Sentences are made up of parts, which are called ___constituents____.
Each of these parts has a _form_and a __function__.
Form = structure of a grammatical unit
This essay = NP (noun phrase)
Function = role of a grammatical unit
This essay is very long = subject
[ The dog ] [ chased [the cat] ]
[ The cat ] [ chased [the dog ]]
These sentences have the same number of
words but their meaning is not the same
= the parts of the sentence have different roles
Function = __role__
What is the role of the words in green?
__SUBJECT___ = "who carries out the action"
What is the role of the words in blue?
__PREDICATE__ = "specifies what the subject
does"
What kind of definitions are these?
SUBJECT = "who carries out the action" (AGENT)
PREDICATE= "specifies what the subject does"
____Semantic definitions___= those that refer to
the meaning of a constituent
Consider the following sentence and the semantic
definition of SUBJECT.
What do you observe?
The cat likes milk compare to: The cat chased the dog
The cat likes milk
The cat is also the SUBJECT.
The sentence contains a __stative__verb,
not a ___dynamic___ one.
Consider this example now:
There is a black cat in the street
What is the SUBJECT of this sentence?
There is a black cat in the street
Can we apply the semantic definition of SUBJECT
here?
How can we define SUBJECT, then?
(we need a different kind of definition)
There is a black cat in the street
= __existential__ there
Watch:
The black cat is there
= _locative_there
What are subjects made up of? = __FORM__
That black cat chased the dog
What is the head of the SUBJECT?
What kind of phrase is the SUBJECT?
___NP____
