Spring term, 2019 Ling 5201 Syntax I 1: Valence, rules and proof - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Spring term, 2019 Ling 5201 Syntax I 1: Valence, rules and proof Robert Levine Ohio State University levine.1@osu.edu Robert Levine 2019, 5201 (Syntax 1) 1 / 12

Where do syntactic structures come from? (1) John put this book on that table. ◮ Where does the tree in (2) come from? (2) S NP VP John V NP PP put Det N P NP this book on Det N that table ◮ More precisely, what are the necessary and sufficient conditions which guarantee that the tree in (2) is a legal structure? Robert Levine 2019, 5201 (Syntax 1) 2 / 12

Justifying tree structure (3) a. this book, John put on that table . b. that table, John put this book on . c. On that table, John put this book . d. and put this book on that table John most certainly will . (4) a. * book on, John put this that table. b. *On that, John put this book table. c. *Book on that, John will put this table. d. *Put this, John book on that table. (5) a. Which book did John put on that table? ( wh question) b. This is the book which John put on that table. c. It was this book (that) John put on that table. d. What John put on that table was this book. Robert Levine 2019, 5201 (Syntax 1) 3 / 12

Phrase structure rules, part 1 (1) S (6) a. S → NP VP NP VP b. VP → V NP PP John V NP PP c. PP → P NP put Det N P NP d. NP → Det N this book on Det N that table ◮ To make sure that names such as John and Mary don’t appear with determiners immediately preceding them, we assume that they are one-word NPs. ◮ Each rule admits one or more nodes in the tree in (2). ◮ Each such node is an hypothesis about the displaceability of the material below that node. ◮ The terminal nodes dominate individual words whose properties are identified in a lexicon , and include ◮ information about pronunciation ◮ information about part of speech Robert Levine 2019, 5201 (Syntax 1) 4 / 12

Phrase structure rules, part 2 ◮ But what about sentences such as the following? (7) a. The cat slept. b. The cat chased a mouse. c. Fat cats slept. d. The book of poems fell on the floor. ◮ To accommodate these, we need to replace the rules we’ve given with something more like: (8) a. S → NP VP b. VP → V (NP) (PP) c. PP → P NP d. NP → (Det) (Adj) N (PP) Robert Levine 2019, 5201 (Syntax 1) 5 / 12

The lexicon, part 1 ◮ The lexicon determines how the trees sanctioned by the rules can be terminated: (9) John : john, NP talked : talked, V table : table, N discussed : discussed, V the : the, Det about : about, P put : put, V various : various, Adj . . . lawyers : lawyers, N . . . . . . ◮ But is this enough? The following tree is legal, given the rules (8) and lexicon (9), but the corresponding string is not: S NP VP Adj N V various lawyers discussed (10) *Various lawyers discussed. Robert Levine 2019, 5201 (Syntax 1) 6 / 12

More examples. . . (11) a. *The lawyers put. b. *Some crafty lawyers put the issue. c. Various lawyers talked. d. *Various lawyers talked the obscure issues. e. Various lawyers talked about the obscure issues. f. *Some lawyers discussed. g. Some lawyers discussed the issues. h. *Some lawyers discussed about the issues. ◮ Just what is wrong with the bad examples? Robert Levine 2019, 5201 (Syntax 1) 7 / 12

Valence ◮ Different lexical items have different combinatorial possibilities. ◮ talk combines with a PP headed by about . . . ◮ . . . whereas discuss combines with an NP: (12) a. Various lawyers discussed the obscure issues. b. Some lawyers talked about the issues. ◮ and you can’t reverse those patterns: (13) a. *Various lawyers talked the obscure issues. b. *Some lawyers discussed about the issues. ◮ The combinatorial possibilities of a lexical item are called its valence. Robert Levine 2019, 5201 (Syntax 1) 8 / 12

Valence is not predictable. . . ◮ Do we need to treat valence as a primitive property of lexical items? Can’t we predict it from meaning? ◮ In a word, NO . (14) a. John ate (a steak) b. John devoured *(a steak). (15) a. Mary demanded a raise b. *Mary (authoritatively) asked a raise. (16) a. *Mary demanded for a raise b. Mary (authoritatively) asked for a raise. 8 9 ∗ charged < = (17) a. The prosecutor ∗ indicted ; John of forgery accused : 8 9 ∗ charged < = b. The prosecutor ∗ accused ; John for forgery. indicted : 8 9 ∗ accused < = c. The prosecutor ∗ indicted ; John with forgery Robert Levine 2019, 5201 (Syntax 1) 9 / 12 charged :

. . . hence, valence must be lexically listed ◮ We start by taking lexical entries to specify pronunciation, part of speech and valence, along the following lines: ◮ where the notation X Y Z etc. means only that the lexical item in question appears followed by a string of words which can be parsed as a substring of category X, which is then followed by a string of words of category Y, etc. (18) put, V, NP PP charge, V, PP[ with ] discuss, V, NP indict, V, PP[ for ] talk, V, PP accuse, V, PP[ of ] . . . . . . . . . ◮ But such entries have both too much and too little information: ◮ they lack information about meaning; ◮ they give you information which, in an important sense, you don’t need. ◮ Taking the last point first: if we know what a word combines with to yield a VP, ◮ then it doesn’t really matter what part of speech we assign it to . Robert Levine 2019, 5201 (Syntax 1) 10 / 12

Valence reconsidered ◮ Let’s use a presentation of categories along these lines which displays more explicitly the direction of combination. ◮ We have an entry for put of the form (19) put ; put ; VP / PP / NP ◮ i.e., the verb put ◮ has a certain pronunciation, which we abbreviate as put , ◮ has a semantic interpretation, which we abbreviate as put , ◮ and combines to its right first with an NP (to yield a string such as put the book ) ◮ and then a PP (possibly yielding put the book on the table ). ◮ Following the line just suggested, we can revise our valence entries as follows: (20) put ; put ; VP / PP / NP charged ; charge ; VP / PP[with] discuss ; discuss ; VP / NP accused ; accuse ; VP / PP[of] talk ; talk ; VP / PP indicted ; indict ; VP / PP[for] Robert Levine 2019, 5201 (Syntax 1) 11 / 12

More reconsideration ◮ Since we can treat VP as characterizing a string of words looking for an NP to the left to form a sentence, we can write VP as NP \ S . ◮ A transitive verb such as discuss or criticize will then be ( NP \ S ) / NP. ◮ How does this approach change our view of syntactic structure? ◮ One one level, not all that much. Compare the trees: (21) S S NP VP NP NP \ S Mary V NP Mary (NP \ S)/NP NP criticized Bill criticized Bill ◮ Seemingly, all that has happened is the replacement of category names based on parts of speech with category names based on valence. ◮ BUT. . . Robert Levine 2019, 5201 (Syntax 1) 12 / 12