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Syntax 1 Wiki

Words

Syntax deals with the question of how the phrases of a language are built up from smaller phrases and words.

Parts of Speech

Every English word belongs to a part of speech like noun, verb, or adjective, and many words belong to more than one (for instance, the word cook can be a noun or a verb). You can think of a part of speech as a set of words that share some grammatical property, e.g. nouns often refer to objects and can be singular or plural, verbs often refer to event and can appear with different tense affixes, etc.

Thus, for every part of speech, there are a number of tests that one can use to check whether a given word belongs to that part of speech. While there are certain cases where the tests to not give a clear result on the part of speech of a word, the typical situation is one where the tests unambiguously favor one part of speech over the others.

In the following sections, we present the tests for each part of speech.

Nouns

• semantic test:
  • Nouns name persons, things or places
• morphological test:
  • Nouns can combine with a plural morpheme (-(e)s)
• syntactic test
  • Nouns can occur with the possessive 's, i.e. in the environment:
• __ 's
  • Nouns can occur between a determiner and a verb, i.e. in the environment: Det __ V

Verbs

• semantic test:
  • Verbs refer to actions
• morphological test:
  • Verbs can combine with a 3rd singular inflection (-(e)s)
  • Verbs can combine with a past tense inflection (-ed)
  • Verbs can combine with -ing (in the contexts: __-ing can be fun, Pat was __-ing)
• syntactic test
  • Verbs can occur directly after can: They can __ ...
• Verbs can occur directly after wanted to: Pat wanted to __ ...

Adjectives

• semantic test:
  • Adjectives refer to properties
• morphological test:
  • Adjectives can combine with comparative and superlative markers (-er/-est, or more/most)
  • Adjectives can combine with -ly to form an adverb
• syntactic test
  • Adjectives can be between a determiner and a noun, i.e. in the environment ('attributive use'):\\ Det __ N (Pat read the __ book.)
  • Adjectives can occur in the following copula ('linking') verbs ('predicative use'): They felt/seemed/sounded __

Adverbs

• semantic test:
  • Adverbs refer to the manner, location, time or frequency of an action
• morphological test: -
• syntactic test
  • Adverbs can occur in the following diagnostic environment: Pat treats Chris very __

Prepositions

• there is no clear semantic criterion.
• since prepositions don't show morphological change in English, there is no morphological criterion either.
• synctactic test:
  • Prepositions occur right before an NP, i.e. in the environment: __ NP

Minor Parts of Speech

General characteristics:

• the word classes can be defined by listing all elements.
• the words of minor parts of speech have a 'grammatical' meaning, i.e. they are function words. They express a grammatical, meta-linguistic or indexical function.

closed word classes (i.e. new words in the language will not belong to any of these classes)

• diachronically words of minor parts of speech emerge and disappear very slowly if at all. A change in a minor class usually goes hand in hand with a change in the grammar.
• they are heterogeneous and difficult to group. Therefore, we cannot provide tests, but since we are dealing with closed classes, we can provide listings.

These properties contrast with those of the major parts of speech.

Determiners

General characteristics:

• Determiners are functional words at the left of a noun phrase, i.e. they occur in environments such as __ student(s) called., Pat wondered about __ student(s).

Subclasses:

• Articles: a(n), the
• Demonstratives: this/these, that/those
• Quantifiers:
  • simple quantifiers: all, much, some, few, little
  • complex quantifiers: a couple, a few, a great deal of, lots of, not any, hardly any
• Numerals: two

Reference: Kaplan, Jeffrey P. (1989): English Grammar - Principles and Facts (2nd edition). New Jersey.

Auxiliaries

• Examples: may, can, will, shall, might, could
• English auxiliaries differ from verbs in that they show the following properties, the NICE properties:
  • Negation:

A finite auxiliary precedes the negation particle not to negate a sentence.

1. Pat will not walk home.
2. Pat walked not home.

• Inversion:

A finite auxiliary stands at the beginning of a sentence in yes/no-questions. Will Pat walk home? Walked Pat home? Contraction: There is an idiosyncratic contraction form of the auxiliary and the negation particle. won't, can't Ellipsis: An auxiliary can occur in VP ellipsis, i.e. at the end of a sentence when a VP is missing. Pat should walk home and Mary might, too.

• Pat walked home and Mary, too.

General properties of the modal auxiliaries: no inflection for 3rd singular only a finite form Problematic cases: The verbs be and have have the properties of both verbs and auxiliaries. The support verb do is similar to be and have, but only has a finite form. Infinitival to shows many properties of auxiliaries, and is considered an auxiliary in many theories of grammar.

Determine the part of speech of the words in the sentence.
Use the following part of speech labels: A, Adv, Cj, C, D, N, P, V

Alex/ talked/ to/ my/ best/ friend/ .

Determine the part of speech of the words in the sentence.
Use the following part of speech labels: A, Adv, Cj, C, D, N, P, V

You/ might/ suspect/ that/ Pat/ is/ a/ genius/ .

Determine the part of speech of the words in the sentence.
Use the following part of speech labels: A, Adv, Cj, C, D, N, P, V

The/ title/ of/ a/ book/ largely/

determines/ whether/ it/ will/ be/ successful/ or/ a/ flop/ .

Semantic analysis of sentences into predicates and arguments

Note: Many of the sentences in this section are taken from or based on examples in Hornby, A.S. (1975) Guide to Patterns and Usage in English. Second Edition. Cornelsen & Oxford University Press.

Fill in the gaps!

Example: You surprised them.

Predicate:

x =

y =

z =

Fill in the gaps!

Example: We went to Wales.

Predicate:

x =

y =

z =

Fill in the gaps!

Example: The plane landed.

Predicate:

x =

y =

z =

Fill in the gaps!

Example: Steven met my most favorite teacher.

Predicate:

x =

y =

z =

Fill in the gaps!

Example: She said that it would rain.

Predicate:

x =

y =

z =

Fill in the gaps!

Example: Many of his friends consider Joe somewhat arrogant.

Predicate:

x =

y =

z =

Fill in the gaps!

Example: We need to talk to Lilly about her behavior.

Predicate:

x =

y =

z =

Fill in the gaps!

Example: The plane landed.

Predicate:

x =

y =

z =

Fill in the gaps!

Example: I talked to her.

Predicate:

x =

y =

z =

Fill in the gaps!

Example: We gave Lilly a bike.

Predicate:

x =

y =

z =

Fill in the gaps!

Example: Someone pushed Lilly into the flowers.

Predicate:

x =

y =

z =

Establishing the head of a phrase

Establish what phrase the words below form and identify the head of the phrase!

Example: surprised them.

The words above form a . The head of this phrase is the .

Example: with a friend.

The words above form a . The head of this phrase is the .

Valence

2. Kim needs new shoes. 3. Kim talked to the student. 4. Kim sent the student to Robin. 5. Kim lent Robin a bicycle. 6. Kim told Robin that the student likes her. 7. Kim suggested to Robin that the student likes her. 8. Kim wants [to eat an apple.] 9. Kim believes Robin to like the student. 10. Kim seems to like the student. 11. Kim is intelligent. 12. Kim found the movie interesting. 13. Kim talked to Robin about the student. 14. Kim saw Robin talk to the student. 15. The student amuses Kim. 16. Kim came out of the room.

Words

Verb	SUBJ	COMPS
snore	<NP>	<>
own	<NP>	<NP>
put	<NP>	<NP,NP>

Verb         SUBJ         COMPS

snore        <NP>         <>
own          <NP>         <NP>
put          <NP>         <NP,PP>

When you look up the word scissors in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary, you are given the following information about it:

Phonology	scissors
Part of speech	noun
Number	plural
Content	a tool for cutting paper ...

The following representation shows how we will structure the information in a word in this course:

Determine the syntactic categories of the following groups of words in the sentences.
Use the following labels: AP, AdvP, NP, PP, VP. Write "-" if the group of words does not form a constitutent.
Example: [S: Pat [VP: will [VP: wait [PP: for Alex]]]]

a. [ Alex [ talked [ to [ my best friend]]]]

b. [ [ The president] [ announced [CP: that [ there [ will [ be [ no further taxes]]]]]]].

Analyze the following phrases:

read the paper

Head: Category:

Complement 1: Category:

Complement 2: Category:

http://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Syntax/Syntax

Parts of the clause

A video on constituent tests

A video on the concept grammar

Sentence meaning

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Quiz question types