Chapter 7: X-Bar Syntax - Cross-categorial Generalisations Flashcards
adjoin/adjunction
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.
cross-categorial generalisations
Theories of syntax which stipulate that all major phrase types are structured in the same way.
Complement
‘any consituent whose presence is required by another element’ . All major syntactic categories can take a Complement (Aarts 101)
projection
refers to a specific level of sentence structure
lexical projection: X
refers to the word-level of sentence structure (just the Head)
bar-level projection: X’
refers to the specific level of sentence structure in X-bar syntax (Head and Complement)
maximal projection: X’‘/XP
refers to the phrase level of sentence structure in X-bar syntax (Head, Complement and Specifier)
Specifier
a functional notion denoting a word that specifies, or changes the meaning of, a Head+Complement sequence.
subcategorisation
The notion that the Head syntactically requires the presence of their Complement.
subcategorisation frame
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.
X-bar syntax
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).