identifying word classes. overview identifying word classes syntax of the major word classes...
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Identifying word classes
Overview
Identifying word classes Syntax of the major word classes Grammatical categories
Syntactic criteria
Distribution Only the same members of one specific word
class can be filled in the same slot in a sentence. Each word class has its own specific set of
modifying words
Morphological criteria
Form The specific set of affixes in the form of words
shows that the words belong to the same word class.
Case Study: Identifying the word class of ‘barista’
Data A barista is a coffee master of making coffee. Baristas are in charge of training new
employees. Only the best barista is hired.
In terms of morphology Singular-plural forms
In terms of syntactic function Modified by adjectives and articles (a, an, the)
Questions:
How do we identify the word class of 信 in ‘他每週寫信給朋友’ in terms of morphological and syntactic criteria?
Analyze the word class of ‘can’ in ‘You can (1) can (2) a can (3)’in terms of morphological and syntactic criteria?
Syntax of the major word classes
Major Word Classes
WHAT RE THE MOST FREQUENTLY FOUND WORD CLASSES IN THE NEWSPAPER HEADLINES?
The verb class
John sleeps
Argument
(participant)
Predicate
(event)
John Loves Coffee.
argument (participant)
Predicate
(event)
argument (participant)
The types of verbs
Intransitive verbs John yelled.
Transitive verbs John cooked a pot of coffee.
Ditransitive verbs John bought Mary a cup of coffee.
The noun class
NP -> Det N Only co-occur with determiners
Determiners
Articles a/an, the
Demonstratives This, that, these, those
Quantifiers Some, all
Possessives His, my, their, your.
The properties of determiners
Used before or after an NP. In some languages, determiners agree with
the NP. Gender
Der Sontag (mas.), die Rose (fem.), das Berlin (neu.) Number
un cadeau (a gift), les cadeaux (gifts)
The semantic role of NPs
Agent The person/thing which performs the action
Patient The person/thing which receives the action
Theme The person/thing which undergoes the action
Goal The purpose of the action
Experiencer The person/thing which experiences the process of senses
Instrument The tool to perform the action.
Analysis
A burglar ransacked my house to steal my coffee. AGENT: PATIENT: INSTRUMENT:
My mother’s bowl was broken by the cat. AGENT: PATIENT: INSTRUMENT:
Exercise:
Mary roasted the duck in the kitchen. The terrorists destroyed the building with a
bomb.
Syntactic roles of NPs
Grammatical relations Subject Object
The tests of subjecthood
Subject-verb agreement Case marking Prepositional object
The tests of subjecthood 1
Subject-verb agreement Number
He is, they are
Person I am, you are, he is, we
are
The French example Chanter ‘to sing’
singular plural
1st person
Je chante Nous chantons
2nd person
Tu chantes Vous chantez
3rd person
Il chante Ils chantent
The captain who commanded these two starships is Jean-Luc Picard.
The tests of subjecthood 2
Case marking Nominative case: subject Accusative case: object
An English case
text He loved her
case Nom. Acc.
Gram category
Subject Object
German case
Definite article
mas fem Neu.
Nominative der die das
Accusative den die das
German case
Glosary Hund: dog beißt : bite Mann: man
Sentences Der Hund beißt den Mann. Den Mann beißt der Hund.
The tests of subjecthood 3
Prepositional object The NP in a PP is an object, NOT a subject.
PP
P NP
Grammatical/morpho-syntactic categories
What are morpho-syntactic categories?
The grammatical information attached to the specific class words Number Case Agreement
How are morpho-syntactic categories represented?
Open class words (e.g., nouns, verbs, or adjectives) change the form by adding affixes to represent grammatical information. Books; John talked too much.
Closed class words may be used with lexical words to represent the grammatical information. Comparative/superlative suffix
Morpho-syntactic categories for nouns 1
Number Gender
Indicated by nouns themselves. Il libro; la casa
Indicated by determiners Le soleil, la lune
Definiteness Case
Morpho-syntactic categories for nouns 2
Definiteness Marked by determiners
Une voiture ‘a car’, la voiture ‘the car’
Marked by morphological form. Den mus-en ‘the mouse’ (Swedish)
Morpho-syntactic categories for nouns 3
Case She (nom.) hates her. (accu.)
Morpho-syntactic categories for verbs
Tense and aspect Mood Voice Agreement
Tense and aspect
Tense “grammaticalized expression of location in time”
(Comrie, 1985) Past and non-past
English He walks to school every day; He walked to school last
week.
The Wishram-Wasco dialect of Chinook Ni-ciux ‘He did it long time ago’ Ga-ciux ‘He did it some time ago’ Na-ciux-a ‘He did it recently’ i-ciux ‘He just did it’
Aspect
Whether an action is completed or ongoing. English:
Auxiliary verb + Verbal inflection They are working. They have worked for two days.
Bantu Verbal morphology
Ba-lee-bomba ‘they are working’ (progressive aspect) Ba-la-bomba ‘they (repeatedly) work’ (habitual aspect)
Mandarin Chinese is …
[+tense, +aspect] [+tense, -aspect] [-tense, +aspect] [-tense, -aspect]
Mood
Definition A grammatical category which marks the
properties such as possibility, probability, and certainty.
for actual events Indicative John bought Starbucks (because he is really rich).
for hypothetical events Modal auxiliaries
John would buy Starbucks (if he were rich).
Subjunctive mood (verbal morphology specifically for hypothetical events)
John demands that he (should) BUY Starbucks. It faut que je le choisses. ‘I should choose it’
je choisis –indicatif Je choisses-le subjontif
Voice
Active vs. passive Chichewa
Kalulu a-na-b-a mkazi wa njovu Hare SU-PAST-STEAL wife of elephant The hare stole the elephant’s wife.’
mkazi wa njovu a-na-b-edw-a wife of elephant SU-PAST-STEAL-PASSIVE ‘The elephant’s wife was stolen.’
Morpho-syntactic categories for adjectives
Comparison Agreement
Comparison
Superlative English: THE -est; THE MOST adj
Comparative English: -er; MORE adj
Equative English: AS adj AS Welsh:
Mae-r cwpan cyn llawn-ED a-r botel Is-the cup as full-EQUATIVE with-the bottle ‘The cup is as full as the bottle’
Agreement
Commonly marked to agree with the nouns adjectives modify in gender and in case
French Le vin blanc ‘the white wine’ La porte blanche ‘the white door’
German Ein kleines Kind sah einen reich-en Mann. A small-SU:SING:NEUTER child saw a rich-OB:SING:MASC man
‘a small child saw a rich man.’