Chapter 4 Syntax
syntax = syn (together) + tax (to arrange)
syntax句法学 --- a branch of linguistics that studies how words are combined to form sentences and the rules that govern the formation of sentences
Word order: SVO, SOV, OVS, OSV, VOS, VSO,
syntagmatic relation组合关系( horizontal/ chain relation链状关系) e.g. The man smiles. paradigmatic relation聚合关系(vertical/ choice relation 选择关系) e.g. The ____ smiles. man boy girl (1) categories:
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.
? Kate likes classical music.(sentence) ? classical music (noun phrase) ? like (verb) 1. word-level categories Major lexical categories Noun (N) Verb (V) Adjective (A) Preposition (P) Determiner (Det) Degree word (Deg) Qualifier (Qual) Auxiliary (Aux) Conjunction (Con) Examples book, boy, sheep, love run, read, play happy, tall, clear about, over, on the, a, this, those quite, very, more, so often, seldom, almost must, should, can, might and, but, or Minor lexical categories Examples three criteria for determining a word‘s category ? meaning ? inflection ? distribution
2. phrase categories:
The category of phrases is determined by the word category around which the phrase is built. [NP a poor boy]
[VP run quickly, like music] [AP extremely cold] [PP mainly about]
A phrase usually contains the following elements: specifier head complement the quite seldom a boy nice come story cut about him the hair 第 11 页 共 34 页
Phrase structure rule: NP (Det) N (PP): VP (Qual) V (NP): AP (Deg) A (PP): PP (Deg) P (NP): XP rule: specifier
the seldom very
the man in the car
often sing songs very close to it so in love
XP X man sing good
complement in the car songs
Xˉ theory: XP
specifier Xˉ X (head) complement seldom
sing
songs
Coordination rule: X X * Con X boys and girls odds and ends ups and downs singing and dancing physically and mentally tea or coffee more or less
Phrase elements ? Specifiers:
Determiners serve as the specifiers of nouns: the boy, that house, an apple Qualifiers function as specifiers of verbs: always get up late, often work overnight Degree words act as specifiers of adjectives: very good, quite different ? Complements:
a story about a sentimental girl cut the hair
give a book to her
put the truck on the window believe that she will win 第 12 页 共 34 页
? Modifiers: a beautiful girl open with care read carefully quickly read read the book carefully head complement modifier
? The term CATEGORY discussed above refers to classes and functions in its narrow sense, e.g., noun, verb,
noun phrase, verb phrase, etc. More specifically, it refers to the defining properties of these general units. ? The categories of a noun may include number, gender, case and countability. ? The categories of a verb may include tense, aspect, voice, etc. (2) Sentences (the S rule)
(3) transformations ? yes-no questions ? wh-questions ? passive voice
The above all involves a syntactic movement. Auxiliary movement:
Inversion: Move Infl to the left of the subject NP
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Wh movement: Move the wh phrase to the beginning of the sentence. 1. you can speak what language What languages can you speak? 2. you can talk about what What can you talk about? (4) Deep and surface structure: Paraphrase each of the following sentences in two different ways to show that you understand the ambiguity involved:
1. Could this be the invisible man‘s hair tonic? 2. Flying planes can be dangerous. 3. Dick finally decided on the boat.
4. The professor‘s appointment was shocking.
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5. Old men and women are hard to live with. 6. The governor is a dirty street fighter. (5) Immediate constituent analysis:
(6) endocentric and exocentric constructions ? endocentric construction向心结构
? subordinate construction: e.g. very good swimming in the lake these two oldest stone bridges
? coordinate construction: e.g. boys and girls coffee or tea singing and dancing
? exocentric construction离心结构 e.g. The boy smiled. Behind the door kick the ball seem angry
Chapter 5 Semantics
semantics语义学 --- the study of meaning in language (1)What is meaning?
1. naming theory (by Plato):
? Words are just names or labels for things
e.g. desk --- a piece of furniture with a flat top and four legs, at which one reads and writes ? Some words are definitely not labels of objects. e.g. jump, quickly, pretty, and, in, hatred
? Some words denote things that do not exist in the real world. e.g. ghost, unicorn, dragon, Santa Claus
2. the conceptualist view (by Ogden and Richards):
? There is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it refers to; rather, in the interpretation of meaning
they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind. thought/ reference __ __ __ __ __ __ _ symbol/ form referent 3. contextualism (by Firth):
? Meaning should be decided in terms of situation, use and context.
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