ENG 294 Final, Spring 2004

— frarnncss vee AST , Lib. sRY | ; OF #UROT RNEOTS TT al taal Engl 294 hon June 4, 2004 Spring 2004 Prof. Lina Choueiti Final Exam > 7. I. Using X’-theory, draw trees for the following sentences: (32 pis) The witches wondered whose enemies Macbeth’s armies would crush. There have been different accounts of what occurred. Knowing what they did, Joan and Mary refused the offer. He might tell Sarah and I certainly hope he will. ao Il. Using information about the descriptive rules and principles of grammar provide an explanation for the unacceptability of the following sentences. (Him: It helps to contrast each of the unacceptable sentences nith one that is both acceptable and minimally different.) (25 pts) *Are no reasons for it. *Othello did not something terrible. *Ophelia, told John about her,. *Ophelia wonders that Hamlet left. *You showed herself some pictures of Ophelia. gaa oP IH. Draw the tree for the following sentence: (77 pts) (i) Othello believes that the picture of Desdemona belongs to him. a. List all the NPs c-commanded by the NP Desdemona b. List all the NPs c-commanded by the NP Othello. c. Knowing the conditions on the distribution of pronouns, explain why the sentence in (i) has the reading where O/hello and him are coreferent. d. The following sentence is ill-formed. Explain why. (ii) *Othello believes that the picture of Desdemona belongs to himself. IV. Consider the following contrast: (26 pss) () a. *Portia saw anything/ anybody. b. Portia did not see anything/ anybody. A negative polarity item (NPD is an expression that may occur only in the presence of a negative expression, as illustrated in (i) above. Accordingly, anything and anybody are NPIs, since they require the presence of noz. Interestingly the relation of NPIs to negative expressions is also constrained by a syntactic principle. It is the purpose of this exercise to get you to identify this principle. The elves said that the fairies did not see anything/anybody. The elves did not say that the fairies saw anything/anybody. The elves did not tell anybody that the fairies liked witchcraft. The elves did not say that anybody liked witchcraft. Roe (ii) a. *Anybody said that the fairies did not see the elves. b. *The elves told anybody that the fairies did not like witchcraft. (1) Although the NPI anybody occurs in the presence of the negative not in (iii), the sentences remain ill-formed. Provide a possible explanation for their ill- formedness. Make sure that your explanation accounts for the difference between the sentences in (ii), on one hand, and those in (iit), in the other. (2) Does your explanation in (1) account for the ill-formedness of (iv) below? (iv) *The news that the elves did not leave surprised anybody. (3) Draw trees for the sentences in (iv) and (ib). (4) What can you conclude about the syntactic relation between the negative not and the NPI in each of the trees you drew in (3)? Formulate the principle that constrains the distribution of NPIs. (5) Can this principle explain the contrast between the following two sentences? (v) a. *Anybody did not see Portia. b. Portia did not see anybody.