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Chapter 4 Syntax
Review
• 1. The following sentence contain both
free and bound morphemes (derivational
and inflectional morphemes). Pick out
them.
• The traffic policeman asked the factory
leader to move his car.
Discussion:
• Can you write out four different phrases in
English representing NP, VP, AP, and PP
respectively?
• According the phrase structure rule, can a
phrase simply consist of a N or V?
What is syntax?
• ----a branch of linguistics that studies the rules
that govern the formation of sentences.
• ---a branch of linguistics that studies the rules
governing the ways different constituents（成分）
are combined to form sentence in a language, or
the study of the interrelationships between
elements in sentence structure.指研究语言中不
同成分组合成句子的支配规则，或者是研究句子
构造中各个成分之间的相互关系。
• Constituent(成分): is a term used in
structural sentence analysis for every
linguistic unit, which is a part of a larger
linguistic unit. Several constituents
together form a construction: for example,
in the sentence The boy ate the apple,
S(A), the boy(B), ate the apple(C), each
part is a constituent.
Categories
• Category refers to a group of linguistic items
which fulfill the same or similar functions in a
particular language such as a sentence, a noun
phrase or a verb. The most central categories
to the syntactic study are the word-level
categories (traditionally, parts of speech)
Syntactic categories
• A small number of classes into which
words can be grouped and which can
generally substitute for one another
without loss of grammaticality, e.g. noun,
verb, etc.
Word-level categories
• Major lexical categories: N, V, Adj, Prep.
• Minor Lexical categories: Det, Deg, Qual,
Auxi, Conj.
• Are word categories clear-cut?
The criteria on which
categories are determined
•
•
•
•
Meaning
Inflection
Distribution
Note: The most reliable criterion of
determining a word’s category is its
distribution.
The criteria on which
categories are determined
• Meaning : nouns--- entities(human beings
and objects); verbs --- action, sensations
and states.
• Inflection: plural affix (boys,books);
past
tense affix (liked, washed)
• Distribution: what type of elements can cooccur with a certain word,e.g. a boy, the
flowers, shall go.
Phrase categories and their
structures
• Phrases----the syntactic units that are built around a
certain word category are called phrases. The
category of a phrase is determined by the word
category around which the phrase is built. The most
common phrasal categories are as NP(N), VP(V),
AP(A), PP(P).
• The structure: specifier + head + complement
• Head---- the word around which a phrase is formed
• Specifier---- the words on the left side of the heads
• Complement---- the words on the right side of the
heads
Phrase categories and their
structures
• Specifier: A word that helps to make more
precise the meaning of the head of the
phrase and occurs at the left of its phrase.
• 出现在短语左边能使短语中心词意义更明
确的词。
Phrase categories and their
structures
• Complement: The element or elements
which provide information about entities
and locations whose existence is implied
by the meaning of the head, and attached
to the right of the head in English, e.g. the
book in bought the book.
• 提供中心词所隐含物体和位置信息的成分，
英语的补语通常在中心词的右边。
Phrase structure rules
• A special type of the grammatical mechanism (a rule
of grammar) that regulates the arrangement of
elements that make up a phrase is called a phrase
structure rule, such as:
• NP  (Det) + N +(PP)……e.g. those people, the fish
on the plate, pretty girls.
• VP  (Qual) + V + (NP)……e.g. always play games,
finish assignments.
• AP  (Deg) + A + (PP)……very handsome, very
pessimistic, familiar with, very close to
• PP  (Deg) + P + (NP)……on the shelf, in the boat,
quite near the station.
The XP rule
XP
Specifier
X
Complement
Head
Note: The phrase structure rules can be
summed up as XP rule shown in the figure, in
which X stands for N, V, A or P.
The XP rule
• XP rule: a single general phrasal stuctural
rule that captures the appropriate
placement of specifiers, heads, and
complements.
X- Theory
• XP  (Specifier)X• X-  X(complement)
XP(Phrase level)
X-
specifier
X(head)
complement
Coordination rule
• Coordination rule --- a rule of grammar that
states the composition of a coordinate structure.
• X → X﹡Con X
• Coordination structures-----the
structures(phrases) that are formed by joining
two or more elements of the same type with the
help of a conjunction such as and, or.
Coordination rule
• Coordination structures-----the structures(phrases)
that are formed by joining two or more elements of the
same type with the help of a conjunction such as and,
or.
----Coordination has four important properties:
• no limit on the number of coordinated categories
before the conjunction;
• a category at any level can be coordinated;
• the categories must be of the same type;
• the category type of the coordinate phrase is identical
to the category type of the elements being conjoined.
Phrase elements
•
•
•
•
Specifier
Head
Complement
modifier
Specifiers
• ---- Semantically, specifiers make more
precise the meaning of the head; syntactically,
they typically mark a phrase boundary.
Specifiers can be determiners as in NP,
qulifiers as in VP and degree words as in AP
and sometimes Ps.
• The syntactic category of the specifier does
not vary or differ depending on the category
of the head?
Complements
•
•
•
•
Are the underlined parts complements?
a story about a little girl
in the street
clean the room
• told me a story
• put it on the table
• The teacher believed that the student would
pass the exam.
Complements
• ---- Complements themselves can be a phrase, they
provide information about entities and locations whose
existence is implied by the meaning of the head, e.g. a
story about a sentimental ﹡girl; There can be no
complement, one complement, or more than one
complement in a phrase, e.g. appear, break, put…; a
sentence-like construction may also function as a
complement such as in “I believed that she was
innocent. I doubt if she will come.” That/if are
complementizers, the clauses introduced by
complementizers are complement clause.
Complements
• There is not limit on the number of
embedded clauses that occur in a
sentence.
• Not all verbs can take a CP complement.
Words that can take CP are not verbs
alone; As, Ns and Ps can all take CP.
Complements
• 补语为实体和位置提供信息， 这些实体和
位置隐含在中心词的意义中。如eat隐含被
吃的东西，in隐含着位置。
• 这种包含在中心词中的信息被称作次范畴
化。次范畴化信息与短语结构规则确保各
词项在不同类型的树形结构中处于恰当的
位置。
• 动词所带补语的类型主要由动词的类型所
决定。不及物动词可以不带补语，也可以
带介词短语做补语。如The bird vanished
from sight. 系动词带形容词做补语，如The
man became angry. 不同的及物动词可带
不同类型的补语，如下表所示
补语类型
动词中心词
NP
cut, prove
The farmer cut rice.
NP NP
tell, hand
He told me a story.
NP PP
give,send
She gave a gift to me.
PP PP
talk,speak
He talked to me about Jenny.
NP PP PP open, repair
例子
He opened the door for me with
a key.
• 同一个词可以属于不同的次范畴，因此可以带不
同类型的补语。如eat可做及物动词也可作不及物
动词，因此它可以带名词短语补语，也可以不带
补语。有的动词却需要带多个补语，如put通常要
带一个名词短语和一个介词短语作补语，如He
put his hands in his pockets合乎英语语法。有的
动词可带两个名词短语做补语，也可带一个名词
短语和一个介词短语做补语，如give, send, hand,
tell 等。如He told his story to The China Daily,
也可以说He told The China Daily his story。
Complements
• Transitive verb: a verb which takes an object.
• Ditransitive verb: a verb takes an indirect and a
direct object, e.g. I gave my mother the money.
• Complex transitive verb: a verb which takes a
direct object and an object complement, e.g. we
elected John chairman.
• 及物动词，双及物动词，复合及物动词
Modifiers
• ---- Modifiers specify optionally expressible
properties of heads.(用于描述中心词特征的非
必需的成分)
• The most common modifiers of Ns : adjective
phrases
• The most common modifiers of Vs: adverb
phrases and prepositional phrases which
describe manner and time.
• Modifiers in English vary in terms of their
position with respect to the head.
Modifiers
• The Expanded XP rule:
XP→(Spec) (Mod) X (Complement*) (Mod)
This rule allows a modifier to occur either
before the head or after it.
Where there is a complement, a modifier
that occurs after the head will normally
occur to the right of the complement as
well such as “read the book very carefully”.
Sentences (the S rule)
• Sentence rule: a rule of grammar that
states the composition of a sentence.
• 句子在传统语法中是指能单独存在并表达
一个连贯思想的话语或词的书面序列。从
结构的角度出发，句子可定义为句法分析
的最大单位。 在转换语法中，句子是具有
句法特征的最大语法类，以符号S表示。句
子的各个成分通过句法规则结合在一起而
生成句子。
Sentences (the S rule)
• S  NP VP
S
VP
NP
Det
A
NP
N
boy
V
found
Det
the
N
evidence
Sentences (the S rule)

S  NP infl VP
InflP(=S)
NP

Infl
VP
Many linguists believe that sentences, like other
phrases, also have their own heads. Infl is an
abstract category inflection (dubbed ‘Infl’) as
their heads, which indicates the sentence’s tense
or an auxiliary.
Infl realized by a tense label
InflP （ =S ）
VP
NP
Det
A
NP
N Infl
boy Pst
V
found
Det
the
N
evidence
Infl realized by an auxiliary
InflP （ =S ）
VP
NP
NP
Det
A
N Infl
boy will
V
find
Det
the
N
evidence
Transformations
•
•
•
•
•
Auxiliary movement (inversion)
Do insertion
Deep structure & surface structure
Wh-movement
Move α and constraints on transformations
Transformations
• Transformation: a type of syntactic rule
that can move an element from one
position to another.
• Auxiliary movement: a transformation that
moves the auxiliary from the Infl position to
the head C position in CP in the formation
of yes-no questions in English.
Transformations
• do insertion : the insertion of do into
sentences that do not already have an
auxiliary verb, thereby making inversion
possible in the formation of yes-no
questions in English.
Auxiliary movement
(inversion)
• Inversion Move Infl to the left of the subject
NP.
• Inversion (revised)
Move Infl to C.
CP
S
NP
C
Det
the
N Infl
train will
V
arrive
Auxiliary movement
(inversion)
CP
S
C
Infl Det
Will the
NP
N Infl
train e
V
arrive
Do insertion
• Do insertion---- Insert interrogative do into an empty
Infl position.
CP
S
C
NP
Infl
Birds
VP
fly
Figure-1
CP
CP
S
C
NP
Infl
Birds do
Figure-2
VP
fly
S
C
Infl NP
Infl
Do birds e
Figure-3
VP
fly
Deep structure & surface
structure
• Deep structure----formed by the XP rule in accordance
with the head’s sub-categorization properties; it
contains all the units and relationships that are
necessary for interpreting the meaning of the sentence.
• Surface structure----corresponding to the final
syntactic form of the sentence which results from
appropriate transformations; it is that of the sentence
as it is pronounced or written.
Deep structure & surface
structure
• Deep structure: any structure generated
by the phrase structure rules of a
transformationsal grammar.
• Surface structure: the structure that results
from applying transformational rules of a
transformational grammar.
The organization of the syntactic
component
The XP rule
Deep structure
transformations
Surface structure
Subcategorization restricts
choice of complements
• In order to transform a sentence from
deep structure to surface structure, the
grammar makes use of different syntactic
mechanisms, e.g. the XP rule,
subcategorization, transformations.
• The representation of D-structure and Sstructure do not necessarily differ. They
may look the same.
Wh-movement
• Wh-movement: a transformation that
moves a wh- phrase to the beginning of
the sentence, the specifier position under
CP.
Wh-movement
• Consider the derivation of the following
sentences:
What languages can you speak?
What can you talk about?
• These sentences may originate as:
You can speak what languages.
You can talk about what.
Wh-movement
• Wh-movement---- Move a wh phrase to the
beginning of the sentence.
• What language can you
speak
?
• What can you
talk about
?
Wh-movement
• Wh-movement---- Move a wh phrase to the
specifier position under CP. (Revised)
CP
S
NP
Who
C
VP
NP
e
Infl
Pst
V
won
NP
the game
Move α
• Move α: a general rule for all the movement rules,
where “alpha” is a cover term for any element that
can be moved from one place to another.
Move α and constraints on
transformations
• Inversion can move an auxiliary from the Infl to
the nearest C position, but not to a more distant
C position.
• No element may be removed from a coordinate
structure.