Small Clause - Structural Analysis

Structural Analysis

Broadly speaking, there are two competing analyses of the structure of small clauses, flat vs. layered. The flat analysis judges the subject and predicate of the small clause to be sister constituents, whereas the layered analysis takes them to form a single constituent. These two competing analyses are illustrated here. Both constituency-based structures of a phrase structure grammar and dependency-based structures of a dependency grammar are produced in the illustration. The flat analysis is given first:

The a-trees on the left are the phrase structure trees, and the b-trees on the right are the dependency trees. The key aspect of these structures is that the small clause material consists of two separate sister constituents. The layered analysis is given next:

The phrase structure trees are again on the left, and the dependency trees on the right. To mark the small clause in the phrase structure trees, the node label SC is used. The main difference between these layered trees and the flat trees further above resides with the status of the small clause as a constituent or not. The layered analysis is preferred by those working in the Government and Binding framework and its tradition, whereas the flat analysis is preferred by those working in dependency grammars and representational phrase structure grammars (e.g. Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar and Head-Driven Phrase structure Grammar).