1 syntactic structure in familiar and exotic languages richard hudson krakow, october 2009
TRANSCRIPT
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Syntactic structure in familiar and exotic languages
Richard Hudson
Krakow, October 2009
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Plan
1. Understanding syntactic structure
2. Showing syntactic structure
3. Teaching syntactic structure
4. Using syntactic structure
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1. Understanding syntactic structure
• For example: Time flies like an arrow
and fruit flies like a banana.
• The sentence-parts have:
– different word classes.
verb
noun
preposition
verb
– but also different relations among words.• i.e. different syntactic structures
Groucho Marx
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How to analyse syntactic structures?
• Two theoretical traditions:– the old European tradition– the young American tradition
• Poland contributed to the old tradition– Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz invented Categorial
Grammar (1935)
• But the young tradition dominates theory.
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The old tradition
• How old?
• At least 1,000 years – in 8th century Arabic grammar from Basra and
Kufa
• Part of a much longer tradition of grammatical analysis– starting in Babylonia
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About 2,000 BC
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Babylonia
Akkadian
Sumerian
Babylon
new, semitic, in fashion
earliest written language, out of
fashion
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Becoming literate in Babylon
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Verb conjugations(Sumerian and Akkadian)
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We – you – they (in that order)
Sumerian Akkadian English
menden-ee ni:nu-mi we
menzen-ee attunu-mi you
emene-ee unu-mi they
NB!!!4000 years ago!!!
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Syntactic structure: old tradition
• Among the units, words are basic.– but also some word-combinations:
• clauses and prepositional phrases
• Syntactic relations: – relate words directly to one another.– are classified:
• subject
• object, etc.
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The new tradition
• Invented in 1933 in USA– by Leonard Bloomfield
• Called ‘Immediate Constituent Analysis’– then ‘Phrase structure grammar’
• Assumed by all leading theories– Chomsky: Minimalism– Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, etc.
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Syntactic structure: new tradition
• Units: – most units are ‘phrases’ – word groups– words have no special status
• Relations: two primitive relations:– order: A before B– part-whole: A is part of B– but sometimes combined with ‘subject’ etc.
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For example
… fruit flies like a banana.• old tradition:
the word flies is subject of the word like
• new tradition:
the phrase fruit flies is the first part of the phrase fruit flies like a banana
• no direct link between flies and like
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Who cares?
• Linguists care.
• So they’ve formalised these traditions:– old = dependency grammar (no phrases)– new = phrase structure grammar (no
classified relations)
• Psychologists care too: – how do our minds handle syntax?
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Claim: Our minds use dependency grammar
• We recognise abstract classified relations in other areas– e.g. social relations: brother, cousin, colleague,
friend, …
• So why not in syntax?– e.g. fruit modifies flies, which is subject of like
• But then phrase structure is redundant.
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2. Showing syntactic structure
• Complex structures need a notation.– geography has maps– music has musical notation– mathematics has formulae, graphs, etc.
• Syntax needs a notation.– first introduced in 19th century– for teaching grammar in school
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Standard notation for phrase structure
Time flies like an arrow.
N
NP
V P D N
NP
PP
VP
S
OK before VP
OK after D
agreement
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A notation for dependency structure
Time flies like an arrow.N V P D N
s a
subject
adjunct
c
complement
c
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The joke
Time flies like an arrowN V P D N
s a c c
and fruit flies like a banana.N N V D N
a s o c
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3. Teaching syntactic structure
Dependencies are relevant to:
• meaning
• agreement
• selection
• optionality
• word order
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Teaching meaningLIKE and PLEASE are synonyms, but …
He liked it.
s o
Him liking it
him it
feeler stimulus
It pleased him.
s o
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Teaching agreement
Time flies like an arrowN V P D N
s a c c
N N V D N
a s o c
and fruit flies like a banana.
agreement
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SZUKAĆ selects a genitive
Teaching selection
RELY selects ON He relies on her.
s c c
selection
CAN selects an infinitive He can swim.
s p
predicative
sextra dependency
infinitive
o
Szukam prezentu.I seek present.
genitive
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Teaching optionality
• Some verbs demand an object, others allow one:
He took it obligatory object
He ate it optional object
• Absent objects usually have indefinite meaning:
He ate. = He ate something.
*He made a sandwich and ate.
• This is English. What about other languages?
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mo keeki-wa yaki-mashita-ka
already cake-topic make- did - ?
Have you baked a/the cake?
Japanese
o
o
hai, yaki-mashitayes make-did
• Most dependents are optional• When absent, they are definite
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Relations are abstract, not just word order:
• ‘subject’, not ‘the noun before the verb’– The man who we think knows the answer
• ‘complement’, not ‘the noun after the verb’– The man on whom she relies
• ‘dependent’, not ‘nearby word’
Why use dependencies?
s
agreement
cselection
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Teaching word order
• All word-order rules use dependencies.
• Many languages have very general rules.
• Dependents take their position from the head:– free order: no restrictions– head-final: head follows all dependents– head-initial: head precedes all dependents– head-medial: head follows some dependents and
precedes others.
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Free order
JankochaMarię
o s
Jan kocha Marię
s o
Jan kochaMarię
s o
Jankocha Marię
s
Jan kochaMarię
o s
o
Jankocha Marię
s o
Polish
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Head-final or -initial
shinbun-ga teburu-no ue-ni desu
newspaper-subj table-’s top-on is
sJapanese
WelshMi roddes i lyfr da i dad Eleri
- gave I book good to father Eleri
I gave a good book to Eleri’s father.
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Head-medialEnglish
We dread cold weather just before Christmas.
• Every dependent is either a pre-dependent or a post-dependent.
• Every major word class allows both.
•Why?
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4. Using syntactic structure
• Speakers use syntactic structure to combine words.
• Hearers use it to combine meanings.
• Therefore, we must hold words in memory until their dependencies are complete.
• This places a load on memory.
• No problem if dependencies are short.
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• A word’s dependency distance is the number of words that separate it from its ‘parent’.
That Cracow is a very beautiful city by any standards is clear.
It is clear that Cracow is a very beautiful city by any standards.
Dependency distance
dd = 9
dd = 1
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• Human minds are the same everywhere– so we expect similar dd figures in all languages.
• Conversation:– English: 0.4 (mean dd)– Japanese: 0.4– German: 0.9
• Chinese news: 1.89 – head-initial: 3.3
• Are these figures correct and typical?– If so, what do they tell us?
Some figures
!!!
!!!
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Conclusions
• Syntactic structure is important when teaching languages or learning them.
• Dependency structure is better than phrase structure.
• Structural analysis allows important generalisations.
• Syntactic structure needs diagrams.
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Dziękuję
• This slide-show is available atwww.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/talks/cracow.ppt• The theory is called Word Grammar
www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/wg.htm