NP Movement

1
NP Movement

• Passives, Raising When NPs are not in their
  theta positions.

2
Locality restriction on theta roles

• Leave
• agent
• i
• Adrian left
• Jo left her pencil
• it left (where it is an expletive)
• Must be in same clause
• I want Bradleyi that left
• Johni thinks that left

3
Locality Condition on Theta Roles

• Theta roles must be assigned within the clause
  same clause as the predicate that assigns them.

4
A Problem

• Johni is likely to leave.
• John is the subject of is likely.
• Is it theta marked by is likely????
• NO! (cf. it is like that John left)
• It is theta marked by leave!!!
• But it isnt in the same clause! Yikes!

5
is likely

• That John will leavej is likely
• It is likely that John will leavej
• Proposition
• j
• it is likely CP that john will leave

6
In the wrong place!

• John is likely to leave
• John is theta marked by leave, but appears in the
  subject position of is likely, in violation of
  the locality constraint.
• The NP John is displaced from its theta
  position.

7
CP
C
John gets its theta role in the specifier of the
lower TP, but moves to the specifier of the
higher TP.
C TP
Ø
T
T AP
is
A
A CP
likely
C
This is called Raising
C TP
Ø
T
John
to VP
leave
8
WHY???

• Well one thing we can observe, is the EPP holds.
  (the requirement that every sentence have a
  subject). The NP John moves to satisfy this
  requirement.
• This doesnt account for examples like
• John is likely that left.

9
Case Theory

• Case is a licenser. In order for the sentence to
  be grammatical, an NP must get case
• Nominative case is assigned in the specifier of
  finite TP (note FINITE)
• Accusative case is assigned as the sister to the
  verb.
• These are the only two places you can get case

10
The Case Filter

• The case filter (a constraint that filters trees)
• All NPs must be in case positions (spec,TP or
  sister to V)

11
CP
C
C TP
Ø
T
T AP
is
A
A CP
likely
C
C TP
Ø
T
John
to VP
leave
12
Raising vs. PRO

• John is likely to leave
• John is eager to leave
• John gets a theta role from leave
• John also gets a theta role from is eager!
  (agent)
• Violation of Theta Criterion???
• John is eager PRO to leave

13
Summary of Raising

• Some NPs appear to be displaced from their theta
  assigners.
• This is caused by raising.
• Motivated by Case
• non-finite Infl cant assign case
• NP moves to specifier of finite INFL
• Not all NP V ___ to leave constructions are
  raising. Some involve PRO. it depends upon the
  theta properties of the main verb.

14
Passives

• Active
• The linguist kissed the kitten
• Agent theme
• Passive
• The kitten was kissed (by the linguist)
• Theme (agent)
• Active has agent and patient.
• Passive requires only a theme which is the subject

15
Passive Morphology

• The difference between passives and actives comes
  from the morphology. The addition of the passive
  morpheme seems to suppress the agent.
• kiss ? kissen (?kissed)
• agent theme theme

16
Passive Morphology

• The other thing the passive morphology does is
  suppress the verbs ability to assign accusative
  case

V
V
V NP
Ven NP
Acc
Acc
17
An Active
CP
assigned nom case by finite T
C TP
Ø
T
NP
agent
T VP
V
assigned acc case by verb
V NP
theme
18
A passive
CP
C TP
Ø
T
T VP
V
Ven NP
theme
19
Passives A summary

• The passive morpheme
• Suppresses agent theta role
• Suppresses Vs ability to assign accusative case
• The theme NP cant get case from the passive
  verb, so it moves (to the specifier of TP, where
  it can get nominative case.)

20
NP Movement

• With both raising and passives, you are moving
  NPs, and in both situations you do this to get
  case on a caseless NP.
• This transformation is called NP movement
• The filter that forces NP movement is the case
  filter.