Syntax: Part II More Structures

Overview Syntax Diagramming complex sentences Sentence Relatedness - Transformations -Structure Dependent -Syntactic Dependent

Adverbs Adverbs are modifiers that specify how or when an event happens: quickly, slowly, yesterday, tomorrow, often

Adverbs Sister to the VP S NP VP This chapter VP Adv I totally rocked This chapter totally rocked! S NP VP This chapter VP Adv I totally rocked

Adverbs Sister to the VP S NP VP VP The boy Adv I cried yesterday The boy cried yesterday. S NP VP VP The boy Adv I cried yesterday

Adverbs Sister to S S Adv S I Hopefully NP VP I this is right Hopefully, this is right. S Adv S I Hopefully NP VP I this is right

Coordinate Structure Two constituents of the same category are joined with a conjunction such as and or or. “Move as a unit” constituency test

Coordinate Structure Two NPs joined by and. NP NP1 CoordP Tom Coord Tom and Jerry are lovers. NP NP1 CoordP Tom Coord NP2 and Jerry

Infinitives Some embedded sentences can be in the infinitive: Hilary is waiting for you to sing. The host believes the president to be punctual. The chapter touched on this as an FYI, but basically said not to worry about it. So, don’t.

Sentence Relatedness The presentation is boring everyone. Is the presentation boring everyone?

Sentence Relatedness Declarative vs. Interrogative Created by the “Move Aux” rule: S NP VP The presentation Aux VP is boring everyone

Sentence Relatedness Move Aux - Move the highest Aux to adjoin S S S is NP VP _ VP the presentation boring everyone

Chomsky on Transformations 'A grammatical transformation [...] operates on a given string [...] with a given constituent structure and converts it into a new string with a new derived constituent structure. To show exactly how this operation is performed requires a rather elaborate study which would go far beyond the scope of these remarks, but we can in fact develop a certain fairly complex but reasonably natural algebra of transformations having the properties that we apparently require for grammatical description.' (Studies on Semantics in Generative Grammar.1972: 44) http://www.anti-thesis.net/texts/notes/syntax-chomsky.txt

More Transformations Active-Passive: There sentences: PP Prepsoing: Tom chased Jerry. -> Jerry was chased by Tom. There sentences: There is a storm coming. -> A storm is coming. PP Prepsoing: Harry killed Hermoine with his wand. -> With his wand, Harry killed Hermoine.

Structure Dependant Rules Adding to the Aux: The pop star loves to party. The pop stars love to party. S VP NP Aux Present Third person Singular VP The pop star loves to party =======

Syntactic Dependency WH Questions: Move WH Rule Wh phrase acts as the object What will Charlie buy? Wh phrase acts as prepositional phrase object Where has your mother gone? Wh phrase acts at the embedded subject Which team do you think will win?

Syntactic Dependency CP C S NP VP Aux VP Charlie will V NP buy what Wh Questions: D-structure CP C S NP VP Aux VP Charlie will V NP buy what

Syntactic Dependency CP S C S What Aux NP VP will Aux VP Charlie V NP Wh Questions: S-structure CP S C S What Aux NP VP will Aux VP Charlie V NP buy

Linguistic Exercise 16. All wh phrases can move to the left periphery of the sentence: a. Invent three sentences beginning with what, which, and where, in which the wh word is not in its d-structure position in the sentence. Give both versions of your sentence. Here is an example with the wh word when: When could Marcy catch a flight out of here? From Marcy could catch a flight out of here when? b. Draw the phrase structure tree for one of these sentences using the phrase structure and movement rules provided in the chapter.

Works Cited and Consulted “Linguistics: Methods of synchronic linguistic analysis: TRANSFORMATIONAL-GENERATIVE GRAMMAR: Chomsky's grammar.” http://www.ifi.unizh.ch/groups/CL/volk/SyntaxVorl/Chomsky.html Britannica Online, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1995. “Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures.” http://www.anti- thesis.net/texts/notes/syntax-chomsky.txt (31 July 2007)