LINGUISTICSSYNTAX: THE STUDY OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE

What is structure? How do we know that sentences are structured?

- phrases & sentences

- How can we understand sentences that we have never heard or produced?

- How many sentences can be embedded in the following one: Sara is a graduate student.

- What is intuitive judgment/ grammaticality judgment/ infinite set/ finite set?

- What is the distinction between competence and performance?

- How is actual speech different from ideal sentences? Which performance factors influence speech?

- Naom Chomsky: syntactic structures, syntactic rules, generative grammar, transformational grammar (Syntactic Structures, 1957; Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, 1965)

The concept of structure - sentences are structured in certain specific ways;

- they are strings of words which occur in a certain linear order;

- flexible or fixed word order;

- word order constraints;

- In English the linear order determines the meaning of the sentence:

The dog bit the horse vs. The horse bit the dog.

The mother of the boy and the girl will arrive soon.

- How can you disambiguate this sentence?

- What is structural ambiguity? How is it different from lexical ambiguity?

The sentence was a long one.

An informal theory of syntax - evidence for structure: explicit grammatical rules

e.g. declarative sentences and their corresponding question forms (Yes/No questions)

a. John can lift 500 pounds. Can John lift 500 pounds?

b. Mathematicians are generally thought to be odd. Are mathematicians generally thought to be odd.

c. They will want to reserve two rooms. Will they want to reserve two rooms?

d. Mary has proved several theorems. Mary has proved several theorems.

- The English Question Rule

John can lift 500 poundsCan John lift 500 pounds? 1 2 3 4 5 2 1 3 4 5

Question Rule I: To form a question from a declarative sentence, place word 2 at the beginning of the sentence

a. Yesterday John could lift 500 pounds.

b. Many mathematicians are generally thought to be odd.

c. Those people will want to reserve two rooms.

*words must be classified into parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc.)

Question Rule II: To form a question from a declarative sentence, place the verb at the beginning of the sentence

a. You know those men.

b. Mary left early.

c. They went to Phoenix.

John can lift 500 pounds. Can John lift 500 pounds?

They will want to reserve two rooms. Will they want to reserve two rooms?

Mary has proved several theorems.Has Mary proved several theorems?

Bill is doing the dishes. Is Bill doing the dishes?

You know those women. Do you know those women?

They went to Phoenix Did they go to Phoenix?

The first four sentences have two verbs: an auxiliary verb and a lexical verb, of which the former is involved in the question formation process.

Auxiliary verbs vs. main verbs - Auxiliary verbs: be, have, do, modal verbs (helping verbs expressing possibility, necessity and obligation)

1. . Auxiliary verbs, but not main verbs, are fronted in forming questions:

John is running. They have left. I can sing. Mary speaks French.

2. The contracted negative form n’t can attach to auxiliary verbs

John isn’t running. They haven’t left. I can’t sing. Mary doesn’t speak French. We know not …

3. Auxiliary verbs, but not main verbs, can appear in tags.

John has not been here, has he? Herman is threatening to leave, isn’t he?

You know those women, don’t you?They went to Phoenix, didn’t they?

Table 5.1 – Comparison of auxiliary and lexical verbs

Question Rule III:

a. To form a question from a declarative sentence, place the auxiliary verb at the beginning of the sentence.

b. If there is no auxiliary verb, but only a main verb, place an appropriate form of the verb do at the beginning of the sentence and make appropriate changes in the main verb.

Mary has left.

You knew those women.

The Question Rule must be sensitive not only to the distinction among major parts of speech (such as noun versus verb) but also to the distinction(s) among subcategories of a major category (auxiliary vs. lexical verbs). The Question Rule does not involve any verb; it only involves a specific subcategory of verbs, namely, the auxiliaries.

Structural grouping: The subject constituent

- What happens if more than one auxiliary verb occurs in the sentence?

John will have left. Anna should be going to Chicago. Galen has been studying very hard.

- The auxiliary verbs have and be are typical auxiliary verbs. Why can they not front when they appear with will, should and has?

Question Rule IV: To form a question from a declarative sentence, place the first auxiliary verb at the beginning of the sentence.

- Now lets look at the following sentences. Which is the first auxiliary in each of them?

a. The people who are standing in the room will leave soon.

b. Many mathematicians who you will meet are thought to be odd.

c. Anyone that can lift 500 pounds is eligible for our club.

- Also discuss the following:

a. The people who were saying that John is sick will leave soon

b. The people who were saying that Pat has told Mary to make Terry quit trying to persuade David that many mathematicians are thought to be odd will leave soon.

Question Rule V: To form a question from a declarative sentence, locate the first auxiliary verb that follows the subject of the sentence place it at the beginning of the sentence.

- Even QR-V must be further modified. Consider the following sentence:

Yesterday John could lift 500 pounds.

Question Rule VI: To form a question from a declarative sentence, locate the first auxiliary verb that follows the subject of the sentence and place it immediately to the left of the subject.

In the rule formation process we had to:

- refer to the linear order (by referring to the first auxiliary verb after the subject)

- categorize words into parts of speech (by referring to the auxiliary verbs)

- refer to constituent structure (by referring to a structural grouping called subject)

- look for independent evidence for auxiliary and main verbs

The notion of “subject” - intuitive basis; is the subject always and agent?

The farmer fed the duckling.

Mary resembles her aunt Bettina.

- Tests for identifying the subject:

Tag questions: John won’t sing to Mary, will he? (more examples on p. 155)

The auxiliary and the subject agree in terms of person, number and gender

- Subjects have a number of properties:

a. The subject in a declarative sentence generally precedes the auxiliary and main verb in linear order

b. it forms the constituent around which an auxiliary is fronted in forming a question

c. it is a constituent with which a pronoun in a tag agrees in terms of person, number and gender

- Most English pronouns are marked according to their function as subjects and objects:

a. nominative (subjective) case

b. accusative (objective) case

- Other words are not marked:

Mary saw the dog.

The dog saw Mary.

Constituent structure and tree diagrams

- Important aspects of sentence structure:

a. The linear order of words in a sentence

b. The categorization of words into parts of speech

c. The grouping of words into structural constituents of the sentence

- Sentence structure can be represented in a tree diagram (Tree 5.1, p.156)

a. Trees have branches

b. The words as well as lexical category symbols (art, N, P) are shown in a specific linear order

c. Trees show single constituents (NP, PP, VP, S)

d. nodes

Constituent structure tests: using rules, clefts and conjunction

Tests usually involve 1. stating a grammatical rule of the language and then 2. formulating the phrase marker (tree) in such a way as to allow the grammatical rule to be stated as simply as possible.

- relationships between sentence types (declarative and interrogative sentences)

e. g. QR: the auxiliary verb is to be moved to the left of the string of words the people in the room.

- grammatical rules tell us what the tree structure should be like

Cleft sentences Sentence frames

It {is/was} X that Y

It was the burglar that broke the lamp.

It is Mary that I want to meet.

It was under the mattress that we found the money.

It is at three o’clock in the afternoon that they change guards.

X = a single constituent

X = NP, PP

- Applying the cleft test to the tree 5.1:

a. It is the desk that the people will move into the hall.

b. It is into the hall that the people will move the desk.

Why is the following sentence referring to tree 5.1 ungrammatical:

*It is the desk into the hall that the people will move.

Conjunctions Only single constituents of the same type can occur in the frame [___and___]

a. The teacher and the student argued. [NP and NP]

b. Mary played the harmonica and danced a jig. [VP and VP]

c. We moved the desk through the door and into the hall. [PP and PP]

Grammatical relations- structural concepts (NP) vs. grammatical relations (subject)

- What is the internal structure? vs. How does it function grammatically in a sentence?

- How are the subject and the object represented on tree diagrams:

S = NP Aux VP (subject)

VP = V NP (object)

- The same constituent can have different functions (NP)

a. The people in the room will move the desk into the hall.

b. The Police arrested the people in the room.

Draw the two diagrams

Structural properties:

a. The linear order of elements

b. The labeling of elements into lexical categories (parts of speech)

c. The grouping of elements into structural constituents (phrases)

Grammatical relations

a. Subject

b. Object

Tree diagrams and structural ambiguity

How many trees can you draw for the sentence below:

The mother of the boy and the girl will arrive soon.

Discontinuous dependencies - verb + particle constructions: What are the phrase markers of these sentences:

Mary stood up her date.

The chef added in the ingredients.

He belted down the drink.

They betted around some new ideas.

The police blocked off the street.

Mary stood near her date.

- relative clauses

Several people who were wearing hats came in.

Several people came in who were wearing hats. (extraposition)

- relative clauses

Several people who were wearing hats came in.

Several people came in who were wearing hats. (extraposition)

- when dependencies cross each other (p. 175)

She stood up all those men who had offered her diamonds.

She stood all those men who had offered her diamonds up.

She stood all those men up who had offered her diamonds.

Transformational rules as an account of discontinuous dependencies

Underlying structure of a sentence/ deep structure/ surface structure

Phrase markers reflect deep structure/ Transformations account for the surface structure

Transformational rules are operations on tree structures that convert an input tree structure (deep/ base structure) into an output tree structure (derived/surface structure)

1. Particle movement transformation – Given a verb + particle construction, the particle may be shifted away from the verb, moved immediately to the right of the object noun phrase and attached to the verb phrase node.

2. Extraposition transformation – Given a noun phrase containing a head noun directly followed by a modifying clause, the modifying clause may be shifted out of the noun phrase to the end of the sentence.

Interaction between transformations

She stood up all those men who had offered her diamonds.

The formal statement of transformations

Transformational rules have been formalized in standard transformational theory.

- Particle movement Structural description (SD): X – Verb – Particle – NP – Y (X, Y = irrelevant) 1 2 3 4 5 Structural change (SC): 1 2 Ø 4+3 5

Tree diagrams and transformations for: She will stand up her date.

Independent evidence that the particle is attached under the VP and not under S:

Surely the police will block off the street.

The police will block off the street, surely.

The police will block the street off, surely.

The police will block the street, surely, off.

Phrase structure grammar Basic phrase markers (S) are generated by phrase structure rules (PS rules).

S NP (Aux) VP NP (Art) N (PP) VP V (NP)

Node Dominate Mother node Daughter nodes Sister nodes Optional constituents generate

NP N - MaryNP Art N - the boyNP N PP – water in the basementNP Art N PP – the boy on the

swingPP P NPTypes of phrases:NP, VP, AP (AdjP, AdvP), PPPS rules: ….. X …..

The sun will dry the grapes.

The boy is nice.

Water in the basement is a bad sign.

The boy on the swing fell.

We bought the house in the woods.

Embedding We can generate a potentially infinite number of noun phrases. This is because the PS rule for NP may be expanded to contain a PP, which in turn contains an NP, which itself may be expanded to contain a PP, and so on indefinitely.

the house in the woods by the

mountain near the river

Another type of recursion:

S NP Aux VP

VP V (S)

Pat may think Bill will say Kim didn’t leave.

embedded clause

matrix sentence

main clause

simple sentence

complex sentence

Center embedding We can also generate a tree with a Possessive Phrase (Poss):

NP (Poss) N

Poss NP Poss-Affix

The rat ate the cheese.

The rat (that) the cat chased ate the cheese.

The rat (that) the cat (that) the dog bit chased ate the cheese.

Questions for the syntax part (Revised)

1. Some background concepts

2. An informal theory of syntax

3. Constituent structure and tree diagrams

4. Constituent structure tests

5. Tree diagrams and structural ambiguity

6. Discontinuous dependencies

7. Transformations

8. A more formal account of syntactic theory (Phrase structure grammar & Embedding)