File 5 Syntax Vocabulary

Question 1

Syntax

Answer 1

A component of mental grammar that deals with constructing phrasal expressions out of smaller expressions.

Question 2

Linguistic Expressions

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Grammatical

Answer 3

A term used to describe a sentence that is in accordance with the descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially syntactic rules.

Question 4

Ungrammatical

Answer 4

Not in accordance with the descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially syntactic rules.

Question 5

Grammaticality Judgement

Answer 5

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 6

Principle of Compositionality

Answer 6

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 7

Lexical Expressions

Answer 7

A linguistic expression that has to be listed in the mental lexicon.

Question 8

Phrasal Expressions

Answer 8

A linguistic expression that results from the syntactic combination of smaller expressions.

Question 9

Syntactic Properties

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Word Order

Answer 10

The linear order in which words can occur in some phrasal expression.

Question 11

Co-occurrence

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Topicalized

Answer 12

A syntactic process by which 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.

Question 14

Complements

Answer 14

A non-subject argument of some expression.

Question 15

Adjuncts

Answer 15

A linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional.

Question 16

Modifiers

Answer 16

A linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional.

Question 17

Agreement

Answer 17

The phenomenon by which certain expressions in a sentence must be inflectionally marked for the same person, number, gender, etc.

Question 18

Syntactic Constituent

Answer 18

A group of linguistic expressions that function as a syntactic unit within some larger expression.

Question 19

Cleft

Answer 19

A type of sentence that has the general form It is/was X, that Y.

Question 20

Substitution

Answer 20

In syntax, a constituency test that involves replacing a constituent with a single word, such as pro-form.

Question 21

Pro-forms

Answer 21

A word that can replace a syntactic constituent.

Question 22

Syntactic Categories

Answer 22

A group of expressions that have very similar syntactic properties.

Question 23

Syntactic Distribution

Answer 23

Refers to the set of syntactic environments in which an expression can occur.

Question 24

Noun Phrases

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

Determiners

Answer 25

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as the, a, this, all, etc.

Question 26

Count Nouns

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Mass Nouns

Answer 27

A noun that cannot be counted and cannot be pluralized.

Question 28

Intransitive Verbs

Answer 28

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

Question 29

Ditransitive Verbs

Answer 29

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.

Question 30

Transitive Verbs

Answer 30

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.

Question 31

Sentential Complement Verbs

Answer 31

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.

Question 32

N Adjuncts

Answer 32

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

Question 33

Lexical Entries

Answer 33

A representation of a lexical expression and its linguistic properties within a descriptive grammar of some language.

Question 34

Phrase Structure Rules

Answer 34

A recipe for syntactically combining expressions of certain syntactic categories.

Question 35

Phase Structure Tree

Answer 35

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

Question 36

Ambiguity

Answer 36

The phenomenon by which a single linguistic form can be the form of more than one distinct linguistic expression.

Question 37

Homophony

Answer 37

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

Question 38

Lexical Ambiguity

Answer 38

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

Question 39

Structural Ambiguity

Answer 39

The phenomenon where a single string of words is the form of more than one distinct phrasal expression.

Question 40

Subject

Answer 40

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