Like Herb, I'm not fond of either analysis, but it's a good question.

Apart from the things Herb mentions, also notice the way inverted and
pseudo-cleft sentences behave:

1:
 (a) My puppy can demolish her toys in no time.
 (b) Demolish her toys in no time my puppy can.
 (c) *Can demolish her toys in no time my puppy.
 (d) Demolish her toys in no time is what my puppy can do.
 (e) *Can demolish is what my puppy (does) her toys in no time.
 (f) *Can demolish her toys in no time is what my puppy (does).

Now compare the same variations without an auxiliary:

2:
 (a) My puppy demolished her toys in no time.
 (b) Demolished her toys in no time my puppy did.
 (c) *Demolished her toys in no time my puppy.
 (d) Demolish her toys in no time is what my puppy did.
 (e) *Demolished is what my puppy her toys in no time.
 (f) *Demolished her toys in no time is what my puppy.

Notice that in general, the tense cannot be fronted. It must stay in
place even if we need to add a dummy auxiliary to hold the tense. (2b
does have a redundant tense, but the 'did' at the end is mandatory.)

So not only does the tense move without the lexical VP (Herb's
examples), but the VP moves without the tense.

Rather than a MVP, or even a single AUX unit, I prefer to say that an
auxiliary verb simply takes a non-finite VP as a complement, and when
you have a string of auxiliaries, each auxiliary has the next as its
complement so (to use a perversely complex example):

 the school [should [have [been [being [renovated during the summer.]]]]]

Karl Hagen
Department of English
Mount St. Mary's College

Stahlke, Herbert F.W. wrote:

>This is a variant of an old analysis, going all the way back to Chomsky's Syntactic Structures.  I'm not particularly fond of the analysis, particularly not of the notion MVP.  That one belongs in baseball.  However, an important reason for keeping tense in the AUX and not in the V is that it associates with the AUX if there is one.  Tense always appears on the first AUX.  In questions, negatives, and emphatics, if there is no auxiliary verb, tense associates with the place-holder AUX "do".  It moves with the AUX in subject-verb inversion.  The only time it actually shows up on the V is if the sentence has no auxiliary verb and is affirmative active declarative non-emphatis.
>
>Herb
>
>
>
>
>
>       Klammer, Schulz, and Volpe list TENSE as a part of AUX:
>
>       AUX --> TENSE + (MODAL) + (HAVE) + (BE)
>
>       My Advanced Grammar students want to know why TENSE can't be part of the
>       MVP:
>
>       MVP --> TENSE + (AUX) + MV
>
>       I have no good answer, but I bet many of you out there do.  Help!
>
>       John
>
>       To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
>            http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
>       and select "Join or leave the list"
>
>       Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
>
>
>

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/