Syntax Flashcards
Syntax
how sentences and other phrases can be constructed out of smaller phrases and words
linguistic expression
a piece of language, it has a certain form, meaning an syntactic properties
grammaticality judgement
a judgment by a native speaker if a sentence is truly a sentence
principle of compositionality
the fact that the meaning of the sentence depends on the meanings of the expression it contains and the way they are syntactically combined.
lexical expressions
when you know a language you can produce an infinite amount of sentences because you know the meanings of lexical expressions e.g. single word expressions or idioms
phrasal expressions
results from the syntactic combination of smaller expressions. a multi-word linguistic expression. a sentence is a special kind of phrasal expression
Syntactic properties
properties of linguistic expressions that dictate how the can syntactically combine with other expression namely, word order and co occurrence properties
argument
a linguistic expression that must occur in a sentence, if some other expression in occurs in that sentence as well. if the occurrence of the expression X and a sentence require the occurrence of expression y in the sentence, we say that Y is an argument of X
complement
a non subject argument of some expression
topicalized
a syntactic process by which ( in English) a syntactic constituent occurrence the beginning of the sentence in order to highlight topic under discussion
adjunct
a linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence if optional, also called a modifier
modifiers
see adjunct
agreement
the phenomenon by which expressions in a sentence (E.g a verb and subject) must be inflectional marked for each person, number, gender, etc
syntactic constituent
a group of linguistic expression that function as syntactic unit within some larger expression expression; the smaller expression out oft which some larger phrasal expression that was structures in accordance with the phrase structure rules
syntactic category
a group of expression that have very similar syntactic properties all expression that belong to the same category have more or less the same syntactic distribution
syntactic distribution
the first in the set of syntactic environments and which the expression can occur. 2 expression are interchangeable in syntactic environments, we say that they have the same syntactic distribution, and therefor belong to the same syntactic category
phrase structure rules
a recipe for syntactically combining expression of certain syntactic categories. along with lexicon phrase structure rules are a part of descriptive grammar of language. phrase structures rules have general form X -> Y1…..Yn where X is a syntactic category Y1……Yn is a sequence of syntactic. the categories to the right of the arrow y1….Yn correspond to the immediate syntactic constituent of the expression whose category is X
phrase structure tree
a visual representation of how phrases are constructed within a descriptive grammar, given the lexicon and the phrase structure rules
lexical entries
representation of lexical expression on linguistic properties within descriptive grammar of some language. collection of lexical entries constitutes lexicon. lexical entry has a from f —> X, f is the from of some lexical expression, x is syntactic category
lexical ambiguity
phenomenon where a single word is a from of 2 or more linguistic expressions that differ in meaning or syntactic properties
ambiguous
linguistic forms can correspond to to more than one distinct expression
structural ambiguity
the phenomenon where a single sting of words or morphemes) is the form of more than one distinct phrasal expression or word. arises because same expression can combine different syntactically, resulting in distinct phrases than have the same form
grammatical
a term used to dcibe a setnece that is in accordance with with descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially syntactic rules. when some phrasal expression is constructed in accordance with the syntactic rules of a language we say its grammatically well formed
homophony
phenomenon by 2 or more distinct morphemes are non phrasal linguistic expression happen to have the same form, ie sound the same
lexicon
a mental repository of linguistic info about words and lexical expressions , including their form, meaning,morphological and syntactic properties. as a part of a descriptive non mental grammar, a representation of the metal lexicon, consisting of lexical entries that capture relevant properties of lexical expressions
prepositional phrase
the name of syntactic category that consist of expression that contain preposition and noun phrase. can be verb phrase, adjunct or noun adjunct
preposition
the name of lexical category and syntactic category that consist of expression such of in for with etc. syntactically, consist of those expression that when combined with expression of category noun phrase to the their right result to the category prepositional phrase
verb phrase adjunct
a kind of adjunct that combines with expression of syntactic category verb phrase with resulting expression also being of category verb phrase
noun adjunct
kind of adjunct that combines with expression of syntactic category noun with resulting category also being a noun
sentential complement verbs
name of syntactic category tat consists of expression that if combine with sentence to their right result in verb phrase; verb that needs sentence as its complement
transitive verbs
name of syntactic category that consist of expression that if combines with noun phrase to the their right result in verb phrase; a verb needs a noun phrase compliment
adverb
the name of lexical and syntactical category the consist of expressions such as quickly well furiously etc syntactically, adv can be verb phrase adjuncts
verb phrase
name of syntactic category that consist of all expression which if combined with noun phrase to the left result in sentence
determiners
name of lexical category and syntactic category that consist of expression such as the a this all etc syntactically, consist of all expressions at when combine with expression of noun to the right result in expression on noun phrase
sentence
a syntactic category that consist of all phrasal expression that grammatically occur in sally thinks that ____
cleft
a type of sentence that has general form it is/was X that Y, e.g. it was sally that i wanted to meet. can be used as constituency test
nouns
person place thing idea
ditransitive verbs
name of syntactic category that consist of expression that if combines with 2 expression of category noun phrase to the right result in a noun phrase a verb that need 2 noun phrase complements
intransitive verbs
name for set of lexical expression that syntactic category is verb phrase
word order
how expressions are allowed to be ordered with respect to one another
