英语语言学自编教材第五章

1、 Chapter 5 Syntax1. Syntactic Categories Relevant Language Use Observations and Questions to Ponder over：1) What can you fill in the context “The _ is smiling.”? Discuss the answers with your desk mate.2) Discuss the possible meanings of the following sentences. What causes the different interpretat

2、ions of each of these sentences?a. Is he really that kind?b. They can fish here.c. Please make her dress fast. Summaries to Make and Linguistic Viewpoints to LearnWords and phrases are organized according to the syntactic categories they belong to. Constituents that belong to the same category can b

3、e substituted for one another without loss of grammaticality. Take Question (1) for example: As is obvious, verbs definitely cannot be used in this place. The most likely candidate is a noun. But there are also strict constrains on the possible type of nouns occurring here. First, it must be an anim

4、ate noun; nouns like book or desk are not possible choices. Second, even within the type of animate nouns, only those which have a semantic component of human are most naturally used with the verb smile. Trees and cats only smile in childrens stories. Thirdly, the noun must be in the singular form t

5、o occur with is smiling, so nouns like boys, and men are excluded. In other words, only singular human nouns like boy, girl, man, woman, student are capable of occurring in this context. They can substitute for each other without violating syntactic rules. Syntactic units that are built around a cer

6、tain word category are called phrases, the category of which is determined by the word category around which the phrase is built. In English syntactic analysis, the most commonly recognized and discussed phrase categories are noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP), adjective phrase (AP) and prepositiona

7、l phrase (PP). Word categories are not clear-cut because some words can belong to more than one category. Word categories often bear some relationship with its meaning. The sentences in Question (2) are ambiguous because some words in sentences can belong to different categories which mean different

8、ly. Definitions to Clarifysyntactic category: A syntactic category usually refers to a word (called a word category) or a phrase (called a phrase category) that performs a particular grammatical function in a sentence. 2. Combinational Rules Relevant Language Use Observations and Questions to Ponder

9、 over:1) Give your examples of the four phrase categories: noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP), adjective phrase (AP) and prepositional phrase (PP). Discuss with your desk mate whether the phrases below have the same structural mechanism. NP the student who likes linguisticsAP very curious of the ans

10、wer VP quite like Peking OperaPP right in our campus 2) How do speakers with “finite” minds have the ability to produce and understand an infinite set of sentences? Look at the sentences below and explain the recursiveness of the combinational rules. The man bought a book. The tall man bought a ling

11、uistic book. The tall man with glasses bought a linguistic book in a nearby store.The tall man with glasses that I met yesterday bought a linguistic book written by Lakoff in a nearby store. 3) Look at the sentences below. Which sentence is not considered grammatical? Discuss with your desk mate wha

12、t is actually internalized in the mind of a language speaker.a. John hit upon an idea. b. An idea hit upon John. c. An hit John upon idea. Summaries to Make and Linguistic Viewpoints to Learn The special type of grammatical mechanism that regulates the arrangement of elements that make up a phrase i

13、s called a phrase structure rule. For example: NP ®(Det) (Adj) N (PP)×××( a tall man with glasses). AP ® (Adv) Adj (PP) VP ® V (NP)PP ® Prep (NP)The arrow can be read as “consist of” . The parentheses mean that the element in them can be omitted and the three dots

14、indicate that other complement options are available. The phrase structure rules have the property of recursiveness which explains why language is recursive and productive. For example: The boy liked the book on the desk which his father boughtSà NP VPVP ® V NP NPà DET N PP PPà P

15、rep NP NPà N SThe man bought a book. S-à NP VP NPà Det N VPà Vt NP Phrases that are formed of more than one word usually contain the following elements: head, specifier and complement. The word around which a phrase is formed is termed head. The words on the left side of the head

16、s function as specifiers.The words on the right side of the heads are complements. So the phrases in Question (1) do have the same structural mechanism. To use a more general and abstract term, we call any phrase XP, and its head X. The mechanism may be expressed as: XP® (specifier) X (compleme

17、nt), which is known as “the XP rule”.Native speakers produce and understand sentences according to their internalized knowledge of the rules, according to which words and phrases are organized. What is actually internalized in the mind of a native speaker is not a complete list of words and phrases

18、but a rule system of grammatical knowledge, such as the combinational rules that group words and phrases to form grammatical sentences. On the one hand, these combinational rules must be small in number so as not to create extra burdens on the human memory. On the other hand, these rules must be pow

19、erful enough to yield all possible sentences, and rule out the impossible ones. Take Question (3) for example: Sentences a and b are grammatically right while c is not. Definitions to ClarifyX bar theory: Based on the universal properties of the XP rule, a format using the symbol X (read as X bar) c

20、an be abstracted, given both in a tree diagram and in a formular below. X represents the intermediate level formed by the head and the complement between word level and phrase level.XP(phrase level)XSpecifier X (head) Complementa. XP®(Specifier) X b. X ®X (complement)Commonly known as the

21、X bar theory, this highly abstract X bar schema is capable of reducing the redundancies of individual phrase structure rules and may capture certain basic properties shared by all phrasal categories across the languages of the world.3 . Sentence Structure Traditionally, a sentence is seen as a seque

22、nce of words. Structural linguists have realized that a sentence not only has a linear structure, consisting of individual words one after another in a line, it also has a hierarchical structure, made up of layers of word groups.3.1 The Structural Approach and IC Analysis Relevant Language Use Obser

23、vations and Questions to Ponder over:Study the sentence “The boy kicked the ball.” We can find in this sentence some words are in a closer relation to each other than others. Please bracket those words which you think are in closer relation. Summaries to Make and Linguistic Viewpoints to Learn The s

24、tructural approach to the analysis of language was started by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure in the beginning of the twentieth century. In the sentence “The boy kicked the ball.”, the words are not of the same degree of closeness to each other. Some words are in a closer relationship to ea

25、ch other than others. The relation between “the” and “boy”, for example, is closer than that between “boy” and “kicked”. And “the boy” is a word group while “boy kicked” is not. The relation between a sentence and its component elements is generally referred to as the relation between construction a

26、nd constituents, in which a very important notion is Immediate Constituent analysis, IC analysis for short. It was proposed by the American linguist Leonard Bloomfield in his book Language, first published in 1993. In IC analysis, sentences are divided into their principal parts or immediate constit

27、uents. Each of these is then divided and subdivided until the ultimate constituents of the sentence are reached. For example: The boys / shyly touched the puppy,shyly touched / the puppy.The / boys / shyly / touched / the / puppy. Small puppies / are fat and frisky.are / fat and frisky.Small / puppi

28、es/ are / fat / and / frisky. Definitions to ClarifySaussure(1857-1913)Immediate constituent analysis (IC analysis): The analysis of a sentence in terms of its immediate constituentsword groups (or phrases), which are in turn analyzed into the immediate constituents of their own, and the process goe

29、s on until the ultimate constituents are reached. In practice, however, for the sake of convenience, we usually stop at the level of word. 3.2 Advantages and Problems of IC Analysis Relevant Language Use Observations and Questions to Ponder over Ambiguity is a common phenomenon in all languages

30、. Can you distinguish the ambiguity of the following phrases or sentences? 1) a pretty young womanIm very young butIm young and pretty! a pretty young woman? a pretty young woman?2) The sentence “The tiger climbed the tree.” can be analyzed structurally in the following three ways. The tiger / climb

31、ed the tree.A)The tiger climbed / the tree.B)The tiger / climbed / the tree.C)Different ways of analysis show different communicative value which the sentence may have. Look at the following questions and match the following three questions with the structural analyses A), B) and C) above. Q1 What c

32、limbed the tree?Q2 What did the tiger climbed?Q3 What have you got to tell me?3) Can you analyze the sentence structure “He turned the light on.” in the same way that “The tiger climbed the tree.” has been analyzed above? Summaries to Make and Linguistic Viewpoints to LearnThrough IC analysis, the i

33、nternal structure of a sentence may be demonstrated clearly, and some of the structural ambiguities will be revealed. The IC analysis of a sentence may be easily shown with a tree diagram. Take Phrase 1) mentioned above for example. The ambiguous phrase can also be shown with a tree diagram like thi

34、s:A. a pretty young womanB. a pretty young womanThrough IC analysis, we can also see that a sentence is not only linear but also hierarchical. In the phrase a pretty young woman, we can clearly see its hierarchical nature: there are three levels involved. However, there are also problems with IC ana

35、lysis. First, constructions with discontinuous constituents will pose technical problems for tree diagrams in IC analysis. It is technically impossible to analyze He turned the light on by IC analysis. The more serious problem is that there are structural ambiguities which cannot be revealed by IC a

36、nalysis. For example: a photo of John a photo of John?a photo of John? In terms of both the tree diagrams and the labels there is only one analysis for a photo of John:a photo of John Det N Prep NThe phrase “a photo of John” not only means that the figure of the photo is John, but also refers to the

37、 photo belonging to John (the figure is not John but others). Lets look at another example:The flying planes can be dangerous.We know this sentence is ambiguous in meaning because the phrase the flying planes has two interpretations: one is the planes which are flying; the other is to fly planes. Ho

38、wever, IC analysis can not reveal the ambiguous nature of this phrase: The flying planes It is in the face of problems of this kind in American structuralism that the American linguist Noam Chomsky came along with his transformational-generative grammar.3.3 Transformational-Generative Grammar Surfac

39、e Structure and Deep Structure Relevant Language Use Observations and Questions to Ponder over1) Study the sentence “Visiting relatives can be tiresome.” and try to explain the two possible meanings of this sentence. Can you find another example to show that the same form may have different semantic

40、 interpretations?2) The two sentences such as “John painted the picture.” and “The picture was painted by John.” are different in forms. Are their literal meanings different?3) Study the following forms:The girl has brown eyes. the girls brown eyes the brown eyes of the girl the brown-eyed girlIt ca

41、n be easily observed that their forms are different. Are their meanings similar?4) Draw a tree diagram of the sentence “The boy kicked the ball.” by using the phrase structure rules. Summaries to Make and Linguistic Viewpoints to LearnThe generative approach originated with the American linguist Noa

42、m Chomsky, a famous linguist and philosopher, known as the founder of the Transformational-Generative Grammar. In his Transformational-Generative Grammar, there are two important concepts: surface structure and deep structure. Any actual utterances a speaker makes in a particular situation are surfa

43、ce structures. Deep structures are the terminal string that we get after we apply the PS rules. This terminal string contains all the units and relationships that are necessary for interpreting the meaning of the sentence. For example, when we apply PS rules to the surface structure “The boy kicked

44、the ball.”, we get the following tree diagram:The boy kicked the ball. S NP VP Det N Vt NP Det NTerminal string Det N Vt Det N (deep structure)We have noticed that the same surface structure“Visiting friends can be tiresome.” may have different deep structures: the friends who visit (us) can be tire

45、some; to visit friends can be tiresome. Different surface structures such as “John painted the picture.” and “The picture was painted by John.” can have the same deep structure “John painted the picture.” Visiting friends can be tiresome. (To visit friends can be tiresome.) S NP VP S Aux VP NP VP Vl

46、 Adj Pron Vt NP N Pron Vt N Aux Vl adj somebody visit friends can be tiresomeVisiting friends can be tiresome.(Friends who visit us can be tiresome.) S NP VP NP S Aux VPNP VP Vl Adj Vt NP N N Vt Pron Aux Vl Adj friends friends visit us can be tiresomeAccording to transformational-generative grammar,

47、 a sentence generally has two levels of structure: Deep structure and Surface structure. Will you smoke 20 cigars a day? (Surface structure) is transformed from Deep structure: You will smoke 20 cigars a day. The transformation involves moving the auxiliary verb to the initial position, leaving othe

48、r constituents the same. A sentence with structural ambiguity may sometimes rely on the specification of its deep structures to be obliterated. The following is an example:The old lady loves her cat more than her daughter.Under that structural configuration lie two different deep structures:The old

49、lady loves her cat more than her daughter loves it.The old lady loves her cat more than she loves her daughter. Definitions to Clarify Surface structure: In a simple sense, it is the structural organization of a construction people actually produce and receive. It is derived by the process of transf

50、ormations. It is that structure of the sentence as it is actually pronounced or written. It is the final representation of a sentence. Deep structure: Its the abstract representation of the syntactic properties of a construction, a terminal string obtained after the application of PS rules which con

51、tains all the units and relationships that are necessary for interpreting the meaning of the sentence. hrase Structure Rules Relevant Language Use Observations and Questions to Ponder overHow do you think phrases are structured? How about sentences? Discuss the following sentences with your desk mate: Are they grammatically right? Does each of them make sense?That