Introduction to Syntax Session 1

Introduction to Syntax 

Session 1 

Introduction 

Cornelia Endriss 

Cognitive Science Program 

University of Osnabrück

The Idea 

… of this course is to learn more about our language faculty, 

in particular about syntax, i.e. about how sentences are 

structured. 

To try and make this a seminar that actually features some 

discussions about the topics we want to deal with, the 

sessions will usually fall into two parts: 

1. I will introduce the basic syntactic concepts to you – based 

on the textbook “Syntax. A generative introduction”, 2nd 

edition 2007 from Andrew Carnie. 

2. One group of students will give us a 30min presentation 

about a topic that is only briefly touched or not mentioned in 

the textbook, and we will discuss this topic in class. 

27.05.2008 Some slides are adapted from material of A. Carnie 2

The Plan 

• The topics that are discussed in the lecture should be 

studied at home by reading the respective chapters in the 

textbook and working through the given presentations. 

• There will be homework exercises from one week to the 

other so that you can check whether the concepts are 

actually understood. 

• Homework exercises and presentations are group work 

with groups of 2 or 3 people. Please choose a presentation 

topic and sign up for the group associated with this topic 

via StudIP (first come first serve). If you sign up for 

“Group x – Topic x”, you are “Group x” and you have to 

present “Topic x” on the date it is scheduled. 

• There will be a final written exam. 


Requirements 

Hence, in order to acquire a certificate for this course (4 ECTS 

points) you have to… 

1. attend the seminar sessions regularly and read the 

corresponding chapters of the course book 

2. hand in the homework assigned regularly and on time 

(group work) 

3. hold one seminar presentation 

(group work) 

4. take a short written exam in the end of the course 

(check also requirements file in StudIP) 


Homework 

• Homework exercises are group work. 

• Solutions must be sent to me by email before 24:00h on the 

Friday following the seminar session (docs or pdfs). 

• Each assignment will give you a number of points, 

depending on the difficulty and amount of work involved. 

The fewer correct assignment you hand in (and hand in in 

time – the deadline is strict) the fewer points you will 

collect. 

• The points you score for the homework tasks accounts for 

1/3 of the final grade. 


Presentations 

• Presentations are group work. 

• Presentations should be 30min long, accompanied by 

handouts or slides. 

• They tackle a topic that is only briefly touched in the 

textbook and deal with further exciting syntactic problems. 

• The materials have to be discussed with me at least one 

week before the presentation. The presentations should be 

more or less ready when we discuss them. My office hours 

are Wednesdays, 2-3pm. But we can also arrange other 

appointments via email. I am happy to give you any help 

you may need. 


Presentations 

• The final version of the presentation (including suggestions 

that have been made during the discussion in class) 

materials must be uploaded in StudIP not later than one 

week after the presentation. The mark is based on the 

presentation plus the quality of the final presentation 

materials. 

• The points you score for the presentation accounts for 1/3 

of the final grade. 


Final Exam 

• The final exam will cover all topics of the textbook that 

have been discussed during the seminar. 

• The points you score for the exam accounts for 1/3 of the 

final grade. 


What is Syntax? 

• The scientific study of sentence structure. 

• The psychological (or cognitive) organization of sentence 

structure in the mind. 

• Underlying thesis: sentences are generated by a 

subconscious set of rules. 


Rules 

Scientific Method throughout this class 

• The task of syntax is to find out what these rules look like. 

• A group of rules are called a Grammar. 

• A grammar in the linguistic sense is a cognitive structure. 

It is the part of the mind that generates and understands 

language. 

• Goal of syntactic theory: to model what we subconsciously 

know about the syntax of our language. 


How do we acquire languages? 

• We are not instructed. 

• Languages are not taught. 


Language is creative 

• Language is creative. 

The dancing hippo saw the rabbit in the kitchen. 

• Human languages are recursive. 

• Dena likes horses 

• Clarissa knows that [Dena likes horses] 

• Anne thinks that [Clarissa knows that [Dena likes horses]] 

• Christian said that [Anne thinks that [Clarissa knows that 

[Dena likes horses]]] 

• etc. 

• Language is infinite. 


Subconscious knowledge 

• We have subconscious knowledge about our 

grammar: 

a) Who(m) did you say Paul hit ___? 

b) Who(m) did you say that Paul hit ___ ? 

c) Who did you say ___ hit Bill? 

d) *Who did you say that ___ hit Bill? 

Wen hat Maria __ angerufen? 

Who(m) has Maria ring-up? 

‘Who(m) did Maria call?’ 

*Wen weißt du, dass Maria __ angerufen hat? 

Who know you that Maria called has 

Example in the 

original language 

Aligned Gloss: 

A word by word 

translation 

(most useful line) 

Loose English Translation: 

For information purposes only 


Poverty of stimulus 

a) Who(m) did you say Paul hit ___? 

b) Who(m) did you say that Paul hit ___ ? 

c) Who did you say ___ hit Bill? 

d) *Who did you say that ___ hit Bill? 

• How does the child know that d) is ungrammatical 

if it does not get negative evidence? 

• How can it be sure that it has heard the crucial set 

of data to build up a rule on grounds of this input? 

(poverty of stimulus argument)? 


Language as an instinct 

• Noam Chomsky 

The ability of humans to use language is innate, 

an instinct. We are prewired to use language! 


But Languages Differ! 

• How can language be an instinct if languages differ? 

• Proposal: Languages differ primarily in terms of what 

words are used, and in a set number of “parameters”. 

• These things are learned but the rest (the basic 

architecture of the grammar) is innate. 

• A particular language is not innate, it is acquired, but 

the basic tools (principles) that any given language uses 

are built in. 


Presentation Topic 1 

Nature versus Nurture 

Chomsky has argued that the ability of humans to use language is 

innate (an instinct). Most linguists nowadays subscribe to that idea. 

On this view it is predicted that human languages exhibit 

interesting generalizations. It is these generalizations that linguists 

investigate. 

One of the core arguments for the innateness of the human 

language capacity is the poverty of stimulus argument. There is a 

very recent debate whether this argument is actually compelling. 

Read the following papers of the proponents and opponents of the 

linguistic nativism thesis and give a short and clear representation of 

their views. Think about your positioning. Which arguments do 

you find more convincing? 



Target article-- 

• Pullum, G. and B. Scholz (2002). Empirical assessment of stimulus 

poverty arguments. The Linguistic Review 19: 8–50. [StudIP] 

Reply-- 

• Crain, S. & P. Pietroski (2002): Why language acquisition is a snap. 

The Linguistic Review 19: 163-183 [StudIP] 

Additional/Background reading-- 

• Chomsky, N. (1959): A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior. 

Language 35, No. 1: 26-58. [StudIP] 

• Crain, S. & P. Pietroski (2005): Innate Ideas, The Cambridge 

Companion to Chomsky. Ed. J. McGilvray. CUP. [StudIP] 


Parts of Speech 

• We will go through Carnie’s book “Syntax” chapter by 

chaper. 

• We start with analyzing the units that sentences are built 

upon: words. (Chapter 2) 

• Famous example (Groucho Marx): 

Time flies like an arrow. 

Fruit flies like a banana. 

(first flies is a verb, second flies is a noun. First like is a 

comparative conjunction, second like is a verb. ) 


Constituency and Ambiguity 

• We carry on with Constitency, Trees, and Rules. (Chapter 3) 

• Ambiguity plays a major role here. 

• Sentences can be ambiguous (= have more than one 

meaning) for numerous reasons. 

• We are concerned with the syntactic reasons for ambiguity 

in this class . 


Lexical Ambiguity 

• Words can have different meanings and thus cause 

ambiguities. 

• These lexical ambiguities won’t concern us much. 



Bitte den 

Polizisten 

umfahren 

(Please the 

policeman 

UMFAHREN) 


umfahren has two meanings: 


Bitte den 

Polizisten 

umfahren 

umfáhren 

To drive round 

úmfahren 

To knock over 

In written form, umfahren 

is ambigous. 

Pronounciation 

disambiguates. 



• Context often disambiguates. 

Bitte den 

Polizisten 

umfahren 

Versuchter Mord wegen Umfahren eines Polizeibeamten 

tried murder due-to UMFAHREN of-a policeman 

(From a blog for legal handling of traffic accidents) 


Morpho-syntactic Ambiguity 

• An Example: 

(Chicken 

Kebap 

Children 

Kebap) 


Morpho-syntactic Ambiguity 

• Ambiguities can be caused by differing interpretations of 

word clusters. 

• (Complex) words are internally structured. Different 

structuring of these complex words can give rise to 

ambiguities. 

• We will mostly ignore these morpho-syntactic ambiguities 

in this class. 


Syntactic Structure 

• Ambiguities that are caused by the underlying structure of a 

sentence are referred to as syntactic ambiguities. 

Woman to shop assistent: 

„Dürfte ich das blaue Kleid im Schaufenster probieren?“ 

May I the blue dress in-the shop window try 

‚Can I try the blue dress in the shop window?‘ 

-- „Ja! Aber wir haben auch Umkleidekabinen!“ 

Yes but we have also fitting rooms 

‚Yes, but we also have fitting rooms.‘ 

• Such ambiguities tell us a lot about the structure of sentences. 

Syntax theory deals with these kinds of ambiguities. 


Parsing Preferences 

• Extralinguistic knowledge does not always help. 

Der Professor küsste die Frau mit dem Briefbeschwerer. 

The professor kissed the woman with the paperweight 

(sentence from Matthias Schlesewsky) 

• Although world knowledge tells us that the act of kissing 

does not take an instrument, the sentence is funny. 

• The sentence is interpreted as: 

Der Professor [[küsste] [die Frau] [mit dem Briefbeschwerer]] 

rather than: 

Der Professor [[küsste] [die Frau mit dem Briefbeschwerer]] 


Parsing Preferences 

• Unexpectedly, the sentence from the last slide is hard to 

understand. 

• It needs to be explained why we cannot interpret the 

sentence in the intended way right away. (It is the only 

reading that makes sense!) 

• There must be general human parsing strategies that 

initially block this interpretation. 

• People have made different suggestions on how humans 

parse and why some sentences are hard to understand, 

although they do have entirely unproblematic meanings. 


Garden Path Sentences 

• Some sentences are so hard to understand that the listener 

actually seems to be led into a garden path when trying to 

interpret them. She is stuck. 

Es ist eine Lüge, dass Fritz zugunsten von Maria nie 

It is a lie that Fritz in aid of Maris never 

etwas unternommen worden wäre. 

something done have was 

Columbus` Feinde glaubten, dass der Entdecker von Amerika erst 

Columbus enemies believed that the discoverer of America yet 

im Jahre 1502 erfahren hat. 

in-the year 1502 learnt has 


Garden Path Sentences 

Peter sagt, dass er der Maria anvertraute streng geheime 

Peter says that he the Maria entrusted strongly secret 

Gerüchte erfahren hat. 

Rumors learnt has 

The horse raced past the barn fell. 

When Fred eats food gets thrown. 

Fat people eat accumulates. 

The cotton clothing is usually made of grows in Mississippi. 

• Here, there are local ambiguities involved, and the parser seems to 

take the wrong route. 

• The listener has difficulties understanding the sentence, as she 

builds up the wrong structure. 



Sentence Processing 

Many sentences are ambiguous in meaning. However, often 

only one meaning is predominant. Sometimes this is even the 

one that should be excluded by world knowledge or other 

factors. Furthermore, some sentences are virtually 

uninterpretable, although they actually do have a perfect 

meaning. We call this effect the garden path effect. 

People have argued for certain human parsing strategies that 

can be held responsible for these effects. 

Read the following papers about human parsing in general 

and garden path effects in particular and report the results of 

these papers to the class. 



Overview Article-- 

• Altmann, Gerry (1998): Ambiguity in Sentence Processing, Trends 

in Cognitive Sciences, 2(4), 146-152 [StudIP] 

Suggestions for human parsing strategies— 

• Frazier, L. (1987) Sentence processing: a tutorial review. In M. 

Coltheart (Hg.), Attention & Performance XII. Hilsdale, 

Erlbaum, 559-586. [Reader, my office] 

• Crain, Stephen and Mark Steedman (1985): On not being led up 

the garden-path: the use of context by the psychological parser. In D. 

Dowty, L. Kartunnen, and A. Zwicky (eds.) Natural Language 

Parsing. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. 

[Reader, my office] 


Binding Theory 

• After setting some terminology (Chapter 4), we carry on 

with a very important topic in syntax: 

Binding Theory (BT) (Chapter 4). 

(Yesterday, it was Paula’s birthday.) 

Heidi said that she played basketball. 

Heidi said that Heidi played basketball. 

Heidi said that Paula played basketball. 

Heidi bopped herself on the head with a zucchini. 

Heidi bopped Heidi on the head with a zucchini. 

#Heidi bopped Paula on the head with a zucchini. 

Heidi bopped her on the head with a zucchini. 

#Heidi bopped Heidi on the head with a zucchini. 

Heidi bopped Paula on the head with a zucchini. 


Picture NPs 

• NPs of the “Xself”-type are usually in complementary 

distribution with pronouns such as “him”/”his”/”her”. 

• BT explains the distribution of these types of NPs. 

• picture-NPs constitute a big challenge to BT, as “Xself”-NPs 

and pronouns behave abnormally here. 

(Paula is happy) 

Heidi found a picture of herself. 

Heidi found a picture of Heidi. 

#Heidi found a picture of Paula. 

Heidi found a picture of her. 

Heidi found a picture of Heidi. 

Heidi found a picture of Paula. 

(Paula is happy) 

#Heidi found Peter’s picture of herself. 

#Heidi found Peter’s picture of Heidi. 

#Heidi found Peter’s picture of Paula. 

Heidi found Peter’s picture of her. 

Heidi found Peter’s picture of Heidi. 

Heidi found Peter’s picture of Paula. 



Picture-NPs 

(You have to have read the textbook up until Chapter 5 to complete this 

task.) 

Read the articles on picture-NPs given on the next slide. 

1. Explain why picture- NPs constitute a challenge for 

Binding Theory as it is presented in Chapter 5 of the 

textbook. Give a short and concise demonstration of your 

results. 

2. Complete challenge problem sets 1 and 2 of the textbook 

(pp. ev: 145f/tv: 147f) and present your results in class. 

3. Present the solutions that are suggested in the papers 

and -- if there is still time -- explain the experimental 

methods used and the results. 



Picture-NPs-- 

• Asudeh, Ash and Frank Keller. Experimental evidence for a 

predication-based Binding Theory. In Mary Andronis, 

Christopher Ball, Heidi Elston, and Sylvain Neuvel, eds., 

CLS 37: The main session. Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistic 

Society. 1-14. [StudIP] 

• Runner, J.T., Sussman, R.S. and Tanenhaus, M.K. (2003). 

Assignment of reference to reflexives and pronouns in picture 

noun phrases: Evidence from eye movements. Cognition 89.1, 

B1-B13. [StudIP] 

Background reading— 

• Chapter 4 of Haegemann, L., 1991. Introduction to 

Government and Binding Theory. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell. 

[Library] 


X-bar Theory 

• We now discuss X-bar Theory (Chapters 6, 7 & 8), which 

gives us a general format for the generative rules we work 

with. 

• It constrains the form that our rules may have. 

• E.g. XP d YP X’ ok; XP d AP BP CP excluded. 

• It simplifies the system of rules and captures the crosscategorial 

generalizations. 

• This sets the stage for the discussion of further empiric 

phenomena. 

• But X-bar theory as such can still produce sentences that 

are NOT well formed. 

• It over-generates (generates ungrammatical sentences). 


• E.g. X-bar theory says that complements are optional so that 

the rules can generate the following sentences: 

The boy hates sweets. 

The boy laughed. 

• BUT: 

Unconstrained X-bar Theory 

*The boy loves. 

*The boy laughed the horse. 

• Certain verbs require objects, others require that they don’t have 

them. 

• It depends on the particular verb. 

overgenerates 


The lexicon 

• The information whether a verb requires an object or not is 

stored in the lexicon. 

• This is the mental dictionary, the store of information about 

particular words. 

• To love: 

to sleep: 

Lover 

DP 

Beloved 

DP 

Sleeper 

DP 


Expletives 

• There are verbs that take no arguments at all. 

• E.g. the verb to rain. 

• There is no “rainer” that makes it rain. 

• To rain: 

• In English (and German), sentences cannot appear without a 

subject though. 

Expletive/ 

• Hence, we say 

Pleonastic 

It rains. 

Instead of simply: 

Rains. 

This is something that needs 

to be explained! 


Expletives 



task.) 

Expletives or pleonastics are usually explained by the need of 

sentences to feature subjects. It is hence predicted that they only 

appear in subject position. However, there are sentences that seem 

to suggest to the contrary. 

I regretted it that he was late. 

Here, the it seems superflous and is certainly not a necessary 

argument to regret. It feels like an expletive. 

Read Rothstein‘s paper about pleonastics and list the reasons for 

and against treating it in object positions as in the example above 

as expletives. 

Present Rothstein‘s view and think about your own view. 



Paper for presentation-- 

• Rothstein, S. (1995) Pleonastics and the interpretation of 

pronouns, Linguistic Inquiry 26:499-529. [Reader, my office] 


• Postal. P. and G. Pullum. (1988). Expletive noun phrases in 

subcategorized positions, Linguistic Inquiry 19:633-670. 



Movement 

• Inspection of new data shows us that we need a new rule 

type, i.e. Movement Rules (Chapters 9-12). 

• These movement rules can account for word order 

variations in different languages. 

• It is assumed that there is a D-structure that sentences start 

out with, from which we can derive the surface structure 

that we actually observe. 

• When the verb is moved from some place to another, we 

refer to this as head-movement. 


Word Order 

• Languages exhibit different word orders. 

• SVO: e.g. English 

Peter loves Mary. 

• SOV: e.g. Turkish 

Hasan kitab-i oku-du. 

Hasan-subj book-object read-past 

‘Hasan reads the book.’ 

• VSO: e.g. Irish 

Phóg Máire an lucharachán 

Kissed Mary the leprechaun 

‘Mary kissed the leprechaun.’ 



VSO Languages 


task.) 

Different languages have different prevailing word orders. 

Irish is one of the around 9% of the languages in the world 

that features a VSO word order. 

It is particularly interesting whether there is a VP (verb + 

object) constituent in such languages. 

Read the articles given on the next slide and present the 

arguments for and against the existence of a VP constituent 

in such sentences. Furthermore, give an outline of 

McCloskey’s view and his arguments. 




• McCloskey, James (1983): A VP in a VSO language. In 

Gerald Gazdar, Geoff Pullam and Ivan Sag (eds.), Order 

Concord and Constituency. Foris, Dordrecht. 



• Carnie, Andrew (2004): Flat Structure, Phrasal Variability 

and Non-Verbal Predication in Irish. Journal of Celtic 

Linguistics 9. [StudIP] 


• With regards to word order, German is a particularly 

intriguing case. 

• At first, it seems that German is an SVO language like 

English. 

Clarissa mag Pferde. 

Clarissa likes horses 

Word Order 

• However, when looking at embedded structures, English 

and German differ. 

*Dena bedauert, dass Clarissa mag Pferde. 

Dena regrets that Clarissa likes horses 

Dena bedauert, dass Clarissa Pferde mag. 

Dena regrets that Clarissa horses likes 

Clarissa likes horses. 

Dena regrets that 

Clarissa likes horses. 



Word Order in German 


task.) 

German shows SVO word order in matrix clauses, but 

(usually) SOV in embedded clauses. 

So what is the underlying word order of German, SVO or 

SOV? How can this strange behavior be explained? 

Read the articles given on the next slide and present the 

results to the class. 



Papers for presentation-- 

• Koster, Jan (1973): Dutch as an SOV Language, Linguistic 

Analysis 1, 111-136. 

[http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/kost006dutc01/kost006dutc01_001.htm] 

• Bach, E., (1962) The order of elements in a transformational 

grammar of German. Language 38, 263-269. 



Embedded Clauses in German 

• As pointed out before, embedded sentences in German 

usually exhibit the SOV word order. 

• Dena glaubt, dass Clarissa Pferde mag. 

Dena believes that Clarissa horses likes 

• However, sometimes we can embed SVO sentences. 

Dena glaubt, Clarissa mag Pferde. 

Dena believes Clarissa likes horses 

• Interestingly, embedding SVO sentences is not always possible. 

*Dena bedauert, Clarissa mag Pferde. 

Dena regrets Clarissa likes horses 



• Predicates that allow for SVO embedding: 

believe, know, say, announce, hope, … 

• Predicates that don’t allow for SVO embedding: 

regret, doubt, want, … 

• This strange property of German has to be explained. 

• People have made different suggestions to the problem, but 

the question is still under debate. 




Note that this is a topic concerning the syntax-semantics interface. The 

task requires some knowledge in formal semantics (Intro to Semantics or 

equivalent skills)! 


task.) 

Only some German verbs allow for the embedding of SVO 

sentences. It has been suggested that there is a semantic 

reason for this. Movement from V to C, which is held 

responsible for SVO word order, can be associated with 

certain semantic effects. 

Read Hubert Truckenbrodt’s article given on the next slide 

and present the results to the class. Please do abstract from 

the formal details of his approach! 




• Truckenbrodt, Hubert (2006): On the semantic motivation of 

syntactic verb movement to C in German. Theoretical 

Linguistics 32.3, edited by Hans-Martin Gärtner. [StudIP] 

Background Reading 

(not obligatory as paper is written in German)-- 

• Reis, Marga (1997): Zum syntaktischen Status unselbständiger 

Verbzweit-Sätze. In C. Dürscheid and K.-J. Ramers (eds.), 

Sprache im Fokus. Festschrift für Heinz Vater zum 65. 

Geburtstag. Tübingen: Niemeyer. 121–144. 



DP- and WH-Movement 

• Not only verbs can move, but also phrases such as the man or 

who (cf. Chapters 10-12). 

Who(m) did you say Paul hit ___? 

Who(m) did you say that Paul hit ___ ? 

• In English wh-phrases have to move to the front. 

• In case of embedded questions they move to the front of the 

embedded clause. 

I know who(m) Paul hit ___. 

• Embedded questions are not introduced by complementizers. 

*I know who(m) that Paul hit ___. 

I know that Paul hit Bill. 


WH-Movement in German 

• The same holds for German. 

Wen hat Maria __ angerufen? 

Who(m) has Maria ring-up? 

‘Who(m) did Maria call?’ 

• Embedded question: 

Ich weiß, wen Maria ___ angerufen hat? 

*Ich weiß, wen dass die Maria ___ angerufen hat. 

Ich weiß, dass die Maria den Peter angerufen hat. 

who 

• So far it seems that wh-words and complementizers are in 

complementary distribution. 

• (Very naïve) explanatory guess: They target the same position. 

27.05.2008 Some slides are adapted from material of A. Carnie 56 

that

WH-Movement in Bavarian 

• But there are languages/dialects that actually allow for 

complementizers and fronted wh-words at the same time. 

• Bavarian German is such a language. 

I woaß ned wos dass –ma toa soin. 

I know not what that -we do should 

‘I don’t know what we should do.’ 

I woaß ned wann dass da Xaver kummt. 

I know not when that the Xaver comes 

‘I don’t know when Xaver will come.’ 

• This shows clearly that wh-phrases actually do not move to 

the same position as complementizers. 



COMP in Bavarian Syntax 


task.) 

Bavarian German allows for both a wh-phrase and an overt 

complementizer. This tells us a lot about wh-movement in 

general and the structure of German sentences in particular. 

Read Joseph Bayer’s article and present the core ideas. 


•Bayer, Joseph (1984), COMP in Bavarian syntax. The 

Linguistic Review 3: 209-274. [Reader, my office] 


Empirical Evidence for Traces 

• In order to give substance to the movement assumption, 

people have tried to give arguments that support the idea 

that the surface structure of a sentence is derived via 

movement operatons. 

• One very famous (and wildly debated) argument has to to 

with wanna-contractions in English 

want + to ⇒ wanna 

Who do you wanna kiss __? 

Who do you want to kiss __ ? 

*Who do you wanna kiss the horse? 

Who do you want __ to kiss the horse? 

intervenes, so blocks wanna 

contraction 



Wanna-contraction in English 


task.) 

Read the grey box on p. 324 (ev: 322) and explain in detail 

why wanna-contractions can be taken to constitute an 

argument for the movement hypothesis and the existence of 

traces. Take also into account the lecture notes of William 

Snyder and Susi Wurmbrand. 

Then read the notes of Grant Goodall and the paper of 

Geffrey Pullum and present the counterarguments for taking 

wanna-constructions as evidence for movement approaches. 



Pullum’s Paper-- 

• Pullum, G. (1997): The morpholexical nature of English tocontraction, 

Language 73, 79-102. [Reader, my office] 

Lecture Notes-- 

• Of Grant Goodall on contraction. [StudIP] 

• Of William Snyder and Susi Wurmbrand on wannacontraction. 

[StudIP] 


Little vP 

• There is good reason to believe that what appear to be 

morphologically simple verbs in English may in fact be 

morphologically complex. 

Ryan cleans the window. 

vP 

VP 

V 

clean 

V’ 

DP 

the window 

27.05.2008 Some slides are adapted from material of A. Carnie 62 

v’ 

v 

CAUSE 

VP 

V 

clean 

V’ 

DP 

the window

Crosslinguistic Evidence 

for Little vP 

• In Japanese for example, certain verbs are realized as 

morphologically complex, although their English 

correspondents are simple verbs. 

Keiko-wa pizza- ag- e -ta. 

Keiko-top pizza-acc rise-v(CAUSE)-past 

‚Keiko raised the pizza.‘ (Lit.: Keiko made the pizza rise.) 


Semantic Evidence for Little vP 

• There is also semantic evidence for the complex VP 

analysis, brought up by Arnim von Stechow. 

1. Repetitive: 

John closed the window again. 

Hans closed the window AGAIN. 

Hans schloss wieder das Fenster. 

Hans had closed the window before. 

2. Restitutive: 

Hans CLOSED the window again. 

Hans schloss das Fenster wieder. 

The window had been close at some stage before. 



Little vP and the semantics of again 

Note that this is a topic concerning the syntax-semantics interface. The 

task requires some knowledge in formal semantics (Intro to Semantics or 

equivalent skills)! 


task.) 

What appears to be a simple verb in German is often realized 

as morphologically complex in other languages. This has led 

to an analysis that splits the VP-domain into vP and VP. 

There is also semantic evidence for this kind of analysis, 

brought up by Arnim von Stechow, concerning the possible 

interpretations of sentences containing again. 

Read von Stechow’s paper, present the core ideas and explain 

in what respects it strengthens the complex VP analysis. 




• von Stechow, Arnim (1996): The Different Readings of Wieder 

'Again': A Structural Account, Journal of Semantics 13, 87- 

138. [StudIP] 

Background Reading-- 

• Kratzer, A. (1996). Severing the external argument from its 

verb. In J. Rooryk and L. Zaring, (eds.), Phrase structure 

and the lexicon, Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 109–137. 



Raising and Control 

• Raising and control structures look strikingly alike at first 

sight. 

Dena is likely to leave. 

Dena is reluctant to leave. 

Dena wants Brian to leave. 

Dena persuaded Brian to leave. 

Raising 

Control 

Raising 

Control 

• Yet, they have to be kept apart. 

• There is good reason to ascribe rather different structures to 

these constructions. 


Raising and Control 

• One can distinguish these constructions via several tests. 

• Here is one, the expletive test. 

• Raising: 

Dena is likely to leave. ⇒ It is likely that Dena will leave. 

Dena wants Brian to leave. ⇒ ? Dena wants it that Brian leaves. 

• Control: 

Dena is reluctant to leave. ⇒ *It is reluctant that Dena will 

leave. 

Dena persuaded Brian to leave. ⇒ *Dena persuaded it that Brian 

leaves. 


Dena is reluctant to leave. 

⇒ that who leaves? Dena! 

⇒ subject control 

Control 

Dena persuaded Brian to leave. 

⇒ that who leaves? Brian! 

⇒ object control 

• The question of what can be controlled by what in which 

configurations is an important topic in syntax. 

Robert knows that it is essential to be well behaved. 

(1. that one is well behaved in general, 2. that he is well behaved) 

• We speak of Control Theory (cf. Binding Theory). 



Control 


task.) 

Control Theory is an important topic in syntax. 

Read Manzini’s paper on control and give an outline of the 

author’s theory. 


Manzini, M. R. (1983). On control and control theory. Linguistic 

Inquiry 14: 421-446. [Reader, my office] 


Syntactic Frameworks 

• Finally, we will look at two syntactic frameworks that 

many people currently work with: 

Minimalism and HPSG. 

• These frameworks implement the concepts we will 

encounter throughout this course in a rather different 

manner. 

• Minimalism is the latest framework proposal of Chomsky. 

• There will (most probably) be a presentation about 

Minimalism in January by Mikko Määttä, University of 

Helsinki, currently a guest of the University of Osnabrück. 

• HPSG has been developed in a different tradition, but 

certainly wants to cover the same range of topics and 

phenomena. 



HPSG 


task.) 

Read Chapter 17 of Carnie’s book “Syntax” and present the 

core concepts of HPSG. Complete General Problem Set 1 on 

p. 470 (ev: p. 468) and present the results to the class. You 

should consult the textbook of Sag, Wasow & Bender to flesh 

out your presentation. 

Background reading -- 

Sag, Ivan A., Thomas Wasow, and Emily M. Bender (2003): 

Syntactic Theory - A formal introduction. 2nd Edition. Stanford: 

CSLI Publications. [Library] 


Session Planning 

01 October 16 Introduction, Genrative Grammar 

Chapter 1 of Carnie`s textbook „Syntax“ 

02 October 23 Parts of Speech, Consituency, Trees, Rules 

Chapters 2 & 3 of Carnie‘s textbook „Syntax“ 

03 October 30 No class (due to conference attendance) 

(There will be an additional session in 

January instead) 

04 November 6 Linguistic Debates in Cognitive Science 

Presentation Topic 1: Nature vs. nurture 

Presentation Topic 2: Sentence processing 



05 November 13 Structural Relations, Binding Theory 

Chapters 4 & 5 of Carnie`s textbook „Syntax“ 

Presentation Topic 3: Picture-NPs 

06 November 20 X-bar Theory 

Chapter 6 & 7 of Carnie`s textbook „Syntax“ 

07 November 27 Constraining X-bar Theory: the Lexicon 


Presentation Topic 4: Expletives in object positions 



08 December 4 Head-to-Head Movement 


Presentation Topic 5: VSO-languages 

09 December 11 Head-to-Head Movement Phenomena 

Presentation Topic 6: Word order in German 

Presentation Topic 7: Embedded V2 

10 December 18 DP Movement, Wh-Movement 

& A Unified Theory of Movement 

Chapters 10, 11 & 12 of Carnie`s textbook „Syntax“ 



11 December 25 no class (Christmas Break) 

12 January 1 no class (Christmas Break) 

13 January 8 Movement Pheomena & Evidence 

Presentation Topic 8: COMP in Bavarian Syntax 

Presentation Topic 9: wanna-contraction 

13b tba A Syntactic Framework: Minimalism 

An introduction to minimalism by Mikko Määttä 



14 January 15 Expanded VPs 


Presentation Topic 10: Little vP and the semantics of again 

15 January 22 Raising, Control, and Empty Categories 


Presentation Topic 11: Control 

16 January 29 A Syntactic Framework: HPSG 

Presentation Topic 12: HPSG 

17 February 5 Final Exam 


Thank you!

Introduction to Syntax Session 1

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