Chapter 5 Syntax Flashcards
object
the expression that occurs immediately to the right of the verb
subject
the English- the expression that usually occurs immediately to the left of the verb.
grammatical
syntactically well-formed
ungrammatical
syntactically ill-formed
syntax
A component of mental grammar that deals with constructing phrasal expressions out of smaller expressions. (the study of how expressions combine)
principle of compositionality
the meaning of a sentence depends on the meaning of the expressions it contains and on the way they are syntactically combined.
grammatical judgement
a reflection of speakers’ mental grammar and not a test of their conscious knowledge of the prescriptive rules
linguistic expressions
Is a piece of language 1)- that has a certain form (what it sounds like) 2)- a certain meaning - and most relevantly, 3)- some syntactic properties as well.
word order
how expressions are allowed to be ordered with respect to one another
co-occurrence
If some expression occurs in a sentence, what other expressions can or must co-occur with it in that sentence.
complements
non-subject arguments
adjunct
certain kinds of expressions whose occurrence in a sentence are purely optional
syntactic constituents
certain groups of expressions within a larger phrase can form a syntactic unit (smaller expressions out of which the phrase was constructed)
cleft
a kind of sentence in which some constituent is displaced (or moved) to the left
sentential complement verb
verbs that require a complement of category “S” to form a VP
ditransitive verbs (DTV)
verbs that require 2 NP complements and a subject NP argument
transitive verbs (TV)
verbs that require a NP complement to form a VP
verb phrase (VP)
consists of those expressions that, when combined with an NP on their left,will result in a sentence, that is an expression of category “S”
noun phrase (NP)
consist of personal pronouns (he, she, you, it, we, etc.) proper names and any other expressions that have the same distribution
N adjuncts
adjectives combined with nouns
VP adjuncts
adverbs combined with a VP to form an expression of category VP
syntactic categories
consists of a set of expressions that have very similar syntactic properties
intransitive verbs
verbs that require no complements
sentence(S)
a syntactic category that consist of all phrasal expressions that can grammatically occur
prepositional phrase(PP)
the name of a syntactic category that consist of those expressions that contain a preposition and a noun phrase
preposition
the name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consist of expressions such as of, in, for, with, etc.
adverb (ADV)
the name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as quickly, well, furiously, etc.
adjective (ADJ)
the name of a lexical category and a syntactic category. Morphologically consist of words to which the comparative suffix -er or the suffix -ness can be added
determiner (Det)
the name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as the, a, this, all, etc.
noun (N)
the name of a lexical category and a syntactic category. Morphologically consists of words to which the plural suffix -s or the suffix -like can be added
homophonous
expressions that correspond to the same single word form Ex. mole- rodent, growth on skin
Ex. Sally has a fast car - adj
Sally walks fast - adv
lexical ambiguity
the kind of ambiguity exemplified by bank (same form but 2 very different meanings)
- a single word corresponds to distinct expressions that differ in meaning, syntactic properties or both
ambiguous
a form that is shared by more that one expression
ambiguity
the phenomenon by which a single linguistic form (e.g. word or string of words) can be the form of more than one distinct linguistic expression
phrasal structure rules
rules used to capture patterns of syntactic combinations
-similar in form to lexical entries
-contain only names of syntactic categories
Ex. S — NPVP
argument
expressions with co-occurrence requirements
modifiers
additional information about the expression (attributive adjectives- adjuncts) sometimes called modifiers
agreement
distinct expressions in a sentence may be required to have the same value for some grammatical feature in which case we say that they agree with respect to that feature
substitution
a test that involves replacing a constituent with a single word or simple phrase
pro-form
best words to use for substitution test- pro-nouns, he/him, she/her, it, they/them, one, that, pro-verbs do (so), be, have, then, such
