Basic English Grammar with Exercises

Exercise 4

In our sentence, this position cannot be the final position of the DP Mary the v
head of the middle vP is occupied by the passive morpheme -en, which does not assign
accusative Case. So the DP has to move on to the next position where it has a chance
to receive Case. This position is the specifier of IP, where the finite I head assigns
nominative Case to it. The main verb has to adjoin to the lower v, which is an abstract
bound morpheme. This complex head has to move on to the middle v head containing
the passive morpheme, which is also a bound morpheme. The upper vP is the tense vP
where be is inserted as a dummy auxiliary as the thematic verb cannot move further on
from the passive vP. Be together with the tense morpheme moves on to I containing
the zero agreement morpheme.

(12) CP

C'

C IP

DP 1 I'

Mary I vP

was 4 v'

v vP

t 4 v'

v vP

v 3 v t 1 v'

send 2 v -en v VP

e t 3 DP V'

a message V t 1

t 2