Syntactic structures

Revision as of 12:45, 25 March 2010

Syntactic structure is the configuration or the arrangement of the forms in a phrase so as to elicit its internal syntactic dependencies (such as government, agreement, etc).

Universal Structure

The UNL^arium framework follows the X-bar approach, which postulates that all human languages share the same underlying syntactic structure, whose abstract configuration is depicted in the diagram below:

    XP
   / \
spec  XB
     / \
    XB  adjt
   / \
  X   comp
  |
head

In the above:

• X is the head, the nucleus or the source of the whole syntactic structure, which is actually derived (or projected) out of it.
• comp (i.e., complement) is an internal argument, i.e., a word, phrase or clause which is necessary to the head to complete its meaning (e.g., objects of transitive verbs)
• adjt (i.e., adjunct) is a word, phrase or clause which modifies the head but which is not syntactically required by it (adjuncts are expected to be extranuclear, i.e., removing an adjunct would leave a grammatically well-formed sentence)
• spec (i.e., specifier) is an external argument, i.e., a word, phrase or clause which qualifies (determines) the head
• XB (X-bar) is the general name for any of the intermediate projections derived from X
• XP (X-bar-bar, X-double-bar, X-phrase) is the maximal projection of X.

Representation

In the UNL^arium framework, syntactic structures are represented by S-rules as follows:

XP(XB(XB(head;complement);adjunct);spec);

For simplification reasons, the same structure may be represented by five head-driven relations, as follows:

XS(head;specifier);, which describes the relation between the head of the structure and its specifier
XA(head;adjunct);, which describes the relation between the head of the structure and its adjuncts
XC(head;complement);, which describes the relation between the head of the structure and its complements
XH(head);, which describes the head of the structure

This is to say that:

XP(XB(XB(head;complement);adjunct);spec) := XS(head;specifier)XA(head;adjunct)XC(head;complement)
XS(head;specifier)XA(head;adjunct)XC(head;complement) := XP(XB(XB(head;complement);adjunct);spec) 

Where X must be replaced by one of the eight possible heads (N, P, V, A, J, C, D, I).

Examples

• VH("boy"); ("boy" is the head of a noun phrase)
• DP("a"); ("a" is a determiner phrase)
• JH("beautiful"); ("beautiful" is the head of an adjective phrase)
• AP("very"); ("very" is an adverbial phrase)
• JP("very beautiful"); ("very beautiful" is an adjective phrase)
• JA("beautiful";AP("very")); (the adverbial phrase "very" is an adjunct in the adjective phrase headed by "beautiful") = very beautiful
• NS("boy";DP("a")); (the determiner phrase "a" is the specifier of a noun phrase headed by "boy") = a boy
• NA("boy";JP("very beautiful"); (the adjective phrase "very beautiful" is an adjunct in the noun phrase headed by "boy") = very beautiful boy
• NA("boy";JH("beautiful")); (the adjective phrase headed by "beautiful" is an adjunct in the noun phrase headed by "boy") = (very) beautiful boy
• NA("boy";JA("beautiful";AP("very")); (the adverbial phrase "very" is an adjunct in the adjective phrase headed by "beautiful"; the adjective phrase headed by "beautiful" is an adjunct in the noun phrase headed by "boy") = very beautiful boy
• NP(NB("boy";JP("very beautiful"));DP("a")); (the noun phrase headed by "boy" has an adjunct (the adjective phrase "very beautiful") and a specifier (the determiner phrase "a")) = a very beautiful boy

Observations

Constituents are phrases

Specifiers, adjuncts and complements are to be represented as complex structures, even when they are composed of a single node

• a boy
  • NS("boy";"a");
  • NS("boy";DP("a"));

XH and XP are not the same

• VP("make"); = the verbal phrase is "make" (there's no other constituent in the phrase)
• VH("make"); = the head of the phrase is "make" (the phrase may contain other constituents)

Heads are to be omitted or replaced by features in general rules, such as subcategorization frames

• NS("boy",DP("a")); = the determiner phrase "a" is the specifier of the noun phrase headed by "noun"
• NS(DP); = a determiner phrase is a specifier in a noun phrase
• NS(NOU;DH(ART)); = a determiner phrase headed by an article (ART) is a specifier of a noun phrase headed by a noun (NOU)

Heads and phrases may be replaced by unique indexes for simplification reasons

indexes are to be expressed by "%<VALUE>", where <VALUE> is any alphabetic string

• NA("boy";JA("beautiful";AP("very")); (no indexes)
• NA("boy";JA,%a)JA%a("beautiful";AP,%b)AP%b("very"); (with indexes)

Relations are juxtaposed (and not separated by ",")

• NS(DP)NA(JP);
• NS(DP),NA(JP);

S-rules always end in ";"

• NS(DP)NA(JP);
• NS(DP)NA(JP)