Syntax, --

Question 1

what is syntax?

Answer 1

the study of how words are combined to form phrases and sentences

Question 2

what are syntactic properties?

Answer 2

the factors that determine how words can be combined grammatically in a language

Question 3

what are the two sets of syntactic properties that we are focused on?

Answer 3

word order and co-ocurrence

Question 4

what is word order?

Answer 4

the pattern of parts of speech like subject, object, and verb, etc. in a sentence or phrase

Question 5

what is co-occurrence?

Answer 5

some expressions can or need to be accompanied by other expressions

Question 6

what are the two aspects of co-occurrence?

Answer 6

adjuncts and arguments

Question 7

what are arguments?

Answer 7

expressions that MUST accompany another expression in order for us to have a grammatical sentence

Question 8

is “devoured” an adjunct or an argument? why?

Answer 8

argument - it must be accompanied by a subject and an object

Question 9

what is an adjunct?

Answer 9

expressions that can OPTIONALLY accompany another one

Question 10

is “delicious” an adjunct or an argument? why?

Answer 10

adjunct - the sentence is still grammatical without it

Question 11

what determines syntactic categories?

Answer 11

a set of expressions has the same word order requirements and same co-occurrence requirements

Question 12

can syntactic categories be comprised of elements from different lexical classes? why or why not

Answer 12

yes - “the cat” and “Fluffy” are different lexical categories but serve the same function within a sentence

Question 13

what is the relevant property of a “sentence” (S)?

Answer 13

can occur in the situation “X thinks that ____”
ex: “Fluffy is cute.”

Question 14

what is the relevant property of a “noun phrase” (NP)?

Answer 14

has the same distribution as a personal pronoun or a proper name
ex: she, Sally, the cat, this cute dog, that cat under the bed

Question 15

what is the relevant property of a “noun” (N)?

Answer 15

needs a determiner to its left to form a NP
ex: cat, cute dog, cat under the bed

Question 16

what is the relevant property of a “determiner” (Det)?

Answer 16

occurs to the left of a N to form a NP
ex: a, some, the, my, your, this, that, etc.

Question 17

what is the relevant property of a “adjective” (Adj)?

Answer 17

occurs in between a Det and a N - can be a N adjunct Adj + N = N
ex: cute, fluffy, gray

Question 18

what are the relevant properties of a “verb phrase” (VP)?

Answer 18

• has the same distribution as “slept” or “did so”
• consists of a verb and all of its complements
• NP + VP = S
  ex: slept, wrote the letter quickly, liked Bob, told John the story

Question 19

what is the relevant property of a “transitive verb” (TV)?

Answer 19

needs a NP complement to form a VP
ex: liked, devoured

Question 20

what is the relevant property of a “ditransitive verb” (DTV)?

Answer 20

needs two NP complements to form a VP
ex: gave, sent

Question 21

what is the relevant property of a “sentential complement verb” (SV)?

Answer 21

needs a compliment S to form a VP
ex: believed, said

Question 22

what is the relevant property of a “adverb” (Adv)?

Answer 22

is is a VP adjunct - VP + Adv = VP
ex: fast, quickly, tomorrow

Question 23

what is the relevant property of a “preposition” (P)?

Answer 23

combines with a NP to form a PP - P + NP = PP
ex: at, for, under, with

Question 24

what is the relevant property of a “prepositional phrase” (PP)?

Answer 24

can be a VP or a N adjunct - P + NP = PP
ex: at the table, for Sally, under the bed

Question 25

what are lexical entries?

Answer 25

they state what syntactic category each word belongs to - only SINGLE words

Question 26

what are phrase structure rules rules?

Answer 26

they state the word order and co-occurrence requirements

Question 27

what are syntactic constituents?

Answer 27

they are building blocks of sentences, they fulfill a specific syntactic function in the sentence
- NP, VP, PP