File 5 Syntax Flashcards
(40 cards)
Grammar
refers to the complete system of phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic information and rules that speakers of a given language possess.
Syntax
The structure of sentences and the core of a languages grammar.
Constituents/Phrases
Syntactic units.
pronominalisation
the substitution of a constituent by a
pronoun.
Movement
a string of words can be moved to other sentential positions,
Coordination test
the third kind of test, constituents that can be coordinated by the coordinating conjunction and. This conjunction has the wonderful property of combining only constituents
of the same kind.
Gapping
gapping behaviour is a fourth kind of test, which
works with certain types of phrases
structural ambiguity
In which different interpretations arise through
different sentence structures assigned to the same strings of words.
Head (Linguistic Definition)
The most important element of a phrase.
Noun Phrases
Phrases headed by a noun.
Adjective Phrases
Phrases headed by Adjectives.
Verb Phrases
Phrases headed by Verbs.
Projections
When the head projects its properties onto the phrases as a whole.
word-classes
noun, a preposition, an adjective or a verb.
determiners
When my, this and the, form a larger class
phrase structure rules
Rules for phrase structure grammars to create sentences.
subordinate clauses
Sentences inside other sentences.
Clause
a syntactic unit that consists minimally of a verb phrase and its subject.
Sentences
the largest syntactic units and they are made up of one or more clauses.
matrix clause
a superordinate clause
main clause
which refers to clauses that can stand on their own.
Predicate
a predicate is that part of a sentence that says something about the subject.
subject-verb agreement
a syntactic process which requires
subject and verb to share the same person and number features.
Case Forms
forms that mark the grammatical function of noun phrases
in a sentence or phrase