Syntax
ENG 213
McKeown
What is Syntax?
 Syntax — component of mental grammar that deals with constructing
phrasal expressions out of smaller expressions. Also a name for the subfield
of linguistics that studies how expressions can combine to form larger
expressions.
 Words cannot be combined into just any order
 Only specific combinations create grammatical utternances
Grammaticality
 Linguistic Expression — A piece of language with a form, a meaning, and
syntactic properties.
 The core of syntax is examining how expression combine with one another to
create larger expression
 Grammatical — term used to describe a sentence that is in accordance
with the descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially
syntactic rules. When some phrasal expression is constructed in
accordance with the syntactic rules of a language, we say it is
grammatical or syntactically well-formed.
 Ungrammatical — Not in accordance with the descriptive grammatical
rules of some language, especially syntactic rules. When some phrasal
expression is not constructed in accordance with the syntactic rules of a
language, we say it is ungrammatical or syntactically ill-formed.
Grammaticality Cont.
 Grammaticality Judgement — An instance of a native speaker of some language
deciding whether some string of words corresponds to a syntactically well-formed or
grammatical phrasal expression in their native language.
 Ungrammatical statements are marked with *
a) I have a cup of pebbles.
b) * I have a cup of pebble.
c) * I have a cup of gravels.
d) I have a cup of gravel.
 Semantics — The study of linguistic meaning
Syntax and Semantics
 The two concepts are not completely independent from one another
 Principal of Compositionality — The notion that the meaning of a phrasal
expression is predictable from the meanings of the expressions it contains and
how they were syntactically combined.
 Lexical expression — A linguistic expression that has to be listed in the mental
lexicon, e.g. single words and idioms.
 Cat, run, when pigs fly, green-eyed monster
 A lexical expression is like a single Lego. It has a color, size, and shape that fills a
specific purpose.
 Phrasal Expression — A linguistic expression that results from the syntactic
combination of smaller expressions. A multi-word linguistic expression. A
sentence is a special kind of phrasal expression.
 My cat will run when pigs fly. When I drink milk, my cat turns into a green-eyed
monster.
 A phrasal expression is when multiple Legos are put together to make something new.
Rearranging these Legos also rearranges the final product.
Syntax and Semantics Cont.
 Sentences can be grammatical without having semantic meaning.
 Colorless green dreams sleep furiously.
 Sentences can contain the same words but have different meaning depending on
the construction and order of each expression
a) The green duck dawdled around the cactus.
b) The duck dawdled around the green cactus.
c) The alligator ducked under the sofa.
d) The sofa ducked under the alligator.
Syntax and Semantics Cont.
 Sentences can contain the same words but have different meaning
depending on the construction and order of each expression
a) The green duck dawdled around
the cactus.
a) The alligator ducked under the
sofa.
b) The duck dawdled around the
green cactus.
b) The sofa ducked under the
alligator.
Syntactic Properties
 Syntactic Properties — Properties of linguistic expressions that dictate how
they can syntactically combine with other expressions, namely, word order
and co-occurrence properties.
 Word Order — The linear order in which words can occur in some phrasal
expression. Also, the set of syntactic properties of expressions that dictates
how they can be ordered with respect to other expressions.
 Co-occurrence — The set of syntactic properties that determines which
expressions may or have to co-occur with some other expressions in a
sentence.
Word Order
 In English, most expressions follow an SVO or Subject  Verb  Object order
 About 35% of the worlds languages follow this order
 I walked a dog
*Walked a dog I
 Subject
I
 Verb
walked
 Object
a dog
 44% of all languages use SOV or Subject  Object  Verb
 This includes languages such as Korean and Turkish
 19% of languages use VSO or Verb  Subject  Object
 This includes Arabic and Irish
 Other patterns such as VOS, OVS, and OSV are rare.
Co-Occurrence Requirements
 Arguments — Many expressions have co-occurrence requirements. That is,
if they show up in a sentence, certain other expressions are required to
occur in that sentence as well.
 Adjuncts — While there have to be exactly the right number and type of
arguments for each expression in a sentence, there are certain kinds of
expressions whose occurrence in a sentence is purely optional.
 Agreement — Another kind of requirement that expressions can have
concerns the particular morphological form of their arguments. I.e
Inflection
Co-Occurrence
 Sometimes using certain expression means that another expression is required.
 Argument — A linguistic expression that must occur in a sentence if some other
expression occurs in that sentence as well. If the occurrence of an expression X in a
sentence requires the occurrence of an expression Y in that sentence, we say that Y is an
argument of X.
A. *Sally devoured.
 This phrase cannot stand alone and requires an object.
B. Sally devoured a cookie.
 “A cookie” is the missing argument from the first example.
 Complement — A non-subject argument of some expression.
 “A cookie” would also be a complement in the first example because “a cookie”
isn’t the subject
Arguments
 Not every argument is a noun phrase or as we call it an object.
 Expressions can have multiple complements
 “Told”
 *Sally told.
 *Sally told Polly.
 *Sally told Polly she’s leaving.
 It’s not just verbs that require complements
 “with”
 *Sally came to the party with.
 Sally came to the party with Bob.
 “fond”
 *Sally is fond.
 Sally is fond of parties.
Adjuncts
 Adjunct — A linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional;
also called modifier.
a) Sally likes dogs.
b) Sally likes small dogs.
c) Sally likes small fluffy dogs.
d) Sally likes small fluffy brown dogs.
 While the occurrence is optional, they can’t be added just anywhere.
a) Sally likes Bob.
b) * Sally likes fluffy Bob.
c) Sally runs.
d) * Sally runs small.
Agreement
 Languages have grammar and grammatical morphology that must be
followed when constructing expressions.
a) Sandy likes Bob.
b) * {I/you/we/they} likes Bob
c) * Sandy like Bob.
d) {I/you/we/they} like Bob.
 Morphosyntax — The name for syntax and morphology considered jointly
as a single component of grammar.
Syntactic Constituency
 Syntactic Constituent — A group of linguistic expressions that function as a
syntactic unit within some larger expression; the smaller expressions out of
which some larger phrasal expression was constructed in accordance with
the phrase structure rules.
 Sally devoured an apple.
 *Sally devoured an.
 *Sally devoured apple.
 Sally went to France in July.
 Sally went to France.
 *Sally went to France in.
 *Sally went to France July.
Is it a Semantic Constituent?
 You can determine semantic constituency by forming a question and answer
pair from the statement.
 Is ‘an apple’ in “Sally devoured an apple” a constituent?
 What did Sally devour?
 An apple.
 Is ‘on the desk’ in “The cat was sleeping on the desk” a constituent?
 Where was the cat sleeping?
 On the desk.
 Is ‘sleeping on the desk’ in “The cat was sleeping on the desk” a constituent?
 What was the cat doing?
 Sleeping on the desk.
 Is ‘the cat’ in “The cat was sleeping on the desk” a constituent?
 Who was sleeping on the desk?
 The cat.
Clefting
 Clefting — A type of sentence that has the general form It is/was X
that Y
 If the cleft is grammatical, then the displaced expression is a
constituent. If you try to move some expression that does not form a
constituent, the cleft will not be grammatical.
 Is “on the desk” in “The cat was sleeping on the desk” a constituent?
 It was on the desk that the cat was sleeping.
 Is “the cat” in “The cat was sleeping on the desk” a constituent?
 It was the cat that was sleeping on the desk.
 Is “on the” in “The cat was sleeping on the desk” a constituent?
 * It was on the that the cat was sleeping desk.
Pro-Form Substitution
 Substitution — In syntax, a constituency test that involves replacing a
constituent with a single word (or simple phrase), such as a pro-form.
 Pro-Form — A word (e.g., a pronoun) that can replace a syntactic
constituent.
 Is ‘the cat’ in “The cat was sleeping on the desk” a constituent?
 She was sleeping on the desk.
 Is ‘on the desk’ in “The cat was sleeping on the desk” a constituent?
 The cat was sleeping there.
 Is ‘on the’ in “The cat was sleeping on the desk” a constituent?
 * The cat was sleeping {it/there/then/such/do so} desk.
Syntactic Categories
 Syntactic Categories— A group of expressions that have very similar
syntactic properties. All expressions that belong to the same syntactic
category have more or less the same syntactic distribution.
 Syntactic Distribution — Refers to the set of syntactic environments in which
an expression can occur. If two expressions are interchangeable in all
syntactic environments, we say that they have the same syntactic
distribution and therefore belong to the same syntactic category.
Syntactic Categories Cont.
The Cat = Fluffy
 Sally likes the cat.
Cat =/= Fluffy
 The cat was sleeping.
 Sally likes Fluffy.
 * The Fluffy was sleeping.
 The cat is sleeping.
 * Sally gave cat some food.
 Fluffy is sleeping.
 Sally gave the cat some food.
 Sally gave Fluffy some food.
 Sally gave Fluffy some food.
Syntactic Categories Cont.
 Sentence (s)— A syntactic category that consists of all phrasal expressions that
can grammatically occur in Sally thinks that ______.
 Noun Phrase (NP) —The name of a syntactic category that consists of proper
names, pronouns, and all other expressions with the same syntactic distribution.
 Noun (N) — consists of expressions that can combine with determiners to their left,
the resulting expression being of category noun phrase.
 Determiner (D or Det)— The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that
consists of expressions such as the, a, this, all, etc.
 Verb Phrase — The name of a syntactic category that consists of all expressions
that, if combined with a noun phrase to their left, result in a sentence.
 ***Verbs are not a syntactic category. They are only morphological category***