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SYNTAX

SYNTAX. Introduction to Linguistics. BASIC IDEAS. What is a sentence?. Grammaticality. Grammatical vs. ungrammatical well formed vs. ill formed words must conform to specific patterns determined by the syntactic rules of the language based on syntactic rules NOT based on

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SYNTAX

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  1. SYNTAX Introduction to Linguistics

  2. BASIC IDEAS

  3. What is a sentence?

  4. Grammaticality • Grammatical vs. ungrammatical • well formed vs. ill formed • words must conform to specific patterns determined by the syntactic rules of the language • based on • syntactic rules • NOT based on • what is taught in school • whether it is meaningful • whether you have heard the sentences before.

  5. Lexical categories

  6. PHRASE STRUCTURE

  7. Phrasal categories • Verb phrase (VP) • Noun phrase (NP) • Prepositional phrase (PP)

  8. Phrase structure (PS) rules • What are PS rules? • How words of different parts of speech are connected. • Different languages have different PS rules • English • An adjective is placed before a noun. • A beautiful woman • French • An adjective is placed either before or after a noun. • Une belle femme ‘a beautiful woman’ • Une femme fatale ‘an attractive woman’

  9. Writing PS Rules • Books • NP->N • Read: An NP is composed of a noun. • A book • NP -> Det N • John’s book • NP -> Pos N • Good books; a good book • NP -> Det Adj N • NP -> Adj N • NP -> (Det) (adj) N • Books on the table • NP -> N (PP) • The PS rule of an NP • NP -> (Det) (adj) N (PP)

  10. Phrase structure (PS) rules in English • NP -> (Det) (adj) N (PP) • NP -> Pronoun • VP -> ? • AP -> ? • PP -> ? • CP -> COMP (that) S • COMP: complementizer=that, if, unless • S -> ?

  11. Phrase structure (PS) rules in English • NP -> (Det) (adj) N (PP) • NP -> pronoun • VP -> V (NP) (PP) (CP) • AP -> Adj (PP) • PP -> P NP • CP -> COMP (that) S • COMP: complementizer=that, if, unless • S -> NP (Aux) VP

  12. A Tree Diagram S VP NP NP Det N PP V Det N P N The boy from Taiwan knew the answer

  13. What does a tree diagram show? • Speakers’ syntactic knowledge of sentence structure • the linear order of the words • the categorization of words into particular syntactic categories (i.e. constituents) • the hierarchical structure of the syntactic categories

  14. Grow your own trees. The sun melted the ice. A fast car with twin cams sped by the children on the grassy lane. The boy put the toy in the box. The reporter realized that the senator lied. A stranger whispered to the Soviet agent on the corner that a dangerous spy from the CIA loved coffee.

  15. What can tree diagrams explain? • Structural ambiguity • long-distance relationships

  16. Structural ambiguity • A sentence may have two interpretations due to different structural compositions of constituents. • Example : • The boy left Mary with a broken heart.

  17. Structural ambiguity S NP VP Det N NP V N PP P NP The boy left Mary with a broken heart

  18. Structural ambiguity (2) **更正** S NP VP Det N NP V PP N NP P left The boy Mary with a broken heart

  19. Long-distance relationships-The guy who has two houses and three cars (seem, seems) kind of cute.

  20. How do we know that it is a constituent? • The substitution test • Mr. Smith asked the students to leave. • Mr. Smith asked them to leave. • Clefts: It is/was X that Y • It was in this house [PP] that they had a party _____[PP]. • *It was this house [NP/PP?] that they had a party in _____[PP]. • The movement test • They had a party in the house [PP]. • In the house [PP] they had a party. • The coordination/conjunction test • They went into the bookstore [VP] and bought a book [VP]. • *They went into the bookstore [VP] and a book [NP].

  21. Questions?

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