Syntax: grammar of clauses; higher constituents
- 1. Syntax :: the grammar of clauses :: higher constituents MEE 105 Morphology and Syntax MAY JOY C. CALCABEN
- 2. The learning objectives are… a. to familiarize the basic concepts of linguistic syntax; and b. to analyze phrases and sentences accurately. 2
- 4. Terminologically, syntax can be analyzed this way: Ancient Greek σύνταξις /sýn.tak.sis/ “arrangement” σύν /syn/-: derived from Latin; Latin took it from the Greek preposition ‘sun’ means “together” τάξις /táxis/: derived from Greek root means “an ordering”; 4
- 5. Syntax has to do with how words are put together to build phrases, with how phrases are put together to build clauses or bigger phrases, and with how clauses are put together to build sentences. (Miller, 2002) 5
- 6. In the higher stage of syntax, it concerns with analyzing the structure of English sentence starting by larger units i.e. immediate parts (constituents), thus can include phrase, clause and sentence and ending by smaller units i.e. ultimate constituents (words which can be described as the blocks of a language). 6
- 7. The sentence is regarded as the highest- ranking unit of grammar, and therefore that the purpose of a grammatical description is to define, making use of whatever descriptive apparatus that may be necessary (rules, categories, etc.). In a nutshell, syntax is the study of the way in which phrases and sentences are structured out of words. 7
- 9. Syntactic analysis includes: a. determining the relevant component parts of a sentence; and b. describing these parts grammatically; 9
- 10. Michael Halliday’s Hierarchical Scale of Constituents 10 Sentence Clause Phrase Word Morpheme one 0r more clauses one 0r more phrases one 0r more words one 0r more morphemes the smallest unit in form and meaning The component parts of a sentence are called constituents.
- 11. In other words, syntax includes the two closely related tasks of: a. determining the relevant component parts of a sentence breaking down the sentence into constituents b. describing these parts grammatically assigning some grammatical label to each type of constituent, stating what type (or grammatical category) it is, and what grammatical function it has. 11
- 12. Example: Hopefully, every student will learn the procedure. Label the identified constituents according to their form and sentence function as follows: Hopefully – adverb: form; sentence modifier: function every student – noun phrase: form; subject: function will learn – verb phrase: form; predicator; function the procedure – noun phrase: form; direct object: function 12
- 13. ACTIVITY TIME! Label the identified constituents according to their form and sentence function. 1. Mary had a little lamb. 2. The child found a puppy. 3. The glass suddenly broke. 13
- 15. FORM Also termed as category Refers to the grammatical shape of the unit to analyze Includes two major types: 1. Single words 2. Word groups 15
- 16. FORM Single words has two major classes according to morphological, syntactic and semantic criteria: 1. Form classes (also known as lexical words, content words, open classes…). These include nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. 2. Structure classes (grammatical words, function words, closed sets…) These include pronouns, prepositions, auxiliaries and modals, conjunctions, numerals. 16
- 18. FUNCTION can be broadly understood as the grammatical job that a particular unit has within a larger unit Function therefore means ‘syntactic’ function Example: Girls enjoy chocolate. The nouns girls and chocolate have the function of the subject and direct object of the sentence, respectively. 18
- 19. POSITION usually refers to the position a linguistic unit can take within another unit Thus, it is common to talk of elements occurring in initial, medial or final positions within the higher-order unit, or about pre- and post- positions in relation to a specific unit. 19
- 20. POSITION For example, a time modifier can occur either in the initial (3a) or final (3b) position in a sentence: (3) a. Yesterday they had an enormous dinner. b. They had an enormous dinner yesterday. 20
- 21. Syntactic Units The hierarchy of linguistic units would look like this: Phoneme Morpheme Word Phrase Clause Sentence (Paragraph) (Text/discourse) 21
- 22. PHRASES A phrase can be considered the lowest syntactic unit. A syntactic unit that contains more than one word and lacks the subject-predicate relationship. The head (constituent) of a phrase is the key word which determines the properties of the phrase. Types of phrases include: noun phrase (NP) prepositional phrase (PP) verb phrase (VP) adjective phrase (AdjP) 22
- 23. PHRASES Noun Phrase (NP) consists of a noun and all the words and word groups that cluster around the noun and add to its meaning. Example: The car, a clever student Verb Phrase (VP) of a verb and all the words and word groups that cluster around the verb and add to its meaning, functioning as auxiliaries, modifiers and complements. Example: study hard, play the guitar 23
- 24. PHRASES Adjective Phrase (AdjP) consists of an adjective and all the words and word groups that cluster around the adjective and add to its meaning. Example: very small, too high Prepositional Phrase consists of a preposition and a word/word group that completes its meaning. Example: in the class, above the earth 24
- 25. THE MAIN STRUCTURE RULES S NP (aux) VP NP (det) (adv) (adj) N VP V (NP) (adv) PP Prep (NP) 25
- 27. ACTIVITY TIME! Choose one from the following sentences and rewrite the sentence with phrase structure rules using a tree diagram. 1. The child found a puppy. 2. Mary had a little lamb. 3. The glass suddenly broke. 27
- 28. CONCLUSION Learning and practicing English syntax comprehensively help to illustrate the patterns of English more effectively and clearly. It also enables us to analyze the structure of English sentences in a systematic and explicit way. Furthermore, it encourages language experts to generate new rules and formulate new theories derived from results of proved hypotheses and analytical processes of the different structures of phrase, clause and sentence. Thus, can be generalized and applied in the study and use of a language or languages. 28
- 29. References 29 https://ufhb-dptanglais.com/storage/webographies/622-l3-la- introduction-to-syntax-2019-20.pdf https://www.academia.edu/37598056/Syntax_ Lecture_ 1_ Introduction_ to_ Syntax_ Introduction_ to_ Syntax https://thisisenglish.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/english-grammar-a- modern-course-in-english-syntax.pdf https://www.slideshare.net/zatoichifay/introduction-to-syntax-copy https://www.slideshare.net/AbdullahAlAsmari8/syntactic- analysis12112484815984749
Editor's Notes
- #5: Taxis - as a whole means putting things together in an orderly manner
- #6: Syntax is the part of the human language that studies how sentences are structured. It deals with the process through which words are put into phrases, and how phrases in turn are combined to form larger units called sentences.
- #10: This implies that we start from what is regarded as the largest unit of syntactic description – the sentence – and proceed until we arrive at the smallest meaningful unit.
- #11: The diagram represents the 1961 model of Halliday’s hierarchical scale of constituents. The four double-pointed arrows indicate that it may read from left to right or from right to left. The arrows pointing to the right may indicate that a sentence may consist of one or more than one clause, that a clause may consist of …, that a phrase… Morphemes are the minimal, indivisible units in syntax. Conversely, as indicated the arrows pointing to the left, we might also say that one or more than one morpheme may constitute a word,….
- #13: The first step means that we break down the sentence (or a syntactic unit) into its constituents. We can determine the following components parts, the constituents: hopefully, every student, will learn, the procedure. The second step means that we assign some grammatical label to each constituent, stating what type of constituent it is (i.e. its form or category) and what grammatical function it has.
- #14: Tree diagram is a notational device used to represent the constituent structure of sentences.
- #15: In syntactic description, we describe syntactic units in terms of their FORM, FUNCTION and POSITION, so these can be considered the modes of structural description.
- #18: This diagram gives the summary of form types.
- #22: We are going to focus only on the linguistic units which are relevant for syntax – syntactic units, which include: • Phrases • Clauses • Sentences
- #23: 2 It should be noted that in recent theories it has been recognized that some phrases can actually consist of a single word. For instance, the word group the second-year students of English is clearly the noun phrase with the headword students, but the single noun Students or the personal pronoun They can also be considered minimal noun phrases, since they can be used in a sentence in the same way as the larger noun phrase.
- #27: Tree diagram is a notational device used to represent the constituent structure of sentences.
- #28: Tree diagram is a notational device used to represent the constituent structure of sentences.