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Syntax
Andrew Carnie
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Topic 1: Syntax: some background
What is syntax?
Syntax as a (cognitive) science
Rulesprescriptivism vs. descriptivism
Evaluating Grammars
Language as an instinct
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Q. What is Syntax??
The scientific study of sentence
structure
Perspective: The psychological (or
cognitive) organization of sentence
structure in the mind.
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Q. What is a sentence??
A hierarchically organized structure of
words that maps sound to meaning and
vice versa.
soundssentencesmeaning
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Scientific Method
Study of synta is a science.
!ses the scientific method" #$serve some data
" %a&e some generalizations
" 'evelop a hypothesis
" Test against more data
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Scientific method
1) John loves himself
2) Mary loves herself
3) John and Mary love themselves
Generalization: The form of the Xself seems to be
dependent upon the gender/number of the noun they
refer to.
Hypothesis: Anaphors (Xself) agree with the nounthey refer to in number and gender.
4) The boy loves himself/*herself/*themselves
Anaphor:A noun that
refers back to a
previously mentioned
noun: self nouns.
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Rues: ! kind of hypothesis
n this class we will encode our hypotheses
a$out sentence structure using rules.
A group of rules are called a *rammar. *rammar is a scary word. +ut it doesn,t mean
what you thin& it does. A grammar in the
linguistic sense is a cognitive structure. t isthe part of the mind that generates and
understands language.
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"rescripti#e #s. $escripti#e
Rues-e are always told to never split
infinitives.
-ho(m) did you give the $oo& to
/opefully we,ll never learn the rules of
grammar0
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"rescripti#e #s. $escripti#e
Prescriptive rules prescri$e how we
should spea&
'escriptive rules descri$e how weactually spea&.
Which is more scientific?
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"rescripti#e Rues
These are made up $y so called
language mavins
These are made up by so caed anguage ma#ins% Who are
they to te you ho& to speak?%?
"rescripti#e rues are often based on the rues of 'atin or
(ogic). Who says 'atin is so great? Why shoud anguage be
ogica?
Descriptive rules are the way to go!Descriptive rules are the way to go!
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$escripti#e Rues
The rules we will use are said to
generatethe sentences of the
languages we are loo&ing at. Theyactually $uild the sentences we
produce. They are sentence $uilding
rules.The &ind of grammar we are loo&ing at
is called generative grammar(1group ofrules that generate the sentences of a language)
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Sources of $ata
Corpora of Spo&en 2 -ritten 3anguage
4 Collections of recorded real world speech
4 Telephone recordings (3'C)
4 5ewspapers +oo&s %agazines
4 6ol& tales etc recorded in the field.
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Sources of $ata
*Where do you wonder if he lives?
How do you know this is ungrammatical?
Have you ever heard this sentence uttered?
Will the fact that this sentence is
ungrammatical appear in any corpus?
Every day, you produce grammaticalsentences that have never been uttered
before.
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Sources of $ata
Corpora are not sufficient. They dont
contain negative information (such as what
sentences are ungrammatical), and they cannever contain all the sentences of a
language.
We need to access our mentalknowledge(also called competence)
about sentences.
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Sources of $ata
We use a special experimental technique for
tapping our syntactic knowledge. This
technique is called the acceptabilityjudgement. (In the psychology literature,
this is sometimes also called magnitude
estimation)
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!cceptabiity *udgements
!nfortunately sometimes accepta$ility
7udgements are called intuitions.
The term 8intuition, has a negativeconnotation: ma&es us thin& of fortune
tellers and psychics.
/owever accepta$ility 7udgements are$oth experimentally validand
statistically sound.
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!cceptabiity *udgements
-e will apply accepta$ility 7udgements
in this class non9statistically. 6or the
most part this will give us the rightresults. Statistical proof of 7udgements
is possi$le $ut we won,t $other.
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"erformance #s. +ompetence
Performance: refers to what we actually
produce
Competence: refers to what we &nowa$out language.
-e will $e interested in bothof these
$ut will focus primarily on Competence.
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,#auating -rammars #$servationally Adeuate *rammar: A
grammar that accounts for all the o$served
(corpus;performance) data.
'escriptively Adeuate: Accounts for allo$served data and all accepta$ility
7udgements (competence).
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'earning #s. !cuisition
Learninginvolves conscious gaining of
&nowledge
Acquisitioninvolves su$consciousgaining of &nowledge
Chemistry is learned. Languages areacquired.
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/o& do &e acuire anguages?
#$viously this uestion is too $ig to
answer here $ut =
Are we instructed $y our parents
'o we mimic our parents
NOPE!
1) Language is infinite: We produce sentences wevenever heard before
2) We know things about our language that weve never
been exposed to.
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'anguage as an instinct
>ou &now things a$out your language
that you,ve never $een taught:
Who0m did you think Sha&n hit ?
Who0m did you think that Sha&n hit?
Who did you think hit 2i
*Who did you think that hit Bill
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'anguage as an instinct
Despite what they may think, parents dont teach their
children to speak!
They correct content not form:(from Marcus et al. 1992)
Adult: Where is that big piece of paper I gave you yesterday?
Child: Remember? I writed on it.
Adult: Oh thats right, dont you have any paper down here,
buddy?
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'anguage as an instinct
(from Pinker 1994, 281 attributed to Martin Braine)
Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy
Adult: You mean, you want the other spoon.
Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please Daddy.Adult: Can you say the other spoon?
Child: Other one spoon
Adult: Say other
Child: other
Adult: spoon
Child: Spoon.
Adult: other spoon
Child: other spoon. Now give me other one spoon.
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! shocking proposa%
5oam Choms&y
The ability of humans to use language is innate (an
instinct). We are prewired to use language!
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/uh? anguages differ?%?
/ow can language $e an instinct if
languages differ
Proposal: 3anguages differ primarily interms of what words are used and in a
set num$er of ?parameters@
These things are learned $ut the rest (the$asic architecture of the grammar) is
innate.
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Refining 3nnateness
A particular language is not innate (it is
acuired) $ut the $asic tools that any
given language uses are $uilt in.
-e,ll $e loo&ing at these tools. +oth
within languages and crosslinguisticallyto see what is universal (innate) and
what varies among languages.
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The ogica probem of anguage
acuisitionA proof showing the following:
Premise: 3anguage is creative 2
infinite.
Premise: nfinite systems are
unlearna$le;unacuira$le
Conclusion 3anguage is unlearna$le.
2 it must $e innate.
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Task of a chid acuiring ,ngish
%atch up a sentence that they hear with
a situation in the contet around them.
The cat spied the kissing fishes =
To ma&e the proof let,s turn this into analge$raic operation. -e,ll num$er sentences
and we,ll num$er situations and loo& for the
rule that matches them up.
1
1
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Matching sentences to situations
Sentence
X
Situation
Y
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4
5 5
Given the sentence 6, what situation do
you think it will match to?
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Matching sentences to situations
SentenceX
SituationY
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4
5 5
6 126
You assumed the rule was x = y
In fact: the rule is
[(x-5)*(x-4)*(x-3)*(x-2)*(x-1)]+x = y
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'ogica "robem: in ayman4s
terms t is impossi$le to learn the rule(s) governing
a system until you have A33 the data.
3anguage is infinite 2 creative: you can neverhear all the relevant data. (t is impossi$le to
&now if you have 7ust coincidentally missed
hearing the crucial fact)
Therefore: The $asic $uilding $loc&s oflanguage cannot $e learned or acuired.
nstead they must $e innate (an instinct)
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The content of this cass
n this class we will $e loo&ing at the
innate principles that govern sentence
structure (Called !niversal *rammar)And we will $e loo&ing at the different
ways in which languages implement
these innate principles.
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5ni#ersa -rammar 05-
The $uilding $loc&s that all languages
use to construct the sentences of their
languages.All languages use the same $asic
hardwired tools. t is theparticular
implementationof these tools thatvaries $etween languages.
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5ni#ersa -rammar 05-
#ther evidence for !*
4 /uman Specificity of 3anguage
4 'istinct area of the $rain
4 Crosslinguistic similarities in language
acuisition (despite cultural differences)
4 3ac& of overt instruction4 3anguage !niversals
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Summary
Synta: A Science uses Scientific
method studies sentence structure
Prescriptive;'escriptive ules*enerative ules as /ypotheses
Sources of 'ata:
4 Corpora
4 Budgement tas&s
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SummaryPerformance;Competence
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$iscussion Topics
-hat things that we &now are learned
-hat things are acuired
3anguage is an instinct. /ow is this anargument against prescriptive rules
There are some good reasons to &eep
prescriptive rules. -hat are they