Syntax is: • The study of sentence formation • Subconscious grammatical knowledge

Syntax is:
the study of grammatical relations
between words and other units within
the sentence.
• The study of sentence formation
• Subconscious grammatical
knowledge
• Word order
It is a branch of linguistics
that studies the rules that
govern the formation of
sentences.
Syntax
“Part of grammar that represents a
speaker’s knowledge of sentences
and their structures is called
syntax” (Fromkin p.116)
Functions of Syntax
Syntax allows language to be limitless within the structure
rules.
John found a book in the library.
John found a book in the library in the stacks.
John found a book in the library in the stacks on the
fourth floor.
Micro
Linguistics
Sounds of
language
Phonetics
Phonology
Grammar
Morphology
Syntax
Meaning
Semantics
Pragmatics
What do native speakers know
syntactically?
• differentiating between grammatical
(well-formed) vs. ungrammatical (illformed) utterances
• producing and understanding an
unlimited number of sentences based on
limited number of syntactic rules
• recognizing ambiguities
Grammaticality judgments
• They are determined by rules that
are shared by the speakers of the
language.
• Words must conform to specific
patterns determined by syntactic
rules of the language.
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.
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)
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)
• English (SVO)
– Susie
brings
coffee
• Japanese (SOV)
– sushi-ga
– Susie
co:hi:-o
coffee
mottekuru
bring
• Malagasy (VOS)
– Entin’
– bring
kafe
coffee
Susie
Susie
Spanish
• Quiza venga el Presidente.
The President may come.
• La chica es una estudiante excelente.
The girl is an excellent student.
• Yo lo vi.
I saw him.
• El nino escribe poemas preciosos.
The boy writes beautiful poems.
Word order changes
meaning:
Changes to conventional synatx are often used to create dramatic, poetic, or comic effect.
For instance, poets and song lyricists often change syntactic order to create rhythmic effects:
"I'll sing to him, each spring to him
And long for the day when I'll cling to him,
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I."
[COLE PORTER]
Two principles of sentence
organization
• 1. LINEAR ORDER
– not only a limitation, we actually make use
of the linearity of the language
• We use word order to distinguish
subject from object, etc.
– Tom chased Jerry.
– Jerry chased Tom.
2. HIERARCHICAL ORDER
The boy raced the girl.
Words grouped into natural units:
[The boy] [raced the girl].
Further division:
[ [The] [boy] ] [ [raced] [ [the] [girl] ] ].
Tree Diagram:
verb phrase
noun phrase
noun phrase
raced
The
boy
the
girl
TERMS
• NP = Noun phrase (subject or object in a sentence)
The child is lucky.
A police officer found the criminal.
She is the girl that John loved.
• VP = Verb phrase
(always contains a verb, may contain
other categories, such as noun phrase or prepositional phrase)
The child saw an elephant.
Rob slept on the couch.
• PP = Prepositional Phrase
NP)
(preposition followed by an
Susan devoured the cake in the pantry.
• CP = Complementizer Phrase
(contains complementizer,
such as that, if, whether, and is followed by an embedded
sentence)
Jack doesn’t know if he should fetch a pail of
Constituency
CONSTITUENT
a group of words in a sentence that behave syntactically
and semantically as a unit.
dog has stick
scratched the dog with a stick
I have stick
scratched the dog with a stick
Constituents &
Constituency Tests
Constituents = the natural groupings of a sentence
– A constituent is formed if…
– 1) a group of words can stand alone
• Ex. “What did you find?” “A puppy” (not “found a”)
– 2) pronouns can substitute for natural groups
• Ex. “Where did you find a puppy?” “I found HIM in
the park.”
– 3) a group of words can be move. [move unit]
• Ex. It was [a puppy] that the child found.
• [A puppy] was found by the child.
Categories
A category refers to a group of
linguistic items which fulfill the same
or similar functions in a particular
language; e.g., a sentence, a noun
phrase or a verb.
Example of Syntactic
Categories
Lexical
categories:
• Noun (N)
• Verb (V)
• Adjective (A)
• Adverb (Adv)
Examples:
• moisture, policy
• melt, remain
• good,
intelligent
• slowly, now
Functional
categories:
 Determiner
(Det)
 Degree word
(Deg)
 Qualifier (Qual)
 Auxiliary (Aux)
 Conjunction
(Con)
Examples:
 the, this

very, more
 always,
will, can
 and, or

perhaps
a. The glass suddenly broke.
Det / N / Adv / V
b. A jogger ran towards the end of the
lane.
Det / N / V / P / Det / N / P / Det / N
c. The peaches never appear quite ripe.
Det / N / Qual / V / Deg / Adj
d. Gillian will play the trumpet and the
drums in the orchestra.
N / Aux / V / Det / N / Conj / Det / N / P / Det / N
• Syntactic units that are built
around a certain word category are
called phrases, the category of
which is determined by the word
category around which the phrase
is built.
• E.g. if the word around which the
phrase is built is a noun, then the
phrase is a Noun Phrase (NP).
e.g.
the car, a clever student
Phrasal categories
The most commonly recognized
categories:
• NP : Noun Phrase
The car, a clever student
• VP : Verb Phrase
study hard, play the guitar
• PP : Prepositional Phrase
in the class, above the earth
• AP : Adjective Phrase
very tall, quite certain
Phrase Structure Rules(I)
The phrase structure rule for NP, VP,
AP and PP (example):
• NP(Det) N (PP) …
• VP(Qual) V (NP) …
• AP(Deg) A (PP) …
• PP(Deg) P (NP) …
Symbols
The list of common symbols in
syntactic analysis:
S
N
V
Art
NP
VP
Adj
Sentence
Noun
Verb
Article
Noun phrase
Verb phrase
adjective
Pro
Adv
Prep
PP
Det
PN
Pronoun
Adverb
Preposition
Prep phrase
Determiner
Proper noun
• NP = Noun phrase (subject or object in a sentence)
The child is lucky.
A police officer found the criminal.
She is the girl that John loved.
• VP = Verb phrase
(always contains a verb, may contain
other categories, such as noun phrase or prepositional phrase)
The child saw an elephant.
Rob slept on the couch.
• PP = Prepositional Phrase
NP)
(preposition followed by an
Susan devoured the cake in the pantry.
• CP = Complementizer Phrase
(contains complementizer,
such as that, if, whether, and is followed by an embedded
sentence)
Jack doesn’t know if he should fetch a pail of
water.
Jill knows that she should fetch a pail of water.
• Sentences consist of Subjects and Predicates.
• The Subject is what we are talking about, and
the Predicate is what we say about it.
• Therefore the Subject contains old information
(so speakers will have something to talk
about), and the Predicate contains new
information (so speakers will be able to say
something new).
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Phrase structure rules (II)
 NP  (Det) N (PP)
 PP  P NP
The bus in the yard
NP
The bus (NP)
Det
N
Det
The
N
bus
PP
P
NP
Det
yard
The
bus
in
the
N
Phrase structure rules
 (III)
VP  V (NP) (PP)
took the money (VP)
V
took the money from the bank
(VP)
NP
NP
V
det
took
the
N
Det
PP
N
P
money
took
the
money
from
NP
Det
N
the
bank
Draw the tree diagram!
1. repaired the telephone
2. the success of the program
3. a film about pollution
4. move towards the window
5. cast a spell on the broomstick
The main structure rules
1. S  NP (Aux) VP
2. NP  (Det) (AP) N (PP)
3. VP  V (NP) (PP) (Adv)
4. PP  P NP
5. AP  A (PP)
e.g. The old tree swayed in the wind
S
NP
Det
Adj
Aux
N
VP
V
PP
P
NP
Det
The
old
tree
past
sway
in
the
N
wind
The children put the toy in the
box
S
NP
Det
VP
N
V
NP
Det
The
children
put
the
PP
N
toy
P
NP
Det
N
in the
box
ambiguity:
• a word or a syntactic structure
that can be understood in two or
more possible ways ...
• If the source of multiple
interpretation is a word, then it is
an example of lexical ambiguity.
• Lexical ambiguity stems from the
existence of homophony and
polysemy.
• Homophony occurs when a single
word has more than one meaning.
For example, the word bank can
be used to denote either a place
where monetary exchange and
handling takes place or the land
close river, the bank of the river.
• The fisherman went to the bank.
• She is looking for a match.
• The priest married my sister.
• "You know, somebody actually
complimented me on my driving
today. They left a little note on the
windscreen; it said, 'Parking Fine."
So that was nice."
Structural ambiguity (I)
Synthetic buffalo hides (NP)
Synthetic
buffalo hides
Buffalo hides that are synthetic.
Synthetic buffalo hides (NP)
Synthetic buffalo
hides
Hides of synthetic buffalo.
Ambiguities may lead to humorous results:
• For sale: an antique desk suitable
for a lady with thick legs and large
drawers.
Structural ambiguity(II)
The boy saw the man with the telescope
S
NP
Det
Aux
N
VP
V
NP
Det
PP
N
P
NP
Det
The
boy
past
see the
N
man with the telescope
Structural ambiguity (III)
The boy saw the man with the telescope
S
NP
Det
Aux
N
VP
NP
V
Det
N
PP
P
NP
Det
The
boy
past
see
the
N
man with the telescope
Draw two phrase structure trees representing the
two meanings of the sentence:
The magician touched the child with the
wand.
Be sure you indicate which meaning goes with
which tree.
• Smoking grass can be nauseating.
• Dick finally decided on the boat.
• The professor’s appointment was shocking.
• The design has big squares and circles.
• That sheepdog is too hairy to eat.
• Could this be the invisible man’s hair tonic?
• The governor is a dirty street fighter.
• I cannot recommend him too highly.
• Terry loves his wife and so do I.
• They said she would go yesterday.
• No smoking section available
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Deep structure
• The basic structure of sentences
which specified by phrase
structure rules.
e.g. NP + V + NP
• Same deep structure can be the
source of many other surface
structures.
For example:
• The boy is sleeping
sleeping?
S
NP
Aux
Det
N
The
boy
VP
V
is
Sleeping
Is the boy
S
Aux
NP
Det
Is the
VP
N
boy ---
V
sleeping
Examples of the same deep
structure:
Charlie broke the window
It was Charlie who broke the
window
Was the window broken by
Charlie?
Surface structure
• The variant of basic sentence
structures.
• The structures that result from the
application of transformational
rules.
Other sentence types that are
transformationally related are:
Passive sentences
The cat chased the mouse
The mouse was chased by the cat
‘there’ sentences
A man was on the roof
was a
man on the roof
there
PP preposing
The astronomer saw a meteor only with
his telescope
Only with his
telescope did the astronomer see a
meteor.
Example of deep & surface
Structures
The boy will leave
S
NP
Det
Aux
VP
N
The boy
Will the boy leave?
S
Aux
V
will
leave
The deep structure
Will
NP
VP
Det
N
V
the
boy leave
The surface structure
Draw the deep & surface structure of
the following sentences:
1. Will the boss hire Hillary?
2. Is that player leaving the team?
3. Who should the director call?
4. What is Joanne eating?
More phrase structure
rules
Coordinate structure
A coordinate structure results
when two constituents of the same
category are joined with a
conjunction, such as and or or.
e.g
NP
NP
Conj
Det
N
The
cat
NP
Det
and
N
the
dog
• Embedded sentence
It includes another sentence within
itself.
e.g.
the teacher believes the student
knows the answer
• Complementizers
It introduces a complement phrase
S
NP
Det
The
Aux
N
present
teacher
VP
V
believe
S
the student
knows the
answer
Example of complementizer
S
NP
Det
Aux
N
VP
present
C
The
teacher
V
CP
S
believes that the student
knows the answer
SEMANTIC VS. SYNTACTIC PARSING
• You may have been told that a word gets its
meaning from its linguistic context.
• This is both true and not true. Words out of
context tend to be very ambiguous.
• What the linguistic context does is to
disambiguate a word. Social and cultural
contexts do the same thing.
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• As we add more linguistic context we make the
word less and less ambiguous, so that “the
beach ball” is different from “the basketball” or
“the harvest ball” which is a dance.
• In the case of “Colorless green ideas sleep
furiously,” we’ve disambiguated the meanings
down to zero, because of feature
incompatibilities.
• Something “colorless” can’t be “green.” Abstract
things like “ideas” can’t be any color, and can’t
sleep. “Sleeping” is usually not done “furiously,”
etc.
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