4.3 Phrase structure rule短语结构规则 Introduction:
NP VP AP PP (Det) (Qual) (Deg) (Deg) N V A P (PP) (NP) (PP) (NP) … … … …
(Note: “ ” means “consist of”; ( ) means “can be omitted”; “…” means other complement options are available)
Types:
Noun phrase (NP): the pretty girl Verb phrase (VP): often dream Adjective phrase (AP): very pessimistic Prepositional phrase (PP): mainly about the school Phrases that are formed of more than one word usually contain the following elements: Head中心词, specifier标志语 and complement补足语 (See p.45)
Dealing with Transformational syntax here,
we just follow Chomsky and try to prove our linguistic competence which enables us to combine words into sentences in endlessly novel way.
To determin a word's category, three criteria are usually
employed, namely, meaning, inflection and distribution. 1) Meaning意义: John, pen, book, pretty lady, left quietly 2) Inflection曲折变化: plural affixes, tenses, degrees 3) Distribution(co-occur)分布: the girl, should stay, buy a book Note: The most reliable criterion of determining a word’s category is its distribution.
英语语言学
English Linguistics
Chapter Four
Syntax
Introductin to the focus
1. Syntax, Chomsky and his TG grammar
2. Categories (word level and phrase level)
the similarities between languages rather than their differences.
As the result of his research, Chomsky
proposes that the grammar of all languages share a common framework, which he calls a transformational grammar. That is the transformational syntax we call here.
的排列进行规范、调节的语法机制）
e.g NP rule: An NP can consist of a determiner, an N head, and a PP complement NP ----- (Det) N (PP) … a talk of education
4.3.1 XP rule (a single general phrasal structural rule fomulated ) 短语规则
4.2.2 Phrase categories and their structure短语范畴及结构

Definition: Phrases refer to the syntactic units which are built around a certain word category. 围绕某一词范畴构成的句法单位
* Four important properties of coordination (See p.46) 1）no limit on the number of coordinated categories before the conjunction; 2）a category at any level can be coordinated; 3）the categories must be of the same type; 4）the category type of the coordinate phrase is identical to the category type of the elements being conjoined.
The most central categories to the syntactic study are the word-level categories (traditionally, called parts of speech) .
Here, word-level categories are divided into two kinds: major lexical categories and minor lexical categories.
4.1 What is syntax?
---- a system of rules that govern the formation of grammatical sentences. (how words are combined to form sentences) Syntax (Greek) syntax = syn + tax ↓ ↓ together to arrange
Major lexical categories & minor lexical categories
Major lexical categories Noun (N) Verb (V) Adjective (A) Preposition (P) Minor lexical categories Determiner (Det) 限定词 Degree word (Deg) 程度词 Qualifier (Qual) 修饰词 Auxiliary (Aux) 助词 Conjunction (Con) 连词 Examples book, boy, love, sheep run, read, play happy, tall, clear about, over, on Examples the, a, this, those quite, very, more, so often, always, seldom, almost must, should, can, might and, but, or
Transformational syntax(TS转换语法)
In linguistics， transformational syntax is a theory of syntax that developed from the extended standard theory of generative grammar originally proposed by Noam Chomsky in his books Syntactic Structures and Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.
4.2 Categories范畴
4.2.1 Word-level categories Category refers to a group of linguistic items which fulfill the same or similar functions in a particular language e.g. a sentence a noun phrase a verb
TG grammar
The term transformational-generative
grammar (often shortened as TG)was introduced into linguistics in the mid-1950s by Noam Chomsky.
Chomsky is most interested in the study of
4.4 Phrase elements 短语成分
4.4.1 Specifiers: 标志语 *Specifiers have both special semantic and syntactic roles. Semantically, they specify the meaning of head; Syntactically, they mark a phrase boundary. *The syntactic category of the specifier may differs depending on the category of the head.(e.g determiner+Ns; deg+As or Ps) See p.47
The XP rule: XP --->(specifier) X (complement)

4.3.2 Coordination rule并列结构规则 X ---> X * Con X
Coordination of NPs: