CAS LX 522 Syntax I

CAS LX 522Syntax I Week 5b. q-Theory (with a little more binding theory)

Binding • Principle A of the Binding Theory(preliminary):An anaphor must be bound. * IP DP I IP DPi D I VP DPi I -ed John John D DP V DPi I VP ’s mother see himself -ed V DPi see himself

Principle A • This also explains why the following sentences are ungrammatical: • *Himselfi saw Johni in the mirror. • *Herselfi likes Maryi’s father. • *Himselfi likes Mary’s fatheri. • There is nothing which c-commands and is coindexed with himself and herself. The anaphors are not bound, which violates Principle A.

Binding domains • But this is not the end of the story; consider • *Johni said that himselfi likes pizza. • *Johni said that Mary called himselfi. • In these sentences the DP John c-commands and is coindexed with (=binds) himself, satisfying our preliminary version of Principle A—but the sentences are ungrammatical. • John didn’t say that anyone likes pizza. • John didn’t say that Mary called anyone.

Binding domains • Johni saw himselfi in the mirror. • Johni gave a book to himselfi. • *Johni said that himselfi is a genius. • *Johni said that Mary dislikes himselfi. • What is wrong? John binds himself in every case. What is different? • In the ungrammatical cases, himself is in an embedded clause.

Binding domains • It seems that not only does an anaphor need to be bound, it needs to be bound nearby (or locally). • Principle A (revised):An anaphor must be bound in its binding domain.Binding Domain (preliminary):The binding domain of an anaphor is the smallest clause containing it.

Principle A • The definition of binding domain is very complicated (this occupied many syntacticians in the early ’80s). • A clause (IP) delimits a binding domain. • But other things do too… • Mary likes [DP John’s picture of himselfi]. • *Maryi likes [DPJohn’s picture of herselfi]. • Maryi wants [DPa picture of herselfi].

Binding domain • Let’s say this: • The binding domain for an anaphor is the smallest of: • An IP that dominates it. • A DP, with a specifier, that dominates it. • Note! This is not perfect, but it is a pretty close approximation.

Pronouns • *Johni saw himi in the mirror. • Johni said that hei is a genius. • Johni said that Mary dislikes himi. • Johni saw himj in the mirror. • How does the distribution of pronouns differ from the distribution of anaphors? • It looks like it is just the opposite.

Principle B • Principle BA pronoun must be free in its binding domain.FreeNot bound • *Johni saw himi. • Johni’s mother saw himi.

Principle C • We now know where pronouns and anaphors are allowed. So what’s wrong with these sentences? The pronouns are unbound as needed for Principle B. What are the binding relations here? • *Hei likes Johni. • *Shei said that Maryi fears clowns. • Hisi mother likes Johni.

Principle C • Binding is a means of assigning reference. • R-expressions have intrinsic reference; they can’t be assigned their reference from somewhere else. • R-expressions can’t be bound, at all. • Principle CAn r-expression must be free.

Binding Theory • Principle A.An anaphor must be bound in its binding domain. • Principle B.A pronoun must be free in its binding domain. • Principle C.An r-expression must be free. • The binding domainfor an anaphor is the smallest of (i) An IP that dominates it, (ii) A DP, with a specifier, that dominates it. • Bound: coindexed with a c-commanding antecedent (Free: not bound).

Constraints on interpretation • Binding Theory is about interpretation. • Only a structure that satisfies Binding Theory is interpretable. pronounce Lexicon Merge interpret Workbench

Constraints on interpretation • If we put together a tree that isn’t interpretable, the process (derivation) is sometimes said to crash. pronounce Lexicon Merge interpret Workbench

Constraints on interpretation • If we succeed in putting together a tree that is interpretable (satisfying the constraints), we say the process (derivation) converges. pronounce Lexicon Merge interpret Workbench

Exercise to ponder • Young kids (5-6 years) seem to accept sentences like (1) as meaning what (2) means for adults. • (1) Mama Bear is pointing to her. • (2) Mama Bear is pointing to herself. • Suppose that contrary to appearances, kids do know and obey Principle B. Look carefully at the definitions of Binding Theory. If Principle B isn’t the problem, what do you think kids are getting wrong to allow (1) to have the meaning of (2)? • Think in particular about how you decide which index to assign to her. What is the implication of having the same index? What is the implication of having different indices?

*MBi is pointing to heri. • (1) *Mama Beari is pointing to heri. • (2) Mama Beari is pointing to herselfi. • Principle B: A pronoun must be free within its binding domain. Free = not bound. Bound by = coindexed with and c-commanded by. • (3) Mama Beari is pointing to herj. • Indexes signify a “pointing relation”. Coindexation implies coreference. • Raining implies wet streets. Do wet streets imply raining?

Verbs and arguments • Verbs come in several types… • Some have only a subject, they can’t have an object—the intransitiveverbs. • Sleep: Bill slept; *Bill slept the book. • Some need an object—the transitive verbs. • Hit: *Bill hit; Bill hit the pillow. • Some need two objects—ditransitiveverbs. • Put: *Bill put; *Bill put the book;Bill put the book on the table.

Verbs and arguments • The “participants” in an event denoted by the verb are the argumentsof that verb. • Some verbs require one argument (subject), some require two arguments (subject and object), some require three arguments (subject, indirect object, direct object).

Predicates • We will consider verbs to be predicateswhich define properties of and/or relations between the arguments. • Bill hit the ball • There was a hitting, Bill did the hitting, the ball was affected by the hitting. • Different arguments have different roles in the event. (e.g., The hitter, the hittee)

Subcategorization • Not all transitive verbs (that take just one object) can take the same kind of object. • Sue knows [DP the answer ] • Sue knows [CP that Bill left early ] • Sue hit [DP the ball ] • *Sue hit [CP that Bill left early] • So knowcan take either a DP or a CP as its object argument; hit can only take a DP as its object argument.

Selection • Verbs also exert semantic control of the kinds of arguments they allow: selection. • For example, many verbs can only have a volitional (agentive) subject: • Bill likes pizza. Bill kicked the stone. • #Pizza likes anchovies. #The stone kicked Bill.

The lexicon • A major component of our knowledge of a language is knowing the words and their properties (the lexicon). • In the lexicon, we have the words (lexical items) stored with their properties, like: • Syntactic category (N, V, Adj, P, C, I, …) • Number of arguments required • Subcategorization requirements (syntax) • Selectional requirements (semantics) • Pronunciation • … • These pretty much just have to be learned separately for each verb in the language.

Thematic relations • It has come to be standard practice to think of the selectional restrictions in terms of the thematic relationthat the argument has to the verb—the role it plays in the event. • One thematic relation is agent of an action, like Bill in: • Bill kicked the ball.

Common thematic relations • Agent: initiator or doer in the event • Theme: affected by the event, or undergoes the action • Bill kicked the ball. • Experiencer: feel or perceive the event • Bill likes pizza. • Proposition: a statement, can be true/false. • Bill said that he likes pizza.

Thematic relations • Goal: • Bill ran to Copley Square. • Bill gave the book to Mary.(Recipient) • Source: • Bill took a pencil from the pile. • Instrument: • Bill ate the burrito with a plastic spork. • Benefactive: • Bill cooked dinner for Mary. • Location: • Bill sits under the tree on Wednesdays.

Thematic relations • Armed with these terms, we can describe the semantic connection between the verb and its arguments. • Ray gave a grape to Bill. • Ray: Agent, Source, … • A grape: Theme • Bill: Goal, Recipient, …

q-roles • An argument can participate in several thematic relations with the verb (e.g., Agent, Goal). • In the syntax, we assign a special connection to the verb called a “q-role”, which is a collection of thematic relations. • For the purposes of syntax, the q-role (the collection of relations) is much more central than the actual relations in the collection.

-roles • We will often need to make reference to a particular q-role, and we will often do this by referring to the most prominent relation in the collection. • For example, in Bill hit the ball, we say that Billhas the “Agent q-role”, meaning it has a q-role containing the Agent relation, perhaps among others.

The Theta Criterion • Although an argument can have any number of thematic relations in the q-role… • Each argument has exactly one q-role. • On the other side, verbs (as we’ve seen) are recorded in the lexicon with the number of participants they require; each participant must have a q-role as well.

The Theta Criterion • Verbs have a certain number of q-roles to assign (e.g., say has two), and each of those must be assigned to a distinct argument. • Meanwhile, every argument needs to have exactly one q-role (it needs to have at least one, it can’t have more than one). • This requirement that there be a one-to-one match between the q-roles a verb has to assign and the arguments receiving q-roles is the Theta Criterion.

Theta Grids • We can formalize the information about q-roles in the lexical entry for a verb by using a theta grid, like so: • The columns each represent a q-role, the indices in the lower row will serve as our connection to the actual arguments; e.g. • Johni gave [the book]j [to Mary]k.

Theta Grids • Johni gave [the book]j [to Mary]k. The first q-role is assigned to the subject. It is the externalq-role. It is often designated by underlining it. The other q-role are internalq-roles.

Theta Grids • The q-roles in the theta grid are obligatory. (Optional things like on the hill are not in the q-grid). • Adjuncts are related to the verb via thematic relations (e.g., instrument, location, etc.), but an adjunct does not get a q-role. They are optional.

The Theta Criterion in action • An example: push. • Billi pushed the shopping cartj. • Fine, pushassigns two q-roles, one (the external q-role) is assigned to Bill, the other (the internal q-role) is assigned to the shopping cart. There are two arguments here, each gets a q-role. • *Billi pushed. (j?) • *Billi pushed the shopping cartj the corner?.

The Theta Criterion in action • An example: cough. • Billi coughed. • Fine, coughassigns one q-role (the external q-role), to Bill. There are one arguments here, and it gets a q-role. • *Billi coughed the shopping cart?.

“Argument”? • The q-criterion: • every q-role in the q-grid is assigned to exactly one argument. • every argument is assigned exactly one q-role. • The second half protects us against superfluous arguments. But it’s hard to evaluate this if we don’t know what an argument is. • It’s hard to say, actually. There are some further concepts that we should have before we can even start to state this accurately. For now, let’s just suppose that DPs and CPs are necessarily arguments, and PPs usually aren’t.

The EPP • With the Theta Criterion in our toolbox, let’s take a look at a special kind of sentence (which will turn out to tell us something important about syntax). • It rained. • It snowed. • How many q-roles does rainassign? • If we think about it, it doesn’t really mean anything at all. It is not a participant in the event; it really can’t be getting a q-role. (cf. also Spanish).

The EPP • So, the theta grid for rain really looks like this:

The EPP • Given the q-Criterion and the fact that raindoesn’t have any q-roles to assign, what’s it doing there? And why doesn’t itviolate the q-Criterion? • As to the first question, the conclusion that syntacticians have come to is that the itis there due to a separate constraint, which goes by the name EPP.

The EPP • The EPPAll clauses have subjects. • The idea is that there must be something in the subject position (SpecIP) of every clause. • Because rainhas no arguments (no q-roles), a special, contentless pronoun (it) has to be inserted to in order to have a grammatical sentence. This kind of “empty it” is called an expletive or a pleonastic pronoun. It is not an argument (in this use).

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CAS LX 522 Syntax I