linguistic structures - Professor Binkert's Webpage - Oakland ...

(38) a. [Something] pleased the coach.
b. [That [John] succeeded] pleased the coach.
c. [John] succeeded and pleased the coach.
The bracketed elements in (38) are subjects. In (38a), the sentence consists of one simple clause
with one subject (something) and one tensed verb (pleased). In (38b), on the other hand, the
sentence consists of two clauses, where the subject of the main clause is itself another clause, John
succeeded. The function of that in (38b) is to subordinate one clause to the other, to separate them.
In (38c), the word and performs a similar function of separating two clauses, only in this case it
coordinates the two tensed verbs (succeeded and pleased), rather than subordinating one to the other.
(37d) eliminates the that, so the two clauses are no longer separated; accordingly, the sentence is
ungrammatical. It contains two tensed verbs that are not separated by either a subordinator such as
that (cf. (38b)) or a coordinator like and (cf. (38c)). More importantly, its ungrammaticality is not
arbitrary: it is predictable from (36). Therefore, children do not have to learn not to say (37d), any
more than they have to learn not to try to look through solid objects. They are born with intuitive
knowledge of the principles in (36), which evidently derive from some as yet unknown fact(s) about
human brain function. These principles predict that all sentences like (37d) will be ungrammatical
in any human language. This includes (37d), as well as (39d) and any others which violate (36).
(39) a. The player who(m) the coach picked won.
b. The player the coach picked won.
c. The player who won did a backflip.
d. *The player won did a backflip.
e. The player won and did a backflip.
Despite these remarks, it is always possible that a language might allow some particular construction
under highly specified conditions even when there is a general constraint against it. After all, it is
a well–known fact that languages do have exceptions. In such cases, it is useful to distinguish what
is expected in language on the basis of universal principles from what is unexpected.
Linguists call rules and structures that are expected UNMARKED, and those that are unexpected,
because they violate general principles, MARKED. The more tightly constrained a principle is by
the nature of human beings, the less likely it is to have exceptions and the more highly marked such
exceptions become. For example, if the equivalent of (39d) were found to be grammatical in some
language, it would be highly marked. As one would expect, marked constructions take children
much longer to acquire than unmarked ones.
1.6 LEVELS OF ADEQUACY
There are several levels of adequacy that a linguist can attain in grammatical characterization. The
first level, called OBSERVATIONAL ADEQUACY, is attained when the facts are noted. The
second level, called DESCRIPTIVE ADEQUACY, is attained when the facts are described with
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