Linguistics For Everyone - Chapter 8 - Syntax: Phrase Structure/syntactic Rules

Front 1

Ambiguity

Back 1

A sentence, phrase or word has more than one meaning. This may be related either to hierarchical structure or to silent syntax.

Front 2

Lexical ambiguity

Back 2

Word that has more than one meaning

Front 3

Syntactic ambiguity

Back 3

A clause or phrae has more than one meaning because it has more than one syntactic structure.

Front 4

Hierarchical structure

Back 4

Property of phrase structure whereby one phrase is contained inside another; one phrase dominates another phrase.

Front 5

Subordination

Back 5

Demonstrated when a clause contains other clauses. Eg: I think that Wiley claimed that Joachim believed that Daria said that Isabelle detests clams.

Front 6

Recursion

Back 6

Property that allows phrase structure rules to generate phrases of infinite length.

Front 7

Linguistic competence

Back 7

Humans' unconscious knowledge of language, including recursive rules.

Front 8

Linguistic performance

Back 8

Humans' actual language use in a given situation.

Front 9

Complement

Back 9

A phrase that combines with a head to form a larger phrase.

Front 10

Silent syntax

Back 10

Unpronounced, yet understood, syntactic material in sentences. Eg: "The crab is to hot to eat." = The crab is too hot for (someone) to eat (the crab). OR The crab is too hot for (the crab) to eat (something).

Front 11

Substitution

Back 11

Process by which we replace a phrase with a pronoun or other proform.

Front 12

Constituent

Back 12

A syntactic unit.

Front 13

Proform

Back 13

Word that substitutes for a phrase (AP, PP or even a clause). Egs: 'do so' can replace a VP, 'so' can replace an AP, 'there' can replace a PP.

Front 14

Antecedent

Back 14

Phrase to which a proform refers; antecedents can be linguistic (spoken, written or signed) or pragmatic (interpreted from context).

Front 15

Pronoun reference

Back 15

Process that relates a pronoun to its antecedent, the phrase to which the pronoun refers.

Front 16

Impersonal pronouns

Back 16

Pronouns that refer to no one in particular, as in "They say it will rain all week." or "In the future, we'll have cars that run on alternative energy."

Front 17

Coordination

Back 17

Joining phrases (of the same category, usually) with a conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). Phrases of any category can be coordinated, as can clauses.

Front 18

Parallelism

Back 18

Constraint on coordinating like categories (eg. NP and NP, VP and VP, etc). Coordination that violates parallelism sounds odd, if not ungrammatical.

Front 19

Hypotaxis

Back 19

Subordinate clause structure. ("Wiley is a vegetarian because he is allergic to meat.")

Front 20

Parataxis

Back 20

Coordinate clause structure. ("Wiley is a vegetarian and he is allergic to meat.")

Front 21

Movement

Back 21

Syntactic operation by which phrases can be rearranged in a sentence underspecific conditions or constraints. An example is SAI (subject-auxiliary inversion) in which the auxiliary verb moves to the sentence-initial position to form a question. The question is derived from the statement (or base order). This is considered to be evidence for Chomsky's theory of generative grammar . . . children learn the SAI rule, not an infinite number of questions.

Front 22

Deep structure

Back 22

Clause in its base word order (in English, SVO) before syntactic rules such as movement or deletion apply.

Front 23

Surface structure

Back 23

Clause in its derived order after movement and deletion rules have been applied. DEEP STRUCTURE → Application of rules → SURFACE STRUCTURE

Front 24

Deletion

Back 24

Process by which constituents are deleted in a sentence under certain syntactic conditions. Where Δ indicates the (silent) deletion: "Sally said she would get a llama and she did Δ (get a llama)."

Front 25

VP deletion

Back 25

Syntactic operation in which a verb phrase is deleted by understood as referring to an antecedent verb phrase. Eg: "I don't jog, but Olivia does." The antcedent phrase does not necessarily have to be in the same sentence, as in:
Speaker A: "Did Sally buy a llama?"
Speaker B: "She did (Δ = buy a llama)." (deletion is in different utterance than the antecedent).

Front 26

Gapping

Back 26

Deletion operation that applies in coordinate clauses Eg: "Sam likes halibut,and Cary (Δ=likes) salmon."

Front 27

Constraints on VP deletion

Back 27

Can operatie in either a subordinate clause introduced by a phrase such as "even though" or a coordinate clause preceded by "and".

Front 28

Gapping

Back 28

Deletion operation that applies in coordinate clauses.
Eg: "Sam likes halibut, and Cary (Δ = likes) salmon."

Front 29

Constraints on gapping

Back 29

Cannot occur in a subordinate clause, only in a coordinate clause.
Eg of no gapping in a subordinate clause: *Ziggy bought a Harley even though Alfie (Δ) a Yamaha."
Eg of gapphing in a coordinate clause: "Ziggy bouth a Harley, and Alfie (Δ = bought) a Yamaha."

Front 30

Passive

Back 30

Syntactic operation in which an active sentence ("Beowulf killed Grendel.") is reordered: the object moves to the subject position, and the subject occurs in a prepositional phrase ("Grendel was killed by Beowulf."). The active sentence is the deep structure.

Front 31

Constraints on passive formation

Back 31

Can only apply in clauses with certain verbs. It is possible in clauses with active verbs (meet, discuss), but impossible in clauses with stative verbs such as resembled, become and remain.

Front 32

Movement rules

Back 32

1. SAI inversion to form questions.
2. Formation of the passive
3. Wh- movement

Front 33

Constraints on passive formation

Back 33

Only possible in clauses with active verbs (meet, discuss); impossible in clauses with stative verbs (resembled, become, remain). Eg: "The child became an adult." cannot change to *"An adult was become by the child."

Front 34

Constraints on SAI conversion

Back 34

Can only apply freely in main clauses, not in subordinate clauses. Eg: "I think Minerva is singing the aria." cannot become *"I think is Minerva singing the aria?"

Front 35

Wh- movement

Back 35

Movement rule in which an interrogative phrase is moved to sentence-initial position Eg: "Who did Mary meet yesterday?" This operates in two steps:
DEEP STRUCTURE: "You talked to Bill."
Rule 1: Substitute a wh- phrase: "You talked to whom?"
Rule 2: Move the wh- phrase to the sentence-initial position to form the SURFACE STRUCTURE; "To whom did you talk?" or "Whom did you talk to?"