By:dororo hyakimaru

Introduction
This paper is produced to provide a straightforward approximation of the
students' time. It encourages students to compete with one another and
summarize other modules and share information. This work is a testament to our
tremendous effort, and we belief that it is important to pass on knowledge. Like
all human domains and activities, this paper may contain mistakes. As it is said ”
if you don,t want make mistakes just stop working”. The chance is provided to
open this writing to criticism and helpful interventions that can further it. Thank
you

Morpho syntax
• Definitions :

Syntax :It refers to the study of the rules governing the way the words are combined to form sentence.
More generally, the study of interrelationships between all elements of sentence structure, and rules
governing the arrangement of sentences in sequences.

Morphology: It refers to the branch of grammar that studies the structure of words .It is generally
divided into inflectional morphology, the study of inflectional and Lexical or derivational morphology
;the study of word formation

Morph-syntax :It refers to the study of grammatical categories or properties for whose definition criteria
of morphology and syntax both apply. The number category in nouns, for example, maybe expressed
morphologically (through inflectional endings ),and syntactically (through agreement with a verb ).

Word class grammar

Word Classes

Modern grammars normally recognise four major word classes (verb, noun, adjective, adverb) and five
other word classes (determiners, preposition, pronoun, conjunction, interjection), making nine word
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classes (or parts of speech) in total. But note that some grammarians use different systems and may
recognise eight or ten different word classes.

Word class or part of speech is group of words that have same basic behavior for example: noun ,verb,
adjective, adverb…..etc

Open class : nouns ,verbs

Close class : determiners, preposition

Verbs

Verbs denotes action or state words like: run, work, study, be, seem

Nouns

Nouns are words for people, places or things like: mother, town, Rome, car, dog

Adjectives

Adjectives are words that describe nouns, like: kind, clever, expensive

Adverbs

Adverbs are words that modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs, like: quickly, back, ever, badly, away
generally, completely

Prepositions

Prepositions are words usually in front of a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another word
or element, like: after, down, near, of, plus, round, to

Pronouns

Pronouns are words that take the place of nouns, like: me, you, his, it, this, that, mine, yours, who, what

Interjections

Interjections have no grammatical value – words like: ah, hey, oh, ouch, um, well

Determiners : determination like :that ,the ,those….

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• Word class grammar based on words =parts of speech

Sentence:. The student works hard

Det. N. V. Adv

+The sentence is generated through this rule ,but it can not be generalized to all sentences because
there will be a problem of meaning

The consideration of word class only created problems

For example :

• The kind boy is reading the books

• The kind table is reading the books

The words boy and table are both nouns, but the word table in the second sentence is
inappropriate. In other words, there is a problem with the meaning of the sentence, but in the
structure the sentence is considered grammatically correct.

In the first sentence, the meaning and structure of the sentence are correct.

• • Word class rules use three steps to identify words. Three steps through which we decide if
a word is a noun, verb, adjective, adverb...etc.
• . Distributional analysis :
1. Isolation of words
2. Morphological variations
3. Linguistic environment/context
the distributional analysis:
Distribution refers to the total set of linguistic contexts in which a unit can occur.A
distributional analysis plots the places in larger linguistic units in which smaller units
appear , such as the distribution of words within a phrase .
• Isolation of words: This means that we take the category out of the sentence within
context.
• .+ Languages are not all the same to isolate, there are two types of languages

Agglutinative : The origin comes from glutinative, which means the language that
we cannot divide or isolate as an example in the Arabic language

.‫كم‬/‫بن‬/‫ضر‬/‫أ‬/‫ل‬ ‫ألضربنكم‬
In Arabic ,we can not divide a sentence into words .

Non agglutinative : It is the opposite of agglutinative which means it is easy to split

,for example :

I / will / certainly/ hit /you

• Morphological variation
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In English morphology, an inflectional morpheme is a suffix that’s added to a word

(a noun, verb, adjective or an adverb) to assign a particular grammatical property to
that word, such as its tense, number, possession, or comparison.

Inflectional morphemes change what a word does in terms of grammar, but does
not create a new word. For example, the word <skip> has many forms: skip (base
form), skipping (pre.sent progressive), skipped (past tense).

An affix whose function is to signal a grammatical relationship, such as plural, past

tense, or 3” person; in European languages, typically encountered as word endings
11. Nouns : nouns show the following morphological variations

• Plurality

⚫ Singular ⚫ Dual pronoun (Arabic)

1.2. Verbs

Verbs show the following morphological variations:

• Zero morphemes

• The 3” person singular’s’

• The simple past ‘ed’

The present/ past continuous “ing”

1.3. Adverbs:

Adverbs show the following morphological variations: “ly”

1.4. Adjectives:

Adjectives show the following morphological variations:

• [-ful] • [-ive]

• [-able]

[-ible] Prepositions show the following morphological variations:

1.5. Prepositions:

In

⚫ Out

• Up
• Linguistic environment/context:
• Without knowing the context, the meaning of a word is likely to be
ambiguous, providing this context is called Contextualization. In generative
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grammar, forms can be classified in terms of whether they occur only in a

specific Structural context (they are context sensitive) or are independent of
context (context-free). In a context sensitive grammar, the rules apply only
in particular contexts, in a context-free grammar, the rules apply regardless
of Context.

For example: Lena …..a book

In this context, only a verb can occur between ‘lena ' and ‘a book’

Note :The distributional analysis is failed , because it does not always mean that
if we find the morphological variation of the verb (Ed, ING, S), then it means that
the word is a verb, for example:

Learning is very important

Based on morphological variation, the word learning is a verb; But in this sentence,
the word learning is acting as a noun and not as a verb.

Bill’s friend’s shirt is multicoloured

The word multicoloured is a verb and an adjective in this sentence,but based on

morphological variation the word ends with 'ed', which means that it is a verb and
not an adjective, but here it is an adjective and a verb at the same time.

That’s why the distributional analysis is not adequate or failed.

Remarque :

Any grammar based on words level categories can not generate only grammatical
sentences.

The man of Chicago has killed a man

Det n. P. N. Aux. V. Det. N

• *I helped themselves to the birthday cake

• *The chair of rabat is blossming some doors
This rule should generate grammatical sentences
Word level category can not capture the natural complexity of linguistic
structure
The /chair/of /rabat /is /blossming/some/doors
John /is /eating
The /little/tall /men /is /waiting/a /beautiful/letter
Det. Adj. Adj. N. Aux. V. Det. Adj. N

• Finite number of rules generate an infinite number of sentences

Advantages of word class grammar:

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• Word class grammar labeled words in terms of their categorical nature.

Drawbacks of word class grammar:

+ It can not generate all grammatical sentences of the English language

For example:

*He came my house at night

+ It does not deal with interrogative and imperative forms of sentences, for example:

What will Linda do ?

Depending on the contextual environment, the sentence would be like this:

What will Linda do ?

N. V N. V

But this is not correct

+ There are larger categories of word categories such as phrasal categories, for example “the old boy ”
in the “Did you see the old boy ?” one component, because when answering this question we would
say: No! I did not see him. Which means 'old boy' can be replaced with just one word ‘him’. This
proves that it is one element

+ It doesn't care about the meaning of the sentence, even if it's inappropriate, for example:

The table eats an apple

There is no meaning in the sentence above.

+ There is no specific definition for the word.

Levels of adequacy of grammar

+Observational adequacy : The ability of a Grammar to generate all and only the grammatical
sentences of a language in a fixed body of data (corpus).

→to observe what is grammatically correct & what is not :

*Like I Basketball.

I Like Basketball.

+ Descriptive adequacy : to describe the structure of the sentence and provide a principle account of
the Native speaker's intuition. (why a sentence is Grammatical - and why it is not? principle accounts
SVO – descriptive rule : n v adj

+ Explanatory adequacy :(The highest level ) while it might seem obvious how we evaluate the
adequacy of grammar of particular languages ,it is less obvious by what criteria we judge the
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adequacy of linguistic theory . There are conditions which have to be imposed on any adequate
linguistic theory , which should be

Universal: it enables us to describe the grammar of any natural language adequately. A linguistic
theory would be inadequate if it enables us to describe only a particular grammar

. Maximally constrained: our theory should provide us with technical devices which are so restricted
in their expressive power that they can only be used to describe human languages, and are not
appropriate for the description of other communicative system

Phrase structure grammar

The term phrase structure grammar was originally introduced by Noam Chomsky. It is a type of
generative grammar in which a system of phrase-structure rules (or rewrite rules) is used to describe a
sentence in terms of the grammatical structures that generate its form and define it as grammatical. It
talks about units rather than single words ,and also it comes with the platform which is :

Evidences of Phrase structure Grammar:

21. Morphological evidence:

Genitive case

Ahmed’s shirt

The king of England’s crown

The genitive case is a feature of phrase category and not word category. It is another proof of the
existence of phrasal Categories

31. Transformational evidence:

Example #1:

John hurts Marry-active voice

Marry is hurt by John. = passive voice

This is correct

Example #2:

The girl dumped many boys-active voice

*The boys were dumped by many girls = passive voice

This is not correct because we cannot in this case we can only replace the nouns with each other.
The noun should be moved with its modifier ‘many’; that is ,we should move a phrase (the noun
phrase)and not just the noun

32. Phonological evidence

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Could not =we use this structure in order to emphasize the verb that comes after it . Eg I could not
change. “Not”, in this case, has a scope over the verb ‘change’

Couldn’t= we use this structure in order to emphasize the Modal that precedes it Eg I couldn’t stay

“Not” can be followed only by a verb, an adjective or an Adverb.

Recursivity:

(recursive) descriptive of rules which are capable of repeated application in generating a sentence, for
example, a rule for inserting adjectives before a noun applies recursivity in English adjectives can in
theory be added indefinitely to (the small, interesting expensive Book). The term is further applied to
the structures generated in this way, and to the languages characterized by these rules

3.3. Semantic evidence: Ambiguity:

Example: the parliament could not ratify the treaty

This sentence allows two different interpretations:

First interpretation: it is possible for the parliament to not ratify the treaty. This means that “not”,
here, has an implication on the verb phrase “ratify the treaty”

Second Interpretation: it is not possible for the parliament to ratify the treaty. This means that “not”,
here, has an implication on the modal “could”

Coordination criteria:

Example #1:

He washed himself

⚫He shaved himself

He shaved and washed himself

Example #2:

John was walking in the street

John was holding a stick

John was walking in the street and holding a stick.

It’s not : *John was walking and holding a stick in the

Street

Places of occurrence of adverb

[John will win the competition]

The adverb ‘certainly’, for example, can occur between the NP and the Aux or between the VP and the
Aux. It cannot occur inside the “VP” or the “NP , an adverb doesn’t occur inside syntactic structures
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In phrase structure grammar, we try to analyze and represent sentences and their components in
terms of phrase structure rules and, then, in terms of lexicon and lexical insertions rules.

Phrase structure rules

{…..} either

(…….) optional

Rewrites as:

S-NP aux VP
VP-V (NP) (PP) (S) (AdjP) (AdvP)
PP-P np
NP-(Det) (AdjP) N (PP) (S)
AdjP –(advP) Adj (PP)
AdvP -(adv) adv
Aux-Tense (M) (Have – en) (Be-ing)

•
• Substitution by a pronoun

A group of words,x ,is a constituent in a sentence AXB if X can be substituted by a pronoun such as he
,him , there……

Example: John read the book on chemistry

John read it (it = the book on chemistry

John read it chemistry (ungrammatical)(it=the book on )

• Prominalization
A group of words, x, is a constituent in a sentence AXB if the sentence can be followed by
another sentence S2 such that S2 contains a pronoun that refers back to X
Note : in the case of substitution test ,we replace a constituent by a pronoun in the given
sentence .in the prominalization test, the pronoun is used to refer to the constitution in a
second sentence.
John read a book on chemistry; he found it very interesting
It refers to a book on chemistry
• Movement (topicalization)
A group of words, x, is a constituent in a sentence AXB if the sentence can be frontend
If XAB is well formed sentence
John read the book on chemistry
The book on chemistry John read
*Book on chemistry John read the ❌

The framework of PSR

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S →Np Aux VP

This means that all sentences must follow and respect this rule .

It also means that PSG (phrase structure grammar) deals only with declarative sentence , but other
types of sentences such as interrogative, exclamatory, imperative…..can not be analyzed by this
grammar.

There are two types of syntactic category within PSG :

• Word level categories

• Phrase level categories

All the sentences should follow this rule:

S →Np aux VP
In noun phrase ,we can find:

• Noun phrase (np):

+ noun : proper noun :John ,Adam, MacDonald’s ….
Common noun : cat,sea,dog, woman…..
+Pronoun: she ,he…..
+ Adjective +noun : smart boy, strong company
+Determiner +adjective+noun:the tall boy
+Determiner +noun :a book , the boy ….
+Noun+ prepositional phrase: the adorable dog in the room was her
+ noun phrase+sentence :the boy who lives next door is my best friend
+Noun’s +noun:Adam’s friend…
• Auxiliary (aux ):
The Maximal projection of auxiliary is:
+tense: (obligatory)
There are two tenses in the english language (past , present)
For example: she is a kind girl
The first step, we take the first element (is), then determine whether the tense is in the past or
the present
In this sentence, the tense is "present"
For example: many people would have liked the meal
As we said,we take the first element which is (would), then determine if the tense is in the
past or the present,so here the tense is the past
Example:the girl had been waiting all the day
As usual, we take the first element (had), then specify whether the tense is in the past or the
present, so here the tense is the "past"
+Modals ( It is optional, which means we find it in some sentences):shall,will,
For example :she will find it
As usual,we take the first element (will) , then specify whether the tense is in the past or the
present
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The tense of this sentence is : present (will)

But in this sentence,we have the modal which is (will)
The final auxiliary of this sentence is :tense(present)+modal(will)
+Have-en ( It is optional, which means we find it in some sentences)
For example:Adam has gone to the hospital
We take the first element (has)
The tense of this sentence is present
Has gone =have-en
The final auxiliary of this sentence is:tense(present)+have-en
+Be-ing ( It is optional, which means we find it in some sentences)
For example: they were working all the day
Were working=be-ing
The auxiliary of this sentence:tense(past)+be-ing
The maximal projection of the auxiliary is : tense (present,past)+modal+have-en +be-ing
Note: All sentences must contain at least one of them (tense). Other items, not always there
Verb phrase (VP):
In verb phrase
+Verb in the infinitive
we put the verb in the infinitive
For example: she is a kind girl
Noun phrase: pronoun(she)
The auxiliary (aux): tense(present)
Verb phrase : verb (be) +noun phrase (Det+adj+common noun)
+Noun Phrase (back to the compenents of the noun phrase in the above paper)
+adverbial phrase
For example :ahmed is walking slowly
Np : proper noun (ahmed
Aux:tense(present)+be-ing
VP :verb in infinitive (walk )+adverb phrase (adverb: slowly)
+Prepositional phrase
For example:they Would have gone to the market
Np: pronoun (they)
Aux :tense(past )+have-en
VP :verb (go) + Prepositional phrase (preposition+Det+common noun)
+Sentence
When you have a sentence, you don’t have to analyze it.In other words, leave it as it is.
For example:many people would have liked the meal which you had prepared.
Np : Det (many )+cn(people)
Aux : tense (past )+have -en
VP :verb (like)+noun phrase (the (Det)meal (cn ))+ sentence s (which you had prepared)
Our total set of rules can be summarized as follows:

S-NP aux VP
VP-V (NP) (PP) (S) (AdjP) (AdvP)
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PP-P np
NP Det) (AdjP) N (PP) (S)
AdjP :(AdvP) Adj (PP)
AdvP (adv) adv
Aux-Tense (M) (Have – en) (Be-ing)
Lexical insertion Rules

Det the, a, this, that, these, my, your, his, her, your, their..

N →John, ball, doctor, woman, argument, beauty, astrophysics…

V →help, run, play…

Adj→ brilliant, tall, red, fabulous, insecure…

Adv→ generally, collectively, brilliantly…

Prep→ in, behind, on, over…

Pro→ It, you, he

Some things you should ask yourself before you start analyzing
the sentence
• Check whether the sentence follows the rule or not
Is she a good girl?
This sentence does not follow the rule
S np aux VP
• Check if the auxiliary follows the maximal projection
Tense (past,present)+modal+have-en+be-ing
She has been worked all the time
If you look at aux ,you will find (tense (present)+have-en +be-en
Be-en :It violates the maximal projection of the aux , because we have ‘be-ing’not be-en
• Check if the sentence is ambiguous
For example
I saw the girl with one eye
In this sentence,we have two meanings
Analysis in terms of PSG :
We go through four steps in any sentence
• Tree diagram
• Bracketing
• Rewriting
• Lexical insertion
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How to draw tree diagram

The basic English sentence structure will always an NP
(Subject) and a VP (Predicate) and an AUX (Auxiliary).

S
Np. Aux. Vp
For example: Adam is a smart boy
S np aux VP
Np :pn(Adam)
Aux:tense(present)
VP:verb(be)+np(Det+adj+cn)
Let’s apply this to a tree diagram:

S
aux

Np. Vp

Tense(present)

Pn. V. Np

Adam. Be. Det. Adj. Cn

figure

a smart. Boy
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Second step: bracketing

We take the elements in the middle of the figure

Adam tense(present)be a smart boy

So,let’s apply the steps

Bracketing :

1 : put the whole sentence in brackets

[ Adam. Tense (present). Be a. smart. boy ]

Brackets in blue indicate the entire sentence, so we put the letter s that indicates the sentence

2 : using another color,we put the noun phrase in brackets:

[. [. Adam ]. Tense (present). Be [ a. Smart. Boy ]. ]

S. Np. Np

3 using another color, we put the verb phrase in brackets

[. [. Adam ]. Tense (present) [ be [ a smart boy ] ] ]

S. Np. vp Np

4 : using another color, we put the auxiliary in brackets

[. [. Adam ]. [ Tense (present)] [ be [ a smart boy ] ] ]

S. Np aux. Vp. Np

5: Using another color, we put each component in brackets, indicating its part of speech

[. [. [Adam ]]. [ Tense (present)] [ [be ] [ [a ][smart ][ boy ] ] ] ]

S. Np pn. Aux VP v np Det. Adj. Cn

Note : Do not write these steps in the exam paper, it is just an explanation, just write the last
step

Rewriting
Look at the tree diagram

1: put the general rule

S→ np aux VP

VP →v np

Np → Det adj cn
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Pn

Aux → tense

Tense → present

Verb →transitive

Lexical insertion
Verb : be

Noun → cn: boy

pn: Adam

Adjective: smart

Determiners : a

Exercises :
He sent to his brother a letter

I could have been working last week

My mom’s shoe is on the table

I saw the girl with one eye

He sent to his brother a letter

Initially, PSR generates this type of sentences. The first step we may start with is the tree
diagram

np Aux. Vp

Pronoun. Tense( past). V. Pp np

He. Send p Det. Cn. Det cn

To His. Brother. a letter

The next is bracketing:

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[ [ [ He ] ]. [ Tense (past). ] [ [ Send ] [[ [.to ] [his ][ brother ] ] ][. [ A ] [ letter ] ]]]

S np. Pro aux vp v pp Np p Det cn. Np Det. Cn

Third step is when our total set of rules can be summarized as follows:

S →np aux VP

Vp → v pp np

Pp →. P np

Np →. Det cn

Det cn

Pronoun

Aux → tense

Tense → past

The forth step is Lexical insertion

V : send

N →cn : letter, brother

Determiners : a ,his

Preposition: to

Pronoun: he

Based on the analysis, the sentence is grammatically correct

I could have been working last week

Basically, PSR generates this sentence; however, we need to put it under the syntactic analysis

The first step is tree diagram

Np. Aux. Vp

Pro

Tense ( past) + m+have-en +be-ing. V. Np

I Work. Det. Cn
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Last. Week

The second step is bracketing

[ [ [ I] ]. [ Tense(past)+m+have-en+be-ing ] [ [ work ] [ [last ] [ week ] ] ] ]

S np pro aux. vp v. Np Det. Cn

Third step is when our total set of rules can be summarized as follows:

S →np aux vp

Vp → v np

Np →. Det cn

Pronoun

Aux →tense + m+ have-en+be-ing

Tense → past

Verb →transitive

The final step is Lexical insertion

V : work

N → cn : week

Pronoun: I

Determiners : last

Based on the analysis, the sentence is grammatically correct

My mom’s shoe is on the table

Initially, phrase structure rule generates this sentence ; however, let’s prove it syntactically
through four steps

The first step is tree diagram

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Np aux vp

Det. Cn’s cn

My mom’s. Shoe tense (present). Be pp

P. Np

Det. Cn

On. The. Table

Second step is bracketing:

[[[My ][mom’s][ shoe]][ tense (present) ][[be][[ on ][[the ][table]]]]]

S np Det cn’s. Cn. Aux. Vp v pp p. Np Det. Cn

Third step is when our total set of rules can be summarized as follows:

S →np aux VP

Vp → v pp

Pp → p np

Np →. Det cn

Det cn’s cn

Aux →tense

Tense →present

The final step is Lexical insertion

V: be
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N →cn : mom ,shoe, table

Determiners : my, the

Preposition: on

Based on the analysis, the sentence is grammatically correct

I saw the girl with one eye

Initially, this sentence has two meanings which means that it is an ambiguous sentence; However,
let's prove it syntactically :

The first meaning :

it is about the girl , who has got only one eye

The prepositional phrase describes the noun phrase “the girl “

Np. . Aux. vp

Pro tense (past ) v np

I See Det cn. Pp

The girl p. Np

With Det cn

One eye
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The second one is bracketing

[[[I]][ tense (past) ][[ see][ [the][ girl][ [with][[ one ][ eye ]]]]]]

S np pro aux vp v Np Det cn. Pp p. np Det cn

Third step is when our total set of rules can be summarized as follows:

S → np aux VP

Vp → v np

Pp→ p np

Np → Det cn

Det cn

Pronoun

Aux → tense

Tense →past

Verb →transitive

The final step is Lexical insertion

V :see

Pronoun: I

Determiners: the ,one

N → cn: girl, eye

Preposition: with

The second meaning is :

I saw with one eye the girl

The prepositional phrase ‘with one eye ‘describes the verb “saw”
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Np. Aux. Vp

Pro Tense (past) v. Np. Pp

I See. Det cn. P. Np

The girl With Det cn

One eye

The second one is bracketing

[[[I]][ tense (past) ][[ see][ [the][ girl]][ [with][[ one ][ eye ]]]]]

S np pro aux vp v np Det cn pp p np. Det. cn

Third step is when our total set of rules can be summarized as follows:

S → np aux VP

Vp → v np

Pp→ p np

Np → Det cn

Det cn

Pronoun

Aux → tense

Tense →past

Verb →transitive

The final step is Lexical insertion

V :see

Pronoun: I
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Determiners : the ,one

N → cn: girl ,eye

Preposition: with

Based on the analysis, the sentence is grammatically correct

Drawbacks of phrase structure grammar

Phrase structure grammar does not deal with discontinuity which means that one element is separate
from another.

For example: The girl turned the light off

In this example we have the word turned that is not adjacent to the other element, which is off

Phrase structure grammar is not capable to deal with other sentences more than declarative ones
then it is a psychologically implausible. In addition to, we have seen that PSG accounts only for simple
declarative sentences as an extreme. But what about the other types of sentences which are
grammatically correct.

For example: go away

Are you listening?

In the first example, the sentence doesn’t follow the basic structure of phrase structure grammar ,
which means that the noun phrase and the auxiliary are missing.

Go away=verb phrase

In the second example , the We notice that during forming Yes/No question we are merely moving
the first two elements of Aux which are (present+be),and placing them in front of NP, Or reversing
them with the NP .

Phrase structure grammar does not deal with passive voice ,even though it follows the rule (np aux
vp), but it does not follow the maximal projection of the auxiliary (tense+m+have-en+be-ing)

Phrase structure grammar does not deal with negative sentence

For example : she is not a good girl.

Although, the sentence follows the rule ( np aux vp),but it doesn’t follow the maximal projection of
the auxiliary (tense+m+have-en+be-ing)

Definitions :
1. Linguistic competence
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The most striking aspect of linguistic competence is what we make of "creativity of language"; that is,
the speaker's ability to produce new sentences that are immediately understood by other speakers.
Although they bear no physical resemblance to sentences which are familiar - Chomsky 1996, topic

2. Dependency.

It describes of any element whose form or function is determined by another part of the sentence. In
the phrase the black book, for example, the article and the adjective both depend on the noun.

3. Particular grammar.

It refers to the grammar of a specific language, for instance, english grammar

4. Recursive

(recursive) descriptive of rules which are capable of repeated application in generating a sentence, for
example, a rule for inserting adjectives before a noun applies recursivity in English: adjectives can in
theory be added indefinitely to (the small, interesting, expensive Book). The term is further applied to
the structures generated in this way, and to the languages characterized by these rules.

5. Expansion

It refers to the process of adding extra elements to a construction, without its basic structure or
function being affected; for example, the noun phrase "the car" can be expanded by the addition of
adjectives and other modifiers (the new car in the street).

6. Adhoc grammar.

It refers to a grammar that generates an infinite number of rules

7 The head parameter

The head parameter captures the difference between languages in which the HEAd of the phrase
comes first. The PREPOSITION Head comes before complement in English on Tuesday,and those
which it comes last, as the preposition head comes last in Japanese Nihon ni (in Japan)

8. Structure dependency

Structure -dependency is a restriction on MOVEMENT in human languages that makes it depend on

the structure of the SENTENCE, rather than on its linear order A PRINCIPLE UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR

9. Communicative competence.

The speaker's ability to put language to communicative use , usually traced back to homes see
pragmatic COMPETENCE .

10 Grammar

The system of relationship between elements of the SENTENCE that links the ‘sounds to the
meanings. It is used to refer both the knowledge of language in the speaker’s mind ,and to system as
written down in rules, grammar and other description. The type of grammar derived from classical
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languages that is often thought in school is called traditional grammar and is more concerned with
prescribing how native speakers should use language than with describing it. Main areas of grammar
are WORD ORDER, GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES, GRAMMATICAL INFLECTIONS and PHRASE
STRUCTURE See also preserve grammar, traditional grammar

12.Grammatical competence

The native speaker's knowledge of language.

12. Grammatical inflectional :

Grammatical inflections are a system of showing meaning by changing word endings, an in the
English “ed” inflecting token from languages like Vietnamese .

13.Head

The head of a LEXICAL PHRASE is a lexical head around which the phrase is built, Noun Phrases like a
good CD have a head NOUN such as CD. The head of a FUNCTIONAL PHRASE may be an infection such
as ‘s’or a GRAMMATICAL WORD such as the

14 Movement

Movements way of describing the structure of the SENTENCE As if element in it moved around,
typically in English in questions and passive constructions. Thus the question Will John go? Comes
from a similar structure to that underlying the statement John will (go) come by movement of will.
See Subjacency and STRUCTURE-DEPENDENCY.

15. Parameter:

In UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR theory the variation between languages is seen as a question of setting
values for a small number of parameters, for example Italian sets the PRO-DROP PARAMETER have a
value of pro-drop and thus allows sentences without SUBJECTS, vende (he sells), while German sets
the value to non-pro-drop and thus has subject in all sentences. Er sprich (he speaks)

16. Phrase structure:

The phrase structure of the sentence links all the parts together in a structure like that of a family
tree. So the Noun Phrase the soprano combines with a VERB to get the Verb Phrase played the
soprano, which in turn combines with the Noun Phrase Sidney Bechet to get the SENTENCE Sidney
Bechet played the soprano .
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Sentence

Noun phrase. Verb phrase

Sidney Bechet. Verb. Noun phrase

Played. The soprano

17.Pragmatic competence

Chomsky's term for the speaker's ability to use language for a range of public and private functions,
including communication. See GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE

18. Preposition:

The category of grammar called preposition (P) consists of words like to ,by and with. In UNIVERSAL
GRAMMAR theory the Preposition is the HEAD of a LEXICAL PHRASE, the Preposition Phrase. When
coming before a NOUN, the category is called "preposition' as in in Basin Street, when after a
preposition Nippon ni (Japan in)

19. Principle:

In the Universal Grammar theory, principles of language are built-in to the human mind and are thus
never broken in human languages. Examples are STRUCTURE-DEPENDENCY and SUBJACENCY.

20. Structural grammar:

Teaching term for GRAMMAR concerned with how words go into PHRASES, phrases into sentences

21 Structuralist linguistics:

A method of describing language as sets of structures by e.g.Leonard Bloomfield, to be learnt by

stimulus and response, applied to language teaching by Robert Lado and Nelson Brooks, leading to the
AUDIOLINGUAL METHOD.

22. Structure-dependency.

Structure-dependency is a restriction on MOVEMENT in human languages that makes it depend on

the structure of the SENTENCE, rather than on its linear order. A PRINCIPLE of UNIVERSAL

GRAMMAR

23. Subjacency.

Subjacency is a restriction on grammatical MOVEMENT in the SENTENCE that prevents elements

moving over more than one boundary, the definition of boundary varying as a PARAMETER from one
language to another.

24. Subject
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The Subject (S) is the NOUN Phrase of the SENTENCE alongside the Verb Phrase in its structure, John
likes biscuits, compulsory in non-pro-drop languages in the actual sentence but may be omitted in
PRO-DROP languages, it often acts as the 'agent of the action

25. Traditional grammar:

"School' GRAMMAR concerned with labeling sentences with parts of speech

26. Typography

'The structuring and arranging of visual language' (Baines & Haslam, 2002, 1)

27. Universal Grammar.

Sometimes Universal Grammar refers simply to the aspects of language that all languages have in
common. In the Chomskyan sense Universal Grammar refers to the language faculty built in to the
human mind, seen as consisting of PRINCIPLES such as STRUCTURE-DEPENDENCY and PARAMETERS
such as PRO-DROP

28.Grammaticality

means the set of rules that a sentence follows. In addition, we judge a sentence by grammaticality;
the more sentence follows the rules, the more it becomes well-formed.

29..Performance

Performance is the actual use of competence, and it involves individual and situational features,
imperfections, errors, memory limitations, time limitations on the length of sentences (on the number
of sentences actually produced by the individual). Chomsky’s distinction between competence and
performance reminds us of Saussure’s distinction between Langue and parole.

30.Syrialization principle

When we put sentence into series it reminds us of syntagmatic and paradigmatic principle.

31.projection principle

The verb is the element which determines the other components of the sentence, it is responsible for
the selection these elements.

Examples of previous exams:

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Fifth Semester Morpho-Syntax Exam (Normal session) Answer the following questions:

1. Define and illustrate:

Linguistic competence

Head parameter

2. Using distributional analysis, put the following words into their corresponding. Grammatical
categories. Bill, fine, eat, up, recently, look, in, Mary, write, bed, sun, Harsh
3. Give the phrase structure rules which generate the Following sentences:

• Fred climbed the tree quickly.

John would have claimed that.

He thinks that Mary is happy.

Fifth Semester Morpho-Syntax Exam (Catch up session)

Suzan and Bill woke up very early.

The president is visiting the area. ⚫

Many people would think that Bill was an orphan.

1. Provide an immediate constituent analysis.

2. Analyze these sentences in terms of Phrase Structure Grammar (PSG).

Fifth Semester Morpho-Syntax Exam (Normal session) Answer the following questions:

1.Explain why distributional analysis is not adequate

2..Analyze the following sentences according to phrase structure grammar

She was working hard on that problem

My friend who is a postman thinks that his boss was an old soldier
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Many people would have liked the meal which you had prepared
The sniper had shot a soldier with a rifle

3. Explain and illustrate the following:

Np aux VP
Det n v adv

Good luck