Syntax 3: Syntax is a Life Sentence

Will Styler - LIGN 101

Today’s Plan

• A bit more tree growth

• All that we’re leaving behind

Syntactic Ambiguity is Everywhere!

Grab some scratch paper

• That’s right, we’re killing trees to make trees!

https://padlet.com/wstyler/ebl0u0v2ukq3

OK, let’s start off with something easy!

Jessica dislikes that her silly husband cooked a big squishy tofurkey for their romantic dinner

• Let’s take it piece by piece :)

• Work through each chunk

• Click in with ‘B’ when you start a chunk, and ‘A’ when you finish, and ‘E’ if you’re lost

Jessica

https://padlet.com/wstyler/ebl0u0v2ukq3

Her silly husband

https://padlet.com/wstyler/ebl0u0v2ukq3

A big, squishy tofurkey

https://padlet.com/wstyler/ebl0u0v2ukq3

For their romantic dinner

https://padlet.com/wstyler/ebl0u0v2ukq3

Cooked a big squishy tofurkey for their romantic dinner

https://padlet.com/wstyler/ebl0u0v2ukq3

That her silly husband cooked a big squishy tofurkey for their romantic dinner

https://padlet.com/wstyler/ebl0u0v2ukq3

Jessica dislikes that her silly husband cooked a big squishy tofurkey for their romantic dinner

https://padlet.com/wstyler/ebl0u0v2ukq3

For the record, Tofurkeys are gross

• Great for comedy, poor for eating

(Thanks to Cae, Fall 2022)

Here’s another one!

The prescriptivist English Professor glared at the rebellious linguist

Spoiler alert.

The prescriptivist English Professor glared at the rebellious linguist

OK, OK, enough with the trees!

• Yeah, I know.

This is the problem with LIGN 101

• There’s too much awesomeness to Syntax for me to cover in three classes

• We need to focus on what’s crucial

  • (You all understanding syntactic hierarchy)

• … over what’s awesome

  • Cross-linguistic patterns and advanced syntactic questions

… and a whole lot has been dismissed as “Here there be dragons”

Introducing some Dragons

English Syntax is way more complicated

We’re looking at relatively simple sentences

• (It may not feel that way, but we are!)

“Truly, my dismay that three dragons were slain by the fame-craving knight couldn’t be greater.”

• Your phrase structure rules will shatter against such pain.

“Robert who came last weekend when you threw that party where Marvin saw Bob is kind of a jerk.”

• That’s right, that’s two S’s inside an NP

Also, sentences will do weird things

• Weird things will be done by sentences.

• Weird things will be the things that sentences do.

• What will sentences do?

• Will sentences do weird things?

Passive Voice

• Miguel threw Rajesh the ball.

• Rajesh was thrown the ball.

• Passive voice turns the object of a sentence into the subject

This is a 200 foot pole

• The passive voice will not be touched with it

This makes us think about ‘movement’ and ‘transformation’

• Phrase structure rules don’t account for changes

Jessica can buy Cheerios

• Can Jessica buy Cheerios?

• It was Jessica who bought the Cheerios

• Cheerios are what Jessica bought

• Who can buy Cheerios?

• What can Jessica buy?

• Jessica can buy what?

(Thanks Jaron from W22!)

The movement… it’s everywhere

• Your book gets a bit deeper into this than we have time to

• … but it’s cooooooool.

Here’s a fun dragon

Garden Path Sentences

Sentences which are easy to incorrectly parse at first

Example Garden Paths

• The old man the boat.

• The complex houses married soldiers and their families.

• The girl told the story cried.

• The man who whistles tunes pianos.

• The war on plastic faces setback as cost of recycled material soars

  • This is from the Guardian, and was fixed with ‘plastic waste’ after publication

The horse raced past the barn fell

Source: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=167

These occur in human language

Let’s look at some other sentences

A is ‘Perfectly Grammatical’, E is ‘Completely Ungrammatical’

More three dogs bit than eight humans.

More cats are on my bed than I can cuddle them.

More sales are expected this year relative to last year.

More tourists have been to England than to Kazakhstan.

More people have been to Russia than I have.

More politicians self-finance their campaigns in the USA than elsewhere.

More undergrads text their friends during the week than I text my friends.

Wait a second…

• More people have been to Russia than I have.

• More undergrads text their friends during the week than I text my friends.

• What do these actually mean?!?

These are called ‘Comparative Illusions’

• … and they show that we can have instincts which make something ‘seem’ grammatical and sensical which actually isn’t!

• The factors which make these feel more or less acceptable are a subject of syntactic research

• They can even happen in natural speech

  • ‘I think there are more candidates on stage who speak Spanish more fluently than our president speaks English.’ - Dan Rather

How about some center embedding gore?

An apparently new speech disorder a linguistics department our correspondent visited was affected by has appeared.

• An apparently new speech disorder
• a linguistics department
• our correspondent
• visited
• was affected by
• has appeared.

The cause experts the LSA sent investigate remains elusive.

• The cause
• experts
• the LSA
• sent
• investigate
• remains elusive.

Physicians neurologists psychologists other linguists called for help called for help called for help didn’t help either.

• Physicians
• neurologists
• psychologists
• other linguists
• called for help
• called for help
• called for help
• didn’t help either.

The patient the nurse the doctor consulted was sick.

• The patient
• the nurse
• the doctor
• consulted
• was sick.
• wtf?!?!

Thanks to Emily Davis for some of these syntactic troubles

• Also here’s the center embedding source

Modifier Scope issues

• “Crispy Ahi Tuna Tacos”

  • Crispy tuna, or Crispy Tacos

There are other approaches to Syntax too!

V’, S’, IP, and more!

• There are many theories and approaches, each with pros and cons

• This is the case in anything in Linguistics, but especially here!

Other Languages exist!

Different languages do sentences differently

• Not all languages put the Subject (do-er) before the verb, which is followed by the object (which is being affected) (‘SVO’)

• Lakota is SOV, with postpositions

• ASL is OSV

• Spanish adjectives are after the noun

• Russian can move the arguments around to help make your point

Phrase structure rules are language specific, too!

• We’ll play with other languages’ phrase structure rules in this class!

We’re just trying to get you understanding the basics

• What syntax is

• How sentences are composed hierarchically

• … and how grammar works for sentences

For everything else, LIGN 121

One last oddity

Our rules can act weirdly

Rule 8: VP -> V

Rule 9: VP -> V NP

To sleep

• VP -> V: Will slept

• VP -> V NP: Will slept Jessica

To dream

• VP -> V: Will dreamed

• VP -> V NP: Will dreamed Jessica

To walk

• VP -> V: Will walked

• VP -> V NP: Will walked Jessica

These are called ‘Intransitive verbs’

Verbs that only take a single argument, the ‘subject’

To hug

• VP -> V NP: Will hugged Jessica

• VP -> V: Will hugged

To move

• VP -> V: Will moved

• VP -> V NP: Will moved Jessica

To see

• VP -> V: Will saw

• VP -> V NP: Will saw Jessica

These are called ‘Transitive verbs’

Verbs that can take two arguments, a subject and an object

To bake

• VP -> V: Will baked

• VP -> V NP: Will baked a cake

• VP -> V NP NP: Will baked Jessica a cake

• VP -> V NP NP: ?Will baked a cake Jessica

To find

• VP -> V: Will found.

• VP -> V NP: Will found a cake

• VP -> V NP NP: Will found Jessica a cake

• VP -> V NP NP: ?Will found a cake Jessica

• VP -> V NP NP: Will found a cake some candles

Ditransitive Constructions

Verbs that take a Subject and two objects

To see

• VP -> V: ?Will saw

• VP -> V NP: Will saw a cake

• VP -> V NP NP: ?Will saw Jessica a cake

• VP -> V NP NP: *Will saw a cake Jessica

Whoa!!

• That was a phrase structure rule with three branches!

• That happens sometimes, although there are usually other ways!

To make

• VP -> V: Will made

• VP -> V NP: Will made a judge

• VP -> V NP NP: Will made Jessica a judge

• VP -> V NP NP: Will made a judge Jessica

To make, continued

• VP -> V NP: Will made a judge (with his modelling clay)

• VP -> V NP NP: Will made Jessica a robot

• VP -> V NP NP: Will made a robot, Jessica

Are you vibing me?

• “I’m vibing.”

• “I’m vibing you.”

• “I’m vibing with this new album”

• “I’m vibing this new album”

• “I’m vibing her a new album”

Wait a second…

• Our phrase structure rules don’t universally apply

  • A valid phrase structure rule for one verb might not work for another

• … and it seems to be lexically specific

  • It depends on the particular word

• Is there no hope?!

(Nah, it’s cool, we’ve got semantics)

• See you next time!

Thank you!