Morpho-Syntax

(Detailed theoretical part)

Noam Chomsky:
Noam Chomsky is a renowned linguist, philosopher, and cognitive scientist who has made significant
contributions to the field of linguistics and the study of language. Some of the main things that Chomsky has
discussed in his language work-related include:

 Universal grammar: Chomsky proposed the idea of universal grammar, which is the theory that all humans
possess an innate, biologically-based mental capacity for language. This capacity is thought to be present
in all humans from birth, and it is the basis for our ability to learn any natural language.
 Syntactic structure: Chomsky also developed the theory of transformational grammar, which is a model
of how the syntactic structure of a sentence is generated. This theory posits that there is a deep structure,
which represents the underlying meaning of a sentence, and a surface structure, which is the actual words
and phrases that are used to express that meaning.
 Language acquisition: Chomsky has also done extensive research on language acquisition, and he has
proposed the idea that children are biologically predisposed to learn language and that they are able to
do so because of their innate knowledge of universal grammar.

For Noam Chomsky, grammar is the system of rules that underlies the structure of language and enables
speakers to generate an infinite number of sentences. According to him, the grammar of a particular language
is a specific instantiation of Universal Grammar that is shaped by the language that a child is exposed to during
language acquisition.

According to Chomsky's theory of universal grammar, all humans are born with an inborn knowledge of
the principles and rules that underlie all natural languages. This innate knowledge enables children to learn
language easily and quickly, even in the absence of explicit language instruction. Chomsky's theory of universal
grammar has had a major influence on the field of linguistics and has led to a better understanding of how
humans acquire and use language.

Human language features

Human language is a complex system of communication that is unique to humans and is essential to our social
and cognitive development. Some of the essential defining characteristics of human language include:

 Grammar: Human language is characterized by a system of rules that govern the structure and use of
words and phrases to convey meaning. This system of rules is known as grammar, and it includes rules
for word order, word formation, and the use of tense and other grammatical features.
 Displacement: Human language allows us to communicate about things that are not present in our
immediate environment, or that exist in the past or future. This ability to refer to things that are not
immediately present is known as displacement, and it is a key characteristic of human language.

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 Productivity: Human language is a productive system, meaning that it allows us to create and understand
an infinite number of new sentences and meanings. This productivity is made possible by the combination
of a small set of core elements (such as words and grammatical rules) in an almost infinite number of
ways.
 Cultural transmission: Human language is learned and transmitted through social interaction and is
shaped by the culture in which it is used. This means that language is not fixed or innate, but rather is
shaped by the social and cultural context in which it is used.
 Creativity: Human language allows us to create and express new meanings and ideas, and to
communicate in a wide range of contexts and settings. This creativity is made possible by the combination
of a small set of core elements (such as words and grammatical rules) in an almost infinite number of
ways.
 Productivity: a general term in linguistics for the unlimited ability to use language to say new things.
 Semanticity: the unique relationship between an arbitrary symbol and something in the real world.

Linguistic Theories and Their Implications

There are many different theories that have been proposed to explain the structure of language, how it is
acquired, and how it is used. Here are a few examples:

 Structural theories of language: propose that language is made up of a set of rules or principles that
govern how words and sounds can be combined to form sentences. Structural theories include Noam
Chomsky's theory of generative grammar, which posits that all humans have an innate ability to learn
language and that this ability is governed by a set of universal grammatical principles.
 Cognitive theories of language acquisition: propose that language is learned through the interaction of a
child's innate language-learning abilities and their environment. According to this view, children are born
with the ability to learn language and are sensitive to the sounds and patterns of the languages they are
exposed to.
 Functional theories of language use: propose that language serves a variety of social and communicative
functions, such as expressing thoughts, feelings, and intentions, as well as establishing and maintaining
social relationships. According to this view, the way we use language is shaped by the social and cultural
context in which we communicate.

Behaviorism and mentalism

Behaviorism is a psychological theory that focuses on the study of observable behavior, rather than mental
processes. It suggests that all behaviors are learned through experience, and that the environment plays a
significant role in shaping behavior. One of the key principles of behaviorism is the idea of "tabula rasa," or
the "blank slate," which suggests that individuals are born with no inherent knowledge or characteristics, and
that everything they learn and become is a result of their experiences.

Mentalism is a psychological perspective that emphasizes the role of mental processes in behavior and
experience. It is opposed to behaviorism, which focuses solely on observable behavior and disregards internal

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mental states and processes. Mentalism suggests that internal mental states, such as thoughts, beliefs, and
emotions, play a significant role in shaping behavior and guiding action.

Language acquisition device (LAD) is a hypothetical construct that is believed to be present in the human
brain and to play a crucial role in the process of language acquisition. According to Noam Chomsky, the LAD is
an innate mental structure that is responsible for the human ability to learn and use language. It is thought to
be responsible for the ease and speed with which young children learn their native language and the difficulty
adults have in learning a new language later in life. The LAD is often discussed in relation to the idea of a
universal grammar, which suggests that all human languages share a common underlying structure that is
innate to the human mind.

Behaviorism vs. mentalism:

Behaviorism and mentalism are two contrasting approaches to understanding human behavior and cognition.
Some key differences between these two approaches include:

Behaviorism Mentalism
Emphasis on external vs.
External Internal
internal factors
Response to stimuli in the Result of thoughts, feelings, and
Nature of behavior
environment beliefs

Role of consciousness Not recognized Important factor

Empirical observation and scientific More speculative, less focused on

Methodology
experimentation empirical evidence

Behaviorism emphasizes the role of external factors, such as stimuli from the environment, in shaping
behavior, while mentalism emphasizes the role of internal mental states and processes. Behaviorism sees
behavior as a response to stimuli in the environment and views it as learned through classical and operant
conditioning, while mentalism sees behavior as the result of an individual's thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, and
views it as an expression of their mental states and processes.

Behaviorism generally does not recognize the role of consciousness in shaping behavior, while mentalism
sees consciousness as an important factor. In terms of methodology, behaviorism is based on the principles
of empirical observation and scientific experimentation, while mentalism is often more speculative and less
focused on empirical evidence.

Competence and performance

Noam Chomsky proposed the distinction between linguistic competence and linguistic performance in his
work on the nature of language and the mental processes involved in language use which had a major impact
on the field of linguistics and has helped to shape our understanding of the nature of language and the mental
processes involved in language use.

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Competence:

Linguistic competence refers to an individual's underlying knowledge of a language and the rules and
principles that govern its structure and use. It is the unconscious, mental knowledge that a speaker of a
language has about their language, and it includes their knowledge of the rules of grammar, vocabulary, and
pronunciation. Linguistic competence is thought to be innate and universal to all humans, and it is the basis
for our ability to learn and use language.

 Grammatical competence: refers to a speaker's knowledge of the rules of their language and their ability
to use those rules correctly to produce and understand spoken or written language. It includes knowledge
of syntax (the rules for constructing sentences), morphology (the rules for forming words), and phonetics
(the sounds of a language). Grammatical competence is an important aspect of language ability because
it enables speakers to communicate effectively and understand the meaning of words and sentences.
 Pragmatic competence: refers to a speaker's ability to use language appropriately in different social
situations. It includes knowledge of the conventions and expectations of language use in different
contexts, as well as the ability to convey meaning effectively through nonverbal cues such as tone, facial
expressions, and body language. Pragmatic competence is important because it enables speakers to
communicate effectively and appropriately in different social situations.

Performance:

Linguistic performance refers to the actual use of language in communication. It includes the way that
language is produced and understood in real-time, and can be affected by factors such as the speaker's accent,
rate of speech, and even their emotional state. Performance can also be influenced by the context in which
the language is used, including the audience, the purpose of the communication, and the medium through
which it is conveyed (e.g., spoken, written and signed).

Criteria of grammar adequacy

These criteria are used to determine the extent to which a grammar accurately and completely describes the
language it is intended to model.

 Observational adequacy: The ability to generate all and only the grammatical sentences of a language in
a corpus as it is able to provide a comprehensive and accurate account of the rules and patterns of the
language. This includes the ability to accurately describe the structures and patterns that are found in the
language, as well as the ability to make predictions about the structure and meaning of sentences in the
language.
 Descriptive adequacy: refers to the ability of a grammar or theory to accurately describe the structure and
use of a language as it is actually used by speakers and writers. A grammar or theory that is descriptively
adequate is able to provide a comprehensive and accurate account of the rules and patterns of a language,
based on the way the language is actually used by speakers and writers.
 Explanatory adequacy: the highest level of evaluation and it refers to the ability of a grammar to accurately
and completely describe the structure and function of a language. A grammar that is explanatory adequate
is able to provide a comprehensive and accurate account of the rules and patterns of a language, including
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 the ways in which words and sentences are formed and the relationships between words and their
meanings.

World class grammar (WCG)

Word class:

Word class (also known as part of speech) is a grammatical category that defines the lexical and
grammatical properties of a word or lexical item. Words are typically classified as nouns, verbs, adjectives,
adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections, although the exact set of word classes varies
depending on the language.

 Open class: a category of words in a language that can freely accept new members and that is not subject
to strict constraints on the number of members it can contain. Examples of open classes include nouns,
verbs, and adjectives.
 Closed class: a category of words in a language that is relatively fixed in size and that does not easily accept
new members. Examples of closed classes include pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions

Word-level category:

Word-level category is a classification of words based on their grammatical function or meaning. In

linguistics, words are often classified into categories such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, based on
the role they play in a sentence.

Distributional analysis:

Distributional analysis is a method for analyzing and understanding the way words are used in a language.
It is based on the idea that the meaning of a word can be determined by its context, or the words that appear
around it.

a) Isolation vs. agglutination vs. concatenation:

Isolating language is a type of language in which words are not inflected, or changed, to show grammatical
relationships such as tense, number, gender, or case. Instead, syntactic relationships in an isolating language
are shown through the order of words in a sentence. This means that the order of words in a sentence is
important for conveying the intended meaning, as the words themselves do not change to show the
relationships between them.

For example, in English, the word "go" changes to "goes" to show the third person singular present tense.
In an isolating language, there would be no inflection on the word "go" and the sentence would instead be
structured as "I go" or "he go" to show the subject of the verb.

Agglutinative languages are languages in which words are formed by stringing together smaller units of
meaning, known as morphemes. These morphemes are usually affixes, which are added to a base word to
convey grammatical relationships or to create new words.

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 For example, in the Turkish language, the word "kitap" means "book." The word "kitabım" means "my
book," with the suffix "-ım" indicating possession. The word "kitabımdaki" means "in my book," with the suffix
"-daki" indicating location.

Concatenative languages are languages that use a combination of smaller units, called morphemes, to
build words. Morphemes are the smallest unit of meaning in a language, and they can be combined in various
ways to create new words or to convey different meanings. For example, in English, the word "unhappy" is
made up of two morphemes: "un-" and "-happy." The morpheme "un-" means "not," and the morpheme "-
happy" means "happy." When these two morphemes are combined, they create a new word that means "not
happy." (The opposite is non-concatenative or synthetic language such as Arabic, Latin..).

b) Morphological variation:

Morphological variation refers to the variation in the form of words within a language or dialect. This can
include things like inflection (the addition of affixes to a word to indicate grammatical relationships),
derivation (the creation of new words by adding prefixes or suffixes), and compounding (the combination of
two or more words to create a new word).

For example, in English, the word "run" can be inflected to indicate tense, as in "ran" (past tense) and
"running" (present participle). It can also be derived to create new words, such as "runner" (a person who
runs) and "running" (the act of running). Similarly, the word "snow" can be compounded with the word "man"
to create the word "snowman."

c) 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 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. E.g. John – an apple. In this context, only a verb can occur between ‘John’ and ‘an
apple’.

Advantages & drawbacks of WCG:

This approach to grammar has one advantage:

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

WCG has a set of drawbacks, including:

 It cannot possibly generate all of the grammatical sentences of English.

 Any word class grammar covering even a part English is bound to be unrevealing.
 Word class grammar generated an infinite number of rules. That it becomes impossible for a child to
acquire a language.

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  It could not deal with other the interrogative and imperative forms of sentences.

Phrase structure grammar

Generative grammar (GG)

Generative grammar is a formal approach to language analysis that is used in linguistics and related fields.
It is based on the idea that there is a set of underlying rules or principles that govern the structure and form
of sentences in a language, and that these rules can be used to generate all of the possible sentences in a
language.

Phrase structure grammar (PSG)

Phrase structure grammar is a type of grammar containing rules, called Phrase structure rules (PS rules),
capable not only of generating strings of linguistic elements, but also of providing a constituent analysis of the
strings. The phrase structure component of a transformational grammar specifies the hierarchical structure of
a sentence, the linear sequence of its constituents, and indirectly some types of syntactic relation.

Expansion

 Endocentric expansion: refers to the process of adding words or phrases to a phrase or clause that modify
the head of the phrase or clause. The head of a phrase or clause is the word that determines the category
of the phrase or clause, and the other words or phrases in the phrase or clause are there to modify or
describe the head.
 Exocentric expansion: refers to the process of adding words or phrases to a phrase or clause that do not
modify the head of the phrase or clause. Instead, these words or phrases add additional information or
context to the phrase or clause.

E.g. John walks quickly down the street (“quickly” here is endocentric, and “down the street” is exocentric).

PSG evidences and criterion:

a) Morphological evidence:

 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.

b) Transformational evidence:

Example #1:

John hurts Marry. = active voice  Marry is hurt by John. = passive voice (This is correct)

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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 replace only the nouns by 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.

c) Phonological evidence:

Could not = we use this structure in order to emphasize the verb that comes after it. E.g. 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. E.g. I couldn’t stay.

‘Not’ can be followed only by a verb, an adjective or an adverb.

d) Coordination criteria:

If we rely on WCG, only nouns can be coordinated. In these examples, different types of constituents can be
coordinated:

 Noun phrases: "I saw a cat and a dog in the park." (This sentence has two noun phrases, "a cat" and "a
dog").
 Adjectival phrases: "The cake was very delicious and moist." (This sentence has two adjectival phrases,
"very delicious" and "moist).
 Verb phrases: "I will cook dinner and do the dishes." (This sentence has two verb phrases, "will cook
dinner" and "do the dishes”).

 Only phrasal categories can undergo transformations. They can be moved, deleted, coordinated and
replaced.

e) Structural or syntactic ambiguity:

Structural or syntactic ambiguity is a type of ambiguity that occurs when the structure or syntax of a
sentence is open to more than one interpretation. This can happen when a sentence is written in such a way
that it can be parsed or interpreted in multiple ways, leading to confusion or misunderstandings.

Here are a few examples of sentences with structural or syntactic ambiguity:

1. "The old man the boat."

This sentence is structurally ambiguous because it is not clear what the relationship is between the two
nouns, "old man" and "boat." It is not clear whether the old man owns the boat, is sailing in the boat, or is
somehow connected to the boat in some other way.

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 2. "I saw the man with the telescope."

This sentence is structurally ambiguous because it is not clear whether the man was using the telescope
or was somehow connected to the telescope in some other way. The preposition "with" could indicate
possession, association, or some other relationship, and without further context, it is not clear which
interpretation is intended.

 Syntactic disambiguation: the process of using the structure or syntax of a sentence to remove ambiguity
or uncertainty from the meaning of words or phrases. It is a common task in natural language processing
and is used to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of language-based systems such as machine
translation, text classification, and information retrieval.

Phrase structure rules (PSR)

Phrase structure rules are a set of rules that describe the way words and phrases are organized into
sentences in a language. These rules are used in linguistics and related fields to analyze and understand the
structure and function of language.

The total set of rules possible (Maximal projection) can be summarized as follows:
S → NP Aux VP
VP → V {(NP) (AdjP)} (PP) (AdvP) (S) {…} Either, or
PP → Prep NP
(…) Optional
NP → (Det) (Adj/AdjP) N (PP) (S)
AdjP → (AdvP) Adj (PP) → Rewrites as
AdvP → (Adv) Adv
Aux → Tense (M) (have – ed/en) (be – ing)

 With tense is either [present] or [past], V is either [+transitive] or [-transitive] and N is either [ProperN] or
[CommonN].

Note: if ‘S’ (sentence) occurs after the noun ‘N’, it is a relative clause. If it occurs after the verb ‘V’, it is a subordinate
clause.

Advantages & drawbacks of PSG:

This approach to grammar has several advantages, including:

 Formalism: Phrase structure grammar is a formal and systematic approach to language analysis, which
makes it easy to describe and analyze the structure of sentences in a precise and unambiguous way.
 Generality: Phrase structure grammar can be used to describe the structure of a wide range of languages,
making it a useful tool for comparative linguistic analysis.
 Parsability: Phrase structure grammar can be used to parse sentences into their constituent phrases,
which can be useful for tasks such as machine translation and information retrieval.

However, phrase structure grammar also has some drawbacks, including:

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 Over-simplification: Phrase structure grammar can be too simplistic to fully capture the complexity and
diversity of natural language. It may not be able to adequately represent the nuances and subtleties of
meaning that are present in real-world language use.
 Lack of flexibility: Phrase structure grammar is based on a fixed set of rules and assumptions, which can
make it inflexible and unable to accommodate new or unconventional forms of language.
 Limited descriptive power: Phrase structure grammar may not be able to fully describe the structure and
function of certain types of sentences or language constructions, such as idioms, negative and
interrogative forms, and figurative language.

Glossary of terms:
 Syntax: Syntax is the rules that govern the way words are combined to form phrases and sentences in a
language. It determines the order in which words must appear in a sentence and the role that each word
plays in the sentence.
 Morphology: Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and how they are formed. It is
concerned with the ways in which words can be broken down into smaller units called morphemes, which
are the smallest units of meaning in a language.
 Morphosyntax: Morphosyntax is the study of the interaction between morphology and syntax. It is
concerned with how the internal structure of words and the rules of syntax interact to determine the
structure and meaning of phrases and sentences in a language.
 Head parameter: In the theory of principles and parameters, the head parameter is a feature of syntactic
structure that determines the position of the head of a phrase or clause. The head of a phrase or clause is
the word that determines the syntactic category of the phrase or clause and the properties that it exhibits
 Structure-dependency principle: is a principle of syntactic structure that proposes that the syntactic
structure of a sentence is determined by the relationships between its constituents, rather than by their
linear order.
 Projection: refers to the process by which a syntactic structure is derived from an underlying structure,
typically by adding additional layers of structure or by attaching additional elements to the structure.
According to this theory, projection involves the construction of a mental representation of the structure
of a sentence, known as a "syntactic tree," which reflects the hierarchical relationships between the
constituents of the sentence.
 Recursion (from recursive): refers to the property of language that allows an infinite number of sentences
to be generated by combining a finite set of words and grammatical rules.
 Pronominalisation: is the process of replacing a noun or noun phrase with a pronoun in order to avoid
repetition or to create a more concise or cohesive sentence.
 Paradigm: a set of forms that represents the possible variations of a word in a given language or
grammatical context.
 Constituents: the smallest units of a sentence or phrase that can be grammatically and semantically
independent.
 Lexicon: the collection of words and phrases that a person knows and uses in a language. It includes all of
the words and phrases that a person has learned, as well as their meanings and the rules for using them
correctly.

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