Syntactic Analysis E-Book

Nicholas Sobin

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 246

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Highly readable and eminently practical, Syntactic Analysis: The Basics focuses on bringing students with little background in linguistics up to speed on how modern syntactic analysis works.

• A succinct and practical introduction to understanding sentence structure, ideal for students who need to get up to speed on key concepts in the field
• Introduces readers to the central terms and concepts in syntax
• Offers a hands-on approach to understanding and performing syntactic analysis and introduces students to linguistic argumentation
• Includes numerous problem sets, helpfully graded for difficulty, with model answers provided at critical points
• Prepares readers for more advanced work with syntactic systems and syntactic analyses

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Praise for Syntactic Analysis

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introductory Notes and References

Introduction

Purpose

Chapter Notes

References

Chapter 1: Doing Science with Language: Introductory Concepts

1.1 What is Scientific Inquiry?

1.2 The Science of Language – Linguistics

1.3 The Cognitive Revolution

Summary Points of This Chapter

Chapter 2: The Structure and Classification of Words

2.1 The Problem of Word Classification

2.2 The “Traditional” Approach

2.3 Form and Position

2.4 Morphemes

2.5 Affix Types

2.6 Affixes at Work: Word Formation

2.7 Adding Inflections

2.8 Inflectional Verb Affixes and Meaning

2.9 Final Remarks

Summary Points of This Chapter

Supplementary Notes and Problems

Chapter 3: Determining the Structure of Sentences

3.1 Evidence for Phrase Structure

3.2 Hierarchic Sentence Structure

Summary Points of This Chapter

Problems

Chapter 4: Rules of Sentence Structure: A First Approximation

4.1 Phrase Structure Grammar

4.2 Infinity and Recursion

4.3 A Theory of Modification and Structural Ambiguity

4.4 Other Instances of Recursion

4.5 Some Summary Terms

Summary Points of this Chapter

Supplementary Notes and Problems

Problems

Chapter 5: Assigning Meaning in Sentences

5.1 Grammatical Function and Sentence Meaning

5.2 Theta Roles and Argument Structure

5.3 An Overgeneration Problem Solved

Summary Points of This Chapter

Problems

Chapter 6: Some Category-Neutral Processes

6.1 Coordination

6.2 Proform Insertion

Summary Points of This Chapter

Problems

Chapter 7: How Structure Affects Pronoun Reference

7.1 Negative Polarity Items (NPIs)

7.2 Co-reference Relations/Binding Theory

7.3 Acquiring the Binding Principles

Summary Points of This Chapter

Problems

Chapter 8: Complex Verb Forms

8.1 Auxiliary Verbs and Recursive VP

8.2 Verb Form

8.3 Summary and Consequences

Summary Points of This Chapter

Problems

Chapter 9: Real vs. Apparent Sentence Structure

9.1 Yes/No Questions and Tense

9.2 Negation

9.3 V-to-T Movement

9.4 Two Arguments for a “Zero” Tense Suffix

9.5 A Summary of the System of Syntax

Summary Points of This Chapter

Problems

Chapter 10: Generalizing Syntactic Rules

10.1 The N System

10.2 The V System

10.3 The Aj System and the P System

10.4 Category-Neutral Rules

Summary Points of This Chapter

Problems

Chapter 11: Functional Categories

11.1 C as an X-bar Category

11.2 The X-bar Treatment of T and S

11.3 Order within X-bar Architecture

11.4 A General X-bar Syntax

Summary Points of This Chapter

Problems

Chapter 12: Questions, Relative Clauses, and WH Movement

12.1 Why Movement?

12.2 Puzzles Presented by WHQs

WH Movement

12.4 Relative Clauses

12.5 Long Movement and WH Islands

12.6 Final Remarks

Summary Points of This Chapter

Problems

Chapter 13: NP Movement

13.1 VP-Internal Subjects

13.2 Passive Sentences I: Apparent Problems

13.3 A Sketch of Case

13.4 Passive Sentences II: An Analysis

13.5 Subject-to-Subject Raising

13.6 Summary Remarks

Summary Grammar

Summary Points of This Chapter

Problems

Chapter 14: Things to Come: Various Aspects of “Current Theory”

14.1 Unaccusative Verbs

14.2 VP Shells and Verb Raising

14.3 DP vs. NP

14.4 Conclusion

Appendix 1: Minor Grammatical Categories

Appendix 2: Argument Structures

Index

Praise for Syntactic Analysis

“An excellent, original introduction, which treats linguistics as a science and language as an object of rigorous inquiry. Sobin succeeds in making the material user-friendly without simplification, and in engaging the reader in formulating and testing hypotheses about linguistic structures. A welcome addition to the growing body of books on the nature of linguistic inquiry and analysis..”

Maria Polinsky, Harvard

“This book is a breath of fresh air. Any reader who wants an accessible introduction to what has been blowing in the wind will do no better than begin here.”

Samuel Jay Keyser, MIT

“Syntactic Analysis is unusual among the introductory syntax texts on offer: it is more concise than most of them, yet covers an astounding number of topics in depth and detail. This should be the perfect introductory syntax text for upper-class linguistics majors and minors, and forMAstudents in linguisticsan audience for whom most existing texts may be too detailed and cumbersome. The exercises make this book particularly valuable

“Jaklin Kornfilt, Syracuse University

This edition first published 2011

©2011 Nicholas Sobin

Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell's publishing program has been merged with Wiley's global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sobin, Nicholas.

Syntactic analysis / Nicholas Sobin.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4443-3895-9 (alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4443-3507-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Grammar, Comparative and general–Syntax. 2. Linguistic analysis (Linguistics) I. Title.

P291.S546 2010

415–dc22

2010029414

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to a great many people for quite a variety of contributions which directly or indirectly, short-term or long-term, influenced the creation of this book. Central among these are Jon Amastae, Emmon Bach, C. L. Baker, Bob Borsley, Noam Chomsky, Ellen Courtney, Michel DeGraff, Joyce Fleur, Robert T. Harms, C.-T. James Huang, Sabine Iatridou, Yuki Ike-uchi, Lauri Karttunen, S. Jay Keyser, Jaklin Kornfilt, Susumu Kuno, Howard Lasnik, Marvin Loflin, Howell McCullough, David Pesetsky, Stan Peters, Masha Polinsky, Andy Rogers, Carlota S. Smith, and Arnold Zwicky. I also owe a huge debt of thanks to the many linguistics students at Texas, Pan American, Iowa, UALR, University of Wales-Bangor, and UTEP whom it has been my privilege to work with over the years.

Many thanks also to the Department of Linguistics at Harvard University and the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT each for hosting me as a Visiting Scholar on a number of occasions. My life in linguistics has been much richer for these experiences.

I'd like to offer special thanks to the editors at Wiley-Blackwell Danielle Descoteaux, Julia Kirk, and Anna Oxbury for their consistent encouragement and professional guidance on this project.

To my parents Edith and Ray, and my sisters Sue and Tina, my thanks for all their support in my (and our) academic endeavors. None of us would be where we are without it.

This work is dedicated to AnneMarie Sobin, gardener, fiction writer, and bricklayer, with thanks for the use of her superb copy editing skills, and for encouraging and supporting nearly everything I've wanted to attempt, some of which actually worked.

Abbreviations

-øpres“zero” present tense verb suffixA (movement)(movementto)(movement to) an argument positionA′ (movement)(movement to) a non-argument positionA-positionan argument positionA′-positiona non-argument position (e.g. Spec)aceaccusative caseAHAffix HoppingAjadjectiveAjPadjective phraseArgargumentAuxauxiliary verbAvadverbAvPadverb phraseCcomplementizer (functional head)c-commandconstituent commandCatsyntactic categoryCHLcomputational system for human language (the subconscious grammar)Compcomplementizer (early characterization)ConjconjunctionCPcomplementized phraseDdeterminer (article)DPdeterminer phraseD-strdeep structure-edpst“past tense” verb suffix-ed/enpstprt“past participle” verb suffix-ercompr“comparative” adjective or adverb suffix-estsprl“superlative” adjective or adverb suffixexperthe theta role “experiencer”FCHfunctional category hypothesisfinfiniteGFgrammatical function-ingpresprt“present participle” verb suffixinfininfinitivalIntintensifierMmodal verbNnounN′N-barNegnegative (functional head)NegPnegative phrasenomnominative caseNPnoun phraseNPInegative polarity itemPprepositionPossPpossessive phrasePPprepositional phraseProAjPpro-adjective phraseProN′pro-N-barProNPpro-noun phraseProPPpro-prepositional phraseProVpro-V-barProVPpro-verb phraseProXPvariable ranging over proformsPS (grammar)phrase structure (grammar)Quanquantifier (in VP)[−Q]declarative feature on C[+Q]interrogative feature on C triggering T-to-CR-expressionreferring expressionSsentenceSAISubject-Auxiliary Inversionspecspecifier-spl“plural” noun suffix-spres-3rd-sg“third-person singular present tense” verb suffixS-strsurface structureTtense (functional head)TPtense phraseT-to-C (Movement)tense-to-complementizer (movement)UGUniversal GrammarVverbV′V-barVPverb phraseV-to-T (Movement)verb-to-tense (movement)WH movementmovement of a wh phrase to SpecCPWHQwh question, a question containing a wh phraseXvariable ranging over any syntactic categoryXPvariable ranging over any phrasal categoryYNQyes/no question

Introductory Notes and References

Introduction

What is going on in the mind of a three-year-old? A young human child, who can't yet learn to add 2 and 2 or to tie its shoe, is putting together in her/his head the grammar of the surrounding language. This is an astounding feat, as evidenced in part by the fact that linguists (scientists who study language) have yet to fully understand how any such grammatical system works or precisely what it contains. By around the age of 5, this child will possess a very sophisticated adult-compatible version of the language. This fact is tacitly recognized in many cultures that only let children begin formal schooling at around that age. The main requirement for such schooling is that the child be able to speak the language well enough to talk to and understand an adult stranger, namely the teacher. So around the age of 3, children are in the midst of developing the grammar of their language (or languages, in multilingual settings).