1. Meeting 3 Syntax Constituency, Trees, and Rules
Siti Mukminatun

2. Constituent (1) The students loved their syntax assignments.
Syntax is about the study of sentence structure.
(1) The students loved their syntax assignments.
The statement that sentence (1) consists of a linear string of words misses several important generalizations about the internal structure of sentences and how these structures are represented in our minds.
In fact, the words in sentence (1) are grouped into units (called constituents) and that these constituents are grouped into larger constituents.

3. Constituent
The notion that the and student are closely related to one another is captured by the fact that they are as part of a bigger unit that contains them, but not other words.
There are two different ways to represent this bigger unit. One of them is to put square brackets around units.
[the student]
The other is to represent the units with a group of lines called a tree structure:
the student
These bigger units are called constituents.

4. Constituent
Constituent: A group of words that functions together as a unit.
Constituency is the most important and basic notion in syntactic theory.
The “relatedness” is captured by membership in a constituent.
Constituents don’t float out in space. Instead they are embedded one inside another to form larger and larger constituents. This is hierarchical Structure

5. Constituent TP NP VP D N V NP The student loved D AdjP N
his assignments A
Syntax

6. Constituent The child found the puppy the child found the puppy

7. constituent
Various linguistic tests reveal the constituent of a sentence.
E.g. the set of words that can be used to answer a question is a constituent.
“what did you find?”, the speaker might answer “the puppy, not “found the”.
Pronouns can also substitute for natural groups. In answer to the question “where did you find the puppy? A speaker may answer “I found him in the park”

8. Rules and Trees
In generative grammar, generalizations about structure are represented by rules. These rules are said to “generate” the tree.
The rules are called phrase structure rules (PSRs) because they generate the phrase structure tree of a sentence.
A tree diagram with syntactic category information is called a phrase structure tree (constituent structure tree).

9. Phrase Structure Tree
Three aspects of a speaker’s syntactic knowledge are represented in phrase structure trees:
1. the linear order of the words in the sentence
2. the groupings of word into syntactic categories
3. the hierarchical structure of the syntactic categories (e.g. sentence is composed of a NP followed by a Verb Phrase is composed of a Verb that may be followed by a NP, and so on.

10. Noun Phrase
The simplest NPs contain only a noun (usually a proper noun [+proper], pronoun [+pron], mass noun [−count] or a plural noun [+plural]). (John, water, cats)
Our rule must minimally generate NPs then that contain only an N. The format for PSRs is shown below. We use X, Y, and Z here as variables to stand for any category.
XP → X Y Z
the label “consists of” the elements that make up
for the constituent the constituent
NP → N
This rule says that an NP is composed of (written as →) an N. NP N

11. Noun Phrases
There are many NPs (e.g., those that are [+count]) that are more complex than this of course:
a) the box
b) his binder
c) that pink fluffy cushion
NP → D N
This generates a tree like: NP
D N
the box

12. Noun Phrase
NP → (D) N
Nouns can also be optionally modified by adjectives.
the big box his yellow binder
NP → (D) (AdjP) N
Nouns can also take prepositional phrase (PP) modifiers
the big box of crayons
his yellow binder with the red stripe
 NP → (D) (AdjP) N (PP)

13. Noun Phrases NP D AdjP N PP1 the book big of poems
The NP constituent consists of four sub-constituents:D, AdjP, N and PP.

14. Noun Phrases
The [AdjP big] [AdjP yellow] box [PP of cookies] [PP with the pink lid].
NP → (D) (AdjP+) N (PP+)

15. Adjective Phrases (AdjPs) and Adverb Phrases (AdvPs)
the very yellow book
This phrase has only one [very yellow] constituent modifying N.
This constituent is called an adjective phrase (adjP)
AdjP → (AdvP) Adj
AdjP
AdvP Adj
Adv Yellow
very

16. Adjective Phrases (AdjPs) and Adverb Phrases (AdvPs)NP
D AdjP AdjP N
the book
Adj Adj
big yellow
the big yellow book

17. Adjective Phrases (AdjPs) and Adverb Phrases (AdvPs)NP
D AdjP N
the book
AdvP Adj
yellow
Adv
Very
the very yellow book

18. Adjective Phrases (AdjPs) and Adverb Phrases (AdvPs)
Principle of Modification (informal): Modifiers are always attached within the phrase they modify.
The adverb very modifies yellow, so it is part of the yellow AdjP.
In “the big yellow book” by contrast, big doesn’t modify yellow, it modifies book, so it is attached directly to the NP containing book.

19. Adverb Phrases (AdvPs)
A very similar rule is used to introduce AdvPs:
AdvP → (AdvP) Adv
very quickly
Adv P
Adv P Adv
quickly
adv
very

20. Head
The head of a phrase is the word that gives the phrase its category.
E.g. the head of NP is the N, the head of a PP is the P, the head of the AdjP is Adj and the head of AdvP is Adv.
AdjP AdvP
head head
AdvP Adj AdvP Adv
Head yellow Head quickly
Adv Adv
very very

21. If we take the AdjP to be the mother then its daughters are the AdvP and the head Adj. Since AdvP and Adj are both daughters of the same mother then we say they are sisters.

22. Prepositional Phrases (PPs)
Most PPs take the form of a preposition (the head) followed by an NP:
a) [PP to [NP the store]]
b) [PP with [NP an axe]]
c) [PP behind [NP the rubber tree]]
The PP rule appears to be: PP → P NP
In the rule, the NP in the PP is obligatory.

23. Prepositional Phrase (PPs)
P NP
an axe

24. Verb Phrases (VPs)
the category headed by the verb: the verb phrase (VP).
Minimally a VP consists of a single verb. This is the case of intransitives (V[NP __]):
VP → V
Amanda [VP left]. VP V
Left

25. Verb Phrases Amanda [VP left quickly]. VP → V (AdvP) VP V AdvP left
Verbs may be modified by adverbs (AdvPs), which are, of course, optional:
Amanda [VP left quickly].
VP → V (AdvP) VP
V AdvP
left
Adv
quickly

26. Verb Phrases
Interestingly, many of these adverbs can appear on either side of the V, and you can have as many AdvPs as you like:
Amanda [VP quickly left].
Amanda [VP [AdvP deliberately] [AdvP always] left [AdvP quietly] [AdvP early]].
VP → (AdvP+) V (AdvP+)

27. Verb Phrases VP AdvP AdvP V AdvP AdvP left Adv Adv Adv Adv
deliberately always quietly early

28. Verb Phrases VP → (AP+) V (NP) (AP+)
Bill [VP frequently kissed his mother-in-law].
Bill [VP kissed his mother-in-law quietly]. (cf. *Bill [VP kissed quietly his mother-in-law].)

29. Verb Phrases VP
V NP AdvP
kissed
D N A
his mother-in-law quietly

30. Verb Phrases VP → (AP+) V (NP) (NP) (AP+)
It is also possible to have two NPs in a sentence, for example with a double object verb like spare (V[NP __ NP NP]). Both these NPs must come between the verb and any AdvPs:
I spared [NP the student] [NP any embarrassment] [AdvP yesterday].
VP → (AP+) V (NP) (NP) (AP+)

31. Verb Phrases VP V NP NP AdvP spare D N D N Adv
The student any embarrassment yesterday

32. Verb Phrases Verbs can be modified by PPs as well.
These PPs can be arguments as in ditransitive verbs of the type V[NP __ NP PP] (e.g., the PP argument of the verb put) or they can be simple modifiers PP like for a dollar below.
These PPs can appear either after an adverb or before it.

33. Verb Phrases
a) Bill [VPfrequently got his buckets [PP from the store ] [PP for a dollar]].
b) VP → (AdvP+) V (NP) (NP) (AdvP+) (PP+) (AdvP+)

34. Verb Phrases VP AdvP V NP PP PP got Adv D N P NP P NP
frequently his buckets from for
D N D N
the store a dollar

35. Clauses
A clause consists of a subject NP and a VP. The label we use for clause is TP.
[TP[NP Bill ] [VP frequently got his buckets from the store for a dollar]].
This can be represented by the rule in
TP → NP VP

36. Verb Phrases TP NP VP N Bill AdvP V NP PP PP got A D N P NP P NP
frequently his buckets from for
D N D N
the store a dollar

37. Clauses
TPs can also include other items, including unsurprisingly elements of the category T (such as modal verbs and auxiliary verbs).
a) Cedric might crash the longboat.
b) Gustaf has crashed the semi-truck.
we won’t treat these as verbs, the reason for this will become clear in later chapters. Note that the T in the TP is optional.
TP → NP (T) VP

38. Clauses A tree showing the application of this rule TP NP T VP might
N V NP
Cedric crash
D N
the longboat

39. Clauses
Clauses don’t always have to stand on their own. There are times when one clause is embedded inside another:
[TP Shawn said [TP he decked the janitor]].
The clause he decked the janitor, lies inside the larger main clause. Often embedded clauses are introduced by a complementizer like that or if:
[TP Shawn said [CP [C that ] [TP he decked the janitor]]].
We need a special rule to introduce complementizers (C):
a) CP → (C) TP
Tree (see p. 74)

40. TP NP VP N V CP Shawn said C TP that NP VP N V NP he decked D N
the janitor

41. All embedded clauses are CPs, whether or not they have
All embedded clauses are CPs, whether or not they have a complementizer. This means that a sentence like Shawn said he decked the janitor will have a CP it even though there is no complementizer that.
Embedded clauses appear in a variety of positions. The embedded clause appears in essentially the same slot as the direct object.

42. Embedded clause as direct objectTP
NP VP
N V CP
Shawn said
N V NP
he decked
D N
the janitor

43. Embedded clauses in subject position
CP VP
C TP V NP
that worried
NP VP N
N V NP
he decked
D N
the janitor
TP  { NP/CP} (T) VP
[TP [CP That he decked the janitor] worried Jeff].

44. The last revision we have to make to our PSRs is to add the CP as a modifier to NPs to account for cases like:
NP  (D) (AdjP+) N (PP+) (CP)

45. TP NP VP D N PP CP V NP The fact brothers P NP C TP natasha
about that NP VP N
Bill N V NP
he likes N
icecream

46. Relative Clauses
In addition to the CPs that modify Ns, there is another kind of CP modifier to an N. These are called relative clauses.
E.g. The man (whose car I hit __ last week) sued me.
The underscore in the sentence indicates where the gap is_ the object of the verb “hit” is in the wrong place, it should be where the underscore is. The corresponding to the gap we also have the wh-word “whose” and the noun ‘car”. These are appearing at the beginning of the clause.
Relative clause actually appear in a different position than the CPs that follow nouns like the fact.
It has to do with the relative position of the CP and the PP in the NP rule.

47. Summary
CP  (C) TP
TP  {NP/CP} (T) VP

48. HOW TO DRAW A TREE Bottom-up Trees
The Top-down Method of Drawing Trees

49. Bottom-up tress
1. Write out the sentence and identify the parts of speech:
D Adv Adj N V D N
The very small boy kissed the platypus.
2. Identify what modifies what. Remember the modification relations. If the word modifies something then it is contained in the same constituentas that thing.
Very modifies small. V ery small modifies boy.
The modifies boy. The modifies platypus.
The platypus modifies kissed.
3. Start linking together items that modify one another. It often helps to
start at the right edge. Always start with adjacent words. If the modifier
is modifying a noun, then the rule you must apply is the NP rule:

50. Summary CP → (C) TP TP → {NP/CP} (T) VP
VP → (AdvP+) V (NP)({NP/CP}) (AdvP+) (PP+) (AdvP+)
NP → (D) (AdjP+) N (PP+) (CP)
PP → P (NP)
AdjP → (AdvP) Adj
AdvP → (AdvP) Adv