Chapter 7 - Basic concepts of English syntax Flashcards
Constituency
linguistic units “clump together” or “merge” in discourse
Hierarchal structure
refers to the fact that linguistic units and clumps tend to “nest” within one another
Lexical categories
Noun (N)
Pronoun (PRO)
Verb (V)
Adjective (ADJ)
Article (ART)
Adverb (ADV)
Preposition (P)
Auxiliary (AUX)
Empty inflectional element (INFL)
Complementiser (COMP)
Genitive clitic (G)
Phrasal categories
Noun phrase (NP)
Verb phrase (VP)
Adjective phrase (AdjP)
Determined noun phrase (DP)
Adverb phrase (AdvP)
Prepositional phrase (PP)
Inflected verb phrase (IP)
Complement phrase (CP)
Genitive noun phrase (GP)
Clause
the grammatical expression of a proposition
Syntactic head
the element that determines the syntactic properties of the clump
Semantic head
the element that expresses the main meaning of the clump
Determiners
specify, identify, or quantify the following noun phrase, and can belong to any number of syntactic categories
Grammatical relations
syntactic functions of nominal elements in clauses. Subject, Direct Object, Indirect Object, Oblique, Subject complement, and Object Complement
Two major tests of constituent structure
movement
substitution
Three secondary tests of constituent structure
interposition
coordination
omissibility