Syntactic structure in familiar and exotic languages

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Syntactic structure in familiar and exotic
languages

• Richard Hudson
• Krakow, October 2009

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Plan

• Understanding syntactic structure
• Showing syntactic structure
• Teaching syntactic structure
• Using syntactic structure

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1. Understanding syntactic structure
verb
preposition

• For example

Time flies like an arrow
and fruit flies like a banana.
Groucho Marx

• The sentence-parts have

• different word classes.

noun
verb

• but also different relations among words.
• i.e. different syntactic structures

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How to analyse syntactic structures?

• Two theoretical traditions
• the old European tradition
• the young American tradition
• Poland contributed to the old tradition
• Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz invented Categorial Grammar
  (1935)
• But the young tradition dominates theory.

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The old tradition

• How old?
• At least 1,000 years
• in 8th century Arabic grammar from Basra and Kufa
• Part of a much longer tradition of grammatical
  analysis
• starting in Babylonia

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About 2,000 BC
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Babylonia
earliest written language, out of fashion
new, semitic, in fashion
Akkadian
Babylon
Sumerian
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Becoming literate in Babylon
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Verb conjugations(Sumerian and Akkadian)
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We you they (in that order)
NB!!!
4000 years ago!!!
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Syntactic structure old tradition

• Among the units, words are basic.
• but also some word-combinations
• clauses and prepositional phrases
• Syntactic relations
• relate words directly to one another.
• are classified
• subject
• object, etc.

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The new tradition

• Invented in 1933 in USA
• by Leonard Bloomfield
• Called Immediate Constituent Analysis
• then Phrase structure grammar
• Assumed by all leading theories
• Chomsky Minimalism
• Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, etc.

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Syntactic structure new tradition

• Units
• most units are phrases word groups
• words have no special status
• Relations two primitive relations
• order A before B
• part-whole A is part of B
• but sometimes combined with subject etc.

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For example

• fruit flies like a banana.

• old tradition
• the word flies is subject of the word like

• new tradition
• the phrase fruit flies is the first part of the
  phrase fruit flies like a banana
• no direct link between flies and like

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Who cares?

• Linguists care.
• So theyve formalised these traditions
• old dependency grammar (no phrases)
• new phrase structure grammar (no classified
  relations)
• Psychologists care too
• how do our minds handle syntax?

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Claim Our minds use dependency grammar

• We recognise abstract classified relations in
  other areas
• e.g. social relations brother, cousin,
  colleague, friend,
• So why not in syntax?
• e.g. fruit modifies flies, which is subject of
  like
• But then phrase structure is redundant.

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2. Showing syntactic structure

• Complex structures need a notation.
• geography has maps
• music has musical notation
• mathematics has formulae, graphs, etc.
• Syntax needs a notation.
• first introduced in 19th century
• for teaching grammar in school

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Standard notation for phrase structure
OK before VP
S
VP
OK after D
PP
agreement
NP
NP
N
V
P
D
N

• Time flies like an
  arrow.

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A notation for dependency structure
adjunct
complement
subject
s
a
c
c

• Time flies like an
  arrow.

N
V
P
D
N
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The joke
s
a
c
c

• Time flies like an
  arrow

N
V
P
D
N
a
s
o
c
and fruit flies like a
banana.
N
N
V
D
N
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3. Teaching syntactic structure

• Dependencies are relevant to
• meaning
• agreement
• selection
• optionality
• word order

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Teaching meaning

• LIKE and PLEASE are synonyms, but

Him liking it
feeler
stimulus
him
it
s
o
s
o
It pleased him.
He liked it.
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Teaching agreement
agreement
s
a
c
c

• Time flies like an
  arrow

N
V
P
D
N
a
s
o
c
and fruit flies like a
banana.
N
N
V
D
N
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Teaching selection
selection
c
s
c
RELY selects ON
He relies on her.
predicative
p
s
CAN selects an infinitive
He can swim.
extra dependency
s
infinitive
o
genitive
SZUKAC selects a genitive
Szukam prezentu.
I seek present.
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Teaching optionality

• Some verbs demand an object, others allow one

He took
it
?
? obligatory object
He ate
it
?
? optional object

• Absent objects usually have indefinite meaning

He ate. He ate something.
?
He made a sandwich and ate.
?

• This is English. What about other languages?

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Japanese
o

• mo keeki-wa yaki-mashita-ka
• already cake-topic make- did - ?
• Have you baked a/the cake?

o
hai, yaki-mashita yes
make-did

• Most dependents are optional
• When absent, they are definite

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Why use dependencies?
agreement

• Relations are abstract, not just word order
• subject, not the noun before the verb
• The man who we think knows the answer
• complement, not the noun after the verb
• The man on whom she relies
• dependent, not nearby word

s
selection
c
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Teaching word order

• All word-order rules use dependencies.
• Many languages have very general rules.
• Dependents take their position from the head
• free order no restrictions
• head-final head follows all dependents
• head-initial head precedes all dependents
• head-medial head follows some dependents and
  precedes others.

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Free order
o
s
s
o
Jan
kocha
Marie
Jan
kocha
Marie
Polish
o
s
o
s
Jan
kocha
Marie
Jan
kocha
Marie
s
o
s
o
kocha
Jan
Marie
kocha
Jan
Marie
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Head-final or -initial
Japanese
s

• shinbun-ga teburu-no ue-ni desu
• newspaper-subj table-s top-on is

Welsh
Mi roddes i lyfr da i dad Eleri
- gave I book good to father Eleri
I gave a good book to Eleris father.
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Head-medial

• English

We dread cold weather just before Christmas.

• Every dependent is either a pre-dependent or a
  post-dependent.
• Every major word class allows both.
• Why?

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4. Using syntactic structure

• Speakers use syntactic structure to combine
  words.
• Hearers use it to combine meanings.
• Therefore, we must hold words in memory until
  their dependencies are complete.
• This places a load on memory.
• No problem if dependencies are short.

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Dependency distance

• A words dependency distance is the number of
  words that separate it from its parent.
• That Cracow is a very beautiful city by any
  standards is clear.
• It is clear that Cracow is a very beautiful city
  by any standards.

dd 9
dd 1
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Some figures

• Human minds are the same everywhere
• so we expect similar dd figures in all languages.
  
• Conversation
• English 0.4 (mean dd)
• Japanese 0.4
• German 0.9
• Chinese news 1.89
• head-initial 3.3
• Are these figures correct and typical?
• If so, what do they tell us?

!
!!
!!!
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Conclusions

• Syntactic structure is important when teaching
  languages or learning them.
• Dependency structure is better than phrase
  structure.
• Structural analysis allows important
  generalisations.
• Syntactic structure needs diagrams.

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Dziekuje

• This slide-show is available at
• www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/talks/cracow.ppt
• The theory is called Word Grammar
• www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/wg.htm