Lin 114 Exam 2 Review Sheet

11/17/2014

Chapter 3 Syntax:
Grammatical/Ungrammatical VS Right/ Good wrong/bad?
Essentially language is often a tool use to discriminate against
people and often theres a perception that other languages or
varieties of a particular language are inferior but essentially all
language are forms of intricate systems with the means for people
to communicate.
Noam Chomsky
A sentence can be grammatically correct without being semantically
meaningful. Chomskys 1957 book Syntactic Structures laid out the
foundation for syntactic theory as we know it today and spurred the
beginning of modern linguistics.
He also became fascinated with syntactic ambiguity. Languages
contain systematic ways to paraphrase sentences.
o Passive Transformation
o Interrogative Transformations
Drawing Phrase Structure Trees: Page 95
Phrase Structure Rules are language specific
When determining phrase structure rules for another language, the
key thin to remember is that your rules should match your tree and
your tree should match your rules. SO if you have a iles that says
that a VP is a V NP (as in English) the tree should look like
VP=V+NP
Universal Structure of All Phrases
XP > Spec + X'
(X' > AP + X') optional
X' > X + Comp

(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)

CP > C + S

ADJUNCT RULES

S > NP + VP
VP > Aux + V'

(a) (X' > AP/PP + X')

V' > V (NP) (PP) (AP) (CP)

(b) AP > Deg + A'

NP > Det + N'

(c) A' > A (NP?) (PP) (CP)

N' > N (NP) (PP) (CP)

PP > Deg + P'
P' > P (NP) (PP) (CP

Theory of Sub categorization:

X-Bar Schema: all phrasal categories are expanded according to a
particular template
C Selection: A lexical Item can impose category restrictions on its
complements
S-selection- A lexical item can impose semantic restrictions on its
arguments
Constituency test: Do 2 elements belong together? Pg. 82
(Exercise 12 from chapter 3)
Wh- Questions, movement
Words that can/must go together into a group = Phrase
Structural Ambiguity: tree structures outline relationships
The boy saw the man with a telescope.
o Who has the telescope
Coordination: and
Big Squares and Circles
o Are both the square and circles big
Head, Phrase, and Compliments
Head: Gives the category to the phrase (main word)
Complements: the other stuff in the sentences

Syntactic Category:
Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives
Phrase Structure Rules
VP>V NP ; NP (det)(adj) N
CP: Complementary Phrase
CP>C

Transformational Rules: Change sentences into a question

Surface Structure:
o What did you eat?
Deep Structure:
o That = What?
o Do insertion
o Wh- Movement
What did you eat?
Recursion: Phrase structure repeats its own phrase
Transitive Verb: Takes direct object
Ditransitive : Verb takes two NPs
Intransitive Verb: Cannot take a direct object

The study of linguistic Meaning

Is semantics
Lexical Semantics is concerned with
The meanings of morphemes and words
Compositional Semantics
Concerned with meanings of sentences and phrases
Pragmatics
Is the study of how context affects meaning
Truth Conditions:
Knowing when one sentences entails another sentence
Knowing when two sentences are paraphrase or contradictory
Knowing when sentences are ambiguous
Tautologies are sentences are always true!
Contradictions are always false
Entailment, knowing one sentences is true cause it entails another
But it does not work reversely
Sentences can be synonomous if they entail the same meaning
Sentences are contradictory if one entails the negation of the
others

Lexical ambiguity arises when at least one word in the phrase has
more than one meaning,
Principle of compositionality: the meaning of an expression is
composed of the meaning of its parts and how they are combined
structurally
Semantic Rule 1: If the meaning of NP (an individual) is a member of
the meaning of VP (a set of individuals) then the sentence is true; otherwise
false
Semantic Rule 2: is the set of individuals X such that X is the first
member of any pair in the meaning of V whose second member is the
meaning of NP
Anomaly, describes when pieces do not fit sensibly together
Metaphors, are sentences that appear to be anomalous, but which a
meaningful concept may be attached. (compositional)
Idioms, have fixed expressions whose meaning is not compositional
but rather must be learnt as a unit
Create paradoxes when used a certain way
All languages have them but they do not translate word for
word
Several kinds of Antonymy
Complementary Pairs:
Alive/dead because alive=not dead and dead=not alive
Gradable Pairs
Words do not produce an absolute scale
Big/small
Marked= not used in question of degree
Unmarked= Is used in question of degree

Eg. High/low
You wouldnt say how low is that mountain?
Relational opposites
Display symmetry in their meanings
Teacher/pupil in that If X is Ys teacher than Y is a pupil of X
Reference: Is the association to a word, as it refers to the object
Object called the referent
Sense: Provides a general understanding as the sense of the
expression
Words are related:
Synonyms
Antonyms
Homonyms
Gradable Pairs:
Relational Opposites:

Semantic features can also help describe the meaning of a

word.

Count
Mass
Eventive
Stative
Negation
Verbs have various argument structures, which describe the NP that
may occur with particular verbs.
Intransitive Verbs take only a NP subject,
Whereas Intransitive Verbs take a NP Subject, NP Direct Object, NP
Indirect object.
Thematic Roles: Express the kind of relation that holds between
arguments of the verb and the type of situation
Agent , the doer of an action
Theme, the recipient of an action
Goal, the endpoint in a change in location or possession
Source, where the action originates
Instrument, the means used to accomplish the action
Experiencer, one receiving sensory input
Verbs that contain the feature go and the feature is lined to
the presence of the thematic roles of theme, source, and goal.
Verbs that containing the feature affects mental state
Thematic Roles describing the semantic relations between a verb and
its NP arguments
OCCUR IN D-STRUCTURE

However, the positions of the NP arguments may differ in s-structure

according to the syntactic rules that move elements.
Extra-truth conditional: it comes about as a result of how a speaker
uses the literal meanings in conversations, or a part of discourse
The study of this is pragmatics
Context can be
Linguistics
Written
Knowledge of the world
Speech & Situation (Situational Context)
Reflexive Pronouns require a sentence internal antecedent
Himself or themselves
Non-reflexive pronouns can have an antecedent in an earlier or
another sentence
He, she, him, her
Deictic terms
Require knowledge of the situation (person spoken to, time, place,
spatial orientation) of the utterance to be interpreted referentially.
Speakers of all languages adhere to various cooperative principles
for communicating sincerely maxims of conversation.
For example simply saying its cold in here is relavent and says no
more or less than the discourse requires, so it could be intererpeted as turn
the heat up or close the windows

Implicatures can be drawn

When one or another maxim is violated (purposely or naively)
Differ from entailments in that the truth , May be concealed by
information added later
Also, they their truth follows from sentences of the discourse
Presumptions are situations that must be true for utterances to be
appropriate.
Theory of Speech Acts, through the use of Performative Verbs
(do things) , allows us to accomplish acts simply through speech. Such as
nominating, voting, betting. Etc.