Throughout the semester, we have learned about and analyzed several different languages including Indonesian, Japanese, and Turkish. In this final we will finally be analyzing Indo-European languages in French and German. We will breakdown these two languages using the skills we’ve learned over the course of the semester and analyze them using our knowledge of the rewrite rule system.
First, we will propose a phrase structure for French:
S NP VP
NP {DN}
{Pn}
VP (AUX)V{(NP)}
{(PP)}
PP P NP
As we can see, a sentence must contain an NP and a VP in French. French, like English, is not a pro-drop language, which means that a subject must be present. In that case, an NP must contain either a determiner and a noun (French has masculine and feminine determiners that must always accompany a noun) or a pronoun. VPs must have a verb, and may contain auxiliaries and either an NP or a PP (based on the current data).
The auxiliary avoir is conjugated to agree with the subject. We see this sort of subject-verb agreement in the passive sentences (11 & 12):
(11) Beaucoup de steaks ont été mangés par les gosses.
‘Many (of) steaks have[3pl] been eaten by the kids.’
(12) Beaucoup d’uniformes ont été fournies aux troupes.
‘Many (of) uniforms have[3pl] been furnished to-the troops.’
To derive these sentences, we must create a passive transformation rule for French. We know that the subject must be moved into the direct object position, and the direct object into the subject position. Also, the (aux) être participle été must be inserted after the correctly conjugated avoir to indicate the passive tense. We can relate this to the indication that BE2 gives in English. Lastly, the new direct object must be headed by a par PP. If the original subject in the deep structure cannot be seen (like we see in (12)), we will use á instead.
French Passive Xn: Take an S with a V that requires an NP sister and insert été right after the conjugated avoir, move the phrase in direct object position (first sister to V) into subject position, move the original subject NP into a par-PP at the end of the VP, unless the original subject NP is unspecified, in which case we should use an á-PP.
We will now derive sentences (8 & 11) in order to demonstrate the new rule and the French subject-verb agreement.
(8) Quelqu’un a mangé.
‘Someone has[3sg] eaten.’
(11) Beaucoup de steaks ont été mangés par les gosses.
‘Many (of) steaks have[3pl] been eaten by the kids.’
In the next data set, we can see how French impersonal sentences are created. We will need to make another transformation rule to account for these new sentences. As we can see from the two sentences below, impersonal sentences in French require an indefinite determiner:
(13) Il passe un train.
‘There passes[3sg] a train.’
(14) *Il passe le train.
(‘There passes[3sg] the train.’)
Another thing to note is that impersonals can only have one NP as a sister to the V, as we can see in the sentence below:
(19) *Il mange ce gateau quelqu’un.
(‘There eats[3sg] this cake someone.’)
The NP sister to the V in the impersonal begins in subject position in the deep structure. To form the impersonal, the NP subject in the deep structure is moved to the immediate right of the V. This ends up leaving the subject position empty. In this data set, we see the word Il at the start of every sentence. This is the word that we’ll need to insert into the subject position. This form of the word Il is not the same as the Il pronoun ‘he,’ but a form that we will denote as Il1 (like there1 in English). Our impersonal transformation:
French Impersonal Xn: Take an S with an NP in subject position, move the NP subject immediately after the rightmost verbal element, and insert Il1 into subject position.
This transformation is almost identical to our there-insertion rule in English, excluding the verbal subcategorization for there-insertion that is not present in the French impersonal construction. Both lexically insignificant placeholders (Il1 and there1) seem to signify a sort of impersonal tone to a sentence, and, even though impersonal construction is not present in the English language, there-insertion seems to be the most similar construction to that of the French impersonal.
Finally, to fully and clearly illustrate this rule, I will derive the two sentences below:
(18) Il mange beaucoup de linguistes dans ce restaurant.
‘There eats[3sg] many linguists in this restaurant.’
(23) Il a été mangé beaucoup de steaks par les gosses.
‘There has[3sg] been eaten many steaks by the children.’
Subject-verb agreement is applied after the impersonal transformation (like in 17), and will always be in third person singular in the impersonal because of the addition of Il1. Additionally, we must order the passive-Xn before the impersonal-Xn. If an impersonal-Xn is not needed, subject-verb agreement will take place after the passive-Xn.
(32) Il a été fourni beaucoup d’uniformes aux troupes.
‘There has[3sg] been furnished many (of) uniforms to-the troupes.’
Now that we have observed and analyzed French passives, we can move onto German passives:
(1) Wir wissen, dass Regen die Hälfte der Ernte zerstört.
‘We know that rain destroys (the) half of-the harvest.’
(2) Wir wissen, dass die Hälfte der Ernte von Regen zerstört wird.
‘We know that (the) half of-the harvest is destroyed by rain.’
(3) Ich glaube, dass die Professoren das Buch gelesen haben müssen.
‘I believe that the professors must have read the book.’
(4) Ich glaube, dass das Buch von den Professoren gelesen worden sein muss.
‘I believe that the book must have been read by the professors.’
(5) Es ist schade, dass die Kinder einen Affen nach Hause gebracht haben.
‘It is a shame that the children have brought a monkey home.’
(6) Es ist schade, dass ein Affe von den Kindern nach Hause gebracht worden ist.
‘It is a shame that a monkey has been brought home by the children.’
Sentences 1,3, & 5 are active, while 2,4, & 6 are all passives. First, we will need to discuss verb placement in these sentences. The verbs zerstört, gelesen, and gebracht are all main verbs. Next we have haben and worden, and sein which are auxiliaries. Finally, we have the modal müssen the blue is the modal müssen. To convert an active sentence into a passive sentence in German, we need to move the subject NP after the direct object NP and insert the word von between the subject and object NPs. It’s worth noting that the some of the verb forms must change (as we can see in the sentences above). The main verb in the sentence remains the same (as in zerstört), but sein is inserted into the sentence after the rightmost auxiliary. Additionally, Haben is replaced by worden. Finally, müssen is replaced by muss. According to these data, sein dictates tense in a sentence. Furthermore, the pacification of a sentence dictates the kind of determiner that will be used. We can now make our passive transformation rule:
German Passive Xn: Take an S with at least one NP in subject or direct object position, insert von right before the subject NP, and move the NP in direct object position (first daughter of the VP) into subject position. Insert sein after the rightmost auxiliary verb and apply form rules to each auxiliary and modal present.
We will now derive a few sentences (9-12):
(9) Wurde der Affe von den Kindern nach Hause gebracht?
‘Was the monkey brought home by the children?’
(10) Die Affen sind von den Kindern nach Hause gebracht worden.
‘The monkeys have been brought home by the children.’
(11) Von den Kindern müssen die Affen nach Hause gebracht worden sein.
‘The monkeys must have been brought home by the children. / By the children, the monkeys must have been brought home.’
(12) Dass Affen von Kindern nach Hause gebracht worden, wird von allen Müttern beklagt.
‘That monkeys are brought home by children is deplored by all mothers.’
We will now discuss subject raising and equi-deletion in English and derive the following sentence:
(1) The monkey is eager to peel the banana.
Notice that in (1) we must change the control (using equi-deletion) and in (2) we must raise the subject to get the surface structure. We now need to analyze the differences between be eager and be likely. The first thing we must note is that be eager can only have active parts in its subject, while be likely can have passive parts. We can see some examples in the following sentences:
(7) *There is eager to be a flaw in the theory.
(8) There is likely to be a flaw in the theory.
(9) *A lot of headway is eager to be made on the problem.
(10) A lot of headway is likely to be made on the problem.
Also, it should be noted that be likely can be headed by a CP phrase, while be eager cannot. A non-finite CP phrase (-ing or root form of verbs) follow both be likely and be eager, but finite CPs (that or wh-word) can only follow be likely. We can notice some of these differences in the following sentences:
(11) The doctor is eager to examine Louise.
Louise is eager to be examined by the doctor.
(12) The doctor is likely to examine Louise.
Louise is likely to be examined by the doctor.
The phrase be eager follows the same steps for subject raising as be likely, but also needs a few steps before. To demonstrate a few more differences and similarities between the two phrases and their respective processes, we will derive sentence (2) as well:
(2) The monkey is likely to peel the banana.
After discussing object/subject raising, we can now move onto the final derivations. These last few sentences will demonstrate some of the rewrite-rules we have learned in class:
(1) There weren’t likely to be unicorns in the garden.
(2) Harvey seems to want to try to improve himself.
(3) Harvey promised us to improve himself.
(4) Harvey persuaded the unicorns to cheer him up