Introduction to Syntax

Syntax
Syntax is the study of the part of the human
linguistic system that determines how
sentences are put together out of words.
Syntactic rules in a grammar account for
the grammaticality of sentences, and the
ordering of words and morphemes.
 Syntax
Syntax involves
our knowledge of structural ambiguity
our knowledge that sentences may be
paraphrases of each other
our knowledge of the grammatical function
of each part of a sentence, that is, of the
grammatical relations.
 Syntax
It is also concerned with speakers' ability to
produce and understand an infinite set of possible
sentences.
The sentence is regarded 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).
 Sentence

Clause

Phrase/Group

Word

Morpheme

Grammatical Units and Scale

 Sentence Structure
One aspect of the syntactic structure of
sentences is the division of a sentence into
phrases, and those phrases into further
phrases, and so forth. Another aspect of the
syntactic structure of a sentence is
"movement" relations that hold between
one syntactic position in a sentence and
another.
 Constituents
“A unit forming part of a larger structure”
Chalker and Weiner 1998
Although the term string is often used technically to refer
to sequences of words, sentences are not merely strings of
words in a permissible order and making sense.
They are structured into successive components, consisting
of single words or groups of words. These groups and
single words are called constituents (i.e. structural units),
and when they are considered as part of the successive
unraveling of a sentence, they are known as its immediate
constituents.
 Constituents
When we consider sentence My friend came home late last
night, we find out that it consists of seven word arranged
in a particular order.
In syntax, the seven words in this model sentence are its
ultimate constituents. This sentence and in general any
sentence of the language may be represented as a
particular arrangement of the ultimate constituents, which
are the minimal grammatical elements, of which the
sentence is composed.
Every sentence has therefore what we will refer to as a
linear structure. The small units are known as its
immediate constituents.
Immediate Constituent Analysis
“One of the parts which a linguist unit is immediately
divisible, by a process of immediate constituent
analysis.” IC Chalker and Weiner
Formal accounts of syntax are based on establishing
the basic constituents, namely, categories, from which
word strings are formed. Sentences are regarded as
hierarchies of interlocking smaller units, or
constituents. After a sentence is cut into its constituent
elements, the two parts that are yielded are called
immediate constituents. Then, we get the smallest
grammatical unit obtained through the division, or
segmentation, which is seen as the ultimate constituent.
The segmentation of the sentence up into its
immediate constituents by using binary cuttings
until its ultimate constituents are obtained is an
important approach to the realization of the nature
of language, called Immediate Constituent
Analysis (IC Analysis). The analysis can be
carried out in ways of tree diagrams, bracketing or
any other. For example:
(1) Poor| John║ ran |out.
Immediate Constituent Analysis
 construction
A construction is a relationship between constituents.
Constructions are divided into two types: endocentric
constructions and exocentric constructions.
Endocentric construction is one whose distribution is
functionally equivalent to that of one or more of its
constituents. A word or a group of words acts as a
definable center or head.
Exocentric construction refers to a group of syntactically
related words where none of the words is functionally
equivalent to the group as a whole. There is no definable
center or head inside the group.
 Endocentric Construction
Some types of phrase contain a HEAD
word and have the same formal function in
their clause as the single head would:
 Too dreadful
 Rather more surprisingly

 She who must be obeyed

 Exocentric Construction
Containing no element that is functionally equivalent
to the whole structure (non-headed or unheaded)
Some phrases are always exocentric
 The boy stood on the burning deck.
 Who was the man in the iron mask?

A basic English sentence (consisting of subject and

predicate) is always exocentric, since neither part can
stand for the whole:
 The boy / stood on the burning deck.
 Syntactic Rules
Three universal basic syntactic rules:

Linear order of constituents

Categorization of constituents
Grouping of constituents into
constituent structures
 Sentence Types
Sentences in any language are constructed from a rather
small set of basic structural patterns and through certain
processes involving the expansion or transformation of
these basic patterns.
When we consider sentence types from another
perspective, it can be shown that each of the longer
sentences of a language (and these are in the majority
usually) is structured in the same way as one of a
relatively small number of short sentences which are
impossible to reduce to a short form.
These short sentences have the basic sentence types. There
are different ways of dealing with sentence types.
 Sentence Types
“ The structure of every sentence is a
lesson in logic”.
John Stuart Mill
Simple Sentence
Coordinate Sentence
Complex Sentence
 Simple Sentence
A simple sentence contains only one
clause with a single verb group.
• Dora yelled.
• Christ resembled his father.
• Jack and Jill love each other.
• A runner from Ethiopia won the New
York marathon this year.
• The students should have been working
on the term paper.
 Coordinate Sentence
(Compound Sentence)
A coordinate sentence has two clauses
conjoined into one by a coordinating
conjunction. (and, but, or). They hold
equal status.
• Christ resembled his father, but his
brother resembled his mother.
• Mark loves Dora, and she feels it.
 Complex Sentence
A complex sentence is composed of two
clauses with one holding main status
(matrix clause) and the other
incorporated or embedded into it
(embedded clause), which is often
introduced by a subordinator (who, that,
though, when, because, as, since,
although)
 Mark denied that Dora yelled.
 The murderer escaped when the police
arrived at the scene.
 Syntactic Function
The traditional approach to syntactic function
identifies constituents of the sentence, states the
part of speech each word belongs to, describes the
inflexion involved, and explains the relationship
each word related to the others.

According to its relation to other constituents, a

constituent may serve certain syntactic function in
a clause.
 Constituency and Hierarchy

A constituency refers to the whole body of

a sentence which is made up of lexical
items (constituents) that are
hierarchically ordered with respect to
each other
 Constituency and Hierarchy
diagram
A

B C

D E

This diagram formally reads as

1. B and C are constituents of A
2. D and E are constituents of C.
3. D and E are not constituents of B as they are not linked to B.
 Tree Diagrams
Who climbs the Grammar-Tree distinctly knows
Where Noun and Verb and Participle grows.
John Dryden

In describing the constituent of a

structure, a tree diagram is employed as
a tool to link members of a structure.
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree Joyce Kilmer
 Phrase Structure Rule
A rule which states that a phrase of a
specific category. E.g. a rule = NP+VP,
S must consist of a NP followed by VP
Phrase Marker: “a string of elements”
Phrase structure tree: a tree diagram
which shows the division of a form into
successively smaller constituents and
labels each as belonging to one or more
categories
Also labelled bracketing boys play well
 Tree Diagrams and Phrase-
Markers
Phrase-markers can be related to each other by
dominance and precedence.

Dominance
1. VP node dominates all the other nodes.
2. VP node immediately dominates the nodes labeled V
and PP.
 Tree Diagrams and Phrase-
Markers

Precedence
1. V node precedes the nodes labeled PP, P, NP, det,
and N as well as in, the and house.
2. V node immediately precedes the PP, P and in.
 Grammatical Categories:
Number and Gender
Number is a grammatical category for the analysis of such
contrasts as singular and plural of certain word classes. In
English, number is a feature of nouns and verbs.
Gender demonstrates such contrasts as "masculine,
feminine, and neuter", and "animate: inanimate", etc. for
the analysis of certain word classes. In most languages,
grammatical gender has little to do with the biological sex.
For instance, in French, the moon, which has nothing to do
with the biological sex, is grammatically feminine.
 Case
Inflectional category, basically of nouns, which
typically marks their role in relation to other parts
of the sentence.
The case category is often used in the analysis of
word classes to identify the syntactic relationship
between words in a sentence.
 Tense and Aspect

Inflectional category whose basic role is to indicate the

time of an event etc. in relation to the moment of speaking
Divided notionally: present, past, future
Inflectional distinction: past , present loved, love
Verbal categories that distinguish the status of events, etc.
in relation to specific period of time, as opposed to their
simple location in the present, past, or future I am reading
your paperI have read your pap
 Chomskyan Syntax
Syntax is seen to be a fundamental principle for
encoding and decoding meaning and is the part of
grammar shared by speakers and listeners in
communication. In 1957, the American linguist
Chomsky proposed the transformational-
generative grammar (TG), thus providing a model
for the description of human languages. The goal
of TG is to find out a system of rules to account
for the linguistic competence of native speakers of
a language to form grammatical sentences.
 Chomskyan Syntax
It is called "transformational-generative"
grammar because it attempts to do two
things:
to provide the rules that can be used to
generate grammatical sentences
how basic sentences can be transformed
into either synonymous phrases or more
complex sentences.
Deep Structure and Surface
Structure
Abstract ‘syntactic representation’ posited
to explain the way in which actual
sentences are interpreted
 Visitingaunts can be boring
 John is eager to please

 John is easy to please

 Flying planes can be dangerous

Surface structure is the actually produced
structure.
directly observable actual form of
sentences as they are used in
communication
The relationship between deep structure and
surface structure is that of transformation.
Since the relationship is usually a
complicated one, we can best use
transformational rules in the total process of
relating deep structure to surface structures.
Thanks for your patience