MAKALAH SEMANTIC : ROOT AND PART

“Grammar is an example of a ’descrete combinatorial system’. A finite number of descrete elements (in this case, words) are sampled, combined and permuted to create larger structures(in this case, sentences) with properties that are quite distinct from those of their elements.” (Pinker, 1994)

Syntax : is the study of the architecture of phrases, clauses and sentences.

Phrases : group of 2 ore more grammatically linked words without a subject and predicate. “the governor of California from Ilinois”(role-player is closer to Head Noun than modifier)    NP vs. VP “Both teachers and students”.

Clause : group of 2 or more words with subject and predicate. Dependant(suboridnate)  and independant Noun, adverb, adjective clauses.

Sentence : “ a complete expression of a single thought”. Simple, complex, compound. Types : declarative, interrogativ(direct and indirect), exclamatory, imperative,

Properties of larger structures :

Syntactic Categories (parts of speech) : “ a family of expressions that can substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality; Noun, Pronoun, Verb, Auxiliary verb, Adverb, Prepositional Phrase, Determiner, Adjective.

Phrasal Categories (syntactic labels) : NP, VP, PP, Adj,Adv, Det

Linear order and internal hierarchical structure.

Constituent Structure : American history teacher (ambiguity of modification)

Node : every word si pointed by one syntactic category(dominates others)

“Red oak table”,” second language teacher”, “big truck driver”

“Knowing a language means, amongst other things, knowing when there are two ways of expressing the same thing grammatically. It means being able to manipulate the rules of the language, so that we do not have to learn the structure of every sentence we wish to use from scratch, but rather apply an already-learned rules of fresh material” (Crystal,1990)

Transformations : operation that moves a phrasal category from one location to another within the structure. Part of an unobservable theory of syntax.

S = NP + VP

NP= Det + N(Det PP)(Det Adj N)

PP = Prep NP

VP = V NP NP

VP = V NP PP

VP = V NP

B.C.

Bloomfield and Structuralism : until 50’s providing procedures for segmenting and classifying utterance, Immediate Constituent : “Poor John went away.”

“Syntax was already complex enough to analyse properly without letting meaning in as well” (Crystal, 1990)

Tagmemics (Pike ) : slots, matrices : expressing both structural and functional information. “John kicked the ball”(NP+Verb+NP and S+Predicator+O)

Scale and Category (Halliday) : class, unit, structure, system

TG (Chomsky) : creative, dynamic force, capable of making infinite use of finite means.

A.C.

“The boy saw the girl“ = NP + VP/ VP+NP/ NP₁+Aux+V+ NP₂/ NP₂+Aux+be+en+V+By+ NP₁

Trees, Trees, Trees

“Poor         John        run          away.   ( NP VP ) = Adj N  V Prep      

 Adj          Noun       Verb        Particle

    Subject                    Predicate

                

                   Sentence       

 The police   examined a photograph   of the accident

      NP             Verb          NP                    PP

Surface and Deep structures

Limited rules limitless use.

Transformational rules are structure dependant.

Generate sentences with these phrase structure rules :

Det- the/a ; N- doctor/maid/teacher ; N- child/man ; V- gave/clean/took ; V- touched/swept/slept ; Prep- with/on/in ; N- stethscope/bruise/room ;

 S= NP VP / NP = Det N / NP= Det PP / VP= V NP NP / VP = V NP PP

1)                       “Brillig slithey ‘twas the and tones gyre in wabe the gimble.”

2)                     “ ‘twas brillig and the slithey tones did gyre and gimble in the wabe.”

Which one appears to be syntactically well formed? Try to label the category.