Hayes Introductory Linguistics 2015

Introductory Linguistics
A draft textbook by
Bruce P. Hayes
Department of Linguistics
University of California, Los Angeles
Copyright 2015 by Bruce P. Hayes
This copyrighted draft textbook may be freely read by anyone. It may be used by any linguistics
teacher for teaching purposes, under the condition that you notify the author by email
([email protected]) that you are using it. Comments and corrections, including from
students, are welcome.
Hayes Introductory Linguistics p. 2
Contents
Preface p. 3
Chapter 1: What is Linguistics? p. 4
Chapter 2: Morphology p. 18
Chapter 3: Normative views of language p. 60
Chapter 4: Syntax I — Phrase Structure p. 69
Chapter 5: Syntax II — Transformations p. 144
Chapter 6: Syntax III — Subcategorization and Wh- Movement p. 158
Chapter 7: Language Acquisition p. 241
Chapter 8: Review of Morphology and Syntax p. 251
Chapter 9: Semantics p. 295
Chapter 10: Phonetics p. 355
Chapter 11: Phonology I — Phonemic Analysis p. 394
Chapter 12: Phonology II — Optional Rules, Phonology/Morphology Interaction p. 427
Chapter 13: Historical Linguistics p. 455
Chapter 14: Applications and Outlook p. 512
Chapter 15: More review problems p. 520
Preface
This text has been written by me, gradually over the years, for the course “Linguistics 20:
Introduction to Linguistic Analysis”, which I teach in my home department at UCLA. The course
is meant to be a short introduction to “core” linguistics, by which I mean the analysis of language
data using theory. (My department covers broader issues, such as language in society, in a
separate course, “Introduction to Language”.) To the extent that my text is successful, students
will get a clear idea of the goals and character of linguistic analysis and will be well prepared to
take on the various subfields of linguistics in later specialized courses.
My text follows mainstream thinking in linguistics in assuming that learning the field is best
done through exercises in which students deal with language data, trying to nail down the pattern
and express it clearly with rules. The course I teach includes weekly homeworks of this kind;
these homeworks include the most ambitious problems. In this text there also 90 Study
Exercises; some are interspersed at appropriate moments in the presentation; others are placed in
Chapters 8 and 15, meant for pre-midterm and pre-final review. I have arranged the page breaks
to make it convenient for students to try to solve the exercises themselves before consulting the
printed answer.
The main purpose of the exercises is to help students make the essential transition from
passive knowledge (material makes perfect sense when the professor or text explains it) to active
knowledge (student can apply the theory in new contexts and make independent assessments). In
truth, I also hope that the exercises will be not just a way of achieving control over the material
but at least occasionally a source of intellectual pleasure. Most linguists I know enjoy the puzzles
presented by language data and I hope that for the reader it will be the same.
My thanks go to the many students who have read through earlier versions of this text, often
usefully pointing out errors. I also thank my many teaching assistants for their wisdom and first-
hand experience, along with my colleagues Sandra Disner, Craig Melchert, and Jessica Rett for
expert advice.
Chapter 1: What is Linguistics?
1. What this book will be like
Linguistics is the science of language; it studies the structure of human languages and aims
to develop a general theory of how languages work. The field is surprisingly technical; to
describe languages in detail requires a fair amount of formal notation. A good parallel would be
the field of symbolic logic, which uses a formal notation to understand the processes of
reasoning and argumentation.
There are basically three things I hope you will get out of this book.
First, there is the subject matter itself, which is useful to know for people in many different
fields, such as education, psychology, and computation. The course is also an introduction to
linguistics for those who are going to major in it.
Second, the course involves some mental exercise, involving analysis of data from English
and other languages. I doubt that anyone who doesn’t go on in linguistics will remember much of
the course material five years after they have graduated, but the analytical skills in which you
will get practice will be (I hope) both more permanent and more useful.
Third, the course is intended to give a more realistic view of science and how it proceeds.
The reason we can do this in linguistics is that it is a fairly primitive science, without an
enormous body of well-established results. Because of this, we are less interested in teaching you
a body of established knowledge; rather, our focus is on teaching you to decide what is right on
your own, by looking at the data. All sciences are in this state of uncertainty at their frontiers;
linguistics can give you a more authentically scientific experience in a beginning course.
2. Implicit and explicit knowledge of language; working with consultants
Linguists are constantly asked the question “How many languages do you speak?” This
question is a little irritating, because it is largely irrelevant to what linguists are trying to do. The
goals of linguistics are to describe and understand the structure of human languages; to discover
the ways in which all languages are alike and the ways in which they may differ. The point is
that even if one could speak all 8000 or so of the world’s languages, one would not have solved
any of the problems of linguistics.
The reason is this: speaking a language and knowing its structure are different things. In
speaking a language, one uses thousands of grammatical rules without being aware of them; they
are “unconscious knowledge.” Linguists attempt to make explicit this unconscious knowledge by
looking closely at the data of language. That is, they attempt to make the “implicit knowledge”
of native speakers into explicit knowledge.
This goal implies one of the central methods of doing linguistic research, the consultant
session. Quite often, a linguist will study the structure of language she does not speak; this is
done by finding a native-speaker consultant to provide the data. The linguist normally asks the
consultant a great number of questions. Some of them are simple and establish basic knowledge:
(1) “What is the word for “duck” in your language?”
Others look for the various different grammatical forms of the same word:
(2) “How would you say “two ducks”?
(This would be looking, perhaps, for how plurals are formed). Others involve whole sentences
and often their meanings as well.
The crucial idea in a consultant session is that the linguist is thinking about structure—is
making and checking hypotheses. The native speaker is most often trying simply to provide an
honest and accurate report of how she speaks the language, and of her intuitions about meaning
and other matters.
Obviously, the lines can be blurred a bit: sometimes the consultant (especially if she knows
some linguistics), may want to suggest some hypotheses herself. And linguists sometimes “work
on themselves,” so that the dialogue across the consultant table becomes an internal dialogue in
the mind of the linguist.1
The following example illustrates the method: for one particular area of English grammar,
we get some native speaker intuitions, and work out a series of hypotheses for what the rules of
English are. We’ll assume without comment that we are working with a native speaker of
English, and indeed, I believe that the data below are characteristic of intuitions of English native
speakers.
The point of the analysis will be to illustrate a consistent truth about linguistics: the native
speaker consultant doesn’t know the answer. You cannot effectively ask the consultant to
provide the linguistic analysis. However, the native speaker does have the tacit, intuitive
knowledge that makes it possible to find the answer, or at least to get closer to it.
3. The reference of each other
In the sentence (3), a native speaker of English is likely to tell you that each other refers to
we, and that it means something like, “I like you and you like me.”
(3) We like each other.

(4) Alice and Sue like each other.
In linguistics this is often called the reciprocal reading; i.e. it says we are in a state of reciprocal
liking. Sentence (4) has a similar reciprocal reading.
1
In practice I and probably other linguists find this hard to do; it’s just too much going on in your
head at once. More important, it poses methodological problems; the data are likely to be contaminated by
wishful thinking.
Sentence (5) is a bizarre sentence, in that each other cannot logically refer to I.
(5) *I like each other.
The native speaker responds to it by saying, “That’s weird/that’s bizarre/you can’t say that in
English.” We will say for present purposes that (5) is ungrammatical; that is, ill-formed.
Following standard practice, I will place an asterisk before sentences that are ungrammatical
In (5), the ungrammaticality can be traced to the absence of any plausible interpretation for
the sentence; since each other describes reciprocal actions, like this:
(6) X Y
X Y
Each other cannot be used unless the agent of the action is plural. But not all cases can be
explained in this way. In (7), you can think of a meaning that the sentence could in principle
have, but this meaning is not allowed by the rules of English grammar (think through what this
meaning would be, then check yourself by reading this footnote2):
(7) *Alice and Sue think I like each other.
In other words, being grammatical and having a sensible meaning are two different things.
Sentence (7) shows the same thing: you can think up two logically possible meanings, but
only one meaning is allowed by the rules of English.
(8) We believe they like each other.
Again, reason it through for yourself then read the footnote.3
We’ve now reached our basic point: there must be some rule of English that accounts for
what each other can refer to, but it is a tacit rule. No one can look inside their mind to find out
what the rule is; one can only look at the data and try to figure the rule out. Linguists have
worked on this particular rule for some time, and have gradually made progress in stating the
rule accurately. But we cannot claim to have a final answer.
I will present a partial answer here. We will need two preliminary definitions, both of which
will come up later on in the course. Here is the first one:
2
John thinks I like Bill and Bill thinks I like John.
3
Possible meaning: if they refers, for instance to Bill and John, then We believe that Bill likes John
and John likes Bill. Impossible meaning: I believe that John and Bill like you and you believe that John
and Bill like me.
(9) Defn.: clause
A clause is either a whole sentence or a sentence within a sentence
You can identify clauses because they generally have a subject and a verb, and they express
some sort of proposition. We depict clauses by drawing brackets around them; labeled “S” for
“sentence”.
(10) [ We like each other. ]S

(11) [ John and Bill like each other. ]S
(12) *[ I like each other. ]S
(13) *[ John and Bill think [I like each other. ]S]S
(14) [ We believe [ they like each other. ]S]S
Note that clauses can have clauses inside them. In (13), there is a clause that expresses the
content of John and Bill’s thoughts (I like each other), and the whole thing is an (ungrammatical)
clause that describes a state (John and Bill are having a particular thought.)
We also need to define noun phrases.
(15) Defn.: noun phrase
A noun phrase is a complete syntactic unit that refers to a thing or a set of things.
So, in (10), we is a noun phrase, and each other is a noun phrase. In (7), John and Bill is a
noun phrase4 and again so is each other.
With these definitions, we can write a tentative rule for what each other refers to:
(16) Each other reference rule
Each other can refer only to noun phrases that are inside the smallest clause containing it.
Like all proposed linguistic rules, this should be applied with great care, checking to see if it
works. We can make our work more careful with appropriate graphics, like underlining the noun
phrases and putting brackets around the clauses. Let’s give it a try.
Consider first (14), We believe they like each other. We want each other to refer only to
they, and not to we. We can underline and bracket in the appropriate way, and try drawing arrows
indicating candidates for the reference of each other, like this:
4
Also, as a matter of fact, John is a noun phrase, and Bill is a noun phrase; they are noun phrases
inside a bigger noun phrase. We will see quite a bit of this later on.
(17) [We believe [they like each other.]S]S

ok
impossible
Since the smallest clause containing each other is the smaller one, and it contains the noun
phrase they, the theory predicts that each other should be able to refer to they and not to we. This
seems to be correct; i.e. so far the theory is working.
Considering next John and Bill think I like each other. I suggest at this point you jot down
the structure yourself (brackets, underlines, arrows), and check what you wrote against what you
see in (18) on the next page.
(18) *[John and Bill think [I like each other.]S]S

impossible
impossible
Why is this sentence ungrammatical? The reasoning here is more subtle. Each other cannot
refer to John and Bill because of the Each Other Reference Rule, which permits it only to refer to
noun phrases inside the smallest clause that contains it. But then why not let each other refer to
I? Here, we run into the semantic restriction we saw earlier: each other can only refer to plural
noun phrases. So no matter how you attempt to interpret each other, the sentence gets blocked,
and in the end it is simply ungrammatical.
Cases (10)-(12) are easy: there is only one noun phrase for each other to refer to, and the
rule permits this.
3.1 Ambiguous sentences with each other
Notice that in a sentence with just one clause, but two noun phrases in addition to each
other, there will be two possibilities for what each other might refer to:
(19) [We wrapped the ropes around each other.]S
ok
ok
This is just what the Each Other Reference Rule predicts. Because of this, the sentence has two
possible meanings. Try making up similar cases (a few are given in the footnote5).
4. The role of implicit noun phrases
Here are some further relevant data, which are perhaps syntactically the most interesting:
(20) [We consulted two detectives in order [ to find out about each other]S]S
(21) [They seem to us [to like each other]S]S
These sentences are mysterious: it looks like there is no noun phrase at all that occurs inside
the smallest clause containing each other (other than each other itself). But consider the meaning
of the sentences: someone is doing the finding out in (20), namely, “we”, and someone is doing
the liking in (21), namely “they”. Thus, the peculiar clauses to find out about each other and to
like each other appear to have implicit noun phrases. They have a meaning, but they’re not
pronounced.
5
We assigned the representatives to each other. We instructed Fred and Sue on behalf of each
other. Alice and Sue introduced the students to each other’s mother. We prepared the cannibals for each
other.
For purposes of analyzing explicitly, let us fill them in, inserting overt noun phrases that
designate what the implicit noun phrases mean:
(22) [We consulted two detectives in order [(we) to find out about each other]S]S
(23) [They seem to us [(they) to like each other]S]S
With the implicit subjects filled in, we can explain what is going on. The Each Other
Reference Rule needs slight revising:
(24) Each Other Reference Rule (revised)
Each other can refer only to noun phrases (including implicit noun phrases) that are inside
the smallest clause containing it.
So now, to apply the Each Other Reference rule properly, we need to evaluate the reference
of implicit noun phrases. Here is an analytic diagram for sentence (20):
(25) [We consulted two detectives in order [(we) to find out about each other]S]S
ok
impossible
We will do more on this kind of rule later. The major gap in the analysis as given so far is
that we haven’t said anything about what causes the implicit noun phrase to take on a particular
meaning—for instance, why does the implicit noun phrase in (25) have to mean we, and not two
detectives? This would lead us into a different area of English grammar, covering the implicit
noun phrase behavior of the phrase in order to and many other grammatical constructions.
The example also makes a general point about analytic practice in linguistics: linguists are,
in general, willing to go out on a limb and propose structural analyses that include inaudible
entities like implicit noun phrases. Such analyses are always more controversial, since they rest
on inference rather than directly observable facts. But they can be supported, notably by referring
to the meaning of sentences and to the overall coherence of the language system that they make
possible.
4.1 Each other: the bottom line
I’ve gone into the example in a little bit of depth for two reasons. First, it should give you a
flavor of linguistic analysis: we assume that utterances have structure, like clauses and noun
phrases and implicit noun phrases. We also assume that the language has rules, like the Each
Other Reference Rule. Much of the work of linguistics involves analysis, finding out the
structures and rules that do justice to the facts of a language.
The other main point so far concerns the question of unconscious knowledge. Any native
speaker of English will have the intuitions about grammaticality and other matters that we, as
linguists, use to justify our analysis. Thus, knowing English means that you “know” the Each
Other Reference Rule, in an intuitive, unconscious sense. But it does not mean that you know it
explicitly. There is no English speaker on earth who can just “look inside her head” and say what
the rule is. The only way to make progress on language structure is the more indirect way laid
out here: we make hypotheses about structure and about rules, then refine and improve them as
we encounter more language data. The procedure is actually much the same as in other sciences:
we gather data (here, from the native speaker) and formulate hypotheses. The hypotheses make
predictions about what we will find in new data, which we can then gather. Sometimes the new
data makes our hypotheses look good, increasing our confidence; sometimes the new data is
problematic for our hypotheses, forcing us to modify them or even abandon them and try
something else. With patience, we can achieve gradual progress; though we cannot directly
access the speaker’s unconscious knowledge of her language, our repeated inquiries can achieve
an ever better approximation of it.
In the long run, we want a linguistics that has strong predictive capacity. For instance, we
ought to be able to make an accurate prediction about the intuitions of a native speakers about a
sentence before we ever elicit it. This is a hard goal and unlikely to be achieved very soon.
5. The field of linguistics
With this background, here is a (somewhat narrow) definition of the field of linguistics: it is
the study of the (largely implicit) knowledge people have when they speak a language. Some of
the subfields of linguistics are the following:
Syntax study of rules for forming sentences

Semantics study of rules for meaning
Morphology study of rules for forming words
Phonology study of rules of pronunciation
In all cases, the “rules” are of the kind known implicitly by native speakers, not the kind
learned in school. Linguistics has two other major subfields that also involve rules but are not as
directly focused on them: phonetics, which studies how sounds are produced and perceived, and
historical linguistics, which studies how languages change and evolve.
Linguists attempt to arrive at explicit knowledge of all the world’s languages. I should point
out that this task will never be completed. First, there are over 8000 different languages, many of
which are spoken in remote areas of the world.6 More important, the amount of explicit
knowledge contained in just a single language would fill a whole library. Linguists find it both
frustrating and astonishing that a small child can acquire implicitly in just a few years the same
knowledge that takes decades of hard work for linguists to figure out explicitly.
6
The best directory to the world’s languages is the Ethnologue, on line at
http://www.ethnologue.com/.
Linguists are also interested in developing a general theory of language; a theory of the
properties that all languages share. These are called linguistic universals. Finding universals is
also challenging; many linguists have the experience of having proposed a linguistic universal,
only to find out later on about languages that don’t fit in.
6. What’s this about “native speakers”?
I mentioned native speakers at the start of this chapter and would like to fill in a bit of
information for why native speakers are considered important in linguistics.
A native speaker, to give a very strict definition, is someone who has heard their language
continuously since birth, learned it in the natural way from exposure (as we say, “at his mother’s
knee”; “at her father’s knee”), and continues to speak it regularly in everyday life, so they stay in
practice, as it were. You can be a native speaker of one language (like me), or sometimes of two
or more, or of none. The latter usually happens when someone switches languages in mid-
childhood.
I wish to emphasize: there are no value judgments being made when linguists talk about
native speakers! We don’t think native speakers are better (or worse) than other people.
However, like scientists everywhere, we like our data to be replicable: another scientist should
be able to conduct the same research and find out if the original results were correct. The native
speaker idea is meant to assist replicability. Linguist #1 can say, “the results of this study come
from four native speakers of Language X, all of whom speak the dialect characteristic of middle-
class inhabitants of city Y.” Then, if Linguist #2 wants to carry out further study, or check #1’s
results, she can go to city Y, find middle-class native speakers, and advance the research
program further.
The reason using native speakers as consultants makes this easier is that native speakers tend
to be more uniform in their linguistic systems, have more confidence in the forms of their
speech, and typically speak their language in its richest and most intricate form. Non-native
speakers are more vulnerable to arbitrary, external factors. These include interference from their
native language, or the accidents of what sort of data they encountered learning their nonnative
language.
Study Exercises for “each other”

The first exercise is a very basic one: finding clauses and implicit subjects. This will matter a lot
later on. The others are more directly related to the each other phenomenon.
Study Exercise #1
This exercise simply asks you to find the clauses and the Noun Phrases. Put [ … ]S brackets
around the clauses and underline the Noun Phrases. Be sure to get all of them. If the subject is
implicit, put “( )” where the subject would be and say what it stands for.
Examples:
i. Alice believes that Fred sang. Answer: [ Alice believes that [ Fred sang ]S ]S
ii. Alice hopes to climb Everest. Answer [ Alice hopes [ (Alice) to climb Everest ]S ]S
Exercises:
a. I believe that turtles can swim.
b. The fact that Fred left bothers Alice.
c. Bill said that Jane sang and Fred danced.
d. I persuaded Fred to buy a telescope.
e. I promised Fred to buy a telescope.
f. To appear on television is her fondest dream.
g. Joe said that he wants to leave.
h. That Jane can sing tenor makes no difference.
i. Bill left because he was tired.
j. the idea that truth is obtainable
Answer to Study Exercise #1
a. [ I believe that [ turtles can swim. ]S ]S

b. [ The fact that [ Fred left ]S bothers Alice. ]S
Comment: the fact that Fred left is a Noun Phrase with a Noun Phrase inside it; hence double
underlines. We’ll come back to this; but let’s not worry about it for a while.
c. [ Bill said that [ [ Jane sang ]S and [ Fred danced. ]S ]S ]S
Comment: Jane sang and Fred danced are two simple sentences; Jane sang and Fred danced
is a more complex sentence that expresses what Bill said; and the whole thing is a sentence.
d. [ I persuaded Fred [ (Fred) to buy a telescope. ]S ]S

e. [ I promised Fred [ (me) to buy a telescope. ]S ]S
f. [[ (her) to appear on television ]S is her fondest dream. ]S
g. [ Joe said that [ he wants [ (Joe) to leave. ]S ]S ]S
h. [ That [ Jane can sing tenor ]S makes no difference. ]S
i. [ Bill left because [ he was tired. ]S ]S
j. the idea that [ truth is obtainable ]S
Comment: the whole thing is not a sentence; it’s a Noun Phrase; hence the double
underlining. When people speak, they use a mixture of sentences, noun phrases, interjections,
and various other linguistic forms.
———————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #2
This sentence is ambiguous:
My sister and I gave our parents books about each other.
Explain each possible meaning and illustrate it with a diagram (brackets and arrows) like the
ones given above.
My sister and I gave our parents books about each other.
One meaning: “My sister gave our parents books about me and I gave our parents books
about my sister.”
Other meaning: “My sister and I gave our mother a book about our father and gave our
father a book about our mother.”
Diagram:
[ My sister and I gave our parents books about each other. ]S

ok
ok
—————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #3
This sentence is ambiguous:
Bill and Fred persuaded Alice and Sue ( ) to buy telescopes in order ( ) to find out more
about each other.
For example, in one reading, you could continue: “In fact, as it turned out, Bill succeeded in
finding out more about Fred, but Fred did not succeed in finding out more about Bill.” In the
other reading, you could continue, “In fact, as it turned out, Alice succeeded in finding out more
about Sue, but Sue did not succeed in finding out more about Alice.”
For each meaning, fill in the implicit subjects shown with ( ). Then draw diagrams for the
reference of each other. (So you’ll end up with two diagrams.)
Answer to Study Exercise #3:
The impossible readings are the ones where each other refers to something outside the
smallest clause containing it.
[Bill and Fred persuaded Alice and Sue [(Alice and Sue) to buy telescopes in order [(Bill and Fred) to find out more about each other]S]S]S.
ok
impossible
impossible
[Bill and Fred persuaded Alice and Sue [(Alice and Sue) to buy telescopes in order [(Alice and Sue) to find out more about each other]S]S]S.
ok
impossible impossible
————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #4
For this sentence:
My parents tell my sister and me every day to write books about each other.
there’s only one meaning: “My parents tell my sister every day to write a book about me and tell
me every day to write a book about my sister.” It can’t mean “My mother tells my sister and me
every day to write a book about my father and my father tells my sister and me every day to
write a book about my mother.” Explain why, giving diagrams for both the possible and the
impossible meaning.
The crucial part is to identify the clauses and the implicit subject, which must mean “my
sister and me” and not “my parents”. Once you’ve got this, then it follows straightforwardly
from the Each Other Reference Rule that each other can refer only to my sister and me.
[ My parents tell my sister and me every day [ (my sister and me) to write books about each other ]S]S
ok
impossible
Chapter 2: Morphology
1. Orientation
In linguistics, “morphology” means “the study of word structure.” We’re interested in the
structure of individual words, as well as the grammatical rules which which words are formed.
Some of the terminology used here is probably familiar to you. The stem of a word is its
core, the part that bears its central meaning. Thus in undeniable, the stem is deny; and in
insincerity the stem is sincere.
Material that is added to the stem, thus modifying its meaning in some way, consists
principally of prefixes and suffixes. The suffix -able is suffixed to deny to form deniable7; and
the prefix un- is added to the result to obtain undeniable. Often, multiple prefixes and suffixes
can be added to the same stem, producing ever longer and more elaborate words: undeniability,
hyperundeniability.
Sometimes it is useful to have a term that covers both prefixes and suffixes. The standard
word for this is affix. More generally still, suppose we want a term that generalizes over stems,
prefixes, and suffixes — over all the building blocks from which words are assembled. The
standard term here is morpheme. It is often defined as follows:
(26) Defn.: morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that bears a meaning.
In undeniable, un-, deny, and -able are the three morphemes. Deniable is not a morpheme
because it can be split into meaningful deny and -able. De and ny are not morphemes because
they are meaningless. More precisely, de is a morpheme (it is a prefix, appearing for example in
declassify, decompose, and delouse), but is it not a morpheme when it appears in deny.
Here is a bit of commonly-used notation. Words are shown broken into their morphemes
with hyphens: un-deni-abil-ity. And prefixes and suffixes are shown with hyphens to identify
them as such: prefixes like un-, suffixes like -ity. You can think of the hyphen as the bit of
imaginary “glue” with which a morpheme attaches to the stem.
2. Two kinds of morphology
Most linguists acknowledge at least a rough distinction between two kinds of morphology:
word formation vs. inflectional morphology. We’ll start with inflectional morphology.
Inflectional morphology is grammatical morphology. Here are some examples to start, from
English:
7
We’ll ignore the change of y to i, a convention of English spelling.
 tense on verbs (present tense jumps, past tense jumped)

 number on nouns (singular cow, plural cows)
 a small amount of person and number agreement in verbs (She sings. vs. They sing.)
English is actually not a very good language for studying inflectional morphology, because
it doesn’t have all that much of it (Mandarin is a similar case). But other languages, such as
Swahili, Russian, or Turkish, have a great deal, and students of these languages can spend years
learning the complete inflectional system.
3. Morphological analysis
When they encounter an unfamiliar language, linguists often begin their work by carrying
out a morphological analysis. This involves gathering data, determining what morphemes are
present in the data, and writing the rules that form the words from the morphemes.
The fundamental method for this is as follows: one must scan a collection of
morphologically similar words, together with their meanings, and determine which phoneme
sequences remain the same whenever the meaning remains the same.
We will do this now for a fairly simple case, namely a fragment of the nominal morphology
(=morphology for nouns) in Turkish. Here are the data:
(27) Turkish morphology data
1. el ‘hand’ ev ‘house’ zil ‘bell’

2. eli ‘hand (object)’ evi ‘house (object)’ zili ‘bell (object)’
3. ele ‘to (a) hand’ eve ‘to (a) house’ zile ‘to (a) bell’
4. elde ‘in (a) hand’ evde ‘in (a) house’ zilde ‘in (a) bell’
5. elim ‘my hand’ evim ‘my house’ zilim ‘my bell’
6. elimi ‘my hand (object)’ evimi ‘my house (object)’ zilimi ‘my bell (object)’
7. elime ‘to my hand’ evime ‘to my house’ zilime ‘to my bell’
8. elimde ‘in my hand’ evimde ‘in my house’ zilimde ‘in my bell’
9. elin ‘your hand’ evin ‘your house’ zilin ‘your bell’
10. elini ‘your hand (object)’ evini ‘your house (object)’ zilini ‘your bell (object)’
11. eline ‘to your hand’ evine ‘to your house’ ziline ‘to your bell’
12. elinde ‘in your hand’ evinde ‘in your house’ zilinde ‘in your bell’
13. elimiz ‘our hand’ evimiz ‘our house’ zilimiz ‘our bell’
14. elimizi ‘our hand (object)’ evimizi ‘our house (object)’ zilimizi ‘our bell (object)’
15. elimize ‘to our hand’ evimize ‘to our house’ zilimize ‘to our bell’
16. elimizde ‘in our hand’ evimizde ‘in our house’ zilimizde ‘in our bell’
17. eliniz ‘your (plur.) hand’ eviniz ‘your (plur.) house’ ziliniz ‘your (plur.) bell’
18. elinizi ‘your (pl.) hand (obj.)’ evinizi ‘your (pl.) house (obj.)’ zilinizi ‘your (pl.) bell
(obj.)’
19. elinize ‘to your (pl.) hand’ evinize ‘to your (pl.) house’ zilinize ‘to your (pl.) bell’
20. elinizde ‘in your (pl.) hand’ evinizde ‘in your (pl.) house’ zilinizde ‘in your (pl.) bell’
21. eller ‘hands’ evler ‘houses’ ziller ‘bells’
22. elleri ‘hands (object)’ evleri ‘houses (object)’ zilleri ‘bells (object)’
23. ellere ‘to hands’ evlere ‘to houses’ zillere ‘to bells’
24. ellerde ‘in hands’ evlerde ‘in houses’ zillerde ‘in bells’
25. ellerim ‘my hands’ evlerim ‘my houses’ zillerim ‘my bells’
26. ellerimi ‘my hands (obj.)’ evlerimi ‘my houses (obj.)’ zillerimi ‘my bells (obj.)’
27. ellerime ‘to my hands’ evlerime ‘to my houses’ zillerime ‘to my bells’
28. ellerimde ‘in my hands’ evlerimde ‘in my houses’ zillerimde ‘in my bells’
29. ellerin ‘your hands’ evlerin ‘your houses’ zillerin ‘your bells’
30. ellerini ‘your hands (obj.)’ evlerini ‘your houses (obj.)’ zillerini ‘your bells (obj.)’
31. ellerine ‘to your hands’ evlerine ‘to your houses’ zillerine ‘to your bells’
32. ellerinde ‘in your hands’ evlerinde ‘in your houses’ zillerinde ‘in your bells’
33. ellerimiz ‘our hands’ evlerimiz ‘our houses’ zillerimiz ‘our bells’
34. ellerimizi ‘our hands (obj.)’ evlerimizi ‘our houses (obj.)’ zillerimizi ‘our bells (obj.)’
35. ellerimize ‘to our hands’ evlerimize ‘to our houses’ zillerimize ‘to our bells’
36. ellerimizde ‘in our hands’ evlerimizde ‘in our houses’ zillerimizde ‘in our bells’
37. elleriniz ‘your (pl.) hands’ evleriniz ‘your (pl.) houses’ zilleriniz ‘your (pl.) bells’
38. ellerinizi ‘your (pl.) hands (obj.)’ evlerinizi ‘your (pl.) houses (obj.)’ zillerinizi ‘your (pl.) bells
(obj.)’
39. ellerinize ‘to your (pl.) hands’ evlerinize ‘to your (pl.) houses’ zillerinize ‘to your (pl.) bells’
40. ellerinizde ‘in your (pl.) hands’ evlerinizde ‘in your (pl.) houses’ zillerinizde ‘in your (pl.) bells’
We have here three columns, indicating inflected forms of the three nouns meaning “hand”,
“house”, and “bell”. Abbreviations and grammatical conventions are as follows:
 “plur.” or “pl.” abbreviate “plural”.

 “your (pl.)” is second person plural. Here, as a possessive, it means “belonging to you,
there being more than one of you.”
 (object) or (obj.) means that that form would be used as the object of a verb. Thus, if one
were to say in Turkish something like “I saw my hand”, one would use #3, eli.8
4. Breaking up the words into morphemes
The search, as always, is for invariant form paired with invariant meaning. In the first
column of (27), every single form begins with the sounds el and has a meaning involving
“hands”. It seems inconceivable that “hand” could be anything other than el, or that el could be
anything other than “hand”—note in particular the first line, where el by itself means “hand” by
itself.
4.1 Finding the stems
The columns for “house” and “bell” are completely identical to the column for “hand”,
except that where column has el, columns 2 and 3 have ev and zil as stems. It is plain that ev
means “house” and zil means “bell”.
8
Thus the reference source on Turkish I’m using gives the sentence
Beş adam heykel-i kırdi

five man statue-accusative broke
‘Five men broke the statue’
Moving on, we can compare:
1. el ‘hand’
2. eli ‘hand (object)’
3. ele ‘to (a) hand’
Subtracting out el from the second and third forms, it appears that -i and -e must be suffixes. We
can confirm this by casting an eye over the remainder of the data: -e “goes together” with the
English word “to” given in the translations; and likewise -i with “(object)”.
4.2 Case
The -e and -i suffixes apparently denote the grammatical role that the noun plays in a
Turkish sentence, a phenomenon called case. Let’s briefly digress with the basics of case.
 Case is fundamentally an inflectional category of nouns (though often adjectives and

articles agree with their noun in case).
 Case tells us, intuitively, who is doing what to whom — it identifies the basic semantic
roles of the participants in a clause. In many languages, “Man bites dog” is Man-
nominative bites dog-accusative”, and “Dog bites man” is “Dog-nominative bites man-
accusative.” Nominative and accusative are probably the two most common cases.
 Case is not the only way to show who is doing what to whom. In languages with no case,
or ill-developed case systems (English), the work done by case is taken over by strict
word order and by prepositions.9
 Some typical cases in languages (each language is different in its cases and their usage):
 Nominative, usually for subjects of sentences or the citation form of a word

 Accusative, usually for objects of verbs
 Dative, conveying the notion of “to” in English: I gave the book to the student.
 Locative, conveying the notion of “at”, “in”, “on”, etc.
There are many other cases; Finnish is analyzed as having fifteen. This isn’t really that
remarkable, since many of these are simply that way of expressing notions that are expressed in
other languages by prepositions.10
In Turkish:
 -e is the suffix for the dative case

 -i is the suffix for the accusative case
 -de is the suffix for the locative case.
9
Still other ways exist—in Tagalog, much of this information is given using prefixes or suffixes on
the verb.
10
Or their counterpart, postpositions, which follow their object noun phrase.
4.3 Plural
That covers the cases. Then, if we further inspect the data in rows 21-40 of (27), it is plain
that every plural noun has the suffix -ler.
4.4 Possessive suffixes
Lastly, there is a set of possessive suffixes, which express essentially the same information
as what in English is expressed by possessive pronouns like my and your. 11 There are four
possessive suffixes present in the data (Turkish has more, but these are not included here.)
 -im ‘my’
 -in ‘your’
 -imiz ‘our’
 -iniz ‘your-plural’
We can classify the possessive suffixes on the dimensions of person and number. Number, in
this context, is simply the distinction between singular vs. plural. Person takes (as a first
approximation) three values:
 “First person” refers to pronouns and grammatical endings that involve the speaker,
either alone or with others. Thus in English I is a first-person singular pronoun, we is first
person plural.
 “Second person” refers to pronouns and grammatical endings that involve the hearer,
either alone or with others. In Spanish tú is a second-person singular pronoun, used to
address one person, and vosotros is a second-person plural pronoun, used to address more
than one person.12
 “Third person” refers to pronouns and grammatical endings that involve neither the
speaker nor the hearer. Thus he/she/it are third-person singular pronouns, they third
person plural.
4.5 Hyphens and glosses
Once we’ve found all the parts, we can restate the original data, putting in hyphens to
separate out the morphemes. I’ll do this just for the “hand” forms. I’ve also add a morpheme-by-
morpheme translation, also separated out by hyphens; this is called a gloss. Glosses are a sort of
micro-translation; they are meant to clarify structure, rather than give an idiomatic reading.
11
Their usage is not quite the same, because if there is a noun possessor, you use the suffix as well.
Thus, in English, we say (for example) Ayşe’s bell; but in Turkish Ayşe-nn zil-si, which is literally Ayşe’s
bell-her; similarly biz-im zil-imiz, literally “us’s bell-our”.
12
Standard English doesn’t make the distinction between singular and plural in the second person;
though many regional dialects have a special plural pronoun, “yall”, used whenever the addressee is plural.
Word Gloss Idiomatic translation

1. el ‘hand ‘hand’
2. el-i ‘hand-acc. ‘hand (object)’
3. el-e ‘hand-dative ‘to (a) hand’
4. el-de ‘hand-locative’ ‘in (a) hand’
5. el-im ‘hand-1 sg. ‘my hand’
6. el-im-i ‘hand-1 sg.-acc.’ ‘my hand (object)’
7. el-im-e ‘hand-1 sg.-dat.’ ‘to my hand’
8. el-im-de ‘hand-1 sg.-loc.’ ‘in my hand’
9. el-in ‘hand-2 sg.’ ‘your hand’
10. el-in-i ‘hand-2 sg.-acc.’ ‘your hand (object)’
11. el-in-e ‘hand-2 sg.-dat.’ ‘to your hand’
12. el-in-de ‘hand-2 sg.-loc.’ ‘in your hand’
13. el-imiz ‘hand-1 plur.’ ‘our hand’
14. el-imiz-i ‘hand-1 plur.-acc.’ ‘our hand (object)’
15. el-imiz-e ‘hand-1 plur.-dat.’ ‘to our hand
16. el-imiz-de ‘hand-1 plur.-loc.’ ‘in our hand’
17. el-iniz ‘hand-2 plur.’ ‘your (plur.) hand’
18. el-iniz-i ‘hand-2 plur.-acc.’ ‘your (pl.) hand (obj.)’
19. el-iniz-e ‘hand-2 plur.-dat.’ ‘to your (pl.) hand’
20. el-iniz-de ‘hand-2 plur. -loc.’ ‘in your (pl.) hand’
21. el-ler ‘hand-plural’ ‘hands’
22. el-ler-i ‘hand-plural-acc.’ ‘hands (object)’
23. el-ler-e ‘hand-plural-dat.’ ‘to hands’
24. el-ler-de ‘hand-plural-loc.’ ‘in hands’
25. el-ler-im-i ‘hand-plural-1 sg.-acc.’ ‘my hands (obj.)’
26. el-ler-im-e ‘hand-plural-1 sg.-dat.’ ‘to my hands’
27. el-ler-im ‘hand-plural-1 sg.’ ‘my hands’
28. el-ler-im-de ‘hand-plural-1 sg.-loc.’ ‘in my hands’
29. el-ler-in ‘hand-plural-2 sg.’ ‘your hands’
30. el-ler-in-i ‘hand-plural-2 sg.-acc.’ ‘your hands (obj.)’
31. el-ler-in-e ‘hand-plural-2 sg.-dat.’ ‘to your hands’
32. el-ler-in-de ‘hand-plural-2 sg.-loc.’ ‘in your hands’
33. el-ler-imiz ‘hand-plural-1 plur.’ ‘our hands’
34. el-ler-imiz-i ‘hand-plural-1 plur.-acc.’ ‘our hands (obj.)’
35. el-ler-imiz-e ‘hand-plural-1 plur.-dat.’ ‘to our hands’
36. el-ler-imiz-de ‘hand-plural-1 plur.-loc.’ ‘in our hands’
37. el-ler-iniz ‘hand-plural-2 plur.’ ‘your (pl.) hands’
38. el-ler-iniz-i ‘hand-plural-2 plur.-acc.’ ‘your (pl.) hands (obj.)’
39. el-ler-iniz-e ‘hand-plural-2 plur.-dat.’ ‘to your (pl.) hands’
40. el-ler-iniz-de ‘hand-plural-2 plur.-loc.’ ‘in your (pl.) hands’
5. Classifying the suffixes and discovering order
It is useful at this point to sort all the suffixes discovered according to their function:
Case endings
-i accusative
-e dative
-de locative
Possessive suffixes
-im ‘my’
-in ‘your’
-imiz ‘our’
-iniz ‘your-plural’
Plural
-ler
In particular, if you scan the data (now greatly clarified with hyphens and glosses), you can
find two important generalizations:
 No word contains more than one possessive suffix, or more than one case.
 Suffix order is invariant, and goes like this:
Plural precedes Possessive Suffix precedes Case.
With a word processor, it’s not hard to prove these relationships by lining up the relevant
morphemes into columns with tabs. Here the data once more, displayed in this way.
(28) Turkish data laid out in columns
Stem Plural Poss. Case

1. el ‘hand ‘hand’
2. el i ‘hand-acc. ‘hand (object)’
3. el e ‘hand-dative ‘to (a) hand’
4. el de ‘hand-locative’ ‘in (a) hand’
5. el im ‘hand-1 sg. ‘my hand’
6. el im i ‘hand-1 sg.-acc.’ ‘my hand (object)’
7. el im e ‘hand-1 sg.-dat.’ ‘to my hand’
8. el im de ‘hand-1 sg.-loc.’ ‘in my hand’
9. el in ‘hand-2 sg.’ ‘your hand’
10. el in i ‘hand-2 sg.-acc.’ ‘your hand (object)’
11. el in e ‘hand-2 sg.-dat.’ ‘to your hand’
12. el in de ‘hand-2 sg.-loc.’ ‘in your hand’
13. el imiz ‘hand-1 plur.’ ‘our hand’
14. el imiz i ‘hand-1 plur.-acc.’ ‘our hand (object)’
15. el imiz e ‘hand-1 plur.-dat.’ ‘to our hand
16. el imiz de ‘hand-1 plur.-loc.’ ‘in our hand’
17. el iniz ‘hand-2 plur.’ ‘your (plur.) hand’
18. el iniz i ‘hand-2 plur.-acc.’ ‘your (pl.) hand (obj.)’
evinizi
19. el iniz e ‘hand-2 plur.-dat.’ ‘to your (pl.) hand’
20. el iniz de ‘hand-2 plur. -loc.’ ‘in your (pl.) hand’
21. el ler ‘hand-plural’ ‘hands’
22. el ler i ‘hand-plural-acc.’ ‘hands (object)’
23. el ler e ‘hand-plural-dat.’ ‘to hands’
24. el ler de ‘hand-plural-loc.’ ‘in hands’
25. el ler im ‘hand-plural-1 sg.’ ‘my hands’
26. el ler im i ‘hand-plural-1 sg.-acc.’ ‘my hands (obj.)’
27. el ler im e ‘hand-plural-1 sg.-dat.’ ‘to my hands’
28. el ler im de ‘hand-plural-1 sg.-loc.’ ‘in my hands’
29. el ler in ‘hand-plural-2 sg.’ ‘your hands’
30. el ler in i ‘hand-plural-2 sg.-acc.’ ‘your hands (obj.)’
31. el ler in e ‘hand-plural-2 sg.-dat.’ ‘to your hands’
32. el ler in de ‘hand-plural-2 sg.-loc.’ ‘in your hands’
33. el ler imiz ‘hand-plural-1 plur.’ ‘our hands’
34. el ler imiz i ‘hand-plural-1 plur.-acc.’ ‘our hands (obj.)’
35. el ler imiz e ‘hand-plural-1 plur.-dat.’ ‘to our hands’
36. el ler imiz de ‘hand-plural-1 plur.-loc.’ ‘in our hands’
37. el ler iniz ‘hand-plural-2 plur.’ ‘your (pl.) hands’
38. el ler iniz i ‘hand-plural-2 plur.-acc.’ ‘your (pl.) hands (obj.)’
39. el ler iniz e ‘hand-plural-2 plur.-dat.’ ‘to your (pl.) hands’
40. el ler iniz de ‘hand-plural-2 plur.-loc.’ ‘in your (pl.) hands’
Study Exercise #5
Reexamine these suffixes and propose a different — finer-grained — analysis.
-im ‘my’
-in ‘your’
-imiz ‘our’
-iniz ‘your-plural’
-imiz is really -im + -iz, and -iniz is really -in + -iz.
We can make this work if we give the suffixes slightly more abstract meanings: -im doesn’t
mean “my”, but more generally, “first person”. -in doesn’t mean “your”, but more generally,
“second person”. Then, -iz means “plural possessor”. Singular possessor is indicated by
including no suffix.
———————————————————————————————————————
6. Position classes in inflectional morphology
When we looked at the Turkish data, the primary finding was that the morphemes could be
arranged in a linear order, which could be expressed as five slots.
(29) Five slots in Turkish morphology
Stem Plural Possessor Possessor Case

Person Number
el ‘hand’ -ler -im 1st -iz plural  nominative

ev ‘house’ -in 2nd -i accusative
zil ‘bell’ -e dative
-de locative
In a long word like ellerimizde ‘in our hands’, all five slots get filled:
(30) All five slots occupied

Stem Plural Possessor Possessor Case
Person Number
el -ler -im -iz de 

 hand plural 1st plur. poss. locative
In analysis, words like ellerimizde are very useful, since they demonstrate the need for all five
slots at once.
The slots in a system like this are often called position classes. Each position is an abstract
location in the word, which can be filled by a particular morpheme or set of morphemes. In the
analysis given earlier, we derived position classes using blocks of rules, one block per class.
An important check on a position class analysis is that there should be no contradictions of

ordering in the data, if the analysis is correct. We can look through the data and see that (for
example) -in, -iz, and -de never precede -ler; that -iz and -de never precede in; that -de never
precedes -iz; and similarly with the other morphemes.
Position classes can be defined simply by looking at the morphemes and checking their
mutual ordering. But the usual picture is that the classes are related to morphological function.
For example, it’s hardly an accident that the two suffixes in the third Turkish slot are both
possessor person suffixes. The general principle is: position reflects function.
This said, it should be noted that there are exceptions; the occasional language will take the
same function and put some of the morphemes into different positions; or fill a position with
morphemes of variegated function. For instance, the Swahili morpheme cho, which means
roughly “which”, gets put in a different position for positive and negative verbs:
(31) ki-tabu a-ki-taka-cho Hamisi

book SUBJ-OBJ-want-which Hamisi ‘the book which Hamisi wants’
ki-tabu a-si-cho-ki-taka Hamisi

book SUBJ-NEG-which-OBJ-want Hamisi ‘the book which Hamisi
doesn’t want’
7. Formalizing with a grammar
Linguists seek to make their analyses as explicit as possible, by expressing the pattern of the
language with rules. The rules taken together form a grammar. We’ll start with a very simple
grammar for Turkish nominal inflection.
The “architecture” of this grammar is conceptually about as simple as it could be: we’ll start
with a representation of (roughly) meaning, and set up rules that input this meaning and output
sound.
In particular, let’s assume that the stem (el, ev, zil, or whatever) comes with morphological
features specifying its grammatical content. The bundle of features is called the
morphosyntactic representation.13 The job of our grammar will be to manifest this content
with actual material. For example, we can start out with something like this for #40 from (28)
above (on p. 25):
el:[Number:plural, PossessorPerson:2, PossessorNumber:plural, Case:Locative]
The el part is the stem meaning ‘hand’. The part in [ ] is the morphosyntactic representation. It
contains four morphological features:
13
Why? We’ll see later on: the morphosyntactic representation transfers information over from the
syntax to the morphology.
(32) Number
PossessorPerson
PossessorNumber
Case
Each feature has a value, which is shown by placing it after a colon. So you can read the formula
el:[Number:plural, PossessorNumber:plural, PossessorPerson:2, Case:Locative] as: “the stem el,
with a morphosyntactic representation indicating plural Number, plural PossessorNumber,
second PossessorPerson, and Locative Case”. We’ll return later on to the question of where these
features come from.
The grammar itself consists of four rules. The order in which the rules are stated is
significant and is part of the grammar. Only the first rule is stated in full.
(33) A Grammar for Inflectional Morphology in Turkish Nouns
a. Number Rule
Suffix /-ler/ if the morphosyntactic representation bears the feature [Number:plural]
b. Possessor Person Rule
Add a possessor suffix, as follows:
-im if [PossessorPerson:1person]
-in if [PossessorPerson:2person]
c. Possessor Number Rule
Add a possessor suffix, as follows:
-iz if [PossessorNumber:plural]
d. Case Rule
Add a case suffix, as follows:
-i if [Case:Accusative]
-e if [Case:Dative]
-de if [Case:Locative]
The reason that the rules must apply in the order given is that by doing this, we construct the
word from “inside out”, adding a bit more to the material we’ve already accumulated. This
“inside out” character will be shown immediately below.
You can show how the rules apply to a particular form by giving a derivation. In linguistics,
a derivation shows each rule applying in succession, and justifies the rules by showing that they
correctly derive the observed forms. You’ve probably seen something like a derivation before, as
similar devices are used for proofs in math or illustrate an inference in logic — each line is
“justified” by the rule that is applied.
For the Turkish form ellerinizde ‘in your (plur.) hands’ (#40 in the data of (27) above), the
derivation would look like this:
(34) Morphological derivation for ellerinizde
el:[Number:plural, PossPers:2, PossNum:plural, Case:Locative] ‘hand’ with its

morphosyntactic representation
eller:[Number:plural, PossPers:2, PossNum:plural, Case:Locative] Number Rule
ellerin:[Number:plural, PossPers:2, PossNum:plural, Case:Locative] Possessor Person
Rule
elleriniz:[Number:plural, PossPers:2, PossNum:plural, Case:Locative] Possessor Number
Rule
ellerinizde:[Number:plural, PossPers:2, PossNum:plural, Case:Locative] Case Rule
At each stage, the relevant rule “sees” the right feature, and adds the appropriate suffix.
Study Exercise #6
Derive #34, ellerimizi ‘our hands-accusative,’ starting with an appropriate morphosyntactic

representation and using the rules above. Answer on next page.
el:[Number:plural, PossPers:1, PossNum:plural, Case:Accusative] ‘hand’ with its

morphosyntactic representation
eller:[Number:plural, PossPers:1, PossNum:plural, Case:Accusative] Number Rule
ellerim:[Number:plural, PossPers:1, PossNum:plural, Case:Accusative] Possessor Person
Rule
ellerimiz:[Number:plural, PossPers:1, PossNum:plural, Case:Accusative] Possessor Number
Rule
ellerimizi:[Number:plural, PossPers:1, PossNum:plural, Case:Accusative] Case Rule
________________________________________________________________________
8. A note on grammars and “turning your brain into a computer”
The rules of (33) above are the very first grammar we have discussed; there will be quite a
few more grammars as we proceed.
Grammars, written with formalized rules, are the lifeblood of linguistics; they are the
method that linguists use to make explicit hypotheses that can be tested and improved. The
formalization of grammars has a purpose: we want the grammars to be utterly unambiguous, so
we can always agree on how the rules apply.
The role of formalized rules in linguistics is not that different from the role of explicit theory
in any other science. The theory is supposed to be applicable, capable of making predictions
about new data. When the predictions are right, we rejoice; if the predictions are wrong, we go
back to the drawing board, either modifying or replacing the theory.
Students new to formal grammars may need to master a skill that I will facetiously call
“turning your brain into a computer”: you do nothing but look at the rule and the forms it applies
to, and derive the result, as if you were a machine. For a moment, don’t think about what the
grammar ought to be deriving; just follow the rules and see what it does derive.14
The payoff for such behavior is that the grammars become tools in our hands; tools for
understanding in explicit terms how a language is working. We treat our tools with respect when
we take them for what they are, namely, utterly mechanical principles.
I hasten to add: the need to turn your brain into a computer is temporary. All you want to do,
at this moment, is check the outcome and see if it matches the true data of the language. But the
other tasks of a linguist are actually quite creative: they include (a) thinking of better rules when
the old rules fail; (b) looking at language data to detect the patterns that the rules should be
14
This is actually not such a bad skill to cultivate; there aren’t all that many people in the world who
are capable of following complex instructions to the letter; you can be one of them!
capturing; (c) thinking of new ways (data to elicit in fieldwork, designing experiments) to get the
data that will reveal interesting truths about a language. Linguistics is indeed a field that
welcomes creativity; the “turning your brain into a computer” bit I’ve described here occurs only
at the stage of checking how the rules apply.
9. The bigger picture
Grammars like the one we are working on can derive quite a bit of data. It’s worth
pondering, for instance, how many forms a Turkish noun can have. There are several choices to
be made:
 Number: singular or plural, thus two possibilities

 Possessor Person: any of three: 1, 2, 3 (“his or her”)
 Possessor Number: any of two (singular, plural)
 Case: nominative (no ending), accusative, dative, locative, plus ablative (“from”),
genitive “’s”, instrument (“with”), thus seven possibilities
Multiplying these out, every Turkish noun can appear in (at least) 2 x 3 x 3 x 7 = 84 forms,
of which we covered only 40. It seems likely that Turkish speakers often must produce a new
form for a noun, when they haven’t heard a particular combination before.
The Turkish nominal system is a fairly simple one; Turkish verbs, for instance, are quite a
bit more complex. The most elaborate system I know of is the verbal system of Shona (Bantu,
Zimbabwe), where (according to the linguist David Odden), the typical verb has about 10 trillion
possible forms. Odden has developed a system that generates these forms using a rather
complicated set of rules; most of the complications arise in getting the tones right.
It seems also likely that Turkish children or Shona children must also come up with a
grammar; they could not possibly memorize every form of every word. We cannot know — yet
— to what extent their grammars resemble our grammars, but the idea that through analysis and
research we can get close to what they learn is a central idea of contemporary theoretical
linguistics.
10. The source of morphosyntactic representations
The discussion in the last chapter showed how we can write a set of rules that create
morphologically well-formed words through the successive addition of prefixes and suffixes by
rule. But what do these rules apply to? There are various answers given by various linguists;
here, we will examine just one fairly representative one.
The idea is that the syntax of a language builds up a feature structure for every stem that
appears in a sentence. Here are the data we address:
I jump. We jump.
You jump.
He/she/it/Fred jumps. They jump.
The suffix -s is seen, and only seen, when the subject is one of the pronouns he/she/it, or a
singular noun phrase. This indicates the fact that in English the verb “agrees with” its subject. A
simple way to do this syntactically is to set up a rule that copies the morphosyntactic features of
the subject onto the verb. Specifically, in a sentence like Fred jumps this rule must cause the
features [Person:3, Number:Singular] to appear on the stem jump. Looking ahead to syntax, we
can draw a syntactic structure15 and the process of agreement:
(35) S S
NP VP NP VP
| | | |
N V  N V
| | |
Fred Fred jump
 Number:sg  jump Number:sg Tense:Pres 
 
Person:3  [Tense:Pres] Person:3  Number:sg
Person:3 
feature copying
We can assume that Fred is inherently [Number:sg, Person:3], since it is a proper name. The
[Tense:Pres] must be assumed at the start as well, since it is part of the meaning of the sentence.
The operation above is part of syntax. Once the rules of the morphology get to apply, the
presence of these feature will cause a suffixation rule to apply, which attaches the suffix that we
spell -s. Here is a sample rule:
(36) 3rd Sing. Present Rule
Suffix -s when the morphosyntactic representation contains

[Tense:Pres,Person:Sing.,Number:3].
In sum, we have quite a bit of descriptive work to do in a complete grammar: the syntactic
component arranges words in correct order and builds up the morphosyntactic representations,
while the morphological component refers to the morphosyntactic representation in order to
add the appropriate affixes.16
15
This is looking ahead, so don’t be alarmed if the diagrams aren’t clear. To clue you in a bit: S =
Sentence, NP = Noun Phrase, VP = Verb Phrase, N = Noun, V = Verb, vertical line means “is part of”.
16
The definition of the term “affix” was given on p. 18.
11. German inflection: more than one feature per morpheme
Consider the person-number endings of German, in the present and past:17
(37) A German verb paradigm
Present Past
1 sg. ich warte ‘I wait’ ich wartete ‘I waited’
2 sg. du wartest ‘you-sg. wait’ du wartetest ‘You waited’
3 sg. sie/er wartet ‘she/he waits’ sie/er wartete ‘she/he waited’
1 pl. wir warten ‘we wait’ wir warteten ‘we waited’

2 pl. ihr wartet ‘you-plur. wait’ ihr wartetet ‘you-plur. waited’
3 pl. sie warten ‘they wait’ sie warteten ‘they waited’
First, a bit of terminology I’ll be using more later on: a paradigm is a table like (37) in
which the rows and columns reflect inflectional features and the cell of the table are the very
same stems appropriately inflected for the relevant features. Paradigms are a great way to display
morphological data and are used very commonly in linguistics.
Looking at the paradigm of (37), we find a tricky issue: is the stem warte, with endings like
-(zero), -st, -t, -n, -t, -n; or is it wart, with endings like -e, -est, -et, -en, -et, -en? Further
evidence18 indicates that the second is correct. Here are the forms broken up into position classes
(shown with vertical alignment):
(38) The same paradigm arranged as position classes

Present Past
1 sg. ich wart e ich wart et e
2 sg. du wart est du wart et est
3 sg. sie/er wart et sie/er wart et e
1 pl. wir wart en wir wart et en

2 pl. ihr wart et ihr wart et et
3 pl. sie wart en sie wart et en
The first thing to notice here is that unlike in Turkish, we are not going to be able to put
forth an analysis in which the inflectional rules mention just one feature each—that is, with
endings for person, endings for number, and endings for tense. Rather, German “bundles” the
features, in the sense that one single suffix manifests more than one feature at a time. Thus, for
instance, the suffix -est is simultaneously the realization of second person and singular number.
As a result, in the analysis below, I have mostly written rules that mention more than one feature
17
I’m glossing over some inessential complications arising from the fact that the stem wart ends in a
[t].
18
Notably, the imperative is just the plain stem: Wart! (wait).
at a time. For the six person/number combinations, one needs (at least six rules). Here is a
grammar:
(39) Rules for verbal inflection in German
I. Tense Marking
Suffix -et when the morphophosyntactic representations contains [Tense:Past]
II. Person/Number Marking
Suffix:
-e if [Person:1, Number:Singular]
-st if [Person:2, Number:Singular]
-e if [Tense:Past, Person:3, Number:Singular]
-et if [Tense:Present, Person:3, Number:Singular]
-en if [Person:1, Number:Plural]

-et if [Person:2, Number:Plural]
-en if [Person:3, Number:Plural]
In fact, things are even more complicated than this. In precisely one place in the system—
the 3rd person singular—the person-number ending is different in the past than in the present.
The analysis takes account of this with the rules in boldface, which mention three features at
once. Systems of inflectional morphology are well known for including asymmetries of this kind.
English has a very similar case: the -s of jumps, seen above, simultaneously manifests
[Number:Singular, Person:3, Tense:Present]. In fact, such “tangling” is found in languages all
over the world.
Subparadigms often involve partial overlap: thus, the German present and past verb
paradigms overlap in all but the third singular.
12. What are the characteristic inflectional categories?
Every language has a set of inflectional categories, though the sheer amount of inflection
can vary quite a bit. Mandarin Chinese has very little; Turkish and Finnish are quite richly
inflected; English is closer to the Mandarin end of the scale.
Each inflectional category is expressed (in the theory we are using) as a feature within the
morphosyntactic representations.
Here is a quick survey of some inflectional categories.

12.1 Nominal Inflection
Nouns and pronouns are often inflected for number (singular, plural, and occasionally dual,
meaning exactly two; or even trial, exactly three). Pronouns are in addition inflected for person
(first = includes speaker; second = includes hearer; third = neither).
12.1.1 Gender
In a number of languages nouns are inflected for gender; for instance, in German nouns can
be masculine, feminine or neuter (as we can tell by the definite articles they take). In some cases,
gender is semantically quite sensible:
(40) der Mann ‘the-masculine man’

die Frau ‘the-feminine woman’
Extraordinarily, this system carries over—often quite arbitrarily — to the whole vocabulary
of nouns, irrespective of meaning. Thus each of the three common items of silverware is a
different gender in German:
(41) der Löffel ‘the-masculine spoon

die Gabel ‘the-feminine fork’
das Messer ‘the-neuter knife’
Thus gender is for the most part a purely formal device, not an expression of meaning.
Gender involves many other semantic correlations that have nothing to do with biological
sex. From a web page intended to help learners of German19 I quote the following rules:
(42) 60. Fabrics are predominantly masculine (der Gingham, der Kaschmir).
61. Heavenly bodies are predominantly masculine (der Mond [moon], der Stern [star]).
62. Forms of precipitation are predominantly masculine (der Regen [rain], der Schnee
[snow]).
63. Bodies of water (restricted to inland streams, currents, and stagnant bodies) are
predominantly masculine (der See [sea], der Teich [pond]).
64. Words denoting sound or loud noise or phonetic speech sounds are masculine (der
Donner [thunder], der Dental [dental sound], der Diphthong).
65. Dance steps and popular music forms are masculine (der Jazz, der Tango).
Such generalizations are pervasive in gender languages. However, since there are usually
exceptions of various sorts, it seems that people who know gender languages have probably
memorized the gender of every word.
19
https://sites.google.com/site/meyersde/Home/determinants-of-gender-in-german.
Gender is not just a property of familiar European languages; for example, it is also found in
Semitic languages, and a kind of system rather like gender (but with at least a dozen types) is
found in Bantu languages.
12.1.2 Case
Nouns, and the syntactic phrases they occur in, are marked for case, which marks their role
in the sentence. See p. 21 above for discussion of case.
12.2 Verbal Inflection
Very common is tense, which gives the time of action relative to the present: past (I
jumped), present (I jump), future (I will jump), and other (for example, “remote past”) tenses.
Aspect sets the boundaries of the action of the verb time, for instance, completed vs. non-
completed action.
Verbs often agree with their subjects (and sometimes their objects as well) in features for
nouns (as shown above in section 10 of this chapter). These features include person (I am, you
are, she is), number (I am, we are), gender.
Verbs, particularly second person forms (see below) can also be inflected for the degree of
familiarity of the addressee; thus English used to make a distinction between (say) thou
believest, addressed to intimates, children, and animals; and you believe, for less familiar
addressees. Most European languages, Javanese, Persian, and Japanese have such systems today.
In various languages verbs are inflected for degree of belief. German, for instance, has an
indicative (for full endorsement), a weak subjunctive (for weak endorsement), and a strong
subjective (full skepticism):
(43) Indicative and two subjunctives in German
Er sagte, dass er krank ist.

He said that he sick is-indicative
“He said he is sick” (acknowledging a belief held by all)
Er sagte, dass er krank sei.

He said that he sick is-weak subjunctive
“He said he is sick” (and it’s not necessarily true)
Er sagte, dass er krank wäre.

He said that he sick is-strong subjunctive
“He said he is sick” (and the speaker doubts it)
Related to this is the category of verbal inflection in many languages which marks information
known only by hearsay rather than by direct witness; this is common in American Indian
languages.
12.3 Adjectival Inflection
Adjectives typically don’t have their own inflectional categories, but acquire inflection by
agreeing with the nouns they modify; thus German:
(44) ein guter Löffel ‘a-masculine good-masculine spoon’

eine gute Gabel ‘a-feminine good-feminine fork’
ein gutes Messer ‘a-neuter good-neuter knife’
13. The principle of obligatory expression
An important aspect of inflectional morphology is that it often involves obligatory choices.

When in English one says “I bought the book”, it specifically means “one book”, not “any old
number of books”. Likewise, “books” necessarily implies the plural. To avoid the obligatory
choice, one must resort to awkward circumlocutions like “book or books”. There are other
languages (for example, Mandarin) that work quite differently. Thus, the following sentence:
(45) wɔ3 mai3 ʂu1

I buy book
is quite noncommittal about how many books are bought. (It is also noncommittal about when
the buying takes place.) Thus an important aspect of the grammar of languages is the set of
choices they force speakers to make when speaking; this is determined by their systems of
inflectional morphology.
Fundamentally, there is a bifurcation between the two ways that thought is embodied in
language. The following diagram tries to make this clearer.
(46) Thought
concepts, classifications, ideas…
Grammar Content
[Number: singular, plural] one vs. more than one: “two”, “three”
[Tense: present, past] overt statements about time: “now”, “then”
[Honorific: formal, informal] overt labels of respect: “Mr.”
[Mood: indicative, subjunctive] overt statements of degree of belief: “I doubt
etc. …”
Languages differ: each one takes a subset of the fundamental ideas, and grammatically
codifies them. By this I mean that in some particular language, a particular concepts get
expressed as grammatical features, and that these features are included in the morphosyntactic
representations and thus integrated into the grammar. Whenever this happens, the expression of
the concept in question becomes obligatory — since you have to obey the grammar of your
language when you speak. Alternatively, a concept can remain uncodified grammatically, and
the speaker is free to express it or not as she chooses, through choice of words and other means.
On the whole, the forms of thought that can get integrated into grammar are, as we might
expect, the ones that are most omnipresent in our lives: time, number, belief vs. doubt, and the
fundamental aspects of conversations (speaker/hearer/other and their social relations.)
14. The typology of inflection
It’s quite possible for there to be inflectional rules that apply (attaching their affix) only if
two features are present in the morphosyntactic representation. Take a look, for instance, at the
following Latin data:
(47) A Latin noun paradigm
somnus, somni. nm., sleep.

Case Singular Plural Meaning of case
Nominative somn-us somn-i for subjects
Genitive somn-i somn-orum for possessors
Dative somn-o somn-is “to”
Accusative somn-um somn-os for objects
Ablative somn-o somn-is “from”
Locative somn-i somn-is “at, on, in”
Vocative somn-e somn-i for calling to someone
Taking just the suffix -us, we can see that it packs a considerable bundle of information: it
tells us that somnus is nominative, that it is singular, and (with a few exceptions we will ignore)
that it is masculine. We could write the rule like this:
(48) A rule for the Latin inflectional suffix -us
Add -us if [Case:Nominative, Number:singular, Gender:masculine]
In this respect, Latin is rather different from the Turkish we saw before. In Turkish, the rules
that attach the suffixes generally refer to just one feature at a time.
This distinction is part of a traditional three-way system for classifying types of inflectional
morphology, given below.
(49) Isolating / agglutinative / inflecting
 A language is isolating to the extent that it has little or no inflectional morphology.

Examples: English, Chinese.
 A language is agglutinating if it has a rich inflectional morphology, and each morpheme

expresses a single morphosyntactic feature. Thus, words tend to be long but have a very
clear structure. Examples: Turkish, Swahili.
 A language is inflecting (bad term, since it’s ambiguous) if it has a rich morphology, and
morphemes express multiple features. Example: Latin.
Of course, these terms are just matters of degree; Turkish is famous for being really quite
agglutinating, and Latin is famous for being highly inflecting (in the relevant sense). There are
plenty of less-clear cases.
All else being equal, inflecting languages will tend to have shorter words than agglutinating
languages. However, there is usually a “cost” to this terseness: typically, in an inflecting the
same ending often serves multiple purposes, so words tend to be inflectionally ambiguous.
MORPHOLOGY, PART II: WORD FORMATION
15. Rules of word formation
The discussion in this chapter so far is of inflection; the morphology that is related to
grammar. The other “side” of morphology is the system of rules used to to expand the stock of
words, by forming new words from old. Often linguists refer to this process as derivational
morphology; I will try to stick to the term word formation since it is more precise.
For example, given that identify is an existing word of English, a rule of English word
formation can create a new word, identifiable. From this another rule can provide identifiability,
and from this yet another rule can create unidentifiability.
15.1 Rules of word formation
Consider some words formed with the English suffix -able:
(50) -able: washable, lovable, thinkable, growable, doable
We wish to write the word formation rule that attaches -able to an existing word to form a
new one. There are three kinds of information that must be included in the rule.
First, there is a change of form; the existing word is augmented by the suffix. This could be
expressed with the formalism:
(51) X  X + -able
Second, there is a change of meaning: Xable means “able to be Xed”. We will not formalize
this, since the task of representing meaning is far too big to take on in this context. Finally, there
is often a change in part of speech. -able attaches to Verbs (e.g. wash, love, think, etc.) and
forms Adjectives. We can do this by adding in appropriate brackets to the primitive version of
the rule seen in (51). Let’s put this all together:
(52) -able Rule
[ X ]Verb  [ [ X ]Verb -able ]Adjective Meaning: “able to be V’ed”
You can read this as follows:

“”
Rules of word formation can be shown applying in a formal derivation. As before, we label each
line of the derivation according to the rule that applies. Thus, for instance, here is a derivation for
washable:
(53) [ wash ]Verb Stem

[ [ wash ] Verb able ]Adjective -able Rule
If you want to figure out how to express a word formation rule of English, the first step is
just to find the right data: a set of representative words that have the relevant prefixes and
suffixes (or more precisely, that have the same word formation process; we’ll see sometime that
suffixes can be ambiguous.
Here are some further word formation rules of English. To express the derivation of words
in -ity, (for example, divinity, obscurity, obesity, insanity, sensitivity), we could write the rule
(54) -ity Rule
[ X ]Adjective  [ [ X ]Adjective ity ]Noun Meaning: “quality of being Adjective”
This creates structures like [[ obes ]Adjective ity ]Noun.
To handle words formed with the prefix un-, (unfair, unkind, unjust, unspoken, unattested,
unidentifiable) we could write the following rule:
(55) un- Rule
[ X ]Adjective  [ un [ X ]Adjective ]Adjective Meaning: “not Adjective”
The rule creates structures like [ un [ kind ]A]A.
To solve problems involving writing of rules of word formation in English, it’s clear that the
first task is to think of a bunch of words that have the relevant prefix or suffix, then generalize
over what you find. You can get help with prefixes just by consulting a dictionary, where words
with the same prefix alphabetize together. To find words with the same suffix, there are
dictionaries that alphabetize from the end of the word rather than the beginning.20
16. Stacked derivation
At least in English, the idea of the position class, covered above for inflection, is not
relevant for derivation. Rather, the rules of derivation can apply freely, provided their
requirements are met. For example, we can derive the long word unmindfulness by applying the
following rules in succession:
(56) Derivation of unmindfulness
[mind]Noun stem
[[mind]Noun ful]A -ful Rule: [ X ]N  [[ X ]N ful ]Adj
[un[[mind]Noun ful]Adj] un- Rule ((55))
[[un[[mind]Noun ful]Adj]ness]Noun -ness Rule: [ X ]Adj  [[ X ]Adj ness ]Noun
20
The two I know are entitled Walker’s Rhyming Dictionary and The English Word Speculum, both
in the UCLA library.
With a bit of strain, it’s possible even to have the same inflectional rule apply twice in the
same form. Here is an outline derivation for the (novel) word industrializational.
industry
industrial
industrialize
industrialization
industrializational
Although the last word is a bit of stretch, you can see that the result has “double application” of
the rule that attaches -al.
Study Exercise #7: give the rules and derivation for industrializational. Answer on next page.
[industry]Noun stem
[[industri]Noun al]A21 -al Rule:

[ X ]N  [[ X ]N al ]Adj
“[[ X ]N al ]Adj” means “pertaining to X”
[[industri]Noun al]A ize ]V -ize Rule:

[ X ]Adj  [[ X ]Adj ize ]Verb
“[[ X ]Adj ize ]Verb” means “to render X”
[[[industri]Noun al]A iz ]V ation ]N -ation Rule:

[ X ]Verb  [[ X ]Verb ation ]Noun
“[[ X ]Verb ation ]Noun” means “the process of
Xing”
[[[[industri]Noun al]A iz ]V ation ]N al]A -al Rule (again)
Here are some words that justify these rules:
-al: cynical, coastal, epochal, triumphal

-ize: humanize, criminalize, socialize, legalize
-ation: visitation, accreditation, limitation, condensation
—————————————————————————————————————
The repetition of the same suffix in the word is fairly good evidence that English word
formation does not involve position classes. The multiple appearances result from the inherent
property of word formation, that the rules apply where they can. In contrast, in the position-class
systems seen in inflection, the rules apply in a strict arrangement defined by blocks.
16.1 Ambiguity from stacked derivation
A theme we will repeatedly return to here is ambiguity and the ways it emerges from the
rules of a language. This will be almost obsessive when we turn to syntax and semantics, but for
now it is worth doing an example from morphology, specifically word formation — the more
elaborate examples to come will work in similar ways.
To start, let’s set up a bit of the English morphological system. We have already dealt with
the following rules:
(57) Negative un- Rule (repeated from (55), but renamed)
21
We may ignore the spelling change, assuming our focus is on spoken English.
[ X ]Adjective  [ un [ X ]Adjective ]Adjective Meaning: “not Adjective”

(58) -able Rule (repeated from (52))
[ X ]Verb  [ [ X ]Verb -able ]Adjective Meaning: “able to be V’ed”
We will also need a new rule. If you consider pairs like the following
seat unseat
attach unattach
do undo
twist untwist
it should be clear that there is some kind of rule attaching un-. However, this rule cannot be the
same rule as (57), since it attaches un- to verbs. Moreover, its meaning is not really negative
(unseat doesn’t mean “to not seat”) but rather something more specific, which we might call
reversive; each of the un- verbs in the list more or less reverses the action of the simple verb.
Write the rule yourself, then check your work on the next page.
(59) Reversive un- Rule
[ X ]Verb  [ un [ X ]Verb ]Verb Meaning: “reverse the action of X”
We now have the apparatus we need to characterize an ambiguity, namely untieable (as in,
“My shoes are untieable.”). Just to be clear about it, we could provide contexts that make both
meanings clear (the usual term for this is “disambiguating context”).
(60) Two meanings of “untieable”
a. My shoelaces were untieable, so I went ahead and untied them.

b. I tried and tried to tie my shoelaces, but it turned out that they were simply untieable.
It’s more ungainly, but we could say, following the bits of meaning we put into our word
formation rules, that the meaning in (60)a) is something like “not able to be tied”, and the
meaning in (60) is “able to be untied” or (more explicitly) “able to be undone with respect to
tieing”. This is meant to lead up to the actual morphological derivations that generate the two
meanings.
(61) Two meanings of “untieable”: derivations
a. [ tie ]Verb stem

[[ tie ]Verb able ]Adj ‘able to be tied’ -Able Rule
[ un [[ tie ]Verb able ]Adj]Adj ‘not able to be tied’ Negative un-
Rule
b. [ tie ]Verb stem

[un [ tie ]Verb]Verb ‘undo the action of tieing’ Reversive un-
Rule
[[ un [ tie ]Verb ]Verb able ]Adj ‘able to be undone with respect to tieing’ -Able Rule
17. What meanings are expressed by word formation rules?
The short answer here is “almost anything,” as we’ll see shortly. But there are some core
meanings.
17.1 Changing syntactic category
Perhaps the most common purpose of word formation rules is to change syntactic category;
we may want to say pretty much the same idea, but using the stem as a noun instead of a verb:
He had trouble concentrating. (verb)

He had trouble with his concentration. (noun)
In English, there are word formation processes that can change between any pair of the three
major syntactic categories of verb, noun, and adjective:
(62) Part-of-speech-changing word formation in English
Verb to noun: -ation, as above

usual meaning: “the process of Verbing”
Noun to verb: -ify, -ize (as in classify, demonize)
usual meaning: “to do something involving Noun”
Adjective to noun: -ness, -ity

usual meaning: “the quality of being Adjective”
Noun to adjective: -ish, -esque
usual meaning: “resembling Noun”
Verb to adjective: -ent (as in effevescent)

usual meaning: “tending to Verb”
Adjective to verb: -ify (as in clarify, humidify)
usual meaning: “render Adjective”
17.2 Changing the number of participants in a verb
Verbs often have rules of word formation that change the number of participants. Consider
the Persian verbs below:
(63) Word formation processes the change the number of participants in a verb
res-idan ‘reach-infinitive’
res-aːn-idan ‘send-infinitive’
xaːb-idan ‘to sleep’

xaːb-aːn-idan ‘to put to sleep’22
Here, we can take a verb that has just one participant (the one who is reaching, or sleeping),
and make from it a verb that has an additional participant (the one who causes to reach, or causes
to sleep). This is called a causative verb. English has no such word formation process, and uses
syntactic constructions to express causation (“He made them sleep”).
For Persian, the rule could be expressed as:
(64) -an Rule

[ X ]Verb  [ [ X ]Verb aːn ]Verb Meaning: “to cause to Verb”
22
In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the symbol [] designates a long vowel.
17.3 The grand miscellaneous
Although the two purposes of word formation rules just given are probably the most
common across languages, individual languages can include word formation rules of marvelous
specificity. Among my favorites is one in Ilokano (Philippines), with a process that derives from
a verb a new verb meaning “to pretend to be verbing”
dait ‘to sew’

agindadait ‘to pretend to be sewing’
sait ‘to cry’
aginsasait ‘to pretend to cry’
d͡anitor ‘to work as a janitor’
agind͡ad͡anitor ‘to pretend to be a janitor’
English has some very specific word formation processes:
(65) Highly concrete word formation processes of English
bowl-arama, carpet-arama ‘grand emporium for X or X-ing’

Stalin-ism, Mao-ism ‘doctrine propounded by X’
pay-ola, shin-ola, plug-ola ‘bribery involving X’
18. The ordering of word formation and inflection
It is at least a strong cross-linguistic tendency — perhaps a universal of language — that

rules of word formation apply before inflectional rules. Thus, for instance, in English it is
possible to have words like nullifies, which are derived as follows (I’ll use IPA transcription to
duck issues involving spelling):
[nl]Adj. root: ‘null’

[[nl]Adj.IfaI]Verb Word formation rule: Adjective + /-IfaI/  Verb
[[nl]Adj.IfaI+z]Verb Inflectional rule:
X  Xz when [Verb, +3rd person, +singular, +present]
The opposite rule ordering would have derived *[nlzIfaI], so that the inflectional suffix would
appear “inside” the derivational suffix. Cases of this sort are rare at best.
This has implications for when you analyze a new language: typically it is possible to work
out the inflection — appearing on the “outside” of the word, and then work with the leftover
material and find the word formation rules.
19. Compounding
A widespread view of compound words is that they are a form of word formation. They
differ in that rather than attaching an affix to a stem, they concatenate (chain together) two stems.
Here is a same rule of compounding for English nouns:
[ X1 ]Noun + [ X2 ]Noun  [ [ X ]Noun [ X ] Noun ]Noun

Meaning: “an X2 that has something to do with X1.”
Thus: boat house (structure: [[ boat ]Noun [ house ]Noun ]Noun) is a house that has something
to do with boats (for example, you keep boats inside it). A houseboat is a boat that functions as a
house.
The word tigerbird is probably not familiar to you, but you can guess part of its meaning
simply by knowing how to speak English: you know it is a kind of bird (and not a kind of
tiger!), and that it has something to do with tigers (perhaps it is striped like a tiger, or it likes to
roost on top of sleeping tigers, or that it fights like a tiger, and so on).
Compounds like houseboat, boathouse, and tigerbird, derived by the rule given above, are
said to be headed: the “head” of houseboat is boat, because a houseboat is a boat. Likewise
house is the head of boathouse, because a boathouse is a house, and bird is the head of tigerbird.
In English, most compounds have at most one head, but other languages allow “double-
headed” compounds, for instance when “mother-father” is used to mean “parents.” One possible
English example is Austria-Hungary, which designated the country of the 19th century that
included both Austria and Hungary. Double-headed compounds can be derived with a rule that is
exactly like the compound rule given above, except that the meaning has to be stated differently.
It is possible to form a compound from two words one of which is itself a compound. For
example, we can combine the compound law degree with the word requirement to get the
complex compound law degree requirement. This compound can in turn be combined with
changes to get law degree requirement changes; and so on. The following example suggests that
the process is essentially unlimited:
(66) Unlimited compounding in English
eggplant ‘plant shaped like an egg’

eggplant plant ‘factory for manufacturing eggplants’
eggplant plant plant ‘factory for manufacturing factories for manufacturing
eggplants’
Thus compounding is like other forms of word formation in that it applied freely, rather than
in the strict “assembly line” fashion of inflectional rules.
19.1 The spelling of compounds
The spelling system of English is inconsistent with regard to compounds; some are spelled
without a space between the component words and some are spelled with a space. It is important
to realize that an expression spelled with a space can still be a compound.
One can argue for this in two ways. First, consider German: it is customary in German to
spell all compounds without a space between the component words. That is, the English practice
is more or less an accident; given that other languages go the other way.
More important, there are linguistic arguments that compounds spelled with spaces are just
like compounds spelled without them. Note first that, in the case of a genuine NP of the form
Adjective + Noun, it is possible to insert an extra adjective between the adjective and the noun.
For example, we can take the NP large cake and add an additional adjective to get large round
cake. But if we start with a compound, it is impossible to get an additional adjective in the
middle. For example, starting from pancake, we cannot get *pan round cake. The basic point is
the while the noun of a NP can be modified by an additional immediately preceding adjective, a
noun that is the second word of a compound cannot.
This fact provides us with a test to determine whether an expression really is a compound,
even if it is spelled with a space. For instance, we can show that carrot cake is a compound by
trying to place an adjective in the middle: *carrot large cake. Other examples also show that
expressions spelled with a space can be compounds:
coal scuttle *coal dirty scuttle

lap dog *lap slobbery dog
can opener *can handy opener
20. Summing up so far
The picture of morphology thus far drawn is like this.
First, languages have means of expanding their inventory of words (more precisely: of
stems). The rules of word formation add affixes to stems to derive new stems, which have new
meanings. These meanings can be common, characteristic ones (like “the quality of being
Adjective”, “to cause to Verb”), or exotic ones (like “emporium for selling Noun”).
Compounding likewise expands the stock of stems, creating either single-headed compounds
(like boathouse) or, in some languages, two-headed ones (like Austria-Hungary).23 There is in
principle no limit to “when” a derivational rule can apply; it simply looks for the right kind of
base form and applies optionally.
23
For thoroughness: there are also compounds with implied heads, like airhead. These typically
have an unstated head, usually meaning “person” or “thing”. Thus airhead means, essentially, “air-headed
person”, “person with head filled with air”. Similarly: pick-pocket “person who picks pockets”; stopgap
“thing that stops gaps”.
The stems that result, whether they are basic or derived, are used in sentences. In a sentence
context, the rules of the syntax (as yet undiscussed) provide each stem with a morphosyntactic
representation, that is to say, a bundle of inflectional features. These features are specific to a
particular language, although a number of features like [Case:Accusative] or [Number:Plural]
occur repeatedly in languages. The features are referred to by the rules of inflectional
morphology, which add affixes in order to express their content overtly. It is generally possible
to arrange the affixes of an inflectional system into “slots”, where each word has at most one
affix per slot. In terms of rules, the slots are expressed by having one rule per slot; each rule
attaches the affix that corresponds to the features given in the morphosyntactic representation of
the stem.
As a consequence of this scheme, inflectional morphology, being attached by rules that

apply “later”, occurs on the “outside” of a word; that is to say, further from the stem than
inflectional morphology.
21. Phonological realization in morphology
When I say “phonological realization”, I mean the arrangement of the phonological material
(speech sounds) that realizes the morphological categories, whether they be derivation or
inflectional. I would guess that a large majority of all morphology (in the narrow sense that
excludes compounding) is prefixation, suffixation, or compounding. All three are concatenative,
in the sense that they string together sequences of speech sounds. They are the meat and potatoes
of morphology, and are found in most languages.
But concatenation is not the only way you could carry out an inflectional or derivational
process: segments can be interpolated, or copied, or altered in their phonetic content. Below, I
will give some cases, and present ways that explicit rules can be written for them.
Note that all of these “fancy” forms of morphology can be used for both inflection and
derivation — on the whole, the functions of morphology (grammatical or derivational) can be
studied independently of the changes in phonological material that carry out these functions.
21.1 Infixation
The following data from Bontoc (Philippines) illustrate infixation, which can be defined as
insertion of segments into some location inside the base:
(67) Bontoc infixation
fikas ‘strong’ fumikas ‘he is becoming strong’

kilad ‘red’ kumilad ‘he is becoming red’
bato ‘strong’ bumato ‘he is becoming stone’
fusul ‘enemy’ fumusul ‘he is becoming an enemy’
It’s reasonably clear that this is a derivational process, and that the brackets we’ll need are
something like this:
(68) Rules for Bontoc infixation (first draft)
[ X ]Adj [ X ]Adj]Verb

Meaning: “become Adjective”
[ X ]Noun [ X ]Noun]Verb

Meaning: “become Noun”
But how to express the infixation? The important part here is to be precise about just where the
infixed material should be inserted. We will use here a method that makes uses of variables and
subscripts.
The variables we have seen already with simple rules in prefixation and suffixation, as in
[ X ]Adj  [[ X ]Adj ness ]Noun there are various methods proposed; we will follow a rather simple
one. Instead of simply expressing the speech sounds of the base with a simple variable X
(meaning: any sequence), we will give this part of the rule more structure, sufficient structure to
specify where the infix goes. Doing just the adjective case, we have:
[ C V X ]Adj [[ C um V X ]Adj ]Verb

1 2 3 1 2 3
Meaning: “become Adjective”
You can read the rule above as follows:
(69) “An adjective base consisting (precisely) of a consonant, followed by a vowel,

followed by anything, is converted to an verb by inserting the sequence -um- after
the consonant.”
Some details: the numbers under the terms of the rule are included to make sure we are
clear on what matches up with what (important if, for example, a rule contains more than one C).
“C” and “V” are very commonly used in linguistics as abbreviations for “consonant” and
“vowel”. (The vowels in the examples above are [i, a, o, u].)
Applying the rule to the form, we have the following matchup:
[ f i kas ]Adj [[ f um i kas ]Adj ]Verb
[ C V X ]Adj [[ C um V X ]Adj ]Verb

1 2 3 1 2 3
Infixation is not common in English. You are probably familiar with the colloquial
expression fan[ˈfkən]tastic,24 in which a taboo word is placed in the middle of the stem, as a
24
IPA symbols: [] is the vowel of cut, [ə] is the second vowel of taken.
kind of infix. Cockney dialect recognizes similar constructions like abso-bloomin’-lutely. From
time to time linguists have proposed analyses that predict, for any given word, where the
expletive can be infixed; this turns out to be a surprisingly difficult area for analysis.25
Infixes are normally written with both preceding and following hyphens, since they have
two “joining points”: -um-.
A caution concerning infixes: not all morphemes in the middle of a word are infixes. Many
of them are prefixes/suffixes that happen to have had additional material added to their left/right:
in ex-vice-president, vice- is a prefix, not an infix. You can identify the infixes by their ability to
occur in the middle of a morpheme.
Infixes are normally considered to be affixes (like prefixes and suffixes); the English cases
above, a curious sort of “compounding infixation”, are a curious exception.
21.2 Reduplication
Reduplication is a morphological process in which all or part of a word is copied. For

example, in Yidi,26 an aboriginal language of Australia, the intensive form of verbs is created
by adding to the beginning of a word a copy of the first two syllables of the word:
(70) Yidiɲ reduplication
madjindan ‘walk up’

madjinmadjindan ‘keep walking up’
djadjaman ‘jump’
djadjadjadjaman ‘jump a lot’27
Here is a rule
(71) Rule for Yidiɲ repeated-action reduplication
[ X ]Verb  [ [ X ]Verb [ X ]Verb ]Verb Meaning: ‘to Verb repeatedly’

1 1 1
In Samoan (S. Pacific), the plural form of a verb is formed by reduplicating the second-to-
last syllable of a verb:
25
A pretty good analysis appears in John McCarthy (1981) “Prosodic structure and expletive
infixation,” Language 58, 574–590, available at
http://people.umass.edu/jjmccart/prosodic_structure_and_expletive_infixation.pdf.
26
ɲ is a symbol of the IPA. Imagine make a sound like the first sound in English jump, except that
it’s a nasal (similar to m or n).
27
dj is the IPA for a voiced lamino-palatal stop, similar to the English “j” sound.
(72) Samoan plural reduplication
nofo ‘he sits’ nonofo ‘they sit’

pese ‘he sings’ pepese ‘they sing’
savali ‘he walks’ savavali ‘they walk’
atamai ‘he is wise’ atamamai ‘they are wise’
One might think of reduplication as a morpheme whose content varies, dependent on the
segments that it is copied from.
We can use our numerical subscript notation to express the Samoan process above
unambiguously:
(73) Samoan Plural Subject Reduplication as a rule
X C V C V  X C V C V C V
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 2 3 4 5
when the morphosyntactic representation contains [Number:Plural]
The rule tell us to count off the final CVCV of a word, and copy its first CV sequence (what is
numbered “23” in the rule). Here is a derivation for savavali
savali[Number: Plural]
sa v a l i sa v a v a l i
X C V C V  X C V C V C V
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 2 3 4 5
We can’t formalize the Yidi rule (yet) because we haven’t yet covered the theory of
syllables.
The meanings expressed by reduplication are often “symbolic” in nature; languages often
use reduplication to express plurals, intensiveness, repeated action, and the like.
Study Exercise #8
Write the rule for forming causatives in Ateso (Nilotic family, Uganda). 28
duk ‘to build’ tuduk ‘to cause to build’

lel ‘to be glad’ telel ‘to gladden’
ɲam ‘eat’ taɲam ‘feed’
wadik ‘write’ tawadik ‘cause to write’
cak ‘throw’ tacak ‘cause to throw’
28
IPA phonetic symbols: vowels more or less as in Spanish, [ɲ] is rather English “ny”, [c] is rather
like English “ch” only made further back in the mouth.
In words, you begin the word with /t/, then copy the first vowel, the conclude with the rest.
Using the notation taught here, this is:
[ C V X ]Verb [[ t V C V X ]Verb ]Verb

1 2 3 2 1 2 3
Meaning: “cause to verb”
So, in wadik/tawadik, 1 is w, 2 is a, 3 is dik.
—————————————————————————————————————
21.3 Segment Mutation
Morphology sometimes is carried out by finding a particular segment (perhaps in a

particular context) and changing it into something else. For instance, a fair number of English
verbs form their past tense by changing the stem vowel [] into [] (the value of the IPA symbols
should be clear from context).
(74) Present Past

cling clung
sling slung
fling flung
string strung
wring wrung
While these are irregular verbs (and thus are probably memorized), the process is
nevertheless a little bit productive: forms have arising in dialects like sing - sung, ring - rung;
and many children explore the possibility of bring - brung. In experiments, people asked to
provide a past tense for the made-up verb spling often volunteer splung.
We can state this rule as follows, noting that a crucial element in (most of) these verbs is the
presence of a following [], the “ng” sound:
[ X   ]  [ X   ]
1 2 3 1 2 3
when the morphosyntactic representation contains [Tense:Past]

21.4 Morphological Conversion
Consider the following data.
(75) Examples of verb-to-noun conversion
Fred likes to jump. His last jump was 20 feet.

Chomsky likes to talk. His last talk was attended by 500 people.
We need to think. We had a good long think.
These cases have simplest possible string operation of all; that is, nothing changes. Such
rules can be expressed as follows:
(76) Verb-Noun Conversion Rule
[ X ]Verb  [ [ X ]Verb ]Noun

meaning: “an instance of Verbing”
There is also a rule that goes in the opposite direction, for data like these:
(77) Examples of noun-to-verb conversion
Noun Verb
a mop I mopped the floor.
a fax I faxed the message.
a hammer I hammered the nail in.
The rule needed is something like this:
(78) Noun-Verb Conversion Rule
[ X ]Noun  [ [ X ]Noun ]Verb

meaning: “do something crucially involving Noun”
These are simply word formation rules that carry out no affixation (or any other change).
There is no reason to exclude them from the theory, and indeed they seem to be pretty common
among languages. The usual term for rules of derivational morphology that do nothing but
change category is conversion.
One might ask why we want rules going in both directions. The best answer, perhaps, is that
the morphological base form in each case is somehow semantically primary: a jump is what
happens when you engage in jumping (rather than: “jumping is what happens when you execute
a jump”); mopping is the activity you do with a mop (rather than: a mop is the device you mop
with).
Occasionally in older linguistic works one will find the claim “Language X lacks a
distinction between nouns and verbs.” This is currently viewed as rather implausible; instead,
one could say that in Language X, morphological conversion between nouns and verbs is highly
productive, so most nouns stems can be used as verb stems and vice versa. In any language, there
are good syntactic reasons to want to have a distinction between nouns and verbs.
Study Exercise #9
Does English have adjective-to-noun conversion? Try to find examples. Specify the
meaning that this process imparts. Write a formalized rule for it. Answer on next page.
You can get adjective-to-noun conversion in English most easily in a particular context,
namely with a preceding definite article the.
Adjective Noun derived by conversion

lame (the) lame
able (the) able
meek (the) meek
lonely (the) lonely
tall (the) tall
It’s clear that there is a rather particular meaning here: “the tall” means “people who are
tall”. Formalizing:
(79) Adjective-Noun Conversion Rule
[ X ]Adjective  [[ X ]Adjective]Noun
Meaning: “those people who are Adjective”
This analysis is incomplete in that it doesn’t indicate the special context of occurring after
the.
Chapter 3: Normative views of language
1. Introduction
Suppose we are eliciting some data on English morphology from one particular speaker of
English, and obtain the following:
(80) Present Past participle

I jump. I have jumped.
I place it. I have placed it.
I allow it. I have allowed it.
I grow it. I have grown it.
I cling to the branch. I have clung to the branch.
I string the racket. I have strung the racket.
I bring it with me. I have brung it with me.
The last form would, if I were collecting it from a UCLA undergraduate, startle me, but in
fact there are many dialects of English in which the past participle of bring is brung.
This is an example of a normative belief — on my part, and perhaps for you as well.
Somewhere, deep inside me, I feel that people ought to say brought as the past participle of
bring, and that brung is “wrong.” A normative belief involves “ought to be”, as opposed to “is”.
Normative beliefs can be about some particular word or construction, or about whole
languages or dialects. Here are examples of both kinds.
(81) Examples of normative beliefs
 “French has a more beautiful sound than German.”

 “It is better to say ‘it is I’ than ‘it is me’”
 “[Such and such an ethnic group ] speaks a substandard dialect of the language”
 “Southern accents sound friendly.”
 “Southern accents sound ignorant and uneducated.”
Here, of course, our interest in language is entirely scientific; we aren’t going to wallow in
our normative beliefs, but try to come to terms with them as an object of study. The questions at
hand are:
 What might we do as linguistic scientists to make sure that our work remains objective in
the face of normative beliefs?
 How do we find out about normative beliefs and assess them?
 Where do normative beliefs come from? Why do they arise?
 Are normative beliefs ever “justified” in a factual sense?
2. The professional practice of linguists concerning normative beliefs
Normative beliefs arise for linguists as a methodological issue. We want to do good science,
and it’s quite likely that our normative beliefs might impede our scientific objectivity. My own
favorite metaphor for this is the clean white lab coat — the emblem that a laboratory scientist
wants to keep the samples clean and uncontaminated. As linguists, we keep our lab coats clean
(in part) by ignoring what we feel about language, and concentrating on the data.
Scientific objectivity is of course a goal that cannot always be attained. Everyone, including
experienced linguists, has normative beliefs, and we can’t make them go away. To speak
personally on this point: I find that whenever I encounter a phrase like “very unique,” or the
pronunciation [ˈnukjulər] (“nucular”) for nuclear, I experience real, unavoidable normative
feelings. Both cases are instances where the normative belief is one that favors the older meaning
or pronunciation (see more on this below). But as a scholar I know there is nothing inherently
wrong with them — the world would not come to an end if everyone started saying [ˈnukjulər]!
And when I am doing linguistics, I can try to factor out my feelings from my thoughts and
analysis.
The fact that even linguists are vulnerable to normative feelings has consequences for how
linguistics is conducted. First, a linguist will usually employ vocabulary that shows that, for
professional purposes, she is not buying into the normative beliefs that are held by (many of) the
speakers of the language being investigated. For instance, a linguist would be likely to use the
term “nonstandard” rather than “substandard”; “prestigious forms” for “correct speech”.
Second, the culture of linguistics seems generally aware that there is a need to be vigilant
about normative beliefs. I believe that if a linguist let slip a blatant normative belief in a lecture
at the annual Linguistic Society of America, there would later be quite a bit of smirking and
mockery in the hotel bar …
Lastly, normative beliefs are not just “factored out” where appropriate, but made into an
object of study. This is the topic of the next section.
3. Investigating normative beliefs
To learn about normative beliefs, a good starting point is simply to attend to what people say
about language. For instance, the “Cockney” dialect of English is that historically spoken by
poor and working-class people in poorer neighborhoods of London. It is fairly familiar to
Americans because we hear it in mouths of fictional characters of this background in film and
drama. Here is a reported opinion of Cockney from about a century ago:
‘inspectors and teachers of English in London elementary schools who met in conference in 1906
declared that “The Cockney [London lower-class] mode of speech, with its unpleasant twang, is a
modern corruption without legitimate credentials, and is unworthy of being the speech of any
person in the capital city of the Empire.’29
29
Source: Does Accent Matter? (1989) by John Honey.
The description may surprise Americans, since the Cockney they hear is sentimentalized; usually
placed in the mouths of fictional characters who are uneducated but have a heart of gold.
All over the world, there are dialects that are considered (by many people) to be prestigious
and dialects that are considered (by many people) to be non-prestigious; Cockney is one example
of the latter. The non-prestigious dialects are spoken on various bases:
 Social class, as in Cockney.

 Minority ethnicity, as in the German-influenced varieties of English spoken in North
Dakota and neighboring states, or African-American English Vernacular (Black English).
 Geography: the varieties of Korean spoken outside Seoul, and the varieties of Japanese
spoken outside Tokyo, tend to be stigmatized.
To some degree, you can get an idea of the prestige of varieties of language just by asking
people, but social psychologists have tried to be more systematic about it. A favored research
method is the so-called matched-guise experiment:30 you find a perfect bilingual or bidialectal,
and have them say (more or less) the same thing in both of the language varieties in question.
You also mix in many other voices, so that, if all goes well, the experimental subjects who listen
to the recording aren’t aware that one person is speaking twice. The subject are asked to rate the
speakers on various scales, for instance:
 intelligence
 suitability for employment
 trustability
 likelihood to be a friend
The measurement of interest concerns how these ratings differ for the recordings of the same
speaker saying (essentially) the same thing in two languages or dialects.
By now, dozens of matched-guise experiments have been carried out around the world.
Generally, they show what you might expect: that people who are speaking a prestigious dialect
are judged as more intelligent and suited to positions of responsibility. For the more intimate
criteria of trustability and friendliness, the less prestigious variety sometimes wins, but quite
often the more prestigious variety does. Often enough, prestigious varieties are preferred even by
the native speakers of the non-prestigious variety.
This is what such experiments teach us. However, they are limited in their scope — a formal
experimental setting might well bias the subjects’ responses. A more nuanced view would be that
there are different kinds of prestige. Nonstandard varieties are valued, at least by their speakers,
as badges of community membership, and members of a community with a non-standard dialect
who speak the standard dialect to their peers are “sending a message” that it might not be
particularly desirable to be sending.
30
A good review is in Ralph Fasold (1984) The Sociolinguistics of Society, Basil Blackwell, Oxford,
Chapter 6.
Educators, particularly of young children, often have an extremely delicate task: they judge
that teaching a standard variety to non-standard speakers will help their students with their lives
and careers, but the tacit message “your dialect is inferior” that may come with this training is
not a very nice — or, as we will see, valid — message to give to kids. Enlightened educators try
to steer a course between the need to teach a standard, and the need not to alienate their students
when teaching the standard.
4. The origin of normative beliefs
Why do people have normative beliefs about language? This question is in need of further
study, but it seems reasonable to point out two possible sources.
4.1 Societal division
Many normative beliefs seem to stem from the divisions found in a society. I don’t think it is
controversial to say that every society is in a state of conflict, ranging from mild to extreme. The
divisions can be ethnic, economic, or geographic. In general, the varieties of language that are
affiliated with power will be the more prestigious ones. This includes varieties spoken by
wealthier and better-educated people; the varieties spoken in the capital city of a country; and the
varieties spoken by the politically dominant ethnicity.
An interesting comparison of this sort can be made when the very same language has
different status in different locations. French has an exalted status in France, where it is the
dominant language, but until recent decades it had low status in Quebec, where the ethnic
minority that spoke it was economically dominated by English speakers. German once had very
high status in Latvia, where it was the language of an economically dominant foreign-based
minority. German was less prestigious in 19th century America, where it was widely spoken but
gradually abandoned by its speakers in favor of English.
Here, I am guessing, but I suspect that people’s normative attitudes about language are far
less subject to self-censorship and self-reproach than attitudes about other people. In the 21st
century many people would feel ashamed to admit to prejudice against members of another
ethnic group — but perhaps less ashamed to state that they consider the dialect spoken by that
group to be ugly or ungrammatical.
4.2 Linguistic conservatism
A rather different, and less political, source of normative beliefs results from the ever-
present process of language change. Typically, speakers will feel that the older forms of a
language are inherently “correct” and that the innovating forms are wrong. For example, “it is I”
is the older form; “it is me” is an innovation. Putting the accent on the first syllable of
compensate and confiscate was considered pretty vulgar in the 18th century, since at that time
many people still used the old pronunciation with the accent on the second syllable.
The example I gave above of my own normative beliefs (“very unique”, [ˈnukjulər]) are of
this kind: the older meaning of “unique” is “exactly one” (so it makes no sense to modify it with
“very”); nowadays, “unique” is coming to mean “unusual” (so it’s perfectly sensible to say “very
unique”). The older pronunciation of nuclear is [ˈnukliər].
5. The labels “language” and “dialect” as used by linguists and in ordinary life
Once we have a clear picture of normative beliefs and their basis, we can define the terms
language and dialect. It is helpful to provide two definitions for each word: one as they are
commonly used in linguistics and one for the way they are commonly used in ordinary language.
In linguistics:
 We start with the concept of idiolect. An idiolect is the version of a language spoken by
one single person. For example, my own idiolect of English represents the large set of
rules of this language in the version that is currently stored in my mind/brain, ready for
the creation of novel utterances. My idiolect would also include my lexicon; the store of
words and idioms I have memorized in the course of my lifetime.
 A dialect is a relatively uniform set of idiolects; people who speak the same dialect can
communicate fluently with minimal possibility of misunderstanding. Naturally, the
identity of idiolects is never perfect and so the concept of dialect is not a precise one.
 A language is a collection of mutually-intelligible dialects. Here again, the concept is

imprecise since there are dialects so different that mutual intelligibility is possible but
marginal.
Crucially, any dialect regarded by the public as a “standard” dialect is, from the viewpoint of the
linguist, just another dialect.
In ordinary speech of non-linguists, the difference between a “language”and a “dialect” is

totally bound up with normative beliefs. In particular, a dialect is:
 a language variety that is (according to prevailing normative beliefs) non-important.

 a language variety that is (according to prevailing normative beliefs) non-standard.
An example of “non-important” occurs when the World Almanac lists the languages of some
faraway country as “French, English, African dialects.”31 An example of “non-standard” is in a
sentence like I asked the farmer for directions and was amused when he replied in dialect.
An old saying shared among linguists32 is, A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.
This is meant to be silly but is often surprisingly accurate when applied to the real world.
31
Here is another one: all the languages of China that are genetically related to Mandarin are called
“dialects” in ordinary speech. So, in ordinary speech Cantonese is a “dialect” but for a linguist it is a
language, being mutually unintelligible with other varieties of Chinese.
32
There’s a not-so-bad article on the Wikipedia about the origin of this saying;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy.
Cantonese, which by the linguist’s mutual-intelligibility criterion is a language, has no army or

navy of its own and indeed is commonly called a “dialect” of Chinese. Norwegian, Swedish, and
Danish, which by the linguist’s criterion would constitute divergent dialects of Scandinavian, all
have their own armies and navies and all get counted by the public (including their own
speakers) as languages.
6. Are normative beliefs ever justified?
Returning to the main thread, let us now take on the most loaded question of all: is it really
true that one language or dialect could legitimately be called inferior to another?
It seems unlikely to me that any language could be significantly simpler than any other. The
reason I believe this is that field workers who go to work on a language never believe that
they’re done. A responsible and accurate reference grammar of a language33 will go on for
hundreds of pages, and still be giving just a rough outline of many areas. The languages for
which the only grammars are thin ones are the languages that haven’t been studied much. What
we know about English would probably fill a large bookshelf. There’s little reason to doubt that
the same would hold of any other language that was submitted to the same degree of study.
Often, grammatical issues in a particular language are subtle or complex, and thus difficult
for the linguist to establish confidently. This holds true just as much for languages spoken by
peoples with simple material culture as for languages spoke in large industrialized countries.
A related point is that all languages seem to be about equally expressive: roughly speaking,
whatever can be thought, can be said in any language; though the degree of effort needed might
vary in certain cases.
This claim is probably true for dialects as well. A famous article by the linguist William
Labov, “The Logic of Nonstandard English,”34 made a case for the grammatical integrity of
African American Vernacular English as a system (a well known fact about the dialect is that it
has distinctions of verbal tense not available in the standard dialect), and also for the distinction
between being a speaker of a prestigious dialect and being an articulate speaker (there are both
articulate and inarticulate speakers of both prestigious and nonprestigious dialects).
Naturally, languages differ greatly in vocabulary. A language will normally include a

vocabulary suitable for the culture within which it is spoken; and indeed, experience suggests
that it is not at all easy just to take a random language “off the shelf” and adapt it instantly to the
needs of an industrialized society. But this seems to be a rather superficial difference, as with
time languages can acquire new vocabulary (through borrowing and the use of word formation
rules) to accommodate any culturally-novel concept.
33
A reference grammar is a grammar book written for linguists: its goal is to give the structure of a
language clearly. Other grammars are organized to help teach the language, or are addressed to the lay
public. For more on reference grammars see p. 402 below.
34
In his book Language and the Inner City (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 1974).
Languages also differ a great deal in their morphological complexity. But it would be a
mistake to equate morphology with overall complexity. In English, for instance, the inflectional
morphology is very simple, but the choice of articles (the vs. a) is monstrously complex and
difficult; it just happens to be a problem in syntax and semantics, not morphology.
Earlier in this text (p. 38) I very tentatively suggested that there may be some virtue in
inflectionally-impoverished languages like Mandarin Chinese, which don’t force their speakers
to make commitments they don’t want or need to make. Yet as a native speaker of a mildly
inflectional language, I feel it is implausible that the inflectional choices of English are somehow
hampering my ability to communicate, and I’m sure that native speakers of heavily inflected
languages like Turkish or Finnish would feel the same.
6.1 Putative cases of “illogicality” in language
It is sometimes said that stigmatized languages or dialects are “illogical.” For example, in
many dialects of English (including African American Vernacular English), the sentence
corresponding to standard English “You don’t know anything” is “You don’t know nothing”.
Some people believe that this makes the non-standard dialects “illogical”, in that they are “really
saying” something they don’t mean, namely “it is not the case that you know nothing.”
The absurdity of this is revealed by looking at other, non-stigmatized languages, which do

the same thing without being looked down upon. For example, in French “You don’t know
anything” would be translated as “Tu ne sais rien”, literally “You not know nothing.”
In fact, in non-standard English dialects, “You don’t know nothing” is completely clear and
unambiguous. The way one would say “It is not the case that you know nothing” would be “You
don’t know nothing”, with a heavy accent placed on nothing. There is no possibility for
confusion. So, for instance, the following sentence is a possible one in African American
Vernacular English:
(82) I didn’t say nothing — I just said it very softly.35
The “illogicality” accusation is based on a fundamental analytic error, that of analyzing

other languages or dialects from the viewpoint of one’s own language or dialect. Every language
and dialect has a grammar, which to be understood has to be studied in its own terms.
I conclude that at present there seems to be very little justification for any claims that one
language or dialect is superior to another. Naturally, since I have my “white lab coat” on (see
above), I would not want to exclude the possibility that such justification could be discovered in
the future, but this is at present a hypothetical possibility.
35
Example taken from this article: Stefan Martin and Walt Wolfram (1998) “The sentence in
AAVE,” in Guy Bailey, John Baugh, Salikoko S. Mufwene, John R. Rickford (eds.) African-American
English: Structure, History and Use, pp. 11-36. New York: Routledge.
7. Normative beliefs: who is in charge?
The normative beliefs that arise from societal divisions raise tough political questions.
Notably, the speakers of stigmatized languages or dialects face the dilemma that their mother
tongue — the vehicle of their innermost thoughts and of conversation with their nearest and
dearest — brings them into some degree of disgrace when they speak it among members of the
majority community. This can be hard to take.
Rebellions have been known to occur. They can take place on a national scale, where
speakers of non-standard varieties insist on the right of having their language treated as a
standard (examples: French in Quebec, Catalan and Basque in Spain, Irish in Ireland). Often the
linguistic uprising goes hand in hand with a political one. There are also minor, individual
rebellions, consisting of speakers of non-standard dialects choosing (consciously or
unconsciously) not to alter their speech when talking with standard dialect speakers.
8. Summary: normative beliefs
Summing up: normative beliefs about languages and dialects are found everywhere. They
can be measured in matched-guise experiments, and typically are a reflection of the hierarchy
and conflicts (economic, ethnic, geographic) within a society. With regard to particular
grammatical constructions, words, and pronunciations within a single dialect, normative beliefs
usually involve adherence to slightly archaic variants, that is to say, resistance to change.
Linguists, aspiring to be scientists, seek to be aware of their own normative beliefs, in order
to be able to guard against bias. A number of scholars are actively interested in the nature and
causes of normative beliefs and examine them as a research topic.
—————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #10
Go through the text of this chapter and make a list identifying all of the normative beliefs
mentioned. You can say “X is bad” if you like, but where possible be more specific. Answer
below.
Study Exercise #11
This is open ended, so can’t have a single correct answer. On p. 62 above, the text says
“Nonstandard varieties are valued, at least by their speakers, as badges of community
membership.” This is not the whole story, however. Sometimes nonstandard varieties are valued
by speakers outside the community. Try to think of examples. Use a search engine to try to find
some justification for your claim. (Note: Google Books and Google Scholar are more likely to
get you answers from people who have actually done some research on the question.)
I believe the following list is fairly complete.
1. Brung as past tense of bring is bad.

2. All items listed in (80)
3. “very unique” is bad
4. [ˈnukjulər] (“nucular”) for nuclear is bad
5. The Cockney dialect of English is unworthy.
6. Dialects of English with German influences are bad.
7. Non-Seoul dialects of Korean are bad
8. Non-Tokyo dialects of Japanese are bad.
9. French is good (for France)
10. French is bad (for Quebec)
11. German is good (for Latvia)
12. German is bad (for America)
13. Compensate and confiscate ought to be pronounced with stress on the second syllable.
14. “It is me” is bad.
15. Double negatives are bad.
16. Double negatives are illogical (speaker isn’t saying what he really means).
Sample answer to Study Exercise #11
Here are a couple possible examples.
1. There are European-American youths who attempt to speak African American Vernacular
English. Naturally enough, this comes with an affinity for African American vernacular culture,
particularly as it appears in works of popular culture like music and film. Looking this up on
Google Books, I spotted: Chapter 6 of Mary Buchholtz’s book White Kids: Language, Race, and
Styles of Youth Identity (2010) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, of which you can read
little bits on line at
http://books.google.com/books?id=mtqrQIzIM4wC&dq=white+speaker+of+AAVE&source=gbs
_navlinks_s.
2. It’s apparently quite common for British popular musicians to sing, at least in part, in
American accents (from my youth I remember the Beatles singing [ˈdæns] for dance, rather than
British [ˈdɑns]). Of course, American English is the standard variety in America, but it isn’t in
Britain. Malchow (p. 108) puts this “singing in American” phenomenon in a broader context.
(Howard Malchow. 2011. Special Relations: The Americanization of Britain? Stanford: Stanford
University Press. Little bits on line at
http://books.google.com/books?id=l8xT0epJ5OoC&dq=american+accents+british+bands&sourc
e=gbs_navlinks_s.
Chapter 4: Syntax I — Phrase Structure
1. Knowledge of syntax
A theme of Chapter 1 was implicit knowledge: people show they possess such knowledge in
that it is reflected in the patterning of their language, but they cannot directly intuit the form of
that knowledge. Here, we will focus on the kinds of implicit knowledge encountered in studying
syntax, which is the study of sentence structure. What do speakers know when they know the
syntax of a language?
(1) They have intuitions about grammaticality. A sentence is grammatical if it is

syntactically well-formed; if it counts as “part of the language.” Grammaticality is distinct from
merely making sense. Consider, for example, the following series of sentences:
She wonders if Alice is going to like Bill.

Who does she wonder if Alice is going to like? (answer: Bill)
*Who does she wonder if is going to like Bill? (answer: Alice)
As far as meaning goes, the third sentence is as sensible as the second. It is only
ungrammatical. Similarly, sentences like *John and Bill think I like each other (p. 6) have a
perfectly sensible interpretation, but are ungrammatical. Sentences like Colorless green ideas
sleep furiously, however, are quite grammatical but are nonsense.
(2) Our implicit knowledge of syntax cannot possibly take the form of a list of sentences. No
such list could be stored in a finite mind, as there are an infinite number of grammatical
sentences in English (or any other human language). It is easy to show this. A list of sentences
like the following:
(83) A potential infinity of sentences
Alice likes Fred

John said that Alice likes Fred
Bill believes that John said that Alice likes Fred
can be extended onward to infinity. The basis of this particular potential infinity, as we’ll see
shortly, is that clauses can occur inside clauses.
Since syntactic knowledge cannot take the form of a list, we are led to the hypothesis that
we implicitly know a set of syntactic rules; the rules enable us to create novel sentences (a
potentially infinite supply of them) on the spot. Just what sort of rules could do this will become
clear later on.
(3) Speakers have the ability to recognize and manipulate systematic relations among
sentences. For example, the following set of four sentences:
Bill shaved Fred (active statement)

Did Bill shave Fred? (active question)
Fred was shaved by Bill (passive statement)

Was Bill shaved by Fred? (passive question)
forms a clear pattern that can be duplicated by a speaker of English for an indefinite number of
other sentences.
(4) Sentences are not simply strings of words; they also involve grouping of words into
larger units. The easiest way to show this is with sentences that have two meanings, traceable to
two different groupings of the words:
(84) Four ambiguous sentences, with ambiguity traceable to different word groupings
There were (old)(men and women)

There were (old men)(and women)
They (danced) and (sang the first number)

They (danced and sang)(the first number)
Sue saw (the man)(with the telescope) (she used the telescope to help see him)
Sue saw (the man with the telescope) (the particular man she saw had a telescope)
Bill (gave)(the Chinese vases) (...to someone)

Bill (gave)(the Chinese)(vases) (...even though they already had vases)
2. Constituent structure
The first step in developing a syntactic theory is to devise a formal notation for the structure
of sentences. We wish to express the fact that the words of a sentence form groups of various
kinds; that the groups are themselves grouped into larger units, so that a sentence forms a single
complex structure. Linguists normally use a tree notation to do this.
Trees are actually applicable to morphology as well as syntax, so I’ll illustrate the idea with
a morphological example done earlier. On p. 42 above we gave a derivation for the word
unmindfulness, as follows.
(85) Derivation of unmindfulness (repeated)
[mind]Noun stem
[[mind]Noun ful]Adj -ful Rule:
[ X ]N  [[ X ]N ful ]Adj
[un[[mind]Noun ful]Adj] Adj] Negative un- Rule
[ X ]Adjective  [ un [ X ]Adj]Adj
[un[[mind]Noun ful]Adj] Adj]ness]Noun -ness Rule:

[ X ]Adj  [[ X ]Adj ness ]Noun
The output, [un[[mind]Noun ful]Adj] Adj]ness]Noun, can be shown more clearly with a tree, as
follows:
(86) Unmindfulness as a tree
Noun
Adj. ness
un Adj.
Noun ful
mind
As you can see, the tree metaphor is a bit odd, since linguistic trees are drawn upside down
relative to biological ones. The virtue of the term “tree” is that it is briefer than “root system”,
“tree located in Australia”, or whatever...
Definition: any unit in a tree is called a node. The nodes in the tree above are as follows:
Noun, Adj., -ness, Adj. (again), Noun, -ful, and mind .
When you combine a node with all the material you can reach by going “downhill” from
that node, the result is called a constituent. The constituents of the tree just given are:
(87) All the constituents of unmindfulness
(a) Noun
Adj. ness
un Adj.
Noun ful
mind
(b) Adj.
un Adj.
Noun ful
mind
(c) Adj.
Noun ful
mind
(d) Noun
mind
In addition, the elements un, mind, ful, and ness, each of which is at the “bottom” of the tree,
are called terminal nodes. The terminal nodes are constituents, too, though in informal practice
they are usually left out of a list of constituents.
If you compare the tree with the bracketed version of unmindfulness given above, you’ll see
that every constituent that isn’t a terminal node corresponds to a bracketed unit.
(88) All the constituents of unmindfulness: shown with brackets
(87)a = [[un[[mind]Noun ful]Adj]ness]Noun

(87)b = [un[[mind]Noun ful]Adj]
(87)c = [[mind]Noun ful]Adj]
(87)d = [mind]Noun
So the two notations are equivalent. For syntax, we’ll mostly use trees, because syntactic
structures tend to be quite a bit more complex than morphological structures, and the tree
notation is much more readily apprehended by the eye. Bracketed notation is convenient for
simple cases because it is so compact.
You can name a constituent by pronouncing its terminal nodes in order. So, for example,
you can say things like: “in the word unmindfulness, unmindful is a constituent, and mindfulness
is not a constituent.”
3. Trees in syntax
Drawing the syntactic trees for sentences depends in part on our knowledge of the meaning
of the sentence, and in part on our knowledge of the grammar (the syntactic part of the grammar)
of the language. The idea is to think through the meaning, and locate the syntactic units.
Consider the sentence Sue saw the man with the telescope. This sentence actually has two
meanings (either Sue used a telescope for her observations, or the man was carrying one). Often,
different meanings correspond to different trees, so let us for present purposes assume the
meaning in which the man was carrying the telescope. I will build the tree from the bottom up.
I believe it is pretty intuitive that the telescope is a linguistic unit. We show this with a tree
diagram.
NP
Art N
| |
the telescope
What does this diagram mean? The basic idea is that the is classified as an Article, and telescope
as a Noun, and the entire unit is a Noun Phrase, abbreviated NP.36 This NP can stand alone, for
instance as the answer to the question “What did the man have with him?”
Let’s move on to the next larger unit. If we want the answer to “which man”, we could say
(rather tersely):
PP
NP
P Art N
| | |
with the telescope
This is a prepositional phrase (PP), with the preposition with (P). The constituent the telescope
is contained within the constituent with the telescope. One can also say it like this: the telescope
is embedded in with the telescope.
We can continue, building up the structure as follows:
36
I’ll assume you learned in school how to identify articles, nouns, verbs, helping verbs, adjectives,
and prepositions. If you’d like to review this material, please consult this help page:
http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/20/resources/CheckingPartsOfSpeech.pdf.
NP
PP
NP
Art N P Art N
| | | | |
the man with the telescope (Which man are we speaking of?)
This is a bigger Noun Phrase, involving a man, further identified with the article the and the
Prepositional Phrase with the telescope. It could answer the question, “Which man are we
speaking of?
VP
NP
PP
NP
V Art N P Art N
| | | | | |
saw the man with the telescope
This is a Verb Phrase, whose verb is saw. What we created before can now be seen to be the
object of this verb. The Verb Phrase could answer the question, “What did Sue do?”.
Ultimately we arrive at a structure for the complete Sentence, abbreviated S:
VP
NP
PP
NP NP
|
N V Art N P Art N
| | | | | | |
Sue saw the man with the telescope
Here, we have a subject, in the form of the NP Sue, and a predicate, in the form of the VP saw
the man with the telescope.37
Trees of this kind will be the formalism we will be using for syntactic structure. Trees in
syntax are also referred to as phrase structure diagrams.
4. Phrase structure and ambiguity
As mentioned above, one of the first and most obvious descriptive benefits of constituent
structure is that it provides a clear account of the ambiguity of many sentences and phrases.
For example, with the tree just given, the meaning we had in mind was that “with the
telescope” identifies the particular man that Sue saw (for example, he was walking down the
street holding the telescope in its carrying case). For the (probably more obvious) meaning that
Sue used the telescope to see the man, we would have:
VP
PP
NP NP NP
| N = Noun |
N V Art N P Art N V = Verb
| | | | | | | Art = Article
Sue saw the man with the telescope P = Preposition
What is at issue is where “with the telescope” is attached in the tree: is it part of VP or of
NP? We can clarify this concept a bit further with some terminology.
5. Heads and modifiers
Many (but not all) syntactic constituents possess a head. In a Noun Phrase (NP), the head is
a Noun, and similarly the head of a Verb Phrase is a Verb, of a Prepositional Phrase is a
Preposition, and (as we’ll see) of an Adjective Phrase is an Adjective. Intuitively, the head is the
“core” of a constituent, what expresses the essence of its meaning.
You can think of heads either formally (as a property of trees), or semantically.
Semantically, the thing denoted by NP is a Noun, where Noun is the head of NP; thus, the tall
boy is a boy. The action denoted by VP “is an” instance of Verb-ing, where Verb is the head of
VP. Thus, in the VP “slowly eat pies”, the action described is necessarily an act of eating.
37
For why we are treating Sue as a full NP, not just an N, see below.
Everything within a phrase that is not the head can be termed a modifier, so long as we are
willing to use the word “modifier” in a rather loose sense. This terminology may differ from
what you learn in later linguistics courses, but it will be useful for our purposes.
Getting the concept of head and modifier right is, in my teaching experience, one of the
trickier parts of learning syntax, so here are some examples.
(a) tall women
The head of this NP is the N women (tall women are instances of women). The word tall is a
modifier, specifying what kind of women.
(b) the book
The head of this NP is the N book; when we say the book we are speaking of a book. The
meaning of the is somewhat elusive, but essentially its purpose is to tell the listener that the
speaker expects that she will be able to know (through overt presence, prior discourse, or
reasoning) which book is being discussed — it says, “You know, somehow, which book I am
talking about”. The “opposite” of the is a, which signals that a book of which the listener is not
necessarily aware is under discussion.
(c) the man with the telescope
The head of this NP is the noun man, and both the article the and the PP with a telescope are
modifiers.
(d) read the book
The head of this VP is the V read; the VP describes an instance of reading, and the book is
in some sense a modifier; it indicates what sort of reading-event took place by specifying one of
the participants.
(d) on Sepulveda
The head of this PP (prepositional phrase) is the P(reposition) on. The meaning or function
of the PP is to express location, and the word on serves to express this core meaning (Sepulveda
has no inherent locative meaning; one can say “Sepulveda is a busy street”, “They are repaving
Sepulveda”, and so on.)
(e) very tall
Looking ahead a bit, this is an Adjective Phrase, with an Adjective head tall, preceded by an
Adverb modifier very.
6. Parsing sentences
The starting point for syntactic analysis of a language is to parse (provide a parse for; find
the tree structure of) a variety of sentences. In the theory taught here, the basic principles of
parsing are quite simple.
(89) Principles of Parsing
a. For the phrases NP, VP, PP, AP, locate the head, and include all its modifiers in the same
phrase.
b. Sentences (including sentences inside sentences; see Chapter 1) are assumed to consist of
a subject (which is an NP), and a predicate (which is a VP.)
Just as in traditional school grammar, the subject indicates what the sentence is about, and the
predicate says something about the subject.
The hard part seems to be to make sure you find all the modifiers of each head, and include
them in the phrase of which it is the head; so exercise care here.
Returning to the two structures of Sue saw the man with the telescope, the crucial distinction
is what the PP with a telescope is a modifier of: in one reading, it modifies man (that is, it
specifies which man), and thus belongs as part of NP; in the other reading, it modifies see (that
is, it specifies what kind of act of seeing took place), and thus belongs as part of VP.
Study Exercise #12
Diagram (that is, parse) both readings of the sentence Bill gave the Chinese dishes. The
answer is given on the next page.
This ambiguity is slightly more complex than the previous one, since it hinges not just on
tree structure but also on the fact that Chinese can serve as either a noun (as in the Chinese,
meaning “the Chinese people”) or an adjective. With both readings, we can get two parses, as
follows:
VP
NP NP
| |
N V Art A N
| | | | |
Bill gave the Chinese dishes
(That is, gave the Chinese dishes to someone, unspecified. Chinese is an adjectival modifier
of dishes.)
VP
NP NP NP
| |
N V Art N N
| | | | |
Bill gave the Chinese dishes
(That is, Bill gave dishes to the Chinese. The noun Chinese is the head of a NP;38 gave as
head of VP takes two modifying NP, one the recipient of the giving, the other the thing given.)
——————————————————————————————————————
The example illustrates the point that differing parses of the same string are only one source
of ambiguity in language. To mention some others in passing:
38
How do we get Chinese as a Noun? The rule responsible is morphology adjective-to-noun
conversion, given in Chap. 4, rule (79).
[ X ]Adj  [[ X ]Adj]Noun meaning: “person who is X”
A curious property of the rule is that the output can only be used in the plural; hence it should also attach
the inflectional feature [Number:plural] to the morphosyntactic representation of its output.
 Homophonous words: We walked to the bank.

 Multiple quantifier words: Three men were examined by each doctor.
 Phonological merger: We were patting/We were padding, which are
identical in many North American English dialects
Study Exercise #13
Here is one more ambiguity with its two parses (check that you know the answer before you
look). The sentence is: The hungry bear fishes, and the answer is on the next page.
The far more likely reading uses the noun meaning of bear, making it the head of an NP;
fishes is the head of VP.39
NP VP
Art AP N V
| | | |
The A bear fishes
|
hungry (, scooping the salmon with its paw.)
In the less likely reading, hungry is treated as a noun,40 and bear as a verb:41
VP
NP NP
|
Art N V N
| | | |
The hungry bear fishes (holding them in both hands because they are slippery)
——————————————————————————————————————
7. Possessive constructions
People are taught in school that adjectives are words that modify nouns. I think this is
basically true; provided that you don’t say they are the only words that modify nouns; there are
quite a few other possibilities.
One very common noun modifier is the possessive construction, as in the tall student’s
books. The tall student’s modifies books, but in its internal structure it looks just like an NP.
(except for the extra material ‘s). It couldn’t possibly be an Adjective; an Adjective is a word,
but The tall student’s is a whole phrase.
39
You may be wondering why we bother with a VP symbol when there is no modifier present; see
below on phrase structure rules for some justification.
40
Hungry as a noun is, just as with Chinese, derived in the morphology by the conversion rule [ X
]Adjective  [[ X ]Adjective]Noun.
41
As a student once pointed out to me, there’s yet a third parse: “the hungry bear-fishes”, an NP
modeled on catfishes. This involves bearfishes as a compound word, discussed in Chapter 2. Multiple
parses lurk everywhere.
We will assume here that the tall student’s is in fact an NP, and it sits inside the larger NP
the tall student’s books, modifying the head books (i.e., it says in effect, “whose books?”). Thus
the structure is:
NP
NP
|
Art A N N
| | | |
the tall student’s books
There’s a debt to pay here: where does the ’s morpheme come from, and where should it sit
in the tree? We’ll cover this next time. The brief answer is that the ’s will be treated as
inflectional morphology. What we will need is a way to relate the inflectional morphology to the
syntax.
8. Conjoined structures
Conjunctions like and and or are fairly straightforward: we’ll assume that they link together
two identical units, forming a large unit of the same kind. Thus the boy and the girl is
NP
NP NP
Art N Conj Art N

| | | | |
the boy and the girl
We say that the two NP’s the boy and the girl are conjoined by and into a larger NP, the
entire structure. Similarly, Sue chopped wood and made syrup has a VP made of two conjoined
VP’s:
VP
VP VP
NP NP NP
| | |
N V N Conj V N
| | | | | |
Sue chopped wood and made syrup
Several other categories, including Adjective Phrases, PP, and S, can participate in this
construction: examples of these (same order) are very tall but quite thin; over the river and
through the woods; I like coffee and you like tea.
Study Exercise #14
Parse the king and the queen’s throne.

NP
NP
NP NP
Art N Conj Art N N

| | | | | |
the king and the queen’s throne [= the throne of the king and the queen]
NP
NP
NP NP
Art N Conj Art N N

| | | | | |
the king and the queen’s throne [= a person (the king) and a throne]
————————————————————————————————————
9. Terminology for trees
Here is some terminology that will be useful in referring to trees. I will use the following
tree to illustrate the various terms:
VP
NP
PP
NP NP
Art N V Art N P AP N
| | | | | | | |
the man bought a book about A vases
|
Chinese
(90) Defn.: dominate
Node X dominates node Y if you can get from X to Y by going “downhill” in the tree and
never uphill. For example, S dominates everything in the tree; the NP on the right
dominates an A, an N, and the words Chinese and vases. The NP on the right does not
dominate the VP, nor does it dominate the word man.
(91) Defn.: constituent
A constituent is a node, plus all the nodes that it dominates.
As noted above, one usually refers to constituents by the words they contain. Thus one can
say that the following:
the man a book about Chinese vases bought bought a book about Chinese vases
are constituents (in this particular sentence). Note that sequences like
bought a book
the man bought a book
a book
are not constituents in this particular sentence, though they could be in other sentences.42
(92) Defn.: directly dominate
X directly dominates Y if Y is “one node down the tree” from X. Thus the NP a book
about Chinese vases directly dominates the PP about Chinese vases.
(93) Defn.: daughter
If X directly dominates Y, then Y is X’s daughter.
(94) Defn.: sister
Two daughters of the same node are sisters.
head: We’ve defined this casually, but can now give the tree-based formal version: the
head of an NP is the N that it directly dominates. The head of a VP is the V that it directly
dominates. For example, the head of the NP a book about Chinese vases is book. The head of the
VP bought a book about Chinese vases is bought. And similarly, the head of the AP very tall is
the Adjective tall. (One could extend this definition to PP as well, though it won’t matter for us.)
42
As mentioned above, this is one of the principal difficulties in parsing; that is, not to get distracted
by mere “potential” constituents like these, and instead choose complete constituents.
10. Becoming a skilled parser
Of the practical skills needed to linguistic analysis well, parsing sentences is probably #1.
Many things we will do with grammar and meaning depend on having the right parse. So it’s
worth practicing your parsing, especially if it doesn’t come to you naturally. In this section, I’ll
give some principles that will help you become a fluent and reliable parser.
The first principle is:
(95) Start with the obvious constituents you can get by proceeding “from the bottom up.”
By “bottom up”, I mean, first of all, to label each word for it part of speech. So if you trying
to parse these two sentences:
A. Alice owns the book on the table B. Alice placed the book on the table
it makes sense to begin with the very low-level structure that assigns each word to its part of
speech:
N V Art N P Art N N V Art N P Art N

| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
That’s the very bottom. But moving upward, you could then start grouping the words into
into bigger phrases, like this:
P P
NP NP NP NP
| |
N V Art N P Art N N V Art N P Art N
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
Observe what I’ve done here. Nouns have to belong to Noun Phrases, and there is nothing else in
sight that could plausibly be part of the the same Noun Phrase as Alice, so we’ve got an NP node
more or less for free. The table is plainly a simple NP, with the common Article + Noun
structure, and moreover it is the object of the preposition on, so we have a Prepositional Phrase,
too.
The second principle of accurate parsing requires that you think consistently about heads,
and about grouping modifiers into the same phrase as their heads. For example, in diagramming
sentence A above, the crucial question is what on the table belongs to. If you think about the
meaning of the sentence, it is clear that on the table modifies book; that is, it specifies which
book is under discussion. The rest of the reasoning goes like this: ‘book’ is a noun; it must be
the head of a NP; anything that modifies it (namely ‘the’ and ‘on the table’ must be its sister;
therefore the full NP is ‘the book on the table’.
NP
PP
NP NP
|
N V Art N P Art N
| | | | | | |
Alice owns the book on the table
From there on, the diagramming is straightforward; you just need a VP (verb and object)
plus the whole sentence:
(96) Final structure for “Alice owns the book on the table”
VP
NP
PP
NP NP
|
N V Art N P Art N
| | | | | | |
Alice owns the book on the table
Note that the book is not an NP; it is only part of an NP because the head is missing one of its
modifiers. More on this below.
Suppose this time that you are diagramming sentence B above, Alice placed the book on the
table. In this case, the PP on the table modifies the verb placed (it indicates the target of
placing). Accordingly it must be the sister of the verb within the VP. The book is left as an NP on
its own.
(97) Final structure for “Alice placed the book on the table”
VP
PP
NP NP NP
|
N V Art N P Art N
| | | | | | |
Alice placed the book on the table
Let us now codify more carefully the principle we’ve been following:
(98) The modifiers of a head must be sisters to the head.
In Alice owns the book on the table, the PP on the table tells you what book it is; it modifies
book, it must be a sister of book, and in (89) this is so. In Alice placed the book on the table, the
PP on the table tells you the destination of the act of placing; it modifies place, it must be a sister
of place, and in (90) this is so.
We can illustrate the principle (91) with a more complex sentence that has has two PP’s.
They get placed in different positions according to what they modify:
VP
|
NP
PP PP
NP AP NP NP
| |
N V Art A N P Art N P Art N
| | | | | | | | | | |
Bill put those long letters to the president in the wastebasket
The PP to the president says what kind of letters are being discussed; it modifies letters and
must be a sister of letters within NP. The PP in the wastebasket specified the destination of the
act of putting; it modifies the verb put and must be a sister of put within VP.
Here is another point that often stumps beginners learning to parse:
(99) Just because some word sequence is a constituent in some other sentence, it is not
necessarily a constituent in the sentence you are trying to parse.
Look at example (89) above, and think about the sequence owns the book. It is unquestionably
true that in all sorts of English sentences, owns the book is a constituent (example: in Alice owns
the book, owns the book is a VP). Another of putting (92) is Make your constituents maximal;
or Don’t leave stuff out.
I have one other handy hint in parsing. For long sentences, once you’ve done the low-level
stuff according to principle (89), it’s often helpful to parse English sentences going backwards,
starting with the end of a sentence.43
11. Constituency tests
I’m a bit uncomfortable with the discussion so far because it consists simply of directions to
you, the student, on how to parse sentences. This is merely being tyrannical unless it can be
shown that the structures we’re creating have some scientific purpose and validity. As at least a
move in this direction, we can note the following evidence.
The following are examples of what linguists often call “cleft sentences:”
(100) Some cleft sentences
It’s Bill that they don’t like.

It’s on Mulberry street that they live.
It was the flowers that Mary sent to Bill.
Such sentences are clearly related to simpler sentences, such as
They don’t like Bill.

They live on Mulberry Street.
Mary sent the flowers to Bill.
We can express the relation between simple sentences and cleft sentences by writing a
syntactic rule (we’ll cover this more formally later on):
(101) Clefting Rule
To form a cleft sentence, take a simple sentence and perform the following operations on it:
1. Add it and an appropriate form of the verb be to the beginning.

2. Find a NP or PP constituent inside the sentence and reorder it so that it directly follows
be.
3. Insert the word that just after the reordered NP or PP.
You can see for yourself that the cleft sentences cited above are derived from the
corresponding simple sentences.
43
Why so? It has to do with a property of English called “right-branchingness”. When a constituent
has two daughters, rather often the daughter on the left is a single word, whereas the daughter on the right
has some internal structure. When you have a right-branching system, right-to-left implies bottom-up.
Japanese, which is mostly left-branching, is probably easier to parse left-to-right.
The crucial part of the rule is where it says “find an NP or PP constituent”. It predicts that if
we apply Clefting to a sequence of words that is not a constituent, the result should be
ungrammatical. If you look at the tree drawn earlier in (90) for Alice placed the book on the
table, you will see that the book on the table is not a constituent. The rule thus correctly predicts
that if we attempt to do Clefting with this sequences of words, the result will be ungrammatical:
*It was the book on the table that Alice placed.
On the other hand, in (89) Alice owns the book on the table, the sequence the book on the
table is a constituent, so that Clefting produces a grammatical result:
It’s the book on the table that Alice owns.
In summary: neither the principle (91) that modifiers form constituents with their heads, nor
the rule of Clefting can be assumed in advance to be correct. We can only test them out against
the facts. The more correct predictions they make, the greater is our confidence that they are true.
If we want to be really confident about these principles, we must test them out against a much
larger set of facts. We will carry out part of this task later on.
Study Exercise #15
(a) In They sent the king to Barataria is the king to Barataria a constituent? Support your answer
with evidence from Clefting.
(b) Replace to with of in the same sentence and answer the same question.
(c) What are the grammatical clefted versions of Alice put the book on the table? (There are
about four).
Answers on next page.

Answers to Study Exercise #15
(a) In They sent the king to Barataria’, the sequence the king to Barataria is not a
constituent. If it were, the rule of Clefting could apply to it, producing the sentence
*It was the king to Barataria that they sent
We can explain the ungrammaticality of this sentence by supposing that ‘the king to Barataria’ is
not a constituent.
(b) We have seen that Clefting can move only constituents. Since when we apply Clefting to
They sent the king of Barataria we get a grammatical sentence:
It was the king of Barataria that they sent
we infer that the king of Barataria must be a constituent.
(c)
It was Alice that put the book on the table. (clefting the NP Alice)
It was the book that Alice put on the table. (clefting the NP the book)
It was on the table that Alice put the book. (clefting the PP on the table)
It was the table that Alice put the book on.44 (clefting the NP the table)
—————————————————————————————————————
12. Grammars for syntactic structure I: Phrase structure rules
The discussion so far has been about structures; we now turn to the grammars that are
responsible for these structures.
Phrase structure is language specific. To be sure, it does appear to be true that all languages
have S and NP. However, the VP, AP, PP that we have in English appears to be missing in
certain languages,45 and moreover the order of the constituents of a phrase varies from language
to language. Perhaps other languages include phrase types that English lacks.
44
For the “stranded preposition” on in this sentence, see Chapter 3 above. Normative feeling in
English is that you should not leave prepositions at the end of a sentence.
45
It seems pretty clear that all languages have NP and S. It’s less clear that there is a Verb Phrase in
languages where the subject comes between the verb and the object (for example, Verb-Subject-Object
order, as in Malagasy). AP clearly cannot exist in a language without adjectives, and PP cannot exist in a
language without prepositions (or postpositions). Korean has been claimed to be an adjectiveless language;
like most adjectiveless languages it uses verbs for the same purpose; see
http://webpages.acs.ttu.edu/minjkim/KimHUMIT02.pdf. Klamath (N. California) has been claimed to be a
language without prepositions or postpositions; see
https://www.academia.edu/3876363/Adposition_as_a_non-universal_category. These gaps hardly imply
speakers of these languages are crippled in their ability to communicate! (See Chapter 3.)
Persian (also called Farsi) is very distantly related to English and has a similar inventory of
phrasal categories in its syntax. But the order of elements within constituents is often different,
as is illustrated by the following English sentence and its literal Persian translation:
S S
VP VP
PP NP PP
NP NP AP NP
| | | |
Art AP N V P N Art N A P N V
| | | | | | | | | | | |
That A student went to America n dnedu-je xub be mrik ræft46
| that student good to America went
good
Because of this, every language must include rules that specify its grammatical word orders.
The rules that specify word order are called phrase structure rules. Some examples of
phrase structure rules are as follows:
English: NP  Art A N Persian: NP  Art N A

VP  V PP VP  PP V
You can read the rules as follows: “an NP may consist of the sequence Art, A, N.”
There is a more interesting way of interpreting phrase structure rules. If we have a complete
set of them for a given language, we can think of the set of rules as an abstract machine that
generates syntactic structures. For example, assume for the moment the following (obviously
incomplete) set of phrase structure rules for English:
S  NP Aux VP (Aux = “helping verb”, like can, will, be, etc.)

NP  Art AP N
VP  V NP
AP  A47
In this respect, the phrase structure rules are like the rules of inflectional morphology given
earlier: given a starting point, they generate a sentence. For inflectional morphology, the starting
point is the stem with its morphosyntactic representation. For syntax, the starting point is a single
symbol, such as NP or (most often) S, which designates the category that we wish to generate.
46
IPA symbols: ɑ = somewhat like ah; ʃ = sh, dʒ = j, x as in ch of German Bach, æ = the vowel of
cat.
47
This rule looks trivial right now—we’ll beef it up a bit later by allowing Adverbs and Preposition
Phrases.
Here is the procedure.
(a) Provide the rules with the symbol S (or NP, or whatever) to start out with;
(b) Whenever a symbol appears in a tree that is found on the left side of the rule, give that
symbol daughters according to what the rule says;
(c) Do this over and over until you can’t apply any more rules.
If we start with S, the stages of this process would be as follows:
1. Starting point:
2: apply S  NP Aux VP
NP Aux VP
3: apply NP  Art AP N
NP Aux VP
|
Art AP N
4: Apply VP V NP
NP Aux VP
|
Art AP N V NP
5: Apply NP Art AP N (again)
NP Aux VP
|
Art AP N V NP
|
Art AP N
6: Apply AP A
NP Aux VP
|
Art AP N V NP
| |
A Art AP N
7: Apply AP A (again)
NP Aux VP
|
Art AP N V NP
| |
A Art AP N
|
A
All that remains is to insert actual words into the tree (a process called lexical insertion),
and you get sentences:
NP Aux VP
|
Art AP N V NP
| |
A Art AP N
| | | |
The short lumberjack will chop the A tree
|
tall
or, with different choices for lexical insertion:
The sleepy student might ignore the noisy alarm.

The green idea will paint the blue intellect.
Note that these sentences will not necessarily be sensible; they are merely grammatical.
A note on applicability of phrase structure rules. We saw that in inflectional morphology,

the rules apply in a rigid order, like machines on an assembly line. Rules of word formation are
more “opportunistic”; they can reapply freely when they get the chance (see Chapter 2, §16).
Phrase structure rules are likewise opportunistic; they keep applying until there are no more
nodes to be expanded.
The phrase structure rules just proposed are obviously primitive, since they generate only
one single structure. We can improve the rules by observing that some of the daughters
introduced by a rule are optional. In particular, the NP rule has to introduce a N, but it doesn’t
have to introduce an Art or an A. The standard notation in linguistics for expressing optional
elements is parentheses:
S  NP (Aux) VP
NP  (Art) (A) N
VP  V (NP)
These more flexible rules can provide the syntactic structures of sentences like these:
The lumberjack will chop the tree

Frogs will eat flies
Fish can see
Those students read books.
Sue won
and so on. (Diagram these if it is not obvious what the structure is.)
We can also make our AP rule less trivial, so that Adverbs are allowed.
AP  (Adv) A
For instance: very tall.
13. Curly brackets for “or”
One other complication in the notation for phrase structure rules. We find that a NP can
begin either with an Article or with a possessive NP, but not both.
Article:
the book, a book, this book, those books
NP:
Fred’s book, the king of England’s book, my book
not both:
*the Fred’s book, *the king of England’s this book, *those my books
Here is a simple way to account for this: we use curly brackets in the rules to mean “one or
the other, but not both” (logicians call this “exclusive or”). The basic NP phrase structure rule for
English comes out something like this:
Art 
NP  NP  (AP) N (PP)
 
A AE
This means that you can start out an NP with an Article, or an NP, then continue with the rest
(optional Adjective, obligatory Noun, optional PP). Examples of each type:
the long book about linguistics (beginning with Article)

the king’s long book about linguistics (beginning with NP)
14. Phrase structure rules for English sentences given so far
As we continue through syntax in this text, we will gradually build up an ever-improving

grammar of phrase structure rules. Just to catch us up so far, I believe the following set of rules
can generate most of the examples given in this book so far, as well as the sentences in the Study
Exercises.
(102) Phrase structure rules for English: Version I
S  NP (Aux) VP
Art 
NP    (AP) N (PP)
NP  
A AE
NP   Pronoun
VP   V (NP)(NP)(PP)
PP   P NP
AP  (Adv) A
S  S Conj S
NP   NP Conj NP
VP   VP Conj VP
PP   PP Conj PP
AP  AP Conj AP
V  V Conj V
15. Parsing: using the phrase structure rules as a guide
Once you’ve got a grammar like this to work with, then in principle it becomes easier to
diagram sentences—any particular set of rules represents a claim about the inventory of phrase
types a language allows, and thus constrains what kind of structures you can set up. Thus:
(103) When diagramming sentences, make sure every structure you set up is licensed by
the rules.
In other words, you can’t set up an NP whose structure is N AP, unless there is a phrase
structure rule that specifies this sequence (either directly, or by leaving out parenthesized
material). Thus you can be guided to an answer by both the meaning of the sentence and by the
rules of the grammar.
Example: if you’re thinking of the structure below for the king of England:
NP
PP
NP NP
Art N P N
| | | |
the king of England
you can tell it’s not right because the grammar in (102) contains no rule that permits NP to
dominate NP followed by PP.48 This is a very easy principle to apply; you just need a printed
copy of the grammar on your desk, then you can check every single node in your tree to see if it
is legal. If you’re having trouble in parsing, it is definitely worth taking the time to apply this
mechanical procedure.
There actually is one way you can legitimately diagram a structure that the grammar doesn’t
allow—namely, change the grammar. In other words, you have to say something like “This
sentence shows that our grammar was wrong, and has to be fixed like this [offer substitute rules
here].” In this book I have included only sentences that can be parsed with the grammar given so
far. But of course real life is different: a grammar that could parse all of English would be quite
large and a big challenge to create. Expanding the grammar so it can cover more of the legal
sentences of a language is something linguists do all the time when they work with language
data.
16. Further details of our current grammar
A few of our phrase structure rules in (102) need clarification.
16.1 Pronouns
The phrase structure rule of (102) that introduces Pronouns is very simple:
NP   Pronoun
Art
48
Note that there is a rule NP NP (AP) N (PP). But it won’t help, because it requires there to
 
be an N daughter.
Pronoun, appearing in trees, is often abbreviated as Pro. Thus:
VP
NP NP
| |
Pro V Pro
| | |
She saw him
The reason to have a separate rule for pronouns is that, unlike nouns, they do not admit
modifiers, except in special circumstances we’ll defer for now.49 This is one reason to give them
their own phrase structure rule, rather than just calling them a kind of Noun. The other reason is
that, later on, we will need rules of semantic interpretation that indicate what the pronouns refer
to, and these rules need to identify the pronouns.
Incidentally, pronouns in English are unusual in that they are inflected for case. English has
a three-way case system, with Nominative, Objective, and Genitive. Objective covers what in
many other languages (including English, centuries ago) was Accusative or Dative. Different
authors will give different names to these cases.
(104) English pronouns in outline form
Nominative Objective Genitive

Singular 1 I me my
2 you you your
3 he/she/it him/her/it his/her/its
Plural 1 we us our
2 you you your
3 they them their
Part of what a grammar must do is ensure that the correct case form of each pronoun is used
in the right context; we will turn to the sort of rules that are needed later on.
16.2 Aux
“Aux”, meaning “auxiliary verb”, is the “helping verb” taught in school. In our phrase
structure rules, it is the optional second daughter of S (S  NP (Aux) VP). Here is a list of
auxes:
49
Examples: Poor me, a “frozen” memorized expression; He who dares to go…, with a relative
clause.
“Modal” verbs: can, could, shall, should, may, might, will, would
Example: I can go.
Forms of have: have, has, had
Example: I have gone.
Forms of be: be, am, are, is, was, were
Example: I am going.
You can see that the choice of Aux also determines the inflectional morphology of the following
verb—this involves rules we haven’t yet covered.
Be aware that have and be can serve as either Auxes or main Verbs. Thus:
He is having a fit
involves be as an Aux and have as a main Verb.
He has been President.
has have as an Aux and be as a main Verb.
Study Exercise #16
Parse. Give one parse for each meaning. The number of parses is given in parentheses.50 I
suggest you keep a printed copy of the Version I grammar ((102) above) next to you as you
parse.
a. We have captured the turtle with the net. (2)

i. ... it was quite interesting because most turtles don’t carry a net.
ii. ... we felt sad to see the noble reptile caught in the webbing.
b. The great import sinks. (2)

i. ... because it weighs so much
ii. ... because powerful people feel that their sinks ought to come from overseas.
c. We offered the mighty bruins. (2)

i. ... because the mighty bruins were a good choice to offer them.
ii. ... because mighty people like to keep bruins in their personal zoo
d. UCLA and USC’s departments (2)

i. the departments that belong to UCLA and to USC
ii. a university and a batch of departments
50
Through maybe you can think of more …
e. We robbed the King of England of his money. (1)
f. We despise the King of England and France (2)

i. We despise the person who is the king all at once of two countries.51
ii. We despise both a person and a country.
g. We despise the King of England and of France (1)

i. We despise the person who is the king all at once of two countries.
h. Bill and Alice and Sue (2)

i. a group consisting of Bill and Alice, and also a single person, Sue
ii. a single person, Bill, and also a group consisting of Alice and Sue
i. the cover of Bill’s book about the very dry climate of Australia (1)
j. They might cook and serve the vegetables. (2)

i. what they do to the vegetables is cook and serve them
ii. They do two things: cook, and serve the vegetables
k. a long and very unpleasant episode (1)
m. Bill’s mother’s brother’s shaggy dog (1)
n. We sent the ambassador to Venezuela to Columbia. (1)
o. We sent the ambassador to Venezuela (2)

i. We needed somebody to send, so we picked the ambassador to Venezuela
ii. Venezuela is where we sent the ambassador
p. We have cooked her turnips. (2)

i. It’s her turnips that we cooked.
ii. We cooked turnips for her.
Answers begin on the next page.
51
This happened once, more or less, and the Hundred Year’s War was the result.
a. We have captured the turtle with the net. (2)

i. ... it was quite interesting because most turtles don’t carry a net.
ii. ... we felt sad to see the noble reptile caught in the webbing.
b. The great import sinks. (2)

i. ... because this wonderful import weighs so much
ii. ... because powerful people feel that their sinks ought to come from overseas.
c. We offered the mighty bruins. (2)

i. ... because the mighty bruins were a good choice to offer them.
ii. ... because mighty people like to keep bruins in their personal zoo
d. UCLA and USC’s departments (2)

i. the departments that belong to UCLA and to USC
ii. a university and a batch of departments
e. We robbed the King of England of his money. (1)

f. We despise the King of England and France (2)

ii. We despise both a person and a country.

g. We despise the King of England and of France (1)

h. Bill and Alice and Sue (2)

i. a group consisting of Bill and Alice, and also a single person, Sue
ii. a single person, Bill, and also a group consisting of Alice and Sue
i. the cover of Bill’s book about the very dry climate of Australia (1)
j. They might cook and serve the vegetables. (2)

i. what they do to the vegetables is cook and serve them
ii. they do two things: cook, and serve the vegetables

k. a long and very unpleasant episode (1)
m. Bill’s mother’s brother’s shaggy dog (1)

n. We sent the ambassador to Venezuela to Columbia. (1)
o. We sent the ambassador to Venezuela (2)

i. We needed somebody to send, so we picked the ambassador to Venezuela
ii. Venezuela is where we sent the ambassador
p. We have cooked her turnips. (2)

i. It’s her turnips that we have cooked.
ii. We cooked turnips for her.
———————————————————————————————————————
16.3 Complementizers and subordinate clauses
Much of the most intricate syntax arises when one “puts a sentence inside a sentence”; that
is, when one uses a subordinate clause. This showed up in Chapter 1 when we looked at the
patterning of each other. Thus, *[ John and Bill think [ I like each other ]S ]S is impossible,
because each other is allowed to refer only to Noun Phrases that are within the smallest clause
containing it—in this case, [ I like each other ]S. Subordinate clauses often occur when the verb
of the main clause is a verb of saying or belief—the subordinate clauses serves to express the
content of the thought that is said or believed. With the notions of syntax we’ve developed so far,
we can now be much more explicit about subordinate clauses than we were in Chapter 1.
To analyze subordinate clauses, we need to provide a slot in phrase structure for the
grammatical words that often introduce them—that in sentences like:
I think that [ John and Bill like each other ]S
There is also for, as in:
I would prefer for [ John and Bill to like each other]S.
Such words are called subordinating conjunctions in traditional terminology. Linguists use the
slightly shorter term complementizer, abbreviated Comp. Other complementizers include if,
(al)though, when, whether, and some others we’ll mention later.
With this apparatus, we can set up rules like these (I’m omitting optional material; see below
for the full rules):
VP  V S̄ E
S̄E  Comp S
S̄ is read S-bar, and is simply the category that provides the syntactic “slot” for the
E
complementizer. Here is an example sentence that can be generated by these rules:
S Derived by: S̄ Comp S

E
VP
S̄
E
VP
NP NP NP
| | |
N V Comp N V N
| | | | | |
Since S̄ is a nuisance to type on a word processor; a prime (S) or apostrophe (S’) is considered
E
an acceptable substitute.
16.4 Phrase structure rules for subordinate clauses
Subordinate clauses in English most often occur the last constituent of the VP, indicating
what was said or thought. Here are some examples:
(105) Four sentences with subordinate clauses
We said [ that we were going ]S̄ E
We told Alice [ that we were going ]S̄ E
We gave Bill notice [ that we were going ]S̄ E
We sent word to Jane [ that we were going ]S̄ E
From these sentences, you can see that the Verb Phrase can, in addition to its subordinate
clause, include one or two NP objects and a PP, all of them preceding the S̄. Thus the phrase E
structure rule needed is something like this:
(106) A phrase structure rule for VP that incorporates S̄ E
VP  V (NP)(NP)(PP)(S̄) E
Study Exercise #17
Parse the four sentences given in (105) above. Answers on next page.
VP
S̄
E
NP NP VP
| | |
Pro V Comp Pro Aux V
| | | | | |
We said that we were going
VP
S̄
E
NP NP NP VP
| | | |
Pro V N Comp Pro Aux V
| | | | | | |
We told Alice that we were going
VP
S̄
E
NP NP NP NP VP
| | | | |
Pro V N N Comp Pro Aux V
| | | | | | | |
We gave Bill notice that we were going
VP
S̄
E
PP S
NP NP NP NP VP
| | | | |
Pro V N P N Comp Pro Aux V
| | | | | | | | |
We sent word to Jane that we were going
———————————————————————————————
The rule for S̄ needs to let Comp be optional, since we have sentences like (107):
E
(107) We said we were going.
The conditions under which the Comp can be left out are somewhat complicated and will not be
covered here.
Note that the tree for given below must have a “vacuous” S̄ node, at least under the phrase
E
structure rules we’ve got, since with those rules only S̄, not S, can be a daughter of VP.
E
VP
S̄
E
|
S
VP
NP NP NP
| | |
Pro V Pro V N
| | | | |
We said we like Fred
17. Recursive application of phrase structure rules
I mentioned above (p. 69) that the speaker’s knowledge of syntax is large but finite (that is,
it fits somehow encoded in a single brain), yet permits the creation of an infinite number of
sentences. The following partial list was meant as a demonstration:
Alice likes Fred

Bill believes that John said that Alice likes Fred
…etc.
We can now examine the cause of this infinite property. It results, by and large, from a
particular property of phrase structure rules, namely that they permit application in loops. In
(108), I demonstrate one of these loops, taken from the phrase structure rules already given. That
is, by looping through application of phrase structure rules given above in (102) and (106), we
can generate structures as large as we please.
(108) A loop consisting of three phrase structure rules
S  NP (Aux) VP
VP  V (NP) (NP) (PP) (S̄) E
S̄  (Comp) S
E
If we employ loop (108) in deriving a sentence and lexically insert appropriate words, we
can generate a sentence as long as we like:
NP VP
|
N V S̄ E
| |
Fred announced Comp S
|
that NP VP
|
N V NP S̄ E
| | |
Bill told N Comp S
| |
Mary that NP VP
|
N V S̄
E
| |
Sam thinks Comp S
|
that ...
This is because there is an infinite number of places where we could stop the loop. Thus there are
an infinite number of possible sentences that the grammar can generate.
In this sense, the phrase structure rules of (102) and (106) may be considered recursive;
that is, their application “recurs” when they apply in loops to create structures of unlimited
length.
As far as is known, every human language allows an infinite number of sentences. In every
case, the principal reason is the same: the phrase structure rules of all languages contain
recursive loops, which allow infinitely long syntactic trees to be generated. The recursive loop of
phrase structure rules is the device that allows a finite number of rules to generate an infinite
number of structures.
Study Exercise #18
The phrase structure grammar in (102) has several other loops in it. The loop in (108) is a
three-rule loop; find a two-rule loop and a one-rule loop and for each one give an example of the
long structures they can generate.
a. Two rule loop
Art 
NP NP  (AP) N (PP) and PP P NP form a two-rule loop (see boldface items)
 
A AE
example: books about articles about articles about …
b. Any of the phrase structure rules with a conjunction forms a one-rule loop. For V V
Conj V, you can get a massively ambiguous structure like danced and sang and acted and …
18. Relating syntax to inflectional morphology
We are now in a position to tie together our two course units so far (morphology and
syntax). The crucial notion is the morphosyntactic representation, covered earlier in Chapter 2.
You can think of the morphosyntactic representation as the means by which the syntax
communicates essential information to the inflectional morphology.
The features in a morphosyntactic representation can have three sources.
18.1 Inherent features
First, some features of a morphosyntactic representation are inherent. They are properties of
particular words or stems.
It is normal to use the word lexicon to refer to the speaker’s mental dictionary; their store of
memorized stems, words, and other entities.52 Since a feature like [Gender] on nouns is
memorized, it must be listed in the lexicon. Here are three examples of inherent inflectional
features.
I. Gender in German. The German word Messer (knife) is inherently, and arbitrarily, neuter.
Its lexical entry must look something like this:
Messer [Gender:Neuter]
That is, attached to Messer is a partial morphosyntactic representation that indicates that Messer
is a neuter noun.
II. The English pronoun his is inherently [Case:Genitive,Gender:Masculine].
his [Case:Genitive,Gender:Masculine]
52
We also memorize a great number of word sequences, often called idioms.
III. All nouns derived by the English word formation rule [ X ]Adj  [[ X ]Adj]Noun (example:
The French care a lot about food) are inherently [Number:Plural].53 This is also true for a small
number of words for “pairlike” things, such as trousers, scissors, and so on, which must be
lexically listed as [Number:plural].
18.2 Speaker-selected features
Other features of the morphosyntactic representation are meaningful; they represent choices
made by the speaker, as part of the meaning of what they are trying to say. When we say book
in English we are implicitly conveying the partial morphosyntactic representation
[Number:singular], and when we say books we are similarly conveying [Number:plural]. (This
raises the question of how linguistic entities bear meaning, a question addressed in Chapter 9.)
18.3 Features derived by syntactic rules
The remaining source for the features in morphosyntactic is syntactic rules. These attach
the features that depend on what else occurs in the tree. Two important kinds of rule in syntax
are rules of case marking and rules of agreement

19. Case marking
19.1 Genitive case in English
Genitive case in English is the case that we spell with the suffix -’s. Semantically, it denotes
the relationship of possession. To derive it, we need a syntactic case marking rule, and a
morphological suffixation rule.
Here is a tree to serve as an example. The phrase structure rules given so far generate this:
(109) A sample English configuration that requires genitive case

NP1
NP2
|
Art AP N AP N
| | | | |
the A student A books
| |
tall heavy
Art
Choices employed: for NP1: NP (NP  )(AP) N (PP) (S)
 
E
Art
for NP2: NP (NP  )(AP) N (PP) (S)
 
E
53
Thus, a fully explicit version of the conversion rule would actually attach a partial
morphosyntactic representation: [ X ]Adj  [[ X ]Adj ]Noun,[Number:Plural].
The syntactic rule of case marking that is needed is as follows:
(110) Genitive Case Marking (English)
In NP1
NP2
where NP2 is leftmost in NP1, assign the feature [Case:Genitive] to the rightmost word of
NP2.
Genitive Case Marking can be applied to the above as shown. I use dotted lines to show
what part of the rule matches up to what part of the form
(111) Applying the rule of Genitive Case Marking
In NP1
NP2
NP2.
Genitive Case Marking can be applied to the above as shown. I use dotted lines to show
what part of the rule matches up to what part of the form
NP
NP
|
Art A N A N
| | | | |
the tall student heavy books
[Case:Gen]
where [Case:Genitive] is the morphosyntactic representation of student.
That is the most complicated part. Once the syntactic rules have placed the feature
[Case:Genitive] on the word student, then we move on to the inflectional morphology. Here, it is
straightforward to get the suffix in place, with an ordinary rule of inflectional suffixation, as
follows:
Inflectional morphology: Genitive Inflection (English)
Suffix -s if [Case:Genitive].
Thus the full NP the tall student’s is the combined result of syntactic and morphological rules.
19.2 Where to inflect? Edges vs. heads
The rule of Genitive Case Marking in English perhaps unusual for putting the relevant
feature on the rightmost word of NP. We need this for cases like [ the king of England’s ]NP hat,
where England is the rightmost word of its NP. The matchup is shown below:
Genitive Case Marking
In NP1
NP2
NP2.
NP
NP N
|
Art N PP hat
| |
the king P NP
| |
of N
|
England
[Case:Gen]
The other major form of case marking targets the head of the NP that is to bear case. Let us
consider an example from German. On German Amazon I found an entry for a book with this
title:
Schliemanns Erben, Von den Herrschern der Hethiter

Schliemann’s legacy from the ruler-dative-plural the Hittite-genitive plural
zu den König-en der Khmer

to the king-dative plural the Khmer-genitive plural
‘Schliemann’s legacy: from the rulers of the Hittites to the kings of the Khmers’54
54
Hermann Schliemann was the archaeologist who excavated the ruins of Troy.
We’re interested in zu den König-en der Khmer, meaning ‘to the kings of the Khmers’.55
Prior to case marking, the structure looks like this (for this particular construction, the relevant
phrase structure rules of German are the same as in English):
PP
P NP
| |
zu Art N NP
| |
den König Art N
[Num:Pl] | |
der Khmer
[Number:Plural] is already attached to König ‘king’; this reflects a semantic choice made by the
person who made up this title.
A crucial fact about German is that the various prepositions take (more formally: govern)
different cases. The preposition zu, pronounced [tsu] and meaning ‘to’, is one of the prepositions
that governs the dative case. A partial dative-case marking rule for German can be written as
follows:
German Dative Case Marking
In the configuration shown:
PP
P NP
where P is one of { zu, aus, ausser, bei, mit, nach, seit, von },56 assign [Case:Dative] to the
morphosyntactic representation of the head of NP.
This rule targets the head of NP for dative case realization, hence applies to our example as
follows. You should check every arrow in the diagram to make sure it makes sense.
55
The Khmers are the Cambodians.
56
‘to’, ‘from’, ‘except’, ‘at X’s home’, ‘with’, ‘after’, ‘since’, ‘of’
PP
P NP
where P is one of { zu, aus, ausser, bei, mit, nach, seit, von }, assign [Case:Dative] to the
morphosyntactic representation of the head of NP.
This rule targets the head of NP for dative case realization, hence applies to our example as
follows:
PP
P NP
| |
zu Art N NP
| |
den König Art N
 Num:Pl 
 
Case:Dat E
der Khmer
The dative plural is then realized in the morphology with suffixation:
Inflection morphology: Dative Plural Realization (German)

Num:Pl 
Suffix -en if morphosyntactic representation contains Case:Dat ,
E
This will derive the boldfaced material in zu den Königen der Khmer.
There are further details about German we’ll pass over here quickly. Case is generally also
realized, through additional agreement rules (see below), on the Article beginning a Noun
Phrase. Thus, den is in fact the dative plural form of the definite article.
The crucial distinction illustrated here is the edge-based case marking of the English
genitive vs. the head-based marking of German datives. If each language used the opposite
language’s strategy, we’d get very different results: *the king’s of England hat (marking of
genitive on the head), and * zu den König der Khmeren (marking of dative on the rightmost
word).
There are other differences between edge-based and head-based case marking. Marking on
heads tends to get complicated, with different affixes for different nouns and so on; marking on
edges tends to be a simple, single morpheme like English -‘s. Marking on heads probably is more
often accompanied by agreement on modifying adjectives and articles.
20. Agreement
Features also get assigned in syntax when one phrase agrees with another. For instance, in
English we have a very simple agreement paradigm in verbs.
I jump we jump
you jump you jump
he/she/it jumps they jump
There is only one ending, -s, which marks three features at once; occurring when the subject is
[Person:3, Number:Singular, Tense:Present]. Note, however, that for the special verb be there is
a richer system, with difference between all three persons in the singular and a separate form for
the plural:
I am we are
you are you are
he/she/it is they are
The point at hand is that agreement with the subject is inherently syntactic; the verb needs to
“know,” as it were, what the subject is in order to bear the right inflectional features.
Again, our strategy is to write a syntactic rule that assigns the features of the
morphosyntactic representation, then a rule of inflectional morphology to add the appropriate
affix.
The syntactic rule can be written provisionally as follows:
Verbal Agreement (English)
In S
NP VP
assign the [Person] and [Number] features of the head of NP to the head of VP.
An application is shown as follows.
Verbal Agreement (English)
In S
NP VP
assign the [Person] and [Number] features of the head of NP to the head of VP.
S S
NP VP NP VP
| | | |
N V  N V
| | | |
Fred jump Fred jump
Tense:Pres 
Number:sg Number:sg Number:sg
Person:3  [Tense:pres]    
Person:3 
E E E
Person:3 
The rule of inflectional morphology that generates the -s suffix is given below:
3rd Singular Present Rule
Suffix -s if the morphosyntactic representation contains:

[Person:3, Number:Singular, Tense:Present]
which will produce convert the stem jump in the tree above to the correct form jumps.
Compare: I jump, they jump, etc.
20.1.1 Agreement in general
In languages with rich inflection, agreement rules like the above copy a great deal of
information around the tree: verbs agree with their subjects (and sometimes their objects, too),
adjectives and articles agree with the nouns they modify, and in at least one language (Lardil,
Australia) nouns agree with the verb of their clause in tense.
Summing up, agreement and case marking are the main phenomenon in which syntax
determines morphosyntactic representation, and hence the inflectional form of the words of the
sentence.
21. An example of phrase structure rules in another language: Hittite
Languages differ quite a bit in their word order, a fact which can be described in grammars
by writing different phrase structure rules.
One kind of analytic skill to be developed here is to formulate the phrase structure rules
needed to analyze any particular language. Assuming you have a representative batch of
sentences to work with, this involves two steps:
 Parse the sentences.

 Look at the trees, and see which daughters any given type of node can have.
 Express what you find with a reasonably economical set of rules.
The data below involve sentences in Hittite, taken from an exercise created by Jay Jasanoff
of Harvard University. The transcription and syntactic analysis were guided by input from my
UCLA colleague Prof. Craig Melchert; both are experts on this language.
Hittite was spoken in early ancient times in what is now Turkey. It is known from a hoard of
about 25,000 cuneiform tablets discovered early in the last century and deciphered in the decades
that followed. Some of the texts date back to about 1700 B.C. and thus count as the oldest
attestation of any Indo-European language.57 We accept here on Jasanoff’s authority that the
sentences below, which he made up, would be grammatical to real Hittite speakers if we could
somehow bring them back.
Phonetic symbols are necessarily based on educated guesses. [x] is as in Spanish jamon or
German Bach (voiceless velar fricative).
1. nu xassus salli parn-i anda estsi

comp king big-dative house-dative in is
‘The king is in the big house.’
2. nu antuxsas akuwakuwan istamastsi

comp man-nominative frog-accusative hears
‘The man hears the frog.’
3. nu antuxsas sallin akuwakuwan parn-a pexutetsi

comp man-nominative big-accusative frog-accusative house-allative brings
‘The man brings the big frog home.’
4. nu akuwakuwas westar-i assun memijan tetsi

comp frog-nominative shepherd-dative good-accusative word-acc. says
‘The frog says a good word to the shepherd.’
57
Indo-European is the very large language family that includes (for example) English, Russian,
Hindi, Latin, Irish, etc. See Chapter 13.
5. nu westaras sallin akuwakuwan pir-i anda xassussar-i katta

istamastsi
comp shepherd-nom. big-acc. frog.-acc. house-dative in queen-dative with
hears
‘The shepherd hears the big frog in the house with the queen.’
6. nu akuwakuwas antuxsan natta istamastsi

comp frog-nominative man-accusative not hears
‘The frog doesn’t hear the man.’
7. nu xassussaras xassui piran salli akuwakuwi katta tijatsi

comp queen-nom. king-dat. before big-dative frog-dative with comes
‘The queen comes before the king with the big frog.’
8. nu westaras assui xassui akuwakuwan pexutetsi

comp shepherd good-dative king-dative frog-accusative brings
‘The shepherd brings the frog to the good king.’
One can do both syntactic and morphological analysis on these texts. At the level of
morphology, it is possible to collect some partial noun paradigms, as follows.
xassu-s king nominative

xassu-i king-dative
antuxsa-s man-nominative
antuxsa-n man-accusative
akuwakuwa-s frog-nominative
akuwakuwa-n frog-accusative
akuwakuw-i frog-dative
westara-s shepherd-nominative
westar-i shepherd-dative (a drops before i? not known)
memija-n word-accusative
parn-i house-dative
parn-a home-allative
xassussara-s queen-nominative
xassussar-i queen-dative
It looks at least roughly that the nominative suffix is -s, the accusative suffix is -n, and the
dative suffix is -i. This predicts *akuwakuwa-i and *xassussara-i for the datives of “frog” and
‘queen’; in fact, there’s a bit of phonology going on: the vowel a is dropped before this suffix.
We express the rules of inflectional morphology as follows.
Hittite Nominal Inflection (sketch)

Suffix -s when [Case:Nominative]
Suffix -n when [Case:Accusative]
Suffix -i when [Case:Dative]
There also appears to be verbal inflection, for which we can conjecture this rule:
Suffix -tsi when [Person:3, Number:singular, Tense:present]
But in fact we know almost nothing about -tsi from these few data.
Turning now to the phrase structure rules, the idea is to inspect the sentences, parse them
according to the principles of the theory, and generalize over what we see to produce the rules.
An intriguing aspect of the sentences is that they all begin with nu. This is most likely a
complementizer: Hittites usually spoke in S̄’s, not S’s, though it certain contexts it was possible
E
to say just a plain S. Thus we will start our derivations with S̄ and assume this phrase structure
E
rule:
S̄  Comp S
E
NP could be derived by the following rule:
NP  (A) N
Probably the A should be an AP, but we will skip this for brevity.
Another simple rule is for PP, which is this language is evidently not a phrase for
prepositions but for postpositions, which are just like prepositions but come after their NP rather
than before. The phrase structure rule needed is:
PP  NP P
In sentences, the subject evidently comes before the predicate, justifying the rule
S  NP VP
The trickiest phrase structure rule to write here is for VP. Here there is a question of
methodology: what is the best way to figure out simple phrase structure rules when we are given
the data? I suggest putting together what I will call a phrase structure table. The table puts each
example in a separate row, and aligns the contents of the phrase (here, as VP) in columns.
(112) A phrase structure table for the Hittite VP
NP NP PP PP Adv V
1 salli piri anda estsi
big-dat. house-dat. in is
2 akuwakuwan istamastsi
frog-acc. hears
3 sallin akuwakuwan parn-a pehutetsi
big-acc. frog-acc. house-dative brings
4 westari assun memijan tetsi
shepherd-dat. good-acc. word-acc. says
5 sallin akuwakuwan piri anda hassussari katta istamastsi
big-acc. frog.-acc. house-dat. in queen-dat. with hears
6 antuhssan natta istamastsi
man-acc. not hears
7 hassui piran salli akuwakuwi katta tijatsi
king-dat. before big-dat. frog-dat. with comes
8 assui hassui akuwakuwan pehutetsi
good-dat. king-dat. frog-acc. brings
If we collect all of the various items that evidently fit within a VP, and (going out on a limb)
put them in a single rule, we get:
VP  (NP)(NP)(PP)(PP)(Adv) V
This completes the set of phrase structure rules, stated all in one place thus:
Phrase structure rules for Hittite

S̄  Comp S
E
S  NP VP
VP  (NP)(NP)(PP)(PP)(Adv) V
NP  (A) N
PP  NP P
“P” must be read “postposition”, rather than “preposition.”
21.1 Example diagrammed sentence
The rules suffice to generate all the sentences; here is one particularly long example.
S̄E
VP
PP PP
NP NP NP NP
| | |
Comp N A N N P N P V
| | | | | | | | |
nu westara-s salli-n akuwakuwa-n pir-i anda xassussar-i katta
istamas-tsi
the shepherd-nom. big-acc. frog.-acc. house-dative in queen-dative with
hears
‘The shepherd hears the big frog in the house with the queen.’
Study Exercise #19
Parse the Hittite sentence
nu akuwakuwas westari assun memijan tetsi

the frog-nominative shepherd-dative good-accusative word-acc. says
Answer on next page.

S̄
E
VP
NP NP NP
| |
Comp N N Adj N V
| | | | | |
nu akuwakuwas westari assun memijan tetsi
———————————————————————————————————
21.2 Hittite as a head-final language
It can be seen that, at least in these data, Hittite is a head-final language: N is last in NP, P
is last in PP, V is last in VP (and we don’t know about AdjP).
Some other well-known head-final languages are Japanese, Korean, Bengali, and Turkish.
The Bantu languages, such as Swahili and Zulu, tend to be strongly head-initial. English tends
towards being head-initial, but is conflicted, in the sense that it puts adjectives before the head
noun in NP. Hence some English noun phrases have the head noun in the middle:
[ the long [ book ]N about linguistics ]NP
21.3 Case marking in Hittite
Hittite has a richer case system than English, with overt suffixes marking the Nominative,
Dative, and Accusative. We can write syntactic rules that place the appropriate value for the the
feature [Case], based on the configuration of the tree.
For instance, Dative case is assigned in Hittite by postpositions. It can be attached by a

similar rule:
Dative Case Marking (Hittite)
In the configuration
PP
NP P
add [Case:Dative] to the morphosyntactic representation of the head of NP.
Getting Accusative and Dative objects right is trickier, and we also have very few data, so
the following is really something of a guess:
Case Marking for Objects (Hittite)
In verb phrases containing one or more NP, then

 if there are two NP, assign [Case:Dative] to the head of the first and [Case:Accusative] to
the head of the second.
 if there is just one NP, assign [Case:Accusative] to its head.
Here is an example with two NP’s inside the VP:
VP
NP NP NP
|
Art N N A N V
| | | | | |
nu akuwakuwa-s westar-i assu-n memija-n te-tsi
[Case:Nom] [Case:Dat] [Case:Acc]
“assign [Case:Dative] to the head of the first and [Case:Accusative] to the head of the
second”
A further rule, not stated here, would cause adjectives (such as assun above) to agree with
their head nouns in case.
——————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #20: Turkish Phrase Structure Rules
Examine the Turkish sentences below. Provide a syntactic tree for each (you might find it
more convenient to use the English glosses in the tree, rather than that actual Turkish words).
Then examine all your trees and come up with a terse, economical set of phrase structure rules
that derive all of them.
Spelling: I’ve replaced some Turkish letters with English equivalents or IPA symbols:
 sh is IPA [ʃ], Turkish letter ş.

 ch is IPA [tʃ], Turkish letter ç.
 [ɨ] is IPA, pronounced somewhat like the sound of the second vowel in roses; Turkish
letter ı.
 Turkish letter ü (which in IPA is [y]) is made by uttering the vowel [i] (“ee”) and
simultaneously rounding the lips.
 Turkish letter ö (which in IPA is [ø]) is made by uttering the vowel [e] (“bay”) and
simultaneously rounding the lips.
 [dʒ] is IPA for the consonants that occur at the beginning and end of English judge. In
Turkish it is spelled with a c.
1. Shirin uyudu
Shirin slept ‘Shirin slept’
2. Vezir uyudu
vizier slept ‘The vizier slept’
3. Uzun vezir uyudu

tall vizier slept ‘the tall vizier slept’
4. Chok uzun vezir uyudu

very tall vizier slept ‘the very tall vizier slept’
5. Sarɨshɨn uzun vezir uyudu

blond tall vizier slept ‘The tall blond vizier slept’
6. Yorgun sarɨshɨn uzun vezir uyudu

tired blond tall vizier slept
‘The tired tall blond vizier slept’
7. Defter düshtü
notebook fell ‘the notebook fell’
8. Shekspir-in defter-i düshtü

Shakespeare-GEN notebook-Poss fell
‘Shakespeare’s notebook fell’
9. Shekspir-in uzun defter-i

Shakespeare-GEN long notebook-Poss
‘Shakespeare’s long notebook’
10. uzun vezir-in shiir-i

tall vezir-GEN poem-Poss
‘the tall vizier’s poem’ (i.e. the poem by him)
11. uzun vezir-in uzun shiir-i

tall vizier-GEN long poem-Poss
‘the tall vizier’s long poem’
12. uzun vezir-in uzun sɨkɨdʒɨ shiir-i58

tall vizier-GEN long boring poem-Poss
‘the tall vizier’s long boring poem’
13. *uzun vezir-in Shekspir-in shiir-i

tall vizier-GEN Shakespeare-GEN poem-Poss
‘the tall vizier’s Shakespeare’s poem’
14. Shirin Kerem-i öptü

Shirin Kerem-ACC kissed
‘Shirin kissed Kerem’
15. Uzun vezir Shekspir-in shiir-i-ni okudu

tall vizier Shakespeare-GEN poem-Poss-ACC read
‘The tall vizier read Shakespeare’s poem’
16. Shirin vezir-in uyuduuna inanɨyor

Shirin vizier-GEN is-sleeping believes
‘Shirin believes the vizier is sleeping’
17. Kerem Shirin-e vezir-in uyuduuna söyledi

Kerem Shirin-DAT vizier-GEN is-sleeping told
‘Kerem told Shirin that the vizier is sleeping’
18. Kerem Shirin-in vezir-in uyuduuna inandɨɨnɨ zannediyor

Kerem Shirin-GEN vizier-GEN is-sleeping believes imagines
‘Kerem imagines that Shirin believes that the vizier is sleeping’
58
dʒ is IPA for the English “j’ sound
19. Orhan Kerem-in Shirin-in vezir-in uyuduuna inandɨɨnɨ zannettiini

itirafetti
Orhan Kerem-GEN Shirin-GEN vizier-GEN is-sleeping believes imagines
confessed
‘Orhan confessed that Kerem imagines that Shirin believes that the vizier is sleeping’
1. Shirin uyudu
Shirin slept ‘Shirin slept’
2. Vezir uyudu
vizier slept ‘The vizier slept’
3. Uzun vezir uyudu

tall vizier slept ‘the tall vizier slept’
4. Chok uzun vezir uyudu

very tall vizier slept ‘the very tall vizier slept’
4. Sarɨshɨn uzun vezir uyudu

blond tall vizier slept ‘The tall blond vizier slept’
5. Yorgun sarɨshɨn uzun vezir uyudu

tired blond tall vizier slept
‘The tired tall blond vizier slept’
6. Defter düshtü
notebook fell ‘the notebook fell’
7. Shekspir-in defter-i düshtü

Shakespeare-GEN notebook-Poss fell
‘Shakespeare’s notebook fell’
8. Shekspir-in uzun defter-i

Shakespeare-GEN long notebook-Poss
‘Shakespeare’s long notebook’
9. uzun vezir-in shiir-i

tall vezir-GEN poem-Poss
‘the tall vizier’s poem’ (i.e. the poem by him)
10. uzun vezir-in uzun shiir-i

tall vizier-GEN long poem-Poss
‘the tall vizier’s long poem’
11. uzun vezir-in uzun sɨkɨdʒɨ shiir-i

tall vizier-GEN long boring poem-Poss
‘the tall vizier’s long boring poem’
12. *uzun vezir-in Shekspir-in shiir-i

tall vizier-GEN Shakespeare-GEN poem-Poss
‘the tall vizier’s Shakespeare’s poem’
13. Shirin Kerem-i öptü

Shirin Kerem-ACC kissed
‘Shirin kissed Kerem’
14. Uzun vezir Shekspir-in shiir-i-ni okudu

tall vizier Shakespeare-GEN poem-POSS-ACC read
‘The tall vizier read Shakespeare’s poem’
15. Shirin vezir-in uyuduuna inanɨyor

Shirin vizier-GEN is-sleeping believes
‘Shirin believes the vizier is sleeping’
16. Kerem Shirin-e vezir-in uyuduuna söyledi

Kerem Shirin-DAT vizier-GEN is-sleeping told
‘Kerem told Shirin that the vizier is sleeping’
17. Kerem Shirin-in vezir-in uyuduuna inandɨɨnɨ zannediyor

Kerem Shirin-GEN vizier-GEN is-sleeping believes imagines
‘Kerem imagines that Shirin believes that the vizier is sleeping’
18. Orhan Kerem-in Shirin-in vezir-in uyuduuna inandɨɨnɨ zannettiini itirafetti

Orhan Kerem-GEN Shirin-GEN vizier-GEN is-sleeping believes imagines confessed
‘Orhan confessed that Kerem imagines that Shirin believes that the vizier is sleeping’
PS Rules for Turkish
S  NP VP
NP  (NP) (AP)* N
VP P) (S) V
AP  (Adv) A
If you’re curious you might try to figure out how Turkish assigns Genitive, Possessive,
Accusative, and Dative case. The data aren’t really sufficient to solve the problem but they are
suggestive.
————————————————————————————————————
22. A bit more on phrase structure rules: Kleene star
Let us beef up the system of phrase structure rules once more. Some phrase structure rules
allow for any number of daughters of a certain type. For example, the rule for NP allows for an
unlimited number of Adjective Phrases preceding the noun, as in ‘a very long, dull, unusually
boring movie’. A formalism for this often employed is to enclose in brackets the element that can
be repeated indefinitely, and place an asterisk after the right bracket (the asterisk is known as
“Kleene star”, after the mathematician who proposed the notation).59 For example, the phrase
structure rule for NP can be written as follows:
NP  (Art) (AP)* N (PP)*.
An NP that uses both (AP)* and (PP)* would be the very big blue book about linguistics on the
counter. AP’s: very big and blue; PP’s: about linguistics, on the counter.
Quite a few of the items on our previous phrase structure grammar would be more
accurately depicted with Kleene star; the following is a list:
(113) Phrase structure rules for English: Version II, improved with Kleene star
S  NP (Aux) VP
Art 
NP  NP   (AP)* N (PP)* Example: his noble, wonderful inspiring gift of
 
A A E
$1,000,000 to X on Tuesday
NP  Pronoun
AP  (Adv) A
VP  V (NP) (NP) (PP)* (S̄)E Ex.: sold books to students for $50 on Wednesdays
PP  P NP
S  (Comp) S
NP  NP (Conj NP)* Ex. Alice and Sally and Bill left.

VP  VP (Conj VP)* Ex. We sang the song and danced the dance and
played the tune.
PP  PP (Conj PP)* Ex. We tossed it over the fence and through the
window and under the house.
S  S (Conj S)* Ex. He said that he was sick and he would go and
he would get better soon.
59
Nobody knows for sure how to pronounce “Kleene”. Many people say [ˈklini] (“KLEE-nee”; IPA
vowel symbols are fairly close to Spanish spelling).
S  S (Conj S)* Ex. He said that he was sick and that he would go
and that he would get better soon
V  V (Conj V)* Ex. They washed and diced and sliced the
vegetables.
Chapter 5: Syntax II — Transformations
1. Syntax beyond phrase structure: the need for transformations
As seen already, our overall goal is to beef up the grammar so that it becomes an ever better
approximation to the grammar internalized by speakers of English. We have done this by
amplifying the system of phrase structure rules, and also by adding rules of agreement and case
marking to govern the distribution of inflectional features. This section introduces the next major
type of syntactic rule, the transformation, and argues for why it is needed.
English contains a construction called the Tag Question. Tag questions appear after the
comma in the following examples:
(114) Examples of tag questions
Frogs can eat flies, can’t they?

The president has resigned, hasn’t she?
Bill was watching the stew, wasn’t he?
As the data show, a tag question contains three parts in order:
 A copy of the Aux of the main sentence (can…can, has … has, was … was).
 A contracted form of the word not
 A pronoun expressing the person and number of the subject of the main sentence.
1.1 Digression: spell-out rules
Before going on, we need a bit of clarification: we are assuming, as seems intuitively
reasonable, that can’t is the normal realization of can not, hasn’t is the normal realization of has
not, and (more interestingly) won’t is the normal realization of will not. For such contractions (as
school grammar calls them), we need minor morphological “spell-out” rules, of which the
following are a partial list:
(115) Some Spell-Out Rules of English
will not  won’t

can not  can’t
am not  aren’t60
do not  don’t
shall not  shan’t61
etc.
60
As in I’m tall, aren’t I?, used only in vernacular speech. (Remember your white lab coat…)
61
Archaic, at least for Americans.
1.2 Phrase structure rules inadequate for tags
It is in the nature of phrase structure rules that they can’t copy: they specify the daughter
nodes of a particular kind of mother node, as well as the order in which the daughters appear, but
that is all. If we naively attempted to generate tag questions simply by extending our set of
phrase structure rules, we would derive many ungrammatical instances with a mismatched Aux,
because these rules lack the copying capacity. Here is the failed approach in detail:
(116) A Failed Grammar for English Tags
(a) Change the phrase structure for S to:
S  NP (Aux) VP (Tag)
(b) Add the phrase structure rule:
Tag  Aux not Pro
This hypothesis derives Alice will kiss Bill, won’t she? as follows:
S
NP Aux VP Tag
| | |
Alice will V NP Aux not Pro
| | | |
kiss N will she
|
Bill
(The tree shows the pre-spelled-out version of the sentence; the spell-out rule would convert will
not to won’t.)
This hypothesis fails because it doesn’t enforce the copying requirement. We can apply the
very same rules and derive preposterous sentences:
S
NP Aux VP Tag
| | |
Alice will V NP Aux not Pro
| | | |
kiss N has she
|
Bill
By Spell-Out: *Alice will kiss Bill, hasn’t she?
and similarly:
*Alice will kiss Bill, can’t he?

*Alice will kiss Bill, hasn’t it?
*Alice will kiss Bill, won’t they?
1.3 Terminology of failed grammars
Linguists are always dealing with failed grammars like the one just given, taking them back
to the drawing board and trying either to improve them or replace them with a better approach.
Failed grammars are not a pointless activity; they lead us to explore the data more thoroughly
and force us to refine our analysis or replace it with something better.
Some terminology for failed grammars that is widely used:
undergenerate: A grammar undergenerates when there are grammatical sentences

that it can’t generate.
overgenerate: A grammar overgenerates when it generates ungrammatical
sentences
The grammar we just looked at overgenerates, as the * examples above indicate. A grammar that
can’t generate tag questions at all (what we had before) undergenerates.
1.4 Diagnosing failure
As already noted, the failed grammar given in (107) above fails because nothing in the rule
apparatus developed so far can copy. (Grammar (107) can be thought of as providing a poor
substitute for copying: it copies the structure, but not the actual words involved, which is what
we really need. Plainly, we need more kinds of rules.62
More generally, phrase structure grammars don’t allow for cases where the constituents
present in one part of a tree depend on the constituents present in another part, which may be
some distance away. In fact, tag questions are a rather out-of-the-way instance of this
phenomenon; the really important cases are yet to come. The tag questions will suffice, however,
to give the basic idea.
1.5 Transformations
Faced with phenomena like tag questions, linguists generally assume that phrase structure
rules do not alone suffice as a grammar formalism for languages. An additional kind of rule takes
as its input a sentence generated by the phrase structure rules and alters it in some way.
 A syntactic rule that alters a tree structure is called a transformation.
62
For honesty’s sake, I should add that you could produce a phrase structure grammar that copies
Auxes, but intuitively speaking it would be a really crummy grammar. The trick is to replace S and Tag
with a whole set of nodes like Scan “S with can as its Aux”, Swill “S with will as its Aux”, each allowing a
matching daughter Tagcan, Tagwill, etc. This gets the facts but fails to characterize the tags as involving
copying in general.
 A grammar that includes transformations as well as phrase structure rules is a

transformational grammar.
The rules of case marking and agreement given earlier in this book could be considered a
kind of transformation, although their effects are not as dramatic as the copying and movement
transformations we will cover in what follows; case marking and agreement only change the
morphosyntactic representation, not the tree as a whole.
The general strategy seen in transformations is to let the phrase structure rules define the
“basic inventory” of sentences in the language, and let the transformations apply to generate the
wider variety of sentences that go beyond the capacity of phrase structure rules. For example, the
sentence Alice will kiss Bill is in some sense a basic sentence (being generable by phrase
structure rules alone), and Alice will kiss Bill, won’t she is in a sense a syntactic elaboration of
the simple sentence.
What can transformations do? This is a rather open question, whose answer forms a large
part of the theory of syntax. At the moment, it’s best to simply formulate the transformations we
need and later on see what general theoretical principles are applicable.63
1.6 A transformation for tag questions
Here is a copying transformation that can derive tag questions. As you can see, it uses
notation seen earlier in morphology, where we used numeral subscripts to make clear what
changes into what for rules of infixation and reduplication. However, the syntactic
transformation also contains reference to the tree structure that is manipulated.
(117) Tag Question Transformation

S S
|
NP Aux VP  NP Aux VP Tag where [MS] = morphosyntactic
[MS] [MS] representation
1 2 3 1 2 3 Aux not Pro of head of NP
[MS]
2 1
Here is an explication of this rule. It assumes you have an S, consisting of an NP, an Aux, and a
VP. The NP is assumed to have a morphosyntactic representation, that is, a feature bundle
located on the head of the NP. These three items (NP, Aux, VP) are subscripted 1, 2, and 3.
On the right side of the arrow in the rule, the change is shown. A new daughter of S is added
at the right edge, with the category Tag. Its internal content consists of an Aux, the word not, and
a Pronoun. The Aux is a copy of the Aux in the original sentence (this is shown by its bearing the
number 2), and the Pronoun is assigned a copy of the morphosyntactic representation of the
subject (this is indicated by the numerical subscript 1). Assuming that the features [Gender],
63
To be honest, we’re really going to stop at the first step here; for a deeper theory of
transformations you’ll have to take more advanced syntax courses.
[Person], [Number], and [Case] are part of the morphosyntactic representation, this will place the
appropriate kind of pronoun into the tag; masculine subjects will get masculine pronouns, plural
subjects will get plural pronouns, and so on.
For explicitness, here are the nominative pronouns of English with their morphosyntactic
representations (for the non-nominative pronouns, see p. 97 above).
I [Case:Nominative, Person:1, Number:Singular] (Gender is free)64

you [Case:Nominative, Person:2] (Gender and number are free)
he [Case:Nominative, Person:3, Number:Singular, Gender:Masculine]
she [Case:Nominative, Person:3, Number:Singular, Gender:Feminine]
it [Case:Nominative, Person:3, Number:Singular, Gender:Neuter]
we [Case:Nominative, Person:1, Number:Plural] (Gender is free)
they [Case:Nominative, Person:3, Number:Plural] (Gender is free)
Indeed, in what we are about to do, it is sensible to think of the pronouns simply as the way that
the English language happens to spell out the category Pro when it bears one of these
morphosyntactic representations. Thus, for instance that an abstract entity like (109) is spelled
out as the pronoun she.
(118) A spell-out rule that creates the word she
Pro
Case:Nominative
Person:3

Number:Singular  = she E
Gender:Feminine
Here is a derivation for the sentence Alice can sing, can’t she?
First step: application of the phrase structure rules to derive Alice can sing
S
|
NP Aux VP
| | |
N can V
| |
Alice sing
Pers:3 
Num:sg 
  E
Gen:fem
64
By “free”, I mean that you can use this pronoun no matter what the specification in the
morphosyntactic representation.
Note that Alice, by its very meaning, is inherently 3rd person, singular, and feminine.
Second step: since Alice is the subject, a rule of case marking65 makes it Nominative:
S
|
NP Aux VP
| | |
N can V
| |
Alice sing
Pers:3
Num:sg 
Gen:fem  E
Case:nom
Third step: application of Tag Question Transformation (stated in (108); matchup shown with
dotted lines):
(119) Tag Question Formation applied

S S
|
NP Aux VP  NP Aux VP Tag where [MS] = morphosyntactic
[MS] [MS] representation
1 2 3 1 2 3 Aux not Pro of head of NP
[MS]
2 1
S S
|
NP Aux VP  NP Aux VP Tag
| | | | | | |
N can V N can V Aux not Pro
Pers:3
Num:sg 
Gen:fem  E
Case:nom
Alice sing Alice sing can
Pers:3  Pers:3 
Num:sg  Num:sg 
Gen:fem  Gen:fem 
E E
Case:nom Case:nom
65
The rule may be stated like this: “When NP is a daughter of S, and consists of Pro, assign the
feature [Case:Nominative] to the morphosyntactic representation of Pro. Only pronouns in English need to
be marked for Nominative case; for ordinary nouns it doesn’t matter.
The dotted lines may look initially like spaghetti, but you would probably find it worthwhile to
inspect every strand! This is the way to make sure you are correctly applying a transformation to
a tree.
Fourth step: apply rule (109) above, which spells out a pronoun that is [Pers:3, Num:sg,
Gen:fem, Case:nom] as she (tree omitted):
Alice can sing, can not she?
Last step: using one of the spell-out rules in (106), spell out the sequence can not as can’t:
Alice can sing, can’t she?
Study Exercise #21
Derive The frogs will sing, won’t they?
The steps should include Phrase Structure rules, Tag Question formation, spelling out of the
pronoun they, spell-out of won’t, and attachment of the plural suffix (inflectional morphology) to
frog.
I. Phrase structure rules and lexical insertion:
S
|
NP Aux VP
| |
Art N will V
| | |
the frog sing
 Pers:3 
Num:plur 
  E
Gen:neuter
II. Nominative Case Marking:
S
|
NP Aux VP
| |
Art N will V
| | |
the frog sing
Pers:3
Num:plur 
Gen:neuter E
Case:Nom 
III. Tag Question Transformation (see (108))
S
|
NP Aux VP Tag
| | |
Art N will V Aux not
| | | |
the frog sing will Pro
Pers:3
Pers:3
Num:plur 
 Num:plur 
  E
Gen:neuter E
Gen:neuter Case:Nom 
1 2 3 2 1
IV. Spell out the pronoun that is [Pers:3, Num:plur, Gen:neuter, Case:nom] as they:
The frog[Pers:3,Num:plur,Gen:Neuter] will sing, will not they?
V. Spell out will not as won’t:
The frog[Pers:3,Num:plur,Gen:Neuter] will sing, won’t they?
VI. Suffix -s when [Number:Plural]
The frogs will sing, won’t they?
___________________________________________________________________
2. Another Transformation: Yes/No Questions
Consider a second transformation. Every sentence in English that is a statement has a

corresponding question. Thus for
Bill is leaving
we have
Is Bill leaving?
and for
The frog might hop.
we have
Might the frog hop?
Such questions are called Yes/No questions, to distinguish them from questions that begin
with ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, etc., which are called Wh- questions. It is plausible to regard a
yes/no question as a syntactic variant of the corresponding statement; thus the phrase structure
rules will derive the statement, which is converted to a yes/no question. The crucial
transformation is as follows:
(120) Yes/No Question Formation

S S
| |
NP Aux VP  Aux NP VP
1 2 3 2 1 3
Here is a derivation; dotted lines show the matchup between rule and form:
(121) Yes/No Question Formation applied to a sentence

S S
| |
1 2 3 2 1 3
S S
| |
NP Aux VP Aux NP VP
| | |
Art N PP will V Part  will Art N PP V Part
| | | | |
the king P NP sit down the king P NP sit down?
| | | |
of N of N
| |
England England
You may be worried at this point that we have no way of forming Yes/No questions from a
sentence that lacks an Aux. This issue addressed in the next section.
For now, it’s worth considering Yes/No Question Formation as a transformation. In this case
(unlike for tag questions), it would be quite possible to derive the sentences just by using phrase
structure rules, something along the lines of:
S  Aux NP VP
However, there seem to be at least two reasons that at least suggest that the transformational
approach is better. First, speakers seem to recognize that (for example) Is Bill leaving? is the
yes/no question that “goes with”, or is appropriately paired with, Bill is leaving. We can
characterize this sense of relatedness if we derive the question from the statement. Moreover,
Auxes in English agree with their subjects (see previous readings for English agreement):
Bill is leaving. (3rd person singular)

Bill and Fred are leaving. (3rd person plural)
This agreement is carried over into the questions:
Is Bill leaving?
Are Bill and Fred leaving?
A clean analysis of this is possible, in which we only state the agreement rule once, if the
questions are derived from the statements. In brief, the derivation would like this:
NP VP
| |
N Aux V
| | |
Bill BE leaving output of phrase structure rules
Pers:3 
  features of Bill are inherent in this noun
Num:Sg
E
NP VP
| |
N Aux V
| | |
Bill BE leaving Agreement: copy the subject features onto
 Pers:3  Pers:3 
    the Aux
Num:Sg E
Num:Sg E
NP VP
| |
Aux N V
| | |
BE Bill leaving Yes/No Question formation
 Pers:3   Pers:3 
   
Num:Sg Num:Sg
E E
Is Bill leaving? Morphology converts BE into is.

 Pers:3 
 
Num:Sg E
This, then, is at least some justification for saying that Yes/No questions are formed by a
transformation.
3. Inserted do in English
It’s clear that tag questions and yes/no questions can be formed, even if there is no Aux in
the base sentence. The method used in English is to insert the verb do, which could be described
as the “default Aux” of the language.
For tag questions:
John likes turnips, doesn’t he?

We left early, didn’t we?
For yes/no questions:
Does John like turnips?

Did we leave early?
This phenomenon is an unusual aspect of English, and seems to be completely general. To

give three additional examples:
 Negation: English negates a sentence by placing not directly after its Aux.
I have not done my practicing.

I will not take out the trash.
He cannot play this concerto.
Where the basic sentence has no aux (as in “He likes turnips”), do is inserted to provide
one:
I do not like turnips.
 Polarity focus: one can emphasize the truth of what one is saying (for example, to
contradict someone who doubts it) by putting a strong accent on the Aux.66
I have done my practising.

You will take out the trash.
He can play “Chopsticks”.
Where there would otherwise be no Aux, do is provided:
I do like turnips.
 VP elision. The second of two identical Verb Phrases can be elided, provided an Aux is
left behind:
You should take up hang gliding. Sue has. [that is, has taken up hang gliding]
This Aux will be do if no other Aux is present:
66
Meaning of “polarity focus”: focus is emphasis on one particular item in a sentence as the new material
being contributed by the speaker. “Polarity” refers here to the “poles” yes and no, or affirmative vs. negative.
I wonder if there are any people who grow turnips around here. / Well, Bill does.
It would appear then, that some kind of process provides the aux do as the “backup Aux”
whenever a syntactic transformation is applicable that requires an Aux to apply. A number of
ways to formalize this idea have appeared, but I will not attempt this here, simply noting the
general point that do is the “backup Aux” of English. We can at least state “what happens” as
follows:
For all syntactic rules of English that refer to Aux, the Aux do is inserted prior to their
application when the input sentence contains no Aux.
Having said this, I will mostly avoid sentences that require this unformalized operation in
what follows, for simplicity.
4. Summing up so far
Transformations have been posited to perform a variety of functions, as follows:
 Assignment of inflectional features to morphosyntactic representations (agreement and

case marking)
 Copying of material (as in tags)
 Movement of parts of the tree (as in Yes/No Question Formation)
 Insertion (not formalized here) of semantically empty words like the Aux do.
What remains to be covered are the most dramatic of transformations, the so-called long-
distance movements. These will be covered shortly, but to present them clearly, a preliminary
concept, subcategorization, is needed.
5. Architecture of the theory: deep structure and surface structure
It may be useful at this point to back off and consider the architecture of the theory as
developed so far. By this I mean the various kinds of rules and the order in which they are
arranged; or the “direction of information flow” that the theory assumes. Such information can
be expressed with diagrams containing boxes and arrows, and indeed is sometimes jokingly
referred to as the “boxology” of the theory.
The following diagram of this sort incorporates the terms deep structure and surface
structure.
(122) An architecture for grammatical theory with deep and surface structure
S (initial symbol fed to the grammar)
Phrase structure rules
(bare tree)
Lexical insertion lexicon
Deep structure
Transformations
Surface structure
(and on to other components: inflectional morphology, phonology)
[phonetic form]
The terms “deep” and “surface” involve no notion of profundity or superficiality. Deep structure
is simply the output of the phrase structure rules with words plugged in by lexical insertion.
Surface structure is the output of the syntax as a whole. In a sentence in which no
transformations are applicable, the deep and surface structures are the same.
A caution to bear in mind is that a diagram of this sort is simply depicting the logical
structure of the model; we are not (necessarily) making any claim that this represents the time
course of sentence production in humans; but rather a claim about the structure of the language;
that what we observe can be described in terms of a fixed number of perturbations of a simple
structure that is generable by a phrase structure grammar.
Chapter 6: Syntax III — Subcategorization and Wh- Movement
1. One more update of the phrase structure rules
For purposes of this chapter we will need a slightly more powerful set of phrase structure
rules.
1.1 S̄ as daughter of NP
E
In English it is possible to have an NP that contains an S̄ as its daughter. One place where
E
this occurs is when the head nouns of the NP is one that express a belief or a statement — such
nouns include belief, claim, assertion, and so on. Some examples of S̄-within-NP are given inE
(123).
(123) Some examples of NP’s that have S̄ as a daughter E
a. Fred’s belief [S̄ that he is a genius ]

E
b. George’s insistence [S̄ that he be included ]

E
c. the claim [S̄ that this structure is an island ]

E
d. Sally’s assertion [S̄ that we should eat pasta ]

E
It should be clear that the fundmental principle of phrase structure we have been working with,
“the modifier of the head is the sister to the head” ((87) above) is obeyed by these examples.
We can also establish that the normal position of S̄ within NP that include is last:
E
George’s insistence [PP to John ] [S̄ that he be included ]

E
*George’s insistence [S̄ that he be included ][PP to John ]

E
I suggest the following version of the main phrase structure rule for NP:
(124) A modified version of the NP phrase structure rule (allows S̄) E
Art 
NP    (AP)* N (PP)*(S̄)
NP  
A A E E
To justify this rule, we can consider a long NP that includes every possibility for the main
NP phrase structure rule is the following:
NP
S̄ E
PP VP
NP AP NP NP NP
| | | |
N A N P N Comp N V Art N
| | | | | | | | | |
Bill’s forthright assertion to Fred that television has no future.
Many of the nouns that occur in such structures share a morphological property: they are derived
(within the word formation component) from verbs. The relevant rule is the Verb-Noun
Conversion Rule (76). This can hardly be a coincidence, and we will discuss this further below.
There are, however, a few nouns that take an S̄ that are not derived from verbs: hypothesis,
E
hunch.
1.2 AP as daughter of VP
VP can sometime include an AP (Adjective Phrase). By far the most common instance of
this is when the verb is some form be: Alice is quite tall. Sentences with other verbs are given in
(116).
(125) Some sentences in which the VP includes an Adjective Phrase
a. Fred is sick.
b. Bill looks tired.
c. Alice seems very friendly.
d. Jack appeared angry to Sam.
As far has handling such cases in the grammar, it seems sensible not to amplify our existing
phrase structure rule for VP (VP V (NP) (NP) (PP)* (S̄), given in (104)), but rather to
E
introduce a new rule that only allows V and AP:
(126) A new phrase structure rule for VP, permitting an AP daughter
V  V AP (PP)*
The alternative of beefing up our existing rule VP V (NP) (NP) (PP)* (S̄) with an AP
E
position, as in VP V (NP) (NP) (PP)* (AP)(S̄), would overgenerate (as with *Bill told Fred
E
very angry.)
1.3 Final phrase structure rule list
Putting all of these together, we have the phrase structure rules shown:
(127) Final67 version of phrase structure rules for English, improved with two new rules
S  NP (Aux) VP
Art 
NP  NP   (AP)* N (PP)*(S̄)
 
A A E E
NP  Pronoun
AP  (Adv) A
VP  V (NP) (NP) (PP)* (S̄) E
VP  V AP (PP)*
PP  P NP
NP  NP (Conj NP)*
VP  VP (Conj VP)*
PP  PP (Conj PP)*
S  S (Conj S)*
S  S (Conj S)*
V  V (Conj V)*
2. Lexical insertion and subcategorization
The phrase structure rules for English as we have developed them so far generate, among
many others, the following trees:
A. S B. S
NP VP NP VP
| | |
N V N V NP
Art N
We have so far assumed that words are inserted whose part of speech matches up to the
appropriate node in the tree. However, closer inspection shows that this procedure frequently
overgenerates. Thus, for instance, a verb like sigh may appear in tree A but not tree B:
Fred sighed.
*Fred sighed his fate.
67
Final for purposes of this introductory textbook!
A verb like destroy behave in the reverse fashion: it can appear in B but not in A:
Bill destroyed his car.

*Bill destroyed.
Verbs like destroy that must take an object are called transitive verbs; verbs like sigh that cannot
take an object are called intransitive. Some verbs, such as eat, fit into both categories; they can
be called “optionally transitive”.
To avoid overgenerating in the way just shown, the theory needs a means of specifying the
requirements of particular words for what tree structures they may appear in. This problem
becomes especially acute for the two new structures introduced in the preceding section. Only a
few nouns in English (like belief, insistence, claim) can occur with an S sister. Only a very small
number of verbs (like be, seem, appear) may occur with an AP sister. So our theory currently has
a big gap in it; we need some way of specifying what trees particular words are allowed to occur
in. The method we’ll cover in this book is called subcategorization frames.
To start, let us agree that the process of “inserting words into the tree” will be called lexical
insertion. Underlying this is the idea that speakers possess a mental dictionary, generally
referred to as the lexicon.68 Lexical insertion consists of extracting a word from the lexicon and
inserting it into a syntactic tree. The entries in the lexicon contain the crucial information about
what kinds of tree the words can be inserted into, in the form of a subcategorization frame.
Under this approach, the lexical entry for destroy would be like this:
destroy:
Pronunciation: /dsˈtrɔɪ/ (more on this later)

Meaning: “violently cause no longer to exist” (we lack a better way to represent meaning)
Syntactic category: Verb
subcategorization frame: [ ___ NP ].
The subcategorization frame indicate the sisters that must be present in order for the word to
be legally inserted into the tree. Destroy, being a verb, will be inserted as the head of a VP. The
subcategorization frame says that for insertion of destroy to be legal, the VP must contain an NP,
occurring immediately to the right of V within VP. The diagram in (119) is meant to explicate
this notation:
68
Or even “mental lexicon”, if we want to be perfectly clear we are talking about the knowledge of
a person rather than a lexicon as a book or database.
(128) Matching a tree and subcategorization frame
VP
V NP
___ Art N
| |
the city tree
[ ___ NP ] subcategorization frame for destroy
Since destroy subcategorizes for an object NP, a sentence like *John destroyed fails to
match the subcategoriaation frame of its verb and is therefore ungrammatical.
It goes the other way as well: where a subcategorization frame does not include some
particular type of phrase, then lexical insertion is impossible, and ungrammatically is predicted,
when that phrase type is present. Thus, for instance, the intransitive verb sigh would have the
following subcategorization frame:
Here is a lexical entry for sigh:
sigh: pronunciation: /saɪ/

meaning: “exhale loudly to express sorrow”
syntactic category: verb
subcategorization: [ ___ ]
The frame [ ___ ] indicates that sigh may not have sisters in the VP. It accounts for the
ungrammaticality of *John sighed the misfortune.
Optionally-transitive verbs like sing (John sang, John sang the song) have subcategorization
frames that employ parentheses to show the optionality. Here is a lexical entry for sing:
sing: pronunciation: /sŋ/

meaning: “use one’s voice to produce music”
syntactic category: verb
subcategorization: [ ___ (NP) ]
More generally, optional elements in subcategorization frames are indicated with parentheses.
Grammaticality results if some version of the frame (leaving out, or keeping in, parenthesized
material) matches the sentence. Thus Jane sang and Jane sang the song are both good.
Verbs of saying and belief often subcategorize for an S̄. For example, say has the
E
subcategorization [ ___ (PP) S̄ ] and tell has the subcategorization [ ___ NP (S̄)]. This can be
E E
justified by the following sentences:
(129) Data to justify the subcategorization frames of say and tell
a. *Alice said.
Alice said to Bill that she would be going.
Alice said that she would be going.
b. *Fred told.
*Fred told that he would be going.
Fred told us.
Fred told us that he would be going.69
Nouns have subcategorization frames as well. For example, here are the data that could be used
to justify the subcategorization frame of gift as [ ___ (PP) (PP) ]
(130) Data to justify the subcategorization frame of gift
a. a gift of $10 to the Red Cross

b. a gift of $10
c. a gift to the Red Cross
d. a gift
The subcategorization frame of picture is [ ___ (PP) ], as in picture of Alice (again the PP is
optional since picture is fine by itself.) The subcategorization of dog is [ ___ ] (there are no noun
phrases like, say, *dog of teeth).
2.1 Two rarer cases: Nouns that subcategorize for S̄; verbs that subcategorize for AP
E
I introduced the two changes in the phrase structure rules of the previous section
Art 
(NP NP   (AP)* N (PP)*(S̄) and VP V AP (PP)*) precisely because these rules seem to
 
A A E E
be especially “sensitive”, as it were, to subcategorization. There are only a few nouns that take S̄ E
and only a few verbs that take AP; see (123) and (125) for examples.
With regard to N that subcategorize for S̄, there is an intriguing relationship to

E
morphological rules; specifically the rules of word formation (see Chapter 2). Specifically, when
a noun is morphologically derived from a verb that subcategorizes for S̄, the resulting noun tends
E
also to subcategorize for S̄: E
69
For completeness, observe that tell also has the subcategorization [ ___ (NP)(NP) ]: Fred told us
his sorrows, Alice told them her name.
(131) Parallel subcategorization of some verbs and their derived nouns
a. They believe that Sue left

their belief that Sue left
b. They assert that Sue left.

their assertion that Sue left
c. They claim the Sue left.

their claim that Sue left.
Before we leave the topic of N subcategorizing for S̄, it’s important note that there is another
E
kind of S̄ that can occur as part of an NP. It is not subcategorized. These structures are called
E
relative clauses; we won’t have the time to analyze them in this book, but they are a major topic
you will study if you go on to take a syntax course. You can detect relative clauses because they
have a silent location (rather like the silent locations of Chapter 1) that refers to the head noun of
the NP; often called a gap.
(132) Examples of relative clauses (gaps shown as ___)
a. the turtles [S̄ that we caught ___ in the pond ]

E
b. the beliefs [S̄ that we hold ___ ]

E
c. the king [S̄ who the peasants deposed ___ last year ]
E
Thus (123) means something like “the turtles such that we caught (those turtles) in the pond”;
I’ve filled the gap informally by spelling it out as “those turtles.”
To see the difference between subcategorized S̄’s and relative clauses, it may help to
E
observe that you can get both of them in the same NP:
(133) An NP that has both a subcategorized S̄ and a relative clause

E
the assertion [S̄ that we should eat pasta ] [S̄ that you made ___ ]
E E
head of NP
Subcategorized S̄
E S̄ forming a relative clause
E
2.2 Items not included in the subcategorization frame
Some constituents evidently get to appear “for free” in the syntactic tree; they don’t have to
be subcategorized. This is true for PP’s with general adverbial meaning of place, time, or manner
can occur with virtually any verb:
(134) Some unsubcategorized PP
John sighed on Tuesday.

John sighed in the garden.
John sighed with great feeling.
The general practice for subcategorization is this: if any element is always able to occur as a
sister, then we don’t bother to mention it in the subcategorization frame. Basically, we are
interested only in the restrictions that hold of individual words. This aspect of the grammar will
not be formalized in this book.70
What is true of verbs is also true of nouns: PP’s of place, time, and manner are ignored in
determining noun subcategorizations, so cases like (126) would not justify a frame like [ ___ PP
] for their nouns.
(135) Some unsubcategorized PP within NP
dog in the garden

the party on Tuesday
a person in a good mood
Likewise, articles and possessors are not considered in the subcategorization frame, since they
are possible for any noun (the dog, Alice’s dog).
2.3 Subcategorization and meaning
It’s a somewhat vexed question to what extent subcategorization should be treated (as it is
above) as a straightforward matter of syntax. An alternative view is that heads occur in particular
syntactic locations simply because of what they mean. For example, the verb say is entitled to
occur in the syntactic frame [ ___ PP S̄ ] because an act of saying generally has someone who is
E
being spoken to (in I said to Fred that I was leaving, this is Fred), and a thing which is said (I
was leaving). Similarly, put occurs [ ___ NP PP ] because it involves a thing that is put, and
location into which the thing is put. Sigh occurs [ ___ ] because nothing is affected when you
sigh.
Although there is probably a grain of truth to this “semantics, not subcategorization” view,
there are also reasons to treat it with skepticism.
First, there are cases of verbs that have very similar meanings, but different patterns of
occurrence. Consider for instance say and tell.
I told Bill that I was leaving.

*I told to Bill that I was leaving.
*I said Bill that I was leaving.
70
In a more thorough grammar, we might adopt a bit more structure: some kind of node higher than
VP but lower than S, which would contain the unsubcategorized PP.
I said to Bill that I was leaving.
It’s not clear how semantics alone could tell us which verb requires an NP object and which a
PP. Likewise, the pattern below:
I like jumping. I like to jump.

I prefer jumping. I prefer to jump.
I enjoy jumping. *I enjoy to jump.
where only one of the three similar verbs can’t take an infinitive subordinate clause (see Chapter
1), suggests that meaning won’t suffice to tell us everything about subcategorization.
The verbs give and donate are semantically similar, but have different syntactic behavior:
She gave the library $1,000,000. She gave $1,000,000 to the library.
*She donated the library $1,000,000. She donated $1,000,000 to the library.
Only give has a subcategorization for [ ___ NP NP ].
There is one more phenomenon that suggests that subcategorization cannot be reduced to
meaning. Consider verbs like these:
He ate.
She sang.
We raked.
These have what are sometimes called “implicit arguments”—it’s understood that “he” ate
something; and that likewise she sang something (song unspecified), and we raked (leaves or
grass unspecified). In other words, the syntax does not always have to provide overt expression
for all the participants in an act.
Yet in other cases, an implicit argument evidently is not allowed:
*We took.
*We own.
2.4 Solving subcategorization problems
The best method seems to be the following:
 Think of lots of words and sentences that include the word you’re considering. 71
71
I admit that this is harder for non-native speakers, a problem hard to avoid in linguistics teaching.
If you don’t have native intuitions in English, I suggest doing one of two things when you solve
subcategorization problems on your assignments: either find a native speaker consultant and get their
intuitions, or else add verbal discussion to your answer, with wording like “assuming that xxx is
grammatical in English; I’m not sure.” It would be fair to grade your answer based on the facts as you give
them.
 Look at the phrase structure rule that introduces the word (for example, if you’re dealing
with a noun, look at the phrase structure rule NP  (Art)(A) N (PP)* (S̄)). This will tell
E
you the sisters that at least might be present.

 Remember that a subcategorized expression usually has a kind of intimate relation to the
meaning of the word that subcategorizes it. The noun claim subcategorizes for an S̄ E
because the S̄ is used to designate the conceptual content of the claim.

E
 Try collecting as many individual frames for the word that you can, then use parentheses
to collapse them into one or more simpler expressions.
 Don’t be distracted by PP’s of place, manner and time that can occur with anything; they
don’t belong in the subcategorization frame.
Study Exercise #22
Give subcategorizations for the following words, justifying them with example sentences.
a. Verbs: elapse, award, tell, shout, die

b. Nouns: turtle, bowl, announcement, reason
a. Verbs:
elapse: [ __ ]
Time elapsed
*Time elapsed me
*Time elapsed to the losing team.
*Time elased that it was a great misfortune.
award: [ ___ NP (PP)]

*They awarded.
They awarded a prize
They awarded a prize to the winner.
*They award to the winner.
[ ___ (NP) NP ]
They awarded the winner a prize.
tell: [ ___ NP (S̄) ]

E
They told Bill that they were leaving.

They told Bill.
*They told that they were leaving.
[ ___ NP (PP) ]
They told the truth to Bill.
They told the truth.
They told Bill.
*They told to Bill.
[ ___ NP (NP)]
They told Bill the truth.
They told Bill.
They told the truth.
shout: [ ___ (PP)(S̄)] E
They shouted.
They shouted to Sally.
They shouted that they were leaving.
They shouted to Sally that they were leaving.
[ ___ (NP)(PP)]
They shouted the words.
They shouted the words to Sally.
die: [ ___ ]
Jefferson died.
*Jefferson died Washington.
*Jefferson died to Washington.
(Note: Jefferson died in 1826, Jefferson died in Virginia don’t count, since PP’s of place
and time can occur with any verb.)
b. Nouns
turtle: [ ___ ]
turtle
*turtle of shell
*turtle that they were leaving
bowl: [ ___ (PP) ]

bowl
bowl of soup
announcement: [ ___ (PP) (S̄) ]

E
the announcement
the announcement to Bill
the announcement that they were leaving
the announcement to Bill that they were leaving
reason: [ ___ (S̄) ]

E
the reason
the reason that we are going
*the reason to Fred
*the reason to Fred that we are going
————————————————————————————————————
3. Wh-Movement
3.1 Backdrop
This section returns to the topic of transformations. Thus far, we’ve seen two reasons to
move beyond simple phrase structure grammars to transformational grammars:
 Phrase structure rules cannot copy material—only a copying transformation can generate
the legal array of tag questions.
 Phrase structure rules cannot relate sentences to one another (for example, simple
statements to yes-no questions).
We now move on to what many linguists would probably agree is the most important basis for
transformations, sometimes called “long distance gap-filler dependencies”. The first example of
such a case will be Wh- Movement.
3.2 Basics and terminology
A wh-Word is one of a fixed inventory of words used for asking questions. They are so
called because most of the wh-words in English begin with these letters.
The wh- words of English can be various parts of speech:
which Article
whose Article
who Pronoun
whom Pronoun
what either an Article or Pronoun
how Adverb
when Adverb
why Adverb
where Adverb
A wh- question is a question that involves a wh-word. For example, the following are wh-
questions:
Who did you see?

What book did you read?
Which chocolates did you like?
In which hotel are you staying?
How do you feel?
You can see that the wh- word usually comes at or near the beginning of the sentence. It
constitutes, or is part of, a phrase that (intuitively), the sentence is about; i.e. the item that is
being questioned.
A wh- phrase is an NP, PP, or AdvP (Adverb Phrase) that contains a wh- word and is
placed at the beginning of a clause. In the wh- questions just mentioned, the wh- phrases are
PP
NP NP NP NP AdvP
| |
Pro Art N Art N P Art N Adv
| | | | | | | | |
who what book which chocolates in which hotel how
This permits a more precise definition of wh- question; it is a question that begins with a
wh- phrase.
3.3 Wh- questions, subcategorization, and gaps
Wh- questions are interesting in that they appear to violate otherwise-valid principles of
subcategorization. Here is an example. The verb ‘put’ has the subcategorization [ ___ NP PP ].
Because of this a sentence like the following:
Fred will put the chicken in the oven
is grammatical; the subcategorization of put is satisfied. But
*Fred will put in the oven
is ungrammatical because of the missing NP, and
*Fred will put the chicken
is ungrammatical because of the missing PP.72 This is an unusual case in which there are two
subcategorized elements and both are obligatory.
In light of the subcategorization fact, it is a bit surprising that the following sentences should
be grammatical:
(136) Two Wh-questions that appear to violate subcategorization
Into what oven will Fred put the chicken?

What chicken will Fred put into the oven?
These sentences, which are wh- questions, contain gaps: instead of the NP or PP that the
subcategorization of put calls for, one finds nothing. The gaps are shown below, denoted with a
___:
(137) Two Wh-questions that appear to violate subcategorization — marked for their gaps
What chicken will Fred put ___ into the oven?

Into what oven will Fred put the chicken ___ ?
Most people who ponder the question will judge that these gaps are (intuitively speaking)
“filled” by the wh- phrase. We understand what chicken to be the object of put in the first
sentence, and in the second sentence we understand into what oven to be the PP indicating where
Fred put the chicken.
Let us define “gap”, for precision:
72
As elsewhere we are ignoring extended uses of verbs, which often change the subcategorization.
John put the chicken is fine in a fantasy world in which Olympic medals are awarded in the chicken-put.
 A gap is a location in syntactic structure where the subcategorization requirements would

lead one to expect a phrase, but none occurs.
Such gaps are widely observed in English and in many other (not all) languages.
There is an intimate connection between wh- phrases73 and gaps: to a rough approximation,
gaps are allowed only when a wh- phrase is present; recall
*Fred will put in the oven

*Fred will put the chicken
This goes the other way around: if there is no gap, then we can’t have the Wh-phrases either:
*What chicken will Fred put the dinner into the oven?
*Into what oven will Fred put the chicken into the pan?
Moreover, most people who ponder the question will judge that gaps are somehow “filled” by
the wh- phrase. In
What chicken will Fred put ___ into the oven?
we understand what chicken to be the object of put, and in
Into which oven will Fred put the chicken ___ ?
we understand into which oven to be the PP indicating where Fred put the chicken.
Summing up, wh-questions in English have what are often called filler-gap dependencies,
which we can detect in a rigorous way by working out subcategorizations.
The two questions that demand to be answered here, then, are
 Why should wh- questions, and only wh- questions, permit gaps?
 How do we account for the filler-gap dependency; that is, the fact that the wh- phrase at
the beginning of the sentence intuitively fills the gap?
As you might be imagining already, the answer will involve a transformation.
3.4 Further background: echo questions
Before we proceed to the analysis, let us ponder a further phenomenon of English syntax,
the so-called echo question. These are questions that contain a Wh- phrase, but have no gap; the
Wh- phrase occurs in the ordinary position for its type, and satisfies the subcategorization
73
And, as we’ll see later on, phrases that behave quite similarly to wh- phrases.
requirements of the relevant head. Echo questions are not all that common, because they can
only be used to offer an astonished reply to a parallel statement:
(138) Examples of echo questions
The Romans destroyed the television set.

The Romans destroyed what?
I saw Marilyn Monroe in Westwood last Saturday.

You saw who?
Fred will put the chicken in the Socratic Oven.

Fred will put the chicken in what oven?
Echo questions make an important point: it is possible to generate a wh-phrase in the ‘normal’
position for an NP or PP; wh- phrases do not always have to appear at the beginning of sentence.
A bit of terminology: the wh- phrases of echo questions are sometimes said to be in situ,
which is Latin for “in its original position”. 74
3.5 A transformation for Wh- questions
The grammatical problem at hand is that Wh- questions have subcategorization gaps that
match up with the initial wh- phrases. This is a dependency that cannot be expressed with the
phrase structure rules we have been using. These rules can only say what daughters a node may
have, and thus they have no ability to regulate matchups between elements in the tree that are far
apart. A transformation is needed.
The intuitive idea behind our transformation analysis will be to let normal questions be
derived from deep structures that look like echo questions. That is, we will have a transformation
that will move the wh- phrase out of its in situ deep structure position (where it satisfies the
subcategorization of the verb) to the beginning of the sentence. As a first approximation:
(139) Wh- Movement (first version)
Move a wh- phrase to the beginning of the sentence as daughter of S, leaving a trace.
The term “trace” will be defined shortly.
In a minute, we can use this transformation to derive some wh- questions, but in the mean
time a detail must be attended to. It’s clear that in typical Wh- questions (such as (127)), the Aux
comes before the subject: What chicken [ will]Aux [ Fred]NP put in the oven? This is hardly
something new, because we have already seen this in Yes/No questions, discussed in the
previous chapter. It seem that the flipping of the order of subject and Aux is more general than
we had imagined; it occurs in all normal (non-echo) questions, not just Yes/No questions. So a
74
Situ is an inflected form ([Case:ablative, Number:singular]) of situs ‘place’.
first act of tidying up will be to rename our earlier transformation of Yes/No Question Formation
(from (111)), and assume that it applies in all normal questions. Here is the transformation with
its new name.
(140) Subject/Aux Inversion

S S
| |
1 2 3 2 1 3
Applies in all non-echo questions.
We will assume, moreover, that Subject/Aux Inversion is ordered to apply before Wh-
Movement; the concept of ordering the rules is one we’ve already seen for inflectional
morphology in Chapter 2.
Now that we have the rules and their ordering, we can do a full derivation of a Wh- question
under the proposed analysis. We begin with the phrase structure rules (on the left), then do
lexical insertion (on the right):
S S
| |
NP Aux VP NP Aux VP
| | |
N V NP PP N will V NP PP
| |
Art N P NP Fred put Art N P NP
| | |
Art N what chicken in Art N
| |
the oven
This creates the stage of deep structure, with what chicken in situ. The crucial point at this stage
is that we have not violated the subcategorization of put, which in deep structure does have the
required NP and PP sisters. In fact, with the theory we are working on, ultimately this will be
seen to be true even in surface structure (more on this below).
Following our assumed rule ordering, the first transformation to apply in Subject/Aux
Inversion, from (140):
(141) Application of Subject/Aux inversion

S S
| |
1 2 3 2 1 3
Deriving:
S S
| |
1 2 3 2 1 3
Now we apply Wh-Movement. I show this below first by drawing arrows to show what
moves where, then showing the surface structure that results. A caution: the destination of what
chicken is provisional; we will change the analysis a bit below.
(142) a. Output of Subject/Aux Inversion, with arrow showing application of (130) Wh-
Movement
S
|
Aux NP VP
| |
will Fred V NP PP
|
put Art N P NP
| | |
what chicken in Art N
| |
the oven
b. Surface structure
S
NP Aux NP VP
| |
Art N will Fred V NP PP
| | | |
what chicken put t P NP
|
in Art N
| |
the oven
As stated in the Wh- Movement rule of (130), the movement of what chicken is assumed to
leave a trace. A trace is more or less our formalization of a gap: it is an empty copy of what got
moved; it has the same category, but it contains no phonetic material. To show that a trace is
empty, we use the letter t, as the daughter of the trace’s category. For now, the trace is just an
arbitrary choice, but we later on it will play an important role in the semantics of wh- questions
and similar constructions. For now, we can observe that the trace NP means that the
subcategorization requirements of put are satisfied (albeit by an empty, abstract entity) at surface
structure as well as deep structure.
I will now restate the point of what we’re currently doing: we’re trying to provide a solution
to the problem of subcategorization gaps, and why these gaps characteristically are matched with
a Wh-phrase at the start of the sentence. In this approach, gaps only arise from movement,75 so
the fronted wh- phrase will always match the gap. This ability to capture a long-distance
dependency (“X here only if Y there”) is a common justification for a transformational analysis.
75
A caution: there are many other sources of gaps, such as the subject gaps mentioned in Chapter 1,
or the dropped subject pronouns of Spanish, Persian, and many other languages. But these tend to have a
special distribution, so the general point still holds.
Study Exercise #23
Provide a step-by-step syntactic derivation, mimicking that just given in the text, for
Into what oven will Fred put the chicken?
Study Exercise #24
Explain how our grammar predicts that
*What city have the Romans destroyed Carthage?
is ungrammatical.
Study Exercise #25
Explain how our grammar predicts that
*Who will the princess sigh?
is ungrammatical.
Study Exercise #26
Derive the question
Who will leave?
using the rules given above. What is odd about this derivation?
Phrase structure rules:
Lexical insertion:
Application of Subject/Aux inversion:

S S
| |
1 2 3 2 1 3
Deriving:
S S
| |
1 2 3 2 1 3
Output of Subject/Aux Inversion, with arrow showing application of (130) Wh-Movement
Surface structure results from Wh-Movement, including trace:

This sentence is a wh- question. Accordingly to our analysis, the wh- phrase in such a
question must have originated in deep structure in some position inside the sentence. But there
cannot be any such position. The subject position is already filled by the Romans, and the verb
destroy subcategorizes for only one sister NP position, which is already occupied by the NP
Carthage. Since our grammar cannot generate an appropriate deep structure, it is unable to
generate the surface structure. It therefore predicts that the sentence should be ungrammatical.
This sentence has essentially the same problem as in Study Exercise #24: there is no place
that the NP ‘who’ could have come from: the subject position is already taken up by the
princess, and sigh doesn’t subcategorize for any sister NP’s. Thus there is no possible deep
structure, so our grammar cannot generate the surface structure. It therefore predicts
ungrammaticality.
a. Deep structure, showing Subject/Aux Inversion:
S
|
NP Aux VP
| | |
Pro will V
| |
who leave
b. Result of Subject/Aux Inversion, showing Wh-movement
S
|
Aux NP VP
| | |
will Pro V
| |
who leave
c. Surface structure
S
NP Aux NP VP
| | | |
Pro will t V
| |
who leave
What’s odd? The input reads just like the output! This is sometimes call a string-vacuous
derivation; the surface structure word order hasn’t changed (trace being silent), but the structure
is different.
String-vacuous derivations test the ability of the student to “think like a computer” (see p. 31
above). As humans, we may sometimes feel that derivations that in the end do essentially
nothing waste our time. But the real payoff here is that we’ve applied the rules of the grammar,
showing we got the right answer — what we win from the seemingly pointless activity is
reassurance. And the rules, of course, aren’t pointless because often the derivations they create
are not string-vacuous at all.
_________________________________________________________________________
4. The “landing site” of Wh- Movement
Wh- Movement doesn’t always move words to the beginning of the sentence. In so-called
embedded Wh- questions, movement is to the beginning of a subordinate clause. A wh-
question is a subordinate clause that is itself a wh- question, as in the following examples.
(143) Some instances of embedded questions
I wonder what city the Romans destroyed.

We asked for whom the bell tolls.
They are found when the main clause has a verb like wonder and ask, which takes a question as
its sister node. I’ll assume that these verbs have a special categorization, not formalized here,
under which they take an S̄ which is not a declarative (the usual case), but a wh- question.
E
A further observation about embedded questions is that they don’t occur with the
complementizer that:
*I wonder what city that the Romans destroyed.

*We asked for whom that the bell tolls.
*I wonder that what city the Romans destroyed.

*We asked that for whom the bell tolls.
These facts suggest a refine of our analysis of Wh- Movement. An influential idea in
syntactic theory that the order of words in sentences can be explicated in terms of slots, which
the words compete to fill. We’ve already said that the Complementizer that occupies the position
Comp, a daughter of S̄. The idea to be developed here is that in an embedded Wh- question, the
E
moved Wh- phrase actually occupies the Comp slot. When Comp is thus occupied, there is no
room for that (there’s no problem in leaving it out; it is semantically empty in any event).
Under this approach, we can arrange lexical insertion simply to leave Comp empty for
embedded clauses introduced by verbs like wonder and imagine. Then, Wh- Movement acts to
fill the empty slot by moving the wh- phrase into it, as follows:
(144) A derivation, using empty Comp, of I wonder what city the Romans destroyed?
a. Deep structure
S
VP
S̄E
VP
NP NP NP
|
Pro V Comp Art N V Art N
| | | | | | |
I wonder the Romans destroyed what city
b. Wh- Movement and surface structure
VP
S̄E
VP
NP NP
|
Pro V Comp Art N V NP
| | | | | | |
I wonder NP the Romans destroyed t
Art N
| |
what city
In this approach, the empty Comp node provides a kind of “landing site” for the moved Wh-
phrase.
4.1 Cleaning up the analysis I: fixing Subject/Aux inversion
Before going on, I should confess to a minor cheat: in the sentence just derived, I simplified
matters by leaving out an Aux. In fact, there’s a nice puzzle at hand here: if there is an Aux in a
subordinate clause, it does not flip with the subject as it would in a main clause. Here is the
crucial comparison:
(145) Aux inverts with subject only in main clauses
a. Main clause
What city [have]Aux [ the Romans ]NP destroyed?
b. Subordinate clause
I wonder what city [ the Romans ]NP [have]Aux destroyed?
Let us modify Subject/Aux Inversion to acknowledge this fact.

(146) Subject/Aux inversion (revised)

S S
| |
1 2 3 2 1 3
Restrictions:
Applies in non-echo questions.
Applies in main clauses only
Study Exercise #27
Give an example, based on the sentence in the text, of what ungrammatical sentences would be
generated if we allowed Subject/Aux Inversion to apply in subordinate clauses.
Answer to Study Exercise 27
*I wonder what city [have]Aux [ the Romans ]NP destroyed.
Note that the intended reading is different from the one you would spell with a comma,
colon, or three periods:
(Y’know), I wonder, what city have the Romans destroyed?

(Y’know), I wonder: what city have the Romans destroyed?
(Y’know), I wonder … what city have the Romans destroyed?
But it seems in these cases, the sequence is being treated as two sentences: I wonder and
What city have the Romans destroyed? In these case the use of Subject/Aux Inversion is
completely expected.
————————————————————————————————
4.2 Cleaning up the analysis II: Non-embedded Wh-questions
So at this point we have a working analysis for embedded Wh- questions. But to be
consistent, we also need to cover the wh- questions that are not embedded, that is, the ones we
started out with. There is a fairly reasonable tack that can be taken here, namely that these
sentences also have Comp, which provides the landing site for the sentence-initial wh-phrase.
Specifically, the assumptions we need to make are as follows:
 Wh- questions are not instances of S, but of S̄. E
 They require (by means not stated here) that the initial Comp be empty in Deep
Structure.76
Under this analysis, the derivation of What chicken will Fred put in the oven? comes out
slightly differently:
76
There are alternatives to this, for instance letting the moved Wh- phrase displace a that, and
adding a transformation that deletes that from the topmost complementizer of the sentence.
(147) Revised syntactic derivation for What chicken will Fred put in the oven?, using empty
Comp
a. Deep structure
S̄ E
Comp VP
PP
NP NP NP
|
N Aux V Art N P Art N
| | | | | | | |
Fred will put what chicken in the oven
b. Wh- movement (and Subject-Aux inversion), yielding surface structure
S̄E
Comp VP
| PP
NP
NP NP
Art N |
| | Aux N V NP P Art N
what chicken | | | | | | |
will Fred put t in the oven
With this in mind, we can express the Wh- Movement transformation more explicitly.
(148) Wh- Movement (revised version)
Move wh- into an unfilled Comp, leaving a trace.
Here is the Wh- Movement transformation lined up with the tree given above:
(149) Applying Wh- Movement to the deep structure of What chicken will Fred put in the oven?
a. Deep structure
S̄ E
Comp VP
PP
NP NP NP
|
N Aux V Art N P Art N
| | | | | | | |
Fred will put what chicken in the oven
b. Subject-aux inversion
S̄ E
Comp VP
PP
NP NP NP
Aux N V Art N P Art N

| | | | | | | |
will Fred put what chicken in the oven
b. Wh- movement (and Subject-Aux inversion), yielding surface structure
S̄
E
Comp VP
| PP
NP
NP NP
Art N |
| | Aux N V NP P Art N
what chicken | | | | | | |
will Fred put t in the oven
4.3 Slots in syntax
This sort of analysis, in which an empty position is available for anything that moves (or, as
we’ll see, is copied), has been extended by linguists to a consistent, across-the-board practice,
essentially “a place for everything and everything in its place.” Thus, in more refined theories,
there is a slot into which the Aux moves in questions, and many others. You will probably
encounter this approach further if/when you study more syntax.
5. Typology of Wh-movement
Many languages other than English form Wh- questions by moving the wh- phrase to the
beginning of the sentence. Here are three examples:
French: Tu as vu Paris (normal statement)

you have seen Paris
Quelle ville as- tu vu t ? (wh- question)

what city have you seen (trace)?
Chamorro (South Pacific):
Hafahan si-Maria i-sanhilo gi tenda (normal statement)

bought Maria the-blouse at the-store
‘Maria bought the blouse at the store’
Hafa hafahan si-Maria t gi tenda (wh- question)

what bought Maria (trace) at store
‘What did Maria buy at the store?’
Vata (Ivory Coast, West Africa) Tones: 1 = highest, 4 = lowest
41 3 2 1
Kofi le saka (normal statement)
Kofi ate rice
3 41 3 2
yi Kofi le t la (wh- question)
what Kofi eat (trace) question-particle
‘What did Kofi eat?’
Many other languages work in the same way; for example Modern Hebrew, Russian, and
Spanish.
However, a large number of languages do not have Wh-Movement. These languages form
Wh- questions simply by leaving the Wh- phrase in situ. An example of a non-Wh- Movement
language is Persian:
Ali an ketab-ra xand

Ali that book read
‘Ali read that book’
Ali tʃe ketab-i xand?77

Ali what book read
‘What book did Ali read?’
*tʃe ketab-i Ali xand?

what book Ali read
Japanese is similar:
John-wa naze kubi-ni natta no?

John-Topic why was fired question particle
‘Why was John fired?’
Bill-wa [ John-ga naze kubi-ni natta tte ] itta no?

Bill-TOP John-nom why was fired Comp said question particle
‘Why did Bill say that John was fired?’78
77
If you’re thinking about case marking here, the answer to your question is that the Accusative
suffix -ra only attaches to definite Noun Phrases, the kind that would be translated with the in English.
It’s striking that the languages seem to pattern together; for instance, unbounded movement
to the right is apparently exceedingly rare in language.79 Moreover, there are logical possibilities
for Wh- movement that seem to be unattested:
 *Move a wh- phrase to the exact middle of a sentence.

 *Move a wh- phrase so that it follows the second word of a sentence.
 *Move all the words that precede the wh- phrase so that they follow the wh- phrase, and
move all the words that follow the wh- phrase so that they precede the wh- phrase.
No such rules have been found in any language. We will discuss such cross-linguistic patterns in
greater detail later on.
6. Why Wh- Movement?
It’s something of a puzzle why languages have Wh- Movement at all—why not adopt the
sensible Persian/Japanese/Chinese strategy, and just leave your Wh- words where they belong?
Surely it would be clearer for the listener to interpret the wh- word in its proper syntactic
location.80
A clue, I think, can be found in pairs of sentences that have the same gap, but where the Wh-
phrase appears in a different location:
[ What song ] can Sue imagine that Bill sang t ?

Sue can imagine [ what song ] Bill sang t ?
Such pairs are often said to illustrate a difference of scope: the location of the wh-phrase
indicates the domain in which the wh- phrase is acting as a logical operator. Thus, in the first
sentence above, the wh- phrase what song is used to ask something about the content of Sue’s
imaginings—its scope is the entire sentence. The second sentence reports a thought of Sue’s.
Within this thought, what song is being used to ask something about Bill’s singing (that is, Sue is
mentally answering the question, “What song did Bill sing?”). Therefore, the scope of what song
in the second sentence is just the subordinate clause. It can be seen, then, that the linear position
of the wh- phrase is suited to expressing a distinction of scope. (We will cover more about scope
later on when we turn to semantics.)
What emerges, if this speculation is correct, is that there’s no perfect design available.
Languages without wh- movement make it clear where the inherent location of the wh- phrase is,
78
An odd custom of linguists writing in English about Japanese syntax is to use English first names.
I don’t know why they do this.
79
Proposed instances are in Navajo, Circassian, and American Sign Language. Such claims often
trigger scholarly replies suggesting alternative interpretations of the data.
80
Indeed, experimental work by psycholinguists has documented the increased cognitive load and
memory burden that listeners experience when they have heard a wh- phrase and are “looking for” the
corresponding gap later in the sentence.
but are less clear in indicating scope; languages with wh- movement mark scope clearly, but
impose a burden on listeners, who need to carry out gap detection.
7. The unbounded nature of Wh- Movement
An important aspect of Wh- Movement is that it can move a wh- phrase over very long
stretches of syntactic structure. Consider the following deep structures and corresponding surface
structures:
You have seen who.

[ Who ] have you seen t ?
Joan thinks that you have seen who.

[ Who ] does Joan think that you have seen t ?
Bill would imagine that Joan thinks that you have seen who.
[ Who ] would Bill imagine that Joan thinks that you have seen t ?
Sally believes that Bill would imagine that Joan thinks that you have seen who.
Who does Sally believe that Bill would imagine that Joan thinks that you have seen?
Study Exercise #28
Provide a syntactic derivation (that is, deep structure, arrows showing what moves where,
surface structure) for the sentence ‘What city will Fred say that Judy thinks that you live in?’.
Deep structure, showing Subject-Aux Inversion and Wh-movement:

S̄
E
Comp
S
|
NP Aux VP
| |
N will V S̄ E
| |
Fred say Comp S
|
that NP VP
|
N V S̄ E
| |
Judy thinks Comp S
|
that NP VP
|
Pro V PP
| |
you live P NP
|
in Art N
| |
what city
(continued on next page)

Surface structure:
S̄ E
Comp S
NP Aux NP VP
| |
Art N will N V S̄ E
| | | |
what city Fred say Comp S
|
that NP VP
|
N V S̄ E
| |
Judy thinks Comp S
|
that NP VP
|
Pro V PP
| |
you live P NP
| |
in t
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #29
Provide a syntactic derivation (that is, deep structure, arrows showing what moves where,
surface structure) for the following sentences:
a. What city will Fred say that Judy thinks that you live in?
b. Which book will Sue ask that we study?
c. Sue will ask which book we should study.
Assume the transformations of Subject/Aux Inversion and Wh- Movement.

a. What city will Fred say that Judy thinks that you live in?
Deep structure. The wh- phrase is in situ, so that the preposition has an object. The arrow
shows the movement attributed to Subject/Aux Inversion:
S̄E
Comp S
VP
S̄
E
VP
S̄
E
VP
PP
NP NP NP NP
| | |
N Aux V Comp N V Comp Pro V P Art N
| | | | | | | | | | | |
Fred will say that Judy thinks that you live in what city
Output of Subject/Aux Inversion, with arrow showing action of Wh- Movement:
S̄
E
Comp S
VP
S̄
E
VP
S̄
E
VP
PP
NP NP NP NP
| | |
Aux N V Comp N V Comp Pro V P Art N
| | | | | | | | | | | |
will Fred say that Judy thinks that you live in what city
Surface structure, with trace of what city:
S̄
E
Comp S
NP VP
Art N S̄
E
what city S
VP
S̄
E
VP
PP
NP NP NP
| | |
Aux N V Comp N V Comp Pro V P NP
| | | | | | | | | | |
will Fred say that Judy thinks that you live in t
b. Which book will Sue ask that we study?
Deep structure, with which book in situ.

Note presence of empty Comp, the “landing site” for wh-phrases.
Arrow shows application of Subj/Aux Inversion:
S̄
E
Comp S
VP
S̄
E
VP
NP NP NP
| |
N Aux V Comp Pro V Art N
| | | | | | | |
Sue will ask that we study which book
Output of Subject/Aux Inversion. Arrow shows application of Wh-Movement, moving the

wh- phrase into Comp.
S̄
E
Comp S
VP
S̄
E
VP
NP NP NP
| |
Aux N V Comp Pro V Art N
| | | | | | | |
will Sue ask that we study which book
Surface structure, with wh- phrase in Comp and a trace left behind:
S̄
E
Comp S
|
NP VP
Art N S̄
E
| |
which book S
VP
NP NP NP
| | |
Aux N V Comp Pro V t
| | | | | |
will Sue ask that we study
c. Sue will ask which book we should study
Deep structure, with which book in situ.

Now the empty Comp is an embedded Comp.
The full sentence, being a statement, is an S, not an S̄. E
Subject/Aux Inversion ((184)) does not apply in embedded questions.

Arrow shows application of Wh-Movement:
VP
S̄
E
VP
NP NP NP
| |
N Aux V Comp Pro Aux V Art N
| | | | | | | |
Sue will ask we should study which book
Surface structure:
S
VP
S̄ E
VP
NP NP NP
| | |
N Aux V Comp Pro Aux V t
| | | | | | |
Sue will ask NP we should study
Art N
| |
which book
________________________________________________________________________
8. Another transformation: Topicalization
English has a number of transformations similar to Wh- Movement. Perhaps the simplest is
the so-called Topicalization rule, used to account for sentences like these:
Linguistics, I can teach.

Those guys we would never give our credit cards to.
In that oven you should never put a chicken.
The name of the rule is from that fact that the fronted NP serves as the “topic” of its sentence;
what it is about. These sentences have a distinctly rhetorical character, and often sound best if
you imagine that the topic is being contrasted with some other topic:
Postmodernism, I’m clueless about, but linguistics, I can teach.
The “landing site” for fronted topics is not Comp, since you can get both that and the
fronted topic in sequence:
I’d say that linguistics, I can teach.
This is of course very different from Wh- Movement, where you never get both at once, leading
us to set up an analysis in which the wh- phrase moves into Comp (see (139), on p. 186).
Thus I will state the rule of Topicaliziation as simply moving a phrase to the left edge of S, as
follows:
(150) Topicalization
Move an NP or PP to the left edge of an S, making it the daughter of S, and leaving a trace.
The justification for Topicalization is much the same as that for Wh- Movement: the presence of
a topicalized element is correlated with a subcategorization gap later in the sentence.
Topicalization, like Wh- movement, appears to be unbounded, though the examples that
show this tend to be a bit less natural:
John, I don’t think a lot of people would like.

Fred, I’d imagine that you’d think that a lot of people wouldn’t like.
As unbounded transformations, Wh- Movement and Topicalization (as well as others to

come) have some crucial similar behaviors, which we’ll examine later on in discussing “islands”.
Study Exercise #30
Derive I’d say that linguistics, I can teach.

I’d say that linguistics, I can teach.
Deep structure, with linguistics in situ.

Application of Topicalization is shown.
Note that movement is simply to the beginning of S, not into Comp as with Wh-Movement.
VP
S̄
E
VP
NP NP NP
| | |
Pro Aux V Comp Pro Aux V N
| | | | | | | |
I would say that I can teach linguistics.
Surface structure, with trace.
VP
S̄
E
VP
NP NP NP NP
| |
Pro Aux V Comp N Pro Aux V
| | | | | | | |
I would say that linguistics I can teach t
________________________________________________________________________
9. It-Clefting
We will cover one more long-distance movement rule, one which was briefly discussed
above in Chapter 4, section 11, under the name “Clefting”. In this context we will use its more
specific name, It Clefting.81 The sort of data that justify the rule are given below.
a. Sean loaded the tricycles into the truck.

It was Sean that loaded the tricycles into the truck.
or: It was the tricycles that Sean loaded into the truck.
or: It was into the truck that Sean loaded the tricycles.
or: It was the truck that Sean loaded the tricycles into.
b. Fred thinks Alice climbed up Mt. Everest.

It is Fred that thinks Alice climbed up Mt. Everest.
or: It is Alice that Fred thinks climbed up Mt. Everest.
or: It is up Mt. Everest that Fred thinks Alice climbed.
or: It is Mt. Everest that Fred thinks Alice climbed up.
The idea is that the transformation “cleaves” the sentence, by moving one of its constituents into
a high clause containing it plus BE. Intuitively it works like this:
“cleaving”
here
It was the tricycles that Sean loaded ______ into the truck
The second through fifth sentences in each group are all clearly related to the first sentence, and
can be derived from it with a transformation.
It-clefted sentences are clearly not neutral in their rhetorical force; they place strong
emphasis of some kind (often called focus) on the clefted NP or PP.
I give a version of the transformation below.
(151) It-Clefting
 Input: an S containing NP or PP.

 Construct “on top” of S a new S, with subject it, verb be, and an S̄ sister to V within its
E
VP.
 Assign to be the same value of the feature [Tense] as the original S.
 Move the NP or PP to a position following be as daughter of the new S.
81
The other kind of clefting in English is often called the “wh- cleft”, and is found in sentences like
What Bill needs is a vacation; “vacation” is clefted here.
The mention of the copying of the feature [Tense] onto be is for completeness; we will generally
skip this step in the derivations to follow.
It Clefting is another instance of an unbounded dependency, and for the same reason as in
Wh- Movement requires a movement analysis.
Here is an example of how It Clefting applies. Structure added by the rules is shown in
italics.
Deep structure and movement:
VP
PP
NP NP NP
|
N V Art N P Art N
| | | | | | |
Sean loaded the tricycles into the truck.
Surface structure, with trace:
VP
S̄
E
PP VP
NP NP NP NP PP
| | |
Pro V P Art N Comp N V Art N t
| | | | | | | | | |
It was into the truck that Sean loaded the tricycles
Like Wh- Movement and Topicalization, It Clefting is an unbounded rule:
It was [ the tricycles ]NP that Tom thinks Sue knows that Bill loaded ___ onto the truck.
Study Exercise #31
Provide deep structure, arrows showing movement, and surface structure for this case of
unbounded movement:
It was the king that we told the knights that they must fight for.
Deep structure, with arrow showing movement:
Surface structure, with inserted it as subject and be as verb; moved NP is replaced by trace:
9.1 Constituency testing with It-Clefting
As noted in Chapter 4, section 11, It Clefting can be used as a constituency test. Here is the
rationale: the rule requires there to be an NP or PP to move; so if you’re not sure whether a
particular sequence of words is an NP or a PP, try It Clefting it. (The other transformations also
can be used, but It Clefting often seems to work smoothest, since the grammaticality judgment
for It Clefting seem to be less sensitive to other factors.)
One example is the following pair:
Fred ran up a big hill.

Fred ran up a big bill.
The correct structures are evidently as follows:
VP
PP
NP NP
| |
N V P Art AP N
| | | | | |
Fred ran up a A hill
|
big
(Prepositional phrase up a big hill, indicating the direction Fred ran)
VP
NP V NP
| |
N V P Art AP N
| | | | | |
Fred ran up a A bill
|
big
The structure here has a compound verb of the structure V + P. A big bill is the object of this
verb, indicating what Fred ran up.
If we do constituency testing, we ought to find that:
 up a big hill is a constituent (PP)

 a big hill is a constituent (NP)
 up a big bill is not a constituent
 a big bill is a constituent (NP)
Applying It Clefting to the relevant bits of both sentences, we get:
It was up a big hill that Fred ran. (Fine, clefting PP)

It was a big hill that Fred ran up. (Fine, clefting NP)
*It was up a big bill that Fred ran. (Bad, result of trying to It-Cleft a nonconstituent)
It was a big bill that Fred ran up. (Fine, clefting NP)
As you can see, the pattern of grammaticality perfectly matches the constituency that we
proposed—the result is grammatical only when a constituent is moved.
Constituency testing is commonly used in syntactic investigation, particularly for

nonobvious cases. The most common other constituency test other than movement is probably
conjunction (X and Y), since only constituents join together in conjoined structures. Thus, a
parallel test for the same sentences would be:
Fred ran up a big hill and down a big mountain. (Conjoining two PP’s)
Fred ran up a big hill and a big mountain. (Conjoining two NP’s)
*Fred ran up a big bill and over a cat. (Conjoining nonconstituents)82
Fred ran up a big bill and a big tab (Conjoining two NP’s)
10. Island constraints
Consider the following deep structure:
You have seen Alice and who?
This is clearly a possible deep structure, as it can be an echo question (p. 172) if nothing
applies to it. However, if make it part of an S̄, in anticipation of making it into a Wh- question
E
(see section 4.2 of this chapter for why), and then apply Wh- movement to this deep structure,
the result is unexpectedly ungrammatical:
82
If the example isn’t clear to you, imagine: “Fred ran up a big bill and (then) ran over a cat (with
his car).”
Deep structure, Subject/Aux Inversion, and Wh- Movement:
S̄ E
Comp S
|
NP Aux VP
| |
Pro have V NP
| | |
you seen NP Conj NP
| | |
N and Pro
| |
Alice who
Surface structure:
 S̄ E
Comp S
|
NP Aux NP VP
| | |
Pro have Pro V NP
| | |
*who you seen NP Conj NP
| | |
N and t
|
Alice
Note that we really are dealing with ungrammaticality rather than nonsense; the question is
perfectly reasonable, and could mean roughly Who did you see Alice with?
The ungrammaticality of this sentence is a serious problem for our grammar: we have
applied the rules of the grammar in a perfectly legitimate way, but have derived a bad result.
Here are some further data of the same sort:
a. Conjoined NP
You have seen who and Alice (okay as echo question)
*Who have you seen t and Alice?
b. Conjoined NP
Bill will take pictures of Fred and Alice (not the same deep structure, but close
enough)
*Who will Bill take pictures of t and Alice?

*Who will Bill take pictures of Fred and t?
c. Conjoined PP
Jay jumped onto the trampoline and into the pool.
*What did Jay jump onto the trampoline and into t?
*What did Jay jump onto t and into the pool?
d. Conjoined VP
Phil loves Coke and abhors Pepsi.
*What beverage does Phil love Coke and abhor t?
*What beverage does Phil love t and abhor Pepsi?
e. Conjoined S
Phil might thinks that Sue loves Coke and Alice abhors Pepsi.
*What beverage might Phil think that Sues loves Coke and Alice abhor t?
*What beverage might Phil think that Sues loves t and Alice abhors?
The generalization here is that Wh- Movement produces an ungrammatical result if it tries to
move a wh- phrase outside a structure in which two constituents are joined by a conjunction.
Structures of this sort are called coordinate structures. In the four groups of sentences above,
the structures are as follows:
(152) Some coordinate structures

a,b: NP c: PP d: VP
| | |
NP Conj NP PP Conj PP VP Conj VP
e: S
|
S Conj S
A general notation for coordinate structures is as follows:83
X
|
X Conj X
83
We could generalize this to cover the multiple conjuncts generated by Kleene star (p. 142; as in
NP and NP and NP...), but won’t take the time.
The next step is to fix the grammar so that it will no longer generate sentences in which a
coordinate structure has been extracted from. The most obvious move would be to add a
complication to the Wh- movement rule that would simply block the rule from doing this.
However, we will see later on that all the other long-distance transformations are blocked in the
same way. If we added exactly the same complication to all the other rules, we would be missing
a generalization.
11. Constraints in grammar
A more general solution would be to add to grammar a constraint on possible derivations.

A constraint could be thought of as a “filter” on the operation of the grammar: if the derivation of
a sentence violates the constraint, then the constraint marks the sentence as ungrammatical, and it
is eliminated from the (infinite) set of sentences that the grammar generates.84
The general organization of such a grammar can be imagined as follows:
84
If you study more linguistics you will likely find a major role for constraints in the theories taught to you.
Indeed, some theoretical approaches eliminate rules entirely: in such theories a well-formed linguistic structure is
simply one that obeys all the constraints.
(153) An architecture for grammatical theory with deep and surface structure plus constraints
S (initial symbol fed to the grammar)
(bare tree)
Lexical insertion lexicon
Deep structure
Constraints (acting as filter)
Transformations
Surface structure
(and on to other components: inflectional morphology, phonology)
[phonetic form]
This conception includes three of (what I take to be) the four basic formal mechanisms of
linguistic theory: (a) generative rules (here, phrase structure rules); (b) transformations
(converting one structure to another); (c) filters (throwing out the result of a derivation).85
For the data under discussion, the constraint we need is the following:
85
The fourth rule type is interpretation, which we will cover when we get to semantics.
(154) Coordinate Structure Constraint
Mark as ungrammatical any sentence in which a constituent has been extracted from inside
a coordinate structure.
* X * X
| |
X Conj X X Conj X
The notation of the triangle seen here means, “any structure dominated by X”.
The Coordinate Structure Constraint is called an island constraint. A coordinate structure

acts as an “island,” in that it is inaccessible to the efforts of transformations to remove things out
of it. The Coordinate Structure constraint will correctly rule out the ungrammatical sentences
given earlier.
Here is one way to demonstrate how a constraint works: you draw the deep structure of a
sentence, outline the constituent that moves, outline the island that contains it, and draw an arrow
showing that the movement does indeed move a constituent outside of the island. (One also adds
an arrow, to indicate that this movement results in ungrammaticality.)
Deep structure (empty Comp is the landing site for Wh- Movement)
Arrow shows application of Subject/Aux Inversion.
S̄
E
VP
NP
Comp PP
NP
NP NP NP
| | |
N Aux V N P N Conj Pro
| | | | | | | |
Bill will take pictures of Fred and who
Output of Subject/Aux Inversion:
S̄
E
VP
NP
Comp PP
NP
NP NP NP
| | |
Aux N V N P N Conj Pro
| | | | | | | |
will Bill take pictures of Fred and who
2nd transformation (attempted): Wh-Movement:
S̄
E
VP
NP Island: coordinate
structure
Comp PP
NP
NP NP NP
| | |
Aux N V N P N Conj Pro
| | | | | | | |
will Bill take pictures of Fred and who
*
Result: *Who will Bill take pictures of Fred and?
Study Exercise #32
Explain why the sentence
*What city have the Romans destroyed and attacked Athens?
is ungrammatical. Illustrate with a derivation.

What city have the Romans destroyed and attacked Athens?
This sentence is a violation of the Coordinate Structure Constraint. The coordinate structure
consists of the two conjoined VP’s destroyed what city and attacked Athens. The wh- phrase
what city is extracted out from inside the coordinate structure, resulting in an ungrammatical
sentence.
Deep structure, showing Subject/Aux Inversion:
S̄
E
Comp S
|
NP Aux VP
| |
Art N have VP Conj VP
| | |
the Romans V NP and V NP
| | |
destroyed Art N attacked N
| | |
what city Athens
Output of Subject/Aux Inversion:
S̄
E
Comp S
|
Aux NP VP
| |
have Art N VP Conj VP
| | |
| | |
| | |
what city Athens
Wh- Movement, moving outside coordinate structure:
S̄
E
Comp S
|
Aux NP VP
| |
have Art N VP Conj VP
| | |
| | |
| | |
what city Athens
*
Illegal surface structure:
S̄
E
Comp S
|
NP Aux NP VP
| |
Art N have Art N VP Conj VP
| | | | |
what city the Romans V NP and V NP
| | | |
destroyed t attacked N
|
Athens
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #33
Explain why the sentence ‘What city have the Romans attacked and destroyed?’ is
grammatical. Illustrate with a derivation. Hint: take a look at the phrase structure rules (127) on
p. 160.
What city have the Romans attacked and destroyed?
Here there is a coordinate structure, but the wh- phrase is not inside it. The coordinate
structure is the two verbs attacked and destroyed. Since the wh- phrase what city is not extracted
from inside the coordinate structure island, the sentence does not violate the Coordinate Structure
Constraint and thus is grammatical. The following deep structure + movement arrows shows that
the “extractee” is not inside the island:
S̄ E
Comp S
|
NP Aux VP
|
Art N have V NP
| | |
the Romans V Conj V Art N
| | | | |
attacked and destroyed what city
—————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #34
Explain why the sentence
Which city and which province will the Romans destroy?’
is grammatical. Illustrate with a derivation.

Which city and which province will the Romans destroy?
In this case, the wh- phrase (namely which city and which province) is again not inside the
coordinate structure; rather, it is the coordinate structure. Thus applying Wh- movement does not
extract a wh- phrase from inside a coordinate structure, and the Coordinate Structure Constraint
is not violated. Here is the deep structure with movement shown.
S̄ E
Comp S
NP Aux VP
|
Art N will V NP
| | | |
the Romans destroy NP Conj NP
|
Art N and Art N
| | | |
which city which province
———————————————————————————————————————
12. The universality of the Coordinate Structure Constraint
One of the goals sought by linguistics in writing formalized grammars is to locate

universals of language. A linguistic universal is a property shared by all human languages. The
explanation of linguistic universals is one of the central tasks of linguistic theory.
Linguistic universals are proposed and tested against data from the languages of the world;
there are thought to be about 8000 of them.86 No universal has been checked against all 8000,
however, at least some proposed universals look fairly promising.
Some universals that have been proposed are fairly superficial, for example:
 All languages have nouns and verbs.

 All languages have wh- questions.
 All languages have consonants and vowels.
 All languages use the vowel [a]87 or something phonetically close to it.
86
The number is declining steadily. Probably the best list of languages is the Ethnologue, at
http://www.ethnologue.com/.
87
IPA [a] is more or less the [a] vowel of Spanish, or in some dialects of English the vowel of hot.
Others are more subtle, and emerge only when we have submitted a large number of languages
to formal analysis—that is, have constructed grammars for them.
As you might expect, it is common for linguists to propose universals, then be forced to
abandon or modify their proposal in the face of falsifying evidence. This is only natural, and
indeed one might argue that part of the job of the linguist is to be a bit “out on a limb”, creating
hypotheses about language that are interesting enough to be worth checking.
The Coordinate Structure Constraint was first noticed and proposed as a universal by the
linguist John R. Ross, who pioneered the study of syntactic islands in the mid 1960’s. The
phenomenon of islands attracted a great deal of attention and has been extensively studied and
analyzed since then. Today, there seems to be a consensus, based on study of a fair number of
languages, is that the Coordinate Structure Constraint is universal. (The doubtful cases are
instances in which we’re not sure that the structure in question is really a coordinate structure.)
To be more precise: in all languages that can be tested (because they have wh- movement; in situ
languages don’t count), extraction from coordinate structures is impossible. Here are some
sample data from other languages:
German Simple sentence: Du hast Fritz gesehen

you have Fritz seen
‘You have seen Fritz.’
Wh- question (with gap): Wen hast du ___ gesehen?

who have you (gap) seen
Extraction from *Wen hast du Fritz und ___ gesehen?

coordinate structure: who have you Fritz and (gap) seen
*‘who have you seen Fritz and?’
S̄ E
Comp S
|
NP Aux VP
| |
Pro hast NP V
| have | |
du NP Conj NP gesehen
you | | | seen
N und Pro
| and |
Fritz wen
Fritz who
French: *Quelle journal as- tu lu ___ et ce livre?

what newspaper have you read (gap) and this book
*Quelle livre as- tu lu ce journal et ___?
what book have you read this newspaper and (gap)
Russian: *Kovo Ivan videl Petra ili ___?

who Ivan saw Peter or (gap)
*‘Who did Ivan see Peter or?’
*Kovo Ivan videl ___ ili Petra?

who Ivan saw (gap) or Peter
Formal universals like the Coordinate Structure Constraint have inspired a fair amount of
theorizing about language and language learning, which we’ll take on in the next chapter.
12.1 Looking ahead
The combination of long-distance transformations and islands leads to a fair amount of

analytical work: for each transformation, you want to show that it respects the island, and for
each island (we’ll cover more) you want to show that the transformations all respect it.
13. Two more islands
To complete our general account of long-distance transformations and island constraints,

here are two more islands (there are quite a few more, varying from language to language, but
we will stick with just three total). The general point that emerges is that all the long-distance
transformations obey all of the island constraints (since there will be three of each, we will need
to check a total of nine cases).
13.1 The Wh- Island Constraint
Recall embedded wh- questions, like I know what Bill saw. We already have the means to
derive this (see Chapter 6, section 4.2) and the example is reviewed below.
Deep structure and Wh- Movement:
VP
S̄
E
VP
NP NP NP
| | |
Pro V Comp N V Pro
| | | | |
I know Bill saw what
Surface structure:
VP
S̄
E
VP
NP NP
| |
Pro V Comp N V NP
| | | | | |
I know NP Bill saw t
|
Pro
|
what
But now consider the following scenario: what if, at the level of deep structure, there were
two wh- phrases in the same clause? This is not so absurd, since we actually have sentences like
the following:
I know [ who saw what ]S̄ E
Here, the wh- word what remains in situ, as the object of say. We won’t be able to cover here
just what circumstances permit a wh- phrase to remain in situ in English, but for now this
sentence suffices to show that it is quite possible to have a clause with two wh- phrases.
Now, consider this scenario: we take the above sentence as a deep structure, move what into
the “lower” Comp, and who into the “higher” Comp, as follows:
Deep structure and first application of Wh- Movement:
S̄
E
VP
S̄E
Comp S
VP
NP NP NP
| | |
Pro Aux V Comp N V Pro
| | | | | |
You would know who saw what
Result of first application of Wh- Movement, with arrow showing Subject-Aux inversion:
S̄E
VP
S̄E
Comp S
VP
NP NP
| |
Pro Aux V Comp N V NP
| | | | | | |
You would know NP who saw t
|
Pro
|
what
Result of Subject-Aux Inversion, showing second application of Wh- Movement:
S̄
E
VP
S̄E
Comp S
VP
NP NP
| |
Aux Pro V Comp N V NP
| | | | | | |
would you know NP who saw t
|
Pro
|
what
Surface structure:
S̄E
VP
S̄E
Comp Aux S
| |
NP would VP
|
Pro NP
| |
who Pro V Comp NP V NP
| | | | |
you know NP t saw t
|
Pro
|
what
The result is *Who would you know what saw?, which most speakers find crashingly bad. It
is worth emphasizing that this is not due to its lacking a meaning; it’s clear that it should mean
the following:
“What is the person such that you know what that person saw?”
The meaning is hard to access, given the extreme ungrammatically of the sentence.
Linguists have proposed to explain the ill-formedness of sentences like Who do you known
what saw? by positing yet another island, along the following lines:
(155) Wh- Island Constraint
an S̄ whose Comp contains a wh- phrase.
E
S̄
E
*
Comp S
|
wh-
This island constraint is slightly different from the Coordinate Structure Constraint, because
the island is actually created by a transformation. The “lower down” Wh- Movement forms an
island that blocks any further Wh- movements higher up in the tree.
To illustrate: returning to the derivation given above, but this time drawing in the island, we
can see that it is correctly excluded by the Wh- Island Constraint. The sequence what who saw is
covered by the description of the island, and thus the sentence is ruled out.
S̄E
VP
S̄E
Comp S
VP
NP NP
| |
Aux Pro V Comp N V NP
| | | | | | |
would you know NP who saw t
|
Pro
|
what
*
The Wh- Island constraint covers a fair amount of data; here are some other sentences that it
excluded. I’ve put brackets in to illustrate the S̄ that begins with a wh- phrase and thus forms a
E
Wh- Island.
Bill admitted who committed this crime.

*[ What crime ] did Bill admit [ who committed ___ ]S̄ ? E
Fred doesn’t care how long you take on this exam.

*[ Which exam ] doesn’t Fred care [ how long you take on ___ ] S̄ ? E
Alice doesn’t care which exam you take a long time on.
*[ How long ] doesn’t Alice care [ which exam you take ___ on ] S̄ ? E
Observe further that there is nothing wrong with having two wh- phrases in the same
sentence. It’s only when one wh-phrase is moved out of the S̄ that the other one begins that you
E
get a bad result. Here is an example. In the sentence
Which student would you tell who you saw?
the two instances of wh- movement are non-overlapping. The movement that goes to the higher
Comp is not out of the island, so the sentence comes out fine. Here is the full derivation.
Deep structure with lower wh- movement:
S̄
E
VP
S̄E
VP
NP NP NP NP
| | |
Comp Pro Aux V Art N Comp Pro V Pro
| | | | | | | |
you would tell which student you saw who
Output of lower wh- movement, showing Subject-Aux Inversion:
S̄E
VP
S̄
E
Comp VP
|
NP NP NP NP NP
| | | |
Comp Pro Aux V Art N Pro Pro V t
| | | | | | | |
you would tell which student who you saw
Output of upper wh- movement.

Note that this is not movement outside of the wh- island, shown in blue.
S̄E
VP
S̄
E
Comp VP
|
NP NP NP NP NP
| | | |
Comp Aux Pro V Art N Pro Pro V t
| | | | | | | |
would you tell which student who you saw
Surface structure:
S̄E
VP
S̄E
Comp Comp VP
| |
NP NP NP NP NP
| | | |
Art N Aux Pro V NP Pro Pro V t
| | | | | | | | |
which student would you tell t who you saw
You can see this all at once if we put the material on just one line, showing only the two
instances of Wh- Movement and the island:
[ Who ] would you tell ___ [ [ who ] you saw ___ ] S̄ ? E
Note finally that Topicalization and It-Clefting obey the Wh- Island Constraint:
Topicalization:
*[ Kate ], I realized [ to whom they would send ___ ]S̄. E
It-Clefting:
*It was [ Oliver ] that I wondered [ which book ___ would read ] S̄. E
13.2 The Complex NP Constraint
Another kind of island is the so-called “complex noun phrase”. Recall (from p. 158) the
main phrase structure rule in English for NP, the one to which we added a possible S̄ daughter:
E
NP 
NP  (Art }) (AP)* N (PP)* (S̄)
 
E E
A complex NP is an NP having S̄ as a daughter (there may also be other modifiers). You get
E
a complex NP if you include the boldface items below in applying the rule.
NP 
NP  (Art }) (AP)* N (PP)* (S̄)
 
E E
Some examples of complex NP’s include
Sue’s belief that Sam is leaving Omaha

Alice’s hunch that the burglar used this window
Bill’s inane hypothesis that Frieda saw Jack88
The island constraint for complex NP’s, called the Complex NP Constraint, is stated as
follows:
(156) Complex NP Constraint
Mark as ungrammatical any sentence in which a constituent has been extracted from inside a
complex NP.
* NP
... N ... S̄ E
... X ...
To demonstrate that complex NP’s are islands, one does the following. (a) Set up a deep
structure that contains a complex NP; (b) make sure that in this deep structure, there is a wh-
phrase contained within the complex NP; (c) apply Subject Aux Inversion and Wh- Movement to
the deep structure and see if the result is grammatical. I have done this in the following example.
The Complex NP is circled, and the arrows show what moves where.
88
The relative clauses mentioned above (p. 164) are also islands; for instance: *What apples will
you see the man who picked ___?
Deep structure, Subject-Aux Inversion, and Wh- Movement:

S̄ E
Comp S
|
NP Aux VP
| |
Pro have V NP
| | |
you discounted Art N S̄ E
| |
many rumors Comp S
| |
that NP Aux VP
| |
N is V NP
| |
Sam leaving Art N
| |
* what city
Surface structure:
S̄ E
Comp S
NP Aux NP VP
| |
Art N have Pro V NP
| | | | |
*what city you discounted Art N S̄ E
| |
many rumors Comp S
| |
that NP Aux VP
| | |
N is V NP
| | |
Sam leaving t?
The fact that the surface structure is ungrammatical supports the existence of the Complex
NP Constraint. Similar ungrammatical sentences would be
*Which window would you disagree with Alice’s hunch that the burglar used?
*Who might you hear Bill’s inane hypothesis that Frieda saw?
———————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #35
Give a derivation, with boxes, arrows for movement, and a circled island, for the two sentences
just given.
*Which window would you disagree with Alice’s hunch that the burglar used?
Deep structure, with island shown with circle and arrows for Subject-Aux Inversion and
Wh- Movement:
S̄ E
VP
PP
NP
S̄
E
VP
NP NP NP NP
| |
Comp Pro Aux V P N N Comp Art N V Art N
| | | | | | | | | | | |
You would disagree with Alice’s hunch that the burglar used which window
Ungrammatical surface structure:
S̄
E
VP
PP
NP
S̄
E
Comp S
|
NP NP NP NP VP
| |
Art N Aux Pro V P N N CompArt N V NP
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
*Which window would you disagree with Alice’s hunch that the burglar used t
Who might you hear Bill’s inane hypothesis that Frieda saw?
Deep structure, with Complex NP island, arrows for Subject-Aux Inversion
S̄
E
VP
NP
S̄
E
VP
NP NP NP NP
| | | |
Comp Pro Aux V N A N Comp N V Pro
| | | | | | | | | |
You might hear Bill’s inane hypothesis that Frieda saw who
Ungrammatical surface structure:
S̄
E
VP
NP
S̄
E
Comp S
|
NP NP NP NP VP
| | | |
Pro Aux Pro V N A N Comp N V NP
| | | | | | | | | | |
Who might you hear Bill’s inane hypothesis that Frieda saw t
____________________________________________________________________________
Study Exercise #36
Why is the sentence
Whose theory that Sam is crazy could you believe?
grammatical? (You have to imagine a scenario in which all sorts of people are presenting
theories that Sam is crazy.)
Deep structure, with Subject-Aux Inversion and Wh-Movement shown with arrows:
S̄E
Comp S
VP
NP
S̄
E
VP
NP NP NP AP
| | | |
Pro Aux V Pro N Comp N V A
| | | | | | | | |
you could believe whose theory that Sam is crazy
The point is that the whole island is extracted. Island constraints are violated when you
extract from within an island.
———————————————————————————————————————
13.3 The Complex NP Constraint and other syntactic transformations
As the following labeled sentences show, the Complex NP Constraint is obeyed by

Topicalization and by It-Clefting:
Topicalization
*[ Kate ], I discounted [ many rumors that they would elect ___ ]NP.
It-Clefting
*It was [ Kate ] that I discounted [ many rumors that they would elect ___ ]NP.
13.4 The complex NP constraint is not universal
When it was noticed and first formalized by John R. Ross in the 1960’s, it was thought that
the Complex NP Constraint is a linguistic universal, just like the Coordinate Structure Constraint
is. Shortly thereafter, however, Scandinavian linguists began studying the island constraints of
their native languages, and noticed that neither Norwegian nor certain dialects of Swedish and
Danish respect the constraint. The linguist Jens Allwood offers the following data from
Swedish,89 which he checked with a number of speakers; the complex NP is shown in brackets.
Simple sentence:
Herodes levde i [ hopp-et om att Salome skulle förföra den mannen. ]NP
Herod lived in hope-the of that Salome should seduce that man
‘Herod lived in the hope that Salome should seduce that man.’
Wh- Movement out of Complex NP:

[ Vem ] levde Herodes i [ hopp-et om att ___ skulle förföra den
mannen ]NP?
Who lived Herod in hope-the of that should seduce that man
[ Vem ] levde Herodes i [ hopp-et om att Salome skulle förföra ___ ]NP?
Who lived Herod in hope-the of that Salome should seduce
Topicalization out of Complex NP:

[ Salome ] levde Herodes i [ hopp-et om att ___ skulle förföra den mannen. ]NP
Salome lived Herod in hope-the of that should seduce that man
[ Den mannen ] levde Herodes i [ hopp-et om att Salome skulle förföra ___
]NP.
That man lived Herod in hope-the of that Salome should seduce
This is unusual; most languages that have these rules do respect complex NP’s. Thus, here
are some French data, very much like English:
*[ Qui ] as- tu proposé [ l’idée que Marie aime ___ ]NP?
‘Who have you suggested the-idea that Marie loves (gap)?
89
The reason for the Biblical subject matter is not clear to me. You can make up example sentences
about whatever you like, of course.
14. Why these islands?
To review, we have discussed three separate island constraints:
Coordinate Structure Constraint
a coordinate structure.
* X * X
| |
X Conj X X Conj X
Wh- Island Constraint
E
S̄
E
*
Comp S
|
wh-
Complex NP Constraint
Mark as ungrammatical any sentence in which a constituent has been extracted from inside a
complex NP.
* NP
... N ... S̄ E
... X ...
Of these, the Coordinate Structure Constraint seems to be a good candidate for being a
linguistic universal; the other two are probably not universal but seem to be found in many
languages.
The question that arises when one lines up the islands in a row like this is: “Why these
islands?” That is, why should island-hood be found for just this particular configuration of
syntactic structures? The three islands seem to have little in common with each other.
The view of most linguists who consider this question is that the islands as formulated above
are a first-pass approximation. That is, it’s a good idea to formulate the islands in this way, for
the sake of explicitness of analysis, but in the long term it seem desirable to seek more abstract
principles to explain the data.
One approach that seems fruitful is to invert the problem: one specifies what places it is
legal to extract from rather than what places it is illegal. You may encounter approaches of this
type if you study syntax in future course work.
A final point is that the islands may be in some sense useful to the speakers.
Psycholinguistic experimentation (including with brain-scanning devices) suggests there is a
cognitive burden for the listener whenever the sentence heard involves a filler-gap constructions
such as those created in the transformations described here. When a language has island
constraints, they in effect tell the language user, “don’t bother to look for gaps here.”—perhaps
this reduces the burden on speech perception, and thus reflects a principle of good “language
design”.
Chapter 7: Language acquisition
1. The relationship of linguistic theory to language acquisition
Linguistics exists in a kind of dual mode: at the level of language data, linguists are
endlessly engaged in analysis, trying to develop better grammars as well as better general
theories in which such grammars can be laid out. But behind all this activity are ponderings at a
level which is less technical but more general, concerning how the strikingly elaborate grammars
of human languages arise.
Let us assume (for purposes of argument) that the grammar we’ve been developing does in
some way characterize the native speaker’s knowledge. Our starting point here is that the native
speaker must learn the grammar, too. Chidren do this in infancy and childhood, over the course
of just a few years, usually without overt instruction, but instead simply by inhabiting a
community where the language is spoken, listening intently, and trying to speak. Moreover, what
the child learns is not the toy grammar we have been working with, but something much, much
larger.
Language acquisition is an important area of linguistics and linguistic theory. There are
three primary research methodologies. First, observational study is the longest-standing
method: one arranges to be in a situation where one can hear little kids talking, and one records
what they say, ideally with audio as well as transcription.90 Much of the data from such study has
been gathered into a large corpus, known as CHILDES, from which investigators can gather new
and important generalizations.91 Second, infants and children are the subjects in experiments,
which gather their reactions to carefully-planned language material presented to them. In my
own department at UCLA, an active infant and child laboratory carries out experiments with
children brought into the lab by their parents. Third, research proceeds by simulation: linguists
attempt to develop computer software that can learn the grammatical and phonological patterns
of language on exposure to language data representative of what children hear; the grammars
learned by the simulator can then be compared with evidence about what real people know about
their language. Study of language acquisition by simulation is sometimes described as
learnability theory.
What results are being obtained by this active research program. I think the most important
are two.
First, production lags perception: children, and even infants, have considerable linguistic
knowledge that can be detected only in their reactions to experimental stimuli, not in their own
productions. The extreme case of this is phonological knowledge in infants, who evidently know
the speech sounds and the principles of legal sound sequencing from the age of about six months.
Going even further, even newborns can in some cases identify their mother’s language from its
90
A classical procedure, decades old, is for a linguist to keep a detailed diary on the linguistic productions of
his or her own child. Alternatively, repeated visits are made to the same children in their home or daycare center.
91
http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/
characteristic patterns of syllable timing and pitch; presumably they can do this because such
auditory properties are available to them even in utero.
The other well-established result of the study of language acquisition is that children are
virtuosic: they are prodigiously capable acquirers of language, and most noticeably, they
outperform the efforts of linguists. Kids can exposed to a language for a few years become
fluent native speakers, with extensive production abilities and nuanced, subtle judgments of well-
formedness. Linguists, toiling away at analysis for many years, still struggle to obtain grammars
that properly match what the native speaker knows. Moreover, to the extent that the linguists’
theories are incorporated into machine-implemented systems that actually learn language, these
systems cannot learn with anything like the speed or accuracy that children do. All of this causes
linguists to believe that the ability to acquire language is an extraordinary aspect of human
beings, well worth study.
The broad scientific debates surrounding grammar and language learning can be outlined as
follows:
Outline:
 the quality of the evidence available to the child for learning

 the “no negative evidence” issue
 the possibility of innate knowledge serving as an aid to learning
 the alternative of powerful inductive mechanisms
 innate knowledge/abilities as a biological phenomenon
 critical periods
 genetic defects specific to language
 innate knowledge and linguistic universals
 linguistic abilities and human evolution
2. The quality of the evidence available to the child
To begin, it seems clear that however children learn language, conscious instruction (say, by
parents) must play very little role. Not all parents instruct their children in language, and the
parents who do are likely focusing on bits of normative grammar, quite peripheral to the
language as a whole.
In fact, there’s even less reason to consider overt instruction as a factor, because it appears
that small children don’t even pay much attention to it. Textbooks on language acquisition often
include entertaining little dialogs between parents and toddlers showing the futility of overt
instruction, of which the following is brief sampling:
C: Nobody don’t like me C: Want other one spoon, daddy.

A: No, say ‘nobody likes me’ D: You mean, you want the other spoon
C: Nobody don’t like me C: Yes, I want the other one spoon, please, daddy.
A: No, say ‘nobody likes me’ D: Can you say ‘the other spoon’?
C: Nobody don’t like me C: Other...one...spoon
A: No, say ‘nobody likes me’ D: Say ‘other’
C: Nobody don’t like me C: Other.
A: No, say ‘nobody likes me’ D: Spoon.
C: Nobody don’t like me C: Spoon.
A: No, say ‘nobody likes me’ D: Other spoon.
C: Nobody don’t like me C: Other...spoon. Now give me other one spoon?
A: No, say ‘nobody likes me’
C: Nobody don’t like me
A: Now listen carefully: ‘nobody likes me’
C: Oh, nobody doesn’t likes me.92
These examples also make a subsidiary point: at any given point in the child’s acquisition
period, she has a relatively stable, internalized, wrong grammar, which she tends to stick to until
it evolves in the natural way to the next, more accurate stage.
Leaving aside the case of overt instruction, we might also ask if children are somehow given
a special linguistic diet by their parent, which makes acquisition possible. Such a diet might
perhaps consist of a simplified version of the language, sometimes (more or less jokingly) called
Motherese. Reasons to be skeptical of the effectiveness of Motherese are the apparent existence
of children who learn their native language without it; and the fact that Motherese is often
ungrammatical, a pattern that could hardly help acquisition in the long run.93
Scholars also differ on whether the input to the child is in general grammatical: Noam
Chomsky has repeatedly insisted that it is not, as in quotes like the following:
“Thus, it is clear that the language each person acquires is a rich and complex
construction hopelessly underdetermined by the fragmentary evidence available.”
(Reflections on Language, 1975, p. 10)
“Knowledge arises on the basis of very scattered and inadequate data and ... there are
uniformities in what is learned that are in no way uniquely determined by the data itself..”
(Cartesian Linguistics, 1966, p. 65)
92
From: McNeill, D. (1966). Developmental psycholinguistics. In Smith, F., and Miller, G. A.
(eds.),The Genesis of Language, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
93
I make no claims here on whether or not it is desirable to speak Motherese to one’s children.
Various experts in child language development have disagreed with Chomsky’s claim. It
seems worth remembering that any one error in the learning environment (for example, if a
speaker someone gets tangled up and inadvertently produces an island violation) could be very
dangerous to the task of getting the grammar right, so even a modestly error-ful ambient
environment might still suffice to make Chomsky’s point.
3. Cases where “negative evidence” would be required for learning
One particularly intriguing aspect of language learning is this: how do we learn that
sentences are ungrammatical? As noted above, actual correction of error is rare and ineffective,
and for the more interesting cases like learning not to violate islands, clearly there can be no
negative evidence available whatsoever.
4. Innate knowledge
For some linguists, the no-negative evidence problem provides indirect support for the
hypothesis of innate knowledge. If some grammatical knowledge is simply not accessible to
direct learning from the data, the only reasonable explanation for how we come by this
knowledge as children is that we bring the knowledge to the task with us. In other words, our
genome, physically embodied in our DNA, contains grammatical information, information
crucial to acquisition.
It may seem counterintuitive to suppose that knowledge could be innate; some people get
used to thinking that the genes control only the form of the body, and not of the mind. But
examples of innate knowledge are easy to find in the animal kingdom. For example, some
species of birds have a song that does not vary at all across individuals, and which even birds
raised apart from their species will sing. The ability to sing these songs surely would count as
innate knowledge. The stunning ability of human newborns to mimic tongue protrusion might
likewise be taken as a clear case of innate knowledge.94
Chomsky is well known for his strong views on the innateness question for language. Here
is a sampling, from his Language and Mind (1968):
To repeat: Suppose that we assign to the mind, as an innate property, the general
theory of language that we have called “universal grammar.” This theory
encompasses the principles that I discussed in the preceding lecture and many others
of the same sort, and it specifies a certain subsystem of rules that provides a skeletal
structure for any language and a variety of conditions, formal and substantive, that
any further elaboration of the grammar must meet. The theory of universal grammar,
then, provides a schema to which any particular grammar must conform. Suppose,
94
Ponder briefly the tacit mental processing involved: “That pink patch of light falling on my retinas
represents a tongue. I also have a tongue. If I use these particular muscles I can do this too with my
tongue.” All of this is unremarkable in a being who has had practice, but very striking in an individual who
has just emerged from the darkness of the womb. For imitation in newborns see Meltzoff, A.N., & Moore,
M.K. (1977). Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates. Science, 198, 75–78 [currently
posted at http://ilabs.washington.edu/meltzoff/pdf/77Meltzoff_Moore_Science.pdf].
furthermore, that we can make this schema sufficiently restrictive so that very few
possible grammars conforming to the schema will be consistent with the meager and
degenerate data actually available to the language learner. His task, then, is to search
among the possible grammars and select one that is not definitely rejected by the data
available to him. What faces the language learner, under these assumptions, is not the
impossible task of inventing a highly abstract and intricately structured theory on the
basis of degenerate data, but rather the much more manageable task of determining
whether these data belong to one or another of a fairly restricted set of potential
languages.
5. Inductivism
Chomsky’s view is near one pole of an intellectual continuum at whose other extreme are
scholars with a strongly inductivist point of view. In this alternative, what makes the child
capable of the feat of language acquisition is her possession of formidable techniques of
inductive learning—that is, grasping the pattern through intensive processing of the learning data
available.
Bruce Derwing of the University of Alberta wrote:95
An alternative model of language acquisition ought to be developed on the assumption

that the human organism is initially completely un-informed both as to the essential
nature of language and as to the best way to learn a language. My initial assumption is
that no other ‘special mechanisms’ or ‘secret abilities’ are required for learning language
than for learning anything else. In short, I shall assume that language acquisition can be
fully accounted for in terms of such known (i.e. empirically established) capacities as the
ability of the human organism to discriminate among and generalize from the sense-data
to which he is exposed and most importantly (since this capacity seems to be species-
specific), to extract regularity—or induce a latent structure—from his experience.
Observe that Derwing is not opposed to innate abilities, but emphasizes that they are abilities to
learn (not pre-formed knowledge); and he wants these abilities to not be specifically linguistic.
6. The learning of ill-formedness: two viewpoints
6.1 Learning well-formedness using innate knowledge
The most obvious cases here are straightforward linguistic universals. People wouldn’t need
to learn (somehow) that Coordinate Structure Constraint violations are ungrammatical if the
Coordinate Structure Constraint (or, one might hope, something from which the Coordinate
Structure Constraint follows as a consequence) is innate. This would also be the reason why the
Coordinate Structure Constraint is universal.
95
Transformational Grammar as a Theory of Language Acquisition (1973). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, pp. 200-201.
More subtly, we can imagine how innate knowledge could permit English speakers to know
that violations of the Complex NP Constraint are ungrammatical, while speakers of Swedish and
Norwegian know that they are acceptable in their own languages. The idea is that the Complex
NP Constraint (or again, something more abstract from which it follows) is innate, but in a form
that would permit “data override”: if you actually hear data that tell you the constraint is
violable in your language, you override your innate knowledge. This would be the case for
Swedish and Norwegian children, who presumably hear a number of sentences violating this
constraint during their childhoods. Children in English-speaking environments never hear the
data that would justify an override, so they never push aside the innate pattern.
6.2 Learning ill-formedness inductively without negative evidence
Although the learning of ill-formedness without negative evidence has been sometimes
presented as an insuperable difficulty to inductive approaches, in fact inductivism is not entirely
helpless in such cases. One strategy commonly proposed is to collect a lot of data, then compute
some form of this statistic: observed/expected — that is, the number of observed instances of a
structure, divided by some kind of estimate of how many instances one should observe, on the
basis of other data.
For Complex NP Constraint violations, the observed/expected strategy might be something

like this (I’m quoting the hypothetical unconscious inner monologue of the language-learning
child):
 “Thus far in my experience I have heard 4,947 complex NP’s, that is to say, in 10% of all
sentences.
 “I have also noticed 6,823 gaps, created by rules such as Wh- Movement and
Topicalization,” in 30% of all sentences.
 “Thus, by multiplying, I estimate that 3% of the ambient sentences should have occurred
with a gap inside a complex NP. This would be about 600 sentences.”
 “But in fact, not a single gap has yet occurred inside a complex NP.”
 “I therefore infer there is something wrong about extracting constituents from inside
complex NP’s”.
The math exists that can make such inferences in a rigorous way, and is studied by statisticians.
Is this scenario a fantasy? It has in fact been applied to simpler data, in phonology, with
fairly good results. Moreover, there is evidence that people can keep track of such statistics in
syntax: psycholinguistic studies of how people understand sentences indicate that people’s
guesses about where in the tree a new word should go are guided by the statistics of
subcategorization: their first guesses are those that match the most frequent subcategorization
frame of the last syntactic head they heard. Thus (to use an example from earlier), the guess for
the structure of Fred ran up a big... will depend on the relative frequency in real life with which
run is followed by a particle (thus ran up a big bill) vs. a prepositional phrase (thus ran up a big
hill).96
96
For a general review of this and related literature, see
http://lcnl.wisc.edu/people/marks/pubs/SeidenbergMacDonald.1999.CogSci.pdf
The apparent ability of people to count the statistics of subcategorization frames is

particularly relevant because these frames have been put forth as a negative evidence problem.97
If a child learns a wrong subcategorization, nothing in the ambient data will tell her it is wrong.
Yet in fact, children rather frequently make subcategorization errors—and ultimately, of course,
recover from them. Here are a couple of examples:
“I filled the salt into the bear.”98

“She came it over there”
The first sentence indicates a wrong subcategorization for fill (probably acquired by wrongly
generalizing from put and other verbs), which almost certainly was corrected prior to
adulthood—mostly likely by gradually noticing that no occurrences of fill uttered by qualified
individuals used this frame; the observed number of [ ___ NP PP ] cases (probably zero) was
smaller than the child’s expected value, and ultimately led her to abandon this frame. The same
reasoning would hold for the second example (which means: “She made it come over there”, a
causative.)
In general, I would judge that inductivism has made a modest comeback in linguistics in
recent years, primarily due to experimental findings suggesting that people are very good at
inductive learning.
Inductivism nevertheless faces a huge and still largely unanswered challenge. A statistic like
observed/expected requires you to have, in effect, a set of “bins” into which you sort your
linguistic experience, so as to be able to compute these values. A complex NP is a nontrivially
complicated structure to describe—might there be a large variety of equally complex structures
that also have to have their statistics monitored. Even for subcategorization, there is a danger of
irrelevant bins: one hardly wants to waste counting how many sentences with an even number of
words a verb has occurred in, and similarly for other utterly pointless contexts. Inductivism must
either rely on innate knowledge to know what bins experience is sorted into, or find some way,
not yet established, to get them “for free”.
6.3 Universals
Lastly, a purely inductivist approach to language offers no account of true linguistic

universals, if such exist—in inductivism, a language violating the Coordinate Structure
Constraint would be learnable.99 Innatist approaches offer a quick and cheap explanation of
97
For instance, by C. L. Baker (1979) in “Syntactic Theory and the Projection Problem,” Linguistic
Inquiry 10.4.
98
Bowerman, M. (1982). Evaluating competing linguistic models with language acquisition data:
Implications of developmental errors with causative verbs. Quaderni di Semantica, 3, 5-66.
99
There is of course a temptation to do an experiment: have a team of skilled and charismatic
research assistants spend a great deal of time in a day care center uttering Coordinate Structure Constraint
violations, and see if the children who attend it develop a “universal-violating” grammar. It’s not clear what
the Human Subjects Protection Committee would think of this one...
universals; they’re true because languages are spoken by people, who being biologically
arranged the way they are, have no choice but to obey them.
7. Innateness and biology
Turning, then, to the issue of the biology of human language, it’s important to note that the
view that people are biologically equipped for language in a special way unique to our species is
not entirely tied to the idea of innate linguistic knowledge. In particular, we could be highly
adapted to learning and use of language, but not possess any innate knowledge of the content of
language per se. At this level, the view the people are specialized for language is rather less
controversial, though again it is hardly agreed upon universally.
A common way to make a case in this area is to compare language with other abilities (of
various species) that plainly are part of their biological endowment.
7.1 Irrelevance of deliberate training
Achievement of fluency in language does not seem to depend on training (compare, for
instance, playing the piano, or studying math). Most children become fluent speakers on their
own, on schedule, by their own more or less automatic efforts. This is similar to the process of
learning to walk, likewise documented to occur spontaneously, follows a standard time course,
and (by experiment) has been shown not to be particularly aided by instruction.
7.2 Critical period
Language appears to involve a critical period, that is, a span of time after which complete
acquisition of the skill becomes difficult or impossible. The critical period is widely documented
for language; we see it (anecdotally) in families of immigrants, where the youngest members
usually become the best speakers of the new language, despite equal exposure for all.
Vision in cats is apparently a similar ability: kittens who have one eye temporarily closed
when young fail to “wire up” their neural circuitry for that eye, and do not make up the deficit
later. Experimentation (cortical probes) indicates that the circuitry does not grow in. “Accidental
experiments” on humans (surgery on congenital cataracts, misguidedly delayed to lessen risk)
show that same is probably true for us.100
Some forms of birdsong reflect a critical period; young birds reared away from their species
fail to acquire the song upon being returned to their original habitat.101
There’s clearly a range of opinion, some of it impassioned, on whether such experiments on

kittens and birds should be done. A much greater consensus exists that they should not be
performed on young humans. However, cases of lunatic or criminal behavior by parents have
occasionally created such experiments.
100
For details on this work see http://neuro.med.harvard.edu/site/dh/b50.htm (David Hubel).
101
See http://www.neuro.duke.edu/faculty/mooney/.
“Genie,” studied in the 1970’s by my colleague Susan Curtiss,102 was forced by a

psychopathic father to spend the first thirteen years of her life strapped into a baby chair, with
little human contact and no linguistic input. When she was rescued and released into a more
normal environment, her linguistic development was slow and difficult. Although she acquired a
fair amount of vocabulary, she was unable to acquire the syntactic rules of English. When Genie
was last studied, around age 20, she still was essentially not a speaker of English. Prof. Curtiss
contends that she was unable to acquire language fully because she began the task after the end
of the critical period.
The psychologist Steven Pinker has conjectured that critical periods occur when the
members of the species learn the skill when young; the neural apparatus for learning is
programmed to atrophy at the end of the critical period, to avoid metabolic waste.
7.3 Genetic defects of language
It is by now fairly well established that the syndrome called Specific Language Impairment,
which is marked by inferior ability to use language (but normal intelligence), has at least some
genetic component; indeed, investigators have located families in which multiple members suffer
from the syndrome, and at least one specific gene has been located that is implicated in Specific
Language Impairment. The relevance of all this is called into question, however, by some
scholars, who note the possibility that the impairment may involve some fairly “low-level”
defect of phonetic process that could be the cause of the higher-level language difficulties.
8. Language and evolution
Certainly, if it is true that humans are biologically specialized for language it would be
reasonable to attribute this to natural selection, the source of all adaptive specializations in
species. Steven Pinker and Paul Bloom (1990)103 offer reasons why an innate ability for language
would have conferred a selectional advantage on our distant ancestors and thus shaped their
evolution.
Pinker and Bloom endorse in passing a theory due to the phonetician Philip Lieberman that
our vocal tracts (mouth, throat, larynx) were evolutionarily shaped to permit speech.
Lieberman’s idea is that in evolving a long, arched vocal tract, we slightly increased our risk of
choking to death while swallowing (the food and air paths cross in our elongated pharynxes).
The evolutionary payoff, Lieberman claims, was highly intelligible speech. His theory remains
controversial among paleontologists.104
102
Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day “Wild Child” (1977) Academic Press.
103
From the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences; on line at
http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/99/.
104
P. Lieberman and E. S. Crelin (1971) “On the speech of Neanderthal man,” Linguistic Inquiry
2:203-22.
9. Conclusion
I hope to have shown the study grammar does tie into broader issues. The link arises from
grammar’s scope, intricacy, and difficulty, leading to the hypothesis that children learn it with
the aid of innate mechanisms. This innateness hypothesis collides with the rival point of view
that language can be learned with highly virtuosic inductive mechanisms (which themselves may
or may not be innate, or specifically linguistic). Innate mechanisms of any sort assume that
language is a biological specialization of humans, a claim supported by the existence of a critical
period, specific language impairment, and other evidence. Lastly, such mechanisms have led
scholars to try to speculate in as informed a way as they can about the evolution of language.
Chapter 8: Review of Morphology and Syntax

1. Summary: grammar fragment
This is as far as we’re going to get concerning the syntactic analysis of English. It may be
useful at this point to summarize the rules and constraints as we developed them.
Our grammar has:
 an overall architecture (see p. 157), providing for the following:

 a set of phrase structure rules (final version given above in (127))
 a lexicon, with words bearing subcategorizations, and a principle of lexical insertion
 a set of word formation rules (Chapter 2) that can be used to expand the inventory of
words in the lexicon
 A set of transformations:
 Tag Question Formation
 Subject/Aux Inversion
 Wh-Movement
 Topicalization
 It-Clefting
 Further transformations that form morphosyntactic representations:
 Genitive Case Marking
 Verbal Agreement
 A set of three island constraints
 Coordinate Structure Constraint
 Complex NP Constraint
 Wh- Island Constraint
 A postsyntactic module of inflectional morphology, including rules of
 Spell-Out (for contractions)
 Genitive Inflection (adding -’s)
This grammar suffices to cover a fragment of English. As mentioned earlier, a full grammar of
English would be vast—and not all the data have even been gathered yet.
The rest of this chapter consists of study exercises; these hopefully will be helpful if your
teacher puts a midterm exam in the middle of the course. Answers will be found at the end of the
chapter. These exercises cover everything up to, but not including, the unbounded
transformations and island constraints.
2. Morphology: Areas and affiliated skills
 Word formation:
 Writing word formation rules, which specify the base, what change in meaning
and (perhaps) part of speech is involved.
 Constructing iterated derivations, generally “inside out”.
 Inflectional morphology
 Finding morphemes and arranging them in position classes
 Writing inflectional rules, specifying the relevant features of the morphosyntactic
representation
 Ordering the rules correctly to obtain the right affix order
 The phonological form of inflection and word formation
 What change in the string of sounds is used to realize the word formation or
inflectional process?
——————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #37: Persian verbal inflection
Positive present indicative
mixaram ‘I buy’ mixarim ‘we buy’

mixari ‘you-sing. buy’ mixarid ‘you-plur. buy’
mixarad ‘he/she buys’ mixarand ‘they buy’
Negative present indicative
nemixaram ‘I do not buy’ nemixarim ‘we do not buy’

nemixari ‘you do not buy’ nemixarid ‘you-plur. do not buy’
nemixarad ‘he/she does not buy’ nemixarand ‘they do not buy’
Positive past indicative
xaridam ‘I bought’ xaridim ‘we bought’

xaridi ‘you-sing. bought’ xaridid ‘you-plur. bought’
xarid ‘he/she bought’ xaridand ‘they bought’
Negative past indicative
naxaridam ‘I did not buy’ naxaridim ‘we did not buy’

naxaridi ‘you-sing. did not buy’ naxaridid ‘you-plur. did not buy’
naxarid ‘he/she did not buy’ naxaridand ‘they did not buy’
Positive subjunctive
bexaram ‘that I buy’ bexarim ‘that we buy’

bexari ‘that you-sing. buy’ bexarid ‘that you-plur. buy’
bexarad ‘that he/she buys’ bexarand ‘that they buy’
Negative subjunctive
naxaram ‘that I not buy’ naxarim ‘that we not buy’

naxari ‘that you-sing. not buy’ naxarid ‘that you-plur. not buy’
naxarad ‘that he/she not buy’ naxarand ‘that they not buy’
a. Find and gloss the morphemes

b. Arrange the morphemes into five position classes.
c. Make a set of inflectional rules to derive all these forms. You may assume these
features:
[Polarity: positive, negative]
[Mood:indicative, subjunctive]
[Tense: past, present]
[Person: 1, 2, 3]
[Number: Singular, Plural]
d. Show that your rules work by deriving all six third singular forms.
e. Which orderings of the rules are needed?
Answer to Study Exercise #37, Persian Verbal Inflection
a. Morphemes:
ne-, na- negative

mi- present
be- imperative
xar ‘buy’
-id past
-am first person singular
-i second person singular
-ad, - third person singular
-im first person plural
-id second person plural
-and third person plural
b. There are five slots.
Negative Misc. Stem Tense Agreement

ne- mi- xar -id -am
na- be- -i
-ad/-
-im
-id
-and
c. Rules, in order
Miscellaneous Rule
Prefix be- when [Mood:Subjunctive, Polarity:Positive]
mi- when [Mood:Indicative, Tense:Present]
Negative Rule
Prefix ne- when [Polarity:Negative, Tense:Present]
na- all other [Polarity:Negative]
Tense Rule
Suffix -id when [Tense:Past]
Agreement Rule
Suffix -am when [Person: 1, Number:Singular]
-i when [Person: 2, Number:Singular]
- when [Person: 3, Number:Singular, Tense:Past]
-ad all other [Person: 3, Number:Singular]
-im when [Person: 1, Number:Plural]
-id when [Person: 2, Number:Plural]
-and when [Person: 3, Number:Plural]
d. Deriving “(s)he buys”:

xar [ Tense:Present, Polarity:Positive, Mood:Indicative, Person:3, Number:Singular]
mixar Misc.: , 
— Negative rule
— Tense Rule
mixarad Agreement Rule (, , )
Deriving “(s)he does not buy”:

xar [ Tense:Present, Polarity:Negative, Mood:Indicative, Person:3, Number:Singular]
mixar Misc. Rule (, )
nemixar Negative rule (, )
— Tense Rule
nemixarad Agreement Rule (, , )
Deriving “(s)he bought”:

xar [ Tense:Past, Polarity:Positive, Mood:Indicative, Person:3, Number:Singular]
— Misc. Rule
— Negative Rule
xarid Tense Rule ()
— Agreement Rule
Deriving “(s)he did not not buy”:

xar [ Tense:Past, Polarity:Negative, Mood:Indicative, Person:3, Number:Singular]
— Misc. Rule
naxar Negative Rule (, )
naxarid Tense Rule ()
— Agreement Rule
Deriving “that (s)he buy”:

xar [ Polarity:Positive, Mood:Subjunctive, Person:3, Number:Singular]
bexar Misc. Rule (, )
— Negative Rule
— Tense Rule
bexarad Agreement Rule
Deriving “that (s)he not buy”:

xar [ Polarity:Negative, Mood:Subjunctive, Person:3, Number:Singular]
— Misc. Rule
naxar Negative Rule ()
— Tense Rule
bexarad Agreement Rule (, )
e. Ordering:
The prefix rules must apply in the order shown, else would get *mi-ne- rather than the
correct form ne-mi-.
The suffix rules must apply in the order shown, else we would get (for first singular forms)
*-am-id, rather than the correct -id-am.
——————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #38: English word formation with -ness
full fullness
squeamish squeamishness
lurid luridness
profound profoundness
Write a word formation rule in the format of Chapter 2.

Answer to Study Exercise #38, English Word Formation
[ X ]Adj  [ [ X ]Adj ness ]Noun
Meaning: “the quality of being Adjective”
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Study Exercise #39: Compounding in English
Use this rule, taken from Chapter 2:
English Compound Formation (word formation rule)
[ X1 ]Noun + [ X2 ]Noun  [ [ X ]Noun [ X ] Noun ]Noun

Meaning: “an X2 that has something to do with X1.”
to derive
a. tigerbird
b. law degree requirements (watch for inflection)
c. eggplant plant
Answer to Study Exercise #39, Compounding
a. tigerbird:
Given the existence of [ tiger ]Noun and [ bird ]Noun, we obtain [ [ tiger ]Noun [ bird ] Noun ]Noun,
which means “a bird having something to do with tigers”
b. law degree requirements:

Step 1: Given the existence of [ law ]Noun and [ degree ]Noun, we obtain
[ [ law ]Noun [ degree ] Noun ]Noun, which means “a degree having something to do with the law”, in
this case “degree awarded for the study of law”
Step 2: Given the existence of [ [ law ]Noun [ degree ] Noun ]Noun and [ requirement ]Noun, we
obtain [ [ [ [ law ]Noun [ degree ] Noun ]Noun]Noun [ requirement ] Noun ]Noun, which means “a
requirement have to do with a law degree”, in this case “requirements needed to obtain a law
degree”
Step 3: a rule of inflection morphology gives us the plural law degree requirements.
c. eggplant plant
Step 1: Given the existence of [ egg ]Noun and [ plant ]Noun, we obtain
[ [ egg ]Noun [ plant ] Noun ]Noun, which means “a plant having something to do with eggs.” In this
case, the “having something to do with” is, “shaped like”, so we get the familiar vegetable.
Step 2: Given the existence of [ [ egg ]Noun [ plant ] Noun ]Noun and [ plant ]Noun, we obtain [
[ [ egg ]Noun [ plant ] Noun ]Noun [ plant ]Noun ]Noun which means “a plant having something to do
with eggplants.” In this case, the “having something to do with” is, premably, “suited for the
manufacture of”; i.e. a hypothetical future factory capable of manufacturing eggplants.
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Study Exercise #40: Hungarian word formation
Phonetic symbols: [ɔ] = “aw”, with lip rounding; [] is rather like “ny”; [] marks a long
vowel, [ˈ] goes before the stressed syllable; [ø] is like German “ö” or French “eu”.
ˈall ‘stand’ ˈallva ‘stand, scaffolding’

ˈigɔzol ‘justify’ ˈigɔzolva ‘certificate’
kiɔd ‘publish’ ˈkiɔdva ‘publication’
ˈmutɔt ‘show’ ˈmutɔtva ‘specimen, spectacle’
with a different vowel; ignore the vowel issue for now.
køt ‘tie’ køtve ‘bond, security’

ker ‘ask for’ kérveː ‘questionnaire’
Write a rule of word formation. The hardest part is specifying the meaning.
Answer to Study Exercise #40, Hungarian Word Formation
[ X ]Verb  [ [ X ]Verb va ]Noun
Meaning: “the result or instrument of Verbing”

-ve is due to phonology, a rule of Vowel Harmony
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Study Exercise #41: English word formation
a. Write a rule of word formation that can derive the italicized items.
a merry chase
a fifty-foot drop
The canoeists found that between Racquette Lake and Forked Lake was not a difficult carry.
He reached the water fountain and took a good long drink.
b. Write a rule of word formation that can derive the items in the right column.
kitchen kitchenette
pipe pipette105
rose rosette
statue statuette
105
This example works just fine in the spoken domain (pipe = [paɪp], pipette = [paɪpɛt]), but in the written
domain we have to assume a spelling rule. It’s pretty general in English that final letter e is dropped before a vowel-
initial suffix, as in ride ~ riding, dispense ~ dispensation, and so on. Prior to the application of this spelling rule,
pipette is pipe+ette.
Answer to Study Exercise #41, English Word Formation
a. [ X ]Verb  [ [ X ]Verb ]Noun
Meaning: “an instance of Verbing”
b. [ X ]Noun  [ [ X ette ]Noun ]Noun
Meaning: “a little Noun or thing having to do with Noun”
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Study Exercise #42: Luiseño Inflection(S. California)
Write morphological rules to cover inflection. You will have to make up your own
morphosyntactic representations.
Hint: think about whether a noun is something you could ever lose, and make up a feature
to describe this.
uˈmakinaki ‘your car’ uˈmatʃa ‘your back’

nuˈmakinaki ‘my car’ nuˈmatʃa ‘my back’
uˈpanki ‘your bread’ uˈkami ‘your son’
puˈpanki ‘his bread’ puˈkami ‘his son’
nuxarˈdinki ‘my garden’ nuˈna ‘my father’
puxarˈdinki ‘his garden’ uˈna ‘your father’
nuˈnotki ‘my boss’
uˈaki ‘your wife’106
106
To these may be added the somewhat startling nuˈpeʃli ‘my dish’, puˈpeʃli ‘her dish’; grammar
has an arbitrary side…
Answer to Study Exercise #42, Luiseño
The data illustrate the concept of inalienability, an inflectional category in many languages.
A thing is inalienably possessed if you could never truly be rid of it: your relatives, the parts of
the body.
Two rules are needed, which could apply in either order:
Person-Number Marking
X  nu X where morphsyntactic representation contains [Number:Sing, Pers:1]

X  u X where morphsyntactic representation contains [Number:Sing, Pers:2]
X  pu X where morphsyntactic representation contains [Number:Sing, Pers:3]
Inalienability Marking
X  X ki where morphosyntactic representation contains [Alienable:True]
_______________________________________________________________________
3. Study Exercise #43: Applying Word Formation Rules in Order
Find two meanings for overfillable and provide derivations for both.
Answer to Study Exercise #43, Applying Rules of Word Formation in Order
fill root
fillable [ X ]Verb  [ [ X ]Verb able ]Adj Meaning: ‘able to be Verbed’
overfillable [ X ]Adj  [ over [ X ]Adj ]Adj Meaning: ‘excessively A’
‘too fillable’; said perhaps of a conveniently wide-brimmed whiskey flask belonging to a

heavy drinker. “Alas for Smith, the flask proved overfillable, and he filled it again and again.”
compare: dreamable, drinkable; overeager, overproud
fill root
overfill [ X ]Verb  [ over [ X ]Verb ]Verb Meaning: ‘Verb too much’
overfillable [ X ]Verb  [ [ X ]Verb able ]Adj Meaning: ‘able to be Verbed’
‘liable to be overfilled’; said perhaps of a car engine that admits a dangerous excess of
motor oil because the dipstick gives an inaccurate reading: “my car engine is just way too
overfillable”
compare: overeat, overdress; (same examples for -able)
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4. Study Exercise #44: Chamorro Infixation
Formalize this rule of word formation using the symbols V, C, and numeral subscripts. State
in words what your rule does. [ʔ] is a “glottal stop”, a kind of consonant. It can be identified as
the little silence created by closing the vocal cords, heard in the middle of “uh-oh”.
lii ‘to see’ liniiʔ ‘(the) thing seen’

hatsa ‘to lift’ hinatsa ‘(the) thing lifted’
saan ‘to tell’ sinaan ‘(the) thing told’
hasu ‘to think’ hinasu ‘thought’
faisin ‘to ask’ finaisin ‘question’
Answer to Study Exercise #44, Chamorro Infixation
Assumed to be word formation.
[ C X ]Verb  [[ C in X ]Verb ]Noun Meaning: “thing that is Verbed”

1 2 1 2
In other words, “count off the first consonant, and place -in- right after it.”
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Study Exercise #45: Yucatec Reduplication
Symbols:
t͡ʃ as in church
t͡s like Betsy but is just one sound, not two
k’ is k with extra oral pressure (“ejective”), and similarly for other sounds.
j is IPA for y
ʔ is glottal stop, heard in the middle of uh-oh.
sak ‘white’ sasak ‘very white’

t͡ʃit͡ʃ ‘hard’ t͡ʃit͡ʃit͡ʃ ‘very hard’
t͡ʃak ‘red’ t͡ʃat͡ʃak ‘very red’
k’as ‘bad’ k’ak’as ‘very bad’
nat͡s’ ‘near’ nanat͡s’ ‘very near’
haj ‘thin’ hahaj ‘very thin’
nat͡ʃ ‘far’ nanat͡ʃ ‘very far’
sis ‘cool’ sisis ‘very cool’
suut͡s’ ‘sour’ suusuut͡s’ ‘very sour’
jaab ‘many’ jaajaab ‘very many’
Answer to Study Exercise #45, Yucatec Reduplication
Assumed to be word formation.
[ X C ]Adj  [[ X X C ]Adj ]Adj Meaning: “very Adjective”

1 2 11 2
in other words: “copy all but the last consonant, and put the copy before the original.”
—————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #46: Obligatory Expression
In
My cat jumped.
specify two cases of obligatory expression (inflectional system of English forces you to
communicate particular information)
Answer to Study Exercise #46, Obligatory Expression
Cat is singular—the sentence means specifically one cat. This is because English nouns
must appear with either [Number:Singular] or [Number:Plural] in their morphosyntactic
representations.
Jumped is past tense; tense must be marked in the morphosyntactic representation of the
main verb of a sentence.
———————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #47: Organization of the grammar: morphology
In the view of some linguists, the following is not only an impossible word of English, but
violates a fundamental principle of grammar. Explain.
*personsology ‘the study of collections of more than one person’
Answer on next page.
Study Exercise #48: Normative grammar
Briefly describe a matched-guise experiment.

Answer to Study Exercise #47, Organization of the Grammar: Morphology
In *personsology, a suffix for word formation, -ology, has been added “outside” of (hence,
“after”) an inflectional suffix. If word formation precedes lexical insertion and inflection follows
it, this should not be possible
Answer to Study Exercise #48, Normative Grammar
The core of a matched guise experiment is to have a bilingual or bidialectal person say
essentially the same thing in both of the language varieties she speaks, and then have
experimental subjects rate both voices for various traits—honesty, intelligence, friendliness,
etc.—without knowing that the “two” speakers are actually one. The idea is to get a controlled
evaluation of what people think about the varieties as such.
5. Syntax: Some skills
 Parsing sentences, particularly knowing where to attach modifiers...

 Using phrase structures to check if your structure is “compliant”.
 Establishing the phrase structure rules needed for new languages.
 Method: parse the sentences first, based on meaning, then make a short, clean set
of rules using ( ) and ( )*.
 Applying various transformations, given in the text.
 Determining the deep structure, given the surface structure, so you can give a whole
derivation.
 Show how the various island constraints rule out sentences.
 Demonstrate that a movement transformation applied unboundedly.
 Demonstrate that a transformation obeys a particular island constraint.
————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #49: Syntax: parsing
English phrase structure rules:
S  NP (Aux) VP
Art 
NP  NP   (AP)* N (PP)*(S̄)
 
A A E E
NP  Pronoun
VP  V (NP) (NP) (PP)* (S̄) E
VP  V AP
PP  P NP
NP  NP (Conj NP)*
VP  VP (Conj VP)*
PP  PP (Conj PP)*
S  S (Conj S)*
S  S (Conj S)*
V  V (Conj V)*
Parse:
a. His brother and his wife’s book’s excessive length meant that it would cost a lot.
b. They awarded the key to the city (explicate both meanings)
Answer to Study Exercise #49, Syntax: Parsing
a. Note that since the inflectional suffix -’s is added by rules of morphology, it is not placed
in the deep structure tree. See below for how it is added.
VP
NP
NP
S̄E
NP S
NP NP VP
NP NP NP NP
| | |
Pro N Conj Pro N N Adj N V CompPro Aux V Art N
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
His brother and his wife book excessive length meant that it would cost a lot.
For the -’s, see a later exercise in this section.
b.
S
VP
NP
PP
NP NP
|
Pro V Art N P Art N
| | | | | | |
They awarded the key to the city
This is the meaning, “They awarded the key to the city (to someone, as an honor).” To
the city specifies what kind of key.
VP
PP
NP NP NP
|
Pro V Art N P Art N
| | | | | | |
They awarded the key to the city
This is the meaning, “The city was award the key (perhaps an important historical artifact
for the municipal museum.” To the city specifies what kind of act of awarding.
________________________________________________________________________
Study Exercise #50: Constituency Testing with It Clefting
A. As noted earlier, It-Clefting can be used to show what is an NP or PP, since it “targets”
these phrases; that is, it is a potential constituency test. Use this test to justify the constituency of
the two meanings of the sentence (b) in Study Exercise #49.
B. Use the It-Clefting constituency test to determine if the underlined sequences of words
are constituents.
a. I put the key under the mat.

b. I own the key under the mat.
Answer to Study Exercise #50, Syntax: Constituency Testing
Part A. In the first reading, the key to the city is held to be an NP; that is a constituent. It-
Clefting can only apply to constituents. When we cleft the key to the city:
It was [ the key to the city ]NP that they awarded ___.
we only get the reading where to the city specifies which key.
In the second reading, the key and to the city are separate constituents, and they can each be
It-Clefted on their own:
It was [ the key ]NP that they awarded ___ to the city.
It was [to the city ]PP that they awarded the key ___.
However, in each case, Clefting removes the ambiguity. It can only affect constituents; so it
reveals the constituent structure of the basic sentence for each of the two meanings.
Part B.
a. I put the key under the mat.
*It was the key under the mat I put.
So, the key under the mat is not a constituent. (It’s actually an NP followed by a separate
PP.)
b. I own the key under the mat.
It is the key under the mat that I own.
So, the key under the mat is a constituent. (under the mat is part of this NP, modifying key)
——————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #51: Case Marking
Apply the case marking rule below to the structure you gave for sentence (a) in Study
Exercise #49 above.
English Genitive Case Marking
In the configuration shown:
NP1
NP2 ...
assign the feature [Case:Genitive] to the morphosyntactic representation of the rightmost

word in NP2.
You may assume that when the sentence is turned over to the component of inflectional
morphology, the following morphological rule applies:
Genitive Realization
Suffix -’s when the morphosyntactic representation contains [Case:Genitive].
Answer to Study Exercise #51, Syntax: Case Marking
I’ll show just the relevant NP. Items referred to in the rule are shown in boldface. We are
looking for:
NP1
NP2 ...
and are putting the feature [Case:Genitive] on the rightmost word of NP2. Here is one
application:
NP1
NP2
NP
NP NP
NP NP
| |
Pro N Conj Pro N N Adj N
| | | | | | | |
His brother and his wife book excessive length
[Case:Gen]
Here is the other application:
NP
NP1
NP2
NP NP
NP NP
| |
Pro N Conj Pro N N Adj N
| | | | | | | |
His brother and his wife book excessive length
[Case:Gen][Case:Gen]
These are realized later in the morphology as wife’s and book’s.

Study Exercise #52: Subcategorization
I.
Provide and justify subcategorization frames for:
a. opinion
b. transform (as a verb)
c. expire
II.
a. Explain why the grammar in this book would not generate these sentences:
*We took.
*We own.
b. Suppose for the moment that we had a grammar that did generate these sentences. Would
this be a case of overgeneration or ungeneration?
Answer to Study Exercise #52, Subcategorization
I.
a. opinion
[ ___ (S̄) ] and [ ___ (PP) ]

E
Bill’s opinion
Bill’s opinion of Fred
Bill’s opinion that Fred will win.
b. transform (as a verb)

[ ___ NP (PP) ] and [ ___ PP ]
*Fred transformed.
Fred transformed the field.
Fred transformed the apple into a pear.
Fred transformed into a dwarf.
c. expire
[ ___ ]
Time expired.
*Time expired the men.
*Time expired to (or: of, above) the men.
II.
a. *We took is bad because take subcategorizes for an obligatory NP object. Its frame is:
[ ___ NP ]
The grammar won’t generate *We took because take cannot be inserted into the relevant tree,
which is:
NP VP
| |
Pro V
| |
we ___
The explanation for *We own is identical.
If the grammar did generate *We took, *We own, it would be overgeneration: outputting
examples that are ungrammatical.
Study Exercise #53: Syntax: Writing your own phrase structure rules
The following data are from a problem set book by Jeannette Witucki. It’s a pretty good
book (sadly, never formally published), but you should remember that Witucki isn’t necessarily
teaching exactly the same syntactic theory as me, and not all the loose ends will necessarily get
tied up here.
The language here is Sango, a creole107 language spoken in the Central African Republic.
The word-by-word glosses are by me, guessing as best as I could from the sentence glosses,
which are Witucki’s.
1. mbi tɛ mbeni yama

I eat some meat
‘I eat some meat’
2. mbi kɛ tɛ yama la so
I prog. eat meat day this
‘I am eating meat today’
3. mbi mu na mɔ mersi mingi

I give to you thanks many
‘I give you many thanks’
4. lo mu na lo ngu
he give to him water
‘He gives him water’
5. lo kɛ mu na mɔ nginza
he prog. give to you money
‘He is giving you money’
6. i mu mbeni atɛmɛ ka
we give some stones there
‘We take some stones there’
7. mbi mu na mɛrɛngɛ ti lo nginza

I give to child of him money
‘I gave money to a child of his.’
107
A creole language arises when a simple, spur-of-the-moment contact language arising among
speakers of distinct languages (here, French and Ngbandi) is learned by children and elaborated (via
Universal Grammar, some think) into a full-fledged, fully-expressive language with native speakers.
8. mɔ zia ngu na wa
you put water to fire
‘You put water on the fire’
9. mɔ zia mbeni yama na sese

you put some meat to ground
‘You put some meat on the ground’
10. ala mu na lo ere so

they give to him name this
‘They gave this name to him.
11. ala zia yama so na sese

they put meat this to ground
‘They put this meat on the ground’
12. lo zia ala na kanga

he put them to jail
‘He put them in jail’
13. mbi zia mbeni atɛmɛ da

I put some stone here
‘I put some stones here’
14. mbi zia ala da la so

I put them here day this
‘I put them here today’
15. i faa na yama

we kill to meat
‘We kill animals’
16. i na mɔ faa na yama

we to you kill to meat
‘you and I kill animals’
17. i na ala faa na yama

we to them kill to meat
‘They and I kill animals’
18. i na lo faa kɔndɔ

we to him kill chicken
‘He and I kill chickens’
19. i faa kɔndɔ mingi

we kill chicken many
‘We kill many chickens’
20. ala faa woga mingi ti tɛ

they kill antelope many of eating?
‘They kill many antelope to eat’
21. mbi faa kɔndɔ ka na keke

I kill chicken there to tree
‘I killed a chicken there in the tree’
22. mɔ wara mbi ka la so

you find I there day this
You found me there today’
23. mbi wara kɔli ti mbi

I find man of I
‘I found my husband’
24. mbi wara ita ti mbi ti wale

I find sibling of I of woman
‘I found my sister’
25. mbi wara ita ti mbi ti kɔli

I find sibling of I of man
‘I found my brother’
Answer to Study Exercise #53, Sango Phrase Structure Rules
Hoping for a slightly cleaner answer I made a couple of perhaps dubious assumptions:
 la so ‘today’ is a fixed expression, i.e. a compound, as in English. I am classifying this as

an Adverb.
 I am treating kɛ as an Aux.
 I am treating the prenominal expression mbeni ‘some’ as an Adjective, letting
postnominal so and mingi be in the position for Articles.
The analytic strategy is:
 Provide conjecture trees for each sentence.

 Write down “sketch” phrase structure rules, that is, exactly what is needed to generate the
proposed tree.
 At the end, collate, generalize and simplify the rules using ( ) and ( )*.
1. mbi tɛ mbeni yama

I eat some meat
Pro V A N
‘I eat some meat’
Rules needed:
S  NP VP
NP  Pro
VP  V NP
NP  AP N
AP  A
Out on a limb: “some” as Adjective, since it looks like in general, the Articles follow the
noun.
2. mbi kɛ tɛ yama la so
I prog. eat meat day this
Pro Aux V N Adv.............
‘I am eating meat today’
S  NP Aux VP
NP  Pro (lots of these, I won’t repeat this one)
VP  V NP AdvP
AdvP  Adv
NP  N
3. mbi mu na mɔ mersi mingi

I give to you thanks many
Pro V P Pro N Art
‘I give you many thanks’
V  V PP NP
PP  P NP
NP  N Art
4. lo mu na lo ngu
he give to him water
Pro V P Pro N
‘He gives him water’
VP  V PP NP
PP  P NP (many of these, won’t repeat)
NP  N (many of these, won’t repeat)
5. lo kɛ mu na mɔ nginza
he prog. give to you money
Pro Aux V P Pro N
‘He is giving you money’
S  NP Aux VP (many of these, won’t repeat)

VP  V PP NP
6. i mu mbeni atɛmɛ ka
we give some stones there
Pro V Adj N Adv
‘We take some stones there’
V  V NP AdvP
AdvP  Adv (won’t repeat)
7. mbi mu na mɛrɛngɛ ti lo nginza

I give to child of him money
Pro V P N P Pro N
‘I gave money to a child of his.’
VP  V PP NP
NP  N PP
8. mɔ zia ngu na wa
you put water to fire
Pro V N P N
‘You put water on the fire’
VP  V NP PP
9. mɔ zia mbeni yama na sese

you put some meat to ground
Pro V Adj N P N
‘You put some meat on the ground’
VP  V NP PP
10. ala mu na lo ere so

they give to him name this
Pro V P Pro N Art
‘They gave this name to him.
V  V PP NP
NP  N Art
11. ala zia yama so na sese

they put meat this to ground
Pro V N Art P N
‘They put this meat on the ground’
VP  V NP PP
NP  N Art (won’t repeat this one)
12. lo zia ala na kanga

he put them to jail
Pro V Pro P N
‘He put them in jail’
VP  V NP PP
13. mbi zia mbeni atɛmɛ da

I put some stone here
Pro V Adj N Adv
‘I put some stones here’
VP  V NP AdvP
14. mbi zia ala da la so

I put them here today........
Pro V Pro Adv Adv
‘I put them here today’
VP  V NP AdvP AdvP
15. i faa na yama

we kill to meat
Pro V P N
‘We kill animals’
VP  V PP
16. i na mɔ faa na yama

we to you kill to meat
Pro P Pro V P N
‘you and I kill animals’
NP  Pro PP
VP  V PP
Note unusual construction, with a PP modifying a Pronoun within NP; not possible in
English.
17. i na ala faa na yama

we to them kill to meat
Pro P Pro V P N
‘They and I kill animals’
Nothing new in PS rules.
18. i na lo faa kɔndɔ

we to him kill chicken
Pro P Pro V N
‘He and I kill chickens’
Ditto.
19. i faa kɔndɔ mingi

Pro V N Art
‘We kill many chickens’
No new rules.
20. ala faa woga mingi ti tɛ

they kill antelope many of eating?
Pro V N Art P N
‘They kill many antelope to eat’
VP  V NP PP
21. mbi faa kɔndɔ ka na keke

I kill chicken there to tree
Pro V N Adv P N
‘I killed a chicken there in the tree’
I suggest that the PP ne keke is modifying the Adverb ka. Thus we need to put our
Adverbs inside Adverb Phrases (adjusting the previous rules that used bare Adverbs), and set up
an Adverb Phrase rule.
VP  V NP AdvP
AdvP  Adv PP
22. mɔ wara mbi ka la so

you find I there today.........
Pro V Pro Adv Adv
‘You found me there today’
A fairly clear case of two Adverbs.

23. mbi wara kɔli ti mbi

I find man of I
Pro V N P Pro
‘I found my husband’
NP  N PP
24. mbi wara ita ti mbi ti wale

I find sibling of I of woman
Pro V N P Pro P N
‘I found my sister’
NP  Pro PP PP
I assume that each PP is independently a modifier of ita ‘sibling’:
25. mbi wara ita ti mbi ti kɔli

I find sibling of I of man
Pro V N P Pro P N
‘I found my brother’
Just like #24.
This completes the gathering of the “sketch” phrase structure rules. We first collate them,
removing duplicates, like this:
S  NP Aux VP
S  NP VP
NP  AP N
NP  N
NP  N Art
NP  N PP
NP  Pro
NP  Pro PP
NP  Pro PP PP
VP  V NP
VP  V NP AdvP
VP  V NP PP
VP  V PP
VP  V PP NP
AdvP  Adv
AdvP  Adv PP
AP  A
then we can use the abbreviatory notations, and a little guess work, to produce a more general
grammar:
S  NP (Aux) VP
N 
NP  (AP)* Pro (PP)* (Art)
 
E
PP  P NP
VP  V (PP)(NP)(PP)(AdvP)*
AdvP  Adv (PP)
The most interesting of these is the VP rule. There are evidently VP’s with both NP PP and PP
NP order. My guess would be that this is determined by subcategorization; that is
Subcategorizes for [ ___ NP PP ]: zia ‘put’

Subcategorizes for [ ___ PP NP ]: mu ‘give’
Study Exercise #54: Recursiveness in Sango
Find a recursive loop in the phrase structure rules you just developed for Sango in Study
Exercise #53. If there is none, so state.
Answer to Study Exercise #54, Recursiveness
The one loop appears to be a two-rule case:
N 
NP  (Adj)* Pro (PP)* (Art)
 
E
PP  P NP
It’s virtually certain that Sango has subordinate clauses, which would produce at least one
further loop, as in English.
————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #55: Case marking in Pseudo-English
Write rules to mark case in this pseudo-English. You should write both syntactic rules of
case marking, to put the right morphosyntactic features in the right places, and rules of
inflectional morphology, to actually add the suffixes.
You will find it helpful first to parse the sentences. Other than the case marking, the
language is just like real English.
a. Johnwa gave Maryni a booko.

b. The king of Englandwa sold the queenni a book of poemso.
c. The kingwa sent the princeni of Wales a lettero.
d. The key to the doorwa is of great importance.
e. Fredwa thinks that the seller of fishwa read the papero.
f. Wewa told the daughterni of Mary a story about miceo.
g. Iwa sang a song about birdso to Alice.
h. Alicewa made the claim that shewa was leavingo.
Answer to Study Exercise #55, Case marking in Pseudo-English
Syntactic rules of case marking

Mark the rightmost word of the subject NP (daughter of S) as [Case:Nominative].
Mark the rightmost word of the last object NP (last NP daughter of VP) as
[Case:Accusative].
Mark the head of the first NP, when there are two of them in VP, as [Case:Dative].
Rules of inflectional morphology

Suffix -wa when [Case:Nominative]
Suffix -o when [Case:Accusative]
Suffix -ni when [Case:Dative]
Note: the nominative and the accusative here (but not the dative) are very roughly as in
Japanese.
—————————————————————————————————————
For further reading
A widely used textbook covering much of the material treated here in greater depth is
Liliane Haegeman (1994) Introduction to Government and Binding Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
Much of the material discussed here originally derives from what is probably Noam
Chomsky’s most admired book, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965).
The work was hugely influential, not just for the ideas it put forth for analyzing syntactic
systems, but also for its more general discussion of the goals of linguistic theory.
Chapter 9: Semantics
1. Goals of semantics
Semantics is the branch of linguistics that studies meaning, particularly meaning as it is

conveyed by language. We can start out by asking what meaning is.
Meaning is a characteristic of symbolic systems; language is by far the most elaborate and
powerful symbolic system that has ever been found. Our sentences are complex symbols,
physically realized in speech or writing, which bear meanings and thus express our thoughts.
Clearly, there is more to thought than the language that expresses it. Thought can exist in the
absence of language, since many animals can behave in a sophisticated and rational fashion
without having anything like human language.108 It also seems clear that we experience thought
in ways that are very direct and not linguistic.109 There is no need for thought to occur in a linear
sequence, as our words must; and moreover that our visual thoughts are not particularly
expressible in language.
The development of a theory of thought is at present an active but speculative activity,

involving psychologists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, and scholars in the field of artificial
intelligence. One vindication for a proposed theory of thought would be if it could be embodied
in a system that could think and reason like a person. This remains a distant goal.
Our focus in semantics is not quite as grand; we just want to know how language expresses
thought. The problem faced by semanticists is to study the ways in which language embodies
thought, without a well-developed theory of thought to go by. This problem has not stymied
research, however, because there are plenty of ways to conduct careful research that don’t
require a full theory of thought to make progress. For instance, one strategy that has been
followed (it originates in the field of philosophy) is to develop formal systems that determine the
truth conditions of sentences (properties of the world that must hold for sentences to be true),
often in a small, artificially-constructed world. This kind of approach requires a fair amount of
development and will not be taught here; instead, in the interest of a unified text I want to cover
aspects of semantics that interact most closely with syntax.
We will cover three aspects of linguistic meaning: predicate-argument structure,

anaphora, and operators and scope.
108
A book on this topic I have enjoyed, written from a sober but exploratory viewpoint, is Animal
Minds, by Donald Griffin (University of Chicago Press, 1992).
109
It’s probably unnecessary to give an example, but for what it’s worth: imagine a parent who sees
his toddler put in danger from an unleashed dog: the experience is direct and primal, and depends in no way
on an internalized utterance “That dog is a threat to my child” or the like. The dog, the child, the teeth are
all part of the thought, but the thought is probably complete before it is ever embodied in NP’s, VP’s, etc.
2. Predicate-argument structure
A predicate-argument structure is a simple semantic representation that limits itself to

depicting “who is doing what to whom.” For example, in a sentence like
John cooked the egg.
an act of cooking is described. We could characterize this act with the following predicate-
argument structure.
COOK ( (Cooker John ), (Cook-ee the egg ) )
In this structure, COOK is a “predicate”, which has “arguments”, in this case filling the slot of
Cooker and Cook-ee. The labels for the argument slots are arbitrary, and in fact I will sometimes
be choosing slightly silly ones, simply because they are short and clear.110
Predicate-argument structure contains both more and less information than a syntactic tree.
Predicate-argument structure contains more information than syntactic structure because it

identifies the argument slots for each participant in the action. Syntactic structure instead places
the participants (designated by NP’s) in syntactic roles, such as subject (NP daughter of S) or
object (NP daughter of VP)—and, as we will see, there is only a loose connection between
thematic roles and syntactic roles.
Predicate-argument structure contains less information than syntactic structure for various
reasons. Most notably, predicate-argument structure is not meant to convey any sense of linear
order; COOK “has” the two arguments given, but there is nothing in the thought being expressed
that requires this order. The order that appears on the page is selected purely for convenience.
More generally: linear order is a property of language, not of thought. Different languages
have idiosyncratic orders, including all six logically possible orders for simple two-NP sentences
like John cooked the egg. Here are all six, with examples of each.
SVO English, Spanish, Swahili, Mandarin

SOV Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Persian
VSO Tagalog, Biblical Hebrew, Irish
VOS Fijian
OSV Xavante (Brazil)
OVS Hixkaryana (Brazil)111
110
More ambitious theories try to generalize over slots, with widely-applicable terms. For instance,
Agent is used for any slot occupied by an entity that controls the action, Theme is used for objects in
motion, and so on. The details needed for this kind of generalization are not agreed upon by all linguists.
111
The last three orders, with object before subject, are rare.
The point is that languages do use linear order to convey predicate-argument structure (as we
saw in studying phrase structure rules), but that is a matter of grammar and not of thought.
2.1 Rough correlations between syntax and predicate-argument structure
Linguists have long noticed that aspects of meaning, as we might express them in a
predicate-argument structure, show a loose correlation with syntactic structure. Here are some
common generalizations.
Many predicate-argument structures involve some sort of actor; an entity that is in control
and performs the action. Most often, the actor is expressed syntactically as the subject (NP
daughter of S). This is true, for instance, in the following sentences.
(157) The norm: subject as actor
Alice sang.
Susan built the transmission.
Fred and Bill opened the package.
Many predicate-argument structures involve some sort of patient or “undergoer” of the

action. These are most often expressed as direct objects of the verb (in English, NP daughter of
VP.112 So, this would hold true of the transmission or the package in the sentences just given.
Verbs of giving or sending often have a recipient or beneficiary. These are often expressed
as an object (daughter of VP113), or as the object of a preposition, as below:
(158) The norm: recipient/beneficiary as object or PP object
Alice sent Fred a dozen red roses.

Alice sent a dozen red roses to Fred.
Bill baked Sheila some cookies.
Bill baked some cookies for Sheila.
These are only loose correlations. The verb undergo is striking in that its subject is usually
the patient of the action.
(159) Exception: subject as patient
John underwent surgery.
The verb experienced is unusual because its subject is the mental experiencer of the event;
normally experiencers are expressed in prepositional phrases.
112
Second daughter, when there are two.
113
First daughter, when there are two.
(160) Norm: experiencer as PP object
The world seemed sad to Sam.
(161) Exception: experiencer as subject
Sam experienced sorrow.
There are many other exceptional cases.
2.2 Variation in how syntax manifests predicate-argument structure
Aside from peculiar verbs like undergo or experience, there are very general, systematic
patterns in how the syntax of languages expresses predicate-argument structure. In particular,
often the grammar provide multiple possibilities, which hold good for many or even all of the
verbs of the language.
A well-known example of this kind is the passive construction, found in many languages:
(162) An active sentence and its corresponding passive
a. The doctor examined John.

b. John was examined by the doctor.
The first of these sentences is said to be in the “active voice” and the second in the “passive
voice.” For both sentences, the predicate-argument structure is something like this:
(163) Predicate-argument structure for both (153)a and (153)b
EXAMINE ( (Examiner Doctor ), (Examinee John ) )
The active voice for examine is probably more frequent; it makes the subject the agent of
examining, and the object into the thing examined. I suspect that this is the most common form
of expression for this verb. In the passive voice, the thing examined is expressed as the subject,
and the agent of examining is expressed (if it is expressed at all) as the object of the preposition
by within the VP.114 In the passive, the agent can also be simply suppressed; that is, omitted:
(164) A passive sentence with suppressed agent
John was examined.
We might plausibly give such a sentence a predicate-argument structure with a null

argument, something like this:
114
There is one other syntactic difference: passive sentences contain be as an Auxiliary, and the verb is
inflected in its Past Participle form.
(165) Predicate-argument structure for (164)
EXAMINE ( (Examiner ), (Examinee John ) )
The null would be interpreted as meaning that someone did the examining but the sentence does
not specify what.
Why might languages offer more than one way to connect up the thematic roles with the
grammatical positions? One view is that these variations are related to discourse structure:
when we converse or tell a story, we are not producing sentences in isolation; rather, each
sentence builds on a body of information that already exists and adds a new bit of information.
Quite often, at least in English, the subject NP embodies the pre-existing information, and the VP
is what adds something new. Thus, The doctor examined John is most naturally used where one
is already talking about the doctor, and John was examined by the doctor is most naturally used
when one is already talking about John. Thus, the passive construction permits the speaker to
organize information in a dialogue or narrative in a coherent way that builds on older
information, by making the old information the subject.
Here is another instance in which the same predicate argument structure has more than one
syntactic expression. It occurs with verbs of giving. Here is an example:
VP S
PP VP
NP NP NP NP NP NP
| | | |
N V Art N P N N V N Art N
| | | | | | | | | | |
Mary gave the book to Sue Mary gave Sue the book
The first tree illustrates the NP PP construction, in which the item given is the NP object and
the recipient is in the PP. The second tree illustrates the NP NP construction, in which the
recipient is the first NP and the item given is the second NP. Both have the same predicate-
argument structure:
GIVE ( (Giver Mary ), (Gift book ), (Recipient Sue ) )
As with passive, the variation may be related to the form of a discourse: the first sentence
would be more natural when one is already talking about the book, the second would more
natural when one is already talking about Sue. As with passive, the new information comes later
in the sentence.
2.3 More on unfilled argument slots
As just noted above, passive sentences often lack a PP with by, and such sentences plausibly
involve an argument slot that goes unexpressed, along these lines:
John was examined.

EXAMINE ( (Examiner ), (Examinee John ) )
This is hardly the only source of unexpressed arguments. German goes beyond English in
allowing what is normally the subject to go unexpressed even when the when the verb is
intransitive:
Es wurde getanzt.
It was danced
‘There was dancing, people danced.’
DANCE ( (Dancer ) )
This constructions is often called an impersonal passive.
2.4 Propositions as filling argument slots
The following sentence has a predicate-argument structure in which one of the participants
is a Proposition — depicting an event.
Mary had John cook the egg.

CAUSE ( (Causer Mary ), (Proposition COOK ( (Cooker John ), (Cook-ee the egg ) ) ) )115
To treat such a case, we need a kind of nested structure, similar to the multi-clause structure of
syntax. In this sentence, Mary, the agent, caused the state of events described in Proposition to
come into being.
Here is another sentence whose predicate-argument structure involves a proposition, here,

the content of Mary’s thoughts:
Mary thinks that Bill jumped.

THINK ( (Thinker Mary ), (Proposition JUMP ( (Jumper Bill ) ) ) )
2.5 Cases of mismatch between syntax and predicate-argument structure I: weather it and
pleonastic it
Consider the following sentence, shown with a proposed predicate-argument structure.
115
In this and some later predicate-argument structures, I’ve used color to make sure that brackets
match up correctly. For correct bracket structure: every argument is surrounded by parentheses, and every
list of arguments is surrounded by parenthesis (even if there is just one argument).
It rained.
RAIN
What is special about such a case is that there are no arguments—raining is a thing that just
happens (nobody rains!).116 The it we get in syntactic structure is meaningless, and is evidently
present simply to satisfy the grammatical requirement (S  NP VP) that sentences must have
subjects. Such semantically empty elements are a mismatch between syntax and predicate-
argument structure. They illustrate that syntax involves demands of “pure form” that have
nothing to do with expression.
The it that occurs as the subject of rain, snow, etc. is sometimes called “weather it”.
Here is another such case:
It seems that Mary gave the book to Sue.

SEEM( (Proposition GIVE( (Giver Mary ), (Gift book ), (Recipient Sue ) ) ) )
Here again we have a semantically empty it, present to give the main clause a subject. This it
is sometimes called pleonastic it.117
A related construction gives the main clause a subject by taking the logical subject of the
embedded clause and expressing it “in the wrong position”:
Mary seems to have given the book to Sue.

SEEM ( (Proposition GIVE( (Giver Mary ), (Gift book ), (Recipient Sue ) ) ) )
In this grammatical construction, often called “Subject Raising”, the NP Mary occurs in a
syntactic location that is intuitively “higher” than its location in predicate-argument structure.
Study Exercise #56
Give predicate-argument structures for the following sentences. Be brave about labeling the
argument slots; this is a somewhat arbitrary business.
a. John appears to have been given a book by Sue.

b. It seems to have rained.
c. It seems that it rained.
d. It is felt that Bill rants.
116
Observe that this is different from John was examined and Es wurde getanzt, discussed above.
Someone really did examine John, and someone really did dance (we’re just not saying who). But no one
rains.
117
“Pleonastic” comes from the Greek for “superfluous”; the it is felt to be somehow unnecessary
(though it’s necessary for the sentence to be grammatical!)
a. John appears to have been given a book by Sue.
APPEAR ( (Proposition GIVE( (Giver Sue ), (Gift book ), (Recipient John) ) ) )
b. It seems to have rained.
SEEM ( (Proposition RAIN ) )
c. It seems that it rained.
SEEM ( (Proposition RAIN ) )
d. It is felt that Bill rants.
FEEL ( (Experiencer  ), (Proposition RANT( (Ranter Bill ) ) )
————————————————————————————————————
2.6 Cases of mismatch between syntax and predicate-argument structure II: causative verbs
Another important way in which predicate-argument structure mismatches syntax arises in

languages that have so-called causative verbs. Here, a prefix or suffix appears on the verb
(attached, perhaps, by a word formation rule), and the whole construction takes on a kind of
“biclausal” character, seen in the suggested predicate-argument structure for each sentence.
(166) Causative structures in Turkish
a. Simple sentence with predicate-argument structure
müdür mekteb-u imzala-dı

director letter-ACC sign-PAST
‘The director signed the letter’
SIGN ( (Signer director ), (Signee letter) )
b. Causative sentence based on (a), with predicate-argument structure
dişçi mektub-u müdür-e imzala-t-tı

dentist letter-ACC director-DAT sign-CAUS-PAST
‘The dentist made the director sign the letter’
CAUSE ( (Causer dentist ), (Event SIGN ( (Signer director ) (Signee letter) ) )

Syntactically, there is really just one clause, since there is only one verb present, and it
assigns case to the NP’s in the usual way for a Turkish clause (Accusative for the first object,
Dative for the second). You can see that in the formation of causatives, the number of NP’s
allowed in the clause goes up by one; the additional syntactic slot is needed to express the agent
of causation.
Study Exercise #57
Provide plausible predicate-argument structures for the following two sentences of Turkish:
müdür Hasan-a mektub-u göster-di

director Hasan-DAT LETTER-ACC show-PAST
‘The director showed the letter to Hasan’
dişçi Hasan-a mektub-u müdür tarafından göster-t-ti

dentist Hasan-DAT letter-ACC director by show-CAUS-PST
‘The dentist made the director show the letter to Hasan’
How is this construction similar to the English passive?

First sentence:
SHOW( (Show-er director ), (Shown letter), (Witness Hasan ) )
(or some other reasonable labels for the argument slots)
Second sentence:
CAUSE ( (Causer dentist ), (Event SHOW( (Show-er director ), (Shown letter), (Witness Hasan ) )
The parallel to English that I had in mind was the use of the postposition tarafından, which
means (roughly) ‘by’. In English passives, we provide no simple slot for the agent of the action
(there is no object position, and the subject position is taken up by the recipient of the action), so
an added by-phrase is used to express the subject. In Turkish causatives like the one in this
exercise, the slots provided by Nominative, Accusative, and Dative case are all “used up”, as it
were, so the language opts for the equivalent of the English by-phrase to express the fourth
argument.
_____________________________________________________________________________
2.7 Predicate-argument structure in linguistic theory
There are two possibilities for integrating predicate-argument structure into linguistic theory.
One possibility is to find a set of rules that inputs syntactic trees and derives the predicate-
argument structure from them. Another approach that has been taken is to let the predicate-
argument structure be the starting point of the derivation—embodying the message the speaker
wishes to communicate—and let the grammar find an appropriate tree structure or structures for
communicating this message. We will not pursue this question here.
Study Exercise #58: The predicate-argument structure of As-phrases
The particle as has interesting syntactic and semantic behavior, in which the phrase structure
again mismatches the semantics. Some sample sentences:
1. We consider him as being eccentric.

2. They regard him as praiseworthy.
3. We judge it as unfortunate that he visited Mary.
4. We regard him as appearing to be sick.
We could accommodate as phrases with the following phrase structure rules:
VP V (NP) AsP (S̄) E
NP
AsP  as PP 
VP
E
Furthermore, we must add rules of inflectional morphology that would ensure that the VP that is
part of an as-phrase, the verb is marked to be a present participle (V-ing). Only a few verbs such
as regard and consider subcategorize for as-phrases.
What is interesting semantically is that as-phrases express propositions without including

any S̄. For example, in the first sentence above, we are not doing anything to him; rather, we are
E
holding a belief about him, that is, we are the mental experiencers of a proposition involving
him. This idea could be expressed with the predicate-argument structure below:
CONSIDER ( (Experiencer we ) (Proposition ECCENTRIC ( (Characterized he ) ) )
The proposition is, essentially, “he is eccentric”, without any verb or S̄ encoding this proposition.
E
Assign predicate-argument structures to sentences #1-3 above. Note that the it in #2 is

pleonastic.
1. REGARD ( (Experiencer they ) (Proposition PRAISEWORTHY ( (Characterized he ) ) ) )

2. JUDGE ( (Experiencer we ) (Proposition UNFORTUNATE ( (Proposition VISIT ( (Visitor he ), (Visitee Mary ) ) ) ) ) )
3. REGARD ( (Experiencer we ) (Proposition APPEAR ( (Proposition SICK ( (IllPerson he ) ) ) ) ) )
————————————————————————————————
ANAPHORA
3. Defining anaphora
All languages have pronouns. For example, these are the pronouns of English in their
various forms (this is an amplified version of chart (104) above).
(167) English pronouns (more complete version)
Nominative Objective Genitive

I we me us my our
you you you you your your
he/she/it they him/her/it them his/her/its their
Predicative Genitive118 Reflexive

mine ours myself ourselves
yours yours yourself yourselves
his/hers/— theirs himself/herself/itself themselves119
Pronouns are like nouns, but they get their reference from context—either the linguistic context,
or the situational context of speech. As already noted, the English pronouns are distinguished by
morphosyntactic features of Number, Case, and Person, and in the third person, for gender. Their
meanings are determined entirely by these features.
There are also pro-forms for other parts of speech. The phrases do it and do so are pro-forms
for Verb Phrases:
(168) Do it and do so as VP pro-forms
a. I wanted to [ teach Linguistics 865 ]VP but was too busy with other courses to [ do so ]VP.
b. I had to [ teach Linguistics 497 ]VP because no one else would [ do it ]VP.
118
Used after be, as in It is mine. There is no 3rd pers. singular inanimate form; for example, you
can’t say *That fuel pump is its, referring to a particular car. This is known as a “paradigm gap” and is
widely found in more heavily inflected languages.
119
It would also be sensible to include here the wh- pronouns: Nominative who, objective who
(normative English whom), Genitive whose, Predicative Genitive whose, missing the Reflexive.
Thus is a somewhat archaic proform for Adverb Phrases:
He did it thus.
The term anaphora refers, in linguistics, to the process whereby a pro-form gets its
reference from the meaning of another phrase; thus in:
Bill thinks he’s a genius.
we say that he makes anaphoric reference to Bill; likewise, above do so makes anaphoric
reference to teach Linguistics 865.
4. The Pronominalization Hypothesis and why it fails
A tempting analytical option for pronouns, assuming that we need transformations anyway,
is to suppose that pronouns are the result of applying a “Pronominalization” transformation.
Consider a sentence like
(169) An ambiguous sentence with a pronoun
Alice told Sue that she was a genius.
Here, the pronoun she can refer either to Alice or to Sue. The sentence is therefore ambiguous.
The Pronominalization theory would say that when she means Alice, then the deep structure
would be as in (161):
(170) Possible deep structure I for (160)
Alice told Sue that Alice was a genius.
(you should assume an appropriate tree structure for (161); I have not bothered to put this in).
Analogously, when she means Sue, then the deep structure is as in (162):
(171) Possible deep structure II for (160)
Alice told Sue that Sue was a genius.
According to the Pronominalization Hypothesis, there is a Pronominalization transformation that

converts the second instance of two identical noun phrases into the appropriate pronoun:
(172) Pronominalization (hypothetical rule)
When two NP occur in sequence, replace the second one with a pronoun whose
morphosyntactic representation bears matched values for the features [Number],
[Animacy], and [Gender].
It is easy to see that Pronominalization will convert the two deep structures (161) and (162)
into the same surface structure, namely:
Alice told Sue that she was a genius
Assuming that the meaning of pronouns is determined by consulting their deep structure form,
the Pronominalization Hypothesis therefore succeeds in accounting for the ambiguity of sentence
(160), and indeed for sentences in general that are ambiguous because of pronoun reference.
Although the Pronominalization Hypothesis initially may seem reasonable (and indeed
enjoyed a brief vogue among linguists in the early 1960’s), in fact it suffers from several
problems.
First, there are sentences in which the deep structure that the Pronominalization Hypothesis
provides doesn’t mean what we want it to. If all pronouns are derived from full noun phrases,
then the deep structure of
Everyone thinks he is a genius
would be
Everyone thinks everyone is a genius.
But this deep structure clearly means something quite different from the surface structure. The
problem here evidently lies in the quantifier word everyone; we will return to quantifiers later
on in section 11 of this chapter.
A second problem with the Pronominalization Hypothesis is that there are pronouns that it
can’t derive, because the essential sequence of two identical NPs, as referred to in the
Pronominalization rule (172), is not present. Specifically, there are instances in which one uses a
pronoun in the total absence of any other NP.
The following example was invented by the linguist Howard Lasnik. Imagine a cocktail
party at which a man arrives, a stranger to all, who starts drinking heavily and getting into
heated, unpleasant discussions with all he encounters. After an hour of unpleasantness, he storms
out of the room, slamming the door behind him. At this point one could, without knowing the
man’s name, say:
(173) Well, he’s left.
Indeed, in this particular example it would be fine to say this sentence without even knowing the
name of the man that he refers to. The point is that if some pronouns are interpreted as referring
to a salient person in the context (that is, the pragmatic, real-life context), then we should
consider the possibility that even the she in Alice thinks she’s a genius is similarly interpreted—
Alice is a plausible person for she to refer to, since, after all, we’re talking about her.
A final problem with the Pronominalization Hypothesis is that, curiously enough, it appears
to lead us to infinite deep structures.120 Here is an example:
The girl who deserves it will get the prize she wants.
This sentence contains two pronouns, it and she. According to the Pronominalization Hypothesis,
we can get the deep structure by replacing these pronouns with copies of the full NP’s to which
they refer. Doing this yields:
The girl who deserves [the prize she wants] will get the prize [the girl who deserves it]
wants.
But this sentence also contains pronouns! Thus, to arrive at the true deep structure we will
have to substitute for these as well:
The girl who deserves [the prize [the girl who deserves it] wants] will get the prize [the girl
who deserves [the prize she wants]] wants.
And we are still not done, so:
The girl who deserves [the prize [the girl who deserves [the prize she wants]] wants] will get
the prize [the girl who deserves [the prize [the girl who deserves it] wants]]] wants.
No matter how long we keep going, we are still going to have uninterpreted pronouns in our
representation, so it’s clear that this process is never going to yield an interpreted representation.
The upshot is that deriving pronouns from full-NP deep structures does not seem promising as an
account of their semantics.
5. Interpretive rules for pronouns
Given what we’ve just seen, one might think that the right way to handle the meaning of
pronouns would be just to let them be pronouns; that is, nouns whose meaning is determined by
referring to a salient (highly noticeable) entity in the context (either linguistic context, or real-life
context), which matches the requirements of number (she vs. they), gender (she vs. he), and
animacy (she vs. it). In this approach, interpreting pronouns is relegated largely to the domain of
thought, not language—pretty much every sentence would be interpreted the way we interpret
the sentence Well, he’s left given above.
This is an appealingly simple theory, but it likewise cannot work. Research on the
possibilities of how pronouns refer has shown that there is indeed a heavy linguistic contribution
to their interpretation.
Consider the following very simple sentence:
120
The problem was noticed in the 1960’s by Emmon Bach, of the University of Massachusetts and
Stanley Peters of Stanford, and is sometimes called the Bach-Peters paradox.
John likes him.
Fluent speakers of English will assert pretty firmly that him cannot refer to John, even though
there is no logical reason why it could not. Similar sentences are:
He likes John.
He likes John’s brother.
He thinks John is a genius.
The reason why he cannot refer to John in these sentences turns out, as we’ll see shortly, to
be linguistic; that is, grammatical. Curiously, there seem to be linguistic rules that tell you what
certain pronouns cannot refer to. In what follows, we will work out the basics of these rules, and
find that they depend on syntax.
Our rules will not change the syntactic structure or words of sentences in any way; they
simply specify possible (or impossible) meanings. Thus, they are called interpretive rules.
We have already covered, informally, an interpretive rule for English, the Each Other
Reference rule, rule (24) from Chapter 1. Here, we will cover further rules, with a more
ambitious formalization of them.
6. Formal preliminaries
6.1 Subscripts and coreference
In what follows, we will use a standard notation for designating what pronouns refer to,
namely, subscripting. When I write this:
(174) Billi thinks hei is a genius.
I will mean: the reading of this sentence in which he is understood as referring to Bill. This is
denoted by the use of identical letters as subscripts.
When I write this:
(175) Billi thinks hej is a genius.
the nonidentical subscripts should be taken to mean that he, in this reading, refers to someone
other than Bill.
It will important later on to suppose that the indices are attached to the NP node, not further
down (like the Pronoun or Noun node). Thus the tree for (174) is as follows:
NPi VP
| V S̄E
N | |
| thinks S
Bill
NPi VP
|
Pro V NP
| |
he is Art N
| |
a genius
Terminology: in (174), Bill and he are said to be coreferent, meaning that they refer to the
same thing. In (175), Bill and he are not coreferent. Also, in the first sentence, Bill is taken to be
the antecedent for he, which means that it supplies the information about what he refers to.
6.2 Types of noun phrases
We will also make use of a three-way distinction:
 Reflexive pronouns are members of the set {myself, yourself, ourselves, ...}
 Regular pronouns are members of the set {I, me, you, he, them, ... }
 Full noun phrases are Noun Phrases that are neither reflexive pronouns or regular
pronouns; such as Sue, the president, my brother, etc.
6.3 C-command
Lastly, a technical definition:
(176) Definition: c-command
In a syntactic tree, constituent A c-commands constituent B if the mother of A dominates B.
In other words, A c-commands B if there is a path that
 starts at A
 moves up one node from A to A’s mother node
 travels exclusively downward through the tree and arrives at B.
Thus in the following example:
VP
S̄
E
VP
NP NP NP
| |
N V Comp Pro V Art N
| | | | | |
Bill thinks that he is a genius
the NP Bill c-commands the pronoun he because you can go upward by one from the NP Bill,
arrive at S, then move downward through VP, S̄, S, and thence to the NP he. See dotted arrows.
E
But in the same example, the NP he does not c-command the NP Bill because once you’ve
gone uphill once from he, you can’t get to Bill by going just downhill:
VP
S̄
E
VP
NP NP NP
| |
N V Comp Pro V Art N
| | | | | |
Bill thinks that he is a genius
He does c-command genius, however.
In general, we will speak of c-command only for NP’s. In drawing these little arrows, you
want to start with the NP node, or you’ll have problems…
The term c-command apparently means “constituent-command”. It emerges from a period of

syntactic research that tried out a number of similar definitions, of which c-command appears, at
least for now, to be the simplest and most effective. We’ll see the relevance of c-command to
pronouns shortly.
6.4 Clausemates
Following up on the discussion in Chapter 1, we will also make use of the term clausemates,
defined as follows.
(177) Definition: clausemates
Constituents X and Y are clausemates if every S node that dominates X also dominates Y,
and vice versa.
Clausemates are often said to be in the same clause, which means the same thing.
In the following sentence:
VP
S̄E
VP
NP NP NP NP
| | | |
N V N Comp N V N
| | | | | | |
Bill told Sue that Fred likes Alice
the clausemate pairs are: Bill-Sue, Fred-Alice. Non-clausemates: Bill-Alice, Bill-Fred, Sue-
Alice, Sue-Fred.
A quick informal way to show clausemates is to bracket the sentences into domains of
clausematehood, like this:
VP
S’
VP
NP NP NP NP
| | | |
N V N Comp N V N
| | | | | | |
Bill told Sue that Fred likes Alice
Within brackets, any two NP are clausemates.

Study Exercise #59: C-command and clausemates
Mary assumes that Fred will tell Sam that Alice saw Tom.
Parse the sentence, draw the informal brackets to show the clausemate domains (answer on
next page).
Pairwise:
Mary-Fred: no
Mary-Sam: no
Mary-Alice: no
Mary-Tom: no
Fred-Sam: yes
Fred-Alice: no
Fred-Tom: no
Sam-Alice: no
Sam-Tom: no
Alice-Tom: yes
_____________________________________________________________________
7. An interpretive analysis for reflexive pronouns
For reflexives, we can write the following rule of interpretation:
(178) Reflexive Interpretation
A reflexive pronoun must be coreferent with an NP that

(a) is its clausemate; and
(b) c-commands it.
Here are examples, labeled for how the rule works. As you read these examples, I suggest
you draw the tree, consult the definitions of c-command and clausemate, and check the rule is
working correctly.
*Himself sings.
Here, there’s no NP for himself to be coreferent with, so it receives no interpretation. The

standard assumption, which we will follow, is that a sentence with an uninterpretable pronoun is
ungrammatical.
Next consider:
Maryi congratulated herselfi.
This one is fine; the NP Mary c-commands the NP herself and, since there is just one clause,
the two are clausemates. The correct indexation (note: on the NP’s, not lower down) is shown in
the tree above.
Next consider:
*[Maryi’s brother] congratulated herselfi.

Here, Mary is a clausemate of herself, but doesn’t c-command it—the mother of Mary is the
higher NP Mary’s brother; so Mary is not “high enough” in the tree to c-command herself.
Next consider:
*[Mary's brother]i congratulated herselfi.
Same tree, but different indices. Here, the NP Mary’s brother does c-command the NP
herself, and is a clausemate. The problem here is not with Reflexive Interpretation, but rather
with the morphosyntactic representation: brothers are always male, and herself is
[Gender:feminine]), so the sentence is still ungrammatical. Let us record this feature-matching
principle for future reference:
(179) Feature-matching in pronouns
A pronoun must bear a morphosyntactic representation that matches its referent in the
features [Gender], [Number], and [Person].
Now consider:
(180) [Mary’s brother]i congratulated himselfi.
This one matches all requirements (gender match, c-command, clausemate condition), and is
fine.
The next case to consider is:
(181) Maryi said that Tom congratulated herselfi.
Bad: Mary is not the clausemate of herself (herself is in the lower S, Mary is not).
We can try a different indexation for the same sentence:

(182) Mary said that Tomi congratulated herselfi.
Bad: Tom is a c-command clausemate but because it is a name for males there is a featural
mismatch with the pronoun, following (167).
Study Exercise #60

The fact that Maryi lost the race surprised herselfi.
This one is bad; you give the explanation. Answer on next page.
This one is bad because Mary doesn’t c-command herself. Specifically, the mother of Mary
is Mary lost the race, which doesn’t dominate herself.
————————————————————————————————————
7.1 Each other
The phrase each other is a reciprocal pronoun, not a reflexive, but it works essentially like a
reflexive and is normally analyzed using the same sort of rule. Thus:
[ John and Mary ]i like [each other]i. Ok.

*[ Each other ]i like [ John and Mary ]i. Bad: c-command condition violated
*[ John and Mary ]i think I like [each other] i. Bad: clausemate condition violated
For further relevant data see Chapter 1.
8. An interpretive analysis for regular pronouns
The regular pronouns (like she, him, us, our, etc.) are used quite differently from reflexives.
For one thing, they can be used without any linguistic Noun Phrase to refer to at all—as in the
the “Well, he’s left” example given earlier in (173) above.
The key to these pronouns, in the view of many linguists, is that you specify not what they
can refer to, but rather what they cannot refer to. Here is a version of the rule commonly
proposed:
(183) Regular Pronoun Interpretation121

A regular pronoun cannot be coreferent with a c-commanding clausemate.
Some examples follow.
8.1 Pronouns alone
Hei left.
This is fine: there is no NP in the sentence that he is required to be non-coreferent with, and
the sentence is freely usable whenever there’s an obvious enough male entity available for he to
refer to. This could be someone mentioned in a previous sentence, or someone noticed in the
physical surroundings, as discussed earlier for sentence (173).
8.2 No c-command, coreference ok
[Maryi's brother] congratulated heri.
This is fine, because Mary doesn’t c-command her.
8.3 No coreference — always ok
[Maryi’s brother] congratulated herj.
121
In the linguistics literature this rule is often called “Principle B.”
The subscript j means that the her refers to a female person other than Mary. This is fine,
too—Regular Pronoun Interpretation doesn’t actually require that pronouns be coreferent with
any other NP in the sentence. Thus, this sentence could appear in a context like this:
Alice sang incredibly well, enough to convince her sternest critics. In fact, even Mary’s
brother congratulated her.
I think it’s pretty clear that in this sentence it would be possible for her to refer to Alice.
8.4 C-commanding clausemate: coreference impossible
VP
NPi NPi
| |
N V Pro
| | |
*Alice congratulated her.
This one is no good: Alice is the clausemate of her, and also c-commands her, so it can’t be
coreferent. However, with distinct reference, the following reading is ok:
Alicei congratulated herj.

8.5 C-command but not clausemate: coreference ok
VP
S’
VP
NPi NP NPi
| | |
N V Comp N V Pro
| | | | | |
Mary said that Tom congratulated her.
This one is fine: Mary does c-command her, but it is not the clausemate of her, so
Regular Pronoun Interpretation doesn’t rule out this reading.
8.6 C-command but not clausemate: non-coreference ok
Maryi said that Tom congratulated herj.
This is likewise fine, herj refers to some female person mentioned earlier or physically present.
8.7 No c-command, not clausemate: coreference ok
The fact that Maryi lost the race surprised heri.
Ok, Mary is neither a clausemate of her, nor does her c-command Mary, so the coreference
is allowed.
8.8 Backwards coreference
An intriguing prediction of the analysis is that you could, in principle, get sentences in
which the pronoun actually comes before the full NP with which it is coreferent. These do in fact
arise, though because of additional factors they won’t be found in all places you would expect
them. Here is an example:
The fact that shei lost the race surprised Maryi.
This sounds best only under particular conditions of emphasis and intonation. In particular,
you can’t utter Mary with a full phrasal stress, as if the name were being introduced to the
conversation for the first time—if Mary were new information, you wouldn’t have been referring
to her with a pronoun! The sentence sounds ok if you say:
The fact that shei lost the race SURPRISED Maryi.
Of course, since Regular Pronoun Interpretation only forbids coreference, the following
reading is also acceptable:
The fact that shej lost the race surprised Maryi.
9. An interpretive analysis for full noun phrases
One wouldn’t think that there need to be any rules for the meaning of full noun phrases, but
these are in fact needed. Consider a sentence like:
*Hei thinks Billi is a genius.
The coreference shown is impossible, even though nothing we’ve said so far rules it out. The
rule commonly used is this one:
(184) Full Noun Phrase Interpretation122

A full noun phrase cannot be coreferent with a c-commanding Noun Phrase.
This rules out *Hei thinks that Billi is a genius because he c-commands Bill and Bill is a full
NP.
VP
S’
VP
NPi NPi NP
| |
Pro V Comp N V Art N
| | | | | | |
He thinks that Bill is a genius
Indeed, the same rule predicts that in
Bill thinks that Bill is a genius.

Bill saw Bill.
we must interpret the two Bill’s as being different people; that is, these sentences must be
interpreted:
Billi thinks Billj is a genius.

Billi saw Billj.
If neither copy of Bill c-commands the other, then coreference becomes more or less ok:
[ well, at least ] Billi’s mother likes Billi.
122
In the linguistics literature this rule is often called “Principle C.”
Study Exercise #61: in the following, why can the two Bill’s be the same person?
The idea that Bill might have the lowest score bothers Bill.
This is ok because neither instance of Bill c-commands the other. The mother of the first Bill
is S, which doesn’t dominate the second Bill; and the mother of the second Bill is VP, which
doesn’t dominate the first Bill.
________________________________________________________________________
10. Summary
We’ve now done a particular corner of English semantics, setting out rules of semantic
interpretation for anaphoric elements. Dividing all NP’s into the categories of Reflexive
Pronouns (with their close relative Reciprocal Pronouns), Regular Pronouns, and Full NP’s, we
developed three rules, one of which requires coreference in certain contexts, the other two of
which forbid it:
Reflexive Interpretation (178)
A reflexive pronoun must be coreferent with an NP that (a) is its clausemate; and (b) c-
commands it.
Regular Pronoun Interpretation (183)
A regular pronoun cannot be coreferent with a c-commanding clausemate.

Full Noun Phrase Interpretation (184)
A full noun phrase cannot be coreferent with a c-commanding Noun Phrase.
OPERATORS AND SCOPE
11. Operators and scope in formal logic
The idea of operators and scope was incorporated into linguistics from the field of symbolic
logic, a branch of philosophy.123 Logicians express (certain aspects of) meaning with formulas
like the following.
For all x
P is true of x
x(P(x))
The meaning of the formula is, “for all x, P is true of x”. If we were applying this formula to a
real-life situation, we might image a universe that consists of the students in Linguistics 20, and
P represents “has the flu”. The formula could then be interpreted as “Every student in Linguistics
20 has the flu.” In the formula, x is an operator, x is a variable, and P is a predicate (just like
we saw with predicate-argument structure).
To see the concept of scope, let us compare two formulae that are more complex. Here is the
first one.
I. For all x
P is true of x
implies that
Q is true
x(P(x))  Q
Pursuing our real-life interpretation, we might suppose that Q means “the professor postpones
the exam”. The symbol  means “if … then”. The interpretation would then be “If every one of
the students in Linguistics 20 has the flu, then the professor will postpone the exam.”
Now consider a similar formula, with a different location for the right parenthesis.
123
At UCLA you can study the basics of this field in Philosophy 31; indeed almost every university
has an introductory logic course.
II. For all x

P is true of x
implies that
Q is true
x(P(x)  Q)
With the parenthesis relocated, “for all” now covers the entire rest of the formula, rather
than just P(x). Thus, in the real-life interpretation of the formula, this would be “For every
student, if that student has the flu, then the professor will postpone the exam.” — in other words,
the professor will postpone the exam even if there is just one case of the flu in the class.
One can speak here of an operator having scope. In the first formula, the scope of the
operator x is just P(x) (informally, “x has the flu”) whereas in the second formula the scope of
the operator x is P(x)  Q (informally, “if x has the flu, the professor will postpone the exam”).
The operator x is of a particular kind, called a quantifier. It means “all” (symbol: inverted
A). The other quantifier most often used in elementary logic is x, which means “at least one x”
(inverted E, “exists”).
In logic, these concepts are employed in the study of the principles of valid reasoning. For
example, the formula ~x(P(x))  y(~P(y)) (which means “If it’s not so that P is true of all x,
then there must be a y of which P is not true”) represents a case of valid reasoning. It is true
irrespective of how we interpret the elements it contains. Over the centuries, logicians have
provided mathematical proofs for a vast number of such formulae, thus providing a more solid
basis for reasoning.
12. Operators and scope in language: some examples
In linguistics, the focus is less on proofs of validity, and more on using logic to provide a
precise and interpretable characterization of meaning. In fact, linguistic meaning is much richer
than what can be expressed with the logic taught in beginning courses, and finding a rich enough
formal system to characterize human language continues to be a research challenge for logicians
and linguists alike.
We can start by seeing that the logical notions of quantifier, scope, and variable are
expressed fairly directly in English (or indeed in any other language). Here is an example:
Every boy sang.
Here, we have the following:
Every boy a kind of (restricted) universal quantifier (x, x a boy)

x sang a predicate
Putting these together, we get something like:
(x, x a boy) (x sang)
If you want to read this aloud, you might say “For all x, such that x is a boy, x sang.”
Generally, linguists, just like logicians, put operators at the left of the domain over which
they have scope; this is a matter of convenience and is an arbitrary convention. So, for instance, a
sentence like:
Jane taught every student.
would be expressed as:
(x, x a student) (Jane taught x)
In principle, we could integrate such expressions with the predicate-argument structure

developed earlier in this chapter. Under this approach, the meaning would appear like this:
(x, x a student) (TEACH ( (Teacher Jane ) (Teachee x) )
For brevity (and to avoid unwanted complications), in what follows I will skip this step and
simply place the quantifiers and variables into ordinary syntactic structure.
12.1 Pronouns as variables
So far, we have treated pronouns as NP’s that refer to things. When a pronoun is coindexed
with another NP, (Billi thinks hei is tall.) it is meant to refer to the some real-world thing as that
NP. When a pronoun has its own distinct index (Well, hei left), it is meant to refer to some real-
world thing assumed to be identifiable by the real-world context.
However, not all pronouns refer to things. The other use of pronouns is as the linguistic
manifestation of logical variables. This can happen when there is a logical operator, such as a
quantifier, elsewhere in the sentence. Consider the following sentence.
Every boy thinks that he is smarter than average.
There is a boring reading:
[ Every boy ]i thinks that [ he ]j is smarter than average.
where he is someone else, like, say, Fred. We focus here on the interesting reading:
[ Every boy ]i thinks that [ he ]i is smarter than average.

This sentence would hold true in a world in which Fred thinks Fred is smarter than average, Bill
thinks Bill is smarter than average, and so on. In this reading, the pronoun he does not refer to
anyone. The more sensible interpretation is that he act as a logical variable, and indeed we have
two instances of the same variables under the scope of a single quantifier.
Every boy is the quantifier (x, x a boy)

he is a bound variable (x)
x thinks x is smarter than average is a complex predicate, with two variables
Putting these together, we get the following structure:
(x, x a boy) (x thinks x is smarter than average)
In sum, the pronoun he is not referential but rather is the linguistic means for expressing the
second instance of the variable. (The first variable simply occurs in the syntactic location of the
NP containing the quantifier; see rules below for how this can be derived).
Let us return briefly to the “boring” reading: the pronoun he does not have to act as a bound
variable, but can also be an ordinary pronoun, which can refer to some male person who happens
to be under discussion. Thus, the boring reading could be represented as follows:
(x, x a boy) (x thinks hei is smarter than average)
where hei is a pronoun referring to someone in the environment, in the ordinary way.
Some terminology: we say that in the first reading, he acts as a variable that is bound by the
quantifier. In sum, the pronouns of a language play at least two roles: they either simply refer to
other entities, or they act as bound variables.
What is the mechanism whereby pronouns get interpreted as bound variables? As a rough
approximation, we can make use of the discussion of pronoun reference from earlier in this
chapter. There, we studied rules that assign indices to pronouns and their antecedents, to express
ordinary coreference and non-coreference. The extension of this idea in the present context is
this: if a pronoun gets coindexed with a quantified NP, then the relationship is then semantically
interpreted not as coreference, but as an operator-variable relationship. Thus, for instance, the
rules of anaphoric interpretation permits the following coindexation for the NP’s in the sentence
we are working with (he is not the clausemate of every boy, so Regular Pronoun Interpretation
((171)) is satisfied; and he does not c-command every boy, so Full Noun Phrase Interpretation
((172)) is satisfied).
VP
S̄
E
VP
AP
PP
NPi NPi NP
| |
Art N V Comp Pro V A P N
| | | | | | | | |
Every boy thinks that he is smarter than average.124
Because every boy is a quantified NP, this must be further translated to
More specifically, when a quantified NP is logically interpreted as an operator-variable

combination, any pronouns coindexed with it must be assigned the same variable. The following
match-up illustrates this:
[ Every boy ]i thinks that [ he ]i is smarter than average.
13. Logical form
It is time now to integrate the discussion into a general approach to semantics. Note that the
following is just one (well represented) viewpoint among many.
124
This tree is not compliant with our phrase structure rules. The additional rule needed is pretty
straightforward: AP  A (PP). All comparative adjectives (“X-er”) can take a PP with than.
The code idea is that the rules of the semantics create from syntactic representation125 a
separate representation of the sentence’s meaning (or, in cases of ambiguity, more than one
representation). Such a semantic representation is often called the logical form of a sentence.
Logical form is meant to be specifically linguistic in character; it only represents the contribution
of language to meaning and is certainly not the “language of thought”, if such a thing exists —
our thoughts involve all sorts of non-linguistic inferences and associations, in addition to
language.
Here are some of the steps that would be needed to construct a logical form from a syntactic
structure. As some (probably early) stage we would establish the possible references of pronouns
and reflexives through the assignment of indices, using the rules of Reflexive Interpretation,
Regular Pronoun Interpretation, and Full Noun Phrase Interpretation, given earlier in this
chapter. Another step would be to convert quantified NP’s into operator-variable pairs, to
indicate scope, as described in the previous section; at this stage coindexed pronouns must be
converted to variables under the scope of the same quantifier. Yet another step would be to
establish precisely “who is doing what to whom” by replacing the syntactic tree with an
appropriate predicate-argument structure.
Here are a couple of examples of how all this might work. In
Every boy thinks he is smart
the rule of Regular Pronoun Interpretation would (as one of its options) coindex every boy and
he, thus:
[ Every boy ]i thinks [ he ]i is smart
Next, the quantified NP every boy would be converted to an operator-variable combination.

Since he is coindexed with every boy, it is a assigned the same variable x:
(x, x a boy) ( x thinks x is smart )
Then the whole expression could be converted to a predicate-argument structure, yielding a

logical form:
(x, x a boy)((THINK((Thinker x), (Proposition SMART((Assessee x)))))
For the sentence Mary seems to like every boy, the same processes would yield:
SEEM (Proposition (x, x a boy)( LIKE ( (Liker Mary ) (Lik-ee x ) ) ) ) )
125
Most likely, from surface structure. The traces left by movement rules generally make it possible
to cover the effects of deep structure on meaning; they serve as a “memory” for the location of phrases at
the deep structure level.
This is, of course, only an outline scheme. In the pages below, I’ll discuss briefly the rules
for converting quantified NP’s into operator-variable pairs, which will flesh out the scheme a bit.
However, we will henceforth skip the step of creating predicate-argument structure from syntax.
14. Sentences with two operators
The strongest justification for the type of analysis to follow comes from sentences that have
two logical operators. In such sentences, the two operators often interact with each other,
yielding different meanings. For example, speaking of an archery tournament, we could say
sentence (185)the following:
(185) A sentence ambiguous because of two interacting quantifiers
Two arrows hit every target.
This sentence is ambiguous, in the following way. Suppose that the archers present are so
impoverished that between them they could bring a total of only five arrows to the tournament.
Thus, each arrow has to be used repeatedly. Suppose further that the archers used a total of five
targets. Here is one reading: two of the arrows (perhaps the straightest ones) were used so
successfully that during the course of the tournament they penetrated every one of the five
targets.
(186) “Two arrows hit every target”: Scenario I
In the other reading, we would find that inspecting the targets at the end of the tournament,
each has at least two holes in it.126
126
I’m saying “at least” because this seems to be the default interpretation of numerals like two; we could get
a different interpretation by saying exactly two.
(187) “Two arrows hit every target”: Scenario II
A nice challenge to one’s abilities to write very clear English is the task of expressing, in a
single sentence, just one of the two meanings of a a double-quantifier sentence. For example, the
two readings of Two arrows hit every target can be summarized as follows:
(188) ‘There were two arrows such that they hit every target.’
True of Scenario I; diagram (186)
(189) ‘For every target, it is the case that two arrows hit it.’
True of Scenario II; diagram (187)
Two common phrases that can often help in producing an unambiguous paraphrase are such
that and it is the case that — both of them have the effect of canceling out an unwanted scope
reading, so the paraphrase becomes unambiguous. Paraphrase (188) above uses such that, and
paraphrase (189) uses it is the case that.
The ambiguity we have just seen is within the capacity of the system we are developing. To
handle it, we use two operators. The word every is a real-language version of the universal
quantifier x. Two is not an operator that is normally taught in introductory logic, but I think it is
intuitively clear that it is an operator of some kind. Thus, by putting the operators in the right
structural locations, we can characterize the ambiguity.
(190) Representing the two scopes for “Two arrows hit every target”
a. Scenario I
( For two x, x an arrow ) ( ( for every y, y a target ) ( x hit y ) ) )

‘There were two arrows such that they hit every target.’
b. Scenario II
( For every y, y a target ) ( ( for two x, x an arrow ) ( x hit y ) ) )

‘For every target, it is the case that two arrows hit it.’
This is an example of a scope ambiguity. In (190)a, the scope of the operator ( For two x, x an
arrow ) is ( ( for every y, y a target ) ( x hit y ) ). In (190)b, the scope of the operator ( For every
y, y a target ) is ( ( for two x, x an arrow ) ( x hit y ) ).
Another way of saying that same thing is that in (190)a, ( For two x, x an arrow ) takes
scope over ( for every y, y a target ), because ( for every y, y a target ) is inside the scope of ( For
two x, x an arrow ). In (190)b, ( for every y, y a target ) takes scope over ( For two x, x an arrow ).
14.1 The local “universe of discourse”
As you can see above, in language operators often consist of two parts, one the quantifying
expression itself (two, every), and the other an expression of the set of entities (arrows, targets)
being quantified over. The latter set is grounded in the local “universe of discourse”—when I say
every target, I mean, “every target in the set of targets relevant to the conversation we are
having”; hence, in the present context, every target that was present at the archery tournament.
Clearly, speakers interpret quantifiers making use of their real-world knowledge, which permits
them to infer the set of relevant targets (or whatever) from the context.
15. Operator scope in multiclause sentences
Operators can have scope not just over other operators, but over particular clauses in a
sentence that has more than one clause. These cases are of special interest for us because they
can be used to show the close relationship of operator scope with syntactic structure.
Here is an example. The sentence at hand is:
(191) Sue shouted [ for us to give water to each runner ]
We need briefly to cover the syntax here. In one commonly-used analysis, for us to give water to
each runner is an S̄, for is a Comp, us is the NP subject of for us to give water to each runner
E
and to is a particular sort of Aux used only in verbal infinitives. Shout is a verb that
subcategorizes for this particular kind of S̄ (often called an “infinitival clause”, since to give is
E
the infinitive form of give) Here is the proposed parse:
Now, let us consider the meanings at hand. The easy reading here, which I will call Narrow
Scope, is the one where Sue shouts just once, at the beginning of a marathon,
Hey! Give water to each runner!
In this reading, the scope of each is the embedded clause that reports what Sue shouted. Here is a
possible logical structure for this reading:
(192) Narrow scope reading of “Sue shouted for us to give water to each runner”
Sue shouted ( ( for each x, x a runner ) ( for us to give water to x ) )
For the other reading, imagine it’s a bit late in the day in a marathon, and the stragglers are
coming by the water station at Mile 23, spaced about two minutes apart. Whenever this happens,
Sue shouts:
(Happens many times:) Hey! Give water to that runner!
Call this the Wide Scope reading. It could be represented like this:
(193) Wide scope reading of “Sue shouted for us to give water to each runner”
( For each x, x a runner ) (Sue shouted ( for us to give water to x ) )

In other words, for each passing runner, there was a “shouting event”, in which Sue directed the
workers to give that runner some water.
Here is an effort to provide single-sentence paraphrases of the two readings.
Narrow-scope reading:
The message expressed by Sue’s shouting was such that for each runner, we should give
water to that person.
Wide-scope reading:
For each runner, Sue emitted a shout to the effect that we should give water to that runner.
The general point of this example is that we can have a sentence that has just one variable,
but is ambiguous. This is because the sentence has two clauses, and thus two locations for the
operator to go.
Study Exercise #62
Provide paraphrases for both the wide and narrow -scope readings of these sentences, which
are ambiguous in the same way as (191). Also, provide logical notation similar to the ones just
given.
a. I signed an order for each soldier to be given a medal.

b. I announced that progress has been made on every front.
a. Wide scope: “For each soldier, I signed an order that that solder be given a medal.”
Narrow scope: “I signed an order, whose content was that each soldier should be given a
medal.”
b. Wide scope: “For every front, I announced that progress was being made on that front.”
Narrow scope: “I made announcement, whose content was the progress was being made
on every front.”
————————————————————————————————————
16. Creating operator-variable pairs from quantifiers in logical form
We can now consider what is needed to derive the logical form of quantified sentences. We
know, up front, that the rules need to have some flexibility, because of sentences like (191) Sue
shouted for us to give water to each runner, where a single syntactic structure yields two
different interpretations for quantification.
We first need a rule that translates quantified NP’s into operators.
(194) Quantifier Translation
Replace
[ every N ]NP with [ for every x, x an N]NP
[ some N ]NP with [ for some x, x an N]NP
…
and similarly for other quantified expressions. If the variable x is already in use, use y
instead; etc.
The other rule we need is more dramatic: it lets us pick the clause over which the operator will
have scope, moves it there, and creates a variable in the location that the moved NP left behind.
(195) Quantifier Raising
Left-adjoin a quantified NP to S, leaving behind a variable in its original location.
This rule has an undefined term in it, adjunction¸ which is defined as follows:
(196) Left-Adjunction
Given a constituent A, containing a B, and (optionally) C, the mother of A:

Form a new constituent, which is:
 has the same node label as A
 has as its daughter nodes a copy of B, followed by A
 if A was the daughter of C, the new constituent becomes the daughter of C
Here are two simple cases of left adjunction.
left adjoin B (A is not the

to A daughter of any
 node)
left adjoin B (A is daughter

to A of C)

The purpose of left adjunction here is simply to provide a slot in which the logical operator can
reside.
17. Deriving distinct meanings with Quantifier Raising
Let us return to (191) Sue shouted for us to give water to each runner, whose surface
structure is repeated below.
First applying Quantifier Translation to each runner, we get the following. A triangle is used
to avoid worrying about the inner details of the quantifiers.
Next, we note that the clue to the multiple meanings is that the sentence has two clauses,
hence two S nodes that the Quantifier Raising can adjoin each runner to. If we pick the lower S,
adjunction will look like this:
Adjoin here
Expression
to be moved
Inserting the new S node, and rearranging the tree in the way required, we get the following:
New copy
(adjunction)
Old copy
moved quantifier variable

inserted by
Quantifier
Raising
Note the variable: it is the logical place marker formerly occupied by each runner, and it is
bound (shown by the shared index x) by the raised operator each runner. This yields a logical
form for one of the meanings, that is, a single act of shouting, telling us to attend to all of the
runners. This is the Narrow-scope reading given above.
If we pick the upper clause, we will end up deriving the Wide-scope reading. The output of
adjunction will look like this:
Adjoin to this node
Quantifier
to be adjoined
Study Exercise #63

Show the final output of the derivation.
This is the Wide-scope reading.

————————————————————————————————————
18. Logical form in sentences with two quantifiers
Let us now return to the topic of section 14 of this chapter, namely sentences that include
two quantifiers. Suppose we start with a simplified version of our arrow-target sentence:
Many arrows hit every target.
This sentence is ambiguous, and could mean either “Many were the arrows that hit every target”;
or “For every target, many arrows hit it.”
The syntactic surface structure (as well as deep structure) would be as shown below; many
and every are both Articles syntactically.
We first translate the NP with quantifiers into appropriate operators, with the rule of Quantifier
Translation (173). Note that it is crucial to use different variables (here, x and y) for the different
noun phrases (it’s with bound pronouns that we use the same variable).
Although the order in which we perform the operations turns out not to matter here, we can
arbitrarily chose first to left-adjoin many x, x an arrow to the sentence, as follows:
The result has a new S node, copying the original one, and the moved quantifier is the sister of
the original S:
In the next step, we need to apply the same rule of Quantifier Raising again, this time to the
quantified expression every y, y a target, which likewise is a quantified NP. Assuming (again
arbitrarily) that it left-adjoins to the highest available S node, the application would look like
this:
Here is the result:
Note that a second variable, y, now appears in the clause. This is the reading we wanted: “For
every target, many were the arrows that hit it”. In this reading, every has scope over many, and
this can be seen directly in the structure of the logical form.
Study Exercise #64

Derive the other reading.
Syntactic structure:
Output of Quantifier Translation. I also show an arrow that indicates the application of
Quantifier Raising to the quantified expression every y, y a target.
The structure that results is given below.
Next, we apply Quantifier Raising to many x, x arrows. This is shown with the arrow below:
The final structure that results is shown below:
As the diagram shows, in this reading Many has scope over every.
————————————————————————————————————
19. Wh-phrases are operators
Chapter 5, section 6 of this text discussed the fact that Wh- questions can differ in the scope
of the Wh- phrase, giving the following example:
[ What song ] can Sue imagine that Bill sang ___?

Sue can imagine [ what song ] Bill sang ___
We can now express this idea more precisely by giving these sentences logical forms similar
to the quantifier sentences above. The key idea is that wh- phrases are logical operators, which
are requests for the listener to fill in the missing information that the variable stands for. Thus we
might have the following two logical forms:
a. Wide scope of what song
b. Narrow scope of what song
You can see that the syntactic transformation of Wh- Movement is a kind of observable,
syntactic analogue of Quantifier Raising, and has the function of placing the wh- phrase where it
bears its logical scope.
In languages where Wh- phrases syntactically remain in situ, things will work differently.
Here, Quantifier Raising must apply to wh- phrases, so that their scope will be correctly
expressed in logical form. Here is an example from Mandarin Chinese, an in-situ language:
(197) A sentence of Mandarin with ambiguous scope
a. IPA transcription
[S tʂáŋsán tsái [S lìsɯ̂ ɕìhwán ʂěi ]

Zhangsan guess Lisi like who
b. Pinyin Romanization with integers for tone number
1 1 1 3 4 3 1 2
Zhangsan cai Li si xi-huan shui
This sentence is ambiguous. It can mean “Who does Zhangsan guess that Lisi likes?” This
meaning involves raising the Wh- phrase to adjoin to the highest S in logical form, a wide-scope
reading. The sentence can also mean “Zhangsan guessed who Lisi likes”, a narrow-scope
reading. This meaning involves raising the Wh- phrase only to the lower S in logical form.127
Here are derivations demonstrating the two meanings.128
a. Surface syntactic structure
127
Thanks to UCLA graduate students Kristine Yu and Grace Kuo for constructing this example for
me.
128
Mandarin apparently has no complementizers for embedded clauses, so I am omitting the S-bar node.
b. Quantifier translation of wh-phrase
c. Quantifier Raising to lower S (narrow-scope reading): d. OR Quantifier Raising to higher S (broad-scope

reading):
20. Summary of operators, variables, and scope
 Constructions with operators and variables are among the most intricate of semantic
phenomena. A basic analysis of them is possible using the rules of Quantifier Translation
and Quantifier Raising. These rules apply during the creation of logical form, a
hypothesized linguistic level that explicitly characterize linguistic aspects of meaning.
 Scope differences can be of various kinds: a single operator can be raised to different
levels (as in Sue shouted for us to give water to each runner), or there can be two
operators that vary in their scope relative to each other (as in At least two arrows hit
every target.).
 Pronouns coindexed with quantifier NP’s often turn into additional variables in logical
form (as in Every boy thinks that he is smarter than average)
 The constructions created in logical form by Quantifier Raising are abstract and not
directly observable. Yet they are mimicked by observable constructions in language:
Wh- phrases are a sort of quantifier, which in languages like English really does move to
the appropriate scope location in surface structure.
Chapter 10: Phonetics

1. Phonetic description
The first task of a linguist trying to study a new language is to be able to hear its sounds
correctly and take down utterances in accurate and reliable fashion. It’s a familiar experience for
everyone to have heard a foreign language as a babbling stream of sound—it seems to go by very
fast, and is hard to imitate and remember. Often, a language will include crucial distinctions
between sounds that escape the linguist entirely in the period of initial efforts.
Therefore, it’s a fundamental skill of linguists to be able to listen to other languages with a
trained ear and to take down what is said accurately in a phonetic transcription. Transcription is
taught to beginning linguists all over the world.129
Here is an example of phonetic transcription:
[ˈðɪs ɪz ə fəˈnɛɾɪk tɹænˈskrɪpʃən əv ən ˈɪŋglɪʃ ˈsɛntn̩s pɹəˈnaʊnst ɪn maɪ ˈoʊn ˈdaɪəlɛkt]

(This is a phonetic transcription of an English sentence pronounced in my own dialect.)
2. The International Phonetic Alphabet
The standard form of phonetic transcription is the International Phonetic Alphabet, a large
symbol set promulgated by a scholarly society called the International Phonetic Association.
Both the alphabet and the association may be abbreviated “IPA”. The IPA is the form of
transcription that will be covered in this text. The Association offers much information, either
free or inexpensive, on its Alphabet and how to use it:
 Their printed guide, Handbook of the International Phonetic Association : A Guide to the
Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet (Cambridge University Press, and probably,
your university library)
 The IPA website: https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/
 The IPA phonetic chart, which, despite the continuing discovery of new sounds, still fits
on just one page. Below, I’ve split it up for greater legibility.
129
At UCLA we offer both Linguistics 102 and Linguistics 103 for this purpose.
(198) The IPA chart

It would not be reasonable to teach the entire IPA chart in an introductory linguistics course,
but I’ve included it to show what is needed to cover (most of) the world’s languages.130 Given
the very brief time available, the only language that we will cover will be American English.
This is actually a rather complex language phonetically, and once you have it down, it makes
transcribing the others easier.
3. Vowel and consonant charts for English
The following are charts, based on the IPA chart, giving just the vowels and consonants of
English. Below each symbol is a keyword of English meant to identify and illustrate the sound.
130
The IPA is revised and improved from time to time, but still needs work. For instance, it still
lacks symbols for the sounds commonly Romanized as pp, tt, and kk in Korean.
(199) IPA symbols for the sounds of English
a. Consonants
Bilabial Labio- Dental Alveolar Palato- Palatal Velar Glottal

dental alveolar
Stops voiceless /p/ /t/ /k/
pin tin kin
voiced /b/ /d/ /g/
bin din gill
Affricates voiceless /tʃ/
chin
voiced /dʒ/
gin
Fricatives voiceless /f/ /θ/ /s/ /ʃ/ /h/
fin thin sin shin hymn
voiced /v/ /ð/ /z/ /ʒ/
vim this zip vision
Nasals /m/ /n/ /ŋ/
mitt nip sing
Approxi- lateral /l/
mants Lynn
central /w/ /ɹ/ /j/
win rim ying
b. Vowels and diphthongs
Front Central Back Diphthongs

Unrounded Unrounded Unrounded Rounded
Upper high /i/ /u/ /aɪ/, /aʊ/, /ɔɪ/
beat boot bite, bout, Coit
Lower high /ɪ/ /ʊ/
bit foot
Upper mid /eɪ/ /ə/ /oʊ/ Rhotacized upper
mid central
bait abbot boat unrounded
Lower mid /ɛ/ /ʌ/ /ɚ/
bet but Bert
Low /æ/ /ɑ/
bat father
If you want to hear these words pronounced visit

http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/103/charts/english/chartsforEnglishbroadtranscription.htm
Here is a quick identification of the sounds; later, we will go into phonetic theory and
discuss the way the sounds are produced in the human vocal tract.
Most consonant symbols have their expected values (that is, expected on the basis of English
spelling), with the following exceptions:
(200) Key for English consonants in IPA
 [ʃ] is the “sh” sound, heard in she.

 [ʒ] is the “zh” sound, heard in the middle of vision.
 [tʃ] is the “ch” sound, heard at the beginning and end of church. If you listen carefully,
you’ll hear that the choice of “t” + “ʃ” is a sensible one here.131
 [dʒ] is the “j” sound, heard at the beginning and end of judge. It, too, is
“compositional”, made up of [d] plus [ʒ]
 [ŋ] is the “ng” sound, heard at the end of sing.
 [ɹ] is the “r” sound of English. (We can’t use [r], because in IPA [r] is a tongue-tip
trill.)
 [j] is the “y” sound (the IPA symbol is based on how the “y” sound is spelled in
German, Dutch, Polish, and many other languages)
Vowels only seldom match their English spelling (which is quite variable in any event), and
indeed there some potentially confusing cases: letter i in English often spells what in IPA is [aɪ]
([baɪt] bite), whereas the IPA sound [i] represents a sound fairly close to what English often
spells as ee (as in [bi] bee). Similarly, IPA [u] is what English often spells as oo ([mun] moon),
whereas letter u is often [ju] in IPA ([mjut] mute). If you have studied a foreign language that
uses Roman spelling, it is likely to be a better match to IPA.132
In addition, the Roman alphabet has very few vowel letters, so novel symbols needed to be
used for the IPA. The ones used for English are given below.
131
Though in close detail, you can notice that the [tʃ] in gray chip is not really the same as the [t] +
[ʃ] in great ship. If you want to show that a single sound is meant, you can link up the [t] and the [ʃ] with a
ligature: [t͡ʃ].
132
How did this come to be? The original phonetic values of the Roman letters come from Latin, and most
European languages preserve, roughly, these old phonetic values. English underwent massive phonetic changes in
the decades around 1500 that greatly altered the phonetic values of its letters. When the IPA was set up in the late
19th century, the founders (who were mostly British, French, and German) opted for the “consensus” values found
in most European languages.
(201) Non-Roman symbols for English vowels in IPA
 [ɪ] is easy for native speakers but can be very hard for second language speakers; it is
close to [i] but not as long, and with the tongue pressing less firmly against the roof of the
mouth. Try listening to pairs such as peat, pit ([ˈpit, ˈpɪt]).
 [ʊ] is to [u] as [ɪ] is to [i]. Try listening to pairs such as cook, kook [ˈkʊk, ˈkuk].
 [ʌ] is similar to [ə] (“schwa”) but is longer with a lower jaw position. In addition, [ʌ]
mostly occurs in stressed syllables; [ə] is always in a stressless syllable (in English).
Listen to mundane vs. contain [mʌnˈdeɪn kənˈteɪn]
 [ɚ] (“rhotacized schwa” is much like [ɹ], only it acts as a vowel rather than consonant.
Compare furry [ˈfɚi] with free [ˈfɹi]
The remaining vowels are diphthongs, which means a vowel that changes during its time
course. IPA transcribes diphthongs by providing two symbols; one for the start, the other for the
end. Try pronouncing these diphthongs very slowly, and hearing the starting or ending points—is
your [aɪ] like Spanish [a] plus English [ɪ]?133 Depending on your dialect, you may also be able to
hear the diphthongal character of [eɪ] and [oʊ] —saying these diphthongs instead of their simple
monophthongal versions [e] and [o] is a common source of an accent when English speakers
learn languages that have [e, o].
4. Stress
Most of the information in a phonetic transcription will consist of symbols standing for
individual speech sounds. However, in a language like English, it is also important to transcribe
stress, which roughly speaking, is the amount of articulatory effort or loudness found on a
syllable. Stress must be included because you can have different words that are phonetically
distinguished only by their stress pattern, as in the examples given below. These illustrate the
IPA diacritic for stress: [ˈ], placed just before the stressed syllable:
differ [ˈdɪfɚ]
defer [dɪˈfɚ]
133
If not: the probable cause is that the diphthongs vary greatly across different speaking rates and
styles. [aɪ] is a “medium” pronunciation; “fast” would be [ae], and “slow and careful” would be [ai].
Probably, when you listen carefully to yourself, your speech is slow and careful. Another possibility (rather
unlikely if you are a UCLA student), is that your own dialect doesn’t have an [aɪ], using (for example) the
sound [aː] instead.
permit [pɚˈmɪt] verb: ‘to allow’

permit [ˈpɚmɪt] noun: ‘a kind of document giving permission’134
5. Transcription technique
There are various methods you can use to become a skilled phonetic transcriber.
5.1 The keyword method
A very useful method is the keyword method, which I will illustrate with an example.
Suppose you have trouble hearing the distinction between [i] and [ɪ], but you are trying to
transcribe the word mitt. The correct transcription happens to be [mɪt]. You already know,
having examined chart (199) above, that the English word beat has [i] and the word bit has [ɪ].
These can serve as keywords for the [i]/[ɪ] distinction. The dialogue below illustrates the method.
Linguist: “Please say the next word on our list.”

Native speaker: “[mɪt]”
Linguist (can’t hear it, but is coping): “Please say the word spelled b - i - t.”
Native speaker: “[bɪt]”
Linguist: Please say b - e - a - t.
Native speaker: “[bit]”
Linguist: “Now say the word we are working on.”
Native speaker: “[mɪt]”
Linguist: “Now say all three words in a row.”
Native speaker: “[bɪt] … [bit] … [mɪt]”
The idea should be plain: it’s easier for your ear to compare a new word to known words
than it is to transcribe “out of the blue”. This holds not just for the more delicate distinctions of
English but for all difficult distinctions, in any language.
When I do English phonetic dictations in class, I sometimes encourage students to raise their
hand and ask me to pronounce keywords. If you want to use keywords in doing a homework, you
can find them (with sound files) at this web address:
http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/103/charts/english/chartsforEnglishbroadtranscription.htm
134
The example works for the majority of Americans, though there are many who say [pɚˈmt] for
both.
5.2 Other general hints
When you’re transcribing a language that you know, and which has a spelling system, it’s
important not to be influenced by the spelling of a word. In my experience teaching English
transcription, this is by far the most common source of errors.
It’s also sometimes a good idea to listen to a word more than once. You can do this
indefinitely with a recording; with a live speaker you have to size up how patient they are.
Lip reading can be very useful, particularly for the difference between [θ] and [f] (thin vs.
fin), and for vowels that have lip rounding.
5.3 Hints specific to English
Inflectional endings like -ed and -s are spelled in a constant way, but are pronounced
differently in different environments. For example, latched = [lætʃt], not *[lætʃd]; blades =
[bledz], not *[bleds].
The letter s is often ambiguous between [s] and [z]: compare goose [gus] with lose [luz].
The sequence ng in spelling can spell either one sound or two (for most dialects). For
example, finger is [ˈfgɚ] (two sounds), but singer is [ˈsɚ] (one sound). In the less-widely-
spoken dialect, spelled ng is [ŋg] in the middle of a word (finger [ˈfgɚ], singer [ˈsgɚ]) and [ŋ]
otherwise. For what we should think about this dialect, see Chapter 3.
It is difficult to hear schwa; often people transcribe a full vowel that corresponds to the
spelling. For example: tenacious = [təˈneʃəs], not *[tɛˈneʃəs]; connection = [kəˈnɛkʃən], not
*[koˈnɛkʃən]; childless = [ˈtʃaldləs], not *[ˈtʃaldlɛs]. Schwas can be spotted because they tend
to be very short and rather “indistinct” in their quality.
As noted above, the letter u often represents a sequence of [j]+[u]: use = [ˈjuz]; fugue =
[ˈfjug]; spectacular = [spɛkˈtækjulɚ] or [spɛkˈtækjəlɚ].
The letter x can represent [ks] (Texas = [ˈtɛksəs]) or [gz] (exact = [əgˈzækt]).
The sequence th can represent either [θ] (ether = [ˈiθɚ]) or [ð] (brother = [ˈbrʌðɚ]).
A note on my own teaching practice: where I have provided more than one way of
transcribing the same sound, either way is acceptable. I do not require that you memorize the
symbols; phonetic charts are provided for exams.
Study Exercise #65
Visit the following web page. It has a list of English words. When you click on a word, it
will launch a sound file in .wav format, which (if your Web browser is set up properly), should
play on your computer. (I recommend you use headphones in a quiet place.)
 http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/20/sounds/English/.
Answers below.

1. [ˈpɪn]
2. [ˈtɪn]
3. [ˈkɪn]
4. [ˈbɪn]
5. [ˈdɪn]
6. [ˈgɪl]
7. [ˈtʃɪn]
8. [ˈdʒɪn]
9. [ˈfɪn]
10. [ˈθɪn]
11. [ˈsɪn]
12. [ˈʃɪn]
13. [ˈhɪm]
14. [ˈvɪm]
15. [ˈðɪs]
16. [ˈzɪp]
17. [ˈvɪʒən]
18. [ˈdæd]
19. [ˈmɪt]
20. [ˈnɪp]
21. [ˈsɪŋ] (many speakers say [siŋ] instead)
22. [ˈlɪn]
23. [ˈwɪn]
24. [ˈɹɪm]
25. [ˈjɪŋ] (many speakers say [jiŋ] instead)
26. [ˈbut]
27. [ˈbʊk]
28. [ˈboʊt]
29. [ˈbit]
30. [ˈkɑt]
31. [ˈbit]
32. [ˈbut]
33. [ˈkɑt]
34. [ˈbæt]
35. [ˈbɪt]
36. [ˈfʊt]
37. [ˈbeɪt]
38. [ˈæbət]
39. [ˈboʊt]
40. [ˈbɛt]
41. [ˈbʌt]
42. [ˈbɔt]
43. [ˈbæt]
44. [ˈfɑðɚ]
45. [ˈbaɪt]
46. [ˈbaʊt]
47. [ˈkɔɪt]
48. [ˈbɚt]
49. [ˈdɪfɚ]
50. [dɪˈfɚ]
51. [pɚˈmɪt]
52. [ˈpɚmɪt] (some speakers have initial stress for this word)
53. [ˈpɑp]
54. [ˈtɑt]
55. [ˈkɪk]
56. [ˈbɑb]
57. [ˈdæd]
58. [ˈgæg]
59. [ˈfaɪf]
60. [ˈθɪn]
61. [ˈsɪs]
62. [ˈʃu]
63. [ˈhi]
64. [ˈvæt]
65. [ˈðau]
66. [ˈzu]
67. [ˈeɪʒə]
68. [ˈtʃɚtʃ]
69. [ˈdʒʌdʒ]
70. [ˈmɑm]
71. [ˈnʌn]
72. [ˈjʌŋ]
73. [ˈyuθ]
74. [ˈwɪtʃ]
75. [ˈtɔɪ]
76. [ˈdʒunəpɚ]
77. [ˈwɪʃ]
78. [ˈpɚʒən]
79. [ˈθætʃɚ]
80. [ˈjɑt]
81. [ˈkwɛstʃən]
82. [ˈtɛnθ]
83. [ˈʌðɚ]
84. [ˈʃæloʊ]
85. [ˈbɛltʃ]
86. [ˈmjuzɪk]
87. [ˈlætʃt]
88. [ˈbleɪdz]
89. [ˈfɪŋgɚ] (some speakers have [ˈfiŋgɚ])
90. [ˈsɪŋɚ] (some speakers have [ˈsɪŋgɚ])
91. [ˈjuz]
92. [ˈfjug]
93. [spɛkˈtækjulɚ]
94. [spɛkˈtækjəlɚ]
95. [ˈtɛksəs]
96. [ɪgˈzækt]
97. [ˈiθɚ]
98. [ˈbɹʌðɚ]
99. [ˈfit]
100. [ˈfɪt]
101. [ˈfɪət]
102. [ˈluk]
103. [ˈlʊk]
104. [ˈlʊək]
105. [ˈðaɪ]
106. [ˈθaɪ]
107. [ˈɹʌɪɾɚ]
108. [ˈɹaɪɾɚ]
109. [ˈkɔt]
110. [ˈkɑt]
111. [ˈʔʌʔoʊ]
112. (misnumbered, no word here)
113. (misnumbered, no word here)
114. [ˈɹɔɹ]
115. [ˈdeɪɾə]
116. [ˈθɪn]
117. [ˈðɛn] (some speakers have [ðɪn])
118. [ˈʃu]
119. [ˈvɪʃən]
120. [ˈtʃɚtʃ]
121. [ˈdʒʌdʒ]
122. [ˈjɪɹ] (some speakers have [ˈjiɹ])
123. [ˈlɔ] (some speakers have [ˈlɑ] for this word)
124. [ˈlɑ]
125. [ˈkɔt] (some speakers have [ˈkɑt] for this word]
126. [ˈkɑt]
127. [ˈpɔli] (some speakers have [ˈpɑli] for this word)
128. [ˈpɑli]
129. [ˈbɔɪ]
130. [təˈmeɪɾoʊ]
131. [əˈmɛɹəkə] (some speakers have [əˈmɛɹɪkə] for this word)
132. [kəˈnɛɾəkət]
133. [ˈbɚd]
134. [ˈɹaɪd]
135. [ˈbɔɪ]
136. [ˈhaʊ]
137. [ˈtɪkəl]
138. [ˈbʌtn̩]
6. Other places to practice
If you want to get practice in learning the symbols, you might try reading passages of
transcription; I have posted a couple of them at
 http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/103/PracticeReadingTranscription.pdf
 http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/103/PracticeReadingTranscriptionII.pdf
Some further practice can be obtained from an exercise I’ve posted for another course:
 http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/103/EnglishTranscriptionPractice/
7. Some toughies from English
The hardest factor in phonetic transcription is that we tend to hear best the phonetic
distinctions of languages we speak. In fact, it’s typically the distinctions heard in infancy and
toddlerhood that are the most noticeable — experiments have shown that the neural circuitry for
vowel detection, for example, is already being “tuned” to the ambient language by the age of six
months.
Thus, if there are English distinctions that you didn’t acquire early on, you may find them
tough. I only apologize a little bit for this: linguistics training necessarily involves practice in
hearing such distinctions, even if it’s hard!
To make the course a bit fairer I will render some “exotic” cases from American dialects,
which I hope will be hard for everybody!
Here are cases of distinctions that may be difficult. They are posted at the same Web page
mentioned above.
feet [fit]
fit [ft] Clues: [] shorter than [i]. Spoken slowly, [] becomes [ə].
Luke [luke]
look [lk] Clues: [] shorter than [u]. Spoken slowly, [] becomes [ə].
thy [a]
die [da] Clue: sit up close and lip-read. [] when pronounced carefully
usually has some tongue protrusion.
writer [ə]
rider [aə] Clue: [a] has more jaw lowering.
caught [kɔt]
cot [kt] Clue: [] has a fish-like lip-rounding gesture.
THE PRODUCTION OF SOUNDS IN THE VOCAL TRACT
The human vocal tract can produce thousands of audibly distinct sounds. Of these, only a
subset are actually used in human languages. Of this subset, some sounds are much more
common than others. For example, almost every language has a [t]-like sound, while very few
languages have a retroflex click or a bilabial trill (demonstrations). Any one language uses only a
fairly small inventory of speech sounds.
8. Vocal tract anatomy
To understand how sounds are made, one needs to have an idea of the location and shape of
the articulatory organs. Here is a diagram; a so-called “mid-sagittal” section:
(202) Diagram: Midsaggital section of the vocal tract
hard palate
nasal cavity
alveolar ridge
upper lip oral cavity
velum (soft palate)

teeth
velar port
uvula
tongue body
lower lip (dorsum)
tongue tip
tongue blade
pharynx
jaw
larynx
trachea
The above is a schematic diagram; the hypothetical speaker is saying something like []
(nasalized “uh”).
The information for images has traditionally been obtained by dissection of cadavers, or
later, from X-rays. More recently, magnetic resonance imaging makes possible the safe
examination of living subjects, with images like the following:
(203) MRI images of the the vocal tract (midsaggital section)
American English [l]
American English []
A evidently nasalized [], showing more of the head and

neck135
135
First two images: from www.linguistics.ubc.ca/isrl/Gick_Whalen_Kang(SPS5); research from
Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT. Last image: http://web.mit.edu/albright/www/; the Web page
image of Prof. Adam Albright, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
8.1 The parts of the vocal tract
The three major regions of the vocal tract are the nasal cavity, the oral cavity (less
pretentiously, the mouth), and the pharynx, which is located behind the tongue but above the
larynx.
The most crucial organ of speech is the tongue. Bear in mind that just looking in a mirror
gives you a poor idea of the shape of the human tongue, because you can only see the tongue’s
forward extension. In reality, the tongue is more of a lump; when at rest it is fairly round in
shape except for highly visible flange up front. The round main section is extremely mobile and
flexible, and can move in all directions. The parts of the tongue that we will refer to are the tip
(or apex), the blade (= the forward flange), and the body (the main rounded part).
I will now discuss the roof of the mouth, going from front to back. The lips and teeth need
no comment other than that they are both important for speech. The next important landmark,
going backward, is the alveolar ridge. Most people can feel this ridge by placing the tongue a
little further back in the mouth than the upper inside edge of the front teeth. The alveolar ridge
forms a useful “boundary line” on the upper surface of the mouth.
The expanse behind the alveolar ridge is called the palate. The palate is divided into a hard,
bony section in front called the hard palate and a soft fleshy section in back called the soft
palate or velum (Latin for “sail”). The velum is mobile. If you know how to produce nasalized
vowels (as in French), you can see it moving by looking in a mirror, placing your tongue as low
as possible, and alternating between saying nasalized and normal vowels. The main function of
the velum in speech is to control nasality. Most often, the velum is raised up to block of the nasal
passage. When it is lowered, air may pass out the nose and we get a nasal sound.
The little hanging object at the tip of the velum, made famous by screaming cartoon
characters, is called the uvula. It is used in consonant production in many languages (for
example, French, Persian, and Arabic), but not in English.
The pharynx is the space behind the tongue, invisible to us unless we use a mirror. This
space can be made smaller by retracting the tongue body down into it.
8.2 The larynx
At the bottom of the pharynx is the larynx, or voice box. This is a highly complex structure
of cartilage, muscle, and ligaments. The crucial elements of the larynx are the vocal cords.136
These are not really cords, but flaps that come in from both sides. The vocal cords can close off
the flow of air to varying degrees. The gap between the vocal cords is called the glottis.
136
Not: chords.
(204) The larynx
Larynx with vocal cords in position to

vibrate:
glottis (narrow slit

suitable for vibration)
vocal cords
Open larynx (vocal cords spread):
glottis (wide open)
vocal cords
There are basically four things that the vocal cords can do. (1) If they are spread far apart,
we get normal breathing. (2) If they are brought tightly together, the airflow is blocked. If the
blockage is then quickly released, we get what is called a glottal stop, IPA symbol []. This is
the sound that begins each syllable of the expression “uh-oh” [ˈo]. (3) If the vocal cords are
brought close but not touching, we get an [h]. (4) If the vocal cords are just barely touching, they
vibrate, producing what is called voicing. Voicing accompanies most vowels and many
consonants (except when we whisper), and is the most important source of sound in speech.
Numerous speech organs are actively controlled by the speaker in the production of speech.
In normal speech, the following organs are active: the lips, the tongue blade, the tongue body, the
velum, the jaw, the larynx (up and down), and the vocal cords. X-ray movies of speech show that
these speech organs move extremely rapidly and with great precision.137 Speaking is one of the
most complex physical feats people can perform, yet we do it without even thinking about it.
9. Describing consonant articulation
To describe a consonant, one normally describes three things:
137
For a moving image of the vocal tract, consult
http://www.speech.kth.se/~olov/Bilder/MRIs_2D.gif.
Place of articulation. All consonants involve a constriction somewhere in the vocal tract.
To specify a consonant one must state where this constriction is made; this is the place of
articulation.
Manner of articulation. This indicates the kind of constriction that is made—roughly, how
narrow it is, and the acoustic result.
Voicing— whether the vocal cords are vibrating during the production of a consonant. A
good way to detect voicing is to put your hand firmly on top of your head when you say a word.
If you do this while you say “za”, you will feel buzzing all the way through. If you do this for
“sa”, you will feel buzzing only after the [s] is over.
9.1 Manner of articulation
We will cover six manners of articulation.
(a) In a stop, the airflow is momentarily blocked off completely (i.e. “stopped”), then
released. The stops of English are
[p] [t] [k]

(Keywords:) pop tot kick
[b] [d] [g]

Bob Dad gag
Note that I have arranged the six stops in rows and columns, going by place of articulation and
voicing.
(b) In a fricative, one forms a narrow constriction at the place of articulation. The air
passing through the constriction makes a hissing noise. English has nine fricatives:
[f] [] [s] [ʃ] [h]

fife thin Sis shoe he
[v] [ð] [z] [ʒ]

vat thou zoo Asia
(c) An affricate is a rapid sequence of a stop and a fricative made at roughly the same place
of articulation with a single gesture. Affricates can usually be considered a subclass of the stops.
English has two affricates, [tʃ] (as in church) and [dʒ] (as in judge).
(d) In a nasal consonant, the velum is lowered, allowing air to escape out the nose. The
great majority of nasals have a complete blockage within the mouth at the same time. The places
of articulation for nasals are usually the same as those for stops. The nasal consonants of English
are [m] (Mom), [n] (none), and [ŋ], which is the last sound of young.
(e) In an approximant, the vocal tract is relatively open, so that air flows freely and there is
no frication noise. Approximants are normally divided into lateral and central. In a lateral
approximant, the air flows around the sides of the tongue; [l] is a lateral. In a central
approximant, air flows through a central channel. English has three central approximants:
 [j] occurs in words like youth

 [w] occurs in words like witch138
 [ɹ] occurs in words like roar
Approximants are often divided up in a different way: liquids are the “r” and “l” sounds; in
English [l] and []. Glides (also called “semivowels”) are central approximants like [j] and [w]
that are closely similar to vowels (see below).
(f) In a tap, the tongue tip brushes very briefly against the roof of the mouth—too short a
closure to count as a stop. The tap of English is found in words like data (North American
dialects only), and is symbolized []. The tap is generally voiced.
9.2 Place of Articulation
By combining information about place of articulation with information about manner, we

can arrive at complete descriptions of English consonants. I will cover the places of articulation
going from the front to the back of the mouth. In reading the following refer to the midsaggital
section diagram in (181).
(a) Bilabial sounds are made by touching the upper and lower lips together. English has a
voiceless bilabial stop [p], a voiced bilabial stop [b], and a (voiced) bilabial nasal [m].
Note the standard form for describing a consonant: the format is VOICING-PLACE-MANNER. In
the case of nasals and approximants, which are almost always voiced, it is permissible to specify
only place and manner.
(b) Labio-dental sounds are made by touching the lower lip to the upper teeth. English has a
voiceless labio-dental fricative, [f], and a voiced one, [v]. Labio-dental stops and nasals are very
rare, though English speakers make them if they try to say [p], [b], or [m] while smiling.
(c) Dental sounds are made by touching the tongue to the upper teeth. This can be done in a
number of ways. If the tongue is stuck out beyond the teeth, the sound is called an interdental,
though we will not worry about such fine distinctions. English has a voiceless interdental
fricative [θ] (as in thin), and a voiced one [ð] (as in then).
138
A small number of American English speakers have an additional central approximant, [ʍ],
which is a voiceless version of [w]. It occurs in words spelled with wh, like which.
(d) Alveolar sounds are made by touching the tip or blade of the tongue to a location just
forward of the alveolar ridge. English has several alveolar consonants. There is a voiceless
alveolar stop [t], a voiced alveolar stop [d], voiceless and voiced alveolar fricatives [s] and [z],
an alveolar nasal [n], and an alveolar lateral liquid [l]. All these phonetic symbols correspond to
English spelling.
(e) Palato-alveolar sounds are made by touching the blade of the tongue to a location just
behind the alveolar ridge. English has a voiceless palato-alveolar fricative [ʃ] (as in shoe), a
voiced palato-alveolar fricative [] (as in vision), a voiceless palato-alveolar affricate [tʃ], (as in
church), and voiced palato-alveolar affricate [dʒ] (as in judge).
(f) Palatal sounds are made by moving the body of the tongue forward toward the hard
palate. English has just one palatal sound, the palatal glide [j], as in year.
(f) Velar sounds are made by touching the body of the tongue to the velum. English has
three velar sounds: a voiceless velar stop [k] (as in cat or king), a voiced velar stop [g] (as in
goat), and a velar nasal [ŋ] (as in sing). Note that in this case English uses a sequence of two
letters to spell what is phonetically a single sound.
(g) Glottal sounds are made by moving the vocal cords close to one another. English has a
voiceless glottal fricative [h].
9.3 Interpreting the consonant chart
The consonant chart for English, given above in (178)a (p. 359) can now be better
understood, as it arranges the consonants of English place, manner, and voicing. The
arrangement of the chart is traditional: the columns depict place, going from front to back in the
vocal tract, and the rows depict manner, going roughly in increasing sonority (loudness). Take a
look at the chart again, examining its rows and columns, to see how these group together sounds
of similar phonetic properties.
Study Exercise #66: Pronouncing the “gaps”
Look at this copy of the English consonant chart. It has eight digits in it, located in cells that
are blank for English but not for languages in general. Try to pronounce each of the gaps. The
answer key identifies the gaps in IPA and gives languages that have them.
Bilabial Labio- Dental Alveolar Palato- Palatal Velar Glottal

dental alveolar
Stops voiceless /p/ 1 /t/ /k/
pin tin kin
voiced /b/ 2 /d/ /g/
bin din gill
Affricates voiceless 3 /tʃ/
chin
voiced 4 /dʒ/
gin
Fricatives voiceless 5 /f/ /θ/ /s/ /ʃ/ 7 /h/
fin thin sin shin hymn
voiced 6 /v/ /ð/ /z/ /ʒ/ 8
vim this zip vision
Nasals /m/ /n/ /ŋ/
mitt nip sing
Approxi- lateral /l/
mants Lynn
central /w/ /ɹ/ /j/
win rim ying
Sound files of me pronouncing these sounds can be listened to at

www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/103/Charts/CChartWithSounds/CChart.pdf.
1. This is a voiceless dental stop, made by putting the tongue tip in the location for [θ] and
“squeezing” the constriction enough to yield a stop articulation. The IPA symbol uses a diacritic,
a little subscript platform for the t: [t ̪]. [t ̪] is the normal pronunciation in Spanish and French for
the sounds that are spelled with letter t in these languages.
2. This is a voiced dental stop; as [t ̪] is to [t], so is [d̪] to [d].
3 and 4: The alveolar voiceless and voiced affricates can be pronounced by putting together a [t]
and an [s] (for voiceless) and a [d] and a [z] (for voiced) and saying them rapidly as a single
sound: [ts], [dz] (or, for sticklers, [t͡s] and [d͡z]). [ts] is the sound spelled with letter z in German.
[dz] occurs for some English speakers as a variant (allophone; see below) of the basic [z] sound
after [n], in words like lens (IPA [lɛnd͡z]).
5 and 6: If you make a fricative instead of a stop at the bilabial location, you will get [ɸ]
(voiceless) and [β] (voiced). Both occur in Ewe (Ghana); listen at to real versions at
www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter7/ewe/ewe.html.
7 and 8: If you make a fricative instead of a stop at the velar location, you will get [x]
(voiceless) and [ɣ] (voiced). [x] occurs in German, where is spelled ch, as in Bach [bax]. [ɣ]
occurs in Spanish as the g sound when between vowels, as in lago [ˈlaɣo] ‘lake’.
___________________________________________________________________________
10. Describing vowels
Vowels differ from consonants in that they do not have real “places of articulation”, that is
to say, points of severe constriction in the vocal tract. Rather, the vocal tract as a whole acts as a
resonating chamber. By modifying the shape of this chamber using movements of the tongue,
jaw, and lips, one imparts different sound qualities to the basic noise made by the vocal cords.
An analogy can be made with brass instruments. The vocal cords by themselves make a
rather ugly buzz, just like the mouthpiece of a trumpet does when played by itself. The buzz is
given its more pleasant characteristic quality by being passed through a resonating chamber (for
example, a trumpet or a vocal tract). The quality of the sound is determined by the shape of the
chamber; thus vowels of English are similar to notes played by the same trumpet with different
mutes placed inside.
There are three basic modifications that one can make to the shape of the vocal tract. Vowels
are described by specifying the amount of each modification used.
10.1 Rounding
One obvious modification one can make to the shape of the vocal tract is to round the lips,
thus narrowing the passage at the exit. This happens, for example, in the vowels of boot [u], book
[ʊ], and boat [oʊ]. These are called rounded or simply round vowels. Other vowels, such as the
[i] of beet or the [] of cot, are called unrounded. (Warning: you may speak a dialect of English
that has little lip rounding. The really rounded vowels are found more easily in other languages.)
10.2 Height
Another modification one can make to the shape of the vocal tract is to make passage
through the mouth wider or narrower. Widening is accomplished by opening the jaw and/or
lowering the body of the tongue towards the bottom of the mouth. Narrowing is accomplished by
raising the jaw and raising the body of the tongue.
The terminology for describing these changes is based on the height of the tongue body
(without regard to whether this is due to jaw movement or tongue movement). Vowels are
classified as high, mid, or low, depending on tongue body position. In effect, high vowels have a
narrow passage for the air to pass through, and low vowels have a wide passage.
Examples of high vowels in English are [i], the vowel of beat, and [u], the vowel of boot.
Example of low vowels are [ɑ], the vowel of cot, and [æ], the vowel of bat. You can feel the oral
passage widening and narrowing if you pronounce a sequence of vowels that alternates between
high and low, such as [i æ i æ i æ i æ].
10.3 Backness
The third primary way of changing the vocal tract shape is to place the body of the tongue
towards the front part of the mouth or towards the back. Vowels so made are called front and
back vowels.139 For example, [i] (beat) is a high front vowel, and [u] (boot) is a high back vowel
(which is also rounded). You can feel the tongue moving forwards and backwards if you
pronounce the sequence [i u i u i u i u].
10.4 Vowel chart
We now have three “dimensions” for classifying vowels, each based on a particular
modification of the vocal tract shape: rounding, height, and backness. The three dimensions
allow us to describe vowels clearly, and also to organize them in a chart:
139
A more refined classification recognizes central vowels; neither front nor back. Here it will
suffice to have just two degrees of backness.
Note that this chart is an abstraction, since in physical reality the vowels do not line up
vertically in tongue body position. In particular, the high front vowels are considerably more
forward than the high back vowels, owing to the space available for tongue movement. Because
of this, the chart should be interpreted as saying “relatively more front” or “relatively more high”
rather than specifying actual physical tongue positions.
Front Back Diphthongs

Unrounded Unrounded Rounded
Upper tense /i/ /u/ /aɪ/, /aʊ/, /ɔɪ/
beat boot bite, bout, Coit
Lower /ɪ/ /ʊ/
nontense
bit foot
Upper tense /e/ /ə/ /oʊ/ Rhotacized upper
mid back
bait abbot boat
Lower /ɛ/ // /ɔ/ unrounded:
nontense /ɚ/
bet but bought
Bert
Low /æ/ /ɑ/
bat father
Vowels are usually identified with formula HEIGHT-BACKNESS-ROUNDNESS. For example, [u]
is an “upper high back rounded vowel.”
10.5 Dialect variation
English dialects differ most noticeably in their vowel systems. Here are differences you may
find in your speech:
(1) I included the lower mid back rounded vowel [ɔ] on the chart, but probably about half of
Americans don’t have this vowel in their speech—there is an ongoing change in American
English that is wiping out this vowel. Speakers of the newer, [ɔ]-less dialect use [] in the words
that speakers of the older dialect say with [ɔ]; thus:
Old dialect New dialect140

law [ˈlɔ] la [l] law, la [ˈl]
caught [ˈkɔt] cot [ˈkt] caught, cot [ˈkt]
Pauley [ˈpɔli] Polly [ˈpli] Pauley, Polly [ˈpli]
140
These labels should be interpreted with caution: some speakers of the “old” dialect are three
years old, some speakers of the “new” dialect are 100. Language change happens fairly slowly.
Speakers who don’t have an [ɔ] as a separate sound do usually have it as part of diphthong, as in
[ɔ] boy.
(2) Many Americans have a high central rounded vowel, IPA [ʉ], instead of [u].
10.6 Schwa ([ə]): a reduced vowel
English has a so-called “reduced vowel”, which appears in the underlined position in the
following words:
tomato [təˈmeo]
America [əˈmeəkə]
Connecticut [kəˈnɛəkət]
This vowel varies in its quality and is quite short, so it is hard to transcribe. We will simplify
things by always transcribing the reduced vowel as [ə] (the vowel called “schwa”). In
transcribing, if you hear a very short, indistinct “blurry” vowel, transcribe it as schwa.
10.7 The rhotacized vowel [ɚ]
[ɚ], the vowel of bird, is rather like the schwa, except that the tongue blade is curved
upward in the manner of an [] (see images above). This upward curvature is called
rhotacization; thus [ɚ] is classified as a rhotacized upper mid central unrounded vowel. It is
often called a “rhotacized schwa,” which fits its visual form.
10.8 Glide-Vowel Connections
As a “semivowel”, a glide is a consonant that is articulated in the same manner as a vowel.

Glides can be described from the viewpoint of vowels as well as consonants. Thus, [j] is
considered a central palatal approximant; but from the viewpoint of semivowels it is the partner
of [i]—since its position is upper high and front. Likewise, [w] is the partner (articulated in the
same place as) [u], and the alveolar central approximant [] also has the vowel partner [ɚ].
10.9 Diphthongs
A diphthong (note the spelling) is a vowel (that is, a single sound) during which the
articulator are in motion. A common way to represent diphthongs in IPA is to give a sequence of
vowel symbols, one representing the starting point and the other the ending point. English has
numerous diphthongs. The three most obvious ones are [aɪ], which appears in ride; [ɔɪ], which
appears in boy; and [aw], which appears in how. The diphthong [aʊ] is pronounced [æʊ] by many
speakers. Less obvious diphthongs (because the articulators don’t move as far) are [e], as in bay,
and [o], as in so.
10.10 Syllabic consonants
English also has what are called “syllabic consonants”. These are sounds that are articulated
like consonants, but form the nucleus of a syllable as if they were vowels. Syllabic consonants
are transcribed by putting a [ ̩ ] underneath the symbol for the appropriate consonant. The
following transcriptions illustrate this:
tickle [ˈtkl ̩]
button [ˈbtn̩]
It’s possible to think of the rhotacized schwa, [ɚ], in a different way: as [ɹ̩]. These quite
different symbols depict essentially the same sound from different points of view. [ɹ̩] is the
consonant [ɹ], rendered syllabic, whereas [ɚ] is a schwa vowel [ə] with added tongue
retroflextion.
FEATURES
11. Features
We will shortly shift from phonetics to phonology. This involves writing rules; and to write
rules, it is useful to have a compact and clear formalism. The formalism used to refer to speech
sounds in phonology is to use phonetic features. These are rather like the morphosyntactic
features we used in Chapter 2 for inflectional morphology (for example, [Case:Accusative], but
they refer here to phonetic rather than grammatical properties. Informally, the features of [d] are
that it is a stop, that it is alveolar, that it is voiceless, and further, that it is not round and not
nasal. The features jointly define this sound.
Phonetic features are generally given a more compact notation than what we used for
morphological features: a plus sign, placed before the feature name, means that a segment has
the relevant property; minus means that it lacks it. Thus [i] is said to be [+high, +tense, –round,
–nasal, –back].141 As with morphological features, brackets are normally placed around the
feature names.
141
If we were to be consistent, we would write [High:Plus, Tense:Plus, Round:Minus, Nasal:Minus,
Back:Minus], but no linguist ever writes phonological features in this way.
12. A feature set
We will use the following features in doing phonology; each should be assumed to take the
values plus or minus:
(205) A simple feature set
[syllabic] [high] [stop] [bilabial]

[voiced] [low] [affricate] [labiodental]
[nasal] [front] [fricative] [dental]
[back] [liquid] [alveolar]
[round] [glide] [palato-alveolar]
[tense] [palatal]
[aspirated] [velar]
[stressed] [lateral] [glottal]
Some comments on these features:
[syllabic] distinguishes vowels (and syllabic consonants like [l ̩] and [n̩]; see above) from
consonants; the vowels are [+syllabic], the consonants [−syllabic].
[tense] is a feature of vowels, corresponding to what is sometimes taught in school as

“long”. The vowels [], [ɛ], [æ] [], [] are [−tense]; the others are [+tense]. The lower high,
lower mid, and low vowels are [−tense], the others [+tense]. The distinction may seem arbitrary,
but is useful for phonology—consider, for instance, that it is precisely the [−tense] vowels that
may not occur before another vowel, or at the end of a word.
To distinguish the three basic vowel height categories (high, mid, and low), we only need
two features, not three: high vowels are [+high, –low]; low vowels are [−high, +low]; and mid
vowels are [−high, –low]. (A vowel that was [+high, +low] would be a articulatory impossibility;
you can’t put the tongue in both high and low positions at once.)
Other than the above, the features are simply restatements of the traditional phonetic
terminology already covered above.
For this course I’d like you to understand the meaning of the features but not memorize
them; exams will include feature charts where needed.
13. Feature charts
Here are the features we’ll be using, with the sounds of English defined according to the
features.
Notes:
 [aspirated]: for stops, this means “accompanied by a little puff of breath on release.” In
English, initial [ptk] are aspirated: pin [pɪn], tin [tɪn], kin [kɪn].
 [stressed]: This is treated as a feature of vowels; vowels can be either stressed or
stressless. The value is not given in the chart, but (for example) when you see stressless
[i] (as in [ˈhæpi] happy) you should assume [−stress] and when you see stressed [i] (as in
[ˈdivə] diva) you should assume [+stress]. The exceptions are: assume that schwa ([ə]) is
always [−stress] and caret ([ʌ]) is always [+stress].
 When a blank appears in the chart, it means that the feature is not essential to the
production of the sound. For example, there are no values under [p] for [high], [low],
[back], [round], or [tense]. The actual position of the tongue and lips for [p] will vary
depending on the context.
 The major diphthongs [a a ɔ] would be treated as two-vowel sequences, so they don’t
appear in the chart. [eɪ] and [oʊ] are close enough to [e] and [o] that we can ignore that
difference here.
(206) Feature charts for English sounds
a. Consonants
Manner of Features mostly for Place of articulation features
Laryngeal [aspirated]
features
articulation features vowels
[syllabic]
[stop]
[affricate]
[fricative]
[liquid]
[glide]
[voiced]
[nasal]
[high]
[low]
[back]
[round]
[tense]
[stressed]
[bilabial]
[labiodental]
[dental]
[alveolar]
[palato-alveolar]
[palatal]
[velar]
[glottal]
[lateral]
p − + − − − − − − − + − − − − − − − −
t − + − − − − − − − − − − + − − − − −
k − + − − − − − − − − − − − − − + − −
b − + − − − − + − − + − − − − − − − −
d − + − − − − + − − − − − + − − − − −
g − + − − − − + − − − − − − − − + − −
tʃ − − + − − − − − − − − − − + − − − −
dʒ − − + − − − + − − − − − − + − − − −
f − − − + − − − − − − + − − − − − − −
θ − − − + − − − − − − − + − − − − − −
s − − − + − − − − − − − − + − − − − −
ʃ − − − + − − − − − − − − − + − − − −
h − − − + − − − − − − − − − − − − + −
v − − − + − − + − − − + − − − − − − −
ð − − − + − − + − − − − + − − − − − −
z − − − + − − + − − − − − + − − − − −
ʒ − − − + − − + − − − − − − + − − − −
m − − − − − − + + − + − − − − − − − −
n − − − − − − + + − − − − + − − − − −
ŋ − − − − − − + + − − − − − − − + − −
l − − − − + − + − − − − − + − − − − +
ɹ − − − − + − + − − − − − − + − − − −
j − − − − − + + − − − − − − − + − − −
w − − − − − + + − + − − − − − − − − −
b. Vowels
Manner of Features mostly for Place of articulation features
Laryngeal [aspirated]
features
[syllabic] articulation features vowels
[stop]
[affricate]
[fricative]
[liquid]
[glide]
[voiced]
[nasal]
[high]
[low]
[back]
[round]
[tense]
[stressed]
[bilabial]
[labiodental]
[dental]
[alveolar]
[palato−alveolar]
[palatal]
[velar]
[glottal]
[lateral]
i + − − − − − + − + − − − + − − − − − − − − −
ɪ + − − − − − + − + − − − − − − − − − − − − −
eɪ + − − − − − + − − − − − + − − − − − − − − −
ɛ + − − − − − + − − − − − − − − − − − − − − −
æ + − − − − − + − − + − − − − − − − − − − − −
u + − − − − − + − + − + + + − − − − − − − − −
ʊ + − − − − − + − + − + + − − − − − − − − − −
oʊ + − − − − − + − − − + + + − − − − − − − − −
ɔ + − − − − − + − − − + + + − − − − − − − − −
ʌ + − − − − − + − − − + − − + − − − − − − − − −
ə + − − − − − + − − − + − − − − − − − − − − − −
ɚ + − − − − − + − − − + − + − − − − + − − − −
ɑ + − − − − − + − − + + − + − − − − − − − − −
13.1 Description of sounds using their features
The features allow us to describe a segment phonetically in a compact notation, called a

feature matrix. For example, the vowel [i] is expressed in features as follows:
+syllabic
–back 
+high
–low 
+tense 
E
–nasal
–round

The phonological feature matrix is not all that different from morphosyntactic representations
discussed in Chapter 2: it is an unordered list of features, each with its value specified. Indeed,
we might have expressed it in the same notation, as something like this:
[syllabic: +, back: −, high: +, low: −, tense: +, round: −, nasal: −]

but using columns and transposed order is more compact and convenient, so it is the custom for
phonology.
A less detailed matrix, important later on when we turn to phonology, would specify [i] as a
vowel of English, giving only the features necessary to distinguish it from all the other English
sounds. In these terms, [i] is
–back 
+high 
  E
+tense
You can find such reduced feature matrix by examining the full matrix and taking away
features one by one where they are not needed to distinguish the sound from any other sound in
the same language. In the above example, [−low] is not needed, since no high vowel can be low.
[−round] is not needed, since English has no front rounded vowels. [−nasal] is not needed, since
English has no nasalized vowels.
Study Exercise #67
Using the features above, describe the sounds [tʃ] and [n] in the same way that [i] was
described, that is, enough to distinguish them from other sounds of English.
–voiced 
[tʃ]: +affricate E
+nasal 
[n]: +alveolar E
————————————————————————————————————
Feature notation also allows us to refer to whole classes of segments at a time. This is
similar to the use of features in inflectional morphology, where they permit use to refer to classes
of inflected forms. For example, the expression [+voiced, +alveolar] would pick out the
segments [d,z,n,ɹ,ɾ,l] if we were dealing with English. Similarly, the expression [+syllabic,
+high] picks out the vowels [i,,u,] from the set of all English vowels. The expression
[+syllabic] uses one feature to pick out the vowels.
This is the same use we made of features in inflectional rules. For example, [Tense:past]
might designate a whole set of possible morphosyntactic representations, each (which might
differ from each other, for example, in person and number). Any representation that is
designated by the expression [Tense:past] would be eligible for attachment of (for example) the
past tense suffix.
13.2 The role of features in language: preview of phonology
Often, when we put morphemes together into words (Chapter 2) or put words together into
sentences (Chapters 4-6), the resulting sequences get pronounced in a way that is not the “sum of
their parts”. Rather, there are phonological changes that adjust the basic sequences in some way.
Here is a simple example. One of my colleagues in the Linguistics Department at UCLA is

Professor Russell Schuh, known to all and sundry as “Russ Schuh”. Prof. Schuh is quite used to
hearing his name pronounced as [ɹʌʃʃu], as if he were “Rush Schuh”. The crucial data are:142
Russ [ɹʌs]
Schuh [ʃu]
Russ Schuh [ɹʌʃʃu]
Similarly English speakers say miss [mɪs], Sheila [ʃilə], but miss Sheila [mɪʃʃilə]; nice [naɪs],
shadow [ʃædoʊ], but [naɪʃʃædoʊ], and so on. The substitution is to replace [s] by [ʃ] when
another [ʃ] follows, resulting in phonetic double [ʃʃ].143
142
I will leave off the stress marks for simplicity.
[z] is similar to [s] (its voiced partner) and it undergoes a parallel process, becoming [ʒ], the
voiced partner of [ʃ].
use [juz]
Schuh’s book [ʃuz bʊk]
use Schuh’s book [juʒ ʃuz bʊk]
We can think of [ʃ] as the “trigger” of this process; it causes the [s] to become [ʃ] and the [z]
to become [ʒ]. With this in mind, we might ask if [ʒ], the voiced partner of [ʃ], can likewise act
as a trigger for the change. This is hard to check, since words in English cannot begin with [ʒ].
But pushing things a bit, we can try some Russian loanwords:
Russ [ɹʌs]
Zhirinofsky [ʒɪrənɔfski]
Russ Zhirinofsky [ɹʌʃ ʒɪrənɔfski]
use [juz]
Zhivago’s book [ʒɪvɑgoʊz bʊk]
use Zhivago’s book [juʒ ʒɪvɑgoʊz bʊk]
So it looks like [ʒ] is indeed a possible trigger. Summing up, we want a rule like this:
Alveolar Fricative Palatalization144
s  ʃ  ʃ 
     when   immediately follows.
z ʒ ʒ
E E E
We have two sets of sounds here, {s, z} and {ʃ, ʒ}. These sets are hardly arbitrary; they have
a basis in the phonetic properties of these sounds. Thus, the features become relevant.
The set {s, z} consists of all and only the alveolar fricatives. The notation below:
+fricative
 
+alveolar  E
143
If you wonder what a single [ʃ] sounds like, try the sentence Rush oodles of food to the meeting
room. It begins [ɹʌʃ u...], with a single [ʃ], which is simply the final [ʃ] of rush.
144
“Palatalization” is a common name for any rule that shifts sounds into the (roughly) palatal
region.
means “all and only the sounds (of the language under study) that are [+fricative] and
[+alveolar]”.
Moreover, it is sensible to let rules alter the value of individual features. We can do this for
Alveolar Fricative Palatalization as follows:
Alveolar Fricative Palatalization (restated with features)
+fricative −alveolar  +fricative 

     when  
+alveolar  +palato-alveolar +palato-alveolar immediately follows.
E E E
The general conception here is that phonological rules do not apply to arbitrary lists of
sounds, but to groups of sounds defined setting the values of some group of phonetic features
(often called natural classes). Moreover, the change in a rule is usually not some wholesale
change of sounds, but an adjustment in some small number of the features. The key assumption
in formulating rules is that any feature not mentioned in a rule stays the same. So, for instance, if
we start out with [s], which is [−voice], and apply Alveolar Fricative Palatalization, we end up
with [ʃ], which is likewise [−voice]. If we start out with [z], which is [+voice], and apply rule, we
end up with [ʒ], which is likewise [+voice]. This is what permits us to describe symmetrical
changes such as that of Alveolar Fricative Palatalization.
For now, what is important as an analytic skill is to be able to use the features to identify
natural classes of sounds, and to execute parallel changes when they occur in a rule.
Study Exercise #68
If you wanted to characterize the following set of sounds in English:
a. [u,i] b. [i,,e,ɛ,æ] c. [v, , z, ] d. [w, u, , o, ɔ] e. [m, n, ]

f. [l] g. [p, t, k, tʃ, f, , s, ʃ, h] h. [, ]
what features would you use? Try to use the minimum needed. Use the feature charts given
in (185) on p. 385 above.
+high 
a. [u,i]  
+tense E
b. [i, , e, ɛ, æ] [−back]

+voiced 
c. [v, , z, ]  
+fricative
E
d. [w, u, , o, ɔ] [+round]

e. [m, n, ] [+nasal]
f. [l] [+lateral]
g. [p, t, k, tʃ, f, , s, ʃ, h] [−voice]
h. [, ] [+dental]
———————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #69
Indicate the minimum number of features needed to single out the following sets of sounds
from the other sounds of English. Use the feature charts given in (185) on p. 385 above.
a. [d, n, z, l]
b. [l]
c. [w]
d. [h]
e. [æ,ɑ]
f. [eɪ, ɛ, oʊ, ɔ, ʌ, ə, ɚ]
g. [ɛ,ʌ,æ,ə]
h. [ɛ,ʌ,ə]
i. [æ, ɪ, ʊ, eɪ, ɛ, oʊ, ɔ, ɚ, ɑ, i, u, b, d, g, dʒ, v, ð, z, ʒ, m, n, ŋ, l, ɹ, j, w]
j. [f,θ,s,ʃ,h]
a. [+voice, +alveolar]
b. [+lateral]
c. [−syllabic,+round]
d. [+glottal]
e. [+low]
f. [−high,−low]
g. [−tense,−high]
h. [−tense,−high,−low]
i. [+voice]
j. [−voice,+fricative]
———————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #70
Formulate these imaginary rules using the feature charts given in (185) on p. 385 above.
Assume that the inventory of sounds is as in English. Use as few features as you can.
a. t, d become tʃ, dʒ before j, w.

b. i, ɪ become u, ʊ after w.
c. tʃ, dʒ become ʃ, ʒ after a vowel
+affricate
−stop

+stop 
a.    +palato-alveolar before [+glide]
+alveolar
−alveolar 
E E
+back  +glide 
b. [+high]  +round after +round 145
E E
+fricative
c. [+affricate]  −affricate after [+syllabic]
E
—————————————————————————————
For further reading
A very fine introductory textbook in phonetics was written by the late Peter Ladefoged, his
A Course in Phonetics. Current editions are now extremely expensive, but used copies of earlier
editions are widely available. Ladefoged prepared a fine website, still posted at UCLA, that
relates to his text and can be used for studying phonetics:
www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/contents.html.
+glide −syllabic
145
Instead of +round you could use +round  .
E E
Chapter 11: Phonology I — Phonemic Analysis

1. Phonology
Phonetics studies speech sounds as physical events; whereas phonology studies the (mostly
unconscious) rules that govern the use of sounds in language. That is, phonology studies the
“grammar of sound.”
2. What is the content of phonology?
Phonologists study, more or less, four aspects of the grammar of sound.
First, they study how sounds change in context. The rule of Alveolar Fricative
Palatalization given in the previous chapter describes how the basic sounds [s] and [z] vary when
they occur just before a [ʃ] or [ʒ]. This changing of sounds by context is often called alternation
and is discussed further below.
Second, phonologists study the principle of legal sequencing of speech sounds —

essentially, phonological grammaticality. To give on example, it is “phonologically legal” for
English words to begin [bl] (and plenty of them do: blend, blood, black, bliss, and so on). But it
is phonologically impossible for English words to begin with *[bn]: a word like bnick [bnɪk] is
judged by English speakers to be aberrant; and English speakers often have great trouble even in
saying it (they tend to “repair” the bad sequence by putting in a schwa: [bənɪk]). The study of
legal sound sequencing is often called phonotactics and, at the level of theory, is usually done
by means of setting up a system of constraints, which use the phonological features just like the
rules do. We lack the time to cover phonotactics here.
Third, phonologists study how the realization in sounds is related to other components of
the grammar. Here is a simple example. In the variety of American English I speak, the word
bonus (similarly onus, phonograph, persona), the sequence [oʊ n ə] has a nasalized [õʊ̃] and a
very short [n] (in IPA it would be transcribed [ɾ̃]). But in slowness or lowness the [oʊ] is not
nasalized, and the [n] is an ordinary regular-length [n]. Here is the full comparison:
bonus [ˈbõʊ̃ɾə̃ s] slowness [ˈsloʊnəs]

onus [ˈõʊ̃ɾə̃ s] lowness [ˈloʊnəs]
phonograph [ˈfõʊ̃ɾə̃ gɹæf]
persona [pɚˈsõʊ̃ɾə̃ ]
These differences evidently have to do with the fact that slowness and lowness are derived by a
word-formation rule, namely the -ness Rule seen in (56) in Chapter 2 ([ X ]Adj  [[ X ]Adj ness
]Noun). Quite often, the syntactic or morphological source of an utterance will have some kind of
effect on its phonology.
Lastly, phonologists are interested in the contextual variation observed for most speech
sounds. They attempt to discover this variation and analyse it in the usual manner of linguistics
with a set of formalize rules and representations. This is the topic we turn to next.
3. Phonemes and allophones
3.1 The Phonemic Principle
The most basic principle of phonology is the following:
(207) Phonemic Principle
Every language has a limited set of phonemes (= basic speech sounds); and every word in
the language consists solely of phonemes of that language.
The phonemes of one dialect of English, arranged in feature-based charts, are as follows:
(208) The phonemic inventory of one English dialect
Consonants
[+bilabial]
[+labiodental]
[+dental]
[+alveolar]
[+palato- alveolar]
[+palatal]
[+velar]
[+glottal]
[+stop] [−voice] /p/ /t/ /k/
pin tin kin
[+voice] /b/ /d/ /g/
bin din gift
[+affricate] [−voice] /tʃ/
chin
[+voice] /dʒ/
gin
[+fricative] [−voice] /f/ /θ/ /s/ /ʃ/ /h/
fin sin hill
thin shin
[+voice] /v/ /ð/ /z/ /ʒ/
van zip
this vision
[+nasal] [+voice] /m/ /n/ /ŋ/
mitt nip
sing
146
[+liquid] [+voice] /l/
Lynn
/ɹ/
rip
[+glide] [+voice] /w/ /j/
147
yet
win
146
/l/ is also distinct from /ɹ/ in being [+lateral]; air moves around sides of tongue.
147
“bilabial” is an approximation for /w/; the feature chart from last time uses the vowel features
[+round, +high, +back].
Vowels
–back  +back  +back 

     
–round –round +round
E E E
+high [+tense] /i/ /u/

 
–low  beat boot
E
[−tense] /ɪ/ /ʊ/

bit foot
–high
 
[+tense] /eɪ/ /ə/ /oʊ/
–low 
bait abbot boat
E
[−tense] /ɛ/ /ʌ/ /ɔ/148

bet but bought
–high [+tense] /ɑ/
 
+low  E
father
[−tense] /æ/
bat
Can’t fit on chart: rhotacized schwa /ɚ/149

Three diphthongs: /aɪ/, /aʊ/, /ɔɪ/150
All the words of English (in the relevant dialect) are made up of these sounds and no others.
Thus you can recognize that [ˈblk] (“blick”) could be English and that [ˈq’ø] could not, even
if you have never heard either word before. In phonological analysis, we set up a phoneme
inventory that is large enough to encompass the target language — but no larger.
Languages vary a great deal in the number of phonemes they have. The record low is
believed to be held by Rotokas (South Pacific), with 11, and the record high is believed to be
held by !Xoo (Namibia), with 160. English has somewhere around 40, the number varying
according to dialect. The average across languages is about 30.
To see the point of the phonemic principle, you have to imagine a language that did not obey
it. In such a language: every word would have its own unique phonetic content, and would not
be decomposable into a sequence of units. (Such a system might be rather like the vocal
communication systems of certain animal species, consisting of a fixed inventory of calls.)
148
Dialectal; many speakers use /ɑ/ in all of the words that (for speakers who have this vowel) have
/ɔ/.
149
Treated as bearing a consonant feature, [+palato-alveolar] (tongue blade is up, unlike in any other
vowel).
150
Features for diphthongs: one approach is to treat them as vowel sequences, assigning features to
each vowel.
There is a clear advantage for a language in having a phonemic design. As noted earlier,
speech articulation is highly complex, with many articulators moving very rapidly. It would be
difficult to learn to pronounce all the thousands of words of a language if each one were a unique
phonetic sequence. Presumably it is easier to proceed phonemically; that is, to learn only a
limited number of sounds and form all words by stringing these sounds together.
The sign languages of the deaf could, in principle, be suggested as a counterexample to the
Phonemic Principle. However, research on sign language suggests that even this form of
language can be analyzed into gestural “phonemes”, even though these phonemes are quite
different from the phonemes of spoken language.151
3.2 Allophones, phonemes, and rules
A second principle, which will be the basis of much of the analyses to follow, is the
Allophonic Principle:
(209) Allophonic Principle
Phonemes vary; and the variation is rule-governed.
A allophone is a variant of phoneme.
Consider an example. We consider two variants of the phoneme //—a distinction that
typically is not transcribed, but seems to be widely found.152 One variant is simply the plain
alveolar central approximant [], already discussed. However, many instances of this phoneme
are pronounced as [],with simultaneous lip rounding. The superscript [] is the IPA symbol for
simultaneous rounding, which is also called labialization.
Inspecting my own speech (and checking with other speakers), I transcribed the following
data:
151
And more generally, such research has found morphemes, words, phrases, sentences, grammar,
intonation, etc. in sign languages; it’s a serious area of linguistics with a large research program.
152
Reference: Daniel Jones (1918) An outline of English phonetics. For a study with physical
measurement, see Delattre, Pierre C., and Donald C. Freeman. 1968. “A Dialect Study of American r’s by
X-ray Motion Picture.” Linguistics 44: 29–68.
real [ˈil] par [ˈpr]

write [ˈat] core [ˈko]
rope [ˈop] ear [ˈi]
reveal [əˈvil] part [ˈprt]
arrange [əˈend] bear [ˈbɛ]
apparition [æpəˈʃən] lure [ˈlu]
carry [ˈkei] forming [ˈfom]
era [ˈeə] tornado [toˈneo]
Erie [ˈii]
Plainly, some words have [] and some have [], but the data are not haphazard. Looking at
the examples, it should be apparent that
[] occurs only before a vowel

[] occurs elsewhere; that is, before a consonant or pause
This is an essentially mechanical difference: it’s a genuine detail of English pronunciation, and
if you don’t respect it you will sound like you are likely to sound a bit accented in your English.
But the difference between [] and [ɹ] has no communicative value, the way the difference
between [t] and [p] has. ([t] vs. [p] is “communicative” because tin and pin are not the same
word; because mat and map are not the same word, and so one — you could not say the same
thing for [] [ɹ].)
The idea, then, is that at some abstract level, [] and [] belong to the same category—they are
predictable variants of the same fundamental sound. A diagram suggesting this idea is:
// phonemic level
[] [] phonetic (= allophonic) level
This fundamental sound designated as // is a phoneme of English. Phonemes are normally
placed in slant brackets to distinguish them from ordinary phonetic transcription. The sounds []
and [] are said to be the allophones of //.
One justification for this move is as follows. If we were trying to form the minimal number
of sounds with which we could specify the pronunciation of any English word, it would be
pointless to include both [] and [] in this list of sounds. The distinction between the two is
redundant (predictable)—thus it is far more sensible to include just // in our list of sounds, and
let the distinction between [] and [] be derived by rule.
The point at hand has nothing to do, incidentally, with the spelling of these sounds (always
letter r)—the argument would hold just as true for illiterate or preliterate speakers, as it is based
solely on phonetic observations. Many unwritten languages have been subjected to phonemic
analysis. Moreover, where the spelling is inconsistent (beat vs. beet), the phonemes are the same,
in this example /i/.
4. Treating phonemes with rules and derivations
There is a fairly standard analysis of phonemes and allophones which will be covered here.
It involves setting up appropriate representations and rules, just as we have been doing for the
rest of grammar.
The key idea is to derive all allophones from underlying phonemes, using phonological
rules. We set up a phonemic level of representation, as a kind of useful abstraction, and then
employ a sequence of rules to derive the actually pronounced forms. As we saw at the end of the
previous chapter, the phonological rules have the capacity to change the values of the features;
later on we will see that they can insert or delete sounds and perform other operations as well.
To do this carefully, let us suppose that every morpheme has a phonemic representation,
defined as follows:
(210) Defn.: Phonemic representation
The phonemic representation of a morpheme is the string of phonemes from which it is

formed.
For example, the phonemic representation of real (phonetically [ˈil]) is /ˈil/. The phonemic
representation of par (phonetically [ˈp]) is /ˈp/.
From the phonemic representation, we can derive a phonetic representation, which is a

linguistic characterization of the actual pronunciation of a word. In the case we are considering,
there is just one phonological rule, which can be stated as follows:
(211) // Rounding
  [+round] / ___ [+syllabic]
Here is a verbal translation of the notation.
 means “becomes”, or in the present context, “changes its features to”

/ means “in the environment, in the context”
/ ___ X means “before X”
and similarly:
/ X ___ means “after X”

/ X ___ Y means “between X and Y”
With this notation, the rule of /ɹ/ Rounding can be read
(212) // Rounding (expressed as prose)
“If the sound  occurs in the environment before a [+syllabic] sound, change its features
so that it is [+round].”
Given a phonemic form and one or more rules, we can apply the rules in a derivation, which
derives the allophones from the phonemes. Here is a derivation for the word real.
/il/ underlying representation

 // Rounding
[il] surface representation
The inputs and outputs to the derivation are traditionally called the “underlying” and
“surface” representations. The underlying representation could be thought of as an abstract,
idealized version of the pronunciation, embodying only the essential aspects, and the surface
representation is what one obtains after filling in all the detail through the application of rules.
The process of applying a rule to a form can be examined in detail: // Rounding matches up
to /il/ as follows:
/  i l /
  [+round] / ___ [+syllabic]
That is, the position where // occurs is immediately followed in the form /il/ by the phoneme
/i/, which, being a vowel, is [+syllabic]. When we change the feature values of // so that its
former value of [−round] is altered to [+round], that is the formal way of indicating that the plain
// has been converted to a labialized [].
The word par has a quite trivial derivation, since // Rounding cannot apply to it (there is no
following [+syllabic] sound). The non-effect of inapplicable rules is shown in a phonological
derivation with a long dash:
/p/ underlying representation

— // Rounding
[p] surface representation
Such cases should be shown, because it is assumed for phonology that all words are submitted to
all rules, like objects passing down an assembly line. In this respect, phonology is like
inflectional morphology, discussed in Chapter 2. It is not like word formation, where rules apply
freely, and optionally, whenever they can.
The allophone [] is what is often called an elsewhere allophone. This term can only be
defined if you have a rule-based analysis. The elsewhere allophone of a phoneme is the one that
has not undergone any rules. Verbally, it is often best described with the word “elsewhere”: for
the phoneme /ɹ/, you get [ɹw] before a vowel and [ɹ] elsewhere. The elsewhere allophone is an
allophone like all the others; it just happens to be the one that doesn’t need any rules to derive it.
The analysis just given makes an important claim: although English has two []-like sounds
at the phonetic level, there is a more abstract analytical level at which it has just one, namely the
phoneme //: we don’t need both [] and [] to characterize the pronunciation of English words;
having // plus the rule of // Rounding suffices.
5. Practical uses of phonemic analysis
Here are practical uses of phonemes.
First, linguists sometime write reference grammars, intended to be a thorough account of

the structure of a language, covering phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics.
Often the first few pages of a reference grammar give the examples in full IPA transcription,
setting forth a phonemic analysis with its phoneme inventory. Once this is done, all future
examples can be given in phonemic transcription. It is assumed that the reader can apply the
allophone rules to any such transcription to get the desired pronunciation. This eliminates
unnecessary detail from the transcriptions and makes them easier to read.153 You can easily
imagine how un-useful (indeed, annoying) it would be if a reference grammar of English always
specified the difference between [ɹ] and [ɹw].154
Dictionaries usually use a phonemic transcription in their specifications of pronunciation.

This avoids redundancy and clutter. There is often a further advantage: speakers of different
dialects of the dictionary’s language often have the same phonemes but different systems of
allophones. Such speakers can make use of the same phonemic transcription but render it
(probably, without even thinking about it) in their own accent.
Second, phonemic analysis is important in alphabet design. A sensible alphabet will have a
symbolization for all and only the phonemes of a language. This makes is possible for the
spelling to specify, in principle, all aspects of the pronunciation of a word, without including any
additional redundant information. Alphabet design is a continuing activity worldwide as ever
more languages are provided with writing systems.
153
Indeed, most reference grammars go one step further and produce a practical orthography; a
spelling system that follows the phonemic principle but uses only Roman letters.
154
This sounds like I am making a joke, but old 19th century reference grammars can be found in libraries
that do exactly this.
6. Phonemes, allophones, and well-formedness
Usually, if you say a word with the “wrong” allophone for one of the phonemes, it sounds
funny. I find this to be true with the words above: if I say
real *[ˈil]
write *[ˈat]
rope *[ˈop]
leaving out the labialization, it doesn’t right (intuitively: “not enough like an r”, “a lazy r”); and
likewise if I say
par *[ˈp]
core *[ˈkɔ]
ear *[ˈi]
it sounds quite peculiar indeed (intuitively: “adding a w where it doesn’t belong”).
A phonemic analysis is a partial theory of what is “sayable” in a language. For a word to

sound right, it must be composed of phonemes from the language, to which all the rules of the
language have been applied. *[ˈil] is ungrammatical because the speaker has neglected to apply
// Rounding where it should be applied; *[ˈp] is ungrammatical because (one might say) //
Rounding has been applied in the wrong context.155
7. Features and natural classes
The rule of /ɹ/ Rounding in (190) has just one segment in its input. But many rules apply to
more than one segment. This is where phonological features, covered in the last chapter, come
in. The scheme is: (a) on the left side of the arrow, we set up a group of features to single out the
class of sounds that undergo the rule; (b) on the right side of the arrow, we specify all and only
the features that change their value. The result is a kind of parallel shift of whole classes of
sounds.
The relevant term here is natural class, already discussed at the end of the previous chapter.
We can define the concept more carefully here.
(213) Defn.: Natural class
A natural class is the complete set of speech sounds from a particular language
characterized by a set of one or more features.
Here are examples of allophonic rules of English that apply to natural classes.
155
“Sayability” in phonology also involves legal phoneme orders (phonotactics), mentioned above.
(214) Aspiration
+stop 
   [+aspirated] / [word ___
−voice
E
“Voiceless stops become aspirated word-initially.”
Derivations:
pit spit top stop kick Scot

/pɪt/ /spɪt/ /tɑp/ /stɑp/ /kɪk/ /skɑt/ underlying representation
p — t — k — Aspiration
[pɪt] [spɪt] [tɑp] [stɑp] [kɪk] [skɑt] surface representation
Note the parallel shift, /p t k/  [p tʰ kʰ]. As noted earlier, the assumption made in the
theory is that only the features specified in the rule are changed in the form. Thus /p/ starts out
[+bilabial] and [−voice], and ends up with these features because nothing has changed them (and
similarly for all of the features of /p/, see features chart (185) on p. 385.
(215) Vowel Nasalization
[+syllabic]  [+nasal] / ___ [+nasal]
“A vowel becomes nasalized when it precedes a nasal sound.”
Derivations:
bun bud doom do sing sit

/bʌn/ /bʌd/ /dum/ /du/ /sɪŋ/ /sɪt/ underlying representation
ʌ̃ — ũ — ɪ̃ — Vowel Nasalization
[bʌ̃n] [bʌd] [dũm] [du] [sɪ ̃ŋ] [sɪt] surface representation
Examples are given here for three vowels only, but all the others would work the same.
Study Exercise #71
Demonstrate that Vowel Nasalization can apply to /ɚ/, using a close pair similar to bun / bud.
Include a derivation in the same format as above.
The case I could find are burn/bird, turn/turd, kern/curd, CERN/surd, Hearn/herd, stern/stirred,
spurn/spurred, kernel/curdle, and (in some dialects) earn/erred. If you don’t insist on near-
identity, there are many more. Derivations for burn/bird:
burn bird
/bɚn/ /bɚd/ underlying representation
ɚ̃ — Vowel Nasalization
[bɚ̃n] [bɚd] surface representation
____________________________________________________________________________
8. Formulating rules with features
In this textbook, the philosophy for use of features is: make the rule as terse as it can be
while still deriving the correct output.
In practice, this often means: you can often get away with very few features on the left side
of the arrow (also in the rule context, when there is one). These parts of the rule only need to
single out a group of sounds from the set of sounds that the language already has. But, on the
right side of the arrow, it is often necessary to specify quite a few features, since we want the
rule to produce the intended sounds—precisely—in its outputs. As one of my students aptly put
it, the style of rule writing advocated here is “sparse on the left side, verbose on the right side” of
the arrow.
Example 1: suppose in English we want i u ɪ ʊ  ĩ ũ ɪ ̃ ʊ̃. The left side of the rule can be
just [+high], because in the feature system we’re using there are no [+high] consonants.156 The
right side of the rule need only mention [+nasal], since that is all that changes; hence, [+high] 
[+nasal].
Example 2: suppose in English we want k g ŋ  p b m. The left side is [+velar]. The right
+bilabial
side must specify −velar  . Why [−velar]? Because plenty of languages have sounds that are
E
both [+velar] and [+bilabial]—they have two articulations at once. IPA renders these sounds
(common in West Africa) as [k͡p g͡b ŋ͡m].157 If we didn’t change [+velar] to [−velar], we’d end
up with one of the “labial-velar” sounds as the incorrect output.
156
A caution: you may elsewhere encounter feature systems in which certain consonants, such as [j
w], are [+high].
157
And if you are pondering a theory like “automatically change the other features so that you arrive
at the closest sound in the phoneme inventory compatible with the change”, then ponder the rule of /ɹ/
Rounding, (190) on p. 400. There is no /ɹʷ/ phoneme in English, and the closest phoneme compatible with
Example 3: suppose in English we want this:
ptkmnŋ
+stop 
The left side of the arrow in the formalized rule has to have −voice , since we don’t want b d g
E
+nasal 
to undergo the rule. On the right side of the arrow we need to have −stop  , since nasals are E
+voice
nasal, and they aren’t stops, and they are voiced (look at feature chart (185) on p. 385, to see that
these are indeed exactly the three features that need to change).
Example 4: suppose in English we want ɪ ʊ  i u. Let’s do the change first: this clearly
has to be X  [+tense]. Now, what is the simplest characterization for X? The answer is
evidently [+high]. For ɪ ʊ, this works straightforwardly. And for i u, the rule takes an input that is
already [+tense] and mindlessly turns it into an output that is [+tense] — no harm done.
Application that harmlessly makes no change is sometimes called vacuous application.
Study Exercise #72
Formulate these rules using feature chart (185) on p. 385. Assume that the inventory of sounds
is as in English.
a. t, d become tʃ, dʒ before j, w.158

b. l becomes ɹ when another l comes before it, separated by a vowel.159
c. tʃ, dʒ become ʃ, ʒ between vowels.160
d. v, ð, z, ʒ become f, θ, s, ʃ at the end of a word.161
e. ɪ, ɛ, æ are deleted at the end of a word.
adding [+round] to /ɹ/ is /w/. This works great for describing the phonology of little kids and Elmer Fudd
([ˈkweɪzi ˈwæbɪt]), but not ordinary adult English.
158
This one is more or less real: get you [ˈgɛtʃju], said you would go [ˈsɛdʒjuwʊdˈgoʊ], twin [tʃwɪn],
dwell [dʒwʒɛl]. A later rule normally deletes [j] after palato-alveolars, yielding [ˈgɛtʃu], [ˈsɛdʒuwʊdˈgoʊ].
159
Based on Latin phonology. This is why we say nav-al, but sol-ar (words borrowed into English
from Latin).
160
More or less real, as a rule of the vernacular dialect of Italian spoken in Florence.
161
This is close to being true of English, though it really happens only at the ends of phrases, and
the devoicing is sometimes partial.
f. ɪ, ʊ become voiceless vowels (IPA [ɪ ̥], [ʊ̥]) when they occur between {p t k tʃ f θ s ʃ h} and
{p t k tʃ f θ s ʃ h}.162
g. u, ʊ become i, ɪ everywhere163
162
Not unlike a phonological rule of Japanese.
163
A change that was once a phonological rule in Yiddish.
+affricate
−stop

+stop 
a.    +palato-alveolar / ___ [+glide]
+alveolar
−alveolar 
E E
−lateral 
b. [+lateral]  +palato-alveolar / [+lateral][+syllabic] ___
E
−alveolar 
+fricative
c. [+affricate]  −affricate / [+syllabic] ___ [+syllabic]
E
d. [+fricative]  [−voice] / ___ ]word Note the use of vacuous application (to [f, θ, s, ʃ]) to
simplify the rule.
+syllabic
e. −back    / ___ ]
  E
word
−tense 
+high 
f.  
−tense  [−voice] / [−voice] ___ [−voice]
E
−back 
g. [+high]  −round E Note the use of vacuous application (to [u,ʊ]) to
simplify the rule.
————————————————————————————————————
9. Phonemic analysis
There is a fairly standard technique for starting with phonetic data, and determining from it
the phonemes and allophonic rules of the phonology. The technique has two parts.
9.1 Location of minimal pairs
Remember what we said about phonemes earlier, as the “Phonemic Principle” ((207)):
Every language has a limited set of phonemes (= basic speech sounds); and every word in the
language consists solely of phonemes of that language. Now that we are including allophones in
the system, we must consider this a little more abstractly: the limited set of phonemes is actually
a set of abstract entities, from which the pronounced allophones are derived by rule. This leads
us to a more sophisticated characterization of the phoneme.
(216) Defn.: phoneme
The inventory of phonemes for a language is the smallest set of abstract sounds from
which all the (physically pronounced) sounds can be derived by rule.
So, for example, we set up /ɹ/ as the entity that underlies both surface [ɹ] and surface [ɹw],
along with a rule to derive the latter allophone. An adequate full phoneme inventory for English
would include enough phonemes to permit us to derive everything.
The definition in (216) immediately leads to one of the two principal techniques for figuring
out a phonemic system. Here is the rationale. If I give you the following set of paired words:
pin [pɪn] tin [tɪn]

pail [peɪl] tail [teɪl]
append [əˈpɛnd] attend [əˈtɛnd]
cap [kæp] cat [kæt]
aspen [ˈæspən] Aston [ˈæstən]
then I have firmly ruled out the possibility that [p] is an allophone of /t/ (or similarly that [t] is an
allophone of /p/). The reason is that there can be no environment for the claimed rules that derive
these allophones — no such environment could exist, given that they occur in exactly the same
locations. These locations are:
[ ___ ɪn]
[ ___ eɪl]
[əˈ ___ ɛnd]
[kæ ___ ]
[ˈæs ___ ən]
It follows that pairs like pin and tin are extremely informative about the phonemic system.
Such pairs are called minimal pairs.
(217) Defn.: Minimal pair
Two words form a minimal pair if they differ in just one sound, in the same location.
All the pairs given above are minimal pairs. Pin [pɪn] and Tim [tɪm] are not a minimal pair for /t/
and /p/ because they differ in more than one sound. Spin [spɪn] and pins [pɪnz] are not a minimal
pair for /s/ and /z/ because the [s] and [z] occur in different locations.
Linguists tend to love minimal pairs; indeed long ago a linguist wrote “minimal pairs are the
analyst’s delight”. They instantly clarify a distinction; in the present case they show that two
sounds are separate phonemes. If you have a minimal pair, anywhere in linguistics,164 then you
know you have two structurally different things, and you know where the difference resides.
164
The minimal pair method is widely used in phonemicization, but in fact it is an important method of
analysis throughout linguistics. Thus, we have already seen minimal pairs in morphology (Turkish eli ‘hand-
Even better than minimal pairs are minimal triplets, minimal quadruplets, minimal n-tuplets;
the more the better. A set like pin, tin, chin, kin, bin, gin, din, fin, thin, sin, shin, Zinn, Lynn, win
already establishes the phonemic status of a majority of English consonants.
9.2 Establishing complementary distribution
The other well-known method for figuring out a phonemic system is to locate pairs of
sounds that are in complementary distribution, defined as follows.
(218) Defn. Complementary distribution
Two sounds A and B are in complementary distribution if B never occurs in the

environments where A occurs, and vice versa.
Complementary distribution is a pattern that strongly suggests membership in the same

phoneme.165 It implies that there is an important phonological genrealizaton present, which
ought to be accounted for by our system of rules. Usually, when A is in complementary
distribution with B, it is sensible either to derive surface [A] from underlying /B/ or derive
surface [B] from underlying /A/.166
There is a simple procedure for detect complementary distribution, which usually (not
always) works. The method has no official name, but I will call it the method of local
environments here.
Let us look at two sounds of English. The regular [l] we have already defined, as a lateral
approximant. The so-called dark l is transcribed [ɫ] (l with a tilde through it). It is made by
pushing the tongue body upward and backward at the same time the tongue blade makes the
appropriate movement for the l. I list below a bunch of words that have either the normal “light”
[l] or dark [ɫ]. Here are some data.
Words with light [l] Words with dark [ɫ]

lay [leɪ] fall [fɑɫ]
lose [luz] tell [tɛɫ]
please [pliz] else [ɛɫs]
allow [əˈlaʊ] filter [fɪɫtɚ]
accusative’ / ele ‘hand-dative’), in syntax (“Fred stole/killed the chicken from Greeley”), and in semantics (“Alice
congratulated her/herself”). Throughout, the method used is to compare utterances that have just one single
difference, in order to learn the contribution made by that difference.
165
There are exceptions (complementary distribution, but separate phonemes), which you would
have to learn about in a more advanced treatment of phonology. See For Further Reading at the end of
Chapter 12.
166
The exception is when (for example) A is in complementary distribution with both B and C, but B and C
belong to separate phonemes. We must then evaluate a number of difference analyses; one usually emerges as much
simpler.
gremlin [ˈgɹɛmlən] milk [ˈmɪɫk]

freely [ˈfrili] apple [ˈæpəɫ]
In the method of local environments, you write down a dash, and before it whatever comes
before the target sound, and after it whatever comes after the target sound. When the sound
comes initially, we can use [ to mark a “left word boundary” and when it comes finally we can
use ] to mark a right word boundary. So, the local environments for the data just given are as
follows:
Words with light [l] Words with dark [ɫ]

lay [ ___ eɪ] fall [ɑ ___ ]
lose [ ___ u] tell [ɛ ___ ]
please [p ___ i] else [ɛ ___ s]
allow [ə ___ aʊ] filter [ɪ ___ tɚ]
gremlin [m ___ ə] milk [ɪ ___ k]
freely [i ___ i] apple [ə ___ ɫ]
Inspection of the local environments with usually yield a simple description of the
distribution of at least one of the two sounds. Try looking at the data above and finding the
simplest description, before you turn the page.
The simplest description is that light [l] comes before a vowel. (We can’t use “after a
vowel”, since both sounds occur after vowels.)
Once you have a description, it’s easy to set up the rules. Choose an underlying form
compatible with using a simple rule to get the right answer. Here, we ought to choose /ɫ/, since
we can apply a single rule of Lightening to get the [l] allophone. (Choosing /l/ is perhaps more
intuitive, but would require two rules of Darkening, one applying before a consonant, one at the
ends of words.)
The full analysis works as follows:
Phoneme: /ɫ/
Rule:
/l/ Lightening
ɫ  [−back] / ___ [+syllabic]
‘/l/ becomes light when it precedes a vowel’
And here are representative derivations:
lay please freely fall else

/ɫeɪ/ /pɫiz/ /fɹiɫi/ /fɑɫ/ /ɛɫs/ underlying representations
l l l —— —— /l/ Lightening
[leɪ] [pliz] [fɹili] [fɑɫ] [ɛɫs] surface representations
Summing up, the location of minimal pairs and the establishment of complementary
distribution by local environments are the two usual methods for determing the system of
phonemes in a language.
10. A bigger example: Yidiɲ
Phonemic analysis of English has a kind of trivial quality to it if you are an English speaker
—we strongly sense our own phonemic system, and the rules are just adding the details. But this
is an English-internal perspective. The surprises happen when you do the same basic procedure
on other languages. The sounds are often organized in a way quite different from how English
works. Often, sounds that are mere allophones in English turn out to be phonemes as they appear
in other languages, and certain phonemic distinctions of English emerge as allophonic elsewhere.
The important idea is to work out of each language’s phonemic system in its own terms.
It is worth bearing in mind the principal errors that can arise during phonemicization.
Sometimes linguists do not set up enough phonemes so that all words that have distinct
pronunciations have distinct phonemic content — there must be “no lost distinctions”.167 Second,
linguists occasionally set up too many phonemes. This is the result of underanalysis: the linguist
fails to notice that two sounds are in complementary distribution. In this kind of error, a
generalization is missed, and we have a failure to note that the distributions of the allophones are
predictable by rule.
Let us work out some phonemes in a more detailed example, using data from an Australian
aboriginal language, Yidi ([] is IPA for the palatal nasal, like Spanish “ñ”). Yidi is probably
no longer spoken, though there may be a few aborigines alive today who remember a few words.
The fieldwork on Yidi was done in the 1960’s and 70’s by Prof. Robert M. W. Dixon of the
Australian National University, who also developed the phonemic analysis given. The data
below are somewhat idealized, constructed from Dixon’s lexicon following his description of the
facts.
First, here are the non-English IPA symbols needed.
 [] is a voiced palatal stop —same place of articulation as [j], but full closure.
 [] is a palatal nasal, as noted above
 [] indicates that the preceding vowel is long
 [ɫ] is dark l, with the tongue body backed (in IPA terminology, velarized). We have
already seen this sound as an allophone in English.
 [r] is a trilled r.
 [ɻ] is a retroflex central approximant, with tongue tip curled up and back.168
The following are consonant and vowel charts for Yidi. These are not just a casual
review—consulting the chart is actually a good procedure to follow when you are discovering
the rule environments.
167
The usual reason for a lost distinction is that the linguist can’t hear it. Bringing more linguists onto the
scene — especially, native speaker linguists — is often the remedy.
168
Some English speakers use this kind of r, rather than the (more common) /ɹ/.
(219) Phonetic charts: sounds of Yidiɲ
a. Consonants
Bilabial Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar
Stops (voiced) b d  g
Nasals m n  
Liquids nonlateral r ɻ
Lateral l
Lateral velarized ɫ
Glides w j
b. Vowels
Front Back Back

High tense i, i u, u
High lax , ɪː , 
Low a, a
Here are the data we will work with.
(220) Data for Yidiɲ problem
1. [ɟʊmbaːgɪ] ‘tobacco’
2. [ŋawuːjʊ] ‘salt-water turtle’
3. [guɫaːɻ] ‘big-leafed fig tree’
4. [ŋuɲʊːr] ‘initiated man’
5. [duguːbil] ‘bark bag’
6. [muɲɟʊːɻ] ‘plenty’
7. [wigilwigil] ‘sweet’
8. [ɟambuːɫ] ‘two’
9. [ɟʊɫŋuːɫ] ‘waterfall’
10. [gabuːɫ] ‘stick for carrying fish’
11. [wurguːɫ] ‘pelican’
12. [babuːɟʊ] (can’t find gloss)
13. [guɫgɪ] ‘sand, sugar’
14. [maguːɫ] ‘a root vegetable’
15. [muɫɲaːrɪ] ‘blanket’

16. [ŋumbuːbʊ] ‘new-born baby’
17. [jʊjʊɻuŋguɫ] ‘noise of snake sliding through grass’
18. [ɟʊgaːbal] ‘house frame’
19. [ɟʊwaːr] ‘wattle tree’
20. [ɟʊduːɫʊ] ‘brown pigeon’
21. [duɫnbiːlaj] ‘white cedar’
22. [ɟimuːr] ‘large house’
23. [gunbuːɫ] ‘billy-can’
24. [guɫaːn] ‘walnut tree’
25. [ɲʊŋguːɫ] ‘Torres Straits pigeon’
26. [mugaːɻʊ] ‘fish net’
27. [wiɻuːɫ] ‘shellfish species’
28. [wuɫmbuːɻ] ‘leafy broom’
29. [ɟʊriːn] ‘leech’
30. [ɲʊnduːba] ‘you-nom. sing’
31. [gujʊ] ‘tree vine species’
32. [wuɫmbuːɻ] ‘leafy broom’
33. [ɟʊɫugunʊ] ‘black myrtle tree’
34. [buɫuːɻ] ‘storytime person’
35. [ŋuɻuːɫ] ‘just now’
36. [guguːɫʊ] ‘recitative mourning style used by men’
37. [wubuːɫ] ‘lucky’
38. [dalŋudalŋʊ] ‘sound of bell ringing’
39. [dalʊ] ‘forehead’
40. [ɟʊmaːl] ‘straight woomera’169
41. [ɟilŋgʊ] ‘down’
42. [baŋgaːmʊ] ‘English potato’
43. [muɫaːrɪ] ‘initiated man’
44. [ganguːɫ] ‘grey wallaby’
45. [guɟʊːn] ‘wind’
46. [gaɟʊːɫ] ‘dirty (e.g. water)’
47. [buɫguːɻ] ‘swamp’
169
Spear-thrower (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/2970/woomera.htm)
48. [ɟʊŋguːm] ‘worm’

49. [ɟʊɻɪ] ‘sharp, pointed’
50. [gawuːɫ] ‘blue gum tree’
51. [bawʊː] ‘backbone’
52. [gawʊː] ‘tree species’
53. [galbɪː] ‘catfish’
54. [diwɪː] ‘small ground bee’
In phonemicization, the overall strategy one follows is to consider pairs or small groups of
sounds that are phonetically similar, under the hypothesis that they are allophones of the same
phoneme. There is no reliable principle to be followed here other than general phonetic
similarity; one must make guesses, some of which pay off in the discovery of allophonic
relationships. Usually in beginning textbooks, the author decides to send you in a direction that
actually turns out to work when you try it, and that will be generally true here.
We can start in on Yidiɲ by considering the two sounds [l] and [ɫ], which are indeed
phonetically similar (light vs. dark l). Following the method of 9.2 above, we collect local
environments for these sounds by looking up each on in the data, and recording (a) the example
number; (b) the preceding sound; (c) the following sound. Here is such a chart for [l]:
(221) Local environments for Yidiɲ [l]
5. i___] 38. a___

7. i___w 38. a___
7. i___]
18. a___] 39. a___
21. i___a 40. a___
41. i___
The first item on chart (221) was obtained by taking the l-containing form
5. [duˈgubil]
from (196) and replacing l with ___, as follows:
5. [duˈgubi___]
and then removing all the material not next to the l:
5. [duˈgubi___]
The resulting entry in (221), 5. i ___ ], means “an [l] occurred after [i] and at the end of a word.”
All the other entries in (221) were obtained the same way.
The same procedure yields this list for dark [ɫ]:
(222) Local environments for Yidiɲ [ɫ]
3. u___a 20. u___ 34. u___u

8. u___] 21. u___n 35. u___]
9. ___n 23. u___] 36. u___
10. u___] 24. u___a 37. u___]
11. u___] 25. u___] 43. u___a
13. u___g 27. u___] 44. u___]
14. u___] 28. u___m 46. ___]
15. u___ 32. u___m
47. u___g
17. u___] 33. ___u
50. u___]
These lists are then inspected for pattern. It’s useful to look first at “right sides” alone, then
at “left sides” alone, and remember the phonetic character of the sounds in involved. In the
present case, the payoff comes from looking at the “left side” environments for [ɫ], which, shown
alone, look like this:
(223) Inspecting the local environments for Yidiɲ [ɫ]: left sides only
3. u___ 20. u___ 34. u___

8. u___ 21. u___ 35. u___
9. ___ 23. u___ 36. u___
10. u___ 24. u___ 37. u___
11. u___ 25. u___ 43. u___
13. u___ 27. u___ 44. u___
14. u___ 28. u___ 46. ___
15. u___ 32. u___ 47. u___
17. u___ 33. ___ 50. u___
which in turn reduces to the following four cases:
u ___, u___, ___, ___
These four cases occupy a specific region of the vowel chart, repeated below:
Front Back Back

High lax  , 
Low a, a
This can be characterized very simply as the round vowels.170 Thus, using our feature set, “in the
environment, after a round vowel” is stated:
+syllabic
/ +round  ___
E
This is clearly a meaningful discovery; there are enough data given that this pattern is very
unlikely to be true by accident.
The next thing to check is: how does the distribution of the phonetically similar light [l]
sound relate to this environment? Combing through the list of local environments (221), we find
+syllabic
that there are no cases of light [l] in the environment +round  ___. Thus, we have established
E
complementary distribution, a key part of the task of grouping sounds into phonemes. Assuming
that the data are representative, this complementary distribution is something we need to explain.
And there is actually good reason to think the data are representative, since they are numerous
and were chosen more or less at random.
The phonemic analysis, therefore, would work like this. We assume the phoneme /l/, and
write the following rule:
(224) /l/ Darkening (Yidiɲ)
+syllabic
l  [+back] / +round  ___
E
“Realize the /l/ phoneme as back (dark; velarized) when it follows a round vowel.”
This rule can be illustrated with derivations of words chosen from the original data in (220).
To make the illustration clear, we pick one form that is eligible for the rule and one that isn’t:
170
It’s true that these four vowels are also [+back] and [+high]; we’re going for a terse
characterization here (see p. 405) and there’s no point in using more features than necessary. Note that [a]
and [a] are central, not back.
(225) Derivations to illustrate Yidiɲ /l/ Darkening
10. /gaˈbul/ 5. /duˈgubil/ underlying representation

ɫ — /l/ Darkening
[gaˈbuɫ] [duˈgubil] phonetic form
As before, the horizontal dash bears the meaning “rule is inapplicable.”
10.1 Why does the local-environment method work?
Collecting local environments is, of course, tedious, and some people find they can solve
phoneme problems at sight, rather than slogging through all this data processing by hand.
However, collecting local environments can certainly be a help when you are stuck.
The method works because the environments for phonological rules are usually local,
meaning “confined to adjacent segments”. Some rules have non-local environments—vowels
sometimes influence vowels across intervening consonants; and consonants occasionally
influence consonants across intervening vowels. Such cases require the linguist to examine a
wider window.
11. Some minimal pairs in Yidiɲ
In many languages (for instance, Italian and Swahili), long vowels are allophones of the
their short counterparts. This might be true of Yidi — in principle — but the following minimal
pair data show that we needn’t pursue this hypothesis very far:
[malan] ‘flat rock’

[malan] ‘right hand’
[wuɻu] ‘spear handle’

[wuɻu] ‘river’ or ‘snake species’171
[guil] ‘smell-present tense’

[guil] ‘smell-past tense’
Plainly, the long and short vowel pairs must be counted as separate phonemes.
171
Thus like English bank.
12. More Yidi allophones
The local-environment method for detection of allophones is applied below to [u], [], [u],
and []; again the data we are working from are from (220).
(226) Environments for [] in Yidiɲ
1. ___m 48. ___ 20. ɫ___]

9. ___ɫ 49. ___ɻ 26. ɻ___]
12 ___] 30. ___n 33. n___]
18. ___g 2. j___] 36. ɫ___]
19. ___w 17. j___j 38. ___]
20. ___d 17. j___ɻ 39. l___]
31. j___] 41. g___]
29. ___r
16. b___] 42. m___]
33. ___ɫ
40. ___m
(227) Environments for [u] in Yidiɲ
11. w___r 26. m___g 36. g___g

13. g___ɫ 28. w___ɫ 37. w___b
15. m___ɫ 3. g___ɫ 38. ___d
16. ___m 31. g___j 4. ___ˈ
17. ɻ___ 32. w___ɫ 43. m___ɫ
17. g___ɫ 33. ɫ___g 45 g___
33. g___n 47. b___ɫ
21. d___ɫ
34. b___ɫ 5. d___g
23. g___n
35. ___ɻ 6. m___
24 g___ɫ
This one is a bit harder: you have to notice that there are two environments for []: after a
palatal consonant, and at the end of a word. The [u] cases occur in neither environment, so we
have a more complex complementary distribution.
We can set up a basic phoneme (“elsewhere”) /u/, and write two rules, which happen to
derive the same allophone. Both rules turn out to be generalizable when we look at further data,
so these are preliminary versions.
(228) Yidiɲ Postpalatal Laxing (preliminary)
–syllabic
u  [−tense] / +palatal  ___
E
“/u/ becomes lax when it follows a palatal consonant.”
(229) Yidiɲ Final Laxing (preliminary)
u  [−tense] / ___ ]word
“/u/ becomes lax at the end of a word.”
Some derivations of three sample forms are as follows. Note that these forms have /l/’s as
well, which redundantly illustrate /l/ Velarization.
1. /ilgu/ 9. /uɫngul/ 4. /buluɻ/ underlying form

—  — Postpalatal Laxing
 — — Final Laxing
— ɫ ɫ /l/ Velarization
[ilg] [ɫnguɫ] [buɫuɻ] phonetic form
(230) Environments for [] in Yidiɲ
4. ___r
45 ___n
46. ___ɫ
6. ___ɻ
51. w___]
52. w___]
(231) Environments for [u] in Yidiɲ
10. b___ɫ 25. g___ɫ 37. b___ɫ

11. g___ɫ 27. ɻ___ɫ 44. g___ɫ
12 b___ 28. b___ɻ 47. g___ɻ
14. g___ɫ 30. d___b 48. g___m
16. b___b 32. b___ɻ 5. g___b
2. w___j 34. ɫ___ɻ 50. w___ɫ
20. d___ɫ 8. b___ɫ
35. ɻ___ɫ
22. m___r 9. g___ɫ
36. g___ɫ
23. b___ɫ
It should be clear that the situation is quite parallel to what we saw with short [u] and []: the
laxed vowel occurs finally and after a palatal consonant, whereas the tense vowel occurs
elsewhere. There are fewer data here, but our confidence should be increased by the fact that
we’ve seen the pattern before.
The analysis needs to be revised, not replaced, to handle these data: evidently the rules of
Postpalatal Laxing and Final Laxing must apply to the class of vowels { u, u }. This is another
instance of phonological rules applying to natural classes (see section 7 of this chapter, above).
Using features to handle this, we restate the rules as follows:
(232) Yidiɲ Postpalatal Laxing (final version)
+syllabic –syllabic
   [−tense] /  
+round  +palatal  ___
E E
“Any rounded vowel becomes lax after a palatal consonant.”
(233) Yidiɲ Final Laxing (still preliminary)
+syllabic
   [−tense] / ___ ]word
+round 
E
“Any rounded vowel becomes lax in final position.”
+syllabic
The designation +round  suffices, in a language like Yidi with a tiny vowel inventory, to
E
designated all and only the vowels of the set { u, u }. The idea behind the rule is that it changes
only the feature [tense], with all other features remaining the same. As a result, /u/ becomes []
and /u/ become [], each retaining their value of the feature [long]—again, features not specified
by the rule are assumed to remain unaltered.
Note that in this kind of analysis, part of the goal is to achieve as much generality as you
can. In principle, you could describe the language with zillions of little rules, each applying to
one sound in one environment. But aiming for more general rules gives a clearer picture of the
overall pattern.
Study Exercise #73
Find three appropriate forms from the list above and illustrate the revised versions of these
rules as they apply to long vowels. Use the derivations given in (225) above as your model.
52. /bawuː/ 6. /muɲɟʊːɻ/ 11. /wurguːl/ underlying representation

—  — Postpalatal Laxing
 — — Final Laxing
— — ɫ /l/ Velarization
[bawː] [muɲɟʊːɻ] [wurguːɫ] phonetic form
_____________________________________________________________________
We are almost done sorting the data. Here is how the high front vowels [i] and [ɪ] are
distributed.
(234) Environments for Yidiɲ [i] and []
[]:
1. g___]
13. g___]
15. r___]
43. r___]
49. ɻ___]
[i]:
22. ___m 7. w___g

27. w___ɻ 7. g___l
7. w___g
41. ___l 7. g___l
5. b___l
These data also suggest complementary distribution: all of the []’s are final. Knowledge of
phonetics helps here: clearly, [] is the lax partner of [i] just as [] is the lax partner of [u],
suggesting that our Final Laxing rule should be generalized even further, to include the front
vowels. However, Postpalatal Laxing should not be generalized further, since as examples 22
and 41 show, we get [i], not [], after palatals.
If Final Laxing applies to long /u˘/, to short /u/, and to short /i/, then it have better apply to
long /i˘/ as well. Data are few, but apparently conform to the prediction:
(235) Environments for Yidiɲ [i], []
[] [i]
53. b___] 21. b___l

54. w___] 29. r___n
Let us go out on a limb, assuming that collection of further data would continue to confirm
the overall pattern. Thus we will complete the fully-generalized rule. We want it to apply, in
final position, to { u, u, i, i }, but not [a, a]. This can be done if we formulate it to affect only
non-low vowels:
(236) Yidiɲ Final Laxing (final version)
+syllabic
   [−tense] / ___ ]word
–low  E
“Non-low vowels are made lax in word-final position.”
——————————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #74
Review the completed Yidiɲ analysis and specify all the natural classes it uses that have
more than one member. Describe each natural class according to (a) the rule that uses it; (b) a list
of sounds in { }, (c) a description in IPA terminology.
Postpalatal Laxing is triggered by the natural class of palatal consonants, which in Yidiɲ is {
, , j }. Postpalatal Laxing applies to the class of round vowels, which in Yidiɲ is { u, u˘ }. Final
Laxing applies to the natural class of nonlow vowels, which in Yidiɲ is { i, i˘, u, u˘ }.
______________________________________________________________________________
13. The full Yidi phoneme inventory
We’ve now succeeded in showing that several of the sounds of the Yidi phonetic chart in
(219) above are not independent phonemes, but merely allophones. These are placed in
parentheses in the revised charts below:
(237) The sounds of Yidiɲ with allophones shown in parentheses
a. Consonants
Bilabial Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar
Stops (voiced) b d  g
Nasals m n  
Liquids nonlateral r ɻ
Lateral l
Lateral velarized (ɫ)
Glides w j
b. Vowels
Front Back Back

High lax (), (ɪː) (), ()
Low a, a
This reduces the phoneme population to 19, a rather small inventory.
13.1 When to use features in writing rules
A fully explicit phonological analysis of a language would use no phonetic symbols. Only
the features have theoretical status, and the phonetic symbols are meant only as convenient
abbreviations for particular feature matrices.
On the other hand, one also wants to be able to describe phonologies in a way that is precise,
but accessible to human inspection. My own feeling is that in semi-formal presentation, it is
appropriate to use a mixed notation, using phonetic symbols where they lead to no harm, and
features where they contribute insight. Here are ways in which rules benefit by writing them with
features.
To capture a natural class. We’ve just seen several examples of this in Yidi.
To capture an assimilation. We do this by showing that the assimilating segment adopts a

feature value already possessed by one of its neighbors. For example, in English, /k, g, /
becomes fronted [k+, g+, +] before front vowels, as in keel [ˈk+il], gale [ˈg+eIl], or dinghy [ˈdI+i]. This
is an assimilation, which can be expressed by:
Velar Fronting
+syllabic
[+velar]  [−back] / ___ –back  E
“A velar consonant becomes fronted before a front vowel.”
To show that a change is minor; that is, of only one or two feature values. For example, if
a rule changes (only) /p/ to [b], one would write p  [+voice] rather than p  b, to show that
nothing other than [voice] is changing.
Otherwise use of plain symbols seems like a sensible way to make a rule easier to read,
provided that it is understood that the “real” rule employs only feature matrices.
Chapter 12: Phonology II —Optional Rules,

Phonology/Morphology Interaction
1. Optional rules
Phonological rules may be optional. When a phonological rule applies optionally, both the
input and the output can be pronounced.
1.1 Preglottalization
Here is an example of an optional rule.
(238) Preglottalization
+stop 
 
–voiced  [+glottal] / ___ ]word
E (optional)
That is, a voiceless stop at the end of a word can optionally receive simultaneous glottal
closure (thus, an alveolar stop stays alveolar, a velar stops stays velar, and a bilabial stops stays
bilabial, but they receive a glottal closure in addition). Here are data:
cat: [ˈkæt] or [ˈkæt]

hat: [ˈhæt] or [ˈhæt]
cut: [ˈkt] or [ˈkt]
Additional data with other places of articulation are as follows:
cup: [ˈkp] or [ˈkp]

hack: [ˈhæk] or [ˈhæk]
1.2 Tapping
Another optional rule (of North American English172) is Tapping, which derives [] as an
allophone of /t/.173 The data look like this:
172
Tapping is unusual outside North America. It occurs natively in some Irish speech and is said to
be appearing in other foreign dialects as a cultural import. Non-tapping dialects often have Glottaling
instead: butter [ˈbʌʔə], [ˈbʊʔə].
173
And, as we’ll see later on, of /d/.
Forms that can be tapped
butter [ˈbɚ]
attic [ˈæk]
heritability [hɛəəˈbləi]
motto [ˈmo]
Forms that cannot be tapped
attain [əˈten] (*[əˈen])

Tommy [ˈtmi] (*[ˈmi])
cat [ˈkæt] (*[ˈkæ])
actor [ˈæktɚ] (*[ˈækɚ])
Atkins [ˈætknz] (*[ˈæknz])
Inspection of these and similar data indicate a very particular environment for Tapping,
namely: between two vowels (or other syllabic sounds; diphthongs and syllabic consonants), of
which the second must stressless:
(239) Tapping (preliminary version)174
+syllabic
t   / [+syllabic] ___ –stress  E
Now, different speakers will vary, but my impression is that most speakers of North
American dialects can, in very slow and careful speech, “turn off” tapping and produce [t]’s in
the relevant words:
butter [ˈbɚ], [ˈbtɚ]

attic [ˈæk], [ˈætk]
heritability [hɛəəˈbləi], [hɛətəˈbləti]
motto [ˈmo], [ˈmto]
1.3 /æ/ Diphthongization
A third optional rule, which is found in the dialect of many but not all American English
speakers, is a rule of /æ/ Diphthongization, which applies before nasals. Here are data:
174
To be generalized below.
No diphthongization:
cat [ˈkæt]
pack [ˈpæk]
lap [ˈlæp]
lab [ˈlæb]
pal [ˈpæl]
Diphthongization:
can [ˈkɛən]
man [ˈmɛən]
Spanish [ˈspɛənʃ]
dance [ˈdɛəns]
spam [ˈspɛəm]
tram [ˈtɛəm]
Setting up the basic phoneme as /æ/, we can write the rule as follows:
(240) /æ/ Diphthongization
/æ/  [ɛə] / ___ [+nasal]
The pronunciations given above in the second group of forms are in fact only one option;
these words can also be pronounced [ˈkæn], [ˈmæn], [ˈspænʃ], [ˈdæns], [ˈtæm]. Thus /æ/
Diphthongization must be optional.
1.4 An obligatory rule
Not all phonological rules are optional. The rule of Initial Aspiration derives the little puff of
breath (aspiration, IPA []) heard on word-initial voiceless stops.
(241) Initial Aspiration
+stop 
 
–voiced  [+aspirated] / [word ___
E
Data:
pie [ˈpa]
tie [ˈta]
cat [ˈkæt]
police [pəˈlis]
collect [kəˈlɛkt]
but not
spy [ˈspa]
sty [ˈsta]
scat [ˈskæt]
upper [ˈpɚ]
tickle [ˈtkəl]
This rule is obligatory; it is grossly unnatural to say words like cat without the aspiration.
1.5 Optional rules and derivations
There is no standard way to write derivations for optional rules, but one way that shows the
optionality in a nice clear way is what I will call a “branching derivation.” The format gives
arrows indicating the two possibilities for when an optional rule does or does not apply; for
example:
(242) A branching derivation for can
/kæn/ underlying form (“can”)
— kɛən /æ Diphthongization/
[kæn] [kɛən] phonetic form
Where there are multiple applicable rules, the branches will multiply, producing a tree of
greater size. Some commercial speech recognition devices use rules to generate alternate forms
of the words to be recognized; their derivations can culminate in hundreds or thousands of
branches.
1.6 Optional rules and speaking style
It seems that different optional rules tend to apply in differing speech styles. In most
people’s speech, Tapping is very close to obligatory, and “turning it off” (as in pity [ˈpti]) is
appropriate only in the most formal of speaking styles. I find that /æ/ Diphthongization can be
“turned off” in somewhat more casual contexts than Tapping can be; and Preglottalization can be
turned off even in fairly relaxed contexts. On the other end of this continuum, there are rules that
(for me at least), only get to apply in the most casual speech, for instance the rule that
monophthongizes /a/ to [æ] (try for instance: Get out of here! [gɛɾˈæɾəhiɹ].)
Research by sociolinguists indicates that when we speak, we constantly regulate the

application of a great number of optional phonological rules. Presumably, we do this for
purposes of making the appropriate impression on the people with whom we are speaking; there
are contexts that call for colloquial speech and contexts that call for formal speech. Most people
command a range of styles,175 and the ability to turn optional rules off or on is part of this
command.
2. Optional rules and phonemic analysis
The existence of optional rules implies a slight change in how we determine the system of
phonemes: we need to look not just for cases of complementary distribution (defined above in
(202)) but also for cases of free variation. Free variation occurs whenever you have this
situation: in some particular context, wherever X occurs, so can Y, and vice versa. Thus in the
example above, in the context / ___ [+nasal], wherever [æ] can occur, so can [ɛə], and vice versa.
Two sounds occurring in free variation are treated as allophones of a single phoneme.
The method of local environments can be adapted for free variation. The trick is to make
separate columns for each variation pattern. Thus, for instance, if you were working on the data
for /æ/ Diphthongization above, you would make a column headed “[æ] or [ɛə]”, like this:
[æ] or [ɛə] [æ] only

can / k ___ n cat / k ___ t
Sam / s ___ m lass / l ___ s
etc. etc.
Free variation makes phonemic analysis sufficiently complicated that it may be helpful to
describe it as a “flow chart” of options, as in (221) below.
175
By this I mean even monolingual, monodialectal people. Obviously, the ability to speak more
than one dialect or language increases the range of impressions that a speaker can create.
(243) A flow chart for phonemic analysis
START
Consider two
phonetically similar
sounds [x] and [y]
yes Are there any no

minimal pairs (see
(203)) for [x] and [y]?
Check for free

/x/ and /y/ are separate variation:
phonemes. yes Whenever [x] occurs, no
END is it also possible say
[y], and vice versa?
Check for
complementary
yes distribution:
wherever [x] occurs,
[y] does not, and vice
versa.
[x] and [y] are
allophones of the same
phoneme. Pick one no
(simplest choice) as the
underlying form and
write a rule or rules.
END You’re stuck.
See footnote.176
END
176
In such a case, [x] and [y] are normally separate phonemes, for which, by sheer bad luck, there
happen to be no minimal pairs. This happens sometimes for rare phonemes, like English /ð/ and /ʒ/. The
next step in such cases is to show that, if we treated [x] and [y] as allophones, we would not be able to write
a phonological rule that could derive them.
Study Exercise #75
Target sounds: [s], [t͡s]. One phoneme or two?
(a) Collect local environments.

(b) Give the appropriate underlying forms and rules.
(c) Give underlying representations and derivations for dance, concert, and false.
Hints:
 In your local environments, put the stress mark before the vowel; rather than before the
syllable as IPA requires.
 Sorting local environments: make a list for “just [s]”, a list for “[s] and [t͡s] in free
variation, and for “just [t͡s]”.
dance [ˈdænt͡s]
Clarence [ˈklɛɹənt͡s]
mince [ˈmɪnt͡s]
hence [ˈhɛnt͡s]
concert [ˈkɑnsɚt], [ˈkɑnt͡sɚt],
cancer [ˈkænsɚ], [ˈkænt͡sɚ]
cancel [ˈkænsəl], [ˈkænt͡səl]
cancellation [kænsəˈleɪʃen], [kænt͡səˈleɪʃen]
tonsil [ˈtɑnsəl], [ˈtɑnt͡səl]
fancy [ˈfænsi], [ˈfænt͡si]
insert [ɪnˈsɚt]
concede [kənˈsid]
coincide [koʊɪnˈsaɪd]
soup [ˈsup]
false [ˈfɑls]
farce [ˈfɑɹs]
miss [ˈmɪs]
fussy [ˈfʌsi]
3. Answer to Study Exercise #74
Local environments:
[t͡s] only
dance / n ___ ]
Clarence / n ___]
mince /n ___]
hence / n ___]
Environments for either [s] or [t͡s] in free variation

concert / n ___ ɚ
cancer / n ___ ɚ
cancel / n ___ ə
cancel / n ___ ə
tonsil / n ___ ə
fancy / n ___ i
Environments with only [s]

insert / n ___ ˈɚ
concede / n ___ˈi
coincide / n ___ ˈaɪ
soup / [ ___ ˈu
false / l ___ ]
farce / ɹ ___ ]
miss / ˈɪ ___ ]
fussy / ˈʌ ___ i
[s] and [t͡s] are sometimes in complementary distribution, sometimes in free variation.
[t͡s] only: word-finally after [n].

Free variation: between [n] and a stressless vowel.
[s] only: elsewhere
We set up /s/ as the underlying form (it would be quite a mess to try to state all the
environments for [s], but it works fine as the elsewhere allophone).
Rules:
Obligatory /s/ Affrication
–fricative 
s  +affricate / n ___ ]word
E
“An s becomes [t͡s] if it comes between [n] and the end of a word.”
Optional /s/ Affrication
–fricative  +syllabic
s  +affricate / n ___ –stress 
E E (optional)
“An s may become [t͡s] if it comes between [n] and a stressless vowel.”
Derivations:
dance concert false

/ˈdæns/ /ˈkɑnsɚt/ /fɑls/ underlying representations
t͡s — — Obligatory /s/ Affrication
— ˈkɑnt͡sɚt — — Optional /s/ Affrication

[ˈdænt͡s] [ˈkɑnt͡sɚt] [kɑnsɚt] [fɑls] phonetic forms
______________________________________________________________________________
PHONOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY
4. Overview
Phonology is a part of grammar, the part dealing with speech sounds and their realization.
Phonology does not operate in isolation, but is tied to other components of the grammar, notably
morphology. In what follows we will examine some of the phenomena involving in this
relationship.
5. Alternation
Let us start with a definition:

(244) Defn.: alternation
Alternation is the appearance of a single morpheme in different phonetic forms in

different contexts.
It is found in all languages of the world. It normally results from an interaction of

morphological and phonological rules. To show how alternation arises, I will first have to present
some background material on the morphology and phonology of American English.
For morphology, we can very briefly review the format used here for word formation rules.
In (52) above (Chapter 2) we establish a rule of word formation that we called the -able Rule;
repeated below.
(245) -able Rule (repeated from (52))
[ X ]Verb  [ [ X ]Verb əbəl ]Adj meaning: “able to be Verbed”
This derives, for instance, lovable and wearable. In Study Exercise #7 in Chapter 2 we
established another word formation rule, the -ation Rule:
(246) -ation Rule (repeated from Study Exercise #7)
[ X ]Verb  [ [ X ]Verb ˈeɪʃən ]Noun meaning: “process of Verbing”
This derives, for instance, accusation, improvisation, and indentation.
We will also use some phonological rules that interact with the morphological rules just
given. Of these, the following one is new:
(247) Pre-Stress Aspiration
+stop  +syllabic 
   [+aspirated] / [+syllabic] ___ +stressed
–voice
E E
This is part of family of rules assigning aspiration; see also Initial Aspiration in (219)
above.177 This one is needed to cover that cases of aspiration that occur other than at the
beginning of the word. Here are examples:
appeal [əˈpil]
attend [əˈtɛnd]
account [əˈkaʊnt]
177
It’s odd to need two aspiration rules (one initial, the other pre-stress). Various proposals have
been made to unify them.
In these examples the voiceless stop is between two syllabic sounds (vowel, diphthong, or
syllabic consonant), of which the second is stressed. Note further that when the second is not
stressed, the aspiration is absent (or at least quite weak):
caper [ˈkeɪpɚ]
tickle [ˈtkəl]178
The remaining phonological rules we’ll need were justified in the pages above; they are
repeated below for convenience:
Tapping (from (239))

+syllabic
as in butter [ˈbʌɾɚd], motto [ˈmɑɾoʊ] , vanity [ˈvænəɾi], etc.
Preglottalization (from (238))
+stop 
 
–voiced  [+glottal] / ___ ]word
E (optional)
as in cat [ˈkæʔt], cap [ˈkæʔp], lack [ˈlæʔk], etc.
Both of these rules are optional, but for simplicity we will assume below that they apply
obligatorily. This simplifying assumption will not change the analysis in any crucial way.
6. Testing for the relative ordering of morphology and phonology
With this example in mind, we can now cover the crucial data:
note notable notation

[ˈnot] [ˈnoəbəl] [noˈtheʃən]
quote quotable quotation

[ˈkwot] [ˈkwoəbl] [kwoˈtheʃən]
The first three forms are, or are derived from, the stem note and the last three from quote; the
relevant rules of word formation are the -able Rule and -ation Rule above. If we “peel away” the
affixes -able and -ation, then we can look at what is “left over”; that is, the various versions of
the stems:
178
We can’t check /t/ here because it would undergo Tapping, which makes it not a stop at all and
hence ineligible for aspiration.
note notable notation

[ˈnot] [ˈno] [noˈth]
quote quotable quotation

[ˈkwot] [ˈkwo] [kwoˈth]
These variant forms of the stems are called allomorphs. It can be seen that, following the
definition given above of “alternation” ((244): “Alternation is the appearance of a single
morpheme in different phonetic forms in different contexts.”), both note and quote alternate.
Most, but not all alternation, has a simple explanation, stated in the theory given here as
follows:
Morphological rules precede phonological rules.
or to put it more specifically, the morphological component of grammar occupies a position

before the phonological component. The scheme that results is this: morphological rules, by
adding prefixes, suffixes, etc., change the environments in which the phonemes occur. Then,
phonological rules sensitive to these environments apply differentially to different instances of
the morpheme. This makes the morphemes show up differently in different contexts; that is to
say, makes them alternate.
Here is a derivation showing how the scheme works for the words and rules given so far. It
will be a “bicomponential” derivation, with first word formation then phonology.
As noted above in chapter 2, section 16, rules of word formation apply freely; they represent
a choice made to derive a new word from an old one. Since this is essentially a form of
optionality, we can again use the branching derivation formalism to show the various possible
routes:
[ˈnot]Verb stem
[[ˈnot]Verb əbəl]Adj -able Rule (245)
[[not]Verb eʃən ]Noun -ation Rule (246)
[[ˈnot]Verb əbəl]Adj [ˈnot]Verb [[(ˈ)not]Verb ˈeʃən ]Noun output of morphological

component
The resulting forms [[ˈnot]Verb əbəl]Adj, [ˈnot]Verb, and [[not]Verb ˈeʃən ]Noun are submitted
to the phonology, in order to convert the abstract schemata of phonemes to an overt,
pronounceable string of sounds. There are reasons to think that the bracketed structure of the
morphology is retained in the phonological component, but since this is not necessary here, and
it is helpful to keep the representations maximally legible, I will discard the brackets. The
phonological component thus starts with:
ˈnotəbəl ˈnot noˈteʃən179
These forms are in fact the phonemic (also called underlying) representations for these
word, and would normally be shown surrounded by / /. These representations are of course
“underlying” for purposes of phonology, where they form the “deepest” (most abstract) level of
representations; they are actually output (“surface”) representations when considered from the
viewpoint of morphology.
The phonological derivation consists of applying the rules in order. In many cases, it is
crucial to order the rules in a particular way (we will examine such cases later on), but here the
order does not matter, and I picked one order arbitrarily.
/ˈnotəbəl/ /ˈnot/ /noˈteʃən/ underlying representations

— — t Pre-Stress Aspiration (247)
 — — Tapping (239)

— t — Preglottalization (238)

[ˈnoəbəl] [ˈno t] [nouˈteʃən] phonetic representations
We have now produced an explanation for alternation: the -able Rule placed the /t/ of /not/
in an environment where Tapping could apply to it; the -ation Rule placed the /t/ of /not/ in an
environment where Pre-Stress Aspiration could apply to it; and the lack of any morphological
affixation left the /t/ in word-final position, where Preglottalization could apply to it. The end
result is three allomorphs, [nou], [not], and [not].
This pattern is very general in languages: morphology changes environments, phonology

“sees” these environments and accommodates the phonemes to them by assigning the
appropriate allophone. The theoretical conclusion is that, at least in the normal case, morphology
precedes phonology.180
7. Phonology so far
Here is a quick summary of what we have so far in phonology.
Phonemes: Every language can be analyzed as consisting phonologically of a smallish set

of phonemes (usually a few dozen), which form the building blocks for the pronunciation of
words.
179
I did a hand-waving change here, removing the stress on the stem before the stressed suffix
-ation. This can be done by rule ([+syllabic]  [−stress] / ___ X [+stress]), but we’ll not deal with this
here.
180
It is certainly a consensus among linguists that at least some phonology follows morphology.
Linguists have also experimented with theories in which some phonological rules are premorphological,
some postmorphological; we won’t try to cover such theories here in a first course.
Allophones: The phonemes often vary according to their context; that is, they have
allophones. Sometimes the appearance of particular allophones is obligatory; one must use a
particular allophone in a certain context (and if you don’t, the result is phonologically
ungrammatical, and “sounds funny”). Sometime we instead get free variation: two or more
allophones are possible in one particular context.
Theory: morphemes are assumed to have an underlying representation consisting of a string

of phonemes. Phonological rules apply to these underlying representations to create the actually
observed pronunciations. Such rules make use of features, which are the phonologically relevant
phonetic properties of sounds. They often apply to whole classes of phonemes (definable using
the features), and they usually change just one or two feature values.
Analytic method: you can prove two sounds are different phonemes by presenting a
minimal pair (this is: two sounds, identical environment, eliminating the possibility of a rule to
predict the difference). You can prove two sounds are part of the same phoneme by collecting
their environments in a sample of words, scanning these environments for the crucial
generalization,181 and formalizing what you find with rules. The same method works for free
variation, if you collect each variation pattern as a separate batch of environments.
Alternation: morphology, which works with phonemic forms, puts morphemes in different
locations. This makes the phonemes of these morphemes vulnerable to different phonological
rules in different locations. As a result, the morphemes get different pronunciations in different
contexts, which is what we call alternation.
8. The ordering of syntax and phonology
If phonological rules in general apply after morphological rules, then it is worth asking if
phonological rules are always ordered in a particular way with respect to syntactic rules. The
way to test this is the same as before. We set up a situation in which the ability of the syntax to
combine two words into a phrase would alter which phonological rules are able to apply.
Here is the background. Just as English has two aspiration rules, it also has two Tapping
rules. To review, the original Tapping rule looked like this:
Tapping
+syllabic
utter [ˈɚ] batting [ˈbæɾɪŋ]
181
This is usually the hardest step. In office hours I have suggested to people that memorizing the
phonetic symbols and feature chart might be helpful here; that is, while I won’t give you test questions for
doing this memorization, it probably would help you in finding environments and applying rules.
It is crucial that the second vowel be [−stress], otherwise we get aspiration instead of
Tapping. However, there is a particular situation in English where we get Tapping even when the
second vowel is stressed; namely, when the second vowel is in a separate word.
Here are Tapping examples across word boundary, shown here with the brackets ]w [
Phonemic Phonetic
at Ed [ æt ]w [ ˈɛd ] [ æ ]w [ ˈɛd ]
get Alice [ gɛt ]w [ ˈæls ]w [ gɛɾ ]w [ ˈæls ]w
not Adam [ nt ]w [ ˈædəm ]w [ n ]w [ ˈæɾəm ]w
To handle these facts, we need to adopt an additional Tapping rule, which could be written
like this:
(248) Phrasal Tapping
t   / [+syllabic] ___ ]w [+syllabic]
In words, this says “make /t/ a tap when it is immediately preceded by a vowel and immediately
followed by a vowel which is in the next word.”
Phrasal Tapping is the phonological rule that we will need to test out the ordering between
syntactic and phonological rules. For syntax, we will use the following phrase structure rules
taken from (127) above.
PP  P NP
Art 
NP  NP   (AP)* N (PP)*(S̄)
 
A A E E
(plus: lexical insertion)
Consider now the pronunciation of the PP at Ed. If the syntactic rules apply first, then we
will derive the correct output as follows:
SYNTACTIC COMPONENT:
PP PP  P NP
Art 
NP  NP   (A)* N (PP) (S̄)
 
A A E E
NP
|
P N
PP Lexical insertion
NP
|
P N
| |
æt ˈɛd
PHONOLOGICAL COMPONENT:
[ æt ]word [ ˈɛd ] (same as above, but tree omitted, and word boundaries
made explicit)
[ æɾ ]word [ ˈɛd ] Phrasal Tapping (248)
[æɾˈɛd] phonetic form
It is easy to see that, had we applied Phrasal Tapping before the syntactic rules joined at and
Ed together, we would have derived the wrong result.
What about languages in general? Certainly it is very common for phonological rules to be
sensitive to phrasal environments, so at the very least we can say that some phonological rules
are postsyntactic. Linguists differ on the question of whether there exists in addition a class of
presyntactic phonological rules.
9. Neutralization
A definition:
(249) Defn.: neutralization
Neutralization is the phonetically identical realization of distinct phonemic forms.
That is, two forms that differ phonemically undergo their phonological derivation, and emerge as
identical.
The rule of Tapping is, at least in many dialects, a neutralization rule. The following data
show that Tapping can apply to /d/ as well as to /t/ (plus sign is a notation for morpheme break):
Cases of Tapping with /t/ Cases of Tapping with /d/

write /ˈat/ [ˈat] ride /ˈad/ [ˈad]
writer /ˈat+ɚ/ [ˈaɚ] rider /ˈad+ɚ/ [ˈaɚ]
white /ˈwat/ [ˈwat] wide /ˈwad/ [ˈwad]

whiter /ˈwat+ɚ/ [ˈwaɚ] wider /ˈwad+ɚ/ [ˈwaɚ]
pat /ˈpæt/ [ˈpæt] pad /ˈpæd/ [ˈpæd]

patting /ˈpæt/ [ˈpæɾɪŋ] padding /ˈpæd+/ [ˈpæɾɪŋ]
Reformalizing the rule with features, it now reads:
(250) Tapping (revised)
+alveolar +syllabic
    / [+syllabic] ___  
+stop  –stress 
E E
“An alveolar stop when between two vowels of which the second is stressless is realized
as a tap.”
The neutralization inflicted by Tapping takes the form given in (251):
(251) Neutralization diagram for Tapping
/t/ /d/
[]
We have seen several sources of ambiguity in this text, arising from rules of morphology
(undoable), syntax (They saw the man with the telescope) and semantics (Many children rode on
each ride). Phonological neutralization is yet another source of ambiguity in language. In the
dialect under description here, the listener hearing [ˈaɚ] must infer from context, or just guess,
whether the speaker meant /ˈatɚ/ writer or /ˈatɚ/ rider. Usually, context suffices, but in my
own experience the particular ambiguity kitty/kiddie really does seem to create confusion —
many households have both kitties and kiddies in them!
The case of Tapping is somewhat unusual in that two phonemes are realized identically by
converting them into an allophone that happens to be different from either of them. More
typically, the neutralized output is identical to one or the other phoneme. Here is an instance;
consider the following data:
We live in Pittsburgh [m ptsbɚg]

Wouldja hand me the phone book? [fom bk]
I gotta make a phone call. [foŋ kɔl]
It’s all a con game. [k gem]
If one says these casually enough, the /n/’s at the end of phone, in, and con turn into either
[m] or []. The patterning is as follows:
n  m / ___ p
n  m / ___ b
n   / ___ k
n   / ___ g
Informally, we can write the rule as follows:
Nasal Place Assimilation

n  [same place] / ___ [−syllabic]
where “same place” is an inexplicit shorthand for changing all of the place features to match
those of the following sound.
Nasal Place Assimilation is clearly a neutralizing rule; it neutralizes the difference between
/n/ and /m/ in some cases, and between /n/ and // in others. For example, the following sentence
is ambiguous:
“They were [s glæsəz]”
The readings are the sensible “They were sunglasses”, and the phonetically literal but
nonsensical “They were sung glasses”.182
(252) Neutralization diagram for “sunglasses” and “sung glasses”
/sn glæsəz/ /s glæsəz/ phonemic forms
[s glæsəz] phonetic forms
Study Exercise #76
Look at chapter 10, section 13.2. Justify this claim: “Alveolar Fricative Palatalization is
neutralizing”. Make reference to the definition of neutralization in (249) and provide a
neutralization diagram analogous to (252).
182
Context: magical world in which singing by trained experts gives the lenses a bluish tint;
speaking, in contrast, makes them slightly pinker.
“Neutralization is the phonetically identical realization of distinct phonemic forms. Russ

Schuh /ɹʌs ʃu/ and rush Schuh /ɹʌʃ ʃu/ are distinct phonemic forms (as shown by the distinct
pronunciations of Russ [ɹʌs] and rush [ɹʌʃ]). They are realized identically when Russ Schuh
undergoes Alveolar Fricative Palatalization and becomes [ɹʌʃ ʃu], just like rush Schuh. The
neutralization diagram is:
/ɹʌs ʃu/ /ɹʌʃ ʃu/ phonemic forms
[ɹʌʃ ʃu] phonetic forms
10. Rule ordering
The final topic to be covered in phonology is the ordering of phonological rules. We will
find that there are cases in which it makes a difference just which order one applies the rules in,
and that “ordering statements” must therefore form part of the phonologies of human languages.
To develop our argument for ordering, we will need two phonological rules of American
English. Our first rule is based on the following data. IPA symbol: / ̆/ is the diacritic meaning
“extra short”.
cat [kæ̆ t] cad [ˈkæd]

pot [pɑ̆t] pod [ˈpd]
cop [k̆p] cob [ˈkb]
cup [k̆p] cub [ˈkb]
batch [bæ̆ tʃ] badge [ˈbædʒ]
pasta [ˈp̆stə] Mazda [ˈmzdə]
beat [ˈbĭt] bead [ˈbid]
Bruce [ˈbŭs] bruise [ˈbuz]
Normal-length and extra-short vowels in English are allophones of the same phoneme.
There are no minimal pairs, and it is not hard to establish complementary distribution. In the data
above, long vowels occurs before voiced consonants, and the short vowels occur before voiceless
consonants.
To decide what is the basic variant of the vowel phonemes, one needs to know what occurs
when neither a voiced consonant nor a voiceless consonant follows. Forms like Pa [p], bee [bi],
and brew [ˈbu] indicate that the longer versions of the vowels are the elsewhere allophones (as
defined above; Chap. 11 section 4), and we should set them up as the underlying representations.
We also need a feature to write the rule with; for present purposes we can simply add the
feature [short].
With these assumptions, then, the rule of Vowel Shortening would be as follows.
Vowel Shortening
[+syllabic]  [+short] / ___ [−voice]
“Realize a vowel as extra short before a voiceless sound.”
Here are derivations:
Bruce bruise brew

/ˈbus/ /ˈbuz/ /ˈbu/ phonemic forms
ŭ — — Vowel Shortening
[ˈbŭs] [ˈbuz] [ˈbu] phonetic forms
The other rule we will need is the familiar rule of Tapping (that is, word-internal Tapping).
Thus far, we have improved the rule to the point that it looks like this:
Tapping
    / [+syllabic] ___  
E E
Here, it will be useful to use a fully formalized version of the rule, using features instead of
the symbol []. We need to know, then, just what features must be changed in order to turn both
/t/ and /d/ into [].
First of all, a tap is voiced, so that the rule should add [+voiced] on the right side of the
arrow. This will correctly voice /t/, and it will do no harm for /d/. Tap also differs from the
alveolar stops in manner of articulation, being a tap and not a stop. Thus, assuming [tap] is a
feature, we have:
Tapping (again revised)

+voiced
   –stop  / [+syllabic] ___  
E E E
+tap 
With these two rules in hand, we can now see how they might interact. The crucial facts are:
 Tapping changes the voicing of a /t/;

 Vowel Shortening depends on the voicing of the following consonant.
Because of this, we will get different outputs depending on which order we apply the rules in.
Here are derivations of pertinent examples, using both orderings:
A. Tapping precedes Vowel Shortening
patting padding
/ˈpæt/ /ˈpæd/ Phonemic forms
ˈpæɾɪŋ ˈpæɾɪ Tapping
— — Vowel Shortening
[ˈpæɾɪ] [ˈpæ] Phonetic forms
B. Vowel Shortening precedes Tapping
patting padding
/ˈpæt/ /ˈpæd/ Phonemic forms
æ̆ — Vowel Shortening
ɾ ɾ Tapping
[ˈpæ̆ɾɪ] [ˈpæ] Phonetic forms
The predictions that the derivations make are clear: if Tapping precedes Lengthening, then
patting and padding should be pronounced identically — there should be neutralization. If
Lengthening precedes Tapping, then patting and padding should be pronounced differently; that
is, padding should have the longer vowel. The two words will be distinct (but in their vowels, not
their taps). These observations should hold true not just for these two words, but for all the words
in which both rules can apply (e.g. latter-ladder, writer-rider, Patty-Paddy, etc.).
What are the facts? There is actually no single outcome. Instead, different dialects of
American English use different orderings. Speakers from Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin
typically order Lengthening before Tapping; thus they pronounce pairs like patting-padding
differently, with the length difference as shown above. Speakers from other areas tend to have
the opposite ordering, and the pronounce such pairs identically.
Notice that this requires a small correction to something I said earlier: it actually is possible
to tell writer and rider apart, provided both speaker and hearer speak a dialect in which
Lengthening precedes Tapping. However, they will use the vowel length, not the voicing, to tell
the difference. The neutralization is complete only for dialects that order Tapping before
Lengthening.
The crucial point here is not the details of the two dialects, but the very fact that they differ.
This implies that when one learns a language, and hence its phonology, part of what one learns is
ordering restrictions that must be imposed on its phonological rules. Depending on what dialect
of English you speak, you implicitly learned a particular ordering for two of the phonological
rules.
10.1 Analyzing rule order
To establish the ordering of two rules A and B, the simplest procedure is simply to find a
relevant form — a form where A and B are both applicable — and try both orders. Either you
will find that only the order A-B produces the right output, only B-A produces the right output,
or they both work (in which case the order doesn’t matter). All that’s really needed to do this test
is to match up the rules with the forms with care, so you know that you’ve found exactly what
the rule predicts.
A slightly less mechanical skill here is to explain what you’ve found in words. Here is an
example description, for the example in the preceding section: “In the dialect where patting is
[ˈpæ̆ɾɪ] and padding is [ˈpæ], Vowel Shortening must be applied before Tapping. The reason
is that Vowel Shortening depends on the phonemic value of [voice] for the following consonant,
before that value is neutralized to [+voice] by Tapping.”
Here is a description of the ordering argument for the other dialect: “In the dialect where
both patting and padding are both pronounced [ˈpæ], Tapping must be applied before Vowel
Shortening. If we applied Tapping first, it would “see” the underlying /t/ of patting and wrongly
shorten the vowel.” Notice that this description is of the “counterfactual” type, which tells us
what would go wrong if we ordered the rules incorrectly.
Study Exercise #77
This involves the case forms of nouns in Hungarian. Please ignore the vowel changes in
suffixes, which are due to a phonological rule of Vowel Harmony.
Phonetic symbols:
[ɟ] is a voiced palatal stop.
[c] is a voiceless palatal stop.
[ɲ] is a voiced palatal nasal.
[ː] means that the preceding vowel is long.
[ø] mid front rounded, as in German Goethe or French Chartreuse.
[y] high front rounded, as in German Führer or French tu or Mandarin [ny̌] ‘female’183
a. What stems alternate, and what are their allomorphs?

b. State a phonological rule that correctly derives the alternation, in both formalism and
words. Give your rule a name.
c. Give underlying forms and derivations for pɔd, pɔdnɔk, and pɔttoːl.
183
Unchecked data taken from a textbook. If you are a native Mandarin speaker and can confirm,
please contact me.
d. Is your rule neutralizing? Explain your answer.
Hungarian Data
Nominative Dative Ablative184 Essive185 Allative186 Gloss

ɾøgbi ɾøgbinɔk ɾøgbitøːl ɾøgbikeːnt ɾøgbihɛz ‘rugby’
ipʃɛ ipʃɛnɛk ipʃɛtøːl ipʃɛkeːnt ipʃɛhɛz ‘fellow’
kɔlɔp kɔlɔpnɔk kɔlɔptoːl kɔlɔpkeːnt kɔlɔphoz ‘hat’
kuːt kuːtnɔk kuːttoːl kuːtkeːnt kuːthoz ‘well’
juk juknɔk juktoːl jukkeːnt jukhoz ‘hole’
sɛm sɛmnɛk sɛmtøːl sɛmkeːnt sɛmhɛz ‘eye’
rɔb rɔbnɔk rɔptoːl rɔpkeːnt rɔphoz ‘prisoner’
ʒɛb ʒɛbnɛk ʒɛptøːl ʒɛpkeːnt ʒɛphɛz ‘pocket’
kaːd kaːdnɔk kaːttoːl kaːtkeːnt kaːthoz ‘bathtub’
pɔd pɔdnɔk pɔttoːl pɔtkeːnt pɔthoz ‘bench’
aːɟ aːɟnɔk aːctoːl aːckeːnt aːchoz ‘bed’
mɛlɛg mɛlɛgnɛk mɛlɛktøːl mɛlɛkkeːnt mɛlɛkhɛz ‘heat’
hɛrt͡sɛg hɛrt͡sɛgnɛk hɛrt͡sɛktøːl hɛrt͡sɛkkeːnt hɛrt͡sɛkhɛz ‘duke’
tɛmplom tɛmplomnɔk tɛmplomtoːl tɛmplomkeːnt tɛmplomhoz ‘house of worship’
byːn byːnnɛk byːntøːl byːnkeːnt byːnhøz ‘sin’
toɾoɲ toɾoɲnɔk toɾoɲtoːl toɾoɲkeːnt toɾoɲhoz ‘tower’
fal fɔlnɔk fɔltoːl fɔlkeːnt fɔlhoz ‘wall’
øːɾ øːɾnɔk øːɾtøːl øːɾkeːnt øːɾhøz ‘guard’
e. Ponder next the paradigm of ‘emerald’ below and suggest a minimal change for your
analysis to derive it.
f. Give a derivation for [smɔɾɔktkeːnt].
Nominative Dative Ablative Essive Allative Gloss

smɔɾɔgd smɔɾɔgdnɔk smɔɾɔkttoːl smɔɾɔktkeːnt smɔɾɔkthoz ‘emerald’
184
Ablative case means, roughly, “from”.
185
More accurately: essive formal. Essive case means, roughly, “as”.
186
My Hungarian grammar says: “used with expressions of attaching something to, adding to, or
communicating to someone or something” (Carol Rounds, Hungarian: An Essential Grammar, p. 109).
a. What stems alternate, and what are their allomorphs?
Stem Allomorph 1 Allomorph 2

rɔb rɔb rɔp
ʒɛb ʒɛb ʒɛp
kaːd kaːd kaːt
pɔd pɔd pɔt
aːɟ aːɟ aːc
mɛlɛg mɛlɛg mɛlɛk
hɛrt͡sɛg hɛrt͡sɛg hɛrt͡sɛk
b. State a phonological rule that correctly derives the alternation, in both formalism and
words. Give your rule a name.
Voicing Assimilation
[+stop]  [−voice] / ___ [−voice]
‘A stop becomes voiceless when it precedes a voiceless sound.’
c. Give underlying forms and derivations for pɔd, pɔdnɔk, and pɔttoːl.
/pɔd/ /pɔdnɔk/ /pɔdtoːl/ underlying forms

— — t Voicing Assimilation
[pɔd] [pɔdnɔk] [pɔdtoːl] underlying forms
d. Is your rule neutralizing? Explain your answer.
Yes. Look at this quadruplet, focusing on the underlined sounds:
kuːt kuːttoːl
pɔd pɔttoːl
There is a /t/-/d/ distinction, but it gets wiped out before a voiceless sound.
e. Ponder next this paradigm and suggest a minimal change for your analysis to derive it.
The crucial forms are forms like [smɔɾɔktkeːnt]. It looks like Voicing Assimilation has to be
allowed to apply to its own output (the standard term for this is “iterative”). The rightmost /k/
turns a /d/ into a [t], and then this [t] turns the preceding /g/ into a [k].
f. Give a derivation for [smɔɾɔktkeːnt].
/smɔrɔgdkeːnt/ underlying form

t Voicing Assimilation: first time
k Voicing Assimilation: second time
[smɔrɔktkeːnt] surface form
__________________________________________________________________________
11. The organization of grammar
We have now covered (however briefly) most of the central areas of linguistic analysis:
syntax, semantics, morphology, and phonology. At this point, we can amplify the “boxological”
diagram, covering the organization of grammar, given earlier ((153) on p. 212).
How do the theories in these areas all fit together? This is very much an open question, one
that linguists continue to debate. For concreteness, I will give one particular view here. The
following chart shows the components and the direction of information flow. Components
(modules of the grammar) are shown in dotted boxes; level of representation (linguistic forms)
are shown in solid boxes.
S, etc. (initial symbol fed to the grammar)
(bare tree)
lexicon
Lexical insertion
Deep structure Derivational

morphology
Constraints (acting as filter)

Transformations
Surface structure Syntactic

component
Inflectional morphology Semantic component
Phonemic form Logical form
Phonological
component:
Rule 1
Rule 2
...
Rule n
[phonetic form]
The syntax is the primary generative component, creating an infinite number of possible
sentences.187 The number is infinite because the phrase structure rules can apply recursively, in
loops. Deep structure is created by filling the trees created by phrase structure rules with words
(lexical insertion). Deep structures are modified by transformations, which have the power to
copy and move, generating more elaborate structures that could not be formed by phrase
structure rules alone. Constraints on transformations sometimes filter out sentences that the
syntactic component would otherwise generate.
The words that undergo lexical insertion into the syntactic tree are sometimes single-
morpheme stems like cat, and sometimes the result of rules of word formation. Following the
view of many linguists, I have made the morphology of word formation a kind of adjunct to the
lexicon. It extracts words from the lexicon and forms new words from them, which are added
back to the lexical stock. Word formation rules string together morphemes, which are assumed at
this stage to be composed of phonemes, since the rules of the phonology have yet to apply.
Particular syntactic rules (transformations of agreement, case marking, etc.) build up a

morphosyntactic representation for each inflected word, which specifies the values of features
like [Number], [Case], [Tense], and so on. In a postsyntactic component, the inflectional
morphology, the features of the morphosyntactic representation trigger rules of affixation, which
manifest the inflectional categories in audible form. Again, the morphological rules are assumed
to manipulate morphemes in their phonemic form, since phonology has not applied yet.
At the bottom of the grammar, the rules of the phonology provide a phonetic realization for
the syntactic structure; thus they relate it to the physical reality of articulation. They apply (in the
theory shown here) after syntax and morphology; an ordering which accounts for the fact that the
morphemes alternate according to the environments in which they occur, environments that
were created by morphological and syntactic combination. Phonological rules can also
neutralize distinctions, creating ambiguity.
The role of semantics in this scheme, is rather speculative; I have placed it in the diagram as
applying to syntactic surface structure, and creating a level of logical form, in which the aspects
of meaning most closely related to syntax, such as predicate-argument structure, pronoun
reference, and scope, are derived.
187
Word formation is also generative, and in most languages can likewise create an infinite variety
of structures (recall (66) from Chapter 2: eggplant plant plant…), though the structures typically are far
less elaborate.
For further reading (phonology)
Quite a few textbooks lay out the basics of phonological theory in more detail; one is my
own text Introductory Phonology (2008; Oxford: Blackwell). Another, very data-rich
introductory text is David Odden’s Introducing Phonology (2005: Cambridge University Press).
A more advanced introduction with many beautiful problem sets is Michael Kenstowicz and
Charles Kisseberth Generative Phonology: Description and Theory (1979: Academic Press).
The theory of phonemes was worked out in the earlier part of the 20th century. An
acclaimed work from this period is Leonard Bloomfield’s Language (1932; still in print at
University of Chicago Press), a book still worth reading for many reasons.
Chapter 13: Historical Linguistics

1. Outline
Languages change over time, in an interesting and paradoxical way. The speakers of a
language usually easily with their grandparents in childhood and with their grandchildren in old
age. This covers five generations. But consider a passage of prose from the English of about 40
generations ago (Old English, about 1000 A.D.):
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us to dæg

[ˈurnɛ gɛˈdæɣwamlikan ˈl ̥af ˈsylɛ us to ˈdæɣ]
our daily bread give us today
‘Give us this day our daily bread’
This would be unintelligible to a speaker of Modern English, and many of the morphemes have
evolved so as to be only faintly recognizable (e.g. [dæɣ] = day, [ˈl ̥af] = loaf, [lik] = -ly).
Somehow, a series of changes that were little noticed as they were happening have gradually
converted English into an entirely different language.
Just to show an intermediate stage, the following passage is a Middle English translation (ca.
1400 A.D.) of the same Biblical verse. Remember to read it phonetically, not according to
spelling. (This should give you a clue why letters have such different values in English than they
have in European languages.)
[gevə to us to dæɪ urə etʃə dæɪəs bred]

give to us today our each day’s bread
Historical linguistics attempt to understand the process of linguistic change. The two
fundamental questions in the field are: (a) How and why do languages change? (b) What is the
history of the languages of the world?
2. Descent; related languages
When linguists speak of the “ancestry” of a language, they have a specific meaning in mind.
If Language B is descended from Language A, it means that there has been a continuous
transmission of the language, from generation to generation, going from A to B (with gradual
changes over time). We can speak of this form of language transmission as descent. Modern
English is related to Old English by descent (is “descended from” Old English), as there is a
continuous link through 40 generations of speakers between the two.
We need to be careful about the term “descent”: it certainly does not imply an actual chain
of biological ancestors, because there are countless people who are native speakers of a language
whose parents are not. Such speakers are part of the chain of transmission just as much as
children of native speakers.
For linguists, descent is the gold standard for language identity—descent has a completely
clear meaning and can be diagnosed with near certainty if enough data are available. Descent is
not always used as the criterion of language identity in popular culture, however. For instance, in
the real world you will hear people say things like:
“Modern English is a mixture of Old English, French, and Latin.”
This statement is perfectly true as a description of the vocabulary of Modern English, since over
the centuries English has borrowed thousands of words from French and Latin. But English is
descended from Old English;188 there was no continuous transmission of language from
generation to generation that leads from French or Latin to English.
Two languages are said to be related if they descend from the same ancestor language. That
is, it is often the case that a single language comes to be spoken in two geographically isolated
areas, or over a very wide area. Given enough time, such a language is likely to develop more
than one descendent. Because of lack of intercommunication, different areas evolve their own
descendent languages, which eventually become mutually unintelligible. Exactly this happened
in the evolution of the modern Romance languages from Classical Latin. Thus, the Romance
languages are related to one another (in the technical sense) because they all descend from the
same ancestor.
Languages can thus be thought of as family groupings. We can use family tree notation to
represent the ancestry of languages, in which a line represents a relationship by descent.
Latin
French Italian Spanish Portuguese Rumanian etc.
Here are some other examples of language families. The Germanic languages are all closely
related. They descend from a common ancestor which was spoken roughly at the same time as
Latin. However, this ancestor was spoken by an illiterate people, so we have no records of it. The
name used for the common ancestor of the Germanic languages is Proto-Germanic.
Proto-Germanic
Old English Frisian Dutch German Old Norse

|
Middle English
| Norwegian Swedish Danish Icelandic
Modern English189
188
… and, at a deeper level, the earlier languages from which Old English is descended; more on
this immediately below.
189
Only English is shown with stages (following the custom, three of them: Old, Middle, Modern).
But the same could be done for all of the languages shown.
Although we have no written records of Proto-Germanic, we nonetheless have a fairly good

idea of what it was like. Just how we know this will be a central topic later on.
Latin and Proto-Germanic are in fact related to each other. They are (roughly speaking)
sisters, and descend from an ancestor language called Proto-Indo-European. The Indo-European
language family is a large one, and over half the population of the world speaks an Indo-
European language. Here is a very sketchy version of the Indo-European family tree:
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Germanic Celtic Italic190 Balto-Slavic Greek Albanian Armenian Anatolian Indo-Iranian Tocharian
German English etc. Baltic Slavic Hittite Persian Hindi etc.
Latvian Lithuanian Russian Bulgarian etc.
However, a family tree doesn’t have to branch. For example, Ancient Greek has only one
descendent, namely Modern Greek, so its family tree is just a vertical line, sometimes shown like
this:
Ancient Greek
|
Medieval Greek
|
Modern Greek
“Relatedness” should not be confused with “similarity”. For example, Modern Persian is in a
sense far more similar to Arabic than to Modern English, at least in vocabulary; thousands of
words of Persian are borrowed from Arabic.
[domˈhur] ‘republic’
[ˈelm] ‘science’
[mohænˈdes] ‘engineer’
[velˈjæt] ‘province’
[rædd] ‘refutation’
If one’s goal is to learn Persian, it may well be more useful to start off knowing Arabic than
knowing English. Nevertheless, Persian is related to English (they are “cousins”, both
granddaughters of Proto-Indo-European); and Persian is not at all related to Arabic. One can see
this in some of the core vocabulary of English and Persian:
190
The Italic family consists of Latin and a few poorly-attested sisters. As noted above, all of the
Romance languages (also including: Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, and others) descend from Latin.
[peˈdær] ‘father’
[bærˈdær] ‘brother’
[setˈre] ‘star’
[gv] ‘cow’
[æst] ‘is’
[bor-d-æn] ‘carry-past stem-infinitive’ = “bear”
[bu-d] ‘be-past tense’
Notice that these words, which are authentic cognates (shared inheritances) in English and
Persian, are core, commonplace words—the kind that a language tends to hang on to. The words
shared by Persian and Arabic are mostly more sophicated ones: Persian typically has borrowed
its vocabulary for the spheres of higher learning from Arabic.
One result of looking at things in this way is that statements like (253):
(253) “Lithuanian is a very old language”
become meaningless. In fact, they are often just expressions of nationalistic sentiment. Leaving
aside invented languages like Esperanto, all languages are equally old, in the sense that they all
have an ancestry that goes back farther than linguists can trace. There are only two ways that the
statement above could be given a true interpretation. It could mean that we have written records
of Lithuanian dating back to the distant past; or it could mean that Lithuanian has changed very
little over the centuries.
3. Sound change
Sound change is a fundamental mechanism of language change. That is, one of the principal
reasons that languages change is because their sounds change. For example, the voiceless [l ̥] in
Old English [l ̥af] ‘bread’ has become voiced [l] in Modern English. This change happened to all
the voiceless [l ̥]’s of Old English; for example, the words the words lady, lot, and lean originally
began with voiceless [l ̥]’s.191
As a language evolves, it is subjected to dozens or even hundreds of sound changes, until it

takes on a form that would be unintelligible to the original speakers.
Sound change is connected in a curious way to phonology. Basically, sound change results
from the fact that throughout its history, a language has a large number of phonological rules.
The rules are the seeds of sound change.
191
The Old English for “lady” was hlæfdige, literally “kneader of bread”. “Lot” was hlot, and “lean”
was hlǽne. All three forms are from the Oxford English Dictionary, available online from many university
computers (including UCLA’s) at http://dictionary.oed.com/.
However, it is important to see that sound change and phonological rules are not the same
thing. A sound change is a historical event. For example, if all the words that in 1300 were
pronounced with voiceless [l ̥] are pronounced with voiced [l] in 1500, then we say that the
language has undergone a sound change taking [l ̥] to [l]. A phonological rule, on the other hand,
is something in the mind of a native speaker; it is part of a speaker’s unconscious mental
grammar.
3.1 Sound change and restructuring
The link between phonological rules and sound change is a phenomenon called
restructuring. To understand this concept, it will help to do an example in detail.
The sound change we will examine is a fairly recent one. As I noted earlier, American
English is divided into a dialect that has an extra phoneme /ɔ/ and a dialect that lacks this
phoneme. I will call the dialect that has /ɔ/ “Dialect A”, and the dialect that lacks it “Dialect C”
(why not “B” will become clear shortly). In Dialect A, caught is pronounced [ˈkɔt] and cot is
pronounced [ˈkt]; whereas in Dialect C, both words are pronounced [ˈkt]. In fact, Dialect C has
// in all words where Dialect A has /ɔ/.
Dialect A Dialect C
cot [ˈkt] [ˈkt]
caught [ˈkɔt] [ˈkt]
la [ˈl] [ˈl]
law [ˈlɔ] [ˈl]
hock [ˈhk] [ˈhk]

hawk [ˈhɔk] [ˈhk]
generally: [] []

[ɔ] []
It can be argued that Dialect A represents the original state of the language, and that
Innovating American English has undergone a sound change: ɔ has become  in all
environments. There are two reasons to believe this.
First, there is the fact that, with just a few exceptions, speakers of Dialect A agree with each
other on which words have [ɔ] and which words have [ɑ]. This fact would be very difficult to
explain unless the distinction is inherited. There’s no official committee that decides to change
the pronunciation of words. Rather, children usually just adopt the pronunciation of the previous
generation.
The other reason to think that the [ɔ]-[] distinction reflects the earlier state of the language
is that all the old written documents through the centuries spell out the distinction.192 English
spelling was invented, probably by scribes who already know how to read and write Latin.
There’s every reason to think that the old scribes did their best to reflect in their spelling what
they heard with their ears.
Let us therefore adopt the assumption that Dialect C is the one that has innovated, and that it
has undergone a sound change. What was the mechanism of the change? The clue lies in what I
will call “Dialect B,” the crucial intermediate case.
Speakers of B have free variation in the caught class of words. Extending the data above to
B, we have:
Dialect A Dialect B Dialect C

cot [ˈkt] [ˈkt] [ˈkt]
caught [ˈkɔt] [ˈkɔt] ~ [ˈkt] [ˈkt]
la [ˈl] [ˈl] [ˈl]

law [ˈlɔ] [ˈlɔ] ~ [ˈl] [ˈl]
hock [ˈhk] [ˈhk] [ˈhk]

hawk [ˈhɔk] [ˈhɔk] ~ [ˈhɔk] [ˈhɔk]
generally: [] [] []

[ɔ] [] ~ [ɔ] []
It is in Dialect B that we can see sound change in progress. Evidently, B speakers have a
rule of neutralization, which applies optionally—in other words, they have a distinction, but
sometimes wipe it out phonologically. Here would be the phonological analysis of Dialect B:
(254) /ɔ/ Unrounding
ɔ  [−round] in all environments, optionally
A 1440 Latin glossary: “Hawke, falco”. A 1398 source: þe hocke is a nesche herbe (as in
192
hollyhock).
Example derivations:
hock hawk
/ˈhk/ /ˈhɔk/ phonemic form
— ˈhk — /ɔ/ Unrounding

[ˈhk] [ˈhk] [ˈhɔk] phonetic form
It is claimed here that B represents the intermediate stage in the historical evolution from A
to C. When a language has an optional rule, it tends to be applied more and more often through
time. That is, people’s standards of what constitutes “careful speech” get lowered, and the
casual-speech rules get applied more frequently.
The next step involves the introduction of a new generation of speakers. As young children,
these speakers face the task of learning the phonemic system of their language. However, in the
present case, the task is a very difficult one. The older speakers, who supply the data, have in
their minds a phonemic distinction between /ɔ/ and //. However, in their actual pronunciations,
/ɔ/ is fairly rare, because most of the time these speakers apply the voicing rule. The new
generation has very little data that they could use to learn the /ɔ/ phoneme. The potential for
acquisition error is great.
It is easy to imagine how this situation will turn out. The younger generation is likely not to
notice the [ɔ]’s at all, and they will acquire a different phonological system, in which [ɔ] plays
no role at all. Here are the oldest, intermediate, and youngest phonological systems compared:
Dialect A
two phonemes, /ɔ/ and //
no applicable phonology
Dialect B
two phonemes, /ɔ/ and //
Phonological rule: ɔ  , optionally
Dialect C
one phoneme: //
no applicable phonology
The interesting point is this:
 The speech of “late decadent” Dialect B and Dialect C are almost identical; B speakers
pronounce the old [ɔ] words with [] (let us say) 95% percent of the time, whereas C
speakers pronounce them with [] 100% of the time.
 But the phonological systems of B and C are drastically different, due to the acquisition
error that created C—the children who brought C into existence failed to notice a
phoneme, and thus also failed to learn the rule.
The technical name for this phenomenon is restructuring:
(255) Defn.: Restructuring
a change in the phonological system of a language, induced by the phonological rules of

the older generation.
Dialect C probably arose from a restructuring by younger speakers of the unstable

phonological system of Dialect B. Dialect B in turn represents an innovation (through the
introduction of the rule of /ɔ/ Unrounding) in Dialect C. American English in fact preserves all
three dialects today, though we can perhaps anticipate that in a couple centuries Americans will
all speak C.
To summarize, most sound changes are the result of the following process. (a) A new
phonological rule is introduced into a language. (b) The rule is applied with increasing
frequency. (c) A new generation restructures the system, getting rid of the rule.
It can now be seen why speakers don’t notice their language changing. The basic ingredient
of the change, the optional phonological rule, is an inherent, normal part of the language. The
restructuring by the next generation is phonetically very minor, even though it is a radical change
in the underlying system.
A bit of notation: when linguists write “”, the arrow implies a phonological rule: part of
the knowledge of a living speaker. When they write “>” instead, they mean a sound change—a
historical event that arose as a consequence of phonology. The fact that the material on either
side of these sides is the same should not blind us to the fact that a rule and a sound change are
logically very different things. Thus:
ɔ “/ɔ/ is realized as [ɑ]”, part of grammar

ɔ  “[ɔ] evolved into [ɑ]”, part of history
4. The regularity of sound change
It is true of most phonological rules that they apply regularly. For example, the rule of
Tapping in English is regular; there are no exceptions to it in the whole vocabulary. Now if
sound change is the result of phonological rules, then we would expect sound change to be
regular as well. In general, this turns out to be true. Thus, for instance, in Dialect C of American
English, not a single former [ɔ] is left; they have all become /ɑ/.
To give another example: another recent, exceptionless sound change of American English
converted /æ/ to /e/ before //.193 Here again, the conservative dialect still exists alongside the
innovating dialect.
æ > e / ___ 
Conservative dialect: marry [ˈmæi] Mary [ˈmei]

carry [ˈkæi] Cary [ˈkei]
arable [ˈæəbəl] airable [ˈeəbəl]
Harry [ˈhæi] hairy [ˈhei]
Innovating dialect: marry [ˈmei] Mary [ˈmei]

carry [ˈkei] Cary [ˈkei]
arable [ˈeəbəl] airable [ˈeəbəl]
Harry [ˈhei] hairy [ˈhei]
This is intended as one further example of the exceptionlessness of sound change: if you
speak the innovating dialect, the odds are that you have no words whatever that still contain /æ/
before //; indeed, such pronunciations may seem outright unnatural.
For a sound change that had exceptions, we can consider *ʊ  ʌ, which occurred roughly
during the 1600’s and affected most dialects of English.194 This sound change had just a few
exceptions (for example, put), which means that /ʊ/ survived as a phoneme, but is rare in English
today.
193
A detail here: the phoneme /eɪ/ has the allophone [e] for most speakers before [ɹ]—it’s
monophthongal in this context.
194
The regional dialects of northern England were not affected by this change, and speakers of these
dialects use [ʊ] in many words where other speakers would use [ʌ], such as luck.
Study Exercise #78
Let’s add in “Dialect BR” — standard British English, and do some comparisons with American
Dialect A.
Word BR A
sore [sɔ] [sɔɹ]
saw [sɔ] [sɔ]
door [dɔ] [dɔɹ]
195
daw [dɔ] [dɔ]
lore [lɔ] [lɔɹ]
law [lɔ] [lɔ]
pore [pɔ] [pɔɹ]
paw [pɔ] [pɔ]
roar [ɹɔ] [ɹɔɹ]
raw [ɹɔ] [ɹɔ]
Using the same reasoning as given earlier, decide which dialect has changed, what the
change was, and what the original forms were.
195
A kind of bird.
The original forms were like dialect A, the American one. There are two reasons to believe
this is true. First, Americans agree with one another about which words should have an /ɹ/ in
them. This would be very hard to explain if the /ɹ/’s were innovated. Second, the spelling of the
words, established long before British and American English split, indicates the early presence of
/ɹ/ in sore, door, lore, pore, and raw.
————————————————————————————————————
The answer just given can be based on very little background knowledge. Looking up these
words in the Oxford English Dictionary, I find that for all of these words, there are attestations
that predate the split of American and British English (no earlier than 1607, the date of the first
permanent English colony in America at Jamestown, Virginia). These clearly show an r in
exactly the words that Southern Californians pronounce with /ɹ/ to this day.
1300: þe touche of senewes haþ no feling of soore and of smerte.

1340: File sawe and spindelle
1000: Seo duru wæs belocen 196
1600: The theevish Daw, and the dissembling Pye.
1502: Who wil not for shame a short tyme suffir lore and lerne.
1596: The Venetian Law cannot impugne you as you do proceed.197
1400: þat neiþer cold ne hoot ne schulde not sodeynli entre þe poris of the skyn.
1380: This egle..with hys grymme pawes stronge (Chaucer)
1391: With such a noise and such a rore
1325: þe deuel huem afretye, Rau oþer a-roste!198
One other fact: the geography of deleted /ɹ/ is what we would expect if it originated among
fashionable people in London sometime in the 1600’s or 1700’s. It spread outward from London,
reaching the large cities of Birmingham and Liverpool, but never reaching Scotland or Ireland or
indeed much of the rural territory of England. R-less pronunciation was exported from England
by emigration to Australia and New Zealand. To some degree it was exported to America and
became part of the dialects of coastal cities such as Boston, New York, and Charleston, South
Carolina. However, it arrived too late to affect the people who had already settled inland; hence
the majority dialect in America (including California) preserves historical /ɹ/.
196
“The door was shut”, from an English version of the Bible, Matthew 25:10.
197
Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice IV.1.178.
198
I believe this is something like “The devil him affright, raw or roasted!”.
5. How do languages make up for lost phonemes?
Before going on, I will address a problem that is raised by the sound changes we have seen.
Notice that two of these sound changes eliminated phonemes from the language: ɔ > ɑ
eliminated the /ɔ/ phoneme, and æ > e / ___  eliminated the /æ/ - /e/ distinction before //. In
fact, sound changes do this fairly often. If this is so, why don’t the world’s languages gradually
lose all their distinctions, and become an incoherent stream of muttering, say [dədədədədədədə]?
One answer is that languages borrow phonemes from neighboring languages. This happens
frequently; for example, English borrowed the phoneme /v/ from French (it had a [v] before, but
only as an allophone of /f/, not as a separate phoneme.) Here are examples:
value from French vallue ca. 1300

vanquish from French vencus ca. 1330
view from French veue ca. 1415
Japanese long ago borrowed [tʃ] from Chinese ([tʃa] ‘tea’), and much later [f] from English.199
However, it is also possible for a language to create a new phoneme entirely on its own.
Here is an example of how this can happen, from the history of German. I will show how
German created a new phoneme, during the transition from Old High German (the ancestor of
Modern German, spoken around 1000 A.D.) to Middle High German (an intermediate stage,
spoken around 1400 A.D.).
Here are the relevant facts. I give a partial paradigm for the adjective hox ‘high’ in both Old
High German and Middle High German. [x] stands for a voiceless velar fricative, and [ø] is a
front rounded vowel.
OHG MHG
‘high’ ˈhox ˈhox
‘higher’ ˈhox-iro ˈhøx-ərə
‘highest’ ˈhox-isto ˈhøx-əstə
‘high (adv.)’ ˈhox-o ˈhox-ə
You can see from the data that Middle High German has two sounds, /o/ and /ø/, where Old
High German has only /o/. Further, /o/ and /ø/ must be separate phonemes, because there is no
reasonable way to predict which one will occur in a given environment. Thus Middle High
German has created a new phoneme. How was this done? The mechanism was simply sound
199
More precisely, Japanese uses the sound [], a voiceless bilabial fricative, to render English the
phonetically similar /f/, as in [aito] ‘fight’; [esutibau] ‘festival’.
change. The evolution of the forms above is the result of the following two sound changes,
applying in the (historical) order given:
I. Umlaut: o > ø / ___ [−syllabic] i
+syllabic
II. Vowel Reduction:   > ə
–stress 
E
Umlaut turned /o/ into the corresponding front vowel [ø] when the vowel /i/ occurred in the
next syllable (this makes sense, since /i/ is itself a front vowel). Vowel Reduction converted all
the unstressed vowels into schwa. The stress in Old High German and Middle High German
always fell on the first syllable, so in effect Vowel Reduction applied to all vowels in non-initial
syllables.
The following derivations show how Umlaut and Vowel Reduction jointly created a new
phoneme:
hox-iro hox-o
höx-iro hox-o Umlaut
höx-ərə hox-ə Vowel Reduction
By itself, Umlaut introduced only a new allophone. At the beginning of its existence, [ø]
was only a phonetic variant of /o/. The dirty work was done by Vowel Reduction: this sound
change obliterated the environment that had triggered Umlaut. The sound [ø] was “stranded”; it
was no longer predictable from the context, and thus came to be a phoneme on its own.
You can see, then, that it is possible for a language to acquire a new phoneme, strictly from
its own resources, without borrowing it. The general mechanism is this: a new rule created an
allophone, then a later sound change wipes out the conditioning environment for that allophone.
The allophone then stands alone as a new phoneme.
One further point: it’s clear that the “wiping out of conditioning environments” often will
happen, as it did in German, by removing phonemes—what averts the crisis of the language’s
words becoming so short that they get confused with each other? The answer appears to be that
morphology comes to the rescue. For instance, a striking aspect of Mandarin Chinese is that a
great fraction of its basic vocabulary consists of compound words. It is thought that this
compounding arose as a response to massive phonological erosion, the result of sequence of
dramatic sound changes in the earlier history of the language.200
200
A miniature example of the same kind, from the Web, where a Southerner reports: “The reason
we say straight pin is that, in many Southern dialects, pin and pen are homonyms. To ensure that the
correct item is fetched, one says Please fetch me a straight pin or Please fetch me an ink pen. (Source:
http://everything2.com/e2node/straight%2520pin) The sound change that took place in Southern dialects is
*ɛ > ɪ / ___ [+nasal], hence [pɪn] for both pin and pen.
The overall picture is that languages manage (probably through the efforts of innovating
children during the course of acquisition) to retain a kind of balance, in which there are sufficient
phonemic contrasts, and the words are sufficiently long, to keep the vocabulary items reasonably
distinct from one another.
6. The Comparative Method
I said earlier that the modern Germanic languages all descend from a single ancestor, called
Proto-Germanic. In addition, both Proto-Germanic and Latin descend from a common ancestor
called Proto-Indo-European. We do not have written records of either Proto-Germanic or Proto-
Indo-European. How do we know that these languages existed, and how do we know what they
looked like?
Our knowledge is the result of the Comparative Method. The Comparative Method is a
way of recovering information about a lost proto-language by comparing its known daughter
languages. This method was worked out over the course of the 19th century by a research
community of mostly European linguists.201
The basis of the Comparative Method is the fact that sound change is normally regular. It is
the regularity of sound change that permits us to prove that languages are related, and to recover
information about their lost ancestor.
In outline, the Comparative Method works like this:
a) Compare sister languages sound by sound.

b) Determine what regular sound changes could have given rise to the correspondence
of different sounds across languages.
c) “Reconstruct” the original language by undoing the various sound changes.
To illustrate the Comparative Method, I will apply it to the language of instruction in this
course, comparing it with its sister languages German and Swedish to recover information about
the hypothesized answer, namely Proto-Germanic. Here is the first batch of data:202
English German Swedish

A. good ˈgd ˈgut ˈgud
drive ˈdrav ˈtrab-ən ˈdri˘v-a203
201
A picture of one of them, Jacob Grimm, appears on the course Web site. Grimm was also a
pioneer, in collaboration with his brother Wilhelm, in the scholarly collection of folklore.
202
Swedish forms were converted to IPA using the rules given in Philip Holmes and Ian Hinchcliffe
(1997) Swedish: An Essential Grammar, Routledge. I have not yet checked my conversions with a
Swedish speaker. For future reference, the Swedish words below are spelled: god, driva, rida, vid, dåd,
grön, gå, giva, gås, binda, rund, land, hund, lind, stol, sten, bäst, lista, vit, fot, söt, ut, tecken, salt, smärta,
spinna, spade, löpa, hop, pund, and pipa.
203
For simplicity I’ll ignore the phonetic differences between English, German, and Swedish r,
which are actually [], [] (voiced uvular approximant), and [].
ride ˈrad ˈrat-ən ˈri˘d-a

wide ˈwad ˈvat ˈvid
deed ˈdid ˈta˘t ˈdo˘d
The data have been chosen in the following way. They all contain a /d/ in English, and the
corresponding German and Swedish forms are phonetically similar and mean roughly the same
thing. (In the German forms, I have added a suffix in various places. This simplifies the problem,
without distorting it in any crucial way.)
The crucial observation to be made here is this: wherever English has /d/, Swedish also has
/d/ in the same location of the word; but German has /t/. We can express this as a formula:

d t d
The formula holds true not just for these words, but for hundreds of words throughout
vocabularies of the three languages.
What could account for the d-t-d correspondence? The answer proposed here is:
(a) English, German, and Swedish all descend from the same proto-language. That is, at one
time they all were the same language, namely Proto-Germanic.
(b) Following the breakup of Proto-Germanic, German underwent a sound change that
changed /d/ to /t/ in all environments.
Because sound change is regular, this explanation accounts for the regularity of the t-d-t
correspondence.
There is a standard way of expressing our hypothesis in a compact form. We use an asterisk
to designate a hypothetical sound; thus if we assume that Proto-Germanic had a /d/, we designate
the /d/ as *d. (Thus in historical linguistics, asterisk means “hypothetical”, not
“ungrammatical”.). We can write the proposed sound changes with the same notation as
phonological rules. Here, then, is the analysis:
Correspondence:
English German Swedish Proto-Germanic

d t d *d
Sound change:
d  t in German
Notice that this is not the only possible analysis. It is conceivable that Proto-Germanic had
*t, and that English and Swedish changed; or even that Proto-Germanic had something
completely different, and all three daughters changed. What we say about the phonetic identity of
the original sound is a more or less educated guess; what we can be sure about is that there was
some particular sound in Proto-Germanic that gave rise to English /d/, German /t/, and Swedish
/d/.
Note finally that the sound change is hypothesized to have once been a phonological rule;
that is, that the early speakers of German first optionally changed their /d/’s to [t]’s, and
gradually came to do this regularly, causing the next generation to restructure (see section 3.1
above).
Let us continue the reconstruction, with the following data:

B. good ˈgd ˈgut ˈgud
green ˈgrin ˈgryn ˈgrøn
go ˈgo ˈge-ən ˈgo
give ˈgv ˈgeb-ən ˈgiva
goose ˈgus ˈgans ˈgos
Here the focus is on /g/. Clearly, not much work is needed here, since all three language
have this sound. The most reasonable hypothesis is that Proto-Germanic had *g, and that it has
evolved unchanged in the daughter languages.
Correspondence:

g g g *g
The following examples look like they might be a problem. Where English and Swedish
have /d/, German has /d/, rather than the expected /t/:

C. bind ˈband ˈbind-ən ˈbind-a
round ˈrand ˈrund-ə ˈrund
land ˈlænd ˈland-əs ˈland
hound ˈhand ˈhund-ə ˈhund
linden ˈlndən ˈlind-ə ˈlind
The problem can be resolved if we carefully compare the data under A with the data under
C. In all the examples of C, the /d/ of German occurs after /n/. In the examples of A, the /t/ of
German never occurs after /n/. We know already that phonological rules have environments; so it
is reasonable to suppose that the *d  t change had one. In particular, it was blocked after /n/, so
that in this set of words German retains the Proto-Germanic /d/. The analysis, then, must be
something like this:
Correspondence:

d t d *d
d d d *d
Sound change:
d  t except / n ___ in German
Sometime the environments for a sound change are more complicated. In the following data,
we are looking at what corresponds to English /t/. In German, /ts/ stands for an alveolar affricate:

D(i) stool ˈstul ˈʃtul ˈstul
stone ˈstoʊn ˈʃtan ˈsten
best ˈbɛst ˈbɛst-ə ˈbɛst
list ˈlst ˈlst ˈlista
(ii) white ˈwat ˈvas ˈvit

foot ˈft ˈfus ˈfut
sweet ˈswit ˈzys ˈsøt
out ˈat ˈas ˈʉt204
(iii) token ˈtokən ˈtsaxən ˈtɛken

salt ˈsɔlt ˈzalts ˈsalt
smart 205
ˈsmart ˈʃmɛrts-ən ˈsmerta
Lent ˈlɛnt ˈlents ?
The correspondences are as follows:
204
[ʉ] is a high central rounded vowel.
205
In the sense of pain, as in “that smarts”.

D. i. t t t
ii. t s t
iii. t ts t
It is possible to show that all three rows reflect *t in Proto-Germanic. German retains /t/
after a fricative, shifts *t to /s/ after a vowel (including a diphthong), and shifts *t to the affricate
/ts/ in word initial position or after a non-fricative consonant. The analysis would be as follows:

D. i. t t t *t
ii. t s t *t
iii. t ts t *t
Sound Changes in German:
t  [+fricative] / [+syllabic] ___
–syllabic 
t  [+affricate] /  
–fricative ___
E
One more set of data suggests a slight revision of the analysis:

E. spin ˈspn ˈʃpn-ən ˈspna
spade ˈsped ˈʃpatən ˈspade
leap ˈlip ˈlaf-ən ˈløpa
heap ˈhip ˈhafən ˈhup
pound ˈpand ˈpfund-əs ˈpund
pipe ˈpap ˈpfaf ˈpipa
Here the correspondences are as follows:

p p p
p f p
p pf p
In analyzing these data, the trick is to ignore temporarily the minor difference between
bilabials and labio-dentals, and refer to them collectively as “labials”. If we do this, we find a
close similarity between the labials and the alveolars. That is, German has converted stops to
fricatives after a vowel or glide, and has converted stops to affricates after a non-fricative
consonant. Thus to handle the labials, we needn’t assume additional sound changes, but only
generalize the previous ones:

p p p *p
p f p *p
p pf p *p
Sound Changes in German:
+stop 
  > [+fricative] / [+syllabic] ___
–voiced
E
+stop  –syllabic 
   [+affricate] / –fricative ___
–voiced E E
There are a couple of loose ends to clear up. First, we have to add some detailed sound
changes to specify our rather vague “labials” of German as either bilabial or labiodental. This
step is not particular interesting, so I will skip it here. We also have to determine the facts for the
third voiceless stop of Proto-Germanic, namely *k.
For the first sound change (the one that created fricatives), we are on safe ground. Proto-
Germanic *k did indeed become a fricative (the velar one) in German, as is shown by cases like
token = tsaxən, seek = zux-ən, make = max-ən. The messy part concerns the expected velar
affricate /kx/. This does exist in Swiss German, and written records show that it once existed
through much of the German-speaking area. However, a later sound change caused /kx/ to revert
back to /k/ in most German dialects. Thus the system as it stands today is not as symmetrical as
we might expect.
At this point we have reconstructed several sounds of Proto-Germanic using the

Comparative Method:
*p *t *k
*d *g
We could go on, until we have reconstructed the entire inventory of Proto-Germanic

phonemes. When this is done, we can reconstruct entire words. For example, the Proto-Germanic
word for ‘good’ (English gd, German gut, Swedish gud) has been reconstructed as *gud. One
can use similar methods to reconstruct much of the morphological system, and, to a limited
extent, even the syntax.
I should admit that this exercise is artificial in an important way. No one seriously
attempting to reconstruct Proto-Germanic would use Modern English, Modern German, and
Modern Swedish as the basis of the reconstruction. Much better results are obtained by using the
oldest available written records of these languages. Real reconstructions employ Old English
(oldest records 800’s A.D.) instead of Modern English, Old High German (800’s A.D.) instead
of Modern German, and Old Norse (800’s) instead of Swedish. Other languages are used as well.
The oldest attested data from a Germanic language is from Gothic, a language now extinct that
was spoken by one of the tribes that overran the Roman Empire. Parts of the Bible were
translated into Gothic around 600 A.D.
To summarize: the comparative method involves (a) locating “sister words” from sister
languages; (b) determining the sound correspondences; (c) writing the sound changes in each
language; and (d) determining the original forms to which the sound changes applied.
Study Exercise #79: Proto-Germanic θ
The following correspondence sets illustrate the fate of Proto-Germanic * in English,

German, and Swedish. The German data are slightly fudged, as bad, klad, tod, and lad are
actually pronounced [bat], [klat], [tot], and [lat]. The pronunciations shown are used whenever
an ending is added to the word. For purposes of the problem, assume the pronunciations given.

1. bath [bæθ] bad bad
2. brother [brðɚ] bruder bruder
3. cloth [klɔθ] klad kled
4. death [dɛθ] tod dod
5. further [fɚðɚ] (be)fordərn (be)furdra
6. loath [loθ] lad led
7. thank [θɪŋk] dak takk
8. thing [θɪŋ] d ti
9. three [θri] dra tre
a. Arrange the data into phonetic correspondence sets, i.e. complete the chart that would
begin as follows:
Eng. Ger. Swed.

θ d d 1,3...
ð d d 2,5
b. Determine the sound changes that *θ has undergone in the three languages, and write
them in the format
X  Y / P___Q in Language L
c. The following cases seem to go against what you’ve seen before (cf. nos. 1, 3, 4, and 6).
How might they be explained?
10. bathe [beð] baden bada

11. clothe [kloð] kladen kleda
12. loathe [loð] laden leda
There are two clues to consider: first, the spelling of English was established long ago in the
history of the language, before a number of sound changes took place. Second, consider
differences in the corresponding German and Swedish forms.
a. English German Swedish
θ d d 1,3,4,6
ð d d 2,5
θ d t 7,8,9
b. English: θ > ð / [+syllabic] ___ [+syllabic]
German: θ > d (everywhere)
Swedish: θ > t / [word ___

θ > d / elsewhere
c. These forms have English /ð/ matching German and Swedish /d/, whereas the “normal”
forms of 1, 3, 4, and 6 have English /θ/ matching German and Swedish /d/.
We know that in English, *θ became [ð] just in case it was between two [+syllabic]
segments. A reasonable hypothesis would be that at the time of the θ > ð sound change, the
*θ’s of bathe, clothe, and loathe really were between two [+syllabic] sounds; in particular, that
there was a final vowel in these words that is no longer pronounced. The final vowel dropped out
only after the θ > ð change had already happened.
The history of bathe under this hypothesis would be as follows:
*beθə (assuming that the final vowel was schwa)

beðə θ > ð / [+syllabic] ___ [+syllabic]
beð dropping of final schwas
There are a number of facts supporting this hypothesis. First of all, the “missing vowel”
really is present in German and Swedish. That is, in those cases in which English has
“mysterious ð”, German and Swedish have an extra vowel that is missing in English; and in
those cases in which English has the normal final [θ], German and Swedish do not have an extra
vowel. That is, we can use German and Swedish to suggest what English originally looked like,
and thus explain an otherwise mysterious change.
In addition, notice that in just those cases where English has “mysterious ð”, the spelling
puts a “silent e” at the end of the word. This silent e is pointless from a modern point of view,
but it makes sense if the e was at one time pronounced. The spelling of these words remained the
same, even though one of the vowels was no longer present.
7. Study Exercise #80: Proto-ABC
This problem has made-up data, but the patterns are patterns seen in real language histories.
We assume a proto-language, called ABC, with three attested daughter languages, A, B, and
C. The goal is to characterize the sound system of Proto-ABC and all of the sound changes that
applied in its daughter languages.
The data below are alphabetized by Language A, but not otherwise organized.
No. Language A Language B Language C gloss206

1 kaku kaku kaku ‘snow’
2 kapo kabo kaba ‘daughter-in-law’
3 kawi gawi gawi ‘lamb’
4 kene gene dʒana ‘salmon’
5 kepi gebi dʒabi ‘victory’
6 keta geda dʒada ‘cow’
7 kiko giko dʒika ‘grass’
8 kiko giko dʒika ‘ancestor’
9 kita kida tʃida ‘rye’
10 kitu kitu tʃitu ‘weft’
11 kopa kopa kapa ‘loom’
12 kopu kobu kabu ‘harness’
13 kuki kugi kudʒi ‘reins’
14 mame mame mama ‘battle’
15 maru malu maru ‘goddess of the hearth’
16 mupu mubu mubu ‘bridle’
17 mura mula mura ‘sacrifice’
18 mura mula mura ‘wine’
19 naki naki natʃi ‘wheat’
20 nari nali nari ‘rain’
21 newi newi nawi ‘sheep’
22 niwo niwo niwa ‘elbow’
23 noto noto nata ‘goddess of wisdom’
24 pako pako paka ‘chicken’
25 peka peka paka ‘old’
26 peko bego baga ‘wool’
27 pika bika bika ‘wheel’
28 poke boke batʃa ‘brother-in-law’
206
The glosses are meant to be words that could have occurred in Proto-Indo-European, a society
that (as we know from the actual reconstructed vocabulary) raised crops, milked cows, obtained wool from
sheep, spun and wove cloth, fought with chariots, and worshipped many gods.
29 poku pogu pagu ‘linen’

30 pomo pomo pama ‘god of thunder’
31 pono bono bana ‘sow (seeds)’
32 popa bopa bapa ‘young’
33 puke puke putʃa ‘plow’
34 punu punu punu ‘goat’
35 putu budu budu ‘shield’
36 rike like ritʃa ‘household god’
37 riwu liwu riwu ‘blanket’
38 roti loti rati ‘sky’
39 ruti ludi rudi ‘chief’
40 taki tagi tadʒi ‘roast’
41 tawo dawo dawa ‘cloud’
42 tepo depo dapa ‘altar’
43 tewe tewe tawa ‘pray’
44 tinu dinu dinu ‘harvest’
45 tipi dibi dibi ‘god of war’
46 tipu dibu dibu ‘chariot’
47 tita dida dida ‘gizzard’
48 tito dito dita ‘amphora’
49 towu towu tawu ‘beget’
50 wute wute wuta ‘spear’
51 kupa kupa kupa ‘sword’
52 kuma guma guma ‘leather’
Here is the problem solved, through a series of Socratic questions.
Question: (a) Find the correspondence series for liquids (l, r), and conjecture what was the
ancestor sound.
Answer to Study Exercise #79, part (a):
Everywhere (for example: 15, 17, 18, 36-39), we find that A, B, C, have [r, l, r]. The
simplest guess is that *r in Proto-ABC evolved into [l] in B.
R to L
r>l in Language B
Study Exercise #79, Question (b)
Give the inventories of stops and affricates in A, B, and C, arranging them into one chart for
each language.
Answer to Study Exercise #79, question (b)
+palato- 
[+bilabial] [+alveolar]   [+velar]
 alveolar
E
A [+stop] [−voice] p t k
B: [+stop] [−voice] p t k
[+voice] b d g
C: [+stop] [−voice] p t k
[+voice] b d g
[+affricate] [−voice] tʃ
[+voice] dʒ
——————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #79, Question (c)
Find the correspondence series for bilabial stops and reconstruct the ancestor sounds.
Answer to Study Exercise #79, question (c)
There are two series:
A B C
p b b as in 2, 5, 12, 16, 26-28, etc.
p p p as in 11, 24, 25, 30, etc.
Two possibilities: one single proto-sound *p, with it changing to [b] in some context in
Languages B and C. Or, two proto-sounds *p and *b, with a merger to p in Language A.
It seems pretty hopeless to find a context into which *p could have evolved into b: look for
instance at
B 30 [pomo] vs. 31 [bono]
or at
B 25 [peka] vs. B 26 [bego].
So it seems more sensible to set up two proto-stops, as follows:
*p
*b
and assume
b > p in A.
This sound change works perfectly for the data, since there are no [b] in Language A.
—————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #79, Question (d)
Find the correspondence series for alveolar stops and reconstruct the ancestor sounds.
Answer to Study Exercise #79, question (d)
This works very similarly. There are two series.
tdd as in 6, 9, 41, 42, 44, 45, etc.

t t t as in 10, 23, 40, 43, etc.
It looks pretty hopeless to try to derive the modern [d] from *t—for instance, why would t
become d in Language B 42 [depo], but remain t in Language B 43 [tewe]? Better to assume that
*t and *d were proto-sounds, and that the distinction got wiped out everywhere in A.
*t
*d
*d > t in A
This is actually encouraging, because it’s entirely similar to the bilabials above. So it now
becomes sensible, indeed imperative, to look at the velars.
——————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #79, Question (e)
For the moment, ignore the palato-alveolars. Find the correspondence series for velar stops and
reconstruct the ancestor sounds.
Answer to Study Exercise #79, question (e)
With the hint that we ignore palato-alveolars, the data look very much like the data for the
last two cases.
kgg as in 3, 26, 29
kkk as in 1, 2, 11, 12, 13, 24, 25, 27, etc.
As before, it’s very unlikely that the voicing distinction arose by a sound change — compare
25 and 26 in Languages B and C. So we can set up:
*k
*g
*g > k in A
——————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #79, Question (f)
Generalize your findings of the last three sections using features.

Answer to Study Exercise #79, question (f)
Stop Devoicing
*[+stop] > [−voice] in A
——————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #79, Question (g)
What are the vowel inventories of A, B, and C? Form a chart listing the vowels by their features.
Answer to Study Exercise #79, question (g)
[ieaou], [ieaou], and [iau], respectively. Here is the chart:
[−back] [+back]
+high
  i u
–low 
E
–high
  e o
–low  E
–high
  a
+low  E
——————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #79, Question (h)
Find the correspondence series for vowels and reconstruct. To save time, here is a hint: the
original system had five vowels.
Answer to Study Exercise #79, question (h)
aaa 1, 2, 10, etc.

eea 4, 14, 21, etc.
ooa 2, 7, 8, 11, 12, etc.
iii 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc.
uuu 1, 10, 12 etc.
Given the hint, it’s a fairly obvious move to set up this proto-vowel system:
*i, *e, *a, *o, *u
and then assume a massive wiping out of distinctions in C: all three of [e,a,o] emerged as [a].
Mid Vowel Lowering
*e, *o > a in Language C
In features, this would be:
+syllabic
*–high  > [+low, +back]
E
——————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #79, Question (i)
Collect local environments for [k], [tʃ], [g], [dʒ] in Language C. Retain the original data next to
them. What vowels can follow k, g in C?
Answer to Study Exercise #79, question (i)
[k]:
No. Language A Language B Language C environment

1 kaku kaku kaku [ ___a
1 kaku kaku kaku a___u
2 kapo kabo kaba [___a
11 kopa kopa kapa [___a
12 kopu kobu kabu [___a
24 pako pako paka a___a
25 peka peka paka a___a
27 pika bika bika i___a
51 kupa kupa kupa [___u
[g]:
3 kawi gawi gawi [ ___a
26 peko bego baga a___a
29 poku pogu pagu a___u
52 kuma guma guma [___u
[tʃ]:
9 kita kida tʃida [ ___i

10 kitu kitu tʃitu [ ___i
19 naki naki natʃi a___i
28 poke boke batʃa a___a
33 puke puke putʃa u___a
36 rike like ritʃa i___ a
[dʒ]:
4 kene gene dʒana [ ___a

5 kepi gebi dʒabi [ ___a
6 keta geda dʒada [ ___a
7 kiko giko dʒika [ ___i
8 kiko giko dʒika [ ___i
13 kuki kugi kudʒi u___i
40 taki tagi tadʒi a___i
In C:
[k] and [g] can be followed by [a] or [u].
[tʃ] and [dʒ] can be followed by [a] or [i].
——————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #79, Question (k)
See if you can find a solution in which there were only *k and *g in Proto-ABC, with all
instances of [tʃ] and [dʒ] resulting from sound change. The big challenge is that in C, both [k]
and [tʃ] can occur before [a], and likewise both [g] and [dʒ] can occur before [a]. Hint: look at
the original vowel of the [a]’s preceded by [tʃ] and [dʒ], versus the original form of the [a]’s
preceded by [k] and [g].)
Answer to Study Exercise #79, question (k)
Cases where *k evolved into [tʃ]:

Environment Example
 followed by an [i] 9 [tʃida]
 followed by an [a] that used to be an [e] 28, [batʃa]; compare B [boke]
Cases where *k stayed [k]:
 followed by an [u] 1 [kaku]

 followed by an [a] has always been [a] 1 [kaku]; compare B [kaku]
 followed by an [a] that used to be an [o] 11 [kapa]; compare B [kopa]
So it looks like *k evolved into [tʃ] just in case—at the time—it was followed by [i] or [e]. These
are the [−back] vowels.
We can confirm this with the voiced counterparts [g] and [dʒ].
Cases where *g evolved into [dʒ]:
 followed by an [i] 7, [dʒika]

 followed by an [a] that used to be an [e] 6, [dʒada]; compare B [geda]
Cases where *g stayed [g]:
 followed an [u] 29 [pagu]

 followed by an [a] that has always been [a] 3 [gawi]; compare B [gawi]
 followed by an [a] that used to be [o] 26, [baga]; compare B [bego]
So it looks like *g evolved into [dʒ] just in case—at the time—it was followed by [i] or [e], that
is, by a front vowel.
Here is everything set up by sound changes.

(256) Palatalization207
–velar
 +velar 
+palato-alveolar
 +syllabic
*+stop  > –stop
E
 / ___ –back 

E E
+affricate 
“Velar stops evolved into palato-alveolar affricates when they preceded a front vowel.”
Historically, Palatalization must have taken place before Mid Vowel Lowering, since it was
triggered by proto-*e, before *e was converted to [a].
——————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #79, Question (l)
Provide historical derivations for 15, 3, 4, 8, 9, and 33, in each language.
207
This is the general term for any phonological rule or sound change that moves sounds into the
general territory of the hard palate (including not just the palatal place of articulation, but also the palato-
alveolar).
Answer to Study Exercise #79, question (l)
Language A:
15 3 4 8 9 33
*maru *gawi *gene *giko *kida *puke Proto-ABC
— k k k t — Stop Devoicing
maru kawi kene kiko kita puke Language A
Language B:
15 3 4 8 9 33
l R to L
malu gawi gene giko kida puke Language B
Language C:
15 3 4 8 9 33
— — dʒ dʒ tʃ tʃ Palatalization
— a a a — a Mid Vowel Lowering
maru gawi dʒana dʒika tʃida putʃa Language C
Thus, we see Proto-ABC as having had a fairly simple phonological system, with the six
stops [ptk bdg], various other consonants, and five vowels [ieaou]. The voicing contrast was
wiped out in A. C underwent a fairly complex chained development, first developing the palato-
alveolars from velars before front vowels, then radically simplifying the vowel system to just
[iau]. In B, a trivial change shifted *r to [l].
8. The reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European
The greatest achievement of the comparative method has been the reconstruction of Proto-
Indo-European. Indo-European is so-called because the Indo-European languages in their
original territory (before the age of Western expansion) stretched from Europe to India. Proto-
Indo-European was reconstructed over a long period of research that spanned most of the 19th
century; the details are still being worked out today. The field of historical linguistics in fact was
developed mostly as a result of the efforts to understand the relationships of the Indo-European
languages.
The Indo-European family was mentioned above in connection with the concept of descent.
Here is a more detailed family tree given in outline form. Extinct languages are shown in italics.
(257) The Indo-European family tree
Italic, comprising
Latin and its modern descendents, the Romance languages
various ill-attested ancient languages of Italy
Greek (Ancient Greek, Medieval Greek, Modern Greek)
Indo-Iranian, comprising
Indic (Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Sinhala, many others)
Iranian (Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, others)
Balto-Slavic, comprising
Baltic (Latvian, Lithuanian)
Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Bulgarian,
Macedonian)
Germanic (see above)
Celtic (ancestor of Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Breton, Gaulish, Cornish)
Albanian
Armenian (today attested in two main daughter languages, Eastern and Western
Armenian)
Hittite (Turkey, earliest written records of any Indo-European language)
Tocharian (Central Asia)
The reconstruction of the family was made much easier by the fact that so many branches of
the family are attested in very old written documents; roughly 1700 B.C. for Hittite, 1500 B.C.
for Sanskrit, 1200 B.C. for Mycenaean Greek.
One can find numerous foreign words that descend from the same Proto-Indo-European root
as familiar English words. These words are familiar, because English has borrowed heavily from
Latin and Greek. The following table gives some examples.
PIE
English father *pəter

Latin pater (cf. paternal)
Greek pater (cf. patriarch)
Persian pedær
English heart *kerd

Greek kardia (cf. cardiac)
Latin kord (cf. cordial)
English bear
Latin fer (cf. transfer) *bher
Greek pherein (cf. amphora) ‘vessel to carry things in’
English two
Latin duo (cf. dual) *dwo
Greek dis (cf. disyllabic)
Armenian erku
Proto-Indo-European is believed to have been spoken about 6000 years ago, give or take a
few thousand years. The Armenian form erku in the table gives an idea of how far a word can
evolve through sound change in this amount of time.
9. Grimm’s Law
You’ll see in the examples above that the consonants of Germanic generally deviate from
those of the remaining Indo-European languages. This is due to what is probably the most
famous of all sound changes, Grimm’s Law. In very rough outline, Grimm’s Law looked like
this:
Proto-Indo- Proto-
European Germanic
ptk > f  h208
bdg > ptk
b d g > bdg
Here are examples:
208
On grounds of phonetic symmetry we would expect a voiceless velar fricative [x]. This probably
was an intermediate stage on the way to [h]; for example, in Polish [x] can be optionally pronounced [h].
father, Latin pater three, Greek treis heart, Greek kardia
hemp, Greek kannabis two, Latin duo knee, Latin genu209
brother, Latin frater210 do, Sanskrit da-211 guest, Latin hostis212
The American Heritage Dictionary is to my knowledge the only dictionary that bothers to
take the etymologies all the way back to Proto-Indo-European. You can find the the original
roots for these correspondences in their Indo-European appendix:
*pəter *trei *kerd

*kannabis *dwo *genu
*bhraːter *dheː *ghosti
10. The method of reconstructed environments
The most virtuosic application of the Comparative Method uses a technique that, oddly, has
no standard name. To fill this gap, I will call it here the method of reconstructed environments
here.
In the method of reconstructed environments, the environment for a sound change in

Language A, which is no longer present in A, is determined using data from sister language
B.
The method was already illustrated in the Proto-ABC example above. We used the vowels
of A and B to solve the problem of the sound change k g > tʃ dʒ in C.
Proto-ABC is modeled on a real-life case, namely the history of Sanskrit, of which the
following data are representative.
Latin Old English Greek Sanskrit gloss

-kwe — -te -tʃa ‘and’
kwis hwa tis tʃid ‘who’
kwod hwæt — -kas ‘what’
— hwæer poteros kataras ‘which of the two’
kwando hwanne — kada ‘when’
209
[kni], until about 1700
210
The Proto-Indo-European b, preserved in Sanskrit batar, became f in Latin.
211
Meaning “to set”.
212
The Proto-Indo-European g became h in Latin.
The correspondence series here are these:
Latin Old English Greek Sanskrit

kw hw t tʃ (first two)
kw hw p k (last three)
Normally, these are attributed to Proto-Indo-European *kw, which survived intact in Latin
and became [hw] in Germanic by Grimm’s Law. In Greek, the fate of *kw depended on the
following vowel: if this vowel was front, *kw evolved into [t], as in the first two rows;
otherwise *kw evolved into [p].
It is the Sanskrit forms that are the puzzle: they show sometimes [tʃ], and sometimes [k],
but in exactly the same environment, namely before [a].
The solution to the problem is to use the method of reconstructed environments. The crucial
insight is that the Sanskrit vowel inventory is missing vowels found in its sister languages,
namely the mid vowels [e] and [o]. If we consider just Greek poteros vs. Sanskrit kataras, it is
plausible that the Sanskrit vowel were (at some pre-attested phase of Sanskrit) the same as the
Greek ones, and that there was a merger:
(258) Mid Vowel Lowering
*e, *o > a in Sanskrit
In other words, we use Greek and Latin as a guide to the former quality of the Sanskrit
vowels. This lets us explain the behavior of *kw, as follows:
*-kwe *kwid *-kwos *kwoteros Pre-Sanskrit

tʃe tʃid — — *kw > tʃ before front
vowels
— — kos koteros *kw > k elsewhere
tʃa — kas kataras *e, *o > a
tʃa tʃid kas kataras attested Sanskrit
This account both rationalizes the gap in the Sanskrit vowel system, and explains the
development of [tʃ] from *k.213
The method of reconstructed environments was introduced as a technique by several

scholars more or less simultaneously during the 1870’s, and marked the maturity of
213
Curiously, the very same pattern appears in the history of Salishan languages (northwestern
United States). Nez Perce plays the role of Sanskrit here. The scholars who reconstructed proto-Salishan
presumably didn’t have as hard a time figuring this out, since they already had the Sanskrit example to
work with.
reconstruction as a method. Further developments have mostly followed developments in

phonology: we can make better guess about old phoneme inventories by the study of what are
typically phoneme inventories today; and our increased knowledge of phonological rules in the
world’s languages permits more informed guesswork about old sound changes.
11. Validating the comparative method
The best way to evaluate the comparative method is to apply it to a language family whose
ancestor is known from written evidence. Plausible candidates:
 Apply method to Romance languages, compare result with Latin

 Apply method to Hindi, Bengali, etc., compare result with Sanskrit
 Apply method to Slavic languages, compare result with Old Church Slavonic
 Apply method to Mandarin, Cantonese, etc.; compare result with oldest written Chinese
The result is generally encouraging, but also shows the limitations. Thus, Proto-Romance,
the reconstructed answer of the modern Romance languages, is not unsimilar to Classical Latin,
but departs from it in many important ways. Similar conclusions follow, I believe, in the other
examples just given.
11.1 Confirming Proto-Germanic Reconstructions
Opportunities to confirm Proto-Germanic reconstructions directly are almost non-existent,

but a famous case of this sort is often mentioned. The reconstruction is of interest, because it
shows how knowledge of phonology and sound change in general guides reconstruction.
The following forms are the oldest attested versions in Germanic languages of the word
“guest”:
Gothic gasts
Old Norse gestr
Old High German gast
Old English gæst
Given this data, a historical linguist experienced in the typical sound changes found in
languages might reason as follows:
 The final consonant of Gothic and Old Norse is plausibly the result of a long-lost [z]—
this sound can become [r] by weakening from fricative to liquid, and [s] by assimilating
the voicing of a preceding [z].
 Long consonant clusters are historically usually the result of the loss of vowels; thus
*gVstVz.
 The absence of the *z in some of the daughter languages (Old High German, Old
English) is hardly surprising, given the tendency of languages to simplify their consonant
clusters.
 Again on the basis of examples seen elsewhere, it is likely that the Gothic and Old High
German vowels ([a]) represent the original form, and that the front vowels of Old Norse
and Old English are the result of assimilation: the vowel of the stem becomes front under
the influence of a following front vowel.214 The mostly likely such vowel is [i]—it is the
most common trigger of this kind of process, and is also the most likely vowel to delete.
 Thus, the ancestor form was plausibly *gastiz, and the history of the descendent forms is
perhaps something like this:
Gothic Old Norse OHG Old English

*ˈgastiz *ˈgastiz *ˈgastiz *ˈgastiz Proto-Germanic
— ˈgestiz — ˈgæstiz vowel assimilation
— ˈgestir — — weakening of z to r
ˈgastz ˈgestr ˈgastz ˈgæstz loss of stressless
vowel
— — ˈgast ˈgæst cluster simplification
ˈgasts — ˈgast ˈgæst voicing assimilation
ˈgasts ˈgestr ˈgast ˈgæst attested forms
This is going fairly far out on a limb, and can only be called informed conjecture. Yet in
this case the conjecture was pleasingly confirmed by an archaeological discovery; a horn
found in southern Denmark, dated to about 400 A.D—only shortly after the breakup of Proto-
Germanic. The runic inscription on the horn is transcribed thus:
Ek Hlewagastiz Holtijaz horna tawido

I, Hlewagastiz, son of Holti, made (this) horn.
From http://alcor.concordia.ca/~shannon/335PP/Lecture01Germania.ppt#270,11,Runes
214
Old Norse also shows a partial height assimilation.
e k h l e w a g a s t i z | h o l t i j a z | h o r n a | t a wid o
Following the general pattern of early Germanic names, “Hlewagastiz” is interpreted as

“fame-guest”—thus giving gastiz as confirmation of the reconstructed Proto-Germanic form.
Latin hostis ‘enemy’ is taken to be further confirmation; its [h] is the normal counterpart of
Germanic [g]; and the two are thought to descend from Proto-Indo-European *gostis
‘stranger’—with opposite semantic drift in the two daughter language families.
In a similar case, the reconstruction for “king”:
Old English cyning

Old Frisian koning
Old Saxon kuning
Old High German kuning
Old Norse konongr
is taken to be *kuningVz, where V is some vowel that didn’t cause the stem vowel to become
front—probably a non-front vowel. Conveniently, this word was borrowed very early into
Finnish (not an Indo-European language), which preserved it in the form kuningas, essentially
unaltered (save for the z > s; Finnish has no [z]) for 2000 years.
11.2 Why the Comparative Method is imperfect
In spite of such gratifying examples, the more general truth is that the Comparative Method
cannot in general recover the prior state of languages intact, but only bring us closer to it than
any other procedure could. The problem is gradual data loss over time. If any part of a word is
lost in all of the daughter languages, it will not be recoverable by the Comparative Method. In
section this week, you’ll see some examples of reconstructed Proto-Romance, and you’ll see that
they involve very considerable differences from Classical Latin.
It is not just the sound that get irrecoverably lost. Whole words get replaced over time,
gradually removing the historical linguist’s raw material entirely. Thus, English marginally
preserves the Proto-Germanic word *hundo-z in the form of hound, but in general to refer to
dogs we say dog, of which the Oxford English Dictionary says:
“Late Old English; previous history and origin unknown”
Many words do not have etymologies—the best-informed scholars just plain don’t know. (OED
on big: “its derivation is entirely unknown”; on boy “of obscure origin”; on tag: “origin
obscure”; on miffed “origin uncertain”.)
12. How far back can we go?
Given the gradual loss of data over time, most linguists have been reluctant to pursue the
deeper ancestry of the Indo-European languages (and similarly for very deep relationships
around the world). It is generally agreed that the data aren’t sufficient to relate Indo-European to
any of the neighboring language families215 using the Comparative Method, and the debate
hinges on whether we are entitled to use any other method less rigorous than the Comparative
Method, such as merely combing through the data for resemblances that may well be quite
accidental.
I believe most linguists are skeptical of such efforts. The world abounds in false cognates,
that is to say, words that look like they come from the same proto-word, but can be shown
through reasoning and evidence that they are not. A classic case is the Persian word [bæd], which
means, of all things, “bad”, but (as careful study of the sound correspondences and ancient
Persian documents will show) is not etymologically related to English “bad” at all.216
Thus, scholars who try to demonstrate deep relationships (of which the logical extreme is the
hypothetical “Proto-World”) risk the scorn of their colleagues. Typically a scholar who uses
“trans-comparative” scholarly methods will be regarded by a few colleagues as a visionary, and
by others as exhibiting scholarly irresponsibility.
The failure of the Comparative Method to go “really deep” is perhaps a bit sad, since it
would be nice to know the language our remote ancestors spoke. A useful comparison here is a
parallel discipline—evolutionary biology—that likewise has established the family trees of
things (species) through careful and systematic comparison. Evolutionary biology has better
data—such as DNA sequences—that have enabled biologists to reconstruct the unitary Tree of
Life almost to its origin. Historical linguistics, alas, only has words, which gradually get replaced
over the centuries. The complete Tree of Languages may be valid as a concept, but it cannot be
accessed with the methods we have and is unlikely ever to be.
An even less likely prospect is pinpointing when and how language first came to be. It
seems essentially certain that this required advances in human evolution, and, as we saw in
Chapter 7, some of the adaptations involved may have involved linguistic ability itself. But
barring the invention of time travel, we are not likely to find out much about the early stages of
human language.
13. Borrowing
Sound change is not the only way in which languages can change. Another important
mechanism is borrowing, the adoption of words from other languages. Over time, languages can
borrow thousands of words; indeed, Albanian is an Indo-European language, but it is of little use
215
Candidates include Uralic (Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, etc.), Altaic (Turkish, Mongolian, etc),
Basque, and others.
216
The Middle Persian form is recorded as vat, more distant already…
in reconstructing Indo-European, because it has borrowed so heavily from other languages that
there are only a few hundred native Albanian words left.
Study Exercise #81
a. Use your knowledge of the sound changes developed earlier to predict what will be the
German words for to and pepper.
b. Given this, what would you expect the German word for party (in the sense of ‘political
party’) to be?

a. The German for to is /tsu/, spelled zu. The German for pepper is /pfɛfər/. Obviously, this
procedure doesn’t work all the time, since many other sound changes separate German and
English.
b. /pfartsi/. This is actually not right; see immediately following discussion.
————————————————————————————————————
Borrowing makes trouble for the Comparative Method. The difficulty is that words that are
borrowed after a given sound change look like exceptions to that sound change. The German for
party is in fact not /pfartsi/ but rather /partaɪ/. The word was borrowed from French, long after
the sound change that converted *t and *p into affricates.
In this particular case, the difficulty is not great. We have extensive old records of both
German and French, and it is not difficult to trace the history of the word through both
languages. But in other cases there is no documentation.
The procedure used in such cases is more subtle. Usually, one does a tentative
reconstruction based only on basic, core vocabulary items that are not often borrowed—words
like father, arm, moon, three, water, etc. From these basic words, one can get a rough idea of the
sound correspondences.
Once this is done, the sound correspondences themselves can be used to check for
borrowings. That is, the words that violate known sound correspondences are likely to be the
borrowed words.
Study Exercise #82
Consider the following correspondences:

fish fʃ fʃ *fisk
shoe ʃu ʃu *sku
flesh flɛʃ flaʃ *flesk
In these cases, we have [ʃ] in English matched with [ʃ] in German matched with [sk] in
Swedish.
The English words skirt and shirt are both descended from the same Proto-Germanic root.
One of them is a borrowing, the other is native. Which is which?
Skirt is borrowed from English in Old Norse around the time of the partial Danish conquest
of England. The Old Norse form was skyrta. The form is recognizable as a borrowing because
all native *sk clusters had been converted to [ʃ].
Shirt and skirt were the same word in Proto-Germanic, reconstructed by the Oxford
English Dictionary as *skurtjon.
———————————————————————————————————
Once one has filtered out the borrowings, one can use the words that remain to get a better
idea of the sound changes. With this done, one can make a more accurate judgment of which
words are borrowed, which then permits a through a series of gradual improvements.
14. Grammatical simplification
I will discuss one further mechanism of language change: grammatical simplification. The
basic picture is this: sound changes over time tend to make the grammar of a language,
particularly its morphological rules, very complicated. In compensation, languages often
spontaneously simplify their morphological rules.
I will first show how sound change complicates the morphological rules. An example of
complexity in morphology is the set of irregular plurals in English, such as foot-feet, mouse -
mice. These are exceptions to the normal pattern of plural formation in English, which would
lead us to expect foots and mouses.
In the theory of inflectional morphology given in the course, a form like feet must be listed
in the lexicon, with its phonological form and a sort of pre-formed morphosyntactic
representation. Here are sample lexical entries for foot and feet:
foot
/ft/
feet
/fit/[Number:plural]
‘appendage at end of leg’
The theory of lexical insertion must stated such that, whenever there is a special listed entry like
feet, that entry is lexically inserted, and the form that would be derived by the rules of the
inflectional morphology, namely foots [fts], is preempted.
14.1 The origin of irregular forms
The existence of irregular forms can, in most cases, be attributed to sound changes of long
ago. The plurals feet and mice are in fact the historical descendents, through sound change, of a
system that was quite regular thousands of years ago, in Proto-Germanic times. What made them
irregular was a lengthy sequence of sound changes. I will go over them briefly here.
Here are the reconstructed forms for foot, feet, mouse, and mice in Proto-Germanic (around
500 B.C.):
foot feet mouse mice
*ˈfot *ˈfot-i *ˈmus *ˈmus-i
Notice that there is nothing particularly irregular about them. The plural is formed by
attaching a suffix of the form -i, which in fact was the regular plural suffix for this class of
nouns. In the system of inflectional morphology used in this course, the rule would have been
(approximately) the following:
Early English Plural Formation
Suffix -i when [Number:plural]
The first step towards irregularity for these words was an innocent-looking phonological
rule, which created front vowel allophones of the back vowels /o/ and /u/:
Early English Umlaut
+syllabic
*+round  > [−back] / ___ [−syllabic] i
E
This change produced the following forms:

ˈfot ˈføt-i ˈmus ˈmys-i
To understand the next change, you need to know that in Proto-Germanic, the first syllable
of a word (and only the first syllable) was stressed. The next sound change converted all the
stressless vowels into schwa:
Vowel Reduction
+syllabic
*–stress  > ə
E

ˈfot ˈføtə ˈmus ˈmysə
This is reminiscent of how German acquired the phoneme /ø/ (see section 5 of this chapter,
above). In fact, pretty much the same thing happened in early English: when the triggering
environment for an Umlaut rule was lost, the language acquired front rounded vowel phonemes.
The next step in English was to lose the schwas:
Final Schwa Drop

*ə >  / ___ ]word

ˈfot ˈføt ˈmus ˈmys
Then the vowel /ø/ lost its rounding, and became the corresponding unrounded vowel /e/:
ø Unrounding
ø–round]

ˈfot ˈfet ˈmus ˈmys
Once we have reached this stage, we are no longer relying on reconstruction. The above
forms appear in the oldest written documents for Old English.
 Beowulf 745 Sona hæfde unlifiendes eal efeormod fet and folma
‘swiftly thus the lifeless corse was clear devoured, even feet and hands.’
 1297 He vel of is palefrey, & brec is fot.
‘He fell off his horse and broke his foot’
 Late Old English: King Alfred’s translation of Boethius’s The Consolation of
Philosophy: Gif ge nu gesawan hwelce mus þæt wære hlaford ofer ore mys
‘If you saw in a community of mice, one mouse asserting his rights and his power over
the others’
Around 1050 to 1100, the front rounded vowel /y/ underwent the same fate that /ø/ had
undergone earlier: it lost its rounding, becoming the corresponding front vowel /i/:
y Unrounding
*y–round]

ˈfot ˈfet ˈmus ˈmis
Around 1500, for reasons that are not known, the tense vowels of English suffered a
convulsive change, which sent them all over the phonetic chart. This change is called the Great
Vowel Shift, and it marks the boundary between Middle English and Early Modern English.
Great Vowel Shift

i  a u  a
e  i o  u
æ  e ɔ  o

ˈfut ˈfit ˈmaʊs ˈmaɪs
Our words are now in recognizably modern state. There was one more sound change: the
vowel /u/ became lax in certain environments, in a complex and somewhat irregular change:
/u/ Laxing
*u  [−tense] in certain environments

ˈfʊt ˈfit ˈmaʊs ˈmaɪs
This is the end of journey of these vowels, for now. It is interesting to plot their trajectories
on a phonetic chart, to see how far the vowels have migrated in 2500 years:
The vowel of mus:
a
The vowel of musi:
i y u
a
The point of this example is to show that 2500 years of sound change can make a very
simple morphological rule into a complex one. It would be very hard to write a general rule that
predicts mice as the plural of mouse and feet as the plural of foot.
14.2 Grammatical regularization as a source of change
In fact, the language didn’t really tolerate the situation. At some point in the history of
English, the old, increasingly irregular system of plural formation was discarded and replaced by
a simpler rule. Basically, in Modern English plurals are formed by suffixing -z.217
Modern English Plural Formation
Suffix -z when [Number:plural]
The plurals mice and feet are relic forms; they have managed to hang on as exceptions to the
general rule.
The change in the system of plural formation in English is a classical case of grammatical
simplification. The language changed not through sound change, but in response to sound
change. It created a new rule for plurals, and replaced most of the old irregular plurals with
newly created forms.
Who is responsible for grammatical simplification? The most likely answer is small
children, who are still acquiring language. It is not hard to see why: one constantly observes
small children oversimplifying the grammar of the language they are learning. In particular, they
don’t know, or neglect to use, the special lexical entry for forms like feet. Instead, they generate
foots using the regular grammatical system. In some cases, particularly with less common words,
such regularized forms can be adopted by the speech community as a whole.
An example: the plural of cow was once [ka], or something like it (note the archaic form
kine). [ka] is the plural inherited though sound change from Proto-Germanic; its history is
essentially the same as that of mice, with the same vowel. The plural we use today, cows, was the
invention of children. It differs from foots only in that it managed to get adopted for general use.
Quite a few forms in English today are creations of children, of this kind. Another plural
form of this type is brothers (formerly brethren) and the past tenses helped (formerly halp) and
melted (formerly malt).
The upshot of this is that language change can be thought of as an eternal struggle. Over the
centuries, sound change alters the morphological system, making it more complex and obscure.
Fighting on the other side are small children, who refuse to learn the irregular forms, and replace
217
There is a bit of phonology going on: the underlying /-z/ becomes [-s] after voiceless consonants
(cats, with /kæt-z/  [kæts]) and a schwa is inserted to break up clusters of the form [s, z, ʃ, , tʃ, d] + [z],
as in badges (/bæd-z/  [bædəz].)
them with regular forms, as generated by the rules of the language at the time they learn it. The
current state of a language is the result of a temporary balance between these opposing forces.
15. Summary of historical linguistics
At this point we have covered the basic mechanisms of language change. An outline of the
field is as follows:
First, all languages have phonological rules. Phonological rules are vulnerable to
restructuring by the next generation, which results in sound change. Sound change is normally
regular. It is this regularity that makes it possible to reconstruct lost proto-languages, using the
Comparative Method.
Borrowing is another major source of language change. Borrowed words make the
Comparative Method more difficult to apply, but they can often be detected because they are
exceptions to the sound correspondences.
A third major source of language change is grammatical simplification, the abandonment by

children of irregular forms resulting from sound change in favor of regular forms. Sound change
and grammatical simplification are in eternal conflict: sound change complicates the
morphology, and grammatical simplification “repairs” the damage.
The Comparative Method yields well-supported family trees and the changes that the
languages underwent during their descent. It cannot go back more than a few thousand years and
thus the deep history of languages, as well as the origin of language in general, is not accessible
to investigation by this method.
Study Exercise #83: Historical Linguistics
Here are matched sets from three dialects of English. Apply the Comparative Method,
forming correspondence sets and positing sound changes. Here, is it best to compare sequences
rather than sounds. Do: [juɹ, uɹ, oɹ].
Dialect A Dialect B Dialect C

1. Muir [ˈmju] [ˈmju] [ˈmjo]
2. moor [ˈmu] [ˈmu] [ˈmo]
3. more [ˈmo] [ˈmo] [ˈmo]
4. cure [ˈkju] [ˈkju] [ˈkjo]
5. Coors [ˈkuz] [ˈkuz] [ˈkoz]
6. core [ˈko] [ˈko] [ˈko]
7. Buhr [ˈbju] [ˈbju] [ˈbjo]
8. boor [ˈbu] [ˈbu] [ˈbo]

9. bore [ˈbo] [ˈbo] [ˈbo]
10. endure [ɛnˈdju] [ɛnˈdu] [ɛnˈdo]
11. dour [ˈdu] [ˈdu] [ˈdo]
12. door [ˈdo] [ˈdo] [ˈdo]
13. Turing [ˈtju] [ˈtu] [ˈto]
14. tour [ˈtu] [ˈtu] [ˈto]
15. tore [ˈto] [ˈto] [ˈto]
16. inure [ˈnju] [ˈnu] [ˈno]
218
17. Koh-i-noor [ˈkohnu] [ˈkohnu] [ˈkohno]
18. nor [ˈno] [ˈno] [ˈno]
218
A famous diamond, from the Persian for “mountain of light”.
Correspondence sets:
Proto A B C Examples
*ju ju ju jo 1, 4, 7
*ju ju u o 10, 13, 16
*u u u o 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17
*or o o o 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18
The proto-language is identical to Dialect A.
B and C have both undergone:
*j alveolar] ___
See endure, Turing, and inure
C has also undergone:
*u > o / ___ 
which has merged moor with more, boor with bore, and so on.
For Further Reading
Two textbooks fine in historical linguistics are the following. Introduction to Historical
Linguistics by Anthony Arlotto (1981: University Press of America) is very brief and quite
clear; Historical Linguistics by Theodora Bynon (1979: Cambridge University Press) goes into
greater depth. Leonard Bloomfield’s Language (1933, still in print), cited above for phonology,
has a wealth of good material on historical linguistics.
Chapter 14: Applications and Outlook
1. This course and linguistics in general
In this text I’ve presented one theory, and for almost every particular area of data, one
analysis. This has given us the tools to analyze a great deal of data, and to illustrate what it
means to carry out linguistic analysis. If you study linguistics further, you’ll get more elaborate
theories — for one thing, for purposes of an introductory text I’ve mostly picked theories on the
basis that they can be taught in a short period of time, and specialist courses can be more
ambitious.
In addition, at the level of research, linguists explore many different theories, and try to find
evidence for which one is right. As research proceeds, the theories have tended to become more
subtle, more ambitious, and more accurate. But there’s a great deal of work yet to be done, and at
the present stage of research disagreement among linguists is very common.
2. Unsolved research problems in linguistics
One indication that linguistic theory is making progress is that descriptive grammars are
getting better. Grammar authors, equipped with better theories, and better knowledge of what
languages are like in general, seem to be able to lay out languages more completely and
systematically than their predecessors 50 or 100 years ago.
On the other hand, I think most progress in linguistics is yet to come, and the linguistics of
100 years from now may be very different from the linguistics of today.
For what it’s worth, here are what I take to be three of the leading unsolved research
problems in linguistics.
2.1 The island problem
Our islands (Chapter 6) have been a “laundry list” of syntactic structures, some of them
evidently universal and some language-particular. One area where theorizing has been intensive
is the attempt to unify and simplify the theory of islands. An approach that is commonly taken is
that it’s probably better to specify where wh- phrases can be extracted from rather than making a
big list of where they can’t. No current theory has obtained the agreement of all specialists.219
219
A quick, and pessimistic, overview may be read at
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265764977_Syntactic_islands_by_Cedric_Boeckx_%28review%29
2.2 The acquisition problem
We solve linguistics problems through patience, guile, and occasionally inspiration. It is

unlikely that children learn language this way, since they seem more reliable than we are—they
proceed steadily onward to become fluent native speakers. Moreover, they don’t get stuck: there
are a number of Bantu languages that have very complex tonal systems that that skilled linguists
have not yet been able to reduce to rule, but that hasn’t stopped the human children who learn
these languages from apprehending the tonal pattern and applying it correctly in speech.
The problem of acquisition in syntax is perhaps even more baffling, because there, what
children do is learn the ungrammatically of sentences in the absence of negative evidence (see
Chapter 7).
To solve the problem of how children acquire language so well, three things will be needed.
First, we need to develop adequate grammars of individual languages, which characterize the
native speaker’s knowledge and intuitions with complete accuracy. We also need adequate
general theories of language that say what grammars can be like. Both of these issues have been
taken on, at least in an elementary way, in this course.
The next step would be to start modeling the child’s behavior directly: linguistics will
gradually develop formal systems (probably implemented as computer programs) that mimic the
child, learning grammars when exposed to realistic data from languages. This task has only
begun to be taken on by linguists in the past few years.
One of the very simplest such problems to learn a grammar that can form the past tense of
English verbs, given the present stem. The rules of the game are that the system is given a set of
verbs (perhaps a couple thousand) with their past tense, learns a grammar, and then is tested on
new verbs. One system of this sort220 when asked for the past tense of “spling”, guesses as
follows:
(259) Three machine-generated guesses for the past tense of “spling” [ˈsplɪŋ]
splung [ˈsplʌŋ] first choice

splinged [ˈsplɪŋd] close second
splang [ˈsplæŋ] third choice
These guesses roughly matches the preference of people, who vary in the same way. Many vastly
harder tasks in modeling learning have yet to be addressed, since we don’t yet know how.
Ultimately, I think, linguistics should try to pass the “Turing test”, as it applies for language—the
creation of an artificial system that behaves identically (from the observer’s perspective) to
humans.
220
Adam Albright and Bruce Hayes (2003) “Rules vs. Analogy in English Past Tenses: A
Computational/Experimental Study,” Cognition 90: 119-161
[http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/hayes/#acquisition]
2.3 The parsing problem
A parser is a procedure (usually a computer program) that, given a grammar and a sentence,
can figure out the phrase structure tree that the grammar assigns to the sentence. One problem in
parsing is that sentences often have many more parses than we as linguists think they do. To give
one example, the sentence:
They are flying planes.
has two obvious parses:
(They are acting as pilots)
(Those things up in the air are planes that are flying)
But a complete and thorough search yields parses that are absurd but possible. Thus,
consider the following set-up:
Smoking kills.
What are the facts? The facts are, smoking kills.
They are, smoking kills.
They are, flying planes.
(I envision small bits of a large board being slowly removed by impact with the propellers.)
The absurdity, indeed the “cheapness” of this example is perhaps even irritating, but it
illustrates a general problem. Parsers implemented as computer programs arrive at a great
number of parses that would never occur to people. In contrast, people seem to be able to arrive
at the correct parses almost instantaneously, without distraction. Much current research is
devoted to inventing parsers that can mimic the high level of human performance—partly in the
hope that this will shed light on how people perform this task.
2.4 Other kinds of parsing
Parsing, construed generally, is not just a matter of syntax. In morphological parsing, we

seek to recover the stem and the features of the morphosyntactic representation from the
phonological form of an inflected word. In “phonemic parsing” — better known as speech
recognition — we seek to find the phonemic representation (and possibly, also the lexical items
present) from a raw acoustic signal. Like syntactic parsing, morphological and phonemic parsing
are unsolved problems, the topic of current research.
3. Linguistics: what is it good for?
Enrollment in undergraduate majors in linguistics has tripled in the U.S. since 2000.221 This
is a good thing for linguistics departments. Is it a good thing for society?
I actually think it is; that is, I feel society would be better off if more people had knowledge
of linguistics. Some specific areas where linguistics could make a difference in real life are as
follows.
221
See http://www.linguisticsociety.org/files/Annual_Report_2013.pdf, p. 10.
3.1 Teaching reading and writing
Children learn to read, in part, by establishing correspondences between the phonemes they
learned in toddlerhood and the letters used to spell the language. The spelling system is like a
code, with the phonemes behind it, and many children have the experience of “breaking” the
code rather suddenly, becoming able to read at a beginning level.
“Phonics” is the standard term in the teaching profession for what a linguist might call “the
system of letter-phoneme correspondences”. Phonics was eclipsed for a number of decades in
the United States by an alternative “whole word” or “whole language” method, which became
quite controversial. The Congress appealed to the National Institutes of Health to make a
scientifically-guided comparison of the two methods, and the NIH panel (reporting in 2000)
came out firmly in favor of phonics.222
But beyond just adopting phonics, I think there could be some very useful further
applications of linguistics in the teaching of reading. In particular, it would pay for teachers to
know and understand the phonemic systems of their students. Thus, if a student has no phonemic
no distinction between [] and [ɛ] before nasals (saying, as millions of Americans do, both pin
and pen as [pɪn]), then a reading teacher should not correct the student who reads pen as [pɪn] —
this can only confuse the student and undermines her confidence, given that she correctly
interpreted the letters within her phonemic system.223
In the later school years, children are taught to write in a standardized, normatively-defined
style. We can debate the merits of having such a style (see Chapter 3), but let’s just assume for
purposes of argument that ability to write in the standard variety is of sufficient value to
students’ future work lives that they ought to be taught it. Here, having teachers who understand
syntax can help in making clear to children what the requirements of this style are. One common
instance arises in sentences like the following.
Being in a dilapidated condition, I was able to buy the house very cheap.
In many English dialects, this sentence can have a meaning in which it is the house that is
dilapidated. However, this reading is not possible in the written standard, where the only possible
reading is one in which the speaker is dilapidated. Since people who command the written
standard often hold strong normative views (chapter 3) against the non-standard pattern, teachers
can protect their students from future harm by teaching them the standard pattern.
222
You can read their basic recommendations at
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/research/supported/Pages/nrp.aspx/
223
Far more tricky is the case of a child who has learned a theta-less dialect like Cockney or African
American Vernacular English at home, and interprets (say) myth in the correct way under her own
phonemic system, namely as [mɪf]. Given people’s normative views (chapter 3), use of this pronunciation
is a career barrier, no matter how high the intelligence or skill of the person who uses it. I can see no way
that a school teacher could tactfully inform a child that the dialect she learned at her parent’s knee is widely
despised; presumably, some teachers just go ahead and do it untactfully.
To do this, it is necessary to have at least an elementary theory of syntax. For example, an

English teacher might tell his students: “the implicit subject of a preposed clause may only refer
to the subject of the main clause”.224 The concepts of clause, implicit subject, and coreference—
all covered in this book — are clearly relevant here.
3.2 Teaching foreign languages
Language instruction can be either intuitive or structural. The latter approach, one lays out
the grammar in a systematic way, much as a linguist tries to do. The teaching of pronunciation
varies perhaps most of all. Some language textbooks give the student nothing but orthography,
along with the advice that they should imitate native speakers. In contrast, some texts include
training in basic phonetics. Although not in America, many language textbooks around the worl
actually use the IPA, as a tool for making the target pronunciation as clear as possible.
In some cases, linguistic theorizing has produced better descriptions of how the language
works, notably in Japanese and other tonal languages. It remains to be seen whether such
developments will help in language instruction. Here again, the question is whether the students
should be told “Listen closely to native speakers and mimic their pitch patterns” or given a clear
description of how the system works phonologically, then try to make adherence to the system an
automatic pattern.
3.3 Alphabet design
Many of the world’s people cannot write their native language because it has not yet been
given an orthography. As mentioned Chapter 11, phonemic analysis is commonly used to
determine what sounds need to be symbolized by letters in a new spelling system.
3.4 Human-machine interaction
It is of course a goal of many people and companies that we will someday engage in fluent
conversations with computers and other machines; presumably when this happens our
interactions with machines will be far more convenient and helpful to us.
However, those who buy computers and software for synthesis and recognition will know
that neither of these capacities has reached the point where they are useful for more than fairly
low-level tasks. We experience frustration when the speech recognizer cannot understand our
utterances, and fatigue when we try to listen to the unrealistic productions of synthesizers. What
is needed to make things better?
Different people will give different answers to this question. Obviously, the answer I feel
most sympathetic to is, “more and better linguistics.”— we cannot hope to have a good speech
synthesizer until we have exquisitely detailed — and generalizable — knowledge of the rules for
224
Strunk and White’s book of normative grammar, The Elements of Style (from which the example
above derives) says “A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical
subject.” This is vague in using the term “refer to”, but not bad for non-linguists. Link:
http://orwell.ru/library/others/style/english/estyle.
English allophones, both within the word and across word boundaries within the phrase. Whether
this knowledge will take the form of a traditional rule-based linguistic description or something
different is not firmly established. The problem of speech recognition may also benefit from
deeper and more detailed phonetic and phonetic description and grammars.
Syntax and semantics must also be invoked to improve the abilities of computers to
converse with us. We can get an idea of the state of advancement achieved here by examining
the behavior of the grammar checker included in a leading word processor. Examples like the
following indicate that the busy crew at Microsoft has gotten strikingly good at parsing long
noun phrases and making sure that the verb agrees in number with their head (sequences
underlined are those identified as a problem by the grammar-checker in Word 2010):
The turtles is green.

The turtles are green.
The turtles in the pond is green.

The turtles in the pond are green.
The turtles that many of us believe to be swimming in the pond is green.

The turtles that many of us believe to be swimming in the pond are green.
The turtles that the ducklings that the wolves ate believe to be swimming in the pond is
green.
The turtles that the ducklings that the wolves ate believe to be swimming in the pond are
green.
On the other hand, any student who has learned the content of this text could tell what is
wrong with the ungrammatical sentences below, which the Word grammar checker fails to
detect:
Which books do you think are on the table?

*Which books do you think is on the table?
*Which book do you think are on the table?
Which book do you think is on the table?
That is to say, verbs must agree with their subject NP when it is in situ, prior to the possible
leftward displacement of that NP by Wh- Movement.225
Not surprisingly, there are industrial syntacticians, who develop detailed grammars for
various languages, and use the grammars to assign parses to sentences (as in the grammar-
checking application above.) There are also industrial semanticists, who attempt to extract
meanings from sentences in the primitive mentalese of computers.
225
Follow-up: I asked the language research staff at Microsoft about this in 2014, and they tell me
they do have Wh-movement in their grammar checker, and that it ought to be catching the agreement error
described here. Perhaps it is a bug in the implementation. Thanks to Bill Dolan and Karen Jensen for their
help.
Quite a few students from UCLA (both undergraduate and graduate) have gone on to careers
in “industrial linguistics.” Often, though not always, they have expertise in both linguistics and
computing.
Chapter 15: More review problems
These are given in the same order in which the topics appear in the text.
Study Exercise #84: Inflectional morphology in an imaginary language
a. Set up inflectional rules to derive these forms. Be sure to state your rules in the correct
order. Give your rules names. Assume features [PossessorPerson, Number, PossessorNumber].
kitab ‘book’
kitabam ‘my book’
kitabi ‘your book’
kitabeʃ ‘his/her book’
kitabilam ‘our book’
kitabili ‘you-all’s books’
kitabil ‘their book’ (not a typo)
kitabim ‘books’
kitabimam ‘my books’
kitabimi ‘your books’
kitabimeʃ ‘his/her books’
kitabimilam ‘our books’
kitabimili ‘you-all’s bookss’
kitabimil ‘their books’ (not a typo)
b. Provide a derivation for kitabimilam ‘our books’.

a. Rules in correct order:
Number Rule
X Xim if [Number:plural]
Possessor Number Rule

X  Xil if [PossessorNumber:Plural]
Possessor Person Rule

X  Xam if [PossessorPerson:1]
X  Xi if [PossessorPerson:2]
X  Xeʃ if [PossessorPerson:3, PossessorNumber:Singular]
Note that the third part of the Possessor Person Rule must include the feature
[PossessorNumber:Singular], because otherwise it would attach the suffix -eʃ in plurals, deriving
*kitabileʃ rather than the correct kitabil for ‘their book’.
b. Provide a derivation for kitabimilam ‘our books’.
The morphosyntactic representation is:

[Number:Plural, PossessorNumber:Plural, PossessorPerson:3]
kitab stem
kitabim Number Rule (since [Number:Plural] is present)
kitabimil Possessor Number Rule (since [PossessorNumber:Plural] is present)
kitabimilam Possessor Person Rule (since [PossessorPerson:3] is present).
———————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #85: Wh- Movement and islands
Show why
*What donor might Sue wonder what books donated to the library?
is ungrammatical, given the Wh- Island Constraint below. In particular, first extract what books
to the lower Comp, then extract what donor to the higher Comp, showing the island violation
graphically.
Wh- Island Constraint

E
S̄
E
*
Comp S
|
wh-
Deep structure (all wh- phrases in situ), with lower instance of Wh-Movement; also Subject-
Aux Inversion in upper clause:
Resulting tree, with subsequent movement of what donor into the higher Comp. This
violates the Wh-Island Constraint; the island is enclosed in a dotted box:
Since a wh-phrase is moved out of the island, the resulting sentence is ungrammatical.
————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #86: Semantics; anaphora
The wizards believe that the witches turned the girls into copies of each other.
a. Produce the phrase structure tree.

b. Show clausemates with brackets, show c-command with arrows.
c. Explain with reference to rule given below the possible reference of each other.
Each Other Reference
Each other may refer only to a plural c-commanding clausemate.

The wizards believe that the witches turned the girls into copies of each other.
a. Diagram/b. Show clausemates with brackets, show c-command with arrows.
The witches, the girls, and each other are all clausemates, but the wizards is not clausemates
with any of them.
Looking at the tree and the crucial NP’s, we see the following relations of c-command:226
the wizards c-commands the other three NP’s
the witches c-command the girls and each other
the girls c-commands each other
226
Recall how this is determined: go up one node from any NP, and anything dominated by this
node is dominated by this NP.
c. Putting it all together, we see that:
 the girls c-commands and is a clausemate of each other, and so can be coreferent with
each other
Scenario: The wizards believe that the witches turned Sue into a copy of Ellen, and
turned Ellen into a copy of Sue.
 the witches c-commands and is a clausemate of each other, and so can be coreferent with
each other
Scenario: The wizards believe that Alice, a witch, turned the girls into copies of
Miriam (another witch), and that Miriam turned the girls into copies of Alice.
 While the wizards c-commands each other, it is not a clausemate of each other, and so it
cannot be coreferent with each other
Scenario: Bob, a wizard, believes the witches turned the girls into copies of Ted,
another wizard; and Ted believes the witches turned the girls into copies of
Bob. Logically possible, but evidently not available linguistically.
————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #87: Semantics, Scope I
This sentence has a scope-based ambiguity.
Many people visit two islands.
i. Describe clearly in words the two meanings of these sentence.

ii. Make up a scenario of which it could hold true.
iii. Using Quantifier Translation and Quantifier Raising, derive the logical forms for each
meaning.
Quantifier Translation
Replace
[ every N ]NP with [ for every x, x an N]NP
[ some N ]NP with [ for some x, x an N]NP
…
and similarly for other quantified expressions. If the variable x is already in use, use y
instead; etc.
Quantifier Raising
Left-adjoin a quantified NP to S, leaving behind a variable in its original location.
Describe clearly in words the two meanings of this sentence. Give a scenario of which it
could hold true.
Many people visit two islands.
i. Describe clearly in words the two meanings of this sentence.
(a) It is true of many people that they visit two islands (not necessarily the same two).
(b) It is true of two islands that many people visit them (not necessarily the same people).
ii. Give scenarios.
(The possibilities are infinite, but here is one:)
(a): A travel agency offering tours of the Hawaiian Islands offers a great number of package
tours:
One-Island tours: just Oahu, or Big Island, or Maui, or Molokai, etc.

Two-Island tours: Oahu and Big Island, or Oahu and Maui, or Big Island and Kauai, etc.
Three-Island tours: Oahu, Big Island, and Maui; or Kauai, Oahu, and Maui; etc.
Many customers select a Two-Island Tour.
(b) In this scenario: many people visit Oahu, many people visit the Big Island, but hardly
anyone ever visits Kauai, Maui, Molokai, or any of the other islands.
iii. Derivation of logical forms
Surface structure:
Quantifier Conversion:
At this point, the meanings depend on the order in which the quantifier operators are raised.
(a)
Quantifier Raising I
Quantifier Raising II
“It is true of many people that they visit two islands”

(b)
Quantifier Raising I
Quantifier Raising II
“It is true of two islands that many people visit them.”
——————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #88: Semantics / raising quantifiers different distances
Sentence: John has a plan to visit every city
a. Explicate both meanings in philosopher’s language.

b. Tell stories that make each meaning clear.
c. Apply Quantifier Conversion and Quantifier Raising to derive both meanings.
See previous question for the rules you need.
To answer this question, you’ll need a bit of help with the syntax, there being material that
this text does not cover. We’ll assume that the clause to visit every city is an S, and it has an NP
subject that is empty (but is interpreted as being coreferent to John). This is the same sort of
empty subject discussed in section 4 of Chapter 1 of this text, under the name “implicit noun
phrases”. We’ll use the standard notation for this empty subject, which is: PRO (it is essentially
a kind of pronoun). If, further, we say that to is an Aux, the structure will be as follows:
It also seems appropriate to indicate that PRO refers to John; we can do this in the usual way
with indices, though we have no rules yet that can carry this out:
a. I. For every city, John has a plan to visit it.

II. John has a plan such that in it, he visits every city.
b. I. There are only three cities in the world, Seoul, Beijing, and Los Angeles. John has a
plan to visit Seoul. He has a plan to visit Beijing. He has a plan to visit Los Angeles.
II. John has a plan, which he wrote up. If you read the plan, it will explain how John will
visit every city.
c. For both readings, we start with Quantifier Conversion, deriving:
To derive meaning I, we raise the quantifier to the highest S, adjoining it there, as follows:
To derive meaning II, we raise the quantifier to the lower S, adjoining it there, as follows:
——————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #89: Phonetic Dictations
southern
myrrh
corpulent
whether
multiple
coinage
parameter
ostentatious
turmoil
trapezium
southern [ˈsɚn]
myrrh [ˈmɚ]
corpulent [ˈk{o,o,ɔ}pj{u,,ə}lənt]
whether [ˈwɛðɚ]
multiple [ˈmlt{, ə}p{əl, l ̩}]
coinage [ˈkɔn{ə,ɪ}d]
parameter [pəˈæməɚ] [ɚ] for first [ə] or [ə] ok
turmoil [ˈtɚmɔɪl]
ostentatious [ɔstɛnˈteʃəs]
trapezium [təˈpiziəm]
—————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #90: Phonology
This is an imaginary language but the rules it has are found in real languages.
[, , ] are voiced fricatives (bilabial, dental, velar). [t ̪, d̪, n̪] are dental.
‘Noun’ ‘the Noun’ ‘two Nouns’ ‘five Nouns’

1. [pama] [la bama] [d̪ue bamas] [kwin̪do̪ bamas] ‘tuna’
2. [peli] [la beli] [d̪ue belis] [kwin̪do̪ belis] ‘swordfish’
3. [t ̪ube] [la d̪ube] [d̪ue d̪ube] [kwin̪do̪ d̪ube] ‘mackerel’
4. [t ̪azo] [la d̪azo] [d̪ue d̪azo] [kwin̪do̪ d̪azo] ‘cod’
5. [kame] [la game] [d̪ue game] [kwin̪do̪ game] ‘mahi mahi’
6. [koli] [la goli] [d̪ue goli] [kwin̪do̪ goli] ‘carp’
7. [bafi] [la afi] [d̪ue afi] [kwin̪do̪ afi] ‘catfish’
8. [belu] [la elu] [d̪ue elu] [kwin̪do̪ elu] ‘pollock’
9. [d̪aba] [la aba] [d̪ue aba] [kwin̪do̪ aba] ‘yellowtail’
10. [d̪azo] [la azo] [d̪ue azo] [kwin̪do̪ azo] ‘sturgeon’
11. [gele] [la ele] [d̪ue ele] [kwin̪do̪ ele] ‘halibut’
12. [gova] [la ova] [d̪ue ova] [kwin̪do̪ ova] ‘salmon’
a) Produce consonant and vowel charts, labeling the rows and columns with features. You
may assume [+dental] is a feature.
b) Do the stems alternate? Explain
c) Give rules, naming them.
d) Is any rule ordering required?
e) Give right order/wrong order derivations for la dazo and la azo.
a) Produce consonant and vowel charts.
[+bilabial] [+labiodental] [+dental] [+alveolar] [+velar]

[+stop] [−voice] p t k
[+voice] b d g
[+fricative] [−voice] f s
[+voice]  v  z 
[+nasal] m n
[+liquid] l
[+glide] w
–back  +back  +back 

     
–round –round +round
E E E
+high
  i u
–low 
E
–high
  e o
–low  E
–high
  a
+low 
E
b) Do the stems alternate? Explain
Yes, for example the stem for “tuna” has the two allomorphs [pama] and [bama].
c) Give rules, naming them.
Intervocalic Voicing
[+stop]  [+voiced] / [+syllabic] ___ [+syllabic]
This voices any stop occurring between vowels. It can be applied harmlessly to [b, d, g],
since they are already voiced, so I left out [−voice] from the left side of the arrow.
Intervocalic Spirantization227
+stop  –stop 
   
+voice +fricative / [+syllabic] ___ [+syllabic]
E E
This turns any voiced stop between vowels to its fricative counterpart, thus [b, d, g] 
[, , ].
227
Standard terminology for a rule that creates fricatives. “Spirant” is an old-fashioned synonym for
“fricative.”
d) Is any order required?
Intervocalic Spirantization must precede Intervocalic Voicing, to keep the voiced stops
that derive from voiceless from turning into fricatives—we want Intervocalic Frication to
apply “too late” to affect those stops.
e) Give right order/wrong order derivations for la dazo and la azo.
Correct:
/la tazo/ /la dazo/ phonemic forms

—  Intervocalic Spirantization
d — Intervocalic Voicing
[la dazo] [la azo] phonetic forms
Incorrect:
/la tazo/ /la dazo/ phonemic forms

d — Intervocalic Voicing
  Intervocalic Spirantization
*[la azo] [la azo] phonetic forms
————————————————————————————————————
Study Exercise #91: Phonemics of Alabama English
This exercise is based on an unpublished article by Prof. Elliott Moreton, an eminent linguist
who teaches in the Linguistics Department at the University of North Carolina. The article is
posted on his web site: www.unc.edu/~moreton/Papers/RaiseAlphaNotes1999.pdf. The native
speaker is Prof. Moreton himself, who writes, “If you’re going to imitate my accent, you might
as well do it right.”
Data for Part I

gripe [gɹaɪp] bribe [bɹaːb] I [aː]
light [laɪt] slide [slaːd] thigh [θaː]
spike [spaɪk] migrant [maːgɹənt] sigh [saː]
knife [naɪf] hive [haːv]
price [pɹaɪs] prize [pɹaːz]
line [laːn]
lime [laːm]
fire [faːɹ]
also: bias [baːəs], biology [baːˈɑlədʒi]

Directions. [aː] and [aɪ] are allophones of the same phoneme.
a. Decide what form the underlying phoneme should take. Justify your decision. As always,
you should select the simplest analysis.
b. Write a rule to derive the contextual allophone.
c. Give derivations for price, prize, sigh, and bias.
Data for Part II.

write [ɹaɪt]
writer [ˈɹaɪɾɚ]
ride [ɹaːd]
rider [ɹaːɾɚ]
d. How should the rule your wrote be ordered with respect to the rule of Tapping (discussed
above on p. 443)?
e. Justify your answer with right and wrong derivations for the four words just given.
Here is Tapping, restated for convenience.
Tapping
    / [+syllabic] ___  
+stop E
–stress  E
a. We should pick underlying /aː/. This is the “elsewhere” allophone, and we can get a
nice clean analysis picking it as the phonemic representation. All we have to do is set up a rule
turning it into [aɪ] before a voiceless consonant. If we set up underlying /aɪ/ and tried to turn it
into [aː] as an allophone, the rule needed would be very complicated, since you need three
environments (voiced consonant, vowel, end of word).
b. The rule that is needed is this:
Diphthongization
aː  aɪ / ___ [−voice]
(Obviously, you could give it other names.)
A lesson that emerges (if your own English happens not to be Southern) is: don’t assume
that another person’s phoneme is necessarily the way you say a sound! Phonemic pattern must
be analyzed in its own terms, dialect by dialect.
c. Derivations
/ˈpɹaːs/ /ˈpɹaːz/ /ˈsaː/ /ˈbaːəs/ underlying representations

aɪ — — — Diphthongization
[ˈpɹaɪs] [ˈpɹaːz] [ˈsaː] [ˈbaːəs] surface representations
d. Diphthongization must preceding Tapping, because it applies based on the underlying, not
derived, voicing value of the tap.
e. Good derivations:
write writer ride rider
/ˈɹaːt/ /ˈɹaːt-ɚ/ /ˈɹaːd/ /ˈɹaːd-ɚ/ underlying representation
aɪ ˈɹaɪtɚ — — Diphthongization
— ˈɹaɪɾɚ — ˈɹaːɾ-ɚ Tapping
[ˈɹaːt] [ˈɹaɪɾɚ] [ˈɹaːd] [ˈɹaːɾɚ] phonetic representation
Bad derivations:
write writer ride rider
/ˈɹaːt/ /ˈɹaːt-ɚ/ /ˈɹaːd/ /ˈɹaːd-ɚ/ underlying representation
— ˈɹaːɾɚ — ˈɹaːɾ-ɚ Tapping
aɪ — — — Diphthongization
[ˈɹaːt] *[ˈɹaːɾɚ] [ˈɹaːd] [ˈɹaːɾɚ] phonetic representation

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Introductory Linguistics

Copyright 2015 by Bruce P. Hayes

Chapter 1: What is Linguistics?

1. What this book will be like

2. Implicit and explicit knowledge of language; working with consultants

(1) “What is the word for “duck” in your language?”

(2) “How would you say “two ducks”?

3. The reference of each other

(3) We like each other.

(5) *I like each other.

(7) *Alice and Sue think I like each other.

(8) We believe they like each other.

Again, reason it through for yourself then read the footnote.3

(9) Defn.: clause

A clause is either a whole sentence or a sentence within a sentence

(10) [ We like each other. ]S

We also need to define noun phrases.

(15) Defn.: noun phrase

(16) Each other reference rule

(17) [We believe [they like each other.]S]S

(18) *[John and Bill think [I like each other.]S]S

3.1 Ambiguous sentences with each other

(19) [We wrapped the ropes around each other.]S

4. The role of implicit noun phrases

(21) [They seem to us [to like each other]S]S

(23) [They seem to us [(they) to like each other]S]S

(24) Each Other Reference Rule (revised)

4.1 Each other: the bottom line

5. The field of linguistics

Syntax study of rules for forming sentences

6. What’s this about “native speakers”?

Study Exercises for “each other”

Answer to Study Exercise #1

a. [ I believe that [ turtles can swim. ]S ]S

c. [ Bill said that [ [ Jane sang ]S and [ Fred danced. ]S ]S ]S

d. [ I persuaded Fred [ (Fred) to buy a telescope. ]S ]S

This sentence is ambiguous:

My sister and I gave our parents books about each other.

Answer to Study Exercise #2

My sister and I gave our parents books about each other.

[ My sister and I gave our parents books about each other. ]S

This sentence is ambiguous:

Answer to Study Exercise #3:

For this sentence:

Answer to Study Exercise #4

(26) Defn.: morpheme

A morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that bears a meaning.

2. Two kinds of morphology

 tense on verbs (present tense jumps, past tense jumped)

(27) Turkish morphology data

1. el ‘hand’ ev ‘house’ zil ‘bell’

 “plur.” or “pl.” abbreviate “plural”.

4. Breaking up the words into morphemes

4.1 Finding the stems

Beş adam heykel-i kırdi

Moving on, we can compare:

 Case is fundamentally an inflectional category of nouns (though often adjectives and

 Nominative, usually for subjects of sentences or the citation form of a word

 -e is the suffix for the dative case

4.4 Possessive suffixes