Introduction to English Linguistics (I) Professor Seongha Rhee srhee@hufs.ac.kr 1
Syntax (1) 1. Introduction: Production & Comprehension of Infinite Language 2. What is Syntax? What do the Syntactic Rules do? 3. Grammatical or Ungrammatical? What is Grammaticality NOT Based on? 4. Sentence Structure (i) Structures and Tree Diagram (ii) Constituents and Constituency Tests (iii) Syntactic Categories (iv) Lexical and Functional Categories 2
Ch. 2. Syntax (1) (77-89) 1. Introduction: Production and Comprehension of Infinite Language Human speakers can produce and understand infinite number of sentences. (1) a. The kindhearted boy had many girlfriends. b. The kindhearted, intelligent boy had many girlfriends. c. The kindhearted, intelligent, handsome boy had many girlfriends. 3
(2) a. John found a book in the library. b. John found a book in the library in the stacks. c. John found a book in the library in the stacks on the fourth floor. (3) a. The cat chased the mouse. b. The cat chased the mouse that ate the cheese. c. The cat chased the mouse that ate the cheese that came from the cow. d. The cat chased the mouse that ate the cheese that came from the cow that grazed in the field. 4
In principle, the addition operation can continue forever. Sentences cannot be stored in a dictionary format. Sentences are composed of discrete units that are combined by rules. This system of rules explains how speakers can store infinite knowledge in a finite space. 5
2. What is Syntax? What do the Syntactic Rules do? Syntax: (Study on) the part of the grammar that represents a speaker's knowledge of the structure of phrases and sentences Meaning of sentence = meaning from words + meaning from structure 6
A. Word Order Athens defeated Sparta. Sparta defeated Athens. Your dog chased my cat. My cat chased your dog. Salome danced for Herod. Herod danced for Salome. Jack Horner stuck in his thumb. Jack Horner stuck his thumb in. >>> Word order may or may not make semantic differences. 7
(1) The President nominated a new Supreme Court justice. vs. (2) *President the new Supreme justice Court a nominated. 8
B. Relationships between meaning and arrangement of groups of words (3) I mean what I say. vs. (4) I say what I mean. 9
C. Grammatical relations of sentential arguments (5) Your dog chased my cat. vs. (6) My cat chased your dog. 10
D. Constraints in combination (7) a. *The boy found. b. *The boy found quickly. c. *The boy found in the house. d. The boy found the ball. >>> Certain words require certain words to follow. 11
(8) a. *Disa slept the baby. b. Disa slept soundly. >>> Certain words avoid certain words following them. 12
(9) a. Zack believes Robert to be a gentleman. b. *Zack believes to be a gentleman. c. *Zack tries Robert to be a gentleman. d. Zack tries to be a gentleman. e. Zack wants to be a gentleman. f. Zack wants Robert to be a gentleman. >>> Verbs behave differently as to their requirements of following words. 13
(10) a. Jack and Jill ran up the hill. b. *Jack and Jill ran the hill up. c. Up the hill ran Jack and Jill. d. Jack and Jill ran up the bill. e. Jack and Jill ran the bill up. f. *Up the bill ran Jack and Jill. >>> Sentences are not simply strings of words. >>> Certain word groups form a unit. He ran [up the hill]. He ran *[up the bill]. 14
[Knowledge of Hierarchy] The captain ordered all old men and women off the sinking ship. >> [old men] and [women] vs. [old [men and women]] 15
[Structural ambiguities] For sale: an antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers. We will oil your sewing machine and adjust tension in your home for $10.00. [Lexical ambiguities] This will make you smart. 16
[Combination of ambiguities] 17
3. Grammatical or Ungrammatical? 3.1 Grammaticality (grammatical vs ungrammatical) (well-formedness vs ill-formedness): based on linguistic intuitions 18
3.2 Grammaticality NOT based on: a. familiarity Enormous crickets in pink socks danced at the prom. b. meaningfulness Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. (*Furiously sleep ideas green colorless.) A verb crumpled the milk. (*Milk the crumpled verb a.) c. interpretability *The boy quickly in the house the ball found. 19
d. nonsense strings Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe *Toves slithy the and brillig 'twas Wabe the in gimble a nd gyre did e. truthfulness cf. lies f. irrelalis cf. imagination 20
>> The syntactic rules that permit us to produce, understand, and make grammatical judgments are unconscious rules. >> The grammar is a mental grammar, different from the prescriptive grammar. 21
4. Sentence Structure 4.1 Structures and Tree Diagram Det: determiner N: noun V: verb (1) a. The child found a puppy. b. The professor wrote a book. c. That runner won the race. >>> Det-N-V-Det-N 22
Tree Diagram 23
4.2 Constituents and Constituency Tests 1. Stand-Alone Test 2. Pronoun Replacement Test 3. Pro-form Replacement Test 4. Move-as-a-Unit Test 24
Stand-Alone Test: What did you find? > A puppy. *Found a. Pronoun Replacement Test: Where did you find a puppy? > I found him in the park. 25
Pro-form Replacement Test: John found a puppy and Bill found a puppy, too. >>John found a puppy and Bill did too. 26
Move-as-a-Unit Test The child found a puppy. > It was a puppy that the child found. > *It was found a puppy that the child. > A puppy was found by the child. > *Puppy was found by the child a. 27
(2) The puppy played in the garden. Constituents: the puppy, played in the garden, in the garden, the garden Tests: Where did the puppy play? In the garden. (stand alone) The puppy played there. (pro-form replacement) In the garden is where the puppy played. (move as a unit) It was in the garden that the puppy played. (move as a unit) 28
Constituents: the puppy, played in the garden, in the garden, the garden 29
Additional evidence for speakers representing a sentence not as a string but in terms of constituents: The click insertion test: clicks at constituent boundaries and within the constituents Result: (i) best at major constituent boundaries (ii) clicks inside constituents are moved to boundaries What do we know from this? 30
>> Every sentence in a language is associated with one or more constituent structures. If a sentence has more than one constituent structure, it is ambiguous. 31
I bought an antique desk suitable for a lady with thick legs and large drawers. (i) [a lady with thick legs and large drawers] (ii) [[a desk for a lady][with thick legs and large drawers]] 32
4.3 Syntactic Categories The puppy played in the garden. 33
The puppy played in the garden. [the puppy] may be replaced by[the police officer] [your neighbor] [this yellow cat] [he] [John] >>> NP (Noun Phrase) 34
The child found a puppy. [the child] may be replaced by [a police officer] [your neighbor] [this yellow cat] >>> NP 35
"syntactic category": a family of expressions that can substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality 36
Noun Phrase (NP) NP may be a sentential subject or an object or object of a preposition, etc. NPs often contain: a determiner & a noun; a proper name; a noun w/o determiner; a clause; a sentence. Single words may be NPs: John, he, him... 37
John found the puppy. He found the puppy. Boys love puppies. The puppy loved him. The puppy loved John. The girl that Professor Snape loved married the man of her dreams. Syntactic categories are part of a speaker's knowledge of syntax. 38
[NP exercise] (a) a bird (b) the red banjo (c) have a nice day (d) with a balloon (e) the woman who was laughing (f) it (g) John (h) went Who found? was seen by everyone. What/Who I heard was. 39
VP: NP: PP: Det: verb phrase noun phrase prepositional phrase determiner (a, the) 40
[VP exercise] (a) saw a clown (b) a bird (c) slept (d) smart (e) ate the cake (f) found the cake in the cupboard (g) realized that the earth was round (h) in the park (i) think that he loves me The child. 41
4.4 Lexical and Functional Categories syntactic categories = phrasal categories & lexical categories Phrasal Categories: NP, VP, AdjP, PP, AdvP... Lexical Categories: N, V, P, Adj, Adv... 42
[Lexical Categories] N: noun puppy, boy, soup, happiness, fork, kills, pillow, cake... V: verb find, run, sleep, throw, realize, see, try, want, believe... P: preposition up, down, about, across, into, on, at, from, by, with 43
Adj: adjective red, big, candid, hopeless, fair, idiotic, lucky... Adv: adverb again, carefully, luckily, never, very, fairly... Det: determiner a, the, this, that, these, those, each, every... Aux: auxiliary have, be, was, may, might, can, must, could, might... 44
Determiner: articles & demonstratives & counting words articles: a, the demonstratives: this, that, these... counting words: each, every... 45
Auxiliary: auxiliary verbs & modals auxiliary verbs: have, had, be, was, were... modals: may, might, can, could, must, shall, should, will, would... 46
[Functional Categories] Aux & Det: They have a grammatical function (not a descriptive meaning). determiner: specifies whether a noun is indefinite or definite (a boy vs. the boy) specifies if near or far (this boy vs. that boy) 47
auxiliary: provides the verb with a time-frame: ongoing (John is dancing) completed (John has danced) future occurrence (John will dance) expresses possibility (John may dance) expresses necessity (John must dance) expresses ability (John can dance) 48
[Lexical Categories] verb: actions, events, states (kick, marry, love...) adjective: qualities, properties (lucky, old...) common noun: general entities (dog, house, tree...) 49
proper noun: particular individuals (Chomsky, John...) particular places (Dodger Stadium, Seoul Station...) names of commercial products (Coca-Cola, Aspirin...) preposition: locational relationships between entities (in, under, on, behind...) 50
Designation may be complex: Some nouns refer to events: marriage, destruction... Some nouns refer to states: happiness, loneliness... Some nouns refer to qualities and properties: honor, beauty... Some nouns do not refer to entities: Seeing is believing. Some prepositions do not refer to locational relationships: of, by, about, with... 51
Since lexical category items have diverse meanings, lexical categories are defined not in terms of their meaning, but by their syntactic distribution. e.g.: NP is a word that can occur with a determiner; that can take a plural marker; etc. 52
All languages have syntactic categories such as N, V, and NP. Speakers know the syntactic categories of their language, even if they do not know the technical terms. Our knowledge of the syntactic classes is revealed when we substitute equivalent phrases. 53
Thank you! 54