Chapter 6 - Inflectional Phrasesthat is accompanied by null agreement? For now I will assume that it is a tense
element and demonstrate later that this seems to be correct.
2.4 Movement to tense and I
Having separated tense and agreement (=inflection), let us consider their properties
separately. Tense is obviously a bound morpheme triggering movement of the verb or
insertion of an auxiliary when the verb is unable to move. But what about the null
agreement morpheme, is this a bound morpheme or not? If it is, it will need supporting
and we would expect verbs and auxiliaries to appear as high as the I node as we do not
want to claim that the inflection lowers onto the tense. On the other hand, agreement
might be like the modals and be a free morpheme, in which case we would expect
nothing to move to I. The data are complex and often depend on other assumptions as
to how to interpret them. Basically there appears to be a difference in how verbs and
auxiliaries behave. Auxiliaries appear to be able to achieve a higher position than the
main verb, indicating that while the verb can move to tense it cannot move to I,
whereas auxiliaries can be in I.
As we have seen, adverbs and the negative head can appear in a number of
positions within the v/VP, with adverbs being able to adjoin to most phrases above the
verb and negation taking most phrases above the verb as its complement:
(48) a will (quickly) have (quickly) been (quickly) being (quickly) hidden
b will (not) have (not) been (not) being (not) cooked
Both negation and VP adverbs can also precede the non-finite marker, indicating that
this is a tense element that stays inside the vP:
(49) a for him quickly to have left was a relief
b for him not to have said anything was strange
However, neither VP adverbs nor negation can precede modals:
(50) a quickly will leave
b not will leave
And neither of them can appear adjoined to a phrase that the verb has moved out from:
(51) a he will have seen 1 quickly [VP the papers t 1 ]
b he will have seen 1 not [VP the papers t 1 ]
It thus seems that these elements appear anywhere inside the vP as long as they are
below the I and above the surface position of the verb.
Now, when there is no modal, an auxiliary inserted to bear tense behaves as though
it is in I as no adverb or negation can precede it:
(52) a I have quickly marked the essays – I quickly have marked the essays
b I have not graded the papers – I not have graded the papers
This supports the assumption that the inflection is a bound morpheme that needs
supporting by a verbal element. With main verbs, however, we find that the tensed
verb appears below the adverb and the verb cannot support tense in the presence of
negation: