Syntactic Affixation
N. A. J. Fabb, 1984
In this thesis we extend Case-theory, and the associated notion of ‘visibility’, to cover the distribution of modifiers, of predicates, and of different morphological realizations of verbs. We claim that the internal structure of a phrase is related to its distribution, in particular, whether or not it is Case-marked will determine whether it has any internal structure.
We suggest that by a simple extension of the X-bar rewriting rules words should be constructed in the syntax, if their internal structure satisfies the Projection Principle. We show that certain affixes, including but not only the inflectional ‘agreement’ affixes are assigners of structural Case, and govern their stems at S-structure. We argue in addition that ‘synthetic compounds’ are constructed in the syntax.
We discuss the mapping between S-structure and the phonological representation of words at PF. We account for the fact that in English words constructed in the syntax do not undergo word-phonological (‘+’ boundary) rules.
Thesis Supervisor: Noam Chomsky
Title: Institute Professor
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction 13
1.1 Introduction 13
1.2 Syntax 15
1.2.1 Structural relations 15
1.2.2 Bar-projection 16
1.2.2.1 Percolation 18
1.2.3 Government and C-comman 18
1.2.4 Theta-assignment 21
1.2.4.1 The theta-grid 22
1.2.4.2 Theta-assignment 22
1.2.4.3 ‘Compositional assignment’ of the external
argument 25
1.2.4.4 The external argument 26
1.2.4.5 The theta-criterion 27
1.2.5 Predication 27
1.2.6 Levels of representation 29
1.2.6.1 Differences in the order of constituents 30
1.2.6.2 Move alpha 31
1.2.6.3 Constraints on the relations between levels 32
1.3 Word formation 33
1.3.1 Word formation 33
1.3.2 Bar-projections in a word 34
1.3.2.1 A revision of the bar-projection rule 34
1.3.2.2 The status of affixes 36
1.3.2.3 Percolation inside a word 37
1.3.3 Syntax and lexicon, preliminary remarks 38
Chapter 2 Inflection and Case Theory 40
2.1 The ‘visibility’ of NPs 40
2.1.1 *NP positions 40
2.1.1.1 Government across S 42
2.1.2 ‘Having case’ and visibility 42
2.1.2.1 Case theory 42
2.1.3 Case-matching and passive 43
2.1.3.1 A second version of Case-assignment 43
2.1.3.2 A C-feature may be matched only once 45
2.1.4 Passive and ‘Case-absorption’ 46
2.1.4.1 The three –en suffixes 46
2.1.4.2 Passive V+en and Case 47
2.1.4.3 Active V+en and Case 49
2.1.4.4 Preposition stranding 51
2.1.4.5 Passive and Case-matching 52
2.1.5 The purpose of visibility 53
2.1.5.1 The level for argument-visibility 55
2.1.5.2 Predication and visibility 56
2.1.5.3 The visibility of the head 57
2.1.5.4 Summary: visibility 58
2.1.6 Additional restrictions on Case-matching 58
2.1.6.1 Adjacency 59
2.1.6.2 Case-resistance 60
2.1.6.3 Kinds of Case 62
2.1.6.4 Case-assignment and subcategorization 63
2.1.7 A note on ‘ergative’ 63
2.2 Verbs need Case 65
2.2.1 The distribution of verbs 65
2.2.1.1 Lexical environments 67
2.2.1.2 Syntactic environments 68
2.2.1.3 A visibility requirement for verbs 69
2.2.1.4 The matching system for verbal Case 70
2.2.1.5 Case resistance 74
2.2.1.6 ‘Moved verbs’ 74
2.2.2 “Non-aspectual” –ing and –en 75
2.2.2.1 Visibility and ‘theta-paths’ 76
2.2.3 The ‘aspectual’ affixes 78
2.2.3.1 Affix hopping 78
2.2.3.2 Aspectual affixes in restrictive relatives 82
2.3 The affix –S 84
2.3.1 Noun phrasal –s 84
2.3.2 Verbal –s 86
2.3.3 Unifying verbal and nominal –s 88
2.3.3.1 The development of English Inflections 89
2.4 Further comments on Case 91
2.4.1 The place for Case 91
2.4.1.1 Syntactic affixal Case 91
2.4.1.2 The bar-level of affixation 93
2.4.2 Suppletions 94
2.4.3 Summary 96
2.4.3.1 Why verbs need Case 97
Chapter 3 The Visibility of AP and PP 98
3.1 Adjectival Case 98
3.1.1 APs: internal structure and distribution 98
3.1.1.1 The internal structure of AP 99
3.1.1.2 Where APs are found 99
3.1.1.3 Internal structure of premodifier 101
3.1.1.4 Internal structure of resultative 102
3.1.2 Case and adjectives 103
3.1.2.1 Premodifiers 105
3.1.2.2 Resultatives 105
3.1.2.3 Postnominal and adjunct APs 107
3.1.3 APs as predicates 112
3.1.3.1 Headless NPs 113
3.1.4 Case and the external argument of AP 113
3.1.4.1 A stipulation 113
3.1.4.2 Support for the stipulation 115
3.1.5 Visibility and degree modifiers 117
3.2 The visibility of PPs 121
3.2.1 The distribution of PPs 121
3.2.1.1 The clausal analysis of adjunct PPs 124
3.2.1.2 ‘Adjunct’ INFL 125
3.2.2 Kinds of prepositional Case 126
3.3 Further comments on visibility 127
3.3.1 Adjacency 127
3.3.2 The different C features 129
3.3.3 The ‘Head-Final Filter’ in German 130
Chapter 4 Compounds 134
4.1 Synthetic compounds 134
4.1.1 Properties of compounds 134
4.1.1.1 Typical structure 134
4.1.1.2 Compounds stress 135
4.1.1.3 Endocentric and exocentric 135
4.1.1.4 A phrasal node in a compound 136
4.1.2 Synthetic compounds 137
4.1.2.1 Roeper and Siegel (1978) 137
4.1.2.2 The compound bar-projection relation 138
4.1.2.3 Theta-assignment in a compound 139
4.1.2.4 Additional evidence for (a) 141
4.1.2.5 The S-structure representation of a synthetic
compound 142
4.1.2.6 The status of the complement 143
4.1.2.7 Active synthetic compounds 143
4.1.2.8 AP as the complement in a synthetic compound 144
4.2 Passive participles and their compounds 146
4.2.1 The two passives 146
4.2.2 The differences between statal and actual passives 147
4.2.2.1 Semantic differences 147
4.2.2.2 Statal passive is an adjective 148
4.2.2.3 Restictions on the construction of statal passive
phrases 153
4.2.3 Trace and statal passive 158
4.2.3.1 Williams’ lexical account of statal passive 158
4.2.3.2 A syntactic account of statal passive 160
4.2.3.3 Evidence for a trace 165
4.2.3.4 Evidence against a trace 168
4.2.3.5 Preposition stranding in a premodifier 170
4.2.4 Adjuncts and indirect objects in synthetic compounds 172
4.2.4.1 N=complement 172
4.2.4.2 N=adjunct 174
4.2.4.3 The external argument in a synthetic compound 176
4.3 Compounds in the syntax and the lexicon 179
4.3.1 Synthetic and root compounds 180
4.3.1.1 Types of compounds 180
4.3.1.2 “Type 3” 181
4.3.2 Synthetic compared with root compounds 183
4.3.2.1 The semantic structure of synthetic and root
compounds 183
4.3.2.2 -ing and –er as syntactic affixes 189
4.4 Previous accounts of compounding 191
4.4.1 Lees (1960) 191
4.4.2 Roeper and Siegel (1978) 193
4.4.3 Lieber (1983) 197
4.5 Further issues, and summary 199
4.5.1 Synthetic compounds as main verbs 199
4.5.2 The directionality of theta-assignment 199
4.5.3 Summary: synthetic compounds 200
Chapter 5 Derivation Affixation 202
5.1 Case-assigning affixes and the Projection Principle 202
5.1.1 Nominalizing –ing and –er 204
5.1.1.1 Gerund –ing nominals 204
5.1.1.2 Nominal –er 206
5.1.2 A note on Case-assignment 210
5.1.3 Syntactic affixes in the lexicon 211
5.1.3.1 Adjectival V-ing 212
5.1.3.2 Non-process –ing nominals 214
5.1.3.3 Lexical passives 216
5.1.3.4 Syntactic affixes in the lexicon 217
5.2 Other syntacitc affixes 218
5.2.1 -Able 219
5.2.1.1 Lexical –able 223
5.2.1.2 -Able at two levels 225
5.2.2 Adjectival ‘affective’ –ing 225
5.2.2.1 a violation of the projection principle 229
5.2.3 -Ness 230
5.2.3.1 -ity 232
5.2.4 -Ly 233
5.2.4.1 Lexical –ly 234
5.2.5 Conclusion 235
5.3 Word formation and levels of representation 235
5.3.1 S-structure, LF and D-structure 235
5.3.2 S-structure and PF 237
5.3.3 No embedding of syntactic inside lexical 240
5.4 Syntactic words and phonological rules 241
5.4.1 Stratum ordering and lexical phonology 242
5.4.2 Latinate/native 243
5.4.2.1 Underived word plus affix 243
5.4.2.2 Derived word plus affix 243
5.4.2.3 Latinate suffixes are not added outside native
suffixes 248
5.4.2.4 Native suffixes are not added to derived words 249
5.4.2.5 Neutral affix plus latinate affix 249
5.4.2.6 Affixation and selection 251
5.4.3 Native/latinate and word-phonological rules 252
Chapter 6 Conclusion 255
6.1 X-bar theory and Case 255
6.2 Syntactic and lexical words 258