Syntax

Question 1

syntax

Answer 1

rules concerned with the structure of sentences

Question 2

grammar

Answer 2

the complete system of phonological, morphological, syntac-
tic and semantic information and rules that speakers of a given language possess

Question 3

constituents

Answer 3

in analogy to structural units
in phonology and morphology, we will call syntactic units constituents

Question 4

phrases

Answer 4

more syntax-specific terminology

Question 5

pronominalisation

Answer 5

that is the substitution of a constituent by a pronoun

Question 6

pro-form

Answer 6

used interchangeably with the established term pronoun

Question 7

wh-pronoun

Answer 7

Returning to our pronominalisation
test, we can see that in the string “every morning”

Question 8

movement

Answer 8

a string of words can be
moved to other sentential positions, it is proof of the string’s being a constituent

Question 9

coordination test

Answer 9

according to which it is
only constituents that can be coordinated by the coordinating conjunction
“and”

Question 10

gapping

Answer 10

The tag question leaves a gap, in which we could insert the missing string

Question 11

sentence-fragment test

Answer 11

types of string can form possible sentence fragments which speakers can
use to, for example, answer a question.

Question 12

structural ambiguity

Answer 12

in cases in which different interpretations arise through
different sentence structures assigned to the same strings of words

Question 13

head

Answer 13

the most important element of a phrase

Question 14

noun phrases

Answer 14

i.e. of phrases headed by a noun.

Question 15

prepositional
phrases

Answer 15

a modifying phrase consisting of a preposition and its object

Question 16

adjective phrases

Answer 16

a group of words that include an adjective that modifies a noun or pronoun

Question 17

verb phrases

Answer 17

the part of a sentence containing the verb and any direct or indirect object, but not the subject.

Question 18

adverb phrases

Answer 18

An adverb phrase consists of one or more words.

Question 19

projects

Answer 19

Syntacticians say that the
head projects its properties onto the phrase as a whole

Question 20

word-classes

Answer 20

Things like
adjectives, nouns, verbs, prepositions.

Question 21

syntactic categories

Answer 21

Things like
adjectives, nouns, verbs, prepositions.

Question 22

parts-of-speech

Answer 22

things like
adjectives, nouns, verbs, prepositions.

Question 23

lexical categories

Answer 23

things like
adjectives, nouns, verbs, prepositions.

Question 24

determiners

Answer 24

Along the same lines we can state that the words like my, this and the, form a larger class (with different subclasses, such as definite and indefinite articles, possessives and demonstratives).

Question 25

phrase structure rules

Answer 25

These considerations have led syntacticians to develop whole gram- mars on the basis of rules that build syntactic structures.

Question 26

subordinate clauses

Answer 26

the possibility to have sentences inside sentences.

Question 27

clause

Answer 27

a syntactic unit that con- sists minimally of a verb phrase and its subject.

Question 28

Sentences

Answer 28

defined as the largest syntactic units and they are made up of one or more clauses

Question 29

matrix clause

Answer 29

consisting of two clauses, a superordinate clause

Question 30

main clause

Answer 30

A term that is potentially competing with ‘matrix clause’

Question 31

predicate

Answer 31

term used in a number of different ways in traditional grammar, school grammar books and formal linguistics. For example, in ancient grammar ‘predicate’ refers to everything in a sentence apart from the subject.

Question 32

subject-verb agreement

Answer 32

a syntactic process which requires subject and verb to share the same person and number features.

Question 33

transitive verbs

Answer 33

Verbs that need an object

Question 34

intransitive verbs

Answer 34

Verbs that dont need an object

Question 35

ditransitive verbs

Answer 35

Verbs that have two objects

Question 36

direct object

Answer 36

One of the objects denotes an entity that undergoes the action or process denoted by the verb.

Question 37

indirect object

Answer 37

the recipient or the beneficiary of the event denoted by the verb

Question 38

adverbial (or adjunct)

Answer 38

Traditionally, adverbials are de- fined as constituents that provide information about the circumstances of the action denoted by the verb and its subject and object(s)

Question 39

complement

Answer 39

There is, therefore, a more general term used in linguistics for such semantically and structurally highly dependent sister constituents of heads: complement.

Question 40

predicative complements

Answer 40

the notion of ‘object’ does not really fit, and the complements of verbs are therefore called by a different name: predicative complements.