Syntax Application

Question 1

tree diagram

Answer 1

structure used to show which words are grouped together into natural units within other natural units in a hierarchical arrangement/speakers mentally represent sentences as a complex structure with internal organization

Question 2

constituents

Answer 2

subunits/subtrees of the sentence

Question 3

node

Answer 3

a place where the branches of the tree/subtree meets

Question 4

“stand alone” test

Answer 4

if a group of words can stand alone, they are a constituent

Question 5

“replacement by a pronoun” test

Answer 5

if a group of words can be replaced by a pronoun/word like “do,” it forms a constituent

Question 6

“move-as-a-unit” test

Answer 6

if a group of words can be moved together & remain grammatical, they form a constituent

Question 7

constituent structure

Answer 7

all constituents in the sentence

Question 8

ambiguous

Answer 8

used to describe sentences where it has two or more meanings

Question 9

lexical ambiguity

Answer 9

when a word has more than one meaning

Question 10

structural ambiguity

Answer 10

when a sentence has more than one tree structure associated with it

Question 11

generate

Answer 11

technical term for describe/specify

Question 12

phrase/constituent structure tree

Answer 12

a tree diagram with syntactic category information

Question 13

what do phrase/constituent structure tree represent?

Answer 13

the linear order of the words in the sentence, identification of syntactic categories of words & groups of words, hierarchical structure of syntactic categories

Question 14

dominate

Answer 14

what every higher node does to all the categories beneath it

Question 15

immediately dominate

Answer 15

what a node does to the category right below it

Question 16

sisters

Answer 16

categories that are immediately dominated by the same node

Question 17

phrase structure (PS) rules

Answer 17

capture knowledge that speakers have about the possible structures of a language/template that a tree must match to be grammatical

Question 18

embedded sentence

Answer 18

a sentence within a sentence/often dependent phrases that were once independent

Question 19

head

Answer 19

a lexical category that is the core of the phrase

Question 20

complements

Answer 20

sister categories that occurs next to the head/elaborates the meaning of the head

Question 21

what is necessary in the phrase?

Answer 21

head/complements are optional

Question 22

intransitive verb

Answer 22

verb that does not require a direct object to indicate the person/thing acted upon

Question 23

C-selection/subcategorization

Answer 23

information about the complement types selected by particular verbs & other lexical items/included in lexical entries in our mental lexicon

Question 24

S-selection

Answer 24

a specification that imposes certain semantic requirements on its subjects & complements

Question 25

specifiers

Answer 25

an element preceding the head

Question 26

X-bar (x̄) schema

Answer 26

template/blueprint that specifies how the phrases of a language are organized/how PS rules are formed

Question 27

subject-verb agreement

Answer 27

where the verb must agree with the subject

Question 28

linear agreement rule

Answer 28

the verb must agree with the head of the subject regardless of the number of words between the head noun and the verb

Question 29

structure dependent agreement rule

Answer 29

the verb agrees in person & number with the subject of the sentence where subject is NP immediately dominated by S

Question 30

declarative sentences

Answer 30

the sentence must assert some information

Question 31

yes-no questions

Answer 31

sentence is asking for a confirmation of the information

Question 32

Aux inversion

Answer 32

an example of the transformational rule/when an auxiliary verb switches places with its subject

Question 33

transformational rule

Answer 33

converting one phrase marker into another

Question 34

deep structures/d-structures

Answer 34

basic structures of sentences

Question 35

surface structures/s-structures

Answer 35

variants of the basic sentence structures/the ones that follow the application of transformational rules

Question 36

wh- questions

Answer 36

who, what, when, where, which questions

Question 37

spell-out rules

Answer 37

rules that convert inflectional features (like past tense/third-person present tense) into their proper phonological forms