English Linguistics - Assignment 5 James Madison University

1. Attempt to draw tree diagrams representing the morphological derivation of each of the following words (in other words, think carefully about the order in which these morphemes must be combined based on the intended meaning of the final word and the grammatical characteristics of the indidivual morphemes):
   1. senseless
   2. revolving
   3. nonverbally
2. Using the phrase structure rules in your text (many are on page 147), draw tree diagrams for each of the following sentences:
   1. The rooster crowed.
   2. The cooks spoiled the broth.
   3. The man on the moon watched the spectacle.
   4. My silly friend believes that dogs can talk.
   [Give this your best shot. Note that "my" is a determiner, "that" is a complementizer (C), and "can" is an Aux. :) ]
3. Ask a friend (a native speaker of English, please) to describe all the subgroupings of words that he/she thinks go together in the c and d sentences above. Don't tell your friend any rules or make suggestions; just write down what he or she says. Do your friend's intuitions match with the groupings made by the phrase structure rules?
4. Find a naturally-occurring example, written or spoken, of a structurally ambiguous sentence (These come up all the time, even in The Breeze . :) ) Make up your own example only if you really find yourself unable to find a naturally-occurring one. Now answer the following questions about your sentence:
   1. What are the logically possible interpretations of this sentence?
   2. What constituent is the source of the ambiguity?
   3. Was it possible, in context, to choose one meaning over the other(s)? If so, why?

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