NEXT MEETING:
_ Look up the other terms not covered.
_ Prepare chapter 1 (pp. 13- 28).
DEFINITIONS
_ Grammar: mental system of rules and categories
that allows humans to form and interpret the words
and sentences of their language.
_ Syntax: system of rules and categories that
underlies sentence formation in human language.
_ Transformational syntax: widely accepted approach
to syntactic analysis in which syntactic phenomena
are described in terms of phrase structure rules
(which generate deep structures) and
transformations (which generate surface
structure).
_ A sentence is grammatical if speakers judge it
to be a possible sentence of their language.
_ Which of these sentences grammatical?
_ I watered my planets.
_ I watered my plants.
_ Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
_ Home went I to week this.
_ A the football player not ball kick did.
CATEGORIES AND STRUCTURES
_ What are these? Push, lift, Damascus, a, these,
_ Syntactic category: the category into which an
element is placed depending on the type of
meaning it expresses, the type of affixes it takes,
and the type of structure in which it occurs.
_ Lexical: Noun, verb, adjective, preposition, adverb
_ Functional: determiner, degree words, qualifier,
auxiliary, conjunction
_ The difference is in: word’s meaning, its inflectional
capabilities, and its distributional facts
_ (enclitic: is a clitic attached to the end of a
preceding word – clitic is phonologically deficient
word-like form (‘ve) that must be attached to some
word because it cannot occur in isolation.
PHRASE STRUCTURE
_ phrase is a syntactic unit; one or more words
built around a skeleton consisting of two levels:
phrase level and a word level.
NP VP AP PP phrase level
N
_ The head is the word around which other
elements of different types are attached
V
A
P
word level
AP
PP
A
(SHE IS)
P
certain
(he went)
in
_ Heads can be preceded by specifiers.
_ The specifier helps specify the meaning of the
head. (the books, never eat, quite certain,
almost in); usually occurring to the left of the
head.
A
det
b
n
the
c
np
qual
books
ap
vp
v
never
d
eat
pp
deg
a
deg
p
quite
certain
almost
in
_ Heads can be followed by complements
_ The complement provide more information
about the head; occur to the right of the head;
usually are phrases themselves.
COMPLEMENT
_ complement option should be stored within
our metal dictionary; lexicon (subcategorization)
_ Hence,
phrase structure can be
_ Phrase structure rule:
NP _(Det) N (PP)
VP _(Qual) V (NP)
AP _(Deg) A (PP)
PP _(Deg) P (PP)
to Generate
XP _ (specifier) X (complement)
_ To verify constituents, apply either of:
_ Substitution test:
_ Movement test:
_ Coordination test:
THE SENTENCE
_ Traditional view: S _ NP VP
_ Contemporary view: Sentence is inflection
phrase where the head is the inflection
indicating sentence tense…. Specifier is
complement is
VP.
3-TIER STRUCTURE
_ However, to be more
realistic phrase structure
should be:
_ XP _ (Specifier) X’
_ X’ _ X (Complement)
Where X’ is intermediate level
COMPLEMENT - CONTI.
_ complements can be as well clauses within
matrix clause
NP and
[The psychic knows [that/whether/if the consultant will
win]]
_ That/ whether /if are called complementisers
(Cs). Hence, we have CP (complementiser
phrase) within sentences
.
TRANSFORMATION
_ Deep structure (D structure) is the
underlying
structure of any given sentence. It is the
structure
generated by the phrase structure rules in
accordance with the subcategorization properties
of the heads.
_ Surface
structure (S structure) is the resulting
structure after
application of transformation rules.
It is the structure that results from the application
of whatever transformations are appropriate for the
sentence in question.
_ inversion in yes-no questions
_ WH- movement
_ Do insertion
INVERSION IN YES-NO QUESTIONS
_ Move infl to the left of
the subject NP
_ E.g. Will the boy leave?
_ D structure: the boy
will leave.