SYNTAX

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SYNTAX

• LIN 1310

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• Syntax is the component of grammar that deals
  with sentence structure.
• Before we can talk about syntax, we need to
  discuss the nature of linguistic competence and
  the nature of grammar

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The nature of grammar

• Linguistic competence
• Theoretically permits infinite production of
  novel utterances, including sentences.
• How can our brains handle a system capable of
  infinite production?
• Answer The elements of the system are not
  infinite. They are finite in number.

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Grammar

• A system that permits infinite creativity with a
  relatively limited number of elements, including
  speech sounds and the rules for combining them
  into words and sentences.
• The rules for making sentences are called the
  syntax of the language.
• What are these rules like and how are they stored
  as part of competence?

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The Rules of Syntax

• Does knowing the rules of syntax involve storing
  the syntactic structures of all possible
  sentences in our heads as a set of templates with
  slots to fill?
• No, it does not.
• Here are for reasons why not

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Reason 1

• 1. Rules of syntax allow sentences to be
  infinitely long. (The only limits are imposed by
  performance.)

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Reason 2

• 2. All possible sentences have not yet been
  uttered.

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Reason 3

• 3. Our storage capacity is finite.

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Reason 4

• 4. Sentence interpretation is structure
  dependent.
• That is, it relies on more than a simple linear
  (one word after another) organization.
• (This will be explained further.)

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The Nature of Syntax

• The following slides present a number of
  illustrations of the nature of syntax and facts
  about language that a linguistic theory of syntax
  must account for.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 1

• 1. How words in a sentence are assigned specific
  roles with respect to one another.
• For example, in English active sentences
• The first noun is the subject or doer of the
  action or agent.
• The second noun is the object or receiver (or
  theme or patient) of the action.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 1

• Thus different interpretations for
• The dog chased the cat.
• subject verb object
• The cat chased the dog.
• subject verb object

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 1

• Word order varies across languages.
• In German, its subject, object, verb
• Das Kind wird die Schwester lehren.
• The child will the sister teach.
• subject object verb

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 1

• For some languages, like Welsh, the preferred
  order is verb, subject, object.
• For example
• darllenais i y llyfr
• read I the book
• verb subject object

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 1

• Other languages may rely more on some form of
  morphological marking than on word ordering to
  assign roles to words in sentences.
• However, these languages still have a most common
  or canonical word order.
• The other permissible word orders tend to
  slightly alter the focus of the sentence.
• See Japanese example on the next slide.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 1

• Canonical word order in Japanese
• Yumiko scolded the child
• Yumiko-ga sono kodomo-o sikat-ta
• yumiko-NOM that child-ACC scold-past
• subject object verb
• Alternative order (focus on object)
• Sono kodomo-o Yumiko-ga sikat-ta
• that child-ACC yumiko-NOM scold-past
• object subject verb

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 1

• The most typical word order in a language is
  called its canonical word order.
• 95 of the worlds languages have one of the
  following canonical word orders
• SVO Canadians like hockey. (English)
• SOV Canadians hockey like. (German)
• VSO Like Canadians hockey. (Welsh)
• VOS OVS OSV rare or nonexistent

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 2

• Sentences with different surface structures and
  word orders can have the same interpretation of
  whos doing what to whom, even in a language with
  strict word order and no specific marking of
  subjects and objects.
• Examine the following sentence pairs from
  English

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 2

• scrambled order
• The boy gave the toy to the girl.
• direct indirect
• object object
• The boy gave the girl the toy.
• indirect direct
• object object

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 2

• active
• The student solved the problem.
• (agent/subject) (theme/object)
• passive
• The problem was solved by the student.
• (theme/object) (agent/subject)

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 2

• declarative
• Everyone is happy.
• (verb)
• yes/no question
• Is everyone happy?
• (verb)

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 2

• declarative
• You have been there.
• auxiliary
• yes/no question
• Have you been there?
• auxiliary

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 3

• 3.Sentences contain discontinuous elements which
  are understood as part of the same structural
  constituent, as in
• perfect (auxiliary have suffix -en)
• I have eaten.
• progressive (auxiliary be suffix -ing)
• I am eating.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 3

• Wh question
• What are they looking at?
• Object
• Declarative
• They are looking at the dog.
• object
• NB Although what has moved to the front of the
  question sentence, it plays the same syntactic
  role as the dog does in the declarative. Both
  are part of the predicate.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 4

• 4. It is possible for sentences to be embedded
  inside other sentences.
• The property of grammar which permits such
  embedding is called recursiveness.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 4

• Recursiveness also allows sentence constituents
  (parts) to occur inside other constituents. See
  the string of adjectives for the subject noun
  dog in the following example
• The big gray shaggy friendly dog brought me the
  newspaper.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 4

• In the following examples, note how a sentence
  can grow as more strings of adjectives,
  prepositional phrases and embedded sentences are
  added
• The dog was sleeping.
• subject
• The big dog was sleeping.
• subject dog one adjective

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 4

• The big ugly guard dog at the factory was
  sleeping.
• Subject dog string of adjectives
  prepositional phrase

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 4

• The big ugly guard dog at the factory which
  produces pillows that some people are allergic to
  was sleeping on the road that leads to the quarry
  where they found the hobo who had been strangled
  with a shoelace that was later shown to have been
  stolen from the woman on Main Street whose house
  was broken into last week.
• subject dog string of adjectives
  prepositional phrases embedded sentences

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 5

• 5. Sentences with the same apparent structural
  elements and word orders can have different
  meanings or interpretations.
• John is easy to please
• John is eager to please
• Subject verb adjective infinitive
• On the surface, the structures of sentences 1
  and 2 appear to be the same.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 5

• John is easy to please
• John is eager to please
• In sentence 1, John is unspoken/understood
  object of to please
  subject ? (somebody
• In sentence 2, John is unspoken/understood,)
  
• subject of to please
  object ? (somebody)

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 6

• 6. A single sentence may have more than one
  meaning or interpretation.
• This is called ambiguity.
• Structural ambiguity
• The two meanings hinge on different underlying
  relationships between the words in the sentence.
• Example
• Visiting professors can be interesting.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 6

• The structural ambiguity of the sentence rests
  on the ambiguous structure of the phrase visiting
  professors.
• Visiting professors can be interesting.
• modifier noun
• Meaning Professors who have come here
  temporarily from other universities.
• or
• Visiting professors can be interesting.
• gerund noun
• Meaning For someone to visit professors.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 6

• Lexical ambiguity
• Alternative interpretations of a sentence rest
  on different meanings of homophonous lexical
  items.
• Example
• She ate her cottage cheese with relish.
• relish condiment or enthusiasm.
• The two words sound identical, but have
  different meanings.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 7

• Not all elements of a sentence appear on the
  surface, yet listeners can correctly interpret
  the sentence.
• For example
• Joe likes pizza and Jack does too.
• missing element likes pizza
• Both like pizza, but likes pizza appears only
  once.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 7

• Pronouns sometimes stand in for missing
  elements
• Mary bought some ice cream and __ ate it.
• Mary bought some ice cream and she ate it.
• If Mary and she stand for the same
  individual, they are co-referenced.
• It is also possible that she is co-referenced
  with someone else.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 8

• 8.There are quite strict rules for forming
  sentences which speakers must adhere to.
• Syntactically ill-formed sentences are
  ungrammatical.
• Eats the food the child.
• Mary refused to allow that the children go to
  the concert.
• ?Mary refused to allow that type of language.

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Facts syntactic theory must account for Fact 9

• 9. Syntactic and semantic well-formedness are
  independent of one another.
• The following sentences are syntactically
  well-formed but semantically anomalous or
  nonsensical
• Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
• A verb crumpled the milk.

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Transformational/Generative Approach

• To account for these and other facts, most
  linguists adopt a transformational generative
  (TG) approach to describing the syntactic
  component of grammar.
• A TG approach emphasizes the search for Universal
  Grammar (UG).

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Transformational/Generative Approach

• UG presupposes that languages operate under a
  shared set of categories, operations and
  principles.
• Although languages obviously differ from one
  another, their are common principles governing
  the way they form sentences.
• These properties of UG are called language
  universals.

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Transformational/Generative Approach

• By using the same descriptive approach for all
  languages, linguists hope to identify language
  universals and gain a more complete understanding
  of UG.
• At the syntactic level, there are clearly two
  subcomponents found in all languages
• 1. a lexicon
• 2. a computational system

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Transformational/Generative Approach

• The lexicon or mental dictionary lists the words
  (and morphemes) in a language.
• The lexicon also includes information about each
  entry regarding
• -pronunciation
• -meaning
• -form (root, affix, bound, free, etc.)
• -syntactic category information? (noun, verb,
  etc.)

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Transformational/Generative Approach

• The computational system includes the operations
  that allow words to be combined into syntactic
  structures.
• The computational system has two major
  components
• Merge
• Move

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Transformational/Generative Approach

• Merge allows the creation of phrases (parts of
  sentences) and the combining of the these phrases
  into sentences.
• Move allows certain elements to be transported to
  a new position within a sentence.
• An example of a moved element is the word what
  moving out of object position into sentence
  initial position in
• What are they looking at?

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Transformational/Generative Approach

• We will examine the elements of syntax as
  follows
• 1. The lexicon and the notion of syntactic
  categories
• 2. The creation of phrases (phrase structure)
• 3. The merge operation to form sentences
• 4. Types of phrasal clausal complements
• 5. Move

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Transformational/Generative Approach

• Transformational Generative theory has undergone
  many reformulations over the past 50 years.
• We are operating with a recent version.
• Thus you may encounter terms elsewhere that are
  roughly equivalent to the elements of syntax that
  we are examining.
• We will discuss these terms at a later date.

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The Lexicon/Syntactic Categories

• There is some controversy in current linguistic
  theory regarding whether the syntactic category
  (noun, verb, etc.) of a word is stored or
  syntactically determined. There are essentially
  two positions.
• 1. This information is stored in the lexicon.
• 2. The syntactic category is only determined when
  the word enters into a syntactic structure.
• We will not resolve the issue in this class. We
  will assume position 1, although the reasoning
  behind position 2 may be discussed.

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The Lexicon/Syntactic Categories

• All languages group their words into syntactic
  categories.
• We find remarkably similar syntactic categories
  across languages
• Your textbook provides example of the commonly
  found categories in Table 5.1.1 on page 133.

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(No Transcript)
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The Lexicon/Syntactic Categories

• The Lexical/Nonlexical distinction is roughly
  equivalent to the distinction we used in
  morphology
• OpenClass/Content or Lexical Words
• versus
• ClosedClass/Function Words
• or Non-lexical
• The chart is reproduced in the next slide

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Non-lexical/ functional
Lexical
Non-lexical/functional
(Closed Class)
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The Lexicon/Syntactic Categories

• The classification of words into syntactic
  categories can rely on
• the type of meaning they express
• what inflectional affixes they take
• the types of structures they fit into
  (distribution)
• Classification relies on a combination of these
  approaches.

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Classifying Syntactic Categories

• We will apply these 3 types of classification in
  the following slides.
• This will hopefully allow you to gain a better
  understanding of Syntactic Categories (aka parts
  of speech)

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Classifying Syntactic CategoriesMeaning

• The meanings of Lexical (Open Class/Content)
  words are generally much easier to define that
  those of Non-lexical (Closed Class/Function)
  words.
• Consider the words
• the (Non-lexical/Closed Class - determiner)
  and
• brush (Lexcial/Open Class - noun)

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the versus brush

• Its easier to explain the function of the, or
  where it occurs (before nouns), than what it
  actually means.
• Its easier to describe the concept brush than
  the concept the.

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Meanings of the Major Lexical Categories

• Nouns name entities objects (book)
• people (Mary)
• Verbs designate actions (eat)
• sensations (feel)
• states (be, seem)
• Adjectives designate properties and attributes
  of what nouns name (heavy book)
• Adverbs Denote properties and attributes of
  what verbs designate (eat quickly)
• Adverbs tell us how, why, where, when.

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Meanings of the Major Lexical Categories

• Meaning is not always a clear-cut way of deciding
  the part of speech of word.
• Some lexical/content words are more difficult to
  define.
• For example, the concepts truth or honesty do
  not name entities.

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Meanings of the Major Lexical Categories

• Items from two different categories can have
  similar meanings.
• For example, the verb hate and the noun
  revulsion have very similar meanings
• I hate carrots.
• I feel revulsion toward carrots.

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Meanings of the Major Lexical Categories

• Some words, like brush, can be a noun or a
  verb.
• I bought a new brush (noun) for the dog.
• I brush (verb) the dog every day.

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Inflections for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• So we still need to go beyond simple meaning to
  define a lexical (content) words syntactic
  category.
• We can also look at what inflections a form
  takes, as inflections usually attach to a
  particular part of speech.
• Note the references to parts of speech in the
  following list of English inflections.

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The inflectional affixes of English
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Inflections for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• Thus we can tell if ship is a noun or a verb
  by seeing whether it takes affixes that normally
  attach to a verb or a noun.
• ship pl. s as in
• I like to sail on ships.
• ship poss. s as in
• The ships hull is painted red.
• So far, it looks as if ship is a noun.

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Inflections for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• To be certain, lets see if adjectival inflections
  can be attached to ship.
• Comparative er as in
• That one is shipper than the first one.
• Superlative est as in
• That is shippest one of all.
• So ship is not an adjective.

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Inflections for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• What about verbal inflections?
• Past tense ed as in
• They shipped the package last week.
• Progressive ing as in
• They are shipping the package by air.
• So, it looks as if ship is a verb as well as a
  noun.

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Inflections for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• In fact, many words can belong to more than one
  lexical category.
• For example
• brush (noun, verb)
• comb (noun, verb)
• near (preposition, verb, adjective)
• They got bored near the end.
• They neared the finish line.
• The are nearer to the end than us.

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• We have seen that neither the meaning nor the
  affix test tells us reliably which lexical
  category a word belongs to.
• Another more reliable way of determining lexical
  category is by looking at a words distribution.

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• By distribution, we mean the type of elements
  that a word can co-occur with.
• The most useful type of elements for
  distributional analysis are what functional
  categories a word can be used with, although we
  can also look at what lexical categories it can
  be used with.

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• For example
• nouns occur with determiners such as the
• the dog
• verbs occur with auxiliaries such as will
• will go
• adjectives occur with degree words such as
  very
• very hot

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• Verbs do not occur with determiners
• the go
• Nouns do not occur with auxiliaries such as
  will
• will lamp
• Neither nouns nor verbs occur with degree words
  such as very
• very lamp very go

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Homework

• Study Guide Page 104
• OA Page 170-171, Ex. 2
• Think about how you could have used
  distribution, meaning and inflection tests in
  order to identify the syntactic categories (parts
  of speech) of the underlined words and words in
  the sentences of Ex. 2.
• Refer to Tables 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3 in OA for
  help.

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• Distributional analysis helps us to see the
  difference between verbs and auxiliaries.
• A verb can co-occur with an auxiliary, but a verb
  cannot co-occur with another verb.
• We may eat.
• We have eaten.
• We are eating.
• We play eat.
  
  
  
  

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• Sentences normally have only one verb.
• So a sentence with more than one verb is really
  more than one sentence.
• Such as two conjoined sentences as in
• Theyre moving and grooving.
• From Theyre moving. Theyre grooving.

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• Or, two verbs might be a clue that there is a
  main sentence containing an embedded or
  subordinate sentence or infinitival complement as
  in
• We are going to play.
• go is the main verb and play is the verb in
  the infinitival complement to play.

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• Further distributional analysis can show us that
  there are actually three types of auxiliary in
  English
• Modals (will, would, shall, should, can, could,
  must, may, might)
• Perfect (have en)
• Progressive (be-ing)

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• Lets look at modals first.
• Modals can co-occur with verbs
• He will eat. He may eat.
• Modals cannot co-occur with modals
• He may will eat.

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• You cannot replace a verb with a modal as in
• We are maying.
• Nor can you replace a modal with a verb as in
• We wish be eating.

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• Modals can co-occur with perfect have.
• He may have eaten.
• Modals can co-occur with progressive be.
• He may be eating.
• Notice that when modals co-occur with any of
  these elements, the modal always comes first.

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• Lets try a substitution test to determine whether
  the following are modals or verbs
• Try substituting each of the following words for
  will in the following sentence
• can, play, could, shall, see
• He will eat.
• Which ones are OK?

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• Now try substituting the same words for the verb
  eat in
• He will eat.
• can, play, could, shall, see
• Which ones are OK?
• So our substitution test tells us that
• can, could shall are modals
• play and see are verbs

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• Modals always occur before perfect and
  progressive (when they are actually present)
  and before a verb.
• Verbs occur after all possible elements in the
  auxiliary.

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• How do we know that perfect have -en is not a
  modal?
• Try the substitution test on
• He will have eaten.
• Can you substitute a modal for have?
• He will may eaten?
• Can you reverse the order of will and have?
• He have will eaten?

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• How do we know that progressive be -ing is not
  a modal?
• Try the substitution test on
• He will have eaten.
• He be having eaten.

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Distribution for Determining Major Lexical
Categories

• How do we know that progressive be ing and
  perfect have en are separate categories?
• Try reversing them in
• He may have been eating.
• He may be having eaten.

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Still not convinced about modals?

• Lets apply the meaning test.
• Modals express the speakers attitude or
  intentions with respect to the sentence. Modals
  can express possibility, probability, necessity,
  intention, etc., as in
• I will go.
• I may go.
• I must go.

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Still not convinced about modals?

• Lets apply the inflection test.
• Unlike verbs, modals do not take the present
  tense s inflection in the 3rd person singular
  verbs.
• He eats at nine.
• He wills eat at nine.
• He mays eat at nine.

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Homework

• We can apply the distribution and meaning tests
  to identify perfect and progressive as distinct
  functional categories.
• The meanings of sentences with perfect and
  progressive are affected in interesting ways.
• Think about the meanings of the sentences with
  perfect and progressive on the following slide.
• Be prepared to discuss them in your DGD.

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Perfect and Progressive

• John has studied karate, but he is more
  interested in kickboxing.
• John had studied karate for ten years before he
  got his black belt.
• I lived in Florida for ten years. Then I moved
  to Texas.
• I have lived in Florida for ten years, but I
  still miss Canada.
• I had lived in Florida for ten years before I
  saw my first alligator.
• I cant talk while I am driving.
• I didnt use my cell while I was driving.
• I am driving to Montreal tomorrow.
• Think about the concept of tense in English and
  what it expresses
• I am exercising right now. (present progressive
  - ongoing)
• I exercise every day. (simple present -
  habitual)
• I exercised every day last week. (simple past -
  completed)
• I was exercising when you called me last week.
  (past progressive - ongoing in past)

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Perfect

• Perfect have-en expresses the duration of an
  event as in I have lived in Florida for ten
  years. In the past tense it can also express the
  duration of an event with respect to a certain
  point in the past, as in I had lived in Florida
  for ten years when they discovered I was an
  illegal alien. Perfect have-en can also be used
  to refer to an event that took place over some
  indefinite period in the past, even when the
  sentence is actually inflected for the present,
  as in I have studied karate.
• Perfect have-en is rarely used to indicate a
  completed act. Instead English uses the simple
  past tense as in I lived in Florida for ten
  years. Compare that to the sense of duration in
  I have lived in Florida for 10 years. Note also
  that the simple present in English cannot express
  duration as in I know John for ten years.
  However, the simple present in English does
  express habitual actions as in I eat breakfast
  at seven.

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Progressive

• Progressive be-ing refers to events in progress
  in either the present or the past. In the
  present, the event is understood as happening
  while the sentence is being uttered. In the
  past, the event is understood as happening while
  another event in the discourse was happening.
  Progressive can also communicate anticipation of
  an event which will happen as in I am going
  shopping later. There is a narrative discourse
  style in English that uses the present
  progressive and the simple present to relate
  events that occurred in the story, as in Im
  walking down the street last night and this guy
  jumps out from behind a parked car and starts
  yelling at me (etc.)

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A word about auxiliaries

• English has four different functional categories
  that can be described as auxiliaries
• tense, modal, perfect, progressive
• If modal, perfect and progressive are all in a
  sentence, they must occur in that specific order
  for the sentence to be grammatical.
• We will discuss tense placement later.

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From Word Categories to Phrases

• Sentences are made up of sub-parts called
  phrases.
• Every language has a set of rules for forming
  these phrases.
• They are called Phrase Structure Rules
• The Phrase Structure Rules are a set of rules
  that allow us to map out the structures of
  phrases in a language.
• We diagram these structures as inverted trees.

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From Word Categories to Phrases

• The inverted trees reflect the hierarchical
  arrangement of phrases.
• Sentences consist of a series of phrases also
  joined together in a hierarchical manner.

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Merge X (X-bar)

• Merge is the part of the syntax in which of
  words are fitted together into phrases and in
  which phrases are joined together to form
  sentences.
• Merge combines words into phrases using the X
  schema that we will be discussing shortly.
• The Phrase Structure Rules determining these
  phrases used to be fairly elaborate, but in the
  current formulation of the theory have been
  essentially streamlined to the X schema.

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Merge Subcategorization

• Phrases are also the product of an interaction
  between the X schema and the subcategorization
  properties of words.
• Subcategorization refers to the type of
  complement structures that certain words must or
  can appear with.
• to hate (verb) requires a direct object
• I hate. I hate carrots.

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I hate carrots.

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Merge D-structure

• Merge results in what used to be called the Deep
  (D) Structure of a sentence
• The D-structure of a sentence very closely
  resembles the canonical word order in the
  language.
• D structure is not, however, the final form of
  the sentence.

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Move

• Not all sentences have the canonical word order
  in the language.
• Thus another component of syntax, called Move,
  moves elements to where they belong in the
  surface structure or S-structure of the sentence.
• Compare
• John is eating an apple. (canonical)
• Is John eating an apple? (non-canonical)

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Why D- and Surface Structure?

• We just saw that not all sentences follow
  canonical word order.
• But why not allow Merge to create these
  structures in the first place?
• Why do we need Move?
• I will provide some reasons in the next few
  slides and point out others as we explore the
  syntax more thoroughly.

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Why D- and Surface Structure?

• By adhering to strict canonical word order,
  D-structure gives us important information about
  the semantic roles of the elements in a
  sentences, especially the main nouns with respect
  to the verb.
• Thus, for English, the first Noun Phrase
  constituent in the tree represents the subject of
  the sentence.
• The subject of the sentence has a special
  relationship to the verb, as it is the doer of
  the action or agent.

100
Why D- and Surface Structure?

• The first Noun Phrase immediately following a
  transitive verb is its direct object or theme.
• In semantics, these relationships of nouns with
  respect to verbs and their subjects and objects
  are called thematic roles.
• The students read the book.
• agent theme

101
Why D- and Surface Structure?

• The thematic roles of the constituents of the
  sentence would not be so apparent at D-structure
  if non-canonically ordered trees were permitted.
• The move component of the syntax can operate on
  D-structure trees to create these non-canonical
  orders as required.

102
Why D- and Surface Structure?

• At D-structure it is clear when two sentences
  have the same thematic relationships between
  their words.
• Recall the sentences we looked at a few classes
  ago

103
Why D- and Surface Structure?

• declarative
• Everyone is happy.
• (verb)
• yes/no question
• Is everyone happy?
• (verb)

104
Why D- and Surface Structure?

• Wh question
• What are they looking at?
• object
• theme
• Declarative
• They are looking at what.
• object
• theme

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Why D- and Surface Structure?

• scrambled order
• The boy gave the toy to the girl.
• direct indirect object
• theme goal
• The boy gave the girl the toy.
• indirect direct
• goal theme

106
Why D- and Surface Structure?

• By having the alternative word orders created by
  Move, there is no need for extra phrase structure
  rules that would create essentially the same
  structure in two different places in the tree.
• So we dont need a rule in Merge permitting a
  verb to occur at the beginning of a tree as well
  as after the subject
• Is everyone happy? Everyone is happy.
• We also dont risk confusion about whether the
  role of the nouns everyone and what in the
  question sentences.

107
A schematic of syntax

• Merge
• Deep Structure
• Move
• Syntactic Surface Structure

108
Is that all there is to the grammar?

• In the previous slide we saw that Merge creates
  D-structure which is acted upon by Move which in
  turn creates Syntactic Surface Structure.
• Is that it for the grammar? No.
• The syntactic surface structure does not
  represent the final spoken form of the utterance.
• The rules of phonology and semantic
  interpretation (logical form) must apply before
  the sentence is fully derived.

109
From theory to practice

• Merge is the product of the X schema.
• This basically sets out the structure of a
  typical, generic phrase as
• XP
• (Specifier) X
• X (complement)

110
From theory to practice

• The abbreviations in the generic X phrase
  structure tree Xpart of speech of the head of
  the phrase
• Pphrase (e.g. NP noun phrase)
• Specifierphrase boundary marker, makes
  meaning of head more precise
• Complementphrases which provide information
  about the meaning of the head. The type of
  complement a head can take is part of the
  information stored with it in the mental
  lexicon.
• NB Parentheses ( ) mean that an element is
  optional in some phrases and with some heads.

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Types of X - Heads

• Heads can be Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives,
  Prepositions
• At the sentence level, heads are called
• I Inflection C Complementizer
• We will discuss sentence heads later.

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Specifiers (abbreviations in bold)

• The following can act as Specifiers
• Determiners (for nouns N)
• e.g. the, a, this, these, those, no,
• Adverbs (for verbs V)
• e.g. never, perhaps, often, always
• Degree word (for Adjectives A, Prepositions P)
• e.g. very, quite, more, almost

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Complements

• Phrases that add information about entities and
  locations implied by the head and for which the
  head is subcategorized.
• In the following example, the NP carrots is the
  complement of the verb hate.
• to hate requires a direct object complement
• I hate. I hate carrots.

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Other Complement Examples

• prepositional phrases as in
• I often eat at that restaurant.
• I never approved of that purchase.
• I was certain of his loyalty.
• The destruction of the city angered me.
• 1 and 2 show verb complements,
• 3 shows an adjective complement.
• 4 shows a noun complement.

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Practice drawing phrase structures

• Keep in mind that all phrases follow the x
  schema.
• XP
• (Specifier) X
• X (complement)

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He often reads tons of books

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He often reads tons of books

120
He often reads tons of books
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How to recognize a phrase

• Look for typical heads, such as
• noun, verb, adjective, preposition
• Work from right to left, since English branches
  right and your lowest phrases in the tree will
  likely be found to the right.
• Consider possible structures of phrase and see
  how X applies

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Complements

• N B See OA Charts 5.5 (p143), 5.6, 5.7, 5.8
  (p144) for types of complements

123
Verb Complements
124
Noun, adjective, preposition complements
125
Phrase Tests

• You can also try the phrase tests of
• substitution
• movement
• coordination

126
Substitution Test

• nouns can be replaced by they it
• The boys bought a firecracker.
• verbs can be replaced by do so
• The children can play.
• prepositional phrase can be replaced by there
• He went to the bank.

127
Movement Test

• prepositional phrases can often be moved without
  compromising the grammaticality of the sentence
• The children sang in the chapel.
• In the chapel the children sang.

128
Coordination Test

• a phrase can be conjoined with another phrase of
  the same type using and
• They mowed the lawn.
• They mowed the lawn and raked the leaves.

129
Sally saw the car on the hill.

• - hill is a noun, so it must be part of an NP
• the is determiner, so it must be the specifier
  of the NP the hill

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Sally saw the car on the hill.
131
Sally saw the car on the hill.

• on is a preposition, which is the head of a PP
• PPs have NPs as their complement, so the hill
  is the complement of the PP with of.

132
Sally saw the car on the hill.
133
Sally saw the car on the hill.

• car is a noun, so it must be the head of an NP
• the is a determiner, so it must be the
  specifier of the NP with car
• on the hill is a PP which acts as a complement
  to car

134
Sally saw the car on the hill.
135
Sally saw the car on the hill.

• -saw is a verb, which acts as the head of a VP
• -saw is subcategorized for an NP complement
• -the NP complement of saw is the car

136
Sally saw the car on the hill.
137
Sally saw the car on the hill.

• Sally is a noun, which is the head of an NP

138
Sally saw the car on the hill.
139
But how does it all fit together?

• Using X, the theory treats the subject NP as the
  specifier of a new phrase called IP
• The theory treats VP of the sentence as the
  complement of this phrase.
• The head of the phrase is the tense inflection of
  the sentence I.
• Remember that English has only two tenses
• past (pst) present (-pst)

140
Sally saw the car on the hill.
141
Try The dog bit the cat.
142
The dog bit the cat.
143
IP

• IP allows us to deal with the tense and modal
  parts of the auxiliary of the sentence.
• The remaining parts of the auxiliary (perfect
  have and progressive be)
• are handled a little differently, as we will see.

144
Modals in IP

• The theory treats models has the lexical part of
  I of the IP.
• This is because models have inherent tense.
• We never add a tense inflection to make them past
  or present.
• He will eat. (-pst, NB no s in 3rd pers.
  sg.)
• He would eat if he had money (-pst)
• He would eat whenever anyone fed him. (pst)

145
Modals in IP

• You judge the tense of the modal based on the
  rest of the sentence or discourse.
• If there is a modal, the verb is not marked for
  tense.
• The dog will bite the cat.
• The dog bites the cat.

146
Modals in IP

• Note that if there is no Modal, the tense in the
  PS tree matches the inflection on the verb.
• This may seem bizarre, but syntactic theory has
  had a long-standing conflict of over whether and
  how to handle inflectional morphology.
• Compare

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Modals in IP

• Any modal could take the place of will in The
  dog will bite the cat.
• The dog will bite the cat.
• The dog would bite the cat.
• The dog may bite the cat.
• The dog can bite the cat.
• The dog could bite the cat.
• The dog should bite the cat.
• The dog must bite the cat.
• The dog might bite the cat.
• The dog shall bite the cat.

150
Perfect and Progressive

• If the sentence contains the auxiliaries perfect
  or progressive or both, these are treated as
  verbs.
• This will give us successive VPs as follows

151
1
2
152
Modal, Perfect and Progressive

• In The dog has bitten the cat, note that tense
  is on perfect have, not on the verb.
• Tense with perfect have is relative to the
  other events in the discourse.
• Compare a sentence with modal and perfect.
• The dog will have bitten the cat.
• Here tense is expressed through modal will,
  rather than on have.

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156
Modal-Perfect-Progressive

• In older versions of the theory, the affixes
  associated with perfect have (-en) and
  progressive be (-ing) were shown together with
  them as unattached inflections in the PS.
• Movement took place to attach them where they
  belonged.
• Nowadays, syntacticians do not want morphological
  operations within syntax.
• Thus they are glossed over in the PS trees.

157
Whole Sentences as Complements

• What if our complement is a whole sentence
  embedded in the bigger sentence.
• We use the term clause for sentence.
• Hence embedded clause.
• A clause must have a verb.

158
Embedded Clauses

• I know that Mary has left.
• Compare it to
• I know the answer.
• The structures are both complements of the
  verb, but one is a clause (aka sentence).
• The embedded clause acts like an NP.

159
Embedded Clauses

• Embedded clauses that replace NPs are marked by
  the words that or whether or if.
• These are called complementizers.
• They form the head of a CP (complementizer
  phrase) that goes into the complement position of
  the VP.

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