4. syntax(配戴炜栋版语言学)

課 程 提 綱

課程名稱： 語言學概論 任課教師： 孟智君 課程性質： 院考試課 學 分： 4 教 材： 《新編簡明英語語言學教程》

Chapter 4. Syntax

1. What is syntax?

◆Syntax (句法學) is a branch of linguistics that studies how words are combined to form sentences and the rules that govern the formation of sentences. ◆The study of the interrelationship between sentential elements.

2. Transformational Generative Grammar (TG, 轉換生成語法)

◆Noam Chomsky, the most influential linguist in 20th century, some important works are the following:

◇ Syntactic Structure (1957)

◇ Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965)

◇ Lectures on Government and Binding (1981) ◇ Barriers (1986)

◇ A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory (1993) ◇ The Minimalist Program (1995)

◇ The Minimalist Inquiry: The Framework (1998) ◆Criteria on good grammar ⒈Observational adequacy ⒉Descriptive adequacy Noam Chomsky ⒊Explanatory adequacy

⒋The ultimate goal for any theory is to explain

★ TG differs from traditional grammar in that it not only aims at language description, but also its explanation.

◆Chomsky is much more interested in the similarities (language universals) between languages rather than their differences.

◇ Linguists should attempt to find a grammatical framework which will be suitable for all languages.

◇ Linguists should concentrate on the elements and constructions that are available to all languages rather than on elements that actually occur in all languages.

◇ There are likely to be universal constraints on the ways linguistic elements are combined. ◇ Chomsky proposed that the grammars of human languages share a common framework (Universal Grammar).

3. Categories

語言學概論 4 －1

◆Category (範疇) refers to a group of linguistic items which fulfill the same or similar functions in a particular language such as a sentence, a noun phrase or a verb.

◆The most central categories to the syntactic study are the word-level categories (traditionally, parts of speech)

◆Eight categories in traditional grammar: ⒈noun (N)

⒉pronoun (Pron) ⒊verb (V)

⒋adjective (Adj) ⒌adverb (Adv) ⒍article (Art)

⒎preposition (Prep) ⒏conjunction (Conj)

◆The non-traditional categories added: ⒐determiner (Det, 限定詞) ⒑degree word (Deg, 程度詞) ⒒qualifier (Qual, 修飾詞) ⒓auxiliary (Aux, 助動詞)

◆Two kinds of word-level categories: ◇ Major lexical categories: N, V, A, P.

◇ Minor lexical categories: Det, Deg, Qual, Aux, Con.

★ Difference — Major lexical categories are often assumed to be the heads around which phrases are built.

◆The criteria on which categories are determined ⒈Meaning

◇ Word categories often bear some relationship with its meaning. Nouns: entities (human beings, objects, etc. 實體) Verbs: action, sensations and states

◇ The meanings associated with some word categories can be elaborated (闡述) in various ways.

Properties / attributes of nouns: adjectives

Properties / attributes of actions, sensations and states (verbs): adverbs

◇ It is misleading to assume that a word’s category can be told straightforward (直接的) from its meaning:

①Abstract nouns do not concretely reveal their entities. ②Some words may belong to more than one category.

③Words with the same or similar meanings sometimes belong to different word categories. ⒉Inflection

◇ Words of different categories take different inflections. Nouns: plural affix –s; case affix –’s

Verbs: past tense affix –ed; progressive affix –ing

Adjectives: comparative affix –er; superlative affix –est Note: Some words do not take inflections. ⒊Distribution

語言學概論 4 －2

◇ The most reliable criterion of determining a word’s category. ◇ What type of elements can occur with a certain word. Nouns: a determiner Verbs: an auxiliary

Adjectives: a degree word

◆Phrase categories and their structures

The syntactic units that are built around a certain word category are called phrase categories, such as noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP), adjective phrase (AP), prepositional phrase (PP). ◇ The structure: specifier + head + complement

Head (中心詞) — the word around which a phrase is formed Specifier (標誌語) — the words on the left side of the heads Complement (補語) — the words on the right side of the heads

4. Phrase structure rules

◆The grammatical mechanism that regulates the arrangement of elements that make up a phrase is called a Phrase Structure Rule, such as:

NP → (Det) + N + (PP) … e.g. those people, the fish on the plate, pretty girls. VP → (Qual) + V + (NP) … e.g. always play games, finish assignments.

AP → (Deg) + A + (PP) … e.g. very handsome, very pessimistic, very close to. PP → (Deg) + P + (NP) … e.g. on the shelf, in the boat, quite near the station. ◆The XP Rule

XP

Specifier X (Head) Complement

XP → (specifier) X (complement)

Note: The phrase structure rules can be summed up as XP rule shown in the above diagram, in which X stands for N, V, A or P, that is X = { N, V, A, P }. ◆X — Theory

XP (phrase level)

X— (intermediate level)

Specifier X (Head) Complement

XP → (specifier) X — X — → X (complement)

語言學概論 4 －3

◆Coordination rule

Coordination structures (並列結構) are the structures that are formed by joining two or more elements of the same type with the help of a conjunction such as and, or, but, so, etc. ◇ Coordination has four important properties:

⒈No limit on the number of coordinated categories before the conjunction. ⒉A categories at any level can be coordinated. ⒊The categories must be of the same type.

⒋The category type of the coordinate phrase is identical to the category type of the elements being conjoined.

◇ Coordination rule

X → X* Con X

In this rule the symbol X stands for “a category at any structural level”, indicating that either an X or an XP can be coordinated. The asterisk (*) indicates that one or more categories can occur to the left of the Con (=conjunction).

5. Phrase elements ◆Specifier

⒈Semantically, specifiers make more precise the meaning of the head.

⒉Syntactically, they typically mark a phrase boundary. They are attached to the top level of phrase structures, to the left of the head.

◇ The syntactic category of the specifier depends on the category of the head. Specifiers of Ns: determiners Specifiers of Vs: qualifiers

Specifiers of As and Ps: degree words ◆Head

◆Complement

Complements themselves can be a phrase; they provide information about entities and locations whose existence is implied by the meaning of head, e.g. a story about a sentimental girl. There can be no complement, one complement, or more than one complement in a phrase:

appear, break a code, put the book on the table

◇ The XP Rule (revised)

XP → (specifier) X (complement * ) The asterisk (*) indicates that one or more of these elements is permitted. ◆A sentence-like construction may also function as a complement. I believed that she was innocent. I doubt if she will come.

They are keen for you to show up.

◇ That / if / for are complementizers (Cs 補語標誌). The clauses introduced by complementizers are complement clause (補語從句). The whole italicized part in each of the above sentences is called a complement phrase (CP補語短語). ◆Modifiers

語言學概論 4 －4

Modifiers (修飾語) specify optionally expressible properties of heads. ⒈The most common modifiers of Ns: AP

⒉The most common modifiers of Vs: AdvP and PP

★ Modifiers in English vary in terms of their position with respect to the head. They can be summarized below.

Modifier AP PP AdvP

Position

precedes the head follows the head

precedes or follows the head

Example

a very careful girl open with care

read carefully; carefully read

◇ The XP Rule (expanded)

XP → (specifier) (Mod)X (complement * ) (Mod)

6. Sentences (The S rule) ◆S → NP VP

Analysis: A boy found the evidence.

S

NP VP

NP

Det N V Det N | | | | | A boy found the evidence

◆S → NP Infl VP

Many linguists believe that sentences, like other phrases, also have their own heads. Infl is an abstract category inflection as their heads, which indicates the sentence’s tense and agreement. ◇ Infl is realized by a tense label. Analysis: A boy found the evidence.

InflP (= S)

NP VP

NP

Infl (Past)

Det N V Det N

| | | | | A boy found the evidence

語言學概論 4 －5

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