). A path goes from (7a) to the construction in (7d),
but there is no corresponding [NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE,
TOPIC] construction for a path to lead to.
What about the constructions in (2)? As explained above, these are
WH interrogatives, and a simpler version of (2b) is given in (9).
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30 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

(9) What did Frank buy for Jane?

[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, ACTIVE,
OBLIQUE OBJECT]
In the discussion of (2a–c), we saw that (9) relates not to Frank bought a
piano for Jane but to Frank bought something for Jane. The speaker knows
that Frank bought and Jane received a present and asks for the present to
be specified. We have three constructions to connect, shown in (10).
(10) a. Frank bought something for Jane.
[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, ACTIVE, OBLIQUE
OBJECT]
b. Did Frank buy something for Jane.
[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, ACTIVE,
OBLIQUE OBJECT]
c. What did Frank buy for Jane.
[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, ACTIVE,
OBLIQUE OBJECT]

As before, we avoid paths going independently from the construction in

(10a) to the constructions in (10b) and (10c). Instead, we will lay down a
path from (10a) to (10b) and a path from (10b) to (10c). This captures the
fact that (10b) and (10c) have something in common, the occurrence of
the auxiliary verb did before the subject Frank. It also captures the fact
that in syntactic terms (10c) is further away from (10a) than (10b), since
not only is there the auxiliary verb did preceding the subject Frank, but
(10c) also contains the WH pronoun what.

3.5 Copula constructions

We close this chapter with a quick look at copula constructions. Note
that the division between COPULA and NON-COPULA constructions
is the topmost one; constructions are divided into COPULA and
NON-COPULA, then each of these divides into DECLARATIVE
and INTERROGATIVE, and so on. Whether passives are COPULA or
NON-COPULA is a moot point. Example (8c) certainly contains was,
but the analysis turns on whether was is treated as a separate copula word
or whether was given is treated as simply the passive form of give. We will
treat passives as NON-COPULA because a number of constituents can
occur in passives that are typically excluded from copula clauses, for
example adverbs such as immediately.
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CONSTRUCTIONS 31

(11) COPULA CONSTRUCTIONS

a. NP Copula AP Fiona is very happy.
[COPULA, ASCRIPTIVE]
b. NP Copula NP Fiona is the best student.
[COPULA, EQUATIVE]
c. NP Copula PP Fiona is in Auchtermuchty.
[COPULA, LOCATIVE]

‘Copula’ is the Latin word for ‘link, connection’. The motivation for the
different label is that the constructions in (11), and their Latin equiv-
alents, do not describe situations in which one participant performs an
action, possibly on another person or thing. Rather, the verb is merely
links the subject noun phrase with another phrase, in this case an adjec-
tive phrase very happy in (11a), a noun phrase the best student in (11b) and
a prepositional phrase in Auchtermuchty in (11c).
Ascriptive copula clauses are used to ascribe a property to an entity. In
(11a), happiness is ascribed to Fiona. Equative copula clauses are used to
state that one entity is identical with another entity. Speakers use (11b)
to say, on the assumption that there are two entities Fiona and the best
student, that these two entities are one and the same person. Fiona is
equated to the best student. The label [COPULA, LOCATIVE] is self-
explanatory; this construction is used in order to state where some entity
is located.
The copula constructions display a number of peculiarities compared
with the (in)transitive constructions. Examples (11a–c) cannot be made
passive; and, at least according to the handbooks of standard written
English, the pronoun that is the complement of the copula is in the
‘nominative’ form: It was I/he/she. (But It was we and It was they sound
peculiar.) Is can be moved to the front of the clause to make an interroga-
tive – Is Fiona the best student? In this respect, is resembles has as used in
some varieties: Has Fiona a car? But have combines with do for emphasis –
Fiona does have a car – and also in interrogatives – Does Fiona have a car?
Be does not combine with do (at least, not in standard English, whether
written or spoken): *Fiona does be the best student, *Does Fiona be the best
student?
Implicit in the preceding paragraph is the fact that copula clauses can
be declarative or interrogative, and they can be YES–NO or WH inter-
rogatives – Is she coming to the party? vs Who is coming to the party? Unlike
non-copula clauses, copula clauses cannot be passive and they do not
have double objects, though they can have oblique objects as in This
parcel is for Sarah. The complements of be are not usually treated as
direct objects but are simply called complements. And as (11a) and (11c)
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32 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

show, be is regularly complemented by adjectives or by prepositional

phrases.

Summary
Phrases combine to produce clauses. They combine in different orders,
and the links between them are marked in various ways that will be
discussed in Chapter 9. Some clauses have special markers such as
do, does, did for YES–NO INTERROGATIVES or conjunctions such as
although, if and that, to be discussed in Chapter 6. The above differences
are said to reflect different constructions; phrases are constructed or
put together in different ways to enable speakers and writers to signal
differences in meaning. The various syntactic constructions in a given
language form a system; one task of syntactic analysis is to work out and
state how the constructions are interconnected.

Exercises
1. The discussion in this chapter identified a number of constructions:
COPULA and NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE and INTERROGA-
TIVE, YES–NO and WH INTERROGATIVES, ACTIVE and
PASSIVE, DOUBLE OBJECT and OBLIQUE OBJECT and, for
declaratives only, TOPIC and NON-TOPIC. COPULA clauses are
ASCRIPTIVE, EQUATIVE or LOCATIVE. For each of the following
sentences, decide its construction and label it using the labels given
above. Thus, Was Admiral Croft given a present by Lady Russell? is classified
as [NON-COPULA (it contains a copula but also an ordinary verb,
given), INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, PASSIVE, and OBLIQUE
OBJECT]. Remember that non-basic constructions must be related to
basic constructions. This is especially relevant to (10).
1. Colonel Brandon read poems to Marianne.
2. Mrs Gardiner was Mrs Bennet’s sister.
3. Who was Jane Bennet’s suitor?
4. Why did Frank Churchill deceive everybody?
5. When was Emma scolded by Mr Knightley?
6. Was Mr Knightley much older than Emma?
7. Where did Captain Wentworth propose to Anne Elliott?
8. Sir Walter Elliott was in Bath.
9. Did Colonel Brandon bring Marianne books?
10. Elizabeth Bennet was at first unimpressed with Mr D’Arcy.
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CONSTRUCTIONS 33

2. Devise examples of constructions that fit the following labels. For

instance, an example of (1) is Jane is in Toorak.
1. [COPULA, DECLARATIVE, LOCATIVE]
2. [NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, PASSIVE]
3. [NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, DOUBLE
OBJECT]
4. [COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, ASCRIPTIVE]
5. [NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, PASSIVE]
6. [COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, EQUATIVE]
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4 Word classes

4.1 What are word classes?

In the preceding chapters, we have used terms such as ‘noun’, ‘adjective’,
‘adverb’, ‘verb’ and ‘preposition’ without defining them. The terms are in
everyday use and everyday definitions are available, such as nouns being
the names of persons, places and things and verbs being the names
of actions or states. These definitions contain a grain of truth but are
inadequate for serious investigation of English or any other language.
One weakness is that they appeal in a superficial way to only one part of
meaning, the kind of things that a given word denotes. As we will see in
Section 4.2.4, ‘Semantic criteria’, it is important to take account of what
speakers and writers actually do with verbs, nouns and so on. (The term
‘denote’ is used for the relationship between a given word and the set of
entities, in the broadest sense, to which it can be applied. Traditional
dictionary explanations of the meaning of individual words can be
thought of as embryo descriptions of denotations. In the last section
of this chapter (4.2.5), we see that, for example, nouns are the centre of
noun phrases, by means of which speakers and writers refer to entities.)
Another weakness is that they ignore the business of where a given
word is placed in a clause or phrase, a topic which was introduced in
the discussion of phrases in Chapter 2 but which is also important for
the analysis of words. For a given word, we can investigate what words it
typically combines with in phrases, what types of phrase it occurs in and
where these types of phrase occur in clauses. For instance, nouns can be
preceded by words such as the, a and this but verbs cannot. Adjectives can
precede a noun, as in new books, or follow certain verbs, as in is new, seemed
new. Verbs occur in different slots in the clause. That is, we transfer from
humans to words the precept that you know them by the company they
keep and group them into classes, hence the term ‘word classes’.
We appeal first to a very old distinction between words that have a
denotation and words that do not. Words that have a denotation apply to
34
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WORD CLASSES 35

people, places, things (in the broadest sense), actions, states and proper-
ties. They are known as lexical or content words, and in English include
nouns (e.g. villa, baby, idea), verbs (e.g. buy, destroy, think), adjectives (e.g.
wooden, strong, abstract) and adverbs (e.g. rapidly, hopefully). Words that do
not refer are known as grammatical or form words. (‘Lexical’ usually
contrasts with ‘grammatical’, ‘content’ with ‘form’.) Grammatical or
form words in English are the definite and indefinite articles the and
a, the demonstrative adjectives this, these, that and those, the auxiliary
verbs is, has and so on (as in is reading a book, has read this book). (The term
‘auxiliary’ reflects the fact that these verbs do not refer to actions or
states but ‘help’ main verbs such as read to build a construction.)
Many accounts of word classes in English treat verbs such as may, could
and must and prepositions such as with, from and by as grammatical words,
but these seem to be on the borderline. In the days before widespread
telephone communication and before the invention of fax machines and
e-mail, urgent messages were sent by telegram. Each word cost a certain
amount, and to keep down the cost of the whole telegram people put in
only those words essential for the message to be interpreted correctly.
For instance, instead of We are arriving on Tuesday at 5pm the telegram
would read Arriving Tuesday 5pm. The words that typically turned up
in telegrams were nouns, verbs and (less often) adjectives and adverbs,
namely content words. Articles, demonstrative adjectives, auxiliary verbs
and prepositions were typically left out.
The problem is that, in spite of the telegram test, the distinction
between Press the button above the green light and Press the button below the
green light is rather important; the prepositions above and below cannot be
left out, because a wrong interpretation might lead to just as regrettable
consequences as the difference between Press the red button and Press the
green button. What the telegram test shows is that some missing words can
be easily guessed while others cannot. Prepositions such as on and at in
time phrases have no competitors – the sender of the telegram might
have meant after 5pm, but we would expect after or before to be stated
explicitly in the message. Prepositions such as below have competitors
such as above, next, by, opposite; recent analyses of prepositions have shown
that many have major meanings and can only be described as words with
denotations. Equally, we must concede that the meaning of a preposition
such as of is hard to establish. For these reasons, and in spite of the
telegram test, prepositions (along with modal verbs such as can and must)
will be regarded as lexical or content words. In this class of lexical items,
they are not as central as nouns, say, but they are not grammatical items
either such as the and a.
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36 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

4.2 Criteria for word classes

Four types of criteria are employed to set up word classes – syntactic,
morphological, morpho-syntactic and semantic. (Semantic criteria
have to do with meaning.) We begin with a brief explanation of morpho-
logical and morpho-syntactic criteria, which have to do with what is
called inflectional morphology. Consider the English examples The
tiger is smiling and The tigers are smiling. The contrast between tiger
and tigers shows that tigers can be split into tiger and -s. Tiger is the stem
and -s is the suffix added to the end of the stem. The stem tiger is a noun
and the addition of -s does not affect this property. In contrast, the addi-
tion of -ish does affect it; tiger is a noun but tigerish is an adjective. In
dictionaries of English, tigerish and tigers are treated differently. Tigerish
is listed as a separate lexical item, that is, it might be listed in the same
entry as tiger but appear in bold and with a short explanation of its mean-
ing; tigers has no entry at all, since the makers of dictionaries assume that
users will know how to convert the singular form of a given noun to a
plural form.
Suffixes such as -ish that derive new lexical items are derivational
suffixes; suffixes that express grammatical information, such as ‘plural’,
are inflectional suffixes. (The term comes from the Latin verb flectere ‘to
bend’ and is connected with the idea that, in languages such as Russian
with a multitude of inflectional suffixes, nouns, verbs and adjectives have
a basic form that is bent by the addition of a suffix.) There is one more
property of inflectional suffixes: in the tiger clauses above, tiger combines
with is smiling and tigers combines with are smiling. That is, there is link-
age between subject noun and verb. Traditionally, a distinction is drawn
between agreement and government; these topics will be discussed in
Chapter 9.

4.2.1 Morphological criterion

The singular form criterion is used in the heading because what is at stake
is simply whether a given word allows grammatical suffixes or not. This
criterion is the least important of the four listed above and is more rel-
evant to some languages than others. It is of the greatest interest with
respect to languages such as Russian, in which nouns have different
suffixes (‘endings’ in the traditional, informal terminology) depending
on their relationship to the verb. Examples are given in (1).
(1) a. Sobaka lajala
dog barked ‘The dog barked.’
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WORD CLASSES 37

b. Koshka tsarapala sobaku

cat scratched dog ‘The cat scratched the dog.’
c. Petr dal sobake kost’
Peter gave dog bone ‘Peter gave the dog a bone.’
The noun sobaka in (1a) splits into the stem sobak- and the suffix -a, which
here signals the animal doing the barking. In (1b), sobak- has its direct
object suffix -u, which here marks the animal being scratched; in (1c),
it has its oblique object suffix -e, which here marks the recipient of the
bone. A few nouns in Russian take no suffixes, for example taksi (taxi), kofe
(coffee) and kakadu (cockatoo). (Such nouns do not vary their shape and
are called invariable words.) English does not have the same range
of grammatical suffixes as Russian, but English nouns typically take a
plural ending – fish–fishes, cat–cats and dog–dogs. (The -s represents differ-
ent suffixes in speech – in cats it represents the initial sound of speed, in
dogs the initial sound of zap.) Some nouns in English do not take a plural
suffix – for example sheep, deer – and are said to be invariable.

4.2.2 Morpho-syntactic criteria

These criteria have to do with inflectional suffixes, as described above in
connection with the tiger examples, and the information signalled by
them, and were developed on the basis of languages such as Classical
Latin and Classical Greek. We looked at Russian examples above
because Russian is not only very like Latin and Greek in its richness of
inflectional suffixes but is also a living language. It will be helpful to take
a further look at Russian before returning to English.
Examples (1a–c) show that nouns in Russian take different suffixes
which signal the relationship between the nouns and the verb in a clause.
(See Chapters 10 and 11 for a discussion of these relationships.) These
relationships are known as case, and nouns are said to be inflected for
the category of case. (‘Case’ derives from the Latin word for a fall, casus.
The basic form of a noun, such as sobaka in (1a) – the subject form;
see Chapter 8 – was thought of as upright, and the other forms were
thought of as falling away from the subject form.) Other information is
signalled by case suffixes in Indo-European languages. Consider (2).
(2) a. Sobaki lajut
dogs bark ‘The dogs are barking.’
b. Petr dal kost’ sobakam
Peter gave bone to-dogs ‘Peter gave a bone to the dogs.’
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38 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

In (2a), sobaki is the subject but also plural, and it has a different suffix,
-i. In (2b), sobakam refers to the recipient and is plural and it too has
a different suffix from the one in (1c), -am. That is, the case suffixes
actually signal information about case and about number.
Verbs in Russian signal information about time, person and number, as
illustrated in (3).
(3) a. govorit o Moskve
speaks about Moscow ‘He/she is speaking about Moscow.’
b. govorjat o Moskve
speak about Moscow ‘They are speaking about Moscow.’
c. govorju o Moskve
speak-I about Moscow ‘I am speaking about Moscow.’
d. govorili o Moskve
spoke about Moscow ‘They were speaking about Moscow.’
Examples (3a–d) all refer to an event of speaking about Moscow: (3a)
and (3b) place that event in present time; the speaker, as it were, says
‘I am speaking to you now and they are speaking about Moscow’.
Example (3d) presents the event in past time; the speaker can be
imagined as saying ‘I am speaking to you now and at some before this
they were speaking about Moscow’. Information about the time of an
event is signalled by the difference in form between govorit and govorjat
on the one hand and govorili on the other, the l in govorili indicating past
time. Such differences in verbs are said to express tense.
Example (3a) contains govorit, and (3b) contains govorjat. Both are said
to be in the third person; in the traditional scheme, first person is the
speaker, at the centre of any piece of interaction by means of language;
close to the centre is second person, the person(s) addressed by the
speaker. Other participants, or other people or things talked about by
the speaker, are third persons. The contrasts in form are said to express
person. (The term ‘person’ is not entirely appropriate for animals or
inanimate objects, but human beings tend to place human beings at the
centre of their thinking about the world; typical conversation is taken to
be by human beings about human beings.)
Returning to (3a) and (3b), (3a) presents the speaking as being done
by one person, (3b) presents it as being done by more than one person.
These contrasts are said to express number (as does a different set of
contrasts in the shape of nouns, as illustrated in (1) and (2).
In the languages regarded as native to Europe (belonging mostly to the
Indo-European and Finno-Ugric families), the words classed as nouns
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WORD CLASSES 39

carry information about number and, in some languages, about case;

words classed as verbs carry information about tense, person and num-
ber (and some other types of information not mentioned here – for a
more detailed discussion, see Chapter 13). In traditional terms, nouns
are inflected for case and number, and verbs are inflected for tense,
person and number. In some languages, adjectives too are inflected for
case and number. Adverbs and prepositions are typically not inflected,
though some prepositions in the Celtic languages (Scottish and Irish
Gaelic, Welsh and Breton (also Cornish in Cornwall and Manx in the
Isle of Man) do have inflected forms as a result of historical change. It is
as though in English the sequences to me and to you had coalesced into
what were perceived as single words, tme and tyou (the latter probably
pronounced chew).
English does not have the rich system of inflections possessed by
languages such as Russian, but English nouns do take suffixes expressing
number (cat and cats, child and children and so on), and English verbs do
take suffixes expressing tense: pull and pulls vs pulled. There are of course
nouns, such as mouse–mice, that express number by other means, and
there are verbs, such as write–wrote, eat–ate, that express tense by other
means. Person is expressed only by the -s suffix added to verbs in the
present tense – pulls, writes and so on. Of course, English verbs cannot
occur on their own in declarative clauses but require at least one noun
phrase, which could consist of just a personal pronoun – I, you, he, she, it,
we, they. To the extent that English verbs require a noun phrase, which
is often a personal pronoun (in 65 per cent of clauses in spontaneous
spoken English), we are entitled to regard person as a category intrinsic
to the verb in English. (Non-personal pronouns, that is nouns, are by
definition third person.)
English adjectives are not associated with number or case, but many
of them take suffixes signalling a greater quantity of some property (for
example bigger) or the greatest quantity of some property (for example
biggest). These morpho-syntactic properties of English words, signalling
information about tense, person and number, are presented in this
chapter as relevant to the recognition of different word classes, but as we
will see in Chapter 8 they are also relevant to linkage (agreement and
government), as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.

4.2.3 Syntactic criteria

The syntactic criteria for word classes are based on what words a given
word occurs with and the types of phrase in which a given word occurs.
Syntactic criteria are the most important. They are important for
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40 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

English with its relative poverty of morpho-syntactic criteria, and they

are crucial for the analysis of word classes in general because there are
languages such as Mandarin Chinese which have practically no inflec-
tional suffixes (such as plural endings); in contrast, all languages have
syntax.
The recognition of syntactic criteria as central is a major step forward,
but the application of these criteria is not straightforward. Consider the
English words that are called nouns. They all have several properties in
common, namely they can occur in various positions relative to the verb
in a clause. Examples (4a–c) are instances of the [NON-COPULA,
ACTIVE, DECLARATIVE] construction described in Chapter 3.
(4) a. The dog stole the turkey.
b. The children chased the dog.
c. The cook saved no scraps for the dog.
Dog occurs to the left of stole in (4a), to the right of chased in (4b), and to
the right of saved in (4c) but separated from it by the intervening word
for. Dog also occurs in a noun phrase and can be modified by a word such
as the – The dog stole the turkey – or by an adjective – Hungry dogs stole the
turkey – or by the and an adjective together – The hungry dogs stole the turkey.
All other nouns in English can occur to the left of the verb in an active
declarative clause, but not all nouns combine with an article, or combine
with articles in the same way as dog does. (This property of nouns has
already been mentioned in Chapter 1 in connection with dependency
relations and the idea that different nouns require or allow different
types of word inside a noun phrase.) Dog stole the turkey is unacceptable
(assuming Dog is not a proper name), whereas Ethel stole the turkey is
not. The difficulty is that the class of English nouns is a very large class
of words that do not all keep the same company (or, to use another
metaphor, do not all behave in the same way). All nouns meet the criteria
of occurring to the left of a verb in an active declarative clause, of occur-
ring immediately to the right of a verb in an active declarative clause or
of occurring to the right of a verb but preceded by a preposition. These
are major criteria, but there are the minor criteria mentioned above, such
as combining with an article, or being able to occur without an article, or
not allowing a plural suffix (*Ethels). These split the class of nouns into
subclasses.
A sufficiently detailed examination of the company kept by individual
nouns would probably reveal that each noun has its own pattern of
occurrence. Thanks to very large electronic bodies of data and the
search power of computers, analysts are beginning to carry out such
examinations and to find such individual patterns. For the purposes of
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WORD CLASSES 41

analysing syntax, however, it is not helpful to gather information about

individual nouns and it is impossible to produce a useable analysis of
English syntax (or the syntax of any other language) with, say, 20,000
word classes. To analyse and discuss the general syntactic structure of
clauses and sentences, we need fairly general classes, and analysts try to
keep to major criteria plus those minor criteria that lead to relatively
large classes of words. For other purposes, such as compiling a diction-
ary, smaller classes are required, down to information about individual
words. (See Chapter 5 on the lexicon.)
A concept that is central to discussion of word classes, and indeed
to any class of items, linguistic or non-linguistic, is that of the central
and peripheral members of a class. Consider the adjective tall in the
examples in (5).
(5) a. a tall building
b. This building is tall.
c. a very tall building
d1. a taller building
d2. a more beautiful building
There are two criteria labelled ‘d’ because some adjectives take the
comparative suffix -er while others do not allow that suffix but require
more. Some adjectives, like tall, meet all the criteria in (5) and are central
or prototypical members of the class. Some adjectives fail to meet all
the criteria. Unique satisfies (5a–c), as in a unique building, This building is
unique and a very unique building. (Publishers’ copy-editors might object
to very unique, but the combination occurs regularly in speech and in
informal writing and even in newspapers.) Unique does not combine
with -er or more: *a uniquer building, *a more unique building. In the class
of adjectives, unique is slightly less central than tall. Woollen meets even
fewer criteria. A woollen cloak and This cloak is woollen are acceptable, but
*a woollener cloak, *a more woollen cloak and *a very woollen cloak are not.
Woollen is less central than unique, which in turn is less central than
tall. Right at the edge of the class is asleep, which meets only one of the
criteria in (5), namely (5b). The child is asleep is acceptable but not *the
asleep child, *the very asleep child, *the more asleep child. On the other hand,
asleep meets none of the criteria for nouns, verbs, prepositions or adverbs;
it is a peripheral adjective.

4.2.4 Semantic criteria: what words mean

There are no semantic criteria, aspects of the meaning of the different
classes of words, that would enable us to decide whether any given word
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42 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

is a noun, adjective, verb, adverb or preposition. We must accept right

here that meaning cannot be exploited in this way. The traditional defi-
nition of nouns as words denoting people, places or things does not
explain why words such as anger, idea or death are classified as nouns. Race
the noun and race the verb both denote an event, as do the verb transmit
in They transmitted the concert live and the noun transmission in The live
transmission of the concert.
On the other hand, this book is based on the view that grammar is
interesting because it plays an essential role in the communication of
coherent messages of all sorts. It has been demonstrated many times that
humans cannot (easily) remember meaningless symbols such as random
sequences of words or numbers, like telephone numbers and PIN
numbers. Psycholinguists know that children cannot learn sequences of
symbols without meaning. It would be surprising were there no parallels
at all between patterns of grammar and semantic patterns; we abandon
the traditional notion that classes of words can be established on the
basis of what words denote, but careful analysis does bring out patterns.
The analysis uses the ideal of central, prototypical members of word
classes as opposed to peripheral members, and it focuses on what speak-
ers and writers do with words rather than on the traditional dictionary
meanings.
The key move in the investigation of word classes is to accept that
word classes must be defined on the basis of formal criteria – their
morphological properties, their morpho-syntactic properties and their
syntactic properties. Only when these formal patterns have been estab-
lished can we move on to investigate the connection between meaning
and word classes.
How do formal criteria and the concept of central members of a word
class help the investigation of meaning? Interestingly, the traditional
description of nouns as referring to persons, places and things turns
out to be adequate for central nouns. Nouns such as girl, town and car
combine with the and a, take the plural suffix -s, are modified by adjec-
tives and occur to the left or the right of the verb in [NON-COPULA,
ACTIVE DECLARATIVE] clauses. They also refer to observable
entities such as people, places and things. What is significant is the
combination of syntactic and morpho-syntactic properties with the
semantic property of referring to people, places or things.
Many analysts argue that nouns such as anger, property and event do
not denote things. However, these nouns do possess all or many of the
syntactic and morpho-syntactic properties possessed by girl, town and
car : a property, the properties, an interesting property, invent properties, This
property surprised us and so on. Anger meets some of the major criteria –
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WORD CLASSES 43

The anger frightened him [subject, and combination with the] but not *an
anger. The fact that the major formal criteria for prototypical nouns
apply to words such as property and anger is what justifies the latter being
classed as nouns. On the assumption that these formal properties are not
accidental, it also suggests that ‘ordinary speakers’ of English treat anger
as though it denoted an entity.
A discussion of the linguistic and cognitive issues would be inappro-
priate here. What cannot be emphasised enough is that a word’s classifi-
cation as noun, verb and so on is on the basis of formal criteria; the terms
‘noun’, ‘verb’ and so on are merely labels for classes which could be
replaced by neutral labels such as ‘Class 1’, ‘Class 2’ and so on. Words
apparently very diverse in meaning such as anger and dog share many
major syntactic and morpho-syntactic properties, and this raises deep
and interesting questions about how ‘ordinary speakers’ conceive the
world. It leads to the unexpected conclusion that the traditional seman-
tic definitions of word classes, while quite unsatisfactory as definitions,
nonetheless reflect an important fact about language and how ordinary
speakers understand the world around them.
The need for both formal and semantic criteria becomes quite clear
in comparisons of two or more languages. Descriptions of Russian, say,
contain statements about the formal properties of nouns and verbs in
Russian; descriptions of English contain statements about nouns and
verbs in English. But formal criteria do not allow the English words
labelled ‘noun’ to be equated to the Russian words labelled ‘noun’; the
formal criteria for the English word class are completely different from
the formal criteria for the Russian word class. In spite of this, analysts
and learners of Russian as a second language find no difficulty in talking
of nouns in English and nouns in Russian and in equating the two.
The basis for this behaviour must be partly semantic; central nouns in
Russian (according to the Russian formal criteria) denote persons, places
and things, and so do central nouns in English.

4.2.5 Semantic criteria: what speakers do with words

Even more important is what speakers and writers do with language.
When they produce utterances, they perform actions. They act to pro-
duce sounds or marks on paper, but the purpose of producing the sounds
(in many situations) is to draw the attention of their audience to some
entity and to say something about it, to predicate a property of it.
Examples of acts – let us use the generally accepted term ‘speech acts’
– are making statements, asking questions and issuing commands (in
the broadest sense). These speech acts are prominent in and central to
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44 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

human communication and are allotted grammatical resources in every

language – see Chapter 3 on constructions. Other acts are not so promi-
nent but are no less central to human communication and relate directly
to the different parts of speech.
Two such speech acts are referring to entities and predicating
properties of them. In English, the class of nouns, established on formal
criteria, contains words denoting entities, and nouns enter into noun
phrases, the units that speakers use when referring to entities. This is not
to say that every occurrence of a noun phrase is used by a speaker to
refer to something; nor is the difference between nouns and other word
classes connected solely with referring; nonetheless, speakers require
noun phrases in order to refer, and noun phrases can be used to refer
only because they contain nouns.
The notion of predication as a speech act is prevalent in traditional
grammar and is expressed in the formula of ‘someone saying something
about a person or thing’. Predication has been largely ignored in dis-
cussions of speech acts, perhaps because it is always part of a larger
act, making a statement or asking a question or issuing a command. In
English, verbs, including , signal the performance of a predication.
Whether adjectives and adverbs are associated with a speech act is a
question that has not received much discussion. It is interesting, however,
that in traditional grammar adjectives are also labelled ‘modifiers’, a
label which reflects the function of these words in clauses. Speakers and
writers use verbs to make an assertion about something, and the asser-
tion involves assigning a property to that something. They use adjectives
not to make an assertion but merely to add to whatever information is
carried by the head noun in a given noun phrase.
Explaining the different word classes or parts of speech in terms of
speech acts offers a solution to one difficulty with the traditional defi-
nitions; the class of things is so wide that it can be treated as including
events; even properties, which are said to be referred to by adjectives, can
be thought of as things. In contrast, different speech acts correspond
to different word classes. The speech-act explanation also provides
a connection between word classes in different languages. Assuming
that basic communicative acts such as referring and predicating are
recognised by speakers of different languages (communication between
speakers of different languages would otherwise be impossible), the
words classed as nouns in descriptions of, say, Russian, and the words
classed as nouns in descriptions of, say, English, have in common
that speakers pick words from those classes when referring. Similarly,
speakers and writers pick what are called verbs when predicating, adjec-
tives when adding to the information carried by a noun (that is, when
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WORD CLASSES 45

they perform the speech act of modifying) and adverbs when they add to
the information carried by a verb or an adjective.
We end this chapter with a comment on terminology. Linguists nowa-
days use the term ‘word classes’ and not the traditional term ‘parts of
speech’. ‘Word classes’ is neat and self-explanatory but is associated with
the idea of words pinned down on the page or in the transcript of speech.
‘Parts of speech’ is not self-explanatory, but it does have the merit of
reminding us that we are dealing not with dead text but with speakers
and writers doing things with language.

Summary
The different classes of words – for example nouns, verbs, adjectives,
adverbs, prepositions – were traditionally defined by what they denoted –
people, places and things (nouns), actions (verbs) and properties
(adjectives). This definition is inadequate, although meaning still has an
important part to play. Reliable definitions are based on formal criteria –
morphological (does a given word take inflectional suffixes or is it invari-
able?), morpho-syntactic (does a given word take suffixes having to do
with person and number, or with case?) and syntactic (where in a phrase
or clause does a given word occur?). Once formal criteria have been set
up, the connection between word classes and meaning can be studied.
This bears not just on what a given word or class of words refers to but
also on what speakers and writers do with it – refer, predicate or assert,
modify.

Exercises
1. Underline eight adjectives in the following passage.
Decrepit Victorian mansions loomed out of the snowfall on the town’s
sporadic hills. Beyond them, cedars wove a steep mat of still green …
The wind drove snowflakes steadily inland, hurling them against the
fragrant trees, and the snow began to settle on the highest branches
with a gentle implacability.
Underline seven verbs in the following passage.
By two o’clock on the first afternoon of the trial, snow covered all
the island roads. A car pirouetted silently while skating on its tires,
emerged from this on a transverse angle, and slid to a stop with one
headlight thrust into the door of Petersen’s Grocery, which somebody
opened at just the right moment – miraculously – so that no damage
befell car or store.
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46 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

Both passages are from Dan Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars.

2. We have seen that we can recognise a single class of verbs in English.

In the neutral declarative construction, all verbs can occur to the right of
a subject noun phrase (and, with a minute number of exceptions, verbs
can be preceded by the infinitive marker to or be marked for tense, on
the pattern of either play–played or write–wrote). Closer scrutiny reveals
subclasses of verb. What constructions do the following verbs occur in?
Think up examples using each verb and see how many different patterns
you can devise. For example, if we were considering the verb , we
could devise examples such as They hung the pictures on the wall opposite the
window or They hung the wall with pictures or These curtains aren’t hanging
properly.
   
And the following verbs?
  

3. Classes of words consist of prototypical central members, peripheral

members and some members that are neither one nor the other.
For adjectives, we recognised four criteria exemplified in (5) above:
occurring in a noun phrase (as an attributive adjective), occurring as
the complement of a copula (as a predicative adjective), occurring with
words such as very and occurring in the comparative, either with the
suffix -er or with more. Of the adjectives listed below, which are central,
prototypical adjectives, which are peripheral adjectives and which are in
between?
   
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5 The lexicon

5.1 Syntax and lexical items

Why have a chapter on dictionaries in a book on syntax? The answer is
simple and indisputable: syntax cannot be isolated from other areas of
language; and individual lexical items, particularly verbs, exercise strong
control over syntactic structure. We have already seen in Chapter 4 that
when setting up word classes we have to appeal to syntactic criteria, to
morphology and morpho-syntax and to meaning. In the very first chap-
ter, we examined the idea that the head of a given phrase controls the
other constituents in the phrase, and we saw immediately that there are
different subclasses of nouns and verbs that impose different require-
ments on phrases and clauses. We saw only a small fraction of the exten-
sive interplay between syntactic structure and individual lexical items;
in this chapter again we can discuss only the main features, going into the
topic in more detail but leaving huge areas untouched.
Analysts can isolate the syntactic constructions of a given language,
as we started to do for English in Chapter 2 on constituent structure and
in Chapter 3 on constructions. Syntactic constructions, however, are
not identical with specific clauses; particular clauses do not appear until
lexical items are inserted into a general syntactic structure. For example,
the structure Noun Phrase–Verb–Noun Phrase corresponds to indefi-
nitely many clauses: The dog chewed its bone, The cat scratched the dog, Dogs
like meat and so on. The process of insertion is not simple. As mentioned
above, particular lexical items only fit into particular pieces of structure
– some verbs combine with one noun phrase, others with two, and a third
set of verbs with three. Some singular nouns combine with the and a, and
some exclude them. In addition there are many instances both of par-
ticular lexical items that typically combine with other specific lexical
items (rock hard ) and of fixed phrases (know something like the back of one’s
hand ). Current searches of very large electronic bodies of text are begin-
ning to reveal just how pervasive these restricted combinations and fixed
phrases are.
47
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48 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

Information about the interplay between lexical items and syntactic

structure has always been available in all but the smallest dictionaries.
Chambers 20th Century Dictionary (1983), for example, includes the follow-
ing information in the entry for knife.
knife [ nı̄f ]; an instrument for cutting; verb transitive: to cut
knifeless; knifing the act of putting a knife into someone
war to the knife have one’s knife in
The entry gives some information about syntax; the verb is described
as transitive, which means that in the basic ACTIVE DECLARATIVE
construction it requires a noun phrase to its right. There is a rough guide
to the pronunciation which does not use the International Phonetic
Alphabet, a definition of the meaning of the noun, two words that
are derived from the basic stem and two idiomatic phrases. The entry
would not be very useful for a non-native speaker with a limited knowl-
edge of English, but the dictionary is intended primarily for native
speakers. The limitations become clear from the entry for put, which
describes it as a transitive verb but does not say that put is different from
knife in requiring a noun phrase and prepositional phrase to its right –
put the parcel on the table vs *put the parcel. The entry for accuse does
not specify that it requires a noun phrase and a prepositional phrase
to its right, nor that the preposition must be of – Mandragora accused
Panjandrum of plagiarism.
This kind of information is supplied in dictionaries intended for
schoolchildren and for people learning English as a second language,
and must be included in adequate descriptions of English. What counts
as an adequate description of a language? The major grammars of
languages, particularly languages that are both spoken and written,
include information about all the word, phrase, clause and sentence
constructions in a large body of data, mostly drawn from written texts
but nowadays likely to include transcripts of speech. The current most
comprehensive grammar of English, A Comprehensive Grammar of the
English Language by Sir Randolph Quirk et al. (1985), also includes infor-
mation about how sentences combine to form larger texts and about
typical or fixed combinations of lexical items.
Another approach to the writing of grammars has as its goal the
writing of explicit rules, which ‘generate’ sentences. This task involves
the writing of rules that specify syntactic constructions, it involves the
writing of an accurate and detailed dictionary and it involves a detailed
account of how the correct lexical item is inserted into a given syntactic
structure and of how only acceptable combinations of lexical items are
specified. This approach must also ensure that the rules do not specify
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THE LEXICON 49

unacceptable structures. This introduction does not aim at completely

explicit rules, but we will exploit the idea of explicit rules and of a
system of rules in order to organise our discussion of the lexicon. What
is of crucial concern, of course, is the set of concepts to be used in the
analysis of syntax (whether the syntax of English or of some other
language); that is what this book focuses on.

5.2 Individual verbs, complements and adjuncts

In Chapter 1, we discussed the concepts of complement and adjunct.
Every type of phrase has a head, and the modifiers of heads fall into the
two classes of complement and adjunct. The distinction applies best to
the modifiers of verbs, for which it was originally developed and which
are the focus of Chapter 1. Complements are modifiers which typically
occur next to the head (but not always) and which are required or
excluded by particular lexical items. In (1), Sarah and the cakes are com-
plements of devoured. Devoured requires a noun phrase to its left and a
noun phrase to its right – *Sarah devoured is unacceptable.
(1) Sarah devoured the cakes in the kitchen last night.
Adjuncts are not necessarily next to the head; indeed, they are typically
at a distance from the verb. They are not obligatory. Whereas comple-
ments ‘complete’ the meaning of the verb, giving it both syntactic and
semantic completion, adjuncts merely provide additional information
that could be dispensed with. In (1) in the kitchen and last night are
adjuncts; (1) is acceptable and complete without them – Sarah devoured
the cakes. Adverbs of time and location are always adjuncts. Adverbs of
location have to be distinguished from adverbs of direction (as per the
discussion in Chapter 1); a verb such as barge requires a directional
adverb – Sarah barged into the kitchen – and a verb such as pushed allows it
– Sarah pushed the pram and Sarah pushed the pram into the kitchen. Even
where a verb merely allows a directional adverb, the latter is a comple-
ment, because there are verbs that exclude them – *Sarah was cooking into
the kitchen. The fact that some (in fact, many) verbs exclude directional
adverbs means that dictionary entries must include information about
whether a given verb excludes an adverb of direction or not. This means
that even for push, which allows rather than requires an adverb of direc-
tion, phrases such as into the kitchen are complements.
A given lexical verb controls various properties of its complements.
Most obviously, it controls how many complements occur and what type
of complements – noun phrases, adjective phrases, prepositional phrases
or complement clauses. (We leave the term ‘complement clause’ unex-
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50 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

plained just now; complement clauses are discussed in Chapter 6.)

Consider the examples in (2)–(5).
(2) a. Mr Knightley despaired.
b. Emma slighted Miss Bates.
c. Frank Churchill gave Jane Fairfax a piano.
(3) Jane Fairfax seemed upset.
(4) a. Mr Woodhouse sat in an armchair.
b. Mr Knightley walked into the drawing room.
c. Mr Elton handed his wife into the carriage.
d. Emma gave bad advice to Harriet.
(5) Mr Knightley suggested that thieves would break into Hartfield
House.
In (2a–c), despaired excludes a noun phrase to its right, slighted requires
one, and gave allows two noun phrases to its right. (We will see in
Chapter 8 that the first of these noun phrases, for example Jane Fairfax
in (2c), is felt to be less closely connected with the verb than the other
noun phrase.) In (3), seemed is a verb that requires some phrase, here
the adjective upset. A relatively small number of verbs allow adjective
complements. In (4a), sat (in the sense of ‘was sitting’ as opposed to ‘sat
down’) requires a prepositional phrase describing a location, here in an
armchair. Remember that the label ‘prepositional phrase’ relates to the
type of constituent, a phrase with a preposition as its head. In (4a), in
is the head of the prepositional phrase in the armchair, and the armchair
is the complement of in. Such phrases describing a location are said to
function as adverbs of location, which is a shorthand way of combining
information about their meaning and about their function – they modify
verbs. Walked in (4b) allows just a prepositional phrase describing a
direction, into the drawing room. (Note that this account of sit does not
contradict the statement that adverbs of location are typically adjuncts.
There are no verbs that exclude adverbs of location, merely some that
require them.)
Handed in (4c) requires a noun phrase to its right, here his wife, and a
prepositional phrase describing a direction, here into the carriage. Gave
in (4d) allows the same types of complement as handed; ‘allows’ and not
‘requires’ because gave also occurs with two noun phrases as in (2c). Note
that not all verbs of giving or assigning behave like give. Attribute requires
the structure in (4d) but not the structure in (2c) – Everyone attributed
good intentions to Frank Churchill vs *Everyone attributed Frank Churchill good
intentions. Finally, suggested in (5) is a verb that allows an ordinary noun
phrase to its right, as in Mr Knightley suggested this plan, but it also allows
a complement clause, here that thieves would break into Hartfield House.
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THE LEXICON 51

Since very many verbs exclude a complement clause, the information

that a complement clause is allowed must be stated in the dictionary
entries for individual verbs.

5.3 Classes of verbs and subcategorisation restrictions

Some of these classes of verbs have traditional labels as listed in (6).
These labels are convenient for talking about classes of verbs rather than
individual verbs.
(6) despair Intransitive Verb [excludes a noun phrase to its right, as
in (2a)]
slight Transitive Verb [requires a noun phrase to its right, as in
(2b)]
gave Ditransitive Verb [‘twice transitive’] [requires two noun
phrases to its right, as in (2c)]
sat Intransitive Locational Verb [excludes a noun phrase to
its right but requires a prepositional phrase, as in (4a)]
handed Transitive Directional Verb [requires to its right both a
noun phrase and a directional phrase]
seemed Copula (linking verb) [requires to its right an adjective
phrase as in (3), or a noun phrase, as in seemed a sensible
person, or a prepositional phrase, as in seemed in good spirits,
or an infinitive, as in seemed to be unhappy]
To sum up, a given lexical item controls ‘lexical insertion’, the inserting
of lexical items into its complements. Another approach that has been
advocated more recently is to have no separate set of rules that specify
syntactic structure but to have that work carried out by lexical entries.
The entry for seem can be thought of as a set of instructions to build a
syntactic structure containing a noun phrase, a verb and, for example, an
adjective phrase. The entry for hand can be thought of as a set of instruc-
tions to build a syntactic structure containing a noun phrase, a verb, a
noun phrase and a directional prepositional phrase, and so on for the
other types of verb.
As well as controlling the number and general type of complements,
lexical verbs control the choice of preposition. For example, blame occurs
in the constructions in (7).
(7) a. Eleanor blamed Willoughby for Marianne’s unhappiness.
b. Eleanor blamed Marianne’s unhappiness on Willoughby.
Depending on which way the event is presented, blame requires for or on;
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52 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

no other prepositions are possible. Similarly, accuse requires the preposi-

tion of, as in Eleanor accused Willoughby of unprincipled behaviour.
The constraints that lexical verbs place on number and type of
constituents, choice of preposition and choice of case are known as
subcategorisation. We are dealing with the class or category of verbs,
but the different constructions required by different verbs allow us to set
up subclasses or subcategories of verb. Hence the term ‘subcategoris-
ation’. This discussion has not exhausted the topic of subcategorisation;
in particular, we have not looked at combinations of plural verb and
plural noun, singular verb and singular noun; or but we will take up this
question in Chapter 9 on syntactic linkage.

5.4 Selectional restrictions

Lexical entries also contain information about the roles assigned to the
nouns in a clause. (See Chapter 11 on participant roles.) For instance,
build and calculate assign Agent role to their subject noun and Patient role
to their direct object noun. In (8), Romans is Agent and aqueduct is Patient,
and in (9) computer is Agent and value is Patient.
(8) The Romans built this aqueduct.
(9) The computer will calculate the value of the variable.
The fact that aqueduct is inanimate does not change the assignment of
Patient role to it, and likewise the inanimacy of computer does not change
the assignment of Agent role. Picking up from Chapter 4 the concept of
the central, prototypical member of a class, we can say that prototypical
Agents are animate, or even human. Inanimate nouns such as computer
can be non-prototypical Agents, the role being thrust upon them by
particular verbs and particular constructions. For instance, calculate
requires an Agent, and in the ACTIVE DECLARATION construction
the Agent role is assigned to the noun to the left of the verb.
Lexical verbs impose restrictions on the type of noun that can occur
to their left or right. A verb such as blame requires a human noun to its
left, while a verb such as kill requires an animate noun to its right. Of
course, speakers and writers regularly utter sentences such as (10) and
(11).
(10) The dog blamed us for her stay at the vet’s.
(11) These objections killed the proposal.
Speakers and writers who produce (10) know perfectly well that blame
is assigned by moral beings; they merely assume that dogs qualify. In our
treatment of (11), we continue to state that kill requires an animate noun
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THE LEXICON 53

to its right. The clash between this requirement and the fact that proposal
is inanimate imposes a metaphorical interpretation.
Constraints affecting the type of lexical noun are known as selec-
tional restrictions. Selectional restrictions range from large classes of
nouns such as animate and human nouns (shorthand for ‘nouns denoting
animate beings’ and ‘nouns denoting human beings’) to smaller classes
such as nouns denoting liquids. For example, the verb flow requires a
subject noun such as water, river or lava, as in (12).
(12) The water/river flowed over the embankment
This particular verb raises two interesting points. The first is that, as with
(10) and (11), the verb can be used metaphorically; we talk of ideas flow-
ing from someone’s pen. The second is that a given noun on its own may
not denote a liquid but may be understood as doing so because of its
modifiers. Thus The molten metal flowed into the mould does not require
a metaphorical interpretation, but the fact that the metal is liquid is
contributed by the adjective molten. This last example is handled in
the same way as (11). Even without the adjective molten, it imposes the
interpretation that the metal was in a liquid state and forces us to
construct a suitable context, for example a foundry.

5.5 Classes of nouns

Selectional restrictions, as hinted above, lead us to employ large
subclasses of nouns that are familiar from traditional grammar. The
subclasses are set out in 13.
(13) a. concrete vs abstract
b. common vs proper
c. count vs mass
d. animate vs inanimate
e. human vs non-human
These subclasses were established in traditional grammar not just for
the analysis of English but for the analysis of all the languages of
Europe. They have been extended to the analysis of languages all over
the world – many languages outside Europe have particularly intricate
sets of distinctions. We have brought in these subclasses in connection
with selectional restrictions, which are closely connected with seman-
tics. A very important point, however, is that the distinctions set out
in (13) are relevant to the grammar of many languages. We are not
suggesting that all the distinctions are relevant to the grammar of every
language, but any sample of languages from different language families
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54 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

and different areas of the world will show that each distinction affects
the grammar of some languages. For example, English proper nouns
such as Ethel typically exclude the and a, as discussed in Chapter 1 using
the examples reproduced below as (14). Common nouns, which are not
the names of people, towns and so on, typically allow or require the or a,
for example lecturer in (14b), gritter and salt in (15a).
(14) a. Ethel was sitting at her desk. *The Ethel was sitting at her
desk.
b. *Lecturer was sitting at her The lecturer was sitting at her
desk. desk.
(15) a. The gritter spread salt. The gritter spread the salt.
b. The gritter spread salts.
c. Too much salt damages *Too many salt damages
vehicles. vehicles.
d. *Too much vehicles are *Too many vehicles are damaged
damaged by salt. by salt.
The distinction between common and proper nouns does have a seman-
tic component; proper nouns are the names of people, places, organis-
ations and institutions. The distinction is also very important for the
grammar of English noun phrases; proper nouns such as Ethel in (14a)
exclude the, and singular common nouns such as lecturer in (14b) require
the. (The plural does not – Lecturers all wear food-stained pullovers and
sandals is impeccable in its grammar even if not in its content.)
The distinction between count and mass nouns is involved in import-
ant grammatical choices but likewise has a meaning component. With
respect to grammar, mass nouns require much, as in (15c), and exclude
many; count nouns require many and exclude much. With respect to mean-
ing, count nouns refer to entities that are thought of as individuals,
that can be counted – boy, plant, idea. Mass nouns denote entities that
are conceived of as a mass of stuff that cannot be split into countable
individuals – water, flour, wine, salt. Mass nouns typically occur in the
singular; when they occur in the plural, they change their meaning.
Wines has the interpretation ‘kinds of wine’.
In other languages, the distinctions between the subclasses of nouns
are relevant for the assignment of case, for example. This is demon-
strated by the two Russian examples in (16).
(16) a. Boris podnjal stakan
Boris picked-up (the)-glass
b. Boris podnjal kota
Boris picked-up (the)-cat [tomcat]
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THE LEXICON 55

Stakan in (16a) is inanimate and has no case suffix. Kot is animate and
takes the case suffix -a. Other patterns in the Russian case system involve
the distinction between concrete and abstract and between count and
mass, but we omit the details.
We close this section with a comment on the terms ‘concrete’ and
‘abstract’. Lecturer and wine are examples of concrete nouns, while truth
and amazement are abstract nouns. We are using the traditional labels, but
the key distinction is whether a given noun denotes an entity that is
abstract or not abstract. The difficulty is that ‘concrete’ evokes an entity
made of the substance called ‘concrete’, or at least an entity that is hard
and solid. Lecturers are not made of the substance we call ‘concrete’ and
wine is not solid, but neither wine nor lecturers are abstract. They can
be physically seen, touched and manipulated, whereas truth and amaze-
ment cannot.

5.6 Subcategorisation, selection and constructions

The last comment in connection with subclasses of nouns is that labels
such as ‘concrete’, ‘count’ and ‘human’ represent properties of nouns;
these properties are known as inherent properties, and features such as
‘concrete’ are known as inherent features.
All the examples in this chapter have been of the ACTIVE
DECLARATIVE construction, that is, of the basic construction as
defined in Chapter 3. As discussed there, the construction of an example
such as (2c) is related to a number of other constructions, as shown in (17).
(17) a. Frank Churchill gave a piano to Jane Fairfax.
b. Frank Churchill gave Jane Fairfax a piano.
c. A piano was given to Jane Fairfax by Frank Churchill.
Let us say for the sake of the argument that in the ACTIVE DECLARA-
TIVE construction give requires an animate noun to its left referring
to the giver, Frank Churchill, and a prepositional phrase to its right, also
containing an animate noun but referring to the recipient, to Jane Fairfax.
Example (17b) is an example of the ditransitive construction; the same
lexical items occur, but the animate noun Jane Fairfax is a noun phrase
immediately following the verb and not preceded by a preposition. In
(17c), an example of the passive construction, the animate noun Frank
Churchill is not to the left of the verb but to its right, inside a prepositional
phrase, by Frank Churchill.
We could write separate dictionary entries for give for all three con-
structions, but this has two drawbacks. We would have to write separate
entries for each construction that a given verb occurs in, and there are
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56 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

many different constructions. More seriously, we would not capture in

our account the system of constructions, the fact that paths lead from the
basic ACTIVE DECLARATIVE positive construction out to the other
constructions, some directly, some via intervening constructions.
(See the discussion in Chapter 3.) The way round this problem is to state
the subcategorisation and selectional restrictions once for the basic
ACTIVE DECLARATIVE positive construction and to have the infor-
mation about the restrictions carried from one construction to the next.
(The details of the transfer from one construction to another differ from
one model to another, and it is no easy task to state the details explicitly;
nonetheless, what has been stated above is the goal shared by all the
models of syntax.)

5.7 Fixed phrases

We round off this brief visit to the dictionary by pointing out that we
began with the stereotypical view that there are rules that specify
syntactic constructions and that words are listed in the dictionary or
lexicon, taken out of the dictionary and inserted into syntactic construc-
tions. It turned out that the connection between syntax and lexical items
is closer than we might have imagined, not only with respect to the
number of connections but also with respect to the powerful role played
by individual lexical items, especially verbs. Over the past fifteen years
or so, analysts have come to realise that in any language there is a large
set of phrases and even whole clauses that are not freely built up but
fixed. Following the discussion by Crystal in The Cambridge Encyclopaedia
of the English Language (pp. 162–3), we can distinguish various types of
fixed phrase, as set out in (18)–(21).
(18) POLYWORDS: in a nutshell; once and for all
(19) INSTITUTIONALISED EXPRESSIONS: Give me a break; How
do you do?; Long time no see; Pleased to meet you; See you soon;
come to think of it; it doesn’t bear thinking about
(20) HIGHLY CONSTRAINED PHRASES: as I was __ (saying/
mentioning); as far as I __ (can see/can make out/know); I (just)
can’t think straight; I thought I told you not to do that
(21) SENTENCE BUILDERS: my point is that __; let me begin by
___; not only … but also
Crystal also discusses collocations, restricted sequences of words;
examples are in (22). Heavy smoker and heavy drinker qualify as colloca-
tions because heavy and light combine with a limited set of nouns – smoker,
drinker, eater and sleeper.
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THE LEXICON 57

(22) COLLOCATIONS: staple food/diet/industry; wouldn’t/won’t/

couldn’t budge; a heavy smoker; a heavy drinker
The above five types of phrase and clause do not always conform to the
syntax of written English and may have idiosyncratic meanings; a heavy
smoker is not a smoker with a weight problem. It looks as though these
phrases and clauses must be listed as single items in the dictionary,
although at the time of writing there are no explicit descriptions of
English or other languages that handle fixed phrases in an adequate way.
What analysts are more and more certain of is that the number of fixed
expressions in English (and other languages) and the frequency with
which they are used by speakers and writers is much greater than anyone
supposed forty years ago.

Summary
The traditional view of clauses and sentences is that syntactic structures,
like those in Appendix 2, are built up and that lexical items are inserted
into the structures, again as shown in the diagrams in Appendix 2. In fact,
lexical items can be seen as playing an important and even controlling
role. For instance, blame requires a noun phrase to its right, Emma blamed
Harriet, and while it does not require a prepositional phrase it allows one
and requires the preposition to be for – Emma blamed Harriet for the mistake.
Some verbs, such as disappear, exclude any noun phrase to their right;
witness *The magician disappeared the investment funds. Other verbs exclude
entire constructions; resemble excludes the passive, and *Your friend is
resembled by my brother is unacceptable. Particular verbs require particular
types of noun to their left or right; faint requires an animate noun to its
left, as in The patient fainted vs *The engine fainted, and persuade requires an
animate noun to its right, as in We persuaded the students (to write their
essays) vs *We persuaded the lava (to flow into the lake). Verbs are said to select
particular types of noun and to impose selectional restrictions. Verbs can
be divided into subcategories with respect to the number and type of
phrases they require, exclude or allow. The phenomenon is known as
subcategorisation, and verbs are said to subcategorise for particular types
of constituents.

Exercises
1. In (6) above, various classes of verb are exemplified – intransitive,
transitive, ditransitive, intransitive locational, transitive directional and
copula. Which class does each of the following verbs belong to?
       
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58 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

2. A special class of modal verbs is recognised in English. Can is one

of them. On the basis of the following examples, say what properties
distinguish modal verbs from ordinary verbs.
1. The firm can deliver the documents to your house.
2. The firm can’t/cannot deliver the documents before Friday.
3. The firm delivers the documents to your house.
4. The firm doesn’t/does not deliver the documents to your house.
5. Can the firm deliver the documents to my house?
6. Does the firm can deliver documents to my house?
7. The firm can deliver the documents to my house, can’t it?
8. The firm delivers the document to your house, doesn’t it?
9. I emphasise that the firm can deliver documents to your house.
10. I emphasise that the firm does deliver documents to your house.
11. At the moment, the firm is delivering documents inside twenty-
four hours.
12. *At the moment the firm is canning (= is able to) deliver docu-
ments inside twenty-four hours
3. Is ought a modal verb for speakers who produce examples such as (4)
and (5) below? Do you use the constructions in (1), (2) and (3)? In speech
or in writing or both?
1. Ought he to leave his luggage lying there?
2. Oughtn’t you to be working for the examinations?
3. We oughtn’t to be helping them.
4. They ought to pay attention to these arguments, didn’t they?
5. You didn’t ought to listen to them.
Is need a modal verb for speakers who produce examples such as (6)–(8)
below? Do you speak or write examples such as (9)–(11)?
6. You’re needing to have a haircut.
7. Do they need to be paid the whole sum at once?
8. They don’t need to sit this examination.
9. Need we take this examination?
10. They needn’t sit this examination.
11. You need to have a haircut.
4. In (13) above, various classes of nouns were set up and assigned in-
herent features: animate vs inanimate, concrete vs abstract, count vs
mass, common vs proper, human vs non-human. Which of these features
can be assigned to the following nouns?
      
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THE LEXICON 59

Take the following examples into account.

1. The mouse ran under the desk.
2. I always use the mouse to move the cursor.
3. How much wine has he drunk?
4. This shop specialises in Australian wines.
5. She always told the truth, no matter the consequences.
6. She told him a few home truths about himself.
7. Some nasty rumours are going about.
8. Rumour has it that she is being promoted.
9. When did the Venetians discover how to make fine glass?
10. We only have ten glasses for twelve people.
11. I only wear my glasses when reading.
12. She was given a grant for her research.
13. How many grants does the council award each year?
14. How much grant does the university receive?
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6 Clauses I

6.1 Clauses and sentences

We have discussed dependency relations (heads and modifiers), con-
stituent structure (the arrangements of words into phrases and phrases
into clauses) and constructions. Key technical terms such as ‘clause’ and
‘sentence’ have been used without any attempt at definition, but it is now
time to take up this task. It is also an appropriate point at which to discuss
the central concepts of ‘main clause’ and ‘subordinate clause’; without
them, we cannot discuss in any insightful way the organisation of clauses
into the sentences which make up effective written texts. (‘Written texts’,
because the syntax and textual organisation of spontaneous speech is
rather different.) We can usefully begin by reviewing the major proper-
ties of clauses, taking the examples in (1) as our starting point.
(1) a. Wickham eloped with Lydia.
b. Miss Bates chattered on for hours.
Examples (1a, b) are sentences. It is hard to supply an instant definition
of a sentence apart from the initial capital letter and the final full stop,
but we will return to sentences later in the chapter. Examples (1a, b) are
also instances of main clauses. What are the major properties of these
main clauses?
i Each clause contains a finite verb; that is, a verb marked for tense. (For
further remarks on the notion of ‘finiteness’ and the concept of non-
finite clause, see Chapter 7.) Finite verbs are traditionally said to be
marked for tense, person and number. Tense has to do with whether the
speaker or writer uses a past-tense verb, for example was in was listening,
and places a given event in past time, or a present-tense verb, for
example is in is listening, and places the event in present time. Person has
to do with whether an action is assigned to the speaker (I am listening, first
person), the hearer (You are listening, second person) or someone other
than the speaker and hearer (He/she is listening, third person). Number
60
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CLAUSES I 61

has to do with whether the speaker or writer refers to one person (She is
listening, singular) or more than one (They are listening, plural).
Person and number are mostly lacking in English verbs with the
exception of , which has a first person singular form am, a third person
singular form is, and the form are for the plural and the second person.
In the past tense (see the discussion of tense in Chapter 13), it has the
form was for the first and third person singular and the form were for the
plural and the second person. (Other languages have a richer system
of person and number contrasts, as in the Russian chitaem Solzhenitsyna
‘we are reading Solzhenitsyn’, chitaju Solzhenitsyna ‘I am reading
Solzhenitsyn’, chitaesh’ Solzhenitsyna ‘you are reading Solzhenitsyn’, and
so on. The suffix -em signals first person, plural and present tense; -ju
signals first person, singular and present tense, and -esh’ signals second
person, singular and present tense.)
ii In each clause, the finite verb is accompanied by its complements
and adjuncts (see Chapter 1).
iii Each clause is marked for aspect (see Chapter 13), and the aspect
can be changed: compare Wickham was eloping with Lydia as opposed to
Wickham eloped with Lydia.
iv Each clause has mood. Mood has to do with two sets of distinctions.
First, there are the distinctions between making statements (Wickham
eloped with Lydia), asking questions (Did Wickham elope with Lydia?) (see
Chapter 13) and issuing commands (Elope with Lydia! ). The second set of
distinctions has to do with whether the speaker or writer presents an
event as possible (He may have eloped with Lydia) or as necessary (He must
have eloped with Lydia) or as a fact (He did elope with Lydia.) (See Chapter 13
for further discussion.)
v Both allow certain changes of syntax to reflect changes of focus
or emphasis, for example Never will Wickham elope with Lydia, With Lydia
Wickham eloped (to London), Eloped with Lydia to London, Wickham did (col-
loquial but relevant).
vi Clauses describe situations, the participants in them (for example,
Agents carrying out actions on Patients, as in Frank [Agent] persuaded
Jane [Patient] to keep the secret, and the circumstances in which they take
place, as in Frank Churchill was in Hartfield [place] in June [time]). (The
term ‘circumstances’ may seem strange but is a technical term which
now has a long history.)
vii Both can be the first contribution to a discourse, whether spoken
or written. Clearly, this rests on presuppositions about the audience
knowing who Wickham, Lydia and so on are, but what is important for
present purposes is that phrases such as with Lydia, handed his hat to the
servant and chattered on cannot be the first contribution to a normal
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62 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

English text, nor can clauses such as which she bought last week or although
it is cold. Of course these phrases and clauses occur in texts, but not as
the first contribution. The phrases can only be responses, as in Who did
Wickham elope with? – with Lydia, or just Lydia, and clauses such as although
it is cold must be combined with main clauses.
The central fact in the above list is that we can recognise clauses by
which phrases modify (‘go with’) which verb; that is, we can recognise
clauses in real texts – novels, newspapers, poems, academic textbooks
and even the transcripts of conversation. What we are doing here is
introducing the clause as part of our analysis, and it will be useful to have
different labels for the two sorts of clause. Clauses in real texts we will
call ‘text clauses’; clauses in our analysis we will call ‘system clauses’,
capturing the fact that in our analysis we try to establish a system of
grammar, and clauses are part of the system.
We need the clause for a coherent description of dependency relations
(including agreement and government, as discussed in Chapters 8 and 9)
and constituent structure. The densest clusters of dependency relations
are found inside clauses (although some dependency relations do reach
from one clause to another, as in the occurrence of which or who in rela-
tive clauses; which one occurs depends on a noun outside the relative
clause – the book which but the woman who). The tests for constituent struc-
ture work best inside single clauses. Fortunately, the clauses that are part
of our analysis typically correspond to clauses in real texts. The unit that
does cause problems, surprisingly, is the sentence.

6.2 Main and subordinate clauses

Writers, whether novelists or people writing personal letters to family
and friends, put clauses together into sentences, and it is for this activity
that main clauses and the different types of subordinate clause are
essential. Some sentences in texts (text sentences, corresponding to
text clauses) resemble the examples in (1) in consisting of a single main
clause, but many consist of several clauses. Depending on what types
of clause are combined, two types of multi-clause sentence are dis-
tinguished. Compound sentences consist of two or more clauses joined
by conjunctions. Examples are given in (2).
(2) a. Captain Benwick married Louisa Hayter and Captain Wentworth
married Anne Elliott.
b. Henry Crawford loved Fanny but Fanny loved Edmund.
c. Mr Bingley became tired of Jane or Mr D’Arcy persuaded Mr
Bingley to go to London.
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CLAUSES I 63

In (2a), the clauses Captain Benwick married Louisa Hayter and Captain
Wentworth married Anne Elliott are conjoined by and; in (2b) the clauses
Henry Crawford loved Fanny and Fanny loved Edmund are conjoined by but;
and in (2c) the clauses Mr Bingley became tired of Jane and Mr D’Arcy
persuaded Mr Bingley to go to London are conjoined by or. In (2a–c), the
conjoined clauses are all main clauses, but subordinate clauses can also
be conjoined, as we will see after the following discussion of subordinate
clauses.

6.3 Subordinate clauses

Complex sentences consist of a main clause and one or more other
clauses subordinate to it. That is, one clause, the main clause, is pre-
eminent in a complex sentence and the other clauses, the subordinate
clauses, are subject to certain limitations, as will be shown later. We
begin by giving examples of the major types of subordinate clause,
complement clause, relative clause and adverbial clause.

6.3.1 Complement clauses

Examples of complement clauses are given in (3a, b).
(3) a. Elizabeth regretted that she had met Wickham.
b. Catherine feared that the Abbey was haunted.
These clauses were traditionally called ‘noun clauses’, because they
occur in slots in the main clause that can be occupied by ordinary noun
phrases – Elizabeth regretted her actions and Catherine feared the General’s
temper. The contemporary label ‘complement clause’ reflects the re-
lationship between the clauses and the verb of the main clause: Elizabeth
regretted and Catherine feared are incomplete pieces of syntax which
require a modifier, either a noun phrase as in the immediately preceding
examples or a clause, as in (3).
The complement clauses in (3) occur to the right of the verbs in the
main clauses, but complement clauses also occur to the left of verbs, as
in (4).
(4) That Anne was in conversation with Mr Elliott dismayed Captain
Wentworth.
The skeleton of the sentence in (4) is [ ] dismayed Captain Wentworth, the
square brackets marking the slot waiting for some constituent. The slot
could be filled by a noun phrase such as Her words but in (4) is filled by
the complement clause That Anne was in conversation with Mr Elliott.
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64 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

There is one more property of complement clauses to be mentioned

here; they can modify a noun, as in (5).
(5) Fanny was delighted by the idea that she could subscribe to a library.
The sequence Fanny was delighted by the idea is a complete clause. The
additional that she could subscribe to a library conveys the content of the
idea. It is not required to complete the syntax, but as we will see later it
is not a relative clause and has been given the label ‘complement clause’
because it fills out the meaning of the word idea. Other examples of noun
complement clauses are given in (6), that the committee be abolished and that
we would visit Glasgow today.
(6) a. Who thought up the proposal that the committee be abolished?
b. There was a plan that we would visit Glasgow today but the weather
is terrible.

6.3.2 Relative clauses

Complement clauses modify verbs as in (3) and (4) and nouns as in (6);
relative clauses modify nouns. In older descriptions, relative clauses are
called adjective clauses, reflecting the fact that adjectives also modify
nouns. Of course, in English they do not occur in the same position as
adjectives, since adjectives typically precede the noun in a noun phrase
while relative clauses follow it. Examples of relative clauses are given
in (7).
(7) a. The cottage which Mrs Dashwood accepted was rather small.
b. The gentleman who saved Marianne was Willoughby.
c. The book which Marianne was reading contained poems by
Cowper.
d. The building that we liked is in Thornton Lacey.
In (7a), the relative clause which Mrs Dashwood accepted modifies the noun
cottage; in (7b) the relative clause who saved Marianne modifies the noun
gentleman; in (7c) the relative clause which Marianne was reading modifies
the noun book; and in (7d) the relative clause that we liked modifies the
noun building. In certain circumstances, the WH word or that can be
omitted, as in The building we liked is in Thornton Lacey, with the relative
clause we liked, or The book Marianne was reading contained poems by Cowper,
with the relative clause Marianne was reading.
(The term ‘relative’ goes back to the Roman grammarians, who called
the Latin equivalent of which, who and so on relative pronouns because
they referred back to a noun. Refer derives from the Latin verb referre, a
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CLAUSES I 65

very irregular verb whose past participle passive is relatus, from which
‘related’ derives. Note that although the that clause in (7d) is called a
relative clause, that is not a relative pronoun but a conjunction.)

6.3.3 Adverbial clauses

The name ‘adverbial’ suggests that adverbial clauses modify verbs; but
they modify whole clauses, as shown by the examples in (8). Their other
key property is that they are adjuncts, since they are typically optional
constituents in sentences. They are traditionally classified according to
their meaning, for example adverbial clauses of reason, time, concession,
manner or condition, as illustrated below.
(8) a. Reason
Because Marianne loved Willoughby, she refused to believe that he
had deserted her.
b. Time
When Fanny returned, she found Tom Bertram very ill.
c. Concession
Although Mr D’Arcy disliked Mrs Bennet he married Elizabeth.
d. Manner
Henry changed his plans as the mood took him.
e. Condition
If Emma had left Hartfield, Mr Woodhouse would have been
unhappy.
The adverbial clause of reason in (8a), Because Marianne loved Willoughby,
gives the reason (or the writer uses it to give the reason) why Marianne
refused to believe that Willoughby had gone. It modifies the main clause
she refused to believe that he had deserted her.
The adverbial clause of time in (8b), When Fanny returned, gives the
time at which another event happened, namely her finding Tom Bertram
ill. It modifies the main clause she found Tom Bertram very ill.
The adverbial clause of concession in (8c), Although Mr D’Arcy disliked
Mrs Bennet, conveys a concession. The writer says, as it were, ‘OK. I con-
cede that he didn’t like Mrs Bennet. Nonetheless he married Elizabeth.’
The adverbial clause modifies the main clause he married Elizabeth.
The adverbial clause of manner in (8d), as the mood took him, describes
the manner in which Henry changed his plans and modifies the main
clause Henry changed his plans.
In (8e), the adverbial clause of condition If Emma had left Hartfield
conveys the circumstances or conditions under which a particular situ-
ation would have arisen. The situation is Mr Woodhouse being unhappy,
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66 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

and the writer declares that this situation did not actually come about
but would have done; Emma’s leaving Hartfield would have brought
it about. The crucial fact is the relationship between the two situations;
Mr Woodhouse’s being unhappy is conditional upon Emma’s leaving
Hartfield. The adverbial clause of condition modifies the main clause Mr
Woodhouse would have been unhappy.

6.4 Complementisers and subordinating conjunctions

One important point remains to be made about subordinate clauses
(in English). Most of the subordinate clauses you will come across in
written texts are introduced by a special word. In (3), the complement
clauses are introduced by that, in (7) the relative clauses are introduced
by which, who and that, and in (8) each type of adverbial clause has its
particular initial word, although, because, as, when and if. In grammars
from before, say, 1965, the words introducing complement clauses and
adverbial clauses were generally known as subordinating conjunctions,
and words such as and or but were known as coordinating conjunctions.
Conjunctions are words that (con)join clauses. Coordinating conjunc-
tions join clauses that have the same status. In (2a), for example, the
clause Captain Benwick married Louisa Hayter is of the same status as
Captain Wentworth married Anne Elliott. If (2a) were split into its com-
ponent clauses, each clause on its own would immediately be able to
constitute a sentence and to occur in a text. The clauses are of the same
order or rank, hence co-ordinating conjunction and co-ordinate clauses.
In contrast, if (8e), say, were split into its component clauses, only one
of them would be able to constitute a sentence, namely the main clause
Mr Woodhouse would have been unhappy. The adverbial clause of condition,
if Emma had left Hartfield, cannot function as a sentence until the sub-
ordinating conjunction if is removed. Subordinating conjunctions intro-
duce subordinate clauses. Since 1965 or so, the term ‘complementiser’
has been used in one of the major theories of syntax not just for sub-
ordinating conjunctions introducing complement clauses but for all
subordinating conjunctions. This usage has spread to other theories
of syntax and to grammars of English and other languages, and we too
adopt it.
A problem is posed by the words that introduce relative clauses.
Who, whom and which are pronouns that also function as subordinating
conjunctions. That they are pronouns is indicated by the who/whom
distinction parallel to he/him and so on and the contrast between who
and which, parallel to the contrast between he/she and it. (The contrast
between who and whom is disappearing from English. It is only used regu-
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CLAUSES I 67

larly in the most formal and carefully edited texts.) The WH words can
be preceded by prepositions, as in the fire at which Mr Woodhouse sat. The
WH words will sometimes be referred to as relative pronouns and
sometimes as complementisers. Relative clauses are also introduced by
that. This word does not change (in technical terms, is invariable) and
cannot be preceded by a preposition – *the fire at that Mr Woodhouse sat.
It is not a pronoun but merely a subordinating conjunction or comple-
mentiser.
All the subordinate clauses in (8) are optional and can occur no matter
what verb is in the main clause. For this reason, they are treated as
adjuncts. The above list of adverbial clauses is not exhaustive but merely
illustrative. Detailed accounts of subordinate clauses in English and
other languages can be found in the references at the end of the book.
To close this section, we return to conjoined clauses. Examples of
conjoined main clauses were given in (2), but subordinate clauses can
also be conjoined, as shown by the examples in (9). Example (9a)
contains two conditional clauses conjoined by and; (9b) contains two
relative clauses conjoined by but.
(9) a. If Henry Crawford loved Fanny and if Fanny loved Edward,
Henry Crawford was going to be disappointed.
b. It was Anne Elliott who loved Captain Wentworth but who
rejected his first proposal.

6.5 Recognising clauses

There are reliable rules of thumb for recognising the different types
of clause. Some of the rules have to do with constituent structure or the
complementiser, but most of them exploit the concept of modification.

Rules of thumb
For any given finite subordinate clause:
A Does it modify another clause? If it does, it is an ADVERBIAL
CLAUSE.
For example, in (10) the clause in italics modifies the entire clause in
roman type. It establishes a time for the entire situation of leaving the
furniture behind and is an adverbial clause of time.
(10) When we sell the house, we’ll probably leave most of the furniture.
B Does it modify a verb? If it does, it is a (VERB) COMPLEMENT
CLAUSE.
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68 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

For example, in (11) the clause in italics modifies the verb reported.
Indeed, the clause A motorist has reported is incomplete without the
complement clause.
(11) A motorist has reported that the road is blocked by snow at Soutra Hill.
NB: Verb complement clauses function as subject or object of a clause.
C Does it modify a noun? If it does, it could be a RELATIVE
CLAUSE or a COMPLEMENT CLAUSE.
C(i) Is the subordinate clause introduced by a WH word such as who,
which, where, or by a prepositional phrase such as in which? If it is,
it is a relative clause.
For example, in (12) and (13) the clauses in italics are relative clauses.
(12) The Labrador ate all the food which we left on the kitchen table.
(13) Show me the folder in which you stored the documents.
C(ii) Is the subordinate clause introduced by that? If it is, it could be
either a relative clause or a complement clause. If it is a relative
clause, that can be replaced by which and so on, as in (14). If it is
a complement clause, that cannot be replaced by a WH word, as
shown by (15).
(14) RELATIVE CLAUSE
a. I like the book that you gave me.
b. I like the book which you gave me.
(15) COMPLEMENT CLAUSE
a. We like the idea that the city centre will be pedestrianised.
b. *We like the idea which the city centre will be pedestrianised.
Note that there are some examples that go counter to C(ii). In the
question why she bothered phoning, the reason why they refused and the problem
where to leave our furniture, the nouns question, reason and problem are
followed by WH clauses, but these clauses are complements. Other,
more formal, variants are the question of why she bothered phoning and the
problem of where to leave our furniture. In the latter examples the nouns
question and problem are linked to the WH clause by the preposition of.
Relative clauses are never linked to nouns in this way. We will treat these
apparent counter-examples as fixed phrases, since a very limited number
of nouns are modified by WH complement clauses.
There is a further useful test that distinguishes between relative and
noun complement clauses. Consider the verb complement clause above
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CLAUSES I 69

and in (3) and all the adverbial clauses we have looked at. If you remove
the complementiser, you are left with a complete clause; the removal of
that from that she had met Wickham in (3a) leaves she had met Wickham, and
the removal of Although from Although Mr D’Arcy disliked Mrs Bennet in (8c)
leaves Mr D’Arcy disliked Mrs Bennet. The removal of that from the noun
complement clause that she could subscribe to a library in (5) leaves she could
subscribe to a library.
Removal of the complementiser from relative clauses produces a
different result. In (7a), the removal of which from which Mrs Dashwood
accepted leaves Mrs Dashwood accepted. This is not a complete clause, since
accepted requires a noun phrase to its right. The removal of who from who
saved Marianne in (7b) leaves saved Marianne. This clause is incomplete
because the verb requires a noun to its left. It makes no difference
whether a given relative clause is introduced by a WH word or that, as in
(7d). The removal of that in the latter leaves we liked, which lacks a noun
phrase to its right and is incomplete.

6.6 Final comment

In the above examples, the relative and complement clauses are intro-
duced by that, who and which. Relative and complement clauses often
follow their head noun or verb directly, without a complementiser, as
in (16).
(16) a. I love the food they cook in the halls of residence.
b. A motorist has reported the road is blocked at Soutra Hill.
c. I am delighted at the idea they might demolish the Appleton Tower.
The lack of a complementiser does not affect the rules of thumb.
Example (16b) contains a verb complement clause, the road is blocked
at Soutra Hill, which modifies reported; (16a) contains a relative clause,
they cook in the halls of residence, modifying food; and (16c) contains a comp-
lement clause, they might demolish the Appleton Tower, modifying the noun
idea.

Summary
Three major types of subordinate clause are recognised: complement
clauses, relative clauses and adverbial clauses. Complement clauses
modify either verbs or nouns, can function as subject or object in a clause
and have as their complementiser that or zero. Relative clauses modify
nouns and have as their complementiser a WH word or that or zero.
Relative clauses differ further from complement clauses in that, without
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70 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

a WH complementiser, they lack a subject or object. This also applies

to relative clauses introduced by that or zero. Adverbial clauses modify
other clauses. Rules of thumb based largely on modification help to pick
out the different types of clause.

Exercises
The following exercises contain sentences consisting of two or more
clauses. Analyse each sentence into its clauses and state the type of each
clause – main clause, adverbial clause (of reason, concession and so on),
relative clause, complement clause. The examples in Exercises 1–3 are
either made up or adapted from ‘real’ sentences. The examples in
Exercise 4 are from a magazine article.
1. 1. Jane believes that the earrings she got from Susan are real silver.
2. I’ll believe it when I see it.
3. If you think Scotland are ever going to win the European
Championship, you must be a real optimist.
4. The article in which the theory was put forward is now unobtain-
able.
5. That Helen is to marry the man she met on holiday has surprised
all her friends.
6. Celia did not say that you could keep the book that you borrowed.
7. Because you are flying non-stop, you will probably have severe
jet-lag.
8. He promised that he would be here on time, though I find it diffi-
cult to rely on him.
9. The woman whose car you think you have dented is our MP.
10. That you don’t like my home-made vodka I find difficult to
believe.
11. Since you think you are ready to sit the test, come along to-
morrow.
12. That the club regained the trophy dismayed the teams that had
better players.
2. 1. We regret that the plan is impracticable.
2. They accept the theory that the world is flat.
3. They accept the theory that the group proposed.
4. Did Fiona say who would be at the party?
5. Which of the candidates will be elected is quite unpredictable.
6. It is believed by some historians that Napoleon was poisoned.

3. 1. Kirsty went out and forgot to switch off the gas fire.
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CLAUSES I 71

2. We know that she wrote several novels and threw them away.
3. The editors who ignored the ban and printed the story might find
themselves in prison.
4. If you go walking on the hills in winter and do not take proper
equipment, you are asking for trouble.
4. 1. They are pioneering a new geography in which they will establish
when new races settled in particular regions.
2. A geneticist says the Pacific islands are an ideal testing ground for
the theory that the Pacific was colonised from west to east.
3. The history begins with the day when the chief medical officer for
Vanuatu noticed that a large number of people there suffered from
anaemia.
4. He was advised to treat them with iron supplements so he con-
tacted scientists at Oxford who found that half of the donors
suffered from alpha-thalassaemia, which is usually linked to the
presence of malaria.
5. It seems that the gene protects against malaria, since carriers of the
alpha 3.7 mutant will not die of malaria even if they contract a
severe bout.
6. Although anthropological studies have been inconclusive, previous
biological research has suggested that there was no contact while
the Melanesians were moving east.
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7 Clauses II

Chapter 6 dealt with the basic properties of main and subordinate

clauses. In this chapter, we will discuss further topics – the relationship
between main and subordinate clauses, the characteristics of subordinate
clauses and the question of non-finite clauses.

7.1 Main and subordinate clauses

One very traditional view of subordinate clauses is that they derive from
main clauses which are put into subordinate positions in sentences
and undergo certain syntactic changes. In many languages other than
English, they also undergo morphological changes, since a given verb
turns up in one shape in main clauses and another shape in (particular
types of ) subordinate clause. This is easily demonstrated via the French
elle peut ‘she can [main clause]’ and afin qu’elle puisse ‘so that she can
[subordinate clause, an adverbial clause of purpose]’, where only puisse
occurs in adverbial clauses of purpose and only peut occurs in main
clauses.
The relationship between main and subordinate clauses was fore-
shadowed in the discussion of rules of thumb at the end of the previous
chapter. There, we saw that when a complementiser is removed from an
adverbial clause or a complement clause in English it leaves a sequence
of words which make up a complete main clause. The removal of the
complementiser from relative clauses, however, leaves a sequence that
lacks either the noun phrase which would be to the left of the verb or
the noun phrase which would be to the right of the verb. A second
complication is that WH words seem to be both pronouns and comp-
lementisers, whereas that is purely a complementiser.
One way of handling the relationship is to assume that the route from
main clause to relative clause is as follows, taking (7a) in Chapter 6 as our
example, repeated here as (1).
(1) The cottage which Mrs Dashwood accepted was very small.
72
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CLAUSES II 73

Assume that the source of the relative clause which Mrs Dashwood accepted
is Mrs Dashwood accepted which, with the pronoun which in the usual slot
for direct objects. The pronoun which is moved to the front of the clause,
in fact to a special slot for complementisers outside the main body of the
clause. This enables us to show both that which is the direct object of
accepted and that it is the complementiser of the relative clause. (This
treatment appeals to the idea introduced in Chapter 3 on constructions:
they can be thought of as arranged in a network with specific paths
through the network from construction to construction. In that chapter,
we looked only at main clauses, but the idea is here extended to the rela-
tionship between main and subordinate clauses.) The analysis of relative
clauses can be made more complex if we take at its face value the defini-
tion of pronouns as substituting for nouns – more accurately, for noun
phrases. One line of analysis would take the source of the above relative
clause to be Mrs Dashwood accepted the cottage, with which being substituted
for the cottage and then being moved to the complementiser slot.
Relative clauses with the complementiser that have a different source.
Since that is not a pronoun, there is no reason to start with it in subject
or object position and then move it. In the source main clause, it is in the
complementiser slot. But in the source main clause, accepted needs an
object. We solve this problem by assuming that the source main clause is
that Mrs Dashwood accepted it. En route to the relative clause, it is dropped.
We have space to discuss only one simple example. Anyone who takes
further this sort of analysis quickly finds that the details of even short
examples are not straightforward. Furthermore, the analysis sketched
above is fairly superficial; attempts to gain depth inevitably lead to
analyses that are both very detailed and very abstract. One final point in
this section: as was said in Chapter 3 on constructions, it is tempting to
think of moving backwards and forwards along the paths through the
network of constructions, and it is equally tempting to think of being
able to move from main clause to subordinate clause or vice versa. In
practice, all recent detailed analyses of syntax of this type specify paths
from a source construction, a starting point, out through the network to
more complex constructions, and not in the opposite direction.

7.2 Clause and sentence

We noted in Chapters 1, 2 and 6 that the clause is an important unit
of analysis because many head–modifier relations are found within the
clause and because the criteria for constituent structure, such as trans-
position, apply best inside the clause. The sentence is not very useful in
these respects; only a few dependency relations cross clause boundaries,
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74 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

and the constituent structure criteria do not really apply outside single
clauses. Consider (2a–b).
(2) a. Anne Musgrave has just seen Mr Elliott in Bath Street.
b. Nurse Rooke has discovered where Anne Elliott stayed.
c. Nurse Rooke suspected that Mrs Clay planned to run away with
Mr Elliott.
Example (2a) contains a single main clause, which can stand on its own
and constitute a sentence. Within that clause, there is a relatively dense
network of dependencies. (Has) seen has the two NPs as complements –
it requires both a noun phrase to its left and a noun phrase to its right.
The form of  must be has and not have, since there is agreement in
number between the first noun phrase and the verb. If we replace Mr
Elliott with a pronoun, the pronoun has to be him and not he. The Perfect,
has seen, allows time adverbs such as just but excludes time adverbs such
as in March or five years ago.
Example (2b) contains the main clause Nurse Rooke has discovered where
Anne Elliott stayed. The object of discovered is itself a clause, where Anne
Elliott stayed. This complement clause is said to be embedded in the main
clause and is controlled by discovered. Only some verbs allow a clause
as opposed to an ordinary noun phrase, and  is one of them. Of
the verbs that allow complement clauses, only some allow WH comp-
lementisers such as where, and  is one of them. Like ,
 allows complement clauses (We planned that they would only stay for two
nights – but alas …), but also infinitives, as in (2c);  on the other
hand excludes infinitives.
It is generally accepted that we can specify where words occur in
phrases, and where phrases occur in clauses, but not where entire
sentences occur in a text. This does not mean that the sentences in a text
are devoid of links. Sentences in a paragraph can be linked by binders
such as thus, in other words, for this reason, consequently, nevertheless, or by the
ellipsis of certain portions of a sentence that depend on the preceding
sentences in a discourse – I can help you tomorrow. Sheila can’t [help you
tomorrow]; and by pronouns – Kerry and Louise have failed the maths exam.
Margaret and Sheila are not pleased with them. The links between sentences
in texts are different from the dependencies between the constituents in
clauses, being less predictable and more flexible.
We can say something about where clauses occur in sentences.
Relative clauses are embedded in noun phrases and immediately follow
the head noun. (But not always, as in the well-used example I got a jug
from India that was broken.) Verb complement clauses substitute for either
noun phrase with a transitive verb. Anne in (3a) is replaced in (3b) by the
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CLAUSES II 75

complement clause That Captain Wentworth married Anne. The scene in (3c)
is replaced in (3d) by the complement clause that he was still handsome.
The complement clauses can be analysed as occupying noun-phrase
slots.
(3) a. Anne astonished her father.
b. That Captain Wentworth married Anne astonished her father.
c. Sir Walter Elliott imagined the scene.
d. Sir Walter Elliott imagined that he was still handsome.
Time adverbs such as yesterday occur at the beginning of a clause or
at the end of the verb phrase, as in (4), and adverbial clauses of time
typically occur in the same positions, as in (5).
(4) a. Yesterday Lydia eloped with Wickham.
b. Lydia eloped with Wickham yesterday.
(5) a. When Lydia went to Brighton, she eloped with Wickham.
b. Lydia eloped with Wickham when she went to Brighton.
Adverbial clauses of reason behave in a similar fashion. Compare (6)
with the phrase because of the strike and (7) with the clause because the bus
drivers were on strike. Both can precede or follow the main clause, and both
are optional (adjuncts).
(6) a. Because of the strike the commuters travelled by army lorry.
b. The commuters travelled by army lorry because of the strike.
(7) a. Because the bus drivers were on strike, the commuters travelled
by army lorry.
b. The commuters travelled by army lorry because the bus drivers
were on strike.
Clauses of concession and condition can also be seen as parallel
to phrases. Example (8c) in Chapter 6, reproduced here as (8), can be
rephrased as (9).
(8) Although Mr D’Arcy disliked Mrs Bennet he married Elizabeth.
(9) In spite of his dislike of Mrs Bennet, Mr D’Arcy married Elizabeth.
The phrase in spite of is not obviously a concession phrase, whereas
yesterday and because of the strike are clearly time and reason phrases
respectively. Example (9) nonetheless expresses a concession.
Example (8e) in Chapter 6 is repeated below as (10). It can be re-
phrased and split into two sentences, as in (11).
(10) If Emma had left Hartfield, Mr Woodhouse would have been
unhappy.
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76 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

(11) Emma might have left Hartfield. In that case Mr Woodhouse would
have been very unhappy.
Another possible rephrasing is With Emma away from Hartfield, Mr
Woodhouse will be very unhappy, but there is controversy, to be discussed
later, as to whether sequences such as With Emma away from Hartfield
should be analysed as a phrase or as a kind of clause. In any case, the
essential point is that most kinds of adverbial clause can be seen as
substituting for adverbial phrases; we can state precisely where the
phrases occur in a clause, and we can specify where the adverbial clauses
occur, though rather less precisely.
Let us review where the discussion has brought us. Traditional
definitions of sentence talk of a grammatical unit built up from smaller
units. The smaller units (phrases and clauses) are linked to each other
by various head–modifier relations (marked by the sorts of devices
discussed in Chapter 9); a given phrase or clause can only occur in
certain slots inside sentences. Sentences themselves cannot be described
as occurring in any particular slot in a piece of text. This definition
implies that the sentence has a certain sort of unity, being grammatically
complete, and has a degree of semantic independence which enables it
to stand on its own independent of context. We have seen that the above
definition applies better to main clauses. Sentences are better treated as
units of discourse into which writers group clauses. Without going into
detail, we should note that clauses are recognisable in all types of spoken
and written language but that no reliable criteria exist for the recog-
nition of sentences in spontaneous speech. Subordinate clauses are
indeed grammatically complete in themselves and their patterns of
occurrence can be specified, but they cannot stand on their own inde-
pendent of context.
We have worked our way towards the following position. We can
describe where words occur in phrases, where phrases occur in clauses
and where clauses occur in sentences. We can describe how words
combine to form phrases, phrases to form clauses, and clauses to form
sentences. In contrast, we cannot describe where sentences occur, and
describing how sentences combine to make up a discourse or text is very
different from analysing the structure of phrases and clauses. Finally,
there are dense bundles of dependencies among the constituents of
clauses; there is the occasional dependency relation across clause
boundaries but none across sentence boundaries (in English). Links
across sentence boundaries are better treated as binders tying small units
together into a large piece of coherent text.
All the above are reasons for recognising the clause as a unit between
phrase and sentence.
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CLAUSES II 77

7.3 More properties of subordinate clauses

We turn now to other similarities and differences between main and
subordinate clauses. The subordinate clauses in a given sentence are
to a large extent grammatically independent of the main clause. They
cannot stand on their own (in writing, at any rate), but the main clause
does not control the choice of verb and other constituents, nor the choice
of participant roles, tense, aspect and modal verbs. (The choices must
make semantic sense, but that is a different question.) Compare the
variants of the complement clause in (12).
(12) a. We heard that Captain Benwick would marry Louisa Hayter/
that Mary Hayter was a hypochondriac/that Admiral Croft was
always accompanied by his wife.
b. We hear that Captain Benwick has married Louisa Hayter/that
Captain Benwick married Louisa Hayter/that Captain Benwick
is marrying/that Captain Benwick will marry Louisa Hayter.
c. We heard that Captain Benwick might marry/must have mar-
ried Louisa Hayter.
In (12a), two of the complement clauses are active and the last one is
passive. One complement clause is a copula construction, that Mary
Hayter was a hypochondriac, while the other two are not. In (12b), one
complement clause has a Perfect verb – has married, the second has
a simple past tense – married, the third has a present-tense verb – is
marrying, and the fourth has a future-tense verb – will marry. (See
Chapter 13 for a discussion of tense.) In (12c), the complement clauses
have different modal verbs, might marry vs must (have) married.
Subordinate clauses are, however, subject to a number of constraints
that do not apply to main clauses. For instance, main clauses can be
declarative, interrogative or imperative, as shown in (13a–c). (See the
discussion of these terms in Chapter 3.)
(13) a. Captain Wentworth wrote a letter to Anne Elliott.
[DECLARATIVE]
b. Did Captain Wentworth write a letter to Anne Elliott?
[INTERROGATIVE]
c. Write a letter to Anne Elliott. [IMPERATIVE]
Subordinate clauses are not free with respect to choice of declarative,
interrogative and imperative syntax. For example, relative clauses,
adverbial clauses and most types of complement clause must have
declarative syntax, as shown in (14).
(14) a. *Because did Marianne love Willoughby, she refused to
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78 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

believe that he had deserted her. [Because Marianne loved

Willoughby …]
b. *If did Emma leave Hartfield, Mr Woodhouse would be
unhappy. [If Emma left Hartfield …]
c. *When did Fanny return, she found Tom Bertram very ill.
[When Fanny returned …]
d. *The cottage which did Mrs Dashwood accept was rather small.
[… which Mrs Dashwood accepted …]
e. *Catherine feared that was the Abbey haunted. [Catherine
feared that the Abbey was haunted]
The phrase ‘most types of complement clause’ was used because a
number of verbs allow a type of complement that is traditionally called
‘indirect question’. Examples are given in (15).
(15) a. Elizabeth asked whether/if Mr Bingley would return to
Netherfield.
b. The girls wondered who Mr Bennet had received in his library.
The clauses introduced by whether/if and who are indirect questions.
Example (15a) is completely declarative in syntax, apart from the WH
word whether; (15b) is partly declarative and partly interrogative –
declarative in the order of noun phrase and auxiliary verb (Mr Bennet had
received) but interrogative in having the WH word who at the front of
the clause. These subordinate clauses can be seen as corresponding
to the main interrogative clauses Will Mr Bingley return to Netherfield?
and Who did Mr Bennet receive in his library?
Interestingly, contemporary spoken English has the type of comp-
lement clause in (16). It is normal for spoken English in all sorts of formal
and informal contexts and is beginning to turn up in written texts.
(16) a. She asked was Alison coming to the party.
b. We were wondering who did you meet at the conference.
The complement clauses have straightforward interrogative syntax –
was Alison coming to the party and who did you meet at the conference. These
examples could be uttered with pauses between the clauses and with
each clause having its own intonation pattern, but typically there is
no pause and the whole utterance has one single intonation pattern.
Note that although the complement clauses in (16) have interrogative
syntax, they do not invalidate the statement that subordinate clauses are
typically limited to declarative syntax.
Subordinate clauses are limited in other respects. Main clauses, but
not subordinate clauses, are open to a wide range of syntactic construc-
tions. Consider the examples in (17).
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CLAUSES II 79

(17) Prepositional phrase fronting

a. In came Aunt Norris. [cf. Aunt Norris came in]/Into the room
came Aunt Norris.
b. She said that in came Aunt Norris./She said that into the room
came Aunt Norris.
c. *The person who in came at that moment was Aunt Norris./
*The person who into the room came at that moment was Aunt
Norris.
d. *Because in came Aunt Norris, Fanny stopped talking./*Because
into the room came Aunt Norris, Fanny stopped talking.
e. *When in came Aunt Norris, Fanny stopped talking./*When
into the room came Aunt Norris, Fanny stopped talking.
The construction has a preposition in first position followed by the main
verb followed by the subject NP. It can occur in declarative main clauses,
and in complement clauses – compare (17b) – but not in relative clauses
or adverbial clauses.

(18) Negative fronting

a. Never had Sir Thomas been so offended. (Sir Thomas had never
been so offended.)
b. They realised that never had Sir Thomas been so offended.
c. *The person who never had he been so offended was Sir Thomas.
d. *Because never had Sir Thomas been so offended, even Mr
Yates left.
e. *When never had Sir Thomas been so offended, Mr Yates left.
Example (18b) can be derived from Sir Thomas had never been so offended.
Never moves to the front of the clause and Sir Thomas and had change
places. As with preposition fronting, the construction is acceptable in
main clauses and complement clauses but not in relative or adverbial
clauses.

(19) Tag questions

a. Dr Grantly habitually ate too much rich food, didn’t he?
b. *We realised that Dr Grantly died because he ate too much rich
food, didn’t he?
c. *The person who ate too much rich food didn’t he was Dr
Grantly.
d. *Because Dr Grantly ate too much rich food didn’t he, he died
of apoplexy.
e. *When Dr Grantly died of apoplexy didn’t he, Mary Crawford
went to live with his wife.
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80 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

Didn’t he? in (19a) is a tag question, so named because the structure

consists of a declarative clause, Dr Grantly habitually ate too much rich food,
with a question tagged on at the end, didn’t he? Tag questions consist of
verbs such as did, might, can and so on plus a pronoun, and possibly with
the negation marker -n’t or not.
Tag questions do not occur in any subordinate clause. Note that in an
example such as Edmund knew that Dr Grantly died of apoplexy, didn’t he?, the
tag question relates to the verb in the main clause, knew, and not to died
of apoplexy. Note also that the examples in (19) are intended to be taken
as written language and that spoken utterances must be supposed
to carry a single intonation pattern and to have no breaks. The latter
stipulation is necessary, because speakers do produce utterances such as
because Dr Grantly ate too much rich food, break off the utterance and ask the
tag question, and then, having received an answer, go back to the main
clause. That type of interrupted syntax is not relevant for present
purposes.
The data in (14)–(19) suggest that there is a hierarchy of subordi-
nation. Complement clauses are the least subordinate and allow prep-
osition fronting, negative fronting and, depending on the head verb,
interrogative structures. Relative clauses and adverbial clauses are most
subordinate. They exclude all the constructions in (14)–(19), together
with interrogative and imperative structures.
The position of some adverbial clauses on the hierarchy is not
straightforward but is affected by their position in sentences. As (7)
shows, adverbial clauses of reason can precede or follow the main clause.
When they follow the main clause, they allow negative fronting and
preposition fronting, but not when they precede it. This suggests that in
the latter position they are more subordinate. Consider the examples in
(20), and note the examples in (21) and (22) which show that adverbial
clauses of time and concession do not behave this way.
(20) a. Fanny stopped talking because in came Aunt Norris.
b. *Because in came Aunt Norris Fanny stopped talking.
c. Mr Yates left because never had Sir Thomas been so offended.
d. *Because never had Sir Thomas been so offended, Mr Yates left.
(21) a. *Fanny stopped talking when in came Aunt Norris.
b. *When in came Aunt Norris Fanny stopped talking.
(22) a. *Fanny continued talking although in came Aunt Norris.
b. *Although in came Aunt Norris, Fanny continued talking.
Adverbial clauses of reason following the main clause seem to play a
different role from the one they play preceding the main clause. It has
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CLAUSES II 81

been suggested that adverbial clauses preceding the main clause serve as
signposts to the text, whereas adverbial clauses following the main clause
serve as comments on what has been said or written. In conversation,
adverbial clauses may (emphasis on may) be separated from the main
clause by a pause and may have their own intonation pattern, though
clearly these considerations are irrelevant to written text.
It has been proposed that sequences of main clause + adverbial clause
of reason come close to being conjoined clauses, that is, clauses of equal
status. This proposal seems on the right lines, and it opens an interesting
view of when clauses that have been (mistakenly) regarded as sub-
ordinate. Compare (21a), reproduced as (23a), and (23b).
(23) a. *Fanny stopped talking when in came Aunt Norris.
b. Fanny had just stopped talking when in came Aunt Norris.
Example (23a) presents two events as simultaneous: Fanny stopped
talking and Aunt Norris came in. Example (23b) presents one event as
following the other: Fanny stopped talking, after which Aunt Norris
came in. It is not entirely clear why (23b) is acceptable, but it is worth
pointing out that when can be replaced by and then, that is, by an ex-
pression that overtly conjoins the two clauses and fits with the notion of
main clause + adverbial clause as two conjoined clauses. Example (23a)
does not allow the substitution, since the two events are presented as
simultaneous

7.4 Finite and non-finite clauses

The clauses examined in this chapter all have a finite verb. Much
contemporary analysis recognises a category of non-finite clauses –
sequences of words which lack a finite verb but nonetheless are treated
as subordinate clauses. Examples are given in (24), with the non-finite
clauses in italics.
(24) a. Fanny regretted talking to Mary.
b. Henry wanted to marry Fanny.
c. Mrs Bennet having taken the others upstairs, Mr Bingley proposed to
Jane.
d. All Mr Collins does is praise Lady de Bourg.
e. Lady de Bourg tried to persuade Elizabeth to renounce Mr D’Arcy.
Such sequences were until recently treated as phrases – for instance, to
marry Fanny in (24b) was described as an infinitive phrase, and talking to
Mary in (24a) as a gerund phrase. There are, however, good reasons for
treating them as clauses. Like the classical finite subordinate clauses,
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82 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

they contain a verb and a full set of modifiers – marry in (24b) has Fanny
as a complement, talking in (24a) has to Mary as a directional comp-
lement, and having taken in (24c) has Mrs Bennet and the others as comp-
lements and upstairs as a directional complement. They can have aspect,
as shown by (25a, c) which are Perfect and by (25b) which is progressive.
(25) a. Henry wanted to have married Fanny before Edmund returned.
b. Mrs Bennet taking the others upstairs, Mr Bingley gave a sigh of
relief
c. Fanny regretted having talked to Mary.
d. What Mr Collins is doing is praising Lady de Bourg.
Against the above data must be set the fact that non-finite constructions
are highly limited in their grammar. Examples (24a–e) exclude tense and
modal verbs such as , , . They exclude interrogative and
imperative constructions and do not allow prepositional phrase fronting
or negative fronting. In spite of (25),  is excluded from (24a) and
(25b) – see (26a, b).  is excluded from (24d) – see (26c).
(26) a. *Fanny regretted being talking to Mary.
b. *Mrs Bennet being taking the others upstairs, Mr Bingley gave a sigh
of relief.
c. *All Mr Collins has done is have praised Lady de Bourg.
The non-finite constructions do allow some modality to be signalled,
that is, events can be presented as necessary, or requiring permission, or
requiring ability, as in (27a–c).
(27) a. Fanny regretted having to talk to Aunt Norris. [necessity]
b. Julia and Maria wanted to be allowed to perform a play. [permis-
sion]
c. Edmund wanted Fanny to be able to ride a horse. [ability]
The presentation of an event as possible is excluded, or at least very rare.
(28) *Henry wanted to possibly marry Fanny.
As shown by (12) above, in a given sentence, finite subordinate clauses
have their own set of participants independent of the participants in the
main clause. This is not true of most non-finite constructions. Consider
(29), which brings us to the traditional concept of the understood
subject.
(29) Henry wanted to marry Fanny.
The infinitive construction to marry Fanny has no overt subject noun
phrase, but Henry is traditionally called the understood subject of
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CLAUSES II 83

marry. That is, traditionally it was recognised that (29) refers to two
situations – Henry’s wanting something, and someone’s marrying Fanny.
Furthermore, it was recognised that Henry is the person doing the want-
ing, so to speak, and also the person (in Henry’s mind) marrying Fanny.
The syntax is rather condensed relative to the semantic interpretation,
since there is only one finite clause but two propositions, one for each
situation. In contemporary terms, the notion of understood subject is
translated into that of control. The subject of  is said to control the
subject of the verb in the dependent infinitive. That is, there is a depen-
dency relation between the infinitive and the subject of wanted. (See
the discussion of ‘subject’ in Chapter 8.) Remember that in Chapter 1 the
heads of phrases were described as controlling their modifiers, in the
sense of determining how many modifiers could occur and what type.
In connection with Henry wanted to marry Fanny, the noun phrase Henry
determines the interpretation of another, invisible, noun phrase, the
subject of marry. The technical term for this relationship is ‘control’; it is
important to note that ‘control’ has these different uses.
In (30), a similar analysis is applied to the gerund, the -ing phrase that
complements loved, where the understood subject of talking is Fanny. In
contemporary terms, the subject of  is held to control the subject
of the dependent gerund – here, the subject of loved controls the subject
of talking to Mary.
(30) Fanny loved talking to Mary.
With respect to (31), traditional analysis recognises one clause but
more than one potential situation: Lady de Bourg tried to do something,
Lady de Bourg persuade Elizabeth, and Elizabeth renounce Mr D’Arcy.
The subject of tried controls the subject of the dependent infinitive, here
to persuade. To persuade in turn has a dependent infinitive – to renounce. The
object of persuade, Elizabeth, controls the subject of to renounce.
(31) Lady de Bourg tried to persuade Elizabeth to renounce Mr D’Arcy.
What the above facts boil down to is that on the hierarchy of clauseness,
main clauses outrank everything else, and subordinate finite clauses
outrank by a good head the candidate non-finite subordinate clauses.
Why then do contemporary analysts see the non-finite sequences in (24)
as clauses, albeit non-finite? The answer is that they give priority to the
fact that non-finite and finite sequences have the same set of comp-
lements and adjuncts. Verbs exercise the same control over the types and
number of their complements in finite and non-finite constructions; for
example,  requires to its right a noun phrase and a directional phrase,
in both The child put the toy on the table and The child tried to put the toy on
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84 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

the table. Example (24c) has an overt subject, Mrs Bennet, and the other
non-finite constructions have understood subjects.
The latter ties in with the important business of semantic interpret-
ation. Finite clauses are held to express propositions, and so are non-
finite clauses, once the understood subject is, so to speak, filled in. (Note
that prioritising data, facts, tasks and various theoretical concerns is
an integral part of any analytic work. Raw data are dumb until they are
interpreted in the light of this or that theory and put to work in a solu-
tion to this or that theoretical problem.)
What are called free participles, adjuncts containing -ing forms, pose
interesting problems. Consider (32a, b), which are the same construction
as exemplified by (24c).
(32) a. Knowing the country well, he took a short cut.
b. Slamming the door, he ran down the steps.
The problem is this. The non-finite constructions in (24) can be straight-
forwardly correlated with finite clauses, Henry marries Fanny, Fanny talks
to Mary, Mrs Bennet had taken the others upstairs and so on. Example (32a)
contains knowing, but in spite of this being called a free participle, 
does not have -ing forms that combine with , as shown by (33).
(33) *He was knowing the country well.
Slamming the door in (32b) is equally problematic. The free participle
sequence cannot be related to When/while he was slamming the door but
only to When he had slammed the door. That is, the path from the free
participle to the time clause would involve the introduction of a differ-
ent auxiliary, . In general, free participles are best treated as a non-
finite type of clause with only a very indirect connection, whatever it
might be, with finite clauses.
Non-finite constructions with infinitives and participles at least con-
tain a verb form, even if it is non-finite. Some analysts even propose
treating the parts in bold in (34) as clauses, although they have no verb
form of any kind.
(34) a. When ripe, these apples will be delicious.
b. He left the train with somebody else’s wallet in his pocket.
c. She walked up the hill, her rucksack on her back.
d We found the cage empty.
Example (34a) comes closest to a clause, in that the candidate sequence
contains when, which looks like a complementiser. Example (34a) could
be seen as resulting from ellipsis, the ellipted constituents being a noun
phrase and some form of : when they are ripe — > when ripe. Examples
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CLAUSES II 85

(34b, c) are unlikely candidates, on the grounds that they cannot be easily
correlated with a main clause. It is impossible to insert an -ing form into
(34b) *He left the train with somebody else’s wallet being in his pocket: in fact, this
construction is used only preceding a main clause and typically in order
to present one situation as the cause of another; compare the earlier
example With Emma having left Hartfield Mr Woodhouse was unhappy, and
With somebody else’s wallet being in his pocket, he was glad not to be stopped by any
policemen.
None of the above contradicts the semantic facts that, for example,
(34c) and (34d) express several propositions: ‘She walked up the hill’ +
‘She had her rucksack’ + ‘Her rucksack was on her back’ for (34c) and
‘We found the cage’ + ‘The cage was empty’ for (34d). The moral is that
while semantic facts should be taken into account, an analysis of syntax
should never depend on semantic facts alone. The structures in (34)
express propositions but are not even non-finite clauses.

Summary
The traditional distinction between clause and sentence is important.
A main clause combines with one or more subordinate clauses to form a
sentence. Where different clauses occur in sentences can be described,
as can where phrases occur inside clauses. Where sentences occur in
texts cannot be described except very loosely. Sentences can be regarded
as a low-level unit of discourse. Main clauses allow a very wide range
of syntactic constructions and all the distinctions of aspect, tense and
mood. In contrast, subordinate clauses allow a smaller range of syntactic
constructions and fewer distinctions of aspect, tense and mood. There is
a hierarchy of subordinate clauses. Complement clauses are least sub-
ordinate, relative and adverbial clauses are most subordinate. What were
traditionally regarded as infinitive and gerund phrases are now treated
as clauses on the ground that they express propositions and, like finite
clauses, consist of a verb plus complements and adjuncts.

Exercises
1. Pick out the non-finite clauses in the following examples. Say
whether each non-finite clause is an infinitive, a gerund or a free par-
ticiple and what the understood subject is.
1. She tried to learn two languages simultaneously to a high level
inside three months.
2. I hate travelling to Glasgow by the M8 at this time of year.
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86 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

3. Having looked at all the exercises very carefully, we concluded that

the marking had been too lenient.
4. Sheila quickly hiding something under the chair when I came in, I
assumed that she had been buying my Christmas present.
5. I don’t understand Imogen’s being so keen to spend her holidays
tramping tirelessly round art galleries.
6. With all the children coming home for Christmas and the New
Year, I’m going to take the dogs for long walks.
7. His car sold, he set off on foot for Tighnabruaich.

2. Indirect questions
English has two types of interrogative constructions: direct questions
and indirect questions. Direct questions are, as the name suggests, put
directly: for example, When did you phone?, Did you remember to buy potatoes?,
How long is this essay?, Who paid for the meal? In indirect questions, inter-
rogative structures such as the above are the complement of verbs such
as , ,  and so on. Some of the examples below are
taken from grammars of English, while other examples are taken from
various types of spontaneously produced English (spontaneously in the
sense that they were not thought up for the purposes of tutorial material
but were used by speakers of English in the ordinary course of speaking
or writing.)
1. Describe the syntax of the indirect questions – that is, specify the
type of question (WH or yes–no) and whether the word order is
direct or indirect.
2. Try to decide which indirect question constructions
(a) you have heard used in speech or seen in writing;
(b) you would accept in a piece of written work (say, from a
someone learning English as a second language);
(c) you would use in formal writing (say, an essay or a job appli-
cation).
1. I wondered when the plane would leave.
2. They were trying to decide where the best place was to go on
holiday.
3. We still have the problem of how we are to fund the extra
resources.
4. John asked me whether I was ready yet.
5. Mary told him how brave he was.
6. I can’t remember now what was the reason for it.
7. If they got a carpet, they had to decide where was the best place
to put it.
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CLAUSES II 87

8. No one is sure how long are the passages leading off from this
centre.
9. But the thought did cross my mind as to what is the rate of
burglary per hour in Edinburgh.
10. The question arises as to what language should they be literate in.
11. The problem still remains of what is the resource-holding body.
12. You were shouting at me about why had I not done something.
13. We would like them to share what are their forecasts.
14. The real issue is whether this institution is governed dictatorially
from the top or do we have a democratic college.
15. In the diagram on the next page I have tried to represent my own
personal opinion about whether these verbs can take a human
subject and if so do they necessarily require an object which is
either water or another liquid.
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8 Grammatical functions

8.1 Introduction
We have seen that in a given clause the verb can be regarded as the head,
controlling the other major phrases. Two sets of concepts bear on the
relationship between the verb in a clause and its complements; one is the
set of grammatical functions or grammatical relations, that is, subject,
direct object, indirect object/second object and oblique object, and the
other is the set of roles such as Agent and Patient. The first three terms
used to be familiar to anyone who studied any of the foreign languages
normally offered in British schools – French, German, Spanish, Latin,
Russian. They are in constant use in grammars of languages from every
part of the world and have been deployed for centuries in the study of
European languages, yet it turns out to be far from straightforward to
define the concepts, and it has yet to be determined whether they apply
to languages which differ greatly from English in their grammar.

8.2 Subject
The most complex grammatical function is that of subject. Consider the
example in (1).
(1) The tigers hunt prey at night.
Tigers precedes the verb. It agrees with the verb in number, as becomes
clear when it is made singular: The tiger hunts its prey at night. In the active
construction, it is never marked by any preposition. The corresponding
full passive clause (see Chapter 3 on constructions) is Prey is hunted by the
tigers at night; in the passive clause, the subject of (1), the tigers, turns up
inside the prepositional phrase by the tigers.
The above criteria – agreement in number with the verb, never being
preceded by a preposition, occurring in the by phrase in the passive – are
grammatical, and the noun they pick out in a given clause is the gram-
matical subject of that clause. Tigers has another interesting property:
88
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GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS 89

it refers to the Agent in the situation described by (1). Many analysts

consider that tigers refers to the Agent in the passive sentence too,
although it is inside the by prepositional phrase and at the end of the
sentence. They call tigers the logical subject, by which is meant that in
either syntactic construction tigers denotes the Agent. That is, its role in
the situation does not change.
Other analysts maintain that in the passive sentence tigers no longer
denotes the Agent but rather the Path by which the action reaches and
affects the prey. Such arguments lead us into a very old and unresolved
controversy as to whether language corresponds directly to objective
reality or whether it reflects a mental representation of the outside
world. For the moment, we put this controversy aside; but it will return
(possibly to haunt us) when we take up the topic of roles. All we need do
here is note the assumptions that lie behind the notion of logical subject,
and to understand that in any case the grammatical subject NP in an
active construction of English typically denotes an Agent. This follows
from the fact that most verbs in English denote actions.
A third type of subject is the psychological subject. In (1), tigers is the
starting point of the message; it denotes the entities about which the
speaker wishes to say something, as the traditional formula puts it.
Example (1) is a neutral sentence: it has a neutral word order, and the
three types of subject coincide on the NP tigers. Psychological subject
and grammatical subject need not coincide. In This prey tigers hunted, the
psychological subject is this prey. (It is what was called ‘topic’ in (7d) in
Chapter 3 on constructions.)
In contemporary linguistic analysis, the notion of psychological
subject has long been abandoned, since it encompasses various concepts
that can only be treated properly if they are teased apart. Again, the
details need not concern us. What is important is that in sentences such
as (1) the grammatical subject noun phrase typically denotes the Agent
and typically denotes the entity which speakers announce and of which
they then make a predication.
It is the regular coincidence of grammatical subject, Agent and
psychological subject in English and other languages of Europe that
makes the notion of subject so natural to native speakers and to analysts.
Here, we take the grammatical criteria to be the most important and
explore them further. Consider the examples in (2).
(2) a. Fiona hoped to meet the Prime Minister.
b. Susan intends to reach Kashgar.
c. Arthur tried to bake a cake.
All these examples contain infinitive phrases: to meet the PM, to reach
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90 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

Kashgar, to bake a cake. As was discussed in Chapter 7, such infinitives are

nowadays regarded as non-finite clauses, one of their properties being
that they have understood subjects: for example, Fiona is the understood
subject of meet the PM; Fiona is, so to speak, doing the hoping and Fiona
is the person who is to do the meeting, and similarly for Susan in (2b) and
Arthur in (2c).
The infinitive meet in (2a) is dependent on the main verb hoped, and the
grammatical subject of the main verb, Fiona, is said to control the under-
stood subject of the infinitive.
In the sentences in (2), the main verbs have only one complement, the
infinitive. In the examples in (3), the verbs have two complements, a
noun phrase and an infinitive.
(3) a. Fiona persuaded Arthur to bake a cake.
b. Susan wanted Jane to study German.
In (3a, b), the verbs persuaded and wanted are followed by a noun phrase,
Arthur and Jane, and then by an infinitive phrase. These infinitive phrases
too have understood subjects controlled by the noun phrases Arthur and
Jane to the right of the verb; Arthur underwent the persuasion and did
the baking; Jane was the target of Susan’s wishes and was to do the study-
ing. Suppose we expand (3a) to include the ‘missing’ constituents:


(3a ) Fiona persuaded Arthur: Arthur to bake a cake.
Suppose we relate the infinitive to a finite clause: Arthur baked a cake.
The path from the finite clause to the infinitive involves deleting a
constituent; the affected constituent is always the grammatical subject of
the non-finite clause, which is why analysts see the subject as pivotal to
the infinitive construction.
The sentences in (4) exemplify a different construction.
(4) a. Ayala went to the ball. Ayala chatted to Jonathan Stubbs.
b. Ayala went to the ball and chatted to Jonathan Stubbs.
The two sentences in (4a) yield the single sentence in (4b) by the ellipsis
of the grammatical subject, Ayala, in the second sentence. Only the
grammatical subject can be ellipted. Example (5a) cannot be converted
into (5b) by the ellipsis of the non-subject Ayala in the second sentence.
(5) a. Ayala went to the ball. Jonathan Stubbs chatted to Ayala.
b. *Ayala went to the ball and Jonathan Stubbs chatted to.
It does not matter whether the grammatical subject NP denotes an
Agent, as is demonstrated by the combining of active and passive
sentences in (6).
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GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS 91

(6) a. Ayala went to the ball. Ayala was chatted to by Jonathan Stubbs.
b. Ayala went to the ball and was chatted to by Jonathan Stubbs.
In this construction, too, the grammatical subject is pivotal, in the
sense that it is a grammatical subject that is omitted on the way from
the (a) to the (b) examples. Furthermore, the understood subject of the
second clause in (4b) and (6b) is controlled by the initial grammatical
subject.
A third construction in which the grammatical subject NP is central is
exemplified in (7).
(7) a. All the Tringles came to Merle Park.
b. The Tringles all came to Merle Park.
c. Both Jane and Elizabeth were at home.
d. Jane and Elizabeth were both at home.
In (7b), the word all is part of the noun phrase all the Tringles. That noun
phrase is the subject, and all can ‘float’ out of the NP to a position next
the finite verb, as in (7b). Similarly, both can be part of the subject noun
phrase as in (7c) but can float to the same position, as in (7d).
Only subject NPs allow all and both to float. In (8a), all is part of the
non-subject phrase all the foxes and cannot float to the left of the finite
verb, as shown by the unacceptable (8b), nor to the right, as in the un-
acceptable (8c). Nor can both in (8c) and (8d).
(8) a. Larry Twentyman hunted all the foxes.
b. *Larry Twentyman all hunted the foxes.
c. *Larry Twentyman hunted the foxes all.
d. George built both the houses.
e. *George both built the houses.
f. *George built the houses both.
As with the missing subject in the conjoined clauses in (5) and (6), quan-
tifiers can float out of subject noun phrases in both active and passive
clauses, as shown by (9a, b).
(9) a. All the foxes were hunted by Larry Twentyman.
b The foxes were all hunted by Larry Twentyman.
One final property of grammatical subjects is worth mentioning,
namely that just as subjects control the understood subjects of non-finite
clauses, so they control the interpretation of reflexive pronouns inside
single clauses. This is shown in (10), where Augusta and herself refer to the
same woman called Augusta.
(10) Augusta blamed herself for what happened.
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92 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

In the above discussion, we have talked of grammatical subject noun

phrases as having particular properties, but to talk in this way is to take
the notion of grammatical subject for granted. We present the state of
affairs more accurately if we say that in English various properties attach
to noun phrases: denoting an Agent, specifying the entity the speaker
wishes to say something about, acting as the pivot of various construc-
tions (coordination, infinitives, both and all floating, reflexives), being
involved in person and number agreement with the finite verb. In the
neutral active declarative construction of English, these properties
converge on one NP, which is accorded the title of grammatical subject.
As the discussion of psychological subject showed, the properties do
not always converge on one noun phrase. The psychological subject of
(11) is these documents, which does not agree with is in number and person
and is not the grammatical subject.
(11) These documents Elizabeth is checking at this very moment.
One property must be added to the list. It is not relevant to English
(apart from the pronoun system) but it is central to other Indo-European
languages such as Russian. The property is that of taking nominative
case, as exemplified in (12).
(12) a. Ivan tolknul Mashu (‘Ivan – pushed – Masha’)
b. Masha tolknula Ivana (‘Masha – pushed – Ivan’)
In (12a), Ivan is in the nominative case (as the traditional formula puts it)
and Mashu is in the accusative case. In (12b), Masha is in the nominative
case and Ivana is in the accusative case. Analogous changes only show up
in the pronouns in English, as in I pushed him and He pushed me.
We conclude this discussion of subject by listing the relevant proper-
ties and by pointing out that the list employs concepts that were import-
ant for the discussion of constructions in Chapter 3 and of word classes
in Chapter 4. In our examination of constructions, in particular the idea
of constructions forming a system, we appealed to the concept of a basic
construction, which was [DECLARATIVE, ACTIVE, POSITIVE].
This basic construction allows the greatest range of tense, aspect, mood
and voice (see Chapters 12 and 13 on grammar and semantics); instances
of this construction are the easiest to turn into relative or interrogative
clauses; they take the greatest range of adverbs. They are semantically
more basic than other clauses; in order to understand, for example, Kate
wasn’t helping and Was Kate helping?, it is necessary to understand Kate was
helping.
The list of properties that we are to establish relates to the basic
construction. In the discussion of word classes, we distinguished
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GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS 93

between syntactic and morpho-syntactic properties. Subjects have the

following major properties:
Syntactic properties:
• control of reflexives, as in (10)
• control of all and both floating, as in (7) and (9)
• functioning as pivot in infinitives and coordinate constructions, as in
(3), (4) and (6).
Morpho-syntactic properties:
• being involved in person and number links with the finite verb
• being in the nominative case.
There are two semantic properties. One is simply that grammatical
subjects typically refer to Agents. The second is that they refer to entities
that exist independently of the action or state denoted by the main verb,
whereas there are many verbs whose direct object does not have this
property (see section 8.3 below on direct objects.) For example, in Skilled
masons built the central tower in less than a year the direct object, the central
tower, denotes an entity that does not exist independently of the action
for the simple reason that it is created by the activity of building. Note
that the passive clause The central tower was built by skilled masons in less
than a year does not contradict what has just been said. The central tower
is certainly a subject and denotes the entity created by the building
activity, but the passive construction is not basic.

8.3 Direct object

The concept of direct object is as widely used as that of subject and has
just as long a tradition. Nonetheless, it too turns out to be elusive. As with
grammatical subject, it is possible to provide criteria for direct objects in
English, but the criteria do not necessarily carry over to other languages.
Keeping to the [ACTIVE DECLARATIVE] construction, we can say
that in sentences such as (13) the NP following the verb is the direct
object.
(13) a. Louise broke the cup.
b. Alison drove the car.
c. Martha chewed the bread.
We can say that the direct object NP is never preceded by a preposition
– in the sentence Martha chewed on the bread, bread is not a direct object,
and the entity it denotes is not completely affected by the action of
chewing – compare the discussion of Patients in Chapter 11. Neutral
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94 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

active declarative sentences typically have passive counterparts. One of

the properties of the English NPs called direct objects is that they corre-
spond to the grammatical subjects of passive sentences. This is shown in
(14a–c), the passive counterparts of (13a–c).
(14) a. The cup was broken by Louise.
b. The car was driven by Alison.
c. The bread was chewed by Martha.
We can say that direct object NPs typically refer to Patients.
Even for English alone, difficulties appear. One problem is that the
criteria, even with the help of the weasel adverb typically, do not extend
unequivocally to other constructions. Consider the passive sentences
in (15).
(15) a. How is a girl to be chatted to if she does not go out? (Anthony
Trollope, Ayala).
b. These fields were marched over by all the armies of Europe.
These passive sentences contain grammatical subjects (on the criteria
applicable to English), but their active counterparts do not contain direct
objects – compare (16).
(16) a. How is someone to chat to a girl if she does not go out?
b. All the armies of Europe marched over these fields.
In (16), the correspondents of the grammatical subjects in (15) are inside
prepositional phrases: to a girl, over these fields. The examples show that
either more than direct objects can be converted to grammatical subjects
in the passive construction or we have to regard chat to and march over as
single verbs that take direct objects.
Another difficulty with English is that some apparent active transitive
clauses have no corresponding passive: That car weighs two tons is not
matched by *Two tons are weighed by that car, Arthur measures six feet is not
matched by *Six feet are measured by Arthur, Her daughters resemble Lucy is
not matched by *Lucy is resembled by her daughters and The cage contained a
panda cannot be converted to *A panda was contained by the cage. It has been
suggested that, for example, in The cage contained a panda, the panda is not
a Patient (compare Chapter 11), but nobody has suggested that the panda
is not a direct object.
In spite of the reservations mentioned above, in the [NEUTRAL,
ACTIVE DECLARATIVE] construction of English we do have criteria
for recognising direct objects with most verbs combining with two NPs.
(We exclude the copula construction, ‘copula’ including , , ,
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GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS 95

 and others.) Another criterion that has been proposed for direct
objects in English relates to the positions occupied by particles such as
back. Where a verb combines with two NPs, the particle occurs after the
verb, but before or after the direct object NP, as in (17).
(17) a. Ayala sent back the diamond necklace.
b. Ayala sent the diamond necklace back.
In clauses with three NPs, the occurrence of the particle is limited.
(18) a. Ayala sent her cousin the diamond necklace.
b. *Ayala sent back her cousin the diamond necklace.
c. ?Ayala sent her cousin back the diamond necklace.
d. Ayala sent her cousin the diamond necklace back.
Example (18b) is bad, although back is in the same position as (17a),
between the verb and the immediately following noun phrase. Example
(18c) is not acceptable to all speakers, although back follows the NP im-
mediately to the right of the verb. To be balanced against this criterion
is the fact that her cousin in (18a) can become the grammatical subject of
the corresponding passive: Her cousin was sent back the diamond necklace by
Ayala. Which of the two criteria is to be given precedence: the position of
back or becoming grammatical subject of the passive?
Another complication that deserves mention is that pronouns behave
differently from full NPs with respect to back. Example (18c) merits no
more than a question mark, but the substitution of him for her cousin
yields an acceptable sentence: Ayala sent him back the diamond necklace.
(Interestingly, other particles, such as away, exclude potential direct
objects. They allow prepositional phrases, as in Ayala sent away the
diamond necklace to her cousin; but compare *Ayala sent her cousin away
the diamond necklace.)
The general picture of direct object in English is fragmented, unlike
the picture of grammatical subject. The latter can be recognised for any
construction, but for direct object only one construction provides solid
evidence, the basic active declarative construction, both in itself and
in its relationship with the passive. As for the concept of subject, one
criterion can be added for some languages other than English; as shown
in (12a) and (12b), direct object nouns are in the accusative case.

8.4 Oblique object and indirect object

Recent work in syntax deploys the concept of oblique object; in English,
any noun phrase that is the complement of a preposition is an oblique
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96 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

object, where the prepositional phrase is itself the complement of a verb.

In (19), to Onegin, to Egilsay and for Jane are oblique objects.
(19) a. Tatiana wrote to Onegin.
b. Magnus went to Egilsay.
c. Frank bought a piano for Jane.
Phrases such as to Onegin used to be analysed as containing indirect
object nouns, but this concept of indirect object is problematical.
Grammars of English would merely refer to verbs such as , ,
 and , which occur in the construction V NP1 TO NP2 or V
NP2 NP1: compare Celia gave the car to Ben vs Celia gave Ben the car, where
the car is NP1 and Ben is NP2. The indirect object was said to be the noun
phrase preceded by to, and the relevant verbs were either listed indi-
vidually or divided into classes labelled ‘verbs of saying’, ‘verbs of giving’
and so on in order to avoid the label ‘indirect object’ being assigned to
phrases such as to Dundee in He went to Dundee.
In fact, it is difficult to separate indirect objects from adverbs of direc-
tion. It is sometimes suggested that the two can be distinguished on
the grounds that indirect object NPs contain animate nouns, whereas
adverbs of place contain inanimate nouns denoting countries, towns and
other places. If this were correct, we would expect inanimate nouns not
to occur immediately to the right of a verb such as sent in (20) and (21).
(20) a. Lucy sent a letter to Isadore.
b. Lucy sent Isadore a letter.
(21) a. The Government sent an envoy to China.
b. (*)The Government sent China an envoy.
It has been suggested that (21b) is not correct, but the fault is semantic
and not syntactic. Example (21b) has the interpretation that a person is
sent to China so that China can use him/her as an envoy. This is a rather
unusual situation – at least out of context, (21b) seems odd. The oddness
can be removed by substituting different lexical items, as in (22).
(22) The company sent China its senior mining engineers to help plan
the new mines.
Example (22) presents China not just as a geographical area but as a body
that is to benefit from the engineers. With the appropriate interpretation,
then, an inanimate noun can occur to the right of the verb.
Another suggestion is that indirect objects can occur immediately to
the right of the verb but not immediately to the right of genuine adverbs
of direction. (Genuine adverbs of direction would not include China in
(22).) This suggestion is correct, but it still fails to distinguish indirect
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GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS 97

objects, because an indirect object noun cannot always occur immedi-

ately to the right of the verb, as shown by (23).
(23) a. *The experts attributed Raphael this picture.
b. *I forwarded Winifred the letter.
c. *The manager presented the foreman a gold watch.
d. *Kick John the ball.
e. *Monica hit Martina the ball.
f. *The critics ascribe Shakespeare this play.
The particular examples in (23) have been tested on many classes
of students at all levels. Some have accepted some of the examples,
especially (23b), but the vast majority have not accepted any of them.
Other evidence that attacks any clear distinction between indirect
objects and adverbs of direction is presented in (24)–(25), which illus-
trate certain syntactic patterns common to indirect objects and adverbs
of direction. The first shared property is that both can occur in WH
interrogatives with the preposition to at the end or beginning of the
clause.
(24) a. Who did John send a book to?
b. To whom did John send a book?
(25) a. What place did you travel to?
b. To what place did you travel?
Another property in common is that both can occur in active interroga-
tive WH clauses with to omitted, but not in passive WH interrogatives.
(26) a. Who did John send the book?
b. What place did John send the book?
(27) a. *Who was the book sent by John.
b. *What place was the book sent by John?
Indirect objects and adverbs of direction can occur at the front of
clauses preceded by only. In such constructions, the preposition to cannot
be omitted – compare the indirect object in (28) and the adverb of direc-
tion in (29).
(28) a. Only to the best students would he give this book.
b. *Only the best students would he give this book.
(29) a. Only to Glasgow would he go by train (because the service is
fast).
b. *Only Glasgow would he travel by train.
The same applies to the cleft construction in (30) and (31), where the
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98 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

indirect object to the best students in (30) and the adverb of direction to
Stromness in (31) are preceded by it is.
(30) a. It is to the best students that he gives this book.
b. *It is the best students he gives this book.
(31) a. It is to Stromness that he is going.
b. *It is Stromness that he is going.
There is one difference (concealed by the use of what place in (25)):
indirect objects are questioned by who … to or to whom, but adverbs of
direction are questioned by where. However, this is one difference to be
set against a number of similarities, and it could in any case be argued
that the difference does not reflect a syntactic category but a difference
in the sorts of entities that are the end point of the movement, where
being reserved for places, who for human beings.
The analysis indicated by the above data is that we cannot maintain
the traditional concept of indirect object as the to phrase with verbs such
as give and show and that all verb complements introduced by a prep-
osition should be treated as one category, namely oblique objects.
The concept of indirect object is not dead, however. Some traditional
analyses applied it to, for example, the phrase to Harriet in (32) and to the
phrase Harriet in (33).
(32) Emma gave advice to Harriet.
(33) Emma gave Harriet advice.
The label ‘indirect object’ is useful for Harriet in (33). It can be declared
to reflect the fact that while Harriet is an object – compare Harriet was
given advice by Emma – it is felt by many analysts to be less of a direct
object than advice, even though advice in (33) is not next to the verb.

Summary
Three major relationships hold between verbs and their complement
nouns (and noun phrases) – subject, direct object and oblique object.
There are languages in which the concept of subject cannot be easily
applied, but in many languages one noun, the grammatical subject, is
closely linked to the verb in a clause. The subject noun and the verb are
linked in number (in English) and in person and number in other
languages. The subject noun controls the interpretation of infinitives and
reflexive pronouns; in Emma wanted to help Harriet, help is traditionally
described as having an understood subject which is identical with the
subject of wanted, namely Emma. In Emma despised herself, the reflexive
pronoun herself is interpreted as referring to Emma. Grammatical subject
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GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS 99

nouns typically, though not always, denote Agents and they are typically
first in clauses, thereby being the starting point of the messages con-
veyed. Direct object nouns, in English, immediately follow the verb in
the active declarative construction and correspond to the grammatical
subject of passive clauses – Fiona phoned John vs John was phoned by Fiona.
In languages with sets of case suffixes (see Chapter 12), grammatical
subject nouns take one set of case suffixes and direct object nouns
another. In Indo-European languages, these are nominative for subject
and accusative for direct object. Oblique objects are nouns that are
complement to a preposition, as in (spoke) about music and (sent the letter) to
the manager. In examples such as gave a present to Bill, with verbs such as
,  and , to Bill was traditionally called the indirect object.
Since these are very difficult to distinguish from directional phrases, the
notion of indirect object has been abandoned in favour of oblique object
but has been kept for the construction with three noun phrases, as in
Emma gave Harriet advice.

Exercises
1. In the sentences below, pick out all the instances of grammatical
subjects and logical subjects. To which sentences is the concept of
understood subject relevant? List the properties of the sentences which
exemplify the criteria for grammatical subjects.
1. Mr Weston pours Mr Woodhouse a cup of restoring gruel.
2. Mr Woodhouse is poured a cup of restoring gruel by Mr Weston.
3. Mr Weston pours the other guests glasses of his good wine.
4. The other guests were poured glasses of his good wine.
5. All the soldiers are leaving Meryton.
6. The soldiers are all leaving Meryton.
7. The young ladies like all the soldiers.
8. The young ladies like the soldiers all.
9. Mr Collins admires himself in the surface of the pond.
10. Mr D’Arcy tries to persuade Elizabeth to marry him.
11. Mr D’Arcy goes to the ball and does not dance with Elizabeth.
12. The oldest Bennet girls are both invited to Netherfield.

2. In the sentences below, pick out all the instances of direct object,
indirect object and oblique object.
1. Caroline and Alice are coming with a hamper of food.
2. Caroline is also bringing us a single malt.
3. Caroline cooked Alice a meal.
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100 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

4. Alice was cooked a meal by Caroline.

5. Heather and Morag were both pleased with Robin’s work.
6. Ethel sent Fiona her history of the department.
7. The staff were all sent an e-mail message by Ronnie.
8. The dog sat in front of the fire and scratched itself.
9. Who is Irene going on holiday with?
10. The dog tore up the grass.
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9 Syntactic linkage

9.1 Introduction
Syntactic linkage has to do with the devices (mainly morphological) by
which speakers can signal which words, phrases or clauses are linked. It
is a general concept which subsumes the traditional concepts of agree-
ment and government. As we will see, the traditional distinction does
not sit easily with the analysis of phrases into heads and modifiers, with
heads controlling the modifiers. Some parts of the traditional concepts
are compatible with the view that verbs are the heads of clauses; but
others are not, particularly the relationship between subject noun and
verb.
This chapter contains data from languages other than English. The
book deals essentially with syntax for students in English (Language)
courses, and most of the examples are from English. The problem is
that English clauses have minimal syntactic linkage compared with, say,
Latin or Russian (not to mention the marvellously intricate systems
of linkage to be found in Bantu languages, in many Native American
languages and in Australian languages). Agreement and government may
not be prominent in Modern English, but they are central concepts of
syntax and are prominent in the syntax of many languages, including
Early English. For these reasons, syntactic linkage must be included, but
examples are taken from other languages as well as from English.

9.2 Agreement
Agreement is found inside noun phrases and, in some of the Indo-
European languages of Europe, in the copula constructions – adjective
complements of  (and other copula verbs) agree with the subject noun.
Agreement in noun phrases is exemplified in (1).
(1) Latin
a. magnus reks
great king ‘a/the great king’
101
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102 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

b. magna regina
great queen ‘a/the great queen’
c. magnum oppidum
great town ‘a/the great town’
The phrases in (1a–c) could function as subjects of clauses. Reks in (1a),
regina in (1b) and oppidum in (1c) are said to be in the nominative case, the
case being signalled by the suffixes -s, -a and -um. The adjective trans-
lated as ‘great’ consists of the stem magn- [as in ‘magnify’ – to make great]
plus various suffixes, -us, -a and -um. Which suffix is added is controlled
by the head noun. *Magna reks is incorrect, as is *magnus regina. The nouns
in (1a–c) have singular number; different suffixes appear both on the
nouns and the adjectives when they are plural, as in (2).
(2) Latin
a. magni reges
great kings ‘(the) great kings’
b. magnae reginae
great queens ‘(the) great queens’
c. magna oppida
great towns ‘(the) great towns’
The nouns in (2) are still in the nominative case and can still function as
the subjects of clauses, but they are plural and have different suffixes, and
the adjectives too have different suffixes. Whether, for example, the stem
magn- takes the suffixes -us, -a, -i or -ae depends on what type of noun
it modifies, what case the noun is in and whether the noun is singular
or plural. That is, the noun is the controlling word but both noun and
adjective change shape, that is, change their suffixes; this is why the term
‘agreement’ is used. The traditional formula is that adjectives agree with
nouns in number and case (and also in gender, which is discussed below.)
In spite of the traditional formula, we can view the noun as governing the
adjective in case and number.
Old English had similar patterns of agreement between the head noun
in a noun phrase and adjectives that modified it. Consider the examples
in (3).
(3) Old English
a. gōd cyning
(a) good king
b. gōdu cwēn
(a) good queen
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SYNTACTIC LINKAGE 103

c. gōd scip
(a) good ship
The nouns in (3) are in the nominative case. Cyning in (3a) is masculine,
and scip in (3c) is neuter. The adjective in both examples consists of the
stem gōd, with no suffix. Cwēn in (3b) is feminine, and the adjective takes
the suffix -u, gōdu. A richer pattern is observed when the head noun is
plural, as in (4).
(4) a. gōde cyningas
good kings
b. gōda cwēna
good queens
c. gōdu scipu
good ships
The masculine plural noun cyningas in (4a) is modified by gōde with the
suffix -e. The feminine plural noun cwēna in (4b) is modified by gōda, with
the suffix -a. Finally, in (4c) the neuter plural noun scipu is modified by
gōdu, with the suffix -u. Although the adjective and noun in (3a) and (3b)
do not change their shape, since no suffixes are added to the stem, all
the nouns and adjectives in (4) do change their shape, since suffixes are
added to both adjective and noun. Looking at the overall pattern for
singular and plural, and for other cases, we can justifiably speak of adjec-
tive and noun agreeing in Old English.

9.3 Government
Consider now the examples in (5).
(5) Latin
a. Servus magnum regem occidit
slave great king killed
‘A/the slave killed a/the great king’
b. Servus magnos reges occidit
slave great kings killed
‘A/the slave killed (the) great kings’
c. Servus magnam reginam occidit
slave great queen killed
‘A/the slave killed a/the great queen’
Regem in (5a) is the direct object of occidit and has the suffix -em. The
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104 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

adjective has the suffix -um. In (5b) reges is the direct object of occidit,
is plural and has the suffix -es. The adjective has the suffix -os. In (5c),
reginam is the direct object of occidit, is singular and has the suffix -am.
The adjective has the same suffix. Regem, reginam and reges are said to be
in the accusative case. Note that reges, with the same suffix -es, is subject
in (2a) and direct object in (5b), but that the adjective has different
suffixes.
Occidit is a verb that requires an object in what is called the accusative
case. In the examples in (5), occidit, in the traditional formula, governs its
object noun in the accusative case; that is, it assigns accusative case to the
stems reg- (king) and regin- (queen). Independently of the verb, these
nouns are singular in (5a) and (5c) and plural in (5b). The combination
of accusative and singular requires the choice of the suffixes -em or -am
depending on the stem, and the choice of accusative and plural requires
-es for the stem reg-. The properties ‘accusative’ and ‘singular’ or ‘accu-
sative and plural’ are passed on to the adjective in the direct object noun
phrase, magn-, and the appropriate suffix is chosen.
The majority of verbs in Latin assign accusative case to their object
noun, but many verbs assign one or other of the remaining three cases.
For example, the verb utor (I use) governs its object noun in the ablative
case, as shown in (6).
(6) a. Reks gladium ponit
king sword is-putting-down
‘The king is putting down the sword’
b. Reks gladio utitur
king sword is-using
‘The king is using the sword’
For verb and object noun too, a similar pattern occurs in Old English, as
demonstrated in (7).
(7) a. se eorl slōg gōdne cyning
that warrior killed (a)-good king
b. se eorl slōg gode cwēne
that warrior killed (a)-good queen
In (7b), the object noun cwēne, with the suffix -e, is modified by the adjec-
tive gōde, with the suffixe -e. This contrasts with the subject noun cwēn in
(3b) with no suffix and modified by the adjective gōdu, with the suffix -u.
In (7a), the noun cyning has no suffix but the adjective does have a special
suffix, namely -ne as in gōdne. There is no contrast in the suffixes added
to subject and object plural nouns.
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SYNTACTIC LINKAGE 105

The patterns of suffixes are summed up by saying that slōg requires its
object noun to be in the accusative case. Other verbs require their noun
to be in a different case; andwyrdan ‘answer’, for instance, requires its
object noun to take dative suffixes, as shown in (8).
(8) se eorl andwyrde gōdum cyninge
that warrior answered (a)-good king
Cyninge in (8) has the dative case suffix -e and gōdum has the dative suffix
-um. The verb bı̄dan ‘wait for’ requires its object noun to take a genitive
suffix, as in (9).
(9) se eorl bād gōdes cyninges
that warrior waited-for (a)-good king
In (9), cyninges has the genitive suffix -es and the adjective gōdes has the
same suffix.
Prepositions in Latin also assign case to their complement nouns.
Ad (to) governs nouns in the accusative case, and de (from) governs nouns
in the ablative case.
The nominative case was thought of as the case that was used when
speakers were using nouns to name entities. The theory was, and indeed
still is, that speakers pick out and name an entity and then say something
about it. (See Chapter 8 on grammatical functions.) ‘Accusative’ looks as
though it should have something to do with accusing; this does not make
much sense but results from a mistranslation into Latin of a Greek term
meaning ‘what is effected or brought about’. It seems that the central
examples of accusative case were taken to be the Classical Greek equi-
valents of ‘She built a house’.
‘Ablative’ derives from a Latin word meaning ‘taking away’ and occurs
with prepositions expressing movement from or off something, as in
(10b).
(10) a. ad hortum
to garden ‘to the garden’
b. e horto
out-of garden ‘out of the garden’
The above Latin examples show that different case-number suffixes are
added to nouns and adjectives and that which suffix is chosen in a par-
ticular clause depends on the noun. Latin nouns fall into a number of
different classes, known as genders. Gender will not be discussed here
but will be examined in Chapter 12 on grammar and semantics.
Prepositions in Old English also require their complement nouns to
have particular case suffixes. For example, tō ‘to’ governs its complement
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106 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

noun in the dative case (like most prepositions), but †urh ‘by means of ’
governs its complement noun in the accusative case. The distinction is
exemplified in (11).
(11) a. tō tǣm cyninge
to that king
b. turh tone cyning
by-means-of that king
In (11a), †ǣm is the dative form of se ‘that’ and cyninge has the dative suffix
-e. In (11b), †one is the accusative form of se but cyning has no suffix.

9.4 Number and person linkage

We turn now to the final strand of syntactic linkage in Latin, the re-
lationship between subject nouns and verbs. Consider (12).
(12) Latin
a. reks legit
the-king is-reading
b. reges legunt
the-kings are-reading
In (12a), reks is singular and the verb leg- (read) has the suffix -it, which
is singular. In (12b), reges is plural and leg- has the suffix -unt, which is
plural. The traditional formula is that the verb agrees with the subject
noun in number (and person). This analysis accords with the view that
the subject noun (phrase) is more important than the other nouns in a
clause because speakers use subject nouns to name the entity they want
to talk about. At various places in this introduction, however, we have
seen that there are good reasons to consider the verb the head of a given
clause, controlling all the other words and phrases in it. From the per-
spective of dependency relations (Chapter 1) and the lexicon (Chapter 5),
the relation between the verb and subject noun is no different from the
relations between the verb and other nouns in clauses.
Whichever analysis readers favour, the term ‘agreement in number’
is not accurate. Either the subject noun imposes a given number on
the verb or the verb imposes a given number of the noun. That is, both
analyses recognise a controlling word, and where there is a controlling
word we are dealing with government.
Verbs in Latin signal more than just number. Other suffixes are added
to verb stems in Latin, as shown in (13).
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SYNTACTIC LINKAGE 107

(13) Latin
a. epistolam lego
letter I-am-reading ‘I am reading the/a letter’
b. epistolam legis
letter you (sg)-are-reading
‘You (singular) are reading the/a letter’
c. epistolam legimus
letter we-are-reading ‘We are reading the/a letter’
The contrast between lego in (13a) and legis in (13b) has to do with who
is presented as reading, the speaker or the addressee. The speaker is
considered the central participant in a conversation, the first person. The
addressee is the second in importance, that is, is the second person. The
speaker and others can be presented as jointly doing something, as in
(13c). Lego is described as being in the first person singular, legimus as
being in the first person plural and legis as being in the second person
singular. In (12a, b), the speaker presents the action as being performed
by neither the speaker nor the hearer but by a third person in (12a) and
by third persons in (12b). Legit is said to be in the third person singular,
and legunt is described as being in the third person plural. Latin has
pronouns, but they were not used unless for emphasis.

9.5 Syntactic linkage in English

Syntactic linkage in English is less complex than in Latin for the simple
reason that English nouns no longer have a case system like the Latin
one and English verbs have only one contrast in person and number.
English uses word order and prepositions to signal syntactic links. As
discussed in Chapter 8 on grammatical functions, in the active, declara-
tive construction the subject and object nouns are never preceded by
prepositions, the subject noun is immediately to the left of the verb
(allowing for modifiers such as relative clauses) and the direct object
noun is immediately to the right of the verb. Adjectives modifying a
given noun are immediately to its left. Compare the word order in the
line of Latin poetry in (14) and the word order in the English translation.
(14) Latin
Cerberus et nullas hodie petat improbus umbras
Cerberus and no today let-him-seek voracious shadows
‘Let voracious Cerberus seek no shadows today’ (Propertius)
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108 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

The adjective improbus, the second last word in the clause, modifies the
first word, Cerberus, and the adjective nullas, the third word in the clause,
modifies the last word, umbras. (Note that (14) is a line of poetry; native
speakers of Latin, as far as we can make out, did not talk off the cuff in
this complex fashion.) In the English translation, voracious immediately
precedes Cerberus and no immediately precedes shadows. English pro-
nouns have retained some case distinctions, and these are relevant to
syntactic linkage. In standard (written) English, I, we, he, she and they
occur as subject and me, us, him, her and them occur as direct, indirect or
oblique object. A couple of examples are given in (15).
(15) a. He told her the whole story.
b. She told him the whole story.
The construction in (16) – called the [CONTRAST] construction in
Chapter 3 – does have an unusual word order in that the direct object or
oblique object phrase is put at the front of the clause.
(16) a. The other plan she rejected out of hand.
b. To her eldest son she left the Aubusson tapestries.
The entire object phrase is moved to the front of the clause, that is, the
noun and all its modifiers. The noun and its modifiers are next to each
other but the whole noun phrase is in an unusual position in the clause.
Relative clauses and noun complement clauses (see Chapters 6 and 7 on
clauses) can and do occur separated from their head noun, as in (17).
(17) a. The vase got broken that Sheila had brought all the way from
Chengdu.
b. The plan was rejected out of hand that traffic should be banned.
c. The idea dismayed the Prime Minister that the Dome was dull.
In (17a), the relative clause that Sheila had brought all the way from Chengdu
is separated from its head noun vase by the phrase got broken. The vase
got broken is an intransitive construction and there is no other noun
that might be taken for the head modified by the relative clause. Noun
complement clauses can be separated from the noun they modify even
in transitive clauses. Example (17b) poses no problem because it is
intransitive and the noun complement clause that traffic should be banned
can only be interpreted as modifying plan. In (17c), which reads much
more awkwardly than (17b) but is nonetheless acceptable, the noun
complement clause that the Dome was dull relates to the content of an idea,
plan, proposal, theory and so on and can only be interpreted as modify-
ing idea. (Noun complement clauses always relate to the content of an
idea and so on; this is one of the criteria by which you can decide
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SYNTACTIC LINKAGE 109

whether a given clause is a noun complement or a relative clause.) In

general, then, phrases in English can be separated from the word they
modify and so can clauses, but modifier words are not separated from
their head word.
English has a minimal amount of linkage between subject noun and
verb. Only the verb  has any linkage in the past tense, was requiring a
singular noun and were requiring a plural noun (in standard English). All
other verbs have one past-tense form (and are said to be invariable in the
past tense). In the present tense,  is again idiosyncratic; it has a first
person singular form am in addition to the contrast between is (third
person, singular) and are (second person singular and all persons plural).
Apart from the modal verbs such as ,  and so on, which are
invariable, all other verbs take the suffix -s in the third person singular –
The dog barks vs The dogs bark.

9.6 Number in English

The person-number relationship between subject verb and noun in
English is simple compared with the large number of suffixes in Latin,
yet the English system is not straightforward. One complexity is that
while we are here focusing on the verb system in standard English, most
of the population of the UK speak some non-standard variety. Many non-
standard varieties differ from the standard one; in some, speakers have
generalised the -s suffix to all persons – We sits quietly in the classroom, you
knows what I’m talking about, while in others the speakers have removed the
-s suffix – She live in that street.
Even speakers of standard English itself disagree over whether a
singular or plural verb should be used with certain nouns. For instance,
committee is a singular noun but is used to refer to groups of more than
one person. Many speakers and writers use either a singular or a plural
verb depending on whether they view a particular committee as several
people or as a single unit. The committee are discussing this proposal today
presents the committee as several individuals who have to discuss the
matter and work out a decision. The committee is discussing the proposal today
presents the committee in a more impersonal manner, as a single unit.
Every generation, however, appears to contain speakers who believe that
if a noun is singular the verb should always be singular. Such speakers are
becoming rarer.

9.7 Gender in English

Nouns in English do not fall into different grammatical classes of the
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110 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

sort found in Latin. As we have seen in the discussion in Chapter 5 on

the lexicon, English nouns do split up into classes, but the split is not
unrelated to the meaning and is not reflected in syntactic linkage.
Consider the examples in (18).
(18) a. My sister phoned. She said that the children were back at school.
b. Your brother went out. He said he was going to the bank.
c. The car is ready. It just needed new points.
The pronoun she is used in reference to a female, he in reference to
a male and it in reference to an entity that is neither male nor female.
In contrast, there is no obvious reason why the Latin noun mensa (table)
is said to have feminine gender, nor why hortus (garden) is labelled
‘masculine’ and oppidum (town) is labelled ‘neuter’. Despite the sim-
plicity of the (typical) examples in (18), English usage is not without its
subtleties. It is said that some speakers of English refer to cars and boats
as though they were female, as in She’s a wonderful car, but this usage
appears to be falling into disuse.
Reference to babies and animals varies. Parents of a baby and owners
of, in particular, cats and dogs, know the sex of their child or animal and
use he or she. Speakers who do not know the identity of a particular baby
often refer to the baby by it (indeed I was about to write ‘often refer
to it’). The choice of it is usually caused by lack of knowledge; once
particular babies have been introduced as Selena or Rachel, Angus or
Torquil, they will thereafter be referred to by he or she as appropriate.
But just to demonstrate that context is important, parents can be
observed referring to their baby by it, a usage that typically expresses
love for the baby.
Similarly, the choice of pronouns for animals is affected by the use of
proper names. Example (19a) is perfectly normal, (19b) is peculiar.
(19) a. The dog slunk under the table. It had eaten the sandwiches.
b. Towser slunk under the table. He (??it) had eaten the sand-
wiches.
We close this chapter with a reminder that the relations implicated in
syntactic linkage are dependency relations holding between heads and
modifiers. Some relations cross clause boundaries (especially the bound-
aries of relative clauses), but mostly they hold within single clauses.

Summary
Many languages have devices which signal which words belong together
as head and modifiers; that is, they signal syntactic linkage. Traditionally,
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SYNTACTIC LINKAGE 111

two types of devices are recognised, namely agreement and government.

Agreement was applied to examples in which a head and its modifier
were both marked for some property. In many languages, the head noun
in a noun phrase and the adjectives that modify it all carry markings for
case and number, while the subject noun in a clause and the verb both
carry markings for person and number. Government was applied in
constructions in which the head was not marked but the modifier was.
For example, in many languages the direct object of a verb carries a
particular case suffix but the verb itself has no marking. Likewise, in
prepositional phrases the complement of the preposition has a case
suffix but the preposition itself has no marking. In spite of the traditional
distinction, instances of agreement and government all involve a head
assigning some property or properties to its modifiers. The current
preferred view is that all syntactic linkage is government.

Exercises
1. Consider the following Latin sentences, paying attention to the incor-
rect ones (marked with an asterisk) as well as to the correct ones. What
do the examples tell you about the linkage between nouns and adjectives
in Latin and about the relationship between verb and subject noun?
1. Agricola magnum/parvum gregem agit
farmer large/small flock is-driving
The farmer is driving a large/small flock.
2. Agricola parvam/magnam carrucam agit
farmer small/large carriage is-driving
The farmer is driving a small/big carriage.
[*Agricola magnum/parvum carrucam agit,
*Agricola magnam/parvam gregem agit]
3. Carruca parva est
carriage small is
The carriage is small.
4. Greks magnus est
flock big is
The flock is big.
5. Oppidum magnum est
town big is
The town is big.
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112 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

[*Carruca parvus/parvum est, *Greks magna/magnum est,

*Oppidum magna/magnus est]
6. Romani magnum oppidum constituunt
Romans large town are-building
The Romans are building a large town.
7. Agricola magnam villam constituit
Farmer big villa is-building
The farmer is building a big villa.
[*Romani magnum oppidum constituit,
*Agricola magnam villam constituunt]

2. The examples below are taken from an account of the language of

speakers in Reading. Analyse the system of agreement between the verb
and the subject NP. Pay particular attention to the verbs  and .
1. I grabs hold of him and legs it up Blagdon Hill.
2. We buses it down the town.
3. You knows my sister, the one who’s small.
4. They calls me all the names under the sun, don’t they?
5. Well, I have got a boyfriend.
6. We does things at school with tape recorders.
7. We has a little fire, keeps us warm.
8. Well, how much do he want for it?
9. That’s what I does anyway, I just ignores them.
10. She cadges, she do.
11. He said, why have you been away?
12. Sometimes on Saturdays I has to stop in.
13. Your dad do play cricket though don’t he?
14. But it hurts my dad more than it do her.
15. He don’t want to look at your ugly face.
16. I fancies going over Caversham.
17. I wants to kill animals.
18. I knows how to stick in the boot.
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10 Heads and modifiers

revisited

10.1 For and against verb phrases

In this short chapter, we pick up additional topics to do with dependency
relations and constituent structure. The outcome of our earlier dis-
cussion was that every phrase has a central word which controls the
other words, phrases and even clauses that occur in it. The central
word is the head and the other words and phrases are its modifiers, which
typically occur next to their head. Such phrases ‘move around’ together,
can be replaced by a single word and can be ellipted. These points are
illustrated in (1).
(1) The Ethel that we knew and loved has left – just packed her bags and
walked out.
As a proper noun, Ethel typically does not allow the definite article the.
Proper nouns do allow definite articles, however, provided they are also
modified by a relative clause. Presumably the speaker who utters (1) is
thinking of Ethel not as a single individual but as a bundle of individuals
or personae who appear and disappear depending on the situation. The
phrase the Ethel that we knew and loved picks out one of these individuals
(as opposed, say, to the Ethel that ate administrative staff for breakfast). In
the lexicon, we must include information about the subcategorisation of
proper nouns, that they do allow a definite article but only along with a
relative clause. Ethel is the head of the noun phrase the Ethel that we knew
and loved; inside the noun phrase, it controls the occurrence of the word
the and the relative clause that we knew and loved.
That whole sequence of words can be replaced by the single word she.
The phenomenon of ellipsis is shown in the second clause just packed her
bags and left. This clause has no subject; if there were one, it would be she
or the Ethel that we knew and loved. Either the long sequence of words is
replaced by a pronoun or it is ellipted, as in the second clause above.
In Chapter 1, we looked at examples of noun phrases, prepositional
phrases – in the garden, adjective phrases – very difficult, and adverb
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114 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

phrases – amazingly quickly. In Chapter 5 on the lexicon, we adopted the

idea that the verb is the head of the clause and controls all the other
constituents in the clause, including the subject noun, which we treated
as a complement of the verb. Many descriptions of English use a type of
phrase known as the verb phrase. In (1), the subject noun phrase is The
Ethel that we knew and loved and the verb phrase would be has left. Other
descriptions of English do not recognise verb phrases (and in many
languages other than English the concept of verb phrase is not obviously
applicable).
The difficulty is that the criteria for recognising phrases do not apply
straightforwardly to English clauses. The strongest criteria are trans-
position and substitution. For all other types of phrase, these criteria
apply without difficulty inside clauses and in common constructions –
see Chapter 2. But they do not apply to sequences of finite verb plus
object(s) of some kind. It used to be thought that the occurrence of do so
counted as a criterion. An example is in (2).
(2) Norman Lemming jumped off the cliff and William Lemming did
so too.
Did so indeed substitutes for jumped off the cliff, but two words are
involved, and it seems clear that the verb did substitutes for jumped and
that so substitutes for the complements of jumped. Example (2) is the sort
of example that turns up in discussions of American linguists, but it is
not the normal construction in British English, where (3) is the common
construction. In (3), the sequence is so did, which is not even a straight-
forward substitution of did for jumped and so for off the cliff because the
verb and its complement would have to be transposed to yield so did.
(3) Norman Lemming jumped off the cliff and so did William Lemming.
The one structure from spontaneous spoken English that might fit is
shown in (4).
(4) Came right in he did without so much as a knock.
Unfortunately, the structure of (4) is not clear. Came right in he did
could be seen as a rearrangement of He did come right in; except that in
the latter come has no tense, whereas in (4) came is past tense. Moreover,
new electronic bodies of spoken English are yielding examples such as
They complained about it all the time they did which has two clauses, They
complained about it all the time and the tagged-on clause they did. So (4) can
be analysed as having a two-clause structure in which the first clause, as
happens regularly in spontaneous speech, is lacking a subject. That is, (4)
is not a basic construction but results from ellipsis.
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HEADS AND MODIFIERS REVISITED 115

Other arguments for verb phrases turn on examples of the sort in (5)
and (6).
(5) Harriet couldn’t marry Mr Knightley but Emma could.
(6) What Harriet did was marry Mr Martin.
The argument is that in (5) the phrase marry Mr Knightley has been
ellipted – Emma could marry Mr Knightley is reduced to could. In (6), was
has the WH clause What Harriet did as its subject and marry Mr Knightley
as its complement. That is, the sequence marry Mr Knightley turns up in
different slots, and in (6) can even be genuinely transposed to the front
to give (7).
(7) Marry Mr Martin was what Harriet did.
These examples show that a verb plus complements (and adjuncts)
does form a phrase in certain constructions, but the argument does not
apply to has left in (1), with a verb marked for tense. Only verbs without
tense and aspect turn up freely in different constructions. One piece of
data that looks more promising for verb phrases is conjunction, as in (8).
(8) Emma insulted Miss Bates and annoyed Mr Knightley.
Example (8) can be analysed as having a subject noun phrase, Emma, and
two phrases – verb phrases – connected by and: insulted Miss Bates and
annoyed Mr Knightley. There are, however, alternative analyses that treat
the supposed verb phrases as clauses whose subject noun phrase has been
ellipted, and other analyses try to handle conjunction in terms of heads
and their dependent modifiers rather than in terms of phrases. Although
many analyses employ verb phrases, the evidence is much weaker than
for other types of phrase and not strong enough for us to abandon the
view that the verb is the head of the clause.

10.2 Verb, core, nucleus and periphery

Descriptions that focus on dependency relations do not devote much
time to the arguments for and against verb phrases. They incorporate the
view that other divisions of the clause, based on dependencies, are more
important. Clauses are analysed as having a nucleus and a periphery.
The nucleus contains the verb and its complements (subject, direct
object, indirect object and oblique objects/adverbs of direction); the
periphery consists of oblique objects which are adverbs of time or
adverbs of location, and some other types of adverb. (Adverbs are a very
large and heterogeneous class, and in at least one construction – the
middle construction – adverbs of manner seem to be obligatory with
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116 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

some verbs; for example, Her new book reads well is quite acceptable but
*Her new book reads is not acceptable.)
The split between nucleus and periphery is sometimes replaced by
a three-way split between core, nucleus and periphery. The core of a
clause is the verb, the nucleus is the verb plus complements as described
above, and the periphery is also as described above. The idea that the
verb in a clause is the core fits with other properties of verbs. We saw in
Chapter 1 on dependencies that the verb in a clause can be regarded as
controlling the other constituents. This view provides an elegant way of
handling the relationships that are the concern of the lexicon or diction-
ary, as explained in Chapter 5.
A final and strong piece of evidence for the core position of verbs in
clauses comes from languages in which a clause can consist of a single
verb. Examples are given in (9)–(11).
(9) Latin
a. pugnatur
was-fought ‘There was fighting’
b. tonuit
thundered ‘There was thunder’
(10) Turkish
konus, ul maz [one word]
spoken Passive Negative ‘It is not spoken’, i.e. ‘No speaking’
(11) Luganda (Africa – Bantu language)
a li gi goba [one word]
she Future it chase ‘She will chase it’ (a chicken)
The Latin clause in (9a) consists of the verb pugnatur. This verb is
passive; while it might be thought that a subject noun phrase has been
ellipted, it is difficult to know what that noun phrase might be. The same
applies to the Turkish passive verb in (10). The Luganda verb in (11) is
active. No independent noun phrases are needed because in context the
person doing the chasing and the bird being chased are obvious to the
hearer.

10.3 What is the head of a noun phrase?

Questions can be asked about the traditional view of nouns as the
head of noun phrases. It remains true that the noun controls the other
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HEADS AND MODIFIERS REVISITED 117

constituents in noun phrases but particular problems affect noun

phrases. Consider first the pairs of examples in (12)–(14).
(12) a. Harriet swooned.
b. Harriet admired Mr Knightley.
(13) a. Willoughby ran up (to where he had seen Marianne and
Margaret).
b. Willoughby ran up the hill (to where he had seen Marianne and
Margaret).
(14) a. The book is boring.
b. The book is astonishingly boring.
c. the boring book
d. the astonishingly boring book
Examples (12a, b) show that a verb or a verb and its modifiers occur
in the same slot in a clause. Examples (13a, b) show that a preposition
or a preposition and its complement occur in the same slot. Examples
(14a–d) show that an adjective or an adjective and its modifiers occur in
the same slot, whether as complement of is or modifying a noun. In other
words, the entire phrase occurs in the same slots in clauses as the head
word. (Looking at where particular types of word or types of phrase are
to be found in phrases, clauses and sentences is not unlike botanists, say,
searching for specimens of a particular plant and plotting on maps where
the plant grows. The botanists are said to be studying the geographical
distribution of the plant, its distribution over the country; similarly,
linguists talk of studying the distribution of words and phrases over
phrases, clauses and sentences, not to mention larger texts, studied in
discourse analysis. Having said all that, we can now provide the technical
way of putting it: the head of a phrase and the phrase itself have the same
distribution.)
The above does not apply to all nouns. It applies to proper nouns,
which normally do not allow modifiers – but see (15b, c) below.
(15) a. Ethel wishes to ask you some awkward questions.
b. The Ethel we all know and love wishes to ask you some awkward
questions.
c. Ethel with the in-your-face turn of phrase wishes to ask you
some awkward questions.
Examples (15a–c) tell us something about the noun phrases that occur
followed by a phrase such as wishes to ask you some awkward questions. To
introduce the technical way of putting it, linguists talk of words and
phrases occurring in frames or environments. In the frame or environ-
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118 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

ment ___ wishes to ask you some awkward questions we find either the head
noun Ethel on its own, as in (15a), or the example discussed above in
which Ethel is modified by a definite article and a relative clause – (15b),
or Ethel, not modified by a definite article but only by a prepositional
phrase, as in (15c).
Plural nouns such as golfers likewise have the same distribution as any
phrases of which they are head, as shown by (16).
(16) a. Golfers can be good company.
b. Enthusiastic golfers with large handicaps can be good company.
c. These enthusiastic golfers that I met at the nineteenth hole can
be good company.
In the environment ___ can be good company we find golfers on its own, as
in (16a); we find enthusiastic golfers with large handicaps, as in (16b) – that is,
the head noun modified by an adjective and a prepositional phrase; and
we find these enthusiastic golfers that I met at the nineteenth hole, as in (16c) –
that is, the head noun golfers modified by the demonstrative these and a
relative clause. Analogous examples can be produced for singular mass
nouns such as sand or flour.
The phrases that do not conform to the above patterns are those
containing singular count nouns such as golfer, which cannot occur on its
own but requires an article or demonstrative as shown by (17). (Golfer in
(17a) and (17d) is not a nickname. If it were, it would be a proper noun
and (17a) would be acceptable.)
(17) a. *Golfer has a pretty powerful swing.
b. The/this/a golfer has a pretty powerful swing.
c. The/a golfer who is in training has a pretty powerful swing.
d. *Golfer who is in training has a pretty powerful swing.
Many analysts have responded to the above pattern of distribution by
suggesting that what we have been calling noun phrases in (17a–d) do
not have nouns as their heads. Instead, they propose that the determiner
is the head and that the phrases should be called determiner phrases.
Phrases containing proper nouns or plural nouns or singular mass nouns
are to be analysed as determiner phrases containing a determiner that
happens to be zero. This approach makes it attractive to recognise two
types of head: syntactic heads that control the distribution of phrases
and determines their type – determiner, adjective, prepositional phrase
and so on, and semantic heads that control the sort of complements and
adjectives that can occur. In an introductory textbook, we do not need
to choose between one or the other approach; the fact remains that
dependency relations are central to syntactic structure.
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11 Roles

11.1 Roles, grammar and meaning

Why discuss roles? The first part of the reply is that concepts such as
Agent, Patient, Instrument and so on are regularly used in accounts
of the active and passive constructions, of prepositions in English and of
prepositions and case suffixes in other languages, and with respect to
various syntactic structures. It is essential to understand the difficulties
in defining roles and to be aware of what counts as good practice in this
area of grammar. The second part of the reply is that the concept of roles
has never failed to elicit an immediate interested response from students.
To use a colloquial phrase, it rings a bell and deserves to be explored.
The third part of the reply is that roles are used in descriptions of many
languages other than English.
We saw in Chapter 6 on clauses that clauses denote situations.
Situations are analysed as consisting of a state or event (see the dis-
cussion of aspect in Chapter 13) in which certain types of participants
take part. There are central participants, such as Agent and Patient, and
peripheral participants (which some analysts call ‘circumstances’) such
as Place and Time. The distinction between the central participants
and the peripheral circumstances largely corresponds to the distinction
between the core of a clause and the periphery of a clause (as discussed
in Chapter 3). In Chapter 3, we mentioned a further distinction between
the nucleus and core of a clause, the nucleus being a verb or  plus an
adjective, say. The nucleus corresponds to the state or event at the centre
of any situation.
Let us look briefly at some examples illustrating how we can put roles
to work. They can be used in the analysis of constructions that have the
same syntactic structure but different sets of roles. Consider (1) and (2).
(1) a. Memo ate the spaghetti.
b. Memo liked lasagna.
(2) a. Emma made Harriet her friend.
b. Emma made Harriet some food.
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120 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

In the situation denoted by (1a), Memo is involved in an action, but not

in the situation denoted by (1b); he has different roles, although in both
Memo is the subject. In the situation described by (2a), Emma does some-
thing to Harriet, whereas in (2b) Emma does something for Harriet.
Again, Harriet plays different roles although Harriet is the indirect object
in both examples – indirect object as defined at the end of Chapter 8.
NPs can be conjoined, as shown in (3). Certain restrictions apply, and
examples that break the restrictions sound odd, such as (3a, b).
(3) a. The quiche and I were cooking.
b. Erika made her mother an omelette and the kitchen a mess.
In (3a), I refers to an Agent, but the quiche does not. In (3b), her mother
refers to the recipient of the omelette, but the kitchen certainly does not
refer to a recipient. Coordinated NPs must have the same role.
Roles are also relevant to the neutral order of prepositions, as in (4).
(4) a. Bill went to London on Monday.
b. Bill went on Monday to London.
c. My brother lives near Strasbourg.
d. Near Strasbourg my brother lives.
e. He planted the garden with roses last November.
f. He planted the garden last November with roses.
Example (4a) shows normal neutral word order – goal phrase to London
followed by time phrase on Monday. The reverse order in (4b) is not
neutral, and is even peculiar out of context. The key point is that, since
all the phrases are prepositional phrases, there is no difference in con-
stituent structure. What is different is the role attaching to the NP in the
prepositional phrase.
Example (4c) shows the neutral order with a verb such as live –
location phrase at the end of the clause. Example (4d) has the location
phrase at the front of the clause, which is not neutral order and could
only be used if another speaker had used the phrase near Strasbourg and
the speaker of (4d) picked up the phrase and emphasised it. Examples
(4e) and (4f ) are parallel to (4a) and (4b); note that last November can be
moved to the front of the clause but moving with roses to the front of the
clause produces a very peculiar example.

11.2 Criteria for roles

A major question is how we decide how many roles are needed in the
analysis of a given language. The central point is that, while intuitions
may be the starting point of the analysis, the central criteria are gram-
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ROLES 121

matical (syntactic or morphological) or question–answer pairs such as

those used below. A participant role that is not supported by gram-
matical criteria is suspicious. We do not deny appeal to intuitions nor the
fact that for a given language some speakers will agree some of the time
about some intuitions. But intuitions are not infallible, are not always
shared and do need to be justified by evidence.
Another important point that must be mentioned here is that gram-
matical evidence allows only very general distinctions of meaning to
be made. We will find ourselves working with very general roles, but
the interpretation of any given clause combines information from the
syntactic structure, including roles, information from the lexical verb
and information from the lexical nouns inserted into a given structure.
(See the discussion of syntactic structure and the lexicon in Chapter 5.)
In the discussion that follows, roles are treated as assigned to nouns;
since nouns are the heads of noun phrases, the property of being an
Agent or Patient, say, spreads from nouns to the noun phrases that they
head.
We begin with the simplest sort of example, as in (5)–(6).
(5) The baby chewed the biscuit.
(6) The baby is heavy.
In (5), baby is an Agent and biscuit is a Patient. Since it is not so obvious
what role is to be assigned to baby in (6), we will leave the role undecided
for the moment. What is important is that there are tests in English that
distinguish the constructions in (5) and (6): (5), but not (6), is an appro-
priate answer to the question in (7).
(7) What happened?
The above question enables us to sort out events from states, since only
sentences describing events can answer the question What happened? The
questions in (8) and (9) pick out Agent and Patient.
(8) What did X do?
(9) What happened to X?
In (8), X can be replaced by the baby: What did the baby do? He/she chewed the
biscuit. In (9), X can be replaced by the biscuit: What happened to the biscuit?
The baby chewed it. Example (6) is not an appropriate answer to either (8)
or (9).
Other tests for Agent are available in English. One test is whether a
clause can be incorporated into the WH cleft construction What X did
was/What X is doing is and so on. For example, (5) can be incorporated in
the construction to yield (10).
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122 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

(10) What the baby did was chew the biscuit.

Other tests are whether the verb in a given clause can be put into
the progressive or into the imperative. Example (5) meets both of these
criteria, as shown in (11) and (12).
(11) The baby was chewing the biscuit.
(12) Chew the biscuit!
These tests are weaker because they are also met by verbs that denote
states: The patient is suffering a lot of pain, You will soon be owning all the land
round here. (The last example is from a TV play.) (Note that The patient is
suffering a lot of pain is bizarre as an answer to What is the patient doing?
(Compare annoying the nurses, complaining about the food and so on.)
Examples (13)–(15) introduce other roles.
(13) Hartfield House is in Surrey.
(14) Mr Knightley rode to Kingston.
(15) Eleanor and Marianne travelled from Shropshire.
In (13), Surrey has the role of Place; it denotes the location of Hartfield
House. In (14), Kingston has the role of Goal, in that it denotes the goal
of Mr Knightley’s journey, while in (15) Shropshire denotes the starting
point, or source, of the journey and has the role of Source. Compare the
examples in (16) and (17).
(16) Frank gave a piano to Jane Fairfax.
(17) Jane Fairfax received a piano from Frank.
Example (16), like (14), contains the preposition to. Like (14), it describes
movement, in the sense that the piano moves from a shop or warehouse
to beside Jane Fairfax. This parallel is captured by assigning Jane Fairfax
the role of Goal. Of course, the movement of a possession to its owner is
not exactly the same as the movement of a person or vehicle to a desti-
nation, but this does not require different roles. Different interpretations
will result from the different lexical verbs and lexical nouns.
Similarly, the analogy between (15) and (17) leads us to assign the role
of Source to Frank in (17). The sentence presents the piano as starting its
journey from Frank (whether that is literally true or not), just as Eleanor
and Marianne started their journey from Shropshire. The important
element in the analysis is not just that we can unpack the meanings of the
sentences in each pair and discover parallels, but the occurrence of the
same preposition in (14) and (16), and in (15) and (17). Important too is
the fact that in many languages the equivalents of (14) and (16), and (15)
and (17), contain the same preposition or case affix.
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ROLES 123

Other roles are illustrated in (18)–(19).

(18) The thief smashed the window with a hammer.
(19) Captain Wentworth recovered the property for Mrs Smith.
Hammer in (18) has the self-explanatory role of Instrument, although we
will argue below that Instrument is a subtype of a more general role.
Instruments are signalled by with in English, and a contrast is possible
between passive sentences such as those in (20) and (21). (Typically
the Instrument role is played by inanimate objects such as hammers and
saws, but it could be played by an animate being in unusual situations:
Bond smashed the window with his opponent. The general construction and
the preposition with impose the Instrument role; the attachment of a
human noun to that role is unusual, but the properties of the noun do not
force the role to change.)
(20) The window was broken with a hammer.
(21) The window was broken by a hammer.
Example (20) is appropriate to a situation in which someone has picked
up the hammer and used it to break the window. The Agent is not
mentioned explicitly, but the occurrence of with signals the Instrument
status of hammer and the presence of an unspecified Agent. Example (21)
describes a situation in which, say, the hammer is balanced on a shelf
beside the window but falls off ‘of its own accord’ and breaks the window.
There is no Agent to be specified, and (21) indeed presents the hammer
as the Agent through the occurrence of by. In (19), Mrs Smith has the role
known generally as Benefactive, the person who benefits from an action.
Benefactive is signalled by for. Some analysts treat Benefactive as a
subtype of Goal: this relates it to the movement phrase head for London.
The direct objects in (22a–c) also raise the question of extra roles.
(22) a. Wren built St Paul’s Cathedral.
b. Siobhan burnt a pattern on the piece of wood.
c. The dog dug a hole in the lawn.
The question arises because it has been suggested that the direct object
NP is not a Patient but rather a Result; this role would capture the fact
that verbs such as build and dig denote actions which bring things into
existence, rather than actions carried out on already existing things. It
is true that the sentence What did X do to Y? cannot be appropriately
answered by any of (22a–c). However, this is because the question can
only be asked concerning things that exist already, and information in
the lexical entry for build will specify that it relates to bringing things
into existence. Moreover, ‘result’ noun phrases behave grammatically
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124 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

like Patient noun phrases; they function as direct object in active sen-
tences; they function as subject in passive sentences. (Compare The hole
was dug in the lawn by the dog and so on). Clauses containing ‘result’ noun
phrases can be incorporated into WH clefts as in (10), What the dog did was
dig a hole in the lawn. The grammatical evidence suggests that we are deal-
ing with Patient noun phrases; the ‘result’ component of the meaning
conveyed by (22a–c) can be derived from the meaning of the verbs ,
 and , and no extra role is needed.
Another role that has been proposed is that of Theme, a role that is
neutral with respect to Agent and Patient and is assigned to noun phrases
such as the vase in (23a) and (23b).
(23) a. The vase stood on the table in the hall.
b. Imogen took the vase to her mother’s.
c. Imogen broke the vase.
In (23b), the vase is the direct object of took. The vase does not change its
state, as it does in (23c), but merely its location. This semantic difference
is not reflected in any grammatical properties (or at least not major ones)
and can be captured in the information in the lexical entries for take and
break. The role of Theme is not necessary.
What of vase in (23a)? The sentence clearly does not describe an
action, since it is not an answer to questions such as What happened?
or What was happening? Nor does it answer questions such as What did the
vase do? or What happened to the vase? (We assume that the sentence is not
metaphorical and does not describe the vase taking up its stance on the
table.) Example (23a) describes a state, but what role should be assigned
to vase? By the same token, (6) describes a state too: what role is appro-
priate for baby? The grammar of English remains neutral in this respect,
and we will treat vase in (23a) and baby in (6) as merely being neutral
between Agent and Patient.
Certain verbs and adjectives denoting states do require a different role
for subject nouns, as shown by (24).
(24) a. Sue knows the answer.
b. The answer is known to Sue.
Example (24a) is not an answer to the question What does Sue do? or to the
question What is happening to Sue? The paraphrase in (24b) shows that to
is a possible preposition in the passive, which in turn indicates that Sue
does not simply have the Neutral role. Many accounts of participant
roles propose the role of Experiencer, the label reflecting the notion that
(24a) describes a situation in which Susan has a psychological experi-
ence. We adopt Experiencer, particularly as in some languages with
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ROLES 125

rich systems of case (see Chapters 9 and 12) there are clear distinctions,
central to the grammar, which support a contrast between Patient and
Experiencer.
Verbs like know are called stative verbs. Lists of stative verbs in
English usually include verbs such as understand, like, believe, see and
hear, which denote psychological experiences. Adjectives such as sorry,
ashamed and joyful are often included as denoting psychological experi-
ences. The evidence from English, as in (24), is typically in the form of
paraphrase relations, such as be visible to X for X sees and be audible to X for
X hears.

11.3 Roles and role-players

We said above that grammatical criteria establish very broad categories.
We have already seen that grammatical patterns in English establish a
very general role of Patient; the differences in meaning that led analysts
to propose the roles of Result and Theme arise from the meaning of
specific lexical verbs and should be handled in the lexical entries for
these verbs. We now look again at the role of Agent, invoking the concept
of prototype that was so useful in the discussion of word classes in
Chapter 4 and distinguishing clearly between roles and role-players.
It has long been demonstrated that the most reliable and general
criteria for Agents – answering questions such as What does X do? or What
is X doing?, completing WH clefts – What X does is __ and occurring in
the progressive – lead to a very general concept of Agent. Prototypical
Agents are human beings acting of their own volition, initiating an
action, carrying it out using their own energy and producing an effect on
something. Jim in (25) is a prototypical Agent.
(25) Jim was happily chopping logs.
Prototypical Agents allow clauses to be continued by be at it and to
contain adverbs such as enthusiastically or masterfully, as in (26a) and (26b).
(26) a. Jim was chopping logs when Margaret left and was still at it
when she got back.
b. Jim was enthusiastically chopping logs.
Some Agents meet the general criteria outlined above but achieve
some goal by exerting their will-power. Consider the examples in (27).
(27) a. Captain Oates died in order to save his comrades.
b. The fugitive lay motionless in order to avoid discovery.
Verbs such as die and lie do not denote actions but can be put into the
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126 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

imperative, which is not a test for actions but is a test for volition: Die
a hero’s death for Sparta! and Lie still or they will see you! An adverb such as
accidentally signals that an action is not voluntary, but it can occur in
imperative sentences and the latter can be given an interpretation. Thus,
Kick the defender accidentally can be taken as an instruction to kick the
defender but to make it look accidental.
Some Agents do not have volition, do not initiate an action and do not
expend energy. Nonetheless, they produce an effect by virtue of being in
a certain position in a certain place. Example (28) is an instance of this;
note that it meets the above general criteria, as demonstrated by (29).
(28) This arch supports the weight of the tower.
(29) a. What does this arch do? It supports the weight of the tower.
b. What this arch does is support the weight of the tower.
c. This arch is supporting the weight of the tower.
Some Agents initiate an action but do no more because they merely
give a command to others to carry out some action. An example is in (30).
(30) The guard marched the prisoners round the yard.
A fourth type of Agent is conceived of as using its own energy – a
living creature, a machine or a natural force. Examples are in (31).
(31) a. The computer is playing six simultaneous games of three-
dimensional chess.
b. The machine is crushing the wrecked car.
c. The flood swept away whole villages.
The above are answers to questions such as What is the computer doing? and
What did the flood do?; they fit into WH clefts – What the computer is doing is
playing six simultaneous games of three-dimensional chess and What the flood did
was sweep away whole villages. An extra role of Causer was proposed at one
time for nouns such as flood in (31c). As with the other proposed extra
roles, it is not required. Floods have their own non-human properties,
and these are set out in the lexical entry for flood. Floods are simply a
subtype of Agent, not prototypical but not hopelessly peripheral either.
To round off this account of roles and role-players, we will look briefly
at the Instrument role and at other examples relating to the (discarded)
Agent–Causer distinction. The typical instrument in this world is a
tool such as a saw, hammer, screwdriver and so on, or a machine, with
impromptu tools, such as lengths of wood or stones, on the periphery of
the set. It is possible to imagine situations in which human beings are
used as instruments: compare Bond smashed the window with his opponent. Of
course, such situations are not normal, but they do occur from time to
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ROLES 127

time, even if mostly in novels. The crucial fact is the occurrence of with,
signalling an Instrumental role, and the unusual nature of the particular
instrument will emerge from the combination of that role with a human
noun.
Finally, consider the examples in (32).
(32) a. The intense cold killed the climbers.
b. The climbers were killed by the intense cold.
c. The climbers were killed with the intense cold.
Cold in (32) is an Agent and has the Agent preposition by in (32b). In (32c)
it is preceded by with, which is the Instrument preposition (but see
below). Some entities can be involved in a causal role in some situation
but can be perceived now as Agent, now as non-Agent. Again the import-
ant point is that we have to go by the grammar, and the grammar indi-
cates that cold is presented as an Agent in (32b) but as a non-Agent in
(32c).
The argument has been put for a broad notion of Agent based on
grammatical criteria, with other details coming from the dictionary
entries for individual nouns. One major criterion is that a difference in
preposition indicates a difference in role, but we have not yet discussed
whether all occurrences of the same preposition can be analysed as
signalling the same role. Consider the sentences in (33).
(33) a. Catriona opened the door with this key.
b. The visas are with the passports.
c. Sally went to the party with Andrew.
d. Alan made the loaf with strong white flour.
e. The builders made the wall with concrete blocks.
The one noun that obviously denotes an instrument is key in (33a). In the
situation described by (33b), the visas and the passports are in the same
place – the passports are used as an orientation point for stating the
whereabouts of the visas. In the situation described by (33c), Sally and
Andrew are in the same place; they are together as they make their way
to the party and they are together at the party. In the situations described
by (33d) and (33e), the flour and the concrete blocks are perforce in the
same place as the loaf and the wall, since the latter two are made out of
the former. The examples in (33) have in common the notion of being
in the same place, for which the term Comitative (= accompanying) is
commonly used.
Returning to (33a), we should note that a person using an instrument
is typically in the same place as the instrument. Examples (33a–e) all
contain with and can all be interpreted as involving the notion of being
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128 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

in the same place. To this evidence can be added the fact that, in a range
of languages, examples corresponding to (33a–c) employ the same
case suffix. Finally, there is evidence from experiments with speakers of
twelve languages from different language families that the concepts
of Instrument and Comitative are related. We propose that key in
(33a) is in the Comitative role and that the specific properties of key as
denoting an instrument are set out in its lexical entry.

11.4 Problems with Patients: planting roses

We finish this chapter with a well-known and much-discussed set
of examples that bear directly on participant roles and the question
of whether they relate only to the objective world of the physicist or
whether they also relate to the world as conceived and perceived by
ordinary speakers of human languages. The examples are in (34).
(34) a. The gardener planted roses in the garden.
b. The gardener planted the garden with roses.
Examples (34a) and (34b) are not identical in meaning. Example (34b)
is true if the gardener filled the garden with rose bushes, whereas (34a)
leaves it open whether the rose bushes are all over the garden or only
in one part of it. If (34b) is true, (34a) is true; if (34a) is true, (34b) might
or might not be true depending on the details of a particular event of
planting.
The differences in meaning accompany differences in syntax; the
latter make it clear that we are dealing with two different constructions.
(See Chapter 3 on constructions.)
• There are differences in word order: (34a) planted roses garden vs (34b)
planted garden roses.
• Garden is preceded by a preposition in (34a) but not (34b); roses is
preceded by a preposition in (34b) but not (34a).
• The preposition in (34a) is in, but in (34b) it is with.
• Roses is the direct object of planted in (34a) – (34a) can be made passive,
Roses were planted in the garden by the gardener. In (34b) the direct object
is garden; witness the passive The garden was planted with roses by the
gardener.
It was suggested at one time that the difference between the sentences
merely had to do with whether the focus was on the roses or on the
garden. Three facts make this view untenable. There is the contrast in
meaning; the differences in syntax set out in (i)–(iv) above indicate
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ROLES 129

clearly that different constructions are involved. The differences extend

to other constructions, as shown by (35) and (36).
(35) a. It was roses that the gardener planted in the garden.
b. It is the garden that the gardener planted with roses.
(36) a. Roses are certain to be planted in the garden by the gardener.
b. The garden is certain to be planted with roses by the gardener.
The (a) examples all have the same ambiguous meaning; they leave it
open whether the roses fill the entire garden or are confined to one part
of it. The (b) examples all have the interpretation that the garden is filled
with roses. The crucial point is that the grammatical criteria show that
in (34a) roses is the direct object; they are presented as being directly
operated on by the gardener. In (34b), the garden is presented as being
directly operated on by the gardener. In terms of role, roses in (34a) is
Patient and garden in (34b) is Patient. Normally, the Patient in a clause
is interpreted as being completely affected by the action; the roses are
completely affected in (34a), but this tells us nothing about the garden.
The garden is completely affected in (34b), and this gives us the essential
difference in meaning from (34a). These basic differences in grammar
and meaning affect (35a, b) and (36a, b).
Of course, this interpretation can be overridden by the insertion of
adverbs such as partly – The gardener partly planted the garden with roses – or
by a change in preposition. The gardener planted roses in the garden does not
have the same meaning as The gardener planted roses all over the garden. The
difference between in and all over is crucial. Similarly, the gardener planted
the garden with roses does not have the same meaning as The gardener partly
planted the garden with roses. However, in the absence of such adverbs, the
basic interpretation stands.
Garden in the (a) examples is the complement of the preposition in and
has to be assigned the role of Place. What role goes to roses in the (b)
examples? Recall the discussion of (33), which concluded that in all the
examples with has the Comitative role, based on the concept of being in
the same place. Example (34b) presents the gardener as operating on the
garden, causing it to be in the same place as roses. It might be objected
that the English sentence *The garden is with roses is unacceptable (though
its equivalent in other languages is not), but the noun phrase the garden
with roses is perfectly acceptable: The garden with roses is more attractive than
the garden with heathers.
Is the difference between (34a) and (34b) really all that important, and
do we need to have different roles for the two constructions? After all, no
matter what the word order or preposition, when you analyse real
examples of the situations described by the sentences, isn’t the garden
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130 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

always a location and aren’t the rose bushes always the things that
the gardener sets in the ground? That is, shouldn’t our analysis of the
examples assign the Place role to garden and the Patient role to roses in
both (34a) and (34b)?
The difficulty is that this alternative treatment ignores the grammati-
cal evidence. The different meanings of (34a) and (34b) demonstrate that
grammatical differences which some analysts might dismiss are actually
important. We are not entitled to give preference to the presence
of partly or to the contrast between in and all over while ignoring the
contrast between in and with and a difference in grammatical function,
for example garden as oblique object in (34a) and as direct object in (34b).
We must also keep in mind that different constructions allow speakers to
take different perspectives on what the physicist would treat as one and
the same situation. Returning to (33e), we see that The builders built the
wall with concrete blocks presents the concrete blocks in a Comitative role.
In contrast, The builders built the wall from/out of concrete blocks presents the
blocks as the Source from which the wall emerged.
We close the chapter by picking up the above mention of grammatical
criteria and reminding ourselves that roles are not invented just on
the basis of intuition. In addition to the grammatical criteria, one other
criterion has been proposed, that there should be only one instance of a
given role in a given clause – an exception being made for conjoined
NPs, as in Celia and Sally prepared a meal. Consider, however, the example
in (37).
(37) Helen sent a scarf to Jim for Margaret.
Jim is a Goal. What role should be assigned to Margaret? Examples such
as They headed for Glasgow and Let’s make for the island suggest that for
signals a Goal, but we have already decided that to signals a Goal. If
we allow two Goals in our analysis of (37), do we fall foul of the new
principle? Fortunately, we can take advantage of the distinction between
core and periphery discussed in Chapter 3 on constructions. To phrases
are complements and in the core; many verbs exclude movement
phrases, and that information has to be entered in their lexical entries.
With send the phrase for Margaret is optional and an adjunct, in that for
phrases can occur with any combination of verb and other constituent:
wrote a poem for Margaret, played CDs for Margaret, learned that dance for
Margaret, sat patiently for two hours for Margaret and so on. The phrase for
Margaret is in the periphery of the clause, and we can save our extra
criterion by allowing a clause to have simultaneously a Goal phrase in its
core and a Goal phrase in its periphery.
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ROLES 131

Summary
Participant roles play a useful part in the analysis of the syntax and in-
terpretation of various constructions. Typical roles are Agent, Patient,
Instrument, Place, Goal and Source. It is essential to have criteria for
limiting the number of roles; a small number of very general roles can be
set up on the basis of grammatical criteria. Two distinctions are funda-
mental. One is between roles and role-players, as in the recognition that
the prototype or best central example of a player in the Agent role is
a human being using his or her own energy and acting of their own
volition. A peripheral example is an inanimate column without volition
and not using energy. The second distinction is between the very general
roles and the information contributed by individual lexical verbs to the
meaning of a clause. An Agent may be involved in many kinds of action,
and a Patient may be unaffected by an action, say watch, or be affected to
a large extent, as in the actions denoted by break or lift. Patients can be
created, as in write a book, or destroyed, as in burn the manuscript. Roles do
not connect up directly with the world but with the ways in which the
speakers of languages conceive of and present situations in the world.

Exercises
1. Examples (34a, b) above demonstrated the difference in meaning
between planting a garden with roses and planting roses in a garden.
Read the discussion of those examples and consider the examples below.
Do they signal the same differences of meaning? Are there examples
where the differences in meaning are cancelled by the entities in the
situation or by the type of action?
1. The workmen loaded the bricks onto the lorry.
2. The workmen loaded the lorry with the bricks.
3. The vandals sprayed slogans on the wall.
4. The vandals sprayed the wall with slogans.
5. The mechanic sprayed the points with damp start.
6. The mechanic sprayed damp start on the points.
7. The director hung pictures on the walls.
8. The director hung the walls with pictures.
9. Italians supply ice-cream to Scots.
10. Italians supply Scots with ice-cream.
11. Alice crammed the papers into the drawer.
12. Alice crammed the drawer with papers.
13. The author inscribed his signature on the book.
14. The author inscribed the book with his signature.
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132 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

15. The deer stripped the bark off the tree.

16. The deer stripped the tree of its bark.

2. Which of the following examples do you find acceptable? (In speech,

in writing?) The examples in Exercise 1 have the ‘same’ lexical verb
in two different syntactic constructions. Are the following examples
similar?
1. Claudia poured water into the bath.
2. Claudia poured the bath with water.
3. Claudia filled water into the bath.
4. Claudia filled the bath with water.
5. The gang stole a million pounds from the bank.
6. The gang stole the bank of a million pounds.
7. The gang robbed a million pounds from the bank.
8. The gang robbed the bank of a million pounds.

3. Assign roles to the nouns in the following extract adapted from

William Dalrymple, From the Holy Mountain.
I recorded several versions of this story in Urfa (Edessa). Father
Abraham was born in a cave on the citadel mount, where he lay
hidden from its castellan, Nimrod the Hunter. Nimrod nevertheless
tracked down Abraham’s cradle and used two pagan pillars on the
acropolis as a catapult to propel the baby into a furnace at the bottom
of the hill. The Almighty realised that his divine plan for Mankind
was in danger, intervened and turned the furnace into a pool full of
carp. The carp caught the baby and carried him to the poolside.
Abraham promised that anyone who ate the carp would go blind.
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12 Grammar and semantics:

case, gender, mood

12.1 Introduction
Syntax is of interest (as is morphology too) because without syntax
human beings would be unable to construct complex messages con-
veying information about complex situations, proposals or ideas. We
touched on the relationship between grammar and semantics in Chapter
4 on word classes; it turned out that the differences between the major
classes of words are central to the use of language. It was not so much the
contrast between reference to people, places and things and reference to
actions and states as the acts that speakers carry out with different classes
of words – referring, predicating and modifying.
One set of criteria for recognising word classes has to do with morpho-
syntactic properties; in many languages, nouns have suffixes that signal
case, while verbs have suffixes that signal person and number (as
described in Chapter 5 on the lexicon and in Chapter 9 on syntactic
linkage). In many languages, verbs also have suffixes that signal other
information that is semantically central. The verb suffixes of Latin,
for example, carry information about tense, aspect, mood and voice,
‘grammatical categories’ which we are about to introduce.
As we saw when we explored word classes in Chapter 4, many
languages have a much richer system of noun and verb suffixes (in-
flectional morphology) than English, whose inflectional morphology is
pretty sparse. Much of the work that is done by suffixes in Latin, say,
is done by syntactic constructions in English and falls into the scope of
this book on two counts, being syntactic and being central to the connec-
tions between grammar and meaning.

12.2 Case
We have already discussed the category of case in various places, par-
ticularly in Chapter 9 on syntactic linkage where we looked at certain
key facts of case in Latin, but also in Chapter 8 on grammatical functions
133
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134 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

and Chapter 11 on roles. The term ‘case’ was traditionally used for
the system of noun suffixes typical of Indo-European languages. For
convenience, we reproduce as (1a) and (1b) below some of the Latin
examples discussed in Chapter 9.
(1) a. Latin
reks gladium ponit
king sword put-down ‘the king put down the sword’
Gladium has the accusative suffix (see Chapter 9 for explanations of
the case terms ‘accusative’, ‘nominative’ and ‘ablative’). Any adjective
modifying gladium also has to be in the accusative case, as in (1b).
(1) b. reks magnum gladium ponit
king big sword put-down
‘the king put down the big sword’
(2) a. Latin
reks gladio utitur
king sword is-using ‘the/a king is using the/a sword’
In (2), gladio has the ablative suffix -o. Any adjective modifying gladio
also has to be in the ablative case, as in (2b), where magno is the ablative
singular form of magn-.
(2) b. Latin
reks magno gladio utitur
king big sword is-using
‘the/a king is using the/a big sword’
As discussed in Chapter 9, different suffixes are required for plural
nouns – reges instead of reks, gladiis instead of gladio. Moreover, Latin
nouns fall into three major classes and two minor classes, and each
class has its own set of case suffixes. The case suffixes signal the relation
between the nouns in a clause and the verb, and they signal which adjec-
tives modify which noun and which noun modifies a given preposition
(since different prepositions assign different cases). English does not
have case suffixes. Pronouns display remnants of the earlier case system
– saw me vs *saw I, to me vs to I – but no case suffixes are added to nouns,
and there is no ‘agreement’ between a noun and the adjectives that
modify it.
English does have the possessive suffix ’s in John’s bike and Juliet’s
spaniel. In spoken English, with the exception of irregular nouns such as
children or mice, ’s is not added to plural nouns. Possession is signalled (in
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GRAMMAR AND SEMANTICS : CASE , GENDER , MOOD 135

writing) by an apostrophe added to plural nouns, as in the dogs’ kennel.

The apostrophe has no spoken equivalent. The ’s suffix is also added to
noun phrases rather than nouns, as in the woman next door’s poodle and John
and Juliet’s garden. An analysis of the possessive suffix goes beyond the
scope of this book, but it is clear that it behaves very differently from the
case suffixes of languages such as Latin and Russian.
As explained in Chapter 11 on roles, the traditional concept of case
has been extended to take in the relationships between verb and nouns
in clauses and the ways in which these relationships are signalled. In
some languages, the relations are marked by affixes added to the verb,
but these would still come under the modern concept of CASE. (It will
be helpful to use capital letters when referring to the modern extended
concept and small letters when referring to the traditional concept or to
affixes or, as in English, to prepositions.) CASE is relevant to English; the
relations between verb and nouns in clauses are signalled by position and
by the presence or absence of prepositions. In the basic active declarative
construction (see Chapter 3), the subject is to the left of the verb, with
no preposition, and the direct object is to the right of the verb, with
no preposition. In the indirect object construction, the indirect object is
immediately to the right of the verb and followed by the direct object.
All other nouns in a clause are connected to the verb by a preposition.
(Note that this does not mean that all prepositions signal verb–noun
relations. They can also signal noun–noun relations, as in the vase on
the table, and adjective–noun relations, as in rich in minerals.) The key
question is to what extent any constant meaning attaches to a given
preposition wherever it occurs (and, for languages such as Latin and
Russian, the extent to which a constant meaning attaches to a given case
suffix). This question is discussed in Chapter 11 on roles.

12.3 Gender
In Chapter 9 on syntactic linkage, we mentioned that Latin nouns fall
into various classes called ‘genders’ and that they are misleadingly
named ‘masculine gender’, ‘feminine gender’ and ‘neuter gender’. The
different classes of noun are grammatically important because which
class a noun belongs to determines which case suffixes it takes and which
case suffixes any modifying adjectives take. This is exemplified in (1)–(3)
in Chapter 9. English nouns fall into classes that are more closely linked
to natural gender. There is a major split between animate and inanimate
nouns, linked to the use of it as opposed to he and she. The animate nouns
split into male and female, which governs the use of he as opposed to she.
The labels ‘masculine’ and so on applied to classes of Latin noun can
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136 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

be seen as not entirely arbitrary if we take into account the fact that
nouns denoting women, in whatever capacity, are typically female: mater
(mother), filia (daughter), femina (woman) are feminine; pater (father),
filius (son), vir (man) are masculine; servus is ‘male slave’, serva is ‘female
slave’ and so on. Neuter nouns appear at first sight to offer no general-
isation, but an important one can be made: no nouns denoting animate
beings are neuter. That generalisation does not apply as neatly to Indo-
European languages as a whole, but it remains true that relatively
few neuter nouns denote animate beings. The ones that are usually
mentioned are the neuter German nouns Kind (child), Weib (woman),
Mädchen (girl), Fräulein (young woman), Tier (animal), Pferd (horse),
Krokodil (crocodile).
Current thinking on gender is that there is always a semantic core to
gender systems, but the degree of semantic justification can vary from
almost complete to very little. There are languages, such as the Bantu
language Luganda, spoken in areas of Uganda and Kenya, which have
classes of nouns based on such properties as whether they denote
humans, animals, round objects, thin rigid objects, thin flexible objects,
and so on. There are many nouns that fit the pattern, but the language
has a general class into which go all new or borrowed nouns. Work on
the Australian language Dyirbal (North Queensland) has shown that the
working of a gender system might require knowledge of a society’s
myths. In Dyirbal myth, the moon and the sun are husband and wife; the
words for moon and husband are together in one class and the words for
wife and sun are together in another class. Nouns to do with fire and light
go in the same class as the noun for sun. The satin bird brought fire from
the clutches of the rainbow snake, and the noun denoting the bird is in
the same class as the words for sun and fire. The bite of the hairy mary
grub has the same effect as bad sunburn, and the noun denoting that grub
is also in the same class as the noun for sun.

12.4 Mood
Throughout this book we have described speakers using syntax in
order to talk about situations, adopting different perspectives on a given
situation. This was a central part of the discussion of roles in Chapter 11
and continues to be a central part of mood, tense, aspect and voice. It
would be very pleasing and appropriate if ‘mood’ as a technical term in
grammar derived from or was historically associated with ‘mood’ as a
term applied to psychological states. Unfortunately it is not, since the
latter is cognate with a German word and the former derives from the
Latin word which has also survived in Modern English as ‘mode’. The
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GRAMMAR AND SEMANTICS : CASE , GENDER , MOOD 137

central point is that speakers have different modes of presenting

situations.

12.4.1 Statements, questions, commands

1. Speakers can make statements about situations – This is happening,
That happened.
They can ask questions about situations and about participants in
situations – Is this happening?, Did that happen?
They can require or request that a particular situation be created or
not created – Do this, don’t do that.
2. They can present situations as factual – This happened, This did happen.
They can present situations as possible – This might happen.
They can present situations as necessary – This has to happen, That must
happen.
3. They can state their authority for making a statement – Evidently, she
has decided to change jobs, I know for a fact that this plane is unsafe.
4. They can present situations as the objects of wishes, hopes, fears –
I wish he had better manners, She’s afraid he’s going to make a fool of himself.
In Chapter 3 on constructions we looked at two of the constructions
in (1), the declarative construction and the yes–no interrogative con-
struction. There we described the arrangements of words into phrases
and the syntactic differences between the two; here we are interested in
the uses to which speakers put the constructions, and add the imperative
construction which can be used to issue instructions and requests. (But
in many situations, speakers do not use the imperative; see the exercises
at the end of the chapter.)
The examples in (3) are not normally discussed under the heading
of mood, but the concept of mood should be extended to take them in.
One reason is that the distinction between making a statement, asking a
question and issuing a command is not sufficient, because speakers make
assertions with different degrees of certainty and authority. In English,
these degrees are signalled by means of adverbs such as evidently or
apparently, and by phrases such as for a fact. There is some controversy as
to whether a given speaker makes a stronger assertion by means of That’s
the guy who attacked the policemen or That must be the guy who attacked the police-
men. An earlier view was that the former was the stronger assertion, but
another, more recent, view is that the former is neutral and that it is the
speaker who utters must be who expresses the stronger commitment to
the proposition [THAT GUY ATTACK THE POLICEMEN].
A second reason for extending the discussion is that there are
languages, such as Turkish, in which degrees of certainty are obligatorily
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138 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

expressed; speakers who have seen an event with their own eyes must
use one set of verb forms while speakers who have not witnessed it but
merely heard about it from others must use another set of verb forms.

12.4.2 Subjunctive mood

Any general investigation of mood must deal with the business of
speakers making assertions with different degrees of certainty or auth-
ority, but the topic is not of central concern here. We are going to focus
on (4) and (2) above. The examples in (4) relate to what is called the
subjunctive mood. It is unfortunate that ‘mood’ is applied to this concept,
although it is a very old usage and difficult to change. It also has some
justification because it is connected with the mode in which speakers
choose to present a situation. The term ‘subjunctive mood’ relates to
special sets of verb forms. English used to have such forms; indeed, in a
sense it still does have them, but they have fallen into disuse and are now
almost archaic. They occur in examples such as If I were in such difficulties,
I would take to my bed, where were occurs with the singular subject. Most
speakers and writers nowadays use was. Another example, even more
unusual, is be in If this be true, the plan should be abandoned.
The subjunctive forms were used in order to present a situation as
remote from reality – the speaker being in difficulties – or as possibly
remote from reality – this being true. The technical term is ‘non-factual’.
Why the mysterious term ‘subjunctive’? The examples just given involve
subjunctive forms in subordinate clauses – if I were in such difficulties and
if this be true. Subordinate clauses were said to be ‘subjoined’ to the main
clause in a sentence, or to be ‘subjuncts’. Hence ‘subjunctive’. This brings
us back to (4.) and the presentation of situations as the objects of hopes,
fears and wishes. To present a situation thus, speakers have to construct
a main clause containing a verb such as hope or wish with a subordinate
complement clause expressing the hoped-for situation. This type of
construction has disappeared from English but is found in French, as
shown in (3).
(3) French
a. Sa fille est première en tout
His daughter is first in everything
b. Il veut que sa fille soit première en tout
He wants that his daughter is first in everything
The relevant contrast is between est (is) in (3a) and soit (is) in (3b). In the
latter, the speaker states that someone has a wish – il veut (he wants) – and
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GRAMMAR AND SEMANTICS : CASE , GENDER , MOOD 139

states the content of the wish by means of the complement clause que
sa fille soit première en tout (that his daughter is first in everything). The
wished-for situation does not exist at the moment, and this is signalled
both by the verb veut and by the subjunctive mood. Est in (3a) is said to
be in the indicative mood. The speaker indicates or refers to a situation
which does exist.

12.4.3 Epistemic and deontic modality

The presentation of situations as possible or necessary, point (2.) above,
is achieved in English by modal verbs. The essential distinction in this
area is between epistemic and deontic modality.
‘Epistemic’ derives from the Greek episteme (knowledge), and epis-
temic modality relates to the way (the mode) in which speakers know
a situation; do they know that it exists, do they consider it as merely
possible or do they treat it as necessarily existing (although they have not
seen it themselves) on the basis of evidence?
‘Deontic’ derives from the Greek verb deo (tie). Deontic modality
relates to whether speakers present a situation as possible because per-
mission has been given, or as necessary because circumstances require it,
for example because someone with authority has issued a command or
because the situation is such that other actions are ruled out.
Epistemic possibility is expressed by could, may or might, as in (4).
(4) She could/might/may be in the library (= It is possible that she is in
the library)
May is neutral but might and could express more remote possibility.
Note that can is not excluded in principle from expressing epistemic
possibility but occurs very rarely with this interpretation. In addition to
asserting that propositions are epistemically possible, speakers assert
that they are epistemically not possible, as in (5).
(5) She may/might not be in her room just now (= It is possible that she
is not in her room)
Can/could and may/might derive historically from different verbs and
diverge in meaning to the extent that can and could can be used to refer
to physical or mental ability, whereas may and might cannot. Example (6a)
is quite different in meaning from (6b).
(6) a. Margaret can/could multiply large numbers in her head (= is/
was able to)
b. Margaret may/might multiply large numbers in her head (= it
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140 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

is possible that Margaret will multiply large numbers in her head

if you ask her nicely)
When negated, can and could behave very differently from may and
might. Example (7) expresses a stronger commitment to the impossibility
of a situation. The gloss is ‘it is not possible that such and such’, as
opposed to ‘it is possible that not such and such’ for (5).
(7) She can’t be in her room just now. (= It is not possible that she is in
her room just now.)
Speakers may also present situations as epistemically necessary, that
is, they can convey the message ‘I conclude from the evidence that this
event happened/is going to happen’. Must is typically used, as in (8).
(8) That must be the worst joke I’ve ever heard.
Speakers also use have to and have got to, which express necessity but are
not modal verbs because they do not have the typical syntax of modal
verbs: That’s got to be the worst joke I’ve ever heard.
Many examples of epistemic necessity can be glossed by means of
I conclude that, as in (9), which could be uttered as the speaker looks at
piles of empty beer cans.
(9) You must spend a lot of money on beer. [= I conclude that you
spend …]
Speakers can also conclude that something is necessarily not the case.
They can’t be going to tell us used to be the standard British English con-
struction, but They mustn’t be going to tell us is the regular construction for
speakers of Scottish English and speakers of American English and is
moving into standard English English.
Deontic possibility has to do with giving or withholding permission.
Grammar books used to assert that may is used in this sense, but the bulk
of speakers both in the UK and in North America use can. Permission
can be given to do something or not to do something; the latter is typi-
cally expressed by verbs other than may. Having permission not to do
something is equivalent to not being obliged to do something, and the
typical expressions are, for example, You don’t have to come to work tomorrow
and You don’t need to come to work tomorrow. In contrast, not having per-
mission to do something is expressed by may not [the standard story] or
can’t/cannot: You may not/can’t/cannot hand in your dissertation late.
Deontic necessity is expressed by must, have to and have got to. The typi-
cal account in grammars of English is that must expresses an obligation
placed on individuals by themselves (I must read that new novel because I
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GRAMMAR AND SEMANTICS : CASE , GENDER , MOOD 141

enjoyed all her other novels) as opposed to an obligation placed on indi-

viduals by others or by circumstances (I have to read that novel because there’s
an obligatory question on it in the exam, or I have to go to the dentist because the
toothache keeps waking me up). This analysis of must and have to does not fit
the facts of usage. Speakers recognise have got to as expressing obligations
placed on individuals by others or by circumstances. Have to is neutral,
and must is peripheral for many speakers (as opposed to writers).
As mentioned in the paragraph following example (8) above, have and
have got to are used for the expression of epistemic modality. The original
meaning of have and have got to was and is deontic, that is, some action is
necessary because circumstances make it so. The use of these verbs in
examples such as That has to be the worst joke I’ve ever heard is more recent.
Similarly, the use of ought and should has changed. Their original mean-
ing is one of moral obligation, as in He should help his friends, not laugh at
them. Another use, possibly derived from the moral-obligation interpret-
ation, is exemplified in The computer desk should hold together now that I’ve put
in extra screws. A moral obligation is weaker and more easily avoided than
an obligation imposed by circumstances, and this difference between
ought and should on the one hand and have and have got to on the other is
reflected in the epistemic uses. Speakers who say That book should be in the
library draw conclusions from whatever evidence is available to them,
such as patterns of book-borrowing or the fact that they returned the
book to the library just twenty minutes before. But they draw a much
weaker conclusion than speakers who say the book must be in the library. The
latter statement indicates that no other conclusion is possible, whereas
should leaves room for the conclusion to be wrong.

Summary
The chapter title ‘Grammar and semantics’ reflects the central idea that
certain distinctions in the grammars of languages (including the gram-
mar of English) signal important distinctions of meaning. (Traditionally
the label for the grammatical distinctions and associated meanings was
‘grammatical categories’.) Case has to do with how languages signal
the relationships between the verb and the nouns in a clause. In many
languages, nouns consist of a central stem to which case endings (case
suffixes) are added. Verb–noun relationships are also signalled by word
order and prepositions, and the term ‘case’ has been extended to these
devices. Gender has to do with the different classes of noun in a given
language. In English, nouns divide into classes based largely on natural
gender; that is, the gender class a noun belongs to is connected with
whether the related pronoun is he, she or it. In other languages, nouns
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142 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

referring to inanimate objects fall into classes labelled ‘masculine’ or

‘feminine’, but the reasons have to do with the grammatical behaviour
of the nouns and not their meaning. Mood has to do with the modes in
which speakers and writers can present situations. They can make state-
ments, ask questions or issue commands with respect to a situation. They
can present a situation as a fact, as possible or as a necessary consequence
of certain circumstances. They can present a situation as real, that is, as
close to or actually happening in this world, or as unreal or irreal, as not
happening in this world and even as so remote from this world that it will
never happen.

Exercises
The following sentences contain modal verbs. Which of the verbs have
epistemic meanings and which have deontic meanings? Do any examples
seem to be neither epistemic nor deontic?
1. They may use the Library provided they bring a letter from their
Head of Department.
2. They may be using the Library next week. It depends when they
finish their report.
3. She might accept their offer of a Readership.
4. The Librarian said they might use the Library if they were very
careful.
5. You can hand the essay in on Monday.
6. They can be here in ten minutes/any minute.
7. They could be here in ten minutes/any minute.
8. You mustn’t touch the ornaments.
9. You mustn’t be going on the ski trip. (If you were going, you
would have had your confirmation last week.)
10. They can’t be going to admit any more spectators.
11. You must spend your money on clothes. (Your wardrobe is choc-
a-bloc.)
12. You must spend your money on clothes. (Your wardrobe is empty.
What are you going to wear for your interview?)
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13 Grammar and semantics:

aspect, tense, voice

13.1 Aspect
Speakers of any language convey a large amount of information about
situations and time. They can represent a given action as ongoing or as
completed; they can represent it as having taken place once or as being
repeated or as being a habit. We can locate a situation in past, present
or future time and we can locate situations in time relative to other
situations in a fairly subtle fashion. Whether a situation is ongoing
or completed, repeated or habitual comes under the heading of aspect,
which can be thought of as the aspect or view which a speaker offers of
a particular situation. The location of a situation in past, present or
future time, or of two situations relative to each other in time, comes
under the heading of tense, which derives from the French word temps
(time).

13.1.1 Stative and dynamic verbs and clauses

In Chapter 5 on the lexicon, we established a connection between
specific lexical items and particular constructions. A similar connection
exists between specific lexical verbs and aspect, and we begin by looking
at the relevant classes of verbs. Analysts distinguish between lexical
aspect, the different lexical classes of verbs, and grammatical aspect, the
information encoded in the grammars of languages. It is unfortunate that
‘aspect’ has become ambiguous, but the usage is probably here to stay. An
alternative would be to employ the German term ‘Aktionsart’ (action
type) for the lexical classes, as is the practice in work on Slavic languages,
and to confine ‘aspect’ to grammar.
The major distinction splitting verbs into two major lexical classes is
between stative and non-stative (or dynamic) verbs. Stative verbs are not
difficult to recognise. Consider the examples in (1).
(1) a. What happened? They went home.
b. What happened? *They knew his parents.
c. What happened? *They were very cold.
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144 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

If a clause can be used to answer the question What happened?, it contains

a non-stative (dynamic) verb. If a clause cannot be so used, it contains a
stative verb. The second clause in (1a) contains went, which is dynamic
and relates to an action. Knew in (1b) and were in (1c) both relate to states
and are not dynamic but stative. Stative verbs exclude adverbs such as
quickly; *They quickly knew his parents is not acceptable and *They were
quickly very cold is only acceptable if the interpretation is ‘they quickly
became cold’.
Stative verbs occur either not at all in the Progressive (to be discussed
below) or only occasionally. Example (2) is unacceptable, and (3a, b),
actual examples uttered by native speakers of English, are very rare.
(2) *We are knowing this theory.
(3) a. They’re believing everything you say. [RARE]
b. You’ll soon be owning all the land round here. [RARE]
Stative verbs do not occur in the WH cleft construction. This consists of,
for example, What she did was followed by a clause. Example (4) is accept-
able while (5a, b) are not.
(4) What she did was e-mail all her friends.
(5) a. *What she did was know this theory.
b. *What she did was be very cold.
c. *What she did was own all the land round here.
From the above, it is clear that whether a particular lexical verb takes the
Progressive or not is a weakish criterion for stative verbs, but that occur-
rence in the WH cleft construction and occurrence in clauses answering
the question What happened? are reliable criteria.

13.1.2 Activities, achievements and accomplishments

It is now accepted practice to divide dynamic verbs into three classes.
In fact, although people still talk of classes of verbs, it is clear that the
relevant distinctions actually hold between whole clauses, so that strictly
speaking it is not the verb but the verb plus its complements that is
involved. To talk of classes of verbs is not without justification, however;
as shown in Chapter 5 on the lexicon and in Chapter 10 on heads, verb
phrases and clauses, verbs can be regarded as the heads of clauses and as
controlling the types of structures allowed in particular clauses. In many
languages, the different clause structures are signalled by differences in
the shape of the verb. The three classes of dynamic verbs divide into two
groups. The first is that of activity verbs, which denote situations that
are seen as going on in the same kind of way over a period of time and
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GRAMMAR AND SEMANTICS : ASPECT, TENSE , VOICE 145

as having no built-in boundary; they allow phrases such as for hours.

Examples are in (6) and should be contrasted with (7).
(6) a. Harriet talked to Emma for hours.
b. The dog chased the cat for days.
(7) a. Harriet told Emma the whole story.
b. The dog caught the cat.
What do we mean by ‘built-in boundary’? We are not concerned with the
fact that there are natural limitations on activities, that human beings
run out of energy and concentration and become hungry and thirsty.
The important point is that in the situation described by (7a) the event
of telling a story comes to an end when the end of the story is reached.
Harriet and Emma can go off to practise their drawing or Emma can tell
the story again, but both count as new events. The situation described
by (6a) has no built-in boundary; there is no point at which the event of
talking comes to an end and a new event starts. The talking presumably
ends when Harriet or Emma has had enough or they are interrupted, but
the clause tells us nothing about that.
Similarly, the event described by (7b) comes to an end when the dog
has trapped the cat; the event described by (6b) has no built-in bound-
ary. The difference is brought out by the kinds of adverbs that can be
added; (6a, b) allow adverbs such as for hours that accord with an activity
being stretched out over time. They exclude adverbs such as in twenty
minutes which relate to an event reaching its final boundary and being
completed. In contrast, (7a, b) allow adverbs such as in twenty minutes
but exclude adverbs such as for hours – Harriet told Emma the whole story in
twenty minutes is fine, but the following examples are peculiar: *Harriet told
Emma the whole story for twenty minutes and *Harriet talked to Emma in twenty
minutes.
Example (7b) is an instance of an achievement verb. Achievements
often have to do with the beginning or end of an event and are conceived
of as having no duration. They might be described as being all boundary.
Other achievement verbs are wink, knock, stab, as in Mrs Jennings winked at
Eleanor.
The other class of verbs that have a built-in boundary are called
accomplishments. They related to situations with two components, an
activity phase and then a closing phase. Examples of accomplishment
verbs/clauses are given in (8).
(8) a. The beaver built a dam.
b. Anne played the tune on the piano.
In the situations described by (8a, b), there is an activity phase in which
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146 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

the beaver collects materials, say, and builds the dam higher and higher,
and an activity phase in which Anne plays the main body of the tune.
These events are brought to a close by the beaver putting the final log or
branch in place and Anne playing the final note. One difference between
accomplishment and achievement verbs is worth pointing out. Both
types can occur in the Progressive, but with different interpretations.
The beaver was building the dam presents one event of building as ongoing;
Mrs Jennings was winking at Eleanor is most straightforwardly taken as
presenting not one event of winking but several events.
We can summarise the above discussion in the following paragraph
and in Table 13.1. Stative verbs do not denote events. They denote states,
which do not develop over time in different phases the way that events
evolve but remain the same. In English, stative verbs are excluded from
clauses answering the question What happened?, are excluded from WH
clefts and occur rarely in the Progressive. Activity, accomplishment and
achievement verbs all denote events. Activities denote events with no
built-in boundary and stretching out over time. Achievements denote
events conceived of as occupying no time at all. Accomplishments
denote events with an activity phase and a closure phase; they can be
spread out over time, but there is a built-in boundary. These differences
in meaning are reflected in the different sorts of time adverb that can
modify the different classes of verb and in the different interpretation of
accomplishment and achievement verbs in the Progressive.

Table 13.1
denotes conceived as has occurs freely
an stretching built-in in the
event over time boundary Progressive
Stative no yes no no
Activity yes yes no yes
Accomplishment yes yes yes yes
Achievement yes no yes no

13.1.3 Grammatical aspect in English: Progressive and

Simple aspect
Putting stative verbs on one side, we can say that English verbs occur in
the Progressive or Simple forms. The Progressive is a syntactic construc-
tion consisting of be plus the participle in -ing. The Simple form consists
of just the verb stem plus the suffixes whose central or prototypical forms
are -s or -ed. Examples are given in (9)–(11).
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GRAMMAR AND SEMANTICS : ASPECT, TENSE , VOICE 147

(9) a. Jane was playing the piano. ACTIVITY

b. Jane played the piano.
(10) a. Tess was knocking at the door. ACHIEVEMENT
b. Tess knocked at the door.
(11) a. Frank Churchill was crossing the street.
ACCOMPLISHMENT
b. Frank Churchill crossed the street.
All the above examples present events as taking place in past time.
(Tense and time will be discussed below.) Presented with such examples
out of context, native speakers of English take the Progressive examples
of ACTIVITY or ACCOMPLISHMENT verbs to present a single event
as ongoing. They take the examples with the Simple form as presenting
a single completed event. This is not the only possible interpretation of
the Simple form in the past tense, for adverbs such as every day or four or
five times a day can be added to examples such as (9b), (10b) and (11b),
giving them a habitual interpretation. That is, they present an event as
happening regularly over a long period of time, as a habit. Consider now
the examples in (12)–(14).
(12) a. Jane is visiting Emma. ACTIVITY
b. Jane visits Emma.
(13) a. Tess is knocking at the door. ACHIEVEMENT
b. Tess knocks at the door.
(14) a. Frank Churchill is crossing the street. ACCOMPLISHMENT
b. Frank Churchill crosses the street.
The examples with the Progressive forms, like the ones in (9)–(11), are
interpreted as presenting a single event as ongoing. (In the case of the
achievement verb in (13), the knocks are repeated, but it is possible to
interpret the series of repeated knocks as a single event. For present
purposes, we concentrate on (12) and (14).)
Out of context, the Simple forms are typically interpreted as present-
ing an event as habitual: Jane visits Emma every Tuesday, Tess always knocks
at the door before she comes in, Frank Churchill crosses the street every time he sees
Mr Knightley approaching. These Simple forms in the present tense can
be given single-event interpretations, but only in special contexts. One is
the ‘sporting commentary’, with many examples such as Savage runs up,
bowls and Dither is out lbw. The other is a type of narrative in the present
tense, either literary – Tess knocks at the door. Receiving no reply, she opens it,
shouts ‘Hello’ and goes into the hall – or joke – This man goes into a Glasgow bar
with a crocodile on a lead and asks the barman ‘Do you serve X?’
Progressive contrasts with Simple, but what exactly is signalled by
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148 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

the contrast? It seems that verbs in the Progressive, whether in past or

present tense, are typically used to present a single event as ongoing.
The Simple form presents an event as completed. Past-tense Simple
forms typically present a single event as completed (but this interpret-
ation can be overruled by an adverb such as every Friday). In the present
tense, outside the special contexts mentioned above, they are typically
interpreted as presenting an event as habitual. That is, verbs in the
Simple form present an event as completed but leave it unspecified
whether the event is single or repeated. In the past tense, the single-
event interpretation is the favourite and neutral, but in present tense the
habitual interpretation is the favourite and neutral.

13.2 Tense in English

Traditional grammars of English talk of past, present and future tense.
One view is that past and present tense go together, since they are both
formed from verb stems plus the suffixes -s and -ed. (We ignore irregular
verbs such as swim and the suffix-less present-tense forms.) The tra-
ditional future tense is formed from the auxiliary verbs shall and will
plus the verb stem (although many speakers do not use shall). That is,
the traditional future tense is a syntactic construction but the past and
present tenses are single words. This grammatical difference should
make us suspect that the ‘future tense’ is not a tense at all but has some
other meaning.
It turns out that the will construction does not just place an event in
future time but in many cases signals the intention of the speaker; will
derives historically from a verb that was equivalent to want or intend and
can still be used with this meaning. In examples with first-person
subjects, such as I’ll return the book tomorrow and I’ll meet you at the airport,
the speaker’s intention is part of the message. In examples with third-
person animate subjects, such as She’ll be in London tomorrow or He’ll hand
in the essay on Friday, the speaker may be talking about the third person’s
intentions but may just be making a prediction about a future event.
In examples with third-person inanimate subjects, it is difficult to
find a reference to intentions; The snow will arrive tomorrow is simply a
prediction.
The complex interpretation of the ‘future tense’ construction is not
unique to English. In many Indo-European languages, speakers and
writers typically refer to future time with verbs of movement. Many
instances of a future tense derive historically from verbs of obligation
(French) or from verbs of volition (Bulgarian, Modern Greek). Some
Native American languages in North America have sets of verb forms
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that are used for presenting situations as remote from reality (as unreal
or irrealis). These forms are also used for referring to situations set in
future time.
We talk of future events in terms of intentions and obligations because
future time, unlike past and present time, cannot be inspected. Even
where verbs of movement are used, as in I’m going to take the weekend off and
start afresh on Monday, there is a strong element of intention. Where
future events are presented by means of present-tense verbs, the events
referred to must be part of a schedule or plan that would only fail to
operate in most unusual circumstances. Consider (15).
(15) a. Real play Valencia next Sunday.
b. I leave for Paris next week.
Speakers who utter (15a) or (15b) place the football match and the
departure for Paris in present time because the events are known,
arranged and regarded as inevitable. They are in the speaker’s present
time. In contrast, (16) in most contexts is impossible because, outside the
world of James Bond films, human beings cannot control volcanoes.
(16) *The volcano erupts on Tuesday.

13.3 The English Perfect

Another syntactic construction central to the tense–aspect system of
English is the Perfect, exemplified in (17).
(17) The snow has blocked the track.
Analysts have found it difficult to classify the Perfect as an aspect or a
tense. It has two constituents, has or have and a past participle, here
blocked. (The label ‘participle’ is not helpful; it derives from the Latin
words meaning ‘take part’ or ‘participate’ and is supposed to reflect the
fact that in, for example, the Perfect construction, words such as blocked
participate in two word classes. Blocked is related to the verb block but is
itself a sort of adjective – compare The blocked track.) The participle indi-
cates an action that is completed, and this is why the Perfect looks like
an aspect; but has signals present time, and this makes the Perfect look
like a tense. On the assumption that some constructions may simply be
indeterminate, we make no attempt here to solve the problem.
The Perfect has been defined as focusing upon the presently accessible
consequences of a past event, rather than upon the past event per se; this
is summed up in the traditional formula that the Perfect has current
relevance. The Perfect in standard written English has four major uses,
exemplified in (18).
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150 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

(18) a. I have written up my thesis. resultative

b. The Minister has (just) arrived. hot news/recent past
c. I’ve been at work for six hours. extended now/persistent
situation
d. Have you ever visited Doubtful Sound?
Yes, I have been there. experiential/indefinite
anterior
Examples (18a–d) go from the most accessible to the least accessible
consequences. The speaker who utters (18a) has the finished thesis to
show (on disk or in paper form). If (18b) is uttered, the listeners know
that the Minister is there with them. The speaker who utters (18c) is
saying ‘I started work six hours ago and as you can see I am still here,
mission unaccomplished’. The consequences of these three examples are
visible, as are the consequences of (17), another resultative.
The consequences of (18d) are not so obvious. The question is about a
possible visit at an unspecified time in the past, hence the term ‘indefi-
nite anterior’. The answer, Yes, I have been there, does not specify a time but
merely contains an assertion that a visit to Doubtful Sound took place.
The consequences might be that the speaker can provide information
about how to get to Doubtful Sound, or has happy memories of the land-
scape and sea, or still has lumps from the bites of the amazingly vicious
sandflies.
The English Perfect has been the subject of much debate and analysis,
and we can do no more than indicate the main points. We close this
section with comments on three aspects of the English Perfect that are
in need of investigation. Insufficient attention has been given to the
role of just, in (18b), and of ever, in (18d), as demarcating the hot-news
Perfect and the experiential Perfect from the other interpretations.
Should (18b) and (18d) be treated as separate constructions, not just
separate interpretations?
In written English the Perfect excludes definite time adverbs – *The
snow has blocked the track last Monday evening. This appears to be because
the Perfect focuses on the current, accessible consequences of an action,
and speakers using the Perfect are not concerned with the action and
time of action in the past. In spoken English, particularly spontaneous
spoken English, this exclusion of definite past-time adverbs is beginning
to break down.
Finally, we should note that past participles were originally resul-
tative, that is, they expressed the result of a completed action. The par-
ticiples survive in a number of resultative constructions, not just in the
resultative Perfect. Examples are given in (19). They are all examples
taken from spontaneous speech.
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GRAMMAR AND SEMANTICS : ASPECT, TENSE , VOICE 151

(19) a. You have access to a vein gained and a cardiac analysis done
within one minute. [Radio discussion]
b. That’s him consulted. [TV comedy]
c. That’s you finished. [task-related dialogue]
d. There’s something fallen down the sink. [conversation]
e. She needs collected at four o’clock. [Scottish English
conversation]

13.4 Voice
The category of voice has to do with the different constructions avail-
able for taking an event or state and presenting it from different per-
spectives. (The Latin term from which it derives was used both for voice
in its phonetic sense and for the form of a word. From the latter use came
the third use for active and passive constructions, justified by the fact that
Latin and Greek had different sets of active suffixes and passive suffixes,
as shown in (24a–c).) Suppose we take a situation in which someone
attacked someone else. We can to choose to keep all the participants out
of our report by using (20).
(20) There was an attack yesterday.

13.4.1 The passive

We can choose to mention the person(s) attacked, the Patient(s), but to
leave out the attacker(s). This is done by using the passive construction,
in which the Patient noun, here Emma and Harriet, is the subject.
(21) Emma and Harriet were attacked yesterday.
If we want to make sure that our addressee gets all the details, we
mention the Agent and the Patient, and we have a choice of construction,
as in (22).
(22) a. Emma and Harriet were attacked by those ruffians.
b. Those ruffians attacked Emma and Harriet yesterday.
Example (20) is an instance of what is called the existential construction,
so-called because speakers use it to talk about the existence of people,
things, ideas and whole events. We say nothing more about it here. We
pass on to two of the three major constructions that are our concern.
Consider the passive in (21). This is the main use of the passive both in
speech and in writing: to mention only the Patient and to omit the Agent.
From passives such as (21), listeners can infer an Agent, and adverbs can
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152 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

be inserted, such as deliberately in (23), which bring the Agent very close
without actually mentioning who played that role.
(23) The vase was smashed deliberately.
Examples (21) and (23) are instances of the ‘short passive’, while
(22a) is an example of the ‘long passive’. Even in the long passive, the
Agent noun is in an optional prepositional phrase and is presented as
peripheral.
Other languages, such as Latin, also have a construction which allows
speakers to omit Agents. The major difference between English and
Latin is that Latin verbs take different suffixes in the passive whereas
English employs a syntactic construction with an auxiliary verb and a
passive participle. A Latin example is given in (24b).
(24) a. servus regem occidit
Slave king is-killing
‘A slave is killing the king’
b. reks occiditur
king is-being-killed
‘The king is being killed’
c. reks a servo occiditur
king from slave is-being-killed
‘The king is being killed by a slave’
The case suffixes in Latin have already been discussed in Chapter 9 on
syntactic linkage; in fact (24a) is taken from that chapter. The phrase
a servo in (24c) is a prepositional phrase and optional, as shown by (24b)
without it. The passive suffix (third person singular present tense indica-
tive mood) is -itur as opposed to -it in (24a).
English has another passive construction with the auxiliary verb get, as
shown in (25).
(25) The sheep got infected with scrapie.
The get passive is dynamic. An example such as The vase was broken is
ambiguous; it can be interpreted either as describing an event in which
someone broke the vase or as describing the state in which the vase is –
the speaker might point to the bits of the vase lying on a table. The vase
got broken can only be used to describe an event. This difference comes
largely from the fact that be is a colourless verb that relates to states
and locations and membership of groups (see the different copula con-
structions described in Chapter 3), while get is basically a verb of move-
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GRAMMAR AND SEMANTICS : ASPECT, TENSE , VOICE 153

ment – We got to Cupar in an hour – which has been extended to changes

in state – The sky got dark, We got cold.
There has been some controversy over the get passive. Some analysts
see a contrast in meaning between (26), with were, and (27), with got, and
treat (28) as unacceptable.
(26) The fans were deliberately provoked by a rival group.
[The rival group acted deliberately]
(27) The fans got deliberately provoked by a rival group.
[The fans acted deliberately]
(28) Six students got shot accidentally.
Example (28) is allegedly unacceptable because of a mismatch between
the use of got and the use of accidentally. Got can supposedly be used only
if the students acted deliberately. There is no support for this analysis
in any British corpus. The get passive is simply a major passive in
spontaneous spoken English. One sample of conversation recorded in
Edinburgh had eighteen be passives and eleven get passives; another had
fifty-seven get passives and three be passives.
Interestingly, examples of get passives can be found in written English
in which it is quite clear that there is no question of the Patient acting
deliberately to cause an action, either because the Patient is inanimate,
as in (29), or because the event cannot be controlled by the Patient, as
shown by (30).
(29) Some gifts get used a dozen or so times a year.
[advertisement]
(30) We haven’t had a man catch the midday [train] since young
Simpkins got sent home with chickenpox last summer.
[Dick Francis, Nerve]
Where speakers do want to indicate that a Patient acted deliberately,
they use the reflexive pronoun himself, as in (31), from spontaneous con-
versation.
(31) It’s his pal that I mean his pal sort of sits back and eggs him on and
of course he gets himself landed into it. [conversation]
We have focused on Agents not being mentioned, but some lexical
verbs allow Patients not to be mentioned, as in (32).
(32) a. Can’t you see I’m reading?
b. People go hunting in the Autumn.
c. We spent yesterday cooking.
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154 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

The Patients can be omitted in (32) because they are closely connected
with the activity denoted by the verb. People read books and news-
papers, they hunt foxes, pheasants or deer and they cook food. Patient
NPs can also be omitted in clauses describing habitual actions. The best
examples relate to tasks or posts within organisations, as in (33a), but any
transitive can occur without its Patient NP provided the clause describes
a habitual event, as in (33b).
(33) a. She buys for Harrods.
b. I saw and he chops.

13.4.2 The middle

The third major construction in English is the middle. Typical middles
listed in grammars of English are given in (34). They have to do with
permanent properties of entities.
(34) a. This sweater washes well.
b. This book reads well.
Many middles have what is called as ‘episodic’ interpretation, that is,
they denote a single episode or event. Examples are in (35).
(35) a. These cars sold very quickly last week.
b. It will take years for the Mersey to clean.
c. The course is jumping well.
d. One bomb didn’t guide and crashed.
Example (35a) refers to a single event of selling; (35b) refers to a single,
albeit lengthy, cleaning event; (35c) refers to a property of a particular
course at a particular period of time; and (35d) refers to a single event of
a bomb failing to guide and crashing.
Some analysts see the middle construction as having a strong re-
semblance to the passive, but there is little justification for this view.
(The name ‘middle’, which corresponds to the ancient name given to the
equivalent construction in Classical Greek, captures the idea that this
construction is neither fully active nor fully passive but in the middle.)
The obvious point to make is that English middle clauses and English
passive clauses share no syntactic properties; middles can only contain
one noun phrase and the verb is active, whereas passives can contain a
subject noun phrase and a second noun phrase preceded by by, as noted
above. The middle construction has no auxiliary verb, whereas the
passive has the auxiliary verbs be or get.
What type of participant is denoted by the subject noun phrase in
middle clauses? In passive clauses, the subject noun phrase refers to an
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GRAMMAR AND SEMANTICS : ASPECT, TENSE , VOICE 155

entity undergoing some process, that is to a Patient. The vase was/got

broken and This candidate was elected are answers to questions such as What
happened to the vase? and What happened to this candidate? Does the subject
noun phrase in a middle clause denote a Patient? The sentence His novels
sell very well has been said to present the books as ‘selling themselves’, and
this analysis seems to be on the right track. There is no contradiction
between two examples referring to the same novel such as This novel reads
very well and It is a pity that nobody reads this novel nowadays. It is quite poss-
ible to say These cars sold very quickly last week and then add in spite of the
inept performance of our new sales staff. The expert knitter or tailor who
declares This wool knitted up without any trouble and The cloth was cutting
beautifully is not taking credit but giving it to the wool and the cloth.
Example (35b) above was uttered in a television documentary dealing
with the River Mersey. The interviewer had been talking to various
people about the initial part of the cleaning-up programme, namely
the enforcement of legislation to stop factories discharging noxious
materials into the river. Thereafter, the river had simply to be left to, as
it were, get on with the task of removing the poisons already in the water,
and it was in this context that (35b) was uttered.
The person uttering (35d) was attributing blame to the bomb, which
refused to respond to the guiding signals and crashed, killing civilians.
Example (35c) was uttered by a participant in equestrian cross-country
trials, and the burden of the message was that the course permitted accu-
rate jumping of the obstacles and good times for the circuits of the
course.
In the light of the above, what role can we assign to the referents of
subject noun phrases in middle clauses – Agent or Patient, or some other
role? The ‘middle’ construction is so-called because it is felt to be
intermediate between the active and passive constructions Part of the
in-between-ness of the construction lies in the question of role, but the
problem can be solved if we recognise that, like so many concepts in
linguistic analysis, central prototype instances have to be distinguished
from peripheral instances. The subject noun phrases in (35a–d) do not
refer to prototypical Agents; the referents are not human, do not exer-
cise will-power and do not have goals and intentions. Nonetheless, they
are not presented as Patients.
A solution that resolves the contradictions is to regard the subject
nouns in the middle construction as Neutral (between Agent and
Patient) but as controlling the situations. The cars, by their qualities,
determine the rate at which people buy them; the river Mersey, with
the powers of cleansing and rejuvenation inherent in clean, flowing
water, determines how long it will be before the pollutants are removed
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156 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

altogether; the course, with its fences of a certain height and width, and
its obstacles and the state of the ground, determines how successful the
horses and riders will be. Finally, the strong impression was given by the
spokesman who uttered (35d) that it was the bomb’s fault that civilians
were killed.

13.5 Conclusion
We have given a brief introduction to case, gender, mood, aspect, tense
and voice. For initial elementary discussions, it is convenient to put the
six topics into six pigeonholes; but, as with the other concepts in this
book, which keep turning up in their own chapter and in other chapters,
these six grammatical categories cannot be kept neatly apart. Tense and
aspect are closely connected in every language which has both (some
languages are reputed to have aspectual distinctions but no tense
system), and in English and other languages tense and mood interact.
The pairs of sentences in (36)–(37) are distinguished in that the (a)
examples have what looks like present tense while the (b) examples have
what looks like past tense.
(36) a. Fiona may be here by 5 o’clock.
b. Fiona might be here by 5 o’clock.
(37) a. If Fiona is here by 5 o’clock, we can go to the party.
b. If Fiona was/were here by 5 o’clock, we could go to the party.
The past-tense forms do not relate to past time. In their basic uses,
present tense relates to present time, which is close to speaker and
hearer, and past tense relates to past time, which is more remote from
speaker and hearer. In (36b) and (37b), the apparent past-tense forms
have nothing to with past time but present a situation as remote from
reality. Examples (36a) and (37a) present the situations as much closer
to reality. Example (38a) presents the situation of Fiona getting a job as
something that should have happened some time ago, that is, the concept
of past time is relevant, but also as a situation that is remote from current
reality. Note that this construction is only for the presentation of situ-
ations as remote; present tense is not possible, as the incorrectness of
(38b) shows.
(38) a. It’s high time Fiona got a job.
b. *It’s high time Fiona gets a job.
Tense, aspect and mood apart, further investigation of this area of
grammar would soon reveal that the old dichotomy of transitive and
intransitive (see Chapter 3) is insufficient and has to be replaced by a
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GRAMMAR AND SEMANTICS : ASPECT, TENSE , VOICE 157

scale of transitivity in which tense, aspect, mood, case and voice all play
a part.

Summary
Aspect and tense have to do with situations and time. Aspect, as in wrote
vs was writing, signals whether an situation is presented as completed or
as ongoing, i.e. as having reached its boundary in time or as occupying a
period of time. Tense has to do with speakers locating a situation in time
– past time as in She wrote, present time as in She is writing or future time
as in She will write. One controversy is whether it is legitimate to recog-
nise a future tense. Reference to future time is often achieved by means
of a verb such as will or go combined with another verb, whereas speakers
refer to present and past time by means of a single verb. Voice also relates
to situations, not to time but to which participants in a situation are
presented to the hearer/reader and which participants are presented
as central. Speakers use active clauses to present Agents and Patients
as central and passive clauses to exclude Agents: Susan wrote the letter
yesterday vs The letter was written yesterday. The middle construction allows
speakers to present the non-agent participant as central and as con-
trolling the situation. In The door won’t unlock, the door is presented as
controlling the actions of the other participants by its refusal to unlock.
The problem lies not in the clumsiness of the human participant but in
some property of the door’s lock.

Exercises
1. The dog was chasing the cat is a clause denoting an activity. It entails the
same clause but with the Simple Past form of the verb, The dog chased the
cat. That is, whenever the former is true, so is the latter. This entailment
does not apply to clauses denoting accomplishments: Jane was crossing the
street does not entail Jane crossed the street. The latter is true only if Jane
reached the other side, but the progressive leaves it open whether she did
or did not reach the other side: Jane was crossing the street and in fact reached
the other side vs Jane was crossing the street when she was run down by a fully
laden timber lorry.
Examine the pairs of clauses below. Which clauses with the verb in the
progressive entail the corresponding clause with the verb in the simple
past?
1. (a) Harriet was talking to Emma.
(b) Harriet talked to Emma.
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158 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

2. (a) The beaver was building a dam.

(b) The beaver built a dam.
3. (a) Anne Elliott was studying Italian.
(b) Anne Elliott studied Italian.
4. (a) Mr Knightley was riding to Kingston.
(b) Mr Knightley rode to Kingston.
5. (a) Mr Knightley was riding towards Kingston.
(b) Mr Knightley rode towards Kingston.
6. (a) The girls were walking in the gardens.
(b) The girls walked in the gardens.
7. (a) They were drinking a bottle of Mr Weston’s good wine.
(b) They drank a bottle of Mr Weston’s good wine.
8. (a) They were drinking bottles of Mr Weston’s good wine.
(b) They drank bottles of Mr Weston’s good wine.

2. Which of the following clauses contain stative verbs? (Apply the tests:
Can they be used to answer the question What happened? Can they be
fitted into a WH cleft: What she did was break the glass with a hammer vs What
she did was know all the answers? The latter is at the very least peculiar.
Does the verb occur easily in the Progressive? She was writing her report vs
*She was knowing the details of the case.)
1. Mr Dashwood died at a very awkward time.
2. Mrs Dashwood believed that her stepson would be generous.
3. Eleanor thought that her mother was mistaken.
4. Eleanor thought about the problem and found a solution.
5. Mr Woodhouse heard a strange noise.
6. Mr Woodhouse listened to the strange noise.
7. Anne understood the words of the Italian songs.
8. She saw the storm approaching.
9. She saw how to solve the problem.
10. She saw (= received) the unexpected guests in the hall.

3. Future time is referred to by will, shall and be going to. Consider the
sentences below. Are any of them unacceptable? Are there differences of
meaning between be going to and will – that is, are there pairs of examples
that would be used in different circumstances?
1. (a) She’s going to sack all the senior managers (if they don’t
improve their performance).
(b) She’ll sack all the senior managers (if they don’t improve their
performance).
2. (a) Will I shut the window?
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GRAMMAR AND SEMANTICS : ASPECT, TENSE , VOICE 159

(b) Am I going to shut the window?

3. (a) Will you shut the window please?
(b) Shall you shut the window please?
(c) Are you going to shut the window please?
4. A and B walking to the cinema. A says:
(a) Hurry up! The film is just going to start.
(b) Hurry up! The film will just start.
5. A: where’s Fiona?
(a) B: she’ll be in the library I suppose she had to return some
books.
(b) B: she’s going to be in the library I suppose she had to
return some books.
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Appendix 1

The examples below – all taken from Chapter 1 – show one notation for
marking heads and modifiers. Arrows go from each head to its modifiers.

1. Ethel sat at her desk.

2. She collects books about antiques.

3. We bought some expensive books.

4. My mother bought a present for Jeanie in Jenners last Tuesday.

5. In behind the woodpile was a hedgehog.

160
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APPENDIX 1 161

6. An owl swooped on the rabbit from up in the beech tree.

7 More accountants would make a difference to my income.

8. Would more accountants make a difference to my income?

9. This gritter spread less salt than that one.

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Appendix 2

The examples below – all taken or adapted from Chapter 2 – show how
diagrams can be used to show the arrangements of words into phrases
and phrases into clauses or into bigger phrases. The diagrams are called
‘tree diagrams’. This appendix is merely an indication of how they can
be used to convey information about the syntactic structure of phrases
and clauses. The essential point is that whatever is judged, the best
analysis of a given phrase or clause can be shown in a tree diagram.
Consider example 1 below, the splendid house. We put a point on the
page; the point represents the slot that can be occupied by a noun phrase,
and is so labelled. From that point, we draw two lines down to two more
points. One point represents the slot that can be occupied by a deter-
miner. The other represents the slot occupied by the remainder of the
noun phrase. The reason for this grouping is that, for example, speakers
and writers use the determiner the to pick out splendid house as the thing
they wish to draw attention to; not house on its own but splendid house.
The diagrams consist of higher nodes from which lines drop to lower
nodes. Some nodes represent slots where sequences of words can occur
and are labelled ‘noun phrase’, ‘adjective phrase’ and so on. Other
nodes represent slots where single words occur and are labelled ‘noun’,
‘preposition’ and so on.
In the examples below, their number in Chapter 2 is given in
parentheses.

162
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APPENDIX 2 163

NP

N⬘
Det

AP N

the splendid house

Figure 1 (1b) the splendid house

NP

Det N⬘

AP N

Adv A

this very heavy parcel

Figure 2 (7) this very heavy parcel

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164 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

NP

Det N⬘

AP N

Adv A

astonishingly and
this frighteningly heavy parcel

Figure 3 (section 2.2.1) this astonishingly and frighteningly heavy parcel

NP VP

V NP PP

N Det N⬘ P NP

Barbara handed the intriguing results to Alan

of the exam

Figure 4 (9a) Barbara handed the intriguing results of the exam to Alan
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APPENDIX 2 165

NP VP

N V NP PP

Pron P NP

Barbara handed them to Alan

Figure 5 (18) Barbara handed them to Alan

NP VP

Det N⬘ V NP PP

N PP N P NP

P NP N

the pupils in this maths baked cakes for Margaret

class

Figure 6 (6a) The pupils in this maths class baked cakes for Margaret
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166 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

NP NP VP

Det N⬘ Pron V PP

AP N P NP

A N

the actual scripts she kept until Friday

Figure 7 (section 2.2.1) The actual scripts she kept until Friday

Comments
In Figure 2 above, very modifies heavy. Heavy can occur without very, but
very requires another word. The two fill the slot assigned to adjective
phrases.
In Figure 3 above, heavy is modified by the conjoined words astonish-
ingly and frighteningly. We do not go into the structure of the adjective
phrase, but inside it is a slot for determiner phrases which is filled by very
in Figure 2 and by astonishingly and frighteningly in Figure 3.
Figures 4 and 5 show that them can be substituted for the intriguing
results of the exam and vice versa, and they both occupy a noun-phrase
slot.
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Appendix 3

Someone is the secretary Angus is the secretary

[COPULA, DECLARATIVE, [COPULA, DECLARATIVE,
ACTIVE] ACTIVE]

Who is the secretary? Is Angus the secretary?

[COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, [COPULA, INTERROGATIVE,
WH] YES–NO]

Figure 1

167
 02 pages 001-192
The manager bought wine for the employees

168
[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, ACTIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT]

The manager bought the employees wine

18/10/01
[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, ACTIVE, DOUBLE OBJECT]

AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

Wine was bought for the employees by the manager
[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, PASSIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT]

4:49 pm
The new employees were bought wine by the manager
[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, PASSIVE, DOUBLE OBJECT]

Page 168
Did the manager buy wine for the employees?
[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, ACTIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT]

Was wine bought for the employees by the manager?

[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, PASSIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT]

Did the manager buy the employees wine?

[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, ACTIVE, DOUBLE OBJECT]

Were the employees bought wine by the manager?

[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, PASSIVE, DOUBLE OBJECT]

Figure 2
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Discussion of the exercises

Chapter 1
1. 1. Sir Thomas: obligatory, complement
with Edmund: not obligatory, but agreed requires with. This infor-
mation goes into the lexical entry for agree.
2. Mr Elton: obligatory, complement
a charade: obligatory, complement
to Emma: optional but excluded by many verbs and therefore a
complement
for a friend: optional, adjunct
3. She: obligatory, complement
the document: obligatory, complement
into her briefcase: obligatory, complement
4. Raskolnikov: obligatory, complement
the old woman: obligatory, complement
with an axe: optional, adjunct
5. Mr D’Arcy: obligatory, complement
the Gardiners: obligatory, complement
at Pemberley: optional, adjunct
in the summer : optional, adjunct
6. Frank: obligatory, complement
a piano: obligatory, complement
to Jane Fairfax: excluded by many verbs, complement
7. The porter : obligatory, complement
the letter : obligatory, complement
on the secretary’s desk: obligatory, complement
8. Harriet: obligatory, complement
that Mr Elton would propose to her : obligatory, complement
9. The picnic: obligatory, complement
at Box Hill: optional, adjunct
in the summer : optional, adjunct
10. He: obligatory, complement
169
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170 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

great vengeance: obligatory, complement

upon them: obligatory, complement
with furious rebukes: optional, adjunct
11. We: obligatory, complement
the worst: obligatory, complement
that day in 1968: optional, adjunct
12. The report: obligatory, complement
the proposals for the chief executive: obligatory, complement
or
the proposals: obligatory, complement
for the chief executive: optional, adjunct

2. 1. I: head (with no modifiers)

ate breakfast in a vast Viennese ballroom with a sprung wooden floor and
dadoes dripping with recently reapplied gilt:
ate: head of the above phrase
breakfast: head (with no modifiers)
in: head of the phrase from in to gilt. Modified by the phrase
running from a vast to recently applied gilt.
ballroom: head of the phrase running from a vast to gilt. It has four
modifiers: a, vast, Viennese and the phrase with a … applied gilt.
vast: head with no modifiers (cf. exceedingly vast)
Viennese: head with no modifiers (cf. surprisingly Viennese)
with: head of and modified by the phrase running from a sprung to
applied gilt
floor : head of the phrase from a sprung to floor and modified by three
modifiers: a, sprung and wooden
dadoes: head of the phrase running from dadoes to gilt and modified
by the phrase from dripping to gilt
dripping: head of the phrase from dripping to gilt and modified by
with recently applied gilt
with: head modified by recently applied gilt
gilt: head modified by recently applied
applied: head modified by recently
2. lift: head modified by the
is: head of phrase from is to palms, modified by the phrase from a to
palms
birdcage: head modified by four modifiers: a, giant, baroque, entered
through a rainforest of potted palms
giant: head with no modifiers
baroque: head with no modifiers (cf. thrillingly baroque)
entered: head modified by the phrase through … palms
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DISCUSSION OF THE EXERCISES 171

through: head modified by a rainforest of potted palms

rainforest: head modified by two modifiers: a and of potted palms
of: head modified by potted palms
palms: head modified by potted
potted: head with no modifiers (cf. expertly potted)
3. On: head modified by the wall.
(Nearby could be analysed as modifying wall or as an independent
adverbial phrase. In either analysis, it is a head with no modifier:
cf. very nearby.)
wall: head modified by the and newly dusted
dusted: head modified by newly
is: head modified by the phrase a framed … Ham
diploma: head modified by a, framed, the phrase from … Exhibition
and the phrase signed … Ham
framed: head with no modifiers (cf. elegantly framed )
from: head modified by the 1932 … Exhibition
Exhibition: head modified by the, 1932, and Ideal Homes
Homes: head modified by Ideal
Ideal: head with no modifiers (cf. Completely Ideal)
signed: head modified by by the mayor of East Ham
by: head modified by the mayor of East Ham
mayor : head modified by the and of East Ham
of: head modified by East Ham
Ham: head modified by East
East: head with no modifier

Chapter 2
1. 2. There is substituted for in the drawer.
3. Into the top drawer of the bureau is transposed, occurring in a different
slot in a different construction in (3).
4. Into the top drawer of the bureau is transposed into a different slot in
the same construction as in (1).
5. Into the top drawer of the bureau is transposed into a different slot in a
different construction from the one in (1).
6. Into the top drawer of the bureau is coordinated with the single word
there.
7. Into the top drawer of the bureau is transposed into a different slot in
the same construction as in (1).
2. 1. The pedestrians offended by the dangerously selfish action of the driver :
Noun Phrase
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172 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

offended by the dangerously selfish action of the driver : Participle Phrase

(offended is a Participle)
by the dangerously selfish action of the driver : Prepositional Phrase
the dangerously selfish action of the driver : Noun Phrase
dangerously selfish: Adjective Phrase
of the driver : Prepositional Phrase
the driver : Noun Phrase
threatened to throw him into the harbour : Verb Phrase
to throw him into the harbour : Infinitive Phrase
him: Noun Phrase
into the harbour : Prepositional Phrase
the harbour : Noun Phrase
2. To throw him into the harbour : Infinitive Phrase
him: Noun Phrase
into the harbour : Prepositional Phrase
the harbour : Noun Phrase
was illegal but an understandable reaction by the visitors on the quayside:
Verb Phrase
illegal: Adjective Phrase
an understandable reaction by the visitors on the quayside: Noun Phrase
understandable: Adjective Phrase
by the visitors on the quayside: Prepositional Phrase
the visitors on the quayside: Noun Phrase
on the quayside: Prepositional Phrase
the quayside: Noun Phrase
3. Brazil’s tropical forests: Noun Phrase
tropical: Adjective Phrase
Brazil’s: Noun Phrase (possessive)
are amazingly rich in fauna and flora: Verb Phrase
amazingly rich in fauna and flora: Adjective Phrase
in fauna and flora: Prepositional Phrase
fauna and flora: Noun Phrase (consisting of two conjoined Noun
Phrases, fauna and flora)
4. The person sitting at the window: Noun Phrase
sitting at the window: Participle Phrase (sitting is a Participle)
at the window: Prepositional Phrase
the window: Noun Phrase
is my wife: Verb Phrase
my wife: Noun Phrase
5. Sitting at the window: free Participle Phrase
at the window: Prepositional Phrase
the window: Noun Phrase
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DISCUSSION OF THE EXERCISES 173

my wife: Noun Phrase

noticed our neighbour’s dog: Verb Phrase
our neighbour’s dog: Noun Phrase
6. Susan: Noun Phrase
always drinks black coffee: Verb Phrase
black coffee: Noun Phrase
black: Adjective Phrase
7. Susan: Noun Phrase
always drinks her coffee black: Verb Phrase
her coffee: Noun Phrase
black: Adjective Phrase
8. In his usual carefree fashion: Prepositional Phrase
his usual carefree fashion: Noun Phrase
usual: Adjective Phrase
carefree: Adjective Phrase
John: Noun Phrase
ran up an enormous bill: Verb Phrase
an enormous bill: Noun Phrase
enormous: Adjective Phrase
9. In his exuberance: Prepositional Phrase
his exuberance: Noun Phrase
John: Noun Phrase
ran up an enormous hill: Verb Phrase
up an enormous hill: Prepositional Phrase
an enormous hill: Noun Phrase
enormous: Adjective Phrase

Chapter 3
1. 1. Colonel Brandon read poems to Marianne.
[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, ACTIVE, OBLIQUE
OBJECT]
2. Mrs Gardiner was Mrs Bennet’s sister.
[COPULA, DECLARATIVE, EQUATIVE]
3. Who was Jane Bennett’s suitor?
[COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, EQUATIVE]
4. Why did Frank Churchill deceive everybody?
[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, ACTIVE]
5. When was Emma scolded by Mr Knightley?
[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, ACTIVE,
OBLIQUE OBJECT]
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174 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

6. Was Mr Knightley much older than Emma?

[COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, ASCRIPTIVE]
7. Where did Captain Wentworth propose to Anne Elliott?
[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, ACTIVE,
OBLIQUE OBJECT]
8. Sir Walter Elliott was in Bath.
[COPULA, DECLARATIVE, LOCATIVE]
9. Did Colonel Brandon bring Marianne books?
[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, DOUBLE
OBJECT]
10. Elizabeth Bennett was at first unimpressed with Mr D’Arcy.
[COPULA, DECLARATIVE, ASCRIPTIVE]
2. 1. [COPULA, DECLARATIVE, LOCATIVE]
We were in London.
2. [NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, PASSIVE]
Our luggage was sent to Berlin.
3. [NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, DOUBLE
OBJECT]
Did you tell Lydia the news?
4. [COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, ASCRIPTIVE]
Is Fiona really ill?
5. [NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, PASSIVE]
Why was our luggage sent to Berlin?
6. [COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, EQUATIVE]
Who was the Prime Minister at that time?

Chapter 4
1. Adjectives:
Decrepit Victorian sporadic steep still fragrant highest gentle
Verbs:
covered pirouetted skating emerged slid opened befell
2. 
1. Sue met Lionel at the conference.
2. Sue and Lionel met at the conference.
3. Sue met Lionel at the airport (and drove him home).
4. *Sue and Lionel met at the airport.
(with the interpretation ‘Sue went to the airport to meet Lionel’)
5. Sue met with Lionel at the café.
Note: *Sue met at the conference.
(5) is not acceptable to all speakers of English.
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DISCUSSION OF THE EXERCISES 175


6. The bricks scattered over the floor.
7. The sugar scattered over the floor.
8. The baby scattered the bricks over the floor.
9. The girl scattered the sugar over the floor.
10. The crowd scattered when the firing began.
Note: *The girl scattered the brick over the floor.
*The brick scattered over the floor.

11. The car and the bus collided.
12. The car collided with the bus.
Question: Do (11) and (12) have the same meaning?
Note: *The car collided.

13. The car crashed.
14. The car crashed into the wall.
15. The car and the bus crashed.
16. The car and the bus crashed into each other.
17. The young driver crashed his car.
Question: Do (15) and (16) have the same meaning?

18. Dan mixed the ingredients.
19. Dan mixed the flour into the milk.
20. Dan mixed the flour with the milk.
21. Dan mixed with the guests.
22. Dan mixed a drink.
23. The ingredients didn’t mix.

24. The machine blended the ingredients instantly.
25. The ingredients blended perfectly.
26. Blend the carrots with the turnip.

27. Mary stirred the soup.
28. Mary stirred the vegetables into the stock.
29. The dog stirred when the doorbell rang.
3.  meets all the criteria.  meets one criterion; it occurs after
the verb be.  does not take -er or -est and does not combine with
more or most.  does not take -er or -est and does not combine
with more or most in its literal meaning. When it is applied, for
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176 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

example, to someone’s expression or acting, it does combine with more

and most: This is the most wooden acting I’ve ever seen.

Chapter 5
1. : copula
: transitive
: transitive
: transitive locative (hung the picture on the wall )
intransitive locative (the picture was hanging on the office wall )
transitive (We’ll hang the pictures tomorrow)
: transitive locative (suspended the chandelier from the roof )
: ditransitive, transitive directional
: transitive, intransitive (This door locks easily)
: intransitive (The dog turned and barked)
transitive (Turn the page now)
copula (She turned pale)
2. Modal verbs combine directly with not – as in (2); ordinary verbs
require the support of do, as in (4).
Modal verbs are placed at the front of interrogative clauses, as in (5);
ordinary verbs require the support of do, as in (6).
Modal verbs occur in questions tagged onto declarative clauses, as in
(7); ordinary verbs require the support of do, as in (8).
Modal verbs can carry emphasis, as in (9); ordinary verbs require the
support of do, as in (10).
Ordinary verbs have forms in -ing, as in (11); modal verbs do not.
3. Ought is partly like modal verbs in its grammar, as in (1) and (2).
However, it requires to (ought to pay attention vs must pay attention) and
has the support of do in negative clauses and in tag questions, as in (5).
Need is like a modal verb in combining directly with the negative as
in (10) and occurring at the front of interrogative clauses as in (9).
It is like ordinary verbs, having an -ing form, as in (1), and having
the support of do in interrogative and negative clauses, as in (7) and
(8). It is followed by to, as in (11).
4. : inanimate, concrete, proper, count, non-human
: inanimate, concrete, common, mass, non-human
1: animate, concrete, common, count, non-human
2: inanimate, concrete, common, count, non-human
: abstract, common, mass
: abstract, common, count
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DISCUSSION OF THE EXERCISES 177

1: inanimate, concrete, mass, non-human

2: inanimate, concrete, count, non-human
1: inanimate, concrete, count, non-human
2: inanimate, concrete, mass, non-human

Chapter 6
1. 1. Jane believes that the earrings she got from Susan are real silver Main
Clause
that the earrings she got from Susan are real silver Complement
Clause
she got from Susan Relative Clause
2. I’ll believe it Main Clause
when I see it Adverbial Clause of Time
3. If you think Scotland are ever going to win the European Championship
Adverbial Clause of Condition
Scotland are ever going to win the European Championship Comple-
ment Clause
you must be a real optimist Main Clause
4. The article in which the theory was put forward is now unobtainable
Main Clause
in which the theory was put forward Relative Clause
5. That Helen is to marry the man she met on holiday has surprised all her
friends Main Clause
That Helen is to marry the man she met on holiday Complement
Clause
she met on holiday Relative Clause
6. Celia did not say that you could keep the book that you borrowed Main
Clause
that you could keep the book that you borrowed Complement Clause
that you borrowed Relative Clause
7. Because you are flying non-stop Adverbial Clause of Reason
you will probably have severe jet-lag Main Clause
8. He promised that he would be here on time Main Clause
that he would be here on time Complement Clause
though I find it difficult to rely on him Adverbial Clause of Con-
cession
9. The woman whose car you think you have dented is our MP Main
Clause
whose car you think you have dented Relative Clause
you have dented Complement Clause
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178 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

10. That you don’t like my home-made vodka I find difficult to believe Main
Clause
That you don’t like my home-made vodka Complement Clause
11. Since you think you are ready to sit the test Adverbial Clause of
Reason
you are ready to sit the test Complement Clause
come along tomorrow Main Clause
12. That the club regained the trophy dismayed the teams that had better
players Main Clause
That the club regained the trophy Complement Clause
that had better players Relative Clause

2. 1. We regret that the plan is impracticable Main Clause

that the plan is impracticable Complement Clause
2. They accept the theory that the world is flat Main Clause
that the world is flat Complement Clause (modifying theory)
3. They accept the theory that the group proposed Main Clause
that the group proposed Relative Clause (modifying theory)
4. Did Fiona say who would be at the party? Main Clause
who would be at the party Complement Clause (modifying say)
5. Which of the candidates will be elected is quite unpredictable Main
Clause
Which of the candidates will be elected Complement Clause (modify-
ing is unpredictable)
6. It is believed by some historians that Napoleon was poisoned Main
Clause
that Napoleon was poisoned Complement Clause (modifying
believed )

3. 1. Kirsty went out

(and ) forgot to switch off the gas fire
two conjoined main clauses
2. that she wrote several novels
and threw them away
two conjoined complement clauses (modifying know)
3. who ignored the ban
and printed the story
two conjoined relative clauses
4. If you go walking on the hills in winter
and do not take proper equipment
two conjoined adverbial clauses of condition
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DISCUSSION OF THE EXERCISES 179

4. 1. They are pioneering a new geography in which they will establish when new
races settled in particular regions Main Clause
in which they will establish when new races settled in particular regions
Relative Clause
when new races settled in particular regions Complement Clause
(modifying establish)
2. A geneticist says the Pacific islands are an ideal testing ground for the theory
that the Pacific was colonised from west to east Main Clause
the Pacific islands are an ideal testing ground for the theory that the Pacific
was colonised from west to east Complement Clause (modifying says)
that the Pacific was colonised from west to east Complement Clause
(modifying theory)
3. The history begins with the day when the chief medical officer for Vanuatu
noticed that a large number of people there suffered from anaemia Main
Clause
when the chief medical officer for Vanuatu noticed that a large number of
people there suffered from anaemia Relative Clause (modifying day)
that a large number of people there suffered from anaemia Complement
Clause (modifying noticed)
4. He was advised to treat them with iron supplements Main Clause
so he contacted scientists at Oxford who found that half of the donors suffered
from alpha-thalassaemia, which is usually linked to the presence of malaria
Adverbial Clause of Result/Consequence
who found that half of the donors suffered from alpha-thalassaemia, which
is usually linked to the presence of malaria Relative Clause (modifying
scientists)
that half of the donors suffered from alpha-thalassaemia, which is usually
linked to the presence of malaria Complement Clause (modifying
found)
which is usually linked to the presence of malaria Relative Clause
(modifying alpha-thalassaemia)
5. It seems that the gene protects against malaria Main Clause
since carriers of the alpha 3.7 mutant will not die of malaria even if they
contract a severe bout Adverbial Clause of Reason (modifying the
Main Clause)
even if they contract a severe bout Adverbial Clause of Condition
(modifying the Adverbial Clause of Reason)
6. Although anthropological studies have been inconclusive Adverbial
Clause of Concession
previous biological research has suggested that there was no contact while the
Melanesians were moving east Main Clause
that there was no contact while the Melanesians were moving east
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180 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

Complement Clause (modifying has suggested)

while the Melanesians were moving east
Adverbial Clause of Time (modifying that there was no contact)

Chapter 7
1. 1. to learn two languages simultaneously to a high level inside three months
infinitive; the understood subject is she
2. travelling to Glasgow by the M8 at this time of year
gerund; understood subject is I
3. Having looked at all the exercises very carefully
free participle; understood subject is We
4. Sheila quickly hiding something under the chair when I came in
gerund with an overt subject, Sheila
5. Imogen’s being so keen to spend her holidays tramping tirelessly round art
galleries gerund with an overt subject, Imogen’s
6. With all the children coming home for Christmas and the New Year
gerund with an overt subject, all the children
7. His car sold free participle with an overt subject, His car
2. 1. WH, indirect word order
2. WH, indirect word order
3. WH, indirect word order
4. yes–no, indirect (John’s question is Are you ready yet? )
5. WH, indirect
6. WH, direct
7. WH, direct word order
8. WH, direct word order
9. WH, direct word order
10. WH, direct word order
11. WH, direct word order
12. WH, direct word order
13. WH, direct word order
14. WH, indirect word order + yes–no, direct word order
15. WH indirect word order + yes–no, direct word order

Chapter 8
1. All the grammatical subjects are involved in person and number
linkage with the verb. Other properties are mentioned as they occur.
1. Mr Weston: grammatical and logical subject
2. Mr Woodhouse: grammatical subject
Mr Weston: logical subject
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DISCUSSION OF THE EXERCISES 181

3. Mr Weston: grammatical and logical subject

4. The other guests: grammatical subject; no logical subject
5. All the soldiers: all moves to the right, as in (6); logical subject
6. The soldiers: grammatical and logical subject
7. The young ladies like all the soldiers
the young ladies: grammatical and logical subject; all cannot move to
the right, (8) is unacceptable and the soldiers is not the grammatical
subject
8. The young ladies: grammatical and logical subject
9. Mr Collins: grammatical and logical subject: controls the interpret-
ation of himself
10. Mr D’Arcy: grammatical and logical subject; understood subject of to
persuade
11. Mr D’Arcy: grammatical and logical subject; pivot in the coordinate
construction
12. The oldest Bennet girls: grammatical subject; no logical subject;
both has moved to the right – compare both the oldest Bennet girls
2. 1. with a hamper of food: oblique object
2. us: indirect object; a single malt: direct object
3. Alice: indirect object; a meal: direct object
4. Caroline: oblique object
5. Robin’s work: oblique object
6. Fiona: indirect object; her history of the department: direct object
7. an e-mail message: direct object; Ronnie: oblique object
8. the fire: oblique object; itself: direct object
9. Who: oblique object
10. the grass: direct object (If = ‘The dog tore the grass up’)
the grass: oblique object (If = ‘The dog raced up the grass’)

Chapter 9
1. Nouns have different suffixes (case endings) depending on which
class they belong to. Compare greg + em, the direct object in (1), carruc
+ am, the direct object in (2), and oppid + um, the direct object in (6).
Adjectives modifying direct objects take different suffixes depending on
a given noun. Compare magn + um in (1), magn + am in (2) and magn + um
in (6). In the COPULA construction, the adjective complementing est
‘is’ takes different suffixes depending on which class the subject noun
belongs to: parv + a in (3), magn + us in (4) and magn + um in (5).
2. Main verbs have the -s suffix regardless of person and number. Where
do and have are main verbs, the forms are does and has, as in (6), (7), (10).
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182 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

Where do is an auxiliary verb. it takes the form do, as in (4), (8), (11), (14),
(15), (16). Have takes the form has when it is a main verb, as in (7), and
have when it is the auxiliary verb in the Perfect tense, as in (11). In (12),
has expresses necessity; the form indicates that here it is a main verb.

Chapter 11
1. 1, 2 different in meaning
3, 4 different in meaning
5, 6 different in meaning, but note that the interpretation may be
affected by a property of points – they are usually quite small and, no
matter the syntax, the spray from a can may well cover them all.
7, 8 different in meaning
9, 10 no difference in meaning; supply does not have to do with
covering a particular area.
11, 12 no difference in meaning, thanks to the use of cram in both
examples. Cram is appropriate only where a container is full or
becomes full.
13, 14 no difference in meaning
15, 16 potentially different in meaning in context. Where two or
three strips of bark are hanging off, the deer could be described as
stripping the bark off the tree, but just these strips. Example (16) can
only be used if the deer removed all the bark; that is, its action affected
the entire tree.

2. Examples (1) and (4) are acceptable, (2) and (3) are not. Pour can only
be applied to what is to be contained in a container, and fill can only be
applied to the container.
The standard analysis is that (5) and (8) are unacceptable but (6) and
(7) are not. Steal is applied to whatever is removed from its owner, and
rob is applied to the owner. Note that examples like (7) are becoming
frequent in British English, at least in the spoken language.
3. I: Agent
I recorded several versions of this story in Urfa is an answer to the question
What did you do?
versions: Patient
story: Source (see comments below on hill)
Urfa: Place
Father Abraham: Patient
Father Abraham was born … is an answer to the question What happened
to Father Abraham?
cave: Place
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DISCUSSION OF THE EXERCISES 183

citadel mount: Place

he: Patient
castellan: Source
Nimrod: Agent
cradle: Patient
pillars: Patient
acropolis: Place
catapult: Patient/Goal (the latter on the grounds that Nimrod moved
the pillars into the set of catapults by his adaptation)
baby: Patient
furnace: Goal
bottom: Place
hill: Source (controversial, but there is a link in many Indo-European
languages between possession and source)
Almighty: Agent
plan: Neutral
Mankind: Goal
danger : Place
furnace: Patient
pool: Goal
carp: Source (but also controversial. The carp are presented as the
cause of the pool’s being full, and in many languages Source and
Cause are expressed in the same or very similar ways.)
carp: Agent (caught the baby)
baby: Patient
him: Patient
poolside: Goal
Abraham: Agent
anyone: Agent (anyone eating the carp)
who: Agent (in the Relative Clause who ate the carp)
carp: Patient

Chapter 12
1. 1. may: deontic, permission
2. may: epistemic, possibility
3. might: epistemic, possibility
4. might: deontic, permission (but old-fashioned usage)
5. can: deontic, permission
6. can: epistemic, possibility
7. could: epistemic, possibility
8. mustn’t: deontic, necessity
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184 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

9. mustn’t: epistemic, conclusion

10. can’t: epistemic, conclusion
11. must: epistemic, conclusion
12. must: deontic, necessity

Chapter 13
1. (1a) entails (1b)
(2a) does not entail (2b)
(3a) entails (3b)
(4a) does not entail (4b)
(5a) entails (5b)
(6a) entails (6b)
(7a) does not entail (7b)
(8a) entails (8b)
2. 1. non-stative
2. stative
3. stative
4. non-stative
5. stative
6. non-stative
7. stative
8. stative
9. stative
10. non-stative
3. 1a acceptable; appropriate if ‘she’ has declared an intention to
carry out the action
1b acceptable, but sounds more like a prediction
2a acceptable; equivalent to ‘Would you like me to shut the
window?’
2b acceptable, but sounds as if the speaker is asking the hearer if
he/she can guess what the speaker is going to do
3a acceptable, request
3b not fully acceptable, request
3c Acceptability increased by deletion of please. Sounds more like a
question about the hearer’s intention.
4a acceptable
4b unacceptable
5a acceptable, prediction
5b unacceptable, a statement about someone’s intention, which
makes I suppose seem out of place
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Further reading

This section indicates books on syntax in general and the syntax of English that
are within the range of anyone who has read this introduction and worked
through at least some of the exercises. The items mentioned below are inter-
mediate in level, and are not necessarily whole books but also chapters from
books. Since generative grammar is not covered here, the items on that topic are
introductory and not intermediate.

General
Hurford, James R. (1994), Grammar: A Student’s Guide, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
This is not a textbook but is organised in the form of a dictionary-encyclopaedia.
The entries are excellent and cover the central concepts used in grammatical
descriptions. It focuses on English.

Tallerman, Maggie (1998), Understanding Syntax, London: Arnold.

Tallerman’s book and this one overlap, but Tallerman introduces data from
many different languages. There are exercises without answers, but an e-mail
help address is given.

Crystal, David (1995), Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language, Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.
Like Hurford’s book, this is not a textbook but an encyclopaedia to be dipped
into. It is full of information about all areas of English and the usage of English,
and the text is clear and lively, with splendid examples and many fascinating
illustrations. Just the book for language enthusiasts on a dull winter day (or any
other day for that matter).

English grammar
Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad and Edward
Finegan (1999), Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, London:
Longman.

185
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186 AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH SYNTAX

Quirk, Randolph and Sidney Greenbaum (1973), A University Grammar of English,

London: Longman.
Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik (1985),
A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, London: Longman.
The above three books are not textbooks for reading but grammars to be dipped
into. They are for the reader interested in investigating specific points of English
grammar.

Constituent structure and dependency relations

Fabb, Nigel (1994), Sentence Structure, London: Routledge.
A very straightforward and concise account with data from English and other
languages. Exercises but without answers.

Thomas, Linda (1993), Beginning Syntax, Oxford: Blackwell.

A clear account of constituent structure, focusing on English, that goes well
beyond Chapters 1, 2 and 10 here. Many exercises with answers.

Clauses
Most theoretical discussion of clauses takes place in the context of generative
grammar, where clauses and sentences are not usually clearly distinguished. The
most accessible discussions of subordinate clauses (of English) are still to be
found in the grammars by Quirk et al. referred to above.

Grammar and semantics

Blake, Barry (1994), Case, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chapters 1, 2.1–2.2 and 3 give a good introduction.

Frawley, William (1992), Linguistic Semantics, Hillsdale, NJ and Hove/London:

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Chapter 7 on aspect and Chapter 8 on tense offer a more detailed discussion
than in Chapter 13 here.

Givon, Talmy (1984), Syntax: A functional-typological introduction, vol. 1, Amster-

dam: John Benjamin, chapter 8.
This book is long in the tooth by some standards, but the discussion of tense and
aspect is accessible and well worth reading. There is a good range of interesting
data.

Goddard, Cliff (1998), Semantic Analysis: A Practical Introduction, Oxford: Oxford

University Press.
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FURTHER READING 187

Chapter 11, ‘Grammatical Categories’, covers topics not dealt with here, namely
pronouns, classifiers and Experiencer constructions and uses data from non-
Indo-European languages. Chapter 10 on causatives is also well worth reading.
Palmer, Frank (1986), Mood and Modality, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Chapter 1 gives a good overview of the topic. Readers who enjoy the section
on mood in Chapter 12 here could take on Palmer’s chapter 2 on epistemic
modality and chapter 3 on deontic modality.

Generative grammar
Haegeman, Liliane (1991), Introduction to Government and Binding Theory, Oxford:
Blackwell.
Haegeman’s book describes a model of generative grammar that is not the latest.
However, it describes the essentials of Chomskyan generative grammar very
lucidly, in digestible portions and with many diagrams. From this book, anyone
interested in generative grammar can proceed to more advanced treatments.
02 pages 001-192 18/10/01 4:49 pm Page 188

Index

accomplishment verb, 145–6, 147 text, 62

achievement verb, 145, 147 collocation, 7–8, 56–7
active, 26 Comitative, 127–8, 129
activity verb, 144–5, 147 complementiser, 66–7
adjective, 41 conjunction
adjunct, 4–5, 8, 49–51 coordinating conjunction, 66
adverb of direction, 6–7 subordinating conjunction, 66–7
of location, 5, 50 complement, 4–5, 49–51
adverbial clause constituent structure, 11–21
of concession, 65 tests, 13–17
of manner, 65 construction, 23–32
of reason, 65 content word, 34–5
of time, 65 controller, 155–6
Agent, 88–9, 121–2 coordination, 18
agreement, 101–3 copula construction, 27, 30–2
article, 35 core (of clause), 116
aspect, 60–1
grammatical, 146–8 declarative construction, 27–8
lexical, 143–6 dependencies, 1–9
auxiliary verb, 35 dependency relation, 1–9
direct object, 93–5
Benefactive, 123 directional adverb, 49
double object construction, 28
case, 101–3, 104–6, 133–6
circumstances, 119 ellipsis, 17
clause, 5–7, 60–85 Experiencer, 124–5
adverbial, 65–6
complement, 63–4 fixed phrase, 47, 56–7
finite, 81 highly constrained phrases, 56
main, 72–3 institutionalised expressions, 56
non-finite, 81–5 polywords, 56
properties of, 77–81 sentence builders, 56
relative, 64–5 form word, 34–5
rules of thumb for, 67–9
and sentence, 73–6 gender, 109–10, 135–6
subordinate, 63–7, 72–3 gerund, 81–4
system, 62 Goal, 122, 130

188
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INDEX 189

government, 103–6 past participle, 150

grammatical function, 88–100 resultative, 150–1
grammatical word, 34–5 passive, 26–7, 94, 151–4
get, 152–3
head, 1–9, 49–51, 113–18 long, 26–7
of noun phrase, 116–18 short, 27
Path, 89
indirect object, 95–8 Patient, 121, 123, 128–30, 153–4
and adverbs of direction, 97–8 Perfect, 149–51
Instrument, 123 periphery (of clause), 115–16
interrogative construction, 27 person, 60–1, 106–7
yes–no, 27 phrase, 17–18, 19–20
wh, 28 Place, 122, 129
predicating, 44
lexical word, 34–5 preposition, 2–3
lexicon, 47–57 Progressive, 146–8
prototypical member of a class, 41
middle, 154–6
modification, 44–5 quantifier floating, 91
modifier, 1–9, 113–18
mood, 61, 136–41 referring, 44
epistemic and deontic, 139–41 relative pronoun, 67
statements, questions, commands, Result, 123–4
137–8 resultative, 150–1
subjunctive, 138–9 role, 88–9, 119–30
morphology criteria for, 120–1
derivational, 36 and role-players, 125–7
inflectional, 36, 39
selectional restrictions, 52–3
Neutral, 124 sentence, 73–6
noun, 40, 53–5 complex, 63
abstract, 53 compound, 62–3
animate, 53, 54 text, 62
common, 53, 54 Simple aspect, 146–8
concrete, 53, 55 Source, 122, 129
count, 53, 55 subcategorisation, 52
human, 53 subject, 88–93
inanimate, 53 grammatical subject, 88–9
proper, 53, 54 logical subject, 89
nucleus (of clause), 115–16 properties of, 90–3
number, 60–1, 106–7 psychological subject, 89
in English, 109 understood subject, 89–90
substitution, 15–17
oblique object, 95–8 syntactic linkage, 101–11
oblique object construction, 28 and word order, 107–9

part of speech, 45 tag question

participant role, 52, 119–30 tense, 60–1, 148–9
participle and mood, 146
free participle, 84 Theme, 124
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190 INDEX

transitivity, 156–7 transitive, 51

transposition, 13–15 transitive directional, 51
verb phrase, 114–16
voice, 151–6 voice, 151–6
verb
copula, 51 word class, 34–45
ditransitive, 51 and speech acts, 43–4
dynamic, 143–4 central member of, 41, 46
finite, 60–1 denotation of, 41–3
as head of clause, 49–53 morphological criterion, 36–7
intransitive, 51 morpho-syntactic criteria, 37–9
Intransitive locational, 51 peripheral member of, 41
modal, 58 semantic criteria, 41–5
non-finite, 81–2 syntactic criteria, 39–41
stative, 125, 143–4

колхоз 9:44 pm, 7/7/05