Linguistics Midterm: Chapter 4, Syntax
Syntax, X-Bar Syntax: Modifiers of Noun Phrases
-3 types: example sentences= -(9g) the music and drama student -(9h) the student of music and of drama -(9i) the redheaded and bearded student -(9j) the student with red hair and with a beard -1= Specifiers (ex.= the) -2= Adjuncts (ex.= redheaded/with red hair) -3= Complements (ex.= music/of music) **Complements always occurs closest to the head N (whether they precede or follow it_, then adjuncts occur farther from the head (whether the precede/follow it), then specifiers occur farthest from the head (whether they precede/follow it) *Adjuncts and complements can occur before or after the head of an NP (ex.= music student or student of music) *NP modifiers are of three different types: specifier (daughter of NP), adjunct (sister of N'), and complements (sister of N) *Complements are always closer to the head of the phrase than are adjuncts
Syntax: Constituent Structure and X-Bar Syntax
-A theory of constituent structure that extends PS grammars in two ways: -Recognizes a structural unit intermediate in size between a phrasal category and a lexical category called a "bar" category (symbolized by the category with a bar over it or with a prime mark following it (N')) -Makes the claim that all phrase types have essentially the same internal structure; thus, this system of representation can be generalized to any phrase type (X, X', XP), where X stands for any category
Syntax, Transformations and Movements: Wh-Movement
-Accounts for the fact that even though "what" originated as the DO in the underlying structure, it ends up in the clause-initial position in the surface structure; provides a unified treatment of sentences (10a), (11a), and (12a): -(10a)= Tiny Abner has concealed the document -(11a)= What has Tiny Abner concealed? -(12a)= Has Tiny Abner concealed the document? *The underlying structure of all 3 sentences contains one and only one DO, and thus meets the criterion for acceptability set out in the original generalization -The DO in (11a) is what and is moved to clause-initial position by the wh-Movement transformation; the DO in (10a) and (12a) is the document, and it remains in its original position since it is not a wh-word and thus is not subject to wh-Movement
Syntax, Constituent Structure: Categories and Constituent Structure Interactions; Active and Passive Sentences
-Active and passive sentences are paraphrases of each other in which the object of the active verb corresponds to the subject of the passive verb; for example, X saw Y is active, and Y was seen by X is the corresponding passive -3 assumptions about active and passive sentences: -1= a passive sentence will have the direct object of its active version as subject; that is, the direct object of the active corresponds to the subject of the passive -2= the direct object of an active sentence is the NP directly under VP (or directly dominated) -3= that when two sentences with the same subject in active form have different subjects in their acceptable passives, it is because they have different constituent structures
Syntax: Tree Diagrams
-Allow us to visualize how the components in a phrase are related; includes elements such as: -Nodes= branching points in a tree diagram; can be described by relative position to other nodes: -Dominates= is above the other nodes it dominates -Directly dominates= is directly above (connected) the other nodes it directly dominates -Daughter= node(s) that are directly dominated by another -Sisters= two or more nodes that are on the same level and are daughters of the same node that directly dominates all of them
Syntax, Constituent Structure: Structural Ambiguity
-Ambiguity explained by the assumption that phrases are organized into hierarchical structures and that there are cases where more than one such structure can be assigned to a particular phrase -Example= "American history teacher" can mean either 'a teacher of American history' or 'a history teacher who is American'; if American modifies history, then 'American history' is a constituent= two or more words under a node in their associated tree structure that dominates all and only these words -The other structural option for the example is that history teacher is a constituent, whereas American history is not; this would mean that history describes teacher
Syntax, Constituent Structure: Selectional Restrictions
-Deals with the relationships between constituents; semantic constraints on the arguments (ex.= subject and object) that lexical categories (ex.= verbs) can take -Ex.= admire requires a human subject, and frighten requires an animate object
Syntax, Constituent Structure: Subcategorization Restrictions
-Deals with the relationships between constituents; syntactic constraints on the kinds of complements (ex.[ direct object, prep. phrase) that lexical categories (ex.= verbs) can take -Ex.= conceal requires a direct object (he concealed the bed), while sleep cannot have a direct object (he slept the bed*)
Syntax, Transformations: Wh-Interrogatives
-Given the example of "concealed" earlier as requiring a direct object, note that in wh-interrogatives, such as "what has Tiny Abner concealed?", a direct object is not only not required, but would be incorrect if included ("what has Tiny Abner concealed the document") =Declarative sentences containing the verb "conceal" require one and only one DO; interrogative sentences containing the verb "conceal" is acceptable if it contains no DO *Unfortunately, this raises problems because some interrogative sentences, such as "where has Tiny Abner concealed the document" don't follow the second generalization, as well as other interrogative sentences that conform to the first generalization instead of the second, such as yes-no interrogatives
Syntax, Transformations and Movements: Constraints on Movements
-Included in the theory of transformational grammar; each constraint is not part of a particular rule, but rather a restriction on what transformations can do in general
Syntax, Transformations and Movements: NP-Movement
-Move any NP to any empty NP position; this rule moves the object of a passive verb into subject position to create a passive sentence: -Ex.= Muffy was being pursued _____________ by the police | ^--------------- *Pursue is subcategorized for a DO, therefore, pursue must have a DO in the underlying structure of any sentence containing it; thus, in the passive sentence "Muffy was being pursued by the police", "Muffy" must originate as the DO of pursue
Syntax: X-Bar Syntax Structures
-One example for X-Bar theory is the phrase "the redheaded student", which was previously assumed to have the following structure: -^the^redheaded^student= can be interpreted as an NP and student can be interpreted as N, but redheaded student is not a constituent of any sort -One piece of evidence for the internal structure of phrases= pro-form substitution; a pro-form is a word that can substitute for a phrase that forms a constituent: ex.(i) = I know this [redheaded student] is better than that 'one'; ex. (ii)= I know [this redheaded student] is better than [one] -In (i), the pro-form "one" substitutes for "redheaded student", which means that "redheaded student" is a constituent of some sort; this constituent is intermediate in size between the NP (this redheaded student) and the N (student); moreover, (ii) illustrates that "one"-substitution is a good test for picking out such intermediate categories, since "one" will not substitute for the entire NP "this redheaded student": -Conclusion= the internal structure of a phrase such as "the redheaded student" must be something like: NP ^The ^N' ^redheaded ^N ^student
Syntax: Constituent Structure
-Phrases, clauses, and sentences are more than just a set of words or, as we have just discussed, categories arranged in left-to-right oder; rather, the are sets of categories organized into a hierarchical structure *as with categories, linguists have postulated hierarchical structures for sentences solely in order to account for phenomena that they otherwise couldn't explain -For example, the phrase "America history teacher" is an ambiguous one, as it could mean either 'a teacher of American history' or 'a history teacher who is American' *this ambiguity isn't lexical; none of the worse has more than one sense -We account for this ambiguity by assuming that phrases are organized into hierarchical structures and that there are cases where more than one such structure can be assigned to a particular phrase= structural ambiguity
Syntax, Left-to-Right Ordering and PS Rules: Recursion
-Ps rules also allow us to represent an important property of human language called recursion; recursion refers to the ability to repeat two types of phrases by embedding them in each other= that is, by allowing each type to directly dominate the other type -For example, the PS rules for NP and PP: *NP-->(Det)-(AP)-N-(PP) *PP-->Prep-NP -Recursion between these two rules is possible because an NP can expand into a PP, which in turn can (in fact, must) expand into another NP; this situation allows speakers of English to produce phrases that are, at least in theory, infinitely long
Syntax: Specific PS Rules
-Sentence: (S --> NP-VP) A sentence consists of a noun phrase followed by a verb phrase -Noun Phrase: (NP-->(Det)-(AP)-N-(PP)) A noun phrase must contain a noun. The noun may be preceded by a determiner, and adjective phrase, or both, and it may be followed by a prepositional phrase -Verb Phrase: (VP-->V-({NP/AP}-(PP)) A verb phrase must contain a verb. The verb may be followed by a noun phrase, an adjective phrase, or neither. The verb phrase may end in a prepositional phrase, but need not. -Adjective Phrase: (AP-->(I)-Adj) An adjective phrase must contain an adjective. They adjective may be preceded by an intensifier (e.g., very) -Prepositional Phrase: (PP-->Prep-NP) A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition followed by a noun phrase. *Note that each PS rule consists of two basic parts= the material to the left of the arrow specifies the phrasal category being described, the material to the right describes the items that comprise the phrasal category; parentheses indicate an optional term, if the item appears, it must appear in that position; braces indicate that exactly one of the items in the braces must appear in that position if at all
Syntax, Left-to-Right Ordering: Phrase Structure (PS) Rules
-Specify 3 types of information: -Which elements are permitted in a particular type of phrase -The left-to-right ordering of those elements -Whether any of the elements are optional
Syntax: Transformation(s) Definition
-The concept of transformation must be included in a complete account of the syntactic structure of sentences; a transformation is an operation that moves a lexical or phrasal category from one location to another within a structure -As with categories and constituent structure, linguists have postulated transformations in order to account for phenomena that they otherwise could not explain -Ex.= The verb conceal is subcategorized to require one and only one direct object NP (Tiny Abner as concealed the document OR has concealed Mary is correct; Tiny Abner has concealed AND has concealed the document Mary are incorrect)
Syntax: Definition
-The study of phrases, clauses, and sentences; in contrast to semantics, syntax is one of the better understood areas within linguistics -Words in a language or organized into different categories, have a particular left-to-right ordering, are arranged also in hierarchical structure, are related by transformations, and are subject to various constraints that limit their application
Syntax, Constraints on Movements: Subjacency Constraint
-This constraint prohibits an element from being moved across more than one S or NP boundary in a single application of a movement rule (the rule in this example is called extraposition, which moves a relative clause or prepositional phrase away from the NP that contains it to clause-final position): -(20a) The fact that [(s)[(NP) an article about Trump(NP)] was just published(s)] was unexpected -(20b) The fact that [(s)[(NP) an article ______ (moved to "about Trump") (NP)] was just published about Trump(s)] was unexpected -(20c) *The fact that [(s)[(NP)an article _______ (NP)] was just published(s)] was unexpected about Trump -"About Trump" is a PP contained in the NP "an article about Trump", as illustrated in (20a); thus, "about Trump" can be moved via extraposition to the end of the interior clause as in (20b), since it crosses only one NP boundary; however, it can't be moved to the end of the exterior clause as in (20c), since it would have to cross both an NP and an S boundary
Syntax, Constraints on Movements: Tensed S Constraint
-This constraint prohibits an element from being moved outside of a tensed clause: -(21a) All hell is expected [(s)______(moved to beginning "All hell") to break loose] -(21b) *All hell is expected [(s)_________(moved to beginning "All hell") might break loose] -"All hell" is the subject of an untensed (infinitive) verb (to break) in (21a) and thus can be moved outside of that clause; however, "all hell" is the subject of a tensed verb (might break) in (21b) and thus cannot be so moved
Syntax, Constraints on Movements: Coordinate Structure Constraint
-This constraint states that no element can be moved out of a coordinate structure: -(15) Do you pot [(NP) salt and pepper] on steak? -(16) What do you put [(NP) moved to the 'what'] on steak? -(17) *What do you put [(NP) salt and ______] on steak? -Salt and pepper is a coordinate structure; the whole structure can be questioned (replaced by a wh-word) and then moved to clause-initial position, however, one member cannot be questioned/moved, as in (17)
Syntax, Constraints on Movements: Unit Movement Constraint
-This constraint states that no string of elements that do not form a constituent can be moved together in a single application of a movement rule: -(18a) Did he climb [(PP) up the ladder]? -(18b) Where did he climb [(PP) _____moved to the where___]? -(19a) Did he [(V) fold up] [(NP) the ladder]? -(19b) *Where did he [(V) fold _moved to the where________] [(NP____moved to the where___] -Up the ladder is a constituent (i.e., a PP) in (18a), and thus can be questioned and subsequently moved, as illustrated in (18b); however, up the ladder is not a constituent in (19a), and thus cannot be questioned/moved, as in (19b)
Syntax, Transformations and Interrogatives: Movement
-Wh-Movement= a transformation in which wh-words don't originate in the clause-initial position, but instead originate elsewhere in the structure and are moved into clause-initial position by a transformation that is stated something like: move the wh-phrase into clause-initial position -Inflection Movement (also called I-movement)= a second transformation involved in the derivation of interrogatives; moves the tensed verb (which is always the first verb) to the left of the subject NP *Underlying structure= structure that exists before any transformations have applied *Surface structure= structure that exists after any transformations have applied ***The original generalization that the verb conceal requires one and only one DO applies only to underlying structures
Syntax: Categories
-Words are classified into categories or parts of speech; these categories are theoretical constructs, part of the unobservable theory of syntax; linguists have historically classified words into categories solely because postulating such categories helps them explain phenomena that they otherwise could not -For example, some words can be made plural while others can not; one way to explain this is to organize English into two categories: nouns (can be made plural) and others (which cannot) -Another category= determiner, which includes demonstratives (this, that, these, those) as well as perhaps possessive personal pronouns (my, your, his, her, its, our, their) *We cannot make even the most commonplace statement about syntactical observations without reference to the concept category **We can group words in a language into categories based on their behavior -Two types of categories: lexical (word) categories, which include nouns, verbs, adjs., etc. and phrasal categories, which include items such as noun phrases, verb phrases, adj. phrases, etc.
Syntax: Left-to-Right Ordering
-Words in English can't appear in any random order; for example, the phrase "the red car" is acceptable, but not "red the car"; the left-to-right sequence of items within a phrase is governed by principles that are codified in phrase structure (PS) rules
