Syntax – Week 4, Lecture 1
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Dependency Relations and
agreement
Review:
We started the course by developing some tests to determine syntactic
categories and constituencies. We used these tests to develop PSRs which
form an important part of the grammatical description of a language.
While doing this work, we became interested in phrases – in particular the
relationship between the head of a phrase and its sisters (also known as
dependents). We saw that some dependents can be complements and
others adjuncts.
Today we investigate the common cross-linguistic relations between heads
and dependents, but soon we will return to adjuncts and complements and
show that they can be used to better understand the structural
relationships between phrases.
Today:
● Heads and Dependency Relations continued
● Agreement/Concord
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1. Dependency Relations
Dependency relations exist between the head of a phrase and its sisters:
The head of the VP, put, has two sister phrases – a NP and a PP. The sister
to a head of a phrase is often called a dependent – and there are two types
of dependents:
● complements
● modifiers/adjuncts
In the VP above, both the NP and the PP are complements to the verb
put. In the structure below, the NP is a complement, and the PP is an
adjunct (note the NP and PP are still both sisters to the verb):
What is the difference between an adjunct and a complement?
Complements
● required in some sense
● if omitted, still ‘understood’
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● complements are subcategorised for by the head
Adjuncts/modifiers
● not required in the same way
● adjuncts are always optional
Dependency relations hold between the head and its sisters and numerous
syntactic phenomena can only be explained in terms of dependency
relations:
● Restrictions imposed by heads on the number of its sisters
(subcategorisation)
● Restrictions imposed by heads on the semantic nature of its sisters
(selectional restrictions)
● Restrictions imposed by heads on the case of its sisters
● Agreement between heads & dependents
● Word-order constraints on heads and their dependents
Example 1: Case & Prepositional Phrases
In a PP, the P is the head of the phrase, and the NP is its dependent:
In many languages, the P the preposition requires the NP to have a
specified case. For example:
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(Icl) Þeir keyrðu frá firði-num /*fjarðar-ins
PRO.3.pl.m drive.3.pl.pst from fjord.m.sg.dat-the *fjord.m.sg.gen-the
“They drove from the fjord”
(Icl) Þeir keyrðu til *firði-num / fjarðar-ins
PRO.3.pl.m drive.3.pl.pst to *fjord.m.sg.dat-the fjord.m.sg.gen-the
“They drove to the fjord”
Frá requires its NP to be in dative case, whereas til requires genitive.
Example 2: Gender & Noun Phrases
In many languages with gender, the dependents in a phrase must match
the head of the phrase in gender (and frequently in number as well).
(Fr) La / *le femme
def.f.sg *def.m.sg woman.f.sg = the woman
(Fr) *La / le (grand/ *grande) chien = the big dog
*def.m.sg def.m.sg big.m.sg /*big.f.sg dog.m.sg
Other Dependency Relations
Modifier-Head e.g.,
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Possessor – Possessed
In English, these relations are encoded in two ways:
● prenominal possessor: His friend
● postnominal possessor: The friend of John
Unilateral vs. Bilateral Dependencies
Unilateral dependencies
● Head combines with modifiers/adjuncts or complements
● one element (e.g. the head) controls the other(s)
The examples on the previous pages are of unilateral dependencies.
Remember that unilateral dependencies can be coded in different ways in
different languages. For example, the modifier-head relationship can be
expressed using different word order in different languages, but the
meaning remains the same:
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The red book vs le livre rouge
the book red
Bilateral dependencies
Occurs between constituents of the same type. This is seen in co-
ordination and apposition. For example:
● NP co-ordination:
NP:the lecturers and NP:the students
● VP co-ord:
VP:cleaned her teeth and VP:went to bed
● AdjP co-ord:
AdjP:very hungry and AdjP:slightly crazy
● PP co-ord:
PP:out the door and PP:across the road
● apposition:
Prime Minister, Tony Abbott
Mr Plod, the policeman
Julie and I, we …
In a bilateral dependency relation, neither constituent controls the other.
Order of Heads and their Sisters
English
PP’s and VP’s in English are head first:
𝐏𝐏 → 𝑷 𝐍𝐏
I sat [PP on the chair] P NP
*I sat [PP the chair on] *NP P
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𝐕𝐏 → 𝑽 𝐍𝐏
John [VP saw a cat]. V NP
*John [VP a cat saw]. *NP V
But: NP’s in English are not head first:
The very fat cat
Here are some other examples of head-final word order:
NP’s in Turkish (from Brown and Miller)
büyük bir ev
big a house
‘a big house’
zeki bir kiz
intelligent a girl
‘an intelligent girl’
Turkish NP’s are also head-final, but note that the order of dependents is
different from English: NP → Adj Det N
PP’s in Akan (West Africa):
karakola yakin
police.station near
‘near the police station’
sizler için
you.pl for
‘for you’
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Akan PP order is different from English: PP → NP P. That is, PP’s in Akan
are head-final.
VP’s in Turkish
Ahmet otomobili aldi
Ahmet the.car took
‘Ahmet took the car’ S → S O V
Mehmet biraz para istedi
Mehmet some money wanted
‘Mehmet wanted some money’ S → S O V
The order within the verb phrase is object-verb, so the head is final.
Typologically, languages tend to be generally Head Final or Head Initial –
and this generalisation applies to most or all of the phrases within the
language. For example, if a language is V-initial within a VP and P-initial
within a PP, then we might also expect it to be N-initial within an NP. Note
the NP in English is a clear exception to this generalization.
2. Agreement/Concord
When two or more constituents are marked for the same grammatical
category, they are said to be in agreement or concord. Agreement
constructions have a controller with which the other constituents are in
accord. For example, in Icelandic, subjects are marked with nominative
case, and so, nouns and adjectives which form the subject in Icelandic must
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both agree for case, number and gender. It is the noun – the head of the
phrase, which controls the number and gender of the other constituents in
the phrase:
A construction where we get head-dependent agreement in English:
NP’s – N/Det agreement
this/*these book
*this/these books
English also has agreement between the subject and verb (though this is
not head-dependent agreement, since the subject is not a part of the VP).
Here, the inflection of the verb depends on the number (sg. vs. pl.) and
person (1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person) value of the subject:
The couch was soft. (3rd person singular)
The couches were soft. (3rd person plural)
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Subject-Verb Constructions in other languages
Verbs may agree with their subjects in number (sg.,pl. etc), person (1st,
2nd,3rd) and gender (masc, fem, neu, etc). For example, Latin, French,
Icelandic and many others. In Icelandic, the verb agrees with the subject in
number and person:
In the sentence above, the agreement between the noun and the adjective
is correct (plural, masculine and nominative). However, the problem is that
the subject NP is plural, but the inflection on the verb is for a singular
subject. Hence the plural form of the verb, sáu, must be used.
Object-Verb Constructions
Verbs may also agree with their objects in number, person and gender.
For example, Navajo:
(Nav) ‘ashkii tsé yi-zazł
boy stone 3O.3sgS-kicked
‘The boy kicked the stone’
Aside: *dzaanééz ‘ashkii yi-zazł
mule boy 3O.3sgS-kicked
“The mule kicked the boy”
But: ‘ashkii dzaanééz bi-ztał
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boy mule 3O.3sgS-kicked
“The boy, the mule kicked him”
Copula Constructions
The complement of a copula verb (i.e. the so-called predicate
complement) often agrees with the subject in number and/or gender:
(Fr) la femme est jolie ‘the woman is pretty’
les femmes sont jolies ‘the women are pretty’
le chat est joli ‘the cat(m) is pretty/handsome’
les chats sont jolis ‘the cats(m) are pretty/handsome’
Compare with English:
He/she/it is pretty. (no agreement)
She appears to be a spy. (number agreement)
They appear to be spies. (number agreement)
Exercise: Draw the PST for “The government is very busy”. Is the NP the
government singular or plural – how do you know?
(Solution on next page.)
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