Glossarynon-restrictive relative clause: this clause-type is used to add extra information
rather than to restrict the application of the noun. They only have the wh-
relative form (as opposed to restrictive relatives): Yesterday I met your
father, who is a very intelligent man.
noun: a word that names people, places or things that can have a plural form. Feature
composition: [+N, –V, –F]
noun phrase (NP): a phrase headed by a noun. Noun heads can take PP or CP
complements, DP complements are excluded since nouns are not Case
assigners. The specifier position of an NP is occupied by what are
generally called post-determiners. NPs are complements of DPs.
NP: see Noun Phrase.
NP-movement: see DP-movement.
Null Case: the Case assigned to PRO in the subject position of non-finite
clauses.
number: a contrast between singular and plural as in a shirt/several shirts. The
English regular plural marker is -s.
object: a DP complement immediately following the verb. It can move to the
subject position in passive sentences. See also direct object, indirect
object.
object control: PRO can be coreferent either with the subject or the object of the
preceding clause depending on the main verb. The verb tell is an object-
control verb, in the sentence I told him [PRO to go] PRO is coreferent with
the object.
object position: the specifier position of VP.
of-insertion: a rescue strategy to avoid a Case Filter violation. APs and NPs
are unable to assign Case to their complements, so their semantic DP
argument is realised as a PP and the preposition of is inserted: to be
envious of Mary (compare with to envy Mary)
one-place predicate: a predicate with one argument, e.g. walk.
operator: constituents affecting the interpretation of the sentence indicating a
process that is needed to work out the meaning of the sentence that contains
them; quantifiers and wh-elements.
overt: visible, having phonological realisation
participle: a non-finite verb form, can be past or present: Singing (present
participle) always out of tune, I got on the nerves of my music teacher./I
have never met most of the people invited (past participle) to the wedding.
partitive Case: Case that can be born only by indefinites, available in the post-
verbal position in there-constructions.
partitive construction: if we want to count mass nouns we can do so by inserting
an appropriate term expressing some unit of the given mass noun which will
result in a partitive construction: two bars of chocolate, a glass of milk.
passive structure: a verb with the -en ending often (but not always) preceded by an
inflected form of be. Passive verbs do not have a vP-projection similar to
vPs in active structures. The vP in passives is headed by the passive -en
morpheme which does not assign theta role to the subject and for this reason
it is unable to case-mark its nominal complement (see Burzio’s