FINAL TEST SYNTAX RESUME

Some Basic Properties of English Syntax

1.      Some Remarks on the Essence of Human Language

One of the crucial functions of any human language, such as English or Korean, is to convey various kinds of information from the everyday to the highly academic. Language provides a means for us to describe how to cook, how to remove cherry stains, how to understand English grammar, or how to provide a convincing argument.

The first well-known property (as emphasized by Saussure 1916) is that there is no motivated relationship between sounds and meanings. This is simply observed in the fact that the same meaning is usually expressed by a different sounding-word in a different language (think of house, maison, casa). For words such as hotdog, desk, dog, bike, hamburger, cranberry, sweetbread, their meanings have nothing to do with their shapes. For example, the word hotdog has no relationship with a dog which is or feels hot.

The second important feature of language, and one more central to syntax, is that language makes infinite use of finite set of rules or principles, the observation of which led the development of generative linguistics in the 20th century (cf. Chomsky 1965).

But among these 120 possible combinations, only 6 form grammatical English sentences:1

1.         a. The man kicked a ball.

b. A man kicked the ball.

c. The ball kicked a man.

d. A ball kicked the man.

e. The ball, a man kicked.

f. The man, a ball kicked.

All the other 114 combinations, a few of which are given in, are unacceptable to native speakers of English. We use the notation to indicate that a hypothesized example is ungrammatical.

2.         a. Kicked the man the ball.

b. Man the ball kicked the.

c. The man a ball kicked.

Such combinatory rules also play important roles in our understanding of the syntax of an example like.

3.         a. Kim lives in the house Lee sold to her.

b. Kim lives in the house Lee sold it to her.

The requirement of such combinatory knowledge also provides an argument for the assumption that we use just a finite set of resources in producing grammatical sentences, and that we do not just rely on the meaning of words involved. Consider the examples in :

4.         a. Kim fond of Lee.

b. Kim is fond of Lee.

More natural evidence of the ‘finite set of rules and principles’ idea can be found in cognitive, creative abilities.

5.         a. In January 2002, a dull star in an obscure constellation suddenly became 600,000 times more luminous than our Sun, temporarily making it the brightest star in our galaxy.

A related part of this competence is that a language speaker can produce an infinite number of grammatical sentences.

6.         a. The man kicked the ball.

b. The tall man kicked the ball.

c. The handsome, tall man kicked the ball.

d. The handsome, tall, nice man kicked the ball.

One might argue that since the number of English adjectives could be limited, there would be a dead-end to this process.

7.         a. Some sentences can go on.

b. Some sentences can go on and on.

c. Some sentences can go on and on and on.

d. Some sentences can go on and on and on and on.

These considerations imply that a more appropriate hypothesis would be something like.

8.         a. All native speakers have a grammatical competence which can generate an infinite set of grammatical sentences from a finite set of resources.

This hypothesis has been generally accepted by most linguists, and has been taken as the subject matter of syntactic theory.

9.         a. Generative Grammar: An English generative grammar is the one that can generate an infinite set of well formed English sentences from a finite set of rules or principles.

2.      How We Discover Rules

These rules are present in the speakers’ minds, but are not consciously accessible; speakers cannot articulate their content, if asked to do so. Hence we discover the rules indirectly, and of the several methods for inferring these hidden rules, hypotheses based on the observed data of the given language are perhaps the most reliable.

Observing Data] To discover a grammar rule, the first thing we need to do is to check out grammatical and ungrammatical variants of the expression in question.

Forming a Hypothesis] From the data and observations we have made so far, can we make any hypothesis about the English grammar rule in question? One hypothesis that we can make is something like the following:

First Hypothesis:

English has at least two groups of nouns, Group I (count nouns) and Group II (non-count nouns), diagnosed by tests of plurality, the indefinite article, and the pronoun one.

Checking the Hypothesis] Once we have formed such a hypothesis, we need to check out if it is true of other data, and also see if it can bring other analytical consequences. A little further thought allows us to find support for the two-way distinction for nouns.

Revising the Hypothesis] The examples in (24) and (25) imply that there is another group of nouns that can be used as both count and non-count nouns.

3.      Why Do We Study Syntax and What Is It Good for?

There are many reasons for studying syntax, from general humanistic or behavioral motivations to much more specific goals such as those in the following:

1.      To help us to illustrate the patterns of English more effectively and clearly.

2.      To enable us to analyze the structure of English sentences in a systematic and explicit way.

For example,

a.       In English, the main verb agrees with the head element of the subject.

1.      The recent strike by pilots have cost the country a great deal of money from tourism and so on.

2.      The average age at which people begin to need eyeglasses vary considerably.

If the head is singular, so is the whole phrase, and similarly for plural. The head of the subject and the verb (in the incorrect form) are indicated in:

1.      [The recent strike by pilots] have cost the country a great deal of money from tourism and so on.

2.      [The average age at which people begin to need eyeglasses] vary considerably.

Here is another example which requires certain syntactic knowledge:

1.      He said that that ‘that’ that that man used was wrong.

When it comes to understanding a rather complex sentence, knowledge of English syntax can be a great help. Syntactic or structural knowledge helps us to understand simple as well as complex English sentences in a systematic way.

From Words to Major Phrase Types

1.      Lexical Categories

a.       Determining the Lexical Categories

The basic units of syntax are words. The first question is then what kinds of words (also known as parts of speech, or lexical categories, or grammatical categories) does English have? Are they simply noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, and maybe a few others? Most of us would not be able to come up with simple definitions to explain the categorization of words.

Words can be classified into different lexical categories according to three criteria: meaning, morphological form, and syntactic function. Let us check what each of these criteria means, and how reliable each one is.

At first glance, it seems that words can be classified depending on their meaning. For example, we could have the following rough semantic criteria for N (noun), V (verb), A (adjective), and Adv (adverb):

a. N: referring to an individual or entity

b. V: referring to an action

c. A: referring to a property

d. Adv: referring to the manner, location, time or frequency of an action

A more reliable approach is to characterize words in terms of their forms and functions. The ‘form-based’ criteria look at the morphological form of the word in question:

a. N: + plural morpheme -(e)s

b. N: + possessive’s

c. V: + past tense -ed or 3rd singular -(e)s

d. V: + 3rd singular -(e)s

e. A: + -er/est (or more/most)

f. A: + -ly (to create an adverb)

Adjectives can take comparative and superlative endings -er or -est, or combine with the suffix -ly. (5) shows some examples derived from these frames:

a. N: trains, actors, rooms, man’s, sister’s, etc.

b. V: devoured, laughed, devours, laughs, etc.

c. A: fuller, fullest, more careful, most careful, etc.

d. Adv: fully, carefully, diligently, clearly, etc

The most reliable criterion in judging the lexical category of a word is based on its syntactic function or distributional possibilities. Let us try to determine what kind of lexical categories can occur in the following environments:

a. They have no.

b. They can.

c. They read the book.

d. He treats John very.

e. He walked right the wall.

In addition to these basic lexical categories, does English have other lexical categories? There are a few more. Consider the following syntactic environments:

a. student hits the ball.

b. John sang a song, Mary played the piano.

c. John thinks Bill is honest.

Here we see that only words like the, my, his, some, these, those, and so forth can occur here. These articles, possessives, quantifiers, and demonstratives all ‘determine’ the referential properties of jobs here, and for this reason, they are called determiners.

The words that can appear in the blanks are neither main verbs nor adjectives, but rather words like will, can, shall and must. In English, there is clear evidence that these verbs are different from main verbs, and we call them auxiliary verbs (Aux). The auxiliary verb appears in front of the main verb, which is typically in its citation form, which we call the ‘base’ form.

2.      Grammar with Lexical Categories

The main goal of syntax is building a grammar that can generate an infinite set of well-formed, grammatical English sentences. Let us see what kind of grammar we can develop now that we have lexical categories.

a. A man kicked the ball.

b. A tall boy threw the ball.

c. The cat chased the long string.

d. The happy student played the piano.

S!Det (A) N V Det (A) N

The rule tells us what S can consist of: it must contain the items mentioned, except that those which are in parentheses are optional. So this rule characterizes any sentence which consists of a Det, N, V, Det, and N, in that order, possibly with an A in front of either N.

S

 

Det      N         V         Det      N

 

. . .     . . .     . . .       . . .     . . .

a. Det: a, that, the, this,

b. N: ball, man, piano, string, student,

c. V: kicked, hit, played, sang, threw,

d. A: handsome, happy, kind, long, tall.

S!Det A_ N V Det A_ N

a. The tall man kicked the ball.

b. The tall, handsome man kicked the ball.

c. The tall, kind, handsome man kicked the ball.

Such examples are all syntactically well-formed, even if semantically in some cases, implying that syntax is rather ‘autonomous’ from semantics. Note that any anomalous example can be preceded by the statement “Now, here’s something hard to imagine.

The happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy man sang a song.

A grammar using only lexical categories can be specified to generate an infinite number of well-formed English sentences, but it nevertheless misses a great deal of basic properties that we can observe. For example, this simple grammar cannot capture the agreement facts seen in examples like the following:

a. The mother of the boy and the girl is arriving soon.

b. The mother of the boy and the girl are arriving soon.

3.      Phrasal Categories

In addition to the agreement and ambiguity facts, our intuitions may also lead us to hypothesize constituency.

1.      The student enjoyed his English syntax class last semester.

Perhaps most of us would intuitively assign the structure:

a.       [The student] [enjoyed [his English syntax class last semester]].

b.      [The] [student enjoyed] [his English syntax class] [last semester].

c.       [The student] [[enjoyed his English] [syntax class last semester]].

Cleft: The cleft construction, which places an emphasized or focused element in the X position in the pattern ‘It is/was X that . . . ’, can provide us with simple evidence for the existence of phrasal units.

Eg: The policeman met several young students in the park last night.

With no difficulty, we can cleft almost all the constituents we can get from the above sentence:

a. It was [the policeman] that met several young students in the park last night.

b. It was [several young students] that the policeman met in the park last night.

c. It was [in the park] that the policeman met several young students last night.

d. It was [last night] that the policeman met several young students in the park.

Constituent Questions and Stand-Alone Test: Further support for the existence of phrasal categories can be found in the answers to ‘constituent questions’, which involve a wh-word such as who, where, when, how. For any given wh-question, the answer can either be a full sentence or a fragment.

1.      A: Where did the policeman meet several young students?

B: In the park.

2.      A: Who(m) did the policeman meet in the park?

B: Several young students.

Substitution by a Pronoun: English, like most languages, has a system for referring back to individuals or entities mentioned by the use of pronouns.

Eg :      a. What do you think the man who is standing by the door is doing now?

b.      What do you think he is doing now?

Coordination: Another commonly-used test is coordination. Words and phrases can be coordinated by conjunctions, and each conjunct is typically the same kind of constituent as the other conjuncts:

a. The girls [played in the water] and [swam under the bridge].

b. The children were neither [in their rooms] nor [on the porch].

c. She was [poor] but [quite happy].

d. Many people drink [beer] or [wine].

4.      Phrase Structure Rules

We have seen evidence for the existence of phrasal categories.We say that phrases are projected from lexical categories, and hence we have phrases such as NP, VP, PP, and so on. As before, we use distributional evidence to classify each type, and then specify rules to account for the distributions we have observed.

1.      NP: Noun Phrase

Eg : _[liked ice cream].

The expressions that can occur in the blank position here are once again limited. The kinds of expression that do appear here include:

Mary, I, you, students, the students, the tall students, the students from Seoul, the students who came from Seoul, etc.

If we look into the sub-constituents of these expressions, we can see that each includes at least an N and forms an NP (noun phrase). This leads us to posit the following rule:

NP!(Det) A* N (PP/S)

                 NP

(Det)    A*    N    (PP/S)

 

 ….     ….    ….     ….

One important point is that as only N is obligatory in NP, a single noun such as Mary, you, or students can constitute an NP by itself. Hence the subject of the sentence She sings will be an NP, even though that NP consists only of a pronoun.

2.      VP: Verb Phrase

Just as N projects an NP, V projects a VP. A simple test environment for VP

Eg : The student _.

lists just a few of the possible phrases that can occur in the underlined position.

snored, ran, sang, loved music, walked the dog through the park, lifted 50 pounds, thought Tom is honest, warned us that storms were coming, etc.

VP-V (NP) (PP/S)

This simple VP rule says that a VP can consist of an obligatory V followed by an optional NP and then any number of PPs or an S. The rule thus does not generate ill-formed VPs

S-NP VP

We thus have the rule that English sentences are composed of an NP and a VP, the precise structural counterpart of the traditional ideas of a sentence being ‘a subject and predicate’ or ‘a noun and a verb’.

One more aspect to the structure of VP involves the presence of auxiliary verbs.

a. The students_.

b. The students want_.

VP-V[AUX +] VP

One more important VP structure involves the VP modified by an adverb or a PP:

Eg:       a. John [[read the book] loudly].

c.       The teacher [[met his students] in the class].

VP-VP Adv/PP

                        S

            NP                   VP

VP                   PP

 

      The teacher

                Met his students      in the class

3.      AP: Adjective Phrase

The most common environment where an adjective phrase (AP) occurs is in ‘linking verb’ constructions.

Eg: John feels_.

Happy, uncomfortable, terrified, sad, proud of her, proud to be his student, proud that he passed the exam, etc.

AP-A (PP/VP/S)

This simple AP rule can easily explain the following:

a. John sounded happy/uncomfortable/terrified/proud of her.

b. John felt proud that his son won the game.

c. John sounded *happily/*very/*the student/*in the park.

4.      AdvP: Adverb Phrase

Another phrasal syntactic category is adverb phrase (AdvP),

soundly, well, clearly, extremely, carefully, very soundly, almost certainly, very slowly, etc.

These phrases are often used to modify verbs, adjectives, and adverbs themselves, and they can all occur in principle in the following environments:

a. He behaved very_.

b. They worded the sentence very_.

c. He treated her very_.

AdvP- (AdvP) Adv

5.      PP: Preposition Phrase

Another major phrasal category is preposition phrase (PP). Generally consist of a preposition plus an NP.

Eg: from Seoul, in the box, in the hotel, into the soup, with John and his dog, under the table, etc.

These PPs can appear in a wide range of environments:

a. John came from Seoul.

b. They put the book in the box.

c. They stayed in the hotel.

d. The fly fell into the soup.

PP-P NP

The rule states that a PP consists of a P followed by an NP. We cannot construct unacceptable PPs like the following:

*in angry, *into sing a song, *with happily, . . .

6.      Grammar with Phrases

We have seen earlier that the grammar with just lexical categories is not adequate for capturing the basic properties of the language. How much further do we get with a grammar which includes phrases? A set of PS rules, some of which we have already seen,

a. S-NP VP

b. NP-(Det) A* N (PP/S)

c. VP-V (NP) (PP/S/VP)

d. AP-A (PP/S)

e. AdvP- (AdvP) Adv

f. PP-P NP.

Syntactic Forms, Grammatical Functions, and Semantic Roles

A.    Grammatical Functions

How can we identify the grammatical function of a given constituent? Several tests can be used to determine grammatical function, as we show here.

1.      Subjects

Consider the following pair of examples:

a. [The cat] [devoured [the rat]].

b. [The rat] [devoured [the cat]].

These two sentences have exactly the same words and have the same predicator devoured. Yet they are significantly different in meaning, and the main difference comes from what serves as subject or object with respect to the predicator.

Agreement: The main verb of a sentence agrees with the subject in English:

a. She never writes/*write home.

b. These books *saddens/sadden me.

c. Our neighbor takes/*take his children to school in his car.

Tag questions: A tag question, a short question tagged onto the end of an utterance, is also a reliable subjecthood test:

a. The lady singing with a boy is a genius, isn’t she/*isn’t he?

b. With their teacher, the kids have arrived safely, haven’t they/ *hasn’t he?

Subject-auxiliary inversion: In forming questions and other sentence-types, English has

subject-auxiliary inversion, which applies only to the subject.

1.         a. This teacher is a genius.

b. The kids have arrived safely.

c. It could be more detrimental.

2.         a. Is this teacher a genius?

b. Have the kids arrived safely?

c. Could it be more detrimental?

2.      Direct and Indirect Objects

A direct object (DO) is canonically an NP, undergoing the process denoted by the verb:

a.       His girlfriend bought this computer.

b.      That silly fool broke the teapot.

3.      Predicative Complements

There also are NPs which follow a verb but which do not behave as DOs or IOs. Consider the following sentences:

1.         a. This is my ultimate goal.

b. Michelle became an architect.

2.         a. They elected Graham chairman.

b. I consider Andrew the best writer.

4.      Oblique Complements

a. John put books in the box.

b. John talked to Bill about the exam.

c. She reminded him of the last time they met.

d. They would inform Mary of any success they have made.

5.      Modifiers

The functions of DO, IO, predicative complement, and oblique complement all have one common property: they are all selected by the verb, and we view them as being present to ‘complement’ the verb to form a legitimate VP. Hence, these are called complements (COMPS), and typically they cannot be omitted.

Unlike these COMPS, there are expressions which do not complement the predicate in the same way, and which are truly optional:

a. The bus stopped suddenly.

b. Shakespeare wrote his plays a long time ago.

c. They went to the theater in London.

d. He failed chemistry because he can’t understand it.

B.     Form and Function Together

We now can analyse each sentence in terms of grammatical functions as well as the structural constituents. Let us see how we can analyze a simple sentence along these two dimensions:

As represented here, the expressions the little cat and a mouse are both NPs, but they have different grammatical functions, SUBJ and OBJ. The VP as a whole functions as the predicate of the sentence, describing the property of the subject.

Every category in a given sentence has a grammatical function, but there is no one-to-one

mapping between category such as NP or CP and its possible grammatical function(s). The

following data set shows us how different phrase types can function as SUBJ or OBJ:4

1.         a. [NP The termites] destroyed the sand castle.

b. [VP Being honest] is not an easy task.

c. [CP That John passed] surprised her.

d. [VP To finish this work on time] is almost unexpected.

e. [PP Under the bed] is a safe place to hide.

2.         a. I sent [NP a surprise present] to John.

b. They wondered [S what she did yesterday].

c. They believed [CP that everybody would pass the test].

d. Are you going on holiday before or after Easter? I prefer [PP after Easter].

C.    Semantic Roles

As noted before, semantic roles were introduced as a way of classifying the arguments of predicators (mostly verbs and adjectives) into a closed set of participant types. Even though we cannot make any absolute generalizations about the relationship between grammatical functions and semantic roles, the properties of semantic roles do interact in regular ways with certain grammatical constructions. A list of the most relevant thematic roles and their associated properties is given below.

·         Agent: A participant which the meaning of the verb specifies as doing or causing something, possibly intentionally. Examples: subject of eat, kick, hit, hammer, etc.

·         Patient: A participant which the verb characterizes as having something happen to it, andas being affected by what happens to it. Examples: object of kick, hit, hammer, etc.

·         Experiencer: A participant who is characterized as aware of something. Examples: subject of perception verbs like feel, smell, hear, see, etc.

·         Theme: A participant which is characterized as changing its position or condition, or as being in a state or position. Examples: direct object of give, hand, subject of come, happen, die, etc.

·         Benefactive: The entity that benefits from the action or event denoted by the predicator. Examples: oblique complement of make, buy, etc

·         Source: The one from which motion proceeds. Examples: subject of promise, object of deprive, free, cure, etc..

·         Goal: The one to which motion proceeds. Examples: subject of receive, buy, indirect object of tell, give, etc.

·         Location: The thematic role associated with the NP expressing the location in a sentence with a verb of location. Examples: subject of keep, own, retain, locative PPs, etc.

·         Instrument: The medium by which the action or event denoted by the predicator is carried out. Examples: oblique complement of hit, wipe, hammer, etc.

Head, Complements, and Modifiers

A.    Projections from Lexical Heads to Phrases

1.       Internal vs. External Syntax

As we have seen in the previous chapters, both syntactic categories (NP, AP, VP, PP, etc.) and grammatical functions (subject, complement, and modifier) play important roles in the analysis of English sentences. We have also observed that the grammatical function and form of each constituent depend on where it occurs or what it combines with.

The combinatory properties of words and phrases involve two aspects of syntax: internal and external syntax. Internal syntax deals with how a given phrase itself is constructed in a well-formed manner whereas external syntax is concerned with how a phrase can be used in a larger construction. Observe the following examples:

a. John [put his gold].

b. John [put under the bathtub].

c. John [put his gold safe].

d. John [put his gold to be under the bathtub].

e. John [put his gold under the bathtub].

2.       Notion of Head, Complements, and Modifiers

One important property we observe in English phrase-internal syntax is that in building up any phrase, there is one obligatory element in each phrase.

The notion of headedness plays an important role in the grammar. For example, the verb put, functioning as the head of a VP, dictates what it must combine with – two complements, NP and PP. Consider other examples:

1.         a. The defendant denied the accusation.

b. The defendant denied.

2.         a. The teacher handed the student a book.

b. The teacher handed the student.

The verb denied here requires an NP object whereas handed requires two NP complements, in this use. The properties of the head verb itself determine what kind of elements it will combine with. As noted in the previous chapter, the elements which a head verb should combine with are called complements. The complements include direct object, indirect object, predicative complement, and oblique complement since these are all potentially required by some verb or other.

B.     Differences between Complements and Modifiers

Given these notions of complements and modifiers, the question that follows is then how we can distinguish between complements and modifiers. There are several tests to determine whether a phrase is a complement or a modifier.

Obligatoriness: As hinted at already, complements are strictly-required phrases whereas modifiers are not.

Iterability: The possibility of iterating identical types of phrase can also distinguish between complements and modifiers. In general two or more instances of the same modifier type can occur with the same head, but this is impossible for complements.

Do-so Test: Another reliable test often used to distinguish complements from modifiers is the do so or does the same thing test.

Constancy of semantic contribution: An adjunct can cooccur with a relatively broad range of heads whereas a complement is typically limited in its distribution.

Structural Difference: We could distinguish complements and modifiers by tree structures, too: complements combine with a lexical head (not a phrase) to form a minimal phrase whereas modifiers combine with a phrase to form a maximal phrase.

Ordering Difference: Another difference that follows from the structural distinction between complements and modifiers is an ordering difference,

C.    PS Rules, X0-Rules, and Features

We have seen in Chapter 2 that PS rules can describe how English sentences are formed. However, two main issues arise with the content of PS rules.6 The first is related to the headedness of each phrase, often called the ‘endocentricity’ property of each phrase.

Let us consider the PS rules that we saw in the previous chapters.

a. S!NP VP

b. NP!Det AdjP_ N

c. VP!V (NP) (VP)

d. VP!V NP AP

e. VP!V NP NP

f. VP!V S

g. AP!A VP

h. PP!P NP

i. VP!Adv VP

D.    Lexicon and Feature Structures

In the previous section, we have seen that the properties of a lexical head determine the components of the minimal phrase, in terms of complements, and that other properties of the head are directly properties of the phrase. This information is encoded in a lexical entry, for each word in the lexicon.

Every lexical entry at least includes phonological (but in practice, orthographic), morphological, syntactic, and semantic information. For example, the word puts will have at least the following information:

Minimal Lexical Information for puts:

a. phonological information:

b. syntactic information: verb, finite, 3rd singular

c. argument information:

d. semantic information: put0(i,j,k)

The phonological information is the information about how the word is pronounced; the syntactic information indicates that this particular word is a verb and is in the 3rd singular present (finite) form. The argument structure represents the number of arguments which the verb selects, to indicate the participants that are minimally involved in the event expressed by the verb.

1.      Feature Structures and Basic Operations

Most modern grammars rely on a representation of lexical information in terms of features and their values. We present here a formal and explicit way of representing it with feature structures.

2.      Feature Structures for Linguistic Entities

Any individual or entity including a linguistic expression can be represented by a feature structure. For example, the word puts, whose general type is verb, can have a feature structure.

3.      Argument Realization

Each element on the ARG-ST list is realized as SPR (specifier) or COMPS (complements), through one of the rules in (46).

4.      Verb Types and Argument Structure

As mentioned earlier, lexical elements in the classes V, A, N, and P, select one or more complement(s) to form a minimal phrase. With the construct of ARG-ST, we know that every lexical element has ARG-ST information which will be realized in surface form through the SPR and COMPS values. Verb types can be differentiated by looking only at the COMPS value since every verb will have one SPR (subject) element. This is exactly the way that verbs are differentiated using the traditional notion of sub categorization

Intransitive: This is a type of verb that does not have any COMPS:

a. John disappeared.

b. John disappeared Bill..

Linking verbs: Verbs such as look, seem, remain, and feel require different complements that are typically of category AP:

a. The president looked [weary].

b. The teacher became [tired of the students].

c. The lasagna tasted [scrumptious].

d. John remained [somewhat calm].

e. The jury seemed [ready to leave].

Transitive verbs: Unlike linking verbs, pure transitive verbs select a referential, non-predicative NP as their complement, functioning as direct object:

a. John saw Fred.

b. Alice typed the letter.

c. Clinton supported the health care bill.

d. Raccoons destroyed the garden.

Ditransitive: There are also ‘ditransitive’ verbs that require IO and DO:

a. The school board leader asked the students a question.

b. The parents bought the children non-fiction novels.

c. John taught new students English Syntax.

Complex Transitive: There is another type of transitive verb which selects two complements, one functioning as a direct object and the other as a predicative phrase (NP, AP, or VP), describing the object:

a. John regards Bill as a good friend.

b. The sexual revolution makes some people uncomfortable.

c. Ad agencies call young people Generation X-ers.

d. Historians believe FDR to be our most effective president.