Syntactic Analysis Of NP-movement

This thesis is intended to analyse the syntax of English NP-movement, especially in GB and MP. The former part of this thesis is focused on the theories connected with NP-movement. At the same time, the thesis gives a brief introduction of NP-movement. In GB, NP-movement is chiefly linked with θ -theory ,case-theory, and binding theory. In MP, NP-movement is mainly linked with checking theory. In this thesis, NP-movement in two constructions is discussed: NP-movement in passive construction and NP-movement in raising construction. Then, this thesis describes the realization of NP-movement in GB and MP respectively. The comparisons of the structures in which NP-movement occurs, the root cause for NP-movement and the constraint on NP-movement show the superiority of MP to achieve high standards of explanation, with NP-movement accounted for by a very small number of. assumptions about the structure of the grammar, most of which are necessary for any particular grammar. In GB, NP-movement is connected with D- and S-structure; in MP, structures are built up with two devices - merge and move, which simplify the description of NP-movement because there is no need of D- and S-structure. In GB, the root cause for NP-movement is the case filter which requires that every phonetically realized noun phrase should be assigned abstract case; in MP, NP-movement is triggered by feature-checking, with the possibility of the replacement of the notion of government by the specifier-head relationship. Both in GB and MP, NP-movement is a local one and an NP must be moved successive-cyclically.