Syntactic Processing and Structure

SYNTAX

Overview of Syntax

Syntax is the study of how words are combined into sentences. It characterizes a native speaker’s knowledge regarding what constitutes a well-formed grammatical expression in their language. Key points include:

• Grammaticality vs. Prescriptiveness: Grammaticality does not equal whether a sentence makes sense. For example, 'Colorless green ideas sleep furiously' is well-formed but nonsensical, while 'I put the sweater on' and 'I put it on' are ill-formed yet interpretable.
• Grammaticality is gradable. E.g.
  • ✓ The big red starfish is pretty
  • ? The red big starfish is pretty
  • * Red big starfish is pretty.

Syntax as a Computational System

Syntax entails:

• Lexicon: The set of morphemes (smallest signs of language).
• Computational System: Rules for categorization and combination of morphemes.
  This combinatorial property allows for effectively infinite productivity, enabling native speakers to spontaneously create or comprehend any sentence that conforms to syntactical rules.

Key Elements in Syntax

• Categories: Syntax focuses on categories like nouns, verbs, which are essential over meanings. Categories are defined more by formal properties than by meaning.
• Sentence Structure: Sentences consist of phrases typically organized into a subject (Noun Phrase) and predicate (Verb Phrase).

Phrases & Sentences

• Sentences are composed of phrases, mainly involving the subject (Noun Phrase - NP) and the predicate (Verb Phrase - VP).
• Example Noun Phrases (NPs): 'Narwhals', 'The narwhals', 'The big narwhals'. All refer to narwhals and fit wherever an NP is required in a sentence context.

X-Bar Structure

• X-Bar Structure: This is an abstract blueprint representing the syntactic structure of phrases.
  Example:
  XP \rightarrow X' \rightarrow X
• Merge: The process combining syntactic objects or morphemes.

Hierarchical Phrase Form

Noun Phrases (NP)

• Form: NP \rightarrow (Det) (AP) N (PP)
• Example: The phrase "the green shoes with ribbons" is structured as follows:
  • Det: The
  • N': N shoes
  • PP: with ribbons.

Verb Phrases (VP)

• Form: VP \rightarrow V (NP) (PP)
• Example: "leave town quickly" showcases structure where (AP) can fit in various positions except between V and NP.

Preposition Phrases (PP)

• Headed by prepositions.
• Basic structure: PP \rightarrow (AP) P (PP) (NP)
• Examples: "up", "in the house", "by the lake".

Adjective/Adverb Phrases (AP)

• Structure: AP \rightarrow (Deg) A (PP)
• Example: "very happy", "happy with Jon".

Inflectional Phrases (IP)

• Sentences (IPs) consist of an NP subject and a VP predicate.
• Verbs anchor to tense via inflection. For example, I heads indicate if past or non-past tense.

Complementizer Phrases (CP)

• Above IP, CP adds information regarding the sentence structure.
• Differentiates between sentence types: declaratives and questions.

Syntactic Processing and Parsing

• Parse: To resolve a sentence into its components and indicate their roles. Parsing determines syntactic structure and significance in real-time language processing.
• Importance of parsers: Different strings can form multiple syntactic structures (e.g., "I saw the boy with the binoculars").

Grammar and Parser Relationship

• The grammar provides rules for forming expressions; the parser operationalizes these rules during comprehension.
• Example: ChatGPT parses using statistical regularities from language corpora.

Architectures in Syntactic Processing

• Discusses how ambiguity may occur at various levels (e.g., lexical, semantic).
• Ambiguous structures prompt a variety of interpretations, featuring temporary and global ambiguities.

Garden Path Phenomena

• Syntactic ambiguity can mislead parsing at first glance (e.g., "The horse raced past the barn fell").
• Various parsing solutions, including serial vs. parallel architectures, are proposed to resolve ambiguities.

Miscellaneous Parsing Strategies

• Employs left-corner parsing and top-down methods, acknowledging failures in arbitrary choices that lead to misanalysis.

Examples and Studies in Syntax

• Visual world experiments demonstrate how syntactic structures influence comprehension.

• Behavioral patterns indicate how context and sentence structure affect processing and interpretation of meaning.

• Final summaries of various studies discussing the efficiency of parsing models in sentence structures illustrate critical distinctions in processing syntax.

This concludes the detailed notes on the syntax, its structures, forms, processes, and relevant theories that operate within language comprehension and production.