X-bar

1. Specifier rule: $XP \rightarrow (YP) X’$ (or reversed)
2. Adjunct rule: $X’ \rightarrow (ZP) X’$ (or reversed)
3. Complement rule: $X’ \rightarrow (WP) X$ (or reversed)

Here the complement rule seems to be non-obligatory but some sentences don’t make sense.

• Rosemary ran.
• *Rosemary took.
• *Rosemary gave.
• *Rosemary gave the story.
• *Rosemary gave to Mark.

Seems to be constraints imposed by the lexicon (is the word a transitive/intransitive/ditransitive verb)?

Selectional restrictions

semantic criteria for whether certain words should/should not co-occur.

Thematic relations, Theta roles

Entities that undergo actions or are moved, experienced, or perceived are called themes.

• Agent
• Experiencer
• Goal
• Recipient
• Source
• Location
• Instrument
• Beneficiary

DPs can have $\geq 1$ thematic relation. However $\theta$ roles are bundles of thematic relations that cluster on one argumentm and thus do map one-to-one with arguments.

Example: “X placed Y Z”

John$_i$ placed [the flute]$_j$ on [the table]$_k$.

(B – First row) Tells the thematic relations

(C – Second row) Indices of each thematic role

(D – Underlined) External theta role. For subject

(E – Not underlined) Internal theta role. For objects

Only DP in subjects and complements have theta roles, DP in adjuncts don’t. (You can have as many or as few adjuncts as you like, unrestricted by $\theta$ grids.)

Theta criterion

1. Each argument is assigned exactly one theta role.
2. Each theta role is assigned exactly one argument.

Lexicon

Grammar essentially consists of

1. Computational component: Rules and constraints
2. Lexicon: the irregular and memorized parts of language
   1. Meanings
   2. Syntactic category
   3. Pronunciation
   4. Exceptional info (irregularities)
   5. Theta grid (argument structure)

The projection principle: Lexical information (such as theta roles) is syntactically represented at all levels.

• Using the lexical elements, a tree can be created
  • Lexicon only include the root words that are transformed/operated on to form morphologically derived words
  • Book –> Books
    • Generated
  • Child –> *Childs
    • Do we store “child” and “children” separately in the lexicon?
  • give –> #give up (as some meaning related to giving)
    • We store “give” and “give up” separately in the lexicon as well.
• Use this part of the information and filter the tree out.

Expletives and the Extended Projection Principle

• Expletive/plenoastic pronouns

It rained today. (undergenerating, “it” does not have a theta role!) *Rained today. (overgenerating, no agent!) *Is unlikely that Zheng bought bagels.

Expletives seem to appear where there is no theta marked DP (or CP) that fills the subject position. This is encoded in a revised version of the Projection Principle: The Extended Projection Principle (EPP):

All clauses must have subjects (i.e. the specifier of TP must be filled by a DP or CP) and lexical information is expressed at all levels.

Why is this needed?

It seems that in English, every sentence (even imperatives, with invisible subjects) need subjects. [In a conversation, there’s always an addresser and addressee.]

That Bill likes chocolate is unlikely. *Is unlikely that Bill likes chocolate.

The compute pipeline

1. X-bar rules to generate tree.
2. Theta criterion must be satisfied.
3. Expletive insertion.
4. Extended Projection Principle must be satisified.

We have added 3 components, and their invocation must be ordered. Reason: not the principles are not held at every state.

Violations of this pipeline?

What about

He already ate. He already ate the bagel.

How to (possibly) model this:

• For eat: the 2nd argument is optional
• For eat, we have eat$_1$ and eat$_2$ with 2 theta criterions.
• For eat, we have a null argument in the experiencer theme.

Agents can be objects too: A-movement in passivization. Agent is deleted, object theme is moved to the subject position.

[There] is a bagel on the floor.

There has no meaning. So it must be an expletive too. But what is the structure of this?

• A bagel and two cupcakes are on the floor.
• Two cupcakes are a bagel are on the floor.
• There is/are a bagel and two cupcakes on the floor.