File 5 - Module Five, Weeks 8 & 9, Syntax

Question 1

adjunct

Answer 1

A linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional; also called modifier.

Question 2

adverb

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

agreement

Answer 3

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.

Question 4

argument

Answer 4

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.

Question 5

cleft

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

co-occurrence

Answer 6

The set of syntactic properties that determines which expressions may or have to co-occur with some other expressions in a sentence.

Question 7

complement

Answer 7

A non-subject argument of some expression.

Question 8

conjunct

Answer 8

An argument of a coordinating conjunction such as and or or.

Question 9

grammatical

Answer 9

When a string of words really does form a sentence of some language.

Question 10

grammaticality judgment

Answer 10

A reflection of a speakers’ mental grammar, and not a text of their conscious knowledge of the prescriptive rules.

Question 11

intransitive verb

Answer 11

The name for the set of lexical expressions whose syntactic category is verb phrase.

Question 12

lexical expressions

Answer 12

A linguistic expression that has to be listed in the mental lexicon, e.g. single-word expressions and idioms.

Question 13

lexicon

Answer 13

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).

Question 14

linguistic expression

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

modifier

Answer 15

See adjunct. Adjunct: A linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional; also called modifier.

Question 16

morphosyntax

Answer 16

The name for syntax and morphology considered jointly as a single component of grammar.

Question 17

noun adjunct

Answer 17

A kind of adjunct that combines with an expression of syntactic category noun with the resulting expression also being of category noun.

Question 18

noun phrase

Answer 18

The name of a syntactic category that consists of proper names, pronouns, and all other expressions with the same syntactic distribution.

Question 19

object

Answer 19

The expression that occurs immediately to the right of the verb (if any).

Question 20

phrasal expressions

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

phrase structure rules

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

phrase structure tree

Answer 22

A visual representation of hos phrases are constructed within a descriptive grammar, given the lexicon and the phrase structure rules.

Question 23

prepositional phrase

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

principle of compositionality

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

sentence

Answer 25

A syntactic category that consists of all phrasal expressions that can grammatically occur in ‘Sally thinks that ___________.’

Question 26

sentential complement verb`

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

subject

Answer 27

The expression that usually occurs immediately to the left of the verb.

Question 28

syntactic category

Answer 28

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.

Question 29

syntactic constituent

Answer 29

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.

Question 30

syntactic distribution

Answer 30

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.

Question 31

syntactic properties

Answer 31

Properties of linguistics expressions that dictate how they can syntactically combine with other expressions, namely, word order and co-occurrence properties.

Question 32

syntax

Answer 32

How sentences and other phrases can be constructed out of smaller phrases and words. How expressions combine with one another to form larger expressions.

Question 33

topicalization

Answer 33

A syntactic process by which (in English) a syntactic constituent occurs the beginning of a sentence in order to highlight the topic under discussion

Question 34

transitive verb

Answer 34

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.

Question 35

ungrammatical

Answer 35

When a string of words does not form a sentence, it is marked with a symbol *. Example: *Likes Bob Sally.

Question 36

verb phrase

Answer 36

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.

Question 37

word order

Answer 37

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.

Question 38

lexical ambiguity

Answer 38

The phenomenon where a single word is the form of two or more distance linguistic expressions that differ in meaning or syntactic properties.

Question 39

homophony

Answer 39

The phenomenon by which two or more distinct morphemes or nonphrasal linguistic expressions happen to have the same form, i.e., sound the same.

Question 40

ambiguity

Answer 40

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.