Syntax

Summary
2022/3/6
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2021080160

Chapter 2: Parts of Speech

 Parts of Speech (POS) = syntactic categories.

How a word is going to function in a sentence. Certain positions where a word can appear.
N, V, Adj, Adv, D, P, C, T, Neg, Conj
 POS is determined by its place and morphology, not semantically.
 Distribution criteria
- Morphological distribution: affixes/morphology that appear on a word
-> derivational morphemes: affixes that make words out of other words
Affix turns a word into a different category
Ex) distribute (V) + -(t)ion = distribution (N)
-> inflectional morphemes: only attach to certain categories
Ex) big (Adj) -> biggest (Adj)
- Syntactic distribution: what other words appear near the word.

 Nouns
- Derivational suffixes: -ment, -ness, -ity, -ty, -(t)ion, -ation, -ist, -ant, -ery, -ee, -ship, -aire, -acy,
-let, -ling, -hood, -ism, -ing.
- Inflectional suffixes: not so many. Pluralized: -s, -es, -en, -ren, -i, -a
- Syntactic distribution: often appear after determiners, can appear after adjectives, can follow prepositions,
can appear as the subject, can be negated by no, can be replaced by other clear noun

 Verbs
- Derivational suffixes: -ate, -ize, -ise
- Inflectional suffixes: -ed, -t (past tense), -s (3rd person singular), -en, -ed (passive), -ing
- Syntactic distribution: can follow auxiliaries and modals (will, have, having, had, has, am, be, been, being, is,
are, were, was, would, can, could, shall, should, may, must) and non-finite marker to. Follows subjects, can follow
adverbs often/frequently. Can be negated by not.

 Adj.
- Derivational: -ing, -ive, -able, -al, -ate, -ish, -some, -ian, -ful, -less, -ly
- Inflectional: -er, -est, typically negated by un-
- Syntactic: can appear btw D and N. Can follow auxiliary am/is/are/was/were/be/been/being.

 Adv.
- Derivational: -ly
- Inflectional: Rare. Follows more
- Syntactic: can’t appear btw D and N. can’t appear after is and is variants.
 Complementary distribution: two elements are variants of one same basic category. A{adj, adv}

 Open Class POS: takes new members or coinages. Can add neologisms. N, V, Adj, Adv
 Closed Class: doesn’t allow neologisms. D, P, Conj, C, T, Neg, pronoun/anaphor of N
 Lexical Categories: express content of a sentence. N, V, Adj, Adv.
 Functional Categories: contains grammatical information. D, P, Conj, T, Neg, C.
Determiners: Articles(the, a, an), Diectic articles (this, that, these, those), quantifiers (every, some, many, most,
few, all, each, any, less, no), numerals (one, two, …), possessive pronouns (my, your, his, her, its, our, their), some
wh- questions (which, whose)
Conjunctions: connects two equal level phrases : and, or, nor, neither nor, either or
Complementizers: embeds one clause in another: that, for, if, whether
Tense: auxiliaries (have has had, am is are was were, do does did)
Modals (will would, shall should, can could, may might, must
Non-finite tense marker: to

 Plurality: the number of nouns. Plural nouns do not require a determiner.

 Count nouns: can appear w/ determiners and quantifier many.
Mass nouns appear with much and usually don’t have articles.
 Predicate: relation btw individual being talked about and facts

 Noun Subcategories
Pronouns Anaphor All other nouns
[±plural] [±count]
[+pronoun, -anaphor] [+pronoun, +anaphor] [-pronoun, -anaphor]

 Argument structure: number of arguments that a predicate takes.

 Argument: entities that are participating in the predicate relation.

 Verb Subcategories
Type Valency Feature Example
Intransitive 1 argument V[NP__] Leave
Transitive 1 2 arguments V[NP ___ NP] Hit
Transitive 2 2 arguments V[NP ___ {NP/CP}] Ask
Ditransitive 1 3 arguments V[NP ___ NP NP] Spare
Ditransitive 2 3 arguments V[NP ___ NP PP] Put
Ditransitive 3 3 arguments V[NP ___ NP {NP/PP}] Give
Ditransitive 4 3 arguments V[NP ___ NP {NP/PP/CP}] tell
I left home.
He hit the ball.
I asked him a question. / He asked if I’d come.
I spared him the trouble.
I put the book on the table.
He gave me a book. He gave the book to me.
I told him a secret. I told him that she’ll come. I told a story to them.