片语结构规则.docVIP

Phrase Structure rules Words and morphemes don’t occur haphazardly in the sentence. Sentences have a structure, because the lexical items which make up a given sentence are hierarchically ordered with respect to each other such that some are at a higher level or lower level than other items, or at the same level of hierarchy. There are rules which govern what words can be strung with what other words to form a higher level, e.g. phrases and sentences these rules that are known as the syntactic rules are part of speakers’syntactic knowledge. And they exist in the speakers’mind. Because of the existence of these syntactic rules, native speakers can make judgments about the grammaticality of sentences of the language. Consider the sentences below: 1. I followed the instruction from the headquarter. 2. The instruction from the headquarter I followed 3. I the instruction followed the headquarter from. 4. I wonder whether John fixed the car with a crowbar? 5. What do you wonder whether John fixed with a crowbar? 6. How do you wonder whether John fixed with a crowbar? Native speakers of English are likely to judge sentences 1, 4 as well formed English sentences. Although 2 is a little deviant, it is acceptable. But 3, 5, 6 they are completely unacceptable. These subtle judgments surely reveal crucial information about native speakers’ knowledge of English, and therefore must be taken into consideration by linguists. Linguists manage to describe these rules underlying sentences of all languages. At the same time they want to find a universal syntactic rule which can account for the construction of sentences in almost all the languages I the world. The method they use is mainly induction. They examine a large amount of linguistic data to find some observable rules. Phase structure rules are one of the great discoveries. A phrase structure grammar which consists of phrase structure rules is a major part of the base component of a transformational generative grammar. The ter