Syntactic

Linguistics as the
Scientific Study
Structures
of Language
 Main 1 2 3

questions for What is syntax? What are syntactic

categories?
What is syntactic
constituency?

this session:

2
3
 Parsing is the process of deriving
a syntactic structure for a sequence of
words (Chomsky, 2002).
Noam Chomsky
"the father of modern linguistics"

Avram Noam Chomsky is an American

linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, 4
historian, social critic, and political activist.
 We found a large man’s hat in the wardrobe.

Sample
Sentence 5
 The different meanings of the sentences
reflect different syntactic structures

We found a large man’s hat in the

wardrobe.

Syntactic large man’s hat large man’s hat

Structures 6
 It is the study of:

 different word classes;

 the combination of words into

phrases and sentences; and

 the internal structure of phrases and

sentences.
Syntax 7
 Words are the syntactic building blocks
of sentences.

Syntactic Evidences:
 Semantics
 Morphological
 Syntactic
Word
Classes 8
 Syntactic / Lexical Categories
1. Nouns Apple, Dog, Freedom
2. Verbs Fly, Run, Explode
3. Adjectives Blue, Huge, Sweet
4. Adverbs Quickly, Annoyingly
5. Prepositions On, Under, Through
Word 6.
7.
Determiners A / An, The, This, What
Pronouns He, She, You,
Classes 8. Conjunctions Themselves
And, Because, Although
9
 Some sequences of words in a
sentence ‘belong together’:
“The outsize guys and girls like
chocolates.”
The outsize (guys and girls) like chocolates.

Syntactic The (outsize guys) and (girls) like chocolate

Constituency
Constituents = sentence parts
  The parts of a sentence are called
constituents.

 The hierarchical structure of a

sentence is called its syntactic
constituency.

 Syntactic rules specify how

Syntactic constituents can be put together to
form grammatical sentences.
Constituency
 A sentence can be formed through a
combination of two major phrase
types.

S > NP (Noun Phrase) + VP (Verb Phrase)

Cat runs
Syntactic Rules Gents like sports car
Outsize boys and girls eat sweet
chocolates
Syntactic Rule
• How to form a question?
word1 word2 word3 word4 word5

—Cops will arrest the thieves.

—Will Cops arrest the thieves?

• Syntax does not count words:

—The thieves will be arrested.

—Thieves the will be arrested?

• Syntactic rules operate on
constituents:

NP AUX VP
—(The thieves) will be arrested.

—Will (the thieves) be arrested?

AUX NP VP
 • Tell how a group of words is a
constituent,; and

• Constituents should behave as a

unit
Constituency
Tests
 A husky man delivered
the party cake at the
venue.
Constituency
Tests
 – Constituents can be
substituted by a single word
(pronoun, form of do, or ADV
like here or there)

Constituency
Tests: A husky man delivered the
SUBSTITUTION party cake at the venue.
TEST
 A husky He
man delivered
it there.
theitparty cake at the
venue.

SUBSTITUTION
TEST
 TREE
DIAGRAMS
 • S > NP VP
• NP > (D) (A) N (PP | S)
• VP > V (NP) (PP)
• PP > P (NP)
• AP > (Adv) a (PP)
• AdvP > (Adv) Adv
PHRASE
STRUCTURE
RULES
 TREE
DIAGRAMS
 Conjoining NPs

Axl and my Brother are classmates.

Phrase
Structure
Conjunction
 NP > NP CONJ NP

NP

NP NP

N CONJ DET N
(Axl and my Brother) are
Phrase classmates.
Structure
Conjunction
 S > NP (AUX) VP

NP VP
NP

Phrase N CONJ DET N AUX V ADJ N

Axl and my Brother could be good
Structure mates.
AUXILIA
RIES
 • It is the same word that has
different meaning.

I saw bats.

LEXICAL
AMBIGUITY
 I saw bats.

LEXICAL
AMBIGUITY
 • You know, somebody actually
complimented me on my driving
today. They left a little note on
the windscreen; it said, 'Parking
Fine.' So that was nice."(English
comedian Tim Vine)

LEXICAL
AMBIGUITY
 • Laura is looking for a match.

• The fishermen went to the

bank.

LEXICAL
AMBIGUITY
 There are different meanings
caused by different syntactic
structures.

Call me a cab!

STRUCTURAL
AMBIGUITY
 The Professor said on Monday
he would give an exam.

The chicken is ready to eat.

STRUCTURAL
AMBIGUITY
 Type of structural ambiguity in
which the beginning of a
sentence suggests a different
structure than the complete
sentence.

GARDEN PATH
AMBIGUITY
 I convinced her children are
noisy.

The old man the boat.

The building collides ducks out

GARDEN PATH
AMBIGUITY Fat people eat accumulates.
 Syntax is the study of word classes
through the internal structure of
phrases and sentences.

Syntactic analysis always start with the

word classes at the bottom, always
have S at the top, branching to NP and
VP.

Word class denotes with the use of

semantic evidences.
Wrap-up
Syntactic structures analyze with the
References:
https://www.manhattanrarebooks.com/pages/books/2177/noam-chomsky/syntactic-structures
https://www.worldcat.org/title/syntactic-structures/oclc/308125
https://blogs.umass.edu/brain-wars/1957-the-birth-of-cognitive-science/syntactic-structures/
https://www.thoughtco.com/syntax-grammar-1692182#:~:text=Syntax%20is%20the%20proper%20order,corr
ect%20syntax%20without%20realizing%20it
.
https://www.sk.com.br/sk-chom.html
https://www.britannica.com/topic/syntax
https://www.jstor.org/stable/411160?seq=1
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/syntactic-structure
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/mathematics/parse-tree
https://www.purdue.edu/?_ga=2.235448644.418643460.1622437335-1991352856.1620361373
https://www.thoughtco.com/garden-path-sentence-1690886
https://www.linguisticsnetwork.com/syntactic-constituency/
Thank you for
listening.