Chapter 7: X-Bar Syntax - Cross-categorial Generalisations

Question 1

adjoin/adjunction

Answer 1

A way of positioning Adjuncts in X-Bar syntax. This is by repeating the node (e.g. V’) and adding the Adjunct (e.g. and AdvP) as its daughter.

Question 2

cross-categorial generalisations

Answer 2

Theories of syntax which stipulate that all major phrase types are structured in the same way.

Question 3

Complement

Answer 3

‘any consituent whose presence is required by another element’ . All major syntactic categories can take a Complement (Aarts 101)

Question 4

projection

Answer 4

refers to a specific level of sentence structure

Question 5

lexical projection: X

Answer 5

refers to the word-level of sentence structure (just the Head)

Question 6

bar-level projection: X’

Answer 6

refers to the specific level of sentence structure in X-bar syntax (Head and Complement)

Question 7

maximal projection: X’‘/XP

Answer 7

refers to the phrase level of sentence structure in X-bar syntax (Head, Complement and Specifier)

Question 8

Specifier

Answer 8

a functional notion denoting a word that specifies, or changes the meaning of, a Head+Complement sequence.

Question 9

subcategorisation

Answer 9

The notion that the Head syntactically requires the presence of their Complement.

Question 10

subcategorisation frame

Answer 10

A figure showing which Complement a Head takes. It comes in two parts: on the top line is the element that is subcategorised with the word class label, and the second line is in brackets and consists of a dash indicating the place of the element, followed by a comma and the category whose presence is required by the subcategorised element.

Question 11

X-bar syntax

Answer 11

a component of the grammar that determines the internal organization of structural units. The X-bar format imposes that each such unit be organized around a head (X).