Syntax Flashcards
(147 cards)
1
Q
The language faculty
A
language learning is innate, known as nativism
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Q
Synchronic analysis
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looks at the rules and properties of a language at the given point in time
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Diachronic Analysis
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looks at how the rules may have changed over time by comparing uses of the language at different points in time
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Linguistic variation
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different languages have different syntactic structures, must consider wide range of languages to see in what ways they are the same
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Q
Ditransitive
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a verb or a clause with 3 core arguments
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Q
promotion/demotion
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refer to the closeness of the relationship between the noun phrase and the verb
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Functionalist Perspective
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Believe that sentences are derived and retrieved by memory
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Q
Generative Perspective
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Assume language is generated on the spot
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Garden Path Sentences
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a sentence in which structural cues, lexical ambiguity or a combination of both mislead the reader or listener into an incorrect syntactic interpretation until a disambiguating cue appears
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Garden Path sentence Ex.
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the complex houses married and single soldiers and their families
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open word classes
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Allow new members to be added (generally nouns and verbs)
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Closed word classes
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have a finite number of members (English prepositions)
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Q
Lexical
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conveys semantic meaning (Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)
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Functional
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serve to indicate grammatical relationships among other words (relativizer that)
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Some word classes aren’t found in English
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Classifiers and postpositions
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Verbs
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conveys the predicate of the sentence (what is being asserted)
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Intransitive Verbs
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takes one argument
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Transitive verbs
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take two or more arguments
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(Mono)transitive
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takes two arguments
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Ditransitive
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takes 3 arguments
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ambitransitive
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can behave as transitive or intransitive
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Aspect
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the grammatical category that expresses whether an action is ongoing or completed
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Perfective (aspect)
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an event viewed in its entirety (not the same as perfect)
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Imperfective (aspect)
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an event viewed as ongoing (habitual, progressive, iterative-repeated action, and many others)
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some verbs carry intrinsic information on temporal structure
snap, sneeze (punctual)
Deteriorate, ooze (durative)
Crackle, wag (iterative)
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Mood
grammatical category that signals the reality status of the even reported, it allows speaker to express their attitude toward what they are saying
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realis
type of mood that expresses an event that did or didn't take place (indicative)
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Irrealis
type of mood that expresses an event that is not known to have happened (subjunctive, imperative, hortative, conditional, interrogative)
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evidentiality
the grammatical category that signals the source of information about an event or assertion
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Attributive Adjective
uses an adjective combines in a noun phrase (Red Car)
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Predicative Adjective
uses the adjective to express the predicate, perhaps in conjunction with copula
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copula
a word or phrase that connects the subject to a subject complement (often to be verb) (The car is red)
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Comparison Adjectives
Comparative, superlative, Equative
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Comparative adjectives
cooler, more frigid
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Superlative
Coolest, most frigid
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Equative
llawn-ed- as full as (welsh)
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Finiteness
a functional category that indicates whether a verbal predicate works as an independent clause or not
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Nonfiniteness
typical nonfinite forms are infinitives, action nominals, participles, converbs
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Infinitives
complement clause
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Converbs
Adverbial clause
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Participles
relative clauses
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Coordination
aka parataxis yields structural independence and equivalence for the clauses (can be interpreted independently)
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subordination
aka hypotaxis yields structural dependency and non-equivalence (matrix clause and adjunct clause or complement clause)
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Relative Clauses
optional clauses that modify a noun
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Nominal complement clauses
serve to complete the meaning of a noun or express its content (doesn't fulfill an argument or an adjunct role in the subordinate clause) Ex. The news [that she was dead] shocked us all
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Verbal Complement Clause
serve to complete the meaning of a verb, the subordinate clause that fulfills the argument position
Ex. He never expected [That she would come]
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Adverbial Clauses
optional clausal modifiers that typically modify a verb or a whole clause
typically add a wide range of of meanings, including time manner, location, etc.
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syndetic
clause linking with a linking word
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Asyndetic
linking without a linking word
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Complementizer
typically introduces complement clauses and nothing else
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Subordinator
introduces different types of subordinate clause
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Conjunctions
can be used to link noun phrases or clauses [Charlie arrived early] and [Ari was half an hour late]
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Insubordination
subordinate but used alone in a main clause Ex. Perhaps if you could tell me a little bit about your own father
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Phrase
a group of words that act together as a a grammatical unit
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Head
the nucleus of a phrase; the word doing the heavy lifting (if the phrase only has one word it is the head)
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Head-marking languages
mark the relationship between the head and dependent on the head
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Dependent marking languages
mark the relationship between the head and the dependent on the dependent
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zero marking languages
do not mark the relationship between the head and dependent
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Double marking languages
Marking on the head and dependent to mark the relationship between the head and dependent
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Agent
deliberate performer of an action
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patient
concretely affected, changed
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theme
moved to a different location
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Recipient
receives theme
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Beneficiary
benefits from action
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Experiencer
experience sensation, thought or emotion
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Stimulus
causes sensation, thought or emotion
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Instrument
used by agent to perform action
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Flagging
a cover term for dependent marking on the clause level
- typically takes the form of case marking or adpositions
-triggered by the verb to signal its relationship with the dependents
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indexing
head marking at the clause level
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S
sole argument of an intransitive verb
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A
Agent like argument of a transitive verb
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O/P
object/patient like argument of a transitive verb
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Nominative-Accusative alignment
the subject of transitive verbs (A) is expressed like the subject of intransitive verbs(S)
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Ergative-Absolutive alignment
the object of a transitive verb (O/P) is expressed like the subject of intransitive verb(S) (if one case is zero marked it will be absolutive)
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Split ergativity
some languages use ergative alignment in one set of environments and accusative in another set
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Adjunct Clauses
are always optional and typically provide additional information such as; appearance, location or manner
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complement clauses
typically obligatory and have a closer relationship with their heads
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Branching
reflects the parsing that speakers carry out to identify the heads inside phrasees
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right-branching languages
the head is found in the left most position(head initial) (the tree grows to the right)
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left branching languages
the head is found in the right most position(head-final
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head final languages are more likely to have...
postpositions, adjectives and relative clauses preceding nouns and auxiliaries following main verbs
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Head initial languages are more likely to have...
preposoitions, adj. and relative clauses following nouns and auxiliaries preceding main verbs
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head- marking
languages that mark the relationship between the head and the dependent on the head
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dependent marking
languages that mark the relationship between the head and the dependent on the dependent
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zero marking
languages do not mark the relationship between the head and the dependent
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Double marking
languages that mark on both the head and dependent
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Constituency tests
help determine whether a string of words forms a constituent
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Coordination (a constituency test)
only constituents of the same type can be coordinated
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Pronoun substitution (constituency test)
involves using a pronoun in place of a phrase
- kim wrote the book with the blue cover
- kim wrote it *with the blue cover
- kim wrote the book with her first wages
-kim bought it with her first wages
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Do so substitution (constituency test)
this test is widely used to probe the structure of strings containing verbs (limited in is applicability)
- we met them in the pub because we had time
- we did so because we had time
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topicalization(constituency test)
many languages allow marked word order to express emphasis usually with a different intonation pattern
- I wont eat that pizza
- that pizza, I wont eat
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Answer ellipsis (constituency test)
forming a question with a question word, if the test string can appear alone as the answer than it is likely a constituent
-old men drink carbonated sodas
- what do old men drink?
- carbonated soda
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clefting and pseudo clefting (constituency test)
clefting involves placing the string being tested within the structure(typically doesnt allow vp in cleft constructions)
- the hurricane destroyed the house
- what the hurricane destroyed was [the house].
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(VP) ellipsis (constituency test)
checks to see which strings contain one or more predicative elements can be elided from a sentence.
typically the portion we leave out must be a constituent
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Passivization
by converting an active sentence into a passive we can test if what we think are subject and object are indeed constituents. this can be useful for constituents with several dependents.
- the black cat with the white whiskers chased the gray mouse with the long tail
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Echo question (constituency test)
It is a type of direct question that repeats part or all of something that someone else has just said
typically the question word remains in situ(place)
the words replaced by the question word is likely to be constituent
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Are constituents universal?
unclear, constituent structure varies cross linguistically
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N-bar notation
Certain tests reveal intermediate constituents all headed by the same word
- this ugly one with ten colors (np)
- this ugly one
- this one
falls under the X-bar theory, rather than specific rules for, np, vp, pp they are all just examples of xp (generativism)
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Valency
number of core arguments a verb has
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Applicative
S->A+P
adding an object/patient
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Causative
S->A+ P
adding an agent
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Antipassive
A+P->S
removing a patient
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Passive
A+P->S
removing an agent
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Core argument
required by the verb, typically subjects and objects
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oblique arguments
(or adjuncts) not required by the verb
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neutral alignment
S=A=O/P
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Tripartite alignment
A , S, and O/P are all marked differently
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Horizontal alignment
A=O/P and S is different than both
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Compositionality
if language is generated, syntax will still be about how we put words together to make units
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idiomaticity
if language is retrieved syntactic units become form meaning pairs that include intonational information, pragmatic context, etc.
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Argument focus
extends over one participant in the sentence
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Focus
the informatic news contrary to expectation of information
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predicate focus
augments information about a particular referent
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Topic
corresponds to the non-informative known, predictable information
often definite, animate, and first/second person
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Referent
characterized by different semantic properties
- definiteness
- Specificity
- Person
- Animacy
- Humanness
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Cleft sentences (topicality)
ex. He didn't say that. What he said was that he was leaving.
Discursively, the cleft orients the listener to what is old (topic) and
what is new (focus)—i.e., what they should be paying attention to
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Passive voice (topicality)
The soldiers are being trained by the green berets.
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lexical NP's
more likely to appear as the S argument of an intransitive than as an o/p, and last as an A argument of a transitive
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Decoding Idioms
not semantically transparent- they have to be decoded as a unit
- kick the bucket
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Encoding Idioms
semantically transparent and may be understood on the first hearing
- wide awake
- answer the door
but wouldn't necessarily know that is how to convey the meaning unless you've heard it before.
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Grammatical idioms
follow the usual rules of grammar
-spill the beans
-put him out to pasture
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Extragrammatical idioms
do not follow the usual rules of grammar
- by and large
- all of a sudden
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idioms with pragmatic force
have a clear pragmatic function
- how do you do?
- What's your car doing in my parking space?
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Substantive Idioms
are lexically specified they are composed of specific lexical items
- kick the bucket, not kick the mop
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Formal idioms
are not lexically specified but rather syntactic frames
- Harry won't walk to the mall, let alone go up Mt Baldy
- I doubt that harry can ride a bike, let alone a horse
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the way construction
Frank dug his way out of prison
frank found his way to NY
X moves along a path Y by doing V despite difficulty
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Which word class is most likely to express evidentiality?
verb
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What is the semantic role of the stick in the following sentence:
the stick was used to crack open the can
instrument
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what category do we call a verb that does not inflect for all the normal verbal categories?
Non-finite
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What do we call a dependent that is optional and not selected by the head?
Adjunct
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What do e call a clause that may have other clauses embedded within it, but is not itself embedded in any other clauses? (Three possible answers, point for each one)
Root/independent/main
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What do we call it when two clauses are conjoined but neither is subordinate to the other
Coordination
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What do we call it when a sentence has more than one possible constituency structure?
Structural/syntactic ambiguity
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According to the textbook, what word class other than verb can be transitive or instransitive?
preposition/adposition
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what are the tow most common clausal constituent orders?
SOV and SVO
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In an ergative absolutive language, which case marks the A?
Ergative
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What valency-changing operations can turn an Ergative argument into an Absolutive argument?
Antipassive and causative
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How does English generally form causatives?
Lexically
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What do we call the syntactic operation that demotes the S but does not promote any other argument to S?
Impersonal construction
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Why do we have valency-changing operations?
To (de-) emphasize a participant
For information structure
To "feed" other syntactic operations
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What do we call the (empty) original position of a constituent that has (allegedly) undergone movement?
Gap
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What position is relativized in the following sentence: I used to see him in the store that wal-mart is cheaper than
Object of comparison
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Give the full Accessibility Hierarchy in order.
Subject
Direct Object
Object of adposition
Possessor
Object of comparison
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which article that we read showed that syntactic phenomena can be subject to sociolinguistic variation?
Upadhya/Gender agreement in Nepal
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What were the two types of frequency in the bybee and thompson article?
Token and type
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Cross-linguistically, which patient-like argument in a ditransitive is more
likely to be animate and definite?
Recipient
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