All about syntax
What does syntax endeavor to study?
Syntax is a subfield of linguistics that studies the arrangement and combination of words and phrases to form larger expressions. Basically, syntax looks at the internal structure of sentences.
Ava went to the store.
Argument
What's the violation? What is needed for the sentence to become grammatical?
*slept Cara through the night.
The violation is word order. In English, the S goes before the V.
Cara slept through the night.
What is topicalization?
It is a process when the most important piece of information is moved to the beginning of the sentence.
Example - "Oh, apples I like. It's pears that I hate."
What is the syntactic category of the underlined linguistic expression?
Allison sent the letter to her best friend in the morning.
NP = because I can exchange it with "The girl"
How are syntax and semantics related?
A sentence can have no meaning and still be well-formed (grammatical); thus, the syntactic properties of the sentence is independent of its semantic properties.
Olivia writes down the notes on a piece of paper.
Adjunct
What's the violation? What is needed for the sentence to become grammatical?
*Anya submitted her that homework to the teacher.
There are two determiners (her - possessive, that - demonstrative) in the NP before "homework". One has to be eliminated.
Anya submitted her homework to the teacher.
Anya submitter that homework to the teacher.
When is a sentence ungrammatical? Does it relate to "correct" grammar?
It is ungrammatical if a native speaker (NS) judges it as not possible, or if the example would never be observed in the language. "Correct" grammar, or prescriptive grammar, has nothing to do with grammaticality. Also, the sentence has to have all and only the arguments required.
What is the syntactic category of the underlined linguistic expression?
Allison sent the letter to her best friend in the morning.
V - specifically it is a ditransitive verb (DTV)
How are syntax and morphology related? What is an example?
Often syntactic constraints overlap with morphological rules (such as inflectional affixes). This is called morphosyntax. An example is "Fiona walks" - since Fiona is a 3rd person singular subject the verb has to match with the 3rd person singular inflectional suffix -s. This is called agreement. It is very present in fusional languages.
Forgetting to turn of one's cellphone is one of my pet-peeves.
Argument
What's the violation? What is needed for the sentence to become grammatical?
*Faith put the book the table.
Co-occurrence is the violation. For a Prepositional Phrase to be complete, there needs to be a preposition before the NP ("the table").
Faith put the book ON/BY/UNDER the table.
What do syntactic properties do?
Syntactic properties are rules that govern how linguistic expressions can syntactically be arranged with other expressions. They tell us how expressions can be ordered and what needs to co-occur with a particular expression. (Word order and co-occurrence are the ones we looked at in our class).
What is the syntactic category of the underlined linguistic expression?
Allison sent the letter to her best friend in the morning.
VP - with a ditransitive verb (the entire phrase because its complements are underlined)
What is the typical linguistic unit of study in syntax?
Syntax especially focuses on the linguistic unit of sentences. AND we could also say...
We also look at linguistic expressions, which are are pieces of language, with phonetic and morphological forms, meanings (semantics), and syntactic properties.
The cute furry sweet animal waits patiently for me.
Argument of for.
(Bonus: cute furry and sweet - are modifiers of animal)
What's the violation? What is needed for the sentence to become grammatical?
*She gave
Co-occurrence violation, the verb needs two objects for it to be grammatical (ditransitive verb).
*She gave Jim.
*She gave the car.
She gave the car to Jim.
What does SVO, SOV, and VSO refer to?
This refers to a language's typical and preferred word order (but of course it can vary within the language).
s = subject; v = verb; o = object
SVO – 40% of languages (English, Chinese, Spanish)
SOV - 43% of languages (Japanese, Korean, Turkish)
VSO – 10% of languages (Arabic, Irish, other Celtic languages)
What is the syntactic category of the underlined linguistic expression?
Allison sent the letter to her best friend in the morning.
Determiner (Det) - "the" is a definite article that must go before a N
Another word for when a sentence is grammatical is...?
Well-formed(ness).
The Crown is the best series on Netflex.
Adjunct
What's the violation? What is needed for the sentence to become grammatical?
*hoped for the best.
There is no expressed subject. It needs that argument in English. English is not a pro-drop language.
I hoped for the best.
How would you distinguish between an argument and an adjunct? Describe in detail and provide examples.
An argument is a linguistic expression that is required to co-occur with another. For instance, "I gave the ball to the boy" needs the argument "I" and the complements "the ball" and "to the boy".
An adjunct is a linguistic expression that provides more information, but it is not necessary for the sentence to be grammatical. For instance, with the sentence "I slept in my bed" the PP "in my bed" is not necessary, it can be moved around, and there could even be additional ones.
What is the syntactic category of the underlined linguistic expression?
Allison sent the letter to her best friend in the morning.
PP = prepositional phrase, since it starts with the P "in" and is combined with a NP "the morning"