Analysing Syntax 1
Analysing Syntax 1. Lesson 8B. Sentences. Sentences, like the morphology of individual words, can be analysed using trees to illustrate their phrase structure In order to be able to analyse a sentence you need to understand the main grammatical categories. Grammatical categories.
Analysing Syntax 1
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Analysing Syntax 1 Lesson 8B
Sentences • Sentences, like the morphology of individual words, can be analysed using trees to illustrate their phrase structure • In order to be able to analyse a sentence you need to understand the main grammatical categories
Grammatical categories • Nouns (N) dog, cat, apple, park etc. • Determiners (Det.) a, the, this, that etc. • Verbs (V) walk, come, go • Adjectives (A) big, black, hairy etc. • Adverbs (Adv) quickly, slowly etc. • Pronouns (PRO) he, she etc. • Prepositions (P) in, on, under, over etc.
Categories and trees • Words have to be attached to their grammatical category dog the walks hairy park quickly in the N Det V A N Adv P Det
Putting words in order • words combine to form phrases • phrases combine to form sentences • What kind of phrases are there?
Types of phrase • Noun phrase • Verb phrase • Prepositional phrase • Adverb phrase • Adjective Phrase
Phrases • Each sentence contains a subject and a predicate the hairy dog walks quickly in the park • Syntactically these correspond to: a noun phrase and a verb phrase the hairy dog walks quickly in the park
The top of the tree • So the tree for any sentence (S) should start like this: • This means that every sentence is made up of a noun phrase and a verb phrase S NP VP
The bottom of the tree • What we need to do is to connect: the structure at the top of the tree TO the words of the sentence at the bottom of the tree the hairy dog walks quickly in the park S NP VP Det A N V Adv P Det N
Connecting top and bottom • You need to start at the bottom of the tree and build more phrases on to the categories. These phrases could be: • Noun phrases • Adverb phrases • Prepositional phrases • Adjective phrases
What about? • The dog ? • The park?
Noun phrase (NP) • A name is a noun and it attaches to a noun phrase Romeo NP N
A simple noun phrase (NP) • Determiner (Det.) + Noun (N) = Noun Phrase (NP) the dog the park NP NP Det N Det. N
Prepositional Phrase (PP) • Preposition + NP = Prepositional Phrase (PP) in + = the park in the park P PP NP P NP Det N Det N
Adverb Phrase (Adv.P) • When there is just one adverb, it attaches to an Adverb Phrase (Adv.P) quickly Adv.P Adv
Adjective Phrase (AP) • A single adjective attaches to an Adjective Phrase (AP) hairy AP A
More on adjectives • Adjectives are often found in sentences as modifiers of nouns: thehairydog modifier of noun • In this case they form part of a more complex noun phrase …
More complex noun phrases • … and they are analysed like this: the hairy dog NP AP Det N A
Inserting the phrases • The subject NP is easy to insert……………….……………… but the VP is more difficult the hairy dog walks quickly in the park S NP VP AP Det A N V Adv P Det N
First you attach the Verb the hairy dog walks quickly in the park S NP VP AP Det A N V Adv P Det N
Then you attach the AdvP the hairy dog walks quickly in the park S NP VP AP AdvP Det A N V Adv P Det N
Then you attach the PP the hairy dog walks quickly in the park S NP VP PP NP AP AdvP Det A N V Adv P Det N
What a complete tree looks like • a sentence divides into a noun phrase ……………….. and a verb phrase these attach to phrases or and categories categories attachto words the hairy dog walks quickly in the park S NP VP PP NP AP AdvP Det A N V Adv P Det N
How to analyse the syntactic structure of a simple sentence It’s a bit like decorating a Christmas tree: • Write S NP + VP at the top • Write the words of the sentence at the bottom • Write the categories above the words • Where necessary put the categories into phrase structures (NP, Adv,P, AP, PP) • Attach the phrase structures to the main NP and VP
Ambiguous sentences These sentences look the same but they have a different meaning • The man hit the intruder with a stick • The man hit the intruder with a wooden leg They should have a different syntactic structure. Where is the difference going to be
Disambiguating With a wooden leg and with a stick are both prepositional expressions BUT …… • with a wooden leg is about the intruder so it is attached to the noun • with a stick is about how he hit the intruder so it is attached to the verb
hit the intruder with a wooden leg attached to NP hit the intruder with a wooden leg Different structure hit the intruder with a stick attached to VP hit the intruder with a stick VP VP NP PP NP PP NP NP NP AP V D P D A N V D N P D N N
Juliet loves Romeo • Romeo loves Juliet S NP VP NP N V N
He loves carrots • He loves carrots S NP VP NP PRO V N
The lamb followed Mary • The lamb followed Mary S NP VP NP Det V N N
The cat killed the mouse • The cat killed the mouse S NP VP NP Det V N Det N
Jack killed the giant • Jack killed the giant S NP VP NP V N Det N
She solved the mystery • She solved the mystery S NP VP NP V PRO Det N
Beavers build dams • Beavers build dams S NP VP NP V N N
Beavers build dams • Beavers build dams S NP VP NP V N N