Suggested Answers and Hints - Chapter 5jeans in the shop window forms a phrase. It is a DP. Thus the PP in the shop window is
part of the DP in meaning 1.
In meaning 2 the results of the test are the following:
(3) a. What Jane wanted to try on in the shop window was [a pair of jeans].
b. *What Jane wanted to try on was [a pair of jeans in the shop window].
In meaning 2, (3a) is a well-formed sentence, while (3b) is ill-formed. This means
that the string a pair of jeans forms a DP, while the PP in the shop window is not a part
of the DP.
According to the result of the test above, the structure of the sentence can be
represented as it can be seen in (4). (4a) represents the structure of the sentence with
meaning 1 while (4b) is the structure belonging to meaning 2.
(4) a. Jane wanted to try on [a pair of jeans] [in the shop window].
b. Jane wanted to try on [a pair of jeans in the shop window].
The string a pair of jeans in the shop window is one phrase in meaning 2 while it is
two separate phrases in meaning 1.Chapter
Check Questions
Q1 Given the meanings of verbs, some events appear to involve more than one sub-
event, e.g. an action can involve somebody doing something and as a result some
object changes position, or gets into some state, or remains in some state, etc. Aspect
can be grasped from two different angles: lexical aspect is evident in the meaning of
verbs which denote an activity that has a natural beginning and end. Lexical aspect is
internal to the meaning of the verb. Grammatical aspect, on the other hand, relates to
the interpretation of a given event in a particular sentence depending on whether it is
complete or in progress. Furthermore, the two may also be combined.
Q2 Unaccusatives are typically movement or locative verbs, they cannot appear in
causative constructions. They can take an expletive ‘there’ as subject but that does not
count as an argument. They take one argument, a theme, but some of them may
optionally take a locative PP as an argument. They do not take objects, they cannot be
passivised. Intransitives also take one argument but that one argument is either an
agent or an experiencer. They cannot appear in a ‘there’ construction. Some of them
can appear with objects which are termed ‘cognate objects’. They cannot passivise in
English but they can indeed do so in other languages, e.g. in German. Ergatives
typically involve a change of state. They cannot appear in ‘there’ constructions either
but they can in a transitive context as well as in causative constructions, in fact,
causatives manifest the transitive use of an ergative. When an ergative verb is used in a
transitive context, its agent argument is in [Spec, vP] and its theme argument is in
[Spec, VP].
Q3 The difference between a light verb and a thematic verb is reflected in notation
as well: light verbs head vPs while thematic verbs head VPs. While thematic verbs