Almen sproglig viden og metode (General linguistics) Grammar. Rules. Morphology: the structure of words. the structure of sentences

Transcription

1 Almen sproglig viden og metode (General linguistics) Ø PP P PP P Introduction to the tudy of yntax CLM, engelsk tt Grammar Morphology: the structure of words yntax: the structure of sentences Rules Morphology describes the rules by which morphemes combine into words yntax describes the rules by which words combine into sentences

2 ome basic notions Grammaticality Meaningfulness Ambiguity Grammatical or? not?

3 Meaningfulness Colorless green ideas sleep furiously - vs. grammaticality *Green furiously ideas sleep colorless Ambiguity What he means and what she scribbles synthetic buffalo hides synthetic buffalo hides

4 The hierarchical structure of sentences he was late Rule of question formation:? - switch the order of the first two words? the secretary general was late? *secretary the general was late [The secretary general] is a syntactic unit a constituent - switch the order of the first two constituents (better but not yet quite correct) The aim of syntax to identify the constituents of sentences to name those constituents* to determine their syntactic functions to determine their semantic functions * another way to say this: to assign constituents to syntactic categories Principles of yntactic Analysis V AdvP This is how it works

5 Identifying constituent boundaries: the adverbial test [All the students may pass their exams] naturally naturally naturally naturally naturallynaturallynaturally naturally [[aturally] [all the students may pass their exams]] *All [naturally] the students may pass their exams *All the [naturally] students may pass their exams [[All the students] [naturally] may pass their exams] [[All the students] [may] [naturally] pass their exams] *All the students may pass [naturally] their exams *All the students may pass their [naturally] exams [[All the students] [may] [ pass their exams] [naturally ]] Identifying constituents aturally = of course aturally = in a natural way [entence adverbial] [Manner adverbial] [aturally [all the students may pass their exams]] [[All the students] naturally [may pass their exams]] [[All the students] [may] naturally [pass their exams]] [[All the students] [may] [ pass their exams] [naturally]] [All the students] [The students] [All students] Identifying constituents: the substitution + deletion tests [tudents] [All] *[The] [They] [may pass their exams]

6 Identifying constituents: the substitution + deletion tests [may pass their exams] [*may their exams] [All the students] [may] [pass their exams] [pass] [do] Constituents that may substitute for each other belong to the same distributional class, or paradigm Identifying constituents: movement tests [[All the students] [may] [pass their exams]] [[May][all the students] [pass their exams]] [[Pass their exams] is what [all the students] [[may]] [[Their exams] is what [all the students] [may] [pass]] [[The students] [may] [all] [pass] [their exams]] *[[Pass their ][all the students] [may] [exams]] Only constituents at some level of analysis may move! All constituents identified [[[All] [[the] [students]]] [[may] [[pass] [[their][exams]]]]] All the students may pass their exams This is a simple box-diagram

7 P(reposition) ubord(inator) Coord(inator) Interjection aming constituents: lexical and phrasal categories Lexical categories Phrasal categories (oun) - Pro(noun) - Proper (name) V(erb) - Main; Lexical V - Aux(iliary); Modal A(djective) Adv(erb) (eterminers) AP AdvP P PP CL(ause) (entence) Phrasal categories are said to be projections from lexical categories Clausal and sentential categories aming constituents [ [ P [ All] [ [ the] [ students]]] [ [ Aux may] [ [ V pass] [ [ their][ exams]]]]] This is a socalled labelled bracketing It is difficult to read, therefore P [ [ P [ All ] [ [ the ] [ students ] ] ] [ [ Aux may ] [ [ V pass ] [ [ their] [ exams ] ] ] ] ]

8 P [ [ P [ All ] [ [ the ] [ students ] ] ] [ [ Aux may ] [ [ V pass ] [ [ their] [ exams ] ] ] ] ] P Aux All may V the students pass their exams This is a so-called tree diagram, growing the wrong way. The top node [], is the root, the lines are branches, and the words at the bottom are leaves. The nodes connected by the lines carry category labels. aming constituents P Aux All may V the students pass their exams

9 yntactic functions ( kryds og bolle ) All the students may pass their exams ubject Verb Object Is this right? yntactic functions ( kryds og bolle ) All the students may pass their exams ubject Verb Object Is this right? yntactic functions ( kryds og bolle ) All the students may pass their exams ubject Predicate Verb Object This is (almost) right - but as you can see, (at least) two levels of analysis are needed

10 Assigning syntactic functions to constituents ubject Predicate P All the students Operator Aux may V Predicator Object The important thing here pass their exams is that V(erb) is reserved as a category label. The syntactic function of the verb is split into two, i.e. an Operator function (the finite auxiliary) and a Predicator function (the lexical verb). Terminological problems anish Grundled (subjekt) Prædikat - Verballed (Objekt) - Genstandsled - Hensynsled English ubject Predicate Operator Predicator Object - direct - indirect Omsagnsled t. grundled Omsagnsled t. genstandsled - ubject Complement Object Complement Adverbial Complement (Adled) Adverbialled Adjunct (Adverbial) Conceptual problems yntactic functions at clause level: ubject, Predicate, Adjunct Adjunct ubject Predicate PP As a matter of fact all the students may pass their exams - but what about functions within phrases?

11 tandard functions within Operator? Aux Predicator Object may V pass their exams We ll return to the question mark later Assigning syntactic functions to constituents ubject Predicate? P? Operator? Aux All the?? Predicator Object may V?? students pass their exams Adjunct positions AdvP P aturally naturally All AdvPAux naturally AdvP may V naturally naturally the students pass naturally their exams

12 Adjunct positions P AdvP All Aux may V AdvP naturally naturally AdvP the students pass their exams naturally naturally More syntax next time!