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Constituency

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Evidence for Phrases

Native-speaker Intuitions

• We have intuitions about the existence of:– words– phrases

syntactic categories:

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– syntactic categories:• word-level (lexical) categories (words are not all of

the same kind)• phrasal categories (phrases are not all of the same

kind)

Phrasal categories

My brother will meet a friend from college at the station.

• my brother: NP

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my brother: NP• from college: PP• a friend from college: NP• at the station: PP• meet a friend from college at the station: VP

Phrases and word-level categories

My brother will meet a friend from college at the station.

* t

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*meet a*college at the

Constituency

• Words that go together form a constituent(or a phrase).

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Phrases

What is a phrase?

You can define it semantically as having the same role as some ofthe individual words (heads) that it contains:

N l thi

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e.g. Noun: person, place, or thing: man, Nouna man, the man with the green hat, Noun Phrase (NP)kissed, Verbkissed a man in the green hat, Verb Phrase (VP)

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Constituent StructureA sentence is built from constituents (i.e., different kinds of phrases).

Each kind of phrase has a head plus other constituents.

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NP - Noun PhraseVP - Verb PhrasePP - Prepositional PhraseAP - Adjective Phrase

Phrasal categories:morphological evidence

(1) a. I think I stole the guy’s hat.b.*I think I stole the guy’s who I met in

Senegal hat.I thi k I t l th h I t i

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c. I think I stole the guy who I met in Senegal’s hat.

(2) a. This crown is the king’s.b.*This crown is the king’s of England.c. This crown is the king of England’s.

Phrasal categories:morphological evidence

• Generalization: The possessive/genitive inflection ’s can attach only to NPs. (Hence any adequate description of

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(Hence, any adequate description of possessives must make reference to phrases (i.e., constituency).

Try the Substitution Test

–– The old womanThe old woman met a lawyer.– Bill married the old womanthe old woman..– He threw the Frisbee to the old womanthe old woman..

Bill thought the old womanthe old woman was sick

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– Bill thought the old womanthe old woman was sick.

A pronoun can substitute for phrases that appear in different positions different positions in a sentence.

Try the Substitution Test

–– SheShe met a lawyer.– Bill married herher..– He threw the Frisbee to herher..

Bill thought sheshe was sick

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– Bill thought sheshe was sick.

A pronoun can substitute for phrases that appear in different positions different positions in a sentence.

Ambiguity

Leonardo spotted a mermaid with his binoculars.

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What does this sentence mean? Paraphrase it!

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Substitution Test

The pronoun can replace the larger constituent

L d tt d id ith hi bi l

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Leonardo spotted a mermaid with his binoculars.

Leo spotted herher (i.e. a mermaid with his binoculars)

Leo spotted [NP a mermaid [PP with [NP his binoculars]]]

Substitution and Ambiguity

Or the pronoun can replace the smaller constituent.

Leonardo spotted a mermaid with his binoculars.

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Leonardo spotted herher with his binoculars (i.e. a mermaid)

Leo spotted [NP a mermaid] [PP with [NP his binoculars]]

Substitution Test

a. speaker A: Have you ever been [PP to Paris]?speaker B: No, I have never been there.

*No, I have never been there Paris?

b. speaker A: I have seen John being [AP rude

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b. speaker A: I have seen John being [AP rude to strangers].

speaker B: I’ve never seen him being so.*I’ve never seen him being so strangers.

• Generalization: Any adequate description of the distribution of pro-forms has to make reference to constituents and categories.

Substitution Test

Verb Phrases (VP) can be replaced by proverbsproverbs ‘does’/’does so’

• Sally fell and Mary fell too

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– Sally fell and Mary did too

• Bill ate pizza and Bob ate pizza too– Bill ate pizza and Bob did too

• If the VP has an object, the proverb replaces the entire VP (verb and object)

Bill likes anchovies and Susan likes anchovies too

Bill likes anchovies and Susan does too

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But not:

*Bill likes anchovies and Susan does anchovies too

WHY NOT?

Susan likes anchovies too.

• What’s the structure of the VP?• Is likes a VP?

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• Is likes anchovies a VP?

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Movement Test

Another test of constituency is the

M t t t

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Movement test:A constituent can be moved to the front of a sentence.

The chef cooked those fried green tomatoesThose fried green tomatoes, the chef cooked

*T t th h f k d th f i d

Movement Test

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*Tomatoes, the chef cooked those fried green*Those, the chef cooked fried green tomatoes

An entire phraseentire phrase must be moved, not just its parts.

Leo spotted a mermaid with his binoculars.

Movement Test

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The mermaid with his binoculars, Leo spotted.

Leo spotted a mermaid with his binoculars.

Movement Test

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The mermaid, Leo spotted with his binoculars.

Movement test

The Movement test Movement test can show whether something is or is not a phrase.

– The mouse ran up the drainpipe

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The mouse ran up the drainpipe.– Up the drainpipe, the mouse ran.

– Leonardo ran up the billBut:– *Up the bill, Leonardo ran.

By analogy, ran up the drainpiperan up the drainpipe and ran ran up the billup the bill should behave the same way.

Why are they different?

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Constituents

[The mouse] ran [up the drainpipe]

NP Verb PP (Preposition + NP)

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__________________________________________

Leonardo [ran up] [the bill]

NP Verb + Particle NP

Try Movement test

– Leonardo looked up the beach.

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– Leonardo looked up the number.

Which groups of words can be fronted in each example? And why?

Movement test

– Leonardo looked up the beach.

Up the beach, Leonardo looked.

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But notnot:– Leonardo looked up the number

*Up the number, Leonardo looked

Further Evidence: Word Order

– Leonardo ran up the bill– Leonardo ran the bill up

Th th d i i

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– The mouse ran up the drainpipe

But not:– *The mouse ran the drainpipe up

Coordination Test

Another test of constituency is the coordination test:

• only constituents of the same type can be coordinated

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cute cats and funny dogs

slowly but surely

go to the movies or stay at home

Coordination Test

Speaker A: What did the mouse do?Speaker B: It ran up the drainpipe and up the roof

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But not:

Speaker A: What did Leonardo do?Speaker B: *He ran up the bill and up a huge credit

card debt

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Sentence Fragment Test

Speaker A: Who is Leonardo talking to?

Only constituents can be used as sentence fragments,that is, as free-standing answers to questions.

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Speaker B: To my father.

But not:

Speaker A: Who is Leonardo talking to?Speaker B: *To my.

More Fragments

• What does Bill like to do?• Give Mary books.• *Give Mary

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• What does Bill like to eat?• The breaded shrimp.• *The breaded

• Who came yesterday?• The King of France• *The King of

Summary• Constituency Tests

– Substitution – Movement– Coordination

Fragments

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– Fragments

• Constituencyonstituency explains:– Ambiguity– Possessive Morphology– Intuitions about natural breaks in sentences

(i.e., what words go together)– Word order facts