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Review class

Review class. Quiz 2. Grammaticality of sentences. The boy found the ball. The boy found quickly. The boy found in the house. The boy found the ball in the house. Lisa slept the baby. Lisa slept soundly . Sentences are not random strings of words. They must conform to specific patterns.

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Review class

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  1. Review class Quiz 2

  2. Grammaticality of sentences • The boy found the ball. • The boy found quickly. • The boy found in the house. • The boy found the ball in the house. • Lisa slept the baby. • Lisa slept soundly. Sentences are not random strings of words. They must conform to specific patterns.

  3. Why bother? • What is the purpose of studying syntax? • To investigate word order and sentence structure. • To be able to consciously articulate our unconscious knowledge of English.

  4. What is syntax? • The knowledge of sentences and their structure. • Syntactic rules include: • The grammaticality of sentences • Word order • Hierarchical organization of sentences • Grammatical relations such as subject and object • Whether different structures have different meanings or the same meanings

  5. What grammaticality is not based on • Grammaticality judgments do not depend on having heard the sentence before: Enormous crickets in pink socks danced at the party. • Grammaticality judgments do not depend on meaning: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. *Furiously sleep ideas green colorless

  6. Word classes • Major word classes • Nouns • Verbs • Adjectives • Adverbs • Sentence with only major word classes:

  7. Major word classes • Adjectives • Modify nouns My favorite dog is hungry. • Adjectives can have a predicative function or an attributive function.

  8. Major word classes • Adverbs • Often considered the ‘garbage’ category Unfortunately, some students drive very quickly and create extremely dangerous roads. • unfortunately: sentence adverb • quickly: manner adverbs • very: degree adverbs

  9. Phrases NP VP NP det adj N V det N The friendly person asked a question

  10. Basic Constituents • The man with the toupee shocked the woman at the bar. Sentence (S) Subject (NP) Predicate (VP) The man with the toupee shocked the woman at the bar Hierarchical constituent structure

  11. Linear vs. Hierarchical structure • Meaning • (1)A big sale of stereos (2) a sale of big stereos Big stereo sale Big stereo sale

  12. Determining and representing hierarchical structure S VP NP NP PP NP NP detadj N V det N P det N The tipsy man finished the drink in one minute

  13. Grammatical Relations of NPs • Every NP has a grammatical relation to some other element in sentence. • NP: ‘the tipsy man’ relationship with ‘finished’= SUBJECT • NPs to left of verbs = subject (dominated by S) • NP: ‘the drink’ = direct object • NPs to right of verbs and dominated directly by VP = direct object • Other NP not related directly to verb but to preposition (dominated directly by PP) = object of a preposition

  14. Constituent tests • Test 1: “stand alone” test • If a group can stand alone, they form a constituent • Set of word that can answer a question: • What did you pass? • “the Linguistics class” • “passed the” The student passed the Linguistics class.

  15. Constituent tests • Test 2: “replacement by a pronoun” test • Pronouns can substitute for natural groups. • Pronoun that can answer a question: • When did you pass the Linguistic class? • “I passed it last trimester” • Do can also substitute for the whole predicate passed the Linguistics class. • Som passed the Linguistics class and Boss did too.

  16. Constituent tests • Test 3: “move as a unit” test • If a group of words can be moved, they form a constituent. • The student passed the Linguistics class • It was the Linguistics class that the student passed. • The Linguistics class was passed by the student.

  17. S NP VP CP S NP VP NP det N V C det N V det N The professor said that the student passed the exam.

  18. Phrase structure rules • S = NP + VP • NP = Det + N • VP = V + NP • VP = V The woman laughed. • VP = V + PP • PP = P + NP • VP = V + CP • CP = C + S

  19. Semantics The meaning of language

  20. Questions in Semantics • Why does a certain set of words mean something and a similar set mean something very different? • When do two different sentences mean the same thing? • How can one sentence mean more than one thing? • What is meaning?

  21. Is a word’s meaning simply its dictionary definition? No! • In our society, many people feel that the dictionary definition of a word more accurately represents a word’s meaning than an individual speaker’s understanding of the word. • But descriptivists arrive at their definitions by studying the ways speakers of the language use different words.

  22. Concepts of determining meaning • The meaning of a word or expression is not just a definition composed of more words in the same language, since ultimately the meaning of some words would have to be known in order to understand the definitions. • Meaning is provided by a community of language speakers, not by some special authority like a dictionary or grammar book.

  23. Concepts of determining meaning • Mental image • Reference • Sense

  24. Lexical Relationships • Synonyms • Antonyms • Homonyms (homophones) • Hyponyms

  25. These properties are overlapping: mother ADULT PARENT woman father bachelor boy MALE

  26. Semantic properties

  27. Semantic Features and Syntax • Incorrect “matching” of the semantic features of different elements of a sentence can result in ungrammatical (but syntactically sound) sentences: The man [-female] was pregnant [+female]. I sawed [+solid] the water [-solid]. The ideas [-living] are sleeping [+living].

  28. Pragmatics The importance of context

  29. Pragmatics… • is concerned with the interpretation of meaning in context. • 2 contexts: • Linguistic context (discourse) • Situational context (anything non-linguistic)

  30. Deixis • What’s the concept of deixis?

  31. Cohesive devices Holding texts together

  32. Cohesive devices

  33. Grammatical Cohesion • Reference • Using referring expressions to refer to referents in the context. • Commonly used reference: pronouns

  34. Grammatical Cohesion • Substitution Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky-tacky, Little boxes, little boxes, Little boxes, all the same. There’s a green one and a pink one And a blue one and a yellow one And they’re all made of ticky-tacky And they all just look the same. (Reynolds, 1963)

  35. Grammatical Cohesion • Substitution • Similar function as pronouns • Using a word to substitute for its referent • Ellipsis • Omitting words and phrases mentioned earlier • Purpose to avoid repetition • Martin loves his wife, and so do I.

  36. Lexical Cohesion • Repetition • Repeated words/phrases to exploit its stylistic effect • “Little boxes” • Synonyms • To avoid repetition another word with the same meaning is used.

  37. Quick Exercise: find the synonyms • At 75 cm across and capable of cracking open a coconut with its claws, the land-dwelling coconut crab is your beach lounger’s worst nightmare. Fortunately for the sunbather, the world’s largest terrestrial arthropod has been confined to tropical islands across the Pacific and Indian oceans only. • (adapted from Cutting, 2002)

  38. Lexical Cohesion • Superordinates • Similar to hyponomy • The great white shark can grow up to 8m long. It is one of the more dangerous predators in the sea.

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