1Episode 8a. Passives andremaining issues6.4-6.7CAS LX 522Syntax ISome words from the blog Several issues arose in the course of HW6 thatmay are worth highlighting here. One concerns the case of the object of apreposition: Computers break near me. Now that we’ve incorporated case into oursystem, we’re stuck with it. Noun phrases comewith case. Computers has case (nominative) andme has case (accusative). The question is: How is the case of me checked?Computers break near me Computers break is unaccusative; there’s no agent,and computers is the Theme/Patient, it is theaffected object. Thus, we have in our numeration: break [V, uN*] vunaccusative [v, uInfl:, uV*] computers [N, φ:3pl, case] T [T, uφ:, pres, uN*] As well as near and me, which we’ll get to in amoment.Computer break First, let’s just do computers break. We start by merging break and computers.NPcomputers[N, φ:3pl, case]VPVbreak[V]Computers break v [v, uInfl:, uV*] We Merge v with VP (HoP).NPcomputers[N, φ:3pl, case]VPVbreak[V]vPv[v, uV*uInfl:]Computers break The V moves up to adjoin to v to check the[uV*] feature of v.NPcomputers[N, φ:3pl, case]VP<V>vPvv[v, uV*,uInfl:]Vbreak[V]2Computers break The T is Merged with vP (HoP). T has the features: [T, pres, uφ:, uN*, nom]. The [nom] feature of T can now match the[case] feature of computers.NPcomputers[N, φ:3pl, case]VP<V>vPvv[v, uV*,uInfl:]Vbreak[V]T′T[T, tense:pres, uφ:, uN*, nom]Computers break The [nom] feature of T matches, values, andchecks the [case] feature of computers,checking itself in the process. The [uφ:] feature of T can also match the [φ:pl]feature of computers.NPcomputers[N, φ:3pl, nom]VP<V>vPvv[v, uV*,uInfl:]Vbreak[V]T′T[T, tense:pres, uφ:, uN*, nom]Computers break The [φ:3pl] feature of computers matches, values, andchecks the [uφ:] feature of T. The [tense:pres] feature of T matches the [uInfl:]feature of v, which will be valued by both the tenseand φ-features of T. It’s [tense:pres] that matches the [uInfl:] feature, but the φ-features “come along” when the [uInfl:] feature is valued.NPcomputers[N, φ:3pl, nom]VP<V>vPvv[v, uV*,uInfl:]Vbreak[V]T′T[T, tense:pres, uφ:3pl, uN*, nom]Computers break The [uN*] feature of T matches the [N] featureof computers. This is not sufficient to check the[uN*] feature because they are not local, socomputers is moved up to SpecTP.NPcomputers[N, φ:3pl, nom]VP<V>vPvv[v, uV*,uInfl:pres3pl]Vbreak[V]T′T[T, tense:pres, uφ:3pl, uN*, nom]Computers break Once the [N] feature of computers is a sister to the T′that has the [uN*] feature (the feature projects from Tto T′—it’s the same feature), the [uN*] feature ischecked.<NP>VP<V>vPvv[v, uV*,uInfl:pres3pl]Vbreak[V]T′T[T, tense:pres, uφ:3pl, u N*, nom]NPcomputers[N, φ:3pl, nom]TPComputers break near me Now, let’s consider Computers break near me. Me is clearly accusative. There’s nothing here that canvalue a case feature as accusative. All we’re adding tothis is me (which has accusative case) and the P near.<NP>VP<V>vPvv[v, uV*,uInfl:pres3pl]Vbreak[V]T′T[T, tense:pres, uφ:3pl, u N*, nom]NPcomputers[N, φ:3pl, nom]TP3Computers break near me Conclusion: It must be near that is responsible for theaccusative case on me.<NP>VP<V>vPvv[v, uV*,uInfl:pres3pl]Vbreak[V]T′T[T, tense:pres, uφ:3pl, u N*, nom]NPcomputers[N, φ:3pl, nom]TPPnear[P, uN*, acc]NPpronoun[N, φ:1sg, case]Computers break near me Merge near and me (1sg pronoun). The [N] feature of me checksthe [uN*] feature of near. The [acc] feature of near values andchecks the [case] feature of me (checking itself in the process).<NP>VP<V>vPvv[v, uV*,uInfl:pres3pl]Vbreak[V]T′T[T, tense:pres, uφ:3pl, u N*, nom]NPcomputers[N, φ:3pl, nom]TPPnear[P, uN*, acc]NPpronoun[N, φ:1sg, acc]PPNear me computers break The last step: Adjoin the PP to the TP. To the TP? Near me can appear on either side of TP, not vP.<NP>VP<V>vPvv[v, uV*,uInfl:pres3pl]Vbreak[V]T′T[T, tense:pres, uφ:3pl, u N*, nom]NPcomputers[N, φ:3pl, nom]TPPnear[P, uN*, acc]NPpronoun[N, φ:1sg, acc]PPTPP checks accusative So, in general: A preposition P… Has a [P] category feature Has a [uN*] feature, motivating a Merge with its object. Has an [acc] feature, valuing and checking the [case]feature of its object. T has [T], [uN*] (EPP), [uφ:], [nom] v has [v], [uInfl:], [uV*], and, if v assigns a θ-role, it has[uN*] and [acc].Feature matching/valuation A modal like might has a category feature [T],but we’ll say it also has a [modal] feature. [modal] values a [uInfl:] feature as none. Pat might leave. They might leave. If there is no [modal] feature, [tense] values a[uInfl:] feature with the tense features and(valued) φ-features. Pat leaves. They leave. If a [uInfl:] on Aux (Perf and Prog) is valued bya tense feature, it is strong, and must be local tothe valuing feature: Pat has not left. Pat might not have left.Double-object constructions We’ve by now covered the sentence Pat gave books to Chris. Pat, books, and Chris are all noun phrases, they allneed case. Pat gets (nom) case from T. books gets (acc) case from v. Chris gets (acc) case from P (to). What about Pat gave Chris books?4givepossessive vs. givelocative Notice that the two constructions mean slightlydifferent things: Pat gave Chris books. Pat caused Chris to have books. *Pat sent Chicago letters. #Pat taught preschoolers Calculus. Pat gave books to Chris Pat caused books (to go/be located) to Chris. Pat sent letters to Chicago. Pat taught Calculus to preschoolers. So far, we’ve been dealing with givelocative.Chris has books If have (possessive) is somehow part of themeaning of givepossessive (cause+have), let’sthink a bit about have. In Chris has books, Chris is not an agent.Suppose instead that Chris is atheme/patient, affected by the possession. Since there is no agent, suppose that Chrishas books has the “unaccusative v”. v [v, uV*, uInfl:]Chris has books We now have two NPs, and only one avenue forchecking case (T, which will value Chris asnominative). Books needs (acc) case fromsomewhere. Well, what are the options?NPbooks[N, φ:3pl, case]V′Vhave[V, uN*, uN*, …]VPNPChris[N, φ:3sg, case]vPv[v, uInfl:, uV*]Chris has books It must be that books gets case from have itself. What θ-role does books have? UTAH does not yet
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