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6247 results in Grammar and Syntax

Page 84 of 313

Dependency and Directionality
  • Marcel den Dikken
  • Published online:
    19 June 2018
    Print publication:
    05 July 2018
  • The direction in which the structure of sentences and filler-gap dependencies are built is a topic of fundamental importance to linguistic theory and its applications. This book develops an integrated understanding of structure building, movement and locality embedded in a syntactic theory that argues for a 'top down' approach, presenting an explicit counterweight to the bottom-up derivations pervading the Chomskian mainstream. It combines a compact and comprehensive historical perspective on structure building, the cycle, and movement, with detailed discussions of island effects, the typology of long-distance filler-gap dependencies, and the special problems posed by the subject in clausal syntax. Providing introductions to the main issues, reviewing extant arguments for bottom-up and top-down approaches, and presenting several case studies in its development of a new theory, this book should be of interest to all students and scholars of language interested in syntactic structures and the dependencies inside them.

  • 3 - Complementisers

  • Andrew Radford, University of Essex
  • Book:
    Colloquial English
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    14 June 2018, pp 105-215

  • Summary

    Introduction

    This chapter looks at aspects of the syntax of complementisers, and more specifically at how a range of different peripheral heads come to be spelled out as the complementiser that in indicative clauses in colloquial English. I will not look at subjunctive that for the simple reason that my broadcast English data contain too few examples to draw any firm conclusions about its use (which is scarcely surprising, given that its use is largely restricted to formal registers of written English).

    Typical structures in which descriptive and pedagogical grammars of English claim that the indicative complementiser that is and isn't used in standard varieties of English are illustrated below:

  • (1) a. (*That) he can't stand garlic)

  • b. I suspect [*(that) garlic, he can't stand (it)]

  • c. *He says [garlic, that he can't stand (it)]

  • d. I wonder [why (*that) he doesn't like garlic]

  • e. (You'd never believe) [how much (*that) he hates garlic!]

  • f. Garlic is something [(*which) that he can't stand]

  • g. He doesn't like gazpacho [because (*that) he can't stand garlic]

    • The contrast between (1a) and (1b) suggests that indicative that can only be used in a subordinate clause like that bracketed in (1b), not in a main clause like (1a); moreover, as (1b) illustrates, that is obligatory in complement clauses when followed by a peripheral constituent. The ungrammaticality of (1c) suggests that has to be the first overt constituent in its clause: this same requirement will also rule out clauses like those bracketed in (1d–g), in cases where that is preceded by an (interrogative, exclamative or relative) whconstituent, or by a subordinating conjunction. Thus, the overall picture painted by sentences like (1) is that (in canonical uses in standard varieties of English), indicative that is a subordinate, declarative, clause-initial complementiser.

    However, this characterisation is based on the (sometimes disputed) introspective grammaticality judgements of linguists rather than recorded samples of spoken English. Although there is some experimental evidence suggesting that introspective judgements of experienced linguists can be relatively robust (Sprouse & Almeida 2011a, 2011b), there is also conflicting experimental evidence (Radford, Felser & Boxell 2012) that the judgements of educated native speakers can unwittingly be influenced by prescriptive education.

  • 4 - How come?

  • Andrew Radford, University of Essex
  • Book:
    Colloquial English
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    14 June 2018, pp 216-292

  • Summary

    Introduction

    How come … is used in colloquial English to ask for the reason for some event or state of affairs. Duffield (2015: 61) notes that it differs from why in that how come is ‘a more colloquial expression’, noting that ‘It is hard to to imagine, for instance, a prosecuting barrister asking a defendant “How come you rang Jane Price on four separate occasions, Mr. Fox?”’ For speakers of standard varieties of English, how come seems to be acceptable when followed by a finite TP containing an overt subject (bold-printed below) – as in the following pop song lyrics:

  • (1) a. How come you never go there? (Feist)

  • b. How come you are always off your head, and yet you still end up in your bed? (Courteeners)

  • c. How come you're not here? (Pink)

  • d. So how come no-one loves me? (Beatles)

    • Some speakers also allow the use of the complementiser that after how come, as in the following (internet-sourced) examples:

  • (1) a. How come that an infinite universe will collapse under gravity? (physics.stackexchange.com)

  • b. How come that hi-tech companies still shun digital marketing? (vickie.wordpress.com)

  • c. How come that you don't believe in us? (lyrics to song Believe in us by Jay-Jay Johanson)

  • d. How come that you can't see through windows during the day? (amp.reddit.com)

    • There are also speakers who allow (Interrogative Subject-Auxiliary) Inversion after how come, as in the examples below (3a being attributed to Diane Lillo-Martin in Ochi 2004, 3b, c being examples from a corpus cited by Kim & Kim 2011, and 3d being sourced from the internet by me):

  • (1) a. How come won't you be here tomorrow?

  • b. How come does iodine get into the human system of dwellers along the coasts from sea water?

  • c. Now, how come did you give those baby-sitters such a hard time?

  • d. How come is it that even ugly women my age can get a boyfriend but I am still single? (web)

  • Epilogue

  • Andrew Radford, University of Essex
  • Book:
    Colloquial English
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    14 June 2018, pp 293-294

  • Summary

    This book marks the culmination of a decade-long adventure for me, in which I have been able to combine a passion for (armchair) sport with a passion for analysing language, through a detailed study of a range of non-canonical structures found in live, unscripted radio and TV broadcasts (supplemented by data from other sources). I hope that the book has achieved the following aims:

  • • dispelling the prescriptive myth that colloquial English utilises substandard structures characterised by a sloppy form of language which has no proper structure and is thus not worthy of the attention of serious scholars

  • • showing how supposedly ‘sloppy’ structures in which (e.g.) topics and relative pronouns are seemingly unlinked to their associated propositions actually involve a form of pragmatic linking which is found in other languages (e.g. Chinese, Japanese and Thai)

  • • highlighting the richness of non-standard English, illustrating this in terms of a vast panoply of novel authentic data sourced mainly from live, unscripted radio and TV broadcasts or the web

  • • adding to awareness of the range and nature of non-standard, nondialectal variation in colloquial English, and contributing novel data to debates about language typology and microvariation

  • • showing that the range of syntactic structures found in colloquial English can profitably be studied and understood from a formal syntactic perspective

  • • contributing to understanding the cartography of the clause periphery, employing (what in terms of cartographic work is) a novel source of data from authentic examples of spoken English

  • • showing that the clause periphery is the locus of much variation in syntax, with parametric variation reducible to the feature composition and spellout of functional heads

  • • showing how a usage-based approach to linguistic analysis can provide a fertile additional source of data which complements other (e.g. introspective and experimental) approaches

    • I hope that you have had as much fun in reading the book as I had in collecting and analysing the data!

    What's next for me?Well, I have a lot of data on relative clauses in colloquial English, so my next goal is to prepare a monograph on these, if my biological clock carries on ticking long enough!

  • Prologue

  • Andrew Radford, University of Essex
  • Book:
    Colloquial English
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    14 June 2018, pp 1-6

  • Summary

    Over the past four decades, I have produced a series of books characterising aspects of the syntax of standard English (Radford 1981, 1988, 1997a, 1997b, 2004a, 2004b, 2009a, 2009b, 2016). During that time, I have become increasingly aware (mainly from paying close attention to the language used on popular British radio and TV stations) that in colloquial English we find noncanonical structures (i.e. structures not reported in grammars of standard varieties of English) which are very different in nature from the structures found in the kind of standard English used e.g. in national newspapers or news bulletins on radio and TV. I have used occasional examples of such colloquial English structures as the basis of some of the exercise material in my syntax books, asking readers to describe how the non-canonical structures in the exercise material differ from the canonical structures described in the main text. Examples of non-canonical structures mentioned in earlier books of mine are given below (where the constituents of interest are highlighted in bold or italics):

  • (1) a. What a mine of useless information that I am (Sir Terry Wogan, BBC Radio 2; Radford 1988: 501)

  • b. Let's find out how good you are a driver (Jeremy Clarkson, BBC2 TV; Radford 2009a: 426)

  • c. That's the guy who I think's sister is the lead singer in a new band (Radio presenter, Top Shop, Oxford Street, London; Radford 1988: 526) d. What is thought has happened to him? (Reporter, BBC Radio 5; Radford 2004a: 429)

  • e. To which of these groups do you consider that you belong to? (Form issued by the Council in the town where I live; Radford 2009a: 233)

  • f. I hit shots that I know I can hit shots (TigerWoods, BBC Radio 5; Radford 2016: 313)

  • g. This information is asked for on the census-form, [which they threaten to fine you up to a thousand pounds if you don't fill the thing in] (Civil Liberty spokesman, BBC Radio 5; Radford 2016: 477)

    • Such structures are interesting for (at least) five different reasons.

Page 84 of 313