Problems with the Coalface Grammar'
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A Syntactic Analysis of Copular Sentences*
A SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF COPULAR SENTENCES* Masato Niimura Nanzan University 1. Introduction Copular is a verb whose main function is to link subjects with predicate complements. In a limited sense, the copular refers to a verb that does not have any semantic content, but links subjects and predicate complements. In a broad sense, the copular contains a verb that has its own meaning and bears the syntactic function of “the copular.” Higgins (1979) analyses English copular sentences and classifies them into three types. (1) a. predicational sentence b. specificational sentence c. identificational sentence Examples are as follows: (2) a. John is a philosopher. b. The bank robber is John Smith. c. That man is Mary’s brother. (2a) is an example of predicational sentence. This type takes a reference as subject, and states its property in predicate. In (2a), the reference is John, and its property is a philosopher. (2b) is an example of specificational sentence, which expresses what meets a kind of condition. In (2b), what meets the condition of the bank robber is John Smith. (2c) is an example of identificational sentence, which identifies two references. This sentence identifies that man and Mary’s brother. * This paper is part of my MA thesis submitted to Nanzan University in March, 2007. This paper was also presented at the Connecticut-Nanzan-Siena Workshop on Linguistic Theory and Language Acquisition, held at Nanzan University on February 21, 2007. I would like to thank the participants for the discussions and comments on this paper. My thanks go to Keiko Murasugi, Mamoru Saito, Tomohiro Fujii, Masatake Arimoto, Jonah Lin, Yasuaki Abe, William McClure, Keiko Yano and Nobuko Mizushima for the invaluable comments and discussions on the research presented in this paper. -
18.5 Complements Often, a Sub1ect and Verb Alone Can Express a Complete Thought. for Example, Buds Fly Can Stand by Itself As A
18.5 Complements Often, a sub1ect and verb alone can express a complete thought. For example, Buds fly can stand by itself as a sentence. Even though it contains only two words, a subject and a verb. Other times, however, the thought begun by a subject end its verb must be completed with other words. For example, Toni bought, The eyewitness told, Our mechanic is, Richard feels, and Marco seems all contain a subject and verb, but none expresses a complete thought. All these ideas need complements. 18.5.1: A complement is a word or group of words that completes the meaning of a sentence. Complements are usually nouns, pronouns, or adjectives. They are located right after or very close to the verb. The complements answer questions about the subject or verb in order to complete the sentence. S = SUBJECT, AV = ACTION VERB, LV = LINKING VERB, IO = INDIRECT OBJECT, DO = DIRECT OBJECT, PA = PREDICATE ADJECTIVE, PN = PREDICATE NOUN (NOMINATIVE) Toni bought cars. S – AV – DO. The eyewitness told us the story. S – AV – IO – DO. Our mechanic is a genius. S – LV- PN. Richard feels sad. S – LV – PA. Direct Objects 18.5.2 A direct object is a noun or pronoun that receives the action of a verb. You can find a direct object by asking What? or Whom? after an action verb. My dog Champ likes a good scratch. Like subjects and verbs, direct objects can be compound. That is, one verb can have two or more direct objects. Compound Direct Objects Like subjects and verbs, direct objects can be compound. -
Natural Language Processing Introduction
SYNTAX Sudeshna Sarkar 14 AUG 2019 Syntax • Constituency • Ordering • Grammatical relations and dependency – Heads, agreement, grammatical function • Key formalisms – Context-free grammars – Dependency grammars • Resources – Treebanks 15-Aug-19 Constituency • Basic idea: groups of words act as a single unit • Constituents form coherent classes that behave similarly – With respect to their internal structure: e.g., at the core of a noun phrase is a noun – With respect to other constituents: e.g., noun phrases generally occur before verbs Constituency: Example • Noun phrases in English... • They can all precede verbs • They can all be preposed/postposed Example of Constituent Tree ((Paul (gave Peter (two pears))) .) S VP NP V NP NP Z N N C N Paul gave Peter two pears . 5 Example of Dependency Tree [#,0] ([gave,2] ([Paul,1], [Peter,3], [pears,5] ([two,4])), [.,6]) # gave . Paul Peter pears two 9.12.1999 http://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/course/npfl094 6 Words and Phrases • Word (token): smallest unit of the syntactic layer – grammatical (function) words – lexical (content) words • Phrase – Sequence of immediate constituents (words or phrases). • Phrase types by their main word—head – Noun phrase: the new book of my grandpa – Adjectival phrase: brand new – Adverbial phrase: very well – Prepositional phrase: in the classroom – Verb phrase: to catch a ball 7 Noun Phrase • A noun or a (substantive) pronoun is the head. – water – the book – new ideas – two millions of inhabitants – one small village – the greatest price movement in one year since the World War II – operating system that, regardless of all efforts by our admin, crashes just too often – he – whoever 9.12.1999 http://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/course/npfl094 8 Evidence of Constituency 1. -
TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR REVIEW I. Parts of Speech Traditional
Traditional Grammar Review Page 1 of 15 TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR REVIEW I. Parts of Speech Traditional grammar recognizes eight parts of speech: Part of Definition Example Speech noun A noun is the name of a person, place, or thing. John bought the book. verb A verb is a word which expresses action or state of being. Ralph hit the ball hard. Janice is pretty. adjective An adjective describes or modifies a noun. The big, red barn burned down yesterday. adverb An adverb describes or modifies a verb, adjective, or He quickly left the another adverb. room. She fell down hard. pronoun A pronoun takes the place of a noun. She picked someone up today conjunction A conjunction connects words or groups of words. Bob and Jerry are going. Either Sam or I will win. preposition A preposition is a word that introduces a phrase showing a The dog with the relation between the noun or pronoun in the phrase and shaggy coat some other word in the sentence. He went past the gate. He gave the book to her. interjection An interjection is a word that expresses strong feeling. Wow! Gee! Whew! (and other four letter words.) Traditional Grammar Review Page 2 of 15 II. Phrases A phrase is a group of related words that does not contain a subject and a verb in combination. Generally, a phrase is used in the sentence as a single part of speech. In this section we will be concerned with prepositional phrases, gerund phrases, participial phrases, and infinitive phrases. Prepositional Phrases The preposition is a single (usually small) word or a cluster of words that show relationship between the object of the preposition and some other word in the sentence. -
Syntax Topics • •
Syntax Topics 1. Syntax and morphology are the two parts of grammar. • Morphology deals with the internal economy of the word. • Syntax deals with the external economy of the word. 2. Words are constituents of larger groups, called phrases, which may aggregate into larger phrases, and eventually into a different kind of constituent, called a clause. 3. The difference between a phrase and a clause is that a phrase is focussed on one kind of word: a noun phrase (NP) is an elaboration of a noun, a verb phrase (VP) of a verb, etc; while a clause is a relation between two kinds of phrase: VP (Predi- cate) and NPs (Argument(s) of the Predicate). 4. Every sentence has at least one clause; many have more. If there are several, only one can be the main clause; the rest are subordinate clauses of one kind or another. 5. Grammatical functions expressed in many languages (called synthetic languages) by morphological inflection (e.g, tense, mood, voice, etc.) are expressed in English (an analytic language) by various syntactic constructions and augmentations, often using sets of special words called auxiliaries, particles, or function words. Such words include prepositions, conjunctions, quantifiers, and articles; sets of them are called closed classes, because they are small and don’t borrow new words. 6. The most important kind of word in any sentence is the matrix predicate, which in English can be a predicate adjective or predicate noun (with a form of be in front of it to receive the tense). The matrix predicate governs the type and existence of any subject, object, complement, or inflection appearing with it. -
2014. the Use of Adverb in Article
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Part of Speech Part of speech is word classification based on their function. Sherlock (2012, p.12) says that there are eight kinds of part of speech in English namely noun, pronoun, adjective, adverb, verb, conjunction, interjection, and preposition. Noun is a name of person, thing, idea and so on. Noun has functions as a subject, object, and other. For example, song, Angie, table, book, lips and so forth. Pronoun is a word used to take the place of a noun. A pronoun is used as a noun such as, her, him, them and so on. Adjective is used to modify a noun or a pronoun. An adjective may be a single word, a phrase, or a clause such as, beautiful, smart, short and so forth. Adverb is one of the parts of speech. Adverb is used to give more information, also used to modify verb, adjective and adverb such as, faithfully, certainly, quietly and so on. Verb is a word used to express action, being, or state of being such as, work, write, play, cook and so on. Conjunction is the other part of speech. Conjunction has function to connect words or groups of words. For example, and, but, and or. A familiar word has no grammatical to the rest of the sentence and it can be used to express strong feeling such as, oh , ssttt, ouch and so forth. Preposition shows the relations between its object and some other words in the sentence. For example, on, in, above, between and so on. -
Adverbs and Adverbial Phrases Worksheets
Adverbial Phrases An adverbial phrase is a group of words that act together as an adverb, giving more information about a verb, adjective, or other adverb in a sentence. The adverbial phrase answers the same questions as a regular adverb: how/how much, when, or where. Underline the adverbial phrase. On the line, write the question it answers. 1. We expect our grandparents to arrive in about an hour. __________________________________________ 2. My cousin watches television almost as much as you do. __________________________________________ 3. The weatherman says it will rain all day. _____________________________________________________ 4. Your brother plays soccer better than my brother does. _________________________________________ 5. Our friend drives on Mondays. ____________________________________________________________ 6. Gerard and Donna will walk on the footpath. __________________________________________________ 7. The frog jumps through the tall grass. ____________________________________________________ 8. Mum combs my hair more gently than Dad does. ________________________________________________ 9. He found his lucky coin in the morning. ______________________________________________________ 10. We raced our toy cars on the playground. ___________________________________________________ 11. Patrick and Anthony were reading their books in the car. ________________________________________ 12. The music teacher played the violin better than her student. _____________________________________ 13. Georgia tried to talk to Ryan -
Latin I Mastery List
LATIN I MASTERY LIST This is the information that you should know at the beginning of second year. We will spend a week or so reviewing – but it would be a good idea to go over this material before returning to school. NOUNS • Memorize endings of declensions 1-5, including neuters • Know that the genitive case gives the noun stem • Know the case usage: Nominative: subject, complement Genitive: possession (“of”) Dative: indirect object (“to/for”) Accusative: direct object, object of preposition Ablative: object of preposition, time when, time within which, means/ instrument, agent Vocative: direct address VERBS • Principal parts of four conjugations • Tenses – know how to recognize, translate and form Present Future Pluperfect Imperfect Perfect Future Perfect • Irregular verbs (all tenses) - sum, eo, fero • Imperative mood ADJECTIVES • 1st/2nd declension (us, a, um) and 3rd declension (is, is, e) • Agreement with nouns: gender, number and case PREPOSITIONS • Prepositions that take the accusative case: ad, in, per, post, prope, propter, apud • Prepositions that take the ablative case: a/ab, cum, de, e/ex, in, sine, sub SCHEMATIZING • Use declensions to accurately schematize (see attached sheet) SCHEMATIZING Schematizing involves: 1. breaking down the sentence into smaller parts 2. identifying the key parts of the sentence (verb/subject/direct object) verb = main verb of the clause noun/pron. and modifiers = subject or word related to subject noun/pron. and modifiers = direct object or word related to d. o. noun/pron. and modifiers = indirect object or word related to i. o. noun/pron. and modifiers = ablative (not in a prepositional phrase) noun/pron. and modifiers = complement/predicate nominative = pause in the sentence: colon, semicolon, comma, etc. -
Resulting Copulas and Their Complements in British and American English: a Corpus Based Study
UNIVERZITA PALACKÉHO V OLOMOUCI FILOZOFICKÁ FAKULTA Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Martin Dokoupil anglická filologie & francouzská filologie Resulting Copulas and their Complements in British and American English: A Corpus Based Study. Bakalářská práce Vedoucí diplomové práce: Mgr. Michaela Martinková, PhD. OLOMOUC 2011 Prohlašuji, že jsem tuto bakalářskou práci vypracoval samostatně na základě uvedených pramenů a literatury. V Olomouci, dne 10. srpna 2011 podpis 2 I hereby declare that this bachelor thesis is completely my own work and that I used only the cited sources. Olomouc, 10th August 2011 signature 3 Děkuji vedoucí mé bakalářské práce Mgr. Michaele Martinkové, PhD. za ochotu, trpělivost a cenné rady při psaní této práce. 4 Table of Contents: 1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................6 2 Theoretical Preliminaries ....................................................................................................7 2.1 Literature .....................................................................................................................7 2.2 Copular verb in general ..............................................................................................8 2.2.1 Copular verb .......................................................................................................8 2.2.2 Prototypical copular usage ...............................................................................8 2.2.3 Copular verb complementation -
RC HUMS 392 English Grammar and Meaning Complements
RC HUMS 392 English Grammar and Meaning Complements 1. Bill wanted/intended/hoped/said/seemed/forgot/asked/failed/tried/decided to write the book. 2. Bill enjoyed/tried/finished/admitted/reported/remembered/permitted writing the book. 3. Bill thought/said/forgot/remembered/reported/was sad/discovered/knew that he wrote the book. 4. Bill asked/wondered/knew/discovered/said why he wrote the book. There are four different types of complement (noun clause, either subject or object – the ones above are all object complements): respectively, they are called infinitive, gerund, that-clause, and embedded question. These types, and their structures and markers (like to and –ing) are often called complementizers. Other names for these types include for-to complementizer (infinitive), POSS-ing (or ACC-ing) complementizer (gerund), inflected (or tensed) clause (that), or WH- complementizer (embedded question). Which term you use is of no concern; they’re equivalent. Infinitives and gerunds are often called non-finite clauses, while questions and that-clauses are called finite clauses, because of the absence or presence of tense markers on the verb form. That-clauses and questions must have a fully-inflected verb, in either the present or past tense, while infinitives and gerunds are not marked for tense. Non-finite complements often do not have overt subjects; these may be deleted either because they’re indefinite or under identity. Very roughly speaking, infinitives refer to states, gerunds to events or activities, and that-clauses to propositions, but it is the identify and nature of the matrix predicate governing the complement (i.e, the predicate that the complement is the subject or object of) that determines not only what kind of thing the complement refers to, but also whether there can be a complement at all, and which complementizer(s) it can take, if so. -
Preposition Stranding Vs. Pied-Piping—The Role of Cognitive Complexity in Grammatical Variation
languages Article Preposition Stranding vs. Pied-Piping—The Role of Cognitive Complexity in Grammatical Variation Christine Günther Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Universität Siegen, 57076 Siegen, Germany; [email protected] Abstract: Grammatical variation has often been said to be determined by cognitive complexity. Whenever they have the choice between two variants, speakers will use that form that is associated with less processing effort on the hearer’s side. The majority of studies putting forth this or similar analyses of grammatical variation are based on corpus data. Analyzing preposition stranding vs. pied-piping in English, this paper sets out to put the processing-based hypotheses to the test. It focuses on discontinuous prepositional phrases as opposed to their continuous counterparts in an online and an offline experiment. While pied-piping, the variant with a continuous PP, facilitates reading at the wh-element in restrictive relative clauses, a stranded preposition facilitates reading at the right boundary of the relative clause. Stranding is the preferred option in the same contexts. The heterogenous results underline the need for research on grammatical variation from various perspectives. Keywords: grammatical variation; complexity; preposition stranding; discontinuous constituents Citation: Günther, Christine. 2021. Preposition Stranding vs. Pied- 1. Introduction Piping—The Role of Cognitive Grammatical variation refers to phenomena where speakers have the choice between Complexity in Grammatical Variation. two (or more) semantically equivalent structural options. Even in English, a language with Languages 6: 89. https://doi.org/ rather rigid word order, some constructions allow for variation, such as the position of a 10.3390/languages6020089 particle, the ordering of post-verbal constituents or the position of a preposition. -
Notes on Phrases and Clauses What Is a Phrase?
Notes on Phrases and Clauses ELAGSE9-10L1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. b. Use various types of phrases (noun, verb, adjectival, adverbial, participial, prepositional, absolute) and clauses (independent, dependent; noun, relative, adverbial) to convey specific meanings and add variety and interest to writing or presentations. What is a phrase? A phrase is a group of words without both a subject and predicate. Phrases combine words into a larger unit that can function as a sentence element. For example, a participial phrase can include adjectives, nouns, prepositions and adverbs; as a single unit, however, it functions as one big adjective modifying a noun (or noun phrase). See this overview of phrases for more. Noun Phrase - "The crazy old lady in the park feeds the pigeons every day." A noun phrase consists of a noun and all of its modifiers, which can include other phrases (like the prepositional phrase in the park). More examples. o Appositive Phrase - "Bob, my best friend, works here" or "My best friend Bob works here." An appositive (single word, phrase, or clause) renames another noun, not technically modifying it. See this page from the Armchair Grammarian for everything you ever wanted to know about appositives. o Gerund Phrase - "I love baking cakes." A gerund phrase is just a noun phrase with a gerund as its head. o Infinitive Phrase - "I love to bake cakes." An infinitive phrase is a noun phrase with an infinitive as its head. Unlike the other noun phrases, however, an infinitive phrase can also function as an adjective or an adverb.