Chapter 5 Syntax Flashcards
Adjunct
A linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional: also called a modifier.
Adverb
The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as quickly, well, furiously, etc.Syntactically, adverbs can be verb phrase adjuncts.
Agreement
The phenomenon by which certain expressions in a sentence (e.g. a verb and its subject) must be inflectional marked for the same person, number, gender, etc.
Argumen
A linguistic expression that must occur in a sentence of some other expression occurs in that sentence as well. If the occurrence of an expression X in a sentence requires the occurrence of an expression Y in the sentence, we say that Y is an argument of X.
Cleft
A type of sentence that has the general form It is/ was X that Y, e.g. It was Sally that wanted to meet. Can be used as a constituency test.
Complement
A non subject argument of some expression.
Compositionality
The principle of compositionality underlies the design feature of productivity.
Constituent
Reveal the syntactic of the sentence; in other words, they show how the sentence was built out of smaller expressions.
Conjunct
An argument of a coordinating conjunction such as and or, or.
Co-Occurrence
The set of syntactic properties that determines which expressions may or have to co-occur with some other expressions in a sentence.
Distransitive Verb
The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with two expressions of category noun phrase to their right result in a verb phrase. A verb that needs two noun phrase complements.
Expression
A linguistic expression is just a piece of language it has certain form( e.g.what it sounds like), a certain meaning, and , most relevantly, some syntactic properties as well. These syntactic properties determine how the expression can combine with other expressions.
Grammatically judgment
An instance of a native speaker of some language deciding whether some string of words corresponds to a syntactically well-formed or grammatical phrasal expression in their native language.
Intransitive Verb
The name for the set of lexical expressions whose syntactic category is verb phrase.
Lexical Ambiguity
The phenomenon where a single word is the form of two or more distinct linguistic expressions that differ in meaning or syntactic properties.
Lexical Entry
A representation of a lexical expression and its linguistic properties within a descriptive grammar of some language. A collection of lexical entries constitutes the lexicon. A lexical entry has the form f- X, Where f is the form of some particular lexical expression, and X is its syntactic category.
Lexical Expression
A linguistic expression that has to be listed in the mental lexicon,e.g. single-word expression and idioms.
LInguistic Expression
A piece of language with a form, a meaning, and syntactic properties.
Morphosyntax
The name for syntax and morphology considered jointly as a single component of grammar.
Modifiers
A word, especially an adjective or noun used attributively, that restricts or adds to the sense of a head noun.(e.g. Sally likes small dogs). This sentence tells us that Sally likes dogs but specifically small dogs in general. The adjective small modifies the meaning of dogs.For this reason adjuncts are sometimes called modifiers.
Noun Adjunct
A kind of adjunct that combines with an expression of syntactic category noun with the resulting expression also being of category noun.
Noun Phrase
The name of a syntactic category that consists of proper names, pronouns, and all other expressions with the same syntactic distribution.
Object
A noun phrase that usually occurs immediately to the right if the verb in English. A noun phrase complement.
Phrasal Expression
A linguistic expression that results from the syntactic combination of smaller expression. A multi- word linguistic expression. A sentence is a special kind of phrasal expression.
Phrase Structure Tree
A visual representation of how phrases are constructed within a descriptive grammar, given the lexicon and the phrase structure rules.
Prepositional Phrase
The name of a syntactic category that consist of those expressions that contain a preposition and a noun phrase. Can be verb phrase adjuncts or noun adjuncts.
Principle of Compositionality
The notion that the meaning of a phrasal expression is predictable from the meaning of the expression it contains and how they were syntactically combined.
Sentence
A syntactic category that consists of all phrasal expression that can grammatically occur in Sally thinks that……..
Sentential Complement Verb
The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expression that if combined with a sentence to their right result in a verb phrase; a verb that needs a sentence as its complement.
Structural Ambiguity
The phenomenon where a single string of words ( or morphemes) is the form of more than one distinct phrasal expression ( or word): Arises because the same expression can combine different syntactically resulting in distinct phrases that happen to have the same form.
Subject
An expression, typically a noun phrase, that occurs to the left of the verb phrase in an English sentence.
Syntactic Category
A group of expressions that have very similar syntactic properties. All expressions that belong to the same syntactic category have more or less the same syntactic distribution.
Syntactic Constituent:
A group of linguistic expressions that function as a syntactic unit within some larger expression; the smaller expression out of which some larger phrasal expression was constructed in accordance with phrase structure rules.
Syntactic Distribution
Refers to the set of syntactic environment in which an expression can occur. If two expressions are interchangeable in all syntactic environments, we say that they have the same syntactic distribution, and therefore belong to the same syntactic category.
Syntactic Properties
Properties of linguistic expression that dictate how they can syntactically combine with other expressions, namely, word order and co-occurrence properties.
Topicalization
A syntactic process by which (in English) a syntactic constituent occurs the beginning of a sentence in order to highlight the topic under discussion.
Transitive Verb
The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with an expression of category noun phrase to their right result in verb phrase, a verb that needs a noun phrase complement.
Verb Phrase
The name of a syntactic category that consists of all expressions which if combined with a noun phrase to their left result in a sentence.
Verb Phrase Adjunct
A kind of adjunct that combine with an expression of syntactic category verb phrase with the resulting expression also begin of category verb phrase.
Word Order
The linear order in which words can occur in some phrasal expression. Also, the set of syntactic properties of expressions that dictates how they can be ordered with respect to other expression.
