Sentences and clauses

Pre-reading quiz

1. All predicates are verbs.
   • False (most predicates’ heads are verb, but predicates are not verbs themselves)
   • Predicates most often verbal, but actually can be adjectival/nominal predicates too
2. Main verbs are also known as …
   • Lexical verb
3. In English, the -ing form of verbs is known as …
   • Present participle
   • Gives progressive aspect
4. English only allows one finite verb in every sentence.
   • No
   • One finite verb in every independent clause/sentence but not for complex, multi-clause sentences
5. Crosslinguistically, root clauses can be identified by the fact that they do not have complementizers.
   • No
   • NOT UNIVERSAL

Finiteness and Auxiliaries

From the previous chapter:

• Predicate: expresses an event (or action, process, situation or state etc.)

New definitions:

• Clause: Sentence containing a predicate.
  • Independent sentences/clauses: Clauses that don’t require to be attached to others.
• Finiteness: A verb that is allowed to be the only verb in an independent clause.
  • Often includes tense information but not necessarily depending on the language
  • In a sequence of verbs/aux (e.g. “may have been working”) the first is the finite verb/aux.
  • Test for finiteness: if you can replace it with another tense. If you can’t, it is most probably not the finite verb/aux

Semantically different types of verbs:

• Main Verb: verbs with semantic/lexical meaning
• Auxiliaries: verbs adding grammatical meaning to the main verb
  • usually accompanying an “inifite verb”/participle

Modal Auxiliaries

• Only finite form
• always the first (rendering the rest non-finite) in a sequence of verbs
• No -s (3rd SG) inflection

Have/Be: Either a Main Verb or Auxiliary

It is obvious what have and be are as the main verb.

As auxiliaries, they express aspect:

• be-ing gives progressive (in progress) aspect
• hav-ing gives perfect (completion extent) aspect

Non-finite verbs: Infinitives and Participles

Infinitives: identified by their distribution. Examples include

• After modal aux
• After infinitival “to” in a verb sequence (not the PP/NP “to”)

Participles: generally non-finte verbs that primarily co-occurs with finite aux.

• -ing participle: the present participle
• -ed participle: the past participle

Summary

1. A normal sentence has one finite main verb XOR auxiliary.
2. Finite element always occurs first in the sequence of aux/verbs
3. The rest are non-finite.
4. The main verb is the last in the sequence of aux/verbs
5. Aux have + past participle = perfect aspect
6. Aux be + past participle = progressive aspect

Grammatical categories on verb can be exhibited by:

1. Inflections on the main verb
2. Auxiliary
3. Separate word/particle

Subordination

Subordinate clauses

Matrix clause: sentence embedding another clause

Subordinate clause: the clause embedded in the matrix clause.

Root clause: the highest matrix clause.

It is an obligatory argument of the verb in the matrix clause.

Properties of subordinate clauses:

1. Introduced by a complementizer e.g. whether, if, that
   1. The matrix verb selects this complementizer, not interchangeable.
2. Finiteness: root clauses must be finite.
3. Some subordinate clauses have no overt subject, with the subject being understood from the matrix clause.

Complement clauses

Complement clauses: Subordinate clauses selected by a verb in the matrix clause (in predicate position)

Also can take the form of clausal subjects: in the subject position. Can be tested by replacing with an NP.

Adjunct/Adverbial clauses

Not a necessary component of their parent clause (optional subordinate clause).

Not selected by any verb.

Subordinate clause identification

Find the main verb. 1 Main verb = 1 Independent clause.

Root clause possible properties:

1. Finiteness
2. (Cross-linguistically) potentially has different word order from embedded clauses.
3. Some languages (including English) root clauses don’t have complementizers.

Root clause properties in English:

• only root clause can have aux inversion (“She didn’t…” to “Didn’t she…”)
• can have tag questions (“She x’ed, didn’t she?”)