Introduction to Syntax Linear structure Hierarchical structure Ambiguity

Syntax is: • The study of sentence formation • Subconscious grammatical knowledge • Word order

Grammaticality Judgments: – – – – We went to my grandmother’s house. Visiting relatives can be a nuisance. The children might being sing. We fed her snail poison. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Me and Beth are watching a movie. Swedes like fish more than Italians. She ain’t got nothing to hide.

Grammaticality Judgments: – – – – • We went to my grandmother’s house. Visiting relatives can be a nuisance. The children might being sing. We fed her snail poison. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Me and Beth are watching a movie. Swedes like fish more than Italians. She ain’t got nothing to hide. AMB: ambiguous, *: ungrammatical, #: grammatical but nonsensical, %: grammatical in a non-standard v.

Ambiguous? • I scratched the dog with a stick I love linguistics!!! I’m a stick I’m a dog (I think!)

Do I mean this? • I scratched (the dog with a stick) Nice doggie!

Or do I mean this? • I scratched (the dog) with a stick. scratch

The two meanings are a result of: HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE Sentences are more than just ordered sequences of words. They have internal hierarchical structure as well. scratched the dog with a stick dog has stick scratched the dog with a stick I have stick

Unavoidable Ambiguity • Why can’t we convey these internal hierarchical structures and avoid ambiguity? • LINEAR ORDER – Human verbal communication is limited by linear production. Consequently, sentences are organized linearly.

Two kinds of ambiguity: • She called her boyfriend from Australia. – STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY • We went down to the bank yesterday – LEXICAL AMBIGUITY

Basic Word Order • SVO (English, Chinese) – The boy saw the man • SOV (Russian, Turkish, Japanese) – Pensive poets painful vigils keep (Pope) • VSO (Irish, Arabic, Welsh) – Govern thou my song (Milton)

Basic Word Order • OSV (Jamamadi) – When nine hundred years you reach, look as good you will not. (Yoda) • OVS (Apalai - Amazon basin) • VOS (Malagasy (Madagascar)

How would you say… • English (SVO) – Susie brings coffee • Japanese (SOV) – sushi-ga – Susie co: hi: -o coffee mottekuru bring • Malagasy (VOS) – Entin’ – bring kafe coffee Susie

Two principles of sentence organization • 1. LINEAR ORDER • not only a limitation, we actually make use of the linearity of the language • In English, limited morphology forces us to use word order to distinguish subject from object. – Tom chased Jerry. – Jerry chased Tom.

Two principles of sentence organization • 2. HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE • As we saw with the ambiguous sentence, this structure is ‘invisible’ upon first glance. • However, there are tests we can perform to discover the hierarchical structure of sentences.

Constituency CONSTITUENT a group of words in a sentence that behave syntactically and semantically as a unit. dog has stick scratched the dog with a stick I have stick scratched the dog with a stick

How to determine constituency • Semantic intuitions – sometimes, we just know that certain strings of words go together as a unit. • Constituency Tests (more reliable) – tests that can be applied to string of words in a given sentence to determine if the string is a constituent or not.

Next Time • Constituency tests • Phrase Structure Rules