Subconstituents of NP in English

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Sub-constituents of NPin English

• September 12, 2007

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(No Transcript)
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Phrase Structure Rules

• S ? NP M VP
• The mother node S has daughters NP, M, and VP in
  that order.

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Phrase Structure Rules

• What other rules are needed to describe the tree
  of This boy must seem incredibly stupid to that
  girl?

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The Lexicon

• This Det
• That Det
• Boy N
• Girl N
• Must M
• Seem V
• Incredibly Adv
• Stupid Adj
• To P

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Generative Capacity

• What other sentences can be described with the
  same rules and lexicon?
• What rules and lexical entries would we have to
  change or add to cover these sentences
• Sam seems stupid to Sue.
• Sam likes Sue.

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Sub-Structure of Noun Phrases

• Goals of the exercise
• Letting tests lead you to something you didnt
  know existed.
• Learning a linguistic universal (something that
  all languages have in common)

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Sub-structure of NP

• This student of linguistics
• This student with long hair
• This student of linguistics with long hair
• Which sub-strings pass the coordination test?

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A pro-form test

• I saw this student of linguistics and you saw
  that one.
• One substitutes for student of linguistics, not
  the whole NP, this student of linguistics.
• Which other substrings can one substitute for?
• This student of linguistics
• This student with long hair
• This student of linguistics with long hair

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Other differences between student of linguistics
and student with long hair

• Ordering
• A student of linguistics with long hair
• A student with long hair of linguistics
• Repeatability
• A student with long hair with short arms
• A student of linguistics of computer science
• A student of high moral principles (ambiguous)
• A student of linguistics of high moral principles
  (not ambiguous)
• ?A student of high moral principles of
  linguistics.

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Other differences between student of linguistics
and student with long hair

• Occurrence with other nouns
• A boy with long hair
• A girl with long hair
• ?A boy of linguistics
• ?A girl of linguistics

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Other differences between student of linguistics
and student with long hair

• Extraposition
• A man who was wearing a hat came to see me.
• A man came to see me who was wearing a hat.
• A student with long hair came to see me.
• A student came to see me with long hair.
• A student of linguistics came to see me.
• A student came to see me of linguistics

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Other differences between student of linguistics
and student with long hair

• Cant conjoin of linguistics and with long hair
• A student of linguistics and of chemistry
• A student with long hair and with short arms
• A student with long hair and of linguistics
• A student of linguistics and with long hair.
• The coach turned into the driveway.
• The coach turned into a pumpkin.
• The coach turned into the driveway and into a
  pumpkin.
• Sam opened the door.
• The key opened the door.
• Sam and the key opened the door.

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Write Phrase Structure Rules for NP

• There can be at most one determiner.
• There can be exactly one noun (not counting the
  ones in the PPs).
• There can be at most one of linguistics type
  PP.
• There can be zero or more with long hair type
  PPs.
• The of linguistics PP has to be before the
  with long hair type PPs.
• Student of linguistics is a constituent.
• Student with long hair is a constituent.
• Student of linguistics with long hair is a
  constituent.

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Adjectives

• The smart student of linguistics with long hair.
• Constituency
• Repeatability
• Order

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Adjunct
Specifier
Adjunct
Specifier
This student of linguistics with long hair
This smart student of linguistics
Argument
So completely in the wrong
So fond of Mary in some ways
So very fond of Mary
Argument