5.1
Obliques
v Obliques
are any of the phrases within a clause other than the subject, direct object,
direct object, indirect object, or verb.
v Obliques
usually express a wider range of meanings than do subjects and objects. Some
express secondary characters.
(1) BENEFACTIVE
He
opened the door[for the small children].
Many nations provided funding [for the Persian Gulf war].
(2) ACCOMPANIMENT
He
ate dinner [with his guests].
Why don’t you come [with me]?
He
missed the dirt [with the manure].
(3) INSTRUMENT
Many people have learned to eat [with their fingers].
The mill will not grind [with water that is past].
We
make a living [by what we get], but we make a life [by what we give].
Let’s go [on foot].
Others
express setting.
(4)
TIME
He
awoke [late the next morning].
It has been too hot[the whole week].Most
successful sales come [after the fifth
call].
(5) LOCATION (of an object or an entire event)
He
saw the dog[over there].
Little mice sat [on a teapot].
(6) SOURCE (starting point)
He
came [from Alabama].
Please take that silly hat [off your head].
(7) PATH
They passed [through many twisted corridors].
One if [by land], two if [by sea]…
(8) GOAL (endpoint)
He
ran [to the back of the room].
I’ll put the letter [on your desk].
Other
obliuqes express abstract qualities characteristic of the event or of the
speaker’s attitude towards the event.
(9) MANNER
[Very
slowly], she backed out of the cage.
Sergeant pepper dismantled th bomb [with great care].
[Unfortunately], we cannot retain your
services.
5.2
Prepositional and postpositional phrases
v The
structure most used for obliques is a noun phrase combined with a PREPOSITION
(such as under) to form a PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE (PP), such as under the table.
Conversely, the most common use of PPs is as obliques, although we have also
seen them used as possessors, indirect objects, and even direct objects.
v The
preposition plays a pivotal role in a PP, since it signals the relationship of
the NP to the clause. For example, it is the preposition in the following
examples that indicates the grammatical relation of meaning of the phrase.
(11) to
Arthur Indirect Object or Goal
for
Arthur Benefactive
with
Arthur Accompaniment
on
Arthur Location
through Arthur Path
v Of
course, the meaning of the noun phrase itself also plays a factor, since many
prepositions can be used to express more than one meaning:
(12) in
three minutes Time
in
the candy dish Location
in
a huff manner
o Noun
phrase
(13) Benefactive: Juma cooked some porridge for
Ahmed.
(14) Time : The
rooster crowed three times.
(15) Goal and Time: Fatuna goes to the mosque on Fridays
(16) Location: Juma kissed Halima in the attic.
(17) Path: Juma
did not go by the path
5.2 Adverb
phrases
v Many
other words traditionally called adverbs are clearly not in the same syntactic
category as true adverbs. Degree words,for example, are traditionally
considered adverbs, but they cannot be interchanged freely with true adverbs.
(18) a. She
ran very smoothly.
b. *She ran smoothly very.
c. *She ran quickly
smoothly.
d.
*She ran very so.
(19) a. Don’t
speak so fast.
b.
*Don’t speak fast so.
c.
*Don’t speak fast well.
d. *Don’t speak
very.
(*means
that the utterance is unacceptable)
in some languages (especially SOV languages),
‘prepositions’ follow the NP, in which case they are called POSTPOSITIONS (also
P) and the phrases are called POSTPOSITIONAL PHRASES (also (PP). in a PP, the
preposition or postposition is the head and the noun phrase is called its
OBJECT, the structure that is generally assumed for PPs is as follows:
5.4 The
Distribution of Obliques
Obliques can occur outside of objects if they
occur on the same side of the verb, the object will be closer to the verb than
the obliques. Wherever they occur, the relative order of the obliques to each other is usually
free, while the order of subject, verb and objects is often more fixed.
(13)
a. I went to sleep in phonology class this morning.
b. I went to sleep this morning in phonology class.
c. *went to sleep I in phonology class this morning.
(14)
a. I was studying grammar with some friends until two in the
morning.
b. I was studying grammar until two in the morning with some
friends.
c. *I was studying with some friends grammar with until two in the morning
For
English we could write a VP rule like the following:
In English, obliques can also occur in front
of the subject.
(16) Last night, I studied too long
Also, some obliques can occur just before the
main verb.
(17) I was gradually walking up, when I realized
how late it was.
5.5 Complement
versus adjuncts
Most
obliques serve as modifiers within the clause and most obliques can freely
occur with all types of verbs.
Complements
are phrases that are required by particular verbs.
Adjuncts
are phrases that freely occur with all verbs.
Most
obliques are adjuncts, but not all are. Obliques expressing Source, Path, and
Goal, in particular, are required by some verbs and cannot be used with others.
The distinction is also sometimes applied within a noun phrase: the possessor
is a complement, and the modifiers are adjuncts.
(18) a. Polly put the kettle on the table.
b.
*Polly put the kettle.
(19) a. In a rage, Arthur killed the pesky fly.
5.6 How
to write your PP
Whether
a language has prepositions or postpositions tends to correlate with facts
about the order of constituents in other phrases. There are two types of
languages with respect to constituent order in clauses and phrases.
HEAD-INITIAL and HEAD-FINAL languages.
(21) Head-initial:
PREPOSITION precedes object in PP
VERB precedes object in
VP or S (SOV, VSO, VOS)
NOUN precedes possessor in NP
Head-final:
object precedes postposition in PP
objects precede VERB in VP or S (SOV, OSV, OVS)
possessor precedes NOUN in NP
possessors
in English precede the head noun, even though objects follow verbs and
prepositions. In other words, these CONSTITUENTS ORDER UNIVERSALS are not true
for all languages but represent UNIVERSAL TENDENCIES that are true for most
languages.
Let’s
bring our phrase structure rules together in one place and see how they work.
AP à (DegP)
A
AdvP à (DegP)
Adv
QP à (DegP)
Q
DegP à … Deg
Given
appropriate lexical entries, these rules will generate the following tree:
(23) Getrude cut the salami for my hungry
children briskly there with a knife at the last minute.
v The
most obliques can freely co-occur with all types of verbs, unlike direct and
indirect objects. Recall that some verbs are intransitive (they can’t have
objects), some are ditransitive (they require two objects), etc. In contrast to
this, the presence of most obliques is neither ruled out nor required by any verb.
v Thus, a
basic distinction is usually drawn between those phrases that are required by
particular verb, called COMPLEMENTS, and other phrases that freely occur with
all verbs, called ADJUNCTS.
v The
complements (such as direct and indirect objects) are those phrases that a verb
subcategorizes for; all others are adjuncts.
v Most
obliques are adjuncts, but not all are. Obliques expressing Source, Path, ND
Goal, in particular, are required by some verbs and cannot be used with others.
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