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Summary

Appearing by fortunate happenstance on the 500th anniversary of the initial publication of More's masterpiece, this third edition of the Cambridge Texts Utopia (first edition 1989) was undertaken to update the editorial apparatus – ‘Introduction’, ‘Suggestions for further reading’, footnotes – in the light of scholarship published since the appearance of the second edition (2002) and also in response to my more recent thoughts on the best way of presenting this endlessly provocative and enigmatic little work of sixteenth-century Latin humanism to twenty-first-century English readers. But while there are changes to the editorial appurtenances, the translations of the texts they support – that of Utopia itself and of the ancillary materials from the first four editions of the work (1516–18) – are unchanged from the 2002 edition. That edition incorporated the extensive changes to the Robert M. Adams translation that were made for the 1995 Latin–English edition of Utopia that I prepared with the late Professor Adams and, after failing health forced him to withdraw from the project, with Clarence H. Miller. Especially since the latter edition had become standard for most purposes, it seemed desirable to incorporate the reworked translation into the Cambridge Texts edition, and without further revisions. For the same reason, the present edition exactly reproduces the 2002 version of the translation.

In its original form, the Adams translation appeared in the Norton Critical Edition of Utopia that Adams published in 1975 (second edition 1992). I remain grateful to the late John Benedict, Vice President and Editor of W. W. Norton and Company, who secured the blessing of that estimable firm on the incorporation of a revised version of the translation into the Cambridge Texts edition. For that edition, Adams also made new translations of some of the ancillary letters and poems. I prepared the editorial materials, and Adams and I vetted each other's work.

The many 1995 revisions to the translation were almost all made for the sake of greater accuracy. Adams, who was a wonderful stylist, was sometimes inclined to sacrifice accuracy to grace; nor did he claim to be a Neo-Latin scholar.

Summary

Overview

In broad terms, this book is concerned with syntax in general, and with the syntax of English in particular. Syntax is one of the two key areas of what is traditionally called ‘grammar’ – the other being morphology. Morphology is the study of how words are formed out of smaller units (called morphemes) and so addresses questions such as ‘What are the component morphemes of a word like antidisestablishmentarianism, and what is the nature of the operations by which they are combined together to form the overall word?’ Syntax is the study of the way in which phrases and sentences are structured out of words, and so addresses questions like ‘What is the structure of a sentence like Where's the president going? and what is the nature of the grammatical operations by which its component words are combined together to form the overall sentence structure?’ This chapter begins (in §1.2) by looking at a range of approaches to the study of grammar, before going on (in §1.3) to look at how syntax was studied in traditional grammar: this also provides an opportunity to introduce some useful grammatical terminology. In the remainder of the chapter, we look at the approach to syntax adopted within the theory of Universal Grammar/UGdeveloped by Chomsky over the past six decades. (Note that a convention used throughout the book is that key technical terms are in bold print when first introduced in a given chapter; such terms are generally given an entry in the Glossary at the end of the book if they are used in several different sections of the book, though not if they occur in only one section of the book and are glossed there.)

Approaches to grammar

A fundamental question that needs to be resolved at the outset concerns what kind of approach to adopt in studying grammar. There are two diametrically opposed answers to this question found in work on grammar. One sees the role of grammar as being essentially prescriptive (i.e. prescribing norms for grammatical correctness, linguistic purity and literary excellence); the other sees the role of grammar as being inherently descriptive (i.e describing the way people speak or write their native language).

Summary

The word ‘utopia’ entered the world with the publication of More's little book, in December 1516: it was coined by fusing the Greek adverb ou – ‘not’ – with the noun topos – ‘place’ – and giving the resulting compound a Latin ending. Within the book's fiction, ‘Noplace’ is a newly discovered island somewhere in the New World. The meaning that ‘utopia’ has come to have as a common noun – a perfect society, or a literary account of one – seems authorised by the full title of the book, which is (translating from the Latin) ‘On the Best State of a Commonwealth and on the New Island of Utopia’. The same Hellenist readers who recognised the etymology of ‘Utopia’ would also have found this meaning suggested by the fact that the word puns on another Greek compound, eutopia – ‘happy’ or ‘fortunate’ place.

When we begin to read the book itself, though, the plausible supposition that Utopia is a utopia is rapidly called into question. First, the explorer whose account of the new island the book purports to record turns out to be named ‘Hythloday’ – another Greek compound, signifying ‘nonsense peddler’. Second, the introductory, scene-setting pages are followed not by an account of Utopia but by a lengthy debate on whether or not it is worthwhile for Hythloday to enter practical politics by joining a king's council. Within this debate is another, recounted by Hythloday, on the problem of theft in More's England. Apart from a comic postlude to the latter one, these two debates seem entirely serious, and they are powerfully written: but what are they doing in a book on the ideal commonwealth? And when, at the beginning of the second part (or ‘Book’) of Utopia, we at last reach Hythloday's account of the new island, it is still not clear that we've reached eutopia.

The commonwealth of Utopia turns out to be a highly attractive place in some ways, but a highly unattractive one in others. No one goes hungry there, no one is homeless. The commonwealth is strikingly egalitarian. On the other hand, personal freedom is restricted in ways large and small.

Summary

The most invincible King of England, Henry, the eighth of that name, a prince adorned with the royal accomplishments beyond any other, had recently some differences of no slight import with Charles, the most serene Prince of Castile, and sent me into Flanders as his spokesman to discuss and settle them. I was companion and associate to that incomparable man Cuthbert Tunstall, whom the king has recently created Master of the Rolls, to everyone's enormous satisfaction. I will say nothing in praise of this man, not because I fear the judgement of a friend might be questioned, but because his integrity and learning are greater than I can describe and too well known everywhere to need my commendation – unless I would, according to the proverb, ‘show the sun with a lantern’.

Those appointed by the prince to deal with us, all excellent men, met us at Bruges by pre-arrangement. Their head man and leader was the Mayor of Bruges, a most distinguished person. But their main speaker and guiding spirit was Georges de Themsecke, the Provost of Cassel, a man eloquent by nature as well as by training, also very learned in the law, and most skilful in diplomatic affairs through his ability and long practice. After we had met several times, certain points remained on which we could not come to agreement; so they adjourned the meeting and went to Brussels for some days to learn their prince's pleasure.

Meanwhile, since my business required it, I went to Antwerp. Of those who visited me while I was there, no one was more welcome to me than Peter Giles. He was a native of Antwerp, a man of high reputation, already appointed to a good position and worthy of the very best: I hardly know whether the young man is distinguished more in learning or in character. Apart from being cultured, virtuous and courteous to all, with his intimates he is so open-hearted, affectionate, loyal and sincere that you would be hard-pressed to find another man anywhere whom you would think comparable to him in all the points of friendship. No one is more modest or more frank; no one better combines simplicity with wisdom.

Summary

Overview

So far, we have examined a range of syntactic structures which are derived by a series of Merge operations. In the next three chapters, we go on to look at structures whose derivation involves not only Merge but also a range of different types of movement operation. In this chapter, we focus on a specific type of movement operation called Head Movement whereby the head of one phrase moves to become the head of the phrase immediately above it. We focus mainly on two specific types of Head Movement operation – one which affects auxiliaries in present-day English, and another which affected main verbs in earlier stages of English. In addition, we also look briefly at how Head Movement can apply to nouns.

Auxiliary Inversion

English has a number of structures (illustrated below) in which we find a phenomenon which is widely referred to as Subject-Auxiliary Inversion/SAI:

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Summary

Overview

This book has grown out of a substantial reworking of my Analysing English Sentences book published by Cambridge University Press in 2009, which itself was a reworking of my Minimalist Syntax book published in 2004. Feedback from teachers, students and reviewers led me to make substantial changes to numerous parts of the text and exercises, and to add new chapters, exercises and references: details of the most substantial revisions are given below. This new book has three main aims. The first is to provide an intensive introduction to key background assumptions in syntactic theory, to how the syntactic component of a grammar works, and to the argumentation and critical evaluation skills which underlie contemporary work in syntax. The second is to provide a description of a range of phenomena in English syntax, making use of the theoretical concepts and constructs introduced in the book. The third is (through the extensive exercise material in the book) to enable readers to gain experience in devising analyses of specific phenomena, and in critically evaluating the theoretical and descriptive strengths and weaknesses of competing analyses.

Key features

The book is intended to be suitable for people with little (if any) grammatical knowledge and/or experience of linguistics; it is aimed at intermediate undergraduates, or graduates in the first year of a Masters programme. It is not historicist or comparative in orientation and does not presuppose knowledge of earlier or alternative models of grammar. It is written in an approachable style, avoiding unnecessary complexity and unexplained jargon. Each chapter contains

Summary

Overview

syntax of Wh-Movement in interrogative clauses. In this chapter we will see that there are other types of clause which can be argued to involve Wh-Movement, including exclamative and relative clauses. In addition, we will look briefly at a number of other movement operations (including Neg-Movement, Deg-Movement, Top-Movement and Foc-Movement) which have in common with Wh-Movement that they move a constituent into spec-CP. We will see that these different kinds of movement operation are specific instances of a more general type of movement operation known as A-bar Movement (because it moves a constituent into an A-bar position like spec-CP – i.e. a position which is opaque/invisible to agreement and anaphor binding). This chapter also serves a second function of exposing you to alternative analyses that have been proposed for the syntax of relative clauses, and you'll become familiar with the ways in which analyses are refined in the light of new data, and with the kinds of argumentation which linguists use to evaluate alternative analyses. In the exercises, you'll have a chance to practise your analysis, argumentation and evaluation skills in relation to competing analyses of a range of types of relative clause.

Wh-exclamatives

In addition to wh-questions like those discussed in the previous chapter, English also has wh-exclamatives (i.e. wh-clauses used as exclamations). In the same way as wh-questions begin with an interrogative wh-word or wh-phrase, so too wh-exclamatives begin with an exclamative wh-word (like how in 1a below, or what in 1c) or an exclamative wh-phrase (like how very strange in 1b and what big feet in 1d):

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Summary

Overview

This chapter provides a more in-depth look at the grammatical properties of words than was possible in the brief sketch provided in §1.3. It begins by recapitulating (and exploring in more detail) what was said about the categorial properties of words in §1.3, and goes on to explore how we determine what grammatical category a given word belongs to in a given use. In the course of the discussion, some new categories will be introduced which are not familiar from traditional grammar. We will see that categorial information alone is not sufficient to describe the grammatical properties of words and that a more fine-grained analysis requires the use of grammatical features.

Grammatical categories

In §1.3, we saw that words are assigned to grammatical categories in traditional grammar on the basis of their shared semantic, morphological and syntactic properties. The kind of semantic criteria (sometimes called ‘notional’ criteria) used to categorise words in traditional grammar are illustrated in much simplified form below:

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Summary

Overview

This chapter provides an introduction to syntactic structure, and to how words are combined together to form phrases and sentences. We shall see that phrases and sentences are built up by a series of Merge operations, each of which combines a pair of constituents together to form a larger constituent. We look at how the resulting structure can be represented in terms of a tree diagram. We also examine some of the principles which underlie sentence formation and explore ways of testing the structure of phrases and sentences.

Phrases

To put our discussion on a concrete footing, let's consider how an elementary two-word phrase such as the italicised response produced by speaker B in the following mini-dialogue is formed:

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SPEAKER A: What are you trying to do?

SPEAKER B: Help you

As speaker B's utterance illustrates, the simplest way of forming a phrase is by merging (a technical term meaning ‘combining’) two words together: for example, by merging the word help with the pronoun you in (1), we form the phrase help you. The resulting phrase help you has verb-like rather than pronoun-like properties, as we see from the observation that it can occupy the same range of positions as the simple verb help, and hence, for example, occur after the infinitive particle to: cf.

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Preface

Summary

Frontmatter

6 - Wh-Movement

Utopia

1 - Grammar

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Index

Introduction

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Chronology

Book I

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5 - Head Movement

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Preface

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Contents

Frontmatter

References

7 - A-bar Movement

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Contents

2 - Words

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Textual practices

Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought

3 - Structure

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