Linguistics 111  Spring 2012

Assignment 2
Due Friday, April 6

A.   Give three grammatical sentences that are generated by the
grammar below.  Draw the phrase structures that the grammar 
assigns to these sentences.  (You might find out how to draw
phrase structures in section.)

B.   Give three grammatical sentences of English that are NOT generated by
this grammar.  Say explicitly what prevents each from being generated.

C.   Give three ungrammatical sentences which are generated by this
grammar.  Draw the structures assigned to them by the grammar. 
Talk about why they are ungrammatical, and what would need to be done
to the grammar to make it not generate them.  Try to make them interesting.

D.   Does this grammar generate

     A silly cat from Avignon re-read the short story

If it does, draw the structure assigned to it.  If it does not, 
say why not.  Then propose an amendment to the grammar so that the
amended grammar does generate this sentence (and others like it).
Then draw the tree structure assigned to the sentence by your
new grammar.

Phrase Structure Rules:

   S    ->   NP  VP  

   VP   ->   V  (NP)  (PP)  

   PP   ->   P  NP

   NP   ->   {(D) (A) N}
             {Pronoun  }
             {Name     }

Lexicon:

A:         silly, nearby, short, generous, unfriendly
D:         a(n), every, no, the, this, that, these, those, my, your,
           his, her, our, their
N:         afternoon, coffeehouse, person, song, story, cat
Name:      Eve, Fred, Lee, France, Avignon
P:         from, in, of, to, with
Pronoun:   I, me, it, him, her, we, us, they, them, he, she
V:         heard, intrigued, re-read, began, put, fainted