Syntax Recursion
• The study of sentence construction: how • Syntax is fun. wordttthtfhds are put together to form phrases • John thinks that syntax is fun . and sentences • Mary suspects that John thinks that syntax is fun. • Sue knows that Mary suspects that John thinks that • Human-specific aspect of language syntax is fun. …
Recursion Syntax
• My older brother’s wife’s father was the voice of Nemo’s dad. • Is syntax a study of grammar?
• Audrey Wood’s The Napping House • PitiPrescriptive grammar – Don’t say, “I ain’t do nothing wrong.” And on that cat, there is a mouse – Avoid split infinitives: “He is made to quickly go.” A slumbering mouse On a snoozing cat • Grammar: principles about the sound system, On a dozing dog the form of words, phrases and sentences, etc. On a dreaming child On a snoring granny – HtHow to prod uce an dittd interpret sen tences On a cozy bed • So, syntax is a part of grammar. In a napping house, where everyone is sleeping.
1 Two opposing views Two opposing views
• Structuralism • Functionalism Chomsky: A grammar is a model (= Givón: It is through language use that systematic description) of those linguistic language is acquired, and grammar is abilities of native speakers of a language shaped or changed. which enable them to speak and – “…The functional approach to grammar is understand their language fluently. founded on the assumppgtion that grammar…is (Radford 1988) adaptively motivated and thus in principle non-arbitrary…” – Competence vs. Performance
Linguistic typology Grammar
• Cross-linguistic diversity and universals • Native speaker’s intuition • Linguistic universals: common properties – Able to tell whether a sentence is ‘w ell- formed’ that all languages have – Able to tell whether a sentence has a certain • What types of construction are possible structure and what types are impossible in the world’ s languages • Well-formed vs . ill -formed • Factors that constrain diversity • Grammatical vs. ungrammatical • Acceptable vs. unacceptable
2 Native speaker’s intuition Syntactic ill-formedness
• Intuitions about syntactic well-formedness • Pragmatically and semantically anomalous I gave a cat to her. sentence I gave her a cat. *I gave a cat her. John killed the stone. ฉนใหั แมวก้ บเขาั John killed Mary, but she didn’t die. Killed Mary John. ฉนใหั แมวเขา้
*ฉนใหั เขาแมว้ Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
Native speaker’s intuition Syntactic rule
• Intuitions about syntactic structure • Structure-independent rule
– Know which words go with other words You are watching TV. Are you watching TV? Pat will come to the party. Will Pat come to the party? สายสมรใส่เส้ือสวยมาก I must go. Must I go? You could not go to her party. • Move the 2nd word in a sentence in front of the first word .
The president will come to the party. *President the will come to the party?
3 Syntactic rule What does syntax express?
• All grammatical rules are structure- • Word order dependent. – Basic word order: SVO (English, Thai), SOV (Japanese, Korean), VSO (Welsh), VOS, • NP-AUX inversion: Invert a noun phrase OVS, OSV (NP) with an immediately following auxiliary verb (AUX) Most rap, I don’t like. (Gregory & Michaelis)
• Must know syntactic structure and – Marked vs. Unmarked grammatical categories
What does syntax express? What does syntax express?
• Structures • Promotion and demotion processes – Embedded clauses – Passive: promotion to subject position, and I think [Nancy will come]. demotion of old subject (and a change in verb – Recursion form)
IranintoatreeI ran into a tree. Pat hit the ball. I ran into a friend. The ball was hit by Pat.
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