Module 5 Chapter 5 Vocab Terms

Question 1

syntax

Answer 1

a component of mental grammar that deals with constructing phrasal expressions out of linguistics which studies how expressions can combine to form larger expressions

Question 2

linguistic expression

Answer 2

a piece of language with a form, 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 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 meaning of the expression it contains and how they were syntactically combined

Question 7

lexical expression

Answer 7

a linguistic expression that has to be listed in the mental lexicon, e.g. single-word expressions and idioms

Question 8

phrasal expression

Answer 8

a linguistic expression that results from the syntactic combination of smaller expressions. A multi-word linguistic expression

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. Also, the set of syntactic properties of expressions that dictates how they can be ordered with respect to other expressions.

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

topicalization

Answer 12

a syntactic process by which (in English) a syntactic constituent occurs 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. If the occurrence of an expression X in a sentence requires the occurrence of an expression Y in that sentence, we say that Y is an argument of X.

Question 14

complement

Answer 14

a non-subject argument of some expression

Question 15

adjunct

Answer 15

a linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional: also called a modifier.

Question 16

agreement

Answer 16

the phenomenon by which certain expressions in a sentence (e.g. a verb and its subject must be inflectionally marked for the same person, number and gender

Question 17

morphosyntax

Answer 17

the name for syntax and morphology considered jointly as a single component of grammar

Question 18

syntactic constituent

Answer 18

a group of linguistic expressions that function as a syntactic unit within some larger expression: the smaller expressions out of which some larger phrasal expression was constructed in accordance with the phase structure rules.

Question 19

cleft

Answer 19

a type of sentence that has the general form It is/was X that Y, e.g. It was Sally that I wanted to meet. Can be used as a constituency test.

Question 20

conjuncts

Answer 20

and argument of a coordinating conjunction such as and or or

Question 21

syntactic category

Answer 21

a group of expressions that have very similar syntactic properties. All expressions that belong to the same syntactic category have more or less the syntactic distribution.

Question 22

syntactic distribution

Answer 22

refers to the set of syntactic environments in which an expression can occur. If two expressions are interchangeable in all syntactic environments, we say that they have the same syntactic distribution, and therefore belong to the same syntactic category.

Question 23

sentence

Answer 23

a syntactic category that consists of all phrasal expressions that can grammatically occur in Sally thinks that _____.

Question 24

noun

Answer 24

N-the name of a lexical category and syntactic category. Syntactically, consists of expressions that can combine with determiners to their left, the resulting expression is a noun phrase.

Question 25

determiner

Answer 25

Det-the name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as the, a, this, all, etc. Syntactically, consists of those expressions that when combined with an expression of category noun to their right result in an expression of noun phrase

Question 26

noun phrase

Answer 26

NP- the name of the syntactic category that consists of proper names, pronouns, and all other expressions with the same syntactic distribution

Question 27

adjective

Answer 27

Adj. the name of a lexical and syntactic category. Syntactically, the category consists of those expressions that can be noun adjuncts or occur in between a determiner and a noun

Question 28

verb phrase

Answer 28

VP-the name of the syntactic category that consists of all expressions which if combined with a noun phrase to their left result in a sentence

Question 29

intransitive verb

Answer 29

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

Question 30

transitive verb

Answer 30

TV- 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: a verb that needs a noun phrase complement

Question 31

distransitive verb

Answer 31

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. A verb that needs two noun phrase complements.

Question 32

sentential complement verb

Answer 32

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; a verb that needs a sentence as its complement

Question 33

adverb

Answer 33

Adv-the name of lexical and syntactic category that consists of expressions such as quickly, well, furiously, etc. Syntactically, adverbs can be verb phrase adjuncts

Question 34

VP adjuncts

Answer 34

a kind of adjunct that combines with an expression of syntactic category verb phrase with the resulting expression also being of category verb phrase

Question 35

noun adjunct

Answer 35

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

Question 36

prepositional

Answer 36

P- The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as of, in, for, with, etc.. Syntactically, this category consists of those expressions that when combined with an expression of category noun phrase to their right result in an expression of category perpositonsal phrase

Question 37

prepositional phrase

Answer 37

PP- the name of the syntactic category that consists of those expressions that contain a preposition and a noun phrase. Can be verb phrase adjuncts or noun adjuncts.

Question 38

phrase structure rules

Answer 38

a recipe for syntactically combining expressions of certain syntactic categories. Along with the lexicon, phrase structure rules are a part of a descriptive grammar of some language.

Question 39

phrase structure tree

Answer 39

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

Question 40

lexical ambiguity

Answer 40

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

Question 41

structural ambiguity

Answer 41

the phenomenon where a single string of words (or morphemes) is the form of more than one distinct phrasal expression (or word). Arises because the same expressions can combine differently syntactically, resulting in distinct phrases that happen to have the same form.