File 5 Syntax Vocabulary

Question 1

linguistic expression

Answer 1

a piece of language with a form, a meaning, and syntactic properties.

Question 2

grammatical

Answer 2

a term used to describe a sentence that is in accordance with the descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially syntactic rules. When some phrasal expression is constructed in accordance with the syntactic rules of a language, we say it is grammatical or syntactically well-formed.

Question 3

ungrammatical

Answer 3

not in accordance with the descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially syntactic rules. When some phrasal expression is not constructed in accordance with the syntactic rules of a language, we say it is ungrammatical or syntactically ill-formed.

Question 4

grammatically judgment

Answer 4

an instance of a native speaker of some language deciding whether some string of words corresponds to a syntactically well-formed or grammatical phrasal expression in their native language.

Question 5

subject

Answer 5

an expression, typically a noun phrase, that occurs to the left of the verb phase in an English sentence.

Question 6

object

Answer 6

a noun phrase that usually occurs immediately to the right of the verb in English. A noun phrase complement.

Question 7

principle of compositionality

Answer 7

the notion that the meaning of a phrasal expression is predictable from the meanings of the expressions it contains and how they were syntactically combined.

Question 8

lexical expressions

Answer 8

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

Question 9

phrasal expression

Answer 9

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 10

syntactic properties

Answer 10

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

Question 11

word order

Answer 11

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 12

topicalization

Answer 12

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

Question 13

argument

Answer 13

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 14

complement

Answer 14

a non-subject argument of some expression.

Question 15

adjunct

Answer 15

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

Question 16

agreement

Answer 16

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 17

morpho-syntax

Answer 17

morphology and syntax are often seen as tightly related components of grammar and sometimes and sometimes even considered.

Question 18

syntactic constituent

Answer 18

a group of linguistic expressions that function as a syntactic unit within some larger expression; the smaller expressions out of which some larger phrasal expression was constructed in accordance with the phrase structure rules.

Question 19

cleft

Answer 19

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 20

substitution

Answer 20

in syntax, a constituency test that involves replacing a constituency test that involves replacing a constituent with a single word (or simple phrase), such as a pro-form. in language processing, a production error in which one unit is replaced with another.

Question 21

pro-form

Answer 21

a word (e.g., a pronoun) that can replace a syntactic constituent.

Question 22

syntactic category

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

syntactic distribution

Answer 23

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 24

noun phrase

Answer 24

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

Question 25

noun

Answer 25

the name of t a lexical category and a syntactic category. morphologically, consists of words to which the plural suffix -s or the suffix -like can be added. syntactically, consists of expressions that can combine with determiners to their left, the resulting expression being of category noun phrase.

Question 26

determiner

Answer 26

the name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as the, a, this, all, etc. Syntactically, consists of those expressions that when combined with an expression of category noun to their right result in an expression of category noun phrase.

Question 27

count noun

Answer 27

in simple terms, a noun that can be counted and pluralized.

Question 28

mass noun

Answer 28

in simple terms, a noun that cannot be counted and cannot (normally) be pluralized.

Question 29

adjective

Answer 29

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category. Morphologically, consists of words to which the comparative suffix -er or the suffix -ness can be added. Syntactically, the category consists of those expressions that can be noun adjuncts or occur in between a determiner.

Question 30

verb phrase

Answer 30

the name of a syntactic category that consists of all expressions that, if combined with a noun phrase to their left, result in a sentence.

Question 31

intransitive verb

Answer 31

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

Question 32

transitive verb

Answer 32

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 verb phrase; a verb that needs a noun phrase complement.

Question 33

ditransitive verb

Answer 33

the name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with two expressions of category noun phrase to their right result in a verb phrase. a verb that needs two noun phrase complements.

Question 34

sentential complement verb

Answer 34

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 35

adverb

Answer 35

the name 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 36

prepositional phrase

Answer 36

the name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that contain a preposition and a noun phrase. can be a verb phrase adjuncts or noun adjuncts.

Question 37

lexical entry

Answer 37

a representation of a lexical expression and its linguistic properties within a descriptive grammar of some language. a collection of lexical entries constitutes the lexicon. a lexical entry has the form –> X, where f is the form of some particular lexical expression, and X is its syntactic category.

Question 38

phrase structure tree

Answer 38

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

Question 39

ambiguity

Answer 39

the phenomenon by which a single linguistic form (e.g., a word or a string of words) can be the from of more than one distinct linguistic expression. the form that is shared by more than on expression is said to be ambiguous.

Question 40

homophony

Answer 40

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