Syntax Vocab 40

Question 1

syntax

Answer 1

concerned with rules of sentence structure

Question 2

grammar
(linguistic definition)

Answer 2

Rules one needs to follow in order to use and understand language. Phonological, morphological, syntactic, sematic information

Question 3

grammar
(scientific definition)

Answer 3

I set of rules in a physical book in which
one needs to obey in order to use language correctly.

Question 4

grammar book

Answer 4

usually consulted (rather than read) if
one is not sure about how to use a particular word or expression. In other words,
the grammar book contains a description of the system of rules.

Question 5

constituents

Answer 5

syntactic units

Question 6

phrases

Answer 6

specific term for constituents

Question 7

pronominalisation

Answer 7

substitution of a constituent by a
pronoun

Question 8

wh-pronoun

Answer 8

answers who, what, where, when

Question 9

pro-form

Answer 9

pronoun or prophrase

Question 10

movement

Answer 10

test for constituency in which if a string of words can be
moved to other sentential positions, it is proof of the string’s being a constituent.

Question 11

coordination test

Answer 11

Test for constituency in which only constituents that can be coordinated by the coordinating conjunction “and”.

Question 12

gapping

Answer 12

Constituency test in which if the tag question leaves a gap, we could insert the missing string.

Question 13

sentence-fragment test

Answer 13

When you apply this test, you’re asking whether the string of words in question can stand on its own.

Question 14

structural ambiguity

Answer 14

In cases in which different interpretations arise through
different sentence structures assigned to the same strings of words.

Question 15

noun phrases

Answer 15

(NP) phrases headed by a noun

Question 16

head

Answer 16

most important element of a phrase

Question 17

prepositional phrase

Answer 17

(PP) phrase headed by preposition

Question 18

adjective phrase

Answer 18

(AP) phrase headed by adjective

Question 19

verb phrase

Answer 19

(VP) phrase headed by verb

Question 20

adverb phrase

Answer 20

(AVP) phrase headed by adverb

Question 21

projections

Answer 21

Syntacticians say that the head projects its properties onto the phrase as a whole (which is also the reason
why phrases are often called projections of their head).

Question 22

word-classes

Answer 22

(syntactic categories, parts-of-speech, or lexical categories) adjectives, nouns, verbs, prepositions, pronouns etc.

Question 23

determiners

Answer 23

subclasses such as definite and in-definite articles, possessives and demonstratives.

Question 24

phrase structure rules

Answer 24

grammar used to generate sentences

Question 25

subordinate clauses

Answer 25

sentences inside sentences

Question 26

clause

Answer 26

syntactic unit that consists of a verb phrase and its subject.

Question 27

sentences

Answer 27

the largest syntactic units and they are made up of one or more clauses

Question 28

matrix clause

Answer 28

a superordinate clause

Question 29

main clause

Answer 29

two clauses that can stand on their own

Question 30

predicate

Answer 30

In ancient grammar ‘predicate’ refers to everything in a sentence apart from the subject. School grammars use ‘predicate’ to refer to auxiliary and main verbs in a sentence.

Question 31

subject verb agreement

Answer 31

Syntactic process which requires
subject and verb to share the same person and number features.

Question 32

case forms

Answer 32

Forms that mark the grammatical function of noun phrases
in a sentence or phrase.

Question 33

transitive verbs

Answer 33

Verbs that need an object

Question 34

intransitive verbs

Answer 34

verbs that cannot take
an object (ex: sleep, laugh)

Question 35

ditransitive verbs

Answer 35

verbs that can take two objects, like give, or show

Question 36

direct object

Answer 36

One of the objects denotes an entity that
undergoes the action or process denoted by the verb.

Question 37

indirect object

Answer 37

other object denotes the goal, the recipient
or the beneficiary of the event denoted by the verb.

Question 38

adverbial

Answer 38

modifiers of the clause or the verb phrase

Question 39

complement

Answer 39

general term used in linguistics for such semantically and structurally highly dependent sister constituents of heads

Question 40

predicative complements

Answer 40

the notion of ‘object’ does not really
fit, and the complements of verbs