File 5 Syntax Vocabulary Flashcards
Syntax
component of grammar that deals with how words and phrases are combined int larger phrases
linguistic expressions
a piece of language with a form, a meaning, and syntactic properties.
Grammaticality judgement
decision of a speaker of a certain language whether strings of words correspond to grammatical phrasal expression in their native language.
Principle of compositionality
meaning of a phrasal expression is predictable from meanings of expressions it contains and how they were syntactically combined
lexical expression
linguistic expression that has to be listed in the mental lexicon
phrasal expressions
linguistic expression that results from syntactic combination of smaller expressions
Syntactic Properties
properties of linguistic expressions that dictate how they can syntactically combine with other expressions
Word order
linear order in which words can occur in some phrasal expression
Co-occurrence
set of syntactic properties that determines which expressions may or have to co-occur with some other expression in a sentence
Topicalization
syntactic process by which a syntactic constituent occurs at the beginning of a sentence in order to highlight the topic under discussion.
Argument
linguistic expression that must occur in a sentence if some other expression occurs in that sentence as well
Complements
a non-subject argument of some expression
Adjuncts
linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional; modifier
Agreement
phenomenon by which certain expressions in a sentence must be inflectionally marked for the same person, number, gender, etc.
Morphosyntax
name for syntax and morphology considered jointly as a single component of grammar
Syntactic Consitituent
group of inguistic expressions that function as a syntactic unit within larger expression; the smaller expressions out of which larger phrasal expressions was constructed
Cleft
a kind of sentence in which some constituent is displaced (moved) to the left.
Substitution
test that involved replacing a constituent with a single word (or simple phrase)
Pro-form
a word that can replace a syntactic constituent
Syntactic Categories
group of expressions that have similar syntactic properties
Syntactic distribution
set of syntactic environments in which an expression can occur
Noun phrases (NP)
syntactic category that consists of of proper names, pronouns, and expressions that have the same distribution
Determiners (Det)
lexical and syntactical category consisting of expressions such as the, a, this, all, etc. Syntactically combine with a noun to its right
Mass nouns
nouns that cannot be counted
count nouns
nouns that can be counted
Verb phrase (VP)
syntactic category that consists of all expressions that, if combined with an NP to their left, results in a sentence
Intransitive Verbs
set of lexical expressions whose syntactic category is VP; verbs that require no complements
Transitive Verbs (TV)
verbs that require an NP complement to form a VP
Distransitive verbs (DTV)
syntactic category consisting of expressions that is combined with two expressions of NP to their right results in VP; a verb that needs two NP complements
Sentential Complement Verbs (SV)
verbs that require complement of category S to form a VP
VP Adjucts
adjunct that combined with an expression of VP with the resulting expression also being a VP
N Adjuncts
adjunct that combines with an expression of syntactic category N with resulting expression also being of category N
Prepositional Phrase (PP)
syntactic category consisitng of expressions that contain a preposition and a noun phrase
Preposition (P)
lexical category and syntactic category consisting of expressions which as of, in, for, with, etc.; Syntactically combines with NP to their right resulting in expression of PP
Lexical entries
representation of lexical expression and its linguistic properties within descriptive grammar
Phrase Structure Rules
recipe for syntactically combining expressions of certain syntactic categories
Phrase Structure Tree
visual representation of how phrases are constructed within a descriptive grammar
Ambuguity
linguistic forms that can correspond to more than one distinct expression
Lexical ambiguity/ Homophony
phenomenon where a single word is the form of two or more distinct linguistic expressions that differ in meaning or syntactic properties
Structural Ambiguity
phenomenon where a single string of words (or morphemes) is the form of more than one distinct phrasal expression (or word)
