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16 October 2013
Quiz 1
Agenda
Business Recap on morphology Syntax
Business
Midterm Assessment on Blackboard Assignments 2, 3, and 4
Morphology Recap
Definition of word is not simple. Morphology is study of forms of words
How and why the systematic changes happen
Inflectional morphology
Does not change meaning; shifts grammatical function
Morphology Recap
Only 8 inflectional morphemes in English
Possessive - Sarahs Plural cats Third person singular he likes Present participle dancing Past tense danced Past participle has taken Comparative happier Superlative - happiest
Morphology Recap
Phonology can condition what allomorphs are used. Irregular morphology
Past tense Plurals
Swahili
nina- mpig- i - a Subject1s-pres- ObjectA3s - hit appl- IND I hit him (for someone) Words can consist of more than single morphemes.
Some languages include more sentence structure information in morphology.
Syntax
We can produce and understand new sentences never before heard or written:
Some big possums are starting to dance in the circus tent.
Syntax
Meaning is not the same thing as syntactic well-formedness
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. *Furiously sleep green ideas colorless.
How sentences are structured and ordered in languages Close relation to Morphology
How do we know what pieces of sentences go together and how pieces work within sentences? Structural analysis
Structural Analysis
Test frames
The _________ makes a lot of noise. I heard a _____________ yesterday.
________ makes a lot of noise. I heard _______ yesterday
Constituent Analysis
How do groups of words fit together. The small cat ran through the house quickly.
The small cat ran through the house quickly
Can determine constituent-hood using a variety of tests The component of a constituent that determines the properties of that constituent is called the head and the constituent is called a phrase.
Constituent Analysis
Question/Answer pairs Q: Many executives eat where? A: At really fancy restaurants Q: Many executives do what? A: Eat at really fancy restaurants. Not true of non-constituents
No question where the answer is *Executives eat at.
Constituent Analysis
Substitution Noun Phrases
The little boy fed the cat.
He fed her.
The little boy from next door fed the cat without a tail.
*He from next door fed her without a tail.
The little boy from next door fed the cat without a tail.
He fed her.
Constituent Analysis
Substitution Other pro-forms
Put it on the table.
Put it there.
Constituent Analysis
Depends on the syntactic context
Put it on the table thats by the door.
*Put it there thats by the door.
Constituent Analysis
Adjective phrases
I am very happy,
and Linda is so, too.
Constituent Analysis
Verb phrase replacement Who eats at really fancy restaurants? Many executives do.
Labeled Brackets
On the board
Number of specific theories over the past 60 years Hugely influential in linguistics in general Rise of different (non-generative) theories in recent years.
Generative grammar
Finite set of rules
Can generate infinite sentences
Can capture similarities between sentences Can describe differences among sentences
Deep structure
Underlying structure Captures similarities among sentences with different surface structures.
The boy hit the ball. The ball was hit by the boy. It was the ball that the boy hit. Was the ball hit by the boy?
Lexical Rules
Can make a mini-language by stating what words can be used as each part of speech: PN -> {Mary, John} N -> {cat, dog} A -> {a, the} V -> {like, hit} Etc.
Trees
Can translate these phrase structure rules into trees
Trees
the boy in the yard NP Det N P Det The boy in the PP NP N yard
Trees
took the money from the bank VP V Det NP N P Det took the money from the PP NP N bank
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took
the
money
Practice Trees
Try drawing practice trees for these phrases
big cat in the big hallway recorded the conversation
Trees
The old tree swayed in the wind
S
NP VP
Det
Adj
V
P
PP
NP
Det
The old tree swayed in the
N
wind
Trees
The children put the toy in the box
S
NP VP
Det
V
Det
NP
N P
PP
NP
Det
The children put the toy in the
N
box
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Trees
The small boy saw George with a crazy dog recently.
Practice Trees
Draw practice trees for these sentences.
The door slammed loudly. The sun shone. The young boy kissed the girl. The cat ran around the tree. The boat on the sea capsized in the storm. The tree fell in the forest.
Recursion
Some rules can be applied more than once. Preposition phrases can be nested inside prepositional phrases.
The book was on the table under the window in the big house.
Recursion
John liked Mary. Sarah knew that John liked Mary. Peter thought that Sarah knew that John liked Mary. Etc. that starts a new type of phrase
Complement phrase
Recursion
Complement Phrase
Sarah knew that John liked Mary. that is a complement (C) that heads a Complement Phrase (CP) Where does the CP go? What does the CP consist of. S NP VP VP V CP CP C S
Ambiguity
Some sentences are ambiguous The boy saw the man with the telescope.
Ambiguity
S
NP VP
Det
V
Det
NP
N P
PP
NP
Det
The boy saw the
Ambiguity
S NP Det N V Det N P Det The boy saw the VP NP PP NP N
Movement Rules
We want to be able to capture how sentences are related to each other. Mary can drive. Can Mary drive? We can capture this by proposing transformational rules.
Movement Rules
Avoids proposing phrase structure rules that generate ungrammatical strings. E.g., VP (Adv) V (NP) (PP) (Adv)
*The father cleverly wept bitterly.
If there is no transformation deep structure = surface structure. If transformations apply deep structure surface structure.
Movement Rules
Can move in steps 1. The father is weeping silently. 2. The father is silently weeping. 3. Is the father silently weeping?
Movement rules
Movement rules can get to be extremely complicated Vary from language to language. Can account for active passive transformations Yes/no question formation Wh- question formation Topicalization
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Semantics
The man bit the dog. The dog bit the man. Dictionaries exist for word meaning.
Something we discuss and fight about.
Associative meaning
Other associations or connotations
Knitting, pain, doctors office
Semantic features
We use a + or sign to denote whether the word has that semantic feature or not. The biggest ones in English are +/- animate and +/- human. Others exist as well.
Some differ across languages.
Semantic Roles
Agent
Entity performing action
Theme/patient
Involved in or affected by action; entity being described
Instrument
Thing used to perform the action
Experiencer
Feeling perception or state of being
Semantic roles
Location
Where something is
Source
Where something is coming from
Goal
Where something is going
Causative
Force that causes a change
Possessor
Person/thing who has something
Semantic roles
In English, not marked
Except for s for possessors
Recap
Study of sentence structure Generative grammar
Goal to account for all and only possible sentences.
Recap
Pieces of sentences that go together are constituents. Can account for relationship between words in sentences via labeled bracket analysis or trees. Infinite numbers of sentences are possible in all languages via recursion. Structural ambiguity can be described via trees.
Recap
Differences between deep and surface structure.
Result of movement rules.
Semantic roles
Determine whether a sentence is semantically plausible
Even if grammatically correct.
For Monday
Read Yule Chapter 17 Look ahead to next Wednesday 2 chapters of Yule and 1 of Lightbown and Spada. Enjoy your weekend!