Activity 2
In order to carry out this task properly, I have analyzed the corresponding content of Yule’s book (Yule, 2010).
Instructions: Answer the following discussion project from Yule’s The Study of Language: There is a principle of syntax called “structure dependency” that is often used to show that the rules of language structure depend on hierarchical organization and not on linear position. For example, someone trying to learn English might be tempted to think that questions of the type in (2) are formed simply by moving the second word in a statement (1) to become the first word of a question (2).
(1) Shaggy is tired. (2) Is Shaggy tired?
You will help him. Will you help him?
Using the sentences in (2)–(6), try to decide if this is …show more content…
Of course, I am taking into account only the words of our examples.
V {help, called, be, ordered , playing, scored }
After that, working with the last big constituent, that is, VP, I obtain the following Lexical rules regarding my six sentences:
VP V VP’
VP’ {Adj, AdvP, NP, ᶲ, PP}
As I can make use of the previous Lexical rules, I only define some constituents. Needless to say that they not only appear in VP of the main sentence S, but also in the embedded sentences:
AdvP {Adv Adj}
Adv {too, really}
Pro {him} (It had not been included in the corresponding Lexical rule)
Adj {tired, missing, new, expensive}
ᶲ (there is no VP’ in the embedded sentence “you’ve ordered”)
PP {P DP DIS DP}
DIS {or}
In conclusion, I have to highlight the fact that I defined my Lexical rules in order to work on the six sentences exclusively. As shown, the underlying complexity arises when trying to include specific details. Likewise, we could notice that the constituents relate each other hierarchically, not linearly. That is why the first hypothesis failed. In fact, if we test my rules with more samples of sentences they are going to fail, too. Thus, it is less risky to assert the rule DP Aux VP => Aux DP VP is valid to make Yes/no questions out of declarative
In order to carry out this task properly, I have analyzed the corresponding content of Yule’s book (Yule, 2010).
Instructions: Answer the following discussion project from Yule’s The Study of Language: There is a principle of syntax called “structure dependency” that is often used to show that the rules of language structure depend on hierarchical organization and not on linear position. For example, someone trying to learn English might be tempted to think that questions of the type in (2) are formed simply by moving the second word in a statement (1) to become the first word of a question (2).
(1) Shaggy is tired. (2) Is Shaggy tired?
You will help him. Will you help him?
Using the sentences in (2)–(6), try to decide if this is …show more content…
Of course, I am taking into account only the words of our examples.
V {help, called, be, ordered , playing, scored }
After that, working with the last big constituent, that is, VP, I obtain the following Lexical rules regarding my six sentences:
VP V VP’
VP’ {Adj, AdvP, NP, ᶲ, PP}
As I can make use of the previous Lexical rules, I only define some constituents. Needless to say that they not only appear in VP of the main sentence S, but also in the embedded sentences:
AdvP {Adv Adj}
Adv {too, really}
Pro {him} (It had not been included in the corresponding Lexical rule)
Adj {tired, missing, new, expensive}
ᶲ (there is no VP’ in the embedded sentence “you’ve ordered”)
PP {P DP DIS DP}
DIS {or}
In conclusion, I have to highlight the fact that I defined my Lexical rules in order to work on the six sentences exclusively. As shown, the underlying complexity arises when trying to include specific details. Likewise, we could notice that the constituents relate each other hierarchically, not linearly. That is why the first hypothesis failed. In fact, if we test my rules with more samples of sentences they are going to fail, too. Thus, it is less risky to assert the rule DP Aux VP => Aux DP VP is valid to make Yes/no questions out of declarative