Syntactic structures

Syntactic structure is the configuration or the arrangement of the forms in a phrase so as to elicit its internal syntactic dependencies (such as government, agreement, etc).

Universal Structure

The UNL^arium framework follows the X-bar approach, which postulates that all human languages share the same underlying syntactic structure, whose abstract configuration is depicted in the diagram below:

    XP
   / \
spec  XB
     / \
    XB  adjt
   / \
  X   comp
  |
head

In the above:

• X is the head, the nucleus or the source of the whole syntactic structure, which is actually derived (or projected) out of it.
• comp (i.e., complement) is an internal argument, i.e., a word, phrase or clause which is necessary to the head to complete its meaning (e.g., objects of transitive verbs)
• adjt (i.e., adjunct) is a word, phrase or clause which modifies the head but which is not syntactically required by it (adjuncts are expected to be extranuclear, i.e., removing an adjunct would leave a grammatically well-formed sentence)
• spec (i.e., specifier) is an external argument, i.e., a word, phrase or clause which qualifies (determines) the head
• XB (X-bar) is the general name for any of the intermediate projections derived from X
• XP (X-bar-bar, X-double-bar, X-phrase) is the maximal projection of X.

Representation

In the UNL^arium framework, syntactic structures are represented by S-rules as follows:

XP(XB(XB(head;complement);adjunct);spec)

For simplification reasons, the same structure may be represented by five head-driven relations, as follows:

XS(head;specifier), which describes the relation between the head of the structure and its specifier
XA(head;adjunct), which describes the relation between the head of the structure and its adjuncts
XC(head;complement), which describes the relation between the head of the structure and its complements
XH(head), which describes the head of the structure
XP(head), which describes the head of the structure without any reference to its internal structure

This is to say that:

XP(XB(XB(head;complement);adjunct);spec) := XS(head;specifier)XA(head;adjunct)XC(head;complement)
XS(head;specifier)XA(head;adjunct)XC(head;complement) := XP(XB(XB(head;complement);adjunct);spec) 

Where X must be replaced by one of the eight possible heads (N, P, V, A, J, C, D, I).

Examples

• boy
  • VH("boy"); ("boy" is the head of a noun phrase)
• a boy
  • NS("boy";"a"); ("a" is the specifier of "boy", which is the head of a noun phrase)
• red flower
  • NA("flower";"red"); ("red" is an adjunct to "flower", which is the head of a noun phrase)
• Peter sleeps
  • VS("sleeps";"Peter"); ("Peter" is the specifier of "sleeps", which is the head of a verbal phrase)
• Peter kissed Mary
  • VS("kissed";"Peter")VC("kissed";"Mary") or
  • XP(VB("kissed";"Peter");"Mary")
• Peter kissed Mary yesterday
  • VS("kissed";"Peter")VC("kissed";"Mary")VA("kissed";"yesterday") or
  • XP(VB(VB("kissed";"Peter");"yesterday");"Mary")