Psycholinguistics: Syntax I

9.59; 24.905

February 3, 2005

Ted Gibson

 Syntactic structure

How to order the minimal meaning units (words /

morphemes) so that they indicate a target
meaning (e.g., in a communication situation).

e.g., in a situation where you want to ask what it

is that John sees:

English: What does John see?

Chinese: John saw what?

Japanese: John what see?

Goal of research in syntax: to figure out the
grammar of a language.

language: a set of strings over an alphabet of

symbols. (an infinite set, for human languages)

e.g., John walked, Bill walked, Lucy kicked the

ball, ...

grammar: a set of rules or structures that

generates all and only the strings in a language.
Side effect of having this knowledge: grammaticality
judgments.

The man saw the boy.

The man saw the boy on the hill.

The man saw the boy on the hill with the telescope.

* boy the the saw man

* saw the man boy the

 Lecture overview

1. Parts of speech

2. Constituent structure

3. Argument structure of words

4. Cross-linguistic word order differences

5. Arguments vs. Modifiers: X-bar theory

6. (The categories Infl and Comp)

 Parts of speech

Distributional analyses of words in sentences yields parts

of speech or syntactic categories.

E.g., The boy saw the man on the hill with the
telescope.

The boldface words are nouns.

A word w1 that can substitute in the same position as

another word w2 in all grammatical sentences containing
w2 is said to be of the same syntactic category as w2.
 Parts of speech

Noun (N): boy, girl, table, Mary, John, destruction, report,

belief
Verb (V): buy, find, sleep, destroy, report, believe
Preposition (Prep): in, at, to
Adjective (Adj): tall, big, proud
Determiner (Det): the, a, some, this, these
Adverb (Adv): quickly, often
Auxiliary verb (Aux or Infl): will, can, might, has, is
Complementizer (Comp, C): that, whether: part of a CP
E.g., “John thinks that Mary is intelligent.”
By convention, categories with the same general
semantic structure are grouped together.
Distributional differences in these categories are
treated as features of the larger category.

Examples of features: Number (singular, plural),

verb-form (pres-tense, past-tense, infin, etc.)

N (person=third, number=singular): boy, girl

V (verb-form=pres-tense, number=singular):
buys, sleeps, says, gives, takes
 Constituent structure

• The distributional analysis of the parts of speech within

sentences yields the constituent structure or phrase
structure.
 Constituenthood

Semantic completeness: The sequence of words is syntactically

and semantically complete on its own. That is, it does not require
other words and phrases to form an interpretable component of a
sentence.

Two consequences of semantic completeness:

1. Movement: The string of words can be moved to a different location

in the sentence, with a similar meaning for the sentence. E.g,
movement to the beginning of the sentence: Preposing.

2. Replacement: The string of words can be replaced by a single word:

a “pro-form”, such as a pronoun.

Single words that replace nouns: it, him, she, her, one, what, who, whom;
Single words that replace prepositional-phrases: there, here, where, when;
A two-word verb-phrase replacement: “do so”
Example sentence:

Philip will buy the books at the Coop.

Word categories: Det, Noun, Verb, Infl (Aux), Prep

Higher constituent categories:

S: the sentence: also known as an “inflection phrase” or

Infl phrase, IP

NP: a noun phrase: a phrase whose semantic head is a

noun

VP: a verb phrase: a phrase whose semantic head is a verb

PP: a prepositional phrase: a phrase whose semantic head

is a preposition
 Allowable preposings

• The books, Philip will buy at the Coop.

• At the Coop, Philip will buy the books.

• Buy the books at the Coop, Philip will.

• Buy the books, Philip will, at the Coop.

The content of each of the preposed strings of

words should be represented as a constituent.

 Some Disallowed preposings

• * Books at, Philip will buy the the Coop.

• * Buy the, Philip will books at the Coop.

 Allowable NP and PP substitutions

• Philip will buy them at the Coop.

• Philip will buy the books there.

• He will buy them at the Coop.

• What will Philip buy at the Coop?

• Where will Philip buy the books?

 “do so” substitutions

• Philip will [ buy the books at the Coop ] today

and Mary will do so tomorrow.

• Philip will [ buy the books ] at the Coop and

Mary will do so at Amazon.com.
 A structure for the sentence

“Philip will buy the books at the Coop”

 A structure for the sentence

IP

NP Infl VP

Noun will VP PP

Phillip Verb NP Prep NP

buy Det Noun at Det Noun

the books the Coop

 Phrase structure rules

• IP Î NP Infl VP **** Note: we are going to

replace this rule with a more
general set of rules soon
• VP Î VP PP
• VP Î Verb NP
• PP Î Prep NP
• NP Î Noun
• NP Î Det Noun

 Syntactic structure

• Syntactic structure is part of a notation for

meaning

• Different syntactic structures give rise to different

meanings

• Different meanings are often due to different

syntactic structures
 Ambiguity

• Lexical ambiguity:
Word sense ambiguity: “bank”, “take” …
Category ambiguity: “train”, “fly”, “time”, “light” …

• Global syntactic ambiguity:

The boy saw the man on the hill with the telescope.

5 interpretations
 Unwanted ambiguity in

a letter of reference:

“I recommend the applicant with no qualifications

whatsoever.”
 Headlines:

Syntactic attachment ambiguity

• RUMORS ABOUT NBA REFEREES GETTING UGLY

• TWO SPIES SENTENCED TO LIFE IN MISSOURI

• TORONTO LAW TO PROTECT SQUIRRELS HIT BY

MAYOR
 More headlines: Lexical and syntactic

ambiguity

• ENVIRONMENTAL UNIT HELPS DOG BITE

VICTIM

• CLINTON WINS ON BUDGET, BUT MORE

LIES AHEAD

• BRITISH LEFT WAFFLES ON FALKLAND

ISLANDS
 Ambiguity in medical records

• On the second day the knee was better, and on the third
day, it had completely disappeared.

• The patient has been depressed ever since she began

seeing me in 1983.

• She has had no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband

states that she was very hot in bed last night.

• The patient states that there is a burning sensation in his

penis which goes to his feet.
 Ambiguity in bad translations

• Norway: Ladies are requested not to have children in

the bar.

• Japan: You are invited to take advantage of the

chambermaid.

• Russia: You are welcome to visit the cemetery where

famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and
writers are buried daily except Thursday.
 Two structures for
“British left waffles on Falklands.”
IP

NP VP

Noun VP PP

British Verb NP Prep NP

left Noun on Noun

waffles Falklands
 Two structures for
“British left waffles on Falklands.”
IP

NP VP

Noun Noun Verb PP

British left waffles Prep NP

on Noun

Falklands
 Recursion: The infinity of human language

Recursion: A rule with a nonterminal syntactic category on the

left which generates the same symbol on the right, (or further
down after more rule expansions)

E.g., NP Î NP PP; VP Î VP PP

The boy saw the man on the hill with the telescope on
Thursday in the morning after dawn …

IP Î NP VP; VP Î V CP; CP Î Comp IP

Mary thought that the bartender believed that the reporter said
that …
 Argument structure:
Word-dependent phrase structure
VP expansion rules depend on the verb involved:

Philip will buy the books. (buy: VP Î V NP)

* Philip will sleep the books. (sleep: VP Î V)

* Philip will put the books. (put: VP Î V NP PP)

* Philip will say the books. (say: VP Î V CP)

Rules involving a word-level category (e.g., Verb,

Noun, etc.) depend on the word involved.
The argument structure of a word (e.g. a
verb): the phrases that are semantically required
to make a phrase containing that word complete.

Thematic roles: agent (actor), patient, goal, etc.

Head: The word at the semantic core of a phrase.

Subject or Specifier: leftward argument.

Objects or Complements: rightward arguments.

 Transitive verbs:

a subject NP and an object NP.

buy, hit, kiss:

subject: NP, agent

complements: NP, patient

John bought the book.

* John bought.
 Intransitive verbs:

a subject NP and nothing else.

run, walk, smile, frown, swim, laugh, sleep, fall,

die:

subject: NP, agent

complements: none

John laughs.

* John laughs the dog.

Ditransitive verbs: a subject NP and either
two NPs or an NP and a PP.
give, send
1. subject: NP, agent
complements: NP, patient; PP, goal
2. subject: NP, agent
complements: NP, goal; NP, patient

John gave the book to Mary.

John gave Mary the book.
* John gave the book.
* John gave Mary.
 Verbs like “put” and “place”

put, place:

subject: NP, agent

complements: NP, patient; PP, destination

John put the book on the table.

* John put.
* John put the book.
* John put on the table.
 More argument structures

say, think:

subject: NP, agent

complements: CP, proposition

* John thought the dog.

John thought that Mary ate the cheese.

 More argument structures

tell, convince:

subject: NP, agent

complements: NP, goal; CP, proposition

* John told Mary.

John told Mary that the dog ate the cheese

 More argument structures

annoy:

1. subject: NP, theme

complements: NP, experiencer
2. subject: CP, proposition
complements: NP, experiencer

John annoyed Mary

That John slept on the job annoyed Mary.