Vocab and Terms Chapter 5

Question 1

syntax

Answer 1

a component of mental grammar that deals with constructing phrasal expressions out of smaller expressions. Also a name for the sub field of linguistics that studies how expressions can combine to form larger expressions.

Question 2

grammatical

Answer 2

a term used to describe a sentence that is in accordance with descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially syntactic rules. When some phrasal expression is constructed in accordance with the syntactic rules of a language, we say it is grammatical or syntactically well-formed.

Question 3

principle of compositionality

Answer 3

the notion that the meaning of a phrasal expression is predictable from the meanings of the expressions it contains and how they were syntactically combined.

Question 4

syntactic properties

Answer 4

properties of linguistic expressions that dictate how they can syntactically combine with other expressions, namely, word order and co-occurrence properties.

Question 5

grammaticality judgment

Answer 5

an instance of a native speaker of some language deciding whether some string of words corresponds to a syntactically well-formed or grammatical phrasal expression in their native language.

Question 6

lexical expressions

Answer 6

a linguistic expression that has to be listed in the mental lexicon (ex: single-word expressions and idioms)

Question 7

phrasal expressions

Answer 7

a linguistic expression that results from the syntactic combination of smaller expressions. A multi-word linguistic expression. A sentence is a special kind of phrasal expression.

Question 8

co-ocurrence

Answer 8

the set of syntactic properties that determines which expressions may or have to co-occur with some other expressions in a sentence.

Question 9

topicalization

Answer 9

a syntactic process by which a syntactic constituent occurs at the beginning of a sentence in order to highlight the topic under discussion.

Question 10

adjuncts

Answer 10

a linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional, also called modifier.

Question 11

word order

Answer 11

the linear order in which words can occur in some phrasal expression. Also the set of syntactic properties of expressions that dictates how they can be ordered with respect to other expressions.

Question 12

syntactic consituent

Answer 12

a group of linguistic expressions that function as a syntactic unit within some larger expressions, the smaller expressions out of which some larger phrasal expression was constructed in accordance with the phrase structure.

Question 13

morphosyntax

Answer 13

the name for syntax and morphology considered jointly as a single component of grammar.

Question 14

cleft

Answer 14

a type of sentence that has the general form “It is/was X that Y” (ex: It was Sally that I wanted to meet) can be used as a constituency test.

Question 15

pro-forms

Answer 15

a word (ex: pronoun) that can be replace a syntactic constituent

Question 16

syntactic categories

Answer 16

a group of expressions that have every similar syntactic properties. All expressions that belong to the same syntactic category have more or less that same syntactic distribution

Question 17

syntactic distribution

Answer 17

refers to the set of syntactic environments in which an expression can occur. If 2 expressions are interchangeable in all syntactic environments, we say that they have the same syntactic distribution and therefore belong to the same syntactic category.

Question 18

determiners

Answer 18

the name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as the, a, this all, etc. Syntactically, consists of those expressions that when combined with an expression of category noun to their right results in an expression of category noun phrase.

Question 19

count nouns

Answer 19

in simple terms, a noun that can be counted and pluralized.

Question 20

mass nouns

Answer 20

in simple terms, a noun that can not be counted and cannot (normally) be pluralized.

Question 21

intransitive verbs

Answer 21

the name for the set of lexical expressions whose syntactic category is verb phrase.

Question 22

transitive verbs (TV)

Answer 22

the name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that is combined with an expression of category noun phrase to their right result in a verb phrase; a verb that needs a noun phrase complement.

Question 23

ditransitive verbs

Answer 23

the name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with 2 expressions of category noun phrase to their right results in a verb phrase. A verb that needs 2 noun phrase complements.

Question 24

sentential complement verbs

Answer 24

the name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with a sentence to their right results in a verb phrase, a verb that needs a sentence as its complement.

Question 25

VP adjuncts

Answer 25

adverbs combined with a verb phrase (vp) to form an expression of category verb phrase.

Question 26

N adjuncts

Answer 26

adjectives combined with a noun (n) to form an expression of category noun phrase.

Question 27

phrase structure rules

Answer 27

a recipe for syntactically combining expressions of certain syntactic categories. Along with lexicon, phrase structure rules are a part of a descriptive grammar of some language. Phrase structure rules have the general form X—Y,…Y where X is the syntactic category and Y,…Y is a sequence of syntactic categories. The categories to the right of the Y,…Y correspond to the immediate syntactic constituents of the expression whose category is X.

Question 28

phrase structure tree

Answer 28

a visual representation of how phrases are constructed within a descriptive grammar, given the lexicon and the phrase structure rules.

Question 29

ambiguity

Answer 29

the phenomenon by which a single linguistic form (ex: a word or a string of words) can be the form of more than one distinct linguistic expression. The form that is shared by more than one expression is said to be ambiguous.

Question 30

lexical ambiguity

Answer 30

the phenomenon where a single word is the form of 2 or more distinct linguistic expressions that differ in meaning or syntactic properties.

Question 31

structural ambiguity

Answer 31

the phenomenon where a single string of words (or morphemes) is the form of more than on distinct phrasal expressions (or word). Arises because the same expressions can combine differently syntactically, resulting in distinct phrases that happen to have the same form.

Question 32

adjective

Answer 32

the name of a lexical category and a syntactic category. Morphological, consists of words to which the comparative suffix-er or the suffix - ness can be added. Syntactically, the category consists of those expressions that can be noun adjuncts or occur in between a determiner and a noun.

Question 33

lexical entries

Answer 33

a representation of a lexical expression and its linguistic properties within a descriptive grammar of some language. A collection of lexical entries constitutes the lexicon. A lexical entry has the form -f—X, where f is the form of some particular lexical expression and X is its syntactic category.

Question 34

ungrammatical

Answer 34

not in accordance with the descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially syntactic rules when some phrasal expression is not constructed in accordance with the syntactic rules of a language, we say it is ungrammatical or syntactically ill-formed.

Question 35

argument

Answer 35

a linguistic expression that must occur in a sentence if some other expression occurs in that sentence as well. If the occurrence of an expression X in a sentence requires the occurrence of an expression Y in that sentence, we say that Y is an argument of X.

Question 36

complements

Answer 36

a non-subject argument of some expression.

Question 37

modifiers

Answer 37

aka adjunct:a linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional, also called modifier.

Question 38

agreement

Answer 38

the phenomenon by which certain expressions in a sentence (verb and its subject) must be inflectionally marked for the same person, number, gender etc.

Question 39

substitution

Answer 39

in syntax, a constituency test that involved replacing a constituent with a single word (or simple phrase), such as a pro-form. In language processing, a production error in which one unit is replaced with another.

Question 40

Verb phrase (VP)

Answer 40

the name of a syntactic category that consists of all expressions that, if combined with a noun phrase to their left, results in a sentence.