Module 5

Question 1

syntax

Answer 1

the rules concerning structure of sentences

Question 2

grammar

Answer 2

the complete system of phonological, morphological, syntactical, and semantic information and the rules that speakers of a given languae possess.

Question 3

consituents

Answer 3

structural, syntactical units within a sentence, can consist of one word, or many words

Question 4

phrases

Answer 4

syntax-specific terminology referring to constituents

Question 5

pronominalisation

Answer 5

the substitution of a constituent by a pronoun. A test to help prove constituent status

Question 6

pro-form

Answer 6

when a pronoun can be substituted for a phrase

Question 7

movement test

Answer 7

If a string of words can be moved to other sentential positions. It can be used to prove the string of words is a constituent.

Question 8

coordination test

Answer 8

constituents that can be coordinated by the coordinating conjunction AND. This conjunction can only combine constituents of the same kind.

Question 9

gapping

Answer 9

With some phrases this test can be applied to test if they are constituents. Adding a tag question will leave a gap where the missing phrase can be added.

Question 10

sentence-fragment test

Answer 10

Another test for constituency. Only certain types of string can form possible sentence fragments which speakers can use to answer a question.

Question 11

structural ambiguity

Answer 11

Cases in which different interpretations arise through different sentence structures assigned to the same strings of words.

Question 12

head

Answer 12

most important element of a phrase

Question 13

noun phrase

Answer 13

a phrase headed by a noun (NP)

Question 14

projections

Answer 14

phrases that take on the properties of their head

Question 15

word-classes

Answer 15

also known as syntactic categories, parts-of speech, or lexical categories ( ie. adjective, nouns, verbs, prepositions)

Question 16

determiners

Answer 16

a class of words that includes definite and indefinite articles, possessives and demonstratives. They share a specific syntactic position in phrases

Question 17

subordinate clause

Answer 17

sentences inside other sentences

Question 18

clause

Answer 18

a syntactic unit that consists minimally of a verb phrase and its subject

Question 19

sentence

Answer 19

the largest syntactic unites are they are made up of one or more clauses

Question 20

superordinate clause

Answer 20

often called matrix clause, a clause that can stand on its own

Question 21

predicate

Answer 21

part of a sentence that says something about the subject, often the main and auxiliary verbs, referred to here as the verb

Question 22

subject-verb agreement

Answer 22

a syntactic process which requires subject and verb to share the same person and number of features

Question 23

case forms

Answer 23

forms that mark the grammatical function of noun phrases in a sentence or phrase

Question 24

transitive verbs

Answer 24

verbs that need an object (ie. invited), except under special circumstances where they object does not need to be overtly expressed

Question 25

intransitive verbs

Answer 25

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

Question 26

ditransitive verbs

Answer 26

verbs that can take on two objects

Question 26

adverbial (or adjunct)

Answer 26

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

Question 27

syntactic argumentation

Answer 27

the kinds of reasoning that can be adducted in favor of or against particular syntactic analysis.

Question 28

sentential

Answer 28

pertaining to or of the nature of a sentence

Question 29

mother node

Answer 29

In a tree diagram it is the node immediately above a given node

Question 30

sister node

Answer 30

In a tree diagram, they are nodes that share the same mother node

Question 31

The same Distribution

Answer 31

In all sentential positions where we can find a given phrase, we should also be able to find only the head of that kind of phrase

Question 32

phrase structure rules

Answer 32

the rules used to build syntactic structures and generate sentences

Question 33

subject

Answer 33

the ‘doer’ of the action, or in a passive voice it is the entity that is affected by the action. Generally occurs immediately before the verb phrase, with only certain adverbial being allowed to intervene. Subjects are obligatory in English

Question 34

Object

Answer 34

do not show agreement with the verb, instead they are strongly restricted in their distribution, occurring immediately after their verb

Question 35

Passivisation

Answer 35

When the object of an active sentence become the subject

Question 36

direct object

Answer 36

an entity that undergoes the action or process denoted by the verb

Question 37

indirect object

Answer 37

the goal, the recipient or the beneficiary of the event denoted by the verb.

Question 38

complement

Answer 38

semantically and structurally highly dependent sister constituents of heads. Can be applied to APs and PPs

Question 39

predicative complements

Answer 39

complements of verbs. They do not behave like objects and cannot be passivised