English Syntax: An Introduction

Focusing on the descriptive facts of English, this textbook provides a systematic introduction to English syntax for students with no prior knowledge of English grammar or syntactic analysis.

English Syntax helps students appreciate the various sentence patterns available in the language, understand insights into the core data of its syntax, develop analytic abilities to explore patterns of English in more depth, and learn precise ways of formalizing syntactic analysis. The text and exercises cover a variety of English data and major constructions such as agreement, raising and control, the auxiliary system, passive, questions, relative clauses, extraposition, and clefts.

“This book is an excellent text that takes nothing for granted. Even the complete novice can use this book to gain familiarity with some of the most subtle and interesting problems of English syntax.”
—Ivan A. Sag, Stanford University

“This is a valuable introductory syntax volume, which strikes a nice balance between data and theory, and leads the student from the most basic notions of syntax to an understanding of analyses of a broad range of English constructions within the HPSG framework.”
—Robert D. Borsley, University of Essex

Jong-Bok Kim is Associate Professor in the School of English at Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea. Peter Sells is Professor of Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

Preface
Acknowledgments

1 Some Basic Properties of English Syntax

1.1 Some Remarks on the Essence of Human Language
1.2 How We Discover Rules
1.3 Why Do We Study Syntax and What Is It Good for?
1.4 Exercises

2 From Words to Major Phrase Types

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Lexical Categories

2.2.1 Determining the Lexical Categories
2.2.2 Grammar with Lexical Categories

2.3 Phrasal Categories
2.4 Phrase Structure Rules

2.4.1 NP: Noun Phrase
2.4.2 VP: Verb Phrase
2.4.3 AP: Adjective Phrase
2.4.4 AdvP: Adverb Phrase
2.4.5 PP: Preposition Phrase

2.5 Grammar with Phrases
2.6 Exercises

3 Syntactic, Forms, Grammatical Functions, and Semantic Roles

3.1 Introduction
3.2 Grammatical Functions

3.2.1 Subjects
3.2.2 Direct and Indirect Objects
3.2.3 Predicative Complements
3.2.4 Oblique Complements
3.2.5 Modifiers

3.3 Form and Function Together
3.4 Semantic Roles
3.5 Exercises

4 Head, Complements, and Modifiers

4.1 Projections from Lexical Heads to Phrases

4.1.1 Internal vs. External Syntax
4.1.2 Notion of Head, Complements, and Modifiers

4.2 Differences between Complements and Modifiers
4.3 PS Rules, X′-Rules, and Features
4.4 Lexicon and Feature Structures

4.4.1 Feature Structures and Basic Operations
4.4.2 Feature Structures for Linguistic Entities
4.4.3 Argument Realization
4.4.4 Verb Types and Argument Structure

4.5 Exercises

5 More on Subjects and Complements

5.1 Grammar Rules and Principles
5.2 Feature Specifications on the Complement Values

5.2.1 Complements of Verbs
5.2.2 Complements of Adjectives
5.2.3 Complements of Common Nouns

5.3 Feature Specifications for the Subject
5.4 Clausal Complement or Subject

5.4.1 Verbs Selecting a Clausal Complement
5.4.2 Verbs Selecting a Clausal Subject
5.4.3 Adjectives Selecting a Clausal Complement
5.4.4 Nouns Selecting a Clausal Complement
5.4.5 Prepositions Selecting a Clausal Complement

5.5 Excercises

6 Noun Phrases and Agreement

6.1 Classification of Nouns
6.2 Syntactic Structures

6.2.1 Common Nouns
6.2.2 Pronouns
6.2.3 Proper Nouns

6.3 Agreement Types and Morpho-syntactic Features

6.3.1 Noun-Determiner Agreement
6.3.2 Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
6.3.3 Subject-Verb Agreement

6.4 Semantic Agreement Features
6.5 Paritive NPs and Agreement

6.5.1 Basic Properties
6.5.2 Two Types of Partitive NPs
6.5.3 Measure Noun Phrases

6.6 Modifying an NP

6.6.1 Adjectives as Prenominal Modifiers
6.6.2 Postnominal Modifiers

6.7 Exercises

7 Raising and Control Constructions

7.1 Raising and Control Predicates
7.2 Differences between Raising and Control Verbs

7.2.1 Subject Raising and Control
7.2.2 Object Raising and Control

7.3 A Simple Transformational Approach
7.4 A Nontransformational Approach

7.4.1 Identical Syntactic Structures
7.4.2 Differences in Subcategorization
7.4.3 Mismatch between Meaning and Structure

7.5 Explaining the Differences

7.5.1 Expletive Subject and Object
7.5.2 Meaning and Preservation
7.5.3 Subject vs. Object Control Verbs

7.6 Exercises

8 Auxiliary Constructions

8.1 Basic Issues
8.2 Transformational
8.3 A Non-Transformational Analysis

8.3.1 Modals
8.3.2 Be and Have
8.3.3 Periphrasic do
8.3.4 Infinitival Clause Marker to

8.4 Explaining the NICE Properties

8.4.1 Auxiliaries with Negation
8.4.2 Auxiliaries with Inversion
8.4.3 Contracted Auxiliaries
8.4.4 Auxiliaries with Ellipsis

8.5 Exercises

9 Passive Constructions

9.1 Introduction
9.2 Relationships between Active and Passive
9.3 Approaches to Passive

9.3.1 From Structural Description to Structural Change
9.3.2 A Transformational Approach
9.3.3 A Lexicalist Approach

9.4 Prepositional Passives
9.5 Exercises

10 Wh-Questions

10.1 Clausal Types and Interrogatives
10.2 Movement vs. Feature Percolation
10.3 Feature Percolation with No Abstract Elements

10.3.1 Basic Systems
10.3.2 Non-Subject Wh-Questions
10.3.3 Subject Wh-Questions

10.4 Indirect Questions

10.4.1 Basic Structures
10.4.2 Non-Wh Indirect Questions
10.4.3 Infinitival Indirect Questions
10.4.4 Adjunct Wh-questions

10.5 Exercises

11 Relative Clause Constructions

11.1 Introduction
11.2 Non-Subject Wh-Relative Clauses
11.3 Subject Relative Clauses
11.4 That-relative clauses
11.5 Infinitival and Bare Relative Clauses
11.6 Restrictive vs. Nonrestrictive Relattive Clauses
11.7 Constraints on the GAP
11.8 Exercises

12 Special Constructions

12.1 Introduction
12.2 ‘Easy’ Constructions

12.2.1 Basic Properties
12.2.2 Transformational Analysis
12.2.3 A Lexicalist Analysis

12.3 Extraposition

12.3.1 Basic Properties
12.3.2 Transformational Analysis
12.3.3 A Lexicalist Analysis

12.4 Cleft Constructions

12.4.1 Basic Properties
12.4.2 Distributional Properties of the Three Clefts
12.4.3 Syntactic Structures of the Three Types of Cleft: Movement Analyses
12.4.4 A Lexicalist Analysis

12.5 Exercises

References
Index

4/1/2008

English Syntax

Contents