File 5 - Module Five, Weeks 8 & 9, Syntax Flashcards
adjunct
A linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional; also called modifier.
adverb
The names of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as quickly, well, furiously, etc. Syntactically, adverbs can be verb phrase adjuncts.
agreement
The phenomenon by which certain expressions in a sentence (e.g. a verb and its subject) must be inflectionally marked for the same person, number, gender, etc.
argument
A linguistic expression that must occur in a sentence if some other expression occurs in that sentence as well. If the occurrence of an expression X in a sentence requires the occurrence of an expression Y in that sentence, we say that Y is an argument of X.
cleft
A type of sentence that has the general form It is/was X that Y, e.g. It was Sally that I wanted to meet. Can be used as a constituency test.
co-occurrence
The set of syntactic properties that determines which expressions may or have to co-occur with some other expressions in a sentence.
complement
A non-subject argument of some expression.
conjunct
An argument of a coordinating conjunction such as and or or.
grammatical
When a string of words really does form a sentence of some language.
grammaticality judgment
A reflection of a speakers’ mental grammar, and not a text of their conscious knowledge of the prescriptive rules.
intransitive verb
The name for the set of lexical expressions whose syntactic category is verb phrase.
lexical expressions
A linguistic expression that has to be listed in the mental lexicon, e.g. single-word expressions and idioms.
lexicon
A mental repository of linguistic information about words and other lexical expressions, including their form, meaning, morphological, and syntactic properties. As a part of a descriptive, to mental, grammar, the lexicon is the representation of the mental lexicon, consisting of lexical entries that capture the relevant properties of lexical expressions (e.g. their form and syntactic category).
linguistic expression
A piece of language that has a certain form (e.g. what it sounds like), a certain meaning, and, most relevantly, some syntactic properties as well.
modifier
See adjunct. Adjunct: A linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional; also called modifier.
morphosyntax
The name for syntax and morphology considered jointly as a single component of grammar.
noun adjunct
A kind of adjunct that combines with an expression of syntactic category noun with the resulting expression also being of category noun.
noun phrase
The name of a syntactic category that consists of proper names, pronouns, and all other expressions with the same syntactic distribution.
object
The expression that occurs immediately to the right of the verb (if any).
phrasal expressions
A linguistic expression that results from the syntactic combination of smaller expressions. A multi-word linguistic expression. A sentence is a special kind of phrasal expression.
phrase structure rules
A recipe for syntactically combining expressions of certain syntactic categories. Along with the lexicon, phrase structure rules are a part of a descriptive grammar of some language. Phrase structure rules have the general form X - Y … Y11 where X is a syntactic category and Y1 … Y11 is a sequence of syntactic categories. The categories to the right of the arrow Y1 … Y11 correspond to the immediate syntactic constituents of the expression whose category is X.
phrase structure tree
A visual representation of hos phrases are constructed within a descriptive grammar, given the lexicon and the phrase structure rules.
prepositional phrase
The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that contain a preposition and a noun phrase. Can be verb phrase adjuncts or noun adjuncts.
principle of compositionality
The fact that the meaning of a sentence depends on the meanings of the expressions it contains and on the way they are syntactically combined.
sentence
A syntactic category that consists of all phrasal expressions that can grammatically occur in ‘Sally thinks that ___________.’
sentential complement verb`
The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with a sentence to their right result in a verb phrase; a verb that needs a sentence as its complement.
subject
The expression that usually occurs immediately to the left of the verb.
syntactic category
A group of expressions that have very similar syntactic properties. All expressions that belong to the same syntactic category have more or less the same syntactic distribution.
syntactic constituent
A group of linguistic expressions that function as a syntactic unit within some larger expression; the smaller expressions out of which some larger phrasal expressions was constructed in accordance with the phrase structure rules.
syntactic distribution
Refers to the set of syntactic environments in which an expression can occur. If two expressions are interchangeable in all syntactic environments, we say that they have the same syntactic distribution, and therefore belong to the same syntactic category.
syntactic properties
Properties of linguistics expressions that dictate how they can syntactically combine with other expressions, namely, word order and co-occurrence properties.
syntax
How sentences and other phrases can be constructed out of smaller phrases and words. How expressions combine with one another to form larger expressions.
topicalization
A syntactic process by which (in English) a syntactic constituent occurs the beginning of a sentence in order to highlight the topic under discussion
transitive verb
The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with an expression of category noun phrase to their right result in a verb phrase; a vert that needs a noun phrase complement.
ungrammatical
When a string of words does not form a sentence, it is marked with a symbol *. Example: *Likes Bob Sally.
verb phrase
The name of a syntactic category that consists of all expressions which if combined with a noun phrase to their left result in a sentence.
word order
The linear order in which words can occur in some phrasal expression. Also, the set of syntactic properties of expressions that dictates how they can be ordered with respect to other expressions.
lexical ambiguity
The phenomenon where a single word is the form of two or more distance linguistic expressions that differ in meaning or syntactic properties.
homophony
The phenomenon by which two or more distinct morphemes or nonphrasal linguistic expressions happen to have the same form, i.e., sound the same.
ambiguity
The phenomenon by which a single linguistic form (e.g. a word or a string of words) can be the form of more than one distinct linguistic expression. The form that is shared by more than one expression is said to be ambiguous.
