Syntax

S0741061
英二
黃意欣
Chapter Outline
Syntactic Knowledge Syntactic Theory
grammaticality
1.
Subcategorization
2. word order
Phrase Structure Rules
3. structural ambiguity
4. meaning relations Phrase Structure Trees
between words in S
5. creativity & infinitude
6. similarity of meaning
of S's with different Transformational Rules
structures
1. Grammaticallity

grammaticality refers to the conformity of a sentence to the rules



defined by a specific grammar of a language.

2. Word order
linguists assume that the basic order of all English sentences is
►

SVO. The arrangement of words in a phrase, clause.

Subject – Verb – Object. The sequence of words is critical when
communicating in English because it can impact the meaning of what
you’re trying to say.
E.g. :SOV, SVO, VSO, OVS, OSV
3. Structural ambiguity
Is the presence of two or more possible meanings within a single
sentence or sequence of words, as opposed to lexical ambiguity, which
is the presence of two or more possible meanings within a single word.
The content may have more than one meaning.

Examples:
The professor said on Monday he would give an exam.
This sentence means either that it was on Monday that the professor told the class
about the exam or that the exam would be given on Monday.
The chicken is ready to eat.
This sentence either means the chicken is cooked and can be eaten now or the
chicken is ready to be fed.
4. Meaning relations between words in S.
► E.g.:
1. The boy will dance. Declarative sentence
asserts information

2. Will the boy dance? Yes-no question

requests information

5. Creativity and infinitude

► The notion of creativity has been used by many theorists to
describe that aspect of language which enables a language user to
use language in a novel way or to devise new forms of language.
Languages have various means of creating longer and longer
sentences. One benefit of positing the abstract category N is that it
allows us to account for the potentially limitless number of
adjectives.
6. Similarity of meaning of S’s with different structures

e.g.:
Active –passive
The cat chased the mouse.
The mouse was chased by the cat.
Syntactic theory
1. Subcategorization

► Subcategorization is a concept by which differences in syntactic valency between words is

expressed.

2. Phrase Structure Rules

► PS rules capture the knowledge that speakers have about the possible structures of a
language.
1. S NP VP
2. NP Det N
3. VP V NP
4. VP V
5. VP V PP
6. PP P NP
7. VP V CP
8. CPCS
Phrase Structure Trees

Reflect the speaker’s mental representation of sentences.

Reveal the linear order of words and the constituency of each
syntactic category.
Phrase Structure trees

NP
John (N)
NP
The boy (Det N)
A little boy (Det Adj N)
A boy in a bubble (Det N PP) Det N PP

NP NP
Det N

Det N Det Adj N

Transformational Rules (Move)

Relocates the material in T before the subject NP.

Such as move and do-insertion account for relationships between
sentences such as declarative and interrogative pairs, including wh
question.
Convert the deep structure into the surface structure.
Move applies to the basic structures to produce the derived
structure.