NP MovementNP Movement
Passives, Raising: When NPs are not in their theta positions.
Locality restriction on theta rolesLocality restriction on theta roles
• Leave (obligatory agent)agent
i
• Adrian left
• Jo left her pencil
• *it left (where it is an expletive)
• Must be in same clause• *Johni thinks [that left]
• In particular can't mean: Johni thinks he
i left.
Locality Condition on Theta RolesLocality Condition on Theta Roles
• Theta roles must be assigned within the clause same clause as the predicate that assigns them.
A ProblemA Problem
• [Johni is likely [ to leave]].
• John is the subject of is likely.
• Is it theta marked by is likely????– NO! (cf. it is like that John left)– more arguments for this later
• It is theta marked by leave!!!
• But it isn’t in the same clause! Yikes!
is likelyis likely
– [[That John will leave]j is likely ]
– It is likely [that John will leave]j
Proposition
j
it is likely [CP that john will leave ]
No theta role on the subject of ‘is likely’
In the wrong place!In the wrong place!
• John is likely to leave
• John is theta marked by leave, but appears in the subject position of is likely, in violation of the locality constraint.
• The NP [John] is displaced from its theta position.
CP
C’
C TP
T’
T AP
A’
A CP
Ø
likely
is
C’
C TP
T’Ø
to VPJohn
leave
John gets its theta role in the specifier of the lower TP, but moves to the specifier of the higher TP.
This is called Raising
WHY???WHY???
• Well one thing we can observe, is the EPP holds. (the requirement that every sentence have a subject). The NP John moves to satisfy this requirement.
• This doesn’t account for examples like – *John is likely [that left]. – *It is likely John to leave.– Hmm. Movement correlates with finiteness.
Case TheoryCase Theory
• Case is a licenser. In order for the sentence to be grammatical, an NP must get case– Nominative case is assigned in the specifier of
finite TP (note: FINITE)– Accusative case is assigned as the sister to the
verb or preposition.
• These are the only two places you can get case
The Case FilterThe Case Filter
• The case filter (a constraint that filters trees)– All NPs must be in case positions (spec,TP or
sister to V/P)
CP
C’
C TP
T’
T AP
A’
A CP
Ø
likely
is
C’
C TP
T’Ø
to VPJohn
leave
Non-Finite: NOT a case assigner
can’t get case here
Finite: so can assign nominative case to John
moves to get case in this position
Raising vs. ??Raising vs. ??
• John is likely to leave
• John is eager to leave– John gets a theta role from leave– John also gets a theta role from is eager!
(agent)• *It is eager that John will leave.
• *It is eager for John to leave.
– Violation of Theta Criterion???
PROPRO
• An empty NP which gets a Theta-role
• Distinguishing Raising from PRO can be difficult [More tests coming]– John is eager to leave.– John is likely to leave.
• Similar structures– John
i is eager [
CP PRO
i [T to ] leave ]
– Johni is likely [
CP t
i [T to] leave]
Summary of Raising vs PROSummary of Raising vs PRO
• Some NPs appear to be displaced from their theta assigners.
• This is caused by raising.
• Motivated by Case• non-finite Infl can’t assign case
• NP moves to specifier of finite INFL
• Not all NP V [ ___ to leave] constructions are raising. Some involve PRO. it depends upon the theta properties of the main verb.
PassivesPassives
• Active
[The linguist] kissed [the kitten] Agent theme
• Passive
The kitten was kissed (by the linguist)Theme (agent)
• Active has agent and patient.
• Passive requires only a theme which is the subject
Passive MorphologyPassive Morphology
• The difference between passives and actives comes from the morphology. The addition of the passive morpheme seems to suppress the agent.
kiss kiss+en (kissed) agent theme theme
Passive MorphologyPassive Morphology
• Hypothesis: The other thing the passive morphology does is suppress the verb’s ability to assign accusative case
V’
V NP Acc
V’
V+en NP Acc
Burzio's GeneralizationBurzio's Generalization
• Burzio 1986
– A predicate that assigns no external theta role can assign no accusative case.
– * It was kissed her. [no expletive rescue]• EPP satisfied• theta criterion satisfied• Case Filter violated
• Possible Polish counterexamples:
– Przeczitano ksiaszke. (Read book)
– Read-3-sg-neuter Book-accusative
An ActiveAn Active
CP
C TP
T’
T VP
ØNP
V’
V NP
agent
theme
assigned nom case by finite T
assigned acc case by verb
A passiveA passive
CP
C TP
T’
T VP
Ø
V’
V+en NPtheme
Moves to this position
cannot be assigned accusative case
underlyingly empty due to passive morpheme
Passives: A summaryPassives: A summary
• The passive morpheme • Suppresses agent theta role
• Suppresses V’s ability to assign accusative case
• The theme NP can’t get case from the passive verb, so it moves (to the specifier of TP, where it can get nominative case.)
Passive: a HybridPassive: a Hybrid
• Lexical Component: An affix that changes Theta-roles
• A movement component
• Why BOTH? Why not just have the affix directly make the argument external?
• Passive out of embedded clauses– Wilma considers [John to be foolish]– John is considered [ t to be foolish]
Non-arguments can be Passive Non-arguments can be Passive SubjectsSubjects
• Passive out of embedded clauses– Wilma considers [John to be foolish]– John is considered [ t to be foolish]
• Consider does not assign a theta-role to John
• Foolish does
• So if the passive affix made John an external argument, how it could assign the right role in the lexicon?
NP MovementNP Movement
• With both raising and passives, you are moving NPs, and in both situations you do this to get case on a caseless NP.
• This transformation is called “NP movement”
• The filter that forces NP movement is the case filter.