• Language and Information
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.33-52
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• 2014

This paper proposes a unified structural account of some instances of the English Modals and Semi-auxiliaries. The classification and the syntactic/structural description of the English Modal auxiliary verbs and verb-related elements have long been the center for many proposals in the history of generative syntax. According to van Gelderen (1993) and Lightfoot (2002), it was sometime around 1380 that the Tense-node (T) appeared in the phrasal structures of the English language, and the T-node is under which the English Modal auxiliaries occupy. Closely related is the existing evidence that English Modals were used as main verbs up to the early sixteenth century (Lightfoot 1991, Han 2000). This paper argues for a bi-clausal approach to English Modal auxiliaries with the infinitival particle 'to' such as 'ought to' 'used to' and 'dare (to)' 'need (to)', etc. and Semi-auxiliaries including 'be to' and 'have to'. More specifically, 'ought' in 'ought to' constructions, for instance, undergoes V-to-T movement within the matrix clause, just like 'HAVEAux' and all instances of 'BE', whereas 'to' occupies the T position of the embedded complement clause. By proposing the bi-clausal account, Radford's (2004, 2009) problems can be solved. Further, the historical motivation for the account takes a stance along with Norde (2009) and Brinton & Traugott (2005) in that Radford's (2004, 2009) syncretization of the two positions of the infinitival particle 'to' is no different from the 'boundary loss' in the process of Grammariticalization. This line of argument supports Krug's (2011), and in turn Bolinger's(1980) generalization on Auxiliaryhood, while providing a novel insight into Head movement of V-to-T in Present Day English.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.225-230
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• 2020

This paper highlights the influence and the importance of the syntactic-grammatical knowledge on "the reading machine", appeared in Jackendoff (1999). Due to the lack of the detailed testing and implementation in his research, this paper tests an extensive data array using a component of Google Translate, currently available freely and most widely on the internet. Although outdated, Jackendoff's paper, "Why can't Computers use English?", argues that syntactic-grammatical knowledge plays a key role in the outputs of computers and computer-based reading machines. The current research has implemented some testings of his thought-provoking examples, in order to find out whether Google Translate can handle the same problems after two decades or so. As a result, it is argued that in the field of NLP, I-language in the sense of Chomsky (1986, 1995 etc) is real and the syntactic, grammatical, and categorial knowledge is essential in the faculty of language. Therefore, it is reassured in this paper that when it comes to human language, even the most advanced "machine" is still no match for human faculty of language, the syntactic-grammatical knowledge.