1Week 8b. Head-movementCAS LX 522Syntax IThe puzzle so far.n Head-order and specifier-order parameters canderive the some but not all types of language:n SVO (spec-initial, head-initial) (English)n SOV (spec-initial, head-final) (Japanese)n VOS (spec-final, head-initial) (Malagasy)n OVS (spec-final, head-final) (Hixkaryana)n VSO (?) (Irish, Arabic)n Relative verb-adverb position, French v. English:n French: Je mange souvent des pommes.n English: I often eat apples.n Auxiliary inversion in English yes-no questions:n Bill should eat his peas. Should Bill eat his peas?Movementn We start with the question of where should is in:n Should Bill eat his peas?n There is one position in our sentence structures sofar that is to the left of the subject, the one where thecomplementizer that goes (C):n I said that Bill should eat his peas.n This is not where we expect should to be, though. Itis, after all, a modal, of category I. It is not acomplementizer.n Also notice that if we embed this question, shouldstays after the subject, and if is in C:n I wonder if Bill should eat his peas.Movementn All of this suggests that the way to look atthis is that we start with the sentence…n Bill should eat his peasn …as usual, and if we’re forming a yes-noquestion, we follow this up by movingshould to the position of C. If we can’tmove it (in an embedded question, there’salready something in C: if), it stays put.Frenchn Jean mange souvent des pommes.Jean eats often of.the apples‘Jean often eat apples.’n If we suppose that the Frenchsentence starts out just like theEnglish sentence, we have theunderlying representationshown here.n What needs to happen to get thecorrect surface word order?VmangeVPVPdespommesPPII¢IPJeanDP[PRES]APsouventFrenchn Jean mange souvent des pommes.Jean eats often of.the apples‘Jean often eat apples.’n If we suppose that the Frenchsentence starts out just like theEnglish sentence, we have theunderlying representationshown here.n What needs to happen to get thecorrect surface word order?VmangeVPVPdespommesPPII¢IPJeanDP[PRES]APsouventWait! But isn’t thatinexcusably Anglo-centric? If you (orChomsky) were anative speaker ofFrench, would theFrench sentencestructure be consideredto be basic?2Frenchn Jean mange souvent des pommes.Jean eats often of.the apples‘Jean often eat apples.’n If we suppose that the Frenchsentence starts out just like theEnglish sentence, we have theunderlying representationshown here.n What needs to happen to get thecorrect surface word order?VmangeVPVPdespommesPPII¢IPJeanDP[PRES]APsouventWait! But isn’t thatinexcusably Anglo-centric? If you (orChomsky) were anative speaker ofFrench, would theFrench sentencestructure be consideredto be basic?Well, not necessarily. The verb eat (mange) needs toassign a q-role to the object apples (des pommes). It iseasier (the theory is more elegant) if the assignment of q-roles happens between sisters (as a result of Merge). Thatleads us to the same conclusion: the French word order isderived, the English word order is basic.Frenchn Jean mange souvent des pommes.Jean eats often of.the apples‘Jean often eat apples.’n Of course—the V (mange) movesup to the I position.n This always happens in Frenchwith a tensed/agreeing verb.This generally doesn’t happen inEnglish.n Hence, the difference in “adverbposition” (really, of course, it’sverb position)VmangeVPVPdespommesPPV+II¢Jeanmange+[PRES]APsouventIPDPWhat happens whenV moves to I?n To show that V attaches to I, butthat I remains primary, this isdrawn in the tree structure likethis.n We say that V head-adjoins(adjoins, head-to-head) to I.n The head formed this way issometimes called a complex head,(it’s an I with a V adjoined to it).tiVPVPPPI¢IPDPmangeAPIIVi[PRES]VWhat happens whenV moves to I?n We should also considerwhat happens to the VPfrom which the V moved.n It is still a VP, it must stillhave a head.n We notate the originallocation of the V by writing t(standing for “trace” leftbehind by the original V),and we co-index the V andtrace to indicate theirrelationship.tiVPVPPPI¢IPDPmangeAPIIVi[PRES]VWhat happens whenV moves to I?n Since the VP is still a VP, it stillgets a [V] category featureprojected up from its head.n So the trace is still a verb.n In fact, there’s no reason tosuppose that any of the featuresof the original verb have beenremoved given that [V] is stillthere.n We write it as t, but its content hasnot changed. The trace t is reallyjust another copy (or, well, theoriginal) of the verb.tiVPVPPPI¢IPDPmangeAPIIVi[PRES]VWhat happens whenV moves to I?n What has changed is that theoriginal verb is now relatedto a higher position in thetree, and for many purposes,the top copy in the tree isconsidered to be primary.n What we have created bymoving the verb is a chain ofpositions in the tree that theverb has occupied.tiVPVPPPI¢IPDPmangeAPIIVi[PRES]V3What happens whenV moves to I?n When we think of movedelements in tree structures,we will often need toconsider the chain ofpositions; this is usuallywritten like:( Vi , ti )n referring to the twopositions held by Vi and ti inthe structure here.tiVPVPPPI¢IPDPmangeAPIIVi[PRES]VWhat happens whenV moves to I?n Using indices like that is kind ofreminiscent of what we did whentalking about BindingTheory—and it’s not acoincidence.n A fundamental property ofmovement is that the movedelement must bind (c-command,and be coindexed with) the tracein the original position:Movement is only upwards.tiVPVPPPI¢IPDPmangeAPIIVi[PRES]VWhat happens whenV moves to I?n Great.n So does Vi c-command ti?n X c-commands Y iff:n (i) X excludes Y, andn (ii) Any node thatdominates X alsodominates Y.tiVPVPPPI¢IPDPmangeAPIIVi[PRES]VWhat happens whenV moves to I?n Great.n So does Vi c-command ti?n X c-commands Y iff:n (i) X excludes Y, andn (ii) Any node thatdominates X alsodominates Y.tiVPVPPPI¢IPDPmangeAPIIVi[PRES]VVi excludes I. I is notdominated by anysegment of Vi.What happens whenV moves to I?n Great.n So does Vi c-command ti?n X c-commands Y iff:n (i) X excludes Y, andn (ii) Any node thatdominates X alsodominates Y.tiVPVPPPI¢IPDPmangeAPIIVi[PRES]VThe only nodes that dominate Viare I¢ and IP. I does not dominate Vibecause there is a segment of I thatdoes not dominate Vi. Both IP and I¢dominate ti as well. So any nodethat dominates Vi also dominates ti.Auxiliariesn English has two auxiliary (“helping”) verbs haveand be, which cannot serve as the main verbs ofa
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