CAS LX 522 Syntax I Episode 5a TP 5 1 5 3 Modals Pat might eat lunch Modals might may can could shall should will would must Provide a meaning of possibility necessity obligation permission appropriateness rather than just factual statements about the world as it is How can we incorporate them into our system Pat might eat lunch We already know how this is supposed to work to a point Select Pat v eat lunch might N v uN V uN N NP Pat Merge eat and lunch checking the uN v VP feature of eat and assigning a role v uN V NP to lunch namely Theme this is NP eat lunch daughter of VP V uN N Pat might eat lunch Select Pat v eat lunch might Merge v and the VP eat lunch in conformance with the Hierarchy of Projections v V v projects and still has a uN feature N uN V uN N NP Pat v v uN v v uN VP V eat NP lunch Pat might eat lunch Select Pat v eat lunch might Merge v and the VP eat lunch in conformance with the Hierarchy of Projections v V v projects and still has a uN feature Move the V eat up to v N uN V uN N NP Pat v v uN v VP V eat NP lunch Pat might eat lunch Select Pat v eat lunch might N uN V uN N Merge v and the VP eat lunch in conformance with the Hierarchy of Projections v V v projects and still has a uN feature Move the V eat up to v Merge Pat with v to check the uN feature and assign a role Agent this is NP daughter of vP vP NP Pat v v uN v V eat VP eat NP lunch Pat might eat lunch Select Pat v eat lunch might N uN V uN N vP So now what do we do with might And eat lunch Pat shall What Pat should do is eat lunch It kind of seems like it goes between the subject and the verb but how NP Pat v v uN v V eat VP eat NP lunch Pat might eat lunch Pat N v uN eat V uN lunch N might Let s call the category of modals T vP T This stands for Tense but for the might moment it s just a label for v v uN T NP whatever category might is Pat If we leave everything as it is so v V VP far UTAH Hierarchy of Projections the only option is to eat eat NP Merge might with the vP we just lunch built So let s Pat might eat lunch Pat v eat lunch might N uN V uN N Ok that s all fine and good except that the sentence is Pat might eat lunch not Might Pat eat lunch How do we get Pat might eat lunch out of this T vP T might v v uN T NP Pat v V VP eat eat NP lunch Pat might eat lunch Pat v eat lunch might N uN V uN N As previewed in the previous episode the subject moves to this first position in the sentence around the modal Something like when V moved to v TP NP Pat T vP T might T Pat v v V eat VP eat NP lunch Pat might eat lunch Pat v eat lunch might N uN V uN N Great Why Jumping ahead we re going to say that this is a property of Ttype things generally T needs to have an NP in its specifier We can encode this as an uninterpretable feature on T uN TP NP Pat T vP T might T Pat v v V eat VP eat NP lunch Pat might eat lunch Pat v eat lunch might N uN V uN N TP NP Pat T T uN Since uN needs to be vP T checked on T and since there might are no NPs left to Merge T v T uN Pat looks down into the tree finds the first NP it sees and v V VP moves it up eat Moves it up makes a copy eat NP and Merges with the root lunch We ll continue exploring this in a bit Why should should be T We ve called the category of modals like might may should must etc T for Tense This category clearly comes between the subject NP and the VP And it looks like this is the place where tense seems to be Bill ate lunch Bill will eat lunch Bill did not eat lunch Bill does not eat lunch Bill would eat lunch Not seems to split tense and the verb so we can see tense on its own in the form of do SOT Modals perhaps despite initial appearances also seem to show a tense distinction may might can could shall should will would Sequence of Tense effects indicate that the relation between may and might is just like that between is and was I think she is hungry I thought she is hungry I think she can win I thought she can win I think she was hungry I thought she was hungry I think she could win I thought she could win So T So let s add T to our categories and let s position it in our trees by extending the Hierarchy of Projection thusly Hierarchy of Projection T v V What about I A side note here lest there is some confusion amongst those who remember learning something different in the past We re categorizing should as being of category T for Tense You may have heard in the past that it should be of category I for Inflection Rest easy T and I are for current purposes just two names for the same thing Historically this was called INFL then I and now usually called T But these are just names Istanbul vs Constantinople St Petersburg vs Leningrad Pat ate lunch Now that we have T in the Hierarchy of Projections we re stuck with it Yet where is T in Pat ate lunch or Pat eats lunch It looks like the tense marking is on the verb we don t see anything between the subject and the verb where T ought to be Now that we have T this is where tense features belong We take this to be the thing that determines the tense of the sentence even if we sometimes see the marking on the verb Pat ate lunch Since most verbs sound different when in the past and in the present tense we suppose that there is a past or present feature on the verb However to reiterate tense belongs on T The tense features on the verbs are uninterpretable Feature classes At this point it is useful to divide features into types we ve been doing this intuitively but let s be explicit There are tense features Like past like present There are case features Like nom like acc There are person features Like …