Week 6
LIN204H
(material adopted from E. Melara & H. Yawney and I. Bondoc’s, with S. Jambrovic and W. Williams’ modifications) 1
Goals
•Contrast auxiliaries from lexical verbs
• State the properties of modal and primary auxiliaries
•Draw tree structures for sentences involving various types of verb
strings
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Verb phrases and verb strings
• In Week 3 we looked at the structure of verb phrases:
V + NPZita [writes [a poem]].
V + PP Zita [abides [by the rules]].
•We also looked at examples where there is more than one verb in a
sentence:
Zita writes a poem.
Zita is writing a poem.
Zita might be writing a poem.
•What kinds of verbs can occur in a verb string?
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Lexical verbs
•Every English clause, whether finite or non-finite, requires a lexical
verb.
Lan completed ten worksheets.
Michael wanted [to spend more time with his son].
[Spending money on diamond cream] sounds ridiculous.
• Lexical verbs (also known as ‘main’ verbs) decide what other elements
a clause may, must, or must not contain.
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Auxiliaries
•Auxiliaries are a class of verbs that contribute grammatical and
semantic information to a clause. They provide information about:
• MODALITY: notions of possibility or necessity
• ASPECT: expresses how an event unfolds
• VOICE: involves highlighting a participant in an event
•Auxiliaries will always occur with a lexical verb.
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Verb string
•Verb string: the string containing the lexical verb and any auxiliaries
Horatio has walked the dog.
Ahmed is eating lemons.
François can’t play the viola.
The fly was caught by the trout.
Lorenzo might take the linguistics course.
•Every clause contains a verb string, whether the string contains only
the lexical verb or the lexical verb plus auxiliaries. We refer to it as a
‘verb string’ because the auxiliaries, if any, affect the form of the verb.
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Verb string
•A verb string can be finite or non-finite depending on whether the
first word of the verb string is finite or not.
• In a finite verb string, only the first auxiliary/verb is finite.
[To have eaten already] would be disrespectful.
1 2
• In a non-finite verb string, the first auxiliary/verb is non-finite.
[To have eaten already] would be disrespectful.
1 2
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Properties of auxiliaries
•Auxiliaries can be distinguished from lexical verbs with the following
morphosyntactic properties:
• Subject-auxiliary inversion
• Negation
• Tag questions
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Properties of auxiliaries
(1) Subject-auxiliary inversion
•The leftmost auxiliary inverts with the subject to form a question.
You could reinvent yourself as someone new.
Could you reinvent yourself as someone new?
• Lexical verbs cannot invert with the subject. When there is no
auxiliary, the dummy auxiliary do is used to form a question.
She reinvented herself as someone new.
*Reinvented she herself as someone new?
Did she did reinvent herself as someone new?
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Properties of auxiliaries
(2) Negation
• Forming the negative of a clause requires not or -n’t to appear
immediately after the first auxiliary.
Lisa might attend the school dance.
Lisa might not attend the school dance.
•Negation cannot appear immediately after the lexical verb. In the
case that the verb string does not contain an auxiliary, the dummy do
appears before the negation.
Lisa attended the school dance.
*Lisa attended not the school dance.
Lisa did not attend the school dance.
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Properties of auxiliaries
(3) Tag questions
•Tag questions include the first auxiliary of the main clause.
He couldn’t have been telling the truth, could he?
*He couldn’t have been telling the truth, had he?
•The lexical verb can’t by used in the tag question. In the case that
there is no auxiliary, dummy do is used.
*He told the truth, told not he?
He told the truth, didn’t he?
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Kinds of Auxiliaries
Modal Auxiliaries
● can
● could
● shall
● should
● will
● would
● may
● might
● must
Primary Auxiliaries
● Perfect have
● Progressive be
● Passive be
● Dummy do
Auxiliaries appear in a specific order:
She threw the ball.
She might throw the ball.
She might have thrown the ball.
She might have been throwing the ball.
The ball might have been being thrown.
modal > have (Perf) > be (Prog) > be (Pass) > Verb
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Modal auxiliaries: morphological properties
• The first auxiliary or verb to follow a modal must appear in its bare form.
modal + V[BARE]
I will be there on time.
Paul may stay in that room all night.
•Whereas primary auxiliaries and verbs change form depending on tense,
aspect, or other forms they appear next to, modals don’t change form.
My roommates are/were watching a scary movie.
My roommates watched/watch scary movies.
My roommates may be watching a scary movie.
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Modal auxiliaries: semantic properties
● Modality expresses that an event/state is hypothetical.
● Modals express that something is either necessary or possible.
English modals encode one or the other.
I might have a sweater for you to borrow.
= It’s possible that I have a sweater for you to borrow.
I must have a sweater for you to borrow.
= It’s necessarily the case that I have a sweater for you to borrow.
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Modal auxiliaries: semantic properties
● Modals are ambiguous between deontic and epistemic readings.
○ Deontic: based on the law/code/set of rules
○ Epistemic: based on the speaker’s knowledge/evidence at hand
Example
Tina must be in her room…
a)… because her parents told her to go to her room.
Q: Deontic or Epistemic ?
b)… because it’s 10pm and she’s normally in her room at 10pm.
Q: Deontic or Epistemic ?
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Modal auxiliaries: semantic properties
● Modals are ambiguous between deontic and epistemic readings.
○ Deontic: based on the law/code/set of rules
○ Epistemic: based on the speaker’s knowledge/evidence at hand
Example
Tina must be in her room…
a)… because her parents told her to go to her room.
Q: Deontic or Epistemic ? Deontic!
b)… because it’s 10pm and she’s normally in her room at 10pm.
Q: Deontic or Epistemic ?
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Modal auxiliaries: semantic properties
● Modals are ambiguous between deontic and epistemic readings.
○ Deontic: based on the law/code/set of rules
○ Epistemic: based on the speaker’s knowledge/evidence at hand
Example
Tina must be in her room…
a)… because her parents told her to go to her room.
Q: Deontic or Epistemic ? Deontic!
b)… because it’s 10pm and she’s normally in her room at 10pm.
Q: Deontic or Epistemic ? Epistemic!
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Time, tense, and aspect
● Time: A continuum along which we measure existence
● Tense: A grammatical notion; English makes the distinction between
present/non-past and past
● Tense and time don’t necessarily overlap.
I leave for Amsterdam tomorrow.
Q: What is the tense of this sentence? What is the time?
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Time, tense, and aspect
● Time: A continuum along which we measure existence
● Tense: A grammatical notion; English makes the distinction between
present/non-past and past
● Tense and time don’t necessarily overlap.
I leave for Amsterdam tomorrow.
Q: What is the tense of this sentence? What is the time?
A: The tense is present/non-past. The time is future.
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Time, tense, and aspect
● Aspect: A grammatical notion that expresses the way an event
unfolds, English has the perfect and progressive aspects
I have already eaten.
(have + V-en: something has happened in relation to another event)
I am eating.
(be + V[ING]: some event is ongoing)
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Primary auxiliaries
● Perfect have
● Progressive be
● Passive be
● Dummy do
● These auxiliaries are different from their homophonous lexical verb
counterparts!
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Primary auxiliaries
(1) Perfect have
•The auxiliary have is followed by the past participle form of a verb:
have + V[PPART]
They have fooled me twice.
Patty and Selma have been together for years.
Aurora has sung in the opera.
•While the simple past focuses on the time of the past event, the
perfect focuses on a later time (it’s often used when discussing an
event’s relevance at the time of speech.)
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Primary auxiliaries
(1) Perfect have
•While both the simple past and perfect aspect can be used to refer to
a time before the time of speech, the perfect aspect can appear in the
past tense, present tense, or with will, which is usually used to refer
to a situation at a future time.
(1) The Leafs have won the Stanley Cup.
(2) The Leafs had won the Stanley Cup.
(3) The Leafs will have won the Stanley Cup.
Q: What is the difference between these sentences?
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Primary auxiliaries
(2) Progressive be
•The auxiliary be (progressive) is followed by the -ing participle form of
a verb: be + V[ING]
•Progressive aspect is used to express something is ongoing.
Progressive be can appear in the past tense, present tense, or with
will.
The caterers are running late.
The caterers were running late.
The caterers will be running late.
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Primary auxiliaries
(2) Progressive be
• Stative verbs, which refer to states of affairs rather than actions or
events, don’t combine with the progressive aspect.
Examples: have, know, hate
*He is having large eyeglasses.
*I am knowing you must be tired.
*Sylvia is hating peanut butter.
•Unchanging states can’t be in progress, since they are static.
*The chair is being red.
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Primary auxiliaries
(3) Passive be
• The passive be is followed by the past participle form of an auxiliary
or verb.
be + V[PPART]
Mr. Burns read the newspaper this morning. [Active]
The newspaper was read this morning (by Mr. Burns). [Passive]
Fanthorpe wrote the article this morning. [Active]
The article was written this morning. [Passive]
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Primary auxiliaries
(3) Passive be
Recall how a passive sentence is formed:
•promoting an object of an active clause to the subject of the passive
•demoting the subject of the active clause to a by-phrase or leaving it
out altogether
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Primary auxiliaries
(3) Passive be
•Passives can be used both when one wants to highlight the object, and
when one wants to put less emphasis on the subject – or omit it
altogether.
Mostar has been destroyed and rebuilt.
•Some passives use a form of get instead of be to form the passive.
The trees in the garden got damaged in the wind.
• These passives are more colloquial and tend to be avoided in formal
language.
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• The dummy do is used to form interrogatives or to negate; it appears
for structural than for semantic reasons.
• In Standard English, dummy do is followed by the bare form of the
lexical verb: do + V[BARE]
A nurse brought cupcakes to class.
Jose plays chess.
Did a nurse did bring cupcakes to class?
Does Jose does play chess?
A nurse didn’t bring cupcakes to class.
Jose doesn’t play chess.
Primary auxiliaries
(4) Dummy do
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Number of auxiliaries
• It is possible to have as many as four auxiliaries in a single sentence.
We must watch 'Jeopardy'.
We must have watched 'Jeopardy'.
We must have been watching 'Jeopardy'.
'Jeopardy' must have been being watched.
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Tense-aspect combinations
Simple present tense My cat wears mittens.
Simple past tense My cat wore mittens.
Expressing future time My cat will wear mittens.
Present progressive My cat is wearing mittens.
Past progressive My cat was wearing mittens.
Future progressive My cat will be wearing mittens.
Present perfect My cat has worn mittens.
Past perfect My cat had worn mittens.
Future perfect My cat will have worn mittens.
Present perfect progressive My cat has been wearing mittens.
Past perfect progressive My cat had been wearing mittens.
Future perfect progressive My cat will have been wearing mittens.
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Tree Structures
Image from openclipart.org
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Summary
Auxiliaries require that the verbs that immediately follow appear in
specific forms.
•Modals modal + V[BARE]
•Perfect have have + V[PPART]
•Progressive be be + V[ING]
•Passive be be + V[PPART]
•Dummy do do + V[BARE]
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Basic tree structure
If the very first word in a verb string is the finite one, and finiteness
means that something is tensed, we can express this in our trees with the
head T for ‘tense’.
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Basic tree structure
Since English contains only two tenses – present/non-past and past – we
express this under T with an abstract tense feature: [+PST] for the past
tense or [-PST] for the non-past/present tense. Modal auxiliaries and
Dummy do appear under T.
35[+PST]
Example trees
no auxiliary primary auxiliary modal auxiliary
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Multiple auxiliaries
•VPs don’t appear to form a constituent with it; hence we would expect them
to be outside the VP.
Janie might have [eaten sushi for lunch], and Jo might have [done so] too.
*Janie might [have eaten sushi for lunch], and Jo might [do so], too.
*Janie [might have eaten sushi for lunch], and Jo [does/did so] too.
Janie will be [eating sushi for lunch], and Jo will be [doing so], too.
*Janie will [be eating sushi for lunch], and Jo will [do so], too.
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Multiple auxiliaries
•Additionally, when we have multiple auxiliaries in a clause, we can place
adverbs in various positions among the auxiliaries, suggesting the adverb
branches at different levels.
Emir must recently have been reading novels.
Emir must have recently been reading novels.
Emir must have been recently reading novels.
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Multiple auxiliaries: tree structure
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•Primary auxiliaries (with
the exception of Dummy
do) head their own
Auxiliary Phrases (AuxPs),
which either take an AuxP
or VP as a complement.
Updating tree structures
•Monotransitive and ditransitive sentences
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Updating tree structures
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Adverbials
•Adverbials are optional and
do not have the same kind
of relationships with verbs
than complements do.
Announcements
•No class next week: Reading Break!
•Upcoming dates
• Midterm: Mar 1 (5:00pm – 7:00pm)