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1 Foundational issues
• Prescriptive versus descriptive grammar
• Rule formation and syntactic structure in language acquisition
o A thought experiment
o Rule-based word formation
o Question formation
• More evidence for syntactic structure
o Intuitions about words belonging together
o tructural ambiguity
• !niversal "rammar
o #ormal universals
o Recursion
o Parameters
• "enerative grammar
o $lementary trees and substitution
o "rammaticality
o "rammar versus language
• %otes
• $xercises and problems
• upplementary material
o $xpletive elements in $nglish
o Modals and auxiliary verbs in $nglish
o Questions
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&his boo' is an introduction to generative grammar from a (homs'yan perspective) *y
the time you finish this chapter+ you will have a clearer understanding of what we mean
by this sentence+ and by the time you finish the entire boo'+ your understanding of it
will be clearer and deeper still) *ut for the moment+ you have probably gained theimpression that this boo' is about grammar of some sort) And right there+ we have a
problem) &he problem is that there is an everyday sense of the term ,grammar, and a
quite different sense in which the term is used in linguistics)
Prescriptive versus descriptive grammar
In the everyday sense+ ,grammar, refers to a collection of rules concerning what counts
as socially acceptable and unacceptable language use) ome of these rules+ li'e the ones
in ./+ ma'e reference to particular words and apply to both spo'en and writtenlanguage)
./ a) 0on,t use ain't.
b) 0on,t use seen as the past tense of see as in I seen him at the party last night).
c) 0on,t use contractions)
*ut mainly+ the rules in question concern the proper composition of sentences in written
language) 1ou may recall being taught rules at school li'e those in 2/)
2/ a) 0on,t start a sentence with a con3unction) b) 0on,t use sentence fragments)
c) 0on,t end a sentence with a lin'ing verb)
d) 0on,t use dangling participles)
e) 0on,t end a sentence with a preposition)
f) 0on,t use an ob3ect pronoun for a sub3ect pronoun in a con3oined sub3ect)
g) 0on,t use a plural pronoun to refer bac' to a singular noun li'e everyone, no-
one, someone, and the li'e)
h) 0on,t split infinitives)
i) !se whom, not who, as the ob3ect of a verb or preposition)
omeone who composes sentences in accordance with rules li'e those in 2/ is said to
have good grammar+ whereas someone said to have bad grammar doesn,t apply the rules
when they ought to be applied. and so produces sentences li'e 4/)
4/ a) 5ver there is the guy who I went to the party with. violates 2e/+ 2i/
b) *ill and me went to the store) violates 2f/
#rom the amount of attention that people devote to rules li'e those in ./ and 2/+ it is
easy to get the impression that they are the only linguistic rules there are) *ut it is also
easy to see that that can,t be so) &he reason is that even people who don,t follow the
rules in ./ and 2/ don,t produce rampantly variable+ confusing word salad) #or
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instance+ even people who invariably produce sentences li'e 4/ do not produce the li'es
of 6/)
6/ a) 5ver there is guy the who I went to party the with)
b) 5ver there is the who I went to the party with guy)
c) *ill and me the store to went)
&he sentences in 4/ may be instances of bad grammar in the everyday sense+ but they
are still $nglish sentences) *y contrast+ we don,t need to rely on school rules to tell us
that the examples in 6/ are not $nglish sentences - even though they contain exactly the
same $nglish words as the sentences in 4/)
ince native spea'ers of $nglish do not produce a variable mishmash of words of the
sort in 6/+ there must be another type of rules according to which sentences are
composed) 7e can determine what some of them are by ta'ing a closer loo' at the
sequences in 6/) 7hy exactly is it that they are word salad8 In 6a/+ the article the is in
the wrong order with respect to the nouns that it belongs with+ guy and party. In 6b/+
the relative clause who I went to the party with/ is in the wrong order with respect to
the noun that it modifies guy/) In 6c/+ the preposition to is in the wrong order with
respect to its ob3ect the store/) In other words+ the sentences in 6/ do not follow the
rules in 9/)
9/ a) Articles precede the nouns that they belong with)
b) Relative clauses follow the noun that they modify)
c) Prepositions precede their ob3ects)
&here,s a further rule that,s not followed in 6/+ which you are as'ed to formulate in the$xercise .).)/
Rules li'e those in 9/ have a different intention than those in 2/) &he rules in 2/ are
prescriptive; those in 9/ are descriptive. Rules of prescriptive grammar have the same
status as rules of etiquette li'e table manners or dress codes/ or the laws of society+
which divide the spectrum of possible human behavior into socially acceptable or legal
behavior+ on the one hand+ and socially unacceptable or illegal behavior+ on the other)
Rules of prescriptive grammar ma'e statements about how people ought to use
language) In contrast+ rules of descriptive grammar have the status of scientific
observations+ and they are intended as insightful generali:ations about the way that
spea'ers use language in fact+ rather than about they way that they ought to use it)
0escriptive rules are more general and more fundamental than prescriptive rules in the
sense that all sentences of a language are formed in accordance with them+ not 3ust a
more or less arbitrary subset of shibboleth sentences) A useful way to thin' about the
descriptive rules of a language to which we return in more detail below/ is that they
produce+ or generate, all the sentences of a language) &he prescriptive rules can then be
thought of as filtering out some relatively minute/ portion of the entire output of the
descriptive rules as socially unacceptable)
In syntax+ as in modern linguistics more generally+ we adopt a resolutely descriptive
perspective concerning language) In particular+ when linguists say that a sentence isgrammatical, we don,t mean that it is correct from a prescriptive point of view+ but
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rather that it conforms to descriptive rules li'e those in 9/) In order to indicate that a
sequence of words or morphemes is ungrammatical in this descriptive sense+ we prefix
it with an asteris') "rammatical sentences are usually not specially mar'ed+ but
sometimes we prefix them with ,o', for clarity) &hese conventions are illustrated in ;/
and 6a//
b) = 5ver there is the who I went to the party with guy) > 6b//
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*ut by that reasoning+ ..a/+ where the verb and its ob3ect are ad3acent+ ought to be
preferable to ..b/+ where they are not) In fact+ however+ ..a/ is completely
ungrammatical in $nglish)
../ a) = Adopt which cat did your friend8
b) o' Which cat did your friend adopt 8
It is important to understand that there is no conceptual or semantic reason that
prepositions can be separated from their ob3ects in $nglish+ but that verbs can,t) #rom a
descriptive perspective+ the grammaticality contrast between .Ca/ and ..a/ is simply a
matter of fact+ irreducible to more basic considerations at least given our present state
of 'nowledge/) .2/ highlights the difference between the relevant prescriptive and
descriptive rule)
.2/ 7hen the ob3ect of a preposition appears in a position other than its ordinary
one as in a question/+ )))
a) Prescriptive
rule
))) it should be preceded by the preposition)
b) 0escriptive
rule
))) it can either be preceded by the preposition+ or it may stand
alone+ with the preposition remaining in its ordinary position)
&he contrasting attitude of prescriptive and descriptive grammar towards linguistic
variation has a quasi-paradoxical consequence namely+ that prescriptive rules are never
descriptive rules) &he reason for this has to do with the way that social systems not 3ust
language/ wor') If everyone in a community consistently behaves in a way that is
socially acceptable in some respect+ then there is no need for explicit prescriptive rules
to ensure the behavior in question) It is only when behavior that is perceived as sociallyunacceptable becomes common that prescriptive rules come to be formulated to 'eep
the unacceptable behavior in chec') #or example+ if every customer entering a store
invariably wears both a shirt and shoes+ there is no need for the store owner to put up a
sign that says B%o shirt+ no shoes+ no service)B (onversely+ it is precisely at illegal dump
sites that we observe B%o dumpingB signs) In an analogous way+ in the domain of
language use+ rules of prescriptive grammar are only ever formulated in situations
where linguistic variation is common) *ut being prescriptive+ they cannot treat all of the
occurring variants as equally acceptable - with the result that they can,t ever be
descriptive)
Rule formation and syntactic structure in language acquisition
As we have 3ust seen+ prescriptive and descriptive rules of grammar differ in intention)
In addition+ they differ in how they come to be part of a spea'er,s 'nowledge)
Prescriptive rules are taught at school+ and because they are taught+ people tend to be
conscious of them+ even if they don,t actually follow them) *y contrast+ we follow the
rules of descriptive grammar consistently4 and effortlessly+ yet without learning them at
school) In fact+ children have essentially mastered these rules on their own by first
grade) 5rdinarily+ we are completely unconscious of the descriptive rules of language) If
we do become conscious of them+ it tends to be in connection with learning a foreign
language whose descriptive grammar differs from that of our native language) In order
to emphasi:e the difference between the unconscious way that we learn a native
language or several/ in early childhood and the conscious way that we learn a foreign
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language later on in life+ the first process is often called language acquisition rather
than language learning)
As you consider descriptive rules li'e those in in 9/+ you might not find it all that
surprising that a child raised in an $nglish-spea'ing community would acquire+ say+ the
rule that articles precede nouns) After all+ you might say+ all the child ever hears arearticles and nouns in that order)6 o why would it ever occur to such a child to put the
article and the noun in the other order8 Isn,t it 3ust common sense that children learn
their native language by imitating older spea'ers around them8
7ell+ yes and no) It is true that children learn some aspects of their native language by
imitation and memori:ation) (hildren in $nglish-spea'ing communities learn $nglish
words+ children in %ava3o-spea'ing communities learn %ava3o words+ children in
wahili-spea'ing communities learn wahili words+ and so on) *ut language acquisition
isn,t purely a process of memori:ation) In fact+ given current human life spans+ it
couldn,t possibly beD
A thought eperiment
&o see this+ let,s consider a toy version of $nglish that contains three-word sentences
consisting of a noun+ a transitive verb+ and another noun) &he toy version contains
sentences li'e .4/ that are sensible given the real world as well as sentences li'e .6/
that aren,t+ but that might be useful in fairy tale or science fiction contexts)
.4/ a) (ats detest lemons) .6/ a) Eemons detest cats)
Becret life of citrus fruitsB/
b) (hildren eat tomatoes) b) &omatoes eat children)BAttac' of the genetically modified
tomatoesB/
c) (heetahs chase
ga:elles)
c) "a:elles chase cheetahs)
BAvenger ga:elleB/
Again for the sa'e of argument+ let,s assume a small/ vocabulary of .+CCC nouns and
.CC verbs) &his gives us a list of .+CCC x .CC x .+CCC > .CC million/ three-word
sentences of the type in .4/ and .6/) %umbers of this magnitude are difficult to put in
human perspective+ so let,s estimate how long it would ta'e a child to learn all the
sentences on the list) Again+ for the sa'e of argument+ let,s assume that children can
memori:e sentences quic'ly+ at a rate of one sentence a second) &he entire list of three-word sentences could then be memori:ed in .CC million seconds+ which comes to 4).<
years) o far+ so good) Fowever+ the minute we start adding complexity to &oy $nglish+
the number of sentences and the time it would ta'e to memori:e them quic'ly
mushrooms) #or instance+ adding only .C ad3ectives to the child,s vocabulary would
cause the number of five-word sentences of the form in .9/ to grow to .C billion .CC
million x .C x .C/)
.9/ a) *lac' cats detest green peas)
b) Fappy children eat ripe tomatoes)
c) Fungry cheetahs chase speedy ga:elles)
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$ven at the quic' rate of one sentence per second that we,re assuming+ the list of all
such five-word sentences would ta'e a bit over 4.< years to learn) (learly+ this is an
absurd consequence) #or instance+ how could our memorious child ever come to 'now+
as every $nglish spea'er plainly does+ that the sentence in .;/ is ungrammatical8 If
grammatical 'nowledge were based purely on rote memori:ation+ the only way to
determine this would be to compare .;/ to all of the .C billion five-word sentences andto find that it matches none of them)
.;/ = (ats blac' detest peas green)
And even after performing the comparison+ our fictitious language learner still wouldn,t
have the faintest clue as to why .;/ is ungrammaticalD
In addition to this thought experiment with its comically absurd consequences+ there is
another reason to thin' that language acquisition isn,t entirely based on rote
memori:ation - namely+ that children use what they hear of language as raw material to
construct linguistic rules) Fow do we 'now this8 7e 'now because children sometimes produce rule-based forms that they have never heard before)
Rule!"ased word formation
5ne of the earliest demonstrations that children acquire linguistic rules+ rather than
simply imitating the forms of adult language+ was the well-'nown wug experiment
*er'o .@9?/) In it+ the psycholinguist Gean *er'o used invented words to examine
among other things/ how children between the ages of 6 and < form plurals in $nglish)
he showed the children cards with simple line drawings of ob3ects and animals and
elicited plurals from them by reading them accompanying texts li'e .
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.@@249/+ but they are important because they clearly show that even the acquisition of
words can,t be completely reduced to rote memori:ation)
$uestion formation
In addition to morphological rules which concern the structure of words/+ children alsoacquire syntactic rules which concern the structure of sentences/) ome of these rules
are of particular interest because they differ from the corresponding adult rules that the
children eventually acquire) At the same time+ however+ the children,s novel rules don,t
differ from the rules of the adult grammar in completely arbitrary ways) Rather+ the
children,s rules share certain abstract properties with the adult rules+ even when they
differ from them)
&o see this+ let,s consider how young children form yes-no questions) ome 4- to 9-year-
olds form such questions from declarative sentences by copying the auxiliary element to
the beginning of the sentence+ as in .@/ (rain and %a'ayama .@?
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If the sub3ect consists of a single word or a clause+ then the simple sub3ect is
identical to the sub3ectL otherwise+ the simple sub3ect of a sentence is obtained
by stripping the sub3ect of any modifiers yielding girl and pig as the simple
sub3ects of 2C//) &he notion of sub3ect is basic to syntactic theory+ but we will
have no further use for the notion of simple sub3ect)
*oth rules in 2./ give the same result for simple sentences+ which are li'ely to form
most of the data that young children attend to) *oth rules also require children to
identify auxiliary elements) Fowever+ the adult rule additionally requires children to
identify the sub3ect of the sentence by grouping together sequences of words li'e the
girl or the red pig into a single abstract structural unit) *ecause of this grouping
requirement+ the adult rule is called structure!dependent) *y contrast+ the alternative
rule in 2.b/ is not structure-dependent+ since it requires the child only to classify words
according to their syntactic category Is this word an auxiliary element8/+ but not togroup the words into structural units) &he rule in 2.b/ is simpler in the sense that it
relies on fewer+ as well as computationally less complex+ cognitive operations+ and
children might reasonably be expected to experiment with it in the course of acquiring
question formation) %evertheless+ (homs'y .@
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Recall that (homs'y predicted that children would not use structure-independent rules+
even though they are simpler than structure-dependent ones) &his prediction was tested
in an experiment with 4- to 9-year-old children by (rain and %a'ayama .@?
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imilarly+ the second the in 2;/ belongs with cat and not with chase. *ut a word
doesn,t always belong with the following word) #or instance+ in 2
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'tructural am"iguity
A particularly stri'ing piece of evidence for the existence of syntactic structure is the
phenomenon of structural am"iguity. &he classified advertisement in 4./ is a
humorous illustration)
4./ 7anted Man to ta'e care of cow that does not smo'e or drin')
7orld 'nowledge tells us that the intent of the advertiser is to hire a clean-living man to
ta'e care of a cow) *ut because of the way the advertisement is formulated+ it also has
an unintentionally comical interpretation - namely+ that the advertiser has a cow that
does not smo'e or drin' and that the advertiser wants a man possibly a chain-smo'ing
alcoholic/ to ta'e care of this clean-living cow) &he intended and unintended
interpretations describe sharply different situationsL that is why we say that 4./ is
ambiguous+ rather than that it is vague) Moreover+ the ambiguity of the sentence can,t be
pinned on a particular word+ as is possible in ambiguous sentences li'e those in 42/)
42/ a) As far as I,m concerned+ any gender is a drag. Patti mith/
b) 5ur bi'inis are exciting) &hey are simply the tops.
entences li'e those in 42/ are examples of lexical ambiguityL their ambiguity is based
on a lexeme > vocabulary item/ with two distinct meanings) In 4./+ on the other hand+
the words themselves have the same meanings in each of the two interpretations+ and
the ambiguity derives from the possibility of grouping the words in distinct ways) In the
intended interpretation+ the relative clause that does not smo"e or drin" modifies manL
in the unintended interpretation+ it modifies cow.
&o avoid any confusion+ we should emphasi:e that we are here considering structuralambiguity from a purely descriptive perspective+ focusing on what it tells us about the
design features of human language and disregarding the practical issue of effective
communication) As writers of advertisements ourselves+ we would ta'e care not to use
4./+ but to disam"iguate it by means of an appropriate paraphrase. #or the ordinary
interpretation of 4./+ where the relative clause modifies man, we might move the
relative clause next to the intended modifiee+ as in 44a/) &he comical interpretation of
4./+ on the other hand+ cannot be expressed unambiguously by moving the relative
clause) If it were the desired interpretation+ we would have to resort to a more drastic
reformulation+ such as 44b/)
44/ a) 7anted Man that does not smo'e or drin' to ta'e care of cow) b) 7anted Man to ta'e care of nonsmo'ing+ nondrin'ing cow)
(niversal )rammar
Formal universals
&he structure-dependent character of syntactic rules is a general property of the human
language faculty the part of the mindJbrain that is devoted to language/+ often also
referred to as (niversal )rammar, especially when considered in abstraction from any
particular language) &here are two sources of evidence for this) #irst+ as we have seen+
the syntactic rules that children acquire even when they are not the rules that adults use+
are structure-dependent) econd+ even though structure-independent rules are logically
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possible and computationally tractable+ no 'nown human language actually has rules
that disregard syntactic structure as a matter of course) #or instance+ no 'nown human
language has either of the computationally very simple question formation rules in 46/)
46/ a) &o form a question+ switch the
order of the first and secondwords in the corresponding
declarative sentence)
&he girl is tall) K "irl the is tall8
&he blond girl is
tall)
K *lond the girl is
tall8
b) &o form a question+ reverse the
order of the words in the
corresponding declarative
sentence)
&he girl is tall) K &all is girl the8
&he blond girl is
tall)
K &all is girl blond
the8
&he structure-dependent character of syntactic rules often referred to more briefly as
structure dependence/ is what is 'nown as a formal universal of human language - a
property common to all human languages that is independent of the meanings of words)
#ormal universals are distinguished from su"stantive universals, which concern the
substance+ or meaning+ of linguistic elements) An example of a substantive universal is
the fact that all languages have indeical elements such as I, here, and now. &hese
words have the special property that their meanings are predictable in the sense that they
denote the spea'er+ the spea'er,s location+ and the time of spea'ing+ but that what
exactly they refer to depends on the identity of the spea'er)
Recursion
Another formal universal is the property of recursion. A simple illustration of this
property is the fact that it is possible for one sentence to contain another) #or instance+
the simple sentence in 49a/ forms part of the complex sentence in 49b/+ and the
resulting sentence can form part of a still more complex sentence) Recursive embedding
is illustrated in 49/ up to a level of five embeddings)
49/ a) he won)
b) &he &imes reported that
she wonN)
c) Gohn told me that
the &imes reported that
she wonNN)
d) I remember distinctly that
Gohn told me that
the &imes reported that
she wonNNN)
e) &hey don,t believe that
I remember distinctly that
Gohn told me thatthe &imes reported that
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she wonNNNN)
f) I suspect that
they don,t believe that
I remember distinctly that
Gohn told me that
the &imes reported thatshe wonNNNNN)
Parameters
#ormal universals li'e structure dependence and recursion are of particular interest to
linguistics in the (homs'yan tradition) &his is not to deny+ however+ that individual
languages differ from one another+ and not 3ust in the sense that their vocabularies differ)
In other words+ !niversal "rammar is not completely fixed+ but allows some variation)
&he ways in which grammars can differ are called parameters.
5ne simple parameter concerns the order of verbs and their ob3ects) In principle+ two
orders are possible verb-ob3ect O5/ or ob3ect-verb 5O/+ and different human
languages use either one or the other) As illustrated in 4;/ and 4
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Gust as in $nglish+ preposition stranding and pied piping are both grammatical in
wedish) In wedish+ it is preposition stranding that counts as prescriptively correctD
Pied piping is frowned upon+ on the grounds that it sounds stiff and artificial)/
4@/ a) wedish o' Vilket hus bor din kompis i?
which house lives your friend in'Which house does your friend live in?'
b) o' I vil*et hus bor din 'ompis8
In other languages+ such as #rench and Italian+ preposition stranding is ungrammatical)
pea'ers of these languages re3ect examples li'e 6C/ as word salad+ and accept only the
corresponding pied-piping examples in 6./)
6C/ a) #rench = Quelle maison est-ce que ton ami habite dans?which house is it that your friend lives inIntended meaning 'Which house does your friend livein?'
b) Italian = Quale casa abita il tuo amico in?which house lives the your friend inIntended meaning 'Which house does your friend livein?'
6./ a) #rench o' &ans quelle maison est-ce que ton ami habite8
b) Italian o' In quale casa abita il tuo amico8
)enerative grammar
At the beginning of this chapter+ we said that this boo' was an introduction to
generative grammar from a (homs'yan perspective) !ntil now+ we have clarified ouruse of the term ,grammar+, and we have indicated that a (homs'yan perspective on
grammar is concerned with the formal principles that all languages share as well as with
the parameters that distinguish them) Eet,s now turn to the notion of a generative
grammar)
62/ A generative grammar is an algorithm for specifying+ or generating, all and
only the grammatical sentences in a language)
7hat,s an algorithm8 It,s simply any finite+ explicit procedure for accomplishing some
tas'+ beginning in some initial state and terminating in a defined end state) (omputer
programs are the algorithms par excellence) More ordinary examples of algorithmsinclude recipes+ 'nitting patterns+ the instructions for assembling an I'ea boo'case+ or
the steps on the bac' of a ban' statement for balancing your chec'boo')
An important point to 'eep in mind is that it is often difficult to construct an algorithm
for even trivial tas's) A quic' way to gain an appreciation for this is to describe how to
tie a bow) Ei'e language+ tying a bow is a s'ill that most of us master around school age
and that we perform more or less unconsciously thereafter) *ut describing not
demonstrating/ how to do it is not that easy+ especially if we,re not familiar with the
technical terminology of 'not-tying) In an analogous way+ constructing a generative
grammar of $nglish is a completely different tas' than spea'ing the language+ and much
more difficult or at least difficult in a different way/D
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Gust li'e a coo'ing recipe+ a generative grammar needs to specify the ingredients and
procedures that are necessary for generating grammatical sentences) 7e won,t introduce
all of these in this first chapter+ but in the remainder of the section+ we,ll introduce
enough ingredients and procedures to give a flavor of what,s to come)
+lementary trees and su"stitution
&he raw ingredients that sentences consist of are voca"ulary items. &hese belong to
various syntactic categories, li'e noun+ ad3ective+ transitive verb+ preposition+ and so
forth) 0epending on their syntactic category+ vocabulary items combine with one
another to form constituents+ which in turn belong to syntactic categories of their own)
#or instance+ determiners a category that includes the articles a and the and the
demonstratives this, that, these and those/ can combine with nouns to form noun
phrases+ but they can,t combine with other syntactic categories li'e adverbs+ verbs+ or
prepositions)
64/ a) o' a house 66/ a) = a slowly
b) o' the cats b) = the went
c) o' those boo's c) = those of
It,s possible to represent the information contained in a constituent by using la"eled
"rac*eting. $ach vocabulary item is enclosed in brac'ets that are labeled with the
appropriate syntactic category) &he constituent that results from combining vocabulary
items is in turn enclosed in brac'ets that are labeled with the constituent,s syntactic
category) &he labeled brac'etings for the constituents in 64/ are given in 69/)
69/ a) %ounPhr 0eta N %oun house N N b) %ounPhr 0etthe N %oun cats N N
c) %ounPhr 0etthose N %oun boo's N N
%oun phrases can combine with other syntactic categories+ such as prepositions or
transitive verbs) Prepositions combine with a noun phrase to form prepositional phrases)
A transitive verb combines with one noun phrase to form a verb phrase+ which in turn
combines with a second noun phrase to form a complete sentence)
6;/ a) PrepPhr Prep on N %ounPhr 0etthe N %oun table N N N
b) OerbPhr &rOerb drafted N %ounPhr 0eta N %oun letter N N N
c) entence %ounPhr 0etthe N %oun secretary N N OerbPhr &rOerb drafted N %ounPhr 0eta N %oun
letter N N N N
Again+ however+ noun phrases don,t combine with any and all syntactic categories) #or
instance+ noun phrases can,t combine with determiners at least not in $nglish/)
6
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of enclosing an element in brac'ets that are labeled with a syntactic category+ the
category is placed immediately above the element and connected to it with a line or
"ranch. &he labeled brac'etings that we have seen so far translate into the trees in 6?/
and 6@/) topmost/
node in &ree b/ has the
same syntactic category
as the substitution node
in &ree a/)
ubstitution occurs
when the root node of
&ree b/ is identified
with the substitution
node in &ree a/)
$lementary trees don,t necessarily contain substitution nodes+ thoughL ones that
invariably play the role of &ree %o) 2 in the substitution operation don,t) &he elementary
tree for the noun in 92b/ is an example)
%otice+ by the way+ that there are two conceivable ways to arrive at trees for noun
phrases li'e those cats+ depending on whether it is the noun that is ta'en as the
substitution node+ as in 92/+ or the determiner+ as in 94/) At this point+ there is no
reason to prefer one way over the other+ but in (hapter 9+ we will adopt a variant of92/)
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a noun with a relative clause+ and sentences containing nouns that are modified in this
way+ li'e those in 9;/+ are ordinarily perfectly acceptable and easily understood) Fere
and in the following examples+ the relative clauses are brac'eted and the modified noun
is underlined)/
9;/ a) &he mouse that the cat chasedN escaped) b) &he cat that the dog scaredN 3umped out the window)
*ut now notice what happens when we modify the noun within the relative clause in
9;a/ with a relative clause of its own)
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" " "######" " " " "##########################" " "#################################################"
A final important point to bear in mind is that any sentence is an expression that is
paired with a particular interpretation) "rammaticality is always determined with
respect to a pairing of form and meaning) &his means that a particular string can be
grammatical under one interpretation+ but not under another) #or instance+ 9@/ is
ungrammatical under an sub3ect-ob3ect-verb 5O/ interpretation that is+ when the
sentence is interpreted as !ue hired om/)
9@/ ue &om hired)
9@/ is grammatical+ however+ under an ob3ect-sub3ect-verb 5O/ interpretation that
is+ when it is interpreted as om hired !ue/) 5n this interpretation+ !ue receives a specialintonation mar'ing contrast+ which would ordinarily be indicated in writing by setting
off !ue from the rest of the sentence by a comma) In other words+ the grammaticality of
9@/ depends on whether its interpretation is analogous to ;Ca/ or ;Cb/)
;C/ a) o' Fer+ he hired) &he other 3ob candidates+ he didn,t even call bac')/
b) = he him hired)
)rammar versus language
7e conclude this chapter by considering the relationship between the concepts ofgrammar and language) &he notion of language seems straightforward because we are
used to thin'ing and spea'ing of Bthe $nglish language+B Bthe #rench language+B Bthe
wahili language+B and so forth) *ut these terms are actually much vaguer than they
seem at first glance because they cover a plethora of varieties+ including ones that differ
enough to be mutually unintelligible) #or instance+ $thnologue distinguishes 42 dialects
of $nglish in the !nited ingdom alone) In addition+ distinct dialects of $nglish are
spo'en in former *ritish colonies+ including (anada+ the !nited tates+ Australia+ %ew
ealand+ India+ and many African+ Asian+ and (aribbean nations+ and many of these
dialects have subdialects of their own) imilarly+ $thnologue distinguishes .. dialects of
#rench in #rance and .C dialects of wahili in enya+ and there are further dialects in
other countries in which these languages are spo'en) Moreover+ we use terms li'e Bthe$nglish languageB to refer to historical varieties that differ as profoundly as present-day
$nglish does from 5ld $nglish+ which is about as intelligible to a spea'er of modern
$nglish as "erman in other words+ not very/)
Although the most salient differences between dialects are often phonological that is+
spea'ers of different dialects often have different accents/+ dialects of a so-called single
language can differ syntactically as well) #or instance+ in standard #rench+ as in the
Romance languages more generally+ ad3ectives ordinarily follow the noun that they
modify) *ut that order is reversed in 7alloon+ a variety of #rench spo'en in *elgium)
&he two parametric options are illustrated in ;./ *ernstein .@@429-2;/)
;./ a) tandard #rench un chapeau noir
http://www.ethnologue.com/http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=enghttp://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=frahttp://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=swahttp://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=wlnhttp://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=wlnhttp://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/syntax-textbook/refs.html#bernstein93http://www.ethnologue.com/http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=enghttp://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=frahttp://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=swahttp://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=wlnhttp://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/syntax-textbook/refs.html#bernstein93
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a hat black
b) 7alloon on ne$r tchap%a black hat'a black hat'
Another example of the same sort+ though considerably more cathected for spea'ers of
$nglish+ concerns multiple negation in sentences li'e ;2a/)
;2/ a) &he 'ids didn,t eat nothing)
b) &he 'ids didn,t eat anything)
In present-day standard $nglish+ didn't and nothing each contribute their negative force
to the sentence+ and the overall force of ;2a/ isn,t negativeL rather+ the sentence means
that the 'ids ate something) In many nonstandard varieties of $nglish+ however+ ;2a/
conveys exactly the same meaning as standard $nglish ;2b/L that is+ the sentence as a
whole has negative force) In these dialects+ the negation in nothing can be thought of as
agreeing with and reinforcing/ the negation in didn't rather than cancelling itL hence theterm negative concord for this phenomenon ,concord, is a variant term for
,agreement,/) %egative concord is routinely characteri:ed as BillogicalB by
prescriptivists+@ and it is one of the most heavily stigmati:ed features in present-day
$nglish).C Fowever+ it was productive in earlier forms of $nglish+ and it is attested in
renowned masters of the language such as (haucer and ha'espeare) Moreover+
negative concord is part of the standard forms of languages li'e #rench+ Italian+ panish+
and modern "ree') #rom a descriptive and generative point of view+ negative concord is
simply a parametric option of !niversal "rammar 3ust li'e any other+ and negative
concord is no more illogical than the noun-ad3ective order in ;.a/ or preposition
stranding)
In both of the examples 3ust discussed+ we have dialects of Bthe same languageB
$nglish and #rench+ respectively/ differing with respect to a parameter) &he converse is
also possible two Bdifferent languagesB that are parametrically all but/
indistinguishable) #or example+ the same linguistic variety spo'en on the 0utch-
"erman border may count as a dialect of 0utch or "erman depending on which side of
the political border it is spo'en+ and the same is true of many other border dialects as
well) According to Max 7einreich+ Ba language is a dialect with an army and a navy)B A
stri'ing and sad/ confirmation of this aphorism concerns the recent terminological
history of erbo-(roatian) As long as 1ugoslavia was a federal state+ erbo-(roatian
was considered a single language with a number of regional dialects) &he .6th edition
of $thnologue+ published in 2CCC+ still has a single entry for erbo-(roatian) In the .9th
edition+ published in 2CC9+ the single entry is replaced by three new entries for *osnian+
(roatian+ and erbian)
As the previous discussion has shown+ the notion of language is based more on
sociopolitical considerations than on strictly linguistic ones) *y contrast+ the term
,grammar, refers to a particular set of parametric options that a spea'er acquires) #or this
reason+ the distinction between language and grammar that we have been drawing is
also referred to as the distinction between +!language and &!language mnemomic for
,external, and ,internal, language/ (homs'y .@?;/)
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As we have seen+ the same language label can be associated with more than one
grammar the label B$nglishB is associated with grammars both with and without
negative concord/+ and a single grammar can be associated with more than one language
label as in the case of border dialects/) It is important to distinguish the concept of
shared grammar from mutual intelligibility) &o a large extent+ standard $nglish and
many of its nonstandard varieties are mutually intelligible even where their grammarsdiffer with respect to one parameter or another) 5n the other hand+ it is perfectly
possible for two or more varieties that are mutually unintelligible to share a single
grammar) #or instance+ in the Indian village of upwar "umper: and 7ilson .@
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2) &he prescriptive rule is actually better stated as B0on,t separate a preposition from its
ob3ect+B since the traditional formulation invites exchanges li'e i/)
i/ A 7ho are you going to the party with8
* 0idn,t they teach you never to end a sentence with a preposition8
A orry+ let me rephrase that) 7ho are you going to the party with+ Mr) now-it-all8
4) As 7illiam Eabov has often pointed out+ everyday speech apart from false starts and
other self-editing phenomena/ hardly ever violates the rules of descriptive grammar)
6) Actually+ that,s an oversimplification) %ot all the articles and nouns an $nglish-
spea'ing child hears appear in the article-noun order) &o see why+ carefully consider the
underlined sentence in this footnote)
9) 7hen children didn,t respond this way+ they either repeated the original invented
word+ or they didn,t respond at all) It,s not clear what to ma'e of these responses) $ither
response might indicate that the children were stumped by the experimental tas')
Alternatively+ repetition might have been intended as an irregular plural cf) deer and
sheep/+ and silence might indicate that some of the invented words for instance+ cra/
struc' the children as phonologically strange)
;) &he term ,pied piping, was invented in the .@;C,s by Gohn Robert Ross+ a syntactician
with a penchant for metaphorical terminology)
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i/ a) &hey never told nobody nothing)
b) &hey never told nobody)
.C) *ecause of the social stigma associated with it+ it is essentially impossible to study
negative concord in present-day $nglish) &his is because even for those spea'ers of
negative concord varieties who don,t productively control standard $nglish as a seconddialect+ the influence of prescriptive grammar is so pervasive that if such spea'ers re3ect
negative concord sentences as unacceptable+ we don,t 'now whether they are re3ecting
them for grammatical or for social reasons)
+ercises and pro"lems
+ercise 1.1
&he sentences in 6/ violate several descriptive rules of $nglish+ three of which were
given in 9/) As mentioned in the text+ there is a fourth descriptive rule that is violated in
6/) #ormulate the rule you shouldn,t need more than a sentence/)
+ercise 1.
./-6/ illustrate the facts of sub3ect-verb agreement in the nonstandard variety of
$nglish spo'en in *elfast+ Ireland data from Fenry .@@9+ chapter 2/) 0escribe the data
as clearly and briefly as you can)
In order to avoid conflating morphological form with semantic content+ youcan refer to BisB and BareB as Bthe i- formB and Bthe a- formB+ rather than as
BsingularB and BpluralB)
./ a) o' &he girl is late) 2/ a) = &he girl are late)
b) o' he is late) b) = he are late)
c) o' Is S the girl+ she T late8 c) = Are S the girl+ she T late8
4/ a) o' &he girls are late) 6/ a) o' &he girls is late)
b) o' &hey are late) b) = &hey is late)
c) o' Are S the girls+ they T late8 c) = Is S the girls+ they T late8
+ercise 1./
7hich of the newspaper headlines in ./ are lexically ambiguous+ which are structurally
ambiguous+ and which are a mixture of both types of ambiguity8 $xplain)
./ a) *eating witness provides names
b) (hild teaching expert to spea'
c) 0run' gets nine months in violin case
d) $nraged cow in3ures farmer with ax
e) Prostitutes appeal to pope
f) &eacher stri'es idle 'ids
g) &eller stuns man with stolen chec'
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+ercise 1.0
In the text+ we showed that sentences are recursive categories) In other words+ one
instance of the syntactic category ,sentence, can contain another instance of the same
category) Provide evidence that noun phrases and prepositional phrases are recursive
categories+ too)
*e careful to give examples that are recursive+ and not 3ust ones in which
the syntactic category in question occurs more than once) #or instance+ ./
does not provide the evidence required in this exercise+ because the second
prepositional phrase is not contained in the first) &his is clearly shown by
the fact that the order of the prepositional phrases can be switched)
./ &he cat 3umped PP onto the table N PP without the slightest
hesitation N)
+ercise 1.
7hich+ if any+ of the sentences in ./-9/ are ungrammatical8 7hich+ if any+ are
semantically or otherwise anomalous8 *riefly explain)
./ a) &hey decided to go tomorrow yesterday)
b) &hey decided to go yesterday tomorrow)
2/ a) &hey decided yesterday to go tomorrow)
b) &hey decided tomorrow to go yesterday)
4/ a) 1esterday+ they decided to go tomorrow)
b) &omorrow+ they decided to go yesterday)6/ &hey decided to go yesterday yesterday)
9/ Fow long didn,t &om wait8
+ercise 1.2
A. &he following expressions are structurally ambiguous) #or each reading >
interpretation/+ provide a paraphrase that is itself unambiguous)
./ a) chocolate ca'e icing
b) clever boys and girlsc) Gohn will answer the question precisely at noon)
d) 7atch the man from across the street)
e) &hey should decide if they will come tomorrow)
3. Provide a tree diagram for each reading) &o do so+ download the &rees program as
well as the tree-drawing grammar tool) In the &rees program+ open the grammar tool
with the file menu item B(hoose "rammar)B &hen select the file menu item B%ew)B &his
will call up an empty wor'space on the right and a window containing syntactic
categories on the upper left) (lic' on a syntactic category+ and a copy will appear in the
window on the lower left) (lic' on this copy and drag it into the wor'space) 1ou can
build trees using any of the premade structures in the grammar tool+ adding or deleting
nodes as needed) #or the purposes of this exercise+ all that is relevant is the structure of
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the trees that you build that is+ the way the nodes are grouped+ not the way they are
labeled/) &herefore+ you can simply label all nonterminal nodes > nodes other than
words/ with a dummy symbol li'e ,V,)
+ercise 1.4
A. Fow many elements does an expression need to contain to be three-ways
ambiguous8
3. If an expression contains four elements+ how many ways ambiguous can it be in
principle8
Pro"lem 1.1
Are syntactic structure and recursion equally basic properties of human language8
$xplain in a brief paragraph)
Pro"lem 1.
(an you come up with a sentence or other expression/ that is structurally ambiguous
more than two ways8 Paraphrase the distinct readings+ and draw a tree for each reading)
#eel free to use the tree-drawing grammar tool see $xercise .); for instructions/)
Pro"lem 1./
0ownload the grammar tool in which grammar ) In the &rees program+ open it with the
file menu item B(hoose "rammar)B &hen select the file menu item B%ew)B &his will call
up an empty wor'space on the right and a window containing a lexicon of one-letter
expressions on the upper left) (lic' on one of the expressions) A copy of the expression
will appear in the lexical items window on the lower left) (lic' on this copy and drag it
into the wor'space) 1ou can build complex expressions out of simpler ones by dragging
them on top of each other or onto other nodes that appear in the course of a derivation)
*efore beginning a derivation+ you must select a grammar ". or "2/ in the Bchoose-
grammarB menu above the wor'space) &he grammar tool requires you to produce the
first combination by dragging one Roman letter onto the "ree' phi) Play with the tool to
see what happens next) 5nce you are able to construct complex expressions+ briefly
answer the following questions) &here is no need to submit the trees you construct)
• 7hat is the difference between ". and "28
• If presented with substrings generated by ". and "2 containing only Roman
letters i)e)+ if the phi were somehow invisible/+ is it possible to tell which
grammar has generated the string8
Pro"lem 1.0
&he grammars of $arly Modern $nglish .9CC-.
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ha'espeare,s plays and the Authori:ed Oersion of the *ible also 'nown as the ing
Games *ible/)
Available at:
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