Syntactic Movement: Analysis of English Sentence Structures - SEL2089

This essay provides a detailed analysis of syntactic movement within the English language, exploring its various types and their implications. It begins with an introduction to syntax and transformational grammar, laying the foundation for understanding the core concepts. The essay then delves into specific types of movement, including A-movement, A-bar movement, head movement, and phrasal movement, providing examples and explanations for each. It differentiates between A-movement and A-bar movement and discusses topicalization, auxiliary movement, and negative movement. The essay also touches upon the complexities of head movement and phrasal movement, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of syntactic structures and transformations in English. The essay concludes with a discussion on trace movement within the sentence structures that are followed within the English language.

Running head: SYNTACTIC MOVEMENT
SYNTACTIC MOVEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction
The scope of syntax discusses the concept of the sentence structure as a proper unit of the
language. The syntax refers to the linguistic branch that majorly deals with the structure of the
sentences. The syntactical factors that are implemented within the sentence structure refer to the
selection as well as the arrangement of the words within the sentence. The areas of syntax throw
special emphasis on the analysis and the description of the larger chunks that are presented
within the sentence and the ways in which these chunks contribute to the meaning of the
sentence (Potsdam 2017). The syntactic movement refers to the ways in which the discontinuities
are addressed by the syntactical theories. The movement was introduced by the various structural
linguists. The syntactic movement are generally expressed in the displacement or the
discontinuous constituents. The movement is always known to controversial in nature. The
syntactic movement has been known to be associated with the derivational and the
transformational theories that are related to the syntax.
The following essay attempts a discussion on the various types of the syntactic movement
that was observed in the field of English. The essay opens with a discussion on the concepts of
syntax and the transformational grammar. The essay thereafter sheds light on the A-movement
followed by the discussion on the A-bar movement. The essay further discusses the head
movement and the phrasal movement that is observed to have been present within the syntactical
structure of the English language. The essay reaches a conclusion with the discussion on the
trace movement within the sentence structures that are followed within the English language.
Syntax and Transformational Grammar

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The concept of syntax was introduced by one of the most celebrated linguists of the era,
Noam Chomsky. The celebrated linguist is known for the overall development of the
transformational generative grammar. The linguist is also held responsible for the majority of the
approaches that are undertaken by the scholars and the linguists who have been studying the
various patterns that are evident within the English language (Sailor 2018). The studies that were
conducted by Noam Chomsky as well as the other linguists’ state that the proper syntactic
structure within the statements tend to help in conveying the meaning of the sentence in a proper
manner. The linguists state that the ambiguity conditions that are highlighted in some sentences
raise issues in deciphering the meaning of the concerned statement (Rizzi and Cinque 2016). In
order to decipher the proper meaning of the sentence, the linguists had proposed the
understanding of the deep and the surface structures of the statement in order to demonstrate the
reason for the ambiguity of the statement.
An example of an ambiguous statement might be found in “They expelled 15 refugees
from Norway”.
The two different meanings of the statement are
a. They expelled (15 refugees from Norway).
b. (They expelled 15 refugees) from Norway.
The deep structures of the statements assist in the proper demonstration of the difference.
The deep structures for the above-mentioned statements are as follows.

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Poole (2011) stated that readings on the syntax made attempts in the discovery and the
understanding of the rules and the regulations that are generally used by the human beings in the
due course of speech. The experts state the human beings possess an innate sense of grammar in
their native language which helps them construct novel sentences at any given point of time. The
experts further state that the concerned human beings tend to follow a certain set of rules in
creating statements. These rules play a very important role in the proper understanding of the
statements that are articulated by the concerned individuals (Martinović 2019). The ambiguous
statements that have been articulated by the individuals might be simplified with the help of the
various transformations that are allowed within the language. The transformational generative
grammar that is implemented within the English language helps in the understanding of the
ambiguous sentences and at times helps in the clarification of the statement as well (Barrie and
Mathieu 2016).
A-movement
The Argument movement within the sentence is at times referred to as the A-movement
in the field of the transformational grammar. The A-movement presented within the English
syntax refers to the movements within the sentence involving the displacement of the phrases to
the positions wherein the phrases would be assigned a position that would be serving a fixed

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position in the maintenance of the grammatical correctness of the sentence (Zwart 2018). The A-
movement is observed within the conditions wherein there is observed a displacement of the
object to the subject position in case of the passive transformation within the organization of the
statement.
An example of the A-movement might be cited through the following statements
a. Mark played the game.
b. The game was played by Mark (A- Movement)
In the above statements, it is observed that the words “the game” had occupied the
position of the object in the first statement. The second statement demonstrates the passive
transformation within the given statement. The passive transformation within the statement led to
the change of the position of the object to the position of the subject (Bruening 2016). This led to
the shift of the emphasis of the statement from the person to the action.
A-bar movement
The A-bar movement is generally observed to have been different from the A-movement.
In case of the A-bar movement, it is observed that the phrases tend to hold the positions that do
not have a fixed function of grammar (Poole 2011). The A-bar movement presented within the
English syntax refers to the movements within the sentence involving the displacement of the
phrases to the positions wherein the phrases would not be assigned a position that would be
serving a fixed position in the maintenance of the grammatical correctness of the sentence (Lutfi
and Ahmed 2018).
Wh-movements

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The A-bar movements that are observed within the language tend to refer to the
movements wherein the concerned word or the word-group serving as the subject or the object of
the sentence are assigned to the positions prior to the verbs in case of the interrogatives
(Litvinov, Burikova and Khramchenko 2017).
An example of the A-bar movement in the English language might be found in the
following statement.
a. You think John shares his room with Charles
b. Who do you think Charles shares his room with _____? (A-Bar Movement)
In the above example, the second sentence is observed to be composed with the help of a
question transformation on the first statement. In the first sentence, the word “John” is a noun
phrase that has been discussed (Poole 2011). In the second sentence, however, the sentence has
been transformed in to a question and the noun phrase “John” is observed to have been replaced
with the interrogative “Who”. The question transformation of the statement has led to the
replacement of the noun phrase with the interrogative indicator (Kotek 2017). This in turn has
helped in the emphasis on the noun phrase “John”.
Topicalization
Topicalization refers to the syntactic mechanism that is used to alter the expression of a
given statement. In this mechanism, the chosen expression is highlighted to represent the clause
or the sentence itself through the positioning of the concerned expression at the beginning of the
statement (Stabler 2015). Topicalization is majorly known to have been resulting in the
conditions of the discontinuity within the statement as well and is thus known to have been one
of the established types of discontinuity. (Poole 2011)

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An example for topicalization might be highlighted in the following set of sentences.
a. I would not eat that slice of pizza.
b. That slice of pizza, I would not eat. (topicalization is observed in the objective clause
“that slice of pizza”)
In the above example it is observed that the objective clause “that slice of pizza” is
placed at the front of the statement. The second statement in this case highlights the use of the
demonstrative determiners (Poole 2011). This helped in aggravating the acceptability of the
topicalization of the argument that is presented within the concerned statement.
Distinction between A-movement and A-bar Movement
The distinction between the two major syntactic movements that have been taking place
within the English language refer to the relationship that exists between the lexicon and the
syntax of the language. The distinction helps in highlighting the role of the syntax within the
understanding of the language and there after discusses the theory of the change of the voices
from the active to the passive and vice versa (Mahpeykar and Tyler 2015). The distinction
attempts to highlight the change of voices to be derived from the syntactic activities within the
language. However, this theory of the syntactical factors within the language might be rejected
with the help of the issues that are related to the location of the distinction of the active and the
passive within the lexicon of the English language.
Head movement
The head movement that is undertaken within the given language states that the
concerned movement of the narrow movement in the syntactic activities which is known to have
been affecting the locality constraints. In case of the head movement within the language it is

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observed that the head of the given phrase has been moving (Kotek and Erlewine 2016). The
dependents of the heads have been observed to be left behind in case of the head movements.
Auxiliary movement
An example for the auxiliary head movement is observed in the following pair of
statements.
a. She has been ill for a week.
b. Has she been ill for a week? (Head movement of the auxiliary verb “has”)
In the above examples, it is observed that the auxiliary head has been moved. The second
statement highlights the movement of the auxiliary head without the movements of the
dependents of the auxiliary head (Poole 2011). This has led to the formation of a question in light
of the first statement (Stockwell and Schütze 2019). The above example highlights a case of the
subject-auxiliary inversion, one of the most canonical examples of head movement.
Negative movement
The English language is known to have two negatives “-n’t” and “not”. These two
negatives are observed to maintain a difference in relation to the syntactical factors.
An example for the negative head movement is observed in the following pair of
statements.
a. Bella does not like butter.
b. *Does not Bella like butter?
c. Does Bella not like butter? (Head movement of the negative verb head “does not”)

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In the above instances it is observed that the head movement in case of “does not” does
not follow the process that is followed by the auxiliary verb (Poole 2011). In this case it is
observed that the “not” stays back with the dependents of the negative head while “does”
assumes the initial position of the statement (Lee 2016).
However, this is not observed in case of the negative “-n’t”
An example for the negative head movement is observed in the following pair of
statements.
a. Bella doesn’t like butter
b. Doesn’t Bella like butter? (Head movement of the negative verb head “doesn’t”)
In this case, however, it is observed that the negative head has been moved. The second
statement highlights the movement of the negative head without the movements of the
dependents of the negative head (Poole 2011). This has led to the formation of a question in light
of the first statement.
Phrasal movement
In case of the phrasal movements, unlike in case of the head movements, the phrasal head
undergoes a change in the position within the sentence along with the dependents of the phrasal
heads (Douglas 2017). These can be highlighted in the sentences wherein the changes are
observed in the positioning of the phrasal heads.
An example for the phrasal head movement is observed in the following pair of
statements.
a. He will read the book.

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b. _____Will he read the book? (Phrasal movement of the subject pronoun “he”)
In this case it is observed that the subject pronoun “he” has undergone a change in the
position. However, in this case, the subject pronoun is observed to lack the presence of
dependents (Poole 2011). Thus, the pronouns are considered to be phrases in themselves.
Trace movements
The trace in the syntax of the English language refers to the gap that is left at the position
wherein the moved constituent is observed to have been appearing at a deeper level within the
syntactic structure of the sentence. The base position of the given constituent within the sentence
is often denoted with “t” (Friedmann et al. 2018). The “t” in this case generally stands for the
concept of “traces”. The traces are mainly considered to be a part of the transformational
grammar as discussed by the celebrated linguist of the era, Noam Chomsky.
An example for the phrasal head movement is observed in the following pair of
statements.
a. You like books.
b. What do you like reading t.
In this case it is observed that the object “books” is replaced with the help of the “t” in
the second sentence.
Barriers of syntactic movement
The syntactic movement within the given language face certain barriers in terms of the
locality factor that is presented within the constituents of the sentence. The syntactic movement
within the given sentences are found to have been dealing with the issues in the locality factors

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that are presented within the given sentence (Strang 2015). The locality factors that are discussed
in the concept of linguistics refer to the proximity among the elements that are presented within a
given linguistic structure (Bošković 2016). The various constraints that are implemented on the
locality tend to limit the expanse that can be covered with the help of a particular structure. The
restrictions of the movement might be used to deal in the explanation of the restrictions that are
presented in case of the syntactic movement within the English language.
Conclusion
In conclusion it might be stated that the various types of the syntactic movement within
the English language help in the enrichment of the compositions that have been completed using
the language. The areas of syntax throw special emphasis on the analysis and the description of
the larger chunks that are presented within the sentence and the ways in which these chunks
contribute to the meaning of the sentence. The syntactic movement refers to the ways in which
the discontinuities are addressed by the syntactical theories. The movement was introduced by
the various structural linguists. The syntactic movement are generally expressed in the
displacement or the discontinuous constituents. The experts state the human beings possess an
innate sense of grammar in their native language which helps them construct novel sentences at
any given point of time. The experts further state that the concerned human beings tend to follow
a certain set of rules in creating statements. These rules play a very important role in the proper
understanding of the statements that are articulated by the concerned individuals. The studies that
were conducted by Noam Chomsky as well as the other linguists’ state that the proper syntactic
structure within the statements tend to help in conveying the meaning of the sentence in a proper
manner. The linguists state that the ambiguity conditions that are highlighted in some sentences
raise issues in deciphering the meaning of the concerned statement. Thus, it might be stated that

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the syntactic movement plays a huge role in the overall development of the statements that have
been composed in English language.