Here’s a “cookbook” of various kinds of English syntax trees. This is my attempt at capturing a happy medium of what’s commonly introduced in introductory texts and my own undergrad syntax class.
Perhaps the most controversial assumption is that morphology is a product of syntax. Not taking sides here - all I’m saying is this is what I was first taught.
Terminology
- Headedness principle
- A phrase needs a head; an XP needs an X.
- Binarity principle
- Everything has two children (which may be empty or host a combination of multiple things due to movement).
- Projection
- The presence of an X necessitates the presence of X' and XP above it.
- VISH (Verb-Internal Subject Hypothesis)
- The hypothesis that subjects of verbs generate in SpecVP and raise to SpecTP.
- Head-Movement Constraint
- Heads can only move to adjacent heads.
X-bar structure
You can have as many nested X’ levels as you want, but some people like to have no adjuncts and only have the one X’ level. The specifier position of XP is abbreviated SpecXP.
“Classic” DP
the cow
Possessed DP
the dog’s cow
The “subject” generates in the specifier of a lexical phrase before raising to the specifier of a functional phrase, much like SpecVP raising to SpecTP per VISH.
SVO sentence
Cows eat grass.
The subject generates in SpecVP and raises to SpecTP as per VISH. T lowers to V since [present] is not pronounceable on its own; √eat+[present] resolves at a later stage to “eat”.
Adverbs
There are two common ways of doing adverbs. One approach is to make the adverb phrase an adjunct of the verb phrase:
Cows eat grass quickly.
The other approach is to make the entire verb phrase move from the argument of the adverb phrase to its specifier position:
Cows eat grass quickly.
Modal
Cows can eat grass.
Things that can occupy T are features [past] [present] and modals.
Question with a modal
Can cows eat grass?
Questions generate with a phonologically null [question] C that need to combine with something to be pronounced; here, the T raises to C.
Question with do-support
Do cows eat grass?
As in the question with a modal, T raises to C, but as the [question] C and [present] T are both unpronounced, the repair strategy is to resolve the combination to “do”.
Negation with do-support
Cows do not eat grass.
T-to-V movement, like in the “classic” SVO sentence, is blocked due to the Head-Movement Constraint. The repair strategy is to resolve the unpronounceable [present] to “do”.
Aspect be/have
Cows are eating grass.
As opposed to the “normal” T-to-V movement, this sentence has V-to-T movement. V-to-T movement occurs with the verb be and the auxiliary (but not the lexical verb) have.
Question with aspect be/have
Are cows eating grass?
Negation with aspect be/have
Cows are not eating grass.
The V-to-T movement here is a violation of the Head-Movement Constraint.
Last updated May 20, 2024