SYNTA

X
Structure of English: Lesson 4
Topic Outline:
I. Introduction to Pragmatics
II. Generative Grammar
III. Structural Ambiguity
IV. Phrase Structure and Rules
V. Transformations
I. Introduction
■ Pragmatics: the study of how language is used and
how context affect language
■ Sentence vs Utterance
– Sentence: A string of words put together by the
grammatical rules of the language; abstract
idealizations, not physical events
– Utterance: the use of a sentence in a particular
context; actual, physical events
I. Introduction
■ Pragmatics: the study of how language is used and
how context affect language
■ Sentence vs Utterance
– Sentence: A string of words put together by the
grammatical rules of the language; abstract
idealizations, not physical events
– Utterance: the use of a sentence in a particular
context; actual, physical events
I. Introduction
■ Types of Context
– Linguistic
■ includes linguistic knowledge and discourse
(larger linguistic units which are combinations
of sentences that expresses complex thoughts)
■ Pronouns (pronoun-antecedent relationship), the
articles (the is used when the referent is agreed
upon by the speaker), gapping, and sluicing
I. Introduction
■ Types of Context
– Situational
■ Includes knowledge of the world, who is
speaking, who is listening, what objects are
being discussed, place of convo, general facts,
etc.
■ The word pupil
II. Entailment, Presupposition, Entailment
■ Entailment
I. Syntax
■ In language, every sentence is a sequence of words
but not every sequence of words is a sentence.
– Chief swore President the Justice the in new
■ Sequences that conform to the rules of syntax are
well-formed or grammatical. Those that do not
are ill-formed or ungrammatical.
I. Syntax
■ Are these grammatical?
– Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
– Enormous cricket in pink socks danced at the
prom.
– A verb crumpled the milk.
■ What, then, is grammaticality NOT based on?
■ Grammar is autonomous and independent of
meaning (semantics).
II. Generative Grammar
■ Regards grammar as a system of rules that generates
exactly those combinations of words that form
grammatical sentences in a given language (Chomsky)
■ Phrase Structure Rules: generate deep structure
which is the abstract level in which meaning resides
■ Transformational Rules: rearrange, add, and delete
elements but doesn’t change meaning but only
generate varied types of surface structure which is
the concrete realization of the deep structure
III. Structural Ambiguity
• When a sentence, in the surface, can have two meanings:
• Filipino history teacher
• This will make you smart.
• The chicken is ready to eat.
• Visiting relatives can be tiresome.
• Flying planes can be dangerous.
• They took the animal to the small animal hospital.
• Deep structures can clarify the meanings of these
sentences.
IV. Phrase Structure
• Constituents: natural groupings of a sentence;
proper subparts of a sentence; can be proved
through various linguistic tests
• Can be shown through a tree diagram
• Example:
• The child found the puppy.
• Phrase: sequence of words- or a single word-
having a syntactic significance
IV. Phrase Structure
• Constituency test: “The child put the puppy in the
garden.”
• Where did the child put the puppy?
• The child put the puppy there.
• In the garden is where the child put the puppy.
• It was in the garden that the child found the
puppy.
IV. Phrase Structure
• Phrase structure tree or constituent structure
tree: a tree diagram which syntactic category
information
• Syntactic Category: A family of expressions that
can substitute one another without loss of
grammaticality e.g. Sentence (S), Noun Phrase
(NP), Verb Phrase (VP), Adjective (Adj), Adjective
Phrase (AP), Determiner (Det), Adverb (Adv), etc.
IV. Phrase Structure
• A→B+C
• → read as, “is written as, is expanded as, has
its constituents, consists of”
• + read as, “followed by”
• A is rewritten as B followed by C.
• A → (B) C
• A is expanded as optionally B and obligatory C
IV. Phrase Structure
• A → {B, C}
• If you choose B, you cannot choose C.
• A → ({B,C}) D
IV. Phrase Structure
• Determiner
IV. Phrase Structure
• S → NP + VP
IV. Phrase Structure
• Adjective Phrase (AP)