Recursion & Subcategorization

How to get a lot from a little

Infinite trees...

Is there a longest sentence?

Looking again at Noun Phrases

a woman arrived a woman in a hat arrived a woman in a hat with a big brim arrived a woman in a hat with a small child arrived a woman in a hat with a small child in a beret arrived

NP Det N a woman

NP Det N a woman

PP P NP in Det N a hat

NP

PP

NP PP P NP NP in Det N Det N a hat a woman

NP NP Det N a woman PP P NP in Det N a hat

NP NP Det N a woman

PP

What about expanding this NP?

P NP in Det N a hat

NP NP Det N a woman

... or this one?

PP P NP in Det N a hat

NP NP Det N a woman PP ... or this one? P NP in Det N a hat

NP NP Det N a woman

So lets try this...

PP P NP in Det N a hat

NP NP NP Det N P PP P PP NP a hat NP in Det N a child

a woman with Det N

NP NP Det N a woman PP ... now this... P NP in Det N a hat

NP NP Det N P Det N PP NP PP P NP N Adj brim big a AdjP N

a woman in NP

a hat with Det

NP NP Det N a woman

... and this one

PP P NP in Det N a hat

NP NP NP Det N P PP P NP with Det a AdjP small a hat PP NP N N Adj child

a woman in Det N

This is an instance of recursion:

a Noun Phrase may contain a Noun Phrase ...which may contain another Noun Phrase ... which may contain another Noun Phrase ... which may contain another Noun Phrase

Another instance of recursion

Kim arrived. Jo knew that Kim arrived. My mother knew that Jo knew that Kim arrived. My sister told me that my mother knew that Jo knew that Kim arrived. My father heard that my sister told me that my mother knew that Jo knew that Kim arrived.

What is recurring in this case?

Last time it was NPs (and PPs) What is it this time?

Another instance of recursion

Kim arrived. Jo knew that Kim arrived. My mother knew that Jo knew that Kim arrived. My sister told me that my mother knew that Jo knew that Kim arrived. My father heard that my sister told me that my mother knew that Jo knew that Kim arrived.

Another instance of recursion

Kim arrived. Jo knew that Kim arrived. My mother knew that Jo knew that Kim arrived. My sister told me that my mother knew that Jo knew that Kim arrived. My father heard that my sister told me that my mother knew that Jo knew that Kim arrived.

Another instance of recursion

Kim arrived. Jo knew that Kim arrived. My mother knew that Jo knew that Kim arrived. My sister told me that my mother knew that Jo knew that Kim arrived. My father heard that my sister told me that my mother knew that Jo knew that Kim arrived.

S NP N VP V

Kim arrived

S NP N VP that S NP N V S Comp S S VP V

Jo knew

Kim arrived

S NP N VP that S NP N V S Comp S S VP V

Jo knew

Kim arrived

S NP N V VP S S VP V N that NP

Jo knew Comp

Kim arrived

S NP N V VP S S VP V N that NP

Jo knew Comp

Kim arrived

And we can keep on going ...

S NP Det N VP V S

my mother knew

S NP Det N V VP S S VP V S S VP V N that NP N that NP

my mother knew Comp

Jo knew Comp

Kim arrived

So: infinity out of finiteness

We need to remember only a finite set of syntactic categories a finite set of rules / tree fragments ...and from that we can get an infinite number of different sentences.

So what do we know about the syntax of our language?

How to make a sentence:

How to make an NP:

NP VP NP NP N Det N VP VP

How to make a VP:

V NP

Our theory of how speakers construct sentences

Speakers know the syntactic category of each word in their lexicon:
know: V man: N big: Adj

Speakers know the syntactic rules of their language, stated in terms of these categories.

But now we predict that these are all fine:

Jo ate the cake. Kim slept the child. Jo devoured the cake. Jo ate. Jo devoured. Kim trusted her brother. Kim relied her brother

... but of course theyre not

Jo ate the cake. * Kim slept the child. Jo devoured the cake. Jo ate. * Jo devoured. Kim trusted her brother. * Kim relied her brother

What went wrong?

We must learn more about a word that just
its pronunciation its meaning its syntactic category

We must learn what sisters it can occur with in the tree. This is called its subcategorization

For example...
What do we know about find? The explorers found the North Pole. The jurors found that he was innocent. The explorers found. The explorers found in the garden.

For example...
What do we know about find? find can be followed by an NP find can be followed by an S

2 ways to represent this knowledge:

find: V; ___ NP ___ S

2 ways to represent this knowledge:

find: V, ___ NP ___ S

find is a Verb

2 ways to represent this knowledge:

find: V; ___ NP ___ S

and it can have either an NP or an S as a sister

2 ways to represent this knowledge:

find: V; ___ NP ___ S VP V find S

VP V NP find