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Syntactic structure in familiar and exotic languages

Richard Hudson

Krakow, October 2009

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Plan

1. Understanding syntactic structure

2. Showing syntactic structure

3. Teaching syntactic structure

4. Using syntactic structure

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1. Understanding syntactic structure

• For example: Time flies like an arrow

and fruit flies like a banana.

• The sentence-parts have:

– different word classes.

verb

noun

preposition

verb

– but also different relations among words.• i.e. different syntactic structures

Groucho Marx

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How to analyse syntactic structures?

• Two theoretical traditions:– the old European tradition– the young American tradition

• Poland contributed to the old tradition– Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz invented Categorial

Grammar (1935)

• But the young tradition dominates theory.

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The old tradition

• How old?

• At least 1,000 years – in 8th century Arabic grammar from Basra and

Kufa

• Part of a much longer tradition of grammatical analysis– starting in Babylonia

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About 2,000 BC

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Babylonia

Akkadian

Sumerian

Babylon

new, semitic, in fashion

earliest written language, out of

fashion

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Becoming literate in Babylon

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Verb conjugations(Sumerian and Akkadian)

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We – you – they (in that order)

Sumerian Akkadian English

menden-ee ni:nu-mi we

menzen-ee attunu-mi you

emene-ee unu-mi they

NB!!!4000 years ago!!!

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Syntactic structure: old tradition

• Among the units, words are basic.– but also some word-combinations:

• clauses and prepositional phrases

• Syntactic relations: – relate words directly to one another.– are classified:

• subject

• object, etc.

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The new tradition

• Invented in 1933 in USA– by Leonard Bloomfield

• Called ‘Immediate Constituent Analysis’– then ‘Phrase structure grammar’

• Assumed by all leading theories– Chomsky: Minimalism– Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, etc.

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Syntactic structure: new tradition

• Units: – most units are ‘phrases’ – word groups– words have no special status

• Relations: two primitive relations:– order: A before B– part-whole: A is part of B– but sometimes combined with ‘subject’ etc.

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For example

… fruit flies like a banana.• old tradition:

the word flies is subject of the word like

• new tradition:

the phrase fruit flies is the first part of the phrase fruit flies like a banana

• no direct link between flies and like

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Who cares?

• Linguists care.

• So they’ve formalised these traditions:– old = dependency grammar (no phrases)– new = phrase structure grammar (no

classified relations)

• Psychologists care too: – how do our minds handle syntax?

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Claim: Our minds use dependency grammar

• We recognise abstract classified relations in other areas– e.g. social relations: brother, cousin, colleague,

friend, …

• So why not in syntax?– e.g. fruit modifies flies, which is subject of like

• But then phrase structure is redundant.

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2. Showing syntactic structure

• Complex structures need a notation.– geography has maps– music has musical notation– mathematics has formulae, graphs, etc.

• Syntax needs a notation.– first introduced in 19th century– for teaching grammar in school

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Standard notation for phrase structure

Time flies like an arrow.

N

NP

V P D N

NP

PP

VP

S

OK before VP

OK after D

agreement

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A notation for dependency structure

Time flies like an arrow.N V P D N

s a

subject

adjunct

c

complement

c

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The joke

Time flies like an arrowN V P D N

s a c c

and fruit flies like a banana.N N V D N

a s o c

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3. Teaching syntactic structure

Dependencies are relevant to:

• meaning

• agreement

• selection

• optionality

• word order

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Teaching meaningLIKE and PLEASE are synonyms, but …

He liked it.

s o

Him liking it

him it

feeler stimulus

It pleased him.

s o

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Teaching agreement

Time flies like an arrowN V P D N

s a c c

N N V D N

a s o c

and fruit flies like a banana.

agreement

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SZUKAĆ selects a genitive

Teaching selection

RELY selects ON He relies on her.

s c c

selection

CAN selects an infinitive He can swim.

s p

predicative

sextra dependency

infinitive

o

Szukam prezentu.I seek present.

genitive

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Teaching optionality

• Some verbs demand an object, others allow one:

He took it obligatory object

He ate it optional object

• Absent objects usually have indefinite meaning:

He ate. = He ate something.

*He made a sandwich and ate.

• This is English. What about other languages?

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mo keeki-wa yaki-mashita-ka

already cake-topic make- did - ?

Have you baked a/the cake?

Japanese

o

o

hai, yaki-mashitayes make-did

• Most dependents are optional• When absent, they are definite

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Relations are abstract, not just word order:

• ‘subject’, not ‘the noun before the verb’– The man who we think knows the answer

• ‘complement’, not ‘the noun after the verb’– The man on whom she relies

• ‘dependent’, not ‘nearby word’

Why use dependencies?

s

agreement

cselection

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Teaching word order

• All word-order rules use dependencies.

• Many languages have very general rules.

• Dependents take their position from the head:– free order: no restrictions– head-final: head follows all dependents– head-initial: head precedes all dependents– head-medial: head follows some dependents and

precedes others.

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Free order

JankochaMarię

o s

Jan kocha Marię

s o

Jan kochaMarię

s o

Jankocha Marię

s

Jan kochaMarię

o s

o

Jankocha Marię

s o

Polish

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Head-final or -initial

shinbun-ga teburu-no ue-ni desu

newspaper-subj table-’s top-on is

sJapanese

WelshMi roddes i lyfr da i dad Eleri

- gave I book good to father Eleri

I gave a good book to Eleri’s father.

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Head-medialEnglish

We dread cold weather just before Christmas.

• Every dependent is either a pre-dependent or a post-dependent.

• Every major word class allows both.

•Why?

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4. Using syntactic structure

• Speakers use syntactic structure to combine words.

• Hearers use it to combine meanings.

• Therefore, we must hold words in memory until their dependencies are complete.

• This places a load on memory.

• No problem if dependencies are short.

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• A word’s dependency distance is the number of words that separate it from its ‘parent’.

That Cracow is a very beautiful city by any standards is clear.

It is clear that Cracow is a very beautiful city by any standards.

Dependency distance

dd = 9

dd = 1

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• Human minds are the same everywhere– so we expect similar dd figures in all languages.

• Conversation:– English: 0.4 (mean dd)– Japanese: 0.4– German: 0.9

• Chinese news: 1.89 – head-initial: 3.3

• Are these figures correct and typical?– If so, what do they tell us?

Some figures

!!!

!!!

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Conclusions

• Syntactic structure is important when teaching languages or learning them.

• Dependency structure is better than phrase structure.

• Structural analysis allows important generalisations.

• Syntactic structure needs diagrams.

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Dziękuję

• This slide-show is available atwww.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/talks/cracow.ppt• The theory is called Word Grammar

www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/wg.htm