Syntax - Linguistics lecture 8-9

Syntax is the set of rules, principles and processes that govern the structure of sentences in a given language, usually including word order.

Grammar: rules of a language governing the sounds, words, sentences and other elements, as well as their combination and interpretation

1. Identifying and classifying elements

• Categories, phrases, clauses
• Constituents

2. Ordering of elements

• Within the phrase
• Within the clause

3. Understanding syntactic phenomena

• Hierarchy
• Recursivity
• Ambiguity

noun, verb, adjective, preposition, determiner, conjunctions, pronouns, ...

1. Semantic
2. Morphological
3. Syntactic (=distributional)

What is the meaning of words?

• Nouns: persons and objects (student, book, love, …)
• Verbs: actions or states (eat, laugh, live, know, …)
• Adjectives: concrete/abstract qualities of persons/objects (dead, green, asleep, funny, real, …)
• Adverbs: manner (quickly), likelihood (propably), frequency (often), attitude (unfortunately), degree (very), etc.
• Prepositions: place relations (in, on), time relations (after, during) and other relations (with, for)

Problems with semantic criteria:

• Nouns can also denote events (accident, explosion, event) or qualities (patience, intelligence)
• Nouns and pronouns can also denote places (inside, border; here, there) or times (today, now)
• Adjectives can also denote likelihood (possible, probable)

What morphemes are typical of that word class? How to the words look?

Basic idea: different words combine with different inflectional and derivational affixes

Problems with morphological criteria:

• The same affix may create different word classes: interesting (Adj) - building (N); rework (V) - rebirth (N)
• Mass nouns: no plural forms (*milk-s, *advice-s)
• Verbs denoting a permanent state: no progressive form (*I am know-ing this)
• Non-gradable adjectives: no camparative/superlative forms (*dead-er/dead-est)

Where does the word go in a sentence? What words does it occur next to?

• Adjectives precede nouns (black cats, *cats black)
• Determiners precede adjectives (the black cats, *black cats the, *cats black the)
• Adverbs modifying adjectives precede them (extremely cheap, *cheap extremely)
• Clausal conditions occur in clause-initial position (I went home because I was tired. *I went home, I was tired because.)
• Prepositions precede noun phrases (to the table, *the table to)

Problems with syntactic criteria:

• Afjectives can sometimes follow nouns (the book available, the people present)
• Adverbs can occur in many positions (suddenly he left the room, he suddenly left the room, he left the room suddenly)
• Not only conjunctions can occur initial position
• Prepositions do not always precede a noun phrase (What are you staring at?, The man invited us in.)

Phrase is the syntactic unit above the word level (but not a clause). The syntactic behaviour of a phrase is determined by its head.

Some syntatic rules dertmine the internal structure of a phrase, some determine where a given phrase may occur.

most important element of the phrase

indicates what is being described by the phrase and its possible role in the sentence

1. Extremely intelligent -> AP
2. In the garden -> PP
3. Unbelievably slowly -> AdvP
4. Was a lovely day -> EVP
5. The lonely mouse who did'nt want to play with all the other mice -> NP

modifiers, complements, determiners, ...

1. NP: (Det) (A) N (PP) (CI)
2. EVP: (Aux) V (NP) (PP)
3. AP: (Adv) A
4. PP: P NP
5. Clause: NP VP

An identifiable subpart of a sentence.

Structural units can make up a larger unit.

They are identifiable by 5 constituency test.

1. Pronominalization/Substitution
2. Movement test
3. Coordination test
4. Creating a gap/Delection test
5. Sentence fragments/question test (stand-alone test)

1 of 5 constituency tests

A word or a group of words form a constituent, if they can be replaced by pronoun such as she, it, they, her, him, etc.

1 of 5 constituency tests

A word or a group of words form a constituent, if they can be moved to a different position within the sentence.

1 of 5 constituency tests

A word or a group of words form a constituent, if we can use a conjunction such as and/or to join them to another word or group of words.

1 of 5 constituency tests

If a word or a group of words can be deleted from a sentence, it must be an optional constituent.

1 of 5 constituency tests

If a word or a group of words ca be used to answer a question and stand alone, they form a constituent.

1. Hierarchy
2. Recursion
3. Ambiguity

Merging: creating a hierarchy of constituents, where smaller constituents are embedded into larger ones

-> Constituency test help determine the hierarchical structure

repeating items in a self-similar way; repition of the same syntactic patterns embedded one into another

when severl different hierarchies are possible

1.  Sherlock saw [the man [with binoculars]].
2. Sherlock [saw [the man] [with binoculars]].

word-class: what the element is, internal property of the constituent, defined my semantic & morphological & syntactic criteria

eg:  noun, verb, preposition/NP, VP, PP, ...)

role in its grammatical context, what the element does, external role of the constituent

eg: subject, predicate, complement, adjunct, ...

• Non-subject argument
• A non-subject constituent that cannot be left out
• Types: direct objects, indirect objects, prepositional objects, subject complements, object complements, …

One form may have many functions, one function may have many forms.

Example: boring is an Adj (also whole AdjP) by form, but can have many functions:

1.  SUbject
2. Object direct
3. Object indirect
4. Subject complement
5. Object complement
6.  Adjunct

1. Intransitive verbs eg: laugh, snore, fall, tremble, die
2. Monotransitive verbs eg: buy, build, destroy, kill, ruin
3. Ditransitive verbs eg: give, donate, hand, send
4. PP-complement/complex-transitive verbs eg: venture, put, lie, subtract
5. Copular verbs eg: be, become, seem, appear

• No complements
• S V
• The girl cried.; The leaves are falling.

• One complement
• S V Od
• The dog ate the bone.; John bought a book.

• Two P-less complements
• S V Oi Od
• The girl gave the dog the bone.

1. Prepositional object only

• S V Op
• He ventured into the deserted building. They longed for a rest.

2. Direct object and prepositional objects

• S V Od Op
• He put the book on the table.; The dog knocked the vase off the table.

• Those with a subject complement
• S V Cs

The dog is in the garden.; The dog is asleep.; Alice was a little girl.

• S V Od Co
• Corpular verb can be seen as implied between Od and Co

1. the: determinative
2. slowly: adverb
3. knocked: verb; on: preposition
4. lives: verb, Paris: noun
5. fast: adverb, your: determinative

1. NP, subject, monotransitive
2. PP, adjunct, monotransitive
3. NP, indirect object, ditransitive
4. NP, subject, intransitive
5. NP, direct object, complex-transitive

1. PP, prepositional object, complex-transitive
2. PP, prepositional object, complex-transitive
3. NP, object complement, complex-transitive
4. AdjP, subject complement, copular
5. PP, prepositional object, complex-transitive

1. the coin: object direct
2. his pocket: prepositional object
3. safe: object complement
4. very special: subject complement
5. magical powers: direct object
6. the coin: direct object 
7. him: indirectobject
8. his life: direct object
9. better: object complement

1. complex-transitive, (S V Od Co)
2. monotransitive, (S V Od)
3. ditransitive, (S V Oi Od)
4. copular, (S V Cs)
5. complex-transitive, (S V Oi Op)
6. Intransitive , (S V) + copular, (S V Cs) 

1. Pronominalisation: She/He wants the students to succeed.
2. Movement: It is the professor who wants the students to succeed.; The students are wanted to succeed by the professor.
3. Coordination: The professor and the tutor wants the students to succeed.
4. Gapping: The professor wants the students to succeed, doesn‘t she/he ?
5.  Sentence fragements: 

• Q: Who wants the students to succeed?
• A: The professor.

1, 3, 5 are constituents

a adjunct 

a & c

b & c

a, b, f

c