syntax exam 1 contents | Apuntes de Morfología y Sintaxis

UNIT 1

PROPOSITIONS: “complete thought”, which can be falsified. It has to do with meaning.

Different linguistic forms can express the same proposition.

SENTENCES: the linguistic form to express a proposition. Related with the knowledge of

language (competence), the mental entity (abstraction over an utterance).

UTTERANCES: the actual use of a sentence. It can be oral, written or signed. Related to the

use of language (performance).

KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGE = GRAMMAR. What allows to decide whether a string of

words is a sentence in a language or not. = LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE.

(UN)ACCEPTABILITY: # My toothbrush was very angry this morning. * I picked [the apple

which fell from the tree yesterday morning in my yard] up (NP is grammatical but hard to

process).

(UN)GRAMMATICALITY: *I filled up it. Rule of grammar: nominal complements of phrasal

verbs can either follow or precede the particle of the phrasal verb, but prenominal complements

can only precede it. This piece of KL allows us to have correct grammatical judgements.

SYNTAX AS SCIENCE

Syntax is a scientific enterprise where we investigate the grammar of a given language. There

are 4 steps: DATA, OBSERVATION, GENERALIZATION AND HYPOTHESIS.

LEVELS OF ADEQUACY

The model of syntax that we are adopting aims at explanatory adequacy. Explanatory

adequacy: explaining why speakers have the judgments they do, seeks to explain the underlying

structure of language. It relates to language acquisitions.

Other levels of adequacy: observational adequacy (enumerates te grammatical sentences of a

language) and descriptive adequacy (formalizes the rules that produce grammatical sentences).

LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

Two characteristics: it is not explicitly taught and the path to acquisition is similar

independently of the child and the language. There is an inborn biological endowment

[language faculty, Universal Grammar, LAD = collection of principles that are common to

human languages] that allow human beings to acquire language.

PRINCIPLES (what languages share) + PARAMETERS (differences)= P+P

VO = head of VP precedes complement. Parameter: Head First Language. (English)

OV = head of VP follows complement. Head Last language. (Euskera)

Parameter: how this theory formalizes differences that are systematic between languages. They

have options, they have to be general enough to be valid for every language.

Universal Grammar: collection of principles that are common to human languages.

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UNIT 1

PROPOSITIONS : “complete thought”, which can be falsified. It has to do with meaning. Different linguistic forms can express the same proposition. SENTENCES : the linguistic form to express a proposition. Related with the knowledge of language (competence), the mental entity (abstraction over an utterance). UTTERANCES : the actual use of a sentence. It can be oral, written or signed. Related to the use of language (performance). KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGE = GRAMMAR. What allows to decide whether a string of words is a sentence in a language or not. = LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE. (UN)ACCEPTABILITY : # My toothbrush was very angry this morning. * I picked [the apple which fell from the tree yesterday morning in my yard] up (NP is grammatical but hard to process). (UN)GRAMMATICALITY : *I filled up it. Rule of grammar: nominal complements of phrasal verbs can either follow or precede the particle of the phrasal verb, but prenominal complements can only precede it. This piece of KL allows us to have correct grammatical judgements. SYNTAX AS SCIENCE Syntax is a scientific enterprise where we investigate the grammar of a given language. There are 4 steps: DATA, OBSERVATION, GENERALIZATION AND HYPOTHESIS. LEVELS OF ADEQUACY The model of syntax that we are adopting aims at explanatory adequacy. Explanatory adequacy: explaining why speakers have the judgments they do, seeks to explain the underlying structure of language. It relates to language acquisitions. Other levels of adequacy: observational adequacy (enumerates te grammatical sentences of a language) and descriptive adequacy (formalizes the rules that produce grammatical sentences). LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Two characteristics: it is not explicitly taught and the path to acquisition is similar independently of the child and the language. There is an inborn biological endowment [language faculty, Universal Grammar, LAD = collection of principles that are common to human languages] that allow human beings to acquire language. PRINCIPLES (what languages share) + PARAMETERS (differences)= P+P VO = head of VP precedes complement. Parameter: Head First Language. (English) OV = head of VP follows complement. Head Last language. (Euskera) Parameter : how this theory formalizes differences that are systematic between languages. They have options, they have to be general enough to be valid for every language. Universal Grammar : collection of principles that are common to human languages.

Parameters: language-specific properties that differ between languages. Being head first/head last languages, null subject parameter. Our syntactic theory is explanatorily adequate because it explains: why languages differ (different parameters), how speakers come to acquire the properties of their language (not by imitating but driven by their innate universal language faculty). UNIT 2 MORPHO [words] SYNTACTIC [sentences] FEATURES : properties that may affect their morphology, that matter for syntax and may also have an effect on the semantics of the words. We motivared [plural] feature by noticing that: it had distinguishable morphological forms, it had an effect on the semantics of words (uN feature: uniterpretable, because it doesn’t affect the semantics). The properties that different types of words have is what we call morphosyntactic features. PRIVATIVE FEATURES If we can account for data in English with just ONE of two features [pl] [sing], our hypothesis will be superior. Assume that [plural] is the only feature we need and that Ns either have this feature or none. If they don’t, they are singular = privative features (is present or absent in a word). VS. BINARY-VALUED FEATURES For Hopi we need both [sin] and [pl] features. What can we do? Solution 1: languages have a default number feature that is assigned when no number feature is specified. English, sing. Solution 2: binary-valued features +/-. [+ sing, - pl] [- sing, + pl]… But not all combinations are possible nor found in the languages of the world. Another way of thinking of feautres: part of larger category, number. Number is the general category and [s] and [p] is the value. The plural is expressed differently depending on the word: different realizations.  Plural is an interpretable feature because it affects how we interpret the word. INTERFACE The syntactic structure has to be interpreted by two-components or interfaces, the Conceptual- Intentional system and the Articulatory-Perceptual system. Why is this relevant? uFs are not interpretable by any of the interfaces, the system has to get rid of them (otherwise the PFI is violated) PFI: the syntactic structure that is sent to the interfaces contains no uninterpretable features. How does the system get rid of uFs? Feature-checking. CATEGORY FEATURES

UNIT 3

Words are arranged into phrases. Phrases – constituents. CONSTITUENCY TESTS:  Transpostion/movement  Substitution  Ellipsis  Coordination In syntantic trees, constituent structure corresponds to a NODE (the result of merge). By successively applying MERGE to pairs of lexical items bottom-up, we obtain a binary- branching tree. THETA-ROLES AND PHRASE STRUCTURE Predicate: the element that specifies who takes part in a proposition (usually the verb). Arguments: the participants in a proposition Verbs are classified into different kinds of predicates according to the number of arguments they require:  One-place predicate  Two-place predicate  Three-place predicate  Four-place predicate Verbs are recorded in the Lexicon with the theta-roles they assign as part of their meaning. Some verbs can assign the same type of theta-role to different kinds of argument. (i.e. different forms). Verbs must also be recorded with information about the syntactic category they can combine with: CATEGORIAL SELECTION (c-selection) (encoded by means of uninterpretable features). Verbs can also exert semantic control on the kinds of arguments they allow SEMANTIC SELECTION (s-selection). THETA-ROLES:  AGENT: the “doer” or instigation of the action.  PATIENT: the “undergoer” of the action or event denoted by the predicate.  THEME: the entity that is moved by the action or event denoted by the predicate.  EXPERIENCER: the living entity that experiences the action or event denoted by the predicate.  GOAL: the location or entity in the direction of which something moves.  BENEFACTIVE: the entity that benefits from the action or event denoted by the predicate.  SOURCE: the location or entity from which something moves.

 INSTRUMENT: the medium by which the action or event denoted by the predicate is carried out.  LOCATIVE: the specification of the place where the action or event denoted by the predicate is situated. MORE ON MERGE AND FEATURE-CHECKING Unit 2: the idea that syntax gets instructions about what can be Merged with what by means of uninterpretable features was introduced. If a syntactic object carries an uninterpretable feature of some kind, it must Merge with a syntactic object that carries an interpretable matching feature, so that the outcome satisfies the Principle of Full Interpretation. Given the feature specification of the predicate, if one intends to form a linguistic string with them, there have to be Merged, two at a time, with lexical items with matching interpretable features (Ns and Ps).

syntax exam 1 contents, Apuntes de Morfología y Sintaxis

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