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Advanced Syntax
Syntax
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Syntax | branch of linguistic analysis that addresses the internal structure of sentences and the phrases that they include; the way that phrases are arranged/put together to form sentences |
| Sentence | complete utterance containing a subject, a predicate, and some expression of tense |
| Phrase | any full constituent of a sentence |
| Generative Syntax | a formal system capable of deriving/generating all and only those sentences of a language that are grammatical in that language |
| Lexicon | a great pre-syntactic storage house where projections or properties of each word or morpheme are stored for syntactic structures |
| Thematic roles | represent the participants in the eventuality denoted by the predicate head; based on the number and nature of them we can make distinctions for the lexical category |
| Projection Principle | demands that all lexical information stored for a predicate head must be syntactically projected |
| Theta criterion | every theta role must be assigned to one and only one argument, and every argument must be assigned one and only one theta role |
| Uniformity of Theta Assignment Hypothesis (UTAH) | identical theta relationships between items must be represented by indentical structural relationships between those items in syntactic structure |
| Principle of endocentricity | every phrase has a head |
| X-Bar theory | for any head X (x=any variable for any member of lexical and functional cat), syntactic structures are projected in accordance with a general projection schema |
| Adjuncts | don't change the X-bar structure, optional piece of information in a phrase, can in principle be inserted recursively/are iterative |
| unaccusative/ergative verb | projects all of its theta roles inside VP, internal arguments projected within of VP, (theme, location), involve semantic change of state from an unwilling participant (subject is not an entity that willingly undergoes this change = lack of vP layer) |
| intransitive/unergative verb | no nominal argument inside of VP (Agent, Experiencer), do have a small vP layer, there is volition on the part of the subject of those clauses, voluntary change of state |
| Burzio's Generalization | a verb that assigns no external theta role cannot assign accusative case |
| Case filter | all DPs must be assigned Case from government (abstract or structural case is presented on a DP even when there are no morphological distinctions) |
| Relative clauses | modifiers of the projection of the head noun (the head of the relative clause), expected to occupy an adjunction position = adjoined to the right of NP inside the structure of nominal phrases, clauses that are embedded in nominal phrases |
| Complements | parts of a phrase that are considered necessary to complete a word's meaning, integral piece of information (satisfies subcategory of a head) |
| Internal arguments | argument that is assigned a theta role directly by the verbal predicate |
| External arguments | those elements which receive a theta role, but not by the verbal argument, most often associated with clausal subject, must be assigned this theta role (agent) by another head |
| little v | location to assign the agent theta role, to satisfy the Verb-Internal Subject Hypothesis |
| Verb-Internal Subject Hypothesis (VISH) | subject of an active voice clause must be generated in the verbal domain |
| Extended Projection Principle | spec TP must always be filled |
| Movement | type of syntactic phenomenon in which a constituent is taken from its base position and shifted to a position higher in clausal structure (to the left usually) |
| A-movement | movement into an argument position, in Eng typically DP movements (raising of the subject into Spec TP from little vP) |
| A'-movement | movement into a non-argument position, wh-movement, movement into the spec CP (topicalization/focus) |
| Passives | external theta role has been deleted from the argument structure of the predicate, don't generate vP into the structure |
| Wh-movement | phenomenon in which questions involving wh- words are extracted to the left periphery of a clause |
| Ditransitive verbs | take 2 objects: a transitive one and an intransitive one (give or send) |
| Raising | process in which a subject/object in an embedded, non-finite clause is raised into a matrix clause (sub = is likely/seems/appear/obj = expects/want); the subject doesn’t get a theta-role from the matrix verb |
| Control | matrix clause arguments are also the understood subject of non-finite infinitival clauses, big PRO (want, try, promise); The verb want semantically needs a subject with agency (the wanter). |
| Ellipsis | process by which sentential material is omitted from a sentence, parts of a clause are elided; 2 prerequisites: 1. elided elements must have indentical antecedent, 2. elided element must be Complement of a licensor (LF-copying or PF-deletion) |
| Negation | is quite simply changing the truth value of a sentence to 0 (in eng position of the negative word is fixed = it is head in eng = NegP) |
| Scrambling | typologically rare phenomenon, constituents of sentence may appear in any given order without relevant change in meaning (Jap, subordinate clauses Ger), in eng no real scrambling = only push element to left periphery of clause (wh-movement, topicalization |
| Pied-piping | when Head moves, everything in its domain moves with it |
| Antecedent-controlled Deletion | is a syntactic phenomenon where a verb phrase (VP) seems to be missing, but its meaning is understood from an earlier part of the sentence — specifically, from an antecedent. It's most often seen in VP-ellipsis within relative clauses. |
| Antecedent | is the word, phrase, or clause that another word refers back to (in ellipsis, pronouns, or other dependent structures); element that binds a pronoun, anaphor or R-expression. When this element c-commands another coindexed DP, it is a binder of that DP. |
| Pseudogaping | type of ellipsis where most of a verb phrase is deleted, but one part (usually an object or complement) is left behind. It often shows up in comparative or contrastive sentences with auxiliary verbs. |
| Sluicing | special kind of ellipsis where everything but a question word (like who, what, where) is deleted in a wh-question. |
| Comparative Deletion | Omitting repeated material in the second clause of a comparison. Only the contrastive element (like “taller”) stays. |
| Stripping | Ellipsis that leaves only one remnant (often with a coordinator like but or and).Like sluicing but without a wh-word |
| N-deletion | A noun is deleted when it’s recoverable from context, usually after a determiner or adjective. The noun gets ellipsed, but modifiers stay |
| LF-Copying (Logical Form Copying) | form of ellipsis; missing material is inserted/copied at LF, as if it were kind of anaphor or pronoun = null operator is used for the entirety of VP. structure is incomplete at PF, but fully interpreted at LF. Meaning restored silently, not pronounced. |
| PF-Deletion (Phonological Form Deletion) | The full structure is present in syntax, but part of it is deleted at PF (Phonological Form). It’s there in the syntax, but not spoken. content that is to be elided is then simply omitted phonologically |
| Scope | In syntax/semantics, scope is about how operators (like quantifiers, negation, modals) interact — who applies to what. |
| Wide Scope | An element has wide scope if it takes effect over a larger portion of the sentence (it’s higher in the tree). "Everyone didn’t leave." Wide scope of "everyone": = All people didn’t leave → No one left. |
| Narrow Scope | An element has narrow scope if it affects only part of the sentence (it’s lower in the tree). "Everyone didn’t leave." Narrow scope of "everyone" under negation: = It’s not the case that everyone left → Some did, some didn’t. |
| Strict Interpretation | pronoun refers to the same person in both clauses. "John washed his car, and Bill did too." "his" = John. "John washed John’s car, and Bill washed John’s car too." = Same car. Bill is doing what John did, to John’s car. |
| Sloppy Interpretation | pronoun changes to match the new subject. "John washed his car, and Bill did too." "his" = Bill (in the second clause) "John washed John’s car, and Bill washed Bill’s car." = Two cars, each man tending to his own. |
| Negation Scope | the position of the negative word affects scope reading in relation to other sentential constituents. default position of negative word in a language changes the truth value of the clause |
| Agreement Phrase (AgrP) | a special phrase to handle agreement features: person, number, gender, etc. |
| Split TP | More modern theories — especially Cartographic Syntax — break up TP (Tense Phrase) into multiple layers; Examples of splits: TP → TenseP, MoodP, AspectP, etc. |
| Sentential Negation | causes subject auxiliary inversion; It’s when negation applies to the entire sentence or clause, not just a part of it. |
| Local scope | does not cause subject auxiliary inversion; when an operator (like a quantifier, negation, or modal) only affects the part of the sentence that’s structurally nearby — usually within its own clause or projection. |
| copula | verb that is not eventive, it is just linking subject + predicate. |
| Conjunctions | connect two of the same type of phrase |
| complementiser | at the beginning of a clause, allowing clause to be used as an arguemnt (that, whether, if) |
| Parasitic Gap | a kind of empty position (a gap) that depends on the existence of another gap — it can only exist if the "main" gap is there first. It's parasitic because it feeds off the licensing of a "real" gap. |
| Topicalization | referencing information already expressed; a syntactic operation where a constituent (like a noun phrase, verb phrase, etc.) is moved to the front of the sentence to mark it as the topic; in Eng specCP is the designated position |
| V2 - Verb Second | verb must always occupy the second position in a clause |
| Delimitation | further semantic contextualization of an NP-referent; refers to whether a relative clause restricts the reference of the noun it modifies (delimiting which entity we’re talking about) or simply adds extra information about an already-known noun |
| Complement Clause | a clause that functions as an argument of a verb, noun, or adjective — just like a direct object does. is a clause (usually a CP) that completes the meaning of a head word, like a verb (say), noun (belief), or adjective (certain). |
| NP-referent | the noun phrase that a relative clause refers to or modifies — it’s the head noun that the clause gives more information about. It's the thing being talked about that the relative clause describes. |
| center-embedded nested relative clause | a relative clause that’s inserted in the middle of another clause, usually right after the NP it modifies — creating a deep, hard-to-process sentence structure. placed right in the center of the main clause — between the subject and predicate. |
| free relative clause | a clause introduced by a wh-word (what, who, where, when, etc.) that acts as a noun phrase (DP) in the sentence on its own — it doesn’t modify a noun, it is the noun! = wh-clauses that function as full arguments (subject, object, etc.) |
| operator | a wh-element or abstract element that triggers movement to the left periphery (Spec,CP) for interpretation at the logical form (LF) level. |
| Restrictive Relative Clause | These clauses narrow down the meaning of the noun they modify. They tell us which one out of a possible group we're talking about. provides essential information about the noun. Without it, the sentence's meaning changes. |
| non-restrictive relative clause | adds optional detail. Removing it doesn’t change the core meaning. |
| appositional relative clause (also called a non-restrictive appositive relative) | These are relative clauses that don't restrict the meaning of the noun—they simply add extra information, often in a parenthetical or appositional way. They’re always set off by commas and often involve pronouns like which or who. |
| PRO | A null (silent) DP found in Caseless positions (the specifier of non-finite TP). If we do not have PRO, we violate The Theta Criterion in case of control verbs |
| Extraposition | A sentence (often an alternate of a clausal subject construction) where there is an expletive in the subject position and a clausal complement. "It is likely that Jean danced the rumba." |
| Anaphor | A DP that obligatorily gets its meaning from another DP in the sentence; Must be bound with its antecedent |
| Case | The form a noun takes depending upon its position in the sentence + the morphology associated with grammatical relations. |
| Nominative case | The form of the noun in the subject position; Specifier of finite T |
| Accusative Case | The noun in the direct object position; Complement to transitive V |
| Genitive Case | Used to show possession (‘s or possessive pronouns) |
| Dative Case | Used for indirect objects |
| Recursion | The ability to embed structures iteratively inside one another. Allows us to produce sentences we’ve never heard before. |
| Argument | The entity that is participating in the predicate relations |
| Valency | The number of arguments that the verb can take |
| Constituent | A group of words that functions together as a unit, A set of terminal nodes exhaustively dominated by a particular node |
| Obliques | Look like PPs and stand where the indirect object is; Any type of DP/PP in the sentence that is not in subject or object position; Adjunct |
| R-expression | A DP that gets its meaning by referring to an entity in the world |
| Island | A phrase that contains (dominates) the wh-phrase, and that you may not move out of |
| Minimal Link Condition | Move to the closest potential landing site; The movement will be blocked if there are multiple wh-phrases |
| Wh-in-situ | When the wh-phrase does not move |
| Echo/intonational Questions | Question forms that are licensed by the phonology (intonation and stress) and not by the syntax, although they may involve a special C |
| Thematic Relations | Semantic relations between a predicate and an argument – used as a means of encoding selectional restrictions. Theta-roles are not the same, these are bundles of thematic relations assigned to particular arguments |
| Agent | initiator or doer of an action |
| Experiencer | arguments that feel or perceive events; verbs of perception (to see, to feel, to hear), cognition (to think, to decide, to remember), and psychological state (to like, to admire, to respect) |
| Theme | entities that undergo actions, are moved, experience, or perceived; argument of which a change of state or location is predicated |
| Goal | entity towards which motion takes places (recipient role is present with the verbs that denote to a change of possession, like to give, recieve) |
| Source | entity from which a motion takes places |
| Location | the place where the action takes place |
| Instrument | object with which an action is performed |
| Beneficiary | one for whose benefit the event/action takes place |
| Move theory | The structural phrases of the sentence should move |
| Principle of Full Interpretation | Features must be checked in a local configuration. By Chomsky |
| Linguistic Expression | By Saussure. It consists of two interface levels: the signifier (phonetic form PF - the word order is expressed here) and the signified (logical form LF - semantic meaning) |
| Spellout | The point at which the derivation divides into form (PF) and meaning deriving structures (LF). In English, movements happen after SPELLOUT |
| Universal Quantifier | Words such as every, each, all, any. Identify all the members of a set. |
| Existential Quantifier | Words like some, or a. Identifies at least one member of a set. |
| Light verb (little v) | The higher part of a complex verb, usually meaning CAUSE (or LOCATE in the case of ditransitive double object verbs). Assigns ACC, V is moved into v |
| Object Shift | Phenomenon where accusatively marked objects shift leftwards. Objects move because ACC case only available in shifted position. AgrOP (Agreement Object Phrase) is located between VP and vP. Lower DPs (in complement of V’) move to AgrOP to get ACC |
| Transformation | A rule that takes an X-bar generated structure and changes it in restricted ways. |
| V to T movement | Move the head V to the head T (motivated by morphology). Present in English with auxiliaries to have and to be (should be under V, not little v), but it is also called Affix Lowering. This rule exists to get an inflectional affix on the verb |
| D-structure | The level of the derivation created by the base, and has had no transformations applied to it. |
| S-structure | The output of transformations. What you say. |
| T to C movement | Move T to C, when there is a phonologically empty Ø[+Q] complementizer. Works for yes/no questions (auxiliary moves to complementizer). Complementizer marks an embedded clause as functioning as a complement |
| Do-insertion/support | When there is no other option for supporting inflectional affixes, insert the dummy verb do into T. Apply to questions and negatives. This is the last resort |
| Stipulation | Affix lowering is blocked by the presence of not in English |
| Relative Clause | Embedded in nominal phrases (under NPs). They have NP-referent = they are modifiers with antecedent. DP takes NP phrase that binds with CP (relative) |
| Positions of RCs | Pre-nominal (Turkish); Post-nominal (English); Center-embedded RC (Dutch and German); Slavic languages give RCs gender assigned by verb; In Finnish no RPs = understood from context (Operator Phrase (Op) in spec CP in this situation) |
| C-command | A structural relationship where one node in a tree dominates another node’s sister. It's crucial for determining binding. |
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