Syntaxis samenvatng – Introducing Sytnax
Ch. 1
Plural nouns = things; count(able) nouns = chair; mass nouns = buter; abstract = peace
Nouns and verbs behave diferently hen it comes to the syntactc surroundings they can occur
in
o Nouns can be preceded by an artcle or adjectvess the door/*the seems
o Verbs can appear afer innnitve marker ‘to’s J. ants to .. /*J. ants to door
Substitution test >> if t o elements X and Y share the same syntactc features, then in every
grammatcal sentence that contains X you can replace X by Y (and v.v.) and the sentence remains
grammatcal
Functonal categories = closedcclass categories (artcles and complementsers)
Lexical categories = opencclass categories (verbs and nouns)
Whenever e cannot substtute element X for Y, there must be some feature that distnguishes
them
o Can be a categorical feature but it doesn’t have to be
Syntax cares about categories; not ords
Categorical features the property of a ord that tells us e.g. hether something is a verb or a
noun, or hether it belongs to some other category
Ch.2
Ch. 3 – dit is vanaf 3.3
Passive sentence – the original OB takes over the positon of the SU, but retains its crole
Every sentence must contain a SU
o May be lef unexpressed = subject drop (not absent; if so, the verb could never agree
ith it)
o Imperatve clauses
Sentence ith eather verb – cannot contain an argument and must have a subject
o Expletve SU is inserted
A passive verb assigns one fe er crole
chierarchys henever a verb assigns one fe er crole, the crole that disappears is al ays the
highest one
The type of crole carried by a subject or object, thus follo s directly from the chierarchy
Ergative verb = can functon ithout the highest crole
o They only optonally assign the AGENT role
o The pirates sank the ship/the ship sank (agents and theme/theme)
Highest crole has disappeared
The entre string is a main clause; part of the main clause is an embedded clause
John hopes to win the race – John is an argument and must be given a crole from a verb, but
hich one is responsible?
o A fourth argument, some unexpressed pronoun > PRO
o PRO – an empty arguments syntactcally present and so it can receive a crole
It seems that John wins the race; *It hopes that John wins the race
o Seem does not assign a crole to its subject (p. 72!!)
, o Hope needs to assign a crole to its subject but it is just an expletve subject. Insertng it
leads to ungrammatcality because the AGENT role of hopes has not been assigned, in
violaton of ctheory.
o Consequence of ctheory and follo s directly from our hypotheses (p. 73/74)
Restrictons on the occurrence of PRO
o PRO can only be the subject of a noncnnite clause
o [PRO to win the race]; *PRO loves John
Ch. 4
One argument too fe can stll be OK if the context allo s for it; an argument too many is al ays
bad
PRO can only functon as the subject of an embedded, noncnnite clause
o Other ise ‘*John loves PRO’ ould be grammatcal
o This does not follo from ctheory itself; ctheory allo s PRO to receive a crole
Cases to distnguish the diferent forms of some pronouns
o Nominatve – she
o Accusatve – her
AGENTcPATIENT distncton and nomcacc distncton are independent of each other
o He visited her; *Her was visiteds her is PATIENT in both sentences c>>
PATIENTss sometmes nom., sometmes acc; and nom. is not reserved for AGENTs only
Case theory puts restrictons on nominal arguments in general
Diferent syntactc heads are responsible for diferent cases
When a pronoun receives case from a prepositon, it is part of a consttuent that can drif a ay
from the verb a bit. When a pronoun gets its case from the verb, it has to be next to it
A nominal argument that is not a subject, needs to be assigned accusatve case by either a verb
or a propositon
Case is sometmes visible, but can sometmes be invisible too
o V and P assign a property that is not necessarily visible
Syntactc dependencies = dependent relatonships bet een consttuents
Nominatve case must be assigned by a head
Embedded subjects do not al ays carry nominatve case
Nominatve case marking is only possible if the sentence contains a nnite verb?
o May, can and must never carry an –s; but they don’t have noncnnite counterparts
Lexical verbs – nnite and noncnnite forms
Modal aux – verbs like may, can and must
o To separate them from noncmodal aux. like has in Mary has walked
The presence of modal AUX in a sentence allo s for the presence of a nominatve subject as ells
being nnite, modal AUX can assign nom. case
Complementary distributons here one occurs, the others cannot longer occur
o *I buy eat sausages – they can all potentally nll the V slot, but once that slot is nlled by
one verb, other verbs are excluded from that positon
If t o ords cannot cococcur together, this may mean that they strive to occupy the same
positon. But if t o ords can peacefully cococcur in a clause, it means that they are in a diferent
positon
o Modal verbs and lexical verbs are not in complementary distributon
There is a single, separate positon in the structure for all nnite aux
Ch. 1
Plural nouns = things; count(able) nouns = chair; mass nouns = buter; abstract = peace
Nouns and verbs behave diferently hen it comes to the syntactc surroundings they can occur
in
o Nouns can be preceded by an artcle or adjectvess the door/*the seems
o Verbs can appear afer innnitve marker ‘to’s J. ants to .. /*J. ants to door
Substitution test >> if t o elements X and Y share the same syntactc features, then in every
grammatcal sentence that contains X you can replace X by Y (and v.v.) and the sentence remains
grammatcal
Functonal categories = closedcclass categories (artcles and complementsers)
Lexical categories = opencclass categories (verbs and nouns)
Whenever e cannot substtute element X for Y, there must be some feature that distnguishes
them
o Can be a categorical feature but it doesn’t have to be
Syntax cares about categories; not ords
Categorical features the property of a ord that tells us e.g. hether something is a verb or a
noun, or hether it belongs to some other category
Ch.2
Ch. 3 – dit is vanaf 3.3
Passive sentence – the original OB takes over the positon of the SU, but retains its crole
Every sentence must contain a SU
o May be lef unexpressed = subject drop (not absent; if so, the verb could never agree
ith it)
o Imperatve clauses
Sentence ith eather verb – cannot contain an argument and must have a subject
o Expletve SU is inserted
A passive verb assigns one fe er crole
chierarchys henever a verb assigns one fe er crole, the crole that disappears is al ays the
highest one
The type of crole carried by a subject or object, thus follo s directly from the chierarchy
Ergative verb = can functon ithout the highest crole
o They only optonally assign the AGENT role
o The pirates sank the ship/the ship sank (agents and theme/theme)
Highest crole has disappeared
The entre string is a main clause; part of the main clause is an embedded clause
John hopes to win the race – John is an argument and must be given a crole from a verb, but
hich one is responsible?
o A fourth argument, some unexpressed pronoun > PRO
o PRO – an empty arguments syntactcally present and so it can receive a crole
It seems that John wins the race; *It hopes that John wins the race
o Seem does not assign a crole to its subject (p. 72!!)
, o Hope needs to assign a crole to its subject but it is just an expletve subject. Insertng it
leads to ungrammatcality because the AGENT role of hopes has not been assigned, in
violaton of ctheory.
o Consequence of ctheory and follo s directly from our hypotheses (p. 73/74)
Restrictons on the occurrence of PRO
o PRO can only be the subject of a noncnnite clause
o [PRO to win the race]; *PRO loves John
Ch. 4
One argument too fe can stll be OK if the context allo s for it; an argument too many is al ays
bad
PRO can only functon as the subject of an embedded, noncnnite clause
o Other ise ‘*John loves PRO’ ould be grammatcal
o This does not follo from ctheory itself; ctheory allo s PRO to receive a crole
Cases to distnguish the diferent forms of some pronouns
o Nominatve – she
o Accusatve – her
AGENTcPATIENT distncton and nomcacc distncton are independent of each other
o He visited her; *Her was visiteds her is PATIENT in both sentences c>>
PATIENTss sometmes nom., sometmes acc; and nom. is not reserved for AGENTs only
Case theory puts restrictons on nominal arguments in general
Diferent syntactc heads are responsible for diferent cases
When a pronoun receives case from a prepositon, it is part of a consttuent that can drif a ay
from the verb a bit. When a pronoun gets its case from the verb, it has to be next to it
A nominal argument that is not a subject, needs to be assigned accusatve case by either a verb
or a propositon
Case is sometmes visible, but can sometmes be invisible too
o V and P assign a property that is not necessarily visible
Syntactc dependencies = dependent relatonships bet een consttuents
Nominatve case must be assigned by a head
Embedded subjects do not al ays carry nominatve case
Nominatve case marking is only possible if the sentence contains a nnite verb?
o May, can and must never carry an –s; but they don’t have noncnnite counterparts
Lexical verbs – nnite and noncnnite forms
Modal aux – verbs like may, can and must
o To separate them from noncmodal aux. like has in Mary has walked
The presence of modal AUX in a sentence allo s for the presence of a nominatve subject as ells
being nnite, modal AUX can assign nom. case
Complementary distributons here one occurs, the others cannot longer occur
o *I buy eat sausages – they can all potentally nll the V slot, but once that slot is nlled by
one verb, other verbs are excluded from that positon
If t o ords cannot cococcur together, this may mean that they strive to occupy the same
positon. But if t o ords can peacefully cococcur in a clause, it means that they are in a diferent
positon
o Modal verbs and lexical verbs are not in complementary distributon
There is a single, separate positon in the structure for all nnite aux
