STUDY GUIDE FOR “UNDERSTANDING SYNTAX” AND “INTRODUCTION TO TYPOLOGY”
“INTRODUCTION TO TYPOLOGY: SUGGESTIONS FOR READING
For each chapter, do the following in order to learn important concepts and vocabulary.
- Skim over each chapter’s subsections in the table of contents.
- Look at the list of key terms at the ends of chapters
- Skim over chapters and notice section titles and key vocabulary in bold fonts.
- Read chapters to understand main ideas and notice some examples. It is not necessary to memorize everything; learning main concepts and vocabulary is enough.
- Consider chapter summaries and remember the information they review.
- Look again at the key terms at the ends of chapters.
NOTE: Don’t worry if you don’t understand some ideas. We will look at important ideas in class and try to make the ideas clearer.
UNDERSTANDING SYNTAX: STUDY GUIDE
Contents
“INTRODUCTION TO TYPOLOGY: SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 1
UNDERSTANDING SYNTAX: STUDY GUIDE 1
CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS SYNTAX? 1
CHAPTER 2: WORDS BELONG TO DIFFERENT CLASSES 2
CHAPTER 3: LOOKING INSIDE SENTENCES 3
CHAPTER 4: HEAD WORDS AND PHRASES 3
CHAPTER 5: HOW DO WE IDENTIFY CONSTITUENTS? 4
CHAPTER 6: RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN THE CLAUSE 5
CHAPTER 7: PROCESSES THAT CHANGE GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS 5
CHAPTER 8: WH-CONSTRUCTIONS: QUESTIONS AND RELATIVE CLAUSES 6
CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS SYNTAX?
Key Concepts and Vocabulary to Know
- Prescriptive versus descriptive grammar (page 2)
- Typologically similar
- Syntactic terminology: Nonpast, mass/non-count nouns, progressive, aspect, indefinite article, demonstrative, affix, suffix, person, number
Topics to Know
Section 1.1
- Grammar versus syntax (pages 1-2)
- Examples of syntax in human language (e.g., first-language acquisition, dialect variation, language change, cross-linguistic comparison) (pages 2-10)
Section 1.2
- Types of evidence for syntax in human language (page 11)
- Reasons to consider many languages in syntactic research (pages 11-12)
- How to read linguistic examples (pages 13-17)
Section 1.3
- Word order and rigidity (pages 18-20)
- Promotion and demotion (pages 6-7 and pages 20-22); active voice and passive voice
Discussion: Applications of syntax
Homework: Exercise 5 (pages 27-28)
CHAPTER 2: WORDS BELONG TO DIFFERENT CLASSES
Key Concepts and Vocabulary to Know
- Word classes (parts of speech)
- Word form, morphology, morphological criteria
- Syntax, syntactic criteria,
- Distribution, function
- Verb/verb phrase, noun/noun phrase, adjective/adjective phrase….
- Grammatical categories: number, gender, definiteness, case, mood, voice…
Topics to Know
Section 2.1
- What is a word class? (pages 29-30)
- Some ways to identify word classes (pages 30-32)
- An illustration (pages 32-34)
Section 2.2
- Verb classes (pages 35-37)
- The noun phrase (pages 37-43)
- The adjective phrase (43-45)
- The prepositional phrase (pages 45-47)
- Adverbs (pages 47-49)
Section 2.3
- Grammatical categories for nouns (pages 51-53)
- Grammatical categories for verbs (pages 53-57)
- Grammatical categories for adjectives (page 58)
Discussion: Words classes and grammatical categories in Vietnamese
Homework: Exercises 1 (pages 61-62); Exercise 3 (pages 63-64); Exercise 4 (page 64)
CHAPTER 3: LOOKING INSIDE SENTENCES
Key Concepts and Vocabulary to Know
- Subject and predicate
- Simple versus complex sentences
- Main (or matrix) clauses; subordinate (or embedded) clauses
- Subordinate clauses and embedded sentences
- Subordination and coordination
- Main verbs and auxiliary verbs/modal auxiliaries
- Finite and non-finite verbs; infinitives and infinitival clauses; gerunds
- Aspect; progressive and perfect aspects
- Select (=requires)
Topics to Know
Section 3.1
- What constitutes a simple clause
- The various properties of finite verbs (pages 69-73)
- Generalizations about the position of finite and non-finite verbs in English (page 72)
- Ways to identify non-finite verbs and categories of non-finite verbs (pages 74-76)
Section 3.2
- What constitutes complex clauses
- Be able to identify finite and non-finite verbs in in the sample complex sentences (page 77)
- Facts about main and subordinate clauses (pages 78-79)
- Methods of identifying main and subordinate clauses (pages 80-83)
Section 3.3
- Five types of clauses: (a) languages without infinitival clauses; (b) inflected infinitival clauses; (c) the co-ordination strategy; (d) nominalization; (e) serial verbs (pages 83-89)
Discussion: Clauses in Vietnamese
Homework: Exercise 2 (pages 90-91); Exercise 3 (pages 91-92); Exercise 4 (pages 92-93)
CHAPTER 4: HEAD WORDS AND PHRASES
Key Concepts and Vocabulary to Know
- Subjects, predicates, nominative/accusative case, agree
- Adjuncts versus complements
- Complementizers (e.g., “that he would go”) (page 103)
- Determiners (pages 104-105)
Topics to Know
- Four main properties of heads (pages 95-99)
- Three main influences of heads on their dependents (pages 96-97)
- Dependents: adjuncts and complements (pages 99-104)
- Types of verbs and their complements (intransitive, transitive, ditransitive, prepositional verbs, etc.) (pages 100-102)
- Head-initial versus head-final languages (pages 106-108)
- Head-marking versus dependent-marking languages (109-118)
Discussion: Headedness in Vietnamese phrases and clauses
Homework: Exercise 1 (pages 118-119); Exercise 4 (pages 120-121);
CHAPTER 5: HOW DO WE IDENTIFY CONSTITUENTS?
Key Concepts and Vocabulary to Know
- Syntactic structures, constituents, and readings
- Constituents, constituent structure trees, tree diagrams
- Labelled brackets, labelled tree diagrams
- Sentence fragments
- Grammaticality judgments and ungrammaticality
- Adjuncts and complements
- Recursive structure
- Proforms
Topics to Know
Tests to determine constituents: (a) the echo-question test; (b) the sentence fragment test; (c) the cleft test; (d) the “do so” test; (e) the ellipsis test; (f) the coordination test
Section 5.1
- Evidence of structure of sentences (pages116 -118)
- Some syntactic tests for constituent structure (pages 118-122)
- Constituent structure tree (pages 122- 125)
Section 5.2
- Labeled brackets (page 126)
- Tree diagrams: branches, nodes (S, NP, VP, PP), mothers/daughters/sisters, lexical items, (immediately) dominate (pages 126-129)
Section 5.3
- Applying some constituent tests (pages 129-135)
- The co-ordination tests for constituency (pages 135-13)
Discussion: Identifying constituents in Vietnamese
Homework: Exercise 1 (page 142); Exercises 2 and 3 (page 143); Exercise 4 (page 145)
CHAPTER 6: RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN THE CLAUSE
Key Concepts and Vocabulary to Know
- Word order, case marking, and agreement
- Grammatical relations
- Nominative, accusative, ergative (absolutive)
- SVO, SOV, VSO, etc.
Topics to Know
- Ways to indicate relationships between NPs and verbal predicates: (1) constituent order; (2) case marking; (3) agreement (pages 155-156)
- Word order: (SVO, SOV, VSO, etc.), Basic constituent order, marked constituent order, variations of order, head-initial/head-final order (pages 156-160)
- Case systems: core arguments (S(ubject), A(gent), and O(bject)), nominative, accusative, ergative/absolutive; split ergative (pages 160-166)
- Agreement: head-marking versus dependent-marking; person, number, and gender (pages 166-171)
- Grammatical relations: cross-linguistic properties of subjects (pages 172-173); samples of subjects in Icelandic, Lezgian, and Tagalog (pages173-179); properties of objects (pages 179-180)
Discussion: Word order and case-marking issues in Vietnamese
Homework: Exercise 2 (page 183); Exercise 3 (pages 184-185)
CHAPTER 7: PROCESSES THAT CHANGE GRAMMATICAL RELATIONS
Key Concepts and Vocabulary to Know
- Transitive and active verbs
- Promotion and demotion of NPs
- Nominative, accusative, and ergative
Topics to Know
Section 7.1
- The passive construction: grammatical elements of passive voice in English; Theme or Patient; Core argument; Oblique argument; morphological passive; impersonal passives (pages 188-194)
Section 7.2
- The antipassive: only in ergative languages; samples from Dyribal; summary on page 201 (pages 194-201)
Section 7.3
- The applicative construction: basic versus marked order; types of marking of the applicative; range on the continuum (none to partial to flexible) (pages 201-204)
Section 7.4
- The causative construction: what is demoted and what is promoted; causative with verbs and embedded clauses versus the morphological causative (pages 205-209)
Discussion: Promotion and demotion in Vietnamese; causative in second language acquisition
Homework: Exercise 4 (pages 212-213); Exercise 5 (pages 213-216)
CHAPTER 8: WH-CONSTRUCTIONS: QUESTIONS AND RELATIVE CLAUSES
Key Concepts and Vocabulary to Know
- Wh-words, wh-questions, wh-movement
- Relative clauses, complex sentences, embedded clauses
Topics to Know
Section 8.1
- Wh-constructions among languages: (1) wh-movement; (2) wh-in-situ wh-questions; (3) multiple wh-questions (pages 217-224)
Section 8.2
- Focus; fronting; scrambling; ø-marker and co-referential (pages 225-228)
Section 8.3
- Two properties of relative clauses in English (pages 229-230); positions of relative clauses in languages (pages 231-233)
Discussion: Wh-questions, topic-comment constructions, and relative clauses in Vietnamese
Homework: Exercise 1 (pages 234-235); Exercise 2 (pages 235-237)