The syntax of inflection(20) IP
– I'
I vP
- ∆ v'
v vP
-en v'
v VP
-ing DP V'
they V PP
stay with my parents
‘they have been staying with my parents’
In this case there are two aspectual morphemes as well as the inflection to be
supported. The verb moves to the lowest one and cannot move further. Therefore two
auxiliaries are inserted: be, determined by the progressive, is inserted onto the
perfective morpheme which takes the phrase headed by ing as its complement, and
have, determined by the perfective, is inserted onto the tense morpheme (in this case
null) which takes the phrase headed by the perfective morpheme as its complement.
2.2 Do-insertion
The use of have and be as supporting auxiliaries is therefore associated with the
appearance of the aspectual morphemes whose presence necessitates the use of the
auxiliary by ‘tying-up’ the verb so that it cannot support any other morpheme. The use
of the dummy auxiliary do however, is a little different as it is not associated with the
appearance of any aspectual morpheme and indeed cannot be used in the presence of
one:
(21) a he did not arrive
b he had not arrived
c *he did not have arrived
What determines the use of the auxiliary here? Obviously the verb is unable to
support the inflection in this case, but this does not seem to be because it already
supports another morpheme. In fact the verb is in its base form and there is no reason
to think that there is any other verbal morpheme present. (21a) is simply the negative
version of he arrived. Apparently it is the negative that blocks the verb from moving to
support the inflection. To gain some understanding of what is going on here we need
to briefly examine another kind of head movement which we will more thoroughly
havebe