Transcript LIN 1101

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CLASS 13, Feb 16, 2007
LIN 1310B
Introduction to Linguistics
Prof: Nikolay Slavkov
TA: Qinghua Tang
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Today
• Announcements and Reminders:
-Continue reading chapter 5.
-DGD attendance.
• Today’s Lecture:
- Continue with Syntax
- Distribute unmarked homework (due after the
break)
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Review from last time
• Terminological clarification:
Modal auxiliary verbs = Modals (can, will, etc.)
Non modal auxiliary verbs = Auxiliaries (be, have)
Main verbs = Verbs (e.g. write, see, go, etc.)
• Semantic, Inflectional and Distributional
properties of Modals.
• X’ schema: head, specifier, complement;
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X’ schema
Note that in the X’ schema, a phrase may be
the complement of another phrase.
Note the three levels of terminology:
Specifier, Head, Complement
Syntactic position/role (e.g. subject, predicate,
object)
Syntactic category (noun, verb, adjective,
determiner, etc.)
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The Merge Operation
• Combine words in a manner compatible
with the X’ schema.
• The operation Merge applies recursively.
• It accounts for the formation of phrases and
sentences of unlimited complexity.
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Example of Merge
• P. 140: fig 5.7 a, b.
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Sentences
• Sentences are the largest syntactic unit that we
analyse.
• The head of a sentence is an abstract category,
which we will call I or Infl (for inflection). This
category tells us the tense of the sentence.
• IP=Inflection Phrase=sentence
• Inflection takes VP (verb) as a complement and
NP (subject) as a specifier.
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• P. 140, 5.8
Example of
an IP
(Sentence)
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IP
• Tense in English is analysed as past or nonpast (+pst vs. -pst). Therefore, we write the
feature +Pst or -Pst under I.
• The feature under I dictates the morphology
of the verb under V. In other words, if I is
+Pst, the verb will have –ed (for regular
forms).
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IP
• Overall, we analyse a sentence in the same way as
a phrase: compatible with the X’ schema. In other
words, the sentence (IP) has a head, a specifier
and a compliment position.
• Even though tense is an abstract category, i.e. just
a feature, it is an obligatory one, a head of a
phrase (IP). This is so because all sentences
necessarily have tense (i.e. I is an obligatory
category).
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An IP with a modal
• What are the temporal characteristics of Modals?
Consider the following data:
*He can work yesterday
will
must
may
should
=> Modals have inherent tense, which seems to be
non-past (i.e. it can be either non-past or future or
both).
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An IP with a Modal
• Now consider the following data:
He could work yesterday
would
He could swim today/tomorrow
would
The modals could and would can be either past or
non-past
However, in general, we conclude that most
modals are inherently non-past.
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An IP with a Modal
• We will assume that a modal goes under I.
(See tree on next slide.)
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An IP
with a
Modal
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Why don’t we postulate future tense
in English
• Several reasons:
It is not morphologically marked on the verb (i.e.
English verbs are only marked for past –ed, and
unmarked for present or future, i.e. non-past)
The future in English is carried by the modal, not by
the verb
Saves us introducing extra complexity/redundancy in
the system.
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Why do we put modals in I
• I is an abstract tense category or feature, so why
would we put modals there?
-Because modals inherently carry tense, so it is
logical to put them in I.
-Because modals occur between the subject and the
verb, (i.e. I may go), and it is therefore logical to
place them under I. In this way, modals take the
VP as a complement and the NP subject as a
specifier.
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Back to Phrases or Constituents
• Now that we have build a system that creates basic
sentences, let’s step back and consider what the
units that we use are.
• We said that sentences are made up of phrases and
sentences are phrases themselves. But how do we
determine what a phrase is?
• So far we have used our intuition but is there a
principled way to do that?
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Constituency Tests
• Constituency tests help us determine what
elements act as units in language. These units are
called phrases or constituents.
• There are several different constituency tests, but
we will go over just a few:
-substitution
-movement
-coordination
-deletion (ellipsis)
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The Substitution Test
• If a string can be substituted by an element such as they, it
or do so and the sentence remains grammatical, then that
string is a constituent.
The president of the University of Ottawa will give
scholarship cheques to the students.
He will give scholarship cheques to the students.
[The president of the University of Ottawa] is a constituent.
The president of Carleton will do so too.
=> [will give scholarship cheques to the students] is a
constituent.
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The Movement Test
• If a string can be moved, then it is a constituent.
-They went to the store.
-To the store, they went.
[to the store] is a constituent
-*To the, they went store
=> [to the] is not a constituent.
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The Ellipsis (Deletion) Test
• If a string can be deleted, then it is a
constituent.
- Mary will buy a car tomorrow, and I will
too.
=> [buy a car tomorrow] is a constituent.
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The Coordination Test
• If a string can be joined to another string
using a conjunction such as and or but, then
it is a constituent
- The chair of the department was sacked.
- The chair of the department and of the
union was sacked.
=> [of the department] is a constituent.
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A note about constituency tests
• While constituency tests can be very helpful, they
do not necessary work in all cases. Therefore, if
one test does not work, we should try to apply
another one, etc. before we come to a final
conclusion.
Exercise: Use your intuition to propose different
constituents for the following sentence, and apply
constituency tests to provide evidence for your
proposal:
The president of the University of Ottawa will give
scholarship cheques to the students.
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Unmarked Homework
(due after reading week)
1) Draw trees for the following words, phrases and sentences:
table; very confident; in the store; write reports on poverty in
Africa; The captain will wreck the ship; The students
provided the answers.
2) Use a few different constituency tests to determine if the
bracketed strings below are constituents:
[The committee for judicial assessment] [disseminated very]
serious [criticisms] [of the] activities of the Bank [of
Canada].