Linguis 3 CUI Linguistic problems discussion

User Generated

eeeeeee

Foreign Languages

Linguis 3

Cui

Description

just see the ppt first and understand what is the Syntax: Structureof sentences means and finish the problem set.

Unformatted Attachment Preview

Linguis 3: Introduction to Linguistics Winter 2019 Problem Set 4: Syntax Due 2/15/2019. 91 points possible 1. For each pair of expressions below, say whether they belong to the same syntactic category or not and give an example supporting your answer. You do not have to say which syntactic category any of the expressions below belong to---just say whether they are the same or different and give evidence. (3 points each) a. seemed happy always seemed happy b. loud bar bar down the street c. extremely loud bar the bar d. slept all day liked e. quickly quite f. walked rode the bus 2. For each underlined expression below, say which syntactic category it belongs to and give one piece of evidence supporting your answer. (3 points each) a. Sally sent me a ​long annoying email. b. Sally sent me ​a long annoying email​. c. Sally sent me a ​long​ annoying email. d. Sally ​rides her bike​ fast. e. Sally ​rides her bike fast​. f. ​The writing of her latest novel​ took more time than anticipated. 3. Draw a phrase structure tree for each of the following expressions. (5 points each) a. thought Sally hated Bob. b. barked yesterday c. fell into the pond d. drifted slowly under the bridge e. this silly picture of Pat f. Chris loved Robin passionately. g. Pat pushed the stubborn horse into the barn. f. A student from my class claimed the teacher disliked him. 4. Consider the following example which shows the order of NPs and prepositions in Japanese PPs. (1) kono kodomo this child "with this child" to with (2) ​*​to kono kodomo a. Write a lexical entry for each word in the Japanese phrase in this example. (5 points) b. Write a phrase structure rule that allows the construction of PPs out of prepositions and NPs in Japanese. (5 points) c. Construct a phrase structure tree for the Japanese phrase ​sono hito to​ "with that person". (5 points) Introduction to Linguistics Syntax I Semantics: How form relates to meaning. Syntax: Structure of sentences. Morphology: Structure of words words.. Phonology: Structure of sounds. Phonetics: How sounds are articulated. Basics Syntax • • Syntax is the study of the structure of sentences. • • • Phonemes combine to form morphemes. Morphemes combine to form words. Words combine to form sentences. Not so simple… A sentence expresses a complete meaning. • • A phoneme has no meaning. A morpheme is the smallest unit that expresses a meaning. From Phonemes to Sentences • • • Languages usually have around 25 different phonemes. • • Around 10,000-50,000 different morphemes. How many different sentences? • Unlimited. The meaning of every morpheme must be memorized. • If you’ve never heard the morpheme wug before, you can’t figure it out. The meaning of every sentence is predictable given the parts. • If you’ve never heard the sentence My hovercraft is full of eels before, you can still understand it. Compositionality • Sentences follow the principle of compositionality: the meaning of the whole is the meaning of the parts plus how they are combined. form “the cat sat on the mat” meaning Compositionality • Sentences follow the principle of compositionality: the meaning of the whole is the meaning of the parts plus how they are combined. • • • So, what are the parts? • Syntactic categories. And what are the ways that they are combined? • Syntactic rules. Of all the possible combinations of words, only a few form meaningful sentences. Grammar • In syntax, we categorize sequences of words as grammatical or ungrammatical within a language. • A mental grammar is a speaker’s unconscious knowledge of how a language works. • When you know a language, you know its rules: Phonological rules, morphological processes, syntactic rules, … /t/ z +/ - /æ _V ‘ / ] ʰ t +/ >[ /- d/ l ra m or /t of plu > to [æ ̃] fo rm /_ N pa st SYNTACTIC RULES te ns e Grammar • A sentence is grammatical in a language if it follows the rules in the mental grammar of that language. • A sentence is ungrammatical if it breaks those rules: that is, if it is something that people would not say. My hovercraft is full of eels. ✓ * Hovercraft of full eels my is. ✗ Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Grammar • When you learned “grammar” in school, you may have learned things like: • “Don’t end a sentence with a preposition” • • • • “Don’t use passive voice” “Don’t use less with a count noun, like less customers. You should say fewer customers.” This is prescriptive grammar: Someone’s ideas about what makes for “correct” or good writing. • Not our business as scientists! We’re interested in descriptive grammar: a description of the rules people actually do follow in normal language use. Grammaticality • A sentence is grammatical in a language if it follows the rules in the mental grammar of that language. • A sentence is ungrammatical if it breaks those rules: that is, if it is something that people would not say. • In studying syntax we will rely on grammaticality judgments: a speaker’s intuitive judgment about whether a sentence is grammatical or not. • If a sentence is grammatical we also call it well-formed. Syntax and Meaning • • Grammaticality is separate from plausibility! It doesn’t matter how nonsensical or false the meaning is, all that matters is that it follows the rules of the language. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. ✓ Syntax and Meaning • • Grammaticality is separate from plausibility! It doesn’t matter how nonsensical or false the meaning is, all that matters is that it follows the rules of the language. ✓ Green sleep colorless furiously ideas. ✗ * Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Syntax and Meaning • • Grammaticality is separate from plausibility! It doesn’t matter how nonsensical or false the meaning is, all that matters is that it follows the rules of the language. I have a friend who is always full of ideas, good ideas and bad ideas, fine ideas and crude ideas, old ideas and new ideas. Before putting his new ideas into practice, he usually sleeps over them to let them mature and ripen. However, when he is in a hurry, he sometimes puts his ideas into practice before they are quite ripe, in other words, while they are still green. Some of his green ideas are quite lively and colorful, but not always, some being quite plain and colorless. When he remembers that some of his colorless ideas are still too green to use, he will sleep over them, or let them sleep, as he puts it. But some of those ideas may be mutually conflicting and contradictory, and when they sleep together in the same night they get into furious fights and turn the sleep into a nightmare. Thus my friend often complains that his colorless green ideas sleep furiously. Syntax and Meaning • • Grammaticality is separate from plausibility! • A sentence is grammatical when it is something someone would say, no matter how unlikely the context! It doesn’t matter how nonsensical or false the meaning is, all that matters is that it follows the rules of the language. Grammaticality I bought a dog. ✓ * Me bought a dog. ✗ Grammaticality Sally ate an apple. Sally ate a tree. * Sally a tree ate. * Sally ate an exploded. ✓ ✓ ✗ ✗ Grammaticality Sally likes Bob. Bob likes Sally. * Likes Sally Bob. ✓ ✓ ✗ Grammaticality Sally will go to a store. * Sally has go to a store. Sally has gone to a store. * Store a Sally gone to has. ✓ ✗ ✓ ✗ Grammaticality France is in Europe. * France are in Europe. France is in Africa. ✓ ✗ ✓ Grammaticality This dog is mine. * This dog is my. This is my dog. * This is mine dog. ✓ ✗ ✓ ✗ Grammaticality ✓ Sally ate. ✓ Sally put the cup on the table. ✓ Sally put. ✗ * Sally ate the food. Syntactic Categories Syntactic Category • How do we describe what makes some sequences of words grammatical, and others ungrammatical? • The fundamental unit in syntax is the syntactic category. • Preliminary definition: Two words are in the same syntactic category iff you can interchange them in every sentence without making the sentence ungrammatical. • Alternatively: Two words are in different syntactic categories iff you can find a sentence where interchanging them makes a grammatical sentence ungrammatical. Syntactic Category • Example: Are cat and explode in the same syntactic category? • • • 1. Find a grammatical sentence containing cat. • I saw the cat. ✓ 2. Try substituting explode instead of cat. • * I saw the explode. ✗ 3. Therefore, cat and explode are in different syntactic categories. ➡cat is a noun (N), explode is a verb (V). Syntactic Category • Example: Are cat and mouse in the same syntactic category? • • • • 1. Find a grammatical sentence containing cat. • I saw the cat. ✓ 2. Try substituting mouse instead of cat. • I saw the mouse. ✓ 3. Are there any examples where it doesn’t work? 4. If no examples, then they are in the same syntactic category. ➡Both nouns (N). Syntactic Category • Example: Are Mary and mouse in the same syntactic category? • • • 1. Find a grammatical sentence containing Mary. • Mary is my friend. ✓ 2. Try substituting mouse instead of Mary. • * Mouse is my friend. ✗ 3. The substitution made the sentence ungrammatical, so they are in different syntactic categories. Syntactic Category • Example: Are the and my in the same syntactic category? • • • • 1. Find a grammatical sentence containing the. • Hand me the salt. ✓ 2. Try substituting my instead of the. • Hand me my salt. ✓ 3. Repeat the process. Are there any examples where it doesn’t work? 4. None, so they are in the same category. ➡ Both determiners (Det). Syntactic Category • Example: Are the and blue in the same syntactic category? • • 1. Find a grammatical sentence containing the. • I like the salt. ✓ 2. Try substituting blue instead of the. • I like blue salt. ✓ • 3. Repeat the process. Are there any examples where it doesn’t work? • How about the other way? • • • The blanket is blue. * The blanket is the. ✓ ✗ 4. The substitution made the sentence ungrammatical, so they are in different categories. • • Blue is an adjective. (Adj) The is a determiner. (Det) Syntactic Category: Not Just Words • • Syntactic categories cover more than just words! • Example: Are the cat and a dog in the same syntactic category? For any two sequences of words, if you can interchange them in all sentences without making the sentence ungrammatical, then they are in the same syntactic category. • • Start sentence: I think the cat is cute. ‣ I think a dog is cute. ✓ ✓ For any sentence you can think of that contains the cat, you can substitute a dog and it’s still grammatical. Syntactic Category • A syntactic category consisting of a sequence of words is called a phrase. • • The cat and a dog are in the same category: both are noun phrases (NP) Better definition: Two words or phrases are in the same syntactic category iff you can interchange them in every sentence without making the sentence ungrammatical. Syntactic Category • Example: Are dog and the cat in the same syntactic category? • • • 1. Find a grammatical sentence containing dog. • I have a dog. ✓ 2. Try substituting the cat instead of dog. • * I have a the cat. ✗ 3. The substitution makes the sentence ungrammatical, so they are not in the same syntactic category. ➡ Dog is a noun (N). ➡ The cat is a noun phrase (NP). Some Common Syntactic Categories • • • • • • • Nouns (N): cat, dog, car, water, salt, … • Verb phrases (VP): Anything that you can substitute with did so, do so, or does so. • Prepositional phrases (PP): Phrases like in the park Verbs (V): goes, went, runs, ran, … Adjectives (Adj): big, red, beautiful, angry, … Adverbs (Adv): quickly, fast, well, unfortunately, … Determiners (Det): a(n), the, this, that, those, my, your, … Prepositions (P): in, of, at, from, by, … Noun phrases (NP): Anything that can you can substitute with a pronoun (he, she, it, him, her, they, them). What is a sentence? • A sentence is a phrase that can appear in this context: • Sally thinks that ___________________. ‣ Sally thinks that the cat is cute. ➡the cat is cute is a sentence. ‣ *Sally thinks that the cat. ➡The cat is not a sentence. Syntactic Constraints Syntactic Constraints • The goal of syntax is to figure out what are the rules that make some combinations of words grammatical, and others ungrammatical? • Two kinds of constraints on words in sentences: • • Co-occurrence constraints • If you have one word somewhere in a sentence, you must also have another word somewhere else in the sentence. Word order constraints: • Words must be placed in a certain order for a sentence to be grammatical. Co-Occurrence Constraints Sally hasn’t read the book. * Sally hasn’t read the this book. * Sally hasn’t read three book. * Sally hasn’t read the. Sally hasn’t read three books. ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✓ Co-Occurrence Constraints • • • Sometimes a word requires the presence of another word. • Sally hasn’t read the book. • *Sally hasn’t read the. ➡A determiner (Det) requires a noun (N). Sometimes a word rules out the presence of another word. • *Sally hasn’t read the this book. ➡A determiner (Det) rules out other determiners (Det). Sometimes a word requires that another word be in a certain morphological form. • *Sally hasn’t read three book. • Sally hasn’t read three books. ➡A number word (Num) requires a plural noun (plural N). Word Order Constraints Sally hasn’t read the book. * Sally hasn’t read book the. Sally saw the book. * * Saw Sally the book. Sally the book saw. ✓ ✗ ✓ ✗ ✗ Word Order Constraints • Certain words are required to go before other words. • Sally read the book. • *Sally read book the. ➡“the” must go before a noun. (Det N) • Sally saw the book. • *Saw Sally the book. ➡ The subject of a verb must go before the verb (V). • Certain words are required to go after other words. • Sally saw the book. • *Sally the book saw. ➡ The object of a verb must go after the verb (V). • English has the order Subject—Verb—Object. Introduction to Linguistics Syntax II Syntax So Far • • Syntax is the study of the structure of sentences. A sentence is grammatical in a language if it follows the rules that you know implicitly as a speaker of that language. • • We’ve seen phonological and morphological rules. What do syntactic rules look lile? Words and sequences of words fall into syntactic categories: if two words or sequences of words can be substituted for each other in all sentences, then they are in the same syntactic category. Syntactic Category • Example: Are cat and mouse in the same syntactic category? • • • • 1. Find a grammatical sentence containing cat. • I saw the cat. ✓ 2. Try substituting mouse instead of cat. • I saw the mouse. ✓ 3. Are there any examples where it doesn’t work? 4. If no examples, then they are in the same syntactic category. ➡Both nouns (N). Syntactic Category • Example: Are the and blue in the same syntactic category? • • • 1. Find a grammatical sentence containing the or blue. • The blanket is blue. 2. See what happen when you substitute the for blue. • * The blanket is the. 4. The substitution made the sentence ungrammatical, so they are in different categories. • • Blue is an adjective. (Adj) The is a determiner. (Det) Syntactic Category • Example: Are cat and the cat in the same syntactic category? • • • 1. Find a grammatical sentence containing cat or the cat. • I like the cat. 2. See what happen when you substitute the cat for cat. • * I like the the cat. 3. Therefore they are in different categories. • cat is a noun (N) • The cat is a noun phrase (NP) NP Det N the cat Syntactic Category • Example: Are cat and furry cat in the same syntactic category? • • • 1. Find a grammatical sentence containing cat or furry cat. • I like the furry cat. 2. See what happen when you substitute cat for furry cat. • I like the cat. 3. Are there any examples where it becomes ungrammatical? N Adj N furry cat Syntactic Category • Example: Are the furry cat and furry cat in the same syntactic category? • • • 1. Find a grammatical sentence containing the furry cat or furry cat. • I like the furry cat. 2. See what happen when you substitute the furry cat for furry cat. • *I like the the furry cat. 3. They are in different categories • • NP Noun (N) vs. Noun Phrase (NP) N Det Adj N I like the furry cat Syntactic Constraints Syntactic Constraints • The goal of syntax is to figure out what are the rules that make some combinations of words grammatical, and others ungrammatical? • Two kinds of constraints on words in sentences: • • Co-occurrence constraints • If you have one word somewhere in a sentence, you must also have another word somewhere else in the sentence. Word order constraints: • Words must be placed in a certain order for a sentence to be grammatical. Co-Occurrence Constraints Sally hasn’t read the book. * Sally hasn’t read the this book. * Sally hasn’t read three book. * Sally hasn’t read the. Sally hasn’t read three books. ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✓ Co-Occurrence Constraints • • • Sometimes a word requires the presence of another word. • Sally hasn’t read the book. • *Sally hasn’t read the. ➡A determiner (Det) requires a noun (N). Sometimes a word rules out the presence of another word. • *Sally hasn’t read the this book. ➡A determiner (Det) rules out other determiners (Det). Sometimes a word requires that another word be in a certain morphological form. • *Sally hasn’t read three book. • Sally hasn’t read three books. ➡A number word (Num) requires a plural noun (plural N). Word Order Constraints Sally hasn’t read the book. * Sally hasn’t read book the. Sally saw the book. * * Saw Sally the book. Sally the book saw. ✓ ✗ ✓ ✗ ✗ Word Order Constraints • Certain words are required to go before other words. • Sally read the book. • *Sally read book the. ➡“the” must go before a noun. (Det N) • Sally saw the book. • *Saw Sally the book. ➡ The subject of a verb must go before the verb (V). • Certain words are required to go after other words. • Sally saw the book. • *Sally the book saw. ➡ The object of a verb must go after the verb (V). • English has the order Subject—Verb—Object. Syntactic Rules Syntactic Rules • A syntactic rule (also called a phrase structure rule) states what words can form a syntactic category and in what order. NP Det the N cat NP → Det N The category noun phrase can consist of A determiner followed by a noun Syntactic Rules • A syntactic rule (also called a phrase structure rule) states what words can form a syntactic category and in what order. • A syntactic rule that spells out the individual words in a category is called a lexical entry. N → cat Lexical entries for the category N N → mouse N → dog N → person Syntactic Rules • A syntactic rule (also called a phrase structure rule) states what words can form a syntactic category and in what order. • A syntactic rule that spells out the individual words in a category is called a lexical entry. N → cat, mouse, dog, person, … Lexical entries for the category N Syntactic Rules • A syntactic rule (also called a phrase structure rule) states what words can form a syntactic category and in what order. • A syntactic rule that spells out the individual words in a category is called a lexical entry. N → cat, mouse, dog, person, … Det → the, a(n), this, that, my, your, … Adj → big, blue, small, furry, cute, … Recursive Rules • A syntactic rule (also called a phrase structure rule) states what words can form a syntactic category and in what order. N Adj N furry cat N → Adj N The category noun can consist of An adjective followed by a noun Recursive Rules • A syntactic rule (also called a phrase structure rule) states what words can form a syntactic category and in what order. • A syntactic rule can be recursive: it has the same category on the left hand side and the right hand side. N → Adj N N N N Adj N furry cat Adj Adj N small furry cat Rules So Far NP → Det N N → Adj N N → cat, mouse, dog, person, … Det → the, a(n), this, that, my, your, his, her, their, … Adj → big, blue, small, furry, cute, … NP N Det Adj N the furry cat Figuring Out Rules • So what are the syntactic rules covering the rest of the sentence? Sally saw the cute cat. * Sally saw cute cat. Sally saw NP. ___. ✓ ✗ Figuring Out Rules Sally saw the cute cat. Sally liked the cute cat. * • Sally slept the cute cat. Sally slept. ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓ The verbs saw and liked are in a different syntactic category from slept. • We call saw and liked transitive verbs (TV) • • They must be followed by an object NP. We call slept an intransitive verb (V). • It cannot be followed by an object NP. Figuring Out Rules • Let’s write a rule to describe the fact that transitive verbs must be followed by an object NP. • • • We’ll call the containing category verb phrase (VP). And we’ll have a rule for the intransitive verbs too. And we need lexical entries for TV and V. VP ?? → TV NP VP → V V → slept, ran, cried, jumped, … TV → liked, saw, punched, learned, … Verb Phrases VP → TV NP VP → V NP → Det N N → Adj N V → slept, ran, cried, jumped, … TV → liked, saw, punched, learned, … Det → the, a(n), this, that, my, your, his, her, their, … Adj → big, blue, small, furry, cute, … N → cat, mouse, dog, person, … Sally VP. Verb Phrases VP → TV NP VP → V NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N V → slept, ran, cried, jumped, … TV → liked, saw, punched, learned, … Det → the, a(n), this, that, my, your, his, her, their, … Adj → big, blue, small, furry, cute, … N → cat, mouse, dog, person, … PropN → any name Sally VP. Sentence Rule • The rule describing a sentence is: S → NP VP • A sentence consists of a (subject) noun phrase (NP) followed by a verb phrase (VP). S VP NP NP PropN TV Det N Sally saw the mouse Ditransitive Verbs Sally liked Bob. Sally gave Bob the book. * Sally liked Bob the book. * Sally gave Bob. ✓ ✓ ✗ ✗ VP → DTV NP NP DTV → gave, sent, handed, emailed, … Sentential Verbs Sally thought Bob liked the cat. * Sally thought Bob. Sally punched Bob. * Sally punched Bob liked the cat. ✓ ✗ ✓ ✗ VP → SV S SV → thought, said, discovered, … Rules So Far S VP VP VP VP → → → → → NP VP V TV NP DTV NP NP SV S NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N VP → VP Adv V → slept, ran, cried, jumped, … TV → liked, saw, punched, learned, … DTV → gave, sent, handed, emailed, … SV → thought, said, discovered, … Det Adj N PropN Adv → the, a(n), this, that, my, your, his, her, their, … → big, blue, small, furry, cute, … → cat, mouse, dog, person, … → any name → well, furiously, calmly, quickly, badly, … Prepositional Phrases The cat in the house chased the mouse. ✓ PP → P NP P → in, on, to, of, above, from, about, … N → N PP • A PP can attach to a noun. • It modifies the meaning of the noun. Prepositional Phrases The cat in the house chased the mouse. The cat slept in the house. ✓ ✓ PP → P NP P → in, on, to, of, above, from, about, … N → N PP VP → VP PP • A PP can also attach to a verb phrase. Syntactic Rules for English S VP VP VP VP VP VP → → → → → → → NP VP V TV NP DTV NP NP SV S VP Adv VP PP NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N N → N PP PP → P NP Introduction to Linguistics Syntax III Syntax So Far • • Syntax is the study of the structure of sentences. • There are two kinds of constraints on grammatical sentences in any language: A sentence is grammatical in a language if it follows the rules that you know implicitly as a speaker of that language. • • Co-occurrence constraints Word order constraints Syntax So Far • We capture the syntactic constraints of a language using syntactic rules (also called phrase structure rules). S → NP VP The category Sentence • can consist of A noun phrase followed by a verb phrase Rules that specify individual words for a syntactic category are called lexical entries: N → cat, mouse, dog, person, … Det → the, a(n), this, that, my, your, his, her, their, … Adj → big, blue, small, furry, cute, … Syntax So Far S VP VP VP VP VP VP → → → → → → → NP VP V TV NP DTV NP NP SV S VP Adv VP PP NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N N → N PP PP → P NP V → slept, ran, cried, jumped, … TV → liked, saw, punched, learned, … DTV → gave, sent, handed, emailed, … SV → thought, said, discovered, … … p. 232 Generation and Parsing • You can apply the rules in two ways: • Generation: Start with S and randomly choose which rules to follow until you have generated a sentence. • • The rules should be made so that you can generate all and only the grammatical sentences of a language. Parsing: Start with a sentence and figure out how it could have been generated by the rules. • Draw a phrase structure tree for the sentence. Generation Example S → NP VP VP → V VP → TV NP VP → DTV NP NP VP → SV S NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N N → N PP S NP VP PP → P NP VP → VP Adv VP → VP PP V → slept, ran, cried, jumped, … TV → liked, saw, punched, learned, … Det N that person VP Adv V badly DTV → gave, sent, handed, emailed, … SV → thought, said, discovered, … Det → the, a(n), this, that, my, your, his, her, their, … slept Adj → big, blue, small, furry, cute, … N → cat, mouse, dog, person, … Adv → well, furiously, calmly, quickly, badly, … Parsing Example S S → NP VP VP → V VP → TV NP NP VP VP → DTV NP NP S VP → SV S VP → VP Adv NP VP → VP PP VP NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N NP N → N PP N PP → P NP PropN SV Det N TV Det Adj N Sally thought the dog chased the furry cat. How to Parse a Sentence S → NP VP VP → V VP → TV NP VP → DTV NP NP • 1. Label the categories for all the individual words. • 2. Find a sequence of categories that matches the right hand side of a rule, and which haven’t yet been matched with any rule. • 3. Draw a tree with the left hand side of the rule on top. • 4. Repeat until you have a single tree that covers all the words in the sentence. VP → SV S VP → VP Adv VP → VP PP NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N N → N PP PP → P NP Some Useful Tests • • For whether something is a VP: Can you substitute did so, does so, or do so? • Bob saw Mary on the street. • Bob thought Mary slept badly in her bed. ➡Bob did so. ➡Bob thought Mary did so. For whether something is an NP: Can you substitute a single proper name (PropN)? • Sally liked the cute gray cat. • Sally liked the cute gray cat. ➡Sally liked Bob. ➡*Sally liked the Bob. Lexical Ambiguity More on Transitive vs. Intransitive Verbs Sally devoured the cake. * Sally slept the cake. * Sally devoured. Sally slept. Sally ate the cake. Sally ate. TV → devoured V → slept ✓ ✗ ✗ ✓ ✓ ✓ TV → ate V → ate More on Transitive vs. Intransitive Verbs TV → ate • • • V → ate The word ate belongs to two different syntactic categories! • It could be a transitive verb (TV) or an intransitive verb (V). Very many words belong to multiple syntactic categories. • This situation is called lexical ambiguity. Another example: this can be either a determiner (Det) or a pronoun (Pro) Det → this Pro → this Lexical Ambiguity N → love • • We love Bob. Our love for Bob. N → present • • TV → love Adj → present The present situation is dangerous. Bob gave me a cool present. Structural Ambiguity Structural Ambiguity S VP VP VP VP → → → → → NP VP V TV NP DTV NP NP SV S VP → VP Adv VP → VP PP NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N N → N PP PP → P NP Structural Ambiguity • • Structural ambiguity means that the same sequence of words has multiple different parse trees. • The different parse trees correspond to different interpretations. • The examples we’ve seen are PP attachment ambiguities. Very many naturally-occurring sentences have some structural ambiguity! Structural Ambiguity Structural Ambiguity Structural Ambiguity • • • • ENRAGED COW INJURES FARMER WITH AX • SQUAD HELPS DOG BITE VICTIM BRITISH LEFT WAFFLES ON FALKLAND ISLANDS STOLEN PAINTING FOUND BY TREE TWO SISTERS REUNITED AFTER 18 YEARS IN CHECKOUT COUNTER How to Parse a Sentence S → NP VP VP → V VP → TV NP VP → DTV NP NP VP → SV S • 1. Label the categories for all the individual words. • 2. Find a sequence of categories that matches the right hand side of a rule, and which haven’t yet been matched with any rule. • 3. Draw a tree with the left hand side of the rule on top. • 4. Repeat until you have a single tree that covers all the words in the sentence. VP → VP Adv VP → VP PP NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N N → N PP PP → P NP Introduction to Linguistics Syntax IV Semantics: How form relates to meaning. Syntax: Structure of sentences. Morphology: Structure of words. Phonology: Structure of sounds. Phonetics: How sounds are articulated. Basics Syntax So Far • • Syntax is the study of the structure of sentences. • There are two kinds of constraints on grammatical sentences in any language: A sentence is grammatical in a language if it follows the rules that you know implicitly as a speaker of that language. • • • Co-occurrence constraints Word order constraints We capture the syntactic constraints of a language using syntactic rules (also called phrase structure rules). S → NP VP Ambiguity • Certain syntactic rules create ambiguity. • • Lexical ambiguity is when there are multiple lexical entries for a single word. • • TV → love N → love Structural ambiguity is when there are multiple ways to generate or parse a single string of words. • The enraged cow attacked the farmer with an ax. How to Parse a Sentence S → NP VP VP → V VP → TV NP VP → DTV NP NP VP → SV S • 1. Label the categories for all the individual words. • 2. Find a sequence of categories that matches the right hand side of a rule, and which haven’t yet been matched with any rule. • 3. Draw a tree with the left hand side of the rule on top. • 4. Repeat until you have a single tree that covers all the words in the sentence. VP → VP Adv VP → VP PP NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N N → N PP PP → P NP Syntactic Analysis Syntactic Analysis S → NP VP VP → V VP → TV NP VP → DTV NP NP VP → SV S VP → VP Adv VP → VP PP NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N N → N PP PP → P NP • The goal of syntactic analysis is to write down syntactic rules that generates all and only the grammatical sentences in a language. • If there is a grammatical sentence not generated by the rules, then we say the rules undergenerate. • If your rules generate sentences that are not grammatical, then we say your rules overgenerate. S → NP VP VP → V VP → TV NP Kinds of Nouns VP → DTV NP NP Sally liked the book. VP → SV S VP → VP Adv VP → VP PP NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N N → N PP * Sally liked book. Sally liked the wine. Sally liked wine. ✓ ✗ ✓ ✓ PP → P NP NP → MassN MassN → water, cake, food, wine, … Syntactic Analysis • • The goal of syntactic analysis is to write down syntactic rules that generates all and only the grammatical sentences in a language. • If there is a grammatical sentence not generated by the rules, then we say the rules undergenerate. • If your rules generate sentences that are not grammatical, then we say your rules overgenerate. The solution to undergeneration is usually to add more rules. Pronouns S → NP VP VP → V VP → TV NP NP → Pro Pro → I, you, he, she, me, him, her, … S VP → DTV NP NP VP → SV S VP → VP Adv VP → VP PP NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N N → N PP PP → P NP NP VP Pro TV NP he saw Pro he Pronouns ProSubj → I, he, she, we, they ProObj → me, him, her, us, them Pro → you, it, this, that NPSubj → ProSubj NPSubj → Pro NP → ProObj NP → Pro S → NPSubj VP Pronouns S ProSubj → I, he, she, we, they ProObj → me, him, her, us, them Pro → you, it, this, that NPSubj → ProSubj NPSubj → Pro NPSubj VP ProSubj TV NP he saw ProObj NP → ProObj NP → Pro S → NPSubj VP him Syntactic Analysis • The goal of syntactic analysis is to write down syntactic rules that generates all and only the grammatical sentences in a language. • If there is a grammatical sentence not generated by the rules, then we say the rules undergenerate. • If your rules generate sentences that are not grammatical, then we say your rules overgenerate. • The solution to undergeneration is usually to add more rules. • The solution to overgeneration is usually to make rules and categories more specific. Agreement ✓ The student likes the book. ✓ The student like the book. ✗ * The students liked the book. ✓ The students like the book. ✓ The students likes the book. ✗ * The student liked the book. Patterns in Syntactic Rules Patterns in Syntactic Rules VP VP VP VP → → → → • Many rules have a common V structure: TV NP • XP → … some kind of X … DTV NP NP • Inside each phrase, there is a single core word called the SV S NP → Det N NP → PropN PP → P NP head of the phrase. • The head expresses the most important idea of the phrase. Patterns in Syntactic Rules • VP → VP Adv VP → VP PP N → Adj N N → N PP Other rules do not specify a head, but instead expand a category recursively with some added categories. • X→…X… • These are called adjunction rules. • The added categories are called adjuncts. Types of Rules • There are a few types of syntactic rule: VP → TV NP • Head rules expand a phrase into a head plus other material. VP → VP Adv • Adjunction rules expand a category into itself plus other material. S → NP VP • Exocentric rules expand a category into other categories of different types. Types of Rules • Most rules are head-final or head-initial: • A head-final rule puts the head at the end of the phrase: NP → Det N • A head-initial rule puts the head at the beginning of the phrase: VP → DTV NP NP VP → VP Adv Types of Rules • Most rules in English are head-initial: so we say English is a head-initial language. • Other languages are head-final: most of their rules are head-final. • Japanese, Korean, Tamil, Telugu, … Parsing in a Head-Final Language English Rules Japanese Rules (approximately) S → NP VP VP → V VP → TV NP S → NP VP VP → V VP → NP TV VP → DTV NP NP VP → NP NP DTV VP → SV S VP → S SV VP → VP Adv VP → Adv VP VP → VP PP VP → PP VP NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N NP → Det N NP → PropN N → Adj N N → N PP N → PP N PP → P NP PP → NP P NP → N Head-Initial vs. Head-Final Languages • Most languages are heavily tilted towards being mostly headfinal or mostly head-initial. Languages with the rule VP → TV NP and the rule PP → P NP Languages with the rule VP → NP TV and the rule PP → NP P Languages with the rule VP → TV NP and the rule PP → NP P Languages with the rule VP → NP TV and the rule PP → P NP
Purchase answer to see full attachment
User generated content is uploaded by users for the purposes of learning and should be used following Studypool's honor code & terms of service.

Explanation & Answer


Anonymous
Excellent resource! Really helped me get the gist of things.

Studypool
4.7
Trustpilot
4.5
Sitejabber
4.4

Similar Content

Related Tags