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Introduction to Syntax

Introduction to Syntax. Linear structure Hierarchical structure Ambiguity. Syntax is:. The study of sentence formation Subconscious grammatical knowledge Word order . Syntax, n. [ ] The study of grammatical relations between words and other units within the sentence.

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Introduction to Syntax

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  1. Introduction to Syntax Linear structure Hierarchical structure Ambiguity

  2. Syntax is: • The study of sentence formation • Subconscious grammatical knowledge • Word order Syntax, n. []The study of grammatical relations between words and other units within the sentence.

  3. What do children know? • Children, when acquiring language learn the following from the language surrounding them: • Word order (SVO, SOV, etc.) • N-Adj or Adj-N • What do you think (what’s) in there? • How do kids master this so quickly?

  4. Universal Grammar? (UG) • Child hears the surrounding language • Detects patterns and matches them with already stored structures • Switches onthose that match; switches offthose that don’t (subconsciously) • Kids seems to develop, instead of learn language. (Human children construct language!Clark p. 222 (Heny))

  5. What do native speakers know? • Grammaticality • Implied interpretations • Ambiguity • Synonymy

  6. Grammaticality Judgments: • We went to my grandmother’s house. • Visiting relatives can be a nuisance. • The children might being sing. • We fed her snail poison. • Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. • Me and Beth are watching a movie. • Swedes like fish more than Italians. • She ain’t got nothing to hide.

  7. Grammaticality Judgments: • We went to my grandmother’s house. • Visiting relatives can be a nuisance. • The children might being sing. • We fed her snail poison. • Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. • Me and Beth are watching a movie. • Swedes like fish more than Italians. • She ain’t got nothing to hide. • A: ambiguous, *: ungrammatical, #: grammatical, but nonsensical, %: grammatical in a non-standard v.

  8. Ambiguous? • I scratched the dog with a stick I love linguistics!!! I’m a stick I’m a dog (I think!)

  9. Do I mean this? • I scratched (the dog with a stick) Nice doggie!

  10. Or do I mean this? • I scratched (the dog) with a stick. scratch scratch

  11. The two meanings are a result of: HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE Sentences are more than just ordered sequences of words. They have internal hierarchical structure as well. scratched the dog with a stick scratched the dog with a stick dog has stick I have stick

  12. Unavoidable Ambiguity • Why can’t we convey these internal hierarchical structures and avoid ambiguity? • LINEAR ORDER • Human verbal communication is limited by linear production. Consequently, sentences are organized linearly.

  13. Two kinds of ambiguity: • She called her boyfriend from Australia. • STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY • We went down to the bank yesterday • LEXICAL AMBIGUITY

  14. Basic Word Order • SVO (English, Chinese) • The boy saw the man. • SOV (Russian, Turkish, Japanese) • Pensive poets painful vigils keep. (Pope) • VSO (Irish, Arabic, Welsh) • Govern thou my song. (Milton)

  15. Basic Word Order • OSV (Jamamadi & Yoda) • When nine hundred years you reach, look as good you will not. • So…put subject in front of the verb, would you? Fail this test you will. • OVS (Apalai - Amazon basin) • VOS (Malagasy (Madagascar)

  16. Word Order (cont’d)

  17. Word Order (cont’d)

  18. How would you say… • English (SVO) • Susiebringscoffee • Japanese (SOV) • sushi-ga co:hi:-o mottekuru • Susiecoffeebring • Malagasy (VOS) • Entin’ kafe Susie • bringcoffeeSusie

  19. Two principles of sentence organization • 1. LINEAR ORDER • not only a limitation, we actually make use of the linearity of the language • In English, limited morphology forces us to use word order to distinguish subject from object. • Tom chased Jerry. • Jerry chased Tom.

  20. Two principles of sentence organization • 2. HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE • As we saw with the ambiguous sentence, this structure is ‘invisible’ upon first glance. • However, there are tests we can perform to discover the hierarchical structure of sentences.

  21. Constituency CONSTITUENT a group of words in a sentence that behave syntactically and semantically as a unit. I have stick dog has stick scratched the dog with a stick scratched the dog with a stick

  22. How to determine constituency • Semantic intuitions • sometimes, we just know that certain strings of words go together as a unit. • Constituency Tests (more reliable) • tests that can be applied to string of words in a given sentence to determine if the string is a constituent or not.

  23. Next …. • Constituency tests • Phrase Structure Rules

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