2023年6月24日发(作者：)

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Chapter 4 Syntax

I. Choose the best answer. (20%)

1~5 DCDDD 6~10 ADDBA

1. The sentence structure is ________.

A. only linear B. only hierarchical

C. complex D. both linear and hierarchical

2. The syntactic rules of any language are ____ in number.

A. large B. small

C. finite D. infinite

3. The ________ rules are the rules that group words and phrases to form grammatical

sentences.

A. lexical B. morphological

C. linguistic D. combinational

4. A sentence is considered ____ when it does not conform to the grammati-cal knowledge in

the mind of native speakers.

A. right B. wrong

C. grammatical D. ungrammatical

5. A __________ in the embedded clause refers to the introductory word that introduces the

embedded clause.

A. coordinator B. particle

C. preposition D. subordinator

6. Phrase structure rules have ____ properties.

A. recursive B. grammatical

C. social D. functional

7. Phrase structure rules allow us to better understand _____________.

A. how words and phrases form sentences.

B. what constitutes the grammaticality of strings of words

C. how people produce and recognize possible sentences

D. all of the above.

8. The head of the phrase “the city Rome” is __________.

A. the city B. Rome

C. city D. the city Rome

9. The phrase “on the shelf” belongs to __________ construction.

A. endocentric B. exocentric

C. subordinate D. coordinate

10. The sentence “They were wanted to remain quiet and not to expose themselves.” is a

__________ sentence.

A. simple B. coordinate

C. compound D. complex

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IV. Explain the following terms, using examples. (20%)

31. Syntax: Syntax refers to the rules governing the way words are combined to form

sentences in a language, or simply, the study of the formation of sentences.

32. IC analysis: Immediate constituent analysis, IC analysis for short, refers to the analysis of

a sentence in terms of its immediate constituents – word groups (phrases), which are in turn

analyzed into the immediate constituents of their own, and the process goes on until the ultimate

sake of convenience.

33. Hierarchical structure: It is the sentence structure that groups words into structural

constituents and shows the syntactic category of each structural constituent, such as NP, VP and

PP.

34. Trace theory: After the movement of an element in a sentence there will be a trace left in

the original position. This is the notion trace in T-G grammar. It’s suggested that if we have the

notion trace, all the necessary information for semantic interpretation may come from the surface

structure. E.g. The passive Dams are built by beavers. differs from the active Beavers built dams.

in implying that all dams are built by beavers. If we add a trace element represented by the letter t

after built in the passive as Dams are built t by beavers, then the deep structure information that

the word dams was originally the object of built is also captured by the surface structure. Trace

theory proves to be not only theoretically significant but also empirically valid.

V.

Answer the following questions. (20%)

35. What are endocentric construction and exocentric construction? （武汉大学，2004）

An endocentric construction is one whose distribution is functionally equivalent, or

approaching equivalence, to one of its constituents, which serves as the center, or head, of the

whole. A typical example is the three small children with children as its head. The exocentric

construction, opposite to the first type, is defined negatively as a construction whose distribution is

not functionally equivalent to any of its constituents. Prepositional phrasal like on the shelf are

typical examples of this type.

36. Distinguish the two possible meanings of “more beautiful flowers” by means of IC

analysis. （北京第二外国语大学，2004）

(1) more | beautiful flowers

(2) more beautiful | flowers

VI. Analyze the following situation. (20%)

37. Draw a tree diagram according to the PS rules to show the deep structure of the

sentence:

The student wrote a letter yesterday.

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