cats: puzzles/exam.problems/52.final 1. Q Launch (1) All the dogs have tasted cocaine. (2) The dogs have all tasted cocaine. (3) *The dogs all have tasted cocaine. (4) The dogs all like cocaine. (5) The dogs are all eating cocaine. (6) *The dogs all are eating cocaine. (7) The dogs have all been eating cocaine. (8) *The dogs have been all eating cocaine. (9) The dogs have eaten all the cocaine. (10) *The dogs have eaten the cocaine all. (11) The dogs are all dead. (12) *The dogs all are dead. These examples illustrate the odd syntactic behavior of a small category of words which we will represent simply as "Q". Another word in the Q category is 'both'. Our grammar as it stands does not have the Q category, and hence does not generate any of these sentences. Amend the grammar so that it does generate the grammatical ones, but still does not generate the ungrammatical ones. Make the rules explicit, and discuss thoroughly. 2. Wanting and Seeming (1) She wants to be happy. (2) She seems to be happy. These two sentences seem to have the same structure. Yet there must be some difference between wanting and seeming, because the two verbs cannot always appear in the same context: (3) It wants the beer. (4) *It seems the beer. (5) *It wants that she is happy. (6) It seems that she is happy. (7) It wants her to be happy. (8) *It seems her to be happy. (9) *There wants to be a fly in your beer. (10) There seems to be a fly in your beer. (11) *Close tabs want to be being kept on my whereabouts. (12) Close tabs seem to be being kept on my whereabouts. (13) *It wants to be obvious that you are lying. (14) It seems to be obvious that you are lying. We already have an analysis of sentences with the verb 'want'. Our task here will be to find an analysis of sentences with the verb 'seem' which can account for the differences. The key to the mystery is example (6), which provides a clue to what sort of deep structure 'seem' is inserted into. Answer these questions: (a) What sort of 'it' do we have in (6)? (b) Does 'seem' seem to be transitive (two participants in DS) or intransitive (one participant in DS)? Consideration of the following may provide further clues: (15) That she wants to be happy seems obvious. (16) It seems obvious that she wants to be happy. Propose, present, and discuss an analysis (modification of the grammar) that accounts for all these facts. Your analysis should also account for the fact that (17) and (18) are synonymous, while (19) and (20) are not: (17) Bill seems to like Betty. (18) Betty seems to be liked by Bill. (19) Bill wants to like Betty. (20) Betty wants to be liked by Bill. 3. Tough (1) It is tough to grade syntax exams. (2) Syntax exams are tough to grade. There is a peculiar category of adjectives which includes 'tough', 'hard', 'easy', 'simple', 'difficult', and a few more. Here are a few more examples: (3) These problems are hard to solve without a calculator. (4) Betty was easy for Fred to talk to. (5) It will not be easy for the gerbils to get out of the cage. (6) The cage will not be easy for the gerbils to get out of. (7) A course like this is tough to like. The problem is to amend the grammar so that it will generate these grammatical sentences (and no new ungrammatical ones, of course). The key is in example (5). 4. Q Launch Revisited (1) All the dogs seem to like cocaine. (2) The dogs all seem to like cocaine. (3) The dogs seem to all like cocaine. (4) *The dogs seem all to like cocaine. (5) The dogs seem to have all been eating cocaine. (6) *The dogs seem to have been all eating cocaine. (7) It is hard for students to learn all these languages. (8) All these languages are hard for students to learn. (9) These languages are all hard for students to learn. Discuss intelligently. 5. Derive (1) Max seems to want to like physics. (2) Max wants to seem to like physics. (3) It was like trying to get a pound of butter into a tiger's ear with a hot icepick. (4) The students were all tough to persuade to paint themselves blue.