Notes 10/20/14
Homework presented by Michael Highlander
P191
#1
Claim: The structure of very happy with Bart in (1) is represented better by (2b) than by (2a).
(1) statement: the structure of very happy with Bart in (1) is represented better by (2b) than by (2a).
(2) The data: sentences (3a-c)
3a shows conjoined phrases.
3b shows deletion.
3c shows displacement.
(3)
By the conjunction test, only constituents can be joined.
By the ellipsis test, only constituents can be deleted.
By the dislocation test, only constituents can be dislocated
VP ellipsis is a common English phenomenon  to elide something that is not a constituent would not be
acceptable in English
#2
c-commanding each other because they are sister nodes
(4) ambiguous syntactically and semantically (this does not always occur, but often)
(6) lower branching node, does not c-command the correct NP
-the arguments have very little to do with constituency; instead, deal with relative salience
-look at the tree where [Lisa ate the fish raw]
-NPI can be licensed by something higher in the structure, but not something lower in the
structure
Step 1- The structure of very happy with Bart in (1) is represented better by (2b) than by (2a)
Step 2- Consider the following data:
(3a) Homer is very happy with Bart and fond of Lisa.
(3b) Lisa: Mom, is Dad happy with Bart?
Marge: Very.
(3C) Homer said he was very happy with Bart, and happy with Bart he is.
Sentence (3c) shows happy with Bart, being conjoined with fond of Lisa.
Sentence (3b) shows happy with Bart being deleted.
Sentence (3c) shows happy with Bart being displaced
All these sentences are well-formed.
Step 3- By the conjunction tes, only constituents can be joined
By the ellipsis test, only constituents can be deleted
By the dislocation test, only constituents can be dislocated.
Step 4- These data support tree (2b) over tree(2a) because it correctly shows
relevant phrases as forming constituents, namely happy with Bart and
(2a) does not analyze these phrases as forming constituents.
The issue is not a constituency. Here the argument about what is the relative hierarchical relationship between
the elements, relative salience. Salience is a notion of relative height.
NPI
-all taking place within a single sentence
[He didn’t [see anyone]]
-[see anyone] is c-commanded by didn’t, which allows the NPI
[*anyone didn’t see him]
-‘n’t’ is lower, ‘anyone’ c-commands the ‘n’t’
-questions licenses NPI, and if/whether
-[I don’t know whether anyone saw him]
-[Did anyone see him?]
-In the shadow of the downward entailment
-the ‘anyone’ can be sanctioned from way up there
-Did anyone see him? (well-formed sentence)
-c-commands the subject position.
-Q- license NPI to subject position.
I don’t know whether anyone see him.
Complement
Where the constituents in the structure relative to each other.
-c-comand has a role: licensing NPI.
Did anyone see him?
I don’t think anyone saw him.
Do you think that anyone saw him?
(interrogative- higher up in the structure)
Do you think that he saw anyone?
Do you know whather Mary said that anyone saw him.
Reflexives need to be c-commanded by the thing it refers to
[Tom likes himself] but *[himself likes Tom]
[*Tom thinks Sue likes himself] himself loses jurisdiction
-some salience, licensing, is clause bound
[John believes [he is smart]]
[*Jonn believes himself is smart]
Clause boundary blocks reflexive licensing
-see book by Dr. Dubinsky with Bill Davies that explain this more fully (2 alternative theories)
[John believes [himself to be smart]]
-if [to be smart] is a null-subject clause, it has a trace of its subject from the root clause
(the object of the root clause)
-raising control
-Tim thinks [Sue likes himself]
-Tim c-commands himself
-Sue c-commands himself
-But there is a clause in between
-Reflexive need to be c-command by the thing that they refer.
-If you can look ate the tree “Lisa ate the fish raw.”
-She can eat the fish in the raw that would be a different adjective describes a different
circumstance.
-But in that particular case, what is clear about that is that object NP the fish and the adjectitle
raw, are of the same height in the structure. If your negative item is sufficiently high in the
structure, it would license (allow to occur) something NPI lower in the structure. NPI needs a
licensor, needs something that censures its appearance. A question would do it.
Exocentric
-S has no head
-what about mood, modals and negatives?
-what does tense do?
-gives a clause truth value?
-situations along a time axis
-once you anchor it in time, you anchor the clause
-subject and a predicate are true semantic components of a clause
-tense fills in the rest of it
-we want to give S a head (information that projects the S)
-it’s not the subject NP or the VP
-there are deictic determiners (means pointing)
-you need to have some determiner for reference
-example: dog  which dog? The dog? Those dogs? My Dog?
-the determiner picks out a referent
-where to locate the sentence in the world of evaluation
-bc we use sentences to make assertions about the world
-anchor those for where they hold in order to be able to refer to it
-sentences refer to truth values in this way
-“all of those worlds in which it is true”
-humans have the ability to talk about displacement
-things that were once true
-things could be true if the world was different
-Exocentiricity deals with NP Subject of some sort and VP predicate in so far the sentence consists of
those two pieces.
Chemistry structures as a metaphor for sentence structure
-can describe the structure of them
-there are stable compounds and unstable compounds, just as there are stable sentences and unstable
sentence
-not predictive (featural explanations that come with an architecture of grammar)
-rules are not so simple, and need to be constrained
-individual elements have complicated properties
-the interaction of these elements determines what you can get in a sentence
Lexical classes
-hope and want (wish for)  all have similar semantics
-if you think of them as expressing a relationship between two sentient individuals and some
desire
-desire/want go on one side of the fence, and hope goes on the other
-distinguish between what is syntactic and semantic information
-features referenced by the lexical item in question
-other things can occur, but will be adjuncts
-ex: [Marge plays poker for two hours at the beach] v. [The part lasted for two hours]
-dative [+dat]
-how does it fit in with the other lexical features
-the ‘to’ phrase does not make it a dative
-lack of ‘to’ does not make it a dative
-give has three arguments
-if the goal is expressed as a NP, it can postposed as a dative
-being marked by ‘to’ is not sufficient
-locative and thematic
Important to remember
-domain/specifity
-constituents
-salience
Chemical metaphor makes sense because, it allows us decide what a complete shell looks like, what can
and can not combine.
-stable compounds-syntactic structure
-unstable compounds-syntactic structure
-aspects that relies on the property of lexicon.
-lexicon needs both semantic and syntactic attributes.
Want can be follow by NP
Wish/hope can not follow by NP
(insert for after)
desire, hope, wish are semantically similar, but their syntax is different.
I desire a miacle.
I wish for a miracle.