Basic English Grammar with Exercises - MEK

Check Questionsoccur in embedded context. In addition, a further property finite clauses they do notshare with non-finite clauses is their ability to contain modals – modals are excludedfrom non-finite clauses. Lastly, the subject of a finite clause is in nominative Case whilethe subject of a non-finite clause is in accusative, or phonologically empty.Q2 It is proposed as a preliminary assumption that the Inflection head contains thebound morphemes 3sg -s, past tense -ed, modals and infinitival to. As a result,different clauses distribute differently depending on the inflectional element theycontain. Secondly, it seems that the inflection behaves like a head in that it restricts itscomplement to vP or VP. Thirdly, it also behaves like a head in that it influences theCase form of its subject: nominative in finite and accusative in non-finite clauses. Inaddition, similarly to the other functional head D, the I head also displays agreementwith its specifier, the subject.Q3 There are theoretically two alternatives: either it is the morphemes -s and -ed,-ing and -en that move (lower onto the verb) or the verb moves up. It is assumed thatEnglish verbal stems cannot host more than one bound morpheme, hence in a clausethat contains aspectuals (which head their own vP), the thematic V moves and picks upthe lower bound morpheme but as it is unable to host more, an aspectual (be or have oreven both if need be) are inserted to pick up the aspectual morphemes.Q4 The I head takes a vP or VP complement. When there is negation present in astructure but no other verb apart from the lexical verb, it seems that the presence of thenegative particle not blocks movement of the verb to pick up the bound morpheme,hence a dummy auxiliary is inserted. That the presence of the negative particle seemsto block movement is supported by the fact that when there are more than oneauxiliaries in a structure it is always the modal (or the leftmost) that moves to form aquestion. This observation is formulated as the Head Movement Constraint: a headcannot skip an intervening head position when it moves. In negation the negativeelement intervenes between the bound morpheme to be picked up and the verb, hencedo is inserted. In languages other than English where a verb is not restricted to hostingonly one bound morpheme, we find paradigms where a bound inflectional morphemedoes actually occur attached to the head. For this reason it is also proposed that thenegative is in fact a variety on light verb constructions and is best be analysed as one.Q5 Aspect markers are analysed as morphemes heading their own vP, whileaspectual auxiliaries are inserted in the I head position.Q6 At the beginning of the chapter the implicit assumption about what theInflection head hosts was that it manifests Tense and Agreement. There is evidencethat it only contains agreement. Tense and infinitival to are separate from it. One pieceof evidence that Tense can be seen as a separate entity is provided by the observationthat modals, which are truly Inflectional elements, can inflect for tense in English.Tense is proposed to head its own vP taking another vP as a complement. When thereis -ed present, there is a phonologically null agreement morpheme in I. In present tensethe form of the tense morpheme is realised as -s when the agreement is third personsingular and as a zero morpheme when the agreement is something else.Thus, what isleft for the I head is agreement manifested either as a modal or as -s or as aphonologically empty morpheme.377