Chapter 5 - Syntax Flashcards
What is the difference between grammatical and ungrammatical?
grammatical = well-formed
ungrammatical = not well-formed
Ungrammatical strings are always marked with an asterisk
If a sentence is grammatical but makes no sense, what is wrong with it?
It is not semantically well-formed.
Syntax looks at grammar well-formedness, not semantics
Name the 2 components of a declarative sentence
A subject and a predicate (property of the subject)
The subject is N or Pro, and the predicate is usually V
NV or ProV
Noun Phrases (NP) are formed of which components?
At least a noun (mandatory)
And maybe a determiner and an adjective (not mandatory)
What is a PP?
Prepositional Phrase - A preposition (P) and its NP
Can a PP be part of a NP?
Yes - usually in this order - (D) (A) N (PP)
What is syntactic substitution?
Substituing a word or a group of word with another, to see if it works
Allowed us to realize that pronouns don’t substitute for nouns but for NPs
What is a VP?
A Verb Phrase - A verb and its details (ex: V + PP = VP)
What is an AP?
Adjectival Phrase - a group of adjectives like “very tall”
What is the coordination test
Joining 2 elements with “and” - only two components of the same phrase type (ex: 2 VPs) can be joined by “and”
How is called the NP sister of a verb in a tree?
Its direct object
What are lexical heads?
express the kind of “contentful” semantics that we are used to think about when we think about meaning informally: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.
What does it mean that lexical heads are “open class items”?
people regularly create and borrow (from other languages) new nouns
• Ex: Covid-19, hangry, etc
What are functional heads?
express more “technical” functions about relationships BETWEEN lexical heads (determiners, prepositions, quantifiers, and modal auxiliaries (will, can, may, might, should)
What does it mean that functional heads are phonologically null?
they have no audible form
• Ex: when we are being sarcastic, other words are implied without us needing to actually saying them out loud
What are auxilliaries for?
To glue the property and entity together
What can auxiliaries be?
Tense marking (tense auxilliaries) or modality marking
What is the syntactic category of auxilliaries?
I (i) - In the sentence it’s called the IP (I-Phrase)
What is a subordinate cause?
A sentence “embedded” in another (ex: Mary will argue that “the professors should drink beer”)
What is the word that introduces a subordinate cause called? What is its syntactic category?
A complementizer - of the category C
All sentences have a C element in them that determines whether they are subordinate or independent (independent would be “the professors should drink beer)
The independent sentence C element is phonologically null
Where are the I-elements in declarative sentences?
Right between the subject NP and the predicate VP
ex: in “I can see this” - Can is the I-element and See is the V
If i change “you can see the horse” into: “Can you see the horse”, why does the I element moved further up?
Because of the C, which became Q instead of decl
This C has the property of triggering a modification of the tree
How do we call the movement from I to C?
A transformation
What does a transformation leaves us with?
A trace, or t, which indicates where the I-element used to be in the tree
How is called the sentence structure before a transformation? After?
Before: The d-structure (deep structure)
After: the s-structure (surface structure)
What is structural ambiguity in syntax?
The same as in morphology; depending on how the sentence is constructed, it could mean two different things (ex: The clown hit the mousr with a twinkie)
The difference in meaning can be seen when the sentence is represented in the tree (depending on how it’s placed it will mean 2 different things)
The source of the ambiguity is about where the PP is attached (with the verb or the noun)
