SYNTAX
"The study of phrases, clauses and sentences" (Parker and Riley, 2010, p. 47)
Words are organized and restricted by
Group Three:
Shep Kirk, Pauline Gumin, and Kelsy Rojek
click to edit
Transformations
Constraints
Hierarchial
Parker, F., & Riley, K. L. (2010). Linguistics for non-linguists: a primer with exercises. Allyn & Bacon.
Better known than other areas of linguistics
Largely based in the work of Noam Chomsky
Subjacency Constraint
Tensed Constraint
Unit Movement Constraint
Elements cannot be moved outside of a tensed clause
Elements cannot be moved across more than one S or NP
No element strings without a constituent can be moved together in a single application
Categories
Lexical Categories
Phrasal Categories
Word Categories
Verb
Adverb
Adjective
Noun
Noun phrases
Adjective phrases
Verb Phrases
Phrase Structure (PS) Rules
How they should be ordered from left to right
If any elements are optional
- Which elements are allowed in certain types of phrases
click to edit
Wh-movement
Inflection Movement
Interrogative words/phrases (who, what where, when, etc) show special order. These words are at the beginning of an interrogative clause. Example: if "Tiny Abner has concealed what" is changed to "What has Tiny Abner concealed" the movement of what would be categorized as a wh-movement
The first verb moved to the left of the subject NP
Example: if "Tiny Abner has concealed what" is changed to "What has Tiny Abner concealed" the movement of has would be categorized as an i movement.
"Phrases, clauses, and sentences are more than just a set of words...they are sets of categories organized into a hierarchical structure" (p. 53).
Example "an English literature expert"
Could mean 'a literature expert who is English'
Could mean 'an expert in English literature'