Chapter 11

Special sentences

1. Questions/interrogatives: The CP
2. Exclamations
3. Topicalization, passive, cleft, and pseudo-cleft
4. Conclusion

In this chapter, I discuss sentences in which elements have moved around for a par-
ticular reason, e.g. to enable the speaker to ask a question, to make an exclamation,
or to emphasize something. The latter occurs through topicalization, passive, cleft,
and pseudo-cleft. Question sentences are referred to as interrogatives, whereas most
of the sentences we have seen up to now assert something and are called indicatives
or declaratives.
In Section 1, we look at questions, both yes/no and wh-questions and suggest a
tree for them using a CP. In Section 2, we briefly cover exclamatives and how they
differ from questions. Section 3 goes into topicalization, passives, and clefting. Some
of the material in this chapter has been covered, e.g. questions and passives, but in
slightly different contexts.

1. Questions/interrogatives: The CP

Questions can be main clauses (Will she leave?) or embedded clauses (I wonder if she’ll
leave). They can also be classified according to whether the entire sentence is ques-
tioned, in which case a Yes or No answer is expected, or whether another element is
questioned using a wh-word (also called an interrogative pronoun) such as who, what,
why, etc., in which case a full answer is expected.
In yes/no questions, the only appropriate answer is Yes or No (or Perhaps/maybe).
To make a question, e.g. of (1), the auxiliary has is fronted, as in (2):
(1) She has gone.
(2) Has she gone?
206 An Introduction to the Grammar of English

If there is no auxiliary present, a dummy do is used, as in (3), as discussed in Chapter 6:

(3) Did you see Santa?

A structure for yes/no questions is given in (4), where the auxiliary moves to C (indi-
cated by its copy left in the VGP that is not pronounced): 9

(4) CP

C S
Can
NP VP
she VGP

modal V
(can) go

A main clause wh-question starts with a wh-word (who, what, why, when, where, and
how) or wh-phrase (which book, etc). The auxiliary follows. There are empty positions
in the sentence, indicated by copies (crossed out because we do not say them out loud).
Examples are given in (5) to (7):

(5) Who will you (will) see (who) in the Highlands?

(6) How heavy is that box of chocolates (is) (how heavy)?
(7) How much wood would a wood chuck (would) chuck (how much wood), if a wood
chuck could chuck wood?

Evidence that the question word was at some point in the position of the copy is that,
with special intonation, movement is not necessary. Thus, (8) is possible with empha-
sis on what. In this case the auxiliary stays in place too, as (8b) shows:

(8) a. You saw WHAT?

b. You would do WHAT?

Questions such as (8) are called ‘echo-questions’

As to the structure, I will suggest (9) for wh-questions. The wh-word moves to the
position immediately underneath the CP and the auxiliary moves to the C position. The
original position of the wh-word and the auxiliary is indicated by means of a copy:

9. Some people indicate that the sentence is a question by having a Q in C in (4) and in (9).
 Chapter 11. Special sentences 207

(9) CP

Who C′

C S
will
NP VP
you
V′ PP

VGP (who) P NP
in
modal V D N
(will) see the Highlands

Using C, C′, and CP makes sense for these sentences and also makes the CP similar to
the VP, the NP, and the other categories that have a phrase, a head, and an intermedi-
ate category.

2. Exclamations

Sentences such as (10) can be analyzed using a CP as well, namely as structures where
the phrase what a nasty person is in the same position as the wh-word in (9). Notice
that in sentences, such as (10) and (11), the auxiliary does not move, unlike in the
questions in (5) to (7):

(10) What a nasty person he is (what a nasty person)!

(11) “What an excellent father you have, girls,” said she, when the door was shut.
(Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice, Chapter 2)

This was not always the case in English, as (12) shows. In (12), have has moved to
before the subject I, unlike is in (10) and have in (11):

(12) O what a Scene of fool’ry haue I seene. Of sighes, of grones, of sorrow, and of teene:
(Shakespeare, Love’s Labor’s Lost, IV, iii, 163)

Modern English exclamatives differ from questions in not fronting the auxiliary, but
they do involve movement of a wh-phrase to a position in the CP.
208 An Introduction to the Grammar of English

3. Topicalization, passive, cleft, and pseudo-cleft

Even though the structures of topicalizations, clefts, and passives look very different,
they have in common that the order of words is rearranged to emphasize a part of the
sentence. Examples such as (13) are similar to exclamations but occur without the
question word. I have marked where tomatoes comes from by means of an arrow. In
(14), the topic is preceded by as for, and repeated by a pronoun:

(13) Tomatoes, I really don’t like __ in my cereal.

(14) and as for herself, she was too much provoked . . .

(Jane Austen, Emma, Vol 1, Chap 15)

Some topicalizations serve to front old information, which is convenient to listeners.

In the same way, passives and clefts can shift phrases to put old information at the
beginning of a sentence and new information towards the end. In a passive, as seen in
earlier chapters, the subject she in (15) is the object her of the corresponding active in
(16). This shifts the attention:

(15) She was persuaded to go by Columbo. (passive)

(16) Columbo persuaded her to go. (active)

Examples of a cleft and pseudo-cleft are given in (17a) and (18a). I have provided a
declarative version of each in (17b) and (18b). A cleft starts with it is or it was and a
pseudo-cleft starts with a wh-word:
(17) a. It was on the wedding-day of this beloved friend that Emma first sat in mourn-
ful thought of any continuance. (Jane Austen, Emma, vol 1, Chap 1)

b. Emma first sat in mournful thought of any continuance on the wedding-day of

this beloved friend.

(18) a. What he threw away was the winning lottery ticket.

b. He threw away the winning lottery ticket.

The cleft picks out one phrase from the sentence to focus on, e.g. on the wedding-day
of this beloved friend in (17a). By doing so, it separates the phrase from the rest of the
sentence which becomes subordinate to the first part. The pseudo-cleft focuses on a
phrase by doubling it through a wh-word and then having the focussed phrase come
after the copula.
 Chapter 11. Special sentences 209

The structure of clefts is that of a restrictive relative clause, as in (19). The structure
of pseudo-clefts is controversial and will not be given:

(19) S

NP VP
It
V PP
was
P NP
on
D N′
the
N′ CP
N PP C S Focus of Cleft
wedding day that
of her … NP VP
Emma
AdjP V′
Adj
first V′ PP

V PP (on …)
sat
in … thought

Note that I have represented an NP and PP by means of a ‘coathanger’ since the internal
structure is not relevant here; and I haven’t filled in the words to some of the phrases.
This is for reasons of space.

4. Conclusion

In this chapter, I briefly describe a number of special constructions, where movement

seems to be taking place to achieve a special effect, namely questions, exclamations,
topicalization, passive, and clefting. Tree structures using a CP are provided for the
yes/no and wh-questions and the cleft.
Key terms are questions (wh and yes/no); exclamations; topicalization, cleft,
pseudo-cleft, and passive.
210 An Introduction to the Grammar of English

Exercises

A. Identify the special constructions in:

(20) It is his character that I despise.
(21) She was recognized going into the store.
(22) Higgins I hate.
(23) Who did Anne say that she saw?
B. Draw trees for:
(24) Will she go then?
(25) What will they think?
C. Explain the ambiguity in the following headline:
(26) Stolen Painting Found by Tree.

Keys to the exercises

A. Sentence (20) is a cleft; (21) a passive; (22) a topicalization, and (23) a wh-question.

B. (24) CP

C S
Will
NP VP
she
VGP AdvP
Adv
modal V then
(will) go

(25) CP

What C′

C S
will
NP VP
they
VGP (what)

modal V
(will) think

C. The sentence can be a passive in which case the meaning is strange/funny since typically
trees are inanimate objects and don’t find things. The intended meaning is not a passive,
 Chapter 11. Special sentences 211

but one where by tree is a place adverbial, i.e. the painting was found by someone at the
site of a tree; the finder has been left out or is unknown.

Special topic: Comma punctuation

Commas are used in writing to indicate a slight pause in speech. Pauses help disambiguate
structural ambiguities, i.e. are syntactic in nature. The discussion below is not meant to be
exhaustive but merely discusses commas in connection to some of the constructions dealt with
in this book. The main use of commas is to indicate that some information is not crucial. Since
objects and complements are more important than modifiers and adverbials, we don’t use
commas for the former but we may do so for modifiers and adverbials (some people argue that
one must use them there).
Some specific rules are (26), (27), and (28):

(26) Commas are not used inside the core sentence to separate the subject, verb, and
object.

(27) Commas may be used for non-restrictive relative clauses and for adverbial
clauses but not for restrictive clauses. Sentence adverbials are always surrounded
by commas.

(28) Commas are not used between independent clauses. If they are, the construction
is called the comma splice.

As to (26), subjects, as in (29), cannot be separated from their verbs, even if the subject is a
clause, as in (30), and neither can commas appear before objects, as in (31), or before subject
and object predicates:

(29) *He, left.

(30) *That he didn’t want to meet the Dalai Lama, is true.
(31) *I noticed, that she …

I have marked these as ungrammatical but that is perhaps too radical since technically they
aren’t.
Commas are used for non-restrictive relative clauses, as in (32), sentence initial adverbials,
as in (33), but are not used for restrictive relative and complement clauses, as in (34):

(32) Pure Empiricism, which he was disposed not to accept, leads to scepticism.
(33) Fortunately, she was on an urban safari tour.
(34) *The story, that he met the Dalai Lama, is true.

The comma splice is well-known from composition classes. An example appears in (35):
212 An Introduction to the Grammar of English

(35) Scientists think they have detected life on the Moon, visions of people living in
lunar colonies that stop off to refuel on the way to Mars can be envisaged.

Where would you put a period in (35) to fix this?

I’ll now give some examples where pauses in speech and commas in writing do make a
difference. The well-known (36) is ambiguous; it is sexist either way but illustrative. When (36) is
pronounced without pauses or written without commas, it is unclear:

(36) Woman without her man is a savage.

The two possible interpretations are either (37) or (38):

(37) Woman, without her, man is a savage.

(38) Woman, without her man, is a savage.

The tree structure of (38) is given in (39), with woman the subject and is a savage as the
predicate. The structure of (37) is more complex since woman is topicalized and, as shown in
(40), man is the subject and is a savage is the predicate:

(39) S

NP VP

N PP V NP
woman is
P NP D N
without a savage
D N
her man

(40) S

NP S
N
(as for) woman PP S

P NP NP VP
without her N
man V NP
is
D N
a savage
 Chapter 11. Special sentences 213

A construction where there is no agreement about when to use commas in coordinating three
or more elements. Some argue that all commas should be present in (41), e.g. Fowler and
Oxford University Press; others argue the last can be left out. Allegedly, it once became the
matter of a law suit, when something like (42) appeared in a will:

(41) The books, magazines, and records in this store are on sale.
(42) Equal parts of the estate will go to Mary, Jane, Edward and Michael.

Apparently, Mary and Jane assumed they would each get a third and Edward and Michael
each a sixth, whereas Edward and Michael assumed each would get a quarter. I now put all
commas in!
 Review of Chapters 9 to 11

In Chapters 9 and 10, the inner structure of the phrase is examined. PPs and AdvP
are the simplest: PPs have a head and a complement and AdvPs have a modifier and
a head. AdjPs and NPs are more complex. The AdjP can have an Adj head, an Adv(P)
modifier, and a complement; an NP can have a determiner, a head, several modifiers
(both preceding and following the head) and one complement (either preceding or
following the head). DON’T memorize this; just be able to analyze a given sentence. A
relatively complex NP is given in (1):

(1) NP

D N′
the
AdjP N′
Adj
N PP
typical teacher
P NP
from
AdjP N10
Adj space
outer

In Chapter 10, we give names to the different kinds of clauses. These include restrictive
and non-restrictive relative clauses, complement clauses, reduced relatives, and com-
plements to adjectives. Trees for these are provided in the last section of that chapter.
Chapter 11 gives examples of some special effect sentences such as topicalizations,
passives, questions, and clefts. Just be prepared to recognize these. A tree for some of
these is also given in that chapter, using a CP, with a C and a C′.
Rather than providing separate exercises, I include three homework assignments,
a short one that covers the special topics, a second one that I use regularly and that stu-
dents find very helpful, and a third, very comprehensive and difficult one, that covers
Chapters 7 to 11 and that I often use as a special credit assignment. No keys are given
because they are meant to be real homework or take home assignments. There are also
three samples of final exams covering the entire book. A key is provided on the web-
site. (I have tried to balance convenience and too much convenience by doing this).

10. If you want to show that the PP in (1) is a modifier, make it sister to an N′.
 Review of Chapters 9 to 11 215

Homework 1, on Chapter 1 and special topics

The book has discussed prescriptive grammar in Chapter 1 and has covered 11 special topics.
Some of these topics include well-known prescriptive rules, e.g. the one on the split infinitive
(Chapter 1), the multiple negative (Chapter 3), the dangling participle (Chapter 8), and
preposition stranding (Chapter 10). Some topics help explain a grammatical category, for
instance, the adjective and adverb (Chapter 2) or the complementizer (Chapter 7) and how these
categories change over time. Case and agreement phenomena (Chapter 4) are very relevant to
the grammar of English and the changes it is undergoing while other phenomena are stylistic
choices, such as the use of the passive (Chapter 5). Thus, in an academic paper, one must use the
correct agreement on the verb but, depending on the field, the use of the passive is fine.
Choose one of the special topics and show by means of examples from your own writing
whether or not you follow the prescriptive rule. Then, choose an audience (perhaps first year
students taking a composition class) and write a short (200 words) explanation on how, and
possibly how not, to use this construction.

Homework 2, covering Chapters 2–11

Take a page of your own writing (an academic paper might be the easiest) and analyze it in
terms of the grammatical structures it uses. For instance, we have seen that Hemingway ((76) in
Chapter 5) uses relatively short sentences with copulas and that Tolstoy ((43) to (45) in Chapter
9) uses lots of PP modifiers. Use similar observations about your own writing.
To analyze your own writing, consider the ten points below. You could mark the page of
your writing in a different color or use multiple copies of your text. Then write a paragraph
summarizing what you see. If you think it is easier to compare your writing to someone else’s,
do that, still using these points.

A. Modification of nouns. Do you use a lot of adjectives and PPs as modifiers?

B. Types of verbs used? Do you use a mixture of intransitives, transitives, copulas, and other
types?
C. Do you use coordination? If so, which coordinators do you use and is your coordination
of phrases or of clauses?
D. Adverbials. Are there many adverbials and, if so, which kinds (clausal or PP)?
E. Auxiliaries.
F. Passive.
G. Embedded clauses. What functions do they have?
H. Finite as opposed to non-finite clauses.
I. Dummy elements.
J. Split infinitives, dangling modifiers, or anything else banned by prescriptive rules?
216 An Introduction to the Grammar of English

(For fun, you could use [Link] This site will give you the frequency of words in a
text you want).

Homework 3, or take-home exam, covering Chapters 7–11

In the text below, taken from Thomas Kuhn:

A. Locate the relative clauses and indicate whether they are restrictive or non-restrictive.
B. Find all the finite verbs and indicate whether or not they are lexical.
C. Analyze the last sentence of the first paragraph in terms of basic sentence structure.
Try to draw a tree.
D. Draw a tree for the NP its practitioners’ insistence . . . being considered (second paragraph)
E. How might one analyse a sentence with if as in (last but one sentence in the second
paragraph).

Anyone who studies the history of scientific development repeatedly encounters a question, one
version of which would be, “Are the sciences one or many?” Ordinarily that question is evoked by
concrete problems of narrative organization, and these become especially acute when the
historian of science is asked to survey his subject in lectures or in a book of significant scope.
Should he take up the sciences one by one, beginning, for example, with mathematics, proceeding
to astronomy, then to physics, to chemistry, to anatomy, physiology, botany, and so on? Or
should he reject the notion that his object is a composite account of individual fields and take
it instead to be knowledge of nature tout court? In that case, he is bound, insofar as possible, to
consider all scientific subject matters together, to examine what men knew about nature at each
period of time, and to trace the manner in which changes in method, in philosophical climate, or
in society at large have affected the body of scientific knowledge conceived as one.
Given a more nuanced description, both approaches can be recognized as long-traditional
and generally noncommunicating historiographic modes. [note deleted] The first, which treats
science as at most a loose-linked congeries of separate sciences, is also characterized by its
practitioners’ insistence on examining closely the technical content, both experimental and
theoretical, of past versions of the particular specialty being considered. That is a considerable
merit, for the sciences are technical, and a history which neglects their content often deals with
another enterprise entirely, sometimes fabricating it for the purpose. On the other hand, historians
who have aimed to write the history of a technical specialty have ordinarily taken the bounds of
their topic to be those prescribed by recent textbooks in the corresponding field. If, for example,
their subject is electricity, then their definition of an electrical effect often closely resembles the
one provided by modern physics. With it in hand, they may search ancient, medieval, and early
modern sources for appropriate references, and an impressive record of gradually accumulating
knowledge of nature sometimes results. (from Kuhn “Mathematical versus Experimental
Traditions in the Development of Physical Science”)