Topic: Linguistics
You may work in groups of two by signing up for a group on Quercus. You are not
automatically in a group, so check your group status on Quercus. Submit your answers as a PDF on Quercus. You’re welcome to use this as a template and write in the empty, and it’s also ok to type your answers in a new blank document. If you need a judgement about whether it’s possible to say something in English or not, you’re encouraged to message the professor to get his intuition.
1 Impersonal passives (9 points)
Consider the following data from Ukrainian and Kannada, which show what are called
“impersonal passives”. Pay careful attention to the Case marking on the various nouns;
acc means that the noun has accusative Case.
(1) Cerkvu
church.acc
bulo
was
zbudovano
built
v
in
1640
1640
roc’i.
year
(Ukrainian)
“The church was built in the year 1640.”
(2) Rama-nannu
Rama-acc
kollalayitu.
kill.pass
(Kannada)
“Rama was killed.”
1. Briefly explain the difference between impersonal passive constructions in Ukrainian
and Canna Ukrainian and Kannada and the English passive.
2. Propose a theta grid for the impersonal passive Voice morpheme in Ukrainian and
Kannada.
3. Draw an X-bar tree structure for (1).
4. Briefly explain how cerkvu“church” gets accusative Case and why it appears in the
position it does.
Note: For this problem, let’s suppose 1640is an adjective, and bulo“was” is a Voice head for impersonal passives (just like how English has a special passive be).
2 Explaining ungrammaticality (14 points)
For each of the following sentences, explain why it is ungrammatical using the technical notions from class (such as Theta Criterion, Case, Case Filter, theta-role, EPP, and so on).
One of the sentences is ungrammatical for two reasons.
(3) *Me gave it to him.
(4) *is snowing today.
(5) *I sent she away.
(6) *I introduced her.
(7) *I put on my shoes my jacket.
(8) *It hoped Minnie to win the prize.
3 Tree drawing practice (28 points)
Draw trees for the following sentences. Be sure to show any Case features and features relevant for movement.
(9) Jean
Jean
croit
believes
que
that
Paul
Paul
n’a
has
pas
not
volé
stolen
l’argent.
the.money
(French)
“Jean believes that Paul has not stolen the money.”
(10) Which goons did Marty stun in the auditorium?
(11) Where had Biff taken the machine?
(12) The machine seemed to be struck by lightning.
4 Raising and theta-marking predicates (10 points)
For each of the underlined predicates, state whether it is a raising predicate or whether it theta-marks its subject.
Use an example or two as evidence for your claim, and then briefly say how the example bears on the question of whether predicate is a raising or theta-marking predicate.
(13) The ship appeared to vanish under the waves.
(14) The guests were reluctant to leave the party.
(15) Melissa wants us to cook dinner.
(16) It continued to rain.
(17) Lou decided to walk to Kingston
