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In formal syntax, a node is a point in a tree diagram or syntactic tree that can be assigned a syntactic category label. [1] [2] [3]
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In formal syntax, a node is a point in a tree diagram or syntactic tree that can be assigned a syntactic category label. [1] [2] [3]
Before the emergence of the X-bar theory, thus in the period between Chomsky (1957) [4] and Jackendoff (1977), [5] syntactic structures were represented based on phrase structure rules (PSR).
This sentence involves the following five PSRs:
With a tree diagram, the sentence's structure can be depicted as in Figure 1.
All the points illustrated by circles and diamonds are nodes in Figure 1, and the former are called nonterminal nodes and the latter terminal nodes. [2] Note that the PSR does not specify how a node branches because the parent (the left side of the arrow) can diverge into any number of daughters (the right side of the arrow); thus, a node under the PSR can branch into any number of different nodes, allowing non-branching, binary-branching, ternary-branching, and so forth.
If we illustrate the structure of the sentence above in accordance with the X-bar schema, we obtain the structure in Figure 2 [FN 1] [FN 2] [FN 3] .
Under the X-bar theory, a node necessarily divides into two branches because of the binarity principle. This also means that zero-level projections (heads) serve as terminal nodes and intermediate and maximal projections as nonterminal nodes.
Under the minimalist program, syntactic structures are formed by iterative applications of the syntactic operation Merge , which serves to connect two elements into one. [7] To yield a linguistic expression, lexemes are selected out of the lexicon and make a (non-ordered) set of syntactic objects called a lexical array , and a structure is derived by combining two of the objects (or combined objects) by Merge. [7] In the case of the sentence The man studies linguistics enthusiastically, for example, the lexical array consists of {the, man, PRES, study, linguistics, enthusiastically}. When these syntactic objects are combined by Merge, that yields the structure in Figure 3.
Since Merge is an operation that combines two elements, a node under the Minimalist Program needs to be binary just as in the X-bar theory, although there is a difference between the theories in that under the X-bar theory, the directionality of branching is fixed in accordance with the principles-and-parameters model (not with the X-bar theory itself), or more specifically, with the head parameter. (This means that the X-bar theory indirectly assumes that speakers have in their Universal Grammar a rule that determines the canonical linear order for them, depending on their native language.) On the other hand, under the Minimalist Program, there is no such canonical fundamentals since the lexical array does not constitute an ordered set. For this reason, linear order under the Minimalist Program is determined by the phonological operation of linearization applied to the partial string called a phase (under the Phase Theory ) that is sent out to PF by Transfer. [7] [11] [12]
In formal language theory, computer science and linguistics, the Chomsky hierarchy is a containment hierarchy of classes of formal grammars.
In linguistics, syntax is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), agreement, the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning. There are numerous approaches to syntax which differ in their central assumptions and goals.
A syntactic category is a syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume. Word classes, largely corresponding to traditional parts of speech are syntactic categories. In phrase structure grammars, the phrasal categories are also syntactic categories. Dependency grammars, however, do not acknowledge phrasal categories.
In syntax and grammar, a phrase is a group of words which act together as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very happy". Phrases can consist of a single word or a complete sentence. In theoretical linguistics, phrases are often analyzed as units of syntactic structure such as a constituent.
Phrase structure rules are a type of rewrite rule used to describe a given language's syntax and are closely associated with the early stages of transformational grammar, proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1957. They are used to break down a natural language sentence into its constituent parts, also known as syntactic categories, including both lexical categories and phrasal categories. A grammar that uses phrase structure rules is a type of phrase structure grammar. Phrase structure rules as they are commonly employed operate according to the constituency relation, and a grammar that employs phrase structure rules is therefore a constituency grammar; as such, it stands in contrast to dependency grammars, which are based on the dependency relation.
In linguistics, transformational grammar (TG) or transformational-generative grammar (TGG) is part of the theory of generative grammar, especially of natural languages. It considers grammar to be a system of rules that generate exactly those combinations of words that form grammatical sentences in a given language and involves the use of defined operations to produce new sentences from existing ones. The method is commonly associated with American linguist Noam Chomsky.
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently occurring phrase type.
A parse tree or parsing tree or derivation tree or concrete syntax tree is an ordered, rooted tree that represents the syntactic structure of a string according to some context-free grammar. The term parse tree itself is used primarily in computational linguistics; in theoretical syntax, the term syntax tree is more common.
Lexical semantics, as a subfield of linguistic semantics, is the study of word meanings. It includes the study of how words structure their meaning, how they act in grammar and compositionality, and the relationships between the distinct senses and uses of a word.
In linguistics, X-bar theory is a model of phrase-structure grammar and a theory of syntactic category formation that was first proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1970 and further developed by Jackendoff, along the lines of the theory of generative grammar put forth in the 1950s by Chomsky. It attempts to capture the structure of phrasal categories with a single uniform structure called the X-bar schema, basing itself on the assumption that any phrase in natural language is an XP that is headed by a given syntactic category X. It played a significant role in resolving issues that phrase structure rules had, representative of which is the proliferation of grammatical rules, which is against the thesis of generative grammar.
Government and binding is a theory of syntax and a phrase structure grammar in the tradition of transformational grammar developed principally by Noam Chomsky in the 1980s. This theory is a radical revision of his earlier theories and was later revised in The Minimalist Program (1995) and several subsequent papers, the latest being Three Factors in Language Design (2005). Although there is a large literature on government and binding theory which is not written by Chomsky, Chomsky's papers have been foundational in setting the research agenda.
Generative grammar, or generativism, is a linguistic theory that regards linguistics as the study of a hypothesised innate grammatical structure. It is a biological or biologistic modification of earlier structuralist theories of linguistics, deriving ultimately from glossematics. Generative grammar considers grammar as a system of rules that generates exactly those combinations of words that form grammatical sentences in a given language. It is a system of explicit rules that may apply repeatedly to generate an indefinite number of sentences which can be as long as one wants them to be. The difference from structural and functional models is that the object is base-generated within the verb phrase in generative grammar. This purportedly cognitive structure is thought of as being a part of a universal grammar, a syntactic structure which is caused by a genetic mutation in humans.
In linguistics, the minimalist program is a major line of inquiry that has been developing inside generative grammar since the early 1990s, starting with a 1993 paper by Noam Chomsky. Spell-out, greed, AgR -based theory also come under this program.
In linguistics, branching refers to the shape of the parse trees that represent the structure of sentences. Assuming that the language is being written or transcribed from left to right, parse trees that grow down and to the right are right-branching, and parse trees that grow down and to the left are left-branching. The direction of branching reflects the position of heads in phrases, and in this regard, right-branching structures are head-initial, whereas left-branching structures are head-final. English has both right-branching (head-initial) and left-branching (head-final) structures, although it is more right-branching than left-branching. Some languages such as Japanese and Turkish are almost fully left-branching (head-final). Some languages are mostly right-branching (head-initial).
The term phrase structure grammar was originally introduced by Noam Chomsky as the term for grammar studied previously by Emil Post and Axel Thue. Some authors, however, reserve the term for more restricted grammars in the Chomsky hierarchy: context-sensitive grammars or context-free grammars. In a broader sense, phrase structure grammars are also known as constituency grammars. The defining trait of phrase structure grammars is thus their adherence to the constituency relation, as opposed to the dependency relation of dependency grammars.
In generative grammar, non-configurational languages are languages characterized by a flat phrase structure, which allows syntactically discontinuous expressions, and a relatively free word order.
In generative grammar and related frameworks, a node in a parse tree c-commands its sister node and all of its sister's descendants. In these frameworks, c-command plays a central role in defining and constraining operations such as syntactic movement, binding, and scope. Tanya Reinhart introduced c-command in 1976 as a key component of her theory of anaphora. The term is short for "constituent command".
In theoretical linguistics, a distinction is made between endocentric and exocentric constructions. A grammatical construction is said to be endocentric if it fulfils the same linguistic function as one of its parts, and exocentric if it does not. The distinction reaches back at least to Bloomfield's work of the 1930s, who based it on terms by Pāṇini and Patañjali in Sanskrit grammar. Such a distinction is possible only in phrase structure grammars, since in dependency grammars all constructions are necessarily endocentric.
In linguistics, the projection principle is a stipulation proposed by Noam Chomsky as part of the phrase structure component of generative-transformational grammar. The projection principle is used in the derivation of phrases under the auspices of the principles and parameters theory.
Merge is one of the basic operations in the Minimalist Program, a leading approach to generative syntax, when two syntactic objects are combined to form a new syntactic unit. Merge also has the property of recursion in that it may apply to its own output: the objects combined by Merge are either lexical items or sets that were themselves formed by Merge. This recursive property of Merge has been claimed to be a fundamental characteristic that distinguishes language from other cognitive faculties. As Noam Chomsky (1999) puts it, Merge is "an indispensable operation of a recursive system ... which takes two syntactic objects A and B and forms the new object G={A,B}" (p. 2).