Chapter 4 Syntax
What is syntax?
----a branch of linguistics that studies how words are combined to form sentences and the rules that govern the formation of sentences.
I Categories
Category refers to a group of linguistic items which fulfill the same or similar functions in a particular language such as a sentence, a noun phrase or a verb. Syntactic categories: words in all human languages can be grouped together into a relatively small number of classes ,called Syntactic categories.
Phrase structure is: specifier + head + complement Both specifier and complement are optional, thus a phrase can simply be just a head.
The XP rule
XP
Specifier
X Head
Complement
Note: The phrase structure rules can be summed up as XP rule shown in the diagram, in which X stands for N, V, A or P. XP (specifier) X ( complement)
Modifiers（修饰语） （修饰语）
---- Modifiers specify optionally expressible properties of heads. The most common modifiers of Ns are adj phrases, that of verbs are adv phrases and prepositional phrases which describe manner and time. Beautiful girl precise answer good quality Read carefully run fast come as soon as possible open with care
1 Word-level categories
The most central categories to the syntactic study are the word-level categories (traditionally, parts of speech) Two kinds of word-level categories: Major lexical categories: N, V, Adj, Prep. Minor Lexical categories: Det（限定词）, Deg （程度词）, Qual（限定语） Auxi, Conj.
words which introduce the sentence complement are called complementizers(补语化成 分）,such as that/if /for . the clauses introduced by complementizers are complement clause（补语从句）. e.g.I believe that he is innocent. The complementizer together with the complement clause is called complement phrase e.g.I believe that he is innocent. The construction in which the complement phrase is embedded is called matrix clause(主句）. I believe that he is innocent.
Phrase structure rules
The grammatical mechanism that regulates the arrangement of elements that make up a phrase is called a phrase structure rule, such as: NP (Det) + N +(PP)……e.g. those people, the fish on the plate, pretty girls. VP (Qual) + V + (NP)……e.g. always play games, finish assignments，marry an ugly boy AP (Deg) + A + (PP)……very handsome, very pessimistic, familiar with, very close to PP (Deg) + P + (NP)……on the shelf, in the boat, quite near the station.
2 Phrase categories and their structures
Phrase categories----the syntactic units that are built around a certain word category are called phrase categories, such as NP(N), VP(V), AP(A), PP(P). The structure: specifier + head + complement Head---- the word around which a phrase is formed Specifier（标志语）---- the words on the left side of the heads Complement（补足语）---- the words on the right side of the heads
We have known the phrase structure is : XP (specifier) X ( complement) this kind of structure does not consider modifiers, so we need to expand the phrase structure as: XP (specifier) (Mod) X ( complement*) (Mod) If a phrase has a modifier on the left of the head, the modifier must occur between the specifier and the head, such as a naughty boy, these old books If a phrase has a modifier on the right of the head, it must occur after the complement:such as open the door carefully ; eat the apple swiftly
Complements
---- Complements themselves can be a phrase, they provide information abut entities and locations whose existence is implied by the meaning of the head, e.g. a story about a sentimental girl; There can be no complement, one complement, or more than one complement in a phrase, e.g. appear, break, put…; a sentence-like construction may also function as a complement such as in “I believed that she was innocent. I doubt if she will come. They are keen for you to show up.”
The girl and the boy
X
X* NP Det The N girl and Con con Det the X NP N boy
Phrase elements
Specifier Head complement
Specifiers
---- Semantically, specifiers make more precise the meaning of the head; syntactically, they typically mark a phrase boundary. Specifiers can be determiners as in NP, qulifiers as in VP and degree words as in AP. determiners Specifiers qulifiers degree words
Major lexical categories: refers to the categories that are often assumed to be the heads(中心词） around which phrase are built. Find out the heads of the following phrase: a boy two books the cat an apple always run seldom read almost die Very happy a little sad quite small on the desk by the lake Minor Lexical categories: refers to the categories that are often around some other categories to build a phrase