File 5 Flashcards
Syntax
How sentences and other phrases can be constructed out of smaller words and phrases
Linguistic expression
Words and phrases. A piece of language that has a certain form, meaning and some syntactic properties
Grammatical
When a string of words forms a sentence
Ungrammatical
When a string of words does not form a sentence
Subject
The expression that occurs immediately to the left of the verb. SVO
Object
The expression that occurs to the right of the verb. SVO.
Principle of compositionally
The meaning of a sentence depends on the meanings of the expressions it contains and on the way they are syntactically combined.
Word-order
How expressions are allowed to be ordered with respect to one another. (determiners (such as ‘that’) must proceed noun) (prepositions such as ‘with’ must come immediately to the left of the noun phrase.
Co-occurrence
What other expressions can or must co-occur with it in that sentence
Topicalized sentences
OSV word order. Apples, I like.
Argument
If the occurrence of X necessitates the occurrence of Y, X is an argument of Y. 1. Obligatory, 2. cannot have more than required, 3. cannot be freely ordered with respect to one another.
Complements
Non-subject arguments. (an apple is a complement of devoured)
Adjuncts
Certain kinds of expressions whose occurrence is optional, can have as many as you like, can be freely ordered with respect tone another.
Agreement
Distinct expressions may be required to have same value for grammatical features
Morphosyntax
Morphological form of an expression has consequences for its syntactic properties. Morphology and syntax that are tightly related components of grammar.
Syntactic Constituent
Certain groups of expressions within a larger phrase that can form a unit. Smaller expressions out of which the phrase was constructed. ex. an apple in the sentence sally devoured an apple. those two words together function as the complement of devoured.
Cleft
Another constituency test in which some constituent is displaced or moved to the left
Coordination
Involves the use of a coordinating conjunction such as and or or. And needs two arguments.
Conjuncts
The arguments of coordinating conjunctions. sally and bob are arguments of and and neither can be omitted. sally and bob are conjuncts. They can also be switched around in a sentence without loss of grammaticality.
Syntactic categories
similar to but distinct from the traditional notions of parts of speech or lexical categories. Consists of a set of expressions that have similar syntactic properties. Have approximately the same word order and c-occurrence requirements.
syntactic distribution
When two expressions have similar syntactic properties and are interchangeable thus you can substitute them for one another and still have a grammatical sentence.
demonstrative determiners
this, these, that, those
possessive determiners
my, your, his, her, our etc
quantificational determiners
some, the, every, all, few, most
intransitive verbs
verbs such as slept which require no complement
transitive verbs TV
verbs such as liked which require a NP complement to form a VP and form their own syntactic category
Sentential complement verbs SV
verbs that require a complement of category S to form a VP EX: thought
Adverb ADV
many expressions that can occur in a verb phrase as adjuncts combines with a VP to its left which results in an expression that is also a category of VP
VP Adjuncts
Adverbs combine with a VP to form an expression
N adjuncts
Adjectives that combine with nouns
Prepositional phrase PP
Another kind of VP adjunct which consists of a preposition and a noun phrase. Prepositions need an arguments of category NP in order to form PP down, on, in, under, for, from, of, at
Phrase structure rules
used to capture patterns of syntactic combination
Preposition
Combines with an NP to form a PP at, for, with
Ditransitive verb DTV
Needs two NP complements to form a VP
Phrase structure tree
phrase structure rules
Lexical ambiguity or homophony
A single word corresponds to distinct expressions that differ in meaning, syntactic properties or both
Structural ambiguity
The sentence in which the PP is a noun adjunct and modifies a word
Adjective
Occurs in between a determiner and a noun; combines with a noun to its right which results in an expression of category N
determiner
Occurs to the left of the N to form an NP
Verb Phrase VP
Consists minimally of a verb and its complements; combined with an NP to its left; has same distribution as slept or did so
