Chapter 5

Question 1

Grammaticality Judgement

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Cleft

Answer 2

A type sentence that has the general for It is/It was X that Y, e.g. It was sally that I wanted to meet. Can be used as a constituency test.

Question 3

Object

Answer 3

A noun phrase that usually occurs immediately to the right of the verb in English. A noun phrase complement.

Question 4

Sentence

Answer 4

A syntactic category that consists of all phrasal expressions that can grammatically occur in Sally thinks that _____.

Question 5

Sentential Complement Verb

Answer 5

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 6

Verb Phrase

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Verb phrase adjunct

Answer 7

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 8

Word order

Answer 8

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 9

Argument

Answer 9

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, we say that Y is an argument of X.

Question 10

Agreement

Answer 10

The phenomenon by which certain expressions in a sentence (e.g. a verb and its subject) must be inflectionally marked for the same person, number, gender, etc.

Question 11

Adjectively

Answer 11

Syntactically, the category consists of those expressions that can be noun adjuncts or occur in between a determiner and a noun.

Question 12

Adjunct

Answer 12

A linguistic expression whose occurrence in a sentence is optional; also called a modifier.

Question 13

Ditransitive Verb

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Determiner

Answer 14

Syntactically, consists of those expressions that when combined with an expression of a category noun to their right result in an expression of category noun phrase.

Question 15

Count noun

Answer 15

In simple terms, a noun that can be counted and pluralized.

Question 16

Co-occurrence

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Complement

Answer 17

A non-subject argument of some expression

Question 18

Morphosyntax

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Linguistic Expression

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Lexical expression

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Lexical Entry

Answer 21

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. A lexical entry has the form f to X where f is the form of some particular lexical expression, and X is its syntactic category.

Question 22

Lexical Ambiguity

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Intransitive Verb

Answer 23

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

Question 24

Homophony

Answer 24

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

Question 25

Preposition

Answer 25

Syntactically, this category consists of those expressions that when combined with an expression of category noun phrase to their right result in an expression of category noun phrase to their right result in an expression of category prepositional phrase.

Question 26

Prepositional Phrase

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Phrasal Expression

Answer 27

A linguistic expression that results from the syntactic combination of smaller expressions. A multi-word linguistic expression. A sentence is a special kind of phrasal expression.

Question 28

Phrase Structure Rule

Answer 28

A recipe for syntactically combining expressions of certain syntactic categories. Along with the lexicon, phrase structure categories. Along with the lexicon, phrase structure rules are a part of a descriptive grammar of some language.

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

Ungrammatical

Answer 30

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

Question 31

Syntactic category

Answer 31

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

Question 32

Syntactic Constituent

Answer 32

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 33

Syntactic Distribution

Answer 33

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

Question 34

Syntactic Properties

Answer 34

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

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

Topicalization

Answer 36

A syntactic process by which (In English) a syntactic constituent occurs at the beginning of a sentence in order to highlight the topic under discussion.

Question 37

Structural AMbiguity

Answer 37

The phenomenon where a single string of words (or morphemes) is the form of more that one distinct phrasal expression (or word), Arises because the same expressions can combine differently syntactically, resulting in distinct phrases that happen to have the same form.

Question 38

Subject

Answer 38

An expression, typically a noun phrase, that occurs to the left of the verb phrase in an English sentence

Question 39

Substitution

Answer 39

In syntax, a constituency test that involves replacing a constituent with a single word (or simple phrase) such as pro-form.

Question 40

Principle of compositionality

Answer 40

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.