Syntax Module Flashcards
Syntax
The way in which linguistic elements (such as words) are put together to form constituents (such as phrases or clauses).
Grammar
Simply the collection of principles defining how to put together a sentence.
Constituents
Is a word or a group of words that function as a single unit within a hierarchical structure.
Phrases
A group of words (or possibly a single word) that functions as a constituent in the syntax of a sentence, a single unit within a grammatical hierarchy.
Pronominalization
The process or fact of using a pronoun instead of another sentence constituent (such as a noun or noun phrase)
Pro-form
A type of function word or expression that stands in for (expresses the same content as) another word, phrase, clause or sentence where the meaning is recoverable from the context.
Movement
Syntactic movement is the means by which some theories of syntax address discontinuities.
Coordination
A complex syntactic structure that links together two or more elements; these elements are called conjuncts or conjoins.
Gapping
gapping is a type of ellipsis that occurs in the non-initial conjuncts of coordinate structures.
Sentence-fragment
Sentence fragments are groups of words that look like sentences, but aren’t. To be a sentence, groups of words need to have at least one independent clause
Structural ambiguity
The potential of multiple interpretations for a piece of written or spoken language because of the way words or phrases are organized.
Head
The head or nucleus of a phrase is the word that determines the syntactic category of that phrase.
Noun phrases
A phrase that has a noun (or indefinite pronoun) as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun.
Prepositional phrase
A group of words made up of a preposition (such as to, with, or across), its object (a noun or pronoun), and any of the object’s modifiers (an article and/or an adjective).
Adjective phrases
A group of words that describe a noun or pronoun in a sentence
Verb phrases
A syntactic unit composed of at least one verb and its dependents—objects, complements and other modifiers—but not always including the subject.
Adverb phrases
A multi-word expression operating adverbially: its syntactic function is to modify other expressions, including verbs, adjectives, adverbs, adverbials, and sentences.
Projection
The projection principle states that “ “lexical structure must be represented categorically at every syntactic level” (Chomsky 1986: 84).
Word class
A word class is a group of words that have the same basic behavior, for example nouns, adjectives, or verbs.
Syntactic category
A syntactic category is a type of syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume.
Parts of speech
In traditional grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties.
Lexical category
Classes of words (e.g., noun, verb, preposition), which differ in how other words can be constructed out of them.
Determiners
A determiner is a word or affix that belongs to a class of noun modifiers that expresses the reference, including quantity, of a noun. Kinds: Article. Demonstrative.
Phrase structure rules
Phrase structure rules are a type of rewrite rule used to describe a given language’s syntax and are closely associated with the early stages of transformational grammar, proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1957
Subordinate clauses
A clause that is embedded as a constituent of a matrix sentence and that functions like a noun, adjective, or adverb in the resultant complex sentence.
Sentences
A textual unit consisting of one or more words that are grammatically linked.
Matrix clause
A clause that contains a subordinate clause. Plural: matrices. Also called a matrix or a higher clause. In terms of function, a matrix clause determines the central situation of a sentence.
Main clause
A clause that may stand alone as a complete sentence, and. expresses the focal predication when occurring in a complex sentence.
Predicate
A predicate is the portion of a clause, excluding the subject, that expresses something about the subject.
Subject-verb agreement
All the parts of your sentence should match (or agree). Verbs need to agree with their subjects in number (singular or plural) and in person (first, second, or third).
Case
Case is a grammatical category determined by the syntactic or semantic function of a noun or pronoun.
Transitive verbs
A transitive verb is a verb that takes a direct object
Intransitive verbs
An intransitive verb is defined as a verb that does not take a direct object.
Ditransitive verb
A verb which takes a subject and two objects which refer to a theme and a recipient
Direct object
A grammatical relation that exhibits a combination of certain independent syntactic properties
Indirect object
An indirect object is a grammatical relation that is one means of expressing the semantic role of goal and other similar roles.
Adverbial
In grammar, an adverbial (abbreviated adv) is a word (an adverb) or a group of words (an adverbial clause or adverbial phrase) that modifies or more closely defines the sentence or the verb.
Complement
In grammar, a complement is a word, phrase, or clause that is necessary to complete the meaning of a given expression.
Wh-pronoun
“Wh- word” is one of the function words used to begin a wh- question: what, who, whom, whose, which, when, where, why, and how.
clause
A clause is a part of the sentence that constitutes or comprises a predicate. A typical clause consists of a subject and a predicate, the latter typically a verb phrase, a verb with any objects and other modifiers.
