Tree substitution grammar is a strict notational variant of the more standard phrase structure grammar notation based on rewrite rules. The "Trees" program words with tree substitution grammars, which may be extended in various ways, for example by the addition of adjunction or transformations. This assignment is based on a grammar in which the substitution operation is supplemented with adjunction to handle modification. Download the grammar tool phrase structure, to do the exercise below:
The following expressions are structurally ambiguous. For each one give two tree diagrams, one corresponding to each interpretation.
a. I have watched the man from across the street.
b. They might say that they will come tomorrow.
c. clever boys and girls
d. John will answer the question precisely at noon.
e. European car buffs
A. Using the grammar tool
transformations 1,
show the underlying and derived
structures for the following sentences. For each transformational movement,
say in one or two words, why it occurs.
a. Mary was arrested.
b. Mary has tried to like the pizza.
c. Mary may seem to like the pizza.
d. Mary was believed to seem to like the pizza.
e. He wants Mary to like the pizza.
f. What does Mary want to like?
g. What would he prefer for Mary to seem to like?
B. Using the grammar tool
transformations 2,
show the underlying and, where appropriate, the derived structures for
the following sentences. The grammar tool will allow more than one structure
for these expressions. It is up to you to pick out the correct one.
a. Is there believed to be a statue in the park?
b. John tried to seem to be a statue.
c. Which teacher of physics will the student from Kansas prefer?
C.Verb movement: Use the grammar transformations 3 to explore how Modern, Shakespearean, and Middle English are similar and different in the basic constraints they impose on the structure of SIMPLE DECLARATIVE clauses. The grammar allows you to build variants of the sentence "The king writes about the war." Use these variants to figure out the constraints by testing them with the Modern, Shakespearean, and Middle English grammar checker options under the "Test Grammaticality" menu.
D. Wh- movement: Using the grammar tool WH, answer the following questions.
i. Each of the following sentences is ambiguous. For each reading show the underlying and derived structures.
a. Who does Mary expect to visit?
b. About whom did Mary say that she wrote?
c. Who is the doctor?
ii. The grammar tool allows some cases of wh- movement and blocks others. Try building sentences using the following five verbs from the fragment: expect, prefer, regret, think, want. In what ways does the wh- movement out of the complements of these verbs differ, according to the way that the grammar fragment handles them? How well does the fragment mirror the behavior of English? Do the best you can to specify the grammatical principles that the fragment is following and the properties of the verbs that are responsible for the ways that they differ in handling extraction.
A. Use the grammar tool binding 1, to do this assignment. The point is for you to figure out what the constraints are on reflexive binding and pronoun coreference in the fragment of English sentences that the grammar tool allows you to construct. The grammar tool contains the menu "Test Binding", which will appear at the right end of the menu bar at the top of the screen. On this menu are the items "Test Reflexive Binding" and "Test Pronoun Coreference." If you click on a DP node so that it hilites and then click on one of these menu items, the program will outline in red boxes all the possible binders (for the reflexives) or coreferents (for the pronouns). Below these two items is the item "Reset Outline Boxes", which allows you to clear out the boxes so that you can change the sentence and do other tests.
Here's how to proceed with the assignment. Construct a number of sentences containing ordinary pronouns and/or reflexives. For every sentence you construct, after you complete the derivation by pasting the pieces together and performing any necessary transformations, test the pronouns and reflexives for what their coreferences and binding possiblities are. Record these results, perhaps by saving the trees, with the outline boxes, to a MS Word file, so that you can answer the following questions:
a. What is the rule for reflexive binding that the grammar fragment seems to be following?
b. What is the fragment's rule for coreference of ordinary pronouns?
The behavior of the fragment is similar to the behavior of English, but not identical. In some respects, the fragment is incomplete. In addition, it sometimes gives the "wrong" answer by comparison to real English. Given this,
c. Find at least one way in which the fragment is incomplete in its handling of binding and/or coreference. Find something that does not result from the limited vocabulary of the fragment but rather follows from the way it implements some structural principle.
d. Find at least one way in which the fragment gives the wrong answer when you test binding and/or coreference possibilities.
B. Using the grammar binding 2, try to figure out how reflexive binding is constrained by structure in Chinese. Note that Chinese has two kinds of reflexive pronoun. The first is a simple word "ziji", which can be used with any antecedent. The second is a set of compound words of the form "pronoun+ziji", which must agree in person with their antecedents. Compare how reflexive binding works with these two kinds of reflexive and compare them, in turn, with the way reflexive binding works in English.
Here are some sample structures for Chinese sentences that the grammar can build. They should give you an idea of what the structures look like on which you should test the binding facts of Chinese. Note that I have simplified the way subordination works by removing the CP level to make the trees more manageable. Also note that Chinese does not mark its clauses for tense. Instead INFL in Chinese marks aspect: To a first approximation, it marks as perfective active verbs like "criticize" and as imperfective stative verbs like "know".
