Chapter 5 Morphology

Compound-complex

sentence has two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause. - For example: When the teacher assigned the reading for the exam (dependent clause) many students were stunned (independent clause) but they agreed to study as well as they could (independent clause).

A Grammatical (well formed)

sentence is one in which the sequence of words conforms to the syntactic knowledge (rules) of fluent speakers of a language.

An Ungrammatical (bad formed)

sentence is one in which the sequence of words does not conform to the syntactic knowledge (rules) of fluent speakers of a language.

Phrase structure rules

specify how constituents of an utterance are arranged and what constituents can occur as parts of other constituents (the hierarchical structure of a sentence). - Statements like S --> NP VP are rules. A sentence can be described by listing a series of phrase structure rules starting with the most general (the top of the phrase marker) and ending with the most specific rules (the bottom of the phrase marker). The sentence "The art student looked at a very beautiful painting" can be represented in phrase structure these rules: S --> NP VP NP --> AP N AP --> Det (Adv) Adj VP --> Verb PP Verb --> aux V Aux --> tense tense --> past PP --> Prep NP

verb phrase

tells you something about the subject. It includes a verb and can include an auxiliary verb, direct or indirect object, and modifiers.

verbal base

the main part of the verb.

head of a phrase

the word that determines the syntactic or phrasal category of that phrase. - It determines whether the phrase functions as a noun phrase, verb phrase, and so on. - The head of a noun phrase is a noun; the head of a verb phrase is a verb. - If the phrase is made up of one word, then that word is the head of the phrase. If the phrase has two or more words in the lexical category that the phrase is named for, then the one that carries the central meaning of the phrase is the head of the phrase.

Synonymous Sentences

Linguists often use large words (active voice)/Large words are often used by linguists (passive voice).

Insertion Transformations

Words inserted into a basic sentence can not change the meaning of the basic sentence. In the sentences: - He knew she was here - He knew that she was here the word that is inserted in the second sentence. But that has no meaning. The addition of that is optional in this sentence. However in the following sentences: - He won the race is history. - That he won the race is history.

generative grammar

a finite set of rules that could hypothetically produce (generate) an infinite number of utterances. - It would enable us to generate all sentences an English speaker could produce and it would never produce an ungrammatical sentence. - The production of infinite utterances is made possible by the recursive property of language.

Topicalization

a kind of movement transformation. The topicalization transformation creates a derived sentence with a different focus or emphasis than the basic sentence. - The basic sentence: I love football can be transformed to Football, I love.

co-occurence restriction

a limitation on the use of a morpheme. For instance, a transitive verb is limited to sentences that have a direct object. *The boy threw* - is ungrammatical because threw must co-occur with an object as in: The boy threw the ball. a phrase can be labeled as a noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase, prepositional phrase, and others. - The phrase constituent structure, along with the labels of each word, can also be represented in a tree diagram.

prepositional phrase

a phrase headed by a preposition. It can function to modify a noun phrase or a verb phrase.

node

a point in a tree diagram where branching occurs. The following diagram and the tree diagram represent the hierarchical structure of language. That is, one constituent is often a constituent of a higher level or is a dominant constituent. And all constituents are part of the highest-level or most dominant constituent, the sentence itself.

Surface Structure

refers to an actual utterance that can be broken down by conventional methods of syntactic analysis. - It emphasizes linguistic performance, what the speaker actually says. - Surface structures are transformations of one deep structure. Possible Surface Structures: 1.John met Mary. 2. Mary met John. 3. Mary and John will meet. 4. John and Mary are meeting. 5. Will Mary meet John? 6. John is meeting Mary today to study. 7. There is no meeting between John and Mary today.and so on...

Prescriptive grammar or prescriptive syntax

refers to the concept that there is a correct and an incorrect way to speak, write, or sign. - What an English teacher or a teacher of other languages does in a grammar class by telling you that there is a correct or incorrect way to write or speak is called prescriptive syntax or prescriptive grammar.

Lexical Ambiguity (Polysemantic Ambiguity)

refers to the situation in which a word or phrase can refer to more than one meaning. Example: The women appealed to all men. Here, appealed can mean were desired or pleaded. The phrase "She cannot bear children" is an example of a surface structure with two different deep structures. - The sentence is ambiguous because the word bear is polysemantic (it has multiple meanings), so it can be interpreted many ways. - This is an example of lexical ambiguity.

Transformational Rules (T-rules)

relate the spoken form of a sentence (surface structure) to its underlying meaning (deep structure). For example: 1. The boy passed out the candy. 2. The boy passed the candy out. - The above examples are synonymous sentences. Yet the forms of sentences 1 and 2 are different. The phrase markers used to represent these synonymous sentences would be different. - We intuitively judge the sentences to have the same deep structure, yet the sentences take slightly different forms.Passed out is an example of certain types of verbal expressions that include a verbal base, the main part of the verb, and a verbal particle (Prt), in this case a preposition. - In the sentence "The boy passed out the candy," passed out is the verb, passed is the verbal base, and out is the verbal particle. - We don't learn sentences when we learn a language; we acquire a few basic deep structures, then learn how to apply transformational rules.

Descriptive grammar or descriptive syntax

rules of a language that one uses to combine smaller units into sentences. The term also refers to the study of these rules. - When linguists study syntax, they are interested in describing the subconscious knowledge that people possess about the syntax of their language. Linguists are not prescribing how they should construct sentences. - They listen to what people actually say and then attempt to discover the rules being used.

Complex

sentence contains a simple sentence and one or more dependent clauses. - Some examples using the dependent clauses above: Although it is tempting, I will not be going to Las Vegas.These are the people who would be travelling with us.

a derived phrase marker

a phrase marker after transformational rules have been applied.

Syntax Cont'd

- Syntax is our competence to generate speech from the stored language in our minds--the sounds, words, and rules. It is not just grammar or parts of speech. - Syntax is analogous to making a smoothie. The raw material is put into a machine (the brain), then the machine functions in a specific way to create something meaningful (speech comes out). - It's syntax that turns one thing into another--the generator of speech. - Even our thoughts are governed by syntax

Ambiguous Sentence

In addition to making grammaticality judgments, fluent speakers usually can detect ambiguity in a sentence. A sentence is ambiguous if it has more than one meaning.

Active or Passive Voice

A sentence can be in the active or passive voice. Voice is the relationship of the grammatical subject of a verb to the action conveyed by that verb. - In most English sentences the grammatical subject precedes the verb. - In an active sentence, the grammatical subject of a verb carries out an activity or purpose, as in the sentence Marco hit the ball. In the passive version of the sentence, the subject is receiving the action of the verb. The result is the sentence The ball was hit by Marco.Note that the word by and an auxiliary verb was are added in this passive construction. - The passive voice is wordier. The following is a passive sentence: Analysis and assessment of the quality of instruction by college presidents and deans are required so that suggestions for changes and improvements in instruction can be made. - The active voice is less wordy and ambiguous: College presidents and deans must analyze and assess the quality of instruction so that they can make suggestions for improving instruction.

deletion transformations

A sentence that undergoes transformation must have the same meaning as the sentence from which it was derived. - Transformations never change meaning.

english sentences

All English sentences (S) contain a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase (VP). An English sentence is minimally as follows: S --> NP + VP - Intransitive verbs can form a verb phrase by themselves. In the sentence: Fish swim, swim is a verb phrase composed of just a verb (VP --> V).

Completeness

All English sentences include a verb. But some verbs require another word - an object. - The sentence *The boy holds is not a grammatical sentence. - The word holds is a transitive verb; it requires a direct object. Thus, the following sentence would be complete: The boy holds a ball. - Intransitive verbs do not take direct objects. - The word swims is an intransitive verb; it does not require a direct object. Thus, the following sentence would be complete: The boy swims. These sentences illustrate the Linear Word Order for English- SVO.

Optional and Obligatory Transformations

As with phonological rules, transformations can be optional (stylistic) or obligatory. The particle movement transformation, topicalization rule, imperative transformation, verb phrase deletion rule, and pronominalization are all optional rules in English. They may or may not be applied. - In American Sign Language, the topicalization transformation is obligatory; the object is always signed first. - In English, the that insertion rule as it applies to embedded sentences is obligatory. It must be applied to the deep structure to render a grammatical surface structure. Another rule that is obligatory in English is called yes/no question formation. It forms yes/no-type questions. - Transformational grammarians assume that the deep structure of a yes/no question is similar to that of a declarative sentence, but with an abstract element labeled as Q at the beginning of the sentence, as shown here: #Q Aaron will eat his lunch # - The form shown here is a deep structure that must undergo transformations to become a surface structure question. The transformation simply involves moving the first auxiliary verb to the left of the subject NP. The result would be the following: Will Aaron eat his lunch?

Noam Chomsky

Born in 1928, has been perhaps the best-known linguist in the world for about the last fifty years. - In his view, language learning is motivated by an internal capacity to acquire language. - This capacity evolved, as humans evolved, into a universal innate human ability to learn and analyze linguistic information.

"That" insertion transformation

Even though the meaning is clear, the first sentence is not a grammatical English sentence. The that in the second sentence is a word inserted to introduce the noun phrase he won. The insertion of that to form a surface structure sentence is called the that insertion transformation. But it doesn't change the meaning of the sentence.

Phrase Structure Rules Noam Chomsky and Generative Grammar

In the 1980's, Chomsky introduced the Principles and Parameters theory. One problem with the concept of universal grammar is that languages vary so much in their surface structure. Or do they? - The Principles and Parameters theory postulates that even though there is variation in languages, these differences have specific principles and parameters (limitations). - For instance, modifiers, such as adjectives and adverbs, can come before or after the thing that they modify, but not several words away from what is being modified. - So the language acquisition device is "programmed" to allow certain possibilities and not others. Children have to learn from the speaking environment which possibility fits their language.

Imperative Transformation

In the imperative sentence "You come here" the pronoun may be deleted. The derived sentence "Come here" has the same meaning as the basic sentence. - This transformation is called the imperative transformation.

Phrase Structure Rules

In the phrase structure rules here, Verb is abbreviated as V in some places and spelled out in others. - It is spelled out as Verb when the verb can be broken down further. Looked at a very beautiful painting is a VP (verb phrase), which can be split into a Verb (looked), and a PP (Prepositional phrase) (at a very beautiful painting). - The Verb looked can also be further divided into the auxiliary verb -ed and the V (verb) look. In general, if a component of a phrase can be broken down further, a longer representation of the component is used. We could write the phrase structure rules for a second, third, fourth, and fifth sentence, and so on and each time incorporate the individual rules of each sentence into a more general set of rules. - If, at the end of this procedure, we had combined the rules of every type of English sentence into a general set of rules, we would have a complete grammar of the syntactic component of English. Such a grammar would be called a generative grammar.

Verb Phrase Deletion

Redundant elements in the deep structure of the basic sentence may also be deleted. For instance, in the sentence "If Stephen says he will study for the test, he will study for the test" all but the auxiliary of the second verb phrase can be deleted. The result is "If Stephen says he will study for the test, he will." - This transformation is called the verb phrase deletion rule.

Deep Structure

Refers to a highly abstract level of language that represents the basic meaning of a sentence. - It emphasizes linguistic competence, what the speaker subconsciously knows about his or her language. - Early Chomskian linguistics dealt with how the deep structure is transformed into the surface structure and how an infinite number of utterances can be generated from a finite number of rules and lexical items. - From one deep structure we generate several surface/simple structures. An Example: Deep Structure: Somebody met Somebody

Word Combinations

Some lexical categories of words can occur together and others cannot. - For instance, *the looked is not a possible combination of words in English. - The articles a, an, and the do not occur before verbs. - Articles occur before many types of nouns or gerunds. - A gerund is a verbal form ending in -ing and it acts as a noun. An example would be "the running of the Kentucky Derby."

Factors that don't affect grammaticality judgements

The grammaticality of an utterance is not based on whether or not you have heard the utterance before. - Language is productive so most of the sentences you create and hear or see (if written or signed) you have not experienced before. - The grammaticality of an utterance does not depend on whether you understand the words in the utterance or not. - You might not understand the sentence, "Polystyrene microbeads can be coated with a specified sensing ligand." However, this sentence is grammatical and would be understandable to a person who knew the meaning of all the words. Grammaticality does not depend on factualness. The sentence, "The president is a three year old cat" is grammatical, but not factual.

Simple Sentence

The terms simple sentence, compound sentence, complex sentence, and compound-complex sentence refer to the grammatical structure of a sentence, but sentences can also be classified on the basis of their meaning, purpose, or voice:

independent clauses

The two simple sentences in a compound sentence are said to be independent clauses, which is another term for a simple sentence.

Interrogative

These sentences ask a question. Has Andres just arrived?

Imperative

These sentences express a command or make a request. Erin, come here.

Negative

These sentences express denial, refusal, or the opposite of something that is positive. Darby is not here.

Declarative

These sentences make a statement. Christina just arrived.

Exclamatory

These sentences show strong or sudden feeling. Oh, if only Juan were here!

The Constituent Structure of Sentences

Using an analogy we can say that similar to a sentence, a car is made up of constituents or parts. The largest part is the car itself and can be compared to a sentence. - The smallest parts of the car are individual pieces of metal, rubber, glass, and plastic; for the purposes of this comparison they could be compared to individual words. (Words of course are made of even smaller units - morphemes and phonemes.) - The small parts make up the whole but function differently than any of the parts alone. Between the whole and the individual parts are various assemblies of parts that go together. - So, we can see a sentence as made up of small meaningful units (words). These units combine to make larger units, and then these larger units combine into even larger ones until we have the entire sentence as the largest constituent of itself. The smallest constituents of a sentence are the morphemes that make it up. Morphemes make up words. Each word can be labeled as to its part of speech or the subtype of its part of speech (lexical category).

recursion

a property of language that allows for productivity by permitting the repeated application of a rule, so that people can embed one syntactic category endlessly within another, such as noun phrases or sentences within sentences. - It allows one type of syntactic structure to be included inside another structure of the same type (such as a noun phrase) to create infinitely long sentences or an infinite number of different sentences. - For instance, a noun phrase can be made up of other noun phrases with connecting elements. So we can say in this utterance: the boy that chased the dog that chased the cat that chased the squirrel that chased the bird that chased the bug... - In this way we can create "infinitely" long sentences. - Phrase structure rules are recursive rules. For instance, the phrase structure rule PP Prep NP is recursive in that it can generate all the prepositional phrases in the sentence: The people in the car on the freeway in the fast lane by the wall drove home.

Simple Sentence

a sentence with one subject and one predicate. - For example: The dog ran away.

phrase marker or phrase structure tree

a tree diagram that specifies the function of each constituent of an utterance.

Determiner

a word used before a noun to indicate whether the noun refers to something that is specific or general. - In English, determiners fall into the following categories: definite and indefinite articles, demonstratives, possessives, and interrogatives. They are abbreviated as Det - The --> in a formula means can be written as or can be expanded as or is made up of. Some possible noun phrases: a. Jim NP --> N (N is the abbreviation for noun if it can't be broken down further.) b. He NP --> Pro (Pro = pronoun) c. The dog NP --> Det N (Det = determiner, which in this case is an article.) d. Six dogs NP--> Num Noun (Num = Numeral) e. The six dogs NP --> Det Num Noun f. My dog NP --> Det N (This determiner is a possessive.) g. What dog NP --> Det N (This determiner is an interrogative.) h. That dog NP --> Det N (This determiner is a demonstrative.)

dependent or dependents of a phrase

all parts of a phrase that are not its head. - In some approaches to syntax, these dependents are further broken down into specifiers and complements.

tree diagram

an illustration in the form of an upside down tree shape that shows the constituents of an utterance, with the most general at the top and more specific constituents at the bottom of the tree.

phrase

any constituent of a clause. It can be one word or a string of words. - Phrases are commonly named for one of their main elements. So we speak of noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases, and prepositional phrases.

verbal particles

are prepositions that co-occur with some verbs and can appear to the left or right of the direct object noun phrase.

Substitution Transformations and Pronominalization Transformation

are those that substitute a pronoun for some other part of speech or syntactic category. For instance: Tony thought that Tony was the best - can become: Tony thought that he was the best. This substitution of a pronoun is called a pronominalization transformation. Like all transformations, it does not change meaning of the sentence.

Noun phrase or a nominal phrase

does the work of a noun. Among other functions, it can function in a sentence as the subject, direct object, indirect object, and object of a preposition. - It could be a single noun or pronoun or a variety of longer forms: Julian mailed a letter. (Julian is a noun phrase and the subject of the sentence; a letter is also a noun phrase and the direct object.) - A noun phrase can be abbreviated as NP.

Part-of-speech ambiguity

exists when a word in an utterance could be interpreted as belonging to different lexical categories; for instance, the word could function as either a noun or a verb. Example: Andrew will forget tomorrow. The sentence can mean that by tomorrow Andrew will forget something, or that Andrew will forget something that is supposed to happen tomorrow and is therefore labeled as tomorrow.

Structural/Syntactic Ambiguity

exists when the constituents of an utterance can be arranged in more than one way, yielding more than one meaning. Example: Chris owns large dogs and cats.This is ambiguous because it can mean: Chris owns large dogs and cats (of any size). Or it can mean: Chris owns large dogs and large cats.

Lexicon

for a specific language is a list of all the morphemes that are used in that language to form words. A dictionary often lists only the words. Each morpheme in a lexicon is accompanied by a set of specifications that include information on the meaning, pronunciation, and various other grammatical features of each morpheme. - The lexicon specifies whether each lexical entry (each morpheme in the lexicon) is a prefix, suffix, or root. If it is a root, then the lexical category is also included.

Dependent Clause

has a subject and predicate but cannot stand alone as a simple sentence. It depends on an independent clause to make it complete. - Here are some examples: Although it is tempting... ....who would be traveling with us.

Syntax

is a level of grammar that specifically refers to the arrangement of words and morphemes in the construction of sentences. - It also deals with how these combined structures interface with external behaviors such as speech, sign language, and writing to make the combined structures useful in communication. - Syntactic rules are basically subconscious. People apply them automatically and without noticing and using the syntax is usually obligatory.

adverb phrase

is a modifier of a verb. They modify verbs in the following ways: 1.frequency (They came every day.) 2.duration (The students have been coming for the last five days.) 3.time (Tim will be here at 3 o'clock.) 4.manner (You should do it this way.) 5.purpose (Chris brought his report card home to show to his father.)

adjective phrase

is headed by an adjective but might also include an adjective modifier. Adjective phrases modify nouns.

Compound Sentence

made up of at least two simple sentences joined by a coordinating conjunction; in writing, punctuation can be substitute for the conjunction. - For example: The dog and the cat ran away. In this case, two sentences that are combined using the coordinating conjunction and are: The dog ran away and the cat ran away. The repeated elements are deleted. - Another example: We studied all day for the test; now it is time to rest. In this case, the semicolon takes the place of the conjunction.

Specifier

makes the meaning of the head more precise.

complements

provide further information about the head.

Universal Grammar (UG)

provides the general rules that allow us, at least as children, to learn any language, even with minimum input from the environment. A general blueprint that permits the child to proceed from the general rules of all languages to the rules specific to his or her own language. Chomsky believes that language learning is guided by an innate language acquisition device that is a result of human evolution.