7 - Subjects
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
In this chapter, we look rather more closely at the syntax of subjects. So far, we have assumed that subjects occupy the specifier position within IP and remain in situ (except where the subject is an interrogative operator which undergoes operator movement, e.g. in sentences like Who did he say was coming?). However, we shall now argue that subjects originate in the specifier position within VP, and are subsequently raised to spec-IP for checking purposes by a movement operation known as (subject) raising.
Let's begin by looking at the structure of expletive sentences such as (1) below:
(1) (a) There is nobody living there
(b) There is someone knocking at the door
(c) There axe several patients waiting to see the doctor
Sentence (Ia) contains two different occurrences of there. The second (bold-printed) there is a locative pronoun paraphraseable as ‘in that place’, and contains the diphthong /eə/; the first (italicized) there is an expletive (i.e. dummy or pleonastic) constituent which contains the unstressed vowel /ə/ and does not have a locative interpretation (i.e. it is not paraphraseable as ‘in that place’), but rather has no intrinsic reference (as we see from the fact that its reference can't be questioned – hence the ungrammaticality of *Where is nobody living there?).
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- SyntaxA Minimalist Introduction, pp. 151 - 174Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997