LING 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Acupuncture, Pro-Form, Binoculars
23 Jun 2018
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Binary branching trees:
Since merge can only merge two objects at a time, it follows that syntactic trees are binary
branching
Interim conclusion:
-Sentence structure is hierarchical
-We can uncover syntactic constituents using contingency
tests
-The category of constituents is determined by the category of their HEAD
-Phrase structure is generated by Merge
-A result of Merge is that syntactic structure is binary branching
-The girl watched the dolphins with the binoculars
-Second reading:
-Paraphrase: the girl watched the dolphins that had binoculars
-Step one: apply constituency tests:
a) She watched them —> [the girl] and [the dolphins with binoculars] are constituents, they are
DPs.
b) The girl watched the dolphins with the binoculars … and the boy did too
—> [watched the dolphins with binoculars] can be replaced by ‘did’, therefore it is a constituent,
a VP.
c) The girl watched the dolphins with the binoculars, … and the boy did with a camera
DANGER: while this test results in a good sentence, not that we are not capturing the right
meaning! In this case, we are back to the reading where the girl has the binoculars, and not the
dolphins!
So the test is unsuccessful! In other words, under the relevant reading, we do NOT have
evidence that the string watched the dolphins is a constituents!
d) It’s with binoculars that the girl watched the dolphins
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Document Summary
Since merge can only merge two objects at a time, it follows that syntactic trees are binary branching. We can uncover syntactic constituents using contingency tests. The category of constituents is determined by the category of their head. A result of merge is that syntactic structure is binary branching. The girl watched the dolphins with the binoculars. Paraphrase: the girl watched the dolphins that had binoculars. Step one: apply constituency tests: she watched them > [the girl] and [the dolphins with binoculars] are constituents, they are. Dps: the girl watched the dolphins with the binoculars and the boy did too. > [watched the dolphins with binoculars] can be replaced by did", therefore it is a constituent, a vp: the girl watched the dolphins with the binoculars, and the boy did with a camera. Danger: while this test results in a good sentence, not that we are not capturing the right meaning!
