Chapter 4 Syntax Part II

Sentence Structure p. 122 Sentences have a hierarchical organization, i.e., the words in a sentence are grouped into natural Units, called constituents.

The tree diagram A structure tree is used to represent graphically the constituent structure of a phrase or a Sentence.

Constituents pp. 122-124 1. definition: natural groupings of a phrase or sentence 2. Every sentence in a language is associated with one or more constituent structures. If a sentence has more than one constituent structure, it is structurally ambiguous, and each tree will correspond to one of the possible meanings.

Example: I bought an antique desk suitable for a lady with thick legs and large drawers. Two phrase structure trees: [a lady with thick legs and large drawers] [[a desk for a lady] [with thick legs and large drawers]]

Constituency tests p. 122-123 Tests to reveal the constituents of a sentence: The “stand alone” test The “replacement by a pronoun” test The “move as a unit” test

Syntactic categories 詞類 p. 124 1. definition: a family of expressions that can substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality 2. also called ‘grammatical categories’ or ‘parts of speech’ 3. Kinds: (a) lexical categories (b) phrasal categories

(a) lexical categories p. 126 Noun (N) Verb (V) Adjective (Adj) Adverb (Adv) Preposition (P) Conjunction (Conj) Determiner (Det) Auxiliary verb (Aux) ** Functional categories: Conj ,Det, Aux

Determiners (Det) 限詞 (a) articles: a, an, the (b) demonstratives (指示詞): this, that, these, those, … (c) quantifiers (量詞): each, every, one, all,… (d) possessive case of nouns and pronouns: my, his, John’s, …

Auxiliary verbs (Aux)助動詞 (a) modal auxiliaries (語氣助動詞): can, may, shall, will, … (b) helping verbs: be in passives (be + p.p.) and progressives (be + v-ing) do in negatives and emphatic sentences have in perfect (have, has, had + p.p.)

(b) phrasal categories Sentence (S) Noun phrase (NP) Verb phrase (VP) Adjective phrase (AP) Prepositional phrase (PP)

Phrase structure trees (PS trees) The PS tree: (1) The PS tree is a phrase structure tree diagram which provides labels (syntactic category information) for each of the constituents of a sentence; it is also called a constituent structure tree. (2) A PS tree can represent every sentence of English and of every human language. (3) PS trees are explicit graphic (圖像式) representations of a speaker’s knowledge of the structure of the sentences of his language.

Three aspects of speakers’ syntactic knowledge represented in PS trees (a) The linear order of the words in the sentence (b) The groupings of words into syntactic categories The hierarchical structure of the syntactic

Example (1) (p. 127) The child found the puppy. S NP VP Det N V NP Det N The child found the puppy

Example (2): (p. 130) The puppy played in the garden. S NP VP Det N V PP P NP Det N The puppy played in the garden

Example (3): (p. 130) The professor said that the student passed the exam. NP VP Det N V CP C S NP VP Det N V NP Det N The professor said that the student passed the exam

Relationships within a PS tree Where categories meet is a node. Every higher node dominates all the other categories beneath it. A node immediately dominates the categories one level below it. Categories that are immediately dominated by the same node are sisters.

PS rules p. 131 1. S → NP VP 2. NP → Det N 3. VP → V NP 4. VP → V 5. VP → V PP 6. PP → P NP 7. VP → V CP 8. CP → C S

p. 132 Draw tree diagrams for the following sentences: 1. The boys left. 2. The wind blew the kite. 3. The senator hopes that the bill passes.