Syntax – Week 5, Lecture 1
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X-Bar Theory, Part I
Revision:
Recall that as part of the meaning of a verb, it specifies various semantic
roles. For example, the verb “to love” requires an experiencer to feel the
love, and stimulus to invoke the feeling of love. Likewise, the verb “to eat”
requires an agent to do the eating, and a patient, which is the thing eaten.
These semantic roles do not change in different languages.
Even though these semantic roles are part of the meaning of the verb,
languages vary (both internally and with respect to each other) with
respect to whether these semantic roles are required to be present within
a sentence. For example, the patient role in the verb “to eat” is optional,
but is required in the verb “to hit”:
Mary hit Bob. *Mary hit.
[agent] [patient] [agent]
Mary ate some bread. Mary ate.
[agent] [patient] [agent]
Note that in the sentence “Mary ate”, the patient is still ‘there’ – it is
simply not expressed.
We saw that when a semantic role is present in a sentence, it is often
encoded as an argument (a subject, object, indirect object or an oblique).
However, arguments could only be identified by grammatical properties
and not semantic ones. This is illustrated by “John” in the sentence below.
John can be the subject or the object of the verb, but in both sentences,
John is the patient:
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Bob saw John vs. John was seen by Bob
[Subj:Agent] [Obj:Pt] [Subj:Pt] [Obl:Ag]
Example
The man gave the roses to the woman.
The man gave the roses to the woman hurriedly
in the morning
last night
GF SUBJ OBJ OBL Adjunct
Phrase NP NP PP AdvP, PP, NP
Semantic
Role
Agent Theme Recipient
S
NP VP
V NP PP PP
the man gave the roses to the woman in the morning
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X-Bar Theory: Lexical Categories
Major Categories
● Noun (N)
● Verb (V)
● Adjective (Adj)
● Preposition (P)
Minor Categories
● Determiner (D)
● Adverb (Adv)
● Conjunction (Conj)
● Particle (Part)
● Complementiser (Comp)
Complementiser Example:
I know [that you love him]
Recall that the major categories act as heads to a phrase; so a N heads a
NP, a V heads a VP etc.:
NP PP VP
Dtv N P NP V NP PP
This analysis of constituency needs to be extended. In particular, it does
not match all our intuitions regarding the constituency of NP’s. Consider
the NP below along with our current analysis of it:
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NP
Dtv AdjP N
Adj
the curious cat
However, there are two other possible analyses of this NP – one where
the AdjP forms a constituent with the Dtv, and another where it forms a
constituent with the N:
NP
??? N
Dtv AdjP
NP
Dtv ???
AdjP N
Which of the analyses above is best? Furthermore, consider the sentences
below:
a. The boy went to school.
b. *Girl went to school.
c. The boy and girl went to school.
In (c) we see that the definite article must have scope over girl – but how
do we analyse this NP? In this lecture, we are going to sort these and
other issues out.
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1. NP Proforms
Recall that personal pronouns (he, she, it, they etc.) can substitute for
entire NP’s:
● [That tall middle-aged woman]i acted like shei knew where shei was
going.
Substitution tests further demonstrate that a pronoun must substitute for
an entire NP:
● That tall middle-aged woman stole the show.
Q: Who stole the show?
A:
● She did.
● *That she did.
● *That tall she did.
● *That tall middle-aged she did.
That a string of words can be substituted for a single word tells us that the
word string acts as a constituent. In this case, “that tall middle-aged
woman” is a constituent (a NP).
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2. The Proform ‘one’
Now compare the pronoun she above, with the proform ‘one’:
● That tall middle-aged woman stole the show.
Q: Who stole the show?
A: *One did.
● That one did.
● That tall one did.
● That tall middle-aged one did.
Examining these sentences, two things are immediately apparent:
● one cannot be substituted with an entire NP
● one can be substituted with everything after the determiner
That a single word can be substituted for several words is evidence for a
constituent.
That one did. one = “tall middle-aged woman” and so, tall middle-aged woman
is a constituent.
That tall one did. one = “middle-aged woman” and so, middle-aged woman is a
constituent.
That tall middle-aged one did. one = “woman” and so, woman is a constituent.
Using brackets, we can sketch out our levels of constituents:
[That [tall [middle-aged [woman]N ]?? ]?? ]NP
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We will call this intermediate NP level a N-bar phrase:
NP
D N’
that AdjP N’
tall AdjP N’
middle-aged N
woman
Terminology:
Phrasal Level: NP = N” = N2 = N double bar
Intermediate Lvl: N = N’ = N1 = N single bar
Lexical Level: N = N = N0 = N
The proform ‘one’ can then be thought of as a word of type N’. That is to
say, in the same way a pronoun can be swapped with a NP, the proform
‘one’ can be swapped with a N’.
Adjuncts and Complements
How does this new level of structure interact with adjuncts and
complements? Recall that in the sentences below, “of linguistics” is a
complement, and “with long hair” is an adjunct:
● The student of linguistics. PP = Complement
● The student with long hair. PP = Adjunct
Now, consider how the proform ‘one’ interacts with these sentences:
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Which student won the award?
*That one of linguistics did.
That one with long hair did.
This tells us that an adjunct must be a sister to the N’ level whereas the
complement is a sister to the lexical (N) level:
NP
D N’
N’ PP
N P NP
that student with long hair
NP
D N’
N PP
P NP
that student of linguistics
Test: We have seen that one is a N’ level word. This means in the PST’s
above, wherever you see a N’, you should be able to replace that phrase
with the word ‘one’:
That student with long hair
That one (N’ = student with long hair)
That one with long hair (N’ = student)
That student of linguistics
That one (N’ = student of linguistics)
*That one of linguistics (N’ cannot replace student)
Furthermore, that a complement is sister to the head of the phrase (i.e.,
N), and an adjunct being a sister to a N’ level, explains why complements
must precede adjuncts. Recall:
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The student of linguistics with long hair
*The student with long hair of linguistics
The first sentence can be drawn with the complement being sister to the
head of the phrase, and the adjunct being sister to a N’ level:
NP
Dtv N’
N’ PP
N PP P NP
P NP
that student of linguistics with long hair
It is impossible to have an adjunct as sister to a N’ level between an N and
its complement.
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Adjective Phrases
Adjective phrases which modify a noun are also adjuncts – and so they
are sisters to a N’ level:
NP
Dtv N’
AdjP N’
N
the curious cat
3. Coordination
So far, we have treated coordination as occurring at the level of the
phrase. For example:
NP
NP Conj NP
The boy and the girl
However, this treatment of coordination cannot account for ambiguity in
more complex sentences:
The tall boy and girl (saw the cat).
This sentence has two meanings, one where both the girl and the boy are
tall, and one where only the boy is tall.
Exercise
Can you draw a single tree with N’
structure to explain all sentences below:
That curious cat from France died.
That one died.
That curious one died.
That one from France died.
That curious one from France died.
If not, why not?
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In the first tree diagram, tall modifies both “boy and girl”, and so, they are
both tall. In the second diagram, tall only has scope over boy.
Similarly, we can now answer the question raised at the start of the lecture
– how to analyse the subject NP in “the boy and girl went to school”:
Coordination rules:
XP → XP CONJ XP
X′ → 𝑋′ CONJ 𝑋′
X → 𝑋 CONJ 𝑋
Coordination must occur between
constituents of the same type (N and N, N’
and N’ or NP and NP). This restriction is not
arbitrary – for example, it reflects our
judgments regarding the scope of adjectives.
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Consider:
I saw [ [the blind man]NP and [her]NP ]NP at that instant.
Here, two NP’s have been
coordinated and we have typical
coordination where the
constituents being coordinated are
all of the same type, as well as their
mother.
If we could coordinate a N (or N’) with a NP, then the scope of ‘the’ (and
possibly blind also) would include the pronoun as well:
I saw the blind [ [man]N/N’ and [her]NP ] at that instant.
However, this interpretation is not possible as it would predict the following
sentences as being grammatical:
*I saw the her at that instant. *I saw the blind her at that instant.
Thus:
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WRONG
WRONG
Example 2: Consider the following phrase
(Mary was) exceedingly pleased with Bob and angry with John.
The ambiguity in this sentence is to do with the scope of exceedingly. Is
Mary both exceedingly pleased with Bob and exceedingly angry with John,
or is she only exceedingly pleased with Bob, and just ordinarily angry with
Bob? This difference in meaning is reflected in the two trees below:
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Are the PP’s above adjuncts or complements?
4. General Points:
● NP’s must be headed by a N, AdjP’s must be headed by an Adj etc.
● NP’s must have a N’ level (even if its only child is an N). As we will
see, this rule is generalized to the other lexical categories as well (V,
Adv, P, Adj)
● A complement of a N is placed as a sister to the N
● An adjunct of a N is placed as a sister to the N’ level
● Complements and Adjuncts are always fully phrasal (i.e, they must
be phrases like AdjP, NP etc)
● Coordination can occur at any level (phrasal, intermediate, or
lexical), but must involve coordination of like constituents.
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5. New PSR’s
NP → Dtv N’
N’ → AdjP N’ Adjunct Rule
N’ → N’ PP Adjunct Rule
N’ → N (PP) Complement Rule
AdjP → (AdvP) Adj’
Adj’ → A’ PP Adjunct Rule
Adj’ → A (PP) Complement Rule
AdvP → (AdvP) Adv’
Adv’ → Adv
Z → Z Conj Z (where Z where Z can stand for a category of any
level – zero, bar or double bar)
6. Terminology
NP
Dtv N’
AdjP N’
N PP
the spaced-out student of syntax
● The determinative is in specifier
position (daughter to a phrase, sister
to an intermediate phrase)
● The AdjP is an adjunct (daughter to a
bar level phrase, sister to a bar level
phrase).
● The PP is a complement (daughter to
a bar level phrase, sister to a head)
7. Practice
A tall girl with a dislike of old spam for lunch.