Phrase structure grammar

introducing phrase structure grammar

1. Phrase Structure Grammar Dr.VMS

2. Phrase Structure Grammar A form of generative grammar that describes the relations between words and morphemes of a sentence, but does not analyse syntactic relations in greater depth.

3. Transformational Grammar A system of grammatical analysis, esp. a form of generative grammar, that posits the existence of deep structure and surface structure, using a set of transformational rules to derive surface structure forms from deep structure; a grammar that uses transformations to express the relations between equivalent structures

4. Deep structure vs. surface structure In transformational and generative grammar, deep structure (also known as deep grammar or D-structure) is the underlying syntactic structure—or level—of a sentence. In contrast to surface structure (the outward form of a sentence), deep structure is an abstract representation that identifies the ways a sentence can be analyzed and interpreted. Deep structures are generated by phrase-structure rules, and surface structures are derived from deep structures by a series of transformations. "Deep and surface structure are often used as terms in a simple binary opposition, with the deep structure representing meaning, and the surface structure being the actual sentence we see .“- Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar" (2014 ).

5. Deep structure vs. surface structure The surface structure is actually produced structure. It refers to the sentence as it is pronounced or written. The deep structure is the abstract structure that allows the native speaker of a language to know what the sentence means. It may then be said that the deep structure expresses the semantic contents of a sentence, whereas the surface structure of a sentence determines its phonetic form.

6. Four important properties of deep structure Major grammatical relations, such as subject of and object of, are defined at deep structure. All lexical insertion occurs at deep structure. All transformations occur after deep structure. Semantic interpretation occurs at deep structure. The terms deep structure and surface structure were popularized in the 1960s and '70s by American linguist Noam Chomsky, who eventually discarded the concepts in his minimalist program in the 1990s.

7. Noam Chomsky’s observation " Noam Chomsky had identified a basic grammatical structure in  Syntactic Structures  [1957] that he referred to as kernel sentences. Reflecting mentalese , kernel sentences were where words and meaning first appeared in the complex cognitive process that resulted in an utterance. In Aspects of the Theory of Syntax , 1965, Chomsky abandoned the notion of kernel sentences and identified the underlying constituents of sentences as deep structure. The deep structure was versatile insofar as it accounted for meaning and provided the basis for transformations that turned deep structure into  surface structure , which represented what we actually hear or read. Transformation rules, therefore, connected deep structure and surface structure, meaning and syntax."

8. Phrase structure grammar Phrase structure grammars model the internal structure of a sentence in terms of a hierarchically organized representation. The sentence  Every boy has a bike , for instance, is taken to consist of a noun phrase ( every boy ) and a verb phrase ( has a bike ), where the former consists of a determiner ( every ) and a noun ( boy ), and the latter consists of a verb ( has ) and a noun phrase ( a bike ), which in turn consists of a determiner ( a ) and a noun ( bike ). 

9. Rewrite Rule - a phrase-structure rule in a generative grammar, shown as an instruction to replace or rewrite a single symbol, representing a syntactic structure, on the left with one or more symbols, representing the constituents of the structure, on the right, as in S → NP + VP, where S (sentence) is to be replaced with its constituents NP (noun phrase) and VP (verb phrase).

10. Rewrite Rules A phrase structure grammar consists of a set of ordered rules known as rewrite rules, which are applied stepwise. A rewrite rule has a single symbol on the left and one or more symbols on the right: A→B+C C→D "The phrase structure rules also allow for choices. The optional choices are indicated with parentheses: A →(B)C There may also be mutually exclusive choices of elements in a string; these are indicated with curly braces: A→{B,C} This rule states that if you choose B, you can't choose C, but you must choose one—either B or C, but not both. Whether the mutually exclusive items are written on one line separated by commas or on separate lines does not matter, as long as they occur within braces."

11. Immediate Constituent Analysis Phrase structure grammars and associated notions of phrase structure analysis have their proximate origins in models of Immediate Constituent (IC) analysis. Although inspired by the programmatic syntactic remarks in Bloomfield (1933), these models were principally developed by Bloomfield’s successors, most actively in the decade between the publication of Wells (1947) and the advent of transformational analyses in Harris (1957) and Chomsky (1957).

12. IC analysis The central intuition underlying models of IC analysis was that the structure of an expression could be exhibited by dividing the expression into parts (its immediate constituents), further subdividing these parts, and continuing until syntactically indivisible units were obtained.

13. Immediate Constituent Analysis One method of analyzing sentences, commonly known as immediate constituent analysis (or IC analysis. IC analysis involves breaking a sentence down into its parts and illustrating it with brackets or a tree diagram. Though originally associated with structural linguistics, IC analysis continues to be used (in various forms) by many contemporary grammarians.  The purpose of Immediate Constituent Analysis is to understand the way sentences are structured, as well as discover the deep meaning of the intended sentence and perhaps how it might be better expressed.

14. Constituents and Constitutes A constituent is a linguistic part of a larger sentence, phrase, or clause. For instance, all the words and phrases that make up a sentence are said to be constituents of that sentence. A constituent can be a morpheme, word, phrase, or clause. Sentence analysis identifies the subject or predicate or different parts of speech, a process known as parsing the sentence into its constituents. In syntactic analysis, a constituent is a word or a group of words that function as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. Constitutes is made up of constituents

15. Hierarchy Sentence :Phrases combined to form sentences. The phrase “the girl” combines with the phrase “ran away” to form the sentence: “The girl ran away.” Phrases : Words combine to form phrases.[8] The word “the” combines with “girl” to form the phrase: “The girl ” Words :Morphemes combine to form words. Morphemes belong to categories that determine how they combine.[9] For example, the word 'manageable' is made up of two morphemes 'manage' which is a verb and 'able' which is an adjective, these categories tell the morphemes how to combine so they form the word 'manageable.' Morphemes : Smallest meaningful unit in a word For example, “boys” has two morphemes “boy” and “-s.” Phonemes :A unit of sound such as individual consonants and vowels of a language . For example, /p/, /t/ and /æ/ are phonemes in English. Phonetic form : A subset of sounds which demonstrates the different variations of a phoneme . Diacritics can be used to represent this, for example aspiration can be added to the letter /p/ in the word / pʰɪt /.