Introduction to Syntax

Sapientia University
English Syntax Course
Fall 2017
 What is Syntax?

 study of structure of language

 the way words are arranged together, and
the relationship between them
 goal: to relate surface form (what we
perceive when someone says something) to
semantics (what that utterance means)
 What is Syntax Not?

 phonology: study of sound systems and

how sounds combine
 morphology: study of how words are
formed from smaller parts (morphemes)
 semantics: study of meaning of language
 Simplified View of Linguistics

Phonology  /waddyasai/

Morphology /waddyasai/  what did you say

say
Syntax what did you say  subj obj

say you what

Semantics subj obj
 P[ x. say(you, x) ]
you what
What do children know?

 when acquiring language children learn

the following from the language
surrounding them:
◦ Word order (SVO, SOV, etc.)
◦ N-Adj or Adj-N

 How do kids master this so quickly?

 Universal Grammar?

 children hear the surrounding language

 detect patterns and match them with already
stored structures
 switch on those that match; switch off those that
don’t (subconsciously)
 kids seem to develop, instead of learning a
language.
What do native speakers know?

 grammaticality
 implied interpretations
 ambiguity
 synonymy
Ambiguous?
 I scratched the dog with a stick

I love linguistics!!!
I’m a stick

I’m a dog (I
think!)
Do I mean this?
 I scratched (the dog with a stick)

Nice doggie!
Or do I mean this?
 I scratched (the dog) with a stick.

scratch

scratch
 The two meanings are a result of:

HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE
Sentences are more than just ordered sequences of words.
They have internal hierarchical structure as well.

scratched the dog with a stick scratched the dog with a stick

dog has stick I have stick

Unavoidable Ambiguity

 Why can’t we convey these internal hierarchical

structures and avoid ambiguity?

 LINEAR ORDER
◦ human verbal communication is limited by linear
production
consequently
◦ sentences are organized linearly
Two kinds of ambiguity:
 She called her boyfriend from Australia.
◦ STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY

 We went down to the bank yesterday

◦ LEXICAL AMBIGUITY
Two principles of sentence
organization
 1. LINEAR ORDER
◦ not only a limitation, we anguageactually make use
of the linearity of the l

 In English, limited morphology forces us to use

word order to distinguish subject from object.
◦ Tom chased Jerry.
◦ Jerry chased Tom.
 Two principles of sentence
organization

 2. HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE
◦ this structure is ‘invisible’ upon first glance
however
◦ there are tests we can perform to discover the
hierarchical structure of sentences.
 Constituency
CONSTITUENT
a group of words in a sentence that behave syntactically
and semantically as a unit
dog has stick I have stick

scratched the dog with a stick scratched the dog with a stick
How to determine constituency
 Semantic intuitions
◦ sometimes, we just know that certain strings of
words go together as a unit

 Constituency Tests (more reliable)

◦ tests that can be applied to string of words in a
given sentence to determine if the string is a
constituent or not
 Structure in Strings
 Some words: the a small nice big very boy girl sees likes
 Some good sentences:
◦ the boy likes a girl
◦ the small girl likes the big girl
◦ a very small nice boy sees a very nice boy
 Some bad sentences:
◦ *the boy the girl
◦ *small boy likes nice girl
 Can we find subsequences of words (constituents) which
in some way behave alike?
 More Structure in Strings
 Some words: the a small nice big very boy girl sees
likes
 Some good sentences:
◦ ((the) boy) likes ((a) girl)
◦ ((the) (small) girl) likes ((the) (big) girl)
◦ ((a) ((very) small) (nice) boy) sees ((a) ((very)
nice) girl)
 Some bad sentences:
◦ *((the) boy) ((the) girl)
◦ *((small) boy) likes ((the) (nice) girl)
 From Substrings to Trees
 (((the) boy) likes ((a) girl))

likes
boy girl
the a
 Node Labels?
 ( ((the) boy) likes ((a) girl) ))
 Choose constituents so each one has one non-bracketed
word: the head
 Group words by distribution of constituents they head
(part-of-speech, POS):
◦ Noun (N), verb (V), adjective (Adj), adverb (Adv),
determiner (Det)
 Category of constituent: XP, where X is POS
◦ NP, S, AdjP, AdvP, DetP
 Node Labels

 (((the/Det) boy/N) likes/V ((a/Det) girl/N))

NP likes NP

DetP boy DetP girl

the a
 Types of Nodes

 (((the/Det) boy/N) likes/V ((a/Det) girl/N))

S
nonterminal
symbols Phrase-structure
= constituents NP likes NP tree

DetP boy DetP girl

the a
terminal symbols = words
 Determining Part-of-Speech

A blue seat/a child seat: noun or adjective?

– Syntax:
• a blue seat a child seat
• a very blue seat *a very child seat
• this seat is blue *this seat is child
– Morphology:
• bluer *childer

– blue and child are not the same POS

– blue is Adj, child is Noun
 Determining
Part-of-Speech (2)

preposition or particle?
 A he threw out the garbage
 B he threw the garbage out the door

 A he threw the garbage out

 B *he threw the garbage the door out

 The two out are not same POS; A is particle, B is Preposition

 Constituency (Review)

 e.g., Noun phrases (NPs)

 A red dog on a blue tree
 A blue dog on a red tree
 Some big dogs and some little dogs
 A dog
 Big dogs, little dogs, red dogs, blue dogs, yellow
dogs, green dogs, black dogs, and white dogs
 How do we know these form a
constituent?
 Constituency (II)
• They can all appear before a verb:
– Some big dogs and some little dogs are going
around in cars…
– Big dogs, little dogs, red dogs, blue dogs, yellow
dogs, green
– dogs, black dogs, and white dogs are all at a dog
party!
– I do not
• But individual words can’t always appear before
verbs:
– *little are going…
– *blue are…
– *and are
• Must be able to state generalizations like:
– Noun phrases occur before verbs
 Constituency (III)
 Preposing and postposing:
◦ Under a tree there is a yellow dog.
◦ A yellow dog is under a tree.

 But not:
◦ *Under, is a yellow dog a tree.
◦ *Under a is a yellow dog tree.

 Prepositional phrases notable for ambiguity in

attachment
 What About Chomsky?
 at birth of formal language theory (computer science) and
formal linguistics
 major contribution: syntax is cognitive reality
 humans are able to learn languages quickly, but not all
languages  universal grammar is biological
 goal of syntactic study: find universal principles and
language-specific parameters
 specific Chomskyan theories change regularly
 general ideas adopted by almost all contemporary syntactic
theories (“principles-and-parameters-type theories”)
 Types of Linguistic Theories
 Prescriptive: “prescriptive linguistics” is an
oxymoron
◦ Prescriptive grammar: how people ought to talk
 Descriptive: provide account of syntax of a language
◦ Descriptive grammar: how people do talk
◦ often appropriate for NLP engineering work
 Explanatory: provide principles-and-parameters
style account of syntax of (preferably) several
languages
Chomsky's Conception of an
Explanatorily Adequate Grammar

 the Laws of Grammar: Universal Grammar

 what's being explained by the laws: the

miracle of language acquisition
Learning vs. Acquisition

 Learning involves conscious gaining of

knowledge
 Acquisition involves subconscious gaining of
knowledge

Chemistry is learned. Languages are

acquired.
How do we acquire languages?
 Obviously this question is too big to
answer here, but …
 Are we instructed by our parents?
 Do we mimic our parents?

NOPE!
1) Language is infinite: We produce sentences we’ve
never heard before
2) We know things about our language that we’ve
never been exposed to.
Language as an instinct
Despite what they may think, parents don’t teach
their children to speak!

They correct content not form:

(from Marcus et al. 1992)
Adult: Where is that big piece of paper I gave you
yesterday?
Child: Remember? I writed on it.
Adult: Oh that’s right, don’t you have any paper
down here, buddy?
Language as an instinct
(from Pinker 1994, 281)
Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy
Adult: You mean, you want the other spoon.
Child: Yes, I want other one spoon, please Daddy.
Adult: Can you say “the other spoon”?
Child: Other … one … spoon
Adult: Say “other”
Child: other
Adult: “spoon”
Child: Spoon.
Adult: “other … spoon”
Child: other … spoon. Now give me other one
spoon.
A shocking proposal!

Noam Chomsky

The ability of humans to use language is innate (an

instinct). We are prewired to use language!
Huh? languages differ?!?

How can language be an instinct if languages

differ?
Proposal: Languages differ primarily in terms
of what words are used, and in a set
number of “parameters”
These things are learned but the rest (the
basic architecture of the grammar) is
innate.
Refining Innateness

A particular language is not innate (it is

acquired), but the basic tools that any given
language uses are built in.

We’ll be looking at these tools. Both within

languages, and crosslinguistically to see
what is universal (innate) and what varies
among languages.
Task of a child acquiring English

 Match up a sentence that they hear with a

situation in the context around them.

The cat spied the kissing fishes = 1

1

 To make the proof let’s turn this into an

algebraic operation. We’ll number sentences,
and we’ll number situations, and look for the
rule that matches them up.
What are basic building blocks?

 Example: Inferring a curve from an infinite set of

points
 A grammar defines an infinite set of sentences
 The logical problem: From a finite set of data, a
child must infer an infinite set of sentences
 Solution: we need a set of laws for making
grammars: Universal Grammar
Universal Grammar (UG)

 The building blocks that all languages use to

construct the sentences of their languages.
 All languages use the same basic hardwired
tools. It is the particular implementation of
these tools that varies between languages.
Universal Grammar (UG)

 Other evidence for UG

◦ human specificity of language
◦ distinct area of the brain
◦ crosslinguistic similarities in language acquisition
(despite cultural differences)
◦ lack of overt instruction
◦ language universals