IAN ROBERTS 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas Linguistics Tripos Part One, Paper 2 Lecture Two: Categories and Constituents

1.Preliminaries 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 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? 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 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? 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 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 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 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: 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 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 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas (mostly for lexical categories; not all valid all the time): - morphology - syntax - phonology - aspects of meaning

Morphological criteria 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 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 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 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 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas verbs can’t directly follow verbs like seem: John seems nice/interesting/*sleeping/in a bad mood/a nice person

Syntactic/distributional criteria III 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas only nouns or noun phrases can be subjects: ___ can be a pain in the neck. Nouns can go here: kids/injections/syntax/Dave but 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 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas only verbs or verb phrases can appear between an auxiliary and a manner adverb: Students can ___ quickly Verbs can go here: talk/write/learn/understand but 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 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas stress can be category-sensitive: a.Apple wants to increase its profits. -- verb Apple wants an increase in its profits. -- noun b.blackbird -- noun (word stress) black bird -- noun phrase (phrasal stress)

Semantics 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas can depend on category: a. the round church( Adj – shape) b.Round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran.(P–path) c. These cars round corners very nicely. (V-path + moved object) c. Time for another round. (N – extension)

11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 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 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas a.Alex spoke. b.Ryan laughed. c.Wayne scowled. [ Noun Alex ] [ Verb spoke ] [ Noun Night ] [ Verb fell ] [ Noun fish ] [ Verb fish ]

11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas [ 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.).

11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas [ 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 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas Representation of constituent structure by means of labelled bracketing: [ S [ NP [ N Dave ]] [ VP [ V wrecked ] [ NP [ D the ] [ N economy ]]]]

tree diagram 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas Representation of constituent structure by means of a tree diagram: S r u NP 1 VP | r u N 1 V NP 2 Davewrecked r u D N 2 the economy

11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 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 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 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: 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 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 11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 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.

11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas (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

11/09/2015 Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas S r u NP 1 VP | r u N 1 V NP 2 Davewrecked r u D N 2 the economy Looking at this tree diagram, we observe that: a.NP 1 and VP are immediately dominated by S. b.V and NP 2 are immediately dominated by VP. c. V and NP 2 are dominated by S.