1Week 6a. Case and checking (witha little more q-Theory)CAS LX 522Syntax IPreviously, in LX522…n We were talking about q-roles, the “argumentslots” that predicates (e.g., verbs) have. Theseare the “roles” that the participant play in theevent.n As part of their lexical entry, verbs have a list ofq-roles that they assign, a list of requiredparticipants.n Kick: Agent, Themen Jog: Agentn Introduce: Agent, Theme, GoalCommon thematic relationsn Agent: initiator or doer in the eventn Theme: affected by the event, or undergoes theactionn Bill kicked the ball.n Experiencer: feel or perceive the eventn Bill likes pizza.n Goal:n Bill gave the book to Mary. (Recipient)n Proposition: a statement, can be true/false.n Bill said that he likes pizza.The q-criterionn The q-criterion:n every q-role in the q-grid is assigned to exactly oneargument.n every argument is assigned exactly one q-role.n The second half protects us against superfluousarguments. But it’s hard to evaluate this if wedon’t know what an argument is.n It’s hard to say, actually. There are some furtherconcepts that we should have before we can evenstart to state this accurately. For now, let’s justsuppose that DPs and CPs are necessarily arguments,and PPs usually aren’t.Theta Gridsn We can formalize the information about q-roles inthe lexical entry for a verb by using a theta grid,like so:n The columns each represent a q-role, the indices inthe lower row will serve as our connection to theactual arguments; e.g.n Johni gave [the book]j [to Mary]k.kjiGoalThemeSource/AgentgiveTheta Gridsn Johni gave [the book]j [to Mary]k.kjiGoalThemeSource/AgentgiveThe first q-role isassigned to the subject.It is the external q-role.It is often designated byunderlining it.The other q-role areinternal q-roles.2Theta Gridsn The q-roles in the theta grid are obligatory.(Optional things like on the hill are not in the q-grid).n Adjuncts are related to the verb via thematicrelations (e.g., instrument, location, etc.), but anadjunct does not get a q-role. They are optional.kjiGoalThemeSource/AgentgiveThe Theta Criterion in actionn An example: push.n Billi pushed the shopping cartj.n Fine, push assigns two q-roles, one (the external q-role) isassigned to Bill, the other (the internal q-role) is assignedto the shopping cart. There are two arguments here, eachgets a q-role.n *Billi pushed. (j?)n *Billi pushed the shopping cartj the corner?.jiThemeAgentpushThe Theta Criterion in actionn An example: cough.n Billi coughed.n Fine, cough assigns one q-role (the external q-role), to Bill.There are one arguments here, and it gets a q-role.n *Billi coughed the shopping cart?.iAgentcoughThe EPPn With the Theta Criterion in our toolbox, let’s takea look at a special kind of sentence (which willturn out to tell us something important aboutsyntax).n It rained.n It snowed.n How many q-roles does rain assign?n If we think about it, it doesn’t really meananything at all. It is not a participant in the event; itreally can’t be getting a q-role. (cf. also Spanish).The EPPn So, the theta grid for rain really looks likethis:The EPPn Given the q-Criterion and the fact that raindoesn’t have any q-roles to assign, what’sit doing there? And why doesn’t it violatethe q-Criterion?n As to the first question, the conclusion thatsyntacticians have come to is that the it isthere due to a separate constraint, whichgoes by the name EPP.3The EPPn The EPPIP must have a specifier.n More informally, all clauses have subjects.n Because rain has no arguments (no q-roles), a special,contentless pronoun (it) has to be inserted to inorder to have a grammatical sentence. This kind of“empty it” is called an expletive or a pleonasticpronoun. It is not an argument (in this use).n We stipulate that it is not subject to the q-criterion.Features and Casen Recall that pronouns in English haveseveral Case forms, indicating theirgrammatical function (subject, non-subject):n Nominative (subject):He, she, they, …n Accusative/objective (non-subject):Him, her, them, …n But what’s wrong with *Him left?Features and Casen What stops us from picking him, a [+Past]I, and leave, and Merging in order toproduce him left?Himleave-edDPIPI VPI¢Heleave-edDPIPI VPI¢*Features and Casen The intuition is that subjects (things in thespecifier of IP, at least for I like [+Past])must have nominative Case. I needs[+Nom] in its specifier.Him[+Acc]leave-edDPIPI VPI¢He[+Nom]leave-edDPIPI VPI¢*Specifier featuresn To encode this requirement, we posit asecond type of feature on the lexical itemsof category I: the specifier features.n Specifier-features are requirements; theyare features that must be found in thespecifier.n If I has a [+Nom] specifier feature, SpecIP(the specifier of IP) must have a [+Nom]feature.Features and Casen When we Merge the DP with [-ed leave] to formSpecIP, the features of the specifier are “checked”against the (specifier) features of the head. Ifthey match, they are removed from the to-do list,they are “checked off”.Him[+Acc]leaveDPIPI VPI¢He[+Nom]leave-ed[+Past, …]spec: [+Nom]DPIPI VPI¢*-ed[+Past, …]spec: [+Nom]4Features and Casen If we finish with unchecked features of this kind,the derivation crashes, the sentence is no good.n These features are uninterpretable and so if theyare still there when we try to compute themeaning of the structure, we can’t.Him[+Acc]leaveDPIPI VPI¢He[+Nom]leave-ed[+Past, …]spec: [+Nom]DPIPI VPI¢*-ed[+Past, …]spec: [+Nom]Subject agreementn The same kind of thing rules out *I has left.n Here, the problem is that the subject is [1sg](a.k.a. [+1,-2,-Pl]), has is [3sg] (a.k.a. [-1,-2,-Pl])I[1sg]goneDPIPI VPI¢He[3sg]gonehas[-Past, …]spec: [3sg]DPIPI VPI¢*has[-Past, …]spec: [3sg]Subject agreementn The [1sg], [3sg] features are fundamental to the meaningof the pronouns, so they are not uninterpretable. Butspecifier features on has are still uninterpretable andmust be checked off.n Only uninterpretable features are checked off (deletedfrom the to-do list) when satisfied.I[1sg]goneDPIPI VPI¢He[3sg]gonehas[-Past, …]spec: [3sg]DPIPI VPI¢*has[-Past, …]spec: [3sg]Complement features(subcategorization)n Heads also can impose similar requirements on the kindof phrase that they have as a complement. For example,has requires the perfective (-en) participle form of theverb. (I’ll use [+n] as a shorthand for [+Participle,+Perfect])n We can encode these as complement features.He[3sg]go[-n]DPIPI
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