Chapter 5- Syntax

Question 1

Linguistic expression

Answer 1

A piece of language- it has a certain form, a certain meaning, and most relevantly, some sytactic properties as well.

Question 2

Principle of compositionality

Answer 2

The fact that the meaning of a sentence depends on the meanings of the expressions it contains and on the way they are syntactically combined

Question 3

Syntactic properties

Answer 3

Properties of linguistic expressions that dictate how they can syntactically combine with other expressions, namely, word order and co-occurence properties

Question 4

Word order

Answer 4

How are expressions allowed to be ordered with respect to one another

Question 5

Co-occurance

Answer 5

The set of syntactic properties that determines which expressions may or have to co-occur with some other expressions in a sentence

Question 6

Adjuncts

Answer 6

A linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional; also called modifier

Question 7

Agreement

Answer 7

The phenomenon by which certain expressions in a sentence must be inflectionally marked for the same person, gender number, etc,

Question 8

Morphosyntax

Answer 8

The name for syntax and morphology considered jointly as a single component of grammar

Question 9

Syntactic constituent

Answer 9

A group of linguistic expressions that function as a syntactic unit within within some larger expressions; the smaller expressions out of which some larger phrasal expression was constructed in accordance with the phrase structure rules

Question 10

Cleft

Answer 10

A type of sentence that has the general for it is/ was

Question 11

Conjuncts

Answer 11

An argument of a coordinating conjunction such as and or or

Question 12

Syntactic categories

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Syntactic distribution

Answer 13

Refers to the set of syntactic environments in which an expression can occur

Question 14

Noun phrases

Answer 14

Consists of personal pronouns, proper names, and any other expressions that have the same distribution

Question 15

Determiners

Answer 15

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as the, a, this, all, etc.

Question 16

Verb phrase

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Intransitive verb

Answer 17

The name for the set of lexical expressions whose syntactic category is verb phrase

Question 18

Ditransitive verb

Answer 18

The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with two expressions that if combined with two expressions of category noun phrase to their right result in a verb phrase

Question 19

Sentential complement verb

Answer 19

The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with a sentence to their right result in a verb phrase; a verb that needs a sentence as its complement

Question 20

Lexicon

Answer 20

A mental repository of linguistic information about words and other lexical expressions, including their form, meaning, morphological, and syntactic properties.

Question 21

Lexical entries

Answer 21

A representation of a lexical expression and its linguistic properties within a descriptive grammar of some language

Question 22

Phrase structure rules

Answer 22

A recipe for syntactically combining expressions of certain syntactic categories

Question 23

Phrase structure tree

Answer 23

A visual representation of how phrases are constructed within a descriptive grammar, given the lexicon and the phrase structure rule

Question 24

Ambiguous

Answer 24

Linguistic forms that can correspond to more than one distinct expression

Question 25

Lexical ambiguity

Answer 25

The phenomenon where a single word is the form of tow or more distinct linguistic expressions that differ in meaning or syntactic properties

Question 26

Homophony

Answer 26

The phenomenon by which two or more distinct morphemes or nonphrasal linguistic expressions happen to have the same form, i.e., sound the same.

Question 27

Structural ambiguity

Answer 27

The phenomenon where a single string of words (or morphemes) is the form of more than one distinct phrasal expression (or word)

Question 28

Argument

Answer 28

A linguistic expression that must occur in a sentence if some other expression occurs in that sentence as well

Question 29

Complement

Answer 29

A non-subject argument of some expression

Question 30

Topicalization

Answer 30

A syntactic process by which (in English) a syntactic constituent occurs the beginning of a sentence in order to high-light the topic under discussion

Question 31

Subject

Answer 31

The expression that usually occurs immediately to the left of the verb

Question 32

Object

Answer 32

The expression that occurs immediately to the right of the verb (if any)

Question 33

Grammatical

Answer 33

A term used to describe a sentence that is in accordance with the descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially syntactic rules

Question 34

Ungrammatical

Answer 34

Not in accordance with the descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially syntactic rules

Question 35

Grammaticality judgment

Answer 35

An instance of a native speaker of some language decided whether some string of words corresponds to a syntactically well-formed or grammatical phrasal expression in their native language

Question 36

Sentence

Answer 36

A syntactic category that consists of all phrasal expressions that can grammatically occur in Sally things that….

Question 37

Adjectives

Answer 37

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category

Question 38

Adverb

Answer 38

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as quickly, well, furiously, etc.

Question 39

Prepositional phrase

Answer 39

The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that contain a preposition and a noun phrase

Question 40

Preposition

Answer 40

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as of, in, for, with, etc.