Chapter 4 Syntax Part IV

Heads (核心詞)and complements The head of a phrase is the word whose lexical category defines the type of the phrase. Every phrase has a head that has the same syntactic category as the phrase. The complement of the head is the other constituents in a phrase that complete its meaning. (See examples on p. 140.)

Every VP contains a Verb. found a puppy Every NP contains a Noun. my new house Every PP contains a Preposition. in my new house

More examples VP: found the puppy NP: the destruction of Rome a picture of Mary a person worthy of praise a boy who pitched a perfect game PP: in the garden

Selection pp. 140-141 Whether a verb takes a complement or not depends on the properties of the verb. Verbs (transitive or intransitive) select different kinds of complements. Examples (p. 141): 1. Put and give take both an NP and a PP complement: She put the milk in the refrigerator. 2. Sleep can not take an NP complement: Michael slept. 3. Think selects a sentence complement, often preceded by a complementizer that: I think that Sam won the race. See other examples on p. 141.

C-selection (詞類選擇) p. 542 C-selection: The classifying of verbs and other lexical items in terms of the syntactic category of the complements that they accept; sometimes called “subcategorization” Example: The verb find c-selects a noun phrase complement. p. 141 The information about the complement types selected by particular verbs and other lexical items is called c-selection or subcategorization and is included in the lexical entry of item in our mental lexicon. ** “C” stands for “categorial”.

More examples p. 141 Verbs select different kinds of complements: (a) Put selects both an NP and a PP. Sam put the milk in the refrigerator. (b) Sleep can not take an NP complement. * Michael slept a fish. (c) Think selects a sentence as complement. I think that Sam won the race. (d) Tell selects an NP and an S as complement. I told Sam that Michael was on his bicycle.

(e) Feel selects either an AdjP or an S. They felt strong as oxen. They feel that they can win. (f) Belief selects either a PP or an S. There was a belief in freedom of speech. Everybody learns the belief that freedom of speech is a basic right. (g) Tired selects a PP. I am tired of stale sandwiches. (h) Sympathy selects a PP. They showed their sympathy for the victims.

S-selection (語意選擇) p. 561 S-selection: The classifying of verbs and other lexical items in terms of the semantic category of the head and the complements that they accept. Example: The verb find s-selects an animate subject and a concrete NP complement. ** “S” stands for “semantic”.

Examples (a) Murder requires its subject and object to be human. (b) Drink requires its subject to be animate and its object liquid. (c) Like/hate selects animate subjects. ! The rock murdered the man. ! The beer drank the student. ! The tree liked the boy.

p. 142 The well-formedness of a phrase depends on at least two factors: Whether the phrase conforms to the phrase structure requirements, and Whether the phrase conforms to the selectional requirements of the head.

What heads the sentence? pp. 142-143 The category Aux is a natural category to head S. Reasons: (1) A sentence is about a situation or state of affairs that occurs at some point in time. (2) Aux specifies a time frame for the sentence, whether the situation described by the sentence will take place, already took place, or is taking place now.

S NP VP The boy Aux VP is eating may eat has eaten

In the tree above, VP is the complement to Aux In the tree above, VP is the complement to Aux. The selectional relationship: 1. The Aux be (is) takes a progressive form (V-ing) of the verb. 2. The Aux has selects a past participle (-en) form of the verb. 3. The modal Aux (may) selects the infinitival form (不定詞; the root form; 動詞原形) of the verb

X-bar theory p. 565 Definition: a universal schema specifying that the internal organization of all phrasal categories can be broken into three levels, e.g., NP, N’, and N

The basic X-bar schema is as follows: XP specifier X’ X (head) complement This schema says that an XP consists of a specifier and an X’ and that any X’ consists of an X and a complement.

p. 143 specifier: an optional modifier Examples: 1 p. 143 specifier: an optional modifier Examples: 1. An NP specifier: a determiner 2. A VP specifier: an adverb (never, often) 3. An AdjP specifier: a degree word (very, quite)

A new rule VP → Aux VP (This allows recursion.) VP Aux VP

The schema above represents the following sentences: 1 The schema above represents the following sentences: 1. The child may be sleeping. 2. The dog has been barking. 3. The bird must have been flying.

When a sentence does not have a modal, there is a time reference for it. S NP VP N’ Aux VP N Past kicked the ball Sam

The matchmaker function of syntactic rules p. 145 Aux specifies the agreement features of the subject. Examples: 1. If the subject is we, Aux carries the features first-person plural. 2. If the subject is he or she, Aux carries the features third-person singular.

Structural ambiguities An ambiguous sentence has more than one structure tree, each corresponding to a different meaning. See the example on p. 146: The boy saw the man with the telescope.

A new version of the PS rules in English p. 147 1. S → NP VP 2. NP → Det N’ 3. NP → N’ 4. NP → NP’s N’ 5. NP → NP PP 6. N’ → Adj N’ 7. N’ → N 8. VP → V

9. VP → V NP 10. VP → V CP 11. VP → Aux VP 12. VP → VP PP 13. PP → P NP 14. CP → C S

More phrase structure trees (pp More phrase structure trees (pp. 148-149) The dog completely destroyed the house. S NP VP Det N’ Adv VP The N completely V NP dog destroyed Det N’ the N house →PPT 32

The dog destroyed the house yesterday. NP VP Det N’ VP Adv The N V NP yesterday dog destroyed Det N’ the N house

Probably the dog has fleas. (** Probably as sentential modifier) Adv S Probably NP VP Det N’ V NP the N has N’ dog N fleas

Coordinate structure (pp. 148-149) the dog and the cat NP NP1 CoordP Det N’ Coord NP2 The N and Det N’ dog the N cat

Michael writes poetry and surfs. NP VP N’ VP1 CoordP N V NP Coord VP2 Michael writes N’ and V N surfs poetry

Main verb be (The main verb be acts like the modal and the auxiliaries be and have.) The cat is coy. TP NP T’ Det N’ T AdjP the N is Adj cat coy

Draw PS trees for: 1. The cat is a feline. 2. The cat is in the tree.

More new rules (pp. 148-149) For PPT pp. 25-27: 1. S → Adv S 2. VP → Adv VP 3. VP → VP Adv For PPT pp. 28-29: 1. NP → NP CoordP 2. CoordP → Coord NP For PPT pp. 30: 1.TP→ NP T’ 2. T’ → T XP (where XP = AdjP, PP, NP)