WEEK 4: GRAMMAR

AND SYNTAX
Linh Nguyen
◦Grammar: Describe the structure of phrases and
sentences in such a way that we account for all the
grammatical sequences in a language, ruling out the
ungrammatical
◦Syntax: Concentrate on the structure and ordering of
components within a sentence
◦ Grammar ◦ Syntax
◦ Grammatical categories ◦ Syntactic rules
◦ Prescriptive vs. descriptive ◦ X-bar theory
grammar
◦ Syntactic operations
Grammatical categories
Parts of speech Agreement
Nouns Articles Number
Verbs Prepositions Person
Adjectives Pronouns Tense
Adverbs Conjunctions Voice
Gender

◦E.g.: Cathy loves her dog

Prescriptive vs. Descriptive grammar
Prescriptive Descriptive

A prescriptive grammar is a A descriptive grammar is a

set of rules about language set of rules based on how
based on how people think language is actually used,
language should be used. not how it should be used.
In a prescriptive grammar
there is right and wrong
language.
Structural analysis - “test-frames”
◦Identify same or different grammatical category

◦E.g.:

The ______________ makes a lot of noise.

__________________ makes a lot of noise.

Constituents
◦The natural groupings or parts of a sentence are
called constituents.
◦How to reveal the constituents of a sentence?
◦If a group of words can stand alone, they form a
constituent.
◦If a group of words can be replaced by a pronoun or
a word like do, it forms a constituent.
◦If a group of words can be moved, they form a
constituent.
Constituent analysis
◦ Constituent analysis shows how small constituents (or
components) go together to form larger constituents.
◦ E.g.:
Syntax
◦ Syntax (Greek): “putting together”/”arrangement” 🡪 underlying
rule system that we use to produce or ‘generate’ sentences
◦ Syntactic rules: “All and only criterion”: the analysis must account
for all the grammatically correct phrases and sentences and only
those grammatically correct phrases and sentences in whatever
language being analyzed.
E.g: Which rule is correct?
PP -> P NP or PP -> P N
◦ Generative Grammar: a small and finite (i.e. limited) set of rules
that will be capable of producing a large and potentially infinite
(i.e. unlimited) number of well-formed structures
Deep and Surface structure
Surface structure Deep structure
Charlie broke the window (Noun Phrase + Verb + Noun Phrase)
The window was broken by Charlie.
It was Charlie who broke the window
Was the window broken by Charlie?

the different syntactic forms they have as the underlying structure of sentences as
individual English sentences represented by phrase structure rules

=> Generative grammar is capable of revealing the basis of two

phenomena:
◦ How some superficially different phrases and sentences are closely related
◦ How some superficially similar phrases and sentences are in fact different
Structural ambiguity
◦ Sentences with the same surface structure form have two distinct
deep structures
◦ E.g.: The boy saw the man with the telescope

VP -> VP PP NP -> NP PP
Syntactic rules
◦ Syntactic analysis: grouping into NP and VP 🡪 phrase structure rules, lexical rules
🡪 Tree diagrams
Phrase structure rules
◦S → NP VP
◦NP → {Art (Adj) N, Pro, PN}
◦VP → V NP
◦VP → V (PP)
◦PP → P NP
Lexical rules
◦PN → {John, Mary}
◦Art → {a, the}
◦N → {girl, dog, boy}
◦Adj → {big, small}
◦V → {followed, helped, saw}
◦Pro → {it, you}
Phrase structure tree
Tree diagrams of English sentences
Phrase structure trees represent three aspects of a
speaker’s syntactic knowledge:
1. The linear order of the words in the sentence
2. The identification of the syntactic categories of words
and groups of words
3. The hierarchical structure of the syntactic categories
(e.g., an S is composed of an NP followed by a VP, a VP
is composed of a V that may be followed by an NP, and
so on)
Embedded
sentence
◦ E.g.: “The professor said
that the student
passed the exam”
◦ Preceding the
embedded sentence is
the word that, which is
a complementizer (C)
◦ Syntactic rules:
◦ VP → V CP
◦ CP → C S
Coordinate structure
◦ two constituents of the same
category are joined with a coordinator
◦ E.g.: The cat and the dog
◦ Rule:
◦ NP → NP CoordP, CoordP → Coord NP
Adverbs
◦ Adverbs are sisters to phrasal ◦ Adverbs also occur as sisters
categories. to S
◦ VP → Adv VP ◦ S → Adv S
◦ VP → VP Adv
Recursive rules
◦ E.g.: “The girl walked down
the street with a gun
toward the bank.”
VP → VP PP
◦ the man with the telescope
in a box
NP -> NP PP
Recursive rules
◦The kindhearted, intelligent, handsome boy
NP -> Adj NP
X- bar theory
◦ X- bar (X’) is an additional level of structure between XP and X (X
signifies an arbitrary lexical category: N, V, Adj, P)
◦ X-bar includes
◦ The head: the word whose lexical category defines the type of phrase
◦ Complements: complete the meaning of the phrase.
◦ E.g.: an argument over jelly beans (PP complement to noun)
his belief that justice will prevail (CP complement to noun)
happy to be here (infinitive complement to adjective)
about the war in Iraq (NP complement to preposition)
Examples
Heads of sentences
◦ A sentence is about a situation or state of affairs that occurs at
some point in time => The category Aux is a natural category to
head S
Sentences without Aux
◦ In sentences without auxiliaries, the
tense of the sentence is its head.
Instead of having a word under the
category Aux (or T), there is a tense
specification, present or past.
X-bar theory
◦many linguists assume that all
XPs, where XP stands for any of
NP, PP, VP, TP, AdjP, or CP, have
three levels of structure.
◦a specifier, which functions as a
modifier, is generally an
optional constituent
Transformational rules: Movement
◦ The rule “Move Aux”: Move the highest Aux to adjoin to (the root) S.
◦ E.g.: The boy is sleeping. → Is the boy __ sleeping?
◦Yes-no questions are generated in two steps.
1. The phrase structure rules generate a basic structure.
(deep structure)
2. Aux movement applies to produce the derived structure
(surface structure)

◦Rule for Aux-movement: NP Aux VP ⇒ Aux NP VP.

A special arrow (⇒) is used to indicate that a constituent
can be moved
Wh-questions
◦ E.g.: What will Max chase?
Wh questions are generated in three steps:

1. The phrase structure rules generate the CP d-structure

with the Wh phrase occupying an NP position within
the S

2. Move Aux adjoins the auxiliary to S.

3. Move wh moves the wh phrase to C.