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September12,2003
Phra Structure Rules
Structure within the NP 1Definitions
(1)a tree for‘the brown fox sings’
A
B
D the
E
F
brown
G
fox
C
sings
Linguistic trees have nodes.The nodes in(1)are A,B,C,D,E,F,and G.
There are two kinds of nodes:internal nodes and terminal nodes.The internal nodes in(1)are A,B,and E.The terminal nodes are C,D,F,and G.Terminal nodes are so called becau they are not expanded into anything further.The tree ends there.
Terminal nodes are also called leaf nodes.The leaves of(1)are really the words that constitute the ntence‘the brown fox sings’i.e.‘the’,‘brown’,‘fox’,and‘sings’.
(2) a.A t of nodes form a constituent iff they are exhaustively dominated by a common
node.
b.X is a constituent of Y iff X is dominated by Y.
c.X is an immediate constituent of Y iff X is immediately dominated by Y.
Notions such as subject,object,prepositional object etc.can be defined structurally.So a subject is the NP immediately dominated by S and an object is an NP immediately dominated by VP etc.
(3) a.If a node X immediately dominates a node Y,then X is the mother of Y,and Y is the
布达佩斯之恋下载daughter of X.
b.A t of nodes are sisters if they are all immediately dominated by the same(mother)
node.
We can now define a host of relationships on trees-grandmother,granddaughter,descendant, ancestor etc.
Another important relationship that is defined in purely structural terms is c-command.
(4)A c-commands B if and only if A does not dominate B and the node that immediately
dominates A dominates B.
免费韩语在线学习c-command is ud in the formulation of Condition C,a principle ud to determine what a pro-noun may not refer to.
C ONDITION C
(5)A pronoun cannot refer to a proper name it c-commands.
Note that Condition C is a negative condition.It never tells you what a particular pronoun must refer to.It only tells you what it cannot refer to.
In general,if a pronoun cannot refer to a proper name(despite agreeing in gender and number), you can conclude that the pronoun c-commands the proper name.
The N O C ROSSING B RANCHES C ONSTRAINT
(6)If one node X precedes another node Y,then all descendants of X must also precede Y and
all descendants of Y.
2How to grow trees
Where do the trees that we u to analyze linguistic structure come from?
In a way,they are just reprentations of facts that exist out in the world-the facts that we can discover using constituency test.So one way to make trees is by doing empirical work-taking a ntence,applying various constituency tests to the words in the ntence,and then drawing a tree bad on the results of our tests.
This empirical method is ultimately the only correct way to deduce‘tree structure’.However,in most cas,we can simplify things considerably by using Phra Structure Rules.
Phra Structure Rules are rules of the sort
X Y Z
This rule says‘take the node X and expand it into the nodes Y and Z’.Alternately,going from right to left(or from below),it says‘if you have a Y and a Z next to each other,you can combine them to make an X’.1
Phra structure rules can be ules that expand categories into other categories,or they can also be ules that expand category labels by word(lexical items).2
A grammar can then be thought of as a t of phra structure rules(categorial rules plus lexical rules).
The categorial rules can be thought of as(part of)the syntax and the lexical rules as(part of)the lexicon.
2.1Some Phra Structure Rules for English
(7)Categorial Rules
a.S NP Modal VP
b.VP V AP PP
c.AP ADVP A
d.ADVP ADV
e.PP P NP
f.NP D N
(8)Lexical Rules
a.N girl
b.N boy
c.Adv incredibly
d.A conceited
e.V em
f.Modal must
g.P to
h.D that
陌生人的英文
globaltimesi.D this
Some ntences the rules will generate:
(9) a.This boy must em incredibly conceited to that girl.
b.This boy must em incredibly conceited to this girl.
c.This boy must em incredibly conceited to that boy.
d.This boy must em incredibly conceited to this boy.
e.This girl must em incredibly conceited to that girl.
英语故事短文带翻译f.This girl must em incredibly conceited to this girl.
g.This girl must em incredibly conceited to that boy.
h.This girl must em incredibly conceited to this boy.
How many more ntences will the rules generate?
Optional constituents
How do we handle cas like:
(10)This boy must em incredibly stupid.
2.2Introducing infinity
We know that human languages can contain ntences of arbitrary length.Consider(11)which stands for an infinite number of ntences.
(11)He believes that he believes that he believes that he believes that he ate pizza.
So if all of human language is to be generated by a t of phra structure rules,the relevant t of phra structure rules should generate an infinite number of ntences.
How can that be done?
Let us try to analyze(11),starting with a more manageable(12).
(12)He believes that he ate pizza.
We start with the following categorial rules:
(13) a.S NP VP
b.VP V¯S
c.¯S COMP S
d.VP V NP
We need the following lexical rules:
(14) a.NP he
b.NP pizza
verticalalignmentc.V ate
d.V believes
eP that
Now we can generate(12).This is shown in(15). (15)
S
NP
he
VP
V
believes
¯S
COMP that
S
NP
he
VP
V
ate
NP
pizza
But is(12)all that the rules in(13)and(14)will generate?
How many ntences will(13)and(14)generate?
2.2.1Overgeneration
The rules in(13)and(14)will also generate ntences(e the structure below)like: (16)*He ate that he believes pizza.
S
NP
he
VP
V
ate
¯S
COMP
that
S
NP
he
VP
V believes
NP pizza
How can we constrain phra structure rules so that such overgeneration does not take place?
3Noun Phras
So far,we have en two kinds of categories:
word-level categories such as N,V,A,P etc.(somewhat imprecily,words)and
fraudphra-level categories such as NP,VP,AP,PP etc.(somewhat imprecily,quences of words which can‘stand on their own’).
We will now investigate if the two kinds of categories are all we need a third category which lies in between words and full phras.
Consider the following NP:
(17)the king of Englanddonaldtrump
We feel quite confident saying that‘the king of England’is an NP.What el can we say about its structure?
There ems to be a lot of evidence that of England is a PP.It can be co-ordinated,shared in shared constituent co-ordination.It can also function as a ntence fragment and be prepod.
(18) a.the king[of England]and[of the empire].(coordination)
b.He is the king,and she is the queen,[of England].(shared constituent coordination)
c.A:Was he the king of Livonia?
B:No,[of England].(ntence fragment)
d.[Of which country]was he the king?
At this point we have two options:
(19)
NP
