LING 132 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Syntactic Category, Coreference, Deep Structure And Surface Structure
Document Summary
Syntax looking at sentence structures and how to build sentences. Constituency tests: stand-alone test, mary will visit the getty. What will mary visit: the getty (constituent, what will mary do, visit the getty (constituent, move as a unit, the getty, mary will visit. Or visit the getty, mary will: replacement by a pronoun, mary will visit it. Not all constituents have to pass all tests. Tests show that sentences have a tree-like (hierarchical) structure. Lexical ambiguity = sentence is ambiguous because they contain ambiguous words. Deals with different meanings of a word. Structural ambiguity = sentence has two different trees; sentence ambiguous b/c words placed in a way that makes it ambiguous. Deals with the way words are structurally combined that causes ambiguity. Word order matters even when the sentences are nonsensical. Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. vs. sleep colorless green furiously ideas. We can judge on correct order of language. Heads: n, v, prep, adj, adv.
