PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES & TRANSFORMATIONS RULE

NOR FAZILA BT SEMAN NORATIQAH BT AYOB NOR AZIZAH BT AHMAD NUR SAKINAH BT JONIT

TRANSFORMATIONS RULE

TRANSFORMATIONS
H. Robins in his General Linguistics describes a transformation as a method of stating how the structures of many sentences in languages can be generated or explained formally as the result of specific transformations applied to certain basic sentence structures. (qt in Smith: 2004). The kernel is the basic phrase from which transformations start.

 Examples of the kernel: Active-passive Shaw opened the door The door was opened by Shaw If S1 is a grammatical sentence with the form NP1----Aux----V----NP2, then the corresponding string of form NP2----Aux + be + en----V----by + Np1 is also grammatical.

 Permutation (when there is an auxiliary)

John has called. You can repeat. I must sleep

Has John called? Can you repeat? Must I sleep?

When there is no auxiliary, we insert do.

He writes. We arrived.

Does he write? Did we arrive?

The second sentence is a transformation of the

first.

 Relative Transformation: More than one kernel sentence is involved: E.g.: The man who stood there was angry. This is a transformation of two sentences:
The man was angry The man stood there

The relative transformation places the second sentence after `man' in the first and then replaces `the man' in the second by `who'.

Syntactic Ambiguity
Syntactic Ambiguity: The relevance of transformational grammar becomes obvious when it disambiguates sentences.

E.g.: Approaching elephants can be deadly.

We have two sentence meanings: In the first: can be deadly, (someone) approaches elephants. Or: elephants are deadly/ elephants are approaching

 Here we apply a transformation similar to the relative transformation. Elephants which approach can be deadly and then a further transformation to give the required sentence by transforming `which approach' in `approaching' and placing it before `elephants'. Thus we see that the deep structure of the two apparently identical sentences are quite different.
Sentence: Approaching elephants can be deadly.

1. Elephants which approach can be deadly. 2. Which approach elephants can be deadly.

PARAPHRASE AND AMBIGUITY

PARAPHRASE When several surface structures relate to one deep structure. For example: 1. John bought the book from Mary. 2. Mary sold the book to John. 3. The book was sold to John by Mary. AMBIGUITY One surface structure relating to several deep structures. For example: Flying planes can be dangerous. 1. To fly planes. 2. Planes which are flying.

Transformational rules
A way to capture the relationship between a declarative and a question is to allow phrase structure to generate the structure using special rules: transformation rules Move Aux: take the first aux and move it to the left of the subject The boy is sleeping Is the boy sleeping?

Deep and surface structure

Deep structure: the basic structure
: the aspect of syntactic structure operated on by semantics for the purpose of semantic interpretation

Surface structure: the resulting structure after applying a transformational rule

the aspect of syntactic structure operated on by phonology for the purpose of phonetic interpretation.

The boys is sleeping: Deep Move Aux Is the boy sleeping? Surface

Other transformational rules

Active passive (aka passivization)
The cat chased the mouse The mouse was chased by the cat

There-sentences
There was a man on the roof A man was on the roof

PP-preposing
The astronomer saw the star with the telescope With the telescope, the man saw the star

Transformational Grammar and Movement Rules eg: The kids ate the chocolate

1. Sentences that mean the same thing have the same deep structure. 2. Tree-to-tree mappings convert deep structure trees into surface structure trees. 3. Tree-to-tree mappings must be meaning preserving, so that (1) remains true. 4. Government and Binding Theory and the Minimalist Program (Chomsky) are theories that characterize which tree-to-tree mappings are meaning preserving.
1. The kids ate the chocolate. 2. The chocolate was eaten by the kids. (meaning preserving) 3. The chocolate ate the kids. (not meaning preserving)

hrase

ruct re Rul s

Some important linguists argue that the structure of a word and the structure of a sentence are akin. Therefore they apply rules which are used in called the phrasestructure rules.
Phrase structure rules, trees Constituents Recursion Conjunction

hrase

ruct re

Every word belongs to a lexical category

Lexical categories forms heads of phrases How phrases are formed is governed by rules: phrase structure rules

hrase

ruct re Rul s

Rules that determine

what goes into a phrase (constituents) how the constituents are ordered

Constituent: a word or group of words that function as a unit and can make up larger grammatical units General schema: X Y Z X consists of Y followed by Z

 Noun Phrase phrase that fills a spot and that is a SUBJECT POSITION Noun phrase (NP)
John the boy a little boy a boy in a bubble N Det N Det Adj N Det N PP

Phrase structure rule for NPs: NP (Det) (Adj) N (PP) (where () indicates optionality)

 Det = determiners

Determiners can be:

Pre determiners (all, both) Core (a, the, this, that) Post determiners (three, other)

hrase
NP NP

ruct re Trees
NP NP

Det

Det

Adj

Det

PP

John

the

boy

little boy

boy

NP

in

Det

a bubble

Prepositional Phrase (PP)

In from a boy in a bubble P P NP

Phrase structure rule for PPs: PP P (NP)

hrase
PP PP

ruct re Trees

NP

in

from

Det

PP

boy

NP

in

Det

bubble

Recursion
Some phrasal categories may appear to the left or right of the arrow NP (Det) N (PP) PP P (NP) Recursion: the property of language that allows for the embedding of categories (which can yield infinitely long phrases)

the cat on the mat in the house on the street NP Det the N cat P on PP NP Det N PP

the mat

P
in Det

NP
N PP

the house

P
on

NP
Det N

the

street

Verb phrase (VP)

Sang ate the cake ate the cake hungrily sang a song in the shower fell into the pond slowly V V V V V

NP NP NP PP

Adv PP Adv

Phrase structure rule for VPs: VP V (NP) (PP) (Adv)

VP

VP

VP

NP

NP

PP

Adv

sang

ate

Det

sang

Det

NP

badly

the

cake

song

in

Det

the shower

Structural ambiguity
discuss [sport with Dr. Ruth] [discuss sport] with Dr. Ruth VP VP

NP

NP

PP

discuss

PP

discuss

sport

NP

sport

NP

with

Dr. Ruth

with

Dr. Ruth

Sentences
Must contain an NP and a VP The dog barked. *The dog. *Barked. May contain an auxiliary verb The dog will bark. S NP (Aux) VP

NP
Det the N dog V ate

VP
NP Det the N bone

S NP VP

S
NP Det the N dog Aux will V ate Det the S NP Aux VP VP NP N bone

Conjunction
Words and phrases of the same category can be combined using conjunctions (and, but, or)
Cats and dogs make good pets. Eat, drink, or be merry. You can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink.

NP NP conj NP VP VP conj VP S S conj S

X X conj X

Conjoined phrases
NP NP Det N and Conj NP Det N NP NP Conj NP NP Det N

the cat

the dog

Conjoined sentences
I bought a book, but I returned it. S S S conj S S NP VP conj but S NP S NP VP VP

NP

V
returned

NP
it

bought a book