This page intentionally left blank An Introduction to English Sentence Structure This outstanding resource for students offers a step-by-step, practical introductiontoEnglishsyntaxandsyntacticprinciples,asdevelopedby Chomskyoverthepast15years.Assuminglittleornopriorbackground insyntax,AndrewRadfordoutlinesthecoreconceptsandhowtheycan beusedtodescribevariousaspectsofEnglishsentencestructure.Thisis anabridgedversionofRadford’smajornewtextbookAnalysingEnglish Sentences (also published by Cambridge University Press), and will be welcomedasahandyintroductiontocurrentsyntactictheory. andrew radfordisProfessor&HeadoftheDepartmentofLanguage andLinguisticsattheUniversityofEssex.Hisrecentpublicationsinclude MinimalistSyntax:ExploringtheStructureofEnglish(Cambridge,2004) andEnglishSyntax:AnIntroduction(Cambridge,2004). An Introduction to English Sentence Structure ● ANDREW RADFORD UniversityofEssex CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521516938 © Andrew Radford 2009 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2009 ISBN-13 978-0-511-50666-6 eBook (EBL) ISBN-13 978-0-521-51693-8 hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-73190-4 paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents Preface pageviii 1 Grammar 1 1.1 Overview 1 1.2 Traditionalgrammar:Categoriesandfunctions 1 1.3 UniversalGrammar 11 1.4 TheLanguageFaculty 15 1.5 PrinciplesofUniversalGrammar 19 1.6 Parameters 22 1.7 Parameter-setting 26 1.8 Summary 30 1.9 Bibliographicalbackground 32 Workbooksection 33 2 Structure 39 2.1 Overview 39 2.2 Phrases 39 2.3 Clauses 44 2.4 Clausescontainingcomplementisers 49 2.5 Testingstructure 51 2.6 Structuralrelationsandthesyntaxofpolarityitems 58 2.7 Thec-commandconditiononbinding 62 2.8 Barephrasestructure 64 2.9 Summary 66 2.10 Bibliographicalbackground 69 Workbooksection 70 3 Nullconstituents 81 3.1 Overview 81 3.2 Nullsubjects 81 3.3 Nullauxiliaries 86 3.4 NullTinfiniteclauses 89 3.5 NullTininfinitiveclauses 94 3.6 NullCinfiniteclauses 96 3.7 NullCininfinitiveclauses 101 3.8 Defectiveclauses 105 3.9 Nulldeterminersandquantifiers 108 3.10 Summary 111 v vi contents 3.11 Bibliographicalbackground 113 Workbooksection 114 4 Headmovement 120 4.1 Overview 120 4.2 T-to-Cmovement 120 4.3 Movementascopyinganddeletion 123 4.4 V-to-Tmovement 128 4.5 Headmovement 132 4.6 AuxiliaryRaising 134 4.7 Anotherlookatnegation 137 4.8 do-support 140 4.9 Summary 144 4.10 Bibliographicalbackground 146 Workbooksection 147 5 Wh-movement 152 5.1 Overview 152 5.2 Wh-questions 152 5.3 Wh-movementascopyinganddeletion 155 5.4 Drivingwh-movementandauxiliaryinversion 161 5.5 Pied-pipingofmaterialinthedomainofawh-word 165 5.6 Pied-pipingofasuperordinatepreposition 171 5.7 Long-distancewh-movement 174 5.8 Multiplewh-questions 182 5.9 Summary 185 5.10 Bibliographicalbackground 188 Workbooksection 189 6 A-movement 196 6.1 Overview 196 6.2 SubjectsinBelfastEnglish 196 6.3 Idioms 199 6.4 Argumentstructureandtheta-roles 201 6.5 Unaccusativepredicates 205 6.6 Passivepredicates 211 6.7 Long-distancepassivisation 215 6.8 Raising 219 6.9 Comparingraisingandcontrolpredicates 221 6.10 Summary 227 6.11 Bibliographicalbackground 229 Workbooksection 230 7 Agreement,caseandA-movement 237 7.1 Overview 237 7.2 Agreement 237 7.3 FeatureValuation 240 7.4 UninterpretablefeaturesandFeatureDeletion 242 contents vii 7.5 Expletiveitsubjects 246 7.6 Expletivetheresubjects 251 7.7 AgreementandA-movement 258 7.8 EPPandagreementincontrolinfinitives 261 7.9 EPPandpersonagreementindefectiveclauses 262 7.10 Defectiveclauseswithexpletivesubjects 267 7.11 Summary 272 7.12 Bibliographicalbackground 274 Workbooksection 275 8 Splitprojections 279 8.1 Overview 279 8.2 SplitCP:Force,TopicandFocusprojections 279 8.3 SplitTP:AspectandMoodprojections 287 8.4 SplitVP:Transitiveergativestructures 292 8.5 SplitVP:Othertransitivestructures 298 8.6 SplitVP:Unaccusativestructures 304 8.7 SplitVP:Passiveandraisingstructures 310 8.8 Summary 313 8.9 Bibliographicalbackground 316 Workbooksection 317 9 Phases 323 9.1 Overview 323 9.2 Phases 323 9.3 Intransitiveanddefectiveclauses 327 9.4 PhasesandA-barmovement 330 9.5 A-barmovementintransitiveclauses 334 9.6 Uninterpretablefeaturesandfeatureinheritance 340 9.7 Independentprobes 346 9.8 Subjectquestions 355 9.9 Moreonsubextraction 359 9.10 Summary 362 9.11 Bibliographicalbackground 363 Workbooksection 364 Glossaryandlistofabbreviations 370 References 410 Index 435 Preface Aims This book supercedes my English Syntax book, published in 2004. Although there is much in common between the two books, it should be noted that this book contains new material and new analyses (particularly in later chapters). It hastwomainaims.Thefirstistoprovideanintensiveintroductiontorecentwork in syntactic theory (more particularly to how the syntactic component operates within the model of grammar assumed in recent work within the framework of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program). The second is to provide a description of a rangeofphenomenainEnglishsyntax, makinguseofMinimalist conceptsand assumptionswhereverpossible. Key features Thebookisintendedtobesuitablebothforpeoplewithonlyminimalgrammatical knowledge,andforthosewhohavealreadydonequiteabitofsyntaxbutwantto knowsomething(more)aboutMinimalism.Itisnothistoricistorcomparativein orientation,anddoesnotpresupposeknowledgeofearlieroralternativemodelsof grammar.Itiswritteninanapproachablestyle,avoidingunnecessarycomplexity andunexplainedjargon.Eachchaptercontains: (cid:1) acoretext(dividedupintoeightsectionsorso)focusingonaspecific topic (cid:1) asummaryrecapitulatingthemainpointsinthechapter (cid:1) alistofkeyconcepts/principlesintroducedinthechapter (cid:1) a bibliographical section providing extensive references to original sourcematerial (cid:1) aworkbooksectioncontainingtwodifferentkindsofexercise (cid:1) a set of model answers accompanying the exercises, together with extensivehelpfulhintsdesignedtoeliminatecommonerrorsstudents makeandtohelpstudentswhosenativelanguageisnotEnglish (cid:1) anextensiveglossaryandintegrallistofabbreviations The bibliographical background section often contains references to primary research works which are highly technical in nature, and so it would not be viii