CAS LX 522 Syntax I

CAS LX 522Syntax I Episode 5a. TP 5.1-5.3

Modals • Pat might eat lunch. • Modals:might, may, can, could, shall, should, will, would, must • Provide a meaning of possibility, necessity, obligation, permission, appropriateness… rather than just factual statements about the world as it is. • How can we incorporate them into our system?

Pat might eat lunch. • We already know how this is supposed to work to a point. • Select:Pat [N, …]v [v, uN, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]might […] • Merge eat and lunch, checking the uN feature of eat (and assigning a q-role to lunch, namely Theme—this is NP daughter of VP). NPPat v[v, uN, …] VP V NP eat[V, uN, …] lunch[N, …]

Pat might eat lunch. • Select:Pat [N, …]v [uN, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]might […] • Merge v and the VP eat lunch, in conformance with the Hierarchy of Projections: v > V. v projects, and still has a uN feature. NPPat v [v, uN, …] v[v, uN, …] VP V NP eat lunch

Pat might eat lunch. • Select:Pat [N, …]v [uN, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]might […] • Merge v and the VP eat lunch, in conformance with the Hierarchy of Projections: v > V. v projects, and still has a uN feature. • Move the V eat up to v. NPPat v [v, uN, …] v VP V NP eat lunch

Pat might eat lunch. • Select:Pat [N, …]v [uN, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]might […] • Merge v and the VP eat lunch, in conformance with the Hierarchy of Projections: v > V. v projects, and still has a uN feature. • Move the V eat up to v. • Merge Pat with v to check the uN feature and assign a q-role (Agent, this is NP daughter of vP). vP NPPat v [v, uN, …] v+Veat VP <eat> NP lunch

Pat might eat lunch. • Select:Pat [N, …]v [uN, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]might […] • So, now what do we do with might? • And eat lunch Pat shall. • What Pat should do is eat lunch. • It kind of seems like it goes between the subject and the verb, but how? vP NPPat v [v, uN, …] v+Veat VP <eat> NP lunch

Pat might eat lunch. • Pat [N, …]v [uN, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]might […] • Let’s call the category of modals “T”. • This stands for “Tense” but for the moment, it’s just a label for whatever category might is. • If we leave everything as it is so far (UTAH, Hierarchy of Projections), the only option is to Merge might with the vP we just built. • So, let’s. Tmight[T, …] vP NPPat v [v, uN, …] v+Veat VP <eat> NP lunch

Pat might eat lunch. • Pat [N, …]v [uN, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]might […] • Ok, that’s all fine and good, except that the sentence isPat might eat lunchnotMight Pat eat lunch • How do we get Pat might eat lunch out of this? T Tmight[T, …] vP NPPat v [v, uN, …] v+Veat VP <eat> NP lunch

Pat might eat lunch. • Pat [N, …]v [uN, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]might […] • As previewed in the previous episode, the subject moves to this first position in the sentence, around the modal. • Something like when V moved to v. TP NPPat T Tmight[T, …] vP v <Pat> v+Veat VP <eat> NP lunch

Pat might eat lunch. • Pat [N, …]v [uN, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]might […] • Great. Why? • Jumping ahead, we’re going to say that this is a property of T-type things generally: T needs to have an NP in its specifier. • We can encode this as an uninterpretable feature on T: [uN]. TP NPPat T Tmight[T, …] vP v <Pat> v+Veat VP <eat> NP lunch

Pat might eat lunch. • Pat [N, …]v [uN, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]might […] • Since [uN] needs to be checked on T, and since there are no NPs left to Merge, T looks down into the tree, finds the first NP it sees, and moves it up. • “Moves it up” = makes a copy and Merges with the root. • We’ll continue exploring this in a bit. TP NPPat T [T, uN, …] Tmight[T, uN, …] vP v <Pat> v+Veat VP <eat> NP lunch

Why should should be T? • We’ve called the category of modals like might, may, should, must, etc., “T” for “Tense”. • This category clearly comes between the subject NP and the VP. And it looks like this is the place where tense “seems to be.” • Bill ate lunch. • Bill will eat lunch. • Bill did not eat lunch. • Bill does not eat lunch. • Bill would eat lunch. • Not seems to “split” tense and the verb, so we can see tense on its own, in the form of do.

SOT • Modals (perhaps despite initial appearances) also seem to show a tense distinction: may/might; can/could; shall/should; will/would. • Sequence of Tense effects indicate that the relation between mayand might is just like that between isand was. • I think [she is hungry]. I think [she was hungry]. • *I thought [she is hungry]. I thought [she was hungry]. • I think [she can win]. I think [she could win]. • *I thought [she can win]. I thought [she could win].

So, T • So, let’s add T to our categories, and let’s position it in our trees by extending the Hierarchy of Projection thusly: • Hierarchy of Projection:T > v > V

What about I? • A side note here, lest there is some confusion amongst those who remember learning something different in the past. • We’re categorizing should as being of category T (for Tense). • You may have heard in the past that it should be of category I (for Inflection). • Rest easy: T and I are for current purposes just two names for the same thing. Historically, this was called INFL, then I, and now usually called T. But these are just names. • Istanbul vs. Constantinople; St. Petersburg vs. Leningrad.

Pat ate lunch • Now that we have T in the Hierarchy of Projections, we’re stuck with it. • Yet, where is T in Pat ate lunch or Pat eats lunch? • It looks like the tense marking is on the verb, we don’t see anything between the subject and the verb where T ought to be. • Now that we have T, this is where tense features belong. We take this to be the thing that determines the tense of the sentence, even if we sometimes see the marking on the verb.

Pat ate lunch • Since (most) verbs sound different when in the past and in the present tense, we suppose that there is a [past] or [present] feature on the verb. • However, to reiterate: tense belongs on T. • The tense features on the verbs are uninterpretable.

Feature classes • At this point it is useful to divide features into types; we’ve been doing this intuitively, but let’s be explicit. • There are tense features. Like past, like present. There are case features. Like nom, like acc. There are person features. Like 1st, like 2nd. There are gender features. Like masculine, like feminine. • So, we can think of this as a feature category or feature typethat has a value. • [Gender:masculine] [Person:1st] • [Tense:past] [Case:nom]

Agree • T nodes have features of the tense type. Maybe past, maybe present. • Suppose that v has an uninterpretable feature of the tense type, but unvalued. • What we’re trying to model here is agreement. • AgreeIn the configuration X[F: val] … Y[uF: ]F checks and values uF, resulting inX[F: val] … Y[uF: val]

Unvalued features • The idea is that a lexical item might have an unvalued feature, which is uninterpretable as it stands and needs to be given a value in order to be interpretable. • The statement of Agree on the previous slide is basically saying just that, formally. • This gives us two kinds of uninterpretable features (unvalued and regular-old uninterpretable privative features), and two ways to check them (valuing for unvalued features, checking under sisterhood for the other kind).

Pat ate lunch • So, back to Pat ate lunch. • T can be a modal, but it can also be just T with a tense feature, e.g., [T, past, …]. • We need to make a connection between the tense feature chosen for T and the tense morphology we see on the verb. • Here’s how: • Little v has an uninterpretable (unvalued) inflectional feature [uInfl:]. • It’s “Infl” because we want to include tense, but also other kinds of features later on. But tense features can check and value unvalued Infl-type features.

Pat ate lunch. • Pat [N, …]v [uN, uInfl:, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]T [T, tense:past, …] T[tense:past,T, uN, …] vP NPPat v v[uInfl:]+Veat VP <eat> NP lunch

Pat ate lunch. • Pat [N, …]v [uN, uInfl:, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]T [T, tense:past, …] T [T, uN, tense:past, …] T[tense:past,T, uN, …] vP NPPat v v[uInfl:past]+Veat VP <eat> NP lunch

Pat ate lunch. • Pat [N, …]v [uN, uInfl:, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]T [T, tense:past, …] • Last point, how does this come to be pronounced Pat ate lunch? • T isn’t pronounced as anything. It was just a pure tense feature. • The “past” pronunciation of eat is ate, so v+V is pronounced “ate” here. TP NPPat T [T, uN, tense:past, …] T[tense:past,T, uN, …] vP v <Pat> v[uInfl:past]+Veat VP <eat> NP lunch

Pat had eaten lunch • The auxiliary verbs have and be are used in forming the perfect and progressive, respectively, which are additional forms that a verb can take on. • Pat has eaten lunch. Pat is eating lunch. • We can’t have two modals, but we can have a modal and an auxiliary: • Pat should have eaten lunch. • Pat might have been eating lunch. • Conclusion: Auxiliaries aren’t T, they’re their own thing. Let’s call have Perf and be Prog.

Pat had eaten lunch • Suppose that Perf can value an Infl feature, so in Pat had eaten lunch, v+V has[uInfl: Perf], pronounced as “eaten”. • But auxiliaries show tense distinctions too, so they must themselves have an unvalued Infl feature. • Pat has eaten lunch. Pat had eaten lunch. • Have [Perf, uInfl: ]

Pat had eaten lunch. TP • Pat [N, …]v [uN, uInfl:, …]have [Perf, uInfl:, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]T [T, tense:past, …] NPPat T [T, uN, tense:past, …] PerfP T[tense:past, T, uN, …] Perf[Perf, uInfl:past]had vP v <Pat> v[uInfl:perf]+Veaten VP <eat> NP lunch

Pat was eating lunch. TP • Pat [N, …]v [uN, uInfl:, …]have [Perf, uInfl:, …]eat [V, uN, …]lunch [N, …]T [T, tense:past, …] NPPat T [T, uN, tense:past, …] ProgP T[tense:past, T, uN, …] Prog[Perf, uInfl:past]was vP v <Pat> v[uInfl:prog]+Veating VP <eat> NP lunch

Hierarchy of Projections • Both have and be (Perf and Prog) are possible, but just in that order. • Pat had been eating lunch. • *Pat was having eaten lunch. • But neither is obligatory. Thus: • Hierarchy of ProjectionsT > (Perf) > (Prog) > v > V

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CAS LX 522 Syntax I