Syntax Constituency, Phrase structure rules LING 400 Winter 2010

Overview What is syntax? Tree structures Ambiguity Phrase structure rules Recursion please turn off and put away your cell phone

What is syntax? Organization of words into phrases and sentences –“Husky pride never takes a time out.” –*Husky pride time out a never takes. What’s a sentence?

Linguists try to describe syntactic competence What speakers/signers know –possible phrases and sentences –impossible phrases and sentence –meanings of phrases and sentences

Tree structures Trees show syntactic organization P: Preposition: on, from, to, under, in, … NP: Noun phrase PP: Prepositional phrase –Dinner cooked on the grill.

Trees vs. labeled brackets Tree structure: Labeled bracketing: PP [P NP]

Terms constituent syntactic unit consisting of one or more words node root node branching node terminal nodes

Words and tree structures learn [l ɹ̩n ] learnable [ ˈ l ɹ̩nəbl̩ ] learnability [l ɹ̩nəˈbɪlɪɾ i]

Compositionality (Extent to which) meanings of words, phrases determined by –morpheme meaning –structure

Ambiguity = “having more than one meaning” Sources of ambiguity –different meanings of same morpheme hard ‘solid, difficult’ –homophonous morphemes bank –structure –more than one of above

An ambiguous headline HERSHEY BARS PROTEST –[Hershey bars] protest –Hershey [bars protest]

An ambiguous word: unfoldable ‘not capable of being folded’ ‘capable of being unfolded’ un- negative: Adj [___ Adj [ un- ‘reverse’: V [___ V [

Phrase structure rules Rules which create tree structures PP  P NP (“PP consists of/is P NP”) creates

Recursion Long sentences: This is the house that Jack built. This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. This is the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built....

This is the priest all shaven and shorn that married the man all tattered and torn that kissed the maiden all forlorn that milked the cow with the crumpled horn that tossed the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built....

Phrase structure rules –specify word order –are recursive output of one rule can be rewritten via another rule Rules which generate The House that Jack Built –NP  NP S’ –S’  Comp S –S  NP VP –VP  V NP How to characterize infinity?

More phrase structure rules S = sentence VP =verb phrase S  NP VP NP  N VP  V

More phrase structure rules NP  (Det) (Adj+) N (PP) Det = determiner Adj = adjective N = noun () = optional + = one or more

Determiners vs. adjectives Det  a/an, some, the, that, your (etc.) One determiner per NP (in English) –your truck, the truck –*your the truck, *the your truck Adj  big, stupid, green (etc.) More than one Adj possible –big trucks, big stupid trucks, stupid big trucks Det precedes Adj –his stupid truck

Count vs. mass nouns ‘chair’ (count) vs. ‘furniture’ (mass) plural form? chairs, *furnitures a__ –a chair –*a furniture every__ –every chair –*every furniture (every bit of furniture) much__ –*much chair (many chairs) –much furniture enough__ –*enough chair (enough chairs) –enough furniture bare noun –*I want chair. –I want furniture. the__ –the chair –the furniture some__ –some chair –some furniture ‘dinner’ (both)

A Noun Phrase

Summary Syntactic competence Tree structures Ambiguity Phrase structure rules

Question What are the two meanings in this ambiguous headline? HOSPITALS ARE SUED BY 7 FOOT DOCTORS