hg8001

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HG8001 Syntax

Francesco

Yoda Talk • 

YODA: Away put you weapon, I mean you no harm!

•  YODA: I'm wondering, why are you here? LUKE: I'm looking for someone... YODA: Looking? Found someone you have I would say hmmm? LUKE: Right. YODA: Help you I can, yes...mmm LUKE: I don't think so, I'm looking for a great warrior. YODA: Ahhh! Great warrior. Wars not make one great...

GRAMMAR!!!

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Phonetics

•  Cat -> cats •  [ket] -> [kets]

•  Dog -> dogs •  [dog] -> [dogz]

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Morphology review

•  What is the subject matter of morphology? – The study of the structure of words

•  What is a word? – An arbitrary pairing of sound and meaning

•  What is a morpheme? – Building blocks of complex words

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Morphology review

•  You should be able to explain the following distinctions:

–  Content words and function words •  Content à concepts, open class •  Function à grammatical function, closed class

–  Bound and free morphemes •  Free: independent words bound: affixes

–  Derivational morphology and inflectional morphology •  Derivational: root + bound morpheme =new word with new meaning •  Inflectional: root + bound morpheme = new word with marking of

some grammatical aspect.

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Morphology review •  Word formation •  Morphology (and Semantics) show how new words are

created. –  Word formation rules (derivations) –  Coining –  Compounding –  Blending –  Acronyms –  Clippings –  Backformation –  Conversion

Grammar - morphology

•  Friend •  Friend-ly •  Un-friend (new from Facebook?) •  Un-friend-ly •  Friend-li-er •  Affection-ate-ly •  *affectionatelier

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Morphology review

•  The hierarchical structure of words –  What’s the evidence? –  How do we represent the hierarchical structure of

words? •  Think of an ambiguous word and represent the

meanings in tree diagrams

Untieable Adjective

Verb

Verb

tie

“Can be untied”

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Un-

-able

Adjective

Un- Adjective

Verb -able

tie “Cannot be tied”

Compare with: “Can be untied”

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Untieable

Grammar relations

•  I eat •  She eat-s

•  The morphological change is decided by the subject

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•  Subject is a word or phrase that does an action and usually comes before the verb

•  Object is a word or phrase that receives an action and usually comes after the verb

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The tests of subjecthood 1

•  Subject-verb agreement –  Number

•  He is, they are –  Person

•  I am, you are, he is, we are

•  Examples: –  The French Chanter ‘to sing’ –  The Italian parlare “to speak”

singular plural

1st person

Je chante parlo

Nous chantons parliamo

2nd person

Tu chantes parli

Vous chantez parlate

3rd person

Il chante parla

Ils chantent parlano

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Syntax

•  What is syntax? – The study of sentence structure

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Grammaticality

•  Grammatical sentences are sequences of words that conform to the rules of syntax.

•  Ungrammatical sentences violate syntactic rules (among other rules … J)

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Grammaticality judgment

•  Language speakers have intuitions about grammaticality – The boy found the ball – *The boy found quickly – *The boy found in the house – The boy quickly found the ball in the house

Are these sentences grammatical?

•  Humongous short haired buffoons in purple pants sang at the party

•  Colorless green ideas sleep furiously •  The earth is flat •  Singapore is a cold and dry place. •  Francesco is a bad teacher

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Grammaticality judgment •  The ability to make grammaticality judgments does NOT

depend on:

–  Having heard the sentence before •  Humongous short haired buffoons in purple pants sang at the

party

–  Whether a sentence is meaningful or not •  Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

–  The truth of sentences •  The earth is flat •  Singapore is a cold and dry place. •  Francesco is a bad teacher

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Grammaticality judgment

•  Ungrammaticality – You may understand the meaning of a

sentence and still judge it to be ungrammatical *The boy in quickly the house the ball found *The in found the the quickly house ball boy

What is Syntax?

•  Syn means together •  tax means arranging

•  Syntax is a level of grammar that specifically refers to the arrangement of words and morphemes in the construction of sentences.

Are you how ?

The rules of syntax specify the correct word order for a language!

Meanings & Arrangement of Words

1.  He burps what he means.

2.  He means what he burps.

•  The rules of syntax describe the relationship between meanings & sequence of words.

•  The sentences contain

the same words but the meanings are quite different.

Grammatical Relations

1.  Your dog chased my cat.

2.  My cat chased your dog.

•  The rules of syntax specify the grammatical relations of a sentence such as subject & object.

•  They provide

information about who is doing what to whom.

Word Order in Different Languages •  S-V-O [English, German, French, Thai,

Swahili, etc.] •  S-O-V [Bengali, Turkish, Persian &

Navajo] •  V-S-O [Tagalog, Irish, & Welsh] •  V-O-S [Fijian & Malagasy] •  O-V-S [Carib from Brazil] •  O-S-V [None till recently] •  Flexible word order [Indigenous

languages of Australia]

What is the basic sentence structure in Japanese?

•  Tanaka-ga tegami-o kakimasu Tanaka letter write (Tanaka writes a letter)

•  Tanaka-ga shinbun-o yomimasu

Tanaka newspaper read (Tanaka reads a newspaper)

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Ambiguity

•  Syntax can also account for multiple meanings --- AMBIGUITY

•  Like words, sentences have hierarchical structure.

Ambiguity •  Paraphrase the multiple meanings. Example: “She can’t bear children” can mean either •  “She can’t give birth to children” or •  “She can’t tolerate children”.

Ambiguity

•  He waited by the bank. •  Is he really that kind? •  The proprietor of the fish store was the

sole owner. •  The long drill was boring. •  Every man loves a woman. •  Bill wants to marry a Norwegian woman.

Ambiguity and Structure

•  Consider the ambiguous phrase: stupid pet tricks

•  Within the phrase, the words can be grouped in two possible ways:

•  (stupid pet) tricks, i.e., tricks performed by stupid pets, or

•  stupid (pet tricks), i.e., stupid tricks done by pets

Similarly to morphology, we can draw the phrase with a tree:

(stupid pet) tricks

stupid (pet tricks)

Similarly to morphology, we can draw the phrase with a tree:

(stupid pet) tricks

stupid (pet tricks)

Ambiguity: a word, phrase or sentence with multiple meanings

American history teachers American history teachers

American history teachers American history teachers

History teachers who are American Teachers of American history

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Ambiguity

•  Nanyang Chronicle headline:

Complaints about NTU lecturers growing ugly

Some sentences may be lexically or structurally ambiguous, or both.

Example: I saw him walking by the bank. •  Meaning 1: I saw him and he was walking by the bank of

the river. •  Meaning 2: I saw him and he was walking by the financial

institution. •  Meaning 3: I/He was walking by the bank of the river

when I saw him. •  Meaning 4: I/He was walking by the financial institution

when I saw him.

Provide paraphrases showing you comprehend all the meanings.

•  We laughed at the colorful ball. •  He was knocked over by the punch. •  I said I would file it on Thursday. •  I cannot recommend visiting professors too

highly. •  The license fee for pets owned by senior citizens

who have not been neutered is $1.50. (Actual notice)

•  Wanted: Man to take care of cow that does not smoke or drink. (Actual notice)

•  For sale: Several old dresses from grandmother in beautiful condition. (Actual notice)

•  Time flies like an arrow. (Hint: There are at least 4 paraphrases, but some of them require imagination)

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– The design has big squares and circles – Terry loves his wife and so do I – No smoking section available – Hui En finally decided on the boat – The sheepdog is too hairy to eat

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Ambiguity

The girl saw the man with the telescope.

–  (The girl) (saw) (the man with the telescope) –  (The girl) (saw) (the man) (with the telescope)

We can “tree” the ambiguity (will do so shortly after we look at sentence structure).

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Sentence structure

•  Syntactic rules determine the order of words in a sentence and how the words are grouped

– The students love this syntactic analysis

How many groupings are possible?

How many groupings are possible? ‘The students love this syntactic analysis’ •  The students •  syntactic analysis •  this syntactic analysis •  love this syntactic analysis

But NOT: •  love this •  this syntactic

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Labeling Phrases

•  The Constituent Structure of a Sentence The art student looked at a very beautiful painting.

Phrase and Sentence Structure: Constituency

•  As we have seen, we can organize words together in a sentence or other phrase into natural groupings with coherent meaning: (stupid pet) tricks stupid (pet tricks) old (men and women) (old men) and women

•  These groupings are called constituents.

Identifying Constituents

A constituent is a group of words with a coherent meaning; therefore,

•  a sentence will always be a constituent, as will •  the individual words in it. •  Identifying other constituents within a sentence is

not always so easy. There are some tests, however, for distinguishing constituents from mere strings of words.

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Labeling the Constituents of a Sentence

•  The Words (Parts-Of-Speech): The art student looked at a very beautiful painting. Art adj N verb prep art adv adj N

IMPORTANT!! You must be able to recognize what each word is!

PARTS OF SPEECH

1. NOUNS are words which are used to represent

•  Persons •  Places •  Things

Something that substantively exists and something which substantively doesn’t exist but it is conceptually understood and has a particular

quality •  Quality

The quality of things such as height, beauty, brightness, density, prosperity, strength, courage, etc

•  Actions •  Ideas

•  Occurrences

NOUNS

can function as: •  The subject or object of a sentence

•  The object of a preposition

EXAMPLES

I saw a student wearing a red shirt

I person, subject student person, object shirt thing, object

EXAMPLES:

London is one of the famous tourist destination in the world

London: place, subject Destination: things, object The world: place, object

2. VERB a word or a group of words which is used:

•  To express an action •  To express the existence of a particular noun (is,

am, are) •  To make a statement (will, shall, can) •  To link noun to noun •  To link noun to adjective

Examples for action verbs:

•  The scientists explore the use of ginger for medicine

•  I made this cake last week •  She cooks Peranakan food very well •  The students don’t listen to my lecture

Examples for linking verb

•  She is a humble young lady •  My daughter became a famous author •  The yoghurt drinks taste delicious •  The cake looks horrible •  After a heating period for one hour, the

temperature remains constant. •  The cake will expire soon

3. PRONOUNS are words that substitute a noun or a noun phrase

•  Personal pronoun which can act as subject or object

•  Possessive adjective pronoun •  Possessive pronoun

Pronouns

Subject Object Possessive

I ME MINE

WE US OURS

YOU YOU YOURS

SHE HER HERS

HE HIM HIS

IT IT ITS

THEY THEM THEIRS

Pronouns

•  interrogative pronouns (who, which, what) used for asking questions

•  relative pronouns (who, which, what, that) used in complex sentences

•  demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those)

•  indefinite pronouns (some, all, both, each, etc.)

Examples •  The food you’re cooking smells delicious. -->

–  That smells delicious. •  The pretzel-like yoga move we’re doing really hurts. --> •  This really hurts. •  What is the strange, polka-dotted, Sasquatch-like creature

coming toward us? --> –  What is that?

•  The cockroaches currently giving birth under our kitchen sink are totally gross. --> –  Those are totally gross.

•  The delicious, pink petit fours on my plate are my favourites. --> •  These are my favourites.

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Examples

•  I let you take this book but not those. •  We gave these materials last semester. •  Those flowers are not for sale. •  I have only one like that at home.

Indefinite pronouns

•  Indefinite pronouns refer to an unknown or undetermined person, place or thing.

•  Care must be taken to identify whether the pronoun is singular or plural to ensure the proper conjugation of the verb.

•  These are singular pronouns : Another, Anyone, Anybody, Anything, Everyone, Everybody, Everything, Nothing, Each, Either, No One, Neither, Nobody, One, Someone, Somebody, Something

4. Adjectives Adjectives are a class of words used to modify a noun or other substantives by qualifying, limiting and specifying ●  There are 2 types of adjectives: a. Describing adjective b. Limiting adjective

Describing adjectives ●  Normally describing adjectives answer questions

“what kind” For examples :

Beautiful Colorful

Comfortable Enjoyable Delicious Famous

Marvelous

●  Roses are beautiful flowers ●  High protein intake gives you strong muscles. ●  I have an interesting topic for my FYP. ●  In the last 24 hours the bacteria showed a fast

growth ●  The researchers have shown wonderful teamwork. ●  My students are hard workers ●  They achieved a great result on the project. ●  I love dark color clothes

Cardinal Numbers as adjectives I bought 10 souvenirs for my friends

●  “10” specifies the amount of souvenirs ●  It answers question “How many souvenir did you

buy?”

Ordinal Numbers as adjectives The 2nd repetition gave the highest rendement

●  “2nd” specifies the repetition ●  It answers question “Which repetition gave the

highest rendement?

Demonstrative adjectives I am going to work in that shop across the road

●  “That” specifies the shop the speaker means is the one across the road

●  It answers question “which lab are you going to work in?”

Possessive adjective

I used my recipe for this cake

●  "My" specifies the recipe that belongs to the speaker only

●  It answers question “which recipe did you use for this cake?”

Quantity adjectives I am going to make a lot of cookies tonight

●  "A lot of" specify the number or amount of cookies that will be made by the speaker

●  It answers question “how many cookies are you trying to make?”

5. ADVERBS •  An adverb is a part of speech

comprising a class of words that modifies, or adds to the meaning of

A verb (except linking verb) An adjective

Another adverb A sentence

An adverb modifies a verb •  Fire from bunsen burner heats the test

tube quickly •  Older people eat slowly •  Young children play aggressively •  Student must work carefully in the lab •  My son speaks Chinese fluently •  Decrease the temperature immediately

after baking

An adverb modifies an adjective

The growth is very slow The city has changed very fast

The food tastes really nice Our cloth is cloudy yellow

An adverb modifies another adverb

•  The cooling period is done too slowly

An adverb modifies a sentence

Unfortunately, we have run out of baking powder

Suddenly, he switched off the motor

Previously, we had found no changes in

the demographics

A preposition introduces a noun or pronoun or a phrase or clause functioning in the sentence

as a noun.

The preposition never stands alone!

Some Common Prepositions

aboard about above across after

against along among around

at before

behind below

beneath beside

between beyond

by down during except

for

from in

into like of off on

over past since

through

throughout

to toward under

underneath until up

upon with

within without

7. Conjunctions

A conjunction is a word that joins words or groups of words.

And Or

Either / or But

Neither / nor

8. Interjections Interjection is a word, a phrase or a short sentence which can stand alone.

It is used to exclaim, command, or to express emotion.

Examples • Wow, that is incredible! • No, thank you! •  Sorry! I can’t give you any money. • Oh dear! You shouldn’t have done this! •  Excuse me!

9. Articles

•  Definite -> The •  Indefinite -> a, an

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Back to Constituents!

•  The natural groupings of a sentence are constituents

•  Our knowledge of the constituent structure can be represented with a tree

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Syntactic categories

•  A family or group of expressions that can substitute for one another retaining grammaticality is called a syntactic category –  A police officer found the puppy in the garden –  Your neighbor found the puppy in the garden –  This yellow cat found the puppy in the garden –  They found the puppy in the garden

•  What syntactic category is the subject in the above sentences?

•  Can you think of other syntactic categories?

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•  A family of expressions that can substitute for one another retaining grammaticality is called a syntactic category –  A police officer found the puppy in the garden –  Your neighbor found the puppy in the garden –  This yellow cat found the puppy in the garden –  They found the puppy in the garden

•  What syntactic category is the subject in the above sentences?


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•  A family of expressions that can substitute for one another retaining grammaticality is called a syntactic category –  A police officer found the puppy in the garden –  Your neighbor found the puppy on the roof –  This yellow cat found the puppy under the table –  They found the puppy by the hot dog stand

•  What syntactic category is in yellow in the above sentences?


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Syntactic categories •  S: sentence Phrases are named for one of their main elements (The Head).

•  NP: noun phrase •  VP: verb phrase •  PP: prepositional phrase •  AdjP: adjectival phrase N: noun, V: verb, P: preposition, A (Adj): adjective,

Head of a Phrase

•  The head of a phrase is the word that determines the syntactic or phrasal category of that phrase.

•  The head of an NP is a noun, the head of a VP is a verb & the head of a PP is a preposition.

•  Examples of NPs -  The boat -  The title

•  All other parts of a phrase are called the phrase’s complements.

Noun Phrases

•  A noun phrase in a sentence can function as the:

1.  Subject 2.  Direct Object 3.  Indirect Object 4.  Object of a Preposition

A.  Zoe mailed a letter .

B.  Zoe came late.

C.  Zoe & her friends went into the house.

D.  She gave the card to me.

Determiners

•  Categories: 1.  Demonstratives 2.  Possessives 3.  Interrogatives 4.  Definite Articles 5.  Indefinite Articles

Identifying Constituents

Constituents and Hierarchy

•  Constituent structure is hierarchical: that is, one constituent may be part of another.

Many executives eat at really fancy restaurants. But this is pretty hard to see: which brings us back to the

tree diagrams we love so much.

A Tree Diagram Note that each constituent consists of

everything below a given node.

Many executives eat at really fancy restaurants.

many executives

really fancy

Really fancy restaurants

at really fancy restaurants

eat at really fancy restaurants

Many executives eat at really fancy restaurants.

A Tree Diagram •  Note that each branching point describes

a complete constituent.

Many executives

eat

at

really fancy

restaurants

Substitution: Many executives eat at really fancy

restaurants. Some people eat at really fancy restaurants. A few of my friends eat at really fancy

restaurants. Gorillas eat at really fancy restaurants.

Syntactic Categories

•  Note that each grouping in the tree diagram is a member of a large family or group of similar expressions.

•  For example, many executives belongs to a family that includes some people, a few of my friends, gorillas and many others.

•  Any member of this family can be substituted for many executives without affecting the grammaticality of the sentence:

Syntactic Categories and Phrase Structure Rules

•  These families of expressions are called syntactic categories. A single such expression is a phrase.

•  The rules for how words go together to create phrases and how phrases in turn go together are called phrase structure rules.

Issues with Constituents

•  Note that we can not say whether a given group of words is a constituent in general, only relative to a given sentence. For example, consider the group of words Jack and Jill:

Jack and Jill raised yetis. In this sentence, “Jack and Jill” is a constituent. The Lamas raised Jack and Jill grew up in Peru. In this sentence, it is not.

How many groupings are possible?

The student looked at a very beautiful painting. •  the student •  a very beautiful painting •  at a very beautiful paining •  looked at a very beautiful painting

But NOT: •  looked at a •  beautiful painting

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Labeling Phrases

•  The Constituent Structure of a Sentence The art student

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Labeling Phrases

•  The Constituent Structure of a Sentence The art student

Art + = [ Adj + N]

Noun Phrase (NP)

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Labeling Phrases

•  The Constituent Structure of a Sentence The art student looked at a very beautiful painting.

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Labeling Phrases

•  The Constituent Structure of a Sentence The art student looked at a very beautiful painting. Verb Phrase (VP) = [V+??]

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Labeling Phrases

•  The Constituent Structure of a Sentence The art student looked at a very beautiful painting. Verb Phrase (VP) = [V+PP] Prepositional Phrase (PP)= [P+??]

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Labeling Phrases

•  The Constituent Structure of a Sentence The art student looked at a very beautiful painting. Verb Phrase (VP) = [V+PP] Prepositional Phrase (PP)= [P+??]

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Labeling Phrases

•  The Constituent Structure of a Sentence The art student looked at a very beautiful painting. Verb Phrase (VP) = [V+PP] Prepositional Phrase (PP)= [P+NP]

(NP) = [Art+Adv+Adj+N]

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Diagnostics for constituents Diagnostics for phrasal constituents

•  Substitution/Pronoun substitution –  Gong Li loves apples => She loves apples –  My sister eats everything she sees => She eats it/all. –  Blue crabs hate orange-lined Triggerfish => They hate them. –  Zhang Ziyi went to that ulu university in Singapore => She went there

•  Stand alone/Questions –  What does Gong Li love? Apples. –  Where did Zhang Ziyi go? To that ulu university in Singapore

•  Relocation (movement) –  to that ulu university in Singapore Zhang Ziyi went.

•  Coordination –  My sister eats everything she sees but drinks nothing she pours herself.

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Phrase structure trees

•  Constituents can be represented graphically as nodes in a tree

•  A tree diagram with syntactic category information is called a phrase structure tree

•  They represent (encode) three aspects of speakers’ syntactic knowledge: –  The linear order of words –  The groupings of words into syntactic categories –  The hierarchical structure of syntactic categories

Syntactic categories Lexical categories V verb N noun P preposition Adj adjective C complementizer D determiner Adv adverb Aux auxiliary

Phrasal categories S sentence VP verb phrase NP noun phrase PP prepositional phrase AdjP adjectival phrase AdvP Adverbial phrase CP complementizer phrase

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Phrase Structure

extremely interesting

Phrase Structure


AdjP

Adv Adj


AdjP

Adv Adj

AdvP

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Tree diagram

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Tree terminology

Syntactic trees tend to be upside down •  The root of the tree •  The leaves of the tree •  The nodes of the tree •  Mother-daughter relation •  Siblings: sister-sister relation •  Dominate relation •  Immediately dominate relation

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Practice

•  Draw phrase structure trees for the following sentences: –  red books on the shelf –  The ice melted –  The professor bit the student –  A frightened passenger landed the damaged plane –  The house on the hill collapsed in the wind

Tree Diagrams

red books on the shelf

NP

P N Adj Det N

NP

PP

NP

The ice melted

N Det

NP VP

S

V

The professor bit the student

NP

N Det Det N

NP

VP

S

V

A frightened passenger landed the damaged plane

NP

N Det Det N

NP

VP

S

V Adj Adj

AdjP AdjP

The house on the hill collapsed in the wind

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Heads and complements

•  Phrase structure rules show relations between the members of the phrase

•  A VP, for example, contains a V which is the head of the phrase

•  The VP may contain other categories but the entire phrase refers to what the head refers –  E.g. “kick the ball into Michael’s stomach” refers to the event of ‘kicking’

•  The other constituents in the phrase are complements or adjuncts

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Heads and complements

•  Every phrasal category has a head of its same syntactic type: – VP: V – NP: N – PP: P – AdjP: Adj – AdvP: Adv

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Practice

•  Find the head and the complements of the following phrases – The man with the telescope – The destruction of Rome – ….. wrote the best seller – ….. bowled a perfect game

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Practice


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Practice


Italian example

Find the head and the complements of the following phrases

•  Il grande cane pastore •  The big dog shepherd •  (‘The big shepherd dog’)

•  … la Cappella Sistina dipinge •  ... the Chapel Sistine paints (‘paints the Sistine Chapel’)

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Italian example

Find the head and the complements of the following phrases

•  Il grande cane pastore •  The big dog shepherd •  (‘The big shepherd dog’)

•  (Michelangelo) la Cappella Sistina dipinge •  (...) the Chapel Sistine paints (‘paints the Sistine Chapel’)

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Complements and Adjuncts •  A complement is a constituent that cannot be

removed – Without changing the meaning of the sentence, or – making the sentence ungrammatical

•  E.g. program in: –  John was running the program –  John liked the program

•  An adjunct can always be removed without changing the core meaning of a sentence: –  John was running in the park –  the nice program for syntactic analysis

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Complement selection •  Whether a verb takes more than one complement

depends on the properties of the verb

•  The verb find is a transitive verb and requires an NP direct object complement

•  This information selection is included in the lexical entry of the word and explains the grammaticality judgment of the following:

–  The boy found the ball –  *They boy found quickly –  *The boy found in the house

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Complement selection

•  Sleep is intransitive, it cannot take an NP complement – Michael slept – *Michael slept a fish

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Complement selection •  Think takes (selects) a clausal complement (CP).

–  I think (that) Sam won the race

•  Tell selects clausal complement or NP or an S. –  I told Sam (that) Michael was on the bicycle –  I told him

•  Feel selects an AdjP or a CP –  They felt strong as oxen –  They feel (that) they can win –  *They feel

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Complement selection •  It’s not only verbs that have selectional

restrictions •  Belief selects a PP or an S

– We believe in you / … the world is flat •  Sympathy selects a PP

– We have sympathy for …. •  Tired selects a PP etc.

– We are tired of this topic.

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The infinity of language

•  aka recursion

•  The number of sentences in a language is infinite

•  This is because sentences can be lengthened by various means

•  The heart of this linguistic property is the ability to generate recursive structures

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This is the house that Jack built... by Mother Goose

–  This is the farmer sowing the corn, –  That kept the cock that crowed in the morn. –  That waked the priest all shaven and shorn, –  That married the man all tattered and torn, –  That kissed the maiden all forlorn, –  That milked the cow with the crumpled horn, –  That tossed the dog, –  That worried the cat, –  That killed the rat, –  That ate the malt –  That lay in the house that Jack built.

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Infinity of language

•  The repetition of categories within categories is common in all languages and explains the infinity of language

•  Our brain capacity is finite and able to store only a finite number of categories and rules for their combination

•  These finite means place an infinite set of sentences at our disposal

Subconscious Knowledge •  Fluent speakers of a

language possess an enormous subconscious knowledge, known as linguistic competence, of the rules of their own language.

•  However, we know little or nothing about the rules of a language we do not understand.

Subconscious Knowledge about Syntax We know about:

•  Completeness •  Word Order •  Ambiguity: -  Lexical / Polysemantic -  Structural / Syntactic -  Part-of-speech

Examples

•  *That house not pretty. •  *You had early get up

wanted. •  A sentence is ambiguous if

it has more than one meaning.

Syntactic Categories •  A Sentence (S) consists of an NP and a VP. •  An NP consists of a N and … •  A VP consists of V and … •  A Prepositional Phrase (PP) consists of a

preposition plus an NP. •  An Adjectival Phrase (AdjP) consists of an

adjective and any adverbs that modify it. •  An Adverbial Phrase (AdvP) consists of an adverb

and any other adverbs that modify it. •  Lexical Categories (Noun, Verb, Preposition,

Adjective and Adverb,) also function as Syntactic Categories.

Noun Phrases •  Many executives, some people, a few of my friends,

and so on belong to the syntactic category Noun Phrase (NP).

•  An NP is a constituent which may function as a subject or an object in a sentence.

•  You can test an NP by inserting the constituent into one of three contexts:

Who found _____? _____ was seen by everyone. What/Who I heard was _____.

Noun Phrase Recognition

•  Which of the following are NPs? a bird the red banjo have a nice day with a balloon the woman who was laughing it John went

Lecture Notes Hand Out

How are PS rules derived? Boys love old cars. Rule for NP: NP

The boys love old cars. Rule for NP: NP

The ugly boys love old cars. Rule for NP: NP

AdjP


How are PS rules derived? The very ugly boys love old cars. Rule for NP: NP

AdjP The very ugly boy in the blue shirt loves old cars. Rule for NP: NP

He loves old cars. Rule for NP: NP


How are PS rules derived? at the park Rule for PP: PP

The ugly, disgusting, hungry boys love old cars. Rule for NP: NP

The boy and his father love old cars. Rule for NP: NP


How are PS rules derived? The ugly and hungry boy loves old cars. Rule for NP: NP

AdjP (warm milk) and cake

Rule for NP: NP NP NP

warm (milk and cake) Rule for NP: NP

Verb Phrases

•  Eat at really fancy restaurants, live in expensive apartments, like cheese and so on belong to the syntactic category Verb Phrase (VP).

•  A VP is a constituent which may function as the predicate of a sentence.

•  You can test a VP by inserting the constituent into the following context:

The child _____.

Verb Phrase Recognition

•  Which of the following are VPs? saw a clown a bird slept old ate the cake found the cake in the cupboard realized that the earth was round


How are PS rules derived? He cried. Rule for VP: VP

He kicked the ball Rule for VP: VP

He gave Mary the ball Rule for VP: VP


How are PS rules derived? He cried in the garden. Rule for VP: VP

He kicked the ball in the garden. Rule for VP: VP He gave Mary the ball in the garden. Rule for VP: VP


How are PS rules derived? Run! S Actually = you run!

He likes pizza Rule for S: S

He will kick the ball Rule for S: S

Others

She made Melody a cake on her birthday Rule for S: S

I hate but need the medicine Rule for VP: VP

VP


How are PS rules derived? He told Mary that the ball is in the garden.


How are PS rules derived? He told Mary that the ball is in the garden. Rule for S: S (He told Mary)

S (the ball is in the garden) that = Complementizer


How are PS rules derived? He told Mary that the ball is in the garden. Rule for S: S NP VP (He told Mary)

S NP VP (the ball is in the garden) that = Complementizer Rule for VP Rule for CP

Phrase Structure Trees and Rules

•  By labeling each constituent of a sentence, from individual words to groups of words to groups of groups, we can draw a phrase structure tree for it.

Phrase Structure Trees show us:

•  The linear order of words in a sentence, and how this is derived from the hierarchical structure of the sentence as a whole.

•  The identification of the syntactic categories of the words and constituents in the sentence.

•  The hierarchical structure of the syntactic categories.

V PP

with

NP P

the

Det N

telescope The

N

hitting

S

NP VP

Det

boy

NP

the

Det N

man

Aux

is

Structural Ambiguity The boy is hitting the man with the telescope

V PP

with

NP P

the

Det N

telescope The

N

hitting

S

NP VP

Det

boy

NP

the

Det N

man

Aux

is



V

PP

with

NP P

the

Det N

telescope The

N

hitting

S

NP VP

Det

boy

NP

the

Det N

man

Aux

is


V

PP

with

NP P

the

Det N

telescope The

N

hitting

S

NP VP

Det

boy

NP

the

Det N

man

Aux

is

Complement He told Mary that the ball is in the garden

V

He told

S

NP VP

Pr

NP

Mary

N


S

ball

VP NP

the

Det N

garden the

Det N V

is

PP

P

in

NP


V S

ball

VP NP

the

Det N

garden He told

S

NP VP

Pr

CP

that

C NP

Mary

N

the

Det N V

is

PP

P

in

NP

Complement He told Mary that Peter said that the ball is in the garden

V

He told

S

NP VP

Pr

NP

Mary

N


V

Peter said

S

NP VP

N


S

ball

VP NP

the

Det N

garden the

Det N V

is

PP

P

in

NP



V

S

ball

VP NP

the

Det N

garden He told

S

NP VP

Pr

CP

that

C NP

Mary

N

the

Det N V

is

PP

P

in

NP

CP

C

S VP

NP

Peter

N V

said

that

SUMMARY OF PS rules

Rule for S: S {NP CP} (Aux) VP Rule for NP: NP (Det) (AdjP)* N (NP)

(PP*) NP Pr NP NP Conj NP NP N Conj N

Rule for VP: VP V (NP) { (NP) (CP) } (PP*) (AdjP)

Lecture Notes Hand Out SUMMARY OF PS rules

Rule for CP: CP C S Rule for PP: PP P NP

PP P CP Rule for AdjP: AdjP (AdvP) A

AdjP AdjP Conj AdjP AdjP Adj Conj Adj AdjP Adj CP

Rule for AdvP AdvP (Deg) Adv E.g. ‘very quickly’

Complementizer Phrases

NP -> N CP •  It was proof that .... •  The man that .... •  The idea that …. AdjP -> Adj CP •  I was certain that ... –  It was so bad/large/rotten that … PP -> P CP •  They argued over whether ... •  They talked about whether ...

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