Ambiguity,

Constituency,
Phrasal Categories
 Identify the meaning of the
sentences below
• They are canning peas.
• Satria stopped drinking in the moonlight.
• He is a new patient counselor.
• I bought a dark brown sugar bowl.
• The daughter of Anindya, a slovenly
woman, had untidy house keeping.
 Some problems

• John saw the man with a telescope.

• The mother of the boy and the girl is
coming.
• The mother of the boy and the girl are
coming.
 CONCLUSION….
• A grammar with only lexical categories is
not adequate
• Constituent – how words are grouped in to
phrases or clauses
How can we identify the constituents?

• Cleft construction
• Constituent questions & stand-alone test
• Substitution
• Coordination
• Deletion
• Movement
Cleft construction
Constituent questions – Stand-alone test
 Pronoun Substitution
• Alice wants to live in Mexico.

• She wants it.

 Coordination
• The boy ate some noodles.
• The boy drank some milk.
• The boy ate some noodles and drank
some milk.
 Deletion/Ellipsis
• Robin was planning to see the entire Lord
of the Rings this coming Saturday, and
Lee was, also.
• Lee was planning to see the entire Lord
of the Rings this coming Saturday also.
• Lee was planning to see the entire Lord
of the Rings this coming Saturday also.
• Lee was planning to see the entire Lord
of the Rings on Wednesday.
 Movement
• Dimas will do whatever he wants to do.
• Whatever he wants to do, Dimas will do.

• I got the job at 9 o’clock.

• At 9 o’clock I got the job.
 Phrasal Categories
• Noun Phrase (NP)
• Verb Phrase (VP)
• Adjective Phrase (AP)
• Adverb Phrase (AdvP)
• Prepositional Phrase (PP)
Noun Phrase
Verb Phrase
Adjective Phrase
• A prepositional
phrase consists of
a preposition plus
an NP
• It can occur after
intensifiers such as
right or straight
 Exercise
• List the NPs in the following sentence, and
justify each of the NP by showing how that
NP can be substituted for by an
appropriate pronoun.

• Ario and the large geese with striped

feathers speedily raced the yellow duck
for a shinny prize.
 Exercise
• Read a text and try to identify the
constituents of the sentences.
• Find more examples of NP, VP, AP,
AdvP, and PP.
• Identify the head of each of the phrases