Exercise 7(6) a John -s like who
b Whoj doesi John ti like ti
That the movement of the interrogative pronoun is substitution is further supported
by the fact that in English only one interrogative pronoun can occur in sentence-initial
position, as the contrast between (7a) and (7b) illustrates.
(7) a Who saw what?
b *Who what saw?Sentence (1f) contains both negative fronting and passivisation. The negative word
never moves to iP from its adverbial base position, which is a position adjoined to vP.
The auxiliary have that has been inserted in the topmost vP, the tense vP to spport the
bound tense morpheme (remember, the thematic verb cannot move from the passive
vP, English is not an agglutinating language where the same verb form can “collect”
several inflectional endings) moves to I first and then to C. The subject, which is
understood as the theme of the verb treat moves from the specifier position of VP to
Spec,IP where it can be assigned Case. Finally, the the thematic verb itself moves from
V to v to support the bound passive morpheme.Exercise 7
In the sentence Jane has been taken to hospital there are two chains, a DP chain and a
head chain. The DP chain is the result of the movement of the theme argument of the
passive verb taken to the subject position of the clause, to Spec,IP, the head of the
chain is the DP Mary in Spec,IP and the foot of the chain is the trace that follows the
verb as in (1). The other movement is the movement of the verb take to the vP
containing the aspectual morpheme -en. The aspectual auxiliaries have and be are
inserted as dummy forms to the appropriate positions.
(1) [IP Janei has [vP been [VP takej +en ti tj to hospital]]]
In the sentence Everybody seems to speak two languages here the DP everybody is
the agent argument of the verb speak of the embedded sentence. It moves to Spec,IP of
the matrix sentence to get Case as it cannot get Case in the Spec,IP position of the
embedded sentence. The Inflection of the embedded sentence is non-finite and non-
finite inflection heads cannot assign Case. The head of the chain is the DP in Spec,IP
of the matrix sentence and the foot is in the Spec,VP position of the embedded
sentence. The V head also moves to vP that assigns the agentive theta role to the
subject. The verb seem also moves from its base position to tense v and then to I. The
derivation is in (2).
(2) [IP Everybodyi seemsk [vP tk [VP tk [IP ti [vP to [VP ti speakj two languages tj
here]]]]]
In the sentence Have you ever been to Paris? the primary auxiliary have undergoes
head movement, as the sentence is a yes–no question. The auxiliary starts out from vP
headed by the auxiliary verb where it is inserted to support the tense morpheme as the
thematic verb cannot move there, then moves through I to C. The head of the chain is