Syntax Flashcards
syntax
it is concerned with how people produce well-formed utterances, notably with word order.
syntax = rules according to which linguistic elements can be combined to form acceptable sentences in a given language
generative grammar
grammar is an abstract set of rues that makes explicit the knowledge that speakers of a language implicitly have
> generative : we are able to produce, not just describe
syntactitians have many tasks :
> describe the rules by which sentences are well formed in a given language
> make the implicit knowledge of speakers explicit
> propose a system of rules that allows us to generate all the grammatical sentences of a language
universal features of languages
> language sounds
grammatical categories
pronominal co-reference
linear order
constituency
hierarchical structure
absolute universals : shared by all languages
implicational universals : features that follow from other features
linear order
words are produced linearly, which means we pronounce them one after the other
this constraint can be used to express difference in meaning
> ex. “Lily kissed Sam on the cheek” VS “Sam kissed Lily on the cheek”
constituency
process by which words clump together to form a larger unit
hierarchical structure
clumps of words are structured into a hierarchical way. they also tend to be embedded within one another
> this is probably a consequence of our cognitive limitations, as we can’t deal with a high number of things at the same time
structural ambiguity may be explained by assessing hierarchy
word categories
words belong to a category (what they are) and fulfill a function (what they do)
> lexical categories : they refer to a position in a syntactic structure -> they don’t have internal syntactic structure
phrasal categories : they have internal structure because they are composed of different units
clause
it’s the grammatical expression of a proposition
unit in which we consider syntactical relations between the elements within it (grammatical notion)
proposition
unit with a semantic meaning (semantic notion)
it’s a sort of “complete thought” : it refers to entities of the world and semantic relations among them
functions of syntax
syntax needs to describe units (what they are), but it also needs to explain how they behave (what they do)
> head : syntactic and semantic
> determination
> complementation
> grammatical relations
> predication
> modification
head
syntactic head determines syntactic properties and the meaning expressed by the clump
the head of a constituent cannot be removed, otherwise the constituent stops being what it is
> a noun is the head of a noun phrase and that it projects its “nounness” onto the rest of the phrase
determination function
determiners specify/identify/quantify noun phrases, and they belong to different syntactic categories
> articles
> demonstratives
> quantifiers
> either/neither
> some wh- words
> genitive pronouns and phrases
> some personal pronouns
complementation
any element of a phrase that is not the head but that is required in order to complete the phrase is a complement
grammatical functions
they refer to the syntactic functions of nominal elements inside clauses
both oblique and indirect objects are fulfilled by NPs complementing the head of a PP. indirect objects are required to complete a 3-argument construction around the predicate, but oblique constituents are not required to
> some verbs like “give”/”sell” semantically involve 3 participants : the giver, the receiver and the thing given.
> for these verbs, a PP is needed to fulfill the function of indirect object (= complements)
predication
the functions in a clause are subject and predictable. the minimal import for a clause to convey information is an entity of which it is said something
a predicate is a characteristic/property asserted to a single entity or a relation assert to hold between entities
in syntax, inflected verb phrases (IPs) and uninflected verb phrases (VPs) fulfill the function of predicate
modification
it is an optional syntactic function, and it is not required to express a complete thought
head of a sentence
the head of a sentence is the auxiliary (ex. will, have, be). they convey the grammatical information and specify a time for the sentence
> sentences are about a situation/state of affairs that occur at some point in time
sentences without auxiliaries still have a time reference. the head of the sentence will be its tense, because the verb still needs to agree with the tense
> agreements in terms of person/number
constituent structure
to know if words can be grouped and become a constituent = syntactic unit. we can use substitution, order change, addition, deletion
> we perform the transformation and see if the results is validated by a native speaker. if yes, then the word cluster is a constituent
the main tests are movement and substitution, and other tests are interposition, coordination and omissibility
movement
if the target element moves with the head and gives a grammatical sentence, then it makes sense to cinsider it as a constituent
substitution
if an element can be replaced by another and give a grammatical sentence, it can be considered as a constituent
interposition
it’s a test that inserts an element between constituents. if the insertion does not give a grammatical sentence then it means that you have inserted it within a constituent
however, we still have to respect hierarchical structure
coordination
if coordination gives a grammatical result, this tells us that the coordinated clumps are of the same category
elements of different syntactic categories cannot be coordinated, but they can look as if they are linearly coordinated when inserted in proper structures
if we try to subsitute or move the above coordinated elements, ungrammatical sentences are produced
omissibility
elements in a sentence can be omitted. if they can, it says that they are constituents
however, omissibility is not the most reliable test
> ex. “How many on board, Captain?” : “people are” is missing, but it is not a constituent
results of the experiment conducted on syntax
subjects noticed the clicks and recalled where they happened best when they occurred between consistent boundaries
