The

 Science  of  Language  

TESC  •  E&W  Studies  
Fall,  2010  
 
Study  guide  for  week  3:  
 
The  goals  for  this  week  are:  1)  to  examine  syntactic  phenomena  in  English,  including  
those  requiring  different  types  of  syntactic  rules  (PS  or  transformational);  2)  to  study  
transformational  rules  which  derive  new  sentence  forms  from  those  generated  by  the  
PS  rules;  3)  to  examine  the  syntactic  differences  between  languages;  4)  to  assess  the  
role  of  the  syntax  in  our  grammatical  knowledge  of  language..  
 
Readings:  
Language  Files:  5.1-­‐5.6  
Pinker:  chapter  3,  4  
 
Exercises  from  the  text:    
Language  Files:  File  5.7  (Just  the  Exercises,  not  the  Discussion  Questions  or  Activities).  
 
**WARNING**  If  you  feel  like  you  understand  the  concept  associated  with  a  particular  
exercise  from  the  text,  please  stop.    Write  “got  it”  and  move  on  to  the  next  exercise.  
**WARNING**  
 
Additional  exercises:  
A  Toy  Phrase  Structure  Grammar:  
1.   S         NP   (AUX)   VP  
2.   NP      (DET)   (ADJP)   N   (PP)  
3.   ADJP         (ADV)   ADJ  
4.   VP      V   NP     (PP)  
5.   PP      P   NP  
6.   N      boy(s),  girl(s),  dog(s),  cat(s),  hotdog(s),  park,  ice  cream,  candy,    
7.   V      eat(s),  like(s),  bite(s)  
8.   P      with,  in,  n ear  
9.   DET      a,  the,  one  
10.   ADJ      big,  short,  happy,  angry  
11.   ADV      very,  unbelievably  
12   AUX        will,  can,  should  
 
1.  a.  Use  the  toy  grammar  to  create  five  sentences.    Draw  trees  for  your  sentences.  
 
b.  Which  of  the  following  sentences  are  not  generated  by  the  toy  grammar?  
 
i.   The  boy  with  the  unbelievably  happy  cat  likes  the  girl.  
ii.   Girls  will  eat  ice  cream  in  the  park.  
iii.   Boys  should  not  bite  hotdogs  near  the  dog.  
iv.    Cats  and  dogs  bite  candy.  
 
c.   What  rules  should  be  added  to  generate  all  these  sentences?  
 
2.  It  is  possible  to  make  a  passive  sentence  by  combining  be  with  the  passive  participle.    
It  is  also  possible  to  use  get  (or  in  the  past  tense  got)  instead:  
 
i.  This  carpet  gets  cleaned  frequently.  
ii.  The  food  got  eaten  by  Jake.  
 
What  is  the  word  class  of  get  in  these  cases?    Justify  your  answer.  
 
3.  There  is  a  transformational  rule  that  allows  the  movement  of  a  verb  particle  to  the  
end  of  a  sentence,  as  in  the  following  sentence:  
 
i.  Jake  threw  out  the  trash.  
ii.  Jake  threw  the  trash  out.  
 
Now  consider  the  following  sentences:  
 
i.  *She  stood  up  them.  
ii.  She  stood  them  up.  
 
i.  *I  wrote  down  it.  
ii.  I  wrote  it  down.  
 
i.  *The  bartender  kicked  out  him.  
ii.  The  bartender  kicked  him  out.  
 
Describe  the  circumstances  under  which  the  particle  must  be  separated  from  its  verb.      
 
4.  Consider  the  following  pairs  of  related  sentences:  
 
i.  The  parent  gave  the  money  to  the  child.  
ii.  The  parent  gave  the  child  the  money.  
 
i.  I  wrote  a  letter  to  the  senator.  
ii.  I  wrote  the  senator  a  letter.  
 
Using  a  different  verb,  think  up  another  such  pair.  
State  as  precisely  as  possible  in  terms  of  constituent  structure  the  rule  that  relates  
these  pairs  of  sentences.    Formulate  a  transformational  rule  that  captures  this  
relationship.  
  
5.  Consider  the  following  data:  
 
  Spanish   English  
 
  Hablo  ingles.   *Speak  English.  
  Yo  hablo  ingles.   I  speak  English.  
  Llueve.   *is  raining.  
  Te  quiero.   *Love  you.  
  Yo  te  quiero.   I  love  you  
 
a.  Assume  that  there  is  a  parameter  in  UG  that  allows  some  languages  to  have  no  
subject  in  a  tensed  clause  (null  subject  parameter).    The  parameter  can  take  either  of  
the  following  two  settings:  
 
  i.     [-­‐  subject]  
  ii.   [+  subject]  
 
b.  Further  assume  that  children  learning  language  only  have  access  to  positive  evidence  
from  which  to  determine  the  parameter  setting  for  their  language.    
 
c.  Which  setting  will  a  child  will  hypothesize  first?    Explain.  
 
 
 
 
 
Essential  concepts:  
 
constituent    
hierarchical  
structure  structural  ambiguity  
constituent  test  
tree  diagram  
major/minor  lexical  categories    
phrasal  categories  
noun  phrase  (NP)  
verb  phrase  (VP)  
adjective  phrase  (AdjP)  
adverbial  phrase  (AdvP)  
prepositional  phrase  (PP)  
nodes  
subcategory    
intransitive  verb  
transitive  verb  
ditransitive  verb  
recursion  
transformation  
deep  structure  
surface  structure  
Wh-­‐question  
passive  
particle  shift  
syntactic  head