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An Introduction To Language 10th ed > Ch. 3 Syntax > Flashcards

Ch. 3 Syntax Flashcards

1
Q

To grammar even kings bow

A

JB Moliere

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2
Q

Any speaker of any human language can produce and understand

A

An infinite number of sentences

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3
Q

Sentences are composed of discrete units that are combined by

A

Rules

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4
Q

The part of grammar that represents a speaker’s knowledge of sentences and their structures is called

A

Syntax

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5
Q

The ________ combine words into phrases and phrases into sentences.

A

Rules of syntax

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6
Q

The syntax rules determine

A

The correct word order for a language

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7
Q

English is a _____ language

A

Subject-Verb-Object (SVO)

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8
Q

Is the following sentence grammatical?

The President nominated a new Supreme Court justice

A

Yes

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9
Q

Is the following sentence grammatical?

President the Supreme new justice Court a nominated

A

No

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10
Q

A second important role of the syntax is to

A

Describe the relationship between the meaning of a particular group of words and the arrangement of the words

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11
Q

Do the following sentences have the same semantical meaning?

  1. I mean what I say.
  2. I say what I mean.
A

No

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12
Q

The rules of the syntax also specify the _______ of a sentence. Such as subject and direct object

A

Grammatical relations

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13
Q

Hierarchical diagrams used to illustrate sentence structures

A

Tree Diagrams

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14
Q

The phenomenon in which the same sequence of words has two or more meanings accounted for by different phrase structure analyses

A

Structural ambiguity

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15
Q

The rules of syntax permit speakers to

A

produce and understand a limitless number of sentences never produced or heard before

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16
Q

True or False

Sentences can be grammatical even if they are difficult to interpret.

A

True

ex: Jabberwocky

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17
Q

The syntactic rules that permit us to produce, understand, and make grammaticality judgements are

A

unconscious rules

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18
Q

The grammar is a ______ different from the ______ that we are taught in school.

A

Mental grammar… prescriptive grammar

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19
Q

What type of speech is “the” in a tree diagram?

A

Determiner

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20
Q

What is the tree structure for “the child found a puppy”

A 
S
/ \
NP           VP
/       \        / \
Det  N.   V.             NP
|.       |.     |.             /.  \
the. child found  det. N
                            |       |
                           a.     puppy
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21
Q

The natural groupings or parts of a sentence are called

A

constituents

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22
Q

The following three tests are for what?

  1. Stand alone test
  2. Replacement by a pronoun
  3. Move as a unit
A

To reveal the constituents of a sentence

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23
Q

The hierarchically arranged syntactic units such as noun phrase and verb phrase that underlie every sentence

A

Constituent structure

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24
Q

Experimental evidence has shown that speakers do not mentally represent sentences as strings of words, but rather in terms of

A

constituents

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25
What was an experiment that proved we hear sentences in constituents?
The clicking test
26
A family of expressions that can substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality is called
a syntactic category
27
Characteristics of a Noun Phrase
- may function as subjects or as objects - often contains determiner and a noun - may contain proper name, a pronoun, a noun without a determiner, or a clause or sentence
28
You can use the following three sentences to check what? "what/who I heard was ______" "who found ______?" "______ was seen by everyone"
To test if a phrase is a noun phrase
29
You can use the following sentence to check what? | "the child ______"
To test is a phrase is a verb phrase
30
True or false | Slept is a verb phrase
True
31
True or false | A Bird is a verb phrase
False
32
True or false | The red banjo is a noun phrase
True
33
True or false | Went is a noun phrase
False
34
NP, VP, AdjP, PP, and AdvP are what?
Phrasal categories
35
N, V, P, Adj, Adv are what?
Lexical categories
36
a, the, and demonstratives such as this, that, these, those are in what category?
Determiner
37
Determiners are what category?
Functional
38
All languages have
syntactic categories
39
A point in a tree where branches join
a node
40
We refer to categories under the same node as
sisters
41
When you have an adjective you need to utilize what theory?
X bar
42
A tree diagram with syntactic category information is called a
Phrase structure tree (PS) or a Constituent structure tree
43
PS trees represent three aspects of a speaker's syntactic knowledge
1. the linear order of the words in a sentence 2. the identification of the syntactic categories of words and groups of words 3. the hierarchical organization of the syntactic categories as determined by the x-bar schema
44
Categories that are immediately dominated by the same node are
sisters
45
The _____ of a sentence is the NP immediately dominated by __ and the _______ is the NP immediately dominated by __.
subject ... S ... direct object ... V
46
A verb that requires an NP complement
Transitive verb (dependent)
47
A verb that cannot take an NP complement
Intransitive verb (independent)
48
The information about the complement types selected by particular verbs and other lexical items is called
c-selection or subcategorization | c stands for categorial
49
A verb also includes in it's lexical entry a specification that requires certain semantic properties of its subjects and complements, just as it selects for syntactic categories.
S-Selection (s stands for semantic)
50
An example of s-selection
the verb murder requires its subject and object to be animate
51
The well formedness of a phrase depends on at least two factors
1. whether the phrase conforms to the structural constraints of the language as expressed in the x-bar schema 2. whether it obeys the selectional requirements of the head (c-selection and s-selection)
52
The info presented in the PS tree and by the x-bar schema can also be conveyed by another formal device
phrase structure rules
53
True or false | PS rules specify the well formed structures of a particular language precisely and concisely
True
54
A rule that repeats itself
Recursive rule
55
A _____ is defined structurally as sister to the head X.
complement
56
A sentence asserting that a situation will happen
Declarative sentences
57
A sentence asking whether or not a situation will happen
Yes-no questions
58
A formal device that relocates the material in a sentence
Move or a transformational rule
59
The basic structures of sentences (the bottom of a tree)
deep structures or d-structures
60
The derived structures of sentences (top level of a tree)
surface structures or s-structures
61
We call the points of variation
parameters
62
True or false | In ASL they do not use S-V-O
False, ASL uses SVO
63
Phrase structure trees reflect the speaker's
mental representation of a sentence
64
Ambiguous sentences may have
more than one PS tree
65
The hierarchical structure of phrasal categories is
universal
66
A formally stated explicit description of the mental grammar or the speakers linguistic competence
Grammar
67
The knowledge that a speaker has about the vocabulary of his or her language
Lexicon
68
Lexicon contains
Semantic and syntactic information
69
UG specifies that syntactic rules are
structure dependent
70
Constituency test
1. Replacement by pronoun 2. move as a unit 3. stand alone test
71
What phrase is the subject?
Noun phrase
72
What phrase is the predicate?
Verb phrase
73
Verb that needs help (dependent)
transitive
74
Verb that doesn't need help (independent)
intransitive
75
True or false | PS trees can have 2 or more branches
False, only 2
76
Constituency is important to know if a sentence is
grammatically correct
77
Chunking helps us to read/comprehend because
we process in chunks, not word by word but group by group
78
Prepositions give us info about
location/direction
79
The new theory that allows us to add additional layers to a tree, that we previously were unable to do
X-bar theory
80
Knowing that the 3rd person singular requires "s" on verb to be grammatical is an example of what selection? (ex: he sleeps late)
C-selection/subcategorization
81
Knowing that you can't grammatically say "I murdered an ant" is an example of what selection?
S-selection/ semantic selection
82
True or false | If a sentence is ambiguous you just make one tree based off your understanding of it
False, it requires more than one tree
83
Surface or linear structure is
the regular sentence
84
Deep structure is
the tree
85
Rules in syntax are what happens in deep structure to get to
surface structure
86
CP =
complementizer phrase
87
What types of words signify a complementizer phrase?
If/Whether
88
A verb whose complement contains a NP and a PP | ex: give in "he gave a cat to sally"
Di-transitive verb

An Introduction To Language 10th ed (6 decks)

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