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Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar A Guide for EFL Teachers

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Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar A Guide for EFL Teachers

Martin J. Endley Hanyang University

INFORMATION AGE PUBLISHING, INC. Charlotte, NC • www.infoagepub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Endley, Martin J. Linguistic perspectives on English grammar : a guide for EFL teachers / Martin J. Endley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-61735-168-6 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-1-61735-169-3 (hardcover) -ISBN 978-1-61735-170-9 (e-book) 1. English language--Study and teaching--Foreign speakers. 2. English language--Grammar--Study and teaching. 3. English teachers--Training of. I. Title. PE1128.A2E463 2010 428.2’4--dc22                            2010038054

Copyright © 2010 Information Age Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

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Contents



Acknowledgments................................................................................ xv

1

Nouns and Noun Phrases in Linguistic Perspective............................ 3 Categorizing Words........................................................................... 4 What Is a Noun?................................................................................. 6 Time Stability.................................................................................... 9 Concreteness.................................................................................... 10 Common Nouns and Problems of Countability............................ 13 Common Nouns and Problems of Number and Plurality............ 16 Some Further Problems with Plurality........................................... 18 Some Thoughts on Proper Nouns.................................................. 20 Pronouns.......................................................................................... 22 The Personal Pronouns.................................................................... 24 The Reciprocal Pronouns................................................................. 31 The Indefinite Pronouns.................................................................. 32 Genitives and Partitives................................................................... 33 Further Reading.............................................................................. 37

2

Verbs and Verb Phrases in Linguistic Perspective............................. 39 What Are Verbs?.............................................................................. 40 Verbs and Situations........................................................................ 43



Introduction: A Linguistic Perspective on English Grammar: Some Basic Principles and Themes................................................... xvii

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Verbs, Activities, and Processes....................................................... 44 Verbs and Punctual Situations........................................................ 44 Verbs and States............................................................................... 45 The Three Primary Verbs in English............................................. 49 Morphosyntactic Properties of the Primary Verbs in English...... 50 NICE Property #1: Negation............................................................ 50 NICE Property #2: Inversion........................................................... 51 NICE Property #3: Code.................................................................. 52 NICE Property #4: Emphasis........................................................... 53 The Primary Verbs as Main Verbs.................................................. 54 Multi-Word Verbs............................................................................. 57 Multi-Word Verbs as Lexical Verbs.................................................... 59 Types of Multi-Word Verb................................................................. 61 Multi-Word Verbs: Problems of Form and Problems of Meaning......... 64 Multi-Word Verbs: Some Further Problems........................................ 73 Further Reading.............................................................................. 75

3

Adjectives and Adverbs in Linguistic Perspective.............................. 77 The Adjective Word Class: Morphosyntactic Characteristics....... 78 The Position of Adjectives: The Prenominal Position......................... 79 The Position of Adjectives: The Predicative Position.......................... 81 Adjective-Forming Suffixes............................................................... 86 Comparative and Superlative Forms................................................. 87 Modification of Adjectives................................................................ 88 Adjectives and Prefixes..................................................................... 88 The Semantics of Adjectives.............................................................. 91 Prenominal Adjectives and the Problem of Adjective Order................. 96 Two More Problems with Adjectives: Participles and Compounds....... 98 Adverbs: A Highly Problematic Category.................................... 100 Comparing Adjectives and Adverbs................................................. 102 The Position of Adverbs.................................................................. 106 Adverbs as Modifiers and Linkers................................................... 108 Further Reading.............................................................................111

4

Determining Words and Prepositions in Linguistic Perspective.... 113 Determining Words: Some Important Preliminaries..................114 Determining Words and Adjectives..................................................116

Contents  ix

The Articles in English: Form......................................................... 121 The Articles in English: Meaning and Use...................................... 123 Articles and Proper Nouns............................................................. 129 A Brief Note on the Grammar of English Demonstratives................. 132 A Brief Note on Genitive Pronouns as Determining Words.............. 134 Pre-determiners and Post-determiners............................................. 134 Prepositions in English: Some Important Issues......................... 136 English Prepositions: Some Remarks on Their Syntactic Properties... 139 English Prepositions: Meaning and Use.......................................... 142 Further Reading............................................................................ 151

5

Participants, Functions, and Roles.................................................... 155 Verbs and Participants................................................................... 156 The Idea of Grammatical Functions............................................ 158 The Idea of Semantic Roles.......................................................... 161 The agent Semantic Role............................................................... 162 The theme Semantic Role.............................................................. 164 The experiencer Semantic Role..................................................... 164 The patient Semantic Role............................................................ 166 Some Further Semantic Roles.......................................................... 166 The Subject in English.................................................................. 171 Must We Have a Subject?............................................................... 175 Non-referential Subjects.................................................................. 179 Objects in English.......................................................................... 184 Further Reading............................................................................ 186

6

Transitivity and Intransitivity............................................................ 187 What Does Transitivity Involve?.................................................... 188 Some Thoughts on Transitive Clauses and Their Verbs............. 191 Simple Transitive Clauses.............................................................. 191 Extended Transitive Clauses........................................................... 196 Complex Transitive Clauses........................................................... 205 Some Thoughts on Intransitive Clauses and Their Verbs.......... 207 Simple Intransitive Clauses and Extended Intransitive Clauses....... 208 Complex Intransitive Clauses......................................................... 211 The Fluidity of Transitivity............................................................ 218 Further Reading............................................................................ 220

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7

Tense and Aspect................................................................................ 223 Tense and Aspect in English: Some Initial Reflections.............. 224 What Is Tense?.............................................................................. 225 Expressing the Future in English: A Linguistic Dispute............ 229 Tense and Aspect in Combination: The English Present Simple......................................................................... 232 Regular or Habitual Situations...................................................... 234 States of Being or Possession........................................................... 235 Universal or “Timeless” Truths and Established Facts..................... 236 Generic Statements........................................................................ 236 Commentary on Some Currently Unfolding Situation...................... 237 Summaries.................................................................................... 237 Performatives................................................................................. 237 Planned or Scheduled Future Situations......................................... 238 Unplanned or Unscheduled but Anticipated Future Situations........ 238 Narration of Past Events (the Historical Present)............................ 239 Informing and Commenting on “News”.......................................... 239 Tense and Aspect in Combination: The English Past Simple.... 240 Single Completed Event.................................................................. 242 Extended Situation, Now Completed............................................... 243 Series of Regular Events................................................................. 243 Conditional Possibility................................................................... 244 Signaling Politeness....................................................................... 244 Tense and Aspect in Combination: The English Present . and Past Progressive............................................................... 244 Progressive Marking on Verbs: A Potential Problem.................. 247 Tense and Aspect in Combination: The English Present . and Past Perfect....................................................................... 251 Perfect of Result............................................................................. 254 Experiential Perfect........................................................................ 254 Perfect of Persistent Situation......................................................... 255 Perfect of Recent Past..................................................................... 256 Recurrent Event Perfect.................................................................. 256 Some More Patterns...................................................................... 258 Pattern 1: Have + Been + V-ing.................................................... 258 Pattern 2: Had + Been + V-ing.................................................... 259

Contents  xi

Pattern 3: Modal auxiliary + Have + Been + V-ing...................... 259 Back to the Future: Will or Be Going To?....................................... 260 Further Reading............................................................................ 261

8

Modality and Negation...................................................................... 263 What is Modality?.......................................................................... 264 The Prototypical Modal Auxiliaries in English: . Morphosyntactic Properties................................................... 265 Acceptance of the NICE Properties.................................................. 266 Absence of a Third Person Singular Inflection................................. 267 Modal Auxiliaries: Some Additional Grammatical Characteristics......................................................................... 269 The Semantics of the Prototypical Modals.................................. 273 Can .............................................................................................. 275 Could............................................................................................ 276 May .............................................................................................. 276 Might............................................................................................ 277 Must............................................................................................. 278 Will .............................................................................................. 278 Shall............................................................................................. 280 Would........................................................................................... 281 Should........................................................................................... 281 Ought............................................................................................ 281 Some Semi-Modal Expressions..................................................... 283 Grammatical Features of Semi-modals........................................ 284 The Semantics of the Semi-Modals.............................................. 286 Be Going To................................................................................... 286 Be Able To..................................................................................... 288 Be Supposed To.............................................................................. 289 Have To and Have Got To............................................................. 290 Had Better and Had Best............................................................... 292 Go Un-V........................................................................................ 293 Negative Utterances and the Particle Not.................................... 295 The Semantics of Not..................................................................... 298 Not as a Non-verbal Negator......................................................... 300 Complex Negators Involving Not................................................... 302 Further Reading............................................................................ 304

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9

Questions and Focus Constructions................................................. 307 Interrogative Utterances............................................................... 308 Yes/No Interrogatives................................................................... 309 Replying to Yes/No Interrogatives..................................................311 Wh- Interrogatives......................................................................... 313 Some Other Types of Questions........................................................317 Passive Voice in English: Some General Remarks....................... 323 Reasons for Omitting the Agent in Passive Constructions................ 325 What Can Be Passivized and What Can’t?................................... 328 A Scale of Passivity........................................................................ 335 English Passives: Meaning and Use.............................................. 338 Get Passive.................................................................................... 341 Middle Voice Constructions.......................................................... 345 Some Other Focus Constructions................................................. 348 Clefting......................................................................................... 348 Fronting........................................................................................ 351 Left-dislocation.............................................................................. 351 Locative Inversion......................................................................... 352 Further Reading............................................................................ 353

10

Complex Sentences in English: Coordination and Subordination..................................................................................... 355 Coordinated Clauses..................................................................... 356 The Semantics of And, Or, and But............................................... 359 And .............................................................................................. 359 Or .............................................................................................. 360 But .............................................................................................. 360 Other Coordinators?..................................................................... 361 Correlative Coordinators.............................................................. 363 The Idea of Subordination............................................................ 365 Three Types of Finite Complement Clause................................. 368 That Clause Complements............................................................. 368 Wh- Clause Complements.............................................................. 377 If/Whether Clause Complements................................................. 379

Contents  xiii

Types of Nonfinite Complement Clauses..................................... 382 Infinitive Clause Complements....................................................... 382 Infinitives With and Without Subjects............................................ 386 -Ing Clause Complements.............................................................. 387 Infinitives or -ing?......................................................................... 388 The Label Gerund (Or: To Be a Noun or Not To Be a Noun?.... 392 Further Reading............................................................................ 396

11

Complex Sentences in English: Relative Clauses and Related Constructions..................................................................................... 397 What Is a Relative Clause?............................................................. 397 The Position of English Relative Clauses..................................... 399 Marking English Relative Clauses: The Relative Proforms........ 400 Selecting Proforms........................................................................ 407 Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Relative Clauses.......................... 412 The Discourse Function of Restrictive Relative Clauses.................... 416 Syntactic Constraints on Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Clauses....... 417 Relative Adverbial Clauses............................................................ 423 Nonprototypical Relative Clauses................................................. 425 Some Related Clauses.................................................................... 427 Further Reading............................................................................ 430

12

Complex Sentences in English: Adverbial, Participial, and Conditional Clauses........................................................................... 431 The Adverbial Function in English: An Overview...................... 432 Some Basic Functions of Adverbial Clauses..................................... 434 Participial Adverbial Clauses......................................................... 437 Adverbials of Condition................................................................ 439 The Main Types of Conditionals.................................................. 441 Simple (Real) Conditional Constructions........................................ 443 Predicative (Real) Conditionals...................................................... 445 Hypothetical (Unreal) Conditionals................................................ 447 Counterfactual (Unreal) Conditionals............................................ 450 Some Other Types of Conditional.................................................... 451 Conditional Clauses in Discourse................................................... 455 Further Reading............................................................................ 457

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Endnotes............................................................................................. 459 Introduction................................................................................... 459 Chapter 1........................................................................................ 459 Chapter 2........................................................................................ 460 Chapter 4........................................................................................ 460 Chapter 5........................................................................................ 460 Chapter 6........................................................................................ 461 Chapter 7........................................................................................ 461 Chapter 8........................................................................................ 461 Chapter 9........................................................................................ 462 Chapter 10...................................................................................... 462 Chapter 11...................................................................................... 462



Glossary.............................................................................................. 465



References.......................................................................................... 477

Acknowledgments

M

any people have helped me in the writing of this book. I would like to record my especial thanks to Dr. Kara Macdonald, friend and colleague, who somehow managed to find time amid her extraordinarily busy life to read and comment on the entire manuscript. I have incorporated many of her suggestions and acknowledge them accordingly. I am also very grateful to Dr. Tom Payne of the University of Oregon, who very kindly allowed to me to consult sections of his own soon-to-be-published book on the linguistics of English grammar. I also want to thank Dr. Eom, Ik-sang and Dr. Ahn, Sung Ho, both of Hanyang University, for their support and encouragement while I was working on this project. And I wish to express my thanks to all those students at Hanyang who have attended my LPEG classes where many of the ideas contained in these pages have been formulated and developed. Two students in particular who gave me assistance deserve special mention: Jeong, Yeon Jeong and Lee, Songyi.

Explanatory Note In this book I use the term expert user of English (EUE) to indicate someone who speaks and/or writes English to a very high level of proficiency. I also use the term developing user of English (DUE), by which I intend someone who has not yet attained a high level of proficiency. The former term overlaps with, but is not identical to, the term native speaker. I take a native Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages xv–xvi Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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speaker of English to be someone who was born and/or raised in a country where English is the main language spoken (e.g., America, Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand). It is not possible for a non-native speaker to become a native speaker. However, it is certainly possible for a DUE to become an EUE. Many do.

Introduction A Linguistic Perspective on English Grammar: Some Basic Principles and Themes

For remember that in general we don’t use language according to strict rules— it hasn’t been taught to us by means of strict rules either. —Ludwig Wittgenstein (1965, p. 25)

Were a language ever completely “grammatical,” it would be a perfect engine of conceptual expression. Unfortunately, or luckily, no language is tyrannically consistent. All grammars leak. —Edward Sapir (1921, p. 38)

T

ake a look at the title of the book you are now holding: Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar. As this title suggests, what I have tried to do in writing this book is to approach English grammar from a linguistic point of view, asking the kind of questions about English that a linguist might typically be expected to ask. The book is by no means an exhaustive account, covering English grammar in its entirety. Probably no such book could ever be written, although some writers have come quite close. My concern has been altogether more modest: to try to illuminate some of the linguistic issues that underlie the grammar of modern English. As my subtitle indicates, the projected readership is those whose job it is to teach English grammar to speakers of other languages.

Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages xvii–xlvii Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had some very interesting things to say about language. One of the things he said is quoted at the beginning of this chapter. Although he was not a professional linguist, I think Wittgenstein was on to something rather important when he wrote those words. To my mind, both parts of his remark are correct, at least so far as first languages are concerned. Of course, when it comes to foreign languages things are rather different. There is no doubt that teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) are very fond of presenting its grammar in terms of rules. However, this way of thinking—the idea that the grammar of a language is best described as a series of rules—is misleading. Along with a number of linguists, I take the view that a grammar should be understood as a collection of conventionalized linguistic patterns rather than rules in a narrow sense. In the pages that follow, I aim to illuminate the nature of some of these patterns. I have been particularly concerned with those patterns that strike me as especially problematic and in need of the kind of illumination that linguistic analysis can provide. Again, I remind you that the book has been written primarily with language teachers in mind, and this has influenced my choice of topics. I also want to say something about the other epigraph at the beginning of this chapter. This quote is from a linguist, Edward Sapir, who was active in the early years of the 20th century. While not everything Sapir said about language has proved to be correct, his suggestion that “all grammars leak” is an observation that I find quite intriguing. It is, of course, a remark open to various interpretations. One thing I understand Sapir to mean is that it is simply not possible to provide a complete, fully systematic account of the grammar of a language—any language. There will always be certain aspects of the grammar that escape our attempts at systemization, aspects that do not fit neatly into the categories we have devised to describe the language. You will find that this is certainly true of my attempts to describe the grammar of English in the pages that follow. At this point, you will probably want to know more about what a linguistic perspective actually involves. Unfortunately, if you ask a linguist a question such as “What does a linguistic perspective involve?” the answer will depend, to some extent at least, on which linguist you are speaking to. This is because linguistics, like pretty much every other academic discipline you care to think of, is characterized by differences of opinion with regard to the most appropriate methods and procedures. Nevertheless, certain generalizations can be made. One generalization that I think most linguists would accept is that adopting a linguistic perspective involves treating the language under investigation (for us, English) as a natural phenomenon. For linguists, languages are to be studied in much the same way that botanists

Introduction    xix

study trees and plants or geologists study rock formations and volcanoes. The linguist’s job, we might say, is to try to understand this natural object, to discover and explore its regularities and patterns, and to describe them in a manner that increases our overall understanding. For convenience, I will state this idea in the form of a principle as follows:

1 A linguistic perspective involves treating language as natural phenomenon, describing its regularities and patterns in a manner that increases our overall understanding. principle

In the remaining sections of this chapter, I want to develop some of the implications of this fundamental principle. In doing so, I will set forth some of the key assumptions that underlie the book as a whole.

Descriptivism, Not Prescriptivism A corollary of viewing language as a natural phenomenon is that we adopt a descriptive approach.1 A descriptive approach outlines, illustrates, and explains the linguistic principles that govern the grammar of a language without recommending or condemning particular usages. In other words, in a descriptive approach, we are interested in describing and explaining language as it is actually used by real speakers of that language. It is safe to say that today almost all professional linguists adopt such a descriptive approach. Descriptive approaches to grammar are often contrasted with prescriptive approaches. Prescriptivism has been defined as “the view that one variety of language has an inherently higher value than others and ought to be the norm for the whole of the speech community” (Crystal, 1995, p. 194). Essentially, a prescriptive view of grammar maintains that some things are “good” grammar and others are “bad” grammar. Associated with this view, although not always explicitly articulated, is the notion that the grammar of a language is somehow fixed and unchanging—something to be passed on from generation to generation. This kind of thinking about grammar has a long history. Nonetheless, there are serious problems with it and it is open to various criticisms. For one thing, the idea that languages do not change is simply wrong. As one writer puts it, “All languages change all the time. It is not very well understood why this is the case, but it is a universal characteristic of human

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languages. The only languages which do not change are those, like Latin, which nobody speaks” (Trudgill, 1999, p. 1). Not only do all languages change; but change affects all aspects of language: phonology, orthography, lexis, semantics, and syntax. English grammar has certainly changed and is continuing to change. As a result, something that might have been considered “good” grammar (from a prescriptivist point of view), say, a hundred or fifty or even thirty years ago, might no longer be regarded that way now. A second problem has to do with the faulty logic of the prescriptivists. For example, prescriptivists and those influenced by them will often maintain that expressions like the following, which all contain split infinitives, are “bad” English: (1) a. to vigorously walk b. to frantically chase c. to gleefully chuckle But what makes these expressions “bad”? The problem with the idea that such expressions are somehow incorrect is that the grammarians who originally proposed that English speakers should never split an infinitive in this way were using classical Latin as their model. Basically, they argued that in Latin there are no split infinitives; therefore, there should not be any in English either. Now this is an odd argument for two reasons. Firstly, the idea of using one language as a model for what is supposedly correct in another language is itself rather strange. It is certainly true that historically Latin has had a major impact on English. But it is not at all clear why this should mean that the grammar of Latin should serve as a model for the grammar of English as it is spoken today in the early 21st century. Secondly, and more importantly, there is a flaw in the prescriptivists’ reasoning. Consider (1a) again. In Latin, the infinitive form of the verb to walk is ambulare—a single word. Given the way Latin infinitives are structured (as single lexical items), it is simply not possible to split them, whereas in English it plainly is possible. Native speakers of English as well as other expert users of English (EUEs) do it all the time, and when they do there is no communication problem. This is significant. Prescriptivism is so called because it “prescribes” supposedly correct linguistic behavior. Yet, very often, failure to follow these prescriptions makes no communicative difference. Here is another example. Some prescriptivists have maintained that a sentence should never end with a preposition. If this was true, it would

Introduction    xxi

mean that (2a) is “good” grammar whereas (2b) is “bad” because it ends with from: (2) a. From whom did you hear that? b. Who did you hear that from? What are we to make of this sort of claim? I suggest that if we treat language as a natural phenomenon, paying attention to how it is actually used, we will find that EUEs commonly use both varieties of this particular construction, with (2b), in fact, probably being rather more frequent. At any rate, my sense is that proficient speakers are quite happy to end sentences with prepositions, even though this is precisely what many prescriptivists tell us we should not be doing. In fact, trying to avoid doing this can lead to somewhat comical results, as in the following utterance (ascribed to the famous British statesman, Sir Winston Churchill), which I think everyone will agree sounds very odd. (3) This is the sort of English up with which I will not put. From a linguistic perspective, then, it makes no real sense to talk of something being “good” or “bad” grammar. Instead, as linguists, we try to describe what speakers actually do with the language, how they use it. Since both (2a) and (2b) are regularly encountered, we may conclude that they are both part of the grammar of modern English. In saying this, I do not mean to deny that there is a significant difference between them. But this difference is largely a matter of formality, with (2a) being quite formal and (2b) being rather less formal. It follows that there may be occasions when one or the other is preferable (e.g., when we are writing a formal letter of some sort, we may decide to use [2a]; but in a casual chat among friends, [2b] is much more likely). However, recognizing that there is a difference in formality (or register, as linguists would wish to say) between the two sentences is rather different from maintaining that one is good grammar and the other bad. The difference between descriptivism and prescriptivism that I have been discussing is nicely expressed in the following quotation from a recent introduction to linguistics: “Prescriptive grammarians are judgmental and attempt to change linguistic behavior of a particular sort and in a particular direction. Linguists . . . , on the other hand, seek to explain the knowledge of language that guides people’s everyday use of language regardless of their

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schooling” (Honda & O’Neil, 2008, p. 2; emphasis original). As this quotation implies, prescriptive approaches tend to be out of favor these days among linguists, most of whom would maintain that it is not their business to say that this or that bit of grammar is right or wrong. As linguists, our role is simply to describe how the language is used, not to say how it should be used. I think this is relevant for EFL teachers as well. At least, I assume that teachers will be interested in how English is spoken by contemporary speakers of the language. This brings me to my next point. Describing how the language is used will still involve discussing the rules of use in the sense of identifying and accounting for the regular structures and patterns of the language. But from a linguistic point of view, these rules are simply attempts to bring order and coherence to the description. They do not have the additional role of establishing “good” grammar. For a linguist, a rule is a statement that describes an observed regularity in the language. In other words, what are often called the “rules of grammar” are really attempts to describe the patterns of the language as it is spoken and written. It is important to see how this view differs from the one that prescriptivists might adopt. For the latter, the rules come first and are paramount. The speakers of the language must conform to them. However, when a linguist offers a rule, she or he is not proposing that the rule must be followed. Instead, the rule is part of an effort to describe and account for the linguistic regularities that are observed in the language produced by competent speakers. Notice that, in this view, the rule (because it is a descriptive statement) is determined by the actual language spoken and written by the language-users, not the other way around. Because of this, if it turns out that people use their language in a manner that is not accounted for by our rule, we must revise our rule to allow for this.

Basic Linguistic Theory I have said that today all linguists adopt a descriptivist approach. This is in line with the general orientation of modern linguistics, which may be broadly defined as an attempt to describe and explain language as a natural phenomenon. However, descriptions do not arise in a theoretical vacuum. Underlying any linguistic description will be certain theoretical assumptions. At this point, then, I would like to lay bare some of my theoretical assumptions. The perspective I will adopt in this book is an example of what has been called “basic linguistic theory” (Dixon, 2005, p. 4). It is basic in the sense that I do not wish to commit myself to any particular school of thought. In-

Introduction    xxiii

stead, I shall feel free to draw upon ideas associated with different linguistic perspectives and points of view as I see fit in order to illuminate a particular topic. Having said this, however, for the most part I will draw upon what are often referred to as “functionalist” or “usage-based” accounts of language in order to elucidate my points. Let me explain this further. One way of characterizing modern linguists is to divide them into two broad camps: On the one hand, there are those who we might describe as “formalists”; on the other hand, there are those who adopt a “functionalist” approach to linguistic description. As a rough approximation, formalists tend to be concerned with language as an abstract system. Typically, linguists with a formalist orientation construct highly abstract and idealized models of grammar, showing little interest in the way in which language is actually used by individual speakers, the purposes for which they use language, or how those purposes may affect their grammatical choices. Linguists in this camp are formalist, then, precisely because they are interested primarily in language forms, paying relatively little attention to the functions those forms might fulfill. Functionalist linguists share with formalists the urge to offer adequate descriptions of language; but they go about the descriptive task in a very different way. In comparison with the formalists, functionalists tend to place far greater emphasis on the uses to which language is put; in particular, they look at language as a tool employed by speakers for communicative purposes. Functionalists tend not to separate form and function; rather, they see them as intertwined and as being of equal importance for grammatical description. Indeed, a typical functionalist claim is that the functions for which languages are used have played a decisive role in shaping their grammatical forms. Another typical concern for a functionalist, in addition to describing a grammatical structure (e.g., the passive construction in English), might be to try to explain why this particular structure is used on one occasion and a different structure (e.g., the active construction) is used on another occasion, with the explanation being given both in terms of the meaning of the two structures and the intended purposes of the speaker. One area in which the difference between these two orientations becomes especially acute has to do with the nature of grammatical description. The issue centers on the fact that a particular sentence may be syntactically correct and therefore “grammatical” in a narrow sense and yet unacceptable due to reasons of meaning; in other words, it may be semantically anomalous. Among linguists, the best-known example of this is the following sentence invented by the celebrated formalist, Noam Chomsky:

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(4) Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Now, this is a very interesting sentence and one that has been much discussed in linguistic circles. The thing to notice is that it is syntactically perfect in that it follows the accepted patterns of English word order, with two adjectives preceding the noun, which in turn precedes the verb, which is modified by the following adverb. In fact, it has precisely the same syntactic structure as the following: (5) Boring old professors talk endlessly . adj adj noun verb adv But there is a problem. You will have noticed that while sentence (5) is meaningful (and perhaps true!), the sentence invented by Chomsky is completely meaningless; indeed, we might say it is nonsensical. It is simply not possible for something to be “colorless” and “green” at the same time—the notions are mutually exclusive. In any case, ideas do not have colors, nor do they sleep, and it is not at all clear what it could possibly mean to sleep “furiously.” Chomsky’s point in inventing sentence (4) was to argue that syntax (the study of sentence structure) and semantics (the study of meaning) are logically distinct, and that the former can be studied without making any reference to the latter. For Chomsky himself, this is a very important methodological principle and one that he has tended to insist upon throughout his long and influential career. Chomsky’s view on this is neatly summed up in a remark he makes in one of his earliest publications: “[G]rammar is autonomous and independent of meaning” (Chomsky, 1957, p. 17). Of course, Chomsky is aware that syntax and semantics are closely involved with one another. Thus, later in the same volume he writes that it would be entirely possible to discover “many important correlations . . . between syntactic structure and meaning,” adding that such correlations “could form part of the subject matter for a more general theory of language concerned with syntax and semantics and their points of connection” (Chomsky, 1957, p. 108). Nonetheless, his actual methodological procedure denies significance to questions of meaning in grammatical description. A lot of linguists remain unconvinced by this approach (as will, I suspect, many readers of this book). Many linguists would maintain that an adequate grammatical description must take semantics into account since

Introduction    xxv

the whole point of grammar is to enable us to engage in meaningful communication. Talmy Givón, an important functionalist, puts it this way: “The production of rule-governed grammatical sentences is the means by which one produces coherent communication” (1993a, p. 2; emphasis added). Of course, there is one sense in which Chomsky is right. It is undoubtedly possible to engage in grammatical description without reference to semantic concerns, focusing on syntax in isolation. And this is the approach taken by those linguists most heavily influenced by Chomsky. Yet I cannot help feeling that simply studying syntactic structures as formalists tend to do is not enough. Language is about meaningful communication and it is surely not unreasonable to maintain that grammatical description should take account of this meaning component. Let me try to make the point in another way. Consider the following two sentences. (Note: in linguistics, the [*] symbol is used to indicate that something is ungrammatical): (6) a. Susan’s son fell ill last week. b. *Susan’s son fell well last week. These two sentences have identical syntactic structures and yet the second one is ungrammatical and would never be uttered by any EUE. The reason that it is ungrammatical is that when fall functions as a copula verb, as it does here, it tends to imply negativity. One can “fall (i.e., become) ill” because this is construed as a negative event; but one cannot meaningfully talk about “falling well” because being healthy is a positive state. The point is that making sense of the difference between these two sentences requires us to think in terms of semantics, not simply syntax. At least, unless we attend to the semantics it is difficult to explain why (6a) is grammatically acceptable, whereas (6b) is not, since, as I have said, at the syntactic level their structures are identical. What, then, are we to make of Chomsky’s sentence quoted in (4) above? Actually, I suggest that we do not let it trouble us too much. No EUE would utter a sentence like this in normal circumstances; indeed, no one but a linguist trying to illustrate a particular issue would ever say something like this. As interesting as it is, for our purposes it can be safely ignored. The choice between formalist and functionalist approaches to linguistic description is a controversial matter and one on which it is almost impossible not to take a side. As I have said, I broadly favor a functionalist approach, although I am also very conscious of the remarkable insights into language that have been provided by the formalists. Even so, I am inclined

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to think that the following remarks, again coming from the very influential functionalist I quoted above, are very much to the point: “[H]uman language is a purposeful instrument designed to code and communicate information, . . . like other instruments, its structure is not divorced from its function” (Givón, 1993a, p. 2; emphasis added). At this point, let me add two more principles that will serve as a summary of my discussion so far. I think Principle 2 would be acceptable to all linguists, whatever their theoretical orientation:

2 A linguistic perspective involves a descriptive, not a prescriptive, account of language. principle

As I have indicated, Principle 3 is more controversial but, nonetheless, in my opinion it makes good sense:

3 A linguistic perspective requires attention to function as well as form. principle

What Does Grammar Mean? So far, I have spoken as if the word grammar were entirely clear-cut and presented no difficulties. This is not so. At this point, then, I want to examine this word in more detail, asking what this basic term means when viewed from a linguistic perspective. What is a grammar? There are certain basic notions on which modern linguists are generally agreed. Two notions that would command widespread support are as follows: ◾◾ A grammar is a system of linguistic rules (patterns) for enabling people to communicate successfully. ◾◾ A grammar exists primarily as a form of knowledge in the minds of language users. The first of these points is reflected in the remarks from Givón quoted toward the end of the previous section. It is also suggested by the following quotation from another well-known linguist:

Introduction    xxvii The fundamental purpose of language is to make sense—to communicate intelligibly. But if we are to do this, we need to share a single system of communication. . . . The rules controlling the way a communication system works are known as its grammar, and both sender and recipient need to use the same grammar if they are to understand each other. If there is no grammar, there can be no effective communication. (Crystal, 1995, p. 190; emphasis added)

The second point is addressed in the following quotation from yet another linguist: Each adult speaker of a language clearly has some type of “mental grammar,” that is, a form of internal linguistic knowledge which operates in the production and recognition of appropriately structured expressions in that language. (Yule, 1996, p. 87; emphasis added)

For adult native speakers, the internalized knowledge they possess of their first language is primarily procedural, not declarative, knowledge. What does this mean? Procedural knowledge is the knowledge of the language we draw upon in real-time when we are using the language quite naturally to communicate with one another—we can think of it as knowing “how” to use the language appropriately. Our procedural knowledge is non-conscious knowledge that guides and directs our daily use of language. Declarative knowledge, on the other hand, is conscious knowledge “about” the language—it involves being able to explain the so-called rules of grammar, pronunciation, et cetera. A few moments’ thought should convince you that these two types of knowledge are not the same and that it is quite possible to have one and not the other. If you are not convinced, perhaps the following analogy will help to make the difference clearer. Many people know how to ride a bicycle in the sense that they can happily get on a bike and ride off into the sunset without falling off. That is an example of procedural knowledge. But how many of us can explain the principles of momentum that enable us to keep upright on those two narrow little tires without losing our balance? Probably not many. If you are able to explain what is happening when you ride your bicycle (perhaps because you have studied the physics of motion), you have declarative knowledge as well. But notice that you do not need this somewhat specialized declarative knowledge of physics in order to be a successful cyclist. For that, procedural knowledge is sufficient. The same thing applies to language: People can use a language perfectly well, drawing upon the procedural knowledge they have acquired over a lifetime of exposure and use, without being able to explain the rules of the language (i.e., without having declarative knowledge).

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As a linguist, I would say that the internal linguistic knowledge a competent speaker possesses includes more than grammar in the narrow sense of syntax. In addition, she will possess procedural knowledge of the phonological system of the language in question (its distinctive sounds and the ways those sounds can be combined), its morphology (the way words are structured), its semantics (knowledge of how meanings are conveyed and construed), lexical knowledge (an inventory of words, subject of course to a considerable individual variation—some speakers have much more extensive lexicons than others), and pragmatic knowledge (knowledge of how to use language in different social contexts). This point is reflected in the following quotation: One of the most fundamental claims of modern linguistic analysis is that all languages have a grammar. It could not be any other way. If a language is spoken, it must have a phonetic and phonological system; since it has words and sentences, it must also have a morphology and a syntax; and since these words and sentences have systematic meanings, there must obviously be semantic principles as well. Of course, these are the very things that make up a grammar. (O’Grady & Archibald, 2000, p. 5)

Perhaps the idea of non-conscious knowledge of grammar, or knowledge that we use without being aware of having it, sounds a little odd? In fact, I think it is possible to offer a demonstration of the existence of this knowledge, at least indirectly. Here is how: Any adult native speaker of English will readily accept sentence (7a) as grammatical while rejecting (7b); similarly, they will accept (8a) and reject (8b). Not only that, but we can confidently state that such a speaker would readily produce the two (a) sentences without ever producing the (b) ones. (7) a. Although it rained, we still enjoyed our vacation. b. *Despite it rained, we still enjoyed our vacation. (8) a. Despite the rain, we still enjoyed our vacation. b. *Although the rain, we still enjoyed our vacation. While adult native speakers will have very strong intuitions about which of these sentences are grammatical and which are not, there is a good chance that those same speakers would not be able to explain what is wrong with the (b) sentences. That is, they would be able to use their procedural knowledge to identify that those sentences are incorrect but, unless they

Introduction    xxix

have the appropriate declarative knowledge in addition, they would not be able to say what the problem is. And it is important to notice that there really is a reason why (7a) and (8a) are correct and (7b) and (8b) are not—the grammatical patterns of a language are not arbitrary. The reason is that the word although typically precedes verb phrases whereas despite precedes noun phrases. But knowing this and being able to explain it is a matter of declarative knowledge rather than procedural knowledge. And knowledge of this sort is something that very many native speakers have never developed for the simple reason that they do not need it to speak the language. Here are two more illustrations. The first one deals with the deletion of relative pronouns, which is something often taught to learners of EFL. (Note: I use the zero marker [Ø] to indicate that an element has been omitted from a sentence):



(9) a. b. c. d.

The book that she wrote is expensive. The book Ø she wrote is expensive. The woman who wrote the book is over there. *The woman Ø wrote the book is over there.

Again, competent adult native speakers would know (that is, they would procedurally know) that the first three sentences in (9) are grammatically well-formed and that the last one is not. We can be sure that they would never produce it. But they might not be able to explain what is wrong since this would require declarative knowledge. Many readers of this book may be surprised by this since, as I have already noted, the “rules” which permit us to delete relative pronouns are often explicitly taught to foreign learners of English. The point, once more, is that native speakers often lack this kind of knowledge of their own language and yet they are able to speak the language perfectly well, using their procedural knowledge. My final example deals with what linguists call clitics. The verb be has both a full form and a reduced, or cliticized, form. Sometimes either form is grammatical; sometimes only the full form is permissible:



(10) a. Siyeon is happy. b. Siyeon’s happy. c. Siyeon is happier than Eun Mee is. d. *Siyeon is happier than Eun Mee’s.

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(11) a. Martin is a professor here. b. Martin’s a professor here. c. Do you know who the professor is here? d. *Do you know who the professor’s here?

Once more, my suggestion is that no competent adult English native speaker would produce either (10d) or (11d), with a cliticized form of is. However, it is very unlikely that these speakers could explain why these two sentences are wrong since the issue is rather complicated and requires some fairly sophisticated linguistic analysis to account for it.2 The linguist Ray Jackendoff (2002) has suggested an analogy which may help to clarify things further. Procedural knowledge of grammar is in some ways similar to the kind of knowledge one might have of a musical tune. For example, I “know” (procedurally) that the fifth note of the tune Happy Birthday is a perfect fourth above the first note. I am able to demonstrate this knowledge by singing in tune. Nonetheless, I have never studied musical theory and haven’t the foggiest idea what a “perfect fourth” is! Two further points: Firstly, it is true that some native speakers possess declarative knowledge of their language as well as procedural knowledge. These individuals might well be able to explain the rule underlying the syntax of although and despite, the deletion of relative pronouns, and many other matters as well. However, these individuals tend to be somewhat unusual. Perhaps they are professional linguists, or else language teachers, and have consciously studied the grammar of their first language, building up this additional, declarative knowledge. But it is important to understand that having this declarative knowledge does not make them any more competent as speakers of the language than those who lack this kind of knowledge. All native speakers are able to operate in their language quite happily, producing an almost endless stream of grammatical speech, whether or not they have formally studied grammar. For grammatical language production, procedural knowledge is sufficient. Secondly, while native speakers typically have procedural rather than declarative knowledge of their languages, the opposite tends to be the case for speakers who are non-natives. Thus, it is very common to find learners of English as a foreign language who have remarkably high levels of declarative knowledge (frequently surpassing native speakers in this regard) but who do not have the same high levels of procedural knowledge. For example, a DUE might be able to explain quite accurately how and why we use the articles a and the in English. Nonetheless, he might make frequent er-

Introduction    xxxi

rors in “real-time” communicative situations, producing the wrong form of the article or omitting them altogether in situations where a native speaker would automatically and quite unconsciously use them correctly. In summary, from a linguistic perspective, a grammar is primarily a mental phenomenon, a matter of procedural knowledge in the mind of the language user. Speakers demonstrate their procedural knowledge by constantly producing grammatical utterances, but they may not be able to explain why one thing is grammatical and something else is not. (If they can, they have declarative knowledge as well). The linguist’s overall aim is to make her or his descriptions of the grammar correspond as closely as possible to this knowledge that speakers possess.

When Is Something Grammatical and When Is It Not? Now that we have considered what linguists mean by the word grammar, it is natural to ask a further question: When is something grammatical and when is it not? Once again, the question is not as easy to answer as it might initially seem. As I have mentioned already, the so-called “rules” proposed by prescriptivists are now mostly dismissed by contemporary linguists who are generally interested in describing actual language use. I have also said that what are often thought of as rules are really just descriptions of patterns or regularities in the language of competent speakers. With this in mind, what does it mean to say that a particular piece of language is ungrammatical? I want to propose that an utterance becomes ungrammatical if it does not form part of the mental grammar, or internal linguistic knowledge, of competent speakers of the language. In other words, when we view language from a linguistic perspective, the issue of grammaticality and ungrammaticality becomes a matter of what native speakers (and, indeed, competent non-native speakers) find acceptable or are willing to allow. Put simply, if the majority of speakers are prepared to accept some piece of language as grammatical, then it is grammatical; if they do not accept it, then it is not grammatical. Once more, I think this is the view accepted by most linguists. Consider, for example, the following comment of Berk: “A sentence will be considered acceptable or grammatical if it might be reasonably uttered by a native or fluent speaker of English under ordinary circumstances” (1999, p. 4). A very similar point is made by O’Grady and Archibald: “We say that an utterance is grammatical if native speakers judge it to be a possible sentence in their language” (2000, p. 167). And Huddleston and Pullam write that it is “the constant features in the usage of the overwhelming major-

xxxii    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

ity that define what is grammatical in the contemporary language” (2002, p. 8). This point too can be summed up in the form of another principle:

4 From a linguistic perspective, a sentence is grammatical if it might be plausibly uttered by a native speaker or a competent non-native speaker of a standard variety of the language under normal circumstances. principle

When students first encounter ideas like this, they often misunderstand them, taking them to mean that anything and everything speakers say is “grammatical” by definition. However, linguists certainly do not believe this. We recognize that while speakers have total freedom to say whatever they wish, how they say it is constrained by the conventionalized patterns of the language they are speaking. Individual speakers cannot put bits of language together in any manner they choose. There really are limits on grammaticality that have been established over generations of language use. As a result, it still makes sense to say that a particular piece of language is “grammatical” or “ungrammatical.” For example, all speakers of English will agree that the following sentence is clearly ungrammatical: (12) *Arbitrary not language is grammar of a the. What makes this sentence ungrammatical? The answer is obvious. It does not follow the conventional pattern for word order in modern Standard English. Notice that I have just used the phrase Standard English. As you are no doubt aware, there are standardized varieties of English spoken in America and Britain, along with several distinguishable non-standard varieties. The standard variety tends to have considerable prestige. However, the process whereby one variety of a language becomes standardized is essentially a matter of historical accident, arising through a complicated combination of political, geographical, and cultural factors. This process may be of great interest from a historical and sociological point of view, but it is has nothing to do with any inherent linguistic value that the variety may be thought to possess. In other words, when we talk about Standard English (SE), we are talking about one particular dialect that happens to have become established as the standard. From a linguistic perspective, it is not “better” or more “correct” than any other dialect. It is simply different. This point

Introduction    xxxiii

is nicely made in the following remark from Celce-Murcia and LarsenFreeman: “Which dialect of English is considered Standard English is really more the result of historical sociopolitical factors than linguistic ones. Thus, there is no inherently superior dialect” (1999, p. 9). Yet again, I think this is something that all linguists would be happy to acknowledge. They would certainly not regard it as in any way controversial. They would also be happy to say that each and every dialect of a language has its own grammar. So a given sentence can be grammatical in one dialect but not in others. For example, the grammars of some dialects of American English allow two modal auxiliaries in the same verb phrase. For speakers of these dialects, sentence (13) would be perfectly grammatical, even though it is certainly not grammatical in SE: (13) I might could help him. So one possible answer to the question, “Is this grammatical?” is, “It depends on the dialect!” Having said all this, in the remainder of this book I am going to ignore different dialects and focus only on SE. I think this makes good sense, since most readers of this book are likely to be already familiar with SE. And it hardly needs to be said that language teachers must focus their efforts on one of the standard varieties of English, making their students aware of what the standard grammatical forms involve, since failure to adhere to these forms can often have drastic social consequences. Even if we concentrate on SE, however, the question of what is and is not grammatical is still not as straightforward as you might think. It is worth considering this issue in a little more detail, starting with some obviously ungrammatical cases: (14) a. *Sun Hee eats often kimchi. b. *Fifteen students is in the class. c. *He walk to his office every day. Take a moment to look back at Principle 4 above. In light of this, we can say that the reason that the sentences in (14) are ungrammatical is that no native speaker or competent non-native speaker of SE would utter these under normal circumstances. What is more, it is possible to devise rules to account for this (keeping in mind that for us a “rule” is simply a descrip-

xxxiv    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

tive statement of the patterns of use employed by speakers). Thus, (14a) violates a rule of English that prohibits adverbs such as often from appearing between a verb and an object; (14b) violates a rule that states that a plural subject (e.g., fifteen students) must be followed by a verb marked for plurality (are, not is); (14c) violates a rule that states that in the present simple a 3rd-person singular subject (e.g., he) must be marked with a verb-final -s (e.g., walks, not walk). These are straightforward examples that all EUEs can agree on. But what about a sentence like the following? Is it grammatical? (15) Which office did he go into? You will recall that, according to the prescriptivists, such sentences are incorrect since (so prescriptivists tell us) sentences are not supposed to end with prepositions. According to this view, the correct construction would have the preposition fronted, as in (16): (16) Into which office did he go? As I have already noted, in reality, for most contemporary speakers the difference between (15) and (16) is largely a matter of register, with the latter being regarded as much more formal. Certainly, (15) does not break a grammatical rule in the same way that sentences such as (14a–c) do. Competent speakers would be likely to produce both (15) and (16) and to accept them when produced by others. In this sense, both sentences are grammatical. Something rather similar can be said about B’s reply in the following little dialogue: (17) A: Who’s there? B: It’s me. You may have been told that the use of the pronoun me here is incorrect and that the correct form would be I, as in (18): (18) A: Who’s there? B: It is I.

Introduction    xxxv

In fact, the claim that B’s use of me in (17) is ungrammatical is based on another false comparison with Latin, which demands the nominative case in predicative complements. Yet, as I have already commented, there is no reason why the rules for Latin should be thought to apply to modern English. Clearly, there has to be something following the verb in constructions of this type. No competent speaker of English would respond to a question such as “Who’s there?” by simply saying, “It is.” The patterns of use in English do not allow this. And yet there is no grammatical reason why the item following the verb should be the nominative I rather than accusative me, unless we have already decided to model English on Latin. Both constructions work, and the reality is that, once again, the difference is largely a matter of whether we wish to speak formally or informally. Yet describing a particular piece of language as “informal” is not the same as saying it is ungrammatical. The truth is that something may be both informal and perfectly grammatical at the same time. To quote Huddleston and Pullam again: The right way to describe the present situation in Standard English (unlike Latin) is that with the pronouns that have a nominative-accusative case distinction, the choice between the cases for the predicative complement noun phrase varies according to the style level: the nominative is noticeably formal, the accusative is more or less neutral and always used in informal contexts. (Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 9)

There is another matter that has an important bearing on judgments of grammaticality. The point I wish to emphasize is that the context in which a sentence appears can often make a big difference. It is often possible to think of a linguistic context in which an apparently ungrammatical expression becomes grammatical. Think about a phrase like a he. Viewed out of context, this is likely to strike you as obviously ungrammatical because, according to the conventional patterns of English grammar, we expect an article to be followed by a noun rather than a pronoun. But if we place this phrase in an appropriate context, we find that what at first sight seemed to be ungrammatical seems to become perfectly acceptable: (19) What a lovely dog! Is it a he or a she? The fact is that people say this sort of thing all the time. And I suggest that this is a strong piece of evidence that it is part of the grammar of modern English. In the same way, it is tempting to reject a phrase like a you as obviously ungrammatical, and yet the following sentence (found at www.

xxxvi    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

yahoo.co.uk on April 28, 2008), which contains precisely this phrase, once again seems to be alright: (20) Five veggies for a healthier you. The importance of context is not limited to just a few odd phrases such as these. Consider the following problem sentence, which I have taken from the work of another contemporary linguist: (21) (From Pustejovsky, 1995, p. 41) ?Mary began the rock. At first glance, this seems very strange. Hence my question mark at the beginning. The verb begin does not seem to make sense when it is followed by an object such as the rock. The sentence appears to be almost impossible to interpret and we may well be tempted to dismiss it as simply ungrammatical. But notice what happens if we place this sentence in a broader context: (22) After tracing the outline of the trees, Mary began the rock. She was sure the finished painting would be one of her best. Now it makes perfect sense! The problem has disappeared. The fact that phrases like a he and a healthier you—or, indeed, entire sentences such as Mary began the rock—are possible tells us that the question of when something is or is not grammatical is by no means a straightforward one and that context is important. It is worth keeping this in mind since, as we have just seen, it is often the case that with a little bit of imagination we can come up with contexts in which even some apparently very odd expressions become acceptable. This is worth knowing. It is a useful reminder that while we often treat phrases and sentences in isolation for the purpose of grammatical analysis, in reality, the pieces of language we are interested in almost always form part of a wider discourse and they may need to be placed in that wider context for full understanding to emerge. In discussing various aspects of English grammar in the pages that follow, then, I will from time to time take a look at how the construction under examination operates at the level of discourse.3

Introduction    xxxvii

Some Additional Basic Themes In this last section I want to briefly touch upon a few additional basic themes and ideas that we will consider in this book. It is an unfortunate fact that, at least when viewed from a linguistic perspective, some of the grammatical definitions and explanations that are commonly taught turn out to be inadequate. For example, in studying English previously, you may have been taught about something called the “subjunctive.” However, many contemporary linguists take the view that this particular label, while perfectly applicable to certain languages, is not really appropriate for English and should be avoided. It is not a term I will be using in this book. The same thing applies to other traditional labels such as “present” and “past” participles. These are not especially helpful if we are striving for a linguistically accurate description of English grammar, and once more I will not use them. But the issue is not merely a terminological one. At times I will suggest that traditional grammatical categories and ideas need to be completely rethought in light of current linguistic thinking, or in some cases simply abandoned. Actually, I have already begun to do this by suggesting that the descriptive point of view adopted by virtually all linguists today necessitates rethinking what we mean by a grammatical “rule.” As another example of this, you may be surprised to learn that many linguists reject the idea that English has a future tense. In fact, they take the view that English has only two tenses, present and past. The reason why they take this view will be explained in Chapter 7. In the meantime, you might like to think about the issue for yourself. (Hint: It has to do with how English speakers mark verbs for tense.) Another principle I want to suggest, then, is this:

5 A linguistic perspective involves reconsidering traditional definitions and explanations of grammar. principle

Another theme that will recur throughout this book might be summed up by saying that spoken grammar is different than written grammar but equally worthy of study. Until fairly recently, the tendency when studying English grammar has been to concentrate on the written forms of the language. In the past, there were good reasons for this, not the least of which was that the very impermanence of speech made it rather difficult to analyze. With the emergence of sophisticated new recording technologies,

xxxviii    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

however, this situation has begun to change and an increasing number of linguists today are taking an interest in spoken grammar, asking in what ways it is similar to and in what ways different than written grammar. In my opinion, this is a highly welcome development. One of the things I often tell my students is that spoken English has its own grammar and that it is important to recognize this. For example, in speech (but not usually in writing) it is entirely possible to omit parts of an utterance if the speaker can reasonably assume that the hearer will understand. Take a few moments to listen carefully to fluent speakers of English in conversation with one another and you will notice that this goes on all the time. Thus, in conversations it is very common for speakers to produce elliptical utterances without subjects and verbs, even though you have no doubt been taught that every English sentence must have at least one of each. By way of illustration, notice how in the following little exchanges the second speaker omits a large amount of linguistic material: (23) A: Where are you? B: Downstairs. (Not “I am downstairs.”) (24) A: Have you finished writing that article? B: Almost. (Not “I have almost finished writing that article.”) Whatever may be the case with the written forms of English, often people do not speak in full sentences. This does not make their speech ungrammatical, just different. And there is no reason why written grammar should be the model for spoken grammar. From time to time in the pages that follow, then, I will make comparisons between spoken and written grammar, drawing attention to the similarities and differences.

6 A linguistic perspective involves a consideration of spoken forms as well as written forms. principle

Finally, let me return to an issue that I briefly mentioned above. Like other natural phenomena, languages undergo change. Indeed, change is to be expected. It is interesting that although the fact of language change is uni-

Introduction    xxxix

versally recognized by linguists, most traditional grammar texts have almost nothing to say about it. The impression conveyed is that grammar is fixed for all time. The unspoken assumption seems to be that the same grammar rules have always applied and always will apply. Certainly, most prescriptivists seem to make or to have made precisely this assumption. Yet it is not difficult to demonstrate that the belief that English grammar has not changed is completely untrue. You certainly do not need to be a trained linguist to do so. All that is necessary is open a copy of Shakespeare at any page and read a few lines. Shakespeare was writing in England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and it does not take long to see that the English of his day was very different than English as it is spoken today. Here is an example: (25) Saw you the weird sisters? (Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 1) As this makes clear, in Shakespeare’s time a lexical verb like see could be placed in front of the subject in question-forms. Today this is not possible. Instead, as speakers of modern English we must employ the so-called dummy auxiliary do for this purpose in an operation known as “do-insertion” (or “do-support”): (26) Did you see the weird sisters? Similarly, for Shakespeare it was possible to directly negate a main lexical verb with a particle such as not: (27) Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet: I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg. (Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2) In modern English, all lexical verbs require do-insertion for negation. Thus, the modern equivalent of (27) would be the following: (28) Don’t let your mother . . . ; don’t go . . . . The lines from Hamlet quoted above direct our attention to other changes that have taken place in English grammar since Shakespeare composed them. For example, notice that Shakespeare uses 2nd-person pronoun forms like thy and thee. These have completely disappeared from

xl    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

modern English. He also uses pray in a transitive clause (e.g., I pray thee), whereas for speakers today it would have to be used intransitively, without an object, but followed by a preposition such as to or for. Language change is not merely of historical interest. English grammar continues to change today. An example of a more recent change in English grammar, which I will discuss in more detail later, is the emergence of a getpassive construction. This is illustrated in sentence (29): (29) He got fired last week. The use of get-passive is becoming much more common in modern English. Sometimes we can almost “catch” a moment of language change as it occurs. Languages are spoken by living beings who, as it were, collectively own the language so that, in one sense, the language is theirs to do with as they please. For example, as a fluent speaker of English it is possible for me to treat the word creative, which would normally be regarded as an adjective (e.g., a creative thinker, a creative individual, etc.), as if it were a noun in its own right, producing the following utterance: (30) She was a real creative, always coming up with new ideas. It is not normal to find creative being used in a context where it has, in effect, become a noun rather than an adjective. But there seems to be no good reason why it cannot be used like this. Even though you may have experienced a moment’s hesitation on first reading sentence (30), you probably have no difficulty in understanding my intended meaning. One of the interesting things about this is that sometimes these unusual uses become widespread and establish themselves in the language, causing the language as a whole to change just a little bit. When this occurs, linguists speak of “conversion” or “function shift.” So far as I am aware, this does not seem to have happened with creative. But conceivably it could have happened. And there is no doubt that comparable changes have occurred many times in the history of English. Some of these changes have become so firmly established that we probably do not even think about them. An example of a change that now appears to be fully established is the use of the prepositions up and down as if they were nouns, even to the point that they can be pluralized. Thus you will often hear speakers saying things like the following:

Introduction    xli

(31) Life is full of ups and downs. Precisely the same thing has happened with the words if and but: (32) I don’t want to hear any ifs and buts. In other cases, the change is not yet completely established, although it may become so in the near future. To give another example, I have noticed that over the last few years it has become increasingly common for some EUEs to treat the word natural (which is another word we normally regard as an adjective) as if it were a noun. Thus you may well hear speakers engaging in conversations like this: (33) A: Jennifer is such a great teacher. B: Yes, she’s a natural. Something similar appears to have happened with the word must. We are used to thinking of this as a modal auxiliary verb. Indeed, it is typically regarded as one of the core modal auxiliaries. However, for at least some contemporary speakers it has become possible to use must as if it were a noun: (34) If you visit Korea, a trip to Gyeongju is a must. Also, you will sometimes hear people using the suffix -ism as a noun, meaning a doctrine or a theory: (35) I’m tired of hearing about all these isms. Language change is a particularly rich and interesting aspect of the study of language, and it has an obvious relevance to attempts to describe the grammar of English. But it is a phenomenon that all too often tends to get ignored in many discussions. Again, then, and in line with my adoption of a linguistic perspective, from time to time in the pages that follow I will draw attention to the manner in which some grammatical aspect of English has changed or is changing. With this I come to my final principle:

xlii    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

7 A linguistic perspective requires us to recognize that grammars are dynamic, not static, changing over time. principle

Let me sum up. I began this chapter by suggesting that taking a linguistic perspective requires us to consider language as a natural phenomenon (Principle 1). I went on to suggest that such a perspective requires us to adopt a descriptive approach to the language, focusing on how contemporary speakers actually use their language (Principle 2). I also suggested, more controversially, that we should adopt a functionalist approach to linguistic description, thinking about grammatical functions as well as form, and paying attention to semantics as well as syntax (Principle 3). I said that linguists think of a grammar as being, in the first place, a kind of internalized linguistic knowledge in the mind of language users. I maintained that for most native speakers this knowledge is procedural, that is, it is knowledge of “how” to use the language, although it is also true that some speakers may additionally possess declarative knowledge “about” the language. I said that the job of the linguist is to try to devise descriptive statements to account for the regular patterns generated by this knowledge. I also looked briefly at what it means to say that something is grammatical. This, I suggested, comes down to the idea that something is grammatical if speakers of the language accept it as grammatical (Principle 4). Finally, I touched on three further themes that will re-emerge at various points in the pages that follow: one, that traditional grammatical definitions and explanations are often inadequate and stand in need modification (Principle 5); two, that spoken grammar is different than written grammar but equally worthy of study (Principle 6); and three, that grammars are dynamic, not static (Principle 7).

The Organization of This Book This book is divided into three broad sections. Part I is entitled “Words and Phrases in Linguistic Perspective.” It consists of four chapters. In Chapter 1, after a brief consideration of the major syntactic categories in English, I focus on the noun category, seeking to show how linguistics can throw light on the nature of nouns and the functions they typically perform. An important feature of this chapter is the exploration of the noun category in terms of a combination of morphosyntactic and semantic properties. Particular attention is given to two of the latter—time-stability and concreteness. I argue that these are highly characteristic of “prototypical” nouns. I also fo-

Introduction    xliii

cus on certain problematic aspects of nouns, especially problems of countability and plurality. In Chapter 2, I take a look at the other major syntactic category in English, the verb. I begin by trying to establish more precisely what verbs are and what purposes they serve when viewed in linguistic perspective. I suggest that verbs are central to the communicative purpose of language, which is to describe “situations.” Various types of situation are discussed (e.g., dynamic activities, punctual events, states). I also look at different types of English verb, considering first of all the large open class of verbs, usually referred to as “lexical” verbs, then the small closed class of what I call “primary” verbs, which can appear either as main verbs or as auxiliaries. I suggest that these should be seen as a distinct group on the basis of their morphosyntactic properties. Much of the remainder of the chapter is devoted to a detailed discussion of the especially interesting group of “multi-word” verbs. These are a striking feature of modern English and are widely recognized as presenting a particular challenge to non-native English speakers. The nature of these challenges, involving as it does both problems of form and problems of meaning, is discussed at some length. Chapters 3 and 4 follow a similar pattern to that of the previous two chapters, with discussions of various other types of words in English. Chapter 3 takes as its focus the two other members of the “open” class of words, adjectives and adverbs. I begin by discussing the main properties of adjectives, considering both their morphosyntactic characteristics and some of their semantic features. I also discuss the issue of the order of adjectives in complex noun phrases. This is an especially problematic issue for many learners of English. It is also an area of English grammar where linguistics has some real insights to offer. The chapter continues by looking at adverbs. These are difficult for non-natives to handle since the category is so wide-ranging and, in consequence, characteristic properties are not easy to identify. Issues discussed include the position of adverbs within constructions and the nature of adverbial functions. Chapter 4 is concerned with two of the more important members of the so-called “closed” class of syntactic categories. I suggest that the first of these does not constitute a true category but rather involves a somewhat loose grouping of words, drawn from different categories, which can all be used with a “determining” function. The nature of this function is discussed and contrasted with the modifying function that adjectives typically have. After this, I turn to various types of determining words. Particular attention is given to the meaning and use of English articles, which all teachers recognize as a major source of difficulty for English learners. Demonstratives and genitive pronouns are also discussed. The second half of the chapter takes the form of a consideration of the set of English prepositions. Again, these are notoriously difficult for non-native

xliv    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

speakers to use appropriately. The main focus here is on what linguistics has to say about the meaning and use of prepositions. Part II, entitled “Some Important Linguistic Concepts,” also contains four chapters. Here, I offer an account of several linguistic ideas that, I suggest, are vital to the grammatical description of English. Chapter 5 introduces and explores the all-important idea of a participant within a situation. I look at the idea of participants both in terms of their grammatical function and in terms of the semantic roles they play within a clause. The ideas presented in this chapter in particular are likely to be quite unfamiliar to many readers and so are dealt with in some detail. My aim is to show how they can help to deepen our understanding of grammar. Special attention is given to the grammatical function of the subject and to English as a “subject-dominant” language. Chapter 6 deals with an important pair of linguistic concepts, namely transitivity and intransitivity. While these concepts will be well known to most language teachers, the chapter approaches them in light of the less familiar notion of the participant introduced in the previous chapter. I argue that, within a clause, the verb plays a major role in “selecting” the number of participants. Thus, what would traditionally be described as an intransitive verb is really a verb that selects, or requires, only one participant; a so-called transitive verb selects two participants, and so on. I also make the point that transitivity may be usefully viewed not as a matter of strict categories of verb but as a matter of patterns of use. Very often, a verb can appear in either an intransitive clause or a transitive clause. That is, transitivity is a fluid concept. Once more, Chapter 7 deals with terms and concepts that will be already familiar to teachers (especially the concept of tense). However, asking what these terms mean when viewed from a linguistic angle is likely to prove illuminating for many readers. I introduce the idea of tense as a marker of “remoteness” (or “non-remoteness”) from the speaker’s current perspective. I also draw attention to an ongoing debate that may surprise many non-linguists, namely the question of whether English really has a future tense. The chapter continues with a detailed look at the way in which English speakers employ these fundamental concepts in various combinations to talk about past, present, and future situations. Chapter 8 is mainly concerned with modality. English is a “modal-rich” language, and one of the most common means of expressing modality is through the use of modal auxiliary verbs. After a short discussion of modality itself, much of this chapter takes the form of an examination of this interesting, important, and (for DUEs) difficult set of verbs. I look, first of all, at the vexing question of how many modal auxiliaries there are in modern English. I suggest that, on morphosyntactic grounds, a core group of nine modal auxiliaries can be identified. I go on to discuss the semantics

Introduction    xlv

and characteristic uses of this core group, taking each modal auxiliary in turn. Additionally, I consider a number of related verbal expressions that may be called “semi-modals.” Again, I look at both their morphosyntactic properties and their semantics. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the related issue of negation, focusing on the meaning and use of the particle not. Part III, also containing four chapters, is called “Clauses and Sentences in Linguistic Perspective.” Much of Chapter 9 deals with a range of constructions that may all be regarded as non-prototypical in one way or another. I consider, first of all, the grammatical properties of various types of question in English, paying particular attention to yes/no questions and wh-questions. The main part of the chapter is devoted to a detailed examination of the passive, which is the most frequently used “focus” construction in modern English. I look at both the syntax and, most importantly, the meaning and use of the passive (something that is often given insufficient attention in grammatical accounts of the passive). The chapter concludes with a brief consideration of middle voice constructions and some other less well known constructions that have a similar focusing role within the language. In the final three chapters of the book, I turn from relatively simple sentence structures containing one clause to an examination of some more complex sentence structures in which two (or more) clauses are integrated. In Chapter 10, I begin by briefly considering sentences involving two coordinated clauses. Often, coordination is treated as a purely syntactic issue, a matter of linking together clauses. With this in mind, I pay particular attention to the semantics of the main coordinators. After this, I turn to the important idea of subordination. I consider what this grammatical idea involves and provide a detailed look at constructions that involve various types of clausal subordination, drawing a distinction between finite and non-finite complement clauses. Much attention is given to problematic issues that arise in relation to these various clause types. In Chapter 11, I provide a detailed examination of another centrally important clause type in modern English, the relative clause. The chapter begins by surveying some of the general features displayed by relative clauses, focusing in particular on the various word-forms that introduce clauses of this type, word-forms that I call “relative proforms.” I then turn to a consideration of the two main subtypes of relative clause, the restrictive subtype and the nonrestrictive subtype. I give particular attention to the crucial semantic difference between these two types of clauses. This is something to which many accounts pay too little attention, even though (as I would maintain) it is vital that learners appreciate this difference if they are to be able to use these clauses effectively. The chapter ends by briefly considering some less prototypical types of relative

xlvi    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

clause and some related clauses. Finally, in Chapter 12, I look at another group of complex sentences: those containing various types of adverbial clause. I begin with a discussion of what the adverbial function involves before going on to consider some of the main types of adverbial clause. A large part of this chapter is devoted to a detailed discussion of one of the most linguistically interesting and challenging of the adverbial clauses, the conditional clause. This takes various forms and I offer a scheme for subcategorizing these various conditionals. Next, I look at some of the important features of the different types of conditional. I also consider some linguistic accounts of their use in discourse. I noted at the beginning of this introduction that this book is designed for language teachers. I take the view that, far from being a rarefied academic discipline of interest only to specialists, linguistics has important things to offer to those whose task it is to teach language. Accordingly, within each chapter you will find various boxes headed “In the Classroom” and set apart from the main body of the text. As this label suggests, these take the form of summaries of key issues already discussed, together with some brief thoughts about how these issues may be relevant to language teachers. You will also find that from time to time in the text I offer brief (but I hope informative) remarks on how the linguistic issue under discussion is expressed in languages other than English. My reasons for including these comments are twofold: Firstly, I find such comparisons inherently interesting, and I hope you will as well; secondly, I think that the occasional judicious comparison with other languages can be helpful in casting light on the grammar of English. Some people might object that in the pages that follow I have ignored important issues. This is undoubtedly true. Hard choices are inevitable, if only because of limitations of space. Moreover, since my primary motivation is to speak to language teachers, I have not attempted an exhaustive account of English grammar. Many such books are already available, offering lengthy and remarkably detailed treatments of the grammar of English. But comprehensive treatment was never a goal in writing this book, and I have made no attempt to analyze English grammar in its entirety. As you read on, you will quickly realize that I have been highly selective in my coverage, focusing on those issues that seem to me to be of central interest and particularly worthy of discussion. Along the way, I have tried to identify issues that are widely recognized as especially problematic issues for foreign learners of English. Throughout this book, I have strived for two things: accuracy in my descriptions and relevance in my choice of topics to be examined.

Introduction    xlvii

Further Reading Two of the very best (and biggest) descriptions of English grammar are Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartik (1985), A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, and Huddleston and Pullam (2002), The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Anyone who wishes to deepen their understanding of the grammar of English needs to consult these enormous works. For more on many of the issues and themes I have referred to above, the relevant chapters are Quirk et al. (1985, Ch. 1); Huddleston and Pullam (2002, Ch. 1). A short, readable account of language change is Yule (1996, Ch. 19). For a detailed discussion of “basic linguistic theory,” see Dixon (2010). For an interesting discussion of the characteristics of spoken grammar, and what this might mean for language teachers, try McCarthy (1998).

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Words and Phrases in Linguistic Perspective

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1 Nouns and Noun Phrases in Linguistic Perspective

T

his chapter is primarily concerned with one of the major word categories in English, the noun. My aim is to show how linguistics can throw light on the nature of nouns and the functions they typically perform. I will also devote quite a lot of space to discussing certain problematic issues that arise in connection with nouns. As a way of leading into this, however, I want to take a look at a more basic issue, namely, how linguists categorize words in the first place. Throughout the following discussion, and the book as a whole, I treat the term word as if it were a straightforward and unproblematic notion. It should be mentioned at the outset that in reality this is not the case. In fact, in linguistic circles, much ink has been spilt on the nature of words. For our purposes, a working definition might be that a word is “a lexical item involving an association of sound and meaning.” You should keep in mind, however, that this definition conceals an array of difficulties and complexities, discussion of which is beyond the scope of this book.

Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 3–37 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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4    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

Categorizing Words A preliminary step in describing the grammar of a language is to agree on a classification of its words. The motivation underlying this effort is simple: By classifying words into groups we are able to make economical generalizations about the language rather than treating each individual word as if it were an isolated item. Words can be classified into various “parts of speech,” or what linguists often call syntactic categories (or lexical categories, or word classes). You are no doubt familiar with these categories already and have probably learned certain traditional definitions. For example, traditionally, nouns are said to be words that “name persons, places, and things”; verbs are defined as words that “describe actions or events”; adjectives are said to “add extra information about nouns,” and so on. Such definitions are not completely wrong, and may make reasonable starting-points. But if we are to provide a linguistically adequate account, they need to be developed and expanded in various ways. Among linguists, it is common practice to divide words into two very broad groups, referred to, respectively, as the open class and the closed class of items. It seems that all languages have these two classes of words, although the membership of the classes varies form language to language. In English, the open class consists of the major content words, that is, nouns, lexical verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Open class words tend to be semantically rich, carrying the main content in an utterance. This group is “open” in the sense that membership is effectively unlimited; that is to say, new members may join at any time. In fact, the addition of new members to the open class of words is a regular occurrence and is one of the most obvious ways in which a language may undergo change. Not surprisingly, in recent times, several new words have entered English as a result of advances in communication technology: Internet, Web site (or website), email, download, blog, and so on. By comparison, the closed class of English words is a rather more mixed group, consisting of auxiliary verbs, articles and other types of words with a determining function, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and a few other minor forms. As you might guess, this class is said to be “closed” in the sense that membership is restricted; new members cannot easily join. For example, it is unlikely (although perhaps not impossible) that a new preposition will enter English anytime soon. By way of contrast with the open group, the closed class words tend to be semantically poor, carrying little or no meaning in themselves, although they do provide vital grammatical information. Table 1.1 lists the major syntactic categories in English.

Nouns and Noun Phrases in Linguistic Perspective    5 Table 1.1  The Major Syntactic Categories in English Open class

Closed class

Nouns Lexical verbs Adjectives Adverbs

Pronouns Primary verbs Determiners Prepositions

There are certain points that are worth making about this scheme. Firstly, while nouns, lexical verbs, and adjectives are relatively easy to describe, the adverb category is somewhat problematic since it includes words of many different types and these words have many different functions. I will return to this issue in Chapter 3. Secondly, linguists have long recognized that a table such as this is an oversimplification and, in fact, rather artificial. The differences between the classes are not as straightforward as this list might make it appear. Notice that I have placed prepositions in the closed class. It has often been pointed out, however, that prepositions do carry significant content or meaning. To that extent, they are close cousins to the more obvious content words in the open class. Prepositions will be discussed in detail in Chapter 4. Thirdly, within the open class a major distinction is made between nouns and verbs. As the following quotation makes clear, this distinction appears to be a linguistic universal: The distinction between nouns and verbs is one of the few apparently universal parts-of-speech distinctions. While the universality of even this distinction has sometimes been questioned, it now seems that the alleged counter-examples have been based on incomplete data, and that there are no languages that cannot be said to show a noun–verb distinction when all the relevant facts are taken into account. (Schachter & Shopen, 2007, p. 5)

A distinction between nouns and verbs is unquestionably fundamental to the grammar of English. Nonetheless, the difference is not always easy to maintain. Many English words are “dual category” in the sense that they can be used as either nouns or verbs, depending on context. Examples that immediately come to my mind include bargain, blog, break, cook, email, guess, knife, paint, spoon, vacation, and wave. No doubt you can think of many more. Facts of this sort make the job of describing English grammar more difficult. Nonetheless, they are facts and must be taken into account if we are to provide an adequate description. When it comes to deciding which category a particular word belongs to, there are two basic approaches we can adopt. In the next section we will

6    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

look at these two approaches to word categorization in more detail and, in the process, attempt to characterize nouns as a syntactic category.

What Is a Noun? In many of the world’s languages (not only English), young native speakers apparently begin to acquire nouns before they acquire other types of word. The reasons for this are not fully understood, although it seems likely that it has do to with the fact that many nouns refer to concrete, easily perceivable objects in the immediate vicinity of the child. But what is a noun? One way of answering this question involves a consideration of the morphosyntax of nouns. This approach, which tends to be the one favored by the majority of contemporary linguists, attempts to categorize nouns in terms of their structure (their morphology) and the other kinds of words they will combine with (their syntax). To see what this means, consider the following sentence: (1) The kitten loved ice cream. This is a perfectly grammatical sentence in modern English. It is syntactically well-formed and semantically meaningful. It will not have taken you very long to realize that there are a very large number of words that could readily replace kitten in the above sentence without affecting the grammaticality. (Linguists will often replace one word with another in this way, a process known as a substitution test, in order to test their ideas about the grammar they are studying.) Among the more obvious substitutes are child, dog, president, but there are, of course, literally hundreds of others. Thus, each of the sentences in (2) is also a grammatical sentence: (2) a. The child loved ice cream. b. The dog loved ice cream. c. The president loved ice cream. We can say, then, that the English words kitten, child, dog, and president share the same distribution, since they are all able to appear in the following frame: (3) Article ________ Verb

Nouns and Noun Phrases in Linguistic Perspective    7

Now notice that these words can be pluralized, either by the addition of the morpheme -s or in some other, irregular way:



(4) a. b. c. d.

The kittens loved ice cream. The children loved ice cream. The dogs loved ice cream. The presidents loved ice cream.

So far, then, we have identified two morphosyntactic properties of nouns. They can appear in the same position in a sentence and they can be pluralized. Another morphological feature displayed by many nouns is a distinctive ending. As generations of EFL teachers have found, the fact that so many English nouns have common suffixes has an obvious benefit in presenting nouns to their students. It is entirely sensible to exploit patterns of this sort. In the long term, both listening and reading comprehension will improve if students are made familiar with these suffixes (which can easily be presented in list form), enabling them to quickly recognize that a word is a noun. Some of the more common noun endings are given in Table 1.2. A further notable feature of nouns is that they can support the s-genitive construction: (5) a. that girl’s book b. a student’s grade c. the cat’s whiskers I will return to these genitive constructions below. For now, the point is that only nouns can be marked in this way, and so this is another characteristic that can be used to help categorize a word as a noun. Again, this is something that can be usefully pointed out to DUEs. Among linguists, appealing to factors such as these has become a standard way of identifying syntactic categories. In fact, a syntactic category is Table 1.2  Nouns in Modern English: Common Endings -tion

-ness

-hood

-ism

-ist

-ment

abbreviation concentration superstition

foolishness gracefulness happiness

likelihood motherhood sisterhood

Buddhism capitalism historicism

gynecologist linguist physicist

department government punishment

8    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

sometimes defined as a group of words that display the same morphosyntactic properties. There is, however, an alternative approach, which begins not from morphosyntax but with semantics (i.e., meaning). Let me now say something about this. The alternative approach I have in mind is reflected in those familiar descriptions that define nouns as words that describe “persons, places, or objects.” Unfortunately, this traditional definition is inadequate as it stands. It is not hard to see why. Think about words like truth and memory. What do these words refer to? Is truth an object? Are memories? Obviously, they are not. But everyone will agree that the words truth and memory are nouns. This tells us that the simple definition of nouns does not work. Although the traditional definition of a noun is clearly not very satisfactory, there are good reasons for pausing before we decide to abandon the semantic approach entirely. Consider the following remarks: One of the primary uses of nouns in everyday discourse is to code “thinglike” entities. Our world is filled with people, creatures, and objects and we use nouns to talk about them. . . . This is not to say that words like hatred, joy, and respect are not nouns; they certainly are. But more often than not the nouns we use in everyday discourse refer to entities that have physical reality. (Berk, 1999, pp. 56–57)

The points Berk makes here are good ones, particularly her appeal to what she calls the language of “everyday discourse.” Most of the nouns we find ourselves using on a regular basis do indeed refer to concrete aspects of our experience, or “entities that have physical reality,” as Berk puts it. If we were to simply abandon the semantic definition of nouns, we would be in danger of losing sight of this. Instead, I suggest that we need a better— that is, a more linguistically adequate—semantic definition that can be used alongside the morphosyntactic approach we have discussed already. One such modified semantic approach has been proposed by the linguist Talmy Givón (see 1993a, pp. 54–55; 2000, pp. 50–51.) I want to consider this now, showing how it can be employed both to identify nouns as a syntactic category and to subdivide nouns within that general category. Givón contends that the words we think of as nouns tend to have certain semantic features in common. In particular, these words tend to be used to refer to aspects of the world that are: ◾◾ Time-stable ◾◾ Concrete

Nouns and Noun Phrases in Linguistic Perspective    9

I will discuss both of these terms in turn. Givón lists four properties altogether, the other two being “spatial compactness”—or “degree of spatial scatter” (2000, p. 50)—and “complexity”—or “number of defining subfeatures” (2000, p.50). I am ignoring these latter properties. I should also mention that even though I have adapted these terms from Givón, my interpretations differ somewhat from his.

Time Stability In saying that nouns typically refer to relatively “time-stable” aspects of the world, I mean that whatever is referred to by the noun does not change or, if it does change, the change is very gradual. For example, in a sentence such as the following, the noun tree denotes a time-stable entity: (6) There is a beautiful tree in front of King’s College Chapel in Cambridge. Of course, trees do change. They grow, lose their leaves in winter (sometimes, at least), and eventually they die. But these changes tend to unfold only very slowly. Moreover, not all aspects of the tree change at the same time. Let us say that the leaves of our tree in Cambridge change from green to yellow to red as winter approaches. Eventually the leaves wither and fall to the ground. In itself, this represents gradual change. Yet even when this change is complete and winter has arrived, there are many more aspects of the tree that remain unchanged: its essential shape and structure, its being rooted in the ground, its stationary orientation in relation to the chapel, and so on. In this sense, a tree is very obviously a time-stable entity. Another example may help. Think about the following sentence: (7) Careful! That dog is angry. In this sentence the adjective angry is used to ascribe a particular emotional state to the dog. Now, emotions such as anger are generally shortlived, so in all likelihood the dog will stop being angry after a while. However, the noun dog itself denotes a time-stable entity. That is, even when the dog’s anger subsides, many other attributes that are essential to his being a dog will have remained unchanged: his membership of the canine species (together with everything that entails, e.g., having fur, a tail, four legs,

10    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

etc.), his masculine gender, his adulthood, and so on. Once more, then, the noun dog identifies a time-stable entity. Time-stability is one of the features that help to differentiate nouns from verbs since verbs often refer to aspects of the world that are highly time-unstable, that is, rapidly changing. On the other hand, it is important to remember that time-stability does not apply to all nouns. A noun such as situation, for instance, is likely to refer to a much less time-stable aspect of the world than does tree or dog, and some nouns, like explosion, denote rapidly-changing (time-unstable) events. This might suggest that, in terms of their semantics, some nouns are more noun-like than others. I will return to this point below.

Concreteness The second idea that I have taken from Givón is perhaps easier to grasp. As I have already noted, I think Berk is right when she says that a very large number of the nouns we use on a regular basis refer to entities that have physical reality. Another way of putting this would be to say that many nouns denote concrete entities (i.e., entities that exist in time and space and that are perceivable through the senses). Nouns such as tree and dog are good examples of concrete nouns. As another linguist, Ray Jackendoff, has rather neatly expressed it: “[A]lthough not all nouns denote concrete objects, all words for concrete objects are nouns” (2002, p. 125). Jackendoff is right: Not all nouns identify concrete entities. Many nouns refer to abstract qualities (i.e., they are intangible and cannot be perceived through the senses). This gives us one of the major divisions within the noun syntactic category. Thus, nouns such as book, chair, dog, stone, et cetera, are concrete nouns, whereas democracy, freedom, justice, love, and so on are abstract nouns. We can say, then, that a prototypical noun (that is, a central member of the noun category) will tend to identify something with the semantic features of time-stability and concreteness. That is what makes words like tree and dog such good examples of nouns. But now let us return to the word explosion. An explosion is not a time-stable aspect of the world. By definition, it is a very short-lived, rapidly changing event—a highly time-unstable event, in fact. Nor is an explosion concrete in the way that a tree is. Nonetheless, we would certainly want to say that the word explosion is a noun. It is simply a less central member of the noun category, that is, it is non-prototypical. On the view I am now proposing, then, some nouns are prototypical and others are not prototypical. The word tree is a prototypical noun because, as we have just been seen, it refers to something which is both time-stable

Nouns and Noun Phrases in Linguistic Perspective    11

and concrete. And we could say the same thing about the noun dog. On the other hand, explosion is not a prototypical noun. The same idea applies to numerous other nouns. Some are central members of the category, having the relevant semantic features, and others are less central members, having only some of them. The following comment captures this idea nicely: [N]ot all nouns are identical with respect to their grammatical properties: we find rather that we have a core of what we may regard as central or prototypical nouns sharing a considerable number of distinctive properties, with other words classified as nouns by virtue of sharing a significant number of these properties and/or of being significantly more like a prototypical noun than like a prototypical adjective, verb or whatever. (Huddleston, 1984, p. 54)

One way of representing this idea of prototypical and non-prototypical nouns would be as a set of concentric circles, with the words closest to the center (tree, dog, etc.) being the most prototypical members of the category, and those further out (explosion) being less prototypical (see Figure 1.1). When Berk says that “more often than not the nouns we use in everyday discourse refer to entities that have physical reality” (1999, p. 57), she is really referring to what I am calling prototypical members of the noun category. At the same time, it is important to see that, despite their nonprototypical status, words like explosion, hatred, joy, and respect also belong in the noun category. What tells us this? This is where the morphosyntactic approach to syntactic categories can help us. Words like explosion and the others may be non-prototypical nouns, but we can be sure that they really are nouns because of their morphosyntactic properties.

explosion

tree dog

Figure 1.1  Prototypical and non-prototypical nouns.

12    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

In the Classroom: The Noun “Family” Presumably all teachers will agree that classroom time must be devoted to working on “parts of speech” (or syntactic categories, as I have called them). Indeed, this is generally something done early on in English courses since knowledge of these various categories is fundamental to understanding the grammar of English. I have discussed at length in the text how many linguists treat membership of a syntactic category as essentially a matter of morphosyntax. There is a lot to be said for this approach and it is undoubtedly one that teachers can make use of in the classroom. However, I have also indicated that an approach that focuses on semantics is also of value. Indeed, my suggestion is that the best approach to word categorization is likely to be one that combines elements of the two approaches. What might this mean in the classroom? One way of presenting this that may prove fruitful is to suggest to students that the syntactic categories are comparable to human families. Human families share a set of overlapping physical traits. Members of the family have certain features in common with others—eye color, height, shape of nose, and so on. These shared features are sufficient to make their relatedness clear, even though very few individuals will have all of the family features. Something very similar applies to the syntactic categories. If we are dealing with nouns, for example, students can be told that members of the noun “family” will tend to have several features in common. Some of these will be morphosyntactic features (that is, they have to do with the “shape” of nouns and the position in sentences) and others will be semantic (having to do with their meaning). Among the morphosyntactic features associated with nouns discussed in the text and that might be particularly useful to focus on in a classroom setting are these: ◾◾ Nouns can appear in the frame: Article ________ Verb. ◾◾ Nouns can be pluralized. ◾◾ Nouns have characteristic endings. ◾◾ Nouns can support the s-genitive construction.

Each of the above features could be easily illustrated by means of simple example sentences with the nouns marked as appropriate. Above, I also suggested that among the semantic features of nouns, particular attention should be given to these: ◾◾ Nouns prototypically refer to time-stable aspects of the world. ◾◾ Nouns prototypically refer to concrete aspects of the world.

Nouns and Noun Phrases in Linguistic Perspective    13

These semantic features will inevitably require more careful treatment. Nonetheless, as I have argued above, they have a valuable role to play in supporting the more familiar morphosyntactic features and should be regarded as central to an adequate explanation of the noun category. To repeat, a key point that students need to grasp is that, as with members of human families, an individual word may not have all of the above features. But if it has enough of them, then it belongs in the noun category.

So far I have considered the way in which linguists go about categorizing words, and I have looked at what this involves so far as the noun syntactic category is concerned. In the remainder of this chapter, I am going to offer a detailed consideration of nouns and noun phrases, focusing on some of the potentially problematic issues that arise in connection with nouns as a syntactic category.

Common Nouns and Problems of Countability Common nouns are so-called because they refer to any member of a class of entities (e.g., horse, poem, village). Common nouns are conventionally divided into count nouns and non-count nouns (the latter are sometimes called mass nouns). Countability is a complex semantic concept, and one that raises severe problems for DUEs, not least because the concept itself is language-specific so that something that is regarded as countable in one language may not be regarded as countable in another language. For example, DUEs often produce utterances like *He gave me lots of advices. The fact that this error is so common is an indication of the difficulty many learners face in grasping the concept of countability in English. Therefore, it requires careful treatment. Perhaps the most straightforward way of approaching the matter is to say that in English, an entity is not countable if ◾◾ it exists as a continuous, indivisible substance, or ◾◾ its individual parts are too small to make counting a realistic option. Put differently, a countable entity is something that can be individuated, that is, you can pick out one individual from a group of similar entities. An uncountable entity cannot be individuated, or picked out, in the same way. Table 1.3 provides some examples of countable and uncountable nouns.

14    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar Table 1.3  Types of Noun: Countable vs. Uncountable Countable

Uncountable

concrete: child, octopus, pencil, etc. abstract: control, love, right, etc.

concrete: air, gold, honey, rice, etc. abstract: advice, control, love, right, etc.

You may have noticed something odd about Table 1.3: The abstract nouns love, right, and control appear under both the countable and the uncountable headings. This reflects another problem that arises when discussing countability: Some nouns (particularly abstract ones) can be used in both a countable and an uncountable sense. This is shown in the following pairs of sentences. In each case, the italicized noun in the first sentence is countable; in the second sentence, it is uncountable: (8) (From Givón, 2000) a. She was an old love of his. / She’s full of love. b. This is one right you can’t take away. / He’s here by right. c. We instituted a number of controls. / We lost control over the situation. d. He made an appearance. / For the sake of appearance. Once we start looking for them, we will find that there are quite a few nouns that pattern in this way, allowing both a countable and an uncountable use. Table 1.4 provides some further examples. It is true that certain nouns will tend to be used primarily in either a countable or an uncountable manner. But it is also true that a very large number of nouns display the kind of duality illustrated in Table 1.4, allowTable 1.4  Nouns That May Be Countable or Uncountable Countable use

Uncountable use

Would you like a coffee? Oregon wines are excellent. That was an interesting experience. The lights were shining brightly. The professor mentioned one more difficulty. I found a hair in my soup. Stilton is one of my favorite cheeses.

Do you like coffee? I prefer red wine to white. I don’t have much experience. Light travels faster than sound. I never had so much difficulty before. I must get my hair cut. A lot of cheese is made in England.

Nouns and Noun Phrases in Linguistic Perspective    15

ing both a countable and a non-countable use. Huddleston and Pullam observe, quite rightly, that this duality is “not remotely exceptional but representative of an extremely widespread phenomenon” (2002, p. 335). And Payne comments as follows: It is important to recognize that, like word class membership in general, countability is a property of words in context. Very few words are inherently and absolutely categorized as countable vs. non-countable in the lexicon, though some may be. Rather, concepts are presented as countable or noncountable in particular contexts. (Payne, 2010, p. 189)

Not surprisingly, DUEs often express confusion over this matter. It is certainly something that needs to be addressed in the EFL classroom. The problem is that students are often taught to think of the labels count and non-count as identifying fixed categories, whereas it is generally better to think in terms of countable and uncountable uses of nouns, as I have indicated in Table 1.4 and as the quotation from Payne implies. Another way of drawing attention to this is to show how the same noun may be used as both a count noun and a non-count noun within the same construction. Here is an example: (11) (From Allan, 2001) It is because I like lambs that I don’t like lamb. Here, the speaker implicitly contrasts the animal with the meat that comes from the animal. Clearly, the little cute animals that we see in the countryside can be individuated, so the first noun carries a countable sense and is marked for plurality (lambs); however, in referring to the meat produced from the animal, the speaker has in mind the product in general, not a particular piece of meat, therefore the second noun carries a mass interpretation and the speaker uses the noun in an uncountable sense (lamb). Exactly the same thing applies in the following example: (12) Oaks are the source of oak. The first use of the noun (oaks) is countable; the speaker is referring to individual trees. These are the source of the product that is referred to by means of the second, uncountable use of the noun (oak). To repeat, because of what they may have been taught previously, it is important to remind DUEs that the labels count noun and non-count noun do

16    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

not represent fixed divisions and that the notion of countability is to a large extent a matter of how a noun functions in a particular context rather than an inherent property of nouns themselves. The idea that every noun must always be either count or non-count is, quite simply, wrong.

Common Nouns and Problems of Number and Plurality Countability is closely associated with the concept of number. In fact, a clear sign that a noun is being used as a count noun is when it is marked for number. In English, the concept of number involves a simple contrast between “one” and “more than one.” (Some other languages have much more elaborate number systems.) The concept of number in English is not restricted to nouns. It is reflected in the morphology of demonstratives (this, that vs. these, those). It is also seen in the difference between the 1st- and 3rd-person pronouns (I vs. we, hers vs. theirs, etc.). On nouns, number is expressed by means of plural inflection. When used as a count noun and denoting more than one, a noun is pluralized. The vast majority of English nouns are marked for plurality in an entirely predictable and straightforward way: through the addition of an -s suffix: (13) a. a cat ⇒ many cats b. a horse ⇒ those horses c. a dog ⇒ two dogs As readers of this book will know, however, the pronunciation of the suffix varies in relation to the sound that precedes it. There are three distinct possibilities: ◾◾ /s/ after voiceless consonants (e.g., cats, /kæts/) ◾◾ /ɨz/ after sibilants (e.g., horses, /hɔrsɨz/) ◾◾ /z/ used in all other situations (e.g., dogs, /dɒgz/) Linguists would say that the three phonetic forms of the plural morpheme are distinct “realizations” of the plural marker. The key point, of course, is that DUEs need to be taught that this particular grammatical feature (the plural -s marker on regular nouns) has different pronunciations. This is one example of how, in the end, grammar and phonology merge. While most nouns in modern English pluralize in this regular fashion, there is a significant minority of nouns that form their plural in some other, irregular manner. Take the following, for instance:

Nouns and Noun Phrases in Linguistic Perspective    17



(14) a. child ⇒ children b. datum ⇒ data c. half ⇒ halves d. mouse ⇒ mice e. octopus ⇒ octopi f. phenomenon ⇒ phenomena g. wife ⇒ wives

The presence of irregular forms such as these is often explicable in historical terms, or else as a result of foreign influence. For example, plural forms such as wives and halves are traceable to Old English; the form phenomena comes from Greek; data is Latin. It is worth noting that many EUEs treat this latter form as a singular noun, as in This data is inaccurate. Here we have another example of language change. However, in this case, the change is incomplete since one finds that while many speakers will accept this data, they are often noticeably less happy with a data or one data. Languages have a tendency to regularize over time. One effect of this is that certain nouns that were once irregular have become regularized or are in the process of becoming regularized. This is reflected in the fact that there is some disagreement even among English native speakers over the preferred form of certain nouns. For example, for some people, loaf has become a regular noun and is pluralized as loafs; for others, it remains irregular, with the plural form being loaves. It is also worth keeping in mind that since the noun word class is open, new nouns are frequently coined. Interestingly, these new nouns are invariably treated as regular and pluralized by means of the -s suffix (e.g., blogs, faxes, modems). This was beautifully demonstrated by a linguist in the 1950s conducting what has become known as the “wug-test.” In this experiment, native-speaking children were shown pictures of an imaginary creature which, they were told, was called a wug. The children were invited to complete expressions like the following: “Here is a wug. Here is another one. There are two of them. There are two ________ .” The great majority of children responded with wugs. The point is that since wug is an invented word, the children could not be simply echoing their parents. Instead, they were analyzing the word for themselves and assuming it was a regular noun (see Berko, 1958). Clearly, the existence of irregular nouns presents a problem for DUEs. Because they are irregular, there are no rules to explain their plural forms. Unfortunately, therefore, non-native learners have to make some effort to consciously memorize them on an item-by-item basis. Of course, memoriza-

18    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

tion will be greatly assisted if learners are given opportunities to encounter these nouns in listening and reading materials, and to produce them in speaking and writing.

Some Further Problems with Plurality Above, I said that in prototypical cases number is expressed by means of plural inflection, whether we are dealing with regular nouns or irregular nouns. It is necessary to stress that this is the prototypical case, because there are exceptions. In the first place, while the singular–plural contrast is a distinctive feature of nouns as a class, not all nouns have single and plural forms. To take some well-known examples, in standard English, equipment has only a singular form (*equipments is impossible); on the other hand, outskirts has only a plural form (you cannot say *an outskirt). Adding to the difficulty is the fact that some nouns have invariant forms. What this means is that even when they are used as count nouns they are not overtly marked for plurality. Well-known examples of this are sheep and, for some speakers, fish: (15) a. a sheep ⇒ two sheep b. one fish ⇒ four fish The key point here is that, despite their lack of plural marking, these nouns can be used as count nouns and thus can be either singular or plural. This is nicely illustrated in the following example: (16) (From Allan, 2001) Those sheep are wiggling their ears. Notice that the plurality of sheep in this example is signaled in three distinct ways: ◾◾ the use of the plural determiner those ◾◾ the use of the plural verb form are ◾◾ the use of the 3rd-person plural pronoun their If the speaker had intended a single animal, the construction as a whole would be quite different, and yet the form of the noun would be the same:

Nouns and Noun Phrases in Linguistic Perspective    19

(17) That sheep is wiggling its ears. The whole issue of plurality is rendered more complicated still by other somewhat anomalous cases. For example, certain non-count nouns ending in an -s (e.g., savings and groceries) are syntactically plural, as is shown by the fact that they require plural verbs (18a) and determining words (18b): (18) a. My savings are steadily dwindling. (Not *My savings is steadily dwindling.) b. Where did you buy these groceries? (Not *Where did you buy this groceries?) On the other hand, some other non-count nouns that also end in -s (e.g., news, politics, linguistics) are syntactically singular and require singular forms: (19) a. That is interesting news. (Not *That are interesting news.) b. Politics is a murky business. (Not *Politics are a murky business.) c. Isn’t linguistics fun? (Not *Aren’t linguistics fun?) The difficulty here is reflected in another classic error produced by DUEs: *I’ve just heard a new rather than I’ve just heard some news. There is also a small group of nouns that refer to “two-part” entities and end in -s. Examples include binoculars, scissors, and trousers (or pants if you speak American English). These nouns always take a plural verb: (20) a. The scissors were blunt. (Not *The scissors was blunt.) b. The trousers are dirty. (Not *The trousers is dirty.) c. Were the binoculars expensive? (Not *Was the binoculars expensive?) Many languages treat the singular–plural contrast in a way that is directly comparable to English. For example, French plural nouns are marked with an -s suffix: un homme (“a man”), deux hommes (“two men”); la chat (“the cat”), les chats (“the cats”). As in English, French has some irregular nouns which take distinctive—sometimes very distinctive—plural forms: un oeil (“one eye”), les yeux (“the eyes”). Turkish nouns follow a similar pattern, being marked for plurality by means of a plural suffix: çoçuk (child),

20    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

Singular

Plural

die Mutter (the mother)

die Mütter (the mothers)

der Hund (the dog)

die Hunde (the dogs)

das Kind (the child)

die Kinder (the children)

das Auto (the car)

die Autos (the cars)

Figure 1.2  German nouns

çoçuklar (children); erkek (“man”), erkekler (“men”). However, the issue of plurality in Turkish is rendered more complicated by the fact that when a noun is modified by a numeral a special classifier form, tane (roughly “unit” or “piece”), is employed, and the noun itself is left unmarked. Thus: “two lovely children” is iki tane guzel çoçuk rather than *iki tane guzel çoçuklar, which you might anticipate. German has a much wider range of irregular nouns than does English, and these pluralize in several distinct ways, some of which are shown in Figure 1.2. Korean plural marking differs from English in one highly significant way: It is optional. Typically, whether a noun is intended as singular or plural can be determined only by the discourse context. Hence, in the following sentence, the noun 컵이 (keobi) can be understood as referring to one cup or to more than one cup, with context making the intended meaning apparent: (21) 찬장에 컵이 있다 (chanjangeh keobi itchta) “There is a cup in the cupboard,”         or “There are cups in the cupboard.”

Some Thoughts on Proper Nouns Proper nouns are traditionally thought of as words that name specific persons, places, or things. But this is not an especially useful way of thinking about them. For one thing, as numerous linguists have pointed out, we can make highly specific references without ever using a proper noun. Consider a sentence such as (22). This has highly specific reference and you would have no difficulty figuring out who it was I wanted you to look at, even though there are no proper nouns here:

Nouns and Noun Phrases in Linguistic Perspective    21

(22) Look at that student wearing a bright pink shirt, eating a doughnut, and standing on one leg. So, if proper nouns do not name specific people and the like, what do they do? From a linguistic perspective, it makes more sense to say that a proper noun is a noun that has unique reference. It is this that distinguishes them from common nouns, which do not have unique reference (that is why they are common nouns). By way of illustration, consider the following sentence; notice that it contains three nouns, one proper noun, and two common nouns: (23) Seoul is one of the largest cities on the planet. What distinguishes Seoul, as a proper noun, from the two common nouns, cities and planet? The answer is unique reference. While there are many thousands of cities in the world, and the universe contains more planets than we can possibly know, on the planet we inhabit there is only one city to which this noun can be appropriately applied. Thus, the noun Seoul has genuinely unique reference. This is not always the case. In fact, very few proper nouns have absolutely unique reference in the way that Seoul does. More often, a proper noun has unique reference only within particular, much more limited context. For example, in the United Kingdom there is only one city called Lincoln. Thus, in the context of a discussion about Britain this proper noun has unique reference. However, in the USA there are several towns and cities with this name. As a result, speakers will often have to specify which Lincoln they have in mind by appending the name of the relevant state: “Lincoln, Nebraska,” “Lincoln, Michigan,” et cetera. Exactly the same thing applies to proper nouns referring to people. Consider the proper noun Shakespeare. Inevitably, when we hear or read this noun we think of the famous Elizabethan playwright. Nonetheless, there have been plenty of other rather less famous people with this surname, and so, technically, it only has unique reference within the context of a discussion of English literature. To take another example, there have no doubt been lots of people with the name George Bush, so, strictly, this proper noun can only be said to have unique reference if we are discussing U.S. presidents. And there have, of course, been two American presidents to whom this proper noun could be applied. As a result, to avoid potential uncertainty, speakers will typically make the noun more specific, referring

22    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

to George Bush Senior or George W. Bush. The concept of unique reference is usually tied to a particular context in this way so that the intended referent of a proper noun is obvious to both the speaker and the hearer. There are also occasions when EUEs will pluralize what appears to be a proper noun. Consider (24): (24) There are two Sung Hees working in that office. Once again, the way to make sense of this is to recognize that here the name Sung Hee is not being used as a proper noun. As the sentence as a whole makes clear, there is more than one possible referent for the noun. So, in this particular context it is being used as a common noun.

Pronouns Today, many linguists are agreed in placing pronouns within the larger noun word class, treating them as a special type of noun phrase (or NP, to use the standard abbreviation). For example, Berk comments that pronouns “represent the simplest NPs” (1999, p. 83), and Finegan states that “NPs and pronouns have the same distribution in sentences; wherever an NP can occur, a pronoun can occur instead. Thus, pronouns are NPs” (2004, p. 152). While there is widespread agreement among linguists about this, DUEs may be less familiar with the idea. The first issue, then, is to establish that pronouns are indeed part of the broader lexical category of nouns. The main reason for treating pronouns as a type of noun is that pronouns and nouns can stand in the same grammatical relations to verbs, functioning as subjects, objects (direct and indirect), objects of prepositions, predicative complements, and so on. Consider Table 1.5. Most linguists would regard the fact that pronouns and nouns share grammatical functions as a decisive argument in favor of treating pronouns as a form of noun. Of course, this is not to deny that there are also differences between nouns and pronouns. For example, pronouns cannot be preceded by determiners or adjectives: (25) a. The tall girl b. *The tall she

Nouns and Noun Phrases in Linguistic Perspective    23 Table 1.5  Grammatical Functions of Pronouns Grammatical function

Example

Subject

He likes Minyoung. Hers was the best idea. Anybody can win. What is that noise? Miyoung likes him. You don’t like anybody. Miyoung considered herself in the mirror. Miyoung gave him a CD. That professor gives everyone bad grades! Who(m) did the professor give the best grade to? Miyoung gave a CD to him. That professor gives bad grades to everyone! That book is mine.

Object

Indirect object

Object of preposition Copula complement

Huddleston and Pullam regard this as a “defining property” (2002, p. 429) of pronouns. They are right to do so. I noted in my introduction that in relatively informal discourse, phrases such as a her and a healthier you are quite common. Also, various writers have noted that phrases such as the following are possible: lucky you, silly him, poor us. Strictly, however, in all these cases the pronoun has undergone conversion and is being treated as a common noun. Thus, it is reasonable to teach DUEs that if a word is operating as a pronoun it cannot be preceded by an adjective. Another difference is that the English pronominal system displays inflection for case, with the form of the pronoun determined by its grammatical relation to the verb within its clause. Thus, some pronouns have contrasting forms depending on whether they are in a subject relation (nominative case) or an object relation (accusative case). When a pronoun is used to signal possession, it is said to have genitive case. Once again, this requires a distinct form. All of this is summarized in Table 1.6. Table 1.6  Case Marking of Pronouns Case

Pronoun

Nominative I, you, he, she, it, we, they Accusative me, you, him, her, it, us, them Genitive mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs NB: 2nd-person you and 3rd-person it are exceptions and do not have distinct forms for nominative and accusative.

24    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar

Modern English pronouns represent the remnants of a once much more extensive case system. In Old English, nouns were case-marked as well. Case marking is a common feature of many of the world’s languages, being found in German, Turkish, and Korean, to name just a few. In Modern English, only pronouns exhibit this feature.1 Summing up our discussion so far, it is clear that pronouns are like nouns in some ways and unlike them in others. However, as I have already indicated, most linguists would regard the fact of shared grammatical functions as decisive. As a result, it makes sense to say that pronouns are “a syntactically distinct subclass of nouns” (Huddleston, 1984, p. 273). The pronoun system in modern English is rich and complex, and there are several different word-forms that may be included under the pronoun heading. In this chapter, I limit my comments to three subtypes: personal pronouns, reciprocal pronouns, and indefinite pronouns.2

The Personal Pronouns DUEs are not always aware that English has five distinct forms of personal pronoun. These are presented in Table 1.7. The treatment of these as five personal pronoun subdivisions is based on the fact that they share a contrast of person, displaying distinct forms for 1st person, 2nd person, and 3rd person. Moreover, there is an obvious morphological relationship between these forms. In fact, in some cases there is complete morphological overlap. Thus, depending on context, her can be either a plain form pronoun (accusative case), as in (26a), or a (dependent) genitive pronoun (26b): (26) a. I talked to her yesterday. b. I borrowed her book yesterday. Unlike many languages, standard modern English makes no distinction between the singular and plural forms of the 2nd person. Many languages use different 2nd-person forms to indicate singular and plural addressees. French does this (tu is singular, vous is plural), as does Turkish (sen, siz). The same forms often mark a familiarity–formality contrast. French speakers will typically use tu with friends and close family and vous with those in a position of authority over them. Again, in Turkish, sen indicates familiarity or closeness, siz is more formal. In earlier stages of its history, English made a similar distinction. A variety of singular forms such as thou, thee, and thine were employed, with you (sometimes ye or your) being reserved for the plu-

Nouns and Noun Phrases in Linguistic Perspective    25 Table 1.7  The Personal Pronouns Person

Plain form Plain form (nominative) (accusative)

Dependent genitive

Independent genitive Reflexive

1st 2nd 3rd

I you he, she, it

me you him, her, it

my your his, her, its

mine yours his, hers, its

myself yourself himself, herself, itself

1st 2nd 3rd

we you they

us you them

our your their

ours yours theirs

ourselves yourselves themselves

ral. Some non-standard dialects have retained this with forms like you all, you’ns, yous being employed as 2nd-person plural pronouns. Some readers may be surprised by my inclusion of my, your, her, et cetera under the heading of personal pronouns. These are often regarded as “possessive determiners.” But this latter label describes what they do, not what they are. To refer to these forms as some sort of determiner obscures their connection with the other pronouns; more importantly, it fails to take account of a significant distinction between form and function. I would argue that, in terms of form, these words belong with the other personal pronouns—as their morphology makes plain. That is their syntactic category. However, in terms of function (i.e., the grammatical work they do), they are determining words. This represents a departure from the more usual account, which is still followed by many linguists (e.g., Berk, 1999; Cowan, 2008). But I believe it makes good sense. Note that most of the independent forms are distinguished from the dependent forms simply by the presence of a word-final -s. The exceptions are the 1st-person independent genitive (mine rather than *mys), and the masculine and neutral forms of the 3rd-person independent genitive (his, its), which are identical to the 3rd-person dependent genitive forms. These pronouns are often described as “possessive” forms. This is not the most useful label, since the meaning of these forms is not restricted to expressing possession. This is shown in the examples in (27), only the first of which can be said to involve the semantic relation of possession: (27) a. I must clean my car. b. The professors were not surprised by his failure. c. Their hometown is Cambridge.

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Anaphora and Deixis In some traditional definitions, pronouns are said to be words that can be used in place of nouns. This is somewhat misleading. Look at the following: (28) a. The movie was about the friendship between a young man and a strange old woman. b. *The it opened with the young he talking to the strange old her in a gloomy cafe. As the above makes clear, if we simply replace a noun with an equivalent pronoun, we are left with an ungrammatical sentence. However, what the pronoun can do is replace an entire noun phrase: (29) a. The movie was about the friendship between a young man and a strange old woman. b. It opened with him talking to her in a gloomy cafe. In (29b), each pronoun refers back to a noun phrase previously mentioned in (29a), (it refers to the movie, him refers to a young man, her refers to a strange old woman). In more technical language, this “referring back” is known as anaphora, and it is the main function of 3rd-person pronouns in modern English. Because this is such an important concept, it is worth spending some time discussing it. To begin, read the following extract from a newspaper. As you do, ask yourself, Who sent who to Washington?: (30) Manning reveals that Blair was so concerned that he sent him to Washington in March 2002, a full year before the invasion (Watt, July 17, 2007). A moment’s thought should reveal that this interesting little sentence is potentially ambiguous since it contains two proper nouns, Manning and Blair, and two pronouns, he and him. As a result, the reader may be unclear who sent who to Washington. Does the nominative he refer back to Manning and the accusative him to Blair? If so, Manning did the sending and Blair was the one sent. Or is it the other way round? Does the nominative

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pronoun refer back to Blair and the accusative to Manning? In this case, it was Blair who sent Manning. It should be acknowledged that, in reality, skilled readers will often use their “real-world” knowledge to help disambiguate sentences like this. Thus, readers who knew that the Blair referred to was the prime minister of the U.K. at the time would deduce that he was more likely to be the one doing the sending. But this does not alter the fundamental ambiguity of the sentence as it stands. What a sentence such as (30) brings into focus is the manner in which 3rd-person pronouns are used as anaphors to noun phrase antecedents.3 Here is another illustration: (31) The professor hasn’t arrived yet, but he will be here soon. antecedent anaphor Another way to express this is to say that in (31) there is an “anaphoric relation” between the pronoun he and the noun phrase the professor. Since the pronoun he can be used to refer to any male human being, it is only in the context of this noun phrase that we know who the pronoun is referring to. In other words, the interpretation of he in (31) is context-dependent. Usually in anaphoric relations the antecedent precedes its anaphor, as in (31). However, sometimes the anaphor comes before the antecedent: (32) As soon as he began to feel ill, the professor phoned the office. anaphor antecedent This order is less common. Importantly, it can operate only when the clause containing the anaphor is subordinate to the clause containing the antecedent. Thus, in (32), he may be interpreted as anaphoric to the professor. However, in (33), he cannot be interpreted as an anaphor of the professor: (33) He phoned the office as soon as the professor began to feel ill. We do not know who he refers to here because we do not have any context for it. But one thing we can be sure of is that it does not refer to the professor.

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In interpreting texts involving anaphoric relations, EUEs will tend to rely on what is sometimes called a “principle of salience,” whereby a pronoun is understood to stand in anaphoric relation to the most salient (obvious or significant) noun phrase in its vicinity. This will often be the most recently mentioned noun, but not always. Consider the following passage from a novel by Virginia Woolf. As a little mental exercise, you might like to try working out the anaphoric relationships between the two antecedent nouns Mary and Katherine (you can ignore Ralph) and the various pronouns that follow. It is not easy. Indeed, you will quickly find that assuming that the antecedent is the most recently mentioned noun clearly does not work for complex passages such as this: (34) (from Woolf, 1919, p. 158) Mary bent low over the fire and stirred the coal between the bars with a poker. Katherine’s mention of Ralph had roused within her an almost irresistible desire to explain to her the true state of the case between herself and Ralph. She knew, from the tone of her voice, that in speaking of Ralph she had no desire to probe Mary’s secrets, or to insinuate any of her own. Moreover, she liked Katherine; she trusted her; she felt respect for her. The first step of confidence was comparatively simple; but a further confidence had revealed itself, as Katharine spoke, which was not so simple, and yet it impressed itself upon her as a necessity; she must tell Katharine what it was clear that she had no conception of—she must tell Katharine that Ralph was in love with her. While 3rd-person pronouns are typically used as anaphors, the 1st- and 2nd-person forms have a deictic use. Deixis refers to the way the interpretation of certain words or phrases depends upon the context in which the utterance is made. The 1st- and 2nd-person pronouns are obviously deictic in this sense. For example, if Kara and Tory are in conversation and Kara says I, she is referring to herself (i.e., in effect, the pronoun means “Kara”); but, of course, when Tory says I, he is referring not to Kara but to himself, so the pronoun has effectively changed its meaning to “Tory”; likewise, when Kara says you, it refers to Tory, but when Tory says you, it refers to Kara. The genitive pronouns are similarly deictic, their interpretation depending on the situation in which the utterance is made: (35) A: This book is mine; your copy is over there. B: No. You’ve got my copy; this one is yours.

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The Reflexive Pronouns On morphological grounds, the reflexive pronouns clearly belong with the other personal pronouns. Most of the reflexive pronouns are formed by suffixing the noun -self (singular) or -selves (plural) to the appropriate dependent genitive. The exceptions are the 3rd-person masculine singular and plural reflexives, which use the accusative plain form pronoun as their base. Reflexive pronouns always refer to the subject of a clause. Compare (36a) and (b): (36) a. John helped himself. b. John helped him. In (36a), the pronoun refers to the subject of the clause, John. In more technical language, the reflexive pronoun and the subject of the clause are co-referential, that is, the pronoun and the subject noun refer to each other. In (36b), which contains a plain form pronoun rather than a reflexive, there is no co-referentiality. Whoever the pronoun refers to, it is not the subject of the clause. The reflexive itself, used for inanimate objects and abstractions, is somewhat unusual. Berk (1999, p. 88) provides the following examples:



(37) (From Berk, 1999) a. She turned my argument in upon itself. b. The water heater blew itself up. c. My car destroyed itself. d. That book sells itself.

Because a reflexive pronoun and the subject of the clause are co-referential it is a grammatical requirement that they agree in person, number, and gender: (38) a. Person agreement: Mr. Smith hurt himself. (Not, *Mr. Smith hurt myself.) b. Number agreement: I’ve talked about myself all evening. (Not, *I’ve talked about ourselves all evening.) c. Gender agreement: He said she should look after herself. (Not, *He said she should look after himself.)

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Note that (38c) illustrates a further important point: The reflexive pronoun is co-referential with the subject of its own clause (in this case, she), not the subject of the higher clause, he. Interestingly, there are certain verbs that, when used transitively, seem to require a reflexive pronoun as object: (39) (From Berk, 1999) a. The children behaved themselves. b. The witness perjured herself. c. Arlene prides herself on her advanced degrees. Berk also notes that while behave can be used intransitively, there is a covert object that is necessarily co-referential with the subject: “While we can say, ‘The children behaved’ (meaning the children behaved well), we can never say ‘The children behaved their cousins’” (Berk, 1999, p. 88). Reflexive pronouns are commonly used to add emphasis or to indicate exclusivity. This is illustrated (40): (40) Bill graded all the assignments (by) himself. This means that Bill, and Bill alone, did the grading; no one else was involved. In this example, the use of by is optional. Sometimes it is obligatory: (41) a. Bill was standing by himself in the corner. b. *Bill was standing himself in the corner. It is also common to hear reflexives being used in an apparently redundant fashion to add emphasis to a preceding noun. This is most likely to occur in a context where a speaker is seeking to mark a contrast of some sort. Here is an example: (42) Many of the faculty members are rather poor timekeepers. However, I myself am never late! Another interesting use of these pronouns, and one that seems to be increasing, is to employ a reflexive where a personal pronoun might be expected. Consider the following examples:

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(43) A: How are you? B: I’m fine, how about yourself?

The Reciprocal Pronouns Modern English has two reciprocal pronouns, each other and one another. These are relatively unproblematic and require little comment. They are very close semantically, and for the most part can be treated as synonyms. Like the 3rd-person plain forms, they are used as anaphors, with the antecedent in most cases being the subject of the clause in which the pronoun occurs, such as in the following, where the antecedent is the two children, not Mrs. Brown: (44) Mrs. Brown said that her two children were always being mean to antecedent each other/one another . anaphor Reciprocal pronouns are used when the antecedent is a plural noun (e.g., the two children) or when the speaker wishes to stress that two entities mentioned in the antecedent phrase are equal participants in the situation: (45) Bob and Ted were always being mean to each other/one another. One difference between the two is that one another is preferred when a large number of referents are in view. Thus, while (46a) is entirely natural, (46b) is somewhat odd, since we would naturally assume that the teacher is addressing a large group of children: (46) a. The teacher told all the children to be nice to one another. b. ?The teacher told all the children to be nice to each another. The reciprocal pronouns can also occur as genitives: (47) The two children hurt each other’s/one another’s feelings.

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The Indefinite Pronouns Modern English has several compound forms that function as indefinite pronouns. Morphologically, these pronouns are highly regular. They are formed with one of four bases: any, every, some, or no, together with one of three suffixes: -body, -one, or -thing. The suffixes -body and -one essentially mean “person”; -thing refers to inanimate entities or abstract concepts. Difficulties may arise for some DUEs, however, in distinguishing between these pronouns and using them appropriately. As a result, it will be worth spending a little time on this. The forms anybody, anyone, and anything are used when the speaker has in mind one member (or perhaps a small subset of members) of a group. Consider the following examples: (48) a. Anybody can win this race. b. You can eat anything you like. (48a) means that all the competitors participating in the race have a chance of winning, although only one will actually win. Uttered in a restaurant, (48b) would mean that you may choose whatever dish you like from those listed on the menu. By comparison, the reference of everybody, everyone, and everything is unrestricted. It includes all relevant items: (49) Everybody at the party was happy. The pronouns somebody, someone, and something restrict the reference to one out of a group: (50) a. Someone here must be responsible. b. I want to eat something spicy. The reference in (50a) is to one individual out of all those present. Likewise, (50b) means that the speaker wants one particular dish, a spicy dish, out of those available. Clearly enough, the meaning of the negative forms, nobody, no one, and nothing is that there is no referent:

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(51) a. Nobody came to my party. b. There is nothing to eat. Indefinite pronouns are neutral in terms of person, number, and gender. As a result, problems can arise in cases where an indefinite pronoun is an antecedent for another anaphoric pronoun. Consider the following: (52) a. Everyone has his own way of studying. b. Everyone has their own way of studying. Prescriptivists typically insist that only (52a) is “correct.” They argue that everyone here is singular (note the use of has rather than have), and therefore the co-referential pronoun cannot be a plural form. However, as Berk (1999, p. 93) correctly notes, the number implied by the use of these forms is indefinite (hence the name). There can be no doubt that in the current context everyone indicates more than one; as a result, the use of the plural and gender-neutral their as an anaphor makes good sense. Of course, there remains a problem in that (52b) still has a singular form of the verb. Nonetheless, it seems that many EUEs are prepared to overlook this oddity since studies of spoken English suggest that the “everyone . . . their” pattern is actually much more common than the prescriptive alternative. This, then, would seem to be a nice example of the leakiness of English grammar!

Genitives and Partitives This section deals with two more matters that often prove problematic for DUEs: genitive noun phrases and partitive constructions. Leaving aside constructions involving a genitive pronoun (her book, their suggestions), English has two other genitive constructions: the s-genitive (sometimes called the “construct” genitive) and the of-genitive (sometimes known as the “periphrastic” genitive). Sometimes the terms genitive and possessive are treated as synonyms. However, the semantic concept of genitive is based only very loosely on the notion of possession, and various other semantic relationships are expressed by means of these structures. For example, the relationship signified by the genitive expressions in the following examples does not seem to be possessive:

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(53) a. the professor’s Korean students b. Soo Min’s hometown c. last night’s match d. Beethoven’s symphonies e. the top of the stairs f. the population of Busan g. the arrival of the parcel

The two forms of genitive are frequently semantically equivalent. For example, there does not appear to be any obvious difference in meaning between Beethoven’s symphonies and the symphonies of Beethoven. Nonetheless, despite their essential equivalence in semantic terms, there are many cases where EUEs find only one form readily acceptable. Why should this be? Various factors seem to play a part here. One relevant factor is animacy. It is frequently maintained that the s-genitive must be used with animate (especially human) noun phrases and the of-genitive with inanimate noun phrases. However, it is important to see that there is no grammatical rule at work here; it is largely a matter of speaker preference. If the noun phrase refers to an animate being, then the s-genitive is always possible and generally preferred, but using the of-genitive would not be grammatically wrong. This is nicely captured in the following comment: For the most part at least, we are dealing here with preferences and tendencies, not with syntactic rules. . . . The hat of Peter sounds so unnatural that it is tempting to say that it is ungrammatical—but it is questionable whether we could devise rules of syntax to exclude such examples while admitting the perfectly acceptable the thoughts of Mao, the voice of Ferdinand, and the like. (Huddleston, 1984, p. 269)

The following examples illustrate another feature of s-genitives that can cause problems for DUEs: (54) a. The woman’s skirt is blue. b. The woman sitting over there’s skirt is blue. c. *The woman’s sitting over there skirt is blue. (55) a. The student’s assignment is now late. b. The student we were talking about’s assignment is now late. c. *The student’s we were talking about assignment is now late.

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What these examples reveal is that the head noun and the genitivemarking -s can be separated and additional material inserted between them. Notice that in both (54b) and (55b), the genitive marker appears at the end of the NP, rather than attached to the head noun (woman, student). Failure to separate the head noun from the -s results in obvious ungrammaticality, as both (54c) and (55c) demonstrate. It is common to find the -s marker in the s-genitive referred to as a suffix. However, an argument can be made for claiming that it is actually what linguists call a clitic, phonologically attached to the preceding word. Consider the examples in (54) and (55) once more. As we have noted, these sentences show that the noun and the genitive marker can be separated and additional material inserted between them. If the -s here was a suffix, this would not be possible. The point may become clearer if we compare the s-genitive with a case where the -s clearly is a suffix, for example in pluralization. Consider the phrases in (56), noting that (56a) pluralizes as (56b), not as (56c): (56) a. the last president of Korea b. the last two presidents of Korea c. *the last two president of Koreas Note too that plural suffixes can only attach to nouns. As we have just seen, however, in the s-genitive the -s morpheme comes at the end of the full noun phrase. A consequence of this is that it may attach to words belonging to a wide range of word classes. The following examples are grammatical (and surprisingly common in spoken English), even though they may sound awkward to some readers: (57) a. the girl I met yesterday’s mother b. the girl who spoke to me’s mother c. the girl who was helpful’s mother The two genitive forms sometimes combine in one “double genitive” expression with the pattern an X of Y’s: (58) (From Berk, 1999, p. 73) a. A friend of Bill’s is coming over later. b. An admirer of my mother’s has sent her a dozen roses.

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Not surprisingly, DUEs often find expressions like these puzzling since they appear to have built-in redundancy, with both forms of genitive being employed. In fact, there is often a semantic difference between a doublegenitive and a single genitive expression. Consider the following: (59) a. I saw a statue of Queen Victoria in the park. b. I saw a statue of Queen Victoria’s in the park. Sentence (59a) can only mean that the speaker saw a statue depicting the great British monarch. On the other hand, the double genitive in (59b) would most naturally be understood to mean that the speaker saw a statue that once belonged to Queen Victoria but which depicted someone else. There are two final points worth noting. Firstly, although it is usually said that the noun phrase in a double genitive is almost always introduced by an indefinite article, in certain contexts a definite article becomes possible: (60) The statue of Queen Victoria’s that I mentioned to you is in the park. Secondly, the noun to which the -s marker attaches in a double genitive is invariably human. As a result, expressions like the following are ungrammatical: (61) (From Teschner & Evans, 2007, p. 118) *I found it in a basement of a building’s. Partitive constructions can also present problems for DUEs, particularly in relation to plural marking. A partitive is a noun phrase with a distinctive syntactic pattern, consisting of a determining word (the, this, my, etc.), a noun denoting some kind of unit of measure, the preposition of, and a second noun denoting the entity itself: (62) Det. + N1 + of + N2 Here are some examples: (63) a. a jar of honey b. three glasses of water c. several sacks of wheat

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The problem here involves plural marking. Note that the nouns honey, water, and wheat each refer to entities that cannot be counted. In constructions of this sort, it is the first noun in the partitive that is counted: a jar, three glasses, several sacks, et cetera. This is shown by the fact that phrases such as *a honey, *three water, and *several wheat are obviously ungrammatical. For obvious reasons, partitives can be puzzling for DUEs, especially since they may hear proficient speakers produce an “edited” version of a partitive if the context allows. For example, in a grocery store, someone may ask for two honeys (meaning: two jars of honey); in a restaurant, I could order three waters (meaning: three glasses of water); a worker in a warehouse could report that Several wheats have been damaged by rain (meaning: several sacks of wheat.) DUEs often worry unnecessarily about this. It is simply an example of how describing grammar involves considering contexts of use.

Further Reading Quirk et al. (1985, Ch. 5) Huddleston and Pullam (2002, Ch. 5) For a general, but still helpful, discussion of nouns and noun phrases, try Berk (1999, Ch. 2). Givón’s account of the semantic features of nouns is conveniently summarized in Givón (1993a, pp. 55–57) and Givón (2000, p. 51). Schachter and Shopen (2007) is a wide-ranging discussion of parts of speech in various world languages.

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2 Verbs and Verb Phrases in Linguistic Perspective

I

n this chapter, I turn to the other major syntactic category in English, the verb. The plan for this chapter is as follows. I begin by trying to establish more precisely what a verb is and what purposes verbs serve when viewed in linguistic perspective. Here, I discuss the important idea that verbs play a central role in describing particular “situations.” After that, I discuss the very important closed class of so-called primary verbs, which have a very high frequency in modern English and can appear either as main verbs or as auxiliaries. As we will see, it makes sense to treat these as a distinct group on the basis of their morphosyntactic properties. Much of the remainder of the chapter is devoted to a detailed discussion of the especially interesting group of “multi-word” verbs. These are a striking feature of modern English and are widely recognized as presenting a particular challenge to nonnative English speakers. In consequence, the nature of these challenges, involving both problems of form and problems of meaning, will be discussed at some length.

Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 39–75 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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What Are Verbs? A traditional answer to this question would say that verbs are words that describe or identify actions and events. There is much to be said for this view. Verbs often do this, providing descriptions of perceptually accessible events that often involve physical motion or action and, frequently, rapid change. Yet, as with nouns, it does not take long to see that many verbs do not fit this definition and that it really only works with what are called dynamic verbs such as walk, run, jump, and so on. This way of thinking about verbs is much less effective for state or psych verbs such as know, want, hope, and numerous others. This suggests that the traditional view of verbs requires modification. This first section will address this issue. Just as I did with nouns, it will prove useful to begin my attempt to categorize verbs by briefly discussing their morphosyntactic properties. Like nouns, verbs typically occupy a particular slot in a construction, generally being preceded by a noun phrase that functions as the subject of the verb. Often (although this will depend on the nature of the verb itself), there will be a noun phrase following the verb as well, functioning as the object of the verb. This raises the issue of transitivity, which I will treat in detail in a later chapter. For now, we can simply say that the frame for a (transitive) verb in English looks like this: (1) NP ______ NP As well as their characteristic distribution, verbs can be marked for tense (2a), aspect (2b), and modality (2c): (2) a. Terrance teased his sister. b. Terrance has teased his sister. c. Terrance may have teased his sister. Very often, verbs are modified by adverbs, as in (3). However, the potentiality for modification by an adverb is not a defining characteristic of verbs since adverbs modify other types of word as well: (3) Terrance gleefully teased his sister.

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As with nouns, the attempt to categorize verbs in terms of their morphosyntactic properties can be usefully supplemented by a consideration of certain semantic features that are characteristic of verbs. Again, the twin notions of time-stability and concreteness, together with the idea that there are prototypical and non-prototypical members of the verb class, are relevant here. Recall that in discussing the concept of time-stability in the previous chapter, I suggested that it refers to aspects of the world that do not change, or else undergo only very gradual change. Prototypical verbs contrast sharply with nouns in so far as they tend to describe aspects of our world that are highly unstable and fast-changing. Likewise, I suggested that the idea of concreteness is best understood as referring to aspects of the world that exist in space and that are perceivable through the senses. Here, the contrast with nouns is less marked since the actions, events, and states described by verbs can be thought of as concrete in that they are perceivable to the senses. Givón puts it like this: “The experiential phenomena typically coded as verbs tend to be of intermediate complexity, involving concrete (perceptually accessible) events, either of physical motion or physical action, and above all fast changing events” (1993a, p. 55; emphasis original). In other words, a prototypical verb—what we might think of as a central member of the verb category—will tend to identify something with the semantic features of time-instability and concreteness. Verbs that lack one or the other of these features will be, to that extent, non-prototypical. The following examples illustrate this. The verb in (4a) is prototypical in that it describes a rapidly changing event that we can see occurring before our eyes; the verb in (4b), on the other hand, is non-prototypical in that it involves extremely slow changes over an extended period of time (despite the appearance of the adverb, quickly)—so slow, in fact, that we cannot perceive the changes taking place: (4) a. The hunter shot the deer. b. Foreign-made cars depreciate quickly. As with nouns, the idea of prototypical and non-prototypical verbs may be represented in the form of a series of concentric circles, with the words closest to the center being the most prototypical members of the category (see Figure 2.1).

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depreciate

shoot

Figure 2.1  Prototypical and non-prototypical verbs.

In the Classroom: The Verb “Family” As I suggested regarding nouns in the previous chapter, it may prove helpful for students if their teachers present the various morphosyntactic features of verbs alongside their semantic features so that learners have an overview of the traits characteristic of the verb “family.” As I have just noted, among the morphosyntactic traits of the verb family, the following are especially noteworthy: ◾◾ Verbs can appear in the frame: NP ______ NP. ◾◾ Verbs are marked for tense, aspect, and modality. ◾◾ Verbs can be modified by adverbs.

Teachers are unlikely to have difficulty thinking of example sentences that illustrate these various features. Once more, as with nouns, teachers will want to give careful thought to how they will present the semantic features characteristic of verbs. It would certainly be wrong to ignore them. They should be seen as having an important role in helping to establish the nature of verbs. I have suggested that among the semantic features associated with verbs, two stand out as being especially important. Once students have reached an appropriate level, these two features should prove readily communicable. The two features are these: ◾◾ Verbs prototypically refer to time-unstable aspects of the world. ◾◾ Verbs prototypically refer to concrete aspects of the world.

Once again, it will be important for students to understand that a particular word will not necessarily have all of the family features. However, if it has enough of them, then it belongs in the verb category.

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Verbs and Situations I want to turn now to another question: What do verbs do? What is their purpose in the grammar? As I have already noted, the traditional answer to questions of this sort would be something like, “Verbs describe or identify actions and events.” We can begin to improve on this traditional way of approaching the matter by noting that verbs do rather more than simply “describe.” Consider the following remarks from Berk: Verbs carry a great deal of information; they describe actions, events, and states and place these in a time frame; they tell us whether actions or events have been completed or are ongoing; they tell us whether a state is current or resultative; they allow us to command, to request, to speculate, to wish, and to predict. (Berk, 1999, p. 97)

Everyone agrees that verbs are essential to the grammar of English in the sense that every clause must have one. If a clause lacks a verb, it is always ungrammatical: (5) *The students Ø the professor. There are many possible verbs that could take the place of the zero marker in (5), but what is clear is that there must be a verb of some sort. As well as being syntactically required, verbs are essential for the semantic information they carry. If you look at the sentences below, you will see that there are rather obvious semantic differences between them. They must be understood in different ways; and, in all likelihood, in the real world, different consequences would follow from each of them: (6) a. The students adored the professor. b. The students detested the professor. c. The students tolerated the professor. Each of the sentences in (6) expresses a distinct situation. Linguists will often use “situation” as a semi-technical term to cover actions, events, states, and the like; the term is intended to be neutral between all of these. Verbs play a major role in establishing the situation. Other types of words (e.g., adjectives, adverbs, nouns, and prepositions) contribute as well, but there is no question that verbs tend to be centrally involved in this process,

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providing crucial information that allows the hearer or reader to picture what the situation was, is, or will be. This is particularly obvious in the case of (6a–c), where it is the difference between the verbs that distinguishes the three situations. One way in which linguists commonly think about verbs is to subdivide them according to the type of situation they express. Basically, situations may be either dynamic or non-dynamic (stative). Within this basic distinction, three situation-types may be identified: activities/processes, punctual situations, and states. (Many accounts identify a fourth type, accomplishments. I am ignoring this.)

Verbs, Activities, and Processes Activities and processes have duration (i.e., they unfold over an extended period of time). They will also typically be dynamic, involving some kind of change. As I have already indicated, in prototypical cases, this change will be perceptible, although this is not always the case. The verb in (7a) expresses an activity; the verbs in (7b) and (7c) express processes: (7) a. Jae Hui plays football every week. b. The company profits increased more quickly than expected. c. Azaleas grow well in Korea. One characteristic of verbs that express activities and processes is that they readily accept marking for progressive aspect: (8) a. Jae Hui is playing football this afternoon. b. The company profits are increasing more quickly than expected. c. Our azalea is growing well.

Verbs and Punctual Situations Punctual situations contrast with activities in lacking extended duration. Punctual situations tend to be instantaneous or very short-lived, ending almost as soon as they have begun. In the linguistics literature, situations of this type are often called achievements, although to my mind this is a somewhat confusing label and best avoided since (in the popular mind, at least) the idea of an achievement often implies deliberate effort and

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will generally have positive connotations. However, as the examples below show, many (so-called) achievements may be deliberate but negative (9a), or deliberate but neutral with regard to positivity or negativity (9b), or not positive at all (9c): (9) a. The mean boy hit his little sister. b. Kara switched the light on. c. She coughed. Even though they are very short-lived, verbs expressing punctual situations are dynamic in the sense that they involve some change. In consequence, like activity verbs, they can take progressive aspect. However, when they do, the situation naturally tends to receive what is called an iterative interpretation, meaning that the action or event occurred several times in a series. This is reflected in the following examples. Notice how the adverbial expressions support this iterative reading: (10) a. The mean boy is always hitting his little sister. b. Kara switched the light on and off constantly. c. She was coughing all night.

Verbs and States States are unchanging situations. They may be physical, emotional, psychological, or cognitive, but the essential characteristic of a state is that it persists without change over an extended period of time. In other words, states share with activities the characteristic of having duration; yet, unlike these, they are not dynamic. Stative verbs are typically used to describe situations that are “unbounded,” lacking an end-point. The verbs in the following examples are stative in this sense: (11) a. Chae Young likes linguistics. b. Jeong Eun’s daughter resembles her mother. c. Jin Young believes in God. DUEs are often taught that stative verbs never take progressive marking. However, as I will discuss in more detail in Chapter 7, in reality, things are not

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quite so simple. Of the three verbs above, two clearly reject the progressive. Both *Jeong Eun’s daughter is resembling her mother and *Jin Young is believing in God are ungrammatical. Yet with a verb such as like, matters are less clear-cut: The progressive is marginally acceptable under certain circumstances (e.g., Chae Young is liking linguistics more and more these days). As I have noted, underlying the classification of types of situations is a fundamental distinction between, on the one hand, those that are dynamic (activities/processes and punctual situations) and, on the other, those that are non-dynamic (states). This distinction marks an important division within the various situation types. As Yule observes, “The broadest conceptual distinction needed is between situations that can be treated as stative and others that can be treated as dynamic” (Yule, 1998, p. 62).

In the Classroom: Verbs and Situations A useful and interesting way of approaching verbs in the classroom would be to present them in terms of situations. I suggest that the value of this is that it takes us right to the heart of language as a communicative tool. It may prove especially helpful to look at verbs in this way where the first language makes different distinctions between verbs and situations. There are two important points, both discussed in the text above, which students need to understand. These are as follows:

1. The term situation is quite general, being used to cover actions, events, and states. 2. Situations can be dynamic or non-dynamic, with various subtypes falling under both headings.

Once the basic notion of a situation has been established, it would make sense to look at the different types of situations together with the verbs that are often used in describing these. A table such as the following has obvious utility here:

Dynamic Situations

1. Activity (durative): climb, cycle, dance, drink, eat, increase, listen, look, meander, play, run, say, tell, walk, work, write 2. Process (durative): change, deteriorate, flow, freeze, grow, harden, increase, learn, ripen, soften 3. Punctual (non-durative): blink, cough, hit, jump, kick, smash, sneeze, stab, strike, tap, throw

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Non-dynamic Situations

4. Stative a. Cognitive: believe, hope, know, recognize, think, understand, want b. Emotional: detest, dislike, hate, love c. Relational: belong, consist, contain, cost, own, possess, resemble d. Sensory: feel, hear, see, smell, taste

As always, if students are to come to terms with information of this sort, they need time and opportunity to practice using these forms, ideally in contexts where they have to engage communicatively with others, describing situations of their own.

Approaching verbs in this way can throw light on what may otherwise be rather puzzling. Certain verbs that might appear to have rather similar meanings actually describe different situations. Consider the verbs look and see. In terms of the situations they serve to establish, look expresses a dynamic activity involving the active directing of one’s eyes toward some visual goal; on the other hand, see expresses a non-dynamic sensory state, involving passive reception of visual impressions. These verbs are semantically distinct in English. They are used to describe quite distinct situations. Many languages do not make a comparable distinction. In Korean, for example, the same verb is used to describe these two situations. (12) a. 그림을 보다 (geulimeul boda) “look at a picture” b. 영화를 보다 (younghwareul boda) “see a movie” In a similar way, English makes a semantic distinction between listen (meaning, roughly, to make a deliberate effort to perceive sound) and hear (non-deliberate perception of sound). Thus, English speakers will “listen” to Beethoven, but “hear” a police siren. When someone says, “I can’t hear you,” they generally mean there is something preventing them from aurally perceiving the message being spoken. On the other hand, “I’m not listening to you” means that they are choosing to not pay attention to what is being said. Again, Korean uses one verb for both of these senses:

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(13) a. 소음을 듣다 (soeumeul deudda) “hear noises” b. 라디오를 듣다 (radioreul deudda) “listen to the radio” All the verbs considered up to now belong to the broad category of lexical words. They are often referred to as lexical verbs. Recall that linguists refer to the lexical class of words as an open class because new members can join fairly easily. This is certainly true of lexical verbs. New ones enter the English language surprisingly often. (It may be helpful to remind DUEs that many of these words are actually dual-category, serving as both verbs and nouns). Consider the following examples. For reasons too obvious to be stated, none of the verbs in (14) was used by our grandparents’ generation: (14) a. I emailed you yesterday. b. He spends a lot of time downloading music these days. c. Why don’t you google it? EUEs are quite inventive in their creation of verbs, often being very willing to “verb” other word-forms. They are even prepared to do it with proper nouns such as brand names. Sentence (14c) provides an example. The word Google (with a capital “G”) began its linguistic life as a proper noun. It was the name of a particular Internet search engine. Now, it is increasingly being used as a verb. Likewise, these days, it is not uncommon to hear people say things like the following: (15) The package was fed-exed yesterday. Again, FedEx began as a proper noun. Now, for at least some speakers, it is a verb. Although relatively new to the language, in terms of their grammatical behavior these verbs are really no different than older, more established verbs like believe, kick, walk, and so on, in that they accept the full array of morphosyntactic properties that characterize the verb family, tense marking (16a), modality and aspect marking (16b), and adverb modification (16c): (16) a. The professor googled the unfamiliar idea. b. The professor must have been googling all day. c. The professor regularly googles.

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These new verbs are no different semantically, either. They have the same role of helping to establish or describe situations.

The Three Primary Verbs in English I am going to suggest that modern English has three primary verbs: be, have, and do. These are particularly high-frequency verbs, especially be, and they play an important role in the grammar of the language. As well as being very common in both speech and writing, these three verbs are interesting from a linguistic point of view since they can appear either as auxiliary verbs supporting some other “main” verb, or on their own as the only verb in the clause. There is some disagreement within the linguistics literature about how these verbs should be described. Berk calls them “primary auxiliaries” (1999, p. 123). This is somewhat misleading since, as I have just noted, they do not always have an auxiliary function. Huddleston and Pullam (2002, p. 103) distinguish between “core” and “non-core” uses of these verbs. They treat the auxiliary use as core and the main verb use as non-core. However, given the high frequency of their main verb use, there seems no good reason to regard this as non-core. I have therefore avoided this terminology. In one of their uses, the primary verbs precede a main, lexical verb. When used in this way, they may be said to be functioning as auxiliary verbs within the clause. This is illustrated in (17): (17) a. He is speaking to her right now. b. I have visited my grandmother every Christmas since I was a child. c. You didn’t eat your lunch. In simple terms, auxiliary verbs are “additional” verbs (or “helping” verbs, as EFL teachers often say). In Modern English, primary be is used as an auxiliary in either the progressive construction, illustrated in (17a), or in the passive construction, illustrated in (18): (18) She was spoken to yesterday. When used as an auxiliary, have appears in perfect constructions, as shown in (19):

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(19) a. He has spoken to her. b. He had spoken to her yesterday. When used as an auxiliary, do appears in negative and interrogative constructions: (20) a. I didn’t speak to her yesterday. b. Did you speak to her yesterday? Notice that it is the job of the primary verb to carry the tense inflection for the entire verb phrase (VP), while the main verb conveys the semantic content. This is illustrated (21) with be. In (21a), the primary verb is marked for present tense, whereas in (21b), it is marked for past: (21) a. He is speaking to her right now. b. He was speaking to her yesterday.

Morphosyntactic Properties of the Primary Verbs in English At the morphosyntactic level, the primary verbs differ from lexical verbs in a number of important ways. Specifically, the primaries can undergo four syntactic “operations” that are not possible with lexical verbs. These four operations are conventionally referred to as the NICE properties: N egation, I nversion, C ode, E mphasis.

NICE Property #1: Negation One important feature of the primary verbs is that they have negative forms. That is to say, the primary verbs can be directly negated by the negative particle, not; lexical verbs cannot be directly negated in this way. We see this in the following:



(22) a. Min Hee is sitting over there. b. Min Hee is not/isn’t sitting over there. c. Gilbert has understood this. d. Gilbert has not/hasn’t understood this.

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As you are no doubt aware, in spoken English, the negative particle not is almost always reduced or contracted when attached to auxiliaries. The one exception is where the negative particle comes after first-person be. In this case, it does not contract: (23) a. I am not/I’m not going. b. *I amn’t going. Of course, in casual speech speakers will often produce forms such as “I ain’t going.” But this is clearly nonstandard and for our purposes can be ignored. In contrast, lexical verbs require what is called “do-insertion” (or “do-support”) for negation. In other words, the primary verb do is inserted into the clause as an auxiliary, and it is this that is negated: (24) a. Keun Bae speaks other languages. b. *Keun Bae speaksn’t other languages. c. Keun Bae does not/doesn’t speak any other languages. The emergence of this “supportive do” (Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 93) is another illustration of the changing face of English. Prior to the 15th century, there was no such grammatical requirement. Speakers who wished to negate a declarative would simply place a negative marker after the verb, producing constructions like “He went not.” From the 15th century onwards, however, we begin to find the appearance of do-insertion with speakers producing the modern-sounding “He did not go.”

NICE Property #2: Inversion A second important characteristic feature of primary verbs is that they readily undergo inversion in interrogative (question) constructions. That is, the primary verb moves to pre-subject position. Inversion applies to both yes–no questions and wh -questions: (25) Yes–No Question a. Is Min Hee sitting over there? b. Has Gilbert understood this?

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Wh - Question c. Where is Min Hee going to sit? d. What has Gilbert understood? Again, lexical verbs require do-insertion to form a question: (26) Yes–No Question a. *Speaks Keun Bae any other languages? b. Does Keun Bae speak any other languages? Wh- Question c. *What languages speaks Keun Bae? d. What languages does Keun Bae speak?

NICE Property #3: Code Certain constructions repeat or “code” some previously mentioned verb phrase. In these cases, it is possible for the primary verb to appear twice. We see this both in the formation of sentence-final tags and in the linguistic phenomenon known as ellipsis. Tags are formed by repeating the auxiliary of the main clause at the end of the utterance and attaching an appropriate pronoun after the auxiliary: (27) a. Min Hee is sitting over there, isn’t she? b. Gilbert hasn’t understood this, has he? Tag constructions display what is sometimes referred to as contrastive polarity. This means that if the first auxiliary is positive (e.g., 27a), the tag auxiliary is negative; if the first auxiliary is negative (e.g., 27b), the tag auxiliary is positive. (I discuss this in more detail in Chapter 9.) Ellipsis is a general label applied to a common linguistic phenomenon in which speakers omit material deemed to be unnecessary or redundant. The examples below reflect this phenomenon, which, as I noted in my introduction, is characteristic especially of spoken grammar. Notice that in (28a) the main verb sit is omitted in the second clause, with only the primary verb be expressed; similarly, in (28b) the main verb understand has been omitted in the second clause, although the primary verb have is expressed:

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(28) a. Min Hee is sitting, and so is Sun Hee. b. Gilbert has understood, and so has George. Once more, the now-familiar pattern applies with lexical verbs requiring do-insertion to form comparable constructions:



(29) a. *Keun Bae speaks several languages, speaksn’t he? b. Keun Bae speaks several languages, doesn’t he? c. *Keun Bae speaks other languages, and so speaks Joo Ho. d. Keun Bae speaks other languages, and so does Joo Ho.

NICE Property #4: Emphasis The final feature of primary verbs that we will consider is somewhat different than the others, since it has to do with a particular discourse effect, that of adding emphasis in speech. In spoken dialogue, the primary verbs will accept heavy stress when one speaker wishes to emphasize a particular point. This is illustrated in the following little dialogues: (30) a. A: Is Min Hee sitting over there? B: Yes, she IS. b. A: Has Gilbert understood this? B: No, he HASN’T. Yet again, lexical verbs require do-insertion to achieve a similar effect, with primary do taking the emphatic stress rather than the lexical verb itself: (31) A: Does Keun Bae speak any other languages? B: Yes, he DOES. (Not *Yes, he SPEAKS.) To sum up, be, have, and do share the morphosyntactic characteristics summarized in the NICE properties; lexical verbs do not. It is worth noting, however, that that primary be differs from have and do in one significant way.

54    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar Table 2.1  The Primary Verb Forms be

have/do

Present I am walking You are walking She is walking We are walking They are walking

Present I have walked You have walked She has walked We have walked They have walked

I don’t walk You don’t walk She doesn’t walk We don’t walk They don’t walk

Past I was walking You were walking She was walking We were walking They were walking

Past I had walked You had walked She had walked We had walked They had walked

I didn’t walk You didn’t walk She didn’t walk We didn’t walk They didn’t walk

Think about the different forms of each verb, both in the present and the past, as these are shown in Table 2.1. As Table 2.1 reminds us, primary be has three present forms (am, are, is) and two past forms (was, were). Primary have and do have only two present forms (have, has; do, does) and only one past form (had; did). In fact, primary be is morphologically unique in English. Your students may like to know that the uniqueness of be is another reflection of the historical change that has affected the grammar of English. Over time, there has been a tendency for English verbs to lose their inflections. However, because it is such a high-frequency verb, be has been able to resist this trend, holding onto its various inflected forms.

The Primary Verbs as Main Verbs I noted above that, in addition to their uses as auxiliaries, the primary verbs can be used in constructions in which they stand alone as the only verb in the clause: (32) a. He is happy. b. You have several CDs by Massive Attack. c. He did the dishes. I want to consider these cases in more detail, focusing on each of our primary verbs in turn.

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When be appears in a construction such as (32a), linguists will commonly refer to it as having a copula function; EFL teachers will often use the term “linking be.” Both labels are helpful in drawing attention to the role the verb plays in connecting the subject to the predicating term that follows (the adjective happy in the above example). It is very common to find primary be appearing in constructions of this sort. You will often find them referred to as copula constructions. (In Chapter 6, I describe them as complexintransitive clauses.) Here are some more examples: (33) a. I am the professor for this course. b. She was an English teacher. c. They are in Seoul at the moment. Even when it functions as the only verb in the clause, primary be continues to accept all the NICE properties discussed above. The following examples make this clear:



(34) a. Negation: He isn’t the professor. b. Inversion: Is he the professor? c. Code: He’s a professor, and so is she. d. Emphasis: A: Is he the professor? B: Yes, he IS.

As you would expect, the behavior of be here contrasts with a “normal” lexical main verb, which, if placed in the same construction, requires doinsertion:



(35) a. Negation: He doesn’t like the professor. b. Inversion: Does he like the professor? c. Code: He likes the professor, doesn’t he? d. Emphasis: A: Does he like the professor? B: Yes, he DOES.

The case of primary have is somewhat more complicated. For some speakers, it continues to accept the familiar morphosyntactic operations even when it appears as the only verb in the construction:

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(36) a. Negation: You haven’t any CDs by Massive Attack. b. Inversion: Have you any CDs by Massive Attack? c. Code: You have several CDs by Massive Attack, and so have I. d. Emphasis: A: Have you any CDs by Massive Attack? B: Yes, I HAVE.

However, not all EUEs would accept these examples. For some, main verb have requires do-insertion. Such speakers would maintain that the grammatical constructions are actually those given below:



(37) a. Negation: You don’t have any CDs by Massive Attack. b. Inversion: Do you have any CDs by Massive Attack? c. Code: You have several CDs by Massive Attack, and so do I. d. Emphasis: A: Do you have any CDs by Massive Attack? B: Yes, I DO.

DUEs will sometimes ask which view is correct. Unfortunately, it is not possible to provide a definitive answer to this. It is simply a fact that different varieties of English permit different grammatical possibilities. Once again, let us compare the behavior of have with an obviously lexical alternative in which the need for do-insertion is indisputable:



(38) a. Negation: You don’t own any CDs by Massive Attack. b. Inversion: Do you own any CDs by Massive Attack? c. Code: You don’t own any CDs by Massive Attack, do you? d. Emphasis: A: Do you own any CDs by Massive Attack? B: Yes, I DO.

Primary do can also appear as the only verb in the clause, just as be and have can: (39) a. He did his laundry. b. She does yoga every morning. c. I’m doing my assignment.

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Do is often referred to as a semantically “light” verb since it tends to take its meaning from its surrounding context. Notice that in the sentences above, it is the noun phrase (NP) that conveys the meaning of the verb itself. Despite the use of the same verb, we are dealing here with three very different situations: “doing laundry” involves a different set of actions than “doing yoga,” which, again, would involve something quite different than “doing an assignment.” When primary do is the only verb in the clause, it behaves in a manner that may give rise to considerable confusion among DUEs. Applying the NICE operations, we find that do fails to mirror the behavior of the other two primaries for negation and inversion (requiring do-insertion instead), but it does follow them for code and emphasis:



(40) a. Negation: He didn’t do his laundry (Not *He didn’t his laundry.) b. Inversion: Did he do his laundry? (Not *Did he his laundry?) c. Code: He did his laundry, and so did she. d. Emphasis: A: Did he do his laundry? B: Yes, he DID.

Multi-Word Verbs English has a very large number of verbal expressions that, while made up of more than one word, function syntactically and semantically as a single unit. Here are some examples: (41) a. He told me to look up the word in a dictionary. b. The Dean called off the meeting. c. Raphael passed out the worksheet. I shall refer to verbs like this as multi-word verbs (MWVs). As readers will no doubt be aware, they are very common and are encountered with great regularity. Moreover, new ones are being coined all the time. MWVs are extremely interesting from a linguistic point of view. Unfortunately, the very features that make them interesting to linguists also make them rather tricky for DUEs. Indeed, most teachers would probably agree that MWVs are one of the most difficult aspects of English for foreign learners

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to acquire. In this section, I will be making three key points. For the sake of convenience, I list them first: ◾◾ MWVs are lexical verbs. ◾◾ There are different types of MWVs. ◾◾ MWVs present both problems of form and problems of meaning. Before turning to a more detailed consideration of these points, there are certain terminological issues to be addressed. As tends to be the case with much of English grammar, there is considerable disagreement over the best labels to use to describe these verbs. Even the label multi-word verb is somewhat contentious. I am using this as a general label, and below I will distinguish between different types of MWVs. This is the policy followed by a number of linguists, but by no means all. This is the approach adopted by Quirk et al. (1985, pp. 1150ff). Berk employs this label in a similar way (1999, pp. 125ff). However, as I have indicated, there is disagreement over this matter. Some writers (e.g., Yule, 1998, p. 156) use the term phrasal verb as a general label, whereas I reserve this for one particular sub-type of MWV. Teschner and Evans (2007, p. 89) refer to two-word verbs. A related issue is how to refer to the little words that follow the verbal element in MWVs, such as up, off, and out in (41). The position I plan to adopt is to describe these little forms using the general label particles, once more distinguishing below between different types of particle. This is in line with one common trend among linguists. However, readers should be warned that some other writers follow a different approach. Quirk et al. follow the same policy that I am employing. For them, the term particle is a “neutral designation” (1985, p. 1150), with particles subdividing into two broad types, which they call prepositions and spatial adverbs. On the other hand, for Givón, MWVs contain prepositions that have been incorporated into the verb to form “unitary lexical items” (1993a, p. 141); thus, what I am calling a particle is, for him, a “verb-augmenting preposition” (p. 142). Yule contrasts the terms particle and preposition, and regards all “phrasal verbs” (i.e., for us, MWVs) as containing particles (Yule, 1998, pp. 156ff). Berk seems to adopt a similar approach. For her, all MWVs consist of a verbal element plus a “verb particle” (1999, pp. 125ff). The same contrast is apparent in Teschner and Evans, who maintain that their so-called “twoword verbs” may consist of a verb plus a preposition or a verb plus a particle (2007, pp. 89ff). With these thoughts in mind, I turn now to a discussion of the three points noted above.

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Multi-Word Verbs as Lexical Verbs It is important to understand that, despite their unusual form, these MWVs really are lexical verbs. They may not look like ordinary lexical verbs, but that is what they are. We can demonstrate this by considering their morphosyntactic properties and comparing them with other, more normal one-word lexical verbs. I will mention four properties. Firstly, MWVs can be marked for tense and aspect. Consider the following:



(41) a. Please look up the word in your dictionary. b. Young Myoung looked up the word in her dictionary. c. The bridge is burning down. d. The bridge has burnt down.

In (41a), look up is a present tense verb; in (41b), it has been marked for past tense. In (41c), burn down is marked for progressive aspect; in (41d), it is marked for perfect aspect. Being marked for tense and aspect in this way is a feature that MWVs share with one-word lexical verbs. Secondly, MWVs require do-insertion, just as other lexical verbs do:



(42) a. Negation: Don’t throw out the trash! (Not *Throw out not the trash!) b. Inversion: Did you throw out the trash? (Not *Threw you out the trash?) c. Code: You threw out the trash, didn’t you? (Not *You threw out the trash, threw outn’t you?) d. Emphasis: A: Did you throw out the trash? B: Yes, I DID. (Not *Yes, I THREW OUT.)

Thirdly, MWVs can appear in either transitive clauses (43a–c) or intransitive clauses (43d–f):



(43) a. He told me to look up the word in a dictionary b. The Dean called off the meeting. c. Why don’t you turn on the radio? d. He told me to grow up. e. My car broke down last night . f. Bill’s knee is acting up again.

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It is also noteworthy that, like many more ordinary lexical verbs, there are some MWVs that can be used either transitively (44a) or intransitively (44b): (44) a. The man who burned down the palace was sent to jail. b. The palace burned down. Notice that in (44), the verb burn down has the same meaning even though in the one case it is being used transitively and in the other it is being used intransitively. This is not always the case. Consider how the meaning of the MWV changes in the following example: (45) After Raphael passed out the worksheet, he passed out. In its first appearance, where pass out is being used transitively with the NP, with the handout as its object, it means “distribute.” But at its second appearance, where it is being used intransitively, the same MWV clearly means something very different, being equivalent (more or less) to “lost consciousness.” The fact that when it appears in a transitive clause pass out means something quite different from what it means when it appears in an intransitive clause reveals something else important about MWVs: They often have more than one meaning. We will return to this issue below since it is one of the aspects of MWVs that make them so problematic for DUEs. Fourthly, MWVs can often replace a one-word lexical verb with the same or a similar meaning: (46) a. Raphael passed out the worksheet. = Raphael distributed the worksheet. b. What time does Hojin get up? = What time does Hojin arise? c. He hurriedly put out his cigarette. = He hurriedly extinguished his cigarette. In each of the sentences above, the one-word lexical verb is very close in meaning to the MWV. This is not to imply that the two verbs are simply interchangeable. They are not. EUEs would undoubtedly feel that there is a clear difference in register between pass out and distribute, for example, with the former being rather more informal than the latter. The same is true of get up and arise and of put out compared with extinguish. It is often the case

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that the use of an MWV reduces the formality of the message. This may be one reason why MWVs are especially common in spoken English, where we are often happy to be informal, but less frequent in written English, where formality is frequently an important matter. Because of this, none of the MWVs above is strictly synonymous with its single-word equivalent. Nonetheless, despite this caveat, I take it that the fact that MWVs can often take the place of other, more “ordinary” lexical verbs is significant. Combined, the four properties I have noted above make it clear that these MWVs really are lexical verbs.

Types of Multi-Word Verb Many grammatical descriptions of English draw distinctions between different types of MWV. This makes good sense, although, as I have already noted, it is an unfortunate fact that there is no universal agreement about how these types of MWVs should be described, and different writers employ different terms. Two main subtypes of MWV are often identified. I will use the term phrasal verb to refer to one type of MWV, consisting of a verb plus an adverb; another type I will refer to as a prepositional verb, consisting of a verb plus a preposition. What reasons are there for distinguishing between different types of MWV in this way? As by now you will have come to expect, the key is to pay attention to morphosyntax. Let’s consider the two MWVs call up and call on. (My discussion here is indebted to that of Quirk et al. [1985, pp. 1166–67], who consider the same two verbs.) On the face of it, these MWVs look remarkably similar: (47) Phrasal MWV (Verb + Adverb) a. Yoonhee called up her best friend. Prepositional MWV (Verb + Preposition) b. Yoonhee called on her best friend. The verb call up has the meaning “to make a phone call.” If Yoonhee called up her friend, as in (47a), she spoke to her on her cell phone. On the other hand, call on has the meaning “to pay a visit to someone.” If Yoonhee called on her friend, as in (47b), she went to her friend’s apartment or her office. (Of course, call on has additional meanings, which I am ignoring here. For example, teachers often “call on” students to answer questions.

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The fact that many MWVs have more than one meaning is an important issue that I will discuss more fully below.) What is interesting is that, despite their apparent similarity, these MWVs behave in rather different ways. The first difference has to do with what I will call “potential for separation.” As we see in (48a), with the phrasal MWV call up the verb and the particle can be separated by the object NP, her best friend. Separability is a characteristic of many MWVs, but not all. Indeed, with the prepositional MWV call on it is not possible, as (48b) shows: (48) a. Phrasal MWV: Yoonhee called her best friend up. b. Prepositional MWV: *Yoonhee called her best friend on. It is important that DUEs be warned against confusing a sentence such as (48b) with Yoonhee called her best friend on Friday. This would be entirely grammatical, but it does not involve an MWV; rather, we have a verb + object + prepositional phrase construction. A second difference is that with the prepositional call up an adverb can be inserted between the verb and the particle (49a), whereas no adverb insertion is possible with the phrasal call up (49b): (49) a. Prepositional MWV: Yoonhee called regularly on her best friend. b. Phrasal MWV: *Yoonhee called regularly up her best friend. Thirdly, note that with our prepositional MWV call on the particle can be fronted in a wh-question; the particle in the phrasal verb call up cannot be fronted in the same way: (50) a. Prepositional MWV: On whom did Yoonhee call? b. Phrasal MWV: *Up whom did Yoonhee call? The above considerations suggest that there are good reasons for separating MWVs into two broad types. (There is another criterion that is sometimes mentioned. It is sometimes said that in a prepositional MWV, the main stress falls on the verbal element: Who did Yoonhee CALL on?; whereas, in a phrasal MWV, the stress tends to fall on the particle: Who did Yoonhee call UP? For reasons that I take to be obvious, this criterion is less reliable than those discussed above.)

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In the Classroom: Multi-word Verbs Because they are so common, teachers cannot afford to ignore MWVs. As a preliminary step, I suggest that students should be made familiar with two basic points, both of which I have discussed at length in the text:

1. MWVs are lexical verbs. 2. MWVs come in different forms.

It should be a relatively straightforward matter to convince students of the first point. It can be supported by considering the grammatical similarities between MWVs and other lexical verbs that we have discussed above. Just to remind you, the reasons for treating MWVs as lexical verbs are these: ◾◾ MWVs can be marked for tense and aspect. ◾◾ MWVs require do-insertion. ◾◾ MWVs can appear in either transitive clauses or intransitive clauses. ◾◾ MWVs can often replace a one-word lexical verb with the same

or a similar meaning. Dealing with the second point will require considerably more effort. It is, however, an important issue and one that teachers must take up. Particular attention will need to be given to the ways in which superficially similar MWVs actually have quite different morphosyntactic properties. Again, by way of a reminder, in the text above I identified three major differences between phrasal and prepositional MWVs: ◾◾ Phrasal MWVs have “potential for separation”; prepositional

MWVs do not. ◾◾ Phrasal MWVs do not allow adverb insertion; prepositional

MWVs do. ◾◾ Phrasal MWVs do not allow particle fronting; prepositional

MWVs do. While these criteria provide strong grounds for identifying different types of MWVs, it must be acknowledged that they are of limited usefulness so far as teaching the grammar is concerned. The reason for this has perhaps occurred to you already. Consider the first criterion I discussed above, that of potential for separation as I have called it. To make use of this particular criterion, a student needs to know in advance which MWVs can be separated and which cannot. That is, she needs to be in a position to recognize that called her best friend up is grammatical, whereas *called

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her best friend on is not. But, of course, this is exactly the kind of thing that most DUEs do not know. By definition, because they are still developing their English (and, in particular, because they tend to lack highly developed procedural knowledge of the language), DUEs are often unable to make grammaticality judgments such as this. Inevitably, therefore, learners will have to engage in a certain amount of memorization of individual MWVs, focusing on their grammatical properties and developing declarative knowledge. However, it is essential that classroom practice additionally involve plentiful exposure and communicative use of these forms so that, over time, students will begin to proceduralize this knowledge.

Multi-Word Verbs: Problems of Form and Problems of Meaning I noted at the beginning of this chapter that MWVs are especially problematic for DUEs. Problems arise at the level of both form and meaning since, as one contemporary linguist has put it, verbs like these display both “semantic complexity” and “syntactic irregularity” (Givón, 1993a, p. 141). Let’s consider first the problems of form, or what Givón calls problems of syntactic irregularity. Problems of Form The basic difficulty at the level of form is that, as I have already noted, some MWVs are separable (or “discontinuous”), that is, they allow the verb and the particle to be separated by an object noun phrase or pronoun; other MWVs are non-separable (or “continuous”), demanding that the particle be adjacent to the verb. We have already met an example of a separable MWV in call up. Another example is look up. Note that both (51a), in which the MWV is separated, and (51b), in which it is not, are grammatical: (51) a. Hwa Jeong looked the word up in her dictionary. b. Hwa Jeong looked up the word in her dictionary. I have suggested that potential for separation is one criterion that allows us to distinguish phrasal MWVs from prepositional MWVs. It follows that both call up and look up are phrasal MWVs. When the object is an NP, phrasal MWVs generally allow optional separation. Speakers have a choice whether to separate the MWV or not. However, if the object is a pronoun, separation is obligatory. Speakers have no choice. This is shown in (52a) and (52b):

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(52) a. Hwa Jeong looked it up in her dictionary. b. *Hwa Jeong looked up it in her dictionary. Prepositional MWVs tend to be non-separable or continuous. A good example of this is go over (meaning, “to explain”). Notice that while (53a) is entirely grammatical, (53b) plainly is not: (53) a. The students asked the professor to go over the lecture again. b. *The students asked the professor to go the lecture over again. This seems straightforward enough. However, there is a small number of MWVs that have both a separable and an inseparable form that have distinct meanings. Thus, in (54a), where the verb get through is separated, it means something like “to transmit” or “to convey.” This is the sort of thing that might be said by a radio operator in the armed forces. However, in (54b), where the verb is not separated, get through carries the sense of “to complete” or “to finish.” This is the sort of thing said by tired professors at the end of a long day of grading! (54) a. I can’t get this message through. b. I’m never going to get through all these term papers. With regard to phrasal MWVs where speakers are effectively faced with a choice of form, linguists have identified two factors that help to determine which version is chosen. At the syntactic level, a long, elaborate object noun phrase (sometimes called a “dominant” noun phrase) is more likely to be placed at the end of a construction (i.e., after the particle); on the other hand, shorter, less elaborate noun phrases are more likely to be placed in front of the verb particle with the MWV separated. In other words, the nonseparated version of the verb is more likely to be found with a dominant noun phrase, whereas the separated version of the verb is more likely with noun phrases that are not dominant. Look at the following: (55) a. He put the fire out. b. He put out the fire that had been blazing for several hours. c. ?He put the fire that had been blazing for several hours out.

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While both (55a) and (55b) are entirely acceptable sentences, most EUEs would agree that (55c), with a long and complex noun phrase coming between the verb and the particle, is somewhat strange. Notice, however, that I have marked this sentence with a question mark to indicate its oddity, rather than the asterisk that linguists use to indicate cases of obvious ungrammaticality. I think this is the correct way to view the matter. In cases like this, we are not dealing with grammatical rules in the narrow sense. As so often, it is better to think in terms of patterns of language, or general tendencies, which speakers habitually fall into. Strictly speaking, (55c) is not ungrammatical; but it would be a strange thing to say and, in reality, an EUE would be unlikely to produce it. The preferred utterance is (55b). The other factor that helps to determine which version of a phrasal MWV is chosen on a particular occasion has to do with what linguists sometimes call information structure. This refers to the way in which speakers organize their language in order to draw attention to key parts of the message. This is a complex issue. However, in simple terms, if the object noun phrase is more topical, and especially where it represents given information (i.e., information already known to the hearer), it is more likely to be placed in front of the particle as a pronoun, separating the MWV. On the other hand, if the object noun phrase is not topical or represents new information, it is more likely to come after the particle, leaving the MWV intact. This is shown below by comparing three different versions of the same conversation: (56) a. A: That fire has been blazing for hours! The room is getting too hot. B: Why don’t you put it out? b. A: That fire has been blazing for hours! The room is getting too hot. B: ?Why don’t you put the fire out? c. A: That fire has been blazing for hours! The room is getting too hot. B: *Why don’t you put out it? The topic of this little discourse—the fire—is established at the beginning by A’s remark. When B responds in (56a), therefore, it is given (already known) information. The NP can thus be replaced by an anaphoric pronoun, which is placed in front of the particle. Now look at (56b). I have marked B’s response as odd because it would be more natural to use a pronoun here rather than repeat the full NP used by A, even though what B

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says here is grammatical. Contrast this with (56c), in which B’s response is clearly ungrammatical. As I have already noted, where MWVs permit separation, pronoun objects must come before the particle. In the Classroom: Separating MWVs The points I have just considered about the circumstances under which an EUE might choose to separate an MWV provide a nice illustration of the way in which linguistic analysis can be of value to teachers in their grammar teaching. The general point is that linguistics can offer a reasoned account of an observed grammatical phenomenon (thereby helping to explain why the grammar is the way it is) rather than simply providing “rules” to be memorized. In this specific case, as we have seen, there are readily stated principles that help to make sense of this issue of when speakers tend to separate an MWV. To sum up, in phrasal MWVs, the object comes in front of the particle when the object is: ◾◾ Short ◾◾ Represents given information

The object will come after the particle when the object is: ◾◾ Long and elaborate ◾◾ Represents new information

It should be obvious that the above issue presents a real problem for learners of English as a foreign language who find themselves faced with the challenge of trying to determine which MWVs can be separated and which cannot. Unfortunately, there is no simple solution to this. My own view is that simply providing our students with long lists to memorize is not an effective option. Lists have their place; but they need to be supplemented with some sort of explanation such as the one above. Yet, as always, in the end the answer lies in providing our students with as much exposure to examples of MWVs as we can in the form of reading and listening materials, and in giving them ample opportunities to practice using MWVs productively.

A further problem at the level of form is that some phrasal MWVs require a preposition after the particle. When this occurs, the entire MWV (verb + particle + preposition) is treated as a single unit. This is the case in the following example: (57) I look forward to seeing you again soon.

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These are sometimes called phrasal-prepositional verbs. They are likely to be especially confusing for DUEs. They are also rather common. Here are some more examples, (notice that these verbs are invariably transitive, taking an object of some kind):



(58) a. I’ve put up with this situation for long enough. b. He gets on with all his colleagues. c. Whenever I go to England, I try to catch up with my friend Jon in Cambridge. d. I might drop in on you later. e. She said she would get back to me when she had the answer. f. It’s all too easy to give in to that kind of pressure. g. She’s very smart. She picked up on my suggestion really quickly. h. He’s recently broken up with his girlfriend. i. He found it difficult to keep up with all the assignments on the program. j. She asked her husband to cut down on his drinking.

Another feature of MWVs like these is that sometimes an adverb or adverbial phrase can be inserted between the particle and the preposition: (59) a. He gets on very well with all his colleagues. b. Her husband has cut down almost completely on his drinking. With many of the MWVs I have considered so far, the verb itself can be employed alone. Thus, while call can be part of MWVs such as call on and call out, it can also be employed in isolation, as in (60): (60) The professor called the station. Very many verbs in modern English have a “double life” of this sort, being meaningfully used on their own and as part of an MWV. On the other hand, there are some verbs that are only ever found as part of an MWV. In these cases, the particle tends to be completely predictable. The verbs in (61) illustrate this:

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(61) a. In the exam, the students were not allowed to refer to their notes. (Not *In the exam the students were not allowed to refer their notes.) b. They were told that they had to rely on their memories instead. (Not *They were told that they had to rely their memories instead.) c. They objected to this idea, but had no choice. (Not *They objected this idea, but had no choice.) Notice that while the particle with these verbs is fixed, it can be fronted: (62) a. This was an idea to which they objected. b. He is not someone on whom you can rely. This tells us that these fixed MWVs belong in the prepositional subtype. Problems of Meaning Having spent some time discussing the problems of form that may arise when we teach MWVs, I turn now to a consideration of certain problems of meaning or problems of “semantic complexity,” to use Givón’s words. The main difficulty is that while the meanings of some MWVs are transparent, often their meanings are far from straightforward. Moreover, as I will discuss shortly, some MWVs have multiple meanings. A good example of an MWV with a transparent meaning is hang up. Here, both parts of the MWV carry clearly distinguishable meanings so that understanding this particular form is quite unproblematic: If one knows the meaning of the verb and the particle separately, their meaning in combination is entirely clear: (63) You can hang your coat up over there. From a historical point of view, the particle in an MWV was a distinct preposition. However, in modern English, the verb and the following particle have become “fused” so that they comprise a single unit of meaning. The point is that in certain MWVs the particle has retained much of the meaning of the underlying preposition. This makes the meaning of the MWV relatively easy to grasp. This is the case with hang up. Here are some further examples of particles that have retained their prepositional sense, making the MWV easy to interpret:

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(64) a. I think you better sit down. b. When the teacher entered the room, all the students stood up. c. I’ll carry out the trash if you like. In certain other cases, the meaning of an MWV is semi-transparent, in that the verb preserves its lexical meaning but the particle adds an aspectual rather than a lexical meaning to the combination. An example would be drink up, as in (65). (65) Kara drank up her beer. In this case, drink has its normal meaning, but clearly up does not. Its meaning is not that of preposition up, but is rather closer in meaning to “completely” or “entirely.” If Kara drank up her beer, she finished it. In such cases, being familiar with the original prepositional meaning of the particle is of little help in understanding its meaning in the MWV. To make matters worse, the same particle can retain its prepositional sense in one MWV (66a) while losing it in another (66b): (66) a. The dentist took out three teeth. b. I can’t work out this problem. Now for some good news! As complicated as the picture is, some general patterns are discernible, in that often the particles in MWVs have relatively consistent meanings. Various linguists have attempted to categorize certain particles in terms of the semantic contributions they make to MWVs. One discernible pattern is that particles such as off, out, and up often have an “inceptive” sense, signaling the beginning or commencement of some action: (67) a. Our plane took off two hours late. b. The soldiers set out on their journey to the front. c. Tae Kyun’s motorcycle started up immediately. These same particles can also contribute a “completive” sense to an MWV, indicating that the action is complete or that some state has been

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accomplished. We have seen this already in the example of Kara drinking up her beer. Below are some more examples. (68) a. The children cleaned up the mess they had made. b. Jieun finished off the kimchi for breakfast. This use of up to convey a sense of completion is very common. Think about burn up, close up, fix up, sweep up, use up, and so on. The particle down is similarly used to convey a completive meaning: (69) After struggling for many months, the company finally closed down. On will frequently carry a “continuative” sense, implying that an action or state continued for an extended period of time: (70) The lecture went on for hours. Speakers will sometimes emphasize the continuative meaning by repeating the particle: (71) The lecture went on and on for hours. Patterns such as these are worth knowing. And yet the fact that the particles in MWVs often display little semantic connection with the underlying preposition creates a problem for DUEs. The problem runs deep. Consider the meaning of the MWVs in (72): (72) a. You’ll never guess who I ran into this morning. b. The company put up the visiting CEO in the most expensive hotel in Seoul. In these examples, both the verb and the particle are non-transparent. Thus, the meaning of run into in (72a) is something like “meet unexpectedly.” Certainly, there is no reason to suppose that the speaker was literally running; he or she might actually have been ambling along quite slowly

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and yet it would still be possible to use the verb run into to describe what took place. The same thing applies to bump into, which is semantically very close to run into. Contrary to what DUEs might think, the sentence Guess who I bumped into this morning does not imply any kind of physical contact! In a similar fashion, in (72b), the MWV means “accommodate.” It certainly does not mean “placing someone or something upwards.” MWVs like run into and put up are often said to be noncompositional. Their meanings are impossible to predict simply by examining the component parts of the verb. The problem is obvious: “[S]omeone can know the meaning of the verb and the apparent meaning of the particle, but when they are put together, a unique meaning is derived” (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 425). Modern English is full of noncompositional MWVs like this with idiosyncratic meanings. As another example, consider the MWV give up. Taken separately, both give and up are familiar enough lexical items with clear meanings. But when combined to form an MWV, things are no longer quite so straightforward. Thus, in (73), the MWV give up would seem to mean something like “stop,” a meaning quite unconnected with the meaning of the individual components of the MWV. (73) Ali gave up smoking last week. The following sentences provide further illustrations of the noncompositionality of MWVs. In each case, the meaning of the MWV is quite specific. The important point, however, is that it is impossible to work out what this meaning is by examining the components that make up the verb. Quite simply, if you don’t already know what the verb means, examining its form will not help. You probably know (74a) and (74b) since these are relatively high-frequency verbs; you may be less sure about (74c), and you almost certainly do not know (74d), which is fairly rare and has a very specific meaning. (It also happens to be one of my favorite MWVs!) The answers can be found in the notes at the end of this chapter.



(74) a. If you paid 130,000 dollars for that picture, you were ripped off. b. Maybe we can hang out together. c. My boss just chewed me out. d. He tried to egg on his colleagues.1

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Another problem learners of English face is that the same MWV will often have more than one meaning. The technical term for this is polysemy. Certain MWVs are polysemous, carrying several meanings. How would you explain the different meanings carried by the MWV come across in (75a) and (b)? (75) a. I think I came across well in the interview. b. I came across a book by my old professor, Gillian Brown, in the university library. In (75a), in which the MWV is used intransitively, it might be paraphrased as “to make an impression.” But in (75b), the same MWV is used transitively and it has the very different meaning of “to discover something accidentally or without looking for it.” Many MWVs are like this, carrying more than one meaning. Moreover, typically there is no discernible connection between the different meanings. Another example is check out, which is a highly polysemous verb, being used in a number of situations to convey quite distinct meanings depending on context: (76) a. You must check out the new Leonardo di Caprio movie. [check out = see] b. You can check out up to ten books at any one time. [check out = borrow] c. You must check out of your room by noon.

Multi-Word Verbs: Some Further Problems Before leaving MWVs, there is one final problem that needs to be addressed. Constructions containing MWVs are easily confused with another type of construction that, superficially, looks the same. Consider the following: (77) a. Belle ran up a large hill while on vacation. b. Belle ran up a large bill while on vacation. These two sentences appear very similar—indeed, almost identical. But their apparent similarity disguises very significant differences in terms of both syntax and semantics. Let’s consider the syntactic differences first.

74    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar S NP Belle

S VP

NP

V

PP

ran

up a large hill

Belle

VP V

NP

ran up

a large bill

Figure 2.2  Tree diagrams.

These can be shown by means of tree diagrams. These are devices linguists often make use of for exactly this kind of analysis. In Figure 2.2, sentence (77a) is represented by the tree on the left (I’ve simplified matters a little by omitting the phrase while on vacation). You will see that the verb phrase consists of a verb, ran, followed by a prepositional phrase (which itself consists of the preposition, up, and the NP object, a large hill). On the other hand, the verb phrase in sentence (77b) on the right contains an MWV, ran up, followed by the object noun phrase a large bill: The syntactic difference between the two constructions is reflected at the semantic level, with the two sentences having distinct interpretations. A paraphrase of (77a)—the verb plus prepositional phrase construction— would be that, while on vacation, Belle engaged in a certain physical action, moving rapidly in an upwards direction to scale some peak. That is what “running up a hill” involves. What about (77b), with its MWV? What does “running up a bill” involve? Well, in fact, as you may know already, it need not involve much in the way of physical action at all. It would be quite possible to “run up a bill” with a credit card while seated in front of your laptop, or while eating in a fancy restaurant, since to run up a bill means to spend money. One clue that these are not the same types of structure is found if we consider removing the little word that follows the verb, substituting something else. With (77a), where the word is a normal preposition carrying a spatial meaning, such a substitution is quite straightforward. As a result, there are several other prepositions that might meaningfully replace up in this sentence. A few of these are given in (78). (78) a. Belle ran down a large hill while on vacation. b. Belle ran around a large hill while on vacation. c. Belle ran behind a large hill while on vacation.

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A similar substitution is not possible in the case of our MWV: (79) a. *Belle ran down a large bill while on vacation. b. *Belle ran around a large bill while on vacation. b. *Belle ran behind a large bill while on vacation. The reason for this is that run up (a bill) is an MWV with its own very distinct meaning. It does not permit the kind of changes that can often be carried out with verb plus preposition combinations.

Further Reading Many of the issues dealt with in this chapter are discussed at much greater length in Quirk et al. (1985, Chs. 3 and 4), and Huddleston and Pullam (2002, Ch. 3). For a short discussion, but one that contains some very helpful insights into the nature of verbs and verb phrases, see Berk (1999, Ch. 3). Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999, Ch. 22) is also very useful on MWVs (or what the authors call phrasal verbs).

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3 Adjectives and Adverbs in Linguistic Perspective

T

he previous two chapters have focused on nouns and verbs, respectively. Nouns and verbs are the most fundamental syntactic categories in English, as indeed they are in all languages. There is a very good reason for this, since between them they enable many of the most basic and central functions that speakers require language for. Nouns allow us to talk about the relatively “time-stable” aspects of our experience, many of them being concrete entities such as people and animals, trees and mountains, tables and chairs; others being more abstract aspects such as love, justice, democracy, and so on. Verbs, on the other hand, allow us to describe “time-unstable” situations—in particular, actions and states, which involve those nouns in one way or another. Yet speakers often want to do rather more than simply refer to “things” and “actions.” We want to add color to our speech, adding finer gradations of meaning than can be provided by nouns and verbs alone. In this chapter, I will be concerned with two other syntactic categories that enable us to do exactly this, namely adjectives and adverbs. Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 77–111 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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When viewed from a linguistic perspective, adjectives and adverbs raise a number of interesting issues. As you will shortly see, these two word classes share certain general features in common, and some linguists have even suggested that they should be treated as subtypes of one overarching category since they perform a broadly similar role in the language. By way of illustration, look at the following passage taken from a work of fiction plucked at random from my bookshelves. None of the adjectives or adverbs that the author employs is grammatically required. They are all optional. And yet I think everyone will agree that without the italicized words the passage would be rather colorless and lacking in interest: Yet secretly he delighted in these visits. An obscure hunger fed its fill here in this tight assured little world. He wandered dreamily through the warren of pokey offices, breathing the crumbly odours of dust and ink, spying on inky dusty grey old men crouched with their quills over enormous ledgers. (Banville, 1976, p. 7)

All the adjectives in this passage are noun modifiers, supplying additional information about the referent of the noun. For example, the men are “inky,” “dusty,” “old,” and “grey.” Similarly, the adverbs in this passage are verb modifiers—although adverbs can also modify other types of word as well—supplying additional information about the way some action was done. Thus, in the above passage the subject is described as “secretly” delighting and wandering “dreamily.” Despite this broad similarity, in this chapter I will follow tradition in treating adjectives and adverbs separately. In the next section, I will turn to a consideration of the major morphosyntactic characteristics of adjectives. Then I will look at the meaning of adjectives. Following on from this, I will consider the vexing question of adjective order when, as often happens in English, we have more than one adjective in a phrase. Additionally, I will briefly touch upon two further potential difficulties in relation to adjectives, namely participles and compound forms. After this, I will turn to adverbs, limiting my discussion to two main issues: first, the similarities and differences between adjectives and adverbs; and second, the functions performed by adverbial expressions.

The Adjective Word Class: Morphosyntactic Characteristics In some languages, the adjective class is a small, closed class. And some languages lack such a class entirely, with the meanings expressed by adjectives in English being expressed by other syntactic categories. However, modern

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English has a rich range of adjectives and they are ubiquitous in the speech and writing of EUEs. Like nouns and verbs, adjectives belong in the open class of words in English and it is not uncommon for new adjectives to be added to the language. What, then, is an adjective? Students are often taught that an adjective is a word that “describes” or modifies a noun. This is a reasonable starting point, insofar as many adjectives are found in close association with nouns, but, once again, there is a great deal more that needs to be said. In fact, as we will see shortly, only some adjectives are modifiers. Others are better understood as complements. The use of such labels is not always a straightforward matter. For our purposes, we can say that a modifier is an optional element; on the other hand, a complement is grammatically required.

The Position of Adjectives: The Prenominal Position In English, there are two main positions that an adjective may occupy in a construction. One position is within a noun phrase, immediately preceding the noun. I will follow the conventional designations, referring to adjectives in the prenominal position as attributive adjectives, and adjectives in post-verbal position as predicative adjectives. Above, I referred to a distinction between adjectives with a modifying function and adjectives with a complement function. Attributive adjectives are indeed modifiers of the noun they precede. As such, they are invariably optional. Predicative adjectives are complements of the verb, being grammatically required. The two positions that adjectives typically occupy in English are also characteristic of adjectives in other languages. Thus, Turkish adjectives can also be attributive (eski ev [“the old house”]) or predicative (ev eski [“the house is old”]). It is also common in Turkish to use adjectives as nouns. For example, hasta is an adjective meaning “sick” or “ill.” However, with a plural suffix it becomes a noun, hastalar, meaning “patients”—“ill ones”! On the other hand, if you speak French, you will know that French differs from English in that it has a “mixed” order for attributive adjectives, with some appearing prenominally (mainly age, dimension, and evaluative adjectives) and others postnominally (colors, origin). French speakers will also know that, unlike in English, French adjectives are marked for grammatical gender and for number. Thus, the phrase “a big dog” in French is un grand chien, whereas “a big house” would be une grande maison, since “dog” (chien) is masculine and “house” (maison) is feminine. Likewise, “the big dogs” is les grands chiens; “the big houses” is les grandes maisons.

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Each of the following sentences contains two noun phrases (in boxes), and in both cases the noun is modified by an adjective (in italics) in prenominal position: (1) a. The sleepy kitten sat in a large box . b. He was sitting in a comfortable chair struggling to read a tedious textbook . c. That’s the clever student who wrote the excellent term paper . We can represent this characteristic adjective position as follows: (2) Art ________ NP Since only adjectives can fill this position, it is a useful diagnostic tool for identifying adjectives. Any word that fits into this frame is an adjective. However, there are some words that, although they can be shown to be adjectives on other grounds, cannot occupy this position. Therefore, while adjectives are commonly found in prenominal position, it cannot be taken as a defining characteristic of adjectives as a whole. When adjectives appear in this position, they are part of the internal structure of the noun phrase, with the adjective attributing some property to that noun. In a sentence like (1a), the noun provides a general categorization of the referent as belonging to the class of animals we call “kittens,” while the adjective serves to specify that categorization more exactly by attributing a particular property to the referent, namely the property of being “sleepy.” It follows that adjectives in prenominal position are often said to be attributive adjectives, although it might actually be better to speak of the attributive use of adjectives. It is also worth underscoring once more that adjectives in prenominal position are optional. To put this another way, there can never be a grammatical requirement for an adjective to be included within a noun phrase. We can see this by noting that the each of the adjectives in (1) can be removed and the sentences remain grammatical: (3) a. The sleepy kitten sat in a large box. b. He was sitting in a comfortable chair struggling to read a tedious textbook. c. That’s the clever student who wrote the excellent term paper.

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Admittedly, when the adjectives are removed something is lost. The hearer no longer knows, for example, that the kitten was sleepy, or that the textbook was tedious, or that the paper was excellent. But the essential grammaticality of the sentences is retained. It is quite possible for more than one adjective to appear prenominally, with each attributing a distinct property to the noun: (4) a. The tiger is a large, fierce carnivore. b. He was a tall, handsome, witty doctor. c. They were inky, dusty, grey old men. The fact that English permits more than one adjective in a sequence in this manner is an example of a more general feature of languages that linguists call recursion. In English, prenominal adjectives are recursive. Simply put, this means that prenominal adjectives can be “stacked,” with several appearing successively in a string, each of them attributing some property to the noun. In principle, there is no limit to the number of adjectives that may modify a noun. Or better, there is no grammatical limit. The limitations are imposed not by the grammar of English itself but by human memory, since it is difficult for speakers and hearers to process noun phrases that contain several adjectives. This issue of recursion will resurface below when we consider the problem of ordering adjectives when more than one appears inside a noun phrase.

The Position of Adjectives: The Predicative Position The other main position that an adjective can occupy is as the complement of a copula verb such as be, grow, seem, et cetera in what I will refer to as complex-intransitive constructions. (They are also often called copula constructions). Adjectives in this position will often be said to be predicative adjectives, although, again, it might be better to speak of adjectives being used predicatively. The sentences in (5) contain adjectives in predicate position. (5) a. That student appears unhappy. b. Your trip to Brazil sounds fantastic! c. The professor’s attempts at humor were tiresome. Again, we can represent the position occupied by these adjectives as follows:

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(6) V(cop) ________ As I noted earlier, predicative adjectives are complements rather than modifiers. In linguistics, a complement is essentially any element that is required for grammaticality (i.e., it “completes” the utterance). It is easy to see that each of the adjectives in (5) is grammatically necessary; if we remove them, what is left is ungrammatical: (7) a. *That student appears Ø b. *Your trip to Brazil sounds Ø c. *The professor’s attempts at humor were Ø Even when they act as complements, adjectives are closely associated with a noun that is (generally) the subject of the clause; indeed, there will often be an attributive counterpart to an expression containing a predicative adjective: (8) a. That unhappy student. b. Your fantastic trip to Brazil. c. The professor’s tiresome attempts at humor. Just as predicative adjectives are complements of the verb, sometimes they are followed by their own verbal or prepositional complement. In the following examples, the complement of the adjective is underlined: (9) a. He was reluctant to go to the conference. b. It was good of you to visit your grandmother. c. She was anxious about the exam. Although it is very common to find adjectives in this position, not all adjectives can appear as the complement of a copula verb. As a result, once again, the potentiality for appearing in this position cannot be taken as a defining characteristic of adjectives as a class. By now it will have become apparent that the situation regarding the positions that adjectives may occupy is complex. Some adjectives will appear happily in both prenominal and predicative positions. This is sometimes said to be a mark of the central members of the adjective category.

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This is the view taken by, for example, Quirk et al., who regard “the ability of functioning both attributively and predicatively” (1985, p. 404) to be the defining characteristic of what they call central, as opposed to peripheral, adjectives. A good example of an adjective that can appear in either prenominal position (10a) or in predicative position (10b) is nervous: (10) a. The nervous professor entered the room. b. The professor was nervous as he entered the room. Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999) note that sometimes an adjective changes its meaning depending on whether it is used prenominally or predicatively. This would seem to be true for an adjective like responsible, which is the example they use (p. 388). In (11a) and (11b), the adjective can be understood to mean different things. (11) a. She is a responsible student. b. I want to speak to the student who was responsible for this. However, there appears to be no discernible difference in meaning between the prenominal and predicative uses of nervous and, as far as I can tell, the same would seem to be true for adjectives such as clever, happy, tiresome, et cetera. Numerous other adjectives are restricted to one of these positions, some appearing exclusively in prenominal position, and others appearing exclusively in predicative position. Below is a list of some of the more common adjectives that are exclusively prenominal. As you will see, they are a pretty diverse lot: ◾◾ Adjectives of degree or rank, such as chief, main, primary, principal (e.g., the primary issue, not *the issue is primary) ◾◾ Temporal adjectives, such as former, future, previous (e.g., a future champion, not *the champion is future) ◾◾ Certain adjectives of origin/location: rural, urban (e.g., my rural childhood, not *my childhood was rural) ◾◾ Adjectives used for emphasis, such as mere, utter (e.g., that’s utter nonsense, not *that nonsense is utter) There are also adjectives that can never appear prenominally. Among these are the following:

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a. Certain adjectives beginning with a-, such as ablaze, adrift, afraid, ajar, ashamed, asleep, awake b. Certain adjectives dealing with health or sickness, such as faint, ill, well c. Certain adjectives followed by a complement, such as averse to X, bound for Y, inclined to Z Care must be taken in presenting information of this sort to DUEs. With regard to (a) above, the issue is complicated by the fact that some of these forms can appear after nouns, as in students afraid to speak or the cat asleep in the corner. Moreover, certain other a- adjectives appear quite readily in prenominal position: an aloof professor, an alert cat. Clearly, there can be no question here of an easily-stated rule. Likewise, with regard to (b), both healthy and sick themselves can appear in either prenominal or predicative position: a healthy child or the child was healthy; a sick dog or that dog is sick. As I have just suggested, another possible position for adjectives (albeit a rather less common one) is following a noun, or indeed certain pronouns. In other words, adjectives can appear in postnominal (or postpositive, as it is sometimes said) position. When adjectives appear after the noun, they are normally attributive (i.e., they assign some property to the noun that precedes them). Thus, in (12) the property of being “amazing” is attributed to whatever piece of news it was that the speaker heard. (12) I’ve just heard something amazing. A pattern worth noting is that postnominal adjectives seem to be especially common with indefinite pronouns. Just to make the point, here are a few more: (13) a. Anyone interested can apply. b. She’s hoping to marry someone rich! c. There was no one likeable at the party. Structures such as these may be thought of as truncated or reduced relative clauses with the adjective post-modifying the pronoun that precedes it. In fact each of the above examples can be “expanded” into a full relative: (14) a. I’ve just heard something [that was] amazing.

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b. Anyone [who is] interested can apply. c. She’s hoping to marry someone [who is] rich! d. There was no one [who I found] likeable at the party. Not all sentences containing postnominal adjectives can be treated like this, however. Consider (15). (15) He fell to the floor unconscious. In (15), we do not have a reduced relative clause. Obviously, it was not the floor that was unconscious. Here, the property of being unconscious is not attributed to the noun that precedes the adjective but to whatever male individual is referred to by he. Another noteworthy pattern is that postnominal adjectives often appear in association with certain causative verbs. Consider the following: (16) a. The humidity turned my shoes moldy. b. Her job keeps her busy. c. You make me happy! It is interesting to note that some adjectives, such as asleep, can appear either in the predicate (17a), or postnominally (17b), but not in prenominal position (17c): (17) a. The student was asleep in the corner. b. The student asleep in the corner. c. *The asleep student in the corner. The adjective afraid behaves in precisely the same manner: (18) a. The student was afraid to speak in class. b. A student afraid to speak will not do well in my class. c. *An afraid student will not do well in my class. Adjectives that are usually prenominal must appear postnominally when the adjective is followed by a complement. Consider the following:

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(19) a. She is a capable student. b. She is a student capable of great success. c. *She is a capable of great success student. There are also a few adjectives that are exclusively postnominal. These tend to be cases where the adjective and noun together constitute fixed or semi-fixed phrases: body politic, heir apparent, president elect, time immemorial, et cetera. Leaving aside the question of their positions within a sentence, adjectives display several other characteristic features.

Adjective-Forming Suffixes As with nouns, there are several adjective-forming suffixes that can be usefully introduced to students. In linguistic circles, these are known as derivational suffixes because the adjective is “derived” by adding a suffix to a word belonging to another word class (e.g., the adjective beautiful is derived from the noun beauty by the addition of the suffix -ful). More accurately, they are derivational morphemes. A morpheme may be defined as the smallest meaningful unit within a word. Occasionally, the term adjectivalizer is used to refer to these suffixes, although I’m pleased to say this rather ugly term has not become widespread! Some of the more common suffixes associated with adjectives are given in Table 3.1. Useful though such lists can be for DUEs, it must be kept in mind that they only cover a portion of the adjectives in English. There is a Table 3.1  Derivational Suffixes for Adjective Formation Suffix

Examples

-able/ible

believable, debatable, edible, feasible, justifiable, memorable, plausible, reasonable, sustainable, treasonable, etc. awful, beautiful, doubtful, faithful, grateful, helpful, joyful, mindful, peaceful, resourceful, spiteful, thoughtful, wonderful, etc. brutish, childish, foolish, girlish, skittish, etc. addictive, inquisitive, restive, supportive, tentative, etc. airless, boundless, careless, faithless, graceless, helpless, joyless, mindless, noiseless, pointless, thoughtless, etc. cavernous, dangerous, fortuitous, generous, horrendous, joyous, momentous, riotous, stupendous, tremendous, wondrous, etc.

-ful -ish -ive -less -ous

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large set of adjectives that do not display one of the above endings. Furthermore, many of these are among the most commonly used forms: bad, good, old, poor, small, thin, warm, young, and so on.

Comparative and Superlative Forms Another characteristic feature of many adjectives when they are used attributively (but not when they are used predicatively) is that they display what linguists sometimes call degree, taking comparative and superlative forms in addition to their base form. As you will already know, with many adjectives the comparative and superlative forms are expressed by means of the inflectional suffixes (or morphemes) -er and -est (e.g., taller, tallest; larger, largest); with others, the comparative or superlative is marked syntactically by means of a preceding periphrastic form more or most (e.g., more beautiful, most beautiful). Whether an adjective takes inflection or is marked for degree periphrastically is generally predictable from its phonological form (i.e., the number of syllables the base adjective contains). There are some fairly dependable patterns that can be readily taught to DUEs. In general, monosyllabic adjectives accept inflection. However, there are exceptions to this pattern. For example, the comparative form of the monosyllabic adjective wrong is not *wronger but more wrong. On the other hand, most adjectives of three or more syllables form their comparatives and superlatives via periphrasis (e.g., more/ most energetic, more/most impressive). Again, however, there are exceptions. Interestingly, the superlative form of happy can be in either form: most happy and happiest are both possible. The most troublesome cases are the two-syllable adjectives, which display considerable variation. Some two-syllable adjectives do not allow inflection. Thus, the comparative form of eager is more eager not *eagerer. Others may permit either inflection or periphrasis. For example, for some speakers, cleverer seems to be the preferred form, whereas others readily produce more clever. Dixon (2005) suggests that certain two-syllable adjectives that might be expected to take periphrasis actually accept inflection instead; among the examples he provides are stupid, solid, and wicked (p. 92). This would seem to be a case where there is genuine disagreement even among native speakers (a fact that confirms the existence of different varieties of English). In the English I speak, at any rate, the comparatives stupider, solider, and wickeder are very doubtful. I would not produce them. A small number of adjectives display suppletion. This means that their comparative and superlative forms are marked by neither inflection nor periphrasis; instead, they have a quite different phonological and morphological shape. Perhaps the best examples of this are good and bad:

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(20) good → better → best bad → worse → worst Most introductory grammar texts contain information on these issues. However, DUEs need to be aware that there is considerable variation in the way EUEs form comparative and superlative adjectives. Once more, we are dealing with patterns and tendencies rather than rules. The use of comparatives and superlatives is a helpful guide to adjective status. However, it is not completely reliable, since some adverbs also have comparative and superlative forms (e.g., sooner, latest). As I noted at the beginning of this chapter, such facts have suggested to some linguists that adjectives and adverbs belong to the same general word class.

Modification of Adjectives A further feature displayed by many adjectives is that they can be modified by a range of intensifiers. As this term implies, these have the effect of intensifying the adjective. Modern English has rather a lot of these forms, which also sometimes go by the name degree adverbs. A few of the more common ones are given in (21): (21) very beautiful really helpful quite thoughtful rather childish truly remarkable unbelievably foolish Yet again, the possibility of modification by an intensifier cannot be regarded as a defining characteristic of adjectives, since intensifiers can also cooccur with what are traditionally thought of as adverbs (e.g., He walks extremely slowly). This is a further reason why some linguists have suggested that adjectives and adverbs really belong to a more general, overarching category.

Adjectives and Prefixes It is also common to find adjectives taking a prefix that “reverses” the meaning of the base form (e.g., insignificant, unimportant, disproportionate,

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etc.). However, there are many adjectives that cannot take such a prefix. Instead, for these adjectives there is another adjective form that serves as its antonym or opposite. Consider the examples in (22). (22) large – small fast – slow old – young Yet again, then, the potentiality for taking such a prefix cannot be treated as definitive of adjectives as a class. If you take a few minutes to think about the English adjectives you know, you will quickly realize that there are not many adjectives that display all of these features. One of the few that I can think of is fruitful. However, there are some that display most of them. The adjective beautiful, for example, displays them all except for the last one. There is no prefix that can be attached to beautiful to reverse its meaning. Instead, we use a different adjective, ugly. There are also some words that, even though they are unarguably adjectives, do rather poorly in terms of the features listed above. An example of this latter type of adjective is provided in (23): (23) This is a major issue. Here, major is clearly an adjective since it occupies prenominal position in the noun phrase, attributing a particular property to the noun itself (roughly, the property of being “important” or “significant”). But major does not display the other features that we have noted as typical of many adjectives. For example, unlike its near synonyms, important and significant, there is no comparative or superlative form of major. (24) a. This is the more important issue. – This is the most important issue. b. This is the more significant issue. – This is the most significant issue. c. *This is the majorer/more major issue. – *This is the majorest/ most major issue. Nor can we add a prefix in order to “reverse” its meaning, as we can with these other adjectives:

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(25) a. This is an unimportant issue. b. This is an insignificant issue. c. *This is an inmajor/unmajor/dismajor issue. On the other hand, major is like important and significant in happily accepting many kinds of intensifiers, although it does not permit as wide a range of intensifiers as these others: (26) a. This is a really/quite/rather/very/extremely/incredibly important issue. b. This is a really/quite/rather/very/extremely/incredibly significant issue. c. This is a really/quite/rather major issue. From this, it seems reasonable to conclude that major is not as prototypically adjectival as, say, fruitful or beautiful. In the Classroom: Adjectives As with nouns and verbs, students need to have a firm understanding of adjectives as a syntactic category. By way of a reminder, below is a summary of the various morphosyntactic features of adjectives that I have discussed in the text: ◾◾ Adjectives can occupy two main positions:

◾◾ ◾◾ ◾◾ ◾◾

a. prenominal: ________ NP b. predicative: V(cop) ________ Adjectives often take one of a set of adjective-forming suffixes: believable, beautiful, childish, etc. Adjectives often have comparative and superlative forms: larger, largest; more helpful, most helpful, etc. Adjectives can often be modified by intensifiers: very beautiful, really helpful, quite thoughtful, etc. Adjectives often take a prefix that “reverses” the meaning of the base form: disproportionate, insignificant, etc.

In addition to providing sample sentences to illustrate these features, it may be helpful to encourage students to think about the English adjectives they already know, trying to decide which of these features apply and

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which do not. They will quickly realize that there are not many adjectives that display all of these features. This is generally the case with syntactic categories. In the text, I have drawn attention to major. Your students may think that this is an extreme case, but a little more thought should reveal a large number of adjectives to which several of the above characteristics do not apply. As a simple activity that will help them to think about the nature of syntactic categories, students might be asked to consider how many of the characteristics discussed above apply to the following adjectives: perfect, unique, full, complete, empty.

The Semantics of Adjectives It will be helpful to discuss the semantics of adjectives with reference to three sets of paired ideas: ◾◾ Adjectives as stative and dynamic ◾◾ Adjectives as attributive and restrictive ◾◾ Adjectives as gradable and non-gradable Adjectives as Stative and Dynamic In the previous two chapters, I have referred to Givón’s insightful and important suggestion that nouns identify “time-stable” aspects of the world, whereas verbs tend to identify “time-unstable” aspects of the world. If we regard nouns and verbs as the endpoints of a continuum, then adjectives (and, indeed, adverbs) may be thought of as occupying a position between the two extremes. Schematically, we can represent this as in Figure 3.1 below. Adjectives are generally closely associated syntactically with nouns, and so they incline toward the “time-stable” end of the continuum. We might say, indeed, that they tend to be more noun-like than verb-like in that the attributed property is relatively time-stable. Linguists often speak of adjectives as being essentially stative. This means that adjectives are characteristically employed to describe relatively permanent or inherent properties of the noun. Thus, Quirk et al. (1985) say that adjectives are “characteristiTime-Stable tree, green

Time-Unstable sad, know

work, shoot

Figure 3.1  The time-stability/instability continuum (Adapted from Givón, 2000, p. 54).

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cally stative” (p. 434). Similarly, Givón says, “The experiential phenomena typically encoded as adjectives tend to be . . . inherent, concrete, time-stable qualities such as color, shape, size, consistency, texture, weight etc.” (1993a, p. 55); elsewhere, he comments that “prototype adjectives occupy the same extreme time-stable end of our temporal stability scale as prototype nouns” (2000, p. 53). This idea of adjectives as “characteristically stative” is reflected in (27). (27) a. The tree was tall. b. He’s such a nice, friendly professor. c. What a foolish puppy! In a case such as (27a), the stative quality of the adjective is especially clear. Obviously, the tree will not suddenly cease being tall (unless someone cuts it down!). But the same thing can be said about the other two examples, at least in these contexts. The intended meaning of (27b) is that the professor is invariably nice and friendly (in the speaker’s opinion); in (27c), the meaning is that the puppy is habitually foolish. In these cases, then, the adjective is stative in that it describes a fixed or inherent property of the noun. While it makes good sense to say that adjectives are generally stative, sometimes they can be non-stative or dynamic. Often, this is signaled by the use of a progressive form of the verb. For example, one might hear something like the following: (28) That professor is being nice and friendly. Here, the speaker is perhaps indicating that most of the time the properties of “friendliness” and “niceness” are not to be attributed to the professor—he’s usually grumpy and unpleasant—although on this occasion they are. In other words, there has been a change in his customary behavior. Thus, in (28), the adjective has a dynamic sense, and this is reflected in the use of a progressive being rather than a stative is. Interestingly, we can sometimes use adjectives that would normally be stative as if they are dynamic in order to create a particular semantic effect. Thus, after one particular class, one of my colleagues might say the following to me:

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(29) The students were being very Korean today. In one sense, this is an odd thing to say. We do not normally think of “Korean” as a property that is subject to change. Surely one either is Korean or one is not. When used in this way, however, the adjective is being treated as if it were a dynamic property, something that is changeable. Given an appropriate context, it would not be difficult to make sense of an utterance like (29). If I heard someone say this, I would understand it to mean that the students had been displaying many of the characteristics we often associate with Korean students, but to a greater degree than normal. (I will leave you to decide what those characteristics are!) Adjectives as Attributive and Restrictive One basic function that adjectives perform is to attribute some property to an entity identified by a noun. Consider a noun phrase such as the students. Of course, it is certainly possible to use this without an adjective. However, speakers will very often want to add something more. For example: (30) a. The happy students. b. The thoughtful, witty students. c. The intelligent, diligent, attentive students. The adjectives happy, thoughtful, diligent, and so on provide additional information about the students. One effect of this is to restrict the range of possible items to which the entire NP (including the adjective) can apply. To give another example, the expression All the students in the class includes everyone in the room; however, All the smiling students in the class restricts the reference to only some students (those who happen to be smiling). Adding further adjectives restricts the reference still further: All the smiling, attentive students. You get the idea. By attributing some property to the noun, adjectives help to establish the reference of the noun more precisely. As I will discuss in a later chapter, adjectives share this function with certain types of relative clauses. Indeed, the latter are sometimes referred to as adjective clauses. That there is overlap between the functions performed by adjectives and those performed by some types of relative clauses is a commonplace of linguistic description. As Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman put it, “Adjectives and relative clauses serve similar functions in providing qualifying information about nouns”

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(1999, p. 384). And Teschner and Evans say, “In the main, any attributive adjective . . . can be viewed as derived ultimately from a relative clause containing be plus the adjective itself” (2007, p. 144). Depending on the noun, the property attributed by the adjective might be either some concrete quality (e.g., the green door, the square window, the large cupboard, etc.), or it may be more abstract (e.g., the beautiful child, the foolish dog, the inquisitive cat). Thus, one way of discussing the semantics of adjectives is to separate them into various types according to the kind of property they attribute. Among the more commonly mentioned attributions provided by adjectives are the following: ◾◾ dimension/shape: angular, broad, circular, high, large, low, narrow, small, square, tiny, twisted, wide, etc. ◾◾ physical condition: brittle, broken, clean, cracked, dirty, dusty, firm, new, old, pliable, rough, smooth, soft, etc. ◾◾ movement: quick, slow, sluggish, rapid, ponderous, etc. ◾◾ age: old, young, ancient, modern, contemporary, etc. ◾◾ evaluation: bizarre, delightful, excellent, exhilarating, good, interesting, tasteful, tedious, terrible, wonderful, etc. ◾◾ color: blue, colorful, multi-colored, two-toned, etc. ◾◾ substance: gaseous, metallic, watery, etc. ◾◾ origin/location: European, Korean, rural, Turkish, urban, etc. Adjectives as Gradable and Non-gradable Another semantic feature of some adjectives is gradability. This is sometimes treated as a key feature of adjectives as a lexical category. To say that an adjective is gradable means that it identifies a property that can be possessed to varying degrees. Gradable adjectives often fit into a series with different adjectives indicating different degrees of the property in question. A good example is the set of adjectives we use for temperature. These can be arranged in a series from coldest to hottest as follows: cold ⇒ cool ⇒ warm ⇒ hot (I have disregarded certain other possibilities that could appear in this series, e.g., tepid, lukewarm, etc.) Another example is the set of adjectives we use to talk about dimension. Again, these form a series, this time in ascending order of size: tiny ⇒ small ⇒ large ⇒ enormous

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(Once again, there are other possibilities which I have not included, e.g., miniscule, gigantic, etc.) When adjectives describe a gradable property like temperature or dimension, they will readily accept comparative and superlative markers. Thus, we can talk about one thing being colder than another, or about something being the largest in a set. Similarly, adjectives used in this way can be modified by intensifiers: very warm, extremely small, et cetera. Gradable adjectives often form antonymic (i.e., opposite) pairs. Thus, the opposite of cold is hot, the opposite of small is large, and so on. More interestingly, in discourse, one of the pair often appears to be marked and the other unmarked. What this means is that if we pay attention to the way EUEs actually use the language, we find that the unmarked form is more commonly used. For example, when enquiring about someone’s height, we will generally say How tall is he? rather than How short is he?, even if the person being referred to is obviously very short. Likewise, we ask even very young children how old they are, not how young they are. Not all antonymic pairs of adjectives are readily gradable. Some pairs of adjectives are said to form “absolute” opposites. Frequently-cited examples of these absolute pairs are male vs. female, true vs. false, right vs. wrong, real vs. unreal, dead vs. alive, and legal vs. illegal. You will probably agree that because adjectives such as these identify absolute (non-gradable) properties, they should not accept intensifiers such as very, really, quite, and so on, nor should they have comparative or superlative forms. As so often, however, when it comes to real language use, things are not quite so straightforward. Several linguists have commented on this, among them Huddleston and Pullam, who make the point that the idea of gradability of adjectives is rather like the idea of countability of nouns in that it is often a matter of use rather than an inherent property of adjectives. As they say, “Gradability is not an all-or-nothing matter” (2002, p. 532). A similar point is made by Dixon, whose remarks are worth quoting at length: Basically, something should either be right or not, real or not, dead or not, male or not, single or not, and so on. On logical grounds, one should not compare two items in terms of such a property. But people do, although only using more, never -er (despite the fact that the phonological form would expect -er). If neither Mary nor Jane are married, then both are single. However, one can say Mary [who lives alone] is more single than Jane [who shares an apartment with her boyfriend]. Or John was more right than Peter, if John got every detail correct but Peter only the outline. Or He was more dead than I realised (the body was starting to decompose). (Dixon, 2005, p. 92)

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Prenominal Adjectives and the Problem of Adjective Order I noted above that when they are in prenominal position adjectives are recursive, meaning that several adjectives may stack up in one NP as modifiers of the noun. This can present a problem for DUEs, who are sometimes unsure about the appropriate order of the adjectives inside an NP. In fact, there are discernible patterns to adjective order, even though it would be misleading to think in terms of a rigid order. In this sense, this issue illustrates many of the points I made in my introductory chapter. There, I suggested that many of the so-called “rules” of grammar are better understood as descriptions of patterns or regularities that are found in the language of competent speakers. It is also worth noting that the appropriate order of adjectives is something that native speakers seem to know intuitively, (i.e., it is part of the procedural knowledge that they have built up over a lifetime). It is not something they consciously learn. Most native speakers could not offer a declarative explanation of the sort we are about to consider. Linguists have attempted to describe the patterns of adjective order in various ways. Berk (1999, p. 180), however, makes the worthwhile point that there is no sure “algorithm” (i.e., set of instructions) for establishing the order of adjectives. With this in mind, here is one way of making sense of this troublesome issue. Notice that the account I am about to give is essentially semantic, being based on those properties listed above. If we look at the way in which speakers typically arrange adjectives within an NP, we often find the following pattern: I

II

III

IV

V

evaluation

dimension

condition or age

color

origin or substance

Figure 3.2  Order of adjectives types

Of course, not every NP will contain adjectives drawn from every category. It would be very unlikely that a speaker would produce such a convoluted NP, even though it would be grammatically possible. But, certainly, NPs containing up to three adjectives are not at all uncommon. The following examples illustrate the way in which the pattern works: (31) a. I III V that wonderful old Turkish carpet

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b. II IV V a tiny blue sapphire ring c. II III IV a small , dusty two-toned photograph There is an obvious benefit in introducing students to the above pattern and having them practice stringing adjectives together in various combinations. However, linguists are interested in attempting to explain the patterns they discern as well as describing them, and it may help DUEs to make better sense of this issue if they understand at least some of the principles that we believe underlie the pattern. Various explanatory proposals have been made. One of the most illuminating comes from Givón, who suggests that an adjective will tend to be placed closer to the noun stem if it is more central to the meaning of the noun, or if it identifies a more inherent, durable quality of the noun. Borrowing one of Givón’s own examples, we can say that the reason (32a) is preferable to (32b) is that the adjective African identifies a durable (unchanging, time-stable) attribute of the noun, whereas the adjective large identifies an attribute (size) that clearly can change. (32) (From Givón, 1993a, p. 257) a. A large African elephant. b. ?An African large elephant. Note what is at issue here. I have not marked (32b) as ungrammatical. Strictly, it is not ungrammatical. At least, it is syntactically correct. However, I think that most EUEs would agree that (32b) sounds odd and they would undoubtedly prefer the order given in (32a). In the same way, in (33), the color of the dress is non-durable (colors can be changed), whereas the actual material it is made from cannot be altered. This provides a sensible explanation of the order of adjectives: (33) that blue silk dress Again, this is not a fixed grammatical rule. Variations from this preferred order are possible, and speakers will sometimes use an alternative order for discourse effect, emphasizing a particular property. When this happens, stress will typically be placed on the adjective in question. To illustrate, I can readily imagine someone saying the following:

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(34) that SILK blue dress [i.e., not the cotton one that also happens to be blue] An account such as this certainly goes some way toward explaining the patterning of adjectives that we find in authentic speech. But it is unlikely to explain every case. Moreover, there are certain cases in which more than one order of adjectives appears to be possible. We should not be surprised to find exceptions. Once again, all grammars leak!

Two More Problems with Adjectives: Participles and Compounds The Problem of Participles Consider the following: (35) a. Your trip to Brazil sounds exciting. b. That was an amazing match. c. My professor delivers really boring lectures. The adjectives in the above examples take the form of an -ing participle, or what is traditionally known as a present participle. At least potentially, this is an area of some difficulty for DUEs, since the very same -ing forms can also operate as verbs. There can be occasions of genuine ambiguity when it is unclear whether the -ing participle is performing an adjectival or a verbal function. To see how this might be problematic, consider the following example: (36) My professor is entertaining. You can no doubt see that a sentence such as (36) has more than one possible meaning. It might mean that the speaker enjoys the professor’s classes (i.e., the speaker means the professor always delivers entertaining classes); another possible meaning is that the professor is doing some entertaining right now at the moment of speaking. But wait! The first of these meanings involves ascribing an adjectival role to the participle. It is as if the speaker has said “I have an entertaining professor.” The second meaning ascribes a verbal role to the participle. It is as if the speaker has just been

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asked, “What is your professor doing at the moment?” and the answer has come: “He’s entertaining.” In Chapter 1, I noted that although we often treat phrases and sentences in isolation for the purpose of grammatical analysis, in reality, the pieces of language we are interested in almost always form part of a wider discourse. I said that they may need to be placed in that wider context for full understanding to emerge. The current issue is one where context is invaluable for disambiguating meaning. Consider the following two contexts for our troublesome sentence: (37) a. My professor is always very entertaining in class. b. My professor is entertaining the guest speaker in the faculty office. It should now be clear that in (37a) entertaining is adjectival; in (37b), it is verbal. Note the use of the intensifier very in (37a). In cases of uncertainty, this can be a useful diagnostic tool. Any -ing participle that accepts very has an adjectival function. Thus, (38) is ungrammatical: (38) *My professor is very entertaining the guest speaker in the faculty office. In discussing this issue, Quirk et al. refer to “participial adjectives,” which—rather confusingly, perhaps—they distinguish from “participles.” Thus, in She is calculating, but her husband is frank, the -ing form is said to be a participial adjective. On the other hand, in She is calculating our salaries, it is a participle. To my mind, it makes more sense to speak as I have done of “-ing participles,” while recognizing that these may have adjectival or verbal roles, depending on the context. The Problem of Compounds A further issue worth briefly noting is that some adjectives have effectively become fused to a noun to form what is generally called a “compound noun.” Modern English has several of these forms. They can problematic for DUEs because sometimes a compound may be similar to an ordinary adjective plus noun construction with a different meaning. Think about the compound noun greenhouse. As a compound, a greenhouse refers to a glass building used for growing plants and vegetables. It is not really a “house” at all. On the other hand, if I paint the place where I live green, it might reasonably be said to have become a “green house,” which would mean

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something rather different. Notice that there is a phonological difference here. With compound nouns, the stress tends to come on the first element (a GREENhouse is a place to grow your tomatoes); with an ordinary adjective plus noun construction, the stress tends to come on the second element (a green HOUSE is a house painted green). The phonological distinction between compounds and non-compounds can be a valuable guide for DUEs in cases of uncertainty.

Adverbs: A Highly Problematic Category I want to begin this section by drawing a distinction between two terms: adverb and adverbial. The former term is a label for a syntactic category, covering familiar single-word items such as quickly, happily, and spontaneously. The latter term refers to a function. Linguistic elements that have this function include adverbs plus other linguistic elements such as phrases (e.g., on the table, at the bookstore, next week, last year, etc.) and clauses (e.g., after he saw the movie). Here, I am concerned with the category, that is, those single-word items that are traditionally thought of as adverbs. (Discussion of phrases and clauses with adverbial functions will be taken up in later chapters.) Like adjectives, adverbs provide additional information. Again like adjectives (or attributive adjectives, at least), adverbs are optional. Another way of putting this is to say that adverbs are adjuncts, not complements. As you know, a complement is a linguistic element that is required for grammaticality. Adjuncts are not grammatically required, even though they may supply important information. For example, the following sentence is entirely grammatical as it stands; nothing more is required: (39) The students answered the professor’s questions. However, the insertion of an appropriate adverb does indeed provide additional information and, depending on which adverb the speaker chooses, conveys a significantly different picture: (40) a. The students enthusiastically answered the professor’s questions. b. The students reluctantly answered the professor’s questions. Traditional accounts identify several types of adverbs, with the distinctions between the types tending to be made on semantic grounds. For ex-

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ample, there is a large group of adverbs that speakers use to indicate the manner in which something was done. Thus, we might speak of some action being done enthusiastically, happily, patiently, quickly, slowly, and so on. Other adverbs express time, frequency, direction/location, and evidence, as well as several other semantic notions. Not all linguists are entirely happy with these traditional labels; however, my own view is that they are useful in identifying genuine semantic differences among adverbs, and I see no harm in employing them. Below are examples of some of the most widelyrecognized types: (40) Degree: almost, completely, nearly, partially, totally, etc. Direction: downward, homeward, outside, upward, etc. Domain: environmentally, pedagogically, theologically, etc. Evidence: apparently, definitely, maybe, obviously, possibly, seemingly, undoubtedly, etc. Evaluation: fortunately, regretfully, sadly, etc. Frequency: always, generally, never, occasionally, often, sometimes, usually, etc. Manner: enthusiastically, happily, patiently, quickly, slowly, etc. Temporality: earlier, later, next, soon, today, tomorrow, yesterday, etc. You are probably already familiar with lists such as these. But you may not have stopped to ask yourself what an adverb is. If you have, you will have realized that this is rather a tricky issue to deal with. When I was discussing word categorization at the beginning of Chapter 2, I noted that linguists have long recognized that the categories traditionally employed are an oversimplification and are rather artificial. This is especially apparent in the case of the adverb category. The fact is that in modern English the words that get labeled “adverb” are rather mixed, so much so that it is debatable whether they form a coherent category at all. As one contemporary formalist linguist has recently put it, “Nobody seems to know exactly what to do with adverbs” (Ernst, 2006, p. 1). At any rate, adverbs do not display the same kind of morphological and syntactic uniformity we find with other word classes. There is widespread agreement among linguists on this. As Quirk and colleagues express it, “Because of its great heterogeneity, the adverb class is the most nebulous and puzzling of the traditional word classes. Indeed, it is tempting to say simply that the adverb is an item that does not fit the definitions for other word classes” (Quirk et al., 1985, p. 438). In a similar vein, Berk says, “The adverbial system . . . is complex and heterogeneous. No other part of speech takes so many different forms and has so

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many different semantic functions” (1999, p. 215). Again, Huddleston and Pullam say that adverbs are “the least homogenous of the traditional parts of speech” (2002, pp. 57–58). Later, they comment that traditional grammars tend to treat adverbs as a “miscellaneous or residual category” (2002, p. 563) to which words get assigned if they lack the specific characteristics associated with other word classes. I want to approach the issue of what adverbs are indirectly, by comparing them with adjectives.

Comparing Adjectives and Adverbs All linguists agree that adjectives and adverbs share a number of common characteristics; indeed, Huddleston and Pullam observe that adjectives and adverbs are “more alike than any other pair of part-of-speech categories” (2002, p. 527). Below, I discuss some of the characteristics that adjectives and adverbs share in common. Firstly, adjectives combine with nouns to form larger NPs: (41) a. the girl → The smiling girl was talking. b. her cat → Her contented cat was sleeping. c. a student → An anxious student was waiting. In the same way, adverbs combine with other elements to form larger phrases: (42) a. the girl → The girl smiled shyly. b. her cat → Her cat slept contentedly. c. a student → An anxiously waiting student. Note, too, that adjectives and adverbs will often combine together to form a larger modifying expression, with the adverb modifying the adjective, which in turn modifies the noun: (43) a. her remarkably competent presentation b. an extremely supportive professor c. that linguistically impressive paper

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Adverbs and adjectives can combine equally well in predicative positions: (44) a. Her presentation was remarkably competent. b. The professor seems extremely supportive. c. That paper was linguistically impressive. The fact that adjectives and adverbs can operate in tandem like this is indicative of the fundamental closeness of these grammatical forms. Secondly, a large number of adjectives have comparative and superlative forms, which are marked either periphrastically or by means of inflection: (45) a. handsome → more handsome → most handsome b. pretty → prettier → prettiest Precisely the same morphological patterns apply to at least some adverbs, with both periphrasis and inflection being possible: (46) a. significantly → more significantly → most significantly b. soon → sooner → soonest It is worth noting that some adverbs have the same comparative form as the corresponding adjective. Thus, the comparative form of badly is worse, which is also the comparative of the adjective bad; again, the comparative of well is better, which is also the comparative of the adjective good. Thirdly, adjectives can be modified by various types of intensifiers. These same modifiers (which are themselves often seen as a type of adverb) can be used to modify adverbs: (47) a. very soon b. rather contentedly c. almost imperceptibly Fourthly, the closeness of adjectives and adverbs is also suggested by the fact that in some cases they share the same morphological form. Examples of this are the forms direct, early, fast, hard, and monthly. Only context en-

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ables us to classify these forms one way or the other. Compare the adjectival uses in (48a) with the adverbial uses of the same forms in (48b): (48) a. a direct flight; an early start; a fast car; a hard worker; a monthly schedule b. we flew direct; we started early; don’t drive too fast; she works hard; I get paid monthly You would be forgiven for thinking that this is not a particularly helpful way of arranging a language! As well as these various similarities, there are also obvious differences between adjectives and adverbs. As you know, one morphological characteristic of adjectives is that they display a predictable range of suffixes. The same cannot be said of adverbs. These tend to be far more morphologically diverse. In fact, adverbs lack “characteristic morphology” (Berk, 1999, p. 185). To illustrate, some adverbs are simple forms, such as just, only, soon, et cetera. Others are compound forms, such as nevertheless, otherwise, sometimes, et cetera. One of the few contenders for a distinctive adverbial marker is the derivational suffix -ly, which can be used to derive adverbs from adjectives (e.g., badly, definitely, maliciously, modestly, politely, rapidly, etc.). Deriving adverbs from adjectives is a common grammatical strategy in many languages. French provides numerous examples. Thus, from vrai, meaning “true” or “real,” we get vraiment (“truly” or “really”); lente, meaning “slow,” gives us lentement (“slowly”). Many common Italian adverbs are formed in the same manner. Indeed, the forms of some common Spanish and Italian adverbs are almost identical to their French counterparts, a reflection of the close historical connections between the languages: “Slowly” in both Spanish and Italian is lentamente. Nor is this phenomenon limited to European languages. Korean does the same thing: (49) a. 바쁜 (ba-bbeun) “busy”; 바쁘게 (ba-bbeu-ge) “busily” b. 행복한 (haeng-bok-han) “happy”; 행복하게 (haeng-bok-ha-ge) “happily” Linguists use the slightly awkward label deadjectival for adverbs that are related to adjectives in this manner. Ugly though it is, the term does underscore the close relationship between the two syntactic categories. And yet,

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despite this morphological connection, the semantics of the adverb is rather different from that of the underlying adjective. Think about the meaning of the adverb badly in (50a) and the adjective bad in (50b); I have provided additional context in order to bring out the difference. (50) a. He is a great teacher, but today he taught badly. b. I hate his class; he is a bad teacher! I hope you’ll agree that to “teach badly” is not necessarily to be “a bad teacher.” Indeed, as (50a) makes clear, someone might actually be a very good teacher most of the time and yet, on a particular occasion, have a bad lesson. On the other hand, as we saw earlier, adjectives are characteristically stative. Thus, to describe someone as a “bad teacher” as is done in (50b) is to say that they are invariably bad at teaching—this is their normal state, as it were. The adverb badly does not carry this same stative sense. It merely tells us that, on a particular occasion, the lesson was not a good one. While most adverbs ending in -ly are derived from adjectives, some are derived from nouns. Many of these indicate particular timeframes (e.g., daily, hourly, nightly, weekly, yearly). Note, however, that this pattern is quite restricted; forms such as *afternoonly, *minutely, *morningly, and *secondly are not possible, even though you may feel that it would be logical if they were. (There is, of course, an adverb secondly, but it has no relation to the noun denoting a measure of time. We use the adverb secondly to introduce the second term in a series. It could be roughly paraphrased as “the second X.”) So, is our -ly a defining suffix for adverbs? No. It is true that many adverbs do indeed end with -ly, but it is also true that a very large number do not. Moreover, this same suffix also occurs in some adjectives (e.g., friendly, lovely, ugly). Here is another major difference between adjectives and adverbs. Although they may appear in different positions in a construction, adjectives are always associated with nouns. Adverbs are not restricted in the same way. Adverbs can modify various other types of words or phrases. This is reflected in the traditional definition of an adverb as a word that can modify any part of speech other than a noun. Thus, as the following examples show, an adverb can modify a verb (51a), an adjective (51b), and another adverb (51c): (51) a. She nearly fainted when she heard the news. b. Your suggestion is completely correct. c. He gave an only partially complete answer.

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Huddleston and Pullam say that “the most important defining property of adverbs” is that adverbs “characteristically modify verbs and other categories except nouns, especially adjectives and adverbs” (2002, p. 563). In fact, as these writers themselves note, while adverbs cannot modify nouns, they can modify NPs. Here is an example: (52) Only one student failed the course. Some adverbs seem to be especially versatile, being able to combine with several other parts of speech. An example is almost:



(53) a. I have almost finished [almost modifying verb] b. Our project is almost complete [almost modifying adjective] c. He speaks Arabic almost perfectly [almost modifying adverb] d. She rewrote almost the entire paper [almost modifying NP] e. We are almost at the top [almost modifying prepositional phrase]

It should be clear from the forgoing discussion that adjectives and adverbs relate to one another in interesting ways, sharing certain features in common while differing in other regards. All of this means that characterizing adverbs is not easy. As a consequence, the classification of adverbs often tends to be somewhat vague and imprecise. In fact, a large number of high-frequency forms in English are identified as adverbs solely on the basis of their distribution within sentences. Let us consider this a little further.

The Position of Adverbs There are three main positions in which adverbs can appear: One is at the beginning of a clause, in front of the subject—the sentence-initial position—as in (54a); a second possible position is in the middle of a clause, coming between the subject and the verb—the sentence-medial position—as in (54b); the third position is at the end of a clause, after the verb or after the object (and complements) if there is one—the “sentence-final” position—as in (54c): (54) a. Usually, I read novels in the evenings. b. I usually read novels in the evenings. c. I read novels in the evenings usually.

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There is one position where an adverb is not possible in English. This is between the verb and its object. Thus, (55) is ungrammatical. (55) *I read usually novels in the evening. Given this relative freedom, are there any general patterns that we can discern? The answer to this question must be a somewhat cautious yes. This is one area where there does seem to be quite a lot of individual variation, and people sometimes disagree over whether an adverb really “works” in a particular position. A helpful way of thinking about this issue is to make use of the semantic types noted earlier. By way of illustration, manner adverbs are generally happy to appear in all three positions: (56) a. Slowly, the patient opened his eyes. b. The patient slowly opened his eyes. c. The patient opened his eyes slowly. It seems that manner adverbs are especially common in medial position, immediately after the subject NP. We may think of this as their default position within the sentence: (57) a. They enthusiastically discussed the new program. b. She quickly left the office. c. Charlotte the kitten patiently waited for her owners to return. It is not surprising to find that manner adverbs are particularly common in this pre-verbal position since their basic function is to modify some verb (i.e., indicate the way in which the action identified by the verb was done). Certain other semantic types tend to resist one or the other of these positions. For example, adverbs referring to a particular time will readily appear sentence-initially and sentence-finally, but they seem to work less well in medial position: (58) a. Yesterday, I sent him a memo. b. I sent him a memo yesterday. c. ?I yesterday sent him a memo.

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It is worth noting that (58c) is not ruled out entirely; it may sound somewhat awkward, but it is not ungrammatical. Indeed, for many speakers, a slight pause after the adverb may make it more acceptable. Although this is not the preferred position for a time adverb, a speaker may deliberately place it here in order to draw attention to it. This is an illustration of the way in which grammatical, phonological, and discourse considerations overlap with and inform one another. Like manner adverbs, adverbs of frequency seem to work well in all three positions: (59) a. Frequently, students forget to put their name on their assignments. b. Students always forget to put their name on their assignments. c. Students forget to put their name on their assignments sometimes. One interesting feature of certain adverbs of frequency such as seldom and rarely, which have a negative meaning, is that when they appear sentence-initially they trigger subject–verb inversion: (60) a. Seldom have I seen such a poor piece of work from a graduate student! (Not *Seldom I have . . . .) b. Rarely did the princess venture out of the castle. (Not *Rarely the princess did . . . .) Adverbs of direction tend to be rather more restricted than some of the others mentioned. Thus, upward seems to be limited to sentence-initial and sentence-final positions. Note that (61c) is ungrammatical. (61) a. Upward sailed the balloon. b. The balloon sailed upward. c. *The balloon upward sailed.

Adverbs as Modifiers and Linkers I have spoken of adverbs as having a “modifying” role. I want to say a little more about this. Adverbs modify either words and phrases or clauses; additionally, they often perform another closely related job, that of linking clauses together.

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Adverbs as Word and Phrase Modifiers It is particularly common for adverbs of manner to be used as word or phrase modifiers: (62) a. She danced gracefully. b. Charlotte the kitten waited patiently for her owners to return. c. They ran quickly into the kitchen. In each of the above examples, the adverb modifies the verb that precedes it, telling us something about how the action was done. Adverbs that modify words or phrases in this way will often be said to be adjunct adverbs. In fact, as I have already suggested, all adverbs are adjuncts, since this is a quite general term we use to denote any non-obligatory element. As such, it contrasts with the term complement. The non-obligatory status of the adverbs in (62) is shown by the fact that they can be deleted without loss of grammaticality, although once more you may well feel that in removing them some useful or important information has been removed as well: (63) a. She danced gracefully. b. Charlotte the kitten waited patiently for her owners to return. c. They ran quickly into the kitchen. Adverbs as Clause Modifiers Adverbs are regularly employed as clause-level modifiers. In more traditional circles, adverbs that modify clauses are said to be sentence adverbs. Typically, when adverbs are used in this way they serve to identify the speaker’s evaluation of or attitude toward or views about the situation expressed in the main clause. It follows that adverbs doing this work are often evidential adverbs, as in (64a) and (64b), or else evaluative adverbs, as in (64c). (64) a. Stupidly, I forgot to save the file I’d just updated. b. Obviously, Archibald’s answer is wrong! c. Sadly, we’ll not be able to come to your party. In each of these examples, the adverb may be taken as providing the speaker’s assessment of the situation; it is like an “editorial comment” on the clause that follows. Thus, in (64a), the adverb expresses the thought that forgetting to save the file was stupid; in (64b), the adverb supplies the

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comment that the wrongness of Archibald’s answer is apparent to everyone; in (64c), the adverb provides a comment to the effect that the speaker is disappointed to have to miss the party. A notable feature of clause-level modifiers like this is that they will typically appear in sentence-initial position, as we see in the examples above. Placing them in this position has the effect of detaching them from the rest of the clause. (For this reason, some linguists call them disjuncts). This detached status will often be signaled by a slight pause after the adverb in speech, or by a comma in writing. Remember that we are interested in the modifying work being done by a particular adverb within a particular construction and that the same adverb may operate as a modifier at either the phrase level or the clause level. Consider the adverb frankly in (65). (65) a. Martin talked frankly about his concerns. b. Frankly, that’s a real concern. In (65a), the adverb is modifying the verb, indicating the manner in which Martin talked (i.e., in a frank and open manner); in (65b), it is modifying the entire clause, serving to indicate the speaker’s evaluation of the situation. It is as if the speaker were saying, “I am being frank when I say this . . . .” Adverbs as Linkers As this subheading indicates, adverbs can also operate as linking devices. When used in this way, they contribute to the overall cohesion of speech or writing by joining clauses into longer stretches of discourse. A more traditional label for this is conjunctive adverbs, and some linguists refer to the conjunct adverbial function. Modern English has a large number of adverbs that can be used in this way. They are often thought of as being characteristic of written English, but they are certainly not restricted to writing, and they regularly occur in speech as well. It is not easy to illustrate adverbs being used in this way since, by definition, they involve connections across extended stretches of discourse. However, the following examples will give a sense of how this works: (66) a. That’s an interesting idea. However, I disagree because . . . b. I don’t want to discuss that at this stage. Instead, I want to turn to . . . c. That’s one point. Additionally, we need to consider . . .

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In the Classroom: Adverbs Given their high frequency, adverbs must receive attention in the classroom. As I have indicated, however, as a syntactic category, the adverb category is somewhat problematic. Certainly it lacks the coherence of the other categories we have looked at. In consequence, it is less easily discussed. One way of approaching these issues is by drawing a distinction between the terms adverb and adverbial. It may be helpful for students to understand that not everything that performs an “adverbial function” is an “adverb” in the narrower sense. Indeed, it might be helpful to begin with this distinction before going on to consider more substantial issues. It may also be useful to spend time comparing adverbs and adjectives. As we have seen, these share a number of similarities, suggesting that, in some sense, they belong together. There are, of course, differences between them as well. Another major issue, and one that teachers will certainly wish to focus on, is the position of adverbs within constructions. Again, I have indicated that a useful way of thinking about this would be to make use of the semantic distinctions traditionally employed to describe adverbs (e.g., adverbs of manner, adverbs of frequency, etc.). Once students are familiar with these, they can begin to look at common patterns. For example, as we noted above, manner adverbs are generally happy to appear in all three adverb positions: sentence-initial, sentence-medial, and sentence-final. Other types of adverbs pattern differently. Finally, students need to have a firm understanding of the kind of work adverbs do. In particular, they need to be familiar with adverbs as word/ phrase modifiers, clause modifiers, and as linkers.

Further Reading Quirk et al. (1985, Ch. 7) Huddleston and Pullam (2002, Ch. 6) Also very helpful are the relevant chapters of Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999, Chs. 20 [adjectives] and 25 [adverbials]). Berk (1999, Ch. 4) is similarly useful. A brief discussion of adjective order will be found in Givón (1993a, pp. 256–258).

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4 Determining Words and Prepositions in Linguistic Perspective

T

he previous three chapters have dealt with the open class of words in English, discussing various issues that arise in relation to nouns, lexical verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. In this chapter, I turn to some of the most important and linguistically interesting members of the closed class of words. The first half of this chapter deals with a set of words that have a distinctive grammatical job to do in English grammar. The job they perform can be called a “determining” function. As you will see, there are actually several distinct words that can perform this function. So the first question I ask is, What is a determining word? I go on to compare these words with adjectives, which share with them the ability to appear inside an NP. After this, I consider the grammar of two of the most common types of determining words, articles and demonstratives, paying particular attention to their semantic properties. The second half of the chapter is devoted to prepositions. I offer a brief comparison of English prepositions and their counterparts in some other Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 113–152 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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languages and discuss some other general features. Then I turn to the challenging question of the meaning and use of prepositions.

Determining Words: Some Important Preliminaries The first half of this chapter is concerned with various words that are often given the designation determiner. The first thing that needs to be said is that this label indicates a grammatical function and that this function may be fulfilled by words from many different syntactic categories. The sentences in (1) have been chosen to illustrate the range of word-forms that can fulfill this function. For convenience, NPs appear in boxes; the words fulfilling the determining function are italicized.



(1) a. b. c. d. e.

I bought a CD from the store . I prefer this landscape to that portrait . My apartment is smaller than your office . All teachers have some bad lessons . She bought two dresses and three hats .

The words a and the in (1a) are articles; this and that in (1b) are demonstratives, my and your in (1c) are pronouns; all and some in (1d) are quantifiers (although some may also be considered a plural article); finally, two and three in (1e) are cardinal numbers. The point is that all these distinct wordforms can operate as determining words. In short, determiner is a function label, not a category label. Linguists themselves are not always clear about this. Thus, Brinton writes—rather ambiguously, as it seems to me—that determiners are “a subclass of words” (2000, p. 120). Here, much depends on what is understood by the term “subclass.” If it means a syntactic category, then I think this is wrong. As I have suggested, the term determiner does not indicate a particular syntactic category. The point at issue may become clearer with an example. Consider (2) below: (2) I don’t like this book. I’m going to read this instead. It is an unfortunate fact that the labels that tend to be employed to describe this in examples like (2) actually confuse matters. Thus, you will sometimes read that the first this in (2) is a demonstrative determiner, whereas

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in its second appearance it is a demonstrative pronoun. The problem with such labels is that they sound like the kind of labels we give to syntactic categories; and if we apply them to (2), they suggest that this changes its syntactic category in mid-stream, as it were. This seems to me pretty wide of the mark. What needs to be kept in mind here is the difference between category and use. I would maintain that the word this is a demonstrative. That is its syntactic category. And it does not change. However, I would add that this is a word that has different uses. And that is what we find in a sentence such as (2). At its first appearance, this is being used as a determining word; it helps to identify which book the speaker is referring to (the one I’m reading now); when it reappears shortly afterwards, the same demonstrative is being used pronominally. So, what is this “determining use” that I have just mentioned? What does it involve? A short answer would be that determining words identify or quantify, or in some way classify, nouns. Some writers go so far as to suggest that the words fulfilling this determining function are modifiers of the noun. Thus, for example, Berk states that determiners are the “most common noun modifiers in English” (1999, p. 58; emphasis added). And Cowan similarly writes, “The prenominal modifiers . . . are often referred to as determiners” (2008, p. 186; emphasis added.) However, I do not think this is quite right either! It is important to make a distinction between a determining word and a modifying word. To illustrate the difference, let us imagine that I have been talking to a friend about a new bookstore that is about to open in my neighborhood. Later, I go there and buy a book. When I next see my friend, I might say something like (3) below (since it is the NPs that are of interest here, I have placed them in boxes): (3) Yesterday I went to that new bookstore and bought a really expensive book . There are two NPs here: that new bookstore and a really expensive book. Both of these have their own internal structure. Naturally, they both contain a noun (bookstore, book), but additionally they contain both determining and modifying words. Thus, new modifies bookstore, adding further information about the noun. Likewise, expensive modifies book. You will note that expensive itself is also modified; the book was not merely expensive, but “really” expensive. Our NPs also contain a determining word; they are, to use a phrase favored by some linguists, “determined noun phrases” (Huddleston and Pullam, 2002, p. 355). In the first NP, the demonstrative that determines the noun bookstore. In effect, this word helps to identify the store

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in question as already familiar to the hearer (remember: we have previously discussed the bookstore in another conversation—if I had chosen a instead of that as my determining word, the fact that it was the same bookstore we had talked about beforehand would not have been clear to my friend). In the second NP, some determines the noun book, indicating that more than one item was purchased. While the modifiers in (3) are optional, the determining words are not. Thus, it is possible to remove the modifiers and still be left with a grammatical utterance (4a); on the other hand, removing the determining words leads to ungrammaticality (4b). (4) a. Yesterday, I went to that new bookstore and bought a really expensive book. b. *Yesterday, I went to that new bookstore and bought a really expensive book. This supports my claim that the determining use and their use as modifiers are distinct. I think this distinction makes sense. However, later I will qualify it.

Determining Words and Adjectives As I have just been discussing, determining words are not the only elements that may be found inside an NP. Adjectives also sit inside NPs, where they have a modifying role. You may have been taught that at least some of the forms that I am calling determining words are really a type of adjective, sometimes called limiting adjectives to distinguish them from descriptive adjectives. I think a strong case can be built for saying this is incorrect. In order to see how, we need to think about the grammatical behavior of the determining words and compare it with the behavior of adjectives. Looking at this issue will throw further light on the determining function, enabling us to see more clearly the nature of the grammatical work done by these various words. Consider the fact that many of the most commonly employed adjectives display comparative and superlative forms (e.g., happier, happiest; prettier, prettiest; etc.). On the other hand, determining words are morphologically invariant (i.e., their shapes are “fixed”). Forms like *this-er or *the-est simply don’t exist in English. Furthermore, a very large number of adjectives display distinctive endings (e.g., admirable, decisive, fruitful, etc.). In the previous chapter, I listed this as one of the characteristic features of adjectives as

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a syntactic category. None of the words that take a determining role in NPs can be classified in terms of their endings in this way. Turning now to syntactic matters, recall from the previous chapter that when they appear in prenominal position adjectives are recursive, meaning that several adjectives can be “stacked” inside the same NP. In principle, although not perhaps in practice, we can go on adding as many adjectives as we wish. We see this in (5) below: (5) a. He was a handsome man. b. He was a handsome, elegant man. c. He was a handsome, elegant, tall man. (etc.) Words with a determining function tend to resist recursion, which is to say, the patterns of English grammar generally only permit one determining word in an NP. Thus, while (6a) below is grammatically acceptable, none of the other examples in (6) are.



(6) a. b. c. d.

Where’s the car? *Where’s the my car? *Where’s the my this car? *Where’s the my this that car?

Berk says that “the words in the determiner category are mutually exclusive” (1999, p. 58). This is essentially right, although later you will see that this statement needs to be qualified somewhat. (See my discussion of pre- and post-determiners below.) For now, however, the point is that adjectives are generally pretty happy with recursion, whereas words serving a determining function are not. This provides a further piece of supporting evidence for the claim that the latter are not adjectives. A third important point is that a determining word of some kind is generally a grammatical requirement. Example (7a) indicates that several different determining words can precede the noun in this construction; however, as (7b) shows, the omission of a determining word entirely is not a grammatical option. (7) a. I need a/the/that/my chair. b. *I need chair.

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I emphasized in Chapter 3 that there can never be a grammatical requirement for an NP to include a prenominal adjective. Therefore, the fact that a determining word is generally required argues against them being a type of adjective, since these are optional. Once again, this claim will need to be qualified later. A fourth difference between determining words and adjectives is that nouns frequently impose what have been called “co-occurence restrictions” (Quirk et al. 1985, p. 255) on the former but not on the latter. These restrictions are readily apparent with the article a: (8) a. I’m looking for a chair. b. *I’m looking for a furniture. c. *I’m looking for a chairs. The article a can appear as a determiner in the context of a singular countable noun like chair, but not in the context of a non-countable noun like furniture, or in the context of a noun marked for plurality (chairs). Accordingly, both (8b) and (c) are ungrammatical. Historically, the English indefinite article is derived from the numeral one, as it appears to have been the case in many languages. This goes some way to explaining the restrictions illustrated in (8). This connection is more obvious in some other languages in which the article and the numeral share the same phonological and morphological form. In French, un garçon may mean “a boy” or “one boy,” depending on context. Interestingly, in Turkish, whether the word bir is understood as meaning “one” or as equivalent to “a” depends on its position in a construction. Thus, bir güzel pembe ev (with bir preceding both adjectives) can be translated as “one pretty pink house”; however, güzel bir pembe ev (with bir coming after the first adjective) is “a pretty pink house.” To return to English, the restriction I have just noted does not apply to the definite article the, which can readily determine all noun subsets: (9) a. I’m looking for the chair. b. I’m looking for the chairs. c. I’m looking for the furniture. It may be, however, that the is the odd one out here. Certainly, the demonstrative forms are restricted in a manner comparable to a:

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(10) a. I like this chair. b. I like this furniture. c. *I like this chairs. d. I like these chairs. e. *I like these chair. f. *I like these furniture. Syntactic restrictions of this sort do not apply to adjectives:

(11) a. I need a clean, soft, comfortable chair. b. I need some clean, soft, comfortable chairs. c. I need some clean, soft, comfortable furniture. My final argument is a semantic one. Consider the adjective thoughtful in the following examples:



(12) a. What a thoughtful friend. b. ?What a thoughtful cat. c. ??What a thoughtful fish. d. *What a thoughtful problem.

Everyone will agree that while (12a) is perfectly acceptable, there is something odd about (12b–d). But what exactly is the problem? Each of the above appears to be a well-formed utterance, so the problem is not a syntactic one. Rather, the problem is semantic in nature, having to do with the meaning of the adjective. Basically, an adjective like thoughtful can only co-occur with nouns referring to a rational (usually human) being (i.e., a being capable of thought) or to something produced by a rational being (e.g., a thoughtful essay). Thus, while (12a) is semantically fine, and (12b) is perhaps marginally acceptable (if you have ever had a cat as a pet, you will know that sometimes they appear to be thinking quite hard!), (12c) is very odd and (12d) is impossible. The point, of course, is that determining words are not semantically restricted in this way:



(13) a. a/the/this/my friend b. a/the/this/my cat c. a/the/this/my fish d. a/the/this/my problem

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I have used thoughtful to illustrate a more general point: Typically, adjectives are not syntactically restricted, but they are semantically restricted. With determining words, it is the other way around: They are syntactically restricted but not semantically restricted. Where have we got to? The conclusion to be drawn at the end of this brief discussion seems pretty clear. Although both determiners and adjectives are to be found inside NPs, they are not to be confused. The view that determiners are a sort of adjective is incorrect. In the Classroom: Determining Words Some learners, especially those at higher levels, may benefit from a discussion of the kind of issues I have dealt with up to now in this chapter. In particular, the distinction between “form” and “function” is an important one and may help to disentangle some of the knots that sometimes ensnare learners. The key point here is that determiner is not the name of a syntactic category; rather, it refers to a specific grammatical role that words from various categories may undertake. In other words, it is a function label, not a category (or form) label. One way of making this point is to draw attention to the variety of different word-forms that can fulfill this function in the manner of the example sentences in (1) above, which, for convenience, I repeat here:

a. I bought a CD from the store.



b. I prefer this landscape to that portrait.



c. My apartment is smaller than your office.



d. All teachers have some bad lessons.



e. She bought two dresses and three hats.

Following on from this, it would be useful—again, for higher level learners—to distinguish between the determining function and the modifying function with which it is sometimes (wrongly) linked. Since determiners and adjectives both appear inside NPs, students could be set the task of thinking about the different grammatical properties these forms display, with a view to reaching the conclusion that determiners and adjectives are quite distinct and perform very different work. The following points, which I have discussed in detail in the text, are especially relevant here: ◾◾ Adjectives have comparative and superlative forms; determiners

do not. ◾◾ Adjectives are recursive; determiners are not.

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◾◾ Adjectives are invariably optional in NPs; determiners are gener-

ally required. ◾◾ There are co-occurrence restrictions on determiners that do not

apply to adjectives. ◾◾ There are semantic constraints on adjectives that do not apply to

determiners.

The Articles in English: Form I now want to consider in more detail some of the words that come under the general heading of determining words. We will begin with articles, which are the most commonly used determiners; indeed, they are among the most frequently employed words in the entire language. How many articles does English have? Most people probably think the answer to this is two: a (or an before a vowel) and the. In fact, in standard English, articles actually come in four basic forms.1 In addition to the indefinite article (14a) and definite article (14b), a full description of the English article system would need to take account of the indefinite plural article some (14c) and what is often referred to as the zero article (14d):



(14) a. Have you ever seen a tiger? b. The tiger in the zoo has just had some cubs. c. Some tiger cubs are currently on display in the zoo. d. Tigers are beautiful.

The word some is, in fact, potentially problematic for DUEs since it is not always an article. Consider, for example, if we were to modify (14c) as follows: (15) Some tiger cubs are currently on display in the zoo, but not all of them. In this context, some is not doing the work of an article, although it does still have a determining role. It may be regarded as a quantifier indicating that the tiger cubs on display are part of a larger (unspecified) number of cubs.

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In what follows, I will focus primarily on the more familiar articles, the so-called indefinite article a/an and the definite article the. These tend to throw up the most problems for DUEs. In terms of form, English indefinite and definite articles are rather straightforward. This emerges very clearly if we compare English articles with those found in some other languages, many of which have rather richer article systems than does English, with the morphology of the articles carrying a great deal of extra grammatical “weight.” To illustrate, if the language in question has grammatical gender, then it will have distinct forms of article that must agree with the gender of the noun. A case in point is French, which has distinct forms of articles for masculine and feminine nouns, as well as a plural form of the definite article, which is not marked for gender (see Table 4.1). Spanish makes precisely the same gender distinction, with the noun for “cat” being masculine and that for “house” being feminine. Once more, this is reflected in the morphology of the articles. However, Spanish goes one step further than French by marking gender distinctions in the plural as well (see Table 4.2). German has an even more complex article system since there are distinct forms for masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns for articles to agree with, and German articles display case marking as well (see Table 4.3). You will agree, I think, that by comparison English articles are simple indeed! With one minor exception, they are morphologically invariant. The exception is in the use of a or an. These are to be considered two versions of the same article. DUEs, particularly if they are young learners, are often taught to pay attention to the orthographical (written) form of the noun in Table 4.1  French Articles Masculine

Feminine

le chat (“the cat”) un chat (“a cat”) Plural: les chats, les maisons

la maison (“the house”) une maison (“a house”)

Table 4.2  Spanish Articles Masculine

Feminine

el gato (“the cat”) un gato (“a cat”) Plural: los gatos, las casas

la casa (“the house”) una casa (“a house”)

Determining Words and Prepositions in Linguistic Perspective    123 Table 4.3  German Articles Singular

Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative

Plural

Masculine

Feminine

Neuter

All genders

der den des dem

die die der der

das das des dem

die die der den

choosing between a and an. Yet this is seriously misleading since the key is not spelling but phonology, or pronunciation. Consider (16): (16) a. a uniform, a university professor b. an hour, an X-ray

The Articles in English: Meaning and Use While the form of the articles is straightforward, real difficulties can arise for DUEs in terms of their meaning and use. I turn now to address some of these issues. When explaining the meaning and use of articles, teachers often provide their students with neatly packaged rules. Statements like the following are not uncommon: “Indefinite articles are used for a noun when it is mentioned for the first time”; “Definite articles are used for nouns that have already been mentioned.” “Rules” of this sort can be helpful up to a point. Sadly, they really don’t capture the way in which EUEs actually use articles. To see why, and to see the kinds of difficulty that DUEs face in learning to interpret and use English articles effectively, consider the passage below, which is taken from a recently published work of historical biography. You may be interested to know that this is the opening paragraph in the chapter. I have italicized the articles. No one could quite agree how the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, came to kill Lord Zouch’s gamekeeper. Some said the arrow from the Archbishop’s careless crossbow deflected unluckily on a branch, striking Peter Hawkins on the rebound. This became the favourite account: the tree was commemorated in local folklore for generations. But there was much debate about the missile’s trajectory. Abbot was visiting Zouch’s magnificent estate at Bramshill, near Reading, to consecrate the mansion’s newly completed chapel. It was a full summer day near the end of July, and the host invited his guest of honour to join a hunting party in the parklands. He may have had his

124    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar reservations when the old man asked to try out the crossbow. In Zouch’s version of events, for some reason Hawkins got behind the deer Abbot was going for, and the animal moved at precisely the wrong moment. But others had less confidence in the accuracy of Abbot’s aim. (Stubbs, 2007, p. 352)

Even a brief glance at this passage should persuade you that the “rules” commonly given to students do not help much in explaining how the writer uses articles here. Why, for example, does the noun phrase the Archbishop of Canterbury begin with a definite article even though this is the first mention of this person? And what about some of the other nouns such as arrow, tree, and missile, all of which are preceded by definite articles when they are introduced? On the other hand, other NPs, such as branch and hunting party, are preceded by indefinite articles. What is going on here? Can linguistics throw any light on this? In fact, it can. The use of articles provides a good example of how linguistics can truly deepen our understanding of the grammar of English. Let us start again. Articles have a determining function within NPs. I have said that this means they identify, quantify, or specify the NP. More precisely, articles do two main things: They identify (or classify) the referent of the noun as either specific or nonspecific; and secondly, they indicate whether the referent is definite or indefinite. Both of these ideas require a certain amount of unpacking. First, let us consider the specific–nonspecific distinction. Think about the following sentence: (17) I need a pen. Here, the speaker’s use of a indicates that any pen will do. She does not care what kind of pen it is, or whether it is blue, black, red, or whatever—as long as it is a pen. So the article serves to signal that the referent (the realworld item that the noun refers to) is, in this case, nonspecific; the one thing necessary is that the item belong to the general class of pens. Now consider the following mini-dialogue: (18) A: May I borrow a pen? B: What color would you like? I have a blue one and a black one. A: In that case, I’ll take the blue one. When A makes her initial request, the indefinite article is used, indicating that any pen will do (i.e., any member of the class of pens). Not until she

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is offered a choice by B does A specify a particular type, using a definite article to do so. Here, once more, the indefinite article a signals a nonspecific item (a pen) and the definite article signals a specific item (the blue pen). This seems quite simple. Now let me add a complication. Speakers often have some highly specific referent in mind even when they use an indefinite article. Imagine that I walk into a bookstore and address a salesperson as follows: (19) Excuse me, I’m looking for a book. Now, in isolation, it is possible to understand this utterance to mean that any book will do, just as in (17) any pen would have done. However, I think it is much more likely that when I say I want a book I already know the book I want. This will become clearer with a little additional context: (20) Excuse me, I’m looking for a book. Its title is How to Get Rich Without Doing any Work. Here, obviously enough, I have a specific book in mind even though I initially introduced the NP with an indefinite article. So the indefinite article is not always used to introduce nonspecific referents. This brings us to the second job that articles perform: marking referents as definite or indefinite. What do these terms mean? Broadly, an NP is definite if its referent is known (i.e., it is familiar, already established, or readily identifiable by the speaker and hearers). Conversely, an NP is indefinite if what it refers to is not known (i.e., is unfamiliar, has not been previously established, and is not readily identifiable). Consider (21): (21) a. There’s a gas station. b. There’s the gas station. It will help to imagine a situation in which these sentences might be uttered. In the case of (21a), we might imagine the speaker and his companions have been driving for a while, looking for somewhere to refill their car; they turn a corner and . . . there! The use of a to mark the NP as indefinite is an indication that the petrol station was not known to the occupants of the car before they turned the corner and stumbled across it. This is as we

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might expect since it is normally the case that if we need to refill our car, any fuel station will do. It is not necessary to locate a particular one. Turning now to (21b), the key point is that the seemingly small syntactic change from a to the has a very large semantic effect. Its use suggests that the petrol station our travelers have arrived at was known to them already. Perhaps they had planned to meet another friend there, or they had heard that the petrol was really cheap at that particular station, or. . . . Whatever the reason, the use of the here indicates that both speaker and hearer are already aware of the existence of this petrol station—for them, it is definite. This takes us to the heart of the difference between the two articles in English: The indefinite article is used to introduce entities that are not yet known, whereas the definite article is used when the referent of a noun is already-established common knowledge. As Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman put it, the use of articles “is not simply an independent decision made by the speaker/writer but rather a reflection of shared knowledge between the interactants in any act of ongoing communication” (1999, p. 281). They go on, “The speaker/writer must assess the interlocutor’s background knowledge and make a series of assumptions regarding the information he or she shares (or does not share) with the interlocutor” (1999, p. 281). To quote another linguist who has written extensively on definiteness, “[W] hereas in the case of an indefinite noun phrase the speaker may be aware of what is being referred to and the hearer probably not, with a definite noun phrase this awareness is signaled as being shared by both participants” (Lyons, 1999, pp. 2–3). Generally, then, the use of a definite article reflects the speaker’s assumption that the entity referred to by the noun is known to the hearer, or that the hearer will be able to readily identify it; use of an indefinite article reflects the assumption that the entity is unknown or new or not readily identifiable, even though it may be specific. How does a referent become known? The most obvious way is when the speaker explicitly introduces it into the discourse. Consider (22). Here, the fact that my neighbors have two children is explicitly introduced by means of an indefinite article; once their existence has been established in this way, they can be referred to again using a definite article. (22) My neighbors have a boy and girl. The boy is in middle school, and the girl is attending kindergarten.

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In a case such as (22), we might say that knowledge of the referent is established by means of prior mention. You will recognize that cases of this kind are covered by the first mention–second mention “rule” we noted above. What an example like (22) reveals is that the use of articles is heavily context-dependent, with the definite article here being anaphoric. We might also say the definite article establishes that the referents of the second sentence are co-referential with the noun previously mentioned. For comparison’s sake, notice how strange the following would be: (23) My neighbors have a boy and girl. A boy is in middle school, and a girl is attending kindergarten. You will no doubt agree that (23) is odd. Indeed, as you read this you might have experienced a moment of hesitation, wondering whether the boy and girl mentioned in the second sentence are the same as those referred to in the first sentence. This tells us how articles contribute to our interpretation of utterances. Incorrect choices can lead to miscommunication. Sometimes there is no need to establish knowledge by explicitly introducing a referent. Instead, appropriate knowledge is simply assumed, forming part of the background that members of a particular group share in common so that anyone who belongs to the relevant community of speakers will likely be aware of it. An example of this is given in (24). (24) Did you go to the bank today? In an appropriate context, both speaker and hearer are likely to know which financial institution is intended, since people generally use only one bank. In such cases, where there is shared background knowledge, there is no need for the prior use of an indefinite article in order to establish the existence of the referent. The definite article is a signal that the speaker expects the referent to be readily identifiable. This is a case of knowledge of the referent being established by virtue of (relative) uniqueness. Cases like this enable us to account for some of the puzzling uses of articles in the passage I quoted earlier. In particular, it helps to explain why, even when it is first mentioned, the NP Archbishop of Canterbury is preceded by a definite article, since at any one time there is only one individual who holds this title. It also explains why people will speak of the sun, the moon, and so on, because for those of us dwelling on earth there is only one referent for these particular nouns.

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As another illustration of the semantic effect of articles, consider those interesting cases in which a word that would normally be considered an adjective functions as a noun and is preceded by a definite article. Probably the most famous example of this is given in (25), an utterance many readers will be familiar with. (25) The poor you will always have with you.2 And here is another example, taken from Quirk and his colleagues: (26) (From Quirk et al., 1985, p. 421) The innocent are often deceived by the unscrupulous. This use can only occur when the reference is to “certain fairly wellestablished classes of persons” (Quirk et al., 1985, p. 421). This is reflected in the fact that it is the definite article that is employed, as if the speakers are saying these groups—the poor, the innocent, the unscrupulous—are already well-known to the audience. Below is a third example. Here, the author is recalling tales recounted to him from an earlier period in the history of Istanbul, the city where he grew up. (27) (From Pamuk, 2005, p. 159) . . . the angry mobs roamed up and down our streets, smashing shop windows and cursing the Greeks, the Christians, the rich. The parallelism of this (“the Greeks, the Christians, the rich”) is very striking. Once again, the use of the suggests that in each case we have a wellestablished class of persons, classes that in the relevant context are readily identifiable (i.e., known). A third possibility is where a noun marked with the definite article has not been explicitly mentioned previously but can be inferred from its understood relation to a noun that has been mentioned. As Berk puts it, “Sometimes the discourse itself will contain the information that allows the hearer to identify the referent of the noun, even though the noun itself hasn’t been used” (1999, p. 60). Here is an example of this: (28) When I reached his apartment, I rang the bell.

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Notice that the noun bell here is preceded by a definite article even though it has not been previously mentioned. There is nothing problematic about this. In context, the speaker expects her audience to be able to make the logical connection based on its knowledge of the world. Most of us realize that apartments have doors (which are customarily closed) and that doors have bells that we ring to signal our arrival. Here is another example: (29) (From Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 370) My car won’t start; I think the battery is flat. As Huddleston and Pullam note, “The battery is identifiable through its association with the car that has just been introduced into the discourse: it is interpreted as the battery of that car” (2002, p. 370). Articles, then, operate along two overlapping dimensions at they same time. They operate along a specific–non-specific dimension, indicating whether something is specific or not; and they operate along a definite– indefinite dimension, indicating whether it is already known or not.

Articles and Proper Nouns In Chapter 2, I offered a few thoughts on proper nouns. Here, I consider the way in which proper nouns interact with articles. Generally, DUEs will have been told not to use articles with proper nouns. As a basic principle, this makes sense, as we see in the following examples:



(30) a. *The Emily is a good student. b. *The Paris is a lovely city. c. Emily is a good student. d. Paris is a lovely city.

Why do proper nouns like Emily and Paris not require articles even when first introduced into a discourse? Or, to frame the question differently, why are nouns such as these marked with a zero article? One way of understanding this is in terms of our definite–indefinite distinction. Often, in the case of proper nouns, the referent of the noun is already established and thus is definite. Indeed, it so firmly established that no article at all is required. Saying that the referent is “firmly established” is another way of saying (as I did in Chapter 2) that proper nouns have unique reference. No article is required where the referent of the proper noun is known to both speaker and hearer. This may be because the referent is so well-known that

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nobody would have any problem identifying it (as in the case of Paris), or because, in a particular limited context, both the speaker and the hearer will have no problem identifying it (as with our Emily example). There are, of course, some cases where an article is actually part of the proper noun. Certain proper nouns referring to regions of the world are like this: ◾◾ the Philippines ◾◾ the Hague ◾◾ the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Commenting on such cases, Berk writes, Common nouns may or may not occur with a determiner, depending on the grammatical context. Proper nouns, however, are invariable in this regard. If a proper noun occurs with a determiner (almost always the article the), it will always occur with that determiner. If it occurs without a determiner, it will never take a determiner. (1999, p. 77)

Such instances are not very common and are unlikely to cause major headaches for DUEs. However, there are other cases where an apparently proper noun, which does not normally take an article, is used with an article in a particular context. These cases are much more likely to prove troublesome and may require careful handling. Consider the following: (31) *The Shakespeare was one of the greatest writers ever to have lived. The reason why this is ungrammatical is that Shakespeare is being used in its customary manner as a proper noun; as a result, it cannot be preceded by the article. But now notice that the same article–noun combination becomes possible in other contexts, where it is obvious that we are referring to a collection of Shakespeare’s works (32a) or a particular performance of one of his plays (32b) rather than to the playwright himself: (32) a. Could you pass me the Shakespeare over there? b. The Shakespeare I saw last night was terrible. In such cases, the proper noun has effectively been transformed into a common noun in a process that is sometimes called common–proper shift (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 275). The point of such exam-

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ples is that there is more than one collection of his plays and more than one performance. In contexts such as these, the noun has changed from its normal “proper” status. It is being used as a common noun. The presence of a determining form is an indication of this change. As Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman write, “When proper nouns are used in common noun patterns, they are no longer functioning as true proper nouns” (1999, p. 275). To take another example, consider the following: (33) A: Emily is a good student. B: Which Emily? Do you mean the Emily who sits at the back near the air conditioner, or the Emily who has blond hair? A: Neither. I mean the Emily who sits in the middle and wears glasses. In a situation where there is more than one person sharing the same name, effective communication requires that the speakers establish which individual is being referred to. Technically, of course, in such a situation, the noun Emily does not have unique reference. This is reflected in the use of the relative clauses, who sits at the back near the air conditioner, who has blond hair, and who sits in the middle and wears glasses. But notice, too, that the article indicates that common–proper shift has occurred. In effect, in this context, Emily has become a common noun. Readers may be surprised to learn that this can even occur with a proper noun such as Seoul. In discussing this noun in Chapter 2, I said that this has genuinely unique reference; as such, we would not expect it to co-occur with determining words. However, it is not too difficult to imagine circumstances in which someone might say the following: (34) The old, traditional Seoul that I knew as a child is fast disappearing. In this case, the speaker is referring to her experience or perception of Seoul. In the Classroom: Articles Given that they are integral to most NPs, the various types of words that EUEs use as determiners require careful attention in the classroom. The articles in particular can be especially problematic for learners of English since many languages lack direct equivalents of these.

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I have suggested that the main difficulty with articles has to do not with their form, which is quite straightforward, but their meaning and the manner in which they are used. This has implications for how we approach articles in our classrooms. At lower levels, there is, I suggest, an obvious value in the presentation of “rules” for the use of articles (e.g., “Use an indefinite article when a noun is introduced for the first time”; “Use a definite article for nouns that have already been mentioned”). Such pieces of advice do indeed capture something of the way in which articles operate; but at some points in the careers of their students, teachers need to go beyond statements of this sort. A fundamental issue here is the distinction between a and the. This turns on the question of definiteness, which I have discussed at some length in the text above. It is vital that students are brought to an appreciation of what definiteness involves if they are to be able to use the articles as EUEs do. Often, when teachers work on articles, they give their students “gap-fill” exercises to complete. Such exercises, in which students have to decide which article is required to complete a sentence, are not without value. But they will only be of real use to the learner if she has already grasped the semantics of articles and, in particular, why speakers use either a definite or an indefinite article. Without this understanding, gap-filling may descend into mere guessing. It is especially important that students see how articles are often context-dependent. That is, typically, the selection of indefinite a or definite the depends on what has (or has not) been already established in the discourse. This means that classroom exercises that view articles as elements within isolated sentences are of very limited value. Instead, passages containing numerous articles need to be presented in class for discussion. (I have given an example of such a passage containing several different articles in the text above.) It must be acknowledged, however, that developing an appropriate degree of sensitivity for how articles are used is one of the truly big challenges that learners face. As always, the key is plentiful exposure in the form of listening and reading materials, supported by opportunities to practice using articles in spoken and written language.

A Brief Note on the Grammar of English Demonstratives English has two demonstrative forms, this (plural, these) and that (plural, those). These forms perform two roles. First, they convey a very high degree of definiteness, specifying with some precision the particular referent of the

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noun. Additionally, demonstratives are deictic forms, indicating the relative spatial (or sometimes temporal) proximity of the referent to the speaker (and/or hearer). These twin characteristics are exemplified in (35):



(35) a. This kebab is delicious. b. That student looks unwell. c. These flowers have a lovely scent. d. Those shoes suit you.

In each of the sentences above, the demonstrative establishes that the NP has definite reference: The kebab, the student, the flowers, and the shoes are known in the sense that their referents are already established—indeed, they are likely to be present in the situation of utterance. At the same time, the English demonstratives encode a two-way deictic distinction between “close to speaker” and “further away from speaker.” Thus, the use of this in (35a) indicates that the speaker is referring to something that is readily identifiable to both her and her listener; perhaps the kebab is on the plate in front of her. In (35b), the use of that is an indication that the student in question is some distance from the speaker (a matter of spatial deixis once more), but that the individual being referred to is nonetheless already familiar to both speaker and hearer. As the plural form of this, these in (35c) again indicates both the familiarity and the spatial proximity of the flowers. A natural context for an utterance such as this would be where the speaker is leaning forward to inhale the scent of the flowers as she speaks. Lastly, in (35d), those (which is the plural of that) once more indicates a certain spatial distance between the speaker and the shoes, which remain, even so, known. Some other languages have more elaborate deictic reference, often making a three-way deictic distinction where English has only a two-way distinction. Examples of this are Korean, Spanish, and Turkish, each of which makes a distinction between “close to speaker,” “close to hearer,” and “distant from both” (see Table 4.4). Table 4.4  Demonstratives in Korean, Spanish, and Turkish

Korean Spanish Turkish

Close to speaker

Close to hearer

Distant from both

이것 (i-geot) este bu

그것(geu-geot) ese şu

저것 (jeo-geot) aquel o

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Like articles, demonstratives can be anaphoric. Consider the following: (36) Today, we begin our discussion of determiners. This label does not indicate a syntactic category, but a grammatical function. In (36), the NP, this label, clearly refers back (is in anaphoric relation to) the previously mentioned noun, determiners.

A Brief Note on Genitive Pronouns as Determining Words In Chapter 1, I drew attention to a set of forms that I referred to as dependent genitive pronouns (e.g., my, your, our, etc.). I suggested, indeed, that these are a subtype of personal pronoun. However, if we think about how these forms are used, then they clearly belong with the other determining words. Thus, in each of the following examples the pronoun determines the noun that follows: (37) a. My cat is lovely. b. Is your boyfriend rich? c. Our wonderful house in Turkey Of course, this is to once more insist on the distinction between category and use, which I mentioned above. It is unfortunate that linguists often fail to recognize this all-important distinction. Thus, Cowan (to name one of many) explicitly contrasts these forms, which he calls possessive determiners, with the possessive pronouns (i.e., mine, yours, ours, etc.). For Cowan, these are to be classified as “two different syntactic categories” (Cowan, 2008, p. 200) since they appear in different environments. I disagree. I suggest that a more coherent account emerges if—recognizing the form–use distinction— we say that although they are part of the broader set of personal pronouns (that is their syntactic category), these particular forms are always used as determining words. That is, they invariably appear in prenominal position. This, indeed, is what it means to call them dependent genitive pronouns.

Pre-determiners and Post-determiners I turn now to a brief discussion of another issue that can cause difficulties for learners of English. Once again, in the following examples, I have placed the relevant NPs in boxes and have italicized the determining words.

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(38) a. All their many suggestions came to nothing. b. Both those ideas are good ones. c. When I entered the classroom, I found half the students were missing. There is no problem about the grammaticality of the sentences in (38). They are all well-formed and meaningful utterances. Despite this, they may strike you as odd insofar as they seem to infringe the claim I made earlier about determiners not being recursive. What about sequences like all their many, both those, and half the? How can I maintain that determining words, unlike adjectives, resist recursion and yet at the same time allow sentences like those in (38), in which it seems that several determining words are stacked in sequence inside one NP? The simplest way to account for sentences like these is to make finer distinctions with regard to the words that can fulfill a determining role. It is common to find linguists talking in terms of a threefold division among determining words (see, for example, Quirk et al. 1985; Berk 1999; Cowan 2008). Often, a distinction is drawn between a central or core group, which would include the articles and demonstratives discussed above, along with the dependent genitive pronouns noted in Chapter 1; a second group of pre-determiners that precede the core determiners; and a third group of postdeterminers that follow the central core. Table 4.5 provides examples of the three groups of determiners. You will see that each of the determiners in (38a) comes from a different group: all is from group one, the pre-determiner group; their is from group two, the central or core group; many is from group three, containing the so-called post-determiners. The same thing applies to (38b) and (38c). The basic principle that such sentences illustrate is that two determiners Table 4.5  Types of Determiners Group One (Pre-determiners)

Group Two (“Core” determiners)

Group Three (Post-determiners)

all both such half twice

a/an, the, some this, that, these, those my, your, his/her/its, our, theirs any each

many every several few cardinal numbers

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from the same group are unable to combine in the same NP. Thus, while a sequence such as all their many suggestions is acceptable, a sequence like *many several suggestions is ungrammatical, since many and several are both drawn from the same (post-determiner) group. In the same way, while both those ideas is a possible sequence, *both such ideas or *those any ideas are not permitted. Again, half the students is possible, whereas *half all the students or *the any students is not. It is also interesting to note that the members of both the pre-determiner and the post-determiner groups tend to be quantifying terms, whereas the core group contains several other types of determiners in addition to quantifiers. In my introductory discussion of the determining function, I took issue with the idea that words with this function were modifiers of nouns. In making this point, I noted that it would need to be qualified later. In fact, unlike the central group, the forms in Groups One and Two arguably do have a modifying role; indeed, Huddleston and Pullam label them predeterminer modifiers (2002, p. 433). To see that this is so, consider one of our earlier examples again, noticing in particular that all is optional (and remembering that optionality is a mark of modifiers): (39) All their many suggestions came to nothing. By the same token, the forms in Group Three are post-modifiers of the core determiner their: (40) All their many suggestions came to nothing.

Prepositions in English: Some Important Issues English has a rich and diverse set of prepositions. From a linguistic point of view, these are rather interesting lexical items, throwing up several noteworthy issues. Moreover, prepositions are very high-frequency items in the language. Consult almost any English written text, or listen for a while to someone speaking English, and you are pretty much guaranteed to encounter several examples. As a result, a discussion of the grammar of English must give these word-forms some attention. Moreover, apart from their sheer frequency, as a group these word-forms are notoriously problematic for DUEs, and we often find that even individuals who are otherwise very proficient speakers continue to struggle with this area of the grammar. I be-

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gin my discussion with a consideration of the characteristics of the broader category to which English prepositions belong. This will lead to a more detailed examination of the syntactic properties of English prepositions. After that, I will look at a number of vexing issues revolving around the meaning and use of prepositions in English. Viewed in linguistic perspective, prepositions are part of a larger category of words that is sometimes referred to by the label adposition. This category includes both prepositions and what linguists call postpositions. As the term indicates, a preposition is a word that (generally) comes before its complement. The qualification “generally” is necessary since, although prepositions normally precede their complements, there are cases where the complement does not appear in its customary position. I will return to this issue below in discussing “preposition stranding.” In many languages, we find words that, while displaying many of the same basic syntactic properties and semantic functions that prepositions have in English, follow their complement instead. These are postpositions. Interestingly, there is a tendency for subject–verb–object (SVO) languages to have prepositions and subject–object–verb (SOV) languages to have postpositions. Thus, languages such as English, French, German, and numerous others are prepositional languages; on the other hand, Korean, Turkish, Finnish, and lots of others are postpositional languages. English has quite a rich array of prepositions. This means that there may not always be a simple one-to-one correspondence between a prepositional form employed in English and those used in other languages. French is a case in point. It is true that French has several prepositions that translate directly into English equivalents: après (“after”), avec (“with”), dans (“in”), pour (“for”), sur (“on”), et cetera. This is not surprising, given the historical relations between the two languages. However, French also has certain multi-purpose prepositions that cover meanings that in English require distinct morphological forms. So we find that, depending on context, the French prepositional phrase à la maison could be represented in English as either “in,” “to,” or “at” the house; similarly, en le train might mean “in” or “on” the train. Similar situations are found in other SVO languages. Prepositions are among the most frequently occurring words in languages that have them, and postpositions are similarly common in their languages. As well as being very high-frequency items, these adpositions tend to share a number of morphological characteristics in common. Two of these are particularly worth mentioning. First of all, adpositions are morphologically fixed, i.e., they do not inflect for tense or number or person. Secondly, adpositions are often short, single-morpheme word-forms. If you

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think for a moment about the most commonly used prepositions in English, you will realize that many of them are indeed short, single-morpheme word-forms (e.g., as, at, by, for, from, in, of, on, to, with, etc.). However, this latter point needs to be qualified, since many linguists maintain that, in addition to these simple prepositions, English has several complex prepositional forms, that is, multi-word expressions which contain at least one simple preposition. Despite their unusual form, these complex prepositions behave as a single unit both syntactically and semantically. There are actually quite a number of these forms in English, so it is worth spending a little time on them. Here are two examples: (41) a. Belle succeeded by dint of hard work. b. She took a week off in lieu of extra money. Many DUEs may be unfamiliar with the expressions by dint of (which has the sense of “by reason of”) and in lieu of (“instead of”) since they are, admittedly, somewhat rare in contemporary English. They are completely “fixed” expressions. You will not find the forms dint or lieu being used anywhere in English except in these expressions. If you consult a good English dictionary, you should find them being treated as ordinary vocabulary items with their own entries. Consider now the following examples: (42) a. She always dressed carefully with a view to impressing her colleagues. b. On account of her crazy schedule, Kara finished the week exhausted. c. In spite of her best efforts in the interview, Melissa didn’t get the job. The expression with a view to has the sense of “with the intention of”; on account of means “because of”; in spite of is close in meaning to “despite.” These, too, are good contenders for complex preposition status since they are fixed expressions. Note, for example, that it is not possible to replace the initial simple preposition with any other form in (43a); nor can we insert anything into the expression (43b) or pluralize the noun within the expression (43c): (43) a. She prepared carefully *for a view to impressing the interview panel.

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b. On *the account of her crazy schedule, Kara finished the week exhausted. c. In *spites of her best efforts in the interview, Melissa didn’t get the job. Having noted the existence of these complex prepositional forms, for the remainder of this chapter I will focus on the familiar simple forms of preposition. In the next section, I discuss various syntactic issues, beginning with a few quite general remarks about some of the syntactic properties displayed by English prepositions.

English Prepositions: Some Remarks on Their Syntactic Properties If you look at a list of English words that are typically listed as prepositions, one thing that will probably strike you is the sheer diversity of their forms. Some of them are monosyllabic (single syllable) forms like at, in, on, to. Others, such as above, below, during, and over, contain more than one syllable. Additionally, unlike nouns and adjectives, prepositions do not display any distinctive suffixes that might be of use in identifying them as a class. Even so, it is not too difficult to demonstrate that they really do belong together and that they form a coherent category. The way to do this is to employ our now-familiar substitution test. Consider (44): (44) Charlotte the kitten was sleeping on the bed. You will immediately recognize that on could be replaced by many other word-forms without loss of grammaticality: (45) Charlotte the kitten was sleeping behind/in/near/under the bed. The fact that we can substitute these various words for one another in this manner is a solid piece of evidence that they should be regarded as the same basic kind of word. Now think about the words that follow the preposition in (44), the bed. In English, the prototypical complement of a preposition is an NP; in terms of grammatical function, the NP is often said to be the object of the preposition. Together with its complement, the preposition forms a prepositional phrase. Thus, on the bed, behind the bed, in the bed, near the bed, and under the

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bed are all prototypical prepositional phrases. The following prepositional phrases can likewise be regarded as prototypical: (46) a. They met during the summer . b. The rain was falling over the hills . c. I get to work by subway . Some traditional grammars actually define prepositions with reference to their complements, stating that prepositions are words that relate a noun or pronoun to another word. As so often, this sort of definition does not stand up to scrutiny, even though it is sometimes repeated even by respected linguists. Once we begin to look at how prepositions are used, we find that the suggestion that their complements always take the form of NPs is not true. What is true is that prepositional phrases with NP complements are extremely common. It is not surprising, therefore, that we find teachers tending to focus on them; nonetheless, the grammar of English allows several other possibilities, and if we are to describe the prepositional system adequately we need to take account of these. The following examples illustrate some other prepositional complements that may occur:



(47) a. She regarded him as childish. b. It will take you about ten minutes to walk from here. c. Charlotte the kitten emerged from under the table. d. Let’s talk about where we are going for our vacation.

In (47a), the prepositional phrase consists of a preposition (of course!) and an adjective, childish; in (47b), the preposition has an adverbial complement, here; (47c) is especially interesting in that the preposition from is followed by another prepositional phrase as its complement, under the table; lastly, in (47d), the complement is a complete clause, where we are going for our vacation. To repeat, complements of this sort may be less common than NP complements, but they are nonetheless grammatically possible and should be taken into account in any discussion of prepositions. There is a further reason why the traditional definition is not entirely satisfactory. This is that we sometimes see a preposition appearing with no complement at all. Consider the following:

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(48) (Adapted from Huddleston & Pullam, 2002) a. She stayed in the house all afternoon. b. She stayed in all afternoon. What (48) shows us is that prepositions can appear in both transitive and intransitive clauses. In a case such as (48b), where the clause is intransitive, the traditional definition that limits the complement of a preposition to a noun or pronoun does not work. In spoken discourse, you will frequently hear speakers producing utterances like the following: (49) Which apartment did Yoo Jin go into? In such cases, the preposition is often said to have been “stranded” at the end of the utterance. As I noted in my introductory chapter, there is no reason to regard utterances like this as ungrammatical, even though there is a tendency among prescriptivists to reject them. Recall that, according to prescriptivists, the “correct” construction has the preposition fronted: (50) Into which apartment did Yoo Jin go? I made the point in my earlier discussion that linguists tend to treat language as a natural phenomenon, paying attention to how it is actually used, rather than how some people maintain it should be used. If we adopt this approach, we will undoubtedly find that proficient English speakers commonly produce forms like both (49) and (50), and that, for most contemporary EUEs, the difference between them is largely a matter of formality. It is interesting to note that there are some constructions in which the stranding of the preposition appears to be necessary (i.e., the construction does not allow the preposition to be fronted). An example of this is the what–for construction: (51) What are you doing that for? This what . . . for construction is really another way of asking why. So, in (51), the speaker here means “Why are you doing that?” Admittedly, this is a somewhat informal way of framing the question, but it is grammatical.

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And the point to note is that in this case, it is simply not possible to front the preposition: (52) *For what are you doing that?

English Prepositions: Meaning and Use Up to this point, I have been discussing various morphosyntactic issues relating to prepositions. As with articles, however, it is when we turn to the meaning and use of prepositions in English that things begin to get really interesting. What light can the adoption of a linguistic perspective throw on the semantics of English prepositions? Specifically, how can linguistic analysis help teachers in explaining prepositions to their students? If someone were to ask what the purpose of prepositions in English is (apart from causing problems to learners of the language, of course!), one way of responding would be to say something like the following: Prepositions connect non-essential information to the essential information presented in the main clause of the utterance.

As a way into our discussion of the meaning and use prepositions, I want to explore this idea in a little more detail. Although thinking about prepositions in this manner may be unfamiliar to you, it actually makes good sense, and many contemporary linguists would endorse it. For example, commenting on the use to which prepositions are put in English, Dixon writes as follows: “The primary use of prepositions in English is to introduce a peripheral noun phrase, providing a locational or temporal specification (e.g., in the house, at three o’clock) or marking an instrument (with a stone), a beneficiary (for Mary), a recipient (to John), etc.” (Dixon, 2005, p. 289). What does it mean to talk about an NP being “peripheral,” as Dixon does here? Normally, if we say that something is peripheral, we mean it is marginal or non-central or, to repeat my earlier term, non-essential. It may help to think about a concrete example. Consider the following sentence: (53) Eunice threw a stone. In the situation described above, there are two participants, identified by the NPs Eunice and a stone, respectively. Here, I am using the term participant in a way that has become common among some linguists in recent times. Basi-

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cally, the term refers to some thing, person, or place that is inherently or essentially involved in the situation described. This is an idea I will explore in more detail in the next chapter. For now it is I hope apparent to you that both participants are essential to successful communication of the message. By this, I mean that if we are to adequately convey what took place we must indicate both who did the throwing and what was thrown. If either of these pieces of information happens to be missing, the message will be incomplete and communication will fail. Either the hearer would wonder what it was that was thrown, or else he would want to know who was responsible for the throwing. It seems reasonable to refer to a sentence such as (53) as a basic sentence in the sense that it provides all the essential information required to describe the event. However, speakers very often want to do more than produce basic sentences of this sort. In addition, they will often choose, for various reasons, to provide further information that, while not strictly necessary, could nonetheless be of interest or importance. In this sense, sentence (54), which supplies some additional information, is no longer basic. (54) Eunice threw a stone at the window. The crucial thing to notice here is that it is the prepositional phrase at the window that supplies the additional information. Roughly, the preposition, together with its complement, indicates the “path” or the “direction” taken by the stone. To repeat, this information is not strictly necessary. As we have already seen, the message would be complete and the sentence grammatical without it. Nonetheless, it will often prove useful to supply this kind of non-essential or, to use Dixon’s term, peripheral information. This is what prepositions do. Here are some more examples. In each case, the information included in the prepositional phrase is not strictly necessary; however, in its absence, potentially important aspects of the message would not be conveyed. Thus, in (55a), it would undoubtedly prove useful to the hearer to know not only that the speaker can see her tomorrow, but also at what time. Again, with regard to (55b), it is highly likely that people would wish to know not only that a meeting will take place, but also where it will be held. Likewise, in sentence (55c), the prepositional phrase tells us who the card was made for. (55) a. I can see you tomorrow at three. b. The meeting will take place in the boardroom. c. She made a birthday card for her mother.

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As a basic principle, then, we can say that the main use of prepositions is to introduce additional (that is, non-essential but possibly still important) information into the discourse. This seems pretty simple. However, as generations of English teachers have found, in practice, when it comes to teaching the meaning and use of prepositions, matters are anything but straightforward. I want to explore why. English prepositions are notoriously polysemous, which is to say that the same preposition will often have multiple meanings. Just to give a sense of the scale of the potential problem, Quirk and colleagues list eight basic senses of the preposition over (see Quirk et al., 1985, p. 685). The eight senses they identify, together with illustrative examples, are given in (56).



(56) a. Position: A lamp hung over the door. b. Destination: They threw a blanket over her. c. Passage: They climbed over the wall. d. Orientation: They live over the road. e. Resultative: At last we were over the crest of the hill. f. Pervasive (static): Leaves lay thick (all) over the ground. g. Pervasive (motion): They splashed water (all) over me. h. Accompanying Circumstances: We discussed it over a glass of wine.

Now, eight may seem like rather a lot of senses for one little word to carry, but there are grounds for thinking that this grossly underestimates the real number. In fact, according to another linguistic analysis (see Brugman, 1988), over actually has almost one hundred senses! Nor is there is anything especially unusual about over in this respect. Consider another highly frequent preposition, on. If you take a moment to think about it, you can probably come up with quite a few distinct uses for this preposition. Here are some:



(57) a. All our linguistics books are on these shelves. b. Please keep your dog on a lead. c. I’m working on my dissertation. d. The exam will take place on the last Friday of the month. e. I saw it on TV. f. These items are on promotion.

As bewildering as all this may seem, there is no reason to despair. The meanings that prepositions convey are not random. On the contrary, as lin-

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guists Andrea Tyler and Vyvyan Evans (2008) have recently put it, the meanings of prepositions form “a semantic network” (p. 2) arranged around “a primary sense” (p. 3). I am going to take up this idea in a moment. Before doing so, however, it will be useful to introduce some more terminology. It has become commonplace in recent linguistic discussions of prepositions to employ the terms trajector and landmark. In particular, these terms are central to an increasingly influential approach to linguistics known as Cognitive Grammar. The key idea is as follows: In describing situations, speakers impose a certain organization on the scene. Almost always, they tend to present one of the participants as the main or central element—the element that is, as it were, in the foreground or that stands out as especially salient or significant. This most salient element is the trajector. The other participant or participants are the landmarks. In (58a), the flowers are the trajector and the television is the landmark; in (58b), this relation is reversed, the television is the trajector and the flowers are the landmark. (You will note that the trajector naturally comes first in the utterance.) (58) a. The flowers are in front of the TV . trajector landmark b. The TV is behind the flowers . trajector landmark Notice that the difference between (58a) and (58b) is reflected in the change in the preposition. Prepositions help to establish the relation between the trajector and the landmark, locating the former with respect to the latter. With this terminology in mind, now note that there is widespread agreement among contemporary linguists that most of the central prepositions in English have meanings that are, in the words of Huddleston and Pullam, “quite clearly locational in origin” (2002, p. 647). Using the trajector–landmark distinction, we can say that, in their primary sense, many prepositions signal a spatial relation between a trajector and a landmark, making reference to the way in which they are arranged and oriented with respect to one another. Thus, linguists agree that the majority of the familiar prepositions in modern English are primarily spatial (the only obvious exceptions seem to be for and during) and that the various other meanings that prepositions convey are to be treated as extensions of this primary sense, comprising a semantic network, to use Tyler and Evans’ phrase again. To understand this

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better, it will be helpful to look at one particular case in some detail. Let us take the preposition in as our example. There does not seem to be much doubt that, in its primary sense, in is locational. In what may be reasonably regarded as its most basic or prototypical usage, it has a strongly spatial meaning and often conveys a sense of enclosure or containment, that is, it is used in cases where some physical item is inside (and fully enclosed within) another larger item of some sort. This prototypical usage is illustrated in (59). (59) There’s orange juice in the fridge. In (59), the spatial location sense of in is readily apparent, with the trajector (the juice) being contained within the landmark (the refrigerator). What about sentences (60a) and (60b)? (60) a. The sausages were sizzling in the pan. b. Look! There’s a crack in this glass. In (60a), there is no longer any sense of “complete enclosure.” To that extent, the use of in here is perhaps somewhat less prototypical; however, the fundamental spatial-locative meaning is still very much to the fore. The sausages (as trajector) are located in relation to the pan (the landmark). In (60b), a spatial relation between trajector and landmark is still apparent; at the same time, however, the use of in here is even less prototypical, in that the sense of containment is wholly absent: In saying that there is a crack “in” the glass, the speaker is not pointing to some item contained within the glass, but rather drawing attention to a feature on the surface of the glass itself. So far, I have said that a preposition like in has a basic spatial-locative meaning, often being used to indicate the position of a trajector relative to a landmark. Another way of putting this would be to say that in each of the examples of in considered so far, the preposition has a static sense—the juice, the sausages, and the crack in the glass are not subject to movement or change. As well as in, several other English prepositions can be used to convey this static meaning, including such familiar forms as above, at, behind, beside, on, under, and certain others that sometimes, for obvious reasons, get labeled prepositions of place.

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Now note that the same preposition can be used to indicate not only a “static” spatial location but, in a more “dynamic” or “directional” manner, to show movement or change of location. We see this in (61). (61) a. He dived in the water. b. Jamie placed the sausages in the pan. As the examples in (61) make clear, when used in this directional manner, the preposition combines with a verb of motion to indicate movement along a “path.” To introduce a little more linguistic terminology, we can distinguish between telic and non-telic (or atelic) uses of prepositions. This term is derived from the Greek word telos, meaning “goal” or “end.” The telic use of the preposition occurs when there is an endpoint to the motion, this endpoint being indicated by complement. Thus, in the examples in (61) above, in has a telic use. Other examples of prepositions that are regularly used in a telic sense include along, across, into, and to. As you might expect, when a preposition has a non-telic sense, there is no endpoint to the movement. It is not possible to use in non-telically. However, examples of English prepositions that are commonly used this way are along and toward(s). It still makes sense to speak here of the preposition being fundamentally locational and spatial—we are still dealing with the position of a trajector in relation to a landmark—although clearly there is a difference between such dynamic uses and the static ones exemplified in (59) and (60). Now consider how the spatial location of in might be extended. One very common extension of in that you will already be familiar with is where in is used with temporal reference: (62) a. Belle was born in July. b. Wait, please. I’ll speak to you in a moment. c. Insook often goes hiking in the mornings. You will note that in each of the above cases, in introduces some kind of time expression. It is still possible to talk in terms of trajector and landmark in these cases. For example, in (62a), Belle is the trajector and July is the landmark. However, it is obvious that the relation between the two is no longer spatial.

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Taking the idea of extension still further, in is often used in ways that are wholly metaphorical. Thus, speakers will readily produce utterances such as the following: (63) a. The professor is in a hurry this morning. b. Why are you in a bad mood? c. Do that again and you’ll find yourself in trouble. In cases such as these, the original, literal sense of a trajector as spatially located within and enclosed by a landmark seems to have disappeared entirely. The use of in here is fully metaphorical. I have spent some time looking at in in order to underline the polysemous nature of prepositions. Similar remarks might be made about many of the other most common prepositions in English. As another example, consider the use of on. In its prototypical use, on is often said to involve direct physical contact between a trajector and a landmark, with the former being supported by the latter, which itself often takes the form of a flat horizontal surface of some sort. Once again, this is a matter of spatial location: (64) The pen is on the table. We may regard this use of on as prototypical insofar as the pen is in contact with the table and supported by it, with the table itself providing a flat horizontal surface. However, it is not difficult to come up with examples in which on is used less prototypically. A case in point is (65). (65) The calendar is on the wall. Here, the fundamental spatial-locative meaning of on remains. But there are obvious differences from the prototypical case. While there is physical contact between the trajector and the landmark, the latter takes the form of a vertical surface rather than a horizontal one, and so we cannot truly say that it is the wall that is supporting the calendar. There must be some pin or nail from which the calendar is hanging. As with in, it is not difficult to find other occurrences of on in which the basic spatial sense seems to have been left far behind:

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(66) a. Don’t worry, I’ll be on time. b. Next week, we’ll be on vacation. I turn now to another important issue that throws further light on the meaning and use of prepositions in English. Several linguists have drawn attention to the difference that the presence or absence of a preposition may have within a construction. Let us return to one of our earlier examples, which I repeat here: (67) Eunice threw the stone at the window. Take a moment to picture this little scene in your mind. Visualize it. What happened? Did the stone hit the window? Not necessarily. All we know for sure is that Eunice threw the stone in the direction of the window. Perhaps she missed. Our uncertainty here over the outcome of Eunice’s action reflects a rather interesting linguistic phenomenon. In this example, we have two object NPs: the stone, which is the object of the verb throw, and the window, which is the object of the preposition. Now, it is a general semantic principle in English that objects of prepositions are interpreted as being unaffected by the action encoded in the verb. In consequence, it makes perfectly good sense to say that in (67), although Eunice threw the stone toward (in the direction of) the window, the window was not damaged. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this would be the most natural way to understand (67). If the speaker wishes to convey a different meaning, then probably he would specify this quite explicitly: (68) Eunice threw the stone at the window and smashed it. This important principle is worth repeating: Objects of prepositions are to be interpreted as being unaffected by the action encoded in the verb. This explains the difference in meaning that most EUEs will recognize between (69a) and (69b). (69) a. She kicked the dog. b. She kicked at the dog.

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What is the difference? I think most EUEs would agree that sentence (69a)—which, you will note, is a normal transitive clause—implies direct contact between the subject’s foot and the poor little canine; sentence (69b), in which the object is preceded by a preposition, implies the same physical movement but without the resulting contact. Berk notes that this is often the case when we use at, which, she says, tends to occur “in constructions in which intent of the agent isn’t realized or the action has an inconclusive result” (Berk, 1999, p. 192). However, the phenomenon is not limited to this one preposition. Think about the difference between the following two sentences: (70) (From Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 299) a. They roamed the woods. b. They roamed in the woods. Do you detect a difference in meaning? Certainly, many EUEs would. As Huddleston and Pullam (2002) put it, a sentence such as (70a), which has no preposition, “suggests a fuller coverage of the area” (p. 299) than does (70b), which does have a preposition. Dixon expresses the matter as follows: “If the activity referred to by a transitive verb does not achieve a definite result . . . then a preposition may be inserted between verb and O NP, to mark the deviation from an ‘ideal’ transitive event” (Dixon, 2005, pp. 297–98). The important concept of transitivity that Dixon refers to here will be discussed in detail in Chapter 6. Here, I simply note that an “ideal” transitive event would be one in which some action is transferred from one person or thing to another. To put it in concrete terms, sentence (69a) represents an “ideal” transitive event, in that the dog actually gets kicked (although, obviously, the situation it describes is not ideal for the dog!). On the other hand, (69b) is not “ideal” transitively, since no physical contact is made (even though the dog would presumably prefer this option). The phenomenon we are discussing is sometimes referred to as object demotion. The idea is that the insertion of a preposition has the effect of demoting the NP object, thereby lessening the transitivity of the clause and reducing the involvement of whatever real-world participant is identified by the noun. Here is another example: (71) (Adapted from Dixon, 2005) They fed us with junk food at that camp. As Dixon himself points out, in the case of (71), the presence of the preposition with allows us to read this to mean that although the junk food

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was provided, it was not consumed. In an ideal transitive event of “feeding,” we expect the foodstuff to be eaten. That would constitute a “definite result.” The insertion of the preposition cancels this expectation. Because of this, (72) makes perfectly good sense. (72) They fed us with junk food at that camp (but most of us didn’t eat it). On the other hand, in a sentence like (73), where there is no preposition, the natural understanding is that the vitamins were eaten (i.e., there was a definite result). (73) They fed us lots of vitamins. In consequence, the following is somewhat odd: (74) They fed us lots of vitamins (but most of us didn’t eat them). In much the same way, there is a marked difference in how we understand the following examples: (75) (From Dixon, 2005, p. 300) a. They climbed up the mountain. b. They climbed the mountain. In the case of mountain climbing, a definite result would presumably entail reaching the peak. However, in (75a), the presence of the preposition means that we can’t be sure whether this result was achieved; the climbers may or may not have ascended all the way to the peak of the mountain. In (75b), on the other hand, it is natural to assume that they reached the peak; the definite result was successfully achieved.

Further Reading Good, detailed discussions of determining words will be found in Quirk et al. (1985, Ch. 5) and Huddleston and Pullam (2002, Ch. 5). For prepositions, try Quirk et al. (1985, Ch. 9) and Huddleston and Pullam (2002, Ch. 7). Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999, Ch. 15) is devoted to articles, and (Ch. 21) offers a good survey of prepositions. A good, brief dis-

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cussion of determiners will be found in Berk (1999, pp. 57–67). Another excellent discussion of articles will be found in Yule (1998, Ch. 2). A booklength study of definiteness is provided by Lyons (1999). Readers interested in learning more about the cognitive grammar movement in linguistics, which I alluded to above, might like to try Langacker (1987, 1991, & 2000), or Taylor (2002).

Pa r t

II

Some Important Linguistic Concepts

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5 Participants, Functions, and Roles

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he previous four chapters have presented an overview of some of the major English syntactic categories, examining nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and determiners from a linguistic perspective, considering the patterns they display as well as some of the problems that arise in employing these categories. It will have probably occurred to you, however, that people normally do not speak in single words or isolated phrases. Instead, they employ more complex combinations involving clauses and sentences. I will be concerned with this in Part III. Before turning to these issues, in Part II, I want to address several ideas that must be absolutely central to a linguistically adequate account of English grammar. In this chapter, I discuss certain ideas that may not be familiar to you. They are, however, important and necessary concepts from a linguistic perspective. As I hope to show, they can significantly improve our understanding of the grammar of English and, I believe, provide teachers with new and valuable tools for explaining the grammar to their students. I begin my discussion here by returning to an issue already introduced, namely, that nouns and verbs combine to present situations (i.e., states, activities, proLinguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 155–186 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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cesses, or events). This leads to the introduction and detailed discussion of the notion of a participant within the situation. I examine this notion from two directions: Firstly, I look at the grammatical functions that participants typically have within a construction; secondly, I consider the semantic roles that participants carry within constructions.

Verbs and Participants A clause typically consists of a verb phrase (or VP) together with one or more NPs. Together, the VP and NP(s) describe a situation. Recall from my earlier discussion in Chapter 2 that, for linguists, situation is a neutral term denoting a state, activity, process, or event. Both of the example sentences in (1) describe a situation in this broad sense. (1) a. The ginger cat was sleeping. b. The ginger cat chased the poor little mouse. I am going to follow one recent linguistic trend in saying that the basic job performed by NPs is to identify participants in situations. I have already referred to this idea in the previous chapter, but now I want to say more about it. The term participant is a semantic notion. It refers to some thing, person, place, et cetera that is inherently or essentially involved in the situation described. Some linguists, particularly those of a formalist orientation, prefer to use the term argument for what I am calling a participant. For example, Culicover states that an argument of a verb is “a phrase that refers to some thing, person, place etc. that participates in the relation expressed by the verb” (2009, p. 20). This is a perfectly reasonable thing to say; however, I prefer to use the term participant, which strikes me as a less confusing term. The situation described in (1a) involves one participant, identified by the NP the ginger cat, and an event, signaled by the VP was sleeping. In the situation described in (1b), there are two participants, each identified by an NP, the ginger cat and the poor little mouse. Again, the verb, chased, describes an event within the situation. Most languages typically allow clauses containing only one participant, such as (1a), and clauses containing two participants, as in (1b). To use terms that you probably are familiar with, languages tend to allow both intransitive clauses like (1a) and transitive clauses like (1b). A detailed consideration of the difference between these two types of clause will be presented in the next chapter. Before that, in this chapter, I want to

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concentrate on the notion of the participant and how it relates to the verb in the clause. A very important preliminary point is that it is the verb that determines the nature and number of participants that appear in the clause. In fact, we have already seen this indirectly in one of our earlier sample sentences. You will recall that in discussing prepositions in the previous chapter, I offered the following example: (2) Eunice threw a stone. In looking at this example, I pointed out that in the situation as described there are two participants, identified by the NPs Eunice and a stone. I suggested that both participants are essential to successful communication of the message, meaning that in order to adequately convey what took place, the speaker must indicate both who did the throwing and what was thrown. Without either participant, the message would be incomplete and communication would fail. I now want to say that a verb such as throw selects (or, as we sometimes say, licenses) two participants. That is, throw requires that there be both a thrower and something thrown. It is a two-participant verb. We can see another case of this with the verb in the following sentence: (3) The prolonged dry weather killed Jon’s roses. As with throw, the verb kill selects two participants (in this case, the prolonged dry weather and Jon’s roses). This is really a matter of the semantics of the verb. Any real-world event of killing necessarily involves two participants, something that does the killing and something killed. This, of course, is the reason why both (4a) and (4b) are ungrammatical. (4) a. *The prolonged dry weather killed. b. *Killed Jon’s roses. To repeat, the point I am making is that the number of participants that appear in a clause depends on the verb. Verbs do not always select two participants. Some verbs, such as smile in (5a), select only one participant; others, such as give in (5b), select three.

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(5) a. The student smiled. b. Jon gave his roses some water. I will look at what it means to say verbs select the number of participants in greater detail in the next chapter. Here, I am more interested in what can be said about the participants themselves. As you are about to find, it is possible to describe participants in two ways. Firstly, they can be described in terms of their grammatical function; secondly, they can be described in terms of their semantic role.

The Idea of Grammatical Functions One way to describe the participants in a sentence is in terms of their grammatical function. This is an idea that linguists make great use of. It is vital to linguistic description. Its importance can be shown with another simple example: (6) The large dog chased the ginger cat. Here, we have a clause containing a verb and two participants. The first thing to notice is that the NPs that identify the participants in (6) have identical internal structures. Both are made up of a determining word (the article the), an adjective (large, ginger), and a noun (dog, cat). Importantly, however, these two NPs stand in different relations to the verb, chase. The first NP, the large dog, functions as subject to the verb; the second NP, the ginger cat, functions as an object: (7) The large dog chased the ginger cat . sub. obj. Modern English relies on word order to express the grammatical functions of participants. In a prototypical two-participant construction such as (7), the participant in the subject relation is signaled by the first NP in the clause, which is located in immediately pre-verbal position; the participant with an object function (if there is one) is signaled by the NP that comes in immediately post-verbal position. More complex constructions have additional participants, and these too have particular grammatical functions. For example, modern English allows a three-participant construction with

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a pre-verbal subject participant and two post-verbal object participants. In traditional accounts, the latter are distinguished by the terms direct object (DO) and indirect object (IO). (8) The professor loaned the student his favorite book . sub. IO DO Notice that in (8), the participant that functions as IO is actually positioned next to the verb, with the DO participant coming afterwards. Do not let this confuse you. If you think about the real-world situation described in (8), you will realize that it is the book that is directly affected here, being transferred from the professor to the student. Thus, the book really is the direct object, and the student—the person receiving the book—is the indirect object. This is perhaps clearer in the following alternative word order, which is sometimes possible with certain of these three-participant constructions (although not all of them): (9) The professor loaned his favorite book to the student. In real-world terms, we can say that the participant identified by the NP the student in (9) is the IO of the verb. However, in the next chapter, I will show that the syntactic behavior of an NP in this position is rather different than that of the same NP when it appears immediately after the verb, as in (8). For now, the main point is that in modern English, word order is a major clue to the grammatical functions of the various participants of a situation. It is very easy to show just how important word order is in a language such as English. The most obvious way of doing so is to consider how changing the order of the NPs in a sentence can lead to radically different interpretations. Look at sentences (10a) and (10b): (10) a. The large dog chased the ginger cat. b. The ginger cat chased the large dog. Notice that in (10a) the position of the NP the large dog before the verb naturally leads us to interpret this as the subject. In simple terms, we can say that this NP identifies the participant doing the chasing. Likewise, the position of the NP the ginger cat indicates that this is the object, or the par-

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ticipant, being chased. In (10b), the order is reversed and so our interpretation of which participant is doing the chasing and which one is being chased changes. The fact that a simple change in word order can result in a very different understanding of the situation confirms the importance of word order as a means of establishing the grammatical functions of participants in modern English. Many languages allow a rather freer word order than does modern English because they rely on other devices to signal the grammatical relations of verbs and participants. One particularly common device is case marking. According to one influential view, there is a strong tendency for SOV languages to use case marking for this purpose (see Greenberg, 1963). Korean is an example of an SOV language that uses precisely this strategy. In a Korean sentence, the grammatical relation in which an NP stands with a verb is signaled through the use of various suffixes. Hence, Korean subject NPs are marked with 이 (i) or 가 (ka), while object nouns are marked with 을 (ul) or 를 (rul). One important consequence of this is that—at least in principle—Korean permits greater variation in word order than does English. It is necessary to say “in principle,” however, since EUKs (or Expert Users of Korean!) would undoubtedly find some word orders preferable to others. Thus, the following two Korean sentences mean the same thing, despite the difference in their word orders: (11) a. 택용이는 나를 좋아해. (Taek Yong-i-neun na-rul joahae) “Taek Yong likes me.” b. 나를 좋아해 택용 (na-rul joahae Taek Yong-i-neun) “Taek Yong likes me.” Today, few EUEs realize that there was a time when English had a welldeveloped case marking system as well and (again, in principle) that the language permitted rather freer word order than it does today. In Modern English, however, case marking is almost entirely absent. As we saw in Chapter 1, it lingers on only in the pronoun system, which has distinctive forms for nominative case (I, we, etc.) and accusative case (me, us, etc.). This is another example of how the grammar of English has changed over the years. I will return to the idea of grammatical functions below. I now want to introduce another way of discussing participants in clauses.

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The Idea of Semantic Roles I have said that a sentence or clause presents a situation, with the verb identifying some action, event, or state and the NPs denoting the participants within the situation described. I have discussed the participants in terms of their grammatical functions. Linguists also talk about participants carrying semantic roles (otherwise known as thematic roles or theta roles). Here is another key concept that I think can be of use to teachers since it throws important light on the workings of the grammar and enables us to clarify our interpretations. One way of understanding this is to say that the semantic role indicates how a participant is involved in the situation described by the clause. To see what this means, let us return to our situation involving the large dog and the ginger cat: (12) The large dog chased the ginger cat . agent patient In (12), the subject NP, the large dog, has the role of agent (it is conventional to place semantic roles in small capitals) and the object NP, the ginger cat, has the role of patient. It is important to understand at the outset that the concepts of grammatical function and semantic role are distinct. One way of showing this is to think about the passive equivalent of (12), which is presented in (13). (13) The ginger cat was chased by the large dog . patient agent In (13), the order of the agent and patient is reversed. The patient now comes first, standing in a subject relation to the verb; the agent comes later. Thus, the relations in which the two NPs stand to the verb (and so their grammatical functions) have changed, but the semantic roles they express remain the same. In what follows, I will discuss some of the more common semantic roles in English in more detail. Before doing so, however, I need to offer a few words of warning. It is an unfortunate fact that linguists disagree over exactly how many semantic roles there are, and there is a tendency for terms and labels to proliferate. Furthermore, we should not be too rigid in our

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thinking about semantic roles. We will find it is not always an easy matter to define roles precisely; inevitably there will be occasions when some uncertainty creeps in. Thus, I am inclined to agree with Payne when he says that “semantic roles are not absolutely rigid categories, with clear boundaries” (Payne, 2010, p. 220). These roles should be viewed as labels that linguists employ as a means of describing certain semantic features of English grammar. With this in mind, I will not attempt a systematic and exhaustive account of semantic roles. Instead, I will limit myself to some fairly general remarks that I think most linguists would find acceptable.

The agent Semantic Role I have said that talking about semantic roles is one way of indicating how a participant is involved in the situation described by the clause. Thus, to say that an NP has an agent semantic role means that it refers to someone or something that performs a volitional or deliberate action. The key idea here is expressed in the words volitional and deliberate. Agency is a matter of deliberately choosing to do something. There is widespread agreement among contemporary linguists on this. Thus, Berk says, “An agent subject is an animate being that acts deliberately, with intent” (1999, p. 15); Huddleston and Pullam say, “The prototypical agent is animate and acts consciously, volitionally” (2002, pp. 230–31); and Payne says, “A prototypical agent is conscious, acts with volition (on purpose), and performs an action that has a physical, visible effect in the discourse world” (2010, p. 224). It follows that the best exemplars of this semantic role are NPs that refer to human beings since, during the course of our daily lives, we choose to perform all manner of actions. Of course, other non-human animals are capable of deliberate action as well. And so NPs referring to animals can also have an agent semantic role. Note, however, that given the definitions above, only animate beings can display agency. Inanimate objects can never be agents. Thus, if an NP refers to some inanimate entity (e.g., book, rock, banana, planet), it cannot have the semantic role of agent. Secondly, DUEs sometimes confuse the ideas of subject and agent. This is because they have been taught to define the subject as the “doer” of the action (i.e., an agent). It is true that, prototypically, an active declarative sentence will have an agent as subject, but do not let this mislead you. While very often the grammatical subject is an agent, it does not have to be. It is a simple task to come up with sample sentences in which the subject NP does not carry the semantic role of agent:

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(14) a. A portrait of the Queen as a young woman with a faraway look in her eyes hung on the wall. b. The professor felt annoyed. c. The ball was kicked by the boy. Let us think about these sentences in a little more detail. In sentence (14a), the idea of agency is impossible for the reason already mentioned: Agents must be animate since agency involves deliberate action. Quite obviously, a portrait is not animate; therefore, it is incapable of doing anything, deliberately or otherwise. As a result, the subject NP in this case cannot have the role of an agent. What about (14b)? Here, the NP the professor certainly refers to an animate being who is capable of deliberate action. But in this case, too, the NP does not have an agent role. Why not? The reason is that, in this particular situation, no action is taking place. Can we be said to be performing an action when we feel annoyed? Is it not more accurate to say that in such cases we are experiencing an emotion? Here, then, the idea of agency is simply inapplicable. In passing, we may note that this tells us something important: Semantic roles do not reflect inherent properties of NPs. They are not “fixed,” as it were. Rather, the semantic role carried by an NP depends to a large extent upon the verb employed in the description of the situation. Earlier, I spoke of verbs selecting or licensing the number of NP participants required in a clause; in a similar way, linguists will sometimes talk about verbs “assigning” roles to NPs. A good example of this is the verb murder, which necessarily assigns agent status to its subject. In other words, given what this verb means (i.e., the deliberate taking of life), it is not possible for its subject to have any other semantic role. It is instructive in this regard to compare murder with kill. An act of killing is not necessarily deliberate; in consequence, the subject participant of kill may or may not have an agent role. Think about my earlier example: The prolonged dry weather killed Jon’s roses. Here, the subject participant is not an agent since the dry weather did not deliberately choose to kill the roses. What is its role? I will answer that in a while. The passive construction in (14c) provides another example of how an NP can be a subject and yet not an agent. Here, the the ball occupies subject position and the boy occupies object position. But, clearly enough, in the situation described by this sentence, it is the boy doing the action, not the ball. Of course, this simply underscores the point I made above: Semantic roles and grammatical functions are distinct categories and should not be confused. No doubt you are asking yourself, if the NPs in (14) are

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not agents, what are they? Answering this question will require me to introduce some further semantic roles.

The theme Semantic Role Let us take another look at one of the sentences we have just been considering: (15) A portrait of the Queen as a young woman with a faraway look in her eyes hung on the wall. I have already said that the subject NP here refers to an inanimate entity, and therefore it cannot have an agent semantic role. What semantic role does it carry? Many linguists would say that the best way of categorizing the role of the portrait here is as a theme. A theme may be defined as an entity that is either simply present in a situation or one that, while it undergoes some action, is not changed in any way. Here is Payne once more: “A theme is a participant that moves, or is the locus of an action or property that does not undergo a change” (2010, p. 225). This would seem to be a good description of the portrait in (15). It is not acted upon or changed. It is simply there—existing, so to speak—on the wall. Below are two more examples of NPs with the semantic role of theme. Notice that in (16b) the file is moved but is otherwise unchanged by the action. Notice also that an NP with a theme role can function as an object (16b). (16) a. The file sat on the desk unopened. theme b. He placed the file on the desk. theme

The experiencer Semantic Role Now consider the following sentence once more: (17) The professor felt annoyed.

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What is the semantic role of the NP in this sentence? In discussing this above, I said that, in feeling annoyed, the professor was experiencing an emotion. That was a clue. In (17), the NP has an experiencer role. An experiencer may be defined as an animate being that has some sensory, emotional, or psychological experience. As Berk says, “Experiencer subjects are always animate, usually human. An experiencer experiences a sensory perception or a psychological state” (1999, p. 17). As with agents, only NPs that refer to animate participants can have an experiencer role. NPs referring to portraits, books, rocks, mountains and the like can never have this role. In fact, the most obvious contenders for the experiencer role are nouns that denote humans (professor, student, police officer, etc.), although it is also possible for certain non-human nouns to have this role (e.g., cat, dog, horse, etc.). What about nouns like fish, wasp, or ameba? Can these be experiencers? Intuitively, assigning experiencer status to these seems odd, although explaining why may not prove easy. Fortunately, we can leave this question to the philosophers! It is worth noting that the verbs that assign the experiencer role to participants tend to fall into certain broad categories. Firstly, in addition to annoy, there are certain “emotion” verbs such as delight, disappoint, and please: (18) The student’s assignment delighted/disappointed/pleased the professor . experiencer There are also what we might call “sensory” verbs, such as smell and taste: (19) The professor smelled/tasted the coffee. experiencer And there are “cognition” verbs, such as know, believe, remember, and so on: (20) The students knew/believed/remembered the answer. experiencer

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Earlier, I said that sometimes we may be uncertain over the semantic role of a participant. This is often the case with the sort of cognitive verbs I have just mentioned. As Payne comments, with this latter set of verbs, “the participant that ‘cognizes’ does so at least somewhat volitionally”; as a result, “we can say the main participant is ‘somewhat agentive’” (Payne, 2010, pp. 243–44). Nonetheless, these participants are not genuine agents since no action takes place when we know, or believe, or remember. They are, indeed, best thought of as experiencers. It is worth pointing out to your students that participants with an experiencer semantic role generally appear as subjects, although they can also have other relations to the verb, as you saw in (18) above.

The patient Semantic Role We now examine our passive sentence once more: (21) The ball was kicked by the boy. patient Here, the participant identified by the NP, the ball, has the semantic role of patient. A patient can be defined as an entity that undergoes or is affected by some action. Brinton says that a patient is “[t]he person or thing affected by an action, or the entity undergoing a change” (2000, p. 268). And Payne says, “A prototypical patient undergoes a visible, physical change in state” (2010, p. 225). It is the idea of change—of being affected—that distinguishes the patient role from the theme role. In passives such as (21), participants with a semantic role of patient stand in a subject relation to a verb. In active sentences, they have an object relation: (22) The boy kicked the ball . patient

Some Further Semantic Roles Agent, patient, theme, and experiencer are only some of the more common semantic roles that participants may carry. There are others. Some participants carry a causer role. A causer can be defined as an entity that acts upon or affects another without volition or intention. Berk says, “A

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causer is either an animate being who acts without volition or an inanimate entity” (1999, p. 16). The causer role is not to be confused with that of agent. As I noted, agency involves deliberation or volition. Causers do not act deliberately. Causers may be animate and, indeed, human, since we sometimes affect others without intending to. However, perhaps the best examples of NPs with a causer role are those referring to inanimate forces (e.g., wind, storm, rain, etc.). Interestingly, Brinton, who calls this role a force, limits it to “the inanimate cause of an action, which does not act by will or volition” (Brinton, 2000, p. 267). As I have said, however, humans can also be causers. We have already met an example of a causer participant in this chapter: (23) The prolonged dry weather killed Jon’s roses. causer As its name suggests, the instrument role is carried by participants designated by NPs such as key, saw, or hammer. Notice that these nouns refer to inanimate items that are employed to fulfill some task. According to Brinton, the label instrument is used for “the means by which an event is caused, or the tool, generally inanimate, used to carry out an action”; she adds that “an instrument does not act but is acted upon” (2000, p. 267). Huddleston and Pullam state that the instrument is “the role of an entity prototypically used by an agent in performing an action” (2002, p. 231). Payne has this to say: “An instrument is something that causes an action indirectly. Normally an agent acts upon an instrument and the instrument accomplishes the action” (2010, p. 226). Here are some examples of instrument participants: (24) a. The key unlocked the door. instrument b. The saw easily cut the wood. instrument c. The hammer drove the nail into the wall instrument As the quotation from Payne above indicates, an instrument is invariably used by some agent. Yet, as the examples in (24) make clear, it is possible for this agent to be omitted. When this occurs, the NP carrying the instrument role occupies the subject position and the agent is implicit.

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Having said this, however, we should note that instrument subjects are relatively unusual in English. NPs carrying this role are much more likely to be found as objects or else in prepositional phrases where they function as the complement of the preposition: (25) a. Hye Eun wrote her assignment with her new pen . instrument b. Hye Eun used her laptop to write her assignment. instrument c. Hye Eun sent her assignment by email . instrument Another common semantic role is that of locative. As you might expect, an NP carrying this role will refer to a place at which or in which some action occurs; by extension, NPs referring to times can also be considered to have this role.1 In the sentence, A portrait of the Queen as a young woman with a faraway look in her eyes hung on the wall, the NP the wall has a locative role. For obvious reasons, there is a strong tendency for locative NPs to function as complements of prepositions, although they can appear elsewhere: (26) a. There were a lot of students in the classroom . locative b. The classroom contained a lot of students. locative c. Students filled the classroom . locative Yet another common semantic role is that of recipient. A recipient may be defined quite straightforwardly as a participant who receives something. Very often, NPs with this role stand in an IO relation to the verb (27a); they can also appear as complements of prepositions (27b); in passives, the recipient participant is in subject position (27c). (27) a. Lisa gave her boyfriend a CD. recipient

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b. Lisa gave a CD to her boyfriend . recipient c. Lisa’s boyfriend was given a CD. recipient The beneficiary (or benefactive) role is the label given to a participant that benefits from some action. In Brinton’s words, it is “the person or thing for which an action is performed or the person who derives something from the actions of another” (2000, p. 268). Usually, NPs carrying this role appear as complements of prepositions (and the preposition is almost always for). NPs with a subject relation to the verb can never carry this role. Here are some examples of NPs carrying the semantic role of beneficiary: (28) a. Jay wrote the letter for his mother . beneficiary b. Jay mended the window for his neighbor . beneficiary Table 5.1 summarizes the semantic roles I have discussed above.

Table 5.1  The Major Semantic Roles in English Semantic Role

Definition

Agent

An animate being that performs a volitional (i.e., deliberate) action An entity that undergoes or is affected by an action An animate being that has a sensory or psychological experience An entity that is present in a situation but not affected in any way An entity that acts upon or affects another without volition or intention An inanimate object that is employed to fulfill a task A place (or time) at or in which an action occurs An animate being that receives something An entity that benefits from an action

Patient Experiencer Theme Causer Instrument Locative Recipient Beneficiary

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I have already noted that the semantic role carried by an NP can sometimes be uncertain. I want to return to this thought for a moment. Consider the following case: (29) The student tripped the professor. As it stands, the situation described in (29) is ambiguous. Specifically, the participant identified by the NP the student might have either an agent role (if, for some reason, the student deliberately tripped the professor) or a causer role (if it was an accident). Of course, the insertion of an appropriate adverb, such as deliberately or accidentally, would indicate whether the action was done on purpose or not and so make the semantic role of the subject participant transparent. I would suggest, however, that in reality, cases of genuine uncertainty are likely to be quite rare. The apparent problem arises simply from the longstanding habit of examining sentences in isolation. Thus, when we place (29) in a larger discourse context, there is no ambiguity and the semantic role of the student becomes clear. Thus, in (30a), the student carries a causer role; in (30b), it carries an agent role. (30) causer a. Hurrying out of the classroom, the careless student tripped the professor who was entering. agent b. After reading her score, the disgruntled student tripped the professor who had given her a poor grade. In the Classroom: Participants, Functions, and Roles The ideas introduced in this chapter are conceptually demanding. Nonetheless, notions such as participants, grammatical functions, and semantic roles are an important aspect of current linguistic description, and I would argue that language teachers need to understand these concepts if they are going to explain certain central features of English grammar. Indeed, I would go further. Provided it is introduced in an appropriate manner and handled with care, the terminology discussed above could be of real pedagogical benefit, and there seems to be no obvious reason why it cannot be employed with learners in the classroom. The first of these ideas—the participant—is fairly straightforward and

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should not present too many difficulties for DUEs, once they have attained a suitable level of cognitive maturity. I would suggest that it makes sense to communicate this idea by initially focusing on familiar verbs such as kill and throw, as I have done in the text. The main point here is that realworld events of killing and throwing necessarily involve two participants. From here, it is a short step to the idea that it is the verb that determines (or selects) the number of participants. As will emerge in the next chapter, an additional benefit of introducing the idea of participants is that it will enable our students to more readily come to terms with other important concepts such as transitivity and intransitivity. The idea of grammatical functions should also not present too many challenges for students. Indeed, some DUEs may be familiar with this notion already. However, as I have hinted already and go on to discuss further in the text below, there are certain pitfalls that must be avoided when discussing grammatical functions in the classroom. One particularly important issue is the necessity to avoid the suggestion that subjects are “doers” of actions. Unfortunately, this is something that many learners of English are taught; and, for reasons that will emerge below, it is quite simply wrong. Subjects do not necessarily “do” anything. Of the three concepts discussed, that of semantic roles is potentially the most difficult to handle in a classroom setting. In fact, DUEs may have some difficulty appreciating the need for semantic roles at all. One way to make clear their importance is by comparing active and passive sentences as I did above. By doing so, students can be brought to see that while semantic roles and grammatical functions overlap, they are not the same thing. It is also very important that the various roles be carefully defined. This will prevent considerable confusion and enable learners to identify roles more successfully in specific instances. One simple way of working on the ideas of functions and roles together would be to present students with the task of labeling sentences, marking them for both the grammatical functions they display and the semantic roles of the participants, as in the following example: subject object The dog chased the cat . agent patient

The Subject in English Having spent some time considering the major semantic roles of participants in English, we are in a position to say something more about the major grammatical relations that participants can have with a verb. I begin

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with a more detailed discussion of the most important grammatical function in English, namely, the subject. I have already mentioned that English relies almost entirely on word order to establish the grammatical relations in which participants stand to verbs. Studies have revealed that adult native speakers of English have a very strong tendency to assume that the noun or NP that comes before the main verb is the subject of the verb. It has been shown, in fact, that adult English native speakers have a tendency to interpret the pre-verbal NP as subject even when the sentence as a whole is ungrammatical or nonsensical. (For a discussion, see MacWhinney, 2001.) What is a subject? As I have already noted, it is common to find that DUEs have been taught to think of the subject as the “doer” or “performer” of the action described by the verb. (In terms of semantic roles, they have been taught to think that subjects are always agents.) In fact, this is a very unsatisfactory way of approaching the issue. Why? Because many words that stand in a grammatical subject relation to a verb do not refer to a “doer” at all. To see this, consider the sad little story below. (Subject NPs are in italics.)



(31) a. The large dog chased the little boy. b. Hurriedly, he scrambled up a nearby tree. c. He was terrified. d. Soon, it began to grow dark, e. but still he didn’t dare climb down.

There are five subjects here, one for each clause. Now ask yourself which of these subjects can sensibly be thought of “doers” (i.e., performers of some action?). The first two sentences seem obvious enough. Clearly, the dog in (31a) is a doer, since it performed the action of chasing. Similarly, in (31b), the boy (here represented by the anaphoric pronoun he) is a doer, since he performed the action of climbing. After that, however, things become rather less clear-cut. In (31c), the grammatical subject is again in the form of the pronoun, standing in anaphoric relation to the antecedent NP, the little boy; but someone can hardly be said to be performing an action in being terrified. It is more accurate to say that in such cases, one is experiencing an emotion rather than performing an action. In consequence, then, the idea of “doing” something is inapplicable, and yet, clearly, the pronoun has a subject relation to the verb. What about (31d), in which the grammatical subject is the pronoun it? Leaving aside the question of what this pronoun is referring to, it is surely obvious that when we say “It began to get dark” we are not refer-

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ring to any kind of deliberate action. Once again, then, our subject pronoun is not referring to any kind of doer. Finally, in (31e), the pronoun he again makes anaphoric reference to the poor terrified boy. But notice here that the sentence is negative. In other words, the boy is not doing anything. No action is being performed. Therefore, the subject is not a “doer.” The point of the preceding discussion is that, while it is probably true that a prototypical subject participant is an agent, it is an error to define a subject in these terms. Not all subjects are agents. Certainly, many subjects do have this role, but, as I have already indicated, it is also possible for subjects to have many other roles, such as experiencer, causer, instrument, and locative. Given this, the traditional notion of a subject as the “doer” or “performer” seems unhelpful—indeed, positively misleading. How, then, can we define a subject if not in terms of agency or as the doer of some action? From a linguistic perspective, a far more reliable means of answering this question is to say, as I did above, that in English the subject is typically the first NP in a sentence, appearing in front of the main verb. This might be stated in the form of a basic principle: In an English declarative sentence, the subject is prototypically the NP in immediately pre-verbal position. This requires some comment. This is a deliberately simplified definition. A second property of English subjects is that they control the form of the verb that follows. As you know, in the present simple, a 3rd-person singular subject requires a different verb ending (e.g., she walks) than the 1st- and 2nd-person subjects, singular or plural (e.g., I walk, you walk, we walk, they walk). Note, however, that this feature is only “visible” in a clause containing a present simple verb, whereas the definition above applies to all clauses. Notice also that the principle above specifies declarative sentences. A declarative sentence is a sentence that describes or reports some state of affairs. This specification is important since, in other types of sentences, the subject NP may not appear in pre-verbal position. For example, in interrogatives (or questions), the subject comes after the first auxiliary but before the main verb: (32) a. Was she frustrated? b. Where have all the students gone? There are other cases in which the subject is not in pre-verbal position. Consider the following:

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(33) a. A ginger cat sat in the tree. b. In the tree sat a ginger cat. While (33a) is a prototypical declarative, (33b) is non-prototypical in that a prepositional phrase appears in pre-verbal position; nonetheless, it is clear that it is the NP a ginger cat that is the subject. Sentences like (33b) may be somewhat unusual. Nonetheless, they are grammatical and, from time to time, we do encounter them. My point is simply to note that the subject does not occupy pre-verbal position in every sentence, even though it remains the case that this is where the subject will most often be found. It is also worth noting that in another type of sentence, the imperative (i.e., sentences that convey commands or instructions), there may not be an overt subject at all: (34) a. Sit down! b. Eat your vegetables! I will discuss these types of utterances in more detail below. There are also certain non-prototypical sentence types in which the subject is not an NP at all. A case in point is where the subject is an entire clause: (35) That Nancy was intelligent was immediately apparent to all the professors. It is easy to show that the clause beginning with that functions as the subject in (35) by means of a simple substitution procedure. Notice that we can replace the clause with an NP that everyone will agree is a subject, as with the answer in (36). (36) The answer was immediately apparent to all the professors. Finally, note that a subject can be quite complicated, consisting of two or more NPs combined into what traditional grammarians would call a compound subject. In the following example, taken from a recent work by a phi-

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losopher in an American university, the writer is referring to the beliefs of the African tribe to which he himself belongs: (37) (From Appiah, 2007, p. 35) Asante beliefs about spirits and beliefs about witchcraft are extensive, complex, and interconnected.

Must We Have a Subject? The short answer to this question is . . . Yes. In English, an overt grammatical subject is obligatory. As you may well be aware, this is not the case for all languages. For example, Korean does not require overt grammatical subjects. Typically, Korean speakers will omit subjects where the context allows them to do so. Linguists will sometimes divide languages into two very broad groups along precisely these lines, one group consisting of languages that insist on an overt subject (these are sometimes referred to as subjectdominant or subject-prominent languages) and the other group consisting of languages that do not insist on an overt subject (sometimes called nullsubject languages). You may be interested to know that among the world’s languages there are very few that are indisputably subject-dominant. English just happens to be one of them. Further light can be thrown on what subject-dominance means by considering Table 5.2, which offers a cross-linguistic comparison of the behavior of different languages in this respect. If you take a moment to examine the data presented in Table 5.2, certain things should strike you. Starting with the left-hand column, the first thing you are likely to notice is that in English, there is minimal verb inflection. Only the 3rd-person singular form of the verb changes (speak + -s); all the other forms of the verb are the Table 5.2  Cross-Linguistic Comparison of Present Simple in English, French, and Turkish English

French

Turkish

I speak English. You speak English. She speaks English. We speak English. You speak English. They speak English.

Je parle Anglais. Tu parles Anglais. Elle parle Anglais. Nous parlons Anglais. Vous parlez Anglais. Ils parlent Anglais.

(Ben) İngilizce konuşurum. (Sen) İngilizce konuşursun. (O) İngilizce konuşur. (Biz) İngilizce konuşuruz. (Siz) İngilizce konuşursunuz. (Onlar) İngilizce konuşurlar.

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same (speak). And, significantly, in English, even with the 3rd-person, an overt subject is necessary. The bare verb *speaks is obviously ungrammatical. Moving on to French, we find a rather richer inflectional system. French verbs in the present simple display several different forms, reflecting differences in person and number (e.g., parle, parles, parlons, parlez, and parlent). But notice also that French requires an overt subject just as English does. Bare verb forms such as *parlons or *parlez are ungrammatical in French, even though they are inflected for person. You may feel that in a language like French, which has a relatively rich inflectional system, an overt subject is redundant. In theory, marking the verb in the appropriate manner ought to be enough. However, that is not how French grammar works. Languages are not always logical! The grammatical feature we have just noted confirms that both English and French are subject-dominant languages, requiring an overt subject. Now look at Turkish, which is an example of a language with a very rich inflectional system. Notice that all persons, singular and plural, have their own verb form (e.g., konuşurum, konuşursun, konuşur, konuşuruz, konuşursunuz, and konuşurlar). Notice, too, that an overtly mentioned subject is optional (hence my use of brackets). In fact, Turkish speakers will normally mention the subject overtly only when they wish to make an emphatic point. Thus, İngilizce konuşurum has the sense of “I speak English,” whereas Ben İngilizce konuşurum would have the sense of “I speak English (but he doesn’t).” I have been maintaining that English is an example of a subject-dominant language that insists on an overt subject. This effectively means that in every English clause there must be something that is identified as a subject. Again, we can state this in the form of a principle: Every English clause must contain an overt subject.

An alternative way of expressing the same essential point might be to think back to what I said earlier about verbs selecting their participants. Let us say that in English, there are no “zero participant” verbs. In other words, every verb in English necessarily involves at least one participant. But you may be wondering whether this is really true. It may have occurred to you already that there are some apparently exceptional cases where English seems to allow a clause without an overt subject. Think about the following examples, which, on the face of it, seem to be exceptions to the overt subject principle in English:

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(38) a. Go to bed! b. Be quiet! c. Sit down! These are examples of the imperative construction that I briefly noted above. Imperatives are typically used to express commands or to get someone to do something. Do sentences such as these break our obligatory subject rule? Where is the participant in these examples? I suggest that it is another case where it is important to keep in mind the context of use. We need to be sensitive to how such utterances are typically used, the kind of discourse setting in which they are likely to be found. In my introduction, I suggested that linguists have become increasingly interested in the grammar of spoken English as well as written English. This is a case in point. I would maintain that, more often than not, sentences like the above will occur in spoken rather than written discourse. This is significant. Very often, in speech we will cut corners, leaving out bits of the grammar when the context makes them unnecessary. Thus, we can readily imagine that the above imperatives are likely to be used where one person (perhaps an exasperated parent) is addressing another (a misbehaving child, let us say). In such cases, where the imperative utterance is part of an ongoing discourse, the intended subject is understood by both parties to the dialogue to be the person being addressed, even though it is not overtly mentioned. Thus, the clear meanings of such utterances are: “You must go to bed,” “You must be quiet,” and “You must sit down.” What I am suggesting is that once we take context into account, we see that such sentences do not infringe the principle that every English sentence must have an overt subject. The fact that they appear to do so simply reflects the way in which English speakers use their language when engaged in real conversations. If we disregard imperatives, it is noteworthy that, even when they are engaged in informal discourse, EUEs generally abide by the principle that every clause in English must have a subject. This is shown in (39). (39) A: Have you completed your assignment? B: I have. B’s reply to A’s question is an example of an elliptical utterance. B does not need to provide an entire clause, like “I have completed my assign-

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ment.” The subject pronoun, I, and the auxiliary, have, is sufficient to communicate her message, with everything else left implicit. The omission of linguistic elements in this manner is highly characteristic of spoken English and, it must be emphasized, entirely grammatical. The point I wish to draw attention to right now, however, is that, even with so much omitted as unnecessary, B’s utterance still has a subject. This is highly significant. If B had replied in the following manner, omitting the subject, she would have produced something obviously ungrammatical:2 (40) A: Have you completed your assignment? B: *have All this seems clear enough and supports my basic contention that English is a truly subject-dominant language. But what about an utterance such as (41)? This, too, seems to lack an obvious subject participant: (41) In the cupboard. Again, the key to making sense of this is to recognize that, once more, this is case of ellipsis (i.e., the omission of linguistic elements) and to think about a likely context for such an utterance. As with imperatives, I suggest that an utterance such as (41) is far more likely to occur in speech than it is in writing, and that it would probably be produced in response to a quite specific question such as, “Do you know where my umbrella is?” Given such a context, it makes perfectly good sense as it stands. In other words, we can think of (41) as a shorthand form of a longer, underlying utterance such as (42). (42) A: Do you know where my umbrella is? B: Your umbrella is in the cupboard. This underlying utterance does contain an overt subject, the NP your umbrella. As with the previous examples, it is the shared context—the fact that both people in the discourse know what is being discussed—that allows the second speaker to omit it. As such, our original utterance in (41) cannot be said to break our principle about English requiring overt subjects. As I have suggested, the above examples may be thought of as characteristic of spoken grammar since it is here that such elliptical utterances are

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most common. What about written grammar? Are there circumstances in which a subject may be omitted in writing as well? There are. One obvious circumstance is when two clauses with co-referential subjects are linked by a coordinating conjunction. Here are some illustrations: (43) a. Minyoung entered the office and Ø smiled at Young Shin. b. Minyoung entered the office but Ø didn’t stay long. c. Minyoung entered the office yet Ø left again at once. Here, the subject of the second clause after the coordinating word (and, but, yet) is omitted since it is understood to be co-referential with the subject of the first clause. Under such conditions, it would be redundant to mention the subject a second time (although a pronoun could be employed). In fact, although it would not be strictly ungrammatical, mentioning the subject again would sound rather odd: (44) ?Minyoung entered the office and Minyoung smiled at Young Shin. To repeat: The point I am making is that, despite certain apparently exceptional cases, we can confidently say that English is a subject-dominant language, requiring that there is something fulfilling the grammatical function of subject in every clause.3

Non-referential Subjects In the previous section, I said that, as a subject-dominant language, English requires the subject slot to be filled for a sentence to be grammatical. Or, in other words, every English verb selects at least one participant. This raises a further important issue, namely, the use English makes of socalled non-referential subjects. English grammar allows two non-referential subjects, it and there. Nonreferential it is very common, particularly in “weather” expressions such as the following:



(45) a. It’s raining. b. It was sunny earlier, but now it’s a little cloudy. c. It’s humid in Istanbul in the summer. d. Last week, it froze.

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Why do I call these cases of non-referential it ? I will approach this idea indirectly by first looking at a case where the subject word clearly does have reference. Consider the little dialogue in (46). (46) A: Has the water boiled yet? B: It’s just started. Here, obviously enough, the pronoun it in B’s reply refers to the NP the water, which is the topic of A’s question. As you saw in Chapter 1 when I discussed pronouns, this is the normal job of 3rd-person pronouns, which typically serve as anaphors for NP antecedents. In (46), then, the pronoun has reference, being co-referential with the preceding NP. Now look at another case: (47) A: Shall we go to the park? B: We can’t. It’s just begun to rain! What NP could be the antecedent of it in B’s reply this time? There is only one other NP mentioned in this dialogue, namely, the park. But this cannot be right. If it were, we would be able to replace B’s pronoun with this NP; yet this plainly makes no sense: (48) A: Shall we go to the park? B: ?We can’t. The park has just begun to rain! On the face of it, this is strange. You may think that an NP such as the weather or the sky is the antecedent here. But even if we ignore the fact that these have not been already mentioned and thus cannot be antecedents, we would not normally produce utterances such as “The weather is raining”; and we certainly wouldn’t say “The sky is raining”! The truth is that, unlike the it in (46), the pronoun in (47) has no obvious antecedent. It is an example of non-referential it (sometimes called empty it, dummy it, or ambient it). The pronoun here is semantically empty. It carries no meaning and we cannot replace it with an appropriate NP. Here is another example, once more presented in the context of a short conversational exchange:

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(49) A: Would you like to go to the park this afternoon? B: Not really. It’s always so crowded in the park on a Sunday. Once again, ask yourself what antecedent does the pronoun have here? The only contender is the NP, the park. However, attempting to substitute this for the pronoun demonstrates once more that this cannot be what the pronoun refers to: (50) A: Would you like to go to the park this afternoon? B: ?Not really. The park is always so crowded in the park on a Sunday. As before, the oddity of B’s reply in (50) is an indication that it here is nonreferential. I have already noted that the use of non-referential it is extremely common in modern English. In addition to weather expressions (“It’s raining”) and comments about what we might rather vaguely refer to as the ambient environment (“It’s always so crowded in the city”), non-referential it is found in a number of other expressions, particularly those involving time (51a) and distance (51b): (51) a. It’s eleven thirty. b. It’s 200 kilometers to Abu Dhabi. In the case of (51a), you may feel that the pronoun is referential, since it seems to be possible to replace it with an NP such as the time (e.g., “The time is eleven thirty”). However, this is misleading. Consider what happens when we form a question here: “What time is it?” is perfectly grammatical, but “What time is the time?” is very strange. This suggests that the it in our original example is not referential after all. The obvious question is why English has non-referential it. In fact, you know the answer to this already. As a subject-dominant language, English requires the subject position to be filled. Thus, when we want to comment on the weather, we find ourselves saying things like (52a) and not things like (52b):

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(52) a. It’s raining. b. *is raining! To express this otherwise, because all English verbs require at least one participant, (51b) is not a grammatical utterance. We saw above that French is also a subject-dominant language and, not surprisingly, it also has this requirement. Thus, the French equivalent of (52a) is “Il pleut,” with the pronoun il performing precisely the same function as non-referential it in English—it is a placeholder filling the subject position even though it does not refer to anything. By way of contrast, because it is not a subjectdominant language, Italian does not require this. The Italian equivalent of the English “It’s raining” is a bare verb “Piove”.4 As well as non-referential it, English also allows the use of there as a non-referential subject. You will not be surprised to learn that this works in exactly the same way as non-referential it and has the same purpose, being used to fill the subject position. The following example illustrates this: (53) a. A stranger appeared in the doorway. b. There appeared a stranger appeared in the doorway. c. *Appeared a stranger appeared in the doorway. Sentence (53a) is a prototypical utterance in which the subject position is filled by an NP, a stranger. Sentence (53b) is an example of what is sometimes called a presentational (or existential) utterance. Constructions of this sort can best be understood as a way of introducing new, significant participants into the discourse. What is of immediate interest to us is that in (53b) this NP has moved to post-verbal position with non-referential there taking its place, filling the available subject slot. Without something in this position, the sentence is ungrammatical, as (53c) makes clear. It is important to see that this use of there is quite different from its use in the following example: (54) I hate going to the bank. I always have to wait for ages when I go there. In (54), there does have reference (it is co-referential with the antecedent NP the bank) and would usually be regarded as having an adverbial function, expressing a location. The difference between this referential there and the non-referential there we see in (55) should be clear.

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(55) There was a call for you while you were at the bank. Interestingly, and possibly confusingly for DUEs, non-referential there can take either a singular or a plural verb. We can see this by comparing the following two sentences: (56) a. There is a professor in the program who comes from England. b. There are three professors in the program. Non-referential there is especially common with the verb be, as in the examples in (56). But it can also occur with several other verbs, including verbs of “existence” or “position” such as exist, live, and dwell; verbs describing something happening or materializing such as appear, arise, and emerge; and verbs of “motion” or “direction” such as approach, come, and near. Representative examples are given in (57). (57) a. There once lived a beautiful princess. b. After much discussion, there emerged a consensus. c. Over the hill there approached a horseman. I have noted the unfortunate fact that DUEs are often taught to think of subjects as carrying an agent semantic role. It is true that often subjects are agents. But not always. The NP identifying the subject participant of a sentence can carry several different semantic roles. In addition to agent (58a) we find subjects with the role of patient (58b), experiencer (58c), causer (58d), instrument (58e), theme (58f) and (58g), and recipient (58h), although some of these may be more commonly encountered than others.



(58) a. The vicious dog bit the unfortunate man. b. The unfortunate man was bitten by the vicious dog. c. Ran Kyung smelt smoke wafting down the hallway. d. The heavy rain led to extensive flooding. e. The tweezers successfully removed the splinter. f. The book remained unread on the bookshelves. g. The office was ridiculously warm. h. Soyeon received first prize at the end of the program.

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I will end this discussion of the subject function in English with a few brief remarks about the use of subjects in discourse. The main purpose of subjects in English is to identify and refer to the topic of the discourse. In simple terms, the topic is what the discourse is about. Normally, a new topic is introduced in the predicate and then moved to subject position as the discourse unfolds. See how this works in the following stretch of discourse (which happens to be true!): (59) I was taught phonology by Professor Gillian Brown at the University of Cambridge. She was a fine teacher. But she could be quite intimidating. However, she was really nice once you got to know her a little. Now she even lets me call her “Gill”! Here, a new topic (Professor Gillian Brown) is introduced in the predicate of the first sentence, where it is the complement of the preposition. Then, in the second sentence, this newly introduced topic moves to subject position (taking the form of the anaphoric pronoun she) with the predicate was a fine teacher providing a comment on this topic. In the two remaining sentences, the topic is maintained through the continued use of the pronoun as subject.

Objects in English I have spent some time considering various aspects of the subject since it is such an important notion in English grammar. I turn now to a somewhat briefer consideration of the object in English. Above, I made the point that English relies on word order to a large extent in order to identify the grammatical relations that participants have towards the verb. This led me to posit as a simple principle that the subject is (usually) the NP that appears in immediately pre-verbal position. We can offer a similar principle for the object: In an English sentence, the object is prototypically the NP in immediately post-verbal position.

Once again, this principle requires some comment. First of all, there is no need to specify declarative sentences in this definition. This is because, unlike the subject, objects do not move from their customary position in interrogatives. As the following sentences make clear, in both the declarative and the interrogative, the object NP comes after the verb:

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(60) a. The ginger cat was hunting the poor mouse. b. Was the ginger cat hunting the poor mouse? However, we do occasionally find objects that have been moved from their default position. As we will discuss below, in certain non-prototypical constructions, they can appear in front of the subject. Notice again that I am maintaining that a prototypical object will be an NP. This is certainly true, although objects can take other forms, even appearing as clauses: (61) He decided that it was a bad idea. Moreover, I have emphasized that it is possible for there to be more than one object in a construction. In a sentence such as (62), we have what is traditionally called a direct object. (62) She ate the kimchi. Prototypically, a participant standing in a DO relation to the verb will be affected by the action of the verb. The NP kimchi in (62) is a prototypical DO since it is obviously affected by the action of eating. In other words, a prototypical DO will be a patient. It makes good sense to think of this as the “default” role for DO participants. Like subjects, however, objects can have several different semantic roles, including that of experiencer (63a), locative (63b), and theme (63c). (63) a. The students’ laziness annoyed the professor. b. Students filled the classroom. c. In the center of the table stood a glass vase. In (64) we have a double-object construction. (64) She sent her mother the kimchi. In this construction, the kimchi is still the DO (despite the fact that it comes in sentence-final position) and her mother is the IO. Semantically,

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a prototypical IO identifies some entity that receives the entity identified by the DO. In other words, a prototypical IO refers to a participant with a recipient role. Must we have an object? No. There is not the same grammatical necessity for an object that there is for a subject. Above, I said that there are no “zero participant” verbs in English. Every verb in English selects at least one participant. However, some verbs select only one participant. For reasons which I hope are now apparent, in those cases, the participant will stand in the subject relation to the verb, and there will be no object. In short, whether or not a construction contains an object is largely determined by the nature of the verb. Some verbs select only one participant, and so clauses containing such verbs will lack an object; some verbs select two participants, and clauses with these verbs will have objects. This will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter when I turn to a consideration of transitivity and intransitivity.

Further Reading Most introductory textbooks will cover grammatical functions. Semantic roles are discussed less frequently. Huddleston and Pullam (2002, pp. 228– 233) is a good account. Another accessible account will be found in Berk (1999, pp. 14–23 & 27–30). A rather more detailed discussion is Payne (2010, Ch. 5).

6 Transitivity and Intransitivity

I

n this chapter, I will focus primarily on describing sentences in terms of their clause structure. At the outset, therefore, is will be useful to establish what a clause is. Here is a simple definition: A clause is a unit of syntax consisting (minimally) of a subject and verb.

Like many languages, English makes a basic distinction between transitive and intransitive clauses. A transitive clause is a clause in which the verb is obligatorily followed by an object; an intransitive clause is one in which there is no obligatory object following the verb. This distinction is fundamental to an understanding of clauses in English, and teachers need to pay careful attention to it. Many of the clause types with which you may already be familiar are subtypes of these two types of clause. Consider the following examples: (1) Intransitive Clauses a. Simple: Monica was working. b. Extended: Monica was working all night. c. Complex: Her assignment seemed perfect. Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 187–221 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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(2) Transitive Clauses a. Simple: Monica finished her assignment. b. Extended: Monica sent the professor her assignment. c. Complex: The professor found the assignment fascinating. The clause Monica was working in (1a) is a simple intransitive clause for the reason already given: There is no obligatory element following the verb, that is, the predicate consists of a verb (was working) and nothing else. It is, of course, possible to add further linguistic material after the verb. For example, you could produce an utterance such as (1b): Monica was working all night. I refer to this clause as an extended intransitive clause because this additional information (the phrase all night) does not alter the essential intransitivity of the construction; there is no object here. The clause in (1c), Her assignment seemed perfect, is a complex intransitive clause (or copula clause). In this case, the verb seem is followed by a predicative complement, perfect, rather than an object. The fact that the verb is followed by a predicative complement and not an object is what makes it a complex intransitive clause. Conversely, the clause Monica finished her assignment in (2a) is a simple transitive clause since, here, the verb finish is followed by an object (her assignment). In (2b), the clause Monica sent the professor her assignment is an example of what is often referred to as a ditransitive clause. Common though this label is, it disguises the fact that what we have here is really a subtype of transitive clause. I will call it an extended transitive clause because the verb sent is followed by two objects (the professor and her assignment). Finally, in (2c), The professor found the assignment fascinating is an example of a complex transitive clause in which the predicator is followed by both an object (the assignment) and a predicative complement (fascinating). To sum up, the key point is that English makes a fundamental two-way distinction between intransitive and transitive clauses, with other familiar clause types being subtypes of these. Any discussion of the grammar of English needs to pay careful attention to the distinction between transitivity and intransitivity. Therefore, in the next section, I will take a more detailed look at what these all-important grammatical concepts involve.

What Does Transitivity Involve? Consider the following comment: The category of transitivity applies to both clauses and verbs; I fainted is an intransitive clause because it contains no object, and faint is an intransitive verb because it has no object as dependent. More precisely, transitivity applies

Transitivity and Intransitivity    189 to uses of verbs, for although faint is always intransitive many verbs can occur either with or without an object. (Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 216)

Huddleston and Pullam are correct. Traditional grammatical descriptions will often refer to transitivity as a matter of different subcategories of verbs. According to this view, there is a subcategory of transitive verbs (verbs such as throw, hurt, touch, etc.) that must always take an object; and there is another subcategory of intransitive verbs (verbs like fall or sit) that can never take an object. There is much to be said for this way of viewing transitivity, and from time to time in the following discussion I will speak of transitive and intransitive verbs. Nonetheless, as the quotation above indicates, the concept of transitivity also applies to clauses. It was with this in mind that I deliberately began my discussion by talking about transitive and intransitive clauses, not verbs. Indeed, in some ways, it makes more sense to think of transitivity as a clause-level phenomenon, inasmuch as there are many verbs that can readily appear in either a transitive or an intransitive clause. Therefore, as Huddleston and Pullam suggest, it might be more appropriate to think in terms of transitive and intransitive uses of verbs. This is not to deny that there are some verbs that appear to be exclusively—or almost exclusively—transitive, being almost invariably found in transitive clauses. And likewise, some verbs appear to be exclusively intransitive. There is no harm in referring to the former as transitive verbs and the latter as intransitive verbs. Yet, it is important to keep in mind that there are many verbs—possibly the majority of verbs in modern English—that readily appear in either a transitive or an intransitive clause. This is an issue I will return to later. A second point follows from this. The concept of transitivity is often presented to DUEs as if it were a simple syntactic matter. Thus, teachers may tell their students that transitive verbs are followed by objects, intransitive verbs are not. Once again, these verb subcategories are often presented in rather a rigid fashion. Quite possibly, this is how you have been taught to regard them. However, it seems to me important to see that, rather than being a straightforwardly syntactic issue (does the verb have an object or does it not?), transitivity is a reflection of the semantics of the verb in question. In order to understand this, I will once more make use of the idea of participants in situations, which I discussed in previous chapters. Look the following sentences: (3) a. Nancy smiled. b. Nancy finished the exam. c. Nancy sent her mother the package.

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It is not difficult to see that these sentences differ from one another in one rather significant way. The difference lies in the number of participants that each sentence involves. Sentence (3a), which is another example of a simple intransitive clause, has one participant; sentence (3b), which is a simple transitive clause, has two participants; sentence (3c), which is an extended transitive clause, has three participants. Recall from my earlier discussion that the term participant is essentially a semantic notion. As I defined it, a participant is some thing, person, place, et cetera that is inherently involved in the situation described by the verb. As one contemporary linguist has expressed the idea, “Participants proper have the status of complements to the verb—they elaborate concepts that are inherently . . . represented within the semantic structure of the verb” (Taylor, 2002, p. 416). The point I am making now is that number of participants within a clause—and therefore the transitivity displayed by the clause itself—depends on the semantics of the verb. This is what Taylor has in mind when he says that participants elaborate concepts that are inherently represented “within the semantic structure of the verb.” Another way of expressing this is to say that a participant is essential to the situation described. It follows from this that not every NP in a sentence identifies a participant. We encountered this idea earlier, in Chapter 4. There, I said that NPs that refer to the time or the place or the manner in which something was done are not essential to the situation. Syntactically, such NPs will generally appear as complements of prepositions; they are adjuncts rather than complements, with an adverbial relation to the verb rather than being part of its essential semantic structure. Let us take another look at one of our earlier examples. In (4), both Eunice and the stone are participants, whereas the window is not: (4) Eunice threw the stone at the window. (If you are wondering what the window is if it is not a participant, one term that is sometimes used is circumstance. However, this need not concern us.) Linguists talk about a verb selecting or licensing the participants that appear in its clause. There are some verbs in English that, on semantic grounds, select only one participant. To use Taylor’s terms once more, the inherent semantic structure of verbs of this sort is such that they do not require further participants for grammaticality. For obvious reasons, if a verb selects only one participant, that participant will relate to the verb as subject. This is inevitable, given that English is a subject-dominant language. We have already seen an example of this with the verb smile in (3a). If you think about what a “real-world” smile entails—what an act of smiling actually involves—you will, I think, agree

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that it only requires one participant. There is a long tradition of calling these intransitive verbs. What I am suggesting is that, when they are considered in terms of their semantics, we treat them as one-participant verbs. Clearly, not all verbs are like smile. Some follow a different pattern, typically selecting two participants. In such cases, one participant will have the subject relation to the verb and the other will relate to the verb as an object. The verb throw in our Eunice example illustrates this. So does the verb finish in sentence (3b). Once more, the selection of two participants reflects the semantics of the verb. In the real world, an event of “finishing” necessarily requires two participants. There must be someone or something that does the finishing and something that gets finished. Thus, there are two participants in (3b), each identified by an NP: Nancy and the exam. Again, I want to say that verbs that are traditionally said to be transitive verbs are, semantically speaking, two-participant verbs. Other verbs will typically select three participants. One of these participants will stand in the subject relation to the verb, another will stand in the object relation to the verb, and the third will stand in what is traditionally known as an indirect object relation. The verb sent in (3c) is an example of a verb that adheres to this pattern. Notice yet again that what determines the number of participants is the inherent semantic structure of the verb itself. A real-world event of “sending” necessarily requires three participants: a sender, something sent, and a recipient or receiver of whatever it is that was sent. Accordingly, in (3c), three participants are identified by means of the NPs Nancy, her mother, and the package. The label that usually gets used for verbs of this type is ditransitive. In semantic terms, they are three-participant verbs. In the next section, I want to explore these ideas further, looking at the various types of transitive clauses.

Some Thoughts on Transitive Clauses and Their Verbs Above, I listed three subtypes of transitive clauses: simple, extended, and complex transitive clauses. I now want to consider each of these in more detail, starting with the simple transitive clause.

Simple Transitive Clauses Here is an example of a simple transitive clause: (5) Bill found her.

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There is no particular difficulty in interpreting (5). Presumably, Bill was searching for some female person and then . . . there she was. In the context of the present discussion, of course, the key point is that the verb find selects two participants, a subject and an object. A very large number of verbs in modern English are like find in being semantically two-participant verbs. That is to say, they follow the transitive pattern illustrated in (5), appearing in simple transitive clauses with an object. As I have already noted, it seems there are some verbs that appear exclusively in this pattern so that if the object is omitted the result is ungrammaticality. The verb find is like this. An utterance such as *He found, with no object following the verb, is not grammatically acceptable. It is this fact that leads to the notion of their being an identifiable transitive (or monotransitive) subcategory of verbs.1 Further illustrative examples of verbs that are exclusively transitive are given in (6): (6) a. The old lady angrily smashed the plate. (*The old lady angrily smashed ________ ) b. Belle chopped the onions. (*Belle chopped ________ ) c. Emily filed her nails (*Emily filed ________ ) Linguists now generally agree that a prototypical transitive (two-participant) clause will tend to display several interrelated and overlapping characteristics. For convenience, these may be listed: ◾◾ In prototypical cases, a transitive clause will describe a situation in which some action performed by one participant is “transferred” or “transmitted” (notice the recurrence of the suffix trans- in these words) to another participant. ◾◾ The first mentioned participant is prototypically an agent, acting deliberately or voluntarily. ◾◾ Again prototypically, the second participant will have a patient semantic role, undergoing a change of state or being affected in some fairly obvious way. Each of these characteristics is fulfilled in the sentences in (6). In (6a), there is an obvious transfer of action, with the old lady acting deliberately (the adverb angrily is a big clue here) and the plate being directly affected. In (6b), there is also a transfer of action in the sense that the onions go from a whole state to a sliced one, Belle acted deliberately, and the onions are directly affected. Likewise, in (6c), there is a transferred action, the sub-

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ject acted deliberately (it is difficult to imagine how anyone could file their nails without intending to), and the object is affected. In modern English, the prototypical semantic pattern of agent–verb– patient that we see in (6) has, as Taylor notes, tended to become generalized “so as to accommodate all manner of relations between entities” (2002, p. 426). One consequence of this is that it is not unusual to find constructions that “exhibit the syntax of a transitive clause” (ibid) but that at the same time display few of the “characterisitics of transitive interaction” (ibid). In other words, there may not be any clear transfer of an action, the subject participant may not be strongly agentive, and the object participant may not be an affected patient. A similar idea is expressed by the notion of “degrees of transitivity,” which has become widely discussed among linguists. The idea is that some verbs have an inherently high degree of transitivity, meaning that the charactersitics we examined above are very obvious in clauses with these verbs: There is a transfer of action, the subject is an agent, and the object is a patient. Other verbs have a lower degree of transitivity so that characteristics are much less obvious. I suggest that the verbs in (7) are like this. (7) a. The professor recognized the photograph. b. Jin Joo heard a loud bang. c. The students knew the answer. It is difficult to come up with contexts in which the verbs recognize, hear, and know could be used without a second participant coming after the verb and relating to it as an object. They seem to be basically two-participant verbs. And yet, it seems clear that the degree of transitivity of these verbs is really quite low, especially in comparison with those in (6). Firstly, none of the situations described by the sentences involves a transfer of action between participants. Secondly, in each of the examples in (7), the subject NP lacks agency (the semantic role carried by the professor, Jin Joo, and the students seems to be closer to that of an experiencer). Thirdly, there is obviously no question of the object being affected by the verb in these cases. Account also needs to be taken of a small group of verbs that, while they are indisputably two-participant verbs and so appear with great regularity in transitive clauses (at least in particular contexts of use), seem to be almost entirely devoid of meaning. Linguists refer to these as light verbs. They are high-frequency verbs, very commonly employed, and for that reason DUEs definitely need to be made aware of them. The best examples of light verbs are do, have, and take:

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(8) a. Martin does yoga every morning. b. Rupert did the ironing. c. I spent all weekend doing my grading. (9) a. They always have dinner together. b. He went outside and had a smoke. c. Let’s have a look at this example. (10) a. She took a course in English grammar. b. I think I’ll take a shower. c. Let’s take a look at this example. The key point here is that the verbs themselves supply no information about what the situation actually involves. There is a sense, we might say, in which the verbs carry zero semantic weight. They are indeed light verbs. If you pay close attention to the examples in sentences (8), (9), and (10), I think you will agree that it is the object following the verb rather than the verb itself that supplies the meaning of the clause. Think about (8a), for example. Ask yourself what would be involved in “doing” yoga. Among other things, it would undoubtedly involve wearing loose-fitting clothes, doing a lot of stretching and bending, and—almost certainly—some sore muscles! But none of this is conveyed by the verb itself. Rather, it is the noun yoga in object position that conveys the content here. And notice that the kind of things that are likely to be involved in “doing the ironing” or “doing grading” are utterly different from “doing yoga” and, of course, from each other as well. There is another problem that may arise in dealing with transitivity. Recall the passage I quoted earlier from Huddleston and Pullam. I noted that it may be more helpful to think of transitive and intransitive uses of verbs. On some occasions, a verb that normally selects two participants may appear unaccompanied by an object and thus be used intransitively. Consider the following: (11) a. When I entered the room, she was eating an apple. b. When I entered the room, she was eating.

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In (11a), eat is being used transitively. It is followed by an object. This is what most people would probably anticipate since eat is generally taught as a transitive verb. However, in (11b), the same verb is being used intransitively. It has no object. A lot of verbs seem to be like this, in that they can be used either transitively or intransitively. In addition to eat, we might mention choose, clean, know, polish, remember, and saw, along with many more. It can sometimes cause confusion among DUEs when a verb that they may have been taught to regard as rigidly transitive is found behaving in an apparently non-transitive manner. Yet it still makes sense to say that a verb such as eat will normally appear in a transitive clause. That is its prototypical context of use. This is, again, a reflection of the semantics of the verb itself—its inherent semantic structure. An act of eating necessarily involves an eater and something that is eaten. In other words, eat is a two-participant verb. It just so happens that speakers will sometimes employ it while leaving the object participant unexpressed. Interestingly, as Berk (1999, p. 30) observes, there are some other verbs with rather similar meanings that behave differently in this regard. Thus, while (11b) (in which eat is used without an object) is grammatical, neither of the following is a possible construction: (12) a. *She was devouring. b. *She was gobbling. There are a lot of verbs that normally follow the transitive pattern and yet sometimes appear without an object. As with eat, the semantic structure of these verbs is such that, normally, they select two participants, not one. Take the verb clean. A real-world act of “cleaning” necessarily involves a cleaner and something that is cleaned. Very often, the thing cleaned is specified. In these prototypical cases, the verb is being used transitively: (13) She cleaned the table/floor/windows. However, it is also possible to indicate simply that cleaning took place and that it went on over an extended period of time, without specifying what actually got cleaned. In these cases, the verb is used intransitively: (14) She cleaned all morning.

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Another way of discussing this is to make a distinction between semantic and syntactic transitivity. Thus, clean is semantically transitive since we must always clean something; however, as (14) demonstrates, it is entirely possible to use clean in a construction that is syntactically intransitive. Clearly, this is an issue that needs to be addressed with DUEs.

Extended Transitive Clauses An extended transitive clause is a clause in which the verb is followed by two objects. Traditionally, as I have mentioned earlier, these are given the labels direct object (DO) and indirect object (IO), and I will follow this convention here, even though it is not one favored by all linguists. In an extended transitive clause, the DO is typically inanimate and the IO animate. The terms direct and indirect object reflect the underlying idea of the transference of some action, which, as we have seen, tends to characterize prototypical transitive clauses and which might be said to lie at the heart of transitivity as a concept. A DO is so-called because it is directly affected by the action the verb describes (i.e., it undergoes some kind of change); an IO is less directly affected or not affected to the same extent. In other words, a DO participant will prototypically have a patient semantic role and an IO participant will have a recipient role. It is important to understand that, once again, we are dealing here with what are essentially semantic notions rather than syntactic ones. Thus, whether an object is direct or indirect cannot be deduced from the word order. Indeed, in a normal extended transitive clause, the IO comes immediately after the verb, preceding the DO: (15) rec pat Karl lent Dan his car . io do Here, it is the NP his car that identifies the DO; the car is directly affected in the sense that it is transferred from Karl to Dan, who is the IO. It is worth pointing out that an IO can often be omitted fairly easily (16a), whereas it is invariably more difficult to omit a DO (16b). (16) a. Karl lent his car. b. *Karl lent Dan.

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Just as verbs that appear exclusively in simple transitive clauses are frequently given the label monotransitive, so verbs that generally appear in extended transitive clauses will often be referred to as ditransitive (or sometimes bitransitive) verbs. Again, such a label can be slightly misleading if it is taken to mean that the verb in question will invariably be followed by two objects. It may be more helpful to use the terminology introduced earlier and say these are verbs that, by virtue of their semantic structure, select three participants. As you have just seen, lend is an obvious case in point. There are a few verbs that seem to only appear in extended transitive clauses and would thus appear to be exclusively ditransitive. The best example of such a verb is put, which always selects three participants: (17) a. Ji Young put the book on the shelf. b. *Ji Young put the book. Other verbs that seem to be at least predominantly ditransitive, selecting three participants, include give, grant, place, sell, and show:



(18) a. Eun Mee gave her daughter an apple. b. The professor granted the students an extension. c. Lydia placed the money in the drawer. d. Karl sold Dan his golf clubs. e. The teacher showed her students her holiday photos.

According to one widely accepted analysis (see Goldberg, 1995), the semantics of extended transitive clauses typically involves the transfer of one participant—the DO or patient—to another participant—the IO or recipient. This is clear enough in the case of give, where the transfer is literal—the apple physically “travels” from Eun Mee to her daughter. Not surprisingly, certain other verbs that can be treated as synonyms or nearsynonyms of give likewise normally appear in extended transitive clauses: (19) a. Eun Mee handed her daughter an apple. b. Eun Mee passed her daughter an apple. c. Eun Mee offered her daughter an apple. These are all prototypical extended transitive clauses, in that there is a physical transfer of some item from one person to another. In other cases,

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even when the verb is give, the transfer is non-literal or metaphorical and so the clause is less prototypical: (20) a. Her comments gave me plenty to think about. b. All that wine gave Kara a headache. c. The professor gave the students a severe warning. An interesting syntactic feature of extended transitive clauses is that they sometimes allow alternative word orders. In some cases, the IO (i.e., the participant with the recipient role) can appear in two different positions. Look again at the examples in (19). In these sentences, the NP identifying the indirect object appears immediately after the verb. Now look at (21). Here, precisely the same real-world situation is described, but an alternative construction is used: (21) a. Eun Mee handed an apple to her daughter. b. Eun Mee passed an apple to her daughter. c. Eun Mee offered an apple to her daughter. The sentences in (21) are still examples of extended transitive clauses, in that three participants are involved. Nonetheless, you will note that these alternative versions actually represent a quite different construction, in that the order of the two NPs has been reversed. Now the NP identifying the DO and carrying the patient role appears immediately after the verb. Many languages have constructions that are comparable to one or another of these extended transitive constructions. Modern English is rather unusual in permitting both. It is worth spending a while longer looking at these two versions of extended transitive clauses. First, consider the nature of those two NPs that follow the verb. In the examples in (18), there seems to be little reason to doubt that we have two objects. As I have said, the traditional designation of these is DO and IO. But what about the sentences in (21)? Do both of the NPs identify objects? Some linguists would be happy to answer this question in the affirmative. Thus, Berk (1999, p. 36) employs the labels NP IO and prepositional phrase IO as a way of distinguishing between constructions such as these:

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(22) (Adapted from Berk, 1999) a. The linguistics professor gave her brother some money. b. The linguistics professor gave some money to her brother. And yet there are strong grounds for saying that the NP her brother has a different relation to the verb in (22a) than it does in (22b). Indeed, many linguists would maintain that, while this NP does indeed identify an IO participant in (22a), its relation to the verb in (22b) is rather different. I am going to present two arguments in support of this suggestion. As always in linguistics, it is matter of observing the grammatical behavior of the constructions we are interested in. One argument is based on the fact that IOs resist “fronting” in whquestion formation. Note that sentences (23a) and (23b) reflect this difference. (23) a. *Whom did the linguistics professor give some money? b. To whom did the linguistics professor give some money? While “fronting” is not possible in the case of (23a), it plainly is possible with (23b). Coupled to this is a second argument involving passivization. Like DOs, a genuine IO can be passivized. Our two sentences display a difference here as well: (24) a. Her brother was given some money by the linguistics professor. b. *To her brother was given some money by the linguistics professor. Contrary to what some linguists maintain, therefore, it seems that there are strong arguments, based on grammatical behavior, for the view that the NP her brother in (22b) does not stand in an IO relation to the verb. It makes more sense to say it is the complement of the preposition to (some linguists would use the label oblique here) and that the entire prepositional phrase is the complement of the verb. Again, two extended transitive constructions are possible in modern English. One construction (illustrated by my examples in [18]) may be referred to as a double-object extended transitive, in that the clause contains both an IO and a DO, in that order. The other type of construction is shown in

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the examples in (21). This construction involves a DO followed by a prepositional complement, and so I will call it a prepositional extended transitive. As an aside, let me note that Huddleston and Pullam (2002, p. 248) distinguish between a sentence such as (25a), which they call a ditransitive clause, and one such as (25b), which they maintain is an example of a monotransitive clause. (25) a. I sent Sue a copy. b. I sent a copy to Sue. Clearly, the former is an example of what I have just called a doubleobject extended transitive. However, there is a problem with labeling the latter monotransitive. This term is normally preserved for simple transitive clauses. That sentence (25b) is not a simple transitive clause is shown by the fact that it contains three participants (I, a copy, and Sue). Thus, it should be seen as an alternative type of extended transitive. It is an example of what I am calling a prepositional extended transitive. I hope this disagreement does not strike you as too unsatisfactory. No doubt, it would make life much easier if everyone agreed on what labels to use for grammatical description, but sadly this is not the case. Disagreements such as these are a fact of linguistic life. It hardly needs to be said that, from a teaching point of view, the important thing is to be consistent in the terminology you use. To return to my main point, extended transitive clauses come in two distinct forms. If we think about the verbs that appear in these two forms, we find, interestingly, that some verbs seem comfortable in both types of extended transitive constructions. We have already seen an example of this with the verb give: (26) a. Gina gave her boyfriend a new mp3 player. b. Gina gave a new mp3 player to her boyfriend. There are other verbs, however, which will appear in only one of these constructions. For example, the verb put will only appear in what I have called a prepositional extended transitive: (27) a. *Kay put the table the book. b. Kay put the book on the table.

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Conversely, the verb cost appears only in a double-object extended transitive: (28) a. This book cost me fifty dollars. b. *This book cost fifty dollars to me. Many linguists have drawn attention to what at first glance seems to be a rather puzzling situation. The puzzle is that once we start paying attention to the behavior of verbs in these constructions, we find that certain verbs with very similar meanings enter into different patterns. To illustrate, as you see in (29a) and (b), a verb such as bequeath follows the pattern of give, happily appearing in both types of extended transitive constructions. However, (30a) and (b) demonstrate that donate, which semantically is rather close to both give and bequeath, can only appear in the prepositional construction: (29) a. He bequeathed his priceless book collection to the university. b. He bequeathed the university his priceless book collection.

(30) a. He donated his priceless book collection to the university. b. *He donated the university his priceless book collection. Other verbs show similar quirks in their characteristic distribution, so that verbs that are apparently very similar in meaning pattern quite differently in extended transitive constructions. As further illustrations of this, consider the cases of teach and explain, and tell and communicate. As you see below, teach appears in both construction types (31a, b), whereas explain appears only in the prepositional version (31c, d). In exactly the same manner, tell is grammatical in both the double-object and the prepositional constructions, but communicate is only possible in the latter:



(31) a. Dr. Endley taught linguistics to the students. b. Dr. Endley taught the students linguistics. c. Dr. Endley explained linguistics to the students. d. *Dr. Endley explained the students linguistics.

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(32) a. Dr. Macdonald told her concerns to her colleagues. b. Dr. Macdonald told her colleagues her concerns. c. Dr. Macdonald communicated her concerns to her colleagues. d. *Dr. Macdonald communicated her colleagues her concerns.

On the face of it, this seems quite strange. What is going on here? If languages were designed by committee (they are not!), we would have to say that in this case, the design committee had done a pretty poor job. In order to make sense of this, we need to understand the reason why English has two extended transitive constructions in the first place. In fact, it has to do with the history of the language and, in particular, the impact that French had on English after the Norman Invasion of England in the mid-eleventh century. Simplifying somewhat, in the Old English spoken in Britain before the coming of the Normans, there was only a form of the double-object construction. After the invasion in 1066, the French language began to be used extensively in Britain, especially by the ruling classes. French had its own extended transitive, using a preposition. So, over time, this new construction found its way into English. That, then, is the historical background. As a result of French influence, modern English speakers have a choice between two extended transitive constructions. This raises another question: What factors influence the choice people make? When do they use a double-object construction and when do they use a prepositional construction? Recent linguistic analysis has been able to throw some light on this issue. One factor that seems to play a part is the “weight” or complexity of the direct object NP. English has a strong preference for what we sometimes call end-weight. What this means is that longer, more complex, “heavier” NPs tend to be placed later in an utterance. Sentence (33) illustrates this: (33) The secretary gave the professor several large brown envelopes full of student evaluations from the previous cycle. The highlighted NP here is a DO. Because it is rather heavy (long and complex) it seems to work well after the IO, the professor. Certainly, it seems to be better in this position than it does in the alternative construction, where it comes immediately after the verb:

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(34) ?The secretary gave several large brown envelopes full of student evaluations from the previous cycle to the professor. Sentence (34) is not strictly ungrammatical (notice that I have marked it with “?” rather than “*”); however, this sentence is rather awkward and would probably be avoided by most EUEs. What we are dealing with here— as so often—is a matter of tendencies and preferences rather than a narrowly-construed grammatical rule. Further light has been thrown on this issue by some recent studies based on both corpus data and experimental work (see Bresnan, Cueni, Nikitina, & Baayen, 2005). There is evidence now available suggesting that speakers tend to prefer a prepositional extended transitive when the recipient participant is newly mentioned and animate (especially human); interestingly, it also seems to be the case that where the NP identifying the recipient can be pluralized, speakers again prefer the prepositional construction. This is illustrated in the following example, taken from Berk, in which the recipient NP, the poor, is newly introduced, animate, and plural: (35) (From Berk, 1999, p. 40) a. Al contributed some money to the poor. b. *Al contributed the poor some money. I have followed Berk in marking (34b) as ungrammatical. My sense is that most EUEs would agree with this. Nonetheless, we need to recognize that there is likely to be some individual variation in this regard. As Berk herself notes, while some cases seem to be quite clear-cut, others might be a good deal less straightforward. Thus, some people might happily accept both versions of (36), whereas others would find the (b) version unacceptable. I must admit that, to me, (36b) sounds fine. What do you think? (36) (From Berk, 1999, p. 40) a. They refused aid to the refugees. b. ?They refused the refugees aid. Berk goes on to suggest that the semantics of the two types of extended transitive clauses are different. Thus, for some speakers, a sentence such as (37a) would be odd, whereas (37b) is perfectly acceptable:

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(37) (From Berk, 1999, p. 41) a. I threw Signe the ball but she couldn’t catch it. b. I threw the ball to Signe but she couldn’t catch it. In these examples, the clause following but indicates that the ball was not caught. The point, Berk maintains, is that (for some speakers at least) a double-object extended transitive such as (37a) generally implies successful completion of the transfer. On the other hand, a prepositional extended transitive implies only that the action was attempted; it says nothing about whether the action was completed successfully. A number of points are in order here: Firstly, my own view is that, once again, there is likely to be individual variation with regard to this. Many EUEs would not “hear” any difference between the two constructions in (37). This reminds us that the difference in question is semantic rather than narrowly syntactic, and the interpretation of meaning is often an imprecise matter. Secondly, even if we accept the idea that (37a) and (37b) convey different meanings, it seems to be a distinction that is to a large extent dependent on the situation being described rather than the type of construction. Consider one of our earlier examples, repeated here for convenience: (38) a. Gina gave her boyfriend a new mp3 player. b. Gina gave a new mp3 player to her boyfriend. Both versions of (38) seem to involve successful completion of the transfer. (Either way, Gina’s boyfriend receives his mp3 player.) It seems to me that Berk is on safer ground when she observes that whether the recipient appears as an IO immediately after the verb in the double-object construction or after the preposition in the prepositional construction is largely determined by the discourse context. Here, we touch upon a basic principle of information structure (the way speakers arrange their speech), namely, that new information generally comes after information that has already been introduced or established. It follows from this that if the NP identifying the recipient is new information, it is highly likely to appear as a prepositional complement; conversely, if it is old information, it is likely to appear immediately after the verb as an IO, preceding the DO. Think about the following: (39) (Adapted from Berk, 1999) A: Where’s your motorcycle?

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B: I loaned it to Jack. Here, A’s question establishes the motorcycle as the topic of the discourse so that in B’s reply it represents old (or given) information. On the other hand, Jack, who is the recipient, is new information. Thus, in B’s reply, the motorcycle is mentioned first (note the anaphoric pronoun, it) as the DO and Jack comes in the prepositional phrase. Compare this with the following: (40) A: Did I see Jack riding your motorcycle? B: Yeah, I loaned him it. In this case, Jack represents old information and thus can appear ahead of the DO in B’s reply. I turn now to a consideration of the third type of transitive clause, the complex transitive clause.

Complex Transitive Clauses Examples of complex transitive clauses are given in (41). (41) a. Jeremy found the professor frustrating. b. The Director considered Minyoung a great secretary. Sentences (41a) and (41b) are both classified as transitive, in that the verb is followed by an object. In (41a), the object takes the form of an NP, the professor; in (41b), it is a proper noun, Minyoung. At the same time, these two sentences are complex, in that the object is followed by a further element. In (41a), the object is followed by an adjective, frustrating; in (41b) it is followed by another NP, a great secretary. Both the adjective in (41a) and the NP in (41b) may be regarded as predicative complements. More specifically, they are object complements. In a complex transitive clause, the object complement has the job of identifying or describing some property of the object. To sum up, a complex transitive clause has the following form: (42) Subject + Verb + Object + Predicative (object) complement

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Object complements can be adjectives or NPs. Where an object complement takes the form of an NP, DUEs may mistakenly regard it as an object. As so often when questions of this sort arise, a passivization test can be usefully applied to reveal the difference since objects can undergo passivization, whereas object complements cannot: (43) a. Active: Dr. Eom considered Minyoung a great secretary. obj. b. Passive: Minyoung was considered a great secretary by Dr. Eom. c. Active: Dr. Eom considered Minyoung a great secretary . obj. comp. d. Passive: * A great secretary was considered Minyoung by Dr. Eom. Within a complex transitive clause, an adjectival object complement typically describes the result of some process or activity (44a), whereas an NP object complement will typically identify some sort of state, whether permanent or temporary (44b). (44) a. The saw made the job easier. b. Hyo Suk found the movie riveting. However, it would be a mistake to regard this as in any sense a rule. As the following example illustrates, it is also possible for an adjectival object complement to convey a stative sense: (45) They considered him brilliant. Just as there are certain verbs that tend to appear very frequently in simple transitive clauses and others that tend to appear frequently in extended transitive clauses, so there are verbs that tend to appear quite predictably in complex transitive clauses and which may therefore be thought of as complex transitive verbs. Good examples of such verbs are deem, prove, and name, each of which tends to appear regularly with both an object and an object complement: (46) a. Hojin deemed the course a waste of time.

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b. The police proved him guilty. c. I name this ship HMS Puddleduck. d. The people proclaimed him king. As so often in linguistics, matters are not as straightforward as they first appear. A verb like deem insists upon an object complement (*Hojin deemed the course is certainly ungrammatical), and so may be regarded as an exclusively complex transitive verb. However, under different circumstances, it would be possible to use, for example, name without an object complement, as when a speaker says The Queen named this ship. In fact, a lot of verbs are like this, permitting object complements but not insisting on them, as we see in the following: (47) a. Kay wiped the table. b. Kay wiped the table clean. (48) a. Jon drained the glass. b. Jon drained the glass dry. Perhaps these verbs are better thought of as transitive verbs that require an object but that will also happily appear in complex transitive constructions with an object complement as well. It is also worth noting that many of the verbs that appear in complex transitive clauses will also appear in transitive clauses without an object complement; but when they do, there is a change of meaning. Think about the different meanings of the verb in the following pairs of sentences:



(49) a. Transitive: Ahmed found the professor. b. Complex transitive: Ahmed found the professor marvelous! c. Transitive: Hojin considered the matter. d. Complex transitive: Hojin considered the matter a waste of time.

Some Thoughts on Intransitive Clauses and Their Verbs There are three subtypes of intransitive clause corresponding to the three subtypes of transitive clause: simple, extended, and complex. In this section, I turn to a detailed consideration of these various subtypes of intransitive

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clause. For reasons that will soon emerge, it will be useful to treat the simple and extended forms of intransitive together.

Simple Intransitive Clauses and Extended Intransitive Clauses A very large number of verbs appear in transitive clauses of one sort or another. A rather smaller number of verbs in modern English tend to be found exclusively in the alternative intransitive pattern, in that they do not ever seem to take a DO. These are one-participant verbs. Examples of verbs that appear to be exclusively intransitive are given in (50). (50) a. The students groaned. b. Charlotte the kitten was sleeping. c. The package arrived. While simple intransitive clauses like these are entirely possible, very often the verb in an intransitive clause will be followed by some further element, often in the form of a prepositional phrase: (51) a. The students groaned at the professor’s clichéd witticisms. b. Charlotte the kitten was sleeping on the unmade bed. c. The package arrived on time. The additional information supplied in these extended intransitives is optional and does not alter the essential intransitivity of the clause since this is a reflection of the semantics of the verb (its “inherent semantic structure”). It is no accident, indeed, that the additional information is frequently introduced by a preposition, since, as I indicated in Chapter 4, prepositional phrases contain non-essential information. In other words, the linguistic material following the verb has an adverbial function. And so these really are types of intransitive clause. One piece of evidence for this, should you require any, is the failure of any of these sentences to accept passivization. Try it! It is noticeable that, in some cases, there is a very strong likelihood that additional information will be provided. Thus, although simple intransitive clauses like those in (52) below are perfectly grammatical, when considered as a piece of communication they are somewhat strange. Why would someone say something like this?

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(52) a. Queen Elizabeth I reigned. b. Shakespeare died. To repeat: Such utterances are grammatically correct (because the verbs used only require one participant), but they are communicatively uninformative. However, adding further information produces perfectly sensible utterances: (53) a. Queen Elizabeth I reigned from 1558 to 1603. b. Shakespeare died in the year 1616. An intransitive clause lacks just those semantic features that I noted above as characteristic of prototypical transitive clauses. In the case of an intransitive clause, there can be no question of an action being “transferred” from one participant to another, since, by definiton, the verb selects only one participant. And, as we see in the following examples, agency is often conspicuously absent in the cases of an intransitive subject: (54) a. The window shattered. b. Charlotte the kitten gently snored. c. The snow fell all night. What about the semantic roles carried by the subject NP in intransitive clauses? It is certainly possible for intransitive subjects to carry the agent role: (55) Betty sewed all night. However, it is often the case that intransitive subjects, rather than carrying an agent role, are themselves affected by the action conveyed by the verb. In other words, an intransitive subject may be a patient (i.e., the semantic role we customarily associate with the object of a transitive clause). We see this is (54a). (Compare this with an active sentence such as He shattered the window, in which the agency of the subject is obvious). In (54b), the subject also lacks agency—our little kitten is not deliberately doing anything when she snores. Perhaps, here, the role carried by the subject NP is

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best described as a theme, which, you will recall, I defined as something present in a situation but not changed in any way. Likewise, there is no agency in the case of the wind in (54c). Here, too, the subject seems to be theme-like. Here is another issue that demands attention. Above, I noted that sometimes what is essentially a two-participant, transitive verb will appear without an object. One-participant, intransitive verbs also sometimes behave unexpectedly, appearing with what are called cognate objects. Such an object actually reflects a process of nominalization whereby the noun is derived from the verb itself. If you look at the following examples, you will see that the object noun (dream, sleep, thunder) is derived from the preceding verb: (56) a. She dreamt a lovely dream. b. I slept a deep and untroubled sleep. c. It thundered the most ear-splitting crack of thunder (from Dixon, 2005, p. 305). These are not “true” direct objects, and the verbs can still be regarded as essentially one-participant verbs, since the above clauses fail the passivization test: (57) a. *A lovely dream was dreamt by her. b. *A deep and untroubled sleep was slept by me. c. *The most ear-splitting crack of thunder was thundered by it. Clearly, there is scope for confusion here since we have a basically intransitive verb being followed by an object. Such instances are not especially common, but they do occur and they require careful handling in the classroom. In presenting them to DUEs, it is worth drawing attention to a very robust pattern: Almost always, the cognate object will be pre-modified by one or more adjectives. Notice that the dream was “lovely,” the sleep was “deep and untroubled,” and the crack of thunder was “ear-splitting.” In fact, failing to modify the object noun in this way leads to some very odd utterances: (58) a. ?She dreamt a dream. b. ?I slept a sleep. c. ?It thundered a crack of thunder.

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As Dixon comments, “A cognate NP is always likely to include some modifiers . . . and is likely to be used because there are much greater possibilties for adjectival etc modification of a noun than there are for adverbial modification of a verb” (2005, p. 305).

Complex Intransitive Clauses Compare (59a) and (59b): (59) a. The students considered the professor boring. b. The professor was boring. Sentence (59a) is an example of a complex transitive clause, which I briefly examined above. The adjective boring is an object complement since it post-modifies the NP the professor, which is the object of the verb. Sentence (59b), on the other hand, is an example of a different clause type, namely, a complex intransitive clause. Further examples of clauses of this type are given in (60). (60) a. She is happy. b. She is the professor. In a complex intransitive clause, the verb is followed by a predicative complement, not an object. This is why we can treat these as complex intransitive clauses. More exactly, what follows the verb is a copula complement. Copula complements are so-called because they are always found immediately after a verb functioning as a copula. (Some linguists call copula complements subject complements since they refer back to the previously mentioned subject, although, to my mind, this is a less useful label.) In (60a), the copula complement is a predicative adjective; in (60b), it is a predicative NP. Complex intransitive clauses have the following form: (61) Subject + Verb + Copula complement You might like to compare the structure of a complex intransitive clause given here with that of a complex transitive clause as shown in (42).

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Constructions of this sort, in which the verb links the subject to its complement, are relatively unusual among the languages of the world. They are, however, used a great deal in modern English and therefore warrant extended treatment. To begin with, note that the verb in a complex intransitive clause performs a very specific function. More precisely, the verb in this type of clause “links nonverbal predicates (nouns, adjectives and certain adverbs) with their subjects and serves as a carrier for tense and subject-verb agreement” (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 33). Copula complements typically take the form of adjectives (60a) or NPs (60b). As with object complements found in complex transitive clauses, however, there are other possibilities. They can be prepositional phrases (62a), pronouns (62b), clauses (62c, d), and even VPs (62e).



(62) a. He is in a good mood. b. That is mine. c. The point is that your assignment was poorly done. d. The meeting is where we had it last time. e. The thing you have to do is try to study all the time.

As with object complements in transitive clauses, copula complements can be resultative (63a) or stative; in the latter case, they may convey either an inherent quality of the subject (63b) or a temporary state (63c). (63) a. The student became unwell. b. Martha is clever. c. Ju Hee is busy. The verb most commonly employed as a copula (i.e., the verb most likely to appear in a complex intransitive clause) is be. In discussing be in Chapter 2, I noted that it is one of three “primary verbs” in modern English, the others being have and do. Recall that these verbs can be employed either as auxiliaries or as main verbs. They are very high-frequency verbs, with be having the highest frequency of all. It is no exaggeration to say that be is a unique verb in modern English. Its grammatical properties are unlike those of any other verb in the language. Consider, for example, the morphological variation it displays:

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(64) a. I am angry. b. Jin Young is a student. c. Those ideas are terrible. d. Sunhee was in the class. e. Huynjoo’s papers were on the desk.

There are no fewer than five distinct forms of this verb: am, is and are for the present; was and were for the past. No other verb in modern English has such a range of forms. In fact, other verbs have just two present tense forms (e.g., walk and walks, have and has, meet and meets, etc.) and one past tense form (walked, had, met, etc.). Syntactically, even though it is the main verb in a complex intransitive construction, be displays the same NICE properties that we associate with auxiliary verbs (discussed in more detail in Chapter 2), in question formation, negation, tags, and so on: (65) a. Is he happy? b. He isn’t happy. c. He is happy, isn’t he? In this respect, be stands in contrast with other verbs that also sometimes function as copulas. Note that neither seem in (66) nor become in (67), for example, accept the above properties; instead, they require do-insertion: (66) a. Does he seem happy? (Not *Seems he happy?) b. He doesn’t seem happy. (Not *He seemsn’t happy.) c. He seems happy, doesn’t he? (Not *He seems happy, seemsn’t he?) (67) a. Did he become a professor? (Not *Became he a professor?) b. He didn’t become a professor. (Not *He becamen’t a professor.) c. He became a professor, didn’t he? (Not *He became a professor, becamen’t he?) Note also that neither seem nor become will allow a prepositional phrase as complement, unlike be:

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(68) a. *Sunhee seems in the class. b. *Sunhee became in the class. So what does be mean? Linguists are agreed that be has minimal independent meaning, with the main information in complex intransitive clauses with be supplied by the complement that follows the verb. In this sense, be is rather like the light verbs I briefly considered earlier. As Givón says, semantically, be is “a rather impoverished verb, carrying little if any meaning” (1993a, p. 101). Indeed, be is sometimes described as semantically empty, a syntactic element serving only to link the subject to its complement and to carry tense inflection. Nonetheless, it has been pointed out (e.g., by Langacker, 1991, p. 65) that be carries temporal and aspectual meaning (i.e., it signals that some situation is continuing through time and is a relatively time-stable). The semantic lightness of be is also reflected in the fact that in clauses with copula be, the subject will typically be non-agentive. Consider the following examples, noting how the sense of the verb seems to shift in dependence on the specific complement that follows: (69) a. I am English. b. I am bored. c. I am in the kitchen. In all three cases, be is syntactically a linking device, connecting the predicate to the subject; but the sense of the verb differs in each of these sentences, and this difference is largely a reflection of its complement. In (69a), be has what we might loosely call an identifying sense, designating the speaker’s membership in a particular ethnic group; in (69b), it denotes a particular psychological state that the speaker is currently experiencing; in (69c), it refers to a specific location. Obviously, the semantic role carried by the pronoun in each of the above sentences changes as well. While be is undoubtedly the most common copula, English has several other verbs that can serve a comparable function. It is useful to group these according to their semantics. Three broad semantic types are commonly identified in the linguistics literature: sensory or perception copulas, stative copulas, and change of state or process copulas. Perception copulas are verbs that indicate how something appears to a perceiver. Their complements are invariably adjectival. Unsurprisingly, each of five senses has its own associated copula verb. Examples are given in (70).

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(70) a. The music sounded terrible. b. She looked miserable. c. That room smells musty. d. That cheese tastes odd. e. This cloth feels nice.

Notice that the complement of a verb used as a sensory copula must be stative, not resultative. Notice also that, among these sensory copulas, smell is unusual in that it can appear without an overt complement. Thus, (71) is a perfectly grammatical utterance. (71) That room smells. However, in such cases, the unexpressed complement will invariably be understood negatively. The speaker will be taken to mean that the smell is in some way unpleasant. If this is not the intended meaning, the complement must be expressed: (72) That room smells of roses. Another group consists of what are often called stative copulas: (73) a. Kyung Hoon seems annoyed. b. Jay appears agitated. There are also certain copulas that refer to changes of state or processes. As you might expect, these verbs indicate a change of state rather than an inherent quality. In consequence, the complements of change of state copulas are usually adjectival, although, as (74d) shows, some change of state copulas will allow NP complements:



(74) a. Hyun Jin grew annoyed. b. The milk turned sour. c. The child fell ill. d. She became a professor.

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Many of these verbs can appear in other types of clause as well. When they do, they will often have significantly different meanings. To illustrate, in (75a), which is a complex intransitive clause, the verb look indicates how the subject appeared to the speaker; in (75b), which is a simple intransitive clause, the same verb tells us the direction in which she directed her gaze. (75) a. Soon Yeon looked miserable. b. Soon Yeon looked at the computer screen. Again, the verb in the complex intransitive (76a) describes how the puppy smelt to someone; in (76b)—a simple transitive clause—it describes a sensory experience of the little dog. (76) a. The puppy smelled bad. b. The puppy smelled the roasting pork. Once more, in (77a), we have a complex intransitive clause in which the verb describes a particular a change of state, as perceived from the speaker’s point of view, whereas, in (77b), the same verb is employed in a simple transitive to tell us about a habitual activity engaged in by Jon. (77) a. Jon grew old. b. Jon grew roses. Lastly, in (78a), the copula again describes a change of state; in the simple intransitive clause in (78b), the verb describes an accident that befell the kitten. (78) a. The kitten fell ill. b. The kitten fell in the bath. In the Classroom: Transitive and Intransitive Clauses As many readers will realize, the presentation of transitivity in this chapter has been at odds with the way in which it is usually presented in language classrooms. Nonetheless, it is an approach that makes sense

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from a linguistic perspective and one that I believe may prove of value for learners of English. One way in which my presentation may be new to you is that I have suggested that transitivity may be sensibly viewed as a reflection of clause structure rather than as a matter of verb categories, which is how it normally tends to be approached. There is much to be said for beginning classroom discussions of transitivity at the clausal level, by identifying the two broad types of clauses, intransitive and transitive, with subdivisions within these. Falling within the intransitive type, I have discussed the simple intransitive clause (Monica was working), the extended intransitive clause (Monica was working all night), and the complex intransitive clause (Her assignment seemed perfect). Likewise, within the transitive type, we can think of the simple transitive clause (Monica finished her assignment), the extended transitive clause (Monica sent the professor her assignment), and the complex transitive clause (The professor found the assignment fascinating). Approaching the issue of transitivity in this manner has the obvious advantage of providing a coherent picture of how these clause types are related to one another, enabling students to see the “family resemblances” within the two broad types of clauses. Thus, both the extended and complex subtypes may be shown to be “elaborations” of the simple version. Related to this, and another way in which my presentation differs from more traditional approaches, is that I have suggested that transitivity should be seen as primarily a semantic matter rather than a merely syntactic one. One way to get at this in the classroom might be by raising the issue of which verbs tend to appear in which type (or subtype) of clause. Here, it would be useful to introduce the notion of regularly occurring patterns of use. Thus, some verbs tend to pattern in a characteristic fashion, almost always appearing in one or the other type of clause. In accounting for these patterns, appeal can be made to what, following one recent linguistic development, I have called the essential “semantic structure” of the verb. It would be especially valuable here to make use of the concept of “participants in situations,” which I introduced in the previous chapter and discussed again in this chapter. As we saw, the semantic structure of the verb has to do with the number of real-world participants involved in the situation described by the verb. Time must be taken to ensure that DUEs understand that this really is a semantic matter, not a syntactic one (although, of course, the semantics is reflected in those characteristic syntactic patterns alluded to just now). At higher levels, at least, it would make sense to provide students with different verbs and have them consider the number of participants these select (e.g., smile selects only one participant, finish selects two, send selects three, etc.) and then have them go on to practice using these various verbs in appropriate contexts.

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The Fluidity of Transitivity I have already referred to the fact that sometimes a participant may not be overtly expressed even though the semantics of verbs require that a participant is understood. Just to remind you, here are two more examples: (79) a. Robert is eating. b. Yu Jung was writing when Minyoung entered the classroom. It is not uncommon to find speakers omitting the object participant of what is usually regarded as a transitive verb in this manner. In (79a), we know that Robert must be engaged in consuming some (presumably) edible item, since that is what an act of eating involves (i.e., eat is a two-participant verb). Yet, in this particular speech event, we are not told whether that item is an apple, some rice, a large bag of potato chips, or something else entirely. In a rather similar way, in (79b), we know that Yu Jung must have been writing something when Minyoung entered because the semantics of write necessarily requires an object participant. But we do not know whether she was writing a letter, an email, her dissertation, or a shopping list. Omissions of this sort are entirely natural in real-world language use, reflecting the speaker’s communicative purposes. We may suppose that in (79a) and (b) the speaker is more interested in the action taking place (the eating, the writing) than she is in identifying more precisely what was being eaten or the nature of the writing. This is a further illustration of a point I have already mentioned a number of times: Context can make a difference to our understanding of grammar. It is also in line with my proposal that a grammar is a vast set of conventionalized patterns rather than a set of fixed rules. And speakers will happily “bend the rules” if their purposes warrant it. In light of this, I would maintain that transitivity is not a fixed or inherent property of verbs (which is how it often seems to be conceptualized), but should instead be recognized as a rather fluid concept, in the sense that many verbs can readily appear in intransitive or transitive clauses. Linguists are generally ready to acknowledge this. Earlier in this chapter, I quoted Huddleston and Pullam’s remark that “transitivity applies to uses of verbs, for . . . many verbs can occur either with or without an object” (Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 216). And consider the following quotation from another well-known contemporary linguist: Sometimes the semantic features a form evokes make it much more likely that speakers will use it in a particular kind of a frame. In such cases, e.g.,

Transitivity and Intransitivity    219 verbs like grow, melt and explode, we may be tempted to assign them a “basic” frame (intransitive in these cases), but still this is a judgment call, and doesn’t really help very much in understanding English grammar. These verbs also may occur in transitive frames if it suits the speaker’s needs. (Payne, 2010, p. 520)

What the writer of the above passage calls frames are really what I have been calling patterns. As I have already suggested, I think it makes sense to treat terms like transitive and intransitive not as fixed labels, reflecting inherent properties of the verb, but as ways of referring to general trends or patterns of use. You will recognize that the point I am making here is exactly parallel to the one I made earlier about the countability and non-countability of nouns. At the same time, we need to recognize that these patterns are not arbitrary. There are good reasons why a particular verb will tend to appear in one pattern most of the time. As I have emphasized throughout this chapter, the patterns of use of verbs is primarily a reflection of their semantic structure (i.e., the number of participants the verb selects). Consider once more the verb write. As a general tendency, this will appear very often in simple transitive clauses. This is because write selects two participants. However, as (80b) makes clear, it can also be used quite meaningfully in what is actually an extended intransitive clause. It so happens that write is treated at length by Brinton. Her discussion is an interesting one, and I would like to offer some comments of my own on what she says. First of all, consider the sentences in (80), which are from Brinton’s discussion.



(80) (From Brinton, 2000, p. 186) a. Margaret writes. b. Margaret wrote yesterday. c. Margaret wrote to George yesterday. d. Margaret wrote a letter yesterday. e. Margaret wrote a novel.

Working through each of the above examples in turn, Brinton says, quite rightly, that in the intransitive clause (80a), “an object is irrelevant; the sentence means ‘Margaret is a writer’” (2000, p. 186). In (80b), the clause is again intransitive; the direct object is unspecified (Brinton says it is “latent”) and must be understood from context: Margaret may have written a poem, a letter, a memo, or something else.2 In (80c), the object participant is again unspecified, although, here, the participant with the recipient role is explicitly mentioned. In (80d), the direct object is specified and the indirect object is latent. Finally, (80e) is another simple transitive

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clause; as Brinton observes, in this case, no indirect object is necessary “because novels, unlike letters, are not written to anyone” (2000, p. 186). Commenting on the above, Brinton says that “we need to assign write to all three verb subcategories” (p. 186), by which she means that write belongs to the intransitive, transitive, and ditransitive subcategories. Well, perhaps it does. However, I find myself wondering what the point of these subcategories is in the first place if a verb can be said to “belong” to all three subcategories at the same time! What do they add to our description of the verb? Is it not better to simply accept what I have referred to as the “fluidity” of transitivity as a concept, thereby acknowledging that at least some can verbs readily appear in various types of clause, depending on the needs of the speaker? To me at least, it seems perfectly reasonable to say that write is a verb that typically appears in transitive clauses, since its semantics necessitates a second participant of some sort and speakers will often wish to explicitly express that participant; nonetheless, write can appear in other clause types in which that participant is not overtly expressed. It all depends on speaker needs. Actually, there are quite a few verbs that behave like write, appearing in transitive, intransitive, and extended transitive clauses. Another example of this is the verb read. Consider the following examples: (81) (From Huddleston and Pullam, 2002, p. 53) a. She read the newspaper. b. She read for a while. c. She read us a story. Like write, there is a powerful tendency for the verb read to appear in simple transitive clauses such as (81a). This is reflects the real-world fact that reading requires two participants: a reader and something that is read. And yet, as the other examples in (81) indicate, there is no necessity for read to always appear in simple transitive clauses. Once more, what we have here is a verb that is able to appear quite happily in several different clause types.

Further Reading Helpful discussions of types of clauses and the notions of transitivity and intransitivity will be found in Quirk et al., (1985, pp. 1168–1176) and in Huddleston and Pullam (2002, pp. 216–219 & 244–251). For another helpful discussion of transitivity, see Berk (1999, Ch. 3). Useful short accounts of

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the historical background of the extended transitive clause, which I briefly discussed above, will be found in Berk (1999, pp. 40–41) and Yule (1998, pp. 190–192). For a short and very readable account of some of the historical influences on English, see Payne (2010, Ch. 1).

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7 Tense and Aspect

One day I bought a little box. What use the box had ever had was unclear to me, and really I had no use in mind for it. Because it was wooden and primitive and meant to hang on a wall, you would not have thought to put anything valuable in its four miniature drawers. They might have been suitable for matches or paper clips, or loose change, or whatever was cluttering up a tabletop nearby. I was attracted to the box only because of its proportions and its paint, a crusty salmon color that bespoke age. (Todd, 2008, p. 3)

The passage above nicely illustrates what linguists often call the TAM system of modern English. TAM stands for tense, aspect, and modality. EUEs make use of this system so readily that, in all likelihood, they never give it a moment’s thought. Nonetheless, from a linguistic perspective, it is one of the most important and interesting features of English grammar. Moreover, it is an area of English that is obviously of considerable importance to those learning the language. If you read the passage carefully, you will see that it contains several verbs marked for tense (bought, meant, etc.), aspect (was cluttering up, was attracted, etc.), and modality (would not have thought, might have been, etc.). Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 223–262 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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The passage shows how tense, aspect, and modality combine and overlap to form complex verb phrases that enable speakers to convey elaborate messages. It is this that makes the TAM system such a powerful communicative tool. This chapter deals with the first two concepts of the system, tense and aspect. The next chapter will focus on modality along with concept of negation, which, to some extent, overlaps with it. Before beginning my discussion, I need to issue a health warning! In what follows, I will challenge certain more traditional accounts and introduce some ideas that you may find unfamiliar. It may help readers if I summarize at the outset the main points we will be considering in this chapter: ◾◾ The concepts of tense and time must not be confused. ◾◾ English makes a fundamental two-way distinction between present and past tense. ◾◾ English makes a similar two-way distinction between progressive and perfect aspect. ◾◾ According to some linguists, English does not have a genuine future tense.

Tense and Aspect in English: Some Initial Reflections In point of fact, tense and aspect are closely bound up together, and much of the time EUEs employ them in tandem. But what do the terms tense and aspect mean? Tense involves the location of a situation in time, with the moment of speaking serving as the point of reference. Aspect involves what is often called the internal contour of some event, that is, whether the event is ongoing, recently finished, or what have you. As I have said, in both spoken and written grammar, tense and aspect work together to enable quite complex temporal descriptions. Look at the following sentence, taken from a recent work of contemporary fiction, noting how the author makes use of both tense and aspect: “At ten to eight, Siân began to climb the hundred and ninety-nine steps, and gazing for a moment across the harbour, she suddenly spotted Hadrian and Magnus on the other side, two tiny figures sprinting along Marine Parade” (Faber, 2004, p. 120). This sentence, with its multiple clauses, contains no less than five verb forms marked in various ways for tense and aspect. The first verb is begin, which is marked for past simple (i.e., the tense is past and there is no overt aspect marking); this is immediately followed by another verb, the infinitive to climb; shortly after, we have the present progressive form of the verb gaze (i.e., present tense and progressive aspect); next comes the verb spot, again

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marked for past simple; finally, there is the verb sprint, once more marked for present progressive. The above sentence shows, then, how tense and aspect are closely connected, working together to convey temporal meanings. Despite their obvious connection, it will nonetheless prove useful to consider them separately, examining tense first and then looking at aspect. After this, we will be in a position to consider some of the meanings they convey when operating in tandem.

What Is Tense? What is tense? What function does it serve in the grammar? A standard response to such questions is to say that tense encodes a relationship between the time of a situation described by the verb and the time of speaking. Such formulations are useful, but we need to be careful about making a simple association between tense and time. Consider the following quotation, from one highly influential linguist of a rather earlier generation: It is important to keep the two concepts, time and tense strictly apart. The former is common to all mankind and is independent of language while the latter varies from language to language and is the linguistic expression of time relations, so far as these are indicated in verb forms. (Jespersen, 1933, p. 230)

Jespersen’s point is clear enough: The ideas of time and tense should not be unthinkingly conflated. While time is seemingly “common” to everyone, tense is “the linguistic expression of time relations . . . indicated in verb forms,” and it varies from one language to another. Echoes of this salutary warning can be found in the work of more recent linguists. For example, Huddleston and Pullam write as follows: We distinguish sharply between the grammatical category of tense and the semantic category of time. In It started yesterday, You said it started tomorrow, and I wish it started tomorrow, for example, started is a preterite1 verb-form in all three sentences, but only in the first does it locate the starting in past time. (Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 51)

It is a relatively simple matter to demonstrate that the two concepts, time and tense, really are distinct. You are, no doubt, already familiar with the idea that a present tense verb can be used to refer to a future event, as it is in the following:

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(1) The train leaves at 8:00 tomorrow. Typically, one of the first things teachers tell their students about the present simple in English is that it can be used to refer to future events, usually when those events are scheduled or expected. What such familiar examples reveal is that there is no necessary connection between the tense of the verb and the time frame it signifies. Consider another example. The following sentence, again with the verb in a present form, could only be meaningfully uttered at a time prior to the day in question: (2) This year, Christmas Day falls on a Saturday. Similarly, a speaker might produce a sentence like (3), in which the verb is marked as present progressive, even though the event of leaving has yet to take place: (3) We’re leaving for the Philippines tomorrow. What about the past tense? Look at the following. Each of the italicized verbs is in a past tense form. And yet, how many of them refer to past time? (4) (From Willis, 2003, p. 101) a. You wouldn’t be insured if you had an accident. b. If Jack was playing we’d probably win. c. Excuse me, I was wondering if this was the emergency ward. The answer is that none of the highlighted verbs refers to past time, even though they are marked as past. In (4a), which is one type of conditional construction, the past form had is used although the speaker clearly has in mind a hypothetical event, not one that has already occurred; in (4b), where was playing is used, the speaker is referring either to a present situation (if the match is going on at the moment of speaking) or to a future situation (if the match has yet to begin); in (4c), was wondering is used, yet the speaker is wondering now, at this moment. Considerations like this suggest that it may be misleading to think of tense as a means of marking time. And, in fact, many contemporary lin-

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guists prefer to think of tense as reflecting a more fundamental distinction. Instead, they prefer to think of tense as reflecting “remoteness from the speaker.” The idea is that a present tense verb ties the situation closely to speaker; the past tense makes the situation more distant from the speaker (i.e., a present tense makes the situation encoded in the verb “non-remote”; a past tense makes it more “remote”). In order to make this clearer, look at the following example: (5) If you worked harder, you would get better grades. We are so familiar with language of this sort that we may well fail to notice that there is something quite interesting going on here. It is obvious that in referring to the possible achievement of better grades, the speaker has a future situation in mind. So why does she use a past tense verb? The answer is that the use of the past here makes the situation more remote, which means, in this context, that it is a less likely possibility. In other words, by choosing a past tense form of the verb, the speaker is effectively indicating that she thinks it unlikely that the addressee will work harder, even though this possibility is not ruled out entirely. And it is important to notice that this really is a matter of choice. After all, it would have been entirely possible for the speaker to use a present form of the main verb instead: (6) If you work harder, you will get better grades. In this case, by marking the verb as present rather than past, the speaker is signaling that she perceives the situation as less remote—a more likely possibility. To take another example, consider the following: (7) a. Are you free? I wanted to ask you something. b. Are you free? I want to ask you something. The interesting thing here is that in (7a), the speaker changes from a present form (Are you free?) to a past form (I wanted), even though he wants to ask something now. Again, this is a choice that speakers can make. As (7b) makes clear, marking both verbs as present forms would be perfectly grammatical. In this particular case, the speaker opts for a past form in order to convey greater politeness. But why is a past tense verb used as a politeness marker? Once again, the answer has to do with the fundamen-

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tal sense of remoteness or non-remoteness that tenses carry. As a remote form, the past tense in (7a) has the effect of “distancing” the request from the here and now, and therefore, in this context, rendering the request more polite. The idea that tenses are ways of signaling whether a situation is regarded as relatively close to or relatively remote from the speaker’s “now” is an interesting one. It is a commonplace among linguists that English makes a fundamental two-way distinction between a present (non-remote) and a past (remote) tense. Admittedly, there are some dissenters, and it should be noted that many of them are highly respected linguists. Dixon (2005, p. 211), for example, proposes that speakers of English have a choice between four tenses: generic, future, present, and past. My own view is that Dixon’s claim that English has a distinct generic (or habitual) tense is mistaken. Let me explain. The evidence that Dixon offers in support of this claim revolves around certain “timeless” statements in which an NP has a generic reference. Sentences (8a) and (8b) are examples of such statements: (8) (From Dixon, 2005, p. 211) a. Crows are black. b. Ducks like water. However, it is questionable whether these are really examples of a separate tense, or whether they simply show a particular function to which EUEs put the present simple. To be sure, the NPs in the above examples are generic. Thus, the sense of (8a) is that all crows are black; likewise, (8b) tells us that every duck is fond of water. Yet, in English, tense is normally said to be realized inflectionally on verbs; the nature of the NP occupying the subject or object position is irrelevant. Given this, it might be better to say that these examples illustrate a present simple verb form in combination with NPs carrying a generic sense. But this is very different from speaking of a generic tense. To repeat, many linguists now take the view that we should think in terms of a fundamental distinction within the English tense system between past tense (remote) and present tense (non-remote). As we will shortly see, English also makes a similar two-way distinction between progressive and perfect aspect. Before considering this further, however, I want to raise another matter, one that may have occurred to you to already: If, as I am suggesting, the key tense distinction in English lies between present and past, where does the future fit in? The next section considers this matter in some detail.

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Expressing the Future in English: A Linguistic Dispute How do EUEs talk about future time? The question is worth asking since, as we have seen, a case can be made for saying that, at a fundamental level, English makes a distinction between past and present tense, reflecting a remote versus non-remote dichotomy. Yet it is self-evidently possible to refer to the future in English. We find ourselves doing this constantly. In light of this, it is quite common to find linguists arguing—contrary to what most laypeople believe—that the expression of futurity in English does not involve tense. In short, according to some linguists, English does not have a future tense. In order to make the point, here are a few representative quotations from recent linguistic works. Quirk et al. say, “Morphologically English has no future form of the verb in addition to present and past forms” (1985, p. 176). Precisely the same point is made by Berk, who states that “ English has never had a future tense. There is no suffix that the English speaker can attach to a verb to make it future” (1999, p. 105). And Huddleston and Pullam tell us that “while there are numerous ways of indicating future time, there is no grammatical category that can properly be analysed as a future tense” (2002, p. 209; emphasis original). On the other hand, it should also be acknowledged that some linguists are happy to continue talking about a future tense. An example is Dixon, who subdivides what he calls the English future tense into an established future, used for regular occurrences, and a particular future, used for nonregular or special happenings. As an example of the former, Dixon offers the following (Dixon, 2005, p. 213): (9) The sun rises at 7:06 tomorrow morning. Once more, I find what Dixon has to say here unconvincing. He himself acknowledges that such utterances “will normally be accompanied by an adverb referring to future time” (2005, p. 212). But surely this is precisely the point at issue? It is the presence of the adverbial expression in (9) that marks it as having future reference, not the tense of the verb. That this is the case is shown in the following: (10) The sun rises every morning. To me, at least, it is far from obvious that in (9) we have a “future tense,” whereas in (10) we do not. In both cases, the verb rise is in the present.

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Perhaps by now you have realized that what is really at issue here is how we go about marking tense in English. Those linguists who contend that English lacks a future tense are basing their claim on a somewhat narrow view of tense as a matter of verbal inflection. This is made quite explicit in the remarks from Quirk et al., quoted above, who say that “morphologically English has no future form of the verb.” Think, too, about Berk’s observation that English lacks a verbal suffix with the meaning “future.” The same view is assumed in the following passage from Brinton: The only tense distinction expressed inflectionally in English is that between present and past, as in walk/walked or sing/sang, even though it is conventional to talk about a three-way distinction between past, present, and future tense. However, the future is expressed periphrastically and thus is not formally parallel to the past and present. (Brinton, 2000, p. 112)

But are these linguists correct to place so much weight on inflection? Perhaps doing so draws the net too narrowly? Those linguists who are prepared to talk about an English future tense do not limit the notion to verbal inflection in this way. Instead, they expand the notion of tense to include certain periphrastic verb forms. Thus, Declerck says, “In English, future tense forms are not built by means of a special suffix but by means of the present tense of one of the auxiliaries will or shall (the latter in the first person only) or of the semi-auxiliary be going to . . .” (2006, p. 337). It is precisely this view that is rejected by linguists such as Huddleston and Pullam, who say very firmly that “English has no future tense: will and shall belong grammatically with must, may, and can, and are modal auxiliaries, not tense auxiliaries” (2002, p. 52). Consider the following: (11) a. Tomorrow it will rain. b. Tomorrow it may rain. For the likes of Huddleston and Pullam, and those who agree with them, there is no more reason to regard the modal auxiliary will in (11a) as a tense marker and to treat will rain as an example of the English future tense than there is to call may in (11b) a future marker. And so the dispute over whether or not English has a future tense continues. Is this something that EFL teachers need to worry about? Or can it be safely ignored? Let me say here that there is no harm done if you continue to refer to the English future tense in your classroom. Students have quite enough to think about without being troubled by such matters and

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there is little sense in adding to their burden needlessly. Yet, underlying the dispute is an important issue that does have an obvious bearing on the classroom, namely, the difference between the way the present and past tenses are marked on the one hand, and the way the (so-called) future tense is marked on the other. In fact, present tense verbs are not marked at all, except, of course, in the case of the present simple 3rd-person form. What about past tense verbs? The vast majority of English verbs are marked for past by means of the suffix -ed. As you know, a much more limited number of verbs (although these tend to be the most frequently used verbs in the language) form their past tense in some irregular way: by means of some verb-internal change (e.g., meet becomes met) or, occasionally, by the use of a quite different form (e.g., go becomes went). If we focus only on the regular verbs, we can say that the past tense is marked through verbal inflection (e.g., walk + ed). The key point, of course, is that there is nothing equivalent to this when a verb is employed to discuss some future situation. Instead, English speakers are required to employ other (non-morphological) means to signal that a particular VP has future reference. How, then, is this done? Very often, speakers of English will use a verb marked as present progressive, as in (12a), or they will combine be with going to and a base verb (12b), or they may use a present simple verb (12c): (12) a. Manchester United are playing Barcelona tonight. b. Manchester United are going to play Barcelona tonight. c. Manchester United play Barcelona tonight. It is also possible to refer to future events using a combination of a modal auxiliary and a bare infinitive: (13) It will rain tomorrow. Generally, will is the preferred modal. As we have noted, this fact has suggested to some that will is the future marker in English. However, in actuality, will is only one of several modal auxiliaries that can be used to refer to some future event: (14) a. I think it may rain tomorrow. b. I think it could rain tomorrow. c. I think it might rain tomorrow.

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Despite what is sometimes maintained, therefore, it may be better to think of will as simply one way of talking about future possibilities. Moreover, as I will discuss in the next chapter, will has other uses as well. It is certainly a mistake to think of it as simply a future marker. Speakers can also employ a modal auxiliary plus be and a progressive form of the verb: (15) This time tomorrow, we will be visiting my grandparents. Or they can use be plus a to-infinitive: (16) The Queen is to visit Dubai next month. There is a further perfect construction, sometimes called the future perfect, which is used to refer to a situation that will be finished before a specified time in the future. You might think of it as referring to “the future in the future”: (17) By the time my parents arrive, I’ll have written half my dissertation. Once more, although will is commonly used for this combination, certain other modal verbs can also be used with a similar effect: (18) By the time my parents arrive, I should have written half my dissertation. In short, EUEs have a number of periphrastic constructions available to them when they wish to talk about the future.

Tense and Aspect in Combination: The English Present Simple Up to this point, I have been talking primarily about tense. Let me say something now about aspect. In linguistics, the term aspect is used in a very specific way. Allan tells us that aspect refers to the “internal temporal contour of a situation” (2001, p. 354). Slightly less obscurely, Quirk et al. regard aspect as “a grammatical category which reflects the way in which the verb action is regarded or experienced with respect to time” (1985, p. 188; emphasis original). Aspect, we can say, refers to the way in which a speaker views a situation,

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that is, the way the situation is perceived from the speaker’s point of view. It is usually said that modern English has two ways of marking aspect syntactically. These are conventionally known as progressive aspect and perfect aspect.2 What gives the English verbal system much of its richness and flexibility is the way in which these two aspects, progressive and perfect, interact with the present and past tenses. Indeed, the various verb-forms that are generally called tenses in EFL circles are more accurately described as combinations of tense and aspect. Thus, the so-called present progressive (or continuous) tense actually combines present tense and progressive aspect; the past perfect tense combines past tense and perfect aspect, and so on. Books intended for classroom use often downplay the distinction between tense and aspect. There may be little harm in doing so since, although from a linguistic perspective tense and aspect are logically distinct, they are closely related. Moreover, the average DUE has enough to worry about without insisting on this difference. Nonetheless, a term such as present perfect tense is, strictly speaking, inaccurate. In the next few sections, I am going to consider some of these tense–aspect combinations in more detail. I begin with the present simple. Compared with some other languages, the form of the English present simple is quite straightforward. For lexical verbs, it consists of just two forms. All subjects (whether singular or plural) take an unmarked verb (e.g., I talk, We talk, etc.), except the 3rd-person singular subject, which requires a “marked” form of the verb (She talks). Some other languages have much richer inflectional systems than does modern English. For example the present simple conjugation of talk in French is shown in Figure 7.1. In Turkish, all subjects require a distinct form of the verb. The present simple conjugation of talk in Turkish is shown in Figure 7.2. Of the three English primary verbs, have and do follow this same pattern in having two forms in the present simple (e.g., I have, she has; I do, she does, etc.); the primary verb be has three distinct forms: I am, you are, and she is. Je parle – “I talk” Tu parles – “You talk” Il/Elle parle – “He/she/talks” Nous parlons – “We talk” Vous parlez – “You talk” Ils/Elles parlent – “They talk”

Figure 7.1  French present simple.

234    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar Konuşurum – “I talk” Konuşursun – “You talk” Konuşur – “He/she talks” Konuşuruz – “We talk” Konuşursunuz – “You talk” Konuşurlar – “They talk”

Figure 7.2  Turkish present simple.

While the form of the English present simple is relatively straightforward, it is used to express a diverse array of meanings. It is worth mentioning at the outset that, despite its name, English speakers do not use the present simple for situations taking place in the immediate present. The present progressive is normally used for this purpose, as in the following: (19) A: What are you doing? B: I’m reading my Spiderman comic. (Not I read . . . .) For this reason, some linguists avoid the term present simple, preferring to speak of the non-past instead. In terms of the distinction noted earlier, we might also think of the present simple as non-remote (i.e., a verb form that locates the situation as relatively close to the speaker’s “now”). Because the majority of readers will probably be already familiar with the main meanings carried by the present simple, it will be sufficient to present these in list form with a few brief observations.

Regular or Habitual Situations By definition, a habit reflects a regular pattern of behavior or action. However, notice that, although the verb is in the present tense, there is no suggestion in any of the examples that follow that the situation referred to is taking place currently (i.e., at the moment of speaking). As Brinton puts it, “A habit indicates a series of events that are characteristic of a period. These events constitute a whole. For habits to exist, the event (of walking to work, smoking, etc.) need not actually be going on at the present moment” (2000, p. 112). Here are some examples:

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(20) a. She goes to the gym three times a week. b. That man talks all the time! c. By day he gambles and by night he drinks and carries on. On the other hand, you read too much, work too fast, and study too hard (Teschner & Evans, 2007, p. 47).

States of Being or Possession By a state I mean a permanent or enduring situation. As Teschner and Evans express it, “It’s obvious that in stative functions the being or possession is part of the present moment (and will likely be part of the future as well), but it is also true that the ‘state’ came to be sometime in the past” (Teschner & Evans, 2007, p. 46). Examples follow: (21) a. I feel sad. b. The museum owns several Picassos. c. He has a headache. A state may be a temporary one, as in (21a) and (c), or a relatively permanent one, as in (21b). It is sometimes possible for a present simple verb denoting a state to be replaced by a present progressive form. Thus, the situation described in (21a) could also be expressed as (22) without significant change of meaning. (22) I’m feeling sad. However, this is not always possible. Unlike feel in (21a), the verbs employed in (21b) and (21c) do not readily permit progressive aspect: (23) a. *The museum is owning several Picassos. b. ?He is having a headache. Sentence (23a) is clearly ungrammatical; (23b) might be acceptable if we add a little more linguistic context.

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(24) He is having a lot of headaches these days. (For more on this latter point, see my discussion of have and progressive aspect below.)

Universal or “Timeless” Truths and Established Facts In these examples, the present simple verb refers to a situation that is either accepted as universally valid (25a) or that is widely recognized as being the case (25b, c): (25) a. Hot air rises. b. England has a lot of beautiful old churches. c. The national dish of Korea is kimchi.

Generic Statements Generic statements3 refer to all members of a class or group. In the following, the speaker does not intend a particular chimp, cat, or Korean student. What is in view is all chimps, all cats, all students from Korea. This is reflected morphologically in the use of the uninflected form of the verb rather than the 3rd-person singular form (V + s). (26) a. Chimpanzees are extraordinary creatures. b. Cats sleep all the time. c. Korean students know a lot of English grammar rules. The difference becomes apparent if we compare the above cases with ones in which the subject NP identifies a particular individual member of the class: (27) a. That chimpanzee is extraordinary. b. My cat sleeps all the time. c. Kara’s Korean student knows a lot of English grammar rules.

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Commentary on Some Currently Unfolding Situation Present simple forms (rather than progressive forms) of verbs are sometimes used when the speaker is narrating some event that is currently taking place. This use is highly characteristic of sports commentaries (28a) and nature documentaries (28b) on TV, where the viewer can see the action unfolding in front of them. They are also found in classrooms when a teacher is explaining a procedure of some sort (28c). (28) a. Jisung Park shoots. It’s a goal! b. While the lioness creeps ever closer, the antelopes graze unperturbed. c. First, we decide what part of speech the word belongs to. Then, we select a possible synonym.

Summaries Summaries of works of literature or other artistic productions will often make use of present simple verb forms. The rationale here seems to be that the work in question is permanently available “in the present,” as it were, even though the creator is not (and may, indeed, be dead). This is nicely explained in the following: “Writing has a permanence lacking in speech, and where past writings have been preserved they can be read now, and we can talk about them from the perspective of their present and potentially permanent existence rather than that of their past creation” (Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 129). Consider the following illustrative cases: (29) a. Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most remarkable characters. b. Faber’s short story opens with the main character attending an archeological dig at Whitby Abbey in Yorkshire. c. Eventually, after much pointless wailing and screeching, the death scene comes to an end, the heroine dies, and the audience is put out of its misery.

Performatives In performatives, a situation is established as real through the act of speaking. In other words, it “becomes a reality by virtue of its being said the instant it is said . . . [W]hen you say the words you perform the action,

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thus making it real” (Teschner & Evans, 2007, p. 47). This, then, is one case where the present simple does refer to present time. (30) a. I sentence you to life without parole. b. I declare this megastore open. c. We apologize for the inconvenience. Note that in each of these examples, the subject is 1st person. This is a necessary requirement of such constructions.

Planned or Scheduled Future Situations You are undoubtedly familiar already with the use of present simple verb forms for planned future events. Here are some examples: (31) a. We leave for the Philippines on April 30. b. The new cycle begins next week. c. After the ceremony, there’s a reception. Notice that in this use, some adverbial expression (e.g., on April 30, next week, after the ceremony) that serves to establish a time reference is generally required. In its absence, the above sound very odd: (32) a. ?We leave for the Philippines. b. ?The new cycle begins. c. ?There’s a reception.

Unplanned or Unscheduled but Anticipated Future Situations The use of present simple forms for scheduled events is widely recognized. Less commonly discussed is the use of such forms for situations that, while unscheduled, are nonetheless expected. Consider the following: (33) a. I’ll send you a copy of that file as soon as it arrives in my inbox. b. Once the new program director starts, I’m going to demand a pay rise!

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Some linguists and grammarians go so far as to say that the present simple cannot be used for unscheduled situations. Berk, for example, states, “The simple present cannot . . . be used for an unscheduled event. *It rains tomorrow is ungrammatical” (1999, p. 103; emphasis original). And yet the following is grammatically acceptable: (34) We won’t go to the park if it rains tomorrow. So the clause it rains tomorrow is possible. The only constraint on its use is that it must be a subordinate clause.

Narration of Past Events (the Historical Present) Speakers will often choose to recount past experiences using present simple verb forms, especially in informal social settings. Consider the following: (35) a. Yesterday, as I’m on my way to work, my son looks at me and he says . . . . b. I’m amazed. So I say to him . . . c. And he turns to me, looks me in the eye . . . Linguistically, this is a rather interesting use of the present. The situation being referred to is in the past (note the use of yesterday in [35a]), yet the verbs are marked with the non-remote present simple. The purpose is to add immediacy or interest to the narrative by marking it as less remote from the speaker’s (and the hearer’s) “now.” That this is a matter of choice is evident, since the above might easily have taken a different form: (36) a. Yesterday as I was on my way to work my son looked at me and he said . . . b. I was amazed. So I said to him . . . c. And he turned to me, looked me in the eye . . .

Informing and Commenting on “News” Finally, EUEs will also use the present simple in certain semi-fixed, formulaic expressions used to share with others information that they deem to

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be newsworthy. The verb itself will tend to come from a fairly restricted set in these cases. The verbs believe, hear, and see are especially common: (37) a. Did you hear about Fred? b. I see that the new director will be visiting the program tomorrow. c. I believe it is going to rain tomorrow. DUEs are sometimes surprised by the wide range of uses the present simple has. In fact, however, the same thing is found in many other languages. A case in point is Korean, which, like English, uses the present simple for habitual activities (38a) and universal truths (38b): (38) a. 그 버스는 10분마다 온다 (geu bus-neun sipboon-mada onda) “The bus comes every ten minutes.” b. 지구는 둥글다 (giguneun dunggeulda) “The earth is round.” On the other hand, unlike in English, the Korean present simple is used for ongoing activities: (39) a. 너 뭐해? (neo mohae) “What do you do?” (i.e., “What are you doing right now?”) b. 책 읽어(chack ilgeo) “I read a book.” (i.e., “I am reading a book right now.”)

Tense and Aspect in Combination: The English Past Simple The form of the English past simple is somewhat more complex than the present simple because not all verbs form their past in the same way. The past of most verbs (i.e., the “regular” verbs) in English is formed by means of the -ed suffix: chased, downloaded, laughed, talked, et cetera. You might like to know that there is strong evidence in the linguistics literature that speakers regard the regular pattern as the “default category.” Even young children, when presented with made-up verbs, will provide an -ed ending if asked to make the verb past. Even this apparently simple pattern is not entirely straightforward, however. A complication that has an obvious significance for DUEs is that, while

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the orthographic (written) form of the past tense is consistent, it is pronounced in three distinct ways, depending on the nature of the base verb to which it attaches. You are, no doubt, already familiar with the way in which the pronunciation of the -ed suffix changes in the following examples: (40) a. She stopped studying at nine. b. She visited her grandmother at nine. c. She died at nine. Most verbs in English follow this regular pattern for past formation. However, a significant number of verbs are marked for past simple in some other, “irregular” way. These irregular forms can be grouped into various categories according to the manner in which their past tense is formed. A few irregular verbs, such as bet, cut, and put, have an identical present and past form. More commonly, an irregular is formed by means of some verbinternal change or, in the case of go, the use of a distinct, historically unrelated form, went. Primary have and do follow the same pattern as other verbs in having a single past form: had and did, respectively. As always, primary be is an exception since it has two past forms, was (1st- and 3rd-person singular) and were (2nd-person singular and 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-person plural). (See Table 7.1.) Interestingly, a few verbs currently have both a regular and an irregular past form. For example, some EUEs treat the verb dream as a regular verb Table 7.1  The English Past Simple: Verb Forms Verb type

Verb form

Lexical (regular)

chase → chased; download → downloaded; laugh → laughed; talk → talked

Lexical (irregular)   a) vowel change   b) consonant change   c) v owel change, consonant change   d) distinct, unrelated form Primary have, do Primary be

break → broke; drink → drank; eat → ate; fly → flew; run → ran bend → bent; spend → spent buy → bought; catch → caught go → went have → had; do → did be → was/were

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and hence will say dreamed, while for others the past form is dreamt. Again, for some EUEs the past of leap is leaped, while others prefer leapt. It is worth noting that in negatives and questions in the past it is the auxiliary that carries the tense, with the main verb left unmarked. This is shown below for regular play in (41a) and (b) and irregular eat in (41c) and (d):



(41) a. Jae Hui didn’t play soccer yesterday. b. Did Jae Hui play soccer yesterday? c. They didn’t eat chicken kebab yesterday. d. Did they eat chicken kebab yesterday?

The same thing happens when the primary verbs have and do appear as past forms: (42) a. The Dean didn’t have a meeting yesterday. b. Did the Dean have a meeting yesterday? (43) a. Alicia didn’t do her homework yesterday. b. Did Alicia do her homework yesterday? As we might anticipate, primary be behaves differently in this respect: (44) a. Robert was in school yesterday. b. Robert wasn’t in school yesterday. c. Was Robert in school yesterday? The English past simple conveys rather fewer meanings than the present simple. As I have said, linguists regard the past as establishing a fundamental remoteness in relation to the speaker’s “now.” But this can be used to convey different meanings. Below, I consider some of these.

Single Completed Event In its principle meaning, the situation referred to by a past tense verb will be a single event that is now complete:

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(45) a. Last week, Susan received the prize she’d been hoping for. b. The battle of Agincourt occurred on 25 October 1415. c. I met a friend yesterday. In these examples, the receipt of the prize, the battle, and the meeting are each presented as a now-completed event.

Extended Situation, Now Completed In addition to single events, the past simple may refer to a situation that was extended over a period of time, but which is now completed: (46) a. Mehmet lived in New York for two years. b. Sebastian ran for mayor in 2007. c. Rebecca West traveled extensively in the Middle East. Clearly, living in New York, running for mayor, and traveling are not single events. Rather, they are situations of extended duration. Nonetheless, the use of the past here indicates that the period of time is now over.

Series of Regular Events The past simple can also be used with a habitual sense, to refer to a series of past events that occurred on a regular basis. Often, when used in this way, the verb is accompanied by an adverbial that underscores the regularity of the situation described: (47) a. Every morning, I walked to the office, no matter the weather. b. My mother always went to the fish market on Mondays. c. Whenever I played football I would injure myself. The habitual meaning expressed here by means of the past simple can also be expressed with an alternative grammatical pattern. This involves a special habitual form, used to, plus an infinitive verb. Each of the examples in (47) can be rephrased using this pattern without change of meaning:

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(48) a. Every morning, I used to walk to the office, no matter the weather. b. My mother always used to go to the fish market on Mondays. c. Whenever I used to play football I would injure myself.

Conditional Possibility The past simple can also be used in a conditional clause where the speaker regards the situation as perhaps unlikely. Notice that, unlike the examples above, this does not involve any reference to past time. In fact, in this conditional use, the speaker will generally have some hypothetical future in mind. We may think of this as “remoteness from possibility.” Here is an example: (49) If I had more money, I could buy that car.

Signaling Politeness An important social function for the past simple is as a politeness marker: (50) I was hoping I could borrow your cell phone. Once again, there is no reference to past time when the past simple is used in this way. I turn now to a consideration of some of the more complicated tenseaspect combinations that English permits.

Tense and Aspect in Combination: The English Present and Past Progressive In English, progressive aspect is marked by the auxiliary verb be plus the -ing participle of a main verb. Thus, a prototypical progressive construction will have the following form: (51) Sub. + be + V-ing

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Traditionally, the participle here is known as the present participle. This term is misleading since the -ing participle is not restricted to expressing present time. Notice that it is the auxiliary verb that carries the tense. This becomes clear if we compare the present progressive in (52a) with its past counterpart in (52b). (52) a. Kelly is talking to her best friend. b. Kelly was talking to her best friend. In terms of meaning, progressive aspect is usually said to indicate that a situation is or was ongoing (i.e., in progress) at the time of speaking. Not surprisingly, therefore, it is very natural to find dynamic verbs marked for progressive aspect (for a discussion of verb types, see Chapter 2 above): (53) a. We are eating right now. b. Currently, they are studying English. c. I was watching a movie when my mother called. Not all languages permit dynamic verbs to be marked as progressive. For example, French does not have an equivalent of the English present progressive. Thus, to translate We are eating right now, a French speaker would require a periphrastic expression such as en train de (“in the middle of”) (e.g., Nous sommes en train de manger). On the other hand, Spanish has a verb form that conveys essentially the same meaning as the English progressive, utilizing a form of estar (to be) plus a participle of a main verb. Thus, the equivalent sentence in Spanish would be Nosotros estamos comiendo. Turkish also has a present progressive verb form, although it is formed differently, employing the infix -iyor. Thus, the Turkish version of our sentence is the single lexical item Yiyoruz. The idea conveyed to generations of English learners that the progressive is invariably used to refer to ongoing situations is something of a simplification. The present progressive, in particular, has a variety of uses. For example, it can also be used to convey the sense that some current situation is impermanent or of limited duration. In this respect, it is instructive to compare the present simple (54a) with the present progressive (54b): (54) a. I live in London. b. I am living in London.

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The sense of (54a) is that this is a relatively permanent state of affairs— there is no suggestion that the speaker is intending to leave any time soon; in (54b), the sense is that the situation is temporary; London is where the speaker happens to live at the moment, but this could change. The present progressive can also carry a “habitual” sense in an appropriate context. We see this in (55). (55) I’ve recently changed my newspaper; now I’m reading the Guardian. Again, the present progressive is frequently used to refer to situations that have yet to begin: (56) They’re flying to Rome in August. The past progressive also conveys a range of meanings. Its basic meaning is to refer to situations in progress in the past: (57) a. Last night, my wife and I were watching TV from 7:00 until 11:00. b. At 5:00 p.m., I was drinking some tea. c. Peter was working on his assignment yesterday evening. The past progressive is also commonly used for interrupted actions. In these cases, notice that the “ongoing” situation is marked with the past progressive, while the interruption itself is marked with past simple: (58) a. The students were chattering when the professor entered the room. b. While I was attending Cambridge University, my grandfather passed away. Again, the past progressive can be used to refer to two separate situations that coincided, or which were in progress concurrently, at some stage in the past: (59) a. While we were watching TV, the cat was sleeping.

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b. At the time Peter was working on his assignment, his friends were having fun. c. Was Nero really fiddling while Rome was burning?

Progressive Marking on Verbs: A Potential Problem A problematic issue for DUEs is the question of which verbs will accept progressive aspect and which will not. Unfortunately, this is not an easy question to answer. To begin with the easier cases, it should be apparent (as I have already noted) that all dynamic verbs referring to activities extended in time happily combine with progressive aspect (e.g., climbing, dancing, eating, jumping, running, studying, walking, watching, etc.). Additionally, at least some punctual verbs denoting short-lived or instantaneous events combine with progressive aspect to give what linguists call an iterative interpretation (i.e., the situation involves a series of repeated acts). To see this, compare (60a) and (b): (60) a. Jong Han was sneezing when I entered the room. b. Jong Han sneezed when I entered the room. In (60a), by marking the punctual verb sneeze as past progressive, the speaker conveys the sense of a series of sneezes; however, in (60b), where the same verb is not marked as progressive, the sense is that there was a single sneeze only. The same iterative interpretation is apparent when the progressive aspect is used with other punctual verbs. A very natural example of this iterative use of a punctual verb is given in (61): (61) Mom! He’s hitting me! What about verbs like believe, know and so on, verbs that I referred to earlier as psych-verbs? These are essentially a subtype of stative verb. Not surprisingly, therefore, many verbs of this type can be awkward when marked for progressive aspect. This is reflected in the ungrammaticality of know and believe in the following examples: (62) a. *I am believing you. b. *I am knowing you.

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While neither of these is unacceptable in English, their counterparts are certainly possible in some other languages. For a Korean speaker, for example, the equivalent of (62a) is the entirely grammatical (63). (63) 난 널 믿고 있어 (nan neol mitgo itseo) “I am believing you.” Likewise, (62b) might be translated as (64). (64) 나는 그를 알고있어 (naneon geoleol algoitseo) “I am knowing you.” Some psych-verbs in English do combine with progressive aspect if the speaker has a particular occasion in mind: (65) a. Seung Mi is expecting a package. b. Seung Mi expects a lot of packages. Sentence (65a) must be understood to mean that Seung Mi is looking forward to receiving a particular package, probably in the near future. Contrast this with (65b), where the present simple form of the verb conveys the sense that she generally (regularly) looks forward to getting lots of packages. Here is another example of a psych-verb that seems to work perfectly well when marked as progressive: (66) Don’t rush me! I’m still thinking about the answer. When a verb like think is used to denote a current mental activity, as it is in (66), progressive aspect is acceptable. The speaker is engaged in the activity at the moment of speaking. Her mental situation is undergoing change, as it were, and the verb think is close to being dynamic. However, the progressive is not possible when the same verb denotes a firmly established thought or opinion (i.e., when no thinking is currently taking place): (67) *I’m thinking linguistics is difficult.4 Other psych-verbs that permit a “current mental activity” interpretation include hope and wonder. Both of the following sentences are acceptable:

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(68) a. They were hoping for a change of luck. b. I was wondering whether we should go to the movies this evening. It is also possible to mark certain psych-verbs as progressive if a recent change is in view. Consider the following: (69) (From Berk, 1999, p. 109) I am understanding statistics better these days. Here, the phrase these days underscores the idea of some recent change in the speaker’s comprehension of statistics and so provides support for the progressive form of the verb. Without this phrase, the sentence is ungrammatical: (70) *I am understanding statistics better.5 So far as psych-verbs are concerned, then, the picture that emerges is an unfortunately complicated one. As we have seen, some verbs (e.g., think, hope, wonder) permit progressive aspect when the verb refers to a current and ongoing mental state. Yet this reading seems to be ruled out with certain other verbs (e.g., believe, know), and these, in consequence, do not allow progressive aspect. We have also noted that, if some recent change is in view, progressive seems to be possible with psych-verbs that would not otherwise accept it (e.g., the understand example in [70]). At the risk of adding still further to your bewilderment, I draw attention to Berk’s observation that the verbs desire and crave (which convey rather similar meanings) “vary in their ability to co-occur with the progressive” (p. 109). To take her examples, (71a) is clearly ungrammatical, whereas (71b) is fine. Why this should be is unclear. Remember: All grammars leak! (71) (From Berk, 1999, p. 109) a. *I am desiring spaghetti. b. I am craving spaghetti. When operating as main verbs, the primary verbs will also permit progressive aspect, although, once again, the situation is complicated. Part of the difficulty here is that these verbs are notably context-sensitive in the sense that they convey distinct senses in different contexts. As I have already

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discussed, linguists will sometimes talk about verbs being light, meaning that they take their specific meaning from other surrounding words—in particular, the object. The lightness of the primaries is reflected in their behavior with respect to progressive aspect. Look at (72): (72) a shower He’s having a medical examination a lie down Sentence (72), with its various object NPs, shows just how light have is. Clearly, the verb means something very different when used in conjunction with a shower than it means when its object is a medical examination or a lie down. In each case, however, progressive aspect is possible. Moreover, while the specific meaning of the verb varies in (72), I suggest it is possible to discern a common sense to its use. Broadly, the verb has a “participatory” meaning, signifying that the subject is engaging in some activity or state (making himself clean, having his health checked, resting). Now note that have can also have an “experiential” sense: (73) a. Sarah is having a problem with her laptop. b. They were having a bad day. c. This evening, I’m having a birthday party. Again, it seems that have readily permits marking for progressive aspect when it carries this experiential sense. Have can also convey a possessive or “ownership” sense, in which case progressive aspect is less acceptable. Sentence (74a) is obviously ungrammatical if it is taken to mean that Seung Mi has a particular package now (i.e., it is in her possession). On the other hand, (74b) is acceptable. (74) a. *Seung Min is having a package. b. Seung Min is having a lot of packages these days. In this latter case, the speaker is not thinking about one particular package delivered on one particular day. In consequence, have is not really possessive; rather, the sense would seem to be that a lot of packages are being

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delivered to Seung Min over a period of time. Once again, the lightness of have and the way this affects its ability to take progressive aspect is apparent. As the following examples indicate, do will generally accept progressive marking quite happily: (75) a. She’s doing her homework. b. She’s doing very well in school. c. She was doing the laundry when the electricity failed. Primary be also permits progressive marking: (76) a. You are being foolish. b. The twins were being charming.

Tense and Aspect in Combination: The English Present and Past Perfect The perfect aspect in English is formed with the auxiliary have plus the -en participle of a main verb. A prototypical perfect construction will have the following form: (77) Sub. + have + V-en Traditionally, the participle has been called the past participle. As with the (so-called) present participle, this is a rather misleading label. I will follow linguistic convention in referring to it instead as the -en participle, even though the actual form the participle takes varies (e.g., talked, written, sung). Again, it is the auxiliary verb that carries the tense. Compare a present perfect verb with its past perfect counterpart: (78) a. Julie has talked all night. b. Julie had talked all night. As many EFL teachers will no doubt testify, the perfect aspect can be especially troublesome for DUEs. The problem is partly a lack of familiarity, since many languages do not have a comparable form. But the problems

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run deeper than this. Perfect aspect is conceptually difficult in that it combines a reference to more than one time frame. I want to explore this in greater detail. The main function of the present perfect is to refer to a situation that began in the past but which has “current relevance” for the speaker or hearer, either because the situation itself is continuing into the present or because the effects of the situation are still being felt. Consider the two examples in (79): (79) a. The professor has talked for the last hour! b. The professor has lost his keys. In (79a), the situation described by the verb has duration (i.e., the professor started talking sixty minutes ago and he is still talking now); in (79b), the situation lacks duration—it is complete, yet it retains significance in the present (i.e., the professor misplaced his keys at some point in the past with the result that now he cannot get into his house). The fundamental sense of “current relevance” that underlies the present perfect is confirmed by the fact that it frequently co-occurs with adverbial expressions that include a reference to the present (e.g., at present, up to now, so far, etc.). Notice that adverbials like these effectively “block” a past tense verb: (80) a. At present, my wife has designed three pieces of jewelry. (*At present, my wife designed . . .) b. Up to now, I have visited three palaces. (*Up to now, I visited . . .) c. We have bought two antique Tibetan cupboards so far. (*We bought . . . so far.) On the other hand, expressions that carry a reference to some “completed” period of past time such as yesterday, two weeks ago, at that time, et cetera do not readily co-occur with the present perfect although they are natural with the past tense: (81) a. Yesterday, she designed three pieces of jewelry. (*Yesterday, she has designed . . .)

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b. Two weeks ago, I visited three palaces. (*Two weeks ago, I have visited . . .) c. We bought two antique Tibetan cupboards at that time. (*We have bought . . . at that time.) An expression such as this morning can be used with either a past simple verb form or the present perfect: (82) a. Bob overslept this morning. b. Bob has overslept this morning. But note that the present perfect can only be used here if it is still morning at the time of speaking. The same basic concept is nicely illustrated in the following piece of authentic native speaker dialogue. What is particularly noticeable here is that speaker A uses the past simple form of the verb be, whereas, in her initial response, B uses a present perfect form. It is as if, from B’s perspective, what is important is the relevance of A’s story to her own present circumstances: (83) (From Carter, Hughes, & McCarthy, 2000, p. 3) A: It was definitely there, some figure there, definitely a figure there. B: Well, as long as you haven’t brought it down here with you. This is a friendly house; we don’t have any ghosts here. In all uses of the present perfect, the time frame includes the present moment—the speaker’s “now.” There is an obvious and very significant contrast here with the past simple, which (generally) refers to completed past actions (i.e., the time frame does not include the present moment). The past tense is used when the situation is located wholly in the past and, as I have suggested, serves to make the situation remote from the speaker’s “now.” The present perfect is used to locate the situation within a period of time beginning in the past and extending forward into the present; as such, the situation, although begun in the past, is less remote: (84) a. I lived in Turkey for four years. b. I’ve lived in Turkey for four years.

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With (84a), we understand that the situation is wholly in the past and remote from the speaker’s “now”: She does not live in Turkey any longer. With (84b), we understand that the situation began in the past but continues up to the present: She is living in Turkey now. Linguistic analyses of the present perfect tend to identify several major subtypes; among them, we may mention the following: ◾◾ ◾◾ ◾◾ ◾◾ ◾◾

perfect of result experiential perfect perfect of persistent situation (or state perfect) perfect of recent past recurrent event perfect

As we briefly review these various subtypes, keep in mind that there is considerable overlap between them and that it would be a mistake to regard these labels as designating distinct categories.

Perfect of Result One major use of the present perfect is where the situation occurred in the past and its effects are still being felt at the time of speaking. We have seen this already in (79b), The professor has lost his keys. Another example is given in (85): (85) She has gone to E-mart.

Experiential Perfect The present perfect is also used to refer to an experience that occurred at least once at some unspecified point in the past: (86) I have been to Paris several times. This use of the present perfect is very natural in questions when the speaker wishes to know whether someone has had a certain experience or if some event has taken place. Often, ever is used in this case:

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(87) a. Have you (ever) been to Egypt? b. Has your daughter (ever) had the flu? Questions such as the above are non-specific in the sense that the speaker wants to know if the situation has ever occurred. Contrast these with the questions in (88), in which the verb is past simple. The speaker has a particular situation in mind. Perhaps she knows that their friend was planning a vacation to Egypt; perhaps there has been a recent outbreak of flu in the local school: (88) a. Did you go to Egypt? b. Did your daughter get the flu? The so-called experiential perfect is also frequently used to indicate that some situation has not taken place: (89) I haven’t eaten noodles.

Perfect of Persistent Situation As I have noted, the present perfect is often used where the situation began in the past and persists up to the present moment. The sense conveyed is that the situation has remained unchanged up to the present; there is generally also an implication that there will be no change for a period of time into the future: (90) a. I have lived in Seoul since 2004. b. She has taught in the program for five years. c. Sunhee has attended my lectures regularly this term, but she has spoken rarely. For obvious reasons, this subtype is particularly common with stative verbs.

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Perfect of Recent Past When the situation occurred in the recent past, the present perfect is often used to signal this. For this reason, this use of the present perfect is especially common in news and sports broadcasts: (91) a. A bomb has exploded in central London. b. Roger Federer has won his fifth Wimbledon Championship. c. President Obama has pledged his support to Mexico in its war against drugs. When the perfect is used in this manner, time adverbs such as recently, just, and so on will often be inserted into the VP: (92) Brendan has just finished the washing up.

Recurrent Event Perfect Again, the present perfect is used when a situation has reoccurred on a regular basis up to the present moment. Frequency adverbials such as daily and every year are typically needed for this usage as well as a prepositional phrase indicating the time frame: (93) a. Su-mi has gone to church every Sunday morning for the last three years. b. I have visited my grandparents’ house every Christmas since I was small. Like the present perfect, the past perfect is conceptually difficult, possibly even more so. It involves relating two distinct time frames, both of which are in the past and thus remote from the speaker’s “now.” Constructions involving the past perfect are syntactically complex because the past perfect will typically be found in combination with another verb that is marked for past simple. In these cases, the past simple verb refers to one past time and the past perfect verb to an earlier (more remote) past time:

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(94) Nancy had felt nervous all morning, but once the exam began at 2:00 she was fine. In (94), two logically distinct situations are identified: first, Nancy’s nervousness; second, her feeling fine once the exam began. The first situation is in the past relative to the second and so is marked for past perfect; the second situation is in the past relative to the time of speaking and so is marked for simple past tense. Notice also that in (94), the order of the two clauses follows the actual order of events, with the earlier situation being mentioned first. This does not always happen. In (95), the actual order of the two situations is not reflected in the order of clauses: (95) The professor was pleased that all the students had passed the exam. The potential for confusion is made worse because sometimes either a past simple or a past perfect form can be used with no change of meaning as in (96), but on other occasions only a past perfect conveys the appropriate meaning as in (97): (96) a. I got to the office after Bill arrived. b. I got to the office after Bill had arrived. But: (97) a. When I got to the office, the meeting started. b. When I got to the office, the meeting had started. The following pair of mini-narratives from Givón provide a nice illustration of how the past perfect functions in discourse: (98) (From Givón, 1993a, p. 163) A. B. a) She came back into the room, a) She came back into the room b) looked around, b) and looked around. c) spotted the buffet, c) She had spotted the buffet earlier, d) and went to get a sandwich. d) so she went to get a sandwich.

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Both A and B recount the same events. The difference lies in the fact that in A, the events are presented in their proper temporal sequence (i.e., in the order in which they occurred). Grammatically, this effect is achieved by marking all the verbs as simple past. Contrast this with B. In B, events (a), (b), and (d) remain in their natural order and so are marked with the simple past. But (c) is displaced (i.e., it is recounted after [b] although it actually occurred before [b]). Grammatically, this is signaled by use of the past perfect.

Some More Patterns A real challenge for DUEs is learning to comprehend and produce some of the more complicated combinations of tense and aspect that the grammar of English permits. In authentic discourse, often present and progressive aspect operate together and in conjunction with either present or past tense, or with modal auxiliaries conveying futurity, to produce some highly complex verb forms. One way of easing the burden on students is to point out certain patterns. Three patterns are particularly common. The traditional labels for these are present perfect progressive, past perfect progressive, and future perfect progressive. I first set out these patterns formally before offering a few comments on each: ◾◾ Pattern 1: (Present perfect progressive) have + been + V-ing ◾◾ Pattern 2: (Past perfect progressive) had + been + V-ing ◾◾ Pattern 2: (Future perfect progressive) Modal Aux. + have + been + V-ing As you see, in all three patterns, perfect aspect precedes progressive aspect. Moreover, as Pattern 3 indicates, if there is a modal auxiliary this will precede the perfect form.

Pattern 1: Have + Been + V-ing The present perfect progressive, as this pattern is traditionally called, involves the appropriate form of the auxiliary have, followed by the -en participle of be, which in turn is followed by an -ing participle. This combination is used to refer to some past activity that continues into the present. To illustrate: (99) a. I have been living here for almost five years. b. She’s been studying really hard for the last few weeks. c. I’d been meaning to have a word with him for some time.

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Notice that (99a) could be rephrased as a present perfect construction (I have lived . . .) without any obvious change of meaning.

Pattern 2: Had + Been + V-ing The past perfect progressive follows exactly the same pattern, but with the auxiliary have adjusted for past. This particular pattern is generally employed to express an ongoing situation that is connected to some other situation in the past. Because of this, clauses containing past perfect progressive verb forms regularly occur in conjunction with another clause in which the verb is marked as past simple, forming a still larger pattern: (100) a. I had been living there for almost five years before I learned about that temple. b. She’d been studying hard for the last few weeks when she became ill. c. I’d been meaning to have a word with him for some time, and finally an opportunity arose.

Pattern 3: Modal auxiliary + Have + Been + V-ing The future perfect progressive, as it is sometimes called, patterns in the same way but with an appropriate modal auxiliary together with have been and an -ing participle. Here, the combination expresses that a situation that is expected to continue up to (and perhaps beyond) a specified point in the future. Typically, this combination is found in association with some kind of adverbial expression (in August, by the time, this time next year) that signals the relevant future point: (101) a. In August I will (shall) have been living here for almost five years. b. By the time she qualifies, she will have been studying for many years. c. This time next year, the two universities will have been collaborating for a decade. One other highly complex pattern to note is sometimes given the rather confusing label the future in the past. This is used where the speaker wishes to refer to a past time at which a particular event was still in the future, even though now, at the moment of speaking, it is past. This particular combination frequently makes use of the semi-modal expression be going to since this is readily marked for past. It is frequently used where some

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anticipated event does not occur or an expectation is cancelled. Consider these examples: (102) a. I was going to tell him, but he didn’t give me a chance. b. I thought we were going to eat out tonight. c. She was going to qualify next year, but now it will take longer.

Back to the Future: Will or Be Going To? An issue that tends to trouble many DUEs is the use of will and be going to. How do these differ? When do we use one and when the other? The first thing we need to recognize is that the matter is highly complex. If we hope for ready-made and easily-stated rules, we are likely to be disappointed. Payne sums up the complexity well: In many cases, the future with will and the future with be going to express little or no difference in meaning, and simply reflect free variation or stylistic preferences on the part of the speaker. Other times, one of these analytic futures seems more appropriate than the other. There are also contexts in which only one makes sense, and the other would be either ungrammatical or would mean something quite different. (Payne, 2010, p. 460)

It is certainly true that there are subtle distinctions between these two constructions, and EUEs will often (unconsciously, of course) choose one or the other in order to convey the desired message. It is precisely these distinctions that DUEs often struggle with. Broadly speaking, while both forms convey futurity, the use of will suggests a lesser degree of certainty. As a result, will is the preferred form where a future situation is expected but not entirely certain, whereas be going to is preferred for situations where there is much greater certainty or if the future situation involves a definite arrangement. A “classic” case would the difference between (103a) and (b): (103) a. I think I’ll see him tomorrow. b. I know I’m going to see him tomorrow. In (103a), the predicted situation is probable (the speaker thinks it likely), and so will is appropriate. In (103b), the predicted situation is certain (the speaker knows) and so be going is used. But notice that neither (104a) nor (b) is ungrammatical:

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(104) a. I think I’m going to see him tomorrow. b. I know I’ll see him tomorrow. As so often, what we are dealing with here is a tendency, not a rule. Interestingly, it seems that in situations involving a decision or choice, the use of will allows the other person the opportunity to disagree (105a). On the other hand, use of be going to effectively prevents disagreement; the decision has been made (105b). (105) a. A: B: b. A: B:

I’ll drive. No, it’s ok. I’d prefer to drive. I’m going to drive. Sure.

Here is a more elaborate example:



(106) (From Carter, Hughes, & McCarthy, 2000, p. 22) Waitress: Would you like smoking or non-smoking? A: Smoking, please. B: Non-smoking. [Both laugh] A: Well, you sit down there and I’ll sit up here!

If A had used be going to instead of will, the effect would have been to make a comic situation rather more serious. It would have been as if A was telling B what her decision was. I will return to this issue in the next chapter when I discuss the semantics of modal expressions.

Further Reading Detailed treatments of tense and aspect will be found in Quirk et al. (1985, pp. 175–218) and Huddleston and Pullam (2002, pp. 115–171). Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999, Ch. 7) is also very useful on the general topic of tense and aspect, as is Berk (1999, Ch. 3). For a short yet interesting discussion of the way in which tense signals remoteness or

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non-remoteness, see Yule (1998, pp. 57–62). The debate on whether English has a future tense continues. Among those who think it does, a recent discussion will be found in Declerck (2006); for a detailed argument saying it does not, try Huddleston (1995).

8 Modality and Negation

I

n the previous chapter, I discussed tense and aspect. I said that tense and aspect jointly allow speakers to express temporal relationships between different actions, events, and states, combining these into what we have called a situation. A typical example of this is given in (1): (1) While she was V-ing, he V-ed. A sentence such as (1) can be regarded as a “neutral” statement of fact—at least as it appears here on the page—in the sense that it simply describes the situation without comment. In its spoken form, however, the sentence may not be neutral at all. EUEs tend to be very good at using stress and intonation to convey all manner of attitudes toward the situation they are describing: surprise, anger, amusement, and so on. In addition, they will regularly employ various syntactic, lexical, and morphological markers as a way of expressing their attitude. Notice, for example, how the choice of different verbs (hope, regret) in (2) alters our understanding of the speaker’s attitude toward the situation: Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 263–304 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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(2) a. I hope that while she was V-ing, he V-ed. b. I regret that while she was V-ing, he V-ed. The expression of attitude in this way is an example of modality. As I indicated at the beginning of the previous chapter, together, tense, aspect, and modality form a complex system—the TAM system. Different languages have different ways of expressing modality. In English, one of the most common means is the use of a small group of modal auxiliary verbs. Much of this chapter is devoted to an examination of the syntax and semantics of this very interesting set of verbs and of a number of related semi-modal expressions. To begin with, however, we need to develop our thoughts about modality itself.

What is Modality? Perhaps the simplest way to explain modality is to say that it has to do with the stance the speaker adopts toward some situation expressed in an utterance. Huddleston and Pullam state that modality is “centrally concerned with the speaker’s attitude toward the factuality or actualisation of the situation expressed by the rest of the clause” (2002, p. 173).1 So, modality reflects the speaker’s attitude toward the situation being described. Understood in this manner, modality emerges as a pervasive phenomenon in English. Once speakers move beyond the bare facts, the description of almost any situation is likely to involve the use of a modal expression of one sort or another. Thus, speakers will typically signify that they want event x to happen, or that they do not want it to happen; that they think it is likely to happen, or that it is unlikely; that they are certain it is about to happen, or that they think it may happen but they are not completely certain, and so on. What means does an English speaker have at her disposal for expressing modality? Actually, modern English is a remarkably “modal-rich” language, with EUEs able to choose from a very wide range of modal words and expressions. The expression of modality is certainly not limited to the set of modal auxiliaries that I will shortly be considering. Many familiar adjectives are employed for this purpose. Thus, a situation might be described as possible, probable, necessary, or certain. The noun counterparts of these adjectives also express modality so that a situation can be described as a possibility, a probability, a necessity, or a certainty. Moreover, it is possible to use ordinary lexical verbs to convey modality. The sentences in (2) show this. And think

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about the difference between saying that you know something and saying that you believe something. Such differences are essentially a matter of modality. Finally, English also contains certain semi-fixed lexical phrases (e.g., rumor has it) that are, basically, modal expressions. Of central interest to any discussion of modality in English, however, are the modal auxiliary verbs. It is to these I now turn.

The Prototypical Modal Auxiliaries in English: Morphosyntactic Properties Modern English has several verbs that are generally referred to as modal auxiliaries. You may be surprised to learn that exactly how many modal auxiliaries there are in modern English is a matter of debate. In many accounts, there are said to be ten core or central modal auxiliary verbs. The ten verbs that often get listed are these: can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, and ought. Some linguists (e.g., Berk, 1999, p. 133) are apparently content with this group of ten. However, the above list is not altogether satisfactory for various reasons, and several linguists have proposed amendments. It is quite common to find ought being omitted, while the other nine listed above are accepted. This is the approach taken by Quirk et al. (1985, p. 137), Warner (1993, 11–12), and also, more recently, Teschner and Evans (2007, p. 79). It is certainly true that ought is problematic, since it is the only one of the modal auxiliaries to insist on a to-infinitive complement: (3) a. We can/could/may etc. go. b. We ought to go. (*We ought go.) Huddleston and Pullam draw the boundaries even more tightly, proposing that only five of the above group can really be counted as central members of the modal auxiliary class: can and will—“the most straightforward of the modal auxiliaries” (2002, p. 108)—must, shall, and may, with the other modal auxiliaries being less central members of the group. The categorization problem is made still more complicated by the fact some authors include other verbs in their list. For example, sometimes verbs such as dare and need are placed alongside some or all of the verbs listed above. Some writers add had better (which I will treat as a semi modal) to the central group. The fact of so much disagreement indicates there is a need to think carefully about the defining characteristics of modal auxiliaries. I want to suggest two basic defining characteristics for modal auxiliary status: a) ac-

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ceptance of the NICE properties and b) the absence of a third-person singular inflection.

Acceptance of the NICE Properties Modal auxiliaries accept the NICE properties just as the primary verbs do. (See my discussion of the primary verbs in Chapter 2.) This is illustrated in (4) for can:



(4) a. She can’t speak Spanish. b. Can she speak Spanish? c. She can speak Spanish, can’t she? d. A: Can she speak Spanish? B: Yes, she CAN.

If you care to apply the same test to the other contenders for modal auxiliary status, you will find that most of them pattern like can in readily accepting the NICE properties. The one possible exception is ought, which, for some speakers at least, resists some or all of the NICE properties, requiring do-insertion instead: (5) a. She oughtn’t to speak Spanish. (Or: She didn’t ought to speak Spanish.) b. Ought she to speak Spanish? (Or: Did she ought to speak Spanish?) c. She ought to speak Spanish, oughtn’t she? (Or: She didn’t ought to speak Spanish, did she?) d. A: Ought she to speak Spanish? (Or: Did she ought to speak Spanish?) B: Yes, she OUGHT. (Or: Yes, she DID.) Teschner and Evans (2007, p. 81) list ought as a marginal modal (or perimodal, as they put it). They say that one feature shared by these perimodals is that they do not allow do-insertion. However, as I have indicated, for at least some EUEs, this is incorrect in the case of ought. Your students might be puzzled by the fact that ought behaves differently for different speakers in terms of the NICE properties. However, this simply reflects the existence

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of different grammatical varieties of English. This is something linguists have to contend with all the time.

Absence of a Third Person Singular Inflection Berk rightly describes modal auxiliaries as “inflectionally impoverished” (1999, p. 132). By this, she means that they lack the kind of inflections found on lexical verbs. One illustration of this is the lack of a 3rdperson singular form. Using can for illustrative purposes once more, notice that inflecting for 3rd person results in obvious ungrammaticality: (6) *She cans speak Spanish. In this respect, modal auxiliaries differ from the primary verbs as well as lexical verbs. Notice that even ought displays this characteristic: (7) *She oughts to speak Spanish. These two characteristics—the acceptance of the NICE properties and the absence of a 3rd-person inflection—allow us to identify a coherent group of what we might call prototypical modal auxiliaries (i.e., verbs that display both characteristics), listed in Figure 8.1. I have omitted ought from the list because, while it does not inflect for 3rd person, (for at least some speakers) it resists the NICE properties. To that extent, it would seem to be a less prototypical modal. Perhaps we ought to (!) to think of ought as being a close cousin to the other nine verbs, sharing one of the characteristic family traits but not the other. It may be that the problematic status of ought is one reason why it is declining in use. Indeed, for all contemporary speakers of Standard English (American, Australian, and British), should can be used wherever ought to can be used, with the result that, for many, the latter is no longer really a live option. (Similar remarks might be made about shall, which in many contexts can be can could may might must shall should will would

Figure 8.1  Prototypical modal auxiliaries.

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replaced by will, although, as I will discuss below, there are some contexts where shall is possible and will is not.) What about some of the other verbs that are sometimes listed as modal auxiliaries, verbs such as dare and need? Once again the issue is made more complicated by the fact that, for some speakers, both dare and need accept the NICE properties, while for others do-insertion is necessary. However, even those speakers who treat dare and need as auxiliaries do so only in negatives and interrogatives; and for some speakers who prefer do-insertion, a to-infinitive complement is also required, whereas for others a zero-infinitive is possible: (8) a. She daren’t/needn’t open the package. (Or: She didn’t dare/ need [to] open the package.) b. Dare/need she open the package? (Or: Did she dare/need (to) open the package?) c. She didn’t dare/need (to) open the package, did she? d. A: Did she dare/need (to) open the package? B: Yes, she DID. The above suggests that (again, for some speakers) dare and need are modal auxiliaries. However, notice also that even those speakers for whom this is the case will also inflect these verbs for third person: (9) She dares/needs to open the package. In this respect, dare and need are different than the prototypical modal auxiliaries—and, indeed, different than ought as well. Thus, I exclude them from my list of prototypical modals. At the same time, it is obvious that they do share something in common with the more central modals. From that point of view, teachers may want to introduce them alongside these other verbs. For example, Cowan (2008, p. 295) places these two verbs—along with ought—in a small group of marginal modals. As we did earlier for nouns and verbs, we can employ the notion of concentric circles as a useful visual representation (see Figure 8.2). The inner circle contains the nine modals that I have suggested should be regarded as prototypical on syntactic grounds; the outer circle contains the less prototypical forms, with ought somewhat closer to the centre and dare and need a little further out.

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dare ought can could may etc.

need

Figure 8.2  Prototypical and non-prototypical modal verbs.

Modal Auxiliaries: Some Additional Grammatical Characteristics Despite the difficulty in establishing exactly where the boundaries of the group lie, modal auxiliary verbs have an extremely important role in modern English. They are very high-frequency verbs, being encountered constantly in both the speech and writing of EUEs. Here, I want to briefly touch upon certain other grammatical properties of these verbs. I noted in Chapter 2 that it is not possible for two primary auxiliary verbs to combine in the same verb phrase. However, it is perfectly possible for a modal auxiliary to combine with a primary auxiliary to form a compound VP. Importantly, when this happens, the modal auxiliary always precedes the primary verb, which, of course, itself precedes the main verb: (10) a. Hwa Jeong might have written more. b. Young Hee may have been delayed. While a modal auxiliary can combine with a primary auxiliary, Standard English does not permit two modal auxiliaries to combine with one another in the same VP: (11) *Gilbert must can understand this.

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However, this would be possible in some nonstandard varieties of English, which have their own grammatical patterns. Modal auxiliaries have a significant effect on the verb that follows them. Any verb that follows a modal auxiliary remains in its uninflected (infinitive) form, even when the subject in the sentence is 3rd-person singular: (12) a. She can speak Spanish. (*She can speaks Spanish.) b. That boy must be a student. (*That boy must is a student.) Another issue worth dealing with is the supposed past meaning of certain modal auxiliaries. Many DUEs have been taught that could is the past form of can, might the past form of may, should the past form of shall, and would the past form of will. Historically, this is quite correct. And it seems to be a little fact—a piece of declarative knowledge—about the language that many EFL students have learned. Yet most native speakers are not aware of this. Certainly, you do not need to know this sort of thing to be a successful speaker of the language. Nonetheless, what is interesting is that there are occasions when the “past-ness” of these verbs is apparent in the speech of contemporary native speakers and other EUEs. One such case is the “backshifting” that occurs when speech is reported. Consider the following: (13) a. Direct speech: “I’m not able to attend the conference.” b. Reported speech: He said he wasn’t able to attend the conference. The thing to notice is that, when speech is reported in this way, the first verb in the VP is shifted into the past (i.e., the speaker’s am becomes was). Now notice what happens when the verb in question is one of the modal auxiliaries: (14) a. Direct speech: “I can’t attend the conference.” b. Reported speech: He said he couldn’t attend the conference. Once again, the reported speech version involves back-shifting. As the historic past form of can, could is used when speech is reported. The same thing happens when the modal is will (15a, b) or may (15c, d):

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(15) a. Direct speech: “I won’t attend the conference.” b. Reported speech: He said he wouldn’t attend the conference. c. Direct speech: “I may not attend the conference.” d. Reported speech: He said he might not attend the conference.

All this is as you might expect. However, at this point, the pattern breaks down. When the modal auxiliary in direct speech is the somewhat less frequent shall, something different happens: (16) a. Direct speech: “I shan’t attend the conference.” b. Reported speech: He said he wouldn’t attend the conference. The appropriate back-shifted form for shall is not should, as you might anticipate, but would. This is a further indication of how English grammar has changed. Judging by back-shifting, it seems that, for EUEs, should has lost all trace of “past-ness,” whereas could, might, and would still retain some faint echo of their history. What might this mean for teaching these verb forms? Back-shifting indicates that some of these modals have retained just a hint of their earlier meanings. And yet, as I have already commented, most contemporary native speakers are blissfully unaware of the past sense of verbs like could. One piece of evidence for this is their readiness to use these verbs to speak about both present and future situations. Consider (17a) and (b), neither of which involves any reference to the past: (17) a. Could I talk to you for a moment? b. This could be a problem tomorrow. Clearly, for contemporary speakers, these verbs are not restricted to past reference. Of course, could is used in constructions like (18). Here, it is the adverbial expression ten years ago that establishes past reference, while the modal itself involves what Berk calls “past, long-term ability” (1999, p. 144): (18) Ten years ago I could run 100 meters in 12 seconds, but now I can’t.

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Berk further notes that could is also used for single past situations (rather than regular occurring ones), although this is only possible in negative sentences. The following examples illustrate this: (19) (From Berk, 1999, p. 144) a. I couldn’t find you last night. (*I could find you last night.) b. She couldn’t fix my carburetor yesterday. (*She could fix my carburetor yesterday.) For some speakers, it is also still possible to use would for past time reference where the speaker has some habitual past action in mind: (20) When I was a young boy, I would spend all my pocket money on Spiderman comics. Should and might appear to be less readily available for past reference. However, Berk notes that should can occur in exclamatory utterances such as (21), in which the speaker is narrating a past event: (21) Who should email me last night but my old professor! The modal auxiliary here forms part of what might be regarded as a semi-fixed lexical phrase that always takes the form Who should . . . but. It is striking that today many of the modal auxiliaries need to be combined with perfect aspect in order to clearly express past reference. This applies both to the historic “past” forms and to those that were historically “present”:



(22) a. You should have taken more care with the paper you wrote last week. b. You might have included a reference to Givón in that presentation. c. She may have eaten earlier. d. It can’t have been Bill you saw because he was in Busan yesterday.

In light of all this, I suggest that it is a mistake to present these four modal auxiliaries as if they were inherently “past” forms. This does not reflect their primary meaning in the language as it is spoken today, and it is misleading to suggest otherwise.

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If you are an EFL teacher, you will be aware that the modal auxiliaries present a particular learning challenge for DUEs. This challenge is not at the level of form. In fact, the forms of these important verbs are invariant and so may be learned with relative ease. On the other hand, there are clear challenges at the level of meaning and use. The problem, to quote Berk once more, is that the modal auxiliary verbs are “semantically rich” (Berk, 1999, p. 132) in that each of them can be used to convey a variety of different but partially overlapping meanings. As many teachers will appreciate, much of the difficulty DUEs face in coming to terms with English modal auxiliaries stems from this very semantic richness. It can be difficult for learners to make sense of the various shades of meaning that are communicated by means of these verbs. The problem is compounded by the fact that many languages lack true equivalents to the English modals and, even where equivalents do exist, there is often a mismatch between the meanings. Therefore, I turn now to a discussion of the semantics of these verbs.2

The Semantics of the Prototypical Modals In discussing the meaning of the modal auxiliaries, linguists will often refer to two types of modality, epistemic modality and deontic modality. (The latter is also called root modality). Perhaps the easiest way to grasp the meaning of these slightly scary terms is to consider an example. Notice that the same modal auxiliary (in this case, must) can be used for either type of modality: (23) a. Epistemic: Listen! It must be raining. b. Deontic: You must go to bed. The term epistemic is derived from epistēmē, the Greek word for “knowledge.” In a broad sense, then, epistemic modality involves the speaker’s knowledge or belief concerning some situation that has occurred, is occurring, or will occur. In (23a), the speaker is expressing certainty that it is currently raining. She can hear it. In a similar fashion, the modal auxiliaries in (24a) and (b) are being used to express epistemic modality, albeit reflecting lesser certainty than was the case in (23a): (24) a. That may be Martha. b. That could be Martha.

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The term deontic is derived from the Greek deon, a word for “duty,” and, ultimately, dei, which has the sense of “binding.” In simple terms, deontic modality may be thought of as relating to action or behavior. Often, the expression of deontic modality involves an obligation imposed on others, or the granting of permission to act in a certain manner. This was reflected in (23b) and is shown again in (25a) and (b): (25) a. Students should submit their term papers on time. b. Students can submit term papers up to one week late. It is sometimes said that a modal auxiliary may be ambiguous between a deontic meaning and an epistemic meaning. As an example of potential ambiguity, consider the following: (26) Elly may go to the concert. Viewed in isolation, this sentence has two possible meanings, corresponding to the epistemic and deontic senses of may: (27) a. Epistemic may = The speaker thinks it is possible that Elly will attend the concert. b. Deontic may = The speaker is giving Elly permission to go to the concert. In reality, of course, a sentence such as (26) is unlikely to appear in isolation. As a result, any potential ambiguity will probably not arise. Linguists will frequently refer to a third type of modality, dynamic modality, although this “does not apply as generally to the modal auxiliaries as do deontic and epistemic modality” (Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 179). As this term implies, dynamic modality has to do with abilities and capacities of persons. You will not be surprised to learn that the two modal auxiliaries most frequently used to express dynamic modality are can and could: (28) a. Soo Jin can balance on one leg. b. A few years ago, I could run 100 meters in 12 seconds.

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While the terms epistemic, deontic, and dynamic are commonly employed, it must be said that, from a pedagogical point of view, they are of limited usefulness. To my mind, these labels are of doubtful value in terms of teaching the grammar of English. I suggest there is a lot to be said for an alternative approach that focuses on the discourse functions associated with various modal auxiliary verbs. Cowan (2008, p. 296) suggests that there are three basic meanings that modals convey (in effect, these are three distinct functions): (a) signaling ability, permission, or possibility; (b) stating advice or necessity; and (c) expressing future time. Teschner and Evans (2007, pp. 83–86) identify eight “modality types” (again, these are effectively different functions):

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

physical/mental ability making requests and granting permission possibility probability supposition or inevitability wishing solicitation of opinion obligation

An approach based on discourse functions such as these is likely to be of more use to DUEs than one grounded in the somewhat obscure and intimidating terminology of epistemic, deontic and dynamic modality. With this in mind, I turn to a consideration of the main meanings of the various modal auxiliary verbs used in modern English. In doing so, I have drawn freely on the interpretations suggested by Teschner and Evans and Cowan, as well as others, adding various comments, adaptations, and amendments of my own as appropriate.

Can The principle functions associated with can are: ◾◾ signaling physical and/or mental ability (29a) ◾◾ seeking and granting permission (29b) ◾◾ indicating possibility or necessity (29c) (29) a. Celine can speak French. b. Can I leave early today? c. Ankara can be very cold in the winter.

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Do not be troubled by the use of can in (29b). This is now very common, even though traditionalist do not like it. As Teschner and Evans correctly observe, “Prescriptive grammars used to insist that only may (and never can/could) should function as the modal of request, but contemporary usage in no way supports that generalization” (2007, p. 84). In discourse, can sometimes takes on another function, being used to convey a sense of incredulity or disbelief: (30) (From Cowan, 2008, p. 296) What? He lost the race? That can’t be! I was so sure he’d win! As Cowan points out, here, the modal auxiliary “is not a literal comment on the possibility of the race result, but is instead a comment on its unexpectedness” (2008, p. 296).

Could As the historic past form of can, could has the same basic functions: ◾◾ expressing physical and/or mental ability (31a) ◾◾ seeking and/or granting permission (31b) ◾◾ indicating possibility (31c) (31) a. I wish I could speak Korean, but I just don’t have the time to study. b. You could borrow my textbook if I had remembered to bring it! c. If you did some studying, you could still pass. As you might anticipate, could tends to indicate greater remoteness from the speaker’s present perspective. Thus, it is regularly employed for situations that are possible but, for one reason or another, not likely to be fulfilled.

May The principle functions associated with may are: ◾◾ asking for and granting permission (32a) ◾◾ indicating possibility (32b)

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(32) a. You may submit your assignment by email. b. Elly may be at the party already. May also has what is sometimes called a concessionary function. In this interesting usage, the clause containing the modal is usually followed by a further clause introduced by but or some close equivalent: (33) You may be upset, but (however) that doesn’t entitle you to be rude! May also appears in certain semi-fixed or formulaic expressions such as the following: (34) May I wish you every success in your new career. Notice that the subject in this formula is invariably 1st-person. Pay attention to the word order. Despite what the inversion might lead DUEs to believe, this is not a question.

Might Not surprisingly, given its history, might has the same basic functions as may: ◾◾ asking for and granting permission (35a) ◾◾ indicating possibility (35b) (35) a. I know we’re very busy, but I wonder if I might leave early tomorrow? b. Elly might be at the party or she might not. For some EUEs (and I would count myself among them), might conveys greater degree of remoteness or lesser likelihood than does its semantic cousin. That is, for some speakers, use of might implies that from the speaker’s perspective there is less chance of the request being granted or that there is less likelihood of the possible situation actually occurring.

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Must The principle functions associated with must are: ◾◾ indicating some probability or else a logical necessity (36a, b) ◾◾ expressing a supposition (36c) ◾◾ imposing an obligation (36d) (36) a. A: “Look at their house. It’s huge!” B: “I know. They must be really wealthy” b. Elly must be at the party already. c. A: “Our air conditioning is broken.” B: “That must be unbearable right now!” d. You must submit your assignments by email. EUEs will also sometimes use a weakened form of deontic must for selfimposed obligations: (37) I must remember to buy some milk. There is also an emerging tendency to use deontic must for merely vague arrangements: (38) We must get together for lunch soon. What makes the use of must here interesting is that it suggests the speaker is aware of a certain social obligation, but at the same time does not want to commit herself to a fixed arrangement.

Will Will is the most frequent of all the modal auxiliaries and has the widest range of functions. It is regularly used to express both epistemic and deontic modality. The use of will raises two particular problems: (a) its status as a future marker and (b) the distinction between will and be going to. (I dis-

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cussed this latter issue briefly in the previous chapter, and I will return to it below since it is one that tends to preoccupy DUEs.) Many DUEs have been taught to regard will as basically a marker of futurity. Indeed, it is not uncommon to find students who believe that will + a main verb is the future tense in English. As we have seen, some linguists also adopt this view. It is true that will often does have a future reference; however, it is important for DUEs to understand that will is not limited to this role. The principle meanings associated with will, then, are as follows: ◾◾ ◾◾ ◾◾ ◾◾ ◾◾ ◾◾

expressing futurity (39a) seeking permission (39b) expressing a supposition (39c) referring to habitual or highly regular behavior (39d) describing a factual possibility (39e) imposing an obligation (39f)

(39) a. A: “Do you think it’ll rain?” B: “No. I’m pretty sure it won’t.” b. Will you lend me your cell phone? c. If it’s 4:00 pm, Bill will be in his office. d. Kara won’t eat red meat, but she will eat chicken. e. Oil will float on water. f. All assignments will be submitted by email. Notice that many of the sentences above involve a non-future use of will. In (39c), for example, the speaker means that Bill is in his office now, at the moment of utterance. Likewise, in (39d), the speaker is commenting on a general situation that obtains all the time. In (39e), the speaker is describing a physical fact—once more, there is no future reference. The fact that a present simple verb form could be used here instead—Oil floats on water—underscores the fact that this use of will is “fairly sharply distinct from futurity” (Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 194). There remains some sense of futurity in (39f), albeit in a weakened sense since, presumably, at the moment of speaking no assignments have been submitted. Yet, it seems clear that the main force of the modal here is to impose an obligation; it is as if the speaker had said All assignments must be submitted by email. Another, less common use to which will is occasionally put is as a directive:

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(40) Will you stop talking! Notice that this is not an interrogative, despite the question word order. Its function is closer to an imperative.

Shall If will is the highest-frequency modal auxiliary, shall is one of the lowestfrequency modals. In contemporary English, there is a general tendency for will to be used in place of shall.3 The primary functions of shall are these: ◾◾ suggesting a course of action (41a) ◾◾ offering assistance (41b) ◾◾ expressing futurity (41c) (41) a. Shall we go to that party tomorrow night? b. Shall I wash the dishes for you? c. In this course, we shall adopt a linguistic approach to English grammar. For many EUEs—certainly if they are speakers of American English— (41c) would be very odd; for these speakers, will is much more natural. However, shall remains a viable grammatical option for some speakers and, under certain circumstances, it is the only option. This is the case with both (41a) and (b). Notice also that, despite their syntax, these utterances are not genuine questions. In (41a), the speaker is making a suggestion, perhaps indicating that she would quite like to go; substituting will here changes matters so that it becomes a real question. In the same way, in (41b), the speaker is not asking but offering. It is not clear that will is even possible here. If it is, it would again make the utterance a question. Constructions with shall can only have a 1st-person subject. With other subjects, will is required: (42) a. Will they go to that party tomorrow night? (Not *Shall they go . . . ?) b. Will you wash the dishes for me? (Not *Shall you wash . . . ?)

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Would Would has some of the same core functions as will. Once again, as a historic past form, however, it implies greater remoteness from the speaker’s situation. Perhaps the two most common functions associated with would are as follows: ◾◾ making a request (43a) ◾◾ indicating possibility (43b)

(43) a. Would you lend me twenty dollars? b. You would learn a lot from this book if you bothered to read it.

Should The principle functions associated with should are: ◾◾ giving advice (44a) ◾◾ expressing a supposition or inevitability (44b, c)

(44) a. You should wear something smart for the interview. b. The journey to Tokyo should take about two hours. c. I should have finished my grading by next week.

Ought Although there are grounds for regarding ought as a less central modal auxiliary, it is clearly a close cousin to the central forms; therefore, I offer some brief remarks on it here. Actually, ought conveys the same meanings as should. In fact, ought plus a to-infinitive can replace should in each of the above examples. Thus, for speakers who use it, the functions associated with ought are: ◾◾ giving advice (45a) ◾◾ expressing a supposition or inevitability (45b, c)

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(45) a. You ought to wear something smart for the interview. b. The journey to Tokyo ought to take about two hours. c. I ought to have finished my grading by next week. Ought tends to be limited to affirmative declarative statements. Thus, while not strictly ungrammatical, (46a) is rather awkward and probably most speakers would prefer (46b): (46) a. ?You oughtn’t to work all the time. b. You shouldn’t work all the time. Similarly, ought does not seem very happy in interrogatives: (47) a. ?Ought we to go to that meeting? b. Should we go to that meeting? Partly for these reasons, and also because it overlaps almost entirely with should, ought is becoming less common in contemporary English. This appears to be especially the case for speakers of American English, as I can confirm from the reactions of my American colleagues and students who regularly express delight in my continued use of this (to them) quaint British verb. In the Classroom: Modal Auxiliaries Anyone who has taught English grammar will be left in no doubt that the modal auxiliaries present a major challenge for learners of English. However, approached with care, there is no reason for the difficulties to prove insurmountable. One difficulty has to do with establishing exactly which verbs should count as modal auxiliaries in the first place. As I have tried to indicate above, there are good grounds for thinking in terms of nine prototypical or core modal auxiliaries. It makes sense to begin classroom discussions by presenting and working on these. We have seen that they can be readily approached as a coherent group based on their shared syntactic behavior—in particular, their acceptance of the NICE properties and the fact that they do not have a distinct 3rd-person singular form. Naturally, teachers

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will not want to present these nine verbs all at once. Rather, it would make sense to introduce them gradually, building up to the complete set of nine. Once this group has been presented, other verbs (e.g., ought, dare, and need) can be introduced as more marginal modals, with students being shown how the syntactic behavior of these latter verbs distinguishes them in one way or another from the central group even though they do have clear points of contact. Understanding that these verbs do not follow the same syntactic patterns as the central modal auxiliaries is important, and time devoted to this in the classroom is well spent. As a helpful visual, teachers might consider representing these various verbs in the form of two concentric circles; the central circle should contain the nine prototypical modals, with ought somewhat closer to the center and dare and need a little further out. Having said this, most teachers will probably agree that it is in the semantic (as opposed to the syntactic) domain that the real learning challenge of modals arises. As we have seen, each of the modals conveys a range of meanings, and DUEs will often be uncertain of the subtle distinctions in meaning between them. Above, I have tried to indicate the main meanings associated with each verb in turn. There is no denying that learning these meanings is difficult, and students need plentiful exposure to these verbs in the form of listening and reading materials, and, of course, opportunities to practice using them in their speech and writing. High intermediate and advanced learners may benefit from being introduced to the fundamental distinction between epistemic and deontic modality, which underlies the various uses to which speakers put the modals.

Some Semi-Modal Expressions Like other aspects of English grammar, the English modal system is undergoing change right now, and several new verbal expressions that signal modality have emerged relatively recently. These semi-modal expressions are periphrastic (i.e., multi-word) forms, generally beginning with either primary be or have. Examples are be able to, be supposed to, have to, et cetera. Other labels used for these expressions include semi-auxiliary, marginal modal, modal-like, and modal idiom. For some writers, these different labels denote distinct subcategories of semi-modal. I am ignoring these distinctions. The relative newness of these forms tends to mean that their behavior is somewhat unpredictable. This is especially the case with regard to the NICE properties that I have proposed as a major test of auxiliary status. One conse-

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quence of this unpredictability is that DUEs are likely to face particular challenges with these expressions. Below, I offer some general remarks on the grammatical properties of the more common semi-modals in modern English.

Grammatical Features of Semi-modals At the morphosyntactic level, semi-modals differ significantly from the prototypical modal auxiliaries in various ways. For one thing, they have 3rdperson singular forms (48a); for another, they are marked for tense and aspect (48b) and (c). In this, they are more like lexical verbs (even though they really are auxiliary verbs): (48) a. I am able to work tonight. vs. Gina is able to work tonight. b. Gina is supposed to work tonight. vs. Gina was supposed to work last night. c. These days, Gina is having to work a lot. vs. Last month, Gina was having to work a lot. Another feature worth noting is that semi-modal expressions can readily combine with the more central modal auxiliaries to form compound VPs. Notice that in such cases, the core modal retains its position as the first verb in the VP, with the semi-modal always coming afterwards: (49) a. Yun Ju may be able to come later. b. We will have to have a faculty meeting soon. These morphosyntactic differences clearly distinguish the semi-modals from the core modal auxiliaries. Yet, at a semantic level, the two types of modals will sometimes (but not always) be direct equivalents of one another. For example, for many EUEs, (50a) and (b) would be virtually synonymous: (50) a. You must work harder to pass the course. b. You have to work harder to pass the course. However, modal auxiliaries and semi-modals are not always simply interchangeable. As I have just noted, a modal auxiliary and a semi-modal can combine in a VP. As you know, it is not possible to combine two core modals in the same phrase. The significance of this is brought out by the fact that

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while (51a) is perfectly grammatical, sentence (51b), in which have to has been replaced by its near equivalent must, is not. (51) a. You will have to work harder. b. *You will must work harder. Similarly, (52a) is grammatical since a semi-modal like have to can be marked for tense, whereas (52b) is not because the core modal auxiliaries have no tensed forms. (52) a. Yesterday, she had to work. b. *Yesterday, she must work. The situation, then, is this. The semi-modal expressions we are interested in display their own morphosyntactic behavior that distinguishes them from the prototypical modal auxiliaries. Again, this can be represented visually in the form of our concentric circle model. Adding to the picture presented earlier, we can now include a third circle (see Figure 8.3).

be able to dare

ought

can could may etc.

need be supposed to

Figure 8.3  Prototypical, non-prototypical, and semi-modals.

have to

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The Semantics of the Semi-Modals I turn now to a brief survey of some of the more common semi-modals, beginning with one that is, no doubt, familiar to all readers of this book.

Be Going To Be going to is the most frequent semi-modal. It readily accepts the NICE properties:



(53) a. She is not going to help you. b. Is she going to help you? c. She is going to help you, isn’t she? d. I thought she wasn’t going to help you, but she IS.

Because it is a semi-modal, be going to has a past tense form and a distinct 3rd-person form. This is scarcely a surprise since the primary verb be, which introduces the semi-modal, is marked for past tense and has a 3rd-person form. Indeed, this property is common to all the semi-modals introduced by be: (54) a. She wasn’t going to help you, but now she is. b. She isn’t going to help you, but I am. Semantically, be going to is a close equivalent of modal will and can be similarly used to express intention and prediction. Of course, both will and be going to regularly occur in discussions of future actions or behavior. It is often said that will is used for spontaneous or unplanned situations, whereas be going to is used when the predicted situation has already been planned. Thus, the following little dialogues suggest plausible contexts for will and be going to, respectively: (55) A: The cat has just been sick on the kitchen floor! B: I’ll clean it up. (56) A: Your room is a real mess! B: I’m going to clean it up tomorrow.

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Distinguishing between the two modal forms in this manner makes a certain amount of sense. It can certainly serve as a useful starting point for considering how these two verbal forms are employed by EUEs. Unfortunately, however, many learners of English have been taught to consider this a grammatical rule. It is not. I have been at pains to emphasize at various points in this book that grammar is, to a large extent, a matter of conventionalized linguistic patterns rather than narrowly-defined rules. In the present context, what we can say, then, is that EUEs will typically use will and be going to in the ways outlined. In that sense, examples such as (55) and (56) reflect a common pattern. But there is no question of rule in operation here. And it is a mistake to present it as if there were. In fact, there are entirely grammatical uses of will and be going to in which the above pattern seems to have been almost reversed. Consider the following. In (57a), where be going to is used, there is obviously an absence of planning; on the other hand, (57b), with will, implies if not a planned situation then at least something very likely. (57) a. I don’t feel very well. I think I’m going to be sick! b. If I keep eating this baklava, I’ll be sick. Sentence (58), taken from Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, provides an even clearer illustration. Notice that, here, be going to is being used for a situation that is obviously totally unplanned: (58) (From Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 149) Help! I’m going to fall. Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman suggest that be going to contrasts with will in that the former is “closely tied to action already begun in the present or immediately imminent” (1999, p. 149) but over which the speaker has no control. This seems to fit a case such as (57a) and, even more obviously, (58). Yet, this does not seem to completely capture how we use this semimodal. It is certainly possible to use be going to in other contexts as well. Look again at my earlier example (56). Here, the action is not already begun, nor is it especially imminent. Moreover, it is evident that, in this case, the speaker does have control over the proposed action. Finally, in discussing will above, I drew attention to the fact that, contrary to what is sometimes maintained, it can be used without any future reference whatsoever. Note that in these cases, be going to is not a good re-

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placement. This is reflected in the sentences in (59), which are somewhat odd and only marginally acceptable at best.



(59) a. ?If it’s 4:00 pm, Bill is going to be in his office. b. ?Kara isn’t going to eat red meat, but she is going to eat chicken. c. ?Oil is going to float on water. d. ?All assignments are going to be submitted by email.

Be Able To Cowan (2008) does not treat be able to as a semi-modal. His reasoning is that because it is restricted to an ability sense, it does not constitute a genuine semi-modal. However, this seems rather arbitrary. I see no reason why the fact that it conveys only one meaning should mean that be able to does not count as a semi-modal. That it really is a semi-modal expression is supported by the fact that be able to readily accepts the NICE properties:



(60) a. Melissa isn’t able to work today. b. Is Melissa able to work today? c. Melissa is able to work today, isn’t she? d. I thought Melissa wasn’t able to work today, but now she IS.

Once more, as a semi-modal, be able to can be marked for past tense and aspect, and it has a distinct 3rd-person form: (61) a. Melissa wasn’t able to work yesterday, but today she is. b. Melissa hasn’t been able to work for ages. c. Melissa isn’t able to work today, but I am. There is also an infinitive form: (62) I would like to be able to speak Arabic. Teachers need to be aware that these syntactic properties make be able to different from the prototypical modal auxiliary can, with which it is often compared. Of course, semantically, be able to frequently serves as a substitute

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for can, especially in expressions of dynamic modality where some ability possessed by an individual is in view. This is not surprising, since the adjective able usually expresses the possession of some ability or skill. In these cases, the two modal forms appear to be virtually synonymous: (63) a. Tomorrow I’m interviewing someone who can speak five languages. b. Tomorrow I’m interviewing someone who is able to speak five languages. Interestingly, Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999) note that the two forms seem to reflect different degrees of formality. Thus, can in (63a) is less formal than be able to in (63b). This is an exception to the more general pattern, in which semi-modals tend to be more informal than the corresponding modal auxiliary. I have noted that modal auxiliaries and semi modals are not always simply interchangeable. A further relevant factor here seems to be the nature of the subject; be able to requires an animate noun, whereas no such restriction applies to can:



(64) a. Cheetahs can run very quickly over relatively short distances. b. Cheetahs are able to run very quickly over relatively short distances. c. Your question can be answered in several ways. d. *Your question is able to be answered in several ways.

Be Supposed To Again, the NICE properties apply to the semi-modal be supposed to:



(65) a. We’re not supposed to begin the exam until 9:30. b. Are we supposed to meet him at the airport? c. The students are supposed to know this already, aren’t they? d. A: I thought you said the students were supposed to know this already. B: They ARE!

Once more, be supposed to can be marked for past tense and displays a 3rd-person form:

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(66) a. They were supposed to arrive on time. b. Miyoung is supposed to meet me later today. Be supposed to is close in meaning to should (and, therefore, ought). The uses shown in (65) and (66) are characteristic, in that be supposed to often conveys a sense of some externally-imposed obligation or expected behavior. In other words, it is fairly strongly deontic. Another example of a very natural use of be supposed to is given in (67). (67) Very strict Muslims are supposed to avoid pork. It is striking that be supposed to is often used in cases where the obligation is being disregarded, as in (68). (68) Why are you eating that large creamy cake? You’re supposed to be dieting! When marked as past, be supposed to will almost always indicate that some anticipated situation was not, in fact, fulfilled. This is reflected in (65d) and (66a). Below is another example: (69) Miyoung was supposed to meet me today. I wonder why she didn’t.

Have To and Have Got To Two other high-frequency semi-modals begin with have. Unlike the expressions considered so far, these resist the NICE properties, requiring doinsertion instead: (70) a. We don’t have to finish today. (*We haven’t to finish today.) b. Do we have to finish today? (*Have we to finish today?) c. We don’t have to finish today, do we? (*We haven’t to finish today, have we?) d. A: Do we have to finish today? B: Yes, we DO. (*Yes, we HAVE.)

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Matters are made more complicated by the fact that—for at least some speakers—the variant form have got to accepts the NICE properties:



(71) a. We haven’t got to finish today. b. Have we got to finish today? c. We haven’t got to finish today, have we? d. A: Have we got to finish today? B: Yes, we HAVE.

On the other hand, both expressions follow the other semi-modals in accepting past tense marking and having a distinct 3rd-person form. Once again, this is not surprising since these forms contain the primary verb have, which, as you know, is marked for past tense and has a 3rd-person form: (72) a. The boss told his workers that they had (got) to work until 10:00 pm. b. Ji Young has (got) to work late this evening. I noted earlier that have to is often presented alongside the prototypical modal auxiliaries. And yet the syntactic properties just noted show that it really should be treated as a semi-modal rather than a member of the core group. It is important that these properties be explained carefully to DUEs, especially since they may have been taught previously to think of have to as effectively equivalent to must. It is true, of course, that at the semantic level have (got) to frequently functions as an alternative to must, at least in its deontic sense. Thus, (73a) and (b) convey essentially the same message. (73) a. You must study harder to pass the course. b. You have (got) to study harder to pass the course. There are, however, subtle gradations of meaning, with the semi-modal forms generally preferred when the obligation is perceived to come from some external source that the speaker cannot prevent: (74) a. Excuse me, I have to sneeze. b. ?Excuse me, I must sneeze.

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A further issue that requires careful treatment when teaching these forms is the effect that negation has on their meaning. While the semimodal is often comparable with must in affirmative statements, its meaning diverges to a significant degree from must when the utterance is negated. Consider the following: (75) a. You must tell Susan. b. You have (got) to tell Susan. In both (75a) and (b), the speaker is advising the hearer that some particular course of action (telling Susan) is strongly advisable. But now look at the negated versions: (76) a. You must not tell Susan. b. You don’t have to tell Susan. There is a clear difference in meaning here. In (76a), the speaker is advising against the course of action; indeed, the modal here is strongly deontic, with the effect of must not being to strongly prohibit this action. In (76b), on the other hand, no such strong prohibition is felt. In selecting don’t have to, the speaker is simply advising the hearer that telling Susan is not necessary.

Had Better and Had Best Syntactically, the two semi-modals had better and had best pattern in the same way as the core modal auxiliaries in that they accept the NICE properties and they lack both past tense inflection and a specific form for 3rd person. The reason for the latter fact should be obvious. Since the auxiliary have is a past form in had better and had best, the question of 3rd-person singular inflection cannot arise. Consider the following:



(77) a. We had better/best not eat anything. b. Hadn’t we better/best eat something? c. We had better/best not eat anything, had we? d. A: Hadn’t we better/best eat something? B: Yes, we HAD.

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In semantic terms, there is considerable overlap between these two forms and the modal auxiliaries should and ought. All of these forms are able to appear in similar contexts and convey very similar meanings. The following examples provide a natural context in which any of these expressions of modality seems to work well: (78) a. It’s late. You had better/best take a taxi. b. It’s late. You should take a taxi. c. It’s late. You ought to take a taxi. Despite this overlap, teachers may want to draw their students’ attention to an interesting semantic difference between the semi-modals had better/best and the two more central modal auxiliaries should and ought. At least in some contexts, the two semi-modal expressions imply that the speaker is committed to the successful completion of the proposed action. No such implication is conveyed by their near-equivalents should or ought. As a result, it is possible to cancel the initial proposal when should and ought are employed, but a similar cancellation is noticeably awkward with the semimodals. This is noted by Mitchell, who states, “With had better the speaker makes a judgement that to perform a future course of action or to bring about a state of affairs is better than not doing so. . . . However . . . the speaker also effectively decides that it shall happen” (2003, p. 142). In a similar vein, Huddleston and Pullam remark that had better “does not countenance non-actualisation” (2002, p. 196). In light of this, consider the following: (79) a. I should visit him, but I’m not going to. b. I ought to visit him, but I’m not going to. c. ?I had better/best visit him, but I’m not going to.

Go Un-V Modality is one area of English grammar that seems to be changing rather a lot. Here, I want to briefly mention one other semi-modal expression that has emerged in English quite recently. This differs from those considered so far in being a variable formulation involving go followed by a prefixed -en participle. Here are some examples: (80) (Adapted from Bourdin, 20034) a. Her mail had gone uncollected for three days. b. Many criminals go unpunished.

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Expressions of this type differ from some of the others I have discussed in that they reject the NICE properties, taking do-insertion instead:



(81) a. Most criminals do not go unpunished. b. Do most criminals go unpunished? c. Most criminals go unpunished, don’t they? d. A: Do most criminals go unpunished? B: Yes, they DO.

It is possible to mark these expressions as past (82a); there is also a distinct 3rd-person form (82b). (82) a. In the past, many criminals went unpunished . b. It is disturbing when a criminal goes unpunished. As with modal expressions in general, the use of this kind of expression signals speaker attitude. Two points are particularly worthy of note. Firstly, the speaker regards the situation as counter-normative (i.e., it runs counter to what we expect to happen). Normally, mail is not left uncollected for three days, and we expect criminals to be caught and punished. Secondly, and closely related to this first point, the speaker is making an implicit negative judgment about the situation. This is especially clear in (82b): That criminals are not always punished is a bad thing. In the Classroom: Semi-modal Expressions As I have already remarked, the various semi-modal expressions we have been considering in this section are becoming increasingly common in modern English. This means that EFL teachers need to devote classroom time to them. It will have become clear in the preceding discussion that my own view is that these forms are most suitably approached after work has been done on the more central modal auxiliaries. As with the latter, the learning challenge here will be eased if teachers begin by considering the distinctive syntactic behavior of these expressions, pointing out the similarities and differences that they display with the prototypical modals. Particularly significant here is the fact that, while the semi-modals are comparable to the modal auxiliaries in that they generally accept the NICE properties, they also have 3rd-person singular forms and past forms.

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It is this latter fact that distinguishes them from the prototypical modals and marks them as a syntactically distinct set of verbal expressions. Turning to the semantic level, one thing that it is especially important for students to recognize is that, while many of the semi-modals convey meanings very similar to those of the prototypical modals, they are not pure counterparts. As we have seen, there are times when a semi-modal conveys a different meaning than a modal auxiliary. In other words, the two types of modal forms are not semantically equivalent. Teaching these subtle yet important differences is by no means easy. Once more, the key to learning the various meanings of the semi-modals is plentiful exposure to these expressions in the form of listening and reading materials as well as opportunities to practice using them in speech and writing.

Negative Utterances and the Particle Not In this section, I turn to an examination of negation in modern English. It makes sense to treat negation alongside modality since it too can be regarded as reflecting speaker perspective or attitude—at least insofar as speakers use negation to indicate that they did not want some action to take place or some event to happen. Negation is a highly complicated matter, and my remarks here are inevitably somewhat limited. Modern English is rich in lexical negation, with several prefixes negating the form they attach to. Familiar examples are il- (e.g., illiterate, illegal, illogical), im- (e.g., immoral, impatient, impossible), in- (e.g., incapable, informal, invisible), ir- (irrational, irregular, irresponsible), non- (e.g., nonfunctional, nonsense, nonviolence), and un- (e.g., unhappy, unnecessary, unusual). However, in this section, I will be concerned with sentence-level negation. I will focus primarily on the negative particle not since this is the most frequently used sentence-level negator in English sentences. I will first make a few brief remarks relating to the syntax of sentences negated by not. Then I will consider the semantics of such sentences, focusing in particular on how the placement of not within a construction can make an important difference to how the sentence is understood. Modern English is often said to employ post-verbal negation. (More strictly, it should be said that English displays post-auxiliary negation). A statement such as (83a) is negated by means of the insertion of the negative particle not after the auxiliary verb (83b).

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(83) a. Molly is coming to dinner tonight. b. Molly is not (isn’t) coming to dinner tonight. If there is no auxiliary, as in (84a), do-insertion is required and the negative particle is placed after the auxiliary do (84b). (84) a. Dan runs every morning. b. Dan does not (doesn’t) run every morning. Other languages have their own systems of negation, some of which differ strikingly from that found in English. Take a sentence such as John doesn’t speak English. In Spanish, which employs preverbal negation, this would be John no habla Ingles (literally: John neg-speaks English). Standard French requires two negators, one in pre-verbal position and one in postverbal position, so our sentence would be John ne parle pas Anglais (literally: John neg-speaks-neg English). In Turkish, the negator is inserted within the verb rather than attached as a suffix, so the sentence becomes John İngilizce konuşmiyor (literally: John English speak-neg-ing). Readers will know already that in spoken English, not is almost invariably contracted to /nt/, which is written, of course, as n’t. The particle is generally contracted when it immediately follows one of the primary verbs, whether these are used as main verbs in the clause or as auxiliaries. The one exception is the 1st-person singular form of be in the present. At this point, the pattern breaks down; speakers simply do not say things like *I amn’t tired. Rather oddly, Teschner and Evans (2007, p. 71) miss this, listing *amn’t as possible in British English. However, such a form would certainly be regarded as non-standard, and it would be seriously misleading to introduce it in the classroom.5 As I have already noted, when a clause includes only a lexical verb, doinsertion is required and it is the primary verb that is negated. An interesting feature of negation in English that DUEs should be made aware of is that a negative imperative must contain primary do as an auxiliary (85a), even if there is another primary verb in the clause (85b), and even when the primary verb is itself do (85c). (85) a. Don’t stay up all night! b. Don’t be silly! c. Don’t do that!

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Some DUEs may wonder why English allows both a contracted form and a non-contracted form of not. It is sometimes said that this is largely a matter of spoken versus written English, with the contracted form characteristic of speech and the non-contracted form characteristic of writing. There may be some truth in this. The contracted form is generally employed in all but the most formal spoken English. In written English— where formality is often an important consideration—the non-contracted form may well be preferred. More interesting from a linguistic point of view, however, is the fact that speakers deploy the two forms for subtly different dialogic effects. The key point here is how much the speaker wishes to emphasize the negated element in the utterance. The non-contracted form of not has greater prominence and may well receive emphatic stress in order to make it absolutely clear what it is the hearer is not to do. This can be shown by considering the non-contracted versions of the two examples given above: (86) a. Do NOT stay up all night. b. Do NOT be silly! Another fact worth noting is that the changes undergone by the core modal auxiliaries have rendered their negative forms somewhat doubtful, at least for some speakers. This seems to be especially the case when the negative particle is in its contracted form. Look at the following: (87) a. I may not swim when we go to the beach tomorrow. b. I mayn’t swim when we go to the beach tomorrow. In (87a), the non-contracted particle is used to negate may in its epistemic sense. But what about the contracted form in (87b)? Do you find this acceptable? How you answer this will depend to a large extent on the variety of English you have been exposed to. The negative expression mayn’t, with the negative particle contracted, is sometimes said to be ungrammatical (see, for example, Cowan, 2008, p. 294). Huddleston and Pullam comment that, “though current in the earlier part of the twentieth century, it has now virtually disappeared from the language” (2002, p. 1611). However, it is a form that certainly remains possible for some British English speakers. As I have suggested at various points, in the end, the grammar of a language is made by speakers. Now what about the following?

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(88) a. We shall not discuss all aspects of English grammar in this course. b. We shan’t discuss all aspects of English grammar in this course. I noted above that shall is declining in use. Many contemporary English speakers employ it only rarely, if at all. For speakers for whom shall is still a viable option, the contraction of the negative particle forces a change in the pronunciation (and the spelling) of the auxiliary it attaches to. A similar change affects the contracted form of will not, although, in this case, of course, everyone accepts the use of the modal: (89) a. We will not discuss all aspects of English grammar in this course. b. We won’t discuss all aspects of English grammar in this course. In addition to its role as a post-verbal or post-auxiliary negator, not can take the place of an entire clause, thus creating a negative elliptical construction. Consider the following: (90) Are you busy? If not, let’s go out. Here, the if-clause is, in effect, a reduced form of a longer clause that is understood by the hearer—if you are not busy. DUEs will often struggle to make sense of, and to produce, sentences of this type.

The Semantics of Not 6 I turn now to a consideration of the semantics of not in English. While modern English normally displays post-auxiliary negation, it permits the negator to be placed at various points within a VP. The positioning of the negative particle can have significant semantic consequences. The technical term employed by linguists for this is the scope of negation. As Huddleston and Pullam comment, “The scope of negation is the part of the meaning that is negated” (2002, p. 798). The key principle is that the negative particle negates everything within its clause that comes after it. This idea can lead to important semantic distinctions as in the following two sentences: (91) (From Dixon, 2005, p. 5) a. John could not have written the review. b. John could have not written the review.

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Sentence (91a), with the negative particle coming between the modal and the primary verb, implies that John was incapable of writing the review—he lacked the ability. Sentence (91b), on the other hand, with the particle placed after the primary verb, means that, although John did in fact write it, he might have chosen not to—he could have refused. As Dixon points out, in English, not is somewhat akin to a “multi-functional adverb” (2005, p. 432). In (91a), it functions as a kind sentential adverb; in (91b), it functions in a way that is comparable to a manner adverb. Dixon notes that these two functions can co-occur in the same sentence, thereby demonstrating that they really are distinct functions: (92) (From Dixon, 2005, p. 434) I didn’t dare not buy the diamond ring. As Dixon explains, “[M]y wife might have told me to buy a diamond ring for her. I didn’t want to since I know we can’t really afford it, but I’m so scared of my wife that I had not the courage to disobey her” (2005, p. 434). A similar semantic distinction is evident in the following pair of sentences: (93) (From Dixon, 2005, p. 434) a. John had not also resigned. b. John had also not resigned. Sentence (93a) would most naturally be understood to mean that, although several people had resigned, John was not among them. By way of contrast, (93b) means that a number of people did not resign and John belonged to this group. Again, a comparable semantic difference is apparent in the following examples. Notice, once more, that it is the placement of not that determines the respective meanings of the two sentences: (94) a. You have obviously not prepared for this presentation. b. You have not obviously prepared for this presentation. Sentence (94a), with not positioned immediately in front of the main verb, means that it is obvious to the speaker that no preparation has been done. Sentence (94b), with not preceding the adverb, means it is not obvious whether preparation has been done or not (i.e., some preparation may have been done, but not enough to make it obvious).

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Not as a Non-verbal Negator In addition to its main use in verbal negation, the particle not can be used for various kinds of non-verbal negation, among them the negation of NPs, certain types of adjectives and adverbs, prepositional phrases, and even some types of clauses. I will take a brief look at these various possibilities. In the following example, not negates a subject NP: (95) Not one student bothered to study for the exam. Here, the meaning is that, of all the students in the group, none of them studied. The phrase not one student, then, is equivalent in meaning to the indefinite pronoun no one (96a) or to an NP employing the negative determiner no (96b). (96) a. No one bothered to study for the exam. b. No students bothered to study for the exam. Not can also be employed to negate object NPs, although this is only possible when the NP contains two components. In (97a), only post-auxiliary negation is possible; however, (97b) and (c) show that either one component or both components may be negated. Notice again that the placement of not makes an important semantic difference. (97) a. You may not play in the living room. (Not *You may play not in the living room.) b. You may play not in the living room but in your bedroom. c. You may not play in the living room or in your bedroom. Sentence (97b), with its not X but Y formulation, means that the children are allowed to play, but only in their bedroom (i.e., it is only the component the living room that is negated). Sentence (97c), on the other hand, with not placed in front of the verb, means that the children are not allowed to play anywhere. Notice that an alternative to (97c) with the same meaning would involve neither X nor Y: (98) You may play neither in the living room nor in your bedroom.

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Consider now the following: (99) (From Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 809) It was a not undistinguished university. Here, the negative particle negates an adjective that itself carries a negative prefix, un-. The meaning of a sentence such as (99) is far from straightforward, and DUEs may well find this combination especially confusing. It is tempting to say that in this example, the particle negates the entire adjective, including the prefix, so that describing a university as not undistinguished is equivalent to calling it a “distinguished” university. Yet, this is not the case. In fact, to call a university “distinguished” is rather different from calling it “not undistinguished.” The former has decidedly positive connotations, implying that, in the view of the speaker, the university ranks highly; the latter is notably less positive and would perhaps be used where the speaker is only partially committed to a positive ranking and wishes to express a degree of caution. The use of not in constructions such as this is a reminder that, like modality, negation will often involve speaker attitude. Huddleston and Pullam (2002) themselves make the useful observation that in a not + un- construction like this, the adjective must be gradable. Phrases such as *a not immoral purpose are impossible since we normally regard moral issues as all-or-nothing matters. Similar remarks apply to those cases where not negates an adverb with its own negative prefix. Here is an example: (100) (From Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 810) Not unexpectedly, Charles was late for the meeting. Here, once more, care should be taken in interpreting this. The meaning is not that Charles’ late arrival was expected, but that, in the view of the speaker, the fact that he arrived late was scarcely surprising—it had happened before. Equal care needs to be taken when not negates a prepositional phrase. Consider the following: (101) (From Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 810) Not at any stage of the proceedings did she contemplate giving up. This means that there was no point during the proceedings when giving up was considered. Notice that this particular example also involves inversion (did she), which may add to the uncertainty experienced by DUEs.

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Not is sometimes employed to negate subordinate clauses. Two cases are worthy of note. First of all, consider (102), in which not negates a that-clause. (102) The Manchester United players were unable to cope with Barcelona’s brilliance; not that they didn’t try. This is another potentially confusing use of not since the negated clause is elliptical. The speaker means “not that they didn’t try to cope with Barcelona’s brilliance”; in other words, they did try. As Huddleston and Pullam explain, in constructions like this, “the not calls up a proposition that might be naturally expected or assumed in the context, and denies that it is in fact true” (2002, p. 811). Not can also appear in clauses without a verb. Here is an example: (103) Not an experienced public speaker, he struggled through his speech. The negated clause here is, in effect, a reduced form of not being an experienced public speaker. It may help DUEs to understand that sentence (103) is semantically equivalent to (104). (104) He struggled through his speech because he was not an experienced public speaker. Here is another example: (105) The program requires someone not put off by hard work. In this case, (105) may be regarded as a reduced version of (106), in which the negative particle appears inside a relative clause. (106) The program requires someone who is not put off by hard work.

Complex Negators Involving Not Modern English has a number of complex negators. These are compound forms in which not acts as a modifier of some additional element. This will

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often be an adverb, although there are other possibilities. Examples of commonly employed complex negators are not all, not always, not even, not every, not just, not many, not often, not once, and not only. As the sentences in (107) show, these forms are frequently found in sentence-initial position, where they gain in prominence; but in some cases, other positions are possible. (107) a. Not all linguists are formalists. (cf. Some linguists are not formalists.) b. Not even her best friends knew her secret. (cf. Her best friends didn’t know her secret.) c. Not just her enemies, but her best friends believed the rumor. (cf. Her best friends, as well as her enemies, believed the rumor.) d. Not once did she ask me how I was. (cf. She didn’t ask me how I was.) A potentially confusing case involves forms such as not a few and not a little. The use of not in these may be understood as negating the accompanying NP a few or a little. Thus, both of these complex negators may be taken to imply a relatively large (but unspecified) number; the meaning is close to “several” or “a lot.” Once again, these forms are common in sentenceinitial position, although they can appear elsewhere: (108) a. Not a few of his colleagues were surprised by his promotion. (Cf. His promotion caused several of his colleagues to be surprised.) b. Not a little time at the meeting was taken up discussing the issue. (Cf. The discussion of the issue took up a lot of time at the meeting.) Let me end this chapter by drawing attention to what is perhaps the most confusing complex negator of all, not the least of which. Here is an authentic example of its use, from an introductory text on the study of second language acquisition: (109) This system is composed of numerous elements, not the least of which are elements from the NL and the TL (Gass & Selinker, 2001, p. 12). This complex negator is semantically equivalent to “among which” or “including.” In the above passage, the writers mean that included among

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the numerous elements that compose the system are elements from the NL and the TL.

Further Reading For very good accounts of modality, see Quirk et al. (1985, pp. 136–148 & 219–236) and Huddleston and Pullam (2002, pp. 172–207). For negation, try Quirk et al. (1985, pp. 775–799) and Huddleston and Pullam (2002, Ch.  9). Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999, Ch. 8) is another very good discussion of modality, while (Ch. 10) deals with negation. Facchinetti et al. (2003) has several interesting (although quite demanding!) discussions of recent linguistic work done on modality in English. Dixon (2005, Ch. 12) contains some very interesting remarks on negation, many of which I have drawn upon in my own discussion.

Pa r t

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Clauses and Sentences in Linguistic Perspective

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9 Questions and Focus Constructions

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n this chapter, I am concerned with certain types of grammatical operations that have the effect of making sentences non-prototypical. Of course, putting it like this presupposes that we know what a prototypical sentence is. Here are some examples of what I take to be prototypical sentences in modern English: (1) a. Ji Young woke early. b. Jeremy likes studying English. c. Eunice threw the stone at the window. Each of these sentences is an active, declarative utterance. I am not going to argue for the prototypicality of these sentences. I am simply going to assume that they are prototypical. I think it is a reasonable assumption. I am assuming, then, that a prototypical sentence is active and declarative like the examples in (1). Most of the constructions and example sentences I have considered up to this point can be regarded as prototypical in this sense. Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 307–353 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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This chapter deals with a range of sentence types that diverge from this prototypical pattern in one way or another. First, I will consider the two main types of interrogative (or questioning) sentences in modern English, yes/no interrogatives, and wh- interrogatives. I will also look briefly at some other “minor” question types. Then I will turn to certain constructions that are used as a way of “focusing” the hearer’s attention. I will look first of all at passive voice constructions, since these are undoubtedly the most frequently used focus constructions in modern English. This will lead to a consideration of some other constructions in English that, although less commonly used, play a comparable role in the language.

Interrogative Utterances Interrogatives, or questions, are used to elicit information from others. All languages have means for achieving this basic communicative function, although the details of how it is done vary considerably from language to language. One highly common strategy is the use of changed intonation to signal that speaker is asking a question, with the sentence remaining otherwise unchanged from its declarative form; another common strategy is the employment of a special question word that takes the place of a content word, again with a change in intonation but no other changes. It is not always recognized that the grammar of English allows both these strategies. For example, EUEs will sometimes ask questions while maintaining declarative word order, simply using rising intonation at the end of their utterance to signal that an interrogative is intended. I suggest that this would be the case with B’s reply in (2). (2) A: Did you hear about Sophia? She went to Paris. B: She went to Paris? Occasionally, DUEs are taught that declarative questions like these are ungrammatical. I disagree. Even though it is not the usual way of asking a question in English, there is nothing ungrammatical about it. I sometimes ask questions this way myself, and I believe I speak English grammatically! What should be borne in mind, however, is that questions of this type often imply surprise at some recently announced piece of news. In that sense, they are not truly information-seeking. Similarly, EUEs will on occasion retain the basic declarative word order but change a content word to an appropriate interrogative pronoun, again with rising intonation, as in (3).

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(3) A: Did you hear about Sophia? She went to Paris. B: She went where? While both these questioning strategies occur in English, far more common are two special types of interrogative constructions, generally called yes/ no questions and wh- questions. Yes/no questions are also sometimes called polar questions since the answer required is one of two opposite poles, either Yes or No. For similar reasons, they are also sometimes called closed questions. Wh- questions are also referred to as information-seeking questions and are frequently contrasted with yes/no questions. However, this is a little misleading since there is an obvious sense in which yes/no questions are also informationseeking. I will return to this point below. Both of these questioning strategies involve a change in the normal word order of a prototypical sentence.

Yes/No Interrogatives It makes sense to begin with a prototypical sentence as a “baseline” sentence from which the question form is derived: (4) She can speak five languages. The yes/no interrogative counterpart of this is given in (5). (5) Can she speak five languages? Compared with (4), the salient feature of (5) is the change in word order. In the interrogative, the auxiliary can is placed in front of the subject. Linguists generally refer to this change in word order as subject-auxiliary inversion (or, alternatively, as auxiliary fronting). Modern English is relatively unusual among the world’s languages in forming questions in this way. In many languages, questions retain the same word order as declaratives but are marked using one or more special interrogative particles. To illustrate, the Turkish equivalent of our English declarative (4) is given in (6a) and the interrogative is given in (6b). (6) a. O beş dil konuşabilir. “She five languages speaks.” b. O beş dil konuşabilir mi?—“She five languages speaks-question”

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Korean uses interrogative markers in a similar fashion. The Korean counterpart of (4) is given in (7a) and the interrogative in (7b). (7) a. 그녀는 다섯 개의 언어를 말할 수 있다 (geu-nyeo-neun daseot gaeeui eon-eoh-leul malhalsoo itda) “She can speak five languages.” b. 그녀는 다섯 개의 언어를 말할 수 있니? (geu-nyeo-neun daseot gaeeui eon-eoh-leul malhalsoo itni?) “Can she speak five languages?” Further examples of yes/no interrogatives in English display exactly the same pattern:



(8) a. b. c. d.

Will you be traveling alone? May I ask you something? Are you going to the conference? Have you talked to your brother recently?

The fronted verb may be either a modal auxiliary, as in (8a) and (b), or one of the primary verbs, as in (8c) and (d). Where the declarative lacks an auxiliary, as in (9a), the interrogative version requires do-insertion and it is the auxiliary that is fronted, as shown in (9b). (9) a. They know the answer. b. Do they know the answer? If a declarative contains more than one auxiliary, it is the auxiliary of the main clause that is fronted. This is shown in (10). Note that in (10a), the first (underlined) auxiliary is actually part of a relative clause (which I have enclosed in a box.) The main clause auxiliary (in italics) comes later. It is this auxiliary that appears in pre-subject position in the question (10b). Moving the first auxiliary results in ungrammaticality (10c). (10) a. The professor who will deliver the lecture will sit here. b. Will the professor who will deliver the lecture sit here? c. *Will the professor who deliver the lecture will sit here? As well as a change in word order, yes/no questions are non-prototypical in terms of their pronunciation, being produced with rising intonation. This

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change from the neutral intonation employed for a declarative helps the hearer identify the utterance as information-seeking. The examples of yes/no interrogatives I have considered so far have all been affirmative. It is also possible for yes/no questions to be negative. In negative forms, it is very common for the negative particle not to be contracted to /nt/ in spoken English by the omission of the vowel. Many DUEs are likely to be already familiar with this since it is such a pervasive pattern in the grammar of spoken English. It is worth emphasizing that if the negative particle is fronted along with the auxiliary, contraction is obligatory: (11) a. Can’t he speak English? (*Cannot he speak English?) b. Aren’t you going to the conference? (*Are not you going to the conference?) c. Haven’t you talked to your brother recently? (*Have not you talked to your brother recently?) d. Don’t they know the answer? (*Do not they know the answer?) It is also possible for the negative marker to remain in a non-fronted position (i.e., where it would appear in the equivalent declarative sentence). In such cases, contraction of not is impossible. Typically, in these cases, stress will be placed on the negative particle:



(12) a. Can he NOT speak English? b. Are you NOT going to the conference? c. Have you NOT talked to your brother recently? d. Do they NOT know the answer?

Replying to Yes/No Interrogatives As their name indicates, yes/no interrogatives are questions for which a simple yes or no is an acceptable answer, as in (13a) and (b). (13) a. A: B: b. A: B:

Can he speak English? Yes. Are you going to the conference? No.

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Sometimes a short elliptical response such as we see in (14) is additionally provided. (14) A: Have you talked to your brother recently? B: No. Not recently. Actually, yes/no questions can sensibly be answered without a yes or a no. If we imagine a scale with yes at one end and no at the other, then— depending on the context—various responses in between may be appropriate (e.g., definitely, perhaps, maybe, possibly, etc.). On the other hand, what we might call a full-sentence answer, while grammatically possible, would be rather unusual and might perhaps create a negative impression, suggesting that the speaker is annoyed or upset by the question: (15) A: Have you talked to your brother recently? B: No. I have not talked to my brother recently. The issue of how to reply to negative yes/no questions can be especially confusing, and DUEs often have difficulty here, producing inappropriate replies such as those in (16) and (17). (16) A: Can’t Hojin speak English? B: Yes, he can’t speak English. (17) A: Can’t Hojin speak English? B: No, he can speak English. Here is an issue that teachers need to handle carefully. The difficulty is that negative yes/no interrogatives such as these typically carry an underlying epistemic implication. Thus, in (16), the implication of A’s question is that Hojin cannot speak English. By framing the question in this way, A is, in effect, signaling that she has reasons for thinking Hojin does not speak English—perhaps because she’s heard him struggling to express himself. The appropriate response from B, therefore, is either to confirm the truth of this implication or to disconfirm it. Consider the following:

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(18) A: Can’t Hojin speak English? (Implication: Hojin cannot speak English.) B: No, he can’t (speak English). (Confirmation: Hojin cannot speak English.) C: Yes, he can (speak English). (Disconfirmation: Hojin can speak English.) I turn now to the other main type of interrogative construction in English.

Wh- Interrogatives Wh- interrogatives are so called because their initial word is one of a set of wh- forms: who, which, why, what, where, and how. By convention, how is treated as a wh- form for the purposes of grammatical analysis since its behavior exactly parallels that of the other wh- words. It may have occurred to you already that referring to these as wh- interrogatives reflects a bias toward the written grammar since (with the exception of how) they all begin with wh even though they are not all pronounced in the same way: The initial sound in who and how is /h/; in the others it is /w/. Once more, I start my discussion with a baseline declarative sentence: (19) Ji Young made tea. The wh- interrogative counterpart of (19) is: (20) What did Ji Young make? The salient feature of this question is the use of the wh- word what in sentence-initial position. Notice that, in this case, we have do-insertion since there is no auxiliary in the declarative sentence we started with. The auxiliary is placed in front of the subject, Ji Young, but behind the wh- word. This is one version of a wh- question. Below, you will see that another variant form is possible. As I have already indicated, modern English has several different whforms used to form questions of this type. Here are some more examples:

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(21) a. When will I learn to speak Turkish properly? b. Who has been invited so far? c. Why are you late? d. Where shall we go for a vacation? e. How is your assignment going?

Like yes/no questions, wh- questions involve a change from the prototypical declarative word order, with the auxiliary placed in front of the subject (i.e., When will I, not *When I will). The wh- form is generally the first word in the sentence, although there are cases where a preposition precedes the wh- form. Thus, corresponding to a declarative such as (22a) are both the rather formal (22b) and the much less formal (22c). (22) a. He blamed his failure on bad luck. b. On what did he blame his failure? c. What did he blame his failure on? Prescriptivists tend to reject sentences like (22c) as incorrect. However, I remind readers of my earlier remarks in my introduction: There is no good reason for treating a question like this as ungrammatical. Such constructions are part of the grammar of modern English. If they were not, we would have to say that most native speakers do not know how to use their own language! The wh- forms are traditionally treated as types of interrogative pronouns. This makes a lot of sense and is supported by the fact that these various forms have the same range of grammatical functions as nouns and pronouns:



(23) a. Subject: Who spent all the money? b. Object: What do you want to eat? c. Predicative (subject) complement: What is that? d. Predicative (object) complement: What did you call your last book? e. Indirect object: Who did the faculty give the prize to? f. Object of preposition: Who(m) did you go to the restaurant with?

One way of presenting this to students would be to tell them that the wh- word in the above sentences has replaced a noun phrase that could, at least in principle, serve as the answer to the question:

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(24) a. A: B: b. A: B:

Who spent all the money? Philip! What do you want to eat? Pizza!

Although wh- questions typically involve a fronted wh- word followed by an auxiliary, DUEs should be made aware that there is a variant form in which the wh- word is followed by some other element, with the auxiliary following this. Consider the declarative (25a) and the wh- question derived from it in (25b). (25) a. Ji Young made tea for Miyoung’s mother. b. Whose mother did Ji Young make tea for? In (25b), the speaker presumably knows that Ji Young made tea for someone’s mother, but he is not sure precisely which mother. Since the identity of this person is the item being queried, it too moves forward in the interrogative to a position immediately behind the wh- word. Here is another example: (26) a. Azhar wrote her assignment very carefully. b. How carefully did Azhar write her assignment? Here, the speaker knows that Azhar wrote her assignment. What is being questioned is the manner in which it was written. Therefore, the adverbial carefully is moved to a position behind how. Wh- questions are often embedded within larger constructions. When this occurs, the auxiliary is not inverted: (27) Do you know what we are having for dinner this evening? Embedded wh- questions can present a particular problem for DUEs, who, having been taught the inversion pattern, will often tend to overgeneralize it, producing utterances like the following:

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(28) *Do you know what are we having for dinner this evening? As I noted earlier, wh- questions go by different names, one of them being information-seeking questions. I also noted that this is a rather misleading label since yes/no questions are also intended to elicit information. The difference between a yes/no question and a wh- question is not that one seeks to elicit information and the other does not. It is that, in asking a yes/ no question, the speaker is interested in the situation in general, seeking to establish whether the action/event occurred or will occur; on the other hand, in asking a wh- question, the speaker assumes the situation and is interested in specific information concerning it. This difference is reflected in (29). In (29a), the speaker wishes to know whether a particular event has occurred, hence the use of a yes/no question; in (29b), he assumes that the event has occurred and wishes to know when it occurred, and so produces a wh- question. (29) a. Did you finish your assignment? b. What time did you finish your assignment? Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman’s discussion of this issue is especially helpful: “The focus of inquiry in a wh-question is narrower than that of a yes/ no question. . . . In fact, we might almost say that wh-questions are statements with an information gap” (1999, p. 242). Later, they add the following: [Y]es/no questions query a whole proposition, and wh-questions query a specific part of a proposition. In other words, the pragmatic context for using most wh-questions is one in which the speaker already assumes that the listener knows the proposition. If this knowledge cannot be assumed, the speaker would use a yes/no question to establish the proposition. Once this is done, wh-questions would be employed to provide specific details. (1999, p. 251)

To see what this means, consider the following example: (30) (From Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 251) A: Did you go to the concert last night? B: Yeah. A: How was it?

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In light of these remarks, it might be better to think of wh- questions as content questions since they require the answer to contain some meaningful and potentially quite complex content: (31) A: When will I learn to speak Turkish properly? B: I’m not sure. It may take a long time. And you will have to study hard. A simple Yes or No would be insufficient in response to such a question. Indeed, I think you will agree that it would hardly make sense: (32) A: When will I learn to speak Turkish properly? B: ??Yes.

Some Other Types of Questions The two types of question considered so far are the ones most commonly used. However, there are other types, among them the following: ◾◾ ◾◾ ◾◾ ◾◾

alternative (or selection) questions tag (or confirmation) questions echo questions direction questions

Alternative Questions Sentence (33) is an example of an alternative question. (33) Did Ji Young make tea or coffee? Questions of this sort are so called for the obvious reason that the question presents two (or possibly more) alternative options, with the coordinating conjunction or serving to relate the alternatives. In effect, the addressee is invited to decide between the two (or more) possibilities. As Huddleston and Pullam put it, “Alternative questions have as answers a set of alternatives given in the question itself” (Huddleston and Pullam, 2002, p. 868).

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Notice once more that in (33) we have both do-insertion and auxiliary fronting. In other words, alternative questions display the same grammatical behavior as their close cousins, yes/no questions. Indeed, an alternative question can be treated as a combination of two (or, again, possibly more than two) yes/no questions. This is illustrated in (34a) and (34b), which may be thought of as combining to form (34c). (34) a. Yes/no question: Do you want to meet in the morning? b. Yes/no question: Do you want to meet after lunch? c. Alternative question: Do you want to meet in the morning or after lunch? Again,



(35) a. Yes/no question: Would you like tea? b. Yes/no question: Would you like coffee? c. Yes/no question: Would you like something stronger? d. Alternative question: Would you like tea, coffee or something stronger?

The characteristic intonation pattern of alternative questions is complex (and therefore potentially problematic for DUEs), involving rising intonation on the first alternative (morning in the following example) and falling intonation on the second (lunch). (36) Do you want to meet in the morning or after lunch? If more than two alternatives are involved, as in (37), all but the last would be naturally marked for rising intonation. (37) Would you like tea, coffee, or something stronger? The intonation pattern characteristic of alternative questions differs interestingly from that of yes/no questions. As I have just noted, an alternative question has rising intonation on the first alternative (tea in [38a]) and falling intonation on the second (coffee); contrast this with a superficially

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similar yes/no question in (38b), in which the rise in intonation would naturally be sustained for the entire coordinated phrase tea or coffee. (38) a. Alternative question: Would you like tea or coffee? b. Yes/no question: Would you like tea or coffee? Despite the obvious connection between alternative questions and yes/ no questions, it should be clear that an appropriate response to an alternative question will involve more than a simple Yes or No. This is because, as I have intimated already, such a question places the hearer in the position of having to select one or other option: (39) a. A: B: b. A: B:

Do you want to meet in the morning or after lunch? In the morning. Would you like tea, coffee, or something stronger? Definitely something stronger!

EUEs will often combine a wh- question with an alternative question. Consider the following: (40) a. When do you want to meet—in the morning or after lunch? b. What would you like to drink—tea, coffee, or something stronger? Notice that when it combines with a wh- question in this way, the alternative question typically takes the form of an elliptical utterance. Tag Questions Tag questions are a striking feature of English, especially spoken English. If you spend any time listening to fluent speakers engaging in discussion, you are bound to hear examples. Essentially, a tag is a brief question consisting of an (inverted) auxiliary and a subject that is attached to a declarative statement. Typically, they are used when the speaker is asking for confirmation of the statement to which the tag is attached. Tags are actually fairly common in the world’s languages, although English is unusual in having several different options for forming them. Many languages have a single all-purpose tag expression. If you are a French speaker, you will be

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familiar with the tag n’est-ce pas (“is it not?”), which attaches to various types of statements. A lot of languages are like French in tending to use just one tag structure. In modern English, three distinct tags are commonly employed, each one making use of one of the primary verbs: be, have, or do.1 The choice of tag depends on the verb in the preceding statement. Consider the following: (41) a. You’re going to the meeting, aren’t you? b. Taekyun has several siblings, hasn’t he? c. She recently visited America, didn’t she? An important syntactic feature of tags is that they frequently display what linguists call contrastive polarity. What this means is that if the declarative statement is affirmative, the tag itself will be negative. This is the case in each of the examples in (41). Notice, however, that in the next set of examples the declarative is negative and the tag is affirmative: (42) a. You’re not going to the meeting, are you? b. Taekyun doesn’t have any siblings, does he? c. She hasn’t visited America, has she? Polarity is a recurrent pattern in tag questions, and students need to be made familiar with it. Just to make things trickier, sometimes the polarity is not contrastive. In other words, there are occasions when the verb in the declarative statement and the tag carry the same polarity. Cowan calls these same polarity tag questions (2008, p. 68), which is a perfectly good term to use, but keep in mind that they are simply a variant of the basic form of tag question: (43) (From Cowan, 2008, p. 68) So, that’s your little game, is it? While English tags are normally clause-final, in more complex constructions such as (44) they can appear sentence-medially: (44) It’s a shame, isn’t it, that she hasn’t traveled more?

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Semantically, a tag stands in a particular semantic relationship to the preceding declarative clause. Perhaps the easiest way to explain this is to say that the declarative asserts something and the tag is used to invite some kind of response from the hearer. Let us take another look at two of our earlier examples. In (45a), the speaker is assuming that the other person is going to attend the meeting; the tag is seeking confirmation that this is the case. Compare this with (45b), in which the speaker is assuming that the other person is not going to the meeting and the affirmative tag once more seeks confirmation that this assumption is correct. This relationship is reflected in the intonation contour of the entire utterance. In (45a), the tag would naturally be articulated with rising intonation; in (45b), on the other hand, it would receive falling intonation: (45) a. You’re going to the meeting, aren’t you? b. You’re not going to the meeting, are you? Not surprisingly, responding appropriately to tags can be especially problematic for DUEs. As I have noted, in (45a), the speaker is assuming the truth of the initial declarative: The other person will be at the meeting. Here, then, an appropriate response will be in the affirmative (if the assumption is correct, of course). Again, with (45b), the speaker is assuming that the other person is not going to be at the meeting. Therefore, the appropriate response will be negative (again, assuming that the assumption is a correct one). To make this clearer, consider the following mini-dialogues, which are intended to suggest likely contexts and appropriate responses for the two tags above: (46) a. A: B: b. A: B:

You’re going to the meeting, aren’t you? Yes, I’ll be there. OR No, I’m not going to be able to make it. You’re not going to the meeting, are you? No, I’m not. OR Actually, I will be there. I’ve changed my schedule.

Two other common types of questions may be briefly noted: echo questions and direction questions.

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Echo Questions When engaged in spoken discourse, EUEs will often make use of a particular type of questioning device that is referred to as an echo question. As this name suggests, echo questions repeat or echo some part of what the other speaker has just said. Typically, they are used when the questioner is seeking clarification due to the surprising nature of what has just been said: (47) a. A: B: b. A: B: c. A: B:

Last week, I spent 5000 dollars. You spent how much? I really like bulgogi. You really like what?2 Yesterday, I got up at 4:00 am. You got up at 4:00 am?

Direction Questions Direction questions are unusual in that they are not information-seeking but direction-seeking. In fact, there is a sense in which they are not genuine questions at all, but rather suggestions expressed with interrogative word order. As (48a) shows, this is one of the few places left in modern English where the modal auxiliary shall is a viable option for most speakers. (48) a. Shall I do the dishes? b. Would you like me to call them? Having considered various types of interrogative construction in English, in the remainder of this chapter, I will discuss what are sometimes referred to as focus constructions. English has several of these. Like interrogatives, they are non-prototypical in that they generally involve a change from basic word order found in a declarative sentence. The next several sections are devoted to a discussion of the most widely-used focus construction in English, the passive. After that, I will look more briefly at some other constructions that have a comparable role in the grammar.

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Passive Voice in English: Some General Remarks Linguists and grammarians often use the term voice when describing languages. Modern English is usually said to have two voices: active voice and passive voice. Sometimes a third middle voice is mentioned. I will discuss this further below. What does voice mean in this context? In broad terms, voice has to do with whether the subject of the sentence is performing some action or existing in some state (i.e., active voice), or whether the subject is being acted upon in some way (i.e., passive voice). To add a little more detail, one way of understanding the difference between active and passive voice constructions is to think of them as reflecting different relationships between the grammatical functions and the semantic roles of the various participants within a sentence. Consider, first of all, a prototypical active voice sentence in English such as (49). (49) sub. obj. Active: Eunice threw the stone . agent patient In (49), the NP identifying the subject participant, Eunice, carries an agent semantic role and the NP identifying the object participant, the stone, has a patient semantic role. Now look at (50), which is the passive counterpart of (49): (50) sub. obj. Passive: The stone was thrown by Eunice . patient agent You will notice immediately that a passive voice construction such as (50) creates the opposite alignment. The NP identifying the subject participant now carries a patient role, while the NP identifying the object participant carries an agent role. In some languages, passive verbs are marked morphologically. A good example of this is Turkish, which uses suffixation to mark passives. The passive suffix is il, although, due to the rules of vowel harmony that apply in Turkish, this will often take a variant form (e.g., ıl, ül, ul). Thus, an English agentless passive such as The door was opened is in Turkish Kapı açıldı. Agentive passives in Turkish generally employ the word taraf marked as appropriate for person and number plus the suffix dan. So The door was opened by

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Sibel is Kapı Sibel tarafından açıldı. (I discuss agentless and agentive passives in more detail below.) In English, the passive is expressed by means of a periphrastic construction rather than through morphology. It is formed using an auxiliary verb plus an en-participle. Traditional descriptions of passives will refer to the form following the auxiliary as a past participle. However, this is not an especially helpful label. Verb forms of this type are not limited to expressing past time. It is entirely possible to use such a form to refer to a future event: Tomorrow I will be asked to explain my decisions. The so-called past participle is better thought of as the -en participle. The auxiliary verb most often employed in passives is a form of be (although, as I will discuss below, other auxiliary verbs—notably get—can be used). Thus, a simple passive construction involves auxiliary be plus the -en participle: (51) He was arrested last night. In the above sentence, the verb is marked for simple past tense. However, just like active voice constructions, passive voice constructions can involve a range of different tense and aspect combinations and can be found as part of some fairly complex VPs. A few illustrative examples are provided in (52).



(52) a. Look! He is being arrested. b. When I looked out my window, he was being arrested. c. He has been arrested. d. He might be arrested at any moment. e. He is expected to be arrested in the morning.

In Sentence (52a), the passive is marked for present progressive (is being); in (52b), it is marked for past progressive (was being); in (52c), we have a passive construction marked for present perfect (has been); in (52d), the passive combines with modal auxiliary (might); finally, in (52e), we have an example of what is sometimes called a double passive construction, in which the verb in the passive voice takes an infinitive complement that is itself marked as passive. You may have noticed that, with the exception of (50), none of the example sentences I have considered so far refer to an agent. This was deliberate. According to some estimates, as many as 85% of English passives do not

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contain any mention of an agent. This has implications for the teaching of passives. EFL teachers generally tend to insist that their students produce “full” passive constructions with an agent specified in a by-phrase. However, such constructions are relatively rare. This suggests that insisting upon the full form may be a mistake if it leads DUEs to believe that this is how passives normally appear. In fact, as the following example makes abundantly clear, inclusion of an agent can lead to considerable awkwardness: (53) (From Teschner & Evans, 2007, p. 103) After the tests were graded by the professor, the results were posted on the door by her. Notice that the removal of the by phrases with their agent NPs from this sentence improves it a great deal: (54) After the tests were graded, the results were posted on the door. Quite apart from reasons of elegance, linguists have identified several reasons why agents tend to be omitted in passive constructions. Some of the more important ones are discussed below.

Reasons for Omitting the Agent in Passive Constructions (1) Perhaps the most common reason why the agent is regularly omitted from a passive is that the identity of the agent is obvious and/or recoverable from the context. In the following example, ask yourself who the agent is, (i.e., who did the sentencing): (55) He was sentenced to five years in prison. The answer, as everyone will recognize, is that the agent must have been a judge. Most people know this based on their experience of how the world operates: Only a judge can sentence people to prison terms. Given the fact that this piece of knowledge is likely to be possessed by anyone listening, the speaker can safely omit it; indeed, it would be somewhat redundant for the speaker to mention it:

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(56) ?He was sentenced to five years in prison by a judge. (2) A second, rather obvious reason for omitting any reference to an agent in a passive construction is, quite simply, that the identity of the agent is unknown and, as a result, cannot be specified. Sentence (57) is a case in point. (57) Last night, my car was stolen. Here, obviously enough, there must have been an agent responsible for the theft. Yet the speaker is unable to say anything about that person. It would, of course, be possible to say (58), but the indefinite pronoun here is totally redundant and its use would most likely strike a hearer as very strange. (58) Last night my car was stolen by someone. (3) A third reason for omitting reference to an agent is when speakers have a generic or non-specific agent in mind, as in (59). (59) A new sports center is being created in my part of town. Presumably, there is some local government department that has responsibility for the design and building of amenities such as sports centers, and there must be a construction company involved in the actual work, but the speaker does not know anything about this department or company. Using a passive enables the speaker to mention the salient fact that work is going on without troubling to mention these rather vague agents. (4) Again, sometimes the situation being described is so complex that it makes no sense to assign it to one agent: (60) Britain was industrialized during the course of the nineteenth century. Clearly, the process whereby a nation becomes industrialized is so complex that there is no single agent. Actually, I should mention that not all

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linguists would accept (60) as a true passive. In this regard, Quirk et al. refer to the passive gradient. To borrow one of their examples, a sentence such as (61) is an “ideal” passive since it “can be placed in direct correspondence with a unique active counterpart” (1985, p. 167). (61) This violin was made by my father. On this reading, my (60) is a kind of “pseudo-passive” since it lacks an active counterpart and there is no possibility of adding an agent. I will return to this idea of a gradient or scale of passives below. (5) A more interesting case is where speakers employ an agentless passive in an effort to avoid acknowledging responsibility for some action or event. Thus, someone who has carelessly dropped a prized bowl in your house might produce an utterance such as (62), which is not so much an apology as a way of trying to avoid taking the blame. (62) I’m afraid your celadon bowl has been broken. While, in the majority of cases, passives tend to lack agents, this is not always the case. Something like 15–20% of passive constructions do contain reference to an agent. DUEs will naturally want to know, therefore, under what conditions the agent tends to be mentioned. This is answered fairly easily. We can say that the agent is likely to be mentioned where it represents new or (in the speaker’s opinion) especially significant information, or where it is unexpected or unusual in some way (e.g., nonhuman). Cowan provides a particularly nice example of this: (63) (From Cowan, 2008, p. 395) In the French Open, Agassi beat Sampras, but he was later beaten by a young man from Singapore who ranked 102 in the world. Here are two more illustrations: (64) a. Last night, my car was stolen by a man dressed like the Green Goblin. b. Ella’s purse was snatched by a large parrot that swooped down from the trees.

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In (64a), the unusual appearance of the car thief is newsworthy, and therefore it gets mentioned. In a similar manner, the identity of the miscreant in (64b) is unexpected and so, again, worthy of mention. It is worth noting, however, that the NP within the by phrase may not be an agent in the sense that I defined that semantic role in Chapter 5 (i.e., as someone or something that deliberately acts in some way). Consider the following case: (65) (From Keenan and Dryer, 2007, p. 342) Money is needed by the church. Here, obviously enough, the NP the church does not identify an agent. Nonetheless, for the sake of convenience, (65) can still be referred to as an example of agentive passive.

What Can Be Passivized and What Can’t? When you were learning English grammar, your teacher may well have given you practice exercises requiring you to convert active sentences into their passive equivalents. EFL teachers like to do this sort of thing, and it is often regarded as a useful way of familiarizing DUEs with the form of the passive. Perhaps it is. However, if you have attempted such an exercise, you may have discovered something rather interesting: Not all active constructions can be readily passivized. In fact, some active clauses never passivize. Quirk et al. (1985, p. 162) use the term voice constraint to refer to those cases where an active transitive clause will not form a passive and (more rarely) where a passive clause will not form an active. I want to consider this matter of voice constraint in a little more detail. One type of construction that can never be made into a passive is given in (66). (66) The leaves fell. The reason why (66) cannot form a passive is that it is a simple intransitive clause. Sentences like this never passivize for the very good reason that the verb selects only one participant and so is not followed by an object. In consequence, there is nothing to move into the grammatical subject position. In contrast to intransitive clauses, a prototypical transitive clause will generally form a passive quite readily. Recall from my discussion in Chapter 6 that in a prototypical transitive clause, the object participant of the corresponding active clause is directly affected in some way. A good ex-

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ample is provided in (67a). This is a prototypical transitive clause in that the subject participant is an agent and the object participant is a patient. You will see that a passive equivalent of this can be easily provided (67b). (67) a. The ostrich chased the little boy. b. The little boy was chased by the ostrich. Not all active transitive clauses form passives as readily as this. I will return to this in a little while. Not surprisingly, extended transitive clauses will often allow two passive constructions, one with the direct object participant in subject position and the other with the indirect object participant as subject. Thus, the passive equivalent of (68a) might be either the patient passive (68b) or the recipient passive (68c). (68) a. The school presented Elly with a new laptop . recipient patient b. A new laptop was presented to Elly by the school. patient c. Elly was presented with a new laptop by the school. recipient Complex-transitives such as (69a) also generally passivize, with the object participant moving to subject position, as in (69b). Note that if we attempt to move the object complement, the resulting sentence is ungrammatical (69c). (69) a. The class elected Young Eun president. b. Young Eun was elected president by the class. c. *President was elected Young Eun by the class. Complex-intransitive clauses such as (70) do not passivize for much the same reason that simple intransitives do not: They contain a predicative complement rather than an object. (70) He is a boring professor. All of this is summarized in Table 9.1.

330    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar Table 9.1  Passivization of Clauses Transitive The ostrich chased the little boy.

Passive The little boy was chased by the ostrich.

Extended transitive Passive The school presented Elly with a new A new laptop was presented to Elly by laptop. the school. OR Elly was presented with a new laptop by the school. Complex-transitive The class elected Young Eun president.

Passive Young Eun was elected president by the class.

Intransitive The leaves fell.

Passive no passive possible

Complex-intransitive He is a boring professor.

Passive no passive possible

So far, things appear to be quite straightforward. However, I now want to discuss some further issues that add quite considerably to the complexity of this matter. I noted above that some active transitive constructions do not form good passives. Why is it that, while transitive clauses very often make good passives, there are certain transitive clauses that seem to either resist passivization entirely or at least not make good passives? One relevant factor, already hinted at, is whether or not the transitive object in the active clause is affected by the action encoded by the verb. As I noted above, in those prototypical cases where the transitive clause contains an object that is clearly affected by the verb, it is generally possible to form a passive counterpart to the active clause. But consider a case where the object is unaffected. Sentence (71a) provides an example. (71) a. Dae Ok loves kimchi. b. ??Kimchi is loved by Dae Ok. In the case of (71a), the object participant, kimchi, is unaffected. In semantic terms, it is a theme rather than a patient. And I think that many EUEs would feel that the passive version (71b) is very awkward, and possibly ungrammatical. Admittedly, a certain amount of care is required here.

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I have commented several times already about the danger of considering sentences in isolation. This danger seems to be especially acute in the case of passives. As Dixon observes, quite correctly, “A passive should ideally be quoted together with its discourse and socio-cultural context; sometimes, a putative passive which sounds odd when spoken in isolation is immediately acceptable when placed in an appropriate context” (2005, p. 354). Even a sentence such as (71b), while undeniably awkward, might be acceptable in a particular context. What about this?: (72) Many people find kimchi too spicy for their taste. However, kimchi is loved by Dae Ok. This said, it certainly seems to be the case that when an active object participant is relatively unaffected by the situation expressed by the verb (i.e., it is not a patient), passivization is difficult. Here are some further illustrations:



(73) a. Dr. Macdonald left the office at 6:00. b. ?The office was left by Dr. Macdonald at 6:00. c. Her new job suited her perfectly. d. ?She was suited perfectly by her new job. e. That new professor possesses a great sense of humor. f. ?A great sense of humor is possessed by that new professor.

The importance of the active object being affected is nicely captured in the following quotation from the linguist Dwight Bolinger: We can say George turned the pages or The pages were turned by George; something happens to the pages in the process. But when we say George turned the corner we cannot say *The corner was turned by George—the corner is not affected, it is only where George was at the time. (Bolinger, 1977, p. 10)

The basic principle, then, is this: If the object participant of an active transitive clause is a patient, directly affected by the action of the verb, an equivalent passive construction can be formed. If the object is not a patient, and thus is unaffected, a passive is more difficult or perhaps impossible to form. At the same time, it would be a mistake to present this to DUEs in terms of a definite rule. At any rate, such a rule would be difficult to state clearly. Instead, I suggest we need to refer to degrees of transitivity

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to explain this. You will recall that I briefly mentioned this in Chapter 6. Rather than a simplistic affected–unaffected dichotomy, the essential idea is that the transitivity of a clause is determined by a number of factors in combination, including the extent to which the object participant of the active transitive clause is affected and how “agent-like” the subject participant is. Inevitably, such considerations introduce a certain lack of precision into our discussion, but, at the same time, they more effectively capture the linguistic reality we are concerned to explain. What DUEs can be told, then, is that the more affected an object is, the more likely it is that the active clause will passivize. This idea of varying degrees of transitivity certainly helps to explain why the examples discussed above are so awkward. Yet we should be wary of making easy generalizations. The fact is that some active transitive clauses with completely unaffected object participants seem to passivize very well. Consider (74). (74) Few students enjoy phonology. The passive counterpart of this seems to be fine: (75) Phonology is enjoyed by few students. Why should it be that (75) seems to form a “good” passive despite the fact that the object, phonology, is unaffected by the action encoded in the verb? In other words, what makes (75) different than the sentences we have just been considering? The answer, I would like to suggest, is that active transitive clauses with generic or non-specific subjects seem to passivize even when the object is unaffected. That this is the case is shown if we make a small adjustment to our earlier example, substituting an indefinite pronoun for the proper noun: (76) Everyone loves kimchi. Notice now that even though the object is still unaffected, just as it was earlier, because we have an indefinite pronoun in subject position a passive version becomes possible:

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(77) Kimchi is loved by everyone. It is also worth noting that active clauses with nonspecific or generic objects do not seem to passivize as well as those with definite objects. Thus, (78a), with its definite object, forms a perfectly good passive (78b). (78) a. Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet. b. Romeo and Juliet was written by Shakespeare. However, (79a), which contains a nonspecific object, plays, produces a passive that, if not strictly ungrammatical, once again would certainly be regarded as somewhat odd by most EUEs (79b). (79) a. Shakespeare wrote plays. b. ?Plays were written by Shakespeare. Once again, however, this can be rendered more acceptable by adding some more context: (80) Several plays were written by Shakespeare before he was thirty. I turn now to some other cases in which active transitive clauses seem to resist the formation of a passive. One such case involves clauses that contain what are sometimes called symmetric verbs. These are employed to describe a situation in which two participants stand in a quite distinctive relationship to one another. The classic example of such a verb is resemble. Notice that the passive equivalent of (81a) is obviously ungrammatical (81b). (81) a. Monique resembles her mother. b. *Her mother is resembled by Monique. There are not many verbs like this. Apart from resemble, the most obvious one is its near-synonym look like:

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(82) a. Monique looks like her mother. b. *Her mother is looked like by Monique. Another case is where the verb refers to a time-stable, unchanging situation. An example is the verb contain, which, as you see below, clearly resists becoming part of a passive construction: (83) a. This carton contains pineapple juice. b. *Pineapple juice is contained by this carton. A moment’s thought should convince you that the same principle noted above is relevant here. In the active (83a), the object participant is a theme rather than a patient. The active object is unaffected. There are a few other verbs that pattern like contain, appearing in non-prototypical transitive clauses and so not readily forming passives. Among them are cost and weigh:



(84) a. This book cost twenty dollars. b. *Twenty dollars was costed by this book. c. This backpack weighs forty kilos. d. *Forty kilos is weighed by this backpack.

DUEs need to note, however, that weigh can also be used dynamically, in which case a passive is possible: (85) (From Palmer, 1994, p. 119) a. The shopkeeper weighed the potatoes. b. The potatoes were weighed by the shopkeeper. Teachers must take great care in presenting cases like these in the classroom. I have found that it is not uncommon for teachers to tell their students that the reason a verb such as contain will not form a passive is because it is a stative verb. Sometimes, indeed, this is made into a “rule” of the form, “Stative verbs cannot form passives.” But this is simply untrue. There are plenty of stative verbs that appear quite readily in passive constructions. Mental state or psych-verbs (e.g., believe, know, realize, think, understand) are particularly good in passives.

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It is also worth noting that there are a few verbs that are restricted to passive constructions—that is, the voice constraint operates in the opposite direction. It is not possible to form an active counterpart with these verbs:



(86) (From Quirk et al. 1985, p. 162) a. John was said to be a good teacher. b. *They said him to be a good teacher. c. John was reputed to be a good teacher. d. *They reputed him to be a good teacher.

A Scale of Passivity Before leaving behind this discussion of the form of the passive, I want to briefly note another area of potential confusion. Look at sentence (87): (87) The window was broken. Is this a passive? Viewed in isolation like this, we cannot be sure. The ambiguity arises because the participle broken could have a verbal function, describing an event, or an adjectival function, describing a state. If broken has a verbal function, then the primary verb is an auxiliary and we have an agentless passive. In this reading, the sentence tells us that some action took place (i.e., the breaking of the window). Alternatively, we could interpret this sentence as describing some state the window is in (i.e., the state of being broken). In this case, was is a copula verb and broken has an adjectival function. It is necessary to acknowledge that forms like broken can be verbal or adjectival in function and that, in consequence, there can be cases of genuine ambiguity that can be resolved only by considering the linguistic context. For example, if we add a by-phrase, we make the participle unambiguously verbal and the sentence becomes an obvious (agentive) passive construction: (88) The window was broken by Young Hee. However, an alternative linguistic context establishes a non-passive reading, with the particle having an adjectival function: (89) When Young Hee entered the room, the window was already broken.

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Prototypical passives

Non-prototypical passives

Copula constructions

Figure 9.1  A scale of passivity.

The potential confusion that we see in a sentence such as (87) directs us toward a still more fundamental issue, and one that has important implications for the classroom. As various linguists have noted, what are traditionally referred to as passives actually stand at one end of a continuum and shade into other types of constructions. So it is that we might do better to think in terms of a scale of passivity or, to borrow a term from Quirk et al. (1985, pp. 167–171), who discuss this matter at some length, a passive gradient. Figure 9.1 gives an illustration of this scale or gradient. Central or true (Quirk et al., 1985, p. 167) passives—or, in my terms, prototypical passives—are constructions that contain an auxiliary (usually be) followed by a participle and that have a clear and readily expressible transitive equivalent. We have already seen several examples of these. Here is one more: (90) This pizza was made by Gina. This corresponds to (91). (91) Gina made this pizza. An example of what I would call a non-prototypical passive is given in (92a). (92) a. Kathy was bored by the lecture. b. The lecture bored Kathy. Quirk et al. (1985) would regard (92a) as a semi-passive construction. It belongs on our scale since it contains a be auxiliary and a participle; more-

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over, there is an active equivalent to this, as we see in (92b). This indicates that we are dealing with some sort of passive construction. And yet, it differs from our earlier pizza example in certain ways. First, in (92a), we can modify the participle with an appropriate degree adverb (93a); this is impossible with the prototypical passive, as we see in (93b). (93) a. Kathy was quite/rather bored by the lecture. b. *This pizza was quite/rather made by Gina. Also, the be verb in (92a) can be replaced by certain other verbs (become, feel) that clearly have a copula function (94a); again, this is not possible with a prototypical passive, as (94b) reveals: (94) a. Kathy became/felt bored by the lecture. b. *This pizza became/felt made by Gina. Another non-prototypical passive construction is often referred to as a pseudo-passive. I provided an example of such a construction above. Here it is again: (95) Britain was industrialized during the course of the nineteenth century. Here, there is no obvious active equivalent, which makes this example still less prototypical than the semi-passive (92a). The meaning here is plainly passive—the sense is that Britain underwent a process of industrialization during the nineteenth century—and yet the construction is actually very close to a copula construction, a fact reflected by the possibility of using a change of state copula instead of be: (96) Britain became industrialized during the course of the nineteenth century. We see, then, that certain types of passives “shade into” copula constructions. What we have here really does seem to be best described in terms of a continuum, gradient, or scale.

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To sum up, prototypical passives have two basic characteristics: ◾◾ They contain an auxiliary and a participle. ◾◾ They have an obvious active counterpart. Some non-prototypical passives are close to being prototypical, in that they share these characteristics and yet they also accept modifiers of the participle and the auxiliary can be replaced by another (copula) verb. Others are less prototypical, in that they lack an obvious active equivalent; these often shade into copula constructions. Once we begin to explore the nature of passives in depth, complications of this sort inevitably arise. You may regard this as an unfortunate state of affairs, but this is the reality of grammatical description. Can this sort of thing be taught? I see no reason why not. In fact, I would go further: It must be taught. Naturally, one would not want to risk confusion by introducing this kind of discussion too early, but once students have reached a sufficiently advanced level, they should be able to cope with the idea that it is sometimes difficult to draw hard and fast lines between grammatical categories. What I have referred to as a scale of passivity is simply one illustration of this more general point.

English Passives: Meaning and Use Here is an important point: Because the grammar of modern English allows both, in describing many situations, speakers are effectively faced with a choice of an active construction or a passive construction. This raises some obvious questions: Why do speakers of English sometimes prefer the passive voice? What meanings does it convey? What are its functions in discourse? As I have indicated, the passive is best understood as a focus construction. By this, I mean that the primary function of the passive (what we might think of as the most basic use of the passive) is to direct attention to the receiver of some action or the one undergoing the action. I have maintained that the “best” passives are those in which the active counterpart is a prototypical transitive clause (i.e., one in which the object participant is a patient) directly affected by the action of the verb. This focusing or directing of attention is achieved by placing the relevant NP in subject position. This, of course, will have the additional effect of “defocusing” the agent, who is responsible for the action. Another term that linguists commonly employ in this context is that of foregrounding. Passives foreground an element that would not be foregrounded in an active clause; this foregrounding effect

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is emphasized by omission of the agent entirely, or by its demotion to the status of a prepositional object. Whichever terms we use, a key idea at work here is that linguistic elements that are mentioned first receive more attention than things that are mentioned subsequently. This is illustrated in (97): (97) a. The thieves stole several priceless items . agent patient b. Several priceless items were stolen by the thieves . patient agent Notice that in the active (97a), the focus is on the agent participant (i.e., the NP the thieves is foregrounded). In terms of the choice I mentioned earlier, it seems that, in this case, the speaker is primarily concerned with those responsible for the theft. In the passive (97b), the focus is on the patient (i.e., the NP several priceless items is foregrounded), which is now the grammatical subject. In this latter case, it seems that the speaker is primarily concerned with what was stolen. So, in discourse, a passive enables the speaker to focus attention on who or what is affected by an action rather than who or what was responsible for the action. Linguists will sometimes say that passive constructions topicalize the object affected by the action, making it more prominent by placing it in sentence-initial position. By comparison, the entity responsible for the action is reduced in topicality, being placed later in the construction or, in the case of non-agentive passives, being omitted altogether. Once again, we need to see that this really is a matter of speaker choice. It is something that speakers opt to do for their own communicative purposes. Often, it is done to emphasize something that the speaker regards as in some way significant. The following example illustrates this nicely: (98) (From Dixon, 2005, p. 359) a. John’s mother saw him in the bar. b. John was seen in the bar by his mother. As Dixon suggests, use of the passive (98b) rather than the active (98a) might convey the idea that John should not have been in the bar and will get into trouble when he gets home. This implication is absent from the active version, which is “neutral” in this respect, simply reporting a fact.

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This focusing effect of the passive can also be felt when speakers change from active to passive in mid-stream. Here is an example: (99) (From Huddleston, 1984, p. 446) a. The enemy opened fire and killed five of our men instantly . active active b. The enemy opened fire and five of our men were killed instantly . active passive The first clauses in both (99a) and (99b) are active. But notice that in (99b), the second clause is passive, whereas in (99a), it too is active. The use of the passive in the second clause of (99b) signals a shift in perspective on the part of the speaker. Having begun by describing the situation in terms of what the enemy did, the speaker changes focus and continues by presenting matters in terms of what happened to his men. In terms of meaning, the fact that many passives lack reference to an agent is also significant since, by omitting the agent, the speaker is able to avoid mentioning information that must be mentioned in an active sentence. As I noted above, the use of a passive construction can, in certain circumstances, be a way of avoiding having to take responsibility for some action or of having to assign blame. The speaker is able to discuss an unpleasant or unfortunate situation without direct reference to an agent. Consider the following example: (100) a. The professor gave Soo Jin some bad advice regarding her term paper. b. Soo Jin was given some bad advice regarding her term paper. The sentences in (100) describe the same situation. However, by using a passive construction in (100b), the speaker is able to avoid any reference to the individual responsible and so avoids assigning blame for the unfortunate state of affairs. The following example illustrates this same point. Sentence (101) is the sort of thing we might find in a business letter. (101) The delay in dealing with this matter is regretted. I would suggest that in the context of a business letter, a passive construction like this is much more likely than an active construction (e.g., We

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regret the delay . . .), since the latter would involve the writer too directly and personally; in effect, by writing in the active voice, they would be admitting responsibility for the delay. Sentence (101) illustrates another important use of the passive: the deliberate creation of a formal, impersonal, or “objective” tone. This is the reason that passives frequently occur in official documents, journalistic contexts, and especially scientific reports. Regarding the latter, Crystal says, “That elements X and Y were mixed to form compound Z is usually the important point, not that it was me, Mary, John, or Dr Smith who did the mixing” (1995, p. 225). Similarly, Quirk and colleagues point out, “The passive is generally more commonly used in informative than in imaginative writing, and it is notably more frequent in the objective, impersonal style of scientific articles and news reporting” (1985, p. 166).

Get Passive So far in this chapter, I have concentrated on passives formed with the auxiliary be. We might think of this as the standard passive construction. However, as I have emphasized several times already, languages undergo change. One further illustration of this is the recent increase in use among EUEs of an alternative passive construction in which the auxiliary is get rather than be. Actually, the use of get in a passive construction is not especially new. Speakers have been employing it since at least the middle of the eighteenth century. What is interesting, however, is that the use of get as a passive auxiliary seems to be increasing, especially in informal, spoken English (see Givón & Yang, 1994). The fact that there are two passive constructions, one with be and one with get, means that English speakers are yet again faced with a choice. Admittedly, the choice is not a completely free one. Various factors conspire to constrain the decision made by the speaker. Following work done by Carter and McCarthy, Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman have pointed out that get passive cannot be used with non-dynamic verbs; thus, “it appears that getpassives are predominantly associated with verbs that emphasize actions or processes” (1998, p. 349). This is reflected in the impossibility of replacing the be-passive in the following stative situations with a get passive:



(102) a. The bed had not been slept in. b. *The bed had not got slept in. c. Joe hasn’t been seen for years. d. *Joe hasn’t got(ten) seen for years.

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A similar point has been made by Teschner and Evans (2007), who note the complete ungrammaticality of the following: (103) (From Teschner & Evans, 2007, p. 104) *The answer got understood by everyone. In light of what we have just said, this is not surprising, since understand describes a particular kind of state that someone can be in. For the same reason, get passives do not work with other mental state verbs like believe and know. Apart from such restrictions, when do speakers choose be passive and when do they choose get passive? The evidence from corpora databases is that, among contemporary native speakers, there is a preference for get passives where a situation is perceived to be in some way undesirable, unpleasant, or problematic (i.e., where the passive subject is perceived as suffering adversely as a result of the action encoded in the verb): (104) a. He got locked out. b. Last night, my car got stolen. Finding yourself locked out of your house or finding that your car has been stolen constitute negative situations that we would all rather avoid. And most EUEs would, I think, readily accept that the use of a get passive is appropriate here. As always, however, care needs to be taken. In saying that get passives are preferred to express negative situations, we are dealing with a pattern of use or tendency, not a grammatical rule. A be passive is also possible in (104). It is also important to note that the get passive is not restricted to negative situations. In fact, get passive works perfectly well in some positive situations: (105) She got voted most promising newcomer of the year. Another interesting semantic issue that has been noted is the tendency for get passives to carry a suggestion of some responsibility, intent, or control on the part of their subjects. Givón nicely illustrates this with the following examples:

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(106) (From Givón, 1993b, p. 67) a. Criminals must get arrested to prove their machismo. b. ?Criminals must be arrested to prove their machismo. c. Criminals must be arrested to keep the streets safe. d. ?Criminals must get arrested to keep the streets safe.

Notice that in (106a), get passive works well, whereas be passive in (106b) is rather strange. The meaning here is that criminals deliberately allow themselves to be arrested in order to increase their standing among their fellows. By contrast, be passive in (106c) is good and get passive in (106d) is very odd indeed. In this case, there is no sense of the criminals intending to be arrested. It seems that the use of get passive brings with it the implication that (at least from the speaker’s perspective) the subject acted deliberately and that he or she had some control over the situation. Such a suggestion is generally lacking in the case of be passive. This can go some way toward explaining why for some situations get passive is invariably the preferred option. The following provides another example: (107) a. He got married in Turkey. b. He was married in Turkey. For most EUEs, (107a) would be far better than (107b) because we normally think of marriage as something undertaken by choice, and the use of get conveys this. I turn now to another interesting issue, one which may have important implications for the way in which teachers present get passive in their classrooms. Notice that, although get appears to be doing the work of an auxiliary verb when it appears in a passive, it does not accept the NICE properties that we normally associate with auxiliaries (see Chapter 2.) In other words, despite its occurrence in passives, the actual status of get is unclear. In fact, Quirk and his colleagues go so far as to state that get “is not, by most syntactic criteria, an auxiliary at all” (1985, p. 160). The following examples, in which a get passive construction is compared with its be passive counterpart, will make the point explicit. You will notice that, in each case, the version containing get requires do-insertion like a lexical verb: (108) a. Sunhee wasn’t blamed for the broken window. b. Sunhee didn’t get blamed for the broken window. (*Sunhee gotn’t blamed for the broken window.)

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(109) a. Was Sunhee blamed for the broken window? b. Did Sunhee get blamed for the broken window? (*Got Sunhee blamed for the broken window?) (110) a. Sunhee was blamed for the broken window, wasn’t she? b. Sunhee got blamed for the broken window, didn’t she? (*Sunhee got blamed for the broken window, gotn’t she?) (111) a. A: B: b. A: B:

Was Sunhee blamed for the broken window? Yes, she WAS. Did Sunhee get blamed for the broken window? Yes, she DID. (* Yes, she GOT.)

One way of making sense of this might be to say that the get in Sunhee got blamed for the broken window (etc.) is not (yet) a true auxiliary, although it perhaps it will be for future generations of English speakers. It is also worth briefly noting that, in addition to passives with be and get, modern English also has a passive construction using have as an auxiliary. Compare the following: (112) a. Active: The bank’s refusal to lend me the money crushed my hopes. b. Be passive: My hopes were crushed by the bank’s refusal to lend me the money. c. Have passive: I had my hopes crushed by the bank’s refusal to lend me the money. Care must be taken not to confuse the have passive with the causative have construction, which may appear superficially similar. In the passive form, the subject NP carries an experiencer semantic role; with causative have constructions, the subject is an agent deliberately causing something to be done:

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(113) a. Passive have: Ik Su had his cell phone stolen yesterday. b. Causative have: Ik Su had his hair cut yesterday. Notice that have passives are syntactically more complex than other passives, in that another NP intervenes between the auxiliary and the past participle. A final thought: Some linguists count constructions such as He grew tired as passives. In fact, I would not call this a passive. It is a complex intransitive (or copula) construction, consisting of copula be + predicative complement.

Middle Voice Constructions Another non-prototypical construction found in modern English is what is sometimes referred to as the middle voice construction. These are so called because, syntactically, they occupy a place midway between active and passive constructions. On the other hand, their semantics places middle voice utterances very close to passives. Payne explains the matter like this: There is significant functional similarity between middle constructions and passives. . . . The only functional difference is that a passive treats the situation as an action carried out by an agent but with the identity of the agent downplayed. A prototypical middle construction, on the other hand, treats the situation as a process, i.e., it ignores the role of the agent entirely. (Payne, 2010, p. 510)

Consider the following: (114) a. The wind blew the mist away. causer patient b. The mist was blown away by the wind . patient causer c. The mist blew away. patient In (114a), the active construction focuses on the cause of the action by placing the NP the wind, with its causer semantic role, in pre-verbal position as the subject of the sentence. In (114b), the passive focuses on the effect or result of the action by placing the NP the mist, with its patient

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semantic role, in subject position. What about (114c)? This is an example of a middle voice construction. While the verb in (114c) is active, its subject is passive—the mist has a patient role—being acted upon by some cause that, in this case, is unexpressed. Indeed, a by phrase indicating an agent or causer is not possible with a middle voice construction, even if it is understood or implied: (115) *The mist blew away by the wind. In English, there is only a limited range of verbs that can appear in middle voice constructions such as this. (These are sometimes known as ergative verbs.) Apart from blow (away), other examples might include age, collapse, dry, evaporate, and sink:



(116) a. The cheese aged slowly. b. Suddenly, the tower collapsed. c. The laundry dried surprisingly quickly. d. The water evaporated gradually. e. The boat sank without a trace.

You will see that, like passives, middle voice constructions are a way of focusing attention on or foregrounding some affected participant. However, because they invariably lack agents, middle voice constructions will often be used when the speaker is only concerned with the change affecting the subject, not the cause. Because of this, they are stylistically useful, often being employed to create a sense of mystery or uncertainty: (117) My heart skipped a beat as suddenly, without warning, the door slammed shut.

In the Classroom: Passive Constructions Language teachers often devote a considerable amount of classroom time to working on passive constructions. This makes good sense since the passive has a central place in the grammar of modern English. Unfortunately, however, all too often teachers are content simply to focus on the issue of how passives are formed, perhaps giving their students exercises requiring

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them to transform active sentences into their passive counterparts. In fact, this type of exercise—which is really a matter of simply manipulating syntax—misses the real challenge that students are likely to face in acquiring this construction. I would suggest, indeed, that the formation of the passive is relatively unproblematic. Rather, it is at the level of the meaning and use of these constructions that DUEs are likely to experience difficulties. As I have emphasized above, English grammar allows a choice between active and passive constructions. Because of this, it is entirely appropriate to present active and passive constructions alongside one another as different descriptions of the same situation. And yet, in doing so, it is important to clarify for students why a speaker might choose one version rather than the other. This inevitably raises the issue of the meaning and use of the passive. The key here will be to explain that the passive is an example of what I have called a focus construction. As you have just seen, this means that the essential function of the passive is to draw attention to (or to foreground) the affected participant in the situation being described. Once you are sure that this crucial function has been understood, learners can be given practice in changing active constructions into passive ones as a way of underscoring this fundamental function. A further issue that requires attention has to do with the vexing issue of what makes a good passive. The basic principles can be explained fairly easily, perhaps using a chart such as the one suggested in the text. At lower levels, this is likely to prove sufficient. However, with higherlevel learners, teachers will want to address some of the complexities that arise when we look at passivization. As discussed above, there are a number of factors that come into play here, and the matter is not easily stated in the form of a readily assimilated rule. As with the issue of modals dealt with in the previous chapter, in the end, learners are unlikely to develop appropriate intuitions about what can and cannot be passivized without massive exposure and practice. Sadly, this is hard to manage in typical classrooms. Since it is on the increase in modern English, learners also need to be exposed to get passive. Once more, the main focus of attention should be on considering the various meanings conveyed by the get construction and the uses to which it is put (e.g., it is commonly used when the speaker perceives a situation as negative). I suggest that time also needs to be spent on the interesting semantic differences between get passive and be passive. Students need to understand that these are not simply alternatives, with the choice between them being merely optional. As I have indicated above, they convey distinct meanings and there are times when one or the other is the better choice.

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A final issue that teachers may wish to address is the difference between passive voice and middle voice constructions. While the latter are not especially common in modern English, they do occur in certain contexts, and advanced learners will benefit from understanding how the meaning they convey differs from that of the more familiar passive.

Some Other Focus Constructions In addition to passive and middle voice constructions, modern English permits certain other non-prototypical sentence forms that have a similar focusing or foregrounding effect. I will end this chapter with a brief examination of some of these. Many of these constructions are likely to be less familiar to DUEs than passives tend to be. As you will see, what these constructions share in common with passives is that they enable EUEs to manipulate the syntax of the language in various ways in order to draw attention to some item in the discourse.

Clefting The grammar of modern English permits two cleft constructions. Labels for these vary among writers. I am going to refer to them as the it cleft construction and the wh- cleft construction. Sometimes what I am calling an ­it cleft is called, more simply, the cleft construction; in this case, my wh- cleft will often be called a pseudo-cleft. Let’s go back to one of our baseline sentences that we have been using in this chapter. I repeat it here as (118). (118) Eunice threw a stone . agent patient Sentence (118) is a prototypical transitive clause. It follows the normal S+V+O word order of an active sentence in English, with the subject participant Eunice preceding the verb throw, which precedes the object participant the stone. In semantic terms, Eunice is an agent and the stone is a patient. Now consider (119).

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(119) It was a stone that Eunice threw. patient agent Sentence (119) is an example of an it cleft construction. It describes exactly the same situation as (118) but has a rather different syntactic structure. In terms of word order, it is plainly non-prototypical. Sentences of this type are rather like passives in the sense that they draw the hearer’s attention to the affected participant (in this case, the stone) by moving it forward to a position immediately behind the verb. Notice that the agent is placed later, after that. Cleft sentences such as this will very often include that, although, as you will see shortly, there is no hard and fast rule about this. Typically, it cleft constructions involve some kind of contrast between the focused item and some other item, with phonological stress being placed on the focused item to make the contrast more explicit. Thus, a more natural context for (119) might be something like the following: (120) It was a STONE that Eunice threw, not a brick. In (120), the speaker wishes to stress that what was thrown was a stone rather than a brick. (Imagine a witness in a court case giving evidence). Here is another example: (121) It was MARY who he invited to dinner, not Maria. In principle, an it cleft construction can be used to focus attention on any NP—or, indeed, any clause—that would be in a corresponding declarative sentence. To see this, we will take another active declarative sentence— a more elaborate one this time—and see how many it clefts can be derived from it. Here is our active sentence: (122) The linguistics professor spent the entire weekend grading assignments. Several it cleft constructions can be derived from this sentence (although it must be admitted that some of these are more likely than others):

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(123) a. It was the LINGUISTICS professor who spent the entire weekend grading assignments, not the history professor. b. It was the linguistics PROFESSOR who spent the entire weekend grading assignments, not his teaching assistant. c. It was assignments that the linguistics professor spent the entire weekend grading, not multiple choice papers. d. It was THE ENTIRE WEEKEND that the linguistics professor spent grading assignments, not part of it. Now look at the following: (124) What Jeremy likes studying is English.

This is an example of another type of cleft construction—the wh- cleft— so named because it has a sentence-initial wh- form (almost always what). Such a construction is likely to be used where it has already been established that Jeremy likes studying something, but there is uncertainty over what it is. Consequently, like it clefts, wh- clefts are often used for contrastive effect: (125) a. What Jeremy likes studying is English, not Geography. b. What Eunice threw was a stone, not a brick. c. What Dr. Endley teaches is Linguistic Principles of English Grammar, not Molecular Biology. As a variant form of wh- cleft, look at the following. Notice that the focused element is made still more prominent in these cases by being fronted (i.e., placed in sentence-initial position, with the wh- clause coming after the verb): (126) a. English is what Jeremy likes studying, not Geography. b. A stone is what Eunice threw, not a brick. c. Linguistic Principles of English Grammar is what Dr. Endley teaches, not Molecular Biology.

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Fronting Modern English grammar permits the foregrounding of some element by placing it sentence-initially so that it gains greater prominence. We call this fronting. Quirk and colleagues have this to say: “Fronting is the term we apply to the achievement of marked theme by moving into initial position an item which is otherwise unusual there” (1985, p. 1377). Fronting is relatively unusual. Nonetheless, it does occur, and it can cause considerable confusion among DUEs. B’s reply to A in the exchange below provides a fairly natural context for this grammatical operation: (127) A: Remind me; is it garlic you don’t like or onions? B: Onions I love; I can’t stand garlic! The striking thing about B’s (entirely grammatical) reply is that the noun, onions, is actually an object and, in a prototypical sentence, would appear after the verb (e.g., “I love onions”). Yet, in B’s response, it has been moved to a position in front of the subject. The fronting of onions in this manner draws attention to it, adding emphasis, making it the focus within the discourse. Again, a fronted construction will often be employed where there is some choice at issue and the speaker wishes to make it clear which option she prefers. Here are some more examples: (128) a. A: B: b. A: B:

Which course do you enjoy more, grammar or phonology? Grammar I like; phonology I hate. Which artist do you prefer, Monet or Picasso? Monet I find wonderful; Picasso I don’t understand.

Unlike passives, fronting does not involve any grammatical changes beyond the movement of the fronted element. However, as Brinton points out, the fronted element must be given, that is, already established and understood in the discourse context: “Fronting is thus a means of echoing topically what has been contextually given” (2000, p. 293).

Left-dislocation What linguists call left-dislocation is similar to fronting in that some item is moved from its more customary position in a prototypical construction to

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a position at the beginning of an utterance, where it receives greater focus. However, in the case of left-dislocation, a pronoun that is co-referential with the fronted item remains in its original position. This somewhat complicated operation is illustrated in (129). (129) Miyoung, she was the student who received first prize. Presented in isolation, a sentence like (129) may strike readers as rather odd. However, as so often, when placed in an appropriate context, it seems to become acceptable: (130) Lots of students came to see the professor after the ceremony, including Ji Young, Taekyun, and Miyoung. Miyoung, she was the student who received first prize.

Locative Inversion One other grammatical operation that involves a change in the prototypical word order is often referred to as locative inversion. This occurs when a speaker uses an adverbial with a locative sense sentence-initially; usually, the verb is positioned immediately after the adverbial. Often, the adverbial will be here (131a) or there (131b); however, prepositional phrases can also be used for the same effect, as you see in (131c). (131) a. Here comes the rain! b. There go my hopes of promotion! c. In the distance towered a spectacular mountain. In this next example, locative inversion is combined with middle voice: (132) In the next room a door slammed. The ability to refocus attention by means of passives, middle voice constructions, it and wh- clefts, fronting, left-dislocation, and locative inversion is part of the English native speaker’s procedural knowledge. It is some-

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thing they do intuitively and non-consciously. Needless to say, it is likely to prove one of the most difficult things for DUEs to master.

Further Reading A good account of various types of questions will be found in Quirk et al. (1985, pp. 801–826). For passives, try Huddleston and Pullam (2002, pp. 1427–1447). Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999) also cover yes/ no and wh- questions in Chs. 11 and 13, respectively, while they look at the form, meaning, and use of passive constructions in Ch.18. For an interesting survey of the main questioning strategies employed in the world’s languages, see König and Siemund (2007). Keenan and Dryer (2007) offer a similar survey of passive constructions.

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10 Complex Sentences in English Coordination and Subordination

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p to this point, I have been concerned with basic clause types and have concentrated on relatively simple sentence structures that have contained only one clause. However, proficient speakers do not normally produce such simple language. More often than not, the sentences they produce are rather elaborate, involving two or more clauses operating together. In the next few chapters, I turn to an examination of some of the more complex sentence structures that the grammar of English permits.

It is traditional to distinguish between compound sentences (i.e., two independent clauses conjoined) and complex sentences (i.e., one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses). In this and succeeding chapters, I am using the label complex sentence as a more general term to refer to any “non-simple” sentence. In this chapter, I will look at two broad types of complex sentences, corresponding to the fundamental distinction between coordinated clauses and subordinated (or embedded) clauses. The chapter begins with a relatively brief discussion of coordination. After this, I turn to a more detailed examination of various types of subordinate Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 355–396 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

355

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clause in English. I will look at three of the most common types of finite clause, the that clause, the wh- clause, and the if or whether clause; then I will consider what are usually called nonfinite clauses, that is, infinitive clauses and participial clauses.

Coordinated Clauses One of the most common ways in which clauses may be combined to form more complex sentences involves a grammatical operation known as coordination. Broadly, coordination involves the linking of two or more linguistic elements using a connective word-form such as and, or, or but. Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman state that “simple conjunction involves the coordination of constituents of the same type” to form “a superconstituent of the same category” (1999, pp. 462–463). Huddleston and Pullam agree, stating that “[c]oordination is a relation between two or more elements of syntactically equal status” (2002, p. 1275). Although coordination does not operate solely at the clause level, I will limit myself to a discussion of clauses here. Here is a sentence containing two coordinated clauses: (1) Insook was feeling ill and she left the party early. A sentence such as (1) is a coordinate sentence. In more traditional circles, it would be called a compound sentence. An important characteristic of this sentence is that the two clauses it contains are both independent and could stand alone: (2) a. Insook was feeling ill. b. Insook left the party early. Of course, if you are interested in describing what Insook did, it is most unlikely that you would produce (2a) followed by (2b) in this manner. What you would almost certainly do instead is produce the original conjoined sentence (1). This illustrates why coordination is such a useful grammatical device. It enables speakers to combine clauses in order to describe relatively complex situations with a minimum of linguistic fuss. Thus, rather than somewhat redundantly telling us that Insook felt ill and Insook left the party, the speaker can combine the two events together to form one complex description.

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Notice also that because (2a) and (b) share the subject NP Insook, it can be omitted from the second clause when they are combined. It is also worth noting that, with sentences such as (1), there is a very strong presumption that the ordering of the clauses reflects the ordering of the events in the real world. All hearers would naturally understand the above sentence to mean that first Insook felt ill and then (presumably as a result of this) she left the party. Even though an alternative sequence of events is logically possible—perhaps she first left the party and then felt ill—hearers are likely to strongly resist this interpretation. As Huddleston and Pullam put it, “Where the coordinates denote occurrences rather than states, the linear order generally reflects the temporal sequence of events” (2002, p. 1300). In more technical terms, the order of clauses in (1) would be said to be iconic, reflecting the “real-world” order of the events described. As I have already noted, in order to coordinate clauses in this way, speakers have to employ a special word-form that operates as a connective. Among the most commonly used connectives in modern English are and, or, and but. Together with a few other forms, these are known traditionally as coordinating conjunctions. Some well-known linguists (e.g., Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999) continue to use this term. I will refer to them, more simply, as coordinators. Here are some further examples of the use of the three main coordinators in modern English: (3) a. The professor likes Mozart and he likes Massive Attack! b. I enjoy kimchi and I love galbi. (4) a. Martin can’t play any instruments but he listens to a lot of music. b. Jon works as an archivist but Gill is retired. (5) a. We may go to Bali for our vacation or we may go to Cebu. b. Would you like galbi for dinner or do you want pizza? Linguists will sometimes distinguish between different subtypes of coordination on semantic grounds. Thus, (3a, b) with and are examples of what is sometimes called conjunctive coordination; (4a, b) with but are cases of adversative coordination; (5a, b) with or show us disjunctive coordination. You

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will notice that (5b) is also an example of an alternative question. These were discussed in Chapter 9. EUEs will frequently employ elliptical forms in coordinated constructions. Consider the following (the elided material is in parentheses): (6) a. The professor likes Mozart and (he likes) Massive Attack. b. We may go to Bali for our vacation or (we may go to) Cebu. c. Would you like galbi for dinner or (do you want) pizza? The elided material is understood by both speaker and hearer and is therefore deemed to be unnecessary. Coordinated clauses are subject to various syntactic constraints. One major constraint is that the coordinator itself always comes in front of the second, conjoined clause. As Huddleston and Pullam put it, “From a semantic point of view a coordinator expresses the relation between the coordinates, but syntactically it belongs with the coordinate that follows it” (2002, p. 1277). Of course, it will sometimes be possible to reorder the elements of the clauses, especially where the coordinator is and. Thus, (7) differs from (3a) in that the order of the NPs has been reversed; however, the essential meaning of the two sentences remains unchanged: (7) The professor likes Massive Attack and he likes Mozart. In some cases, the order of coordinated clauses themselves can be changed without altering their relationship to one another and, therefore, without any change to the meaning of the complex sentence: (8) a. Martin supports West Ham and Jon supports Manchester City. b. Jon supports Manchester City and Martin supports West Ham. Notice that, in this case, the coordinator retains its position at the front of second clause. Sometimes rearranging the order of coordinated clauses can drastically change the way the sentence is understood. Consider the following darkly humorous example:

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(9) (From Quirk et al., 1985, p. 920) a. He died and was buried in the cemetery. b. He was buried in the cemetery and he died.

The Semantics of And, Or, and But An aspect of coordination that is not always clearly recognized is that the coordinators are not merely syntactic linking devices. In fact, each coordinator carries semantic weight, expressing a distinct relationship between the conjoined clauses, thereby contributing to the meaning of the utterance as a whole. This is an important issue and one, I suggest, to which teachers need to devote some classroom time. Let us look at this issue in a little more detail.

And It is safe to regard and not only as the most frequently used coordinator but as the one that carries the most general meanings. As Quirk and his colleagues say, “The only restriction on the use of and as coordinator is the pragmatic one that the clauses should have sufficient in common to justify their combination” (1985, p. 930). Two of the primary uses of and involve either an additive or a resultative meaning. The former, which is often taken to be the primary function of and, is reflected in one of our earlier examples, repeated here: (10) The professor likes Mozart and he likes Massive Attack. In this case, the two clauses represent two distinct states that are “added” together by means of the coordinator. Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman rightly observe that and “seems to mean much the same as the ‘plus’ sign in arithmetic” (1999, p. 462). Indeed, as Quirk et al. note, the word plus may be used as “an emphatic alternative to and in an additive sense” (1985, p. 921). The example they give is as follows: (11) Mainframe computers are becoming less expensive, plus the best software is available for desktops which of course are cheaper still.

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The alternative resultative sense of and is reflected in our original example of coordination, repeated here: (12) Insook felt ill and she left the party early. Recall my earlier comment concerning the presumption of iconicity with coordinated clauses. Here, we assume that the event described in the first clause expresses the reason or circumstance for the result expressed in the second clause.

Or In some respects, or stands in semantic contrast with resultative and. Look at the following: (13) You can have pizza or pasta for dinner. (cf. You can have pizza and pasta for dinner.) In (13), or marks what is sometimes called a disjunctive relationship, in which the conjoined clauses are presented as alternatives. This is its normal use. However, or is also commonly used to convey a negative condition or consequence that may follow from the situation expressed in the first clause, which is often in the form of an imperative. Complex sentences of this sort are equivalent to conditionals that I will discuss in Chapter 12, although they are often felt to have rather stronger force: (14) a. Email me the assignment by 5:00 pm or you will fail! (cf. If you don’t email me the assignment by 5:00 pm, you will fail.) b. You better stop drinking now or you’ll be sorry in the morning! (cf. If you don’t stop drinking now, you’ll be sorry in the morning.)

But The coordinator but marks a primarily adversative relationship, in which the two coordinated clauses stand in semantic contrast with one another:

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(15) Jon works as an archivist but Gill is retired. Here, clearly enough, the situation expressed in the first clause, in which Jon is described as working, contrasts with that in the second clause, in which Gill is said to be no longer working.

Other Coordinators? The three coordinators mentioned so far—and, or, and but—are undoubtedly the most common ones in modern English. However, there are others. Precisely how many others is a matter of dispute. One frequently cited figure is seven (i.e., and, or, but, nor, yet, so, and for). Celce-Murcia and LarsenFreeman (1999) accept this total of seven, although they note that for is now largely restricted to somewhat formal written contexts. However, there is widespread disagreement on this issue, and it is certainly arguable that some of these forms are more central (or prototypical) coordinators than others. In a detailed discussion, Quirk et al. (1985) maintain, on syntactic grounds, that and and or are central coordinators, with but slightly less central. They regard yet and so as conjuncts, although resembling coordinators. Nor, they tell us, is “not a clear case of a coordinator,” partly because it can be preceded by another coordinator and partly because it “contains a negative feature” (p. 920). Huddleston and Pullam (2002) adopt a similar position to Quirk and his colleagues with respect to yet and so, commenting that, depending on context, these two forms can appear to be “very distinct” from coordinators, although they can also appear in contexts where “the resemblances are such that they may be regarded as marginal members of the coordinator category” (p. 1319). In the end, as Quirk et al. say, it may be necessary to acknowledge that classification of the various forms available as linkers in modern English will inevitably prove to be an imprecise art and that there is an “absence of a clear divide between coordinators and other linking items” (1985, p. 928). My own view is that there are six wordforms in modern English whose grammatical behavior is sufficiently alike to make it reasonable to regard them a coherent group. In addition to and, but, and or, I would count yet, nor, and so. At a semantic level, yet overlaps with but to some extent, conveying a similar sense of contrast. Thus, sentence (15) could be easily reworded as (16): (16) Jon works as an archivist, yet Gill is retired.

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However, yet often has a more strongly adversative meaning than does but, involving the cancellation or denial of some expectation: (17) I’ve asked you several times to rewrite this, yet you still haven’t done it! Notice that yet can be preceded by and, something that is not possible with but: (18) I’ve asked you several times to rewrite this, and yet you still haven’t done it! Nor is generally considered to be the negative form of or (i.e., not + or). It coordinates negative clauses only. Interestingly, when a clause is introduced by nor, it requires auxiliary fronting: (19) I don’t want galbi, nor do I want pizza (*I don’t want galbi, nor I do want pizza.) It is less often noticed that nor can also be used additively, in which case it corresponds more closely to and. All three sentences in (20) convey the same meaning, with the two coordinators operating together in the third example:1 (20) a. The professor was unimpressed by the content of the student’s paper, nor did he like the formatting. b. The professor was unimpressed by the content of the student’s paper and he didn’t like the formatting. c. The professor was unimpressed by the content of the student’s paper, and nor did he like the formatting. So is comparable to and in its resultative sense, indicating that the situation described in the second clause is a consequence of the situation described in the first clause: (21) She didn’t study, so she failed the exam.

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When used in this sense, so can be preceded by and: (22) She didn’t study, and so she failed the exam. So can also convey an inferential sense: (23) She got 100% in the exam, so she must have studied really well. A complex sentence may contain more than two clauses, in which case it is possible to employ several coordinators to conjoin them: (24) a. The twins love ice cream and they adore cake, but they won’t eat noodles. b. The professor’s Korean is poor, but he speaks French rather well and his Turkish is pretty good!

Correlative Coordinators In addition to the various types of simple coordination that we have looked at so far, English permits the pairing of some of these coordinators in more complex coordinating expressions sometimes known as correlative coordinators. Among these complex forms, the most common are these: ◾◾ both . . . and ◾◾ either . . . or ◾◾ neither . . . nor Below are examples of their use, beginning with both . . . and: (25) That professor teaches both phonology and syntax. This is sometimes referred to as emphatic coordination (Haspelmath, 2007, p. 2) since the effect of the coordination is to emphasize both coordinated elements. Notice that ellipsis in the second clause is necessary:

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(26) *That professor teaches both phonology and she teaches syntax. The pair either . . . or often works in a comparable manner: (27) That professor teaches either phonology or syntax. Again, the ungrammaticality of (28) indicates that ellipsis is required in the second clause: (28) *That professor teaches either phonology or she teaches syntax. The first element of this pair, either, is somewhat free in its distribution and able to appear in preverbal (29a) and pre-subject position (29b) within the first clause. In these cases, ellipsis is optional: (29) a. That professor either teaches phonology or (she teaches) syntax. b. Either that professor teaches phonology or (she teaches) syntax. Once more, the pair neither . . . nor works in a comparable fashion: (30) That professor teaches neither phonology nor syntax. This is a case of emphatic negative coordination (Haspelmath, 2007, p. 3). Perhaps rather surprisingly, correlative neither does not distribute as freely as either. Both (31a) and (31b) are ungrammatical. Note also that the absence of ellipsis makes (31c) ungrammatical: (31) a. *That professor neither teaches phonology nor syntax. b. *Neither that professor teaches phonology nor syntax. c. *That professor teaches neither phonology nor she teaches syntax. Having briefly surveyed coordination, I turn now to a consideration of some other types of complex sentence, ones involving subordination.

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The Idea of Subordination While coordination involves a relation between two (or more) elements of equal status, subordination necessarily involves an unequal relation between two clauses. One way of making this point is to distinguish between a main (or superordinate) clause and a subordinate clause. You may be familiar with this terminology already. The basic idea is that the main clause is primary and contains the principal verb. Semantically, the situation expressed in the main clause is foregrounded (i.e., it is the major focus of the message conveyed by the construction as a whole). The subordinate clause is secondary in the sense that it provides additional background information that helps to frame the situation described in the primary clause. As Quirk et al. put it, “A major difference between coordination and subordination of clauses is that the information in a subordinate clause is often placed in the background with respect to the superordinate clause” (1985, p. 919). To illustrate: (32) The professor couldn’t sleep after receiving the nasty phone call . main clause subordinate clause In (32), the major focus is on the fact that the professor was unable to sleep. The situation expressed in the subordinate clause is, by comparison, of less importance. Notice that this is not about word order. Reverse the order of the clauses and The professor couldn’t sleep is still the main clause: (33) After receiving the nasty phone call , the professor couldn’t sleep . subordinate clause main clause While altering the order of the clauses in this way makes no difference, teachers will wish to draw attention to the change in the punctuation of the written version. When the subordinate clause comes first, it is separated from the matrix clause by a comma. You may be tempted to teach this simply as a “rule” of punctuation to be committed to memory. However, it will prove much more useful to students if the reason behind the comma is explained. Students need to understand that the comma in (33) has an important function; it is not merely decorative! It is an attempt to show in writing a prosodic feature of the spoken grammar, namely, a pause and change in intonation that would follow the subordinate clause, thereby signaling to the hearer that the main business of the utterance is about to emerge. (You will see exactly the same use of commas in the next chapter when I discuss relative clauses).

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In traditional grammatical descriptions, the subordinate clause is often said to be dependent on the independent main clause. Quite simply, this means that it cannot stand alone as a grammatical unit. For instance, no EUE would ever produce an isolated utterance like the following: (34) *After receiving the nasty phone call. On the other hand, a main clause can comfortably stand alone as an independent clause: (35) The professor couldn’t sleep. Having said this, in “real-world” communicative situations, EUEs will regularly produce clauses that—interpreted strictly—are dependent and therefore, technically, require a main clause. Consider the following dialogue: (36) A: When did you begin to feel ill? B: Before the grammar exam. Strictly, the clause before the grammar exam is a dependent clause. However, in this context, it works perfectly well as B’s elliptical response to A’s question. It means “I began to feel ill before the grammar exam.” Since both speakers know this, she can safely omit these words. In discussing subordination, it is common to find contemporary linguists using the terms matrix clause and embedded clause. It is important to understand how these terms relate to the more familiar ones. A matrix clause is a clause that contains another clause. Thus, the main clause in (37), the professor told the students, is a matrix clause since it contains another clause (that he was going to cancel the next class), which is said to be embedded inside the matrix clause: (37) The professor told the students that he was going to cancel the next class . matrix clause embedded clause What does embedding mean here? Let us take a moment to examine the above example more closely. Both clauses in (37) describe a situation.

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(Remember that linguists use the term situation as a general label for actions, events, and states of various kinds). The matrix clause determines the central situation of the construction. It casts its syntactic and semantic “shadow,” as we might say, over the situation described by the clause that follows. So the situation described in the embedded clause is contained by, and functions as an element of, the situation described by matrix clause. In other words, sentence (37) describes a particular communicative act—an act of telling—and not an act of cancelling. To make the point clearer, look at the following two sentences: (38) a. The student said that he had done a lot of reading . matrix clause embedded clause b. The professor wondered why the student had copied from the Internet . matrix clause embedded clause Sentence (38a) describes another communicative act. The matrix clause refers to an act of saying, not an act of reading. Similarly, (38b) describes a cognitive act—an act of wondering—not an act of copying. In each of the examples above, the matrix clause is also the main clause in the sentence and the embedded clause is subordinate to it. Care must be taken here, however; while, by definition, every embedded clause must be subordinate, not every matrix clause is a main clause. It will be so only if it contains the principal verb for the entire construction. Look at the following example. Notice that the first clause, the professor wrote, is the main clause, containing the principal verb for the entire construction (i.e., the situation described here is an act of writing); this clause is also a matrix clause since it contains the clause that the student said; this clause in turn is a matrix clause containing the clause that he had done a lot of reading: (39) The professor wrote that the student said that he had done a lot of reading . main clause embedded clause(1) embedded clause(2) matrix clause(1) matrix clause(2) Generally, three types of subordinate (or embedded) clauses are recognized: ◾◾ complement clauses ◾◾ relative clauses ◾◾ adverbial clauses

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In the remainder of this chapter, I will focus on the first of these, leaving discussion of the other two types of embedded clauses for subsequent chapters. It is important to see that neither relative clauses nor adverbial clauses involve complementation. This is not always made clear. For example, Teschner and Evans (2007, p. 190) refer to clausal adverb complements and provide the following example: (40) We called the police after we had an accident. Unfortunately, to call the underlined clause here a complement is seriously misleading. As I have pointed out already, a complement is a linguistic element that is required for grammaticality. The term is a general one regularly applied to almost any element—whether a word, phrase, or clause— that “completes” a construction. Thus, when a verb is used in a transitive clause, the NP that follows it is the complement of the verb; in a similar fashion, an NP that follows the preposition in a prepositional phrase is the complement of the preposition. Now, the fact is that the after clause in (40) is not required, as (41) makes clear. (41) We called the police after we had an accident. Thus, after we had an accident is not a complement.

Three Types of Finite Complement Clause Modern English has several different types of clausal complements. I am going to concentrate on six distinct complement clause types; three of them are finite clauses (i.e., they can be marked for tense and aspect) and the others are nonfinite. The finite clauses can be distinguished on the basis of the complementizer that introduces them: that complements, wh- complements, and if/whether complements. The nonfinite clause complements are infinitive clauses together with -ing and -en participial clauses.

That Clause Complements That clause complements are one of the most frequently used complement clauses in modern English. Here is an example:

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(42) Today, all scientists agree that humans and chimpanzees are descended from a common ancestor. A that clause is a clause introduced by the word that, which serves as a complementizer (or subordinator). Both these labels underscore the syntactic role played by that in marking the clause that follows. I will treat them as interchangeable. The word that is used in various ways in English. Care must be taken that DUEs do not confuse its use in a sentence such as (42) with its use as a demonstrative (e.g., I like that painting) or its use as relative marker (e.g., The Monet paintings that I like the most are in the L’Orangerie in Paris). Its role in (42) is simply to introduce the complement clause following. In one sense, the work done by a complementizer here is comparable to that done by a coordinator: Both have the job of joining clauses together. However, a clause introduced by a complementizer is subordinate or embedded, meaning that it cannot stand alone as an independent clause. Notice that sentence (43) is obviously ungrammatical: (43) *That humans and chimpanzees are descended from a common ancestor. An important and interesting feature of that complement clauses is that they have a nominal function within constructions. What this means is that the clause as a whole behaves in a manner comparable to an NP, displaying many of the same grammatical functions that we normally associate with nouns. Sometimes, indeed, they are given the rather unfortunate label noun clauses. In fact, they are not nouns—they are clauses—but they do behave like NPs in certain ways. This should remind you once more of a distinction I have drawn previously, namely, the distinction between the form of a linguistic item and its function. Thus, that complements can function as subjects, objects, copula complements, and so on. Table 10.1 provides representative examples of the grammatical functions typically displayed by that clauses. It is worth considering some of these functions in greater detail.

370    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar Table 10.1  The Major Grammatical Functions of That Clause Complements Grammatical function

Example

Subject

That the new professor was incompetent was immediately obvious to everyone. It was immediately obvious to everyone that the new professor was incompetent. Everyone knows that Seoul gets very cold in the winter. My hope is that we will appoint at least one more professor for next cycle. We are happy that you are going to visit England this summer.

Extraposed subject Object Copula complement Adjectival complement

That Clause Complements Functioning as DOs2 The following sentence provides an example in which the complement of the verb is a that clause functioning as a DO: (44) Most of the students believed that the professor was correct . do How can we be sure that the clause here has the function of a DO? The simplest way to see this is to try replacing it with another DO NP: (45) Most of the students believed the story . do The fact that we can perform this sort of substitution with an NP such as the story is evidence that the that clause in (44) is a DO. A further test involves passivization. Generally, an object can be moved into pre-verbal position in a passive sentence, where it takes on the subject function. This is shown in (46). (46) a. Most of the students believed the story. b. The story was believed by most of the students. Notice that what works for an NP such as the story works equally well for a that clause:

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(47) a. Most of the students believed that the professor was talking nonsense. b. That the professor was talking nonsense was believed by most of the students. Just as there are certain verbs that tend to appear regularly in transitive clauses with DOs, so there are verbs that typically co-occur with DO that clauses. One especially robust pattern is the use of a DO that clause as the complement of a cognitive verb such as believe, as in (44). Further examples are: (48) a. I understand that Ankara gets very cold in the winter. b. I think that you need to study more. DO that clauses are also commonly found as complements of communication verbs (i.e., verbs used to indicate some communicative act): (49) a. The professor explained that the course would be challenging. b. The student claimed that she had written the assignment herself. And they are also frequently found as complements of what are sometimes called manipulative or persuasive verbs (i.e., verbs indicating an attempt to affect the hearer’s behavior in some way): (50) a. He demanded that the students apologize. b. She insisted that I reconsider her grade. That clause complements appear with great frequency as DOs. There is, however, one significant restriction on the distribution of these clauses. If the that clause occurs in an extended transitive construction with an IO NP, the construction must be of the double-object variety, with the NP representing the IO immediately after the verb: (51) a. Dr. Endley told his mother that Seoul gets very cold in the winter . io do b. *Dr. Endley told that Seoul gets very cold in the winter to his mother . do prep. o

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Notice how this differs from those extended transitive clauses involving two NPs. With these often both word orders are possible: (52) a. Dr. Endley told his mother an amusing story . io do b. Dr. Endley told an amusing story to his mother . do prep. o Another striking feature of that clause complements when they function as DOs is that, under certain conditions, the use of the complementizer becomes optional and may be omitted without affecting the grammaticality of the sentence: (53) a. Dr. Endley knows (that) Seoul gets very cold in the winter. b. Dr. Endley told his mother (that) Seoul gets very cold in the winter. It is important that DUEs understand that sentences such as (53a) and (b) are that clauses even though the complementizer is not overtly expressed. Of course, this raises an important question: When can the complementizer be omitted and when should it be used? Unfortunately, it is difficult to give a precise answer to this question and it certainly cannot be answered in terms of a rule. However, certain factors are relevant. One factor is the formality or informality of discourse. For most speakers, the complementizer is more likely to be overtly expressed in formal discourse than it is in informal discourse. Of course, this is a matter of degree rather than all or nothing. However, it is probably safe to say that the complementizer is more likely to be omitted in spoken English than in written. A second factor is the importance of the information contained in the complement clause. The complementizer is more likely to be overtly expressed if the clause describes something significant. Inevitably, this is a matter of speaker judgment. If the speaker perceives the information contained in the complement clause as important, she will probably introduce it with an overt that; if, on the other hand, she regards the information as relatively unimportant the complementizer is likely to be left unexpressed. In the following cases, the (a) examples contain relatively significant information and the use of the complementizer is natural; in the (b) sentences, on the other hand, it can be comfortably omitted, and probably would be:

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(54) a. He promised that he would lend me two thousand dollars. b. He mentioned (that) he would buy me an ice cream. (55) a. He announced that the Queen was visiting Dubai next week. b. He said (that) his aunt was visiting Dubai next week. Note that the relative importance of the information in the that clause is also reflected in the choice of the main verbs promise and announce, compared with mention and said. This is an example of the way in which different parts of a construction can interact and reinforce one another. A final relevant factor is the linguistic distance between the main verb and the that clause complement. The more intervening material there is between verb and complement clause, the more likely it is that the complementizer that will be expressed. Look at the following: (56) a. The director said he was interested in filming in Britain. b. The director said in a recent interview (that) he was interested in filming in Britain. c. The director said in a recent interview with the film editor of the Guardian newspaper that he was interested in filming in Britain. In (56a), there is no linguistic distance between the main verb and the clause that follows. As a result, the complementizer can be omitted very comfortably. In (56b), there is some linguistic distance, with the phrase in a recent interview intervening between the main verb and the clause. Here, some speakers would perhaps express the complementizer, but others would not. In (56c), the phrase in a recent interview with the film editor of the Guardian newspaper creates considerable linguistic distance between the main verb and the subordinate that clause. The effect of this is to pretty much guarantee that the complementizer will be overtly expressed. When they produce long elaborate utterances like this, speakers seem to intuitively recognize that the intervening material creates a processing problem and that the hearer will need some help in making sense of the entire construction. The use of that here provides this help by establishing the relation between the matrix clause the director said and he was interested in filming in Britain, signaling to the hearer that the words she is about to hear concern what the director said.

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That Clause Complements Functioning as Copula Complements Like NPs, that clause complements can appear in complex-intransitive (or copula) constructions: (57) My hope is that we will appoint at least one more professor for next cycle . cop. comp. Again, when a that clause functions as a copula complement, deletion of the complementizer is possible: (58) My hope is we will appoint at least one more professor for next cycle. In discussing complex-intransitive constructions earlier, I noted that the most common copula verb in modern English is primary be. It is not surprising, therefore, to find copula complement that clauses regularly following be, as in the above examples. However, they can follow other copula verbs as well: (59) a. It seems that we will appoint at least one more professor for next cycle. b. It appears that we will appoint at least one more professor for next cycle. That Clause Complements Functioning as Subjects Once again, like NPs, that clause complements can take on the grammatical function of subject. We see this in (60): (60) That the new professor was not very competent was immediately obvious. sub. When a that clause is functioning as a subject, omission of the complementizer is not possible: (61) *The new professor was not very competent was immediately obvious.

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The reason that the complementizer is necessarily expressed here is that it serves as a marker of the clause (and, in particular, the verb in the clause) as subordinate. In its absence, the hearer will inevitably assume that the first mentioned be here is the main verb and so will misconstrue the utterance. Although that clause complements can work well in subject position, there is a tendency for EUEs to avoid placing long, “heavy” clauses in this position. This reflects a more general preference for what I referred to earlier as end-weight. Instead, it is very common to move a that clause to a place later in the construction—a process generally known as extraposing (or postposing or heavy shifting). Notice that, while (62a) is entirely grammatical, it is rather awkward and somewhat difficult to process. By comparison, the variant (62b), in which the that clause has been extraposed, is much easier to understand. (62) a. That the new professor was not very competent and would not greatly strengthen the program was immediately obvious. b. It was immediately obvious that the new professor was not very competent and would not greatly strengthen the program. An extraposed subject that clause can appear in various types of complex sentences. Consider the examples in (63): (63) a. The fact that the new professor was not very competent was immediately obvious. b. What was immediately obvious was that new professor was not very competent. c. It was immediately obvious that new professor was not very competent. In (63a), the that clause is the complement of the NP the fact. This pattern, the fact that X, is an especially common one. (63b) is an example of a wh- cleft construction, with our that clause the complement of the primary verb be. (63c) shows a further form of extraposing, with it as a placeholder filling subject position and the sentence as a whole forming an it cleft construction (see my discussion in the previous chapter). Despite what we have just said, extraposing is optional when the sentence is a declarative. Thus, both (64a) and (64b) are grammatical.

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(64) a. That Ankara will be cold again this winter is certain. b. It is certain that Ankara will be cold again this winter. Interestingly, however, interrogatives insist on the extraposing of the subject clause (along with subject–verb inversion). Thus, while (65a) is acceptable, (65b) is not. (65) a. Is it certain that Ankara will be cold again this winter? b. *Is that Ankara will be cold again this winter certain? That clauses can appear as complements to NPs where they postmodify the noun (66a) and as adjectival complements when the matrix clause is complex-intransitive (66b). (66) a. The idea that more students means more grading is hard to dispute. b. Sun Hye was angered that the professor rejected her plea for special consideration. Finally, brief mention should be made of a particular type of that clause sometimes referred to as a subjunctive that clause. These clauses are syntactically distinctive in that the verb in the subordinate clause does not inflect for 3rd person, nor is it marked for tense: (67) a. I recommend that he take a taxi to the airport. (*I recommend that he takes a taxi to the airport.) b. She recommended that he take a taxi to the airport. (*She recommended that he took a taxi to the airport.) Teachers need to be aware of that clauses of this sort. It is true that they are unusual and may now be in decline, but they do still occur, and DUEs will sometimes ask about them. Often, DUEs will want to insert modal should after the subject of the clause (e.g., She recommended that he should take a taxi to the airport). Actually, this makes good sense. As you know, typically, modal auxiliaries are followed by bare infinitives. So one way of thinking

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about these clauses is to say the expected modal has dropped out, leaving only a bare infinitive verb. The reason why this is possible has to do with the nature of the main verb, which typically precedes the clause. I suggest, then, that it will be helpful to introduce these clauses along with the verbs with which they tend to be associated, presenting the entire structure as a frequently occurring pattern. Thus, DUEs can be told that these clauses are almost always found with one of a small set of verbs used to impose an obligation or make a suggestion. In this case, the sense that some action should be undertaken is already conveyed by the main verb, rendering the modal unnecessary. The verb recommend in (67) is such a verb. Here are some more illustrative examples: (68) a. I demand that he (should) leave at once. b. She insisted that the builder (should) redo the work for free. c. The handout stipulated that your paper (should) reference at least three sources. I have considered that clauses in some detail. I turn now to another very common type of clausal complement in modern English, the wh- clause.

Wh- Clause Complements By a wh- clause, I mean a subordinate clause introduced by one of the following forms: what, when, where, which, who, why, or how. It should immediately strike you that these are the same forms used in wh- questions and, in fact, another label sometimes used for clauses like these is indirect question. As you will see shortly, however, there are good reasons for avoiding this term. Just as with that, the wh-forms in modern English are multifunctional. In addition to their role in questions and wh- clauses, they also serve as markers of relative clauses (see Chapter 11). Brinton, in fact, treats relative clauses as a subtype of wh- clause. (See Brinton, 2000, pp. 224ff). As with that clauses, wh- clause complements have nominal functions within constructions. Because I have already looked at this in relation to that clauses, it is not necessary to consider it in detail. Instead, illustrative examples are provided in Table 10.2.

378    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar Table 10.2  The Major Grammatical Functions of Wh- Clause Complements Grammatical function Example Subject Extraposed subject DO IO Copula complement Object complement Prepositional complement

How many students are working on their term papers is unclear. It is unclear how many students are working on their term papers. I know what is on the final exam. The program gives whichever student does best overall a laptop. The students’ problem is which topics to learn for the exam. Choose for your term paper whatever topic seems interesting. She is worried about what the job involves.

Wh- clauses are particularly frequent as complements of communication verbs: (69) a. Marilyn asked how many pages she should write for the assignment. b. The professor explained what the exam involved in detail. c. You didn’t say which movie you liked the best. They also occur with certain cognition verbs, especially those conveying a high degree of certainty: (70) a. He knew where to go for a good steak. b. Miyoung remembers when she first met the professor. Despite these broad similarities, wh- clauses differ from that clauses both syntactically and semantically. One syntactic difference is that, as you have seen, under certain conditions, the use of the complementizer that becomes optional so that its omission does not affect the grammaticality of the sentence as whole. The complementizer can never be omitted in a whclause. Doing so renders the clause ungrammatical: (71) a. *It is unclear many students are working on their term papers. b. *He knew to go for a good steak. c. *Miyoung remembers she first met the professor.

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Another difference between wh- clauses and that clauses is that in the latter, the complementizer is a semantically empty grammatical operator, serving simply to “mark” the clause; in a wh- clause, in addition to acting as a marker of the subordinate clause, the clause-initial wh-form carries semantic weight, even if the identity of the referent has to be inferred. For example, in (70a), where refers to some kind of restaurant, and in (72), what presumably refers to a set of questions: (72) I know what is on the exam. If you look again at Table 10.2, you will note that some of wh- forms take the suffix -ever. This has the effect of making the referent non-specific. Forms such as whichever, whoever, and whatever tend to be used when the whclause is functioning as an IO or as an object complement. Above, I noted that these clauses are sometimes called indirect questions since they are introduced by the same wh- forms that also introduce questions. This label is surprisingly popular (even among linguists), despite the fact that it something of a misnomer. In fact, the wh- clauses we are considering here are not questions at all since they are not employed to elicit information, although they can be used to report a question, as in (73). (73) He wondered why she had said that. The fact that these are not questions is reflected in the absence of auxiliary fronting, which, as you saw in the previous chapter, is an important feature of interrogative utterances: (74) a. Who is she? b. He wondered who she was. c. *He wondered who was she?

If/Whether Clause Complements I come now to the third type of finite clause complement. As you might guess, these are clauses introduced by if and/or whether. In the linguistics literature, these are sometimes referred to as subordinate interrogative clauses

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or else as embedded question clauses. I have used the label if/whether to draw out the parallel with that and wh- clauses. Here are some examples: (75) a. I don’t know if/whether Elly will be there. b. He wondered if/whether she knew the professor. c. Ji Young asked if/whether Insook would like to go to a movie. As with the clauses considered above, if and whether serve here as markers of subordination. Notice that in these examples, both if and whether can be used without any change of meaning. Despite this apparent semantic equivalence, at the syntactic level, whether and if do not behave in identical fashion and, in terms of grammatical function, the latter tends to be restricted to a noticeably narrower range of possibilities. Table 10.3 distinguishes between whether and if in terms of their respective grammatical functions. Table 10.3 reflects the fact that, unlike whether, if cannot introduce a clause with a subject function unless the clause is extraposed. Additionally, whether readily introduces a clause functioning as copula complement; this is marginal at best with if. Again, whether can be the complement of a preposition; if cannot appear in equivalent role.

Table 10.3  The Major Grammatical Functions of If/Whether Clause Complements Grammatical function

Example

Subject

Whether the students liked the course was unclear. *If the students liked the course was unclear. It was unclear whether the students liked the course. It was unclear if the students liked the course. The question is whether we need to rewrite this. ?The question is if we need to rewrite this. The students considered it irrelevant whether the professor was a formalist or a functionalist. The students considered it irrelevant if the professor was a formalist or a functionalist. It’s really a question of whether you want to rewrite this. *It’s really a question of if you want to rewrite this.

Extraposed subject Copula complement Adjectival complement

Prepositional complement

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There are two other points worth noting. Firstly, whether can be followed by an infinitive; if cannot: (76) a. She is unsure whether to apply for the job. b. *She is unsure if to apply for the job. Secondly, whether can be optionally followed by the phrase or not; this is not possible with if when the phrase is in sentence-medial position: (77) a. I don’t know whether or not Elly will be there. b. *I don’t know if or not Elly will be there. However, both whether and if allow this phrase in clause-final position: (78) a. I don’t know whether Elly will be there or not. b. I don’t know if Elly will be there or not. Occasionally, confusion may arise because complement clauses introduced by if can look like conditional clauses (to be discussed in detail in Chapter 12.) Consider the following: (79) (From Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 975) I won’t tell her if you bring it back today. This may be either a conditional construction or a subordinate if clause. In the former case, its meaning may be paraphrased as (80a); in the latter case, it means something like (80b). (80) a. If you bring it back today, (then) I won’t tell her. b. I won’t tell her when you bring it back, whether today or not. Once more, the point is worth making that these potentially ambiguous utterances tend to arise when language is considered in isolation. In all probability, with some discourse context to guide us there would be no confusion. In the next section, I turn to non-finite embedded clauses.

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Types of Nonfinite Complement Clauses Linguists refer to clauses that lack tense, aspect, or modal information as nonfinite clauses. There are two forms of nonfinite clauses in modern English: infinitival clauses (or infinitives, as they are more often called) and participial clauses. The latter are traditionally subdivided into present and past participle clauses. Like several linguists, I prefer to refer to these using the more neutral designations -ing clauses and -en clauses, respectively.

Infinitive Clause Complements Berk comments that “English syntax poses many challenges and the analysis of the infinitive clause is one of the big ones” (1999, p. 249). This is undoubtedly correct. Infinitive clauses are one of the most difficult aspects of English grammar, and DUEs are likely to find them especially perplexing. As I have just noted, infinitive clauses are said to be nonfinite, meaning that they do not carry grammatical information such as tense and aspect, nor are they marked for modality. In this they differ from the clauses considered above. The nonfinite status of an infinitive clause can be shown by noting that even when the matrix verb changes tense, the form of the infinitive complement remains unaffected: (81) a. Those students want to take the professor’s grammar course. b. Those students wanted to take the professor’s grammar course. c. Those students will want to take the professor’s grammar course. A main clause must contain a finite verb (i.e., a verb that is marked for tense, number, or person). As a result, an infinitive verb can never be the main verb in a construction. It follows from this that an infinitive clause must always be embedded (subordinate) and dependent. Modern English has two infinitive verb-forms. We distinguish between bare infinitives (82a) and to infinitives (82b), in which the verb is preceded by the particle to: (82) a. The professor helped write his Statement of Purpose. b. He hopes to send her some irises for her birthday.

Coordination and Subordination    383 Table 10.4  The Major Grammatical Functions of To Infinitive Clause Complements Grammatical function

Example

Subject Extraposed subject DO Copula complement Adjectival complement

To run your own language school must be difficult. It must be difficult to run your own language school. Jong Han wants to run his own language school. Jong Han’s aim is to run his own language school. Jong Han is very keen to run his own language school.

As with the finite clauses examined above, infinitive clauses frequently have nominal functions. Table 10.4 presents the major grammatical functions of to infinitive clauses. Bare infinitives are much more limited in their possible grammatical functions. The two most common functions are as complements of copulas (83a) and objects (83b). (83) a. What this increase in student numbers does is ensure the continued success of the program. b. The offer of more money made him reconsider his decision to leave. Infinitive clause complements tend to fall into several regular patterns that can be usefully presented to learners. Three patterns are particularly worthy of note: ◾◾ Pattern 1: V + Inf. Clause ◾◾ Pattern 2: V + NP + Inf. Clause ◾◾ Pattern 3: V + for + NP + Inf. Clause Pattern 1: V + Inf. Clause In Pattern 1, the infinitive clause follows immediately as complement of the main verb. It should be obvious that verbs that regularly appear in this pattern, selecting an infinitive clause complement, will be intransitive or, as I have characterised them, one-participant verbs. Such verbs do not require an object and so can be followed by a complement in the form of an infinitive clause. Table 10.5 provides a few illustrative examples.

384    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar Table 10.5  Verbs Commonly Found in Pattern 1 Verb

Example

Continue Hyun Joung continued to study all night. Plan Min Hee planned to study later. Julie preferred to study now. Prefer Refuse Gilbert refused to study at all! Try Most students try to study hard. Others: agree, begin, decide, fail, hesitate, hope, learn, neglect, offer, pretend, promise, remember, start

Pattern 2: V + NP + Inf. Clause In Pattern 2, the main verb is a transitive (two-participant) verb and so selects a nominal complement ahead of the infinitive clause. In these cases, the object NP can be thought of as simultaneously serving as the subject of the infinitive. To infinitives are especially common in this pattern. (See Table 10.6.) Bare infinitives also appear in Pattern 2 constructions: (84) a. Karl heard the accident happen. b. The professor made Amy rewrite her term paper summary. c. The teacher had the children sit in rows. Some verbs will readily appear in either Pattern 1 or Pattern 2. (See Table 10.7.) Pattern 3: V + for + NP + Inf. Clause In Pattern 3—called by Teschner and Evans the “discontinuous complementizer construction” (2007, p. 199)—the main verb again selects a nominal complement, but this is preceded by the preposition for. In this pattern, for may be regarded as having a complementizer role—comparable to that in that clauses and the wh-forms in wh- clauses—serving to introduce the subordinate clause that follows. In fact, relatively few verbs follow this pattern. Two that do are arrange (85a) and intend (85b). (85) a. The travel agent arranged for me to visit Bulkogsa, near Gyeongju. b. He intended for her to revise her course objectives.

Coordination and Subordination    385 Table 10.6  Verbs Commonly Found in Pattern 2 Verb

Example

Allow The professor allowed Bob to submit his paper late. Joon Kwang hired a lawnmower to cut his grass. Hire Implore All the students implored Dr. Endley to make the final exam easy. He reminded everyone to use three sources in their term papers. Remind Teach Gillian Brown taught me to analyze syntax. Others: advise, appoint, beseech, convince, encourage, force, incite, instruct, invite, order, permit, persuade, tell

Table 10.7  Verbs Commonly Found in Both Pattern 1 and Pattern 2 Verb

Example

Helen Mirren expected to win an Oscar for her performance. Everyone expected Helen Mirren to win an Oscar for her performance. Kara loves to practice Korean. Love Kara loves her students to practice Korean with her. I want to rewrite this. Want I want you to rewrite this. Others: ask, like Expect

It should be noted that, with this last set of verbs, we are likely to find some individual variation. For some EUEs, the following sentence—without for—would be possible: (86) He intended her to revise her course objectives. Sometimes, as in (86), the use of for appears to be genuinely optional and its presence or absence makes no discernible difference to the meaning. In other cases, however, for is obligatory. Thus, while (87a) is acceptable, (87b) would be ungrammatical for all EUEs: (87) a. The professors arranged for the students to submit their evaluations online. b. *The professors arranged the students to submit their evaluations online.

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It is an unfortunate fact that, to quote Berk once more, “Which higher verbs require for in the clause is rather arbitrary; no particular semantic criteria exist” (1999, p. 239). As these remarks indicate, there is no obvious pattern to which appeal may be made when dealing with this in the classroom. Unsatisfactory though it may seem, I suggest that we have to accept this as an example of the “leakiness” that I have referred to from time to time as a feature of all grammars.

Infinitives With and Without Subjects Sometimes infinitive clauses lack an overt subject. In these cases, the appropriate interpretation of the construction is, to a large extent, a matter of deciding the “understood” subject of the infinitive clause. Sometimes, the subject of the infinitive clause is directly recoverable from the overt subject of the main clause. Consider the following example: (88) Seung Mi hopes to impress the interviewing panel. It should be obvious that in (88), the subject of the infinitive clause is Seung Mi. This is an example of what is sometimes called equi deletion, in which the NP that stands as the overt subject of the matrix clause is understood to be co-referential with the covert (unexpressed) subject of the infinitive clause. As Berk puts it, “the content of the lower, covert subject is determined by the content of the higher subject” (1999, p. 238). What about (89)? (89) The professor said that further study would help to clarify this somewhat complex issue. What is the subject of the infinitive to clarify here? It is possible to understand this in a similar way to (88), taking the implied subject to be the NP that introduces the main clause. We could then expand (89) to mean the following, in which the anaphoric pronoun him is co-referential with the professor: (90) The professor said that further study would help him to clarify this somewhat complex issue. However, it is also possible to understand (89) so that the subject of the infinitive is some other person or group of people not overtly mentioned in the construction at all but which is inferable on the basis of context:

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(91) At the end of his lecture, the professor said that further study would help the students to clarify this somewhat complex issue. You have seen cases like this already. It is another example of a Pattern 2 construction, in which the NP after the verb may be regarded as both object and overt subject of the infinitive.3

-Ing Clause Complements By an -ing clause, I mean a clause introduced by an -ing participle. These participles can be noun-like or verb-like in their behavior. When they behave like nouns, they are traditionally called gerunds. However, as various linguists have pointed out, this label is not particularly useful, and it does not capture the nature of these interesting forms. This is a point I will return to below. It is possible to demonstrate that -ing clauses are nonfinite in the same way that I did for infinitive clauses. Note that, despite the changes to the main verb, enjoy, the -ing participle does not change: (92) a. Those students enjoy taking the professor’s grammar course. b. Those students enjoyed taking the professor’s grammar course. c. Those students will enjoy taking the professor’s grammar course. Once again, -ing clauses can have a range of nominal grammatical functions. (See Table 10.8.) Table 10.8  The Major Grammatical Functions of -Ing Clause Complements Grammatical function

Example

Subject Extraposed subject Object Copula complement Adjective complement Prepositional complement

Running your own language school must be difficult. It must be difficult running your own language school. Jong Han enjoys running his own language school. Jong Han’s job is running his own language school. Jong Han is very happy running his own language school. Jong Han is famous for running his language school very strictly.

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Some speakers might question the grammaticality of the extraposed example above. It is certainly true that -ing clauses resist extraposing (i.e., they often sound somewhat awkward). However, it would be wrong to say they are ungrammatical when extraposed. In speech at least, they are not uncommon. What is interesting is that speakers will often pause immediately before the participle. This seems to have the effect of rendering the extraposed clause more acceptable. Thus: (93) It must be difficult [pause] running your own language school. Very often, the -ing participle itself is preceded by a genitive NP. Look at the following examples. In the first example, the proper noun carries genitive marking indicating whose dancing the speaker is referring to. In the second example, the same message is conveyed by using a dependent genitive pronoun: (94) a. Hyun Il’s dancing is very funny. b. His dancing is very funny.

Infinitives or -Ing? Many verbs prefer an infinitive clause as complement; others select an -ing complement; still others accept either. This is an important issue with obvious implications for the classroom. By way of illustration, notice that want and need permit only an infinitive clause:



(95) a. I want to finish this chapter tonight. b. *I want finishing this chapter tonight. c. I need to finish this chapter tonight. d. *I need finishing this chapter tonight. On the other hand, the verb enjoy will permit only an -ing clause:

(96) a. The professor enjoys teaching linguistics. b. *The professor enjoys to teach linguistics.

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And yet, verbs such as like or love, both of which can convey a meaning similar to enjoy, accept either clause type as a complement: (97) a. The professor likes/loves teaching linguistics. b. The professor likes/loves to teach linguistics. Let us pursue this matter a little further by first of all thinking about those verbs that accept both an infinitive clause and an -ing clause as a complement. What is the semantic difference between an infinitive complement and an -ing clause complement? Look at (98a) and (b). (98) a. Belle tried to go to the party, but couldn’t get the time off work. b. Belle tried going to the party, but didn’t like it and left early. (98a) describes an unfulfilled situation. Belle wanted to go, but was not able to. In (98b), the situation is fulfilled. Belle went to the party for a short period and then left. Notice that the complement of the verb in (98a) is an infinitive; in (98b), it is an -ing clause. This reflects a general pattern: ◾◾ Infinitive clause complements are often associated with hypothetical and/or unrealized situations. ◾◾ -Ing clause complements are often associated with fulfilled and/ or realized situations. The “classic” case of this, employed by textbook writers everywhere, involves the verb forget: (99) a. I forgot to write that email. b. I forgot writing that email. EUEs will see at once that (99a) and (b) mean very different things. We understand (99a) to mean the email was never written (an unfilled situation); on the other hand, (99b) means that the email was written (a fulfilled situation), but the speaker subsequently forgot he had written it. Some linguists have suggested that the idea of fulfilled and unfulfilled situations offers a partial explanation for the choice of complement. However, before I go any further, it is necessary to note that the explanation is only partial, and that there are times when it does not work:

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(100) a. Keun Bae suggested walking along the river, but Bob refused. b. *Keun Bae suggested to walk along the river, but Bob refused. In (100a), the situation is unfulfilled—the suggested walk did not take place—and yet an -ing clause complement is clearly possible; indeed, as (100b) shows, in this case, an infinitive complement is ungrammatical. In fact, even though it is regularly used to describe hypothetical (i.e., unfulfilled) situations, suggest never takes an infinitive complement. It has also been proposed that -ing clauses tend to be associated with noun-like events, whereas infinitives tend to be associated with verb-like actions. This helps to account for an interesting difference in meaning in the following two sentences: (101) a. Diane likes to dance. b. Diane likes dancing. One way of understanding (101a), with an infinitive complement, is that Diane actually performs the action indicated in the complement (remember: infinitives are said to be often associated with verb-like actions); in (101b), with its -ing clause complement (these are often associated with noun-like events), there is no suggestion that Diane actually engages in the action herself (she might, or she might not). Support for this view comes from the fact that (102a) makes perfectly good sense, whereas (102b) is very odd: (102) a. Diane likes dancing, but these days not many TV channels show it. b. ??Diane likes to dance, but these days not many TV channels show it. Here, (102a) means something like “Diane likes to watch dancing events on television”; on the other hand, the use of the infinitive to dance can only mean that she actually likes to engage in dancing herself, which is why (102b) is so strange. While no complete account of complementation exists—and it may not be possible to give one—linguists have made attempts to categorize verbs in terms of the type of complement they will allow. The discussion that follows will give readers a taste of these categorizations. One group of verbs, sometimes referred to as commitment verbs, generally take to infinitive comple-

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ments (in either Pattern 1 or Pattern 2 constructions); with these verbs, -ing clause complements are not possible: (103) a. The police allowed the man to go. (*The police allowed the man going.) b. Sunmin decided to leave. (*Sunmin decided leaving.) c. Sarah ordered her students to leave. (*Sarah ordered her students leaving.) d. She hoped to pass the exam. (*She hoped passing the exam.) e. I persuaded her to come. (*I persuaded her coming.) Another group of aspectual verbs are especially difficult to categorize in terms of their complements. The problem is that verbs with very similar meanings behave quite differently in their choice of complements, some preferring an infinitive, others selecting an -ing clause, and others allowing both. Consider the following examples: (104) a. Young Hee began/started working at dawn. b. Young Hee began/started to work at dawn. When begin or start is the main verb, either an -ing clause or an infinitive clause complement is possible. But now consider the following:



(105) a. Soo Jin continued/kept/remained working until lunchtime. b. Soo Jin continued to work until lunchtime. c. * Soo Jin kept to work until lunchtime. d. * Soo Jin remained to work until lunchtime.

Notice here that, while both types of complements are possible with continue, only an -ing clause complement is acceptable with keep and remain, despite the similarities in meaning between all three main verbs. And consider two more verbs with rather similar meanings: (106) a. Celine ceased/finished working at five. b. Celine ceased to work at five. c. *Celine finished to work at five.

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Both cease and finish allow an -ing clause complement; however, an infinitive clause complement is possible only with cease. I will close my discussion of -ing participles with some remarks on another problematic issue.

The Label Gerund (Or: To Be a Noun or Not To Be a Noun? Very often, clauses containing -ing participles have nominal functions. Here are some examples: (107) a. Staying up late before an exam is not a good idea. b. One of her few faults is spending too much money. In (107a), the -ing clause has a subject function; in (107b), it has a predicative complement function (in this particular case, it is a subject complement). Traditionally, when -ing clauses have nominal functions like this, they are called gerunds. But what is a gerund? Again, according to traditional analyses, a gerund is a kind of noun. Now I have already said that -ing forms are often associated with noun-like events, and the idea that gerunds are nouns seems to fit well with this. One reason for this view is that often gerunds can be replaced by an ordinary NP. Here is an example: (108) (Adapted from Huddleston, 1984) a. I think taking exams is a waste of time. b. I think this exam is a waste of time. The fact that taking exams in (108a) can be replaced by this exam in (108b) is often used as evidence that gerunds are nouns. Yet there is a growing tendency among linguists to question this approach. This is another example of the way in which, from a linguistic perspective, much of the traditional description of English grammar appears inadequate. To see what the problem is, consider a form such as dancing. Is dancing noun-like or verb-like? A good case can be made for saying it is noun-like because it displays many of the morphosyntactic properties that are characteristics of prototypical nouns (see Chapter 2 above). Thus, it can act as a subject/object (109a); it can be modified by an adjective (109b); it can co-occur with a possessive form (109c). But note, too, that it cannot be pluralized (109d, e), which is another prototypical characteristic of nouns.

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(109) a. Dancing is great fun; I like dancing. b. I like slow dancing. c. His dancing was ridiculous. d. *Dancings are great fun. e. *I like dancings.

On the other hand, it might also be argued that dancing is verb-like because it can be modified by an adverb (110a) and it can take an object (110b, c): (110) a. I like dancing slowly. b. Dancing the tango is great fun. c. I like dancing the tango. The key point is by now a familiar one: Context makes a difference. A form like dancing seems to be more like a noun in some linguistic environments and more like a verb in others. Nor is dancing unique in this regard. Consider (111a) and (b): (111) (Adapted from Huddleston, 1984) a. Actually, writing the email took only a few minutes. b. The actual writing of the email took only a few minutes. In (111a), writing has a verb-like function since it is modified by the adverb actually and it takes an object (the email). In (111b), writing has a noun-like function because it is preceded by a determiner and an adjective (the actual) and it is followed by a prepositional phrase (of the email). Sometimes the problem can be especially intractable. Consider the following: (112) (Adapted from Greenbaum, 1992) They appreciate my visiting their parents regularly. Is visiting here more noun-like or verb-like? The short answer is that visiting appears to be both noun-like and verb-like at the same time! It is noun-like in taking my as a genitive pronoun as a determiner; it is verb-like in that it has a DO NP (their parents). What all this suggests is that what have traditionally been called gerunds (and classified as nouns) can actually have both noun-like and verb-like

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functions. The problem is the traditional assumption that all these forms are of the same (noun-like) type. More careful analysis indicates that this is not the case. It is also worth keeping in mind that the term gerund was originally used to describe Latin, not English. This is why it may be better to speak of -ing forms, using this as a neutral descriptive label, and treating occurrences on a case-by-case basis, allowing that sometimes verb-like characteristics and sometimes noun-like properties will be more prominent. In the Classroom: Complement Clauses The wide-ranging topic of clausal subordination and complementation must surely rank as one of the most difficult areas of English grammar that learners (and their teachers) have to deal with. The most obvious starting point is the basic distinction between finite and nonfinite clauses. Since the former are somewhat less problematic than the latter, it makes sense to begin with these. When treating different types of finite clause, a point to emphasize is that these are nominal clauses. Students need to understand that these clauses behave like NPs, sharing many of the same grammatical functions. It would be useful to introduce students to the major functions that the various types of finite clause tend to play and to give them practice in identifying these functions. While the various types of finite clause are (relatively) straightforward, the nonfinite clauses present a considerable challenge to DUEs. As we have noted, this is especially true of infinitive clauses, which offer major difficulties; and the teacher needs to think carefully about how to lighten the learning burden. One way of doing so is to show students that infinitive clause complements tend to fall into certain fairly regular patterns. Three such patterns are particularly common. Just to remind you, here they are again: ◾◾ Pattern 1: V + Inf. clause ◾◾ Pattern 2: V + NP + Inf. clause ◾◾ Pattern 3: V + for + NP + Inf. clause

As always, students will benefit from opportunities to work with these patterns themselves. Thus, teachers can provide lists of the main verbs associated with each pattern and students can use these to create their own sentences with appropriate infinitive complements. Another issue that must be addressed is the difference between an infinitive clause and an -ing clause. Once again, as we have seen, there are some basic patterns or tendencies that can be usefully taught here. Recall, for example, that linguists have suggested that infinitive clauses are often

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associated with hypothetical and/or unrealized situations, whereas -ing clauses frequently tend to be associated with fulfilled and/or realized situations. Useful though such insights are, however, care should be taken that students do not treat them as inviolable rules. This issue is made more complicated by the fact that particular verbs will often display a preference for one or other type of complement. Thus, some verbs tend to prefer an infinitive clause as complement, while others prefer an -ing clause complement. As I suggested in the text above, no complete account of this matter exists as yet—and it may not be possible to give one. Nonetheless, linguists have made some efforts to categorize verbs in terms of the type of complement they will allow. Once more, lists of the sort provided in the text may be helpful, but the situation is not an easy one to handle since we have seen that verbs with very similar meanings will sometimes behave quite differently in their choice of complements. Yet again, DUEs need consistent exposure and practice to the target constructions in the form of listening and reading materials, together with plentiful practice in using these forms, if they are have any hope of developing appropriate intuitions about them.

I end this chapter by returning to where I began and noting that each of the various types of subordinate clause we have been considering can be coordinated with another clause of the same type. To illustrate, here are examples of the coordination of two that clauses (113a) and two wh- clauses (113b). (113) a. The students felt that the professor was too strict and that he should grade their work more leniently. b. I can’t remember who she is or what grades she got. Likewise, it is entirely possible to coordinate to infinitive clauses (114a) and -ing clauses (114b). (114) a. Students are expected to submit their work on time and to attend all classes. b. He has a bad habit of eating late and sleeping rather poorly. It is also possible for a nonfinite clause and a finite clause to be coordinated, although this is unusual:

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(115) (From Quirk et al., 1985, p. 947) The curfew bell rang at sunset every evening, to warn the citizens that it was time for bed, and so that defensive measures could be taken by the army.

Further Reading For coverage of the various topics discussed in this chapter, see Quirk et al. (1985, Chs. 13 & 14, plus pp. 1048–1068). Also consult Huddleston and Pullam (2002, Ch. 15). Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999, Ch. 24), deal with coordination; Chs. 31 and 32 deal with subordination and complementation. Also helpful on the latter topic is Berk (1999, Ch. 5).

11 Complex Sentences in English Relative Clauses and Related Constructions

I

n this chapter, I continue my discussion of complex sentences in modern English by considering one of the most common and, from the learner’s point of view, most troublesome clause types, namely, the relative clause. The chapter begins by asking the simple question, what is a relative clause? Answering this question will lead to a consideration of some of the general features displayed by these clauses. From there, I will move to an examination of the various word-forms that introduce clauses of this type. Then I will turn to a more detailed discussion of the two main subtypes of relative clauses, the restrictive subtype and the nonrestrictive subtype. Finally, I will take a look at some less prototypical types of relative clauses.

What Is a Relative Clause? A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies an NP, serving to qualify, further identify, or provide additional information concerning some quality or feature of the referent. In the following examples, and throughout this chapter, I enclose antecedent NPs in boxes and italicize relative clauses: Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 397–430 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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(1) a. Monica looked up the author who(m) the professor recommended at Amazon.com. b. Monica looked up the author , whose books the professor recommended, at Amazon.com. c. The books that the professor recommended are available at Amazon.com. Although they are embedded, relative clauses differ from the clauses discussed in the previous chapter in that they are not complements. A relative clause is never a grammatical requirement. It is always optional. In other words, relative clauses are adjuncts.1 Relative clauses can modify any type of NP, including not only common nouns such as those considered in (1) but indefinite pronouns (2a), personal pronouns (2b), and even proper nouns (2c). (2) a. If there is anyone who doesn’t understand the assignment, please talk to me after class. b. He who laughs last laughs longest. c. I’ve just read a philosophical account of the thought of Wallace Stevens , whose poetry I really admire. It is also worth noting that, while in the great majority of cases the antecedent to a relative clause is an NP, occasionally some other antecedent will be found. In the following example, the antecedent is the superlative form of an adjective: (3) (From Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 1060) He’s now the fattest that he’s ever been. There are several important issues, both syntactic and semantic, concerning relative clauses that need to be addressed. Among the syntactic issues are: ◾◾ the position of the relative clause in relation to the antecedent it modifies ◾◾ the way relative clauses are marked

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Among the semantic issues are: ◾◾ the restrictions on the use of the various relative markers ◾◾ the meaning distinctions conveyed by different subtypes of relative clause and their discourse functions The remainder of this chapter will be taken up with a detailed consideration of these issues.

The Position of English Relative Clauses English relative clauses are postmodifers (i.e., the relative clause comes after its antecedent). Most languages with a basic SVO word order tend to prefer postmodifying relative clauses. Other languages that are like English in this respect include French and Spanish. In SOV languages, on the other hand, relative clauses tend to be premodifiers (i.e., they precede their antecedents). Among the languages with premodifying relative clauses are Japanese, Turkish, and Korean. By way of illustration, consider the placement of the relative clause in (4a) and its Korean translation in (4b). Again, the relative clause is italicized and the modified NP is placed in a box. (4) a. The computer which Youngmi chose first was very expensive. b. 영미가 처음에 고른 컴퓨터는 매우 비쌌다 (Youngmi-ka cheoeue goreu-n computer-nun maewu bissasstta) “Youngmi first chose computer very expensive” While they are invariably postmodifiers, English relative clauses can appear in either medial position within a sentence (5a) or in sentence-final position (5b). (5) a. The professor who taught the grammar course was not liked. b. The students didn’t like the professor who taught the grammar course. In most cases, the relative clause immediately follows the NP it modifies. However, it is possible for other linguistic material to intervene, separating the clause from its antecedent, without any obvious change in meaning. In such cases, linguists will sometimes refer to the postponing of the clause.

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Compare the position of the clause in (6a) with its counterpart in (6b), in which the relative clause is postponed. (6) a. Last week, I met a man who looked like Alfred Hitchcock. b. I met a man last week who looked like Alfred Hitchcock. Sometimes, however, postponing the relative clause is not an option. This will often be the case where there is more than one possible antecedent for the relative clause. Consider (7). We naturally interpret (7a) to mean that the professor is the one who teaches in the program because the relative clause immediately follows this NP. However, moving the clause to an extraposed position in (7b) leads to a rather different interpretation, in which the friend now appears to be the teacher. (7) a. When Ji Young arrived at the ceremony, the professor who taught in the program was talking to her friend. b. When Ji Young arrived at the ceremony, the professor was talking to her friend who taught in the program.

Marking English Relative Clauses: The Relative Proforms Relative clauses can be conveniently labeled by means of the key words that introduce them. What are sometimes called “wh- relatives” are relative clauses introduced by who, whom, whose, or which. (You will note that these ubiquitous word-forms are also employed in wh- interrogatives and as markers of certain types of nominal clause). There are also “that relatives” (the key word introducing the clause is that) and bare or zero relatives, in which the key word is covert. It is traditional to refer to who, whom, whose, which, and that as relative pronouns. Relative clauses may also be introduced by when, where, and why. The traditional label for these word-forms is relative adverbs, and the clauses introduced by them can be usefully called relative adverbial clauses. A more general label that linguists will sometimes use to refer to all these relative markers is relative proform. I will follow this use, distinguishing between pronominal proforms and adverbial proforms as the need arises. All relative proforms are anaphoric, being co-referential with some constituent of the preceding clause, usually (as I have said) an NP. To return to two of my earlier examples, in (8a), the proform who is co-referen-

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tial with the NP the author; in (8b), the proform that is co-referential with the NP the books: (8) a. Monica looked up the author who(m) the professor recommended at Amazon.com. b. The books that the professor recommended are available at Amazon.com. There are a number of issues relating to the selection and use of these proforms, and I will devote some time to discussing these. A preliminary point worth making is that a proform has its own grammatical function within its clause. In Table 11.1, the grammatical functions of the various proforms within their clauses are indicated. In traditional accounts of relative clauses, there are often said to be rather tight, semantically-based restrictions limiting the kind of antecedent that can precede the various relative proforms. In reality, however, EUEs will readily employ these various markers in a somewhat freer manner than is often suggested, certainly in spoken English, so that these restrictions (insofar as they apply at all) are better thought of as patterns or tendencies of use. Tables 11.2 and 11.3 provide an indication of the way in which these proforms are generally used in modern English. Table 11.1  Grammatical Functions of the Relative Proforms Function

Example

She didn’t like the professor who taught the grammar course. Direct object She didn’t like the book that the professor recommended. Indirect object She didn’t like the student that the professor loaned his book to. Object of (fronted) She didn’t like the student to whom the professor was preposition talking. Object of (stranded) She didn’t like the student who the professor was talking to. preposition Genitive She didn’t like the professor whose grammar course she was taking. Adverbial She didn’t like the room where the grammar course was taught.

Subject

402    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar Table 11.2  The Pronominal Relative Proforms and Their Antecedents Proform

Type of antecedent

Example

Who

Human Human-like animals Human Inanimate Animate Human collectives

That’s the student who failed my course. She has a dog who barks all night. The student whom I mentioned is over there. Please hand me the file which is on the table. She has a dog which barks all night. Alexander’s army, which numbered more than 20,000, marched all night. The student whose grade was so poor quit. She has a dog whose barking annoys me. The mountains, whose peaks were hidden in cloud, towered above him. She’s the student that failed my course. She has a dog that barks at night. Please hand me the file that is on the table.

Whom Which

Whose

Human Animate Inanimate

That

Human Animate Inanimate

Table 11.3  The Adverbial Relative Proforms Proform

Type of antecedent Example

When Where

Temporal Locative

Why

The reason

I remember the time when we got lost in Paris. The village in England where I grew up was very quiet. The reason why he said that is unclear.

I will first of all discuss the pronominal proforms in Table 11.2, leaving my discussion of the adverbial proforms until later in the chapter. I will begin at the bottom, with that, since this is the most commonly used proform in modern English. Prescriptivists sometimes maintain that the proform that cannot be employed where the antecedent noun is human. However, Table 11.2 indicates that this is certainly grammatically possible, and a little time spent listening to the way in EUEs use the language will quickly reveal that, for most speakers, that works perfectly well with human antecedents. In reality, utterances such as the following are common: (9) The professor that wrote this article is standing over there.

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Berk agrees: “In casual conversation that is routinely used with both human and inanimate noun heads, despite the complaints of prescriptivists” (1999, p. 267). Berk gives further examples: (10) (From Berk, 1999, p. 267) a. The dentist that you’re seeing just lost his license. b. Do you know the people that live there? Yule comments at length on the “very general function” of that: Speakers use that in relative clauses when there is no need to mark the referent as having special properties. The relative pronoun that neutralizes the normal distinction between who and which (i.e., human versus non-human) and the distinction between who and whom (i.e., between subject and object). In essence, the relative pronoun that signals that all relevant properties of the referent are already known from the antecedent, or are otherwise irrelevant at that point. (Yule, 1998, p. 252)

According to the traditional view, whose cannot be used when the antecedent is inanimate. Advanced DUEs need to be told, however, that this is not how speakers actually behave. In reality, whose is used with a range of antecedents, including inanimate ones. The following examples are taken from various recent linguistic commentaries: (11) (From Quirk et al., 1985, p. 1250) Let ABC be a triangle whose sides are of unequal length.

(12) (From Berk, 1999, p. 268) My doctor gave me some pills whose side-effects were terrible.

(13) (From Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 582) I found an old coin whose date has become worn and illegible.

(14) (From Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 1049) The report contained statements whose factual truth is doubtful.

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The point, of course, is by now familiar. Grammar is a matter of what speakers do; not what certain rules suggest they should do. As Berk notes, the prescriptivists insistence that whose should not be employed with inanimate nouns “create[s] a real gap in the grammatical system” (1999, p. 268), which then has to be filled by the use of slightly awkward periphrastic genitives such as the following: (15) I bought a book the cover of which was torn. The same point is made by Quirk et al., who note that, while there may be a tendency to avoid whose with non-human antecedents, “presumably because many regard it as the genitive only of the personal who” (1985, p. 1249), it is certainly possible and often the stylistically preferable choice. Proform which is somewhat more restricted than that and whose, being generally reserved for inanimate antecedents and non-human animates. However, as the table indicates, it can be used where the antecedent noun refers to a group or collective of humans (e.g., Alexander’s army). It seems, then, if we leave on one side the adverbial forms when, where, and why, which are special cases, the only relative proforms that appear to be semantically restricted are whom (invariably limited to human antecedents) and—to some extent—who (limited to human antecedents or antecedents construed as human-like). Whom, in particular, is somewhat problematic. Prescriptivists still sometimes insist on whom as the accusative form of who, maintaining that a sentence such as (16a) needs to be “corrected” to (16b). (16) a. Monica looked up the author who the professor recommended at Amazon.com. b. Monica looked up the author whom the professor recommended at Amazon.com. However, among EUEs, the use of whom in relative clauses such as (16b) appears to be in decline, and who is becoming widely accepted. In contemporary English, whom tends to be limited to fairly formal, often written, contexts. In spoken English, the one place where whom is still felt to be grammatically obligatory is when the relative clause functions as the object of a preposition and the antecedent noun is human:

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(17) a. There’s the student to whom I spoke yesterday. b. *There’s the student to who I spoke yesterday. Perhaps reflecting this uncertainty, there is a noticeable tendency among EUEs to avoid whom entirely, employing an alternative construction that involves either that or the zero proform, with the preposition stranded at the end of the sentence: (18) a. There’s the student that I spoke to yesterday. b. There’s the student Ø I spoke to yesterday. Note that if whom is used, the preposition preceding it will often be to. However, there are other possibilities: (19) a. The student from whom I received this tie is one of the best in the class. b. The people with whom she’s staying are obnoxious. c. He’s not a person on whom you can rely. As I have noted, whom is obligatory as the object of a preposition when the referent of the antecedent noun is human. Thus, (20) is ungrammatical: (20) * The student from which I received this tie is one of the best in the class. However, with inanimate (21a) and abstract (21b) nouns, which rather than whom is used. (21) a. Is this the village in which you were raised? b. The ideas to which you referred in your paper are interesting ones. The use of who is also not without its complications. It is entirely possible (and surprisingly common) to use this proform for non-human antecedents whose behavior is construed by the speaker as human-like:

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(22) a. I have three cats , who seem to spend all their time eating and sleeping. b. The grizzly bear , who wanders large distances in search of food, will often steal from campsites. DUEs are sometimes surprised to learn that it is not necessary to use who when the antecedent is a collective. Under these circumstances, which or that are often preferred: (23) a. The audience , which consisted mainly of school children, went crazy. b. ? The audience , who consisted mainly of school children, went crazy. c. She is part of that group of students that I find particularly enjoyable. d. ?She is part of that group of students who I find particularly enjoyable. Further uncertainty may arise in the classroom when students encounter an antecedent NP containing two coordinated nouns, one of which is human and so selects who, and the other non-human, requiring which. Again, this is a matter of patterns of use rather than a strict rule, and different speakers may handle this in different ways. In a case such as the following, some speakers will opt for either that or zero proform: (24) (From Quirk et al., 1985, p. 1246) The people and things that/Ø she likes most. Other speakers apply what might be called a proximity principle, whereby the NP closest to the proform governs the choice of proform: (25) a. The people and things which she likes most. b. The things and people who she likes most. It should be emphasized that all three of the above options are part of the grammar of modern English. I have indicated that, in certain cases, the proform can be omitted. We then speak of a zero proform. As the following examples show, zero proform

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is possible—and, indeed, common in informal spoken English—with all types of antecedents: (26) a. The student Ø I was speaking to is over there. b. He ordered the flowers Ø she liked for her birthday. c. How’s the assignment Ø you’re working on? The restrictions on the use of zero relatives tend to be syntactic rather than semantic. As a general principle, any proform can be omitted as long as it is not co-referential with the subject of the sentence. To put this differently, the proform cannot be omitted when it functions as subject of its clause. This constraint explains why the (b) sentences in (27) through (29) are ungrammatical. (27) a. The professor who teaches Linguistic Principles of English Grammar is English. b. * The professor Ø teaches Linguistic Principles of English Grammar is English. (28) a. She’s the student who failed my course. b. *She’s the student Ø failed my course. (29) a. My neighbor has a dog which barks all night. b. *My neighbor has a dog Ø barks all night.

Selecting Proforms If you look again at Table 11.2, you will notice that there is considerable overlap between the proforms in terms of the antecedents they can follow. In particular, that can frequently be used in place of one of the wh- proforms. Not unnaturally, DUEs will want to know when to use one and when another. This is a complex matter and requires careful handling. There is no easily stated rule for this. In many cases, the wh- proforms (with the ex-

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ception of whose) can be replaced by that or by a zero proform. This means that speakers have a choice between any of the following: (30) a. The student who I spoke to yesterday failed my course. b. The student whom I spoke to yesterday failed my course. c. The student that I spoke to yesterday failed my course. d. The student Ø I spoke to yesterday failed my course. As so often when grammatical choices are in view, there are differences of register between the various options, so the various proforms are not strictly interchangeable. A helpful general principle is that the wh- proforms are rather more likely to be used in formal discourse (this is especially true of whom), or when then the speaker regards the matter as significant; conversely, that or the zero proform are more likely in informal contexts or when the matter is not considered especially important. Dixon makes the useful point that proforms are often alternated “so as not to have too many occurrences of that, or too many of which or who, in close proximity” (2005, p. 71). He goes on, “[I]n an NP beginning with that as demonstrative one would generally prefer who over that for introducing a relative clause—that man who you saw sounds much more felicitous than that man that you saw” (ibid). Notice that it is not possible to replace whom with that or with the zero proform when it is the object of a preposition: (31) a. The student to whom I spoke yesterday failed my course. b. * The student to that I spoke yesterday failed my course. c. * The student to Ø I spoke yesterday failed my course. Notice also that whose is a genitive form and can never be replaced by that or zero: (32) a. The student whose grade was so poor came to see me yesterday. b. * The student that grade was so poor came to see me yesterday. c. * The student Ø grade was so poor came to see me yesterday.

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When lengthy phrases or clauses intervene between the antecedent and the relative clause, creating what in the previous chapter I called linguistic distance, there is a tendency to use the appropriate wh- proform rather than that, even though the latter would not be ungrammatical. The following examples illustrate this tendency: (33) a. I have friends from my days at university who are not remotely interested in linguistics. b. ?I have friends from my days at university that are not remotely interested in linguistics. I suspect that, for most speakers, (33a) is likely to be more acceptable than (33b). This is because the distance created by the intervening material, from my days at university, requires that the connection of the proform with the antecedent noun be signaled clearly. This can be done more effectively with who (used primarily for human antecedents) than it can with the more neutral proform that. Yule concurs: “The distance created by the other linguistic material seems to require clearer marking of the relative pronoun in order to maintain the connection with the antecedent” (1998, p. 253). The following example illustrates the same point. Note that, here, which (used for non-human antecedents) is better than that, even though the latter is grammatically possible: (34) a. I have numerous books , both at home and stored in my parents’ house in England, which have nothing to do with linguistics. b. ?I have numerous books , both at home and stored in my parents’ house in England, that have nothing to do with linguistics. Readers will have noted that several of the proforms that serve to introduce relative clauses share the same morphological shape as word-forms associated with other types of clause (e.g., that, who, which, etc.). It’s important that DUEs are not misled by the superficial similarity between these different clause types. There are significant differences between them. Most importantly, the function of a relative clause within a construction is different than the function of a that clause or a wh- clause. As you saw in the previous chapter, the latter have nominal functions (i.e., they behave to various degrees like NPs). Conversely, relative clauses have a modifying function.

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Some relative clauses are (like attributive adjectives) embedded within the NP they modify, forming part of its structure. The following example makes the point nicely: (35) (From Dixon, 2005, p. 40) Everyone believed the man that hired you. The crucial thing to note about (35) is that the NP includes the relative clause. Evidence is provided by passivization. In the passive counterpart to (35), the relative clause appears along with the noun and its determiner in subject position (36a). If the noun and determiner alone are moved, the resulting construction is plainly ungrammatical (36b). (36) a. The man that hired you was believed by everyone. b. * The man was believed that hired you by everyone. Not all relative clauses are integrated into the NP in this way; some are supplementary to the NP, providing additional information.2 Nonetheless, it is widely acknowledged that relative clauses are comparable to adjectives in terms of the modifying role they play in relation to nouns. Thus, CelceMurcia and Larsen-Freeman describe a relative clause as “a complex postnominal adjectival modifier” (1999, p. 571). And Brinton says, “Relative clauses always serve an adjectival function; they are modifiers which follow the noun” (2000, p. 229). For this reason, relative clauses are sometimes called adjective clauses. In discussing that clauses in Chapter 10, I noted the ubiquity of the word-form that in modern English. A problem that some teachers may wish to address is deciding whether a particular complex sentence contains a that clause or a relative clause introduced by that. The issue may be especially pressing in cases where that is employed both as a relative marker and as a complementizer within one construction. The following authentic example, from a book of philosophical essays published a few years ago, does exactly this: (37) (From Gray, 2004, p. 6) The lesson of the century that has just ended is that humans use the power of science not to make a new world but to reproduce the old one—sometimes in newly hideous ways.

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The first that in this sentence is a relative proform. The second that is a complementizer, introducing the nominal clause (in bold) that follows. Now consider the following examples. One of these sentences contains a relative clause; the other contains a that clause. Which one is which? (38) (From Brinton, 2000, p. 233) a. The suggestion that he might fail is disturbing. b. The suggestion that he made is disturbing. The answer is that (38a) contains a that clause, whereas (38b) contains a relative clause. Some fairly simple analysis makes this clear. Notice that in (38a), the clause introduced by that can stand alone as an independent clause: (39) He might fail. Also, in the case of (38a), it is possible to move the clause introduced by that to subject position: (40) That he might fail is disturbing. In the case of (38b), neither of these operations is possible. The clause introduced by that cannot stand alone as an independent clause: (41) *He made. Nor can it be moved to subject position: (42) *That he made is disturbing. The clinching argument is that in (38b), that can be replaced by another relative proform, which:

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(43) The suggestion which he made is disturbing. Clearly, any such substitution makes no sense with (38a): (44) *The suggestion which he might fail is disturbing. Brinton (2000, p. 234) makes the point that the surface similarity between these constructions may, on occasion, lead to ambiguity. For example, does the following construction contain a that-clause or a relative clause? (45) The fact that Bill forgot was verified. Your answer to this question will determine how you understand (45). If you think it contains a that clause, then a suitable paraphrase would be something like the following: (46) It was verified that Bill had forgotten a fact. If, on the other hand, you think (45) contains a relative clause, then you might paraphrase as follows: (47) The fact forgotten by Bill was later verified. Brinton is right, in the sense that if we examine a sentence like (45) in isolation it is genuinely ambiguous. However, it is necessary to remind readers of a point I have insisted on at various places in this book: It is very unusual for speakers and writers to produce isolated sentences like this. In reality, any potential ambiguity is most unlikely to make itself felt since the surrounding context of discourse would make the appropriate interpretation of (45) clear.

Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Relative Clauses Traditionally, relative clauses have been divided into two types, defining relative clauses and non-defining relative clauses. Contemporary linguists recog-

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nize the validity of this distinction, although they may use other terms to describe it. Often, the labels restrictive and nonrestrictive are used. I will follow suit in preferring this latter set of terms. Huddleston and Pullam (2002) use the term integrated relative to describe the restrictive type; the nonrestrictive type they call a supplementary relative. Actually, both pairs of terms are useful since they draw attention to different aspects of the clauses. The restrictive/ nonrestrictive distinction is basically a semantic one, focusing on the way in which, in the former case, the clause restricts the reference of the head noun, whereas, in the latter case, the clause simply provides additional information about the noun. The integrated/supplementary distinction is essentially syntactic, focusing on the degree of connectedness between the clause and the antecedent NP. The following pair of examples illustrates the difference between the two types of clauses: (48) a. The students who liked the professor’s grammar course gave him a tie. b. The students , who liked the professor’s grammar course, gave him a tie. The constructions in (48) are both complex sentences containing relative clauses. However, in terms of their semantics, they are crucially different. The clause in (48a) is restrictive; the meaning here is that only some of the students within the class liked the grammar course and it was these students who gave the professor a tie. The clause in (48b) is nonrestrictive; it would be understood to mean that all the students in the class liked the course and they all gave the tie. In presenting these types of relative clauses, teachers often focus on the written form, drawing attention to the fact that, in sentences such as (48b), the nonrestrictive clause is separated from the rest of the sentence by commas. I will come back to this in a while. First, however, I want to explore the semantic difference that I have alluded to in greater detail. Here are two further examples: (49) (From Quirk et al., 1985, p. 1245) a. Snakes which are poisonous should be avoided. b. Rattlesnakes , which are poisonous, should be avoided. The relative clause in sentence (49a) is restrictive. The meaning is that only those snakes that are poisonous need to be avoided. Sentence (49b) refers to a specific kind of snake, and the relative clause is nonrestrictive.

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The meaning here is that all rattlesnakes are to be avoided because they are invariably poisonous. As you see, a sentence containing a restrictive relative clause and one with a nonrestrictive clause may appear to be almost identical. For obvious reasons, this may prove especially puzzling to DUEs. Consider yet another example: (50) (From Dixon, 2005, p. 33) a. The firemen who the managers sacked will meet in the engine shed. b. The firemen , who the managers sacked, will meet in the engine shed. It will be worth spending a little more time on this example. EUEs will recognize that sentence (50a), with its restrictive clause, means that only some firemen were sacked and these few individuals will meet in the engine shed. You see now why the term restrictive is useful for this type of clause, since the clause itself serves to restrict the reference of the antecedent noun to those firemen who lost their jobs. If we ask who will meet in the engine shed, the answer is only those firemen who have been sacked. It is important to see that the restrictive clause in (50a) is essential to the NP, helping to identify which firemen we are talking about. In more technical terms, a restrictive relative clause restricts the referential scope of the NP. Consider the following remarks. First, a comment from Brinton: “A restrictive relative clause is necessary to identify which person or thing (denoted by a head noun) is being talked about; it ‘restricts’, limits, or picks out the referent(s) from a larger set of referents” (2000, p. 231). Now here is Berk: “The primary job of a restrictive relative clause is to restrict the possible referents of the preceding NP, thus making the referent more accessible to the hearer” (1999, p. 265). Such comments explain why an alternative term for a restrictive clause is a defining relative clause. Notice that sentence (50b) above conveys a rather different meaning, indicating that all the firemen were sacked and that all of them will be at the meeting. Here, then, the reference of the antecedent noun is not restricted to a particular group of firemen. The nonrestrictive clause provides additional information concerning the noun—namely, that they have been sacked—but the key point of the message is not the sacking but the fact that there is to be a meeting. Thus, a nonrestrictive relative does not restrict the referential scope of the head noun. As Dixon notes, such a clause “appears to be a parenthetical comment—almost an intrusion into the main body of the clause” (2005, p. 35). Again, Yule says that “restrictive relative clauses are closely tied to their antecedents and non-restrictives are quite

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separate” (1998, p. 249). And Brinton comments, “In a nonrestrictive relative clause, the head noun is sufficiently restricted or limited in order to be identified; the relative clause simply adds additional (or parenthetical) information” (2000, p. 231). She adds that “for the nonrestrictive clause, the noun phrase is complete without the relative clause, which is outside of and independent of the head noun phrase” (2000, p. 232). Again, Berk writes, “Non-restrictive relative clauses perform a very different function from restrictive relative clauses; they simply provide additional information about the NP and are never crucial in identifying the referent(s)” (1999, p. 273). Berk adds the useful observation, “Although the material provided by nonrestrictive relative clauses is ‘additional,’ it is not superfluous or irrelevant. Sometimes a non-restrictive relative clause will provide very important information as in These batteries, which should be changed monthly, will ensure that your smoke detector can be heard all over the house” (1999, p. 274). Let us return now to the difference in punctuation between the two types of relative clause. The presence of commas in the nonrestrictive version and their absence in the restrictive version is a reflection of a significant phonological difference. A restrictive relative clause is embedded within the NP and intonationally “connected” to the noun that precedes it; a nonrestrictive clause is not embedded and not phonologically connected in the same way. In writing, this change is represented by the commas marking the nonrestrictive clause. In speech, it is generally signaled by a slight pause marking the change to a new intonation unit. An intonation unit may be thought of as a relatively short, fluent stretch of speech used to convey a particular piece of information. Note, however, that the pauses and changes in intonation that tend to mark nonrestrictive relative clauses are general tendencies only—“typical rather than obligatory prosodic features” (Quirk et al., 1985, p. 1258)—and speakers can override them. We can depict this diagrammatically as follows, using the mark // to indicate an intonation break: (51) The firemen who the managers sacked // will meet in the engine shed. Here, the relative clause belongs to the same intonation unit as the noun. (52) The firemen, // who the managers sacked //, will meet in the engine shed.

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Here, the nonrestrictive clause does not belong to the same intonation unit as the noun.

The Discourse Function of Restrictive Relative Clauses In terms of discourse, restrictive relative clauses tend to be used when the speaker assumes the identity of the referent is already “known, familiar or mentally accessible” (Givón, 1993b, p. 108) to the hearer. Berk supplies various examples that illustrate this nicely: (53) (From Berk, 1999, p. 270) a. I lost the book that I borrowed from you last week. b. That plumber who Latisha hired is really good. c. Do you know that exchange student who’s living with the Wilsons? Berk points out that when a restrictive relative clause is used in this way to introduce a “known” referent, the antecedent NP will typically be preceded by a definite article or a demonstrative, indicating that the identity of the referent is available to both speaker and hearer. Berk refers to this as a “purely restrictive” (1999, p. 270) use of the clause. Sometimes, however, the NP is preceded by an indefinite article. In these cases, the clause has a descriptive function. An example cited by Berk is the following: (54) (From Berk, 1999, p. 270) The Sisters were a group of women whose mean age appeared to be seventy. As Berk observes, the point of the relative clause here is not to restrict the reference of the noun but to provide a “descriptive comment about age” (1999, p. 271). The distinction between a purely restrictive and a descriptive function made by Berk is useful. It directs our attention to the manner in which restrictive relative clauses involve “referential grounding” (Givón, 1993b, p. 112). What this means is that the clause establishes some proposition in relation to the hearer’s knowledge. In the case of definite NPs (Berk’s “purely restrictive” function), this knowledge is established already as part of the hearer’s mental structure. In the case of indefinite NPs (Berk’s “descriptive” function), this knowledge requires construction (or perhaps reconstruction) and organization (or reorganization). Consider these examples in which a zero profrom occurs:

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(55) (From Givón, 1993b, p. 112): a. The woman you met last year just called. b. A woman you met last year just called. Notice that (55a) and (b) contain an identical relative clause. In fact, the only difference between the two constructions is the use of a definite article in one and an indefinite article in the other. In (55a), the speaker is assuming that the identity of the person referred to by the NP woman is still accessible to the hearer, forming part of her “pre-existing mental structure.” This accounts for the use of the definite article. In (55b), the speaker is making the opposite assumption: that the identity of the referent is not still available to the hearer. This explains the use of the indefinite article. I turn now to some further points of comparison between restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses, focusing on various syntactic matters relating to their use.

Syntactic Constraints on Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Clauses DUEs are sometimes taught that, although that is regularly used in restrictive clauses, this proform cannot be used in a nonrestrictive clause. Language teachers will often present this as a rule of written grammar such as “That cannot follow a comma.” This is exactly the kind of declarative knowledge about English—an easily-digestible “rule”—that students like. And there is some evidence suggesting that it is an accurate statement. For example, the following sentence is plainly ungrammatical: (56) (From Brinton, 2000, p. 232) * Janine , that I met years ago, is returning. Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999) include the non-availability of that as one of their characteristic features of nonrestrictive relative clauses. The matter is not clear-cut, however, and there is need for caution. As Berk states, “non-restrictive relative clauses almost never exploit the proform that after human NPs and only occasionally after inanimate NPs” (1999, p. 274). Likewise, Quirk et al. comment that with nonrestrictive clauses, “Zero cannot occur, and that is very rare” (1985, p. 1258). Nonetheless, Berk suggests some speakers would allow (57), although for others it would be highly doubtful.

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(57) (From Berk, 1999, p. 274) ? My new couch , that was just delivered yesterday, is already torn. The same can be said of (58). (58) (From Quirk et al., 1985, p. 1257) ? This excellent book , that Freda has only just received for review, was published a year ago. You have seen that restrictive clauses supply essential information, often defining, specifying, or identifying the referent more closely. This is reflected in the fact that the removal of a restrictive relative clause will generally have a rather drastic effect on the way the construction is understood. By way of illustration, consider the following. You will recognize that (59a) means something very different than (59b). (59) a. People who whistle in the morning really annoy me. b. People really annoy me. In (59a), the reference of the noun people is restricted to a particular group—those who whistle in the morning. It is this specific group of people that the speaker objects to. In (59b), this restriction is not in operation. Thus, the speaker will be understood to find people in general—all people—annoying! Notice that removing a nonrestrictive clause does not alter our interpretation of the construction in the same way. The meaning conveyed by both (60a) and (b) is essentially the same. (60) a. That student , who is really shy, hardly ever speaks in class. b. That student Ø hardly ever speaks in class. In both sentences, the speaker is understood to be referring to a particular student who tends to be very quiet in the classroom. As you have seen, this is because nonrestrictive clauses (such as who is really shy in [60b]) merely supply additional, non-essential information. It is worth noting that when a relative clause follows a proper noun, it will normally be nonrestrictive. This is because proper nouns generally

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refer to people and things that are already readily identifiable, and therefore there is no need to specify their referent any further with a restrictive clause. You saw an example of this earlier: (61) I’ve just read a philosophical account of the thought of Wallace Stevens , whose poetry I really admire. Here, the antecedent is a proper noun; indeed, it is the name of a celebrated American poet. Likewise, in the following example, the proper noun identifies an individual with unique reference (so far as I am aware), and so the relative clause is nonrestrictive, presenting the additional information about the referent of the noun: (62) The police are looking for Dr. Octopus , who escaped from prison yesterday. I noted in Chapter 2 that sometimes speakers employ a proper noun as if it were a common noun, engaging in what is called proper–common shift. One sign that this has happened is when the noun in question is followed by a restrictive relative clause. Look at the following example: (63) I wanted the Shakespeare which has the red cover, not the blue one. It is obvious that what the speaker of (63) expected to receive was not the long-dead Elizabethan playwright himself, but a copy of his plays. In other words, in this particular context, Shakespeare is being treated as if it is a common noun, and the restrictive clause has its usual function of restricting the reference, helping to identify which specific volume—out of the several lying around—is required. Here is another example, set this time within a natural dialogue: (64) A: I saw Taekyun yesterday. B: Which Taekyun? A: The Taekyun who did our program last year. Here, we may presume that both speaker and hearer know several people called Taekyun. In consequence, the second speaker seeks further

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clarification concerning which Taekyun is being discussed. The restrictive clause provides this clarification, narrowing the reference of the NP to just one out of the set of possible referents. If the antecedent NP is indefinite, the relative clause that follows must be restrictive. The reason for this is that indefinite NPs require further specification to make their referent clear, and this is exactly what restrictive clauses do. Consider the following examples: (65) a. Any work which is submitted late will automatically lose points. b. Every student who attends the course must buy the textbook. Extraposing is generally possible with restrictive clauses. I repeat our earlier example: (66) I met a man last week who looked like Alfred Hitchcock. Nonrestrictive clauses are much less likely to be extraposed, although it can sometimes happen: (67) (From Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 1066) She could hear her father in the next room, who was angrily complaining about the horrific telephone bill. Restrictive relative clauses are recursive, meaning that they can combine together in a sequence. The following example may seem slightly strained to some readers, but it is grammatical: (68) All the students enjoyed the jokes the professor told in class that he rehearsed at home. Notice that the first relative clause, the professor told in class, is a zero relative, modifying the NP the jokes. The second clause also modifies this NP. Of necessity a proform is employed to separate it from the preceding clause. Without the proform, the sentence is ungrammatical:

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(69) *All the students enjoyed the jokes the professor told in class he rehearsed at home. Here is another example, this time with the two clauses joined by a coordinator: (70) The new professor proved to be someone who knew his field well but whose teaching skills were rather limited. While this sort of clause combining can occur with restrictive relatives, it is not possible with nonrestrictive clauses: (71) *The company awarded a pay rise to Jeremy , who didn’t deserve it, who never arrives on time. It is also possible—although, again, it must be said it is somewhat unusual—to combine a restrictive and a nonrestrictive relative clause in the same construction: (72) (From Yule, 1998, p. 250) The person who left this bag, who must be very careless, will probably come back for it. Here is another example, taken from a work of fiction: (73) (From Banville, 1976, pp. 214–215) Can you not spare even a grain of compassion for this unfortunate creature whom you have destroyed, whom you could not face . . . ? Note that the order of the two clauses is the same in both (72) and (73): The restrictive clause comes first. If you think about this for a moment, you will see that the restrictive clause must precede a nonrestrictive clause because it is bound semantically to the antecedent NP (the person, this unfortunate creature) and forms part of its internal syntactic structure; a nonrestrictive clause is not bound in the same way. Here is one more illustration:

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(74) That student who came to see me, who is the president’s sister-in-law, is rather smart. It is sometimes suggested that there may be occasional uncertainty over whether a relative clause is restrictive or nonrestrictive. Consider (75): (75) (From Brinton, 2000, p. 232) Children who have vivid imaginations should avoid this program. There are two possible meanings here. These may be summarized as follows: (a) All children should avoid the program because all children have vivid imaginations (i.e., the relative clause is understood as nonrestrictive), or (b) only those children with vivid imaginations need avoid this program (i.e., the relative clause is understood as restrictive). As always, however, it is necessary to note that, in reality, there is unlikely to be any ambiguity. For one thing, the context would almost certainly make the intended meaning of (75)—whether spoken or written—clear. Furthermore, in writing, the presence or absence of commas as appropriate would normally be a clear indication as to the nature of the clause. Likewise, in its spoken form, the speaker would normally “mark” the relative clause as either restrictive or nonrestrictive through their intonation.

In the Classroom: Relative Clauses Relative clauses occur with great frequency in modern English, and teachers must be prepared to spend a good deal of classroom time on them. Two issues seem to be particularly important. One of these has to do with the choice of an appropriate relative proform. The other revolves around the fundamental distinction between restrictive and nonrestrictive relative clauses. As I have observed, in traditional accounts of relative clauses, it is often maintained that there are strict semantic restrictions that limit the kind of NP that can precede the various relative proforms. The reality, however, is that EUEs tend to employ these various relative markers in a fairly “fluid” manner, particularly in the spoken grammar. I suggested that these restrictions (insofar as they apply at all) would be better presented as patterns or tendencies of use. Turning to the restrictive–nonrestrictive distinction, it is noteworthy that many teachers use punctuation as a means of distinguishing the two types of clauses. This obviously reflects a traditional bias toward the written grammar.

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And yet, as I noted above, the presence of commas in sentences containing a nonrestrictive clause and their absence in those containing a restrictive clause is actually an attempt to capture in writing a significant aspect of the spoken grammar, that is, a phonological difference between the two types of clauses. Recall that a restrictive relative clause is embedded within the NP and intonationally “connected” to the noun that precedes it; a nonrestrictive clause is not embedded and not phonologically connected to the antecedent noun in the same way. In speech, EUEs use intonation to mark this fact. I would also suggest that it is essential for students to understand that the restrictive–nonrestrictive distinction is, at bottom, semantic in nature. That is, a restrictive clause is so called because it restricts the reference of the head noun; on the other hand, a nonrestrictive clause simply provides additional information about the noun. An especially useful way of making this point is to examine pairs of sentences in which one version contains a restrictive clause and the other a nonrestrictive clause. I spent some time considering an example of this, borrowed from Dixon, in the text. Classroom activities that involve comparing sentences in this way are likely to prove valuable as a means of underscoring the key distinction since students can be invited to explain the difference in meaning conveyed by the two sentences. They should also be given opportunities to both hear how the difference is conveyed phonologically and, of course, to practice saying the sentences themselves with appropriate intonation. Once students have come to terms with this key issue, teachers can turn to the various “syntactic constraints” on restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses that I have noted in the text above.

Relative Adverbial Clauses Up to this point, I have been concerned only with relative clauses involving one of the traditional relative “pronouns”—that is, the wh- forms: who, whom, whose, and which, together with that and the zero proform. However, as I noted earlier, other proforms can also appear in relative clauses. These proforms—when, where, and why—are traditionally known as relative “adverbs”; the clauses containing them can be called relative adverbial clauses.3 Here are some examples: (76) a. I remember the time when we went to Kyoto and it rained for three days. b. Do you know the room where the seminar is taking place? c. The reason why she said that escapes me.

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You will notice that the above sentences display the same characteristics as the relative clauses discussed already. The relative clause itself can be sentence-final (76a & b), or medial (76c), and it is introduced by a proform that is co-referential with a preceding NP. As I noted above, however, the range of NPs that can be followed by an adverbial proform is quite tightly constrained. Thus, when is limited to temporal NPs such as the time, the year, the month, et cetera, and where is similarly limited to locative NPs such as the place, the city, the room, et cetera. The proform why is the most tightly constrained of all, being restricted to just one antecedent NP, the reason. It is generally (although not always) possible to omit the proform in a relative adverbial. In other words, relative adverbials permit a zero proform, just like other types of relative clauses: (77) a. I remember the time Ø we went to Kyoto and it rained for three days. b. Do you know the room Ø the seminar is taking place in? c. The reason Ø she said that escapes me. Notice that in (77b), it is necessary to insert an appropriate preposition at the end of the utterance in order to retain grammaticality. An alternative to this would be to front the preposition and employ proform which: (78) Do you know the room in which the seminar is taking place? In some cases, a relative adverbial will have a that relative counterpart, although some speakers may not find all of these acceptable: (79) a. I remember the time that we went to Kyoto and it rained for three days. b. ??Do you know the room that the seminar is taking place in? c. ? The reason that she said that escapes me. Note also that each of these examples involves a restrictive clause. Generally, relative adverbial clauses will be restrictive. Nonetheless, occasionally nonrestrictive forms will be encountered: (80) a. Students of medieval architecture must visit England , where there are lots of lovely old churches.

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b. His sister married in 2008 , when he was out of the country, and only told him last year! It is not possible for the adverbial proform why to appear in a nonrestrictive clause.

Nonprototypical Relative Clauses There are certain relative clauses that do not follow the prototypical patterns I have been considering up to now. In this section, I will briefly consider some of these. Headless Relatives I have noted that the grammar of modern English permits speakers to omit the proform from a relative clause under certain circumstances. Speakers will often take this zero option, especially in informal spoken contexts. A less common strategy—but an entirely grammatical one—is the use of what is sometimes called a headless relative. This label refers not to an uncle who has met with an unfortunate accident, but (rather less interestingly!) to a relative clause that lacks an antecedent NP. They are also sometimes referred to as nominal relatives since the relative proform takes the place of the NP that it would normally modify. Another term some linguists use for them is free relatives. It is worth noting that headless relatives are especially common in relative adverbial clauses. The reason for this is perhaps the speaker’s sense that the use of both the head noun and an adverbial (e.g., the time + when; the room + where, etc.) is redundant. I repeat here the examples already given: (81) a. I remember the time when we went to Kyoto and it rained for three days. b. I remember when we went to Kyoto and it rained for three days. (82) a. Do you know the room where the seminar is taking place? b. Do you know where the seminar is taking place? (83) a. The reason why she said that escapes me. b. Why she said that escapes me.

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These examples suggest that the proform in the headless relative is still governed by the covert (that is, implied but not expressed) NP. Notice also that the omission of the NP is the last example results in the relative clause appearing, rather unusually, in sentence-initial position. Headless relatives are not limited to adverbial clauses. They appear with other types of proforms as well: (84) a. She’s the applicant who we want to appoint. b. She’s who we want to appoint. Look closely at the following example: (85) a. Here’s the book I was looking for. b. Here’s what I was looking for. c. *Here’s I was looking for. Notice once more that the covert head noun in the headless relative determines the proform; however, in this case, it takes the form what (not that, which, or zero, as you might expect). Headless relatives are exceptions to the general rule that relative clauses are adjuncts rather than complements. This is shown by the fact that deletion of a headless relative typically leads to ungrammaticality: (86) a. *I remember when we went to Kyoto and it rained for three days. b. *Do you know where the seminar is taking place? c. *Why she said that escapes me. Sentential Relatives There are certain nonrestrictive relative clauses that may be grouped together under the general label of sentential relatives. Prescriptivist grammarians have tended to regard them as ungrammatical. This reflects the bias towards the written forms of grammar. Sentential relatives are extremely common, particularly in informal, spoken English. What makes sentential relative clauses interesting (and accounts for their name) is that, rather than modifying an NP as in the prototypical case, the proform modifies (or is co-referential with) a much larger unit. To quote Quirk and his colleagues, “The sentential relative clause does not function as a modifier of an NP; its

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relative item refers anaphorically to a unit larger than a phrase, usually to a clause but sometimes even to a series of sentences” (1985, p. 1048). In clauses like this, the relative proform will very often be which. Consider the following examples: (87) a.   The professor gave the students the questions for the exam one week in advance , which was very nice of him. b.   The students are tired , which is not surprising after all these exams. In constructions such as these, the nonrestrictive relative clause has its usual role of providing additional, non-essential information in the form of the speaker’s comment on the situation described in the main clause. To repeat: A sentential relative is invariably nonrestrictive; restrictive relative clauses cannot be used in this way.

Some Related Clauses Reduced Restrictive Clauses I have noted that the relative proform cannot be omitted when it functions as the subject of its clause. There are certain constructions, however, that appear to involve the omission of a subject proform along with a primary verb functioning as either a copula or an auxiliary. Constructions of this sort are sometimes referred to as reduced relative clauses. This label is not without problems. Berk proposes the alternative term restrictive postnominal modifier (1999, p. 272). Nonetheless, it does have the value of drawing attention to certain features these constructions share with relative clauses. Consider the following example of a sentence in which a restrictive relative clause modifies the noun: (88) Is the actor who is in that commercial with Gwyneth Paltrow Korean? Now note that there is a counterpart of this construction in which the proform who is omitted along with the primary verb be, leaving a prepositional phrase modifying the NP: (89) Is the actor in that commercial with Gwyneth Paltrow Korean?

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And now consider the next example: (90) The professor who is teaching Linguistic Principles of English Grammar is British. This also has a reduced counterpart: (91) The professor teaching Linguistic Principles of English Grammar is British. Again, note that (91) involves the omission of the relative proform together with the primary verb, leaving an -ing participle as the modifier of the NP. As Berk puts it, “In essence, whatever is left over after a relative clause is reduced takes on the function of the clause” (Berk, 1999, p. 272).

Appositive Clauses Nonrestrictive relative clauses also have reduced counterparts: (92) Dr. Macdonald , who is our newest faculty member, received her PhD from the University of Sydney. Sentence (92) is equivalent to the following: (93) Dr. Macdonald , our newest faculty member, received her PhD from the University of Sydney. In (93), the element doing the modifying is itself an NP, our newest faculty member, which is co-referential with the antecedent noun, Dr. Macdonald. Cases such as these are sometimes referred to as appositive clauses. On occasion it can be difficult to determine whether a particular clause is a “reduced” relative or something else. One way of deciding this is to see if the clause in question can be expanded into a relative clause. If this is not possible, the clause is not a reduced relative. Look at the following example:

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(94) (From Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 597) Max built an additional room, measuring 12 by 12 feet. Despite first impressions, this particular construction does not involve a reduced relative. If it did, the following would be grammatical: (95) *Max built an additional room, which is measuring 12 by 12 feet. The following example presents a somewhat different case: (96) (Adapted from Dixon, 2005) I noticed that tall man watching Mary. Sentence (96) could contain either a reduced relative clause (in which case it means something like [97a]) or an -ing participle (in which case it would have the meaning of [97b]). (97) a. I noticed that tall man (who was) watching Mary. b. I noticed that tall man’s watching of Mary. (97a) means that I noticed the man himself; (97b) means that I noticed his behavior, his act of watching. The only way to be sure what the original sentence (96) means is to consider the linguistic context. Notice that the addition of a little more context disambiguates our sentence, making it clear that this is indeed a reduced relative clause: (98) I noticed that tall man watching Mary looked like David Beckham. On the other hand, a different context would indicate that what we have here is an -ing participle: (99) I noticed that tall man watching Mary and asked him why he was staring at my wife.

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Further Reading Very good discussions of relative clauses will be found in Quirk et al. (1985, pp. 1245–1260) and Huddleston and Pullam (2002, Ch. 12). Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999, Chs. 28 & 29) also provide good discussions of relative clauses. Other useful treatments may be found in Yule (1998, Ch. 9) and, more briefly, Berk (1999, pp. 265–276). For a survey of relative clauses in various world languages, see Andrews (2007).

12 Complex Sentences in English Adverbial, Participial, and Conditional Clauses

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n Chapter 3, I distinguished between adverbs (aggressively, happily, quickly, etc.) and other types of expressions that serve an adverbial function. I noted that both phrases and clauses can also serve adverbial functions. Adverbial phrases were covered in Chapter 4 in looking at the role of prepositions. In this final chapter, I will consider certain constructions that feature adverbial clauses. I begin my discussion by considering in general terms what the adverbial function involves, identifying some of the main semantic subtypes of adverbial clauses. I then turn to a somewhat more detailed consideration of one particular set of adverbials, namely participial clauses. However, the bulk of this chapter is devoted to a detailed examination of one of the most linguistically interesting and, it must be said, pedagogically challenging adverbial constructions, the conditional construction.

Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 431–457 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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The Adverbial Function in English: An Overview Adverbial clauses serve as optional modifiers within a sentence. Just as adverbs modify verbs (among other things), adverbial clauses modify another clause. Their parallel function is suggested by the fact that frequently a single-word adverb and an adverbial clause will be interchangeable. This is the case in (1). (1) a. I’ll talk to you later. b. I’ll talk to you when my meeting is over. In (1a), the form later is a temporal adverb; in (1b), the clause when my meeting is over is a temporal adverbial clause. As with adverbs, adverbial clauses constitute a heterogeneous group— a fact that makes their description somewhat tricky. As clauses, adverbials contain a subject and a verb. Like the other clause types I have considered in earlier chapters, adverbial clauses are introduced by particular words that mark their subordinate status. As subordinate clauses, adverbials are dependent. They cannot stand alone as grammatical utterances. Some linguists subdivide adverbial clauses into various types, distinguishing between adjunct adverbials, disjunct adverbials, and conjunct adverbials. This is the approach taken by Brinton (2000, pp. 193–94) and Berk adopts the same terminology (1999, pp. 186ff). By way of contrast, I am going to treat all adverbial clauses as having an adjunct relation to main clause. At various points in the preceding pages, I have contrasted the terms adjunct and complement. I have suggested that, broadly speaking, a complement is any linguistic element that is required for grammatically. Because they are adjuncts rather than complements, the adverbial clauses I will be concerned with here are not required for grammaticality. Instead, they express further (non-essential) information—often temporal, causal, or conditional in nature—adding this information to a phrase or clause that is already syntactically and semantically complete. It therefore seems to me misleading to apply the label adjunct to some adverbials and not others, as some linguists do. All adverbial clauses are adjuncts in the sense that they are not required for grammaticality. To see this, let us revisit one of our examples from Chapter 10: (2) The professor couldn’t sleep after receiving the nasty phone call.

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Sentence (2) is complex in that it contains two clauses: a main or matrix clause, The professor couldn’t sleep, and a subordinate clause, after receiving the nasty phone call. As I discussed earlier, the situation expressed in the main clause is in the semantic foreground, conveying the key content of the construction as a whole. What the adverbial clause does is provide further background information about the situation expressed in the main clause, in this case indicating the reason for the professor’s insomnia. As you saw, this is reflected syntactically in the fact that the main clause can stand alone as an independent clause, whereas the subordinate clause cannot: (3) a. The professor couldn’t sleep. b. *After receiving the nasty phone call. Notice that in (2), the adverbial clause appears after the main clause; however, the adverbial clause could also appear in sentence-initial position, preceding the main clause, without affecting the grammaticality—or, indeed, the meaning—of the sentence as a whole: (4) After receiving the nasty phone call, the professor couldn’t sleep. By convention, when the adverbial clause comes first, it is separated from the main clause by a comma. As with the punctuation of nonrestrictive relative clauses discussed in the previous chapter, the comma is an attempt to signal in writing a prosodic feature of the spoken grammar (i.e., a pause and change in intonation that would normally follow the adverbial clause in this position). The potentiality to appear in different places within constructions is a feature adverbial clauses share with single-word adverbs. Indeed, an adverbial clause will typically occupy the same sentence-initial (5a), medial (5b), and final positions (5c): (5) a. As the speaker was so popular, the lecture hall was full and several students were unable to get in. b. The lecture hall was full, as the speaker was so popular, and several students were unable to get in. c. The lecture hall was full and several students were unable to get in, as the speaker was so popular.

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Another noteworthy characteristic of adverbial clauses is that they generally allow ellipsis. Very often, the subject of the clause and an auxiliary are omitted: (6) a. As if looking for someone, Min Jung wandered from room to room. (Cf. As if she was looking . . . .) b. While doing her homework, Sun Kyung listened to Massive Attack on her iPod. (Cf. While she was doing . . . .) c. Although new to the program, he was doing a great job. (Cf. Although he was new . . . .) Elided adverbial clauses like this are pervasive in the production of EUEs. There can be no question that they are evidently part of the grammar of modern English.

Some Basic Functions of Adverbial Clauses While all adverbial clauses have an adjunct relation to the main clause, they can be categorized into various semantic types according to the kind of information they convey or the function they perform. In the following little cautionary tale, some of the more frequently found semantic types of adverbial clauses are presented. The passage shows just how common these adverbial clauses can be. It also serves to illustrate something of the range of subordinators that can be used to introduce adverbial clauses. (7) Before the exam, Sunny was surprisingly relaxed. She was fine until she received the exam paper. Her mood changed when she began to read the questions. After taking the exam, she was miserable. The professor told Sunny that she failed the exam because she didn’t study. “Since you didn’t work hard enough, you failed the exam,” he said. Although she failed the exam, Sunny still managed to pass the course. But her grade was poor, whereas her friends did really well. As with single-word adverbs, one of the most common uses of adverbial clauses in modern English is to supply temporal information (i.e., information concerning the time frame for the situation expressed in the main clause). The first four adverbial clauses in the passage above (those introduced by the subordinators before, until, when, and after) are all examples of adverbial clauses that serve to establish the temporal background for the

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situation expressed in the main clause. When was Sunny fine? Before the exam. At what point did her mood change? When she began to read the questions. Further illustrations are given in (8). (8) Temporal Adverbial Clauses a. Whenever I get home, I always take a shower. b. Your mother called while you were out. c. During the meal, I began to feel rather queasy. The subordinator whenever in (8a) is interestingly different from its morphological cousin when. The latter tends to specify a clearly bounded time period (e.g., Sunny’s mood changed at the point she began to read the questions). By comparison, whenever does not specify a particular point in time. Instead, it conveys a sense of regularity or frequency. The subordinators while and during in (8b) and (c) are both used to express simultaneity (i.e., the situation expressed in the main clause and the situation expressed in the subordinate clause are concurrent or overlapping). Thus, (8b) means that the event of your mother’s call fell within the period that you were out of the house; (8c) means that my queasiness came upon me as the meal was unfolding. To return to Sunny’s tale, the next two adverbial clauses (those involving because and since) can be variously said to have a reason, purpose, or causal function. As these labels indicate, the background information provided by clauses such as these establishes the reason, purpose, or cause for the situation expressed in the main clause. Other adverbials that function in a comparable manner are given in (9). (9) Reason/Purpose/Cause Adverbial Clauses a. As she didn’t bother to study, Sunny failed the exam. b. Sophia stayed up all night so that she would be fully prepared. c. Jae Hee got up an hour earlier than normal in order to be ready on time. Note that some of the temporal clauses identified above additionally convey a causal sense. Thus, in both (10a) and (b), we naturally assume that, as well as establishing a temporal framework, the subordinate clause indicates the cause of the situation described in the main clause: (10) a. Her mood changed when she began to read the questions. b. After taking the exam, she was miserable.

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There is nothing surprising about this functional overlap since “two events which are mentioned together as being simultaneous or adjacent in time are often inferred to be causally related” (Thompson, Longacre, & Hwang, 2007, p. 247). The final two clauses in Sunny’s tale—those introduced by although and whereas—are examples of adverbials with what is sometimes called a concessive function. At the conceptual level, these can be especially tricky. Typically, in a construction of this sort, the situation expressed in the subordinate clause is such as to lead the hearer to doubt the main clause. And yet the speaker is actually asserting that the situation main clause holds good. As Berk expresses it, very often in a complex sentence containing this type of adverbial, “the proposition expressed by the matrix clause is surprising or unexpected in light of the proposition expressed by the subordinate clause” (1999, p. 284). This is perhaps clearest in relation to the first case above. Here, the idea that Sunny failed the exam would perhaps lead to an expectation that she failed the entire course; however, the main clause cancels this expectation, telling us that, in fact, she passed the course as a whole despite the fact that she failed the exam. There are plenty of other subtypes of adverbial clauses. Another commonly employed type is the manner adverbial. These are often introduced by the subordinators as though and like: (11) Manner Adverbial Clauses a. You sound as though you had a great time. b. It looks like it may rain. Interestingly, unlike many of the adverbial clauses I have looked at already, the clauses in (11) cannot be fronted: (12) a. *As though you had a great time you sound. b. *Like it may rain it looks. Mention should also be made of further clause types that have a broadly adverbial function. Among these are adverbials that provide some comment on the speaker’s attitude or stance toward the situation expressed in the main clause and adverbials that establish some perspective from which the main clause is viewed. Some examples of adverbials with a commenting function are given in (13).

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(13) Comment Adverbial Clauses a. As you are no doubt aware, Dr. Lee has left the program. b. Let me simply remark right now that I don’t agree with you. c. What is more surprising, he doesn’t seem to care. And here are some adverbials that function to establish a perspective: (14) Perspectival Adverbial Clauses a. As far as I am concerned, it’s better that he’s gone. b. The solution seems obvious when we view the matter objectively. I think it makes sense to treat all of these as adjuncts, albeit ones with the distinctive functions already indicated. I have already provided my reason for this. As I am using it, the term adjunct describes any element that is not grammatically required. As such, it contrasts with the term complement. Thus, if an element within a construction is optional, it is an adjunct. It must be admitted, however, that this is not how all linguists view the matter.

Participial Adverbial Clauses As the label suggests, participial adverbial clauses contain one of the participle forms, either the -ing participle or the -en participle. I have already discussed these forms in Chapter 10. There, however, I was concerned with their function as complements of verbs. Here, I want to look at their alternative adverbial function, in which they are adjuncts rather than complements. One way of approaching participial clauses is to consider them as reduced versions of more “normal” adverbial expressions. Note that in (15a), we have a full adverbial clause, introduced by a subordinator while, and containing an overt subject and a verb; in (15b), the adverbial subordinator remains, but the subject and the verb be have disappeared. (15) a. While he was reading the article, he began to formulate a possible response. b. While reading the article, he began to formulate a possible response. In both the sentences in (15), there is a clear relationship between the two subordinate clauses. Indeed, (15b) can be regarded as a reduced ver-

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sion of the clause found in (15a). This is not always the case. Consider the following: (16) After reading the article, he began to formulate a response. What is the intended meaning here? Be careful. You cannot simply insert a subject and verb into the subordinate clause as we might do in the previous example. If you try this, the result is something ungrammatical: (17) *After he was reading the article, he began to formulate a response. In fact, the intended meaning of (16) is conveyed by a rather different utterance: (18) After he had read the article, he began to formulate a response. Participial clauses also come in another form in which there is no subordinator, so that the adverbial clause begins with the -ing form: (19) Reading the article, he began to formulate a possible response. This has the same meaning as (15a) and, once more, may be regarded as a reduced version of that construction. Adverbials such as these, which lack a subordinator, go by various labels in the grammar literature. Cowan (2008) calls them free adjuncts, which is a useful way of thinking about them. As Cowan notes, another common label is supplementive clauses. Complex sentences containing clauses of the sort now under discussion are very common, and DUEs certainly need to be familiar with them. Very often, the subordinate clause is found in sentence-initial position. Here are some more examples: (20) a. Having received a nasty phone call, the professor couldn’t sleep. b. Having been asked to write the review, Tom read the book eagerly. c. Traveling so much, Phil qualified for an upgrade to business class.

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d. Saddened by the news of his untimely death, Gillian wrote to the professor’s family to express her condolences. e. Amused by the incident, Trish returned to her grading with fresh enthusiasm. In each of these examples, the italicized adverbial clause has an unexpressed subject that is understood to be co-referential with the subject of the main clause immediately following. It was the professor who received the phone call; it was Tom who was asked to review the book, and so on. Like the other types of adverbial clauses considered above, these clauses provide background information, preparing the hearer for the key information contained in the main clause. At the same time, the placing of the participial clause in front of the subject in this way is an indication that for the speaker, the clause is relatively important, serving to establish the reason for the situation that is described by the main clause. Where the subject of the participial clause is covert, it will always be understood as co-referential with the main subject in this way. If the two subjects are not co-referential, the participial subject must be expressed: (21) The professor being so bad, many students complained to the adminstration. Having briefly surveyed some of the functions of adverbial clauses that are found in English, in the next section, I turn to a more detailed discussion of one of the most problematic adverbial clauses, namely, the conditional adverbial clause.

Adverbials of Condition Modern English has several constructions in which the adverbial clause establishes the condition for situation expressed in the main clause: (22) a. If you don’t work harder, you won’t pass the course. b. You won’t pass the course unless you work harder. Although constructions of this sort are often treated separately, they are, in fact, best viewed as another type of adverbial expression. As such, they have the status of adjuncts. Once more, the easiest way to show this is

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by noting that the subordinate clauses can be omitted without loss of grammaticality: (23) a. If you don’t work harder, you won’t pass the course. b. You won’t pass the course unless you work harder. Of course, it must be acknowledged that in this case, the cancellation of the subordinate clause results in the loss of significant information. In consequence, the speaker’s intended message is drastically altered. In effect, what started out as a statement of a possibility (i.e., the hearer may not pass the course under certain circumstances) has become a declarative statement that he definitely will not pass. Nonetheless, the very fact that the sentence can be changed in this way and retain grammaticality points to the adverbial nature of the conditional clause. It is undoubtedly the case that the subordinator most commonly used in conditional constructions is if. Some calculations suggest that as many as 80% of conditional constructions contain if as a marker of the subordinate clause. Of course, there are other possibilities. We have seen this already in (22b), in which the subordinator employed is unless. Naturally, given their high frequency, teachers will want to spend much of their time focusing on conditionals with if. This state of affairs is reflected in the discussion that follows: I will focus on constructions in which if is employed, with just a few comments about some of the other subordinators found in conditionals. As I have indicated already, in conditional constructions, the situation identified in the subordinate clause is presented as a condition for the occurrence of another event that is expressed in the main clause. The subordinate clause is sometimes described as the antecedent or condition clause, and the main clause as the consequent or result clause. In terms of the order of the clauses, the majority of conditionals are formed with the antecedent if clause in sentence-initial position (i.e., the subordinate clause precedes the main clause). As with the other clauses we have been concerned with, a subordinate clause in sentence-initial position is conventionally separated from the main clause by a comma in written grammar. As always, the comma represents a prosodic feature in the spoken form of the construction: a pause and change in intonation. Again, as with adverbial clauses more generally, the alternative order in which the main clause precedes the subordinate clause is entirely possible:

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(24) We won’t be able to go to the Grand Park if it rains on Sunday. This alternative order is nonprototypical. Students should be taught that it is generally used only under certain conditions. One condition in which the if clause is likely to be found in sentence-final position is when it is long, elaborate, and “heavy.” You will recognize that this is another illustration of the principle of end-weight, which I have noted as a general feature of modern English. The following example nicely illustrates this: (25) (From Yule, 1998, p. 137) We have no other option if the government continues to prevent relief supplies from being transported to the large numbers of people seeking humanitarian aid. Here, the main clause (which, of course, carries the primary message) is relatively short and simple; by contrast, the subordinate if clause (which provides additional information concerning the main clause) is long and complex. In this case, then, the “natural” order is the one shown, with the if clause following the main clause. If the speaker used the prototypical order, with the if clause preceding the main clause, he would run the risk of obscuring his main point and perhaps confusing his hearers. The uses of conditional constructions are varied and, unfortunately, conceptually rather challenging. They can be especially problematic for DUEs. The conceptual range of conditionals is truly extensive. Among the possibilities covered by constructions of this sort are the following: ◾◾ reference to situations that are not occurring at the time of utterance, but which do occur regularly and predictably, have occurred in the past, or are likely to occur in the future ◾◾ reference to situations that are hypothetical (i.e., they have not occurred, although it is conceivable that they might) ◾◾ reference to counterfactual situations (i.e., they cannot occur, but the speaker is imagining what the outcome would be if they did occur)

The Main Types of Conditionals Conditionals come in several different forms, and one of the difficulties teachers face in discussing them is deciding how best to label these various

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forms. In many grammar texts, particularly those designed for use in EFL classrooms, the different types of conditionals are designated by numerals: zero, first, second, and third conditionals. While these labels are commonly used, they are less than satisfactory since they lack any descriptive content. For the most part, when discussing conditionals, linguists avoid numbering systems like this, preferring to use labels intended to convey—at least to some extent—the various semantic concepts underlying these clauses. While this is certainly preferable to using numbers as designations, there is no widespread agreement on the best labels to employ or, indeed, how many labels are required. The upshot is that teachers who turn to linguists for guidance on conditional constructions are faced with a bewildering array of proposals and schemes. To illustrate something of the problem, Teschner and Evans (2007, pp. 107ff) identify three basic subtypes of conditionals, which they label true (subdivided into eternally true, habitually true, and presumably true), hypothetical (more likely and less likely), and false. This neat little scheme contrasts with the rather more elaborate set of categories identified by some other linguists. Yule (1998, pp. 124ff), for instance, divides conditionals into two broad types: real and unreal, both of which are subdivided into two further types: Real conditionals are factual or predictive, and unreal conditionals are hypothetical or counterfactual. Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999, pp. 550ff) find three main types of conditionals: factual, future (or predictive), and imaginative. However, once more, various subtypes are proposed. Thus, factual conditionals can be timeless or time-bound (with the former subdividing into generic and habitual conditionals; the latter into implicit inference conditionals and explicit inference conditionals); future conditionals can express strong conditions or weak conditions; and imaginative conditionals can be hypothetical (present or future) or counterfactual (present or past). In what follows, I have drawn extensively on the discussions of conditional constructions found in the linguistics literature. At the same time, however, the explanations of the meanings and uses of the various conditionals are mine. Other authors might well disagree with my account. In trying to make sense of conditionals, I suggest that we begin by drawing a fundamental distinction between two broad types of conditionals: real conditionals and unreal conditionals. A real conditional is a conditional in which the subordinate clause states some situation that either is regularly fulfilled or which, in principle, could be fulfilled. An unreal conditional is a conditional in which the subordinate clause states a situation that either cannot be fulfilled for some reason or that is very unlikely to be fulfilled. This division, which is widely accepted, is shown in Table 12.1.

Adverbial, Participial, and Conditional Clauses    443 Table 12.1  Types of Conditionals Type Real Simple: Predictive: Unreal Hypothetical:

Use Situations that generally, habitually, typically follow when something else occurs Situations that are likely to follow if some other event happens first

Situations that would have followed if some other possible event had happened Counterfactual: Situations that would follow if some impossible event were to have occurred

I suggest that a scheme such as this makes considerable sense and can go a long way toward bringing order to this most complex of issues. On the other hand, it should be said that the above categories represent something of an idealization. As you will shortly see, once we start looking at actual examples, the lines between the different subtypes can become somewhat blurry.

Simple (Real) Conditional Constructions Perhaps the most frequently used type of conditional is what I am calling the simple real conditional. These are sometimes referred to as factual conditionals. Because they are such high frequency constructions, and because they are relatively straightforward syntactically and semantically, it makes good sense for teachers to introduce them first, leaving some of the other, more challenging conditional constructions for later. Good illustrations of this type of conditional are constructions that express scientific laws. Consider the following examples: (26) (From Celce-Murcia & Larson Freeman, 1999, p. 548) a. If oil is mixed with water, it floats. b. If you boil water, it vaporizes. Scientific truths of the sort illustrated in (26) are examples of Teschner and Evans’ eternally true subtype of conditional. Here is one of their examples: (27) (From Teschner & Evans, 2007, p. 107) If the moon blocks the sun’s rays, an eclipse occurs.

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Conditional constructions of this sort characteristically contain present tense verbs in both clauses. This is a reflection of their “unchanging truth value” (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 548). Once more, what we are dealing with here is a pattern, and care should be taken that this association of tense and type of conditional is not turned into some sort of grammatical rule. Students need to understand that it is entirely possible for a simple real conditional to employ past tense verb forms. It is also worth remarking that not all simple real conditionals express scientific truths. Consider the somewhat different example of this type of conditional given in (28): (28) If she’s a foreigner living in Seoul, she probably teaches English. It hardly needs to be said that we are no longer dealing with an unchanging truth in a case such as this! Nonetheless, (28) purports to express a factual claim involving an actual situation and so counts as a simple real conditional. (Whether or not the claim is valid is irrelevant). I take it that this is an example of what Teschner and Evans would regard as a presumably true conditional. For Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, it would count as one type of inferential conditional. In actuality, not all foreigners living in Seoul work as English teachers. But enough do to make the presumption or inference reasonable, at least based on the speaker’s experience. As I have already said, although there is a tendency for real conditionals to involve present tense verbs, this is not a grammatical requirement. In this particular case, past tense verbs seem to work perfectly well: (29) If she was a foreigner living in Seoul, she probably taught English. Another simple real conditional, this time expressing what Teschner and Evans call a habitually true situation, is given in (30). (30) If I go to see my grandmother, I always take a present. These, too, may contain past tense verbs: (31) If I went to see my grandmother, I always took a present.

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Predicative (Real) Conditionals The second subtype of real conditional construction is the predictive (or future) conditional. These correspond to the first conditional familiar to many EFL teachers. Conditionals of this sort “express future plans or contingencies” (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 550). Treating these as a variety of real conditional is potentially confusing since, by definition, future events have not yet occurred and so, in one sense, are not “real.” However, predictive conditionals present the situation in the main clause as a genuine future possibility that is dependent on the prior occurrence of the situation expressed in the antecedent clause. In simple terms, the situation regularly does occur or can be confidently expected to occur. Consider the following: (32) (From Celce-Murcia & Larson Freeman, 1999, p. 550) a. If you finish your vegetables, I’m going to buy you an ice cream cone. b. If Steve comes to class, he will get the answers to the quiz. It is often possible to replace if with when in a predicative conditional, although there is a difference in how the construction is likely to be interpreted. Consider the examples given in (33). In (33a), with if, the speaker is uncommitted with regard to any future trip; the possibility, we might say, is left open. On the other hand, in (33b), which uses when, the speaker has effectively committed himself to the idea that such a trip is going to take place: (33) a. If we visit England again, I’ll take you to the Lake District. b. When we visit England again, I’ll take you to the Lake District. Predictive conditionals have various characteristics that can make them problematic for DUEs. One of these is the use of the periphrastic subordinator only if. This has the effect of intensifying or strengthening the condition expressed in the subordinate clause. Informally, we might say that when the subordinate clause involves only if, it carries the sense of “only in the following circumstances”: (34) a. I’m going to buy you an ice cream cone only if you finish your vegetables. b. Steve will get the answers to the quiz only if he comes to class.

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The meaning of (34a) is that the ice cream will not be purchased unless the vegetables get eaten up. Likewise, in (34b), the speaker means that Steve will not get the answers unless he attends the class. Examples such as these suggest that where the periphrastic subordinator is used, there is a preference for the main clause to precede the subordinate clause. This seems to be the case. At the very least, the alternative arrangement requires a change to the normal word order. Notice that when the subordinate clause is in initial position, subject inversion becomes necessary; thus, both (35a) and (36a) are plainly ungrammatical. But note, too, that even with inversion, some speakers might find this order of clauses unacceptable: (35) a. *Only if you finish your vegetables I am going to buy you an ice cream cone. b. ?Only if you finish your vegetables am I going to buy you an ice cream cone. (36) a. *Only if he comes to class Steve will get the answers to the quiz. b. ?Only if he comes to class will Steve get the answers to the quiz. Predicative conditionals deal with future situations. Clearly, the possibility of some future situation occurring can be strong or weak (or, of course, somewhere in between). This necessitates that the main clause in a predicative conditional contain either a modal auxiliary or a semi-modal expression. Because of the predicative, future-oriented nature of this type of conditional, the modal auxiliary most often employed is will, and the semi-modal is very often be going to. But several other possibilities work equally well. This is illustrated for modal auxiliaries in (37). Notice that the degree of certainty is signaled through the speaker’s choice of an appropriate modal auxiliary. Think of the modal as qualifying the degree of commitment the speaker is prepared to make:



(37) a. If I start grading now, I will finish by the weekend. b. If I start grading now, I should finish by the weekend. c. If I start grading now, I may finish by the weekend. d. If I start grading now, I might finish by the weekend.

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Sometimes the subordinate clause of a predictive conditional is “qualified” in a somewhat comparable manner. We see this in the following example: (38) a. If it rains tomorrow, we won’t go to the park. b. If it should rain tomorrow, we may not go to the park. Sentence (38a) is what we might think of as a conventional predictive conditional. On the other hand, many EUEs might feel that (38b), with its use of should, is subtly different, suggesting that the speaker regards the possibility of rain as less likely. I turn now to the unreal conditionals, or what Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman call imaginative conditionals.

Hypothetical (Unreal) Conditionals The first subtype of unreal conditional corresponds to the so-called second conditional found in many EFL textbooks. Linguists will often refer to these as hypothetical conditionals. Teschner and Evans characterize conditionals of this sort in the following manner: “In hypothetical conditional sentences, the if-clause expresses events or states that may happen or might possibly happen, while the result clause tells what will occur just so long as the if-clause’s contingency comes true” (2007, p. 107). Understandably, DUEs sometimes have difficulty distinguishing between predictive conditionals and hypothetical conditionals. Simply put, a predictive conditional describes a real future situation that is expected to happen or that the speaker regards as a genuine possibility. A hypothetical conditional, on the other hand, presents the situation in the main clause as an imagined result that would follow from some possible (but unlikely) event expressed in the subordinate clause. It follows, not surprisingly, that hypothetical conditionals are regularly employed to express wishes and desires, or to speculate about imagined future situations. Consider (39), which expresses a situation that I’m sure all students could agree with. (39) If we didn’t have to take exams, we could enjoy this program a lot more.

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An utterance such as (39) would most naturally be spoken in circumstances where the students do, in fact, have to take exams. The speaker is here imagining what it would be like if this were not the case. The difference between predictive and hypothetical conditionals is reflected in the tenses they employ. In the former, present tense verbs are employed. (Remember: Predictive conditionals deal with real future situations or situations that are deemed probable.) In the latter, the verbs are marked as past. This raises a potentially confusing issue that teachers need to address. DUEs may be troubled by the fact that the verb in the subordinate clause of a hypothetical conditional is marked as past even though the situation is an imagined one—it has not actually happened. Look again at sentence (39), with its past tense: if we didn’t. . . . In light of my earlier discussion of tense in Chapter 7, this makes perfect sense. The past tense here conveys remoteness from possibility, effectively signaling the unlikelihood of the situation described (that is, not having to take exams) ever arising. Here is another example: (40) If I found a credit card in the street, I would take it to the nearest police station. It should be clear that in (40), the speaker is not referring to an actual lost credit card that she really did find, but to an imaginary one. In other words, the speaker is indicating what she would do if she were ever faced with a situation of this sort. Once more, the hypothetical nature of the conditional is signaled by the use of past form found in the subordinate clause, and the modal would (recall that this, too, historically was a past form) in the main clause. This is the reason why hypothetical conditionals—with their verbs marked as past—are regularly employed when the speaker wishes to indicate his willingness, or desire, or wish to do something even though he is not able to actually do it. Look at the following example: (41) If I didn’t have to write this report, I would be hiking in the mountains right now. Again, what the past tense is doing here is underscoring the fact that the situation expressed in the subordinate clause is hypothetical or imagined (i.e., remote from possibility). In actuality, the speaker does have to write the report, and therefore he cannot go hiking.

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It is possible to omit if from the subordinate clause in conditionals of this type. However, omitting the subordinator triggers a further, highly significant change. Compare (42a) with its counterpart in (42b). (42) a. If I had begun to write this paper earlier, I would have finished it by now. b. Had I begun to write this paper earlier, I would have finished it by now. As (42b) illustrates, where if is omitted, subject–verb inversion occurs. It is important that DUEs understand that this change in word order is obligatory. Thus, (43) is ungrammatical. (43) *I had begun to write this paper earlier, I would have finished it by now. It is also possible to intensify or strengthen the condition expressed in the subordinate clause of a hypothetical conditional through the use of the periphrastic subordinator if only (not to be confused with only if, which is employed with predictive conditionals): (44) a. If only I’d started my term paper earlier, I wouldn’t have to spend my Sunday evening writing it. b. If only the professor had made the exam easier, I would have gotten a better grade! One very interesting feature of hypothetical conditionals that make use of this periphrastic subordinator is that the main clause can be omitted. This is especially common in speech. Under these circumstances, the hearer is expected to understand the implied consequence (which is invariably negative) from the context: (45) a. If only I’d started my term paper earlier! b. If only the professor had made the exam easier! Notice that the main clause can only be omitted in this way when the subordinator is the periphrastic form. When the subordinator is simply if,

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rather than if only, the omission of the main clause is not possible. This is made clear in the following examples, both of which are ungrammatical: (46) a. *If I’d started my term paper earlier. b. *If the professor had made the exam easier.

Counterfactual (Unreal) Conditionals The second subtype of unreal, or imaginative, conditional is the counterfactual conditional. In EFL circles, these are often described (rather unhelpfully, it has to be said) as third conditionals. Counterfactuals are the most complex of all conditional constructions, both syntactically and semantically. They are undoubtedly the type that proves most troublesome for DUEs. In a counterfactual conditional, the situation in the main clause is presented as an imagined result that would follow from some event, expressed in the subordinate clause, which is known (or believed by the speaker) to be impossible (i.e., contrary to fact). Teschner and Evans (2007) refer to these, more simply, as false conditionals. They provide the following example: (47) (From Teschner & Evans, 2007, p. 108) “If I had four legs, I could canter like a horse,” said the boy. This is a counterfactual for the very good reason that boys do not have four legs and therefore cannot canter like horses. Notice that, like the other type of unreal conditional, the hypothetical, the verb forms employed in counterfactual conditionals are marked as past, thereby signaling remoteness from possibility. An especially noteworthy pattern is the use of the past perfect with counterfactuals. Look at the following: (48) If my grandfather had lived to see this, he would have been thrilled, but he died last year. It should be noted that distinguishing between a hypothetical and a counterfactual conditional is not always straightforward. Consider the following example:

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(49) (From Thompson, Longacre, & Hwang, 2007, p. 256) If you had been at the concert, you would have seen Ravi Shankar. Some DUEs may be unsure about an example such as this, wondering how to categorize it. They may want to treat this as a hypothetical rather than a counterfactual conditional on the grounds that, although the concert is now in the past, it was not impossible for the addressee to have attended, even though in fact she did not. However, (49) really is a case of a counterfactual conditional since now, at the moment of speaking, the concert is finished and so it is too late for the addressee to go. Given the potential for confusion, it is essential that teachers select their illustrations of counterfactuals with care. The key, I suggest, is to choose examples in which the condition expressed in the subordinate clause represents some obviously impossible situation. This is what makes the examples given in (47) and (48) such good illustrations of counterfactuals.

Some Other Types of Conditional I commented earlier that conditional constructions with an if clause are by far the most common type of conditional, possibly accounting for as many as 80% of conditionals overall. While these may be regarded as prototypical, English grammar does have several other conditional constructions that need to be discussed. Among these other conditional constructions, one of the most common is often referred to as the concessive conditional. Conditionals of this sort involve the use of a periphrastic conditional subordinator, either even though or even if. Here is an example: (50) Even if I wasn’t paid to teach linguistics, I would still study language. As with the concessive adverbial expression I noted earlier in this chapter, in (50) the situation described in the subordinate clause (not being paid to teach) gives rise to an expectation that is subsequently explicitly canceled in the main clause. Here are two more examples of the same type of concessive conditional: (51) a. The professor won’t change your grade even though you beg him. b. I would stay by your side even if the stars were falling.

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While both even though and even if convey what we can think of as a broadly concessive relationship, they are far from being synonymous. Students need to understand that there is, in fact, a significant semantic difference between them. This difference is nicely brought out in the following pair of sentences: (52) (From Quirk et al., 1985, p. 1099) a. Even though you dislike ancient monuments, Warwick Castle is worth a visit. b. Even if you dislike ancient monuments, Warwick Castle is worth a visit. The use of even though in (52a) presupposes that the person being addressed really does dislike ancient monuments. The speaker knows this but is suggesting that Warwick Castle is sufficiently impressive to override this state of affairs. Again, then, we see the way in which the main clause “cancels” the expectation set up by the preceding if clause. Turning to (52b), the use of even if carries no such presupposition; the addressee may like them or she may not. The speaker does not know for sure. It is also important that DUEs do not confuse the use of even if with only if, which I noted earlier in looking at predictive conditionals. Obviously, these two forms are rather similar, so there is a real possibility of misunderstanding here. Actually, they are used to convey very different messages. Before reading any further, you might like to think about this difference yourself. To help you, I repeat one of our earlier even if examples in (53a), contrasting it with a conditional with only if in (53b). (53) a. I would stay by your side even if the stars were falling. b. I would stay by your side only if the stars were falling. As it stands, (53a) is a wonderfully romantic thing to say; but what happens if you replace even with only? I think you’ll agree that the message in (53b) is significantly different! Another conditional construction with which DUEs should be familiar makes use of unless rather than if. In broad terms, unless has the sense of “except under the following circumstances.” An important syntactic feature of conditionals with unless is that they tend to be employed most often when the main clause contains the negative particle not. For this reason, they are sometimes called negative conditionals. Look at the following:

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(54) You can’t go to the party, unless you are home by 11:00. The meaning here is that you can only go to the party if you agree to be home by the stipulated time. Again, you might like to think about how a conditional with unless differs from one with even if. For example, think about the difference between sentence (55a) and one of our earlier examples, which I repeat as (55b). (55) a. The professor won’t change your grade, unless you beg him! b. The professor won’t change your grade, even if you beg him! These two sentences convey very different messages. The difference is this: In (55a), with unless as the subordinator, the speaker is saying that under certain conditions, the professor will change your grade. Of course, those conditions would involve getting on your knees, pleading earnestly, and behaving in a generally undignified manner. Nonetheless, the message is that if you do these things, your grade will be changed. Sentence (55b), on the other hand, with even if, tells you that there are no conditions under which the professor will change your grade; it simply is not going to happen, no matter how hard you beseech him, so don’t even try! Modern English has a range of other adverbial subordinators which, although less frequently employed, can be used to convey conditional situations. Among the more common ones are as long as, provided that, supposing that, on condition that, and given that. Each of these expressions serves the same purpose as if in the more familiar type of conditional construction, namely, introducing the subordinate clause in which the condition itself is expressed. Indeed, in each of the following examples, if could take the place of the subordinator actually used: (56) a. You can invite your friends as long as they promise to behave. b. I’ll cancel tomorrow’s class provided that we complete all our work today. c. Supposing that she studies hard, she should be successful. d. I will let you borrow my car on condition that you promise to drive carefully. e. Given that only three students have bothered to prepare, I’m going to cancel the class.

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In the Classroom: Conditional Clauses Conditional clauses must rank as one of the most challenging types of constructions with which learners of English have to contend. The reasons conditionals present such difficulties are, perhaps, reducible to two main issues. First, there is the range of constructions that come under this heading. The reality is that there is not one conditional construction but a whole series of partially overlapping clause types that share a broadly similar conditional sense. While there is a range of clauses that can be considered conditional, it will help to make matters manageable if teachers limit initial discussions to clauses in which the subordinate clause is introduced by if. Variations on this basic conditional “marker” (even if, if only, only if) and other forms that also appear in conditional constructions (when, unless) can be presented later. The second major problem is the conceptual difficulty that conditionality itself presents. What I earlier called the “conceptual range” displayed by conditionals is indeed extensive. It is for this reason, I have suggested, that teachers may need to rethink the terminology they employ in discussing these various constructions. Rather than following the customary labels (i.e., zero, first, second, third conditional), which are strikingly uninformative, it makes sound pedagogic sense to use labels that help to convey—or, at the very least, point learners toward—the semantic concepts underlying these clauses. Thus, in line with several other linguists, I have suggested that a fundamental distinction may be drawn between real conditionals (i.e., conditionals in which the subordinate clause states some situation that either is regularly fulfilled or that, in principle, could be fulfilled), and unreal conditionals (i.e., conditionals in which the subordinate clause states a situation that either cannot be fulfilled for some reason or that is very unlikely to be fulfilled). On the basis of this distinction, it would then be possible to devote time to the various different subtypes, simple and predictive on the one hand, and hypothetical and counterfactual on the other. The reason that such terminology is to be preferred is that it places the emphasis firmly on the semantics of the clauses being discussed. This is as it should be. Too often, it seems, teachers are content to approach conditionals at the syntactic level, teaching students to associate particular verb tenses with particular types of clause. This is a mistake. In fact, what DUEs need to understand is that the choice of tense is really a reflection of the semantics. This last point becomes especially clear in the case of counterfactual conditionals, which employ past tense verbs precisely in order to convey the idea that the situation being is described is remote from possibility. Notice that the value of looking at things in this way is that it provides learners with a reason for the use of past tense verbs in counterfactuals, rather than presenting this simply as a syntactic “fact” to be learned.

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Conditional Clauses in Discourse Conditional clauses display certain interesting discourse features and perform distinctive functions in terms of information structure (the way speakers and writers organize discourses). Despite this, in my experience, the topic of the discourse functions of conditionals is not one that receives a lot of attention in classrooms. This is probably a mistake since encountering constructions of this sort in “real” contexts often enables DUEs to make better sense of them. If nothing else, looking at their discourse functions should help your students to realize that conditionals have not been invented simply in order to give them headaches but do indeed have important grammatical work to do! In this section, then, I want to touch briefly upon some of the more common discourse uses of conditional constructions. One very common function that conditionals have is that of restating information that has already been mentioned or suggested. When a conditional is used in this way, the given information appears in the subordinate clause, with the main clause providing some comment on this in the form of a consequence. The following authentic example, quoted by Yule from a text on research design, illustrates this very clearly: (57) (From Yule, 1998, p. 132–133) You have specified the topic in terms of syntactic elements because you are fascinated by relative clauses. You want to know more about how they are acquired. If you are fascinated by relative clauses, you probably have already read a good deal about them. If not, now is the time to start. There are actually two conditional constructions in this example. In the first case, the if clause (if you are fascinated by relative clauses) repeats the statement already given in the earlier sentence, while the main clause provides a consequence that would naturally follow from this (you probably have already read a good deal about them.) In the second case, note the use of an elliptical, or truncated, form of if clause (if not). I have commented previously that speakers will happily make use of ellipsis whenever they can, and there is no doubt that this sort of reduced conditional is very common in real discourse. Obviously, reduced if clauses like this are heavily contextdependent, meaning that they have to be understood in the context of the immediately preceding discussion. Thus, here, the clause means if you have not already read a good deal about relative clauses. Here are some more examples:

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(58) a. You may find the first question rather easy. If so, go directly to question two. (Meaning: If you find the first question rather easy . . . .) b. You can use your own examples. However if you do, make sure they make sense! (Meaning: If you use your own examples . . . .) c. You may be confused about which courses to take. If you are, speak to your student advisor. (Meaning: If you are confused . . . .) Another discourse function for conditionals is that of proposing or listing alternative options. Again, I borrow an example from Yule. The following type of recorded message is likely to be familiar to many readers: (59) (From Yule, 1998, p. 135) Premier Bank instant access. If you have a balance inquiry, enter request code 1. If you have an automatic bill payment inquiry, enter 2. If you have a money mover inquiry, enter 3. Here, there are three conditional constructions, each following exactly the same syntactic pattern and performing the same work. In each case, the if clause indicates a possible situation by listing a particular inquiry that the caller may have, and the main clause indicates the appropriate action she should take. Often overlapping with the listing function just noted is a third discourse function in which conditionals are employed as a means of providing examples. Thus, if you were in the process of applying for a position within a university, you might be faced with something like the following: (60) You must specify the position for which you wish to be considered at the top of the form. For example, if you are applying for the professor’s position, check the box marked PP/2010; if you are applying for the assistant professor’s position, check AP/2010; if you are applying for the instructor’s position, check IP/2010. Here is another illustration of this function, once more from Yule. In this case, the writer uses an if clause to introduce an analogy that serves to exemplify the point made in the previous sentence: (61) (From Yule, 1998, p. 135) Learners have a strong tendency to hear the sounds of English in terms of the sounds of their native language. If you’ve never seen a lime

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before, you may think it is an unripe lemon because that is the nearest equivalent of the fruits you are familiar with. A rather different discourse effect served by conditionals is as markers of politeness. EUEs will often preface a request for help with an if clause, as in the following (ultra-polite) conversational exchange: (62) A: If you have time, could I talk to you? B: If you don’t mind, I must finish this first. A: Sure. But then I’d like to ask you a question, if I may. Cowan (2008) suggests that these are not really conditionals at all. Certainly, there is something a little different about them. In (62), speaker A seems to be indicating that he will speak only if the other person has time. But B’s response does not signal the “normal” conditional relationship between the two clauses. Presumably, the work must be finished whether or not A minds. Structures of this sort are perhaps best presented as a special type of conditional used to convey extreme politeness. Let me end this discussion of conditionals—and, indeed, the book as a whole—with a joke. This particular joke delighted me as a child (and, I confess, it still amuses me today!). It contains two conditional sentences:



(63) Husband: If you hadn’t taken so long to get ready, we wouldn’t have missed that train. Wife: And if you hadn’t made me hurry up, we wouldn’t have so long to wait for the next one! Who says grammar can’t be fun?

Further Reading Very good accounts of many of the issues dealt with above will be found in Quirk et al. (1985, pp. 1068–1117) and Huddleston and Pullam (2002, Ch. 8). Very useful discussions of conditionals are Celce-Murcia and LarsenFreeman (1999, Ch. 27) and Yule (1998, Ch. 5). For a survey of adverbial clauses in world languages, see Thompson, Longacre, and Hwang (2007).

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Endnotes

Introduction 1. Brief definitions of all highlighted terms appear in the glossary at the end of the book. 2. It is all the more interesting, therefore, that studies have suggested that very young native speakers already have procedural knowledge of this issue, even though they are obviously incapable of such analysis. Writing from within the formalist tradition, Crain and Thornton (1998) report an experiment conducted with children as young as 2 years 11 months. In this study the children consistently behaved like adults in their judgments of grammaticality, suggesting that for this particular aspect of English they had already attained adult competence. 3. I should note that this is not how many grammarians see their task. Even Huddleston and Pullam state that “the study of the relations between sentences within a larger text or discourse falls outside the domain of grammar” (Huddleston & Pullam, 2002, p. 44). It should be clear from the above that I disagree.

Chapter 1 1. Old English also had a dative case for indirect objects, but in Modern English, pronouns functioning as indirect objects (and as objects of prepositions) bear accusative case: Hyun Jin gave him a CD; Hyun Jin gave a CD to him. 2. The account I present here owes something to that proposed by Huddleston and Pullam (2002, pp. 427ff). However, my approach is not identical to theirs. For one thing, I have included the indefinite forms that Huddleston and Pullam do not include among their basic pronoun types. Conversely, they inLinguistic Perspectives on English Grammar, pages 459–463 Copyright © 2010 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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460    Linguistic Perspectives on English Grammar clude a set of “temporal” pronouns (i.e., yesterday, today, tonight, tomorrow). I do not treat these as pronouns at all. 3. Among formalist linguists, anaphora is part of Binding Theory and they will talk about the anaphor being “bound by” its antecedent.

Chapter 2 1. Rip off = pay too much money, hang out = spend some time together, chew out = reprimand, egg on = to encourage someone to do something irresponsible.

Chapter 4 1. In fact, the figure of four may not be correct either! Linguists have drawn attention to the recent emergence of this as a type of indefinite article, particularly in informal spoken contexts, e.g., This stranger walked up to me in the street the other day and said. . . . Yule notes that, when used as an article, this highlights “a particular entity as the main focus of attention” (1998, p. 43). In other words, when it is used as an article, this refers to something that is about to become prominent in the discourse. As Berk puts it, it is used when “the speaker intends to continue speaking about the referent of the NP at some length” (1999, pp. 62–63). However, it is not clear to what extent the article this is part of Standard English. 2. Words attributed to Jesus (Matthew 26:11; New International Version).

Chapter 5 1. Sometimes the label temporal is used for expressions such as nine thirty and on Friday, as in The class began at nine thirty and On Friday, they fly to Denver, although this does not really represent a distinct semantic role. 2. I am ignoring other possible ways of responding such as “Yes”, “Sure,” et cetera. In effect, these are also elliptical utterances with an implicit subject, which, were they to be expanded, would become explicit. 3. In my discussion above, I have ignored specialized writing genres where subjects are conventionally omitted. There are a number of these. A good example in English is what we might call the “diary style” (e.g., “Woke late this morning. Had terrible headache. Drank too much wine last night.”). Others would include recipes (e.g., “Now boil the potatoes.”), notes left for someone (e.g., “Minyoung called. Wants you to call her.”), text messages (e.g., “C U later”) and of course, emails (e.g., “Files attached as requested.”). 4. There is another type of construction in which, while not strictly non-referential, it again has the job of subject placeholder. Look at the example below:

It is possible that he will arrive early.

Here, the pronoun does have reference, being co-referential with the clause that comes later in the utterance. However, it is also the case that the pronoun is here in order to fill the subject position.

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Chapter 6 1. In linguistics, terminology proliferates alarmingly. Some linguists prefer to talk in terms of the valency of verbs. What I am calling a two-participant verb, with one obligatory object, has a valency of two and might be said to be bivalent. The terms two-participant, monotransitive, and bivalent refer to the same basic idea. For an excellent discussion of valency, try Payne (2010), Ch. 12. 2. Brinton herself appears to regard (79b) above as a transitive clause, although I am not clear why.

Chapter 7 1. Preterite here can be read as meaning “past tense.” 2. In fact, matters are more complicated than this remark suggests because certain verbs are inherently aspectual. For example, in an utterance such as It began to rain, the verb begin is inherently aspectual. Technically, it conveys what is sometimes called inception, that is, that some situation (the rain, in this case) has just started. Obviously, a verb such as finish, as in I’ve finished my homework, is also inherently aspectual. In the following discussion, I am going to disregard lexical aspect, focusing instead on the manner in which English marks grammatical aspect. 3. Dixon maintains that this is a distinct tense. I disagree. See my brief remarks on this in the text above. 4. It has been suggested to me that there are situations in which an EUE might produce something like (67). For example, after receiving a poor grade in a test a student might say I’m thinking linguistics is difficult right about now. But of course the use of “right now” here is an indicator that the thought is unfolding at the moment of speaking. Thus, it is not obviously different to my example (66). Something similar would apply to the following little exchange:

A: What are you thinking? B: I’m thinking you should mind your own business!

5. Once more, it has been suggested to me that something like (70) is possible. Consider the following:

A: How’s school going? B: Physics is hopeless, but I’m understanding statistics better.

B’s response underscores the point I have made in the text: we would most naturally take B to mean that her understanding of statistics has recently improved. Recall here my observations in the introduction that context often plays a major role in our judgments of grammaticality. And this is certainly true in the little dialogue we are now considering. However, viewed in isolation as it is in the text, (70) is ungrammatical.

Chapter 8 1. They add, however, that “the concept of modality also extends to cases where it is not a matter of subjective attitude on the part of the speaker . . . but of some-

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2.

3. 4. 5.

6.

thing more objective. If x is a prime number between 90 and 100 it must be 97, for example, is likely to be interpreted as expressing not the speaker’s subjective attitude to the truth of “x is 97” but objective, mathematical necessity” (p. 173). Leech (2003, p. 234), referring to a “trend toward monosemy,” points out that, with many of the modals, there has been a noticeable shift toward one meaning becoming dominant over the others. His entire discussion is worth reading since it uses corpus data to reveal the changes this set of verbs has undergone in recent years. One finding that emerges from Leech’s discussion is that, for written American English, all the modal auxiliaries have declined in use, albeit at different rates. In written British English, there has been a similar decline, except for the cases of can and could, which (surprisingly, perhaps) have apparently increased in use. Gotti (2003) provides a detailed and particularly interesting discussion of this trend. My entire discussion here is indebted to that of Bourdin. You will no doubt be aware that many EUEs readily produce expressions such as I ain’t tired. Common though this is as an informal colloquialism, it is not a standard form. Much of my discussion of the semantics of not follows that of Dixon.

Chapter 9 1. As Cowan (2008) notes, other tags are also employed in contemporary English. For example: We were supposed to meet outside the theater, remember? You’re supposed to be here at eight o’clock, you know? You hold it like this, see? You know what I’m talking about, right? These are interesting cases, in that the verb in the tag is different from the verb in the main clause. Cowan also refers to British English tag innit (p. 69), but fails to mention that this is a nonstandard form, used only in certain dialects. 2. Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999) regard questions of this type as “uninverted wh-questions” (p. 250).

Chapter 10 1. The fact that and can precede nor is, according to Quirk et al. (1985), evidence that the latter is not a central coordinator. 2. Huddleston and Pullam (2002) argue strongly against the interpretation of that clauses as objects. (For details of their argument, see pp. 1017–1022). Interesting as their discussion is, I am ignoring it here and following a more standard line. 3. This is a simplification. In reality, the issue is highly complicated and requires fuller treatment than I have provided here. For a more detailed discussion, try Brinton (2000, pp. 253ff).

Chapter 11 1. An exception to this is the headless relative clause, which I will discuss below.

Endnotes    463 2. I have borrowed the terms integrated and supplementary from Huddleston and Pullam (2002), who employ them as a means of categorizing relative clauses into two broad types. 3. Huddleston and Pullam (2002) include additional forms in this group, including while, whence, and various compounds involving where + a preposition: whereby, wherein, whereupon.

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Glossary

Adjunct Any linguistic element that is not grammatically required, even though it may supply important information. Attributive adjectives are adjuncts; so too are adverbs. See complement. Adposition A general label covering the prepositions typical of SVO languages and their functional equivalents in SOV languages, postpositions. Agent A semantic role; someone or something that performs a volitional or deliberate action, e.g., the vicious dog in the vicious dog bit the unfortunate man. See semantic role. Anaphora A syntactic relation in which one element (typically a pronoun), called the anaphor, refers back to another previously mentioned element, called the antecedent. In the following, the anaphor is the pronoun he and the antecedent is the NP the professor: The professor hasn’t arrived yet, but he will be here soon. Attributive adjective An adjective in prenominal position, attributing (and thereby modifying) the noun that follows, e.g., The happy student. See modifier, predicative adjective.

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Benefactive A semantic role; a participant that benefits from some action, e.g., his mother in Jay wrote the letter for his mother. See semantic role. Case marking A grammatical strategy that employs various morphological markers (typically suffixes) attached to nouns to signal grammatical functions. Many SOV languages employ case marking. Causer A semantic role; an entity that acts upon or affects another without volition or intention, e.g., the storm in the storm damaged the village. See semantic role. Cleft construction A type of focus construction. Cleft constructions are generally subdivided into it clefts (e.g., It was a stone that Eunice threw) and wh- clefts (e.g., What Eunice threw was a stone). See focus construction. Closed class One of the two major groupings of syntactic categories. The closed class includes auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns, conjunctions, etc. The class is “closed” in the sense that membership is restricted. See open class. Cognate object An object appearing in an intransitive clause and derived from the verb, e.g., dream in She dreamt a lovely dream. Complement A linguistic element that is grammatically required. A complement may be a single word, a phrase, or a clause. For example, the adjective in She is happy is a complement; so, too, the that clause in She said that she was happy. See adjunct. Complementizer A word that introduces a complement clause. Commonly used complementizers in English include that and various wh- forms such as what, which, how, etc. Also known as a subordinator. Complex-intransitive clause A clause in which the verb is followed by a predicative complement rather than an object, e.g., She is happy. See extended intransitive clause, simple intransitive clause.

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Complex transitive clause A clause in which the object is followed by a object complement, e.g., Jeremy found the professor frustrating. See extended transitive clause, simple transitive clause. Complex negator A compound negative expression in which the particle not acts as a modifier of some additional element, often an adverb, e.g., not all, not always, not even, not every, not just, not many, not often, not once, not only. Coordination The linking of two or more linguistic elements using a connective word-form such as and, or, or but, e.g., Insook was feeling ill and she left the party early. Copula complement A type of grammatical function. A word or phrase that immediately follows a copula verb and is required for grammaticality. For example, the adjective in She is happy. See complement, copula verb, grammatical function. Copula verb A verb that links the subject with its predicate. Sometimes called a linking verb. The most commonly used copula in modern English is the primary verb be. However, there are many others, e.g., seem, become, fall, etc. See copula complement. Co-referential A syntactic relation in which two items refer to one another, e.g., the pronoun and the subject noun in John helped himself. Correlative coordinators A complex coordinating expression such as both . . . and, either . . . or, neither . . . nor. Declarative A subtype of utterance, used to convey facts or states of affairs. Declarative knowledge Declarative knowledge is conscious knowledge “about” the language. It involves being able to explain the so-called rules of grammar, pronunciation, etc. See procedural knowledge.

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Deixis A syntactic relation in which the interpretation of certain words or phrases depends upon the context in which the utterance is made. The 1st- and 2nd-person pronouns are deictic forms in this sense. E.g, if Kara and Tory are in conversation and Kara says I, she is referring to herself, while you refers to Tory. When Tory uses the same terms, their reference is reversed. Deontic modality A type of modality relating to action or behavior. Often, deontic modality involves an obligation imposed on others, or the granting of permission to act in a certain manner. The modal auxiliary in Students should submit their term papers on time has a deontic sense. Derivational suffix A suffix used to create a new word belonging to another word class (e.g., the adjective beautiful is derived from the noun beauty by the addition of the suffix -ful). More technically known as a derivational morpheme. Descriptive approach A descriptive approach to language outlines, illustrates, and explains the linguistic principles that govern the grammar of a language without recommending or condemning particular usages. Today, all contemporary linguists adopt such an approach. See prescriptive approach. Distribution A term used by linguists to refer to the linguistic environments in which an element typically appears, e.g., the distribution of English adjectives is typically in front of a noun or following a copula verb. Do-insertion A syntactic operation in which auxiliary do is inserted into an utterance for grammaticality. All clauses containing lexical verbs require do-insertion for negation, question-formation, and tag-formation. Sometimes called “dosupport.” Elliptical utterance A type of utterance in which linguistic elements deemed to be redundant or readily understood from the context are omitted. E.g., B’s response of “Downstairs” to A’s question, “Where are you?” Utterances of this sort are highly characteristic of spoken language.

Glossary    469

Embedded clause A clause contained within another clause. In the following sentence, the clause that he was going to cancel the next class is an embedded clause since it is contained within another clause: The professor told the students that he was going to cancel the next class. See matrix clause. End-weight The tendency in English for longer, more complex, “heavier” phrases and clauses to be placed later in an utterance. Epistemic modality A type of modality involving the expression of the speaker’s knowledge or belief concerning some situation. In Listen! It must be raining, the modal auxiliary has an epistemic sense. Equi deletion A phenomenon commonly found in complex constructions in which the NP that stands as the overt subject of the matrix clause is understood to be co-referential with the covert (unexpressed) the subject of the infinitive clause, e.g., She hopes to impress the interviewing panel. Experiencer A semantic role; an animate being that has some sensory, emotional, or psychological experience, e.g., the professor in the professor felt annoyed. See semantic role. Extended intransitive clause A clause in which the verb is followed by additional linguistic elements but not an object, e.g., He died in the year 1632. See complex intransitive clause, simple intransitive clause. Extended transitive clause A clause in which the verb is followed by two objects, e.g., She gave her boyfriend an MP3 player. Also known as a ditransitive clause. See complex-transitive clause, simple transitive clause. Extraposing The movement of a long, “heavy” element to a position later in a construction, e.g., the placement of the that clause in the following: It was immediately obvious to everyone that the new professor was not very competent and would not greatly strengthen the program. Also known as postposing or heavy shifting.

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Focus construction A general term for various types of non-prototypical constructions in which an element is given greater prominence by being moved from its expected position. See cleft construction, fronting, left-dislocation, locative inversion, passive construction. Fronting A syntactic operation involving the foregrounding of some element by placing it sentence-initially so that it gains greater prominence, e.g., Onions I love; I can’t stand garlic! Gradability A feature of certain adjectives. A gradable adjective identifies a property that can be possessed to varying degrees. Gradable adjectives often form a series, e.g., cold, cool, warm, hot. Grammatical function A label used by linguists to refer to the work done by a word or phrase within a clause. In The large dog chased the ginger cat, the NP the large dog has a subject function and the NP the ginger cat has an object function. See subject, object, object complement. Headless relative A relative clause that lacks an antecedent NP, e.g., the clause introduced by when in I remember when we went to Kyoto and it rained for three days. Imperative A subtype of utterance, used to express a command, give instructions. etc. English imperatives do not have overt subjects. See declarative, interrogative. Inflectional suffix A suffix used to mark grammatical relationships such as plural, past tense, possession, etc. More technically known as an inflectional morpheme. Information structure A broad label used by linguists to refer to the way speakers arrange their speech. For example, there is a tendency for speakers to place new information after information that has already been introduced or established. Instrument A semantic role; an inanimate entity used to fulfill some task, e.g., the saw in the saw easily cut the wood. See semantic role.

Glossary    471

Interrogative A subtype of utterance, used to ask a question. See declarative, imperative. Intonation unit A relatively short, fluent stretch of spoken language used to convey a particular piece of information. Landmark A label given to the participant that provides the background for some other participant, e.g., the TV in The flowers are in front of the TV. See trajector. Left-dislocation A type of focus construction in which an element is moved from its expected position in a prototypical construction to a position at the beginning of an utterance with a pronoun that is co-referential with the fronted item in its original position. For example, Miyoung, she was the student who received first prize. Locative A semantic role; the place at which or in which some action occurs, e.g., the classroom in students filled the classroom. See semantic role. Locative inversion A type of focus construction in which an adverbial with a locative sense is placed sentence-initially, e.g., In the distance towered a spectacular mountain. Main clause The “primary” clause within a complex sentence, containing the principal verb. For example, the clause The professor couldn’t sleep in the sentence The professor couldn’t sleep after receiving the nasty phone call is the main clause. Also called the superordinate clause. See subordinate clause. Marked form A term typically used in contrast with unmarked form. The marked form is the form less commonly used. For example, when enquiring about someone’s height, it would be odd to say How short is he? rather than How tall is he? since (in this context) short is a marked form. See unmarked form. Matrix clause A clause that contains another clause. In the following sentence, the main clause the professor told the students is a matrix clause: The professor told the students that he was going to cancel the next class. See embedded clause.

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Modifier A word or phrase which in some way “qualifies” some other element. For example, in The happy student smiled sweetly, the adjective modifies the noun and the adverb modifies the verb. Multi-word verb (MWV) A verbal expression which, while made up of more than one word, functions syntactically and semantically as a single unit. Noncompositional A feature of many MWVs in which the meaning of the entire verb is impossible to predict simply by examining its component parts, e.g., egg on. Nonrestrictive relative clause One of the two main types of relative clause. A nonrestrictive clause provides additional information about the head noun. Also called a non-defining relative clause. See restrictive relative clause. Object A type of grammatical function. In terms of syntax, the object is the NP immediately following the verb in a transitive clause. In terms of semantics, a prototypical object is the participant that is affected by or undergoes changes as a result of the action described by the verb. See grammatical function. Object complement A type of grammatical function. A key component of a complex transitive clause, following the object and identifying or describing some property of the object. For example, the adjective in Jeremy found the professor frustrating. See complement, complex transitive clause, grammatical function. Open class One of the two major groupings of syntactic categories. The open class consists of nouns, lexical verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The class is “open” in the sense that membership is unrestricted; new members can easily join. See closed class. Participants A thing, person, or place that is inherently or essentially involved in the situation described, e.g., Eunice and the stone in Eunice threw the stone.

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Particle A general label employed by linguists to cover a variety of word-forms. Typically, particles are small function words, e.g., the negative particle not. Some linguists refer to the small word following the verb in an MWV as a particle. See phrasal verb, prepositional verb, phrasal-prepositional verb. Passive construction The most frequently used focus construction in modern English. In a passive, what would be the affected object of the equivalent active construction is foregrounded by appearing in subject position, e.g., The ginger cat was chased by the large dog. Patient A semantic role; someone or something that undergoes or is affected by some action, e.g., the unfortunate man in The vicious dog bit the unfortunate man. See semantic role. Phrasal verb A type of MWV in which the particle is a spatial adverb, e.g., call up. See particle, prepositional verb, phrasal-prepositional verb. Phrasal-prepositional verb A type of MWV in which the particle (itself a spatial adverb) is followed by a preposition, e.g., look forward to. See particle, prepositional verb, phrasal verb. Polysemy A term used for words, phrases, or clauses that have more than one meaning. Many MWVs are polysemous, e.g., come across. Predicate Within a sentence, all elements that do not comprise part of the subject. Predicative adjective An adjective that appears in the predicate, generally as a complement of the verb, e.g., The student was happy. See attributive adjective, predicate. Prepositional verb A type of MWV in which the particle is a preposition, e.g., call on. See particle, phrasal verb, phrasal-prepositional verb.

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Prescriptive approach A prescriptive approach to language is one that treats one particular variety of language as inherently superior to others and condemns usages that do not conform to the supposedly “superior” variety. Today, contemporary linguists reject this view. See descriptive approach. Procedural knowledge Procedural knowledge is non-conscious knowledge that guides and directs our daily use of language. It is the knowledge we draw upon in real-time when we are using the language to communicate with one another. See declarative knowledge. Prototypical In linguistics, the term prototypical has the sense of “central member” of a group, or “typical example.” A prototypical noun has the semantic features of time-stability and concreteness. A prototypical sentence in English has an SVO word order. Real conditional One of the two major types of adverbial of condition. A real conditional is a conditional in which the subordinate clause states some situation that either is regularly fulfilled or which, in principle, could be fulfilled, e.g., If you heat water to 100 celsius, it boils. See unreal conditional. Recipient A semantic role; a participant who receives something, e.g., her boyfriend in She gave her boyfriend a CD. See semantic role. Recursion A feature of English adjectives when used attributively, meaning that several adjectives can be “stacked” inside one NP, each modifying the noun, e.g., The tall, handsome, rich man. See attributive adjective, modifier. Relative proform A general label used for a word functioning to introduce a relative clause, e.g., that, who, whose, etc. Relative proforms may be subdivided into relative pronouns and relative adverbs. Restrictive relative clause One of the two main types of relative clause. A restrictive clause restricts the reference of the head noun. Also called a defining relative clause. See nonrestrictive relative clause.

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Semantic role A way of describing how a participant is involved in a situation. In The large dog chased the ginger cat, the NP the large dog has an agent role and the NP the ginger cat has a patient role. Semantically anomalous A phrase or clause is “semantically anomalous” if it is syntactically correct yet unacceptable due to reasons of meaning, e.g., Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Sentential relative A relative clause that modifies a unit larger than an NP, often an entire sentence, e.g., the clause introduced by which in The students are tired, which is not surprising after all these exams. Simple intransitive clause A clause in which there is no linguistic element following the verb (i.e., the predicate consists of a verb and nothing else), e.g., She was working. See complex intransitive clause, extended intransitive clause. Simple transitive clause A clause in which the verb is followed by an object, e.g., She loves ice cream. See complex transitive clause, extended transitive clause. Situation A general term used by linguists to refer to activities, punctual events, states, and the like. It is intended to be neutral between all of these. Subject The most basic grammatical function in English. In a declarative utterance, the subject is usually the NP in immediately pre-verbal position. See grammatical function. Subject-auxiliary inversion The movement of an auxiliary verb to a position in front of the subject in a question, e.g., Can she speak five languages? Also known as auxiliary fronting. Subject dominant language A language which insists on an overt grammatical subject in the clause. English is a subject dominant language. The term subject prominent is also used.

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Subordinate clause The “secondary” clause within a complex sentence, providing additional background information that helps to frame the situation described in the “primary” clause, e.g., the clause after receiving the nasty phone call in The professor couldn’t sleep after receiving the nasty phone call. See main clause. Suppletion A feature of some English adjectives in which their comparative and superlative forms are phonologically and morphologically unrelated to the base form. For example, the comparative and superlative forms of good are better and best. Syntactic category A linguistic label for what are traditionally known as parts of speech, i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. Also known as lexical categories or word classes. See closed class, open class. Theme A semantic role; an entity that is either simply present in a situation or one that undergoes some action but is not changed in any way, e.g., the file in The file lay on the desk. See semantic role. Trajector A label given to the main or central element in a situation, e.g., the flowers in The flowers are in front of the TV. See landmark. Unmarked form A term typically used in contrast with marked form. The unmarked form is the form more commonly used. For example, when enquiring about someone’s height we will generally say How tall is he? rather than How short is he? See marked form. Unreal conditional One of the two major types of adverbial of condition. An unreal conditional is a conditional in which the subordinate clause states a situation that either cannot be fulfilled for some reason or that is very unlikely to be fulfilled, e.g., If we didn’t have to take exams, we could enjoy this program a lot more. See real conditional.

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