* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Chapter 5 - Public Bookshelf
Serbo-Croatian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Cognitive semantics wikipedia , lookup
French grammar wikipedia , lookup
Untranslatability wikipedia , lookup
Focus (linguistics) wikipedia , lookup
Kannada grammar wikipedia , lookup
English clause syntax wikipedia , lookup
Macedonian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Scottish Gaelic grammar wikipedia , lookup
Modern Hebrew grammar wikipedia , lookup
Preposition and postposition wikipedia , lookup
Sloppy identity wikipedia , lookup
Yiddish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Portuguese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Esperanto grammar wikipedia , lookup
Morphology (linguistics) wikipedia , lookup
Japanese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Polish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Romanian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Malay grammar wikipedia , lookup
Chinese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Latin syntax wikipedia , lookup
Antisymmetry wikipedia , lookup
Lexical semantics wikipedia , lookup
Spanish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Junction Grammar wikipedia , lookup
Pipil grammar wikipedia , lookup
1 SYNTAX STUDY OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 2 3 Chapter 5 ____________________________________________ Syntax: Study of Sentence Structure Grammarian and the Rower When people were carried in rowing-boats across Boğaziçi in Istanbul in the 18th century, a grammarian embarks one of these boats to cross from Kadıköy to Eminönü. With pride and prejudice, grammarian wants to know how much grammar the rower knows: “Evlat, do you know any grammar?” “No” replies the rower bluntly. The grammarian then promptly makes the comment: “You see, evlat, you’ve wasted HALF of your life!” As the journey continues in the rougher part of the Bosporus, the boat begins to show signs of capsizing. So the rower asks the grammarian: “Do you know how to swim, Baba?” “No” replies the worried grammarian. And the rower puts the final touch to the conversation: “Baba, you’ve wasted ALL of your life!” What to find in this chapter Competence and Performance Deep and Surface Structures Phrases and Sentences Word Order Constituent Structure Phrase Structures Generative Grammar Transformational Rules 4 5.0 Introduction The aforementioned funny story that took place in 18th century Istanbul reveals notable information on how language studies are perceived by the schooled as well as the unschooled. Literate or illiterate, professor or student, every speaker of a language possesses a working knowledge of language. What the grammarian, or the linguist, knows in addition to what everybody else does is the formal ways of studying, explaining and naming of the phenomena involved in language. We started off by examining the individual sounds (Chapter 2) and the way these sounds interact to form syllables (Chapter 3). This is followed by the study of morphemes (Chapter 4.) In the present chapter we move one step forward and examine how morphemes (words) are combined to form larger chunks such as phrases and sentences. What this chapter basically studies is the area covered by the grammar. We set out to look at the difference between competence and performance, and surface and deep structures. Next, types of phrases and sentences as well as the notion of basic word order are discussed. The concept of constituent structure, which plays an important role in phrase structure and transformational grammar, is studied later. Later, generative and transformational grammars are introduced, with the tree diagrams to explore the syntactic structures of sentences, especially in relation ambiguous sentences. Finally, two features of transformational grammar, namely dependency and extra-positioning, are explained and exemplified. 5.1 Syntax Syntax, or the more popularly known expression ‘grammar’, has enjoyed popularity in all nations all over the world throughout history. Fascinated by the challenge and complexity of it, older generations have unfailingly imposed the study of syntax on younger generations, who have almost always considered it a bore. As a consequence, the study of grammar has been far from easy and rewarding. The following satirical expression reveals the hopeless situation that exists in Turkish educational culture. 5 Benim oğlum bina1 okur, döner döner, yine okur! o “My son studies grammar; with no success in sight, he comes back to study it over and over again.” What this saying implies is that one can never be sure of her knowledge of grammar no matter how painstakingly or how long one studies it. Nonetheless, as fluent speakers of at least one language, we possess a functioning grammatical knowledge of our languages although we may not know or recall the terms, classifications, rules, and descriptions used in linguistic studies. Recall that the previous chapter examined words, more specifically morphemes, and the ways they come together to form larger and complex words. ‘Syntax’ examines the ways words come together to form phrases and consequently sentences. Many definitions can be offered for syntax. The following is a routine one: Syntax is the study of how words are combined to produce phrases and sentences. When syntax is combined with morphology, the resulting area is called ‘grammar’. In this sense, the present chapter complements the study of grammar. The etymology of the term ‘syntax’ goes back to ancient times. It originates from Ancient Greek: syn meant “together” and tax meant “sequence” or “arrangement.” The original meaning of the term must have been something like “arrangement of the items (words) occurring together.” Despite the distinction between syntax and grammar, the study of structure of sentences can also be referred to as ‘grammar’ by many linguists. Therefore, in what follows, terms like ‘syntactic’ and ‘grammatical’ will be used interchangeably. The terms syntax and grammar in language related studies inevitably conjures up a name: Noam Chomsky. Though he has not published the highest number of articles or books, his 1 The word bina means “structure”, or “grammar of a language” in Arabic. 6 works have been cited more than any other modern name in any discipline including Karl Marx, Adam Smith, and Emile Durkheim. He continues to fascinate generations of researchers who have something to say about how language operates. His name became popular when he published his first serious work, a book called Syntactic Structures in 1957, in which he proposed that language is a unique innate faculty for humans and that it is a creative one. He further proposed that language is rule-based and thus the most interesting and important aspect of language is its grammar or syntax as it provides a systematic and concise description of a language. To him, grammar is a formal device that is capable of producing infinite number of grammatically correct sentences by using a finite number of rules. His central idea of what language is has remained the same despite the modifications he has made since then. 5.2 Competence and Performance As we grow up to become adults, we pass through many stages of comprehending the messages we hear from others. As we listen to the instances of language input, our minds start inferring a set of rules and thereby construct a system by which we could understand the sentences we hear. The rules acquired through comprehending the utterances also enable us to produce sensible sentences, which are understandable and grammatical to others. The intuitive knowledge of rules that every speakers has about the language she speaks is called ‘competence’. Drawing upon these acquired rules, our minds are constantly busy with ensuring that every sentence they process is well-formed, not ill-formed. The ability to decide the grammaticality of sentences is also part of language users’ competence. Now let us reflect on some examples of sentences to check our competence in English grammar: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Şahsenem is difficult to love. It is difficult to love Şahsenem. Ömer is anxious to leave. *It is anxious to leave Ömer. What he did was climb a tree. *What Özge thought was want a sports car. 7 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. *Ali wanted Özlem go. *Ali heard Işıl to go. *Ali put the bread. *Ali was crying the baby. *Ali walked the hill up. *Who owned the cat that Nur kissed the little old lady. 2 The question “How do we come to process and produce sentences?” has been intriguing for many a scholar since the early 20th century. There have been two basic responses to this question: the first is the Behaviorist explanation while the second, which we briefly touched upon above, is the Cognitive explanation. For the advocates of Behaviorism, learning a language is not much different from learning any other behavior of human beings. Language learning is considered to be the matter of establishing right habits, which is considered to be acquired through imitation, repetition, memorization and rote learning. As such, language learning is conceived to be a totally mechanical activity detached from the mental faculties and all types of cognitive processes. This view, expounded by Skinner and many others from 1910’s till 1950’s, was criticized on several grounds, the most important of which is that it fails to account for the way language learners manage to produce unheard, unread, novel, and original sentences. Creativity is a human inventive quality that generates novel grammatical relationships using existing grammatical arrangements. As for the Cognitive view, supported by a more rational school of thought in linguistics, it argues that human beings possess a unique linguistic capacity, unlike animals, to deal with infinite number of possible sentences. Only with the help of this capacity can humans produce and comprehend conventional sentences (heard or read) as well as innovative sentences (never used). The originator of this view, Chomsky, reasoned that speakers possess a ‘competence’, an abstract knowledge of grammatical rules. It is this linguistic knowledge of a speaker that enables him/her 2 The sentences that have an asterisk (*) sign are ungrammatical. 8 to produce fresh sentences which are rendered sensible and acceptable by other speakers. The following reflects his approach to what constitutes speakers linguistic knowledge: A speaker’s linguistic knowledge is a grammar that consists of a finite set of rules and principles that form the basis of the speaker’s ability to produce and comprehend the unlimited number of phrases and sentences. In this conception of competence, grammar is an underlying abstract system which consists of a finite set of rules and principles. By the help of this set of rules, speakers are able to produce and comprehend unlimited number of phrases and sentences, using the limited number of elements (words) in a language. This view of the nature of language has been known as ‘generative grammar’ (see Section 8 below for more). While the knowledge of the rules and the way they are used to fashion well-formed sentences are included in the area of ‘linguistic competence’, the actual production of real sentences are considered as ‘linguistic performance’. The following table encapsulates the general concerns of each area. Table 5.1 Features of competence and performance COMPETENCE PERFORMANCE Abstract/underlying system Production of grammatical sentences Linguistic capacity Physical limitations like fatigue Ability to notice ambiguity Disambiguating ambiguity Intuitive judgments on grammaticality Explanation of the rules As indicated in the last part of table, the competence of the speakers (educated or uneducated) allow them to make intuitive judgments on the grammaticality of novel sentences like the following sentence. The following famous example taken from Chomsky could reveal the point: 9 1 Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Grammatically well-formed – semantically anomalous 2 *Green colorless ideas sleep furiously. Grammatically ill-formed - semantically anomalous The intuitive judgment of any native speaker of English, or even an intermediate learner of English would not hesitate a moment to confirm that sentence No. 1 is a well-formed and grammatical sentence, but, a weird and odd one indeed. And they are not wrong in that the weirdness springs from the fact that the meaning of one word clashes with the meaning of another. That is, the word green is colorful by definition, so it cannot be modified by colorless. It is therefore rendered as an ‘anomalous’ (abnormal) sentence Secondly, their intuition will also state that sentence No. 2 is neither grammatically well-formed nor semantically sensible on the grounds that green is not a hyponym of colorless and so it cannot precede it. (This is a subject we elaborate on in the next chapter on Semantics). The scope of competence is always greater than that of performance (see Figure 5.1 below to have an idea of how they compare). One confirmation of this can be seen when second/foreign language learners complain about why they are unable to speak (performance) as proficiently as they can understand (competence). Competence Performance Figure 5.1 Relative comparison of competence and performance 10 5.3 Deep and Surface Structures Directly relevant to the issues of competence and performance are the issues of deep and surface structures. When we study the structure of sentences, we come to notice that some words are dropped out, or missing, which is more in speech than in written form. For instance, one of the most often used expressions, Thank you, does not have “I” as the subject of thank, as it is taken for granted. Therefore, we say that “I” is present in the deep structure (underlying structure is also used) structure, but not present in the surface structure. Consider other examples: Table 5.2 Differences between surface and deep structures SURFACE STRUCTURE DEEP STRUCTURE Sorry! “I’m sorry!” Come here. “You come here.” Let go! “You let my arm go!” I request you to step out of the room. “I request that you step out of the room.” It is thrilling to meet you again! “To meet you again is thrilling.” The Figure 5.2 below may illustrate some way of how surface structure relate to deep structure. One simplified example is the deletion of subjects in imperatives. Deep Structure Surface Structure Structure Figure 5.2 Relative comparison of deep and surface structures 11 Though linguistic communication takes place at the surface level, expressions and sentences are interpreted according to deep structure since deep structure is the abstract level of grammatical organization in the mind. To put it differently, surface structure (the actual sentences produced) reveals the performance of a speaker while the deep structure is dealt with the competence, ability to process and judge grammaticality of sentences. The relationships between and among the components discussed above can be diagrammatical shown as in Figure 5.3 below: Surface Structure Performance Deep Structure Competence Figure 5.3 Relations that hold between constructs Surface structures are based on the dictates, or patterns of deep structure. Knowledge of deep structures gets activated when speakers are asked to use their intuitive judgments. It is through competence that one can exhibit their performance. Performance, in turn, is revealed in the form of surface structures. We can now turn to examine the nature of phrases and sentences in terms of how our competence deals with them. 5.4 Phrases In a sentence like “Alex watered the flowers”, the noun Alex can be replaced by other nouns or group of words such as Mary, the old man, the beautiful maid, the children of our neighbors and so on. The list could go on indefinitely and there is no limit on the number of the words that could fulfill similar function as Alex does in our sentences. The group of words that can be substituted one for the other and fulfill 12 the same function in a sentence is called a ‘phrase’. In the examples above Alex, Mary, the old man, the beautiful maid, the children of our neighbors are all examples of noun phrases. Phrases are not limited to noun phrases of course. There are other types such as verb phrases, prepositional phrases, participial phrases, and infinitival phrases. All phrases have one kernel lexical item called ‘head word’3. The way a phrase is identified as belonging to one type or the other is determined by locating its head word. The head word is a noun in a noun phrase, a verb in a verb phrase and a preposition in a prepositional phrase, and so forth. Words other than the head word only help to say more about the head word. Referring back to our example above, 1. The children of the neighbors watered the flowers. children is the head of the noun phrase the children of the neighbors, and watered is the head of the verb phrase watered the flowers. Examine Table 5.3 for some other types of phrases and examples. Table 5.3 Types of phrases in English Participial Phrase Thinking the next move Infinitival Phrase To complete a hopeless journey (Subject) Noun Phrase A terrified old motorist Prepositional Phrase Near the cliffs opposite the mountains Verb Phrase (Phrasal Verb) Passes out Adverbial Phrase Too soon There are two semantico-syntactic functions a noun phrase can serve: Subject noun phrase or object noun phrase. The third sentence in the table above is an example of ‘subject noun phrase’. If a noun phrase follows the verb phrases, it is called ‘object noun phrase’. 3 The term ‘word’ is used here to mean ‘morpheme’. 13 5.5 Sentences A ‘sentence’ is a group of words in which a comment is made about a topic. Thus, the distinctive feature of the sentence is the comment it has. In conventional writing, a sentence begins with a capital letter and the end of it is signaled by a dot or full-stop [.]. It is self-contained, that is, it does not depend on the words, phrases or sentences outside of it to be understood. A ‘proper’ sentence has two main parts: topic and comment, which are known as subject and predicate in syntax. Predicate contains all parts of the sentence other than the subject. Consider the following example: Everybody has his merits and faults. Subject Predicate Sentences can also appear in Subject + Complement form, with the complement being either an adjective or a noun. In such a sentence, the stative verb TO BE is used. Observe the example: She is a teacher of English at a School for the Visually Impaired. Subject Complement The subject of a sentence can consist of one word or many (In fact, the number is infinite but there are practical constraints). Likewise, the predicate of a sentence can be made of one word or many. The essential element in a sentence is a finite verb. Examples for the simplest sentence can be I see. Birds fly. Needless to note that all verbs or verb phrases are also considered sentences in their own right; e.g. in their imperative forms, as in: Start. Come in. Get on with it. Get down to it. 14 It is safe to state that the rich contextual evidence allows for the omission of subject noun phrase you in the sentences above. So the imperative sentence Start could be restated as You start and the sentence Come in as You come in. While one can find candidates for the smallest sentences with relative ease, it is thorny to find a candidate for much longer ones. A longer sentence would be as in the following frame: Can you find the subject and the main verb phrase in this sentence? Longest Sentence in English? Full of quiet dignity, and so obviously an English gentleman of perfect breeding and impeccable taste, even in the khaki shorts, sun-helmet and old school tie appropriate to the burning tropical sun, his bronzed clean-cut countenance radiant with the unselfconscious superiority so much admired - yet so vainly imitated - by less fortunate nations untouched as yet by the public school tradition, the Civil Engineer, watching the gradual but irresistible collapse of his new bridge into the brown, swirling waters of the flooded river hundreds of feet below, and ignoring, with the ease of long practice, the coarse but good-natured badinage of his workmen and the less friendly, indeed actively hostile, criticism of the representatives of the local authorities, consoled himself by imagining, with a thrill of anticipatory aesthetic pleasure, the excellence of the English prose, beautifully phrased and brilliantly punctuated, soon to be enshrined in his report justifying and explaining this unfortunate contretemps- an exquisite prose developed through his regular attendance at the admirable lectures on the Use of English provided, regardless of trouble and expense, though without extra emolument accruing to the lecturer dedicated to the task, by the benevolent authorities of his old University. © John Swannell Types of Sentences Sentences in English could be classified into four main types. The most common used type of sentences in spoken English is called ‘simplex sentence’. A typical simplex sentence is the one that consist of a noun phrase followed by a verb phrase. ‘Complex sentence’, the second type, on the other hand, has more than one noun phrase and more than one verb phrase combined with subordinating conjunctions. Compound sentences similarly consists of more than one noun phrase and verb phrases, but they are combined via coordinating conjunctions. The last type of English sentences is a combination of the last two. The following table provides examples of the types and the features of sentences: 15 Table 5.4 Types of sentences TYPES OF SENTENCES Simplex Complex Compound Compound – Complex INDICATORS & EXAMPLES Subject + Verb + Object She teaches English. Main Clause + Subordinate Clause o They will leave as they came. Clause + and, but, so, + Clause He warned them so that they could be more careful next time. All features of the Compound & Complex Sentences combined As she knew there was nothing else she could do to save her marriage, she headed for her only refuge, the small attic, where she could find what her soul was so desperately in need of and comfort her fragile morale. 5.6 Word Order Thus far, we have never questioned the order in which words and their semantico-grammatical functions are sequenced in sentences. A relevant question in this context is: Is there a basic word order in the sentences of a language? Yes, there is. All languages are flexible to allow for different word orders. However, not all languages have the same limitations on the flexibility of word order. While English is known to have a very rigid word order, languages like Turkish are more flexible. Unmarked Word Order In word order studies, the question of “Who is doing what?” is important. The answer to such questions will inevitably call for the employment of concepts such as Subject, Object, Verb and so forth. Examine Table 5.5. Table 5.5 Functions of subject, verb and object SUBJECT VERB OBJECT Agent Doer Action Do Recipient Doee 16 The unmarked (normal, most frequent) word order in English is Subject + Verb + Object (SVO). Put differently, in the marked word order of English it is the position of the word that determines the functions (semantic roles) of words / phrases. In an unmarked word order, the initial position (position of the subject) has an agentive function (Doer) while the final position (position of the object) has the recipient function (Doee). For instance, if the word order in the sentence The man bit the dog. is jumbled up in a way to produce The dog bit the man. the meaning changes since the positions allocated for subject and object are decisive for expressing the meaning relations. While the agent of the action in the first sentence is the man, this role in the second sentence is fulfilled by the dog. The role of the recipient is also reversed accordingly. Marked Word Order There are occasions when the unmarked word order (SVO) changes into OSV. This is usually done because of the contrastive or emphatic constraints imposed by the context. The word order observed in such sentences are called ‘marked word order’. For instance, consider the following conversation: A: I can’t ride a bike! B: What about a horse? A: A horse I can ride. (more appropriate than I can ride a horse) The relocation of the object to the initial position in English, which is also called ‘topic-fronting’, is one instance of the marked word order in English. Below are more examples for marked word order: John his name is. Beyond the mountains lies the desert. Never has the world witnessed a disaster of this magnitude! ‘Clefting’ is another example of how marked word order can be achieved by rearranging the elements in a sentence. In this type of sentence structure a dummy subject is used at the initial position of the sentences. The following sentences in Table 5.6 provide examples of cleft structures derived from the unmarked order. 17 Table 5.6 Cleft structures in English 1 They need tolerance. UNMARKED WORD ORDER 2 It is tolerance that they need. Marked Word Order 3 Tolerance is what they need. Marked Word Order 4 What they need is tolerance. Marked Word Order Turkish, an SOV language, is a lot freer than that in English. How many different orders can you produce to write the sentence Ali yumurtayı yedi. “Ali ate the egg.”? As a matter fact, there are six different ways. Consider Table 5.7, in each of which the word order is modified to achieve different pragmatic effects: Table 5.7 Variations in Turkish word order 1 2 3 4 5 6 TURKISH Ali yumurta(y)-ı yedi Ali yedi yumurta(y)-ı. Yedi Ali yumurta(y)-ı. Yedi yumurta(y)-ı Ali. Yumurta(y)-ı Ali yedi. Yumurta(y)-ı yedi Ali. ENGLISH TYPE OF ORDER “Ali ate the egg.” “It was Ali who ate the egg.” “Ali did (really) eat the egg. “ “What Ali did was to eat the egg.” “The egg Ali ate.” “What Ali ate was the egg.” Unmarked order Marked order Marked order Marked order Marked order Marked order This was made possible since Turkish language utilizes case marking on the noun phrases. In the example above, it was the case the case marking –(y)ı that enabled us to come up with different word orders. The permutation above, however, is not to say that Turkish word order is totally free. If we take away the accusative marking –(y)ı, which is essentially used to indicate the objective function of a noun phrase, the only sensible alternative would be Ali yumurta yedi, which is the basic word order for Turkish: SOV (see also Table 4.5 in Chapter 4). When we look at the classification of world’s languages in regards to word order (Clark and Clark, 1977), we see that SOV is the most common, followed by SVO. Examine Table 5.8 to get an idea about the distribution of word orders across the languages of the world: 18 Table 5.8 Distribution of word orders across the languages of the world POSITION No. 1 POSITION No. 2 POSITION No. 3 Subject Subject Verb Verb Object Object Object Verb Subject Object Verb Subject Verb Object Object Subject Subject Verb PERCENTAGE (%) 44 % 35 % 19 % 03 % 00 % 00 % Having seen that sentences in a language are not randomly and haphazardly organized, we can now develop certain analytical insights into the working of sentences as well as phrases. 5.7 Concept of Constituent Structure It is now clear that sentences possess a word order, more technically, a ‘constituent structure’, which is also known as ‘syntactic structure’. It is through the constituent structure that words turn into phrases and phrases come together to form sentences. To explore the formation of all sentences, four basic properties of constituent structure have been identified. These properties allow us to go about explaining how the constituents of sentences interact. Properties of Constituent Structures 1. 2. 3. 4. Linear order of elements (i.e. numerical positions) Structural dependency of the elements in the sentence Labeling of elements into syntactic categories (parts of speech like nouns) Grouping of elements into structural constituents (phrases) Linear Order of Elements According to the Swiss linguist, Saussure, (see the picture), one of the founding fathers of modern linguistics, the concept of styntactic structure has two aspects: ‘syntagmatic’ and ‘paradigmatic’. The following figure (original from his lectures) shows how Saussure conceptualized the grammatical structure of sentences. 19 Syntagmatic P a r a d i g m a t i c Ahmed He I You She … … … … etc. + can + will + may + might + could +… +… +… +… + etc. + go + run + sit + walk + visit +… +… +… +… + etc. Figure 5.4 Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations Within a sentence, words have ‘syntagmatic’ relationship with one another in a linear fashion. That is, words have specific positions in sentences (e.g. Ahmed is in position No. 1 and can is in position No. 2, and so forth) and one element (word) has to follow another in a certain fashion (The first element Ahmed is followed by can, which in turn is followed by go). Another relationship between phrases is one of ‘paradigmatic’, which means that phrases have certain functions that allow them to replace one another in the same position of the sentence. That is, noun phrases can be replaced by other noun phrases, verb phrases by other verb phrases, and so on (see also section 5.4 above). Below are the definitions of the two concepts i.e. syntagmatic and paradigmatic: Syntagmatic rules determine the way constituents in a sentence are ordered in a linear fashion. Paradigmatic rules regulate the way different constituents (phrases) are substituted for each 20 other. Structural Dependency In addition to the information presented above, one fundamental consideration is the concept of ‘structural dependency.’ Essentially, the concept of linear order is not sufficient to capture more intricate operations within a sentence. For instance, according to the concept of linear order, the sentence such as *I shot me in the leg. should be grammatical. However, we know that this is not the case, and to render this sentence grammatical, the pronoun me should be replaced by the reflexive pronoun, myself: I shot myself in the leg. This is mandated by the concept of ‘structural dependency’. That is, certain elements are dependent on each other no matter where their positions are. Therefore, speakers have to take note of whether the subject is identical with the object. In the example above, the subject and the object, I and myself, both refer to the same person: 1st person singular. All the same, some examples from informal speech exhibit notable exceptions to the rule. Compare the following: Look at yourself! Look at you! (grammatical and used) (ungrammatical but used) Another interesting but less noticed violation of the principle of structural dependency can be found in written language. Consider the following sentence, in which the pronoun it is the same the subject noun phrase generative grammar: Generative grammar carries with it a commitment to the usefulness. Labeling of Elements into Lexical Categories (Parts of Speech) As mentioned above, not all elements in a sentence have the same function. In other words, the information they give might vary between actions, qualities, 21 number, degrees and so forth. Therefore, to have a deeper understanding of the syntactic (grammatical, constituent) structure, the elements (lexical items, words) need to be labeled according to the functions they serve in a sentence. Parts of speech in English can be classified into 9 categories: verb, adverb, noun, adjective, article, preposition, conjunction, interjection, and pronoun. Table 5.9 Parts of speech and their functions PARTS OF SPEECH DESCRIPTION OF FUNCTIONS EXAMPLES Interjections Reveal emotional outbursts while speaking. Goodness! Pronouns Represent nouns as given/shared information. She Verbs Used for actions; physical or imaginary. Read Articles Reveal presence or absence of shared information. The Adjectives Used for the quality of these objects. Pinky Nouns Used for objects and concepts; physical or imaginary. Book Adverbs Used for the way these actions are carried out. Happily Prepositions Indicate positional/time relations between actions and situations. Out Conjunctions Used to connect words as well as clauses. Before Forming Yes/No Questions In Section 5.6 above, the typical (unmarked) word order in English is given as SVO. It is also noted there that subject and object are represented by nouns (noun phrases). In what follows, we set out to provide examples on how the knowledge of parts of speech as well their functions could help us explore the rule for converting declarative statements into Yes/No questions, following Akmajian et. al. (1984: 169-172). Although all native speakers of English as well as any proficient second user of English could judge whether a sentence is a Yes/No question and how a declarative sentence is transformed into a Yes/No question, very few of them can supply a precise rule. This is not surprising though; they know ‘grammar’, but do not know ‘about’ grammar. To arrive at the Yes/No question formation rule in English we 22 examine some sample sentences, approaching the matter through trial and error and in so doing we exemplify the way syntactic rules are generally probed and identified in linguistics. In the first phase of the attempt to form a Yes/No question from a declarative sentence, the linear order can be taken into consideration. As a result, words are supplied with numbers for their positions such as 1, 2, 3, etc. John could lift 70 kilos yesterday. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Using intuition, when word No.2 is placed at the beginning of the sentence, the result is a successful Yes/No question: Could John lift 70 kilos yesterday? So, Rule 1 can be formed: To form a question, place word 2 at the beginning of the sentence. ----------------------------------------------One has difficulty, however, in applying the same rule for a sentence like Yesterday John could lift 70 kilos. 1 2 3 4 5 6 So, Rule 1 needs to be modified to cater for the need arisen with this problematic sentence. We now have to realize that words of a sentence not only form a string of words in a linear order, but also but are connected with regard to the parts of speech they possess in sentences such as subject, verb, objects, etc. John is a noun, so its placement at the beginning will not yield any Yes/No question. Instead, could should be placed at the beginning. A better rule, then, can be expressed as follows: Rule 2. To form a question from a declarative sentence, place the first verb of the sentence at the initial position. ----------------------------------------------- When Rule 2 is applied to a sentence like 23 I know him. the resulting Yes/No question form would be * Know I him? which is clearly ungrammatical. Then, another level of knowledge is needed: knowledge of auxiliary verbs. English distinguishes between main verbs and auxiliary verbs. If the auxiliary verb does not exist in the surface structure, then the appropriate form of the auxiliary should be deduced from the main verb: in this case, it is do that needs to be used. Then, the previous rule should be revised in a way to include subcategories of verbs, which now can be stated: Rule 3. To form a question from a declarative sentence, place the auxiliary verb of the sentence at the initial position. ----------------------------------------------- Such a rule may not be able to account for the transformation in a sentence like John will have left. To deal with this, we need to further refine and revise the rule: Rule 4. To form a question from a declarative sentence, find the first auxiliary verb of the sentence and place it at the initial position. ----------------------------------------------- So far, the examples examined all come from simplex sentences. When a complex sentence containing a relative clause is treated with Rule 4, the resulting sentence will look ungrammatical again: 24 The students who are sitting in the class will be asked to leave. *Are the students who sitting in the class will be asked to leave? The way to solve the problem is to further revise the previous rule in the form of: Rule 5. To form a question from a declarative sentence, find the first auxiliary verb of the main sentence and place it at the initial position. ----------------------------------------------- An application the Rule 5 to a sentence like Yesterday John, who could lift a car, was here. will produce *Was yesterday John, who could lift a car, here? which is clearly not what the intuition predicts. Then, we need a final revision to the Rule 5: Rule 6. To form a question from a declarative sentence, find the first auxiliary verb of the main sentence and place it to the immediate left of the subject of the main sentence. It is clearly seen here that the notion parts of speech as well as the notion of subject is very important in finding out the rules by which languages operate. As shown in section 5.5 above, the typical sentence in any language would have to have a subject and a verb. In addition, subject is important in producing relative clauses. What has been done so far in this section was to explore the rule that accounts for the way Yes/No questions are formed in English following a trial and 25 error approach. What follows next presents another way of looking at how words are clustered in sentences. Grouping of Elements into Structural Constituents (Phrases) A very important step to work out the constituent structure of a sentence is the decision as to how to group the elements in the language. Again, our intuition will guide us into the understanding of which particular elements can ‘go with’ which other elements. How would you group the elements of following sentence into three? The boy put out the fire. Indicate your choice by putting check marks in the boxes in Table 5.10. Table 5.10 Grouping elements in a sentence HOW TO DO THE GROUPING FOR THE SENTENCE “The boy put out the fire.” 1 2 3 4 (the boy) (the boy) (the) (the boy put) (put) (put out) (put out) (out) Which one? (out the fire) (the fire) (the fire) (the fire) As you might have guessed, the right grouping is the one given in No. 2. The parentheses are not the only means by which groupings are carried out. A tree diagram is the established technical way to explain how grouping could be implemented between and among words. Before exploring this technique, however, we turn to explain one of the key concepts in linguistics i.e. generative grammar. 5.8 Generative Grammar While linguists often draw on the intuition of the native speaker to build a theory of language, designing an all rounded grammar requires more than speculations. Any scientific theory of language must be able to come up with some sound theoretical evidence to account for the way language is produced and comprehended by its speakers and listeners. Linguists need to delineate the system of rules that reside in the mind of the speakers and render them into competent 26 language users. Moreover they should be able to explain what makes language users to produce sentences they have never heard or come across before. It also needs to explain the type of knowledge that enables native speaker to pass judgments on the well-formedness (grammaticality) of the sentences. These points are capsulated in the following statement. “Since a grammar of a language is an explicit characterization of all the rules of that language, including the rules of phonology, morphology, semantics, and syntax, it must reflect all aspects of a speaker’s linguistic knowledge. This requires that it (grammar) specify all and only the grammatical sentences of the language with descriptions of sentence structures.” Fromkin & Rodman (1983:222) A grammar that explicitly specifies the set of rules that enable the language user to produce new sentences and accounts for grammatical and ungrammatical sentences in a language is called a ‘generative grammar’. One such grammar is Transformational-Generative (TG) Grammar as proposed by Chomsky. The syntactic aspect of TG Grammar includes two rules: Phrase Structure Rules and Transformational Rules. Phrase Structure Rules The rules that determine the deep (underlying) constituent structure of sentences are called ‘phrase structure rules’, also known as ‘rewrite rules.’ The phrase structure rules in a language state what each constituent can be composed of. For example, in English, a noun phrase can be composed of a noun only or in combination with an article. A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition and a noun phrase. To formally express the rules we need to equip ourselves with a paralanguage or notation. Observe the following abbreviations for the parts of speech: Table 5.11 Abbreviations for phrase structure rules S=Sentence N=Noun V=Verb ModCl= Modifying Clause Art=Article Adj=Adjective Adv=Adverb Poss=Possessive P=Preposition Aux=Auxiliary Conj=Conjunction PossP= Possessive Phrase 27 NP=Noun Phrase VP=Verb Phrase Comp= Complement PP=Prepositional Phrase Armed with these notations, we can now proceed to formulate some phrase structure rules: NP → N NP → Art N NP → Art Adj N VP → V VP → V Prt VP → V NP VP → V NP NP PP → P NP PossP → Poss NP S → NP VP for “apples” for “an apple” for “a stunning girl” for “sleep” for “write off” for “skip a course” for “lend me some money” for “off the road” for “his new hair style” for “She hit the roof.” (intransitive) (phrasal verb) (transitive) (di-transitive) These phrase structure rules enable us to analyze each sentence for its underlying sentence structure. Additionally they can account for the fact that how English speakers can produce an infinite number of sentences out of the limited number of rules. For instance, it is the knowledge of NP → Art Adj N that allow language users to produce ‘a stunning girl’ or similar phrase such as ‘an ugly boy’, ‘a demanding instructor’ and so forth. The tree diagram (in fact, an upside-down tree) is the most popular diagram among linguists with which phrase structure notation can be shown. The following is an example of how a tree should be drawn and understood. S S is divided into NP and VP / \ / VP / / VP is divided into V and NP \ NP | NP \ | / \ / NP is divided into Art and N Art N V Art N | | | | | The boy hit the dog. 28 The following sentences share the same constituent structure as the sentence above: The fish ate a shellfish. The valley hosts a Kangal. One might legitimately demand an explanation as to why the particular grouping in English is the way it is. For instance, the reason why a sentence is divided into NP and VP in the first leg of the tree diagram (S → NP + VP) lies in the ‘information structure’ of English sentences. English sentence structure has to have a topic (theme) in the initial position, which is the subject NP of that sentence. The other major constituent of the sentence is the comment part, which is expressed by the VP. Examine Table 5.12 for the typical features of information structure (see also 5.5 above). Table 5.12 Information Structures in English INFORMATION STRUCTURE IN ENGLISH Topic Subject Theme General Shared Comment Predicate Rheme Specific New We then need to say that the way sentence structures in English can be divided into its components is determined by the information structure of English. As regards the output of constituent structure as tree diagrams, sentences can be of three kinds: 1. 2. 3. 4. Simplex sentence Right-branching Left-branching Embedded We have just examined a simplex sentence structure in the examples above. So, let us consider others below. Right-branching Sentences 29 Right branching sentences are the sentences the analysis of which into constituting phrase structures lead to the right branching of the tree. Consider the example below where the main sentence ‘branches’ to the right: S1 S1 dominates S2 / \ | VP | / | \ | S2 | | | | / NP VP | | | | / \ NP | | | | NP | | | | / \ | N V | | / / S2 dominates S3 \ \ Comp N V Art N | | | | | S3 | I suppose that John is a student who … Technically speaking, S1 dominates S2, which in turn dominates S3. Plainly speaking, the main clause is S1 while S2 is a noun clause of S1. S3 is a relative clause of the object noun phrase ‘a student’. Consider other examples: see if you can draw a tree diagram for each. 1. 2. 3. Temel may think Dursun will say Ali denies … The house in the farm near corn fields across the hills behind the mountains… That is the cat that ate the mouse that drank the wine 30 Left-Branching Sentences Left-branching sentences can contain either prepositional phrases or relative clauses involving Object NPs in the sentences. The following illustrates a prepositional left-branched phrase. NP1 / \ PossP / \ NP2 / N | Suffix \ | | | | | | | | Suffix | | | | | | | PossP N | | | | / | | | | PossP / \ NP3 / \ \ N | NP4 Suffix | | | | | | | | | | | | N | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ali ’s uncle ’s father ’s grandson See if you can draw a tree diagram for the following sentences. 31 My grandmother’s sister’s grandfather. Her friend’s father’s yacht. The world’s richest man’s youngest daughter Embedded Sentences The Subject NPs of sentences can have relative clauses in an embedding fashion. Such sentences are called ‘embedded sentences’. Examine the following: S1 S1 dominates S2 / \ NP / \ \ \ / S2 | \ / \ \ | / | NP | | | | | | | | / | | | NP NP NP / / \ / \ \ \ \ VP | | \ \ \ \ \ \ S3 | | \ \ \ \ | S3 is directly embedded in S2 \ VP | | \ VP | | NP | | | V V V Art N | | \ Art N Art N Art N | S2 is directly embedded in S1 | / \ | | The rat the cat the dog disliked chased ate the cheese. Other examples: see if you can draw a tree diagram for each. 1. The student the professor flunked kicked the desk. 2. The girl the child a bird kissed kicked had a red umbrella. 3. The class the students painted could accommodate 69 students. Ambiguity and Disambiguation 32 Ambiguous sentence are sentences that could be interpreted in more than one way. In order to work out the intended meaning of ambiguous sentences, tree diagrams can be used. This is crucial in order to have an insight into the inner working mechanisms of the mind when it processes the sentences. For this purpose, let us repeat an earlier sentence: 33 S / \ NP / \ | \ / \ | PP | | | | | | | | | | | | | Art N | | \ \ \ NP \ / | \ \ P NP | NP | / \ | / \ VP / | \ P Art N Conj Art N Aux V | | | | | | | Adv | | The mother of the boy and the girl will arrive soon. When the nodes [ | ] are studied carefully, it is clear that the operative meaning according to tree diagram is “She will arrive soon”. There is only one NP that is directly attached to S. Besides, NP includes a PP, which contains “of the boy and the girl”, acting as a qualifier for the NP “the mother”. Below, the same sentence is drawn differently: different grouping of the elements results in a different interpretation: S / \ NP / | \ NP | / / \ / / / / \ \ | PP | \ \ \ | \ \ | \ | | \ | | P NP | NP | | | / \ | / \ Art N | | VP / | P Art N Conj Art N Aux V | | | | | | | | \ Adv | 34 The mother of the boy and the girl will arrive soon. According to the above diagram, the operative meaning is “They will arrive soon.” The reason is that S has an NP that has two sub NPs, connected by ‘and’. The first head NP is ‘mother’ and the second head NP is ‘girl’. Further, the left-most NP has a PP; ‘of the boy’. The ambiguity just examined is about the Subject NP. This time let us examine a sentence that involves ambiguity for the PP. Look at the sentence: The cop shot the man in the van. The question is: What is the scope of in the van? Does it modify only the man or does it modify shot the man? If we interpret the meaning as The cop shot the man who was in the van, then we have to draw the following tree diagram. S / \ | VP | / | \ / NP | | | | | | PP | | | | / \ NP | | | | NP / | | | | \ / | \ / \ The cop shot the man in the van. If we are trying to say that the shooting took place in the van, then the following diagram is appropriate. 35 S / \ / VP | / | \ | | | PP | | | | NP V NP P / | / \ | / \ \ NP \ The cop shot the man in the van. Other examples for structurally ambiguous sentences are: Big cats and dogs should be on a leash. The man saw the boy with a telescope. 5.9 Transformational Rules The end product of the phrase structure rules results in deep structure. Deep structure is the abstract layer where the intended meaning of sentences is formed by language user. To produce the sentences as they are actually uttered by the speaker, however, another set of rules are applied to the deep structure to transform the product of this structure into actual sentences use i.e. surface structure. The rules that are applied to deep structure to produce surface structure are called ‘transformation’. The following includes some of the transformations English has: Imperatives Question formation (Yes/No, WH-) Passive voice Particle Movement Fronting Cleft structures Causative constructions Discontinuous Dependency Extra-positioning modifying clauses 36 Here we will illustrate the last two related transformations, i.e. discontinuous dependency and extra-positioning as an example. Dependency and Particle Movement Rule Some verb stems and their particles in English are dependent on one another in such a manner that no other element can be permitted between the two. Such verb phrases are called ‘inseparable verbs’. Examine some of them below: Rely on Consist of Result in Listen to Point at Believe in I rely on my father for financial support. well-formed *I rely my father on for financial support. ill-formed In syntax, this type of relationship between the verb stem and its particle (prepositional adverb) is known as ‘continuous dependency’. On the other hand, there is another class of verb phrases that permits the placement of NP after the verb stem. These verb phrases are called ‘separable verbs’. Examine the following: Give up Take up Finish off Turn down Put off Tie up 1 Kim gave up her hope. well-formed 2 Kim gave her hope up. well-formed This flexible relationship between the verb stem give and its particle up is known as ‘discontinuous dependency’. Furthermore, the process by which the 37 particle up is moved away from the verb stem give is called ‘particle movement rule’. Let us draw a tree diagram for the sentence No 1. S / \ / \ / \ / VP | / NP V | / \ \ NP / \ N V Prt Poss N | | | | | Kim gave up her hope. Now compare the one above with the following, in which the particle up is moved to the end of the Object NP: S / \ / \ / \ / VP | / NP V | / | \ NP \ / \ \ N V Poss N | | | | Prt | Kim gave her hope up. In this example, the Object NP her hope is moved between the verb stem and the particle. The Object NP consists of two elements in this example. The 38 question is “What if the O NP includes as many as a dozen words?” Can we do the same mechanical operation as easily as that in the example above? Let us consider: Kim GAVE UP all her hopes that she will some day become a pop star. When particle movement rule is applied, we would have the following unacceptable sentence: *Kim GAVE all her hopes that she will some day become a pop star UP. Neither in spoken nor in written communication could native speakers or even proficient users of English find this acceptable! Unacceptability appears not to do with the grammatical structure in which particle movement rule is applied; it is more to do with what is known as ‘memory span’. In other words, from a listener’s point of view, it is beyond her cognitive capacity to realize that the particle up at the end of the utterance is in fact a separable part of the verb stem that is uttered 12 words before. To make up for the restricted capacity of the cognitive resources of listeners we need to shift the place of particle once more applying a transformational rule called ‘extra-positioning’. Extra-positioning refers to the process of placing the noun clause after the particle leaving the most essential words where they are. Consider the following: Kim GAVE all her hopes UP that she will some day become a pop star. Only after the application of extra-positioning could the sentence become intelligible for communicative purposes. We now look at another example of grammatical transformation. Extra-positioning Modifying Clause Relative (modifying) clauses in English function like an adjective modifying an NP. Under normal circumstances, it is accepted that the relationship between the 39 modifying clause and the modified NP is one of continuous dependency. This practically means that the modifying clause cannot be separated from the modified NP. Examine the following sentence: S / \ NP \ / \ / Mod Clause / / | \ \ \ NP | | \ | | / Quant N | \ \ \ | | | \ \ \ \ \ | \ \ \ Compl Aux Neg | \ \ \ \ \ \ VP \ \ / \ V Poss N P N V Part | | | | | | | Many students who could not complete their assignments on time dropped out. There are cases, however, where modifying clause can be detached from its usual location and placed at the sentence final position. Consider the following transformation in which the modifying clause is ‘extra-posed’ and compare it with the one above. S / / Mod / / | \ / / / / /\ \ \ \ / / / NP VP Quant \ / / / / \ / N V | | / / / / \ | | \ \ / / | | / | | | | | Prt Comp Aux Neg | \ \ \ | | \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ V Poss N | | | \ P N | | Many students dropped out who could not complete their assignments on time. 40 Though students are likely to raise objections about the grammaticality of the sentence, for many native as well as proficient users of English such a syntactic construction is acceptable and that the only difference between the former and the latter is a mere matter of transformation: ‘extra-positioning.’ Normally, the dependency of modifying clause on the ‘modified’ NP is one of ‘continuous’. However, when a transformation is needed for pragmatic purposes, dependency becomes one of ‘discontinuous.’ Here again transformation is triggered to make up for the limited memory capacity of the listeners. To do away with such restrictions, native speakers draw upon following considerations: Comment needs to be closer to topic. Modifying clauses should be kept to minimum if they are to be comprehensible in their usual locations. Summary of Transformational-Generative Grammar Having described some of the phenomena involved in syntax, it is time to offer a general view, which is a theory, of how deep structure is converted into surface structure. Based on the work of Chomsky (1965) the so called ‘standard theory of transformational-generative grammar’ can be diagrammatically shown as in Figure 5.5. Basically, from deep structure, a surface structure is generated by application of a series of syntactic processes (i.e. transformations, or transformational rules). An examination of Figure 5.5 indicates that knowledge of phrase structure rules (which words go with which words) forms the basis of deep structure (what combinations of words can be considered grammatical through intuitive judgments). Then, by the help of deep structure, necessary transformations (e.g. active or passive) are decided upon. Once a decision is made, the structure of the transformation is formed. In uttering the transformed structure, phonological rules are applied. Application of phonological rules produces a pronounceable sentence. 41 PHRASE STRUCTURE RULES S y n t a x Deep Structures TRANSFORMATIONS Surface Structures PHONOLOGY Pronunciation Figure 5.5 Standard theory of transformational-generative grammar 5.10 Updating Chomsky: Minimalist Program As noted earlier on, Chomsky’s views on the nature of language have largely remained the same. Nonetheless, in his latest publication called ‘Bare Phrase Structure’ in 1995, he assigned a prominent role to vocabulary which he had earlier discarded as insignificant in the study of grammar. Chomsky seems to have realized that abstract and general grammatical rules may fail to explain the sentences produced by speakers. A good example would be that mentioned in 5.7: 1. Look at you instead of Look at yourself. To explain this and similar sentences produced in performance, he introduced Principle of Economy, a concept similar to Least Effort Theory, according 42 to which linguistic representations and processes are economical. Thus the theoretical and descriptive device necessary to describe language can be minimized. According to minimalism, lexicon assumes a greater role in explaining aspects of grammar. For instance, knowledge of how verbs can take on grammatical functions is stored with particular verbs rather than phrase structure rules. Synthesizing all said, syntax is not independent of lexicon and it receives great contribution in its processes from the particular features of lexical items. Therefore, syntax has to take semantics into account if it is to give a fuller picture of processes involved in mind of language users. 5.11 Summary We discussed major concepts in syntax such as competence and performance, deep and surface structures, emphasizing that all users of language, schooled or unschooled, are competent speakers of their languages. Languages do have a basic word order in terms of subject, verb and object no matter how flexible and free they might appear to the novice student of language. Behind the concept of word order lies the idea of constituent (syntactic) structure and how that structure at phrase and sentence levels are represented at the deep structure, an abstract system, or knowledge of linguistic structures. Knowledge of deep structure reveals how constituents are grouped to form meaningful phrases. Constituent structures can formally be expressed through various notations, the most famous of which is the tree diagram. We identified why a sentence in English have the immediate constituents as NP and VP. We provided examples of transformations and how they can be shown to transform through tree diagrams, and offered some explanation as to the causes of transformations. 5.12 Teaching Grammar Grammar, as is the case with other aspects of language, can be taught in two ways: Rules are given first, followed by examples (deductive; rule-driven), 43 Examples are supplied first, followed by the discovery of the rule (inductive; discovery-based). ACTIVITY 1. Teaching passive voice deductively. In such an activity for intermediate learners, active sentences can be transformed into passive ones. Teacher writes a sentence on the board: “The postman delivers the letters.” Can you substitute “postman” with “someone”? “Someone delivers the letters.” Teacher may ask students which part of the sentence is more important for communication: “Someone” OR “delivers the letters.” Teacher may continue to say that when the verb phrase is more important, the same sentence can written as “The letters are delivered.” Finally, teacher explains the rule: Find the object of the verb and make it the subject of the passive sentence: “The letters…” Place an auxiliary very after the subject by considering both the singularplural nature of the subject and tense of the verb: In this case, it is the ARE of TO BE: “The letters + are…” Convert the existing form of the verb into the Past Participle Form (V3) “The letters + are + delivered.” In the next step teacher may ask students to convert some example sentences into passive applying the rules stated above. 44 ACTIVITY 2. Teaching adverbs of frequency inductively. In this activity, teacher helps upper intermediate learners discover the rule of determining the location of adverbs of frequency. Teacher may prepare a text having such adverbs for learners to discover. Read the following text to figure out the rule for the adverbs of frequency. “Well, you see, I usually get up at seven o’clock if I haven’t done a hell lot of work the previous night. I hardly have my breakfast at home as I am used to picking up a simit on my way to the bus stop. Infrequently, however, I may decide to occasionally drop in a pastry shop to have tea. You may ask me: “Do you ever have a healthy breakfast?” Such a thing has never happened to me before, believe me! As a matter fact, once in a blue moon, like the times at Bayram.” Students are expected to come up with the following rules: Rule 1. Adverbs of frequency can occur outside of SVO. Rule 2. They are always used before the main verb within the sentence. Rule 3. They precede the finite verb they modify. Now apply the rules to the following sentences. Is the word order right or wrong? If wrong, write the correct form. 1. “It is believed commonly that some are gifted language learners.” ……… 2. “What usually goes around often comes around.” ……… 3. “East and west, always home is the best.” ……… 4. “Might doesn’t always make right.” ……… Study Questions 1. What is the crucial difference between a phrase and a sentence? 2. Can you explain re-write rules for phrase structure grammars? 3. Why is the notion of competence important? 4. Can you name three of the properties of constituent structure? 5. Why do languages have transformations (e.g. active-passive)? 6. What is Saussure’s contribution to linguistic studies? 7. Why is the syntax the most important aspect of language for Chomsky? 45 8. Do you think syntax alone can account for the way mind processes the language? 9. How do behaviorists and cognitivists differ considering processing and producing a language? 10. Why don’t speakers tend to utter or write at deep structure? 11. What is the distinction between competence and performance? 12. What are the types of phrases and sentences? Exemplify. 13. In what ways do we produce sentences in marked word order? 14. How do we disambiguate the sentence “The mother of the boy and the girl will arrive soon.” using tree diagrams? 15. What seems to be novel in Minimalist Program? References and Further Reading Akmajian, A. & Demers, R. A., and Harnish, R. M. (1984) Linguistics: An introduction to language and communication. (4th ed.) Cambridge: MIT Press. Chomsky, N. (1957) Syntactic structures. New York: Holt. Chomsky, N. (1965) Aspects of theory of syntax. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Chomsky, N. (1995) Bare phrase structure. In G. Webelhuth (Ed.), Government and binding theory and the minimalist program (pp. 383-400). Oxford: Blackwell. Clark, H.H. & Clark, E.V. (1977) Psychology and language: An introduction to psycholinguistics. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Fromkin, V. & Rodman, R. (1989) An introduction to language. New York: Holt. Thornburry, S. (1999) How to teach grammar. Essex, Harlow: Pearson. Saussure, Ferdinand de (1916) Cours de linguistique générale. Paris: Payot.