syntax

what is syntax

sentence construction - how words group together to make phrases and sentences

what does the scope of syntax include

the classification of words, the order of words and phrases in a sentence, the structure of phrases and sentences and the different sentence constructions that languages use

how is a linguistic example structured

each example has three lines, first line is from the source language under consideration, second is the gloss, third is idiomatic translation

what is a gloss

a literal translation of the original language, each meaningful part of the original is translated whether it correspons directly to a word in english or not. e.g. in French ‘ne’ is glossed as NEGATIVE

what does a dash mean in a gloss

a dash preceding or following a piece of grammatical information means that the grammatical element is attached to the word or to another element and cannot be a separate word. it does still have its own meaning. called an affix

what does a colon mean in a gloss

sometimes a word contains more than one piece of information but these elements have no discernible boundaries e.g. took is past tense but doesnt have -ed suffix so would be glossed as ‘take: past’

what occurs during a passive construction

• involves the PROMOTION of an OBJECT phrase to a new grammatical position i.e. the subject

• the phrase that used to be in the subject position undergoes a grammatical demotion

• the advancement to subject position makes the promoted phrase more salient and focus attention

• phrases that were the subjects of active sentences are no longer subjects

• they have been demoted to a lower, less prominent grammatical position

• demotion in this case means that they are consigned to a ‘by phrase’

• this is entirely optional an can be omitted

what is hierarchical structure of language

words group togetner to form phrases which then group together to form larger phrases and sentences

what is recursion

sentences can always have more information (clauses) embedded within them - infinitely so

example of a verb gap test

Ari wanted to ____

example of a noun gap test

____ became extinct in the eighteenth century

example of an adjective gap test

Ari looked really ____

how can you determine word class

• examining distribution

• examining morphosyntax

how can you determine word class through examining morphosyntax

• looking at the form the word takes in different contexts

• e.g. the verb escape can take the -ed ending for past tense but the noun escape cant

how can distributional evidence be used to determine word class

• seeing how nouns and adjectives are modiied by different word classes

• nouns can be modified by adjectives or nouns

• adjectives however are modified by adverbs

what is the third way in which word class can be identified

• function - the particular role the word plays in relation to other parts of the sentence

what is a grammaticality judgement task

asking a native speaker to read a sentence and judge whether it is well formed (grammatical), marginally well formed or ill formed (unacceptable or ungrammatical)

what is semantic ill formedness

when the meaning of a sentence is strange but the form is okay

#the toothrush is pregnant

what is syntactic ill formed ness

when the sentence seems semantically reaosnable but it is ill formed from a structural point of view

*toothbrush the is blue

what are garden path sentences

grammatical but often unclear at first ‘cotton shirts are made of comes from india’

what is centre embedding

when relative clauses are stacked between subjects and verbs ‘cheese mice love stinks’ ‘#cheese mice cats catch love stinks’

what is performance

the kinds of language that are actually produced ad heard - we can be distracted / we can mumble / we can forget

what is competence

what we know about our language

what are derivational morphemes

affixes that make words out of other words

• result in a different part of speech from the word they attach to

• e.g. (t)ion creates nouns and -al creates adjectives

what are inflectional morphemes

morphemes that attach only to certain categories

• the superlative -est only attaches to words that are already adjectives

what are the derivational suffixes of nouns

-ment, -ness, -ity, -tion, -ant, -ery, -ism, -acy

what are the inflectional suffixes of nouns

nouns in english dont show much inflection but when pluralised can take suffixes such as -s, -es, -en, -ren, -i, -a

what is the syntactic distribution of nouns

nouns often appear after determiners and can appear after adjectives. nouns can also follow prepositions, nouns can be negated by ‘no’ as opposed to ‘not’ or ‘un’

what is the function of nouns

can be subject or object

what are the derivational suffixes of verbs

-ate, -ise

what are the inflectional suffixes of verbs

in the past tense verbs usually take -ed or -t and in the present tense third person singular they take -s ending

verbs can also take an -ing ending in some aspectual constructions and most take either an -en or -ed when passivised

what is the syntactic distribution of verbs

verbs can follow auxiliaries and modals such as will, have, had, has as well as the special non finite marker ‘to’

verbs can follow subjects and can follow adverbs such as often and frewuently

verbs can be negated with ‘not’ as opposed to ‘no’ or ‘un’

what are the derivational suffixed of adjectives

-ing, -ive, -able, -al, -ate, -ish, -some, -ful

what are the inflectional suffixes of adjectives

• can be inflected into a comparative form using -er or can follow the word more

• superlative form of -est

• typically negated using the prefix -un

what is the syntactic distribution of adjectives

• can appear between determiners such as the, a, these, and nouns (the big peanut)

• they can also follow the auxiliary am/is/are/was/were (overlaps with verbs here)

• adjectives can also be modified by the adverb very (overlabs with adverb here)

what are the derivational suffixes of adverbs

-ly

what are the inflectional suffixes of adverbs

• generally dont take on any inflectional suffixes however on rare occasions they an be used comparitively and follow the word more

• adverbs typically dont take the prefix -un unless the adjective they are derived from does first

what is the syntactic distribution of adverbs

they cant appear between a determiner and a noun or after the verb and its variants. they typically appear at either the beginning or end of the clause

what is the form of prepositions

(closed class - just list them) to, from, under, over, with, by, at, above, before, after, though, near, on, off eyc.

what is the distribution of prepositions

occur before nouns, can be modified by adverbs (straight, right, well, just)

what is the function of prepositions

express meaning closely related to that expressed by adjectives and adverbs: place/time/manner

what is the form of determiners

(closed class) the, an, this, that, these, each, every

what is the distribution of determiners

the occur before nouns

what is the function of determiners

they modifiy nouns and provide a context for them (they specify a particular noun)

what are some similarities between determiners and adjectives

• both modify nouns

• both agree with the features of the noun (pl/sg, gram gen.)

• both precede the noun in english

what are some differences between determiners and adjectives

• position - determiners always precede adjectives

• uniqueness - there can only be one determiner per phrase

• productivity - adjectives belong to an open class and new ones can be created unlike determiners

• gradability - determiners cannot be graded unlike adjectives

what are nominal features

• number: sg/pl, dual, trial, paucal

• gender/noun class: genders for 2/3 classes and ‘noun class’ for more than this

• definiteness: definite = specific or familiarness (what you know), indefinite (non specific)

what are adjectival features

comparison

• comparative: -er (nicer, longer smoother)

• superlative: -est (nicest, longest, smoothest)

• other languages may express further distinctions e.g. equative in welsh

what are verbal features

tense, aspect, mood, voice, transitivity

what is tense

the time at/during which an action takes place

• usually past/present/future

• some languages make further distinctions

• haya has three diff. past tenses

what is aspect

• is it a single event or repeated?

• imperfective = ongoing/in progress

• perfective = completed

• habitual = an event that occurs regularly over time

• iterative = an event that is repeated (Jim keeps on eating peanuts)

• inchoative = the beginning of an action (jim is starting to go running along the river)

what is mood

expresses notions such as possibility, certainty and probability

what is voice

• can be active or passive

• in some languages voice is expressed morphologically through the use of case

what is transitivty

the number of arguements in a predicate

what is a predicate

the expression of an ‘event’ in the sentence - the major function of verbs is to express predication

what is an arguement

the participant(s) of a verb

what are intransitive verbs

only have one arguement (johnny giggled)

what are transitive verbs

have two arguements, the subject and two objects, ‘i pet the cat’

what are ditransitive verbs

verbs that have three arguements, the subject and two objects (Johnny gave the book to me)

what is valency

the ability of a predicate to take arguements

• intransitive verbs have a valency of 1, transitive 2, ditransitive 3

what are the features of grammatical subjects

• position: subject precedes the verb in english

• case marking: pronominal subjects take the nominative case

• verbal agreements: verb agrees with the subject

• tag questions: pronoun in a tag question and the subject must be co-referential

what are the features of grammatical objects

• can be direct or oblique (indirect)

• position: immediately follows the verb in english

• case: pronominal objects take the accusative case

• passivisation: the direct object of an active clause correspons to the subjects of a passive clause

what are semantic/thematic roles

agent, theme/patient, goal(recipient)/beneficiary, experiencer, instrument, cause

what is an agent

animate, deliberately carries out the action and has control over it ‘the doer’

what is a theme/patient (often direct objects)

the entity that undergoes the action, the one that is moved, changed or physicaly affected by the action

what is the goal(recipient) / beneficiary

the entity towards which the action is directed (often oblique objects)

what is the experiencer

the entity that experiences an emotion or state, sentient but is not in control

instrument

the means by which something is done

cause

the entity responsible for an event

what are grammatical categories

parts of speech (N, V, ADJ, ADV) in terms of their distribution and morphological properties

what are grammatical features

things that each grammatical category can be specified for e.g. nominal features such as gender, number and case and verbal features such as tense and mood, these go in glosses alongside lexical information

What are grammatical functions

subject, object, oblique

What is a clause

a grammatical unit that consists of a subject and a predicate

what does a predicate do

expresses an event in a sentence

what is the head of a predicate typically fulfilled by

a verb

what is a noun phrase

phrases with a noun as their head e.g. ‘sally who lives next door’

what is the head of a phrase

the most important element of a phrase and the one that defines what sort of phrase it is

what are the elements other than a head in a phrase

dependets

what is a simple sentence

contains only one clause/one finite verb, they are independent (or main or matrix) clauses

what is a finite verb

a verb that is marked for tense and/or person and number features

what are finite forms

those that belong to the present and simple past: speak, speaks, spoke

what are non-finite forms

speaking, to speak, spoken

where can finitesness be marked in english

on either the lexical or the auxiliary verb

what is an auxiliary verb

helping verbs, occur with lexical verbs, express a variety of grammatical features (they are a functional category

what is periphrasis

using multiple words to convey a grammatical meaning (yo voy a bailar)

what is synthetic

using one inflected form to convey grammatical meaning (yo bailaré)

what are lexical verbs

verbs that carry most of the meaning in a sentence

what are modal auxiliaries

• express concepts such as permission, obligation, necessity, ability

• they select the non-finite form of the verb (the bare uninflected form of the verb)

• they occur in their finite form but do not take third person -s in the present

• may, might, will, would, can, could, ought to

what are aspectual auxiliaries

• communicate aspect

• perfective aspect is communicated by tge auxiliary verb have

• progressive aspect is communicated by the auxiliary verb be as well as the addition of the -ing form

what is the auxiliary do

a form of do that is used with lexical verbs to form negatives and yes-no (polar) interrogatives (also found in tag questions as well as in emphatic declaratives)

what are infinitives

• a non finite verb form

• follow the inifitival marker to

• cannot take the third person singular -s

what is a distributional test for infinitives

• following a modal auxiliary e.g. he must xyz, she does xyz chocolate

• following the infinitival marker to e.g. to err is human, i have to arrive on time

what is a complex sentence

sentences that consist of more than one clause

how can complex sentences be formed

by coordination or by subordination

what is coordination

• simple independent clauses are joined together/coordinated to form a complex sentence

• joined by coordinating conjunctions such as and, but and or

• each clause can stand alone as an independent clause and there are no syntactic restrictions on the order of the clauses

• all the clauses in a coordination have equal syntactic status, no clause is dependent on any other

what is subordination

• clauses do not have an equal syntactic status

• one clause is a matrix clause and the other is a subordinate clause which is embedded within the matrix clause

• the subordinate cause is dependent on the matrix clause

what does the brackets in a phrase indicate

the clause in the bracket is subordinate and is an obligatory arguement of the verb in the matrix clause

what is an arguement

a phrase selected by a predicate i.e. a phrase that a predicate requires in order to be grammatically and semantically complete

what is a complement

a non-subject arguement of a predicate

how are subordinate complement clauses introduced

by a small functional element known as a complementizer e.g. that, whether, if