Download BBI3201 - Universiti Putra Malaysia

BBI3201
Introduction to General Linguistics
Objectives
• Students are able to:
• 1. analyse the sounds of language, as well as the
•
structure of words and sentences (C3)
• 2. evaluate the similarities and differences among
•
languages and universal aspects of grammar (A3)
• 3. discuss developments in linguistics and related fields
•
(P2, CS)
• 4. develop thinking skills such as explaining,
analysing and evaluating discussions (CTPS)
Synopsis
• This course covers essential elements of linguistics, the
nature of language, phonetics and phonology, morphology
and word formation, syntax and grammatical elements,
semantics, linguistic comparison, linguistic schools and
branches of linguistics.
Evaluation
• Kerja Kursus
70%
• Peperiksaan Akhir 30%
Evaluation
Kerja Kursus:(70%)
• Quiz: (10%)
It is in a form of a short essay based on Chapter
1. You are required to hand in the assignment by
Week 5.
• ASSIGNMENT: (25%)
You will be given ONE written assignment to work
on. You are required to hand in the assignment
by Week 10.
Evaluation
• MID-SEMESTER TEST (35%)
• MCQs and short-structured questions will be
asked.
• You will be tested on the following:
• Introduction to Linguistics
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Morphology
• Syntax
Evaluation
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FINAL EXAMINATION (30%)
MCQs and short-structured questions will be asked.
You will be tested on the following:
Semantics
Pragmatics
Language history and change
Language, society and culture
Development of writing
COURSE TEXT
• Fromkin, V., Rodman, R. and Hyams, N. (2011) An
Introduction to Language. 9th ed. Boston: Thomson
Wadsworth.
• RM43.00
Contact: Mr Tan Yun Chuan:- 0122808241/[email protected]>
9
WHAT IS LANGUAGE ?
• Language is used for communication. Language allows
people to say things to each other and express their
communication needs.
• The
communication of most interest to us is the
communication of meaning.
• A language allows its speakers to talk about anything
within their realm of knowledge.
Human Language
• Human language is arguably the single most remarkable
characteristic that sets our species apart
• Our development of everything from music to warfare
could never have come about in the absence of language
• LANGUAGE IS WHAT MAKES US HUMAN, AND
HUMAN LANGUAGE IS UNIQUE
Linguistic knowledge
Knowledge of sounds system
• Part of knowing a language is knowing what sounds or
signs are in that knowledge and what sounds are not
Knowledge of words
• Knowing a language also includes knowing that certain
sound sequences signify certain meanings or concepts
e.g. cat
glitter (words beginning with gl related to sight)
DESIGN FEATURES OF LANGUAGE
(Fundamental properties of language )
• Duality of patterning
• Displacement
• Open-endedness
• Stimulus-freedom
• Arbitrariness
DUALITY OF PATTERNING
• For most people, most of the time, the ordinary medium of
language is speech
• How do we speak ? We allow air from the lungs to pass out
through our mouths, and at the same time, we move our
mouths in various ways to produce speech sounds-consonants and vowels
• Every utterance we make consists of speech sounds, one
after another
DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
• In fact, every human language operates with only a small
set of speech sounds, e.g. English, consider the word
cat :
• How many speech sounds does it contain ? (answer : 3 )
•
/k/ /æ/ /t/
DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
For convenience, let us introduce special
symbols for each of the speech sounds
• / k / , / æ/, / t /
• We use the slashes /
/ to indicate we
are talking about distinctive speech sounds
(phonemes) of a particular language --in
this case, English
DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
• Now, if someone asks you what the English word / k æ t
/ means, you will have no trouble in answering
• But suppose , someone asks you what the English
phoneme / k / means ?
* It is impossible for you to answer as the phoneme / k /
has no meaning in English
( nor / æ / or / t /)
DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
• But now notice something else -- these same
meaningless phonemes can be rearranged to produce
different words with different meanings
• thus the order / t æ k / tack, while / æ k t / act, / æt / at,
and / t æk t / gives tacked or tact
DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
• What is happening is that, by combining a very small set
of meaningless speech sounds in various ways, we can
produce a very large number of different meaningful items
-- words.
• All human languages are constructed in this way, and this
is called
duality of patterning or duality
DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
• Duality is the use of a small number of meaningless
elements in combination to produce a large number of
meaningful elements
DUALITY OF PATTERNING (contd.)
DUALITY IS UNIQUE TO HUMAN LANGUAGE
• In fact, bird songs and whale songs arguably contain an
element of duality, but these are not exactly signaling
systems
• Other creatures have signaling systems which are based
on the principle of ‘one sound, one meaning.’
DISPLACEMENT
• Displacement is the use of language to talk about things
other than the here and now
• This means that we are able to talk about events which
occurred previously, such as about our childhood, or what
did two months ago, etc.
OPEN-ENDEDNESS
• Open-endedness is our ability to use language to say
anything at all, including lots of things we’ve never said or
heard before
• A large pink spider wearing sunglasses and a polka dot
sarong danced across the floor
(It is most unlikely that you have ever seen the sentence above, but you
have no difficulty in understanding it--even though you may not believe it)
STIMULUS - FREEDOM
Stimulus-freedom is the ability to say anything
you like in any context
• Suppose someone says to you, ‘What do you think of my kebaya ?’--
you are free to make any response you like, including none at all. You
might reply, ‘it’s pretty’ or ‘it is so ugly’ or ‘it doesn’t suit you’.
• This however does not mean that human language is totally random.
There are social pressures that make some responses more likely
than others.
• The absence of stimulus-freedom would mean that your every remark
is determined by the context, so that like a character in a play, you do
not have the choice of what to say.
STIMULUS - FREEDOM (contd.)
• There are, of course, certain formal and especially
ceremonial context in which you are bound by the context
-e.g. church services
• Non-human signals are NOT stimulus-free,
but rather stimulus bound i.e. a non-human
creature produces a particular signal always and only
when the appropriate stimulus is present.
ARBITRARINESS
• Arbitrariness refers to the absence of any necessary
connection between a linguistic form and its meaning.
• The overwhelming presence of arbitrariness in language
is the chief reason it takes so long to learn the vocabulary
of a foreign language-- it is generally impossible to guess
the meaning of an unfamiliar word.
ARBITRARINESS ( cont’d)
• Flower
• Bunga
• Hana
27
Phonetics and Phonology
• Phonetics is the general study of speech sounds.
• Phonology is the study of the sound system of language –
the rules which govern pronunciation
• To know a language is to know the sounds of that
language and we know how to combine those sounds into
words.
• For example: When we know English, we know the
sounds represented by the letters b, e, and d and we can
form the word bed.
• Articulatory phonetics is the study of how the vocal tract
produces the sounds of language.
29
Anatomy of the vocal tract
30
Difficulties of English Pronunciation
• Orthography, or alphabetic spelling, does not represent
the sounds of a language in a consistent way:
• Different Spelling, Same Sounds
• For example: Did he believe that Caesar could see the
people seize the seas?
• The same sound /i:/ is represented variously by e, ie, ae,
ee, eo, ei and ea.
• Same Spelling,
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Different
Pronunciations
For example:
cough - /kƆ:f/
tough - /tΛf/
bough - /baʊ/
through - /θru:/
though - /ðəʊ/
thoroughfare - /θʌrəfeə/
31
32
• Some letters have no sound in certain words (so-called
silent letters).
• mnemonic debt
hole
know
write
island
• English spelling is not consistent at all with its
pronunciation.
33
IPA
•
The International Phonetic Alphabet
•
•
a different symbol for each distinctive sound
the same symbol should be used for that sound in
every language which uses it .
The sounds of all languages fall into two classes:
1. Consonants
2. Vowels
Consonants
p
b
t
d
k
g
tʃ
dʒ
pen, copy, happen
back, baby, job
tea, tight, button
day, ladder, odd
key, clock, school
get, giggle, ghost
church, match, nature
judge, age, soldier
34
Consonants
f
fat, coffee, rough, photo
v
view, heavy, move
θ
thing, author, path
ð
this, other, smooth
s
soon, cease, sister
z
zero, music, roses, buzz
ʃ
ship, sure, national
35
Consonants
ʒ
pleasure, vision
h
hot, whole, ahead
m
more, hammer, sum
n
nice, know, funny, sun
ŋ
ring, anger, thanks, sung
l
light, valley, feel
r
right, wrong, sorry, arrange
36
j
yet, use, beauty, few
w
wet, one, when, queen
ʔ
(glottal stop)
department, football
37
38
How can the sounds of consonants be
classified?
• The place of articulation, and
• The manner of articulation
• The production of any sound involves the movement of
air.
• Most speech sounds are produced by pushing lung air
through the vocal chords.
39
Place of articulation
• Consonants are classified according to where the airflow
restriction occurs in the vocal tract.
• Movement of the tongue and lips creates the constriction,
reshaping the oral cavity in various ways to produce the
various sounds.
40
Place of Articulation
• Bilabials [p], [b], [m]: we articulate by bringing both lips
together.
• Labiodentals [f], [v]: We articulate by touching the upper
teeth on the lower lip.
• Interdentals [θ], [ð]: The sound is pronounced by inserting
the tip of the tongue between the teeth.
41
Place of Articulation
• Alveolars [t], [d], [n], [s], [z], [l], [/r]/. All these
sounds are pronounced with the tongue raised in
various ways to the alveolar ridge.
• [t], [d], [n] the tongue tip is raised and touches the
ridge, or slightly in front of it.
• [s], [z] the sides of the front of the tongue are
raised, but the tip is lowered so that air escapes
over it.
42
Place of Articulation
• [l] the tongue tip is raised while the rest of the tongue
remains down, permitting air to escape from both sides of
the tongue. Thus, [l] is called a lateral.
• [r]: the sound is produced by curling the tip of the tongue
back behind the alveolar ridge – a retroflex sound
43
Place of Articulation
• Palatals [ʃ], [ʒ], [tʃ], [dʒ], [j]: the constriction occurs by
raising the front part of the tongue to the palate.
• Velars [k], [g], [ŋ]: these sounds are produced by raising
the back of the tongue to the soft palate or velum.
44
Manner of Articulation
• How do we distinguish the sounds of [p], [b] and
[m] (they are bilabials) or [t], [d] and [n] (they are
all alveolar ridge sounds)?
• Speech sounds also vary in the way the air
stream is affected as it flows from the lungs up
and out of the mouth and nose. It may be blocked
or partially blocked; the vocal cords may or may
not vibrate. This is called the manner of
articulation.
45
Manner of Articulation
• When the vocal cords are spread apart, the air
from the lungs passes between them unimpeded.
Sounds produced in this way are described as
voiceless.
• When the vocal cords are drawn together, the air
from the lungs repeatedly pushes them apart as it
passes through, creating a vibration effect.
Sounds produced in this way are described as
voiced.
46
• The voiced/voiceless distinction is very important in
English. This phonetic property distinguishes the words in
word pairs like the following:
• pin: [pɪn]
cat: [kæt]
bin: [bɪn]
get: [/get]
47
• Voiceless sounds can be classified into two classes:
aspirated and unaspirated
• Aspirated voiceless consonant means when the
consonant is being pronounced, there is a puff of air.
48
• Nasal sounds: When the velum is not in its raised
position, air escapes through the nose and mouth.
Eg: [m], [n] and [ŋ]
• Stops are consonants in which the air stream is
completely blocked in the oral cavity for a short period
(tens of milliseconds). eg: [b], [p], [m], [t], [d], [n], [k], [g],
[ŋ], [tʃ] and [dʒ]
• Fricatives are sounds produced with the air flow so
severely obstructed that is caused friction. eg: [f], [v], [s],
[z], [θ] and [ð]
49
• Affricates are produced by a stop closure
followed immediately by a gradual release of the
closure. eg:[tʃ] and [dʒ]
• Liquids: there is some obstruction of the
airstream in the mouth but not enough to cause
any constriction. eg: [l] and [r]
• Glides are produced with little obstruction of the
airstream.eg: [j] and [w]
• Approximants are sounds that approximate a
frictional closeness, but no actual friction
occurs.eg: [w], [j], [r] and [l]
50
Some charts have a row for affricates (e.g., the chart below based on page 21 of the textbook). The IPA
consonant chart doesn't -- you can always get the affricate symbol by putting together the stop and the
.
fricative symbols in the relevant column
bilabial
labio-dental
dental
alveolar
alveopalatal
retroflex
palatal
velar
stop
fricative
nasal
approximant
affricate
(
)
(
)
51
English vowels
• Vowels are pronounced with no significant
blockage of the air as it is pushed out of the
lungs. The quality of a vowel depends on the
shape of the vocal tract as the air passes
through. Different parts of the tongue may be high
or low in the mouth; the lips may be spread or
pursed; the velum may be raised or lowered.
52
•
Differences between vowels depend on very
small movement of the tongue and mouth.
a) area of the mouth
b) height of the tongue in the mouth
c) shape of the lips
For example: say knee [i:] and boot [u:]
First vowel sound - coming from the front part of
the mouth
Second vowel sound – coming from the back
53
• Another example: Say hat [æ] and arm [ɑ:]
• [æ] from the front of the mouth
[ɑ:] from the back of the mouth
Therefore, [i:] and [æ] are front vowels and [u:] and [ɑ:] are
back vowels
54
• Height of the tongue
If the tongue is near the roof of the mouth, the sound is
described as close.
If the tongue is near the bottom, it is described as open.
55
Therefore, [i:] close front vowel
[æ] open front vowel
[u:] close back vowel
[ɑ:] close back vowel
knee
hat
boot
arm
56
front
centre
back
u
i
high
Ʊ
I
e
o
mid
ə
ε
Λ
low
Ɔ
æ
a
ɑ
57
• Shape of the lips
Vowels are described based on the shape of the lips
(spread - /i:/ or rounded - /u:/)
[i:] close front spread
knee
[æ] open front spread
hat
[u:] close back rounded
boot
[ɒ] open back rounded
box
58
Tenseness
Vowels produced with greater tension of the
tongue muscles
Tense
Lax
[ i: ]
[ u: ]
[I]
[Ʊ]
[ε]
[ æ]
[Λ]
59
Short Vowels
[I]
[e]/[ε]
[æ]
[Ʊ]
[ ɑ ] /[ Ɔ ]
[ə]
[Λ]
pit, bit
bet, pet
man, pat
put, foot
pot, cot
sofa
but
60
Long Vowels
[i] / [ i:]
beat, feel
[u] / [u:] fool, boot
[Ɔ] / [Ɔ:]
[a] / [
[ З: ]
ɑ:]
port, bought
park, card, pass, half
bird, fern, purse
61
Diphthongs
• Diphthongs occur when one pure vowel glides to another.
3 vowels (/e/, /a/ and /ɔ/) that glide towards [ɪ]. They are:
[eɪ] face
[aɪ] bite
[ɔɪ] toy
62
• There are two which glide to /ʊ/. They are:
[əʊ] nose
[aʊ] mouth
• The remaining three glide towards /ə/. They are:
[ɪə] dear
[eə] hair
[ʊə] cure
63
Vowels / Diphthongs
[eI]
[əƱ]
[aI]
[au]
[ƆI]
late, bait
poke, boat
bite, might
pout, cow
boy, toy, soy
Phonology
• Difference between phonetics and phonology
• Phonetics simply describes the articulatory and acoustic properties
of phones (speech sounds).
• Phonology is essentially the description of the systems and
patterns of speech sounds in a language.
• Phoneme (Longman Dictionary of Applied
Linguistics) is defined as the smallest unit of
sound in a language. A phoneme is
conventionally indicated with slash marks / /.
• For example: a) pan and ban are words that differ
only in their initial sound, /p/ and /b/ respectively.
b) ban and bin differ only in their
vowels: /æ/ and /ɪ/
Therefore /p/, /b/, /æ/ and /ɪ/ are
phonemes of English.
They are also known as minimal pairs
as each pair of words is different from
each other by only one distinctive
sound (always in the same position in
the word).
• In a single phoneme, we can have different forms such as
•
•
•
•
aspirated and non-aspirated consonants.
For example: the phoneme /p/ is used in words like span
/spæn/ and spare /speə (r)/.
However, when /p/ occurs at the beginning of words like
put /pʊt/ and pair /peə (r)/, it is said with a puff of air [ph].
This variation is called allophones of a phoneme. “Allo” =
one of a closely related set.
Allophones – realizations of a single structural element in
the sound system of a language.
• Both the unaspirated and the aspirated /p/ have the same
phonemic function that is they are both heard and
identified as /p/ and not as /b/.
• Therefore /p/ and /ph/ are both allophones of the phoneme
/p/
Complementary Distribution
• Look at the allophones /p/ and /ph/ again.
• Notice that the /ph/ occurs at the beginning of words and
/p/ occurs at after [s]
• If there are two sounds and one cannot occur where the
other one occurs in a word, we say they are in
complementary distribution.
Free Variation
• When /p/ a voiceless bilabial stop occur at the end of a
word, the sound can be produced without being released
/p]/
• This is the third allophone of the phoneme /p/
• If the /p/ in the word ‘mop’ is pronounced as /p/ or /p]/,
where the sounds are different but they do not contrast in
meaning (like minimal pairs do), we say they occur in free
variation.
• Morphology
What is morphology?
morph
Greek word –
morphe: ‘form’
ology
science of
Morphology: the science of (word) forms
Therefore, morphology is the study of the internal
structure of words and of the rules by which words are
formed.
What is a morpheme?
• The most basic unit of grammatical form
• The minimal linguistic unit – an arbitrary union of a
sound and a meaning
• For example: a (=without): amoral, asexual,
asymmetrical
• A word can be composed of one or more morphemes:
• For examples:
One morpheme: child, wife, man,
Two morphemes: child+ish, paint+er, re+cycle
Three morphemes: un+kind+ly, re+use+able,
dis+agree+ment
Four morphemes: gentle+man+li+ness,
un+domestic+ate+ed
More than four morphemes: un+gentle+man+li+ness
Morphemes
Free
Bound
Free morphemes
• Free morphemes are words (lexemes) in their
own right e.g.: house, car, etc.
• Can be classified as:
-Open class (Content/Lexical words): nouns, adjectives,
verbs, adverbs
-Closed class (Function or Grammatical words):
conjunctions, prepositions, articles, pronouns, auxiliary
verbs
Bound Morphemes
• Bound morphemes are morphemes that cannot
stand alone e.g.: -able, -ness, dis-, etc.
• Affixes are bound morphemes
• There are different types of affixes.
PREFIXES
SUFFIXES
AFFIXES
INFIXES
CIRCUMFIXES
Word Formation Rule: Derivational
Morphology: Prefixes
• Bound morphemes - attached before the root
• For example: un+kind =unkind
•
pre+test=pretest
•
im+possible= possible
• Do not change the word class, provide opposite meaning
Derivational Morphology: Suffixes
• Bound morphemes - attached after the root
• For example: kind +ness = kindness
•
verb
noun
•
sing + er = singer
•
verb
noun
•
beautiful + ly = beautifully
•
adjective
adverb
• The use of suffixes changes the word class.
Word Formation Rule: Inflectional Morphology
• Inflectional suffixes do not involve a change of word
•
•
•
•
•
•
class e.g. swim (verb) – swim + s (verb)
Examples:
I watch the beautiful sunset.
He watches the beautiful sunset.
Nancy watched the beautiful sunset.
Nancy has watched the beautiful sunset.
Nancy is watching the beautiful sunset.
• Inflectional morphemes represent relationships
between different parts of a sentence.
Inflectional Morphology
• For example: (2) the –es at the end of the verb is an
agreement marker.
• The suffix –ed indicates past tense, syntactic rules
requires –ed form to be used with have,
• and –ing is required when verbs are used with forms of
be.
83
Summary
MORPHEMES
free
Open
class
bound
Closed
class
derivational
prefixes
do not usually
involve a change
of word class
inflectional
suffixes
involve a change
of word class
suffixes
do not involve a
change of word class
Word Formation
• derivation
• functional shift
• semantic shift
• compounding
• clipping
• acronyms
• initialisms
• blends
• backformation
• onomatopoeic words
Derivation
• Derivation is the process by which a new word is built
from a base, usually through the addition of an affix
• Derivation creates new words by changing the
category and/or the meaning of the base to which it
applies
• e.g. the derivational affix -er, combines with a verb to
create a noun with the meaning ‘one who does’
work (v.) + -er = worker (n.)
Zero Derivation(Functional Shift)
• No derivation occurs but there is a change in the syntactic
category.
E.g.: paper – noun (I need some more papers.)
paper – verb (I need to paper the wall so that the room
will look brighter.)
Semantic Shift
• Existing words can take on new meanings by shrinking or
extending the scope of their reference.
For example: computer language: mouse and bookmark
internet addresses.
• New meanings of words do not replace earlier ones but
extend their range of application
Compounding
• Another way to form a new word is by combining two
already existing words
e.g. blackboard, greenhouse
Clipping
• Clipping is a process whereby a new word is created by
shortening a poly-syllabic word
• e.g. prof for professor
ad
for advertisement
Acronyms
• Acronyms are formed from the initial sounds or letters of a
string of words
• e.g. AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome)
IOC (International Olympic
Council)
Initialisms
• Shortenings that resemble acronyms but are pronounced
•
•
•
•
as a sequence of letters and not a word.
For example: Universiti Putra Malaysia:
UPM
Compact Disk: CD
Chief executive officer: CEO
Attention deficit disorder: ADD
Blends
• Blends are words that are created from parts of two
already existing lexical items
• e.g. motel
( motor - hotel )
telethon ( telephone - marathon )
• Usually, the first part of one word and the last part of a
second one are combined to form blends
Backformation
• Backformation is a process whereby a word whose form
is similar to that of a derived form undergoes a process of
deaffixation
• e.g. baby sit from baby-sitter
edit from editor
typewrite from typewriter
Onomatopoeic Words
• Words formed by mimicking the sounds that we hear
around us.
• Eg. swish, moo, quacks, etc
Syntax
• Any speaker of any human language can produce and
understand an infinite number of possible sentences
• Thus, we can’t possibly have a mental dictionary of all the
possible sentences
• Rather, we have the rules for forming sentences stored in
our brains
• Syntax is the part of grammar that pertains to a speaker’s
knowledge of sentences and their structures
What the Syntax Rules Do
• The rules of syntax combine words into phrases and
phrases into sentences
• They also specify the correct word order for a language
• For example, English is a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) language
• The President nominated a new Supreme Court justice
• *President the new Supreme justice Court a nominated
• They also describe the relationship between the meaning
of a group of words and the arrangement of the words
• I mean what I say vs. I say what I mean
What the Syntax Rules Do
• The rules of syntax also specify the grammatical relations of a
sentence, such as the subject and the direct object
• Your dog chased my cat vs. My cat chased your dog
• Syntax rules specify constraints on sentences based on the verb of
the sentence
*The boy found
*The boy found in the house
The boy found the ball
Zack believes Robert to be a gentleman
*Zack believes to be a gentleman
Zack tries to be a gentleman
*Zack tries Robert to be a gentleman
*Disa slept the baby
Disa slept
Disa slept soundly
What the Syntax Rules Do
• Syntax rules also tell us how words form groups and are hierarchically
ordered in a sentence
“The captain ordered the old men and women off the ship”
• This sentence has two possible meanings:
• 1. The captain ordered the old men and the old women off the ship
• 2. The captain ordered the old men and the women of any age off the ship
• The meanings depend on how the words in the sentence are grouped
(specifically, to which words is the adjective ‘old’ applied?)
• 1. The captain ordered the [old [men and women]] off the ship
• 2. The captain ordered the [old men] and [women] off the ship
What the Syntax Rules Do
• These groupings can be shown hierarchically in a tree
• These trees reveal the structural ambiguity in the phrase “old men and
women”
• Each structure corresponds to a different meaning
Sentence Structure
• We could say that the sentence “The child found
the puppy” is based on the template Det—N—
V—Det—N
• But this would imply that sentences are just strings of
words without internal structure
• This sentence can actually be separated into several
groups:
• [the child] [found a puppy]
• [the child] [found [a puppy]]
• [[the] [child]] [[found] [[a] [puppy]]
Sentence Structure
• A tree diagram can be used to show the hierarchy of the
sentence:
The child
found
a
puppy
Constituents and
Constituency Tests
• Constituents are the natural groupings in a sentence
• Tests for constituency include:
• 1. “stand alone test”: if a group of words can stand alone, they form a constituent
• A: “What did you find?”
• B: “A puppy.”
• 2. “replacement by a pronoun”: pronouns can replace constituents
• A: “Where did you find a puppy?”
• B: “I found him in the park.”
• 3. “move as a unit” test: If a group of words can be moved together, they are a
constituent
• A: “The child found a puppy.”  “A puppy was found by the child.”
Syntactic Categories
• A syntactic category is a family of expressions that can substitute for one
another without loss of grammaticality
The child found a puppy.
A police officer found a puppy.
Your neighbor found a puppy.
The child found a puppy.
The child ate the cake.
The child slept.
• All the underlined groups constitute a syntactic category known as a noun
phrase (NP)
• NPs may be a subject or an object of a sentence, may contain a determiner, proper
name, pronoun, or may be a noun alone
• All the bolded groups constitute a syntactic category known as a verb phrase
(VP)
• VPs must always contain a verb but may also contain other constituents such as a
noun phrase or a prepositional phrase (PP)
Syntactic Categories
• Phrasal categories: NP, VP, PP, AdjP, AdvP
• Lexical categories:
•
•
•
•
•
Noun: puppy, girl, soup, happiness, pillow
Verb: find, run, sleep, realize, see, want
Preposition: up, down, across, into, from, with
Adjective: red, big, candid, lucky, large
Adverb: again, carefully, luckily, very, fairly
• Functional categories:
• Auxiliary: verbs such as have, and be, and modals such as may, can, will,
shall, must
• Determiners: the, a, this, that, those, each, every
Phrase Structure Trees and Rules
• A phrase structure (PS) tree (or constituent
structure tree) is a tree diagram with
syntactic category information:
Phrase Structure Trees and Rules
• In a PS tree, every higher node dominates all the categories beneath
it
• S dominates everything
• A node immediately dominates
the categories directly below it
• The VP immediately dominates the
V and the NP
• Sisters are categories that are immediately dominated by the same
node
• The V and the NP are sisters
Phrase Structure Trees and Rules
• Phrase structure rules specify the well-formed structures
of a sentence
• A tree must match the phrase structure rules to be grammatical
• This tree is formed using the following rules:
S
NP
VP



NP VP
Det N
V NP
Phrase Structure Trees and Rules
• But, a VP could also contain:
• A verb only: The woman laughed.
• A PP: The woman laughed in the garden.
• A CP: The man said that the woman laughed.
• We therefore have to account for these possible
sentences in our phrase structure rules and need the
following rules so far:
Phrase Structure Trees and Rules
• Phrase structure rules are used as a guide for building
trees
• To build a tree you expand every phrasal category until
only the lexical categories remain
• By following the guidelines in the phrase structure rules,
we can generate all the possible grammatical sentences
in a language
• Any tree that violates the phrase structure rules will represent an
ungrammatical sentence
Conclusion
We have covered the following topics:
• What is language?
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Morphology
• Syntax
• To know a language, we need to know the
characteristics of language, the sounds of the
language, the word formation and the
grammatical rules that govern the language.