{"id":1512,"date":"2025-01-12T16:48:32","date_gmt":"2025-01-12T14:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/lei\/?page_id=1512"},"modified":"2025-06-29T14:09:28","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T12:09:28","slug":"7-6-clause-structure","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/leiwp\/toc\/7-syntax\/7-6-clause-structure\/","title":{"rendered":"7.6 Clause structure"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Section 7.2<\/a>, we set out to analyse the way in which words are combined into sentences. In order to do so, we introduced the idea of constituents and discussed different types of constituents and their structure in some detail. We also used the word sentence<\/em> and the word subject<\/em> quite a bit, without really discussing them in their own right. Let us remedy this now!<\/p>\n

A phrase-structure rule for sentences<\/h2>\n

The meaning of the word sentence<\/em> is rather vague in everyday language, which is one of the reasons why linguists often try to avoid it, using the term clause<\/strong> instead. There are two types of clauses: independent clauses<\/strong> (also called main clauses<\/em>), that can stand on their own, and dependent clauses<\/strong> (also called subordinate clauses<\/em>), that needs to be attached to an independent clause. In this section, we will focus on independent clauses and return to dependent clauses in Chapter 10<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An (independent) clause in a phrase that contains a verb and all of its complements, including the subject. Since all of the complements except for the subject are included in the verb phrase, the phrase-structure rule for English sentences is very simple:<\/p>\n

\n
(1)<\/div>\n
[S<\/sub> NP VP]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Note that we use the letter S<\/em> to label main clauses \u2014 this stands for \u201csentence\u201d, of course\u00a0\u2014 the word sentence<\/em> is used in linguistics as a synonym for main clause<\/em>.<\/p>\n

All independent clauses in English have the structure in (1), as long as they are declarative clauses<\/strong> \u2014 roughly speaking, clauses that express a statement (we will see other types of clauses in Section 7.7, that require additional rules). If you don’t believe us, you can check this by looking at all examples in this chapter.<\/p>\n

Subjects and objects<\/h2>\n

In English, the phrase structure in (1) allows us to identify two types of complement that are special in a number of ways and that have their own name: the subject (a word we have already used) and the object. Let us first see how to identify them and then talk about why they are special. The subject<\/strong> of a main clause is the NP that is attached directly to the S node, the object<\/strong> is the NP that is attached directly to a VP node which does not contain another VP. This sounds much more complicated than it is \u2014 if we represent the phrase structure rule in (1) as a tree structure with a VP containing an NP, as shown in Figure 7.6.1, we see that it is actually very simple.<\/p>\n

\"[S[NP

Figure 7.6.1. Subject and object defined by phrase structure<\/p><\/div>\n

In the following sentences, the subjects are shown in red, the objects are shown in blue \u2014 compare them to the tree structure in Figure 7.6.1 to see that they follow the definitions we have just given:<\/p>\n

\n
(2a)<\/div>\n
[NP<\/sub> Aylin<\/span><\/em>] baked<\/em> [NP<\/sub> these bagels<\/span><\/em>]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
(2b)<\/div>\n
[NP<\/sub> Everyone<\/span><\/em>] likes<\/em> [NP<\/sub> Aylin’s bagels<\/span><\/em>]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
(2c)<\/div>\n
[NP<\/sub> Noah<\/span><\/em>] stumbled<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
(2d)<\/div>\n
[NP<\/sub> Noah<\/span><\/em>] handed<\/em> [NP<\/sub> Aylin<\/span><\/em>] [NP<\/sub> a glass of water<\/span><\/em>]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
(2e)<\/div>\n
[NP<\/sub> Noah<\/span><\/em>] believes in<\/em> [NP<\/sub> aliens<\/em>]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
(2f)<\/div>\n
[NP<\/sub> Zoe<\/span><\/em>] slept<\/em> [NP<\/sub> all day<\/em>]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

As you can see, all sentences in English have subjects, but not all of them have objects. If a verb phrase contains two NPs that meet the definition for objects, as in (2d), then both of them are objects. So why aren’t the NPs in the VPs in (2e) and (2f) objects? For (2e), the answer is simple: the NP is part of a PP, so it is not attached to the VP node and does not meet the definition. For (2f), the answer is more complicated \u2014 cases like this are the reason why the definition of an object contains the caveat that an object is an NP attached to a VP that does not contain another VP<\/em>. The tree structure of (2f) is shown in Figure 7.6.2.<\/p>\n

\"[S[NP[N

Figure 7.6.2: Tree structure of the sentence Zoe slept all day<\/p><\/div>\n

A replacement test shows that slept<\/em> forms a VP by itself, which is part of a larger VP slept all day<\/em>. In (3a), did the same<\/em> replaces slept<\/em>, in (3b) it replaces slept all night<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\n
(3a)<\/div>\n
Zoe slept all day and Aylin did the same all night<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
(3b)<\/div>\n
Zoe slept all day and Aylin did the same<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

So, the NP all day<\/em> is attached to a VP node, but that VP contains another VP \u2014 therefore, all day<\/em> is not an object.<\/p>\n

At this point, you might be wondering why we are making life so difficult for all of us \u2014 would it not be easier to define subject<\/em> and object<\/em> in the way many of you probably remember from your language classes, i.e., something like \u201cThe subject is the doer of the action, the object is acted upon\u201d? Well, the examples in (2) show that this definition is wrong: In (2a) and (2f), the subject is not a \u201cdoer\u201d but a Theme \u2014 stumbling or sleeping are not \u201cactions\u201d that anyone \u201cdoes\u201d \u2014 stumbling is a process that happens to someone, and sleeping is a state in which someone is. In (2c) and (2d), the subject is not a \u201cdoer\u201d but an Experiencer \u2014 liking and believing are not \u201cactions\u201d that anyone \u201cdoes\u201d, they are experiences that someone has. Likewise, in (2c), the bagels are not \u201cacted\u201d upon \u2014 they are simply the Stimulus that triggers Zoe\u2019s positive feeling towards them. And in (2d), the glass of water is indeed acted upon by Noah, but Aylin is not \u2014 she is a Recipient.<\/p>\n

\n

Identify subjects and objects in the following sentences and determine their semantic roles.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Aylin received a text message from her mother.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    Aylin’s rolling mat creates perfectly round sushi rolls.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Climate change scares Zoe more than zombies.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  4. \n

    Monday morning saw Zoe and Aylin on their way to university.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n

    So, why are subject and object special enough to deserve their own names, while all other complements are lumped into a category that is sometimes called \u201cadverbials\u201d (a very bad name, because it suggests that they are related to adverbs), \u201cobliques\u201d (nice if you have a classical education that includes Latin, but otherwise a bit, well, oblique) or that remains nameless?<\/p>\n

    There are many reasons, but there are two that stand out: subjects and objects play a special role in structuring the information in sentences (we will return to this issue briefly at the end of this section and in Chapter 10<\/a>), and subjects and objects play a special role in grammar.<\/p>\n

    Active and passive voice<\/h2>\n

    Consider the following sentence pair:<\/p>\n

    \n
    (4a)<\/div>\n
    [NP<\/sub> Aylin<\/span><\/em>] baked<\/em> [NP<\/sub> these bagels<\/span><\/em>] (=2b).<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    (4b)<\/div>\n
    [NP<\/sub> These<\/span> bagels<\/em>] were baked by<\/em> [NP<\/sub> Aylin<\/em>]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    Both sentences use the verb bake<\/em>, which has the valency pattern [ NPAgent<\/sub> ___ NPPatient<\/sub> ], and both sentences mean roughly the same thing. But in (4a), Aylin<\/em> is the subject and these bagels<\/em> is the object, while in (4b), these bagels<\/em> is the subject and Aylin<\/em> occurs as an NP within a PP.<\/p>\n

    What is going on here? In English, as in many other languages, verbs with the valency pattern [ NP ___ NP ] can be used in two different ways: in what is called the active voice<\/strong> (shown in 4a) and in what is called the passive voice<\/strong> (shown in (4b). These two kinds of sentences are related in a systematic way: The NP that is the object in the active sentence is always the subject of the passive sentence, and the NP that is the subject in the active sentence can (but does not have to) be an NP in a PP headed by the preposition by<\/em>. An additional change concerns the verb: in the passive sentence, the auxiliary be<\/em> occurs in the same tense as the lexical verb in the active sentence, while the lexical verb occurs as a past participle.<\/p>\n

    This systematic relationship requires us to distinguish subject and object, so that we can state the relation between the object of the active sentence and the subject of the passive sentence, and it requires us to distinguish between objects and other NPs that follow a verb, so that we can state which active sentences have a passive counterpart.<\/p>\n

    If a sentence has two objects, for example, the relationship between active-voice objects and passive-voice subjects holds for both of them \u2014 either one of the objects can be related to the subject of a passive sentence:<\/p>\n

    \n
    (5a)<\/div>\n
    Noah handed Aylin a glass of water<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    (5b)<\/div>\n
    Aylin was handed a glass of water (by Noah)<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    (5c)<\/div>\n
    A glass of water was handed Aylin (by Noah)<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    And NPs that occur in the verb phrase but are not objects can not be related to the subject of a passive sentence at all:<\/p>\n

    \n
    (6a)<\/div>\n
    Zoe slept all day<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    (6b)<\/div>\n
    * All day was slept by Zoe<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    How can we express this relationship? In language-teaching (especially in foreign-language teaching) it is often expressed as a derivational relationship \u2014 language learners will be asked to \u201cturn active sentences into passive sentences\u201d. And in older theories of language, such a derivational relationship was also assumed \u2014 there was a particular type of grammatical rule called a \u201ctransformation\u201d that described, in a formal way, the changes necessary to turn an active sentence into a passive one.<\/p>\n

    This derivational approach is no longer very widespread, for a range of reasons. For example, there are many cases like (7) where a passive sentence sounds much more natural than the corresponding active one, so that it is weird to derive the passive from the active:<\/p>\n

    \n
    (7a)<\/div>\n
    Zoe was stranded in Munich when Deutsche Bahn suspended their rail service due to heavy snowfall<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    (7b)<\/div>\n
    Deutsche Bahn stranded Zoe in Munich when they suspended their rail service due to heavy snowfall<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    Instead, the relationship is often shown in a way similar to the one we introduced for lexical alternations in the preceding section. It could look something like this:<\/p>\n

    \n
    (8)<\/div>\n
    [S<\/sub> NP1<\/sub> [VP<\/sub> V NP2<\/sub> \u2026 ] ] \u27fa [S<\/sub> NP2<\/sub> [VP<\/sub> BE [VP<\/sub>\u00a0 [VP<\/sub> [VPAST.PART<\/sub>\u00a0\u2026 ] ] [PP<\/sub> by<\/em> NP1<\/sub>] ] ]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    The structure of the passive sentence looks quite complex, so if you want to understand it in detail, apply constituent tests to the three verb phrases in the tree diagram in Figure 7.6.3 \u2014 you will see that we need all three of them!<\/p>\n

    \"[S

    Figure 7.6.3. Tree diagram of the sentence These bagels were baked by Aylin.<\/p><\/div>\n

    If you don’t want to worry about the details right now, just ignore the complexity and focus on the basic point: The rule above simply states the correspondences between active and passive sentences without taking one of them to be the more basic form. Note that both active and passive sentences conform to the phrase structure rule that we gave at the beginning of this section.<\/p>\n

    So, why do passives even exist? What is the point of having two ways of saying the same thing? The reason can be found in a special property of the subject. In declarative sentences, the subject of a sentence refers to the entity that we are talking about (the topic) and the verb phrase contains the information that we want to communicate about that topic. With transitive verbs, there are two entities that could be the topic of a sentence. Take the verb bake<\/em> again, which has an Agent (for example, Aylin) and a Patient (for example, bagels<\/em>). In some situations, we might want to talk about Aylin and what she bakes, in other situations, we might want to talk about bagels and who baked them. Having the active and passive voice at our disposal allows us to put either Aylin or the bagels in the subject position:<\/p>\n

    \n
    (9a)<\/div>\n
    A: What is Aylin doing?<\/em>.<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    B: She is baking bagels<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    (9b)<\/div>\n
    A: Where did you get these delicious bagels?<\/em>.<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    B: They were baked by a friend of mine<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    By the way, note that passive sentences do not require an Agent and a Patient \u2014 (almost) any valency pattern with a subject and an object can be used in the passive, as the following examples show:<\/p>\n

    \n
    (10a)<\/div>\n
    Aylin is liked by everyone<\/em>.<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    like: [ NPExperiencer<\/sub> ___ NPStimulus<\/sub> ]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    (10b)<\/div>\n
    The message was received by Aylin<\/em>.<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    receive: [ NPRecipient<\/sub> ___ NPTheme<\/sub> ]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    (10c)<\/div>\n
    The documentary was watched by Zoe<\/em>.<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    like: [ NPAgent<\/sub> ___ NPTheme<\/sub> ]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    Subject, object and word order<\/h2>\n

    Before we conclude, a brief word about subjects and objects and word order. English is a so-called configurational language<\/strong>, which means that it has a relatively fixed word order, so language users can rely on the position of constituents in the sentence to identify subjects and objects. Because of the phrase structure rule in (1), subjects always come directly before the verb, and the object normally directly follows it (there are some circumstances where it does not, that we will talk about in the next section).<\/p>\n

    Other languages have a more flexible word order (they are sometimes called non-configurational<\/strong>). For example, all Germanic languages other than English have a phrase structure rule for main clauses that could be represented very roughly as shown in (11) (ignoring some differences in detail between the different Germanic languages):<\/p>\n

    \n
    (11)<\/div>\n
    [S<\/sub> XP1<\/sub> V XP2<\/sub>\u00a0\u2026 XPn<\/sub>]<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    What this rule says is that, in these languages, main clauses consist of one phrase of any kind, followed by the verb, followed by more phrases. Speakers are completely free in which phrase they put into the position before the verb, as the following examples from German show \u2014 most often, it is the subject (as in 12a), but it can also be the object (as in 12b), a prepositional complement (as in 12c) or even an adjunct (as in 12d):<\/p>\n

    \n
    (12a)<\/div>\n
    Der Nachbar bringt morgen den Hund zur Tier\u00e4rztin<\/em>.<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    lit. The neighbor brings tomorrow the dog to the vet<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    (12b)<\/div>\n
    Den Hund bringt der Nachbar morgen zur Tier\u00e4rztin<\/em>.<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    lit. The dog brings the neighbor tomorrow to the vet<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    (12c)<\/div>\n
    Zur Tier\u00e4rztin bringt der Nachbar morgen den Hund<\/em>.<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    lit. To the vet brings the neighbor tomorrow the dog<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    (12d)<\/div>\n
    Morgen bringt der Nachbar den Hund zur Tier\u00e4rztin<\/em>.<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    \u00a0<\/div>\n
    lit. Tomorrow brings the neighbor the dog to the vet<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    So, how do speakers of German identify the subject in such sentences? They use a mix of strategies, but one of these is case marking: subjects and objects have different cases, which you can see by looking at the article: der<\/em> is nominative (for masculine nouns like Hund<\/em> and Nachbar<\/em>), which indicates the subject, and den<\/em> is accusative, which indicates the object.<\/p>\n

    English also has case, but only for pronouns, where, for example, she<\/em> is for subjects and her<\/em> is for objects (as in 13a); for proper names (as in 13b) or regular noun phrases (as in 13c), there is no difference between subjects and objects except for the word order.<\/p>\n

    \n
    (13a)<\/div>\n
    She likes her<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    (13b)<\/div>\n
    Zoe likes Aylin<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
    (13c)<\/div>\n
    The girl with the green hair likes the girl that bakes bagels<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \u2190<\/span> Previous section<\/a><\/span> Next section \u2192<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

    CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0, Written by Anatol Stefanowitsch<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In Section 7.2, we set out to analyse the way in which words are combined into sentences. In order to do so, we introduced the idea of constituents and discussed different types of constituents and their structure in some detail. We also used the word sentence and the word subject quite a bit, without really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1401,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1512","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/leiwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/leiwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/leiwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/leiwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/leiwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1512"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/leiwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2150,"href":"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/leiwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1512\/revisions\/2150"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/leiwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/leiwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}