Further development of X-bar theory plus a few problems

1. Phrase Structure Rules 1986

2. Remember X’-theory?

3. Uniform structure

4. It helps us to learn

5. Everything is the same

6. “sentence” disappears

7. Replaced with IP

8. The inflectional properties of S

9. Tense etc.

10. Later on, it’s replaced with TP

11. IP, TP … who cares?

12. Don’t worry about that too much

13. Look at the old system again

14. We have NP, and VP

15. Aux becomes IP, later T(ense) P

16. What about the operator position?

17. Aux becomes Inf

18. What about Op?

19. We want uniformity

20. She did walk  Did she walk

21. Movement to some position

22. We want Universal rules

23. So what do we do about Op?

24. Give it a new name

25. Op becomes Comp!!

26. Complementizer
• I think that it is a good name
• That is a complementizer
• It comes before the complement phrase
• So it’s a complementizer!!
• OK?

27. Complementizer
• I think that [she walked]
• Think takes a complement

28. Complementizer

29. C, C’, CP

30. C takes IP as its complement

31. Hooray!

32. C takes IP as its complement

33. All neat and tidy

34. Did she buy something?

35. What did she buy?

36. Movement to complementizer head

37. What did she buy?

38. Movement to somewhere?

39. What did she buy?

40. New kind of movement

41. It’s NOT to the head C

42. “Did” is in the head position

43. So where is it?

44. Hanging to the left of CP

45. So where is it?

46. Like the subject position in IP

47. What shall we call this position?

48. It’s a bit like a specifier position

49. Also known as determiner

50. Determiner

51. Let’s call it the specifier position

52. Spec

53. Wh- movement

54. To Spec CP

55. Nice

56. Which books do you know where Taro
bought?

57. Taro bought those books in Books Kato.

58. Which books do you know where Taro
bought?

59. So everything is neat

60. But what about the spec position?

61. It should also follow X’-theory

62. How about “The tall girl”?

63. The three tall girls

64. A lot of tall girls etc

65. NP becomes a DP (Determiner Phrase)

66. D takes NP as complement

67. Very neat

68. Adjectival Phrase in Spec of NP (?)

69. What if it’s “The three tall girls”?

70. Where does “three” go?

71. “Three” isn’t an adjective, is it?

72. • One girl
• The girl
• Three girls
• The girls
• The tall girl
• The tall girls
• Three tall girls

73. • Those three tall girls
• The three tall girls
• Where does “three” go?
• Something for you to play with!

74. Like this?

75. “the three” is a complex Determiner?

76. “The” can take “three” as a
complement?

77. “Three tall girls” is OK

78. “Three tall” must be a kind of Det,
right?

79. The tall girls

80. The tall girls

81. Three tall girls

82. The tall girls

83. Three tall girls

84. So a bit like this?

85. Or this, or something?

86. The three tall girls

87. What does that mean?

88. These trees don’t tell us

89. OK

90. How about this?

91. … kicked the dog

92. Just “… kicked the dog”

93. Who kicked the dog?

94. I don’t know yet

95. “the dog” seems OK

96. It’s a DP

97. “the” is the determiner

98. No problem

99. Here’s the structure we expect

100. The girls kicked the dog

101. The three girls kicked the dog

102. The three tall girls kicked the dog

103. The three stupid tall girls kicked the
dog

104. John kicked the dog

105. What if it’s just “John”?

106. Do we really need this uniform
structure?

107. What’s the DP doing here?

108. Basically nothing

109. Uniformity gives us too much structure

110. It doesn’t always help

111. And we still have the problem of
meaning

112. Questions
• In X-bar theory, aux became I (IP) and then T
(TP)
• An IP is an Inflectional Phrase
• A TP is a Tense Phrase

113. • What is the point of uniform structure?
• Maybe it helps children to learn language
• (If we are born with it in our heads already)

114. • What did the Op become in X-bar theory?
• Comp
• Or Complementizer
• Complementizer Phrase

115. • Give an example of a sentence with a
complementizer in it
• I think that it is strange

116. What did she buy?
• Where does did move to?
• Head of CP

117. Wh- movement

118. What did she buy?
• Where does what move to?
• Spec CP

119. The tall girls

120. Three stupid tall girls (AP in Spec NP)

121. Three stupid tall girls (NP comp of AP)

122. • What is the problem with treating John as a
DP?
• Pointless (redundant structure)

123. Redundant structure

124. • How did chimpanzees become so clever with
numbers?
• I have no idea
• Maybe counting quickly helped them survive
(?)
• Who knows?