Test 3 Flashcards
Rules of Syntax
Rules used to combine words into phrases, phrases into sentences, and specify the grammtical relations of a sentence, such as subject and direct object
Constituents
natural groupings or parts of a sentence
syntactic category
family of expressions that can substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality, such as NP
phrasal category
the class of syntactic categories that (1) occur on the left side of phrase structure rules and are therefore (2) composed of other categories, possibly including other phrasal categories, e.g. NP. (3) Does not take complements, but the phrasal category’s head takes complements.
lexical category
a general term for the word-level syntactic categories of noun, verb, adjective, and adverb
functional category
one of the categories of function words, including determiner, Aux, complementizer, and preposition. These categories are not lexical or phrasal.
Aux
A (1) syntactic category containing auxiliary verbs and abstract tense morphemes that function as the head of a sentence (S). It is also called INFL. Includes modals. (2) Heads S. (3) specifies time reference. (4) specifies agreement features of the sentence
auxiliary verbs
verbal elements traditionally called helping verbs that co-occur with, and qualify, the main verb in a verb phrase wrt such properties as tense, possibility (may), necessity (must), ability (can), and so on.
Phrase Structure (PS) tree
represents three aspects of a speaker’s syntactic knowledge: (1) the lindear order of the words in a sentence. (2) the identification of the syntactic categories of words and groups of words. (3) the hierarchical structure of the syntactic categories (e.g., an S is composed of an NP followed by a VP, a VP is composed of a V that may be followed by an NP, and so on)
dominate
in discussing trees, every higher node is said to dominate all the other categories beneath it
immediately dominate
in discussing trees, a node is said to immediately dominate all the categories one level below it
sisters
categories that are immediately dominated by the same node
embedded sentence
a sentence that occurs within a sentence in a phrase structure tree
Complementizer (C)
(1) A syntactic category, also funtional category of words. (2) It includes “that, if whether,” that introduce an embedded sentence. (3) Has the effect of turning a sentence (S) into a complement.
head of a phrase
word whose lexical category defines the type of phrase
VO
English is a verb object language. The verb usually precedes its object
transitive verb
a verb that requires a direct object (an NP complement). ex: find
intransitive verb
a verb that cannot take a direct object (an NP complement). ex: sleep
complement
The constituent(s) in a phrase other than the head that complete(s) the meaning of the phrase which is C-selected by the verb. in the verb phrase “found a puppy,” the noun phrase “a puppy” is a complement of the verb “found.” Complements complete the meaning of the phrase.
Direct Object
(1) names the object or goal or receiver of the verb’s action. ex: We ate [the peanuts]. The boy hit [the ball]. I enjoy [playing chess].(2) The grammatical relation of a NP when it appears immediately below the VP and next to the verb in deep structure; the noun phrase complement of a transitive verb, e.g., The boy found [the puppy].
Deixis
puts something specifically in terms of time, place, or person. Ability to communicate has to do with this.
True Modals
may might can could will would shall should must ought (to)
Paraphrastic Modal
{Be} x to
Have
Elementary Transformation
Adjunction
Deletion
Substitution
Structure Index
Set of categories where I can unequivocally put an integer and have a one-to-one relationship between the categories and the integers
Chomsky Transformation Definition
Bouillion condition on analyzability
- can exhaustibly partition a string
- can match an integer with a category
Relative Clause
Clause with a relative pronoun juxtaposed to the head (ex: who whose whom which that)
Appositive
Structure that renames another structure
Complementization
process of taking a sentence pattern and turning it into a complex noun phrase which can take form of a noun clause, an infinitive, or a gerund
truth conditions
the circumstances that must be known to determine whether a sentence is true, and therefore part of the meaning, or sense, of declarative sentences.
Entail
one sentence ___ another if the truth of the first necessarily implies the truth of the second, e.g., the sun melted the ice entails The ice melted because if the first is true, the second must be true.
Entailment
the relationship between two sentences, where the truth of one necessitates the truth of the other, e.g., Corday assassinated Marat and Marat is dead; if the first is true, the second must be true. Generally, entailment goes in one direction.
Semantics
the study of the linguistic meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences.
Lexical semantics
___ is concerned with the meaning of words and the meaning relationships among words
Phrasal or sentential semantics
is concerned with the meaning of syntactic units larger than the word.
Pragmatics
the study of how context affects meaning
Maxim of Quantity
Say neither more nor less than the discourse requires
Maxim of Relevance
Be relevant
Maxim of Manner
Be brief and orderly; avoid ambiguity and obscurity.
Maxim of Quality
Do not lie; do not make unsupported claims.
Tautology
A sentence that is true in all situations
analytic
a sentence that is true by virtue of its meaning alone, irrespective of context, e.g., Kings are male.
contradiction
sentence that is always false
synonymous/paraphrase
if two sentences are both true or both false with respect to the same situations
contradictory
Two sentences are contradictory if, whenever one is true, the other is false or, equivalently, there is no situation in which they are both true or both false.
structurally ambiguous
when a sentence is associated with two different phrase structures, each corresponding to a different meaning
lexical ambiguity
when at least one word in a phrase has more than one meaning
our knowledge of lexical and structural ambiguities reveals that…
the meaning of a linguistic expression is built both on the words it contains and its syntactic structure
principle of compositionality
the notion that the meaning of an expression is composed of the meaning of its parts and how they are combined structurally
referent / extension
the entity designated by an expression, e.g., the referent of ‘John’ in ‘John knows Sue’ is the actual person named John. The referent of ‘Raleigh is the capital of California is the truth value ‘false’
relative pronoun
who/whom, whoever/whomever, whose, that, and which
transformation is a(n) ____ condition
if and only if condition (iff)
copula
linking verb. be verb. eight variations of be verb
recursion occurs when
something is on both the left and the right side of “__–>__”
you can construct grammar from ____
a tree diagram
do is a substitute for…..
any action verb or any modal
modal
used for question emphasis, negation. modals need an auxiliary
CP
Complementizer Phrase
C-selection / subcategorization
the classifying of verbs and other lexical items in terms of the syntactic category of the complements that they accept (C stands for categorial). The verb “find” C-selects a noun phrase complement.
Levels of X’
1: XP itself.
2: specifier and an X’
3: expansion of X’ consisting of a head X and a complement, which may itself be a phrasal category, thus giving rise to recursion
speech act
the action or intent that a speaker accomplishes when using language in context, the meaning of which is inferred by hearers, e.g., ‘There is a bear behind you’ may be intended as a warning in certain contexts, or may in other contexts merely be a statement of fact.
illocutionary force
the intended effect of a speech act, such as a warning, a promise, a threat, and a bet, e.g., the illocutionary force of ‘I resign!’ is the act of resignation.
performative verb
a verb, certain usages of which result in a speech act, e.g. ‘resign’ when the sentence ‘I resign!’ is interpreted as an act of resignation.using them them in a sentence (in the first person, present tense) adds something extra over and above the statement.
performative sentences
a sentence containing a performative verb used to accomplish some act. performative sentences are affirmtive and declarative, and are in first-person, present tense, e.g., ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife,’ when spoken by a justice of the peace in the appropriate situation, is an act of marrying.
implicatures
the inferences that may be drawn from an utterance in context. unlike entailments, which are necessarily true, implicatures may be cancelled by informaption added later.
presupposition
implicit assumptions about the world required to make an utterance meaningful or relevant, e.g., ‘some tea has already been taken’ is a presupposition of ‘Take some more tea!’
d-structure
any phrase structure tree generated by the phrase structure rules of a transformational grammar; the basic syntactic structures of the grammar
transformational rule, transformation
a syntactic rule that applies to an underlying phrase structure tree of a sentence and derives a new structure by moving or inserting elements, e.g., the transformational rules of ‘wh’ movement and ‘do’ insersertion relate the deep structure sentence ‘John saw who’ to the surface structure ‘Who(m) did John see.’
reference
that part of the meaning of a noun phrase that associates with some entity. that part of the meaning of a declarative sentence that associates it with a truth value, either true or false
sense
the inherent part of an expression’s meaning that, together with context, dertermines its referent. also called intension. for example, knowing the sense or intension of a noun phrase such as ‘the president of the United States in the year 2010 allows one to determine that Barack Obama is the referent.
unmarked
Another characteristic of certain pairs of gradable antonyms is that one is marked the other is unmarked. the unmarked member is the one used in questions of degree.
complementary pairs
alive/dead, present/absent, awake/asleep. a type of antonym. they are complementary in that alive = not dead, etc.
relational opposites
a pair of antonyms in which one describes a relationship between two objects and the other describes the same relationship when the two objects are reversed, e.g., parent/child, teacher/pupili
