Syntax

• Whereas grammar is the set of rules governing a spoken language, syntax is the part of grammar that represents a speaker’s knowledge of sentences and their structures.

• Rules of syntax demonstrate the creative aspect of language (permit speakers to produce/understand a limitless number of entirely new sentences)
• Rules of syntax define correct word order for a language and specify the grammatical relations of a sentence like the DO/IO — specify who is doing what to whom
• Sentences have a treelike structure/hierarchical arrangement of words — tree diagram
• Subunits (subtrees) of a sentence: constituents — can be nested inside each other (e.g., in “The child found a puppy”; “a puppy” is a constituent; so is “found a puppy” and “the child”)
  • Constituent ends at/corresponds to the node where the branches meet
  • Words in a constituent = contiguous; not all contiguous words form a constituent
• Constituency tests:
  • Stand Alone test: If a group of words can stand alone (e.g., as the answer to a question), they form a constituent
  • Replacement by a Pronoun test: If a pronoun can substitute for a group of words
  • Move-as-a-Unit test: Can the group be moved together and remain grammatical?
  • Ex: “the puppy played in the garden” — “in the garden” is a constituent
• Constituent structure of a sentence may be graphically represented by a tree diagram
• Lexical ambiguity: Multiple interpretations of a sentence caused by a word having multiple meanings. Structural ambiguity: When a sentence has more than one possible tree structure associated with it.

Syntactic Categories

• Noun Phrase (NP): May function as subject or object in a sentence; often contains a determiner (a, an, the); may also contain a proper noun, a pronoun, a determiner-less noun, or a clause/sentence that functions as a noun
• Verb Phrase (VP): Always contains a verb (V); may also contain a NP or PP
• Prepositional Phrase (PP): A preposition followed by an NP (ex: “in the park”)
• Also Adjective Phrase (AP), Adverbial Phrase (AdvP)
• Lexical categories: Noun (N), Verb (V), Preposition (P), Adjective (A), Adverb (Adv)
• Phrase Structure Tree/Constituent Structure Tree: Tree diagram w/ syntactic categories that represents their hierarchical structure (ex: a S is composed of an NP followed by a VP; a VP is composed of a V that may be followed by an NP; etc.)
  • Every higher node dominates all the categories beneath it; it immediately dominates the categories one level beneath it; categories immediately dominated by the same node are sisters
• Complementizer Phrase (CP): Consists of an embedded sentence (ex: “that the students read the book” in “The professor hoped that the students read the book”)

Phrase Structure Rules

• Dominating category → the categories it immediately dominates
• “Dominating category X may contain a Y followed by a Z in that order”
• “A Y followed by a Z qualifies as a member of dominating category X”
• S -> NP VP
• NP -> Det N
• VP -> V | VP -> V NP | VP -> V PP | VP -> V CP
• PP -> P NP
• CP -> C S
• AP -> A PP
• Recursive set of rules: Same symbol appears on both the left and right side of the rule
  • VP -> V CP | CP -> C S | S -> NP VP
  • Recursion illustrates the difference between competence and performance — all speakers of English can embed phrases within each other ad infinitum (competence), but as the structure grows longer, performance becomes harder
• Use a triangle under NP to indicate that proper names are full NPs, not nouns
• The core of every phrase is its head: a lexical category of the same syntactic type
  • Ex: head of “the mother of James” is mother; head of “sing karaoke” is sing
• Complement: A phrasal category that occurs next to a head (not obligatory)
  • Intransitive verbs cannot take an NP complement
  • C-selection or subcategorization: Info about the complement types selected by particular verbs and other lexical items (e.g., “belief” selects either a PP or a sentence complement, while “sympathy” selects a PP but not a sentence)
  • S-selection (semantic selection): How a verb imposes certain semantic requirements on its subjects and complements (e.g., “murder” requires its subject and object to be animate)
    • This is why Colorless green ideas sleep furiously is anomalous
  • A phrase that is well-formed obeys PS rules, C-selection, and S-selection
• Specifiers: Elements that may precede the head in a phrase (ex: specifier of “the mother of James” is the; specifier of “Nellie’s ball” is Nellie’s) (not obligatory)

X-Bar (x̄) Schema

• Three-tiered structure that specifies how the phrases of a language are organized + how PS rules are formed
• New PS rules under x̄ schema:
  • NP -> (det) N-bar | N-bar -> N (XP)
  • VP -> (Spec) V-bar | V-bar -> V (XP)
• X-bar schema is hypothesized to be part of Universal Grammar — all languages have 3-tier head/specifier/complement structure, although order may differ
• X-bar structure for sentences relies on: sentences are always tensed
  • Specifier = subject of sentence; complement = a VP; head = tense + modal verbs like can/would, and takes VP as its complement
  • Linguists refer to sentences as TPs (Tense Phrases)

Recursive X-Bar Rules (allowing for infinite modification)

• N-bar -> A N-bar

• A-bar -> Intensifier/Int A-bar

• V-bar -> V-bar PP

• Adjunct: A phrasal category that is sister to an X-bar and daughter of a higher X-bar

• Linear Agreement Rule: The verb must agree in person and number with the head noun

• Structure dependent agreement rule: The verb agrees in person and number with the subject of the sentence, defined as the NP immediately dominated by S (TP)

  • Structure dependency is a principle of Universal Grammar

• Declarative sentences: Asserts that a state is true

• Yes-no questions: Directly related to declarative sentence; asks whether state is true

  • Yes-no questions are generated in two steps:
    1. PS-rules generate a basic structure
    2. Aux inversion (a transformational rule) applies to the basic structure to produce the derived structure

• Basic structure of a sentence = deep structure or d-structure. Variations on the basic structure derived via transformational rules = surface structures or s-structures.

• Yes-no questions tell us that all sentences have CP as their root. New rules:

  • CP -> (spec) C | C-bar -> C TP
  • The sentence root is CP and TP is the complement to the head C
  • C contains the abstract element +Q for questions or −Q for declaratives
  • C provides a home for T when Aux inversion relocates it

• Parameters: Points of variation between different languages of the order of their constituents (ex: English is head-initial; Japanese is head-final)