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Syntax Word order, constituency

Syntax Word order, constituency. LING 200 Spring 2003. Reading: Files 6.1, 6.3, 6.5, 6.7. Overview. What is syntactic competence? Morphology and syntax: inflectional morphology Word order Representing the structure of sentences Arguments for constituent structure Transformations

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Syntax Word order, constituency

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  1. SyntaxWord order, constituency LING 200 Spring 2003 Reading: Files 6.1, 6.3, 6.5, 6.7

  2. Overview • What is syntactic competence? • Morphology and syntax: inflectional morphology • Word order • Representing the structure of sentences • Arguments for constituent structure • Transformations • Cross-linguistic variation

  3. Syntactic competence What native speakers know about: • Possible vs. impossible sentences • Restricted distributions of words/ morphemes • What sentences mean

  4. Sources of evidence in syntax • Observation of native speaker productions • Elicitation of native speaker grammaticality judgements • from self • from others

  5. Morphology overlaps with syntax Syntactically relevant morphemes: inflection

  6. Inflection vs. derivation

  7. Inflection vs. derivation

  8. Inflection vs. derivation

  9. Some verbal inflectional affixes

  10. Syntactic relevance: agreement • Spanish: adjectives agree with nouns in gender, number • gender: (arbitrary) noun classes entrada ‘ticket (to a show)’ vs. boleto ‘ticket’

  11. Agreement Vendiste las entradas? ‘Did you sell the tickets?’ you sold the tickets No, las (*los) tengo todavía. ‘No, I still have them.’ them I have still

  12. Word order • English vs. Witsuwit’en 1. Prepositions precede nouns in English. count forme Postpositions follow nouns in Witsuwit'en: spe c’ot«w ‘count for me’ me for you (sg.) count

  13. Word order 2. In English, adjectives precede nouns. narrowrope In Witsuwit'en, an adjective follows a noun: t'otet‘fine babiche’ rope narrow

  14. Word order 3. In English, the possessor noun normally precedes the possessed noun.  my friend's house but can follow the possessed noun: the house of my friend In Witsuwit'en, the possessor noun always precedes the possessed noun: sq'aqhE pyX ‘my friend’s house’ my friend his/her house

  15. Word order 4. Subject of sentence: instigates action (transitive verbs), undergoes action or state (intransitive verbs) In both Witsuwit'en and English, subjects precede verbs: Driftwoodis floating around. tznt driftwood it is floating around

  16. Word order • (Direct) (undergoes action of verb) object only in sentences with transitive verbs. • In English, the direct object follows the verb. • We bought food. • In Witsuwit'en, the direct object precedes the verb: • t'anets'ottqht • food we bought

  17. Attested word order patterns (S = Subject, O = Object, V = Verb):

  18. Frequency of each type < Sample of 402 languages.

  19. Recursion and phrase structure (Potentially) infinitely long sentences: This is the house that Jack built. This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. This is the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. ...

  20. This is the priest all shaven and shorn that married the man all tattered and torn that kissed the maiden all forlorn that milked the cow with the crumpled horn that tossed the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. ...

  21. How to characterize (potential) infinity? Phrase structure rules. Properties: ·      specify word order ·      are recursive (output of one rule can be rewritten via another rule)

  22. Phrase structure rules General schema: X  Y Z (“X consists of/is Y Z”) examples: English: PP  P NP Witsuwit'en: PP  NP P PP = Pre/postpositional phrase P = Pre/postposition NP = Noun phrase

  23. Equivalent representational devices phrase structure rule: PP  P NP labeled bracketing: PP[P NP] tree structure: PP P NP

  24. Some terminology constituent syntactic unit consisting of one or more words = node(in tree) root node branching nodes terminal nodes PP P NP with Det N the money

  25. More phrase structure rules S  NP VP S = sentence NP = noun phrase VP = verb phrase

  26. More phrase structure rules NP  (Det) (Adj+) N (PP) Det = determiner Adj = adjective N = noun ( ) = optional

  27. Determiners vs. adjectives NP  (Det) (Adj+) N (PP) Det  a/an, some, the, your (etc.) Adj  big, green, juicy (etc.) One determiner per NP: your pickle, the pickle, *your the pickle, *the your pickle More than one Adj is possible (+ notation): your big pickle, your big green pickle, your big green juicy pickle

  28. More phrase structure rules VP  Vtrans (NP) (PP) (Adv) VP = verb phrase Vtrans = transitive verb Adv = adverb

  29. Some simple tree structures S  NP VP NP  (Det) (Adj+) N (PP) VP  V (NP) (PP) (Adv) S NP VP N V cats sleep

  30. Some simple tree structures NP  (Det) (Adj+) N (PP) PP  P NP NP N PP fog P NP in Det N the morning

  31. NP Det N PP the piano P NP on Det N PP the stage P NP in Det N PP the music building P NP on N campus

  32. Some simple tree structures VP  V (NP) (PP) (Adv) VP V NP PP put Det N P NP the car in Det N the garage

  33. Summary of syntax (so far) • Syntactic competence • Morphology and syntax: inflectional morphology • Word order • Recursion • Representing the structure of sentences • phrase structure rules • tree diagrams • labeled bracketing

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