MASOE-COURSE EXERCISES

HOMEWORK 5 [DUE DEC 2]
Following up from the discussion around today's handout, provide the full derivation for Mary kicked John. The homework is due next Tuesday and you absolutely must hand in your own, personal solution! I want you to follow this structure very closely:

1. Begin with the starting point: N = {AgrS, T, AgrO, Mary, v, kicked, John}
2. Provide every single step of the derivation in prose, accompanied by a tree.
3. The final tree structure should be complete, with all checked features indicated.
4. In fact, you may want to give a second tree after the first full tree (see D below)…

Here are some things to bear in mind:

A. indicate at the right points(s) what feature(s) is placed where
B. make sure all features are checked in the course of the derivation
C. don't forget the role of head movement in the derivation
D. bear in mind that overt derivations may be followed by covert derivational steps

EXERCISES 3 [HNG: CHAP. 4]
From chapter 4, the following exercises are doable, in my eyes, and you should at least try them out for practice (the star * signals that this might be a bit tough based on what we didn't do in class, but ok if you read the relevant text):

• pp. 120-121, ex. 4.1
• p. 123, ex. 4.2
• p. 123, ex. 4.3
• pp. 123-124, ex. 4.4*
• p. 131, ex. 4.5, 4.6*, 4.7*
• p. 137, ex. 4.8
• p. 140, ex. 4.9*

HOMEWORK 4 [FOLLOW-UP]
Note that what we did in class as an answer to the exercise is only ONE possible answer. There's plenty of alternatives. If anyone is really interested in learning more about the double object construcion, Jeff Runner wrote a nice paper, "The double object construction at the interfaces", which summarizes a lot of the data and issues, and at least the first few pages are quite accessible. And it's free, published in the University of Rochester CLS Working Papers (2001). [www.bcs.rochester.edu/cls/s2001v2n1/runner_urwpls_v2n1.pdf]

HOMEWORK 4 [UPDATE]
The "tests" in the exercise refer to the four tests displayed by the examples (52)-(55). You have to say something about the two sentences in (ii) -- and your tree should reflect a general structure for double object constuctions such as (iia) and (iib).

HOMEWORK 4 [DUE NOV 7]
The fourth homework is exercise 3.7 (HNG: p.101). You should provide at least 2 of the tests, so the total of examples you have to give is 8 (2 tests with 2 sentences each for each of the two sentences), plus very little prose/text of your own (all of this typewritten), and one tree. The exercise is due next class.

EXERCISES 2 [HNG: CHAP. 3]
From chapter 3, the following exercises are doable, in my eyes, and you should at least try them out for practice (the star * signals that this might be a bit tough based on what we didn't do in class, but ok if you read the relevant text):

• p. 80, ex. 3.1
• p. 91, ex. 3.2
• p. 92, ex. 3.3*
• p. 101, ex. 3.7
• p. 104, ex. 3.8*
• p. 105, ex. 3.11*
• p. 109, ex. 3.12

You're more than welcome to try your hand at any of these (or others) and show them to me for checking.

READINGS 2 [HNG: CHAP. 3]
From chapter 3, you should read very carefully, and understand fully, the following material:

• pp. 76-81, sect. 3.1.1.–3.2.2.
• pp. 81-84, sect. 3.2.3.1.
• pp. 88-91, sect. 3.2.3.5.–3.2.4.
• pp. 92-110, sect. 2.3.2.6–3.5.

IDIOM HOMEWORK [OCT 21]
Here a few paragraphs for you to consider… I’m summarizing an email Evalina sent me and my response. My part is boldfaced, Evalina’s is not (and I reformulated some of her text). It might help you with exercise 3.1.
When you asked us to find idioms consisting of subject + verb (SU+V) -- that's what the exercise 3.1 says too -- in any language we like, I wonder whether you meant idioms that have a fixed subject and verb which can take any object or that can take no object or both?
In other words, can the verbs in relevant SU+V idioms be only intransitive, only transitive, or both/either? If you now sit down and calm down, and then read the full text of the exercise you’ll see that we’re asking for SU+V_TRANSITIVE. That’s very relevant, of course, but as I say below, once you’ve come up with a hypothesis, if it’s a good one it should predict that SU+V_INTRANSITIVE should be much more common.
It seems to me that there are many in Greek.
Notice first that the exercise doesn't say SU+V idioms don't exist -- it asks why are there "very few (if any)"? Note also that the exercise asks you to think about the fact that there are "very few (if any)" SU+V idioms -- and what the possible implications might be for how idiomatic expressions are stored in the lexicon. Related to the last point, I introduced the notion of "compositionality" today -- could this be relevant for your answer(s)?
For instance, Giannhs kerna kai Giannhs pinei 'John buys (drinks) and John drinks (them)' as an idiom means that somebody is having a party all by himself. I want to note that in this example, an object could be used. Some people say as an alternative Giannhs kerna krasi, Giannhs pinei krasi 'John buys wine, John drinks wine', so the complement position has more than one candidate to be filled, exactly as it happens in the examples of V+OB that you gave us in the lecture.
OK, take Giannhs kerna (krasi) kai/, Giannhs pinei (krasi) -- be honest: how many different objects can you think of? (Perhaps wine or beer or whiskey, but not “3 glasses of wine”, “10 bottles of beer”, or “1 litre of whiskey”.) More importantly: I’d think that they must be identical, i.e. Giannhs kerna krasi, Giannhs pinei bira 'John buys wine, drinks beer' does probably NOT allow an idiomatic reading, right?
Also there are many idioms that display passive structures and do not require any object, so the idiom is just SU+V: To xwrio kaigotane ki h Marw stolizotane 'The village was on fire and Mary preened', meaning idiomatically being concerned with something not important, while one has very important issues. Or anasth8hke o Lazaros 'Lazaros was resurrected', used ironically to refer to somebody who was pretending to feel bad and now is OK all of a sudden.
Here you have SU+V in a passive structure (even if stolizotane does not give a passive reading: here the passive morphology leads to the reflexive meaning – if you’re interested, this is a topic that Dr. Anna Roussou, who’s giving a talk at the student workshop I’m organizing, is working on at the moment). This is, of course, very relevant. I can't give you an explanation, since it would help you too much for this exercise, but once we discuss this in class it'll be come obvious.
Lastly, start off thinking about SU+V idioms where the V is transitive and think about "structure" (as I said in class and repeated on the Exercises page). If you can think of a nice way of distinguishing V+OB from SU+V idioms with transitive verbs, consider whether your generalization will also predict that SU+V idioms with intranstitive verbs should be found more easily...

HOMEWORK 3 [DUE OCT 30]
The second homework is exercise 3.1 (HNG: p.80). You should think "structurally". It's due on Thursday next week, at 12pm sharp in my mailbox. (I will announce this on Friday.) This way I can return and discuss the exercise in Friday's class.

EXERCISES 1 [HNG: CHAP. 2]
From chapter 2, the following exercises are doable, in my eyes, and you should at least try them out for practice (the star * signals that this might be a bit tough based on what we didn't do in class, but ok if you read the relevant text):

• p. 32, ex. 2.1, 2.2
• p. 37, ex. 2.3*, 2.4*
• p. 44, ex. 2.5*
• p. 57, ex. 2.8
• p. 64, ex. 2.11
• p. 71, ex. 2.13, 2.14
• p. 72, ex. 2.15*
• p. 74, ex. 2.16*
• p. 75, ex. 2.17*

You're more than welcome to try your hand at any of these (or others) and show them to me for checking.

READINGS 1 [HNG: CHAP. 2]
From chapter 2, you should read very carefully, and understand fully, the following material:

• pp. 26-32, sect. 2.3.1.1.
• pp. 50-56, sect. 2.3.2.2.
• pp. 62-63, sect. 2.3.2.4.
• pp. 68-74, sect. 2.3.2.6., 2.3.2.7., 2.4.

HOMEWORK 2 [DUE OCT 21]
The second homework is exercise 2.8 (HNG: p.57). You might find it useful to carefully read pp. 50-56.

HOMEWORK 1 [DUE OCT 7]
The first homework was exercise 2.1 (HNG: p.32), and it was due earlier this week… For those who are not regularly attending class, I'll try to update this page a bit more regularly. I will certainly announce homeworks as well as specifics concerning material to be read right after I announce it in class.