Kabul University

Foreign Languages & Literature Faculty

English Department

Language Files
Concise Version
Prepared by: Asadullah Azimi
Contents
Sentence ....................................................................................................................................................... 1
Syntax ............................................................................................................................................................ 1
(Un)Grammaticality ...................................................................................................................................... 1
The Relationship between Syntax and Semantics ........................................................................................ 2
Syntactic Properties ...................................................................................................................................... 2
1. Word Order ....................................................................................................................................... 3
2. Co-occurrence ................................................................................................................................... 3
a) Argument ...................................................................................................................................... 3
b) Adjuncts ........................................................................................................................................ 4
c) Agreement .................................................................................................................................... 5
Syntactic Constituency .................................................................................................................................. 5
Constituency Tests .................................................................................................................................... 5
a) Answers to Questions: .................................................................................................................. 5
b) Clefting: ......................................................................................................................................... 6
c) Substitution: .................................................................................................................................. 6
Syntactic Categories ...................................................................................................................................... 7
Lexical Categories.......................................................................................................................................... 7
Characteristics of Lexical Categories ......................................................................................................... 8
Noun (N): common characteristics ....................................................................................................... 8
Verb (V): common characteristics......................................................................................................... 8
Adjective (Adj): common characteristics .............................................................................................. 8
Adverb (Adv): common characteristics ................................................................................................. 8
Determiner (Det): common characteristics .......................................................................................... 9
Preposition (P): common characteristics .............................................................................................. 9
Conjunction (Conj): common characteristics ........................................................................................ 9
Pronoun (Pro): common characteristics ............................................................................................... 9
Auxiliary (Aux): common characteristics .............................................................................................. 9
Lexical vs Syntactic Categories ...................................................................................................................... 9
Syntactic Categories in English.................................................................................................................... 10
What is a phrase?.................................................................................................................................... 10
Noun phrase (NP):............................................................................................................................... 10
The Difference between a Noun and a Noun Phrase ......................................................................... 11
 Verb Phrase (VP): ................................................................................................................................ 12
Prepositional Phrase (PP): ................................................................................................................... 13
Adjective Phrase (AdjP): ...................................................................................................................... 13
Adverb Phrase (AdvP): ........................................................................................................................ 13
Conjoined phrases............................................................................................................................... 14
Phrase Structure Tree ................................................................................................................................. 14
Ambiguity .................................................................................................................................................... 16
Thematic Roles ............................................................................................................................................ 17
1. Agent: .............................................................................................................................................. 17
2. Experiencer: .................................................................................................................................... 17
3. Patient: ............................................................................................................................................ 17
4. Theme: ............................................................................................................................................ 18
5. Recipient: ........................................................................................................................................ 18
6. Source: ............................................................................................................................................ 18
7. Goal: ................................................................................................................................................ 19
8. Location:.......................................................................................................................................... 19
9. Instrument: ..................................................................................................................................... 19
Phrase Structure Rules ................................................................................................................................ 19
Recursion .................................................................................................................................................... 20
Sentence
A sentence is not just a list of random words that can be put together in any which way.
(1) Listening Jan music the to is.
But a sentence is a sequence of related words whose ordering with respect to one another
follows certain rules.
The following example demonstrates only syntactic word order which makes a possible
grammatical sentence, but that doesn’t convey a reasonable meaning.
(2) The music is listening to Jan.
The following example demonstrates both semantic relevance of words and their syntactic
order that result in a reasonable sentence.
(3) Jan is listening to the music.
Therefore, we should define a sentence as a sequence of semantically related words whose
ordering with respect to one another follows syntactic rules.
The fact that the meaning of a sentence depends on the meanings of the expressions it contains
and on the way they are syntactically combined is called the principle of compositionality.

Syntax
Syntax studies the sentence structure. It is concerned with how expressions combine with one
another to form larger expressions. Syntax is not about meaning. It is about the structure of
phrases and sentences and about rules for how constituents are allowed to be put together in a
language. It also studies how the human mind processes and stores sentence structures.

(Un)Grammaticality
When a string of words does form a sentence of some language, we say it is grammatical in that
language. A grammatical sentence is also called a syntactically well-formed sentence. If a string
of words doesn’t form a sentence, we call it ungrammatical. An ungrammatical sentence is also
called a syntactically ill-formed sentence.
Every native speaker can make a grammaticality judgment about whether a sentence is
syntactically well-formed or syntactically ill-formed. For example, everyone knows that “The
waters sleeps greenly” isn’t a grammatical sentence. A grammaticality judgement is a reflection
of speakers’ mental grammar. It means that speakers naturally know in their mind that a
sentence is grammatical or ungrammatical.

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When making grammaticality judgement, consider descriptive rules (how people actually
speak) not prescriptive rules (fixed rules prescribed for how people must speak).
Examples of prescriptive rules:
a. It is ungrammatical to end a sentence with a preposition.
b. It is ungrammatical to split an infinitive.

According to prescriptivists, the following sentences are ungrammatical, wrong, and foolish.
a. Linguistics is what I live for.
b. Captain Kirk wants to boldly go where no man has gone before.

According to prescriptivists, the above-mentioned sentences are ungrammatical because they

haven’t observed the prescriptive rules, whereas, according to descriptivists they are
grammatical as they sound just fine for native English speakers.

The Relationship between Syntax and Semantics

Although syntax and semantics are two independent subjects, they have an important effect on
each other. That is, the syntactic combination of expressions affects the semantic meaning of
the resulting sentence. For example, “Sally likes Bob” doesn’t mean the same as “Bob likes
Sally” because of the different syntactic combinations of these expressions.
Remember that a syntactically well-formed (grammatical) sentence doesn’t always convey a
semantically reasonable meaning. This means that it is possible to have a syntactically well-
formed (grammatical) sentence with a strange meaning like “Colorless green ideas sleep
furiously.” Conversely, it is possible to have a syntactically ill-formed (ungrammatical) sentence
which can successfully convey a perfectly reasonable meaning. For example, when a non-
English speaker says, “This mine car,” you would probably have no problem understanding the
meaning s/he was trying to express (This is my car).
There are a finite number of lexical expressions (words) and an infinite number of phrasal
expressions (sentences) in all languages. Language users know the meanings of the sentences
based the meanings of individual words and the way they are syntactically combined.

Syntactic Properties
Syntactic properties are a set of rules which tells you what combinations of expressions are
syntactically well-formed. In other words, syntactic properties refer to the arrangement of
words and phrases in sentences which determine the syntactic well-formedness of sentences.
There are two kinds of syntactic properties: word order and co-occurrence. This means that if
you would like to have a syntactically well-formed sentence, you should maintain the correct
word order and consider what words must co-occur with some other words in a sentence.

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1. Word Order
Word order is the first important aspect of syntactic well-formedness which suggests that in
order to have a syntactically well-formed (grammatical) sentence, you should put the
words/expressions in a correct order with respect to each other. Flouting a correct word
order usually results in ungrammaticality. The followings are examples of strings of related
words, yet unreasonable syntactic (grammatical) sentences.
*desk the on is cat the.
*walked Sally.
The importance of word order suggests that not every string of words in a language is a
sentence in that language.
Generally, there are 6 word order patterns in the world languages. They are such as:
1. SVO
2. VSO
3. OSV
4. OVS
5. SOV
6. VOS
In the above word order patterns, English has the first three. SVO word order is shown up in
affirmative statements, VSO in yes/no questions, and OSV in topicalized sentences.
1. I like apples. SVO
2. Is Sally a student? VSO
3. Apples, I like. OSV
A topicalized sentence is a sentence in which the topic under discussion occurs at the
beginning in order to highlight it.

2. Co-occurrence
Merely getting expressions in the right order in a sentence doesn’t guarantee syntactic well-
formedness. The expression you choose may allow or require that certain other expressions
co-occur with it in a sentence. Co-occurrence is the second important aspect of syntactic
well-formedness which suggest that if an expression occurs in a sentence, what other
expressions can or must co-occur with it in that sentence?
There are three kinds of co-occurrence relations between words/expressions: argument,
adjunct, and agreement.
a) Argument

An argument is an expression whose occurrence is necessarily required by the occurrence

of another expression in a sentence. Or, if the occurrence of an expression X requires the

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occurrence of an expression Y in a sentence, we say that Y is argument of X. This means that
the occurrence of an argument is obligatory in a sentence. Arguments are not just noun
phrases. Different kinds of expressions require different kinds of arguments. In “Sally
devoured an apple” Sally and an apple are both arguments of devoured. See page 15 in the
book for more examples.
b) Adjuncts

Adjuncts are expressions whose occurrence in a sentence is purely optional. You can add as
many of them as you like, still the sentence remains grammatical. In the sentence, “Sally
likes small, brown, wooly, cute dogs” the attributive adjectives small, brown, wooly and
cute are all adjuncts of dogs. Adjuncts are sometimes called modifiers.
If X is an adjunct of Y, then Y is an argument of X because the presence of Y in a sentence is
necessary for X to occur. For example, if the expression dogs didn’t exist in the above-
mentioned sentence, then the adjectives small, brown, wooly and cute wouldn’t occur in
that sentence. Thus, we say that expression dogs is an argument of the adjectives occurred
before it.
Arguments vs Adjuncts

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 c) Agreement

Agreement is the correspondence of a word with other words to which it relates. It is a

syntactic principle that says that certain words need to have a particular morphological
marking (word form and lexical category) in order to work with another word in a sentence.
I read those books.
*I read those book.
She works hard.
*We works hard.

Morphosyntax is a linguistic field that combines the study of syntax and morphology. It is
concerned with the morphological and syntactic properties of linguistic units.

Syntactic Constituency
Constituency is the existence of a group of words that function together as a discrete unit in a
sentence. The syntactic constituents of a sentence are the smaller expressions or group of
tightly combined words out of which the sentence was constructed. For example, in Jully in
“Sally went to France in Jully” is a syntactic constituent which together function as an adjunct in
this sentence. Omitting either in or Jully results in ungrammaticality (*Sally went to France Jully;
*Sallly went to France in).
Some sentences with certain constituents have more than one meaning which cause an
ambiguity (confusion) in the meaning of that sentence. The meaning of the sentence depends
on how these words (constituents) are put together.
Pat [shot the soldier] with the gun.
Pat shot [the soldier with the gun].
We need [more intelligent] administrators.
We need more [intelligent administrators].

Constituency Tests
There are several general constituency tests to check which groups of expressions form a
constituent in a sentence.
a) Answers to Questions: in answers to questions test, if a sequence of words you are
testing can serve as an answer to a question, it forms a constituent; if it cannot, then the
group of words does not form a constituent. Here are some examples:

Original S: Khalid will meet his children in France.

Question: Where will he meet his children?
Answer: in France.

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 Original S: Khalid will meet his children in France.
Question: What will he do children in France?
Answer: meet his.

We conclude that in France is a syntactic constituent while meet his is not. For more
examples, see page # 24 in the book.

b) Clefting: in clefting test we move a sequence of words to the left in a sentence. If the
sentence still grammatical, we conclude that the displaced expression is a constituent.
This kind of test is also called displacement test or movement test. Here is an example:
Susan will do whatever she wants to do.
Whatever she wants to do, Susan will do.

For more examples, see page # 25 of the book.

c) Substitution: In a substitution test, we replace a string of words with a single word (or
simple phrase). If the result is a grammatical sentence, this indicates that the group of
words is a constituent. For NPs good substitutes are pronouns (e.g., he/him, she/her, it,
they/them, one, that). For VPs good substitutes are pro-verbs (e.g., do so, be, have).
There, then, and such can substitute for other types of constituents. This type of test is
also called replacement. Here are some examples:

a. Robin wants to visit Paris next summer.

Robin wants to do so next summer. (constituent)
b. Abdullah exercises every morning with his new friends.
Abdullah exercises every morning with them. (constituent)
c. Abdullah exercises every morning with his new friends.
Abdullah exercises every morning with his them. (not constituent)
For more examples see page # 26 in the book.
Other ways of testing syntactic constituents include coordination, deletion, and
topicalization. Note that constituency tests are a useful tool for discovering the
syntactic constituents of a sentence, but they are not perfectly reliable. They can give
inconsistent results-for example, the question-answer test can show that something is a
constituent, while the cleft test suggests otherwise. It is always a good idea to use as
many tests as possible before deciding whether some string of words forms a
constituent or not.

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Syntactic Categories
A syntactic category consists of a set of expressions that have very similar syntactic properties
(they have the same word order and co-occurrence requirements).
When two expressions have similar syntactic properties, they are usually interchangeable in a
sentence; you can substitute them for one another and still have a grammatical sentence.
When two expressions are interchangeable in a sentence a grammaticality result, we say that
they have the same syntactic distribution. A syntactic distribution is a set of syntactic
environments in which an expression can occur. For example, in the sentence, “I gave my
children some food” my children can be substituted for Khalid, and the result is still a
grammatical sentence. This shows that Khalid and my children have the same distribution and,
therefore, the same syntactic properties. We can thus conclude that they belong to the same
syntactic category. This means that in all those sentences that contain the constituent my
children, you can substitute Khalid for it, and the result will be a grammatical sentence.

• My children’s room was so cold.

• Khalid’s room was so cold.
• *My Khalid’s room was so cold. (Children and Khalid don’t belong the same syntactic
category.)

Lexical Categories
A lexical category consists of a set of words that have very similar morphological (word forms
and parts of speech) and semantic (meaning) properties. We can successfully assign words to
lexical categories by examining their meaning, forms, and parts of speech. A good way to
determine whether or not two words are of the same lexical category is to see if they can be
substituted for one another in a grammatical sentence to yield another grammatical sentence.
In the following sentences cat and boy belong to the same lexical category (both are common
nouns) and their substitution results in a grammatical sentence, but he and boy do not belong
to the same lexical category (as he is a pronoun and boy is a noun) and their substitution results
in an unreasonable syntactic sentence.
I saw the cat on the desk.
I saw the boy on the desk.
The boy looks tired.
*The he looks tired.

Words are grouped into lexical categories according to the way they combine with other words
and how they change their form. The most common lexical categories are the parts of speech:
noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, pronoun, article, demonstrative, conjunction,
interjection, etc. Lexical categories can be divided into two major classes: content words and
function words.

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Content words are words which have meaning when used alone. Content words are mainly
nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. They have lexical meaning. We also call them open class
words or open lexical categories, full words, and lexical words. They are called ‘open’ because
new words can be added to them and they are unlimited in number.

Function words are words which have little meaning on their own, but which show grammatical
relationships in and between sentences (grammatical meaning). Function words are pronouns,
conjunctions, prepositions, determiners (e.g. articles, demonstratives, quantifiers, and
possessives), and auxiliary verbs. Function words are also called closed class words, closed
categories, form words, grammatical words, and structural words. They are ‘closed’ because
they limited in number and new words cannot be added to them.

Characteristics of Lexical Categories

Noun (N): common characteristics

1. Nouns are countable and uncountable. Countable nouns have a plural form, often by
adding –s or –es as in books and dishes.
2. Nouns can occur with the articles and demonstratives (determiners) as in the book and
this man, my car.
3. Nouns can be modified with descriptive words (adjectives or quantifiers) as in some
people and great wall.
4. Nouns can function various thematic roles (agent, theme, recipient, etc.).
Verb (V): common characteristics
1. Verbs take particular forms to express particular times. For example, by adding –ing to a
verb, we indicate an ongoing action as in I am singing, and by adding –ed we can express
a completed action as in I walked.
2. Verbs can occur with auxiliaries as in can drive and should study.
3. Verbs can be turned into nouns, as in writing, instruction, worker, discussion.
Adjective (Adj): common characteristics
1. Adjective can have comparative and superlative forms as in faster and the highest.
2. Adjectives can be used with a form of be, as in the rock is big.
3. Adjectives themselves can be modified by adverbs, as in so beautiful and very slippery.
4. Adjectives can occur in between a determiner and a noun, as in a red car and some new
employees.
Adverb (Adv): common characteristics
1. Adverbs are formed out of adjectives with the suffix –ly, as in nicely and carefully.
2. Adverbs can modify adjectives, as in incredibly good and really big.
3. Adverbs can modify verbs, as in drives fast and reads carefully.
4. Some adverbs can be modified by other adverbs, as in very quickly and too often.

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 5. Adverbs can be a verb phrase adjunct, as in wrote carefully.

Determiner (Det): common characteristics

1. Determiners always appear before nouns to form noun phrase, as in the book, that pen,
every person, my car.
2. Sometimes there may be one or more adjectives between the determiner and the noun,
as in my big brown dog.

Types of determiners includes:

Demonstrative determiners [this, that, these, those]
Possessive determiners [my, your, their, our, his, her, its]
Quantificational determiners [a, the, some, every, all, few, most, etc.]

Preposition (P): common characteristics

1. Prepositions appear before noun phrases to form prepositional phrases, as in with a
gun, before Sunday, for everyone.
Conjunction (Conj): common characteristics
1. Conjunctions are used to link different elements, as in run but not jump, soft yet
uncomfortable, apples and oranges.
Pronoun (Pro): common characteristics
1. Pronouns replace particular nouns.

Auxiliary (Aux): common characteristics

1. Auxiliaries are used along with other verbs in sentences, as in must write, can sing.

Important Note: some words are members of more than one lexical category, as the word love
in the below sentences.
a. They love me. (verb)
b. My love will never end. (noun)

Lexical vs Syntactic Categories

Lexical categories have to be distinguished based on the morphological and semantic
properties (forms, parts of speech, and meaning). Syntactic categories have to be distinguished
based on the syntactic properties (word order and co-occurrence). For example, the words
exploded and destroyed come from the same lexical category as they are both action verbs.
However, they do not belong to the same syntactic category. As their syntactic properties are
different, they are not interchangeable in a sentence.
A large bomb exploded in a park.
*A large bomb destroyed in a park. (A large bomb was destroyed in a park.)

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Other examples:
Someone killed the president.
*Someone died the president.
The expressions cake and the cookies both refer to “food,” semantically, but they have
different distributions: first, they have different agreement features (singular vs. plural); and
second, cake can combine with determiners, but the cookies can’t.
The cake is delicious.
* The cookies is delicious.
*The the cookies is delicious.
The point is that we cannot distinguish syntactic categories of expressions based on their
morphological and semantic properties.

Syntactic Categories in English

Syntactic categories of English consist of different types of phrases.

What is a phrase?
A phrase is usually a string of words build up around a single word as its head that functions as
a discrete unit (constituent) in a sentence. A phrase normally consists of a head, alone or
accompanied by one or more dependents. The head of a phrase is the most important element
in the phrase. All other elements in a phrase are called the dependents. The category of the
phrase depends on that of the head.

Noun phrase (NP): A noun phrase is a phrase with a noun, proper noun, or a personal pronoun
as head, with or without various accompanying dependents is called a noun phrase. There are
two kinds of NPs: single-word NPs (e.g., personal pronouns and proper nouns) and multi-word
NPs (e.g., Det + N). Expressions such as he/him, she/her, Bob, all things and some people are
noun phrases in which all pronouns, proper nouns, the nouns ‘things’ and ‘people’ are heads
and determiners ‘all’ and ‘some’ are the dependents.

Types of dependents in NPs

• An NP may consist of a Det followed by a N (NP  Det N).
e.g., the news, a pear, some cheese, my films, no reason
• An NP may consist of an Adj followed by a N (NP  Adj N).
e.g., young man, expensive car
• An NP may consist of a N followed by a PP (NP  N PP).
e.g., books about life

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 • An NP may consist of a Det followed by a N followed by a PP (NP  Det N PP).
e.g., a friend from Kabul
• An NP may consist of a Det followed by an Adj followed by a N followed by a PP (NP 
Det Adj N PP).
e.g., the expensive books about life
• An NP may consist of an Adj followed by a N followed by a PP (NP  Adj N PP).
e.g., high prices of goods
• An NP may consist of a N followed by a relative clause (NP  N Relative clause).
e.g., people who complained, fact that she’s alive
• NPs can also consist of personal pronouns (he, she, you, it, we, etc.) and proper names.
e.g., Abdullah and Mohammad, They
• NP  Det Adv NP
e.g., He sang a very nice song.

The Difference between a Noun and a Noun Phrase

• One way in which Ns and NPs are syntactically different is that Ns can co-occur with
determiners (Det) like the, a, some, and etc., while NPs cannot. The category of nouns
consists of those expressions that can combine with a determiner to their left to yield an
expression of NP category.
• Ns denote/belong to the lexical category. NPs denote/belong to the syntactic category.

The most reliable test of checking whether some constituent is a noun or a noun phrase is
to replace it with a pronoun. If the result is a grammatical sentence, then that constituent
is a noun phrase, and if the result is ungrammatical, then it is a noun. For example, ‘cat’ in
the following sentences is a noun, but ‘the cat’ is a noun phrase.
The cat was sleeping on the desk.
*The she was sleeping on the desk.

A second way of checking whether some constituent is a noun or a noun phrase is to

replace it with a proper noun. If the result is a grammatical sentence, then that
constituent is a noun phrase, and if the result is ungrammatical, then it is a noun.
The cat was sleeping on the desk.
*The Khalid was sleeping on the desk.

A third way to check whether an expression is a noun or a noun phrase, add a determiner
to its left. If the result is a grammaticality, then that constituent is a noun, and if the result
is ungrammaticality, then it is a noun phrase.
The cat was sleeping on the desk.
*A the cat was sleeping on the desk.

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Verb Phrase (VP): a verb phrase can consist of a verb alone, or a verb with PP, NP, and etc. as
dependents. But every VP must contain at least a verb as its head.

Types of dependents in VPs

• A VP may consist of a V followed by an NP (VP  V NP).

e.g., hit the ball
• A VP may consist of a V followed by a PP, which consists of a P and an NP (VP  V PP).
e.g., slept on the desk
• A VP may consist of a V followed by an NP followed by a PP (VP  V NP PP).
e.g., pushed the dog off the couch, kicked the ball to Peter
• A VP may consist of a V followed by an Adv (VP  V Adv).
e.g., drive carefully
• A VP may consist of a V followed by an Adv followed by a PP (VP  V Adv PP).
e.g., studied hard for the test
• A VP may consist of a V followed by a PP followed by an Adv (VP  V NP PP Adv).
e.g., shot him with a gun terribly
• A VP may consist of a V followed by a NP followed by an Adv (VP  V NP Adv).
e.g., wrote the letter carefully
• A VP  Adv VP
e.g., I always go on holiday in August.

A simple test of checking whether some constituent in a sentence is a verb phrase or not is to
replace it with a verb form like sleep or did so. If the result is a grammatical sentence, then that
constituent is a verb phrase, and if the result is ungrammatical, then it is not. Some verbs like
die and run are intransitive _ verbs that require no complements. Such verbs are VPs by
themselves. Some verbs like devour and like are transitive (TV) that require an NP
complement. Without a complement, the do not result in a VP.

Sally devoured an apple. *Sally devoured.

Sally likes her cute cat. *Sally likes.

Test:
Sally did so. *Sally did so an apple.
Sally did so. *Sally did so her cute cat.

Other verbs like give and tell are ditransitive (DTV) which require two NP complements.
Combining them with two NP complements results in a VP.

Sally gave Bob a book. Sally did so.

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Some verbs like said and believe require a complete sentence as a complement to form a VP.
Such verbs are called sentential complement verbs (SV) and the complement is called
sentential complement (e.g., she liked Bob) in the following VP.

She said she liked Bob. She did so.

Prepositional Phrase (PP): A prepositional phrase is the combination of a preposition as its head
and usually a noun phrase as its dependent.

• the loss of blood,

• after forty days,
• during the game,
• in the summer vacation

Adjective Phrase (AdjP): an AdjP consists of an adjective as head, alone or accompanied by one
or more dependents. The dependents of an AdjP are PPs, subordinate clauses, Determiners,
NPs and AdvPs.
• AdjP  Adj PP
e.g., remote from reality, afraid of the dark, good at chess, kind to children
• AdjP  Adj Sub C
e.g., glad it was over, uncertain what to do, busy making lunch, hard to grasp, thankful that no
one was hurt
• AdjP  Det Adj
e.g., that old, much better, no different
• AdjP  Adv Adj
e.g., extremely hot, morally wrong, very useful
• AdjP  NP Adj
e.g., five years old, two hours long, a great deal smaller

Adverb Phrase (AdvP): An adverb phrase is simply a group of two or more words that function
as an adverb in a sentence. The adverb is the head of the phrase and can appear alone or it can
be modified by other words. Just as an adverb can modify a verb, adjective or another adverb,
an adverb phrase of more than one word can further describe a verb, adverb, or adjective.
Adverb phrases typically answer the questions how, why, when, or where something was
done.

Adverbial phrases don’t necessarily include any adverbs, but do play the same role as an adverb
in the sentence. Prepositional phrases and infinitive phrases also function as adverbial phrases.
They are also called adverbial prepositional phrases and adverbial infinitive phrases. They are
used to show manner, purpose, time, and place.

• AdvP  Adv Adv

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 Time goes very quickly.
Come over here.
• AdvP  Adv PP
You will get there in the end.
• AdvP  Adv Adv PP
This works extremely hard for me.
• AdvP  P Adv
My father worked in the hospital until recently.
AdvP  InfP
I’m going to the airport to pick up my uncle.
AdvP  PP
Everyone is contributing money for his birthday gift.

Conjoined phrases: Conjoined phrases are those phrases that involve combining words and phrases of
the same category using a conjunction.

Examples:
Asif and Ikram (conjoined NP)
Run or swim (conjoined VP)

Phrase Structure Tree

We use tree structure diagrams to easily analyze a sentence and its parts. It visualizes the entire
sentence and allows us to illustrate the ambiguities. For example, to analyze the statement ‘the
cop saw the man with the binocular’, we draw the following tree structure diagram.

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15
Ambiguity
There are two types of ambiguity: lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity.
Lexical ambiguity or homophony is the phenomenon where a single word is the form of more
than one distinct lexical expressions that differ in meaning, syntactic properties, or both. The
expressions that correspond to the same single-word form are said to be homophonous.
a. We love Fluffy. love is of category transitive verb (TV)
b. Our love for Fluffy will never die. love is of category noun (N)

Structural Ambiguity is the phenomenon where a group of words is the form of more than one
distinct phrasal expression.
The cop saw the man with the binoculars.

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Thematic Roles
Thematic roles are the various roles that a noun phrase (subject/object) may play with respect
to the main verb of the sentence. The role of the subject and object depends on what the verb
is. Verbs of the sentence assign different roles to their subject and object.
The terms subject and object are used to determine the position of noun phrases in the
sentence. The phrase which is positioned immediately before the verb is called the subject. The
phrase positioned immediately after the verb is called the object.
There is a difference between subject/object and the roles. The subject and object are
properties of the sentence structure. Every sentence in English has a subject. Roles are
semantic functions of the subject and object.

1. Agent: an initiator (doer) of an action, capable of acting with a free (conscious) will. This
role is mostly played by the subject of the sentence.
Examples:
Ahmad kicked the ball.
She looks at the moon.
Nadeem ate an apple.
A rock fell down. (not an agent)
She slipped on the ice. (not an agent)

2. Experiencer:
a. The perceiver of an action or event without a free will (passively or mentally but not
on purpose).
b. Entity that is aware of the action but is not in control of the action.
c. Entity that is neither the initiator nor is it the receiver of the action.
This role is mostly played by the subject of the sentence.
Examples:
She heard the explosion.
Waris feels sick today.
I miss you.
He fears the dog.
The dog frightens him. (not an experiencer)

3. Patient: an entity (person or thing) which is acted upon – the receiver of an action. Or
entity that experiences the effect of some action and often experiences some change in
state of being or physical form. This role is mostly played by the object of the sentence.

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 Examples:
She broke my glass.
Nadeem ate an apple.
You kicked the ball. (not a patient)

4. Theme:
a. An entity that is moved by the action, or whose location or appearance is described.
b. An entity that was perceived, or is the topic of discussion.
This role is mostly played by the object of the sentence.
Examples:
Fatima kicked the ball.
I fell.
He hid the ball under the bed.
I saw the moon.
We heard the explosion.
The bank is over there.
Laila is beautiful.
I like this car.
She loves cookies.
I miss you.
The soldier drowned in a boating accident.

5. Recipient: entity that comes into possession of something. Or the possessor of

something physical or abstract.
This role is played by either subject or object of the sentence.
Examples:
I caught cold.
He has a pen.
Karima has a headache.
She sold her pen to me.
Karim gave a book to Nasim.
I bought her a car.

6. Source: entity from which something moves, or where a change of possession begins.
Examples:
They gave me the information.
He sent me a phone.

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 Walid is from Kabul.

7. Goal: the entity toward which something moves physically or abstractly. This role is
mostly played by the object of preposition.

Examples:
Abdullah walked to school.
The teacher gave a lecture to the class.

8. Location: the place where something is situated or takes place. The role is mostly played
by the object of preposition.

Examples:
I live in Afghanistan.
She saw a man at the library.

9. Instrument: the means by which an action is performed. The role is mostly played by the
object of preposition.

Examples:
They hit me with a stick.
We ate the soup with a spoon.

Remember: sometimes a noun phrase (subject/object) may play more than one role.
Examples:
She sent me the money. (agent, source)
I caught the ball. (agent, recipient)

Phrase Structure Rules

We translate a phrase structure using abbreviations, arrow, space, and parentheses ( ).

Arrow  means ‘may consist of’

The parentheses ( ) means ‘some phrases contain this and others do not.

For example, VP  V NP means that a verb phrase may consist of a verb followed by a noun
phrase. VP  V (NP) means that a verb phrase may consist of a verb; some verb phrases
contain noun phrases after the verb and others do not.

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Recursion
Recursion is a fundamental property of human language that gives language capacity to express
an unlimited number of ideas with limited resources.

Example:
The picture of the house on the corner in the town on the edge of the beautiful city near the long
river with the bridge over the path by the dock which is very popular around the world was
painted in 1990 by a famous painter, Charlie.

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