Chapter 5

Question 1

syntax

Answer 1

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

Question 2

linguistic expression

Answer 2

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

Question 3

grammatical

Answer 3

A term used to describe a sentence that is in accordance with the descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially syntactic rules.

Question 4

ungrammatical

Answer 4

Not in accordance with the descriptive grammatical rules of some language, especially syntactic rules.

Question 5

grammaticality judgment

Answer 5

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 6

subject

Answer 6

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

Question 7

object

Answer 7

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

Question 8

principle of compositionality

Answer 8

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 9

lexical expression

Answer 9

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

Question 10

phrasal expression

Answer 10

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

Question 11

syntactic properties

Answer 11

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

Question 12

word order

Answer 12

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 13

co-occurrence

Answer 13

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

Question 14

topicalization

Answer 14

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

Question 15

argument

Answer 15

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

Question 16

complement

Answer 16

A non-subject argument of some expression.

Question 17

adjunct

Answer 17

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

Question 18

agreement

Answer 18

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 19

morphosyntax

Answer 19

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 20

cleft

Answer 20

A type of sentence that has the general form “It is/was X that Y’, e.g. ‘It was Sally that I wanted to meet’. Can be used as a constituency test.

Question 21

conjunct

Answer 21

An argument of a coordinating conjunction such as ‘and’ or ‘or’.

Question 22

syntactic category

Answer 22

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

Question 23

syntactic distribution

Answer 23

Refers to the set of syntactic environments in which an expression can occur.

Question 24

sentence

Answer 24

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

Question 25

noun phrase (NP)

Answer 25

The name of a syntactic category that consists of proper names, pronouns, and all other expressions with the same syntactic distribution.

Question 26

noun

Answer 26

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category. Syntactically, consists of expressions that can combine with determiners to their left, the resulting expression being of the category noun phrase.

Question 27

determiner

Answer 27

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as ‘the’, ‘a’, ‘this’, ‘all’, etc. 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 28

adjective

Answer 28

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

Question 29

verb phrase (VP)

Answer 29

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

Question 30

intransitive verb

Answer 30

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

Question 31

transitive verb

Answer 31

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 a verb phrase; a verb that needs a noun phrase complement.

Question 32

ditransitive verb

Answer 32

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 33

sentential complement verb

Answer 33

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 34

adverb

Answer 34

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as ‘quickly’, ‘well’, ‘furiously’, etc. Syntactically, adverbs can be verb phrase adjuncts.

Question 35

verb phrase adjunct

Answer 35

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 36

noun adjunct

Answer 36

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

Question 37

prepositional phrase (PP)

Answer 37

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 38

preposition

Answer 38

The name of a lexical category and a syntactic category that consists of expressions such as ‘of’, ‘in’, ‘for’, ‘with’, etc. 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 prepositional phrase.

Question 39

lexicon

Answer 39

A mental repository of linguistic information about words and other lexical expressions, including their form, meaning, and morphological and syntactic properties.

Question 40

lexical entry

Answer 40

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