Assessment 2 – LIN037 Explaining Grammatical Structures
Deadline: 8th APRIL, 23:55
Instructions
This assessment contains three sections, each containing a series of questions labelled
a), b), c), etc. Read each question in full BEFORE beginning your answer, and be
sure to answer ALL questions.
The questions are worth 80 points in total, with another 20 points awardable for
clarity, accuracy, and appropriate use of terminology in both writing and tree
drawing.
Answers must be uploaded to QMPlus as a single file, either as a pdf (strongly
preferred), or as a word or similar file.
Your submission must be anonymous, and include the SLLF coversheet, which you
can download from the course’s QMPlus page. Do not include your name anywhere
in your answers or in the filename.
As you may only upload one file to QMPlus, unless you draw your trees using your
word-processor’s drawing tools (which is not recommended), you will need to insert
images into the file. Image files may be created digitally (see resources on QMPlus),
or you may scan or photograph hand-drawn trees.
If your images are of hand-drawn trees, these must be clear: they should be of a
legible size, with sufficient lighting. Scanning your trees will avoid these issues, and
can be done on QM copying and printing machines for free, though you may need a
portable USB memory stick. The crop or printscreen tools may also be useful.
Handwritten trees should also not contain any text in answer to another part of the
question in the image. As a rule of thumb, an image should not contain any
handwritten text other than node and morpheme labels, brief annotations, a title, or
similar.
Extensions and late assignments
If you need an extension, please contact your senior tutor as soon as possible. For
every day that you’re late, 5 points are subtracted. If your assignment is more than 5
days late, you will receive a mark of 0.
LIN037 Explaining Grammatical Structures, Assignment 3 Page 2 of 3
Notes on drawing tree diagrams and written answers
The same guidelines for tree drawing as applied to the first and second assessments apply to
this assessment. Therefore:
• Your trees may go into the level of detail found in the Carnie textbook, ie. with every X’
node represented, or they may abstract away from this, in the manner I have done in class.
• You may draw DPs, APs, and AdvPs with ‘triangle structures’.
• You may refer to the phrase between TP and VP as either VoiceP or vP. Do not forget
movement of V to the head of this phrase.
• Additionally, you do not have to indicate case and theta-role assignment in your tree
diagrams unless asked (see questions a and b)
As with assessment two, there are questions in this assessment that require written answers.
You are strongly encouraged to reread your answers, as you will lose points for unclear
writing. Aim to write concise prose with formal vocabulary.
Note that there are 80 for answers and 20 for presentation/clarity, as with the last assessment.
SECTION 1 – Syntactic structures (30pts)
a) Give an example of a sentence in which DPs are assigned theta-roles AGENT, (8pts)
GOAL, and THEME, then draw a tree diagram for your sentence, showing how
each theta-role is assigned.
b) Draw tree diagrams for (1a) and (1b), below, showing assignment of (12pts)
theta-roles and nominative case in each.
(1) a. Miriam is certain to arrive late
b. Terry was shown to love yoghurt
c) The example below can be interpreted in more than one way. Draw one tree (10pts)
diagram for (2), and briefly explain which interpretation your diagram provides.
(2) Where did Martin claim that Benedict had danced with Amanda?
~ Continues over ~
LIN037 Explaining Grammatical Structures, Assignment 3 Page 3 of 3
SECTION 2 – Syntactic Islands (25pts)
The question in (3), below, can only be answered with information about when Andy told
Melissa something. It cannot be answered with information about when Stefanie found the
criminal.
(3) When did Andy tell Melissa which criminal Stefanie had found?
d) Draw a tree diagram for (3). (10pts)
e) Following the steps below, explain the reason that when cannot refer to (15pts)
Stefanie’s finding the criminal:
– Your answer may consist of prose (no more than 150 words) or
bullet points.
– To complement your explanation, you should draw an additional tree for
an ungrammatical derivation of (3).
– In your explanation, you must identify a specific constraint or
principle that is relevant to (3) and the additional tree you have drawn.
SECTION 3 – Binding Theory (25pts)
The following question asks you to examine the DP one another from the point of view of
binding theory.
(4) [The students]1 helped [one another]1
f) Your task is to determine whether one another is an anaphor, a pronoun, (25pts)
or an R-expression, and to justify your answer with reference to at least
three example sentences, and at least two tree structures of your own design.
– You should represent one other with a ‘triangle’ DP in your tree structures.
– Do not forget that certain binding principles apply within a local domain
– It is important to show the effect of binding principles not being satisfied. It is
recommended, therefore, that (at least) one of your examples be an
ungrammatical sentence.
– The question may be answered with either prose (no more than 250 words) or
bullet points.
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