Unit 1 - Preliminary Considerations PDF

1. Preliminary considerations 1.1. Linguistic Knowledge and grammatical competence The ability to carry out the simplest conversation requires profound knowledge that speakers are unaware of. (1) The kid hit a rock. (2) A rock hit the kid. (3) The angry man that came yesterday disap...

1. Preliminary considerations 1.1. Linguistic Knowledge and grammatical competence The ability to carry out the simplest conversation requires profound knowledge that speakers are unaware of. (1) The kid hit a rock. (2) A rock hit the kid. (3) The angry man that came yesterday disappeared after the argument. (4) My friends asked me to talk to them before tomorrow. (5) My friends talk to them all the time. (6) a. Katy wanted to invite her. b. I wonder who Katy wanted to invite her. c. I wonder who Katy wanted to invite. Our linguistic knowledge is tacit, complex, untutored, acquired despite impoverished input. Knowledge of a language I(internalized)-language (set of rules and principles in the mind of a speaker) The goal of syntactic theory is to figure out what we subconsciously know about the syntax of our language. Knowledge of a language enables you to combine words to form phrases, and phrases to form sentences never heard before and to understand sentences never heard before CREATIVE ASPECT OF L USE ( MEMORIZATION HYPOTHESIS) Not all strings of words constitute sentences in a L, and our knowledge of the L determines which do and which do not: (7) a. Mary met b. You need to talk to the people that they called you c. I don’t like him because is telling lies all the time d. He doesn’t make well his bed e. It’s untrue the rumour that Bill knew the truth f. I find true that Bill knew the truth Besides knowing the words of the L, you must know some “rules” to form the sentences and to make judgements (e.g. about (7)) Chomsky the speaker’s grammatical competence is reflected in two types of intuitions:  intuitions about well-formedness  intuitions about sentence-structure (8) a. I gave back the car to him d. I gave him the car back b. I gave the car back to him e. I gave the car to him back c. I gave him back the car f. I gave back him the car (9) a. Kim saw this g. What Kim saw was this b. This was seen by Kim h. Kim, she saw this c. This, Kim saw i. It was Kim that this was seen by d. It was this that Kim saw j. (...and) see this, Kim did e. What Kim did was see this k. She saw this, Kim f. It was Kim who saw this l. This it was that was seen by Kim (10) The most caring people find the way to our hearts. (11) Without her contributions to the fund would be inadequate. 1 L as an infinite rule-governed creativity “The child learning a language and faced with a certain set of data (the speech of people around him/her) abstracts from the data a set of general principles about how sentences are formed, interpreted, and pronounced” (Chomsky) Acquisition of a language involves acquisition of:  a set of syntactic rules which specify how sentences are built up out of phrases, and phrases out of words  a set of morphological rules which specify how words are built up out of morphemes  a set of phonological rules which specify how words, phrases, and sentences are pronounced  a set of semantic rules which specify how words, phrases, and sentences are interpreted 1.2. The role of the theoretical linguist The fundamental problem in linguistic theory is that of “determining how it is possible for a child to acquire knowledge of a language” (Chomsky 1973:12) Theoretical linguists want to develop a theory of competence, a model of a native speaker’s linguistic knowledge (Cowper 1992:3-6, Borsley 1999:1-2) Theoretical linguists develop models of specific languages at the same time as they develop a model of Universal Grammar (UG) P&P is an approach to UG: UG has the same structure as the grammar of a particular L, but at various points in the grammar the child acquiring a particular L will have to fix some parameters GB is a theory of linguistic competence which fits into the P&P approach to UG The dominant theory of syntax is due to Noam Chomsky and his colleagues, starting in the mid 1950s and continuing to this day. This theory, which has had many different names through its development (Transformational Grammar (TG), Standard Theory, Extended Standard Theory, Government and Binding Theory (GB), Principles and Parameters approach (P&P) and Minimalism (MP), is often given the name of Generative Grammar. [...] The particular version of generative grammar that we will mostly look at is roughly the Principles and Parameters approach. (Carnie, 2008: 5) 1.2.1. The goals of syntactic theory People working on syntactic theory (i) develop precise descriptions of aspects of the syntax of various Ls (ii) aim to develop a general theory of syntax (UG) there are limits on L variation (12) The boy ate the beefburger (13) *Beefburger the ate boy the? 2  (14) *What did you eat your eggs and? (15) *Which book did Mary hire the person that ______wrote______? (16) Who did Mary think that Anna saw_______? there are (apparent) mistakes which are actually rules in many Ls: (17) What do you think what’s in here? (ok in German) (18) There have been found some bodies (ok in Norwegian) UG is a body of principles and parameters which is an innate component of the mind syntactic theory can offer some insight into the workings of the human mind 1.2.2. The theoretical linguist in action the theoretical linguist “does grammar” the theoretical linguist investigates I-languages the data the theoretical linguist works with are native intuitions on grammaticality the theoretical linguist refers to data from other languages as s/he tries to develop a general theory of L theoretical linguists make use of the scientific method (19) Gather and observe data Make generalizations Develop hypotheses In syntax, we apply this methodology to sentence structure. Syntacticians start by observing data about the language they are studying, then they make generalizations about patterns in the data (e.g. in simple English declarative sentences, the subject precedes the verb). They then generate a hypothesis – preferably one that makes predictions – and test the hypothesis against more syntactic data, and if necessary go back and reevaluate their hypotheses. [...] the hypothesis must be falsifiable. That is, we must, in principle, be able to look for some data which, if true, show that the hypothesis is wrong. This means that we are often looking for the cases where our hypotheses predict that a sentence will be grammatical (and it is not), or the cases where they predict that the sentence will be ungrammatical (but it is ok). (Carnie 2008:8) In syntax, hypotheses are called rules, and the group of hypotheses that describe a language’s syntax is called a grammar. Corollary: the theoretical linguist is interested in “doing grammar”. Procedure: i. collect data (corpus, intuitions on well-formedness) ii. abstract from native speakers’ intuitions and posit a rule iii. collect data against the rule iv. revise the rule 3 Example: English reflexives I. Collect examples of sentences in which reflexives can and cannot be used: (20) a. The government won’t commit itself b. Itself won’t be committed II. Try and formulate some principle which determines when they are used: III. Collect new data and test our rule against this new data: (21) IV. Revise the rule: V. collect new data: (22) a. b. (23) a. b. c. VI. revise the rule: Note: this is not a final rule. In Unit 3 and Unit 6 in the program we will see some more data on the use of reflexives in English. There we will take into account some structural relationships between reflexives and their antecedents and will try to formulate a more accurate principle. See also Aoun (1992), Cowper (1992: 147-155), Haegeman (1994:201- 249). 4 Practice I. Indicate your native speaker’s intuitions (*/ ?/ok) on the well-formedness of (1)-(2): (1) Veo lo todas las noches (2) Lo veo todas las noches II. Abstract from your intuitions and posit a rule on the use of DO clitics in Spanish: III. Indicate your native speaker’s intuitions on the well-formedness of the following sentences and test your rule against the new data: (3) Lo no veo cada noche (6) No lo me mandará nunca (4) No lo veo cada noche (7) No me lo mandará nunca (5) Lo me no mandará nunca IV. Revise your original rule, if necessary. V. Indicate your native speaker’s intuitions on the well-formedness of the following sentences and test your new rule against the data: (8) Tengo que hacerlo (14) Voy a comprarlos inmediatamente (9) Tengo que lo hacer (15) Voy a los comprar inmediatamente (10) Lo tengo que hacer (16) Los voy a comprar inmediatamente (11) No debo leerlas ahora (17) Estoy haciéndolo (12) No debo las leer ahora (18) Estoy lo haciendo (13) No las debo leer ahora (19) Lo estoy haciendo VI. Revise your last rule, if necessary. VII. Indicate your native speaker’s intuitions on the well-formedness of the following sentences and test your last rule against the new data: (20) Estoy buscando el libroi pero no lasi puedo encontrar (21) Voy a comprar unas mediasi para regalarloi (22) Cuando veas la casai tienes que fotografiarlasi (23) Si ves a mis hermanosi nosi matas de mi parte VIII. Give the “final” version of your rule. 5 6 References AOUN, Joseph. 1992. A brief presentation of the generative enterprise. In John A. Hawkins & Murray Gell-Mann (eds), The evolution of Human Languages. Redwood City: Addison- Wesley, 121-135. BORSLEY, Robert. 1999. Syntactic Theory. London: Arnold. CARNIE, Andrew. 2008. Syntax. A Generative Introduction. 2nd ed. Cambridge (Mass.)/Oxford: Blackwell, 5-8. CHOMSKY, Noam. 1957. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton. CHOMSKY, Noam. 1973. The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory. New York: Plenum. COWPER, Elizabeth A. 1992. A Concise Introduction to Syntactic Theory: The Government- Binding Approach. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. HAEGEMAN, Liliane. 1994. Introduction to Government and Binding Theory. Second edition. Cambridge (Mass.)/Oxford: Blackwell. 7