Syntax 1 Wiki: Week 4

Looking under the hood

Exercise

Go to the Online Grammar and do the following:

• Type "snores" into the Sentence textbox and press the "Parse" button or RETURN on your keyboard.
• Inspect the result and try to understand as much as possible.

• Now click on the boxed "0" after AGR.

• Inspect the result and try to understand as much as possible.

• Finally, click on the boxed number below the NP in the SPR list.

• Again, inspect the result and try to understand as much as possible.

• Click on the new boxed "0" after AGR that appears.

• Now there are two boxed "0"s on the screen. What seems to be their function?

Exercise

Go to the Online Grammar and do the following:

• Parse the sentence Lilly dances".
• Open the S node and the V node. Don't open any numbered boxes for now.
• Compare the two feature structures.
• For every feature (= attribute), compare the values of mother and daughter.
• Now open the N node, leaving its numbered boxes alone again.
• Compare the three feature structures. What relationships do you detect? So the self-test exercises below.

Self-test exercises

(1) The part of speech features of the mother

Check your answer

are identical to those of the verb.

(2) The verb is looking for ______ complements.

Check your answer

no

(3) The sentence is looking for ______ complement(s).

Check your answer

no

(4) The verb is looking for ______ specifier(s).

Check your answer

one

(5) If the verb requires a specifier, then it selects a specifier of part of speech ________.

Check your answer

NP

(6) The sentence is looking for ______ specifiers.

Check your answer

no

(2) Formulate the relationship between the valences of S and its two daughters..

Check your answer

A. The verb is complement-empty and selects one NP-specifier.
B. The NP acts as the verb's specifier.
C. As the verb's specifier requirement has now been satisfied, its mother S has an empty SPR list (as well as an empty COMPS list).

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