1. Making it stick together…
690 Chapter 5: Syntax
Making it stick together…

2. Quite a Complexion
I am supposed to have been being…

3. Why Syntax?

4. Universal Grammar
All languages have
Words
Rules
Merge
Move

5. Syntactic Category: NP
_________ was given a flag.
The son of Isabel and Sam
Isabel’s son
The boy
Joe

6. Key Vocabulary Constituent Syntactic category
Groups and subgroups of words that “go together”
Syntactic category
Constituents that can be substituted for one another with loss of grammaticality
NP, PP, Art, Conj, S, VP, Adj, Pro…

7. Syntactic Category: VP
Joe __________________.
Finish the sentence

8. Key Vocabulary Constituent structure tree AKA: Phrase-structure tree
Diagram of a phrase or sentence that reduces repetition by the use of syntactic category labels in the branches of a tree

9. Constituency Tests Substitution Relocation Conjunction …. but Pronoun
Question Word
Relocation
Conjunction
…. but
Ambiguity
All for 1 & 1 for all

10. Phrase Structure Rules: English
NP  N Joe
NP  Art + N the boy
NP  Art + Adj+ N the big boy
NP  Pro he N
NP  Art (Adj)* + N
Pro
{ }

11. Phrase Structure Rules: Cont’d
NP  Art (Adj)* + N
*the house red
Spanish:
la casa roja
*la roja casa
You tell me… a NP rule for Spanish

12. You tell me: *John found. John found a ball.
John found a ball in the grass.
*John found in the grass.
A VP phrase-structure rule would be:
VP  Vt + NP (PP)*

13. Key Vocabulary Phrase Structure Rules Lexical insertion rules
Specify grammatical ways of putting sentences together
Lexical insertion rules
Match syntactic categories with words or morphemes at the bottom of a tree
Subcategorization
Restricts how lexical items can occur
Examples:
Transitive Verb: VP  Vt + NP (adj)
Find, love, destroy
Intransitive Verb: VP  Vi (adv)*
Die, sleep

14. Ambiguity The son of Isabel and Sam
You tell me… Where is the break for each meaning?

15. Tree Structure (Constituent Structure)
The son of Isabel and Sam
The son of Isabel and Sam
the son of Isabel and Sam
the son of Isabel

16. Tree Structure (Constituent Structure)
The son of Isabel and Sam
The son of Isabel and Sam
the son of Isabel and Sam
Isabel and Sam

17. Tree Structure (Constituent Structure)

18. Tree Structure (Constituent Structure)
Noun Phrase
Noun Phrase Prepositional Phrase
Article Noun Preposition Noun Phrase
the son of
Noun Conj. Noun
Isabel and Sam

19. Tree Structure (Constituent Structure)NP
NP PP
Det N P NP
the son of
N Conj. N
Isabel and Sam

20. Joe got a flag S
NP VP
N I NP
+pst V Det N
Joe got a flag

21. You Tell Me… The man gave Joe a flag.S
NP VP
Det N I V NP NP
+pst N Det N
The man gave Joe a flag

22. Complement Clauses Universal Sentence embedded in a sentence
Key words (English)
That
Whether
If …
This is the house that Jack built….

23. Transformations (Movement)
Questions
Yes / No
Wh-
Do Insertion CP
C IP
NP VP
I V Adj
-pst
My students are smart

24. Key Vocabulary Transformational rule
an operation that moves, deletes, or inserts a category
a rule that applies to a syntactic tree to yield a new syntactic tree.

25. Additional Notes (value of trees)
Structure Dependent Rules
Surface words ≠ important
Transformational rules  constituents
Head NP agrees with Main VP
Regardless of intervening structures
Regardless of transformations

26. Syntax allows a NS to:
produce and understand an infinite set of utterances
distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical strings
interpret certain strings as well-formed grammatically but ill-formed semantically
interpret certain strings as well-formed semantically but ill-formed grammatically
understand the full meaning of a sentence from a string of words, which may not contain all the words necessary for an accurate interpretation
perceive when two or more strings are synonymous (paraphrase)
perceive structural ambiguity in a grammatical string
account for grammatical and logical relations within a sentence
Q: What’s the best way to help a NNS internalize the same?

27. Additional Structures
Coordination
Pulls two parts together
Relatives
Tells more about an NP
Passives
Changes the focus
De-emphasizes or obscures the ‘actor’

28. Exercises 5 (you may want to do 3 & 4 as a lead in)
6 & 7 (as practice for later exercises)
9, 10 & 11
At least the first and last of each exercise
13 & 14
At least the first of each exercise

29. Tomorrow Grammar Safari Chapter 6: Semantics
Find at least one in outside readings
Y/N?, WH-?, DO insertion, Relative, Passive
Copy (print screen) and bring to class
Chapter 6: Semantics
Understand trees, but don’t focus on them