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Syntax Final

Syntax refers to the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences, with properties such as word order, agreement, and hierarchical structure. It encompasses various syntactic categories like nouns, verbs, and phrases, and involves rules that generate grammatical sentences. Chomsky's distinction between competence and performance highlights the unconscious knowledge of language versus its practical use in communication.

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17 views28 pages

Syntax Final

Syntax refers to the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences, with properties such as word order, agreement, and hierarchical structure. It encompasses various syntactic categories like nouns, verbs, and phrases, and involves rules that generate grammatical sentences. Chomsky's distinction between competence and performance highlights the unconscious knowledge of language versus its practical use in communication.

Uploaded by

jayamaepaltingca
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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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Syntax

Syntax
WHAT IS
SYNTAX?
- It is defined as the arrangement of
words and phrases in a language to create
a well-structured or well-formed sentence.

× - flying the bird is in the sky


× - in the sky flying is the bird
× - flying the bird in the sky is
✓ - The bird is flying in the sky
𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘆𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰
𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲
• Humans can understand & produce an infinite
number of sentences they never heard before.
• Determine the grammatical relations in a sentence.

𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲: Mary hired Bill. Vs. Bill hired Mary.


•𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗢𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿
Every language has a general word order.
The word order of English is Subject + Verb + Object
(complement).

•𝗔𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
Subject and verb, determiner and noun, noun and
pronoun, etc.
• 𝗛𝗶𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲
-What modifies what in a sentence.

𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲:
(A)
Colorless green ideas sleep comfortably.
A verb crumpled the milk.
I gave the question an angry egg.

(B)
Comfortably sleep ideas green colorless.
Milk the crumpled verb a.
The question I an gave egg angry.
𝗦𝘆𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗖𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀

Word-level categories:

• Nouns (N): People, places, things (e.g.,


company)
• Verbs (V): Actions or states (e.g., run, be)
• Adjectives (Adj): Describes nouns (e.g.,
large, beautiful)
• Adverbs (Adv): Describes verbs,
adjectives, or other adverbs (e.g., quickly)
𝗣𝗵𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱𝘀:
• Words can combine to form 𝗽𝗵𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀,
with the main word being the 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱.

𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀:
• Company(N)
• A company (NP)
• A large company (NP)
• That large company (NP)
𝗧𝘆𝗽𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗡𝗣𝘀 (𝗡𝗼𝘂𝗻 𝗣𝗵𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀)
• NP (e.g., “company”)
• PN (Proper Noun, e.g., “John”)
• Pro (Pronoun, e.g., “he”)
• NP-S (e.g., “the fact that you are here”)
𝗩𝗲𝗿𝗯 𝗣𝗵𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀 (𝗩𝗣)
- A 𝗩𝗣 must include its head 𝗩 (Verb).
- The verb may optionally be followed by:
𝗡𝗣 (Noun Phrase)
𝗔𝗣 (Adjective Phrase)
𝗔𝗱𝘃𝗣 (Adverb Phrase)
𝗣𝗣 (Prepositional Phrase)
𝗦 (Sentence)
𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀:
• John slept (VP)
• John wrote an article (VP → V + NP)
•John wrote an article about Corona Virus
(VP → V + NP + PP)
𝗣𝗵𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝘆𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘅 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗲𝘀

• Phrase structure rules can generate


sentences that are grammatically correct
but semantically incorrect.

• 𝗦𝘆𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘅 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗲𝘀 visually represent


sentence structure and help clarify word
order.
𝗣𝗵𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲
𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀:
• They reflect the kind of syntactic
knowledge that native speakers of a
language possess.
• They show that sentences are rule-
governed, hierarchically structured
• They are extremely powerful in the
sense that they allow the generation of an
unlimited number of sentences in a
𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗺𝘀𝗸𝘆’𝘀 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻:
𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘃𝘀. 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲
- Competence refers to the unconscious
knowledge of language that native
speakers store in their brains from early
childhood.

- Performance refers to how people use


this knowledge in real-world situations.
𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗧𝘆𝗽𝗲𝘀:
1. Pragmatic Competence
- Ability to use language appropriately in
different contexts to fulfill needs.
2. Grammatical Competence
- Involves syntactic, semantic, and
phonological abilities
- Syntactic abilities: Combining words into
grammatical sentences and distinguishing
between grammatical and ungrammatical
sentences.
𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘁𝗼 𝗦𝘆𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘅

- Chomsky views linguistics as part of


cognitive psychology, with a focus on the
brain’s mental abilities, including syntactic
knowledge.

𝗣𝗵𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀

- Phrase structure rules generate sentence


structures.
𝗟𝗲𝘅𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀

- PN: {Mary, George}


- V: {followed, helped, saw}
- N: {girl, dog, boy}
- Adj: {small, crazy}
- Art: {a, the}
- Prep: {near, with}
- Pro: {it, you}
- Adv: {recently, yesterday}
• These rules help generate grammatical
sentences, but not ungrammatical ones.

-Phrase/ Constituents
-A constituent (phrase) is a group of words that
“belong together” in a sentence.
-They are coherent by themselves and contribute
to the meaning of the whole sentence.
𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀:

1. The dog ate the bone.


2. The president of the company likes to
see big profits.
3. My stupid kid brother told my mom
about my final algebra exam.

𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲: Constituents depend on the


sentence context—what is a constituent in
one sentence may not be in another.
𝗨𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗦𝘆𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰
𝗖𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀

- All languages tend to have these


categories.

- This allows the creation of 𝘀𝘆𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰


𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀 and helps represent the
𝗵𝗶𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 of sentences.
𝗣𝗵𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀
Phrase structure rules determine:
1. What goes into a phrase
(𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀)
2. How these constituents are ordered

What is a Constituent?
-A 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗲𝗻𝘁 is a word or group of
words that functions as a unit and can
form larger grammatical units.
𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗮:
- X→YZ
(X consists of Y followed by Z)

𝗘𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲:
“𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗯𝘂𝗯𝗯𝗹𝗲”

(Phrase structure rule for NPs: (𝗗𝗲𝘁)


(𝗔𝗱𝗷) 𝗡 (𝗣𝗣) 𝗡
𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗵𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗲
𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀

• Generativity: It does not list the sentences


of the language, it describes the way how to
build them. This is important, since languages
contain infinite number of sentences.
𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗵𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗲
𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀

• Ambiguity: Some sentences can be build in more


than one way (starting with the S rule and ending
with the words in the sentence) These sentences
have more than one syntactic structure-they are
syntactically ambiguous (for example the telescope
sentence). This also shows that sentences are
more than just simple strings of words.
𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗵𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗲
𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀
• Infinite Recursion: The grammar is recursive and
thus allows to produce an infinite number of
sentences using a finite (very small) number of
rules.
Tree Diagram
A tree diagram is a way of representing the
hierarchical nature of a structure in a
graphical form. It is named a “tree diagram”
because the classic representation
resembles a tree, even though the chart is
generally upside down compared to an
actual tree, with the “root” at the top and
the “leaves” at the bottom. Tree diagram
provides us visual representation of the
constituents of the corresponding
HOW TO BUILD A TREE
DIAGRAM?
First, you have to know the basic structure
of a sentence. Sentence is made of
phrases and words. The rules that we use
to build tree diagram is called Phrase
Structure Rules. Below are the common
phrases in a sentence.
1. S→ SUBJ PRED 7.
AUX → -past

2. SUBJ→ NP 8.
AUX → - present

3. PRED→ AUX VP (Advl)ⁿ 9. AUX


→ modal

4. NP → (det)³ (AP) N (PP) 10. PP


→ Prep NP
These rules help generate grammatical
sentences, but not ungrammatical ones.

- Phrase/ Constituents

- A constituent (phrase) is a group of


words that “belong together” in a
sentence.

- They are coherent by themselves and


contribute to the meaning of the whole

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