Midterm #1 Flashcards
Are all NPs R-expressions?
No, not NPs that refer to an entity INSIDE the phrase such as herself in Heidi hit herself on the head (anaphor)
Anaphor
An NP that gets its meaning from another NP in the sentence
“Needy” ! (Must be bound within binding domain)
Two types of anaphors
Reflexive pronouns (herself, himself etc) Reciprocals (each other)
Pronoun
An NP that may or may not get its meaning from another word in the sentence
“Need their space” (can be bound but not in binding domain, principle B)
Antecedent
NP that gives its meaning to another noun in the sentence
To be coindexed
Two NPs that get the same index are said to be coindexed (this they corefer to each other, aka refer to the same entity in the world)
Binding
Bound if:
-A C-commands B
AND
-A and B are coindexed
Binding Principle A
An anaphor must be bound in its binding domain (it’s own clause)
Locality constraint
Has to do with anaphors; anaphors need to find their antecedent in the same clause (must be near it or local in some way)
Binding domain
Clause containing the NP (anaphors, pronoun, R-expressions)
R-expression
NP that gets its meaning by referring to an entity in the world (ex: Felicia, a fine paper on Zapotec, etc)
“Lone wolves” (never bound)
When can a pronoun NOT be bound by its antecedent?
When the antecedent is its clause mate aka in the same immediate clause
Principle B
A pronoun MUST be free in its binding domain
Principle C
An R-expression must be free
Domination
Node A dominates Node B if A is higher up in the tree than B and if you can trace a branch from A to B only going downwards
Immediate domination
No nodes that are dominated by A, but dominate B (aka A is the first node that dominates B)
Root node vs terminal node vs non-terminal node
Root node: node that dominates everything but is dominated by nothing
(No node’s daughter)
Terminal node: a node that dominates nothing (not a mother)
Non-terminal node: node that dominates something (node that is a mother)
Exhaustive domination
Node A dominates all members of a set of terminal nodes and nothing else
Constituent
Set of terminal nodes exhaustively dominated by a particular node
Sister precedence
Node A sister-proceeds node B if and only if both are immediately dominated by the some node, and if A appears to the left of B
Precedence
Node A precedes node B if and only neither A dominates B nor vice versa, and A or some node dominating A sister-proceeds B or some node dominating B
What is the name of the constraint that stops nodes from crossing
No crossing branches constraint
C-command formal definition
Node A c-commands node B if every node dominating A also dominates B AND neither A nor B dominate each other
Symmetric vs asymmetric c-command
Symmetric= A and B both c-command each other asymmetric= A c-commands B but not the other way around
Government and its two kinds
Government= node A governs node B is A c-commands B without a node G that is c-commands by A and G asymmetrically c-commands B
Phrase government= if the governor is a phrase, only other phrases can intervene (not heads like N, V, etc)
Head government= same as phrase gov but phrase interveners don’t count
Subject
NP or CP daughter of TP
Two types of direct object
1) NP or CP daughter of VP
2) NP or CP daughter of VP that is proceeded by an NP daughter of VP
Ex: Susan kissed THE CLOWNS NOSE
Two types of indirect object
1) the PP daughter of VP immediately proceeded by an NP daughter of VP
2) the NP daughter of VP immediately preceded by V
Ex: he cut the steak with A KNIFE
Oblique
Any NP or PP is a sentence that is not a subject, direct object of a preposition, direct object or indirect object
Basic definition of direct object
NP or CP daughter of a VP
Object of preposition
NP daughter of PP
CP ->
(C) TP
TP ->
{NP/CP} (T) VP
VP ->
(AdvP+) V (NP) ({NP/CP}) (AdvP) (PP+) (AdvP+)
NP ->
(D) (adjP+) N (PP+) (CP)
PP ->
P (NP)
AdjP ->
(AdvP) Adj
AdvP ->
(AdvP) Adv
XP ->
XP conj XP
X ->
X conj X
The word that gives the phrase its category
Head
Recursion
Possibility of loops in the phrase structure rules that allow infinitely long sentences and explain the creativity of language
The principle of modification
If an XP modified some head Y, then XP must be a sister to Y (aka daughter of YP)
The four major constituency tests
Movement Coordination Stand-alone Replacement (My constituent seems right)
Replacement test
Replacing the word with a pronoun, etc
Ex: the man flew the plane
He flew the plane
Stand-alone test (aka sentence fragment test)
If the words can stand alone in a response to a question, then they probably make up a constituent
Ex: testing “Paul ate at a really fancy restaurant”
What did Paul do yesterday afternoon?
Ate at a really fancy restaurant
Movement test and its three types
If you can move a group of words around in a sentence, then they form a constituent because you can move them as a unit
1- clefting= he brought a brand new car -> it was [a brand new car] that he bought
2- proposing= I like big bowls of cereal -> [big bowls of cereal] are what I like
3- passive= the little student kissed the teacher -> [the teacher] was hugged by [the little student]
Coordination (or conjunction) test
Coordinate structures are constituents linked by the word AND or OR
Only constituents of the same syntactic category can be conjoined
Ex: [rachel] and [paola] went to the store
*rachel and the very blue went to the store
How many constituency tests should be applied?
Two or more if the first two answers are contradictory
Three types of distribution
Morphological distribution: what affixes are found on the word
Syntactic distribution: what other words are nearby
Complementary distribution: when you have two categories and they never appear in the same environment (context) / usually means that two categories are part of the same class
Open class categories
Noun (including pronouns)
Verb
Adjective
Adverb
Closed class words
Determiners Prepositions Conjunctions c Tense Negatives Pronouns Anaphors
Two types of categories
Lexical categories: express content of the sentence (N, V, adv, adj)
Functional categories: contain grammatical info of the sentence (D, P, conj, T, neg, C)
Count vs mass nouns
Count nouns can appear with determiners and the quantifier ‘many’
Mass nouns can appear with ‘much’ and usually don’t have articles
Predicate
Defines the relation between the individuals being talked about and some fact about them, as well as relations among the arguments
Argument structure
The number of arguments that a predicate takes
Argument
Entities that are involved in the predicate relation
Intransitive vs transitive vs ditransitive
Intransitive: predicate that takes only ONE argument (valency of 1, no arguments after the verb)
Transitive: predicate that takes TWO arguments (valency of 2, have a single argument after the verb)
Ditransitive: predicate that takes THREE arguments (valency of 3, have two arguments after the verb)
Divide “rachel hit the baseball” into arguments and predicates
Rachel / baseball (arguments)
Hit (predicate as it shows a relationship between the two arguments)
Valency
Another name for argument structure
Ex: a predicate that takes only one argument has a valency of 1 (no Argument follows the verb)
Three tense categories of English
Auxiliaries: have, is, do (and all their forms)
Modals: will, would, shall, can, could, might, etc
Non-finite tense marker: to
Six categories of determiners in English
Articles: the, a, an
Deictic articles: this, that, these, etc
Quantifiers: every, some, many, most, etc
(Cardinal) numerals: one two three four etc
Possessive pronouns: my, your, his, her, etc
Some wh-question words: which and whose
Complementizers of English (4)
That
For
If
Whether
Prescriptive vs descriptive grammar
Prescriptive grammar: grammar rules that are taught by so called “grammar experts” which describe how people SHOULD talk/write, rather than describing what they actually do
Descriptive grammar: scientific grammar that describes, rather than prescribes, how people talk/write
Generative grammar
A theory of linguistics where grammar is viewed as a cognitive faculty
Language is generated by a set of rules and procedures
Includes Principles and Parameters approach (w/ minimalism)
Asterisk
Used to mark syntactically ungrammatical sentences *
Hash mark
Used to mark sentences with issues in meaning (but not grammar) #
Nominative vs accusative
Nominative: form of noun in subject position (I you he she it we they)
Accusative: form of noun in object position (me you him her her it us them)
Two types of judgment (intuitions)
Semantic judgment: about meaning, relies on knowledge of context of the sentence
Syntactic judgment: about the form or structure of a sentence
Garden path sentence
Sentence with strong ambiguity in structure that makes it hard to understand
Center embedding
A sentence that has a relative clause (with subject + verb) placed between its main clause subject and verb
Ex: the house [bill built] leans to the left
Parsing
The mental tools that a listener uses to process and understand a sentence
Competence vs performance
Competence: what you know about your language
Performance: real-world behaviour that are a consequence of what you know about your language
What allows us to produce sentences we’ve never heard before?
Recursion (ability to embed structures inside one another)
The logical problem for language acquisition
The proof that an infinite system like human language cannot be learned by just observing data (an argument for UG)
Under determination of the data
The idea that we know things about our language that we could not have possibly learned (an argument for UG)
What are the two arguments for UG?
The logical problem of language acquisition
Under determination of the data
Bio program hypothesis
The idea that creole languages share similar features because of an innate basic setting for language
The three levels of grammar adequacy
Observationally accurate: a grammar that accounts for observed real-world data (ex: corpora)
Descriptively adequate grammar: a grammar that accounts for observed real-world data AND native speaker judgements
Explanatorily adequate grammar: accounts for observed real-world data AND native speaker judgments AND offers an explanation for the facts of language acquisition
(ODE to grammar adequacy- to remember)
Who created the levels of adequacy and why?
Chomsky; three stages that a grammar can attain in terms of adequacy (how good it is)
Supposed proof of UG
Premise 1: syntax=productive/recursive/infinite
Premise 2: rule-governed infinite systems are unlearnable
Conclusion: syntax is an unlearnable system therefore innate
Three categorization criteria for words
Meaning
Morphology (ecosystem of word)
Place in a sentence
Nouns
Morphology:
Take case/number/gender endings
Affixes (derivational): -ness, -ment, etc
Syntactic context:
Appear after [the ____]
Can be subject or object
Modified by adjectives
Verbs
Morphology:
Derivational affixes: -ify, -ing, etc
Inflectional affixes: -s, -ed, etc
Syntax: Appear after auxiliaries [please \_\_\_\_!] Follows subject, comes before object Can be negated
Adjectives
Morphology:
Take -er, -est, -ate, etc
Syntax:
Appear between ‘the’ and noun
Can follow ‘very’
Can appear in [john is ____]
Adverbs
Take -ly affix
Appear before adjectives and verbs
[very ____]
Can appear at beginning or end of sentence
Ellipsis
Ex: John [bought a pair of pants], but I don’t think Jim will.
Can you say that two lexical items co-index each other?
No, they refer to each other! (Co-referential)
How to answer a Principle question in 3 steps
Step 1: identify elements (R-expression, pronoun, antecedent, etc)
Step 2: is it bound? And explain (c-command + coindex)
Step 3: what does the theory predict? (Ex: since principle B is violated, the theory predicts that sentence will be ungrammatical…
How to answer a constituency question
Write the sentence
Write the ungrammatical or grammatical test and say which test it is
Say whether it’s a constituent or not
