Syntax – Lecture 01

prof. Romuald Gozdawa-Gołębiowski

office hours: Mondays 13.15 – 14.30, room 211

http://rgg.angli.uw.edu.pl
password: weloveSyntax_13
registration deadline: February 28
early registration deadline: February 20, 10:00 pm (extra points!)

EXAM SPECIFICATION
1. lecture assignments 0-6 points
2. final test 24 points (15 multiple-choice questions + 3 open-ended questions)
3. extra points: early registration, quizzes, active participation, Moodle involvement, bonus test
questions
cut off: 13 points out of which at least 10 have to be final exam points
any score exceeding 28 points out of which at least 22 are final exam points will get a 5! (A+)

What is language?
What does it mean to know a language?
What do we know when we know a language?
Where do we get this knowledge from?

There are two approaches when it comes to the definition of language:

FUNCTIONAL – what function does it perform?
ORGANIC – what are the building blocks of it?

The basic building blocks of a language are sounds (which form morphemes, which form words,
which form phrases, etc.) NOTE: sounds, not letters – the majority of world’s languages isn’t written.

As a native speaker of a language you possess a PHONOLOGICAL COMPETENCE, that is:

1. You know how to produce the sounds of your language.
2. You can tell which sounds belong to your language’s repertoire and which don’t.
3. You recognize and unerringly produce all phonologically conditioned variants of the same sound:
e.g. pit vs. spit (first “p” is aspirated) / ser vs. sieć (“e” in sieć is higher, like in English “pet”)
4. You know the rules of putting the sounds together
things, hanger, hunger, stronger, king, bingo – where is [g] pronounced? And why?
[g] is not pronounced at morphemes’ boundaries, there’s one exception: comparison of adjectives

Phonological competence depends on the early maturing macroneural circuits and must be acquired
in the early childhood. In teaching a language the difficulty of applying elements of alien phonology
should be taken into account. There are two ways of dealing with it:

• teach and learn only those alien sounds whose absence is really threatening for the communication
(creating of lingua franca)

• as much as possible rely on the learner’s native habits while introducing L2 phonology, e.g.:
The vowel sound of bad (that is [æ]) appears as a rapid speech phenomenon in Polish,
e.g. as a reduction of a complex sequence ała.
Cf. Wart Pac pałaca, a pałac Paca.

The vowel sound of bird (that is [ɜ]) appears as a rapid speech phenomenon in Polish,
e.g. as a reduction of a complex sequence owie as in człowiekowi.
 Syntax – Lecture 02
Now we take into account the native speaker’s MORPHOLOGICAL COMPETENCE. Thanks to it you
have the ability to identify morphemes.

There are inflectional and derivational morphemes.

Inflectional morphemes produce variants of the same lexeme, add grammatical information only.
Derivational morphemes produce new words (new lexical entries) in a dictionary.
Cf. quick vs. quicker / teach vs. teacher

MORPHOLOGICAL TRANSPARENCY vs. MORPHOLOGICAL IDIOSYNCRASY

teacher – the use of er is transparent here, teacher means a person who teaches
cooker – the use of er is idiosyncratic here, cooker DOES NOT mean a person who cooks

playboy doesn’t mean a boy who plays

pijak doesn’t mean człowiek, który pije (dowolny napój, np. herbatę)
Above examples are semantically idiosyncratic.

balon – balonik vs. ogon – ogonek

Above examples are functionally idiosyncratic. We cannot predict if “ek” or “ik” diminutive suffix
should be used.

pomidorek, selerek, kartofelek vs. ogórek

kawaler vs. kawalerka

Morphemes are hierarchically arranged within words – derivational morphemes come before
inflectional morphemes. Therefore:

re sharp en ed re sharp en ed re sharp en ed

How is it working in the first diagram?

Verbal suffix “en” is attached to the stem – adjective “sharp” (as in length – lengthen), then repetitive
prefix “re” is added to the verb “sharpen” (as in write – rewrite) and finally a derivational suffix “ed”
indicative of past tense is added to the verb “resharpen” (as in look – looked).
On the exam, remember to provide examples for each step (like those in brackets here).

Why is the second one wrong?

Because inflection cannot occur before derivation.

Why is the third one wrong?

Because “re” cannot be added to adjectives, only to verbs.
dis honest y – Which morpheme – dis or y – comes first?

The answer: “y” comes first. Note, it changes the stress of the word, it’s a morphological “alpha
male”, a class-one derivational morpheme, while “dis” is a class-two derivational morpheme.

THE AMBIGUITY OF “un”.

uninteresting, unfriendly, undeniable – here “un” means “not”
undo, unpack, uncover, unload – here “un” means “do the opposite of”
Apparently, when attached to adjectives “un” means “not” and when attached to verbs it means “do
the opposite of”. It was proven that children during their acquisition of English language never
mistake those two uses. The rule is a part of their morphological competence.
The rule is still productive (that is, we can apply to new words), e.g.:
undo which came to use when the action of “undoing” things on computers was introduced;
I have to unfuck what you did (=You messed things up, I have to clear them up).

Now, a small quiz. Consider the word unlockable. How can it be represented on a diagram?

un lock able vs. un lock able

Unlockable is ambiguous:
On the first diagram unlockable means “able to be unlocked” (= you can open it).
On the second one it means “unable to be locked” (= you cannot close it).

FOLK MORPHOLOGY

• Hamburg-er (a citizen of Hamburg)  ham-burger (a burger with ham, there was NO SUCH WORD
as burger).

• Pullet surprise (instead of Pulitzer Prize)

• a whole nother story (“whole” split “another”)

• naranja  a norange  an orange (for some reason “n” moved)

• “keep left” (a sign at British roundabouts)  kipilefti/vipilefti: Kirundi for “roundabouts” (“ki” is
Kirundi marker of singular, while “vi” marks plural).

• a nuncle  an uncle

• a napperon (from French)  an apperon  an apron

 Syntax – Lecture 03
The fact that you know the dictionary meaning of words of your language is the essence of your
SEMANTIC COMPETENCE. It consists of the following features:

1. You’re able to perceive semantic ambiguity

• I saw her at the bank.
• Miał piec, a nie miał węgla.
• Iraqi head seeks arms.
• Hemorrhoid victims turn to ice.
• The lamb is too hot to eat.
• Molestowaniem seksualnym Dariusza B. zajęła się policja.
• Dwóch zbliżających się do czterdziestki przyrodnich braci dzieli prawie wszystko.

2. You accept and propagate changes of meaning of individual lexical items. This relates
to the concept of lexical error.
• bielizna ( biały; więc jak BIELizna może być kolorowa?)
• złodziej (dobrodziej vs. złodziej (złoczyńca))
• akwen wodny (tautologia; ale dziś mamy ‘akwen powietrzny”)
• a bigger half (10 years ago “half” appeared in Longman’s dictionary as “a big part”, thus
saying “the bigger half” is correct)
• tandem polsko-czesko-rosyjski
• iść po najmniejszej linii oporu (iść po linii najmniejszego oporu)
• wyjątek potwierdza regułę

3. You intuitively distinguish between homonymy and polysemy

HOMONYMY (unrelated words happen to have the same form):

• kopia (broń) vs. kopia (tekst)
• Żyd karabin niesie. vs. Żydka rabin niesie. (sentential homonymy)
• A young daughter came back from Sunday School and told her parents that they sang
the song Gladly, the cross-eyed bear. It took her parents some time to realize it was in fact
Gladly, the cross I’d bear. :D

POLYSEMY (one word has several related meanings):

head (body part) vs. head (of a department)

Consider the word “date”:

There are two types of polysemy:

a) chain polysemy
my family  crow/raven family  engine family
[+animate] [+animate] [+animate]
[+human] [+human] [+human]
[+related] [+related] [+related]
 b) radial polysemy

c) the two can mix

ognisko muzyczne

ognisko  ognisko soczewki

ognisko epidemii

4. A crucial semantic skill we demonstrate is the recognition of metonymy.

Metonymy – one entity (vehicle) is employed in order to identify another entity (target) with
which it is associated.
• (two nurses talking) Woreczek żółciowy poszedł na USG. Dlaczego ta zakrzepica nie leży na
naczyniówce?
• (two waitresses talking): Be careful, the ham sandwich has wandering hands.
• “Houston, we’ve had a problem”.

Types of metonymy:
a) producer for product:
• Pass me that Shakespeare on the top shelf.
• He just bought a new Mercedes.
• Kupili nowe ksero. (ksero  Xerox  name of the company)
b) place for event:
• America fears another Vietnam.
• Iraq nearly cost Tony Blair premiership.
• Uczynimy z Polski drugą Irlandię.
c) place for institution:
• Downing Street refused comment.
• Paris and Washington are in disagreement over the issue.
• Studenci protestowali, a dziekanat milczał.
d) part for the whole:
• All hands on deck!
• She is a pretty face.
• Właściciel czterech kółek.
e) whole for part
• My car developed a mechanical fault.
• England beat Australia in the Ruby Cup.

There are also highly specialized uses of metonymy, e.g.:

• a body part for a function associated with that body part
She has Prime Minister’s ear. = She has his attention.
He’s won her heart. = He’s got her affection
Cultural cliché: To ask for a girl’s hand

Why is metonymy so popular?

It seems to simplify complex constructs by focusing on the predominant features thereby making the
message more effective. Consider the following quotation of Barrack Obama:
“We cannot only have a plan for Wall Street… We must help Main Street.”

There are two more major aspects of semantic competence: use of metaphor and use of formulaic
language. We shall discuss them later in the course.
 Syntax – Lecture 04
You perceive words as grouped into chunks. This is the essence of your SYNTACTIC COMPETENCE.

SYNTAX is about the hierarchal organization of words within bigger units (i.e. top-bottom
arrangement) rather than merely linear (left-to-right) sequencing.

I GAVE HER RAT POISON.

I gave her rat poison I gave her rat poison

So far we’ve seen that the sequence of words her-rat-poison is meaningful if arranged (=interpreted)
in one of two ways: [her rat] – [poison] or [her] – [rat poison]

Consider the sentence: I ATE HER RAT POISON.

I ate her rat poison

You know the rules of putting words together to produce bigger chunks.

1. This involves the ability to assign structure to sentences if the same string of words can be
assigned (=can have) two different structures. Those sentences are syntactically ambiguous:
I shot an elephant in my pajamas.
I heard that petrol can explode.

Do you see how syntax is instrumental for understanding those jokes?

Archie (seeing Edith come home with a bunch of flowers): Edith, where did you get all those
flowers?
Edith: Remember when I told you I was going to visit my friend in hospital? You said I should
take her flowers. So I did.

Fred: You should really prepare yourself for the jump into the hyperspace. It’s unpleasant as
being drunk.
Arthur: What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?
Fred: Just ask any glass of water.
 Wife: My husband is getting a little queer to sleep with.
Her friend: Does he make you participate in some strange practices?
Wife: No, he doesn’t. And neither does the little queer.

2. Your syntactic competence involves ability to detect synonymy.

The chicken crossed the road. & The road was crossed by the chicken.
Those sentences are different, yet they have the same meaning.

3. You perceive links holding between non-adjacent elements.

The word BUFFALO has three meanings:

• noun – an animal (bison)
• noun/adjective – a place in New York City
• verb – to intimidate someone

(Note: capitalization would be normally used only for the second meaning, but here it’s used
for all to make them look exactly the same way).

• Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo. – one team of bison intimidate another.

• Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo. – this one is ambiguous, it’s either: “A team of bison from
Buffalo intimidate another team of bison” or” A team of bison intimidate a team of bison from
Buffalo)
• Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo. – (extension of the above)

Now, take a look at this one:

BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO.

What can it mean?

BUFFALO BUFFALO (which) BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO.

adj. noun adj. noun verb main v. adj. noun

You can put infinite number of Buffalos in a sentence. Why is that possible?
It is possible because the language is recursive.

The student fainted.

The student the teacher loved fainted.
The student the teacher the dean admired loved fainted.
The student the teacher the dean the director kissed admired loved fainted.

RECURSIVENESS is about having the same symbol on either side of re-write arrow.

A  b c generates on possible sentence.

b c
 What about A  b A c ? This rule generates INFINITE number of sentences:

b A c

b A c

b c

Another examples:
• The teachers asked students to behave themselves.
• The teachers promised students to behave themselves.
You can clearly see in which case the reflexive pronoun refers to which noun.

4. You recover missing words from certain grammatical strings.

A: Will you join us for a drink?

B: I would join you for a drink if Tom did join you for a drink, but he can’t join you for a drink
so I won’t join you for a drink, either.

Finding the gun in the drawer worried us.

Finding the gun in the drawer he called the police.

5. You also have a very special gift, a mysterious link between syntax and semantics/lexicon,
namely your FORMULAIC COMPETENCE:

Word strings which appear to be processed without recourse to their lowest level of
composition are termed formulaic.

SILNY or MOCNY?
______ herbata, _______ wola, ______w gębie

We may argue that “mocna herbata” is one word.

 Syntax – Lecture 05
We are continuing with the issue of the FORMULAIC COMPETENCE.

It is a measure of your native competence that you feel which word combinations are right:
• a warm welcome / a *hot welcome vs. ciepłe powitanie / gorące powitanie
• be quiet vs. soyez tranquille
• gęste włosy vs. *dense hair (should be: thick hair)
• dense/thick fog
• zespół poniósł __________ (porażkę)
• zespół odniósł __________ (zwycięstwo)
• druzgocąca __________ (porażka)
• pyrrusowe _________ (zwycięstwo)

Hence, foreigners are often perceived as unidiomatic since they avoid formulaic language or use it
incorrectly. Sometimes the intuitions involved may be very subtle.
• ?? I eat breakfast at eight. – native speakers would rather say “have”
• ?? Odeszła w zieloną dal.
• ?? Sprzedawać kotkę w worku.

I found conversing with you very pleasant, indeed. vs. Nice talking to you.
In a conversation with a new acquaintance which of these sentences appears to be more natural?

How about those:

What a pleasant event it is to see you. Tell me how your life is progressing at the moment.
vs. Hi, how are you going?

Now, imagine you arrive at a party and the host welcomes you at the door:
I’m delighted you’ve been able to show up. vs. I’m glad you could make it.

There are certain formulae attached to certain contexts.

An experiment was conducted to check how native speakers of English would describe a match.
Consider this perfectly correct English phrase:
We won the match and the Italians lost, which was really surprising.
It turned out that none of the speakers asked used this expression. The two most popular were:
We pulled off a surprise victory against the Italian team.
and The Reds were victorious over the Whites.

to be victorious over = to pull of a victory against = to win

Formulas act as individual lexical items. That’s why your formulaic competence may be seen as part
of your semantic (word-driven) competence.
However, formulas also depend on syntax (more precisely: morphosyntax) for their ultimate
well-formedness:
It will be nice to see you. vs. It was nice to see him. vs. It is nice to see them.
The expression used seems to be stored in the speakers’ minds as:
It [tense] be nice [to + V][N + ing] NP-ACC
Your FORMULAIC COMPETENCE depends on two major competences (i.e. semantic and syntactic)
and also on the culture and the pragmatic competence (which will be discussed below).

SEMANTIC FORMULAIC SYNTACTIC

COMPETENCE COMPETENCE

COMPETENCE

CULTURE

PRAGMATIC
COMPETENCE

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ADVANTAGES OF USING FORMULAIC LANGUAGE:

• It buys time for content planning (= aids the speaker’s production): the long formulaic expression
“takes care of itself” while you have time to think of your next argument.
• It buys time for sentence processing (= aids the listener’s comprehension): you hear the initial part
of a formulaic expression (e.g. Drużyna odniosła zwycięstwo) and you have time to think of what you
want to say.

This is a sine qua for formulae to fulfill their main function: THE MANIPULATION OF OTHERS.
Formulaic language is a linguistic solution to a non-linguistic problem.

There exists a phenomenon which I will refer to as CONTRASTIVE CONTAMINATION, when a formula
from one language interferes from a formula from another. Consider the example:
myć głowę vs. myć włosy – wash one’s hair
The expression “myć włosy” was unknown to Polish language before.
(chociaż, wspominał, że to przeszło do języka potocznego za sprawą reklam, więc nie wiem, na ile to
ma coś wspólnego z angielskim)

Formulas often undergo SEMANTIC CONTAMINATION, i.e. they are “distorted”, especially when the
speaker lacks time or attentional resource to self-monitoring.
1) Nie można zaprzeczyć, że Leszek Balcerowicz jest mężem Ewy Balcerowicz I odwrotnie.
2) My też odnieśliśmy szkodę.
3) Jeden poprosił ładnie, a drugi z ostrej rury daje. (ostro dawać + z grubej rury)
4) Ja mam pana serdecznie w dupie. (mieć kogoś serdecznie dość + mieć kogoś w dupie)
5) Tak na zdrowy rozsądek. (zdrowy rozsądek + tak na zdrowy rozum)
6) W wypadku pasażerowie doznali poważnych uszkodzeń.
7) Opadów nie powinno być specjalnie sporo.
8) Temu układowi trzeba zadać klęskę.
9) Jasne jak drut.
10) Lepiej być ostrożnym, niż dmuchać na zimne.
11) Chyli się nad grobem.
12) Wszyscy podejrzani staną na ławie oskarżonych. (staną przed sądem + zasiądą na ławie)
13) Podcięto mi nadzieję do powrotu do zdrowia.
14) Słabli z sił gospodarze, słabła także Legia.
15) Żeby prezydent mógł w szczycie w Brukseli uczestniczyć.
 Syntax – Lecture 06
Now, let’s introduce the issue of the PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE which is the system of beliefs
each of us holds about the world, expectations about other people, cultural patterns shared by
our speech communication, all non-linguistic factors that may have a bearing on utterance
interpretation.

A: Would you like a cup of coffee?

B: Coffee keeps me awake.
How do we know whether B wants his coffee or not? He may refer to the fact that he has to study
for the exam he has tomorrow morning so he wants the coffee, but he may also refer to the fact
that he has already learnt and wants to have an early night to be fresh for the exam.

Now, consider how different associations may those to sentences evoke (they both mean the
same semantically):
Иван настоищий комунист. (spoken in Soviet Russia)
John is a real communist. (spoken in the US of the 1960s.)

Now, consider the phrase uttered by a girl to her boyfriend at a party:

What she says: It’s getting late.
What he thinks: She intends me to realize that she intends me to believe that we should leave
now.

We have a uniquely human capacity of attributing intentions to others.

A: What do you think of Anne’s new boyfriend?

B: Well, Mel Gibson, he is not.

The speakers share some about Mel Gibson – he’s a cultural icon standing for being handsome,
successful, rich. But suppose you encountered an article about Mel Gibson’s criminal history and
you learnt he’s a murderer. Would you use this reference? You may, but you have to be sure that
your interlocutor read the article and that he knows you have also read it. And that he knows that
you know that he knows it 

LEVEL 1 – I know
LEVEL 2 – You know
LEVEL 3 – I know that you know
LEVEL 4 – You know that I know that you know

HANDLING A CONVERSATION
• what I say ≠ what I mean
• we always speak for a reason
• an utterance is relevant if we think we see why it was uttered
• it is human nature to maximize relevance while minimizing the effort involved

Consequently, the so-called Gricean Conversational Maxims emerge:

Don’t say more – or less – than is required to make your contribution understandable. Being
irrelevant and lying is saying more – or less – than is required.
Consider another example:
A: What do you think of Anne’s new boyfriend?
B: Nice weather we are having.

What does B mean? Her utterance may mean that she doesn’t like him, that she doesn’t want to
talk about it… Or maybe the person in question is standing behind A’s back and B is trying to warn
her interlocutor?

Now, look at the previous example again:

A: What do you think of Anne’s new boyfriend?
B: Well, Mel Gibson, he is not.

To arrive at the speaker’s meaning we have to begin with the face-value of the sentence. The
mundane and surprisingly unilluminating statement that Anne’s new boyfriend is not called Mel
Gibson triggers off pragmatic processing. The uninformative load of the message is a signal that
the pragmatic competence is necessary.

Look, how sophisticated is the process of activating pragmatic competence is:

A: Have you got a light?
B: I don’t smoke.

B is being polite – instead of simply saying that he doesn’t have a lighter or matches, he gives a
reason why. We may paraphrase his utterance as: “I don’t have a light, because I don’t smoke
cigarettes. It’s not that I don’t want to lend it to you. I would if I had one.” Also, note the whole
cultural context one has to know to understand the conversation: the speakers have to know the
practice of smoking (it’s purely cultural, it’s not encoded in the language), they have to know that
lighters/matches are used for lighting cigarettes.

A: Przepraszam, ma pan zegarek?

B: Tak, złoty Rolex, prezent od żony.

Why is this conversation funny? Also, note that in English the phrase “Do you have a watch”
probably wouldn’t be used.

Consider another example: a conversation between Leszek Blanik and a female reporter after
Blanik lost to Kubica in the Athlete of the Year competition. The reporter offered him a jar of
honey as a consolation.
Leszek Blanik: Dziękuję, będę nim polewał swój przyrząd.
Reporter (after a moment of silence): Czyli stół gimnastyczny.

Another example:
A: Could I have the next dance?
B: I’ve got two left feet.
Literarily, A is lying (nobody can have two left feet), he means that he cannot dance. But in fact, it
may not be the case. He may not want to dance, but he doesn’t want to be rude.
THE PRAGMATIC SOCIO-CULTURAL CHALENGE OF LANGUAGE USE
We doubt, given the complexity of the cultural information which is coded in formulae, that
anyone can become truly bicultural after early childhood and therefore that anyone can become
a native speaker of a second language after this time even if they sound as though they are.

EXAMPLES:
• spinster vs. bachelor
• dyrektorka przedszkola vs. dyrektor szkoły
• accepting / refusing things (in Arabic cultures, one should refuse an invitation and wait to be
given one again so one knows it’s honest)
• paying compliments – in Polish culture one should play down a compliment

widow vs. widower:

widow of vs. widower of BUT his widow vs. *her widower
+ in Polish the phrase “wdowiec po” was absent for a long time

Do bird / oiseau / ptak mean one and the same thing?

The dictionary meaning is the same, but those words lack pragmatic equivalence.
to be hawk-eyed vs. un oeil d’aigle vs. sokoli wzrok

Socio-pragmatic / cultural SUPERSTRUCTURE is like an extension of an existing structure above

the baseline. The baseline (the footing) consists of a series of a narrowly conceived linguistic
competence. In that sense (and ONLY IN THAT SENSE) it may be perceived as secondary
or derivative.

PHONOLOGICAL RULES
SOUNDS

MORPHOLIGCAL RULES
MORPHEMES
LINGUSTIC
COMPETENCE
SEMANTIC RULES
WORDS

SYNTACTIC RULES
PHRASES

PRAGMATIC RULES

UTTERANCES
Remember organic and functional definitions of language? The organic definition applies
to the linguistic competence, the functional definition applies to the pragmatic competence.
 Syntax – Lecture 07
We introduce the PRAGMATICS-SEMANTIC INTERFACE, that is METAPHOR

Metaphors involve transfer of meaning from one domain (source) to another (target) – this is
called mapping.

Juliet is my Sun.
SOURCE: Sun
It’s attributes: giving light to the world, brightness
What about beauty?
Beauty is brightness. In 17th century England beauty was displayed at torch-lit masquerade balls.
This is the essence of Romeo’s opening remark to Juliet: Thou dost teach the torches to burn
bright.
Mapping: Juliet has the ability to light up the world with her beauty.

Structure of the conceptual metaphors – X is Y:

• LOVE IS A JOURNEY – source: journey, target: love
- Our relationship is at the crossroads.
- Their marriage has been a long bumpy road.
- We’ll just have to go our own separate ways.
• AN ARGUMENT IS A JOURNEY – source: journey, target: argument
- He failed to reach the conclusion.
- I couldn’t follow the argument.
- I got lost in the argument.
• TIME IS MOTION – source: motion, target: time
(in many cultures, including ours, the past is behind the speaker)
- The time will come, when…
- The time for action has arrived.
- On the preceding day…
- I’m looking ahead to Christmas.
- Let’s put all that behind us.
- Thanksgiving is coming up on us.

Consider the example:

IF BILL CLINTON WERE TITANIC, THE ICEBERG WOULD SINK.
Associations with the source domain: the Titanic, the iceberg, crash, the Titanic sinks
Associations with the target domain: Bill Clinton and some unspecified force he will crush against
Extension of the target domain: in the American context Clinton crashes against his political
opponents. Clinton and his opponents collide, just like the Titanic and the iceberg do, but the
result must be different because of the conceptual “if”. – Clinton’s opponents sink, he survives.

Another example:
WE ARE HUNGRY FOR VICTORY.
Phonological competence: correct pronunciation
Morphological competence: inflection & derivation (“hungry” not “hunger”, “victory” not
“victorious” etc.)
Syntactic competence: establishing the relations between words within sentences (“are” refers to “we”,
“a victory” is an NP etc.)
Semantic competence: establishing the meaning – There is something we’d like to eat because
we are hungry.
Here the linguistic competence stops.
Pragmatic competence: speaker’s meaning (victory is not something that can be eaten, so
relevance must be sought at a more abstract level):
We need to eat. = We need victory.
Everyone needs to eat. = It’s only natural we want to win.
We cannot live without eating. = Victory is very important to us, we’ll go to extreme lengths to
achieve it.
In short: DESIRE IS HUNGER

Note that in Polish desire is thirst (e.g. spragniony zwycięstwa, zaspokoić chuć, ugasić żądze), in
fact we may say it’s more natural – you can stay without water for a shorter time than without
food.

Just as with formulaic language metaphors tend to be contaminated, especially when the speaker
is under pressure and/or wants to look for a fresh “unused” metaphor to impress the
interlocutors, e.g.:
„Ta budowla to wrzód na zielonych płucach Polski.”
„Komorowski stanowi kości niezgody w rozmowach koalicyjnych. Czy warto było stawiać rozmowy
koalicyjne na szali tej kości?”
„Progi Ruchu Palikota są dla Siwca otwarte.”

SEMANTIC ILL-FORMEDNESS vs. PRAGMATIC UNACCEPTABILITY:

A sentence is ungrammatical or semantically wrong if its interpretation leads to a contradiction in
terms – p ^ ~p (p and not p).
A sentence is pragmatically unacceptable if its interpretation calls for suspension of our beliefs
about the world.

A sentence which violates semantic criteria may still be pragmatically interpretable:

This triangle has four sides. – semantically wrong (triangle = has three sides: p and not p)
The bachelor next door is getting married again. – semantically wrong
My toothbrush is pregnant. – pragmatically wrong (it’s not just a contradiction, if you look up
“toothbrush” in a dictionary, the entry doesn’t say “unable to get pregnant”, “toothbrush” just
has nothing to do with “pregnancy”).
John is a living dead man. – semantically wrong (we don’t take the phenomenon of zombies into
consideration), but pragmatically OK.
A: Are you married?
B: Well, I am and I am not. – semantically wrong, but pragmatically OK (e.g. B may be divorcing,
or be separated with their spouse)

It may be also the other way round!

A sentence may be pragmatically unacceptable even if it is semantically well-formed:

The boy fainted.
The boy the girl loved fainted.
The boy the girl the teacher admired loved fainted.
(The last one is semantically, but we wouldn’t USE it, because we can’t UNDERSTAND it).
Anyone who believes that the people who think that the Earth is round are right is wrong.
Note that we need a long mental process to arrive at the meaning:
The Earth is round = X
People who believe X are right = Y
Anyone who believes Y is wrong.
(This is the Flat Earth Society  It really exists in the US)

And now, we’re heading towards the THEORY OF LANGUAGE ACQUISTION.

GRAMMAR as a model of the competence of a fluent speaker.

I-LANGUAGE vs. E-LANGUAGE

I-LANGUAGE is the set of rules and principles in the mind of the speaker specifying the set of
sentences which (s)he can use if no non-linguistic factors are operative.
E-LANGUAGE is an infinite set of potential sentences of any natural language (all and only
grammatical ones).

Alternatively:
I-LANGUAGE is a finite set of rules operating on a finite set of words to produce an infinite
number of sentences.
E-LANGUAGE is the set of sentences that a speaker can use if no non-linguistic factors are
operative.

How can we demonstrate that the number of potential sentences of any natural language
is infinite?
The number of sentences is infinite if it can be shown that there is no limit to the words in
a sentence (= there is no longest sentence).

Every sentence may be made longer by:

a) lexical means
He saw a beautiful girl.
He saw a beautiful, intelligent girl.
He saw a beautiful, intelligent, 24-year-old girl.
(note: the numerals are sufficient, because there is an infinite number of them)
Syntax is interesting.
Syntax is very interesting.
Syntax is very, very, very, very, very interesting.

b) syntactic means

• conjoining (compounding) (zdanie współrzędnie złożone):

Tom read a book and wrote a letter.
Tom read a book and wrote a letter, but he forgot to sign it.
This is possible thanks to language being recursive.

• embedding (zdanie podrzędnie złożone)

His students love syntax.
I know that his students love syntax.
Agatha thinks that I know that his students love syntax.
Magda suspects that Agatha thinks that I know his students love syntax.

No longest sentence = the number of sentences is infinite. Therefore, we cannot have memorized
an infinite set, so it all starts with the concept of rules.
 Syntax – Lecture 08
HOW DID WE LEARN THE RULES OF OUR OWN NATIVE LANGUAGE?

To answer this question we need to account for the following:

• language acquisition is species-specific
• it is independent of general intelligence

And furthermore, it is:

• rapid (fundamental part is over at the age of 3, and it’s complete at 11)
• subconscious
• involuntary
• equidistant (every child will learn any natural language with equal ease)
• acquisition is complete before the child gains the ability to think in abstract terms

INNATENESS HYPOTHESIS – L1A (first language acquisition) is driven by an innate language

faculty = genetic guidance on how to subconsciously analyze the language experience and devise
a mental grammar of the language being acquainted.

We are all equipped at birth with rules(???) which will ensure rapid, subconscious, involuntary
L1A. The set of innate mechanisms responsible for acquisition of language has come to be called
Universal Grammar (UG).
A famous quote of Chomsky: We are all native speakers of Human.

Definitions of UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR:

• the essence of human languages, the system of rules governing all human languages
• a genetic blueprint for language
• knowledge in advance of input (expectations that the child has about the linguistic system
before (s)he is exposed to language)

If we are indeed genetically guided in L1A, then it must necessarily be the case that UG-free
acquisition is impossible. Therefore, there must be things that we know about (our) language
which cannot possibly have been deduced from the input, learnt by analogy etc. That is known
Plato’s problem or poverty-of-the-stimulus argument.

THE CASE OF CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR

Christopher was diagnosed with brain damage at the age of 6 weeks. He is said to have Savant
syndrome. What is strange is that most of the people with this condition have impoverished
language, Christopher has exceptional talent for language learning. Professor Neil Smith
investigated Taylor’s case to check, whether he is acquire those languages by exposing him to an
artificial language called EPUN which had impossible rules:

THE SENTENCE: the girl – loves – me

NEGATION: loves – the girl – me
PAST TENSE: me – the girl – loves

Christopher was presented with this data along with data from Basque and asked to analyze it
and produce new analogous sentences. The controls (50 linguistics students) made no mistakes,
but Christopher made 100% mistakes in all past tense sentences and 75% in negations.
The students treated Epun and Basque as logical puzzles and deduced that:
PAST TENSE NEGATION: me – loves – the girl
But Christopher was unable to do so.

Language is not a manifestation of and does not depend on intelligence. Christopher’s case shows
how a person with an IQ in the mild to moderate range of disability can be a language genius.

The converse is also possible: the language faculty is impaired in the presence of normal
intelligence., e.g.:

• stroke victims who lose language ability but retain other intellectual functions.
• aphasia
• SLI (Specific Language Impairment) – SLI children are unable to learn specific linguistic
processes, although they understand their conceptual correlates.

Scientists have identified the first gene that is associated with SLI. The gene – CNTNAP2 – has also
been recently implicated in autism, and could represent a crucial genetic link between the two
disorders.

ROBINSON CRUSOE ISLAND

An isolated island of approximately 600 inhabitants. They have particularly high rate of SLI
(probably because of intermarriage), it is estimated that 35% of children is born with it.
Inhabitants show normal understanding of time and temporal relations but say things like What
did fell of the chair? or Which coat was he wear?
 Syntax – Lecture 09
Why native-like fluency and native-like competence in more than one language is so rare?
Apparently, the mechanisms that control L1A (=First Language Acquisition), i.e. UG (Universal
Grammar) are no longer available after we reach some critical age. Certain environmental factors
may also play a role.

EVIDENCE FROM CHILDREN

How does the child figure out the rule responsible for the formulation of the questions involving
the verb to be?

Mum is home.
Daddy should stay.
Dolly can cry.

So what about a rule: to ask a yes/no question move the second word to the beginning of the
sentence?
Yet, there is no evidence that any English child uses this rule:
Dolly mine can cry. NEVER becomes Mine dolly can cry?
(note that, such a rule relies on the ability to count and little children cannot count).

English children do make mistakes in the process of question formation:

Is daddy should stay?
Is dolly can cry?
This cannot be imitative (we cannot say that children simply imitate the way their parents
formulate questions). Children treat is as a question word like Polish czy. Note that some
languages do use this way to formulate questions:
Czy mogę mieć do nich zaufanie?
Est-ce que je paux avoir confiance en eux?
Czy & est-ce que – examples of invariant question words placed at the beginning of the sentence

The Polish-French structure of forming questions is attested in some world languages. The
strategy “move the second word” is a mechanism unknown to any language – such grammars are
called wild grammars.

Somehow the child knows what is possible and what is not. The child doesn’t learn to form
questions merely by listening to his/her parents if (s)he had, (s)he would never produce questions
such as Is dolly can cry?
On the other hand, the child’s choice of question formulation mechanisms must be restricted
because there are some hypotheses that (s)he never considers, e.g. children never attempt the
“move the second word” hypothesis.

What is the relevant rule?

Assume that the simplest possible formulation that could be acquired by analysis: Move BE to the
beginning of the sentence. (Note, this IS the rule that is taught in pedagogical grammars).
Is this rule adequate?

Sam is the cat that is black. – Is Sam the cat that is black?
So maybe, we should reformulate the rule to: Move the FIRST BE to the beginning?

But: That cat that is black is Sam.

What now? Move the second BE?

Sentences that involve two BE’s constitute less than 0,5% in all caretaker speech corpora. In all
likelihood, therefore, most children don’t ever get to hear them. Yet, by the age of 4 they are all
able to use well-formed questions with one or two BE-forms in them.

We need a rule that will explain:

Is daddy ___ home?
Is the book ___ on the table?
Is Sam ___ the cat that is black?
Is the cat that is black __ Sam?

The rule should be: move the main BE.

Sam is the cat that is black. The cat that is black is Sam.

But the concept of “main” be is not in the data! Parents never say things like:
Daddy – main verb – is – adverbial complement – at work.

L1A is genetically aided.

Deep down we are all native speakers of Human.
UG defies the limits of variability among languages.

THE UG MODEL OF L1A:

The experience
of language X UG

GRAMMAR OF X
(I-LANGUAGE)

Two senses of grammar:

• Grammar of X = I-Language = native speaker’s competence of their language
• Grammar is also a study of that competence = a model of the competence of the speaker

FEATURES OF GRAMMAR AS A COMPETENCE MODEL:

Three levels of adequacy.
Adequacy – match between the sentence and its representation.
OBSERVATIONAL ADEQUACY
The strings generated by the grammar match all actual sentences and only actual sentences.
A grammar is observationally adequate if it can handle the PLD (=primary linguistic data), the
input that UG woks upon, adult speech as heard by the child.

DESCRIPTIVE ADEQUACY
The structure representations correctly represents the speakers’ intuition about sentences.
A grammar is descriptively adequate if it can handle the facts of language AND if it is
observationally adequate.

EXPLANATORY ADEQUACY
The rule is learnable. Explanatory adequacy links PLD and linguistic competence, it accounts for
the mystery of the acquisition process.

Imagine Martians who come to Earth and look at the traffic:

They come up with for non-collapsible rules:

To go north, drive on the eastern side of the road.
To go south, drive on the western side of the road.
To go east, drive on the southern side of the road.
To go west, drive on the northern side of the road.

These rules are observationally adequate. They are descriptively adequate. But they are nor
explanatory adequate – they seem too complicated to be used by human beings on everyday
basis and assume that we are able to tell the sides of the world all the time which is not true. We
may replace those for rules with one: drive on the right side of the road.

How many tenses do we have in English?

How many of them are used in everyday discourse?
Sixteen basic tenses + modal + verb variations.
To handle this we need over 90 rules of formulation. These have to be accompanied by the
relevant rules of usage. Assuming only three separate uses of each verb form, this yields another
ninety rules! 180-200 rules for describing a minor area of English grammar?!
It’s a Martian account of the English tense system and it fails abysmally on the field of explanatory
adequacy.

Every sentence consists of an NP, an Aux and a VP.

NP Aux VP
The Aux node in the simplest case will contain just the tense marking (Tn). Tn is realized either as
+PRES or –PRES. +/-PRES is an affix that needs to attach to the verb, not just any verb, but the 1st
verb to its right, this is called affix hopping.

S S

NP Aux VP NP Aux VP
It works for I go and I went.
I Tn go How about I could go? I Tn M go

+PRES -PRES can

I go. I could go.

Note, that we treat past and present formally, we take the forms not the uses into account.
 Syntax – Lecture 10
Now, what about sentences like I have gone, I had gone or I am going?

We have to modify the Aux node and add aspect to it:

I have gone.

NP Aux VP

N Tn Asp V

I +PRES PERF go

have en

have gone

(“en” denotes the past participle form)

What if we have perfective and progressive aspect in one sentence together?

I have been going.

NP Aux VP

N Tn Asp V

I +PRES PERF PROGR go

have en be ing

have been going

Now, let’s add modality to the picture.

She could have been going.

NP Aux VP

N Tn M Asp V

She -PRES can PERF PROGR go

have en be ing

could been going

We end up with the following rules:

Aux  Tn (M) (Asp)
Tn  +/- PRES
Asp  { PERRF, PROGR }
PERF  have en
PROGR  be ing

This reduces English to a manageable two-tense system. All the attested verb forms result from
the interplay of modality and aspect superimposed on the tenses, which don’t necessarily
correspond to time.

FORMATION OF QUESTIONS

The standard account of yes/no questions:

1) Questions are made by putting an auxiliary verb or a modal verb before the subject.
2) When there is no other auxiliary verb add and use the auxiliary verb do.
3) When do is used, it’s followed by an infinitive: Did you go? and not *Did you went?
4) Do is not used to make questions with modals: *Do you can tell the time?

Look at these excerpts from Shakespeare’s plays (examples of Early Modern English):
Came you from the church?
Knows he not thy name?
Saw you not my daughter?
Wrong I my enemies?
Didst thou not say he comes?
Do you fear it?
Wilt thou use it?

An explanatorily adequate grammar of English will need to account for the questions we form
today as well as for Early Middle English question mechanisms. It is extremely unlikely that in the
17th century a new syntactic rule emerged out of the blue, violating the quintessential properties
of the English language.
We claim that modal verbs and lexical (main) verbs were the same category before Shakespeare,
so they behaved the same way.

Is there anything those questions above have in common? Something gets fronted in all those
questions. It’s not the auxiliary, it’s not the modal verb, not the lexical verb… So what is it? It’s the
tense!

To ask a question move the TENSE to the front (=pre-subject) position. Tense is a bound
morpheme. It cannot appear on its own, it cannot move on its. It needs a vehicle to carry it to the
front of the sentence. The most obvious choice for a vehicle would be the verb that absorbs Tn in
the declarative sentence. Given the rule of affix hopping, it will always be the first verbal element
to carry Tn. Anyone who allowed Knows he not thy name? and Wilt thou use it? didn’t treat will
and know as belonging to two different syntactic categories.

A new mechanism of question formation was a consequence of a morphological split of all verbs
to lexical verbs and modal/auxiliary verbs.

Modal verbs are the greatest losers in the history of English language.

After the process of morphological simplification was completed, numerous verb classes
collapsed into one and the only inflection property to survive was –s ending for the third person
singular. Unfortunately, the group of modals-to-be had been inflected for all persons except for
third person singular.

cyssan myghte

ic cysse we cyssath ic may

thou cyssest thou mayst
he cysseth he may they mowen

Modals were isolated, they looked different from all other verbs.

The cause of a grammatical change can only be explained by changes in PLD (=Primary Linguistic
Data), there must have been differences in what people – in particular, children – experienced.

According to the principle of economy (maximize benefit, minimize effort), a rule emerged: no
movement will take place unless it absolutely has to. Shorter moves will be preferred to longer
movements.

Modal verbs lost the status of main verbs and rented a slot under Aux node. From then onwards,
it will be their task to carry Tense to the front of the sentence. Lexical verbs have been
permanently disabled. For the two simple tenses which lack overt modality (I go / I went)
a semantically empty tense carrier had to be introduced, namely do (“a slave by birth”).

Recall the rules about the use of do as an auxiliary we mentioned. Now we know, why we cannot
use do with can – the tense is marked only once and if it was already marked on can it cannot be
marked on do.
 Syntax – Lecture 11
ENGLISH TENSES – RULES OF USE

TENSE
To express facts tenses have their face value: Past Tense to express past time and Present Tense
to express present time – tenses have values on the time-line.

ASPECT
Progressive aspect is compatible with the idea of change:
We’re having a lecture. – We are in medias res, the lecture began, it will soon end.
My baby’s walking. (uttered by a parent, the baby isn’t walking at that certain moment) – The
baby has begun to walk recently.
We’re living in Peru permanently now. – From now on, we live in Peru and this is our plan for
future.
More and more people are having cars.
Perfective aspect denotes relation to moment on the timeline.
I’ve known him for five years. – it began 5 years ago and didn’t end.
I’ve been to China. – Note: it DOESN’T SAY if I am or I am not still there

If we analyze the sentence: I’ve been working in the garden all day.
We are unable to tell whether it should be translated as Pracowałem cały dzień w ogrodzie or
Pracuję cały dzień w ogrodzie. It’s not that the sentence means both, it means neither. It doesn’t
tell us whether the speaker is still working or not. Present tense informs us that the action is
taking place around now, the perfective aspect links the past action to now and the progressive
aspect informs us about the imminent change.

In sports commentaries we use Present Simple (e.g. He shoots.), because there is not time to
notice the change. To use progressive aspect we have to be able to “take three pictures” (before,
during and after the action) and compare them.

UG AND NATURAL LANGUAGE ACQUISITION – PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

UG constitutes every possible language, now and in the past. Thus, the same set of rules must
operate in every language known to us. How feasible is that assumption? For example, can we
have one rule for the positioning of the subject in a sentence? There are many patterns for
ordering subject, object and verb in a sentence among languages:

SOV – e.g. Hindu and Japan

SVO – e.g. Polish and English
VSO – e.g. Arabic, Irish
VOS – Malagasy, Fijian
OVS – Hixkaryana those two are the rarest patterns, there are very few speakers
OSV – Xavante of languages with them, so we might be wrong about analyzing the data

There are more variations within each category, e.g. subject before/after the auxiliary verb,
before the verb but after the adverbial complement etc. Can all this options be collapsed into
a single rule? Yes, put the subject somewhere.
More formally: Put the subject in the position X.
X can mean:
a) sentence finally
b) sentence initially
c) sentence medially
d) pre-verbally
e) post-verbally
f) anywhere

Such rule is called a parameter. A parameter contains a variable (=an underspecified slot in the
formulation of the rule). Selecting the right value for the variable is called parameter setting.
Language acquisition is about parameter setting. The range of parameter options determines the
limits of variability among natural languages. To make it simpler, an idea of binary parameters
was introduced, so we get the Pro-drop parameter:
a) You may drop the subject pronoun, or
b) You mustn’t drop the subject pronoun

Does it matter whether we start with (a) or (b)? What will happen if both Polish and English
children begin language acquisition assuming that [+] setting of the Pro-drop rule?
The Polish child gets it right from the beginning, but the English child must switch to the [-]
setting. Can the English child get a positive evidence? No, he doesn’t. There is no PLD evidence to
prove it wrong. The English child would have to rely on negative evidence, this could be only of
two kind:
a) direct negative evidence = overt correction
b) indirect negative evidence = prolonged absence of a form, pattern etc.

NO-NEGATIVE EVIDENCE HYPOTHESIS:

a) The child will remain insensitive to system corrections (e.g. morpho-syntactic corrections).
b) The child learns from positive examples of what people actually say rather than what they
don’t hear (=children don’t get information about what is ungrammatical)

Child: Want other one spoon, daddy.

Dad: You mean you want the other spoon.
Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please, daddy.
Dad: Can you say “the other spoon”?
Child: Other… one… spoon.
Dad: Say “other”.
Child: Other
Dad: “Spoon”.
Child: Spoon.
Dad: “Other spoon”.
Child: Other… spoon. Now, give me other one spoon.

Note, how the child is insensitive to father’s corrections – (s)he initially notices that something is
wrong, but thinks this is about politeness.

Children do not react to system corrections. They do not learn from what they do not hear.

The pro-drop hypothesis cannot be set to the [+] value since the move from one value to the
other must be accompanied by positive evidence.
Starting with the [-] value:
The English child gets it right from the beginning, while the Polish child learns that the subject
may be dropped sometimes.

Taking this into account we arrive at the subject principle: natural acquisition starts with the
option that generates a smaller range of possibilities.
 Syntax – Lecture 12
LEXICON
Lexicon is a generative studies trying to answer the question:
What do native speakers know when they know the words of their language?

a) Categorical information (N, V, A…)

e.g. cat is a noun (+N)
szybko is an adverb (+Adv)

b) Categorical features (common/proper, +/-count)

These may be context-dependent
e.g. apple [+count], [+common]
But: There’s apple on your chin., here “apple” is [-count]

c) Subcategorization frames
Some words determine the grammatical category of the words that follow.
e.g. convince +[___NP]
“convince” subcategorizes for a complement belonging to the category of NPs
wait1: V, +[PP… for…]
wait2: V, +[PP… on…]

d) Selectional restrictions
Pragmatic restrictions imposed on the choice of expressions which can occupy a given
sentence position:
**I have convinced.
**I have convinced about my mother.
I have convinced my mother.
? I have convinced my cat.
**I have convinced my frying pan.
For “convince”, the NP complement has to denote RATIONAL entities. ”convince”
subcategorizes for an NP, but selects a rational object.
convince: V + [__NP], <_rational>
Selectional restrictions aren’t syntactic in nature, they depend on our personal beliefs about
the world.

e) θ roles (theta/thematic/semantic roles) – specific semantic relationships

The FBI [agent] arrested Larry Luckless [patient].
The wind [instrument] blew off the roof [patient].
The prisoner [experiencer] died.

θ considerations can provide help in practical grammar:

We would like to invite everyone to the lecture by/of Professor N. Chomsky.
Professor Chomsky will DELIVER THE LECTURE, therefore, he is the agent.
“of” introduces experiences, “by” introduces agents. We should use “by”.

There are certain adverbs requiring experiencer/agentive subjects:

Personally + [EXP] subject, deliberately + [AG]:
Personally, I liked the book.
*Personally, I hit him.
*The prisoner deliberately fainted.

Tense use:
Agents – change – progressive aspect (=aspekt otwarty)
Experiencers – states – simple tenses (=aspekt zamknięty)

If the state you experience acquires unique features, starts changing so that others are no
longer able to experience it along with you, it becomes compatible with the progressive
aspect.

Stop that man! He’s wanting to commit suicide!

Unique agent ACTING TEMPORARILY against the better judgment of the experiencers around
him.

Several languages (Polish being an excellent example) feature a phenomenon called forced
experiencer:
Nie umieraj mi tu.
Nie płacz mi tu.
Nie rysuj mi po stole.
Lekarka złamała mi rękę. (=Moja lekarka złamała SWOJĄ rękę i nie może mnie przyjąć).
 Syntax – Lecture 13

THE Θ CRITERION
Clause A: Each argument is assigned one and only one θ role
Clause B: Each θ role is assigned to one and only argument

θ grid:
Top row – θ roles
Bottom row – arguments

“THEY ARE BUILDING A BRIDGE.”

1 2

i j

Agent i has absorbed θ-role 1; θ-role 1 is realized on argument i (they – AGENT).

Agent j has absorbed θ-role 2; θ-role 2 is realized on argument j (a bridge – PATIENT).
The sentence is grammatical when there is equal number of θ roles and of arguments.

We can use the θ criterion to analyze ungrammaticality of sentences:

“John kissed Peter the bed.”

1 2

i j k

The verb “to kiss” has only two θ roles to give out (agent and patient). NP “the bed” has not θ role
available for it. There are too many arguments = violation of clause A.

“They offered the best candidate.”

1 2 3

i j

The verb “to offer” requires three arguments, one of the θ roles cannot be realized. There are too
many θ roles = violation of clause B.

We can use θ considerations to explain ambiguity of sentences:

“John felt a real idiot”.
John felt like he was a real idiot. = “John” is the experiencer.
John touched a real idiot. = “John” is the agent.

“Mary opened the door with John.”

Mary opened the door together and John helped her. = “John” is the co-agent.
Mary opened the door using John as a tool. = “John” is the instrument.
S/O Θ ASSIGNMENT
“Tomek złamał nogę.” – “Tomek” is the experiencer.
“Tomek złamał szyfr.” – “Tomek” is the agent.
“Tom threw a ball.” – “Tom” is the agent.
“Tom threw a fit.” – “Tom” is the experiencer.

Verbs assign θ roles directly to their objects, but only indirectly to their subjects. In other words,
the θ role of the subject depends on the whole VP rather than on the verb alone.

NP VP

V NP 1 – V assigns θ role to the object directly

1 2 – VP assigns θ role to the subject = V assigns the role indirectly
2

PASSIVIZATION (a generative UG-based account)

“Tom will be arrested.”
Consider this WRONG tree diagram:

* S

NP AUX VP

Tom will be arrested

On the diagram, it looks as if “Tom” was the agent and the verb “to arrest” is intransitive, which is not
true. “Tom” is the patient, but we know that Vs assign the θ role of a patient to their objects and
“Tom” is in the subject position. The tree diagram suggests that “Tom” is an agent, because
prototypically subjects are agents.

We have two arguments to prove that the above diagram is wrong:

ARGUMENT I – SUBCATEGORIZATION FRAME

arrest: V, + [_NP] – this verb is transitive – it has to have a sister, while the diagram suggests the
following: arrest: V, + [_ø]

ARGUMENT II - Θ-ROLE ASSIGNMENT

Verbs assigns θ roles to their sisters – “Tom” has to be the sister of the verb.
We argue that the sentence we’re analyzing has the following deep structure:

NP AUX VP

will be + ed V NP

arrest Tom

“Tom” has to begin as the object because of the arguments we gave.

The surface structure is the following:

NP AUX VP

N will be + ed V NP

Tomi arrest ei

“e” stands for empty. “e” and “Tom” constitute a chain.

Traces are necessary to prevent generation of unwanted sequences such as “Tom will be arrested
Adam.”

We can arrive at the passivization rule: Move the immediately post-verbal NP argument to the
subject position.

“Omówił projekt.” – “Projekt został omówiony”.

“Mówił o projekcie.” – ***
“He kicked the ball.” – “The ball was kicked.”
“He waited at the bus stop.” – ***

However, there are cases where rule overgeneralizes (allows sentences that are incorrect)
and undergeneralizes (prevents sentences that are acceptable). Consider the examples:
“Kasia miała katar.” – this cannot be passivized, although the rule says it can.
“They talked about the project.” – this can be passivized, although the rule says it cannot.
 Syntax – Lecture 14
We continue our investigation of passive structures. Let’s consider the following sentences:

Tom looked at the chimney. – The chimney was looked at.

They talked about the project. – The project was talked about.

How to account for these sentences and preserve the rule of passivization we devised?

We say that “look at” and “talk about” are prepositional verbs:

VP

V PP

P NP

look at the chimney

talk about the project

Evidence for prepositional verbs – constituency tests: if a string of words is a constituent then things
will happen to all of the, at the same time.

MOVEMENT TEST
You move the chunk ‘somewhere else’ in the sentence, e.g. to the front. If the resulting sentence is
grammatical, the chunk is a constituent.
They looked at the chimney. – At the chimney they looked.
BUT: The chimney was looked at. – **At the chimney was looked.
Observation: What seemed possible in the active, is not possible in the passive.

THE SENTENCE FRAGMENTS TEST

Only full phrasal constituents can serve as sentence fragments (e.g. when used as an answer to
a question).
A: Did they look at the picture?
B: No, at the chimney.
BUT:
A: Was the picture looked at?
B: **No, at the chimney (was).

ORDINARY COORDINATION
Only full phrasal constituents can undergo ordinary coordination (i.e. if the sequence X and Y is
grammatical, we can conclude that both X and Y are full phrasal constituents).
They looked at the chimney and up the chimney.
BUT: **The chimney was looked at and up.
ADVERB INSERTION
A VP-adverb can be inserted into a sentence only in front of a phrasal constituent.
They looked at the chimney. – They looked discretely at the chimney.
BUT: The chimney was looked at. – **The chimney was looked discretely at.

However, the sentence “The chimney was discretely looked at.” Is grammatical. It seems that in this
sentence “looked at” is a constituent, that is “look at” behaves like a phrasal, not a prepositional,
verb. The verb “look at” is prepositional in the active. In the passive it behaves like a phrasal verb
and seems to have the following structure:

VP

Vcomplex NP Note: PART stands for “particle” just as “up” in “give up”

V PRT the chimney

look at

This is known as restructuring (i.e. a change in structural proportions):

[V – PP]  [VC – NP]
The preposition (“at”) is no longer a preposition, it becomes a particle.

Is restructuring in any way restricted? If not, is every English verb followed by a PP should have a
passive equivalent. Consider the following sentences:
They talked about the project. – The project was talked about.
They talked in the Oval Room. – **The Oval Room was talked in.

A more revealing contrast:

Many people lived in this village – This village was lived in by many people.
Many people died in this village. – **This village was died in by many people.

PASSIVIZATION – SEMANTIC CONDITIOING:

Restructuring is limited to cases of V+P sequence that represent single semantic concepts, usually
replaceable with a single word, e.g.:
look at the chimney = watch the chimney
live in the village = inhabit the village
die in the village = *** the village

Sample exam task:

Examine the possibility of passivizing the underlined NPs within the sentence:
They took advantage of the situation.

The advantage of the situation was taken.

“Advantage” can be passivized as it is the immediately post-verbal NP.

The situation was taken the advantage of.

“Situation” can be passivized as “take advantage of” represents a single semantic concept – it can be
replaced with a verb like “use” or “exploit”.
PASSIVIZATION – PRAGMATIC CONDITIONING
Passivization is pragmatically conditioned: the likelihood of a passive sentence being used increases if
the NP object is perceived as sufficiently affected by the action.

Many generals deserted the army. – The army was deserted by many generals.
Private Smith deserted the army. – **The army was deserted by Private Smith.

The same applies to restructuring – it will be possible on pragmatic grounds (the speaker’s subjective
judgment about the degree of affectedness). Consider the sentence “Paco slept in this bed.”
Is passivization possible here? No, it isn’t. “This bed was slept in by Paco.” Is ungrammatical (or at
least unsemantic).

But what about those sentences:

“He was undisturbed by the fact that our bed was slept in by Queen Victoria.”
“One interesting fact is that this bed was slept in by the then Princess Elizabeth, now Queen
Elizabeth, when she travelled on the Blue Train in 1947.”

The use of passivization depends on the attitude towards the agent. In fact, it indicates this attitude.

The question remains: Why does passivization involve movement? Why couldn’t we stay with a
structure like “It was arrested Tom.” or “There was given a book to Mary” instead of “Tom was
arrested.” and “A book was given to Mary.”?

Recall the strict adjacency principle (=you cannot insert anything between the verb and its object):
All students passionately love syntax, All students love syntax passionately, **All students love
passionately syntax.

Every noun in every natural language must have a case assigned to it. There exists lexical case
assignment, when a word assigns the case and functional case assignment when an affix does it.
In positional languages (of which English is an example) Vs and Ps can assign case to their immediate
right-hand or left-hand context. In English lexical assignment works to the right-hand side and
functional assignment works to the left-hand side.

John is telling Mary about the accident.

NP AUX VP

N Tn Asp V NP PP

John +PRES +PROGR tell Mary P NP

Tense assigns the case to “John” The verb assigns case to “Mary”
Functional – to the left. Lexical – to the right. about the accident

The preposition assigns case to “the accident”

Lexical – to the right.
Look, what happens if we treat passive as an affix:

AUX VP

Tn Pass V NP

-PRES be en arrest Tom

The passive affix deprives the verb of its ability to assign case.

NP AUX VP

Tn VPASSIVE NP

-PRES was arrested Tom

There is nothing that

tense can assign case
The verb cannot assign
case to the object NP.

The movement of the object solves the problem. If we put it in the front position, the verb’s
“disability” is no problem and the object can have the case assigned by the tense.