grammatical foundations

Test your knowledge

Exercise 9

Give the tree structure of the following sentences and explain the derivation.

(1)a John was believed to have stolen the book from the library. b Jane was assumed to be taken to the cinema by taxi.

c The students wanted to pass the exam.

d Which girl do you think John would like to dance with?

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Suggested Answers and Hints - Chapter 1

the predicate arguments. Arguments are theta-marked by their predicates, each receives a label that identifies the part it plays in relation to the meaning of the predicate.

Q5 The argument structure includes the subject while the subcategorisation frame does not. The latter contains information on the number and type of complements while the former on theta-roles. Students could be asked to find their own examples for verbs that do not take complements, verbs that take one complement (an NP or a PP or a clause or an AP, etc.), verbs that take two complements, etc.

Q6 Count nouns versus mass nouns, proper nouns and inherently plural nouns; partitive constructions.

Q7 On one hand, nouns formed from verbs retain the verbs arguments structure. However, a possessor may appear with every noun and is not determined by the nouns meaning; the meaning relationship between the noun and the possessor is rather vague; the possessive relationship is unique to nominals.

Q8 Categories should not be defined independently, instead e.g. the fact that thematic relationships (argument structures) are available for all thematic categories should be emphasised. The features ±N, ±V enable us to capture cross-categorial generalisations (e.g. the ability to appear with a nominal complement).

Q9 According to the text the -ly morpheme may be conceived of as derivational or as inflectional. Irregularities involve adjectives ending in -ly, adverbs that are homomorphs of their adjectival pair, adjective–adverb pairs where the -ly form of the adverb exists but the two are not in complementary distribution (e.g. ‘deep’ used as an adverb). The difference between them can be explained along the lines that adjectives modify a noun or appear predicatively while adverbs modify a verb or sentence and cannot appear predicatively.

Q10 N: zero, PP, clause; V: zero, NP, PP, clause, AP, or a combination of the last four types; A: zero, PP, clause and P: zero, NP, PP, clause.

Exercise 1

The term grammatical function identifies the part a given unit plays in the sentence: we can have subjects, objects, etc. It is not only phrases that may assume a given function but clauses as well, that is to say we can express the subject or object of a sentence with clauses, e.g. That he left surprised us – What surprised ? That he left; or Peter saw that Mary climbed up the tree – What did Peter see? That Mary climbed up the tree. A clause realising a grammatical function is not to be equated with another type of clause, relative clauses, which are used for modification, e.g.: Peter/The man that lives next door left – Who left? Peter/The man that lives next door/*The man (the original sentence contains information about the man)/*that lives next door; That Peter left surprised us – What surprised us? That Peter left/*Peter (it was not Peter, the person, it was the fact that he left that surprised us).

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Exercise 2

Exercise 2

A given verb may subcategorise for more than one type of complement.

(1)a [Peter] left [his family].

b[Peter] left after dinner.

c[Peter and Mary] met in the park.

d[Mary] suddenly noticed [that her purse was missing].

eBefore leaving [the house] [she] checked [her bag].

f[The purse] was [on the kitchen table].

g[Peter] considers [Mary beautiful].

h[John] knew [that [Peter and Mary] met in the park in the afternoon].

i[John] knows [Mary].

j[Peter] wanted [John out of the room].

k[They] treated [their guests] [kindly] during their stay.

l[Peter] wrote [a letter] to Mary the other day.

m[He] sent [her] [a box of chocolate], too.

n[Peter] called [Mary] yesterday.

o[John] called [Peter] [a liar].

Exercise 3

As clauses can also realise grammatical functions, they can also receive theta-roles but determining the exact label is not always straightforward, especially with clauses. It is only participants which are obligatory to express the meaning of the predicates (arguments) which receive theta-roles, even if they are unexpressed, i.e. left-implicit; optional elements (adjuncts) which add information e.g. about the place or time or manner of some action or event do not receive theta-roles but that is not surprising, they do not need to be included in the sentence for it to be grammatical.

(1)a Peter loves Mary.

e Mary wrote a letter to John the following day.

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Exercise 4

Exercise 4

aJohn sneezed.

bDogs hate cats.

cThe boy was waiting for the girl.

dThe president sent a message to the parliament

eI do not believe that you have won the game.

fI never smoke.

gSometimes John eats a hamburger.

hJohn sometimes eats a hamburger.

iJohn eats a hamburger sometimes.

jHave you ever been to England?

kJoe went to the cinema with a beautiful girl.

lThe old computer in my office is very slow.

mStudents of English like difficult exercises.

nJohn told me that he had never been to Paris.

oThe little dog chased a black cat.

pThis exercise is considered easy.

qI rarely listen to classical music

rThis sentence is short.

Exercise 5

Predicates are heads that take arguments. Depending on the number of arguments a predicate has, predicates can be classified into different groups like one-place predicates, two-place predicates, etc. A one-place predicate is a predicate with one argument. It can be a verb (1a), an adjective (1b), a noun (1c) or a preposition (1d). A two-place predicate is a predicate that takes two arguments like the noun in (2a), the verb (2b), the adjective (2c) or the preposition in (2d). A three-place predicate has three arguments. In (3a) the three-place predicate is a noun; in (3b) it is a verb.

(1)a. John is sleeping.

b.John is nice.

c.student of Linguistics

d.in the room

(2)a. the enemy’s destruction of the city

b.John hates pets.

c.John is afraid of dogs.

d.I want you out of my room.

(3)a. Mary’s gift of a book to John.

bJohn gave a book to Mary.

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Suggested Answers and Hints - Chapter 1

Exercise 6

The definite article the, the indefinite article a and the demonstrative pronoun this are functional categories and as such they have [+F] feature. As they are the functional projection of the noun, they share the categorial features associated with the noun. [+N, –V]. Their feature matrix is: [+F, +N, –V].

The words, boy, neighbourhood, mistake and girl are nouns. Therefore they are lexical elements that share the same feature matrix. They are specified for the functional feature negatively. As they are nouns, they have [+N, –V] features. Their feature matrix is [–F, +N, –V].

The item in is a preposition that is a lexical element. It has neither verbal, nor nominal properties; therefore its feature matrix is [–F, –N, –V].

The modal auxiliary may is a functional item as it is in complementary distribution with the tense marker and the to infinitival marker that are in I0. As IP is a functional projection of the lexical verb, it has also verbal properties. Its feature matrix is: [+F,– N, +V].

The primary auxiliary have is not generated in a functional projection, but it heads its own VP, VPs headed by primary auxiliaries have the special property that they can only subcategorise for another VP. As it is not the head of IP in the initial structure, it is not positively specified for [F], but it is not a full lexical verb either, as primary auxiliaries have very limited lexical content. They invariably subcategorise for another VP. Full lexical verbs and primary auxiliaries differ in one feature. While lexical verbs are negatively specified for the [F] feature, primary auxiliaries are not specified for this feature, at all. The feature matrix for have is: [–N, +V].

The adjective big is a lexical element; therefore its functional feature is specified negatively. As adjectives share lexical features both with nouns and with verbs their feature matrix is [–F, +N, +V].

Exercise 7

Easi+er

The stem of the word easier is easy which is an adjective. Adjectives can be graded. The comparative and superlative forms of easy are inflectional that is the suffixes -er or -est are added to the adjectival stem. The underlined suffix is inflectional, it can beadded to the appropriate word class (in this case adjective) productevily. Adjectives in comparative form compare two nominal expressions with respect to the property expressed by the adjective.

Grand+father+s

Two simple stems (roots) grand and father are combined to create the compound stem grandfather. The plural marker added to the complex stem is inflectional, as it can co-occur with determiners that require plural nouns e.g. two grandfathers.

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Exercise 7

un+happi+est

This word consists of three morphemes. The basic stem is the adjective happy. The derivational morpheme un- is added to the stem. The newly formed complex stem is still an adjective. Derivational morphemes can change the syntactic category of the basic stem (happi-ly), but they do not necessarily do so. In this case no categorical change occurred. However, the meaning of the expression has changed, which is not something inflectional morphemes can do. Inflectional morphemes only have a grammatical function. Hence the prefix is derivational. The superlative suffix, as we have already seen is inflectional.

fail+(e)d

The stem is a verb. Verbs can be marked for tense. Tense is a grammatical category associated with inflection, a functional head. Tense specifies that time of the event encoded in the VP (verb and its arguments), hence interacts with construction outside the word it is attached to. It is an inflectional morpheme.

un+employ+ment

The verbal root is employ. The prefix un- as we have already seen is derivational and can be combined with adjectives as in (iii) and verbs (un-do). -ment is a derivational suffix. It converts the verbal stem into a nominal stem. Only derivational morphemes can have this effect.

want+s

The stem is a verb to which the 3rd. person singular simple present tense suffix is attached. The agreement marker is inflectional as it indicates that the lexical head of the subject DP is a 3rd. person singular noun.

eat+able

The verbal stem eat is combined with the derivational suffix -able, which converts the verbal stem into an adjective.

quick+ly

Quick is an adjective, which is combined with the suffix -ly. This process is very productive and the resulting structure is an adverb. A ccording to traditional analyses the -ly morpheme is derivational since it changes the grammatical category of the word from adjective to adverb, however, in the present approach it has been argued that adjectives and adverbs belong to the same word class having the features [-F, +N, +V]. This means that the -ly morpheme is to be analysed as an inflectional morpheme, which appears when the given word it attaches to occupies a certain position in the structure. E.g. the -s ending on verbs appears when the subject is third person singular. The -ly morpheme appears on the adjective e.g. when it is used to modify a verb.

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Suggested Answers and Hints - Chapter 1

Exercise 8

a John likes eating nice food.

John is a proper noun. Likes is a verb in 3rd person singular simple present tense. Like is the verbal stem. ‘-s’ is the 3rd person singular present tense inflection. Eating is a verb in ‘-ing’ form used as a noun also called the gerund, nice is an adjective. Food is a common noun.

b The workers must have built the bridge near Boston.

The is the definite article. Workers is a common noun in plural. Must is a modal auxiliary verb. Have is an aspectual auxiliary. Built is a lexical verb in its -en form(3rd form). Bridge is a common noun in singular. Near is a preposition. Boston is a proper noun.

c A friend of mine gave a book to John’s brother.

A is an indefinite article. Friend is a common noun in singular. Of is a preposition. Mine is a possessive pronoun which is used predicatively or in the “of” possessive construction. Gave is a lexical verb in past tense. Book is a singular common noun. To is a preposition. John is a proper noun and ©s is a determiner. Brother is a common noun in singular.

Exercise 9

Obviously, as far as the possible sample sentences are concerned, there are a lot of solutions for this exercise. As a guide, a sample set of sentences is given here.

(1)a The soil of the forest is covered with leaves. (N – plural of leaf) b The train leaves immediately. (V – 3Sg form of leave)

(2)a This behaviour of yours will lead to problems. (V)

b Lead is considered to be one of the heavy metals. (N)

(3)a That newspaper costs 2$. (V – 3Sg form of cost)

b The costs of the reconstruction must be urgently reduced by the committee. (N – plural of cost)

(4)a A fly has been found in the guest’s soup. (N)

b Although they are birds, penguins cannot fly. (V)

(5)a Whenever I go to the bathroom, the telephone rings. (V – 3Sg form of ring)

b “Three rings for the elven kings under the sky...” (J. R. R. Tolkien) (N – plural of ring)

(6)a Tears were rolling down on her face while listening to the story. (N – plural

of tear)

bHe tears a sheet from the pad. (V – 3Sg form of tear)

(7)a Our neighbours will water our plants while we travel. (V)

bCould you please give me a glass of water? (N)

(8)a Queen Elizabeth II rules the United Kingdom. (V – 3Sg form of rule)

bAll players must follow the rules of this game. (N – plural of ring)

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