This is a deeply mysterious affair. Why should movement transformations exist? We should hope to find reasons for the existence of these deviations from the normal relationship between hierarchical position and linear order. If the movement transformation approach to these cases is correct, then the mys-tery becomes the question why certain phrases should be given two positions within a phrase marker. A goal of much current research in syntax is to find an answer to this mystery. We will have a chance to look at some recent attempts in what follows.
The Underlying Order of Complements
responsible for ordering these terms. NPs differ from other kinds of phrasesin Indo-European in being able to host Case morphology. In English this hap-pens with pronouns only: the pronouns she and her, for instance, have the same meaning but have a different “Case” form. The particular Case borne by a pro-noun is determined by its syntactic position. In languages that are richer in Cases than English is we can see that the Case borne by a NP is determined by a term proximate to the NP. In German, for instance, a certain class of preposi-tions and verbs determine Accusative Case for their complements, while others determine Dative Case. It is also often the case in other Indo-European lan-guages that NPs other than just pronouns can bear Case morphology — some-times on the head of the NP, somesome-times on the determiner, somesome-times spread across modifiers of various sorts within the NPs. Let’s imagine then that, in general, NPs must be related to Case assigners. Or:
(37) Case Filter
An NP must be assigned Case if it is an argument.
I’ve restricted the Case Filter to argument NPs because, as we’ll see, adjunct NPs do not seem to be positioned in a way that suggests they are sensitive to Case assignment. Moreover, typically the Case morphology they bear is fixed, and not sensitive to Case assigners. The Case filter, then, requires that some parse in a sentence’s derivation puts every argument NP that sentence contains in a Case marked position.
As I noted before, Case marked positions are ones that are close to terms that are responsible for assigning (i.e, determining) the Case. So, all we have to do now is know what those terms are and what “close” means, and we’ll be able to use the Case filter to distinguish sentences in terms of grammaticality. The
“object” Cases — so-called Accusative and Dative and Locative, and a host of others — are assigned by particular lexical items. In English there are just three cases: accusative, nominative and genitive. The form of pronouns in English depends on this Case information, as well as the number, person, and, in some cases, gender of the referent of the pronoun.
Nominative Accusative Genitive
1st, sing I me my
1st, plur we us our
2nd, sing you you your
2nd, plur you you your
3rd, sing, fem she her her
3rd, sing, masc he him his
3rd, sing, neut it it its
3rd, plur they them their
Our immediate task, then, is to determine what terms are responsible for as-signing these Cases. The genitive appears on NPs that are in the Specifier of NP in English, as in (38).
(38)
a. your hat compare: *your left.
b. his marbles compare: *I talked to his.
c. our problems compare: *She met our.
We put off for a couple chapters investigating what the item is that assigns Genitive; there are facts about the shape of NPs that we have yet to discover that are relevant.
Nominative Case is found on the “subjects” of finite IPs, as in (39).
(39)
a. She left. compare: *I left she.
b. We arrived before he left. compare: *I talked to he.
c. They thought I would stay. compare: *they hat
Finite IPs are distinguished from other phrases by the presence of a finite I0: tense/agree inflection or a modal. Moreover, the nominative Case-marked NP appears in Specifier of IP, at least in the examples we have examined so far. (We will encounter soon cases that don’t meet this description.) An initial stab at the conditions on nominative Case assignment, then, is (40).
(40) Finite I0assigns Nominative Case to its Specifier position.
Accusative Case is found on NPs that immediately follow some verbs and prepositions, as in (41).
(41)
a. We met him. compare: *Him left.
b. They talked to me compare: *They are happy me.
c. She stood near us. compare: *us hats.
The Underlying Order of Complements
It appears that verbs and prepositions are the terms that assign accusativeCase. Tim Stowell argued that one of the conditions on accusative Case assign-ment is adjacency. We will see soon that additional conditions are required too.
An initial stab at the conditions on accusative Case assignment, then, is (42).
(42) Accusative Case is assigned to the position adjacent to a verb or prepo-sition.
Stowell (1981) proposes to derive the ordering of complements by way of the Case Filter and an adjacency condition on accusative Case assignment. Because NPs are subject to the Case filter, when they get aθ-role from a verb, they will necessarily be positioned adjacent to this verb. By contrast, PPs are not subject to the Case filter and they are free to appear anywhere in the V that contains theirθ-role assigner. This will ensure that when an NP and PP share a V, the NP will come closer to the verb than does the PP. In a language like English, in which the linearization parameters cause the verb to be first in its V, this will mean that an object NP will precede an object PP.
With regard to the relative order of PP and finite CP, Stowell uses Ross’s Heavy NP Shift operation, but he suggests that Case plays a role in making Heavy NP Shift obligatory. He speculates that finite CPs, like NPs, must re-ceive Case but that unlike NPs they cannot sit in Case-marked positions at S-structure. He calls this the “Case Resistance Principle.”
(43) Case Resistance Principle
A (finite) CP may not be in a Case marked position at S-structure.
The Case Resistance Principle requires finite CPs to be moved by S-structure to some non-Case marked position. NP Shift is capable of doing this, and thus, in cases where a complement CP shows up string finally in a VP, it has satisfied Stowell’s injunction against surfacing in Case marked positions by undergoing NP Shift. There is, surprisingly, a certain amount of evidence for this picture.
Consider, for example, situations where the finite clause is the “subject” of the clause. Here too, following an argument from Koster (1978), we see that there is some reason for thinking that it isn’t actually in the Nominative Case-marked, Specifier of IP position. Koster’s argument makes reference to a pro-cess that is found in certain question-types in English. Normally, in these ques-tion contexts, it is possible to move I0to the front of a sentence, as in (44).
(44) Mary will put the book on the table.→ Will Mary put the book on the table?
How precisely this is done is the subject of the next chapter. What’s relevant here is that this process is blocked if it interacts with another process that moves something to the left edge of IP, as in (45).
(45) Mary will put the book on the table.→ On the table, Mary will put the book.
These two processes cannot apply to the same sentence, as (46) indicates.
(46) a. Mary will put the book on the table→ b. On the table, Mary will put the book.→ c. * Will on the table, Mary put the book?
Now, interestingly, for many speakers of English the presence of a finite CP as a subject of a sentence also blocks movement of I0.
(47) a. That Mary has left should be obvious.→ b. * Should that Mary has left be obvious?
c. That Sally sleeps late bothers Mittie.→ d. * Does that Sally sleeps late bother Mittie?
This would follow if finite CPs are driven from the nominative Case marked Specifier of IP, and adjoin to the left of IP in these cases. Stowell’s method of forcing NP Shift to apply to complement CPs would extend to this scenario as well. CPs start out in the nominative Case-marked position, but are driven from there in order to form an S-structure.
This evidence all points to the fact that finite CPs move to either the left or right linear edges of the sentences they are part of. If CPs are prevented from being in Case marked positions in the S-structure, this would get us close to deriving this fact. But is there evidence for the motivation for this movement that Stowell proposes? In particular, is there motivation for the claim that finite CPs, like NPs, require Case?
One piece of suggestive evidence comes from the class of verbs that permit both NPs and finite CPs. These are only just those verbs that already excep-tionally allow two NPs. These include verbs like promise, tell, and show; they are known as “double object” verbs. Some examples indicating that double ob-ject verbs also take NP and CP are in (48).
(48) a. Mary promised me that she would sing.
Mary promised me the ring
The Underlying Order of Complements
b. Jerry told me that he can’t stand Mary’s singing.Jerry told me the story.
c. Sheila showed me that she cares.
Sheila showed me her concern.
This isn’t completely the case, as (49) is a counterexample.
(49) a. Mary persuaded Bill that he should go.
b. * Mary persuaded Bill the fact
But, so far as I know, (49) is the only counterexample. To the extent that there is a match in the verbs which accept NP CP and those which accept NP NP complements, there are grounds for believing that their surface positions are governed by the same, or similar, principles. And to the extent that the dom-inant principle is the Case Filter, then there is reason to conclude from these data that CPs are subject to the Case Filter as well.
This match between the distribution of NPs and CPs should be completely general if Stowell is correct. Indeed, finite CPs are distributed in sentences much like NPs are. We find them as complements to verbs, as we have seen, and in the subject position of other finite clauses, but not in the subject po-sition of infinitives (as we shall see shortly). These are just the Case-marked positions. But there are several differences in their distribution. In English, fi-nite CPs are probably never found as the complements to a preposition, though of course NPs are. The only potential counterexample comes from temporal prepositions, as in (50).
(50) a. I left before Mary arrived.
b. * I left before that Mary arrived.
Similarly, both adjectives and nouns can take CP complements, but not NP complements.
(51) a. Sean is unhappy that he had to sing.
b. * Sean is unhappy that.
(52) a. the proof that lemons cure cancer b. * The proof this fact.
If this has a Case Theoretic explanation, then Stowell’s theory is in trouble. But it could also be that this arises because of some property of c-selection. The jury is still out with respect to Stowell’s suggestion that Case is responsible for the surface position of CPs.
Though the evidence suggests that Stowell’s ideas meet with some success, there are problems too. One which threatens Stowell’s Adjacency Condition on Case assignment, and its use in fixing the order of complements, concerns so-called “double object” constructions, as in:
(53) a. Mary showed Bill the picture.
b. Bill baked Sally a cake.
How can the second NP in these examples receive Case? We will have to develop some of the rest of the system that is responsible for linearizing arguments before we can engage this difficulty. So, let me ask for your indulgence and postpone examining this case.