7 VP shells

Spring 2012.

- Brief sections have been added on direct versus indirect causation and on manner incorporation.

- An animation has been added associated with example (17) to illustrate the derivation of double object sentences.

• Double object sentences
  • The structure of ordinary causative sentences
  • Parallels between causative sentences and double object sentences
  • Abstract verb movement
• Direct versus indirect causation
• Double complement sentences
  • Give and send
  • Put
  • Persuade
• The causative alternation
  • Manner-of-motion verbs
  • Manner incorporation
  • Get
• Further issues
  • Locality constraints on idioms
  • Small clauses revisited
• Notes
• Exercises and problems
• Supplementary material
  • Thematic roles

In Chapter 4, we briefly mentioned the binary-branching hypothesis - the idea that syntactic nodes have at most two daughters. At first glance, this hypothesis seems incompatible with the existence of double object sentences in natural language, illustrated for English in (1).

In such sentences, the verb appears to be associated with three semantic arguments (agent, recipient, theme), and it looks like the recipient (Betsy) and the theme (the receipts) must both be represented as complements of the verb.¹ This chapter presents a proposal for how to make double object sentences consistent with the binary-branching hypothesis. The proposal hinges on the fact that ditransitive verbs like give can be semantically decomposed into a causative part and a remainder whose meaning differs according to the verb in question. Some examples are shown in (2).

The semantic decomposability of the verbs in (2) suggests deriving sentences like (1) from schematic structures like (3), where the uppercase predicates CAUSE and GET indicate abstract verbal heads.

(3)

Recursive VP structures of this type, where one VP is embedded directly under another, are known as VP shells.^{2 ,3} Since VP shell structures contain two verbal heads, they accommodate all three arguments without requiring either of the heads to be associated with more than one complement - which is exactly what is required by the binary-branching hypothesis.

In order to motivate the VP shell treatment of double object sentences, we begin by discussing ordinary causative sentences (ordinary in the sense that the causative verb is overt). After showing that causative verbs take a VP small clause complement, we present some striking parallels between causative sentences and double object sentences in Japanese.

Strictly speaking, according to the VP shell analysis, there are neither double object verbs nor double object sentences. However, these terms are so well established that we will continue to use them for expository convenience. We will use the term 'double object verb' to refer to a complex V head that is associated with three semantic arguments, and the term 'double object sentence' to refer to sentences containing such a verb as well as two noun phrases bearing the thematic roles of recipient and theme.

We then turn to the details of the structure in (3); in particular, we propose that the lower verbal head adjoins to the higher one, yielding a complex verb that is spelled out depending on the content of the lower head. For instance, the combination of CAUSE and GET is spelled out as some form of give, whereas the combination of CAUSE and EAT is spelled out as some form of feed. This proposal extends an idea already introduced in Chapter 6, where we said that the combination of PAST and SING is spelled out in English as sang. It is worth noting that in both cases the lower heads (GET, EAT, SING) and the higher heads (CAUSE, PAST) correspond to open-class and closed-class morphemes and that the spellout form depends on the lower morpheme.

Before extending the VP shell analysis to several other cases in English, we briefly clarify the relation of CAUSE to its overt causative counterparts like cause, let, and make, introducing a distinction between direct and indirect causation. We then consider double complement sentences like (4), where the order of the recipient and theme arguments is reversed from what it is in (1) and the recipient argument is expressed by a PP rather than a DP.

We will refer to DP-PP sentences like (4) as double complement sentences. As earlier, we use this term strictly for expository convenience and do not intend to imply a ternary-branching structure for these sentences.

We further extend the VP shell analysis to the ditransitive verbs put and persuade as well as to verbs that participate in the causative alternation illustrated in (5).

The final section of the chapter addresses two issues related to VP shells. The first issue arises in connection with a proposed constraint on idioms according to which they must be constituents. At first glance, idioms like give someone the creeps and throw someone to the wolves violate this constraint because they appear to be discontinuous. However, just as the VP shell analysis allows us to maintain the binary-branching hypothesis in the face of double object and double complement structures like (1) and (4), so, too, does it allow us to maintain the structural constraint on idioms in the face of apparently discontinuous idioms. The second issue concerns small clauses. Having motivated the VP shell analysis with reference to small clause complements of causative predicates, we conclude the chapter with a discussion of the structure of small clauses more generally.

Double object sentences

Recall from Chapter 3 that expletive there must be licensed as the subject of a verb of existence (here, be). It follows from this that the sequence there be light forms a small clause, a minimal instance of predication (minimal because unlike an ordinary clause, it doesn't contain any overt I element). It is this small clause that serves as the complement of let, as shown in (7).

(7)

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The treatment of there be light as a constituent is motivated not only in syntactic terms (with reference to the licensing requirement on expletive there), but also by the intuition that let takes two semantic arguments, an agent (expressed by the matrix subject) and an event (expressed by the small clause).

A related piece of evidence that causatives like let takes small clause complements comes from sentences like (8).

The it in (8) is the expletive it discussed in Chapter 3, which is associated with that clauses. Like expletive there, expletive it must be a subject, and therefore the sequence it slip that he was bored must be a small clause.

Parallels between causative sentences and double object sentences

In certain languages, causative sentences and double object sentences exhibit noteworthy parallels. One such language is Japanese, where the case-marking of arguments is strikingly similar in both sentence types. Case is discussed in more detail in a later chapter, but all that is important for present purposes is that different case particles mark certain grammatical relations in Japanese. Specifically, subjects are generally marked with the case particle -ga, as distinct from direct objects, which are marked with the particle -o.⁴

Taroo-ga  hasit-ta   koto
      nom run   past that
'(the fact) that Taroo ran'

Taroo-ga  ringo-o   tabe- ta   koto
      nom apple acc eat   past that
'(the fact) that Taroo ate an apple'

Embedding a sentence under a causative verb has the following effects on case marking. When the complement sentence is intransitive, the matrix subject is marked with -ga, as usual, but the subject of the complement clause is marked with -o, as shown in (10). (This is analogous to what happens in English when we embed They ran under a causative verb and end up with We made them run, with object marking on the embedded subject.)

As the hyphens indicate, the causative verb -(s)ase is a bound morpheme in Japanese. We return to this fact shortly.

Hanako-ga  Taroo-o   hasir-ase- ta   koto
       nom       acc run   caus past that
'(the fact) that Hanako made Taroo run'

Given (10), one might expect embedding a transitive sentence under a causative to result in the case-marking pattern in (11), where the object of the lower clause is marked with -o because it is an object, as in (9b), and the subject of the lower clause is also marked with -o, by analogy to (10). (Cf. English They chased him and We made them chase him.)

Hanako-ga  Taroo-o   ringo-o   tabe-sase-ta   koto
       nom       acc apple acc eat  caus past that 
Intended meaning: '(the fact) that Hanako made Taroo eat an apple'

As it turns out, however, the case-marking pattern in (11) is ungrammatical, violating what is known in the Japanese syntax literature as the double -o constraint, which prohibits the occurrence of more than one -o-marked noun phrase per surface verb. Rather, when a transitive sentence is embedded under a causative verb, the subject of the lower clause must be marked with a distinct particle, the dative case marker -ni, as in (12).

Hanako-ga  Taroo-ni  ringo-o   tabe-sase-ta   koto
       nom       dat apple acc eat  caus past that 
'(the fact) that Hanako made Taroo eat an apple'

Hanako-ga  Taroo-ni  hon- o   mi-  sase- ta   koto
       nom       dat book acc see  caus  past that
'(the fact) that Hanako made Taroo see the book'

What is of interest to us now is that the -ga -ni -o case-marking pattern in (12) recurs in double object sentences, as shown in (13).

Hanako-ga  Taroo-ni  hon- o   mise- ta   koto
       nom       dat book acc show  past that
'(the fact) that Hanako showed Taroo a book'

The identical case-marking pattern in (12) and (13) is exactly what the VP shell proposal leads us to expect, since the relevant structures are analogous. The structures in (14a) and (14b) are for (12b) and (13), respectively. For expository clarity, we assume that the only difference between them is whether the causative morpheme is overt or silent.

The complete structures of the sentences under discussion of course includes projections of I (past tense) and C (the complementizer koto). For expository clarity, we generally omit these projections in this chapter.

(14)

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(15)

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The surface difference between the two structures in (15) concerns how the verbal heads are spelled out in the morphology. In (15a), the spellout is analytic, with each syntactic head corresponding to a transparently identifiable morphological form. In (15b), the spellout is synthetic, with the two heads in the syntax corresponding to a single morphological item mise- 'show'.

Finally, we assume that the VP shells for English double object verbs are analogous to the ones that we have just motivated for Japanese. (16) shows the VP shell structures, before and after verb movement, that we are assuming for the English counterpart of (13). From a structural point of view, the only difference between the Japanese structures and their English counterparts is the direction in which V takes phrasal complements.

(16)

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Why do we left-adjoin (rather than right-adjoin) SEE to CAUSE in English? The reason is that we treat CAUSE by analogy to a suffix like -ify (cf. magn-ify, not *ify-magn).

(17) gives the VP shell for our original English double object sentence in (1), both before and after abstract verb movement. Click on the example number to see an animation of the derivation.

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(18) gives the structure for the entire sentence. In the corresponding present-tense or past-tense sentences, the tense morpheme would lower onto the complex V head, and the resulting head would be spelled out as give(s) or gave.

(18)

It is also possible to zoom out, as it were, treating some of the complexity associated with the bridge-building as not at issue, and to describe the same event as in (20).

From this zoomed-out perspective, the bridge-building is an event with a single agent. The legions can no longer be integrated into this sentence as a subordinate agent, but only as an instrument wielded by the sole remaining agent.

Although our focus in this chapter is on the role of CAUSE in the derivation of double object and related sentences, we assume that monotransitive activity verbs like build also involve CAUSE and that (20) is ultimately derived from the structure in (22), roughly parallel to (19b), with movement of built to CAUSE yielding a form of build. The contrast between the optionality of the by phrase in (19b) and its ill-formedness in (21b) arises from the difference in perspective associated with CAUSE, as just discussed.

Notice that the zoomed-in and zoomed-out perspectives on event complexity correlate with surface morphology. The zoomed-in, more detailed perspective in (19) is expressed by two surface verbs (causative have and build), whereas the zoomed-out, less detailed perspective in (20) is expressed by a single surface form of build.

It is worth noting that not all verbs involve CAUSE. For instance, we will propose below that inchoative manner-of-motion verbs (The ball dropped) lack a projection headed by CAUSE that is present in the causative alternant (The children dropped the ball).

The distinction we have just drawn between direct and indirect causation allows us to revisit a point that we made in connection with the rise of do support in the history of English. Recall that Middle English allowed a variant of (19a) where the subordinate verb exhibits active voice, but where the subordinate agent is expressed with an optional by phrase, as in the passive.

Recall further that the causative verb (expressed as had above) was make in certain dialects of Middle English and do in others. For native speakers of both dialects, their own causative verb expressed indirect causation. However, Ellegard 1951 surmises that in a situation of dialect contact, speakers of the make dialect misanalyzed the do of the do dialect in sentences like (23) as the overt expression of direct causation. The mis- or reanalysis would then have taken hold as a way of circumventing the ineffability of simple negative sentences with structures violating the locality constraint on tense lowering, at least in sentences with verbs involving CAUSE. In modern English, do has developed one step further - into a true auxiliary that is compatible even with verbs that do not involve CAUSE (Ecay 2010). This is comparable to the development of other auxiliaries; for instance, the modern English future auxiliary will originally had the meaning 'want' but is now used as a pure tense marker in connection with entities that are incapable of wanting.

Double complement sentences

At first glance, double complement sentences seem to be completely synonymous with their double object counterparts and to stand in a one-to-one correspondence with them. Indeed, early on in generative grammar, it was held that any double complement sentence could be transformed into a double object sentence by an operation known as Dative Shift (in many languages, recipients are marked by dative case morphology or dative case particles). However, certain semantic restrictions on the two sentence types have been observed that have led this view to be abandoned (Green 1974, Oehrle 1976, Jackendoff 1990). For instance, recipients in double object sentences, but not in double complement sentences, are constrained to be animate. (This statement is not actually quite correct; we give a more accurate version below.)

This effect is so strong that noun phrases that can be interpreted as inanimate in a double complement sentence are forced into an animate interpretation in the corresponding double object sentence, if that is possible. For instance, Philadelphia might be interpreted metonymically as the people at the Philadelphia office.

What the facts in (25)-(27) suggest is that ascribing exactly the same thematic role (that of recipient) to the first DP in a double object sentence and to the PP in a double complement sentence is not quite correct. Rather, the PP headed by to denotes a direction or path along which the theme moves, and the complement of to denotes the path's endpoint, which can be either a true recipient, as in (26a), or a location, as in (26b). The endpoint is also referred to as the goal. We give the structures that we are assuming shortly.

This move of carefully distinguishing between recipients and locations is supported by the parallel between (25)-(27) on the one hand and the corresponding simple get and go sentences in (28) and (29) on the other.

The elementary trees that we assume for (28) and (29) are given in (30). In order to rule out (28b), we need to assume that the specifier of get cannot be filled by a true location. In other words, the elementary tree in (30b) is (for some reason) ill-formed.

(30)

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Embedding the structures in (30) under CAUSE yields the facts in (25)-(27). In particular, the ill-formedness of (25b) follows directly from the ill-formedness of (28b).

We mentioned earlier that the recipient in a double object sentence must be animate. Given the causative decomposition of double object sentences that we are proposing, we would therefore more generally expect any recipient argument of GET to be animate. As (31) shows, however, the constraint is not actually correct.

Notice that the pro-PPs here and there must refer to locations or to paths with locations as endpoints. Therefore, (33a,b) do not have metonymy readings, in contrast to (27a) and (29c), respectively. Given that locations cannot substitute as specifiers of get, the ill-formedness of (34a,b) follows directly (cf. the absence of location readings in (27b) and (28c)).⁵

From what we have said so far, it is clear that not every double complement sentence has a double object counterpart. Specifically, double complement sentences where the endpoint of the path is a location rather than a recipient have no double object counterpart. However, since endpoints of paths are not required to be locations, but can instead be recipients, it might still be the case that every double object sentence has a double complement counterpart. But this turns out not to be true either. The reason is that the path argument in a double complement structure imposes a semantic requirement of its own on the theme: namely, that the theme undergo a transfer from one end of the path to the other (or perhaps more accurately, that the theme is an entity able in principle to undergo the transfer). Themes in double object sentences, on the other hand, don't need to satisfy such a requirement. This explains how there can be double object sentences like (35), whose double complement counterparts are awkward at best.

In English, the experiencer of an idea or a headache is treated as a recipient, and since it is perfectly possible for ideas or migraine headaches to be the result of certain causes, the double object sentences in (35) are acceptable. The reason that the double complement sentences are unacceptable is that the idea and the headache are taken to arise within somebody's head without having traveled there along some path. Once again, as expected, the simple get and go sentences in (37) and (38) are parallel to (35) and (36).

Even contagious diseases are not conceptualized as traveling along a path. Instead, they are conceptualized as spreading (occupying their original location in addition to the new location). This explains the contrast between (39) and (40).

In concluding this section, we should point out that we have implicitly treated give and send as interchangeable. Not surprisingly, of course, the two verbs do not behave completely identically. For instance, send, in contrast to give, imposes a path requirement on the theme even in a double object sentence.

Another difference between the two verbs is that the PP associated with send can contain either a recipient or a location, whereas that associated with give must contain a recipient.

Put

Another double complement verb is put, which can be decomposed into a VP shell structure where CAUSE takes a VP complement headed by BE. BE in turn takes a complement denoting the endpoint of a path.

(44)

Unlike give or send, put is never associated with a recipient argument. Even human or animate complements in the PP receive a purely locative interpretation. As a result, put appears in double complement sentences, but not in double object sentences, as shown in (45).⁶

(48) gives the VP shell structure for the finite case.

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The nonfinite case has exactly the same structure, differing only in the internal details of the CP. We defer further discussion of the nonfinite case to its own section in Chapter 9, which treats nonfinite complement clauses.

The causative alternation

Manner-of-motion verbs

This section extends the VP shell analysis to the alternation between inchoative verbs and their homonymous causative counterparts illustrated in (40) and (50).

			Inchoative				Causative
(49)	a.		The ball dropped.	(50)	a.		The children dropped the ball.
	b.		The ball rolled down the hill.		b.		The children rolled the ball down the hill.
	c.		The boat sank.		c.		The explosion sank the boat.

When used as inchoatives, the verbs are intransitive and denote a manner of motion, and the subject is the theme argument (expressing the entity undergoing motion). When used as causatives, the verbs are transitive, the subject is an agent or cause initiating the motion, and the theme argument appears as the direct object. These facts all follow straightforwardly if the transitive variant is derived from the intransitive variant by embedding the latter under CAUSE, as shown in (51) and (52). For clarity, we show the VP shell structures in (52) both before and after abstract verb movement.

(51)
(52)	a.				b.

In the predicates under discussion, the inchoative and the causative variant are both spelled out using the same morphological item. For instance, both DROP in (51) and CAUSE + DROP in (52b) are spelled out as the same surface verb drop. We will use the term 'causative alternation' in connection with any verbal heads for which the spellout of the causative and non-causative variant is identical. The lower verbal head need not be a manner-of-motion verb. For instance, inchoative get has a causative alternant, as discussed in detail below. However, even though give corresponds semantically to CAUSE + GET, give and get are not causative alternants in the sense just described.

Manner incorporation

As the name implies, manner-of-motion verbs all dnote some sort of motion, each differing in exactly how the theme argument undergoes motion. This suggests that the inchoative variants of these verbs are themselves decomposable into a basic predicate MOVE and a specification of manner. We assume that the manner (about whose syntactic category we remain agnostic) adjoins onto the basic predicate in the same way that verbs adjoin onto tense to form a complex head. The derivation is illustrated in (53).

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Manner incorporation is not restricted to manner-of-motion verbs. For instance, the various verbs of saying (call, groan, grunt, whisper, and so on) can be decomposed into a basic predicate SAY or SPEAK and a particular manner.

It has been argued that manner incorporation is not equally productive across languages (Talmy 1975). The Germanic languages allow manner incorporation freely, whereas the Romance languages in general do not, preferring instead to incorporate path or direction. Given its somewhat mixed character (Germanic by strict historic descent, but with a large Romance vocabulary), English exhibits both types of incorporation (MOVE + DROPPING-MANNER > DROP, MOVE + INTO-DIRECTION > ENTER).

Get

As mentioned earlier, give and get are not causative alternants in our sense, but get on its own does participate in the causative alternation. (In contrast to the manner-of-motion verbs discussed earlier, the inchoative in (54a) is transitive rather than intransitive. But in common with the previous case, the causative in (54b) introduces an additional argument - specifically, an agent.)

(54)	a.		Betsy got the receipts.
	b.		Travis got Betsy the receipts.

The argument structure for GET in (54a) is already familiar from (30a) and is repeated here as (55a). Embedding (54a) under CAUSE results in (54b). For simplicity, we show only pre-movement structures in what follows.

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The structure in (55b) is identical to that proposed earlier for Travis gave Betsy the receipts, and the question arises what the difference is between give and get. Since we assume manner incorporation, a reasonable approach would be to treat give as the spellout of GET plus some appropriate incorporated manner, whereas get would be the spellout of unmodified GET. In other words, causative get would be related to give, lend, and so on in the same way as causative move is related to causative drop, roll, sink, and so on.

In addition to heading the elementary tree in (55a), GET can also appear in the same elementary tree as GO, as in (56a). Embedding this structure under CAUSE yields the causative variant in (56b).

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Examples of the structures in (56) are given in (57). As discussed earlier, endpoints can be expressed by either recipients or locations, and the get sentences in (57) are analogous to their counterparts with go, as expected.

(57)	a.		The receipts got { to Betsy, to the post office box, there }.
	b.		Travis got the receipts { to Betsy, to the post office box, there } .

Just as in the case of GO, the theme in a DP-PP structure headed by GET must undergo transfer.⁷

Finally, sentences with causative get pattern as expected with respect to the distinction between recipients and locations, as illustrated in (59).

The idiomatic meaning can sometimes be traced back to an etymological source, but even if that is possible, that source is unknown to most of the idiom's users. It has been traditional in generative grammar (Marantz 1984) to (attempt to) impose a locality constraint on idioms along the lines of (61) (locality constraints are so called because they make reference to relatively small, or local, domains).

The motivation for (61) is to account for the absence of theoretically possible idioms like the made-up example in (62), where blue and hop don't by themselves form a constituent.

In many cases, the constraint in (61) is trivially satisfied. For instance, in (60), red tape is an NP, the Big Apple is a DP, and kick the bucket and let the chips fall where they may are instances of V'. Crucially, however, idioms consisting of discontinuous chunks should not exist. At first glance, therefore, idioms like those in (63) seem to pose a problem for the locality constraint in (61).

However, just as the VP shell analysis allows us to preserve the binary-branching hypothesis in the face of prima facie counterevidence, it also allows us to preserve the locality constraint on idioms in the face of apparently discontinuous idioms. This is because the VP shell analysis allows us to say that what is idiomatic in (63) are the underlined VPs in (64).

Strong evidence for the decomposition in (64) is the existence of the related idioms in (65).

In addition, since heads form constituents with their complements but not with their specifiers, potential idioms such as those in (66) are predicted not to be possible.

This elegantly explains the unacceptability of sentences like (67) and (68) (on their intended idiomatic interpretation).

As we know from Chapter 3, small clauses can also contain predicates headed by syntactic categories other than V. (70) gives some examples.

Stowell 1983 proposed that all small clauses have a uniform structure, illustrated for (70b) in (71).

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According to this analysis, the small clause (Aristotelian) predicate (underlined in the examples above) is an intermediate projection. The entire small clause (in brackets) is the predicate's maximal projection, and the subject (in italics) is the maximal projection's specifier and the predicate's sister. Stowell's analysis is attractive because it treats small clauses as structurally analogous to ordinary clauses. The only difference between the two clause types concerns whether the clause is a projection of I. Nevertheless, the analysis cannot be maintained for DP small clauses because it fails to accommodate the minimal variant of (70b) in (72).

Here, the DP predicate contains a possessor, which under Stowell's analysis would compete with the small clause subject for Spec(DP) (Heycock 1991).

In order to maintain binary branching, the structure for examples like (72) must include an additional head, which we represent here as a silent counterpart of the copula be. Like its overt counterpart, this head imposes a subject-predicate relationship on its specifier and its complement. We give the structure for (72) in (73a), and our revised structure for (71) in (73b). Notice that both structures preserve the structural parallelism between small clauses and ordinary clauses that was attractive in Stowell's analysis. (Indeed, the complete parallelism with clauses containing be might be considered an advantage of (73) over (71).)

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Based on the semantic parallel between (72) and the AP and PP small clauses in (74), we propose to extend the structure in (73) with silent BE to small clauses in general.

It is worth pointing out that small clauses are not restricted to the complement position of verbs; they can also occur as the complements of prepositions, as illustrated in (75).

Finally, the copula (whether silent or overt) is not the only possible head for small clauses. (76) illustrates small clauses headed by as, and (77) gives the structure for (76c).⁸

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1. In traditional grammar, the recipient and theme are taken to be the verb's indirect and direct object, respectively.

2. The idea underlying the VP shell analysis goes back to Chomsky 1955 and was taken up in Larson 1988, 1990 (see also Jackendoff 1990). The treatment in this chapter is indebted to that in Harley 2002, though not identical to it in all details.

3. Here and in what follows, we decompose 'give' into CAUSE and GET. The lower VP shell might arguably be headed by HAVE instead. The difference between the two heads is aspectual. GET is inchoative (focusing on the initial part of a change-of-state event), whereas HAVE is stative; in other words, 'get' is 'come to have'. Since CAUSE itself implies a change of state, it is difficult to know whether the change-of-state part of the meaning of 'give' is due to CAUSE or to GET.

4. In addition to marking grammatical relations like subject or direct object, Japanese also marks discourse functions such as topic. In Japanese main clauses, topic marking with -wa overrides subject marking with -ga. It is therefore customary to illustrate -ga marking using subordinate clauses, as we do in what follows.

5. The alternation in (i) - specifically, the well-formedness of (i.b) - is only apparently problematic for what we say in the text.

Back and off are so-called particles, which can behave like ordinary PPs, as in (i.a), but also more like bound affixes, as in (i.b). A detailed analysis of the syntax of particles is beyond the scope of this discussion, but evidence for their differing syntactic status in (i) comes from contrasts as in (ii).

6. Again, alternations as in (i) are only apparent exceptions to the statement in the text and reflect the status of on and back as particles; see fn. 5.

7. If the themes in (58) are interpreted as entities able to undergo physical transfer, the sentences become grammatical. Replacing the indefinite article by the definite article makes the relevant interpretations more salient. The idea might then refer to an idea contained or expressed in a message or book, and the cold might refer to a cold virus contained in a test tube being sent from one lab to another.

8. The varying grammaticality of the small clause heads in (i) seems to pose an problem for the analysis in the text.

The problem is only apparent, however, since heads are able to subcategorize not only for the syntactic category of their complements, but to specify that category's head as well. We know this because of examples like (iii), where a head selects not just a PP complement, but a PP complement headed by a particular preposition.

Make up one short sentence for each of the double complement verbs give, send, put, and persuade, and use the grammar tool in x-bar ch7 to give complete structures for them.

Exercise 7.3

Exercise 7.4

For the purposes of the exercise, assume the judgments given, even if they aren't your own. Many of the judgments follow straightforwardly given the analysis in the chapter, but explaining some of them will require you to extend the analysis. In some cases, it may not be possible to explain the entire pattern of judgments. In such cases, you should explain as much as you can, and note where the analysis comes up short.

A. Explain the contrast in (1).

(1)	a.		Travis { sent, got } the receipts to the post office box.
	b.	*	Travis gave the receipts to the post office box.

B. Explain the contrast between (2) and (3).

(2)			Jerry got Amy a present.
(3)	a.	*	Jerry got Amy his cold.
	b.	*	The scandal got the reporter an idea.
	c.	*	Bright lights get Amy a migraine headache.

C. Explain the pattern of judgments in (4) and (5).

(4)	a.		The couch got a shove.
	b.		The movers gave the couch a shove.
	c.	*	The movers got the couch a shove.
(5)	a.	*	A shove got to the couch.
	b.	*	The movers gave a shove to the couch.
	c.	*	The movers got a shove to the couch.

D. Explain the contrast in (6).

(6)	a.		Crazy people give me the creeps.
	b.	*	Crazy people get me the creeps.

E. Explain the pattern of judgments in (7) and (8).

(7)	a.		The surgeon gave the patient the finger. (ambiguous between literal and idiomatic reading)
	b.		The surgeon gave the finger to the patient. (unambiguously literal)
(8)	a.		The surgeon got the patient the finger. (unambiguously literal)
	b.		The surgeon got the finger to the patient. (unambiguously literal)

F. Explain the pattern of judgments in (9).

(9)	a.	*	The scandal sent the reporter an idea.
	b.	ok	The editor sent the reporter an idea.

G. Is the naturally-occurring example in (10) expected or not?

(10)

Tennessee coach Pat Summitt, the longtime head of the Lady Vols, gives an earful to Alexis Hornbuckle during their win over Texas Tech. (Daily Pennsylvanian, 28 March 2005, p. 9)

For simplicity, leave the internal structures of noun phrases or adjective phrases unspecified. The grammar tool for the exercise doesn't allow you to build the internal structures very easily, and they are irrelevant to the point of the exercise.

Exercise 7.7

For each of the trees that you draw for this exercise, include a paraphrase for the interpretation that the tree represents.

A. Using the grammar tool in x-bar ch7, build structures for each interpretation of the following structurally ambiguous headlines. Unlike in the chapter, give full IPs where necessary.

For simplicity, treat compound nouns (e.g., NBA referees) as simple nouns without internal structure. Treat the gerund form in (1c) as a simple verb without morphological structure (growing rather than grow + -ing).

B. Using the grammar tool in x-bar ch7, propose structures for the intended interpretation of (2) and for a structurally possible (but let us hope unintended!) cannibalistic interpretation.

C. Using the grammar tool in x-bar ch7, propose structures for the two salient interpretations of the punchline in (3) (the customer reading and the Zen reading). For simplicity (contrary to the solution for Exercise 5.9, (1d)), you can treat the imperative clause as a bare VP.

Exercise 7.8

A. Off the top of your head, propose an elementary tree for ago. Does the elementary tree differ from other elementary trees of the same syntactic category?

You won't necessarily be able to build the tree you want with the grammar tool for this chapter.

B. Now look up ago and its etymology in the Oxford English Dictionary. Using the grammar tool in x-bar ch7, build the elementary tree for ago that is consistent with the etymology that you find.

C. This part of the exercise is not closely related to the material covered in this chapter, but you will need the results to complete (D). Is the syntactic category of the quantifier many D or (say) Adj? Give the evidence on which you base your answer.

Hint: Reread the discussion of two tymes to-geder in the solution to Exercise 6.1.

Don't give an answer based on the meaning of many. The meaning won't decide this question for you, since some quantifiers, like no or some, are determiners, and others, like few or two, are not.

D. On the basis of your results from (B) and (C), use the grammar tool in x-bar ch7 to give the structure for the sentence in (1).

Can you suggest a (single) explanation for these judgments concerning send and teach?

Problem 7.3