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Ungrammatical Ill Formed

The document discusses the concept of grammatical structure in language, emphasizing that not all word sequences form acceptable expressions. It introduces the idea of tree diagrams to illustrate how complex entities, like bicycles, can be broken down into their constituent parts. The relationship between constituents is highlighted, particularly the indirect connections between components, such as spokes being part of wheels, which are in turn part of bicycles.

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13 views1 page

Ungrammatical Ill Formed

The document discusses the concept of grammatical structure in language, emphasizing that not all word sequences form acceptable expressions. It introduces the idea of tree diagrams to illustrate how complex entities, like bicycles, can be broken down into their constituent parts. The relationship between constituents is highlighted, particularly the indirect connections between components, such as spokes being part of wheels, which are in turn part of bicycles.

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2257010054
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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STRUCTURE

The same goes for linguistic expressions (sentences and phrases). Suppose
you have a collection of words, say all the words in an English dictionary. Can
you imagine all the possible word-sequences you could construct by putting
these words together? The possibilities are endless. Clearly, not all the word
sequences would be acceptable expressions of English. And again, some would
be odder than others. When a sequence of words fails to constitute a good
expression in English, I’ll describe it as being ungrammatical (or ill-formed)
and follow the usual convention of marking it with an asterisk (*). For example:
[1a] *the nevertheless procrastinate in foxtrot
[1b] *disappears none girls of the students
[1c] *Max will bought a frying pans.

More subtle examples of ungrammatical sentences were given in the Introduction.


Ultimately, a full syntactic description of any language consists in explaining
why some strings of words of the language are well-formed expressions and
others not. Just how this ultimate (and very ambitious) goal might be attempted
is discussed in Chapter 11. It’s enough to say here that it couldn’t be achieved
without recognising structure. Just as the concept of structure was required in
distinguishing between the bicycles and the would-be bicycles, so it’s essential
in distinguishing between strings of words that are well-formed expressions and
those that are not.
We can use diagrams to show how things are analysed into their constituent
parts. For instance, [2] says that a bicycle can be analysed into two wheels,
a frame, a chain, handlebars, among other things (the dots mean ‘and other
things’):
[2]

Such diagrams are called tree diagrams (though the trees are upside-down).
I’ve mentioned that the constituents of a complex thing can themselves be
complex. A bicycle wheel, for example. It is itself a constituent of the bicycle, but
in turn consists of hub, spokes, rim, tyre, etc. Although it’s true that spokes are
constituents of bicycles, it’s more important to note that they are constituents
of bicycles only because they are constituents of the wheel which, in turn, is a
constituent of the bicycle. The relation between spoke and bicycle is indirect,
mediated by wheel. We can express this by saying that, although the spoke is
a constituent of the bicycle, it is not an immediate constituent of it. It’s
important to recognise the indirectness of the relationship between bicycle and
spoke because, in giving a description of the structure of bicycles, we need to be
able to say that wheels are parts of bicycles. But if we allowed that spokes were
immediate constituents of bicycles rather than of wheels, this would leave wheels

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