How are sentences are constructed?

The boys laughed.

Morphemes WordsThe theBoy boys-slaugh laughed-ed

• Sentence:

• The boys laughed

• *Boys laughed the

• *Laughed the boys

• *Boys the laughed

• *Laughed the boys

• *Laughed boys the

• Out of these six possible orders of word only one is grammatical

• Grammaticality has to do with SYNTAX of the language.

• Syntax is the study of how words are combined into phrases and phrases into sentences.

• Sentences are organized in terms of syntactic categories of words (parts of speech)—noun, verb, adjective, preposition, adverb, determiner

• Syntactic categories:• Noun chair, book, dog,

movement• Verb jump, move, book• Adjective movable, large, bookish• Adverb quickly, fast, slowly• Preposition in, on, at, from• Determiner a/an, the

• A simple sentence

The chair moves

• Add adjectives and adverbs:

The large chair moves fast

• Add prepositions:

The large chair moves fast in the room

How do we identify the syntactic category of a word?

• Morphological criteria: inflectional morphemes/derivational morphemes

• Syntactic (distribution) criteria:

What are phrase-structure rules?

PS rules show the order of constituents in phrases and sentences

S NP VP

NP VPJohn cried

The cat ate the ratMy sister wrote a long letter to her friend from

GermanyThe nerd with stud earrings spilled the

potion

Expanding NP:

John

Justice NP N (NP consists of N)

A car

That plant

Those children NP Det N (NP consists of Det + N)

A beautiful girl

An ancient pyramid

His flat saucer

NP Det A N (NP consists of Det + A +N)

The beautiful girl in blue jeans

The book on the table

A rise in prices

The woman behind the curtain

NP Det N PP (NP consists of Det + N +PP)

Phrase-Structure Rules:1. NP N (NP consists of N)2. NP Det N (NP consists of Det +

N)3. NP Det A N (NP consists of Det +

AP +N)4. NP Det N PP (NP consists of Det +

N +PP)5. NP (Det) (A) N (PP)

Expanding Prepositional Phrases (PP)PP P NPFrom Nepal

At his brotherWith a stickOn the tableBy the judgeIn New York

Expanding Verb Phrases (VP):

John cried.

The cat ran.

The ice melted.

The house collapsed

VP V

John won a bicycle.

The men cleaned the car.

She watered the plants.

My grandmother baked a delicious cake.

VP V NP

John won the bike in June.

John left the hall after the lecture.

VP V NP PP

John gave Mary some flowers.

My friend sent her mother a nice car.

The teacher bought her students some pencils.

VP V NP NP

John sat on the mat carefully .

The children read the story slowly.

VP V PP Adv

John sounds very tired .

They appeared happy.

VP V A

VP V

VP V NP

VP V NP PP

VP V NP NP

VP V PP Adv

VP V A

VP V (NP) (PP) (Adv) (A)

Adjective Phrases:

• The food tastes delicious

• The books are expensive.

• The man is fond of dogs.

• I am proud of you.

AP A (PP)

Adverb Phrases:

• The smart students can find jobs easily.

• John watered the plants carefully.

• They speak Spanish fluently.

• He came home early.

AdvP Adv

Grammatical relations (Heads and complements):

• Noun is the head of an NP

• Verb is the head of a VP

• Adjective is the head of an AP

• Preposition is the head of a PP

Grammatical relations

The syntactic roles played by an NP in a sentence. The relationship of an NP with its predicate (VP)

Subject

Direct object

Indirect object

Oblique (object of preposition)

Subject complement

S NP VP

NP: subject immediately dominated by SJohn disappeared.

John washed the car.

Complements: required elements in a VP Types of verbs:

Transitive verbs: Verbs that take NP (DO) complements

• The girl left her books in the car.• A man stole all my books.• The children gave the teacher a nice card.• John baked a delicious cake for his daughter.• *Jane bought

A man stole all my books.What did the man steal? all my booksAll my books—direct object (DO) *A man stoleJohn baked a delicious cake for his

daughter.What did John bake?*John baked

The children gave the teacher a nice card

What did the children give? A card

Who received a nice card? The teacher

A card: DO

The teacher: Indirect object (one who receives or benefits from the act)

Intransitive Verbs: Verbs that do not take any complements.

• Jane wept.• The babies are sleeping soundly.• My books vanished suddenly.• He smiled

*Michael frightened*Jane wept the babies

*He smiled the audience.

Linking verbs: Verbs that take NP/AP complements in the form of SC

• John is a good doctor.• The men looked exhausted.• Mary and Jane remained good friends.• The boy seems nice.• John = a good doctor (subject complement)• The boy = nice (subject complement)• Subject complement = NP or AP

See look believe fall

Find feel promise smile

Take seem say walk

Send sound imagine cry

Eat

1. John put a picture on the table.

2. John drew a picture on the table.

*John put a picture

John drew a picture.

Modifiers and complements

• How do we know if a phrase is a modifier or a complement?

• Complements are required to make sentences grammatical

• *She fed• *The president mentioned• *The children devoured• She fed the dog.• The president mentioned the name of his friend.• The children devoured the pizza.

Modifiers are optional:

• She fed the dog (last night).

• John put the book on the table (before dinner).

• John sat (on the sofa in the morning with Mary).

Complements are implied by the meaning of a verb

• Eat

• Give

• Send

The big brown dog chased the cat relentlessly.

The brown dog chased the cat.

??The brown dog chased

??The brown dog chased relentlessly

The cat—direct object

Relentlessly—modifier (adverbial—tells how the dog chased)

John found a ball in the park.*John found in the park*John foundA ball: direct object in the park: modifier

John put the books in the drawer.*John put in the drawer*John put the books

• The boys left at night.

• The men robbed the bank at night.

• The boys left.

• The men robbed.

• The men robbed at night.

Complements:

• Direct objects

• Indirect objects

• Subject complements

• Object complements