Weitere Files findest du auf www.semestra.ch/files
DIE FILES DÜRFEN NUR FÜR DEN EIGENEN GEBRAUCH BENUTZT WERDEN.
DAS COPYRIGHT LIEGT BEIM JEWEILIGEN AUTOR.
Introduction to Syntax and Semantics (SS05)
(page numbers refer to Watts’ script)
Syntax
Definition of Syntax (“arranged together“) p.1:
The totality of facts about the grammatical arrangement of the morphemes
- of a specific language, and/or
- of languages in general
and described and explained in accordance with a set of rules governing their
arrangement as words in sentences.
Earlier grammars of English: Phonology and Morphology are more important then
syntax.
Generative Grammar p.2:
Generative model=flexibel model
rules+element=unlimited number of utterances (=generative)  restricted set of rules
operate over a restricted set of word categories to produce an unrestricted set of
possible sentences.
is often referred to as the principles and parameters model.
Recursiveness of grammar p.3:
Endless loop
Keep introducing a symbol which has been already introduced before.
Crystal: Main formal means of accounting for creativity of language  infinite set of
sentences can be generated from a finite set of rules.
Aim of generative syntax: generate all and only the set of possible well-formed
sentences (Infinite) in a language and provide a structural description for these
sentences.
Chomsky: Universal Grammar (“genetic blueprint“) p.4:
All human garmmars must go back to certain principles, there is sth in your brain.
It contains the following stored elements:
- small set of conditions on what structures of a human language can be. E.g. The
cat sat on the mat. Did the cat sit on the mat? Sat the cat on the mat? Is ist that the
cat sat on the mat? (possible in human language). Create a new language: mat the
on sat cat the? (doesn’t work in human language, we have conditions).
- smal set of universal principles constraining those structuresa relatively small set
of parameters ranging over the principles.  certain languages have similar
methods=parameter and similar principles=rules.
Parameter setting p.4:
That a child will always use structure A2 instead of structure A1. Certain languages
set their parameters in a similar way (English and Danish).
Depending of the number of parameters we can define certain types of core
grammar for similar parameter settings.
Differences between similar languages: peripherial or language idiosyncratic
structures.
1
Child language acquisition p.5:
ALL children pass through the same stages of language acquisition.
Babbling: experimentation with phonetic elements
One-word stage: acquire individual lexemes (words) and refer these to objects,
produce phonetic sequences that mean sth.
Two-word stage: syntax emerges
Other stages include the pidginised stage: child produces longer strings with clear
word order but little or no inflection.
Full sentence stage: overgeneralised morphological inflections and the full sentence
stage with correct morphology and sentence embedding.
Store of words: lexicon.
Pivot words (central point, on which the rest of the sentence depends on, two-word
stage): the child must know which words remain stable in a possible structure.
Variables: words which can be fitted into vacant slots
Pivot words and Variables  ability to predicate states, processes, actions ect of
individual objects  beginning of categorising words into different types and add
syntactic structure. (babbelingsingle wordscombining words: syntax starts).
Crystal: Pivot words: theory from the 60ies, outdated
Chomsky: Phrase structures p.7:
Depend on UG and predication. E.g. allgone milk: the verb/predicate is the pivot.
BUT: milk allgone: the parameter is set differently predicate-argument word order.
XP: variable phrase, eg. Allgone milk (V, N) or milk allgone(N,V).
Topmost level=node
Crystal: sentence  NP + VP
VP  V + NP
NP  Determiner + N
Phrase contains more than one word. There is a structural hierarchy between clause
and verb.
Sequentiality p.8:
It expresses the insight that in terms of sound and in terms of written symbols, the
elements of language, phonemes, morphemes, words and sentences are arranged
as a sequence, i.e. one element follows another through time in space: a precedes b.
Crystal: observable succession of units in an utterance/text.
Hierarchy p.8:
It expresses the insight that phrase structures show the depth of language structure.
(XP is higher than N and V because N and V can appear in different order).
(wordslinking words togetherhigher structure).
Projection principle (part of generative linguistics) p.9:
Once a child has acquired a pivot word like allgone he knows that choosing to use
that word allows him to project simple phrasal structures like the ones given (allgone
milk/milk allgone).
Adult: Speaker produces language: use of the lexicon to project the syntax of the
language by expanding words into more complex phrases (lexicons overlap,
otherwise there wouldn’t be communication between people).
2
Syntactic categories p.10: VP, NP, AP, PP…
John met his girlfriend outside the cinema.
There is a hierarchy. John, his girlfriend and outside the cinema are the building
blocks. This sentence has 9 phrases. Each phrase has a head word (defines a
phrase) without which the phrase is no longer a phrase (NP, VP, PP...)
Complements (Ergänzung)p.11:
NPs projected by the verb are complements of the verb in that they complete the
sense of prediction.
Crystal: they are required by the head and are compulsory.
Different verbs project different number of complements:
Appear: a policeman appeared (one complement: a policeman)
Adore: Mary adores her pet dog. (2: Mary, her pet dog)
Give: they give him one last chance. (3: they, him, one last chance)
 compare: verb categorization (verb categories)
Modifiers (to the head of a phrase) (Bestimmungswort) p.11:
Modifiers are optional (freiwillig) and define the heads more closely.
Postmodifier: when a phrase modifies a head of another phrase it always appears
after the head.
Premodifier: when an adjective or an adverb modifies the head it always appears
before the head.
the dilapidated (premod.) old (premod.)
cinema (head)
on the
corner of High St (postmod.)
Specifiers (Anzeiger) p.12:
It indicates the type of head that has been projected by the speaker.
John met his girlfriend outside the cinema.
The and his function as the specifiers of the head noun. His=denotes type of noun as
one which can have a possessor. (In a question: where, what ect. specifies the
sentence as being interrogative).
Complements/Modifier/SpecifierFunctions in a phrase!
Depending on the context in which the utterance is made, these cognitive info sets
will be activated in different ways. Kinds of cognitive info: phonol., morphol.,
syntactic, semantic.
Subcategorisation p. 14 (frames) of verbs: e.g. run: V[NP, (NP)]  run can have
one or two complements: The burglar ran. / Max ran a great race. ( Verb
categories)
X-bar p. 15:
What did John do? 2 answers: meet his girlfriend outside the cinema / met his
girlfriend outside the cinema.  the inflectional morpheme (past tense, meet-met)
must occupy a level on its own.
In X-bar syntax a lexeme which is projected as a syntactic category will be
automatically be projected to a higher level X’ and this will be automatically be
projected to the phrasal level XP. The X level is called a minimal projection p. 16
(most detailed) and the XP level is called a maximal projection (3-fach Projektion).
(the maximal projection contains the minimal projection, e.g. John  N  N’ NP).
V’ or N’: ’ = V or N + sth.
3
Tense p.17:
Posit the head of a sentece = tense  represent the morpheme (past tense)
seperate from the verb to which it is attached. T is higher than VP, the whole
structure = TP. A tensed sentence is a finite ( Finitness) sentence, a verb without
tense is a non-finite form.
Crystal: Finite verbs can occur on it’s own.
Deep structure p.19:
Lies at a deeper level of knowledge and is closer to the principles of the UG.
(Tree: John meet (past) his girlfriend outside the cinema.)
Questions have the structure of sentences: John did meet who outside the cinema.
Surface structure p.19:
This is the structure that a native speaker will use when they produce real utterances.
(Tree: John met his girlfriend outside the cinema. t = trace under V, t gibt deep
structure an).
Question-structure: Who did John meet outside the cinema.
Relationship between DS and SS: movement transformation (p.19). From DS to
SS, we moved the verb meet from its position under the V to its surface position
under the T. We only imagine that it takes place, it doesn’t really happen.
Movement from DS to SS there must be an empty position (landing site) p.19 it
can move into. Symbolised by the letter e.
Having left his original position in the DS, the element which has been moved leaves
a trace = t in the DS, p.19.
Complementiser p. 20: Nebensätze CP
NP: the statement that taxes were to go up
How are we going to represent this structure? We need a higher level of structure
than TP.
The function of the word that: it signals that the sentence to follow is a complement to
the noun statement.
The TP which follows that is finite (has a tensed verb) and is embedded into the
NP embedded sentence.
Complementisers: is a head of a CP. E.g. because, that, until, although, before ect.
Matrix sentence p. 21: Hauptsatz (kann auch Nebensatz enthalten)
Sentences that are not embedded. E.g. John met his girlfriend outside the cinema.
Auxiliaries (modal, progressive, auxiliary) p.24:
Modal:
may (might), can (could), will (would), shall (should), must
Partly modal,
Partly full
need, dare, ought
Progressive:
be
Complement: VP –ing
Perfect:
have
Complement: VP –ed
Lexeme/Lexical Item p. 4:
When a speaker produces language, he uses that lexicon to project the syntax of the
language used by expanding words into more complex phrases.
4
Crystal: to refer to a minimal distinctive unit in the semantic system of a language,
the abstract unit underlying such sets of grammatical variants as walk, walks,
walking, walked or big, bigger, biggest. Conventionally listed in dictionaries as
separate entries.
Adjunct:
Crystal: „Refers to an optional or secondary element in a construction: an adjunct
may be removed without the structural identity of the rest of the construction being
affected.“
E.g. Adverbials: John kicked the ball yesterday instead of John kicked the ball, but
not *John kicked yesterday.
Many adjuncts can also be analysed as modifiers, attached to the head of a phrase
(e.g. adjectives)
Watts: So, on Tuesday, who did you see in town?
 So: DISCOURSE MARKER (creates links with other utterances in the discourse); on
Tuesday: adjunct.
Discourse Marker:
you know, I mean, you see, I think etc.
Verb Categories (Handout 6):
Monotransitive (Trans):
Subject
Vgrp
Intransitive (Intrans):
Subject
Vgrp
Ditransitive (Ditrans):
Subject
Vgrp
Intensive (Intens):
Subject
Vgrp
Complex Transitive (Complex):
Subject
Vgrp
Prepositional (Prep):
Subject
Vgrp
Direct Object
Indirect Object
Direct Object
Subject-Predicative
Direct Object
Object-Predicative
Prepositional Complement
5
Semantics
Meaning:
Definition of semantics:
Crystal: Study of meaning in language. Study of the semantic properties of natural
languages.
Semantik im Deutschen: Bedeutung von sprachlichen Ausdrücken. Sprachlicher
Ausdruck: sprachliche Einheit (Laute, Silben, Wörter, Phrasen, Sätze)
Sense – Reference:
Reference
tree (lexical item)  has reference 
real tree: referent
«Reference / denotation is seen as extralinguistic – the entities, states of affairs, etc.
in the external world which a linguistic expression stands for.» (Crystal)
If two items refer to the same referent, they are coreferential: The red brick and the
first brick from the right. These two expressions have the same referent but not the
same meaning.
Sense
Sense refers to the system of linguistic relationships which a lexical item contracts
with other lexical items: green tree, blue tree: same reference but different sense.
Connotation – Denotation (O’Grady p.273):
Connotation stands for the set of associations that a word’s use can evoke.
e.g.: for people from Northern Europe, Russia or Canada, the word winter evokes
thoughts of snow, bitter cold, short days etc. However, winter can still be used of the
time period between December and March even if none of these things is present
(e.g. when you spend this period of time in Morocco or Australia).
Denotation
In general a denotation is a semantic attempt to equate the meaning of a word or
phrase with the entities which it refers to, in other words, a word’s denotation is
clearly connected to it’s meaning.
E.g.: the denotation of the word winter for example, corresponds to the season
between autumn and spring (no matter whether it is cold or snowing).
However, some problems can arise when words don’t have a referent in the real
worlds (unicorn, king of Germany etc.) or when two different expressions have the
same referent (the prime minister is the leader of the Conservative Party). In the first
case the word’s denotation and it’s meaning cannot be one and the same thing,
because they don’t exist in the real world and in the second case it is simply wrong to
say that the two expressions mean the same thing, although they may have the
same referent.
Emotive, affective, evaluative, meaning:
Emotive meaning: attitudes and feelings associated with the use of a word, phrase,
or sentence, in contrast with its literal significance. It expresses or evokes feelings.
For example, the words murder and homicide express the same thing, but have
different emotive meanings. The term affective meaning is used, as far as I have
seen, synonymous.
6
Evaluative meaning: expresses the speaker's attitude toward what is being said.
Cognitive meaning: expresses true statements without evoking or expressing
feelings.
The compositionality of meaning:
Crystal: Composition (-al(-ity): hierarchical model of linguistic structure in which lager
units are seen as being ‘composed’ of smaller units.
Watts p. 10: Levels of meaning 1. word-level 2. phrase-level 3. sentencial-meaning.
Compositionality: it, ambiguity, different peopledifferent associations, some
sentences have to be taken as a whole to get the meaning. E.g. (1) It’s sowing again.
It: doesn’t mean anything, it’s there to make it a sentence. Snowing: weather word,
has no argument. (2) How do you do? Syntactic structure, greeting. (3) Have another
cup of tea. It’s not what it seems to be (an imperative), it’s an offer: Would you…?
Ambiguity:
«The general sense of this term, referring to a word or sentence which expresses
more than one meaning.» (Crystal)
Grammatical / structural ambiguity.
E.g. New houses and shops.
Meaning 1: New houses and new shops.
Meaning 2: [New houses] and shops.
An analysis which demonstrates the ambiguity in the sentence is said to
disambiguate the sentence.
Lexical ambiguity
Both polysemy and homonymy create lexical ambiguity. One single lexical form
has two ore more meanings.
Linguistic meaning – speaker meaning:
“It’s cold in here!”
statement
statement
suggestion (to close the window)
complaint
Lexical meaning – sentence meaning:
The meaning of a phrase or sentence depends both on the meaning of its words (the
lexical meaning) and how those words are combined structurally.
For example:
The words with the lexical meanings "John" "Mary" "loves" can be
combined to sentences with the meaning "John loves Mary" or "Mary
loves John".
Lexical Semantics:
Semantic (or lexical) field:
Crystal: developed in the 30ies. Vocabulary is not just a listing of independent items
but organized into areas (fields), within which words interrelate and define each other
in various ways.
7
Watts p. 3: E.g. colours: the precise meaning it can be only understood by placing it
in relation to the other terms which occur with it in the colour spectrum.
If X, Y and Z are members of the set W, then they are in the lexical or semantic field.
Lexical features / componential analysis / semantic feature matrix:
Crystal on feature: In Generative grammatical analysis, the term has come to be
associated with the way in which words are classified in the lexicon in terms of their
grammatical properties, such as [animate], [common], [masculine], [countable]. Such
features are usually considered to be binary as were phonological features, and
analysed as [+animate], [-animate] etc.
Componential analysis
„Componential analysis is a semantic theory which has developed from a technique
for the analysis of kinship vocabulary devised by American anthropologists in the
1950s. It claims that all lexical items can be analysed using a finite set of
components (or semantic features), which may, it is felt, be universal. Certainly,
several sets of lexical items exist to show the strengths of the approach. E.g. the
correspondences between man/woman can be stated in terms of [+male] vs. [-male]
or [-female] vs. [+female].“ (Crystal)
Componential analysis is also found in a general sense in linguistics, referring to any
approach which analyses linguistic units into components (in phonology, grammar,
semantics).
Componential analysis can also be used to analyse verb meaning.
E.g. go
• Positional (John walked from London to Edinburgh)
• Possessional (The inheritance went to Mary)
• Identificational (Max went from being a rational gentleman to being a stark
raving maniac)
Componential analysis is most useful for uncovering and representing similarities
among semantically related words.
Semantic feature matrix:
See Watts p. 3: Chart
Sense relations:
Crystal: sense relations are correspondences between lexical items of similar,
opposed etc., meanings.
Palmer: „sense“ relations are relations between words that are of semi-logical kind.
Symmetric relations:
A relation is symmetric when it holds for the argument in both directions.
e.g.: if John is married to Janet, Janet is married to John.
Transitive relations:
A relation is transitive if, for three arguments (x, y and z). The relation that holds both
for x & y and y & z, also holds for x & z.
e.g.: when Anna is below Cindy and Cindy is below Mary, Anna is also below Mary.
• (in front, behind, north, south, above, beside etc. work as well)
• transitive ≠ transitivity
Reflexive relations:
A relation is reflexive it relates an argument to itself (resemble or equal).
e.g.: Anton resembles himself. / 5 equals 5.
8
• At the same time, these words are also transitive and symmetrical.
Asymmetric, intransitive, irreflexive relations:
A relation is asymmetric, intransitive or irreflexive when it is none of the above. A
good example that stands for all three of them is: mother of.
(1) x is the mother of y. As follows y cannot be the mother of x.
(2) if y is the mother of z, x cannot be the mother of z.
(3) x cannot be the mother of x.
•
Important:
a relation that is not symmetric, transitive or reflexive is not necessarily
asymmetric, intransitive or irreflexive.
e.g.: to like
i. If x likes z, z doesn’t necessarily like x.
ii. If y likes z, x doesn’t necessarily like z too
iii. X may(or may not) like x.
Semantic entailment/inclusion, p.4:
A word entails its supernym, but a supernym does not entail a hyponym of itself.
For example:
Dog entails animal, but does not entail Labrador.
Hyponym – co-hyponyms – supernym:
Hyponymy:
“A hyponym is a word whose extension is included within that of another word.”
Hyponymy is the relationship between specific and general lexical items, such that
the former is “included” in the latter. The more specific lexeme is the hyponym of the
general one, the superordinate or the supernym (Crystal: hypernym/hyperonym).
Two hyponyms of a shared supernym are co-hyponyms.
E.g.
supernym / superordinate
instrument
flute
clarinet
trumpet
co-hyponyms
immediate hyponym of clarinet
bass clarinet
Note: In the example above flute, clarinet, trumpet and bass clarinet are all cohyponyms of instrument. Bass clarinet is called immediate hyponym of clarinet.
A term which is a hyponym of itself, in that the same lexical item can operate at both
superordinate and subordinate levels, is an autohyponym.
dog
dog: autohyponym
dog
bitch
puppy
9
Synonyms – antonyms:
Synonyms: Crystal: sense relation between lexical items. Have the same meaning,
not identically but interchangeable in all contexts. The context is important in deciding
whether a set of lexical items is synonymous.
Palmer p. 89ff.: 1. Some sets of synonyms belong to a different dialect of a language
(fall – autumn). 2. The words that are used in different style/register (pass away, die,
pop off). 3. Words may differ in emotive and evaluate meaning, not in their cognitive
(liberty – freedom). 4. Words which are collocationally restricted (rancid butter,
addled eggs). 5. Many words are close in meaning/overlap, a loose sense of
synonymy (loose – free, relaxed, unbound…).
Antonyms: Crystal: oppsiteness of meaning.
Palmer p. 94: Antonymy is regular and very natural feature of language and can be
defined fairly precisely. There are different kinds of ‘oppositeness’ (see the next Key
Concepts).
Gradable vs non-gradable antonyms:
Graded antonyms, degree of difference (big – small). Ungraded antonyms, where
there is an either/or contrast (single – married).
Palmer p. 94ff: Explicitly graded: -er or more, morphological (Bill is taller than Jill).
Implicitly graded: unmarked form is the usual. (How old are you? NOT: How young
are you?  here it is implicit that you mean the opposite).
Complementary antonyms / relational opposites (converse lexemes):
Complementary antonyms: If X and Z are co-hyponyms (eg. cat and dog) and not
X=Z and not Z=X, then Z and X are complementary. If X and Z are antonyms of each
other, then they are complementary antonyms (eg. awake and asleep).
Relational opposites: If two sentences are paraphrases of one another and contain
the co-hyponyms X and Z, then X and Z are converse lexemes or stand in relational
opposition.
For example:
The table is below the lamp.
The lamp is above the table.
Polysemy / homonyms – homographs – homophones:
Polysemy occurs where a word has two or more related meanings. Due to the
relatedness between the meanings, dictionaries treat polysemous words, unlike
homonyms, as one word in one entry.
E.g. “bright”  shining / intelligent.
“a deposit”  minerals in the earth / money in the bank.
Homonymy:
Homonyms are two words have the same phonological form but different meanings.
Homonyms are two separate words that happen to have the same spelling and
pronunciation. They stand in no further relation to each other. Two homonyms are
given two separate entries in the dictionary.
E.g. “bank”  organization that provides financial services / side of a river and the
land bordering.
Homophones
Subcategory of homonymy. Homophones are words that have the same
pronunciation but distinct spelling.
E.g. plain / plane
10
hole / whole
rite / right
site / sight
Homographs
Subcategory of homonymy. Homographs are words that have the same spelling but
are pronounced differently.
E.g. “bow” [bau]: the body movement actors do at the end of a theatre performance.
“bow” [with o]: weapon used for shooting arrows.
“lead”: the metal
“lead”: dog’s lead
Prototype theory: prototypical vs non-prototypical meaning:
O’Grady p. 6/7: Prototype theory
The conceptual system: Underlying the use of words/sentences to express meaning
in human language is a conceptual system capable of organizing and classifying
every imaginable aspect of our experience, from inner feelings and perceptions to
cultural and social phenomena, to the physical world around us. (How meaning is
expressed through language).
Fuzzy concepts: Concepts expressed by words/phrases of our language have no
precise definitions with clear-cut boundaries that distinguish them from other
concepts (e.g. rich: How much money does one have to have to be called rich?).
Graded membership: the members of a concept can be graded in terms of their
typicality (e.g. ‘film star’: Julia Roberts is a better example than maybe Arnold
Schwarzenegger because in recent years she had more media attention). Also
scientifically defined concepts exhibit this membership (e.g. bird: a magpies is maybe
a better example for a bird than a penguin).  concepts have an internal structure
with the best or prototypical exemplars. (Remember Circle-model/radial-set).
Prototypical meaning: e.g. He was sitting on a chair.
Non-prototypical meaning: e.g. He chaired a meeting. Metaphors (similarity) and
metonymy (something that is associated with someone/object: e.g. the deep=sea,
continguity).
( exercise sheets)
Sentence Semantics:
Sentence meaning / proposition:
Crystal: the term “proposition” refers to the sense of a declarative sentence
(sentence form used in the expression of statements. E.g. “ the man is
walking”), with all ambiguity, vagueness and deixis reolved so that a
definitive truth value may be assigned.
Concise Oxford Dictionary:
- a statement expressing a judgement or opinion
- a statement expressing a concept that can be
true or false
Truth conditions: linguistically true vs false sentences, empirically true vs false
sentences:
Linguistically true: A sentence is linguistically true if it is grammatically correct and it
does not contradict itself.
For example:
11
"My cousin Hans, who is a bachelor, is married" is linguistically false, because the
status of being married contradicts the status of being a bachelor.
"The queen of Switzerland gave me some candies" is linguistically true.
Empirically true: A sentence is empirically true if it does not contradict a fact which
exists in the real world.
"The queen of Switzerland gave me some candies" is empirically false, because
there is no queen in Switzerland and queens do not give candies to anyone, anyway.
Thematic roles:
Crystal: government-binding theory for a semantic role as agent, patient, locative,
source, goal. Also known as theta role. Often called a semantic case in other
approaches.
Fromkin p. 191:
Thematic Role
Description
Example
- Agent
the one who performs an action
Joyce ran.
- Theme
one/thing that undergoes an action
Mary found the puppy.
- Location
place where an action happens
It rains in Spain.
- Goal
place to which an action is directed
Put the cat on the porch.
- Source
place from which an action originates He flew from Spain to NY.
- Instrument
the means by which an action is performed Jo cuts hair with a razor.
- Experiencer
one who perceives something
Helen heard Rob playing the piano.
- Causative
a natural force that causes change
The wind damaged the roof.
- Possessor
one who has something
The tail of the dog wagged.
( Lots of exercise sheets to this topic)
Verb-centred meaning: the NP subject of a sentence and the constituents of the VP
are semantically related in various ways to the verb. The relations depend on the
meaning of the particular verb.
Presuppositions:
«A condition which must be satisfied if a particular state of affairs is to obtain, or (in
relation to language) what a speaker assumes in saying a particular sentence, as
opposed to what is actually asserted.» (Crystal)
Certain type of logical relationship between statements, contrasting in a two-part
analysis of sentences which contrasts the information assumed (or “presupposed”)
by the speaker, and that which is at the centre of the speaker’s communicative
interest. In this sense, presupposition is opposed to focus.
E.g. Where is the salt?
Presupposion: Salt is not present to the speaker, there is someone whom the speaker thinks might
know where the salt is. (Crystal)
See Watts p.12: Examples.
12