English Syntax Week 12. NP movement Text 9.2 & 9.3

Verb Movement Last time, we looked at the phenomenon of verb-movement. Recall, for example, French, which moves V up to I as shown here. At DS, the verb heads the VP, and by SS, the verb has moved to head-adjoin to T. This was proposed in order to account for word order facts. IP SS NP I I VP Vi I V mange [PRES] AdvP V ti PP

Movement Today, we’re going to look at another kind of movement, the movement of NPs. In many respects, the idea is similar—an NP will originate in one place in the DS and will appear in a different place in the SS. IP SS NP I I VP Vi T V mange [PRES] AdvP V ti PP

It is likely… Adj likely Adj AdjP C CP C that IP Mary left V be V VP I [pres] I q DS Let’s consider the sentence It is likely that Mary left. Likely has one q-role to assign (Proposition), which it assigns to its complement, the embedded CP. Consider leave in the embedded clause. Leave also has one q-role to assign, which it assigns to Mary.

Adj likely Adj AdjP C CP C that IP Mary left V be V VP I [pres] I q DS It is likely… Notice that both q-roles are assigned to things that are in the same clause as the predicate that assigns the q-role. This is a general property of q-role assignment: A q-role must be assigned locally (within the same clause).

It is likely… SS Moving to SS… Adj likely Adj AdjP C CP C that IP Mary left ti V VP Vi+I is I N NP N it SS It is likely… Moving to SS… Because the EPP requires SpecIP to be filled, Expletive Insertion applies, inserting it into SpecIP, resulting in this SS representation. This is the story of It is likely that Mary left.

There are two problems here: It is likely… Now, consider: Mary is likely [to leave]. We already know a lot about this sentence; we know that likely has one q-role to assign, which it assigns to the embedded clause, we know that leave has one q-role to assign, which it assigns to Mary. There are two problems here: The embedded clause has no subject (*EPP) The q-role assigned to Mary seems to be assigned outside of its clause.

It is likely… Mary is likely [to leave] Concerning q-roles, it’s clear from the meaning that leave really does assign its q-role to Mary and not likely (Mary is leaving). This is definitely not local—Mary is not in the same clause as leave. EPP: Extended Projection Principle q

It is likely… Mary is likely [to leave] And with respect to the EPP, we see that although the main clause IP has something in its specifier (Mary), the embedded clause seems to have nothing. How can we reconcile this?

It is likely… Mary is likely [to leave] For q-role assignment to be local, Mary has to be in the same clause. q-role assignment takes place at DS, after which movement rules (like verb-movement from last time) apply. We can solve both problems at once by supposing that Mary moves from the embedded subject position at DS to the main clause subject position at SS. DS: — is likely [Mary to leave] SS: Maryi is likely [ ti to leave]

IP Adj likely Adj AdjP C CP C Ø NP Mary V be V VP I [pres] I DS q to IP leave It is likely… That is, we start out with Mary in the embedded clause, in the specifier of IP, receiving its q-role locally.

IP It is likely… NPi I SS Mary Vj+I VP That is, we start out with Mary in the embedded clause, in the specifier of IP, receiving its q-role locally. Then Mary moves up to SpecIP in the main clause by SS. is V tj AdjP Adj Adj CP likely C C IP Ø ti I I VP to leave

IP Adj likely Adj AdjP C CP C Ø tj V VP Vj+I is I SS I to IP leave ti It is likely… NPi Mary Notice that this satisfies the EPP in both clauses. The main clause has Mary in SpecIP. The embedded clause has the trace in SpecIP.

It is likely… SS This type of movement is called NP-movement. Adj likely Adj AdjP C CP C Ø tj V VP Vj+I is I IP SS T to T TP leave ti It is likely… NPi Mary This type of movement is called NP-movement. This specific instance of NP-movement, where we move a subject from an embedded clause to a higher clause is generally called subject-to-subject raising.

Passive Now, recall the passive. The passive form of a verb seems to directly affect the theta grid of a verb; consider: Bill ate the sandwich. The sandwich was eaten. Eat has two q-roles to assign. By putting it in the passive, we seem to have transitive (two q-role) verb into an intransitive (one q-role) verb.

Passive Bill ate the sandwich. Here, Bill is the Agent (gets the q-role including Agent) and the sandwich is the Theme(Patient) (gets the q-role including Theme). The sandwich was eaten (by Bill). In the passive, the roles are the same but now the Theme is the subject and the Agent is in an optional by-phrase (a PP).

Passive Since optional thematic relations do not get included in the q-grid, what we conclude about the passive is that it changes the q-grid of the verb by removing the external q-role. eat Agent Theme i j eat+en Agent Theme i j

Passive Now, what does the structure of a passive sentence look like? There are two possibilities we could entertain. The Theme in the passive becomes an external q-role (as opposed to in the active, where the Theme gets an internal q-role). The Theme in both cases gets an internal q-role, but in the passive, it moves to the subject position. Let’s pursue the second option first…

Active Let’s start with the DS tree for the active sentence, Bill ate the sandwich. Here, the (internal) Theme q-role is assigned to the object NP and the (external) Agent q-role is assigned to the subject NP. Now, suppose that for the passive we simply eliminate the external q-role… IP DS NP I Bill I VP [past] V q q V NP eat the sandwich

Passive TP DS T (The passive also requires the addition of the auxiliary verb be, but this is not relevant to the point at hand) We have changed the main verb to the passive form, thereby removing the external q-role, leaving us with this DS for The sandwich was eaten. Now, what needs to happen? T VP [past] V V VP be V q V DP eaten the sandwich

Passive DS Now, what needs to happen? IP The sandwich was eaten. Now, what needs to happen? SpecIP must be filled (EPP). The word order needs to be altered from was eaten the sandwich to the sandwich was eaten. It should be clear where this is going—here, we posit another instance of NP-movement, like with raising. In the passive, the object moves to SpecIP satisfying the EPP. DS I I VP [-present] V V VP be V q V NP eaten the sandwich

Passive The sandwich was eaten. So, to review, the idea is that the active and the passive have very similar DS representations, except that the passive has had its external q-role removed and thus no subject is generated in SpecIP (as required by the Theta Criterion). Then the object moves into SpecIP, satisfying the EPP at SS. ti V eaten V VP Vj+I was I IP SS tj NPi the sandwich

Passive The sandwich was eaten by Bill. As for the optionally expressed Agent in the by-phrase, we take this to be like any optionally expressed adjoined phrase, a PP adjoined to V. As expected, the by-phrase can be re-ordered with respect to other adjuncts. The sandwich was eaten… …by Bill under the tree at noon. …under the tree by Bill at noon. …at noon under the tree by Bill. IP SS NPi I the sandwich Vj+I VP was V tj VP V V PP V ti by Bill eaten