English Syntax Essay

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English Syntax: An Introduction Jong-Bok Kim and Peter Sells November 20, 2007 CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE AND INFORMATION Contents 1 Some Basic Properties of English Syntax 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 How We Discover Rules Exercises 9 11 4 1 1 7 Some Remarks on the Essence of Human Language Why Do We Study Syntax and What Is It Good for? 2 From Words to Major Phrase Types 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Introduction 11 12 Lexical Categories 2.2.1 Determining the Lexical Categories 12 Grammar with Lexical Categories Phrasal Categories 2.5.1 NP: Noun Phrase 2.5.2 VP: Verb Phrase 17 19 22 22 23 25 25 26 Phrase Structure Rules 2.5.3 AP: Adjective Phrase 2.5.4 AdvP: Adverb Phrase 2.5.5 PP: Preposition Phrase 2.6 2.7 3 Grammar with Phrases Exercises 32 26 Syntactic Forms, Grammatical Functions, and Semantic Roles 3.1 3.2 Introduction 3.2.1 Subjects 35 35 36 38 3 36 Grammatical Functions 3.2.2 Direct and Indirect Objects 3.2.3 Predicative Complements 3.2.4 Oblique Complements 3.2.5 Modifiers 41 40 39 3.3 3.4 3.5 4 Form and Function Together Semantic Roles Exercises 46 43 41 Head, Complements, and Modifiers 4.1 4.1.1 Internal vs. External Syntax 49 49 49 50 Projections from Lexical Heads to Phrases 4.1.2 Notion of Head, Complements, and Modifiers 4.2 4.3 4.4 Differences between Complements and Modifiers PS Rules, X -Rules, and Features Lexicon and Feature Structures 55 62 62 65 52 4.4.1 Feature Structures and Basic Operations 4.4.2 Feature Structures for Linguistic Entities 4.4.3 Argument Realization 66 67 4.4.4 Verb Types and Argument Structure 4.5 5 Exercises 71 73 73 76 More on Subjects and Complements 5.1 5.2 Grammar Rules and Principles 5.2.1 5.2.2 5.2.3 Complements of Verbs 76 80 Feature Specifications on the Complement Values Complements of Adjectives
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