Linguistics 322

Exercises

Exercise 1:

• Draw by hand using a straight edge (ruler) for the tree diagrams, the phrase structure for the following phrases including spell-out:
  • one cup
    
  • three oxen
    
  • two boxes of ripe oranges
    
• Find all the logical syntactic complements in the first two above phrases.
  cup, of 'one';
  oxen, of 'three';
  boxes of ripe oranges, of 'two';
  of ripe oranges of 'of';
  ripe oranges of 'boxes'.
• Why are the following unrammatical:
  • *a foxes
    'a' = '[-Pl], 'foxes' = [+Pl], no agreement.
  • *three pencil
    'three' = '[+Pl], 'pencil' = [-Pl], no agreement.
• Name the three conditions of government
  c-command
  governor (includes head)
  no intervening governor
• Determine the lexical entry for GOOSE (goose/geese).
  

  Item	Property
  GOOSE	morphnological form
  +V, -N	category
  /gus/ (tense vowel)	phonological form
  -Host	hosting
  +Case_Inh, -Nom; -Nom	Case
  stem	morphological property
  geese / [+Pl]	irregular stem
  [-Split]	the feature does not split from the stem forming an adjoined suffix.

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