Doivid

tfw you have to write 12 pages in a day

Yes it does.

Tomorrow I'm gonna have to write a 8+ page paper, then a 6-10 page one on monday plus two tests a week from this wednesday. Weee my liiiife.

tfw you have to write 12 pages in a day

Don't be a little bitch. I wrote a 16 page paper last night. Granted, there were some syntax trees, but still.

Fuckin semester casuals.

Guinea pigs

3, 5, 6, and 7 are things I can see myself saying, depending on preceding conversation.

By which I mean that, for example, "the boy [who left home] came back" makes sense if I were clarifying between two different boys, one of whom left home and one did not. If I were not clarifying in such a way, I'd be unlikely to include the "who left home" part.

Hope that helps?

@Halo

Yeah, the text between brackets is a 'relative clause', which is an adjunct. Adjuncts are phrases that are not required for the grammaticality of the sentence. You can say "I like dogs" or "I like dogs [that bark often]."

(4) is a little tricky because CP spec utterances almost always seem awkward. I could try to generate one that's more likely (since I mostly just applied verbs and nouns indiscriminately):

"That you lied to me...is not okay. But I understand why you did it."

The first sentence in that quote has the same structure as (4), is something people would actually say, and I added a pause to help it make more sense.

Guinea pigs

All of them read grammatically to me. The eighth one is tricky, on a first read-through it fails but as I begin to parse it I can bring myself to read it naturally. The other five are 100% good in my books.

@Holmishire

Believe it or not, even I did. I still do unless I have the brackets for (8). I believe in my syntax I class we decided CP specs with CP specs nested in them aren't grammatical, but the field is more open in this course so I decided to craft one. You can probably ellide one of those 'thats' and then it'll sound more natural.

'resumptive pronouns'

They need ellipsis experts to study the linguistic style of William Shatner.

@Vilageidiotx

Those are pauses. Example of ellipsis:

"Did you go to the store?"

"Yes I did [go to the store]"

You can delete all the words in the brackets even though that is technically what you're saying.

Another example:

"I did my homework and studied for the test, but he didn't."

You can fill in what comes after 'didn't'

'resumptive pronouns'

<Snipped quote by Doivid>

Your syntax professor sounds like a pretty cool guy, although that's a really specific thing to be studying and I can't imagine there are many career moves out of that field, but still, he's alright in my book.

@mdk

It's one of many things in the field of linguistics being worked on. He's also trying to figure out ellipsis, and working with some students on Irish Gaelic morphology.

Trying to figure out the overall best theory of generative syntax that fits how people think is the ultimate goal for syntactitions.

Im not interested in that for my career. I'd rather do field work studying a language or work for a place like google or w.e else in the silicon valley. Linguistics majors get hired for that all the time.

Guinea pigs

I forgot to mention, some of those 'thats' can be ellided. That is, they are syntactically there, but you don't have to say them.

For example:

"I believe that he said that he was going to the store"

Can be:

"I believe he said he was going to the store"

Guinea pigs

Whats the question again?

@Azarthes

Which of the numbered sentences are grammatical, if any?

Guinea pigs

I am taking Syntax II atm. It's incredibly challenging, especially considering how they teach it.

It's been a rough couple of quarters, man. :(

Guinea pigs

So can I use you guys?

I want to poll some people on the grammaticality of some sentences (because opinions differ, and because when you start working on assignment you end up a little turned around and lose your sense of what is grammatical). Two things to get out of the way:

- 'grammaticality' is just whether you would say the utterance.
- punctuation doesn't matter for the purpose of these sentences, so ignore that.

Some sample sentences for you to judge:

(3) I believe [that the idea [that pigs can fly] seems reasonable].
(4) [that a guy likes bikes] makes sense.
(5) I don't know [if billy ate the cat].

(6) The boy [who left home] came back.
(7) [That the boy [who left home]] came back] was fortunate.
(8) [That [that he went home] is a fact] won't change anything.

(the brackets just denote CPs and RCs, disregard them)

As thanks, I'll show you this pretty picture: