Almen sproglig viden og metode (General linguistics) IntroductiontotheStudyofSyntax DN´ CLM, engelsk tt NP NPP PNP DN´ NPP P NP Ø

Grammar Syntax: the structure of sentences Morphology: the structure of words

Rules Syntax describes the rules by which words combine into sentences Morphology describes the rules by which morphemes combine into words

Grammaticality Meaningfulness Ambiguity Some basic notions

Grammatical or …?

… not?

Meaningfulness Colorless green ideas sleep furiously - vs. grammaticality *Green furiously ideas sleep colorless

Ambiguity

What he means… syntheticbuffalohides …and what she scribbles syntheticbuffalohides

The hierarchical structure of sentences late - switch the order of the first two words? late*secretary the general was late [The secretary general] is a syntactic unit – a constituent - switch the order of the first two constituents (better – but not yet quite correct) hewas ? the secretary generalwas ? Rule of question formation:

The aim of syntax to identify the constituents of sentences to name those constituents* to determine their syntactic functions * another way to say this: to assign constituents to syntactic categories to determine their semantic functions

Principles of Syntactic Analysis Thisishowitworks S NPVP VS´ AdvP NPVP S

Identifying constituent boundaries: the adverbial test [All the students may pass their exams] [[Naturally] [all the students may pass their exams]] [[All the students] [may] [naturally] pass their exams] [[All the students] [naturally] may pass their exams] [[All the students] [may] [ pass their exams] [naturally ]] *All [naturally] the students may pass their exams *All the [naturally] students may pass their exams *All the students may pass [naturally] their exams *All the students may pass their [naturally] exams naturally

Identifying constituents… [Naturally [all the students may pass their exams]] [[All the students] [may] naturally [pass their exams]] [[All the students] naturally [may pass their exams]] [[All the students] [may] [ pass their exams] [naturally]] Naturally = of course Naturally = in a natural way [Sentence adverbial] [Manner adverbial]

Identifying constituents: the substitution + deletion tests [All the students] [The students] [All students] [Students] [They] [All] *[The] [may pass their exams]

Identifying constituents: the substitution + deletion tests [may pass their exams] [do] [may] [pass their exams] [pass] [*may their exams] [All the students] Constituents that may substitute for each other belong to the same distributional class, or paradigm

Identifying constituents: movement tests [[All the students] [may] [pass their exams]] [[May][all the students] [pass their exams]] [[Pass their exams] is what [all the students] [[may]] [[Their exams] is what [all the students] [may] [pass]] [[The students] [may] [all] [pass] [their exams]] *[[Pass their ][all the students] [may] [exams]] Only constituents at some level of analysis may move!

All constituents identified [[[All] [[the] [students]]] [[may] [[pass] [[their][exams]]]]] Allthestudentsmaypasstheirexams This is a simple box-diagram

Naming constituents: lexical and phrasal categories Lexical categories N (oun) V (erb) A (djective) Adv (erb) D (eterminers) Subord (inator) Coord (inator) P (reposition) Interjection - Pro (noun) - Proper (name) Phrasal categories NP VP AP AdvP DP PP S (entence) CL (ause) - Main; Lexical - Aux (iliary); Modal N´ Phrasal categories are said to be projections from lexical categories Clausal and sentential categories V´

Naming constituents [ S [ DP [ D All] [ NP [ D the] [ N students]]] [ VP [ Aux may] [ VP [ V pass] [ NP [ D their][ N exams]]]]] This is a socalled ’labelled bracketing’ It is difficult to read, therefore …

exams Allthestudents maypasstheir VP NP NDD DP AuxV DN S S DP [ ] [ [[ [ [ [[[[ [ [[ ]]]] ]]]]]]]]

exams Allthestudents maypasstheir VP NP NDD DP AuxV DN S S DP [ ] [ [ [ [ [ [[[[ [ [[ ]]]] ]]]]]]]]

S VP Aux VNP D may pass DN theirexams NP DN All thestudents This is a so-called tree diagram, growing the wrong way. The top node [ S ], is the root, the lines are branches, and the words at the bottom are leaves. The nodes connected by the lines carry category labels.

S DP VP Aux VNP D may pass DN theirexams NP DN All thestudents Naming constituents

Syntactic functions (’kryds og bolle’) All the studentsmay passtheir exams Subject   Verb ○ ○ Object Δ Δ Is this right?

Syntactic functions (’kryds og bolle’) All the studentsmay passtheir exams Subject   Verb ○ ○ Object Δ Δ Is this right?

Syntactic functions (’kryds og bolle’) All the studentsmay passtheir exams Subject   Verb ○ ○ Object Δ Δ This is (almost) right - but as you can see, (at least) two levels of analysis are needed Predicate

S DP VP Aux VNP All the students may passtheir exams Assigning syntactic functions to constituents SubjectPredicate PredicatorObject Operator The important thing here is that V(erb ) is reserved as a category label. The syntactic function of the verb is split into two, i.e. an Operator function (the finite auxiliary) and a Predicator function (the lexical verb).

Terminological problems Grundled (subjekt) Prædikat - Verballed (Objekt) -Genstandsled -Hensynsled Omsagnsled t. grundled Omsagnsled t. genstandsled - (Adled) Adverbialled Danish Subject Predicate Operator Predicator Object - direct - indirect Subject Complement Object Complement Adverbial Complement Adjunct (Adverbial) English

Conceptual problems Syntactic functions at clause level: Subject, Predicate, Adjunct - but what about functions within phrases? S PPNPVP As a matter of factall the studentsmay pass their exams AdjunctSubjectPredicate

Standard functions within VP VP Aux VNPmay PredicatorObject Operator passtheir exams ? We’ll return to the question mark later

S DPVP Aux VNP D may pass DN theirexams NP DN All thestudents Assigning syntactic functions to constituents SubjectPredicate ? ? ? ?Predicator ? Object Operator??

Adjunct positions… S DP VP Aux VNP D may pass DN theirexams NP DN All thestudents naturally Naturally AdvP naturally AdvP naturally

Adjunct positions… S DP VP Aux VNP D may pass DN theirexams NP DNAll thestudents naturally AdvP naturally AdvP naturally

More syntax next time!