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. p.48 (44)…(4-6) 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.” “That/if /for” in the above sentences are complementizers（补语化成分）, the clauses introduced by complementizers are complement clause.
Meaning: n. entities, v. action, adj. properties Ex. be aware of know about Inflection: n –s, v. –ed -ing, adj. –er -est Ex. a word belonging to more than one category Distribution: a/an n., be v-ed, be v-ing, Note: The most reliable criterion of determining a word’s category is its distrs and their structures
Phrase categories----the syntactic units that are built around a certain word category are called phrase categories, such as NP, VP, AP, PP. NP VP AP PP phrase level l l l l N V A P word level The structure: specifier + head + complement head（中心成分）---- the word around which a phrase is formed specifier（标志成分）---- the words on the left side of the heads complement （补足成分） ---- the words on the right side of the heads
Chomsky is much more interested in the similarities (language universals) between languages rather than their differences.
Linguists should attempt to find a grammatical framework which will be suitable for all languages; Linguists should concentrate on the elements and constructions that are available to all languages rather than on elements that actually occur in all languages. There are likely to be universal constraints on the ways linguistic elements are combined Chomsky proposed that the grammars of all human languages share a common framework (Universal Grammar).
S NP VP
S
NP Det A N boy V found VP NP Det the N evidence
Sentences (the S rule)
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.
Transformational Generative Grammar (TG) Norm. Chomsky, the most influential linguist in 20th century, some important works: (1957) Syntactic Structure; (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax; (1981) Lectures on Government and Binding; (1986) Barriers (1993) A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory; (1995) The Minimalist Program; (1998) The Minimalist Inquiry……
Phrase elements
specifier （标志成分） head （中心成分） complement （补足成分）
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, qualifiers as in VP and degree words as in AP.
The XP rule
XP
Specifier
X
Head
Complement
The XP rule: XP(specifier)X(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.
Coordination rule
Coordinate structures-----the structures that are formed by joining two or more elements of the same type with the help of a conjunction such as and, or, etc. ----Coordination has four important properties: no limit on the number of coordinated categories before the conjunction; a category at any level can be coordinated; the categories must be of the same type; the category type of the coordinate phrase is identical to the category type of the elements being conjoined.
Categories
Category（范畴）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. The most central categories to the syntactic study are the word-level categories (traditionally, parts of speech)
Phrase structure rules (PS-rule 段语结构规则）
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. 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.