Attachment 1 Title page
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Demo, RESEARCH DESIGN
| 2.2 Theoretical background
2.2.1 An overview of syntactic features Syntax refers to the ways symbols may be combined to create well- formed programs in the language. It defines the formal relations between the constituents of a language, thereby providing a structural description of the various expressions that make up legal strings in the language. According to Peter Svenonius (2017), the theory of features in syntax derives from earlier work in morphology and phonology, especially the foundational work in the first half of the twentieth century by Jakobson and Trubetzkoy and others (e.g., Jakobson 1990 [1942], Jakobson et al. 1951; see Clements and Hume 1995, Halle et al. 2000 for discussion). In phonology the term feature is normally used in the restrictive sense of “distinctive features” of phonemes—all and only the properties that are necessary to uniquely distinguish each item in the phoneme inventory of a language. These properties are normally assumed to be phonetically (or ar- ticulatorily) grounded. They define natural classes. For example, a distinctive feature distinguishes /p/ from /b/ in English, as demonstrated by the ex- istence of minimal pairs such as pray and bray. In contrast, no distinctive feature distinguishes the aspirated /p/ ([ph]) in pat from the unaspirated one in spat or ape. (Svenonius, 2017 , p. 2) In Syntactic Structures, Chomsky lays down the foundation of transformational grammar and tries to construct a formalized theory of linguistic structure. He begins by focusing on the grammar of a language, stating that the grammar of a language is the device that generates all sensical and nonsensical sequences of words for a language. Afterwards, Chomsky argues that the fundamental aim of linguistic analysis of a 6 language is to separate grammatical sequences from ungrammatical sequences of a language and to study the structure of the grammatical sequences. From there he concludes that grammar is autonomous and independent of meaning. For the rest of his book Chomsky argues that language utilizes a transformational grammar that has a natural tripartite arrangement consisting of: phrase structure rules, transformational rules, and morphophonemic rules. Syntactic Structures is regarded as one of the most influential pieces on current linguistic theory. From there on out, Chomsky co ntinued to prove that he is an academic intellectual. His later linguistic and philosophical works assert that most of grammar is innate knowledge and has been termed universal grammar. This has had strong support in the field of psychology and has directly challenged many behaviorist theories and prior theories that have attempted to explain how children learn language and gain the ability to use language. (Keller, 2012) Other scholar such as Leonard Bloomfield (1939) considered syntax was the study of free forms that were composed entirely of free forms. Central to his theory of syntax were the notions of form classes and constituentstructure. (These notions were also relevant, though less central, in the theory of morphology.) Bloomfield defined form classes, rather imprecisely, in terms of some common “recognizable phonetic or grammatical feature” shared by all the members. He gave as examples the form class consisting of “personal substantive expressions” in English (defined as “the forms that, when spoken with exclamatory final pitch, are calls for a person‟s presence or attention”—e.g., “John,” “Boy,” “Mr. Smith”); the form class consisting of “infinitive expressions” (defined as “forms which, when spoken with exclamatory final pitch, have the meaning of a command”—e.g., “run,” “jump,” “come here”); the form class of “nominative substantive expressions” (e.g., “John,” “the boys”); and so on. It should be clear from these examples that form classes are similar to, though not identical with, the traditional parts of speech and that one and the same form can belong to 7 more than one form class. What Bloomfield had in mind as the criterion for form class membership (and therefore of syntactic equivalence) may best be expressed in terms of substitutability. Form classes are sets of forms (whether simple or complex, free or bound), any one of which may be substituted for any other in a given construction or set of constructions throughout the sentences of the language. (Brittanica, 1995) Question tags are formed in several ways, and many languages give a choice of formation. In some languages the most common is a single word or fixed phrase, whereas in others it is formed by a regular grammatical construction. tải về 0.54 Mb. Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn:
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