ENGL 4/540

November 15, 2011

Syntax 1: Word order, constituents, ambiguity, phrasal categories, tree diagrams

OUTLINE

Phonology: HW, rule ordering, allomorphy revisited [LAST WEEKS HANDOUT] Introduction to syntax Word order (things that go together go together, word order typology, ) Constituency (tests: substitution, coordination) Structural ambiguity (compared to lexical ambiguity) Phrasal categories Phrase structure rules, tree diagrams (grammatical relations in English) =====================================================================

Introduction
1. 2. referring expression (FUNCTIONAL TERM): NP (GRAMMATICAL TERM) predication (FUNCTIONAL TERM): VP (GRAMMATICAL TERM) (Finegan: 140) As in phonology, some use of formalisms: stating precise rules for ordering of constituents in English sentences (Phrase Structure rules). These are models for representing linguistic structure.

Word order
3. Word order is language specific (Ch. 7: 224-228): languages tend to have a basic word order (word order typology). 4. Romance languages, Thai, English SVO; though not all languages are SVO Japanese, Hindi, Turkish SOV [Japanese example: Finegan: 225] Tagalog, Welsh, Jacaltec, Tongan VSO [Tongan example: Finegan: 225]

Word order also depends on function within a language English declarative yes/no whtopicalization imperative He will bring the bagels to the party. Will he bring the bagels to the party? What will he bring to the party? The bagels, he finally brought them! Please bring the bagels to the party.

5.

Things that go together go together (REFER TO Finegan Table 7-1, p. 228) a. Verbs and objects tend to be near each other English Korean write a book (VO) (OV) Chun ku chayk poata Chun that book see Chun sees that book

b.

Adjectives tend to be near nouns English Spanish blue chair silla azul chair blue (Adj N) (N Adj)

c.

Adpositions tend to be near noun phrases English Akan (Niger-Congo) in the car, from the balcony (Prep NP) !w" pon no ase it.is table the under (NP Post) Its under the table

d.

Possessor NPs tend to be near possessed NPs English English Tongan Pats car the love of my life koe tuonga#ane #o Vaka the sister of Vaka Vakas sister (possessor possessed) (possessed possessor) (possessed possessor)

e.

Relative clauses (clauses that modify NPs) tend to be near their head Ns English Japanese Luganda (Bantu) the book [that Pat wrote] (head NP rel clause) [hiroo ga kaita] hon (rel clause head NP) Hiro subj wrote book the book that Hiro wrote omusajja [omukazi gwe-ya-kuba] (head NP rel clause) man woman REL PRO-she-hit the man that the woman hit

6.

Latin a. Magna aranea perterruit Matildam large spider frightened Matilda The large spider frightened Matilda Matildam perterruit magna aranea Matilda frightened large spider The large spider frightened Matilda Magnam araneam perterruit Matilda large spider frightened Matilda Matilda frightened the large spider Matilda perterruit magnam araneam Matilda frightened large spider Matilda frightened the large spider 2

b.

c.

d.

Constituency
7. 8. constituent: syntactic unit that functions as part of a larger unit within a sentence; typical constituent types are VP, NP, PP, clause (Finegan: 535) constituency tests (how do we know what word groupings are constituents?) a. substitution proforms are words that replace other, more specific, grammatical elements, usually when the more specific information they contain is known to the hearer and hence its repetition would be redundant. The most familiar proform is the pronoun which replaces noun phrases. replacement with pronoun The students read the controversial book. They read it. replacement with pro-verb (takes place of VP or V) He likes ice cream, and I do too. b. coordination (secondary test) the hungry dog and the sleepy cat over the river and through the woods . . . saw a fluffy cat and celebrated rich and famous Pat cleaned the house and Chris watched TV

but * * * the boys and over the river the hungry dog and saw a sleepy cat cleaned the house and Chris watched TV

Structural ambiguity
9. ambiguity: more than one meaning. (see Finegan 143-144) a. lexical ambiguity

Phrasal categories (Finegan 144-146)

10. Noun phrases Alex (Proper N) She (Pro): pronouns are NPs My rich uncle (Det Adj N) The nerd with the stud earring (Det N P Det N) The person we saw yesterday (Det N S) 11. Verb phrases disappeared (Vi) won a bicycle (Vt NP) spilled the potion (Vt NP) put the potion on the shelf waited around the corner said Pat spilled the potion 12.

(V NP PP) (V PP) (V S)

head of a phrase: obligatory component, usually the lexical category the phrase is named after, e.g. Spotted dogs are my favorite.

Phrase Structure Rules and tree diagrams

13. 14.
PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES (or PS RULES):

specify the constituents in a sentence in a given

language and their order. S ! NP VP NP ! (Det) (Adj) N (PP) VP ! V (NP) (PP) PP ! P (NP) (we will extend these rules next week) 15. Simple sentence (Finegan: 150, Fig. 5-8)

Complex sentence (Finegan: 150, Fig. 5-9) Tree diagrams (nodes, dominance) a. node: points where category labels appear.

b. dominance: one node dominates another when there is a path in the tree from the first node down to the second. S

NP1

AUX

VP

NP2 P

PP

NP3

16.

Grammatical relations in English grammatical relations: syntactic relation between NP and predicate. Subject and direct object are two main grammatical relations. Sometimes the word argument is used to refer to any nominal that has a grammatical relation to a verb. Grammatical relations indicate the syntactic role that an NP plays in its clause. Besides subject and direct object, sentences can have other grammatical relations, such as indirect object, oblique, and possessor (Finegan: 152). English subject: NP immediately dominated by S (sister of VP). English direct object: NP immediately dominated by VP (sister of V).

NP

VP

NP