新编简明英语语言学教程思维导图Chapter 4 Syntax

新编简明英语语言学教程思维导图Chapter 4 Syntax：Categories、Phrase structure rule、Transformation……

Syntax

• Categories
  • Definition
    • A fundamental fact about words in all human languages is that they can be grouped together into a relatively small number of classes, called syntactic categories.
  • Word-level categories
    • major lexical categories
      • Classification
        • Noun (N)
        • Verb (V)
        • Adjective (A)
        • Preposition (P)
    • minor lexical categories
      • Classification
        • Determiner (Det)
        • Degree word (Deg)
        • Qualifier (Qual)
        • Auxiliary (Aux)
        • Conjunction (Con)
    • three criteria
      • meaning
        • The meanings associated with nouns and verbs can be elaborated in various ways.The property or attribute of the entities denoted by nouns can be elaborated by adjectives.
      • inflection
      • distribution
        • a word’s distributional facts together with information about its meaning and inflectional capabilities help identify its syntactic category.
  • Phrase categories and their stucture
    • Classification
      • noun phrase (NP)
      • verb phrase (VP)
      • adjective phrase (AP)
      • prepositional phrase (PP)
    • Definition
      • Syntactic units that are built around a certain word category are called phrases,the category of which is determined by the word category around which the phrase is built.
• Phrase structure rule
  • Definition
    • The special grammatical mechanisms that can regulate the constituent phrase are called the phrase structure rules .
  • The phrase structure rule for NP, VP, AP, and PP can be written as follows: NP → (Det) N (PP) … VP → (Qual) V (NP) … AP → (Deg) A (PP) … NP → (Deg) P (NP) … The arrow can be read as “consists of” or “branches into”. The parentheses mean that the element in them is optional and the three dots in each rule indicate that other complement options are available.
  • Classification
    • XP rule
      • X stands for the head N, V, A or P.
      • The XP rule: XP → (specifier) X (complement)
    • Coordination rule
      • Definition
        • Some structures are formed by joining two or more elements of the same type with the help of a conjunction such as and and or. Such phrases are called coordinate structures and this phenomenon is known as coordination.
      • Four important properties
        • First, there is no limit on the number of coordinated categories that can appear prior to the conjunction.
        • Second, a category at any level (a head or an entire XP) can be coordinated.
        • Third, coordinated categories must be of the same type.
        • Fourth, the category type of the coordinate phrase is identical to the category type of the elements being conjoined
      • The coordination rule can be formulated as below: X → X *Con X
        • The symbol X stands for “a category at any structural level”, indicating that either an X or an XP can be coordinated. The asterisk (*) indicates that one or more categories can occur to the left of the Con (=conjunction).
• Transformation
  • Auxiliary movement
    • The auxiliary is the head of a sentence which takes a VP category as its complement on the right and an NP, the subject, as its specifier on the left.
    • yes-no questions have an auxiliary verb to the left of the subject.The yes-no question structures being considered are built in two steps.
      • In the first stop, the usual XP rule is used to form a structure in which the auxiliary occupies its normal position in Infl, between the subject and the VP.
      • The second step in forming a yes-no question requires a transformation, a special type of rule that can move an element from one position to another.
    • In the case we are considering, a transformation known as inversion moves the auxiliary from the Infl position to a position to the left of the subject.
      • Inversion Move Infl to the left of the subject NP.
      • Inversion (revised) Move Infl to C.
  • Do insertion
    • Do insertion Insert interrogative do into an empty Infl position.
      • After the auxiliary do is inserted into the Infl position, the inversion transformation can be made by moving the interrogative do into the C position.
  • deep structure&surface structure
    • deep structure
    • surface structure
      • • The XP rule ↓ DEEP STRUCTURE ← (Subcategorization restricts choice of complements) ↓ Transformation ↓ SURFACE STRUCTURE
  • Wh Movement
    • Move the wh phrase to the beginning of the sentence
    • Wh Movement (revised): Move a wh phrase to the specifier position under CP.
      • The position occupied by the wh phrase in deep structure is therefore not lost. Rather, it remains as a trace, indicating that the moved element corresponds to the complement of the verb speak and the preposition about in the above examples.
  • move α and constraints on transformations
    • Move α, where “alpha” is a cover term for any element that can be moved from one place to another.
      • Inversion can move an auxiliary from the Infl to the nearest C position.
      • b)No element may be removed from a coordinate structure.
• Sentense(the S rule)
  • The S rule: S → NP VP
    • It combines an NP (often called the subject) with a VP to yield a sentence
    • Sentences have the same internal structure as other phrases and are consistent with the XP rule outlined earlier. Thus, there is no need for the special S rule.
    • Sentence head—Infl position can be taken by an abstract category encoded in a verb which indicates the sentence’s tense or an auxiliary
• Phrase element
  • Specifiers
    • Specifiers have both special semantic and syntactic rules
      • Semantically, they help make more precise the meaning of the head.
      • Syntactically, they typically mark a phrase boundary.
      • In English, specifiers occur at the left boundary of their respective phrases.
    • The syntactic category of the specifier differs depending on the category of the head.
      • If the heads are Ns, the specifiers are determiners.
      • If the heads are Vs, the specifiers are qualifiers.
      • If the heads are As or Ps, then the specifiers are degree words.
  • Complements
    • Definition
      • Complements are themselves phrases and provide information about entities and locations whose existence is implied by the meaning of the head,they are attached to the right of the head in English.
    • Examples
      • Put it on the wall
        • The information about a word’s complement is included in the head and termed subcategorization. Subcategorization information together with the phrase structure rules ensures that lexical items appear in the appropriate types of tree structures. A certain lexical item requires a certain type of complement.we can revise our earlier XP rule as follows, using an asterisk after the complement to indicate that one or more of these elements is permitted.
          • The XP Rule (revised)
            • XP → (Specifier) X (Complement*)
              • This rule captures the simple but important fact that complements, however many they are, occur to the right of the head in English.In English, sometimes a sentence-like construction functions as a complement such as the one below.
      • Miss Hebert believes that she will win.
        • The sentence introduced by the complementizer is called a complement clause， the whole underlined part in the above sentence is called a complement phrase (shortened as CP) and the construction in which the complement phrase is embedded is called matrix clause.
          • CP
            • There is no limit on the number of embedded clauses that can occur in a sentence since each complement can contain a verb that itself permits a complement CP.
              • Words that can take CP are not verbs alone; As, Ns and Ps can all take CP.
  • Modifiers
    • Modifiers, which specifiers optionally expressible properties of heads.
    • The most common modifiers of Ns are adjective phrases and those of verbs are adverb phrases and prepositional phrases which describe manner and time. Modifiers in English vary in terms of their position with respect to the head.
    • To make modifiers fit into the phrase structure, the original XP rule can be expanded as follows so that it allows the various options.
      • The Expanded XP rule: XP → (Spec)(Mod) X (Complement*)(Mod)
        • his rule allows a modifier to occur either before the head or after it. Where there is a complement, a modifier that occurs after the head will normally occur to the right of the complement as well.
• Definition
  • Syntax is the branch of linguistics that studies the rules that govern the formation of sentences.