1036: 4P
Syntax Syntax studies how words are put together to form sentences.
To a large extent, which positions a word can appear in in a sentence is determined by its (syntactic) category (aka part of speech).
Lexical categories
Morphosyntactic categories can either be lexical or functional:
Lexical categories:
Noun dog, party, book, Fred, happiness Verb go, run, see, give, rain, blacken Adjective narrow, black, happy, bookish, rainy Adverb happily, narrowly, well
Functional categories
Preposition in, around, of, about, between
Determiner the, a, some, any, that, this
Complementizer that, if, whether
Coordinator and, but, or, nor
Auxiliary would, could, might, have, be
Pronoun we, him, I, they, us, her, its
Lexical and functional categories
Lexical categories are generally open categories, meaning new words in those categories are easy to make up (like iPod, google, or defriend)
Functional categories are closed categories, meaning new words in those categories are hard to make up
Lexical and functional categories
Lexical words usually have some very concrete, graspable meaning; they usually denote basic concepts
Functional words usually have a very abstract meaning that cannot be paraphrased in English, and do not denote concepts but rather ways of relating concepts
THE ISSUE OF SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE Remember morphology...
Words can also be thought of as strings: of what? ⇒ of morphemes
(8) a. unhappiness b. un+happy+ness
But we learned that the internal structure of words cannot be flat.
N
Af A Af un happy ness
Why not?
Morphological selection ness attaches to Adjectives to form Nouns.
happyA+ness is a noun crankyA+ness is a noun sloppyA+ness is a noun
un attaches to Adjectives to form Adjectives
un + happyA is an adjective un + healthyA is an adjective un + luckyA is an adjective
But, importantly, un cannot attach to Nouns: *un + tableN *un + girlN *un + miseryN
Morphological Structure
N
N
A Af happy -ness
Af un-
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Morphological selection properties are formally represented in terms of trees
Trees Just like words, sentences have internal hierarchical structure.
The structure is represented as a tree:
The dog ate the bone. S
NP VP
D N V NP the dog ate
D N the bone
THE CONCEPT OF SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE
Hypothesis 1: Sentences are structured in certain specific ways.
Hypothesis 2: Sentences are unstructured lists of words: words strung up in linear order one after the other.
First, observe that the order is not just free: there are some word order constraints.
The sentence in (1a) means something different than the sentence in (1b):
(1) a. The dog bit the horse b. The horse bit the dog
The issue of structural ambiguity
The sentence in (2) is ambiguous:
(2) the mother of the boy and the girl will arrive soon
You see this by comparing (2) with (3) and (4):
(3) the mother of the boy and the girl is arriving soon
(4) the mother of the boy and the girl are arriving soon
Two different groupings of words: (5) a. [the mother of the boy and the girl] will arrive soon
a. [the mother of the boy] and the girl will arrive soon
Grouping=structuring
The same string of words may have different structures
OBSERVE: The linear order of words is obtainable by direct observation of the sentence. Word grouping is a theoretical property needed to account for abstract characteristics of sentences such as structural ambiguity.
First approximation to sentence structure:
1. Linear order of words. 2. Possible grouping of words.
EVIDENCE FOR SENTENCE STRUCTURE
Questions in English:
(6) a. John can lift 500 pounds b. Can John lift 500 pounds?
(7) a, Mary has proved several theorems b. Has Mary proved several theorems?
How can we account for how the questions in b) are formed from the declarative sentences in a)?
First attempt based on the notion of linear order:
(8) John can lift 500 pounds 1 2 3 4 5
(9) Question Rule 1: To form a question from a declarative sentence, place word 2 at the beginning of the sentence.
(10) Can John lift 500 pounds? 2 1 3 4 5
(9) is inadequate:
(11) Yesterday John could lift 500 pounds 1 2 3 4 5 6
(12) *John yesterday could lift 500 pounds? 2 1 3 4 5 6
(13) Yesterday, could John lift 500 pounds?
To account for this, we have to suppose that the words of a sentence are not only strung out in some linear order but also classified into different morphological categoriesà the parts of speech seen before.
Lexical categories =Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs. Functional categories=auxiliaries, determiners and prepositions,etc.
(15) Question Rule 2: To form a question from a declarative sentence, place the first verb at the
beginning of the sentence.
Also QR2 is inadequate: (16) a. Mary left early
b. Left Mary early?
(17) Did Mary leave early?
(18) a. You know those women b. do you know those women?
The sentences in (17) and (18b) are formed with two verbs: an auxiliary verb and a main verb. It is the auxiliary verb that is fronted at the beginning of the sentence.
Hypothesis: The do that appears in (17) and (18b) is a placeholder auxiliary verb.
The auxiliary verb in English:
(19) a. The verb be b. the verb have c. the verb do d. the modal auxiliaries: can, could, will, would, shall, should, may,
might, must.
Properties of auxiliary verbs: 1. Auxiliary verbs, but not main verbs, are fronted in forming questions. 2. The contracted negative form n t can attach to auxiliary verbs: (20) a. John is running
b. John isn t running (21) a. I can sing
b. I can t sing (22) a. Mary left early
b. *Mary leftn t early c. Mary didn t leave early
3. Auxilary verbs, but not main verbs, can appear in tags.
(23) John has not been here, has he?
(24) Herman is threatening to leave, is he?
(25) Herman is threatening to leave, isn t he?
Main verbs cannot appear in tags:
(26) a. *You know those women, know you? b. you know those women, do you?
(27) a. *Mary left early, left she? b. Mary left early, did she?
(28) Question Rule 3:
a. To form a question from a declarative sentence, place the auxiliary verb at the beginning of the sentence.
b. If there is no auxiliary verb, but only a main verb, place an appropriate form of the verb do at the beginning of the sentence and make appropriate changes in the main verb.
QR3 is still inadequate. Consider the sentences in (29) and (30):
(29) a. The people who are standing in the room will leave soon b. *Are the people who ____ standing in the room will leave soon? c. Will the people who are standing in the room ___ leave soon?
(30) a. The people who were saying that John is sick will leave soon b. Will the people who were saying that John is sick ___ leave soon?
The auxiliary that is moved to the beginning of the sentence is the auxiliary that follows the SUBJECT constituent of the sentence.
(31) [The people who are standing in the room] will leave soon Subject constituent
(32) [The people who were saying that John is sick] will leave soon Subject constituent
(33) Question Rule 4: To form a question from a declarative sentence, locate the first auxiliary that follows the subject of the sentence and place it at the beginning of the sentence.
(34) a. Yesterday, John could lift 500 pounds b. *Could yesterday John lift 500 pounds? c. Yesterday, could John lift 500 pounds?
(35) Question Rule 5: To form a question from a declarative sentence, locate the first auxiliary that follows the subject of the sentence and place it immediately to the left of the subject.
Evidence for the notion of subject:
In any given language, we can find grammatical processes that crucially (and uniquely) involve subjects of sentences.
Tag questions in English:the pronoun in the tag always agrees with the subject.
(36) a. You will persuade the professor, won t you? b. John won t sing to Mary, will he? c. The woman in the photo is feeding the ducks, isn t she? d. The girl and the boy are playing, aren t they?
Properties of subjects in English:
(37) a. The subject of a declarative sentence generally precedes the auxiliary and the main verb in linear order. b. it forms the constituent around which an auxiliary is fronted in forming a question. c. It is the constituent with which a pronoun in a tag agrees in terms of person, number and gender.
Most English pronouns are marked according to their function as subjects or objects: I vs. me, he vs. him, she vs. her, they vs. them (exception: you)
CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE AND TREE DIAGRAMS
Three important aspects of sentence structure:
(38) a. The linear order of words in a sentence b. The categorization of words in parts of speech c. The grouping of words into structural constituents.
These three types of structural information can be encoded into what is called a tree diagram (or phrase marker):
(39) The people in the room will move the desk into the hall
(40) S
NP Aux VP
Art. N PP V NP PP
P NP P NP
Art N Art. N Art. NP
The people in the room will move the desk into the hall
S=Sentence; NP=Noun Phrase; Art=Article; N=Noun; Aux=Auxiliary; VP=Verb Phrase; V=Verb; PP=Prepositional Phrase; P=Preposition
(41) a constituent:
NP
PP
NP
Art N P Art N
The people in the room
(42) NOUN PHRASE Article Noun Prepositional Phrase
Preposition Noun Phrase Article Noun
The people in the room
Phrase structure rules
Phrase structure rules express dependencies that must be captured in the grammar.
A phrase structure rule is a formula for how the constituent represented by a certain symbol can be constituted, or expanded, into a tree diagram:
(24) a. S à NP Aux VP b. NP à Art N c. VP à V NP
(25)a. S
NP Aux VP
b. S
NP Aux VP
Art N V NP
Art N
(27) S dominates NP, Aux, VP NP dominates Art N VP dominates V NP
NP, Aux, VP are daughter nodes of S NP, Aux, VP are sister nodes S is the mother node