Syntactic Structures

Chomsky's definition of a grammatical transformation T

"A grammatical transformation T operates on a given string with a given constituent structure and converts it into a new string with a new derived constituent structure."

Why isn't English a finite state language?

"Any attempt to construct a finite state grammar for English runs into serious difficulties and complications at the very outset, as the reader can easily convince himself. However, it is unnecessary to attempt to show this by example, in view of the following more general remark about English: (9) English is not a finite state langugage. That is, it is impossible, not just difficult, to construct a device of the type described above (the diagram) which will produce all and only the grammatical sentences of English." Then he proceeds to explaining why these kinds of models can never provide an exhaustive list of all possible sentences (sbr. (10) á bls. 21). Sentences structures are infinite, we can always add more, and thus it is difficult to assume a finiteness starting at one point and ending at another. It is impossible to list all possible sentences. "If a grammar of this type produces all English sentences, it will produce many non-sentences as well"

the kernel

"the kernel of the language is the set of sentences that are produced when we apply obligatory transformations to the terminal strings of the grammar." (þ.e. einhvers konar djúpgerðir) — þolmynd væri til dæmis ekki kernel

negatives and interrogatives ...

... come from the same kernel

Which three models does Chomsky propose in SS?

1) "a certain very simple communicative theoretic model of language" 2) "immediate constituent analysis" 3) the transformational model!

Which tree phases can be identified in work on generative grammar?

1) Syntactic Structures (1957) 2) Government & Binding (UG) 3) Minimalism

Hvaða ár kom SS út?

1957

Chomsky's definition of a Grammar

A device for producing the grammatical sentences of the language under analysis.

Chomsky's definition of a language?

A language is a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements. All natural languages in their spoken or written form are languages in this sense, since each natural language has a finite number of phonemes (or letters in its alphabet) and each sentence is representable as a finite sequence of these phonemes (or letters), though there are infinitely many sentences.

Chomsky on semantics in SS:

Chomsky argued that grammars are autonomous and independent of meaning in the sense that their primitives are not defined in semantic terms. That "should not, however, blind us to the fact that there are striking correspondences between the structures and elements that are discovered in formal, grammatical analysis and specific semantic functions"

Chomsky's new treatment of English auxiliary verbs

Chomsky proposed a simple Auxiliary Transformation, later dubbed "affix hopping," whereby an affix like -ing, -en, or an abstract tense marker, could be moved to the immediate right of an adjacent verb.

ECP

Empty Category Principle. All traces must be properly governed.

Finite state languages and terminal languages

Every finite state language is a terminal language, but there are terminal languages which are not finite state languages (p. 30). (The import of this theorem is that des

terminal string — terminal language

If a string is the last line of a terminated derivation, we say that it is a terminal string. A set of strings is called a terminal language if it is the set of terminal strings for some grammar

obligatory vs optional transformations

If the obligatory ones do not occur, the sentences would be ungrammatical, but if the optional ones do not occur, then they're grammatical anyways

"constructional homonymity and linguistic levels

Linguistic theory cannot content itself by just generating valid grammatical sentences. It also has to account for other structural phenomena at different levels of linguistic representation. At a certain linguistic level, there can be two items which can be understood having different meanings but they are structurally indistinguishable within that level (regarding to Phrase Stracture). This is called a "constructional homonymity". The relevant ambiguity can be resolved by establishing a higher level of linguistic analysis. At this higher level, the two items can be clearly shown having two different structural interpretations. In this way, constructional homonymities at the phonemic level can be resolved by establishing the level of morphology, and so forth. One of the motivations of establishing a distinct, higher level of linguistic analysis is, then, to explain the structural ambiguity due to the constructional homonymities at a lower level. On the other hand, each linguistic level also captures some structural similarities within the level that are not explained in lower levels. Chomsky uses this argument as well to motivate the establishment of distinct levels of linguistic analysis.

Obligatory and optional transformational rules

Obligatory eru þær sem verða að gerast (ef þær gerast ekki, verður setningin ógrammatísk) en optional eru þær sem geta gerst en þurfa ekki að gerast, hvort sem er væri grammatískt.

Hver skrifaði ritdóm um SS í Language sem kom, skv. Chomsky sjálfum, bókinni á kortið?

Robert Lees

Chomsky's analysis of ECM in SS?

Sjá bls. 76-77

LSLT

The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory. written in 1955 and published in 1975

Poverty of stimulus

The poverty of stimulus (POS) is a linguistic argument that children don't receive enough linguistic data to learn every aspect of their language.

Helsta markmiðið með Syntactic Structures?

To construct a formalized general theory of linguistic structure, free of intuition-bound notions. This is a truly scientific perspective.

What is the fundamental aim in the linguistic analysis of a language L?

To separate the grammatical sequences which are the sentences of L from the ungrammatical sequences which are not sentences of L and to study the structure of the grammatical sentences.

State diagrams; finite state Markov processes

We assume a machine (finite state machine) that begins with an initial state and ends in the final state. The sequence of words that has been produced is a "sentence". Each such machine thus defines a certain language; namely, the set of sentences that can be produced in this way. Any language that can be produced by a machine of this sort we call a FINITE STATE LANGUAGE; and we can call the machine itself a FINITE STATE GRAMMAR This finite state grammar can be represented graphically in the form of a "state diagram". Given a state diagram, we produce a sentence by tracing a path from the initial point on the left to the final point on the right, always proceeding in the direction of the arrows. Having reached a certain point in the diagram, we can proceed along any path leading from this point, whether or not this path has been traversed before in constructing the sentence in constructing the sentence in question. We can allow transition from one state to another in several ways, and we can have any number of closed loops of any length. The machines that produce languages in this manner are known mathematically as "finite state Markov processes".

Why doesn't phrase structure work either? (explanation no. 2)

We cannot account for ambiguity; cf. constructional homonymity. We need additional (transformational) levels to account for the two different structures of such ambiguous examples. passive-actives... we have to be able to distinguish "be + en" passive auxiliaries from other auxiliaries, because if we derive "the food is eaten by John" as an auxiliary, we get the active "the food is eating John", which is not correct.

"equivalent" derivations

We say that two derivations are equivalent if they reduce to the same diagram of the form (15) (bls. 27-28)

constructional homonymity

When nonequivalent derivations can be constructed for a given sentence

the principle of the cyclic application of rules

affecting most deeply embedded domains first, and then working up through less deeply embedded domains sequentially

why can't it be that passives are the kernel?

all verbs in passive form can be turned into an active form, but not all active verbs can be passivized (intransitives)

three different kinds of procedures for discovering grammars?

discovery (kind of like language acquisition), decision (yes/no for each particular grammar), or evaluation (choosing between two)

external conditions of adequacy and a condition of generality

external conditions of adequacy = the sentences generated will have to be acceptable to the native speaker. a condition of generality = the requirement that the grammar of a given language be constructed in accordance with a specific theory of linguistic structure in which such terms as "phoneme" and "phrase" are defined independently of any particular language

Chomsky's redefinition of grammaticalness

sentences do not need to be meaningful or significant in any semantic sense to be grammatical, not statisticallly frequent. They could be read with normal intonation contours, recalled readily, and learned quickly. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously — this is a grammatical sentence "A semanticallly base definition of grammaticalness will be futile"

informally, what kind of sentences are the kernel ones?

the kernel consist of simple, declarative, active sentences

kernel sentences

what we might now view as D-structures or proto-types.