Constituency, Trees and Rules

COURSE: ADVANCED SYNTAX AND MORPHOL

OGY PRESENTED BY : EMAN ALHUSAIY
AN
 Introduction
2

⚫ Syntax is the study of the rules governing the way

words are combined to form sentences in a
language.
 *garden the
 *Children are
 *Work in

⚫ This class: what syntactic structure is and what

the rules that determine syntactic structure are
like.

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Syntax
3

⚫ Properties of syntactic knowledge:

1. Humans can understand & produce an infinite number
of sentences they never heard before
―Some purple gnats are starting to tango on microwave‖
2. Our grammar can understand and produce long
sentences
⯍ ―Bill said that he thought that the esteemed leader of the house had
it in mind to tell the unfortunate vice president that the calls that he
made from the office in the White House that he thought was
private…..‖
3. It enables us determine the grammatical relations in a
sentence
Mary hired Bill. Vs. Bill hired Mary

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Syntax & meaning
4

⚫ Non-sense sentences with clear syntax

⯍ Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
⯍ A verb crumpled the milk.
⯍ I gave the question a scuba-diving egg.
As opposed to:
⯍ *Furiously sleep ideas green colorless.
⯍ *Milk the crumpled
⯍ *the question I an egg scuba-diving
gave.

⚫ Sentences are composed of discrete units that are

combined by rules. These rules explain how
speakers can store infinite knowledge in a finite
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 Generative Grammar
5

⚫ Noam Chomsky 1950s

⚫ Generative = a very explicit system of rules
specifying what combinations of basic
elements result in well-formed sentences.

⚫ Defines the syntactic structure of a

language.

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Generative Grammar
6

⚫ Must allow all and only the grammatical sentences in

a language
⚫ Descriptive rules, not necessarily prescriptive
⚫ Each rule ―rewrites‖ a constituent into one or more
constituents

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Generative Grammar
7

⚫―all and only‖= all grammatical

sentences and only grammatical
sentences

⚫Finite rules infinite number of

well- formed sentences
⚫Productivity of language:
 Phrase structure rules
 Transformational rules

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Constituent
8

⚫ A constituent is a string of words that function as a

unit .
⚫ Constituents are embedded one inside another to
form larger constituents in a hierarchical
structure.
⚫ This hierarchical structure is presented in tree
structures .

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Phrasal Categories
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• S (TP): Sentence (tense phrase)

•NP: Noun Phrase (subject of the sentence)
• VP: Verb Phrase (predicate of the sentence)
• PP: Prepositional Phrase
• AdjP: Adjective Phrase
• AdvP: Adverb Phrase

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Phrase Structure Rules
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Rules that determine:


what goes into a phrase (‗constituents‘)

how the constituents are ordered

Each rule ―rewrites‖ a constituent into one or

more constituents

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Phrase Structure Rules
11


are generative, allow recursion.


give different analyses of syntactically
ambiguous sentences.


have a hierarchical structure.

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Phrase Structure Rules
12


Examples – structure of the English noun
phrase(NP)

NP → (Det) (Adj) N (PP)

The unopened books on the
table

So NP must contain a NP but can also contain

a lot of other phrases.

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Phrase Structure Rules
13

⚫ Examples- structure of the verbal phrase (VP)

 VP → V shouted
 VP → V Adv shouted happily
 VP → V NP kick the ball
 VP → V NP PP (Adv) put the book on the desk(quietly)
 VP → V (S) know (the students attended their lectures)

So, a VP must contain a verb, but can also

contain a lot of other phrases (...): VP → V
(NP) (PP)(Adv) (S)
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 Phrase structure rules
14

Sentence/Clause-level PS Rules
1. S → NP VP (a sentence is obligatorily comprised of a NP and
a VP)
[NP The students] [VP attended their lectures]
2. S → NP (Aux) VP
The students will take exams.

A sentence must contain NP and VP, the

auxiliary is optional, we can indicate this
with (...).

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Phrase structure rules
15

 S {NP/CP} (T) VP
 VP (AdvP+) V (NP)({NP/CP}) (AdvP+) (PP+)
(AdvP+)
 NP (D) (AdjP+) N (PP+) (CP)
 PP P (NP)
 AdjP (AdvP) Adj
 AdvP (AdvP) Adv
 CP (C) S

The items in red are obligatory in the constituent. They

are the heads that give each category its name.
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 What is Tree Diagram?
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⚫ Tree diagram provides us visual representation of the

constituents of the corresponding expression.

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 What is Tree Diagram?
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⚫ E.g. A child can kick a football.

S

NP Aux VP

Art N V NP

Art N

A child can kick a football

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 Tree Diagram Terminology
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⚫ Constituent
⚫ Sub-Constituent
⚫ Root/Mother, Sister, Daughter, Grand Daughter, etc.
⚫ Node, Terminal Node, Non-terminal Node, Labeled Node
⚫ Branch/Solid Line

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Tree Diagram Terminology
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Labeled Nodes

B E

C D F G

H J

Solid Lines/Branches
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 Tree Diagram Terminology
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Constituent
Non-Terminal Node

A Sub-Constituent
Non-Terminal Node
B E

C D F G

H J

Terminal Nodes Terminal Nodes contain any lexical item

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 Tree Diagram Terminology
21

C D E F

Terminal Nodes
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 Tree Diagram Terminology
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Mother/Root

A Daughters of A
Sisters
B E

C D F G

H J

• Grand Daughters of A
•Daughters of G
•Sisters—CD (daughters of B) and FG(daughters
•Sisters to each other
of E)
•They have no cousin
• Cousins CD to FG and FG to CD
•Grand grand daughters of A
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan •Grand daughters of E
 Syntactic Trees and Phrases
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⚫ Every sentence in the language has its representation

in syntactic trees.
⚫ Consider the following examples of verbal phrases:
 VP → V shouted
 VP → V Adv shouted happily
 VP → V NP kick the ball
 VP → V NP PP (Adv) put the book on the desk(quietly)
 VP → V (S) know (the students attended their lectures)

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Syntactic Trees and Phrases
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⚫ VP → V shouted
⚫ It consists of only a verb,
thus:
⚫ [VP [V shouted]]
⚫ This is presented in the
following tree:

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Syntactic Trees and Phrases
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⚫ Now another verbal phrase with more than one word

⚫ VP → V NP PP (Adv) put the book on the desk(quietly)
⚫ [VP[V put][NP[Det the][N book]][PP[P on][NP[Det the][N
desk]]][Adv quietly]]
⚫ And we thus have the following tree:

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 26

⚫ Clauses don‘t always have to stand on their own.

There are times when one clause is embedded inside
another:

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 27

⚫ E.g. Sam said that he killed a dragon

⚫ [S [NP[N Sam] [VP[V said] [CP [C that ] [S[NP[P he]][VP[V
killed][NP[Det a][N dragon]]]

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Recursion
28

⚫ Rules can be applied more than once in generating

sentences
⚫ E.g. repeat prepositional phrase more than once
 The apple was on the bench near the stove in the kitchen
of the haunted house
⚫ Put sentences inside sentences
 This is the cat that ate the rat that ate the cheese that was
sold by the woman that lived in the village that was by
the river…
⚫ No end to recursion- produce longer complex
sentences

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Recursion
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⚫ [Mary helped George]. (A sentence)

⚫ [Cathy knew] that [Mary helped George].
(a sentence within a sentence)
⚫ [John believed] that [Cathy knew] that [Mary helped
George].
⚫ The word that introduces the complement phrase

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Complement Phrases
30

⚫ Cathy knew that Mary helped George

⚫ That = complementizer (C) introducing
complement phrase (CP)
⚫ The CP comes after the VP
⚫ S NP VP
⚫ VP V CP
⚫ CP CS

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Complement Phrases
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Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 How to Draw Trees
32

⚫ There are actually two ways to go about drawing a

tree.
⚫ You can start at the bottom and work your way up to
the S, or you can start with the S moving down to the
terminal nodes

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 How to Draw Trees
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⚫ E.g. The very cute baby kissed the nurse on the

cheek.

⚫ Since we will draw a bottom-up tree, it is a good idea to

move the sentence to the bottom of the page so that we
have enough space for nodes and arrows.

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 How to Draw Trees
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The very cute baby kissed the nurse on the

cheek.
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 How to Draw Trees
35

Step 1: Identify parts of

speech:

D Adv Adj N V D N Prep D N

The very cute baby kissed the nurse on the

cheek.
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 How to Draw Trees
36

Step 2: Identify what modifies

what:

D Adv Adj N V D N Prep D N

The very cute baby kissed the nurse on the

cheek.
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 How to Draw Trees
37

Step 3: start linking together items that modify one

another:

NP VP
PP
AdjP NP NP

D Adv N V D N Pre D N

The Adj baby kissed the p the

nurse cheek.
very on
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 How to Draw Trees
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Step 4: make sure you apply the rule exactly as it is written,

e.g.:
AdjP  (AdvP) Adj
NP VP
PP
AdjP NP NP

D Adv N V D N Pre D N

The baby kissed the the

Adj p
nurse cheek.

very
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
on
 How to Draw Trees
39

Step 5: make sure you apply the rule exactly as it is written,

e.g.:
AdjP  (AdvP) Adj

AdjP NP NP

D Adv Adj N V D N Prep D N

The very cute baby kissed the nurse on the

cheek.
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 How to Draw Trees
40

Step 6: Keep applying the rules until you have attached all the
modifiers to the modified constituents:

VP  V NP PP
NP  D AdjP NP
PP  Prep D N
AdjP NP NP

D Adv Adj N V D N Prep D N

The very cute baby kissed the nurse on the

cheek.
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 How to Draw Trees
41

Step 7: when you have built up the NP and VP, apply the S
rule:
S

VP  V NP
PP
PP  Prep D N
NP  D AdjP NP
AdjP NP NP

D Adv Adj N V D N Prep D N

The very cute baby kissed the nurse on the

cheek.
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 How to Draw Trees
42

Some important considerations:

1. Make sure that everything is attached to the tree.

2. Make sure that every category has only one line
immediately on top of it (it can have more than one
under it, but only one immediately on top of it).
3. Don‘t cross lines.
4. Make sure all branches in the tree have a part of speech
label.
5. Avoid triangles.

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Deep and Surface Structure
43

⚫ The deep structure is an abstract level of

structural organization in which all the elements
determining structural interpretation are
represented.
 Sentences that have alternative interpretations
 Sentences that have different surface forms but have the
same underlying meaning.
⚫ Surface structure= how the sentence is actually
represented

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Deep and Surface Structure
44

⚫ How superficially different sentences are closely

related?
 Charlie broke the window.
 The window was broken by Charlie
 Charlie who broke the window.
 Was the window broken by Charlie?

 Difference in their surface structure = difference

in syntactic forms
 BUT they have the same ‘deep’ or underlying
structure

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Structural ambiguity
45

⚫ How superficially similar sentences are different?

(multiple meanings)
⚫ E.g. Annie whacked the man with an umbrella

⚫ Same surface structure but different deep

structure
 The boy saw the man with a telescope

⚫ The question is: What is the scope of "with the

telescope"? Does it modify only "the man" or does
it modify "saw the man"?
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 Structural Ambiguity
46

⚫ Syntactic trees allow us to capture another important

fact about syntactic structure: Sentences often are
ambiguous.
⚫ This is done by referring to the Principle of
Modification which states :
⚫ Principle of Modification :If an XP (that is, a
phrase with some category X) modifies some head Y,
then XP must be a sister to Y (i.e., a daughter of
YP).
⚫ Consider the following example:
The boy saw the man with the telescope.
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 Structural Ambiguity
47

NP VP
Det N V NP PP
Det N P NP

Det N

The boy saw the man with the telescope

Meaning: Using the telescope, the boy saw the man
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 Structural Ambiguity
48
S

NP VP
Det N V NP

Det N PP

P NP

Det N
The boy saw the man with the
telescop
Meaning: The boy saw the man. The man had a telescope.
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan e
 Constituency Tests
49

⚫ Constituents are generated by rules up to the light of

the scientific method.
⚫ If the hypothesis of constituency is correct, we
should be able to test it in general.

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Constituency Tests
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⚫ First, the smallest constituent is a single word, so it

follows that if you can replace a group of words
with a single word then we know that group forms
a constituent.
⚫ Consider the italicized NP in the following
sentence, It can be replaced with a single word (in
this case a pronoun).
This is the replacement test.
⚫ a) The man from NY flew only ultra-light
planes.
⚫ He flew only ultra-light planes.

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Constituency Tests
51

⚫ The second test we will use is the stand-alone test

(sometimes also called the sentence fragment
test).
⚫ If the words can stand alone in response to a
question, then they probably constitute a constituent

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Constituency Tests
52

⚫ Stand-alone test example:

‘Paul ate at a really fancy restaurant’
―What did Paul do yesterday afternoon?‖
Ate at a really fancy restaurant (VP)
―Where did Paul eat yesterday afternoon?‖
at a really fancy restaurant (PP)

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Constituency Tests
53

⚫ Movement is our third test of constituency. If you

can move a group of words around in the sentence,
then they form a constituent – because you can move
them as a unit.
⚫ It is only reliable when you keep the meaning
roughly the same as in the original sentence
⚫ it involves putting the object in the subject position,
the subject in a ―by phrase‖ (after the word by) and
changing the verb form (for example from kiss to
was kissed).

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan

 Constituency Tests
54

Movement involves
1- Clefting:
It was [a brand new car] that he bought.
(from He bought a brand new car)

2 Preposing:
[Big bowls of beans] are what I like.
(from I like big bowls of beans)

3 Passive:
[The big boy] was kissed by [the
slobbering dog].
(from The slobbering dog kissed the big
boy)
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 Constituency Tests
55

⚫ the test of coordination (also called

conjunction). Coordinate structures are
constituents linked by a conjunction like and or or.
Only constituents of the same syntactic category
can be conjoined:

⚫ a) [John] and [the man] went to the store.

⚫ *John and very blue went to the store.
⚫ If you can coordinate a group of words with a
similar group of words, then they form a
constituent.
Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan
 End of Presentation

Syntax: Constituency - Eman AlHusaiyan 56