Spring term, 2020 Ling 5201 Syntax I 1: Valence, rules and proof Robert Levine Ohio State University levine.1@osu.edu Robert Levine 2020 5201 (Syntax 1) 1 / 31
The first question: Where does our notion ‘syntactic structure’ come from? ◮ In any course you’ve ever taken where syntax was covered as at least part of the course, you undoubtedly heard syntactic structure used throughout the course, ◮ very possibly without any explanation of why we associate the notions ‘syntax’ and ‘structure’ so automatically. ◮ It’s as though it’s so obvious that sentences—the linguistic objects that syntax is about—have some kind of structure that the reasoning to that conclusion needn’t ever be made explicit. ◮ But we can’t have that. We are obliged to make clear what the notion of structure is, and why syntax has come to become associated, by strong default, with this notion. ◮ What motivates our belief that sentences have a particular kind of structure, and what is that kind? Robert Levine 2020 5201 (Syntax 1) 2 / 31
Some history ◮ Modern grammatical theory has a direct line of descent from the anthropologicaltradition in linguistics inaugurated by Franz Boas and his students, ◮ who rejected the evolutionary view of language held by the European 19th century historical comparativists, ◮ replacing it with an approach to analysis whose core premise was that no language could be analytically understood unless it was described according to its own particular patterns and internal organization. ◮ In practical terms, this meant that the grammar of a language consisted of a set of patterns defined on the basis of the distribution of particular word sequences, allowing the linguist to identify classes of items with parallel distribution. ◮ Members of such classes were regarded as the combinatorial units whose distribution was determined and controled by the rules of the grammar. Robert Levine 2020 5201 (Syntax 1) 3 / 31
History, cont’d ◮ This view of the grammar was heavily influenced by the study of morphologically complex languages by Boas, his students and their students (and by others strongly influenced by these). ◮ So we find, in the 1940s, in the era known as American Structuralism, analyses of words from native North American languages such as (1), for the Totonac word kilila · pa · ˇ ski · qu · t (‘my necessity of loving them reciprocally’): (1) kilila · pa · ˇ ski · qu · t ki lila · pa · ˇ ski · qu · t li la · pa · ˇ ski · qu · t la · pa · ˇ ski · qu · la · pa · ˇ ski · ◮ I’m not reinterpreting the source here: this is exactly the picture that Eugene Nida, in his great summary of Structuralist methods of morphological analysis Morphology , provides for the Tontonac word. Robert Levine 2020 5201 (Syntax 1) 4 / 31
History, cont’d ◮ What exactly do such graphic object signify? A graph can have any number of formal interpretation. ◮ To the American Structuralists, such a graph signified primarily the order of analysis . You’re working your way in from the outside, segmenting off meaning-bearing pieces based on paradigmatic information, ◮ with li. . . t a circumfix. ◮ So (1) represents a history of analysis —the breakdown of the word as carried out according to the distributional properties of its parts as recoverable from Totponac morphological paradigms. ◮ The Structuralists extended this approach to analytic representations to syntax as well, giving us a breakdown for The King of England opened Parliament as (2) the King of England opened Parliament the King of England opened Parliament the King of England opened Parliament King of England of England ◮ Does this look like the kind of syntactic tree you’re used to seeing? WHAT’S MISSING?? Robert Levine 2020 5201 (Syntax 1) 5 / 31
Some data ◮ Consider (3): (3) John put this book on that table. (4) Here’s a typical elementary-syntax-level representation of the structure of (3): (5) S NP VP John V NP PP put Det N P NP this book on Det N that table ◮ The interpretation of this tree, compared to (2), differs in two related respects. ◮ First, the nodes of the tree are labeled with certain symbols that, as we know, identify the syntactic category or type of the word string that can be linked by pathways back to each such node. Robert Levine 2020 5201 (Syntax 1) 6 / 31
Data, cont’d. ◮ ◮ Second, the information in (5) is standarly taken to represent properties of the sentence . That is, ◮ the sentence is composed of and NP and a VP, and the VP in turn comprises three subunits, a verb, a N(oun)P(hrase) and a P(repositional)P(hrase), and so on. ◮ These properties are given as facts about the syntactic form of the sentence in (3). ◮ In effect, this representation is saying that a determiner and a NP combine to form an NP this book in one case and that table in another, that the P of combines with the NP that table to form a PP, that this NP and PP combine with the verb put to form a VP, etc. ◮ Two questions: ◮ What justifies this picture of syntactic representations? ◮ Is there another picture that’s in principle possible? Robert Levine 2020 5201 (Syntax 1) 7 / 31
Justifying tree structure ◮ There are three things you need to do to justify (5): ◮ You need to justify the existence of the labeled nodes themselves as representations of syntactic units ; ◮ you need to justify the labels attached to the nodes; and ◮ you need to justify the existence of that hierarchical organization of nodes as part of the syntactic representation for (5). ◮ Justifications for the existence of syntactic units, aka constituents , typically starts with a comparison of (6) and (7) (6) a. John will put this book on that table. b. this book, John will put on that table . c. that table, John will put this book on . d. On that table, John will put this book . e. and put this book on that table John most certainly will . (7) a. * book on, John will put this that table. b. *On that, John will put this book table. c. *Book on that, John will put this table. d. *Put this, John will book on that table. Robert Levine 2020 5201 (Syntax 1) 8 / 31
Justifying, cont’d. ◮ There are only certain substrings of (6a) that can appear in leftmost position at the edge of a version of it which is identical to (6a) except that it’s missing that substring. ◮ The key idea is that in order to capture the distinction between the good and the ill-formed examples, you need to be able to refer to some object which can occupy that left side slot, ◮ while at the same time ensuring that an object of that type is missing from somewhere within rest of the sentence. ◮ But being able to refer to such an object presupposes that it exists as a component of the representation. ◮ It follows that we have a strong plausibility argument for taking the sentences in (6) to reflect the existence of syntactic constituents. ◮ But what should we call these objects? Robert Levine 2020 5201 (Syntax 1) 9 / 31
Where do the type names come from? ◮ Let’s elaborate (6a) a bit and see what we can learn about what the essential properties are of the left-edge constituent. (8) a. that strange photo of Chris, Robin will put on this desk. b. that photo of Chris, Robin will put on this desk. c. that strange photo, Robin will put on that desk. d. Strange photos of chris , Robin will put on this desk. e. strange photos, Robin will put on this desk. f. Photos of chris , Robin will put on this desk g. photos , Robin will put on this desk. (9) a. *That strange (of Chris), Robin will put on this desk. b. *Of Chris, Robin will put on this desk ◮ Apparently, the one item you cannot omit here is photo(s) , an N, when you are missing material directly following put . ◮ This constitutes evidence that one of the possible constituent types which can show up on the left edge of the sentence in such cases reflects something which is inherently nominal in character, ◮ hence meriting the description ‘noun phrase’ (NP). Robert Levine 2020 5201 (Syntax 1) 10 / 31
Type names, cont’d.c ◮ We can then characterize all of the left-positioned strings in (8) NPs. ◮ Similar reasoning can be applied to (10): (10) . . . and argue with Mary about politics, John definitely will . ◮ We will then be able identify the all of the following as VPs: (11) a. argue b. argue with Mary c. argue about politics d. argue with Mary about politics. ◮ So we can use the optional vs. . essential distinction to identify the crucial distributional property of different syntactic types in terms of the lexical category whose distribution each type mirrors: ◮ NPs reflect the distribution of nouns ( cat(s) ); VPs the distribution of verbs ( argue ), etc. Robert Levine 2020 5201 (Syntax 1) 11 / 31
Type names, cont’d. ◮ This mode of reasoning thus establishes the second of the three points in question, which were: ◮ the identification of the nodes in trees as objects encoding the syntactic unithood of the word strings under those nodes; ◮ the use of labels for these nodes of the form XP, where X is some lexical category, and ◮ the existence of labeled nodes under other labeled nodes. ◮ It’s the last of these points which is arguably the most fundamental issue in all of syntactic theorizing. ◮ To understand what’s at stake, we need to revisit (6a) in the light of the first two points. Robert Levine 2020 5201 (Syntax 1) 12 / 31
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