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Chapter 5 Syntax

Chapter 5 Syntax. Outline. Introduction (1/3). Syntax structure of sentences inspired by Noam Chomsky finite basic structures for infinite sentences in a language. concerned with. leading linguistic research in theories. tenet.

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Chapter 5 Syntax

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  1. Chapter 5 Syntax

  2. Outline

  3. Introduction(1/3) Syntax structure of sentences inspired by Noam Chomsky finite basic structures for infinitesentences in a language concerned with leading linguistic research in theories tenet

  4. Introduction (2/3) Issue explored Why can a child acquire a language in such a short time? usually mastering native language before 12 years old twofold assumption Universal Grammar LAD (language acquisition device) in our brain There are a certain common properties among languages. If that language is innate, it is not learned but acquired.

  5. Introduction(3/3) • Utterances sentences Different languages share a lot of common structures. NP (Noun phrase) + VP (Verb phrase) • This chapter includes: (1) category (2) subcategory (3) phrase structure rules basic unites different in appearance E.g., composed of (4) sentence structure rules (5) transformation (inversion, Wh-movement, NP-movement)

  6. 1. What is grammar

  7. 1. What is grammar? (1/9) a nightmare English grammar in this chapter To most of the Taiwanese students be part of our linguistic knowledge or language intuition has suffered from tests and memorization of grammatical terms & structures pedagogical grammar Very different

  8. 1. What is grammar? (2/9) One who does not have any deficiency in language (e.g., articulator disorder or heavy retarded) (1) speak her/his own native language (NL) (2) understand what he hears if s/he is spoken to in his own NL (3) judge what sentences are ungrammatical be able to

  9. 1. What is grammar? (3/9) E.g., (1) a. The boy met the girl. b. The met boy the girl. (2) a. The girl met the boy. b. The girl the boy met. knowing that both are not good sentences might not be able to point out what makes them weird or unacceptable All the words are the same, but different in word order. English native speakers although stop from speaking ungrammatical sentences Q: What is the nature of language faculty or language competence? language faulty

  10. 1. What is grammar? (4/9) language faulty a. innovation of new sentences b. if you listen carefully what you are told creativity autonomy would find Each grammar is independent, & to some extent is arbitrary. fewsentences are repeated (Red) although topics might be Red & Red. the same finding as reading All sentences might be foreign to you, but you understand what they mean even if it is your first time reading (to check quotation dictionaries)

  11. 1. What is grammar? (5/9) Autonomy E.g.,English V.S. Chinese sentences 1a & 2a a. Grammar is different in a certain respect. b. Each grammar is unique & autonomous. implication (1) a. He studied in the classroom in the evening. b. Ta dushuzaijaoshizhaiwanshang He study in the classroom in the evening (2) a. Wanshangtazaijiaoshidushu b. In the evening he in the classroom studied. translated word by word unacceptable acceptable translated

  12. 1. What is grammar? (6/9) Q: What does it mean by unacceptable or ungrammatical? Are they are the same? (1) Grammatical but unacceptable E.g., a. Colorlessgreensleepsfuriously. subject verb common reasonable, e.g. pretty girl, colorful pictures modify structure/grammar perfect but unacceptable, for(a) (b) (c) adverb adjective (a) nogreenwithout any color (c) Sleep can be sound but notfurious, (e.g. He had a sound sleep last night.) (b) Green neversleeps. (Only animate can do the action of sleeping)

  13. 1. What is grammar? (7/9) (1) Grammatical but unacceptable E.g., b. He killed the dead umbrella. c. The excited pencil walked gigantically in the park. (2) Not entirely grammatical but acceptable & frequently used E.g, a. Sally poured the glass with water. Sally poured water into the glass. filled the glass with water. b. Been there, done it. = We have been there and we have done it. grammatically should be has become an idiomatic use in pragmatics simplification forgotten

  14. 1. What is grammar? (8/9) Conclusion Grammatical sentences acceptable Acceptable sentences grammatical • The target of this chapter isgrammatical&acceptablesentences. not always However

  15. 1. What is grammar? (9/9) Review • 1. What do you think is linguistic knowledge? Please try to answer this • question on the basis of some examples. • 2. What is linguistic creativity? Please give at least two sentences to argue • for it. • 3. What does autonomy mean in linguistics? Please give a good example • to show what autonomy means to you. • 4. Please write down at least two grammatical but unacceptable sentences. • 5. What difference is there between pedagogical and linguistic grammar?

  16. 2. Category a grouping so that each group of words may occur in a certain position 2.1 Lexical category 2.2 Subcategorization

  17. 2.1 Lexical category (1/2) Words or lexica a category nouns • naming of persons, events, time, e.g., desk, cup, tiger, water a. occurring in the nominative position b. used as an object in a sentence E.g., The book is on the table with the same properties referring to nominative or subject • places, or materials

  18. 2.1 Lexical category (2/2) frequently used in syntactic structures indefinite quantifiers articles

  19. 2.2 Subcategorization (1/2) Subcategorization (SUB) in lexical categories There are further subcategories. Children knowing has been assumed be part of the language faculty Children putting all the categories & SUB in their mental lexicon E.g., verbs (Vs) & nouns (Ns) when acquiring mother tongues in the process of English acquisition Vs transitive (vt.) intransitive (vi.) Ns countable(e.g., book, pen, table) uncountable(e.g., water, paper, air)

  20. 2.2 Subcategorization (2/2) • In the mental lexicon of an English child, word inputs are listed below: V. = verb; NP = noun phrase; PP = preposition phrase (1) a. cry, V. ____ b. buy, V. _____ NP c. give, V. ____ NP, NP d. put, V. ____ NP, PP (location) a verb (vi.) independently a verb (vt.) that must +NP a dative verb that must +2 NPs a verb that should +an NP & a PP (2) a. He put a book on the table. b. He put a book here. c. He put a book. d. He put on the table. good sentences no PP following put bad sentences no NP following put

  21. 2. Category Review • 1. Please sort out the following words according to their lexical categories. • 2. What is subcategorization? Please write down the subcategorizatin of the • following lexicon.

  22. 3. Phrases 3.1 Phrase structure rules 3.2 VP structure rules 3.3 PP structure rules 3.4 Other PS structure rules 3.5 Internal structure of phrases

  23. 3. Phrases Phrases a phrase more than 1 word based on grammatical use constructed by phrase structure rules NP: noun phrase VP: verb phrase PP:preposition phrase AP:adjective phrase Adv.P: adverb phrase composed of

  24. 3.1 Phrase structure rules (1/5) • Phrase structure rules (PS-rules) are written as follows: E.g., NP (1) a. NP (Det) N b. NP (Det) (AP) N a NP = a Det (article) + a noun (Det)optional, Det may be skipped. generating (2) a. NP b. NP N Det N water the book article tree diagrams ( ) indicating

  25. 3.1 Phrase structure rules (2/5) (2) b. NP Det N the book c. [NP [Det the][N book]] ; mother node node node node dominating sister nodes (to each other) daughter nodes can be written domain

  26. 3.1 Phrase structure rules (3/5) (2) a. NP N water b. NP Det N the book node node node node node lexical insertion (finding lexicon for each node) Any types of noun can be inserted, e.g. the water or the pen. Only an uncountablenoun can be inserted.

  27. 3.1 Phrase structure rules (4/5) based on the presence or absence of a Det (1)b. NP (Det) (AP) N (3) a. NP b. NP1 AP N Det NP2 A AP N cold water the colorful book A

  28. 3.1 Phrase structure rules (5/5) Review: the relation of each node (3) b. NP1 DetNP2 AP N the colorful book NP1 DetNP2 AP N the colorful book grandmother node mother node dominating A A sister nodes (to each other) is mother of sister (to each other) head

  29. 3.2 VP structure rules (1/3) VP structure rules are written as follows: (1) a. VP V (PP) b. VP V NP c. VP V NP PP Tree diagrams optional The verb is vi. The verb is vt. (2) a. VP b. VP V V PP cry PNP Det N cry in the morning ( ) indicating implies

  30. 3.2 VP structure rules (2/3) (1) b. VP V NP c. VP V NP PP Tree diagrams b. VP V NP PP Det N P NP Det N put the book on the desk (3) a. VP V NP Det N buy a book head head

  31. 3.2 VP structure rules (3/3) be unlikely generated subcategorization V. ___ NP (4) VP V NP Det N cry the book ungrammatical lexical insertion cry, V. ___ (PP) No NP is allowed.

  32. 3.3 PP structure rules • A PP structure rule is written below: (1) PP P NP • Tree diagrams (2) a. PP b. PP P NP P NP Det N Det N in the room of the value head head

  33. 3.4 Other PS structure rules After getting the basic knowledge of NP, VP, & PP, other PS rules are quite obvious, for which reason we would like to skip other PS rules here.

  34. 3.5 Internal structure of phrases (1/5) There is a head node for each phrase structure (PS). (1) a. NP N b. VP V c. PP P d. AP A X (as a variable) = V, N, P, or A (2) XP X

  35. 3.5 Internal structure of phrases (2/5) a. NP N b. VP V c. PP P d. AP A Specifier (Spec) XP Spec X E.g., (1) verybeautiful, (2) toslowlyspeak(to speak slowly) (3) abeautifullady. a modifier + used in linguistics Tree diagram: XP Spec X

  36. 3.5 Internal structure of phrases (3/5) VP V NP vi. XP XC (E.g., X = A, P, N; C=PP, NP, PP) a. AP APP b. PP PNP c. NP NPP object complement He is fondofreading. I am satisfiedwith his achievements. He lives in Taipei. I believe his capabilityof doing that job.

  37. 3.5 Internal structure of phrases (4/5) XP X C XP Spec X C X-bar theory further revised as Tree diagram: XP Spec X C(Complement) X’’ Spec X X’ X C maximal projection XP = VP, PP, NP, AP (X-double bar) X-bar an independent unit

  38. 3.5 Internal structure of phrases (5/5) X-bar theory E.g.,a Taiwan tea party b. N’’ DetN’ N’ N N N a Taiwan tea party a. N’’ DetN’ N N’ N N aTaiwan tea party an NP X’’ Spec X X’ X C cannot be independent usually occurring

  39. 3. Phrases (1/2) Review • 1. What are PS-rules? Please draw a tree diagram for the phrase • “a magic kiss.” • 2. Please draw tree diagrams according to the given PS rules.

  40. 3. Phrases (2/2) Review • 3. Please draw a tree diagram for each phrase below. • a. buy a piece of chocolate for John • b. cry sadly in the park near my house • c. to the beautiful garden in the school • d. a very tall gentleman with white hair

  41. 4. Sentence structure With the general backgrounds of phrase structure rules and how different phrase structures are generated, it will be not so difficult to get the idea of sentence generation.

  42. 4.Sentence structure (1/3) • The rule for sentence structure: (1) S NP VP • (1) rule + PS-rules PS-rules for sentence generation: (2) a. S NP VP b. NP Det N c. VP V NP (3) S NP VP Det N V NP Det N The boy bought that book

  43. 4.Sentence structure (2/3) • More examples in the following: (4) a. Mary mailed a book to Harris. b. John put a flower on the table. S S N’’ V’’ NP VP V’P’’ V N’’ P’’ V N’’ P N’’ Det N P N’’ Det N Det N Mary mailed a book to Harris John put a flower on the table

  44. 4. Sentence structure (3/3) Review • Please write down PS-rules responsible for the following sentences • and draw a tree diagram for each sentence. a. buy a piece of chocolate for John b. cry sadly in the park near my house c. to the beautiful garden in the school d. a very tall gentleman with white hair

  45. 5. Functions of tree structure Q: Why should we use tree diagrams for syntactic structure? A: Ambiguous sentences can be made clear by way of tree structures.

  46. 5.Functions of tree structures (1/3) E.g., The man saw the girl in the garden. (There are 2 possible meanings.) a. S b. S NP VP NP VP Det N V NP Det N VP PP DetNPV NP P NP N PP Det N Det N P NP Det N The man saw the girl in the garden The man saw the girl in the garden with a telescope

  47. 5.Functions of tree structures (2/3) E.g., The man saw the girl in the garden. Bracket label can save the space: a. [[[Det The N man] NP [V saw [[Det the N girl] NP [P in [Det the N garden] NP] PP]NP]VP]S b. [[[Det The N man] NP [V saw [Det the N girl] NP [P in [Det the N garden] NP] PP]]VP]S

  48. 5. Functions of tree structures (3/3) Review • 1. What are ambiguous sentences? How can ambiguous sentences be • clarified in meaning? • 2. Please draw tree diagrams for the following sentences: • a. I sent a letter to John. c. The chicken is ready to eat. • b. He danced happily. • 3. Each of the following sentences is ambiguous. Please use tree • diagrams for the distinction of meaning. • a. He looked at the girl with glasses. • b. He met the polite woman and man. • c. Visiting professors might be boring.

  49. 6. Embedded sentences

  50. 1. Embedded sentences (1/4) embedded sentences (ESs) a. a sentence put into another one, like relative clauses. b. used to be called subordinate clauses c. usually led by conjunctions like that, which, or what. COMP (Complementizer) a. an ES S-bar (S’) S’ COMP S signified with PS-rule inserted under

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