CHAPTER 2: BUILDING BLOCKS

Coursebook:
Elly van Gelderen. 2017. Syntax. An introduction to minimalism
NOT ALL CATEGORIES ARE BORN EQUAL IN LANGUAGE

 Two kinds of categories can be distinguished:

 1. ?
 2. ?
 What are the grounds for distinguishing between
them?
HOW ARE LEXICAL CATEGORIES DISTINGUISHED?

 Lexical categories are words with conceptual

content (=they name notions or concepts in the
mind). This is why:
 1. they are the first to acquire , e.g.???
 2. they have counterparts in other languages, e.g.
???
 3. they are the ones we borrow from other
languages, e.g. ???
 4. they constitute the bulk of switches, e.g. ???
HOW ARE GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES DISTINGUISHED?

 Grammatical categories do not have conceptual

content; they have meaning, of course, but their
meaning is (mostly) grammatical.
 What could be grammatical meaning? Example:
???
 1. ?
 2. ?
 3. ?
HOW ARE GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES DISTINGUISHED?

 Because they encode grammatical concepts (e.g.

tense, aspect, person, number, (in)definiteness, etc.),
they:
 1. are not the first to acquire in FLA
 2. may lack equivalents in other languages (e.g.
definite article)
 3. not frequently borrowed
 4. do not carry main stress (unless contrastively
stressed)
 5. are rare in code switching
DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN WORDS

 All words in a sentence belong to a particular category:

 Category Example
 a. noun car, city, cleverness, event, John, …………….., ……………
 b. verb love, think, disagree, widen, belong, ………………, ………………
 c. adjective good, obscene, sad, lovely, red, ….., …..
 d. adverb slowly, often, now, mostly, …………, ……..
 e. preposition off, by, in, with, to, at, inside, …………, ……………. , …………..
 f. determiner a, the, …….., ……
 g. coordinator and, or, ….
 h. complementizer that, …
 WHICH OF THE ABOVE ARE LEXICAL AND WHICH ARE GRAMMATICAL?
LEXICAL VS. GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES

 Lexical:

 Noun
 Verb
 Adjective
 Adverb
 Preposition (?)
LEXICAL VS. GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES

 Grammatical:

 Determiner
 Auxiliary (T)
 Coordinator
 Complementizer
THE CRITERIA

 Semantic (meaning)

 Morphological (form)

 Syntactic (distribution: where X occurs and

what it co-occurs with)
SEMANTICS???

‘a noun denotes a person, place or thing’,

‘a verb denotes a state, an activity or event’
or ‘an adjective denotes a property or quality’.
Such semantic generalisations are of limited use because
they are only tendencies, not absolute rules. For example:
There are nouns which denote ………………………..
(e.g. cleaning), ………………………… (e.g.death),
……………………….(e.g. his fear) and ……………………….. (e.g.
friendliness).
MORPHOLOGY

Examples of morphological criteria:

 1. ???

 2. ???

 3. ???
MORPHOLOGY

Examples of morphological criteria:

 only nouns can take a plural affix (trees, times)
 most verbs change their morphological form
according to the requirements of tense and
agreement (I talk, she talks, I talked)
 if you can add –er/est to a word, it is an adjective or
adverb.
SYNTAX

Syntactic criteria are about the distribution of

words occurring together with other words. For
example:
What is […]? To answer this question, look at the
preceding word:

(2) a. They have no [… ].

b. The [… ] is very [… ].
c. They can [… ].
WHICH CRITERION OR CRITERIA
IS/ARE DECISIVE?

The syntactic criterion:

Whether ’parrot’ is a noun or verb depends on the structure
in which the word occurs (i.e. which position the word takes
and how it is related syntactcally to other words):

The child would parrot his mother’s every word.

Even if you do not know the word (i.e. you don’t know what
the word means), you still know its syntactic category in the
syntactic context in which you hear it.
EXAMPLE 1

What’s wug in English? What is wug not?

a. The dog wugged the ball.
b. The dog is wugging the ball.
c. The dog likes to wug the ball.
d. The dog gently wugged the ball.
e. *The wug kicked the ball.
f. *The dog chased the wug cat.
EXAMPLE 2

What could za be in English?

a. Larry placed the book za the table.
b. Za the table, Sam found his glasses.
c. *Za green book fell on the floor.
d. *I don’t like za.
e. *Sam zas every day.
f. *Sam found his gloves za.
HOW DO WE KNOW THE
CATEGORIES?
.How do you know your nouns morphologically?
Any noun-specific derivational morphology?
Any noun-specific inflectional morphology?
HOW DO WE KNOW OUR PARTS OF
SPEECH?
.How do you know your nouns morphologically?
Any noun-specific derivational morphology?
-ity, -ness, …, …
Any noun-specific inflectional morphology?
… (if you inflect in a regular way), possessive 's
HOW DO WE KNOW OUR PARTS
OF SPEECH?
How do you know your nouns syntactically?
Any noun-specific position?
Any noun-specific syntactic function?
HOW DO WE KNOW OUR PARTS
OF SPEECH?
How do you know your nouns syntactically?
Any noun-specific position?
Following a determiner (the/a/this, etc.)
Following a modifying adjective

Any noun-specific syntactic function?

Direct object (the function of NP complementing a
transitive verb)
NOUNS AND COUNTABILITY

Count nouns can combine on their own with a numeral

(=determiner):
Three books are lying on the table.
To count things referred to with non-count nouns with numerals,
a unit noun must be used in the construction:
I want to buy *two meats/two pieces/pounds of meat.
Count nouns in the singular must be used with a determiner:
I want a drink.
*I want drink.
I want wine.
NOUNS AND COUNTABILITY

Count nouns combine with quantifiers (a kind of determiner) like

many:
They read many/few books.
Non-count nouns combine with quantifiers like much:
Is there much salt in this soup?

So, what does countability reflect or what does it involve?

NOUNS AND COUNTABILITY

Are the italicised nouns count or non-count? And how do you

know?

You needn’t have gone into so much detail?

We’ve run out of paper.
Can I have another sausage?
He has jet-black hair.
They treat their new help appallingly.
HOW DO WE KNOW LEXICAL
CATEGORIES?

How do you know your verbs morphologically?

Any verb-specific derivational morphology?
Any verb-specific inflectional morphology?
HOW DO WE KNOW LEXICAL
CATEGORIES?

How do you know your verbs morphologically?

Any verb-specific derivational morphology?
-ize, …
Any verb-specific inflectional morphology?
-ed for past tense (if the verb inflects in a regular way)
….?
HOW DO WE KNOW LEXICAL
CATEGORIES?
How do you know your verbs syntactically?
Any verb-specific position?
Any verb-specific syntactic function?

Why are the following ungrammatical in English?

*They can cute/trendy.
*They can up/round/off.
*They can woman/door/camera.
HOW DO WE KNOW LEXICAL
CATEGORIES?
How do you know your verbs syntactically?
Any verb-specific position?
following an auxiliary verb, e.g. ???
followed by noun

Why are the following ungrammatical in English?

*They can cute/trendy.
*They can up/round/off.
*They can woman/door/camera.
HOW DO WE KNOW THE
CATEGORIES?
How do you know your adjectives morphologically?
Any adjective-specific derivational morphology?
Any adjective-specific inflection?

How do you know your adjectives syntactically?

Any adjective-specific position?
HOW DO WE KNOW LEXICAL
CATEGORIES?
How do you know your adjectives morphologically?
Any adjective-specific derivational morphology?
-ous, -ic, …, …
Any adjective-specific inflection?
-er/-est (also inflect adverbs; limited to gradable adjectives and
adverbs)
Why is
*They are idiotics.
ungrammatical in English?
How do you know your adjectives syntactically?
Any adjective-specific position?
HOW DO WE KNOW LEXICAL
CATEGORIES?
How do you know your adjectives syntactically?
They have special syntactic functions:

attributive function:
???
predicative function:
???
HOW DO WE KNOW LEXICAL
CATEGORIES?
How do you know your adjectives syntactically?

What can follow very?

He is very _____ .
He walks very ____ .

Why are the following ungrammatical?

*Very girls love to have fun.
*He very adores her.
*It happened very after party.
HOW DO WE KNOW LEXICAL
CATEGORIES?
How do you know your adverbs:

Morphologically: ???

many end in –ly

-wise derives only with adverbs (but not all adverbs are
derived with -wise)
HOW DO WE KNOW LEXICAL
CATEGORIES?
How do you know your adverbs:

syntactically: ???
modify V, Adj, or Adv
examples ???
PREPOSITIONS

In this coursebook, they are lexical, but other authors

consider them grammatical.
Why?
1. They are a closed-class (unlike other lexical
categories)
2. They are often replaced with inflectional suffixes in
other languages (and inflectional suffixes are
”functional”, not lexical)
3. Some prepositions are semantically bleached (like
of in the student of English)
PREPOSITIONS

Why treat them as lexical?

They tend to have conceptual content (up, before,

etc.)
Because of this, they tend to have have antonyms
(e.g. ???)
They can be modified:
PREPOSITIONS
What can follow right?

Go right up the ladder.

He fell right down the stairs.
He arrived right on time.
*He right despaired.
*Life right can be cruel.
*She is right pretty.
*She looked him right strangely.
*She chose right this one.
GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES

Determiners (articles, demonstratives, (most)

quantifiers, possessive pronouns, (some) wh-
pronouns
Coordinators (and, or, etc.)
Complementizers (that, whether, etc.)
Tense (auxiliaries, modals, non-finite to)
TENSE (AUXILIARIES, INFINITIVE TO)

How do they speak to us?

Are they independent of other categories in a
structure?
What kinds of meanings do they express? How
about:
I do love you.
How do they distribute in the structures in which
they occur? Hint: in interrogative sentences; in
negated sentences; in question tags?
KINDS OF AUXILIARIES

Modal: ???
Semi-modal: ???
Aspectual auxiliary: ???
Passive auxiliary: ???

Which of the above inflect for tense (person and

number)?
DETERMINERS: ARTICLES, DEMONSTRATIVES,
QUANTIFIERS, POSSESSIVE, INTERROGATIVE
NUMERAL

How do they speak to us?

Are they independent of other categories in a
structure?
How do they distribute in the structures in which
they occur?
COMPLEMENTIZER

???

Examples???

What is so in the sentences below?

He came late, so he missed all the fun.
I didn’t know it was so late.
PRONOUNS

Pronouns are pro-forms, i.e. they stand for a certain

kind of lexical phrases:

The student read the diary. He laughed. He turned a

page.
He substitutes for ’the student’.
Pronouns like he substitute for entire noun phrases:
The student from Peru read the diary. He laughed.
The student from Peru read the diary. *He from Peru
laughed.
PRONOUNS

As they occur in the place of noun phrases, they can

function on their own.
But:
As items in the lexicon, pronouns have little meaning.
What is the meaning of he?
Person: ?
Number: ?
Gender: ?
PRONOUNS

How do we distinguish between he, him and himself?

Person?
Number?
Gender?
Case?
Is that all?
John likes him.
John likes himself.
PRONOUNS

John likes himself.

Himself is 3, sg, masculine, reflexive

What does reflexive mean?

PROBLEMS OF CATEGORISATON

Identify the word category of the italicized word:

Not every parrot can parrot naughty words.

Is your goal this year to win or to podium?
Please aware the cashier if you have a gift certificate.
Do you DVD?
PROBLEMS OF CATEGORISATION

Identify the word category of each word in the following:

The red-haired assistant put the vital documents through the new
efficient shredder.
The large evil leathery alligator complained to his aging keeper
about his extremely unattractive description.
I just ate the last piece of chocolate cake.
EXERCISES A & B

Look at the below text and identify the lexical verbs and prepositions.

Mayor Mark Mitchell and the Tempe City Council recently approved a 20-year
agreement with Solar City that will put Tempe on the map as an energy efficient city.
Mitchell and the council hope the approval will advance the city’s plan to provide 20
percent of energy through renewable sources by 2025. “We just recently installed
solar panels on the fire and courts building and we are just now breaking ground on
the Library Complex Solar Project, which will provide about 35 percent of energy to
the complex,” said Tempe Public Information Officer Melissa Quillard.

Do the same for the C-elements and adverbs.

NEXT TIME

Chapter 3, Coursebook
available on Pegaz