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Constituency Tests

The document discusses the hierarchical structure of sentences. Sentences are made up of syntactic constituents like noun phrases and verb phrases. These constituents can be identified through movement and substitution tests, where whole constituents can be moved or replaced but parts of constituents cannot. Phrases that make up sentences have a phrase structure with a head, specifier, and optional complements.

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290 views13 pages

Constituency Tests

The document discusses the hierarchical structure of sentences. Sentences are made up of syntactic constituents like noun phrases and verb phrases. These constituents can be identified through movement and substitution tests, where whole constituents can be moved or replaced but parts of constituents cannot. Phrases that make up sentences have a phrase structure with a head, specifier, and optional complements.

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Ermi Nur ardillah
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Sentence Structure

• Similarly, sentences do not consist of a string


of words. They also have an internal
hierarchical structure.
• The structural elements of sentences are
called syntactic constituents.
Constituents
• The following sentence is not just a string of
eleven words:
Bill and John ate all the cookies yesterday at
the park.
• It is made up of four basic constituents:
Bill and John ate all the cookies yesterday at
the park.
• N NP VP AdvP PP
Constituency tests
• I can demonstrate that these are constituents
by movement and substitution tests.
• Only constituents can be moved to another
part of the sentence; only constituents can be
substituted for in a sentence.
Test 1: Movement
Bill and John ate all the cookies yesterday at the
park.
• We can move at the park:
Bill and John ate all the cookies at the park
yesterday.
• We can’t move at the:
*Bill and John ate all the cookies at the
yesterday park.
Test 2: Substitution (1)
• Bill and John ate all the cookies at the park
yesterday.

• Substitute they for Bill and John:

• They ate all the cookies at the park yesterday.


Substitution (2)
• Bill and John ate all the cookies at the park
yesterday.

• Substitute did so for ate all the cookies:

• Bill and John did so at the park yesterday.


Substitution (3)
• Bill and John ate all the cookies at the park
yesterday.

• Substitute there for at the park:

• Bill and John ate all the cookies there


yesterday.
Substitution (4)
• Bill and John ate all the cookies at the park
yesterday.

• Substitute then for yesterday:

• Bill and John ate all the cookies at the park


then.
Substitution 5
• Can’t substitute across boundaries:
• Bill and John ate all the cookies at the park
yesterday.

• Substitute did so for ate all the:

• *Bill and John did so cookies at the park


yesterday.
Substitution 6
• Can’t substitute across boundaries:
• Bill and John ate all the cookies at the park
yesterday.

• Substitute them for cookies at:

• *Bill and John ate all the them the park


yesterday.
Constituents are phrases
• all the cookies is a noun phrase. We can substitute
any noun phrase for it:
• They ate cookies yesterday.
• They ate some cookies yesterday.
• They ate the cookies left over from dinner last week
yesterday.
• They ate the cookies that their mother told them
several times not to eat yesterday.
Sentence structure
• We form sentences by combining words into
phrasal constituents, phrases into larger
constituents, and these constituents into
sentences.
• All phrases have the same basic structure:
Phrase Structure
Phrase (XP)

Specifier Head (X) Complement(s)

• The specifier narrows the meaning of the


head. The complements give more
information about the head.

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