Chapter 5 Syntax

Question 1

Syntax

Answer 1

A component of mental grammar that deals with constructing phrasal expressions out of smaller expressions.

Question 2

Grammatical

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Grammaticality Judgment

Answer 3

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.

Question 4

Ungrammatical

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Complements

Answer 5

A non-subject argument of some expression.

Question 6

Subject

Answer 6

An expression, typically a noun phrase, that occurs to the left of the verb phrase in an English sentence.

Question 7

Object

Answer 7

A noun phrase that usually occurs immediately to the right of the verb in English. A noun phrase complement.

Question 8

Syntactic Properties

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Word Order

Answer 9

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 expressions.

Question 10

Topicalization

Answer 10

A syntactic process by which (in English) a syntactic constituent occurs at the beginning of a sentence in order to highlight the topic under discussion.

Question 11

Pro-forms

Answer 11

A word that can replace a syntactic constituent.

Question 12

Adjectives

Answer 12

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category. Morphologically consists of words to with the comparative suffix -er or the suffix -ness can be added. Syntactically, the category consists of those expressions that can be noun adjuncts or occur between a determiner and a noun.

Question 13

Determiners

Answer 13

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as the, a, this, all, etc. Syntactically, consists of those expressions that when combined with an expression of category noun to their right result in an expression of category.

Question 14

Count Nouns

Answer 14

In simple terms, a noun that can be counted and pluralized.

Question 15

Intransitive Verbs

Answer 15

The name of a set of lexical expressions whose syntactic category is verb phrase.

Question 16

Syntactic Constituent

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Adverb

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

Prepositional Phrase

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Substitution

Answer 19

In syntax, a constituency test involves replacing a constituent with a single word (or simple phrase), such as a pro-form. In language processing, a production error in which on unit is replace with another.

Question 20

Phrase Structure Tree

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Syntactic Categories

Answer 21

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 22

Syntactic Distribution

Answer 22

Refers to the set of syntactic environments in which an expression.

Question 23

Lexical Ambiguity

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Nouns

Answer 24

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category.

Question 25

Verb Phrase

Answer 25

The name of a syntactic category that consists of all expressions that, if combined with a noun phrase to their left, result in a sentence.

Question 26

Transitive Verbs

Answer 26

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 a verb phrase; a verb that needs a noun phrase complement.

Question 27

Sentential Complement Verbs

Answer 27

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 28

Lexicon

Answer 28

A representation of lexical expressions and their syntactic properties.

Question 29

Phrase Structure Rules

Answer 29

Used to capture patterns of syntactic combination.