1. Language Variations: Japanese and English
Syntax
Language Variations:
Japanese and English

2. Google result for Syntax
Definition:
The study of the rules that govern the ways in which words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.

3. Syntax: Enigma
Short time: Despite of socio-economical environment or IQ scores, all human children acquire their L1 by age 5-6.
Complex: Productivity (we can understand/produce infinite # of sentences) as one of the properties of human language.
Is it possible to satisfy “Productivity” with finite and possibly incomplete input?

4. Plato’s (427-347 B.C.) Problem: the Gap between Knowledge and Experience
How do we account for our knowledge when environmental conditions seem to be an insufficient source of information?

5. Syntax: What do we really want to explain?
Short time: Children are equipped with an innate Universal Grammar (UG), a set of plans for the grammatical machinery that powers all human languages.

6. Syntax: What do we really want to explain?
Complex
Combination of small sets of simple rules generate complex expressions.
Question: How many rules do we need to generate complex expressions?

7. fI I see… all human speak the same language with different dialect….

8. Basic Ideas of Syntax Productivity Autonomy Word order
Lexical category
Constituent
Phrasal category
Phrase structure (PS) rules

9. Q: How does a language work?
Combination of Lexicon and rules
a). Lexicon
b). Sets of rules and combination
e.g.{cat, house, the, is, in}
The cat is in the house.
The house is in the cat.
*The is cat in the house.
*House in the cat the.
*The cat in the is house.
*The cat is the house is.
*House the in is cat the.

10. Subcategorization (selectional property of verbs)
1. Intransitive verbs S[NP VP] 2. Transitive verbs S[NP VP NP] 3. Ditransitive verbs 4. Verbs with sentence complements S[NP VP [1, 2. 3 or 4]…recursive

11. Language Variation: Japanese and English
Word order = SOV
VP [NP V]
Particle
Flexible words order
English
Word order = SVO
VP [V NP]
No particle
Extremely fixed word order