Linguistics

SYNTAX Week 8 – Session 2

What is Syntax?

• When we concentrate on the structure and ordering of components within a sentence, we are studying the syntax of a language.

• The word “syntax” comes originally from Greek and literally means “putting together” or “arrangement.”

• “All and only” criterion:

• The grammar will generate all the well-formed structures (e.g.

sentences) of the language

• The grammar will not generate any ill-formed structures.

• In other words, all the grammatical sentences and only the grammatical sentences will be produced.

What is SYNTAX

• The goal of syntactic analysis is to have a small and

finite (i.e. limited) set of rules that will be capable of

producing a large and potentially infinite (i.e. unlimited)

number of well-formed structures.

• This small and finite set of rules is sometimes described

as a generative grammar (Chomsky) because it can be

used to “generate” or produce sentence structures and

not just describe them.

What is Syntax?

• Non-sense sentences with clear syntax: • Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

• The exquisite box will drink the new wine.

• They saw the happy bed crossing the street.

• * Furiously sleep ideas green colorless.

• * New wine the drink exquisite the box.

• * They bed the street saw crossing happy.

• Sentences are composed of discrete units that are combined by rules.

• These rules explain how speakers can store infinite knowledge in a finite space - our brain.

Deep and surface structure

• Nina ate the cookies.

• The cookies were eaten by Nina.

• Philip will book the tickets.

• The tickets will be booked by Philip.

• I have made the bed.

• The bed has been made by me.

• The dog is chasing the cat.

• The cat is being chased by the dog.

Surface and Deep structure

• The difference lies in their surface structure, that is, the

different syntactic forms they have as individual English

sentences.

• The deep structure is an abstract level of structural

organization in which all the elements determining

structural interpretation are represented.

• Specified by the “Phrase Structure Rules”

• Tree diagrams

TREE DIAGRAMS

• One of the most common ways to create a visual

representation of syntactic structure is through tree

diagrams.

It shows very effectively

hierarchical organization

of a sentence.

S

NP

Adj N

VP

V Adv Adj

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

Tree Diagrams

• Step 1: Identify the parts of speech for all the words in the

sentence

• Step 2: Try to figure out what words "go together in

phrases" (i.e. figure out what the constituents are)

• Important!

• Nothing can be left dangling in space.

• Everything has to be attached to something higher up.

• Lines can't cross one another.

TREE DIAGRAMS

• SYMBOLS

• S (= sentence)

• Art (= article)

• V (= verb)

• N (= noun)

• PN (= Proper Noun)

• Adj (= adjective)

• Adv (=adverb)

• Pr (=pronoun)

• P (= preposition)

• VP (= verb phrase)

• NP (= noun phrase)

• PP (= prepositional phrase)

• The arrow → • It can be interpreted as “consists of” or “rewrites as.”

• The car

• NP → Art N

TREE DIAGRAMS

• The big dog

 NP → Art Adj N

 A big red car

 NP → Art Adj Adj N

 a person

 NP → Art N

 Thomas

 NP → PN

Let’s Practice

• The round table

 NP → Art Adj N

 Mary

 NP → PN

• A cute baby panda

 NP → Art Adj Adj N

 A bed

 NP → Art N

Simple Sentence structure

• Tom kicked the ball.

• S  NP + VP

• NP  PN

• VP  V + NP

• NP  Art + N

S

NP

PN

VP

V NP

N Art

Tom kicked the ball.

Simple Sentence structure

• Tom kicked the ball.

• 1st Step: Write down the phrase structure rules

• S  NP + VP

• NP  PN

• VP  V + NP

• NP  Art + N

Simple Sentence structure

• 2nd Step: Draw the branches of the tree, starting from

the top.

• S  NP + VP

• NP  PN

• VP  V + NP

• NP  Art + N

S

NP VP

N At

Simple Sentence structure

• 2nd Step: Draw the branches of the tree, starting from

the top.

• S  NP + VP

• NP  PN

• VP  V + NP

• NP  Art + N

S

NP

PN

VP

V NP

N Art

Simple Sentence structure

• 2nd Step: Draw the branches of the tree, starting from

the top.

• S  NP + VP

• NP  PN

• VP  V + NP

• NP  Art + N

S

NP

PN

VP

V NP

N Art

Tom kicked the ball.

Simple Sentence structure

• 2nd Step: Draw the branches of the tree, starting from

the top.

• S  NP + VP

• NP  PN

• VP  V + NP

• NP  Art + N

S

NP

PN

VP

V NP

N Art

Tom kicked the ball.

Simple Sentence structure

• The man spoke on the phone.

• S  NP + VP

• NP  Art + N

• VP  V + PP

• PP P + NP

• NP  Art + N

S

NP

Art N

VP

V PP

NP

Art N

P

The man spoke on the phone

Let’s Practice

• Write the phrase structure rules and draw the tree

diagrams of the following sentences:

• A black bag was on the floor.

• George washes the dishes.

• The cat is under the double bed.

Recursion

• Recursive (“repeatable any number of times”) rules have

the capacity to be applied more than once in generating a

structure.

• The gun was on the table.

• The gun was on the table near the window.

• The gun was on the table near the window in the

bedroom.

S

NP

Art

VP

V PP

NP

Art PP

P

P NP

Art PP

P NP

Art N

The gun was on the table near the window in the bathroom

N

NP

N

Let’s Practice

• Write the phrase structure rules and draw the tree

diagrams of the following sentences:

• The children are in the bedroom in the house near the

lake.

• Homework:

• My parents bought a new car.

• Alison visited Paris in October.