[1] Classroom conduct policy:

Students should actively participate in the class discussions and

respect your fellow classmates.

Therefore,
(i) If you need to do something else during class,
please move to another location.
(ii) This class requires the use of a computer, but it must only be used for
class-related purposes.
[2] As for your research paper,

a. You must select your research topic by March 31st.

i) You need to provide “the title of your research paper”.

ii) You need to pick up and give me a list of at least five previous
works on your topic.
❑ Research topics I want to suggest.

1) Passive construction: comparative study on ‘get passive construction’ in English and ___
2) Comparative construction: as~as, more, most, etc.
3) Raising construction: You seemed to study syntax hard.
3) Although/though concessive construction
4) Elliptical construction
5) Ditransitive construction
6) Conative construction: He kicked at the ball.
7) Way construction: He earned his way out of the university.
8) As if construction
9) The chicken is ready to eat.
10) Others you want
 Spring Semester, 2023

Generative Grammars
1. MODELING SYNTAX
☞ The dominant theory of syntax is due to Noam Chomsky and his colleagues, starting in the mid
1950s and continuing to this day.

- This theory is often given the blanket name Generative Grammar, which has had many
different names through its development: Transformational Grammar (TG),
Transformational Generative Grammar, Standard Theory, Extended Standard Theory,
Government and Binding Theory (GB), Principles and Parameters approach (P&P) and
Minimalism (MP).

- A number of alternate theories of syntax have also branched off of this research program.
These include Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG) and Head-Driven Phrase Structure
Grammar (HPSG). These are also considered part of generative grammar
☞ The underlying thesis of generative grammar is that sentences are generated by a subconscious
set of procedures (like computer programs). These procedures are part of our minds.

● The goal of syntactic theory is to model these procedures. In other words, we are trying to
figure out what we subconsciously know about the syntax of our language.

● In generative grammar, the means for modeling these procedures is through a set of formal
grammatical rules. These rules are thought to generate the sentences of a language, hence the
name generative grammar.

● You can think of these rules as being like the command lines in a computer program. They tell
you step by step how to put together words into a sentence.
2. WORDS AND WHY THEY MATTER TO SYNTAX

☞ Sentences are made up of words. What is most important to us here is the word’s part
of speech (also known as syntactic category or word class).
‣ Most common parts of speech are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions.
‣ Parts of speech tell us how a word is going to function in the sentence.

Q1. Remember how we can get the total meaning of the sentence below.

ex. a. I am so proud of you.

b. I saw her duck.
c. The chicken is ready to eat.
☞ What is the category of a word?
mother

☞ Determining the part of speech

i) distribution: position
ii) meaning
iii) inflection
3. Words and Categories
Q. Who determines the category of a given word?

◆ How to classify words into a group of words (categories).

a. My father and I are quite happy to join such excellent company.
b. William had fathered a child with his housekeeper.

◆ three criterion:

a. form (morpheme) b. distribution (position) c. meaning

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◆ Eight types of categories

No. category morpheme distribution meaning

Subject, (in)direct object,

1 Noun Plural –(e)s / Possessive –’s Physical objects
predicative complements…
3rd person singular –(e)s
2 Verb After subjects Action
Past tense marker –ed

3 Adjective -er, -est (more, most) Before nouns Properties of nouns

4 Adverb -ly Properties of verbs

5 Preposition Before nouns Direction, place, time…

6 Determinative

7 Coordinator And, or, but …

That, for, whether, if

8 Subordinator
After, as, because, if, since ...
10
11
Qs. Categories and grammatical functions of the underlined word

1. Our children really liked those chocolate candies with the peanuts in them.

2. Without the apple tree, there is no apple.

3. It's not all that bad, and you can doctor it up with salt-free ketchup.

4. His age was doctored and we weren't aware of altered documents.

12
How to describe English sentences
in terms of tree structure
☞ Basically, this syntax has two elements: lexicon and deep structure
☞ Subcategories and features
‣ Six different kinds of D: articles, deictics, quantifiers, numerals, possessive pronouns,
wh-pronouns
‣ Three kinds of T: auxiliaries, modals, and the non-finite marker

☞ Main part of speech categories: N, V, Adj, Adv, P, D, Conj, C, T, and Neg

☞ Subcategories of Verbs:
two major ways in which we can divide up verbs into subcategories.

‣ One is along the lines of tense/finiteness

(i.e., whether the verb is left, leaves, (will) leave or (to) leave).

‣ The other way is in terms of the number of NPs and PPs or CPs they require. This is
known as argument structure.
☞ Subcategories
☞ Subcategories

1) a) I asked [NP the question]. b) I asked [CP if you knew the answer].
2) a) I hit [NP the ball]. b)*I hit [CP that you knew the answer].
3) a) I spared [NP him] [NP the trouble]. b) *I spared [NP the trouble] [PP to him].
4) a) *I put [NP the box] [NP the book]. b) I put [NP the book] [PP in the box].
5) a) I gave [NP the box] [PP to Leah]. b) I gave [NP Leah] [NP the box].
6) a) I told [NP Daniel] [NP the story].
b) I told [NP Daniel] [CP that the exam was cancelled].
c) I told [NP the story] [PP to Daniel].
3. Constituency, Trees, and Rules

☞ One way to describe this sentence is as a simple linear string of words.

‣ Every constituent has its own internal structure: how these structures are represented in our minds.
That is, words are grouped into units (called constituents) and that these constituents are grouped into
larger constituents, and so on until you get a sentence.

5) Constituent: A group of words that function together as a unit.

‣ Constituency is the most important and basic notion in syntactic theory.

‣ Every constituent has a relatedness that can be captured by membership in a constituent.

 X-bar schema

❑ The concept of a head and its complement

Q1. Tell me whether the sentences are bad or good.

a. Joe met with a flower.
b. Mercy persuaded to do homework.
c. Joshua ran the house.

Q2. Who decides them in each sentence?

Therefore, we must express these relationships holding each element in a sentence,

so, we start to use the x-bar schema.
 SYNTACTIC
STRUCTURES

In terms of tree structure

 Identify the grammatical functions of the prepositions in the following sentences.

a) Dave ran to the cave.

b) Sumayya hid her taxes from the federal government.

c) Jeff put his paper under my coffee cup.

d) Dan saw the tall-ships over the horizon.

e) Art cleaned the pipe without an air compressor.

f) Jennifer likes to sit by the seashore.

g) Heidi bobbed above the waterline.

 h) Leila presented her paper before the princess.

i) Jerid smoked every day after work.

j) Sylvia trudged through the bog.

k) Jorge was seen near the student union building.

l) Calvin knocked the clock off the bedside table.

m) Shannon bought a piano for his son.

 h) Leila presented her paper before the princess.

i) Jerid smoked every day after work.

j) Sylvia trudged through the bog.

k) Jorge was seen near the student union building.

l) Calvin knocked the clock off the bedside table.

m) Shannon bought a piano for his son.

 Draw the trees for the following AdjPs, AdvPs, and NPs:

a) the noisy disruptive children

b) the very nosey flatfooted professor
c) unclothed dancers
d) far too honest
e) the extremely rude officer
f) the rather disgusting very old banana peel
a) often reads trashy novels in the bath

b) frequently reads eloquent novels by Tolstoy

c) read a trashy novel by Tolstoy in the bath yesterday

d) the pen and pencil

e) the big pen and the yellow pencil

f) in my mouth and into my belly

g) (He) ate pizza and guzzled beer.

h) He went to Paris but she went to Rome.

a) The very pink pumpkin squashed the ant with the broken leg.

b) People with money frequent exclusive stores.

c) The crazy dog licked the ice-cream from the cone.

d) Marlita asked if Ryan bought new shoes.

e) The very bright light shone on the head of the suspect.

f) The handsome young hooligan will smash the car with a hammer.
Consider the following NP. It is ambiguous.

the daughter of the officer with the pink hat

감사합니다!