1. Lecture 7: Tense and Negation

2.  The clause is made up of distinct structural areas with different semantic purposes  The VP  One or more verbal head introducing arguments  The IP  An inflectional head introducing finiteness  The CP  A complementiser introducing force

3.  Between the thematic VP and the IP there can be other elements which are verbal but not thematic  They don’t introduce arguments  These elements are to do with voice and aspect ... That John has been being followed perfect progressive passive  We have argued that these elements are represented by the bound morphemes  The verb moves to support the nearest one of these  Auxiliaries are inserted to support the rest  -s -en -ing -en show be ha

4.  We will distinguish these non-thematic verbal elements by denoting them as “v” (as opposed to V)  This is commonly called ‘little v’  While little v is clearly verbal and non-thematic, we cannot say that it is functional either, as that would make it indistinguishable from inflection:  Verb = [-F, +V, -N]  Inflection = [+F, +V, -N]  We don’t want to add another categorial feature as that would predict an extra 8 more distinct categories  The solution is to allow categories to be undefined on certain features  Little v = [+V, -N]

5.  The inflection seems to be able to have a VP or a vP complement, depending on whether there are aspectual morphemes:  He may [ VP win the race]  He had [ vP been winning the race]  I selects for [-F, +V, -N] complements  This covers thematic VPs which have exactly these features  And vPs, which are not defined for the [F] feature

6.  Auxiliary verbs are inserted to support verbal morphemes which cannot be supported by the verb  The verb can support at most one overt morpheme  He -ed [ VP ]  He -ed -en [ VP the paper]  He -ed -ing [ VP the paper] smile see read

7.  Auxiliary verbs which follow modals and the infinitive to, do not appear to support any morpheme:  They are always in their base form  He may be winning ... for him to have won  If there is no morpheme here, there is no explanation as to why the auxiliary is present

8.  By this reasoning, there must be a morpheme present in these cases  This morpheme is phonologically null  He may be-  winning ... for him to have-  won

9.  It is apparently absent in the presence of a tense inflection:  He be–ed (=was) winning  * He was be-  winning  This might suggest that the morpheme has something to do with tense

10.  Modals and the tense morphemes are in complementary distribution  He smiled  He will smile  * he will smiled  But this is not completely true

11.  Most modals have two forms  cancould  maymight  shallshould  willwould  Historically these are tense forms  In modern English these forms are not usually used to express tense distinctions  He might come  he may come (in the past)  But in some cases they are:  When I was young, I could play the piano

12.  Modals in subordinate clauses are used to match the tense of the main clause:  I think he will come  I thought he would come  * I thought he will come  This is called tense sequencing

13.  This suggests that tense is not absent with modals

14.  One might have thought that tense and infinitives are mutually exclusive  However, again the situation is not so straightforward  Infinitives are always subordinate  Like tense sequencing in finite clauses, the time reference of the infinitive is often dependent on the main clause  Different types of infinitive have different time interpretations

15.  The temporal interpretation of a control clause is co-temporal with the main clause  He tried [PRO to start the car]  He is trying [PRO to start the car]  He will try [PRO to start the car]  Clearly the ‘trying’ and the ‘starting’ are happening at the same time (regardless of whether it is successful)

16.  Raising clauses are like control clauses in that their temporal interpretation is co-temporal with the main clause  The door 1 seemed [ t 1 to close by itself]  The door 1 seems [ t 1 to be closing by itself]  The door 1 seems [ t 1 to close by itself]  Like tensed clauses  the use of the progressive indicates present time  the use of the plain verb indicates the habitual

17.  Exceptional clauses often refer to an event which takes place at some point after that referred to by the exceptional verb  I expected [the door to open]  I expect [the door to open]  The door opening (or not) happens at some time after the expectation is formed  I expected the door to open, but when I tried it, it was locked

18.  If time reference is mediated through a tense element, it seems that a tense element is present in the infinitive  Though not of the same nature as that in finite clauses  In infinitives the tense element is similar to a pronoun in that its reference is linked to its antecedent  i.e. The tense of the main clause  We might refer to this as ‘anaphoric’ tense

19.  This all suggests that tense and inflection are not the same element in a structure  Therefore we would expect them to have different positions  It could be that tense is the phonologically null morpheme that follows modals and the infinitival marker:  He may be-  pres singing ... for him to be-  ana singing

20.  Clearly the tense element follows the inflection  So it must head a phrase that sits in the complement position of the inflection

21.  We know that inflection subcategorises for a [+V, -N] complement  Therefore tense must be of the category ‘little v’

22.  Tensed clauses are still IPs  So there must be an inflection when there is a morphological tense  The most obvious suggestion would be that the inflection is a null morpheme in this case:  [ IP He  [ vP -ed [ VP smile]]]  This is what was assumed in BESE

23.  But this raises the question of why inflection must be null when tense is overt and tense must be null when inflection is overt  There seems to be a conspiracy to make it look like tense and inflection are in complementary distribution when they are not!

24.  Another possibility is that the ‘tense’ morphemes ARE inflections  Therefore they cannot be ‘tense’  They would get their tense interpretations from the null tense element that accompanies them  [ IP He –ed [ vP -  [ VP smile]]]  In this way the tense morpheme is exactly like a modal  Though it carries no modal meaning

25.  This allows a very uniform analysis:  Tense in English is always null  Some inflections select present tense  will, can, shall, may, -s/-   Some inflections select past tense  would, could, should, might, must, -ed  One inflection select anaphoric tense  to

26.  The fact that an auxiliary must be inserted after a modal and an infinitive in cases where the verb is supporting an aspectual morpheme shows that tense is a bound morpheme:  He will -  -ing [ VP ] read be

27.  The fact that no auxiliary is inserted when there is no aspectual morpheme shows that the verb can move to support tense  He will -  [ VP ] read

28. be -   When there is a bound inflection (-ed or –s) and the verb cannot support it, we can assume that the auxiliary is inserted into tense and then moves to support the inflection  A verb can support only one OVERT morpheme, but any number of covert ones  He will -ed -ing [ VP ] read be --

29.  When there is a bound inflection (-ed or –s) and there is no other over morpheme, the verb can move to support both tense and the inflection  He -ed [ VP ] read-  read --

30.  Tense is always null  It heads a vP which is the complement of the inflection  Different inflections select for different tenses  Tense is a bound morpheme which needs supporting  When the verb cannot do this, an auxiliary is inserted  Whatever supports tense will support the bound inflection by moving from v to I

31.  Negation in English is typically marked by the use of not  This sits behind the inflection and in front of the main verb  You shall not pass  It can sit anywhere between these two (with meaning differences), but not in front of I or behind V  * He not will have been being followed  He will not have been being followed  He will have not been being followed  He will have been not being followed  He will have been being not followed  * He will have been being followed not

32.  It has been argued that not must be a head of a phrase which sits in the non-thematic verbal part of the structure  This is because it blocks V movement to I  He –d [ VP smile] => he smile-d [ VP t]

33.  Normally the verb can move to I (via tense)  He smile 1 -  2 -ed [ vP t 2 [ VP t 1 ]]

34.  But when the negative particle is present, this movement is blocked  * he smile 1 -  2 -ed [ not [ vP t 2 [ VP t 1 ]]  This can be explained by Relativised Minimality  A head must move to its nearest head position  But this only works if the negative is a head

35.  In this case, the verb can support the tense  But do has to be inserted to support the inflection  He do-ed [ not [ smile 1 -  [ t 1 ]]] do

36.  If this analysis is correct, the category of the negative particle must be ‘little v’  Because:  I selects for a vP complement  The phrase headed by the negative can be the complement of I

37.  Although not does not have many verbal qualities in English, in other languages the negative particle can behave like a verb  Finnish  tiedänen tiedä I-knowI-not know  tiedätet tiedä you-knowyou-not know

38.  The head status of the negative seems to be supported by negative contraction:  I haven’t seen him  He isn’t here  This might be treated in the same way that bound morphemes are:  The auxiliary moves into the negative head before moving to I  He –s –n’t be-  here  As heads can only move to head positions, this seems to show that negation is a head

39.  But this predicts the wrong morpheme order as the negation should be closer to the verb than the inflection:  * He be-n’t-s here  It also isn’t clear why main verbs cannot do the same thing:  * He read-n’t the book

40.  Modal auxiliaries can also bear the contracted negation:  I wouldn’t know  But modals cannot move through the negation as they are higher in the structure  The contracted modals sometimes have a different base form  Can’t won’t shan’t  Some modals cannot appear with the contracted negation at all  *mayn’t

41.  Such observations argue that the contracted negation is better seen as a form of auxiliaries rather than as an independent morpheme

42.  When a bound morpheme cannot be supported by the main verb, an auxiliary is inserted  Which auxiliary is used depends on the following verbal morpheme  Main verb  do  -ed you know  did you know  Perfect  have  He –ed –en see  he had seen  Everything else  be  He –ed –ing run  he was running  He –ed –en beat  he was beaten

43.  However, the choice of the auxiliary is never dependent on the presence of the negation  He did not know me  He had not seen me  He is not running  He was not beaten  In these cases, the negation behaves as though it is invisible  It is the verbal element following the negation that determines which auxiliary to use  But this is unexpected if negation is a verbal head

44.  In general, modifiers do not interfere with syntactic processes:  Did he always know the answers?  He has sometimes watched the news  He is often running  This might suggest that the negative particle is an adverbial modifier rather than a verbal head  So why does it block head movement?

45.  Negative adverbial modifiers have a restricted position with respect to the verb  I never win  * I win never  This is not so for all adverbial modifiers  I sometimes win  I win sometimes

46.  We know that the negative particle never follows the verb  * he smiled not  When the negative adverb precedes the finite verb, it must precede the inflection which the verb is supporting  He never win-s

47.  Negative adverbs can precede inflections (with special emphasis)  He never will find out  The negative particle cannot precede the inflection – even with special emphasis  * he not will find out

48.  It seems that there are two ordering conditions  The negative particle must precede the main verb  The negative particle must follow the inflection  These two together will prevent the main verb from moving to I  * he not smiled  * he smiled not  The only option left is for the verb to stay below the inflection and for the inflection to be supported by do  He did not smile

49.  Possibly the best analysis for the negative particle is as an adverbial modifier  There are two conditions on its placement  It cannot follow the verb  It cannot precede the inflection  Otherwise it can go anywhere between the two