Chapter 5

Question 1

Linguistic expression

Answer 1

A piece of language with a certain form, a certain meaning, and some syntactic properties.

Question 2

Grammaticality judgment

Answer 2

An instance of a native speaker of some language deciding whether some string of words corresponds to a syntactically well-formed or grammatical phrasal expression in their native language.

Question 3

Principle of Compositionality

Answer 3

The notion that the meaning of a phrasal expression is predictable from the meanings of the expressions it contains and how they were syntactically combined.

Question 4

Lexical expression

Answer 4

A linguistic expression that has to be listed in the mental lexicon, e.g. single word expressions and idioms.

Question 5

Phrasal expressions

Answer 5

A linguistic expression that results from the syntactic combination of smaller expressions. A multi-word linguistic expression.

Question 6

Word order

Answer 6

The linear order in which words can occur in some phrasal expression. Also, the set of syntactic properties of expressions that dictates how they can be ordered with respect to other expressions.

Question 7

Argument

Answer 7

A linguistic expression that must occur in a sentence if some other expression occurs in that sentence as well. If the occurrence of an expression X in a sentence requires the occurrence of an expression Y in that sentence, then Y is an argument of X.

Question 8

Complement

Answer 8

A non-subject argument of some expression.

Question 9

Syntactic constituent

Answer 9

A group of linguistic expressions that function as a syntactic unit within some larger expression; the smaller expressions out of which some larger phrasal expression was constructed in accordance with the phrase structure rules.

Question 10

Constituency tests

Answer 10

Tests that help determine which groups of expressions form a constituent in some sentences.

Question 11

Answers to questions

Answer 11

A type of constituency test where a question is constructed based on a sentence to see if the string of words you are testing can serve as an answer. If it can, it forms a constituent, and if not then the words in question do not form a constituent.

Question 12

Cleft

Answer 12

A type of sentence that has the general form It is/was e.g.; It was Julie that I wanted to see. It can be used as a constituency test.

Question 13

Substitution

Answer 13

In syntax, a constituency test that involves replacing a constituent with a single word, such as pro-form. In language processing, a production error in which one unit is replaced with another.

Question 14

Syntactic categories

Answer 14

A group of expressions that have very similar syntactic properties. All expressions that belong to the same syntactic category have more or less the same syntactic distribution.

Question 15

Syntactic distribution

Answer 15

Refers to the set of syntactic environments in which an expression can occur. If two expressions are interchangeable in all syntactic environments, then they have the same syntactic distribution and therefore belong to the same syntactic category.

Question 16

Determiner

Answer 16

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as the, a, this, all. Syntactically, consists of those expressions that when combined with an expression of category noun to their right result in an expression of category noun phrase.

Question 17

Count noun

Answer 17

A noun that can counted and pluralized, in simple terms. When they occur in singular, they must co-occur with a determiner.

Question 18

Mass noun

Answer 18

A noun that cannot be counted and cannot be pluralized normally.

Question 19

Verb phrase

Answer 19

The name of a syntactic category that consists of all expressions that, if combined with a noun phrase to their left, result in a sentence.

Question 20

Intransitive verb

Answer 20

The name for the set of lexical expressions whose syntactic category is verb phrase.

Question 21

Transitive verb

Answer 21

The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with an expression of category noun phrase to their right result in verb phrase; a verb that needs a noun phrase complement.

Question 22

Ditransitive verb

Answer 22

The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with two expressions of category noun phrase to their right result in a verb phrase; A verb that needs two noun phrase complements.

Question 23

Sentential complement verb

Answer 23

The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that if combined with a sentence to their right result in a verb phrase; a verb that needs a sentence as its complement.

Question 24

Verb phrase adjuncts

Answer 24

A kind of adjunct that combines with an expression of syntactic category verb phrase with the resulting expression also being of category verb phrase.

Question 25

Noun adjunct

Answer 25

A kind of adjunct that combines with an expression of syntactic category noun with the resulting expression also being of category noun.

Question 26

Lexicon

Answer 26

A mental repository of linguistic information about words and other lexical expressions, including their form and meaning and their morphological and syntactic properties. As a part of a descriptive, not mental, grammar, the lexicon is the representation of the mental lexicon, consisting of lexical entries that capture the relevant properties of lexical expressions.

Question 27

Lexical entry

Answer 27

A representation of a lexical expression and its linguistic properties within a descriptive grammar of some language. A collection of lexical entries constitutes the lexicon.

Question 28

Phrase structure rule

Answer 28

A recipe for syntactically combining expressions of certain syntactic categories. Along with the lexicon, phrase structure rules are a part of a descriptive grammar of some language. Phrase structure rules have the general form X –> Y1…Yn where X is a syntactic category and Y1…Yn is a sequence of syntactic categories.

Question 29

Phrase structure tree

Answer 29

A visual representation of how phrases are constructed within a descriptive grammar, given the lexicon and the phrase structure rules.

Question 30

Ambiguous

Answer 30

When linguistic forms correspond to more than one distinct expression.

Question 31

Lexical ambiguity

Answer 31

The phenomenon where a single word is the form of two or more distinct linguistic expressions that differ in meaning or syntactic properties.

Question 32

Homophony

Answer 32

The phenomenon by which two or more distinct morphemes or nonphrasal linguistic expressions happens to have the same form, i.e., sound the same.

Question 33

Structural ambiguity

Answer 33

The phenomenon where a single string of words is the form of more than one distinct phrasal expression. It arises because the same expressions can combine differently syntactically, resulting in distinct phrases that happen to have the same form.

Question 34

Morphosyntax

Answer 34

The name for syntax and morphology considered jointly as a single component of grammar.

Question 35

Syntax

Answer 35

A component of mental grammar that deals with constructing phrasal expressions out of smaller expressions. Also a name for the sub-field of linguistics that studies how expressions can combine to form larger expressions.

Question 36

Grammatical

Answer 36

A term used to describe a sentence that is in accordance with the descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially syntactic rules. When some phrasal expression is constructed in accordance with the syntactic rules of a language, we say it is grammatical or syntactically well-formed.

Question 37

Ungrammatical

Answer 37

Not in accordance with the descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially syntactic rules. When some phrasal expression is not constructed in accordance with the syntactic rules of a language, we say it is ungrammatical or syntactically ill-formed.

Question 38

Syntactic properties

Answer 38

Properties of linguistic expressions that dictate how they can syntactically combine with other expressions, namely, word order and co-occurrence properties.

Question 39

Co-occurrence

Answer 39

The set of syntactic properties that determines which expressions may or have to co-occur with some other expressions in a sentence.

Question 40

Prepositional phrase

Answer 40

The name of a syntactic category that consists of those expressions that contain a preposition and a noun phrase. It can be a verb phrase adjuncts or noun adjuncts.