Sentence structure, phrase structure rules, and basic syntax tree concepts from an intro linguistics course.
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- What does the field of syntax study?
- The structure of sentences and how words combine to form meaningful expressions.
- Define: constituent
- A group of words that function as a single unit within a sentence.
- What is a phrase?
- A group of related words that does not contain a subject-verb pair and functions as a single unit.
- What is a phrase structure rule?
- A rule written as X -> Y Z that shows how a syntactic category X can be expanded into one or more other categories.
- In the phrase structure rule S -> NP VP, what does the arrow represent?
- Rewrite: the symbol on the left can be broken down into the symbols on the right.
- What is a head (in phrase structure)?
- The central, obligatory word of a phrase that determines the phrase type.
- What type of phrase has a noun as its head?
- Noun phrase (NP).
- What type of phrase has a verb as its head?
- Verb phrase (VP).
- What type of phrase has an adjective as its head?
- Adjective phrase (AP).
- What type of phrase has a preposition as its head?
- Prepositional phrase (PP).
- What is a modifier?
- A word or phrase that provides additional information about another word or phrase but is not obligatory.
- What is a complement?
- A word or phrase that is required by the head to complete its meaning.
- Define: syntax tree
- A diagram that displays the hierarchical structure of a sentence by showing how words are grouped into phrases.
- In a syntax tree, what is a node?
- A labeled point representing a word or syntactic category.
- In a syntax tree, what is a branch?
- A line connecting a parent node to a child node.