Constituency Flashcards
What is a constituent?
A set of words that form a phrase, that make up sentences
What are the two types of ambiguity regarding constituents?
Semantic and syntactic
What is semantic ambiguity? Give an example
When a word has more than one possible meaning
-can you make me a sandwich? (cook or magic?)
What is syntactic ambiguity? Give an example
When there is more than one way of putting two constituents together
-the principal saw the teacher with the telescope
Name 6 constituent tests
’s, Echo Question, Proform, Cleft Test and Sentence Fragment Test, Do So Test
What is the only morphological constituent test?
’s test
Explain the ‘s test
The English possessive (‘s) attaches to phrasal constituents
(the queen of england)’s palace
Explain the proform test
When a constituent can be replaced by a pronoun
-the police chased the thief = (they) chased (him)
Explain the echo question test
Use a question with a wh word or phrase (you saw what? what film) to replace a constituent
The question is as though you didn’t hear part of the sentence
Explain the cleft test
Focus on a particular phrase, rearranging it to “it was (…) that …..)
the string of words in focus (…) is the constituent
Explain the sentence fragment test. Give an example
When you can ask a question about the sentence and answer with a coherent constituent
“the boy and the girl’s uncle stayed for dinner”
Explain the do so test
Tests for verbal constituents
-a VP can be replaced with did so/do so
Made (danced) and Shane did so too
What is the difference between phrasal and prepositional verbs?
Phrasal: the post verbal can be moved after the NP complement (shook off the police->shook the police off)
Prepositional: the preposition has to come next to the verb (he relied on them/*he relied them on)
How does constituency vary in languages?
most have a clear VP constituent, some don’t
- can’t be replaced by a vague contradiction
- “and he hasn’t”
