1. SYNTAX

2. WHAT IS SYNTAX? The scientific study of sentence structures
How words are assembled to form meaningful and grammatical utterances
Syntactic rules in a grammar account for the grammaticality of sentences, and the ordering of words and morphemes.
WHAT IS SYNTAX?

3. A hierarchically organized structure of words that maps sound to meaning and vice versa.
What is a sentence?

4. Rules: A kind of hypothesis
A group of rules is called a Grammar.
A grammar in the linguistic sense is a cognitive structure. It is the part of mind that generates and understands language.
Rules: A kind of hypothesis

5. The role of words in a sentence
English word order
Subject Verb Object (SVO)
The boy kicked the ball
?The ball kicked the boy
Ahmad hired Ah Seng
Ah Seng hired Ahmad
*book the
*Men are
*Talked in
The role of words in a sentence

6. Visiting cousins ARE boring. vs Visiting cousins IS boring
Visiting cousins ARE boring. vs Visiting cousins IS boring. Subject verb agreement allows us to disambiguate here.

7. Recursion Rules can be applied more than once in generating sentences
E.g. repeat prepositional phrase more than once
The gun was on the table near the window in the bedroom in the pink house
Put sentences inside sentences
This is the cat that ate the rat that ate the cheese that was sold by the man that lived in the city that was on the river…
No end to recursion- produce longer complex sentences
Recursion

8. Syntactical knowledge
Humans can understand & produce an infinite number of sentences they never heard before
“Some dragonflies are starting to tango in the garden”
Our grammar can understand and produce long sentences
“John said that he thought that the esteemed leader of the house had it in mind to tell the unfortunate vice president that the calls that he made from the office in the White House that he thought was private…..”
Syntactical knowledge

9. Syntax and meaning Non-sense sentences with clear syntax
Colorless red ideas eat furiously.
A noun crumpled the milk.
I gave the question a scuba-diving bottle.
*Furiously eat ideas red colorless.
*Milk the crumpled
*the question I a bottle scuba-diving gave.
Sentences are composed of discrete units that are combined by rules. These rules explain how speakers can store infinite knowledge in a finite space- brain.
Syntax and meaning

10. Noam Chomsky 1950s
Generative = a very explicit system of rules specifying what combinations of basic elements result in well-formed sentences.
Generative Grammar = a group of rules that generate the sentences of a language
Defines the syntactic structure of a language.
Generative Grammar

11. Productivity of language
Phrase structure rules
Transformational rules
Productivity of language

12. One aspect of the syntactic structure of sentences is the division of a sentence into phrases, and those phrases into further phrases, and so forth.
Another aspect of the syntactic structure of a sentence is "movement" relations that hold between one syntactic position in a sentence and another.
Sentence Structure

13. Phrase structure rules
Some words seem to belong together:
{The man} {is reading a book}
Groups of words that belong together are called constituents
The component that determines the properties of the constituent is the head, and the constituent can be referred to as a phrase: e.g. noun phrase
Phrase structure rules

14. Phrase Structure Rules
If we look at phrases, some patterns emerge:
Det N
the instructor = NP
Det N
a friend = NP
some homework = NP
two classes = NP
Phrase Structure Rules

15. Phrase Structure Rules
some more patterns:
V Det N
call the instructor= VP
V Det N
meet a friend = VP
V Det N
do some homework = VP
V Det N
skip two classes = VP
Phrase Structure Rules

16. Phrase Structure Rules
and yet more patterns:
Prep Det N
with the instructor= PP
Prep Det N
from a friend = PP
with some homework = PP
Prep Det N
after two classes = PP
Phrase Structure Rules

17. Phrase Structure Rules
Rules for determining the structure of phrases
Generate a lot of sentences from a small number of rules.
The structure of a phrase will consist of one or more constituents in a certain order.
What does a NP consist of?
“noun phrases have a Det and a N”
NP Det N
Phrase Structure Rules

18. We need lexical rules to specify which words can be used when we rewrite constituents such as N.
PN {Mary, George}
N {girl, boy, dog}
Art
Pro
Lexical Rules

19. Phrase Structure Rules
V Det N V Det N V Det N
run a marathon eat the food read the book
V Prep Det N V Prep Det N
go to the store talk with a teacher
V Det N Prep Det N
take your sister to the library
“Verb phrases have a V, (sometimes) an NP, and (sometimes) a PP”
VP -> V (NP) (PP)
Phrase Structure Rules

20. Phrase Structure Rules
1. S  NP VP
2. NP  {Det N, Pro, PN}
3. VP  V (NP) (PP) (Adv)
4. PP  P NP
5. AP  A (PP)
Phrase Structure Rules

21. Phrase Structure Rules & tree diagrams
NP  (Det) N
PP  P NP
the boy in the yard NP
The boy (NP)
Det N
Det N PP
The
boy P NP
Det N
The
boy in
the
yard

22. Phrase Structure Rules
VP  V (NP) (PP)
S  NP VP
took the money from the bank VP
took the money (VP) V NP V NP PP
Det N
Det N P NP
took
the
money
Det N
took
the
money
from
the
bank

23. Example (1) The old tree swayed in the wind S NP VP Det Adj N V PP P

24. Example (2) The children put the toy in the box S NP VP Det N V NP PP

25. Example 3

26. Deep and surface structure
The deep structure is an abstract level of structural organization in which all the elements determining structural interpretation are represented.
Sentences that have alternative interpretations
Sentences that have different surface forms but have the same underlying meaning.
Surface structure= how the sentence is actually represented
Deep and surface structure

27. Surface structure is the actually produced structure
Surface structure is the actually produced structure. In Bussman's (1996: ) words, it is the directly observable actual form of sentences as they are used in communication, and from the perspective of transformational grammar, surface structure is a relatively abstract sentence structure resulting from the application of base rules and transformational rules.

28. The relationship between deep structure and surface structure is that of transformation. Since the relationship is usually a complicated one, we can best use transformational rules in the total process of relating deep structure to surface structures.

29. Deep and surface structure
How superficially different sentences are closely related?
Charlie broke the window.
The window was broken by Charlie
Charlie who broke the window.
Was the window broken by Charlie?
Difference in their surface structure = difference in syntactic forms
BUT they have the same ‘deep’ or underlying structure
Deep and surface structure

30. Structural Ambiguity (1) The boy saw the man with the telescopeNP VP
Det N V NP PP
Det N P NP
Det N
The
boy
saw
the
man
with
the
telescope
Meaning: Using the telescope, the boy saw the man

31. Structural Ambiguity (1) The boy saw the man with the telescopeNP VP
Det N V NP PP
Det N P NP
Det N
The
boy
saw
the
man
with
the
telescope
Meaning: Using the telescope, the boy saw the man

32. Transformational Rules

33. Exercises In what way are these sentences ambiguous?
We met an English history teacher
Flying planes can be dangerous
Exercises