sentence structure + trees Flashcards
what is a sentence
a large consituent made of smaller constituents
what are phrases?
smaller constituents
2 parts of phrasal constituents
- Heads
- dependents (complements + modifiers)
types of phrasal constituents
S, NP, VP, AdjP, AdvP, PP
which type of phrase?
phrases are named by their head
- the mat = NP
Head = most important words in the phrase
English - finding the phrase head
(highest from hierarchy found in the phrase = head)
- verb
- preposition (unless theres a noun before it!)
- noun
- adjective
- adverb
example - find parts of speech
phrase ‘for her quest’
for = P
her = DET
quest = N
= prepositional phrase (occurs first)
what is in a phrase?
- heads
- dependents
example of head and dependents
constituent - PP - “on the mat”
P, DET, N
head - on
dependent - the mat
“the mat” - dependent
‘the very sleepy dogs sat on the mat’
dogs = head
the very sleepy dogs = NP
Dependents
all other constituents in the phrase = dependents
of the head
dependents example
the wet dog in the park
NP - dog N
the wet, in the park
Types of dependents
- modifiers
- complements
MODIFIERS
Dependents that are semantically optional
COMPLEMENTS
other dependents are implied by the meaning of their head
is it a complement or modifier?
complements dont like modifiers going between them and their head
eg. i caught] [last month] [a cold]
optionality - modifiers MUST be omissible, complements may/may not
peripherality - complements come closer to the head than modifiers do
dependent example 2
my dog sleeps in her bed
- [in her bed] - modifier, is omissible, can also put another modifier to seperate from head
thus, ‘in her bed’ is a modifier of Verb ‘sleeps’
syntactic trees
visually represent the internal structure of phrases and sentences
making the tree needs:
- structure type - NP, VP, S
- head
- does it have dependents (complements, modifiers)
- heads of the dependent phrases
noam chomsky
X-bar theory
8 steps
generalisable blueprint of phrase structure
- represents relation between heads and dependents
- complements and modifiers
- recursivity - like inside like, noun in noun phrase
- every word from major word class projects to phrase of its own type
every X is a head of an XP
- every N is a head of an NP
2 at least one intermeidate X’ node between every head X and the phrase it heads
NP
I
N’
I
N
goats
3 complement phrases are sisters of their head
complement phrases and their head stem from the heads intermediate node (x’)
VP
I
V’
/ \
V NP
4 modifier phrases are sister and daughter of X’
modifier phrases are sisters of one of head’s intermeidate X’ node and stem from another
5 intermediate nodes can iterate indefinitely
- every phrase requires at least one
- each modifier adds one more
- complements dont add new ones
6 branching is binary
7 determiners get special place
6 , 2 lines each
7 determiners such as a, an, this, that, the, our, my, his
8 all except DET, becomes a phrase
eg. goats - NP
constantly - AdvP
complements in tree
adjacent to an X (sister to head of its phrase)
Zp = a complement of X
is sister to its head
- daughter of the lowest X’
modifiers in tree
adjacent to X’ (sister to an X’)
for each modifier, introduces a new X’
- sisters of an X’ within head phrase
sentence =
NP + VP
