File 5 Syntax Vocabulary Practice

Question 1

syntax

Answer 1

the study of the patterns of formation of sentences and phrases from words.

Question 2

grammar

Answer 2

In linguistics, the term
‘grammar’ refers to the complete system of phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic information and rules that speakers of a given language possess.

Question 3

constituents

Answer 3

an element considered as part of a construction. structural units in phonology and morphology called syntactic units

Question 4

phrases

Answer 4

a sequence of two or more words arranged in a grammatical construction and acting as a unit in a sentence.

Question 5

pronominalisation

Answer 5

the substitution of a constituent by a

pronoun in order to prove constituent status

Question 6

pro-form (more common than pronominalisation)

Answer 6

a word used to replace or substitute for a word, phrase, or clause belonging to a given grammatical class, as a pronoun used to replace a noun or noun phrase.

Question 7

movement

Answer 7

If a string of words can be

moved to other sentential positions, it is proof of the string’s being a constituent

Question 8

coordination test

Answer 8

the only constituent that can be coordinated by the coordinating conjunction “and”

Question 9

gapping

Answer 9

a rule of transformational grammar by which repeated instances of a verb are deleted from conjoined sentences.

Question 10

sentence-fragment

Answer 10

a phrase or clause written as a sentence but lacking an element, as a subject or verb, that would enable it to function as an independent sentence in normative written English.

Question 11

wh-pronoun

Answer 11

who, whose, whom, which, what, that

Question 12

wh-adverb

Answer 12

where, when, why, how

Question 13

structural ambiguity

Answer 13

Ambiguity that arises from the fact that two or more different syntactic structures can be assigned to one string of words. e.g. Mother and Sister nodes.

Question 14

head

Answer 14

the most important element of a phrase.

Question 15

noun phrases (NP)

Answer 15

phrases headed by a noun

Question 16

prepositional phrases

Answer 16

phrases headed by a preposition

Question 17

adjective phrases

Answer 17

phrases headed by an adjective

Question 18

verb phrases

Answer 18

phrases headed by a verb

Question 19

adverb phrases

Answer 19

phrases headed by an adverb

Question 20

word class

Answer 20

a category of words of similar form or function; a part of speech.

Question 21

syntactic categories

Answer 21

a type of syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume

Question 22

parts-of-speech

Answer 22

a category to which a word is assigned in accordance with its syntactic functions. In English the main parts of speech are noun, pronoun, adjective, determiner, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection.

Question 23

lexical categories

Answer 23

Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are open lexical categories. In contrast, closed lexical categories rarely acquire new members. They include conjunctions (e.g., and, or, but), determiners (e.g., a, the), pronouns (e.g., he, she, they), and prepositions (e.g., of, on, under).

Question 24

determiners.

Answer 24

a member of a subclass of English limiting adjectival words that usually precede descriptive adjectives and include the articles the, a, and an, and any words that may substitute for them, as your, their, some, and each.

Question 25

phrase structure rules

Answer 25

Phrase structure rules are a type of rewrite rule used to describe a given language’s syntax

Question 26

clause

Answer 26

a syntactic construction containing a subject and predicate and forming part of a sentence or constituting a whole simple sentence.

Question 27

subordinate clause

Answer 27

a clause that modifies the principal clause or some part of it or that serves a noun function in the principal clause

Question 28

sentence

Answer 28

a grammatical unit of one or more words that expresses an independent statement, question, request, command, exclamation, etc.,

Question 29

matrix clause

Answer 29

a clause that contains a subordinate clause

Question 30

main clause

Answer 30

a clause that can stand on its own

Question 31

subject

Answer 31

the part of a sentence or clause that commonly indicates (a) what it is about, or (b) who or what performs the action (that is, the agent).

Question 32

object

Answer 32

a noun, a noun phrase, or a pronoun that is affected by the action of a verb

Question 33

adverb

Answer 33

a class of words that function as modifiers of verbs or clauses

Question 34

predicate

Answer 34

the part of a sentence or clause containing a verb and stating something about the subject (e.g., went home in John went home ).

Question 35

complement

Answer 35

a word, phrase or clause that is necessary to complete the meaning of a given expression.

Question 36

subject-verb agreement

Answer 36

the subject and verb must agree in number. This means both need to be singular or both need to be plural.

Question 37

case form

Answer 37

forms that mark the grammatical function of noun phrases

in a sentence or phrase

Question 38

transitive verbs

Answer 38

verbs that need an object

Question 39

intransitive verbs

Answer 39

verbs that cannot take an object (e.g. sleep, laugh)

Question 40

ditransitive

Answer 40

verbs that can take two objects

Question 41

direct object

Answer 41

a noun phrase denoting a person or thing that is the recipient of the action of a transitive verb, for example the dog in Jimmy fed the dog.

Question 42

indirect object

Answer 42

a noun phrase referring to someone or something that is affected by the action of a transitive verb (typically as a recipient), but is not the primary object (e.g. him in give him the book ).

Question 43

adverbial (or adjunct)

Answer 43

constituents that provide information about the circumstances of the
action denoted by the verb and its subject and object(s).