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IAN ROBERTS 23/06/22 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 1 Linguistics Tripos Part One, Paper 2 Lecture Two: Categories and Constituents
IAN ROBERTS
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Linguistics Tripos Part One, Paper 2
Lecture Two: Categories and Constituents
1. Preliminaries
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Syntax accounts for how words are grouped together into larger units (phrases and sentences):
a. Alex hopes that Wayne will be fit for the match.b. *Hopes Alex that Wayne will be fit for the match.c. *Hopes that Alex Wayne will be fit for the match.
There are 3,628,800 possible orders for this 10-word sentence, 3,628,798 of which are ungrammatical. What is the other two grammatical order?
Why study syntax?
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Syntax is a central aspect of language, in that it relates sound and meaning over an infinite domain, and so we may be able to find out about Universal Grammar by studying it.
How do we study syntax?
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The basic notion is constituent structure, i.e. the way in which words group together into intermediate units (or phrases) of various categories.
2. Categories
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Two main types: a. Lexical categories: N(oun), V(erb), Adj(ective), Adv(erb),
P(reposition)-- open class (you can invent new ones),
(near-) universal Traditional notional/semantic definitions
of lexical categories (“a noun is the name of a person, place or thing”).
Functional categories:
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auxiliaries (must, be), determiners (the, a), complementisers (if, that, for), etc.-- closed class, seem to vary quite a lot from
language to language (Latin has no determiners, Mandarin has no complementisers, English auxiliaries are quite unique in a number of respects, etc.).
Could we have notional definitions of functional
categories?
How do we distinguish the two types?
Four criteria for identifying categories
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(mostly for lexical categories; not all valid all the time):
- morphology - syntax - phonology - aspects of meaning
Morphological criteria
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a. (regular) count N have –s plural b. (regular) adverbs end in –ly c. verbs inflect for past tense (regular
form is in –ed) d. prepositions are invariant
Syntactic/distributional criteria I
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a. only auxiliaries invert in direct yes/no questions:
Cambridge will flood Will Cambridge flood?Cambridge flooded Did Cambridge flood? /*Flooded Cambridge?
(NB an asterisk in front of a sentence means it is ungrammatical)
Syntactic/distributional criteria II
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verbs can’t directly follow verbs like seem:
John seems nice/interesting/*sleeping/in a bad mood/a nice person
Syntactic/distributional criteria III
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only nouns or noun phrases can be subjects:___ can be a pain in the neck.
Nouns can go here: kids/injections/syntax/Davebut not other categories *walk/*tall/*in;Sequences of words whose main element is a
noun (Noun Phrases, or NPs) can also go here:Nick Clegg/professors of
Linguistics/students/other people’s kids/injections which go wrong
Syntactic/distributional criteria IV
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only verbs or verb phrases can appear between an auxiliary and a manner adverb:
Students can ___ quicklyVerbs can go here: talk/write/learn/understandbut not other categories:
*Dave Cameron/*kids/*injections/*syntax/*tall/*in
Sequences of words whose main element is a verb (Verb Phrases, or VPs) can also go in here:dissolve in sulphuric acid/get married/conclude that you’re not worth listening to
Phonology
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stress can be category-sensitive:a. Apple wants to increase its profits.
-- verbApple wants an increase in its profits.
-- noun
b. blackbird -- noun (word stress)black bird -- noun phrase (phrasal
stress)
Semantics
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can depend on category:a.the round church (
Adj – shape)
b. Round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran. (P–path)
a.These cars round corners very nicely.(V-path + moved object)
Time for another round.(N – extension)
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We have no clear idea of the inventory of (possible, universal) categories, although the noun-verb distinction seems fundamental and universal, while other categories recur across languages to varying degrees.
3. Constituent structure
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a. Alex spoke. b. Ryan laughed. c. Wayne scowled.
[Noun Alex ] [Verb spoke ][Noun Night ] [Verb fell ]
[Noun fish ] [Verb fish ]
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[ The manager of the opposition team ] [ disagreed ]
[ The tall black-haired boy] [ disagreed ] [ The boy who lived ] [ disagreed ][ Fish fish fish ] [ fish ]the complex categories here are Noun
Phrases (NPs); they contain a noun and other words and phrases that depend on/modify that noun (articles, adjectives, Preposition Phrases (see below on these), relative clauses, etc.).
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[NP Dave ] [ wrecked the economy ]
[NP Alex ] [ hopes fervently that Wayne will recover his form ].
[NP The psychopath ] [ ate his wife with a nice Chianti ].
the right-hand categories are Verb Phrases (VPs); they contain a verb and other words and phrases that depend on/modify that verb (objects, adverbs, adverbial phrases, subordinate clauses, Prepositional Phrases, etc.).
labelled bracketing
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Representation of constituent structure by means of labelled bracketing:
[S [NP [N Dave ]] [VP [V wrecked ] [NP [D the ] [N economy ]]]]
tree diagram
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Representation of constituent structure by means of a tree diagram:
S r u
NP1 VP | r uN1 V NP2
Dave wrecked r u D N2
the economy
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tree diagrams and labelled bracketings present exactly the same information in typographically different ways. We choose which type of representation to use mostly for convenience; nothing theoretical depends on it.
(Most people find trees easier to work with, but this isn’t always true – e.g. with Power Point ).
Defining and relating constituents
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a. S, NP, VP, etc. are nodes of the tree, linked by branches.
b. Branches never cross and all emanate from S.
c. The words are terminal nodes; category symbols are non-terminal nodes.
Dominance and immediate dominance:
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A given category, call it A, dominates another category B just where A is, intuitively, both higher up in the tree than B and connected to B.
More precisely, category A dominates category B just where there is a continuous sequence, or path, of branches going down the tree from node A to node B.
A immediately dominates just where A dominates B and no node intervenes on the downward path from A to B.
Constituency and immediate constituency
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A given category, call it B, is a constituent of another category A just where B is, intuitively, both lower down in the tree than A and connected to A.
More precisely, category B is a constituent of category A just where there is a continuous sequence, or path, of branches going up the tree from node B to node A.
B is an immediate constituent of A just where B is a constituent of A and no node intervenes on the upward path from B to A.
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(Immediate) dominance and (immediate) constituency are inverse relations (dominance “looks downward”; constituency “looks upward”):
A (immediately) dominates B B is an (immediate) constituent of A
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S r uNP1 VP | r uN1 V NP2
Dave wrecked r u D N2
the economy
Looking at this tree diagram, we observe that:a.NP1 and VP are immediately dominated by S.b.V and NP2 are immediately dominated by VP.c. V and NP2 are dominated by S.
