Scribd
Upload
104 views7 pages

Constituent Structure.

The document discusses constituent structure, defining it as groups of words that function together as a unit. It explains that sentences have a hierarchical structure made up of constituents like phrases and clauses, and provides examples of constituent structure trees. The document also covers constituent structure in Arabic, analyzing the formation of noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, and prepositional phrases.

Uploaded by

Fatima Mirza
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
104 views7 pages

Constituent Structure.

The document discusses constituent structure, defining it as groups of words that function together as a unit. It explains that sentences have a hierarchical structure made up of constituents like phrases and clauses, and provides examples of constituent structure trees. The document also covers constituent structure in Arabic, analyzing the formation of noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, and prepositional phrases.

Uploaded by

Fatima Mirza
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 7

Ministry of Higher Education and

Scientific Research
University of Kerbala
College of Education
English of Department

Constituent Structure

Prepared by:
Fatima Hassan

Supervised by:
Asst. Prof. Dr. Muayyad Omran

2022
Constituent structure

Carnie, A.(2013:73) defines the term constituent as, “ group of words that
function together as a unit”.

The fundamental concept of this chapter is that sentences are not just strings
of words, but have a more complex structure, which linguists call
Constituent Structure.

Structures known as phrases and clauses typically have a great deal of


internal complexity that is not amenable to the same kind of analysis as
words are. Units within such larger structures may vary in their positions,
and units in the same position may have a much wider range of functions
than elements of word structure tend to have. For this reason linguists
usually make a fairly major distinction between morphology (the study of
the shapes of words) and syntax (the study of how words clump together in
phrases and clauses). (Thomas, E. Payne. 2006:152).

Consider the following sentence:

(1) John angered Mary.

It consists of three words, two nouns and separated by a verb.

(2) The big dog angered the cat.

It contains six words. Three words, the big dog, seem to play the same
role in (2) that one word, John plays in (1).

(3) [The big dog] angered [the cat]

It has three chunks , even though it has a different number of words.


Chunks of linguistic material like those enclosed in bracket (3) are called
CONSTITUENTS. The hierarchical structure of sentences and other
utterances is called CONSTITUENT STRUCTURE.

The basic organization of (3) is not a string of six words, but a rather a string
of three constituents.

Constituent structure trees

By using tree diagrams. As you can see, these are upside-down trees, with
the root at the top, and branches descending from that root. The root of the
tree is labelled ‘S’ for ‘Sentence’, and the clause is divided into two main
branches, the subject and the predicate.

1. Kim wrote that book with the blue cover.

2. Kim bought that book with her first wages.


(Maggie Tallerman, 2015:149)

Hierarchical structure: the constituent structure of and dominance relations


between elements in a word (morphemes, bases) or elements in a sentence
(words, phrases). (Martin Haspelmath & Andrea Sims, 2010:330).

The sentence constituent (represented by the symbol TP) consists of two


constituents: a subject noun phrase (NP) [the student] and a predicate
phrase or verb phrase (VP) [loved his syntax assignments]. The subject NP
in turn contains a noun (N) student and a determiner (or article) (D) the.
Similarly the VP contains a verb (V), and an object NP [his syntax
assignments]. The object NP is further broken down into three bits: a
determiner his, an adjective syntax, and a noun assignments. (Carnie, A.
2013:73).
Constituents Structure in Arabic

We first analyze the lexical formation of the smaller phrase constituents that
make up a sentence.

- Noun Phrase (NP): an NP head is a noun and it can be represented as:

NP → N

Example: ‫كتاب‬- kitab: a book

NP → NP NP

Example: ‫كتاب البنت‬- Kitab-u al-bint-i: The girl's book

NP → NP Conj NP

Example: ‫ الليل‬Q‫ والنهار‬- Al-layl-u wa al-nahar-u: the night and the day

NP → NP AP

Example: ‫ كتاب مفيد‬-Kitab-un mufid-un: A useful book

- Adjectival Phrase (AP): an AP head is an adjective and it can be


represented as:

AP → A

Example: ‫ مفيد‬-mufid-un: useful

AP → A AP

Example: Q‫ أسود و صغير‬- aswad-un sagheer-un: black small

AP → AP Conj AP

Example: Q‫ أسود و صغير‬- aswad-un wa sagheer-un: black and small

- Verb Phrase (VP): a VP head is a verb and it can be represented as:

VP → V

Example: ‫ قرأ‬- qara?-a: he read


VP → V NP

Example: ‫ أكل التفاحة‬- akal-a altufahat-a: he ate the apple

V → V PP

Example: ‫ ذهب الى المدرسة‬- thahab-a ila almadrasat-i: he went to school

VP → VP PP

Example: ‫ وجدت الكتاب الطاولة‬- wajadt-u al-kitab-a ‫؟‬la

altawilat-i: I found the book on the table

- Prepositional Phrase (PP): A PP head is a preposition and it can be


represented as:

PP → P NP

Example: ‫ في المكتبة‬- fi almaktabat-i: In the library

(Moubaiddin, Asma, et al. 2013).


REFERENCES

Carnie Andrew. (2007). Syntax: a generative introduction. Second edition.


Blackwell Publishing.
Martin Haspelmath & Andrea Sims, (2010). Understanding morphology.
2nd edition. Abingdon: Routledge

Moubaiddin, Asma, et al. (2013). Investigating the Syntactic Structure of


Arabic Sentences. DOI: 10.1109/ICCSPA.2013.6487275

Payne Thomas. (2006). Exploring Language structure: a Student's Guide.


Cambridge University Press.
Tallerman Maggie. (2015). Understanding syntax. Fourth Edition.
Abingdon: Routledge.

Web source

https://masbejosite.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/constituent-structure-
syntactic-categories-and-grammatical-relations/

You might also like