ENGLISH SYNTAX

DOSEN Drs. Rochim Adi S.

Adam Abaabiil Tribuana 09423827

STKIP PGRI NGAWI Jalan Raya Klitik Km 05 Ngawi 0351 749295

NP-Movement: Passive

Consider the active sentence in (24), and its passive counterpart in (25): (24) These lorries produce filthy fumes (25) Filthy fumes are produced by these lorries. We saw in Chapter 2 that the active-passive alternation is quite a common one, and that what distinguishes passive sentences from active ones is that they contain the passive auxiliary be, a past participle and an optional PP introduced by by If we consider (24) and (25) from the point of view of thematic roles, we observe that the NP these lorries carries an agentive role both in (24) (25). The NP filthy fumes carries the role of Patient (or Theme if you prefer) in both sentence. Linguists have suggested that in order to capture the strong thematic affinities between active and passive sentences we might view passive sentences as being the result of movement, in such a way that the Subject of a passive sentence derives from the position immediately following the main verb. We can indicate the position that the Subject of (25) derives from with a -. (26) Filthy fumes are produced -- by these lorries.

Such and account would explain how a phrase with a patient thematic role ands up in Subject position, while is canonical position is after the main verb. Movement of this type in passive sentences is an instantiation of NP-movement. We might wonder where the passive auxiliary be should be located in tree diagram. Before dealing with this problem, it might be a good idea to reiterate two point that I made in Chapter 3 regarding the syntactic behavior of auxiliaries verb (both and modals and aspectuals). The first point is that if there is a sequence of auxiliaries in a sentence, each auxiliary determines th from of a following on. The second point is that the various types of auxiliaries that English processes always occurs in the same order. I will illustrate these points with a few examples. Consider first (27)-(30): (27) This student must write two essays (28) This student has written two essays (29) This student is writing two essays (30) Two essay were written by this student. In (27) the main verb is preceded by the modal verb must. IN (28) and (29) is preceded by an aspectual auxiliary (have and be, respectively) while in (30) (the passive version of this student wrote two essays), the main verb is preceded the plural past tense from of the passive auxiliary be Notice that in each case the from of the main verb is determined by the auxiliary that

preceded it. Thus in (27) the modal must is followed by base from of verb write. In (28)and (30) the main verb is in the form of the past participle written, while in (29) the verb-from writing is determined by progressive auxiliary be. Combinations of auxiliaries are also possible (we have seen some example of this ready): (31) The student must have written two essays. Modals auxiliary + perfective auxiliary + main verb. (32) The student must be written two essays. Modals auxiliary + progressive auxiliary + main verb. (33) The student has been writting two essays. perfective auxiliary + progressive auxiliary + main verb. (34) Two essays must have been being written by this student. Modals auxiliary + perfective auxiliary + progressive auxiliary + passive auxiliary + main verb. While sentence (31)-(33) are perfectly acceptable in English, (34) is unusual, but nevertheless possible. Exercise Other combination of auxiliaries are possible in English. Try to construct sentences with additional possibilities. The auxiliary + main verb sequence always occurs in the following order : (35) (modal) (perfective) (progressive) (passive) main verb. The main verb is always obligatory. The auxiliaries are optional. Notice that if we do have a sequence of auxiliaries, it is possible to skip one of the bracketed auxiliary slots shown in (35) are filled. We can only select one auxiliary immediately followed by a progressive auxiliary. There is no perfective auxiliary of a particular type, so it not possible for an English sentence to contain two modal verb, or two progressive auxiliaries. You may have noticed that auxiliaries share a property with transitive and ditransitive verbs like these main verb, they too determine what follows them. As we have seen, a transitive verb requires a following Direct Object, while a ditransitive verb requires an IO and a DO. Using the terminology introduced in the previous chapter, transitive verb subcategorise for DO, and ditransitive verb subcategorise for VPs. To see this, take another look at (27)-(30) above. The modal in (27) subcategorises for a VP headed by a verb in the base form (write two essays), the perfective and passive auxiliarises in (28) and (30) are followed by a VP headed by an-ed form (written two essays), while the progressive auxiliary in (29) subcategorises fo a VP headed by an ing form (writing two essays). We will see in a moment how to draw the trees for these sentences.

Lets now return to the question we asked ourselves earlier: where in a tree diagram do we position the passive auxiliary be? We will try to answer this question by reasoning our way through a number of sentences. First, we already know where modal verbs, aspectual auxiliaries and negative elements are located. The way we will proceed is to analyse sentences which contain a combination of these elements, and then see how passive be fits in. So, lets produce a number of test sentences containing different auxiliary verb and negative elements: (36) Filthy fumes are not produced by these lorries. (37) Filthy fumes have not been produced by these lorries. (38) Filthy fumes are not being produced by these lorries. (39) Filthy fumes may not have been produced by these lorries. (40) Filthy fumes may not be being produced by these lorries. (41) Filthy fumes may not have been being produced by these lorries. (36) is the negative counterpart of (26): here the passive auxiliary be combines with the negative element not. As we have seen, not is located in the leftmost position in VP, namely Space-of-VP. Because it is tensed, a suitable location would the I-node. We should now use other data to test this hypothesis. In (37) the passive auxiliary (this time in the form of the past participle been) is preceded not only by not, but also by the perfective aspectual auxiliary have. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, this leads us to conclude that the passive auxiliary is inside VP, the reason being that it is preceded