Transcript The child
1.Syntax: the rules of sentence formation; the
component of the mental grammar that
represent speakers’ knowledge of the
structure of phrase and sentence.
Sentences are not simple random strings or
words; they conform to specific patterns
determined by the syntactic rules of the
language.
Grammaticality judgments do not depend
on whether the sentence is meaningful or not.
e.g. My father went to Taipei by bus at 8 this
morning.
My father took a bus to Taipei at 8 this
morning.
2. The hierarchical structure (tree diagram)
(Recursive)
The child found the puppy
the child
the
found the puppy
child
found
the
the puppy
puppy
3. Syntactic Categories: A family of
expressions that can substitute for one
another without loss of grammaticality is
called a syntactic category.
e.g.
The child found the puppy.
A police officer found the puppy.
Your neighbor found the puppy.
This yellow cat found the puppy.
He found the puppy.
The child, a police officer, your neighbor, this
yellow cat, he belong to the syntactic category.
4. Phrase Structure Tree: a linear string of words
a hierarchical structure
5.lexical Categories: the lowest categories,
whose members are words Ambiguity
S
NP
VP
Art
N
V
the
boy
saw
NP
Art
PP
N
P
NP
the man with Art
N
the telescope
6. Phrasal categories:
The categories that occur to the left of the
arrow in a phrase structure rule are called
phrase categories; categories that never occur
on the left side of any rule are lexical
categories.
7. Phrase Structure Rule:
(X-bar theory)
(1)
NP
(Swedish)
Art
n
the
man
(2) VPV
:buy
VPV NP
:buy the book
VPVNP PP :buy the book from the store
(3) PPP NP
:in the store
(Japanese)
(4) NPArt
(Adj.)*N (PP)
e.g. The large fierce black dog looked out the
window.
8. Subcategorization: A transitive verb must be
followed by a Noun Phrase, its “ directive
object.” This additional specification is
called subcategorization, and is also included
in the lexical entry of each word.
9. complementizer: A syntactic category of
words that precede the S in an S-bar.
e.g. that in “I know that you know…”
NP Pronoun
VP VS’
S’(Comp) S
He believes that she loves the cat.
S
NP
VP
S’
Pronoun V
He believes comp
that
S
NP
VP
Pronoun V
She
NP
loves Art
the
N
cat
10. Phrase Structure Tree: Syntactic Categories
Phrasal Categories
Lexical Categories
11. Transformational Rules
e.g. The boy who is spelling is dreaming.
Is the boy who is spelling dreaming?
S
NP
The boy who is sleeping
Aux
VP
is
dreaming
Transformational Rules Applied
S
Aux
Is
NP
VP
The boy who is sleeping dreaming
12. Long-Distance Relationships
In English, the verb in the present-simple
tense has an “s” added whenever the
subject is the third person singular. Such a
relationship is called subject-verb
agreement. And this agreement may take
over a long distance; besides, there is no
limit to how many words may intervene,
as the following sentences illustrates:
e.g. The guy we met at the party next door
seems kind of cute
The guys we met at the party next door
seem kind of cute
The guys(guy) we met at the party next
door that lasted until three A.M.
and was finally broken up by the cops
who were called by the neighbors
seem(seems) kind of cute
13. A Summary Of All The Phrase
Structure Rules Presented In This Chapter
S NP (Aux) VP
S’ (Comp) S
NPArt (Adj)* N (PP)
NPPronoun
VPV (NP) (PP)
VPV S’
PPP NP
These rules do not constitute all the rules that
English speakers know. English speakers
know many other rules of this kind, and
produce many sentences and phrase structures
using rules other than these.