Граматика / English Syntax

206	Constituency: Movement and Substitution

with something else?’ If so, then these two groups of words must be constituents. Notice that both my father and my mother refer to people, one a man, the other a woman. As you know, we can refer to males and females not only by using full NPs, as in (61), but also by using personal pronouns, words such as she, her, he, him, they, them, etc. Notice now that my father can be replaced by he, and my mother by her:

(62)He admires her.

The pronouns he and her function as proforms here, because they stand in for the NPs my father and my mother. We have already seen that the term ‘pronoun’ is really a misnomer, because a sentence like (62) clearly shows that pronouns replace not nouns, as their name suggests, but NPs. ‘Pro-NP’ would therefore be a better term. Notice that the meaning of (62) has not changed, because he refers to the same individual as my father, and her refers to the same individual as my mother, assuming that the sentence is uttered in the same context as (61). What (61) and (62) show is that a Noun Phrase can be replaced by another Noun Phrase.

Exercise

Replace the Noun Phrase constituents in the following sentences with pronouns.

(63)The boys saw six blue Rolls Royces.

(64)Harriet sold her computer to my friends from Edinburgh.

In (63) we can replace the boys by they and six blue Rolls Royces by them. In (64) we can substitute Harriet by she, her computer by it, and my friends from Edinburgh by them. This means that the boys, six blue Rolls Royces, Harriet, her computer and my friends from Edinburgh must be constituents. As their most prominent words in each case are nouns, they must be Noun Phrases.

Pronouns can replace quite complex NPs:

(65)I like those funny people who eat with their hands and sing at the dinner table. > I like them.

Other phrase types, and even clauses, can be replaced by proforms too, as the following sentences demonstrate:

(66)They say that Wayne is very unhappy and so he is.

(67)Our neighbours will go on holiday on Sunday, and we will leave then too.

Substitution	207

(68)Tim sat on the couch and stayed there.

(69)Janet drove her car too fast, and Sam rode his bike likewise.

(70)He believes that politics is a dirty game. We all believe that.

(71)He said that the operation will be successful. I certainly hope so.

In (66), the AP very unhappy has been replaced by so, while in (67) and (68) then and there replace the PPs on Sunday and on the couch, respectively. In (69) likewise replaces the AdvP too fast, and in (70) and (71) that and so replace clauses. VPs too can be replaced, as we will see in the next section.

We again see that the constituency of a particular sequence of words can be established by replacing it with a proform. Substitution by proforms is thus a useful test for constituency. It can also be useful for determining the categorial status of a particular constituent (i.e. what type of phrase it is). To see how this works, consider the italicised portion of the following sentence:

(72)The French are hospitable people.

Exercise

Before reading on and mindful of the preceding discussion, give some thought to the question to which phrasal category the French belongs.

At first sight it may appear that we are dealing with an Adjective Phrase here, because the Head of this string is clearly an adjective (cf. a French village, the French President, etc.). There are, however, quite a few reasons for saying that the French is not an AP, but a Noun Phrase. One reason is that it occurs in Subject position, a very common position for Noun Phrases. Another is that the phrase is introduced by the definite article the, which is typically found in NPs. Thirdly, and here Substitution plays a role, we can replace the French by a pronoun: ‘They are hospitable people’. We conclude that phrases such as the French, the Dutch, the Portuguese, etc. are NPs.

So far we have seen that proforms in the form of personal pronouns (he, she, it, etc.) can replace full NPs. English also possesses a word that can replace less than a full NP, and this is the proform one. Consider (73):

(73)Mark is a dedicated teacher of language, but Paul is an indi erent one.

In this sentence, one replaces teacher of language. This string cannot be a full NP, because it is preceded by the determiner a and the AP indi erent. We can show this more clearly in a tree diagram. You’ll remember from

208	Constituency: Movement and Substitution

Chapter 7 that inside NPs Adjective Phrases are adjoined to N0, and that Complements are sisters of the Head, as in (74):

(74)	NP
Spec		N0
	AP		N0
		N	XP
Determiner	Adjunct	Head	Complement

The NPs a dedicated teacher of language and an indi erent one in (73) have the following structures:

(75)NP

Spec		N0
	AP		N0
		N	PP
a	dedicated	teacher	of language
(76)	NP
Spec		N0
	AP	N0
		N
an	indi erent	one

In these trees the APs dedicated and indi erent are analysed as pre-head Adjuncts, and the PP of language is regarded as a nominal Complement (cf. he teaches language). As one in (76) replaces teacher of language in (75) it must be replacing an N0. We thus reach the following conclusion:

One-Substitution

The proform one replaces N0-constituents.

Substitution	209

This is interesting confirmation of the X-bar theoretical conception of the internal structure of phrases. If we allowed phrases to have only two levels, for example the phrase level and the Head level, as in many grammars, we would not be able to explain the fact that one can refer back to a unit that is not an NP, nor a noun, but something in between.

One-Substitution, apart from clearly establishing the existence of bar-level categories, also has a practical use in establishing constituency. Consider the NP a student of English. We might wonder whether the PP of English is a Complement of the noun student, or an Adjunct. We know that if it is a Complement, then student þ of English (N þ PP) together form an N0, and one should be able to refer back to this N0. If, by contrast, the PP of English is an Adjunct, then this phrase must be a sister of an N0. In that case both student and student of English are N-bars which one can refer back to. These alternative structures of the NP a student of English can be represented as in (77) and (78):

(77)	NP
Spec		N0
	N	PP
a	student	of English
(78)	NP
Spec		N0
	N0	PP
	N
a	student	of English

Let’s now see whether we can use one-Substitution to decide in favour of either of these representations.

Exercise

In the following sentence, can one replace student of English?

(79)Ben likes the Italian student of English, but not the Spanish one.

210	Constituency: Movement and Substitution

The answer to this question is ‘yes’. Notice that this answer is consistent with both (77) and (78), because student of English in both cases is an N0.

We therefore still need a way of choosing between (77) and (78). Consider (80). Can one replace student here?

(80)Ben likes the Italian student of English, but not the Spanish one of literature.

The answer is ‘no’, and you should place an asterisk in front of (80): one can refer only to student of English, not to student alone. We therefore conclude that student of English is an N0, but that student on its own is not. The tree in (78) is therefore incorrect, because here student is an N0 (as well as an N). Student must be a Head noun which takes the PP of English as its Complement, as in (77).

In some of the Noun Phrases we have come across so far in this section there was more than one N0-node. Our claim that one can be a pro-N0 raises the expectation that if there is more than one N0-constituent in any one NP, the proform one should be able to replace each of these N-bars. Consider the following NP:

(81)a clever Italian student of English

The tree for (81) is simply an expanded version of (77): we add two AP modifiers (clever and Italian), and hence two N0-nodes:

(82)NP

Spec N0

	AP		N0
		AP		N0
			N	PP
a	clever	Italian	student	of English

Now try the following exercise:

Exercise

Determine which constituents one could be replacing in the following ambiguous sentence:

(83)Marco is certainly a clever Italian student of English, but Paolo is an absolutely brilliant one.

Substitution	211

One can replace the italicised strings in (84) and (85):

Marco is certainly a clever Italian student of English, . . .

(84). . . but Paolo is an absolutely brilliant Italian student of English.

(85). . . but Paolo is an absolutely brilliant student of English.

These sentences show that (83) can receive more than one interpretation, depending on which N0 one replaces. It can replace either Italian student of English, in which case both Marco and Paolo are students of English of Italian extraction, or it can replace only student of English, in which case all we know about Paolo is that he studies English.

Exercise

Consider again sentence (83). Can we interpret it to mean (86)?

(86)Marco is a clever Italian student of English, but Paolo is an absolutely brilliant student.

In other words, can Paolo be something other than a student of English, say a student of geography?

The answer is ‘no’: one must minimally replace the string student of English. This again shows that student on its own is not an N0, and that the structure of the NP an Italian student of English is as in (82), with the noun student taking the PP of English as its sister.

11.2.2Substitution of Verbal Projections: VP and V0

In the preceding sections, we looked at proforms that can replace phrases, or parts of phrases, and clauses. When we looked at Noun Phrases we saw that maximal projections as well as bar-projections can be replaced by proforms: pronouns replace full NPs and one replaces N-bars. In this section we will take a closer look at the Substitution of verbal projections. I will begin with a discussion of VP-Substitution, and then move on to V-bar Substitution.

Consider the following exchanges:

(87)‘Will you please leave the room?’ ‘OK, I will — !’

(88)‘Can you play the piano?’ ‘Yes, I can — .’

212	Constituency: Movement and Substitution

(89)‘You take chances, Marlowe.’

‘I get paid to — .’

(from The Big Sleep)

In (87) and (88) the strings leave the room and play the piano following the modal verbs will and can have been deleted, while in (89) take chances following the infinitival marker to has been left out. We can regard this deletion process as a special case of Substitution, and say that leave the room, play the piano and take chances have been substituted by a null proform (i.e. by nothing), instead of by an overt proform (like, for example, one in the previous section). Now, we have seen that proforms can only replace constituents. It follows that, by virtue of being a special form of Substitution, deletion too applies only to constituents. Returning now to (87)–(89), recall that we argued in Chapter 8 that modal verbs like can and the infinitival marker to are positioned in ‘I’. If you now turn back to the tree in (2) at the beginning of the chapter it will be clear that what must have been deleted in (87)–(89) are Verb Phrases. We will therefore refer to the deletion process in (87)–(89) as VP-Deletion.

Sentences (87)–(89) again confirm the syntactic structure that we posited for sentences in general (cf. (2), as opposed to (3)), because it turns out that V þ DO sequences indeed behave like constituents, not only with regard to movement (cf. the discussion of VP-Preposing), but also with regard to Substitution by a null proform.

The question now arises whether proforms can stand in for something less than a full VP. Before proceeding, recall that we argued that the structure of Verb Phrases in English is as in (90):

(90)	VP
Spec		V10
	V20	Adjunct(s)
(not)	Head verb	Complement(s)

In this tree, as before, Complements are analysed as sisters of the Head verb, and Adjuncts are analysed as sisters of V0. The negative element not (if present) is positioned in the Specifier slot.

Notice that the tree in (90) makes a specific claim, namely that V01 is a constituent that is made up of V02 and an Adjunct position, and that V02 is a constituent made up of the Head verb and a Complement position. In Chapter 7 we posited this structure with only very little justification. The question we must now ask ourselves is whether there is evidence that V01 and V02 are constituents. To answer this question, consider first the sentence below:

(91)Dawn cleaned the windows diligently.

Substitution	213

In this sentence the NP the windows is a Direct Object, and the AdvP diligently is an Adjunct. The posited structure of its VP is as shown in (92).

(92)	VP
	Spec	V10
	V20	AdvP
	V	NP
	cleaned	the windows diligently

Consider now (93) and (94):

(93)Dawn cleaned the windows diligently, and Sean did so too.

(94)Dawn cleaned the windows diligently, but Sean did so lazily.

Here we have a new proform, namely do so, which replaces di erent lexical material in the two sentences above: in (93) it replaces cleaned the windows diligently, while in (94) it replaces cleaned the windows. We have seen that proforms can only replace constituents, so we conclude that these strings are constituents, thus confirming that V01 and V02 in (92) are units. This leads us to the following generalisation:

Do so-Substitution

do so replaces V0-constituents.

Here are some more examples:

(95)Barry hired a big Jaguar, and Milly did so too.

(96)Lenny sent Will a postcard, and Gemma did so too.

Exercise

Which lexical material is replaced by do so here?

In these cases what has been replaced are the strings hired a big Jaguar (V þ DO) and sent Will a postcard (V þ IO þ DO). We have claimed that verbs and their Complements together form V0-constituents, so here again do so replaces V-bars. The structure of the VPs of the initial clauses in (95) and (96) is as in (97)a and (97)b. Do so replaces the V-bars:

214	Constituency: Movement and Substitution
(97) (a)	VP		(b)	VP
Spec		V0	Spec		V0
	V	NP		V	NP	NP
	hired	a big Jaguar		sent	Will a postcard

Do so can never replace less than a V0. The following sentences are out:

(98)*Barry hired a big Jaguar, and Milly did so a Volkswagen.

(99)*Lenny sent Will a postcard, and Gemma did so a present.

In (98) the proform replaces only the main verb, but, as you can see in (97)a, although this is a constituent, it is not a V 0-constituent. In (99) do so replaces the verb and only one of its Complements, namely the Indirect Object. Again, this is not allowed, because these two do not together form a V0-constituent.

Do so-Substitution is a very practical test because we can use it to see whether a particular element, or string of elements, is inside VP. The line of reasoning is as follows: if we can show, using do so-Substitution, that some element is part of the V0 of a sentence, then that element is also part of the VP of that sentence, because all V-bars are dominated by a VP. Let’s see how this works. Consider the following sentence:

(100)Ray rudely interrupted the speaker.

On the basis of various tests, VP-Preposing and VP-Substitution among them, we already know that the Direct Object, the NP the speaker, is inside VP, but we may be unsure about the Adverb Phrase rudely. As it is positioned immediately before the main verb, there is the possibility that it is inside VP, like the DO. We can apply the do so-Substitution test to find out. This is done by adding a clause in the form and X does/did so too to the original sentence:

(101)Ray rudely interrupted the speaker, and Vincent did so too.

Here, clearly do so has replaced rudely interrupted the speaker, which must therefore be a V0. Because V-bars are dominated by VPs, we conclude that the AdvP is indeed inside VP.

	Substitution	215

Exercise

The AdvP rudely clearly functions as an Adjunct in VP. Draw the tree for the VP of the first clause in (101) (Ray rudely interrupted the speaker), and circle the V0 that do so replaces in the second clause of this sentence.

The tree looks like this:

(102)	VP
Spec	V0
	AdvP	V0
	V	NP
	rudely interrupted	the speaker

It is the higher of the two V-bars that do so replaces in (101). What about the lower V0? Can we replace that too with do so? Yes, we can, as (103) shows:

(103)Ray rudely interrupted the speaker, while Vincent politely did so.

Exercise

Determine which are the V-bar constituents in the following sentences. Use the frame X . . . , and Y does/did so too, as in the sentences we have been discussing in this section, e.g. (95) and (96) above. There may be more than one possibility!

(104)William bought bread in the supermarket. (and Iris . . .)

(105)Janet ran. (and Frank . . .)

The results are as follows:

(106)William bought bread in the supermarket, and Iris did so in the corner shop.

(107)William bought bread in the supermarket, and Iris did so too.

(108)Janet ran, and Frank did so too.