each of these in turn. The categories that represent arguments (typic-
ally nominals) such as NP, DP, PP, and various functional items such as
number and gender are the topic of the next section. Finally, I address
the question of how predicational modiWcational relationships (as
typically expressed through adverbs and adjectives) are expressed in
the constituent structure.
An orthogonal issue that will run through the chapter concerns the
nature of ‘‘mixed categories’’ or constituents that appear to have the
properties of more than one category.1 For example, in many languages
we Wnd cases where there are elements that express relations that we
might characterize as verbal, and are cognate to verbs, but have a
syntactic form that is more nominal in character (i.e. they take possessive
1 There are two sides to an adequate description of syntactic categories of constituents.
Obviously, if the categories are syntactic, then the description should be based at least
partly on syntactic evidence of distribution. For example, if we Wnd a context where a word
X and not word Yor a phrase headed by X and never by Y, we might conclude that X and Y
do not belong to the same category. When formalist linguists like myself teach introduc-
tory syntax (see for example Carnie 2006c), we often hold up such an approach as
scientiWcally superior to the traditional semantically based descriptions of categories
(such as a noun is a ‘‘person, place or thing’’) which are vague and rarely helpful in
syntactic description. There are problems with a purely distributional system, however.
Using it, one often gets circular argumentation. For example, take the criterion of
morphological distribution. We might deWne verbs as those things that can take past-
tense inXectional morphology such as -ed. But when asked to deWne the characteristics of a
suYx such as -ed, we are reduced to the circular characterization that they are the things
that attach to verbs. In practical terms, we might be able to use such characteristics
99 percent of the time, but they do not really get at the deeper ‘‘why’’ question of
categorization. Inconsistent argumentation is also a consequence of such an approach.
Take a typical textbook characterization of the diVerence between nouns and verbs in
English. These two categories appear in diVerent syntactic environments in English so they
must be separate categories. At the same time we sometimes Wnd invocation of the

principle of complementary distribution, where on analogy with phonology, when two
forms appear in totally distinct environments they must be members of the same category.
Such argumentation is found in Radford (1988) and Carnie (2006c). While inconsistencies
and circularities can be controlled by the researcher, it shows that there are some signiWcant
problems with a purely syntactic characterization of categories.
I think it is clear that some hybrid approach to the problem is required. To understand
the distributional properties of constituents we cannot appeal only to syntactic criteria (as
is common in formalist linguistics) or to primarily semantic criteria (as is common in
many versions of functionalist linguistics), nor can we assume that syntactic criteria are
derived from semantic ones (as in dependency grammars) or vice versa. We need to give
signiWcant weight to each criterium, understanding that they may give us diVerent kinds of
information (and may indeed lead to multiple labels or even multiple constituencies—see
Ch. 10). This is the approach I will attempt to take here. Syntactic and morphological
distribution will play a signiWcant role in the cartographic project as described in this
chapter, but at the same time we must recognize that semantic criteria are also frequently
used to characterize and justify syntactic forms.
220 controversies
pronouns or assign genitive case to their complements) or we Wnd items
that are modiWed by adjectives and express characteristics of an individ-
ual but bear tense and appear in the position typically associated with
verbs. This of course leads us to the question of whether categorial
descriptions of a constituent are even appropriate. I won’t address this
question directly in this chapter, but will point to it when appropriate.
11.2 The tripartite structure of the clause
A colleague of mine (Heidi Harley) and I were discussing a posting by
Daniel Everett on the Linguist List ( />17–2277.html) about the major discoveries of modern syntactic theory.
In particular, we were concerned with those discoveries that could truly
be called universals of clause structure. We agreed that almost every
major constituency-based theory—whether formalist or functionalist—
seems to have converged on the idea that the ‘‘backbone’’ of clauses

consist of at least three major parts. The Wrst part represents the predi-
cation or lexical relations of the event/state that is being described. This
idea Wrst appears in print in Foley and Van Valin (1984). In most
approaches (P&P, LFG, HPSG, TAG, Categorial Grammar) this corres-
ponds to the VP (with or without a VP internal subject); in other
approaches it goes by other names, including the nuclear predication
(Dik’s Functional Grammar) and the CORE (RRG). This unit expresses
the basic predicational relation with at least one (or more) of the
arguments associated with that predication. This structure sometimes
also includes aspect and information about aktionsart.
The next layer of structure reXects the context of that predication
relative to some speech time (i.e. tense and perhaps other related
inXections). In formalist theories, this layer is also associated with
the notion of subjecthood. The universality of a tense layer is more
controversial than the predicational layer. In LFG, for example, the
subject NP is not connected to the VP via tense unless there is an
auxiliary in the string. Nevertheless the subject is outside the predica-
tion domain (in an unheaded S layer). This layer seems to very loosely
correspond to the CLAUSE constituent of RRG as this is the layer in
which temporal adverbs and related material occurs.
Finally, the outermost layer of the clause relates the tensed predication
to the speaker’s attitude and intentions about the event and includes
such notions as mood, focus, topic, and illocution. In various formal
theories this is the CP or S’ constituent. Such a structure exists in RRG as
well, except it represents a separate plane of description.
phrasal categories and cartography 221
Speaker Attitude/Force/Informational structure (CP Layer)
()
Location of the event relative to speech time (S/IP layer)
Internal properties of the event/predication (VP layer)

We might even think of these layerscorrespondingto the three distinct types
of semantic interface: the lexical properties of the event correspond to the
predicational structure (i.e. the ‘‘content’’ of the expression of in terms of
truth conditions, independent of any assignment). The temporal properties
and notions of subjecthood correspond to the logical interpretation (i.e. the
truth-conditional denotation of the event relative to some speciWcworld).
Finally the outermost layer corresponds to pragmatic information beyond
the truth-conditional semantics. See Butler (2004) for a slightly diVerent
characterization of the tripartite structure of the clause.
It appears that there is a convergence of evidence for this rough
outline of clause structure, even if there are signiWcant debates about
the internal structure of each layer and how the layers are related to one
another. In the next three sections we look at the evidence for and
against each of these layers.
11.3 The VP
The verb phrase (VP) category has at least three major realizations in
modern syntactic theory. The Wrst, and more traditional, view of the
VP consists of the verb, any direct and indirect objects, and modiWers
of the verbs, such as aspectual markers, manner adverbials, and loca-
tive markers. It does not include the external argument. The second
view of the VP holds that subjects are also part of the structure at some
level of representation (Koopman and Sportiche 1991). Although ex-
plicitly not equivalent, this seems very similar to the notion of CORE
in RRG. The third view is a compromise alternative to these views
found in many recent versions of MP. Here the VP is split into two
parts: a lower part, which corresponds to the traditional view of VPs,
and a higher part (a light vP) that includes the external argument.
When discussing the evidence for and against VPs, it’s important to
distinguish between these three versions of the VP hypothesis as they
make clearly distinct predications. I will refer to the Wrst version as the

traditional VP, to the second as the VP-Internal Subject Hypothesis
(VPISH), and to the third as the split VP.
222 controversies
11.3.1 Classic constituency tests
Let us start with the evidence for and against traditional VPs. Leaving
aside coordination, we Wnd the following tests for a verb-object con-
stituent (see also Ch. 7 for discussion of V’ categories and Speas (1990)
for a slightly diVerent list and discussion):
(2) (a) It was eating peanuts that Bill did. Cleft
(b) Eat peanuts is what Bill did. Pseudocleft
(c) Q: What did you do? A: Eat peanuts. Stand alone
(d) Susan hasn’t eaten peanuts, but Bill has. Ellipsis2
(f) Susan ate peanuts and Bill did so too. Pro-verb replacement
Van Valin (1993) notes that all of these tests have particular information-
structure eVects. For example, clefting and stand-alone tests identify
elements that are in focus. Ellipsis and proverb replacement are typically
of deaccented topic structures. Van Valin argues that this is evidence
against a VP. Instead he argues, within RRG, for a Xat constituent
structure with VP-constituency eVects following from a lexically/con-
structionally determined (Van Valin 2003) pragmatic focus layer. In the
following diagram, the dotted lines represent the potential focus domain
tied to the speech act, the solid triangle represents the actual focus
domain which gives us VP eVects. The CORE is the Xat predicate
structure without a verb–object unit.
() SENTENCE
CLAUSE
CORE
NP NUC NP
PRED
V

Bill ate peanuts
Speech act
2 For an illuminating discussion of ellipsis, see Johnson (2001).
phrasal categories and cartography 223
The empirical observation here seems to be a good one. VPs are
typically focal. When expressing a simple declarative sentence, unless
contrastive stress interferes, the topical information is typically the
subject and new focal information is in the verb–object sequence.
Van Valin argues that, all other things equal, evidence for VPs dis-
appears since topic–comment structures are independently required for
communicative reasons. This is an interesting argument, but I think it
may well be of the chicken-and-the-egg variety. Consider an alternative
view of the mapping of clause structure into semantic/information
structure, the one proposed by Diesing (1992). Diesing claims that a
wide variety of eVects, including scrambling of speciWcs in German and
case marking eVects of indeWnites in Turkish follow from a bifurcation
of the clause into two domains. Presupposed elements (information-
ally topical) are mapped to the IP/TP portion of the tree. Without
exception, focal information is mapped to the VP. This includes
non-speciWc indeWnites, which are existentially quantiWed under a
VP delimited operation of Existential Closure.
()IPPresuppositional domain
NP IЈ
IVPFocal domain
VO
A wide variety of eVects have been seen to follow from this kind of
bifurcation, including object cliticization (Diesing and Jelinek 1995),
person hierarchies (Jelinek 1993), animacy and deWniteness eVects in
split case marking (Jelinek and Carnie 2003,Carnie2005), deWniteness
eVects in impersonal passives (Carnie andHarley 2005), and many others.

Compare this hypothesis to Van Valin’s. In the tree splitting ap-
proach, we can directly predict where informational focus will appear
it corresponds exactly to the VP. In Van Valin’s system, this is either
constructionally stipulated or derived through a series of complicated
principles from the argument structure (Van Valin 2003). The RRG
system also predicts the existence of focus systems that do not exist.
For example, one would predict the possibility of subject þ verb focus
domains in some language. To my knowledge no such language exists.3
3 Although this might be a reasonable interpretation of syntactically ergative–absolutive
systems as deWned by Dixon (1994), I think other descriptions of such phenomena are
224 controversies