A Brief Introduction to UG

1. A Brief Introduction to UG Presenter: 李有弟 Group Members：李婉君 朱春娥 0207班

2. Outline I the Concept of UG II An Overview of UG Theory: • Structure -dependency • Head parameter III Conclusion

3. What’s UG ? • It stands for Universal Grammar: “the system of principles, conditions, and that are elements of all human language…the essence of the human language.” (由人类所有语言所共有的原则、条件和规则组成的系统， 是人类语言的本质所在). • According to Chomsky, all human beings share part of their knowledge of the language, and UG is their possession regardless of which language they speak.

4. However, Chomsky’s UG theory is a complex overall theory involving several sub-theories, including Principle and Parameters theory(原则-参数理论)，and several models of principle and parameters theory such as Government/Biding (GB) Model (管约论模型)and Minimalist Programme (MP) Model （最简方案模型）.

5. Structure-dependency(结构依赖) • Structure-dependency asserts that knowledge of language relies on the structural relationships in the sentence rather than on the sequence of words. • Sentences have phrase structure. eg: The child drew an elephant.

6. Sentence Verb Phrase Noun Phrase The child Verb Noun Phrase an elephant drew

7. Sentence Verb Phrase Noun Phrase Verb Noun Phrase Determiner Noun Determiner Noun The child drew an elephant

8. The principle of structure –dependency can also be introduced through the relationship of active and passive sentences in English. • The passive sentence: Barnes was fired by the manager. is taken to be related to the active sentence: The manager fired Barnes.

9. The manager fired Barnes. Barnes Was fired by The manager

10. This introduces the major aspect of the Principle of structure-dependency: movement in the sentence. But you cannot move as you like but should move the right element in the right phrase: movement depends on the structure of the sentence. The formation of English questions is the central example of structure-dependency used by Chomsky. He contrasts: Is the man who is here tall? with * Is the man who here is tall?

11. We know the second sentence is wrong. The element that can be moved to subject position in the question is the auxiliary verb(系动词) is from the main clause VP. It’s the structure that matters, not the linear order of elements. • Structure dependency also affects the interpretation of sentences. Eg: John says that the manager will fire him John says that the manager will fire himself.

12. The reflexive（反身代词） himself must refer to someone mentioned within the same part of the sentence the manager will fire himself; the pronoun（代词） him on the other hand must refer to someone who is not mentioned in the same part of the sentence but who may either be mentioned in the other clause John says that… • In other words, interpreting who him and himself refer to depends on our knowledge of the clause structure of the sentence---knowing which is the relevant part of the clause and which is not， the rule is structure-dependent.

13. Actually the principle of structure –dependency applies to all types of sentences in English as well as other language. • It is unlikely that people ever encounter rules that contravene（违反） structure-dependency outside the pages of linguistics books; how do they instantly know that: Is John is the man who tall? is wrong? Children learning English probably never hear any sentences of this type; how do they learn structure-dependency? The UG theory claims that such principles are inherently impossible to learn; if they are not learnt, they must be part of the human mind.

14. The Head Parameter（中心成分参数） • Structure-dependency seems common to all languages. Yet languages obviously differ in many ways; if knowledge of language consisted solely of unvarying principles, all human languages would be identical. To see how the theory captures variation between languages, let us take the example of the head parameter, which specifies order of certain elements in a language.

15. The child drew an elephant • The essential element in each phrase is its head（中心成分）. Thus the VP drew an elephant has a head Verb drew; the NP the child has a head Noun child; a PP such as by the manager has a head Preposition by; and so on for all phrases.

16. Chomsky suggested that the relative position of heads and complements needs to be specified only once for all the phrases in a given language. Rather than a long list of individual rules specifying the position of the heads in each phrase type, a single generalization suffices: heads are last in the phrase or heads are first in the phrase. English is a head-first language while Japanese is a head-last language. • The variation between languages can now be expressed in terms of whether heads occur first or last in the phrase. Thus Universal Grammar captures the variations between languages in terms of a limited choice between two or so possibilities, known as a parameter.

17. So far a fragment of Universal Grammar has been presented to structure-dependency demonstrated both the overall syntactic orientation of the theory and the abstract level at which such principles operate. The head parameter suggested that a single abstract property of syntax could account for a wide variation between languages. Language knowledge on the one hand consists of a few powerful principles and parameters; on the other of information about the idiosyncratic properties of numerous words. Conclusion

18. Thank you for your listening!