24.900 Introduction to Linguistics 2/22/05 and 2/23/05 Syntax vocabulary items are comparable to the atoms of physical matter. Atoms do not combine into molecules just because they happen to be next to each other; rather, their combinatorial possibilities are governed by their internal structure I. Some assertions: a. Sentences have hierarchical constituent structure. b. Each constituent in a sentence belongs to a specific syntactic category. c. The categorical constituent structure of sentences can be represented in the form of a Phrase Marker. II. What do phrase markers consist of? NP (D) (AP) N (PP) a. Structure of Phrase Markers: HEADS, SPECIFIERS and COMPLEMENTS 1. Heads: Phrases are built around a nucleus called the head. -The obligatory nucleus around which a phrase is built. Noun Phrase: head is the noun Verb Phrase: head is the verb, etc. NP VP / \ Determiner Noun V / / the books goes Prepositional phrases: in the dome Adjectival phrases: very difficult 1
2. Specifiers a. Semantically, they help to make the meaning of a head more precise. b. Syntactically, they typically mark a phrase boundary. In English, for example, they occur to the left boundary (beginning) of their respective phrases. c. The syntactic category of the specifier differs depending on the category of the head. Some Specifiers: Category Typical Function Examples Determiner specifier of N the, a, this, those, no Qualifier specifier of V never, perhaps, often, always Degree word specifier of A or P very, quite, more, almost 3. Complements a. These elements, which are themselves phrases, provide information about entities and locations whose existence is implied by the meaning of the head. A vegetarian would never[ VP eat {[ NP [ Det [ N a hamburger]]]]}. / / head complement naming the thing eaten (direct object) [ PP in {[ NP [ Det the [ N house]]]]} / / head complement naming a location Some examples of verb complements (Contemporary Linguistics 2005) Complement option Sample heads Example Ø vanish, arrive, die The rabbit vanished_. NP devour, cut, prove The child cut the [ NP the cake]. AP be, become PP to dash, talk NP,NP spare, hand, give NP PPfor buy, cook, reserve 2
EXAMPLES OF NOUN COMPLEMENTS Ø car, boy, electricity the car PP of memory, failure, death the memory [pp of a cat] PP of PP to presentation, gift, donation PP with PP about argument, discussion, conversation EAMPLES OF ADJECTIVE COMPLEMENTS Ø tall, green, smart very tall PP about curious, glad, angry PP to apparent, obvious fond, full, tired PP of EXAMPLES OF PREPOSITION COMPLEMENTS Ø near, away, down (He got) down NP in, on, near PP down, up, out How can we be sure that individual words will occur with a complement of the right type in the syntactic structures? Information about the complements permitted by a particular head is included in its entry in a speaker s lexicon. Devour: Category: V Phonological representation /dəvawər/ Meaning: eat hungrily Complement: NP The term subcategorization is used to refer information about a word s complement options. (syntax, morphology, semantics). Subcategorization information: heads occur only in tree structures where they have compatible complement phrases. Head Direction English is what we call a head initial language. Korean is what we call a head final language. 3
[ VP Close [the door ] ] [ NP desire [ PPfor change]] [[Moonul ]dadala ] byunhwa-edaehan kalmang VP Door close change-for desire III. PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES AGAIN a. They will take the form of the following: X YZ This rule specifies that X can have a Y immediately followed by a Z as its immediate constituents. S(sentence) NP VP VP V (NP) (AP) (PP) AP ADVP A PP P NP NP (Det) N b. Two questions: 1. Is there a way that we can conflate over the categories? 2. Is there a need to consider the possibility of more than one level of category? We have been tacitly assuming that there are word level categories N, A, V etc. and phrasal level categories: NP, AP, VP. IV. X-BAR ( X ) SYNTAX a. Is there any symmetry in the manner in which the phrasal categories can be expanded? b. Can we derive a single rule for the phrase structure? If so, what might it look like? 4
c. What about the ordering of the grammatical units? Can we derive a set of phrase structure rules that would allow us to generalize over grammatical categories and ultimately perhaps allow us to make generalizations cross linguistically? d. The Blueprint: A typical phrase can be broken down into: a head, a specifier, and a complement. XP (Specifier) Head (Complement) V. Returning to Q2 from above for X-bar Syntax: Is there a need for an Intermediate level between Phrasal and Word levels? An X category? The Question is: Do we need intermediate phrasal categories to label expressions that are potentially more than a single word but less than a full phrase? Consider the following example: Every painting of Vest and photo of Brown What we know: 1. The above is clearly an NP because it can appear in NP positions such as the subject of a sentence: Every painting of Vest and photo of Brown appeared in the Tech. What else can NPs do? 2. We have in our phrasal example above an N + PP in each of the conjuncts [ NP [ Det every [ N painting [ PP of [ NP [ N Vest]]]]] {and} [ N photo [ PP of [ NP [ N Brown ]]]] These N + PP sequences are constituents. (How do we know that?) We cannot label each of the N=PP sequences as an N if word level categories are only applied to single words. Nor, however, can we label them NP since they do not appear in positions in which NPs appear. Neither can appear as subject of a sentence. *Painting of Vest appeared in the Tech. *Photo of Brown appeared in the Tech. 5
Thus, we need some other category besides the phrasal or word level category!!!! In the case above, we will use the intermediate category N. NP = N X-bar rules: XP (X ) (Specifier) X X X (Complement) XP (X ) (Specifier) X X (Complement) Head 1. All phrases have a three-level structure (X, X, and XP [X ]) 2. All phrases contain a head, X. 3. If there is a complement, it is attached at the intermediate X level, as a sister of the head. 4. If there is a specifier, it is attached at the XP level. V. Some words about tree geometry: M N O N D E F O H I J M / \ N O / \ / \ D E F H I J 6
KEY TERMS b. BRANCH: A line connecting two parts of the tree. c. NODE: The end of the branch. d. LABEL: The name given to a node. e. ROOT NODE: The node with no line on top of it. f. TERMINAL NODE: Any node with no branch underneath it. g. NON-TERMINAL NODE: Any node with a branch underneath it. h. DOMINANCE: Node A dominates node B if and only if A is higher up in a tree than B and if you can trace a line from A to B going only downwards. (M dominates all the other nodes above. What about N and O?) i. MOTHER: A is the mother of B if A immediately dominates B. j. DAUGHTER: B is the daughter of A if B is immediately dominated by A. k. SISTERS: Two nodes that share the same mother. Practice drawing trees for the following: i. never eat a hamburger ii. the books about the war iii. quite certain about Mary iv. almost in the house How do we build sentences? Merge Operation: Combines words in a manner compatible with the phrase structure schema. NP PP / \ / Det N P / \ \ The N NP P / \ house det N in the house The merge operation is able to take a determiner such as the and combine it with an N consisting of the N house to form the NP (N ) the house. It is then able to take a 7
head such as in the preposition in and combine it with the NP the house to form the P and the PP in the house. Merge the following: The scientists discovered a cure. {The scientists discovered a cure that killed the rat that ate the student that bored the friend that swam the Charles} More important syntactic distinctions: The book of poems The book with a cover Adjunct: An XP that is a sister to a single bar level (N, V, P, A ) and a daughter of a single bar level (N, V, A or P ). Complement: An XP that is a sister to a head (N, V, A, P) and a daughter of a single bar level (N, V, A, or P ). Adjunct rule: Complement rule: X X (ZP) X X (WP) 8
XP g X 1 X ZP > adjunct 1 X WP > complement The book [of poems] [with a cover] 9