Syntax

Lecture 1
When we concentrate on the structure and
ordering of components within a sentence this is
called studying the syntax of a language.
• Lexical Categories:
• (N) noun (V) verb
• (Pro) pronoun (Prep) preposition
• (Adj) Adjective (PN) proper noun
• (Adv) Adverb (Art) article

• Syntactic Categories:
• (NP) noun phrase (PN) proper noun
• (VP) verb phrase (AdvP) Adverb Phrase
• (AdjP) Adjective Phrase (Pro) pronoun
• * ungrammatical sentence
• → consists of / rewrites as
• ( ) optional constituent
• { } one and only one of these constituents must be selected
 Syntactic Rules
• S → NP VP
• NP → {Art (Adj) N, Pro, PN}
• VP → V NP (PP) (Adv) *This is applied to
transitive verbs
• PP → Prep NP
• AdvP → { (pre-modifier) + Adverb + (post-
modifier)
• AdjP → { (pre-modifier + Adjective + post-
modifier)}
 Syntactic rules
• We use Syntactic rules to:
• Generate a very large number of sentences with
a very small number of rules.

• These rules are called phrase structure rules.

• Phrase structure rules state that the structure of

a phrase of a specific type will consist of one or
more constituents in a particular order.
 Syntactic Representations
• Labelled & bracketed format

The girl

NP [[Art] [N]]
The girl [NP [ART the][NOUN girl]]
One of the most common ways to create a visual
representation of syntactic structure is through
tree diagrams.

Example,
The girl NP

Art N
the girl
 Symbols used in syntactic analysis
Structure Rules
• S → NP VP
• NP → {Art (Adj / premodifier) N (post modifier) ,
Pro, PN}
• VP → V NP (PP) (Adv) *This is applied to transitive
verbs
• PP → Prep NP
• AdvP → { (pre-modifier) + Adverb + (post-
modifier)
• AdjP → { (pre-modifier + Adjective + post-
modifier)}
 Symbols used in syntactic analysis
• S → NP VP
• S = The little girl saw a dog in the park yesterday
• NP → {Art (Adj) N, Pro, PN}
• NP = the (little) girl
• VP → V NP (PP) (Adv) * Note here that NP must be
included only with transitive verbs.
• VP = The girl saw a dog (in the park) (yesterday)
• PP → Prep NP
• PP = in the park
2. round brackets ( ) (= an optional constituent)

• When we want to use a NP in English, we can include an (Adj), but we do

not have to. It is optional.

• NP → {Art (Adj / premodifier) N (post modifier) , Pro, PN}

For example:
• The dog = NP
• The (big) dog = NP
The big cute German shepherd dog with sharp eyes = NP

• It is a shorthand way of saying that a noun phrase consists of an article

(Art) and a noun (N), with the option of including an adjective (Adj) in a
specific position between them and a post-modifier.
• We can use this notation to generate the dog, the small dog, a cat, a big
cat, the book, a boring book, etc.
• Syntactic rules will generate all the well-formed
(grammatical) structures of the language and will not
generate any ill-formed structures.

• For example,
• PP → Prep NP
• NP → {Art (Adj / pre-modifier) N (post modifier) , Pro, PN}
• Heathrow airport is located near London.

• If we claim that Prepositional Phrases rewrite as:

• PP= P + N
• a prepositional phrase such as (near London) will be correct
and it is rewritten as:
• PP → a preposition (e.g. near) + a noun (e.g London)
• However, If we follow that rule, we will end up producing
ungrammatical phrases such as those in the following examples:
• I found my keys *near door.
• She walks with *dog.
• Now Compare those above examples ( focus on PP) with the previous
one:
• Heathrow airport is located near London.√
• I found my keys *near door.
• She walks with *dog.

• We clearly need to be more careful in applying phrase structure rules.

So, we must change this rule *PP= P + N into:

• PP → Prep NP
• NP → {Art (Adj) N, Pro, PN}
• So that the revised rule can produce these well-formed structures: near
London, with you, near a tree, with the dog, with a cute dog
• When we have an effective rule such as “a
prepositional phrase in English that consists of a
preposition followed by a noun phrase,” we can
imagine an extremely large number of English
phrases that could be produced using this rule.
• In fact, the potential number is unlimited.
• This reflects another goal of syntactic analysis,
which is:
• to have a small and finite set of rules that will
be capable of producing a large and infinite
number of well-formed structures.
• We can use phrase structure rules to present
the information of the tree diagram in another
format.

Tree diagram Phrase Structure Rule

Tree diagram:
The girl saw a dog.
S → NP VP
• We can rely on these rules to generate the
grammatical sentences 1-6, but not the
ungrammatical sentences 7-12.

(1) A dog followed the boy. (7) *Dog followed boy.

(2) Mary helped George. (8) *The helped you boy.
(3) George saw the dog. (9) *George Mary dog.
(4) It followed Mary. (10) *Mary George helped.
(5) You saw it. (11) *You it saw
(6) The boy helped you. (12) *Helped George the
dog.
 Some Remarks on Syntactic Rules
• S → NP VP
• S = The little girl saw a dog in the park yesterday
• NP → {Art (Adj) N, Pro, PN}
• NP = the little girl
• VP → V NP (PP) (Adv) * Note here that NP must be
included only with transitive verbs.
• VP = saw a dog (in the park) (yesterday)
• PP → Prep NP
• PP = in the park
Look at the following sentence and try to
analyse it:
You will help Mary
S → NP VP
NP → You
VP → will help Mary
We can modify the syntactic rule:
S → NP VP
To generate a structure like “ You will help Mary”
but HOW?
• In this example:
• You will help Mary
• We need a lexical rule that specifies the basic
forms of the verbs, shown as below.

• S → NP (Aux) VP
• Aux → {can, could, should, will, would}
• V → {follow, help, see}
 Movement rules
• Declarative forms (You will help Mary)
• Interrogative forms (Will you will help Mary?)

• In making the question, we move one part of

the structure to a different position.

• This process is based on a movement rule.

• With these components, we can specify a
simple movement rule that is involved in the
creation of one basic type of question in
English.

Declarative Clause Interrogative Clause

NP Aux VP Aux NP VP
You will help Mary Will You help Mary
• This type of rule has a special symbol and
can be illustrated in the process of one tree,
on the right, being derived from the tree on
the left.
Later in transformational grammar course, you
will have the following accurate tree
representations for the declarative and
interrogative clauses.
CP
IP
Spec C`
NP I`
Aux IP
Pro I VP
will NP I`
You will NP V`
Pro I VP
you V NP
You will NP V`
help PN
you V NP
Mary
help PN

Mary
• Using this simple rule, we can also generate
other questions:

• Can you see the dog?

• Should George follow you?
• Could the boy see it?
• Would Mary help George?
 Verb Phrase Structure
• Mary helped George
• S → NP VP
• S → [NP] Mary + [VP] helped George.
• How about:
• Cathy knew that Mary helped George.
• Can you figure out the structure of this
sentence?
 Complement Phrases
• Cathy knew that Mary helped George
• that = complementizer (C)
• The role of that as a complementizer is to
introduce a complement phrase / sentence (CP)
• CP → that Mary helped George
New rule:
CP CS
A complement phrase (CP) consists of a
complementizer ( C )and a sentence ( S ).
From the previous example, the CP comes after a V.

• This means that we are using the CP as part of a VP

(Cathy knew that Mary helped George).

VP = V + CP

VP= knew + that Mary helped George.

• Now, we have a new rule:

• A verb phrase consists of a verb and a complement
phrase
The following tree diagram represent the
syntactic structure of the following sentence:
• John believed that Cathy knew that Mary
helped George.
 Deep and surface structure
• This type of grammar should also be capable
of revealing the basis of two other
phenomena:
1. how some superficially different sentences
are closely related?
2. how some superficially similar sentences are
in fact different?
• Charlie broke the window.
• The window was broken by Charlie.
• Charlie was the one who broke the window.
• It was Charlie who broke the window.
• Was the window broken by Charlie?

• Different in their surface structure = different

arrangement or ordering
• BUT they have the same ‘deep’ or underlying
structure = same basic components (NP + V +
NP)
 Structural Ambiguity
• Structural ambiguity: a situation in which a
single phrase or sentence has two (or more)
different underlying structures and
interpretations.

• Our syntactic analysis should be capable of

showing the structural distinction between
these underlying representations.
 Structural ambiguity
They ate the pizza in the living room.

This sentence is ambiguous because it has two

underlying meanings:
1. “in the living room” can be seen as verbal
modifier It was in the living room that
they ate the pizza
They ate the pizza in the living room.

2. “in the living room” can be seen as nominal

modifier It was the pizza in the living
room that they ate.

Another Example of an ambiguous structure:

The boy saw the man with the telescope.

Figure out the underlying representations?

• The boy saw the man with the telescope.

S → NP VP PP
• Meaning 1: Using the telescope, the boy saw
the man.

• The PP is generated by the rule:

• VP→V NP PP
The boy saw the man with the telescope.

Meaning 2: The boy saw the man. The man had

a telescope.

• In the second structure the PP is generated by

the rule:
• NP→Det N PP
 IP

NP I`

Art N I VP

the boy PAST NP V`

Art N` V NP

the boy saw N`

Art NP

the N`

N PP

man P'

P NP

with Art N'

the N

telescope
 Recursion
• Recursion: phrases of type X can contain other
phrases of type X inside of them.
• Prepositional Phrases can be recursive.
• (1) The cat saw the woman.
• (2) The cat on the mat saw the woman.
• (3) The cat on the mat by the stove saw the
woman.
• (4) The cat [PP on the mat [PP by the stove ] ]
saw the woman.
 Recursion
• Our syntactic analysis should account for the
fact that a sentence can have another
sentence inside it or that a phrase can be
repeated as often as required.
1. Mary helped George.
2. Cathy knew that Mary helped George.
3. John believed that Cathy knew that Mary
helped George.