Chapter 5: Syntax: the analysis of sentence structure

insertion rule

an operation that adds an element to a tree structure

nonmodal auxiliaries

auxiliary verbs that show agreement with the subject, originate in VP, and raised to I when there is no

syntactic categories

the category into which an element is placed depending on the type of meaning that is expresses, the type of affixes it takes, and the type of structure in which it occurs (includes both lexical and functional categories)

subcategorization

the classification of words in term of their complement options (e.g., the verb devour is subcategorized for a complement NP)

syntax

the system of rules and categories that underlies sentence formation in human language

X' schema

the template for phrase structure, indicating that a phrase is hierarchical organized with a head, complement and specifier

lexical categories

the word-level syntactic categories noun, verb, adjective and preposition

adjective (A)

a lexical category that designates a property that is applicable to the entities named by nouns can often take comparative and superlative endings in English, and functions as the head of an adjective phrase (e.g., red, obese, hearty)

verb

a lexical category that typically designates actions, sensations, and states; can usually be inflected for tense; and function as the head of a verb phrase (e.g., see, feel, remain)

noun

a lexical category that typically names entities, can usually be inflected for number and possession (in English), and in functions as the head of a noun phrase (e.g., key, bob, perception)

adverbs

a lexical category that typically names properties that can be applied to the actions designated by verbs (e.g., quickly, fearfully). May also occur in the specifier position for verbs (e.g., never surrender)

preposition

a minor lexical category whose members typically designate relations in space or time (e.g., in, before); they come before the NP complement with which they combine to form a PP

coordinate structures

a phrase that is formed by joining two (or more) categories of the same type with a conjunction such as and or or (e.g., those men and that woman)

coordination

a phrase that is formed by joining two (or more) categories of the same type with a conjunction such as and or or (e.g., those men and that woman)

active (sentence)

a sentence in which the NP in the subject position is the agent (the doer) of the action (e.g., Helen painted the room)

wh questions

a sentence that begins with a wh- word such as who, what , where, when (e.g., who did you see)

passive (sentence)

a sentence whose grammatical subject is the theme (the entity affected by the action of the verb) (e.g., the report was prepared by the committee members)

complement clause

a sentence-like construction that is embedded within a larger structure (e.g. that his car had been totaled in Jerry told Mary that his car had been totaled)

distribution

a set of elements with which an item can co-occur

conjunction

a set of inflected forms associated with a verb (also called a verbal paradigm)

lexicon

a speaker's mental dictionary, which contains information about the syntactic properties, meaning and phonological representation of a language's words

complement

a syntactic constituent that provides information about entities and location implied by the meaning of the head

merge

a syntactic operation that combines elements to create phrases and sentences

move

a syntactic operation that transports an element to a new position within a particular sentence

verb raising tranformation

a syntactic rule that moves the verb to the I position in S-structure in language such as french

movement test

a test used to determine if a group of words is a constituent by moving it as a single unit to a different position within the sentence

substitution test

a test used to determine if a group of words is a syntactic constituent by replacing it with a single word

coordination test

a test used to determine if a group of words is constituent by joining it to another group of words with a conjunction such as and or or

NP movement

a transformation that moves a noun phrase into the subject position

wh movement

a transformation that moves a who phrase to the beginning of the sentence, formulated as: move a wh phrase to the specifier position under CP

inversion

a transformation that moves the element in the I position to a position in front of the subject, formulated as: move I to C

transformation

a type of syntactic rule that can move an element form one position to another

phrases

a unit of syntactic structure that is built by combining words together so that the phrase consists of a head and an optional specifier and/or complement (e.g., the apple, bob, hurried to class)

intransitive verb

a verb that does not take a direct object (e.g., sleep)

auxiliary verb

a verb that must occur with a main verb that can undergo inversion (e.g , was in was walking; will in will win)

transitive

a verb that takes a direct object (e.g., hit)

transformational (generative) grammar

a widely accepted approach to syntactic analysis in which syntactic phenomena are described in terms of building phrases structures and moving elements (transformations) as a result of merge or move operations

specified

a word that helps to make more precise the meaning of the head of the phrase and that occurs immediately beneath XP (e.g., the in the book)

nonlexical (functional) categories

a word-level syntactic category who's members specify grammatical relations rate than carry semantic content (e.g., auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, determiners, and degree words (also called non lexical category)

modifiers

an optional element that describes property of a head (e.g., blue in that blue car, or that Gloria likes in the car that Gloria likes)

grammatical competence

competence in the structural aspects at or below the sentence level

constituents

on or more words that make up a syntactic unit (e.g., the apple in the apple fell onto the floor)

yes-no questions

questions that require an answer of either yes or no (e.g., is linguistic interesting? do you speak a second language?)

recursions

repeated application of the same rule to create a more and more complex sentence, such as a series of embedded clauses (e.g., this is the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that jack built)

direct object

the NP complement of a verb (e.g. a fish in Judy caught a fish)

head (of a phrase)

the category around with a phrase is built (e.g., V is head of VP, N is head of NP, A of AP, P of PP)

trace

the empty element, marked by the symbol t, that is left in syntactic structure after an element has been moved

matrix clause

the larger IP in which a complement clause occurs

parameters

the set of alternatives for a particular phenomenon made available by universal grammar to individual language

deep structure (D-structure)

the structure generated by the phrase structure rules in accordance with the subcategorization properties of the the heads

surface structure (s-structure)

the structure that results from the application of whatever transformations are appropriate for the sentence in question (also called S-structure)

do insertion

the syntactic rule that places do into an empty I position, making inversion possible in English questions

Q feature

the syntax, a feature in the complementizer position that marks a sentence as a question and that may attract elements (such as an auxiliary verb) to the complementizer position

Universal Grammar (UG)

the system of categories, operations, and principles shared by all human languages and considered to be innate

derivation

1) in morphology, a word formation process by which a new word is built from a stem-usually through the addition of an affix-that changes the word class and/or basic meaning of the word 2) the set of steps or rules application that results in the formation of a sentence in syntax or of a phonetic representation from an underlying form in phonology

modal auxiliaries

English auxiliary verbs in the I position that are not inflected for agreement which the subject (e.g., may, can, will, must, could) but may show tense )e.g., could, would may be past)

coordination schema

a blueprint for conjoining two categories of the same type with conjunction (e.g., [extremely poor] ap but [very honest] ap)

trees

a diagram that represents the internal organization of a word, phrase or sentence

determiner

a functional category that serves as the specifier of a noun (e.g., a, the, these)

degree word

a functional category that serves as the specifier of a preposition or an adjective (e.g., quite in quite tired, very in very near the house)

complementizers

a functional category that takes an IP complement, forming a CP (complementizer phrase (e.g., whether in I wonder whether Lorna has left)