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PSRs & PSTs – Kate’s answer guide
Kroger Exercises
3A (see pages 47-48 in Kroger)
Give five examples of possible tree structures that could be generated by each of the following
simple grammars:
B C
D (A)
(i) A
B
C D
E
a. b. c.
d. e.
Some linguists believe that one of the essential properties of human language (i.e. which is claimed
to be a part of all languages and which distinguishes human language from animal communication) is
recursion. Recursion refers to the embedding of phrases within phrases of the same type in a way
that can potentially continue on and on into infinity. For example, in English, we can do this with
embedded clauses: She said that I said that you said that he said that they said that your mother said
that your mother’s mother said… and so on. We can identify recursion in the above PSRs:
A B (C) and B D (A)
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(ii) See page 48 in Kroger for PSRs.
a. John runs Mary to the tree.
We can’t have the PP coming off the ‘Mary’ NP because our PSRs don’t allow it.
(i.e. NP {John, Mary})
b. The house sings behind a young sausage in the cake.
We can’t have ‘in the cake’ PP as a sister to the V ‘sings’ because our PSRs don’t allow
multiple PP daughters of S. If we wanted to allow this, the PSR:
S NP V (NP) (PP)
Would need to be changed to:
S NP V (NP) (PP)*
Another thing to think about here is the fact that we have ‘the house’ functioning as the
subject to the verb ‘sing’. If we want to disallow this from occurring, we might use a
selectional restriction which states that inanimate referents cannot be a subject for this
verb:
Word Class Selectional restriction
sing V [NP ___ ]
[+animate]
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c. Mary yawns.
d. The small cat gives the cake to Mary.
Correct: with PP as complement to V
Incorrect: with PP as complement to N
PSRs don’t rule this second one out, but the verb ‘give’ needs to have the PP ‘to Mary’ as a
complement. Some constituency tests that we can use to prove that ‘the cake to Mary’ is
not a constituent are:
– Substitution: *the small cat gives it
– Cleft construction: *it was the cake to Mary that the small cat gives
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e. A white dog pinches John from the house behind the tree in the sausage.
Once again, our PSRs don’t allow us to have multiple PP daughters of the S node, but we can
easily spot the possibility for recursion with this example:
PP P NP
NP Det (A) N (PP)
f. An cat likes to the dog.
Although this sentence is actually ungrammatical in English, our PSRs allow it.
– An vs a would be captured morpho-phonological rule (i.e. a occurs before consonants, an
occurs before vowels), rather than in syntax.
– Clash between the verb ‘like’ and the following PP could be resolved through a
subcategorisation frame:
Word Class Subcategorisation Frame
like V [___ NP]
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3B (page 48 in Kroger)
We can start off by writing out all the ways in which each node can extend to other nodes:
S A B C
C D C
C D A
Then, because we can see that C always has D and either C or A as daughters, we can
collapse these rules as follows:
S A B C
C D C
A
3C (see pages 8-49 in Kroger)
Write a set of PS rules which will generate all of the grammatical noun phrases (#1-9) but none of the
ungrammatical ones (#10-18).
Step 1: Finding minimal pairs
N Det Meaning
1 toa
‘house’
kpo
‘one’
‘one house’
2 toa
‘house’
ke
‘this’
‘this house’
3 toa
‘house’
ge
‘that’
‘that house’
‘house’ is the meaning common across all three examples, so we look for a common word/form
across each example, which is toa. Therefore toa = ‘house’. Furthermore, this means kpo = ‘one’,
ke = ‘this’ and ge = ‘that’.
Step 2: Filling in the blanks
Adj1 N Det Adj2 Meaning
4 gã
‘big’
folo
‘elephant’
kpo
‘one’
‘one big elephant’
5 folo
‘elephant’
ge
‘that’
tũ
‘black’
‘that black elephant’
As both of these sentences have ‘elephant’ as the only common meaning and folo is the only
common form, then folo = elephant. We already know kpo = one and ge = that, which must mean
that gã = big and tũ = black.
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Adj1 N Det Adj2 Meaning
6 bisĩ
‘small’
gbogbo
‘lion’
kpo
‘one’
‘one small lion’
7 gbogbo
‘lion’
ge
‘that’
fẽ
‘white’
‘that white lion’
As both of these sentences have ‘lion’ as the only common meaning and gbogbo is the only common
form, then gbogbo = lion. We already know kpo = one and ge = that, which must mean that bisĩ =
small and fẽ = white.
Adj1 N Det Adj2 Meaning
8 bisĩ
‘small’
gbogbo
‘lion’
ke
‘this’
fẽ
‘white’
‘this small white lion’
9 gã
‘big’
folo
‘elephant’
kpo
‘one’
Tũ
‘black’
‘one big black elephant’
Step 3: Write out the lexicon
Noun: {toa, folo, gbogbo}
Determiner: {kpo, ke , ge}
Adjective 1: {gã, bisĩ}
Adjective 2: {tũ, fẽ}
Step 4: Write the PSR
Write out all the different NP structures we have in our dataset:
NP N Det (1, 2, 3)
NP Adj1 N Det (4, 6)
NP N Det Adj2 (5, 7)
NP Adj1 N Det Adj2 (8, 9)
These can be collapsed as:
NP (Adj1) N Det (Adj2)
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Step 4: Testing PSR against negative evidence
Now we can test our PSR against the ungrammatical NPs (10 – 18):
(10) *ke (NP must have a head noun. This is already captured by our PSR)
Det
‘this’
(11) *toa ke kpo (Can’t have multiple Det. This is already captured by our PSR)
N Det Det
‘this one house
(12) *toa kpo ge (Can’t have multiple Det, even if their order is switched around. This
N Det Det is already captured by our PSR)
‘that one house’
(13) *ge toa (Det can’t precede N. This is already captured by our PSR)
Det N
‘that house’
(14) *kpo toa (As above)
Det N
‘one house’
(15) *folo kpo gã (The following word order is ungrammatical: *N Det Adj1. This is
N Det Adj1 already captured by our PSR)
‘one big elephant’
(16) *tũ folo ge (The following word order is ungrammatical: *Adj2 N Det. This is
Adj2 N Det already captured by our PSR)
‘that black elephant’
(17) *gbogbo bisĩ kpo (The following word order is ungrammatical: *N Adj1 Det. This is
N Adj1 Det already captured by our PSR)
‘one small lion’
(18) * fẽ gbogbo ge (As in 16)
Adj2 N Det
‘one small lion’
Going through the ungrammatical NPs supports our PSR: NP (Adj1) N Det (Adj2)
It also demonstrates how NPs in this language have word order (although it may have initially
seemed to be otherwise).
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Additional Exercise (see Wk 4 Tutorial Exercise on LMS)
PSRs
S NP VP
NP D AP N
VP V AP PP
AP (AdvP) A
PP P NP
AdvP Adv
PSTs
a. He wore a white shirt.
Here we need to add the following to our list of PSRs:
VP V NP
NP Pron
b. His trousers were very neat.
Here we need to change the following PSRs:
VP V AP PP needs to become VP V AP (PP)
NP D AP N needs to become NP D (AP) N
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c. His figure communicated the impression of irrefutable physical strength.
Here we need to change the following PSR:
NP D (AP) N needs to become NP (D) (AP)* N (PP)
As the PP ‘of irrefutable physical grace’ is a complement to the N ‘impression’, we need to have it as
a sister to this noun, and not as a sister to the V ‘communicated’. We can prove that ‘the impression
of irrefutable physical strength is a single constituent through constituency tests:
Substitution:
His figure communicated it.
*His figure communicated it of irrefutable physical grace.
Cleft:
It was the impression of irrefutable physical strength that his figure communicated.
*It was of irrefutable physical strength that his figure communicated the impression.
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d. They conducted themselves with churchgoing solemnity.
Here we need to change the following PSR:
VP V NP needs to become VP V NP (PP)
We have the PP ‘with churchgoing solemnity’ as a sister to the V ‘conducted’ and not to the Pron
‘themselves’ because this PP is modifying the V, not the Pron. We can demonstrate that ‘themselves
with churchgoing solemnity’ is not a constituent with the following test:
Cleft:
It was with churchgoing solemnity that they conducted themselves.
*It was themselves with churchgoing solemnity that they conducted.
Final PSRs:
S NP VP
NP Pron
(D) (AP)* N (PP)
VP V AP (PP)
NP (PP)
AP (AdvP) A
AdvP Adv
PP P NP