Table of content
Tabula Rasa
Nature and Nurture
Arguments for LAD
Case filter
Phonological arguments
PRO and pro
Pleonastic pronoun
Arguments that there are word-level-categories
Arguments that there are phrase level categories.
WH movement
WH arguments
Additional information
Universal grammar: shared grammar by humans.
Example: We cannot have a sentence without a subject.
Humans are born Tabula Rasa.
Tabula Rasa means 0 (zero) knowledge.
There are arguments that humans are not born Tabula Rasa
Creativity: The ability to understand sentences you never heard before.
Nativists: Language is a nature.
Nativists say that we can understand the speech just by hearing part of it.
In what way we can say we have competence?
Intuition about the use of language // what is grammatical and ungrammatical.
To be able to describe the language // The language we use to study the language (Metalanguage).
Does language come from nature or nurture?
Naturally born with it We acquire language through environment
(we are born with 0 knowledge/ Tabula Rasa)
Language is not nurtured = no Tabula Rasa. Behaviourism
ARG: children make mistakes they have never Humans born empty headed -> society is the
heard before. key in acquisition process.
Overgeneralization: overuse of a rule// I
buyed = bought.
Arguments for LAD (language acquisition device)
Creativity: the ability to produce structures/ utterances never heard before.
Overgeneralization: overuse of a rule.
Rapidity: A child can learn all the complexities of a language in a very short period of time.
Uniformity: the road map to acquire a language is generally the same.
Example: tendency to learn D.O before I.O
In what way can we know a human has linguistics competence?
Explicit knowledge
Tacit Knowledge
Meta language
Syntactic categories
World level categories
Case filter
Case filter: There is no NP (noun phrase) if NP is caseless.
Some complementizers are hidden, but we can see the consequences there.
The INFL phrase (Inflectional phrase) is the complement of the complementizer phrase.
CP (complementizer phrase) specifiers are universally empty, their role is being landing sites for
moved WH phrases.
- Universally the inflectional phrase is the complement of the complementizer.
- Universally IP specifiers are NP
The complementizer is the most important element in a clause because:
It tells us information about the type of the clause it introduces.
- For: non-finite clause.
- That: finite clause.
Accusative: receives the action.
Nominative: subject.
INFL: hosts tenses/agreements – case assigner.
Us learnt a lot from he -> marked for nominative case.
Us: accusative.
He: pronoun that can be only as a subject.
The ball was kicked
Transitive verbs need a complement.
When an NP moves (for example in passive voice constructions) it necessarily lands in the specifier
of the IP.
The NP (the ball) does not have accusative case because the verb cannot assign it because it is
participle. This is a clear violation of case filter.
Again, the case filter says that you cannot have an NP without case assigned. // No NP if NP is
caseless.
Phonological arguments:
In English when we have a word with 2 syllables, we stress the 1st consonant if the word is noun and
the 2nd if it is a verb.
Difference between PRO and pro.
Pro means pronoun, and PRO means a category that is empty.
On the face of it, PRO violates case filter since INFL is non-finite. However, case filter applies only to
overt NPs.
He tried to be happy: this sentence does not violate case filter because there is no overt NP.
Pleonastic pronoun
Adding a fake pronoun: Seems [] he, to be happy.
The sentence should be corrected as: It seems that he is happy.
We unlocked the non-finite verb (to be)
In the example like he seems to be happy/ he is likely to leave, there is a good reason to argue that
the subject NP (he) is generated post-verbally.
That is: Seems he to be happy / Is likely he to leave. However, these sentences will be
ungrammatical if the deep structure is kept. But why?
The NP ends up after the verb it will incur a violation of case filter because the nearby INFL is non-
finite, and therefore cannot assign it a nominative case, in consequence the NP has to raise to the
nearby clause where the INFL is finite.
In case a pleonastic pronoun [it] is added, this NP does not undergo any movement because that
way it has appropriate case assignment and satisfy case filter.
This raising process does not apply to sentences like [He tries to leave], because there is no
possibility to add a pleonastic pronoun.
This means that the second clause [to be happy/ to leave] has an empty subject, and can survive as it
is because case filter does not apply to covert NPs.
Arguments that there are word-level-categories.
Phonological argument: some words are stressed at the beginning, especially the words that can
work as nouns and verbs.
Morphological argument: adding ed at the end of some verbs and not nouns like studied, we cannot
say studented.
Arguments that there are phrase level categories.
Pronominalization: The student of syntax is... // She is ...
Pronominalization is used for the noun phrase.
WH movement
The WH word always moves to the top (spec of the CP).
Semantic argument: that placement emphasises that what will come will be a question, we never
discover a question till the end.
You went to tangier = adverb of place is where.
who
You invited him
whom
When the WH word replaces a D.O of the verb, who or whom are both possible, with whom being
more formal.
When whom is the object preposition [to whom], who is not possible/ not correct.
Who did you invite ?
WH arguments
The transitive verb (invite) sub categorizes for a post verbal NP (the D.O), this element moved to
(who) place. [who replaces an NP].
When paraphrased the WH word fills that position.
I invited who = him.
I invited him.
The gap argument:
The position left cannot be filled by anything else other than (who), who did you invite him/her.
That place is already reserved.
The WH moves to get the [+wh] feature.
The natural landing site of the WH is the specifier of the CP.
ARG for movement: if it remains in-situ (stays in its place), it will be too far from the complementizer
that has the [+WH] feature.
Additional information
Reiterate: repeat something.
t = trace.
In situ: does not move.
ADV of time = when
place = where
manner = how
reason = why
Extended projection principle: every clause should have a subject.
Thematic rule preservers: When we have an agent and a patient, they stay the same even if we have
a movement.
