Linguistic Essentials

1. Linguistic Essentials Dekang Lin Department of Computing Science University of Alberta

2. Part of Speech • Syntactic Categories • N, V, Adj/Adv, Prep, Aux, • Open/Closed class, lexical/functional categories • Also known as: Part of Speech, grammatical category, syntactic tag, POS tag

3. Closed-Class Words • Determiners: the/a/an, this/these, that/those, which, whose • Auxiliaries: will/would, can/could, may/might, must, shall/should, ought to, to • Prepositions: of, in, to, with, without, … • Conjunctions: and, or, but, …

4. Pronouns: • Personal: I/me, you, she/her, he/him, it, we/us, … • Possessive: my/mine, your/yours, … • Reflexive: myself, herself, ourselves, … • Demonstrative: this/these, that/those • Reciprocal: each other, one another

5. Nouns • Denote things, people, animal, places, … • Can be modified by determiners • Common nouns • Countable: book, cat, fork, train, … • Non-countable: butter, jam, soap, depression, … • Proper nouns: Jack, London, IBM, … • Numerals: one, two, three…/first, second, …

6. Verbs • Describe actions, activities, and states • Can be modified by auxiliaries • Different forms: • base • tense: present, past, future, future-past • aspect: progressive, perfective • Irregular verbs

7. Substitution Test • Two words belong to the same category if replacing one with another does not change the grammaticality of a sentence. • Subcategory of verbs • Alex solved the puzzle • Alex thought the box was empty • It was nice of her to share her toy • Words in the same subcategory have the same list of arguments

8. Types of Verbs • Intransitive verb: sleep • Transitive verbs: solve, offer • Ditransitive verb: give, offer • Intransitive with PP: rent in somewhere • Transitive with PP: put sth. on sth. • Sentential complement: think, wonder • Transitive with sentential complement: tell • Key term: Valency

9. Adjectives and Adverbs • Adjectives modify nouns • attributive vs. predicative • a crazy dog; a retired general • she is crazy; she is asleep • Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives or adverbs • Circumstantial: often, gleefully, intentionally, … • Degree adverb: extremely, less, more, quite, too, … • Sentence adverb: however, probably, perhaps, …

10. POS Tagging • A word type may correspond to more than one POS. • Each word token belongs to only one POS. • POS tagging • Determine the POS of each word token. • POS tagging demo at Edinburgh • MBT: Memory Based Taggingdemo.

11. Grammatical Relations SUBJ Subject The baby cried OBJ Direct Object The baby saw the cat IOBJ Indirect Object Kim gave him the book POBJ Prepositional Object She stayed near the wall COMP Complement Clause I think that he is sad XCOMP `open' complement Sam seems to be happy ADJUNCT adjuncts temporal/locative phrases

12. Syntax • Syntax is the study of the regularities and constraints of word order and phrase structure

13. Phrase Structures • Noun phrases • A noun phrase consists of a head noun and a set of modifiers. • The meaning of the noun phrase is largely determined by the noun. • Verb phrases • A verb phrase consists of a head verb and a set of modifiers • the head verb denotes the action/activity/state

14. Sentence

15. Coordination

16. Relative Clause

17. Clauses • Matrix clause: the sentence • Subordinate clause • finite clause • non-finite clause • to-infinitive • bare infinitive • -ing participle clause • -ed participle clause

18. Sentence Types • Declarative sentence • Interrogative sentences • Imperative sentences • Exclaimative sentences

19. Terminal vs. Nonterminal Nodes • Nodes with no branches beneath them are called terminal nodes. • B, D, E, F are terminal nodes. • Nodes with branches beneath them are called nonterminal nodes. • A, C are nonterminal nodes. A B C E F D

20. Dominance Relation • A node X dominates Y if X is an ancestor of Y. • A dominates B, C, D, E, F • A node X immediately dominates a node Y if X is the parent of Y. • A immediately dominates B and C. A B C E F D

21. C-Command • A node X c-commands its sisters and the nodes dominated by its sisters. • B c-commands C, D, E, and F. • D c-commands E and F. • C c-commands B. A B C E F D

22. Examples S VP NP PP NP AdjP AdjP D N V P D Adj N Adj The young consumers walked to the new store

23. Negative Polarity Items • Certain words in English seem to only be available in “negative” contexts. • Pat didn’t invite anyone to the party. • Pat does not know anything about syntax. • Pat hasn’tever been to London. • Pat hasn’t seen Forrest Gumpyet. • *Pat invited anyone to the party. • *Pat knows anything about syntax. • *Pat has ever been to London. • *Pat has seen Forrest Gumpyet.

24. Negative Polarity Items • These are called negative polarity items. • They include ever, yet, anyone, anything, any N, as well as some idiomatic ones like lift a finger and a red cent. • Pat didn’t lift a finger to help. • Pat didn’t have a red cent. • *Pat lifted a finger to help. • *Pat had a red cent.

25. Negative Polarity Items • But it isn’t quite as simple as that. Consider: • I didn’t see anyone. • *I saw anyone. • *Anyone didn’t see me. • *Anyone saw me. • It seems that simply having negation in the sentence isn’t by itself enough to license the use of an NPI.

26. Negative Polarity Items • As a first pass, we might say that negation has to precede the NPI. • I didn’t see anyone. • *Anyone didn’t see me. • But that’s not quite it either. • *[That John didn’t stay] surprised anyone. • [That John didn’t stay] didn’t surprise anyone.

27. Negative Polarity Items • *[That John didn’t stay] surprised anyone. • [That John didn’t stay] didn’t surprise anyone. S VP CP V NPI didn’t S C surprise that NP VP John didn’t V stay

28. Structural ambiguity • John said that Bill slipped in the kitchen. • This sentence has two possible meanings; either John said it in the kitchen, or Bill slipped in the kitchen (according to John). • John said that Bill will leave yesterday. • John said that Bill will leave tomorrow.

29. Structural ambiguity S S NP VP NP VP John John PP V CP V CP said said in the kitchen C C TP S that that NP VP NP VP Bill Bill V V PP slipped slipped in the kitchen

30. Negative Polarity Items • John said that Bill didn’t slip in any room. • Suddenly, it has only one meaning. Why? • John said: In no room did Bill slip. • *John said in any room: Bill didn’t slip.

31. Negative Polarity Items S S NP VP NP VP John John PP V CP V CP said said in any room C C TP S that that NP VP NP VP Bill Bill didn’t didn’t V V PP slipped slipped in any room

32. Negative Polarity Items • How about: • John didn’t say that Bill slipped in any room. • What do we predict?

33. Movement and Empty Node • Example: • which cake do you think Kim baked • There is an empty node after ‘baked’ • ‘which cake’ is the antecedent of the empty node.

34. Wh-movement • Whoi did you say ticaught the fish? • *Whoi did you say that ti caught the fish? • Whati did you say Kim caught ti? • Whati did you say that Kim caught ti? • The fishi Kim caught ti weighs 2 pounds. • The fishi that Kim caught ti weighs 2 pounds • The prisoneri whoiti escaped yesterday died. • *The prisoneriti escaped yesterday died. • Chickeni, I like ti.

35. C-command Condition • If A is the antecedent of an empty node B, A’s parent is an ancestor of B. • A C-commands B • C-command condition is language-universal

36. Generalization of Phrase Structure • Every phrase has one (and only one) head word. • The head word determines whether the phrase fit into a context (grammatically). • X-bar Schema • XP  Spec, X’ • X’  X’, YP • X’  X, ZP

37. Dependency • The relationship between the head of a phrase and head of the modifying phrases. • Example: • Sue watched the man at the next table. • Types of dependency relationships • Subject, object, indirect object, recipient, direct object, source, destination,