English Syntax: An Introduction

397 Pages·2004·1.78 MB·English

by  Andrew Radford

English Syntax
Anintroduction
Thistextbookprovidesaconcise,clearandaccessibleintro-
ductiontocurrentsyntactictheory,drawingonthekeycon-
ceptsofChomsky’sMinimalistProgram.Assuminglittleor
nopriorgrammaticalknowledge,AndrewRadfordtakesstu-
dentsthroughawiderangeoftopicsinEnglishsyntax,begin-
ningatanelementarylevelandprogressinginstagestowards
more advanced material. There is an extensive glossary of
technicalterms,andeachchaptercontainsaworkbooksec-
tionwith‘helpfulhints’,exercisesandmodelanswers,suit-
ableforbothclassdiscussionandself-study.
ThisisanabridgedversionofRadford’smajornewtext-
bookMinimalistSyntax:ExploringtheStructureofEnglish
(also published by Cambridge University Press), and will
bewelcomedasaconciseintroductiontocurrentsyntactic
theory.
andrew radford isProfessorofLinguisticsattheUni-
versityofEssex.Hehaspublishedsixbooksonsyntaxwith
CambridgeUniversityPress:ItalianSyntax(1977);Transfor-
mationalSyntax(1981);TransformationalGrammar(1988);
SyntacticTheoryandtheStructureofEnglish(1997);Syntax:
aMinimalistIntroduction(1997)andLinguistics:anIntro-
duction(co-authoredwithagroupofhisEssexcolleagues,
1999). He has also published a book on Syntactic Theory
andtheAcquisitionofEnglishSyntax(Blackwell,1990)and
numerousarticlesonRomancesyntaxandtheacquisitionof
syntax.

English Syntax
An introduction
●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
ANDREW RADFORD
DepartmentofLanguageandLinguistics
UniversityofEssex
cambridge university press
Cambridge,NewYork,Melbourne,Madrid,CapeTown,Singapore,Sa~oPaulo,
Delhi,Dubai,Tokyo
CambridgeUniversityPress
TheEdinburghBuilding,Cambridge,CB28RU,UK
PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyCambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork
www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9780521542753
(cid:1)C AndrewRadford2004
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithout
thewrittenpermissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2004
Sixthprinting2009
PrintedintheUnitedKingdomattheUniversityPress,Cambridge
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationdata
Radford,Andrew.
Englishsyntax:anintroduction/AndrewRadford.
p. cm.
‘...abridgedversionof...Minimalistsyntax:ExploringthestructureofEnglish(also
publishedbyCambridgeUniversityPress)’–Prelim.p.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0521834996(hardback)–ISBN0521542758(paperback)
1.Englishlanguage–Syntax. I.Radford,Andrew.Minimalistsyntax:Exploringthe
structureofEnglish. II.Title.
PE1361.R33 2004
425–dc22 2003055386
ISBN978-0-521-83499-5hardback
ISBN978-0-521-54275-3paperback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracy
ofURLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,
anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,
accurateorappropriate.
Contents
Preface ix
1 Grammar 1
1.1 Overview 1
1.2 UniversalGrammar 1
1.3 TheLanguageFaculty 5
1.4 PrinciplesofUniversalGrammar 9
1.5 Parameters 11
1.6 Parameter-setting 16
1.7 Evidenceusedtosetparameters 18
1.8 Summary 20
Workbooksection 21
2 Words 28
2.1 Overview 28
2.2 Grammaticalcategories 28
2.3 Categorisingwords 33
2.4 Functionalcategories 34
2.5 Determinersandquantifiers 35
2.6 Pronouns 37
2.7 Auxiliaries 40
2.8 Infinitivalto 42
2.9 Complementisers 44
2.10 Labelledbracketing 48
2.11 Grammaticalfeatures 49
2.12 Summary 52
Workbooksection 53
3 Structure 57
3.1 Overview 57
3.2 Phrases 57
3.3 Clauses 62
3.4 Clausescontainingcomplementisers 66
3.5 Testingstructure 68
3.6 Syntacticrelations 74
3.7 Barephrasestructure 78
3.8 Summary 80
Workbooksection 82
v
vi Contents
4 Nullconstituents 89
4.1 Overview 89
4.2 Nullsubjects 89
4.3 Nullauxiliaries 93
4.4 NullTinauxiliarilessfiniteclauses 95
4.5 NullTinbareinfinitiveclauses 100
4.6 NullCinfiniteclauses 102
4.7 NullCinnon-finiteclauses 105
4.8 Defectiveclauses 107
4.9 Casepropertiesofsubjects 110
4.10 Nulldeterminers 113
4.11 Summary 117
Workbooksection 118
5 Headmovement 123
5.1 Overview 123
5.2 T-to-Cmovement 123
5.3 Movementascopyinganddeletion 126
5.4 V-to-Tmovement 129
5.5 Headmovement 132
5.6 have/be-raising 134
5.7 Anotherlookatnegation 136
5.8 do-support 140
5.9 Headmovementinnominals 144
5.10 Summary 147
Workbooksection 148
6 Wh-movement 153
6.1 Overview 153
6.2 Wh-questions 153
6.3 Wh-movementascopyinganddeletion 155
6.4 Wh-movementandEPP 159
6.5 AttractClosestPrinciple 161
6.6 Pied-pipingandconvergence 163
6.7 Pied-pipinginprepositionalandpossessivestructures 166
6.8 Yes–noquestions 170
6.9 Wh-exclamatives 171
6.10 Relativeclauses 173
6.11 Summary 177
Workbooksection 179
7 A-movement 184
7.1 Overview 184
7.2 SubjectsinBelfastEnglish 184
7.3 Idioms 187
7.4 Argumentstructureandtheta-roles 189
7.5 Unaccusativepredicates 194
7.6 Passivepredicates 198
Contents vii
7.7 Long-distancepassivisation 202
7.8 Raising 205
7.9 Comparingraisingandcontrolpredicates 206
7.10 Summary 213
Workbooksection 214
8 Agreement,caseandmovement 218
8.1 Overview 218
8.2 Agreement 218
8.3 Featurevaluation 221
8.4 Uninterpretablefeaturesandfeaturedeletion 224
8.5 Expletiveitsubjects 226
8.6 Expletivetheresubjects 230
8.7 Agreementandmovement 236
8.8 EPPandagreementincontrolinfinitives 238
8.9 EPPindefectiveclauses 242
8.10 Summary 248
Workbooksection 249
9 Splitprojections 253
9.1 Overview 253
9.2 SplitCP:Force,TopicandFocusprojections 253
9.3 SplitCP:Finitenessprojection 258
9.4 SplitVPs:VPshellsinergativestructures 262
9.5 ExtendingVPshellstoothertransitivestructures 269
9.6 ExtendingVPshellstounaccusatives 273
9.7 ExtendingVPshellstopassives 276
9.8 ExtendingVPshellstoraisingverbs 277
9.9 Transitivelightverbsandaccusativecaseassignment 280
9.10 Summary 283
Workbooksection 284
10 Phases 289
10.1 Overview 289
10.2 Phases 289
10.3 Intransitiveanddefectiveclauses 292
10.4 Wh-movementthroughspec-CP 296
10.5 Wh-movementthroughspec-vPintransitiveclauses 299
10.6 Evidenceforwh-movementthroughspec-CP 302
10.7 Evidenceforwh-movementthroughspec-vPintransitive
clauses 309
10.8 Summary 313
Workbooksection 314
Glossaryandlistofabbreviations 320
References 365
Index 374

Preface
●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●●
Aims
This book has two main aims, corresponding to the two conjuncts
in its title. This first is to provide an introduction to recent work in syntactic
theory (more particularly to how the computational component operates within
themodelofUniversalGrammarassumedinrecentworkwithintheframework
ofChomsky’sMinimalistProgram).Thesecondistoprovideadescriptionofa
range of phenomena in English syntax, making use of key minimalist concepts
and assumptions as far as possible – while avoiding excessive technical com-
plexity.Thisnewbookcanbeseenasasuccessorto(orupdatedversionof)my
(1997b)bookSyntax:AMinimalistIntroduction.Thereisquitealotofduplica-
tionofmaterialbetweentheearlierbookandthisone(particularlyinthefirstfew
chapters),thoughthepresentbookalsocontainssubstantialnewmaterial(e.g.on
agreement,case,splitprojectionsandphases),andtheanalysisofmanyphenom-
ena presented in this book differs from that in its predecessor (with agreement
being presented in terms of a feature-matching rather than a feature-checking
framework,forexample).
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Key features
Thebookisintendedtobesuitablebothforpeoplewithonlyminimal
grammatical knowledge, and for people who have already done quite a bit of
syntaxbutwanttoknowsomething(more)aboutMinimalism.Itisnothistoricist
orcomparativeinorientation,andhencedoesnotpresupposeknowledgeofearlier
oralternativemodelsofgrammar.Itiswritteninanapproachablestyle,avoiding
unnecessarycomplexity.I’vetaughtearlierversionsofthebooktomorethan200
students over the past three years, and greatly benefited from their mutterings
and mystification, as well as their assignments (which told me a lot about what
theydidn’tunderstand,andaboutwhatIneededtoexplainmorecarefully).I’ve
worked through (and refined) the exercise material with the students, and the
helpfulhintswhichtheexercisescontainhavebeendevelopedinordertotryand
eliminate some of the commonest errors students make. The book is intensive
and progressive in nature, which means that it starts at an elementary level but
ix