Ling 001: Syntax II

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Ling 001 Syntax II

• Movement Constraints
• 2-11-2009

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Phrases

• In the last lecture, we talked about simple
  phrases e.g. Noun Phrases like
  
• The dog
• The big dog
• The big dog that John was talking to
• In this lecture, we will look at how phrases and
  larger objects are derived by rules, and how
  phrases can be moved from one position to
  another
• How structures and meanings (including ambiguity)
  are mediated by syntax, particularly those
  hidden structures that we dont see or hear but
  actually use
• John is easy to please vs. John is eager to
  please
  
• Some basic rules and two case studies of hidden
  structures that combine linguistics with
  psychology

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Notations Noun Phrase Example

• Lets talk about Noun Phrases (NPs) to begin
  with. These have (among other properties) the
  following
  
• The optional presence of an determiner (the,
  a, etc.)
  
• The optional presence of more than one adjective
• We can write a rule that generates NPs in the
  following way
  
• NP -- (determiner) AP N
• This means that a noun phrase consists of
  minimally a head N it also can have
  
• -an optional determiner (parentheses)
• -any number of Adjective Phrases (AP),
  including zero
  
• From this rule, and rules that say N--cat,, A
  -- big, furry, irritable, we can generate a
  number of phrases

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Examples

• From N -- (det) AP N
• NP
• det AP AP N
• A A
• the big furry cat

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Adjuncts (are optional)

• We also need a way of adding adjoined phrases
  like in the cat in the hat.
  
• The PP here is adjoined, to modify the meanings
  of the NP. The object that it is attached to is
  still an NP.
  
• The rule that we can talk about is like this
• NP -- NP PP (the cat in the hat)
• There are other options for this, but this will
  generate the right structure, along with one more
  rule
  
• PP -- P NP (in the hat)

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Verb Phrases

• We will also need rules to derive VPs
• Consider
• VP -- V NP
• This says that a VP consists of a V and an NP
• This will define our set of transitive verbs
  those that have objects (more on this in a few
  slides)
  
• To be explicit, we could indicate this as
• VP -- V-trans NP
• Where
• V-trans -- kick, hit, kill, .
• We want to exclude Vs like sleep, arrive, etc.
  from this context

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More Verb Phrases

• We can also have a PP adjunct to a verb phrase
  often these specify how the action was performed,
  where it was performed, etc.
  
• Mary fixed the car with a wrench
• John kicked the ball in the garden
• A rule like the one that we employed above will
  work here
  
• VP -- VP PP
• VP-- V NP, NP-NP PP, VP-VP PP this is getting
  confusing
  

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(Structural) Ambiguities

• Notice that both NPs and VPs can have PPs
  attached to them
  
• In some cases, this results in what is called a
  structural ambiguity one string has more than
  one structure associated with it, and means
  different things depending on what the structure
  is
• Example I shot an elephant in my pajamas.(How
  did it get in there I dont know).
  
• Reading 1 I shot an elephant while wearing my
  pajamas.
  
• Reading 2 The elephant I shot wore my pajamas
  for some reason.

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More ambiguity

• Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
• Stolen Painting Found by Tree
• Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
• Obesity Study Looks for Larger Test Groups
• British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands
• Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges
• Hospitals Sued by 7 Foot Doctors
• Bush Wins on Nomination, but More Lies Ahead

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Analysis Recall un-lock-able

• We can understand these ambiguities in terms of
  our rules above. The ambiguity depends on
  whether the VP is modified by the PP (reading2)
  or the NP is so modified (reading 1)

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Sentences, etc.

• In order to generate sentences, we need
  additional rules
  
• For instance, where S is for sentence
• S -- NP VP
• When we add rules for distinguishing transitives
  from intransitives, etc., we can derive a wide
  range of sentence types

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Jabberwocky

• 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
• Did grye and gimble in the wabe
• And mimsy were the borogoves,
• And the moeme raths outgrabe.
• What is/are toves? wabe?
• gimble cannot mean something like like. Its
  syntax is intransitive, so it must involve only
  one argument

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Arguments, etc.

• In some sense, many things that happen in a
  sentence depend on what the verb in the sentence
  is
  
• Transitive verb kick
• Two arguments of kick, like f(x,y)
• Intransitive verb sleep
• One argument, like f(x)
• In order to be more precise about this, we need
  to distinguish grammatical (syntactic) position
  from semantic role

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Roles and Positions

• Consider a transitive verb like kick
• This has two arguments
• The arguments are
• The agent (the kicker)
• The patient (the thing kicked)
• In active sentences in English
• The agent is the subject
• The patient is the object

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Verbs and Arguments Introducing Movement

• Verbs are looking for their arguments in
  particular positions remember the rule we
  formulated above
  
• Patients appear in object position (inside the
  VP)
  
• What about the passive? Here is where the
  process of movement is important
  
• We can start with the VP kick the ball.
• Then the object of the verb kick is moved to
  subject position as part of the passive rule
  
• It is still interpreted as the Patient, because
  that is where it starts
  
• In order to be interpreted as a patient, the NP
  has to have some relationship to the position
  where it came from this is why traces are
  important
• The ball was kicked _____

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Other cases of movement

• The same principle applies in other areas as
  well whenever an element appears in a position
  that is NOT where it is interpreted meaning-wise
  
• Questions
• John ate the apples.
• What did John eat ____
• Relative clauses
• John was talking to Mary.
• The woman who John was talking to _____
• Topicalization
• John likes these apples.
• These apples John likes _____.

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A brief look at some other languages

• English I always DO my homework.
• I AM always late
• Note the difference between different kinds of
  verbs

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Old(er) English
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Shakespeare English/French

• Basic Pattern In French and Old English, the
  finite verb appears before adverbs and negation
  
• In Shakespeare/French the verb also moves in
  questions
  
• In Modern English only the auxiliary does so
• E.g., Do you always read the books?

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Rules transformations

• In all languages S-NP VP, VP- (Adv) VP
• VP-V NP, or

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What does the verb go?

• In French/Old English, it moves to a position
  above the adverb but after the subject
  
• This is the position called TENSE, where tense
  like present/past is represented
  
• E.g., We like exams. We DO like exams. We DID
  like exams
  
• Revise the rules S? NP TP, TP-Tense VP

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Transformations across languages

• French/OE main verb moves to the Tense position
• English main verb stays put. If TENSE needs to
  be filled, we put an auxiliary there
  
• I DID like exams.
• In Shakespeare/French, the main verb moves to the
  beginning of sentence to form questions
  
• In Modern English, the main verb stays and the
  auxiliary verb moves to the beginning

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French/Old English vs. English
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Constraints on Movements

• Much like syntactic rules, which dont just
  combine anything and everything, movement is also
  restricted some of these traffic laws are
  quite bizarre
• Recall the auxiliary movement rule (last lecture)
  in English questions no movement of the first
  auxiliary
  
• I shot an elephant in my pajamas.
• Two readings
• What (clothes) did I shoot an elephant in?
• How many readings?

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Of Elephants and Pajamas
There are structures out of which movement is not
possible. And this is quite general across sente
nces and languages
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Impossible movements, PossibleMeanings
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A-over-A Principle, or No Grandparent Left Behind

• In general, a small NP cannot move out of a large
  NP.

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Even young children know this

• Three year olds saw a play.
• A dog broke a leg.
• A little girl fixed it up with a bandage
• What did she fix the puppy with ___?
• Reality gives two answers, but constraint on
  movement makes only one possible--and thats how
  children answered.

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Another psychological dimension

• To this point, the discussion of traces has been
  motivated by considerations of how verbs find
  their arguments
  
• A substantial research program in linguistic
  theory asks further questions for other cases
  that look like movement
  
• For an additional illustration, we will consider
  here some psycholinguistic evidence about how
  traces are processed online by hearers

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Chains of Fillers and Gaps aka moved elements and
traces

• The idea above is that the who functions as a
  kind of place-holder
  
• The man who John was talking to ___ left.
• In this particular case, the idea is that the
  who, which is associated with the man, must be
  understood as the object of talking to
  
• Another way of investigating this hypothesis
  involves priming in the following slides, I
  summarize an experiment by Swinney et al. (1988)

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Background Lexical Access

• When we hear the sound form of a word like cat
  (or see it represented in spelling) we activate
  this lexical item (word) this is called Lexical
  Access
• A number of factors determine how quickly Lexical
  Access will occur for any particular word
  
• Length
• Frequency of the word
• Etc.

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Priming

• One factor that influences lexical access is
  called Priming
  
• Priming is the facilitation of lexical access--
  under certain circumstances, accessing a word is
  faster than it is in others
  
• Example consider lexical access for word 2
• Word 1 Word 2
• Situation 1 cat dog
• Situation 2 hat dog
• In situation 1, access of dog is speeded up
  because semantically-related cat is processed
  first (we could say that cat primes the access of
  dog)

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Back to traces

• What does priming have to do with traces?
  Consider the following example
  
• The policeman saw the boy who the crowd accused
  _____ of the crime
  
• In this example, the NP the boy is understood as
  the object of accused
  
• This is because of movement in the relative
  clause, where who moves to the front and leaves a
  trace

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An Experiment Predictions

• Predictions of the model with traces
• Meaning of boy should be active when it is first
  processed
  
• This activation should decline over the following
  part of the sentence
  
• The item boy should be re-activated at the
  position of the trace, because that is where it
  is understood
  
• Activation of boy
• Active
  ---declining---
  
• The policeman saw the boy who the crowd at
• Declining--- REACTIVATED
• the party accused trace of the crime

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Design

• The experiment uses
• A design in which subjects are listening to
  sentences like the one above
  
• At the point of the trace, the subjects are
  presented with a word visually, which they have
  to pronounce aloud this is enough to see if
  there is priming or not
• Situation 1 Basic Result
• The word girl is presented at the position of the
  trace
  
• Boy and girl show a priming effect independently
  because they are related
  
• Result Data showed facilitated access for girl,
  indicating re-activation of boy at the trace
  position
  
• Situation 2 In order to confirm the above
• Other nouns in the sentence (policeman, crowd)
  were tested at the trace position
  
• The results showed that these nouns were not
  activated at the trace position

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Summary

• Movement is required for cases in which
  constituents appear in positions that they are
  not normally associated with
  
• The theory posits that movement leaves a trace in
  the original position, an object that relates to
  the moved element
  
• Substantial research questions concern what moves
  where, how far, etc.
  
• Some experimental results suggest reactivation of
  moved elements at trace positions
  
• Syntax is the codebook that translates meanings
  into structures and then backwards