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Syntax

Syntax. Language Variations: Japanese and English. Google result for Syntax. Definition: The study of the rules that govern the ways in which words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. Syntax: Enigma.

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Syntax

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  1. Syntax Language Variations: Japanese and English

  2. Google result for Syntax Definition: • The study of the rules that govern the ways in which words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.

  3. Syntax: Enigma • Short time: Despite of socio-economical environment or IQ scores, all human children acquire their L1 by age 5-6. • Complex:Productivity (we can understand/produce infinite # of sentences) as one of the properties of human language. • Is it possible to satisfy “Productivity” with finite and possibly incomplete input?

  4. Plato’s (427-347 B.C.) Problem: the Gap between Knowledge and Experience How do we account for our knowledge when environmental conditions seem to be an insufficient source of information?

  5. Syntax: What do we really want to explain? • Short time: Children are equipped with an innate Universal Grammar (UG),a set of plans for the grammatical machinery that powers all human languages.

  6. Syntax: What do we really want to explain? • Complex Combination of small sets of simple rules generate complex expressions. Question: How many rules do we need to generate complex expressions?

  7. fII see… all human speak the same language with different dialect….

  8. Basic Ideas of Syntax • Productivity • Autonomy • Word order • Lexical category • Constituent • Phrasal category • Phrase structure (PS) rules

  9. Q: How does a language work? Combination of Lexicon and rules a). Lexicon b). Sets of rules and combination e.g.{cat, house, the, is, in} • The cat is in the house. • The house is in the cat. • *The is cat in the house. • *House in the cat the. • *The cat in the is house. • *The cat is the house is. • *House the in is cat the.

  10. Subcategorization (selectional property of verbs) 1. Intransitiveverbs S[NP VP] 2. Transitive verbs S[NP VP NP] 3. Ditransitive verbs S[NP VP NP] 4. Verbs with sentence complements S[NP VP [1, 2. 3 or 4]…recursive

  11. Language Variation: Japanese and English Japanese • Word order = SOV VP [NP V] • Particle Flexible words order English • Word order = SVO VP [V NP] • No particle Extremely fixed word order

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