introduction to syntax - linguistic society of america · heads and complements 50 v subcategorizes...

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Introduction to syntax

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Introduction to syntax

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Course time: Tuesday/Friday 11:00 AM-12:50 PM Location: JSB 221 instructor: David Pesetsky (pesetsk@mit.edu) office: to be announced office hours: to be announced TAs: Danfeng Wu (dfwu@mit.edu) Sahar Taghipour (sta262@g.uky.edu) office hours: to be announced

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Tentative plan

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Basic phrase structure

Constituents • Sentence fragments, movement, ellipsis,

anaphora as tests for constituency, ambiguities

• built by the rule "Merge" Subcategorization and the notion "head" • The sisterhood condition on

subcategorization, and some consequences. Implications for acquisition.

• Modification of the sisterhood condition gives the notion "head".

• Structural definition of grammatical relations: subject, object

θ-roles • Agent, patient, goal... • the Uniformity of Theta Assignment

Hypothesis (UTAH)

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Universal Grammar and language variation

• the Cinque hierarchy • head-final vs. head-initial languages • mixed languages: FOFC

Movement as Internal Merge

• scrambling in Japanese • wh-movement in English • verb-second (V2) in Germanic • V2 on four continents • V-to-T in French • Verb-initiality in Irish

Case Theory • morphological case systems

• Case and the licensing of nominal complements

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A-movement • Exceptional Case Marking • Passive: movement motivated by Case • VP-internal subjects • Unaccusativity and Raising (vs. Control)

A-bar movement • wh-movement and pied-piping: probes and

goals • Successive-cyclicity and island phenomena

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Lexicon

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1. the 2. girl 3. will 4. read 5.book

part of speech

Determiner Noun Tense Verb Noun

meaning take Ladusaw's course

who is a girl

future whatever "read" means

which is a book

sound [ðə] [gɹ̩l] [wɪl] [ri:d] [bʊk]

Lexicon

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SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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The quick brown fox will jump over the lazy dog. dog?

credit: Radford, Andrew. 1988. Transformational Grammar: A First Course. CUP, Cambridge.

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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The quick brown fox will jump over the lazy dog. lazy dog?

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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The quick brown fox will jump over the lazy dog. the lazy dog?

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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The quick brown fox will jump over the lazy dog. over the lazy dog?

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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The quick brown fox will jump over the lazy dog. jump over the lazy dog?

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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The quick brown fox will jump over the lazy dog. will jump over the lazy dog?

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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The quick brown fox will jump over the lazy dog. *fox will jump over the lazy dog?

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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The quick brown fox will jump over the lazy dog. fox?

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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The quick brown fox will jump over the lazy dog. brown fox?

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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The quick brown fox will jump over the lazy dog. quick brown fox?

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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The quick brown fox will jump over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox?

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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The quick brown fox will jump over the lazy dog. *jump over the?

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

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SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: Terminology

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• node

• immediately dominates

• dominates

• mother

• daughter

• sister

• root node

• terminal node

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: produced by Merge

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SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: produced by Merge

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lazy merges with dog

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: Generated by Merge

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SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: produced by Merge

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Merge Form a set (called a phrase or constituent) whose members are two elements α and β, either or both of which may be:

a. words from the lexicon, or b. a set previously formed by Merge

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: produced by Merge

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the merges with lazy dog

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: Generated by Merge

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SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: produced by Merge

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over merges with the lazy dog

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: Generated by Merge

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SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: produced by Merge

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SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: Generated by Merge

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jump merges with over the lazy dog

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: produced by Merge

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will merges with jump over the lazy dog

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: produced by Merge

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Meanwhile, in a galaxy far, far away ... brown merges with fox

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: Generated by Merge

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SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: produced by Merge

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quick merges with brown fox

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: produced by Merge

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the merges with quick brown fox

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: produced by Merge

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and then ... the quick brown fox merges with will jump over the lazy dog

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: Generated by Merge

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SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: labeling the nodes

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• The sister of a preposition must contain a noun (even if a determiner and various articles linearly intervene) The quick brown fox will jump ... a. ... over the lazy dog. b. ... over the dog. c. ... over lazy dogs. d. ... over dogs. e. ... over the ridiculous lazy dog. f. ... *over the. g. ... *over the lazy. h. ... *over of.

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: labeling the nodes

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Noun Phrases (NP)

SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE: labeling the nodes

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The nodes for which N is the head are labeled N' or NP. They are "projections" of N. (Sophisticates: don't ask me about DP.)

Heads and complements

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eat vs. devour ask vs. inquire throw vs. put give vs. hand vs. write

Heads and complements

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(1) a. Mary has eaten. b. Mary has eaten the pizza. c. *Mary has devoured. d. Mary has devoured the pizza. (2) a. Bill will ask the time. b. *Bill will inquire the time. c. Bill will ask about the time.

d. Bill will inquire about the time.

Heads and complements

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(3) a. [?]Sue will throw. b. Sue will throw the ball. c. Sue will throw the ball to Tom. d. [?]Sue will throw to Tom. [a & d ok in sports context] e. *Sue will put. f. *Sue will put the book. g. Sue will put the book under the desk. h. *Sue will put under the desk.

Heads and complements

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The facts: eat: optional NP sister devour: obligatory NP sister inquire: *NP sister ask: ok (?) NP sister throw: optional NP and optional PP sisters put: obligatory NP PP sisters

Heads and complements

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Subcategorization information in lexical entries: eat: [+ __ (NP)] devour: [+ __ NP] ask: [+ __ NP] inquire: (not like ask) throw: [+ __ NP (PP)] put: [+ __ NP PP]

Heads and complements

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It's not just verbs that have subcategorization properties:

(1) adjectives a. *Mary is fond. b. Mary is fond of her friends.

c. Mary is proud. d. Mary is proud of her friends.

(2) prepositions a. *Mary went into. b. Mary went into the room. c. Mary went in. d. Mary went in the room.

Heads and complements

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Chomsky's generalization The lexical entry for a word contains subcategorization information only about its sister.

Heads and complements

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What's interesting about Chomsky's generalization?

Significance for language acquisition:

1.Assume the generalization is just the way language works — part of Universal Grammar.

2.This means that a child who is acquiring language does not

have to pay attention to the entire phrase structure tree when learning the subcategorization requirements of a word. Makes the task easier.

Heads and complements

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What's wrong with the generalization? A verb may subcategorize for the P of a complement PP: English Russian depend on zaviset' ot lit. 'depend from' speak to govorit' s lit. 'speak with' look at smotret' na lit. 'watch on' look for iskat' knigu lit. 'seek'

Heads and complements

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Modification of Chomsky's generalization:

The revised subcategorization generalization The lexical entry for a word contains subcategorization

information about the head of its sister. We can now use the revised generalization to probe for the heads of phrases:

Heads and complements

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V subcategorizes for the complementizer of its complement when that complement is a clause (that vs. for): (1) a. Mary will believe

[that the brown fox has depended on the lazy dog]. b. Mary will arrange

[for the brown fox to depend on the lazy dog]. (2) a. *Mary will believe

[for the brown fox to depend on the lazy dog]. b. *Mary will arrange [that the brown fox has depended on the lazy book].

Heads and complements

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Heads and complements

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Heads and complements

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NOTE: FROM THIS POINT ON, WE DIDN'T GET TO THESE SLIDES, BUT THEY ARE WHAT'S COMING NEXT, AND USEFUL FOR THE ASSIGNMENT. SEE THE SUMMARY (last page) FOR A PROBABLY MORE USEFUL VERSION

Heads and complements

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C subcategorizes for the I of its sister (to vs. tensed verb): (3) a. *Mary will believe

[that the brown fox to depend on the lazy dog]. b. Mary will arrange

[for the brown fox to depend on the lazy dog]. c. Mary will believe

[that the brown fox has depended on the lazy dog]. d. *Mary will arrange

[for the brown fox has depended on the lazy dog].

Heads and complements

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Heads and complements

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Heads and complements

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I subcategorizes for the V-morphology of its VP complement (1) a. ... [for the quick brown fox to [depend on the lazy dog]. b. *...[for the quick brown fox to [depended on the lazy dog]. (2) a. ... [that the quick brown fox will [depend on the lazy dog]. b. *... [that the quick brown fox will [depended on the lazy dog].

(3) a. *... [that the quick brown fox has depend on the lazy dog]. b. ... [that the quick brown fox has depended on the lazy dog].

Heads and complements

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Heads and complements

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Heads and complements

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