Syntax - Lecture notes 1-10 PDF

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Lecture notes for Syntax 1. class...

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SYNTAX I. The place of syntax in grammar, the tasks of syntax Syntax is about the study of sentence structure. More precisely: the level of linguistic organization that mediates between sounds and meaning, where words are organized into phrases and sentences. Syntax is the grammatical arrangement of words in a sentence. The primary unit is the sentence. Tasks of syntax: 1. to make judgments on grammaticality: Our syntactic knowledge tells us whether a sentence is grammatical or not. It doesn’t matter whether we heard that sentence before or not. This is not a conscious knowledge. Grammaticality depends on:  word order: The boy quickly in the house the ball found. The word order is irregular. By putting words in a certain order we secure meaning in English. For example, Latin is an inflected language and doesn't depend on word order to convey meaning.  Subcategorisation: each major part of speech category may have sub-types. These subtypes are called subcategories. * The boy found. – The boy found the ball. (verb needs an object)  Selectional restriction: the lexicon (a speaker’s mental dictionary) represents the knowledge that speakers have about the vocabulary of their language. This knowledge includes the syntactic category of words and what elements may occur together. What can appear in particular positions. The girl cried. - ?The rock cried. Grammaticality does not depend on:  Meaning: if the sentence does not make any sense it can be syntactically well formed. A verb crumpled the milk.  Truth: grammaticality does not depend on the truth of the sentences. Untrue sentences can be grammatical.  Existence of the entities spoken about: grammaticality does not depend on whether real objects are being discussed. Unicorns are dangerous. 2. to reveal the structure of phrases and sentences: Devices:  Constituent structure tree : it preserves the linear order of elements, it shows the grouping of words, it shows the syntactic category of each constituent (NP, VP), it shows the hierarchy of elements  Phrase structure rules: the distribution of phrases within a sentence: S -> NP VP . Phrase structure rules specify the structures of a language precisely and concisely. They express regularities of the language. 3. to explain structural ambiguity: ambiguities are result of different structures. 4. to account for grammatical and logical relations: syntactic knowledge also enables us to determine the grammatical relations in a sentence, such as subject and direct object, and how they are to be understood. II. The structure and constituents of the simple sentence The most basic type of sentence is the simple sentence, which contains only one clause. Usually, however, the sentence has a subject as well as a predicate and both the subject and the predicate may have modifiers. A simple sentence, also called an independent clause, contains a subject and a verb, and it expresses a complete thought. Eg.: A. Some students like to study in the mornings. B. Juan and Arturo play football every afternoon. C. Alicia goes to the library and studies every day. Structure of the simple sentence: There are obligatory elements and possible patterns of the English simple sentence: SV: The sun is shining. => intransitive verb: they require no object.  SVO: That lecture bored me. => monotransitive verb: they require a direct object. 

SVC: Your dinner seems ready. => copular verb: they require a CS (intensive) SVA: My office is in the next building. => linking verbs: they require an adverbial. SVOO: I must send my parents an anniversary card. => ditransitive verbs: they require an  indirect and a direct object. SVOC: Most students have found her reasonably helpful. => complex transitive verb: they  require a direct object and an CO SVOA: You can put the dish on the table.  The Simple sentence may be one of these seven types. S, V, O, C, A are the sentence (clause) Constituents. The obligatory elements are determined by the feature of the verb (intransitive, ditransitive etc.). Related terms:  Subject: The subject is what (or whom) the sentence is about.  Predicate: the predicate tells something about the subject.  Modifier: A modifier can be an adjective, an adverb, or a phrase or clause acting as an adjective or adverb In every case, the basic principle is the same: the modifier adds information to another element in the sentence.  Subject complement CS: it provides additional information about the subject.  Object complement: it modifies the object.  Complement: a constituent of a phrase which is required to complete the meaning of the Head. III. Sentence constituents: the subject and the object Constituents: the natural groupings of a sentence. An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. As an example, the following sentence is given: In the sentence "Bobby kicked the ball", "ball" is the object. "Bobby" is the subject, the doer or performer, while " kick" is the action, and " ball" is the object involved in the action. Types of object: Objects fall into three classes: direct objects, prepositional objects, and indirect objects (non-prepositional). An indirect object is the recipient of the direct object, or an otherwise affected participant in the event. Eg.: I sent him (Oi) a present (Od). In "We listened to the radio", the radio is the object of the preposition to, and the prepositional object of the verb listened. Position of the object: normally after the subject and verb. If both objects are present, the indirect normally comes before the direct one. Syntactic function: It requires an objective case of pronouns The object of an active clause can usually become the subject of a passive clause:  My address was given to him.  He was given my address. The indirect object generally has a PP paraphrase:  I gave her my address. – I gave my address to her.  I bought her a summer dress. – I bought a summer dress for her. Semantic role/properties: a) direct object  Affected: the entity to which something is done. It does not cause the happening denoted by the verb (patients which are affected by the verbal action): I’m digging the ground. EXAMPLE: in He ate a sandwich, a sandwich denotes the affected object because the sandwich gradually disappears in the eating-process.  Resultant/effected: it comes into being (as a result of the verbal action.) by virtue of the activity denoted by the verb: Baird invented television.  Locative: with verbs of motion: I passed a cyclist.  Cognate: the object noun repeats the meaning of the verb: They fought a clean fight.  Eventive: with verbs of very general meaning (do, give, make, have, take): They are having an argument. 

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b) indirect object  Recipient: the animate being who benefits from the action: I’ve found you a place.  Affected: with give: She gave me a push. Subjects can often be described as the constituent that performs the action described by the Predicate, e.g. John kicked the ball. The Predicate is kicked the ball and John performs this action; so John is the Subject of this sentence. The subject has the grammatical function in a sentence of relating its constituent (a noun phrase) by means of the verb to any other elements present in the sentence, i.e. objects, complements and adverbials. 1) form: normally an NP or a nominal clause.  What you are saying is not true. 2) position: before the verb in a declarative clause. After the operator in yes-no interrogatives and in wh- questions except where the wh-element is itself the subject  What is most important in life? 3) syntactic function:  It is obligatory in finite clauses except in imperative clauses: Keep off the grass. (implied subject: you)  In finite clauses it determines the number and person of the verb: Nancy knows my parents.  It determines the number of the subject complement when that is an NP: Caroline is my sister. Caroline and Vanessa are my sisters.  It determines the number, person and gender of the reflexive pronoun as O d, Oi, Cs : I shaved myself with my own razor.  It requires the subjective case of pronouns. 4) semantic role: what kind of participant the NP is in the situation denoted by the verb  Agent: conscious performer of the action (cselekvő alany): Peter planted the flowers yesterday.  External cause: inanimate cause of an event: The earthquake destroyed the whole village.  Instrument: the generally inanimate entity an agent uses to perform an action: A car knocked them down.  Affected (experiencer): The living entity that experiences the action or event denoted by the predicate. Jack fell down. The pencil was lying on the table.  Positioner: the subject is in control but the situation yields no result. They are staying in a hotel.  Recipient: They have a beautiful house. I saw the accident.  Identified: Kevin is my brother.  Characterized: Sue is a nice girl.  Location: the place of the state or action: Miskolc is foggy.  Time: the time of the state or action: Tomorrow is my birthday.  Event: it is deverbal: The normann invasion took place in 1066.  Prop-word: with little or no semantic content: It’s already midnight. Related terms: Nominal clause: A nominal clause is a subordinate clause that functions as a noun phrase. Examples (English)  I know that he is here.  From where I stood, I saw the horse. Subject complement CS: it provides additional information about the subject. Reflexive pronoun: A reflexive pronoun is a special kind of pronoun. It is usually used when the object of a sentence is the same as the subject. Reflexive pronouns are used in three main situations: 1. When the subject and object are the same: He shot himself. 2. As the object of a preposition, referring to the subject: I bought a present for myself. 3. When you want to emphasize the subject: I'll do it myself. (No-one else will help me.) Finite clause: A finite clause is a clause with a finite verb. A finite verb is a verb form that occurs in an independent clause, and is fully inflected according to the inflectional categories marked on verbs in the language. IV. Sentence constituents: the complement and the adverbial

Complement: The complement is a constituent of a phrase which is required to complete the meaning of the Head. e.g. a review of the book => of the book is the complement of the Head review detectives examined the scene => the scene is the complement of the Head examined We find complements which function as a sentence element (i.e. of equal status to subjects and objects) and complements which exist within sentence elements. Subject complement: relates to the subject. It provides additional information about the subject, it tells more about the subject by means of the verb. In the examples below the sentence elements are (SUBJECT + VERB + COMPLEMENT)  Mr. Jenner is a management consultant. (a predicative nominal)  She looks ill. (a predicative adjective) Alan is an artist. => The noun phrase an artist is the Subject Complement and it provides more information about Alan. These complements complete the meaning of the subject. The subject complement normally follows the subject. Object complement: relates to the direct object. It modifies the object. An object complement tells us more about the object by means of the verb. The object complement renames or defines the direct object. The object complement normally follows the direct object. In the examples below the sentence elements are (SUBJECT + VERB + OBJECT + COMPLEMENT)  We elected him chairman. (a predicative nominal)  We painted the house white. (a predicative adjective) I consider the driver tired. => In this case, the noun driver is the direct object of the verb consider, but the adjective tired is still acting as its complement. Syntactic function: if it is an NP, the subject complement normally has concord (egyezés) of number with the subject, the object complement with the object: A dog is an intelligent animal. Dogs are intelligent animals. It cannot become the subject of a passive clause: His friends call him Ted. – He’s called Ted by his friends. If the subject complement is a pronoun, it can be in subjective case in formal use: That is he. – That is him. Semantic properties:  Identification: Brenda became their accountant. They called their daughter Edna.  Characterization: Dwight is an honest man.  Current: He’s my brother. They consider me their closest friend.  Resulting: We became restless. They elected him president. Adverbial: (határozószó) An adverbial is a word (an adverb) or a group of words (an adverbial phrase or an adverbial clause) which modifies or tells us something about the sentence or the verb. Danny speaks fluently. (telling us more about the verb) Adverbials operate at sentence level as sentence elements, as in the example below: Lorna ate breakfast yesterday morning. (SUBJECT + VERB + OBJECT + ADVERBIAL) Forms: James answered immediately. (adverb) James answered in English. (prepositional phrase) James answered this morning. (noun phrase) James answered in English because he had a foreign visitor. (adverbial clause) An adverbial is a construction that modifies, or describes, verbs. When an adverbial modifies a verb, it changes the meaning of that verb. In every sentence pattern, the adverbial tells where, when, why, how, etc. There can be more than one adverbial in a sentence. Also, an adverbial is most often optional. They are movable, they are the most mobile constituent.

Adverbial: a phrase or clause that functions as a clause element answering questions such as 'When?', 'Where?', 'How?'. There are three major classes of adverbials: circumstace, stance and linking. circumstance adverbial (time, place, result) Adverbials are typically divided into four classes: Adverbial complements (i.e. obligatory adverbial): these are adverbials that render a sentence ungrammatical and meaningless if removed. John put the flowers in a vase. Adjuncts: these are part of the core meaning of the sentence, but if omitted still leave a meaningful sentence. John helped me with my homework. Conjuncts: these link two sentences together. John helped so. I was, therefore, able to do my homework. Disjuncts: these make comments on the meaning of the rest of the sentence. Surprisingly, he passed all of his exams. VII. The complex noun phrase, types of pre- and postmodification A noun phrase is either a pronoun or any group of words that can be replaced by a pronoun. For example, 'they', 'cars', and 'the cars' are noun phrases, but 'car' is just a noun. Noun phrases can be infinite in length, but they would sound absurd if they got too long. Complex Noun Phrases contain two or more nouns. The defining word is always before the defined word. In a complex noun phrase, the keyword (the most important one) is usually the last one. "The very tall education consultant with the roving eye" The structure of this noun phrase contains three sections:  Pre-modification  The =determiner  very =adverb (intensifying)  tall = adjective  education = pre-modifying noun  Head noun  consultant  Post-modification  with the roving eye = preposition phrase Types of modification: 1.  restrictive: the head is viewed as a member of a class which can be linguistically identified only through the modification that has been supplied. i.e. the girl who was standing in the corner  Non-restrictive: the head can be viewed as unique or as a member of a class that has been independently identified. i.e. John Smith, who was standing in the corner 2.  Permanent: premodifying adjectives: a pretty girl  Temporary: predicative adjectives: an afraid girl Premodification: Noun premodification is where one or more words (normally either adjectives, or other nouns) are placed in front of a noun, to further describe (adjectivize) or define the noun. Premodification can be accomplished by many means: Adjective: We visited their delightful house. Participles: We visited their charming house. We visited their decayed house. ’s genitive: We visited their fisherman's house. Noun: We visited their country house. Adverbial: We visited their far-away house. Sentence: We visited their pop-down-for-the-weekend house. Multiple premodification: 1. more than one premodifier is related to a single head: his last brilliant book 2. a premodifier is related to more than one head: the new table and chairs 3. the premodifier is premodified: his really quite unbelievably delightful cottage

Post modification: is also known as qualification. Basically it is when extra information is added after the noun itself. Nouns can be post-modified by relative clauses too, The teacher, who was extremely brainy, taught the class. Postmodifying items can be: 1. relative clauses 2. appositive (értelmező j.) clauses: The belief that no one is infallible is well-founded. That is not an element of clause structure. 3. non-finite clauses:  ING participle clauses: The man painting the sign is my friend.  ED participle clauses: All the people invited to the party turned up sooner or later. The meaning is always passive.  Infinitive clauses: The man for John to consult is Wilson. 4. prepositional phrases: a man of reason VIII. Word-level categories, evidences Word-level category: a set of words which share a common set of linguistic properties (especially morphological and syntactic). Words belong to various categories of different types – categories like Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb, Preposition, Modal, Determiner. If there would be no categories in language, the task of acquiring competence would be an impossible one. Evidences:  Phonological evidence: stress assignment. Stress attached to the word class. i.e. ‘increase; in’crease  Semantic: verbs denote actions, nouns denote entities, adjectives denote states. i.e. very unreliable  Morphological: certain types of inflection attach only to specific categories: i.e. –er, -est: adjectives  Syntactic: distributional: the distribution of a word: the set of syntactic positions it can occur in: e.g. nouns typically function as subjects, objects or prepositional complements. As for the semantic type of evidence, it is important to distinguish two very different types of ambiguity: lexical and structural. Lexical ambiguity is ambiguity attributable to the fact that some particular lexical item (=word) has more than one meaning. For example, the word ball is ambiguous as between one sense in which it means a ‘round object used for playing games’, and a second sense in which it means a ‘dance’; the ambiguity here is purely lexical. Structural: Mistrust wounds => N+V or V+N IX. Phrasal categories, evidences, words used as phrases, phrasal and prepositional verbs Sentences are structured not only out of words but also out of phrases belonging to a set of phrasal categories. Evidence for the existence of phrasal categories:  Morphological: ‘s: a phrasal inflection: Moses was the daughter of Pharaoh’s son.  Semantic: ambiguity may relate to the categorical status of a particular phrase: Mary looked very hard.  Syntactic: only phrasal constituents can undergo movement: 1. preposing: Your elder sister, I can’t stand. 2. postposing: He explained to her all the terrible problems he had encountered . Only phrasal constituents can be sentence fragments: Where did he go? Up the hill. Who were you ringing up? Up my elder sister. Only identical constituents can be conjoined: John wrote a letter and a postcard. John rang up his mother and up his sister. Only phrasal constituents can undergo shared constituent coordination: John walked (and Mary ran) up the hill. John rang (and Harry picked) up Mary’s sister. Only phrasal constituents can be substituted by a proform:

The book on the table. It is interesting. Words as phrases: Phrase is a set of elements which form a constituent. NP= expression containing a head noun. Diagnostics for determining whether a given set of words in a sentence is a constituent or not:  Replacement test  Movement test  Sentence fragment test  VP-adverbial test (adjunct also called VP adverbials, disjunct, conjuct called sentence adverbials)  Coordination test  Shared constituent coordination  Ellipsis  Positioning of objects Phrasal verbs: A phrasal verb is a verb plus a p...