Syntax Flashcards
The language faculty
language learning is innate, known as nativism
Synchronic analysis
looks at the rules and properties of a language at the given point in time
Diachronic Analysis
looks at how the rules may have changed over time by comparing uses of the language at different points in time
Linguistic variation
different languages have different syntactic structures, must consider wide range of languages to see in what ways they are the same
Ditransitive
a verb or a clause with 3 core arguments
promotion/demotion
refer to the closeness of the relationship between the noun phrase and the verb
Functionalist Perspective
Believe that sentences are derived and retrieved by memory
Generative Perspective
Assume language is generated on the spot
Garden Path Sentences
a sentence in which structural cues, lexical ambiguity or a combination of both mislead the reader or listener into an incorrect syntactic interpretation until a disambiguating cue appears
Garden Path sentence Ex.
the complex houses married and single soldiers and their families
open word classes
Allow new members to be added (generally nouns and verbs)
Closed word classes
have a finite number of members (English prepositions)
Lexical
conveys semantic meaning (Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
Functional
serve to indicate grammatical relationships among other words (relativizer that)
Some word classes aren’t found in English
Classifiers and postpositions
Verbs
conveys the predicate of the sentence (what is being asserted)
Intransitive Verbs
takes one argument
Transitive verbs
take two or more arguments
(Mono)transitive
takes two arguments
Ditransitive
takes 3 arguments
ambitransitive
can behave as transitive or intransitive
Aspect
the grammatical category that expresses whether an action is ongoing or completed
Perfective (aspect)
an event viewed in its entirety (not the same as perfect)
Imperfective (aspect)
an event viewed as ongoing (habitual, progressive, iterative-repeated action, and many others)
some verbs carry intrinsic information on temporal structure
snap, sneeze (punctual)
Deteriorate, ooze (durative)
Crackle, wag (iterative)
Mood
grammatical category that signals the reality status of the even reported, it allows speaker to express their attitude toward what they are saying
realis
type of mood that expresses an event that did or didn’t take place (indicative)
Irrealis
type of mood that expresses an event that is not known to have happened (subjunctive, imperative, hortative, conditional, interrogative)
evidentiality
the grammatical category that signals the source of information about an event or assertion
Attributive Adjective
uses an adjective combines in a noun phrase (Red Car)
Predicative Adjective
uses the adjective to express the predicate, perhaps in conjunction with copula
copula
a word or phrase that connects the subject to a subject complement (often to be verb) (The car is red)
Comparison Adjectives
Comparative, superlative, Equative
Comparative adjectives
cooler, more frigid
Superlative
Coolest, most frigid
Equative
llawn-ed- as full as (welsh)
Finiteness
a functional category that indicates whether a verbal predicate works as an independent clause or not
Nonfiniteness
typical nonfinite forms are infinitives, action nominals, participles, converbs
Infinitives
complement clause
Converbs
Adverbial clause
Participles
relative clauses
Coordination
aka parataxis yields structural independence and equivalence for the clauses (can be interpreted independently)
subordination
aka hypotaxis yields structural dependency and non-equivalence (matrix clause and adjunct clause or complement clause)
Relative Clauses
optional clauses that modify a noun
Nominal complement clauses
serve to complete the meaning of a noun or express its content (doesn’t fulfill an argument or an adjunct role in the subordinate clause) Ex. The news [that she was dead] shocked us all
Verbal Complement Clause
serve to complete the meaning of a verb, the subordinate clause that fulfills the argument position
Ex. He never expected [That she would come]
Adverbial Clauses
optional clausal modifiers that typically modify a verb or a whole clause
typically add a wide range of of meanings, including time manner, location, etc.
syndetic
clause linking with a linking word
Asyndetic
linking without a linking word
Complementizer
typically introduces complement clauses and nothing else
Subordinator
introduces different types of subordinate clause
Conjunctions
can be used to link noun phrases or clauses [Charlie arrived early] and [Ari was half an hour late]
Insubordination
subordinate but used alone in a main clause Ex. Perhaps if you could tell me a little bit about your own father
Phrase
a group of words that act together as a a grammatical unit
Head
the nucleus of a phrase; the word doing the heavy lifting (if the phrase only has one word it is the head)
Head-marking languages
mark the relationship between the head and dependent on the head
Dependent marking languages
mark the relationship between the head and the dependent on the dependent
zero marking languages
do not mark the relationship between the head and dependent
Double marking languages
Marking on the head and dependent to mark the relationship between the head and dependent
Agent
deliberate performer of an action
patient
concretely affected, changed
theme
moved to a different location
Recipient
receives theme
Beneficiary
benefits from action
Experiencer
experience sensation, thought or emotion
Stimulus
causes sensation, thought or emotion
Instrument
used by agent to perform action
Flagging
a cover term for dependent marking on the clause level
- typically takes the form of case marking or adpositions
-triggered by the verb to signal its relationship with the dependents
indexing
head marking at the clause level
S
sole argument of an intransitive verb
A
Agent like argument of a transitive verb
O/P
object/patient like argument of a transitive verb
Nominative-Accusative alignment
the subject of transitive verbs (A) is expressed like the subject of intransitive verbs(S)
Ergative-Absolutive alignment
the object of a transitive verb (O/P) is expressed like the subject of intransitive verb(S) (if one case is zero marked it will be absolutive)
Split ergativity
some languages use ergative alignment in one set of environments and accusative in another set
Adjunct Clauses
are always optional and typically provide additional information such as; appearance, location or manner
complement clauses
typically obligatory and have a closer relationship with their heads
Branching
reflects the parsing that speakers carry out to identify the heads inside phrasees
right-branching languages
the head is found in the left most position(head initial) (the tree grows to the right)
left branching languages
the head is found in the right most position(head-final
head final languages are more likely to have…
postpositions, adjectives and relative clauses preceding nouns and auxiliaries following main verbs
Head initial languages are more likely to have…
preposoitions, adj. and relative clauses following nouns and auxiliaries preceding main verbs
head- marking
languages that mark the relationship between the head and the dependent on the head
dependent marking
languages that mark the relationship between the head and the dependent on the dependent
zero marking
languages do not mark the relationship between the head and the dependent
Double marking
languages that mark on both the head and dependent
Constituency tests
help determine whether a string of words forms a constituent
Coordination (a constituency test)
only constituents of the same type can be coordinated
Pronoun substitution (constituency test)
involves using a pronoun in place of a phrase
- kim wrote the book with the blue cover
- kim wrote it *with the blue cover
- kim wrote the book with her first wages
-kim bought it with her first wages
Do so substitution (constituency test)
this test is widely used to probe the structure of strings containing verbs (limited in is applicability)
- we met them in the pub because we had time
- we did so because we had time
topicalization(constituency test)
many languages allow marked word order to express emphasis usually with a different intonation pattern
- I wont eat that pizza
- that pizza, I wont eat
Answer ellipsis (constituency test)
forming a question with a question word, if the test string can appear alone as the answer than it is likely a constituent
-old men drink carbonated sodas
- what do old men drink?
- carbonated soda
clefting and pseudo clefting (constituency test)
clefting involves placing the string being tested within the structure(typically doesnt allow vp in cleft constructions)
- the hurricane destroyed the house
- what the hurricane destroyed was [the house].
(VP) ellipsis (constituency test)
checks to see which strings contain one or more predicative elements can be elided from a sentence.
typically the portion we leave out must be a constituent
Passivization
by converting an active sentence into a passive we can test if what we think are subject and object are indeed constituents. this can be useful for constituents with several dependents.
- the black cat with the white whiskers chased the gray mouse with the long tail
Echo question (constituency test)
It is a type of direct question that repeats part or all of something that someone else has just said
typically the question word remains in situ(place)
the words replaced by the question word is likely to be constituent
Are constituents universal?
unclear, constituent structure varies cross linguistically
N-bar notation
Certain tests reveal intermediate constituents all headed by the same word
- this ugly one with ten colors (np)
- this ugly one
- this one
falls under the X-bar theory, rather than specific rules for, np, vp, pp they are all just examples of xp (generativism)
Valency
number of core arguments a verb has
Applicative
S->A+P
adding an object/patient
Causative
S->A+ P
adding an agent
Antipassive
A+P->S
removing a patient
Passive
A+P->S
removing an agent
Core argument
required by the verb, typically subjects and objects
oblique arguments
(or adjuncts) not required by the verb
neutral alignment
S=A=O/P
Tripartite alignment
A , S, and O/P are all marked differently
Horizontal alignment
A=O/P and S is different than both
Compositionality
if language is generated, syntax will still be about how we put words together to make units
idiomaticity
if language is retrieved syntactic units become form meaning pairs that include intonational information, pragmatic context, etc.
Argument focus
extends over one participant in the sentence
Focus
the informatic news contrary to expectation of information
predicate focus
augments information about a particular referent
Topic
corresponds to the non-informative known, predictable information
often definite, animate, and first/second person
Referent
characterized by different semantic properties
- definiteness
- Specificity
- Person
- Animacy
- Humanness
Cleft sentences (topicality)
ex. He didn’t say that. What he said was that he was leaving.
Discursively, the cleft orients the listener to what is old (topic) and
what is new (focus)—i.e., what they should be paying attention to
Passive voice (topicality)
The soldiers are being trained by the green berets.
lexical NP’s
more likely to appear as the S argument of an intransitive than as an o/p, and last as an A argument of a transitive
Decoding Idioms
not semantically transparent- they have to be decoded as a unit
- kick the bucket
Encoding Idioms
semantically transparent and may be understood on the first hearing
- wide awake
- answer the door
but wouldn’t necessarily know that is how to convey the meaning unless you’ve heard it before.
Grammatical idioms
follow the usual rules of grammar
-spill the beans
-put him out to pasture
Extragrammatical idioms
do not follow the usual rules of grammar
- by and large
- all of a sudden
idioms with pragmatic force
have a clear pragmatic function
- how do you do?
- What’s your car doing in my parking space?
Substantive Idioms
are lexically specified they are composed of specific lexical items
- kick the bucket, not kick the mop
Formal idioms
are not lexically specified but rather syntactic frames
- Harry won’t walk to the mall, let alone go up Mt Baldy
- I doubt that harry can ride a bike, let alone a horse
the way construction
Frank dug his way out of prison
frank found his way to NY
X moves along a path Y by doing V despite difficulty
Which word class is most likely to express evidentiality?
verb
What is the semantic role of the stick in the following sentence:
the stick was used to crack open the can
instrument
what category do we call a verb that does not inflect for all the normal verbal categories?
Non-finite
What do we call a dependent that is optional and not selected by the head?
Adjunct
What do e call a clause that may have other clauses embedded within it, but is not itself embedded in any other clauses? (Three possible answers, point for each one)
Root/independent/main
What do we call it when two clauses are conjoined but neither is subordinate to the other
Coordination
What do we call it when a sentence has more than one possible constituency structure?
Structural/syntactic ambiguity
According to the textbook, what word class other than verb can be transitive or instransitive?
preposition/adposition
what are the tow most common clausal constituent orders?
SOV and SVO
In an ergative absolutive language, which case marks the A?
Ergative
What valency-changing operations can turn an Ergative argument into an Absolutive argument?
Antipassive and causative
How does English generally form causatives?
Lexically
What do we call the syntactic operation that demotes the S but does not promote any other argument to S?
Impersonal construction
Why do we have valency-changing operations?
To (de-) emphasize a participant
For information structure
To “feed” other syntactic operations
What do we call the (empty) original position of a constituent that has (allegedly) undergone movement?
Gap
What position is relativized in the following sentence: I used to see him in the store that wal-mart is cheaper than
Object of comparison
Give the full Accessibility Hierarchy in order.
Subject
Direct Object
Object of adposition
Possessor
Object of comparison
which article that we read showed that syntactic phenomena can be subject to sociolinguistic variation?
Upadhya/Gender agreement in Nepal
What were the two types of frequency in the bybee and thompson article?
Token and type
Cross-linguistically, which patient-like argument in a ditransitive is more
likely to be animate and definite?
Recipient
