Syntactic Processing and Structure

Flashcards focused on key vocabulary and concepts related to syntax and sentence structure.

Syntax

The study of how words are combined into sentences.

Grammaticality

The quality of a sentence that determines if it conforms to the rules of a given language.

Lexicon

A set of morphemes, the smallest signs of language that need to be memorized.

Combinatorial Property

The ability of a language to create an effectively infinite number of sentences.

Noun Phrase (NP)

A phrase that typically acts as the subject of a sentence, often containing a noun and its modifiers.

Verb Phrase (VP)

A phrase that contains a verb and any direct or indirect objects, and complements.

Preposition Phrase (PP)

A phrase headed by a preposition, usually providing additional information about time, location, or direction.

Adjective Phrase (AP)

A phrase that contains an adjective, which typically modifies a noun.

Complementizer Phrase (CP)

A phrase that provides information about the overall nature of the sentence, often indicating if it is a statement or a question.

Wh-questions

Questions formed by moving a wh-word to the beginning of a sentence, indicating information is being requested.

Garden Path Phenomena

Instances in sentence processing where the initial interpretation of a sentence is found to be incorrect upon reaching later parts of the sentence.

Minimal Attachment

A heuristic used in sentence parsing that favors simpler structures when interpreting sentences.

Parsing

The process of determining the syntactic structure of an input string.