Syntax 2 - Trees: Crash Course Linguistics #4 - By CrashCourse
Transcript
00:0-1 | Hi , I'm Taylor and welcome to crash course linguistics | |
00:02 | . In episode three , we learned about how to | |
00:04 | test which parts of a sentence , our constituents or | |
00:07 | closely-related sub groups of words . So in the sentence | |
00:10 | Taylor sees the rabbit , we know the rabbit is | |
00:12 | one such constituent because we can substitute it for a | |
00:15 | single word or pronoun like Gavin guy or then and | |
00:18 | sees the rabbit is another slightly larger constituent because we | |
00:22 | can move the whole thing up to the beginning of | |
00:23 | the sentence in a cleft construction . It's seeing the | |
00:27 | rabbit that taylor does . Now we want to take | |
00:29 | it a step deeper . Let's figure out a way | |
00:32 | to keep track of these groupings and extract some rules | |
00:34 | that could help us find patterns between lots of different | |
00:37 | sentences . Yeah , A simple way to keep track | |
00:50 | of different parts of sentences is by drawing connections between | |
00:53 | the words . For example , we could draw circles | |
00:55 | around each constituent but circles get really big really quickly | |
00:59 | as our sentences get longer . Or we could draw | |
01:01 | brackets around each of the constituents brackets are nice and | |
01:04 | compact , but they can be hard to easily scan | |
01:06 | and understand at a glance . So instead linguists often | |
01:09 | represent the structural relationships between words using a tree structure | |
01:13 | diagram , sort of like a family tree with nodes | |
01:16 | and branches . Tree diagram strike a nice balance between | |
01:19 | being understandable and taking up a reasonable amount of space | |
01:22 | . The nodes represent links between constituents , so it's | |
01:25 | useful to label them . That helps us compare the | |
01:27 | tree diagrams across various sentences and track the different phrases | |
01:31 | in the sentence . Two phrases a constituent that's sort | |
01:34 | of mid sized , it's less than a full sentence | |
01:36 | , but often more than a single word . In | |
01:38 | this video , we're going to meet some of the | |
01:40 | common phrases that are the basis of english grammar . | |
01:42 | For example , the difference between the phrases sees the | |
01:45 | rabbit and just the rabbit is that sees the rabbit | |
01:48 | has a verb in it so we can call sees | |
01:51 | the Rabbit a verb phrase using the substitution tests we | |
01:54 | talked about in the previous video , we can swap | |
01:56 | the positions of taylor and the rabbit in the sentence | |
01:59 | so they should both be the same kind of phrase | |
02:01 | since both of these phrases have a noun in them | |
02:04 | will call them noun phrases . The words , by | |
02:06 | the way , is part of a class of words | |
02:08 | that linguists call determine ear's , which also includes words | |
02:11 | like uh this my one and every determiner is help | |
02:15 | us figure out which specific instance of a specific . | |
02:18 | Now we're talking about there's one theory of syntax that | |
02:21 | actually argues there are determiner phrases as well as noun | |
02:24 | phrases . Either way , these small words do a | |
02:27 | big job . So let's label our tree with the | |
02:28 | phrases and word classes to keep track of all of | |
02:31 | this information . And the whole thing as we already | |
02:33 | know is a sentence writing out noun phrase and verb | |
02:36 | phrase every time gets kind of tedious . So linguists | |
02:39 | generally abbreviate these as N . P . And VP | |
02:43 | . And the same goes with N . For noun | |
02:45 | , V . For verb and S . For sentence | |
02:47 | plus debt for determiner tree diagrams . Let us see | |
02:50 | the product relationship we talked about in the last episode | |
02:53 | . The verb and object noun phrase are both together | |
02:56 | within the VP . Even in languages that put their | |
02:58 | words in a different order , the verb in the | |
03:00 | objects still have this closer relationship . Let's take japanese | |
03:03 | . For example , in japanese , the verb comes | |
03:05 | at the end of the sentence . The verb is | |
03:07 | still in the same phrase , the verb phrase as | |
03:10 | the object so we can represent this in the tree | |
03:12 | structure diagram by just giving the VP note a little | |
03:15 | twist going back to english . Now here's another sentence | |
03:18 | . Gavin Guy ate my cake . This new sentence | |
03:21 | has completely different words from the first one , but | |
03:23 | it has the exact same structure . So it's tree | |
03:26 | structure diagram looks the same . We can make a | |
03:28 | lot of sentences from just a few basic bits of | |
03:30 | structure and this leads us to an interesting puzzle . | |
03:33 | Let's try to figure out all of the possible structures | |
03:36 | for sentences in english . In other words , let's | |
03:39 | try to make a grammar of english grammar is a | |
03:41 | description of how sentences go together . In a language | |
03:44 | we could use a grammar to start to teach machines | |
03:47 | to understand english or to compare the rules of english | |
03:49 | to those of another language . Grammar isn't necessarily what's | |
03:52 | actually going on in your head when you're saying a | |
03:54 | sentence . That's still an open question that linguists are | |
03:57 | researching and while we'll be focusing on a grammar of | |
04:00 | english here , every language has one . Making a | |
04:02 | grammar is actually a pretty big challenge . Let's start | |
04:05 | out with a few sentences and figure out how to | |
04:07 | describe their structures . Taylor sees the rabbit , the | |
04:10 | rabbit ate cake and Gavin guy hopped . First we | |
04:13 | notice that we can split each sentence into two pieces | |
04:15 | and we can mix and match the front half in | |
04:17 | the back half . We have taylor , the rabbit | |
04:20 | and gather guy on one side and sees the rabbit | |
04:24 | ate cake and hopped on the other . This structure | |
04:26 | predicts that Taylor hopped and taylor ate cake and Gavin | |
04:29 | Guy sees the rabbit should be okay sentences even though | |
04:33 | they're not on our original list , based on my | |
04:34 | linguistic intuitions as an english speaker , that's a good | |
04:38 | prediction . And as part of our grammar , we've | |
04:39 | established that sentences contain two parts . So what if | |
04:42 | we split those sentences up like this instead ? This | |
04:45 | predicts that the sentences Gavin guy ate rabbit ate cake | |
04:49 | and the my cake should be possible and we know | |
04:52 | as english speakers that they're not . We'd expect some | |
04:55 | groupings to fail like this in any language we try | |
04:58 | . So in our grammar of english so far , | |
05:00 | these sentences contain two parts , but it also matters | |
05:03 | what those two parts are . Let's go back to | |
05:05 | our list that works and highlight the noun verbs and | |
05:08 | determine ear's in different colours . So for taylor sees | |
05:11 | the rabbit will make taylor and the rabbit red for | |
05:13 | noun sees blue for verb and the green for determiner | |
05:17 | . Based on this , we could write a couple | |
05:19 | of rules for english grammar . First we can say | |
05:21 | that a sentence in english is made up of two | |
05:23 | parts . A noun phrase plus a verb phrase . | |
05:26 | A noun phrase is made up of a determiner plus | |
05:29 | a noun and a verb phrase is made up of | |
05:31 | a verb plus a noun phrase . But even though | |
05:33 | those rules are a good start , they still need | |
05:35 | a few tweaks . Not all over noun phrases have | |
05:38 | a determiner in them . Sometimes it's the rabbit , | |
05:42 | but other times it's just cake and some of our | |
05:44 | verb phrases don't have a noun phrase in them either | |
05:47 | . Sometimes it sees the rabbit or ate cake , | |
05:50 | but other times it's just hopped , so we need | |
05:53 | to indicate that certain parts of these rules are optional | |
05:56 | , which we can do using parentheses . It has | |
05:58 | a nice effect . The only thing that's absolutely required | |
06:01 | in a noun phrase is a noun and the only | |
06:04 | thing that's required in a verb phrase is a verb | |
06:06 | . We call the required piece the part that the | |
06:08 | phrase is named after the head and the less important | |
06:11 | additions , the compliment . There are plenty more things | |
06:14 | that we can add to a sentence which starts to | |
06:16 | make a grammar even more complicated . For instance , | |
06:19 | take these ones the rabbit with a scarf hopped and | |
06:23 | Gavin guy ate cake on the moon . You've added | |
06:25 | two new phrases with a scarf and on the moon | |
06:29 | . These phrases contain a determiner and announce , but | |
06:32 | they also contain a proposition , a word that shows | |
06:34 | the relationship of the noun phrase to the rest of | |
06:36 | the sentence . So now we can make a rule | |
06:38 | for a prepositional phrase which contains a proposition as the | |
06:41 | head and a noun phrases , the compliment . We | |
06:43 | also need to refine our rules for noun phrases and | |
06:46 | verb phrases to allow for optional prepositional phrases so far | |
06:49 | are grammar contains just four rules , but it's already | |
06:52 | really powerful to find out how . Let's get into | |
06:55 | the thought bubble . Hey look , Gavin I are | |
06:58 | inside a thought bubble . Let's go into another thought | |
07:01 | bubble . Cool . We're inside a thought bubble inside | |
07:03 | a thought bubble . Let's go deeper . Now we're | |
07:06 | inside a thought bubble inside a thought bubble . Inside | |
07:09 | a thought bubble . We could just keep going . | |
07:11 | We might get bored or run out of space on | |
07:12 | the screen or get cut off by Youtube's time limits | |
07:15 | . But in theory we could just keep embedding thought | |
07:18 | bubbles inside of thought bubbles forever . Uh Let's pop | |
07:21 | a few of these thought bubbles and get some more | |
07:23 | breathing room . Okay , leave thought bubble and leave | |
07:27 | thought bubble . Okay , now we're back in a | |
07:29 | normal single bubble . Thought bubbles have the property of | |
07:32 | Rikers asian . We can embed thought bubbles inside of | |
07:35 | thought bubbles forever . Languages also recursive . Let's take | |
07:38 | the phrase inside a thought bubble . Inside is a | |
07:41 | proposition . So this is a prepositional phrase and a | |
07:44 | thought bubble is a noun phrase . But inside this | |
07:47 | noun phrase , a thought bubble . We can add | |
07:49 | another prepositional phrase , let's say . It's also inside | |
07:53 | a thought bubble and we can keep going . In | |
07:55 | fact , we already did when we were describing the | |
07:57 | recursive thought bubbles in the first place , we don't | |
08:00 | always have to embed the exact same words recruiting just | |
08:02 | means we can build structures inside of other structures . | |
08:05 | For instance , the rabbit on the moon in the | |
08:08 | solar system , in the Milky Way in the Universe | |
08:10 | on friday hot . Their God goes thanks ! Thought | |
08:14 | bubble and thought bubble and thought bubble are simplified . | |
08:18 | Little set of four grammar rules is powerful enough for | |
08:20 | Riker version but there's also some things missing adjectives like | |
08:24 | big or purple adverbs like quickly pronounced like you or | |
08:29 | me , sadly this video does not actually contain infinite | |
08:32 | reclusive space but now that we're thinking like linguists we | |
08:35 | can use our knowledge of language to continue to build | |
08:37 | up a more complete set of rules . This is | |
08:40 | just the start . But even with just four rules | |
08:42 | , we can see that sometimes completely different words have | |
08:45 | the same linguistic structure . Other times the same words | |
08:48 | have different linguistic structures . We can see the similarities | |
08:50 | and differences by looking at language from the perspective of | |
08:53 | syntax , let's take these two sentences . Time flies | |
08:57 | like an arrow means that the concept of time is | |
08:59 | fast , like an arrow is fast . Fruit flies | |
09:02 | like a banana means that these small insects are fond | |
09:05 | of fruit . Both of these sentences have flies and | |
09:07 | like in them . But these words have different structural | |
09:10 | relationships with the rest of the sentence . In this | |
09:13 | first treat flies is the verb and like as a | |
09:15 | proposition in the second , tree flies as part of | |
09:19 | the mountain phrase and like is the verb . We | |
09:21 | can represent that difference by drawing diagrams . Don't stress | |
09:24 | about the triangles . Linguists use triangles within a tree | |
09:27 | to save space and represent constituents that are not the | |
09:30 | focus of what we're talking about , But we can | |
09:32 | see how these shared words occupy different parts of each | |
09:35 | tree , or take the song about the mythical one | |
09:37 | eyed , one horned , flying purple people eater . | |
09:40 | This could mean a song about a creature that eats | |
09:42 | any kind of people and has won I won horn | |
09:45 | flies in his purple . Or it could be about | |
09:48 | a creature that eats one eyed , one horned flying | |
09:51 | purple people or something in between . Maybe a one | |
09:53 | eyed , one horned creature that eats flying purple people | |
09:57 | . Some of these beasts are a lot more dangerous | |
09:59 | than others . Throughout this episode we've been using rules | |
10:02 | and tree diagrams as a fairly simple way of representing | |
10:05 | the structure of sentences . But there are lots of | |
10:07 | other ways of representing the same sentences . There are | |
10:10 | many theories of syntax which have different ways of representing | |
10:13 | grammatical structures , each with their advantages and limitations , | |
10:17 | and there are some grammatical structures that thin tacticians haven't | |
10:20 | even figured out how to represent yet . So far | |
10:22 | , we've seen sentences with absurd meanings , but reasonable | |
10:25 | grammar . Next time on crash course linguistics we'll go | |
10:28 | deeper into meaning itself . Thanks for watching this episode | |
10:31 | of Crash course linguistics . If you want to help | |
10:33 | keep crash course free for everybody forever , you can | |
10:36 | join our community on Patreon . |
Summarizer
DESCRIPTION:
OVERVIEW:
Syntax 2 - Trees: Crash Course Linguistics #4 is a free educational video by CrashCourse.
This page not only allows students and teachers view Syntax 2 - Trees: Crash Course Linguistics #4 videos but also find engaging Sample Questions, Apps, Pins, Worksheets, Books related to the following topics.