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When we set out to provide an analysis of the syntax of a language, we try to adhere to the

“All and only” criterion. This means that our analysis must account for all the

grammatically correct phrases and sentences and only those grammatically correct phrases

and sentences in whatever language we are analyzing. In other words, if we write rules for the creation of well-formed structures, we have to check that those rules, when applied logically, won’t also lead to ill-formed structures.

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The word “syntax” comes originally from Greek

and means “a putting together” or “arrangement.” In earlier approaches, there

was an attempt to produce an accurate description of the sequence or ordering

“arrangement” of elements in the linear structure of the sentence. More recent

attempts to analyze structure have focused on the underlying rule system that we use to produce or “generate” sentences.

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we might say informally that, in English, we put a preposition (near)

before a noun (London) to form a prepositional phrase (near London). This will describe a large number of phrases, but does it describe all (and only) the prepositional phrases in English? Note that, if we use this as a grammar rule to create structures involving a preposition and a noun, we will produce phrases like near a tree or with a dog.

These don’t seem to be well-formed English structures, so we mark them with an asterisk *,

indicating that they are ungrammatical.

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The first rule in the following set of simple (and necessarily incomplete) phrase

structure rules capture a very general rule of English sentence structure: “a sentence (S)

rewrites as a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase (VP).”

The second rule states that “a

noun phrase rewrites as either an article plus an optional adjective plus a noun, or a

pronoun, or a proper noun.”

In the third rule, a verb phrase rewrites as a verb plus a noun

phrase.

S → NP VP

NP → {Art (Adj) N, Pro, PN}

VP → V NP

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Phrase structure rules generate structures. To turn those structures into

recognizable English, we also need lexical rules that specify which words can be used when

we rewrite constituents such as PN. The first rule in the following set states that “a proper

noun rewrites as John or Mary.” (It is a very small world.)

PN → {John, Mary} Art → {a, the}

N → {girl, dog, boy} Adj → {big, small}

V → {followed, helped, saw} Pro → {it, you}

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Examples are N (= noun), Art (= article), Adj (= adjective) and V

(= verb). We also use abbreviations for phrases, such as NP (= noun phrase) and VP (= verb

phrase). In English, the verb phrase (VP) consists of the verb (V) plus the following noun

phrase (NP). We can take the simple sentence

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We can use the symbols introduced earlier to label parts of the tree

when we create a representation of how each part fits into the underlying structure of

phrases. The information in a phrase structure rule, on the left, can be expressed in a tree

diagram, on the right, as in Figure 8.2.

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We can use a similar tree diagram to represent the more complex structure of an

English verb phrase (VP), as shown in Figure 8.3. Once again, this type of diagram

provides a way of representing the hierarchical nature of the underlying structure.

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1. What was the original literal meaning of syntax in Greek?

Answer: means “a putting together” or “arrangement.” In earlier approaches, there

was an attempt to produce an accurate description of the sequence or ordering

“arrangement” of elements in the linear structure of the sentence.

2. What is wrong with the following rule of English syntactic structure? “A prepositional phrase rewrites as a preposition followed by a noun.”

Answer: This rule will produce both grammatical structures ("with Mary"), but also ungrammatical structures (*"with woman"), which is undesirable in terms of the "all and only" criterion.

3. Which of the following expressions are structurally ambiguous and in what way?

(a) These are designed for small boys and girls.

This sentence can mean "for small boys and (all) girls"
OR
"for small boys and small girls."

(b) The parents of the bride and groom were waiting outside.

(b) The parents of the bride and (the parents of the) groom
OR
The parents of the bride and (the) groom (without his parents)

(c) How come a bed has four legs, but only one foot?

(c) illustrates lexical ambiguity, based on different meanings for "legs" and "foot." All the others exhibit structural ambiguity, as follows:

(d) We met an English history teacher.

(d) a teacher of English history
OR
a person from England who teaches history

(e) Flying planes can be dangerous.

(e) planes that are flying
OR
being the person who flies planes

(f) The students complained to everyone that they couldn’t understand.

(f) the students complained that they couldn't understand everyone
OR
the students complained to everyone whom they couldn't understand

4. What part of speech is lovely in the following sentence?

Answer: Adjective.

5. How many noun phrases are there in the following sentence? George saw a small dog in the park near the fountain and it followed him when he left the park.

answer: Eight

6 Which part of the following sentence is the VP?

None of the people in the building supported the proposed rent increase.

Answer: "Supported the proposed rent increase"

7. Which of the following expressions would be generated by this phrase structure rule: NP

→ {Art (Adj) N, Pro, PN}?

(a), (b), (c), (d), (e), but not (f) because it is a sentence, not just a noun phrase.

(a) a lady    ------(c) her --------- (e) the widow

(b) the little girl ---------- (d) Annie ------- (f) she’s an old woman.

8. What kind of generative rule is this: N → {girl, dog, boy}?

Answer: A lexical rule

9. Do phrase structure rules represent deep structure or surface structure?

Answer: Deep structure.

10. Complete the following tree diagrams.

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When we have an effective rule such as “a prepositional phrase in English consists of a

preposition followed by a noun phrase,” we can imagine an extremely large number of

English phrases that could be produced using this rule. The potential number is

unlimited. This reflects another goal of syntactic analysis, which is to have a small and

finite (i.e. limited) set of rules that will be capable of producing a large and potentially

infinite (i.e. unlimited) number of well-formed structures. This small and finite set of rules

is sometimes described as generative grammar because it can be used to “generate” or

produce sentence structures and not just describe them.

This type of grammar should also be capable of revealing the basis of two other phenomena: first, how some superficially different phrases and sentences are closely related and, second, how some superficially similar phrases and sentences are different.

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Book The Study Of LANGUAGE

6th Edition George Yule