Basic Sentence Structure Structure Flat structure Head of phrase (1)

Basic Sentence Structure
NP
D Adj N
the old song
class 3: phrases
28/04/2004
Heike Zinsmeister
Flat structure
problems
does not model phrase-internal constituent
structure
why NP? What about AdjP? What about DP?
Structure
(1) He liked the old songs.
What is the structure of 'the old songs'?
Question formation
(a) [What] did he like?
Substitution
(b) He liked the [ones]
(c) He liked the old [ones]
Deletion
(d) He liked the [ - ] songs
Coordination
(e) He liked the old [[songs] and [stories]]
(f) He liked the [[old] and [trashy]] songs
Head of phrase (1)
category of phrase is determined by head
head = most important word of phrase
definition (van Gelderen)
only lexical categories function as heads and
project phrases
grammatical lexical
D N
Aux V
C Adj
... Adv
... P (table to be modified!)

Head of phrase (2)
(1) He liked the old songs.
Head of phrase?
lexical category: old/Adj, songs/N
Most important word?
intuition?
test: deletion (does not always work)
(a) He liked the old.
generic: 'old people'
(b) He liked the songs.
songs/N is the head of the phrase
old/Adj is the head of an embedded phrase
Constituents and phrases
constituents (preliminary description)
intuitively formed groups of words
phrases
well-defined linguistic constructs
XP phrase
... / | \ ...
X' intermediate level (optional)
... / | \ ...
X head (category determines type of phrase)
constituent phrasal level
[ NP the old songs] noun phrase
(the) [ N' old songs] noun-bar
NP
D N'
Hierarchical structure
the AdjP N
Adj songs
old
Brackets and tree structures
tree structures correspond to nested
brackets
[ NP the [ N' [ AdjP old ] song]]
D Adj N
[ NP [ D the] [ N' [ AdjP [ Adj old]] [ N song]]]

Tree structures
also: trees, tree diagrams, or phrase
markers
construction
top-down
bottom-up
nodes
root node (top node)
terminal nodes, 'leaves'
non-terminal nodes
branches
unary branching, binary branching, ternary ...
underspecified subtree
triangle, 'coat-hanger', 'clothes-hanger'
Relations - precedence
a node X precedes a node Y if X occurs to
the left of Y
X immediately precedes Y if
(a) X precedes Y, and
(b) there is no node Z that precedes Y and is
preceded by X
Relations - dominance
A node X dominates a node Y in a tree
diagram if we can trace a downward path
from X to Y along the branches of the tree.
X immediately dominates Y if
(a) X dominates Y, and
(b) there is no node Z that dominates Y and is
dominated by X
i.e., if we go down only one step
Relative nodes
mother node of node X?
the node that immediately dominates X
daughter node(s) of node X?
node(s) that is/are immediately dominated by X
sister node(s) of X?
X and its sisters share the same mother node,
i.e., they are immediately dominated by the same
node

Example - tree
NP 1 (Note: the indicies are just labels to
D N' 1
this
AdjP N' 2
(D)Adv Adj N 1
distinguish the nodes)
PP
very spicy dish P NP 2
from N 2
India
Example - relations (1)
(1) Does NP dominate (D)Adv?
1
> yes
(2) Does D dominate (D)Adv? > no
(3) Does AdjP dominate (D)Adv? > yes
(4) Does N' dominate (D)Adv?
1
> yes
(5) Does NP dominate NP
1 2
> yes
(6) Does D precede N' ?
1
> yes (even immediately,
see next slide!)
(7) Does NP precede NP ?
1 2
> no
(8) Does AdjP immediately precede N /N ? > yes/no
1 2
(9) Does D precede (D)Adv? > yes (even immediately)
(10) Does (D)Adv immediately precede P? > no
Constituency (formal definition)
constituent of X
Y is a constituent of X iff (if and only if) X
dominates Y
immediate constituent of X
Y is an immediate constituent of X iff X
immediately dominates Y
constituent A
A set of nodes N form a constituent A, if A
dominates all and only the nodes of A
(based on Aarts 2001: 64f.)

Noun phrase NP (1)
see e.g. slide 'example – tree'
build around a noun
head of NP = N, like dish
additional elements
determiner D, like the
adjective phrases AdjP, like spicy
prepositional phrases PP, like from India
relative clauses (will be discussed later)
(a) [The [child [who knows the answer]]] will win
other clauses (will be discussed later)
(b)[The [fact [that he won]]] was surprising
Noun phrase NP (3)
additional elements (cont.)
apposition (= post nominal modification; i.e.
functional term)
(a) Anna, [my best friend], was here last night
(b) Anna was here last night
(c) My best friend was here last night
(d) Anna, who is my best friend, was here last night
(e) My friend [Anna] was here last night
Noun phrase NP (2)
substitution by various types of pronouns,
e.g. she, he, it, who, what, this, those, any
none, either, all, one/some, ...
(Quirk et al. 1985:§12.10)
exceptional: one/ones substitutes
N'-constituents
(Quirk et al. 1985: §12.15-16)
(a) Have you any knives? I can get you sharp ones
Different noun classes
common nouns
the girl, green tomatoes (countable)
blue water, white flour (non-countable, mass noun)
pronouns
*the she, *green those
proper nouns
*the London, *the Cathy
a tired student, *the tired Cathy
van Gelderen: full phrases (no N head)
NP NP
she Cathy

Proper nouns (1)
(1) Would all the Janets in the room please raise their
hands? (Aarts 2001: 30)
(2) No John Smiths attended the meeting.
(3) This John Smith lives in Brookline.
(4) Greta knows thirteen John Smiths.
(5) I have never met a John Smith.
(6) John Smiths almost never have unlisted telephone
numbers. (Baker 1995: 165f.)
used as if it were a common noun (e.g. 'a
person named John Smith')
Proper nouns (3)
what about the structure then?
proper nouns
typically stand alone (like mass common nouns
and plurals)
typically refer to specific persons, locations,
objects, events etc.
we keep things simple and follow van
Gelderen
proper nouns are (normally) simplex NPs
Proper nouns (2)
(1) Jack works for an Adolf Hitler.
(2) The president of the company doubts that he will
be able to hire any Einsteins. (Baker 1995: 166)
(3) He's not the Jack I used to know.
(Aarts 2001: 30)
proper noun does not refer to certain
person with a given name
instead, it predicates a set of properties
(related to the (in)famous or familiar person
with the given name) on someone
Names
proper noun = single word
name = complex structure, but grammatical
unit
examples
(a) John Smith
(b) Miss Marple
(c) Mr John Smith
(d) Professor Dr Artemis Alexiadou
(e) King's College
(f) the British Broadcasting Corporation (the BBC)
keep things simple:
names = underspecified (flat) NPs

Noun Compounds - revised
revision of last week's slide
noun compounds (normally) behave as
syntactic units
even productive multi-word items will
receive a flat simplex analysis
(a) [ N wrist watch]
(b) [ N bomb alert]
Why? compare
(c) [ N [ Adj rocking] [ N chair]] (v.Gelderen: N'-analysis)
-> complex morphology but syntactic unit
Adjective phrase AdjP (2)
van Gelderen: degree Adverbs (D)Adv =
grammatical category no phrasal proj.
can be substituted by so
can follow seem
prices seem reasonably stable and will probably
remain so
AdjP
AdvP Adj
Adv stable
reasonably
Adjective phrase AdjP (1)
e.g. very spicy
build around an adjective
head of AdjP = Adj, like spicy
additional elements
degree adverbs (D)Adv, like very
prepositional phrases PP
(a) She is [proud [of her son]]
clauses (will be discussed later)
(b) She is [happy [to be here]]
Adverb phrase AdvP (1)
e.g. very quickly
build around an adverb
head of AdvP = Adv, like quickly
additional elements
degree adverbs (D)Adv
van Gelderen: degree adverbs (D)Adv =
grammatical category no phrasal
projection
no good substitution test

Adverb phrase AdvP (2)
AdvP
(D)Adv Adv
very quickly
Verb phrase (2)
VP VP
V NP V AdjP
wrote D N seems (D)Adv Adj
the letter
VP very small
V PP
was P NP
in D N
the garden
Verb phrase VP (1)
build around a verb
head of VP = verb
additional elements
obligatory vs. optional argument vs. adjunct
noun phrases
adjective phrases
adverb phrases
prepositional phrases
auxiliaries
clauses (to be discussed later)
substitution by do so
(a) he wrote a letter, and she did so too
Prepositional phrase PP
additional elements
noun phrases NPs
(D)Adv like just, directly, close
can be substituted by e.g. then, there, ...
build around a preposition
head of PP = P
PP
(D)Adv P'
all P NP
over the place

NP
Coordination of phrases (1)
phrases and categories can be coordinated
as long as they are of the same kind.
(van Gelderen 2002:41)
(a) [She] and [her little brother] came in.
(b) The dog went [under] and [over] the fence
(c) I [read books] and [listened to music]
(d) *I read [a book] and [to Janet]
Coordination of phrases (3)
alternative: hierarchical structure
NP
N and NP
books N
magazines
(a) I read books yesterday [and magazines
discussing political issues]
Coordination of phrases (2)
structure is controversial
van Gelderen: flat structure
example:
(a) Books and magazines sell easily
NP
NP Coord NP
N and N
books magazines
lexical vs. grammatical
categories (revised)
definition (van Gelderen)
only lexical categories function as heads and
project phrases
grammatical lexical
D N
Aux V
C Adj
(D)Adv Adv
Coord P
S

Today's key terms
phrases (NP, VP, AdjP, AdvP, and PP)
head of phrase
flat vs. hierarchical structure
tree diagram
relations in tree diagrams
dominance
precedence
constituency (formal definition)
substitution
coordination
Assignment 3: due 10/5/04
1. The phrase presented in the 'example-tree' on the
handout is structurally ambiguous. Give evidence for
this and draw the alternative structure.
2. Analyse the structure of the following phrases. Give
both labelled bracketing and tree structures.
(a) all the famous old songs
(b) one of those pages
(c) a lot of books
(d) Peter's house in Geneva
(e) the students' assignments on phrases
(f) She seems very foolish about money
(g) The baby seemed very tired and somewhat
cross
References
Gelderen, E. van. 2002. An introduction to the
Grammar of English: Syntactic Arguments and sociohistorical
background. Amsterdam/Philadelphia PA:
Benjamins: chapter 3
Tree structure:
Aarts, Bas. 2001. English Syntax and Argumentation.
Basingstoke/New York NY: Palgrave, Section 4.4,
pp. 63-67.
Further reading: proper nouns behaving as common
nouns:
Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech,
and Jan Svartvik. 1985. A comprehensive grammar
of the English language. London: Longman: § 5.60 -
5.64