In the field of linguistics, specifically in syntax, phonetic form (PF), also known as phonological form or the articulatory-perceptual (A-P) system, is a certain level of mental representation of a linguistic expression, derived from surface structure, and related to Logical Form. Phonetic form is the level of representation wherein expressions, or sentences, are assigned a phonetic representation, which is then pronounced by the speaker. Phonetic form takes surface structure as its input, and outputs an audible (or visual, in the case of sign languages), pronounced sentence. [1]
This is part of the Y- or T-model of grammar within minimalist grammar, [2] wherein the syntactic structure is constructed and then transferred (called spell-out) to both the Phonetic Form and the Logical Form. Operations in this branch of the model (between spell-out and pronunciation), the syntax-phonology interface, affect the pronunciation of the utterance but not its meaning.
Within distributed morphology (DM), this is where morphological structure is constructed, where the hierarchical syntactic structure is transformed into a linearized structure, and syntactic features are replaced with vocabulary items, among other things. [3]
According to some theories of prosody, the prosodic representation is derived with direct reference to the hierarchical syntactic structure. For example, Selkirk (2011, and others) proposes that prosodic structure is constructed by a process of matching, although imperfectly, prosodic constituents to syntactic constituents. [4] Kahnemuyipour (2009) demonstrates, using evidence from several languages, how information structure can be represented in the transfer from syntax to phonology, arguing that transfer can only be uni-directional, from syntax to phonology. [5] Oltra-Massuet and Arregi (2005) argue that the metrical structure, as well, makes reference to hierarchical syntactic structure in Spanish. [6] The extent of the interaction between the syntax and phonology at the interface is a matter of current debate.
Phonology is a branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds. The term also refers to the sound system of any particular language variety. At one time, the study of phonology only related to the study of the systems of phonemes in spoken languages. Now it may relate to
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.
Lexical semantics, is a subfield of linguistic semantics. The units of analysis in lexical semantics are lexical units which include not only words but also sub-words or sub-units such as affixes and even compound words and phrases. Lexical units include the catalogue of words in a language, the lexicon. Lexical semantics looks at how the meaning of the lexical units correlates with the structure of the language or syntax. This is referred to as syntax-semantic interface.
Lexical functional grammar (LFG) is a constraint-based grammar framework in theoretical linguistics. It posits two separate levels of syntactic structure, a phrase structure grammar representation of word order and constituency, and a representation of grammatical functions such as subject and object, similar to dependency grammar. The development of the theory was initiated by Joan Bresnan and Ronald Kaplan in the 1970s, in reaction to the theory of transformational grammar which was current in the late 1970s. It mainly focuses on syntax, including its relation with morphology and semantics. There has been little LFG work on phonology.
Deep structure and surface structure concepts are used in linguistics, specifically in the study of syntax in the Chomskyan tradition of transformational generative grammar.
In linguistics, the minimalist program (MP) 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.
In generative linguistics, Distributed Morphology is a theoretical framework introduced in 1993 by Morris Halle and Alec Marantz. The central claim of Distributed Morphology is that there is no divide between the construction of words and sentences. The syntax is the single generative engine that forms sound-meaning correspondences, both complex phrases and complex words. This approach challenges the traditional notion of the Lexicon as the unit where derived words are formed and idiosyncratic word-meaning correspondences are stored. In Distributed Morphology there is no unified Lexicon as in earlier generative treatments of word-formation. Rather, the functions that other theories ascribe to the Lexicon are distributed among other components of the grammar.
Dependency grammar (DG) is a class of modern grammatical theories that are all based on the dependency relation and that can be traced back primarily to the work of Lucien Tesnière. Dependency is the notion that linguistic units, e.g. words, are connected to each other by directed links. The (finite) verb is taken to be the structural center of clause structure. All other syntactic units (words) are either directly or indirectly connected to the verb in terms of the directed links, which are called dependencies. DGs are distinct from phrase structure grammars, since DGs lack phrasal nodes, although they acknowledge phrases. A dependency structure is determined by the relation between a word and its dependents. Dependency structures are flatter than phrase structures in part because they lack a finite verb phrase constituent, and they are thus well suited for the analysis of languages with free word order, such as Czech or Warlpiri.
Focus is a grammatical category that determines which part of the sentence contributes new, non-derivable, or contrastive information. Focus is related to information structure. Contrastive focus specifically refers to the coding of information that is contrary to the presuppositions of the interlocutor.
Syntax is concerned with the way sentences are constructed from smaller parts, such as words and phrases. Two steps can be distinguished in the study of syntax. The first step is to identify different types of units in the stream of speech and writing. In natural languages, such units include sentences, phrases, and words. The second step is to analyze how these units build up larger patterns, and in particular to find general rules that govern the construction of sentences.
Heinz Joachim Giegerich is a Scottish linguist of German nationality, and Emeritus Professor of English Linguistics in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Science of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
In generative grammar and related approaches, the logical Form (LF,) of a linguistic expression is the variant of its syntactic structure which undergoes semantic interpretation. It is distinguished from phonetic form the structure which corresponds to a sentence's pronunciation. These separate representations are postulated in order to explain the ways in which an expression's meaning can be partially independent of its pronunciation, e.g. scope ambiguities. LF is one of the cornerstones of the classic generative approach to the syntax-semantics interface. However, it is not used in Lexical Functional Grammar and Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, as well as some modern variants of the generative approach.
Syntactic gemination, or syntactic doubling, is an external sandhi phenomenon in Italian, some Western Romance languages, and Finnish. It consists in the lengthening (gemination) of the initial consonant in certain contexts.
Nanosyntax is an approach to syntax where the terminal nodes of syntactic parse trees may be reduced to units smaller than a morpheme. Each unit may stand as an irreducible element and not be required to form a further "subtree." Due to its reduction to the smallest terminal possible, the terminals are smaller than morphemes. Therefore, morphemes and words cannot be itemised as a single terminal, and instead are composed by several terminals. As a result, Nanosyntax can serve as a solution to phenomena that are inadequately explained by other theories of syntax.
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).
Well-formedness is the quality of a clause, word, or other linguistic element that conforms to the grammar of the language of which it is a part. Well-formed words or phrases are grammatical, meaning they obey all relevant rules of grammar. In contrast, a form that violates some grammar rule is ill-formed and does not constitute part of the language.
The Lexical Integrity Hypothesis (LIH) or Lexical Integrity Principle is a hypothesis in linguistics which states that syntactic transformations do not apply to subparts of words. It functions as a constraint on transformational grammar.
The Integrational theory of language is the general theory of language that has been developed within the general linguistic approach of integrational linguistics.
In syntax, verb-initial (V1) word order is a word order in which the verb appears before the subject and the object. In the more narrow sense, this term is used specifically to describe the word order of V1 languages. V1 clauses only occur in V1 languages and other languages with a dominant V1 order displaying other properties that correlate with verb-initiality and that are crucial to many analyses of V1. V1 languages are estimated to make up 12-19% of the world’s languages.
Elisabeth O. Selkirk is a theoretical linguist specializing in phonological theory and the syntax-phonology interface. She is currently a professor emerita in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She was inducted as a Fellow of the Linguistic Society of America in 2012.