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BU CAS LX 522 - Week 2a. Morphosyntactic features, part II. Ch. 2, 4.2-

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1Week 2a. Morphosyntacticfeatures, part II.Ch. 2, 4.2-CAS LX 522Syntax ILexical items Recall that part of our languageknowledge is the knowledge of thelexicon. The lexicon is a list of the “words” More accurately, it is a list of the thingssentences are made of. It is traditionally considered to be where“unpredictable” information is stored. Thesound, the meaning, the grammaticalcategory and other features.Features of lexical items A lexical item is a bundle of properties. It is a meaning, pairedwith instructions for pronunciation, paired with syntactic propertieslike category. We represent these properties as features—anygiven lexical item has Semantic features Phonological features Syntactic features When it comes to syntax, syntactic features certainly matter. But nolanguage seems to arrange its sentences such that words that startwith t are first. Hypothesis: Syntax can only “see” syntacticfeatures.English pronouns The English pronouns make severaldistinctions over and above asingular/plural distinction. One distinction is in person, which is sensitiveto who is talking and to whom. English (and most languages) distinguishthree persons.theyhe/she/itthird personyouyousecond personweIfirst personpluralsingularEnglish pronouns We do not want model this with three independentperson features [1], [2], and [3], since that wouldpredict eight persons (e.g., [1,3], [1,2,3]). With twofeatures, we only predict four. By eliminating [3], we predict the system below, plusthe [1,2] combination that is not morphologicallydistinguished in English.theyhe/she/itthird person [ ]youyousecond person [2]weIfirst person [1]pluralsingularFourth person If [1] indicates the person speaking and [2]indicates the person spoken to, what should[1,2] indicate? [1,2,pl] = we (including you). [1,pl] = we (not including you). Some languages make this distinctionmorphologically, e.g., Dakota. Nolanguages seem to distinguish 8 persons.2Gender Many languages distinguish nouns onthe basis of “gender” as well. English: he/she/it (3rd person pronouns) Gender often comes in 2-3 flavors(masculine, feminine, neuter) whichoften corresponds roughly tobiological gender where applicable.Phi-features (φ-features) Collectively, person, number, andgender features are referred to as φ-features. These are the features that aregenerally involved in subject-verbagreement.Case features English pronouns also change formdepending on where they are in thesentence, what their syntactic role is. He left. I saw him. He saw me. The information about syntactic position isencoded by case features. In English, case is only visible on pronouns. In many other languages, case is visible on all nouns(and sometimes on words modifying nouns, likeadjectives or determiners)Case names In English, we distinguish nominative(on subjects), genitive (on possessors),and accusative (elsewhere).itsherhisyourmyGentheytheytheyyouweNomPluraltheirthemitittheirthemhershetheirthemhimheyouryouyouyouourusmeIGenAccAccNomSingularFeatures and pronunciation Recall that lexicalitems are bundlesof features. Like [Acc, 1, sg, PRN] The syntacticsystem arrangesthese lexical itemsinto sentences, andthen hands theresult off to the A-Pand C-I systems (atthe interfaces).itsherhisyourmyGentheytheytheyyouweNomPluraltheirthemitittheirthemhershetheirthemhimheyouryouyouyouourusmeIGenAccAccNomSingular At the A-P interface,[Acc, 1, sg, PRN] isinterpreted as “me”.Features and pronunciation Notice that thepronoun paradigmdoes not make everypossible distinction. Only 3rd person singulardistinguishes gender forms. 2nd person does notdistinguish number orbetween Nom and Acc. 3rd person singularfeminine doesn’tdistinguish between Accand Gen.itsherhisyourmyGentheytheytheyyouweNomPluraltheirthemitittheirthemhershetheirthemhimheyouryouyouyouourusmeIGenAccAccNomSingular This structure can give us ahint about how theinterface rules work—moreon this in a moment.3Verbal features Some features are specific to verbs… [past], for example, differentiating write fromwrote, kick from kicked. This is a tense feature. Some languages have a special form of theverb for future as well, [future]. We can characterize present tense as beingnon-past, non-future. In English, future is expressed in other ways, with amodal (will) or with the verb go. English does not seemto make use of the [future] feature; in English we havejust past and non-past. (cf. duals and the use of the [sg] feature on nouns)Participles English verbs can also take on a participleform: writing, written. These don’t express tense, but rather aspect. The -ing form is the “present participle” and appearsafter the auxiliary verb be, indicating a continuing event. The -en form is the “past participle” and appears afterthe auxiliary verb have, indicating a completed event. Tense can still be expressed—on the auxiliary: I havewritten, I had written, I am writing, I was writing. Adger’s proposal: Present participle: [V, part] (writing) Past participle: [V, part, past] (written)Bare verb/infinitive I want to win the lottery. The bare form of the verb (often appearingafter to) is the infinitive. We will assign infinitive forms the feature[Inf]. The fact that the infinitive is a bare verb (nosuffixes or other inflection) in English may besomething of a coincidence. Otherlanguages mark the infinitive with a specialverb form, on a par with participles ortensed verbs.Verb agreement Verbs very often (across languages) agreewith the subject in φ-features as well. I eat bagels. He eats bagels. They eat bagels. However, eat isn’t really “plural” in anysense. Plurality is a property of the subject,but it is reflected in the morphology of theverb. This may be the clearest example of the distinctionbetween interpretable and uninte rpretablefeatures. The φ-features are interpretable on thenoun, but uninterpretable on the verb. (We’llcontinue to discuss this distinction)Verb agreement In English, only finite verbs show agreement(those that are not infinitives or participles). In fact, only present tense verbs do, with the singleexception of the copula (be). In other languages, agreement sometimesappears on other forms. Participles, forexample, sometimes agree with theirobject. Infinitives very rarely agree


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BU CAS LX 522 - Week 2a. Morphosyntactic features, part II. Ch. 2, 4.2-

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