Transcript Linguistics Tripos Part One, Paper 2 Lecture Two

Linguistics Tripos Part One, Paper 2
Lecture Two: Categories and
Constituents
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IAN ROBERTS
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 Syntax accounts for how words are grouped together into
larger units (phrases and sentences):

a.Alex hopes that Wayne will be fit for the match.
b.*Hopes Alex that Wayne will be fit for the match.
c. *Hopes that Alex Wayne will be fit for the match.
There are 3,628,800 possible orders for this 10-word
sentence, 3,628,798 of which are ungrammatical.
What is the other two grammatical order?
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Why study syntax?
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 Syntax is a central aspect of language, in that it
relates sound and meaning over an infinite domain,
and so we may be able to find out about Universal
Grammar by studying it.
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How do we study syntax?
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 The basic notion is constituent structure, i.e. the
way in which words group together into
intermediate units (or phrases) of various
categories.
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2.
Categories
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 Two main types:
a.
Lexical categories:
 N(oun), V(erb), Adj(ective), Adv(erb), P(reposition)
 -- open class (you can invent new ones), (near-)
universal



Traditional notional/semantic definitions of
lexical categories (“a noun is the name of a person,
place or thing”).

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Functional categories:
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
auxiliaries (must, be), determiners (the, a),

complementisers (if, that, for), etc.
 -- closed class, seem to vary quite a lot from language to
language (Latin has no determiners, Mandarin has no
complementisers, English auxiliaries are quite unique in
a number of respects, etc.).

 Could we have notional definitions of functional
categories?
 How do we distinguish the two types?

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Four criteria for identifying categories
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 (mostly for lexical categories; not all valid all the




time):
- morphology
- syntax
- phonology
- aspects of meaning
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Morphological criteria
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



a.
(regular) count N have –s plural
b.
(regular) adverbs end in –ly
c.
verbs inflect for past tense (regular
form is in –ed)
d.
prepositions are invariant
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Syntactic/distributional criteria I
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a.only auxiliaries invert in direct yes/no questions:
 Cambridge will flood  Will Cambridge flood?
 Cambridge flooded  Did Cambridge flood?

/*Flooded Cambridge?
(NB an asterisk in front of a sentence means it is
ungrammatical)
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Syntactic/distributional criteria II
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 verbs can’t directly follow verbs like seem:
John seems nice/interesting/*sleeping/in a bad
mood/a nice person
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Syntactic/distributional criteria III
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 only nouns or noun phrases can be subjects:




___ can be a pain in the neck.
Nouns can go here: kids/injections/syntax/Dave
but not other categories *walk/*tall/*in;
Sequences of words whose main element is a noun
(Noun Phrases, or NPs) can also go here:
Nick Clegg/professors of Linguistics/students/other
people’s kids/injections which go wrong
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Syntactic/distributional criteria IV
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 only verbs or verb phrases can appear between an
auxiliary and a manner adverb:
Students can ___ quickly
 Verbs can go here: talk/write/learn/understand
 but not other categories:
*Dave
Cameron/*kids/*injections/*syntax/*tall/*in
 Sequences of words whose main element is a verb (Verb
Phrases, or VPs) can also go in here:
dissolve in sulphuric acid/get married/
conclude that you’re not worth listening to
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Phonology
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 stress can be category-sensitive:
a.
Apple wants to increase its profits.
-- verb
Apple wants an increase in its profits.
-- noun
b.
blackbird -- noun (word stress)
black bird -- noun phrase (phrasal stress)
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Semantics
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 can depend on category:
a. the round church
Adj – shape)
(
b.
Round the rugged rock the ragged rascal
ran.
(P–path)
c. These cars round corners very nicely.
(V-path + moved object)
c. Time for another round.
(N – extension)
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 We have no clear idea of the inventory of (possible,
universal) categories, although the noun-verb
distinction seems fundamental and universal, while
other categories recur across languages to varying
degrees.
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3.
Constituent structure
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


a.
b.
c.
Alex spoke.
Ryan laughed.
Wayne scowled.
[Noun Alex ] [Verb spoke ]
[Noun Night ] [Verb fell ]
[Noun fish ] [Verb fish ]
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 [ The manager of the opposition team ]
[ disagreed ]
 [ The tall black-haired boy] [ disagreed ]
 [ The boy who lived ]
[ disagreed ]
 [ Fish fish fish ]
[ fish ]
 the complex categories here are Noun Phrases
(NPs); they contain a noun and other words and
phrases that depend on/modify that noun (articles,
adjectives, Preposition Phrases (see below on these),
relative clauses, etc.).
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 [NP Dave ] [ wrecked the economy ]
 [NP Alex ] [ hopes fervently that Wayne will
recover his form ].
 [NP The psychopath ] [ ate his wife with a nice Chianti
].
 the right-hand categories are Verb Phrases (VPs);
they contain a verb and other words and phrases that
depend on/modify that verb (objects, adverbs,
adverbial phrases, subordinate clauses, Prepositional
Phrases, etc.).
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labelled bracketing
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 Representation of constituent structure by means of
labelled bracketing:
 [S [NP [N Dave ]] [VP [V wrecked ] [NP [D the ] [N
economy ]]]]
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tree diagram
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 Representation of constituent structure by means of a
tree diagram:
S
r
u
NP1
VP
|
r u
N1
V
NP2
Dave
wrecked r u
D
N2
the
economy
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 tree diagrams and labelled bracketings present
exactly the same information in typographically
different ways. We choose which type of
representation to use mostly for convenience;
nothing theoretical depends on it.
 (Most people find trees easier to work with, but this
isn’t always true – e.g. with Power Point  ).
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Defining and relating constituents
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a.S, NP, VP, etc. are nodes of the tree, linked by
branches.
b.
Branches never cross and all emanate from S.
c.The words are terminal nodes; category symbols
are non-terminal nodes.
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Dominance and immediate dominance:
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 A given category, call it A, dominates another
category B just where A is, intuitively, both higher up
in the tree than B and connected to B.
 More precisely, category A dominates category B
just where there is a continuous sequence, or path, of
branches going down the tree from node A to node B.
 A immediately dominates just where A
dominates B and no node intervenes on the
downward path from A to B.
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Constituency and immediate constituency
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 A given category, call it B, is a constituent of
another category A just where B is, intuitively, both
lower down in the tree than A and connected to A.
 More precisely, category B is a constituent of
category A just where there is a continuous sequence,
or path, of branches going up the tree from node B to
node A.
 B is an immediate constituent of A just where B
is a constituent of A and no node intervenes on
the upward path from B to A.
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 (Immediate) dominance and (immediate)
constituency are inverse relations (dominance “looks
downward”; constituency “looks upward”):
A (immediately) dominates B  B is an (immediate)
constituent of A
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S
r
u
NP1
|
N1
Dave
VP
u
r
V
wrecked r u
D
N2
the
NP2
economy
Looking at this tree diagram, we observe
that:
a.NP1 and VP are immediately
dominated by S.
b.V and NP2 are immediately
dominated by VP.
c. V and NP2 are dominated by S.
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