1. Week 11. Verb movement: Aspectual Auxiliaries
English Syntax
Week 11.
Verb movement:
Aspectual Auxiliaries

2. X-bar parameters
Many (most?) languages of the world have something like a basic word order, an order in which words come in in “neutral” sentences.
English: SVO
Akira ate an apple.
Japanese & Korean: SOV
John wa ringo o tabeta.
존 은 사과를 먹었다.
John top apple acc ate
‘John ate an apple.’

3. X-bar parameters
These two word orders work nicely with X-bar theory as it stands; the difference can be stated in terms of a simple parameter which differentiates languages as to whether they are head-initial or head-final. IP IP NP NP I I
Akira I VP
John은 VP I
-ed -었 V V V NP NP V
eat 먹다
an apple
사과를

4. X-bar parameters
Notice that in English, both V and I are head-initial, and in Korean, both V and I are head-final. In fact, languages tend to be consistent in their headedness: IP IP NP NP I I
Akira I VP
John은 VP I
-ed -었 V V V NP NP V
eat 먹다
an apple
사과를

5. Auxiliary be
John was (not) happy.
The verb be starts out (abstractly) as shown here, the head of the
VP. IP NP I N I VP
[-present] N V
John V
AdjP be
Adj
Adj
happy

6. Auxiliary be John was (not) happy.
The verb be starts out (abstractly) as shown here, the head of the VP.
The verb then moves (before we pronounce it) up to I.
But not if there is a modal in I
John might (not) be happy.
This is sort of similar to (but backwards from) the idea of how [past] -ed “hops” down from T to V to form past tense verbs. — V V VP
V+I
be+[-present] I IP NP N N
happy
AdjP
Adj
Adj
John

7. Auxiliary have The same can be said of have.
In general have is a “helping verb”; when it is an auxiliary is not the only verb in the sentence. The other verb is in its own VP, in the complement of have’s VP.
John might (not) have written.
For the moment, we’ll treat the participle written as if it were a simple verb (not worrying about where the -en came from); we’ll come to that later. IP NP I N
V+I VP
have+[-present] N V
John V VP — V V
written

8. Movement Think about the motivation of Movement.
X-bar Theory DS Movement SS
Lexicon
Think about the motivation
of Movement.

9. Why does V move to I?
English has two special verbs which do move to I, the auxiliary verbs have and be in English.
Bill is sloppily eating apples.
Bill is not eating apples.
*Bill sloppily is eating apples.
*Bill not is eating apples.
*Bill did not be eating apples.
Bill has not eaten the apples.
*Bill not has eaten the apples.

10. Why does V move to I?
Notice that if there is something in I already, like a modal, then the verb doesn’t move up to I.
John might not be eating apples.
And moreover, the verb has no tense inflection.
This all suggests that the view that it is the affix in I which causes V to move to I. The verb is happy not to move, but will move when it can in order to help I out.
There are requirements on I, not on V.

11. A word on auxiliaries
English has two (aspectual) auxiliary (“helping”) verbs have and be, which are not the main verbs of a sentence but generally serve to indicate differences in verbal aspect (progressive, past perfect, …).
These auxiliary verbs are verbs, but they have special properties. Among these properties: they move to I, and they have no theta-roles to assign.

12. A word on auxiliaries DS
The DS of a sentence with an auxiliary verb would be something like this, where the auxiliary verb heads a VP, and takes the main verb’s VP as its complement.
Notice that we are treating the past participle eaten as just a special kind of verb. This is good enough for present purposes. IP VP I I NP
[-present] DS V V …
have
eaten

13. SS A word on auxiliaries See (79)-(81) of 9.6 VP Vi+I I IP NP V V ti
have+[-present] SS V V ti …
eaten

14. (81) This artist will have been painting portraits. IP NP I
This artist I VP
[+T/+P] [+Agr] V VP
will have V VP
been V NP
painting two
portraits

15. Draw the trees for the following sentences.
(1) This student has been writing two essays.
(2) The student has not broken the mirror.
(3) This student must have written two
essays.
(4) This student must be writing two essays.
(5) This student is not writing two essays.
(6) This student will not have written it.
(7) This student will have not written it.

16. DS French Jean mange souvent des pommes. Jean eats often of.the apples
‘Jean often eat apples.’
John often eats apples.
If we suppose that the French sentence starts out just like the English sentence, we have the underlying DS (deep structure) representation shown here.
What needs to happen to get the correct surface word order? V
mange V VP
des pommes PP I I IP
Jean DP
[PRES]
AdvP
souvent DS

17. French SS Jean mange souvent des pommes. Jean eats often the apples
‘Jean often eats apples.’
Of course—the V (mange) moves up to the I position.
This always happens in French with a tensed/agreeing verb. This generally doesn’t happen in English.
Hence, the difference in “adverb position” (really, of course, it’s verb position) IP SS NP I
Jean
Vi+I VP
mange+[PRES] V
AdvP V
souvent ti PP
des pommes

18. Movement in Interrogative Sentences
Consider English yes-no questions…
To form a question from a statement like:
Bill should eat his peas.
We prepose the modal should to the front of the sentence, before the subject.
Should Bill eat his peas?
Where is should in this sentence?

19. Why does this happen?
Why would a language need to move its verb up to tense?
In French, verbs are marked for tense and agreement—past tense verbs look different from present tense verbs, which look different from future tense verbs. If the tense information is in I ([PRES]), and the verb reflects this, somehow the verb needs to get together with I.
French does this by moving the verb to I. (like English aspectual auxiliaries, be and have)
English does this by moving I (-ed) to the verb.

20. My brother will not bake a cake.IP
NP I
My brother I VP
[+T/+P] [+Agr] not V
will V NP
bake a cake

21. Movement
Should Bill eat his peas?
There is one position in our sentence structures so far that is to the left of the subject, the one where the complementizer that goes (C):
I said that Bill should eat his peas.
This is where we expect should to be. It is, after all, a modal, of category I. It is not a complementizer.
Also notice that if we embed this question, should stays after the subject, and if is in C:
I wonder if Bill should eat his peas.

22. Movement
All of this suggests that the way to look at this is that we start with the sentence…
Bill should eat his peas
…as usual, and if we’re forming a yes-no question, we follow this up by moving should to the position of C. If we can’t move it (in an embedded question, there’s already something in C: if ), it stays put.

23. English yes-no questions
Now, let’s go back and think about English yes-no questions, which we took originally to be motivation that movement occurs.
Bill will buy cheese.
Will Bill buy cheese?
What’s happening here? Well, we saw earlier that it is reasonable to think that the modal will, which starts out in I, moves to C in questions.
Willi Bill ti buy cheese?

24. English yes-no questions
Why does this movement happen?
By analogy with the motivation for V-to-I movement, we will take C to hold a special (this time silent, or perhaps prosodic) affix that must be joined up with I. This affix is the “question” morpheme, of category C, which we can write as Ø+Q. ti VP I IP NP SS
Ii+C C CP
Bill
buy cheese
will+Ø+Q

25. English yes-no questions
Also notice that if there is an overt question morpheme there in English (which happens in embedded questions), there is no need to move I to C:
I asked if Bill will buy cheese.
*I asked (if) will Bill buy cheese.

26. Ø+Q
Incidentally, lots of languages have an overt question morpheme, which adds plausibility to our assumption that English has a question morpheme in C that is just null.
Akira ga hon o kaimasita ka? (Japanese)
Akira top book acc bought Q
‘Did Akira buy the book?’

27. I to C
In English, anything that would be in I moves to C. So, modals and auxiliaries all “invert” around the subject:
Will Bill buy cheese?
Is Bill buying cheese?
Has Bill bought cheese?
But main verbs never raise to I in English. Consider then:
Did Bill buy cheese?

28. I to C
Did Bill buy cheese?
Why is there a do there? Before, we only saw do in sentences with not, inserted because the tense affix couldn’t “reach” the verb, blocked by not.
What seems to be the case is that if I moves to C (that is, the past tense suffix -ed in this case), it also gets too far away from the verb (now Bill is between the suffix and the verb), and Do-insertion is required.