1. Lecture 3
Syntax: The Sentence
Patterns of Language
Ching-Fen Hsu
2013/10/1
2013/10/01_2013/10/08

2. Amazing Knowledge of
Grammar
• Any speaker of any human lg produce &
understand infinite number of S, John found a
book in the library in the stacks on the fourth floor
• All lgs have mechanisms of limitless addition on S
• S are composed of discrete units that are
combined by rules
• System of rules explains how speakers store
infinite knowledge in a finite space (brain)
• Syntax: grammar represents speakers’ knowledge
of S & structures

3. What the Syntax Rules Do?
• Rules of S combine words into phrases & phrases
into S
• Rules of S determine correct word order for lg The
president nominated a new Supreme Court justice.
*President the Supreme new justice Court a nominated.
• Rules of S specify grammatical relations of S,
chased, ran up the bill vs. hill (p.78)
• Ambiguous phrases: old men vs. women (p. 79)
• Structural ambiguity: ambiguities are results of diff
structures (p. 79)
• Lexical ambiguity: This will make you smart
• Creative aspect of linguistic knowledge show how
syntactic rules account for explicit knowledge &
provide implicit characterization of this knowledge

4. What Grammaticality Is Not
Based On
• Lg speakers are not limited to fixed repertoire of
expressions, but produce & understand limitless number
of S for ideas & emotions
• Grammaticality ≠ meaningfulness, Colorless green ideas
sleep furiously vs. *Furiously sleep ideas green ideas
•  grammaticality meaningfulness, *The boy quickly in
the house the ball found
• grammaticality meaningfulness, a verb crumpled the
milk; “Jabberwocky” Lewis Carroll (p. 81)
• Grammaticality does not rely on truth values of S, lying?
• Grammaticality does not depend on real objects, unicorn?
• Syntactic rules are unconscious & mental grammar (vs.
prescriptive grammar)

5. Sentence Structure
• Flat structure of S: Det-N-V-Det-N, The child
found a puppy (p. 81)
• Hierarchical organization of S with natural
groupings of words: tree diagram (p. 81)
The child found a puppy
subject + predicate
• Natural nodes in hierarchy, *found a

6. Constituents &
Constituency Tests
• Natural groupings or parts of S = constituents
• Sentence fragment test: “What did you find?” “A
puppy” (meaningful unit) *”Found a”
• Pronominalization test: “Where did you find a
puppy?” “I found him in the park” or “John found a
puppy and Bill did too”
• Passivilization test: “The child found a puppy” “A
puppy was found by the child”
• Cleft-sentence test: “It was a puppy that the child
found”
• In all rearrangements, a puppy & the child remain
intact (constituents)

7. Constituent Structure
• The puppy played in the garden; tree diagram (p.
83)
• Where did the puppy play? In the garden
(sentence fragment test)
• The puppy played there. (pronominalization test)
• It was in the garden is where the puppy played.
(cleft-sentence test)
• In the garden is where the puppy played.
(movement test)
• Speakers perceive S in chunks corresponding to
grammatical constituents
• Usually every S is associated with one constituent
structure; if there are two correspondents, it is
ambiguous

8. In-Class Exercise #1: List
Constituency Tests You Just
Learned on A Paper & Share
with Your Partner

9. Syntactic Categories
• A family of expressions that can substitute for one
another without loss of grammaticality
• Noun phrase (NP): the child, a police officer, your
neighbor, this yellow cat, John, he…for subjects or
objects
• NP = Det + Noun; pronouns, proper nouns, nouns
without Det, clauses, S
• NP can be more complex, NP subject, the girl that
Professor Snape loved married the man of her
dreams (more context tests on p. 85)
• Verb phrase (VP)
• Prepositional phrase (PP)

10. Lexical and Functional Categories
• Lexical categories: N, V, P, A, Adv (p. 86)
• Phrasal categories: NP, VP, AP, PP, AdvP (p. 86)
• Every lexical category has a corresponding phrasal
category
• Det: a/ the; demonstratives: this/ that/ these/ those;
quantifiers: each/ every; modal auxiliary (tense): may/
might/ can/ could/ must/ should/ will/ would
• Tense + Det = functional categories
• Det specify if a noun is indefinite or definite (a boy or the
boy); proximity of person or object to context (this boy vs.
that boy)
• Tense provides a time frame, present (John knows
Mary), past (John danced); modals express possibility
(John may dance), necessity (John must dance), ability
(John can dance); includes have (John has danced) &
be (John is dancing)

11. Lexical Meaning
• Lexical category has particular meaning
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Verbs: actions (kick), events (marry), states (love)
Adjectives: qualities (lucky), properties (old)
Common nouns: general entities (house)
Proper nouns: John, America, commercial
products (coca-cola)
Abstract nouns: beauty, honor
Prepositions: express relationships bet two entities
involving a location (in, under)
Co-occurrence relationship: Det + noun(s); Adv + V;
Modal + V; Adv + A (-er)
Speakers know syntactic categories of lg without
knowing technical terms

12. Phrase Structure Trees
• Phrasal categories have similar organization
• Complement: phrasal category occur next to a
head elaborating the meaning of a head
• Specifier: elements preceding head, Det,
possessives, adverbs, [e]
NP: the mother of James Whistler; Bill’s ball
VP: [e] sing an aria AP: wary of snakes
PP: just over the hill
• A phrase may contain at most one specifier (p.
88, 89)
• Mother node = head + complement

13. Branching Nodes
• Node: a point in a tree where branches join
• Head & complement have important
relationship, sister relationship
• Complement = sister of the head
• Specifier = sister of the head + complement
complex (x bar) (p. 89)
• X-bar schema: generalization of internal
structure of each phrasal category; a template
or blueprint specifies how phrases of lgs are
organized (p. 90); apply to all syntactic phrases

14. X-bar Schema
• Bar category: intermediate level category
necessary to account for certain syntactic
phenomenon
• Head noun is obligatory, specifier & complement
are optional, oxygen, sleeps, beautiful, in (p. 90)
• X-bar schema: part of UG, child learn quickly
• English: VO lg vs. Japanese: OV lg (p. 91)
• S = NP + VP (p. 92)
• PS trees/ constituent structure tree: tree diagrams
with syntactic category information reflecting
speakers’ intuitions about natural groupings of
words in a S

15. Characteristics of PS
Trees
• The linear order of the words in the S
• The identification of the syntactic categories of
words & groups of words
• The hierarchical organization of the syntactic
categories as determined by the x-bar schema
• Dominance: every higher node dominates all
categories beneath it; S dominates all
categories, VP, NP
• Immediately dominance: VP => V bar = V + NP

16. Selection
• Properties of heads determine whether
complements are needed or not
• Complements can be optional as specifiers (p. 93)
• Transitive verbs take complements, find, The boy
found the ball (NP), *The boy found *The boy
found in a house; think, Let’s think about it (PP), I
think a girl won the race (S); feel, Paul felt strong
as an ox (AP), He feels he can win (S)
• Intransitive verbs take no complements, sleep,
Michael slept, *Michael slept their baby
• Optionally transitive verbs, eat, John ate, *John ate
a sandwish

17. Small Clause
• A SC composes of an NP and a bar level
category, see selects a PP complement
I saw pp[John on the boat] (p. 94)
• Make selects an AP or VP complement
The food made AP[John ill]
The wind made VP[the plam trees sway]
• Small clauses conforms perfectly to X-bar
schema with NP as specifier & XP as
complement

18. Other = C-selection =
Selection
• Categorical selection
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subcategorization
Information about complement types selected by
particular verbs is listed in lexical entries in mental
lexicon
Belief selects PP or S (p. 94)
Sympathy selects PP but not S
Adjectives can select PPs, tired, proud (p. 94)
Semantic selection = S-selection
Verbs specify certain semantic properties of
subjects & complements
Murder requires animate S & O; like/hate require
animate S; sleep requires animate S
S-bar schema + C-/S-selection (p. 95)

19. In-Class Exercise #2: Define
The Following Terms.
(1) Small clause
(2) X-bar schema
(3) Dominance
(4) Phrase structure trees
(5) Complement
(6) Functional categories
(7) C-selection
(8) S-selection

20. In-Class Exercise #2: Define
The Following Terms.
(1) Small clause: p. 94
(2) X-bar schema: p. 90; 91
(3) Dominance: p. 93
(4) Phrase structure trees: p. 92
(5) Complement: p. 88
(6) Functional categories: p. 86
(7) C-selection: p. 94
(8) S-selection: p. 94

21. Building Phrase Structure
Trees
• Phrase structure rules = PS rules, information
represented in PS trees
• PS rules instantiate principles of X-bar schema
& guide for building PS trees
• PS rules specify well-formed structures of a lg
precisely & concisely
• PS rules make explicit speakers’ knowledge of
word orders & groupings of words into syntactic
categories (p. 95)
• PS rules are general statements about a lg &
do not refer to any specific categories

22. Phrase Structure Rules
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S  NP VP
NP  Det N’
N’  N
VP  V’
V’  V NP (p. 96)
• Expansion + lexical insertion (p. 97)
• All structures are associated with actual English
sentences
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V’  V NP (p. 97)
V’  V PP (p. 98)
V’  N PP (p. 98)
More PS rules (p. 98) & demonstrations on p. 99
The majority of the senate became afraid of the vice-president

23. Infinity of Language:
Recursive Rules
• Number of S in lg is without bound
• Lgs have means of creating longer Ss
• Recursive rules: potentially add limitless number of
adj or pp, N’  A N’
ex: the kindhearted, intelligent, handsome boy (p.
100)
• A’  Int A’ (intensifier functions as specifier of A’)
ex: really very pretty (p. 100)
• V’  V’ PP
ex: she went over the hills, through the woods, to
the cave (p. 102)

24. Exercise P. 100
Explain concepts of rightbranching structures vs. leftbranching structures to your
partner.

25. Adjunct & Complement
• Adjunct: a phrasal category that is sister to an X’
& daughter of a higher X’ (p. 102 trees)
• Adjuncts can be any phrasal type (XP), ex:
adjective recursive rule, intensifier recursive
rule  right-branching structure (p.100, 101)
• Complement: a phrasal category that is sister to
the head X, ex: PP recursive rule  leftbranching structure (p. 102)
• PPs headed by of are complements, a patient
of the doctor
• PPs headed by with are adjuncts, a patient with
an broken arm

26. Complementation
• Complements precede adjuncts, a patient of the
doctor with a broken arm, *a patient with a broken
arm of the doctor
• Inside VPs, DO is always complement, found the
puppy
• Inside PPs, NP is complement, with an umbrella
• Inside APs, PP (of-addendum) is a complement,
jealous of Harry
• Nouns with complements do not allow onereplacement test, *a patient of the doctor and one
of the therapist

27. Adjunction
• One-replacement test: only nouns with adjuncts
can be substituted for by one, a patient with a
broken arm and one with a broken leg
• Multiple adjuncts can be reordered without loss of
grammaticality, a patient of the doctor with a
broken arm from Kalamazoo = a patient of the
doctor from Kalamazoo with a broken arm
• Inside VPs, addendums other than DO are
adjuncts, found the puppy in the park
• The boat in the ocean white with foam from the
gale (p. 103)
• English speakers have linguistic competence
(mental grammars) to embed phrases within each
other ad infinitum

28. Exercise 6: P. 130
Draw NP subtrees for
the italicized NPs.

29. What Heads the Sentence
• Structures of all phrasal categories follow X-bar
schema (3-tiered structure with specifiers,
heads, complements, adjuncts)
• Sentences are always tensed, providing timeframes for events or states described by verbs
John dances (present) John danced (past)
John will dance (future)
• Modals express possibility (John may dance),
necessity (John must dance), ability (John can
dance); English modals are inherently tensed
(p.104); Tense is a natural category to head S

30. Tense Phrase
• TP = S = specifier + T(head) + complement (p.
105, X-bar schema)
• TP = subject + predicate (p.105, NP + VP tree)
• When there is no modal under T, tense is
realized on verbal head of the VP, the girl may
cry (T = modal) vs. the child ate (T = [+past])
• Structural ambiguity, the boy saw the man with
the telescope (p.106)
(1) V’  V NP
(2) V’  V’ PP

31. Exercise 5: P. 130
Draw two phrase structure
trees to represent the two
meanings of the sentence.
The magician touched the
child with the wand.

32. Adverbial Modifier
• Adverbs: modifiers specify how events happen,
quickly, slowly, completely, or when they happen,
yesterday, tomorrow, often
• Adverbs are V’ adjuncts, V’  AdvP V’
The dog completely destroyed the house (p.107)
by describing the extent of the destruction
• V’  V’ AdvP
The dog destroyed the house yesterday (p.107)
by fixing the time of the event
• V”  V’  V NP: curse the day I was born
• V”  V’  V’ AdvP: curse on the day I was born

33. Transformational Analysis
• Declaratives assert information: The boy will
dance
• Yes-no questions request information: Will the
boy dance?
• Two Ss have structural diff in a systematic way
to a meaning diff
• Underlying structure (d-structure) 
transformational rules (move)  surface
structure (s-structure) (p.109, TP)
• A formal device relocates a material in T before
subject NP (basic  derived) (p.110)

34. Structure Dependency of Rules
• Structure dependency: transformation move
acts on phrase structures without regard to
particular words that structures contain,
• PP-preposing rule applies to PPs which are
adjuncts to V’, In the house, the puppy found
the ball; With the telescope, the boy saw the
man (p.106, 2nd tree) = The boy used a
telescope to see the man
• If PPs are in NPs, PP-preposing rule cannot be
applied, The boy saw a man who had a
telescope (p.106, 1st tree)

35. Agreement Rules
• Subject-verb agreement in English (p.111)
• Long-distance agreement: no limit to how many
words may intervene
• Agreement depends on S structure, not linear
order of words (p.111, long S & abbreviated tree)
• Declarative-question rule applies to the modal
dominated by root TP, but not the first modal in
S (p.112)
• Transformation must refer to phrase structure &
not to linear order of elements
• Structure dependency is a UG principle in all
lgs (p.112)

36. Syntactic Dependencies
• Two basic principles in organizing Ss: X-bar
schema derived from constituent structure +
syntactic dependencies derived from lexical
properties (C-selection + S-selection)
• Constituent structure: hierarchical organization of
subparts of a S + transformational rules
• Syntactic dependencies: presence of particular
words or morphemes are contingent on other
words or morphemes in S
• C-selection: one kind of dependency, vt. or vi.,
head-complement relationship
• S-V agreement: another kind of dependency, NP
features + V morphology relationship

37. WH-Questions
• A kind of dependency
• S grammaticality with a gap depends on there
being a wh phrase at S initial position, (1a) What
will Max chase? (2a)*will Max chase ____? (3a)
Max will chase what?
• PS rules generate basic declarative word orders in
d-structure with wh expression in complement
position
• Three transformational operations: (1) relocate wh
words from d-structure to s-structure position (2)
prepose modals to precede NP subjects (3) doinsertion to T carrying tense feature

38. Long-Distance Dependencies
• Move wh phrases outside of clauses in which
they originate in d-structure
• No limit to moving distance of wh phrases
(p.114)
• Long-distance dependencies created by wh
movement are a fundamental part of human lg
• Ss are not simply strings of words, but are
supported by rich phrase structure trees
• Trees express underlying structures of Ss &
relations to other Ss in lgs, reflecting speakers’
knowledge of syntax

39. UG Principles &
• Many grammatical structures hold in English
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other human lgs for basic design of UG
Lgs conform to a basic design with variations
Lgs have structures of X-bar schema
Phrases = specifiers + adjuncts + heads +
complements
Recursive properties
Ss are headed by T for tense & modality
Lgs have diff orders in phrases & Ss
UG specifies phrasal structures
UG allows reorganizing elements to achieve
transformations, interrogatives, emphases (p.115)

40. Parameters (I)
• Lgs define relative order of constituents
• English is head-initial (SVO); Japanese is headfinal (SOV)
• All lgs have expressions for requesting info,
who, when, where, what, how
• Wh-in-situ: in Japanese & Swahili, wh phrases
do not move & remain in original d-structure
positions, nani (p.115)
• Wh phrases move to the landing site in CPs
determined by UG
• Italian wh movement with preposition, but not in
English (p.115)

41. Parameters (II)
• German long-distance wh movements leave
trails of wh phrases (p.116)
• Czech modifiers can be separated from
modified NPs (p.116)
• Wh phrases cannot move out of relative
clauses (p.116, 1ab) & whether-clauses (p.116,
2abcd)
• Constraint against movement depends on
structure & not on S length
• Wh phrases cannot be extracted from inside
possessive NPs (p.116, 3abcd)

42. Parameters (III)
• Wh phrases cannot be moved out of coordinate
structures (p.116, 4ac)
• Wh phrases moving out from PPs are fine
(p.116, 4bd)
• Constraints on wh movement are part of UG =
innate blueprint for children to acquire lgs
• Children have to learn lg-specific aspects of
grammar
• Children set UG parameters in acquisition

43. Appendix A: P. 119
Appendix B: P. 121

44. Questions?

45. Homework
Exercise 8: P. 131
Exercise 16: P. 133
Hand-in next week