영어학개론
통사론
(Syntax)
3. Syntax(통사론): The Sentence Patterns of Language
- The part of grammar that represents a speaker’s knowledge of sentences and their structures is called syn-
tax.
- The principles that account for syntactic structures are universal.
1. What the Syntax Rules Do
- The rules of syntax combine words into phrases and phrases into sentences.
➀ The rules determine the correct word order for a language: Subject-Verb-Object(SVO)
(1) The President nominated a new Supreme Court justice. (grammatical)
(2) *President the Supreme new justice Court a nominated. (ungrammatical)
➁ A role of the syntax is to describe the relationship between the meaning of a particular group of words
and the arrangement of those words. The sentences in (3) and (4) contain the same words, but the
meanings are quite different.
(3) I mean what I say.
(4) I say what I mean.
➂ The rules of the syntax also specify the grammatical relations of a sentence, such as subject and direct
object. Since they provide information about who is doing what to whom, this information is crucial to
understanding the meaning of a sentence. The grammatical relations in (5) and (6) are reversed, so they
have very different meanings.
(5) Your dog chased my cat.
(6) My cat chased your dog.
➃ The phrase ran up the hill behaves differently from the phrase ran up the bill, even though the two
phrases are superficially quite similar. The rules of the syntax don’t allow the word orders in (7b)
and (7f).
(7) a. Jack and Jill ran up the hill.
b. *Jack and Jill ran the hill up.
c. Up the hill ran Jack and Jill.
d. Jack and Jill ran up the bill.
e. Jack and Jill ran the bill up.
f. *Up the bill ran Jack and Jill.
The phrases ran up the hill and ran up the bill act differently because they have different syntactic
structures associated with them.
-> In ran up the hill, the words up the hill form a unit: He ran [up the hill].
The whole unit can be moved to the beginning of the sentence as in (7c).
But in ran up the bill, the words up the bill do not form a natural unit, so they cannot be moved
together, and (7f) is ungrammatical.
run up the hill과 run up the bill은 통사론적 구조가 다르다.
run up the hill에서 up the hill은 한 단위로 함께 행동하지만 run up the bill에서 up the bill은
한 단위로 사용되지 못하고
run up the bill이 한 단위로서 사용된다.
- Structural Ambiguity
- Our syntactic knowledge crucially includes rules that tell us how words form groups in a sentence, or
how they are hierarchically arranged with respect to one another.
The captain ordered all old men and women off the sinking ship.
The phrase old men and women is ambiguous: old can modifies men or also men and women.
[old men] and [women]
[old [men and women]]
- This ambiguous structure can be illustrated by the hierarchical tree diagrams; refer to page 79.
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-
Question: Do the following sentences relating with ads exhibit ambiguities?
For sale: an antique desk suitable for lady with thick legs and large drawers.
We will oil your sewing machine and adjust tension in your home for $10.00.
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- These show structural ambiguity. In addition, lexical ambiguity comes out from two word-meaning
interpretations:
This will make you smart.
The two meanings of smart are ‘clever’ and ‘burning sensation’.
- Often a combination of differing structure and double word-meaning creates ambiguity;
refer to the cartoon on page 79.
“Waitress’s nose ring” NP S
Det NP NP VP
waitress’s nose ring waitress’s nose ring
NP NP
NP conj. NP AP NP
AP N NP conj. NP
old man and women old men and women
- Syntactic rules reveal the grammatical relations among the words of a sentence as well as
their order and hierarchical organization, including ambiguous meanings.
2. What Grammaticality Is Not Based On
- A person’s ability to make grammaticality judgments does not depend on having heard the sentence before.
You may never have heard or read the sentence but your syntactic knowledge tells you that is grammatical:
Enormous crickets in the pink socks danced at the prom.
This ability illustrates that our knowledge of language is creative.
- The structure of a sentence contributes to its meaning. However, grammaticality and meaningfulness are not
the same thing:
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
A verb crumpled the milk.
- Although these sentences do not make much sense, they are syntactically well formed.
*Furiously sleep ideas green colorless.
*Milk the crumpled verb a.
3. Sentence Structure
(determiner) (noun) (verb) (determiner) (noun)
Det – N – V – Det – N
The child found a puppy.
The professor wrote a book.
That runner won the race.
English sentences has a template that gave the correct word order.
S
NP VP
Det N V NP
the child found Det N
a puppy
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- Constituents and Constituency Tests
- The natural groupings or parts of a sentence are called constituents. Various linguistic tests reveal the
constituents of a sentence.
Test 1: “stand alone” test – if a group of words can stand alone as an answer to a question, they form
a
constituent.
e.g.) In response to the question “What did you find?” a speaker might answer a puppy.
but not found a. A puppy can stand alone as a meaningful unit.
Test 2: “replacement by a pronoun” test – pronouns can substitute for natural groups.
e.g.) In answer to the question “Where did you find a puppy?” a speaker can say,
“I found him in the park.”
Test 3: “move as a unit” test – if a group of words can be moved, they form a constituent.
e.g.) It was a puppy that the child found.
A puppy was found by the child.
In “The child found a puppy”, the natural groupings or constituents are the subject the
child,
the predicate found a puppy, and the direct object a puppy.
# in the garden as a constituent:
Where did the puppy play? In the garden (stand alone)
The puppy played there. (replacement by a pronoun-like word)
In the garden is where the puppy played. (move as a unit)
It was in the garden that the puppy played. (move as a unit)
-
Syntactic Categories
- A family of expressions that can substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality is called a
syntactic category.
- The child, a police officer, John, and so on belong to the syntactic category noun phrase(NP).
NPs may function as subjects or as objects in sentences. An NP often contains a determiner(like a or the)
and a noun, but it may also consist of a proper name, a pronoun, a noun without a determiner, or even
a clause or a sentence.
# The underlined parts are all nouns : John found the puppy.
Boys love puppies.
The puppy loved him.
The girl that Professor Snape loved married the man of her dreams.
- Another syntactic category is a verb phrase(VP) that contains a verb(V), and may contain a noun
phrase
or prepositional phrase(PP). The prepositional phrase is a preposition followed by an NP, such as
in the park, on the roof, with a balloon.
- Question: What are the possible VPs that can complete the sentence “The child ( ).”
(a) saw a clown
(b) a bird
(c) slept
(d) smart
(e) ate the cake
(f) found the cake in the cupboard
(g) realized that the Earth was round 4<2>
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Syntactic categories includes phrasal categories, lexical categories, and functional categories.
(1) Phrasal Categories:
Noun Phrase(NP) men, the man, the man with a telescope
Verb Phrase(VP) sees, always sees, rarely sees the man, often sees the man with a tele-
scope
Adjective Phrase(AP) happy, very happy, very happy about winning
Prepositional Phrase(PP) over, nearly over, nearly over the hill
Adverbial Phrase(AdvP) brightly, more brightly, more brightly than the sun
(2) Lexical Categories:
Noun(N) puppy, boy, man, soup, happiness, fork, …
Verb(V) find, run, sleep, throw, realize, see, try, want, …
Preposition(P) up, down, across, into, from, by, with, over, …
Adjective(A) red, big, happy, candid, hopeless, fair, idiotic, …
Adverb(Adv) again, always, brightly, often, never, very, fairly, …
(3) Functional Categories:
Determiner(Det) articles(a, the), demonstratives(this, that, these, those), quantifiers(each,
every, many,..)
Tense(T) modal auxiliaries(may, might, can, could, must, shall, should, will, would),
tense morphemes of verbs(past, present)
- Each lexical category has a particular kind of meaning associated with it: verbs refer to actions,
events, and
states; adjectives refer to qualities or properties; common nouns to general entities, and so on.
- Phrase Structure Trees
- Each of the phrasal categories has heads and complements:
NP: the mother of James Whistler
VP: sing an aria
AP: wary of snakes
PP: over the hill
head complement
- The core of every phrase is a lexical category of its same syntactic type(red letters), which is its
head(핵심어);
the NP the mother of James Whistler is headed by the noun mother.
- A complement(보충어) is defined as a phrasal category that may occur next to a head, and only there,
and
which elaborates on the meaning of the head: the underlined blue parts, PP or NP
- A phrase may have an element preceding the head. These elements are called specifiers(명시어).
e.g.) In the NP the mother of James Whistler, the determiner the is the specifier of the NP.
NP
specifier of N N’
the N(head) PP(complement of N)
mother of James Whistler
VP
specifier of V V’
Pavarotti V (head) NP(complement of V)
sing an aria
AP PP
specifier of A A’ specifier of P P’
Jane A(head) PP(comlement of A) just P(head) NP(complement of P)
wary of snakes over the hill
XP
specifier of X X’
X(head) Complement of X
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- X-bar(X’) schema
- X-bar schema is a template or blueprint that specifies how the phrase of a language are organized.
The X-bar schema “stands for” the various phrasal categories and applies to all syntactic phrases.
- The specifier or complement may be absent, but the head is obligatory.
e.g.) The specifier of an NP may be absent or it may be a determiner(or a possessive):
oxygen, the boy, his book
The complement also may be absent or may be a PP or even another phrasal category:
the book on the table, the book that I read
PP S
- Syntactic Structure of Sentence: S
NP VP
Det N’ V’
the N V NP
child found Det N’
a N
puppy
- Selection
- Complements (and specifiers) are not always present in the phrasal structure.
They are optional: only the head is obligatory.
- Whether a head takes a complement or not depends on the properties of the head. For example,
verbs select different kinds of complements: find is a transitive verb and requires an NP complement.
(head로 나타난 동사가 타동사일 때 목적어 NP를 가진다. 이때 NP는 head의 의미적 보충어로서
필수적인 요소다
)
a. The boy found the ball
b. *Thy boy found
c. *The boy found in the house.
- Some verbs like eat are optionally transitive. John ate and John ate a sandwich are both grammatical.
- Sleep is an intransitive verb; it cannot take an NP complement.
(head로 나타난 동사가 자동사일 때는 목적어를 가지지 않는다. 자동사는 의미적 보충어를
필요로 하지 않기 때문이다
.)
a. Michael slept.
b. *Michael slept their baby.
- Some verbs like think may select both a PP and a sentence complement:
Let’s think about it.
PP
I think a girl won the race.
S
- Other verbs like tell select an NP and a sentence:
I told the boy a girl won the race.
NP S
- The verbs like feel select either an AP or a sentence complement:
Paul felt strong as an ox.
AP
He feels he can win.
S
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- Perception verbs such as see and hear and the causative verb make among others select a par-
ticular kind
of complement called a small clause.
- Perception verb
A small clause is an XP composed of an NP followed by a bar level category:
e.g.) I saw [John on the boat] The verb see selects a small clause PP complement
PP
NP P’
John P NP
on the boat
-Causative verb
- The causative verb make selects an AP or VP small clause complement:
Small clause conforms perfectly to the X-bar schema, with the initial NP functioning as the specifier.
(1) The food made [John ill]AP
(2) The wind made [the palm trees sway]VP
- The noun belief selects either a PP or a sentence, while the noun sympathy selects a PP, but not a
sentence:
(3) the belief [in freedom of speech]PP
(4) the belief [that freedom of speech is a basic right]S
(5) their sympathy [for the victims]PP
(6) *their sympathy that the victims are so poor
- Adjectives can also have complements: the adjectives tired and proud select PPs:
(7) tired of stale sandwiches
(8) proud of her children
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-
Question: Among the above examples (1)-(8), would you represent the structure of
(1), (2), (3), (4),
(7) and (8) using tree diagrams? And make sure of the properties of specifiers,
heads and
complements in the syntactic categories.
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- The information about the complement types selected by particular verbs and other lexical items is called
categorial selection(C-selection) or subcategorization: limiting grammatical categories.
A boy found the dog. obeying C-selection
A boy slept the dog. violating C-selection
- A specification that requires certain semantic properties of its subjects and complements is called
semantic selection(S-selection):
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. violating S-selection, obeying C-selection
- The well-formedness of a phrase depends on at least two factors:
(1) whether the phrase conforms to the structural constraints of the language as expressed in the X-bar
schema(구절이 X-bar schema로 나타낸 구조적 제약에 부합하는지), and
(2) whether it obeys the selectional requirements of the head –both syntactic(C-selection) and
semantic(S-selection)(그 구절이 통사적 그리고 의미적 선택 등 핵심어(head)의 선택적 요구에 복종하는지) .
## The detailed syntactic structure on pages 95~113 will be processed through off-line class.
- Building Phrase Structure Trees
- The Infinity of Language: Recursive Rules
- What Heads the Sentence
- Structural Ambiguities
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