Questions tagged [syntax-trees]
Graphical representations of hierarchical analyses of grammatical relations. Requests to make syntax trees are off-topic.
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Is there always at least one parse which accounts for all words cleanly using Phrase Structure Grammar trees?
A few small but related questions here. I'm looking at ways to define "sentence patterns", at least starting with English. That led me back to phrase structure grammars, which have nice and ...
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How do I identify constituents and clause boundaries?
I'm going through some practice exercises for an upcoming exam and trying to do syntax trees is really tripping me up. Could anyone please walk me through how they would break them down and how to ...
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Is this syntactic tree correct so far? [closed]
*Not homework
I have been doing practice problems, but I am really struggling with syntax trees.
I think I have the first part of the tree, but I'm not sure about the rest.
Here is the practice ...
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What is HMC in generative grammar?
I'm currently reading a Ph.D. thesis concerning the structure of English adjectives. These generative trees are used to illustrate the structure of the phrase "someone tall". The author ...
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What does a prime mean in a node label in a X-bar structure tree?
In Anderson's Essentials of Linguistics, a X-bar structure tree contains nodes labeled with '. What does the prime mean? What do N', V', and T' mean? Thanks.
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Is an OBL argument in complement or adjunct position?
My syntax lecture materials on Arguementhood vs Adjuncthood explain that one difference between arguments and adjuncts lies in the participation in alternations: only arguments participate in ...
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On the argument structure of 'bet'
I have some problems with defining the argument structure of bet in the following pair of sentences:
a) John bet £300 on Manchester United.
b) John bet Bill £300 that Manchester United would win the ...
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How to show the difference between the opaque reading and the transparent reading via syntax?
Is there any way using any version of Generative Grammar (EST, REST, GB, MP) to show the difference between "the transparent reading" and "the opaque reading" of the same line ...
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Is it possible to have a repeated node appear under the same node? (Syntax Tree) [illustration provided]
Please help me understand these syntax trees (French and English).
For context we are learning about the representation of movement in syntax trees.
From my understanding, we'd have to use an X' under ...
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Why are these adjectives being presented as adverbs in syntax tree (Carnie, 3rd Edition)?
I am in a Syntax class where we use the textbook Syntax: A Generative Introduction, 3rd Edition by Andrew Carnie.
There is a tree presented in the chapter on x-bar theory that indicates that the words ...
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Name for ongoing syntactic dependencies after a word
Consider the sentence "I love my dog." There are three syntactic dependencies in this sentence: (a) the subject dependency from "I" to "love," (b) the modifier dependency ...
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How do syntacticians explain object pronouns in the subject position ("Me and him" or "Lui et moi")?
Me and a lot of other native English speakers sometimes use object pronouns as the subject of sentences if there's an "and" in the subject. This has been mentioned on Stack Exchange before ...
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Argumentation for the existence of Tense phrase
I could not find syntactic arguments to support the existence of a separate T(ense) category inside the tree for the sentence “John rarely spends the weekend with his family”
As well as syntactic ...
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In X-Bar theory, what could the Specifiers of PPs and AdvPs ever be?
In X-Bar theory, do prepositional phrases, adverbial phrases, adjectival phrases etc. ever have specifiers? What could they be?
The only phrases I know the possible specifiers for are: Noun Phrases, ...
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How does an AdvP attach in X-bar syntax?
I am studying Linguistics and for the life of me, I cannot seem to get my head around X bar theory. I have to figure out the X bar sytax tree of this sentence:
"I love the cover of the book very ...
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Is triple branching necessary in making a syntax tree for 'the girl in the room waved to me'? [closed]
If 'the girl in the room' is my constituent, should I use triple branching under my first N'? The two options I am considering are below. Which would be correct?
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Stacking of prepositions in English?
The Cambridge Grammar Of The English Language recognises the existence of intransitive prepositions (p. 612):
The case for allowing prepositions with no complements is most compelling where the same ...
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How do I treat phrasal verbs in X-bar theory?
I need to draw the tree of this sentence according to x-bar theory.
She would back me up when it was needed
What do I do with the phrasal verb with the pronoun in the middle?
Thank you!
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French V-to-T movement and modifier
I am struggling with this question that concerns the location of a modifier in a French sentence. How would you account for the last sentence?
Thank you in advance.
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How to recognize Heads [closed]
I'm reading "Introduction to English linguistics" and in the chapter 4, there is a paragraph that I don't understand :
The other crucial cluster of properties of heads concern their ...
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How can the following phrase ambiguously have two trees: "expensive shoes from Italy"?
This is an exercise from "Introducing syntax" by Olaf Koeneman & Hedde Zeijlstra, 2017. The chapter this exercise is taken from deals with "Merge".
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Infinitive clauses in syntactic bracketing/trees [closed]
I am a little confused on how the bracketing of a sentence like “millie forced me to play” would look like when also breaking down the tenses within the phrase. Thank you!
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Is there a language whose syntactic structure accepts a specifier of a PP?
We know a preposition (in X-bar theory) is the head of a prepositional phrase and it has a complement that is the sister of this very preposition. However I've never seen a language with a constituent ...
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"STARBUCKESE" syntax problem
In standard English, one can’t put a PP before a head noun that the preposition modifies. For example, the NP in (a) is completely ungrammatical.
a) *The with milk coffee.
But there is a major chain ...
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Difference between the Merge postion and the base position
I was reading this analysis of the derivation below. And I wasn't familiar with the terminology "original Merge position." Is it just like "the base position"? Here is the sentence ...
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Why is the PP, according to this derivation, directly moved from the lower (farther) DP, not the nearer one?
The sentence being parsed:
De CHOMSKY varios libros han ganado premios internacionales, no de Trotsky.
of Chomsky several books have won awards international-PL, not of Trotsky
Why is the PP on top ...
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Why two appearances of the past participle "ganado" in this derivation?
The sentence being parsed:
De CHOMSKY varios libros han ganado premios internacionales, no de Trotsky.
of Chomsky several books have won awards international-PL, not of Trotsky
Could someone please ...
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How do you draw a x-bar tree with negative inversion? [closed]
For example: 'Never was I so offended'
There is already a T to C inversion with 'was', where do we put the word 'Never'?
And how should we label it? AdvP or Neg?
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In syntax trees, why aren't single-word phrases reduced to that word?
Why do phrases like "the car in Texas" break down into
(NP (Det the) (N car)
(PP (P in) (NP (N Texas))))
Why is the prepositional phrase "in Texas" constituted of the ...
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Handling enumerations in Generative syntax trees
How can we build syntax trees for sentences with enumerations?
I have three sentences as examples:
S1: John, Mary, Paul, Alice and Bob eat a cake.
S2: I'm eating an apple, a pear, a cherry, a ...
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How to treat adverbial phrases in X-bar theory
My question is about how to represent so-called adverbial phrases like "last night" or "all day". My confusion arises because there seems to be a consensus that these phrases are ...
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Difference between primary and secundary predicates(/argument small clauses) and their (overt) 'heads', and transition/ambiguity between the two
What is the exact difference between primary and secundary predicates?
From what I understood, primary predicates are verbal and have a predicate head (usually a copula - he was a mine worker). ...
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Why is "addressing" discontinuity/nonprojectivity important?
I was reading about dependency grammars on Wikipedia, and then, following up on the term "(non-)projectivity", was lead to the page about discontinuity. Now, the concept is quite easy to ...
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Meaning of superscript numbering in phrase structure trees
In some recent studies, I stumbled upon some seemingly conventional notation that I do not understand.
In syntax structure trees, I often encounter superscript notations in various forms: $T^0$, $...
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How to determine structure of answer for a wh- question
Consider a wh-question (in english language) such as "Who closed the door?". Personally, I can determine that an answer will look like "NP closed the door.", where NP would be a ...
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Wh-movement Question
For wh-movements, I always think of what the sentence would have looked like if it wasn't a question (e.g. for sentence "which promise did he not keep?", I would think that the original ...
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Help with syntax tree generation with movements [closed]
This is my attempt at the sentence "Which compound appears to have been created with the recently found chemical element yesterday?" , but I'm not sure if it's correct:
Is the wh-movement ...
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Is there a way to convert a syntax tree back to text?
I'm looking for a reference \ algorithm \ tool that can convert a syntax tree to text.
The intention is to parse a sentence, apply some rules on the tree, and generate the output from the modified ...
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What notable works are there that try to express the structures of linguistics by modelling them with Artificial Neural Networks (ANN)?
I know of a few works in Phonology and 1 recent work in Semantics but I will not list these here since what I would really be looking for in an answer would be a survey paper or a comprehensive list.
...
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Best book for introduction to Syntax, with exercises
I am new to the field of linguistics and I was looking for some books in order to learn syntax.
I put my eyes on two main textbooks:
Basic English Syntax with Exercises, by Mark Newson (I was ...
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What is the more natural parsing, the one that leads to the preferred reading of the sentence
I have those rules:
and those two possible parse trees:
I am asked for the next question:
What is the more natural parsing, the one that leads to the preferred reading of the sentence?
Can anyone ...
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Sentence to AST structures?
How can we distinguish the meaning from POS,words,form..or any other information.. f.e.
the cube is **in** the box
the sign splits a rule **in** two parts
in the first case the meaning is ...
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Tree Structures: Sentence breaks and TP vs. S as tree structure head
I am currently working on my Linguistics homework and I have to draw a tree diagram of the sentences:
(1) Peter thinks Susan asked if she needs to resign.
(2) Johnny said he wants to study French.
The ...
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When does do-support apply in wh-questions?
For reference, I'm working off of Carnie's Syntax (2002). In the book's framework, T → C movement is triggered by a [+Q] feature in C. In the case we have an auxiliary verb, it can raise to T and then ...
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NP or DP for "that book"
When referring to phrases such as "that book", would it be considered a DP or a NP? I think it should be considered as a DP but I am not sure how to prove it using our given data. Some data ...
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How to write a syntax tree for 'should have been'? [closed]
the sentence is "Will they decide if you should have been promoted?". The T' and AuxP are already taken up by 'have' and 'been, where does should go?
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How order of the syntax tree is formally/strictly proven?
An example from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_syntax_tree : tree of "John hit the ball." .
The tree branches are joined in this order:
{John {hit {the ball}}}.
Ie, "the" ...
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How to extract Subject-Verb-Object from a sentence?
Given a corpus of sentences, is there a way to extract subject-verb-object triplets? What is the state-of-art in detecting SVO triplets?
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How does one write out possessive pronouns under DP
Would for example "their" be divided into they and 's under the DP theory when writing out a tree?
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How do I know if ECM happens in a foreign language?
I have learned about ECM and how it works within the English language, but I don't understand it thoroughly. How would we be able to decide whether a language has ECM?
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