语言学 Syntax.docx

语言学 Syntax.docx

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语言学Syntax

Chapter5:

Syntax

LearningObjectives

⏹I.Syntaxthefield

⏹II.TheTraditionalApproach

⏹III.TheStructuralistApproach

⏹IV.TheGenerativeApproach

⏹V.TheSystemicFunctionalApproach

⏹VI.TheTextualApproach

I.DefiningSyntax

⏹ThewordcomesfromAncientGreek-syn-,"together",andtáxis,"arrangement"）

⏹

Thedefinition:

❑Thestudyoftheinternalstructureofsentencesandtherulesthatgoverntheformationofsentences.

⏹Whatisgrammar?

❑morphology+syntax=grammar

Autonomyofsyntax

⏹Colorlessgreenideassleepfuriously.

⏹Thisisaveryinterestingsentence,becauseitshowsthatsyntaxcanbeseparatedfromsemantics—thatformcanbeseparatedfrommeaning.Thesentencedoesn’tseemtomeananythingcoherent,butitsoundslikeanEnglishsentence.

——HowardLasnik,

TheHumanLanguage

Classificationofsentences

⏹E.g.1Colorlessgreenideassleepfuriously.

⏹E.g.2*Furiouslysleepideasgreencolorless.

⏹E.g.3Hewalkedquickly.

Criteria:

⏹1.Conformstothegrammaticalrulesofaspecificlanguageornot;（Grammaticality/well-formedness）

⏹2.Conformstotheworldlycommonsenseknowledge.

Sentenceclassification

II.TheTraditionalApproach

⏹ASyntacticCategoryreferstoagroupoflinguisticitemswhichfulfillthesameorsimilarfunctionsinaparticularlanguagesuchasasentence,anounphraseoraverb.

⏹Whenwordsaregroupedtogetherintoarelativelysmallnumberofclasses,theyarecalledsyntacticcategories.

1.LexicalCategories

⏹Ingrammar,alexicalcategory（alsowordclass,lexicalclass,orintraditionalgrammarpartofspeech）isalinguisticcategoryofwords,ormorepreciselylexicalitems.

⏹Majorlexicalcategories

❑Noun,Verb,Adjective,Adverb,Preposition

⏹Minorlexicalcategories

❑Determiner,Auxiliary,Conjunction,Infinitive,Negative

2.PhrasalCategories

⏹Wordlevelcategoriescanbeextendedtophrasalcategorieswithheads:

3.SyntacticFunctions

⏹Subject:

innominativecase,doeroftheaction.

❑E.g.Sheslappedhim.

❑E.g.Hewasslappedbyher.

⏹Grammaticalsubjectvs.logicalsubject

⏹Object:

accusativecase,receiverorgoalofanaction.

⏹E.g.Hewasslappedbyher.

⏹E.g.Igavemysisteradoll.

Ind.Obj.Dir.Obj.

⏹E.g.Igaveadolltomysister.

Dir.Obj.Ind.Obj.

Sentencedivision

⏹Binaryanalysis:

❑Predicate+Subject=Sentence

⏹E.g.Themaniseatingdinner.

⏹E.g.Johnbrokethedoor.

⏹E.g.Alicemustbeoutofhermind.

⏹Predicator:

verbincludedinapredicate

4.SyntacticFeatures

5．Sentencetypes:

traditionalapproach

simple

Sentencecomplex

non-simple

compound

BasicsentencetypesbyBolinger

⏹1.Motherfell.

⏹2.Motherisyoung.

⏹3.MotherlovesDad.

⏹4.MotherfedDadbreakfast.

⏹5.Thereistime.

⏹Question:

Whataretheabstractgrammaticalrepresentations?

Bolinger’sidea

⏹Motherfell.（Nominal+intransitiveverbal）

⏹Motherisyoung.（Nominal+copula+complement）

⏹MotherlovesDad.（Nominal+transitiveverbal+nominal）

⏹MotherfedDadbreakfast.（Nominal+transitiveverbal+nominal+nominal）

⏹Thereistime.（There+existential+nominal）

Basicsentencetypes:

Quirk

⏹

Sevensentencetypes:

❑SVC   

❑SVA   

❑SV     

❑SVO  

❑SVOC

❑SVOA   

❑SVOO  

Quirk’sidea

⏹SVCMaryiskind./anurse.

⏹SVA   Maryishere./inthehouse.

⏹SV     Thechildislaughing.

⏹SVO   Somebodycaughttheball.

⏹SVOC Wehaveprovedhimwrong./afool.

⏹SVOA   Iputtheplateonthetable.

⏹SVOO  Shegivesmeexpensivepresents.

III.TheStructuralistApproach

1.SyntacticRelations

⏹Syntacticrelationscanbeanalyzedintothreekinds:

❑relationsofposition

❑relationsofsubstitutability

❑relationsofco-occurrence

RelationsofPosition

⏹Alllanguageshaveawaytomarkthegrammaticalrolesofthevariousphrasesthatcanoccurinaclause.

⏹Theboykickedtheball

NP1NP2

SubjectObject

⏹Positionalrelation,orWORDORDER,referstothesequentialarrangementofwordsinalanguage.

⏹Question:

Ifwordorderisnotfollowed,whatwouldhappen?

❑ungrammaticalornonsensical

❑semanticchange

⏹Theboykickedtheball

❑*Boytheballkickedthe

❑*Theballkickedtheboy

⏹Theteachersawthestudents.

⏹Thestudentssawtheteacher.

⏹PositionalrelationsareamanifestationofoneaspectofSyntagmaticRelationsobservedbyF.deSaussure.

⏹TheyarealsocalledHorizontalRelationsorsimplyChainRelations.

⏹Wordorderisamongthethreebasicways（wordorder,geneticandarealclassifications）toclassifylanguagesintheworld:

❑SVO,VSO,SOV,OVS,OSV,andVOS.

❑EnglishbelongstoSVOtype,thoughthisdoesnotmeanthatSVOistheonlypossiblewordorder.

RelationofSubstitutability

⏹The ________smiled. 

men

boys

girls

monkeys

⏹TheRelationofSubstitutabilityreferstoclassesorsetsofwordssubstitutableforeachothergrammaticallyinsentenceswiththesamestructure.

⏹Italsoreferstogroupsofmorethanonewordwhichmaybejointlysubstitutablegrammaticallyforasinglewordofaparticularset.

strongman

❑Thetallestboysmiles.

prettygirl

yesterday.

❑Hewenttherelastweek.

thedaybefore.

⏹ThisisalsocalledAssociativeRelationsbySaussure,andParadigmaticRelationsbyHjemslev.

❑Tomakeitmoreunderstandable,theyarecalledVerticalRelationsorChoiceRelations.

RelationofCo-occurrence

⏹Wordsofdifferentsetsofclausesmaypermit,orrequire,theoccurrenceofawordofanothersetorclasstoformasentenceoraparticularpartofasentence.

⏹Whataretheco-occurredwordsetsfornominalphrases?

❑precededbyadeterminerandadjective（s）

❑followedbyaverbalphrase.

⏹Relationsofco-occurrencepartlybelongtosyntagmaticrelations,partlytoparadigmaticrelations.

2.ConstituentsandPhraseStructure

⏹Constituentisapartofalargerlinguisticunit.Severalconstituentstogetherformaconstruction:

❑thegirl（NP）

❑atetheapple（VP）

❑thegirlatetheapple（S）

ImmediateConstituentAnalysis（ICAnalysis）byBloomfield

PhraseStructure

Treediagram

Bracketing

⏹Bracketingisnotascommoninuse,butitisaneconomicnotationinrepresentingtheconstituent/phrasestructureofagrammaticalunit.

（（（The）（girl）） （（ate） （（the）（apple））））

ComparingICanalysisandPSanalysis

⏹beautifulgirl’sdress

“Theycanfish”isambiguous

⏹ICanalysis

⏹Whatarethepossiblephrasestructuretrees?

3.EndocentricandExocentricConstructions

⏹Endocentricconstructionisonewhosedistributionisfunctionallyequivalenttothatofoneormoreofitsconstituents,i.e.,awordoragroupofwords,whichservesasadefinablecentreorhead.

⏹Whichconstructionsareendocentric?

❑nounphrases

❑Intransitiveverbphrases

❑adjectivephrases

⏹Exocentricconstructionreferstoagroupofsyntacticallyrelatedwordswherenoneofthewordsisfunctionallyequivalenttothegroupasawhole,thatis,thereisnodefinable“Centre”or“Head”.

⏹Whichconstructionsareexocentric?

❑basicsentence

❑prepositionalphrase

❑predicate（verb+object）construction

❑connective（be+complement）construction

⏹Theboysmiled.（Neitherconstituentcansubstituteforthesentencestructureasawhole.）

⏹Hehidbehindthedoor.（Neitherconstituentcanfunctionasanadverbial.）

⏹Hekickedtheball.（Neitherconstituentstandsfortheverb-objectsequence.）

⏹Johnseemedangry.（Afterdivision,theconnectiveconstructionnolongerexists.）

4.CoordinationandSubordination

⏹Constructionscanalsobecategorizedintotwomaintypes,dependingontherelationbetweenconstituents:

CoordinationandSubordination

Coordination

⏹Coordination:

❑groupingtogethertwoormorecategoriesofthesametypewiththehelpofaconjunctionsuchasand,butandor.

❑Coordinatedconstituentshaveequivalentsyntacticstatus,eachoftheseparateconstituentscanstandfortheoriginalconstructionfunctionally

⏹CoordinationofNPs:

❑[NPthelady]or[NPthetiger]

⏹CoordinationofVPs:

❑[VPgotothelibrary]and[VPreadabook]

⏹CoordinationofPPs:

❑[PPdownthestairs]and[PPoutthedoor]

⏹CoordinationofAPs:

❑[APquiteexpensive]and[APverybeautiful]

⏹CoordinationofSs:

❑[SJohnlovesMary]and[SMarylovesJohntoo].

Subordination

⏹Subordination：

referstotheprocessorresultoflinkinglinguisticunitssothattheyhavedifferentsyntacticstatus,onebeingdependentupontheother,andusuallyaconstituentoftheother.

❑Thesubordinateconstituentsarewordswhichmodifythehead.Consequently,theycanbecalledmodifiers.

⏹two dogs

         Head

⏹（Mybrother）candrink（wine）.

Head

⏹Swimminginthelake（isfun）.

Head

⏹（Thepepperwas）hotbeyondendurance.

Head

Subordinateclauses

⏹Clausescanbeusedassubordinateconstituents.Therearethreebasictypesofsubordinateclauses:

❑complementclauses

❑adjunct（oradverbial）clauses

❑relativeclauses

⏹1.Johnbelieves[thattheairplanewasinventedbyanIrishman].（complementclause）

⏹2.Elizabethopenedherpresents[beforeJohnfinishedhisdinner].（adverbialclause）

⏹3.Thewoman[thatIlove]ismovingtothesouth.（relativeclause）

IV.TheGenerativeApproach

⏹PhraseStructureRules（PSRules）

❑smile

❑thesmile

❑thebeautifulsmile

❑thebeautifulsmiletome

WhataboutthepossibleVPstructure?

⏹laugh

⏹playinthegarden

⏹oftenplayinthegarden

⏹oftenhappilyplayinthegarden（happily）

TheAPstructure?

⏹polite

⏹verypolite

⏹verypolitetoyou

ThePPstructure?

⏹about

⏹mainlyabout

⏹mainlyaboutthestory

Sentencestructure?

⏹Thewindblows.

⏹Thecatatethefish.

⏹Themancamewithastick.

Exercises:

Pleasedrawthephrasestructure