![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.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/syntaxlong-100501181717-phpapp01/85/Syntaxlong-2-320.jpg)
![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.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/syntaxlong-100501181717-phpapp01/85/Syntaxlong-14-320.jpg)
![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](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/syntaxlong-100501181717-phpapp01/85/Syntaxlong-18-320.jpg)
Syntaxlong
- 1. Syntax: sentences and phrases S, VP and NP
- 2. 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.
- 3. 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.
- 4. 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
- 5. Clause structure? S S S Lee likes Kim Lee likes Kim likes Kim Lee A. B. C.
- 6. 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
- 7. 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.
- 8. 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.
- 9. Clause structure? Our structure should reflect the relationship between the object and the verb >> (c) S likes Kim Lee C.
- 10. 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.
- 11. Therefore we should label the tree S NP VP V NP Katy cuddles kittens N N Mother –daughter relationship sisters
- 12. 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
- 13. 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.
- 14. 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.
- 15. 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 = optional NP Det N the sharks
- 16. 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
- 17. The rather elegant buildings NP Det N A Adv AP the rather elegant buildings
- 18. 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
- 19. 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.
- 20. Drawing Possession NP POSS N NP ‘ s N John ‘ s bike NP POSS N PRON his bike
- 21. 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.
- 22. The girl from Ipanema NP Det PP P girl N the from Ipanema NP N
- 23. 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
- 24. Final rule for NP