Ling 461: Assignment 7

• Section 5.6 presents two constraints on possible phrase structure rules, the Endocentricity Constraint (p.262) and the Modifier Maximality Constraint (p.263). Assume that our category inventory consists of of N, V, D, A, ADV, and P. Further assume the X-bar schema given on p.254 (i.e., that the head and the mother of each phrase belong to the same category, although they may have different bar levels) and that `maximal projections' are all X''.
  • List 10 category-specific (i.e., no category variables like X or YP) phrase structure rules which are consistent with these constraints.
  • List 5 phrase structure rules given in earlier chapters of the textbook (either explicitly, or implicitly in trees) which are not consistent with the constraints. Cite a page number for each rule.
  • List 5 more phrase structure rules not (to your knowledge) used in the book, which are also inconsistent with the constraints.
• Section 5.7 generalizes across the category-specific rules and ends up with the following set of rules (for English):
  • X'' -> (YP) X' (generalized specifier rule)
  • X' -> YP X' (generalized attribute rule)
  • X' -> X' YP (generalized adjunct rule)
  • X' -> X YP* (generalized complement rule)

  As Radford notes, these rules overgenerate: Not all categories can appear as specifiers, attributes, adjuncts, or complements of all other categories. Furthermore, even one category (say NP) can in general appear in some positoin (say complement of V), specific lexical items can create exceptions.

  • Give five examples of ungrammatical strings which would be licensed by the generalized rules above. Each example should be different from the others in terms of which category is illicitly showing up in which position.
  • Draw a tree for each example showing how the generalized rules are applied. For example:

    *students Physics might have too much work.
    
             NP
             |
             N'
           /   \
          N    NP
          |    /\
      students Physics
    

    (That's a triangle over Physics)

  • Extra credit: What kind of constraints might you add to the system to rule out some of these ungrammatical cases? (Please limit your answers to two paragraphs.)
• Using the three tests given in Section 6.2, determine whether the italicized verbs in the following sentences are finite or non-finite:
  • I doubt that you like chocolate.
  • They always eat chocolate.
  • They tend to eat chocolate.