Linguist Forum

Specializations => Morphosyntax => Topic started by: zaba on January 30, 2015, 01:45:17 AM

Title: Tree structure for "The radio is a little bit noisy"
Post by: zaba on January 30, 2015, 01:45:17 AM

So syntax was never my jam.
The subject is "the radio" and the object is "a little bit noisy". Correct?

Therefore: The tree has two branches:

A NP "the radio" (DET + N) easy!
and a VP "is a little bit noisy"

The VP "is a little bit noisy" is comprised of:
V: 'is'
and
AP: "a little bit noisy" =
DET?: a little bit << Is this correct? Or is this something else?
ADJ: noisy

Or am I wrong?

Title: Re: Tree structure for "The radio is a little bit noisy"
Post by: Daniel on January 30, 2015, 09:35:15 AM

With a copula, that's not an object but a "predicate nominative". (That is, usually found in the nominative case and a renaming of the subject. An equational clause.) Also, note that "noisy" isn't a noun.

"a little bit" might be a complex D. Or you could analyze it literally. Depends on a few things, but I don't know how much that matters for your current needs.

Title: Re: Tree structure for "The radio is a little bit noisy"
Post by: zaba on January 30, 2015, 10:58:50 AM

How does a predicate nominative look in a generative tree?

Title: Re: Tree structure for "The radio is a little bit noisy"
Post by: Daniel on January 30, 2015, 12:13:58 PM

Structurally it's the same constituency (minor details set aside) as a (transitive) object.

Title: Re: Tree structure for "The radio is a little bit noisy"
Post by: zaba on January 30, 2015, 03:06:24 PM

So from a generative perspective, a predicate nominative (and presumably pred adjective) are indistinguishable from a transitive object?

Title: Re: Tree structure for "The radio is a little bit noisy"
Post by: Daniel on January 30, 2015, 04:47:00 PM

No. There are various distinctions, such as how they interact with the verb, how the semantic structure is generated, whether there may (or may not) be some additional null elements (empty nodes) between the V and complement, how the verb selects the complement, etc. And then there's something about case assignment-- in that sense in particular it's very much not an object, because an object is assigned accusative case.
But in terms of the BASIC tree structure (constituency), yes, it looks the same, when you omit labels and don't add any extra intermediate categories.

[Subj [V Obj/P.Adj.] ]

But there's a lot more going on than that.


To consider a different example, in Arabic the verb "to be" is not used in the present tense under normal situations. But when it is used (for example, in the past tense) you get accusative, not nominative. So maybe it's not really a copula but actually a transitive verb.