As was mentioned in
In this view, vocabulary items are comparable to the atoms of physical matter. Atoms do not combine into molecules just because they happen to be next to each other; rather, their combinatorial possibilities are governed by their internal structure (for instance, the number of electrons on an atom's outermost shell and the relative number of protons and electrons).
Accordingly, in the first part of this chapter, we consider the
internal structure of elementary trees. As in the last chapter, we
begin by focusing on how verbs combine with their arguments to form
larger phrases. For the time being, we will treat noun phrases and
prepositional phrases as unanalyzed units, leaving a detailed discussion
of their internal structure until
In the second part of the chapter, we turn to the representation of
modification. As we will show, it is conceptually undesirable to combine
modifiers with elementary trees by the substitution operation introduced in
| (1) | The children ate the pizza. |
From the possibility of pronoun substitution, as in (2), we know that the two arguments are constituents (specifically, noun phrases).
| (2) | They ate it. |
In principle, the verb could combine with its two noun phrase arguments in either order, or with both at once. The three possibilities are represented by the schematic structures in (3) (we address the question of which syntactic category to assign to the nodes labeled by question marks in a moment).
| (3) | a. |
| b. |
| c. |
|
However, as we already know from the discussion in
| (4) | The children ate the pizza; the children did so. |
In other words, transitive verbs combine first with their object, with the resulting constituent in turn combining with the subject.
What is the syntactic category of the constituents that result from these two combinations? In principle, the result of combining a verb with a noun phrase might be a phrase with either verbal or nominal properties. But clearly, a phrase like ate the pizza doesn't have the distribution of a noun phrase. For instance, it can't function as the object of a preposition (even a semantically bleached one like of) Nor does it pattern like a noun phrase in other respects. For instance, as we have just seen, the appropriate pro-form for it is not a pronoun, but a form of do so, just as would be the case if the predicate of the sentence were an intransitive verb. In other words, for the purposes of do so substitution, the combination of a verb and its object is equivalent to an intransitive verb (say, intransitive eat); cf. (4) with (5).
| (5) | The children ate; the children did so. |
However, it won't do to simply assign the syntactic category V to
the verb-object combination, on a par with the verb that it contains,
since that would leave unexplained the contrast between (4) and (6) with
respect to do so substitution (again, recall the discussion in
| (6) | The children ate the pizza; *the children did so the pizza. |
Notice furthermore that the syntactic category of the verb-object constituent is distinct from the syntactic category of the constituent that includes the subject. This is evident from the contrast in (7), which would be unexpected if both constituents belonged to the same syntactic category.
| (7) | a. | We saw the children eat the pizza. | |
| b. | * | We saw eat the pizza. |
In order to represent the facts in (4)-(7), the following notation has been developed. Verbs are said to project three bar levels, conventionally numbered from zero to two. The lowest bar level, V0, is a syntactic category for vocabulary items; it is often indicated simply by V without a superscript. The next bar level is V' (read as 'V-bar'),1 the syntactic category of a transitive verb and its object. The highest bar level is V" (read as 'V-double-bar'), which is the result of combining a V' with a subject. Note that for a transitive verb, each bar level corresponds to the number of arguments with which the verb has combined.
Somewhat confusingly, the verb's second projection, V", is more often than not labeled VP. In early work in generative grammar, the label VP was intended to be a mnemonic abbreviation for the verb phrase of traditional gramar and did indeed correspond to that category. In current phrase structure theory, however, the label that corresponds to the traditional verb phrase is V', whereas VP includes a verb's subject, which the traditional verb phrase does not. The idea is that the highest bar level projected by a verb contains all of its arguments. For clarity, we will avoid using the term 'verb phrase', but if we do use it, we mean the traditional verb phrase that excludes the subject (V', not VP).
The fully labeled structure for (1), with the standard labels for the three verbal projections, is given in (8).
| (8) | 
|
From (8), we can derive the elementary tree for ate in (9) by 'un-substituting' the two arguments.
| (9) | 
|
As we show later on in this chapter and
in
| (10) | 
|
A number of standard terms are in use in connection with the X' schema.
X
| The terms 'intermediate' and 'phrasal' are somewhat misleading, since they both suggest that the syntactic status of intermediate projections is somehow intermediate between lexical and phrasal constituents. This is not the case. Intermediate projections are full-fledged phrases, and 'intermediate' simply refers to the position of the projection in the tree structure. |
| (11) | Label | Projection | Bar level | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| X (= X0) | Lexical | 0 | |||
| X' | Intermediate | 1 | |||
| XP (= X") | Maximal, phrasal | 2 | |||
X is known as the head of the structure in (10) (the term is sometimes also used to refer to the vocabulary item dominated by the lexical projection). The three projections of the head form what we will call the spine of the elementary tree. Following traditional terminology, the sister of the head---YP in (10)---is called its complement. As we discuss in the next subsection, elementary trees need not include a complement position.
|
| Note the spelling of complement with e (not i). The idea is that complements complete the meaning of the head. |
The sister of the intermediate projection---ZP in (10)---is called the specifier. Each elementary tree has at most one specifier, and elementary trees can lack a specifier altogether, as we will see later on in this chapter. The specifier and complement positions of a head are its (syntactic) argument positions. In other words, an elementary tree consists of a spine and up to two argument positions.
The terms 'specifier,' 'complement,' and 'argument' are generally
used to refer to the constituents that substitute into the positions
just described, but they can also refer to the structural positions
themselves. (This is analogous to the way we can use a nontechnical
term like 'box' to refer either to the contents of a container or to the
container itself.) If it is necessary to avoid confusion between the
two senses, we can distinguish between 'specifier position' and
'specifier constituent' (and analogously for 'complement' and
'argument').
An important question that arises in connection
with the X' schema in (10) is how to represent predicates with more than
two semantic arguments. The most obvious approach is to allow
elementary trees with more than two complements. Plausible as this
approach may seem, however, it is now widely assumed that syntactic
structure is at most binary-branching (in other words,
binary-branchingness is assumed to be a formal universal). If a
predicate has more than two semantic arguments, there are two ways in
which the additional arguments can be integrated into syntactic
structure. In some cases, the apparently atomic predicate is decomposed
semantically and syntactically and associated with more than one head,
yielding a total of more than two argument positions (see Chapter 7 for more detailed discussion). In other
cases, the supernumerary arguments are integrated into syntactic
structure by an operation distinct from substitution called
adjunction, which we introduce later in
this chapter. The second case involves a syntax-semantics
mismatch, since a semantic argument can end up occupying a position
that is not a syntactic argument position.
| (12) | a. | 
| b. | 
|
As is evident, the trees differ in the presence of an intermediate projection, and (12b) might at first glance seem preferable because it is simpler (in the sense of containing fewer nodes). Nevertheless, we will prefer (12a) on the grounds that adopting it results in a simplification of the grammar as a whole---that is, a simplification not just of the elementary trees themselves, but also of rules and definitions stated over them. For instance, adopting (12a) allows us to summarize the facts concerning do so substitution illustrated in (4)-(6) by means of the succinct generalization in (13).
| (13) | Do so substitutes for instances of V'. |
Given (12b), the corresponding generalization in (14), being a disjunctive statement (a statement that contains or) is more cumbersome.
| (14) | Do so substitutes for instances of V' or of V without a complement. |
A second, similar reason to prefer (12a) is that it permits the succinct definition of the notion of specifier in (15a) rather than the disjunctive statement in (15b).
| (15) | a. | Specifiers are sisters of intermediate projections. | |
| b. | Specifiers are sisters of intermediate projections or of lexical projections without a complement. |
In concluding this section, we make explicit a point that is
implicit in the preceding discussion. Obligatorily transitive and
obligatorily intransitive verbs project (= are associated in the lexicon
with) a single elementary tree of the right shape. Verbs that can be
used either transitively or intransitively, such as eat, project
two elementary trees. More generally, we will allow a vocabulary item
of any syntactic category to project one or more elementary trees, as
required by its combinatorial properties.
Deriving simple sentences
We are almost at the point of being able to construct representations of
complete sentences, but before we can, we need to address the syntactic
representation of tense. The following discussion relies
on the notion of do support and on the status of
modals and auxiliary do as members of the
syntactic category I(nflection); see Modals and
auxiliary verbs in English for more details.
In a sentence like (16), the verb waited contains the bound morpheme -ed, which expresses past tense.
| (16) | He waited. |
If tense morphemes were invariably expressed on the verb in this way, then complete structures for full sentences could be derived by substituting appropriate structures into the argument positions of the verb's elementary tree. However, this is not a general solution, because tense is not always expressed as a bound morpheme on the verb. For instance, in (17), the future tense counterpart of (16), the future tense is expressed by a free morpheme---the modal will.
| (17) | He will wait. |
Even more strikingly, the past tense in English, though ordinarily expressed as a bound morpheme on the verb, must be expressed by a free morpheme in do support contexts, as shown in (18).
| (18) | a. | Emphasis: | He did wait. | |
| b. | Negation: | He didn't wait. | ||
| c. | Question: | Did he wait? |
The morphologically variable expression of tense as a free or bound morpheme raises two related syntactic questions. First, what is the representation of sentences like (17) and (18a), where tense is expressed as a free morpheme? (We postpone discussion of negated sentences and questions until later chapters.) Second, and more generally, how can we represent all sentences in a syntactically uniform way, regardless of how tense is expressed morphologically? The reason that we want a syntactically uniform representation is that from a semantic point of view, both past and future are semantically parallel functions, taking situations (denoted by VPs) as input and returning as output situations that are located in time, either before or after the time of speaking.2
We begin by answering the first question in several steps. First, it is clear that (17) and (18a) share a common predicate-argument structure. That is, both of these sentences denote a situation in which someone is waiting, with the sentences differing only as to which point in time the situation holds. We can capture this commonality by taking the elementary tree for the verb wait in (19a) and substituting an argument constituent in the specifier position, yielding (19b).
| (19) | a. | 
| b. | 
|
Second, in line with the general approach to syntactic structure that we have been developing, modals and auxiliaries, like all vocabulary items, project elementary trees. For instance, the elementary trees for will and auxiliary did are shown in (20).
| (20) | a. | 
| b. | 
|
Next, we substitute the structure in (19b) into each of the elementary trees in (20), yielding (21).3
| (21) | a. | 
| b. | 
|
The structures in (21) neatly reflect the semantic relation between tense and situations. The element in I corresponds to the tense function, the complement of I (VP) corresponds to the function's input (the situation), and the maximal projection of I (IP) corresponds to the function's output (the situation located in time). There is a problem, however: the I element and the subject of the sentence are in the wrong order in (21). This problem is solved by introducing a movement operation that transforms the structures in (21) into those in (22).
| (22) | a. | 
| b. | 
|
A few remarks are in order about this operation. Movement is best understood as a convenient way of representing mismatches between various aspects of a sentence or its constituents. Specifically, in the case at hand, he satisfies two distinct functions. First, it is a semantic argument of the verb wait. Second, it is the subject of the entire sentence, which is headed by I. It is important to recognize that these two functions are distinct. This is clearly shown by the existence of passive sentences. For instance, in the active sentence in (23a), it is the agent argument that functions as the subject, whereas in its passive counterpart in (23b), it is the theme argument.
| (23) | a. | Susie | drafted | the letter. | ||
| Agent | Theme | |||||
| Subject | Object | |||||
| b. | The letter | was drafted | (by Susie). | |||
| Theme | Agent | |||||
| Subject | Prepositional phrase | |||||
In order to clearly express a phrase's multiple functions, we do not simply move the phrase from one position to another. Instead, movement leaves a trace in the phrase's original position, and the two positions share an index. In the syntactic literature, indices for movement are represented by the same alphabetical subscripts as referential indices. For clarity, we diverge from this practice and use the natural numbers as referential indices, and the lowercase letters i, j, k, and so on, as movement indices. A constituent and its traces of movement (possibly none, in the absence of movement) are called a chain. The elements of a chain are its links. Higher links in a chain are often referred to as the antecedents of lower ones. Finally, the highest and lowest links in a chain are sometimes referred to as the chain's head and tail, respectively.
|
| Don't confuse this sense of the term 'head' with the sense introduced
earlier in connection with X' structures. The head of an X' structure
is the structure's lexical projection (or sometimes the vocabulary
item dominated by it). The head of a movement chain is the highest
element in the chain (whatever its X' status). As we will see in
connection with verb movement in |
We are now in a position to answer the second question posed earlier---namely, how can sentences be represented in a syntactically uniform way regardless of the morphological expression of tense? A simple answer to this question is possible if we assume that English has tense elements that are structurally analogous to auxiliary do, but not pronounced, as shown in (24); we will use square brackets as a convention to indicate such silent elements.
| (24) | a. | 
| b. | 
|
Elementary trees as in (24) make it possible to derive structures for sentences in which tense is expressed as a bound morpheme on the verb along the same lines as for sentences containing a modal or auxiliary do. In (25), we illustrate the derivation of He waited.
| (25) | a. | 
| b. | 
| c. | 
| d. | 
| |||||||
| Select elementary tree for verb | Substitute argument | Substitute predicate-argument structure in (25b) into elementary tree for tense | Move subject from Spec(VP) to Spec(IP) | ||||||||||||
| (26) | a. | We will ask if she left. | |
| b. | They believe that he came. |
Although sentences with complement clauses can become quite long and
complex (recall the instances of recursion in
| (27) | a. | 
| b. | 
|
Given elementary trees like (27), we can derive the italicized complement clause in (26a) as in (28).
| (28) | a. | 
| b. | 
| |||||||
| Elementary tree for complement clause verb | Substitute argument | ||||||||||
| c. | 
| d. | 
| e. | 
| ||||||
| Substitute (28b) in elementary tree for tense (24b) | Move subject in complement clause | Substitute (28d) in elementary tree for complementizer (27a) | |||||||||
The structure in (28e) in turn allows us to derive the entire matrix clause, as in (29).
| (29) | a. | 
| b. | 
| |||
| Elementary tree for matrix clause verb | Substitute arguments, including clausal complement (28e) | ||||||
| c. | 
| d. | 
| ||||
| Substitute (29)b in elementary tree for modal (20a) | Move subject in matrix clause | ||||||
Given the representation in (29d), we can now formally characterize recursive structures as in (30).
| (30) | a. | A structure is recursive iff it contains at least one recursive node. | |
| b. | A node is recursive iff it dominates a node distinct from it, but with the same label. |
In principle, modification might resemble predication in not requiring a structural relation of its own. As it turns out, however, neither of the two structural relations available so far in X' structures (head-complement, head-specifier) adequately represents the relation between a head and a modifier. Recall that when a verb combines with a complement, the category of the resulting constituent (V') is distinct from that of the verb (V) (recall the contrast between (4) and (6)), and that when the verb and the complement in turn combine with the specifier, the category of the resulting constituent (VP) is distinct yet again (see (7)). By contrast, modifying a verb-complement combination like ate the pizza, in (31) does not change the syntactic category of the resulting constituent, which remains V' (the modifier is in italics).
| (31) | a. | The children ate the pizza. | |
| b. | The children ate the pizza with gusto. |
This is evident from the do so substitution facts in (32), where either the unmodified or the modified verb-complement combination can be replaced by a form of do so.
| (32) | a. | The children ate the pizza with gusto; the children did so with gusto. | |
| b. | The children ate the pizza with gusto; the children did so. |
The same pattern holds for intransitive verbs that combine with a modifier.
| (33) | a. | The children ate with gusto; the children did so with gusto. | |
| b. | The children ate with gusto; the children did so. |
The do so substitution facts just discussed motivate the syntactic structure for (31) that is given in (34) (for simplicity, we focus on the internal structure of the VP, omitting the projection of the silent past tense element).
| (34) | 
|
The structural relation of the modifier with gusto to the
spine of the V projection is known as the adjunct relation, and
the modifier itself is said to be an adjunct. Modifiers are
always represented as adjuncts in syntactic structure. As a result,
'modifier' and 'adjunct' tend to be used somewhat interchangeably. In
this book, however, we will distinguish between the two terms as
follows. We will use 'modifier' to refer to a phrase's semantic
function of qualifying or restricting the constituent being modified.
For instance, as we mentioned in
The need for an adjunction operation
The structure in (34) raises the question of what elementary tree for
transitive ate is involved in its derivation. 'Un-substituting'
both arguments and the modifier, as we did earlier with just arguments,
yields the structure in (35).
| (35) | 
|
Is the structure in (35) a satisfactory elementary tree? Clearly, allowing it means that our grammar now contains two elementary trees for transitive ate. At first glance, this doesn't seem serious, since we already allow distinct elementary trees for transitive and intransitive ate.
| (36) | a. |
| b. | 
|
But (35) differs in one important respect from the structures in (36): it is a recursive structure. This has a conceptually very undesirable consequence: namely, that if we decided to derive structures like (34) by means of elementary trees like those in (35), there would be no principled way to avoid an unbounded number of such elementary trees. For instance, the derivations of the sentences in (36), with their increasing number of modifiers, would each require a distinct elementary tree for drink.
| (36) | a. | We would drink lemonade. | |
| b. | We would drink lemonade in summer. | ||
| c. | We would drink lemonade in summer on the porch. | ||
| d. | We would drink lemonade in summer on the porch with friends. |
In order to avoid such a proliferation of elementary trees, we will require them to be non-recursive structures. This has the consequence that adjuncts cannot be integrated into larger syntactic structures by substitution, and accordingly, we introduce a further tree operation called adjunction. For clarity, the operation of interest to us is sometimes called Chomsky-adjunction, to distinguish it from Joshi-adjunction, a different formal operation that plays a central role in Tree-Adjoining Grammar, a mathematically rigorous formalism for deriving syntactic structure (Joshi, Levy, and Takahashi 1975).
For the moment, we will be using the adjunction operation to
integrate modifiers into syntactic structures. As we will see in
| (37) | a. | 
| b. | 
| c. | 
| |||||
| Select target of adjunction | Clone target of adjunction | Attach modifier as daughter of clone | |||||||||
Deriving the rest of the structure for the entire sentence proceeds as outlined earlier, as shown in (38).
| (38) | a. | 
| b. | 
| c. | 
| |||||
| Substitute arguments | Substitute (38a) in elementary tree for tense | Move subject | |||||||||
For expository reasons, we have chosen to derive the sentence with adjunction preceding substitution and movement. However, the order of adjunction with respect to the other operations is irrelevant.
In concluding this section, we raise a general point concerning intermediate projections and adjunction to them. Given that words (or syntactic atoms of some sort) combine with one another to form phrases, any theory of syntax must assume heads and projections. However, distinguishing between two types of phrasal projection (intermediate vs. maximal) seems uneconomical, and attempts have therefore been made to eliminate the need for intermediate projections, along with the possibility of adjunction to them. For instance, given our current assumptions, sentences like (39) force us to allow adjunction to X'.
| (39) | a. | [IP They [I' never [I' will agree to that. ] ] ] | |
| b. | God let [VP there [V' suddenly [V' be light. ] ] ] |
However, if the IP and the small clause VP in such sentences were 'split up' into two separate projections, it would be possible to eliminate the intermediate projections and to adjoin the modifiers to maximal projections instead. This is illustrated in (40), where IP has been split into Agr(eement)P and T(ense)P, and Pred(ication)P has been added to the small clause VP. We plan to discuss such structures in detail in a later chapter (to be written).
| (40) | a. | [AgrP They [TP never [TP will agree to that. ] ] ] | |
| b. | God let [PredP there [VP suddenly [VP be light. ] ] ] |
A related question is whether, even in a system with intermediate
projections such as we continue to assume for the moment, it is possible
for adjunction to target either intermediate or maximal projections. We
remain agnostic on this issue, but since we know that adjunction must be
able to target intermediate projections under our current assumptions,
we will consistently represent it as doing so for expository simplicity.
A typology of syntactic dependents
Each of the three types of syntactic dependents that we have
been discussing---complements, specifiers, and adjuncts---stands in a
unique structural relation to the head and to the spine of the head's
projection. Complements and adjuncts are both daughters of intermediate
projections, but they differ in that complements are sisters of heads,
whereas adjuncts are sisters of the next higher projection level. As
sisters of intermediate projections, adjuncts resemble specifiers. But
again, the two relations are distinct because adjuncts are daughters of
intermediate projections, whereas specifiers are daughters of maximal
projections. These structural relations and distinctions are summarized
in (41). For convenience, we also include the formal operations that
fill or create the positions in question.
| | ||||||
| (41) | Relation to head | Sister of ... | Daughter of ... | Formal operation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| | ||||||
| Complement | Head | Intermediate projection | Substitution | |||
| Adjunct | Intermediate projection | Intermediate projection | Adjunction | |||
| Specifier | Intermediate projection | Maximal projection | Substitution | |||
| | ||||||
|
| Remember that tree structures are models of linguistic facts. Just because it is possible to build a tree that represents a certain phrase as a complement of a certain head doesn't mean that the phrase actually is a complement. In other words, trees can "lie". |
The most reliable way to determine the status of a particular phrase is to use do so substitution. If a phrase need not be included as part of the sequence being replaced by do so, then it is an adjunct. If it must be included, then it is a complement. Using this test, we find that phrases specifying cause or rationale, time, location, or manner are generally adjuncts, even if they are bare noun phrases. Some examples, including the results of do so substitution, are given in (42); the adjuncts are in italics.
| (42) | a. | Rationale | They waited for no good reason, but we did so for a very good one. | |
| b. | Duration | They waited (for) a day, but we did so (for) a month. | ||
| c. | Location | They waited in the parking lot, but we did so across the street. | ||
| d. | Manner | They waited patiently, but we did so impatiently. |
In the examples we have seen in this book so far, semantic arguments
are expressed in a syntactic tree as syntactic arguments (or not at
all), and modifiers are expressed as adjuncts. It is possible, however,
for semantic arguments to be expressed in the syntax as adjuncts (this
is the mismatch case mentioned earlier in
connection with binary-branchingness). For example, as we mentioned in
| (43) | a. | Dennis rented an apartment to Lois. | |
| b. | * | ... and David did so an apartment to Rob. |
On the other hand, do so substitution shows that the phrase denoting the tenant is an adjunct, even though tenants are semantic arguments of rent on a par with rental properties.
| (44) | ok | ... and David did so to Rob. |
A final word should be said about the correlation between a syntactic dependent's obligatory or optional character and its status as a complement or adjunct. It is tempting to assume the biconditional relationship in (45).
| (45) | a. | If a syntactic dependent is obligatory, then it is a complement. | TRUE | ||
| b. | If a syntactic dependent is a complement, then it is obligatory. | FALSE |
But as the annotation indicates, the biconditional in (45) is not valid. It is true that obligatory syntactic dependents are complements. For instance, the contrast in (46) is evidence that the noun phrase following devour is a complement, a conclusion that is borne out by do so substitution in (47).
| (46) | Every time I see him, ... | ||
| a. | * | ... he's devouring. | |
| b. | ... he's devouring a six-inch steak. | ||
| (47) | a. | He devoured a hamburger and french fries, and I did so, too. | |
| b. | * | He devoured a hamburger and french fries, and I did so six samosas. |
But not all complements are obligatory. The grammaticality of (48a) shows that the phrase French fries is optional, but the ungrammaticality of (48c) shows that it is nevertheless a complement.
| (48) | a. | He ate, and I did so, too. | |
| b. | He ate French fries, and I did so, too. | ||
| c. | * | He ate French fries, and I did so three samosas. |
Although (45b) is false, (45a) does have the consequence in (49) (derived by the so-called modus tollens rule of classical logic).
| (49) | If a syntactic dependent is not a complement, it is not obligatory. |
The two valid generalizations in (45a) and (49) can be summarized succinctly as in (50).
| (50) | a. | Obligatory syntactic dependents are complements. | |
| b. | Adjuncts are optional. |
2. The semantics of tense we are assuming here is oversimplified, but sufficient for our purposes.
3. The representations in (21) look like appropriate representations for the questions Will he wait? and Did he wait? However, as we will see in Chapter 10, there is reason to postulate an additional layer of structure in the representations of questions.
Are the italicized phrases in (1) syntactic arguments or adjuncts? Explain. Your discussion needn't be extensive, but you must include the syntactic evidence (do so substitution facts) on which you base your conclusions.
| (1) | a. | They waited for us. | |
| b. | In 1999, this program cost twenty dollars. | ||
| c. | We drove to Denver. | ||
| d. | We worded the letter carefully. | ||
| e. | They are behaving very inconsiderately. | ||
| f. | This volcano might erupt any minute. |
| (1) | a. | 
| b. | 
|
A. Using the grammar tool in treebuilder 1, build structures for the sentences in (1).
| (1) | a. | They demolished the house. | |
| b. | Mona Lisa called the other neighbor. | ||
| c. | Mona Lisa called the other day. | ||
| d. | You will recall that her smile amazed everyone. | ||
| e. | Most people doubt that Mona Lisa lives in Kansas. | ||
| f. | My friend wondered if Mona Lisa would come to his party. |
B. Indicate all recursive nodes in the structures that you build for (1). You can do this by hand, or by using the grammar tool's highlighting feature (see the "Instructions" menu).
A. (1) is structurally ambiguous. Paraphrase the two relevant interpretations.
| (1) | They claimed that they paid on the 15th. |
B. Using the grammar tool in treebuilder 1, build a structure for each of the interpretations, indicating which structure goes with which interpretation.
Make up a sentence that contains two adjuncts. Using the grammar tool in treebuilder 1, build a structure for it. Then switch the linear order of the adjuncts, and build a structure for the resulting word order variant of your original sentence.
A. Is it possible for an adjunct to immediately precede a complement? Explain, taking into account both VO and OV languages.
You may find it helpful to use the grammar tool in variable headedness 1.
B. Is it possible for two adjuncts to be sisters? Explain.