The Structure of Simple Sentences · The Structure of Simple Sentences! 1! (1) !General considerations for a theory of clause structure:!!a. !A theory of clause structure should capture

!!Intro to RRG Summer 2015

The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface !

�� Figure 1: The organization of Role and Reference Grammar (preliminary) !

The Structure of Simple Sentences 1!(1) General considerations for a theory of clause structure: a. A theory of clause structure should capture all of the universal features without imposing features on languages in which there is no evidence for them. b. A theory should represent comparable structures in different languages in comparable ways. !

�� !Figure 2: Universal oppositions underlying clause structure !!

Linking Algorithm

SYNTACTIC REPRESENTATION

Discourse-Pragm

aticsSEMANTIC REPRESENTATION

Predicate + Arguments Non-Arguments

NUCLEUSCORE

PERIPHERY

CLAUSE

Abbreviations in figures and examples: ABS ‘absolutive’, ACC ‘accusative’, ACS ‘accessible’, ACT ‘actor’, 1

ACV ‘activated’, ANTI ‘antipassive’, ASP ‘aspect’, ATV ‘active voice’, AUX ‘auxiliary’, CL ‘classifier’, CNTR ‘contrastive’, COLL ‘collective’, DAT ‘dative’, DEC ‘declarative’, DEF ‘definite(ness)’, DEM ‘demonstrative’ DET ‘determiner’, ERG ‘ergative’, F ‘feminine’,FOC ‘focal’, GEN ‘genitive’, IF ‘illocutionary force’, INA ‘inactive’, INCL ‘inclusive’, LDP ‘left-detached position’, LSC ‘layered structure of the clause’, M ‘masculine’, MOD ‘modality’, MP ‘modifier phrase’, MR ‘macrorole’, N ‘neuter’, NASP ‘nominal aspect’, NEG ‘negation’, NM ‘noun marker’, NMR ‘non-macrorole’, NOM ‘nominative’, NPIP ‘NP-initial position’, NUC ‘nucleus’, NUM ‘number’, O ‘object’, PASS ‘passive’, PM ‘proper noun marker’, PoCS ‘post-core slot’, PrCS ‘precore slot’, PRED ‘predicate’, PRES ‘present tense’, PRO ‘pronoun’, PROG ‘progressive’, PROX ‘proximate’, Q ‘question’, QLT ‘quality’, QNT ‘quantification’, RDP ‘right-detached position’, RF ‘realis future’, RP ‘reference phrase’, RP/P ‘realis past/present tense, REFL ‘reflexive’, S ‘subject’, TNS ‘tense’, TOP ‘topic’, UND ‘undergoer’, X(P), Y(P) ‘categorially unspecified category or phrase’.

!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ��2

! "Figure 3: Components of the layered structure of the clause !

Semantic Element(s) Syntactic Unit Predicate Nucleus Argument in semantic representation of predicate Core argument Non-arguments Periphery Predicate + Arguments Core Predicate + Arguments + Non-arguments Clause (= Core + Peripheries) !

Table 1: Semantic units underlying the syntactic units of the layered structure of the clause !

� "Figure 4: Universal features of the layered structure of the clause

(constituent projection) !

�� Figure 5: LSC in English !

Dana saw Pat yesterday in the library

CORE

NUCLEUS

PERIPHERY

CLAUSE

ARGUMENTS ADJUNCTS

CORE(<——————–—PERIPHERY)

NUCLEUS(<—PERIPHERY)(XP) (XP)

PRED

PP/ADV

CLAUSE(<————————————PERIPHERY)

SENTENCE

Y(P) PP/ADVADV

SENTENCE

CLAUSE

CORE<—————PERIPHERY PrCS

PRED

VNP PP

NUCNP PP

What did Robin show to Pat in the library yesterday?

ADV


(2) Displacement to the beginning of the clause in Tzotzil (Aissen 1987, 1992) a. ÷i-Ø-s-pet lokflel ÷antz ti tflul-e. ASP-3ABS-3ERG-carry away woman DEF rabbit-DEF ‘The rabbit carried away the woman.’ b. Buchflu Ø-s-tam? who 3ABS-3ERG-take ‘Who took it?’ c. Kflusi ch-Ø-a-kflan? what ASP-3ABS-2ERG-want ‘What do you want?’ !(3) [Something had landed at the foot of the tree, they went to look. There was a straw mat. ‘Hell, what could it be? Come on, let’s untie the straw mat!’ the two men said to each other. They untied it. You know what?--] a. Tzeb san-andrex la te Ø-s-ta-ik ÷un. girl San Andreas CL there 3ABS-3ERG-find-pl CL ‘A San Andreas girl they found there.’ b. ÷a ti tzeb san-antrex ÷un-e, ÷i-Ø-y-ik-ik la ech’el ÷un. TOP DEF girl San Andreas CL-DEF ASP-3ABS-3ERG-take-pl CL away CL. ‘The San Andreas girl, they took her with them.’ !(4) Displacement to the end of the clause in Dhivehi (Cain & Gair 2000) a. AlïÌÌ bunïÌ KïÌKE ta? Ali say.PAST.FOC what Q ‘What did Ali say?’ a´. AlïÌÌ kïÌke bunïÌ ta? Ali what say.PAST.FOC Q ‘What did Ali say?’ b. MaÌle ulÛunïÌma aharen bonïÌ AIS KURïÌMU. Male be.PAST.PROG.when 1sg drink.PRES.FOC ice cream ‘When in Male, it is ice cream that I eat.’ b´.MaÌle ulÛunïÌma ais kurïÌmu bonïÌ AHAREN. Male be.PAST.PROG.when ice cream drink.PRES.FOC 1sg ‘When in Male, it is I who eat ice cream.’ !

��Figure 6: English sentences with lexical and phrasal clausal nuclei !!!

SENTENCECLAUSE CORE

NUCPRED

VThey left.

NP NUC

PRED

NP

NPChris a very good detective

SENTENCECLAUSE CORE

is

AUX

NUC

PREDNP

PPPat in the house

SENTENCECLAUSE CORE

is

AUX

NUC

PRED

NP

AdjChris tall

SENTENCECLAUSE CORE

is

AUX


Nuclear operators: Aspect Negation Directionals (only those modifying orientation of action or event without reference to participants) Core operators: Directionals (only those expressing the orientation or motion of one participant with reference to another participant or to the speaker) Event quantification Modality (root modals, e.g. ability, permission, obligation) Internal (narrow scope) negation Clausal operators: Status (epistemic modals, external negation) Tense Evidentials Illocutionary Force [IF]

Table 2: Operators !

��

�� !Figure 7: Examples of the ordering of aspect and tense markers in different languages !!

�IÂra-��pa-��ru��cook-�PERF-�PAST.1sg

VERB-ASPECT-TENSE

Kewa (Papua-New Guinea; Franklin 1971)!‘I cooked it’

Gel-��ïyor-��du-��m� !come- PROG- PAST-1sg

Turkish (Watters 1993)!‘I was coming.’

She will be sing-ing

TENSE-ASPECT-VERB

Ñë-��ru-��unÙtıiÑ-��apa�1sg-PAST-�PROG-�eat

English

Tiwi (Australia; Osborne 1974)!‘I was eating.’


� "Figure 8: Layered structure of the clause with constituent and operator projections !

��

NUCLEUS

PRED

NUCLEUS

CORE

Y(P)

CLAUSE

SENTENCE

CLAUSE

CORE

SENTENCE

AspectNegationDirectionals

DirectionalsEvent quantModalityNegation

StatusTenseEvidentialsIllocutionary Force

CLAUSE CORE

NUCLEUS

PRED

NUCLEUS<—Aspect

NUCLEUS/CORE<—Directionals

CORE<——Modality

(PrCS)

(LDP)

XP (XP) (XP) (XP)(XP)(XP)

SENTENCE

CLAUSE<——Status

CLAUSE<——Tense

CLAUSE<—–-Evidentials

CLAUSE<—–Illocutionary Force

SENTENCE

CORE<——Negation (Internal)

NUCLEUS<—Negation

(PoCS)(RDP)

CORE<——Event quantification

Y(P)

SENTENCE

LDP CLAUSE CORE<———PERIPHERYPrCS

NUCPRED

VADV NP PPYesterday, what John give in the library?did to Mary

NUCLEUS

CORE

IF----------->CLAUSE

TNS---->CLAUSE

SENTENCE

NP PP


�� Figure 9: English and Japanese clause structures with operator projection !

�� Figure 10: English syntactic templates (preliminary) from the syntactic inventory !

SENTENCECLAUSE

CORE

PP

NP NP NUCLEUSPRED

VTaroo ga Kazue no uti de hon o yon-da ka? NOM GEN house in book ACC read-PAST-Q

PERIPHERY–>

SENTENCE

CLAUSE<–TNS

CLAUSE<———–IF

CORE

NUCLEUS

V‘Did Taroo read a/the book at Kazue's house?’

CLAUSE

PrCSXP

CORE

PrCS Template

CLAUSE

XPLDP

SENTENCE

LDP Template

Core-1 Template Core-2 Template

CORE

NP NP

Core-3 Template

CORE

NP

Core-4 Template

CORE

NP PPPREDNUC

V

PREDNUC

V

PREDNUC

V

CORE

NP NP PPPREDNUC

V


�� !Figure 11: Combining syntactic templates from the syntactic inventory !

Figure 12: Adverbs and the peripheries !

CLAUSE

PrCS

XP

CORE

CORE<——–PERIPHERY

NUCNP PPPRED

PP/ADVV

Syntactic Inventory

CLAUSE

X(P)

LDP

SENTENCE

SENTENCE

LDP CLAUSE

CORE<———PERIPHERY PrCS

PRED

VADV NP PP

NUCNP PP

(e.g. Yesterday, what did Robin show to Pat in the library?)

Leslie has evidently been slowly immersing herself completely in the new language

V

PRED

NUC<———PERIPHERYNPNP

PP

PERIPHERY—>CORE

PERIPHERY———>CLAUSESENTENCE

V

NUC<–ASP

ASP————–>NUC

TNS————————>CLAUSE

IF——————————>CLAUSE

SENTENCE

ADVADV ADV


(5) a. Mathó ki wo- wíčha- wa- t’iŋ=kte. bear the do.by.shooting-3plANIMU-1sgA-die FUT.IRR ‘I will shoot the bears to death.’ b. Wo- wíčha- wa- t’iŋ=kte. do.by.shooting-3plANIMU-1sgA-die FUT.IRR ‘I will shoot them to death.’

�� Figure 13: Layered structure of the word [LSW] (Everett 2002) and English refusals

�� Figure 14: LSW of Lakhota wowíčhawat’iŋkte in (5)

�� Figure 15: Clause structure in head-marking languages (Van Valin 2013)

W

[WORD]

NUC

FRM

CORE

ROOT/STEM

AFFIXFRM

W

CLITIC

W

W

N

NUC AFF

CORE

NUC

/rifyuz-/ /-ël/ {PL}

W

NAFF

VPRED

NUC

W

VCORE CL

W

NUC NUCWW

PRED PRED

wo t'a {FUT.IRR}

ARGARG

{3plANIMU}{1sgA}

NUC

W

VCORE CL

W

NUC NUCWW

PRED PRED

wo t'a {FUT-IRR}{3plANIMU}{1sgA} {DEC}

SENTENCECLAUSE

CORE

ARG

CORE

NUC

V

ARG

NP

Mathó ki

CLAUSE<——TNS

CLAUSE<—————–—IF

SENTENCE


!

�� !Figure 16: Layered structure of the ‘Noun’ Phrase !

The Issue of Endocentrism !I. What is endocentrism? — Grammatical constructions and phrases may have a central constituent whose properties determine or at the very least strongly influence their grammatical properties: the head of the construction or phrase. — Constructions and phrases with a head are termed endocentric. Examples include noun phrases, which are headed by a noun, and verb phrases, which are headed by a verb. — Constructions and phrases which lack a head are termed exocentric. The most discussed example of an exocentric construction is the sentence. — The exact definitions of endocentrism and exocentrism are theory-dependent. !II. Conceptions of endocentrism — Bloomfield (1933) — An endocentric constituent is one in which the head and the constituent it heads have the same privileges of occurrence, e.g. everywhere a noun phrase can occur, a simple noun, e.g. a bare plural, a pronoun or proper noun, can occur. — An exocentric constituent is one in which the head and the constituent do not have the same grammatical distribution, e.g. a prepositional phrase is exocentric, because a bare preposition cannot occur in the same range of grammatical environments that a prepositional phrase can. — Chomsky (1970) — In early transformational grammar, there was nothing in the nature of the phrase structure rules that guaranteed that a noun phrase would contain an noun, a verb phrase a verb, etc. — Furthermore, there are structural parallels across the different phrase types that were not captured by the grammar.

XP

CORE

NUC (PP) (PP)

X

X

X

XP

QNT——–>

DEIC———->

XNUC

COREX

NASP—–->COREXNUM—–>

XPDEF———->NEG———>COREX

(XPIP)

(XP/ADV)


— Chomsky proposed a general system for the structure of phrases, the X-bar schema, which specifies the structure of all phrases with a lexical head. The abstract structural template is given in Figure 17. !

�� Figure 17: X-bar schema !

— Hence all phrases with a lexical head (X = N, V, A, P) must be endocentric: N´´ (NP), V´´ (VP), A´´ (AP), P´´ (PP). — The sentence, S, remained headless and therefore exocentric. ! — Chomsky (1986) — The X-bar system is extended to functional (grammatical) categories like complementizer and inflection (tense) initially and then to other categories later. — The head of the sentence on this analysis is the INFLection node, which contains tense and agreement, and therefore S became IP (Inflection Phrase, or I´´); hence the sentence is endocentric, as are all phrase types. — The X-bar schema in Figure 17 was posited as one of the principles of Universal Grammar and therefore a component of the Language Acquisition Device. !III. Consequences of assumption of endocentrism — Syntactic categories are necessarily projections of lexical and functional categories. — Confusion of syntactic categories with syntactic functions, e.g. verbs are usually predicates, so if something is a predicate, it must be a verb. !III. Problems for endocentrism — Two main types — Phrasal ‘heads’ (see Figure 6 above) — Wrong category as head of a phrase ! — Wrong category as head of a phrase: Tagalog, Nootka !(6) a. Nagtrabaho ang lalaki Tagalog worked NOM man (Schachter 1985) ‘The man worked.’ ! b. Lalaki ang nagtrabaho. man NOM worked ‘The one who worked is a man.’

X´´

X´(SPEC)

X´(MOD)

X(CMPL)


!(7) a. Wa¬a:k-ma qo:÷as-÷i. Nootka go-3sgPRES man-the (Swadesh 1939) ‘The man is going.’! a´. Qo:÷as-ma wa¬a:k-÷i. man-3sgPRES go-the ‘The one going is a man.’ a´´. Qo:÷as-ma. man-3sgPRES ‘He is a man.’ b. ÷i:hÚ-ma qo:÷as-÷i. large-3sgPRES man-the ‘The man is large.’ b´. Qo:÷as-ma ÷i:hÚ-÷i. man-3sgPRES big-the ‘The large one is a man.’ !— Notion of non-categorial nucleus can be applied to XPs as in Figure 18: these (potentially) referring expressions can be analyzed as Reference Phrases [RP]. The nucleus of RPs may, but need not, be nominal in nature (Van Valin 2005, 2008). !

�� Figure 18: The layered structure of the RP in the Nootka example in (7a´) !!!

SENTENCECLAUSE CORE

NUC

PRED

N

<—DEF

RP

CORER

RNUCV

R

R

VNUC

CORE

RP

Qo:÷as-ma��wa¬a:k-÷i

NNUC

CORE

CLAUSECLAUSE

SENTENCE

<-TNS<——–IF


�� !Figure 19: Examples of English RPs headed by nouns

�� !Figure 20: English non-predicative PP and predicative PP !!

(8) a. Bayi bargan ba-Ñgu-l ya≠a-Ñgu dyurga-ñu gambi-≠a. DET.ABS wallaby-ABS DET.ERG man-ERG spear-TNS mountains-LOC ‘The man speared the wallaby in the mountains.’ b. BaÑgul gambi≠a ya≠aÑgu bayi dyurgañu bargan. DET.ERG mountains man.ERG DET.ABS speared wallaby.ABS c. Ya≠aÑgu dyurgañu gambi≠a bargan baÑgul bayi. man.ERG speared mountains wallaby.ABS DET.ERG DET.ABS [all possible orders are grammatical] !

NNUCCORE

RP

R

R

RPCORE

NUC<———PERIPHERY

N

PP PP

R

R

construction of the bridge in New York City

DEF———>

the company's

RPIPRP

R

Nthe three big bridges

NNUCCORE<--NUM

RPDEF—————>QNT——>CORE

R

R

R

RPCORE

NUCR

RPERIPHERY ->ADJ

R

PP

P RP

to Pat

PP

NUC

PRED

P

RP

in the library

COREP

P


�� !

�� "Figure 21: Structure of (8b) from Dyirbal and its English translation !!! !

BaÑgul��gambi⇥a��ya⇥aÑgu�bayi��dyurgañu��barganDET.ERG�mountains��man.ERG�DET.ABS�speared��wallaby.ABS

V

PRED

NUC

CORECLAUSESENTENCE

PERIPHERY———————––>

CORE

NUC

CLAUSE

SENTENCE

V

<-TNS

RP

CORER

RNUC

N

N

ABS

RNUC

CORER

RPDEIC————————>

RP

CORER

RNUC

RNUC

CORER

N

ERG

N

RPDEIC———————>

RPERGPRODEM

RPABSPRODEM

LOCRP

RNUC

CORER

N

N

RNUC

CORERRP

N

RP

CORE

NUCR

R

SENTENCE

SENTENCECLAUSE

CORE<————————————–PERIPHERY

NUCLEUS

PRED

V

N

RP

CORE

NUCR

R

The manN

NUC

CORE<--NUM

RPDEF->

R

R

V

NUC

CORE

CLAUSE<——IF

CLAUSE<-TNS

speared the wallabyN

NUC

CORE<--NUM

RPDEF--->

R

R

PPCORE

NUC

P

in the mountainsN

N

NUC

CORE<--NUM

RPDEF----->

R

R

RPCORERNUCR

PRED

P

P


References !Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. New York: Holt. Chomsky, Noam. 1970. Remarks on nominalization. Readings in English transformational

grammar, ed. by Roderick Jacobs & Peter Rosenbaum, 184-221. Waltham, MA: Ginn & Co.

Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Barriers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Dixon, R.M.W. 1972. The Dyirbal language of North Queensland. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. Franklin, Karl. 1971. A grammar of Kewa, New Guinea (Pacific Linguistics C-16). Canberra:

Australian National University. Osborne, C.R. 1974. The Tiwi Language. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Schachter, Paul. 1985. Parts-of-speech systems. In T. Shopen, ed., Language, typology and

syntactic description, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swadesh, Morris. 1939. Nootka internal syntax. IJAL 9:77-102. Van Valin, Robert. 2008. RPs and the nature of lexical and syntactic categories in Role and

Reference Grammar. In R. Van Valin, ed., 161-78. ——-. 2013. Head-marking languages and linguistic theory. B. Bickel, L. A. Grenoble, D. A.

Peterson, & A. Timberlake (Eds.), Language typology and historical contingency. In honor of Johanna Nichols, 91-124. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Van Valin, Robert, ed. 2008. Investigations of the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Watters, James K. 1993. An investigation of Turkish clause linkage. In Van Valin, ed., Advances in Role and Reference Grammar, 535-60. Amsterdam: Benjamins. !

RRG web site: linguistics.buffalo.edu/research/rrg.html

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The Structure of Simple Sentences · The Structure of Simple Sentences! 1! (1) !General considerations for a theory of clause structure:!!a. !A theory of clause structure should capture