Transcript Document

Analysing
Syntax 1
Week 7
Sentences
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Sentences, like the morphology of
individual words, can be analysed using
trees to illustrate their phrase structure
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In order to be able to analyse a sentence
you need to understand the main
grammatical categories
Grammatical categories
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Nouns (N)
dog, cat, apple, park etc.
Determiners (Det.)
a, the, this, that etc.
Verbs (V)
walk, come, go
Adjectives (A)
big, black, hairy etc.
Adverbs (Adv)
quickly, slowly etc.
Pronouns (PRO)
he, she etc.
Categories and trees
Words have to be attached to their
grammatical category
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N
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
dog the walks hairy park quickly in the
Categories and trees
Words have to be attached to their
grammatical category
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N
Det
V
A
N
Adv
P
Det
dog the walks hairy park quickly in the
Categories and trees
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Det
the
And the words have to be put in order
A
N
hairy dog
V
Adv
P
Det
N
walks quickly in the park
Putting words in order
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words combine to form phrases
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phrases combine to form sentences
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What kind of phrases are there?
Types of phrase
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Noun phrase
Verb phrase
Prepositional phrase
Adverb phrase
Adjective Phrase
Phrases
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Each sentence contains
a subject and a predicate
the hairy dog
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walks quickly in the park
Syntactically these correspond to:
a noun phrase and a verb phrase
the hairy dog
walks quickly in the park
The top of the tree
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So the tree for any sentence (S) should start
like this:
S
NP

VP
This means that every sentence is made up
of a noun phrase and a verb phrase
The bottom of the tree
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What we need to do is to connect:
the structure
at the top
of the tree
S
NP
TO
VP
the words of
the sentence
at the bottom
of the tree
Det
A
N
V
Adv
the hairy dog walks quickly
P
Det
N
in the park
Connecting top and bottom
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You need to start at the bottom of the tree
and build more phrases on to the
categories. These phrases could be:
Noun phrases
Adverb phrases
Prepositional phrases
Adjective phrases
What about?
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The dog ?
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The park?
Noun phrase (NP)
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A name is a noun and it attaches to a noun phrase
NP
N
Romeo
A simple noun phrase (NP)
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Determiner (Det.) + Noun (N) = Noun Phrase (NP)
NP
Det
the
NP
N
Det.
N
dog
the
park
Prepositional Phrase (PP)
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Preposition + NP = Prepositional Phrase (PP)
P
PP
in +
=
NP
P
Det
NP
N
Det
the
park
in
the
N
park
Adverb Phrase (Adv.P)
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When there is just one adverb, it
attaches to an Adverb Phrase (Adv.P)
Adv.P
Adv
quickly
Adjective Phrase (AP)
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A single adjective attaches to an
Adjective Phrase (AP)
AP
A
hairy
More on adjectives
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Adjectives are often found in sentences
as modifiers of nouns:
the hairy dog
modifier of noun
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In this case they form part of a more
complex noun phrase …
More complex noun phrases
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… and they are analysed like this:
NP
AP
Det
N
A
the
hairy
dog
Inserting the phrases
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The subject NP
is easy to insert……………….……………… but the VP is
S
more difficult
NP
VP
AP
Det
A
N
V
Adv
the hairy dog walks quickly
P
Det
N
in the park
First you attach the Verb
S
NP
VP
AP
Det
A
N
V
Adv
the hairy dog walks quickly
P
Det
N
in the park
Then you attach the AdvP
S
NP
VP
AP
Det
A
AdvP
N
V
Adv
the hairy dog walks quickly
P
Det
N
in the park
Then you attach the PP
S
NP
VP
PP
AP
Det
A
NP
AdvP
N
V
Adv
the hairy dog walks quickly
P
Det
N
in the park
What a complete tree looks like
a sentence
S
divides into a noun phrase ………………..
and a verb phrase
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NP
VP
these attach to
PP
phrases or
AP
and
categories
NP
AdvP
categories
attach to
words
Det
A
N
V
Adv
the hairy dog walks quickly
P
Det
N
in the park
How to analyse the syntactic
structure of a simple sentence
It’s a bit like decorating a Christmas tree:
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Write S
NP + VP at the top
Write the words of the sentence at the bottom
Write the categories above the words
Where necessary put the categories into phrase
structures (NP, Adv,P, AP, PP)
Attach the phrase structures to the main NP and
VP
Ambiguous sentences
These sentences look the same but they
have a different meaning
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The man hit the intruder with a stick
The man hit the intruder with a wooden leg
They should have a different syntactic
structure. Where is the difference going to be
Disambiguating
With a wooden leg and with a stick are
both prepositional expressions
BUT ……
 with a wooden leg is about the intruder
so it is attached to the noun
 with a stick is about how he hit the
intruder so it is attached to the verb
Different structure
hit the intruder with a wooden leg
hit the intruder with a stick
VP
VP
attached to NP
NP
NP
attached to VP
PP
PP
NP
NP
NP
AP
V
D
N
P
D
A
N
hit the intruder with a wooden leg
V
D
N
P
hit the intruder with
D
a
N
stick
Juliet loves Romeo
S
NP
VP
NP
N
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Romeo
V
loves
N
Juliet
He loves carrots
S
NP
VP
NP
PRO
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He
V
loves
N
carrots
The lamb followed Mary
S
NP
VP
NP
Det
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The
N
V
lamb followed
N
Mary
The cat killed the mouse
S
NP
VP
NP
Det
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The
N
V
cat
killed
Det
the
N
mouse
Jack killed the giant
S
NP
VP
NP
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N
V
Jack
killed
Det
the
N
giant
She solved the mystery
S
NP
VP
NP
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PRO
V
Det
She
solved
the
N
mystery
Beavers build dams
S
NP
VP
NP
N
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Beavers
V
build
N
dams
Beavers build dams
S
NP
VP
NP
N
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Beavers
V
build
N
dams