Introduction to Linguistic
Theory




Syntax: The Sentence 


Patterns of
Language
 Learning  Goals  
•  Hierarchical  sentence  structure  
•  Word  categories  
•  X-­‐bar  
•  Ambiguity  
•  Recursion  
•  Transforma=ons  
 Syntax
•  Any speaker of any human language can produce
and understand an infinite number of possible
sentences

•  Thus, we can’t possibly have a mental dictionary

of all the possible sentences

•  Rather, we have the rules for forming sentences

stored in our brains

–  Syntax is the part of grammar that pertains to a

speaker’s knowledge of sentences and their structures
 What the Syntax Rules Do
•  The rules of syntax combine words into phrases
and phrases into sentences

•  They specify the correct word order for a language

–  For example, English is a Subject-Verb-Object (SVO)

language
•  The President nominated a new Supreme Court justice
•  *President the new Supreme justice Court a nominated

•  They also describe the relationship between the

meaning of a group of words and the arrangement
of the words

–  I mean what I say vs. I say what I mean

 What the Syntax Rules Do
•  The rules of syntax also specify the grammatical relations of
a sentence, such as the subject and the direct object

–  Your dog chased my cat vs. My cat chased your dog

•  Syntax rules specify constraints on sentences based on the

verb of the sentence

*The boy found *Disa slept the baby
*The boy found in the house Disa slept
The boy found the ball Disa slept
soundly

Zack believes Robert to be a gentleman
*Zack believes to be a gentleman
Zack tries to be a gentleman
*Zack tries Robert to be a gentleman
 What the Syntax Rules Do
•  Syntax rules also tell us how words form groups and are
hierarchically ordered in a sentence
 
“The captain ordered the old men and women off the ship”

•  This sentence has two possible meanings:

–  1. The captain ordered the old men and the old women off the ship
–  2. The captain ordered the old men and the women of any age off the
ship

•  The meanings depend on how the words in the sentence are
grouped (specifically, to which words is the adjective ‘old’
applied?)

–  1. The captain ordered the [old [men and women]] off the ship
–  2. The captain ordered the [old men] and [women] off the ship
 What the Syntax Rules Do
•  These groupings can be shown hierarchically in a tree

•  These trees reveal the structural ambiguity in the phrase “old men
and women”

–  Each structure corresponds to a different meaning

•  Structurally ambiguous sentences can often be humorous:

–  Catcher: “Watch out for this guy, he’s a great fastball hitter.”
–  Pitcher: “No problem. There’s no way I’ve got a great fastball.”
 What Grammaticality 

Is Not Based On

•  Grammaticality is not based on prior

exposure to a sentence

•  Grammaticality is not based on

meaningfulness

•  Grammaticality is not based on
truthfulness
 Sentence Structure
•  We could say that the sentence “The child
found the puppy” is based on the
template:
Det—N—V—Det—N
–  But this would imply that sentences are just
strings of words without internal structure

–  This sentence can actually be separated into

several groups:

•  [the child] [found a puppy]
•  [the child] [found [a puppy]]
•  [[the] [child]] [[found] [[a] [puppy]]
 Sentence Structure
•  A tree diagram can be used to show
the hierarchy of the sentence:

The child found a puppy
 Constituents and 

Constituency Tests
•  Constituents are the natural groupings in a
sentence
•  Tests for constituency include:
–  1. “stand alone test”: if a group of words can
stand alone, they form a constituent
•  A: “What did you find?”
•  B: “A puppy.”

–  2. “replacement by a pronoun”: pronouns can

replace constituents
•  A: “Where did you find a puppy?”
•  B: “I found him in the park.”
 Constituents and 

Constituency Tests
–  3. “move as a unit” test: If a group of
words can be moved together, they are a
constituent

•  A: “The child found a puppy.” ! “A puppy

was found by the child.”
 Constituents and 

Constituency Tests
•  Experimental evidence shows that people
perceive sentences in groupings
corresponding to constituents

•  Every sentence has at least one constituent

structure

–  If a sentence has more than one constituent

structure, then it is ambiguous and each
constituent structure corresponds to a different
meaning
 Syntactic Categories
•  A syntactic category is a family of expressions that can substitute
for one another without loss of grammaticality

The child found a puppy. The child found a puppy.

A police officer found a puppy. The child ate the cake.
Your neighbor found a puppy. The child slept.

•  All the underlined groups constitute a syntactic category known as a
noun phrase (NP)

–  NPs may be a subject or an object of a sentence, may contain a

determiner, proper name, pronoun, or may be a noun alone

•  All the bolded groups constitute a syntactic category known as a

verb phrase (VP)

–  VPs must always contain a verb but may also contain other constituents
such as a noun phrase or a prepositional phrase (PP)
 Syntactic Categories
•  Phrasal categories: NP, VP, PP, AdjP, AdvP

•  Lexical categories:

–  Noun: puppy, girl, soup, happiness, pillow

–  Verb: find, run, sleep, realize, see, want
–  Preposition: up, down, across, into, from, with
–  Adjective: red, big, candid, lucky, large
–  Adverb: again, carefully, luckily, very, fairly

•  Functional categories:

–  Auxiliary: verbs such as have, and be, and modals such as may,
can, will, shall, must
–  Determiners: the, a, this, that, those, each, every
 Phrase Structure Trees
•  The  core  of  every  phrase  is  its  head  
–  In  the  VP  walk  the  pugs,  the  verb  walk  is  the  head  
 

•  The  phrasal  category  that  may  occur  next  to  a  head  

and  elaborates  on  the  meaning  of  the  head  is  a  
complement  
–  In  the  PP  over  the  river,  the  NP  the  river  is  the  
complement  
 

•  Elements  preceding  the  head  are  specifiers  

–  In  the  NP  the  fish,  the  determiner  the  is  the  specifier  
 Phrase Structure Trees
•  The internal structure of phrasal
categories can be captured using the
X-bar schema:
 examples  

The subject will later in

Spec-T

This should be A
 Phrase Structure Trees
Phrase structure (PS) trees show the
internal structure of a sentence along with
syntactic category information:
 Phrase Structure Trees
•  In  a  PS  tree,  every  higher  node  dominates  all  the  categories  beneath  it  

–  S  dominates  everything  

•  A  node  immediately  dominates    

   the  categories  directly  below  it  

 
•  Sisters  are  categories  that  are  immediately  dominated  by  the  same  node  

–  The  V  and  the  NP  are  sisters  

 Phrase Structure Trees:
Selection
•  Some heads require a certain type of complement
and some don’t

–  The verb find requires an NP: Alex found the ball.

–  The verb put requires both an NP and a PP: Alex put the
ball in the toy box.
–  The verb sleep cannot take a complement: Alex slept.
–  The noun belief optionally selects a PP: the belief in
freedom of speech.
–  The adjective proud optionally selects a PP: proud of
herself

•  C-selection or subcategorization refers to the

information about what types of complements a
head can or must take
 Phrase Structure Trees:
Selection
•  Verbs also select subjects and complements based
on semantic properties (S-selection)
–  The verb murder requires a human subject and object

!The beer murdered the lamp.

–  The verb drink requires its subject to be animate and its optional
complement object to be liquid

!The beer drank the lamp.

•  For a sentence to be well-formed, it must conform

to the structural constraints of PS rules and must
also obey the syntactic (C-selection) and semantic
(S-selection) requirements of the head of each
phrase
Building Phrase Structure Trees
•  Phrase structure rules specify the
well-formed structures of a sentence
–  A tree must match the phrase structure
rules to be grammatical
 Building Phrase Structure Trees
The majority of the senate became afraid of the vice
president.



N

(9)

Corrections to the
textbook typos are in
red.
 Building Phrase Structure Trees
The majority of the senate became afraid of the vice
president.
 The Infinity of Language: 

Recursive Rules
•  Recursive rules are rules in which a phrasal category can contain
itself



•  Recursive rules allow a grammar to generate an infinite number of
sentences

– the kindhearted, intelligent,

handsome, … boy
 What Heads the Sentence
•  All sentences contain information about tense—
when a certain event or state of affairs occurred, so
we can say that Tense is the head of a sentence
–  So sentences are TPs, with T representing tense markers
and modals
 What Heads the Sentence
 
The girl may cry. The child ate.
 Structural Ambiguities
•  The following sentence has two meanings:

The boy saw the man with the telescope.

•  The meanings are:

–  1. The boy used the telescope to see the man

–  2. The boy saw the man who had a telescope

•  Each of these meanings can be represented by a different

phrase structure tree

–  The two interpretations are possible because the PS rules allow

more than one structure for the same string of words
 Structural Ambiguities

•  The boy saw the man

•  The boy used a who had a telescope
telescope to see the
man
 More Structures
•  Adverbs  are  modifiers  that  can  specify  how  (quickly,  slowly)  
and  when  (yesterday,  oNen)  an  event  happens  

17.  V  !  AdvP  V      16.  V  !  V  AdvP  

 Transformational Analysis
•  Recognizing that some sentences are related to each other is
another part of our syntactic competence

The boy is sleeping. Is the boy sleeping?

•  The first sentence is a declarative sentence, meaning that it

asserts that a particular situation exists

•  The second sentence is a yes-no question, meaning that

asks for confirmation of a situation

•  The difference in meaning is indicated by different word

orders, which means that certain structural differences
correspond to certain meaning differences
–  For these sentences, the difference lies in where the auxiliary
occurs in the sentence
 Transformational Rules
•  Yes-no questions are generated in
two steps:
–  1. The PS rules generate a declarative
sentence which represents the basic
structure, or deep structure (d-
structure) of the sentence

–  2. A transformational rule then moves

the auxiliary before the subject to create
the surface structure (s-structure)
 Transformational Rules
•  Other sentence pairs that involve
transformational rules are:

–  Active to passive
•  The cat chased the mouse. ! The mouse was chased
by the cat.

–  there sentences
•  There was a man on the roof. ! A man was on the
roof.

–  PP preposing
•  The astronomer saw the quasar with the telescope. !
With the telescope, the astronomer saw the quasar.
The Structural Dependency of Rules
•  Transformations are structure-dependent, which
means they act on phrase structures without caring
what words are in the structures
–  The Move rule can be applied to any PP as long as it is an
adjunct to V.
–  Subject-verb agreement stretches across all structures
between the subject and the verb:
 Yes/No    
•  The  forma=on  of  yes-­‐no  ques=ons  comes  from  
the  transforma=on  Move  reloca=ng  the  T  from  
the  corresponding  declara=ve  sentence:  
•  The  boy  will  sleep    will  the  boy  ___  sleep  
 C  takes  TP  
•  C  takes  TP  as  its  complement,  C  can  
have  Q  feature,  but  not  always  
 Embedded  CP’s  
•  CP’s  are  needed  not  just  for  ques=ons:  
 
–  belief  that  iron  floats  (NP  complement)  
–  wonders  if  iron  floats  (VP  complement)  
–  happy  that  iron  floats  (AP  complement)  
–  about  whether  iron  will  sink  (PP  complement)  
Examples  of  embedded  CP  
Yes/No  ques=ons  T-­‐>C  
 Wh Questions
Example:  What  will  Max  chase?  
 
•  This  Wh  ques=on  is  formed  in  three  steps:  
 
–  1.  The  PS  rules  generate  a  basic  declara=ve  word  order:  
Max  will  chase  what?  
 
–  2.  Move  shiNs  the  word  what  to  the  beginning  of  the  
sentence:  What  Max  will  chase?  
 
–  3.  Move  shiNs  the  modal  will  to  occur  before  the  subject  
NP:  What  will  Max  chase?  
Wh-­‐deriva=on  
Wh-­‐movement  
 Do-­‐inser=on  
•  Which  toys  does  Pete  like  
 Modals/  Auxiliaries  
1.  Spot  has  chased  a  squirrel.  
2.  Nellie  is  snoring.  
• Like  the  modals,  the  auxiliaries  have  and  be  move  to  the  posi=on  
preceding  the  subject  in  both  yes-­‐no  ques=ons  and  wh  ques=ons.  
3.  Has  Spot  ____  chased  a  squirrel?  
4.  Is  Nellie  ____  snoring?  
5.  What  has  Spot  ____  chased  ____?  
• The  ques=on  is:  where  do  have  and  be  originate  in  the  d-­‐structure?    
• Note  that  have  and  be  can  occur  in  the  same  sentence  with  a  modal:  
–  Nellie  may  be  snoring.  
–  Spot  must  have  found  a  squirrel.  
 recursive  v  
•  Our  analysis  leads  us  to  conclude  that  have/
be  originate  under  V  in  a  recursive  Vd  
structure,as  follows.  
 Tense/Modal  
•  When  there  is  no  modal,  T  is  occupied  by  a  
tense  feature,  which  is  realized  on  have/be,  as  
would  be  the  case  for  other  verbs  like  snore:  
 Movement  from  V-­‐>T-­‐>C  
•  What  has  Spot  chased?  
•  Here  is  the  d-­‐structure  (from  the  X-­‐bar  derived  phrase  
structure  rules):  
V-­‐>T  
T-­‐>C  
 Wh-­‐move  
•  We  see  that  V-­‐>T  feeds  T-­‐>C,  which  allows  wh  
move.    
PS  rules  –  Warning,  these  are  textbook  PS  rules.  
For  ones  recommended  by  me  see  my  
addi=onal  text    

•  1.  S  →  NP  VP  
•  11.  AP  →  Ad  
•  2.  NP  →  Det  Nd  
•  12.  Ad  →  A  
•  3.  Nd  →  N  
•  13.  Ad  →  A  PP  
•  4.  VP  →  Vd  
•  14.  Nd  →  A  Nd  
•  5.  Vd  →  V  NP  
•  15.  Ad  →  Int  Ad  
•  6.  Vd→  V  PP  
•  16.  Vd  →  Vd  PP  
•  7.  Vd  →  V  AP  
•  17.  Nd  →  Nd  PP  
•  8.  Nd  →  N  PP  
•  18.  Vd  →  AdvP  Vd  
•  9.  PP  →  Pd  
•  19.  Vd  →  Vd  Adv  
•  10.  Pd  →  P  NP  
•  P20.  Vd  →  V  VP  
UG Principles and Parameters
•  Universal Grammar (UG) provides the basic
design for all languages, and each language
has its own parameters, or variations on
the basic plan
–  All languages have structures that conform to X-
bar schema
–  All phrases consist of specifiers, heads, and
complements
–  All sentences are headed by T
–  All languages seem to have movement rules
–  However, languages have different word orders
within phrases and sentences, so heads and
complements may be present in different orders
across languages
 Sign Language Syntax
•  The syntax of sign languages also follow
the principles of UG and has:
–  Auxiliaries
–  Transformations such as topicalization, which
moves the direct object to the beginning of a
sentence for emphasis, and wh movement
–  Constraints on transformations

•  That UG is present in signed languages and

spoken languages shows that the human
brain is designed to learn language, not just
speech.