English Grammar

Lynn Gordon

Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Verbs and Verb Phases Chapter 3: Noun Phrases Chapter 4: Modifiers and Complements Chapter 5: NPs and their Functions Chapter 6: Coordination and Ellipsis Chapter 7: Subordinate Clauses

(c) 2008 Lynn Gordon All rights reserved

Anyone may use this draft for self-study or in formal classes. Do not sell any version of it.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Grammar

Grammar is used to refer to a number of different things: it can be used to refer to books that contain descriptions of the structure of a language; it can be used to refer to the knowledge that a native speaker has of his or her language and to descriptions of that knowledge; it can be used to refer to a set of rules developed to control certain aspects of the usage of native speakers; and it can be use to refer to a set of rules typically taught in school about appropriate usage and about writing. Were concerned with three of these kinds of grammars: descriptive grammar which has as its goal a description of the usage of native speakers of a language; prescriptive grammar which has as its goal to control the usage of native speakers of a language; and school grammar which is primarily the simplified subset of prescriptive grammar taught in school. Descriptive Grammar As described above, descriptive grammar attempts to describe the usage of native speakers. Descriptive grammar assumes that the only authority for what is exists in a language is what its native speakers accept and understand as part of their language. A speaker who says I aint doing nothing, intending to say just that, has produced a sentence which is grammatical in the dialect and register in which he or she is speaking. This utterance is grammatical (i.e., produced by the grammar of a native speaker) for speakers of several different dialects of English and appropriate in different registers for those dialects. A descriptive grammar therefore will specify many rules for structures in which no native speaker will ever produce anything except a single form, for example, rules like (1) (3) below. 1. In English, the article precedes the noun and any adjectives modifying the noun. a. The short people moved. b. *Short the people moved.1 c. *Short people the move. 2. In English, demonstratives agree in number with the nouns they modify: that and this go with singulars; those and these go with plurals. a. That dog is surprisingly fond of these bones. b. *Those dog is surprisingly fond of this bones. 3. Use only one question word at the beginning of an English sentence. a. Who said what? b. *Who what said? c. *What who said? A descriptive grammar will also specify rules which allow variation in structures which speakers use variably. What does that mean? (4) and (5) are examples of a rule that varies in different contexts:

4. Speakers of more or less standard dialects of American English typically use objective pronouns after copular verbs; a. That is me. b. Its him. c. The guy in the front row with the red hat is him. 5. Speakers of more or less standard dialects of American English typically use subject case pronouns after copular verbs with very short subjects in formal contexts; a. %That is I. b. %It is he. c. ?That guy in the front row with the red hat is he. Prescriptive Grammar Prescriptive grammars, on the other hand, assume the existence of better authorities than the usage and judgment of native speakers. People who write prescriptive grammars adduce better language users (educated speakers, high-class speakers, great writers), better languages (usually Latin) and better information systems (mathematics or predicate calculus) as authorities for preferring one usage over another. Prescriptive rules exist only to express a preference for one structure or usage or linguistic item over another. A prescriptive grammar will not contain rules that tell you to put articles before nouns, rather than after, because no native speakers of English put articles after nouns. Prescriptive rules are reserved for places where speakers have choices and they exist to limit those choices. For example, consider this discussion from Fowlers A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. 6. preposition at end. It was once a cherished superstition that prepositions must be kept true to their name and placed before the word they govern in spite of the incurable English instinct for putting them late (They are the fittest timber to make great politics of, said Bacon; and What are you hitting me for? says the modern schoolboy). A sentence ending in a preposition is an inelegant sentence represents what used to be a very general belief, and it is not yet dead. One of its chief supports is the fact that Dryden, an acknowledged master of English prose, went through all his prefaces contriving away the final prepositions that he had been guilty of in his first editions. It is interesting to find Ruskin almost reversing this procedure. In the text of the Seven Lamps there is a solitary final preposition to be found and no more; but in the later footnotes they are not avoided (Any more wasted words...I never heard of./Men whose occupation for the next fifty years would be the knocking down every beautiful building they could lay their hands on). Drydens earlier practice shows him following the English instinct; his later shows him sophisticated with deliberate latinism: I am often put to a stand in considering whether what I write be the idiom of the tongue, ... and have no other way to clear my doubts but by translating my English into Latin. The natural inference from this would be: you cannot put a preposition (roughly speaking) later than its word in Latin, and therefore you must not do so in English. Gibbon improved upon the doctrine, and, observing that prepositions and adverbs are not always easily

distinguished, kept on the safe side by not ending sentences with on, over, under, or the like, when they would have been adverbs. The fact is that the remarkable freedom enjoyed by English in putting its prepositions late and omitting its relatives is an important element in the flexibility of the language. The power of saying A state of dejection such as they are absolute strangers to instead of A state of dejection of an intensity to which they are absolute strangers, or People worth talking to instead of People with whom it is worthwhile to talk, is not one to be lightly surrendered. But the Dryden-Gibbon tradition has remained in being, and even now immense pains are sometimes expended in changing spontaneous into artificial English. That depends on what they are cut with is not improved by conversion into That depends on with what they are cut; and too often the lust for sophistication, once blooded, becomes uncontrollable, and ends with, That depends on the answer to the question as to with what they are cut. Those who lay down the universal principle that final prepositions are 'inelegant' are unconsciously trying to deprive the English language of a valuable idiomatic resource, which has been used freely by all our greatest writers except those whose instinct for English idiom has been overpowered by notions of correctness derived from Latin standards. The legitimacy of the prepositional ending in literary English must be uncompromisingly maintained; in respect of elegance or inelegance, every example must be judged not by any arbitrary rule, but on its own merits, according to the impression it makes on the feeling of educated English readers. (473-4) Notice that Fowler said that Dryden in revising himself did not ask What sounds good in English?, instead he very explicitly changed his writing so it existed as a pseudo-translation of Latin (an odd thing to do unless you really believe in the superiority of Latin). Fowler distinguishes between style and grammar much more effectively than most prescriptivists. He is arguing in favor of (or against) different usages because of what he perceives their stylistic effect to be he is not claiming that ending a sentence with a preposition (or avoiding ending a sentence with a preposition) is ungrammatical. He is expressing a stylistic preference. There has been a long tradition in prescriptivism to claim that those things which the prescriptivists dislike are ungrammatical. (7) suggests that split infinitives or verb phrases are somehow wrong; the data suggests that not only do English speakers prefer to split infinitives sometimes, sometimes they actually must. 7. "Avoid separating the parts of a verb phrase or the parts of an infinitive." (H. Ramsay Fowler, The Little, Brown Handbook: 242) a. Our five-year mission is to boldly go where no one has gone before. b. Our five-year mission is to go boldly where no one has gone before. c. To only read the first chapter, and not answer the questions, would be a waste of time. d. ?*Only to read the first chapter, and not answer the questions, would be a waste of time. e. To read only the first chapter, and not answer the questions, would be a waste of time. ((e) means something different from (c))

One of the most important things about prescriptive grammarians or various stylists is that their rules must sit on top of an adequate descriptive grammar. Why? Descriptive grammar tells us what a preposition or an infinitive is. If you dont know what an infinitive is, how can you interpret (7) above? Nothing in prescriptive grammar defines infinitives. It is descriptive grammar that notes that speakers have choices in certain constructions about where the preposition can appear. The prescriptivist comes in and asserts that only one of the choices is correct, but the existence of the choices and the structure that sits beside them can only be found by competent observation and description of native speaker usage. Prescriptive rules are a set of social and sometimes more narrowly aesthetic rules about linguistic structure they are not, contrary to way they are often presented rules of language. The degree to which a speaker or writer abides by these rules may affect how his or her audience judges the work or the author of it. A failure to abide by the rules may suggest to an audience that the speaker/writer is unfamiliar with these rules (which can be associated with intellectual, scholastic or social success), while abiding by them may suggest to an audience that the speaker/writer is pompous and overly formal. School Grammar Within prescriptive and descriptive grammar is a subset of (usually highly oversimplified) rules which are explicitly taught in school. These will include things like definitions of word categories (nouns, verbs, prepositions, etc.) and the very explicit prescriptive rules like the dont end a sentence in a preposition rule discussed above. These rules are found in textbooks and other materials used in schools from elementary school to college. They include statements like A verb is an action word (a definition which we will find woefully inadequate when we start actually working with verbs), and rules like 8. "Use the subjective case for all parts of compound subjects and for subject complements." (H. Ramsay Fowler, The Little, Brown Handbook:162) a. That's her. b. That's she. c. The best person for the job would be me. d. *The best person for the job would be I. Compare this with the rule (4) above and the data listed with (4) and (8), it should be clear that there is a substantial problem with it. It appears unfortunately to press English speakers and writers to produce things which sound absolutely horrible to the English ear. What does all this mean? Now that weve distinguished between descriptive, prescriptive and school grammars, what should we do about it? We can see that prescriptive grammars can assert things that simply arent true and that school grammars oversimplify. Does this mean schools shouldnt teach students any prescriptive rules? Probably not. There are still many people who believe fervently that the degree to which a writer plays by the prescriptive rules (especially in technical or formal writing) is a direct reflection of the writers intelligence or education. Students will, in all probability,

have to deal with such people. If schools do nothing else in teaching about prescriptive rules, they should teach students strategies to avoid producing sentences which obey prescriptive rules while violating descriptive ones (like 6d above). Moreover, certain rules must be inherently prescriptive the rules that are specific to writing. Since nobody is a native speaker of writing, those aspects of writing which are not present in speech (in particular punctuation and spelling) have no independent authority other than the prescriptive conventions we as a society have developed. In other words, nobody can call upon his or her native intuitions about spelling or punctuation and nobodys intuitions about them reflect the social groups to which they belong. Spelling and punctuation are consciously constructed conventions that run off the structure of the language, but are not part of the that structure. What it means is that schools should teach the facts about English fairly carefully. It means teaching should distinguish carefully among features of all dialects of English and features of only certain dialects and the social rules of prescriptive grammar and the rules specific to writing. Suggestions for further reading There is obviously a lot more to be said on this subject. If you want to learn more about it, try Finegan, Edward. Attitudes Toward English Usage: The History of War of Words Bolinger, D.L. Language, the Loaded Weapon: The Use and Abuse of Language Today
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* before a sentence means the sentence is ungrammatical in the sense that the sentence is not produced by the grammar of a native speaker of English; ? before a sentence means the sentences is questionable it sounds weird, but not as bad as a *d sentence; % before a sentences means that some speakers would accept a sentence while others would not.

Chapter 2 Verbs and Verb Phrases

Introduction Verbs in English can be distinguished by the kinds of marking they can take and by what they can co-occur with. English verbs all function inside verb phrases (VPs). A simple VP consists of a lexical verb acting as the main verb of the VP and anywhere from zero to four auxiliary verbs which are used to mark modality, aspect, and voice. (A compound VP consists of the conjunction of two or more simple VPs. Compound VPs will be discussed in Chapter 6 which deals with coordination.) VPs can be finite or non-finite. A finite verb phrase marks tense and agreement where appropriate, and 1 has a subject which must be in the subject case if it is a pronoun . A non-finite verb phrase never marks tense or agreement; has a subject which can never be in the subject case if it is a pronoun. Verbs have a range of forms from the base (or uninflected) forms through a number of inflected forms, as illustrated in figure 1. Table 1: Forms of English Verbs
Base Form Regular play Irregular write cut write cut writes cuts writing cutting wrote cut written cut play plays playing played played -s form -ing Participle, Present Participle Simple Past Form -ed Participle, -en Participle, Past Participle

The main clause of a declarative sentence2 (a statement) or interrogative sentence (a question) is always finite. A simple sentence consists of only one clause the main clause. A compound sentence consists of the coordination of two or more finite clauses. A complex sentence consists of a main clause which contains at least one subordinate clause. Therefore all complete declarative or interrogative sentences contain a finite clause. Well start by considering the structure of finite verb phrases. Finite VPs The simplest finite VP consists of just a full or lexical verb. In the sentence The children played, played is the lexical verb, acting as the main verb of the VP; it is also the complete VP on its own. In the sentence Mary likes cheese, likes is the lexical verb, main verb, and complete VP. Notice that when the lexical verb is the only verb in the VP, then it is marked with tense and, where appropriate, agreement.

Tense What does tense mean? In this case, it means that you can look at the form of the verbs played and likes and tell that the events or states conveyed in the sentences took place at different times that the childrens playing took place in the past and that Marys affection for cheese is still going on. Tense is a system of marking on the first verb of a finite VP to indicate whether the event or state held in the past or it holds in the present or future (what might be called the non-past). English has two tenses, which are traditionally called past and present.3 Agreement If the verb is in the present tense, then it will agree4 with its subject in person5 and number6: -s is suffixed (attached to the end of) to a verb which has a third person singular subject (so plays, likes, works, sings, tries, etc. are third person singular present tense forms of the verb; for any other subject the unmarked or base form of the verb is used. 1. a. I play chess. 2. a. We play chess. b. You play chess. b. You all play chess. c. The student plays chess. c. The students play chess.

The only exception to this rule is the verb be which is irregular and has more agreement forms than any other English verb. In the present, be has special forms for first person singular am, third person singular is, and second person and all plural7 forms are. 3. a. I am here. 4. a. You are a fine person. 5. a. The child is happy. b. We are here b. You are fine people. b. The children are happy.

In the past tense, there is no agreement except again with be: The past tense form of be with a first or third person singular subject is was and with a second person or plural subject is were. The forms of be are laid out in Table 2. Table 2: Forms of be
Base Form Non-finite Present Tense Past Tense be am was is was are were 1st P Singular 3rd P Singular 2nd P and Plural -ing/ Present Participle being -ed/-en / Past Participle been

No other verbs shows agreement in the past tense, regardless of whether the verb is regular like play, like, work, or try or irregular like have, sing, or cut. The past tense forms of these verbs are played, liked, worked, tried, had, sang, and cut no matter what the subjects are. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. a. I played chess a. Mary liked cheese. a. The child worked hard. a. The class tried something new. a. I had a bad day. b. We played chess. b. Mary and Louis liked cheese. b. The children worked hard. b. The class members tried something new. b. We had a bad day.

11. a. Ms. Brown sang badly. 12. a. I cut the cards for the magician.

b. Ms. Brown and the entire faculty sang badly. b. We cut the cards for the magician.

More complicated verb phrases which mark more modalities, aspects and passive voice require the use of auxiliaries; in general, auxiliaries are also required when the clause is negative, a direct question, or emphaticthat is, when the clause requires the presence of an operator. (be is the only main verb which can function as an operator in American English; have and be are the only main verbs which can function as operators in British English.) Auxiliaries Simple VPs which consist of more than one verb contain a main verb and one or more auxiliaries. Auxiliaries are distinct from main verbs in a couple of ways: (1) they can function as operators, carrying negatives and emphatic stress and marking questions; (2) they primarily carry grammatical information. Tense and agreement are marked on the first verb of a VP, so if a VP contains any auxiliary, the first auxiliary will be the only available carrier of tense and agreement; and (3) they are a closed class: can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must, have, be, and do. Operators If you consider the declarative sentences (13-14) below, how would you make them negative? 13. I was playing chess. 14. I have played chess. You add not or nt after the first verb: 15. a. I was not playing chess. 16. a. I have not played chess. b. I wasnt playing chess. b. I havent played chess.

We can see that was and have are the first verbs in (13) and (14) since was and have are the words in the sentence which mark tense (was is past and have is present) and agreement (since if the subject in (13) was We the sentence would be We were playing chess and if the subject in (14) was She, the sentence would be She has played chess). But a simple rule that says put the negative after the first verb wont work, if the first verb is a main verb other than be. So the negative of 17. I played chess. is not 18. a. *I played not chess. but 19. a. I did not play chess. b. I didnt play chess. b. *I playnt chess.

Maybe the rule should be Put not or nt immediately before the lexical verb. So to make (20) negative, 20. I have been playing chess. you would get 21. a. *I have been not playing chess b. *I have beennt playing chess.

which are clearly ungrammatical (in the simple negative sense). Similarly, the negative of (17) I played chess must be (19a) or (19b), not *I not/nt played chess, as a rule that inserted the negative before the lexical verb would give. So instead we must say that you add not or nt after the first auxiliary to negate a clause. The only exception to this rule is that you can also add not or nt after a lexical main verb which is a form of be, as in (22) 22. He is a chess player

is negated as 23. a. He is not a chess player. b. He isnt a chess player.

Negation is therefore sensitive to whether or not a verb is an auxiliary and works differently with lexical verbs and auxiliaries. Similarly the structure of questions is sensitive to the same categories: It treats auxiliaries and forms of the verb be in one way and all other lexical verbs another way. For example, to make a yes-no question8, you move the first auxiliary or form of be before the subject as in 24. 25. 26. 27. Was I playing chess? Have I played chess? Have I been playing chess? Is he a chess player? (compare to 13) (compare to 14) (compare to 20) (compare to 22)

These (and other properties) distinguish auxiliaries from other verbs and distinguish auxiliaries from any other category. Only auxiliaries and forms of be can be operators. Practice Sentences Identify all the lexical and auxiliary verbs in the sentences below. EXAMPLE: Everyone has talked all night. The auxiliaries is has; the lexical verb is talking. Has can function as an operator: Has everyone been talking all night? Only auxiliaries and forms of be can be operators has is not a form of be. If you remove has, you get Everyone talks all night. (Try to keep the tense the same has is present tense so talk should be as well.) Talks marks agreement and tense, but it cannot be an operator and it does not belong to the closed class of auxiliaries, so it must be a main verb. Only lexical verbs function as main verbs.

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1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Oswald has stolen the money. Mariel might have been given an A by that professor. Some people think that Boise should be the capitol of the U.S. Has the light been blinking on and off? Could that cat have been being fed by someone in this house?

The identifications of all the lexical and auxiliary verbs in the sentences are given below; the auxiliaries are underlined and the lexical verbs are italicized. Evidence for some of the identifications are given below the sentences. Do your identifications agree with these? 1. Oswald has stolen the money. The auxiliary is has; the lexical verb is stolen. Has can function as an operator: Has Oswald stolen the money? Only auxiliaries and forms of be can be operators has is not a form of be. If you remove has, you get Oswald steals the money. (Try to keep the tense the same has is present tense so steal should be as well.) Steals marks agreement and tense, but it cannot be an operator and it does not belong to the closed class of auxiliaries, so it must be a main verb. Only lexical verbs function as main verbs. 2. Mariel might have been given an A by that professor. The auxiliaries are might, have, and been. Might is on the closed list of modal auxiliaries -however, might can also be a noun (as in, Their might was overwhelming). However, we can tell it is an auxiliary here, because it can function as an operator as in Mariel might not have been given an A by that professor which means it must be an auxiliary or a form of be. Since might is not a form of be it must be an auxiliary. If we remove might (the past tense form of may, remember), we get Mariel had been given an A by that professor. Have is a primary verb which might be either an auxiliary or a main verb so the question is can it be an operator. The answer is yes: Had Mariel been given an A by that professor is fine. Now what about been? Forms of be are the trickiest to work out. If you removed had, you get Mariel was given an A by that professor. was, here, is transparently a verb --it is an operator if the sentence is made into a question as in Was Mariel given an A by that professor. The question is whether this form of be would be an auxiliary or a main verb. We can't just remove the auxiliary and get something good (Mariel gave an A by the professor is ungrammatical.) The answer here comes from deciding what the voice of this sentence is. We have a form of be, followed by the past or -en participle of give with a by-phrase. This looks suspiciously like a passive, but, if this be is the passive auxiliary, we should be able to find the appropriate active paraphrase for the clause. You can make a passive clause active by removing the form of be, adapting the verb form to that appropriate to follow the auxiliary have and making the object of by the subject and making the subject of the passive into the object of the active. So That professor might have given Mariel an A should be the active paraphrase of (2). Since this active clause does, in fact, mean the same thing as (2), been must be a passive auxiliary.

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given, the past participle of give, is the only available main verb. A passive VP must end in a past participle of the main verb, so given must the main verb, therefore it must be the lexical verb. 3. Some people think that Boise should be the capitol of the U.S. 4. Has the light been blinking on and off? 5. Could that cat have been being fed by someone in this house? Modal Auxiliaries What words can act as operators? can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, and must all can be operators. Consider the following sentences: 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. I cant play chess. Could you play chess? May I play chess? You might not have played chess. Shall we play chess? Should you play chess? I wont play chess. I wouldnt play chess. Must you play chess?

These auxiliaries are presented together because they belong to the same category modal auxiliaries. How do we know they belong to the same category? (1) In standard English (both British and American), they are mutually exclusive you can only have one per verb phrase. 37. *I might could play chess/*I could might play chess/*I can may play chess etc. (2) They occur in the same position in the verb phrase always first. 38. I might be playing chess/*I was might(ing) play chess. (3) They condition the next verb in the same way. The next verb is always an uninflected form. It never has any suffixes or other inflections. 39. 40. 41. 42. She might play chess. She should be playing chess. She could have played chess. She must be admired by everyone.

(4) They all fail to show agreement with third person singular subjects, so 43. a. I can play chess. b. He can play chess. c. *He cans play chess.

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All these auxiliaries set the event or state expressed outside of ordinary reality they set it in the future, in a hypothetical state, in an inferred state or as possibility or probability or necessity. We can tell that some of them form present/past pairs: can/could, may/ might, shall/should, will/ would. It is not that could can refer only to past time events or states since something like I could go tomorrow clearly refers to some non-past event. However, one way we can tell that could, might, should, and would are all formally past tense verbs is that their history shows it. (Check out these words in the Oxford English Dictionary to see their etymology.) Another way that is more current is to see what happens when we switch from direct to indirect discourse. In (44) we see ordinary direct discourse. 44. The doctor said, I am a great doctor. This sentence gives the doctors exact words. But when we switch the sentence to integrate the proposition into the sentence, the pronouns and the tense of the verbs switch from being appropriate to the context in which they were originally uttered to being appropriate to the time of the new complete utterance, as in 45. That doctor said that he was a great doctor. When we switch a direct quotation with present tense modals (as in 46a-47a) to an indirect quote, the modal switches to past tense modals (as in 46b-47b). 46. a. The doctor said I can do anything! b. The doctor said that she could do anything. 47. a. Moriarty announced I will defeat Holmes. b. Moriarty said that he would defeat Holmes. Modal auxiliaries are therefore special since no other past tense form can be used to refer to future or present events. Another way in which modal auxiliaries are special is that unlike all other verbs, they never show agreement in finite forms the present tense forms do not change if the subject is third person singular. However, since they serve as operators and since they control the shape of the following verb, we know they must be verbsin particular auxiliary verbs. Primary Auxiliaries The primary auxiliaries are fully productive verbs of English which can (with different senses) all be used as full lexical verbs. They are be, have, and do and are used to indicate aspect and voice and to function as operators when one is needed. Aspect There are four aspects in English, three of them marked by the presence of primary auxiliaries and specific forms of the following verbs.

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Simple The first aspect is simple, which has no primary auxiliary of its own. (48-50) are simple aspect. 48. I play chess. 49. The children might like balloons. 50. Oliver left last Thursday. Simple aspect in non-modal VPs in the present tense have two readings. When the main verb is stative9, the simple present just means present: the state holds now, as in 51. I know French. 52. Mary likes you. When the main verb is not stative, then the simple present usually means the event or state is not necessarily true now, but that it is habitual or repeated and that the last occurrence hasnt happened yet, as in 53. The children play hide-and-seek. 54. My husband teaches linguistics. (53) is true even if the children arent playing anything right now, as long as they have been known to play hide-and-seek repeatedly already and they havent played their last game yet. (54) is true even if my husband is fast asleep now, as long as he has taught linguistics and will again. The simple past does not require this same habitual sense with non-stative verbs. (55) can hold even if the children only played hide-and-seek once in their whole lives. 55. The children played hide-and-seek. Simple aspect forms with modal auxiliaries dont have the habitual sense in the present tense either, so in (56) and (57) there is no requirement that events be interpreted as 56. The children will play hide-and-seek. 57. I may run around the block habitual or repeated. There is a special narrative use of the simple present to give the impression that the events being narrated are happening at the time of the narration. It is intended make the events more vivid, as in He stands at the front door hesitating. Finally, he reaches out and pushes open the door and before him stands everything he fears and his heart stops. Progressive So how do English speakers usually talk about a presently on-going event? We use the present progressive. Tense is marked on the first verb of the VP. The progressive is formed with a be auxiliary and the -ing form of the following verb, as in 58. The children are playing hide-and-seek. 59. My husband is teaching linguistics.

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It cant be used with stative verbs in standard American and British English, so (60) and (61) are ungrammatical in standard American and British English (though they are fine in Indian Englishthe English of the Indian subcontinent). 60. *I am knowing French. 61. *Mary is liking you. The present progressive can be used to talk about the future as well. 62. The children are playing hide-and-seek tomorrow. 63. My husband is teaching linguistics next year in France. In general, the present progressive can be used to talk about non-stative events which are not completed so to talk about events happening now or which will end in the future. Past progressives are used to talk about events that took place across time in the past. Many times you can use either the simple past or a past progressive interchangeably, as in (64) and (65) (because (64) seems to include the reading of (65)). Other times they mean different things, as in (66) and (67). 64. 65. 66. 67. I was studying all day yesterday. I studied all day yesterday. When the bell rang, I was studying. When the bell rang, I studied.

They differ logically when there is a point in time expressed: In the past progressive, the event is interpreted as being on-going on at the point in time, as in (66) (at least as having started), while in the simple past it is interpreted as just starting at the point in time, as in (67). Perfect We use the perfect to look an event or state from or after its endpoint. The perfect is expressed with a have auxiliary and a following -en participle. 68. I have studied today. 69. By 5:00 a.m. yesterday I had finished that book. Students often have difficulty distinguishing the uses of the present perfect and the simple past, since they both are used typically to talk about events and states which are completed as of the present. However, the point of view and time setting of the present perfect is clearly the present as we can see by noting that it cannot occur with adverbials that would set the event in the past, like last week or yesterday: 70. *I have finished that book last week. (as opposed to I finished that book last week) 71. *I have studied yesterday. (as opposed to I studied yesterday) Used with a modal will or shall, a present perfect produces a form meaning that the event or state will be complete by some point in the future, as in

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72. I will have left by tomorrow night. A past perfect means the event or state is complete with respect to some point of time in the past. If you dont specify that point in time or it isnt very clear from context, past perfects tend to sound rather odd. So (73) sounds fine, but (74) sounds odd (at least out of context without an implied point in the past under discussion). 73. The students had performed their first number by dinner time. 74. ?The students had performed their first number. A simple past can be interchangeable with a past perfect in many cases, so The students performed their first number by dinner time is also fine with much the same meaning. However, when no point in time is given (and no modal is used), a simple past tense form is usually preferable to a past perfect, so (74) would be better as The children performed their first number. On the other hand, when a neutral point in time is given (one which does not force a particular order of events, when or at unlike before or after), simple past, past progressives and past perfects all mean quite different things. Consider (75-77) below: 75. When the bell rang, the children left. 76. When the bell rang, the children were leaving. 77. When the bell rang, the children had left. In (75) the ringing preceded the leaving; in (76) some leaving occurred before the ringing (and the leaving could go on after the ringing); and in (77) the leaving was completed at the time of the ringing. A past perfect modal construction forces a past time reading (which past tense modals dont normally have) so *I could go yesterday is impossible, but I could have gone yesterday is just fine.9 Perfect Progressive The perfect progressive is formed by combining the perfect and the progressive, that is, a have auxiliary, followed by the past oren participle of be, been, with a following ing participle, as in 78. 79. I have been working all day. Oscar has been finishing that book for a year.

The perfect progressive suggests that some (usually not all) of the event has been completed, and completed over time. Notice that casting (79) in the perfect (as in (80) produces something really strange, 80. *?Oscar has finished that book for a year.

When the lexical verb is normally viewed as nondurative, a durative reading can be forced by making the VP progressive (as with finish in (79)). Die can be viewed as an instantaneous event

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or a durative process, but the process reading is really only possible in the progressive. So if you want to suggest that some completed event took place over time, you use the perfect progressive, as in 81. Cousin Evelyn had been dying for weeks when the doctor arrived. 82. ?*Cousin Evelyn had died for weeks when the doctor arrived. 83. ?*Cousin Evelyn died for weeks when the doctor arrived. If you want to have a past-time referring modal progressive, it must be a perfect progressive. So to refer to time past, you must use (84), not (85). 84. My brother should have been working yesterday. 85. *My brother should be working yesterday. Voice English has two voices, active and passive. Only some verbs are used in the passive voice. Most transitive verbs (verbs which have a direct object or a direct object and indirect object) can be used in the passive voice.10 Essentially all verbs can be used in the active voice. That, among other things, has lead grammarians to treat the active voice as basic and the passive voice as derived from it. Voice is somewhat more involved to talk about than aspect, since voice requires us to rearrange the structure of the whole clause. To make an active sentence like (86) passive, 86. A lion killed the lamb.

you must rearrange the structure so that the direct object in (86), the lamb, becomes the subject of the passive in (87), the subject in (86) becomes the object of the preposition by, and a be auxiliary is inserted (and the lexical verb, which is the next verb in the VP, must be an en participle). 87. The lamb was killed by a lion.

Passive clauses dont have to include the by phrase (often called the passive agent) so (88) is also grammatical. 88. The lamb was killed.

If a speaker wants to reduce the importance of the subject of the active or increase the importance of the object of the active, the clause will typically be converted into a passive. In (87) the lamb is typically the focus of the sentence and in (88) a lion is entirely removed from the event. Often if the subject of the active would be indefinite (and never discussed again) and the object would be definite, a speaker is more likely to employ the passive. The passive is more common in certain kinds of texts so technical and other impersonal texts are more likely contain passives.

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Operators Revisited: the Do Auxiliary As noted above, English requires auxiliaries or forms of be to negate a clause (since not follows the auxiliary or be and possibly contracts with it) and to make some kinds of questions (including yes-no questions, since the auxiliary or form of be must precede the subject). There are several more ways in which auxiliaries and forms of be can serve as operators when a speaker wants to insist on the truth of a sentence, the operator is stresssed. So in (89)-(92), the operator gets stress, as indicated by underlining and implies a kind of defensive insistence on the truth of the utterance. 89. 90. 91. 92. Mary is a good doctor. The doctor will be here on time. The children have left. The lamb had been killed by the lion.

English has several different kinds of tag questions. One fairly neutral kind, which just seems to ask the addressee(s) to confirm the first part of the question consists of a statement followed by a copy of the first auxiliary or form of be in the statement and a pronoun that refers back to the subject of the statement. If the statement is positive, then the tag copy is negative. If the statement is negative, then the tag copy is positive. So (93)-(97) are all tag questions. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. Mary is a good doctor, isnt she? The doctor will be here on time, wont she? The children have left, havent they? The lamb had been killed by the lion, hadnt it? The students cant do that exercise, can they?

A number of constructions, therefore, need an operator to work. But how do they work if they are based on clauses which dont contain an operator, like (98)-(101)? 98. 99. 100. 101. Mary became a good doctor. The children left. The students did the exercise. My brother works in California.

Lexical verbs other than be as an operator cannot function as operators. Consider 102. a. *Mary became not/nt a good doctor. 103. a.*The children left not/nt. 104. a. *The students did not/nt the exercise. 105. a. *My brother works not/nt in California b. *Became Mary a good doctor? b. *Left the children? b. *Did the student the exercise? b. *Works my brother in California?

When an operator is needed in a clause without an auxiliary or form of be, then the primary auxiliary do must be used. So the negatives and question forms of (98)-(101) have to have an extra do, as in 106. a. Mary didnt become a good doctor. b. Did Mary become a good doctor?

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107. a. The children didnt leave. 108. a. The students didnt do the exercise. 109. a. My brother doesnt work in California

b. Did the children leave? b. Did the students do the exercise? b. Does my brother work in California?

If do is inserted as an auxiliary whenever we need an operator (in negatives, in questions, in emphatics) and the VP doesnt contain a candidate, that implies that the do auxiliary will never co-occur with any other auxiliary or form of be and that appears to be true. Digression 1: Distinguishing auxiliary and lexical verbs: Can Now that weve established what properties distinguish auxiliaries from main verbs, we can use those properties to identify hem. Notice that if you are asked what category can belongs to, you have a problem. You really cant tell what category it belongs to in the abstract you have many choices. It might be a noun, as in 110. The can is full of water. It might be a lexical verb, as in 111. My aunts can tomatoes every year. It might be a modal auxiliary, as in 112. I can help you. If we just consider the verb uses, then how can we tell that the can in (111) is a lexical verb and that the can in (112) is an auxiliary verb, in fact, a modal auxiliary? We can demonstrate that the can in (111) is a verb and not an auxiliary. How can we demonstrate that it is a verb? By showing that it marks tense and agreement, we can demonstrate that the can in (111) is a verb since only verbs mark tense and agreement with their subjects. So we can change (111) to the past tense, as in (113). 113. My aunts canned tomatoes every year. If we change the number of the subject of (111) from plural to singular, the form of can also changes, as in (114). 114. My aunt cans tomatoes every year. The can in (111) changes if you change the aspect of the verb phrase, as in (115-116). 115. My aunts are canning tomatoes every year 116. My aunts have canned tomatoes every year. In (111) can is obviously a verb. It is moreover clearly a lexical verb. First, it is the only verb in the verb phrase in a complete sentence it must be a lexical verb. It has lexical content it means put into cans. Thats not the kind of meaning that tends to grammaticize into an

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auxiliary. More importantly we can demonstrate that it cant be auxiliary. If can in (111) is an auxiliary verb, it ought to be able to function as an operator. Lets try. If we negate (111), we get 117. My aunts dont can tomatoes every year. If we turn it into a yes-no question, we get 118. Do my aunts can tomatoes every year? If we emphasize the truth of (111), we get 119. My aunts do can tomatoes every year. Every time we make the sentence into one which needs an operator, suddenly out of nowhere appears a form of do, serving as the operator. That form of do must, therefore, be an auxiliary. Notice that do as an auxiliary cannot co-occur with any other auxiliary. So it is clear that, while can in (111) is a verb, it is not an auxiliary verb so it must be a lexical verb. In (112) can can be an operator which means (1) it is a verb and (2) it is an auxiliary verb. So if we make (112) into a negative, a question or emphatic, the can functions as a operator, as in (120-122). 120. I cant help you. 121. Can I help you? 122. I can help you. How can we tell it is a modal auxiliary? There are a couple of ways: (1) Modal auxiliaries, unlike all other verbs, do not mark agreement when they are present tense and the first verb in a VP. If the subject of (3) shifts from I to She, nothing else changes. Even though in (123) there is a third person singular subject, the verb does not change. 123. She can/*cans help you. (2) Modal auxiliaries in standard American and British English cannot co-occur with each other. (124a) is ungrammatical, while (124b) is perfectly grammatical. 124a. *I will can help you. b. My aunts will can tomatoes every year. (compare to (112)) (compare to (111))

Therefore, we can see clearly that in (111) can is a lexical verb and in (112) can is a modal auxiliary.

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Digression 2: Distinguishing auxiliary and lexical verbs: Do What about do? Consider the forms of do in (125) and (126) below. 125. The children do homework every day. 126. The children do not like homework. In (125), do is a lexical verb and, in (126), do is a primary auxiliary. How can we tell? We can use very similar arguments to those we used above. In (125) and (126) both, do is clearly a verb; it marks both tense (contrast it with the past tense version in (127) and (128)) and agreement (contrast it with the examples in which the subject is singular rather than plural in (129) and (130)). 127. The children did homework every day. 128. The children did not like homework 129. The child does homework every day. 130. The child does not like homework. They share those verb properties. How do they differ? Well, only the do in (126) is an operator. In (125) you would have to add another instance of do to have an operator, as in (131). 131. *The children dont homework every day/The children dont do homework everyday. Moreover, we can add a modal auxiliary to (125), as in 132. The children can do homework every day. or a primary auxiliary, as in 133. The children have done homework every day. 134. The children are doing homework every day. The auxiliary do cannot co-occur with any other auxiliaries. 135. *The children can not do like homework 136. *The children do not can like homework 137. *The children have not done like homework 138. *The children do not have liked homework 139. *The children are not doing like homework 140. *The children do not be liking homework So we note that (135-140) are all ungrammatical. They are ungrammatical because we are trying to force this auxiliary do to co-occur with other auxiliaries in the same VP and that is impossible. Only the auxiliary do is barred from co-occurring with other auxiliaries.

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For you to try 1. Consider a slightly harder case: have as in i. The students have a real problem ii. The students have spoken to me about the problem. How can you determine which is a lexical verb and which is an auxiliary verb? What evidence do you need? 2. Now consider a much harder case: be as in iii. They were very interesting books. iv. They were books. v. They were reading books yesterday. vi. They were written by a complete hack. These are harder because both lexical be and auxiliary be can be operators. How can you determine which forms of be are lexical verbs and which are auxiliary verbs? What evidence do you need? PRACTICE ANALYSIS: Identifying Verb Phrases 1. Underline all the VPs in the text below. 2. Identify the type of each verb (lexical verb, primary auxiliary or modal auxiliary) 3. Identify the tense (past or present), aspect (simple, progressive, perfect, or perfect progressive) and voice (active or passive) of each VP you identify. A Visit It was a dark and stormy night. Well, actually, it wasnt. It was a mildly overcast day, but thats not nearly as dramatic. As we all know, drama is everything in this life. I was walking down the narrow street in front of the house, while I dreamed I walked on the boulevards of Paris. I was entertaining myself with fantasies in which I was a tall, slinky, enigmatic beauty who had outwitted the Gestapo. At the beginning of the dream, I had been wearing black pants and a black sweater, clearly a member of the Resistance on a midnight raid. But in only a few minutes my clothes had mysteriously changed into a white silk evening gown of the sort you often see in the films of the 30s. My imagination was quite vivid and completely unconstrained by the necessities of reality. In my daydream my clothes shifted at will regardless of the appropriateness of the attire. I realize that the only thing more annoying than the recitation of dreams is the recitation of daydreams, but youre a captive audience and I find this story quite gripping. Nobody else will listen to me, and you arent, after all, going anywhere. So there I was, without a spot on my white silk dress or a hair out of place. The Gestapo of my imagination, of course, were very frightening, but my particular brand of cleverness and beauty apparently left them vulnerable to misdirection. It seemed that they were shocked by my general gorgeousness so that they were taken in by my clever tale of

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misfortune and confusion. Besides, who would think that anyone would go out on a midnight raid on an ammo dump in a low-cut, white evening gown? Unfortunately, another part of my brain mentioned to me that the reason no one would imagine that someone in white formal clothes would be attacking an ammo dump is that it would be moronic. The dress would be like a neon sign that was flashing Im here. I should be arrested. On top of that piece of idiocy, the kind of shoes appropriate for an evening gown would hardly work for an assault on an ammo dump. By the time I reached the house, I had realized that this drama wasnt going anywhere. When I went in, though, the real drama was waiting for me. Mom and Dad were just standing by the phone, which was making that angry noise it makes when you dont hang up. Both of them were pale and trembling and tears were streaming down their faces. I admit the way they looked scared me. I couldnt picture what could have upset them so much; after all, I was all right and they were both in front of me apparently okay. It took them a minute, but they finally choked it out, Theres been an accident. Do you realize what a nasty sentence that is? Then I knew it must be you. Something bad had happened to you. You know Ive often said that I wish you would drop dead? It turns out I didnt mean it. But you are a jerk. Only you could get in such a stupid accident. Other guys fall out of dorm windows in a drunken stupor when they go away to college. You dont even drink. Youre hit by something some drunken nitwit throws out of a dorm window. A stupid lamp hits you on the head, and now here you are, in the hospital, unconscious. If Id wanted a brainless brother, Id have kept you the way you were. You know you always were kind of unconscious, but now you really are. Unconscious, I mean. Youre not like that woman down in Florida. The doctors say that somewhere inside of you theres a working brain, at least as much as there has ever been. Thats good, I guess. You shouldnt be a vegetable. That would be really nasty even if you were an onion, and I like onions. But what if your brain is really working, and you just cant connect ot the outside world? What if the stuff in your head is horrible, like the Gestapo, but you dont get a white evening gown? What if you never escape? You should just wake up now. Mom and Dad look so sad all the time. I know theyve been spending a lot of time here. They dont usually leave me alone with you, but theyre having some kind of meeting with the doctors now. You should wake up now. Have I told you what happened at school yesterday? I dont think I told anyone so I guess I didnt tell you. Ms. Jackson told me that the essay I wrote for civics (about police states, you know, the Gestapo and all that), the one we talked about before the accident, won the school contest and its being sent in to the state essay competition as the only entry for the whole school. I know I shouldnt really care, but Im afraid I really do. I like that essay. But Id trade it away, Id give it up, if youd just wake up. I didnt tell Mom or Dad. I dont think they can hear anything now that isnt about you. Anyway the essay came out pretty well. I used the Gestapo as an illustration of an overwhelming arm of a totalitarian state, just like we talked about. I didnt put in any brave Resistance members in white gowns, though. Its time. Ill see you tomorrow. You should just wake up; if not now, then soon. I love you.

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As will be discussed in detail in Chapter 3, some pronouns in English mark what is called case. In particular, for example, the personal pronoun I is used for subject and subject complements of finite verbs, as in I like pickled beets and It is I, while me is used for objects of various kinds, as in Plckled beets please me and Pickled beets are pleasing to me and my is used for possessors, as in Pickled beets tickly my fancy. The form of many pronouns is sensitive to the role of the pronoun in the clause and if it is the subject sensitive to what kind of verb phrase (finite or non-finite and if non-finite the kind of non-finite VP) it is the subject of. A declarative sentence makes a statement, as in The moon is made of green cheese; an interrogative sentence asks a question, as in Is the moon made of green cheese?; an imperative sentence gives an order, as in Make it out of green cheese!; and an exclamatory sentence expresses an exclamation, What great cheese the moon is made out of! Well see however that the present is used to mark a range of times including the future. Notice that there is no way in English to mark a single verb to indicate an unambiguous future. Tense-marking in English is accomplished by marking the first verb in the VP. Unambiguous futures are indicated by using a modal auxiliary, will or shall, or by using semi-modal constructions like be going to. Traditional grammar treats one form as changing to adjust to the presence of another form as agreement or concord: The notion here is that the verb changes to agree or be in concord with its subject. We assume that the person and number of the subject in a clause is fixed--already decided by the speaker/writer, and that the form of the verb changes to agree with it in person and number. So verbs are said to agree with their subjects; subjects are not said to agree with verbs.

In English there are three persons: first person refers to the speaker or the speaker and the group that includes the speaker; second person refers to the addressee or addressees; third person refers to anyone or anything else. So for example, the first person subject pronouns are I and we; the second person pronoun is you; the third person subject pronouns are he, she, it, and they. English has two numbers: singular referring to one and plural referring to more than one.

There is a clear historical reason why second person and plural forms trigger the same agreement: As we will discuss when we talk about pronouns, historically you is a plural form (and it has absorbed the singular function as well as the plural).
7

There are several different kinds of interrogative sentences. Among them are yes-no questions (which anticipate an answer yes or no) and wh-questions (which use a wh-pronoun or other proform, what, who, which, where, why, when, how).
8 9

The verb expresses an unchanging state like know, understand or resemble.

10

Notice that this strengthens the claim that could, should, might, and would are formally past tense since present perfects cannot co-occur with past-time adverbials like yesterday. (See (70) and (71) above.)

11

I say most because some transitive verbs like have (in the sense of own or have as a part, as in Mary has a little lamb or I have two eyes) and resemble are never used in the passive.

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Chapter 3 Noun Phrases

Now that we have established something about the structure of verb phrases, let's move on to noun phrases (NPs). A noun phrase is a noun or pronoun head and all of its modifiers (or the coordination of more than one NP--to be discussed in Chapter 6). Some nouns require the presence of a determiner as a modifier. Most pronouns are typically not modified at all and no pronoun requires the presence of a determiner. We'll start with pronouns because they are a relatively simple closed class. Pronouns English has several categories of pronouns. Pronouns differ in the contexts they appear in and in the grammatical information they contain. Pronouns in English can contrast in person, number, gender, and case. We've already discussed person and number, but to review: 1. English has three persons first person, which is the speaker or the group that includes the speaker; second person, which is the addressee or the group of addressees; third person, which is anybody or anything else 2. English has two numbers singular, which refers to a singular individual or undifferentiated group or mass; plural, which refers to more than one individual. The difference between we and they is a difference in person: we is first person and they is third person. The difference between I and we is a difference in number: I is singular and we is plural. The other two categories which pronouns mark are gender and case. Gender is the system of marking nominal categories. English, in general, uses a natural gender system that reflects either animacy or humanness (who human vs. what non-human) or sex (he masculine, she feminine, and it neuter). If you have studied other languages like French or Spanish or German, then you have met languages with grammatical gender, a system in which nouns and pronouns are separated in categories which do not have to reflect their natural gender (so in French, the word for table is feminine -- but that does not imply that the French think tables are female). In English, you choose the gender of the pronoun you are using based on the actual gender of the referent of the pronoun -- regardless of how you are using the pronoun in the sentence. So if you were referring to George Washington, you would always use a masculine form (if there was one), regardless of whether the pronoun referring to Washington was the subject, direct object, indirect object, object of a preposition or possessor in the clause in which the pronoun occurred. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. He was the first president of the United States. The Continental Congress made him the commanding general of the army. After the war, some people wanted to give him a crown. The idea of becoming king was not attractive to him. The new nation, to his way of thinking, had to be a republic.

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The gender of the pronouns referring to Washington in (1) - (5) are all masculine and singular. However, they do differ in form: he, him, his. This contrast is the contrast of case -- case refers to the aspect of form of NPs which is conditioned by the function of the NP in the sentence. In English, personal pronouns have three cases -- the case used for subjects (and sometimes subject complements) is called subject or subjective or nominative; the case used for possessors is called possessive or genitive; the case used for everything else (direct objects, indirect objects, objects of prepositions, sometimes subject complements, object complements) is called object or objective or accusative. Personal pronouns in English contrast in person, number, gender and case. In the table below is the complete set of forms of personal pronouns. As you can see, in some persons, there are more distinct case (and number) forms than others: the subject and object forms of it do not contrast; the subject and object forms of you and the singular and plural forms of you do not contrast; the object and possessive forms of she do not contrast; etc.
P e r s o n 1st 2nd MASCULINE 3rd FEMININE NEUTER Subjective Gender singular plural I you he she it we you they they they singular me you him her it plural us you them them them Objective Determiner singular my your his her its plural our your their their their Possessive Independent singular mine yours his hers its plural ours yours theirs theirs theirs

Gender in present day English is typically natural gender we choose our third person pronoun based on the actual sex of the referent. We maintain a few forms in which we use a pronoun for something which doesnt match the refers actual sex. For example, there is a tradition of referring to boats, cars, storms (etc.) as she. This is a relict usage many of us use it for all these things and it is always acceptable to use the form that reflects the actual gender of the referent. In general, gender is only a problem when referring to humans whose gender you dont know or which isnt specified. English has a tradition of using the masculine pronoun he as a gender neutral pronoun alongside its use as a sex-specific pronoun. The result has been generally confusing, often leading readers and listeners to assume that writers and speakers are referring exclusively to men, when in fact they are referring to both men and women. It is difficult to advocate the use of a form which will often mislead the audience. Moreover, it is clear that he is not in fact completely gender neutral since speakers and writers do not use it to refer to indefinites whose referents are exclusively or overwhelmingly female. Check out textbooks about nursing or teaching and youll find that A nurse is expected to be immaculate in her appearance, not his appearance. It is difficult to imagine anyone announcing A nursing mother should not be allowed to feed his child in public. For a very long time, English speakers have used they side-

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by-side with he to refer to indefinite antecedents. This raised a problem for prescriptivists who believed that it was problematic to have a mismatch in form (singular antecedent referred to with a plural pronoun) (though not a problem to run the risk of misleading the reader/listener as to the nature of the referent). Special uses of plural number In general, singular forms of personal pronouns refer to single individuals or undifferentiated masses. However, plural forms all have uses in which their referents are not plural. The most obvious case is the second person forms, you/your, which shows no difference in form for singular or plural referents. Historically, this you form is only a plural form; in general, the singular forms (thee, thou, thy) have died in present day English1. Apparently the contrast between the second person singular and plural was used to convey more than just a difference in number. Plural forms were used to indicate that one was addressing a person of power or a person from whom one felt socially distant. The singular forms became associated with specific religious and political groups which were mostly viewed as fringe groups (much the way comrade has been stigmatized by its association with communist and socialist groups in the English speaking world). The plural form was simply extended into all uses and replaced the singular form. (This also accounts for why the verb agreement for the second person looks just like the verb agreement for all the plural forms: So are is found with subjects which must be interpreted as referring to single individuals in the second person in You are a fine person, just as it is otherwise only found with plural subjects elsewhere as in We are fine people, They are fine people, You are fine people.) Similarly first and third person plural forms are used to refer to single entities under certain conditions. First person plural forms are used to refer to single individuals under some fairly constrained circumstances. Monarchs use the royal we, so Queen Victoria of England is often quoted as announcing We are not amused, meaning that she was not amused. The editorial we is often used by writers to avoid using I, which has been heavily prescribed against in formal writing. Third person plurals have been used to refer to indefinite singular antecedents throughout modern English (and before). Prescriptivists as noted above have long claimed that it is ungrammatical to write Somebody left their notebook behind and Everybody believes in their own rectitude,2 both sentence types that can be documented throughout the modern English period (and before), as in God send every one their heart's desire! [Much Ado About Nothing, Act III Scene 4] In fact, of course, across coordinated clauses, a plural pronoun must be used to refer back to everyone (or every + noun), so Every runner finished the race within the allotted time and we announced them as they crossed the finish line. (Notice that him or him or her is quite impossible in the structure there is no way to make it mean the right thing.) However, many prescriptivists will run quite mad if they see this in writing within a clause. Forms of they clearly have been used in both speech and writing to refer to indefinite noun phrases, but for many years prescriptivists have cited this usage as wrong (and illogical and illiterate and all the other bad things you can call particular structures you dont like).

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Status of Possessive Personal Pronouns: There is a school grammar tradition for treating possessive personal pronouns as adjectives. This tradition is hard to justify since possessive personal pronouns acting as determiners act exactly like all other possessive NPs acting as determiners. How do Archies (in 6), the doctors (in 7), and his (in 8) differ in how they act? 6. Archies older brother left in a huff. 7. The doctors older brother left in a huff. 8. His older brother left in a huff. Why should we treat his as a special case, distinct from him and he except in that it differs in case? I think that this arose from an analogy to languages like Latin in which there were genitive personal pronouns (like his), side by side with forms which acted like adjectives (in that they agreed with what they modified in case, number and gender). Possessive pronouns do indeed modify the nouns, just as adjective phrases do; however, other structures modify nouns as well articles, demonstratives, various quantifiers, among a range of other structures modify nouns and must be distinguished from adjectives (or adjective phrases). Possessive personal pronouns act just like all other possessive NPs (and as well see later on, possessive NPs including personal pronouns act more like articles than like adjectives). The independent possessive pronouns are different from the determiner possessive pronouns in several ways. One way is simply in form, mine differs from my, yours differs from your. Another way is in their function: In simple sentences, the independent possessive pronouns are used for everything except modifying a noun; the determiner possessive pronouns are used only for modifying nouns. 9. Annie put her books in the corner and I put mine on the table.
det (modifier of books) direct object

10. Her writing is clear and concise, but mine is obscure and wordy
det (modifier of writing) subject

11. They gave no thought to their presentation, but I gave a lot of thought to mine.
det (modifier of presentation) object of preposition

The independent possessive pronouns differ from the determiner possessive pronouns in their reference: a determiner possessive pronoun only refers to the possessor (so my only tells you that it refers to the speaker who possesses some other noun which is about ready to come up), while independent possessive pronouns have two referents, the referent of the possessor and the referent of the possession (there is no possessed noun coming up). Notice that the subject-verb agreement with an independent possessive pronoun is always third person (as in (10) and (12). 12. Harolds car gets 20 miles to the gallon, while mine gets 32.

Reflexive pronouns contrast only in person, number, and gender. Reflexive pronouns match their antecedents in these features: person, number and gender.

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Person 1st 2nd 3rd

Gender

MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER

Singular myself yourself himself herself itself

Plural ourselves yourselves themselves

They do not distinguish different cases; presumably because they only appear in objective case functions in a clause. Reflexive pronouns have a far more limited distribution than personal pronouns. Reflexive pronouns never appear as subjects of finite clauses or as possessors. Moreover, reflexive pronouns in simple sentences are usually grammatical only if their antecedent precedes them in the clause, so 13. Matilda saw herself in the mirror. 14. I asked Bill about himself. are fine, but 15. *Matilda saw yourself in the mirror. 16. *I asked himself about Bill. are ungrammatical. Some school grammars claim that reflexive pronouns must have the subject of the clause as their antecedent. This is obviously false since in (14) the antecedent for himself is Bill, the object of asked, not its subject. It is clearly linear order that matters in most cases. However, linear order is not enough by itself. For example, a possessor cannot serve as an antecedent for a reflexive even it precedes the reflexive, so 17. *Bills mother loves himself is ungrammatical even though Bills precedes himself. In some marked constructions, in which a NP comes in an odd preposed position, the reflexive pronoun can precede its antecedent, 18. Himself, Bill always thinks of first. (Clearly, a more ordinary way of saying the same thing is Bill always thinks of himself first in which the reflexive pronoun would predictably follow its antecedent.) Demonstrative pronouns contrast only in number and distance. Demonstratives distinguish nearer to the speaker (this, these) from farther from the speaker (that, those).

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Proximal (Nearer) Distal (Farther)

Singular this that

Plural these those

When we talk about distance, we can be referring to distance in space, so the pen in my hand would be this, while the pen ten feet away would be that. 19. This/that doesnt work.

Distance can be temporal 20. 21. This is a confusing war. That was a confusing war.

In (20) this must refer to a closer war than the one in (21), but closer how? Not in space, but in time. (20) refers to the current war; (21) to some previous war. Distance can be social: stuff the speaker associates with himself or herself is more likely to be this; stuff the speaker wishes to be distant from is that. Wh- pronouns contrast only in case and gender. There are two kinds of wh- pronouns: interrogative and relative pronouns. In fact, there a range of wh- proforms which include the pronouns, but also include proadverbials and determiners as well. Interrogative proforms are used in direct and indirect questions. These proforms function as NPs, as adverbials and as determiners. Interrogative Pronouns Subjective Objective who who(m) what what which which

Human Nonhuman Closed Set

Possessor whose whose whose

Other Interrogative Proforms (unlike pronouns, these proforms do not inflect for case) Place where Time when Adverbial Reason why Manner/Instrument how General what Determiner Closed Set which Interrogative proforms function as kinds of placeholders in the sentence to mark what information the speaker wants: So in (22) the speaker wants to know the subject of the is helping you.

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In direct questions, the interrogative proforms must appear in the first phrase in the sentence, even if the usual position for the NP or adverbial or determiner in the sentences would be later. So notice that in (22) What comes at the beginning of the sentence even though the preposition it is the object of comes at the end of the sentence.3 Similarly in indirect questions the interrogative proform must come at the beginning of the indirect question, as in (27). 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. Who is helping you? (who as the subject) What are you talking about? (what as the object of a preposition) Which can you see best? (which as the direct object) Where are you going? (where as an adverbial) Which book did you read? (which as a determiner) I asked the teacher what great scientist I should write about. (what as a determiner)

Relative proforms also distinguish between humans and non-humans and include adverbial proforms as well as pronouns. Relative Pronouns Subjective Objective Possessor Human who who(m) whose Nonhuman what what whose Other Relative Proforms (unlike pronouns, these proforms do not inflect for case) Place where Adverbial Time when Reason why Relative proforms are restricted to occurring inside relative clauses.4 Relative clauses modify nouns (and occasionally pronouns) by taking a proposition which includes the noun or pronoun as a participant and putting the clause right after the head it modifies with either a relative proform with the head as its antecedent inside the relative clause or a gap where the NP referring to the head would be. Were only interested at this point in the relative clauses which contain relative proforms: 28. The woman who told me about the problem works at the bank. 29. a. The children to whom I gave the toys are playing over there. b. The children who(m) I gave the toys to are playing over there. 30. I loaned Barbara the book which I had brought along. 31. The place where I live is on top of a hill. 32. I remember the exact moment when the truth became clear to me. As with interrogative proforms, relative proforms are restricted to occurring in the first phrase within their clause (in this case the relative clause) regardless of their syntactic role in the clause (so in (28) the relative proform is the subject of the relative clause, in (29) the object of a preposition, in (30) the direct object, in (31-32) adverbials).

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Indefinite pronouns contrast only in gender and number (in form since they have non-specific reference). Human Nonhuman Dual Mass/Plural Universal everyone, everybody, each everything, each both all Negative Partitive no one, nobody nothing neither none Assertive Partitive someone, somebody something some Non-assertive Partitive anyone, anybody anything any Like wh- pronouns, indefinite pronouns use different forms to refer to humans and nonhumans we distinguish between people and things. (Different people treat animals of various kinds either as humans or not, depending on their world view.) Indefinite pronouns maintain the remnants of an older number marking system that distinguished duals (forms which mark twos, as opposed to singulars and plurals (which indicates more than two when in a system with duals)). There are two classes of indefinite pronouns: simple (monomorphemic) and compound (containing more than one root). The compound indefinite pronouns can be modified with following adjective phrases, while the simple ones cannot be modified by any adjective phrases. 33. 34. 35. 36. Everyone smart did well in that class. *All smart did well in that class/*Smart all did well in that class. Something really strange happened. *Some really strange happened/*Really strange some happened.

Indefinite pronouns of both kinds are often modified by prepositional phrases, as in 37. 38. Everybody in the class did really well on the test. All of the students did really well on the test.

We also distributed any and some forms differently based on whether the sentence is negative or a question as opposed to anything positive or non-questions, so we say 39. but not 40. *I saw anyone. I saw someone.

The any forms do not usually appear in positive sentences, except in the sense of every so 41. Anyone can do it. 42. I will give a job to anyone who wants one. But in the sense of some unspecified individual, anyone is better in questions and negatives. 43. I didnt see anyone.

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44. Did you see anyone? On the other hand, someone is possible in questions and negatives, as in 45. I didnt see someone. with a slightly different sense. Numbers can be used pronominally, as in 47. Lets get some hotdogs. I want two. 48. Oscar planted six trees, but only three actually came up. 49. Six of those boys were hanging out on the corner last night. One is a special case. There are several one proforms. There is the one pronoun, which acts like a personal pronoun with indefinite reference, as in 50. One should always do ones best. (In more casual style, this kind of sentence uses you as in You should always do your best.) This form has a parallel reflexive form oneself, as in 51. One must look after oneself and ones own interests. Another one proform is the number one, exactly parallel to other numbers as in 52. Lets get some hotdogs. I want one. 53. Oscar planted six trees, but only one actually came up. 54. One of those boys was hanging out on the corner last night. The last proform one, called by Quirk and Greenbaum (1973)5 replacive one, is a substitute for a noun (either singular one or plural ones) and any adjacent modifiers of that noun except determiners and predeterminers. 55. Mary bought a red dress, but I liked a blue one better. 56. Mary bought that red dress, and I bought this one. (one can mean dress or it can mean red dress.) 57. Mary bought that large red frilly dress with blue buttons, and I bought this small one. (one can mean dress or red frilly dress or dress with blue buttons or red frilly dress with blue buttons or frilly dress with blue buttons or frilly dress) If the indefinite article a would fall right before the one it is omitted, as in 58a. Mary bought a dress and I bought one too. b. *Mary bought a dress and I bought a one too. 46. Did you see someone?

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Modification of Pronouns Pronouns are typically limited in the ways in which they can be modified. Some pronouns cannot be modified at all, while others can only be modified in certain ways. For example, reflexive pronouns cannot be modified with adjective phrases at all (as exemplified in (59-61), 59. The children were talking to themselves. 60. *The children were talking to playful themselves. 61. *The children were talking to themselves playful Compound indefinite pronouns can be modified with adjective phrases which follow the pronoun (as exemplified in (62)), 62. The children were talking about something important. 63. *The children were talking about important something. Personal pronouns are typically not modified by adjective phrases. Occasionally you find something like poor me or wonderful you, but notice that it is nearly impossible to put those into sentences and indeed you cant use them with subject case or possessive pronouns at all, so 64. *Poor they need help. 65. *Wonderful your intelligence is awe-inspiring. It really seems like personal and reflexive pronouns (among others) dont really like to modified with adjective phrases at all. This strongly suggests that one school grammar definition of pronouns is quite wrong: Traditionally pronouns are said to be words that take the place of nouns. We can see that such a description is not appropriate since, of course, 66. Poor orphans need help. is fine with orphans in the slot where they is in (64). Instead it looks like personal pronouns and reflexives can replace not nouns, but whole noun phrases. Since no pronoun can be modified by a determiner (an article the, a; a demonstrative this, that; words like some, every, and possessive NPs) and nouns can be, it really doesnt seem appropriate to suggest that nouns and pronouns are interchangeable. Instead, we can note that both nouns and pronouns can function as the heads of noun phrases. Nouns can typically include a wide range of modifiers in the NP with them, while pronouns have a far more limited range of modifiers possible. Some pronouns allow NO modifiers so only function as complete noun phrases; some pronouns typically occur without any modifiers so usually function as complete noun phrases. Practice with Pronouns Find each of the pronouns in the paragraph below; then identify each as personal, reflexive, demonstrative, interrogative, relative, or indefinite. (Roll the cursor over a word to see if it is pronoun and if so what kind.) (a) Who would have believed it? (b) Any of us could have warned the bosses about Henry, but, of course, they never asked us. (c) He made a real fool of himself yesterday, though. (d)

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He thought that nobody would ever call him on his misbehaviour. (e) He's been in charge in our office so there wasn't anyone in our group who could raise the issue of his horrible behaviour with him. (f) At yesterdays meeting, his deafening snoring was hard for us to ignore. (g) Still we would have averted our eyes and paid no attention if we could have pretended he wasn't even in the room, but then he flopped over onto Mary, whose chair was next to his. (h) She shifted herself over as far as she could and he slipped off her shoulder and fell to the ground. (i) Even at that point he went on sleeping. (j) Everybody rushed over to him, and, when we tried to move him, it became obvious that he was as drunk as a skunk. (k) He was a complete dead weight and even with all of us trying, we couldn't move him more than an inch. (l) After a while, we gave up and put the tablecloth over him and left the meeting room. (m) We forgot to lock the door to the conference room and the visiting executive committee had booked the room later that afternoon. (n) I guess I'm glad that I wasn't there when they arrived, but I certainly would like to know how everybody on that committee reacted to the sight of their fair-haired boy, drunk and snoring on the floor. (o) That would have been something to see, wouldn't it? Nouns Nouns are major open class words, which like pronouns, serve as heads of noun phrases. Unlike pronouns, nouns are typically modified by a number of different kinds of structures, including determiners and predeterminers. Also unlike pronouns, since nouns are open class words, we cannot just provide a list of them instead they must be recognized like verbs by the way they behave. How do they behave? Certain properties distinguish nouns. Typically nouns inflect to mark the number of their own referents. What does this mean? Remember we said that verbs inflected to mark agreement with their subjects in person and number. That change in the form of the verb does not reflect anything about the meaning of the verb it reflects something about the meaning/structure of something else in the sentence. A change in the form of a noun from girl to girls does reflect something about the referent of the noun itself girl is used to refer to only one girl, usually, while girls refers to more than one. If a word changes its form to reflect a change in the number of its own referent, it must be a noun or a pronoun since only nouns and pronouns inflect to mark the number of their own referents. Pronouns belong to a closed class, so words that inflect to mark the number of their own referents which are not on the list of pronouns, must be nouns. It would be really swell if that meant all we had to do was see if a noun inflected or otherwise showed number marking that reflected the number of their own referents. But no, life or rather English is not that simple. Not all nouns show this kind of change. Some nouns are fixed for number: they may always be plural, like pants or scissors, or they may always be singular, like many noncount nouns like wheat or amazement. Some nouns do not show the change in form to mark number, but trigger different agreements depending on whether they are viewed as singular or plural: That sheep was sick vs. Those sheep were sick. Another way to distinguish nouns is to note that they can be modified by articles like the and a, demonstratives like this and that, and other determiners like some, each, every, etc. Adjectives as well can appear with determiners and no head noun, as in Only the brave deserve the fair. However, we can distinguish adjectives from nouns because not all determiners can be used

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with adjectives, so we cant took about a beautiful, but we can talk about a beauty. Moreover, adjectives can be modified by adverb phrases like very, amazingly, or really, but nouns cannot. You can talk about the amazingly tall, but not about *the amazingly height; you can talk about *the terribly poor, but not *the terribly paupers or *the terribly poverty. Adjective phrases can modify nouns, but not adjectives: so you can talk about the amazing height, but not about *the amazing tall. Properties of Nouns Nouns typically inflect mark the number of their Only nouns and adjectives can be modified by own referents. determiners. Nouns share this property with some pronouns. For example, personal pronouns mark the number of their referents Some nouns are fixed for number (for example, scissors is always plural). Adjectives can only be modified by a limited set of determiners. For example, the good is fine, but *a good is not. Adjectives can be modified by adverb phrases like very or amazingly, and nouns cannot--so the amazingly rich, but not *the amazingly millionaire.

Ultimately though we must come back to feature we started with, nouns and pronouns function as the heads of noun phrases and pronouns are a closed class, so all non-pronominal heads of NPs must be nouns. So we can set up slots that can be filled by words which are unambiguously nouns since they mark number or can be modified by determiners and we can see what other words can fit in those slots. Lets consider sentences like 67. 68. 69. Everybody talked about those cats. A house fell down. Facts may be hard to find.

We can see that even nouns which are fixed for number like pants or wheat or Suzette can fit in some of these slots: 70. 71. 72. Everybody talked about those pants. Wheat may be hard to find. Suzette may be hard to find.

It turns out that as we consider these slots, that there are regular patterns as to what kinds of nouns can occur in particular structures. Nouns have been traditionally split into several categories or classes. Noun Classes The first break is between nouns which have unique reference (and are therefore always specific and definite) and those which do not (which name classes and which might be either specific or

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not, definite or not). Those with unique reference are called proper nouns (though they might better be called proper NPs) and those without are called common nouns. The difference between a proper noun and a common noun might be illustrated with George Washington and the first president of the United States. Both of these NPs refer to the same individual, but the first names that specific individual because that name is expected to have the hearer pick out the referent without considering a whole set or class of people. In the second NP, president even president of the United States names a class of people; the NP expects us to select the correct individual from the entire class of presidents. President is a common noun; George Washington is a proper noun (in most uses). Noun Classes
Proper Nouns (actually proper NPs) cannot be modified by an indefinite article (a, an) are fixed with respect to modification are fixed with respect to number and cannot be modified by quantifiers like many or much. Common Nouns Count Nouns Mass/Noncount Nouns can be modified by an indefinite cannot be modified by an article indefinite article are free with respect to modification are free with respect to modification can be modified by quantifiers like can be modified by quantifiers many like much

Proper nouns can never be modified by an indefinite article (a or an) because they must be definite. In fact, they are fixed with respect to modification some proper nouns require the presence of a definite article (the Hague, the Seychelles) and some preclude the presence of a definite article (Paris, Hawaii). Proper nouns are fixed with respect to number some are fixed singular (the Hague) and some are fixed plural (the Bahamas). You cant talk about the Hagues or the Bahama. You cant use quantifiers with proper nouns so you cant visit many Bahamas. Common nouns come in three types: count, noncount or mass, and both. A count noun, like noun, can be modified by an indefinite article; it is free with respect to modifiers and the plural form can be modified with quantifiers like many or few. So you can say a noun or many nouns or few nouns, while noncount nouns, like wheat or gratitude, cannot be modified with an indefinite article a or an: You cant *harvest a wheat or *feel a gratitude. To express an indefinite mass/noncount noun, you use no article at all: You harvest wheat or feel gratitude. Singular count nouns require the presence of a determiner of some kind: You can suggest a noun, but you cannot *suggest noun. Plural count nouns occur without an article if they are indefinite: You can suggest nouns. Noncount or mass nouns do not have plurals so you cant harvest wheats or feel gratitudes. Simply, count nouns can be counted: one bean, two beans, three beans, etc., even those which are fixed in number two people, three people, etc.; however, mass/noncount nouns cannot be counted: *one wheat, *two wheat(s), etc. Some common nouns can be either count or mass (usually with slightly different meanings), so you can like cakes or like cake. In the first version, you like individual cakes; in the second, you like undifferentiated cake. If you order pizza (mass/noncount), you have ordered at least one pizza but you havent specified how many; if you order a pizza (count), you have ordered only one pizza; if you order pizzas (count), you have ordered more than one pizza.

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Common Count Noncount/Mass Mary *Bahama *White House *tree music *the Mary *the Bahama the White House the tree the music *a Mary *a Bahama *a White House a tree *a music *some Mary *some Bahama *some White House *some tree some music *Marys *Bahamas *White Houses trees *musics *much Mary *much Bahama *much White House *much tree much music *the Marys the Bahamas *the White Houses the trees *the musics *much Marys *much Bahamas *much White Houses *much trees *much musics *many Marys *many Bahamas *many White Houses many trees *many musics some in these data is used to mean some amount of, rather than a certain individual. Proper

Both cake the cake a cake some cake cakes much cake the cakes *much cakes many cakes

In these examples, you can see the co-occurrence possibilities. The kind of noun it is limits the kind of determiner and quantifiers it can be modified by and what numbers it can be found in. Practice Identifying Nouns and Pronouns 1. Pick out each noun in the sentences below and identify the class to which it belongs. a. b. c. d. e. f. g. Susan might help that little old man. I really need help. That child wants an ice cream. Did Charley buy that furniture at a Goodwill? Could I have some water? Those people need six waters. We must look after the water.

2. Pick out all the nouns and pronouns in the sentences below and identify the classes to which they belong. (a) The Christian descendants of Germanic raiders who had looted, pillaged, and finally taken the land of Britain were themselves to undergo harassment from other Germanic invaders, beginning in the later years of the eighth century, when Viking raiders sacked various churches and monasteries, including Lindisfarne and Bede's own beloved Jarrow. (b) During the first half of the following century other more or less disorganized but disastrous raids occurred in the south. (c) Then in 865 a great and expertly organized army landed in East Anglia, led by Ivar the Boneless and his brother Halfdan, sons of Ragnar Lothbroke. (d) During the next fifteen years the Vikings gained possession of practically the whole eastern part of England. (e) In 870 the Vikings attacked Wessex, ruled by Ethelred with the able assistance of his brother Alfred, who was to succeed him in the following year. (f) After years of

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discouragement, very few victories, and many crushing defeats, Alfred in 878 won a signal victory at Edington over Guthrum, the Danish king of East Anglia, who promised not only to depart from Wessex but also to be baptized. (adapted from Pyles and Algeo, The Origins and Development of the English Language: 99)

Nouns can be modified by a range of different structures (adjective phrases, clauses, prepositional phrases, determiners and predeterminers); were going to start by discussing determiners and then predeterminers. The next section is on modifiers and complements of other types in simple sentences and later sections will deal with clausal modifiers. Determiners The prototypical determiners are articles. The definite article is the; the indefinite article is a. The difference between the animal and an animal is a difference in definiteness. A definite noun phrase is used when a speaker expects addressees to be able to pick out the referent for the noun phrase. When does a speaker have such an expectation? When the referent has already been mentioned in the conversation or piece of writing (so we can discuss the speaker because we just mentioned the speaker) When the referent is in plain sight of the conversation participants (so we can discuss the table below because we can both see it) When the referent is attached to an already established referent (so we can discuss the video card in your computer, since you know your computer you may not have the video card in your consciousness, but its a part of something you can pick out the referent for) When the referent is non-specific, but represents the entire class (so we can discuss the lion, meaning lions as opposed to other animals, for example, as in The lion typically lives in a pride, which does not refer to a specific lion, but generically to all lions) So, we use an indefinite noun phrase when the speaker does not expect the addressees to be able to pick out a referent. Sometimes a speaker may have a particular referent in mind and sometimes he or she may not, so if the speaker says 73. I want a new car.

He or she may just be expressing a generalized desire to replace his or her present vehicle or he or she may be thinking "I want a new car that Jag I saw on the showroom yesterday is what I really want!". The indefinite article is limited to occurring with singular count nouns. This restriction doubtless arises from the fact that the indefinite article a(n) is a descendant of the number one, restricting its role to modifying nouns which can co-occur with numbers (count nouns) and to nouns which one would be an appropriate modifier of (singular nouns).

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Kinds of Determiners
Articles the (definite) a/an (indefinite) Universal every each Whwhich what whichever

Demonstratives this/these that/those

Negative: no Universal dual: either Negative dual: neither General assertive: some General nonassertive: any Possessive Noun Phrases

A plural indefinite noun phrase or an indefinite noncount/mass noun typically occurs without any article at all, as in 74. 75. I want new furniture. (furniture = noncount/mass noun) I want new chairs. (chairs = plural count noun)

It is possible to use indefinite NPs, either singular or plural, generically, as in 76. 77. A lion lives in a pride. Lions live in prides/a pride.

(In fact, as you can see, the only form of NP that cant be use generically is a definite plural -The lions live in (the) prides cannot be interpreted as generic.) Articles are not the only determiners -- other words and phrases come in the same slot in a noun phrase and are mutually exclusive. You can only have one determiner per noun modified. Demonstrative determiners agree with the nouns they modify in number. Demonstrative determiners have the same pointing effects that demonstrative pronouns have. The near demonstrative determiner has, however, acquired another use recently. This and these are used in casual speech as markers of specific indefinites. So when people say something like 78. I met this guy in Victorian Lit last term

they do not typically mean a definite guy nearby -- they mean a specific guy that they don't expect the addressees to have an established referent for. The other word-level determiners include a range of quantifying determiners (each, every, neither, either, no, some, any) and wh- determiners (which occur in questions and relative clauses: which, what, whichever). Beyond these there are phrase-level determiners: possessive

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noun phrases (whether they are just pronouns or longer noun phrases with noun heads) typically serve as determiners. We'll discuss these determiners after we've looked at predeterminers. Predeterminers: all, both, half, multipliers (including fractions) Like determiners, you can also only have one predeterminer per noun modified. As you might guess from the name, a predeterminer is a noun modifier that precedes the determiner. The order of constituents in a noun phrase before the noun head is Predeterminer - Determiner - Adjective Phrases - N: 79. 80. 81. All the large, very ferocious dogs Half the stolen money Both the small children

Demonstratives (which you recall can function as pronouns) can also function as determiners, as in 82. 83. All those ferocious dogs are barking. The FBI found half that stolen money.

It is impossible to use both an article and another determiner -- *All those the dogs, *All the those dogs, *The that money, *That the money. We can see that predeterminers do not belong to the same category as determiners. School grammars sometimes try to treat predeterminers as adjectives, as part of a general simplification that treats a number of noun modifiers as adjectives. We can see that predeterminers are quite a small closed class that is not interchangeable with adjectives: so *those all dogs and *ferocious the dogs are quite impossible. Back to Determiners The determiners which are quantificational (each, every, neither, either, no, some, any) cannot co-occur with each other or with any other determiner, but also cannot co-occur with the predeterminers (which are also quantifying-- as you can see by looking at the list of predeterminers in Table 2). 84. 85. 86. 87. Every child likes some ice cream. *Every the child likes some ice cream. *The every child likes some ice cream. *Every child likes half some ice cream.

Possessive NPs come in the same slot and are clearly determiners. School grammars tend to treat possessive pronouns as adjectives. It is clear, however, that possessive pronouns and demonstratives, among others, act more like articles than like adjective phrases. That reflects the slot they come in in the NP: 88. Both their ferocious dogs are barking at all Mary's children. 89. All that man's friends came to the party.

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In (88) we can see that the determiner for dogs is their and for children is Mary's. In (89), that must modify man's, not friends, since that must modify a singular noun and man is singular and friends is plural. Therefore the determiner of friends must be that man's and all is a predeterminer modifying friends (since you can't talk about all the man). All adjective phrases used to modify friends must come after man's. The slot between the predeterminer and adjective phrases is otherwise only filled by determiners. 90. Those children's mother's doctor's car broke down. So in (90) the determiners are those children's mother's doctor's (for dog), those children's mother's (for doctor), those children's (for mother) and those (for children). Practice: Pick out the noun phrases and identify all the predeterminers, determiners, nouns and pronouns. 1. All the children are in the other room. 2. The first three students should pass out the books. 3. No other person should touch that picture. 4. The children's teacher likes them. 5. The child's teacher's mother's dog bit the principal. 6. Half those books lack a third page. More about Nouns Now that we've established some facts about nouns and some noun modifiers, we can see that there are a number of ways to identify nouns. Once set of possible questions can be seen in

Figure 1: Noun Decision Tree

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Example: Charley donated a lot of money to the poor. 1. Is Charley a pronoun, article, etc.? No. Can Charley by itself be replaced by a personal pronoun? Yes: He donated a lot of money to the poor. So Charley is a noun. 2. Is lot a pronoun, article, etc.? No. Can lot by itself by replaced by personal pronoun? No: *Charley donated a(n) it of money to the poor. So can it inflect to mark the plurality of its referent? Yes: Charley donated lots of money to the poor. So lot is a noun. 3. Is money a pronoun, article, etc.? No. Can money by itself be replaced by a personal pronoun? Yes: Charley donated a lot of it to the poor. So money is a noun. 4. Can poor by itself be replaced by a personal pronoun? No: *Charley donated a lot of money to the them. So can poor mark the plurality of its referent? No: *Charley donated a lot of money to the poors. So can poor be modified by quite? Yes: Charley donated a lot of money to the quite poor. So poor is not a noun. 5. donated is not a pronoun, article, etc. Can it be replaced by a personal pronoun? No. Does it mark the number of its own referent? No. Is it modified by a determiner? No. Can the word be modified by the definite determiner? No. It is definitely not a noun. 6. a and the are articles, so they cannot be nouns. 7. of and to are not pronouns, articles, etc. Can they be replaced by a personal pronoun? No. Do their mark the number of their own referent? No. Are they modified by determiners? No. Can the words be modified by definite determiners? No. They are definitely not nouns. Example: They say that a rolling stone gathers no moss. 1. They is a pronoun, so it is not a noun. 2. Is stone a pronoun, article, etc.? No. Can it be replaced by a personal pronoun? No, *a rolling it. Does it mark the number of its own referent? Yes. This word is a noun. 3. Is moss a pronoun, article, etc.? No. Can it be replaced by a personal pronoun? No, *no it. Does it mark the number of its own referent? No. Is the word modified by a determiner? Yes. Can it modified by an adverb phrase? No. This word is a noun. 4. a and no are an article and a negative determiner -- they cannot be nouns. 5. that is not a pronoun, article, etc. It cannot be replaced by a personal pronoun. It does not mark the number of its own referent. It is not and cannot be modified by a determiner. It is not a noun. 6. say and gathers are not pronouns, articles, etc. Can they be replaced by a personal pronoun? No. Do their mark the number of their own referent? No. Are they modified by determiners? No.

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Can the words be modified by definite determiners? No. They are definitely not nouns. 7. rolling is not a pronoun, article, etc. It cannot be replaced by a personal pronoun. It does not mark the number of its own referent. It is not be modified by a determiner. It could be modified by a definite determiner (the rolling never gather moss), but if so it could be modified by an adverb phrase (the slowly rolling never gather moss) so it is not a noun. PRACTICE ANALYSIS: Identifying Nouns, Pronouns, Determiners and Predeterminers 1. Nouns a. Underline each of the nouns in the text below. b. Identify each underlined noun as common count, common mass or proper. 2. Pronouns a. Circle each of the pronouns in the text below. b. Identify each circled pronoun as personal, relative, demonstrative, interrogative, reflexive, interrogative or number. 3. Determiners a. Double underline each determiner in the text below 4. Predeterminers a. Put a box around each predeterminer in the text below. Report of the 1/26/2005 Incident I have been asked by members of the board and the president of the company to provide a complete account of yesterdays unfortunate events at the branch office in Springfield. Background: Oscar Anderson was appointed by the main office to serve as the formal liason between the branch office and the main office on 10 January 2005. He started in Springfield the next day with a complex set of requirements including the largest office in the branch, the exclusive services of the branch managers administrative assistants and direct reports from all the supervisors. On receipt of these demands, Ms. Angela James, the branch manager, sent a query up the line about them. The home office responded with an e-mail apparently from the president of the company, Mr. John Clareton, stating that all of Mr. Andersons needs must be met immediately and without further discussion. The e-mail directed Ms. James not to send anything more about Mr. Anderson to anyone in the main office; all further communications from the branch office should come from Mr. Anderson. (See attachment 1 (copies of the e-mail interaction between Ms. James and the head office).) Therefore, Ms. James gave Mr. Anderson her office and her administrative staff; she moved into an administrative office down the hall; she instructed each of the supervisors to copy Mr. Anderson on all memos and reports. Mr. Anderson then called a meeting of all the supervisors and ordered them to send their reports directly to him, with no copies to Ms. James. Surprised, the supervisors met with Ms. James, who told them to follow Mr. Andersons instructions to the letter, but to keep copies of all documents they sent to Mr. Anderson and received from him. Ms. James asked Mr. Anderson for a meeting, which he refused. Ms. James wrote Mr. Anderson

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a memo asking him to outline her new responsibilities since she no longer had any staff reporting to her. Mr. Anderson told her to be grateful she still had a job. This was very confusing since the branch office had been running smoothly and with many commendations from the head office for the entire three years Ms. James had been in charge. Ms. James sent Mr. Anderson a second memo asking for clarification; Mr. Anderson responded by saying , Ms. James should never have been appointed to such a senior position; it is inappropriate for a person like her to have authority over supervisors. He further stated that if she sent him one more word on this subject, he would arrange never to hear from her again. Ms. James interpreted this statement as meaning that he would arrange for her employment to be terminated. (See attachment 2 (copies of the memo interaction between Ms. James and Mr. Anderson and of the contemporaneous summary memo by Ms. James).) By the fifth day of Mr. Andersons tenure in the branch office, he had insulted every employee in the office and three of the lower level employees had resigned. It speaks well for the professionalism of the employees in the branch office that the office continued to work relatively smoothly. It speaks well for the good sense of the supervisors that, when they needed instruction or assistance, they went to Ms. James, not Mr. Anderson and that they intervened between Mr. Anderson and their teammates generally attempting to protect the lower-level employees from the ill-feeling created by Mr. Andersons offensive behavior. (See attachment 3 ( the supervisors reports) and attachment 4 (the joint report of the lower level employees).) Starting on the sixth day of his tenure, Mr. Anderson began arriving to work later each day until by January 23rd, he was arriving after lunch. He often came in apparently smelling of alcohol and making even less sense than he usually did. The only work he did was to dictate reports to the head office detailing changes he had made to system in the branch office and claiming that these changes (if they were not undercut by the incompetents working in the branch office) would result in immediate increases in revenue to the main ofice. He delegated all his other work to his administrative staff. Since they were not sufficiently directed to carry out his duties, they went to Ms. James for advice. Thus the office continued to run mostly as it had in the past. On the morning of January 25th, a memo arrived at the office, addressed Mr. Anderson and stating that the board would be holding a special video conference with the branch office the next day so the board members could observe for themselves the improvements Mr. Andersons system had wrought. They instructed Mr. Anderson to set up a video conference in the main meeting room with all the supervisors, Ms. James, and Mr. Anderson himself. Since it arrived in the morning, it was put in the pile of Mr. Andersons correspondence. When Mr. Anderson had not arrived by 3 p.m., the administrative staff made every effort to contact him, leaving messages on his voicemail and several text messages. (See attachment 4 (the office call log and telephone records).) The events of 1/26/2005: When Mr. Anderson had not returned their calls by 9 a.m. the next day, the office manager went to Ms. James with the memo. On reading the memo, Ms. James send out messages to all the supervisors notifying them of the meeting and requesting that they bring their documentation of the all the events of the last 10 days. She contacted the technical administrator to set up the video equipment for the conference in the main meeting room. She instructed the administrative staff to make every effort to contact Mr. Anderson, including

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sending out junior staff members to his apartment and to all the restaurants near his apartment and near the office. By 12:45 the video conference was set up, the supervisors were present in the main office with their documents, and Ms. James was going through her own documents at the head of the table. At 1 p.m. the conference call began with Ms. James apologizing for Mr. Andersons absence. At 1:02 Mr. Anderson walked through the front door of the office. The receptionist told him that there was a staff meeting going on in the main office. Mr. Anderson began to shout furiously, demanding to know who other than himself could call a staff meeting and claiming that people were plotting against him behind his back. He flung open the door of the main office and staggered over to Ms. James and demanded to know who she thought she was calling a meeting at this branch. He insisted that this branch was his branch and that only he and nobody else, not even those dopes on the board could call a meeting at his branch. Ms. James gestured politely toward the video equipment. Mr. Anderson turned his head toward the camera and promptly vomited on the desk in front of the entire board. Ms. James attempted to explain to him that this was a meeting called by the board, when he vomited again on the floor. Moving toward Ms. James in a threatening way, he slipped in his own vomit and fell to the floor hitting his head on a chair on the way down. Ms. James apologized to the members of the board, saying that Mr. Anderson was clearly unwell and then began to dial 911. Ms. James asked for a emergency services to help the unconscious Mr. Anderson and signalled to the technician to turn off the video camera. (See attachment 5 (the video footage of 1/26/2005).) When Mr. Anderson reached consciousness again, he announces that he had been poisoned and insisted that the medical report of his accident be sent to the main office. Unfortunately for Mr. Anderson, besides the mild concussion he suffered, his only other observable symptom was a blood alcohol level of .23. (See attachment 6 (the medical report of 1/26/2005).) Conclusions: Mr. Anderson is currently in the hospital and will be sent to rehabilitation when he is discharged from the hospital. Ms. James has been returned to her office and the structure of the office has been returned to its previous form. The only open questions in this sorry affair are (1) Who sent the e-mail to Ms. James, since the president denies having sent it (and would have no reason to send it)? (2) How was Mr. Anderson ever hired with background of serious alcoholic misconduct? (See attachment 7 (the transcripts of my discussions with Mr. Andersons prior employers).) (3) Who in the main office is ultimately responsible for cutting off all communication between the two offices thus enabling Mr. Anderson to change his position from liason (at which he was clearly not competent) to actual head of the branch office (at which he failed even more dramatically)?

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Some religious groups still maintain these forms in everyday communications and others maintain them for specifically religious use. (In the latter case, the association presumably arises from the fact that they are used in the King James version of the Bible, which was, of course, early Modern English. These are cas where you may decide that in writing it is best to avoid the whole problem, using overtly plural forms, All people believe in their own rectitude or avoiding the pronoun Someone left a notebook behind.
3 2

Well talk more about indirect questions when we talk about complex sentences.

Again, well talk more about relative clauses later when we talk about complex sentences. Well just consider them briefly here.
5

Quirk, Randolph, and Sidney Greenbaum. 1973. A concise grammar of contemporary English

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Chapter 4 Modifiers and Complements

Adjectives and Adjective Phrases Structure An adjective phrase consists of an adjective and all of its modifiers and complements. The smallest possible adjective phrase therefore consists of just an adjective. Notice that in the sentence like Olive wants a really big car, there is an adjective phrase really big, but not an adjective phrase big. The head of really big is big and its modifier is really. Since an adjective phrase is an adjective head and all its modifiers, and since really is a modifier of big, any adjective phrase that contains big must contain really. IMPORTANT NOTE: Noun- or pronoun-modifying adjective phrases do NOT include the nouns or pronouns they modify, so the noun phrase my older brother contains an adjective phrase older (NOT older brother). A modifier never includes the thing that it modifies -remember that modifying is a structural relationship between the modifier and something outside the modifier -- the word or phrase being modified. Function Adjectives are always the heads of adjective phrases (or conjuncts in the coordination of two or more adjectives -- this will be discussed later when we talk about conjunction). Adjective phrases function within a NP1 to modify a head noun or pronoun or directly in a predicate2 to predicate something about the subject or object. Noun/Pronoun Modifying Adjective Phrases Adjective phrases that appear within the NP can either precede or follow the head. If the head is an indefinite pronoun, then any adjective phrases that modify it must follow the head, as in 1. Somebody clever could turn that thing into something quite useful.

In (1) there are two NPs (in italics) with indefinite pronouns as heads and adjective phrases (underlined) modifying those indefinite pronouns. These adjective phrases are postmodifying or postpositive. A postpositive modifier or a postmodifier is a one which follows the head it modifies within the same phrase. In this case, a postpositive or postmodifying adjective phrase comes after the head and inside the NP. Usually when adjective phrases modify nouns, they are attributive; that is, they appear before the noun and after the predeterminer and determiner (if they appear in the NP). So, compare (1) where the heads of the italicized NPs are indefinite pronouns with (2) where the heads of the italicized NPs are nouns. 2. Some clever person could turn that thing into a quite useful thing.

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Nouns can have postmodifying adjective phrases if the adjective phrase is heavy enough -- so *any person clever is no good, but any person really clever and talented is fine. Predicate Adjective Phrases Adjective phrases can also function directly in the predicate: predicate adjective phrases describe or qualify a NP in the clause. If a predicate adjective phrase is about the subject, then that adjective phrase is a subject complement, as in (3) - (5) where the subject complement adjective phrase is italicized and the subject is underlined. 3. 4. 5. That person seems really talented. Sharon is clever. The medicine tasted nasty.

If the adjective phrase qualifies or describes the direct object, then the adjective phrase is an object complement, as in (6)-(8) where the object complement adjective phrase is italicized and the direct object is underlined. 6. 7. 8. They called me stupid. Charley considers Sharon clever. I found the medicine nasty.

Structural Constraints on Adjectives Adjective phrases with certain heads (in certain meanings) are typically or always postpositive: For example, elect as in the president elect, or proper as in Pullman proper are never used attributively in these senses. Some adjectives only appear as heads of attributive adjective phrases: For example, late in the sense of "dead" or "former holder the role" can occur as the head of an attributive adjective phrase, as in (9), 9. The late king of France liked toads.

but not as the head of a postmodifying adjective phrase, as in *Someone late liked toads and not as the head of either kind of predicate adjective phrase, as in *The king of France is late or *I consider the king of France late. Some adjective can be the heads of postpositive or predicate adjective phrases, but not of attributive adjective phrases, for example, afraid and present, as in 10. The children present watched the accident in horror.

(but not (10') *The present children watched the accident in horror which would mean something entirely differentwith present meaning something like current as opposed to past or future.) 11. The small children were afraid.

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(but not (11') *The afraid children were small.) Adjective phrases which contain complements (which appear after the adjective head) or postmodifiers typically are not used attributively. So, frightened of bears is okay as a postpositive adjective phrase (as in People frightened of bears shouldn't visit Yellowstone) or as a predicate adjective phrase (as in Those people seem frightened of bears, Their horrible experience left them frightened of bears.)
Noun/Pronoun Modifier Predicate Adjective Phrase Attributive Postmodifying Subject Complement Object Complement occurs before the head it occurs immediately after occurs after a copular occurs after a direct object modifies and after any the head it modifies; ("linking") verb and noun phrase preceded by a predeterminers and adjective phrases which provides information complex transitive verb determiners -- within the modify indefinite pronouns about the subject. He and provides information NP before the head it most be postmodifying; was asleep. The bell about the direct object. I modifies A very large cat postmodifying adjective sounded flat. The food left him asleep. He called bit the frightened dog. phrases that modify nouns tasted utterly horrible. the bell flat. We considered must be "heavy" (except in the food utterly horrible. certain fixed constructions) Nobody wise would do that. cannot contain adjective can contain adjective complements We must take care of those children dependent complements *We must on our help. Those children are dependent on our help. The doctor considered the take care of those children dependent on our help. dependent on our help children Some adjectives can only Some adjectives can only appear as the heads of AdjPs which are not attributive: head attributive adjective asleep, afraid That man ridiculously afraid ran away. That child is afraid. It made phrases: only, late, the child afraid. *The president former was an only child. *The president was former, The former former. *I consider that child only. president was an only child. Compare *An afraid child ran away with A frightened child ran away

Practice Identifying Adjective Phrases Identify the adjective phrases in the sentences below and to determine what the function of each adjective phrase each is. (1) The first time I saw the thing, I found its appearance quite surprising. (2) The strange, spotted top attached to the colorfully striped trunk made me dizzy. (3) It was incredibly badly designed. (4) Who could have considered purple, blue and red suitable colors for a lectern? (5) (5) Moreover, the ugly thing was unstable. (6) The designer blind to both form and function had created a hideous monstrosity. Adverb and Adverb Phrases Structure An adverb phrase consists of an adverb head and all its modifiers; only adverb phrases can

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modify adverbs. A substantial number of adverbs are derived from adjectives by suffixing -ly to the adjective, so, for example, the adverbs frivolously, amazingly, enormously, largely, literally, and abundantly are derived from the adjectives frivolous, amazing, enormous, large, literal, and abundant. Not all adverbs are derived from adjectives however. Some are simply basic adverbs like then, yet, still, thus, ever, just, only, here, there, and again; others are more internally complex, but not derived from adjectives, like however, moreover, therefore, and hereafter. A number of adjectives and adverbs have the same form (i.e., are homonyms), like early, fast, and hard. In the (a) versions of the examples below the underlined words are adjectives and in the (b) version they are adverbs, 12. 13. 14. a. The early bird catches the worm. b. The bird rose early to catch the worm. a. I want a fast car. b. My car should go fast. a. Mary finished the hard problem b. Mary worked hard on the problem.

Notice that if you replace these forms with adjective/adverb pairs that aren't homonyms, only one will fit in each case so suppose you replace fast with rapid or rapidly. Only rapid will fit in (13a) and only rapidly will fit in (13b). Similarly if you replace hard with intensive or intensively, only the adjective will fit in (14a) and the adverb in (14b). Function Adverbs are always the heads of adverb phrases (or conjuncts in the coordination of two or more adverbs -- this will be discussed later when we talk about conjunction). Adverb phrases have three possible functions -- two well-defined and one a kind of grab-bag. Adverb phrases can modify adjectives, they can modify other adverbs and they can be adverbial. This last function is the most complicated so it is typically easier to see if an adverb phrase is functioning as an adjective- or adverb- modifier first, before you consider whether it is an adverbial. Adjective Modifier An adjective-modifying adverb phrase is inside the adjective phrase with the adjective head and modifying a head adjective (inside the adjective phrase with the head). 15. 16. The very small children should stand in the front. Mary is remarkably bright.

It is worthwhile noticing that while an adjective-modifying adverb phrase typically precedes the adjective it modifies as in (15) and (16), some adverb phrases regularly follow what they modify, so enough as in (17) and (18) typically follows the adjective head it modifies. 17. 18. Harry is a good enough parent. Those children aren't sleepy enough yet.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Adjective-modifying adverb phrases do NOT include the adjectives they modify, so the adjective phrase amazingly tall contains an adverb phrase amazingly (NOT amazingly tall). A modifier never includes the thing that it modifies -- remember that modifying is a structural relationship between the modifier and something outside the modifier -- the word or phrase being modified.

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Adverb Modifier Just as adverb phrases can modify adjectives, they can also modify adverbs (and therefore appear within another adverb phrase) as in (19) and (20). 19. 20. The children played very carefully. Those jockeys are quite amazingly tall.

Notice this means that in a sentence like (20) there are two adverb phrases: quite amazingly and quite. The head of quite amazingly is amazingly and its modifier is quite. The adverbmodifying adverb phrase is quite and its head is quite. Notice that amazingly is NOT an adverb phrase here. Since an adverb phrase is an adverb head and all its modifiers, and since quite is a modifier of amazingly, any adverb phrase that contains amazingly must contain quite. The same is not true of quite -- since amazingly does not modify quite, there can (in fact, must) be an adverb phrase which contains quite, but not amazingly. Since, in fact, nothing modifies quite, there is an adverb phrase that consists of just quite. IMPORTANT NOTE: Adverb-modifying adverb phrases do NOT include the adverbs they modify, so the adjective phrase quite amazingly contains an adverb-modifying adverb phrase quite. A modifier never includes the thing that it modifies -- remember that modifying is a structural relationship between the modifier and something outside the modifier -- the word or phrase being modified. Adverbial Structures serving as adverbials do a range of things: they may modify a verb, a verb phrase, a predicate, or the whole rest of the clause; they may focus on some chunk of structure: a noun phrase, an adjective phrase, a verb phrase, a prepositional phrase, a predicate, or another clause. It may express a transition between one clause and another. In other words, this is a more or less miscellaneous category. The adverbial role can be filled by a range of structures. The structure we're primarily concerned with here is the adverb phrase, as in 21. He turned carefully. 22. Everybody left very early. 23. The students left just before dinner. The similar roles can be filled by prepositional phrases, as in 24. He turned with great care. 25. Everybody left before dawn. and noun phrases, as in 26. He turned that way. 27. Everybody left the next day. and subordinate clauses, as in

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28. Everybody left when I arrived. 29. He turned to see Mary. Identifying Adjectives and Adverbs

Example:

Oscar can work hard at the really efficient factory.

(1) Oscar, can, work can all be demonstrated to be nouns or verbs. (2) hard is not a noun, pronoun, verb, demonstrative, or article. It can replaced by an unambiguous adverb: Oscar worked amazingly at the really efficient factory. Therefore, hard is an adverb. (3) at is not a noun, pronoun, verb, demonstrative, or article. It cannot be replaced by an unambiguous adverb: *Oscar worked hard merely/then/quite/clearly the factory. It cannot be modified by an unambiguous adverb (though the whole PP can be). Therefore, at is neither an adverb nor an adjective. (4) the is an article; therefore, it is neither an adjective nor an adverb. (5) really is not a noun, pronoun, verb, demonstrative, or article. It can be replaced by an unambiguous adverb: Oscar can work hard at the merely/quite/clearly efficient factory. really,

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therefore, is an adverb. (6) efficient is not a noun, pronoun, verb, demonstrative, or article. It cannot be replaced by an adverb: *Oscar worked hard at the really merely/quite/clearly/then efficient factory. It can be and is, however, modified by an adverb (really) and is therefore an adjective. Practice Identifying Adverb Phrases Identify the adverb phrases in the sentences below and to determine what the function of each adverb phrase each is. (1) Ferociously the amazingly strong child threw his teacher through a window. (2) He was angry at his teacher again and he found the entire school increasingly unbearable. (3) The teacher's careful answer to his very difficult question left him quite furious. (4) A more sensible student would just have gone to the ombudsman with a complaint. (5) He would really not have thrown his hapless teacher out of the classroom. (6) Quite predictably, the slightly injured teacher was furious at the child's violent treatment of him. (7) He demanded that the insane child be more appropriately punished for his utterly outrageous conduct. (8) Suspension was a completely insufficient penalty for this violent offence. Prepositional Phrases Structure A prepositional phrase (PP) consists minimally of a preposition and its object. The object of a preposition is typically a noun phrase or a gerund subordinate clause (we'll discuss these when we talk about complex sentences). Usually the object of the preposition (OP) immediately follows the preposition as in 30. I talked [aboutPREP [the answers]OP]. 31. [AfterPREP [dinner]OP] the people [inPREP [the dining room]OP] rose [fromPREP [the tables]OP] and went [intoPREP [the garden]OP]. Under certain circumstances the preposition and its object might not be adjacent to each other. If the object of the preposition is a wh- proform or a phrase containing a wh-proform, then the phrase with the wh- word can appear at the beginning of the sentence (or of the appropriate clause) with the preposition appearing where you might expect to find the entire PP. 32. Who are you talking to? (I am talking to Bill.) 33. I built the stage which you are standing on. (You are standing on the stage.) 34. What I rely on is the truth. 35. What a jerk I ran into! In some of these sentences, it is possible to put the preposition before the wh- word in the front, as in 36. To whom are you talking?

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37. I built the stage on which you are standing. but not others, as in 38. *On what I rely is the truth. 39. *Into what a jerk I ran! In some cases the OP is missing, but it is always recoverable in context (that means you can always figure out what the OP would be if it were present). 40. I know the man you are talking about. 41. The man is hard to talk to. (Notice that (40) can be paraphrased as I know the man about whom you are talking -- in which whom is the object of about and (41) can be paraphrases as It is hard to talk to the man -- in which the man is the object of to.) If the sentence is a pseudo-passive (a passive in which the subject is the same as the OP in the active), then the preposition is let without an object, as in 42. That bed was slept in by George Washington. (= Active: GW slept in that bed) Function Prepositional phrases can serve as noun modifiers, as adverbials, and as complements to verbs or adjectives. Noun Modifier We've seen other noun modifiers -- determiners, predeterminers, and adjective phrases. Now we see that prepositional phrases can modify nouns and pronouns in much the same way. PPs as noun/pronoun modifiers are always postmodifying, as in 43. The man in the blue dress is talking to someone in a bright pink hat. You can stack PP modifiers just as you can stack adjective phrase modifiers -- unlike determiners and predeterminers which are limited to one per head modified. 44. The man in the orange dress with red hair at that table looks perfectly awful. One way to tell that the PPs modify the noun or pronoun head is to replace that NP with a personal or demonstrative pronoun which typically are not modified by PPs, so 45. *He in the orange dress with red hair at that table looks perfectly awful. 46. He looks perfectly awful. 47. I want this book about Spain. 48. I want this. 49. *I want this about Spain.

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Passive Agent As we discussed when we considered passive clauses, the NP that is the same as the subject of the active paraphrase of the clause appears as the object of the preposition by in the passive. 50. That child was bitten by a yippy little dog. (= Active: A yippy little dog bit that child.) The subject of an active clause can only be conveyed in a passive clause in a prepositional phrase with the preposition by. Adverbial Just like adverb phrases, PPs can serve as adverbials. Time adverbials and place adverbials are very typically expressed as PPs, as in 51. On Thursday I am going to Spain In fact however a substantial range of adverbial roles can be filled by Verb Complement Some verbs may be limited to certain prepositions to appear with. Sometimes the verb requires the presence of the PP, as in 52. I will rely on your discretion Verbs like rely and depend and deprive require the presence of a PP -- a PP with a particular set of prepositions. You can only rely or depend on or upon something or someone, 53. *I will rely. 54. *I will rely on top of your discretion. 55. *I will rely from your discretion. Similarly you can only deprive someone of something, as in 56. Olive deprived us of our just reward. Often, a good dictionary identifies the verbs that take verb complements by identifying the verb + preposition set and its meaning since typically the fact that they are fixed and what the meaning is is not necessarily transparent. Other verbs take optional complements. So call can take a prepositional phrase complement, using the preposition on, to mean 'visit' as in 59. Since Harry is at home now, we should call on him. or 'choose', as in 60. If you raise your hand, I will call on you.

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Adjective Complement Like verbs, adjectives also limit the prepositions that appear in their prepositional phrase complements. 61. I am fond of them. Notice that while you can be happy with your grade, you can't be *glad or *joyous with your grade. So happy selects a prepositional phrase with a preposition with, while glad and joyous (which mean approximately the same thing) do not. Some adjectives like happy appear commonly without any prepositional phrase complements, as in 62. Are you happy? or with other prepositions, as in 63. Are you happy for/with your family? Notice that while you can be glad for someone, you cannot be joyous for someone. Again different adjectives, even in the same semantic area, go with different prepositions. Prepositions vs. Particles As it happens, a subset of the prepositions in English are also particles. A particle differs from a preposition in that it does not (and cannot) take an object. Particles can, like prepositions, come right after the verb and before a noun phrase. Particles, however, are distributed differently from prepositions. How so? Well, while the up's in (64a) and (b) look similar, consider that in (65b) you can move the up after the NP without changing the meaning, but in (65a) moving the up produces an ungrammatical string. Preposition 64. a. I climbed up the pole. 65. a. *I climbed the pole up 66. a. I climbed up it. 67. a. *I climbed it up. 68. a. I climbed slowly up the pole. Particle b. I put up the pole. b. I put the pole up. b. *I put up it b. I put it up. b. *I put slowly up the pole.

In fact, if the NP is a personal pronoun, you must move the particle after it, as in (67b) (notice that (66b) is ungrammatical because the personal pronoun follows the particle), but you still can't move a preposition after its object (so (66a) is fine -- but (67a) is ungrammatical). Similarly nothing can come between a verb and its particle except the object of the verb (as in (65b) -- but (68b) is ungrammatical because what intervenes between the verb and the particle is an adverbial), but, for example, adverbials can come between a verb and a prepositional phrase (as in (68a)). Consider I looked up the street and Mary looked over the rock. These two sentences are ambiguous. Each has a reading in which up or over is a preposition and one in which it is a

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particle. What are the two meanings for each sentence and which structure goes with which meaning? Many Prepositions The following list contains many, though not all, English prepositions. Notice that many of these words belong to other categories as well: so around, for example, is also an adverb; but is also a coordinating conjunction; up is also a verbal particle; after is also a subordinating conjunction; excluding is also a verb (an ing participle or gerund); inside is also a noun; like is also a verb, etc. So you must look at the use in a particular sentence to determine whether the word is a preposition. Consider these sentences: 69a. Mary is depending on our help. (LV+Prep) b. Depending on the cost, well either drive or fly. (Prep) 70a. Ill just walk around. (Adverb) b. Ill just walk around the house. (Prep) 71a. Will you stand up? (Particle) b. Will you climb up that tree? (Prep) 72a. The inside of that building is awful. (Noun) b. He is staying inside the house. (Prep) 73a. The following data must be fully analyzed. b. Following the first set of data is our first (Adjective) appoximation of an analysis. (Prep) As should be evident, you cant determine whether a word is a preposition just be checking a list. Since words which are preposition can be the same as words which belong to other categories verbs, adverbs, particles, among others. The list below is not completenew prepositions are derived (not as commonly or easily as new open class words like nouns or lexical verbs or adjectives or adverbs), but more commonly than new articles or auxiliary verbs. This list, for example, includes a number of cases of prepositions derived from adjectives or verbs or nouns compounded with more basic prepositions. aboard about above according to across across from after against ahead of along alongside along with amidst among amongst anti beyond but by by means of by way of circa close to concerning considering contrary to depending on despite down during except except for in search of inside inside of in spite of instead of in support of in the light of into in touch with in view of irrespective of like minus near next to notwithstanding plus preparatory to prior to rather than regarding regardless of relative to round save save for since subject to than thanks to through till

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apart from around as as for aside from as opposed to as to astride as well as at away from bar barring because of before behind below beneath beside besides between

excepting excluding following for forward of from in in addition to in accordance with in between in charge of in conjunction with in connection with in contrast to including in favour of in front of in lieu of in line with in relation to in response to

of off on on account of on behalf of on board on the part of onto on top of opposite opposite to other than out of outside outside of over owing to past pending per plus

to together with toward towards under underneath unlike until up up against upon up to up until versus via vis--vis with with regard to within without

More Practice with Adjective, Adverb and Prepositional Phrases Identify all the adjective phrases, adverb phrases and prepositional phrases in the texts below. (1) Circle the entire phrase. (2) Underline the adjective head, adverb head, or preposition. (3) Label each phrase you have circled with its structure (adjective phrase, adverb phrase or prepositional phrase). (4) Label each phrase you have circled with its function (adjective phrase: attributive, postmodifying, subject complement, object complement; adverb phrase: adjective modifier, adverb modifier, adverbial; and prepositional phrase: noun modifier, adjective complement, verb complement, adverbial, passive agent.) Marianne was amused by the absolute presumption of the man in front of her. His sense of entitlement was breathtaking. He was almost preening. He practically glowed with his belief in his own attractiveness. From Mariannes point of view, he was not merely overestimating the effects of his appearance; he was completely wrong about any effect he might have on her. Anyone so obviously full of himself was actively ugly in her eyes. Hey baby, call me Bill. Whats your name? he asked with complete assurance and continued, What are you drinking? Sorry, she replied politely, Im waiting for someone. After all, he had done nothing unacceptable in a bar like this one. His approach was utterly standard for this kind of establishment. Courtesy was called for in her refusal, but nothing in the relatively odd etiquette of these places required her to accept his invitation.

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Ah, come on, he said and grabbed her arm. Please let go of me, she said, still courteously, I am waiting for someone else. The polite lie should have been sufficient; he could walk away now without any loss of face. A man with any sense of appropriate behavior would have released her immediately. However, that kind of man would never have touched a stranger without invitation anyway. Her polite resistance made him even more overbearing. He simply refused to believe that any woman would refuse his attentions. Dont be shy, he insisted. Im not shy, just otherwise occupied, she answered. Even if I were not waiting for someone else, she continued, I choose my own company. Take your hand off me. Wholl make me? he said and looked around the crowded room of strangers who were ignoring their byplay. Marianne repeated, Please let go of me. He laughed and tightened his hold on her arm. At this point, instead of amusement, Mariannes primary feeling was annoyance. She had apparently underestimated his feelings of entitlement. She reached over, seized the smallest finger on his offending hand and bent it back until he released her arm. Who do you think you are, he snarled as he pulled back his hand in a fist as if to hit her. She stepped to one side and pulled a bar stool between them. He knocked it out of the way and moved toward her. By this point, a number of the other customers could not pretend that they did not notice what was happening. A large man came up behind Bill and seized his arm, saying Forget her. Lets get a drink. No, he said as he shook off the other mans hold. He turned back toward where Marianne had been standing, saying I dont take ..., but by the time he had turned, she was gone. During the momentary interruption, she had slipped away. Where is she? he demanded of everyone close to him as he looked wildly around the room. As Marianne walked down the street, she sighed quietly. She was simply grateful that she had not had to hurt anything except her would-be Romeos overweening pride.
1

Remember that a noun phrase is a noun or pronoun head and all of its modifiers.

A predicate is a verb phrase and all its modifiers, complements and objects. Typically a predicate is everything in the clause except the subject.

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Chapter 5 NPs and their Functions

Review of NPs Definition of a noun phrase: A noun or pronoun head and all of its modifiers. Let's go over all the NPs in the sentence below: Gaggles of goblins attacked some cute witches with black, well-worn broomsticks. What is the first NP in this sentence? Not gaggles--it is a noun, but it has a modifier, of goblins. What is the evidence for this identification? Try replacing the NP which has gaggles as its head with they. Is They of goblins attacked some cute witches with black, well-worn broomsticks okay? No. Try They attacked some cute witches with black, well-worn broomsticks. That is grammatical, suggesting that the entire NP is gaggles of goblins, not just gaggles. What evidence is there that gaggles is not a modifier of goblins? It could be a new predeterminer (notice that it can't be an adjective phrase). It marks number (a gaggle vs. gaggles) which suggests that it's a noun. But, notice something else, goblins can be replaced with a personal pronoun: Gaggles of them. This suggests that goblins is a separate NP that does not include gaggles (or of). Notice also that the pronoun that replaces goblins is them, while the pronoun which replaces gaggles of goblins is they, suggesting that these two NPs fill different functions in the sentence. So there are two NPs: Gaggles of goblins (which has a head noun gaggles and a prepositional modifier of goblins) and goblins (which has only a head noun goblins and no modifiers). [Gaggles of {goblins}] attacked some cute witches with black, well-worn broomsticks. What other nouns appear in the sentence? Witches and broomsticks. So there are probably two more NPs. If we try the pronoun substitution test, we discover something curious: Both Gaggles of goblins attacked them with black, well-worn broomsticks and Gaggles of goblins attacked them are okay. And the second paraphrase actually works if they refers to the some cute witches with black, well-worn broomsticks. What's going on here? The first paraphrase suggest that we have a NP some cute witches, while the second suggests a NP some cute witches with black, well-worn broomsticks. Stop and think. There are two different analyses of this sentence! This is an ambiguous sentence: it has two readings. In one reading, the goblins use broomsticks to attack witches; in the other, goblins attack witches who are equipped with broomsticks. In both these analyses black, well-work broomsticks is an NP (replaceable with them). The NPs in the two readings differ only in what the NP which has witches as its head is. Reading 1: [Gaggles of {goblins}] attacked [some cute witches] with [black, wellworn broomsticks]. (meaning "Gaggles of goblins used black, well-worn broomsticks to attack some cute witches")

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Reading 2: [Gaggles of {goblins}] attacked [some cute witches with {black, well-worn broomsticks}]. (meaning "Gaggles of goblins attacked some cute witches who had black, well-worn broomsticks") Now practice picking out the NPs in the following paragraph: In some houses, the front door is in an entryway; in other houses, the front door opens directly to the living room. In newer houses, storage in the form of attics has been replaced by closets. The modern American house has changed most obviously in the amount of floorspace and number of bathrooms. By the 1970s, the size of a new house in the U.S. would average around 1500 square feet, while in 2003 the average square footage has increased to 2300. Similarly the number of bathrooms has been going up for the last thirty years. Subjects Subject is a grammatical function typically filled by a noun phrase. In a simple sentence, the subject is always a noun phrase; in a complex sentence the subjects may be noun phrases or clauses. We're going to work on the properties of subject noun phrases of finite clauses (some of which are shared by different kinds of subordinate clauses and some of which are not -- we'll talk more about this later in our discussion of subordination). Some of the properties we already know about: we've been talking about subject-verb agreement since chapter two. Agreement: In standard English, a past tense form of be or a present tense form of a non-modal verb agrees in person and number with the subject. So They are helping me is grammatical, but *They is/am helping me is not. The verb does not agree with any object or possessor or adverbial, etc. We've also noted in chapter 3 that some pronouns mark case. Case of Pronoun: In standard English, if the subject of a finite verb is a personal pronoun, then it must be a subject case pronoun. So They are helping me is grammatical, but *Their/them are helping me is not. The subject case pronoun can also be used for subject complements, as in This is she. Subject complements, however, except in the highest register, can also be in the object case (and, in fact, more typically are), as in This is her, while subjects cannot be. Active/Passive: The subject of an active corresponds to the object of by in the passive. So the subject of the active A car hit Mary corresponds to the object of by in the passive Mary was hit by a car. The subject of the passive corresponds to the first object of the active paraphrase. So the subject of the passive Mary was hit by a car corresponds to the object in the active A car hit Mary. Form of Question: In many types of questions, the subject is found in a specific place.

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Tag Question: One kind of tag question has a tag which consists of a copy of the first verb of the verb phrase of the clause to which is is tagged (if it is an auxiliary or a form of be) or if there is no eligible verb, the verb do, plus a pronoun which refers to the subject of that clause. If the clause to which the tag is attached is positive, the tag must be negative; if the clause is negative, the tag must be positive. So, You can help me, can't you? and The children don't like candy, do they? are fine; but *You can help me, can't I and *The children don't like candy, does it? are not. So the pronoun in the tag must share the referent of the subject of the clause to which it is attached. Yes-No Question: The NP immediately following the operator in a yes-no question must be the subject. So in Can you help me?, you is the subject and in Don't the children like candy?, the children is the subject. Wh- Questions: If the subject contains or is what is being questioned (contains or is the wh- word), it will be first in the sentence and no NP will immediately follow the first verb in the VP if the VP is more than one word long. So in Whose book is lying on the table?, whose book is the subject, since no other potential subject follows the first verb in a multiword VP, and in Who can help me?, who is the subject, since no other potential subject follows the first verb in the VP. Any NP which immediately follows the first verb in a multiword VP in a wh- is the subject, so in Who can you help?, you is the subject. If the VP is only one word-long and not a form of be, then the phrase containing the whword at the beginning of the sentence must be the subject, so in Who helped you?, who is the subject and in Whose dog barked?, whose dog is the subject. If the VP is a form of be and an NP follows it and that NP is not part of another clause or an adverbial, that NP will be the subject, so in Who is that guy in the funny hat? that guy in the funny hat is the subject. Notice that if it is replaced by a personal pronoun, that pronoun must be in the subject case, so Who is he? not *Who is him? which you would expect would be possible if that guy in the funny hat was the subject complement and not the subject. On the other hand, in Who is home? home is not the subject, but an adverbial. Can you find a test that demonstrates this? A Digression: Definitions of the Subject These properties alone work to distinguish subjects of finite clauses. Many textbooks however like to give another kind of definition for subjects. They provide either semantic definitions, usually something like "The subject 'does the action' expressed by the verb" or discourse definitions, usually something like "The subject is what the sentence is about. The semantic definition therefore defines the subject as the agent, while the discourse definition defines the subject as the topic. Subject as Agent: It is relatively easy to find sentences in which the subject is not the agent. Consider Olive is brilliant, I was seriously injured in a car accident, It is raining, or The resistance worker suffered torture at the hands of the Gestapo. In these sentences, either there is

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no action or what action there is may not have an agent or the agent is something else in the sentences, not the subject. Consider the actions in these two sentences: He is giving me money and I am getting money from him. Do they describe different events? Different people doing different things? No. However, in the first sentence he is the subject and in the second I is. (Check both agreement and case-marking to confirm this claim.) This definition doesn't seem to work. It is clear that different verbs restrict the range of semantics roles their subjects can fill: A verb like melt in an active clause may have a subject which is an agent, as in Mary melted the ice (with a blowtorch); an instrument, as in The blowtorch melted the ice; or the patient, as in The ice melted. A verb like see in an active clause may only have a subject which is a perceiver, as in Mary saw me; but not an instrument, *The binoculars saw me; or a patient, *I saw (in which I is who is seen). Part of the definition of a verb in a competent dictionary will include the range of semantic roles the subject may fill. We can also note something else: though melt allows three different kinds of subject, if the agent is present in an active clause, it must be the subject. We can say Mary melted the ice with a blowtorch, but not *The blowtorch melted the ice with Mary. Subject as Topic: It is also relatively easy to find sentences in which this definition will not work. In many sentences, the subject is what is sometimes called a dummy as in It's raining outside. Is this sentence about it? What is it? How about cases where there is a overt topic which is not the subject, like As for education, they have hardly any or Speaking of music, do you want to go to the concert tonight? In these two sentences, the overt topics (education and music) are not the subjects; they and you are. Moreover, for stylistic reasons, English teachers often encourage students to recast sentences to make the topic the subject -- however, the original sentences would not be possible if the subject had to be the topic. In the end we have to fall back on grammatical properties to determine the subject. Practice with Subjects Now let's try picking out the subjects of each of the finite clauses in the sentences we worked through in the NP section above Look at the first sentence:

Sentence 1: In some houses, the front door is in an entryway; in other houses, the front door opens directly to the living room. o Clause 1: In some houses, the front door is in an entryway

What is the subject of the first clause, In some houses, the front door is in an entryway? We've found three NPs in the first clause: some houses, the front door, and an entryway. Any of them might be the subject of some clause, but in this clause only one of them actually is. How can we tell which one? Some tests are difficult to use with this sentence. Replacing the subject with a pronoun and checking the case won't help, because the pronoun would be it and it is used for both subjects and objects. Testing using wh- questions is difficult to use when the operator is the lexical verb

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be because both subjects and subject complements can immediately follow the lexical verb be. The passive/active test won't help, because be doesn't have a passive version. However, several tests remain: Verb Agreement Let's start by picking out the verb phrase of this clause. The verb phrase of this clause is is -- which indicates that the subject of the clause is singular (and third person, but since all of the NPs in this clause are third person, that is not relevant to any argument about what is the subject of this clause). Since the subject is singular, that eliminates some houses, which is plural. But the front door and an entryway are singular. Let's change the number of each of these NPs and see which forces the verb to change, so In some houses the front doors is in an entryway is ungrammatical, the clause must be In some houses, the front doors are in an entryway. In some houses the front door is in an entryways is semantically weird, but not ungrammatical. Therefore, the front door must be the subject. Forms of Questions Is this clause a question? No. We can't just read off the information as we could if this sentence was a question. We can, however, turn it into a question. Tag Question: Let's consider how we might turn In some houses, the front door is in an entryway into tag question. We copy the operator (in this case is) and make it negative (since the clause is positive) and then put in a pronoun that refers to the subject, in this case it: In some houses, the front door is in an entryway, isn't it? Our problem here is that it might refer either to the front door or to an entryway (since they are both third person singular neuter noun phrases). (it cannot refer to some houses since that NP is plural.) We can distinguish by changing one of them to plural and seeing if it forces the pronoun in the tag to change as well. So if we change the front door to the front doors, In some houses the front doors are in an entryway, arent they? is okay, but *In some houses the front doors are in an entryway, arent/isnt it? is not. This suggests that it in the singular version must refer not to and entryway, but to the front door. Therefore, the front door must be the subject. Yes-No Question: Let's turn In some houses, the front door is in an entryway into a yesno question: In some houses, is the front door in an entryway? In the yes-no question, the NP immediately following the operator is the front door. The NP immediately following the operator in a yes-no question is the subject. Therefore, the front door must be the subject. Note that all the three tests indicated the same NP, the front door, as the subject. Any one of these tests, by itself, would be sufficient, but it's comforting to see that all the tests indicate the same thing. Sentence 1: In some houses, the front door is in an entryway; in other houses, the front door opens directly to the living room. o Clause 2: in other houses, the front door opens directly to the living room.

What tests are difficult to use with this clause? Replacing the subject with a pronoun and checking the case won't help, because the pronoun would be it and it is used for both subjects

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and objects. The passive/active test won't help, because open in this intransitive sense doesn't have a passive version. Verb Agreement Let's start by picking out the verb phrase of this clause. The verb phrase of this clause is opens -- which indicates that the subject of the clause is singular (and third person, but since all the NPs in this clause are third person, that is not relevant to any argument about what is the subject of this clause). Since the subject is singular, that eliminates other houses, which is plural. But both the front door and the living room are singular. If we change the number of those two NPs independently, we get *in other houses, the front doors opens directly to the living room and in other houses and the front door opens directly to the living rooms. If we change the front door to the front doors, the sentence is ungrammatical, unless we also change the verb from opens to open; if we change the living room to the living rooms, no such issue arises. Therefore, we can see that the verb opens is agreeing with the front door, so the front door must be the subject. Forms of Questions Is this clause a question? No. We can't just read off the information as we could if this sentence was a question. We can, however, turn it into a question. Tag Question: Let's consider how we might turn in most cases in other houses, the front door opens directly to the living room into tag question. We copy the operator if there is one, if not we must insert the appropriate form of do (in this case, does) and make it negative (since the clause is positive) and then put in a pronoun that refers to the subject, in this case it: in other houses, the front door opens directly to the living room, doesn't it? it might refer either to the front door or to the living room (since they are both third person singular neuter noun phrases). (it cannot refer to other houses since those NPs are plural.) We can distinguish by changing one of them to plural and seeing if it forces the pronoun in the tag to change as well. So if we change the living room to the living rooms, in other houses, the front door opens directly to the living rooms, doesn't it? is okay, suggesting that it must refer not to the living room(s_, but to the front door. Therefore, the front door must be the subject. Yes-No Question: Let's turn in other houses, the front door opens directly to the living room into a yes-no question: in other houses, does the front door open directly to the living room? In the yes-no question, the NP immediately following the operator is the living room. The NP immediately following the operator in a yes-no question is the subject. Therefore, the cooking must be the subject. Wh- Questions: Let's try replacing each of the in the sentence with interrogative pronouns: 1. In what does the front door open directly to the living room? [other houses] 2. In other houses, what opens directly to the living room? [The front door] 3. In other houses, what does the front door open directly to? (or In other houses, to what does the front door open directly?) [the living room]

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In (1) and (3) the NP immediately following the operator is the front door. The NP in a question which immediately follows the operator (unless the operator is the lexical verb be) must be the subject. Therefore, the front door must be the subject. In (2), no NP follows the operator--there is no operator. In a wh- question, the only time an NP does not follow the operator (and the only time there doesn't have to be an operator) is when the wh- pronoun is the subject. In this case the wh- pronoun replaced the front door. Therefore, the cooking must be the subject.

Sentence 2: In newer houses, storage in the form of attics has been replaced by closets.

In this sentence there is only one finite clause, so we'll work directly on that. In this case the case of the pronoun wont work since the subject here is a third person singular neuter NP, which would be it, which does not distinguish between subject and object case. Verb agreement: The first verb in the VP is hasa present tense non-modal auxilary, which is marked to indicate that it has a third person singular subject. Of the five NPs in this sentence, three are plural, newer houses, attics, and closets, while two are singular, storage in the form of attics and the form of attics. the form of attics is the object of the preposition in, and part of a larger NP storage in the form of attics, so the form of attics cannot be a subject, therefore the verb must be agreeing with storage in the form of attics. Active/Passive: This is a passive clause. (Notice the passive auxiliary be followed by the past participle of replace and the by-phrase.) The subject of the passive corresponds to the first object of the active paraphrase. The active paraphrase of this sentence is In newer houses, closets have replaced storage in the form of attics. The first object of the verb replace is storage in the form of attics which should corresponds to the subject in the passive. Therefore, storage in the form of attics must be the subject. Forms of Questions Again this sentence is not a question, but it can be converted to a question. Tag Question: Turning this sentence into a tag question would give us In newer houses, storage in the form of attics has been replaced by closets, hasnt it? The it in the tag must refer back to the storage in the form of attics in the main clause. The only other singular NP in the sentence, the form of attics, is inside another NP, and as noted above, the subject of a clause must be directly in that clause -- it cannot be in another NP or another clause. Therefore, storage in the form of attics must be the subject. Yes-No Question: In newer houses, has storage in the form of attics been replaced by closets? The NP immediately after the operator has is storage in the form of attics. Therefore, storage in the form of attics must be the subject. Wh- Questions: 1. In what, has storage in the form of attics been replaced by closets? 2. In newer houses what has been replaced by closets?

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3. In newer houses, what has storage in the form of attics been replaced by? (or In new houses, by what has storage in the form of attics been replaced?) In (1) and (3) the NP immediately following the operator is storage in the form of attics. The NP in a question which immediately follows the operator (unless the operator is the lexical verb be) must be the subject. Therefore, storage in the form of attics must be the subject. In (2), no NP follows the operator. In a wh- question, the only time an NP does not follow the operator is when the wh- pronoun is the subject. In this case the wh- pronoun replaced storage in the form of attics. Therefore, storage in the form of attics must be the subject.

Sentence 3: . The modern American house has changed most obviously in the amount of floorspace and number of bathrooms.

This is a sentence with one finite clause. Its subject is The modern American house. How can you tell?

Sentence 4 In the 1970s, the size of a new house in the U.S. would average around 1500 square feet, while in 2003 the average square footage has increased to 2300. o Clause 1 By the 1970s, the size of a new house in the U.S. would average around 1500 square feet, while in 2003 the average square footage has increased to 2300.

This sentence has two finite clauses, one of which contains the other. The main clause (clause 1) contains the finite subordinate clause (clause 2 below). The question tests can be used on the main clause, but not on the subordinate clause since they affect only main clauses. The subject of this clause is the size of a new house in the U.S.,. How can you tell?
o

Clause 2: while in 2003 the average square footage has increased to 2300.

This is a finite subordinate clause, that is, it is a finite clause which serves a grammatical role in another clause. You cannot turn a subordinate clause into a question, so the forms of the questions would not make relevant arguments here. Instead, you should try the other tests. The subject of this clause is the average square footage. Giving evidence to support the identification of the average square footage as the subject of this clause requires a bit of ingenuity.

Sentence 5: Similarly the number of bathrooms has been going up for the last thirty years.

This is a sentence with one finite clause whose subject is the number of bathrooms. How can you tell that the number of bathrooms is the subject?

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Special Subjects There are a couple of constructions in which more than one structure seems to act like the subject or in which no structure appears to have all the properties of a subject. These cases often seem to involve proforms which don't have antecedents: it and there. These are often called dummies, because they seem to fill a grammatical function without having any semantic content at all. We've already met it above in sentences like It's raining and It's sunny, in which it does not appear to have any referent. However, it is clearly the subject. The verb form must be a third singular form (is or was); it will follow the operator in a yes-no question -- Is it raining? Is it sunny? The pronoun in a tag question is always it, It's sunny, isn't it? For all available tests, it is clearly the subject. We also have sentences like It is obvious that Charley should be awarded the prize, It was clear to everyone that Marianne had come in first, and It was hard to understand what the children were saying. In these sentences it is traditional to say that the it refers to the clause that comes later in the sentence: in these cases that Charley should be awarded the prize, that Marianne had come in first, and to understand what the children were saying. This analysis is based on the fact that these sentences have paraphrases like That Charley should be awarded the prize is obvious, That Marianne had come in first was clear to everyone, and To understand what the children were saying was hard. But these structures are clearly special, since in all these cases the pronoun it must precede the antecedent clause. Typically, as we know, personal pronouns like it follow the NPs which serve as their antecedents. However, for all testable properties, in sentences like these, it, no matter what it may mean, serves as the subject of the main clause. There are sentences like There are sixteen gray sloths in my kitchen and There was a strange man standing right here. What are the subjects in these sentences? The structure of these sentences are fairly restricted: they all contain a there which is not an adverbial meaning a distant place, as in A strange man was standing there, since the there in these sentences can cooccur with here, as in the example above (and as it cannot in something like *A strange man was standing there here, which is obviously no good). They all contain a form of be (as in the examples above, and There had been a witch writing spells at this desk earlier today) or other existential verb (as in Suddenly there appeared a ghostly figure in the fog or There exists only one kind of ghoul at this party). The noun phrase which follows the existential verb is always indefinite. The verb phrase appears to agree with the noun phrase following the existential verb. If we were going to rely on overt agreement alone, we'd probably go along with the analysis which treats the NP which follows the existential verb as the subject of the clause. It is clear however that the subject of the main clause must be there. If we use this construction in a yes-no or other question, there always follows the operator, as in 1. 2. 3. Where are there sixteen gray sloths? Was there a strange man standing right here? Had there been a witch writing spells at this desk earlier today?

and in tag questions, the pronoun in the tag must be there, as in

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4. 5.

There exists only one kind of ghoul at this party, doesn't there? *doesn't he? There was a strange man standing right here, wasn't there? *wasn't he?

A simple way to account for these data is to assume that there are two pronouns there, one singular and one plural, which must agree with the number of the NP which immediately follows the existential verb. It may seem odd to have a form which covers both these meanings -- but remember the English pronominal system has a lot of homophony; it, for example, is both subject case and object case. You is both subject case and object case, singular and plural. This use of there contrasts with the adverbial use in several ways. Weve already noted that it can cooccur with here, unlike the adverbial there. Locative adverbials can precede the verb as in There stood the ghost of the minstrels tale and Here comes the bride. Notice that these cannot cooccur with semantically contrastive adverbials, so *There stood the ghost of the minstrels tale here and *Here comes the bride there are both ungrammatical. If we try to make these sentences into questions there and here do not act like subjects. In yesno questions, notice *Did there stand the ghost of the minstrels tale and *Does here come the bride, which put there or here after the operator, are ungrammatical. Instead to convert these sentences into yes-no questions, you must put the NP which follows the verb: Did the ghost of the minstrels tale stand there? and Does the bride come here? Similarly consider the tag questions: There stood the ghost of the ministrels tale, didnt he? and Here comes the bride, doesnt she? are grammatical, while *There stood the ghost of the ministrels tale, didnt there and *Here comes the bride, doesnt here? are ungrammatical. Why? Objects There are three different kinds of objects: direct objects, indirect objects and objects of prepositions. All objects share one property: If the object is a pronoun, it must be in the object case. 6. 7. 8. John saw me/*I. (The pronoun is a direct object.) John gave me/*I a gift. (The pronoun is an indirect object.) John talked to me/*I. (The pronoun is a prepositional object.)

Direct Objects If a verb has only one object, then it will be a direct object (DO). 9. 10. 11. That cat ate the mouse. He considers them fools. She finished her homework last week.

If there is an indirect object, the order is typically V IO DO (and NEVER V DO IO), as in 12. They built her a house.
V IO DO

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13.

The teacher gave the students a serious talking-to.

V IO DO

If the direct object is the only object, then it will be the same as the subject of the passive paraphrase: 14. The mouse was eaten by the cat.

(The subject of (14) is the same as the direct object of (9).) A Digression: Definitions of the Direct Object Many textbooks however like to give another kind of definition for direct object. They provide a semantic definition, usually something like "The direct object 'receives the action' expressed by the verb". The semantic definition therefore defines the direct object as the patient. As you might expect from all prior experience in this book, this definition doesn't work. Notice that in a sentence like Mary saw the Eiffel Tower, the Eiffel Tower is the direct object, but it's hard to see exactly what it receives. How about Marvin knows French? Here French is the direct object, what does it receive? In the sentence The resistance worker suffered torture at the hands of the gestapo, the only one receiving anything is the resistance worker--which is, of course the subject. In a passive like The mouse was eaten by the cat, there is no direct object, but the mouse is the patient -- it undergoes the action. Indirect Objects Indirect objects (IOs) typically cooccur with and precede direct objects. 15.
V IO DO V V V IO IO DO DO IO DO

They built her a house.

16. I gave them the notes. 17. John found those children a useful book. 18. Will you play me a game of chess? Sentences with VP IO DO predicates have a paraphrase in which the NP which serves as the IO is instead an the object of a preposition, as in 19. 20. 21. 22. They build a house for her I gave the notes to them. John found a useful book for those children. Will you play a game of chess with me?

Usually, the preposition is to or for, as in (19)-(21), though occasionally it is another preposition as in (22). Direct objects in constructions with indirect objects cannot be unstressed pronouns, so

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23. *John found those children it. is ungrammatical. To convey the same information, you must either use a stressed NP as the direct object as in (17) or you must use the prepositional phrase construction as in (24) 24. John found it for those children.

The passive paraphrase of a sentence with an indirect object will have the indirect object of the active, not the direct object of the active, as its subject, so the passives of (15) - (17) are 25. 26. 27. She was built a house by them. They were given the notes by me. Those children were found a useful book by John.

To make the direct object into the subject of the passive, you must start with one of the versions without an indirect object (as in (19) - (21)), which gives 28. 29. 30. A house was built for her by them. The notes were given to her by me. A useful book was found for those children by John.

Indirect objects don't have to be people, so in 31. 32. I gave the problem a lot of thought. Can you give this task your full attention?

the indirect objects are the problem and this task, respectively. Objects of Prepositions Objects of prepositions (OPs) typically immediately follow the prepositions they are objects of. 33. Mary talked to me. 34. During the winter I get sick of snow. 35. We should go to the movies after the meeting. 36. A little old man lives in the house on the corner. The only times they don't were discussed when we talked about PPs in Chapter 4. Typically if the preposition can be moved, the OP moves with it. So we can say 37. a. I get sick of snow during the winter. b. During the winter I get sick of snow. but not

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38. and 39. but not 40. 41.

*During I get sick of snow the winter.

In the house on the corner lives a little old man.

*In lives a little old man the house on the corner. *In the house on lives a little old man the corner.

Complements We've already talked about subject complements and object complements in Chapter 4. Just as these complements can be adjective phrases (as in (42) and (43), they can be noun phrases (as in (44) and (45)). 42. 43. 44. 45. Those children are quite brilliant. I consider Evelyn idiotic. Those children are real geniuses. I consider Evelyn an idiot. (Adjective Phrase quite brilliant = Subject Complement) (Adjective Phrase idiotic = Object Complement) (Noun Phrase real geniuses = Subject Complement) (Noun Phrase an idiot = Object Complement)

Subject Complements Subject complement (SC) NPs, just like direct or indirect objects, typically immediately follow the VP. 46. I am the person in charge. 47. These students will become doctors. SC NPs, if they are personal or wh- pronouns, can be either in subject or object case: 48. I am she/her. (There is a difference in formality.) Notice that if the subject is at all long, then subject case pronominal SCs sound very odd, 49. The little girl in the front row in the blue dress is her/?she. SCs must, by definition, refer to the subject. A direct or indirect object can refer to the same referent as the subject, but when they do, they must be reflexive pronouns, 50. I saw myself. (DO is coreferential with the subject.) 51. I told myself a story. (IO is coreferential with the subject.) However, any NP as a subject complement must be coreferential with the subject. Compare 52. I am a doctor.

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with 53. I need a doctor. In (52) a doctor and I must refer to the same individual; in (53), a doctor and I cannot refer to the same individual. Only a limited set of verbs can take a subject complement NP -- most typically be and become. Object Complements Object complements (OCs) (whether adjective phrases or noun phrases) typically immediately follow the DO. 54. I consider Mary a godsend. (Compare (54) to I consider Mary wonderful in which the object complement is an adjective phrase.) 55. John found those books a useful supplement to the textbook. (Compare (55) to John found those books useful in which the object complement is an adjective phrase.) OCs typically are not personal pronouns at all. Since an object complement predicates something about the direct object, it is difficult to think of a semantically appropriate sentence with a personal pronoun as an object complement -- I called Mary her? I found the children them? OCs, like SCs, have a forced reference. OCs must refer to the direct object, so in (54) the godsend must be Mary and in (55) the a useful supplement to the text must be those books. Determiners NPs as determiners are always in the possessive (genitive) case. They are therefore distinct in form. 56. Ben's dog ran away. 57. That man's dog bit my cat. Like all determiners, there can only be one possessive NP modifying a head noun; they immediately follow any predeterminers and precede the noun and any attributive adjective phrases. 58. All the teacher's rowdy children came over at once. 59. That strange man's fury scared me.

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Notice that the attributive adjective phrase in (59) does not modify fury, but man (the head of the determiner NP.) Appositives Appositive NPs must be coreferential (that is, they must refer to the same individual or group). Typically, there are two units in apposition (though there can be more) and they are right next to each other. Occasionally you find the second unit of the apposition postposed, as in A threatening figure stood at the door, an armed policeman (=A threatening figure, an armed policeman, stood at the door.). There are overt markers of apposition: namely, in other words, such as among others. 60. The current governor of Washington, Christine Gregoire, spoke at WSU last year. In (60), the second appositive is not needed to pick out a possible referent for the first -- instead it is non-restrictive. Since there is only one current governor of Washington, we don't need the name Christine Gregoire to know who the speaker/writer is talking about. Notice that the subject of (60) is The current governor of Washington, Christine Gregoire; The current governor of Washington is an appositive, as is Christine Gregoire. Any time you identify one NP as an appositive, you need to be able find at least one other NP which it is in apposition to (also an appositive). Sometimes, the second or later appositive is needed to pick out the appropriate referent for the first -- it may be restrictive, as in (61). Since it is possible for the speaker to have more than one sister, my sister does not necessarily identify a single unique individual or group - the addition of Kate, however, makes the NP uniquely identifying. Notice that in (55), a comma separates the two appositives, but in (20) no comma separates the two appositives, my sister and Kate. 61. My sister Kate lives in California.

It is possible to have more than two appositives within a single NP, as in (56). 62. My friend Charley, a teacher, a writer, the former president of Bluefish Lovers of America, lives in a little town in Vermont. The appositives in (62) are (1) My friend, (2) Charley, (3) a teacher, (4) a writer, and (5) the former president of Bluefish Lovers of America. The subject of (62) is My friend Charley, a teacher, a writer, the former president of Bluefish Lovers of America. Adverbials Adverbial NPs cover a much more restricted semantic range than other adverbials. They can express time and space measures and can be manner adverbials (but only when the head of the NP is way). 63. Last week I worked every morning.

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64. I walk six miles every day. 65. Those guys finished that job the hard way. Adverbial NPs differ from other NPs in that they can never be pronouns. The proform must be a proadverbial: 66. Then I worked every morning/*It I worked every morning.

Adverbials can often be moved around in the clause without changing the meaning of the sentence; adverbial NPs can be moved around similarly as in 67. I worked every morning last week. 68. Last week I worked every morning. 69. Every morning last week I worked. V NP Structures Three different grammatical structures can consist of the surface order V NP: 70. V DO: His friends replaced the audience. 71. V SC: His friends were the audience. 72. V Advbl: His friends departed the following week. How the different structures be distinguished? (1) Only a transitive clause (a clause with a direct object) can have a passive paraphrase, so we can see that (70) has a passive paraphrase The audience was replaced by his friends, but (71) and (72) do not have passive paraphrases since *The audience was been by his friends and *The following week was departed by his friends are ungrammatical. So in (70), the NP following the verb must be a direct object. (2) Any kind of an object will be in the object case if it is replaced by a personal pronoun. Subject complements can be either subject or object case if a personal pronoun. Adverbial NPs cannot be replaced by personal pronouns at all, but they can be replaced by adverbial proforms (then, there, thus(ly)). So if you replace the NP after the verb in (70) it would be His friends replaced them, but not *His friends replaced they; in (71) it would be His friends were them or His friends were they; in (72) it would be His friends left then, but not *His friends departed it. Can you see other ways to distinguish the roles of these NPs? V NP NP Structures Four different grammatical structures can consist of the surface order V NP NP: 73. V IO DO: Annie found the boss a replacement for his secretary. 74. V DO OC: Annie considered the boss a moron.

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75. V DO Advbl: Annie found a replacement for the boss's secretary the very next day. 76. V SC Advbl: Annie became the boss the very next day. Can you see parallel ways to distinguish the roles of these NPs? NP Practice Identify each of the NPs and their functions in the the sentences below. When I was young, our family had a series of neurotic pets. A memorable example was our grey, formerly feral cat, Simba. Simba had an overwhelming sense of entitlement. Most particularly, he considered the entire block his territory. When I say the entire block, Im not limiting the term to the yards. An older couple lived next door to us. They had a miniature poodle, Frenchie. Frenchie would leave their house through the small dog door every day and sit on the grass of their front lawn. He would yip at every passing pedestrian. One day Simba noticed something: he was larger than Frenchie! While this was an unfortunate discovery from Frenchies point of view, it apparently inspired Simba. Taking off at top speed, Simba aimed right at Frenchie. Frenchie began to yip, but rapidly realized that his high-pitched barking was not going to save him. He skittered to the dog door as fast as his short legs could carry him. He made it into his house just ahead of Simba. He should have been safe in his own territory, but he wasnt. Simba ran right through the dog door into the house without a seconds hesitation. Frenchie ran behind his mistress in hopes that she would intimidate the cat, but Simba continued to chase him, complete unfazed by the presence of the woman. Frenchie had one advantage: he knew the layout of the house. This knowledge gave him a split second lead as he headed toward the stairs. As Frenchie ran up the stairs, he took a left into the first bedroom and slid under the bed. Simba followed closely, but Frenchie hooked around and ran out the door. His mistress followed them both up the stairs and scooped French in her arms. She slammed the door to the bedroom. She carried Frenchie into the bathroom and closed him in it. Then she returned to her bedroom and looked briefly at Simba. Simba was a big cat, a very big cat. She backed out of the bedroom and shut the door. She walked over to our house and knocked on the door. I answered and she described what had happened to my mounting horror. I accompanied her to her house and she sent me up to the bedroom. I can only suppose that Simba had realized that he was in trouble, because he was hiding under the bed, just out of my reach. I lay down and crept under the bed and tried to grab him, but he kept edging away from me. I ran back to my house. I called my younger brother, Joey, and grabbed a broom. We went back next door where I swept the broom under the bed and my brother seized Simba has he ran from his hiding place just ahead of the broom. Joey carried the cat home, while I went to apologize to Frenchies owner. Frenchie was shaking in her arms. After a series of abject apologies, I backed out of the house in embarrassment.

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Chapter 6: Coordination and Ellipsis

Coordination Conjunctions The coordinators or coordinating conjunctions are a closed class with four members: and, or, nor, but. If two items are coordinated then the coordinator or coordinating conjunction must come between the two conjuncts.1 If there are more than two conjuncts in the coordination, then the coordinator must appear between the last two conjuncts,2 or between all the conjuncts.3 If the coordination contains only two conjuncts, you can use correlatives: a coordinating conjunction between the two conjuncts and an endorsing item before the first conjunct. Correlatives consist of an endorsing item before the first conjunct and a coordinating conjunction between the two conjuncts. There are three correlative sets: either...or, both...and, neither...nor What can be coordinated? First we need to separate two kinds of coordination. We can coordinate two or more complete constituents. That kind of coordination we can call simple coordination. In that kind of coordination we can coordinate just about any two (or more) constituents of the same kind, so we can coordinate, among other things,

complete clauses: 4 o They sang and they danced. o After you arrive and when I get the signal, I'll introduce you. complete predicates: Mary has left and should be arriving soon. complete NPs: All the children and both the adults enjoyed the movie.[1] complete VPs: Mary might read, but won't enjoy that book. complete AdjPs o N-Modifiers: Old and very valuable stuff is sometimes fragile. o Predicate: Mary is fond of cats, but afraid of dogs. N heads: My father and mother live in California. Adjective heads: A very strange and confused person wandered in. Vs o Auxiliaries: I can and will help you. o Lexical/main verbs: George can study and learn any language in the world. AdvPs: Bill worked long and very hard. PPs: Mary is fond of cats and of dogs. Ps: I ran into and out of the house. Subordinating Conjunctions: When and if he comes, I'll see him.

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This is not a complete list of all the possible kinds of simple conjunction, but they should serve to give you the idea. In all of these examples constituents of the same type are coordinated to make a bigger constituent of that same type. The function of each underlined item is conjunct. So, in the NP example above, All the children is a noun phrase functioning as a conjunct; both the adults is a noun phrase functioning as a conjunct; and All the children and both the adults5 is a noun phrase functioning as the subject of the whole clause. If you think about it, you will realize that but acts differently from the other coordinators. First, it doesn't appear as part of a correlative conjunction. Second, it can only be used to conjoin two constituents. Third, it is more limited in what it can conjoin. It is easy to use but to conjoin two clauses, as in I wanted a raise, but I didn't get one, or two predicates, as in That guy works out a lot, but still looks wimpy or two adjective phrases, as in He is big, but weak, or two adverb phrases, as in She works fast, but carefully. As a coordinator of other kinds of constituents, but has a highly limited distribution. To coordinate NPs with but, for example, one (and only one) of the NPs must contain not, so Mary, but not Bill, should get the Nobel Peace Prize. Not Mary, but Bill should get the Nobel Peace Prize. are okay, but Mary, but Bill, should get the Nobel Peace Prize is not grammatical. PPs work the same way -- Charley went into the house, but not into the garage is okay; Charley went not into the house, but into the garage is okay; Charley went into the house, but into the garage is no good. But can be used to coordinate adverb phrases, but can't be used to coordinate adverbs, so She works very fast, but carefully does not include the meaning She works very fast, but very carefully -- that is, very only modifies fast, and not carefully. But can't be used to coordinate nouns, so *The man, but not woman, left early is ungrammatical. Now let's consider some other sentences. Try to locate the coordinating conjunctions in the sentence below and to identify each of the conjuncts and the structure of the constituent that is made up of the conjoined material. If there is an endorsing item, you should identify that as well. Example: That guy wants a new car or a new truck. The coordinating conjunction is or: That guy wants a new car or a new truck. The first conjunct is a new car and the second conjunct is a new truck: That guy wants a new car or a new truck. Each of the conjuncts is a noun phrase and the whole conjoined structure is also a noun phrase, in this case the direct object of want. Practice Analyzing Coordination: What are the coordinating conjunctions in the sentences below? What constituents are being conjoined? What kind of constituents are they? What is the role of each of the whole constituents containing the conjunction? 1. Each and every one of the children has done something horrendous or rather foolish. 2. Oscar and Mary want barbecued ribs, tacos or hamburgers for dinner tonight.

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3. He is neither tall nor very strong. 4. Sixteen or seventeen deranged professors attacked the apathetic students. 5. She likes onion bagels, but cant abide blueberry muffins. In some coordinations, one or more of the conjuncts is not a complete constituent -- there is something missing. This kind of coordinations is called complex coordination. This looks like coordination with ellipsis; in each of these conjoined structures, you can identify what piece of structure is missing and what word or phrase would fill that empty slot. For example, in Harvey was reading the book and Bill __ the magazine, the verb phrase is missing from the otherwise complete clause that makes up the second conjunct. In this sentence we not only know what that the VP is missing, but we also know what is should be -- was reading. You can also conjoin other material-- so I showed Mary a book and __ John a t.v. and __ the children a new set of Legos. In this example, the last two conjuncts consist of just an indirect object and a direct object -- which does not form any kind of a constituent (phrase). However, we interpret them as though there is a VP in the each conjunct and that VP is showed. Similarly I called Sue a genius and __ Hal a hero is grammatical, though the second conjunct is just a DO and an OC -- not any kind of complete phrase. If the VP appeared in the second conjunct, it would have to be called and the two conjuncts would both be predicates. Another kind of complex coordination can be found in I enjoy, but he hates, syntactic analysis. This construction is odd because it appears that the gap is in the first conjunct, where in all the other cases we've looked at so far the gap has been in later conjuncts. Note that the subject and the VP, without the DO, does not form a constituent. Ellipsis Ellipsis is a technical term for a hole or omission. When the grammatical structure would seem to call for a particular structure, but it's not there AND you could unambiguously tell what should fill that hole, that's an ellipsis. As Quirk and Greenbaum (A concise grammar of contemporary English, Harcourt, Brace, Javanovich, Pubs. 1973: 261) note "Ellipsis is most commonly used to avoid repetition, and in this respect it is like substitution." So we can avoid repeating happy by saying I'm happy if you are, instead of I'm happy if you are happy or by omitting the first come along by saying Those who want to can come along, instead of Those who want to come along can come along or the second come along by saying Those who want to come along can. Ellipsis as noted above is common in coordination. Some other examples of ellipsis include elliptical NPs, such as The tallest girl in the class is as smart as the shortest __. If you want some of that fruit, I can give you plenty __. Mary wanted the red dress and I gave her the blue __. and elliptical clauses and predicates, as in ellipsis of the lexical verb and its objects or complements: I'll finish the work when I can __. medial ellipsis: Charley will guard the children and Bill __ the animals. ellipsis of clause: He can go if he wants __.

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Summary of Discussion Coordination allows two or more items to be joined to make a larger item of the same type. In simple coordination the complete constituents (of almost any kind) are coordinated to constituents of the same type to make larger constituents of the same type. In complex coordination, one or more of the conjuncts does not form a constituent because something is missing (ellipted) from that material which is required for the conjunct to be a constituent. More Practice Analyzing Coordination: Identify the coordinating conjunction, what is being coordinated, and whether the coordination is simple or complex: 1. I made off with his money and he chased me down the street. 2. He was enraged and practically apoplectic, but his rage slowed him down. 3. I ran down First St. and up Main Avenue and then ducked into an open door. 4. He stopped on the corner of First and Main. 5. He looked up and down the street, but couldn't see me anywhere. 6. Suddenly a large man and tiny dog appeared behind me. 7. The man began shouting and the dog barking.
1

A conjunct is an item which is coordinated with another item. For example, in I sang and danced, sang is one conjunct and danced is another.

So there must be a coordinator between the last two conjuncts in something like I like Mary, Bill, Susan and John, not I like Mary, Bill, Susan, John. As in I like Mary and Bill and Susan and John

3 4

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Chapter 7: Subordinate Clauses

Clauses, as we have seen, can be coordinated with each other, so that the sentence consists of a set of conjuncts. A clause can also serve other grammatical functions inside another clause: A clause which serves a grammatical function (other than conjunct) inside another clause is called a subordinate clause. Subordinate clauses have specific structural features that distinguish them from main clauses and serve a range of grammatical functions (most of which we have already discussed in considering the grammatical functions of noun phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases and prepositional phrases). Structures A clause is a predicate and its subject (if it has one) and any clausal modifiers and subordinating conjunctions which relate the clause to other clauses. A main clause as we have noted before is always finite -- it always has a verb which is marked for tense and agreement (where appropriate) and it can contain a modal auxiliary and its subject (if a pronoun) will be in the subject case. Many subordinate clauses are finite clauses as well. 1. I said that I might go. (that I might go is a finite clause acting as a direct object in a larger clause.) 2. When she leaves the house, you should call me. (When she leaves the house is a finite clause acting as an adverbial in a larger clause.) 3. Marvin likes the woman who is helping him with the project. (who is helping him with the project is a finite clause that modifies the noun woman in the larger clause.) Nonfinite Clauses Many subordinate clauses, however, are nonfinite clauses. A nonfinite clause in English is distinguished by the fact that the first verb in the VP does not mark tense or agreement; it cannot be a modal auxiliary, and its subject (if there is one) is never in the subject case. There are four general types of nonfinite subordinate clauses -- infinitives, participles, gerunds, and verbless clauses. (Non-finite constituents are often traditionally treated as phrases, but in most modern analyses treat them as clauses.)

Infinitives Infinitives are VPs whose first V must be unmarked. There are two kinds of infinitives:

Full Infinitives: In full infinitives, the first (obligatorily unmarked) verb of the VP is preceded by to, as in 4. 5. 6. 7. For John to win would be amazing. I expect them to leave on time. Mary is working hard to make money. To believe in magic requires a high level of gullibility.

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Full infinitives can appear with subjects as in (4) and (5) or without as in (6) and (7). Bare Infinitives: In bare infinitives, the first (obligatorily unmarked) verb of the VP is not preceded by to, as in 8. I made Sue leave. 9. The children are watching him dance. 10. They won't let me help him. In almost all cases bare infinitives have subjects; the verb help can occur with subjectless bare infinitives. In both kinds of infinitives, the subject (if there is one) is in the object case, so a finite version of the subordinate clause in (9) would be He dances, but the infinitive form has an object case subject him and the verb doesn't mark tense or agreement -- it is obligatorily unmarked. It is perfectly possible to say 11. They want him to be able to look after himself. but 12. *They want him to can look after himself is ungrammatical, because modal auxiliaries cannot appear in infinitive VPs. Infinitives can appear in different aspects and voices, so 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. I expect to be working tomorrow. (Progressive Active) Marge wanted to have left already. (Perfect Active) The teachers expected us to have been working for the last hour. (Perfect Progressive) I want to be honored by my peers for my brilliant discoveries. (Simple Passive) I want my peers to honor me for my brilliant discoveries. (Simple Active)

The subject of an infinitive is always in the object case if it appears all. Bare infinitives always have subject; full infinitives sometimes have overt subjects and sometimes don't, depending on the structure of the rest of the sentence. So 18. 19. 20. 21. I want him to leave. (him is the subject of to leave) I want to leave. (no subject for to leave) I made him leave. (him is the subject of leave) *I made leave.

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Participles

Participle clauses are clauses in which the first verb in the VP is a participle. As we already know, participles are of two kinds: present or -ing participles and past or en/ed participles. Present participle and past participle are, in fact, the traditional names, but they are quite misleading since neither participle provides any information about tense, so in The man covered with paint is decorating the living room, covered with paint is a past participle clause, but it isn't set in the past; in The general leading the rebel forces was George Washington, leading the rebel forces is a present participle, but it isn't set in the present. -en/ed participles are sometimes also called passive participles (presumably because the form is used in passive VPs, as well as in perfect VPs); this label is less misleading since -en/ed participle clauses are always passive in sense, while -ing participles can be active or passive. 22. The contestant knowing the most answers will win the game.. 23. The victim splattered with blood stood helpless. 24. While being treated for his injuries by the intern, Charley talked to me about his accident. -en participle clauses never show variation in aspect, but -ing clauses can be perfect or perfect progressive, as well as simple. 25. Having sat here all day, Evelyn was completely bored. 26. The performers were exhausted, having been singing for hours. As with other nonfinite clauses, participles do not mark tense or agreement and cannot contain modal auxiliaries. Participles are always used as modifiers or adverbials.

Gerunds

Gerund clauses are clauses in which the first verb in the VP is a gerund, an -ing form. The subject of a gerund may be omitted or may appear in either objective case or possessive, but it can never be in the subject case. 27. I was surprised at them/their losing the race. 28. I was surprised at losing the race. Like infinitives and -ing participles, gerunds can appear in various aspects and voices. 29. I was surprised at having lost the race. (Perfect) 30. They asked me about him/his having been meeting with known felons. (Perfect Progressive) 31. Omar is pleased at being given the "Student of the Year" award by his classmates. (Passive) 32. Having been attacked by bears left me afraid of all animals. (Perfect and Passive)

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Verbless clauses

Verbless clauses are, as you might expect, clauses that appear to have no verbs. For example, in (33) - (36) the underlined constituents act just like clauses, but have no verbs. 33. 34. 35. 36. Though afraid of bears, Oliver was still willing to go to Yosemite. Those children, while nice enough, can't be trusted to do the right thing. Unhappy with the school, those parents threatened to withdraw their children. Mary solved amazing mathematical problems, while still a child.

Notice that these clauses all act like have subject complements and a missing verb be and a subject the same as the subject of the clause which contains them. So (33) could also be expressed as 37. Though he was afraid of bears, Oliver was still willing to go to Yosemite. These clauses are quite similar to adverbial participle clauses -- so the participle clause in (38) bears a striking resemblance to the finite clause in (38). 38. While lying in wait for his victim, Jack the Ripper played with his knife. 39. While he was lying in wait for his victim, Jack the Ripper played with his knife. Digression on -ing Forms As you probably noticed, there are several different uses of verb + ing forms in English. For example, -ing can be suffixed to a verb to make the first verb in the VP of a participle clause as in the participle examples above and -ing can be suffixed to a verb to make the first verb in the VP of a gerund clause as in the gerund examples above. As we discussed in talking about VPs, verb + ing forms are used in progressives, as in a. I was drinking tea yesterday. b. They have been helping me with my homework. -ing can be suffixed to a verb to make an adjective, as in c. Picasso painted some amazing pictures. d. Nobody interesting would attend that boring party. -ing can be suffixed to a verb to make a noun, as in e. The killing of the swans shocked us. f. The teacher was pleased with their competent reworking of the problem. Progressive Verbs vs. Adjectives: It is possible to confuse these superficially similar forms, but there are ways to distinguish them. Consider the progressive form

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g. His diatribes were boring us. and the subject complement adjective form h. His diatribes were boring. How can we tell the difference? One clear way is to notice that lexical verbs like bore can take DOs, if the verb is transitive, but adjectives NEVER take objects. So since the (g) contains a direct object us -- boring must be a progressive lexical verb. In (h) , boring does not have an object. Since bore is a monotransitive verb, boring in (h) must be an adjective. Another argument that boring in (h) arises from the fact that you can modify many adjectives with very, but no verbs. Notice that His diatribes were very boring is fine, but *His diatribes were very boring us is ungrammatical. So once again, boring in (g) is a lexical verb; boring in (h) is an adjective. In many cases there is no possibility of confusing the two forms. For example, if the -ing form is serving as an attributive adjective after a determiner, as in His boring diatribes were unending, boring here could not be a lexical verb, since no lexical verb can appear in this role. Similarly, if the adjective undergoes further derivation that the verb could not as in unending -- since there is no verb *unend, we know that unending must be an adjective. Progressive Verbs vs. Gerunds: Again it would be possible to confuse a progressive verb with the first verb of a gerund clause acting as a subject complement to a main verb be. Consider (i) and (j) below: i. In a fit of madness, he was killing swans. j. The primary symptom of his madness was killing swans. In (i) we have a progressive VP -- was killing, while in (j) we have a main verb was followed by a subject complement gerund clause killing swans. How can we tell the difference? In (i), the subject is limited to an agent or an instrument, because kill constrains its subjects that way. In (j), the subject is constrained to being a abstract action or idea or event since the subject of a subject complement clause must be the same as the subject complement and gerunds can only refer to actions, ideas, or events. Another way to distinguish is that in (j), killing swans can be replaced by a NP his killing of swans or his slaughter of swans as in The primary symptom of his madness was his killing/slaughter of swans, while in (i) it cannot since *In a fit of madness, he was his killing/slaughter of swans is quite ungrammatical. Moreover, in (i) we can just change the aspect and get a grammatical sentence with a slightly different aspectual sense, In a fit of madness, he killed swans (simple aspect). However if we make the same change in (j) we get something that means something quite different, The primary symptom of his madness killed swans. If the gerund functioned as anything other than a subject complement, it could not be confused with a progressive verb because it would not fall in the same place.

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Adjectives vs. Gerunds: NPs containing -ing adjectives and gerund clauses can also be confused. Consider (k). On one reading, flying planes is a NP, a head noun modified by flying. On the other reading, flying planes is a gerund clause which has a VP flying and a DO planes. k. Flying planes can be dangerous. Notice that the ambiguity goes away if the modal auxiliary is removed, leaving a verb which will show agreement. The first will be (l) and the second (m). l. Flying planes are dangerous (the subject is a plural NP) m. Flying planes is dangerous (the subject is a clause -- therefore third person singular). Consider also what happens if you add a determiner -- it will precede an adjective phrase, so the sentence will be n. Those flying planes can be dangerous but a determiner will immediately precede the noun (since the verb is not part of the NP), so the sentence will be o. Flying those planes can be dangerous. Gerunds vs. Nouns: Most of the other -ing forms are distinguishable because they mean different things. But consider something like p. Belle's reading was wonderful. It is really not possible to distinguish whether this is a gerund clause with Belle as its subject and reading as its VP or it is a noun reading with a possessive NP Belle's as its determiner. Notice that it is possible under other conditions. For example, only nouns can be made plural, q. Belle's readings were wonderful. How can we tell that readings here is a noun? Several ways. (1) Verbs can take direct objects (and indirect objects and subject complements etc.), but nouns can only have PP modifiers. So if we take Belle read the sonnets and make it a gerund, we get Belle('s) reading the sonnets, but if we make it a noun, we get Belle's reading of the sonnets. Compare (r) and (s), q. Belle's readings of the sonnets were wonderful. r. *Belle's readings the sonnets were wonderful.

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(r) is ungrammatical because nouns cannot have direct objects and verbs cannot be marked as plural, so readings can't be either a noun or the verb of a gerund clause. Similarly, nouns can be modified by determiners, while gerunds only appear to be -- that is, if you try to put anything in the subject slot of a gerund other than a possessive or object case NP, the structure produced is ungrammatical. If, on the other hand, you put a determiner like the or demonstratives or other determiners, it is grammatical. So compare (s) with (u) and (t) with (v). The ungrammaticality of (u) and (v) is because reading is forced to be both a noun (and so modifiable by the) and a verb (and so able to take direct object). s. The reading of the sonnets was wonderful. t. The readings of the sonnets were wonderful. u. *The reading the sonnets was wonderful. v. *The readings the sonnets were wonderful. Moreover, VPs can be found in perfect aspect and passive voice, but nouns can't contrast in aspect or voice, so (w) is grammatical because Belle's having read the sonnets is a gerund, but (x) and (y) are ungrammatical because it attempts to mark perfect aspect on the noun reading and (z) is grammatical because The sonnets being read by Belle is a gerund clause, while (aa) is ungrammatical because The sonnets being read of by Belle would be a noun showing voice. w. Belle's having read the sonnets was wonderful. x. *Belle's having read of the sonnets was wonderful. y. *The having read of the sonnets was wonderful. z. The sonnets being read by Belle was wonderful. aa. *The sonnets being read of by Belle was wonderful. Finally, if one wants to modify reading as a noun, it is modified by an adjective phrase, as in bb. Belle's beautiful reading of the sonnets was wonderful. not with a adverb phrase, as in cc. *Belle's reading of the sonnets beautifully was wonderful. but if one wants to modify the verb reading, it must be modified by an adverb phrase, as in dd. Belle's reading the sonnets beautifully was wonderful. not with an adjective phrase, as in ee. *Belle's beautiful reading the sonnets was wonderful. In all these cases, we can see that the distinctions between -ing forms that are gerunds and

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those that are nouns arises directly from the differences between NPs and clauses, and between nouns and verbs. Gerunds vs. Participles: NPs in which the head is modified by an -ing participle and gerund clauses can also be confused. Consider (af) and (ag) below. ff. The bears attacking the innocent hiker were vicious. gg. The bears(') attacking the innocent hiker was surprising. In (ab), the noun bears is modified by the participle clause attacking the innocent hiker. If you replace the bears attacking the innocent hiker with a pronoun, it will be they -- clearly demonstrating that we have a plural NP. In (ac) the bears(') is functioning as the subject of the predicate attacking the innocent hiker, giving a clause the bears(') attacking the innocent hiker as the subject of was surprising. Notice that if you replace the bears' attacking the innocent hiker here with a pronoun, you would replace it with it, as in It was surprising. This demonstrates that in this case the bears' attacking the innocent hiker is not a NP with attacking the innocent hiker as a participial modifier, instead it is a clause serving a nominal role and so can only be replaced with it. One distinction between gerunds and participles that was hinted at above is that they clearly differ in function: Gerunds always fill NP functions (subject, direct object, indirect object, object of a preposition, etc.), while participles are always modifiers -- noun or pronoun modifiers or adverbials. Practice Identifying the Structure of Subordinate Clauses 1. Identify whether each of the underlined subordinate clauses below is finite or nonfinite. 2. Identify each nonfinite clause as an infinitive, a participle, a gerund or a verbless clause. 3. Identify each infinitive as bare or full. 4. Identify each participle, as an -ing participle or an -en participle. (Note: Not all the subordinate clauses have been underlined in the texts below.) The first time Jake saw her, he was stunned by Mirandas appearance. As she entered the room, she seemed to be bathed in golden light. While standing with the sunlight all around her, she looked like an angel, with her white dress, golden hair and innocent blue eyes. The president of the company led Miranda over to introduce her to Jake. She smiled glowingly and held out her hand, but Jack acted as if he had never seen a gesture like that before. Swept off his feet, he could not take his eyes off her, and he could not find a word to say. After a few embarrassing seconds, he shook her hand, stammering out an almost incoherent greeting. Miranda continued smiling at him in the courteous pretense that he had behaved perfectly normally. This was not the first time her beauty had left a man standing speechless before her. She asked him pleasantly what he did at the company. By that point he had pulled himself together and could tell her he worked in communications. They looked at

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each other and the incongruity of his answer and his behavior clearly struck each of them simultaneously and made them burst out laughing. That was the beginning. Functions Most of these functions should look familiar theyve been discussed in earlier chapters, filled by other structures. Predeterminers, determiners, adjective phrases and prepositional phrases can all modify nouns or pronouns; noun phrases typically serve in nominal roles, i.e., as subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, objects of prepositions, etc; adverb phrases, prepositional phrases and noun phrases can all be adverbial; prepositional phrases can be adjective complements. Comparative clauses are different in that the standard of comparison in a comparative clause has historically been a clause only.

Noun-Modifying Clauses

Nouns and pronouns can be modified by a range of clauses: (1) relative clauses, (2) participle clauses, (3) infinitive clauses, (4) finite noun clauses, and (5) infinitive noun clauses. Relative clauses: Traditionally, the term relative clause has been used to refer to finite clauses which modify a head noun and which contain a relative pronoun 40. The kid who stole that bike needs help. 41. The bike which he stole wasn't worth ten cents. or which could contain a relative pronoun 42. The kid that stole that bike needs help. 43. The bike he stole wasn't worth ten cents. Many traditional analyses would treat the that in (42) as a relative pronounbut it is clear on examining the distribution of that in relative clauses that it is not the same as who or which. How does that differ from who or which? That cannot be the object of a preposition in the position directly after the preposition: *The kid to that I talked was crazy. (Notice that, while the preceding sentence is ungrammatical, the parallel sentence containing a true relative pronoun is fine: The kid to whom I talked was crazy). Similarly it cannot be a possessor: *The kid that's bicycle was stolen was angry. (Again the parallel sentence containing a true relative pronoun is fine: The kid whose bicycle was stolen was angry). Instead of being a relative pronoun, that in relative clauses operates as it does in other subordinate clausesas a marker of subordination, a subordinating conjunction. It is also clear that a simple relative clause cannot contain both a relative pronoun and a subordinating conjunction since strings like *The kid that who stole the bike needs help and *The kid who that stole the bike needs help are ungrammatical. If a relative clause contains a relative pronoun, then that relative pronoun is interpreted as having a syntactic role in the relative clause: in (1) who is the subject of the relative clause and in (2) which is the direct object of the relative clause. That, since it is not a pronoun, does not fill a NP role in (3); instead there is a gap in the relative clause in the subject position and we interpret that gap as though it was filled by the kid. It is also clear from (4) that under some conditions we can find relative

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clauses which contain neither a relative pronoun nor an overt subordinator (that). These conditions are relatively easy to specify. As in other relative clauses without relative pronouns there must be a gap or apparently unfilled role in the relative clause. If the relative clause has neither a relative pronoun nor a subordinator, the gap cannot be the subject of the relative clause: *That kid stole that bike needs help or a possessor of another noun: *The kid('s) bike was stolen needs help. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. The woman whose friend you helped wants to talk to you. *The woman whose you helped friend wants to talk to you. *The woman thats friend you helped wants to talk to you. *The woman thats you helped friend wants to talk to you. *The woman's friend you helped wants to talk to you.

(This is grammatical in the reading that the woman's friend wants to talk to you, but not in the reading that the woman wants to talk to you) 49. *The woman's you helped friend wants to talk to you. 50. *The woman friend you helped wants to talk to you. (This is grammatical in the reading that the friend who is a woman wants to talk to you, but not in the reading that the woman who has a friend whom you helped wants to talk to you) 51. *The woman you helped friend wants to talk to you. There are, therefore, three kinds of noun-modifying relative clauses: those with relative pronouns, those with that, and those with neither. If the role of the gap in the relative clause would be that of possessor, there must be an overt relative pronoun. If the role of the gap would be that of subject of the subordinate clause, then there must be either a relative pronoun or the subordinator that. Elsewhere in restrictive relative clauses all three kinds of relative clauses are possible. A Digression on Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Modification Adjective phrases, prepositional phrases, and relative clauses among other noun modifiers can be either restrictive or non-restrictive modifiers. Restrictive modifiers contain information which the speaker or writer considers necessary for the hearer or reader to be able to pick out the referents of the noun phrase which contains the modifier: a. I have one uncle in Massachusetts and one in California. My uncle who lives in Massachusetts is a baker. In the example above, the information that the uncle in question is the one living in Massachusetts is intended to help you pick out with uncle I am talking about. Nonrestrictive modifiers occur in noun phrases which the speaker or writer thinks the hearer or reader can determine a referent for without using the material in the relative clause. b. My mother, who lives in California, is a lawyer.

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You don't need the information about where she lived to pick out which of my many mothers I was talking about. It is possible for a nonrestrictive modifier in any NP in which the information provided is not necessary to pick out the referent for that NP; that is not the same as saying that the nonrestrictive modifier is unnecessary to the sentence or that it does not convey any information. In fact, non-restrictive modifiers are more likely to provide new, rather than already established information, than restrictive modifiers. Restrictive modifiers to help you pick out the referent typically use already established information. Nonrestrictive modifiers can offer new information, but not information needed to pick out the referent for the NP as a whole. It isn't necessary for the NP to have a unique referent. Notice the difference between (c) and (d): c. Pintos which had a dangerous design were recalled. d. Pintos, which had a dangerous design, were recalled. In (c) there is a class of cars which includes some which were badly designed. (The relative clause restricts or limits the referents of the NP to a subset of Pintos. In (d) there is a class of cars, Pintos, all of which are badly designed. (The relative clause does not restrict or limit the referents of the NPs, instead it merely tells you something more about the set.) This semantic difference correlates with a structural difference and an orthographic difference. Nonrestrictive relative clauses always require the presence of a relative pronoun, as shown in e. The president, whom I talked to yesterday, decided not to take my advice. f. *The president, that I talked to yesterday, decided not to take my advice. g. *The president, I talked to yesterday, decided not to take my advice. while, as we have seen above, restrictive relative clauses can occur without relative pronouns, as shown in h. The student that I talked to yesterday decided not to take my advice. i. The student I talked to yesterday decided not to take my advice. In writing, the non-restrictive relative clause is set off with commas (that is, there is a comma before and a comma after the relative clause), while the restrictive relative clause is not. (This correlates with the typically intonation pattern found with these clauses: nonrestrictive relative clauses are usually preceded by a pause and followed by one, which restrictive relative clauses are not.) A traditional distinction between restrictive and nonrestrictive modifiers has been to claim that the nonrestrictive modifiers are not necessary: however, as we have seen, this way of discussing the distinction is misleading. Both restrictive and nonrestrictive modifiers are typically not needed in the sense that the sentence will be ungrammatical without them. Further, many students interpret this as meaning that nonrestrictive relatives do not convey information. That interpretation is clearly wrong: the nonrestrictive modifier typically carries as much information as the restrictive modifier does or more; the information is just not pertinent to establishing the referent of the NP in which it

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occurs. The relative clauses italicized in (j) -(m) below are all restrictive modifiers, while those in (n) -(o) are nonrestrictive. j. My brother wants anything (that) he can get. k. The person who left first missed important things. l. I sold John a house which had no roof. m. Harriet left the book she had written on the table. n. Yesterday I called my father, who lives in Los Angeles. o. Charley jumped out of his car, which had burst into flames. Participle Clauses: Another way to modify nouns or pronouns is with participles. Participial noun modifiers never have overt subjects in the clause with the participle. Notice that participial modifiers are typically interchangeable with relative clause. So in (52) the -ing participle clause modifies the noun lock, while in (53) the (finite) relative clause serves the same function and conveys the same meaning. 52. The lock hanging from the box was attacked with a hammer. 53. The lock which was hanging from the box was attacked with a hammer. Similarly, in (54) the -ed participle clause modifies Charley (nonrestrictively), while in (55) the (finite) relative clause modifies Charley and provides the same information. 54. Charley, abandoned by his girlfriend, wept constantly. 55. Charley, who was abandoned by his girlfriend, wept constantly. Each of these participial noun modifiers can be changed into relative clauses by adding an appropriate relative pronoun and form of be. It is however not quite that simple since if the verb of the participle clause is not one which could be used in the progressive, it is not enough to add a relative pronoun and form of be, instead one has to change the verb to a different form to avoid progressive aspect, as in 56. Anyone knowing about his problems would forgive him. 57. *Anyone who was knowing about his problems would forgive him. 58. Anyone who knew about his problems would forgive him. In general, however, one can check out whether a form is a noun-modifying participle clause by seeing whether one can convert the participle clause into a finite relative clause without changing the meaning. Infinitive Clauses: A somewhat less frequent form used to modify nouns is an infinitive clause. 59. The food for the children to eat at the party is here.

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60. 61. 62. 63.

The chapter to read for Friday is nineteen. I gave the students a new assignment to have completed by the end of the week. I gave the students a new assignment to be working on for the next two weeks. Harold built this house for them to live in.

When an infinitival noun modifier has an overt subject as in (59) and (63), it is always introduced by the subordinating conjunction for and the subject of the infinitive (as with all overt subjects of infinitives) is in the object case if the subject is pronominal. Notice that noun-modifying infinitive clauses differ from noun-modifying participle clauses in several ways. Noun-modifying participle clauses do not refer to a time after the time of the main clause. Noun-modifying participle clauses never contain overt subjects. The noun or pronoun modified by a participle clause is interpreted as the semantic subject of the participle clause; the noun or pronoun modified by an infinitive clause is never interpreted as the semantic subject of the infinitive clause. Noun Complements--Finite and Infinitive: There is a class of noun-modifying clauses which look superficially like relative clauses without relative pronouns. These clauses are sometimes called noun complements, sometimes called noun clauses, and sometimes called appositive clauses. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. My fear that a plane will crash into my moving car is clearly silly. Oscar can't accept the idea that he might lose the race. Many people agree with his contention that war is evil. The fact that Henry is lazy amazes everyone. We entertained a suspicion that Mink had cheated.

These clauses are semantically and structurally distinct from relative clauses: First, they cannot replace the subordinator with a relative pronoun: *My fear which a plane will crash into my moving car is clearly silly and *Oscar can't accept the idea that he might lose the race. Second, the clause after the that is a complete clauseit contains no gaps or unfilled syntactic roles: A plane will crash into my moving car, He might lose the race. This contrasts with relative clauses containing that : The kid that stole my bike is ... would give *Stole my bike. Third, the head of NP modified by a noun clause must refer to an idea, claim or other proposition since the noun clause is a proposition and the noun clause is the proposition referred to by the head; that is, that a plane will crash into my moving car IS my fear, while that stole my bike is an attribute of the kid in the NP, it is not itself the kid. There are infinitive clauses which fill the same role as finite noun clauses. They modify nouns which name propositions by stating the proposition. 69. 70. 71. 72. Her decision not to study resulted in failure. The adults found it hard to accept the children's claim to be in charge. They were astonished by my desire for you to win a million dollars. The decision to drink heavily during classes is rarely a good one.

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Adverbial Clauses

Clauses can serve essentially all the adverbial functions we have already discussed: time, location, reason, purpose, conditions, concessions/contrasts, among others. Finite clauses serving as adverbials are introduced by a subordinating conjunctions: when, while, before, after, since, until, because, if, unless, even if, as if, so that, in order that, as, though, although, even though, whereas, etc. 73. 74. 75. 76. When the doctor came, we all felt great relief. Jennifer cried because someone stepped on her toes. That guy in the corner, if Bill is right about him, might be very dangerous. Harvey might, if the light is right, take beautiful pictures.

Adverbial clauses can typically be put in the same places in the sentences as other adverbials -- so they can be initial as in (73), final as in (74) or medial after the subject as in (75) or after the first auxiliary as in (76). Participle clauses serving as adverbials can be in introduced by some of the subordinating conjunctions, when, while, if, even if, unless, though, although, and even though as in (7779) or they can be used without any subordinating conjunctions at all as in (80-82). 77. 78. 79. 80. If assisted by a nurse, a patient can come to the meeting room. Andreas made many friends in artistic circles, while living in France. Harriet might, though confused by the many misleading street signs, still come in first. Watched by the FBI during many nefarious acts, the archfiend was unaware of his vulnerability to arrest. 81. Oscar could, seeing Emily, hardly believe his luck. 82. The kids have played Monopoly all day, amazing their parents with their concentration. Adverbial infinitive clauses express purpose, as in (83-85). 83. O'Brien dieted for three weeks to lose three pounds. 84. She is going to France in order to study art. 85. I bought a car to drive to school.

Nominal Clauses

Nominal clauses are clauses which serve in roles typically filled by noun phrases: roles like subject, direct object, indirect object, objects of a preposition, subject complement or object complement. Gerund Clauses: Gerund clauses only fill nominal roles and fill the widest range of nominal roles. Gerund clauses like other nominal clauses can serve as subjects as in (86) and direct objects as in (97) and subject complements as in (88). Unlike other nominal clauses they can serve as objects of prepositions as in (89) and indirect objects as in (90).

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86. a. Riding a roller coaster gives some people a thrill. b. That man('s) winning the race surprised everyone. 87. a. Does your brother like writing hack novels? b. You reported Harold('s) stealing the money from your desk. 88. a. Juliette's favorite activity is winning blue ribbons. b. The most ridiculous performance was Bill's telling jokes about the bishop to the priest. 89. a. Maria earns money by working at the school. b. I was horrified at Harold('s) stealing the money from your desk. 90. a. Harriet gave buying that overpriced dress a lot of thought, but decided against it. b. Harriet gave Miriam('s) flying a plane to France no credence. Gerund clauses can serve as object complements (as in 91), but they almost always sound better flipped so that the gerund clause serves as the direct object instead (as in 92). 91. a. The students considered the first task writing an outline for their group project. b. I found the most heinous act Harold('s) stealing the money from your desk. 92. a. The students considered writing an outline for their group project the first task. b. I found Harold('s) stealing the money from your desk the most heinous act. That Clauses and Infinitive Clauses: That-clauses and infinitive clauses are really only good as subjects (as in 93), direct objects (as in 94), and subject complements (as in 95). 93. a. That Oscar stole money from the bank shocked his parents. b. For you to accuse me of unkindness is unjust. c. To write hack novels is a strange activity. 94. a. Do you believe that Oscar stole money from the bank? b. They expected you to accuse me of unkindness. c. I like to write hack novels. 95. a. The most shocking claim was that Oscar stole money from the bank. b. The worst thing that could happen would be for you to accuse me of unkindness. c. They thought the worst possible misbehavior was to write hack novels. Bare infinitives are really only good as direct objects (as in (96). 96. a. I saw Oscar steal the money. b. Oscar had me steal the money. Indirect Questions: Indirect questions are questions embedded in nominal roles in another clause. For example (97) has an indirect question as a subject, (98) and (100) have indirect questions as direct objects and (99) has an indirect question as a subject complement. 97. What you did is the question. 98. I asked Suzette where Oswald had left the car. 99. The question is whether/if you know the answer. 100. I wonder what to do.

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Indirect questions can be either finite (as in (97-99)) or infinitive (as in (100)). Finite indirect questions differ from main clause/direct questions in two major ways: (1) in all questions an operator is not required and (2) in yes-no questions a subordinating conjunction, whether or if is required. The direct questions that parallel the indirect questions in (97) and (98) are What did you do? and Where had Oswald left the car? In both direct questions, an operator is required to precede the subject of the question; in the indirect questions, no operator can grammatically precede the subject, so *What did you do is the question and *I asked Suzette where had Oswald left the car are ungrammatical. Similarly in (99) no operator can precede the subject of the indirect question as it would in the parallel direct question, Do you know the answer? Instead a subordinating conjunction, either whether or if is required, so *The question is whether/if do you know the answer, *The question is do you know the answer1, and *The question is you know the answer are ungrammatical. Indirect questions also differ from direct questions filling the same role, because direct discourse in general constitutes using the exact words of the person to whom the words are attributed, while in indirect discourse the structure of the question is changed to fit the sentence in which it appears. Specifically, pronouns and tense are changed to fit the current structure. So, using direct discourse forms, one might say Bill asked me What are you doing? while using indirect discourse to convey the same information, one would say Bill asked me what I was doing. The question serving as the direct object in the first example is presented as Bills exact words: the clause is in the form of a direct question, with an operator preceding its subject, a second person pronoun (because Bill was talking to me using a question with me referred to as the subject) and the question itself is asking about the time of the utterance, so it is in the present tense. In the second example, there is no operator before the subject, the pronoun in the indirect question is I because its subject is the same as the speaker of the entire sentence and the tense is past because the current sentence is talking about past time. Headless Relative Clauses: These oddly named clauses are another kind of nominal clause - unlike other nominal clauses they are used to refer to entities, rather than propositions, questions or events. Unlike the noun-modifying relative clauses discussed above, these clauses are not used to modify nouns. They are sometimes called nominal relative clauses and sometimes called headless relative clauses. They serve as complete noun phrases (therefore as in the first label) without any head noun in the noun phrase (therefore headless as in the second label). Therefore, since that serve as 101. What you saw was not a UFO. (subject of the main clause) 102. I will grab whoever creeps in the window after curfew. (direct object of the main clause) 103. Charley gave what I told him serious thought. (indirect object of the main clause) 104. Whichever book you choose from the list will meet our requirement. (subject of the main clause) 105. Mary will come with whoever has a car. (object of a preposition in the main clause) 106. I will call you what(ever) you want to be called. (object complement of the main clause)

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These clauses are all interpreted as though they had a head. Who(m)ever is used for humans; whichever, what, whatever are used for inanimates; whichever and whatever are used as (non-possessive) determiners. The only wh- word in the set that can occur in these clause without -ever is what . In formal SAE the choice of whoever or whomever is determined by the role of the pronoun in the headless or nominal relative clause: so 107. a. Whoever saw the thieves should come forward. b. Whomever the thieves robbed should come forward. 108. a. I will talk to whoever needs help. b. I will talk to whomever I can help. not 109. a. *I will talk to whomever needs help. b. *I will talk to whomever I think needs help. Unlike ordinary relative pronouns, however, the preposition in the subordinate clause which has the wh-word as its object cannot move to the front of the clause with the pronoun: 110. a. *Susan will buy with whatever tools you designed that. b. Susan will buy whatever tools you designed that with. Adjective Complement Clauses

Just like prepositional phrases, that-clauses and infinitive clauses can serve as adjective complements. As with other adjective complements, the adjective determiners whether it can have a complement and what kind of complement it may be. For example, afraid can have a prepositional phrase complement with the preposition of, as in I am afraid of bears, or a thatclause complement, as in (111), or a full infinitive clause complement, as in (112). 111. I am afraid that they are lost. 112. I am afraid to go. Other adjectives can't take infinitive clause complements -- so aware and conscious can both take that-clause complements as in (113) and (114), but not infinitive clause complements. 113. Jane was conscious that something unpleasant had happened 114. The bear seemed aware that we were watching it. Some adjectives can take infinitive clause complements, but not that-clause complements, like eager or reluctant, as in (115) and (116). 115. He's eager to help me. 116. I'm reluctant to let him help me.

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In all these cases, if the adjective were change the form of the complement or even the possibility of having a complement would change. Consider adjectives like tall or devout -none of them allow complements. If any of them were to be used in place of the adjective heads in the subject complement adjective phrases in (111) - (116), the resulting sentences would be ungrammatical. On the other hand, an adjective like happy or sad which allows both kinds of clausal complements can be substituted in the appropriate place in (111) - (116) and the resulting sentences would mean something different, but they would be grammatical.

Comparative Clauses

When you draw a comparison of one thing to another, the thing being compared to is the standard of comparison. You can note the equality between something and the standard and comparison or an inequality. The standard of comparison is typically expressed in a clause after the subordinating conjunction as when the thing compared is being equated to the standard of comparison (equative), as in (117), or after the subordinating conjunction that when the something is greater or less than the standard of comparison (comparative), as in (118). The main clause in both equative and comparative sentences contains a marker that indicates the kind of comparison is being drawn, as is used in equative sentences and more or a comparative adjective or adverb (a form with the suffix -er) in comparative sentences. 117. 118. 119. 120. Charley is as wide as he is tall. Mary likes ravioli more than Charley hates spaghetti. Mary sings more often than she dances. Charley sings as well as he dances.

When the things being compared are on different dimensions, the subordinate clause must be a complete clause. So in (116) - (119), the as clause and the than clause contain complete subjects and predicates. When the predicates of the two clauses would be the same, the predicate in the standard of comparison clause can be reduced or omitted altogether, as in (121-125). 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. Charley is as tall as Mary is. Mary likes ravioli more than Charley does. Mary is as tall as Charley. Mary likes ravioli more than Charley. I did less than I should have.

If the subject and verb phrase of the two clauses are the same, the subject and verb phrase can often be reduced or omitted altogether, as in (126-127). 126. The children like spaghetti as much as (they do/like) ravioli. 127. The children like spaghetti more than (they do/like) ravioli. Sometimes, however, it cannot be, so (128) is ungrammatical.

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128.

*Charley is as wide as tall.

One result of this kind of reduction is ambiguity. When you have a sentence like (129), 129. Charley likes Mary more than Susan.

it is ambiguous between the reading in which Susan is the subject of the clause than Susan likes Mary and the reading in which Susan is the direct object of the clause than Charley likes Susan. In formal written English, this is distinguished when Susan is replaced with a pronoun, since the first reading will result in Susan being replaced by she, as in (130), while in the second reading Susan would be replaced by her, as in (131). 130. Charley likes Mary more than she. 131. Charley likes Mary more than her. In less formal usage, Susan would be replaced with her in both readings, suggesting that in less formal usage, than can be used as a preposition which takes an OP naming a nominal standard of comparison as well as a subordinating conjunction which must appear in a clause which contains an overt predicate. (This is stigmatized in formal writing. It is easy to avoid, however, by simply using an overt, verb-ful clause like (122)-(126).) Practice Identifying the Structure and Function of Subordinate Clauses 1. Identify the function (noun/pronoun-modifying, nominal, adverbial, adjective complement, comparative) of each of the underlined subordinate clauses in Text 1 below (the same text as earlier in this chapter). Text 1: The first time Jake saw her, he was stunned by Mirandas appearance. As she entered the room, she seemed to be bathed in golden light. While standing with the sunlight all around her, she looked like an angel, with her white dress, golden hair and innocent blue eyes. The president of the company led Miranda over to introduce her to Jake. She smiled glowingly and held out her hand, but Jack acted as if he had never seen a gesture like that before. Swept off his feet, he could not take his eyes off her, and he could not find a word to say. After a few embarrassing seconds, he shook her hand, stammering out an almost incoherent greeting. Miranda continued smiling at him in the courteous pretense that he had behaved perfectly normally. This was not the first time her beauty had left a man standing speechless before her. She asked him pleasantly what he did at the company. By that point he had pulled himself together and could tell her he worked in communications. They looked at each other

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and the incongruity of his answer and his behavior clearly struck each of them simultaneously and made them burst out laughing. That was the beginning. 2. Underline each of the subordinate clauses in Text 2 below. 3. Identify the structure (finite, infinitive, participle, gerund) of each of the clauses you underline in Text 2 below. 3. Identify the function (noun/pronoun-modifying, nominal, adverbial, adjective complement, comparative) of each of the clauses you underline in Text 2 below. Text 2: The sad truth is that many Americans do not vote. In fact, when there is no presidential election, the overwhelming majority of Americans do not go to the polls. Where is the excitement which people in a republic should feel about participating in the governing of their town, state and nation? Why is it so difficult to vote? Why are people who care about their community and participate in local and national regular and primary elections viewed as extremists? Why do people believe that politics, the source of the peoples power, is a dirty business? I dont know the answer to these questions, but I do know that part of the problem is the suggestion that government itself is the problem for a free people. A president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, campaigned on the premise that the government is the problem. If government is the problem according to the people controlling the power in our government, how can we expect the people to want to participate in the creation and running of the government? We are in danger of losing our republic when we dont engage in the easiest and yet greatest responsibility and privilege of citizenship. What can we do that is more important than choosing the men and women who serve us by running our government? If, as the founders of our nation believed, the only legitimacy a government has is the consent of the governed, then how can we have that consent if the populace considers participation in the political process to be dirty or unimportant? I wonder how we can continue as a republic when the only elections we applaud are those of other nations. Fights for power may not be pretty, but fights for honorable debate and the struggle to find our way toward a brighter future are

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crucial and noble. Ultimately if we back away from politics, we hand our future and our childrens future over to those who would make all governance dirty.
Notice that a direct question can act to fill these grammatical roles in some of these questions, as in I asked Suzette Where has Oswald left the car? and The question is Do you know the answer?. In direct questions the speaker is directly quoting the person to whom the question-asker
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