Syntax I

You have an example of how to do (1), that shouldn’t be a particularly great challenge.

For (2), you only know how to do this one if you followed very closely the last couple of minutes of class last time, or can deduce from the last couple of slides what I mean.

So, let me walk through the idea of those last two slides, since there’s nothing really in Adger’s book to refer to on this point.

There are two kinds of sentences that a ditransitive verb (such as give) can find itself in. In one type of sentence you have a subject and then a NP (the Theme) and a PP (the Goal). For example, Pat gave a book to Chris. In the other kind of sentence, you have a subject and then two NPs, for example, Pat gave Chris a book. What’s troublesome about this second type is that the relative order of the the thing being given and the recipient of the giving changes. And this causes a problem for UTAH. The structure in the lower right corner of page 6 on the handout illustrates what we might have hypothesized was the structure for this sentence. But that hypothesis would be wrong.

So, the question is: How can we keep the UTAH and still have an analysis of Pat gave Chris a book?

To work our way toward an answer, consider first that there is actually a subtle difference in meaning between the ditransitive verbs with an NP and a PP, and the ditransitive verbs with two NPs. It’s quite hard to detect between Pat gave Chris a book and Pat gave a book to Chris. But, it’s clear that it’s much more likely that Pat gave Chris a headache than it is that *Pat gave a headache to Chris.

Earlier, we had hypothesized that give is something akin to cause+go, but if you try to paraphrase the headache sentence, you’ll notice that a reasonable paraphrase seems to one with have instead: Pat caused Chris to have a headache.

Ah-ha. Perhaps, then, there are actually two different kinds of give (and likewise for other ditransitive verbs as well, send, teach, …). One is like cause+go as before, the other is like cause+have. This would explain why it’s so weird to say Pat gave a headache to Chris (we don’t generally think of headaches traveling from point A to point B), as well as why it’s fine to say Pat sent a letter to Chicago but weird to say Pat sent Chicago a letter (causing a letter to go to Chicago is reasonable enough, but causing Chicago to possess a letter is anomalous).

Consider, then, the structure of have, by itself (last slide of the handout). It’s not agentive, so there’s no Agent in the specifier of vP. In Pat has a book, it appears that Pat is in SpecVP and a book is in the complement of V, just from the word order. Our existing UTAH does not specify a θ-role for an NP daughter of V′ either. So, let’s suppose the following: The NP, daughter of V′ gets a “Possessee” θ-role. It is the thing possessed. According to our existing UTAH, the possessor itself (for have anyway) has to be considered to be the Theme.

Finally, the idea is really just that Pat gave Chris a book is structurally just like Chris has a book except with a causative v above it, introducing an Agent.

The tree on the last slide shows you how we can think of the structure of Pat gave Chris a book more concretely.

Make sense?

Incidentally, if you know the source from which the sentences in (1-3) are drawn (loosely speaking, anyway), you’ll probably also have realized that they are backwards. It was really Oliver (Babish) that gave Claudia (Jean Cregg) the mustard (at least, I presume), not the other way around. The sentences were concocted too late at night. But, nevertheless: Don’t let the mismatch between these sentences and “reality” confuse you.

The derivation I suggested that you use as a model for the homework has a fairly confusing couple of typos in it, as it turns out.

In steps 2-4, the node labeled “V” should in fact be labeled “VP” (see the other recent blog post called “Derivations and Trees” for more on this).

You may recall from the last class that there was something I wanted to say, but it’s possible that it may not have been that clear once I actually got a chance to say it, in the last -2 minutes of class. So, let me put it writing for your consideration.

There will be quite a bit of tree-drawing and derivations that will take place from now until the end of the semester, and so I wanted to say a couple of things about how you represent derivations. On p. 144 of the Adger textbook is a pretty good example of how a derivation looks, as it proceeds step-by-step. Except for the typos, anyway, which unfortunately have left a number of “V”s where “VPs” should be. See an adjacent blog entry about that.

So, there are at least two things I wanted to mention here. One concerns the “bar-level” of the labels you get once you Merge or Adjoin. Let me first say this: conceptually, this doesn’t matter one whit. When you take two syntactic objects and Merge them together to form a composite object, the features of one of the two objects “project” and serve as the features of the composite object as a whole. What I’m about to talk about here are just conventions for labeling these on the page as we draw the derivation.

The label of a terminal node, one of the original things that you take from your lexicon and are found on the frontier of the tree, is usually the pronunciation of the word itself. In cases where there isn’t really a pronunciation per se (for example, if the node is a “little v“, or if we’re just talking about something in the abstract, like on p. 135), the category is used as the label. Sometimes a terminal node might be written with a superscript zero as well, like V⁰ or P⁰.

In situations where you are concentrating on the feature-checking that happens as the tree is built, you will also want to write the relevant features at the bottom of the tree, under or next to the head whose features they are.

The labels of the nonterminal nodes can be determined in a couple of different ways. One of the ways, the one I introduced in class initially, determines the “bar-level” of a node based on whether the features project higher and whether the features were projected to that node from below. Simply, if the features do not project higher, the node is a maximal projection (as the name itself suggests). Maximal projections are labeled with “P” after the category (e.g., VP, vP, NP, …). Otherwise, if the features do not project from below, then the node must be a head, drawn from the lexicon, and written as just the category (V, N, etc.), or the category with a superscript zero (V⁰, N⁰, and so forth). Otherwise, if the features are both projected from below and project higher, you have an intermediate projection, written with the category followed by a prime (or written with a bar over it) (V′, N′, etc.).

The algorithm Adger uses to determine the label of a node is a bit different, and in fact I think I like his way of doing it better. Again, this is not really a difference in the content of the theory, this is just a difference in the convention of how the nodes are written down.

In Adger’s system, the label is named based on the feature content itself, in particular, the unchecked uninterpretable features. Here’s how this works: If an element has no uninterpretable features left to check, it is a maximal projection (NP, VP, etc.). The reason, of course, is that its features can’t project any higher because your features only project when you Merge with something that checks one of your uninterpretable features. If an element is straight out of the lexicon (at the frontier of the tree), then it is a head (N, V, …, or N⁰, V⁰, …). Otherwise, if it still has uninterpretable features to check, it is an intermediate projection.

One advantage to using Adger’s labeling conventions is that it is less ambiguous about what the node labels should look like when you adjoin one thing to another. Think it through, and you’ll probably see what I mean.

One difference between the way I’d proposed doing it in class and the way Adger does it can be seen, for example, in the trees on p. 133: v and VP are Merged, and the resulting object is listed as being a v′. Why is it a v′? Easy: It’s not a head (it didn’t come out of the lexicon, it exists because Merge put it together), and it has at least one unchecked uninterpretable feature. So, we know that the next Merge is going to have to check that feature and that the features of v are going to project further. (The way I introduced this in class, that same object would have been a vP—and not a v′—until the next step, at which point its features would project higher).

I think for clarity and consistency, I would prefer that you go ahead and use Adger’s system as outlined here.

Now, on to another convention about how trees are drawn: the annotation of nodes with their feature content. Adger tends to write all of the features under the heads, and then write all of the uninterpretable features left to check by the label of the combined units, although he is not really consistent about doing that. It might be a help to your accounting of what’s left to check to do it that way. But, what I generally do is write all of the features under the heads, and then cross them out there (still under the head) as they are checked off. As far as I can see, the system Adger uses when drawing his trees is this: A node is annotated with the uninterpretable feature that is checked when the node is Merged with its sister (and if the node does not yet have a sister, the feature isn’t yet checked). See p. 137 or p. 144 for examples.

I, on the other hand, would just write all of the features under the head, not annotate any nonterminal nodes, and cross out the features as they are checked, under the head. What I like more about this is that it’s clearer than, e.g., the trees on p. 137, about what the features are that the lexical item came with in the first place.

So, I’d say this is a good policy to follow: Use Adger’s conventions for node labeling, based on how many uninterpretable features a node has. Use my conventions for annotating nodes with features, by putting the features down by each head, without any annotations of the feature content of nonterminal nodes.

Since I picked up the wrong folder when heading to class this afternoon, I still have the most recent round of homeworks to return to you. I have office hours today 3-4, and I’ll be in all day tomorrow, so feel free to stop by to pick yours up if you wish. I’ll bring whichever ones I have left with me on Tuesday.

In the interim, the keys to homeworks 1-3 are now available on the course site (syllabus page), so you can look those over to see how I envisioned the problems being done.

I still have a little bit of grading to do for a few people and a few assignments, where the assignment for one reason or another didn’t make it to the grader and I’m grading it myself. I should be caught up with those today as well. After that, the Courseinfo site should have a record and what you got (translated from checks into numbers), and if you find a discrepancy (or if you handed something in that you would have expected to have back by now), let me know.

A couple of people have asked about the verb “listen to” and how one might identify whether its non-Agent argument is a Goal or a Theme.

It’s not always that easy a call, but Goal is generally used where there is a path and an endpoint, and Theme is the thing that gets “verbed”.

Nevertheless, a couple of words of caution. The facts that “listen to” comes with to and that you can think of Goals that come with to do not by themselves warrant the conclusion that the object of “listen to” is a Goal.

Also, compare the Sinhala sentences (2a) and (2b). There’s no preposition there (actually, we’d expect a postposition, not a preposition anyway—but neither is in evidence). There’s not much difference there between (2a) and (2b). Is “the story” a Goal in (2b)?

A similar question may arise with your answer to Question #1, part 4 (about sentence (7)). Again, don’t be swayed by how you happen to translate it in English, consider what you know about Sinhala from these examples.

I got a question about what “DP” and “CP” are, referred to in the upper left corner of page 4 of the handout from class 3A (”theta roles, feature checking”).

Sorry, I’m not sure how those got there, but we haven’t talked about DP and CP and won’t for some time. But just so you know anyway, a DP is a “noun phrase” basically and a CP is a “clause”.

Since we’re here, just a preview: The reason I called the noun phrase a “DP” is because it will actually turn out that the head of something like the students is the (not students). So, DP is to D as VP is to V as any XP is to its head. And a CP is a similar kind of thing, this is the kind of phrase whose head is a complementizer (like that).

But my inclusion of those terms in such an early handout was unintentional, so just read “noun phrase” instead of “DP” and “clause” instead of “CP” for now.

I just happened to type something into Google and saw to my surprise that it pointed me to a PDF file containing a chapter of our textbook. This is probably (ok, well, certainly) not copyright-kosher, but perhaps it is useful. And it’s not after all my infringement, I’m only mentioning that you’ll find this if you look. (Besides, you will still need to own the textbook, because the later chapters are not available online, nor are the exercises at the end of the chapters included). What caught my attention was that, although these are scanned, they’ve also been run through a character recognition program, so you (and Google) can search them.

Try it, search for “Kiss Anson quickly” (p. 113) or “That bookcase is loud” (p. 89).

I’m not sure what use this really is to you, but I suppose if you remember reading something in there somewhere (in the first half of the book) but not where it was, you could now search for it rather than flip pages for 45 minutes.

Interesting question.

This kind of comes down to the answer to the question “Is the direct object always a Theme?”, which is one that we will, in a certain sense, answer in the affirmative in the coming weeks. However, a verb that has two arguments need not always have a Theme (although it almost always does).

Trying to think of an example, the best I can come up with is go, which might arguably have an Agent and a Goal (as in I went to the kitchen). I say “arguably” because I can immediately see several objections, but for the point where we are now I think you can take go to be a transitive verb with an Agent and a Goal. (And I know that the opportunity is just now arising for you to make this determination. But as I’ve said, you should read the blog for hints to the homework.)

Some of those objections I immediately saw include the following, which you can think about, although again I’d stick with the hypothesis for now that go does have (at least in one form) an Agent argument and a Goal argument. In French, go behaves like an unaccusative (the past tense is formed with être), suggesting that the subject (in an active clause) is a Theme. On the other hand, it is (at least sometimes) clearly agentive in meaning, suggesting that the subject (in an active clause) is an Agent. I can see a couple of ways to resolve that, none particularly better than the others. Second, although I go doesn’t sound all that great in English (suggesting that another argument is required), the additional argument does not really seem to have to be a Goal per se, as in I went along the river or I went through the puddle. It seems to me that go requires the specification of some aspect of the path of motion, but it need not be the endpoint.

Another case in which it is not clear what the answer is to “Is the direct object always a Theme?” are double-object verbs, which we will discuss in short order. These are verbs like give in Anne gave Étienne her report. What’s peculiar about these is that they have two “objects”, neither of which is introduced with a preposition. Traditionally, report would be called the “direct object”, and we might even intuitively say it is the Theme, although we’ll analyze this in a different way when we get there.

Bottom line for now: Apart possibly from the verb go, your success rate will be almost perfect if you consider the object to be a Theme in cases where there is another participant that serves as the subject in active clauses.

[Note: I have several times mentioned “active clauses” above — what I mean by that is “not a passive”. The subject of a passive clause is what would have been the object of an active clause, so that confuses things when I try to use a structural specification like “subject” to identify an argument’s theta role. Example: I ordered the pizza (active) vs. The pizza was ordered (by me) (passive). In both cases, the pizza is the Theme.]

It was just pointed out to me that if one follows the instructions diligently for problem III on HW3, one would find oneself being asked to provide a second sentence that could be made with the same lexical items. That is, you’d be trying to follow the instruction for step 3 of problem II with the lexical items from problem III. But in problem III, there’s actually only one way to do it, not two.

Similarly, you don’t need to find all the complements in problem III as well as in problem II. Just do it in problem II.

To summarize succinctly, then: In problem III, replace “Follow the instructions for problem II above, …” with “Follow the instructions for steps 1 and 2 of problem II above, …”. Skip steps 3 and 4 when doing problem III.

In response to a question about the Patient theta role in class, I mentioned that we are not going to differentiate Themes and Patients, but just call both of them Themes. This is because, even if we can come up with a distinct definition of each, the syntax treats them in the same way. (A quick Google search on “theme patient theta” confirms that pretty much the only time “Theme” and “Patient” appear on the web, it’s either in the string “Theme/Patient” or the string “Patient/Theme”, sometimes “Theme (Patient)”).

The standard definition of Theme/Patient is that it is the “player” in the sentence that undergoes the action, or is affected by the action. But, this is a pretty loose definition, it doesn’t cover all cases.

Suppose that Horton hears a Who. (If that reference is lost on you, a “Who” is in this case a very small sentient species that, in the Dr. Suess children’s story of the same name, caught the attention of an elephant named Horton.) Horton is the Experiencer, and a Who is the Theme—yet the Who is certainly not materially affected by this occurrence. One might say similar things about singing a song, reading a book, copying a DVD.

In general, the idea that the Theme is the thing “affected” can really only serve as a heuristic, not a definition. When something is affected, it will be the Theme, but other things are Themes too. In fact, it might be best to think of Theme as being the role that a participant plays when it doesn’t play a more specific role like Agent, Experiencer, Goal, or Instrument.

We also need to be a bit careful to interpret things like “cause” fairly narrowly. It might be that hearing a particular song causes you to burst into tears. But in the sentence “You heard that song”, that song is still a Theme. The reason, intuitively, is that this sentence doesn’t mean the same thing as “That song made you burst into tears.” It’s just that in this very specific context, it is true whenever “You heard that song” is true. But they are different sentences (they express different propositions), because there could be a context where one is true and the other is false. So, when we determine the theta role, it’s based (in some sense) on the literal meaning of a sentence, and not on any kind of implication or implicature that the sentence might convey. Or, to return to the previous example, even if the Who is shouting, as a result of which Horton heard the Who, the Who is still the theme of heard. It would be the Agent of “The Who shouted”, but that’s a different sentence.

Defining theta roles in a satisfactory way is quite difficult to do, most of syntax proceeds with heuristics and a “we know them when we see them” approach. Subjects are generally Agents or Experiencers (but not always, as with unaccusative verbs like fall or passive verbs such as that in “The Who was heard.”). Objects are generally Themes. Instruments are generally prepositional phrases with with.

It’s unlikely that this helped clarify how to define theta roles, but with luck it may have at least clarified that the situation is a bit murky with respect to determining the theta role an argument gets.