Stephen van Vlack
Sookmyung Women`s University
Graduate School of English
Introduction to Linguistics
Fall 2003
Answers for Cook and Newson, `Chapter 7a`.
1. What is government and how has the definition changed over time?
Government is a special relationship that holds between elements in an utterance. The nature of this relationship means that the elements in this relationship are somehow linked. That is, they must agree (grammatically) with each other. This grammatical agreement includes such things as Case and number. Originally government was believed to hold only between nouns and the verbs and prepositions that they are related to. Now we know that government can be applied to many other categories. We also know that government occurs as a result of a structural relationship between the two elements involved. So, government is structural in nature and can hold between a rather wide variety of categories.
2. What is the c-command (m-command) and how was it developed?
C-command is a structural relationship that holds between two elements in an utterance. It was developed by Tara Reinhart in her seminal investigations on anaphora and pronouns, which was later developed into Binding Theory. Reinhart showed that there is this structural relationship between elements in the utterance. she clearly showed that anaphors must be in a c-command relationship to be co-indexed while pronominals must not be to be coindexed. That is how the idea of c-command was born.
One thing to mention here is that Reinhart`s c-command and what we have in our textbook are quite different. What our book uses is m-command. Originally c-command said that the first branching node up from the element was the domain. According to our textbooks version of c-command it is not the first branching node, but the first maximal projection that makes the domain. Just remember that when you read other texts. Our version of c-command is sometimes referred to as m-command.
3. How is the idea of c-command (m-command) related to government?
C-command is related to government in that government requires c-command. But it is not quite that simple. In Binding Theory we only talk about one-way c-command; for example, a pronominal must not be c-commanded by its NP for them to be co-indexed. For something to govern something else, however, there must be a two-way c-command relationship between the two elements. They have to c-command each other. This means that c-command must be reciprocal for government to occur. It is in this way that government is structurally determined through c-command.
4. How is Case assigned in relation to government?
This is really simple. In order for an element to assign Case it must govern what it is that it wants to assign Case to. That is, an element that is to get case must be in a governing relationship with its governor.
5. How do Exceptional Case Marking (ECM) situations work? Give examples!!
Exceptional Case Marking do exactly as their name promises. They do not mark case in a normal fashion. They have subjects that are marked for the Accusative Case. Additionally, we usually find them in the complement position of a certain sub-set of verbs.
Here are some examples.
1. They all wanted [him to kill the tasty porcupine].
2. They were anxious [for him to do the job fast].
3. [For the slow porcupine to escape its fate] would be impossible.
You will that there is a marked structural difference between examples 1 and examples 2 and 3. The latter group contain a complementizer, while the former group (#1) does not. This means that we have to develop two different explanations. Not surprisingly, these different explanations will involve two different structures being posited.
The big problem in these structures is that they obviously are governed by the verb in the preceding clause. Exactly how this happens is a problem. In a finite clauses there is no problem. In order to solve this problem, linguists have made two proposals. In the first of these they say that the dependent (non-finite clause is headed by CP the way all other clauses are, but that the object NP which is in Spec CP position is actually governed by the preceding verb. These are the types of constructions that are in 2 and 3 above. In order to make this proposal we have to extend our idea of government. If the CP is governed by the verb, after all it is in object position of the verb, then whatever is in its specifier position will also be governed by the verb. This explains why the NP in subject position of the non-finite clause is in the Accusative Case. In order for us to be able to say this a CP must either be possible or actually there.
In example 1 above, there is no overt complementizer, nor does it seems like we can insert one. This has lead linguists to believe that the actual structure of such constructions is different. It has been posited that the non-finite clauses in such constructions as in 1 start with a TP node and do not have a CP or AGRP node.
1. They all wanted [him to kill the tasty porcupine].
The NP him is in the specifier TP position of the non-finite clause. Not surprisingly, him occupies the same position that the covert subject PRO occupies in the example below.
4. They all wanted [PRO to kill the tasty porcupine].
This works because PRO is not being directly governed by the verb. It is able to be coindexed with the subject they.
6. What is PRO and why do linguists think it is there?
PRO is just another example of an empty category. It is similar to pro but is much more restricted in its distribution. PRO can only be found in the subject position of non-finite clauses. Linguists are convinced it is there because the features from the subject of the main clause are somehow carried over to the non-finite dependent clause.
4. They all wanted [PRO to kill the tasty porcupine].
In the example above that the they mentioned in the fist clause will actually be doing the killing in the second clause. The subject is transferred to the second clause. This has to happen somehow. PRO can`t be governed because if if is then it will receive Accusative Case.
7. Look at the following sentences in Danish. How are they problematic for Chomsky`s evaluation of PRO?
For at blive her ku` vaere daarligt. Det ku` vaere daarligt for at vaere her.
for to be here could be bad
These examples above cause problems for the idea of PRO basically because of the fact that PRO has to be ungoverned. This means that PRO has to be in constructions that do not have a CP because the CP is governed by the preceding verb and then in turn governs PRO. This is a big problem for the idea of PRO. This means that we have to reanalyze these examples, if possible, as being simple pro drop. The problem for this is that the Scandinavian languages are non-pro-drop languages. See what kind of explanation you can come up for this,