Граматика / English Syntax

This page intentionally left blank

Let’s now look at some further examples:

(9)Nick should read more books, but he can’t — .

(10)Millie can lend her sister some money, but she won’t — .

What lexical material has been deleted here?

In (9) we have deleted a V þ DO sequence (read more books), while in (10) a V þ IO þ DO string (lend her sister some money) has been left out. The question now arises as to how to account for these sentences. The problem centres around the negated modal verbs can’t and won’t. Recall that we argued that modals are positioned in ‘I’. We also claimed that negative elements like not are positioned in the Specifier-of-VP position. But we haven’t yet dealt with elements like can’t, won’t, mustn’t, etc., in which the negative element is tagged onto the modal. The problem with negated modals is that they appear to be units. But this is irreconcilable with the fact that the modal itself belongs to the I-node, while the negative bit -n’t belongs to VP. There are now two possible analyses for sentences like (9) and (10).

One way of looking at (9) and (10) is to say that in the but-clauses the negative element not first moves up to ‘I’ and then merges with the modal, after which the VP-shell is deleted. This process is shown in (11) for (9) and in (12) for (10):

(11)Nick should read more books, but . . .

(12)Millie can lend her sister some money, but . . .

An alternative way of looking at (9) and (10) is to assume that in the butclauses the negated modals are positioned in ‘I’, and that what gets deleted is the following VP as a whole. Under this view, we take negated modals to be lexical elements in their own right, and there is no movement.

(13)Nick should read more books, but . . .

S

Spec V0

VNP

(14)Millie can lend her sister some money, but . . .

Which of these views is correct? You will have realised that the two accounts are only very subtly di erent, but it should nevertheless be possible to give arguments which favour one or the other analysis. Recall that in (11) and (12) we have a movement process, while in (13) and (14) we are regarding the negated modal as a lexical element in its own right.

Notice that under the first view ((11)/(12)) we need a new rule of notmovement. Of course, there is nothing to stop us positing such a rule, but unless we can find independent motivation for it (see Section 10.3.2), this strategy is unappealing. However, even if we were to find some independent motivation, the rule would be complicated to state, because it would not be exceptionless, in that not all modal verbs can contract with the negative element not:

(15)He may not arrive early./ *He mayn’t arrive early.

Furthermore, notice that unlike contractions like he will ! he’ll, where will is simply tagged onto the pronoun and two letters are omitted, negative elements do not combine with the modals in such a straightforward way. Thus, we have will þ not > won’t and shall þ not > shan’t, etc., which show that contraction would involve idiosyncratic modifications, such as vowel changes.

What about the second proposal, in which the negated modals are regarded as lexical items in their own right? The first point to observe is that it is much more simple: we assume that the grammar selects negated modals directly from the lexicon and inserts them in ‘I’. Is there any more to say? Consider (16):

(16)You can’t not invite your boss.

You can imagine somebody saying this to a colleague who has just announced that he is not going to invite his boss to a party. What’s interesting about (16) is that, in addition to -n’t being tagged onto the modal, there is a second negative element, namely not, which is placed immediately

before the verb invite. (Notice, incidentally, that it is stressed.) We can account for the structure of this sentence straightforwardly if we assume that the negated modal is positioned in ‘I’, while not is positioned in the Specifier- of-VP position:

(17)S

Spec V0

VNP

If we assumed movement of not to ‘I’, we would be able to account for the first, but not for the second, negative element in this sentence. Consider next (18):

(18)You can’t kiss her and not touch her.

Here again we have a negated modal and a second negative element further to the right in the sentence. Assuming once more that the negated modal is positioned in ‘I’, we can easily account for the syntax of this sentence, by coordinating two VPs, as below:

(19)S

If we assumed not-movement, we would have to explain why the first not moves, but not the second. Furthermore, (19) accounts naturally for what are called the scope properties of the first negative element: what (18) means is that what you cannot do is ‘kiss her and not touch her’. What it doesn’t mean is that you can ‘not kiss her and not touch her’, which would be the expected meaning if the first not originated inside the leftmost of the coordinated VPs.

The conclusion of this discussion must be that negated modals are positioned in ‘I’, and that there is no process of not-movement.

14.2 Noun Phrase Structure

In this section we will be looking at some problems in the structural analysis of Noun Phrases.

14.2.1A Lot of Books

When we discussed X-bar syntax in Chapter 7 we saw that all phrases must be properly headed. Thus, a Verb Phrase must be headed by a verb, a Prepositional Phrase must be headed by a preposition, and so on. There are cases, however, where it is not clear which particular element is the Head. In this section we will be looking at Noun Phrases of the type in (20) below:

(20)a lot of books

In this NP we have two nouns, namely lot and books, and we might wonder which is the Head of the overall NP. Your first inclination might be to say that the first noun must the Head, with the structure in (21) for the NP as a whole:

(21)NP

Spec N0

NPP

Here we have analysed the PP of books as a sister (i.e. Complement) of the Head noun lot.

Another possibility is to take the second noun (books) in (20) to be the Head. It then becomes more di cult to decide what would be the tree structure representation of the NP. Structures like those in (22) and (23), among others, have been put forward in the linguistic literature:

(22)NP

(23)NP

Spec N0

NP N0

N

In (22) the sequence a lot of is regarded as a complex Specifier, while in (23) a is the Specifier and lot of is a complex modifying string.

How do we decide between these three representations? You will have realised that the nature of the problem we are dealing with here concerns the constituency of the NP in (20). Can we use any of the constituency tests of Chapters 11 and 12 to help us out? Let us take a closer look at each of the trees in (21)–(23).

With regard to the structure in (21) notice that it parallels noun þ Complement sequences of the type we have in (24) which we analysed in Chapter 7 in the same way as in (21), namely as a noun taking a PP as its sister:

(24)This newspaper publishes a review of books every month.

However, recall that whereas we can draw a parallel between review of books in (24) and the verbal construction [they] review books, the string of books in

(20)seems to be a di erent kind of Complement from the PP in (24) to the extent that the noun lot cannot be related to a verb in the way that review can. So from the point of view of meaning there doesn’t seem to be much support for (21). We should now ask whether analysing the PP of books in

(21)as a constituent can be motivated syntactically. By proposing an analysis along the lines of (21) we are making an important claim regarding the constituency of (20). Notice that the words of and books together form a Prepositional Phrase. It should be possible for us to test whether this string actually behaves like a constituent. Not all of our tests are applicable to this structure, but quite a few are. We consider movement first. Compare the following pairs of sentences:

Movement

(25)*[Of books] we buy a lot — .

(26)We don’t publish a review of CDs, but [of books] we do (publish a review — ).

Here in both cases the PP of books has been moved to the left under Topicalisation. Clearly, the result is much worse in (25) than it is in (26). This suggests that there is a di erence between the of-string in (25) and the undisputed Complement of books in (26).

So far we have only looked at leftward movement. Let’s now see if the ofstring in question can be moved to the right. In the following passive sentences we cannot move the of-string from a NP containing the noun lot, but moving the same string from a NP headed by review causes no problems:

(27)*A lot — were rubbished [of books by new young novelists].

(28)A review — was published [of books by David Lodge].

Again we see that the string introduced by of in (27) behaves di erently from that in (28).

The data in (26) and (28) prove that the of-strings are constituents. In (25) and (27), however, we must be careful: here we cannot draw any firm conclusions about the constituency of the PPs. Remember that the movement test works only in one direction: if we can move a string of words it is a constituent, but if we cannot move a string of words, it is not necessarily not a constituent. We need to look at some further data before we can draw any conclusions.

The substitution test isn’t of any use to us in this case, because only locative PPs can be replaced by a proform (namely there, see Section 11.2.1).

Of the tests of Chapter 12, only coordination and the cleft construction are useful. Compare first the sentences below:

Coordination

(29)*We buy a lot [of books] and [of records].

(30)We published a review [of books] and [of CDs]

In (29) it is impossible to coordinate the of-strings, whereas this poses no problems in (30). This again suggests that the PPs are constituents in (30), but not in (29).

We turn now to the cleft construction:

Cleft construction

(31)*It is [of books] that he buys a lot.

(32)It is [of books] that we publish a review.

Once again we end up with a contrast in grammaticality: (31) is clearly bad, while (32) is perhaps somewhat clumsy, but certainly markedly better than (31). The constituency of the PP in (32) is again established, whereas the of-string in (31) is likely not to be a constituent.