语言学第四章
Chapter 4 Syntax
Teaching aims: enable students to understand and describe the internal structures of sentences
Focal points: different treatment of sentence structure by different linguistic schools
Teaching difficulties: IC analysis, deep structure, surface structure, tree diagram
Teaching procedure
Syntax is the study of how words combine to form sentences and the rules which govern the formation of sentences.
Since sentence is usually regarded as the largest grammatical unit of a language, syntax has long been the center of grammatical study. In this chapter, we introduce some of the representative approaches to syntax.
4.1 The traditional approach
The traditional approach is based on the earlier grammars of Latin or Greek (the traditional grammar is a grammar of prescription).
4.1.1? Sentences and categories
The traditional view of a sentence: “a series of words in connected speech or writing, forming the grammatically complete expression of a single thought”.
Lexical categories: part of speech ( n, v, adj, det. etc.)
Syntactic categories: usually refers to a word or a phrase that performs a particular grammatical function. (subject, predicate, object etc.)
Grammatical category: a class or group of items which fulfill the same or similar functions in a language. (Number, gender, case: for nouns, pronouns; Tense, aspect, voice: for verbs)
4.1.2 Concord and Government
Concord: agreement. The requirement that the forms of two or more words in a syntactic relationship should agree with each other in terms of some categories.
a book, this book, some books, three books
He speaks English. They speak English
Government: is a type of control over the form of some words by other words in certain syntactic constructions. It is a relationship in which a word of a certain class determines the form of others in terms of certain category.
She gave him a book; She gave a book to him.
? (the governor/ the governed)
4.2 The structural approach
The origin: the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, “father/founder of modern linguistics” ; The beginning of the 20th century, Course in General Linguistics.
The structural approach: regards linguistic units as interrelated with each other in a structure or system.
Structuralism or structural linguistics is a term used in linguistics referring to any approach to the analysis of language that pays explicit attention to the way in which linguistic features can be described in terms of structures and systems.
4.2.1 Syntagmatic & paradigmatic relations
boy
girl
The child is smiling.
farmer
old man
Syntagmatic relation
(structure, horizontal, chain ) 组合关系
a relation between one item and others in a sequence (the sequential arrangement of words in a language.)
There are syntactic and semantic conditions that the words in a syntagmatic relation must meet.
The boy kicked the ball.
? Boy the ball kicked the.
? The ball kicked the boy.
Paradigmatic relation
(system, associative, vertical, choice)
聚合关系
A relation holding between elements replaceable (syntacticly, not semantically) with each other at a particular place in a structure.
The two relations together, like the two axes of a coordinate, determine the identity of a linguistic sign. 聚合关系和组合关系一起共同确立一个语言单位在语言系统中的特征。
4.2.2 Immediate Constituent (IC) analysis
The linear structure of sentence is concerned with the word order of sentences: the sequence in which grammatical elements such as subject, verb, and object occur in sentences.
The hierarchical structure of sentence
A sentence can be analyzed into constituents. Conversely, constituents at different levels can combine to form increasingly larger units.
?
The hierarchical structure of sentence
?
sentences sentences
are analyzed into are used to built
clauses clauses
are analyzed into are used to built
phrases phrases
are analyzed into are used to build
words words
are analyzed into are used to build
morphemes morphemes
?
Immediate constituent analysis
The technique of breaking up sentences into smaller units by making successive binary cutting is called Immediate Constituent (IC) Analysis
It reveals the hierarchical relations, as well as sequential/ linear relations, among words or groups of words in a sentence.
Construction: any linguistic form which is composed of constituents and is able to be segmented. A construction may be a sentence, a word group or a word. In other words, a construction is a relationship between constituents
Constituent: component elements in a construction.
Immediate constituents: constituents immediately, directly, below the level of construction.
Ultimate constituent: the smallest grammatical unit obtained through segmentation.
For the sake of convenience, we usually stop at the level of word
How to do it? (with brackets or tree diagram)
Criterion to identify an immediate constituent: substitutability
Poor John ran away.
Its advantages
Leave the book on the shelf
Its problems
Is John coming? (construction with discontinuous constituents)
the love of God
4.2.3 Endocentric and exocentric constructions
Distribution: the positions or contexts in which a particular unit of language (e.g., a word) can occur.
Head: the central part of a phrase. The central element which is distributionally (functionally) equivalent to the phrase as a whole.
e.g. the fat lady in the park
Endocentric construction
（向心结构）Headed construction
Subordinate constructions: endocentric constructions in which there is only one head, with the head being dominant and the other const
ructions dependent. Noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases.
Coordinate constructions: endocentric constructions in which there are more than one head, and they are of equal syntactic status, with no one dependent on the other. In other words, both are capable of serving as the head.
Exocentric construction
（离心结构）A group of syntactically related words where none of the words is functionally equivalent to the group as a whole. (There is no definable ‘center’ or head inside the group.)
The basic sentence structure: The man fell
Subordinate clause: If he is going
Prepositional phrase: on the table
Verb + Object: kick the ball
Verb + adjective: seemed angry
4.3?The generative approach
Originated with American linguist Noam Chomsky
4.3.1 Deep and surface structures
Each sentence is considered to have two levels of structures.
Deep structure: The underlying level of structural organization displaying all the factors that govern how it should be interpreted.
Surface structure: The syntactic structure of a sentence we actually articulate or hear. It is the final stage in the syntactic derivation of a sentence.
This distinction is used to explain the alternative interpretations of sentences which have the same surface structure but are related to different deep structures.
Flying planes can be dangerous (Planes which fly…/To fly planes…)
The shooting of the hunters was terrible.
The love of God.
He is anxious to teach. He is eager to please.
He is difficult to teach. He is easy to please.
This distinction is also used to relate sentences that have different surface structures but the same deep structure, as in the case of active and passive sentences.
4.3.2 PS-rules and T-rules
How does grammar work?
Grammar operates by generating a set of abstract deep structures, and then converting these underlying representations into surface structures by applying a set of transformational rules.
PS-rules
The special type of grammatical mechanism that regulates the arrangement of elements that make up a phrase is called a phrase structure rule.
The phrase structure component has phrase structure rules (PS rules, rewrite rules, categorical rules) for the generation of deep structure:
S NP + VP
VP V + NP
NP Det + N
Det the, a, this, that, …
N man, tree, …
V hit, took, …
?
a.S the N V DET N
b.S the dog V DET N
c.S the dog chased DET N
d.S the dog chased the N
e.S the dog chased the cat
Transformational rules (T-rules)
The transformational component has transformational rules, which change the deep structures generated by the phrase structure component into surface structures.
NP1 + Aux +V + NP2
John + will + finish + the paper.
NP2 + Aux + be +en + V + by + NP1
The paper + will + be + en + finish + by + John
?
4.3.3 The Standard Theory
Aspects of the Theory
of Syntax (1965)
4.3.3.1 Why?
Ill-formed vs. well-formed sentences:
John drinks wine.
Wine drinks John.
Passive forms:
John married Mary.
Mary was married by John.
John resembles his father.
His father was resembled by John.
Language is seen as consisting of three major parts: syntax, semantic, phonology
The syntactic component is made up of the base component and the transformational component.
The base component: categories and lexicon
Category: a concept such as a sentence, a noun phrase, a verb (That part of the base component of the grammar which specifies such syntactic categories as S, NP, VP.) . The category component contains rewriting rules more or less the same as the phrase structure rules in the classical model.
The Lexicon gives information about the class that a word belongs to, e.g. N, V, and information about the grammatical structures with which the word may occur. For example, the English verb sleep cannot have an object after it.
Sub-categorization (子语类化/次范畴化): features which specify further restrictions on the choice of lexical items in deep structure. Subcategorization can ensure the generation of sentences like a week elapsed, but not The boy elapsed n.
Selectional restrictions: constraints on what lexical items can combine with what others. They govern the selection of lexical items for insertion into deep structures.
The semantic component makes semantic interpretations on the deep structure, and the phonological component makes phonological interpretations on the surface structure.
4.4 The functional approach