1. Lecture 2: Categories and Subcategorisation
Syntax
Lecture 2:
Categories and Subcategorisation

2. Recap All phrases are structurally the same:
All phrases differ in their lexical content
Lexical content determines the syntactic differences between phrases
Particularly the lexical head

3. Differences in lexical heads
So how syntactically different can lexical heads be?
There are two way heads differ
They have different categories
They differ in what complements they select

4. How many different categories are there?
Most syntactic descriptions work with a relatively small number of different categories
Noun
Verb
Adjective
Adverb
Preposition
Pronoun
Determiner
Particle
Subordinator
Coordinator
Auxiliary verb
Degree adverb
In fact, some of these collapse into single categories

5. Collapsing categories: pronouns and determiners
Many determiners work as pronouns
This book was banned This was banned
Some people are sad Some are sad
Few aeroplanes crash Few crash
Some pronouns work as determiners
We humans
Them rocks (dialectal)
You lot
It has been suggested that pronouns should be analysed as determiners

6. Collapsing categories: subordinators and adverbs
Some subordinating particles behave exactly like adverbs
Obviously, he had gone
He, obviously, had gone
He had gone, obviously
However, he had gone
He, however, had gone
He had gone, however
There is no reason not to analyse these as adverbs

7. Collapsing categories: subordinators and adverbs
Some subordinating particles don’t behave like adverbs
Obviously, he had gone
He, obviously, had gone
He had gone, obviously
... that he had gone
* ... he that had gone
* ... he had gone that
These are clearly of a different category
We call them Complementisers

8. Collapsing Categories: adverbs and adjectives
Many adverbs and adjectives have the same root:
obvious: obviously fast: fast great: greatly
Adverbs and adjectives are in complementary distribution
Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives modify nouns
They might be different subcategories of a general category of ‘modifier’ (often called A)

9. Conclusion
So it seems that the number of categories we need to describe language is very small
Why is that?
Without a theory of categories, we can’t explain this.

10. Different categories sometimes have things in common
Verbs and prepositions take ‘bare’ objects:
visited London saw the man shot him
to London for the man with him
Nouns and Adjectives take objects with ‘of’:
Picture of Mary growth of the trees
Fond of Mary mindful of the trees
How can we explain these facts if categories are completely unconnected?

11. A theory of categories
We know that all categories fall into one of two main types
Functional
Determiners
Auxiliary verbs
Complementisers
Etc.
Thematic
Nouns
Verbs
A (modifiers)
Etc.

12. A theory of categories This suggests a ‘binary feature’ analysis
(like distinctive features in phonology: ±voice, ±long)
Suppose we assume a feature ±F
+F = Functional categories
-F = Thematic categories

13. A theory of categories

14. A theory of categories But this still isn’t very restrictive
One way to restrict the system is to assume that all categories are defined by binary features
This would also account for similarities between different categories
Distinct categories can share one or more features

15. A theory of categories How many more binary features do we need?
Not too many!:
1 feature = 2 categories - not enough!
2 features = 4 categories - not enough!
3 features = 8 categories - perhaps
4 features = 16 categories - too many!
10 features = 1024 categories - way too many!

16. A theory of categories Suppose we suggest two extra features:
±N (things which are ‘nounlike’)
±V (things which are ‘verblike’)
Assuming nouns and verbs to be opposites to each other we get:
Noun = [-F, +N, -V]
Verb = [-F, -N, +V]
This is supported by the fact that nouns and verbs share very little in common

17. -F categories There are two more –F categories:
[-F, +N, +V]
[-F, -N, -V]
The first seems appropriate for A
They modify both nouns and verbs
Adjectives are often used as nouns
The good, the bad and the ugly
In some languages adjectives are used as verbs
Nouns and adjectives don’t take bare objects

18. -F categories [-F, -N, -V] seems appropriate for prepositions:
Prepositions have no morphological properties
They can’t be tensed
They can’t be plural
Like verbs, they take bare objects (both are –N)

19. -F categories We predict the following possible categories
Some categories have some things in common
We also predict that there are no other thematic categories

20. +F categories The theory predicts four functional categories
These are the functional equivalents to:
Nouns ([+F, +N, -V])
Verbs ([+F, -N, +V])
A ([+F, +N, +V])
Prepositions ([+F, -N, -V])

21. Functional equivalents
The most obvious functional nominal is the determiner
Determiner = [+F, +N, -V]
The most obvious functional verb is the auxiliary
Auxiliary = [+F, -N, +V]
Degree adverbs are similar to determiners in APs (the man : so tall)
Degree adverbs (Deg) = [+F, +N, +V]
Complementisers are similar to prepositions (both introduce arguments)
Complementisers = [+F, -N, -V]

22. +F categories We predict the following possible categories
We also predict that there are no other thematic categories

23. A theory of categories

24. Subcategories
The subcategories of a category are determined by what follows them
E.g. Verbs can be transitive (i.e. they are followed by an object) or intransitive (i.e. they are not followed by an object)
In other words, subcategories are determined by what appears in the complement position

25. Complement Position
Complement

26. The complement of functional categories
The functional categories do not usually have subcategories – they almost always take the same complements
The complement of an auxiliary verb is always a VP
may [VP win the race]
The complement of a complementiser is always a sentence
that [he may win the race]

27. The complement of functional categories
The complement of a degree adverb is always an AP
so [AP fond of chocolate]
The complement of a determiner is usually an NP
The [NP man from Brazil]

28. The complements of thematic categories
Thematic categories can take various types of complement and so have a number of subcategories
Verbs can be followed by
A DP see [DP the news]
A clause think [ that he saw the news]
A PP react [PP to the news]
An AP feel [AP sorry]

29. The complements of thematic categories
Prepositions can have the same range of complements as verbs, except for clauses
DP to [DP the west]
PP from [PP under the bed]
AP (range) from [AP heavy] to [AP medium]

30. The complements of thematic categories
Nouns can have the same complements as verbs, except for DPs
Clauses belief [that he can fly]
PP reaction [PP to the news]
AP (his) feeling [AP ill]

31. The complements of thematic categories
‘A’s can take clausal and PP complements
Clause likely [that he will fail]
PP keen [PP on ice hockey]

32. Conclusion Heads determine the category of phrases
But there are only 8 categories of heads
So there can only be 8 different categories of phrases
Heads determine the category of their complements
Functional heads only take one type of complement
Thematic heads take more types of complement, but none of them are unrestricted
We still have a restricted theory of phrases