Syntax - University of Washington



Syntax

Overview

• What is syntactic competence

• Morphology and syntax: inflectional morphology

• Sources of evidence used in syntax

• Sentences are not just strings of words, but have internal structure

• Representation of structure: tree diagrams and phrase-structure rules

• Arguments/tests for constituent structure

• (Emily Curtis) Parametric variation: German syntax

Syntactic competence

review:

Phonological competence means knowing:

• what the phonemes of a language are

• rules for pronunciation of phonemes in context

• structure of phonological constructs such as the syllable

Morphological competence means knowing:

• what the morphemes of a language are

• how to combine morphemes/which derived words are possible

• what complex words mean

Syntactic competence means knowing:

• which sentences/phrases are well-formed, grammatical

• what sentences mean

what are the unconscious rules that native speakers have for producing and interpreting grammatical sentences in English (and other languages)?

why a set of rules? why not a list of sentences? infinite list of possible sentences; finite set of patterns

there are universal vs. language-particular rules

Morphology and syntax

certain phenomena are of interest to more than one subfield of linguistics. morphology and syntax overlap in study of inflectional vs. derivational morphology

classification of affixes, closed classes of morphemes

| |Derivational |Inflectional |

|1. Category changing |often |no |

| |-able: likeable |-s pl.: apples |

| |-ness: happiness |-s 3sS: sees |

|2. Productive (occur with all |often restricted: |yes |

|members of a large class of |-hood: brotherhood, *cousinhood | |

|morphemes) |-y: chocolatey, *candidatey | |

|3. Order |inner: added before inflectional; often |outer: added after derivational: |

| |pile up: industrializational |industrializationalizes |

|4. Syntactically relevance |don’t reflect syntactic information |may reflect syntactic information |

| | |Rose sees (vs. I see0) |

In English, inflectional affixes are:

-/z/ plural

-/z/ possessor

-/d/ past tense

Pronouns are inflectional morphemes too (choice depends on syntactic configuration):

|___ saw Rose |you |he |she |I |

|Rose saw ___ |you |him |her |me |

|Rose talked to ___ | | | | |

|Rose read ___ book |your |his |her |my |

|Rose is a friend of ___ |yours |his |hers |mine |

Also, choice between different forms of verb depends on syntactic configuration:

|I ___ Rose on Tuesdays |visit |see |help |

|I am ___ Rose now |visiting |seeing |helping |

|I ___ Rose yesterday |visited |saw |helped |

|I will ___ Rose tomorrow |visit |see |help |

|I have ___ Rose. |visited |seen |helped |

(Verbs in English have 5 possible forms: infinitive (to ___), 3s present, past, past participle, present participle); form of past and past participle is unpredictable)

In Witsuwit'en, selection of third person singular pronominal possessor and postposition prefixes depends on syntactic configuration (word-external characteristics)

Object of postposition: 'him/her'

|p(( yec(t(c |I'm talking to him/her |

|p(( ye(t(c |you're talking to him/her |

|p(( yexw(t(c |you guys are talking to him/her |

|p(( yet(lt(c |we 2 are talking to him/her |

|p(( yets'((t(c |we're talking to him/her |

|y(( ye(t(c |he/she is talking to him/her |

Possessor: 'his/her'

|p(t'aq w(sqes |I'm scratching his/her back |

|p(t'aq honqes |you're scratching his/her back |

|p(t'aq w(xwqes |you guys are scratching his/her back |

|p(t'aq w(t(tqes |we 2 are scratching his/her back |

|p(t'aq ts'(w(qes |we're scratching his/her back |

|y(t'aq w(qes |he/she is scratching his/her (someone else's) back |

Sources of evidence in syntax

• Observation of native speaker productions

listening to tapes, reading newspapers or other texts (excellent evidence, but often takes forever to find just what is needed);

• Elicitation of native speaker grammaticality judgements

is this sentence grammatical? or ungrammatical?

Comparison of related grammatical sentences, establishing syntactic paradigms is a favorite pasttime of the syntactician

active/declarative sentence, matrix clause:

The T.A.'s graded the homework last weekend.

subordinate (embedded) clause:

I know that the T.A.'s graded the homework last weekend.

negative:

The T.A.'s didn't grade the homework last weekend.

passive:

The homework was graded by the T.A.'s last weekend.

non-restrictive relative clause:

The homework, which the T.A.'s graded last weekend, can be picked up at the door.

restrictive relative clause:

The homework which the T.A.'s graded last weekend can be picked up at the door. The homework that was just turned in will be ready tomorrow.

yes/no question:

Did the T.A.'s grade the homework last weekend.

wh-question:

Who graded the homework last weekend?

What did the T.A.'s grade last weekend?

When did the T.A.'s grade the homework?

Word order

preceding sentences were all grammatical. ungrammatical ones also important.

ungrammaticality can be due to various things. e.g. word order violation. some languages have more strict word orders than others, but all languages have some restrictions on order in which words can occur.

ungrammaticality can result from various things. e.g. incorrect word order: words only occur in certain orders. violation:

the man went to the store.

*man the store the to went

have already seen a word order difference.

Postpositions follow nouns in Witsuwit'en:

PP[spe] c’o(t«w

me for you (sg.) count

Prepositions precede nouns in English.

count PP[for me]

In both Witsuwit'en and English, subjects precede verbs:

Matrix clause:

t(z n(t((((

driftwood is floating around

Driftwood is floating around.

Subordinate clause:

Mabel S[Lillian p(cay y(( mbits nolye(] w(qa/ninz(n.

Mabel Lillian 3s.grandchild house in 3s.play 3s.want

Mabel wants Lillian's grandchild to play in the house.

Mabel knows [that Lillian's grandchild played in the house].

In Witsuwit'en, the direct object precedes the verb:

t'a( nets'ot(tqh(t

food we bought it

We bought food.

In English, the direct object follows the verb.

In Witsuwit'en, an adjective follows a noun:

tl'o( tet intsh((

rope narrow you cut

You (sg.) cut narrow rope (fine babiche).

In English, adjectives precede nouns.

In Witsuwit'en, the possessor noun precedes the possessed noun:

sq'aqhE p(m(sti(

my friend his/her tanning stretcher

'my friend's tanning stretcher'

(the tanning stretcher of my friend)

In English, the possessor noun normally precedes possessed (unless possessor is a phrase):

choice depends on length of possessor

The queen of England's crown

The crown of the queen of England

languages can be classified on basis of word order. 6 possible patterns, but some more common than others:

SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) Witsuwit'en, Japanese

SVO English, Uduk (Nilo-Saharan, Ethiopia)

VSO Irish, Geez (Afro-Asiatic, Ethiopia) (extinct)

VOS Oro Win (Chapacura-Wanham, Brazil) (5 speakers)

OSV Apurinã (Arawakan, Brazil)

OVS Parecís (Arawakan, Brazil) (also SOV)

When patterns due to genetic inheritance are eliminated, SOV is the most popular word order. Together, SOV, SVO account for about 85% of world’s languages. VSO about 5%; VSO, OSV, OVS remaining.

Constituent structure basics

one dif. between syntax, morphology is that constituents of sentences

can be more than just individual lexical items: can be gramm. phrases.

so have more types of categories in syntax:

sentences are not just strings of words: have internal structure; composed of hierarchically organized units larger than words (phrases, constituent structure)

syntactic rules need to capture certain facts: correct ordering of words, possible groupings of words, category of grouping.

phrase-structure rule:

general schema:

X --> Y Z (X consists of Y Z)

English: PP --> P NP

Witsuwit'en: PP --> NP P

equivalent ways of depicting this information:

tree structure:

PP

v

P NP

labeled bracketing:

PP[P NP]

some phrase structure rules we'll be using (O'Grady, p. 170)

NP --> (Det) N (PP)

VP --> (Qual) V (NP)

AP --> (Deg) A

PP --> (Deg) P (NP)

S --> NP VP

Other categories in preceding:

AP = AdjP; A = Adj

Determiner: (limited set) a/an, some, the

Degree, Qualifier: two types of adverbs; don't worry about distinction

S = Sentence

head (cf. head in morphology, righthand head rule is morphology, not syntax)

syntacticians talk about "generating" structure of a sentence S. given sentence or phrase, can we write a set of phrase structure rules that characterize the structure of that S or phrase? learning how to "generate" structure of S's is what you'll be learning how to do in syntax.

this kind of approach to language description often called "generative grammar". we use term "generate" in special way: characterization of structure of S by means of P-S rules.

we can "generate" structure of large class of S's using these rules.

Some basic tree structures

S --> NP VP

S

v

NP VP

g g

N V

g g

cats sleep

NP --> (Det) N (PP)

NP

fgh

Det N PP

g g v

the cat P NP

g v

in Det N

g g

the basket

NP[The cat in the basket] always chases mice.

NP

v

N PP

g v

fog P NP

g v

in Det N

g g

the morning

NP[Fog in the morning] reminds me of San Diego.

VP --> (Qual) V (NP)

VP

fgh

Qual V NP

g g g

always chases mice

The cat in the basket VP[always chases mice].

The cat in the basket VP[chases mice].

re optional NP in VP: some verbs require object; these are "transitive" verbs. e.g. "like": (cg. complementation in O'Grady)

*John likes.

John likes pasta.

some verbs are optionally transitive; e.g. "hide":

John hid.

John hid the money.

some verbs require O + PP; e.g. "put":

John put the money on the shelf.

*John put the money.

*John put on the shelf.

some verbs can take 2 objects; these are "ditransitive"; e.g. "gave":

John gave the money to Sheila./John gave Sheila the money.

*John gave the money.

but John gave the money away.

*John gave to Sheila.

but John gave to the Red Cross.

intransitives: arrive, sleep

AP --> (Deg) A

AP

v

Deg A

g g

really sleepy

Rose is AP[really sleepy]

PP --> (Deg) P (NP)

PP

fgh

Deg P NP

g g v

right in Det N

g g

the pocket

The pool ball went PP[right in the pocket].

Recursion

an important property of phrase structure rules: they are recursive; captures an important fact about sentences: possibility of being infinitely long (also a property of some kinds of words) ("recursive" and "recursion" do not appear to be in O'Grady)

how do phrase structure rules capture this? same element can occur on both sides of arrow

PP --> P NP

NP --> (Det) N (PP)

some examples:

John and Mary and some students and some friends of mine and those

guys over there and the T.A.'s ...

the man by the woman with the dog under the bench in the park by

the creek...

The cat killed the rat that ate the cheese that Jack kept in his

refridgerator which he got from the store in the city which you visited

the summer which preceded John's visit to ...

John's sister's boyfriend's cat

the piano on the stage in the music building on the University of Washington campus...

NP[the piano PP[on NP[the stage PP[in NP[the music building [on [the campus...]]]]]]

NP

fgh

Det N PP

g g fi

the piano P NP

g fgi

on Det N PP

g g gi

the stage P NP

g rgi

in Det N PP

g g gyi

the music building P Det N

g g g

on the campus

due to recursive characteristics of P-S rules, the two phrase-structure rules NP --> Det N PP and PP --> P NP generated the structure of the preceding

Constituent structure

how do we figure out what these structures are? this is the heart of syntax

General arguments/tests for structure: certain groups of words behave like units for the purposes of various phenomena: determining meaning, movement, substitution, conjunction, standing alone (sentence fragment)

Structural ambiguity

Some words and sentences are synonymous:

synonymous words: pail--bucket, couch---sofa

synonymous phrases:

It's hard to make a good latte. = A good latte is hard to make.

He kicked the bucket = He died.

Some words and phrases are ambiguous in a way that is due to their structure.

ambiguous words: unfoldable (not capable of being folded, or capable of being unfolded)

ambiguous phrases:

--Rose spotted the man with the telescope

--hot coffee and doughnuts (doughnuts and hot coffee, or hot coffee and hot doughnuts)

--"The nomination of Dr. Henry Foster to the Surgeon General's office appears to be in trouble after he admitted that he had performed at least 39 abortions on TV last night." (heard on USA Radio Network News) (he admitted last night or he performed abortions last night)

the source of this ambiguity appears to be structural---some words go together for one meaning, other words go together for the other meaning:

S

v

NP VP

g v

N V NP

fgh

Det N PP

v

P NP

v

Det N

Rose spotted the man with the telescope

S

ru

NP VP

g fhi

N V NP PP

v v

Det N P NP

v

Det N

Rose spotted the man with the telescope

re remaining ambiguous phrases, our PS rules cannot yet generate these; must revise/expand:

VP --> (Qual) V (NP)

AP --> (Deg) A

PP --> (Deg) P (NP)

NP --> (Det) N (PP)

2. "hot coffee and doughnuts"

modifiers, sec. 5.2. again, a more general version of this PS rule is given in the text:

NP --> (Det) (AP) N

will also generate:

Det[some] AP[bad] N[coffee]

Det[some] AP[incredibly bad] N[coffee]

coordination, sec. 5.1. one of the PS rules for coordinating: (this is made more general in the text)

Con = Conjunction: 'and', 'or', 'but', 'as well as'

NP --> NP Con NP

will also generate:

NP[some bad coffee] and NP[some incredibly bad coffee]

N --> N Con N

N[coffee] or N[tea]

N[syntax] and N[phonology]

NP

egi

NP con NP

v g

AP N N

g

A

hot coffee and doughnuts

NP

fi

AP N

g egi

A N Con N

g g g g

hot coffee and doughnuts

3. simplified example, similarly ambiguous:

"he admitted that he lied last night"

additional PS rules required to generate this example

VP --> V (CP) (AdvP)

CP --> C S

AdvP --> (Deg) Adv

re AdvP, again, see modifiers, sec. 5.2;

Deg can be 'just': 'just last night'

re CP, see 2.3, Complement clauses

matrix vs. complement clause

word that introduces a complement is a complementizer

other sentences with complementizers in English:

Rose wondered if she had won $14 million

Rose asked whether she had won $14 million

Rose knew that she had won $14 million

that is optional complementizer in English

S

fh

NP VP

g fh

N V CP

fh

C S

fi

NP VP

g fh

N V AdvP

g

Adv

he admitted that he lied last night

S

fh

NP VP

g fh

N V CP

fhi

C S AdvP

fh g

NP VP Adv

g g

N V

he admitted that he lied last night

Coordination

see sec. 5.1

Coordination: only identical categories, lexical or phrasal, can be conjoined.

conjoined prepositions

PP

ei

Prep NP

fgh fgh

Prep Con Prep Det N PP

g g g g g gh

above and beyond the call P NP

g g

of N

g

duty

conjoined PP: down the street and around the corner

conjoined noun phrases:

NP

egi

NP Con NP

v g v

Det N and Det N

g g g g

some students most faculty

conjoined adverbs

John walked slowly and cautiously

VP

ei

V AdvP

g egi

walked AdvP Con AdvP

g g g

Adv and Adv

g g

slowly cautiously

conjoined adjectives

some red and white flowers

NP --> (Det) (AP) N

NP

egi

Det AP N

g fgh g

some AP Con AP flowers

g g g

A and A

g g

red white

now consider what happens when we conjoin 2 things that don't belong to same category:

Rose is hungry

Rose is a cat

*Rose is hungry and a cat

why? NP[a cat] and A[hungry] are not the same category

Red roses are beautiful

Ester's roses are beautiful.

*Red and Ester's roses are beautiful.

Coordination can be a handy test for determing whether two phrases belong to the same category.

1. Coordination provides an argument for the VP.

Rose loved syntax.

Rose listened enthusiastically.

Rose sat by the podium.

Rose loved syntax and listened enthusiastically.

Rose loved syntax and sat by the podium.

VP

v

V NP

g g

loved N

g

syntax

VP

v

V AdvP

g g

listened Adv

g

enthusiastically

VP

v

V PP

g v

sat P NP

g v

by Det N

g g

the podium

so [V NP], [V AdvP], [V PP] are all VP

try the coordination test with the verb complements in Table 5.5

2. Complements of 'want'.

Rose wants dinner.

Rose wants Dave to start cooking.

*Rose wants dinner and Dave to start cooking.

NP[a glass of water]

S[to play outside]

Coordination can disambiguate sentences

e.g.:

Rose hid the money under the mattress.

S

ei

NP VP

g egi

N V NP PP

v v

Det N P NP

v

Det N

Rose hid the money under the mattress.

(placed some $ under the mattress)

S

v

NP VP

g fi

N V NP

efi

Det N PP

v

P NP

v

Det N

Rose hid the money under the mattress.

(took some $ that were under the mattress and hid them elsewhere)

Rose hid the money under the mattress as well as some of her stock certificates.

(here 'hid the money under the mattress' can only mean took some $ that were under the mattress and hid them elsewhere)

Rose hid the money under the mattress and above the box spring.

(here 'hid the money under the mattress' can only mean placed some $ under the mattress)

Ordinary Constituent Coordination vs. Shared Constituent Coordination

Substitution

Pronominalization

NP:

Your example should be original; i.e. it should not be the same as one used in the textbook, lecture, or section).

It is a pronoun (sometimes called pro-constituent or proform) that substitutes for the NP your example. (The antecedent of it is your example.)

The professor talked for forty minutes and then she answered questions for ten minutes.

The professor who talked for forty minutes answered questions for ten minutes, and then she sat down.

PP:

Last night I dreamed that I went to the exam building, but I was the only one that went there.

AP:

Rose is anxious for Dave to cook dinner and so am I.

Sentence:

Ester has already finished the homework assignment for the week. Can you believe it?

Dave: I think Ester has already finished the homework assignment for the week.

Rose: No, I don’t think so.

Phrasal category some possible proforms

Noun Phrase he, she, it

Prepositional Phrase there

Adjective Phrase so

Sentence it, so

Verb Phrases and the substitution test

Dave has studied scuba diving, as has Rose/and so has Rose.

Dave is studying scuba diving, as is Rose/and so is Rose.

Dave will study scuba diving, as will Rose/and so will Rose.

Dave Infl[has] VP[studied scuba diving], VP[as] Infl[has] Rose/VP[and so] Infl[has] Rose.

Some other properties of the Infl constituent (sometimes called Auxiliary Verb):

|Negation follows Infl: |hasn’t studied |

| |isn’t studying |

| |won’t study |

| |*studyn’t |

|Infl is inverted in questions: |Is Dave studying scuba diving? |

| |Has Dave studied scuba diving? |

| |Will Dave study scuba diving? |

| |*Will study Dave scuba diving |

|Infl appears in tag questions: |Dave is studying scuba diving, isn’t he? |

| |Dave has studied scuba diving, hasn’t he? |

| |Dave will study scuba diving, won’t he? |

| |*Dave will study scuba diving, won’t he study? |

Dave studied scuba diving.

Dave studied scuba diving, as did Rose.

Dave studied scuba diving, and so did Rose.

Specifier: determiners vs. adjectives

complements vs. adjuncts, ‘one’ pronominalization and other evidence for N’

reflexive pronoun distribution

Verb phrases

auxiliary/Infl vs. non-auxiliary verbs

Specifier: adverbs

complements vs. adjuncts: ‘do so’ pronominalization, verb particle vs. V PP, and other evidence for V’

Substitution with Wh- word

Movement/structure determined rules

sometimes ungrammaticality < incorrect movement. some pairs of sentences are related in a way that it looks a group of words in one sentence has moved.

a sentence pair:

(1) [Dave went to the store]

(2) [the store that Dave went to ___ ] is close by

another sentence pair:

(3) the fact that Dave went to the store means he's hungry.

(4) *[the store that the fact that Dave went to ____ means he's hungry] is close by.

here ungrammaticality results from improper movement: violation of Complex NP constraint. syntacticians try to understand why movement is possible in sentences like 2 and not 4

2 kinds of rules in syntax:

P-S rules: generate structures

Transformation rules: change or permute structures generated by P-S

rules.

T rules somewhat controversial. Not all syntacticians believe in them.

But many/most? do, so we'll go over motivation for them.

5.1 A transformationless grammar requires much more complicated set of

P-S rules than transformational grammar: interaction of Extraposition

and Particle Movement

arg in book for transformations: position of particles, extraposed S's

in some S's complicated to state w/o transformations. their S:

(1) she stood up all those men who had offered her diamonds.

(2) she stood all those men up who had offered her diamonds.

Yes/no question formation

How English forms Yes/no questions

yes/no vs. wh-Q's (who, what, which, where, why, how)

syntactic, phonol. difs.

Has John finished his homework?

John has finished his homework.

assumption: yes/no Q's are derived from non-question S's.

what is rule for forming yes/no Q?

hypothesis 1:

move second word of S to beginning of S

but

John's mother has finished his homework.

*Mother John's has finished his homework?

Has John's mother finished his homework?

or

John and Martha have finished John's homework.

Have John and Martha finished John's homework?

when 2 verbs in S, e.g. "have" and "finished" above, rule is:

move first verb in S to

beginning of S.

John has been working on his homework.

Has John been working on his homework?

`first verb' = "auxiliary" verb. auxiliary vs. main verbs:

\begin{itemize}

\item forms of "be"

\item forms of "have"

\item forms of "do"

\item modals: can, may, would, shall, etc.

\end{itemize}

what happens when S doesn't contain aux. verb?

John aced the midterm.

*Aced John the midterm?

Did John ace the midterm?

if no aux, have to use form of verb do.

more complicated S's:

The fact that John was taking an exam surprised Mary.

*Was the fact that John taking an exam surprised Mary?

Did the fact that John was taking an exam surprise Mary?

or

The woman that John is going out with is Julie's sister.

*Is the woman that John going out with is Julie's sister?

Is the woman that John is going out with Julie's sister?

in these cases, have to move 2nd aux. verb. why second?

but not even correct. infinite amount of material can intervene

between right aux. and beginning of S:

The cat that has killed the rat that has eaten the cheese \ldots

doesn't belong to Jack.

Doesn't the cat that has killed the rat that has eaten the

cheese \ldots belong to Jack?

if move 2nd aux:

*Has the cat that killed the rat that has eaten the

cheese \ldots doesn't belong to Jack?

if move 3rd aux:

*Has the cat that has killed that rat that eaten the

cheese \ldots doesn't belong to Jack?

structure of S is what tells us which aux. to move.

if "the cat that killed the rat that ate the cheese \ldots " is one

unit (though it may itself be composed of smaller units).

then the rule is: locate the subject of the S,

move aux. verb to left of

subject (usu. = beginning of S).

rule requires reference to: constituent structure of the S (subject

or 1st largest noun phrase) as well as gram. category (aux.)

but

Yesterday John mailed some letters for Mary.

Yesterday did John mail some letters for Mary?

Cleft sentence formation

"cleft S's": these are S's that have form:

It {is, was} {NP, PP} that (rest of S)

contrastive sense. only NP's and PP's can appear as focus of only

constituents can be focus of cleft S:

It was [PPon account of a bomb threat] that we had to leave the

building ___.

It was [NPJohn] who ___ left early.

(?It was unfortunate that we had to leave the building.)

now consider ambiguous S discussed above:

John hid the money under the mattress.

It was the money under the mattress that John hid ___ .

preceding cleft can only have one interpretation. can't have money was

somewere else, going under mattress interpretation. Why? focus of S

must be a constituent. similarly following cleft S only has one inter

pretation:

It was the money that John hid ___ under the mattress.

(money was somewhere else originally, John put it under mattress to

hide it). can't get other reading because that reading possible only

if "the money under the mattress" is a single NP. ambiguity of non-

cleft S caused by fact that more than one structure could be assigned

to non-cleft. but only one meaning can be assigned to each cleft.

this is in accord with what we knew about const. structure of non-cleft

S.

so cleft S's provide additional argument that S's have constituent structure.

Particle movement

Verb-Particle constructions:

Sometimes things which we know are units (from meaning, eg.) are

separated by other words in sentence. examples:

verb + particle sentences:

John took down the poster.

John took the poster down.

John tried out the bicycle.

John tried the bicycle out.

John saved up his money.

John saved his money up.

John finally got out the letters.

John finally got the letters out.

How to generate these pairs of related S's? Ak:

V --> V Particle

verb + particle a single constituent, V+Ptc often an idiom: text eg:

"stand up" as in "Mary stood up her date." means same as "Mary stood

her date up". If we generated structure of "Mary stood her date up"

directly, wouldn't capture the fact that "stood up" is a unit for

purposes of assigning meaning, also would soon complicate our set of P-

S rules. Ak. suggest instead that we generate a single basic structure

underlying "Mary stood her date up"

Mary stood up her date

and generate "Mary stood her date up" by means of transformational

rule, rule which moves "up" around object noun:

Particle Movement Transformation:

.cp 4

X Verb Particle NP Y -->

1 2 3 4 5

1 2 4 3 5

In this rule, X, Y are variables--doesn't matter what they are. In

other rules, variables more important than in this one.

additional motivation for this transformation provided by its

interaction with another transformation, Extraposition. "Given a NP

containing a head N directly followed by a modifying clause, modifying

clause may be shifted out of NP and to the end of the S". Dif. kinds

of Extraposition. We assume that the following 2 S's are related, 2nd

derived from 1st:

That the midterm was disrupted by a bomb threat was unfortunate.

It was unfortunate that the midterm was disrupted by a bomb

threat.

2 S's are related by Extraposition. In this form of Extraposition,

substitute it for a sentential subject, move sentential subject to end

of S.

S

NP Aux VP

but there's also the kind of Extraposition discussed in Ak:

S

NP VP

[several people who were wearing hats] came in

NP --> NP S' (we'll ignore interesting Q of how we get who instead of

that in this S)

also related S:

[several people] came in [who were wearing hats]

informal statement of Extraposition: given a NP consisting of N fol

lowed by modifying S, modifying S can be moved to end of S. notice that w/o this T rule, would need P-S rule:

S --> NP VP S'

but this is strange rule: what is S' a complement of? usu. complement

S's next to things they modify, this rule would make us expect that S'

a complement of VP, but isn't.

their arg for transformations: position of particles, extraposed S's

in some S's complicated to state w/o transformations. their S:

(1) she stood up all those men who had offered her diamonds.

(2) she stood all those men up who had offered her diamonds.

how to generate last S using P-S rules:

S --> NP (Aux) VP (S') VP --> V NP,

VP --> V NP Ptc instead of V --> V Ptc (and T rule)

V Ptc NP

non-transformational account requires much more complicated, ad hoc set

of P-S rules than T account. to get (2) from (1), apply Particle

Movement:

She stood ___ all those men who had offered her diamonds up.

Then Extraposition:

She stood ___ all those men ___ up who had offered her diamonds.

Reflexives and imperatives

Reflexives and imperative S's

Reflexive, non-reflexive pronouns are in complementary distribution.

Consider object pronouns me, myself:

*I drove me. I drove myself.

you drove me. *you drove myself.

he drove me. *he drove myself.

...

Generalization is: use reflexive pronoun if subject refers to same

entity as object: when subject, object are "coreferential".

How can we account for the comp. distribution of reflexive pronouns?

We assume that one set is basic (nonreflexive set) and posit rules

which predict distribution of reflexive pronouns. Let's assume that we

have a reflexive transformation that applies to output of S's created

by P-S rules ("deep structures"= underlying representation), creates a

surface representation called "surface structure". so T rules relate

deep and surface structures--cf. P rules, which relate underlying and

phonetic forms of words.

Reflexive Transformation(1): If dir. object is coref. with subject,

dir. O becomes a refl. pronoun.

Notice that this trans. automatically predicts that we can't generate

ungramm. S's like:

*Myself drove me.

But now what about:

He drove him.

He drove himself.

Why are these both o.k.? In first S, him not coref. with he--think

about it--but in 2nd S, he, himself do refer to same individual. So

note that meaning of S, incl. coref. info., must be present in its deep

structure. Let's symbolize coreferentiality by means of subscripts:

Hei drove himj.

Hei drove himi.

Then Reflexive Transformation will apply to (2) but not to (1).

Now notice that our Refl. Trans. is too strong. NP's that are not

objects of verbs must become reflexive pronouns:

John thinks about himself.

John talks to himself.

John plays by himself.

looks like we should amend Refl. rule so that it applies to any NP that

is coref. with a preceding noun phrase.

Refl Transf(2): a NP coref. with a preceding NP becomes a refl. pro.

notice that still can't generate

*Himself drove John.

But looks like RT (2) is too strong.

Johni says that Mary dislikes himi.

*John says that Mary dislikes himself.

ambiguous, but one interp. is with John, him coreferential. but why

don't we have refl. pronoun then? looks like Refl. Trans. only applies

to coref. NP's within same clause:

RT(3): A NP coref. with preceding NP in same clause becomes refl.

pronoun.

Now consider imperatives. Unlike other English S's, imperatives

lack subjects:

Close the door.

Start the exam.

Seems to violate our basic P-S rule:

S --> NP VP

we might posit a T rule, Imper. Del., removing subject of imperative

S's. that is generate:

You close the door.

by ordinary P-S rules, then apply Imper. Del. to get "Close the door".

(Such a rule must be able to recognize imperative S's, because doesn't

apply in non-imperative S's:

You resemble your mother. *Resemble your mother.

You are sick. *Are sick.

Imperatives thus have subjects in deep structure, but not surface

structure. Any motivation for this analysis, other than fact that we

don't have to screw up our P-S rules to get this? Consider imperative

S's that contain refl. pronouns:

Kick yourself/ves. *Kick you.

Drive yourself/ves. *Drive you.

*Drive himself.

*Drive myself.

*Drive ourselves.

etc.

Yourself/ves are the only reflexive pronouns that can occur as dir.

objects of imperatives; distribution is parallel to presence of

yourself/ves in nonimperatives with you as subject:

You kicked yourself/ves.

You drove yourself/ves.

If we posit an underlying subject in imperative S's which then gets

deleted, we can account for presence of refl. pronouns yourself/ves.

Our P-S rules will generate:

You kick you.

Refl Trans. You kick yourself.

Imper. Del. Kick yourself.

We thus account for fact that only refl. pronoun that can occur in

imperatives is yourself/yourselves.

A further twist: we need to be sure that rules apply in order Refl.

Trans., Imper. Del. Otherwise, we'll generate :

You kick you.

Imper. Del. Kick you.

Refl. Trans. (can't apply)

will end up *Kick you.

generating

What if we didn't have Imper. del. transformation? we'd have to posit

rule:

2nd person pronouns become reflexive in main clause of

imperatives.

But positing this extra Refl. rule fails to capture regular relation

between occurrence of refl. pronouns in imperative S's, those in non-

imperative S's.

A further arg. for positing an underlying subject you, how is it that

we know that the (deleted) subject of imper. if "you" and not some

other NP, like "I", "the T.A.", "the student" etc.? If we assume that

deep structures contain meanings of S's, and "you" present in deep

structues, then it's clear that subjects of these S's could only refer

to "you". Also, Imper. Deletion seems to be an optional rule:

Don't do that!

Don't you do that!

Get out of here!

You get out of here!

Sentence fragment test

Idioms

("give X away", "give to X" are "idioms", phrase in which our claim

that meaning is compositional does not hold: meaning of idiom =/ mean

ing of parts, or means more than meaning of parts: some idioms:

kick the bucket

tie one on

blow X away

sometimes idiomatic meaning clearly related to literal meaning, as in

blow X away; sometimes meaning relation not clear, however)

German syntax (Emily)

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