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.