Chapter 5 Flashcards

1
Q

Syntax

A
  • grammar

- the system of rules and categories that accounts for phrase, clause and sentence formation

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

Syntactic Units

A
  1. Phrase
  2. Clause
  3. Sentence
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

Phrase

A
  • a combination of words that form a syntactic unit with cohesive meaning
  • ex) “the beautiful house”, “a turkey”
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

Clause

A
  • a combination of phrases that has to include a subject (doer) and predicate (action)
  • ex) “she asked if I (subject) liked (predicate) the beautiful house”
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

Sentence

A
  • often used synonymously with clause

- “I told John that I like that house” (2 clauses)

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

Prescriptive Grammar

A
  • found in language grammars were particular grammar rules are presented as correct and their violations or deviations form them are considered wrong
  • ex) “I am not” –> “I’m not” –> “I ain’t”
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Descriptive Grammar

A
  • attempt to describe what is actually happening in the use of language by native speakers
  • “ain’t” becomes acceptable
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

Lexical Categories

A
  • also known as word class, lexical class, part of speech
  • when a word is created it immediately acquires a lexical category
  • open and closed categories
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

Syntactic Categories Def.

A
  • words as they function in sentences
  • overlap with lexical categories, but there are some differences
  • was of defining the word’s category (meaning, inflection, distribution)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

Traditional Lexical Categories in English

A
  1. Nouns
  2. Verbs
  3. Adjective
  4. Adverb
  5. Pronoun
  6. Preposition
  7. Conjunction
  8. Interjections
  9. Numeral
  10. Particle
  11. Article
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

Noun

A

meaning: a thing
inflection: -s, ‘s
ex) Canada, girl

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

Verb

A

meaning: action
inflection: -s, -ed, -ing
ex) repeat, study

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

Adjective

A

meaning: quality
inflection: -er, -est
ex) dark, quick

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

Adverb

A

meaning: action quality
inflection: -er, -est, -ly
ex) quickly, fast

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

Pronoun

A

meaning: substitute
inflection: n/a
ex) this, his, her

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

Preposition

A

meaning: relationships
inflection: n/a
ex) to, in, with, on

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

Conjunctions

A

meaning: relationships
inflection: n/a
ex) and, since, when

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

Interjections

A

meaning: emotions and filled in pauses
inflection: n/a
ex) oh, ouch, um, err

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

Numeral

A

meaning: numbers
inflection: n/a
ex) fifth, five

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

Particle

A

meaning: n/a
inflection: n/a
ex) yes, no

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

Article

A

meaning: specific/nonspecific
inflection: n/a
ex) a, an, the

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

Open Lexical Categories

A
  • acquire new members regularly
  • “content words” and “lexical words”
  • nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

Closed Lexical Categories

A
  • don’t acquire new word regularly
  • “function words” or “grammar words”
  • articles, prepositions, conjunctions, aux verbs, pronouns
  • exception: “xe, xem, xyr” (gender neutral pronouns)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
24
Q

Meaning

A
  • what school grammars traditionally relied on
  • noun= person, place, thing
  • adjective= quality/description word
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
25
Q

Problems with Meaning

A
  1. the same word can belong to different categories without any appreciable change in meaning
  2. many nouns can be readily converted into verbs, sometimes with various meanings
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
26
Q

Inflection

A
  • different lexical categories have their own inflectional pattern (paradigms)
  • a modification in the word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood
  • nouns= -s
  • verbs = -s, -ed, -ing
  • adjectives, adverbs= (-er, -est)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
27
Q

Problems with Inflection

A
  • not a sufficient criterion to distinguish adverbs from adjectives
  • P, Adv, Det, Dgr, Con, are not inflected
  • overlapping forms across inflected categories
28
Q

Lexical

A
  • form their own phrases

- can be head

29
Q

Non-lexical

A
  • can’t form their own phrases

- can’t be head

30
Q

Syntactic Categories

A
  1. Noun (N)
  2. Verb (V)
  3. Adjective (A)
  4. Adverb (Adv)
  5. Preposition (P)
31
Q

Adjectives

A
  • describe a noun quality
  • typical derivat: “-ous”, “-ful”
  • function in a sentence: attribute or part of predicate
32
Q

Adverbs

A
  • verb characteristics
  • typical derivat: “-ly” or none
  • function in a sentence: modifiers
33
Q

Non-Lexical Categories

A
  • occur with and modify lexical categories
    1. Determiners
    2. Degree Words
    3. Auxiliary
    4. Conjunctions
    5. Complementizers
    6. Specifiers
34
Q

Specifiers

A
  • are function words that occur at the beginning of a phrase (left side)
  • Determiners and Degree words
35
Q

Determiners (Det)

A
  • occur before a noun in a noun phrase
  • articles (“the”, “a”)
  • particles (“no” –> “no money”)
  • possessive determiner (“my”, “his”)
  • demonstrative determiner (“this”, “these”)
  • wh-determiner (“which house”, “whose book”)
  • there can only be one determiner for each phrase
36
Q

Degree words (Deg)

A
  • describe the degree of an adverb or adjective
  • only found at the beginning
  • “too, so, very, more, quite, highly, strongly”
  • do not modify verbs
37
Q

Auxilaries (Aux)

A
  • traditional grammar call them helper or helping verbs or grammar verbs
  • they can’t be the only verb in the sentence
  • always followed by a lexical verb
  • can be modal or non-modal
38
Q

Non-Modal Aux

A
  • HAVE: used to form tense forms
  • BE: used to form progressive (I am..) and passives (I was..)
  • DO: used to form negative sentences and some questions (don’t, do?)
39
Q

Modal Aux

A
  • I MUST, SHOULD, CAN, WOULD, COULD, WILL, MAY, MIGHT

- if you have a modal and non-modal Aux in a clause, the modal Aux comes first

40
Q

Conjunctions (Conj)

A
  • conjoin phrases of identical nature (AND, OR, BUT)
41
Q

Complementizers (C)

A
  • occur at the beginning of an embedded clause (THAT, WHILE, IF)
  • embedded clause (dependent)
  • if-clause can’t appear on its own
42
Q

Constituency Tests

A
  1. Movement Test
  2. Replacement Test
  3. Question Test
  4. Coordination Test
43
Q

Movement Test

A
  • every group of words that forms a constituent should be moveable together
  • doesn’t always work that well for English because English has a strict word order
44
Q

Replacement Test

A
  • every group of words that forms a constituent can be replaced by a pro-form (“it”)
45
Q

Question Test

A
  • every group of words that form a constituent can be an answer to a question
46
Q

Coordination Test

A
  • every group of words that forms a constituent (a phrase) can be conjoined with a similar one with the help of coordinate conjunction
47
Q

Phrase Structure

A
  • heads, specifiers, complements
  • PS rules: NP, VP, AP, PP
  • each phrase has a word called it’s head (N, V, A, P)
    ex) his interesting books
  • there could be phrases that have only the head
    ex) Martha cooks
48
Q

head

A

links it to the rest of the sentence

49
Q

Noun Phrase

A
  • nouns = heads
  • can replace the constituent with any noun or “it” but not an adj. or det.
  • can only be replaced by a noun-like object
    NP –> (Det) (Adj) N
50
Q

Phrase Structure Rule (PSR)

A
  • the rules used to generate the structure of our sentences in the grammar
51
Q

Adjectival Phrase

A

AdjP –> (Deg)(AdvP) Adj

  • can consist of just one adjective
  • can have an AdjP with only one word (Adj. Head) that is embedded within a noun phrase
52
Q

Verb Phrases

A
VP --> V (NP)
- transitive: requires an object
- intransitive: verbs that can occur by themselves 
- adverbs modify verbs
VP --> (AdvP) V (NP) (AdvP)
53
Q

Adverb Phrase

A
  • adverbs can be modified by a deg. or another verb

AdvP –> (Deg) Adv

54
Q

Prepositional Phrase

A

PP –> P NP

  • distributional criterion = followed by a NP
  • similar to VP, the head is first
55
Q

Phrasal Verbs

A
  • words that look like prepositions but are called particles

- do not form a phrase with a following NP

56
Q

Objects

A
  1. no verb complement (no object (complement))
  2. direct object verb has a NP complement
    - ex) “boys love hockey”
  3. indirect and direct object NP complements
    - ex) “she wrote [(me) (a letter)]”
  4. predicate with adjective verb complement
    - with verbs: BE, SEEM, SMELL, LOOK, TASTE, BECOME
    - ex) “the game became difficult”
57
Q

Complementary Distribution

A
  • tense is expressed on V only when there is no aux
  • Aux doesn’t belong to VP it has separate slot
    [+past] and [-past]
58
Q

Position Aux

A
  • always there since the tense feature needs to originate somewhere
59
Q

Word Aux

A
  • not always there
  • since [+past] needs to be expressed somewhere it will move to the next available host, which is V
  • -> V: “-ed” or “-s”
60
Q

More than One Aux

A
  • “He HAS BEEN playing soccer”
  • only the first aux bears tense
  • could treat non-tense bearing Aux as another V
  • can add another aux to tree
61
Q

Complex Phrases: Conjunctions

A
  • conjoined phrases of the same kind
  • NP+NP: “Peter and Mary”
  • PP+PP: “on the house but for the guests”
  • VP+VP: “eat a cake and sing”
  • AdjP+AdjP: silent but deadly”
  • AdvP+AdvP: “slowly and carefully”
  • S+S: “Jane cooked a wonderful turkey and Peter made dessert”

XP –> XP conj. XP

62
Q

Complex Phrases: Complementizers

A
  • connect two clauses where one is in same way dependent on the other
  • can be NP: “Peter kissed many girls”
  • can be PP: “Peter wonder about girls”
  • can be clauses: “Peter wondered where he should kiss the girl”

CP –> C S

63
Q

Interrogatives

A
  • sentences we used when we ask questions
    1. Closed Interrogatives (yes-no)
    2. Open Interrogatives (wh-questions)
64
Q

Closed Interrogatives

A
  • Yes-No: “did Peter kiss the girl?”
  • do-insertion
  • -> these questions are formed by inserting an Aux “do” in front of the subject position
65
Q

Subject-Auxillary Inversion

A
  • the moment to derive the order for yes/no questions
66
Q

Transformations

A
  • derive language-specific word orders to non-default sentences
67
Q

Open Interrogatives

A
  • wh-questions
  • formed by using a question pronoun (who, what, etc)
  • ex) “what has Peter written?” “who has written a book?”