Grammar and lexicon

• The goal of the syntactic analysis of a language is to

formulate a grammar which will specify the sentences
in the data in terms of a set of rules.

• In this case, the analyst makes explicit the structure

and express generalizations about them.

• Two different types of rules will be presented :

Phrase structure rules and relational- dependency rules

• The rules of Grammar specify the way the from classes

than may combine in the language.
• A distinction can be drawn between lexical form
classes which are the lexical categories e.g., noun,
verb, adjective, adpostion.
• and phrasal form classes that are constituents like
noun phrase, prepositional phrase and verb phrase,
specified by the rules of the grammar.
• The elements in the lexical form classes are stored in
the lexicon.

• The lexicon complements the grammar in important

ways. Ch 6
 Phrase-structure rules
• The relations among nodes in this tree can be
expressed by the following rules.
• (‘XP’ is an alternative notation for ‘X″’.)
• ‘SPEC’, ‘MOD’ and ‘CMPL’ are functions, not
form classes therefore a more accurate
rendering in terms of form classes alone is
given in (5.2),
in which ‘WP’, ‘YP’ ‘ZP’ stand for maximal
projections headed by ‘W’, ‘Y’ and ‘Z’, which
are variables for lexical categories.
(5.2) a. XP = (W(P)) + X′
b. X′ = (YP) + X′
c. X′ = (ZP) + X
• The basic structure of the English noun phrase
can be expressed as in (5.3); these rules
are for ‘simple’ NPs.
• NPs without sentential elements such as
relative clauses.
a. NP = (DET) + N′ (3.5)
b. N′ = (AdjP) + N′
c. N′ = N + (PP)
• These three statements are PS-rules. The most
commonly used notation, however,
• employs an arrow (‘→’)
(5.4) a. NP → (DET) + N′
b. N′ → QP + N′ [optional]
c. N′ → AdjP + N′ [optional]
d. N′ → N + (PP)
• The English PS-rules specify the structure of
the English NP the three long proofs of the
theorem.
• First, the parenthesis ( )around DET and PP
indicate that these constituents are optional
• Second, the PS-rules expanding N′ in (5.4b)
and (5.4c) are optional.
• It is preferable to say that these rules are
optional rather than AdjP and QP are optional
(i.e. N′ → (QP) + N′, N′ → (AdjP) + N′),
• since a literal interpretation of the latter could
lead to an NP with three non-branching N′s;
the minimal three-level structure can be
specified by (5.4a) and (5.4d) alone.
• Hence they are the only obligatory rules in
(5.4), and if (5.4b) or (5.4c) apply, a QP or
AdjP must occur in the NP.
• Third, the plus (+) signals that there is a fixed
order among the form classes specified in the
rule,
• i.e., DET precedes N′, AdjP precedes N′, QP
precedes N′, and N precedes PP.
• It should also be noted that rule (5.4c) can be
repeated, in order to permit multiple
adjectival modifiers as in the NP the beautiful
expensive red scarf. Figure 4.11
• The rules in (5.1)–(5.4) are formulated in
terms of the X-bar schema, but PS-rules could
also be formulated to specify the non-X-bar
phrase-structure.
• The development of the X-bar schema came
many years after the introduction of PS-rules.
• Each level of X-bar structure in the tree is
represented by a rule.
• The constituent on the left side of the arrow is
a mother node, dominates the daughter
• node(s) on the righthand side of the rule.
• Thus in (5.4a), ‘NP’ is a mother node and
immediately dominates DET and N′, its daughters.
Etc.
• The correspondence between levels of structure in
the tree and PS-rules can be seen in Figure 5.2
• Each level of structure in a tree, that is each
mother node and its daughters, is represented
by a PS-rule; in other words, each PS-rule
specifies a local subtree.

• There are two ways to interpret the correspondence

between constituent structure and PS-rules.

• One way is to construe the rules as instructions for

drawing a tree . In this sense, they are often referred to
as ‘rewrite rules’.
• The other way to interpret PS-rules is as
constraints on possible tree structures or node
admissibility conditions.
• PS-rules is used to determine whether the
structure in question is possible in the language.
• As an illustration of how this works, NP
structure in several languages will be compared.
• The PS-rules for a simple Indonesian NP like
guru muda itu [teacher young that] ‘that young
teacher’ are given in (5.5).
• (5.5) PS-rules for simple Indonesian NP
a. NP → N′ + (DET)
b. N′ → N′ + AdjP [optional]
c. N′ → N
• As in English, determiners and adjectival
modifiers are optional.
• Five NP structures are given in Figure 5.3.
• (5.5b). Which one is a possible NP structure
for English?
• Based on the PS-rules in (5.4), only (a) could be a
possible English NP. Structures (b) and (d) violate rule
(5.4b), while structures (c) and (d)
violate rule (5.4a).
• Structures in Figure 5.3, the PS-rules in (5.4) for
English and (5.5) for Indonesian admit only one of
them as potential grammatical structure in each
language.
• This is what is meant by treating PS-rules as
constraints on possible structures.
• Are structures (b) and (c) grammatical NP structures in
some languages?
• Structure (b) represents the structure of Spanish NPs
• like el gato gordo [the cat fat] ‘the fat cat’

• It was mentioned earlier that rules like ‘NP → (DET) +

N′’ in (5.4a) express two different pieces of information:
• (1) NP immediately dominates DET and N′.
• )2) DET precedes N′.
• A reformulation of the Indonesian PS-rules in (5.5)
along this line is given in (5.6).
(5.6) PS-rules for simple Indonesian NP (revised)
a. Immediate dominance
1. NP → N′, (DET)
2. N′ → N′, AdjP [optional]
3. N′ → N
b. Linear precedence
Head-initial
The rules in (5.6a) are called immediate-dominance
rules [ID-rules].
• They differ from the earlier PS-rules formally only in
the replacement of the plus (+) with a comma (,).
• The ordering of the elements is provided by the linear
precedence rule [LP-rule].
• When PS-rules are broken down into distinct ID-
and LP-rules, certain generalizations can be
captured that would otherwise be missed or
difficult to express.
• The single set of ID-rules in (5.6a) describes the
first four of the tree structures in Figure 5.3; the
structures differ only in terms of LP-rules.
• So, instead of needing four sets of PS-rules, i.e.
those in (5.4) for English, and other Ls, only one
set of ID-rules, those in (5.6a),
• and four language-specific LP-rules would be
required for the specification of the (a)–(d) NP
structures in Figure 5.3
• This format also permits the simplification of
particular grammars.
• In English, it is possible to have an adverb
within the VP in two positions, either before
• or after the V′, as in The lawyer quickly
objected versus The lawyer objected quickly.
• In the traditional format, two rules would be
required to license these structures, V′ →
AdvP + V′ and V → V′ + AdvP, whereas in
the ID/LP format, only one would be needed,
V → AdvP, V′.
• While the formulation of ID-rules seems
relatively straightforward in terms of the X-
bar schema, the formulation of LP-rules can
be quite complex.
• Consider the English NP the three long proofs
of the theorem in the book in Figure 5.4, which
contains an adjunct PP.
• To account for this structure, it is necessary to
add an additional ID-rule to the set of ID-rules
based on (5.4); the revised set of ID-rules is
given in (5.7).
• The new rule is (5.7b), which licenses the adjunct PP in
the book.
• The English NP is not consistently head-initial;
• it is head-initial in the structures specified by (5.7b)
and (5.7e), but is not in those permitted by (5.7a),
(5.7c) and (5.7d).
• It appears that two LP rules are required.
• The first is for the head-initial structures in (5.7b) and
(5.7e); in both cases the non-head daughter is a PP, and
consequently the rule is ‘Head > PP’,
• Where ‘>’ means ‘linearly precedes’.
• The situation is more complicated in the head-
final structures in (5.7a), (5.7c) and (5.7d).
• In both cases the pre-head constituent is a kind
of modifying element, a determiner in (a), a QP
in (c) and an AdjP in (d).
• But ‘modifying element’ is neither a form class
nor a type of constituent.
• therefore if the categories used in LP-rules are
to be the same as those in the ID-rules, as they
should, then this notion cannot be used in an
LP-rule
• There is no syntactic feature which unifies them,
either, because determiner and quantifier are
not among the major categories defined in terms
of [±N] and [±V].
• The obvious but unsatisfactory solution is to
have a disjunctive characterization of the pre-
head constituent,
• i.e. DET, QP or AdjP; this can be represented as
‘{DET, QP, AdjP} > Head’
• ‘{X, Y}’ means ‘X or Y’. The two LP-rules can be
combined into a single rule.
 (5.8) LP-rule for simple English NP
{DET, QP, AdjP} > Head > PP
• This LP-rule and the ID-rules in (5.7) can
together specify the English NPs like the ones in
Figures 5.2 and 5.4.
• The discussion of PS-rules thus far has been
limited to NP structure, in the interest of
introducing a number of basic concepts.