Syntax Word order, constituency

SyntaxWord order, constituency

LING 200

Spring 2003

Reading: Files 6.1, 6.3, 6.5, 6.7

Overview

• What is syntactic competence? • Morphology and syntax: inflectional morphology • Word order • Representing the structure of sentences• Arguments for constituent structure• Transformations• Cross-linguistic variation

Syntactic competence

• Possible vs. impossible sentences

• Restricted distributions of words/ morphemes

• What sentences mean

What native speakers know about:

Sources of evidence in syntax

• Observation of native speaker productions

• Elicitation of native speaker grammaticality judgements – from self– from others

Morphology overlaps with syntax

Derivation Inflection

1. Category changing?

often

-able: likeable

-ness: happiness

no

-s pl.: apples

-s 3sS: sees

Syntactically relevant morphemes: inflection

Inflection vs. derivation

Derivation Inflection

2. Productive? (very general conditions on affixation?)

often restricted:

-hood: brotherhood, neighborhood, *daughterhood

yes, but subject to blocking by irregular forms:

-s pl.:

child, *childs, children

Russianize vs. Russify

Inflection vs. derivation

Derivation Inflection

3. Morpheme order

inner: usu. added before inflectional: -]Nal]Adj

-]N,Adjize]V

-]Vation]N

industrializationalize

outer: usu. added after derivational:

3sS -s

industrializationalizes

Inflection vs. derivation

Derivation Inflection

4. Syntactic relevance

no usually sensitive to syntactic information; -s 3sS: Rose sees (vs. I see_)

Some verbal inflectional affixes

-ing present participle

visiting I am ___ Virginia now.

-ed past visited Last weekend I ___ Virginia.

-ed past participle

visited I have just ___ Virginia.

Syntactic relevance: agreement• Spanish: adjectives agree with nouns in gender, number • gender: (arbitrary) noun classes

entrada ‘ticket (to a show)’ vs. boleto ‘ticket’

‘the’ ‘this’ ‘expensive’

sg. entrada la entrada esta entrada entrada cara

pl. entradas las entradas estas entradas entradas caras

sg. boleto el boleto este boleto boleto caro

pl. boletos los boletos estos boletos boletos caros

Agreement

Vendiste las entradas? ‘Did you sell the tickets?’you sold the tickets

No, las (*los) tengo todavía. ‘No, I still have them.’ them I have still

Word order • English vs. Witsuwit’en

1. Prepositions precede nouns in English. count for me Postpositions follow nouns in Witsuwit'en:

spe c’otw ‘count for me’

me for you (sg.) count

Word order

2. In English, adjectives precede nouns. narrow rope In Witsuwit'en, an adjective follows a noun: t'o tet ‘fine babiche’rope narrow

Word order3. In English, the possessor noun normally precedes the possessed noun. 

my friend's house

but can follow the possessed noun:the house of my friend

 In Witsuwit'en, the possessor noun always precedes the possessed noun: sq'aqh py‘my friend’s house’my friend his/her house

Word order

4. Subject of sentence: instigates action (transitive verbs), undergoes action or state (intransitive verbs)

In both Witsuwit'en and English, subjects precede verbs:

Driftwood is floating around. tz ntdriftwood it is floating around

Word order5. (Direct) (undergoes action of verb) object only in sentences

with transitive verbs.

In English, the direct object follows the verb. 

We bought food. In Witsuwit'en, the direct object precedes the verb:

t'a nets'ottqhtfood we bought

Attested word order patterns(S = Subject, O = Object, V = Verb):

SOV Witsuwit'en

SVO English

VSO Irish

OSV Apurinã (Arawakan, Brazil)

OVS Parecís (Arawakan, Brazil) (also SOV)

VOS Oro Win (Chapacura-Wanham, Brazil) (5 speakers)

Frequency of each type< Sample of 402 languages.

Word order # languages

SOV 180 45%

SVO 168 42%

VSO 37 9%

VOS 12 3%

OVS 5 1%

OSV 0 0%

Recursion and phrase structure (Potentially) infinitely long sentences:  This is the house that Jack built.This is the malt

that lay in the house that Jack built.This is the rat

that ate the maltthat lay in the house that Jack built.

...

This is the priest all shaven and shornthat married the man all tattered and tornthat kissed the maiden all forlornthat milked the cow with the crumpled hornthat tossed the dogthat worried the catthat killed the ratthat ate the maltthat lay in the house that Jack built.

...

How to characterize (potential) infinity?

Phrase structure rules. Properties:       specify word order      are recursive (output of one rule can be rewritten via another rule)

Phrase structure rulesGeneral schema:

X Y Z (“X consists of/is Y Z”) examples:

English: PP P NPWitsuwit'en: PP NP P

 PP = Pre/postpositional phraseP = Pre/postpositionNP = Noun phrase

Equivalent representational devices

phrase structure rule: PP P NP  labeled bracketing: PP[P NP]

 tree structure: PP P NP

Some terminology

constituentsyntactic unit consisting of one or more words

= node (in tree)root nodebranching nodes

terminal nodes

PP P NP with Det N the money

More phrase structure rules

S NP VP S = sentenceNP = noun phraseVP = verb phrase

More phrase structure rules

NP (Det) (Adj+) N (PP) Det = determinerAdj = adjectiveN = noun

( ) = optional

Determiners vs. adjectives

NP (Det) (Adj+) N (PP)Det a/an, some, the, your (etc.)Adj big, green, juicy (etc.)

One determiner per NP:your pickle, the pickle, *your the pickle,

*the your pickle

More than one Adj is possible (+ notation):your big pickle, your big green pickle,

your big green juicy pickle

More phrase structure rules

VP Vtrans (NP) (PP) (Adv)

VP = verb phraseVtrans = transitive verbAdv = adverb

Some simple tree structures

S NP VPNP (Det) (Adj+) N (PP)VP V (NP) (PP) (Adv)  S NP VP N V cats sleep

Some simple tree structures

NP (Det) (Adj+) N (PP)PP P NP  NP N PP fog P NP in Det N the morning

NP Det N PP the piano P NP on Det N PP the stage P NP in Det N PP the music building P NP on N campus

Some simple tree structures

VP V (NP) (PP) (Adv)  VP V NP PP put Det N P NP the car in Det N the garage

Summary of syntax (so far)

• Syntactic competence• Morphology and syntax: inflectional morphology • Word order • Recursion• Representing the structure of sentences

– phrase structure rules

– tree diagrams

– labeled bracketing