Universitatea “ Dunǎrea de Jos” GalaţiFacultatea de Litere

LIMBA ENGLEZǍ CONTEMPORANǍ.SINTAXA:

INTRODUCING TRANSFORMATIONS

ANUL al III-lea

Conf.univ. dr. GABRIELA DIMA

Galaţi2008

FOREWORD

The present course aims at providing further knowledge and insight into the syntax of contemporary English language by focusing on the second level of syntactic description, namely the transformational level. The main envisaged objectives are:to revise basic concepts used within the general framework of Transformational – Generative Grammar.to revise knowledge concerning the constituent structure of the English sentence.to introduce, discuss and illustrate the concepts which are held responsible for such syntactic phenomena as movement operations within transformations.to analyze the basic types of transformations undergone by the English sentence.These aims are to be achieved by both studying the theoretical part of each and every chapter and by doing the practical applications as suggested by the exercises.

Contents

Chapter 1.The Transformational Level 4Basic Concepts 4Exercises 6Chapter 2. Basic Elementary Operations 72.1. Deletions 72.1.1. Constant Deletion 72.1.2. Identity Deletion 82.1.3. Gapping 82.1.4. Equi-NPDeletion. Control Constructions 102.1.5. Subcategorization of Control Verbs 112.1.6. Exercises 152.2. Insertions 152.2.1. Exercises 172.3. Substitutions 172.3.1. Exercises 192.4. Adjunctions 192.4.1. Exercises 21Chapter 3. Movement Rules 223.1. Raising 223.1.1. Subject-to- Subject Raising 223.1.2. Exercises 243.2. Subject –to –Object Raising 243.2.1. Exercises 283.3. Cleft- Constructions 283.3.1. Exercises 29Chapter 4. Evaluation Test 304.1. Multiple Choice 304.2. True / False 324.3. Answer key 33Glossary of Terms 34References. Recommended Bibliography 35

Chapter 1: The Transformational LevelThe first level of syntactic description is the Phrase Structure (PS) level operating with categories, a lexicon and phrase structure rules based on concatenation (see Dima, 2003b : 71-93 ). The second level of syntactic description is the transformational level whose primitives are Phrase Markers (PMs) upon which elementary operations are performed.

1.1.Basic ConceptsThe concept of transformation is understood as that formal linguistic operation which enables the two levels of structural representation, Deep(D)-Structure and Surface(S)-Structure to be interrelated by a set of movement rules. (see Figure 1.1.)

Figure 1.1.

Technically considered, a transformational rule (T-rule, transformation, transform) consists of a sequence of symbols which is rewritten as another sequence, according to certain conventions. Each T-rule consists of an input, denominated Structural Description (SD), ‘structural analysis’ or ‘structure index’, which defines the class of phrase-markers (PMs) to which the rule can apply; and an output, denominated Structural Change (SC) which refers to the operations involved in applying a T-rule upon the input. As an illustration, consider the phrase-structure tree representations (the PMs) in Figure1.2, resulted after applying T-passive to sentence (1) a :a. They painted the house.b. The house was painted by them.

Figure 1. 2.

The passive transformation illustrated above can be formulated in terms of Aspects-style as it is seen in Figure 1.3.

T-passiveNP1 Aux V NP2

SD 1 2 3 4 SC 4 2+be 3+ed Ø by+1 Figure1. 3.

The general property of transformations is that they are meaning preserving i.e. the deep structure and the surface structure of a sentence are semantically equivalent irrespective of the operations performed. In this respect the meaning of 1.a, an active sentence, has not been changed by applying the passive transformation identified in 1.b. The difference is only formal, involving the movement of the NP occupying the place of the direct object in 1b to that of subject in 1a. The empty place is symbolized by Ǿ in PM2 and the agent is introduced by the preposition by. In order to both revise previously acquired knowledge and understand new concepts and phenomena we have resorted to a synthesis made by Chomsky in connection to the theory of transformational – generative grammar : “ […] a general theory of linguistic levels is developed in an abstract and uniform way , with phrase structure and transformations each constituting a linguistic level. On each level ,markers are constructed that represent a sentence. In particular, derived phrase-markers and T-markers fill this function on the phrase-structure and transformational levels, respectively. Each level is a system of representation in terms of certain primes (elementary atomic symbols of this level ). On the level of phrase-structure, the primes are category and terminal symbols. On the level of transformations, the primes are base phrase markers and transformations. A marker is a string of primes or a set of such strings. Both phrase-markers and transformation-markers can be represented in this way. Levels are organized in a hierarchy , and we may think of the markers of each level as being mapped into the markers of the next lowest level and as representing the lowest level marker ( that is, the phonetic representation […] ),which is associated directly with an actual signal. […]” ( 1969 : 54 ).After clarifying upon the two levels of syntactic description we again resort to Chomsky in order to underline the role played by the transformational rules in relating the dualistic concepts , deep structure and surface structure : “ The general requirement on a syntactic theory is that it define the notions ‘deep structure’ and ‘surface structure’, representing the inputs to the semantic and phonological components of a grammar , respectively […], and state precisely how a syntactic description consisting of a deep and surface structure is generated by the syntactic rules. These requirements are met by the theory outlined above in the following way. […] We take a T-marker to be the deep structure; we take the derived phrase –marker that is the final output of the operations represented in the T-marker to be the surface structure.” (1969 :59 ). The theoretical considerations outlined above are supported by a series of exercises meant to increase students’ awareness of the most important concepts used in transformational –generative grammar.

1.2.Exercises

1. Explain what a PM is and give examples of your own.

2. Specify if true or false :a. Deep Structure is the syntactic level upon which meaning is determined.b. Surface Structure changes the form of the sentence.

3. Draw up the phrase-structure trees for the following sentences and discuss upon the constituents’ structure.a. The blaze of light on her heart was too beautiful and dazzling. b. But the summer drifted in with the silence of a miracle, she was almost always alone.c. The Brangwens received a fair some of money from this trespass across their land.d. The house stood bare from the road , approached by a straight garden path.e. His life was shifting its centre , becoming more superficial.

4 .Apply T-passive to the following sentences by following the model given in Figure 1.2.a. And he closed the door behind her.b. Wendy and Michael fitted their trees at the first try.c. She tied the unhappy dog up again.d. They just tweaked Peter’s nose and passed on.e. The children had discovered the glittering hoard.

Chapter 2 : Basic Elementary Operations

Transformational rules can effect basic elementary operations such as movement, deletion, insertion and substitution. That is a T-rule can move, delete, insert or substitute constituents as represented in basic and derived PMs : “ The function of the transformational rules is to map generalized phrase-markers into derived phrase-markers. If the transformational rules map the generalized phrase-marker MD into the final derived phrase –marker MS of the sentence X , then MD is the deep structure of X and MS is its surface structure” ( Chomsky, 1969 : 69 ). Movement operations reorder or permute the elements of the input PM. When this operation adjoins one of the moving elements to another constituent within the PM, it is called adjunction. Deletions eliminate elements from the input structure. Insertions add new structural elements to the input structure. Substitutions allow the moved category to replace an empty category of the same kind according to the structure-preserving constraint : “[…] which imposes the condition that a CONSTITUENT can be MOVED only into another CATEGORY of the same structural type, which has been independently generated.”( Crystal, 1995: 332 ). Out of all these elementary operations, substitution and adjunction are the basic contributors to a wide range of transformations such as WH-movement, NP movement, V-movement , raising, extraposition , etc.In this chapter we introduce and analyze deletions, substitutions, insertions and adjunctions. In the next chapter we shall consider other transformations, such as , raising and clefts.

2.1. Deletions

Deletions eliminate a constituent of an input PM which must specify the elements to be deleted, while its effects must be clearly indicated in the output PM. All deletions must be recoverable, i.e. if something is deleted from a sequence it always has to be possible to tell what that something was: “Deletion is a structure-destroying operation subject to a recoverability condition, which prohibits the elimination of information from a phrase marker that cannot be reconstructed from what remains after the operation.”( Freidin,in Brown & Miller, 2005: 122). Depending upon the approach, we can speak of several types of deletions : constant deletion, identity deletion, equi- NP deletion. 2.1.1.Constant Deletion

In classical TG, constant deletion is accounted for imperative sentences following the rule : “ Given a sentence whose first element is IMP(erative), followed by the word ‘you’ and a VP, you must delete the word ‘you’”.The phrase-structure trees illustrating this rule are seen in Figure 2.1. with reference to sentence (1).

Run !

Figure 2.1.

Imperative construction is a coding property , universally targeting subjects. In this construction the second –person subject is interpreted as the addressee in a speech-act( SA ) indexing a declarative affirmative sentence as represented in the PMs in Figure 2.1. The element PRO is omitted under constant deletion.

2.1.2. Identity Deletion

In identity deletion recoverability is insured by the condition that the surface structure must contain an element identical to the element deleted from the deep structure. For example, there is the rule of VP-deletion, which will apply to derive sentence 2b from 2a as formalized in (2) in the labeled .bracketed representations following the sentences.

(2)SS a. Susan drank juice and Doris drank coffee. DS b. Susan drank juice and Doris – coffee.

[S[NP[NSusan]][VP[Vdrank][NP[Njuice]]]]and[S[NP[NDoris]][VP[Vdrank][NP[Ncoffee]]]] [S[NP[NSusan]] [VP[Vdrank][NP[Njuice]]]] and [S[NP[NDoris]][VP[VØ][NP[Ncoffee]]]]

Every native speaker of English knows that the sentence Susan drank juice and Doris coffee can only mean that the two subjects performed the activity of drinking, (e.g. Susan drank juice and Doris drank coffee) and thus the deletion is recoverable. This rule cannot apply to a SS sentence like Susan drank juice and Doris made coffee, because deletion of made would immediately change the meaning. We cannot interpret Susan drank juice and Doris coffee to mean Susan drank juice and Doris made coffee under no circumstances whatsoever. Cornilescu 1995 supports the idea that the effect of deleting certain lexical material follows from the optionality of lexical insertion such as the case of complementizers deletion ,e.g. We hope that the weather will be fine /vs/ We hope the weather will be fine .

2.1.3. Gapping

If the deleted constituents are not recoverable, there would come out a change of meaning with the violation of the recoverability condition as exemplified in (3).(3).a. Mary watered the flowers and John watered the drinks. b. Mary watered the flowers and John the drinks.The simple reading of sentence 3a proves the violation of the recoverability condition by a disregard of selectional restrictions rules. The meaning of water in the second clause to dilute is different from its meaning in the first clause which is to nourish and the deletion operated in 3b brings about a humorous effect. This type of deletion has been called gapping. Such contexts as provided by the sentences under (3) and (4) can first elude the listener into a perfect understanding of the message, followed by an immediate non-understanding transposed into amazement and laughter : (4) a. Mr Brown took his hat and his leave. b. All the girls were in tears and in muslin. c. He was in high feather and spirits. d. The young lady went straight home in a roar of laughter and a sedan chair. Gapping is a sentence-bound ellipsis and its functional province is the interface between the syntax, semantics and the information structure of ellipsis. As a syntactic phenomenon ‘gapping’ was first proposed by Ross (1967 b) with reference to the Complex NP - Constraint and Coordinate Structure Constraint and it has been succeedingly treated under various headings : VP – Anaphora ( Jackendoff, 1972 ); Derived Conjunction ( Stockwell, Schachter, Partee, 1973 ); Deletion ( Sag, 1977; Tancredi, 1992); Coreference and the Complement System ( Jackendoff, 1972, Reinhart, 1983 ); Coordination (Cornilescu, 1986); the Phonological Deletion Account ( Chomsky, 1995); Ellipsis ( Radford, 1992; Hardt, 1993; Lobeck, 1995; Johnson, 2001; Winkler, in Brown, 2006). The characteristic feature of gapping is the ‘parallelism requirement’ (Winkler, 2006) according to which it must occur in coordinate structures and must trigger a contrastive relationship between the remnants and their antecedents, as seen under (5):Doris speaks German and Ann [ VP[v speaks ] Japanese]. Violation of this requirement leads to anomalous sentences as shown under (3) and (4), thus creating puns. As a semantic phenomenon gapping focuses on selectional restrictions imposed upon by the semantics of the verb in the first conjunct of the examples under (4): a. take b. be c. be d. go. The verbs quoted operate at the level of the sentence both as single word forms and as multi-word forms as represented under (6): (6) - single verb form + D.O. => denotative meaning a. first conjunct : took his hat - single verb form + Adjunct => denotative meaning b. second conjunct : Ø (were) in white muslin. c. Ø (went straight home in ) a sedan chair - multi-word form => figurative meaning b. first conjunct : were in tears => sad/depressed

c. first conjunct : was in high feather => elegantly dressed second conjunct : Ø (was in high) spirits => very energetic and joyful d. first conjunct : went straight home in a roar of laughter => highly amused Violation of the selectional restrictions concerning the matching of the semantic features [ ± abstract ], [ ± concrete ] of the verb and its modifiers leads to obtaining humorous effects as previously demonstrated.

2.1.4. Equi- NP-Deletion. Control Constructions.

Equi-NP-deletion is another example of identity deletion. It is an obligatory rule in classical TG, which deletes an NP from a complement clause in a sentence when it is identical in meaning (=co-referential) with another NP in the main clause of the same sentence. (1) a. DS: the children [VP tried [the children to solve the exercise]] SS: the children [VP tried [to solve the exercise]] b. DS: the guide [VP persuaded the tourists [the tourists to greet the welcomers]] SS: the guide [VP persuaded the tourists [to greet the welcomers]]In the examples, the subject of the embedded infinitival complement is paired with an equivalent subject NP (1)a or object NP (1)b in the matrix clause, followed by the deletion of the lower rank (i.e. infinitival) subject at SS under identity with its higher rank counterpart. Rosenbaum 1967 argues that sentential complementation is achieved by common transformations such as complementizer specification or deletion of subjects, by complement meaning ‘an S introduced into the structure as right sister of some head item’ as represented in (2):

In what concerns infinitival complementation he distinguishes between intransitive and transitive VP-COMP as shown by the derivational trees in (3) a,b as reproduced from Stockwell, Schachter, Partee (1973:54):(3) a. Intransitive VP-Complementation e.g. The doctor condescended to examine John.

b) Transitive VP-Complementation e.g. They commanded the doctor to examine John.

. In both cases the

NP subject of the infinitival complement has been deleted on co-referentiality condition (4):(4)a.[S[NP1Thedoctor][VP[V condescended][S [NP1 the doctor][VP to examine John]]]]

NPS

AUX PRED

ADV

V S

They commanded the doctor to examine John.

NP

NP1T-Deletion

= > [S[NP1The doctor][VP[V condescended][S [NP1O][VP to examine John]]]]b. [S [NP1They][VP[Vcommanded][NP2the doctor][S [NP2 the doctor] [VP to examineJohn]]]]

=> [S [NP1 They][VP [V commanded][S [NP2the doctor][s[ NP2Ø[ VP to examine John]]]] Stockwell, Schachter, Partee emphasize the role played by the recoverability principle in the case of NP deletion in sentential complements as one way of avoiding sentence ambiguity: “It is a general principle of transformational theory that deletions in the course of a derivation must be recoverable. Otherwise an ambiguous sentence whose derivation included a deletion could have an infinite number of different sources. The kind of deletion that commonly occurs in complement structures is erasure under an identity condition: e.g. for a whole host of reasons the deep structure of a sentence like He tried to leave is assumed to contain two occurrences of the subject he: He tried + He AUX leave. The subject of the embedded sentence is erased by the higher identical subject in this instance” (1973:533)In later approaches, this transformation was eliminated and referred to as control sentences. In GB Theory, the missing subject is analysed as PRO. Thus, it was Chomsky 1973 who replaced EQUI by PRO, a null pronominal generated as the subject of the infinitival complement clause in the underlying structure and interpreted by co-indexation with the controller in the matrix clause as seen in the examples under (5):(5) a. the childreni tried [PROi to solve the exercise] b. the guide persuaded the touristsi [PROi to greet the welcomers] The NP Subject in (5)a or the NP Direct Object in (5)b is said to control the PROi in the infinitival clause thus establishing a causal relationship between controller and controlled in performing the action, type of relationship much discussed in the literature, both along syntactic and semantic coordinates .

2.1.5. Subcategorization of Control Verbs

‘Control propensity’ of verbs has been at the core of the majority of studies elaborated within various syntactic approaches including Government and Binding Theory (GB), Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG), Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG), Unification Construction Grammar (UCG), as Dubinsky and Davies rightly acknowledge: “The PRO analysis of control was strengthened and extended to all cases of control in GB and is currently the most widely accepted analysis in derivational approaches to syntax” (2006:135). ‘ Control’ is a lexically governed construction and it is particularly determined by the nature of the matrix verb and ‘the potential for reference of some abstract pronominal element PRO ‘:”[…] a PRO which is the subject of an embedded infinitive clause is said to be under the ‘control’ of the main clause subject (its controller) after a verb like promise e.g. I1 promised John PRO1 to go, but after a verb like persuade it is controlled by the object of that verb (it is ‘non-subject controlled’), e.g. I persuaded John2 PRO2 to go” (Crystal, 1995:82).Crystal’s definition of control puts forth the task of elucidating the following questions raised within ‘control’ theory:(1) a. controlling |vs| controlled items/positions in a sentence b. the nature of the relation holding between PRO and its controller c.‘control’ typology d. control verbs subcategorizationBoth former and present approaches to control theory debate over control verb typology (Chomsky and Lasnik ,1977; Bresnan ,1978; Chomsky ,1980; Cornilescu ,1986, 2003; Farkas ,1988; Dubinsky and Davies, 2006, among others) distinguishing between verbs of obligatory control and verbs of non-obligatory control. Further subcategories are schematized in Cornilescu .

Figure 2. The dichotomy between obligatory and non-obligatory or optional control can be retrieved by analyzing the selective verb subcategorization in

Obligatory Non-obligatory (Optional)

Exhaustive Partial Long Distance Arbitrary

Control

NP2T-Deletion

(3) where we focus both on the type of controller i.e. subject or object and on whether coreference between controller and PRO is obligatory or optional. Table 2.1.

VerbController Control

ContextualizationSubject Object Obligatory

Optional

wait + - - + e.g. I’m waiting to use the phone / for John to come.

pray + - - + e.g. The old man prayed to leave / for John to come.

hope + - - + e.g. I hope to come / for Mary to come.

decide + - - + e.g. They decided to move out / we should stay.

try + - + - e.g. Mary tried to open the door (but she couldn’t).

learn + - + - e.g. The little girl learnt to ski very quickly.

condescend + - + - e.g. The lawyer condescended to listen to his client.

permit - + + - e.g. John permitted Bill to come.

persuade - + + - e.g. Mother persuaded her child to have some rest.

force - + + - e.g. The commander forced his troops to march on.

promise + - + - e.g. They promised to fetch the car back.

agree (with NP)

+ - + - e.g. Mary agreed to write back / with John to write back.

learn (from NP)

+ - + - e.g. They learnt to skate / from Bill to skate.

get +/- +/- + - e.g. The teacher got to leave / the students to leave.

bother - + - + e.g. (For Bill) To leave so early would bother everybody.

In the table, optional control is assigned to such verbs as wait , pray, hope, decide, and bother indicating non-obligatory co-reference between NP matrix controller and the infinitival PRO , phenomenon realized at the syntactic level by the use of the for-to construction or the subjunctive with that-deletion. Obligatory control is assigned to such verbs as try, condescend, permit, persuade, force, and get emphasizing the matrix NP controller’s full authority over the infinitival PRO (i.e. absolute co-reference).Control verb subcategorization can be achieved on the basis of the semantics of the matrix verb, the syntactic function of the infinitive clause and the pragmatic information being centered on shift in authority. Consider the sentences in (4):(4) a. Mr. Brown intends to withdraw from the race. b. I decided to move house. c. They planned to take a trip to Cyprus. d. The boy tried to climb up the tree. e. She hopes to get much more money. f. He hates to stay indoors for a longer period of time. An interpretation in terms of semantic roles will lead to the argument structure of affected and an S-theme where a situation or event, actual or potential starts from, and further impinges on some entity as represented in (5) :

One group of control verbs that can particularly fulfill the conditions specified above is the class of attitudinal predicates which are discussed in Dima (2003a:78-84). We suggest subclasses of attitudinal predicates / VPs whose head allows either obligatory (OC) or optional control (OpC) .The verbs tabulated in (7) enter control constructions having the surface string NP-V-(-NP)-to-VP and can be assigned the prototypical argument structure given in (6) and contextualized in (4) above.

(7)Attitudinal Predicates / VPs[V]

Prospective

Intent DecisionPrepara-tion

AttemptReliance onanother

Desire/lack ofdesire

aim->OCintend->OCmean->OC

choose->OpCdecide->OpC determine-OpCelect->OpC

plan->OpCprepare-OpC arrange-OpC

attempt->OCtry->OCstrive->OCseek->OCendeavour->OCundertake->OCventure->OC

count on- >OpCdepend on->OpCrely-on->OpC

want->OCwish->OpCdesire->OpCexpect-OpChope->OPC

Attitudinal Predicates / VPs[V]NeutralLiking Dislikinglike->OClove->OCprefer->OC

dislike->OC hate->OC detest->OC

Table 2.2.

intend/decide/plan/try/hope/hate

affected S-theme

Mr. BrownI

TheyBoySheHe

agent predicate

Mr. BrownI

TheyBoySheHe

withdrawmovetake

climb uphopehate

The argument structure suggested here pushes the analysis to a more abstract level of message decoding. The NP controller has undergone a shift in authority by having been attributed the role of affected due to some favorable or unfavorable circumstances pertaining to the event or situation denoted by the predication in the S-theme. Our proposal does not in any way contradicts Agent-PRO co-referentiality typical of controllability, but it is rather another contribution to the subject. Either prospective, dealing with proceedings to perform future actions of the type intent, decision, preparation, attempt, reliance on another, desire or lack of desire, or neutral, expressing subjective evaluation of actions to perform, the semantics of attitudinal verbs as a subcategory of English control verbs can be developed on both coordinates.

2.1.6. Exercises

1.Define deletion and exemplify cases of deletion.

2 .Identify the type of deletion in the following sentences:a. Mary planted roses and Jessica forget-me-nots.b. The children wrote letters and their parents invitations.c. I have read all morning.d. She said she would come later.e. They tried to open the door.

3.Describe the changes in meaning due to gapping:a. Disco was working in all his shore dignity and a pair of beautiful carpet slippers.b. The fat boy went into the next room ; and having been absent about a minute , returned with the snuff-box and the palest face that ever a fat boy wore.c. A young girl who had a yellow smock and a cold in the head that did not go on too well together, was helping an old lady.d. Mr. Smangle was still engaged in relating a long story , the chief point of which appeared that , on some occasion particularly stated and set forth , he had “done” a bill and a gentleman at the same time.e. Sophia lay between blankets in the room overhead with a feverish cold. This cold and her new dress were Mrs. Baine’s sole consolation at the moment.

4. Define PRO and the phenomenon of control by resorting to the information contained within the course.

5. Comment upon “control typology “in the following contextualizations:a. She’s waiting to take a cab / for the cab to co.me.b. The commander condescended to listen to his troop’s demands.c. The little child tried to climb up the tree (but he couldn’t).d. The old woman prayed to be healthy / for her relatives to take care of her. te. The committee agreed to change the regulations / with the president to change the regulations .

2.2. Insertions

Insertions are syntactic operations which introduce a new structural element to the input PM without any change in meaning, since transformations are meaning-preserving. It follows that the only type of element that can be inserted by a T-rule is a meaningless one. Specific types of insertion are: do-insertion, negative-insertion, there-insertion, lexical insertion (which inserts lexical items at particular places in grammatical structures) as exemplified in paired-sentences under(1).

(1). a. They go skiing every winter. a’. Do they go skiing every winter? b. She will come early tonight. b’. She will not come early tonight.A cat was in the box.c’ There was a cat in the box.Bill grows carrots. d’. Bill grows tired.

The paired–sentence 1c is an example of there-insertion and it is described in Figure 2.2.

T-There-insertion

Figure 2.2.

In order to get there insertion, NP movement has become obligatory, by moving the NP a cat from its initial position to a lower position under the VP. There -insertion has been applied by filling up the empty place under the initial NP in PM2.Insertion rules are ordinarily obligatory rules.

2.2.1. Exercises

1. Define insertion and illustrate its typology.

2. Identify cases of insertion in the following sentences. Represent them by using derivational PMs.a. There was a turkey in the courtyard. b. You are not proud of yourself.c. Do you like sending postcards ?d. That I had lost the ticket offended Jessica.

2.3. Substitutions

.Since no T-rule is allowed to change meaning, substitution rules can only replace an element with one having an identical meaning : “ Substitution is a structure-preserving operation which replaces one category( phrasal projection or head ) with a corresponding category under a condition of non -distinctness that essentially prohibits the operation from eliminating information from the phrase marker to which it applies.”(Freidin in Brown, 2005: 122). Substitution is at the base of various types of movement transformations out of which we here specify : V-movement which moves V out of VP into an empty finite I ; I movement which moves an I containing an Auxiliary into an empty C; NP movement which moves an NP into an empty NP position , etc. In this chapter we shall treat substitution only from the classical TG point of view , anticipating the discussion in the next chapter. In classical transformational grammar, substitution rules are pronominalization rules which replace a lexical NP with a pronoun , since only pronouns can meet this criterion (that is, you cannot use a substitution rule to substitute “unmarried woman” for “spinster”. The meanings are very close, but not identical).

PRONOMINALIZATION can be best described as a feature-matching operation, which substitutes one of a set of forms called pronouns for NPs with identical features. So, if you have two instances of John in a sentence, you may substitute he for one of them because both John and he have the features contained in the matrix under (1) :

(1) + male+ singular+ human+ subject

This process will derive sentence 2b from 2a as represented in Figure 2.3.

(2) a. ≠ Johni said that Johni was sick. ≠ b. John said that he was sick.

Remark:: [i, j] are called subscripts: when two instances of John in some sentence are marked Johni and Johnj they refer to some individual; if marked Johni and Johnj do not refer to the same individual, but to John Smith and John Jones, etc.]

Figure 2.3.

The rule of PRONOMINALIZATION operates in English under strict constraints. From a practical point of view, the rules must operate from left to right, so that the derivation shown in sentence (3) is allowed, but that in (4) is forbidden. Sentence (4) b cannot be derived from (4) a.

(3) a. ≠ Maryi reported that Maryi had lost the ball ≠ b. Mary reported that she had lost the ball.(4) a. ≠ Maryi reported that Maryj has lost the ball. b. *She reported that Mary had lost the ball.

In another example e.g. She said that Mary was sick the words she and Mary have to refer to different individuals. In Mary said that she was sick, on the other hand, Mary and she may be the same individual, although they do not have to be.

Some substitution rules are special cases of PRONOMINALIZATION. We here mention the REFLEXIVE rule which introduces reflexive pronouns into sentences by changing the syntactic feature on the object personal pronoun from [ - reflexive ] to [+reflexive] when it is co-referential with the subject. As an illustration consider the derivation under (5) and its tree-representation in Figure 2.4.

(5) a. ≠ John shaved him. ≠ b. John shaved himself.

Figure 2.4.

Another substitution rule is that of do-so pronominalisation which derives example (7) from (6).

(6) ≠ John picked up the ball and Mary picked up the ball, too. ≠(7) John picked up the ball and Mary did so, too..

In GOVERNMENT-BINDING theory NP- traces, PRO and reflexives are base-generated anaphors, a class of NPs .

2.3.1. Exercises

1. Define substitution . Give examples.

2. Explain why pronominalization can be described as a feature-matching operation.

3. Make changes so that the following sentences should contain cases of substitution.a. Mary claimed that Susan had fooled her.b. Tom saw Lily in the mirror.c. Leslie talked about her mother.d. Brenda said that she was in the blues.e. Paul read a book and his daughter read a book, too.

2.4. Adjunctions

Adjunctions are basic syntactic operations referring to a rule which places certain elements of structure in adjacent positions, with the aim of specifying how these structures fit together in larger units (Crystal, 1995). In other words, adjunction involves the moved category replacing an empty category of the same kind in accordance with the STRUCTURE-PRESERVING CONSTRAINT imposing the condition that a constituent can be moved only into another category of the same structural type, which has been independently generated. According to Freidin : “ Adjunction is a structure- building operation[… ] it creates new hierarchical structure in a phrase marker.” ( in Brown, 2005: 122).

Adjunctions have several sub-directives indicating the placement of the adjoined term. In classical TG, several types of adjunctions were recognized: sister-adjunction, daughter-adjunction, Chomsky’s adjunction .Daughter-adjunction is a type of derivation whereby some constituent is adjoined in such a way as to become a daughter of another constituent, e.g. in one derivation of the VP, be and its past participle marker are adjoined as daughters of Aux ( auxiliary ) ( see Figure 2.5)Sister-adjunction is a type of adjunction in Generative Grammar in which two elements are adjoined under a node as sister constituents of the node (see Figure 2.5.).Chomsky’s adjunction is a special type of adjunction which involves a copying of the node to which another node is being adjoined, i.e. Chomsky-adjoin B as right daughter of A (see Figure 2.5.)

Figure 2.5.

The Aspects-rule which we have used to represent the passive transformation in Chapter 1 is now useful in formalizing adjunction:(1) SD : NP1 – Aux – V – NP2 SC : NP2 – Aux+ be +en – V- by + NP1The relative positions of the two NPs are interchanged , the morpheme by is adjoined to the left of NP1 in its new position and the morphemes be and en are adjoined to the right of Aux : by is linked to the agent complement NP(the former subject) by a copy of the NP being made on the level above the original NP, which copy dominates both by and the agent and is sister-adjoined to the VP.Another illustration of Chomsky’s adjunction is provided by the contexts under (2) and the representation of the derivation in Figure 2.6.(2) a. Boys come with flowers. b. ≠ Boys with flowers come with flowers ≠

Adjunction is responsible for such transformational rules as extraposition which adjoins a PP or CP ( S-bar ) to the minimal XP containing the Phrase out of which it moves (see Dima , 2003b). Freidin is of the opinion that “ In terms of X-bar structure, adjunction sites appear to be limited to maximal phrasal projections, and in particular those which are not complements to the major lexical heads (N,V, A and P). Example (15) illustrates an adjunction which results in the movement of a relative clause (CP) while example (16) shows the effects of an adjunction which inserts a grammatical formative (s’) into a phrase- marker. (15) [ N Pan article on string theory CPi] [VP[VP just appeared] [CPi which. I want to read]] (16) [NP[NP the [N philosopher[PP[P from[NP[N Princeton]]]s’] beard.” ( in Brown, 2005: 123 )Adjunction like substitution, can be used to perform insertion as well as movement.

2.4.1. Exercises

1. Define and illustrate adjunction. 2. Explain the Structure-Preserving – Constraint. 3 .Identify sister-adjunction, daughter-adjunction or Chomsky’s adjunction in in the following sentences:A young woman has just entered with a tall, feathered hat.Their house has just been redecorated.The tourists longed for their homes whose trip got to a final sightseeing tour.

Chapter 3. Movement Rules

3.1. Raising Raising rules operate on infinitive clause subjects or objects. According to Postal (1974), raising is a rule

that moves the subject of an embedded clause into the MC where it becomes the subject of the MC (for intransitive verbs) or the DO or the MC (for transitive verbs). The former case is studied under the heading Subject-to-Subject Raising (SSR) whereas the latter is studied under the heading Subject-to-Object Raising (SOR). In the literature, raising has been discussed in contrast with control constructions (e.g. Dubinsky and Davies, in Brown, 2006), being lexically governed constructions and having identical surface strings NP- V(-NP)-to-VP. There are still some features that distinguishes one from the other. a. In raising constructions there is an overt NP which is syntactically disconnected from the element that assigns it its semantic role. (1). a. The little girl seemed to understand the story. b. She expected everybody to buy the products.In 1a, the little girl is the semantic subject of understand and the syntactic subject of seem while in 1b everybody is the semantic subject of buy, but the syntactic object of expect . b. When the infinitival complement clause is passive it becomes synonymous with the active one under raising. (2). a.The mother seemed to have forgotten the child outdoors. b. The child seemed to have been forgotten outdoors by the mother.c. In raising, the selectional restrictions of embedded predicates affect the well-formedness of the sentence ( see examples under( 3)).(3) a. The statue seems to be porcelain. b.*The statue seems to look over the matter. In 1b, the semantics of the verb look asks for a [+ human ] subject so there is a violation of selectional rules.In the subchapters to follow we present a subcategorization of verbs which allow either subject-to –subject or subject-to –object raising in English.

3.1.1. Subject-to –Subject Raising

Subject-to –subject raising is a behavioral property of subjects in complex sentences in English (see Dima b, 2003 ). The listing below is meant to subcategorize verbs which trigger SSR and to graphically represent the way this transformation changes the structure of the input PM1. The derived sentence (output) PM2 is paired with the input PM1. a.The first category of SSR triggers includes a(ppear) verbs/ adjectives (Postal 1974) such as : appear, seem, chance, happen, turn out; likely, unlikely, sure, certain. Contextualizations are provided in (4).(4)a. It seems that Melvin speaks fluent Japanese ( see Figure 3.1) a’. Melvin seems to speak fluent Japanese. b. It turns out that nobody has experienced that dilemma. b’. Nobody turns out to have experienced that dilemma. c. It is sure that Mary will win the competition (see Figure 3.2) c’. Mary is sure to win the competition.

b. The second category of SSR triggers is provided by aspectual verbs: begin, continue, commence, start, stop, etc. Contextualizations are provided in (5).(5) a. The noise began to annoy John ( see Figure 3.3.) a’. John began to be annoyed by the noise. b. They stopped to greet their neighbors. b’. Their neighbors stopped to be greeted by them.

c. The third category of SSR includes the constructions had better / had best (+ short infinitive).(6) There had better be no flows in your argument.

d. The fourth category of SSR triggers includes be + adjective combinations: be about to; be bound to; be apt to; be going t;, be set to:(7) a. She is about to cry.( Figure 3.4. ) b. It is going to rain. c. Little headway is apt to be made on that problem.

3.1.2. Exercises1. Identify the concept of subject -to- subject raising and provide example sentences in which it occurs.2. Provide examples of SSR triggers in sentences of your own.3. Draw the trees for the base forms of the following sentences. Show how surface structures are produced.It happened that Mary had won the competition.It appears that the weather is changing.It is unlikely that the bridge will be built.The rain began to annoy everybody.She is bound to deliver the goods earlier.It looks like our car is going to break down.

3.2. Subject-to -Object Raising

Subject-to-object raising is a behavioral property of direct objects in complex sentences in English (see Dima , 2003 b ). The subcategorization presented below includes various classes of verbs, triggers of SOR. Contextualizations and graphical representations follow the listing of the verbs . The input PM1 is paired with the output PM2 after applying the transformation. a. Verbs of propositional attitude, with a human Subject and a propositional DO in the DS. (i) account, assert, admit, assume, believe, consider, imagine, understand, think, guess, suppose etc.

(1) a. He asserted that the charge was incorrect. a’.He asserted the charge to be incorrect ( see Figure 3.5.) b. He imagined himself that he was sought after by the English. b’ He imagined himself (to) be sought after by the English ( see Figure3.5. c. They admitted that the task was difficult. c’. They admitted the task to be difficult. d . I know that he is a fool. d’. I know him to be a fool.

(ii) acknowledge, affirm, attest, conclude, deny, pronounce(2) a. He concluded that she was a witch. a’ He concluded her to be a witch. (Figure3. 6) b. He attested that this was the same which had been taken from him. b’ He attested this to be the same which had been taken from him.

(iii) say, rumour, estimate, certify, deduce, discern etc.(3) a. They say that she is the apple of his eyes. a’. She is said to be the apple of his eyes.( Figure 3.7.) b. They certified that he was the best in the team. b’. He was certified to be the best in the team.

b. Causative Verbs(i) cause, set, occasion, necessitate, get,have

(ii) make, let, have (+ short infinitive)(iii) verbs of negative causation: prevent, stop (4). I had my tooth extracted.

Figure 3. 8.

c. Illocutionary Verbs of Permission and Commandallow, bid, beg, ask, comment, dictate, direct, forbid, instruct, order, permit, prescribe. Contextualizations and the transformational cycle are taken from Cornilescu 1986 : 285.(5) a. I allowed John to interrogate the witness. a’. I allowed the witness to be interrogated by John.( Figure 3. 9.) b. I forbid John to visit you. b’. I forbid you to be visited by John.

d. Verbs of liking and dislikinglike, love, prefer, want, wish, desire, need, expect, mean, intend, prefer, choose(6) a. I’d like you to come earlier. b. I didn’t expect that to happen. c. I want someone to redecorate the house.Figure (3.10.)

e) Verbs of physical perceptionsee, hear, listen to, watch, feel, find, perceive, note, notice, observe(7) a. We saw John cross the street.( see Figure 3.11.) b. I noticed them walk across the lane.

3.2.1. Exercises1. Identify the concept of raising - to- object and provide example sentences in which it occurs.2. Give examples of SOR triggers in sentences of your own.3. Draw trees for the base forms of the following sentences and show how surface structures are produced :a. The captain ordered the soldiers to march on.b. The old man believed the street to be empty.c. She denied his behavior to be of a good common sense. d. The bear is said to have left the circus.e. Dark caused them to stumble and fall down.f. I’d prefer you to play Cinderella’s part.g. The girls watched the swans fly over the river.h. The teacher didn’t mean the pupils to read the whole story.i. I have never expected her to run away from home.j . I’d like you to get yourself a job. 3.3. Cleft – Constructions

Cleft sentences are specific constructions which give certain prominence or focus to a particular element of a sentence; they are called “cleft” because they seem to divide a single clause into two separate parts, each with its verb. There are at least two basic types of cleft-constructions in English : wh-clefts and it-clefts.

Cleft analysis assumes that the focus constituent is initially in a non- cleft sentence, from where it is extracted by means of the cleft transformation (Cornilescu, 1986). Sentences b-c under (1) are cleft sentences:(1) a. Mary fed her dog.( Figure 3. 12.) b. What Mary fed was her dog. c. It was her dog that Mary fed.

3.3.1. Exercises1.Define cleft-constructions and provide examples of your own. 2. Comment upon the focused constituent in the following sentences.It’ s in the library that I prefer studying.It’s happiness that Mary wants.What she said was that we shouldn’t leave the house.Where we lost the key was in the cupboard.It might be Ben who stole the car.

Chapter 4. Evaluation Test

4.1 . Multiple Choice

1.Transformations are : a .set of movement rules; b. objects; c.subordinate clauses.

2.SD defines : a. the speaker ‘s performance; b. the class of PMs to which the rule can apply ; c. passive voice

3.SC refers to:a.the subject;b.meaning;c.the operations involved in applying a T-rule upon the input. 4.Deletions consist in : a. eliminating a constituent of an input PM;b.adding complements;c. grammaticalization

5.Substitution rules are… rules.a. pronominalizationb.passivec.small

6.Pronominalization operates in English from :a.left to right;b. right to left;c.both directions.

7.Adjunctions places certain sentential elements in :a.adjacent positions;b.higher positions;c.lower positions.

8.Chomsky’s adjunction involves :a.reflexivization;b.a copying of the node to which another node is being adjoined c.substitution

9.Raising rules are :a.interrogativesb.deletionsc.NP movements

10.Raising operates on :a.infinitival clause subjectsb.infinitival clause objectsc.attributes

11.SSR moves the … of an EC into the MC where it becomes subject.a.objectb.prepositional objectc.subject

12.SOR moves the subject of an EC into the MC where it becomes … .a.nounb.passivec.object

13.Seem, appear, happen are :a.factive verbsb.SSR triggersc.SOR triggers

14.Likely , sure , certain are :a.verbsb.adverbials c.SSR triggers

15.In the sentence John began to be annoyed by the noise, begin is a :a. SOR triggerb. verb of propositional attitudec. SSR trigger16.The sentence They admitted the task to be difficult , contains a SOR trigger, the verb :a.admittedb.taskc.difficult

17. Believe, consider, imagine, understand, guess are :a. SSR;b. SOR; c. clefts

18. Acknowledge, affirm, attest, conclude are … triggers.a. SOR;b. imperatives;c. optional

19. In the sentence I allowed the witness to be interrogated by John, allowed is :a. a SOR triggerb. an NPc. a verb of movement

20. Verbs of physical perception are :a. SSR triggersb. SOR triggersc. obligatory

21. Indicate which transformations have occurred in the case of the following string: The big stately nut-tree was noticed by the tourists from the distance.a. SOR. Passivization

b. SSR c. That-deletion

22. Indicate which transformation has occurred in the case of the following string : John seemed to be in a blue mood.a. SORb. SSRc. Insertion

23. Which of the following is a cleft sentence :a. What Mary saw was a falling star.b. What are you doing here at this time of the day?c. Why don’t you try something else ?

24. The sentence It was Jim who made the reservations is a/an :a. it-cleftb. wh-cleftc. adjunction

25. Clefts are … constructions :a. extractionb. objectivec. passive

4.2. True / False

A T-rule consists of a sequence of symbols which is rewritten as another sequence , according to certain conventions.Transformations are meaning-preserving.Deletions are not recoverable.Equi-NP deletion is an identity deletion.Imperative deletion is a substitution operation.In constant deletion the constituent to be deleted is actually mentioned in the rule. 7. The element inserted by a T-rule is a meaningful one.

Pronominalization substitutes one of a set of forms called pronouns for VPs with identical features.The reflexive rule applies only when the coreferential NPs occur in the same sentence and are subjects and objects of the same verb.Adjunction operates under the structure-preserving constraint.Chomsky’s adjunction involves the deletion of the node to which another node is being adjoined.Verbs of propositional attitude with a human subject and a propositional DO in the DS are SSR triggers.Causative verbs such as cause, set, necessitate,get are SOR triggers.Cleft sentences are specific constructions which give certain prominence or focus to a particular element of a sentence.Clefting presupposes that the focus constituent occurs initially in a cleft sentence.

4.3. Answer Key

Multiple Choice

1a ; 2b ; 3c; 4a; 5a; 6a; 7a; 8b; 9c; 10a,b; 11c; 12c; 13b; 14c; 15c; 16a; 17b;18a; 19a; 20b; 21a; 22b; 23a; 24a; 25a.

True / False

1 T; 2 T; 3 F; 4 T; 5 F; 6 T; 7 F; 8 F; 9 T; 10 T; 11 F; 12 F; 13 T; 14 T; 15 F.

Glossary of Terms

ambiguity the condition whereby any linguistic form has two or more interpretationsanomalous sentence a meaningless sequence of words which deviates from the rules for sentence formationco-indexation in GG, the process of marking the identity of constituents (e.g. in the deep structure of a sentence) by using subscript letters or numbers complement a functional label which denotes a constituent whose presence is required by a verb, noun, adjective or prepositionconjunct a conjoined element (e.g. in TG, conjoining transformation)constituent a string of words which syntactically behaves as a unit , part of a larger linguistic constructiondeep structure in TG , the abstract , underlying representation of a sentence specifying the syntactic facts upon which meaning interpretation is applied derived structure in GG, an output phrase-marker resulting after the application of a transformational ruleellipsis omission of a part of a sentence structureembed (-ing /-ed) in GG, a process or construction where one sentence is included (‘ embedded’) into another, i.e. traditionally, in syntactic subordinationextraposition a movement rule or transformation involving adjunction, e .g. a PP moved out of a NP and attached to the end of the clausegapping the omission of an identical part in coordinate clauseslexicon the lexical component of a generative grammar , containing morphological, syntactic and semantic specifications

movement in TG , a basic type of transformation which moves a constituent from one part of a phrase-marker to another; a constituency testphrase- structure (PS) level the level of sentence constituency structureprimitive a concept which refers to axiomatic terms (i.e.’ true’, ‘given’,’basic)’ used in the description of various linguistic theories ( e.g. grammars)recoverability a term which takes into account the retrieving of elements which have been deleted by means of the linguistic contextselectional restriction a semantic feature specifying a restriction on the collocations of lexical items, e.g. learn generally has a human subjectsurface structure in TG, the stage in the derivation of a sentence that occurs after applying transformational rules and which constitutes the input for the phonological component.