SYNTAX

Question 1

syntax

Answer 1

the internal structure of sentences

Question 2

Subject-Verb-Object (SVO)

Answer 2

Basic word order

Question 3

syntactic distribution

Answer 3

where in a sentence a word can go

Question 4

Constituent

Answer 4

a sequence of words that function as a unit

Question 5

Phrase structure rules

Answer 5

govern the order and position of constituents in a phrase

Question 6

recursion

Answer 6

ability to form an infinite number of sentences using a finite set of words

Question 7

the object of VP

Answer 7

besides inside of NPs, where else might you expect to see an Adjective Phrase?

Question 8

PSRs

Answer 8

are rules that describe the generation of phrases that make up sentences

Question 9

ditransitive

Answer 9

verbs that show up with two elements. ex: give, donate

Question 10

What are the 8 word classes in English?

Answer 10

Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, Prepositions, Conjunctions, Determiners/Articles and Interjection.

Question 11

What is an example of Syntactic criteria for nouns?

Answer 11

They can occur with the determiners the/a/some/many.

Question 12

How does the substitution Constituency test work?

Answer 12

If you can replace a sequence of words in the original sentence with a pronoun, then that is evidence that the sentence is a phrase.

Question 13

What is a sentence fragment?

Answer 13

A sentence fragment does not have a complete thought (phrases).

Question 14

What are the different types of phrases in English?

Answer 14

Noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, prepositional phrases and adverbial phrase.

Question 15

What is the head of a phrase?

Answer 15

The head word which gives its name to the phrase.

Question 16

What is the syntactic criteria of a prepositional phrase?

Answer 16

They must be followed (postmodified) by a noun phrase.

Question 17

What is a clause?

Answer 17

A grammatical unit, a string of words usually containing a subject and a verb phrase.

Question 18

What is a subject?

Answer 18

Always the noun phrase before the verb, determines the form of the verb.

Question 19

What is a direct object?

Answer 19

Appears after the verb, the noun phrases within a verb phrase (e.g Jamie (drank (the coffee)).
The complement of a verb.

Question 20

Head

Answer 20

The lexical category which determines the phrasal category

Question 21

Spec(Specifier)

Answer 21

Makes the head more specific and precise

Question 22

Complement

Answer 22

A phrase which provides more information about the head

Question 23

Agreement

Answer 23

-The result of one category being inflected to mark properties of another
-Another way of indicating grammatical relations

Question 24

Subject-Verb agreement

Answer 24

marking the verb to reflect the person, number and/or gender of the subject.

Question 25

A tree diagram is a _________ representation of the linear and hierarchical structure of a phrase or sentence.

A) graphic

B) oral

C) numerical

D) symbolic

Answer 25

A) graphic

Question 26

What is the difference between an active and passive clause?

Answer 26

Active - The dog bit the men.
Passive - The men WERE bitten by the dog.

Question 27

What is a predicator?

Answer 27

When we use aux verbs with lexical verbs to express grammatical meanings such as Aspect.
The verbs come together to reflect what is taking place.
(e.g Katie IS GOING to get food)

Question 28

How did you determine what aspect the verb is in in a verb phrase?

Answer 28

Look at the auxiliary verb tense (past/present).
Look to see if there’s a past participle or perfect ending (-ed/-en) or progressive (-ing).

Question 29

What is aspect in terms of a verb phrase?

Answer 29

Aspect deals with issues such as whether the action, event or state described by the verb phrase is still ongoing or not.

Question 30

What are auxiliary verbs?

Answer 30

To be - when used in conjunction with a lexical verb (can be lexical if used on its own).
to have - when used in conjunction with a lexical verb (can be lexical if used on its own).
modal auxiliaries - must, may, can, could, should, shall.

Question 31

Basic Units

Answer 31

words drawn from the lexicon and the morphology

Question 32

Recursion

Answer 32

The PP and NP rules introduce the possibility of recursion into our grammar.
-infinity: recursion allows us to express an infinite number of ideas with limited resources
-human specific: the communication systems of non-human species lack recursion (as far as we know)

Question 33

Adjunct

Answer 33

an expression which is purely optional is called an adjunct
-a phrase can have multiple optional adjuncts at the same time. Harry devoured the (gigantic delicious) pie

Question 34

Complementizers and CP

Answer 34

embedded clauses are introduced by a special word called a complementizers.
-in english: if, that, whether
VP-> (adv) V (NP/CP) (PP)

Question 35

Question Parameters

Answer 35

-some languages like Russian have neither subject aux inversion nor question particles. The only difference between a statement and a question is intonation

Parameters:
subj-Aux Inversion- English, French, Spanish
Question Particle- Japanese, Irish, Chinese
Intonation only- Russian

Question 36

Topicalization

Answer 36

if a string of words is a constituent it can often be moved.

*Jack met jill (in the meadow)
(in the meadow) jack met jill

Question 37

SOV languages

Answer 37

japanese, dutch, malayalam
*VP0>NP V

*implies head final word order for other phrases
1) VP-> NP V taco ate
2) PP-> NP P the park in
3) CP-> S C you slept whether

Question 38

topicalized

Answer 38

sentence is dependent on context (e.g. answering a question)

Question 39

morpho-syntax

Answer 39

the morphological form of an expression has consequences for its syntactic properties

Question 40

clefting (constituency test)

Answer 40

a kind of sentence, in which some constituent is displaced to the left, it was X (displaced constituent) that Y (remainder of the sentence)