690 Chapter 5: Syntax

Making it stick together…

Quite a Complexion

I am supposed to have been being…

Why Syntax?

Universal Grammar

All languages have Words Rules

Merge Move

Syntactic Category: NP

_________ was given a flag.

The son of Isabel and Sam Isabel’s son The boy Joe

Key Vocabulary

Constituent Groups and subgroups of words that

“go together”

Syntactic category Constituents that can be substituted for

one another with loss of grammaticality NP, PP, Art, Conj, S, VP, Adj, Pro…

Syntactic Category: VP

Joe __________________.

Finish the sentence

Key Vocabulary Constituent structure tree

AKA: Phrase-structure tree

Diagram of a phrase or sentence that reduces repetition by the use of syntactic category labels in the branches of a tree

Constituency Tests

Substitution Pronoun Question Word

Relocation Conjunction …. but

Ambiguity≠ All for 1 & 1 for all

Phrase Structure Rules: English

NP N Joe NP Art + N the boy NP Art + Adj+ N the big boy NP Pro he

N NP Art (Adj)* + N

Pro{ }

Phrase Structure Rules: Cont’d

NP Art (Adj)* + N *the house red

Spanish: la casa roja *la roja casa

You tell me… a NP rule for Spanish

You tell me:

*John found. John found a ball. John found a ball in the grass. *John found in the grass.

A VP phrase-structure rule would be: VP Vt + NP (PP)*

Key Vocabulary Phrase Structure Rules

Specify grammatical ways of putting sentences together

Lexical insertion rules Match syntactic categories with words or morphemes

at the bottom of a tree Subcategorization

Restricts how lexical items can occur

Examples: Transitive Verb: VP Vt + NP (adj)

Find, love, destroy Intransitive Verb: VP Vi (adv)*

Die, sleep

Ambiguity The son of Isabel and Sam

You tell me… Where is the break for each meaning?

Tree Structure (Constituent Structure)

The son of Isabel and Sam

The son of Isabel and Sam

the son of Isabel and Sam

the son of Isabel

Tree Structure (Constituent Structure)

The son of Isabel and Sam

The son of Isabel and Sam

the son of Isabel and Sam

Isabel and Sam

Tree Structure (Constituent Structure)

Tree Structure (Constituent Structure)

Noun Phrase

Noun Phrase Prepositional Phrase

Article Noun Preposition Noun Phrase

the son of Noun Conj. Noun

Isabel and Sam

Tree Structure (Constituent Structure)

NP

NP PP

Det N P NP the son of

N Conj. N Isabel and Sam

Joe got a flagS

NP VP

N I NP

+pst V Det N

Joe got a flag

You Tell Me… The man gave Joe a

flag.

S

NP VP

Det N I V NP NP

+pst N Det N

The man gave Joe a flag

Complement Clauses

Universal Sentence embedded in a sentence Key words (English)

That Whether If …

This is the house that Jack built….

Transformations (Movement) Questions

Yes / No Wh-

Do Insertion

CP

C IP

NP VP

I V Adj-pst

My students aresmart

Key Vocabulary

Transformational rule an operation that moves, deletes, or

inserts a category a rule that applies to a syntactic tree

to yield a new syntactic tree.

Additional Notes (value of trees)

Structure Dependent Rules Surface words ≠ important Transformational rules constituents

Head NP agrees with Main VP Regardless of intervening structures Regardless of transformations

Syntax allows a NS to: produce and understand an infinite set of utterances distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical

strings interpret certain strings as well-formed grammatically but

ill-formed semantically interpret certain strings as well-formed semantically but

ill-formed grammatically understand the full meaning of a sentence from a string

of words, which may not contain all the words necessary for an accurate interpretation

perceive when two or more strings are synonymous (paraphrase)

perceive structural ambiguity in a grammatical string account for grammatical and logical relations within a

sentence

Q: What’s the best way to help a NNS internalize the same?

Additional Structures

Coordination Pulls two parts together

Relatives Tells more about an NP

Passives Changes the focus De-emphasizes or obscures the

‘actor’

Exercises

5 (you may want to do 3 & 4 as a lead in)

6 & 7 (as practice for later exercises) 9, 10 & 11

At least the first and last of each exercise

13 & 14 At least the first of each exercise

Tomorrow

Grammar Safari Find at least one in outside readings

Y/N?, WH-?, DO insertion, Relative, Passive

Copy (print screen) and bring to class

Chapter 6: Semantics Understand trees, but don’t focus on them