French Verb raisingPassiveHomeworkLinguistics 401, section 3Syntax: French V-raising and PassiveOctober 18, 2007The organization of transformational grammarWe have been developing a sentence-grammar that derives acceptable word-orders usingtwo different kinds of rules.merge These rules license an initial set of daughter-parent and daughter-sister relationshipsthat we can depict using a tree. Merge respects subcategorization.move Directed “transformations” re-arrange phrases within a phrase structure, or intro-duce a bounded amount of new material (e.g. do-insertion).The initial phrase structure defined by ‘merge’ is known as deep structure — a kindof underlying form. The final structure, to which no more movements are applicable, isknown as surface structure. Intermediate stages of the transformational derivation maybear a resemblance to structures found elsewhere in the language (or in other languages).Nonetheless, the essential scientific role of these intermediate stages is to simplify the theory.Such intermediate stages are analogous to intermediate lines of derivation or partial resultsin an algebra problem like 1.y = x2− 7x + 12y = (x − 3)(x − 4) (1)y = 0 just in case x = 3 or x = 4The following six steps illustrate a more complete derivation, on our grammar so far, of theacceptable English sentence Which girl do you love?1. Merge licenses the combination of [Vlove] and[NPwhich girl] to yield the X0structure depicted onthe right.Attachment at the single-bar level indicates thecomplementhood of the NP.This structure is consistent with the transitive subcat-egorization frame of love, NPVPV0VloveNPDetwhichN0Ngirl12. Merger with the subject is also allowed by X0theory ifwe postulate an empty inflection.IPNPYouI0IP resentVPlove which girl3. Merge an empty complementizer C that has the +Qinterrogative feature.CPC0C+QIPNPyouI0IP resentVPlove which girl4. do-insertion applies, filling the empty inflection node. CPC0C+QIPNPyouI0IP resentdoVPlove which girl25. I-to-C movement applies, motivated by +Q. A trace(t) marks the launching siteCPC0C+QdoIPNPyouI0IP resenttVPlove which girl6. Wh-movement applies, transporting[NPwhich girl] to the specifier of CP.The launching site is indicated by a distincttrace, t2CPNP2which girlC0C+QdoIPNPyouI0IP resenttVPV0Vlovet231 French Verb raisingIn English, adverbs precede main verbs.(2) He [Advoften] [Varrives] late.(3) She [Advcarefully] [Vwords] her letters.French seems to impose the opposite requirement – that adverbs come after their verbs.Examples like 4 attest to the acceptablity of this ordering. The examples in 5 have beentwisted into the English-like ordering and are unacceptable to French native speakers.(4) a. Ilhearrivearrives[Advsouvent]oftenen retardlateb. Ellesheformulewords[Advsoigneusement]carefullysesherlettreslettres(5) a. ∗ Il souvent arrive en retardb. ∗ Elle soigneusement formule ses lettresThis observation is at odds with the fact that elsewhere in the grammar of French XP-specifiers appear to precede X0.For instance, French determiners come before common nouns: NPDetletheN0Nlivrebook(6) lesthechaussuresshoes(7) lathevoiturecarThe word-by-word translations in 8 show that English auxiliary verbs pattern with theirFrench counterparts; they come before the adverb. We have been analyzing auxiliary verbsas inflectional elements that head entire sentences.(8) a. Ilhe[Iest ]issouventofteninvit´einvitedb. Elleshe[Ia ]hassoigneusementcarefullyformul´ewordedsesherlettresletters(9) a. He [Idoes] often arrive late.b. She [Iwill] carefully word her letters.It is possible to maintain that French spe cifiers precede their heads under the additionalassumption that verbs in that language obligatorily raise from V to I (figure 5.23 overleaf).This assumption immediately derives the fact that French Y/N questions front themain verb (example 10) while English Y/N questions front the auxiliary (example 11).(10) [VManges]eattuyoudu chocolat?chocolate“Do you eat chocolate?”(11) [IWill] you eat chocolate?4However, the inversion movement must be ordered after V-to-I raising in the transforma-tional derivation to correctly derive the French word order.It’s not so farfetched to think that V-to-I movement could be operative in English,too. Recall that English auxiliary verbs permit n’t-suffixation whereas main verbs do not.Examples 12 and 13 exercise the inversion transformation that derives Y/N questions inEnglish, namely I-to-C movement.(12) a. The children should go to bed.b. [ Shouldn’t ]3the children t3go to bed?(13) a. The children have gone to bed.b. [ Haven’t ]4the children t4gone to bed?A reasonable analysis of cases like 14a would locate the modal should in the inflection nodeand relegate have to a VP-shell surrounding gone to bed.(14) a. The children shouldn’t [VPhave [VPgone to bed ] ].b. ∗ The children should haven’t gone to bedIf have is merged in as a V, then it must be moved to I in order to undergo inversion – thepromised case of V-to-I in English.52 PassiveYou may have been counciled against using passive voice (example 16) by well-meaningindividuals such as high-school teachers. Use the active voice instead, they say (example 15).(15) a. The kids consumed free lunches.b. John praised a student.(16) a. Free lunches are consumed by the kids.b. A student was praised by John.(17) a. ∗ Free lunches are consumed the kidsb. ∗ A student was praised JohnIt is not a coincidence that each main verb e.g. consume, praise appears in exactly twodifferent subcategorization frames, active: NP and passive: PPby. It would be redundantto separately indicate, for every verb in the lexicon, that both frames are possible. Aparsimonious alternative uses a transformation to derive the passive from the active. Thispassive transformation adds the passive morphology, including some form of be, sets upa prepositional by-phrase, and swaps the subject NP with the object NP. The need forboth an object and a subject as inputs to this movement rule immediately derives thenon-passivability of intransitive verbs such as occur.(18) a. A mess occurredb. ∗ The janitor occurred a messc. ∗ A mess was occurred (by the janitor)3 Homewor kTurn in answers to questions 11 and 12 at the end of O’Grady chapter 5