Linguistics An Essential Introduction (Version 1.5)

A simple solution would be to use the format we used for passives, and simply state the correspondence between declaratives and polar interrogatives. This would require an additional mechanism that would allow us to state default values for certain parts of the structure, that can be replaced by something else. For example, we would have to state that the auxiliary in the polar interrogative is do unless a different auxiliary is present in the declarative. This could look as in (1):

A more powerful approach, and one that is needed for languages with more flexible word order than English anyway, is to give up the idea of constituency and replace it by two separate levels of analysis: one that captures constituency in the form of an unordered set, and one that specifies the order of constituents under different circumstances. For example, the constituency rule for main clauses could be something like (2) and that for verb phrases could be something like (3) (we are using curly braces to indicate that these are sets without order (the subscript 1 on the NP indicates that it is the first NP in the valence description of the verb, i.e. the one that would be the subject in an active sentence, the subscript 2+ indicates any additional NPs, the subscript 1-4 on the auxiliary indicates that there can be up to four auxiliaries):

We would then have ordering rules like those in (4), where > means “occurs earlier in the clause”:

Rule (4a) says that subjects occur earlier than verbs, this is true of declaratives and interrogatives. Rule (4b) says that auxiliaries occur earlier than verbs, again, this is true of declaratives and interrogatives. Rule (4c) says that, in declaratives, subjects occur earlier than auxiliaries, rule (4d) says that, in interrogatives, one auxiliary occurs earlier than the subject, which, in turn, occur earlier than other auxiliaries if there is more than one. This ensures that in sentences that contain more than one auxiliary, only one of them precedes the subject, as in (5b), not two, as in (5c), or even more, as in (5d):

If you look at the clauses in (5a) and (5b), you can see how the ordering rules work: rule (4a) says that Aylin must occur earlier than submitted — this is true in both sentences; rule (4b) says that will must occur earlier than submitted — again, this is true in both cases. Rule (4c) says that in a declarative, Aylin must occur before will — this is possible while also following rules (4a, b). Rule (4d) says that in an interrogative, will must occur before Aylin — again, this is possible while following rules (4a, b).

The point of showing you these three potential ways of dealing with the structure of different sentence types and their relation to each other was not to teach you how to perform such analyses, but to raise your awareness for the fact that we can come up with many different ways of describing grammatical structure with precision. Which of these we choose ultimately depends on two considerations: first, does it allow us to describe all rules in all languages? And second, does it allow us to describe these rules in a way that fits the way humans use language. Transformational rules, for example, are a very clear and powerful mechanism for capturing relationships between different types of sentences and clauses, but it does not fit what we know about language use: users of English clearly do not formulate declarative sentences in their head and then turn them into interrogatives.

If you are really interested in understanding the mechanisms illustrated above, try to apply them to wh‑interrogatives, which are, no doubt, grammatically the most complex sentence type in English. It is very likely that you will not be able to arrive at a complete description, but it could be fun nevertheless!

CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0. Written by Anatol Stefanowitsch