LING- Chapters 7 & 8

tree diagram

a diagram with branches showing the hierarchial organization of structures

natural gender

a distinction based on the biological categories of male, female, or neither, in contrast to other types of gender

constituent analysis

a grammatical analysis of how small constituents (or components) go; for example, we can identify nine constituents at the word level in the following sentence: An old man brought a shotgun to the wedding. The 9 constituents are: An old, man brought, brought a, shotgun to, to the

grammatical gender

a grammatical category designating the class of a noun as masculine or feminine (neuter)

generative grammar

a set of rules defining the possible sentences in a language Example: a prepositional phrase in English consists of a preposition followed by a noun phrase

structural ambiguity

a situation in which a single phrase or sentence has two (or more) different underlying structures and interpretations; Example: Annoying professors can be fun. *this sentence has 2 distinct underlying interpretations: 1. It can be fun to annoy professors. 2. Professors who are annoying can be fun.

complement phrase (CP)

a structure such as THAT MARY HELPED GEORGE used to complete a construction beginning with a structure such as Cathy knew

gender

a term used in three ways: 1) a biological distinction between male and female, also called natural gender 2) a distinction between classes of nouns as masculine, feminine, also called grammatical gender 3) a distinction between the social roles of men and women, also called social gender

auxiliary verb (Aux)

a verb such as WILL used with another verb; Example: Brittany WILL follow.

complementizer (C)

a word such as THAT introducing a complete phrase; Example: Cathy knew THAT Mary helped George.

prescriptive approach

an approach to grammar that has rules for the proper use of the language, traditionally based on Latin; Examples: 1. You must not split an infinitive. 2. You must not end a sentence with a preposition.

descriptive approach

an approach to grammar that is based on a description of the structures actually used in a language, not what should be used

phrase structure rules

rules stating that the structure of a phrase of a specific type consists of one or more constituents in a particular order; Example: NP --> Art N according to this rule, "a noun phrase rewrites as an article followed by a noun"

lexical rules

rules stating which words can be used for constituents generated by phrase structure rules; these rules turn phrase structures into recognizable English; Example: "a proper noun rewrites as Mary or George" PN-->{Mary, George}

movement rule

rules that are used to move constituents in structures derived from phrase structure rules. They have a special rewrite arrow: =>

hierarchical organization

the analysis of constituents in a sentence showing which constituents are higher than and contain other constituents; Example:

grammar

the analysis of the structure of phrases and sentences

passive voice

the form of the verb used to say what happens to the subject (The car WAS STOLEN)

active voice

the form of the verb used to say what the subject does (ex: he STOLE it)

person

the grammatical category distinguishing first person (involving the speaker, ME), second person (involving the hearer, YOU), and third person (involving any others, SHE & THEM)`

tense

the grammatical category distinguishing forms of the verb as present tense and past tense (WALK vs. WALKED)

number

the grammatical category of nouns as singular or plural (Cathy is SINGULAR & cats is PLURAL)

agreement

the grammatical connection between two parts of a sentence, as in the connection between a subject (cathy) and the form of a verb (loves chocolate)

structural analysis

the investigation of the distribution of grammatical forms in a language; involves the use of "test-frames": The _________ makes a lot of noise. We can infer that all of the words that correctly fit in this slot are from the same grammatical category. (example: noun)

recursion

the repeated application of a rule in generating structures; Example: we can have one prepositional phrase describing location (ON the table) in the sentence "The gun was on the table." We can also repeat this type of phrase, using different words (NEAR the window), for as long as the sentence still makes sense. In order to generate a sentence such as "The gun was on the table near the window in the bedroom", we must be able to repeat the rule that creates a prepositional phrase over & over again.

surface structure

the structure of individual sentences after the application of movement rules to deep structure; Example: Charlie broke the window. = active sentence The window was broken by Charlie. = passive sentence *the distinction between them is an example of this

deep structure

the underlying structure of sentences as represented by phrase structure rules; describes where the basic components (Noun Phrase+Verb+Noun Phrase) shared by the two sentences can be respresented

articles

words (a, an, the) used with nouns to form noun phrases classifying those "things" (You can have A banana or AN apple) or identifying them as already known (I'll take THE apple)

conjunctions

words (and, but, because, when) used to make connections and indicate relationships between events (Tiffany's husband was so sweet AND he helped her a lot BECAUSES she couldn't do much WHEN she was pregnant)

prepositions

words (at, in, on, near, with, without) used with nouns in phrases providing information about time (AT 5:00, IN the morning), place (ON the table, NEAR the window) and other connections (WITH a knife, WITHOUT a thought) involving actions and things

pronouns

words (she, herself, they, it, you) used in place of noun phrases, typically referring to people and things already known (SHE talks to HERSELF. THEY said IT belonged to YOU)

nouns

words used to refer to people (boy), objects (backpack, creatures (dog), places (school), qualities (roughness), phenomena (earthquake), and abstract ideaas (love) as if they were all "things"

verbs

words used to refer to various kinds of actions (go, talk) and states (be, have) involving people and things in events

adjectives

words used, typically with nouns, to provide more information about the things referred to (happy, large, strange)