Exercises

1. Besides distinguishing grammatical from ungrammatical sentences, the

rules of syntax account for other kinds of linguistic knowledge, such as
a. when a sentence is structurally ambiguous. (Cf. The boy saw the man
with a telescope.)
b. when two sentences with different structures mean the same thing. (Cf.
The father wept silently and The father silently wept.)
c. systematic relationships of form and meaning between two sentences,
like declarative sentences and their corresponding interrogative form.
(Cf. The boy can sleep and Can the boy sleep?)
Draw on your linguistic knowledge of English to come up with an example
illustrating each of these cases. (Use examples that are different from the
ones in the chapter.) Explain why your example illustrates the point. If you
know a language other than English, provide examples in that language, if
possible.
2. Consider the following sentences:
a. I hate war.
b. You know that I hate war.
c. He knows that you know that I hate war.
A. Write another sentence that includes sentence (c).
B. What does this set of sentences reveal about the nature of language?
C. How is this characteristic of human language related to the dif-
ference between linguistic competence and performance? (Hint:
Review these concepts in chapter 6.)
3. Paraphrase each of the following sentences in two ways to show that you
understand the ambiguity involved:
Example: Smoking grass can be nauseating.
i. Putting grass in a pipe and smoking it can make you sick.
ii. Fumes from smoldering grass can make you sick.
a. Dick finally decided on the boat. Dick ultimately chose the boat as
his decision.
b. The professor’s appointment was shocking. The professor's schedule
was surprising.
c. The design has big squares and circles. The design includes large
squares and circles.
d. That sheepdog is too hairy to eat. The sheepdog cant eat cuz its too
hairy
e. Could this be the invisible man’s hair tonic?  this is the hair tonic but its
invisible
f. The governor is a dirty street fighter.
The governor engages in unsavory
street fighting.
g. I cannot recommend him too highly.
I cannot emphasize enough how
much I recommend him.
h. Terry loves his wife and so do I.
 Terry loves his wife, and I love her too./
Terry loves his wife and I love my wife too.
i. They said she would go yesterday. According to them, she was
supposed to leave yesterday.
j. No smoking section available. There is no designated area for smoking.
4. A. Consider the following baseball joke (knowledge of baseball required):
Catcher to pitcher: “Watch out for this guy, he’s a great fastball
hitter.”
Pitcher to catcher: “No problem. There’s no way I’ve got a great
fastball.”
 Exercises 131

Explain the humor either by paraphrasing, or even better, with a tree

structure like the one we used early in the chapter for old men and
women without the syntactic categories.
B. Do the same for the advertising executive’s (honest?) claim that the new
magazine “has between one and two billion readers.”
5. Draw two phrase structure trees representing the two meanings of the sen-
tence “The magician touched the child with the wand.” Be sure you indi-
cate which meaning goes with which tree.
6. Draw the subtrees for the italicized NPs in the following sentences:
a. Every child’s mother hopes he will be happy.
b. The big dog’s bone is buried in the garden.
c. Angry men in dark glasses roamed the streets.
d. My aunt and uncle’s trip to Alaska was wonderful.
e. Challenge exercises: Whose dirty underwear is this?
f. The boy’s dog’s bone is in the pantry. (Hint: Use the rules
NP → Det N', Det → NP poss, NP → N'.)
7. In all languages, sentences can occur within sentences. For example, in
exercise 2, sentence (b) contains sentence (a), and sentence (c) contains sen-
tence (b). Put another way, sentence (a) is embedded in sentence (b), and
sentence (b) is embedded in sentence (c). Sometimes embedded sentences
appear slightly changed from their normal form, but you should be able to
recognize and underline the embedded sentences in the following examples.
Underline in the non-English sentences, when given, not in the translations
(the first one is done as an example):
a. Yesterday I noticed my accountant repairing the toilet.
b. Becky said that Jake would play the piano.
c. I deplore the fact that bats have wings.
d. That Guinevere loves Lorian is known to all my friends.
e. Who promised the teacher that Maxine wouldn’t be absent?
f. It’s ridiculous that he washes his own Rolls-Royce.
g. The woman likes for the waiter to bring water when she sits down. when she sits
down, she likes for the waiter to bring water.
h. The person who answers this question will win $100.
i. The idea of Romeo marrying a 13-year-old is upsetting.
j. I gave my hat to the nurse who helped me cut my hair.
k. For your children to spend all your royalty payments on recreational
drugs is a shame.
l. Give this fork to the person I’m getting the pie for.
m. khǎw chyâ waǎ khruu maa. (Thai)
He believe that teacher come
He believes that the teacher is coming.
n. Je me demande quand il partira. (French)
I me ask when he will leave
I wonder when he’ll leave.
o. Jan zei dat Piet dit boek niet heeft gelezen. (Dutch)
Jan said that Piet this book not has read
Jan said that Piet has not read this book.
132 CHAPTER 2 Syntax: The Sentence Patterns of Language

8. Following the patterns of the various tree examples in the text, draw
phrase structure trees for the following sentences. (Hint: You may omit the
N' level whenever N' dominates a single N, so that, for example, the puppy
has the structure

NP
2
Det N

a. The puppy found the child.

b. A frightened passenger landed the crippled airliner.
c. The house on the hill collapsed in the wind.
d. The ice melted.
e. The hot sun melted the ice.
f. A fast car with twin cams sped by the children on the grassy lane.
g. The old tree swayed in the wind.
h. Challenge exercise: The children put the toy in the box.
i. The reporter realized that the senator lied.
j. Broken ice melts in the sun.
k. My guitar gently weeps.
l. A stranger cleverly observed that a dangerous spy from the CIA lurks in
the alley by the old tenement. (Hint: See footnote 1, page 113.)
9. Use the rules on page 110 to create five phrase structure trees of 6, 7, 8,
9, and 10 words. Use your mental lexicon to fill in the bottom of the tree.

10. We stated that the rules of syntax specify all and only the grammatical sen-
tences of the language. Why is it important to say “only”? What would be
wrong with a grammar that specified as grammatical sentences all of the
truly grammatical ones plus a few that were not grammatical?

11. In this chapter we introduced X-bar theory, according to which each phrase
has three levels of structure.
a. Draw the subtree corresponding to each phrasal category, NP, AdjP, VP,
PP, as it would look according to X-bar notation.
b. Challenge exercise: What would the structure of CP be according to
X-bar notation?
c. Further challenge: Give a sample phrase structure for each tree that
fully exploits its entire structure—e.g., the father of the bride for the
NP.
12. Using one or more of the constituency tests (i.e., stand alone, move as a
unit, replacement by a pronoun) discussed in the chapter, determine which
of the boldfaced portions in the sentences are constituents. Provide the
grammatical category of the constituents.
a. Martha found a lovely pillow for the couch.
b. The light in this room is terrible.
c. I wonder if Bonnie has finished packing her books.
 Exercises 133

d. Melissa slept in her class.

e. Pete and Max are fighting over the bone.
f. I gave a bone to Pete and to Max yesterday.
g. I gave a bone to Pete and to Max yesterday.
13. The two sentences below contain a verbal particle:
i. He ran up the bill.
ii. He ran the bill up.
The verbal particle up and the verb run depend on each other for the
unique idiosyncratic meaning of the phrasal verb run up. (Running up a
bill involves neither running nor the location up.) We showed earlier that
in such cases the particle and object do not form a constituent, hence they
cannot move as a unit:
iii. *Up the bill, John ran (compare this to Up the hill John ran).
a. Using adverbs such as completely, show that the particle forms a con-
stituent with the verb in [run up] the bill, while in run [up the hill], the
preposition and NP object form a constituent.
b. Now consider the following data:
i. Michael ran up the hill and over the bridge.
ii. *Michael ran up the bill and off his mouth.
iii. Michael ran up the bill and ran off his mouth.
Use the data to argue that expressions like up the bill and off his mouth
are not constituents.
14. In terms of c-selection restrictions, explain why the following are
ungrammatical:
a. *The man located.
b. *Jesus wept the apostles.
c. *Robert is hopeful of his children.
d. *Robert is fond that his children love animals.
e. *The children laughed the man.
15. In the chapter, we looked at transitive verbs that select a single NP direct
object like chase. English also has ditransitive verbs, ones that may be fol-
lowed by two NPs, such as give:
The emperor gave the vassal a castle.
Think of three other ditransitive verbs in English and give example
sentences.
16. For each verb, list the different types of complements it selects and provide
an example of each type:
a. want
b. force
c. try
d. believe
e. say
134 CHAPTER 2 Syntax: The Sentence Patterns of Language

17. Tamil is a language spoken in India by upward of 70 million people. Oth-

ers, but not you, may find that they talk “funny,” as illustrated by word-
for-word translations of PPs from Tamil to English:
a. Tamil to English Meaning
the bed on “on the bed”
the village from “from the village”
i. Based on these data, is Tamil a head initial or a head final
language?
ii. What would the phrase structure rule for PP look like in Tamil?
b. Here are two more word-for-word glosses:
she is a poet that think “think that she is a poet”
the cobra is deadly that know “know that the cobra is deadly”
i. Do these further data support or detract from your analysis in
part (a)?
ii. What would the pertinent VP and CP rules look like in Tamil,
based on these data?
c. Give a word-for-word translation from Tamil of airplane on the run-
way and suppose that cobras spit.
d. Challenge exercise: Same as (c) for: believe that she sits by the well.

18. All wh phrases can move to the left periphery of the sentence.
a. Invent three sentences beginning with what, which, and where, in
which the wh word is not in its d-structure position in the sentence.
Give both the s-structure and d-structure versions of your sentence.
For example, using when: When could Marcy catch a flight out of
here? from Marcy could catch a flight out of here when?
b. Draw the phrase structure tree for one of these sentences using the
phrase structure and movement rules provided in the chapter.
c. Challenge exercise: How could you reformulate the movement rules
used to derive a wh question such as What has Mary done with her life?
using an X-bar CP structure (see question 11)?

19. There are many systematic, structure-dependent relationships among sen-

tences similar to the one discussed in the chapter between declarative and
interrogative sentences. Here is another example based on ditransitive verbs
(see exercise 15):
The boy wrote the senator a letter.
The boy wrote a letter to the senator.
A philanthropist gave the animal rights movement $1 million.
A philanthropist gave $1 million to the animal rights movement.
a. Describe the relationship between the first and second members of the
pairs of sentences.
b. State why a transformation deriving one of these structures from the
other is plausible.
 Exercises 135

20. State at least three differences between English and the following lan-
guages, using just the sentence(s) given. Ignore lexical differences (i.e., the
different vocabulary). Here is an example:
Thai: dèg khon níi kamlang kin.
boy classifier this progressive eat
“This boy is eating.”
mǎa tua nán kin khâaw.
dog classifier that eat rice
“That dog ate rice.”
Three differences are (1) Thai has “classifiers.” They have no English
equivalent. (2) The words (determiners, actually) “this” and “that” follow
the noun in Thai, but precede the noun in English. (3) The “progressive” is
expressed by a separate word in Thai. The verb does not change form. In
English, the progressive is indicated by the presence of the verb to be and
the adding of -ing to the verb.
a. French
cet homme intelligent comprendra la question.
this man intelligent will understand the question
“This intelligent man will understand the question.”
ces hommes intelligents comprendront les questions.
these men intelligent will understand the questions
“These intelligent men will understand the questions.”
b. Japanese
watashi ga sakana o tabete iru.
I subject fish object eat (ing) am
marker marker
“I am eating fish.”
c. Swahili
mtoto alivunja kikombe.
m- toto a- li- vunja ki- kombe
class child he past break class cup
marker marker
“The child broke the cup.”
watoto wanavunja vikombe.
wa- toto wa- na- vunja vi- kombe
class child they present break class cup
marker marker
“The children break the cups.”
d. Korean
kɨ sonyɔn-iee wɨyu-lɨl masi-ass-ta.
kɨ sonyɔn- iee wɨyu- lɨl masi- ass- ta
the boy subject milk object drink past assertion
marker marker
“The boy drank milk.”
136 CHAPTER 2 Syntax: The Sentence Patterns of Language

kɨ-nɨn muɔs-ɨl mɔk-ass-nɨnya.

kɨ nɨn muɔs- ɨl mɔk- ass- nɨnya
he subject what object eat past question
marker marker
“What did he eat?”
e. Tagalog
nakita ni Pedro-ng puno na ang bus.
nakita ni Pedro -ng puno na ang bus.
saw article Pedro that full already topic bus
marker
“Pedro saw that the bus was already full.”
21. Transformations may delete elements. For example, the s-structure of the
ambiguous sentence “George wants the presidency more than Martha”
may be derived from two possible d-structures:
a. George wants the presidency more than he wants Martha.
b. George wants the presidency more than Martha wants the presidency.
A deletion transformation either deletes he wants from the structure of
example (a), or wants the presidency from the structure of example (b).
This is a case of transformationally induced ambiguity: two different
d-structures with different semantic interpretations are transformed into a
single s-structure.

Explain the role of a deletion transformation similar to the ones just dis-
cussed in the following humorous dialogue between “two old married
folks.”
he: Do you still love me as much as you used to?
she: As much as I used to what?
22. Challenge exercise: Compare the following French and English sentences:

French English
Jean boit toujours du vin. John always drinks some wine.
Jean drinks always some wine *John drinks always some wine
(*Jean toujours boit du vin)
Marie lit jamais le journal. Mary never reads the newspaper.
Marie reads never the newspaper *Mary reads never the newspaper.
(*Marie jamais lit le journal)
Pierre lave souvent ses chiens. Peter often washes his dogs.
Pierre washes often his dogs *Peter washes often his dogs.
(*Pierre souvent lave ses chiens.)
a. Based on the above data, what would you hypothesize concerning the
position of adverbs in French and English?
b. Now suppose that UG specifies that in all languages adverbs of fre-
quency (e.g., always, never, often, sometimes) immediately precede the
VP, as in the following tree. What rule would you need to hypothesize
to derive the correct surface word order for French? (Hint: Adverbs are
not allowed to move.)
 Exercises 137

S
2
NP VP
@ 2
John Aux VP
Jean g 2
pres. Adv VP
galways 2
toujours Vg @
NP
drinks wine
boit du vin

c. Do any verbs in English follow the same pattern as the French verbs?
23. a. Give the tree corresponding to the underlined portion of the sentence
The hole should have been being filled by the workcrew.
b. Give the tree corresponding to the VP cursed the day I was born
the day I was born.
Which must come first, the AdvP or the NP? (You needn’t worry about
the internal structure of the AdvP or NP.)
24. Show that an embedded CP is a constituent by applying the constituency
tests (stand alone, move as a unit, and replace with a pronoun). Consider
the following sentences in formulating your answer, and provide further
examples if you can. (The boldfaced words are the CP.)
Sam asked if he could play soccer.
I wonder whether Michael walked the dog.
Cher believes that the students know the answer.
It is a problem that Sam broke his arm.
25. Challenge exercise:
a. Give the d-structure tree for Which dog does Michael think loves
bones? (Hint: The complementizer that must be present.)
b. Give the d-structure tree for What does Michael think that his dog
loves?
c. Consider these data:
i. *Which dog does Michael think that loves bones?
ii. What does Michael think his dog loves?
In (ii) a complementizer deletion rule has deleted that. The rule is
optional because the sentence is grammatical with or without that.
In (i), however, the complementizer must be deleted to prevent the
ungrammatical sentence from being generated. What factor governs the
optionality of the rule?
138 CHAPTER 2 Syntax: The Sentence Patterns of Language

26. Dutch and German are Germanic languages related to English, and as in English wh
questions are formed by moving a wh phrase to sentence initial position.
a. In what way are the rules of question formation in Dutch and German different
from English? Base your answer on the following data:

German Dutch
i. Was hat Karl gekauft? Wat heeft Wim gekocht?
what has Karl bought what has Wim bought
“What has Karl bought?” “What has Wim bought?”
ii. Was kauft Karl? Wat koopt Wim?
What buys Karl what buys Wim
“What does Karl buy?” “What does Wim buy?”
iii. Kauft Karl das Buch? Koopt Wim het boek?
buys Karl the book buys Wim the book
“Does Karl buy the book?” “Does Wim buy the book?”
b. Challenge exercise: Consider the following declarative sentences in
Dutch and German:
iv. Karl kaufte das Buch. Wim kocht het boek.
Karl bought the book Wim bought the book
“Karl bought the book.” “Wim bought the book.”
v. Das Buch kaufte Karl. Het boek kocht Wim.
The book bought Karl the book bought Wim
“Karl bought the book.” “Wim bought the book.”
vi. Das Buch kaufte Karl gestern.
the book bought Karl yesterday
“Karl bought the book yesterday.”
Het boek kocht Wim gisteren.
the book bought Wim yesterday
“Wim bought the book yesterday.”
vii. Gestern kaufte Karl das Buch
Yesterday bought Karl the book
“Yesterday Karl bought the book.”
Gisteren kocht Wim het boek.
yesterday bought Wim the book
“Yesterday Wim bought the book.”
What rules derive the different word order in declarative sentences?
(Hint: There are two rules, one involving movement of the verb, and the other
movement of an XP.)
c. Are either of the rules in (b) familiar from the German/Dutch questions in (i)–(iii)?