Homework presented by Tyler Evans
Ch 3 – ex 5 (even #s) p 105
If the auxiliary isn’t the main verb, how do we explain something like is leaving?
leaving is lexical, main verb, but shows aspect
“He is leaving” is agrees with the subject
-Main lexical verb conveys meaning – but it may not be the same as the main
grammatical verb
- Main verbs of clauses have certain grammatical properties
-Must be careful when distinguishing between past tense of verbs and past participle
“eaten” v. “ate” test - Eaten is the past part and ate is the past
-Since you’re not bolding grammatical verbs, the ‘to’ in ‘to hire’ is as grammatical, and
no more lexical, than ‘is’
-Bolding the main verbs:
[Since you write so well,] we hope to hire you [to work on the student
newspaper.]
- Since, Although, In order to - modify - not tied up with the special meaning to
predicate
- hire is a simple transitive verb - takes an object
-to hire takes a NP object normally  in progressive aspect doesn’t require obj (but
that’s special, because obj is understood)
- Obligatory v. Optional v. Adjunct
-Optional - expressed syntactically optionally, but semantically,
understood to be there.
“You pass the ball [to him]” - syntactically optional, but semantically
understood that the ball is being passed to another person.
“I threw the ball [to him] [away]” - The ball does not need to end at the
point of the recipient
-syntactically obligatory v. semantically obligatory
Syntactically [to him] is optional in both cases
Semantically [to him] is only required for pass
-pass a ball, there is a receiver
-pass the ball to him  to him is obligatory semantically,
syntactically optional
-throw the ball, there is no semantic recipient required
-‘to him’ is an optional participant
-typically about the things you could say about anything, any
action/situation/event at any time and potentially for some purpose
-rephrase the clause with other words, to see that it is an adjunct (ex. so that you
will work on the student newspaper)
-imperatives
-no overt subject
-implied ‘you’
-lack tense
-modals would not be grammatical
-Imperatives are a main root clause, but are missing an overt subject, overt tense,
-Verb is in bare form
“Be here tomorrow morning” v. “Are here tomorrow morning”
Imperatives can express aspect “Be studying by 10pm.”
-‘please have it written’ v. ‘have it written’ v. ‘please have written it’
-have written it has one main clause with one lexical verb
-have it written, the main verb is ‘have’, and ‘written’ is a modified
adjective (resultative clause, describes the desired result)
-english is ambiguous between past participle and derived
adjectives
-inflectional v. derivational
-See Dr. Dubinsky’s paper w/ S—in Language (1996)
-pronunciation will differ
- Learn-ed (as an adjective) means something like “having
learning”
-Verbs and adjectives get confused in certain contexts
-can see this pattern of historical pronunciation in written
poetry
-phonological change is the result
-Chinese restaurants – southern Chinese still has
glottal stops, whereas central and northern Chinese
has merged these
Ch 4 – ex 1 p 135
4. This is too long [a story] for me to tell you [right now].
-determiner phrase v. noun phrase
-like verbs and prepositions, determiners can be transitive
-there, as opposed to this, neoplastic
Ergotive/Absolutive v. Nominative/Accusative
-if there is only the one intransitive clause, subject is easy to identify
-there is a variety of ways to mark what is the subject
-case marking
-marking on the verb
- Markers allow us to sort things out
-Swahili is like this
-there is fixed slots
- Word order also allows us to determine difference between S and O
-‘we like you,’ we know that we is the subject and you is the object
-Ergative and Absolutive - Really only applies to transitive clauses
-Special marker on the object of a transitive or subject of a transitive sentence
- Ergative - special marker on the subject
- Absolutive - shows the object (the case-less form if there is one)
-Accusative - special marker on the object
-Marker signifies that it is not a subject
-Nominative is case-less if applicable
-need a special marker on one of the two arguments
-first example
-second example
-these are simply case marking systems
-The underlying fundamental property is being subjects and objects - the labels
are just tags by which we identify them as subjects and objects.
-there are diatic verbs and monatic verbs
-swim – usually intransitive, but if made passive, only subject stays
-break – usually transitive, but if made passive, only object needed