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NP Movement in Passive Constructions
NP movement occurs when an NP moves from one grammatical function position to another. It could be the movement from object to subject position, or from subject to object position. One of the reasons for NP movement is to ‘promote the salience of the object NP over the subject NP’. This ‘promotion’ is sometimes effected so as to emphasize the role of the object rather than that of the subject. It may also be as a result of the fact that the subject is unknown, unidentified, or unimportant.
One of the most common examples of NP movement in the English language is passivization. Thus, there is basically an NP movement in every passive construction. Consider the following examples:
1. The ship was named Salome.
2. Some children were eaten by the leopard.
3. I was messed up by the rain.
4. Nigeria was knocked out of the tournament by Ghana.
Sentences (1) to (4) are passive constructions whose declarative counterparts would be (5)-(8):
5. NP* named the ship Salome.
6. The leopard ate some children.
7. The rain messed me up.
8. Ghana knocked Nigeria out of the tournament.
Whether or not sentences (5)-(8) are accurate reconstructions of (1)-(4), the fact remains that there are some more basic structures with preferred basic word order from where sentences (1)-(4) are derived.
In sentence (1), the purpose of the passivization is to emphasize the name of the ship rather than who named the ship. In sentence (2), the passive structure places emphasis on the children who were eaten and not on the leopard that ate them. In (3), the fact that I was messed up is given prominence over the rain, while in (4), the fact of Nigeria being knocked out is emphasized over and above who knocked them out.
Four main properties distinguish active sentences from passive sentences:
(i) passive sentences generally contain some form of the auxiliary be. In (1), (3), and (4) it appears as was, while in (2) it occurs as were.
(ii) the verb is usually in the –n participle form (known as the passive participle form) as in eaten.
(iii) passive sentences may include a by-phrase.
(iv) the expression which serves as the subject in the passive construction appears as the complement of the verb in the corresponding active construction.
The question now is: if the subject of a passive clause originates as the complement of the passive participle, how does it move to the subject position? What happens is that the subject is moved from the complement position within VP to subject/specifier position within IP (Infinitive Phrase). NP movement has a movement site and a landing site just like other movements. The movement could be in Passive constructions or in Raising constructions.
In passive constructions, the NP object of the sentence moves to the subject position with the introduction or insertion of by. The assumption here is that a direct object must move from its D-structure position where it has been assigned a -role to the S-structure subject position where it would be assigned case. Consider this example:
1. (a) John bought the book from Susan
(b) The book was bought from Susan by John
This can be represented in a tree diagram as follows:
In this example, the book at the object position has moved to the subject position in order to be case marked.
Let us take another example:
2. (a) The leopard ate some children
(b) Some children were eaten by the leopard
We can represent this on a tree diagram as follows:
The above analysis claims that some children originate as the complement of the verb eaten and is then moved into the specifier within IP to become the subject (and specifier) of the passive auxiliary were. As illustrated above, this type of movement is traditionally referred to as passivization. However, because the passivized NP moves from complement position to subject position (or from one argument position to another as it is usually referred to), this type of movement is also known as A-movement (Argument movement).
You will notice that under the predicate in the tree diagram (2) above, there is a projection (t) which is linked to the NP. That t is conventional notation for trace. Trace arises from the argument that when a constituent moves from one position to another (as some children moved) the position from which it moves remains intact, and it is filled by an empty category. In other words, a moved expression leaves a trace of itself in the position from which it moved.
NP Movement in Raising Constructions
Another NP movement occurs in Raising Constructions. Let us take the subject Raising Construction. Subject Raising is a kind of NP movement which results in the raising of an NP in the object position to the subject position in the phrase marker where it would be assigned a case, since case cannot be assigned in an infinitive position. (An infinitive position is a position where we have the to-infinitive). The movement usually involves a special class of verbs and adjectives like appear, seem, certain, look, and likely. Consider the example below:
1. (a) John seems to be hungry.
(b) [IP Johni seems [IP t1 to be hungry]]
This is represented thus:
Predicate adjectives like likely can take either infinitival or finite clause complements as in the following examples:
2. (a) He is likely [to be telling the truth]
(b) It is likely [(that) he is telling the truth]
In (2a) the lexical subject he has moved from its D-structure position as subject of the complement to the main clause subject position. By this movement, the he (subject) assumes a higher position in the hierarchy.
CONCLUSION
In this unit, we discussed the transformational rules that move categories from one place to the other. Specifically, we discussed the NP movement rules in Passivization and Raising Constructions. The NP’s move into their landing sites leaving traces from where they moved. In their new positions, they receive case assignments. Acquaint yourself with these movements, and try to generate other phrase markers involving them.
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