Chapter 3: The Sentence Patterns of Language

head

(of a phrase) - The central word of a phrase whose lexical category defines the type of phrase: e.g., the noun man is the head of the noun phrase "the man who came to dinner"; the verb wrote is the head of the verb phrase "wrote a letter to his mother"; the adjective red is the head of the adjective phrase "very bright red in the face".

tree diagrams

A graphical representation of the linear and hierarchical structure of a phrase or sentence. A phrase structure tree.

adjunct

A phrasal category that is sister to an X-bar and daughter of a higher X-bar and is distinct from a complement.

recursive rule

A phrase structure rule that repeats its own category on its right side: e.g., VP -> VP PP, hence permitting phrase structures of potentially unlimited length, corresponding to that aspect of speakers' linguistic competence.

structure dependent

A principle of Universal Grammar that states that the application of transformational rules is determined by phrase structure properties, as opposed to structureless sequences of words or specific sentences; (2) the way children construct rules using their knowledge of syntactic structure irrespective of the specific words in the structure or their meaning.

declarative

A sentence that asserts.

yes-no questions

A sentence that requests.

transformational rule/Move

A syntactic rule that applies to an underlying phrase structure tree of a sentence (either d-structure or an intermediate structure already affected by a transformation) and derives a new structure by moving, deleting or inserting elements: e.g., the transformational rules of wh- movement and do insertion relate the deep structure sentence JOhn saw who to the surface structure Who(m) did John see.

constituents

A syntactic unit in a phrase structure tree: e.g., "the girl" is a noun phrase constituent in the phrase "the boy loves the girl".

constituent structure tree

A tree diagram with syntactic categories at each node that reveals both the linear and hierarchical structure of phrases and sentences.

phrase structure rules

A tree diagram with syntactic categories at each node that reveals both the linear and hierarchical structure of phrases and sentences.

S-selection

A verb also includes in its lexical entry a specification that requires certain semantic properties of its subjects and complements, just as it selects for syntactic categories. (s stands for "semantic".)

auxiliaries

A verbal element, traditionally called a "helping verb", that co-occurs with, and qualifies, the main verb in a verb phrase with regard to such properties as tense: e.g., have, be, will.

modal

An auxiliary verb other than be, have, and do, such as can, could, will, would, or must.

immediately dominate

If a node labeled A is directly above a node labeled B in a phrase structure tree, then A immediately dominates B.

sisters

In a phrase structure tree, two categories that are directly under the same node: e.g., V and the direct object NP are sisters inside the verb phrase.

dominate

In a phrase structure tree, when a continuous downward path can be traced from a node labeled A to a node labeled B, then A dominates B.

functional categories

One of the categories of function words, including determiner, Aux, complementizers, and pronouns. See closed class.

phrase structure trees

Principles of grammar that specify the constituency of syntactic categories and of phrase structure trees: e.g., NP -> Det N-bar, or VP -> V-bar NP in the X-bar schema.

spell-out rules

Rules that convert inflectional features such as past tense or third-person present tense into their proper phonological forms.

specifiers

The category of the left sister of X-bar in the X-bar schema: e.g., a determiner in an NP. It is a modifier of the head and is often optional.

C-selection/subcatgorization

The classifying verbs and other lexical items in terms of the syntactic category of the complements that they accept (C stands for categorial), sometimes called subcategorization: e.g., the verb find C-selects, or is subcategorized for, a noun phrase complement.

complement

The constituent(s) in a phrase other than the head that complete(s) the meaning of the phrase and which is C-selected by the verb. The right sister to the head in the X-bar schema. In the verb phrase "found a puppy", the noun phrase "a puppy" is a complement of the verb "found".

direct object

The grammatical relation of a noun phrase when it appears immediately below the verb phrase (VP) and next to the verb in deep structure; the noun phrase complement of a transitive verb: e.g., "the puppy" in "the boy found the puppy".

constituent structure

The hierarchically arranged syntactic units such as noun phrase and verb phrase that underlie every sentence.

structural ambiguity

The phenomenon in which the same sequence of words has two or more meanings accounted for by different phrase structure analyses: eg., He saw a boy with a telescope.

surface structures/s-structures

The structure that results from applying transformational rules to a d-structure. It is syntactically closest to actual utterances.

verb phrase (VP)

The syntactic category of expressions that contain a verb as its head along with its complements such as noun phrases and prepositional phrases: e.g., gave the book to the child.

determiner (Det)

The syntactic category, also functional category, of words and expressions which when combined with a noun form a noun phrase. Include the articles "the" and "a", demonstratives such as "this" and "that", quantifiers such as "each" and "every"., etc

verb (V)

The syntactic category, also lexical category, of words that can be the head of a verb phrase. Verbs denote actions, sensations, and states: e.g., climb, hear, understand

prepositional phrase (PP)

The syntactic category, also phrasal category, consisting of a prepositional head and a noun phrase complement: e.g., with a key, into the battle, over the top.

noun phrase (NP)

The syntactic category, also phrasal category, of expressions containing some form of a noun or pronoun as its head, and which functions as the subject or as various objects in a sentence.

syntactic category

Traditionally called "parts of speech"; also called syntactic categories; expressions of the same grammatical category can generally substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality: e.g., noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective, auxiliary verb.

demonstratives

Words such as "this", "that", "those", and "these" that function syntactically as articles but are semantically deictic because context is needed to determine the referents of the noun phrases in which they occur.

X-bar schema

a template or blueprint that specifies how the phrases of a language are organized. X-bar schema "stands for" the various phrasal categories given above.

rules of syntax

combine words into phrases and phrases into sentences and determines the correct word order for a language. In English, the correct order is Subject-Verb-Object

grammatical relations

information about who is doing what to whom

subject

the grammatical relation of a noun phrase to a S(entence) when it appears immediately below that S in a phrase structure tree: e.g., "the zebra" in "The zebra has stripes".

syntax

the part of grammar that represents a speaker's knowledge of sentences and their structures

node

A labeled branch point in a phrase structure tree; part of the graphical depiction of a transition network represented as a circle, pairs of which are connected by arcs. See arc, phrase structure tree, transition network.