Syntax: sentences and phrases

S, VP and NP

Defining the sentence/clause

• A clause is a stretch of language which contains a verb.

• A sentence is a clause which contains a verb associated with a tense and a subject.

• Jane flew to New York.• Jane wants to fly to New York.• *Jane to fly to new York. Clauses but not• *To fly to New York . Sentences• Susan wants Jane [to fly to New York]• I love spaghetti. No overtly marked morph.

subjecthood

• Semantic meaning– The person who performs, acts out the action

described by the verb

• Positional identification– English is an Subject Verb Object language (SVO).

The most natural habitat for subjects is the first position in the sentence.

• Morphosyntactic identification• The subject agrees with the verb – there may be

morphology telling us about the subject attached to the verb.

Other types of phrases

• Since N is the head of an NP, we might propose other types of phrases.

• Head phrase example

• Verb VP solved the problem

• Prep PP in the city

• Adj AP really pretty

• Adv AdvP rather quickly

• Most phrase types can have modifiers

Clause structure? S

S

SLee likes Kim

Lee likes

Kim

likes Kim

Lee

A.B.

C.

Clause structure

• The flat structure (a) and the structure (b) where the subject and verb are associated together do not capture the behaviour of the elements of a sentence

• Tests:• Adverb placement• Jane frequently bakes cakes.

• *Jane bakes frequently cakes.

»Object and verb cannot be separated

Testing relationships

Verb + obj can make compound• He paints houses. He is a house-painter.• She drives trucks. She is a truckdriver.

• Subjects cannot make compounds with verbs. Cats hunt mice ≠ cathunt(s/er)

• Jane said she would bake a cake, and bake a cake, she did!

–Verbs and objects have a close relationship. Subjects and verbs do not.

So does …

• Jane bakes cakes and so does Shane.• What does Shane do?• So does = bakes cakes• *Jane bakes cakes and so does shane biscuits.• So does bakes• *Jane bakes cakes and so does biscuits.• So does Jane bakes

–Verbs and objects can be replaced together. Subjects and verbs cannot.

Clause structure?

• Our structure should reflect the relationship between the object and the verb >> (c)

S

likes Kim

Lee

C.

The VP

• Because of the close relationship between

verb and object, and the fact that they behave together we will assume that the object NP is inside the phrase which contains the verb.

• Verbs are the head of VP. An object NP, the thing transformed by the V is its modifier.

Therefore we should label the tree

S

NP VP

V NPKaty

cuddleskittens

N

NMother –daughter

relationship

sisters

From tree to rule and rule to tree

• Trees graphically demonstrate the relationships between elements in a sentence. We can also write rules to explain how to generate sentences. They are in a sense read off the top of the tree downwards:

• PS structure rules tell us the immediate constituents below a node

Phrase structure rules

• S -> NP VP

• NP -> N

• VP -> V NP

• A Sentence can be broken down into an NP and A VP. The NP can be broken down (or goes) to an N. The VP goes to V and NP. The NP goes to N.

More complex NPs

• So far our PS rules only generate a particular kind of NP -> those with a head only, a proper N, or a bare common N

• NP -> N • [Dolphins] are mammals• [My grandad] drives trains.• [The angry farmers] protested• [The people of Palmy] voted Labour.• [We] hate musicals.• [The rather elegant building] burnt down.

Determiners• Sharks arefish. The sharks followed the boat

• NPs can have determiners but need not

• NP -> Det N or NP -> N

• One rule is better than two!

• NP -> (Det) N the brackets = optionalNP

Det N

the sharks

Adjectival modification

• The elegant building/elegant buildings

• NP -> (Det) (AP) N

• Why AP not A? Because the Adj can be modified by an adverb … the rather elegant building

• AP -> (adv) A

The rather elegant buildings

NP

Det N

AAdv

AP

the

rather elegant

buildings

possessives

• Susan’s children our neighbours• Her children that man’s dog• His new friend my best friend’s wedding• Possessive pronouns and possessed NPs• Engl Possessives never co-occur with determiners• *my the bike *the my bike *a [the cat’s]

tail• This suggests that Det and possession are

positioned in the same place in the structure of the NP. Need to re-write the NP rule

Poss

Curly brackets inside – ‘one or other’

And parentheses outside ‘optional’

And the internal structure of Poss?

The rule must account for NP’s examples and possessive pronouns – like the NP rule has to.

PRON

s' NPPOSS

N (AP) POSS

DetNP

Drawing Possession

NP

POSS N

NP ‘s

N

John ‘s

bike

NP

POSS N

PRON

his

bike

NP with modification

• Prepositional modification always occurs after the N

• The girl from Ipanema the man in the next office• Our NP rule needs an optional (PP) at the end.• The internal structure of PP?• PP -> Prep (or Just P) NP • Since the PP is telling us more about the noun, it

hangs of the NP node to the right of the branch terminating with the noun.

The girl from Ipanema

NP

Det PP

Pgirl

N

the

from

Ipanema

NP

N

Pronouns?• All my children bake cakes. They bake cakes• *All my they *the they *pretty they

• We have already seen that pronouns replace entire NPs. Also are not usually eligible for modification. Need an alternative rule NPs which are head by a pronoun

• NP -> pronoun

Final rule for NP

PRON

(PP) N (AP) POSS

Det

NP