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LIN 1310
First Notes and Trees after Syntax Power Point
Practice drawing trees for the following sentences
using X-bar:
I know that Mary won the race.
That Mary won the race surprised me.
Mary says that you ate the pizza.
The trees are shown on the following pages.
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Clauses
clause = sentence (has a subject, verb and maybe an object and
indirect
object)
independent clause = a sentence that sounds OK as a sentence on
its own
subordinate clause = a sentence that sounds weird on its own. It
needs to be part of another sentence.
Subordinate clauses fill the role of a lexical part of speech inside
another sentence.
They can act like adjectives, adverbs, and nouns.
Relative (Adjective) clauses
You can recognize subordinate relative clauses because they
usually start with relative pronouns ‘who, which, whose, that’.
They tell you something about a noun, just like an adjective does.
I like quiet children. Adjective
I like children who are quiet. Relative clause
I like tall buildings. Adjective
I like buildings that are tall. Relative clause
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Adverb(ial) clauses
You can recognize subordinate adverb clauses because they
usually start with subordinate conjunctions ‘when, after, before,
since, although and because.’
They tell you something about the circumstances of a sentence,
like ‘how, why, when, under what condition, etc.’ This is also what
adverbs do.
You looked funny yesterday. Adverb
You looked funny when you fell down. Adverbial clause
Noun clauses
You can recognize subordinate noun clauses because they actually
replace one of the main nouns or noun phrases in a sentence. They
can be the subject, object, indirect object or subject complement.
Winning made the coach happy. Noun
That we won made the coach happy. Noun clause
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Sentence types
Simple sentence = one independent clause, makes sense on it own
The coach is very skilled.
The dog bit the cat.
We should do something about it.
Compound sentence = two independent clauses joined by a
conjunction:
<but, and, nor, or, for, so>
[The coach is very skilled] and [the players work very hard].
[The dog bit the cat] and [the cat ate the rat].
Complex sentence =at least two clauses:
one independent and one subordinate
[That the dog bit the cat] is terrible.
(noun clause)
The coach, [who I met at the press conference], was very helpful.
(relative clause)
I was angry at the dog [because it bit the cat].
(adverbial clause)
The coach gained his skills [when he coached in the minors].
(adverbial clause)
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Move
We can theoretically draw the PS tree for any sentence using Merge, giving
us the Deep Structure of those sentences.
But we need MOVE to arrive at the Syntactic Surface Structure for many
sentences.
Notice the word order of:
“Will the dog bite the cat?”
Merge does not permit ‘will’ to occur before ‘the dog’.
If Merge did allow this, then we would have to consider the existence of two
kinds of modals with different positions in the PS tree.
But this would not allow us to see the structural similarities between the
sentences:
Will the dog bite the cat?
The dog will bite the cat.
So we stick with one PS tree for both and us the MOVE component of
syntax to get ‘will’ to the beginning of the sentence.
But if we move ‘will’, how will we attach it to the tree?
All the branches are filled with a lexical item.
MOVE does not permit detaching an existing branch and moving it or
attachin it elsewhere.
Instead, it does a type of copy operation which we will discuss shortly.
To permit MOVE to work, we have to learn more about MERGE.
In fact, the IP of a sentence is inside a ‘shell’ called CP.
Even though this CP is not technically a complement, it has a head position
‘C’ that has no lexical item and that occurs before NP.
If the C in PS is marked +Q, the sentence is a question.
If the C is empty, the sentence is a statement.
The presence of +Q prompts the movement of I to C.
This is called the Inversion Transformation.
Keep in mind that MOVE operations (formerly transformations):
1. Never change categories of words that are moved.
2. Never eliminate a structure that Merge created.
Movement is a sort of copy that leaves a Trace (T) of itself in it original
position.
Inversion moves I and whatever is under I to C. Formally stated:
Inversion: Move I to C
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Will you remember the
class?
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Who could you give it to?
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To whom could you give it?
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