Grammatical Analysis Flashcards
Polysynthetic language
Language that has an extraordinary amount of morphology and many compound words
Exponence
Mapping of morphosyntactic structure to phonological representations
Simple exponence
Each morpheme expresses a single morphosyntactic feature
Cumulative exponence
A single morphological marker realises more than one morphosyntactic feature
Extended exponence
A single morphosyntactic property is realized by multiple morphological markers
Zero morph vs empty morph
Zero morph has a meaning/function but no form
Empty morph has a form but no function
Problem with defining word as smallest unit of syntax
Depends on syntactic theory.
The past tense morpheme -ed is assumed to occupy a position in a syntactic tree in some syntactic theories: does this make it a word?
Problem with defining word as ‘smallest unit that can stand alone’
Not all words can - eg ‘my’ can’t appear
By itself
Clitic
an unstressed word that normally occurs only in combination with another word, for example ‘m in I’m
Problem with defining ‘word’ as ‘a string of sounds which behaves as a unit for certain types of phonological processes, such as stress or accent’
Clitics behave as one phonological word with their host (ie they’re swimming)
Problem with defining word as ‘a string of sounds that is separated by blank spaces at both ends’
Not all scripts have spaces (eg Chinese, Japanese); and not all languages use scripts
In English, hot dog and ice cream are phonological words by phonological and syntactic criteria, but they contain a space
4 tests for word-hood
- fixed order
- non-separability
- integrity
- stress
Determiner
a modifying word that determines the kind of reference a noun or noun group has, for example a, the, every
Clause
A grammatical unit that, at a minimum, contains a subject and a predicate (ie a verb)
Complex sentence
Contains more than one clause
Finite verb
One that is marked for tense and/or person and number features
Examples of co ordinating conjunctions
And but or
Examples of subordinating conjunctions
That whether although because
Non-finite verbs
Verbs that are not marked for tense, person, number, aspect or mood
Adjunct clause
Optional, or structurally dispensable part of sentence, clause or phrase that, if removed or discarded, will not otherwise affect the remainder of the sentence
A phrase is Endocentric if
It fulfils the same linguistic function as one of its parts (all phrases in English work like this ie a phrase that is headed by a verb is a verb phrase)
Difference between argument and adjunct
Phrase selected by the head is an argument, phrase not selected by head is an adjunct
Constituent
String of words that functions as a single unit
Complementizers
Words which introduce clauses
Grammatical function alternations
Alternations in the assignment of grammatical functions to a set of semantic roles
aspect
grammatical category which expresses information as to whether the action of a verb is finished or unfinished (e.g. we have the progressive and perfective aspects)
syncretism
said to occur when a single inflected form form corresponds to more than one set of morphosyntactic features
Endocentric compound
Contains a head morpheme that will determine its general semantic type and also morphosyntactic features
—> for example ‘cookbook’ the head is book because it is a type of book, not a type of cook
Exocentric compound
One where there is an implied head which isn’t made explicit - an example would be ‘pick pocket’ where the understood head would be ‘person’.
Doubly headed compound
Where both nouns function as heads - eg the French ‘homme-loup’ which means werewolf and both ‘homme’ and ‘loup’ function as heads
example of morphologically conditioned stem suppletiom
spanish ‘ir’ in future and infinitive, ‘va-‘ in present and ‘fu-‘ in perfective past tense
english example of voicing alternation making a noun/verb distinction
breath(N)/breathe(V) and cloth(N)/clothe(V)
cranberry morpheme
a type of bound morpheme that cannot be assigned a meaning nor a grammatical function, but nonetheless serves to distinguish one word from the other
differences between inflection and derivation as word-building processes
inflection creates different word forms of the same lexeme (e.g. change in quantity that/those; change in tense give/gave)
derivation creates new lexical items (e.g. change in meaning kind->unkind; change in category kind->kindly)
Inherent categories
Properties a word either intrinsically has, or doesn’t have
relational categories
Mark the relationship a word or phrase has to the whole sentence (for example, whether a noun phrase is a subject or an object)
agreement categories
Show syntactic links between words (such as a verb agreeing with its subject)
inherent categories for nouns
- Number
- Gender
(e.g. in Spanish marked with suffix O or A) - Definiteness
(English distinguishes definite from indefinite with determiner the/a - however some other languages do it morphologically (via the form of the noun))
relational categories for nouns
Case
Marks whether a noun phrase (NP) is a subject or object of a verb
inherent categories for adjectives
Degrees of comparison
- Equative
- Comparative
- Superlative
inherent categories for verbs
1. Tense = grammaticalized expression of location in time Morphologically speaking, English verbs only have two tenses - past and present 2. Aspect Whether action is ongoing or completed 3. Mood E.g. subjunctive 4. Transivity
relational categories for verbs
Voice
= passive vs active
This is a relational category because it’s associated with the positions occupied by the NP arguments of the verb, rather than any inherent properties of the verb itself
what’s an argument
An argument is typically defined as referring to any of the noun phrases in a clause that are related directly to the verb.
For example, in the sentence ‘she gave him a book in the street’, for the verb ‘gave’ there are 3 arguments; the subject ‘she’, the indirect object ‘him’, and the direct object ‘a book’.
difference between argument and adjunct
The main difference between an argument and an adjunct is that an adjunct can always be removed from the phrase, clause, or sentence in which they appear without removing the meaningfulness of the phrase/clause/sentence.
two definitions for morphology
1) The study of the internal structure of words; how they are formed from their constituent parts
2) The study of systematic co-variation in the form and meaning of words
3 types of morpheme
ROOT: indivisible base morpheme -> eg ‘support’
AFFIX: morphemes attached to a STEM -> eg ‘unsupportive’
STEM: base morpheme to which another morphological unit is attached -> eg ‘unsupportive’
what is a morpheme
the smallest meaningful constituent of a word
suppletive allomorphs
not at all similar in pronunciation. E.g. stem suppletion in go vs went (go-wen-) or good vs better (good- bett-)
phonological conditioning
Very often the phonological context determines the choice of allomorphs. Eg English plural whether -z or -s is conditioned by phonological rules (a voiceless consonant devoices the following fricative)
morphological conditioning
Where morphological context determines choice of allomorphs
Stem suppletion is usually morphologically conditioned (eg spanish ‘ir’ in future and infinitive, ‘va-‘ in present and ‘fu-‘ in perfective past tense)
But can be phonologically conditioned - in Italian, the verb ‘andare’ has the stem and- when the stress is on a suffix, but va- when the stress in on the stem
non-segmental morphology 3 examples
- Vowel alternation -> run/ran, speak/spoke (ablaut)
- Voicing alternation -> breathN/breatheV and clothN/clotheV
- Zero morpheme
what’s compounding
Derivational process for forming new words by adding lexemes together
