Suggested answer for Exercise 9

Meaning 1:

Jane wanted to try on a pair of jeans which was in the shop window.

Meaning 2:

Jane wanted to try it on in the shop window.

One of the constituency tests which you can chose from is pseudo-clefting. A pseudo-clefted sentence is like that in (1).

(1)

What .... is/was [XP ...].

In (1) the string following the auxiliary is always a phrase. If we apply this test to the sentence Jane wanted to try on a pair of jeans in the shop window, we get the following results in meaning 1:

(2)	a.	*What Jane wanted to try on in the shop window was [a pair of jeans].
	b.	What Jane wanted to try on was [a pair of jeans in the shop window].

In meaning 1, the sentence in (2a) is ill-formed. This means that the string a pair of jeans is no phrase. (2b) is a well-formed sentence, thus the string of words a pair of jeans in the shop window forms a phrase. It is a DP. Thus the PP in the shop window is part of the DP in meaning 1.

In meaning 2 the results of the test are the following:

(3)	a.	What Jane wanted to try on in the shop window was [a pair of jeans].
	b.	*What Jane wanted to try on was [a pair of jeans in the shop window].

In meaning 2, (3a) is a well-formed sentence, while (3b) is ill-formed. This means that the string a pair of jeans forms a DP, while the PP in the shop window is not a part of the DP.

According to the result of the test above, the structure of the sentence can be represented as it can be seen in (4). (4a) represents the structure of the sentence with meaning 1 while (4b) is the structure belonging to meaning 2.

(4)	a.	Jane wanted to try on [a pair of jeans] [in the shop window].
	b.	Jane wanted to try on [a pair of jeans in the shop window].

The string a pair of jeans in the shop window is one phrase in meaning 2 while it is two separate phrases in meaning 1.