Having established the fundamentals of clause structure in the previous chapter, we turn now to the syntactic analysis of the elements in clauses that are involved in displacement phenomena. This chapter investigates displacement of non-interrogative NPs and also CPs; Chapter 7, of verbs and auxiliaries; and Chapter 8, of interrogative phrases (including NPs) and related elements. The first section of this chapter examines the mechanisms of the computational system that produced displacement constructions. As discussed in Chapter 2, displacement involves a mismatch between PF and LF representations: a phrase that is pronounced in one position in a sentence is interpreted as if it occupies another. Thus displacement is centrally concerned with issues of semantic interpretation. The second section of this chapter deals with constraints on argument structure that place restrictions on possible displacement constructions. The third section of this chapter explores the notion of syntactic Case and how it can be utilized for the formulation of additional constraints on displacement constructions. Given our analysis of infinitival complements in the previous chapter, this question generalizes to covert NPs not involved in displacement – namely PRO (see (66) in Chapter 5). The final section of this chapter takes up the issue of the limitations on the syntactic distance between an overt NP and the corresponding covert position in which it is interpreted.

Displacement and the computational system

Inter-clausal NP displacement provides a paradigm case with which to begin an investigation of the syntactic and semantic properties of displacement, starting with a comparison of the two sentences in (1).

(1) a. It seems that the students are enjoying their new laptops.

b. The students seem to be enjoying their new laptops.