Syntax

LING 200

Spring 2002

Overview

• What is syntactic competence? • Morphology and syntax: inflectional morphology • Word order • Representing the structure of sentences• Arguments for structure• Transformations• Cross-linguistic variation

Syntactic competence

• Possible vs. impossible sentences

• Restricted distributions of words/ morphemes

• What sentences mean

Characterizing what native speakers know about:

Sources of evidence in syntax

• Observation of native speaker productions

• Elicitation of native speaker grammaticality judgements – from self– from others

Establishment of syntactic paradigms

• declarative

The Mariners will beat the Yankees. • subordinate (embedded) clause

I bet (that) the Mariners will beat the Yankees. • negative:

The Mariners won’t beat the Yankees. • yes/no question:

Will the Mariners beat the Yankees?

Syntactically relevant morphemes

Derivation Inflection

1. Category changing?

often

-able: likeable

-ness: happiness

no

-s pl.: apples

-s 3sS: sees

2. Productive? often restricted:

-hood: brotherhood, *daughterhood

yes, but subject to blocking:

-s pl.:

child, children

Syntactically relevant morphemes Derivation Inflection

3. Morpheme order

inner: usu. added before inflectional; industrializationalize

outer: usu. added after derivational: industrializationalizes

4. Syntactic relevance

not sensitive to syntactic information

often sensitive to syntactic information

Rose sees (vs. I see_)

Some verbal inflectional affixes

visit I ___ Virginia on the weekends.

-ing present participle

visiting I am ___ Virginia now.

-ed past visited I ___ Virginia yesterday.

-ed past participle visited I have already ___ Virginia.

Agreement• Spanish: adjectives agree with nouns in gender, number

entrada ‘ticket (to a show)’ vs. boleto ‘ticket’

‘the’ ‘this’ ‘expensive’

entrada la entrada esta entrada entrada cara

entradas las entradas estas entradas

entradas caras

boleto el boleto este boleto boleto caro

boletos los boletos estos boletos boletos caros

Agreement

Vendiste las entradas? ‘Did you sell the tickets?’No, las (*los) tengo todavía. ‘No, I still have them.’

entrada ‘ticket (to a show)’ vs. boleto ‘ticket’

Word order • English vs. Witsuwit’en

1. Prepositions precede nouns in English. count for me Postpositions follow nouns in Witsuwit'en:

spe c’otw me for you (sg.) count

Word order

2. In English, adjectives precede nouns. narrow rope In Witsuwit'en, an adjective follows a noun: t'o tet ‘fine babiche’rope narrow

Word order3. In English, the possessor noun normally precedes the possessed noun. 

my friend's tanning stretcher

but can follow the possessed noun:the tanning stretcher of my friend

 In Witsuwit'en, the possessor noun always precedes the possessed noun: sq'aqh pmstimy friend his/her tanning stretcher

Word order

4. In both Witsuwit'en and English, subjects precede verbs:  Driftwood is floating around. tz ntdriftwood is floating around

Word order

5. In English, the direct object follows the verb. 

We bought food. In Witsuwit'en, the direct object precedes the verb:

t'a nets'ottqhtfood we bought

Attested word order patterns(S = Subject, O = Object, V = Verb):

SOV Witsuwit'en

SVO English

VSO Irish

OSV Apurinã (Arawakan, Brazil)

OVS Parecís (Arawakan, Brazil) (also SOV)

VOS Oro Win (Chapacura-Wanham, Brazil) (5 speakers)

Frequency of each type< Sample of 402 languages.

Word Order Number of languages

SOV 180 45%

SVO 168 42%

VSO 37 9%

VOS 12 3%

OVS 5 1%

OSV 0 0%

Recursion and phrase structure (Potentially) infinitely 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 maltthat lay in the house that Jack built.

...

This is the priest all shaven and shornthat married the man all tattered and tornthat kissed the maiden all forlornthat milked the cow with the crumpled hornthat tossed the dogthat worried the catthat killed the ratthat ate the maltthat lay in the house that Jack built.

...

How to characterize (potential) infinity?

Phrase structure rules. Properties of phrase structure rules:       specify word order      are recursive (output of one rule can be rewritten via another rule)

General schemaX --> Y Z (“X consists of/is Y Z”) examples:

English: PP --> P NPWitsuwit'en: PP --> NP P

 PP = Pre/postpositional phraseP = Pre/postpositionNP = Noun phrase

Equivalent representational devices

phrase structure rule: PP --> P NP  labeled bracketing: PP[P NP]

 tree structure: PP v P NP

Some terminology

constituentsyntactic unit consisting of one or more words

= node (in tree)root nodebranching node

terminal node

PP v P NP g gwith N g Fritz

More phrase structure rules

S --> NP (Aux) VP=S --> NP VPS --> NP Aux VP S = sentenceNP = noun phraseVP = verb phrase

More phrase structure rules

NP --> (Det) (Adj) N (PP) Det = determinerAdj = adjectiveN = noun

Determiners vs. adjectivesNP --> (Det) (Adj) N (PP)Det --> a/an, some, the, your (etc.)Adj --> big, green, juicy (etc.)

One determiner per NP:your pickle, the pickle, *your the pickle

More than one Adj is possible:your big pickle, your big green pickle, your big green juicy pickle

More phrase structure rules

VP --> V (NP) (PP) (Adv)

VP = verb phraseV = verbAdv = adverb

Some simple tree structures

S --> NP VPNP --> (Det) (Adj) N (PP)VP --> V (NP) (PP) (Adv)  S v NP VP g g N V g g cats sleep

Some simple tree structures

NP --> (Det) (Adj) N (PP)PP --> P NP  NP v N PP g v fog P NP g v in Det N g g the morning

NP fgh Det N PP g g fi the piano P NP g fgi on Det N PP g g gi the stage P NP g r g i in Det N PP g g gi the music building P NP g g on N g campus

Some simple tree structures

VP --> V (NP) (PP) (Adv)  VP f g h V NP PP g v v put Det N P NP g g g v the car in Det N g g the garage

Constituent structure Some tests:

•Structural ambiguity

•Coordination

•Substitution

•Movement

Structural ambiguity

• Synonymy– words

• pail = bucket

• couch = sofa

– phrases• It's hard to find a good latte.

• = A good latte is hard to find.

Ambiguity

• Ambiguous words– homophones [dr] (dear), [dr] deer (2 different

morphemes)

Structurally ambiguous words

Adj Adj t g g y un Adj V able g y t g V able un fold g fold 2 readings:‘not capable of being folded’ ‘capable of being unfolded’

un- negative: Adj[___Adj[ un-‘reverse’: V[___V[

Structurally ambiguous phrases

Fritz spilled the beans.

figurative/idiomatic reading: Fritz inappropriately released the information.

literal reading: There were some beans and Fritz spilled them.

Structurally ambiguous headlines

• “Enraged cow attacks man with axe.”

• "The nomination of Dr. Henry Foster to the Surgeon General's office appears to be in trouble after he admitted that he had performed at least 39 abortions on TV last night."

Structural ambiguity reveals constituent structure

“Enraged cow attacks man with axe.”

the real world reading: S tu NP VP fh v Adj N V NP g g g gi enraged cow attacks N PP g v man P NP g g with N g axe

“Enraged cow attacks man with axe.”

the humorous reading:  S ru NP VP f h fhi A N V NP PP g g g g venraged cow attacks N P NP g g g man with N g axe

Structural ambiguity and constituency"he admitted that he lied yesterday" VP V S’S’ --> that S‘he lied yesterday’ reading: S f h NP VP g f h N V S’ g g fh he admitted that S fi NP VP g fh N V Adv g g g he lied yesterday