Transcript French actor and actress

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Chapter 4
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Syntax
Syntax = syn(together)
tax(to arrange)
Syntax is the study of the formations
of sentences or the rules that govern
word combination in a sentence ,i.e.
how words are put together into
meaningful combinations
There are different approaches or
theories to syntax.
1 The traditional approach
 A sentence is a sequence of words
 emphasis is on the study of individual
words.
1.1 Number/gender/case(Ns, Vs)
Number: sing. or pl
Gender: actor/actress
Case: Nominative (I, he, she)
genitive(my, his, her)
accusative (me, him, her)
I gave a book to him.
1.2 Tense and aspect(体)
Tense: indicating time related to the
time of utterance.
E.g I am reading a book.
He went to the concert last night.
Based on the tense system of Latin,
English used to have 16 tenses.
English Tenses
Present:
simple/progressive/perfect/perfect
progressive
 Past:
simple/progressive/perfect/perfect
progressive
 Future:
simple/progressive/perfect/perfect
progressive
 Past Future: simple/future
progressive/perfect/perfect progressive
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Aspect: the internal temporal structure
of a verb.
E.g I know. (static)
*I am knowing.
I sing .(durative)
I am singing.
1.3 Concord and government
Concord: the forms of two or more
words in a syntactic relationship
should agree with each other in
terms of some categories.
E.g a book
two books
John went to his Uncle’s.
He speaks French.
They speak English.
Government: a word of a certain class
governs the form of others. Usually
the verb or the preposition
determines the form of pronoun after
it.
E.g
She gave him a book
She gave a book to him.
2. The structural approach
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by F. Saussure
linguistic units are interrelated in
a structure or system, not as
isolated bits.
Later it fully developed to
structuralism
2.1 Syntagmatic/paradigmatic
relations
Syntagmatic(组合): relationship
between one item and others in a
sequence or between elements all
present.
E.g
The boy kicked the ball.
*Boy the ball kicked the.
*The ball kicked the boy.
Paradigmatic (聚合): relation
between one element present and
others absent.
E.g
The ______ is smiling.
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Hit, book, boys,
girl/boy/man/woman:
They can substitute for each other
without violating syntactic rules.
They are in a paradigmatic relation.
2.2 Immediate constituent analysis
(直接成分分析法)
 by L. Bloomfield
 sentence is not linear, but also hierarchical
 words are not of the same degree of
closeness to each other.
E.g The boy kicked the ball.
The *boy kicked the ball.
The boy kicked* the ball
The boy kicked the* ball.
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The smaller forms into which a larger
form may be analyzed are its
constituents, and the larger form is a
construction.
This constituent analysis can be
continued until no further
subdivisions are possible.
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The organization of the units of a
sentence (its immediate constituents)
both in terms of their hierarchical
arrangement and their linear order.
IC Structure can be represented in
the form of a tree diagram or
Using labeled bracketing, each
analytic decision being represented
by a pair of square brackets at the
appropriate points in the construction.
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Labeled bracketing using Category
Symbols :
[ [ [Poor]ADJ [John]N ]NP [ [lost]V [ [his]PRON [watch ]N ]NP ]VP ]S
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‘Poor’ – ADJ
‘John’ – N
Lost – V
His – PRON
Watch - N
‘Poor John’ - NP
‘his watch’ - NP
‘lost his watch’ - VP
‘Poor John lost his watch-S
More examples:
• ((the) boy) likes ((a) girl)
• ((the) (small) girl) likes ((the) (big)
girl)
• ((a) ((very) small) (nice) boy) sees
((a) ((very) nice) girl
Immediate Constituent Structure using Tree
Diagram
S
NP
ADJ
VP
N
V
NP
PRON
Poor
John
lost
his
N
watch
Its advantages:
- the internal structure of a sentence
may be demonstrated clearly.
-help to avoid ambiguity
e.g
more expensive clothes
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more expensive clothes
More Examples:
Leave the book on the shelf.
Leave the book on the shelf.
 My small child’s cot
my small cot for a child
my cot for a small child
the cot of my small child
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Its problems
-hard to cut every part into two parts.
E.g old men and women
may be: old+men and women
old men + and women
-problems with phrasal verbs.
E.g make it up.
2.3 Endocentric/exocentric constructions
Endocentric constructions(内向结构):the
shorter expressions may be expanded by
the addition of words to the head and the
structure remains the same.
E.g children
the three small children (head)
leaving
will have been leaving (head)
good
Really very very very good
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The head might not be the last word
e.g.
The book on the shelf
The man about whom I have been
talking
Walk away immediately
Hot beyond endurance
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Exocentric constructions (外向结构)
There is no noticeable head or center
in a sentence
e.g If he is going
on the shelf
The girl smiled.
The construction as a whole has a
different distribution from either of
its constituents.
2.4 Categories at different levels
Word-level: N, V, adj, prep
Determiner (Det): the, a , that, these
Degree word(Deg): very, quite
Qualifier(Qual): often, always, seldom.
Almost
Auxiliary(Aux): must, should, can
Conjunction: and, but, or
Phrase-level:
NP: a real friend
VP: make up
PP: at home
AP: very beautiful
Phrases usually contain three elements:
Head: the focused word
Specifier: words to modify the head
(preceding the head)
Complement:to modify the head (following
the head.
There are several rules that govern the
structure of phrases.
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XP(hrase) Rule :
(specifier) X(N, V, A, P) (Complement)
e.g a story about a sentimental girl
S X(N)
C
X- Theory: revised XP
XP
X
Specifier
X(head)
XP
(specifier) X
X
X(complement)
–
–
-
Complement
Sentences (The S rule)
Sentence parsing:Any phrase structure
has rules as follows
S=NP+ VP
V+NP
Det+ N
E.g The man hit a ball.
S
NP
VP
Det
N
V
NP
the
man
hit
Det
N
a
ball
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How to indicate the tense?
S
NP
VP
Infl(Inflections)
Past tense
future tense
Aux
e.g Past Tense
S
NP
Det
N
VP
Infl
Pst
The actor
V
NP
Det
N
thanked the audience.
How to indicate interrogates?
e.g Will (Do) birds fly?
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CP (Complement Phrase)
C
Infl
S
NP Infl VP
N
Do
(Will)
birds
e
v
fly
3 The Generative Approach
• In the late 1950s, .a new theory appeared in
America and violently punched the prevailing
structuralist descriptive linguistics
• The founder of this new theory was N. Chomsky
established the well-known TransformationalGenerative (TG) Grammar.
• The publication of his Syntactic Structures
( 1957 ) marked the beginning of the Chomskyan
Revolution.
The innateness hypothesis
• Chomsky believes that language is somewhat
innate, and that children are born with what he
calls a LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
DEVICE (LAD), which is a unique kind of
knowledge that fits them for language learning.
• He argues the child comes into the world with
specific innate endowment, not only with
general tendencies or potentialities, but also
with knowledge of the nature of the world, and
specifically with knowledge of the nature of
language.
Chomsky’s Theory
Language acquisition device
An important concept of innateness hypothesis,
which explains how children are able to learn their
language.
The capacity to acquire one’s first language.
Includes basic knowledge about the nature and
structure of human language (grammatical relations
and categories).
Every normal human being was born with an LAD.
Universal grammar（普遍语法） ---- ``the
system of principles, conditions, and rules that
are elements or properties of all human
languages... the essence of human language''
[Chomsky, 1978].
Phrase Structure Grammars
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a component of early Chomsky grammar.
Sentence patterns consist of various sorts of
phrases, which can be expanded in various
ways.
For example:
“ The strong youths carried the heavy boxes.”
• Consists of rules for rewriting a constituent into a set
of one or more constituents
e.g.: The boy hit the ball
Rewrite rules:
S → NP + VP
NP → (Det) + N
VP → Verb + NP
Det → the, his, ...
N → man, ball, ...
V → hit, took,..
These rules generate the following phrase marker [PM, or
tree diagram], which also represents the constituent
structure of the sentence:
Tree Structure Grammar
Sentence
Noun phrase
Verb phrase
Det
Noun
Verb
The
boy
kissed
Noun phrase
Det
Noun
the
girl
Advantages
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indicates the word class clearly (sometimes
indicate number, tense and structure of a
word.), eg. N, V, Det, etc.;
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Indicates phrase category and structure, eg.
NP→ Det + N;
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can generate infinite number of sentences
e.g.The boy who plays baseball hit the
ball
S
NP
NP
S
V
det NP NP
VP
hit
The boy who V
NP
(the boy) plays baseball
VP
NP
det
the
N
ball
Problems
• Generates well formed sentences as well as ill-
formed ones
E.g.
S → NP + VP
NP → DET +N
VP → VP + NP
a) Green idea sleeps furiously.
b) The stone thinks.
– Can't explain sentence ambiguity; how to parse
sentences with multiple meanings:
E.g.: They are visiting fireman
Flying airplanes can be dangerous
– Can’t process a sentence combined by two
independent ones.
(S1)The scene of the movie was in Chicago +
(S2)The scene of the play was in Chicago →
(S3)The scene of the movie and of the play was in
Chicago.
Transformational grammar
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Grammar was a set of phrase structure rules
• S  NP VP
NP  D N
VP  V NP
D  the
N  man, dog, sandwich, …
V  meet, see, …
• Start with S, apply rules until none left.
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and transformational rules
• Tpassive: NP1-Aux-V-NP2  NP2 + be + V+en by NP1 .
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It assume existence of two levels of a sentence:
–
Deep structure - underlying structure of sentences
most related to its meaning (but not identical to
meaning). Deep structure generated based on phrase
structure rules
–
Surface structure - actual arrangement of constituents
when written or spoken. Derived from deep structure
via rewrite rules (deep structure transformed into
surface structure.
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Transformations solve all those problems of PS
grammar by relating surface structures (SS) to deep
structures (DS).
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Surface structure: the syntactic
structure of the sentence which a
person speaks, hears, reads or
writes.
e.g The newspaper was not delivered
today. (Passive sentence).
Deep structure: much more abstract and is
considered to be in the speaker’s , writers,
hearer’s or reader’s mind.
e.g The newspaper was not delivered today.
(negative) Someone (past tense) deliver the
newspaper today (passive).
The items in the brackets are not lexical
items but grammatical concepts that
shape the final form of the sentence.
E.g. Alvin is anxious to help. / Alvin is difficult to help.
DEEP STRUCTURE
Alvin PRES + be
Anxious for
someone to help
DEEP STRUCTURE
for someone to help
Alvin PRES + be
difficult
SURFACE STRUCTURE
Alvin is Anxious /
difficult to help
Evaluation -TG
• Meets (with varying degrees of success) the criteria of
description
• Limitations:
1. too many & too complicated.
2. Transformations proposed without constraint
--Transformation is not applicable in every situation.
2.4 The functional approach
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by Halliday
known as systemic-functional
grammar (系统功能语法)
relates functions of language to its
structures
Basics of Halliday’s Thoughts
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Language is a system of systems
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Language is stratificational：
Meaning /semantic level
Wording / grammatical level
Sound or writing / phonological
level
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Language is functional:three
metafunctions of language
ideational function 概念功能\达意功能
interpersonal function and 人际功能
textual function 语篇功能
IDEATIONAL METAFUNCTION 达意\概
念功能
“Language serves for the expression
of ‘content’: that is, of the speaker‘s
experience of the real world,
including the inner world of his own
consciousness.” (Halliday 1970)
概念部分描写句子的语意内容。语言如何捕
捉现实和我们对世界的体验，即语言指称
人、物、动作、事件、状态等，主要由经
验和逻辑两个网络系统组成。
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Experiential system is concerned
with the choice of meaning, which is
realized through transitivity system
（及物性系统） of language
经验系统解决意义的选择问题。这主要由及
物性网络来完成。
Transitivity describes the relationship
between the Process of the verb,
Participants and Circumstances.
 The transitivity system views the
world in terms of processes-- material, mental, verbal, existential,
relational, and behavioural
及物系统表示参与某种交际的人之间的某种
关系，以及参与者的活动、状态或环境之
间的关系。说话时往往要包含一种过程。
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• Material 物质过程-- the process of doing
and happening.（包括动作过程和事件过程）
E.g.
1) Alvin drank some oily Milo
（动作过程－有生命的参与者的动作）
2) A stream flows through the valley.
(事件过程－无生命的参与者的动作)
• Mental 心理过程-- the process of
thinking and sensing.
E.g.
Alvin thought for ten minutes.
• Verbal 表达过程-- the process of
saying and expressing.
E.g. Alvin muttered a reply.
• Existential 存在过程-- the process of
existence [involving only existential
constructions].
E.g.
There was an oily stain on Alvin's desk.
• Relational关系过程 -- the process of
being [involving states of being].
E.g.
Alvin is the skinniest bloke alive.
• Behavioural 行为过程-- the process of
behaving.
E.g. Alvin yawned loudly.
The interpersonal metafunction
“Language serves to establish and
maintain social relations: for the
expression of social roles created by
language itself - for example, the roles of
questioner or respondent, which we take
on by asking or answering a question; and
also for getting things done, by means of
the interaction between one person and
another. ”(Halliday 1970)
语言如何建立和维持人与人之间的社会关系，包括
称谓形式、言语功能、情态等。它所引出的系统
处理说话者所持的态度、发表的评论等语用问题.
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The interpersonal metafunction is
mainly realized through the Mood（语
气）and Modality（情态）of language
e.g. Would you like a drink?
Drink this.
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The textual metafunction
Language has to provide for making
links with itself and with the features
of the situation in which it is used
(Halliday 1970)
指书面和口头的语篇，这些语篇内部连贯，
并使用于所用的特定场景。它所引出的系
统与话语的内部构造、衔接等问题发生关
系.
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It is largely concerned with theme主
位 and rheme述位
Theme is in the beginning of a
sentence and rheme is the following
part.
e.g.
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1） Personally, Alvin is even skinnier than
Rowan.[theme =participant]
2）In the past, Alvin was even skinnier
than Rowan. [theme = circumstance]
3) Come in! [theme = process]