Instructor: Imola-Ágnes Farkas

farkas_imola_agnes@yahoo.com
Office hours: Tuesday 9-10 a.m., M16

Introduction to Generative Grammar

Movement in the left periphery
The Complementizer Phrase (CP)
Computational configurations

Outline1

The Left periphery

Interrogatives: the DATA

Syntactic features: --subject-auxiliary inversion

--fronting of wh-word

ECHO-questions
You can speak what languages?
You would like which one?
She was dating who?
You are going where?

Main -clause questions

What languages can you speak?
Which one would you like?
Who was she dating?
Where are you going?

Indirect questions
Can you tell me what languages you can speak?
Can you tell me which one you would like?
Can you tell me who she was dating?
Can you tell me where you are going?

Main -clause questions

What languages can you can speak what languages?
Which one would you would like which one?
Who was she was dating who?
Where are you are going where?

1 You find in this outline the content of the slides that I project during the course, which contain the
main topics and also structures and diagrams which may be difficult and time consuming for you to
copy during my lecture. They are made available to you before class to save time and to make note-
taking easier, but not unnecessary! The outline as such (without your notes covering the detailed
explanations that I give during the course) cannot constitute a sufficient source of information when
preparing for the exam. If you miss the class, it is strongly recommended that this outline be used as
a guide to the bibliography indicated at the end of this document.

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Syntactic features: --subject-auxiliary inversion
--fronting of wh-word Move! to leftward
syntactic positions
(Left periphery)

Indirect questions - standard English

Can you tell me what languages you can speak?
Can you tell me which one you would like?
Can you tell me who she was dating?
Can you tell me where you are going?

Indirect questions - colloquial English

Can you tell me what languages can you speak?
Can you tell me which one would you like?
Can you tell me who was she dating?
Can you tell me where are you going?

Relative clauses
Syntactic features: -- NO subject-auxiliary inversion
--fronting of wh-word

I don’t know the man who she was dating.

I’ve been to the resort where you are going.

*I don’t know the man who was she dating.

*I’ve been to the resort where are you going.

The Left periphery = the Complemetizer Phrase (CP)

Complementizers serve the following grammatical functions:

-- they embed clauses (merge first with a TP to satisfy a [uT] feature);
-- mark the embedded clause as a subclause (if, that, before,…)
-- mark the embedded clause as interrogative;
-- merge with wh-words from the embedded clause (via Move!) in relative and wh-
questions

What projects CP? C can be a (i) subordinate conjunction, (ii) an interrogative

feature, or (iii) a relative feature.

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(i) Maria knows that George visited the house.

(ii) If George visited the house, so did Mary.

(iii) ...the day that George visited the house.

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 ...the day when George visited the house.

Crelative referentially connects the nominal sister of its maximal projection with its
specifier.

The Left periphery: Interrogatives

Syntactic features: --movement of Tense to a position leftward of spec-TP

--movement of wh-word to the leftward of the complementizer

Belfast English:
I wonder [which dish that they picked.]
They didn’t know [which model that we had discussed.]

Syntactic features: --movement of Tense to C(omplementizer)

--movement of wh-word to spec-CP

Movement is triggered by Last Resort (Greed or Enlightened Self Interest)

Syntactic features: --movement of Tense is triggered by [interr] feature of C

--movement of wh-word is triggered by [uWh] feature of C

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What languages can you can speak what languages?

-- [interr] triggers the movement (Copy! & Adjoin!) of the closest c-commanded Tense

-- [uWh] triggers the movement (Copy! & Merge!) of the closest wh-word in the
structure

Indirect questions - standard English

Can you tell me what languages you can speak?
Can you tell me which one you would like?
Can you tell me who she was dating?
Can you tell me where you are going?

Indirect questions - colloquial English

Can you tell me what languages can you speak?
Can you tell me which one would you like?
Can you tell me who was she dating?
Can you tell me where are you going?

I don’t know the man who she was dating.

I’ve been to the resort where you are going.

*I don’t know the man who was she dating.

*I’ve been to the resort where are you going.

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Echo questions

Further economy constraints that apply to the Move! operation

Costly movement: overt movement triggered by strong features

Strong features: uninterpretable features (phonologically unacceptable) that have to
be checked before Spell-Out;

Economical movement: covert movement triggered by weak features

Weak features: uninterpretable features that can be checked after Spell-Out;

Move! is subject to the economy principle Procrastinate: the more costly overt
movement is triggered only by strong features.

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When, during the syntactic computation, the derivation reaches a stage which is
relevant for phonetic interpretation, at this point called Spell-Out, the derivation splits
into the PF object which is shipped to the phonetic interface, and the LF object
which is subject to further derivation required for the semantic interpretation.

PF requirement: all strong features be checked. Thus overt movement must take
place before Spell-Out.

LF requirement: all uninterpretable features be checked. Thus covert movement

takes place after Spell-Out.

In every derivation Spell-Out applies al least once.

Bibliography:
Andrew Radford (2004) Minimalist Syntax. Exploring the structure of English,
Cambridge University Press, pp. 52-57, 188-228

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