Constituents

• Syntax

  • Study of structure of language
  • relate surface form (phonology & words) to semantics
  • independent of semantics
  • = sentences can be gramatical but lack meaning
  • or be ungramatical but have meaning
• Hierarchical structure for syntax

  • sentences not linear arrangment of words
  • organized hierarchically = smaller units forming larger ones = constituents
• Constituents

  • smaller units within a sentence(/ group of words) that function as cohesive elements (unit)
  • can include words, phrases, or clauses that group together to form larger syntactic units
  • can overlap
• Syntactic node

  
  

  • point in syntactic structure where phrases or words connected or grouped together
  • syntactic tree diagram = nodes represent different constituents or units of sentence
• Hierarchical structure for syntax - surface VS deep structure

  • Chomsky
  • surface structure = actual arangment of words in sentence
  • deep structure = represents underlying hierarchical organisation of sentence's meaning
• Constituents of a sentence - how to determine - Substitution test

  • replace sequence of words with single word or phrase, (pro-form - pronoun or single-word substitute)
  • = to see if resulting sentence remains grammatical & semantically coherent
  • maintains grammaticality & meaning of original sentence = replaced sequence likely constituent
• Constituents of a sentence - how to determine - stand alone test

  • isolating group of words from rest of sentence & determining if isolated group can stand alone as complete & grammatically correct unit
  • can = likely constituent
• Phase structure diagrams

  • Parsing: breaking sentence into its component parts & indicating relationships between components
  • Phase structure diagrams - show hierarchical relations between constituents