Syntax Flashcards
Subcategories of Grammar
Morphology + Syntax
Grammar
Study of principles which govern the formation and interpretation of words, phrases and sentences. Grammatical knowledge is tacit rather than explicit
Competence vs. Performance
Competence = Tacit knowledge of a language’s grammar; Performance = The actual use of language
Types of Adequacy
Descriptive - Grammar is descriptively adequate if it correctly describes whether any given string of words is or is not grammatical and if it also describes which interpretation the relevant string has. A grammar that explains these properties correctly, is also explanatorily adequate.
Generative syntax
proposes a universal approach to language (Universal grammar)
Parameters
Aspects of grammatical structure that are subject to language-specific variation. They are always binary choices.
Null subject parameter
Subject can be dropped in certain languages (e.g. Spanish)
Wh-parameter
Some languages have WH-words at the beginning of a question (English) while others have them at the end of the phrase (Chinese)
Head parameter
The head of the phrase is at the left side of the phrase in English, while it is on the right side in Korean.
Structure dependence principle
States that: all grammatical operations are structure-dependent. (Syntactic operations are structurally and functionally dependent)
Grammaticality vs. Acceptability
Language does not have to be completely grammatical in order to be acceptable. (E.g. short messages on mobiles). Grammatical sentences can also be unacceptable. (E.g. coulourless green ideas sleep furiously.)
Evidence
Positive (observed sentences); Negative 1) direct - correction of mistakes 2) indirect - non-occurence of certain types of structure
Semantics
Study of meaning; Knowing when a sentence would be trues and when it would be false; Meaning does not only depend on the meaning of individual words, but also on the internal structure of a phrase. A sentence that has more than one meaning is called ambiguous.
Grammatical category
= Class of expressions which share a common set of grammatical properties
Nouns
(boy, cow); have plural forms (boys, cows); can be premodified by the (the boys, the cows)
Verbs
(see,write) can take the progressive -ing suffix (seeing, writing); can occur after infinitival to (to see, to write)
Adjectives
(old, tall) can take the comparative -er suffix (older, taller)
Adverbs
(quickly, urgently) typically end in the suffix -ly
prepositions
(up, down) can be intensified by right or straight (straight up, straight down)
Morphological criteria
inflection -> different form of the same word (number, gender, case, verbs, adjectives (comparative, superlative)
Syntactic criteria
Derivational -> formation of individual words (e.g. work -> worker; learn -> learner; *know -> knower = limited productivity)
Distributions
Different categories of words have fifferent distributions, it designates the range of positions that a word can occupy within a phrase or sentence.
Substitution test
Substituting a word with another one (similar in meaning) in order to clarify the category of the word (He is better at french than you; He speaks French better than you.)
Lexical categories (content words)
Nouns, Verbs, Prepositions, Adjectives, Adverbs
Functional/ grammatical words
Determiners, Pronouns, Conjuctions/Complementisers, Auxiliaries
Antonyms test
If a word has an antonym, it is a contentive
Determiners
definite (the) and indefinite articles (a, an); demonstrative pronouns (this, these, that those); possessive pronouns (my, your, his, her, its, our); quantifiers (all, some)
Pronouns
Personal Pronouns (I, me, you, he, him, she, her, it, we, us, they, them
Auxiliaries
Modals (can/could, shall/should, will/would, may/might, must etc.); perfective have; progressive be; passive be; “dummy” do; Unlike main verbs, auxiliaries undergo inversion, appear in sentence-final tags and can be directly negates
Infinitival particles
to
Complementisers
Subordinating conjunctions (finite that; non finite for)
Mental Lexicon
All words are listed in it; their lexical entries contain at least information on: phonetics/phonology, grammatical category, semantics, idiosyncracies
Phrases
= are groups of words that behave as units with respect to syntactic regularities (distribution, movement, pronominalisation, ellipsis, etc.). These for the building blocks of sentences and come in different types.
Preposing/Topicalisation
I met that woman. -> That woman, I met.; *The, I met woman. *Woman, I met the.
Coordination of likes constraint
X and X (same structure) e.g. the angry woman and a big dog
Pronominalisation
E.g. I met the angry woman. -> I met her.
‘Prominalisation’ in VPs
John talked to Mary [and so did Bill].
VP ellipsis
John visited Mary, and Bill did, too [instead of and Bill visited Mary].
Lexicalisation Principle
Any lexical item listed in the lexicon as belonging to a given category cand be inserted under any corresponding lexical category. Our grammar then generates a sentence if it is possible to go from the sentential symbol ‘S’ to the strings of words, using only the rules specified in the grammar and conforming to all general principles.
Trees contain:
1) hierarchical structure 2) each constituent’s grammatcial type/category 3) linear precedence
Terminology of trees
Nodes (Terminal and nontermina); topmost node is the root; Branches form the connections between the individual nodes; All labeled nodes form constituents.
Configurational relations
1) Precedence (left-to-right ordering of nodes) 2) dominance (hierarchical ordering of nodes 3)mothers, sisters, daughters 4) local tress (nodes with all their daughters
Principle of Endocentricity
Each phrase must contain a head of the appropriate type (-> ban on headless phrases as well as category-changing phrases)
Evidence for postulating an intermediate N’-level
1) N’-Deletion: I liked Mary’s long book, but hated John’s
2) Replacement by the pro-form one: The present king of Norway is more popular than the last one.
3) Coordination of likes constraint: Who would have dared to defy the queen of England and ruler of the Commonwealth?
Arguments/Complements vs. Adjuncts
- Complements belong more closely to a phrase’s head category than adjuncts
- Adjunction is recursive, whereas complementation is not
- Complements always precede adjuncts
- With adjuncts, the relative order of the elements is often quite flexible, which is not true of complements
Complementary Distribution
Elements never occur both at the same time. E.g. this/the book - *this the book/ the this book.
Universality of x’-schema
The X’-schema is generally taken to be universal; all human languages are assumed to form their phrases according to this schema. The X’-schema is subject to cross-linguistic variation (e.g. head-first vs. head-last).
Lexicalisation principle
When a lexical item is inserted in a phrase structure tree its lexical properties (including category and subcategorisation) must be satisfied
Projection principle
If A and B are sisters and A is a head, then B must be subcategorised by A. A head’s subcategorisation properties can oly be satisfied by sisters.
