Unit 2.- Syntax in Linguistics (No Unit 1 = Preliminary Unit)

7/14/2019 Unit 2.- Syntax in Linguistics (No Unit 1 = Preliminary Unit)

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Unit 2.- Syntax in Linguistics

Preliminary reading and exercises.

There are two types of ambiguity:

1. Lexical Ambiguity (morphology).2. Structural Ambiguity (syntax).

Exercises:

1. In what ways are these expressions ambiguous?

(a) An American history teacher.

• An [American history] teacher A teacher of American history.

• An [American [history] teacher] A history teacher from America.

(b) Flying planes can be dangerous.

• [Flying planes] can be dangerous (Adj + N) = Planes that are flying are

dangerous.

• [Flying] [planes] can be dangerous (V + Obj) = Throwing planes in the air

can be dangerous.

(c) The parents of the bride and the groom were waiting.

• [The parents of the bride] and [the groom] were waiting There were 3people waiting for the bride (her mother, her father and the groom

himself).

• [The parents] [of (the bride) and (the groom)] were waiting There were

4 people waiting (the parents of the bride and parents of the groom).

2. Can you provide four, ‘superficially distinct’ sentences which would each havethe same ‘underlying’ structure as one of the following sentences?

(a) John was arrested by the police.

• [John] was arrested by the police John has done something wrong so hewas arrested

• [The police] arrested John The police has arrested John for nothing as

he is innocent.

(b) She took her coat off.

• [The coat] was taken off The important thing is that it was a coat, not a

jacket.

• [She] took off her coat Nobody helped her to take her coat off but she

did it herself.

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(c) Someone stole my bicycle.

• [My bicycle] was stolen The important thing is that it was a coat, not a

jacket.

• [Someone] stole my bicycle I am pointing out at the fact that ‘someone’did it.

(d) I told him to turn down the volume.

• [I] told him to turn down the volume Emphasis on the subject: it was me

who did it.

• [He] was told to turn the volume down by me ‘He’ received the order of

turning the volume down.

• [The volume] was turned down by him (because she told him so) What

was turned down was ‘the volume’ – here we need to add extra informationin order to have the complete meaning as in the target sentence.

3. Discuss the difference between the following (a) and (b) examples.

1. (a) Max [is shaving]Progressive form of the verb: auxiliary ‘be’ + ‘main V-ing’.

(b) Max [is] [surprising]Main verb/copulative ‘be’ + adjective (in attributive position).

2. (a) John [left] [this message]

Transitive V ‘leave’ + Complement/Object ‘this message’.(b) John [left] [this morning]

Intransitive/Unergative V ‘leave’ (verb of movement) + Adjunct of time ‘this

morning’

3. (a) Peter [was] [drunk] [by midnight]

Copulative ‘be’ linking the subject ‘Peter’ and the adjective ‘drunk’ (we have

here ‘drunk’ giving us a quality of the subject) + ‘by midnight’ is an adjunct

of time.

(b) The wine [was drunk] by midnight

V in passive form (auxiliary ‘be’ + past participle of V ‘drink’.

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2. Syntax in Linguistics1. The concept of syntax.

2. Syntax as a subfield of Linguistics.

3. Approaches to syntax.

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1. The concept of syntax.

‘Syntax’ = coming from Greek. Literal meaning = ‘setting altogether’, arrangement.

What is syntax?- In general, the study of the principles and rules for constructing sentences in

natural languages.

- The syntax of a language: body of rules followed by the speakers of a languagewhen they combine words into sentences.

Research in syntax tries to describe languages in terms of such rules.

- When we investigate English syntax, we try to determine the rules that dictatehow English speakers combine words to make sentences.

The rules of syntax.- At first glance, speakers of a language are not consciously aware of the

existence of such rules in their native tongue.

NOUN + VERB + ADJECTIVE

- Ie, when uttering a sentence like ‘Martha lives in the house that John sold toher’. A native English speaker would typically have the impression that s/he is not

following any rules. The native speaker feels that s/he is merely letting the

thought to be expressed and dictates the choice of words and their arrangement

in a sentence.

Evidence for rules of syntax.

- Knowing the words of a language is not enough to produce meaningful sentences.

• Imagine a person whose only knowledge about English consists on some

information about English words and their meanings obtained from a Japanese

to English dictionary.

• If we ask this person to express the thought behind ‘Martha

lives in the house that John sold to her’, s/he would probably

say something like:

*’Martha John her to sold house in lives’.

• Sentence that corresponds word by word to the sentence

that would convey the same thought in Japanese:

- Some sentences don’t have any meaning.- Some sentences sound ‘odd’ for no native speakers.

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o This person has a coherent thought to express + knows the necessary

English words.

o BUT the English sentence s/he creates is meaningless.

o This speaker does not have the means to construct a successful English

sentence.

- There are meaningful sentences that are perceived as odd or not normal by

native speakers (native speakers detect there is something wrong or doesn’t

sound ‘natural’ to them).

Ex. I go often to the cinema / I often go to the cinema [Adverbs of frequency

are placed in front of the main verb]

- From the point of view of semantics, it communicates the same idea but,

from a syntactic point of view, it sounds ‘odd’.

Ex. You speak very well English / You speak English very well [Direct objectbefore adjuncts]

How we discover syntactic rules:

- For a speaker with no formal training in syntax,

• Rules are unconscious and invisible.

• What s/he can do, is to observe the effects of rules (s/he knows there is

something odd in the sentence but wouldn’t be able to explain ‘what’ and ‘why’).

- These observations can be taken as a hints or clues concerning the nature of the

invisible rules: detective work (little by little, we will be able to reconstruct the syntactic

rules).

Example of detective work: discovering rules from a speaker with no formal trainingin syntax.

Dialogue between a graduate student from France, Pierre, and his American friend,David.

Goal: to discover what rule of English grammar is broken in the sentence:* The mayor gave John some good advices.

[HANDOUT PIERRE AND DAVID]

• Pierre has realised he needs a set of rules in order to create sentences with full

meaning.

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2. Syntax as a subfield of Linguistics.

Linguistics = the science of language.

Aim: the study of language. Structures of particular languages to identify universal

elements. [Performance-Lenguaje] [Competence-Lengua]

Focus of Linguistics: spoken language (vs. Philology: written texts). Linguistics (Grammar) exists since the classical period, although the beginnings of

modern linguistics should be located in the 19th and early 20th.

Origins

Plato (4thc BC)

Socratic dialogue devoted to linguistic issues: Cratylus . Origins of language and the

concept of the “name-giver”.

The Nineteenth Century Heyday/Golden age of Historical Linguistics.

Special interest in concrete, empirical linguistic data.

Importance of comparative Linguistics.

The Twentieth Century

• Ferdinand de Saussure

Swiss Linguist (1857-1913).

The greatest European Structuralist.

Structuralism = main approach to Linguistics in the 20th century.

It focused on the investigation of concrete linguistic data synchronically.

Course in General Linguistics (1916).

Main thesis: Languages are the instruments that enable human beings to achieve

rational comprehension of the world in which we live.

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Our understanding of reality depends essentially on the verbal signs of our

language.

Words are central to human life.

Human existence is a linguistically articulated existence.

Language is the object of the study in Linguistics. Linguistics = Branch of Semiology: general science of signs (later on, Bloomfield will

refer to as ‘Semiotics’).

19th C

Comparative Linguistics

Diachronic Linguistics

20th C

Saussure

Synchronic Perspective

• Noam Chomsky

American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist and political activist (b. 1928).

More than 100 extensive publications: honorary degree from universities around

the world (London, Bologna, Toronto...). Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of

Technology).

Generative-Transformational Grammar

Generative: focus of the theory = generation of sentences. Transformational: methodology = transformational rules (T-rules).

Generative Grammar

It emphasises the creativity of human language: humans are able to interpret and

produce an infinitive number of sentences that they have not heard or uttered

before.

Language = key to understand the human mind or brain. For Chomsky, linguistics =

branch of Cognitive Psychology.

Linguistics nowadays: Pragmatics in Applied Lingusitics

• Pragmatics:

Main linguistic paradigm since the 1980s.

It deals with the uses of language to communicate meaning in context.

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Content Users

Context



Emphasis on the importance of context. When the context changes, what is

communicated changes as well.

Focus: context-bound relation between what is said and what is communicated.

• Applied Linguistics: The concept appeared in the 1950s in Britain and the USA (Anglo-American

creation).

Origins linked with the teaching and learning of English.

Purpose : to solve real-world, language-based problems. Based on Linguistics +

other disciplines (anthropology, sociology, psychology...)

Subfields of Linguistics

(Levels of Linguistic analysis)

• Phonetics and phonology.• Morphology

• Syntax

• Semantics

Morphology (categories) / Syntax (function). They are independent.

Phonology: Phonological rules

Phonology: abstract idea that we have of sounds. Deep structure, Competence.

- Rules that determine the different patterns of speech sounds in a language.- Based on a theory of what every speaker of a language unconsciously knows

about the sound patterns of that language.

- Abstract or mental aspect of the sounds of a language.

Phonetics: Phonetic rules

Phonetics: the sounds themselves. Practical pronunciation of language. Surface

structure. Performance.

- Rules that determine the actual pronunciation of words and sentences in a

language.- Actual physical articulation of speech sounds.

Morphology: Morphological rules

- Rules that govern the formation of words.

- Basic unit: morpheme (minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function).

Syntax: Syntactic rules

- Rules followed by the speakers of a language when they combine words into

sentences.

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Grammar



- Unconsciously .

Semantics: Meaning of words, phrases and sentences

Studying the denotative (objective) meaning and the connotative (subjective)

meaning of the words.- Conventional meaning conveyed by the use of words, phrases and sentences of a

language.

- Lexical relations (semantic fields, collocation, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy...).

• Synonymy : [forms with closely related meanings]

Hurt and damage (same semantic field).

Cab and taxi (the same meaning in different contexts).

• Antonymy : [opposite meanings]

Before and after

More and less• Hyponymy : [teh meaning of a word is included in the meaning of another]

Animal > dog > poodle.Plant > flower > tulip.

Symbols used in syntactic description

S: sentence. NP: noun phrase.

N: noun.

VP: verb phrase. V: verb. PP: prepositional phrase.

Prep: preposition.

[arrow] = ‘consists of’. Eg. in the sea , PP prep NP

A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition [in ] and a noun phrase [the sea ].

() [parentheses or round brackets] = ‘optional constituent’.

We can describe a set of objects as:• Books NP N

• The books NP Art N

• The red books NP Art Adj N

The 3 examples of NPs but the only obligatory constituent on the NP is the N itself

(head). The article and the adjective are optional.

NP (Art) (Adj) N

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A noun phrase consists obligatorily of a noun and optionally of an article and/or an

adjective.

{} [braces or curly brackets] = ‘one and only one if these constituents must be

selected’.These symbols are used when there is a choice from two or more constituents.

Some of the possible constituents of an NP can be an expression like the woman

(Art N), she (pronoun) or Cathy (proper noun).

NP {(Art) N, pronoun, proper noun}

Graphic descriptions of sentences structure

Linear description : representation of the linear sequence of constituents.

Labelled and bracketed sentences

[ [ [The] [dog] ] [ [followed] [ [the] [boy] ] ] ]Art NP V Art NP

NP VP NP

Subject Predicate

Hierarchical description : representation of the levels of syntactic organisation

tree diagrams

Practice:

• [ NP [N Possession ] ] NP N

1. DP

D’

D NP

N’

N

Possession

2. NP

N’

NPossession

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• [ NP [N Pride ] and [N Prejudice ] ] NP N Conj N

1. NP

N’

N ConjPPride

Conj

Conj NP and

N’

N Prejudice

2. NP

N’ &’ N’

N & NPride and Prejudice

• [NP [ADJ Great ] [N Expectations ] ] NP (Adj) N

1. DP

D’

D NP

Ø

N’

AP N’

A’ N

Expectations

A

Great

2. NP

N’

AP N’

A’ N

Expectations

AGreat

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• The red kitchen

1. [DP The [NP [ADJ red ] [N Kitchen ] ] ] DP DP NP

DP (Art) (Adj) N

DP

D’

D NP

The

N’

AP N’

A’ N

KitchenA

red

2. [ [D The ] [ADJ red ] [N Kitchen ] ] NP NP Spec AP

NP

Spec/DP N’

D’ AP N’

D A’ N The Kitchen

Ared

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• [NP [N Death ] [PP [PREP Of ] [NP [D A] [N Salesman ] ] ] ] NP NP (N) PP (Prep Det

N)

1. DP

D’

D NP

Ø

N’

N PP

Death

P’

P DP

Of

D’

D NP

A

N’

N

Salesman

2. NP

N’

N PP

Death

P’

P DP

Of

D’

D NP

A

N’

N

Salesman

3. Approaches to syntax.

Main approaches in traditional grammar:- The prescriptive approach.

- The descriptive approach.

The prescriptive approach

• Grammar = set of rules for the ‘proper’ use of a language. The rules tell you how

you must speak. Language is not something creative but an act of applying the

rules give to us.

• In the English context, this approach was characteristic of 18 th c. grammarians,

although it can still be found nowadays (in some schools, this ‘didactic’ method is used in

order to teach children ESL).

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• Prescriptive grammarians set out rules for the correct or ‘proper’ use of

language. Apart from that, prescriptive grammarians ‘suppose’ we have

knowledge of the metalanguage used in order to explain the rules.

• Example of prescriptive rules:

- You must use ‘I’ for the nominative case. Example:*Mary runs faster than me This is more usual in the use of practical

language.

Mary runs faster than I According to prescriptive grammarians, this is

the correct sentence.

- When asking about a [+human] object, you must use ‘whom’ and not ‘who’.

Example:

*Who did you see? This is the more usual in the use of practical

language.

Whom did you see? According to prescriptive grammarians, this is thecorrect sentence.

• Method for language teaching based on the prescriptive approach: Traditional or

Grammar-Translation method. Based on the study of classical languages (Latin and Greek). It is not

suitable for living languages as we need the introduction of some aspectson listening and speaking.

Fashionable in the 17th-19th c. However, presence of traces even

nowadays. Focus on the study of the written language, and on the knowledge of

grammar (prescriptive grammar).

Main type of exercise: translation.

Principle of this kind of approach

Written language is considered superior to the spoken side.

Reading and writing are the main skills. The basic unit of teaching is the sentence.

Medium of instruction: student’s L1.

Students must learn grammatical rules, and apply them in exercises.

Students have to know conjugations and other grammatical paradigms.

Successful learners are those who translate each language into the other, although

they cannot communicate orally.

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The descriptive approach

• Basic of most modern attempts to characterise the structure of different

languages.

• Origins: end of the 19th c., when linguists who wanted to study the structure of

North American Indian languages discovered that the prescriptive rules of Latingrammar didn’t fit to analyse those languages. As they could not apply the rules

of Latin, they decided to describe those languages That led to the beginning

of the descriptive approach to the study of a language.

• Descriptive grammarians/analysts:

They collect samples of the languages they are interested in.

The attempt to describe the regular structures of the languages. What is

important is the language spoken by real people and how language actually

is, not what language should be like (what we have seen in the prescriptive

method).

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Sample LessonJelous shildrren

Hoy vamo’ a ver

El “ver-tu-bi”

Ai am

Llur ar

Ji is…

Adverbios de frecuencia – Frequency adverbs• Uso

We often went camping when we were children(Cuando éramos niños a menudo íbamos a acampar)

I will always love you(Siempre te amaré)

• Posición en la oración

Pedro sometimes visits us on Sundays

(Pedro a veces nos visita los domingos)She is often ill in winter

(Ella generalmente está enferma en invierno)



o As it is used.

o Not according to some views of how it should be used.

Language Acquisition Device (LAD) According to Chomsky, LAD is an aspect of

Universal Grammar, that is, something shared by all human beings (independently ofthe language). It is the subconscious and genetically given (innate) component of the

human mind that enables the acquisition of first language (L1).

Other theories by Chomsky

- In the 1980s, Noam Chomsky developed the theory of Government and Binding .

- In the 1990s and 2000s, Chomsky developed the Minimalist Programme/Program .

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Unit 2.- Syntax in Linguistics (No Unit 1 = Preliminary Unit)