Syntax

Question 1

Subcategories of Grammar

Answer 1

Morphology + Syntax

Question 2

Grammar

Answer 2

Study of principles which govern the formation and interpretation of words, phrases and sentences. Grammatical knowledge is tacit rather than explicit

Question 3

Competence vs. Performance

Answer 3

Competence = Tacit knowledge of a language’s grammar; Performance = The actual use of language

Question 4

Types of Adequacy

Answer 4

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.

Question 5

Generative syntax

Answer 5

proposes a universal approach to language (Universal grammar)

Question 6

Parameters

Answer 6

Aspects of grammatical structure that are subject to language-specific variation. They are always binary choices.

Question 7

Null subject parameter

Answer 7

Subject can be dropped in certain languages (e.g. Spanish)

Question 8

Wh-parameter

Answer 8

Some languages have WH-words at the beginning of a question (English) while others have them at the end of the phrase (Chinese)

Question 9

Head parameter

Answer 9

The head of the phrase is at the left side of the phrase in English, while it is on the right side in Korean.

Question 10

Structure dependence principle

Answer 10

States that: all grammatical operations are structure-dependent. (Syntactic operations are structurally and functionally dependent)

Question 11

Grammaticality vs. Acceptability

Answer 11

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.)

Question 12

Evidence

Answer 12

Positive (observed sentences); Negative 1) direct - correction of mistakes 2) indirect - non-occurence of certain types of structure

Question 13

Semantics

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

Grammatical category

Answer 14

= Class of expressions which share a common set of grammatical properties

Question 15

Nouns

Answer 15

(boy, cow); have plural forms (boys, cows); can be premodified by the (the boys, the cows)

Question 16

Verbs

Answer 16

(see,write) can take the progressive -ing suffix (seeing, writing); can occur after infinitival to (to see, to write)

Question 17

Adjectives

Answer 17

(old, tall) can take the comparative -er suffix (older, taller)

Question 18

Adverbs

Answer 18

(quickly, urgently) typically end in the suffix -ly

Question 19

prepositions

Answer 19

(up, down) can be intensified by right or straight (straight up, straight down)

Question 20

Morphological criteria

Answer 20

inflection -> different form of the same word (number, gender, case, verbs, adjectives (comparative, superlative)

Question 21

Syntactic criteria

Answer 21

Derivational -> formation of individual words (e.g. work -> worker; learn -> learner; *know -> knower = limited productivity)

Question 22

Distributions

Answer 22

Different categories of words have fifferent distributions, it designates the range of positions that a word can occupy within a phrase or sentence.

Question 23

Substitution test

Answer 23

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.)

Question 24

Lexical categories (content words)

Answer 24

Nouns, Verbs, Prepositions, Adjectives, Adverbs

Question 25

Functional/ grammatical words

Answer 25

Determiners, Pronouns, Conjuctions/Complementisers, Auxiliaries

Question 26

Antonyms test

Answer 26

If a word has an antonym, it is a contentive

Question 27

Determiners

Answer 27

definite (the) and indefinite articles (a, an); demonstrative pronouns (this, these, that those); possessive pronouns (my, your, his, her, its, our); quantifiers (all, some)

Question 28

Pronouns

Answer 28

Personal Pronouns (I, me, you, he, him, she, her, it, we, us, they, them

Question 29

Auxiliaries

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Infinitival particles

Answer 30

to

Question 31

Complementisers

Answer 31

Subordinating conjunctions (finite that; non finite for)

Question 32

Mental Lexicon

Answer 32

All words are listed in it; their lexical entries contain at least information on: phonetics/phonology, grammatical category, semantics, idiosyncracies

Question 33

Phrases

Answer 33

= 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.

Question 34

Preposing/Topicalisation

Answer 34

I met that woman. -> That woman, I met.; *The, I met woman. *Woman, I met the.

Question 35

Coordination of likes constraint

Answer 35

X and X (same structure) e.g. the angry woman and a big dog

Question 36

Pronominalisation

Answer 36

E.g. I met the angry woman. -> I met her.

Question 37

‘Prominalisation’ in VPs

Answer 37

John talked to Mary [and so did Bill].

Question 38

VP ellipsis

Answer 38

John visited Mary, and Bill did, too [instead of and Bill visited Mary].

Question 39

Lexicalisation Principle

Answer 39

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.

Question 40

Trees contain:

Answer 40

1) hierarchical structure 2) each constituent’s grammatcial type/category 3) linear precedence

Question 41

Terminology of trees

Answer 41

Nodes (Terminal and nontermina); topmost node is the root; Branches form the connections between the individual nodes; All labeled nodes form constituents.

Question 42

Configurational relations

Answer 42

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

Question 43

Principle of Endocentricity

Answer 43

Each phrase must contain a head of the appropriate type (-> ban on headless phrases as well as category-changing phrases)

Question 44

Evidence for postulating an intermediate N’-level

Answer 44

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?

Question 45

Arguments/Complements vs. Adjuncts

Answer 45

• 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

Question 46

Complementary Distribution

Answer 46

Elements never occur both at the same time. E.g. this/the book - *this the book/ the this book.

Question 47

Universality of x’-schema

Answer 47

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).

Question 48

Lexicalisation principle

Answer 48

When a lexical item is inserted in a phrase structure tree its lexical properties (including category and subcategorisation) must be satisfied

Question 49

Projection principle

Answer 49

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.