CAS LX 522 Syntax I

CAS LX 522Syntax I Episode 7b. Subjects, agreement,and case 6.1-6.3

Historical interlude • Back in the old days, people hypothesized that Pat will charm snakes had a structure like this. • The subject NP Pat was in the specifier of “IP” (what we call “TP”), and the VP contained only the verb charm and the object NP snakes. • Pat got an Agent q-role by being in SpecIP, even though the fact that there is an Agent q-role to be had is determined by the verb down in the VP. IP NP Pat I I will VP V charm NP snakes

Historical interlude • Nevertheless, this predicts the normal word order pretty well, and so it was hypothesized that the verb simply assigned one of its q-roles directly to SpecIP. • No big deal, syntax works in strange and mysterious ways. • At a certain point, someone started thinking about sentences like these: • All the students will take the exam. • The students will all take the exam. • It’s fairly clear here that all the students is an NP, that it forms a coherent unit, a coherent concept. All really belongs with the students. IP NP Pat I I will VP V charm NP snakes

Historical interlude • All the students will take the exam. • The students will all take the exam. • Back in the even older days, the hypothesis was that there was a special rule that turned the first sentence into the second. • The Quantifier Float rule would move allover to the right, next to the VP. • all NP … VP  NP … all + VP IP NP Pat I I will VP V charm NP snakes

Historical interlude • Not all quantifiers are subject to Quantifier Float: • Quantifiers: every, some, all, most, several, many, both, four, … • Every student will take the exam.*Student will every take the exam. • Several students will take the exam.*Students will several take the exam. • It works for both and all:The students will both take the exam.The students will all take the exam. • What’s a difference between every, some, several, many and both, all? IP NP Pat I I will VP V charm NP snakes

Historical interlude • Upon further reflection, some enterprising syntacticians hit upon the idea that rather than floating all to its position next to VP, all might instead have been “left behind” by a subject that had moved. • will [all [the students]] take the exam. • [all [the students]]i will ti take the exam. • [the students]i will [all ti] take the exam. • And why would all the students have been down there? Well, that would simplify assignment of q-roles. IP NP Pat I I will VP V charm NP snakes

The VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis • The verb (head of VP) can assign q-roles to other things within the VP, which is a natural explanation for how the choice of verb controls whether an Agent q-role is assigned or not. • This idea became known as the VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis. IP NP Pat I I VP will V ti V charm NP snakes

The VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis • For us, we’ve supposed from the beginning that assignment of q-roles is necessarily local. This may not seem like a very surprising hypothesis. • But it was at the time a rather unintuitive idea, and so various people set out to see if some of the predictions this makes are borne out in the grammatical data. IP NP Pat I I VP will V ti V charm NP snakes

The VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis • It turns out that as people looked, there were reasons to believe this. • The new analysis of Quantifier Float no longer relies on an idiosyncratic rule of English, but more general principles. • The assignment of q-roles can now be more directly related to the properties of the verb. • And we can make sense of there constructions in a more straightforward way. IP NP Pat I I VP will V ti V charm NP snakes

Back to the present Quantifier stranding is still often referred to as “quantifier float” to this day, even though the name no longer reflects the analysis. • The basic components of the quantifier “stranding” phenomenon are: • All the students is a constituent. The students is an NP inside all the students. • [all [NP the students]] • Either all the students or just the students can move to SpecTP, to satisfy the [uN*] feature of T. • So all the students and the students are both NPs. • [NP all [NP the students]] • So allis essentially a noun, but one that takes an NP complement (all: [N, uN*, …]). • We’re assuming here that all is not an adjunct, but in fact a head, taking the NP as a complement. Why? NP all NP thestudents

All the students will take the exam • We start by building our vP. • Merge the NP the exam and the V take (checks [uN*] on V) • Merge v and VP (HoP) • Move V to v (checks [uV*] on v) • Merge the N all and the NP the students (checks [uN*] on all) vP NP v all NP v VP Vtake vagent[uInfl:, …] <V> NP thestudents the exam

All the students will take the exam • We Merge the M willwith vP (HoP) • This values [uInfl:] on v as [uInfl:M]. M M will[uInfl:, …] vP NP v all NP v VP Vtake vagent[uInfl:M, …] <V> NP thestudents the exam

All the students will take the exam • We Merge the T willwith MP (HoP) • This values [uInfl:] on M as [uInfl:pres*] (strong). T T [tense:pres,uN*,…] MP M will [uInfl:pres*, …] vP NP v all NP v VP Vtake vagent[uInfl:M, …] <V> NP thestudents the exam

All the students will take the exam • We move M up to T • This checks the strong [uInfl:pres*] on M. T T MP M will [uInfl:pres*, …] T [tense:pres,uN*,…] <M> vP NP v all NP v VP Vtake vagent[uInfl:M, …] <V> NP thestudents the exam

All the students will take the exam Is all the students closer to T than the students is? Not if we define “closer” as we did, in terms of c-command. Where X c-commands Y and Z, Y is closer to X than Z is if Y c-commands Z. • Now, there are two possibilities: • Move the NP all the students. • Move the NP the students. T T MP M will [uInfl:pres*, …] T [tense:pres,uN*,…] <M> vP NP v all NP v VP Vtake vagent[uInfl:M, …] <V> NP thestudents the exam

All the students will take the exam TP • Now, there are two possibilities: • Move the NP all the students. • Move the NP the students. NP T all NP T MP thestudents M will [uInfl:pres*, …] T [tense:pres,uN*,…] <M> vP <NP> v v VP Vtake vagent[uInfl:M, …] <V> NP the exam

The students will all take the exam TP • Now, there are two possibilities: • Move the NP all the students. • Move the NP the students. NP T thestudents T MP M will [uInfl:pres*, …] T [tense:pres,uN*,…] <M> vP NP v all <NP> v VP Vtake vagent[uInfl:M, …] <V> NP the exam

Expletive constructions • An expletiveis an element that can be in subject position without having received a q-role from anywhere. • Ithad been raining. • Therewere fans rioting on Comm Ave. • We’ve seen it before. But there is also there, which we’ll concentrate on now. Neither means anything, neither gets a q-role, both appear to satisfy the [uN*] feature of T. • Both can be used in other ways: I saw it over there.

Expletive constructions • There were fans rioting on Comm Ave. • Fans were rioting on Comm Ave. TP TP fans there T T T T ProgP ProgP be T be T <be> <be> vP vP <fans> fans v v v+Vriot <V> v+Vriot <V>

Case • Recall that pronouns in English show distinctions in case: • Subject pronouns are in nominative case • Object pronouns are in accusative case • I saw her. She saw me. They saw him. • How can we ensure the correlation?

Nom case • Nominative subjects generally appear in the specifier of a finite T. • Finite T is pretty much any kind of T except the infinitive. • We can treat case like we treated tense inflection: • Suppose T also has a [ucase:nom] feature. • Suppose nominative NPs have a [ucase:] feature. • Suppose the [ucase:nom] on T can value [ucase:] on the NP, checking both. • So T needs a nom NP, and a nom NP needs T.

Acc case • Subjects check nominative case with T. Objects have accusative case, which we can treat in the same kind of way. • Suppose v has [ucase:acc]. • Suppose accusative NPs have [ucase:] • Suppose the [ucase:acc] on v can value the [ucase:] feature on the NP, checking both. • Nominative case is a relation between (finite) T and an NP, accusative case is a relation between v and an NP.

Notes on case • Nominative case is associated with finite T. • Shewill charm snakes. • I wantherto charm snakes. • I expectherto charm snakes. • Non-finite T is not associated with nominative case. It’s not actually associated with accusative case either, but we’ll come back to that later. • Because NPs have an unvalued [ucase:] feature, we can suppose that pronouns always enter the numeration the same way, and are valued based on where they are Merged. • pronoun [N, ucase:, …]

Notes on case • Although in English we only see the morphological effect of case on pronouns, we assume that all NPs have an unvalued [ucase:] feature. • Plenty of languages other than English show case on all NPs, not just on pronouns. Case is something that goes with being an NP. It’s just something you often don’t hear in English. • Notational shortcuts: • [nom] is used for [ucase:nom] (on T, or NP when checked) • [acc] is used for [ucase:acc] (on v, or NP when checked) • [case] is used for [ucase:] (on an NP)

Subject-verb agreement • Recall that in English, the f-features of the subject have an effect on the morphology of the verb: • Fans were rioting on Comm Ave. • A fan was rioting on Comm Ave. • While we’re here, we might as well account for this too. It is also an agreement relation, between the subject and, eventually, the verb (or auxiliary, if there is one).

Subject-verb agreement • The verb gets its tense inflection specified by T when, e.g., the [tense:pres] feature of T values the [uInfl:] feature of v. • Since the subject already agrees with T (the [nom] feature of T checks the [case] feature of the subject), we’ll incorporate subject agreement into this process. • Notice that we still want this agreement to be mediated by T (sometimes it values, e.g., Perf): • Theyhavebeen reading novels. • Shehasbeen reading novels.

Subject-verb agreement • Suppose then that T has a [uf:] feature as well. • The subject has (interpretable) f-features that value the [uf:] feature of T. • Fans were rioting on Comm Ave. • T [T, uN*, uf:, nom] • fans [N, f:pl, case] • So, once T is in the structure, c-commanding fans in SpecvP, we get: • T [T, uN*, uf:pl, nom] • fans [N, f:pl, nom]

Subject-verb agreement • Finally, we suppose that the (checked) [uf:pl] feature of T, also values a [uInfl:] feature on a lower v (or Perf, or Prog). • The rules of pronunciation will tell us that a v with the verb riot adjoined to it sounds like: • “riots” if v has the feature [uInfl:pres,sg] • “riot” if v has the feature [uInfl:pres,pl]. • Notice that T values a [uInfl:] feature all at once, with any relevant feature(s) it has (so, tense and f-features both).

She likes them • So, let’s walk through it. • We start by merging like and the 3pl pronoun. VP Vlikes[V] NPpronoun[N, f:3pl, case]

She likes them • v [v, uN*, uInfl:, uV*, acc] • We Merge v with VP (HoP). • The [acc] on v matches, values, and checks the [case] on the pronoun, checking itself as well. • Agree is lazy, we can do this without any further Merging or Moving. v v [v,uN*, uInfl:, uV*, acc] VP Vlikes[V] NPpronoun[N, f:3pl, acc]

She likes them • The V moves up to adjoin to v to check the [uV*] feature of v. v v VP v [v,uN*, uInfl:, uV*, acc] <V> NPpronoun[N, f:3pl, acc] Vlikes[V]

She likes them • The V moves up to adjoin to v to check the [uV*] feature of v. • The 3sg feminine pronoun is Merged to check the [uN*] feature of v. vP NPpronoun[N, f:3fsg, case] v v VP Vlikes[V] v [v,uN*, uInfl:, uV*, acc] <V> NPpronoun[N, f:3pl, acc]

She likes them • The T is Merged with vP (HoP). • The [nom] feature of T matches, values, and checks the [case] feature of the pronoun, checking itself in the process. T T[T, tense:pres, uf:, uN*, nom] vP NPpronoun[N, f:3fsg, nom] v v VP Vlikes[V] v [v,uN*, uInfl:, uV*, acc] <V> NPpronoun[N, f:3pl, acc]

She likes them • The [f:3fsg] feature of NP values and checks the [uf:] feature of T. T T[T, tense:pres, uf:3fsg, uN*, nom] vP NPpronoun[N, f:3fsg, nom] v v VP Vlikes[V] v [v,uN*, uInfl:, uV*, acc] <V> NPpronoun[N, f:3pl, acc]

She likes them • The [uf:3fsg] and [tense:pres] features of T value and check the [uInfl:] feature of v. • From now on: (Finite) T can only value a lower [uInfl:] feature once T itself has a value for []. Both [tense] and [] value the lower [uInfl:] feature. First step is always to check the [u:] feature on T, after which T will check the lower [uInfl:] feature. T T[T, tense:pres, uf:3fsg, uN*, nom] vP NPpronoun[N, f:3fsg, nom] v v VP Vlikes[V] v [v,uN*, uInfl:pres3fsg, uV*, acc] <V> NPpronoun[N, f:3pl, acc]

She likes them • Finally, the NP is moved up and Merged with T in order to check the EPP feature (the [uN*] feature) of T. TP NPpronoun[N, f:3fsg, nom] T T[T, tense:pres, uf:3fsg, uN*, nom] vP <NP> v v VP Vlikes[V] v [v,uN*, uInfl:pres3fsg, uV*, acc] <V> NPpronoun[N, f:3pl, acc]

She likes them • All uninterpretable features are checked, the pronunciation rules give us she likes them. TP NPpronoun[N, f:3fsg, nom] T T[T, tense:pres, uf:3fsg, uN*, nom] vP <NP> v v VP Vlikes[V] v [v,uN*, uInfl:pres3fsg, uV*, acc] <V> NPpronoun[N, f:3pl, acc]

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CAS LX 522 Syntax I