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5.4.4 Tree diagrams

　 A tree diagram is a formal representation of sentence

structure with syntactic categories provided ( It is also
referred to as a phrase maker or a constituent structure tree).
In 5.3, we analyze the ambiguous phrase green grapes and pears
by way of tree diagrams. But in those tree diagrams there are no
syntactic categories. A tree diagram without syntactic
categories fails to reveal ambiguous structures in some cases.
For example, the sentence They can fish is ambiguous. The
ambiguity can be shown clearly if the syntactic category of each
constituent is marked. Consider the two tree diagrams:

These up-side-down “trees” disclose three aspects of speakers'

syntactic knowledge:

　　1. The linear structure of the sentence (i.e. the order of

words in the sentences);
　　2. The hierarchical structure of the sentence (what category
is above what other category and what are its immediate
constituents);
　　3. The lexical category of each word (what class of words
each lexical item at the bottom belongs to).

　 In transformational generative grammar, tree diagrams and

phrase structure rules are closely related. Phrase structure
trees are believed to be generated by phrase structure rules.
There should be no discrepancies between the two. In 5.4.3 we
generalized four tentative phrase structure rules:

(i) S → NP VP

(iii) VP → (Aux) V (NP) (PP)

(iv) PP → P NP

These rules can generate a great number of sentences. Rule (i)

generates:

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Rules (ii) can generate five different NP structures, as the

rule can be expanded into:

　　NP → N
　　NP → Adj N
　　NP → Det N
　　NP → Det Adj N
　　NP → Pro

Rule (iii) can generate eight different VP structures, as its

constituents are:

　　VP → V
　　VP → Aux V
　　VP → V NP
　　VP → V PP
　　VP → V NP PP
　　VP → Aux V NP
　　VP → Aux V PP
　　VP → Aux V NP PP

As rule (iv) specifies that PP is composed of P and NP, the

structure of PP can be as various as NP structures. Now we can
see that phrase structure rules can generate an enormous number
of tree diagrams even without lexical items.

　 Tree diagrams correspond to phrase structure rules in

specifying syntactic categories. The categories that occur to
the left of the arrow in a phrase structure rule are phrasal
categories. They do not appear at the bottom of the tree. They
label the n o d e point or branching of the tree. The categories
that never occur on the left side of the arrow are lexical
categories, which are labels of class of words right above the
words at the bottom of the tree.
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