Week 4 Flashcards
Where do adverbs attach in the syntactic tree? What semantic type is is?
V’ :
> > first e:
second e:
third e:
givee, given, giver
What is topicalization?
mechanism of syntax that establishes an expression as the sentence or clause topic: in English, by having it appear at the front of the sentence or clause (as opposed to in a canonical position further to the right).
When do adverbs combine to the syntactic tree?
Before the subject but after the verb and its complement
Adverbs denote what?
a property of an event
Adverbial adjuncts combine with V’ through what process?
modification as intersection
Modification as intersection doesn’t work well for what types of adverbs?
speaker-oriented adverbs, subject-oriented adverbs, object-oriented adverbs
What is syntactically different about the adverbs that don’t attach through modification as intersection?
- don’t attach to V’
- don’t attach to
In the sentence ‘The elephant is hungry’ what are the semantic types for ‘the’, ‘elephant’ and ‘the elephant’ respectively
<,e> / / e
The function ‘the’ is something that takes a __________________ and returns ______________
a set of individuals for which a property is true; exactly one of the individuals from this set
What is the difference/ similarities between ‘the’ and ‘a(n)’
the semantic types are the same but their meanings are different
What is an intersective adjective?
an adjective that can describe something on its own
