Syntax; The sen-

tence patterns of
language.
Karla Dánae García Rodrìguez
Verónica Jazmín Lio Ortiz
Liliana Michelle Rivera Baena
Juan José Rodríguez Torres
What heads the sentence
All phrases have heads… but what would the head of S be? To answer this question,
let us consider sentences such as the following:
Sam will kick the soccer ball.
Sam has kicked the soccer ball.
Sam is kicking the soccer ball.
Sam may kick the soccer ball.

Words like will, has, is, and may are

auxiliary verbs, belonging
to the category Aux, which also includes
modals such as might, could, would,
can, and several others.
They occur in structures such as the following one.

*We use a triangle

when the category
is not crucial to the
point under
discussion
 “Auxiliary verbs specify a time frame for
the event (or state) described by the
verb, whether it will take place in the fu-
ture, already took place in the past, or
is taking place now. A modal such as may
contains “possibility” as part of its
meaning, and says it is possible that the
event will occur at some future time.
The category Aux is a natural category to
head S. Just as the VP is about the
situation described by the verb—eat ice
cream is about “eating”—so a sentence
is about a situation or state of affairs that
occurs at some point in time.” (p. 145)
 VP
is the complement to Aux.
The selectional relationship between The auxiliary be takes a progressive
Aux and VP is (-ing) form of the verb,
demonstrated by the fact that particular The boy is dancing.
auxiliaries go with particular kinds of
VPs.

The modals select the infinitival

form of the verb (no affixes),
The auxiliary have selects a past
participle (-en) form of the verb, The child must sleep
The girl has eaten. The boy may eat.
Many linguists use the symbols
T (= tense) Instead of Aux and
TP (= tense phrase) instead S.
The TP also has the intermedi-
ate T-bar
(T') category.
Many linguists assume that all XPs, where XP
stands for any of NP,
PP, VP, TP, AdjP, or CP, have three levels of
structure. This is referred to as An NP specifier is a
X-bar theory. The basic three-level X-bar determiner; a VP specifier
schema is as follows: is an adverb such as never
or often; an AdjP specifier
is a degree word such as
very or quite.

I never eat pineaple

 For sentences we will generally use the more intuitive symbols S and Aux
instead of TP and T, but you should think of Aux and S as having the same relationship
to each other as V and VP, N and NP, and so on.
Without the use of TP, T', and T, we need an additional PS rule to characterize
structures containing Aux:
VP → Aux VP

The bird must have

been flying home.

(modal, have, be)

 The introduction of Aux into the system raises a question. Not all sentences
seem to have auxiliaries. For example, the sentence “Sam kicked the soccer ball”
has no modal, have or be. There is, however, a time reference for this sentence,
namely, the past tense on the verb kicked. In sentences without auxiliaries, the
tense of the sentence is its head. Instead of having a word under the category Aux
(or T), there is a tense specification, present or past, as in the following tree:
Structural Ambiguities.
Certain kinds of ambiguous sentences have more than one
phrase structure tree, each corresponding to a different mean-
ing.
• The boy saw the man with the telescope
One meaning of this sentence is “the boy used a telescope to
see the man.”

In its other meaning, “the boy saw a man who had a telescope,”
PS rules.
 Sentence relatedness
•Certain sentences are related to one another.

• When they have a structural difference

systematically, they are different in meaning.
Declarative sentence vs yes no questions
Particular situation exists What/ is there a situation?
• The boy is sleeping • Is the boy sleeping?

These sentences only differ in that one asserts the

situation an the other one asks for a confirmation.
 Transformational rules
• The related sentences come from a
common underlying structure.

•Yes-no questions are an example of this.

•Because the auxiliary comes before the

subject.
 Example
Declarative Yes-no question

• The boy is sleeping. • Is the boy sleeping?

• The boy has slept.

• Has the boy slept?

• The boy can sleep.

• Can the boy sleep?
• The boy will sleep.

• Will the boy sleep?

• To explain the relationship between
DECLARATIVE & YES-NO QUESTIONS:

Transformational rule

Moves the auxiliary before the subject

Moving the auxiliars can be applied to structures like
this.
 Shows from where the
auxiliary changes its
place

When moving the auxiliar, the structure evolves to this

Example: The boy is sleeping -> Is the boy__sleeping?
 A second tree is derived because of the NP-
aux rule

• The auxiliar is attached to the tree by

adjunction.
• Adjunction is an operation that copies and
creates a new level to which the moved
category (in this case Aux) is attached.
Existing node

Moved Auxiliary
• Yes-no questions then, are generated
in two steps:
1. The phrase structure rules generate a basic structure.

2. Aux movement applies to produce the derived structure.

Basic structure of sentences are also called:

deep structures or d-structures.
By making questions with two steps, we are meaning
that a relationship exists between a question and its
statement.

Derived structures are called surface structures or

s-structures.
The phonological rules of the language
apply to s-structures.
 If no transformations apply, then d-structure and s- structure
are the same.
If transformations apply, then s-structrure is the result.
Other sentece pairs that are transformitionally related are:
Active-passive
• The cat chased the mouse -> The mouse was chased by the
cat.
PP preposing
• The astronomer saw the quasar with the telescope -> With
the telescope the astronomer saw the quasar.
Structural dependency of rules
• Evidence that transformations are
structure dependent is because
the sentence is not ambiguous.

• With a telescope, the boy saw the man.

• Another rule allows to take off the
complementizer that when it precedes
an embeded sentence:

• I know that you know= I know you know

Agreement rules are also structure dependen

A
• This guy seems kind of cute.
• These guys seem kind of cute.
B
The guy we met at the party nex door seems kind of cute.

The guys we met at the party next door seem kind of cute.
The verb always agrees with the head noun.

• The guys (guy) we met at the party next door that lasted
until 3 A.M. and was finally broken up by the cops who
were called by the neighbors seem (seems) kind of cute.
Final ilustration of structure depen-
dency

• The boy who is sleeping was dreaming.

• Was the boy who is sleeping dreaming?
• *Is the boy who sleeping was dreaming?

• The boy who can sleep will dream

• Will the boy who can sleep dream?
• *Can the boy who sleep will dream?
• Structure dependency is a principle of Universal
Grammar.

• La madre con tanti figli lavora molto.

• Die Mutter mit den vielen Kindern arbeitet viel.
• Mama anao watoto wengi anajitahidi.
• The mother with many children works a lot.
 Further Syntatic Dependecies

The following wh questions illustrate another kind of

dependency:

1. (a) What will Max chase?

2. (b) Where has Pete put his bone?
3. (c) Which dog do you think loves balls?

Max chase … (Transitive Verb)

Pete puts… (Direct object + PP)
(Subject) loves balls. (Third person)
1. Who did Helen say the senator wanted to hire
___?
2. Who did Helen say the senator wanted the
congressional representative to try to hire ___?
3. Who did Helen say the senator wanted the
congressional representative to try to convince
the Speaker of the House to get the Vice Pres-
ident to hire ___?

“Long-distance” dependencies created by wh movement are a

fundamental part of human language.
UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR
English is head
initial, Japanese
is head final.
Provides the basic design
for all human languages

PARAMETERS
Phrases consist of heads
and complements, and
sentences are headed by
Aux.
 1. Zal Femke fietsen?
will Femke bicycle ride
(Will Femke ride her bicycle?)

2. Leest Meindert veel boeken?

reads Meindert many books
(Does Meindert read many books?)
“What children must learn are the language specific
aspects of grammar. Where there are parameters of
variation, children must determine the correct choice
for their language.”(Fromkin, 2011)
Sign Language Syntax
 “All languages have rules of syntax similar in kind, if not in detail, to those of
English, and sign languages are no exception. Signed languages have phrase
structure rules that provide hierarchical structure and order constituents. A
signer distinguishes The dog chased the cat from The cat chased the dog through
the order of signing.” (p. 167)
TOPICALIZATION
A transformation that moves a direct object to the beginning
of the sentence to draw particular attention to it.

*Many greyhounds, my wife has rescued.

My wife has rescued many greyhounds

*Cheese, John ate bologna and for lunch.

Bologna and cheese, John ate for lunch
 References:
• Fromkin, V. (2011). An introduction to Language. New
York: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. pp 155-160.
Consulted on November 4th 2016