Chapter 2 - Grammatical Foundations: StructureThis sentence is no longer ambiguous between the two meanings. This is because we
must interpret the moved element as a single constituent and not as two separate
constituents that have been moved together. The same point can be made with the
movement of wh-elements, as shown by the following:
(107) which bank manager with a gun did the bishop kill –
Again this sentence is unambiguous and the PP must be interpreted as modifying the
DP and not the VP. An overall conclusion about movement is therefore that anything
that can be moved is a single constituent and hence movement provides a relatively
robust and useful test for constituent structure.
3.3 Coordination
There are other phenomena besides distribution that can also be used to support
structural analyses. One of these involves coordination. This is a device used in
language to take two elements and put them together to form a single element. This
coordinated element then acts like the two coordinated elements would have
individually. For example, we can take two nouns, say Bill and Ben, and we can
coordinate them into a single element Bill and Ben. This coordinated element behaves
exactly like each of the nouns in that it can appear as subject, object, object of a
preposition or topic in a sentence:
(108) a Bill and Ben went down the pub
b I know Bill and Ben
c they sent a letter to Bill and Ben
d Bill and Ben, everyone avoids
The point is that as the coordinated element behaves in the same way as its
coordinated parts would individually, we cannot coordinate two conflicting things. So
while two nouns can be coordinated, and two verbs can be coordinated, a noun and a
verb cannot:
(109) a the [boys and girls]
b have [sung and danced]
c *the [boys and danced] have [sung and girls]
Not just words can be coordinated however; we can also coordinate phrases and
sentences. As long as the phrases and sentences are sufficiently the same, the result
will be a phrase or a sentence which behaves in the same way as its coordinated parts:
(110) a [these boys] and [those girls]
b [have sung] and [are now dancing]
c [the boys have sung] and [the girls are now dancing]
Just like in the case of movement, only constituents may be coordinated and two
independent constituents cannot act as one single conjunction which is coordinated
with another. To demonstrate this, recall the ambiguous sentence in (104) where the
PP was either associated with the object DP or with the VP. Now, if we coordinate the