Binary Features in Syntax Theory

1. Syntax Lecture 2: Categories

2. Recap • All phrases are structurally the same: • All phrases differ in their lexical content • Lexical content determines the syntactic differences between phrases • Particularly the lexical head

3. Differences in lexical heads • So how syntactically different can lexical heads be? • There are two way heads differ • They have different categories • They differ in what complements they select (we will look at this next week)

4. How many different categories are there? • Most syntactic descriptions work with a relatively small number of different categories • Noun • Verb • Adjective • Adverb • Preposition • Pronoun • Determiner • Particle • Subordinator • Coordinator • Auxiliary verb • Degree adverb • In fact, some of these collapse into single categories

5. Collapsing categories: pronouns and determiners • Many determiners work as pronouns • This book was banned This was banned • Some people are sad Some are sad • Few aeroplanes crash Few crash • Some pronouns work as determiners • We humans • Them rocks (dialectal) • You lot • It has been suggested that pronouns should be analysed as determiners

6. Collapsing categories: subordinators and adverbs • Some subordinating particles behave exactly like adverbs • Obviously, he had gone • He, obviously, had gone • He had gone, obviously • However, he had gone • He, however, had gone • He had gone, however • There is no reason not to analyse these as adverbs

7. Collapsing categories: subordinators and adverbs • Some subordinating particles don’t behave like adverbs • Obviously, he had gone • He, obviously, had gone • He had gone, obviously • ... that he had gone • * ... he that had gone • * ... he had gone that • These are clearly of a different category • We call them Complementisers

8. Collapsing Categories: adverbs and adjectives • Many adverbs and adjectives have the same root: • obvious: obviously fast: fast great: greatly • Adverbs and adjectives are in complementary distribution • Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives modify nouns • They might be different subcategories of a general category of ‘modifier’ (often called A)

9. Conclusion • So it seems that the number of categories we need to describe language is very small • Why is that? • Without a theory of categories, we can’t explain this.

10. A theory of categories • We know that all categories fall into one of two main types • Functional • Determiners • Auxiliary verbs • Complementisers • Etc. • Thematic • Nouns • Verbs • A (modifiers) • Etc.

11. A theory of categories • This suggests a ‘binary feature’ analysis • (like distinctive features in phonology: ±voice, ±long) • Suppose we assume a feature ±F • +F = Functional categories • -F = Thematic categories

12. A theory of categories

13. A theory of categories • But this still isn’t very restrictive • One way to restrict the system is to assume that all categories are defined by binary features

14. A theory of categories • How many more binary features do we need? • Not too many!: • 1 feature = 2 categories - not enough! • 2 features = 4 categories - not enough! • 3 features = 8 categories - perhaps • 4 features = 16 categories - too many! • 10 features = 1024 categories - way too many!

15. A theory of categories • Suppose we suggest two extra features: • ±N and ±V • It doesn’t matter why we use ‘N’ and ‘V’ • This predicts four functional categories and four thematic categories:

16. The thematic categories ([-F]) • [-F, +N, -V] = Noun • [-F, -N, +V] = Verb • [-F, +N, +V] = A (modifier) • [-F, -N, -V] = Preposition • The important thing is that this predicts that some categories have things in common, e.g.: • Noun and A = [+N] • Noun and Preposition = [-V]

17. Things that thematic categories have in common • Verbs and Prepositions ([-N]) take ‘bare’ nominal complements: • … see [ the tower] • … up [the tower] • Nouns and A ([+N]) do not take ‘bare’ nominal complements: • * … the painting [the tower] • * … careful [the tower] • Nouns and A take complements with of: • … the painting of [the tower] • … careful of [the tower]

18. Things that thematic categories have in common • Nouns and Prepositions ([-V]) are common complements: • … believe [John]/[in fairies] • … story [(of) Jack]/[about Jack] • … out [the box]/[from the box] • … anxious [(of) [the time]/[about the time] • Verbs and A ([+V]) are complements to only a few verbs: • … let [go] • … feel [ill]

19. Conclusion • This theory of categories therefore: • Predicts a limited number of thematic categories • Predicts that they share common properties

20. The functional categories ([+F]) • [+F, +N, -V] = Determiner • [+F, -N, +V] = Inflection • [+F, +N, +V] = Degree Adverb • [+F, -N, -V] = Complementiser • All of these are obviously connected to the relevant thematic categories.

21. Determiners • This category contains: • The articles (the, a(n)) • Demonstratives (this, that, these, those) • Quantifiers (some, all, every, etc.) • Pronouns (she, him, my, yourself, etc.)

22. Inflections • This category includes: • Modal auxiliary verbs (may, can, would, etc.) • The marker of the infinitive (to) • Tense morphemes (-s, -ed) • The reason why these are seen as a single category is that they are in complementary distribution with each other: • He may smile *He may to smile • He smil-ed * He may smil-ed • (I want) him to smile * him to smil-ed

23. Degree Adverbs • This category consists of adverbs which modify modifiers: • Too big too quickly • As tall as slowly • So good so badly • They cannot be modified themselves: • * as too * so as * too so

24. Complementisers • This category consists of words used to introduce subordinate clauses: • … that [he left] • … if [he left] • … for [him to leave] • We will have more to say about these in a future lecture

25. A theory of categories summary

26. Conclusion • The theory of categories restricts the number of word categories to 8 • X-bar theory says that • All words are heads • Heads determine the nature of the phrase • It follows then that the theory of categories restricts the number of different types of phrases to 8 • This is a very restrictive theory, which is good as it increases the amount of explanation the theory is able to provide.