English Syntax and Argumentation Second edition Bas Aarts ENGLISH SYNTAX AND ARGUMENTATION MODERN LINGUISTICS SERIES Series Editors Professor Noe¨l Burton-Roberts University of Newcastle upon Tyne Professor Andrew Spencer University of Essex Each textbook in the Modern Linguistics series is designed to provide a carefullygradedintroductiontoatopicincontemporarylinguisticsandallied disciplines,presentedinamannerthatisaccessibleandattractivetoreaders with no previous experience of the topic, but leading them to some under- standingofcurrentissues.Thetextsaredesignedtoengagetheactivepartici- pation of the reader, favouring a problem-solving approach and including liberal and varied exercise material. Noe¨l Burton-Roberts founded the Modern Linguistics series and acted as Series Editor for the first three volumes in the series. Andrew Spencer has since joined Noe¨l Burton-Roberts as Series Editor. Titles published in the series English Syntax and Argumentation (second edition) Bas Aarts Phonology Philip Carr Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition Vivian Cook Sociolinguistics: A Reader and Coursebook Nikolas Coupland and Adam Jaworski Morphology Francis Katamba Contact Languages: Pidgins and Creoles Mark Sebba Further titles in preparation ModernLinguisticsSeries SeriesStandingOrder ISBN0–333–71701–5hardcover ISBN0–333–69344–2paperback (outsideNorthAmericaonly) Youcanreceivefuturetitlesinthisseriesastheyarepublishedbyplacingastanding order.Pleasecontactyourbookselleror,inthecaseofdifficulty,writetousattheaddress belowwithyournameandaddress,thetitleoftheseriesandtheISBNquotedabove. CustomerServicesDepartment,PalgraveDistributionLtd Houndmills,Basingstoke,HampshireRG216XS,England English Syntax and Argumentation Second edition Bas Aarts Reader in Modern English Language University College London &BasAarts1997,2001 Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copyortransmissionof thispublicationmaybemadewithoutwrittenpermission. Noparagraphofthispublicationmaybereproduced,copiedor transmittedsavewithwrittenpermissionorinaccordancewith theprovisionsoftheCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988, orunderthetermsofanylicencepermittinglimitedcopying issuedbytheCopyrightLicensingAgency,90TottenhamCourt Road,LondonW1T4LP. Anypersonwhodoesanyunauthorisedactinrelationtothis publicationmaybeliabletocriminalprosecutionandcivil claimsfordamages. Theauthorshaveassertedtheirrightstobeidentified astheauthorsofthisworkinaccordancewiththe Copyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Firsteditionpublished1997 Secondeditionpublished2001by PALGRAVE Houndmills,Basingstoke,HampshireRG216XSand 175FifthAvenue,NewYork,N.Y.10010 Companiesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld PALGRAVEisthenewglobalacademicimprintof St.Martin’sPressLLCScholarlyandReferenceDivisonand PalgravePublishersLtd(formerlyMacmillanPressLtd). ISBN0–333–94987–0hardback ISBN0–333–94986–2paperback Thisbookisprintedonpapersuitableforrecyclingand madefromfullymanagedandsustainedforestsources. Acataloguerecordforthisbookisavailable fromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Aarts,Bas,1961– Englishsyntaxandargumentation/BasAarts—2nded. p.cm.—(Modernlinguisticsseries) Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN0–333–94987–0—ISBN0–333–94986–2(pbk.) 1.Englishlanguage—Syntax.2.Englishlanguage—Semantics. 3.Persuasion(Rhetoric)I.Title.II.Modernlinguisticsseries (Palgrave(Firm)) PE1369A22001 42521;aa0504–03—dc01 2001021749 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 TypesetinGreatBritainby AarontypeLtd, Easton,Bristol PrintedandboundinGreatBritainby CreativePrint&Design(Wales),EbbwVale To my family and friends This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface to the First Edition xii Preface to the Second Edition xiii PART I FUNCTION AND FORM Chapter 1 Introduction 3 Chapter 2 Function 8 2.1 Subject and Predicate 8 2.2 Predicator 14 2.3 Direct Object 15 2.4 Indirect Object 19 2.5 Adjunct 20 Key Concepts 21 Exercises 22 Further Reading 24 Chapter 3 Form: Words, Word Classes and Phrases 25 3.1 The notion ‘word’ 25 3.2 Nouns and determiners 26 3.3 Adjectives 32 3.4 Verbs 34 3.5 Prepositions 44 3.6 Adverbs 44 3.7 Conjunctions 46 3.8 Interjections 48 Key Concepts 48 Exercises 49 Further Reading 52 Chapter 4 More on Form: Clauses and Sentences 53 4.1 Clauses and clause hierarchies 53 4.2 The rank scale 56 4.3 Sentence types 58 4.3.1 Declarative sentences 58 4.3.2 Interrogative sentences 59 vii viii Contents 4.3.3 Imperative sentences 60 4.3.4 Exclamative sentences 61 4.3.5 The pragmatics of the sentence types 62 4.4 More on tree diagrams 63 Key Concepts 67 Exercises 68 Further Reading 70 Chapter 5 The Function–Form Interface 71 5.1 Function–form relationships 71 5.2 Realisations of the Subject 72 5.3 Realisation of the Predicate and Predicator 75 5.4 Realisations of the Direct Object 75 5.5 Realisations of the Indirect Object 79 5.6 Realisations of Adjuncts 79 Key Concepts 86 Exercises 86 Further Reading 87 PART II ELABORATION Chapter 6 Predicates, Arguments and Thematic Roles 91 6.1 Predicates and arguments 91 6.2 Thematic roles 94 6.3 Grammatical functions and thematic roles 97 6.4 Selectional restrictions 98 6.5 Three levels of description 99 Key Concepts 99 Exercises 100 Further Reading 102 Chapter 7 Cross-Categorial Generalisations: X-bar Syntax 104 7.1 Heads, Complements and Specifiers 104 7.2 Adjuncts 111 7.3 Cross-categorial generalisations 119 7.4 Subcategorisation 121 7.4.1 Subcategorisation versus argument/thematic structure 123 Key Concepts 124 Exercises 124 Further Reading 127 Contents ix Chapter 8 More on Clauses 129 8.1 The I-node 129 8.2 Subordinate clauses 134 8.2.1 Clauses functioning as Direct Object, Subject and Adjunct 134 8.2.2 Clauses functioning as Complements within phrases 137 8.2.3 Clauses functioning as Adjuncts within phrases 138 Key Concepts 140 Exercises 140 Further Reading 141 Chapter 9 Movement 142 9.1 Verb movement: aspectual auxiliaries 142 9.2 NP-movement: passive 149 9.3 NP-movement: Subject-to-Subject raising 155 9.4 Movement in interrogative sentences: Subject–auxiliary inversion 157 9.5 Wh-movement 160 9.6 The structure of sentences containing one or more auxiliaries 162 Key Concepts 165 Exercises 165 Further Reading 167 PART III ARGUMENTATION Chapter 10 Syntactic Argumentation 171 10.1 The art of argumentation 171 10.2 Economy of description: Linguistically Significant Generalisations and Occam’s razor 174 10.2.1 Linguistically Significant Generalisations 174 10.2.2 Occam’s razor 176 10.2.2.1 Verb-preposition constructions 177 10.2.2.2 Achieving economy in the domain of functional terminology 181 10.3 Further constraints on description: elegance and independent justifications 183 10.3.1 Elegance of description 183 10.3.2 Independent justifications 186 10.4 Evaluating analyses 188