Lecture7 & 8. Syntaxpptx

Syntax
Read the following well-formed prepositional

phrases. How are they structured?
near London
with Sara
Read the following well-formed prepositional
near London→ we put a preposition before a noun
with Sara → we put a preposition before a noun
Read the following ill-formed prepositional
near tree
with dog
Read the following ill-formed prepositional
near tree → we put a preposition before a noun
with dog → we put a preposition before a noun

•There are strict rules that govern word order in English phrases.
•Syntax involves describing acceptable structures and ruling out
unacceptable ones.
• We clearly need to be more careful in forming the rule that underlies
the structure of prepositional phrases in English.
• A preposition should precede a noun phrase, not just noun.
• P + NP (Noun Phrase)
• So, how is a noun phrase formed in English?
➢ A noun phrase can consist of:
✓ a proper noun (London),
✓ a pronoun (you) or
✓ the combination of an article (a, the) with a noun (tree,
dog), dog.
✓ so that the revised rule can be used to produce well-
formed noun phrases is:
✓ (Article) N >>> a tree / water

When we concentrate on the structure and ordering of
components within a sentence= studying the syntax of language.
The word syntax comes originally from Greek and literally means
“a putting together” or “arrangement”
❑ Humans can understand & produce an infinite number of
sentences they never heard before.
“Some purple gnats are starting to tango on microwave”
❑ Our grammar can understand and produce long sentences.

“Bill said that he thought that the esteemed leader of the
house had it in mind to tell the unfortunate vice president
that the calls that he made from the office in the White House
that he thought was private.....”
❑ Our grammar can determine the grammatical relations in a
sentence
Mary hired Bill Vs. Bill hired Mary
❑ Non-sense sentences with clear syntax
• Colorless green ideas sleep comfortably.
• A verb crumpled the milk.
• I gave the question an angry egg. vs
• * Comfortably sleep ideas green colorless.
• * Milk the crumpled verb a.
• * the question I an gave egg angry.
 Sentences are composed of discrete units that are
combined by rules.
 These rules explain how speakers can store infinite
knowledge in a finite space - brain.
 In earlier approaches to syntax, they attempted to
produce an accurate description of the sequence or
ordering “arrangement” of elements of the sentence as a
linear structure.
 In more recent attempts to analyze sentence structure,
there has been a greater focus on the underlying rule
system that we use to produce or “generate” sentences.
• When we set out to provide an analysis of the syntax of a
language, we try to adhere to the “all and only” criterion.
• This means that our analysis must account for all the
grammatically correct phrases and sentences and only the
grammatically correct phrases sentences in whatever
language we are analyzing.
• In other words, if we write rules for the criterion of well-

formed structures, we must check that those rules, when
applied logically, won’t also lead to ill-formed structures.
Generative Grammar (Noam Chomsky 1950s )
Question: How many well-formed phrases can
we produce “generate” using the rule which
states that “a prepositional phrase in English
consists of a preposition followed by a noun
phrase” ?
Generative Grammar
Answer: We can produce “generate” an infinite (i.e.

unlimited) number of well-formed phrases using that
rule.
Generative Grammar
➢ This reflects another goal of syntactic analysis which is to
have a small and finite (i.e. limited) set of rules that will be
capable of producing a large and potentially infinite (i.e.
unlimited) number of well-formed structures.
➢ This small and finite set of rules is sometimes described as a

generative grammar because it can be used to generate or
produce sentence structures and not just describe them.
Symbols used in syntactic description
• S (= sentence)
• NP (= noun phrase)
• N (= noun)
• Art (= article)
• (= consists of)
For example:
• NP Art N
• It’s a shorthand way of saying that a noun phrase consists
of an article and a noun.
• round brackets ( ) = an optional constituent
• For example:
• The dog = NP
• The small dog = NP
• a NP in English, we can include an (Adj), but it is not a must.
It’s optional.
• NP Art (Adj) N
• It’s a shorthand way of saying that a noun phrase consists
of an article (Art) and a noun (N), with the option of
including an adjective (Adj) in a specific position between
them.
curly brackets { } = only one of the elements enclosed within the
curly brackets must be selected.
For example:
NP Art N (e.g. the car)
NP Pro (e.g. her it)
NP PN (e.g. Sara)
NP Art N
NP Pro
NP PN
Deep and Surface Structure
Charlie broke the window. (active)
The window was broken by Charlie. (passive)
The distinction between the two sentences is a difference

in their surface structure, that is, the different syntactic
forms they have as individual English sentences.
Charlie broke the window

NP + V + NP
The window was broken by Charlie

NP + V + NP
This other underlying level, where the basic components

(NP+V+NP) shared by the two sentences can be represented, is
called their deep structure (structural organization).
The grammar must be capable of showing how a single

underlying abstract representation (NP+V+NP) can
become different surface structures:
(Charlie broke the window. / The window was broken by
Charlie.)

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Syntax

Read the following well-formed prepositional

near tree → we put a preposition before a noun

with dog → we put a preposition before a noun

✓ a proper noun (London),

✓ the combination of an article (a, the) with a noun (tree,

✓ so that the revised rule can be used to produce well-

formed noun phrases is:

✓ (Article) N >>> a tree / water

❑ Our grammar can understand and produce long sentences.

• In other words, if we write rules for the criterion of well-

Answer: We can produce “generate” an infinite (i.e.

➢ This small and finite set of rules is sometimes described as a

The window was broken by Charlie. (passive)

The distinction between the two sentences is a difference

Charlie broke the window

The window was broken by Charlie

This other underlying level, where the basic components

The grammar must be capable of showing how a single

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