the structure of simple sentences · the structure of simple sentences! 1! (1) !general...
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!!Intro to RRG Summer 2015
The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface !
��� Figure 1: The organization of Role and Reference Grammar (preliminary) !
The Structure of Simple Sentences 1!(1) General considerations for a theory of clause structure: a. A theory of clause structure should capture all of the universal features without imposing features on languages in which there is no evidence for them. b. A theory should represent comparable structures in different languages in comparable ways. !
��� !Figure 2: Universal oppositions underlying clause structure !!
Linking Algorithm
SYNTACTIC REPRESENTATION
Discourse-Pragm
aticsSEMANTIC REPRESENTATION
Predicate + Arguments Non-Arguments
NUCLEUSCORE
PERIPHERY
CLAUSE
Abbreviations in figures and examples: ABS ‘absolutive’, ACC ‘accusative’, ACS ‘accessible’, ACT ‘actor’, 1
ACV ‘activated’, ANTI ‘antipassive’, ASP ‘aspect’, ATV ‘active voice’, AUX ‘auxiliary’, CL ‘classifier’, CNTR ‘contrastive’, COLL ‘collective’, DAT ‘dative’, DEC ‘declarative’, DEF ‘definite(ness)’, DEM ‘demonstrative’ DET ‘determiner’, ERG ‘ergative’, F ‘feminine’,FOC ‘focal’, GEN ‘genitive’, IF ‘illocutionary force’, INA ‘inactive’, INCL ‘inclusive’, LDP ‘left-detached position’, LSC ‘layered structure of the clause’, M ‘masculine’, MOD ‘modality’, MP ‘modifier phrase’, MR ‘macrorole’, N ‘neuter’, NASP ‘nominal aspect’, NEG ‘negation’, NM ‘noun marker’, NMR ‘non-macrorole’, NOM ‘nominative’, NPIP ‘NP-initial position’, NUC ‘nucleus’, NUM ‘number’, O ‘object’, PASS ‘passive’, PM ‘proper noun marker’, PoCS ‘post-core slot’, PrCS ‘precore slot’, PRED ‘predicate’, PRES ‘present tense’, PRO ‘pronoun’, PROG ‘progressive’, PROX ‘proximate’, Q ‘question’, QLT ‘quality’, QNT ‘quantification’, RDP ‘right-detached position’, RF ‘realis future’, RP ‘reference phrase’, RP/P ‘realis past/present tense, REFL ‘reflexive’, S ‘subject’, TNS ‘tense’, TOP ‘topic’, UND ‘undergoer’, X(P), Y(P) ‘categorially unspecified category or phrase’.
!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ���2
! "Figure 3: Components of the layered structure of the clause !
Semantic Element(s) Syntactic Unit Predicate Nucleus Argument in semantic representation of predicate Core argument Non-arguments Periphery Predicate + Arguments Core Predicate + Arguments + Non-arguments Clause (= Core + Peripheries) !
Table 1: Semantic units underlying the syntactic units of the layered structure of the clause !
� "Figure 4: Universal features of the layered structure of the clause
(constituent projection) !
��� Figure 5: LSC in English !
Dana saw Pat yesterday in the library
CORE
NUCLEUS
PERIPHERY
CLAUSE
ARGUMENTS ADJUNCTS
CORE(<——————–—PERIPHERY)
NUCLEUS(<—PERIPHERY)(XP) (XP)
PRED
PP/ADV
CLAUSE(<————————————PERIPHERY)
SENTENCE
Y(P) PP/ADVADV
SENTENCE
CLAUSE
CORE<—————PERIPHERY PrCS
PRED
VNP PP
NUCNP PP
What did Robin show to Pat in the library yesterday?
ADV
!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ���3
(2) Displacement to the beginning of the clause in Tzotzil (Aissen 1987, 1992) a. ÷i-Ø-s-pet lokflel ÷antz ti tflul-e. ASP-3ABS-3ERG-carry away woman DEF rabbit-DEF ‘The rabbit carried away the woman.’ b. Buchflu Ø-s-tam? who 3ABS-3ERG-take ‘Who took it?’ c. Kflusi ch-Ø-a-kflan? what ASP-3ABS-2ERG-want ‘What do you want?’ !(3) [Something had landed at the foot of the tree, they went to look. There was a straw mat. ‘Hell, what could it be? Come on, let’s untie the straw mat!’ the two men said to each other. They untied it. You know what?--] a. Tzeb san-andrex la te Ø-s-ta-ik ÷un. girl San Andreas CL there 3ABS-3ERG-find-pl CL ‘A San Andreas girl they found there.’ b. ÷a ti tzeb san-antrex ÷un-e, ÷i-Ø-y-ik-ik la ech’el ÷un. TOP DEF girl San Andreas CL-DEF ASP-3ABS-3ERG-take-pl CL away CL. ‘The San Andreas girl, they took her with them.’ !(4) Displacement to the end of the clause in Dhivehi (Cain & Gair 2000) a. AlïÌÌ bunïÌ KïÌKE ta? Ali say.PAST.FOC what Q ‘What did Ali say?’ a´. AlïÌÌ kïÌke bunïÌ ta? Ali what say.PAST.FOC Q ‘What did Ali say?’ b. MaÌle ulÛunïÌma aharen bonïÌ AIS KURïÌMU. Male be.PAST.PROG.when 1sg drink.PRES.FOC ice cream ‘When in Male, it is ice cream that I eat.’ b´.MaÌle ulÛunïÌma ais kurïÌmu bonïÌ AHAREN. Male be.PAST.PROG.when ice cream drink.PRES.FOC 1sg ‘When in Male, it is I who eat ice cream.’ !
���Figure 6: English sentences with lexical and phrasal clausal nuclei !!!
SENTENCECLAUSE CORE
NUCPRED
VThey left.
NP NUC
PRED
NP
NPChris a very good detective
SENTENCECLAUSE CORE
is
AUX
NUC
PREDNP
PPPat in the house
SENTENCECLAUSE CORE
is
AUX
NUC
PRED
NP
AdjChris tall
SENTENCECLAUSE CORE
is
AUX
!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ���4
Nuclear operators: Aspect Negation Directionals (only those modifying orientation of action or event without reference to participants) Core operators: Directionals (only those expressing the orientation or motion of one participant with reference to another participant or to the speaker) Event quantification Modality (root modals, e.g. ability, permission, obligation) Internal (narrow scope) negation Clausal operators: Status (epistemic modals, external negation) Tense Evidentials Illocutionary Force [IF]
Table 2: Operators !
���
��� !Figure 7: Examples of the ordering of aspect and tense markers in different languages !!
�IÂra-���pa-�����ru����cook-�PERF-�PAST.1sg
VERB-ASPECT-TENSE
Kewa (Papua-New Guinea; Franklin 1971)!‘I cooked it’
Gel-���ïyor-������du-����m� !come- PROG- PAST-1sg
Turkish (Watters 1993)!‘I was coming.’
She will be sing-ing
TENSE-ASPECT-VERB
Ñë-��ru-�����unÙtıiÑ-���apa�1sg-PAST-�PROG-�eat
English
Tiwi (Australia; Osborne 1974)!‘I was eating.’
!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ���5
� "Figure 8: Layered structure of the clause with constituent and operator projections !
���
NUCLEUS
PRED
NUCLEUS
CORE
Y(P)
CLAUSE
SENTENCE
CLAUSE
CORE
SENTENCE
AspectNegationDirectionals
DirectionalsEvent quantModalityNegation
StatusTenseEvidentialsIllocutionary Force
CLAUSE CORE
NUCLEUS
PRED
NUCLEUS<—Aspect
NUCLEUS/CORE<—Directionals
CORE<——Modality
(PrCS)
(LDP)
XP (XP) (XP) (XP)(XP)(XP)
SENTENCE
CLAUSE<——Status
CLAUSE<——Tense
CLAUSE<—–-Evidentials
CLAUSE<—–Illocutionary Force
SENTENCE
CORE<——Negation (Internal)
NUCLEUS<—Negation
(PoCS)(RDP)
CORE<——Event quantification
Y(P)
SENTENCE
LDP CLAUSE CORE<———PERIPHERYPrCS
NUCPRED
VADV NP PPYesterday, what John give in the library?did to Mary
NUCLEUS
CORE
IF----------->CLAUSE
TNS---->CLAUSE
SENTENCE
NP PP
!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ���6
��� Figure 9: English and Japanese clause structures with operator projection !
��� Figure 10: English syntactic templates (preliminary) from the syntactic inventory !
SENTENCECLAUSE
CORE
PP
NP NP NUCLEUSPRED
VTaroo ga Kazue no uti de hon o yon-da ka? NOM GEN house in book ACC read-PAST-Q
PERIPHERY–>
SENTENCE
CLAUSE<–TNS
CLAUSE<———–IF
CORE
NUCLEUS
V‘Did Taroo read a/the book at Kazue's house?’
CLAUSE
PrCSXP
CORE
PrCS Template
CLAUSE
XPLDP
SENTENCE
LDP Template
Core-1 Template Core-2 Template
CORE
NP NP
Core-3 Template
CORE
NP
Core-4 Template
CORE
NP PPPREDNUC
V
PREDNUC
V
PREDNUC
V
CORE
NP NP PPPREDNUC
V
!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ���7
��� !Figure 11: Combining syntactic templates from the syntactic inventory !
Figure 12: Adverbs and the peripheries !
CLAUSE
PrCS
XP
CORE
CORE<——–PERIPHERY
NUCNP PPPRED
PP/ADVV
Syntactic Inventory
CLAUSE
X(P)
LDP
SENTENCE
SENTENCE
LDP CLAUSE
CORE<———PERIPHERY PrCS
PRED
VADV NP PP
NUCNP PP
(e.g. Yesterday, what did Robin show to Pat in the library?)
Leslie has evidently been slowly immersing herself completely in the new language
V
PRED
NUC<———PERIPHERYNPNP
PP
PERIPHERY—>CORE
PERIPHERY———>CLAUSESENTENCE
V
NUC<–ASP
ASP————–>NUC
TNS————————>CLAUSE
IF——————————>CLAUSE
SENTENCE
ADVADV ADV
!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ���8
(5) a. Mathó ki wo- wíčha- wa- t’iŋ=kte. bear the do.by.shooting-3plANIMU-1sgA-die FUT.IRR ‘I will shoot the bears to death.’ b. Wo- wíčha- wa- t’iŋ=kte. do.by.shooting-3plANIMU-1sgA-die FUT.IRR ‘I will shoot them to death.’
��� Figure 13: Layered structure of the word [LSW] (Everett 2002) and English refusals
��� Figure 14: LSW of Lakhota wowíčhawat’iŋkte in (5)
��� Figure 15: Clause structure in head-marking languages (Van Valin 2013)
W
[WORD]
NUC
FRM
CORE
ROOT/STEM
AFFIXFRM
W
CLITIC
W
W
N
NUC AFF
CORE
NUC
/rifyuz-/ /-ël/ {PL}
W
NAFF
VPRED
NUC
W
VCORE CL
W
NUC NUCWW
PRED PRED
wo t'a {FUT.IRR}
ARGARG
{3plANIMU}{1sgA}
NUC
W
VCORE CL
W
NUC NUCWW
PRED PRED
wo t'a {FUT-IRR}{3plANIMU}{1sgA} {DEC}
SENTENCECLAUSE
CORE
ARG
CORE
NUC
V
ARG
NP
Mathó ki
CLAUSE<——TNS
CLAUSE<—————–—IF
SENTENCE
!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ���9
!
��� !Figure 16: Layered structure of the ‘Noun’ Phrase !
The Issue of Endocentrism !I. What is endocentrism? — Grammatical constructions and phrases may have a central constituent whose properties determine or at the very least strongly influence their grammatical properties: the head of the construction or phrase. — Constructions and phrases with a head are termed endocentric. Examples include noun phrases, which are headed by a noun, and verb phrases, which are headed by a verb. — Constructions and phrases which lack a head are termed exocentric. The most discussed example of an exocentric construction is the sentence. — The exact definitions of endocentrism and exocentrism are theory-dependent. !II. Conceptions of endocentrism — Bloomfield (1933) — An endocentric constituent is one in which the head and the constituent it heads have the same privileges of occurrence, e.g. everywhere a noun phrase can occur, a simple noun, e.g. a bare plural, a pronoun or proper noun, can occur. — An exocentric constituent is one in which the head and the constituent do not have the same grammatical distribution, e.g. a prepositional phrase is exocentric, because a bare preposition cannot occur in the same range of grammatical environments that a prepositional phrase can. — Chomsky (1970) — In early transformational grammar, there was nothing in the nature of the phrase structure rules that guaranteed that a noun phrase would contain an noun, a verb phrase a verb, etc. — Furthermore, there are structural parallels across the different phrase types that were not captured by the grammar.
XP
CORE
NUC (PP) (PP)
X
X
X
XP
QNT——–>
DEIC———->
XNUC
COREX
NASP—–->COREXNUM—–>
XPDEF———->NEG———>COREX
(XPIP)
(XP/ADV)
!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ���10
— Chomsky proposed a general system for the structure of phrases, the X-bar schema, which specifies the structure of all phrases with a lexical head. The abstract structural template is given in Figure 17. !
��� Figure 17: X-bar schema !
— Hence all phrases with a lexical head (X = N, V, A, P) must be endocentric: N´´ (NP), V´´ (VP), A´´ (AP), P´´ (PP). — The sentence, S, remained headless and therefore exocentric. ! — Chomsky (1986) — The X-bar system is extended to functional (grammatical) categories like complementizer and inflection (tense) initially and then to other categories later. — The head of the sentence on this analysis is the INFLection node, which contains tense and agreement, and therefore S became IP (Inflection Phrase, or I´´); hence the sentence is endocentric, as are all phrase types. — The X-bar schema in Figure 17 was posited as one of the principles of Universal Grammar and therefore a component of the Language Acquisition Device. !III. Consequences of assumption of endocentrism — Syntactic categories are necessarily projections of lexical and functional categories. — Confusion of syntactic categories with syntactic functions, e.g. verbs are usually predicates, so if something is a predicate, it must be a verb. !III. Problems for endocentrism — Two main types — Phrasal ‘heads’ (see Figure 6 above) — Wrong category as head of a phrase ! — Wrong category as head of a phrase: Tagalog, Nootka !(6) a. Nagtrabaho ang lalaki Tagalog worked NOM man (Schachter 1985) ‘The man worked.’ ! b. Lalaki ang nagtrabaho. man NOM worked ‘The one who worked is a man.’
X´´
X´(SPEC)
X´(MOD)
X(CMPL)
!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ���11
!(7) a. Wa¬a:k-ma qo:÷as-÷i. Nootka go-3sgPRES man-the (Swadesh 1939) ‘The man is going.’! a´. Qo:÷as-ma wa¬a:k-÷i. man-3sgPRES go-the ‘The one going is a man.’ a´´. Qo:÷as-ma. man-3sgPRES ‘He is a man.’ b. ÷i:hÚ-ma qo:÷as-÷i. large-3sgPRES man-the ‘The man is large.’ b´. Qo:÷as-ma ÷i:hÚ-÷i. man-3sgPRES big-the ‘The large one is a man.’ !— Notion of non-categorial nucleus can be applied to XPs as in Figure 18: these (potentially) referring expressions can be analyzed as Reference Phrases [RP]. The nucleus of RPs may, but need not, be nominal in nature (Van Valin 2005, 2008). !
��� Figure 18: The layered structure of the RP in the Nootka example in (7a´) !!!
SENTENCECLAUSE CORE
NUC
PRED
N
<—DEF
RP
CORER
RNUCV
R
R
VNUC
CORE
RP
Qo:÷as-ma������wa¬a:k-÷i
NNUC
CORE
CLAUSECLAUSE
SENTENCE
<-TNS<——–IF
!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ���12
��� !Figure 19: Examples of English RPs headed by nouns
��� !Figure 20: English non-predicative PP and predicative PP !!
(8) a. Bayi bargan ba-Ñgu-l ya≠a-Ñgu dyurga-ñu gambi-≠a. DET.ABS wallaby-ABS DET.ERG man-ERG spear-TNS mountains-LOC ‘The man speared the wallaby in the mountains.’ b. BaÑgul gambi≠a ya≠aÑgu bayi dyurgañu bargan. DET.ERG mountains man.ERG DET.ABS speared wallaby.ABS c. Ya≠aÑgu dyurgañu gambi≠a bargan baÑgul bayi. man.ERG speared mountains wallaby.ABS DET.ERG DET.ABS [all possible orders are grammatical] !
NNUCCORE
RP
R
R
RPCORE
NUC<———PERIPHERY
N
PP PP
R
R
construction of the bridge in New York City
DEF———>
the company's
RPIPRP
R
Nthe three big bridges
NNUCCORE<--NUM
RPDEF—————>QNT——>CORE
R
R
R
RPCORE
NUCR
RPERIPHERY ->ADJ
R
PP
P RP
to Pat
PP
NUC
PRED
P
RP
in the library
COREP
P
!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ���13
��� !
��� "Figure 21: Structure of (8b) from Dyirbal and its English translation !!! !
BaÑgul��gambi⇥a�����������ya⇥aÑgu�bayi������dyurgañu���������barganDET.ERG�mountains��������������man.ERG�DET.ABS�speared����������������wallaby.ABS
V
PRED
NUC
CORECLAUSESENTENCE
PERIPHERY———————––>
CORE
NUC
CLAUSE
SENTENCE
V
<-TNS
RP
CORER
RNUC
N
N
ABS
RNUC
CORER
RPDEIC————————>
RP
CORER
RNUC
RNUC
CORER
N
ERG
N
RPDEIC———————>
RPERGPRODEM
RPABSPRODEM
LOCRP
RNUC
CORER
N
N
RNUC
CORERRP
N
RP
CORE
NUCR
R
SENTENCE
SENTENCECLAUSE
CORE<————————————–PERIPHERY
NUCLEUS
PRED
V
N
RP
CORE
NUCR
R
The manN
NUC
CORE<--NUM
RPDEF->
R
R
V
NUC
CORE
CLAUSE<——IF
CLAUSE<-TNS
speared the wallabyN
NUC
CORE<--NUM
RPDEF--->
R
R
PPCORE
NUC
P
in the mountainsN
N
NUC
CORE<--NUM
RPDEF----->
R
R
RPCORERNUCR
PRED
P
P
!!!RRG: The Syntactic Side of the Syntax-Semantics Interface, page ���14
References !Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. New York: Holt. Chomsky, Noam. 1970. Remarks on nominalization. Readings in English transformational
grammar, ed. by Roderick Jacobs & Peter Rosenbaum, 184-221. Waltham, MA: Ginn & Co.
Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Barriers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Dixon, R.M.W. 1972. The Dyirbal language of North Queensland. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. Franklin, Karl. 1971. A grammar of Kewa, New Guinea (Pacific Linguistics C-16). Canberra:
Australian National University. Osborne, C.R. 1974. The Tiwi Language. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Schachter, Paul. 1985. Parts-of-speech systems. In T. Shopen, ed., Language, typology and
syntactic description, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swadesh, Morris. 1939. Nootka internal syntax. IJAL 9:77-102. Van Valin, Robert. 2008. RPs and the nature of lexical and syntactic categories in Role and
Reference Grammar. In R. Van Valin, ed., 161-78. ——-. 2013. Head-marking languages and linguistic theory. B. Bickel, L. A. Grenoble, D. A.
Peterson, & A. Timberlake (Eds.), Language typology and historical contingency. In honor of Johanna Nichols, 91-124. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Van Valin, Robert, ed. 2008. Investigations of the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Watters, James K. 1993. An investigation of Turkish clause linkage. In Van Valin, ed., Advances in Role and Reference Grammar, 535-60. Amsterdam: Benjamins. !
RRG web site: linguistics.buffalo.edu/research/rrg.html