LX CAS 522 Syntax I
Week 2b. Categories and features
Where we were
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Lexical categories:
N: noun n V: verb
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A: adjective P: preposition
Adv: adverb
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Functional categories:
I: inflection/aux/modal n C: complementizer
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D: determiner PRN: Pronoun
Not all nouns are the same
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Count and Mass
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Were trying to describe syntactic behavior of words, and we tried to put words into categories based on differences and similarities in behavior (distribution). But we already know that there are differences even between members of the same category, for example count vs. mass nouns.
We could just say, fine, we have two categories: Count, and Mass.
n [Mass furniture], [Mass freedom] n [Count chair], [Count pinnacle]
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But then we miss the fact, essentially, that theyre all nouns. E.g., what do adjectives modify?
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Comfortable furniture makes me happy. Comfortable chairs make me happy.
Commonalities and differences
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Features
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Basically, mass nouns have something in common with count nouns (namely, theyre nouns), while also having differences (count nouns are countable, mass nouns are not).
Nouns have the property of being a noun. n Count nouns have the property of being countable, mass nouns do not.
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A feature is a fancy name for property, and is used to express these similarities and differences. Features are generally binary [+F] or [-F].
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Count nouns have the feature [+count]. Mass nouns have the feature [-count]. Both have the feature [+N].
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So things that are true of nouns we can say are true of words with the feature [+N]. Things that are true of count nouns are true of things that are [+N, +count].
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Proper and common nouns
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[Common]
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We can similarly distinguish proper nouns (names) from common nouns (types).
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Boston, Chomsky, September park, linguist, month
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So, Boston is a [+N, -Common] and park is a [+N, +Common]. But they are both [+N]. These secondary features define subclasses of categories, and are sometimes referred to as subcategorial features.
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Proper nouns dont occur with determiners (or if they do, they are interpreted as if they were common nouns: I met every Chomsky at the picnic, I go to classes every September, the Boston I remember was cleaner than this.
Feature matrices
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Feature matrices
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We can in fact encode many of the grammatical properties words can have as features, which will be useful in formulating our theory. The features will be anything that our grammatical rules/generalizations can refer to.
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n n n n
The dog [+N, +Count, -Plural] is hot. The dogs [+N, +Count, +Plural] are hot. The soup [+N, -Count, -Plural] is hot. The scissors [+N, -Count, +Plural] are hot.
The dog [+N, +Count, -Plural] is hot. The dogs [+N, +Count, +Plural] are hot. The soup [+N, -Count, -Plural] is hot. The scissors [+N, -Count, +Plural] are hot.
The auxiliary be shows plural agreement: it is are when the subject is [+Plural] and is when the subject is [-Plural]. It doesnt refer to (care about) [Count].
Adjectives and adverbs
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Verbal features
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Adjectives and adverbs are a lot alike. Most adjectives have an adverb form, and can in nonstandard speech in fact be used as adverbs. They both can be modified by very. Suggests that maybe this is more like the difference between mass and count nouns than like the difference between nouns and verbsperhaps [ADV] is a subcategorial feature.
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Like for nouns, we can think of the different forms that verbs take as being differentiated by features:
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(Note: Im diverging a bit from Radford here, but Im right.) He has shown improvement [+V, +Participle, -Past, +Perfect] He had shown improvement [+V, +Participle, +Past, +Perfect] He is showing improvement [+V, +Participle, -Past, -Perfect] He showed improvement [+V, -Participle, +Past] He shows improvement [+V, -Participle, -Past, +3sg] You show improvement [+V, -Participle, -Past, -3sg]
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quick: [+A, -ADV]
quickly: [+A, -s +ADV]
So, is usually [-Participle, -Past, +3sg], -en is [+Participle, +Perfect], -ed is [+Past], -ing is [+Participle, -Perfect].
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Crosscategorial features
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Crosscategorial features
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Consider what un can attach to.
untie, unfold, unwrap, unpack n unhappy, unfriendly, undead n *uncity, *uncola, *unconvention n *unupon, *unalongside, *unat
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Suppose that nouns and verbs are the most basic categories. A noun is a noun and not a verb, and verb is a verb and not a noun.
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Noun: [+N, -V]. Verb: [-N, +V].
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Basically, it applies to reversible verbs and adjectives, but not to nouns or prepositions. How can we state that?
A conceptual reason to separate nouns and verbs is that verbs are basically predicatesthey attribute some property to the noun. Nouns are basically arguments, to be assigned properties by verbs.
Crosscategorial features
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Supercategories
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Looked at this way, adjectives are kind of verby in that they are also attributing properties. Its hard to make that really precise, but we have a more concrete syntactic similarity between verbs and adjectives too: both can take un-, while nouns and prepositions cannot.
Chomsky (1970) proposed that we explain this by supposing that [N] and [V] are the two basic features that determine the four lexical categories (N, V, A, P).
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N: [+N, -V] P: [-N, -V]
V: [-N, +V] A: [+N, +V]
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Given that, what does un attach to?
Russian Case
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Functional and lexical
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Other languages can give us evidence of this as well. For example, Russian nouns (all nouns) are marked for Case (like English pronouns are: me vs. I), but when they are modified by an adjective, the adjective is also marked for case. What gets marked for Case in Russian?
koshku v cat pustuyu korobku box
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That takes care of N, V, A, P, but what about our functional categories? In fact, the functional categories (C, I, D, PRN) each seem a little like a lexical category.
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Krasivaya dyevushka vsunula chornuyu beautiful girl put black
in empty
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The beautiful girl put the black cat in the empty box
Auxiliaries seem a lot like verbs (have, be, do), and inflect like verbs do. Complementizers and infinitival to seem a bit like prepositions (e.g., for, to). Pronouns are kind of nouny. Determiners are a bit adjectivey.
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[+F]?
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Grammatical category
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Perhaps we can add a third binary fea...