Once the complement node of the transitive verb is projected, it has to be combined with a phrase of the type it needs. To do that, the grammar must have a mechanism that combines phrases. This is done by merging one phrase with another.
Each of the determiners in our example – thoseand a – projects a deter- miner phrase, and each of these determiner phrases needs a noun phrase as its complement. The grammar has already projected the two NPs in
Box 3.1 Table of grammatical categories Categories
Word- Phrase-
Word level Phrasal level
Type category symbol Examples category symbol
Lexical Noun N puppy, Noun NP
park, Phrase happiness
Lexical Verb V take, run, Verb VP
be Phrase
Functional Determiner D this, the, Determiner DP
a Phrase
Lexical* Preposition P in, on, Prepositional PP between Phrase
Lexical Adjective A good, red, Adjective AP
big Phrase
Lexical Adverb Adv happily, Adverb AdvP
fast, Phrase initially
Functional Inflection I can, PRES, Inflection IP
PAST Phrase
Functional Complemen- C that Complemen- CP
tizer tizer Phrase
* Preposition is sometimes considered a functional category.
FIGURE3.1
Projection of two simple NPs
FIGURE3.2
Projection of a transitive VP from want
Figure 3.1. All it has to do is merge the two NPs into the two DPs, and the DPs will be complete. The way this works is illustrated in Figure 3.3. The same kind of merger produces those children.
Notice that at the beginning of a merger, there are two NP nodes, but only one NP afterwards. In a merger, the two nodes blend together to form one.
Recall that inFigure 3.2, the verb phrase whose head iswantneeded a DP com- plement, which can now be merged into the VP as illustrated inFigure 3.4.
FIGURE3.3
NPpuppymerges with the complement NP node projected from Dato create DPa puppy
FIGURE3.4
DP a puppymerges with complement DP node projected from V wantto create VP want a puppy
So far the grammar has created the two phrases in Figure 3.5 by merger.
A new functional category is needed to put them together. This category, called inflection, is responsible for the tense of the sentence (among other duties).
An inflection phrase (IP) is projected from abstract elements, such as present and past tense, as well as modal auxiliaries, like canor may. Its role in the structure of sentences is somewhat different from the role of the phrases we have projected so far. Inflection phrases provide the central
“scaffolding” for a sentence, a structure to which the more meaningful lexical category phrases will be attached. In our sentence, the head of the inflection is not a word you can hear, but the abstract element PRES(pres- ent tense). The resulting structure is shown in Figure 3.6.
Even for a functional category, inflection is special. Like transitive verbs and prepositions, it projects a complement branch; to be complete it has to have a verb phrase attached. In other words, you can think of the verb phrase as analogous to the object of a prepositional phrase; in our example, it provides a way for present tense to express its meaning.
But inflection phrases are unusual because they are also required to project a specifier position. A specifier is an extra level of structure with a particular configuration. There is an intermediate node between the lowest category (I) and the IP. This intermediate node is called I, pro- nounced “I-bar.” The complement verb phrase branches from Iand the specifier branches in the opposite direction from the higher IP. This upper piece of structure is called a “specifier” for a reason that was explainable in earlier versions of syntactic theory, but now is simply a conventional technical term. The specifier of an inflection phrase is the subject of the sentence, here a determiner phrase. Inflection phrases typically have determiner phrases as their specifiers, although other phrases are possible.
FIGURE3.5
Two phrases resulting from mergers
FIGURE3.6
Projection of IP from PRES
Notice that in Figure 3.6, DP and VP have no content. To give them content, the grammar merges the structures in Figure 3.5 with the one in Figure 3.6.
The DP containing those childrenis merged with the DP in the specifier posi- tion of IP (this is our first example of specifier merger) and the VP contain- ing want a puppyis merged with the VP. The inflection phrase combines and relates the content of the DP and the VP. The result is shown in Figure 3.7.
The generation of the sentence by the grammar is almost complete.
There has to be a mechanism to get the present tense (PRES) attached to the verb. In this sentence, PRES is not audible so you can’t hear whether it attached or not. But if our sentence had been My child wants a puppy, we could have seen the present-tense marker in the suffix -s. Similarly, if we had chosen the past tense, the sentence would have come out Those children wanted a puppy, also with the tense-marking suffix on the verb. The mech- anism that combines verbs and their tense turned out to be surprisingly complicated for syntactic theory, so we’ll just state here that there is a way to get tense inflections where they belong.
Our grammar must have one more functional category, the complemen- tizer.Complementizers are words like thatin I heard that those children want
FIGURE3.7
Merger of DP and VP into the specifier and complementizer positions of IP
a puppy,forinShe hopes for good things to happen, andifinHe wondered if it would rain. Complementizers project high-level phrases that take inflection phrases as complements. Complementizer phrases (CPs) are functional categories that allow clauses to be embedded in other clauses. For example, in a sentence likeI heard that those children want a puppy, the clausethat those children want a puppyis embedded in a higher clause as the complement of the verbheard.Complementizer phrases also are necessary to understand the structure of questions and relative clauses (e.g.The man who came in was angry), as well as indirect quotations (e.g.He said that those children want a puppy). A Complementizer phrase looks likeFigure 3.8.
In a sentence like I heard that those children want a puppy, the comple- mentizer phrase would look like Figure 3.9.
FIGURE3.8
Projection of CP from that
FIGURE3.9
(I heard) that those children want a puppy
Box 3.2 Determiner phrase and possession
We have introduced three categories that we have called functional.
The functional nature of inflection phrases is easy to see, since they serve as the “scaffold structure” for sentences, holding the inflection and the positions for the subject determiner phrase and the main verb phrase. Similarly complementizer phrases have the function of providing the structure for embedded clauses. But what about deter- miner phrases? From the examples we have shown, determiner seems just like a lexical category, projecting a phrase and a complement branch from a head with some semantic content.
One clearly functional duty of determiner phrases is to provide the scaffolding for possessive constructions, like The cowboy’s hat. This pos- sessive construction is a DP projected from an unusual determiner, the possessive morpheme spelled ’s. The possessive determiner proj- ects an NP complement, as usual, and this time it also projects a spec- ifier (like inflection phrases do). The projection looks like this:
As you can see, this structure looks very similar to a typical IP struc- ture. When the DP The cowboyis merged into the specifier position and the NP hatinto the complement position, we get: