Phrase Structure Grammar

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A type of grammar from the American structuralists. Phrase structure grammars describe the syntactic structure of sentences as constituent structures, i.e. as a hierarchy of ordered constituents. Insights gained from optional rules ( obligatory vs optional) justify the individual steps of segmentation and classification, upon which the establishment of the constituent structure of a language is based. Within the framework of transformational grammar, this type of grammar, originally formulated as a recognition grammar within the framework of generative grammar undergoes a strong formalization as well as a partial reinterpretation: the static, analytically descriptive rules can be interpreted as rewrite rules, e.g. S →NP+VP corresponds to ‘a sentence consists of a noun phrase and a verb phrase’ ( phrase structure rules, generative grammar). A phrase structure grammar which operates strictly at surface structure cannot adequately capture a string of syntactic-semantic problems, e.g. discontinuous elements, Philip called his brother up, or ambiguity, the discovery of the student (‘the student was discovered’ or ‘the student discovered something’); the paraphrase relationship between sentences, e.g. the paraphrase relationship between active and passive sentences. Generative grammar uses these difficulties in its own defense, to assign sentences complex syntactic representations, which are mediated by transformations. ( also X-bar theory, Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar)

Bar-Hillel. Y.M.Perles, and E.Shamir. 1961. On formal properties of simple phrase structure grammars. ZPSK 14. 143–72.

Bhatt, C. et al. (eds) 1990. Syntactic phrase structure phenomena in noun phrases and sentences. Amsterdam.

Borsley, R.D. 1993.

Phrase structure grammar. In J. Jacobs et al. (eds). Syntax: an international handbook of contemporary research. Berlin and New York. 570–80.

Chomsky, N. 1957. Syntactic structures. The Hague.

——1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA.

Gazdar, G. and G.K.Pullum. 1985. Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar: a theoretical synopsis. Cambridge. MA.

Leffel, K. and D.Bouchard (eds) 1991. Views on phrase structure. Dordrecht.

Postal, P.M. 1964a. Constituent structure: a .study of contemporary models of syntactic description. Bloomington, IN.

——1964b. Limitations of phrase structure grammars. In J.A.Fodor and J.J.Katz (eds), Readings in the philosophy of language. Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 137–54.

Rothstein, S. (ed.) 1992. Perspectives on phrase structure: heads and licensing. New York.

universal grammar

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