Linguistics 111   Syntactic Structures		Spring 2012
Assignment 1.  Grammaticality and Grammar	Due Wednesday, April 4

A.    Mark the following sentences as grammatical ("in English") or ungrammatical
      ("not in English"):

 (1)  I want to wash myself.
 (2)  I want Harvey to wash myself.
 (3)  I want Harvey to wash himself.
 (4)  Harvey wants me to wash himself.
 (5)  Tell the children to wash himself.
 (6)  Is Harvey having washed the dishes?
 (7)  Has Harvey been washing the dishes?
 (8)  A pig that the sky is blue is a happy pig.
 (9)  A pig that can fly is a happy pig.
(10)  It was me.
(11)  There are going to be some hungry cats in there.
(12)  There appears to be a big hole in it, doesn't there?
(13)  There goes a velociraptor, doesn't there?
(14)  The children aren't going to be hard to persuade to paint themselves blue.
(15)  The children aren't going to be hard to promise to paint themselves blue.
(16)  Bob appears to want to like abstract art.
(17)  Bob wants to appear to like abstract art.
(18)  Bob wants to appear to want to like abstract art.
(19)  Bob wants to appear to persuade to like abstract art.
(20)  Andy tends to be easy to persuade to like any kind of food.
(21)  Andy tends to be likely to persuade to like any kind of food.
(22)  Andy tends to be likely to pretend to like whatever is put before him.
(23)  I have an old tin can to keep my money in.
(24)  To boldly go where no one has gone before is a really silly thing to do.

Discuss anything you find interesting.

B.  Given the following Phrase Structure Rules and the Lexicon below
    (We will call the combination of these PS rules and lexicon "Grammar B"):

	S  -> NP VP
	VP -> V (NP)
	NP -> (D) N

	N: pig, rope, air, water, shadow, pitchfork
	V: chased, rambled, disassembled, envied, evaporated
	D: a, the

For each of the sentences given below,
	(i)   Is it grammatical ("in English")?
	(ii)  Is it generated by grammar B?
	(iii) If the answers to (i) and (ii) are different, propose
	      a modification to the grammar.  Discuss the consequences.

(1)  The pig chased a rope.
(2)  A rope chased the pig.
(3)  Chased the pig the rope.
(4)  The pitchfork chased.
(5)  The pitchfork evaporated.
(6)  The shadow rambled.
(7)  A pig envied.
(8)  The pitchfork disassembled the shadow.
(9)  The shadow rambled the pitchfork.
(10) The rope disassembled a computer.
(11) My pig disassembled my computer.
(12) The pig rambled in the shadow.

C.  Say a bit (but not too much) about how the grammar given in B differs from
the grammar of English.