* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Linguistics Tripos Part One, Paper 2 Lecture Two
Old Irish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Swedish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Navajo grammar wikipedia , lookup
Modern Hebrew grammar wikipedia , lookup
Compound (linguistics) wikipedia , lookup
Portuguese grammar wikipedia , lookup
French grammar wikipedia , lookup
Spanish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Malay grammar wikipedia , lookup
Zulu grammar wikipedia , lookup
Serbo-Croatian grammar wikipedia , lookup
Ancient Greek grammar wikipedia , lookup
Chinese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Scottish Gaelic grammar wikipedia , lookup
Esperanto grammar wikipedia , lookup
Latin syntax wikipedia , lookup
Turkish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Yiddish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Lexical semantics wikipedia , lookup
Antisymmetry wikipedia , lookup
Polish grammar wikipedia , lookup
Vietnamese grammar wikipedia , lookup
Determiner phrase wikipedia , lookup
Linguistics Tripos Part One, Paper 2 Lecture Two: Categories and Constituents 1 IAN ROBERTS Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 2 Syntax accounts for how words are grouped together into larger units (phrases and sentences): a.Alex hopes that Wayne will be fit for the match. b.*Hopes Alex that Wayne will be fit for the match. c. *Hopes that Alex Wayne will be fit for the match. There are 3,628,800 possible orders for this 10-word sentence, 3,628,798 of which are ungrammatical. What is the other two grammatical order? Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 Why study syntax? 3 Syntax is a central aspect of language, in that it relates sound and meaning over an infinite domain, and so we may be able to find out about Universal Grammar by studying it. Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 How do we study syntax? 4 The basic notion is constituent structure, i.e. the way in which words group together into intermediate units (or phrases) of various categories. Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 2. Categories 5 Two main types: a. Lexical categories: N(oun), V(erb), Adj(ective), Adv(erb), P(reposition) -- open class (you can invent new ones), (near-) universal Traditional notional/semantic definitions of lexical categories (“a noun is the name of a person, place or thing”). Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 Functional categories: 6 auxiliaries (must, be), determiners (the, a), complementisers (if, that, for), etc. -- closed class, seem to vary quite a lot from language to language (Latin has no determiners, Mandarin has no complementisers, English auxiliaries are quite unique in a number of respects, etc.). Could we have notional definitions of functional categories? How do we distinguish the two types? Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 Four criteria for identifying categories 7 (mostly for lexical categories; not all valid all the time): - morphology - syntax - phonology - aspects of meaning Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 Morphological criteria 8 a. (regular) count N have –s plural b. (regular) adverbs end in –ly c. verbs inflect for past tense (regular form is in –ed) d. prepositions are invariant Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 Syntactic/distributional criteria I 9 a.only auxiliaries invert in direct yes/no questions: Cambridge will flood Will Cambridge flood? Cambridge flooded Did Cambridge flood? /*Flooded Cambridge? (NB an asterisk in front of a sentence means it is ungrammatical) Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 Syntactic/distributional criteria II 10 verbs can’t directly follow verbs like seem: John seems nice/interesting/*sleeping/in a bad mood/a nice person Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 Syntactic/distributional criteria III 11 only nouns or noun phrases can be subjects: ___ can be a pain in the neck. Nouns can go here: kids/injections/syntax/Dave but not other categories *walk/*tall/*in; Sequences of words whose main element is a noun (Noun Phrases, or NPs) can also go here: Nick Clegg/professors of Linguistics/students/other people’s kids/injections which go wrong Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 Syntactic/distributional criteria IV 12 only verbs or verb phrases can appear between an auxiliary and a manner adverb: Students can ___ quickly Verbs can go here: talk/write/learn/understand but not other categories: *Dave Cameron/*kids/*injections/*syntax/*tall/*in Sequences of words whose main element is a verb (Verb Phrases, or VPs) can also go in here: dissolve in sulphuric acid/get married/ conclude that you’re not worth listening to Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 Phonology 13 stress can be category-sensitive: a. Apple wants to increase its profits. -- verb Apple wants an increase in its profits. -- noun b. blackbird -- noun (word stress) black bird -- noun phrase (phrasal stress) Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 Semantics 14 can depend on category: a. the round church Adj – shape) ( b. Round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran. (P–path) c. These cars round corners very nicely. (V-path + moved object) c. Time for another round. (N – extension) Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 15 We have no clear idea of the inventory of (possible, universal) categories, although the noun-verb distinction seems fundamental and universal, while other categories recur across languages to varying degrees. Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 3. Constituent structure 16 a. b. c. Alex spoke. Ryan laughed. Wayne scowled. [Noun Alex ] [Verb spoke ] [Noun Night ] [Verb fell ] [Noun fish ] [Verb fish ] Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 17 [ The manager of the opposition team ] [ disagreed ] [ The tall black-haired boy] [ disagreed ] [ The boy who lived ] [ disagreed ] [ Fish fish fish ] [ fish ] the complex categories here are Noun Phrases (NPs); they contain a noun and other words and phrases that depend on/modify that noun (articles, adjectives, Preposition Phrases (see below on these), relative clauses, etc.). Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 18 [NP Dave ] [ wrecked the economy ] [NP Alex ] [ hopes fervently that Wayne will recover his form ]. [NP The psychopath ] [ ate his wife with a nice Chianti ]. the right-hand categories are Verb Phrases (VPs); they contain a verb and other words and phrases that depend on/modify that verb (objects, adverbs, adverbial phrases, subordinate clauses, Prepositional Phrases, etc.). Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 labelled bracketing 19 Representation of constituent structure by means of labelled bracketing: [S [NP [N Dave ]] [VP [V wrecked ] [NP [D the ] [N economy ]]]] Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 tree diagram 20 Representation of constituent structure by means of a tree diagram: S r u NP1 VP | r u N1 V NP2 Dave wrecked r u D N2 the economy Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 21 tree diagrams and labelled bracketings present exactly the same information in typographically different ways. We choose which type of representation to use mostly for convenience; nothing theoretical depends on it. (Most people find trees easier to work with, but this isn’t always true – e.g. with Power Point ). Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 Defining and relating constituents 22 a.S, NP, VP, etc. are nodes of the tree, linked by branches. b. Branches never cross and all emanate from S. c.The words are terminal nodes; category symbols are non-terminal nodes. Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 Dominance and immediate dominance: 23 A given category, call it A, dominates another category B just where A is, intuitively, both higher up in the tree than B and connected to B. More precisely, category A dominates category B just where there is a continuous sequence, or path, of branches going down the tree from node A to node B. A immediately dominates just where A dominates B and no node intervenes on the downward path from A to B. Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 Constituency and immediate constituency 24 A given category, call it B, is a constituent of another category A just where B is, intuitively, both lower down in the tree than A and connected to A. More precisely, category B is a constituent of category A just where there is a continuous sequence, or path, of branches going up the tree from node B to node A. B is an immediate constituent of A just where B is a constituent of A and no node intervenes on the upward path from B to A. Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 25 (Immediate) dominance and (immediate) constituency are inverse relations (dominance “looks downward”; constituency “looks upward”): A (immediately) dominates B B is an (immediate) constituent of A Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 23/05/2017 S r u NP1 | N1 Dave VP u r V wrecked r u D N2 the NP2 economy Looking at this tree diagram, we observe that: a.NP1 and VP are immediately dominated by S. b.V and NP2 are immediately dominated by VP. c. V and NP2 are dominated by S. Roberts, Structures, Michaelmas 2010 26 23/05/2017