Psychology 2134A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Sentence Clause Structure, Formal Grammar, Parsing

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2134A/B
• Professor: Sarah Smits- Bandstra

Document Summary

Syntax: a set of rules for ordering words in a sentence. Canonical word order: typical sequence of sentence elements. Thematic role assignment: the mapping of thematic roles onto syntactic positions such as subject and object. Active voice: a sentence structure in which the agent is mapped onto the subject position. Passive voice: a sentence structure in which the patient is mapped onto the subject position. Irreversible sentence: a sentence that no longer makes real-world sense if the agent and patient swap subject and object positions. Reversible sentence: a sentence that still makes sense but with a different meaning if the agent and patient swap subject and object positions. Clause: a simple sentence that is part of a larger complex sentence. Clef sentence: a syntactic structure that attaches an introductory clause to the beginning of a sentence for the purpose of highlighting one of the participants in the event.