6.1 Syntactic Structures and Theories
5 min read•july 31, 2024
Syntactic structures form the backbone of language, governing how words combine to create meaningful sentences. This topic explores the fundamental principles of syntax, including , word order, and agreement rules, which are crucial for understanding how languages organize information.
Theories like and offer different perspectives on syntax, influencing our understanding of language acquisition and processing. These frameworks provide insights into how we produce and comprehend complex linguistic structures, shaping our approach to language analysis and learning.
Syntactic Structure in Language
Fundamental Principles of Syntax
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- Syntax governs the structure and arrangement of words and phrases in sentences within a language
- Constituent structure forms the foundation of syntax
- Words combine to create larger units or phrases
- These phrases function as single elements in a sentence
- Syntactic categories organize words into grammatical structures
- Include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions
- Word order determines how different elements relate within a sentence
- Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) order in English (The cat chased the mouse)
- Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) order in Japanese (Neko ga nezumi wo oikaketa)
- in syntax enables embedding phrases within phrases
- Creates potentially infinite sentence structures
- Example: The man [who bought the house [that has the red roof]] is my neighbor
- Agreement rules ensure matching of grammatical features between sentence elements
- Number agreement (The dog barks vs. The dogs bark)
- Gender agreement in languages like Spanish (El gato negro vs. La gata negra)
Syntactic Relationships and Dependencies
- between words and phrases create coherent syntactic structures
- Subject-verb dependencies (The children play in the park)
- Object-verb dependencies (She reads a book)
- describes the number of arguments a verb can take
- Intransitive verbs take one argument (She sleeps)
- Transitive verbs take two arguments (He kicks the ball)
- Ditransitive verbs take three arguments (She gives him a gift)
- specify the syntactic environment in which a word can appear
- Example: "Persuade" requires a direct object and an infinitive clause (She persuaded him to go)
- alters the base order of elements for emphasis or question formation
- in questions (What did you see?)
- for emphasis (That book, I really enjoyed)
Theories of Syntax
Generative Grammar
- Proposed by Noam Chomsky, generative grammar posits an innate
- Focuses on formal rules for generating grammatical sentences
- Employs abstract syntactic structures and
- Deep structure represents underlying syntactic relationships
- Surface structure represents the final form of a sentence after transformations
- Separates syntax from semantics, treating them as distinct modules
- Assumes a modular approach to language
- Syntax, phonology, and semantics are separate but interacting components
- Proposes innate linguistic knowledge for language acquisition
- Universal Grammar (UG) provides a framework for learning any human language
- Influences computational linguistics through formal grammar models
- Context-free grammars and tree-adjoining grammars
Cognitive Grammar
- Developed by Ronald Langacker, cognitive grammar emphasizes the relationship between language structure and cognitive processes
- Views grammar as inherently meaningful, integrating semantic and pragmatic factors into syntactic analysis
- Relies on conceptual schemas and usage-based patterns
- Image schemas represent basic spatial and force relationships (containment, path, balance)
- Construction grammar analyzes patterns of form-meaning pairings
- Adopts a holistic view of language as part of general cognitive abilities
- Embodied cognition influences linguistic structures
- Metaphorical thinking shapes grammatical constructions
- Emphasizes learning through exposure and usage for syntactic knowledge acquisition
- Frequency effects and entrenchment play crucial roles in language development
- Influences natural language processing through usage-based and construction-based approaches
- Exemplar-based models and neural network implementations
Syntactic Constituents
Hierarchical Organization of Sentences
- Phrase structure grammar represents sentence organization using tree diagrams or bracketed notations
- Tree diagram: [S [NP The cat] [VP [V chased] [NP the mouse]]]
- Bracketed notation: [S [NP The cat] [VP chased [NP the mouse]]]
- breaks down sentences into progressively smaller units
- Reveals nested structure of syntactic elements
- Example: [[The [big [red car]]] [drove [down [the street]]]]
- Major phrasal categories form building blocks of sentence structure
- Noun phrases (NP) The tall man
- Verb phrases (VP) quickly ran away
- Prepositional phrases (PP) under the table
- determines the core element of a phrase
- Influences syntactic behavior and distribution within a sentence
- Examples: book (head of NP the interesting book), sing (head of VP will sing loudly)
Identifying and Analyzing Constituents
- Syntactic tests help identify constituent boundaries and hierarchical relationships
- Substitution test replaces a group of words with a pronoun (The man in the red hat → He)
- Movement test shifts a group of words as a unit (The dog chased the cat → The cat, the dog chased)
- Coordination test joins similar constituents (She bought [a book] and [a magazine])
- provides a standardized template for representing phrase structure
- Applies across different syntactic categories
- Structure: [XP [Spec X'] [X' X [Comp YP]]]
- Understanding hierarchical organization resolves syntactic ambiguities
- Example: "The man saw the girl with the telescope"
- [[The man] [saw [the girl [with the telescope]]]] (girl has the telescope)
- [[The man] [[saw [the girl]] [with the telescope]]] (man used the telescope to see)
- Example: "The man saw the girl with the telescope"
Syntax in Language Processing
Syntactic Rules in Production and Comprehension
- Syntactic rules guide the formation of grammatically correct sentences
- (The dog barks vs. The dogs bark)
- Proper placement of adjectives (The big red ball vs. *The red big ball)
- Constraints on syntactic structures limit possible movements and transformations
- Island constraints restrict extraction from certain syntactic environments
- Example: *"Who did you meet [the man who knows __]?" (violation of relative clause island)
- Island constraints restrict extraction from certain syntactic environments
- Principle of locality governs relationships between syntactic elements
- Affects how far apart related constituents can be in a sentence
- Example: "The book that the student who the professor admired wrote impressed the critics"
- demonstrates influence of exposure on language production
- Speakers tend to reuse recently encountered syntactic structures
- Example: After hearing passive sentences, speakers are more likely to produce passives
Cognitive Aspects of Syntactic Processing
- illustrate how syntactic ambiguities can mislead comprehension
- Require reanalysis of sentence structure
- Example: "The horse raced past the barn fell" (initially parsed as simple past, then reanalyzed as reduced relative clause)
- Interaction between syntax and working memory impacts processing of complex structures
- Center-embedded clauses challenge working memory capacity
- Example: "The rat [that the cat [that the dog chased] caught] ate the cheese"
- Cross-linguistic variations in syntactic rules highlight importance of language-specific knowledge
- Word order differences (SVO in English vs. SOV in Japanese)
- Morphosyntactic variations (rich morphology in agglutinative languages vs. word order in analytic languages)
- Parsing strategies influence real-time sentence comprehension
- builds structure word-by-word
- Late closure principle favors attaching new elements to the current phrase
- Minimal attachment principle prefers simpler syntactic structures when possible
Key Terms to Review (26)
Adjunction: Adjunction is a syntactic operation that combines two elements, typically a head and a complement, to form a larger structure, such as a phrase or clause. This process plays a crucial role in understanding how different syntactic categories interact within sentences, ultimately influencing sentence structure and meaning. Adjunction can introduce additional information, creating more complex phrases while maintaining grammatical correctness.
Argument Structure: Argument structure refers to the formal representation of the relationships between a verb and its arguments, which are typically the entities involved in the action, such as the subject, object, and adjuncts. This concept plays a crucial role in understanding how different syntactic structures can be formed and how meanings are constructed in a sentence, linking syntax with semantics.
Cognitive Grammar: Cognitive grammar is a theoretical framework that views grammar as an integral part of human cognition, emphasizing the relationship between language and thought. It suggests that grammatical structures are not just rules to follow but are rooted in our understanding of the world and our experiences. This approach challenges traditional views by integrating cognitive processes into the understanding of syntax and meaning.
Constituent structure: Constituent structure refers to the hierarchical organization of words into larger units or phrases within a sentence, revealing how these units function together syntactically. This structure is crucial for understanding syntax, as it illustrates the relationships between different parts of a sentence and allows for the analysis of syntactic rules and patterns across languages.
Cross-linguistic variation: Cross-linguistic variation refers to the differences and similarities in linguistic structures and phenomena across different languages. This concept highlights how various languages can exhibit distinct syntactic structures, which can inform our understanding of universal grammar and language acquisition. By studying these variations, researchers can explore the underlying principles that govern syntax and how language interacts with cognition.
Dependency relationships: Dependency relationships refer to the connections between words in a sentence where one word relies on another for its grammatical function and meaning. These relationships are crucial for understanding syntactic structures, as they help determine how words combine to form phrases and sentences, impacting overall comprehension and interpretation.
Garden path sentences: Garden path sentences are sentences that lead the reader or listener to initially interpret them in a way that turns out to be incorrect. These sentences often cause confusion due to their misleading structure, which forces a reevaluation of the intended meaning upon reaching the end. The ambiguity in garden path sentences highlights how language comprehension involves not just syntax but also semantic understanding and parsing strategies.
Generative Grammar: Generative grammar is a theory of grammar that aims to describe the implicit knowledge that speakers of a language possess regarding the structure and formation of sentences. This framework emphasizes how a finite set of rules can generate an infinite number of grammatically correct sentences, highlighting the systematic relationship between syntax and meaning. It plays a crucial role in understanding morphemes, word structures, and the underlying principles that govern the construction of phrases and sentences across different languages.
Headedness: Headedness refers to the property of a syntactic structure where one element, known as the head, determines the grammatical function and category of the entire phrase. This concept is crucial in understanding how different languages organize their syntax, as the head can dictate whether the phrase is a noun phrase, verb phrase, or any other type of phrase.
Immediate Constituent Analysis: Immediate constituent analysis is a method used in linguistics to break down sentences into their fundamental parts, known as constituents, to better understand their structure and meaning. This approach helps in identifying how smaller units of language come together to form larger units, highlighting the hierarchical relationships between words and phrases in sentence construction.
Incremental parsing: Incremental parsing refers to the process by which individuals construct the syntactic structure of a sentence as they read or hear it, rather than waiting until they have received all the information. This method allows for real-time comprehension, enabling the mind to continuously update its understanding of a sentence's meaning, which is crucial for sentence comprehension, syntactic structures, and dealing with ambiguities.
Noun Phrase: A noun phrase is a group of words that functions in a sentence as a subject, object, or prepositional object, with a noun or pronoun as its main element. This phrase can include modifiers like adjectives, determiners, and other nouns, allowing for greater detail and clarity in communication.
Phrase structure rules: Phrase structure rules are formal guidelines that describe how phrases and sentences are organized in a language, specifying the relationships between different parts of speech and how they combine to form larger structures. These rules help in understanding the syntax of a language, allowing for the analysis of sentence formation and the hierarchical structure of phrases.
Prepositional Phrase: A prepositional phrase is a group of words that begins with a preposition and ends with a noun or pronoun, which is known as the object of the preposition. This phrase can provide additional information about location, time, direction, and other relationships within a sentence, contributing to the overall meaning. Prepositional phrases can act as adjectives or adverbs, modifying nouns or verbs respectively, thereby enhancing the clarity and detail of sentences.
Recursion: Recursion is a fundamental concept in linguistics and computer science where a structure can be defined in terms of itself. In language, this refers to the ability to embed phrases within phrases, allowing for the generation of complex and potentially infinite sentence structures. This property is crucial in understanding how syntactic structures are formed and manipulated, as it enables the creation of hierarchical relationships within language.
Subcategorization frames: Subcategorization frames are specific syntactic structures that indicate the grammatical behavior of verbs, detailing the types and number of arguments they can take. These frames help in understanding how different verbs interact with subjects, objects, and complements within sentences, influencing sentence construction and meaning.
Subject-verb agreement: Subject-verb agreement is a grammatical rule that ensures the subject and verb in a sentence match in number and person. This agreement is crucial for clarity and coherence in communication, as it helps to avoid confusion regarding who or what is performing the action. In syntactic structures, understanding subject-verb agreement aids in constructing grammatically correct sentences, contributing to effective language use.
Syntactic movement: Syntactic movement is a phenomenon in linguistics where elements within a sentence shift from one position to another, often to satisfy grammatical rules or to achieve a desired meaning. This process plays a crucial role in forming questions, negations, and various sentence structures, showing the dynamic nature of syntax in language. It is often analyzed through various theories that explain how different languages handle movement and the implications this has for understanding sentence formation.
Syntactic Priming: Syntactic priming is a phenomenon in language processing where the use of a specific syntactic structure in a sentence increases the likelihood that a similar structure will be used in subsequent sentences. This effect occurs because the first sentence activates a certain mental representation of syntax, which influences how people construct following sentences, showcasing the relationship between syntax and cognitive processes.
Topicalization: Topicalization is a syntactic process that involves rearranging the structure of a sentence to highlight a specific element, often placing it at the beginning. This process emphasizes the importance of that element, allowing it to serve as the topic of discussion, which can influence how information is processed and understood in discourse. Topicalization interacts with other syntactic structures and theories, shaping the way meaning is conveyed and interpreted.
Transformations: Transformations refer to the systematic processes that change the structure of sentences in a language without altering their meaning. This concept is central to understanding how different syntactic structures can be derived from a single underlying representation, reflecting the flexibility and complexity of language. Transformations help illustrate the relationship between deep structure and surface structure in syntax, showing how the same ideas can be expressed in multiple ways through grammatical rules.
Universal Grammar: Universal grammar is a theory in linguistics proposed by Noam Chomsky, suggesting that the ability to acquire language is innate to humans and that all languages share a common structural basis. This concept highlights the underlying principles that are thought to be universally present in all human languages, influencing how individuals learn and use language across different cultures.
Valency: Valency refers to the grammatical property of a verb that indicates the number and types of arguments it can take, such as subjects, objects, and complements. This concept is crucial in understanding how different verbs interact with their arguments to create meaningful sentences and illustrates the structure of phrases and clauses within a language.
Verb phrase: A verb phrase is a syntactic unit that consists of a main verb and any auxiliary (or helping) verbs that accompany it. This unit can express tense, mood, or aspect, and it plays a crucial role in conveying the action or state of being in a sentence. Verb phrases are essential in understanding the structure of sentences and how meaning is constructed through different combinations of verbs.
Wh-movement: Wh-movement is a syntactic process in which a 'wh' phrase, typically used to form questions or relative clauses, is moved to the beginning of a sentence or clause. This movement is crucial in understanding how languages structure questions and other constructions, as it reflects the relationship between syntax and semantics by highlighting information that is queried or specified.
X-bar theory: x-bar theory is a framework in generative grammar that describes the syntactic structure of phrases and how different constituents relate to each other within a sentence. It provides a way to analyze the hierarchical organization of phrases by introducing levels of projection, allowing linguists to systematically account for variations in syntactic structures across languages.