1Week 1. IntroductionCAS LX 522Syntax ISome things we known Is this English?n Pat the book lifted.n Pat lifted the book.n Lifted Pat the book.n Pat book the lifted.n Why?It’s surprisingly complicated1) Tony threw out the couch.2) Tony threw the couch out.F Prepositions can go oneither side of the object.3) Tony stormed out the door.4) * Tony stormed the door out.It’s surprisingly complicated5) What did Mary say John bought?6) What did Mary say that John bought?F Ok, that is optional.7) Who did Mary say bought coffee?8) *Who did Mary say that bought coffee?It’s surprisingly complicated9) Bill thinks Mary is a genius.10) Her mother thinks Mary is a genius.11) She thinks Mary is a genius.12) I asked Mary to buy coffee.13) What did you ask Mary to buy?14) Who did you say bought coffee?15) I borrowed the book Bill bought in DC.16) *Who did you borrow the book bought in DC?How do people know this?n All native speakers of English know this.n Little kids weren’t told these rules (orpunished for violating them)…n “You can’t question a subject in acomplement embedded with that”n “You can’t use a proper name as an object ifthe subject is co-referential.”2Two questionsn What do people know about theirlanguage?n Including things we know “unconsciously”n If we don’t know we know it, how did wecome to know it?Systematicityn What people eventually end up with is asystem with which they can produce(and rate) sentences. A grammar.n Even if you’ve never heard these before,you know which one is “English” andwhich one isn’t:16) Eight very lazy elephants drank brandy.17) Eight elephants very lazy brandy drank.Positive and negative evidencen Adults know if a given sentence S isgrammatical or ungrammatical. This ispart of the knowledge kids gain throughlanguage acquisition.n Kids hear grammatical sentences(positive evidence)n Kids are not generally told whichsentences are ungrammatical(no negative evidence)Positive and negative evidencen One of the striking things about childlanguage is how few errors they actuallymake.n For negative feedback to work, the kidshave to make the errors (so that it can getthe negative response).n But they don’t make the errors.The “Language instinct”n The linguistic capacity is part of beinghuman.n Like having two arms, ten fingers, a visionsystem, humans have a language faculty.n The language faculty (tightly) constrainswhat kinds of languages a child can learn.n =“Universal Grammar” (UG).But languages differn English, French: Subject Verb Object (SVO)n John ate an apple.n Pierre a mangé une pomme.n Japanese, Korean: Subject Object Verb (SOV)n Taroo-wa ringo-o tabeta.n Chelswu-ka sakwa-lul mekessta.n Irish, Arabic (VSO), Malagasy (VOS), …3But languages differn English: Adverbs before verbsn Mary quickly eats an apple.n (also: Mary ate an apple quickly)n *Mary eats quickly an apple.n French: Adverbs after verbsn Geneviève mange rapidement une pomme.n *Geneviève rapidement mange une pomme.Parametersn We can categorize languages in terms of theirword order: SVO, SOV, VSO.n This is a parameter by which languages differ.n The dominant formal theory of first languageacquisition holds that children have access to a setof parameters by which languages can differ;acquisition is the process of setting thoseparameters.n What are the parameters? What are the “universal”principles of grammar?The enterprisen The data we will primarily be concerned withare native speaker intuitions.n Native speakers, faced with a sentence S, knowwhether the sentence S is part of their languageor isn’t. These intuitions are highly systematic.n We want to uncover the system (which isunconscious knowledge) behind the intuitions ofnative speakers—their knowledge of language.I-languagen We are studying the system behind one person’spattern of intuitions.n Speakers growing up in the same community havevery similar knowledge, but language is anindividual thing (“I-language”).n I-languages of a community is can be characterized,but it is external to the speaker (“E-language”), notany one person’s knowledge, a generalization overmany people’s I-languages.n For example, Parisian French.Competencen We are also concerned with what a person knows.What characterizes a person’s languagecompetence. We are in general not concerned herewith how a person ends up using thisknowledge (performance).n You still have your language competence whenyou are sleeping, in the absence of anyperformance. Being drunk doesn’t make youthink “bought some John coffee” is English,though perhaps one might say it.Prescriptive rulesn Another thing we need to be cautious ofare prescriptive rules. Often prescriptiverules of “good grammar” turn out to beimpositions on our native grammar whichrun counter to our native competence.n After all, why did they need to be rules inthe first place?4Prescriptive rulesn Prepositions are things you don’t end asentence with.n We want to successfully complete this course.n Remember: Capitalize the first word after acolon.n Don’t be so immodest as to say I and John left;say John and I left instead.n Impact is not a verb.n The book which you just bought is offensive.Prescriptive rulesn When making grammaticality judgments(or when asking others to makegrammaticality judgments), we must doour best to factor out prescriptive rules(learned explicitly in school).n We’re not interested in studying theprescriptive rules; we could just look them up,and it isn’t likely to tell us anything deepabout the makeup of the human mind.Judgmentsn Another complicating fact is that a sentence canbe bad for any number of reasons, only some ofwhich we are interested in at a given point.n *Student the meditated happily.n The pebble meditated happily.n A Sun rose in the East.n John wondered who to go with.Syntax as sciencen Here, we will study syntax scientifically. Thismeans, in particular, approaching syntax usingthe scientific method.n Step 1: Gather observations (data)n Step 2: Make generalizationsn Step 3: Form hypothesesn Step 4: Test predictions made by thesehypotheses, returning to step 1.A simple introductory example1) Bill kissed himself.2) Bill kissed herself.3) Sally kissed himself.4) Sally kissed herself.n Try these out. Which ones sound good,which ones don’t?A simple introductory example1) Bill kissed himself.2) *Bill kissed herself.3) *Sally kissed himself.4) Sally kissed herself.n Hypothesis: An anaphor must have
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