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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