1.3 Transitive Sentences--Main Verbs

The last type of sentence discussed here is called the Transitive Sentence--Main Verb. Consider the token sentences below:

(34) Table: Transitive Sentences--Main Verbs

What is interesting about these sentences above is that they appear very much like the copular/linking verb examples in the sense that they need to have an overt complement--namely, they need to have in its complement slot some kind of object. Moreover, such sentences contrast with what was said regarding Intransitive Sentence Types provided in (§1.1) above. Recall that in Intransitive types, predicate objects weren't required (and could optionally project)--e.g., Fish swim ø. With this latter Transitive sentence type, objects must project--e.g., John hit Bill (Bill=object). There is no sense in which we could say the utterance John hit ø without specifying what or whom John hit--in this example, the Whom/object = Bill). The reason for the "Main Verb" heading of such transitive types is to capture the fact that here the transitivity feature is the inherent property of the Main Verb (as opposed to the copular/linking verb "Be") which requires an accompanying object-predicate. As stated above in the example of the verb [hit], one could say that there's an embedded feature in the semantics of this Action verb itself which requires (i) one who hits (the Agent/Subject of action), and (ii) one who gets hit (the Recipient/Object of action). Such semantic features can be expressed as a Predicate Logic proposition (shown below): (J)ohn hit (B)ill:

(35) Predicate logic: hit(J, B) {arguments: John = subject, Bill = object}

In other words, one could roughly say that 50% of the verb's material reflects the action of the subject, while the remaining 50% must reflect and indicate the result of the hit. As stated above, there is no notion in which transitive verbs reflect back onto the subject all of its 100%'s worth of verbal meaning: viz., *John hit/kissed/bought/made/ ø. The ill-formed expression *"John hit" ( hit(J) ) is thus accounted for by the stipulation that its predicate logic requires both arguments (Subject and Object): viz., the [+Intransitive] feature requires both [+Subject/+Object] settings. Consider the token Transitive sentences along with the Structures below:

Note here that the two DPs have no co-indexing as compared to the co-indexing of the two DPs found in the structure (31 & 32) above. The independent functioning of the two DPs could be captured by the following individual indexing: [DPi + MVP + DPj] (where the subscripts "i" and "j" show no referential relation. (See (70) for co-indexing with regards to reflexive pronouns I>myself , etc.)

Three-Place Predicates
There is one additional structure we need to note regarding Transitive Types. There appears to be a certain class of verbs in English that requires not only one object, but rather two DP objects in its predicate place (= ditransitive predicates)--counting the required subject as one argument, this then makes the structure a "three-place predicate". The rule for such structures could be spelled-out as follows:

(37) Rule: Three-place predicate => [DP+MVP+DP+(PP)/DP].

Consider the following token sentences below which have 'optional' three-place predicates, as compared to the sentences with the verb e.g., "put" that in fact 'requires' the third object:

There are a number of verbs in this class which seem to overlap and/or extend their semantic range of meaning--in other words, typical transitive verbs share common semantic cores. For instance, the verb 'roll' requires by definition of the very action (i) an Agent argument (=actor/subject, John) and (ii) a Theme argument (=undergoing action/object, ball). It seems that this same characterization of semantic/argument roles overlap in similar verbs--e.g., kick, hit, touch, punch, throw, caught, deliver, and [three-place predicate verbs place, put, etc.]--noting the special consideration we have placed on the last two di-transitive verbs, place and put. In order 'to kick', there must be an Agent 'kicker' and a theme--a person or thing being kicked. There is no sense in the notion of an Intransitive verb 'kick' e.g., *John kicked, just as there would be no notion of a mono-transitive verb 'put' e.g., *John put the book. There seems to be something in the semantics (=meaning) of the verbs which requires one to ask for (i) an additional DP for support--e.g., kicked + DP-what/who? (for mono-transitive verbs) or (ii) an additional couplet of DPs---e.g., put + DP-what + (PP)/DP-where? (for di-transitive verbs) (respectively).

1.4 Summary

In sum, we can define a simple English sentence by putting down the following stipulations on the Subject/Predicate--all simple (declarative) sentences require at the very least (i) a subject position (=DP), and (ii) a Main Verb position (=MVP). This simple SV (Subject Verb) construct defines an Intransitive Type sentence by the following rule:

(39)

1. Intransitive Type: [DP+MVP] a. Fish swim. b. A telephone is ringing

This basic SV Intransitive sentence expresses the very bare minimum of what is required to maintained a full sentence. In addition to this bare minimum SV sequence, optional adverbial material can be projected in the predicate--e.g., Fish swim...in the pond. In this example, the optional material is expressed by the Preposition Phrase (PP) (in the pond).

Second order types then stipulate that Object(s) (or second, third arguments) are required. This simple SVO construct defines a Transitive Type sentence by the following rule:

2. Transitive Type-linking [DP+MVP+AdvP]: a. Mary is outside b. John is tired

3. Transitive Type-linking [DP+MVP+AdjP]: a. The music is loud b. I feel bad

4. Transitive Type-link [DP+MVP+DP]: a. She is a teacher b. Pat is a postman

5. Transitive Type-non-link [DP+MVP+DP]: a. John hit the ball b. I kissed Mary

6. Di-Transitive Type [DP+MVP+DP+(PP)/DP]: a. They put the book on the table

2. The Phrase

In this section, we turn our attention to the Phrase level of language.

The 'Elephant Sentence'
One of the reasons we are able to recognize (=parse) the novel 'elephant sentence' in (21a)--and conversely, why we can't for (23)--is that certain words need to 'link-up' together to form larger strings called phrases. For example, as soon as one says the (indefinite) article 'A', our mind is set-up to perceive the following word as a Noun (or Adjective+Noun frame). In fact, using here as an example the (definite) article 'The', any word that follows 'The' will instantly be construed as a Noun--even, as we saw with a made-up novel sentence, made-up novel words can become highly productive nouns: e.g., The 'pringle' was put on the table (pringle => some kind of noun/object that could be handled, say like a book), etc. Now, 'pringle' here is a novel made-up word, yet in the configuration of the string, it projects a word-class distinction (Noun). In fact, verbs are often turned into nouns by this very process. Consider the Verb => Noun formulation as found with Gerunds:

(40)

This same novel word could likewise be construed as a Verb--e.g., John was pringling all day. Mary can pringle in the morning. etc. One thing that can be said here, and will be further developed in latter sections, is that (i) the role of the Determiner/article (A/The) is to introduce a Noun, while (ii) the role of an Auxiliary/modal is to introduce a Verb. This productive and highly creative aspect of language stems from our innate necessity to think of language not in terms of individually memorized and isolated words, but rather to think of words as strings, chunks or phrases which build-up specific constituencies.

There are a couple of main points we can now address regarding phrases here--they are outlined below.

(41) A Seven-Step Guide to Phrases

1. Determiners (DP) (Articles, a/the; Demonstratives, this/that/these/those; Genitives my/our/your/their, etc.) precede Nouns: e.g., The book, A car, This pen, etc. This type of phrase is referred to as a Determiner Phrase since the determiner (the first word of the phrase) heads and projects the phrase. (NB. We use DP throughout in the place of the otherwise prosaic Noun Phrase (NP) since theory internal considerations demand that all Nouns must have at least an abstract functional Determiner).

2. Adjectives (AdjP) (modifiers of Nouns e.g., red, good, fast, etc.) precede and generally describe nouns [(Det)+Adj+N]--(e.g., (The) read shoes, (A) good boy, (My) fast car, etc.). Attributive Adjectives which modify following Nouns are best understood as being embedded within larger DPs since such adjectives must accompany Nouns. On the other hand, there are Predicative Adjectives which need not accompany a noun (e.g., The man is tall/big/fat). These Adjectives are not embedded in larger DPs and are thus diagrammed as AdjPs. Their modifications tend to be antecedent to the subject of the linking verb.

3. Main Verbs (MVP) (Tensed Verbs such as goes/went, walks/walked, keeps/kept, etc.) typically follow the subject of declarative sentences (adhering to the English SVO--Subject-Verb-Object word order). Tensed (=Finite) verbs serve to introduce the overall predicate of a sentence. In fact, part of the requirements for a complete sentence is to have a Tensed Main Verb housed in the predicate as they generate the predicate information of the subject.

4. Auxiliary/Modals (AuxP) serve to introduce Main Verbs (MVPs). All functional features associated with Verbs {Tense, and Agreement features of Person/Number} are borne out of the Aux. The Aux also houses any inflection that might be derived onto a verb stem such as past tense inflections {-ed}, participles {-en}, {-ing} as well as housing the usual class of auxiliary elements themselves (e.g., Do/Be/Have and Modals can/will/shall, etc.).

5. Verb Phrase (VP) (Infinitive Phrase) unlike the MVP is a Non-Tensed Verb Phrase. Such VPs tend to project after an already positioned MVP. These phrases include all three Infinitive types/forms--e.g., I like--to cook (=Infinitive 'to'), I like-cooking (Infinitive 'ing'), I can cook (Infinitive 'bare verb stem' ).

6. Adverb Phrase (AdvP), like adjectives for nouns, modifies verbs--e.g, softly touched, quickly ran, etc., (Adv+V).

7. SVO/Head Initial Phrase: In addition to English being an SVO word order, English stipulates that the Head of a Phrase must be in the first initial position within the phrase (i.e., that word which labels the phrase--such as Determiner, Adjective, Main Verb, etc.--must come first in forming the phrase, and not last (moving left to right). The word being introduced serves as the Complement of the Head (or Comp).

Having laid out some of these general principles, let's consider what the template of an English Phrase looks like, and then turn our attention to the real matter at hand--to see just how we were able to process (parse) our now infamous "Elephant Sentence":

(42)

Consider the series of phrases which build-up the structure of the "Elephant Sentence" (restated below):

(43) "Yesterday, I saw a pink and yellow elephant roller-skating down flower lane"

(43.a) < Yesterday>
Although yesterday is the first word of the sentence, and since we have said that English is an SVO word order language, at first blush our intuitions might have us say that 'Yesterday' is therefore the subject. But as it turns out, it indeed is not. Two things must be pointed out here. Firstly, proto-type subjects must be Nouns--of the traditional 'Person-Place-Thing' sort. Yesterday simply functions here as a time reference (adverbial element) in giving additional (Time) information regarding the predicate. Secondly, Yesterday doesn't originate in the first position in any event--it has, in fact, moved from out of the very last position of the sentence and has positioned itself sentence-initially (sometimes referred to as fronting--see Movement in §4 below). If you read the sentence above, yesterday naturally fits in the finally position (the comma here shows the actual movement).

(43.b) < I >

I is in fact the subject of the sentence (the person) and takes the form of a Pronoun. So, having returned the adverb (yesterday) to its original place (final position), the Subject or Topic naturally surfaces as the first word of the sentence--preserving our SVO order. The phrase "I" would be spelled out as a DP since I is a ProNoun and all nouns must be introduced by a structure-class functional determiner--yielding a DP:

(43.c) < saw>
Saw functions as the Main Verb (MVP) due to the fact that it wields [+ Tense]: the two morphological inflection markers of English Tense being (i) the present 3Person Singular {-s}, and (ii) the regular past tense marker {-ed}. English has only two grammatical Tenses: Present and Past. An optional future mode is not available as a grammatical tense marker and so doesn't form from out of a main verb--being taken up instead by the modals will/may/could etc: e.g., John starts next Monday, The President speaks tomorrow tonight, (= Present tense marker {s} is opted though with future interpretation) vs. John will start next Monday, The President may speak tomorrow night (= Modal is opted). (See (158) regarding Tense & Modals). Given that saw is the main verb, all other subsequent material is said to form the predicate (verb included)--devising the subject + predicate template. The Main Verb Phrase is created below:

(43.d) <a pink and (a) yellow elephant>
are twin DP expressions each with an embedded Adjective Phrase (for color). The two DPs are then joined by a simple conjunctive element <and> as diagrammed in isolation below:

(43.e) <roller-skating>
We have now come up against a second-order verb type in this sentence. Roller-skating is certainly a verb here taking on the role of some action; however, there seems to be no clear Tense indicated on the verb. Well, rightly so--for there should be at all times only one grammatical Tensed verb per clause/simple-sentence and the first-order [+Tense] main verb <see> has already been marked for Tense. For now, this second-order verb type will be referred to here as an "ing- infinitive" (present participle) verb (whereas participles don't maintain tense). It should not be understood as a gerund since gerunds are typically referred to as (i) Verbs with an "ing" inflection that (ii) occupy a noun slot (e.g., [DP The shopping] was fun, etc.). Here, the "ing" verb remains a verb albeit without tense--hence, the label Infinitive Verb. (See 3-Types of Infinitive Verbs in (86) below). This verb exemplifies the distinction spelled out above (in 43c) between [+Lexical/-Functional] VPs--where there are no functional features of which to speak--and [-Lexical/+Functional] MVPs--where there are functional features as carried out by the Aux. Clearly, second-order Infinitive verbs wield none of the typical functional features associated with a Main Verb [Person/Number/Tense] and could be simply diagrammed as a prosaic VP:

One further implication here is that the VP (roller-skating) could actually be substituted--again, calling on our favored linguistic substitution test--as a Progressive aspect of an Elliptical Clause:

(a) I saw the elephant roller-skating...

=> (b) I saw the elephant: <it <was roller-skating>>...

(43.f). <down> Heads a straightforward Prepositional Phrase:

One very important aspect of the Preposition is that it must always introduce a DP (in prescribed grammar). This notion is what is behind the often 'prescribed rule' of "preposition stranding"--mandating never to leave a preposition standing at the end of a sentence (see §2.4 for Prep). Though, I must say that there are plenty of occasions when one can only save a sentence by otherwise standing a preposition: e.g.,

(44)

(a) This is the man for whom    my son works.
(b) This is the man (who)          my son works for
(c) This is the man (-)               my son works for
(d) *This is the man for who     my son works
(e) *This is the man for (-)        my son works

(43.g) <flower lane>
brings us to the close of our beloved "elephant sentence". The Phrase can be drawn as a Proper Noun DP with all the typical trappings of a DP:

As an exercise, you should now be able to link all the isolated phrases above into one completely diagrammed sentence--starting with the DP <I> and ending with the DP <flower lane> ( recall that <yesterday> serves as an adverbial adjunct which can either be joined at the beginning or at the end of the sentence.

In the ensuing sections, we will be turning our attention to more detailed analyses of specific functional features having to do with DPs (§2.1), MVPs (§2.3) and to some extent PPs (§2.4).

2.1 Determiner Phrase (DP)

(45) Table: Determiners

There are a number of facts we need to spell out about the DP. Firstly, it must be said that a lively debate still persists among linguists regarding whether or not a DP even exists. For a number of purely theoretical reasons, mostly being driven by theory internal factors, we take it that DPs do exist: the alternative view--and a view mostly in line with traditional grammar pedagogy--is that they are simply Noun Phrases (NPs) with a determiner modifier at the Head of the Phrase. However, as has been unfolding throughout this text, our story is crafted around the idea of Lexical vs. Functional Grammar and how such Lexical items (Nouns, Verbs) might merge with Functional formal features. In order to capture this story to its fullest extent possible, we must classify (all) NPs as DPs. There are a number of reasons for doing this. Let's flesh them out below.

First, there is a natural, and I think quite elegant notion behind lexical vs. functional grammar. However, in order to conceptualize the clear distinctions, they must manifest at the Phrase-level. It's not enough to simply say the some words are born with more formal meanings than others. The question must be how does such formal grammar get onto the lexical items themselves. Such an oversimplified lexicon analysis would not go far enough in accounting for the syntactic phenomena. In other words, although lexical item distinctions are part of what is behind the labeling of lexical vs. functional grammar, more is needed in order to capture where and how such distinctions take place. Our first line of reasoning is that for every Lexical item, there is some Functional counterpart. The relationships are by no means perfect and there are interceding gaps, but for all intents and purposes, a partnership of "Functional-to-Lexical" does emerge (in that order). The most basic partnerships--as presented in the first sections--are between (i) (D)eterminer and (N)oun and between (ii) (Aux)iliary and (V)erb. Whenever there is a Verb, there must be an Aux in order to deliver the appropriate functional/formal grammar onto that Verb. Likewise, for the Noun: whenever there is a Noun, there must be a Determiner to deliver the appropriate functional/formal features onto that Noun. Hence the most basic four square partnerships are: D => N (D introduces N) and Aux => V (Aux introduces V). Prepositions too have some sort of partnership. In this section, let's spell out in more detail the exact functional features for D => N (DP).

(NB. Interestingly, the Gender feature for DPs in English only seems to reflect 3P Pronouns and a handful of lexical nouns--e.g., actor vs. actress, etc. In Romance languages (e.g., Spanish), this Gender feature is more prevalent where agreement between the D and N must take place).

What is important to realize here is that every Noun must select and host all relevant functional features in order to ensure a proper projection of the phrase. (When a phrase doesn't properly project, it is said that the features Crash--but we'll return to that a little later on). To make matters more concrete, let's draw-up some differing examples of DPs along the lines of the features spelled out above and see just where and how the relevant features project.

[Def]-Feature
Clearly, the two phrases below hold an important grammatical difference that must be stated both in the semantics (meaning) as well as in the syntax:

(47)

(a) John has finally written [DP [D the] [N book] ]. =>[+Def]
(b) John has finally written [DP [D a ] [N book ] ]. => [-Def]

The above examples pin down two very different meanings of the "book": the first sentence reveals that John has finally written "the" book that we all expected him to write. It is a very specific book--hence, one of its features must mark for [+Def]. The nature of this "book" is a very different concept than the generic book in (b)--e.g., we all know John could write a book (any book) and so he has finally done it--he has succeeded in writing a book. The general nature of "a book" highlights the task of writing the book only, it doesn't specify the actual book itself. This conceptual difference is captured in functional grammar--viz., the D in sentence (a) is marked for [+Def] while the D in sentence (b) marks for [-Def].

Another interesting Definiteness phenomenon found an the syntactic level is the following pair of sentences:

(NB. Adverbials can have a [+Def] pragmatic effect. Consider the following distributions marking [+/-Def] on the DP-object--e.g., John has never read a book ('a book' = [-Def]) (*and he never will read it) (no expletive "it" insert) vs. John read a book yesterday (and he enjoyed "it") ('a book' = [+Def] and can be replaced by a [-Pl] expletive "it").

What we find here is that the definiteness feature on the D (marking for specificity) holds an agreement relationship with its Aux (MVP) so that when a D is [+Def], the verb must be singular (or minus plural [-Pl] ) and vice versa. One number, "The number", say 2 or 200 is specific and thus constitutes a singular matching verb, whereas "A number" more or less constitutes a non-specific group--hence, plural verb: (e.g., The number of students enrolling in Grammar is dropping/has dropped from 200 to 180.) Also note that students, (the complement of the genitive particle of) is plural. Many people are too quick to assume that this plural noun acts as a defunct subject, and so plural agreement of the verb are must ensue--clearly, this is wrong. In this case, it is the Determiner (not even the Noun) that determiners whether or not the agreeing verb is singular or plural. In any event, the nouns students keeps its plural marker {s} in both examples, and still the distinctions on number hold. There would be no way to capture this interesting correlation without somehow addressing the notion that a particular feature embedded in the D has something to do with the number agreement on the verb. By saying that both sentences in (48) above are instantiated by NPs and not DPs, we forgo any meaningful discussion on the nature of functional features. (See (56) below). Mainly speaking, what Feature Theory allows us to do is break down the components of "parts-of-speech" words to a finer grained analyses--this lets us tinker with certain sub-particles of the word in order to see how one isolated feature might project and contribute to a phrase over another. Consider here how the [Def] feature is incorporated into the two DPs below:

Case-Feature
Let's turn now to the next D-feature--Case. Along with Person and Number features (see sections below), Case builds up a very intricate paradigm:

(50) Table: Case--Personal Pronoun

Perhaps the most important aspect of Case to understand is that it is Structural--meaning, that Case is recognized dependent upon where the pronoun sits in the sentence: viz., if subject, then Nominative [Nom], if object then Accusative [Acc]. In English, Case is confined to the Personal Pronoun. In Latin, for instance, Case was crucial in determiner whether or not a Pronoun was a subject or an object--this was owing to the fact that Latin was somewhat of a free word order language where words could have a relatively mixed arrangement. In order to distinguish if a Noun (Pronoun) was a subject or not, one had to look to the Case of the word (marked as an Inflection). English too has remnants of this type of Case Inflection: (e.g., the inflection {-m} has a similar Latin-based history in that it marked Accusative (Object) case as in e.g., he vs. hi-m, they vs. the-m). (Note in Latin the noun "love" "amor"--Nominative case amor-ø, Accusative case amor-em, Genitive case amor-is). Case no longer indicates word order for English--English has secured for some time now an SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) order (parting from an earlier Germanic mix of SOV & SVO), so that functional case is no longer a crucial grammatical marker of word order. (NB. We have seen in our own lifetime the approaching abandonment in standard English of the use of who vs. whom--where the former marks for Subject Case and the latter for Object Case: noting the {-m} inflection once again). In addition, part of this overzealous Latin bias for Case is still with us today. For instance, consider Pronoun case confusion below:

(51)

The pressure from Latin-based schooling has succeeded in making us at least more self-conscious toward the Latin style of Case; however, given that this pressure must be externally reinforced (by prescribed grammarians having their roots in the 19th century), from time to time our own English intuitions win out. Note the following problems with (51) above:

Latin is a Pro-drop (pronoun drop) language (meaning that the subject, like in Spanish/Italian) can go missing. English is not a Pro-drop language. However French, which too is a Latin based language, is also not a Pro-drop language and must resort to the English equivalent "It is me" (C'est moi). In addition, the Latin based paradigm seems to falter in the following examples: There is you,...There is I,... but one never seems to say *?There is we...

The problems of choosing the correct Case can at times be affected by something as small as a conjunctive and. For instance, the sentence My dog and I went for a walk may have alternative case values for some of us whereas the Nom Case I becomes Acc Case me--e.g., *My dog and me... Of course, while the latter is 'grammatically incorrect', the instability, nevertheless, demonstrates just how abstract Case can be. Recall, the substitution test can always help you find your way in these matters: by substituting 'My dog and I' we get the Pronoun We (=Nom Case): We went for a walk (my dog and I). Another important syntactic fact regarding case has to do with Preposition (see PP §2.4). It seems that Prepositions specify for Acc case for its complement. In other words, when a Pronoun-DP follows a Prep, it must always be marked for Acc (object) Case. This also may give us some trouble. Take the Prep between, if a pronoun follows, it must have Acc case: e.g., Between you and me,... vs. *Between you and I,... The latter version is a very popular error of Case marking. Take other Prepositions for example, one would never say e.g., I want to sit near/with/next-to *she/he/they... Clearly, these pronouns occupy the object position of the sentence and so must reflect Acc case. A very simplistic picture now emerges with the Case paradigm captured in the following exchange:

(52)

Let's now turn to see how we can incorporate Case as a Feature of D within a DP. By starting with the simple Pronoun exchange I & me in a DP, we can begin to employ the two D-features examined above (Def and Case).

(54)

Binary notation:
Note that we are marking Accusative (object) Case in a binary manner as [-Nom]. As stated earlier, Feature Theory makes good use of Binary Notation via +/- (plus or minus value settings). E.g., [-Nom] is the same as stating [+Acc]. It is common practice in binary code, whenever possible, to share one common denominator and simply place a [+/-] setting to its value. This is done throughout the theory--hence, [-Pl] marks for singular, [-Nom] marks for Accusative, [-Def] marks for Indefiniteness, etc.

Zero allomoph
This is as good a place as any to digress and examine the role of the zero allomorph {ø} found in our DPs above. First of all, the question should come up--why do we need it if it is simply zero or has a zero value? Good point! We could just as well return to our more prosaic version of an NP as eluded to above and omit all this superfluous abstract material. Right you say, let's keep it as simple as possible. Well, while your heart may be in the right place, the theory mandates that we have Functional projections alongside lexical ones--remember? If it weren't for our little D, there would be no place to house all that abstract functional grammar in the first place. It's crucial to remember that lexical items (Nouns, Verbs, etc.) can't house functional features--while lexical items may take them on as inflections to their stems, these inflections are born from out of the (functional) D/Aux and are then delivered onto the (lexical) N/V (respectively). I think our 'born & deliver service' makes for a nice movement analogy here: formal features (usually in the guise of inflection) are born from the functional projection <x> (of a proto-type functional XP) and are then delivered onto their lexical counterpart <y> (using variables <x> to mark the Head and <y> to mark its Complement). (See §2.3 for a similar discussion of Inflectional Movement regarding verb features such as Tense and Participle Inflection). For example, a)-prime below shows the inflectional process of plural number [+Pl] onto the Noun stem [N+{s}].

The zero allomorph more than anything else serves as a kind of (theory internal) place holder in keeping the D projection active--much like zero place holders serve us in mathematics e.g., 1, 10, 100...

Although there is no phonological reality to it, the zero place holder allows us to maintain our D-projection. This idea of a grammatical placeholder for otherwise non-existent phonological material is similar to what we find in the Pro-drop languages cited above--Spanish being one of them. Consider the Pro-drop effect of the following Spanish sentence ø habl-o ingles ( = (I) speak English). Certainly, notwithstanding the fact that there is no audible subject (at the phonological level), we would still want to have a DP-subject here in order to trigger the {-o} verb inflection for the features [1Person, -Pl, +Def, +Nom] of the pronoun I. The zero allomorph is a sort of safety valve: its role is to secure this grammatical level of representation in the event of a lack of any overt phonological material. Returning to the NP analogy, one would be hard pressed to account for the whereabouts of functional features given that an NP can't manifest or house such formal material. Consider what goes wrong with an NP-analysis below:

(56)

Clearly, in theory, there would be no place to house the functional features in the NP-analysis. There is a bit more to it than I am making out here, but for our purposes, and in keeping with the spirit of our theory, the problem is indeed real for the NP-analysis.

Genitive Case

(57) Table: Genitive Case (DP)

The Genitive (or Possessive Case) is another Case marker that functions via a DP. Consider the tree diagram and sentences below incorporating the features presented thus far:

(58) (a) My/the book is on the desk.      => My/the book.....= subject [+Nom]
       (b) Did your read my/the book?      =>....my/the book. = object [-Nom]

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Notice that the Subject/Object [+/-Nom] features are preserved alongside the additional feature of possessiveness [+Gen]. Also, note that in both sentences, the [+Def] features is spelled out since all Genitive Determiners are specific and mark for definiteness.

One notational confusion however does emerge when we try to consider the Person Feature (see below). How should we notate the Genitive feature alongside the Person feature--for instance, should the [+Gen] Determiner My in "My book" be marked as First Person [1P]? One might say "My" certainly reflects first person (me). In a manner of speaking, you are right. However, again if we utilize our beloved substitution test and throw in a pronoun (for good measure), one would see right away that "My book" gets reduced to a third person pronoun "it" e.g., (Did you read it? where "it" refers to "my book" ). So, how should we mark Person on Genitive DPs? In this sense, one could claim the [Gen] feature serves as a special overlap unlike any other Case marker. Namely, whereas it is theoretically assumed that no pronoun can carry two positive case features (viz., pronouns in their formal sense cannot be both [+Gen] and [+Nom] ), once a Gen Determiner is reduced to a pronoun (via our substitution), its [+/-Nom] feature reappears. Hence, some dual marking seems to be warranted here and I propose that Gen DPs mark both for [+Gen] and [+/-Nom] dependent upon where the Gen DP sits in the sentence. So, after all is said and done, perhaps the best way to settle the Person/Genitive issue is by compromise: (i) if only the Determiner (and not the DP) is marked for person, then [1Per] could be maintained since "My" refers to "I" (First Person). Noting that a sole D can't be reduced to a pronoun in a substitution test: ("my" doesn't reduce to "it" ). However, we are not considering the D in isolation here, and once we analyze the DP as a complete phrase, the pronoun substitution mandates that it be Third Person [3P] (reducible to "it" ). And since we are analyzing the complete DP and not just the D, there seems to be some support in marking it [3P], but clearly, as you can see for yourself, much of argument here is largely centered on a notation quibbles (trivial sticking points that more often than not succeed in forming a wedge between some of our finest linguists).

Since the Person Feature has caused such a commotion here, let's address it next.

Person
(61) Table: Person

In traditional grammar, English is said to have three grammatical persons: first, second and third. The first person [1P] expression (I-we) denotes the person(s) speaking. The second person [2P] (you) denotes the person(s) being spoken to (addressed) by the first person. The third person [3P] (he/she/it/-they) denotes the person(s) outside the immediate circle of speech activity and who becomes a referent excluded from the first and second person--the [3P] refers to someone other than the speaker(s) or addressee(s) We take it that this defining property between speaker and addressee is (i) real in the pragmatics of language discourse, and (ii) constitutes a formal abstraction in the syntax worthy of having the status of a formal functional feature.

Number
Number [+/-Pl] (plus or minus Plural) is an additional functional feature which denotes the contrast between "grammatical" singular and plural forms. Note that we use "grammatical" here as a way of showing that such seemingly inherently real notions as say number may not maintain true values as say, in real numbers of math--for instance, the noun "family" denotes an inherently plural notion (in the sense that "family" means more than one person making up a nuclear social unit), however, it is grammatically marked as being singular in number (cf., My family is/*are). (Likewise, for instance, "Hair" in French ("Cheveux") is grammatically marked as plural whereas in English it is grammatically singular.) In Adjectival constructions utilizing Number, often Plural inflection gets omitted--e.g., He is six-foot-five (*six-feet-five), two-car garage (*two-cars-garage), a three-storey house (* a three-storeys house), etc. Surely, in the above examples, our notion of 'plural number' holds notwithstanding the fact that no grammatical plural inflection surfaces on the noun. In real terms then, there is no real logical notion of number other than some abstract grammatical property that maintains itself as a formal functional feature.

(62) The Grammatical Rule for Number

(a) N+ {ø} => singular e.g., The car, The book, An exam...
(b) N + {s} => plural e.g., The cars, The books, These exams...

Note that we are demonstrating the regular rule here for number. Irregular grammatical number manifests in a variety of ways.

(63) Some Irregular Number inflections:

(a) vowel change (tooth>teeth, goose>geese)
(b){en}-suffix (child>children, ox>oxen),
(c) No change zero allomorph {ø} (fish>fish-ø, sheep>sheep-ø)

Also, some nouns have an inherent singular feature and thus can't be marked for number. These are called Mass Nouns--e.g., salt, milk, butter, sand, furniture: (*The furniture-s).

We have now exhausted the main class of formal features associated with the DP--let's now list them all together below as well as spell them out in real DP circumstances:

Summary of DP features and their projections

(64) Table: Main DP-features

Definiteness & Case contrast

Above, there are two important feature distinctions at play: (i) the determiners the vs. any bear contrast between definiteness and Indefiniteness, and (ii) the [3P,+Pl] Noun books bears either subject nominative case [+Nom] or object accusative case [-Nom].

Let's exam another pair of DPs wielding contrasts between person and number features:

Above, the feature contrasts are between Person and Number (as well as Case). The two Pronoun DPs (We and You) are both manifestations of these features in that "we" marks first person [1P] and Plural (number) [+Pl] while "you" marks second person [2P] and singular [-Pl] (though, in the 2nd person paradigm it is impossible to tell whether or not "you" is singular or plural since both lexical items are homomorphous e.g., I told you [-Pl] vs. I told you (guys) [+Pl] ). Examples (b) and (b- prime) show Third Person, Masculine Gender [3P, -Fem] "him".

Other DP types
As an exercise, consider some other types of DPs:

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(d) Recursive DPs
(See (97b) for Recursive VPs)

(70) Reflective Pronouns

Lastly, in rounding off our DP study, let's see how Reflexive Pronouns get incorporated into a DP-analysis. Perhaps the most crucial aspect of Reflexives to understand is that they involve an anaphoric structure--that is, there is a structural relationship between the subject and the object of a reflexive DP. This relationship can be notated via a co-indexing which binds the reflexive Object-DP back to its antecedent Subject-DP. Consider the sentences below:

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(a) Shei hurt herselfi.
(b) The childreni did it for themselvesi
(c) Our Presidenti should feel proud of himselfi
(d) Ii mailed the letter to myselfi

In all four examples, the reflexive object cannot be used to refer directly to an entity in the outside world, but rather must be bound by an antecedent subject within the same phrase or sentence. In other words, "herself" is bound to "She" in ex. (a), "themselves to "The children" in ex. (b), "himself" to "Our President" in ex.(c), and "myself" to "I" in ex. (d). This very close structural and grammatical relationship is denoted by the co-indexing {i} subscript found below both the Subject and Object Pronouns (and is notated in tree diagrams just below the DP).

Consider the anaphoric DP diagrams below (showing only the relevant isolated DP binding and co-indexing with no other feature spell-outs):

(72) Reflexive- DP co-indexing and binding

Closing this section on Lexical Nouns and Functional DPs, let's now turn our attention to the next main lexical category of the sentence--the Verb Phrase. But before we tackle its lexical-functional relation via the Main Verb Phrase (MVP), let's simply exam in more detail the inner working of the Lexical Verb Phrase in isolation saving its more abstract functional MVP counterpart for the subsequent section (§2.3).