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Lecture 6

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6 views

Lecture 6

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ulianamix
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Lecture 6. Sentence.

Syntactic
Structure. Models of Analysis
1. The model of parts of the sc.
Parsing - the process of analysing scs into their
parts, or constituents, is known as parsing.
2 levels:
-pre-functional (word, phrase)
-functional (sentence)
Parts of the sc:
-principal (basic struc. of the sc)
-secondary (extending the basic str)
Principal parts of scs (independent):
-subject (struc. centre of sc)
-predicate (agrees with s. in person and number;
semantic and communicative centre of sc)

Secondary parts of scs:


-attribute (noun-adjunct)
-object, adverbial modifier (verb-adjuncts) +
apposition, objective predicative (complements)
Fuzzy boundaries, overlapping – difficult to distinguish:
(1) I want to leave.
(object or part of the predicate?)
(2) Features of her mother and father were blended in
her face.
(adverbial modifier or prepositional object?)
The model of parts of the sentence
(basic relations of notional sentence constituents)

2 models of analysis (American school of structural –


descriptive – linguistics):
-distributional model
-model of immediate constituents
(at the pre-functional level)
2. The distributional model. (Ch. Fries)
e.g. The old man saw a black dog there.
D 3 Ia 2-d D 3 Ib 4
D – determiner
3 - adjective
I – noun (sg, masculine)
2-d – verb in the past tense
I – noun (sg., neutral or feminine)
4 – adverb
a,b – different denotation
Shows the linear order of sc constituents
The syntactic struc. of the sc – sequence of
positional classes of words

Drawback: doesn’t show the syntactic relations


of sentence constituents (overcome by the IC-
model)
The police shot the man in the red cap.
The police shot the man in the right arm.
D Ia 2-d D Ib f D 3 Ic
English verbs and adverbs

Old men and children


3 Ia f Ib
I saw a man with a telescope.
(ambiguous)
3. The model of immediate constituents (IC)
Sc is not a mere sequence or string of words, but
a structured string of words, grouped into
phrases.
Sc constituents are words and word-groups
Cohesion – the possibility to substitute 1 word
for the whole group without destroying the
sentence structure.
Substitution test → defining syntactic relations
& reducing to basic structures.
1) The old man | saw a black dog there.
2) The || old man | saw a black dog || there.
3) | saw ||| a black dog || there.
4) The || old ||| man | saw ||| a |||| black dog ||
there.
Word-groups are reduced to head-words and the
Sc – to the basic structure – 2 IC: NP and VP
The rules of extending elementary scs:
S → NP +VP
NP → A+N
VP → V+D (Adv)
UC – ultimate C (cannot be further divided)
2 main versions of the model:
-the analytical model
-the derivation tree
The analytical model divides the sc
into IC-s and UC-s
The derivation tree shows the syntactic
dependence of sc constituents.
I saw a man with a telescope. (2 IC-
structures)
The police shot the man in the red cap.
The police shot the man in the right arm.
The IC-model shows both the syntactic relations
and the linear order of elements.

3. The transformational model (TM)


Sc types are structurally & semantically related.
Making these relations explicit → describing
the syntactic structure
Sc with all obligatory Cs – basic structure
(elementary scs, kernel scs)
2-7 kernel scs:
1) NV;
2) NVN;
3) NVPrepN;
4) N is N;
5) N is A;
6) N is Adv;
7) N is PrepN
The structure of all other scs may be explained
as a result of certain changes, or
transformations of kernel structures.
TM is based on IC-model, but it shows semantic
and syntactic relations of dif. sc types

American linguist N. Chomsky


TM describes paradigmatic relations of basic and
derived structures:
Kernel scs – deep (underlying) str.
Derived scs – surface str.
Transformations can be subdivided into
-intramodel (single-base – changing the kernal
str.)
-two-base (combining 2 str.)
Single-base:
-modifying the kernel str.
-changing the kernel str.
(1) She is working hard. → She is not working
hard.
(2) She is working hard. → Her working hard.
Her hard work.
Basic types of intramodel transformations:
-substitution, deletion (Have you seen him →
Seen him?);
-permutation or movement (He is here → Is he
here?);
-nominalization (He arrived → His arrival);

Two-base transformations:
-embedding (I know that he has come)
-word-sharing (I saw him cross the street)
TM shows that scs with dif. surface str.
Paraphrase because they are derived from the
same deep str.
He arrived → his arrival → for him to arrive →
his arriving

TM shows that some scs are ambiguous, because


they derive from distinct str.
Flying planes can be dangerous →
(1) Planes are dangerous
(2) Flying is dangerous
TM – an effective method of deciding gr.
ambiguity

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