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Today What is syntax? Grammaticality Ambiguity Phrase structure
Readings: 6.1 – 6.2
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Productivitye.g., Laura ate two peanuts.
Laura ate three peanuts.…Laura ate forty-three million, five hundred and nine peanuts.…
Laura ate X peanuts. (where X = number)
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Productivity We do not store whole sentences, but the
words (mental lexicon) and the rules thatcombine them
The set of rules is finite, but the set ofpossible sentences is not
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Syntax The study of the structure of phrases/
sentences and the rules governing howwords are combined to formphrases/sentences
These rules are acquired at a very youngage and internalized.
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Grammaticality Sequences of words that conform to the
rules of a language are grammatical (well-formed)
“Grammatical” is different from“comprehensible”
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Grammatical or ungrammatical?The cat is on the mat.The mat is on the cat.The cat on is the mat.
Word order is important.
* ‘*’ = an ungrammaticalor ill-formed sentence
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Grammatical or ungrammatical?This sentence no verb.Contains a verb.
Sentences need a subject and a verb
This sentence has cabbage six carrots.
**
*
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Grammatical or ungrammatical?Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.Sleep furiously ideas green colorless.
Grammaticality and sense/meaning canbe independent of one another. Thisshows the independence of syntacticrules.
*
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Ambiguity The property of having two or more
meanings. Lexical ambiguity Structural ambiguity
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Lexical ambiguityHeadlines:
PROSTITUTES APPEAL TO POPE IRAQI HEAD SEEKS ARMS SOVIET VIRGIN LANDS SHORT OF GOAL AGAIN CHILD’S STOOL IS GREAT FOR USE IN GARDEN
Lexical ambiguity: when a word has more thanone meaning
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Structural ambiguity “I once shot an elephant in my pajamas.” “Tonight’s program will discuss sex with Dr.
Ruth Westheimer.” “We will not sell gasoline to anyone in a
glass container.” “This mixing bowl is designed to please any
cook with a round bottom for efficientbeating.”
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Structural ambiguity Ambiguity resulting from the structure of
the phrase or sentence
e.g., discuss [sex with Dr. Ruth Westheimer] [discuss sex] [with Dr. Ruth Westheimer]
e.g., a large [man’s hat] [a large man’s] hat
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Hierarchy and ambiguity
large man’s hat large man’s hat (un lock able) (un lock able)
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Phrase structure1) Every word belongs to a lexical category2) Lexical categories forms heads (“main
words”) of phrases which can function asa unit
3) How phrases are formed is governed byrules (= ‘phrase structure rules’)
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Lexical categories Nouns (N): Laura, peanut, house Verbs (V): eat, see, sleep, dive Adjectives (Adj): big, lazy, colorless Determiners (Det): the, a, those, every Prepositions (P): in, of, over, with Adverbs (Adv.): quickly, often
A word’s lexical category determines what kindof phrasal category it can form
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Phrases Built up from lexical categories (their
heads) May consist of one or more words They function as a unit These units come together to form
sentences
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Types of phrases Noun phrase (NP)
John the boy a book about a boy a big picture of the boy in a bubble A friend that I’ve known for a long time
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Types of phrases Verb phrase (VP)
fall fell slowly fell (slowly) into the pond buy the book *buy slowly the book buy the book with a credit card
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Types of phrases Prepositional phrase (PP):
in with a smile of my little teeth between a rock and a hard place at the store by my house