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Linguistics > Syntax > Flashcards

Syntax Flashcards

1
Q

Syntax

A

A component of mental grammar that deals with constructing phrasal expressions out of smaller expressions. Also a name for the subfield of linguistics which studies how expressions can combine to form larger expressions.

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2
Q

Linguistic Expressions

A

A piece of language with a form, a meaning, and syntactic properties.

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3
Q

Grammatical

A

A term used to describe a sentence that is in accordance with the 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 it is grammatical or syntactically well-formed.

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4
Q

Grammaticality Judgment

A

An instance of a native speaker of some language deciding whether some string of words corresponds to a syntactically well-formed or grammatical phrasal expression in their native language.

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5
Q

Subject

A

An expression, typically a noun phrase, that occurs to the left of the verb phrase in an English sentence.

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6
Q

Object

A

A noun phrase that usually occurs immediately to the right of the verb in English. A noun phrase complement.

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7
Q

Principle of Compositionality

A

The notion that the meaning of a phrasal expression is predictable from the meanings of the expressions it contains and how they were syntactically combined.

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8
Q

Lexical Expressions

A

A linguistic expression that has to be listed in the mental lexicon, e.g. single-word expressions and idioms.

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9
Q

Phrasal Expressions

A

A linguistic expression that results from the syntactic combination of smaller expressions. A multi-word linguistic expression. A sentence is special kind of phrasal expression.

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10
Q

Syntactic Properties

A

Properties of linguistic expressions that dictate how they can syntactically combine with other expressions, namely, word order and co-occurrence properties.

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11
Q

Word Order

A

The linear order in which words can occur in some phrasal expression. Also, the set of syntactic properties of expressions that dictates how they can be ordered with respect to other expressions.

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12
Q

Co-occurrence

A

The set of syntactic properties that determines which expressions may or have to co-occur with some other expressions in a sentence.

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13
Q

Topicalization

A

A syntactic process which a syntactic constituent occurs the beginning of a sentence in order to highlight the topic under discussion.

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14
Q

Argument

A

A linguistic expression that must occur in a sentence if some other expression occurs in that sentence as well. If the occurrence of an expression X in a sentence requires the occurrence of an expression Y in that sentence, we say that Y is an argument of X.

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15
Q

Complement

A

A non-subject argument of some expression.

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16
Q

Adjunct

A

A linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional; also called modifier.

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17
Q

Modifiers

A

A linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional; also called adjunct.

18
Q

Agreement

A

The phenomenon by which certain expressions in a sentence (e.g. a verb and its subject) must be inflectionally marked for the same person, number, gender, etc.

19
Q

Syntactic Constituent

A

A group of linguistic expressions that function as a syntactic unit within some larger expression; the smaller expressions out of which some larger phrasal expressions was constructed in accordance with the phrase structure rules.

20
Q

Morphosyntax

A

The name for syntax and morphology considered jointly as a single component of grammar.

21
Q

Cleft

A

A type of sentence that has the general form, “It is/was X and Y, e.g. It was Sally that I wanted to meet.” Can be used as a constituency test.

22
Q

Syntactic Categories

A

A group of expressions that have very similar syntactic properties. All expressions that belong to the same syntactic category have more or less the same syntactic distribution.

23
Q

Syntactic Distribution

A

Refers to the set of syntactic environments in which an expression can occur. If two expressions are interchangeable in all syntactic environments, we say that they have the same syntactic distribution, and therefore belong to the same syntactic category.

24
Q

Sentence

A

A syntactic category that consists of all phrasal expressions that can grammatically occur in “Sally thinks that ______.”

25
Q

Noun Phrases

A

The name of a syntactic category that consists of proper names, pronouns, and all other expressions with the same syntactic distribution.

26
Q

Nouns

A

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category. Morphologically, consists of words to which the plural suffix -s or the suffix -like can be added. Syntactically, consists of expressions that can combine with determiners to their left, the resulting expression being of category noun phrase.

27
Q

Determiners

A

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as “the, a this, all”, etc. Syntactically, consists of those expressions that when combined with an expression of category noun to their right result in an expression of category noun phrase.

28
Q

Intransitive Verbs

A

The name for the set of lexical expressions whose syntactic category is verb phrase.

29
Q

Transitive Verbs

A

The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with an expression of category noun phrase to their right result in a verb phrase; a verb that needs a noun phrase complement.

30
Q

Ditransitive Verb

A

The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with two expressions of category noun phrase to their right result in a verb phrase. A verb that needs two noun phrase complements.

31
Q

Sentential Complement Verb

A

The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with a sentence to their right result in a verb phrase; a verb that needs a sentence as its complement.

32
Q

Adverb

A

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as “quickly, well, furiously”, etc. Syntactically, adverbs can be verb phrase adjuncts.

33
Q

Verb Phrase (VP) Adjuncts

A

A kind of adjunct that combines with an expression of syntactic category verb phrase with the resulting expression also being of category verb phrase.

34
Q

Noun (N) Adjuncts

A

A kind of adjunct that combines with an expression of syntactic category noun with the resulting expression also being of category noun.

35
Q

Prepositional Phrase (PP)

A

The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that contain a preposition and a noun phrase. Can be verb phrase adjuncts or noun adjuncts.

36
Q

Preposition

A

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as “of, in, for, with”, etc. Syntactically, this category consists of those expressions that when combined with an expression of category noun phrase to their right result in an expression of category prepositional phrase.

37
Q

Lexical Entries

A

A representation of a lexical expression and its linguistic preoperties within a descriptive grammar of some language. A collection of lexical entries constitutes the lexicon. A lexical entry has the form f -> X, where f is the form of some particular lexical expression, and X is its syntactic category.

38
Q

Phrase Structure Rules

A

A recipe for syntactically combining expressions of certain syntactic categories. Along with the lexicon, phrase structure rules are a part of a descriptive grammar of some language. Phrase structure rules have the general form X -> Y1 . . . Yn where X is a syntactic category and Y1 . . . Yn is a sequence of syntactic categories. The categories to the right of the arrow Y1 . . . Yn correspond to the immediate syntactic constituents of the expression whose category is X.

39
Q

Phrase Structure Tree

A

A visual representation of how phrases are constructed within a descriptive grammar, given the lexicon and the phrase structure rules.

40
Q

Lexical Ambiguity

A

The phenomenon where a single word is the form of two or more distinct linguistic expressions that differ in meaning or syntactic properties.

Linguistics (7 decks)

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