31 / 10 / 2017

2.2. Subordinate clauses

There is a wide difference between Word order in main and subordinate sentences.
The word order contrast is most evident in the Germanic OV languages.
In Swedish, because it’s VO and not OV, the difference is not so striking because it is in
the subordinate clauses that the OV property is clearly shown. In (80) we have the
relative position between the verb and the negative element. In the subordinate
clause (81b) we have the negative, negative, verb, NP, indicating that in Swedish there
are also differences, as in Dutch.

(82) with cognitive verbs such as say, think or believe, we can omit the
complementizer, something that we also find in many Germanic languages.

2.3. Sentence types.

Questions
The typical germanic question has the verb in the inital position., but in English there is
no verb raising to inflection, we dont find the verb in the intitial position except do and
be.
For wh- questions, there are no differences, they always occur in the close initial
position. There are languages like chinese where there is no wh-movement, but in all
Germanic and Romance languages, the wh-element appears in the inital position.

Imperative
If you have the verb ‘be’ you need the verb ‘do’ ‘Don’t be a pest’, but you don’t find
this support in other kind of sentences such as ‘*John didn’t be a pest’.

Exercises on negation
 Exercise 6: Negation in English and Spanish

Account for the differences between English and Spanish in the following pairs of
sentences. Your account should take into consideration the syntactic function of
the negative quantifier phrases (nobody, nadie, etc.) as subjects or objects.

1. Nobody spoke at the meeting.

2. i. Nadie habló en la reunión.
ii. No habló nadie en la reunión.

In the second one we have a double negative. The difference is whether the
negative pronoun ‘nadie’ is preverbal or postverbal. In 2i. we have the subject
which is negative and then we have the verb. In 2ii. We have the verb and then
the subject, which is a negative pronoun that is postverbal and requires the
presence of this element ‘no’ which is what we call in linguistics an operator,
operators are always asociated with other elements in the clause. The negative
 operator requires a negative element in the clause. However, this propertie
doesnt apply only to subjects.

3. No he visto nada.
We have again the operator ‘no’, then we have the verb and an object.

4. i. I have seen nothing.

ii. I have not seen anything.
In English, we don’t need an operator to negate a sentence, you just have a
negative element (VO) in whenever position you want, or a negative marker
‘not’ followed by verb and an object which is not negative NegVO.

5. No bailó con nadie en la fiesta.

It’s a PP and it’s an adjunct, it seems that the syntactic position is not relevant
here, it doesn’t matter which position occupies the negative pronoun we
always have the same patter: operator + negative element, we can do pp
fronting ‘con nadie bailó en la fiesta’ and you don’t need the negative operator.

6. i. He danced with nobody at the party.

In English, the result of a double negation would be an affirmative, but there
are many languages that have double negation apart from all the Romance
languages. In black English you also have it. ‘I don’t do nothing’

TOPIC 3. Verb morphology and syntax in English and Spanish

Apuntes en azul en handout. Hacer ejercicios 1, 2, 5, 6, 7.