Chapter 5 - Syntax

Question 1

What is the difference between grammatical and ungrammatical?

Answer 1

grammatical = well-formed
ungrammatical = not well-formed
Ungrammatical strings are always marked with an asterisk

Question 2

If a sentence is grammatical but makes no sense, what is wrong with it?

Answer 2

It is not semantically well-formed.

Syntax looks at grammar well-formedness, not semantics

Question 3

Name the 2 components of a declarative sentence

Answer 3

A subject and a predicate (property of the subject)
The subject is N or Pro, and the predicate is usually V
NV or ProV

Question 4

Noun Phrases (NP) are formed of which components?

Answer 4

At least a noun (mandatory)

And maybe a determiner and an adjective (not mandatory)

Question 5

What is a PP?

Answer 5

Prepositional Phrase - A preposition (P) and its NP

Question 6

Can a PP be part of a NP?

Answer 6

Yes - usually in this order - (D) (A) N (PP)

Question 7

What is syntactic substitution?

Answer 7

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

Question 8

What is a VP?

Answer 8

A Verb Phrase - A verb and its details (ex: V + PP = VP)

Question 9

What is an AP?

Answer 9

Adjectival Phrase - a group of adjectives like “very tall”

Question 10

What is the coordination test

Answer 10

Joining 2 elements with “and” - only two components of the same phrase type (ex: 2 VPs) can be joined by “and”

Question 11

How is called the NP sister of a verb in a tree?

Answer 11

Its direct object

Question 12

What are lexical heads?

Answer 12

express the kind of “contentful” semantics that we are used to think about when we think about meaning informally: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.

Question 13

What does it mean that lexical heads are “open class items”?

Answer 13

people regularly create and borrow (from other languages) new nouns
• Ex: Covid-19, hangry, etc

Question 14

What are functional heads?

Answer 14

express more “technical” functions about relationships BETWEEN lexical heads (determiners, prepositions, quantifiers, and modal auxiliaries (will, can, may, might, should)

Question 15

What does it mean that functional heads are phonologically null?

Answer 15

they have no audible form

• Ex: when we are being sarcastic, other words are implied without us needing to actually saying them out loud

Question 16

What are auxilliaries for?

Answer 16

To glue the property and entity together

Question 17

What can auxiliaries be?

Answer 17

Tense marking (tense auxilliaries) or modality marking

Question 18

What is the syntactic category of auxilliaries?

Answer 18

I (i) - In the sentence it’s called the IP (I-Phrase)

Question 19

What is a subordinate cause?

Answer 19

A sentence “embedded” in another (ex: Mary will argue that “the professors should drink beer”)

Question 20

What is the word that introduces a subordinate cause called? What is its syntactic category?

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Where are the I-elements in declarative sentences?

Answer 21

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

Question 22

If i change “you can see the horse” into: “Can you see the horse”, why does the I element moved further up?

Answer 22

Because of the C, which became Q instead of decl

This C has the property of triggering a modification of the tree

Question 23

How do we call the movement from I to C?

Answer 23

A transformation

Question 24

What does a transformation leaves us with?

Answer 24

A trace, or t, which indicates where the I-element used to be in the tree

Question 25

How is called the sentence structure before a transformation? After?

Answer 25

Before: The d-structure (deep structure)
After: the s-structure (surface structure)

Question 26

What is structural ambiguity in syntax?

Answer 26

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)