User:Gert

Syntax 1 Wiki

Exercises: Parts of Speech

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/ .

Exercises: Semantic analysis of sentences into predicates and arguments

Fill in the gaps!

Example: You surprised them.

Predicate:

x =

y =

z =

3. Last summer we went to Wales. 4. I wrote to her last week. 5. At noon the plane landed at Rome airport. 6. The sun always rises in the east. 7. When you have time, visit me! 8. Sometimes, he goes to school by bus. 9. Do you generally go for a walk on Sunday mornings? 10. No, usually I go to church. 11. I met Steven quite often when I was in London. 12. Quite often he watches TV at home instead of going out with friends. 13. You need never invite me to go with you again! 14. Now and again we heard shots in the woods. 15. Put the books on the table! 16. How well she plays tennis! 17. Do you like camping much? 18. I saw the film on Tuesday evening last week. 19. At three o’clock tomorrow, I’ll meet you outside the theater. 20. He lives in a small village in Kent. 21. I’ll be swimming in the lake before breakfast. 22. We’re going to Holland next month. 23. I passed her in the street twice last week.

Source: Many of the sentences above 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.

Exercises: Establishing the head

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

1 Example: surprised them.

The words above form a whose head is the word .

/quiz>

Valence Exercises

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

2 | class="wikitable" |- ! 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:

<quiz display=simple> {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]]]]]]].

A video on constituent tests

Analyze the following phrases:

read the paper

Head: Category:

Complement 1: Category:

Complement 2: Category:

Point added for a correct answer:
Points for an incorrect answer:
Ignore the questions' coefficients:

1 Was ist keine Nuss?

	Walnuss
	Erdnuss
	Apfel
	Pistazien
	Kastanie
	Orange

2 Wer erfand die Glühbirne?

	Thomas Alva Edison
	Frederick de Moleyns
	Heinrich Göbel
	nicht genauer bekannt

3. It is the task of English syntax to explain in a precise and principled fash.ion which strings of words native speakers of English accept as well formed English and which not.

4. This task would be easy to accomplish, if one could simply list all the English strings. But, unfortunately, one cannot do that, since there are infinitely many well formed English strings:

a. Mary is tired. Mary is very tired. Mary is very, very tired. Mary is very, very, very tired. . . .

b. Mary went to the store. Mary went to the store but Jill stayed home. Mary went to the store but Jill stayed home and Sue had the flu. . . .

5. So, it is impossible to list all and only the well formed strings of English words. But what is possible, is to find a property that all and only the strings of English have in common: they and only they are grammatical according to the Grammar of English! All other strings are ungrammat.ical according to the Grammar of English.

6. So, we need to concern ourselves with the Grammar of English. This is what this course is all about!

Quiz question types