申論題

Part 2.(25%)
A syntactic constituent is a string of words that functions as a unit. Syntacticians use various tests to determine whether a word string is a constituent. One such test is substitution. If the test string can be replaced with the appropriate pronoun without making the sentence ungrammatical, then it is a constituent. For example, in John had a cat with blue eyes, John is a constituent (John had a cat with blue eyes → He had a cat with blue eyes) but cat with blue eyes is not (John had a cat with blue eyes → *John had a it, where * indicates ungrammaticality). For a verb phrase, we can test its constituency by substituting the appropriate form of do so. For example, in John hit the ball, hit the ball is a constituent (John hit the ball → John did so) but hit alone is not (John hit the ball →*John did so the ball).

Question 2-1. Use the substitution test described above to identify all constituents in the following sentence. Explain how you discovered the constituents. (20%)
 The tall man might have taken the pen away.