Lecture 13: Syntax I

Creativity

Morphology:

how to build words out of morphemes

 

wa + me + fika

plural + past + arrive (Swahili)

Syntax:

how to build sentences out of words

 

the + children + have + arrived

Linguistic Creativity

Sentences never heard before...

"Some purple gnats are starting to tango on the microwave."

Sentences of prodigious length...

"Bill said that he thought that the esteemed leader of the house had it in mind to tell the unfortunate vice president that the calls that he made from the office in the White House that he thought was private ..."

Why there’s more to syntax than meaning

A. Nonsense sentences with clear syntax

1a. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

(due to Chomsky)

1b. A verb crumpled the milk.

1c. I gave the question a scuba-diving egg.

 

2a. *Furiously sleep ideas green colorless.

2b. *Milk the crumpled verb a.

2c. *The question I an egg scuba-diving gave.

 

‘Twas brillig and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves,

And the mome raths outgrabe

 

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jujub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

 

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought --

So rested he by the Tumtum gree,

And stood awhile in thought

 

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

 Revised version, not following English syntax:

 

Toves slithy the and brillig ‘twas

wabe the in gimble and gyre did...

B. Ungrammatical sentences that make perfect sense

3a. Wendolene put the sweater on.

3b. Wendolene put on the sweater.

3c. Wendolene put it on.

3d. *Wendolene put on it

 

4a. Tony gave a book to her.

4b. Tony gave her a book.

4c. Tony donated a book to her.

4d. *Tony donated her a book.

 

5a. Wallace made Gromit leave.

5b. Wallace let Gromit leave.

5c. Wallace saw Gromit leave.

5d. *Wallace wanted Gromit leave.

C. Cross-linguistic variation

If syntax was entirely determined by meaning, then we should not expect to find syntactic differences between languages of the world.

6a. English: John sees that book.

6b. Korean: Chun ku chayk poata.

Chun that book see

7a.English: John speaks with Bob.

7b. Korean Chun Bob-hako malhata.

Chun Bob with speak

8a. English: Bob put the money in the cupboard.

8b. Selayerese:

Lataroi doe injo ri lamari injo i Baso.

put money the in cupboard the Baso

Building a grammar

Goal: a grammar that generates all of the possible sentences of (English, German, Swahili), and none of the impossible sentences.

"Generative Grammar"

S --> NP VP

"a sentence consists of a noun phrase followed by a verb phrase" 

Noun Phrase

Fred

the cat

seven young llamas from darkest Peru

Samantha

a feeling

the strangest story that you ever did hear

Verb Phrase

slept

fed the dog

tiptoed through the tulips

left 

said that he thought that the weather was turning out better than expected 

kicked the bucket

NP + VP combinations

1. Fred slept.

2. The cat fed the dog.

3. Seven young llamas from darkest Peru tiptoed through the tulips.

4. Samantha left.

5. A feeling said that he thought that the weather was turning out better than expected.

6. The strangest story that you ever did hear kicked the bucket.

…etc. (36 possible combinations)

... beginning to account for creativity & grammaticality judgments.

Pieces of NP & VP

NP --> Det N

NP --> N

VP --> V NP

VP --> V

How many Sentences?

Tiny Grammar:

3 determiners: the, four, some

3 nouns: dogs, cats, slugs

3 verbs: understood, ate, approached

with the 5 rules above … 468 sentences

Slightly more words:

10 determiners, nouns, verbs

with the 5 rules above … 122,100 sentences

Explaining Grammaticality 

English Sentences require a subject

8a. Wallace ate the cheese.

8b. *Ate the cheese.

9a. Ken hates Bill.

9b. *Hates Bill.

English Sentences do not require an object

10a. Wallace slept.

10b. Miranda sang.

10c. The visitors left.

Verb Phrases containing Sentences

Extra VP Rule

11a. Wallace thinks Gromit ate the cheese.

11b. VP --> V S

11c. Wendolene said Wallace thinks Gromit ate the cheese.

11d. Preston hoped Wendolene said Wallace thinks Gromit ate the cheese.

Now infinitely many sentences can be generated

"Recursion"