английский / English grammar / Miller J. - An introduction to English syntax (Edinburgh University Press, 2001, 206 p)

(1b) is an example of an interrogative construction, used by speakers who wish to ask whether the event took place, that is, speakers who wish to interrogate the person or persons they are addressing (their addressees). Other interrogative constructions are used when speakers know that a particular type of event took place but not the identity of one or more participants. Consider the examples in (2).

(2)a. Who bought that piano for his secret fiancée?

b.What did the wealthy young man buy for his secret fiancée?

c.Who did the wealthy young man buy that piano for?

Examples (2a–c) are not directly related in meaning to (1a–b), for the simple reason that (1a–b) specify all the participants in the buying event – the wealthy young man, the piano and the secret fiancée. In (2a–c), one of the participants is unknown. It makes more sense to consider (2a) as related in meaning to Someone bought a piano for his secret fiancée and (2b) as related in meaning to The wealthy young man bought something for his secret fiancée. (Note that Someone bought that piano for his secret fiancée has the same general syntactic structure as (1a), namely a noun phrase – the wealthy young man in (1a), then the verb and then a prepositional phrase for his secret fiancée.) The syntactic changes are slightly more complex. Where the identity of the buyer is requested, as in (2a), the noun phrase someone is replaced by who. Where the identity of another participant is requested, someone is replaced by who and something is replaced by what. Who and what move to the front of the clause, and did is inserted into the clause just following who or what.

Returning to (1a), we see that other constructions are related to it (more accurately, to the construction exemplified in it). Consider (3).

(3) The wealthy young man bought his secret fiancée that piano.

What has changed is that the preposition for is missing and that piano has swapped places with his secret fiancée. Example (3) might be used when the fiancée has already been mentioned and the piano is being introduced into the conversation; (1a) is more likely to be used when the piano has already been mentioned and it is the fiancée who is being brought into the narrative. The semantic difference between these two constructions is minimal; the distinction has to do with which participant has already been mentioned and with which is being mentioned for the first time. The syntactic structure of (3) is the subject noun phrase the wealthy young man, followed by the verb bought, followed by the noun phrase his secret fiancée and finally the noun phrase that piano.

We can usefully note that (3) adds another factor to our view of language. We stated at the beginning of this chapter that different

constructions have been developed by the speakers of languages to allow them to distinguish clearly between the different things they do with language – making assertions, asking questions and so on. Example (3) drives home a very important point; although it is convenient in textbooks such as this to take sentences and clauses one at a time, in real speech and writing they are accompanied by many other clauses and sentences. The choice of the construction in (3) is determined by what precedes it in a given conversation or letter, say. In fact, to make the example more realistic, we should change it to He bought her that piano ; one of the enduring habits of speakers is that they introduce a participant into a narrative by means of a full noun phrase containing a noun and possibly an article and adjective and so on, but thereafter refer to that participant by means of a pronoun. We might have a text as in (4).

(4)You were asking about the piano you saw. Frank Churchill was a wealthy young man who came to stay in Hartfield. His secret fiancée was living in Hartfield with Mrs and Miss Bates. He bought her that piano.

The fact that sentences are typically combined to create longer texts is why many manuals of languages include a selection of different texts in addition to the details of the morphology and syntax of a given language.

Utterance (1a) is an example of a declarative clause. It is also an example of an active clause, which contrasts with the corresponding passive clause in (5).

(5)That piano was bought for his secret fiancée by the wealthy young man.

Why call this a ‘passive’ clause? The term ‘passive’ comes historically from the Latin verb patior (I suffer), or more exactly from its past participle, as in passus sum (having-suffered I-am, that is, ‘I have suffered’). This label was chosen for clauses in English and other languages which take as their starting point the participant on whom an action is carried out, that is, who suffers the action. In contrast, active clauses take as their starting point the participant who carries out an action, who is active in a given situation.

Notice two properties of passive clauses. First, the noun phrase referring to the passive participant, that piano in (5), is at the front of the clause and is in a special relationship with the verb (agreement in person and number, discussed in Chapters 8 and 10). Second, although (5) does have a noun phrase, the wealthy young man, referring to the buyer, it can be omitted, as in That piano was bought for his secret fiancée. The construction in (5) is called the ‘long passive’ because it contains an agent noun

phrase; but approximately 95 per cent of passive clauses in spoken and written texts do not have a phrase referring to the do-er or agent. Without its agent phrase, as in the above example That piano was bought for his secret fiancée, this construction is known as the ‘short passive’.

The final construction we look at is that of (6).

(6) (I don’t like the plum brandy) – the port I just love

The clause in brackets provides a plausible context for the second clause. The speaker contrasts the two types of alcoholic drink, producing a normal neutral clause to pass judgement on the plum brandy and driving home the contrast by putting the direct object the port at the front of the second clause. Not only does the second clause have an unusual construction, which in itself makes the message conspicuous, but the port immediately follows the plum brandy ; the positioning of the two phrases right next to each other also highlights the contrast. As far as the syntactic structure is concerned, I just love the port is a neutral main clause and the only change to the structure is that the phrase the port moves to the beginning of the clause.

In the discussion of (3) above, we observed that, although we analyse clauses and sentences individually for convenience, in real language they do not occur in isolation but as part of longer texts. Constructions too can be and are analysed in isolation because it is convenient to focus on one structure at a time; however, in a given language, constructions exist not in isolation but as part of a system of structures. We finish this chapter by addressing the question ‘What is meant by “system”? ’ and we do so on the basis of the six structures discussed above. To facilitate the discussion, the six structures are exemplified in (7) and (8) by means of simpler sentences.

3.3 Types of construction

The different constructions are labelled, and the labelling reflects the connections among them. The constructions can be represented in the form of a hierarchy, as in Figure 3.1 in Appendix 3. A major split is between constructions, such as (11a–c) below, that have the verb (traditionally called the copula or link verb) and constructions that have an ‘ordinary’ verb. Both copula and non-copula constructions can be declarative, that is, they can have the structure used for making statements, and interrogative, that is, they can have the structure used for asking questions.

Interrogative constructions split into two types. YES–NO interrogatives are used for asking questions such as Did he phone?, to which the

answer is yes or no. WH interrogatives are used for asking questions about participants in a situation: Who phoned?, When did he phone?, What did he say?, Where was he when he phoned?

Declarative constructions can be both active, as in (7a), and passive, as in (7c). Interrogative constructions can be active, as in (8a), or passive, as in (8c). In declarative constructions, the verb can be followed by a noun phrase and a prepositional phrase, as in bought the piano for Jane in (7a), or by two noun phrases, as in bought Jane the piano in (7b). The former construction is here labelled OBLIQUE OBJECT and the latter is labelled DOUBLE OBJECT. Interrogative constructions can be OBLIQUE OBJECT, as in Did Frank buy the piano for Jane? in (8a), or DOUBLE OBJECT, as in Did Frank buy Jane the piano? in (8b). In turn, the DOUBLE OBJECT construction can be active or passive – Frank bought Jane the piano in (7b) and Jane was bought that piano by Frank ; the OBLIQUE OBJECT construction too can be active or passive – Frank bought the piano for Jane (7a) and The piano was bought for Jane by Frank (7c).

(7) a. Frank bought the piano for Jane.

[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, ACTIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT]

b.Frank bought Jane the piano.

[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, ACTIVE, DOUBLE OBJECT]

c.The piano was bought for Jane by Frank.

[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, PASSIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT]

d.The piano Frank bought for Jane.

[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, ACTIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT, TOPIC]

(8)a. Did Frank buy the piano for Jane?

[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, ACTIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT]

b.Did Frank buy Jane the piano?

[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, ACTIVE, DOUBLE OBJECT]

c.Was the piano bought for Jane by Frank?

[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, PASSIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT, YES–NO]

3.4 Relationships between constructions

Two central ideas lie behind the use of the word ‘system’. One is that each of the above constructions shares certain properties with some of the other constructions; the other is that it is possible to specify the relationships between the constructions. The above constructions fall into two major classes, the DECLARATIVE constructions in (7) and the INTERROGATIVE constructions in (8). It is generally accepted that the DECLARATIVE ACTIVE construction in (7a) is basic. It is the most frequent type of construction in English, because speakers most often make assertions, indeed assertions about agents, and it allows the widest range of modifications – for example, Frank had been buying the piano for Jane is perfectly acceptable, and even The piano had been being bought by Frank, though awkward, can be used in texts instead of the unmodified passive, although the texts do not run as smoothly. Examples of the basic construction allow the widest range of adverbs and are semantically basic; the interpretations of Did Frank deceive Emma? and

Frank didn’t deceive Emma both involve an understanding of Frank deceived Emma, to which is added an understanding of what is signalled by the interrogative syntax and of what is signalled by the negative didn’t.

The basic construction in (7a) is related to the other constructions in (7b–c) and also to the interrogative constructions in (8). We can think of the relationships among the constructions as paths that lead from the basic construction to the others. Do we lay out paths from the basic construction to every other one, say from the construction in (7a) to the constructions in (7b), (8a) and (8c)? The answer is ‘no’. Instead, we lay out paths from the basic DECLARATIVE construction to the other DECLARATIVE constructions, and then we will put down paths from each of the DECLARATIVE constructions to the corresponding INTERROGATIVE one. Thus a path goes from (7a) to the [DOUBLE OBJECT] construction in (7b) and another path goes from (7b) to the [DOUBLE OBJECT] INTERROGATIVE construction in (8b). Another path goes from the construction in (7a) to the [NONCOPULA, DECLARATIVE, PASSIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT] construction in (7c). From (7c), a path goes to the [NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, PASSIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT] construction in (8c). A path goes from (7a) to the construction in (7d), but there is no corresponding [NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, TOPIC] construction for a path to lead to.

What about the constructions in (2)? As explained above, these are WH interrogatives, and a simpler version of (2b) is given in (9).

(9)What did Frank buy for Jane?

[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, ACTIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT]

In the discussion of (2a–c), we saw that (9) relates not to Frank bought a piano for Jane but to Frank bought something for Jane. The speaker knows that Frank bought and Jane received a present and asks for the present to be specified. We have three constructions to connect, shown in (10).

(10) a. Frank bought something for Jane.

[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, ACTIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT]

b.Did Frank buy something for Jane.

[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, ACTIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT]

c.What did Frank buy for Jane.

[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, ACTIVE, OBLIQUE OBJECT]

As before, we avoid paths going independently from the construction in (10a) to the constructions in (10b) and (10c). Instead, we will lay down a path from (10a) to (10b) and a path from (10b) to (10c). This captures the fact that (10b) and (10c) have something in common, the occurrence of the auxiliary verb did before the subject Frank. It also captures the fact that in syntactic terms (10c) is further away from (10a) than (10b), since not only is there the auxiliary verb did preceding the subject Frank, but (10c) also contains the WH pronoun what.

3.5 Copula constructions

We close this chapter with a quick look at copula constructions. Note that the division between COPULA and NON-COPULA constructions is the topmost one; constructions are divided into COPULA and NON-COPULA, then each of these divides into DECLARATIVE and INTERROGATIVE, and so on. Whether passives are COPULA or NON-COPULA is a moot point. Example (8c) certainly contains was, but the analysis turns on whether was is treated as a separate copula word or whether was given is treated as simply the passive form of give. We will treat passives as NON-COPULA because a number of constituents can occur in passives that are typically excluded from copula clauses, for example adverbs such as immediately.

‘Copula’ is the Latin word for ‘link, connection’. The motivation for the different label is that the constructions in (11), and their Latin equivalents, do not describe situations in which one participant performs an action, possibly on another person or thing. Rather, the verb is merely links the subject noun phrase with another phrase, in this case an adjective phrase very happy in (11a), a noun phrase the best student in (11b) and a prepositional phrase in Auchtermuchty in (11c).

Ascriptive copula clauses are used to ascribe a property to an entity. In (11a), happiness is ascribed to Fiona. Equative copula clauses are used to state that one entity is identical with another entity. Speakers use (11b) to say, on the assumption that there are two entities Fiona and the best student, that these two entities are one and the same person. Fiona is equated to the best student. The label [COPULA, LOCATIVE] is selfexplanatory; this construction is used in order to state where some entity is located.

The copula constructions display a number of peculiarities compared with the (in)transitive constructions. Examples (11a–c) cannot be made passive; and, at least according to the handbooks of standard written English, the pronoun that is the complement of the copula is in the ‘nominative’ form: It was I/he/she. (But It was we and It was they sound peculiar.) Is can be moved to the front of the clause to make an interrogative – Is Fiona the best student? In this respect, is resembles has as used in some varieties: Has Fiona a car? But have combines with do for emphasis –

Fiona does have a car – and also in interrogatives – Does Fiona have a car ? Be does not combine with do (at least, not in standard English, whether written or spoken): *Fiona does be the best student, *Does Fiona be the best student?

Implicit in the preceding paragraph is the fact that copula clauses can be declarative or interrogative, and they can be YES–NO or WH interrogatives – Is she coming to the party? vs Who is coming to the party? Unlike non-copula clauses, copula clauses cannot be passive and they do not have double objects, though they can have oblique objects as in This parcel is for Sarah. The complements of be are not usually treated as direct objects but are simply called complements. And as (11a) and (11c)

show, be is regularly complemented by adjectives or by prepositional phrases.

Summary

Phrases combine to produce clauses. They combine in different orders, and the links between them are marked in various ways that will be discussed in Chapter 9. Some clauses have special markers such as do, does, did for YES–NO INTERROGATIVES or conjunctions such as although, if and that, to be discussed in Chapter 6. The above differences are said to reflect different constructions; phrases are constructed or put together in different ways to enable speakers and writers to signal differences in meaning. The various syntactic constructions in a given language form a system; one task of syntactic analysis is to work out and state how the constructions are interconnected.

Exercises

1. The discussion in this chapter identified a number of constructions: COPULA and NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE and INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO and WH INTERROGATIVES, ACTIVE and PASSIVE, DOUBLE OBJECT and OBLIQUE OBJECT and, for declaratives only, TOPIC and NON-TOPIC. COPULA clauses are ASCRIPTIVE, EQUATIVE or LOCATIVE. For each of the following sentences, decide its construction and label it using the labels given above. Thus, Was Admiral Croft given a present by Lady Russell? is classified as [NON-COPULA (it contains a copula but also an ordinary verb, given), INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, PASSIVE, and OBLIQUE OBJECT]. Remember that non-basic constructions must be related to basic constructions. This is especially relevant to (10).

1.Colonel Brandon read poems to Marianne.

2.Mrs Gardiner was Mrs Bennet’s sister.

3.Who was Jane Bennet’s suitor?

4.Why did Frank Churchill deceive everybody?

5.When was Emma scolded by Mr Knightley?

6.Was Mr Knightley much older than Emma?

7.Where did Captain Wentworth propose to Anne Elliott?

8.Sir Walter Elliott was in Bath.

9.Did Colonel Brandon bring Marianne books?

10.Elizabeth Bennet was at first unimpressed with Mr D’Arcy.

2. Devise examples of constructions that fit the following labels. For instance, an example of (1) is Jane is in Toorak.

1.[COPULA, DECLARATIVE, LOCATIVE]

2.[NON-COPULA, DECLARATIVE, PASSIVE]

3.[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, DOUBLE OBJECT]

4.[COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, YES–NO, ASCRIPTIVE]

5.[NON-COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, PASSIVE]

6.[COPULA, INTERROGATIVE, WH, EQUATIVE]