Introduction to Syntax Linear structure Hierarchical structure Ambiguity

Syntax is: The study of sentence formation Subconscious grammatical knowledge Word order

Grammaticality Judgments: We went to my grandmother’s house. Visiting relatives can be a nuisance. The children might being sing. We fed her snail poison. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Me and Beth are watching a movie. Swedes like fish more than Italians. She ain’t got nothing to hide.

Grammaticality Judgments: We went to my grandmother’s house. Visiting relatives can be a nuisance. The children might being sing. We fed her snail poison. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Me and Beth are watching a movie. Swedes like fish more than Italians. She ain’t got nothing to hide. AMB: ambiguous, *: ungrammatical, #: grammatical but nonsensical, %: grammatical in a non-standard v.

Ambiguous? I scratched the dog with a stick I’m a dog (I think!) I love linguistics!!! I’m a stick I’m a dog (I think!)

Do I mean this? I scratched (the dog with a stick) Nice doggie!

Or do I mean this? I scratched (the dog) with a stick. scratch scratch

The two meanings are a result of: HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE Sentences are more than just ordered sequences of words. They have internal hierarchical structure as well. scratched the dog with a stick scratched the dog with a stick dog has stick I have stick

Unavoidable Ambiguity Why can’t we convey these internal hierarchical structures and avoid ambiguity? LINEAR ORDER Human verbal communication is limited by linear production. Consequently, sentences are organized linearly.

Two kinds of ambiguity: She called her boyfriend from Australia. STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY We went down to the bank yesterday LEXICAL AMBIGUITY

Basic Word Order SVO (English, Chinese) The boy saw the man SOV (Russian, Turkish, Japanese) Pensive poets painful vigils keep (Pope) VSO (Irish, Arabic, Welsh) Govern thou my song (Milton)

Basic Word Order OSV (Jamamadi) OVS (Apalai - Amazon basin) When nine hundred years you reach, look as good you will not. (Yoda) OVS (Apalai - Amazon basin) VOS (Malagasy (Madagascar)

How would you say… English (SVO) Japanese (SOV) Malagasy (VOS) Susie brings coffee Japanese (SOV) sushi-ga co:hi:-o mottekuru Susie coffee bring Malagasy (VOS) Entin’ kafe Susie bring coffee Susie

Two principles of sentence organization 1. LINEAR ORDER not only a limitation, we actually make use of the linearity of the language In English, limited morphology forces us to use word order to distinguish subject from object. Tom chased Jerry. Jerry chased Tom.

Two principles of sentence organization 2. HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE As we saw with the ambiguous sentence, this structure is ‘invisible’ upon first glance. However, there are tests we can perform to discover the hierarchical structure of sentences.

Constituency CONSTITUENT a group of words in a sentence that behave syntactically and semantically as a unit. I have stick dog has stick scratched the dog with a stick scratched the dog with a stick

How to determine constituency Semantic intuitions sometimes, we just know that certain strings of words go together as a unit. Constituency Tests (more reliable) tests that can be applied to string of words in a given sentence to determine if the string is a constituent or not.

Next Time Constituency tests Phrase Structure Rules