Ch. 5 Vocab Flashcards
Syntax
A component of mental grammar that deals with constructing phrases out of smaller expressions
Linguistic Expression
A piece of language with a form (turning words into a phrase)
Grammatical
A sentence that is in accordance with the descriptive grammatical rules of the language being spoken (Bob likes Sally)
Ungrammatical
A sentence that is not in accordance with the descriptive grammatical rules of the language being spoken (Likes Bob Sally)
Grammaticality Judgment
An instance of a native speaker of a language deciding whether a string of words is grammatical or not
Subject
An expression, typically a noun phrase, that occurs to the left of the verb phrase in the English language
Object
A noun phrase that usually occurs immediately to the right of the verb in English
Principle 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 combined
Lexical Expressions
A linguistic expression that is listed in the mental lexicon (single words, idioms, etc)
Phrasal Expression
A linguistic expression that results from the syntactic combination of smaller expressions (such as sentences)
Syntactic Properties
Properties of linguistic expressions that dictate how they can syntactically combine with other expressions, such as word order
Word Order
The linear order in which words can occur in a phrasal expression
Co-Occurrence
The set of syntactic properties that determines which expressions may or have to co-occur with some other expressions in a sentence
Topicalization
A syntactic process by which (in English) a syntactic constituent occurs at the beginning of a sentence in order to highlight the topic under discussion (“Oh, apples, I like.”)
Argument
A linguistic expression that must occur in a sentence if some other expression occurs in that sentence as well
Complement
A non-subject argument of some expression
Adjunct
A linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional; also called a modifier
Modifier
A type of adjunct
Agreement
The phenomenon by which certain expressions in a sentence (such as a verb and its subject) must be inflectionally marked for the same person, number, gender, etc. For example, I like Bob, she LikeS Bob
Morphosyntax
The name for syntax and morphology considered jointly as a single component of grammar
Syntactic Constituent
A group of linguistic expressions that function as a syntactic unit within some larger expression
Cleft
A type of sentence that has the general form of “it was/is X that Y”. Can be used as a constituency test
Substitution
In syntax, a constituency test that involves replacing a constituent with a single word or simple phrase
Pro-form
A word (such as a pronoun) that can replace a syntactic constituent
Syntactic Category
A group of expressions that all have very similar syntactic properties
Syntactic Distribution
Refers to the set of syntactic environments in which an expression can occur. If two expressions are interchangeable, they have the same syntactic distribution
Sentence
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
Syntactically, consists of expressions that can combine with determiners to their left, creating a noun phrase
Determiner
Syntactically, consists of those expressions that when combined with a noun create a noun phrase
Count Noun
A noun that can be counted and pluralized (cat, desk, etc)
Mass Noun
A noun that normally cannot be pluralized (water, gravel, etc)
Adjective
Syntactically, those expressions that can be noun adjuncts or occur in between a determiner and a noun
Verb Phrase
A syntactic category that consists of all expressions that, if combined with a noun phrase to their left, result in a sentence
Intransitive Verb
The name for a set of lexical expressions whose syntactic category is verb phrase
Transitive Verb
A verb that needs a noun complement
Distransitive Verb
A verb that needs two noun complements
Sentential complement verbs
A verb that needs a sentence as its complement
Adverb
Syntactically, a verb phrase adjunct
Phrase Structure Rules
A recipe for syntactically combining expressions of certain syntactic categories
