Syntactic Categories Each syntactic constituent has a syntactic category (part of speech). 1. Meaning is a poor indication of syntactic category.

A noun is a person, place, or thing A verb is an action (1) a. The examination of the patient took half an hour. b. The book lay on the table.

Good indications of syntactic category: 1. morphological form (examination) 2. morphological distribution (examinations) 3. syntactic distribution (the examination) Syntactic distribution can be captured using phrase structure rules.

Phrase Structure Rules: NP NP N N: students, assignments, hat, bus (3) NP N students NP D N D: the, these, a (4) D these NP N students D the NP N hat NP N hat

NP (D) N

Phrase Structure Rules: PP PP P NP P: for, with, on (5) P for D the (6) a. b. PP NP N students

I walked [PP out the door]. I walked [PP out].

PP P (NP)

Phrase Structure Rules: NP, PP (7) a. b. the students with a hat students on the bus with a hat

NP (D) N (PP+) NP N students P on PP NP D P PP NP N hat

N with D a

the bus

The Golden Rule of Tree Structures Modifiers are always attached within the phrase they modify.

Phrase Structure Rules: AP (8) a. b. c. tall surprisingly tall very surprisingly tall

AP (AP) A AP AP AP A very (9) a. b. (10) a. b. very/more/most beautiful very/more/most quickly a quick/*quickly student I quickly/*quick walked away. A surprisingly A tall

Phrase Structure Rules: NP, AP The Golden Rule of Tree Structures Modifiers are always attached within the phrase they modify. (11) a. b. the big yellow book the very yellow book

NP (D) (AP+) N (PP+) NP D AP the A AP N D NP AP N A book

A book the AP

big yellow

A yellow very

Phrase Structure Rules: VP (12) Ignatius a. left (the room) (quickly) (often). b. (often) (quickly) left. VP (AP+) V (NP) (AP+)

(13) Bill often left the room in a huff on Tuesdays. VP (AP+) V (NP) (AP+) (PP+) VP AP V NP N P PP NP P PP NP N

A left D often

the room in D N on a huff

Tuesdays

Phrase Structure Rules: S, S' (14) Bill left the room. S NP VP (15) a. b. Bill might leave the room. Bill has left the room.

S NP (T) VP (16) a. b. Bill said [that he might leave]. Bill asked [if he could leave].

S' (C) S VP (AP+) V ({NP/S'}) (AP+) (PP+) (17) [That he might leave] is obvious. S {NP/S'} (T) VP

Phrase Structure Rules: S, S' S NP D N T might V say C that NP N VP S' S VP V NP

the student

cats like N dogs

Phrase Structure Rules: Summary S' C S S {NP/S'} (T) VP VP (AP+) V ({NP/S'}) (AP+) (PP+) NP (D) (AP+) N (PP+) PP P (NP) AP (AP) A

Structural Ambiguity (18) I tickled the boy with a feather. a. the boy had a feather b. I used a feather to tickle (18a): V tickled D the (18b): V tickled D the N boy VP NP N boy PP with a feather VP NP PP with a feather

Lexical Ambiguity V say N cat (19) a. They laugh at everything. b. She gave a short laugh. V laugh N laugh

Tests for Constituency: Replacement Personal pronouns replace NP constituents: (20) a. b. The tall man with a hat came. He came.

They cannot replace N alone: (21) a. The tall man with a hat came. b. * The tall he with a hat came. Nominative Accusative Genitive 1s I me my 2s/p you you your 3s he/she/it him/her/its his/her/its 1p we us our 3p they them their NP (D) (AP+) N (PP+) Prn

Tests for Constituency: Conjunction Constituents of the same category can be joined by a conjunction: (22) a. b. c. d. I saw that girl and a cat. It was a clear but dark night. He would not eat cake or sing. Look in trees and under rocks.

Non-constituents cannot be conjoined: (23) * He devoured and she liked cake. NP NP Conj NP a cat

that girl and

XP XP Conj XP X X Conj X

Recursivity Human language is recursive. a. b. NP (D) (AP+) N (PP+) PP P (NP) VP (AP+) V ({NP/S'}) (AP+) S' C S S {NP/S'} (T) VP AP (AP) A

c.

A recursive grammar with finite rules has infinite generative capacity.