quiz6

Quiz 6

1. Using the attached grammar, draw an appropriate tree for

That rather confusing assignment drove the students at the top of the class quite insane

2a. Write a set of plausible PS rules and a lexicon to generate the following sentences from Modern Persian. (The data has been selected to permit a simple PS grammar, so you have been protected from a number of complications. For example, the subjects are all third person singular and the verbs are all past tense, so you don't see any visible subject-verb agreement. Don’t try to account for tense marking or agreement.) Be sure that your rules generate the grammatical sentences and not the ungrammatical strings.

1. ali david ‘Ali ran’

2. *ali-rā david

3. asb david ‘The horse ran’

4. u david ‘He/she/it ran’

5. ali asb-rā did ‘Ali saw the horse’

6. mard ali-rā did ‘The man saw Ali’

7. zan ali-rā busid ‘The woman kissed Ali’\

8. *zan ali busid

9. *zan-rā ali-rā busid

10. u zan-rā did ‘He/she/it saw the woman’

11. zan u-rā busid ]‘The woman kissed him/her/it’

12. *zan u busid

Lexicon 1

N V

ali ‘ali’ david ‘ran’

asb ‘horse’ did 'saw'

mard ‘man’ busid 'kissed'

zan ‘woman’

u ‘he/she/it’

Suffix -rā to the direct object.

Lexicon 2 looks like Lexicon 1, except it has a category Pro which contains u ‘he/she/it’

Several alternative grammars are plausible, depending in part on which lexicon you choose.

Grammars based on Lexicon 1

S → N (N-rā) V

OR

S → N VP

VP → (N-rā) V

OR

S → N (ON) V

ON → N-rā

OR

S → N VP

VP → (ON) V

ON → N-rā

Grammars based on Lexicon 2

2b. Using the grammar and lexicon you proposed in answer to 2a, draw appropriate PS trees for

4. u david ‘He/she/it ran’ AND

7. zan ali-rā busid ‘The woman kissed Ali’

Obviously the trees will vary depending on the grammar you wrote. Here are some sample answers. Assuming the first grammar, for example, you get